“Who’s there?” Izzy shouted.
“Je suis Sylvie. Il est Maxime,” the woman said. She was covered in branches and leaves, her face painted to match. She carried the longest gun Alec had ever seen, and the man beside her waved at them, a smile over his broad face.
The first Barony ship opened, revealing ten or so people stalking from the ramp. They were all armed, the leader frowning as he landed on the hard ground. “Which one of you is Alec?” he asked, shoving the gun in a holster on his chest.
Alec stepped forward, raising a hand. The man was at least forty, trimmed beard, dark hair, and his eyes danced as the corners of them wrinkled into a smile. “We did it!” He pulled Alec into a hug and released him quickly, setting his hands on Alec’s shoulders. “We bloody well did it!”
Alec struggled to feel his elation as they stood so close to their fallen allies, but he smiled regardless, thrilled their plan actually worked. “Sylvie, where are your people now?” he asked.
Her eyebrows furrowed, and the young man beside her leaned in, repeating the words in French. It seemed he spoke English, which would aid their cause. “Ready for extrication in the South of France.”
A beautiful woman walked beside Jack, kissing the Barony leader on the cheek. “My wife, Ava. This is Daniel, my right-hand man.”
“Izzy Zhao,” Izzy told him, shaking his hand.
“I don’t think lingering here is a great idea.” Alec pointed to the transport with the misters. It was still wet, dripping ocean water on the rocks. “Let’s destroy this and move to our rendezvous. We’ll blast the Gateway on exit.”
Jack nodded. “I like the way you think, Mason. You heard the man. Into the skies. Shoot the targets and return to our muster point.” He winked at Alec returning to his ship. Whittaker cleared his throat behind Alec, and he remembered they’d been gunned down.
“Do you mind if we catch a ride?” Alec asked.
Jack laughed again, waving them on board.
“We have them too.” Alec indicated the incoming Trackers and Seekers.
“Not a problem. Send them to Omega,” Jack said, and Alec used the tablet to give the drones instructions. Soon they were filing into the other massive alien vessel with a crown painted on the outer hull.
Once they’d loaded their fallen soldiers into a storage closet for a proper burial, it was time to depart.
Sylvie and Maxime joined the last few of the Reclaimers on Barony Alpha, and minutes later, they were lifting away from the mine, Alec thrilled to be done with the battle. He pictured Tom’s face in front of him, and could almost hear his uncle’s words. “You did well, son.”
“Targeting the Gateway,” Jack said, and Alec stared out the cockpit viewscreen, Izzy huddled around the pilot’s chair with him. Whittaker was checking out the modifications to the controls, asking too many questions, while the pilot, Olivia, tried her best to focus and ignore the old man.
The Gateway was powered off, and Alec almost expected it to be an easy target. Jack released a series of the alien bombs from the belly of the ship. They exploded all around the immense gate, and it flashed blue as an invisible shield protected it.
“Looks like they know how to make them last,” Jack said. “Olivia, bring us around.” He tried again, with the same result.
“I think we’d better go,” Alec urged the Barony leader, and Jack nodded.
“Let’s hope your brother has better luck with the gates than we did.” The ship lurched, turning north toward their eventual destination, which was far from here.
The mines smoked as they left, Alec’s chest filled with both regret and pride.
Chapter 19
Cole
The night spent in the cave was surprisingly comfortable so far as Cole’s standards went. He’d spent more than half his nights living al fresco as he called it, only now realizing the term was one he didn’t understand and had come from Tom when he was younger.
That thought dropped his mood into a deep depression that manifested itself as anger, and as his chest began to rise and fall faster, he fought to control himself. He failed, and the tracker drone suddenly raised up from its position sitting and scanning the cave entrances to pad heavily over to him and stare with its eyeless head.
“Get lost,” he hissed, not wanting to wake up Soares but angry at the intrusion of the machine. It didn’t budge, so he shoved it with his right hand and succeeded only in jarring his wrist on the cold metal.
“You hear me? Move outta here. Go!”
The drone backed away, returning to its position guarding their hiding place, but on the way, it performed another function Cole wasn’t expecting. It stopped, looked at the fire, then turned to pick up a small log from the stack to drop it into the flames before returning to where it had been before and resuming the slow rotation of the head to scan the darkness.
Cole lowered, adjusting his position slightly for comfort, and stared at the ceiling of the cave where the small flames cast long shadows. He was worried about their spot being visible, but Soares assured him that they were in dead ground from the mine there.
Cole had spent his life much the same way, only his concern was keeping himself out of sight of everything and everyone.
Guessing he wouldn’t sleep much, he allowed his mind to wander and take him into an almost hypnotic state, which was the closest he could get to proper rest. His body wouldn’t heal unless he went into a deep sleep; he knew that from the days he had spent running during his existence alone when the drones had chased him, not stopping until he was certain there was nothing following his trail.
Beside him, Soares snored lightly, each breath getting gradually louder until Cole was forced to intervene and nudge him. To his credit, and in spite of being twice Cole’s age, he woke instantly and placed a hand on his weapon in case it was needed.
“You were snoring,” Cole said softly, earning a grunt in response as Soares turned over onto his front and wriggled until he found a position he accepted as comfortable enough to drift off to sleep. He did in about eight seconds flat, which made Cole both jealous and impressed at the same time. He lay there like that for an hour at least, watching the only movement beside the flickering flames and their answering shadows of the Tracker’s head rotating slowly from side to side as it kept watch over them.
Dawn came, bringing with it a renewed wind and a light rain that reduced their visibility. The fire was still burning at the lowest possible level, showing that the drone had some hidden subroutine about fires and had kept adding logs undetected as they slept.
Cole sat up, surprised to find that Soares had risen without disturbing him. As he looked around, seeing neither drone nor companion, he heard the approach of footsteps from the other end of the cave and watched as Soares walked into sight fully dressed, with his rifle slung. Stuffing a sealed plastic bag of paper into his pack, Cole’s body nagged at him that he should take care of things too.
Returning to the cave a short time later, he nodded his thanks as Soares wordlessly handed him a cup of something hot.
“Convoy should arrive today,” he told Cole. “We’ll set up in the same spot as yesterday. It’s got air cover, not that I’m expecting it to be heavily guarded or anything, but it’ll be worth taking your bed roll because we could be there for a while.”
Cole nodded again, realizing that he was facing away from Soares and staring fixedly into the fire, so he answered him out loud.
“Cool,” he said, and because that felt unworthy, he added, “We’re just watching and learning, right?”
“Observe and report,” Soares replied. “Nothing more.”
They moved into position before the sun was fully up, after Cole had sent the Tracker out to conduct another covert reconnaissance of the area and found it much the same as before. The only difference were the two alien guards there to complement the four deployed Seekers that stayed close to the sunken entrance to the mine.
Cole lay face down on his bed roll, his pack under his
upper body to relieve the pressure on his spine just as Soares, who was an arm’s length to his left, had shown him. Cole’s shotgun was beside his right leg—close enough to use but out of the way, while Soares’ rifle was rested on the ground in front of him to allow him to use the scope.
“Any updates?” he asked, his voice above a whisper but far below normal volume. Cole looked at the tablet, tapping the icon to refresh which prompted the drone deployed below and left of their elevated position to scan the ground and give the same text report. Soares stayed silent, patiently waiting as the information was fed back to him.
“Two aliens and four Seekers. No change.”
They lay in silence for a long time as the woodland surrounding them came to life in that way the outdoors did when it transitioned from night to day. New animals came out of hiding, not even aware that they had nocturnal counterparts that were already hidden away.
“Reminds me of my last deployment,” Soares murmured. “I swear, that damn country was created by God just to mess with soldiers.”
“What country?” Cole asked, eyes still glued to the binoculars and voice mirroring the same low tone.
“Afghanistan. More like the surface of the moon than anywhere else, least the parts I saw anyway.”
Cole stayed silent, unsure how to prompt him to say more about it and intrigued by tales of another land.
“So many people tried to take over the country before, a couple thousand years ago from what I read, but more recently, the Brits and the Russians got their asses kicked trying it.” He chuckled softly. “Weird, but when the Russians tried it, us and the Brits trained and supplied the locals. They called it a proxy war, because of the Cold War, you know?”
Cole had no idea, but he wanted to hear more. He could always circle back to the history lesson if the day dragged on.
“Why were you there?”
“The first time? Fighting the Taliban, right before we got OBL. Second time I was with NATO—that’s the name for an alliance of countries—and it was much the same only with a different political agenda or whatever.” He sighed, as if realizing he was speaking about a world Cole had never known.
“Anyway, my unit was deployed to an FOB, a forward operating base, and I spent days at a time staring down the barrel of a gun, watching for anyone with an AK approaching our position. The hard part was that every goatherder there seemed to have one…”
“And?” Cole asked.
“And what?”
“Did you get attacked?”
“Not that time, no,” Soares answered with a far-off edge to his words. Before Cole could ask about the time he was confronted, the tablet let out a soft but insistent warning bleep. Snatching it up, he saw the drone report update flashing on the screen.
[INCOMING VESSELS]
“Here it comes,” Soares said, shifting his position slowly to watch the approaching transport ship settle in to turn its back end toward the mine entrance. Cole adjusted the aim of his binoculars and watched as the ugly, boxy craft pivoted in the air. A second ship, a small patrol escort like their own captured version, hovered at a higher altitude in a kind of overwatch.
“Task the Tracker to keep watch on that patrol,” Soares muttered, making Cole use the voice transmit function through the tablet to relay the commands. “If it detects us, I want to know immediately,” Soares added, evidently concerned about the unexpected escort.
“Movement at the mine,” Cole said.
“I see them,” Soares answered, voice slightly distorted as he screwed his face up to the eyepiece of the scope on his weapon. They watched in silence as a series of multi-legged robots exited the mine, each dragging a square sack of minerals from underground to load the transport. Neither of them could figure out how many of the mining drones, each looking like big spider-like insects, there were because of the constant rotation in and out.
“See that one?” Soares asked. “Third one from the ship now?” Cole did. “See how it has a flash of white on one leg?” Again, Cole saw it, guessing on some kind of damage or a noticeable repair to the drone. He didn’t need to say more as he figured out what Soares was doing.
Counting each drone in turn until the one with the distinguishing mark returned, they both agreed on twenty-eight mining drones being there.
“Unless there’s more underground,” Cole said.
“At least twenty-eight then,” Soares agreed.
They watched for over four and a half hours until the flow of drones stopped appearing from the mine. Either that meant they’d run out of mined resources or the transport was full.
“Okay,” Soares said, carefully removing the magazine from his rifle and pulling back the charging handle to slide one specific bullet directly into the weapon. “Firing marker in three, two…”
The gun spat once, not banging like a conventional bullet did, to send the slow-moving projectile toward the angular transport ship. Neither of them saw the magnetic dart land, but Cole’s fingers danced over the tablet to show it had made contact with the hull and was passively announcing its presence on their frequency.
After the transport lifted up and away from the ground to rotate and head southeast, Soares ran the mental calculations out loud.
“Eight sacks each minute, four hundred eighty an hour… Four and a half hours makes… two thousand…”
“Twenty-one-fifty,” Cole said, knowing he’d slightly underestimated the total number but not by much. “Two thousand tons?”
“That’s… a lot,” Soares said. “Assuming the bags were a ton apiece anyway.”
“Even half of that is a lot,” Cole said, lapsing into a heavy silence at how fast their planet was being stripped.
“We wait another hour,” Soares said, “then head back. We can see how long it takes to get to Detroit and go through the Gateway.”
If it goes through the Gateway, Cole thought. Everything’s “if.”
Chapter 20
Dex
The mood around Detroit had been okay the day before. The aliens were clearly not thrilled about finding the base in Florida empty, but some of them were taking it as a sign of their power. The newcomers were a different breed from the creatures Dex had grown up with, and as much as he’d hated the original ones, these were far worse. They nearly spat at him when they saw him around the facility. Twice he’d been shoved out of the way by one of the hulking aliens, and it had taken all his restraint not to blow one of their faces off with his Glock.
Hansen was pacing the rooms of Dex’s suite, and it was a far cry from the first night he’d spent in there. Gone was the fresh fruit, the wine, the clean bedding. The only food in Detroit was the old slop they used to feed the slaves. Dex jammed his spoon into the bowl and he let go, the utensil sticking up straight in the dense gloop.
“This isn’t good,” Hansen said. Dex hadn’t seen the other humans since leaving them in New Jersey, and he suspected they were already dead. He was amazed he was still alive.
“Hansen.” Dex had the urge to just off the guy and sneak out. It was more than the scumbag deserved.
He closed his eyes, seeing Tom’s head snapping back as he was killed in cold blood. Instead of reaching for his gun, he grabbed his spoon, forcing down more of the sticky mess.
“What?” The man’s eyes were crazy.
“They seem bothered today. What the hell is going on?” Dex asked.
“They don’t speak to me anymore. My contact told me it's out of his hands,” Hansen said.
“What does that mean, out of his hands? What is?” Dex was growing tired of this. It was time to make his move.
“All of it. My safety. He’s no longer in charge, that much is clear. I overheard them talking. The mining is going well. Better than they suspected,” Hansen said, his voice quiet, more lisp than normal.
“Does that mean they’re going to leave?” Dex asked, doubting it would be so simple.
“One of them estimated another year.”
“Then what?”
<
br /> “The end.”
Dex took another bite, his stomach acid churning. “That’s it, then? They take the ore, any other resources they want, and cause our extinction?”
“Looks like it,” Hansen said.
“Was there ever an island?” Dex asked.
Hansen shook his head. “I don’t think so. We needed to keep them in line. I…”
“You thought if you were loyal to the bitter end, they would reward you,” Dex told him.
“That’s right. What choice did I have? You’ve seen what they’re capable of when motivated. Not that you’re any better, Hunter.” The man stopped his pacing. Dex glanced up at him, a shell of the Major that had killed Travis Mason. He was sweating through his dress shirt, his suit jacket discarded near the door.
Dex didn’t have a comeback, so he only nodded slowly. “You’re right.”
Hansen had looked ready for a fight, but he hung his head in defeat, slumping to a chair. “How do you eat that?”
“Nothing else to eat.” Dex took another mouthful. He’d had worse on the road before, but he doubted the privileged man would understand.
“We should do something.”
“What is there to do?” Dex asked.
“I don’t know. Nothing.” Hansen rose sometime later.
“See you tomorrow.” Hansen reached for his jacket, and Dex’s fingers drifted to his gun. He pressed his eyes closed, letting the traitor leave. It wouldn’t do any good to kill him, not when the aliens were near enough to hear the gunfire.
Dex waited another ten minutes and headed to the bedroom where a few extra things had been given to him when he’d first arrived. He stuffed the spare pants and shirts into his duffle, wishing there was food to go along with it. In the kitchen, he shoved three bottles of water into the pack and hefted it over his shoulder.
It was long past his time to go. He’d learn nothing else from the enemy, not with Hansen out of the loop like this. The only thing sticking around would do was get him killed.
Rise | Book 3 | Reclamation Page 13
