Rise | Book 3 | Reclamation

by Ford, Devon C.

  “Meaning?” Alec pressed.

  “Meaning they’re still communicating; we just couldn’t hear the chatter. Until now.” He peered over at the group, smiling wide.

  “What are they saying?” Izzy asked.

  Tyrone tapped the screen, and a series of the alien dialect streamed over it. He plugged in a modified data stick, one with the odd five-prong attachment the Overseers used, and the words morphed into English.

  The Portals have faltered. We have no contact with the Circle. The city of Shanghai has been compromised. We are out of supplies to counter the toxicity of this world. Take shelter and await further orders.

  Marisol started to weep, and Alec saw the Hunter comforting her. “We did it. The gates are shut down.”

  Alec stood in awe, reading over the communication again. Cole had done it! He needed to know if his brother was alive, but he wouldn’t find out until they reached the rendezvous point.

  “This means… we really did win,” Daniel said. Jack’s body had been recovered, and his sacrifice would be added to the piles of others that allowed them to reclaim their planet.

  The entire group dropped their pretenses and hugged, some openly crying, others smiling through the tears.

  Tyrone tapped Alec on the shoulder. “There’s more. We have the location of all ten mines and gateways.”

  Alec was surprised. “Ten? We only knew of a few.”

  The map on the console screen showed ten blinking dots. “We’re going to need to destroy those. In case.”

  “Not today, Alec. We stick to the plan, but it sounds like our friends Monet and Lina were successful too,” Izzy said. “I need to return home, to see what happened to my father. I hope he’s…”

  Dexter Lambert arrived at their side, clearing his throat. “I have information on that.” He paused, and Izzy slammed a palm into the man’s chest. He didn’t flinch.

  “What are you waiting for? Spill it! Is he alive?” Izzy was frantic.

  Dex shook his head. “I’m sorry. He fended them off. You would have had a hell of a time if he hadn’t cut down a third of their fleet and soldiers over there.”

  “How… how did he die?” Her voice was small, and Alec pulled her close, feeling her quick breaths on his cheek.

  “He trapped them. Blew the remaining ground troops to hell.”

  Alec nodded and kissed the top of her head. “He knew this was coming.”

  “Exactly, so… he could have escaped. He might have…”

  “Sorry. He didn’t make it. He was an impressive man. I wished I could have met him,” Dexter said, sounding sincere.

  Izzy walked off, heading away from the ship.

  “I didn’t mean to be the bearer…” Dex started, but Alec stuck his hand out.

  They shook firmly. “Thank you for telling her. We assumed, but there was always… hope and all that. How did you escape?”

  Dexter sat on a vent near the edge of the cockpit, and Alec joined him, his legs exhausted. The sheer act of finding a seat was overwhelming, and judging by the way his body felt, Alec wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to stand again.

  “They made Hansen and me go with them.”

  “Is he alive?” Alec tensed, thinking about the man that killed his uncle.

  “Nope.”

  “Did you?” Alec asked.

  “I wish. One of the aliens did.”

  “How did you make it?”

  Dex paused and grimaced. “You don’t want to know. Let’s just say, I went the extra mile.” He stared at his hands, confident there was a good story there, but this wasn’t the time to pry it from the ex-Hunter.

  “Thanks for bringing the backup here today. I heard it was your idea,” Alec told him.

  Dex shrugged. “No big deal.”

  “Either way, you gave the push we needed to lure them into our trap.”

  Dex met his gaze, the man’s eyes hard and intense. “You probably don’t want to hear it, but…”

  Alec pictured the video of Tom being shot, with Dex clenching his jaw two yards away, and not acting. “Then don’t say it. I know you and Tom had a deal, and that my uncle ordered you not to interfere. Either way, he had a desperate plan, and he was dying. I doubt he would have lasted until now. You did the right thing, and we’ve won.”

  “I hope so.” Dex leaned into the wall, arms crossed over his chest. “Marisol learned her mother died out here today.”

  Alec had heard this too and glanced at the Roamer girl. She was about his age, and she peered over at the Hunter. “We lost a lot of good people today.”

  “What’s next?” Dex asked.

  It was still odd for people to be directing questions about their future to Alec, but he wasn’t going to shy away from the responsibility, not after so many in their ranks had been killed. “We return home.”

  “I’ve never had a home.” Dex stood.

  “Me neither.”

  “Do you think it’s going to work?” Dex asked, not needing to elaborate.

  “I do. If there’s anything I’ve learned since this started, it’s this: people are stronger than the aliens gave us credit for. We will rebuild,” Alec said.

  “Can we do it better this time?” Dex asked.

  “We can damn well try.”

  Alec stood, his legs protesting, and he walked outside again. The entire place had heard the news about the gateways and the misters factory, and they were cheering and rejoicing. He’d never seen anything like this, and the sheer joy of the moment overwhelmed him briefly. Izzy was in the center of a group of Barony soldiers, and he saw Sylvie with Maxime, hugging near the freighter ships.

  Daniel walked over to his side and let out a sigh. “Tyrone says he has a way for us to communicate, at least temporarily. We’ve decided to return to the Barony for the time being. It’s already set up. We’ll take our drones and fortify it once again.”

  “It’ll be over soon, then you won’t have to worry about defense any longer.”

  Daniel smiled at this. “People will band together at the start, but we need to be cautious. Once the normalcy of survival hits us, and we’ve dealt with the aliens, someone will discover what we have and want it. It’s human nature.”

  Alec frowned, not willing to accept what Daniel was saying. “No. It won’t be like that.”

  “I hope you’re right.” Daniel gave him a handshake and began rounding up his troops. “I have to deliver the news to Ava and Benji, and then deliver our people home.” His gaze shifted to a village miles away across the next valley over where the rest of the Barony was waiting for them.

  “We’ll see you in three days?” Alec asked.

  “Three days.” Daniel walked off, and soon most of the fleet had departed, leaving the handful of Reclaimers, Roamers, and Freeborn on the plateau.

  It was nearly dark, and as the sun descended past the distant peaks, the air grew colder. It was time to leave. “Come on. Let’s go tell the others the good news,” Alec told Izzy, and they entered the ship with Becca piloting. They’d gone back for her, and she currently sported a bandage over her head, but she claimed she was well enough to fly the bird, and no one argued. Whittaker followed in the other vessel, and soon they were flying toward their target at the rendezvous point.

  Chapter 36

  Lina

  They ran through the dark, and after they’d gone far enough to risk stopping, Fan half collapsed and gasped from the effort of running after receiving such a severe beating.

  In between long gasps for oxygen, he spoke to the older guy, who translated as best he could, explaining that his name was Wei, wasting a good minute thanking them for his rescuing. He spoke some English, while Fan just nodded every time he seemed to recognize a word, meaning that most of their communication was done by pointing.

  “Down there,” Wei said. “They bring in bus us to work in factory.” He added an emphatic point to his words, making Lina peer into the distance between two shattered hulks of buildings to see a small compound ringed w
ith fencing and lights on tall posts.

  “Is that where your people are?” Lina asked.

  “My people,” Wei repeated, nodding his head and wincing at the pain the movement caused.

  “I think they’re pulling out,” Monet reported, her voice distorted from the scrunched-up cheek pressing her eye into the rifle’s optic. “One ship left… they’re rounding everyone up by the looks of… oh hell no!”

  “What? What is it?” Lina asked, following Monet, who had already scrambled over the rampart of rubble to start snaking her way toward the compound.

  Monet was exposed in the open, running hard over treacherously uneven ground, but Lina couldn’t see what had set her off.

  A dull twang sounded ahead of her, making her stop long enough to glance up in time to see the shape of a person thrown either unconscious or dead at the feet of a tall alien standing at the foot of a ramp. This vessel was more bulbous than the one Lina recognized, with a flatter lower section like a cargo carrier.

  “No,” she breathed.

  Another sound echoed. A single sharp crack of a conventional gunshot rolled over the open area to bounce back to Lina’s ears diminished by distance. She paused again, glancing up just in time to see the alien drop beside its victim. Monet sprang up from the prone position she’d adopted to take the hurried shot from over a hundred paces out.

  “Up the ramp,” Monet snapped, leading the way with her knees bent and her gun tight into her shoulder. “Cockpit.” Lina fell in beside her, the grip of her own slipping in her sweaty hands, when a chorus of screams came from behind them to force her to spin around.

  The crowd of terrified people split apart as an alien headed straight for them at a dead run.

  Lina didn’t wait and pulled her gun in tight, squeezing the trigger to blast the thing when it was still ten paces away.

  They went inside, flashlight on Monet’s weapon flicking on to bathe the gloomy interior in harsh white light. The cockpit was empty, as was the rest of the ship, and by the time they made it to the ramp, they saw Fan and Wei being crowded by the survivors, sobbing loudly.

  “Anyone know how to fly?” Monet asked offhandedly.

  “My son can fly,” Wei said. Monet glanced at Lina to see if she heard the same thing.

  “Is he here? Can he fly this?” Lina asked. Wei nodded and spoke to the crowd before turning back to them.

  “He says he will come with you,” Wei told them solemnly.

  “Screw that,” Monet said. “Everybody in! Come on!”

  The message took a few precious seconds to travel around the group, who eventually began moving toward the ramp. They piled onboard and were directed to the crew seats, which filled up fast.

  Wei pushed forward. Evidently his son spoke even less English, but, true to the old man’s word, he worked the controls like he was used to them.

  “How does he know how to do that?” Lina asked Monet quietly.

  “My son, he fly ship for Jiãngōng.”

  Shrugging away the response, Monet guessed it would do for now and gave her orders via their translator.

  “Tell him to loop around the city,” she said slowly, exaggerating her hand movements as Wei just nodded solemnly. Monet deflated, pulling the tablet out of her pack and bringing up the map. Using her finger to explain, she gave her own instructions.

  “Go around, stop here,” she said, tracing a line around Shanghai and resting at the harbor. “Then we go north, then east.”

  Their new pilot exhaled and worked the controls to lift them off the ground, flying them to the harbor in only a few minutes as opposed to the hours it had taken them on foot. Monet gave him instructions to land near to where they’d been dropped off, running down the ramp to shout into the darkness until a bright streak of white water shimmered amidst the blackness, showing their boat driver blasting away out to sea and the safety of the submarine.

  Lina slumped into a chair and fastened the straps, fighting to stay awake but failing, letting unconsciousness take over her mind and body.

  Chapter 37

  Cole

  Soares, in one of his more lucid moments, gave Cole map coordinates and told him to head for them. He did, but he stopped as soon as he dared to after gambling that they had both put enough distance between them and the carnage in Detroit and that they hadn’t been followed.

  “What? Are we there?” Soares asked as soon as Cole powered off the engines. He tried to sit up and slammed against the restraints, wincing in pain and falling back to shake uncontrollably. His face was pale and his lips cracked.

  “No, we’re not there yet,” Cole told him. “But we do need to treat your hands and get you hydrated.”

  “There’s some paint in my pack. Spray something on the hull of this beast so they don’t shoot us down. I’d hate to go out like that.” Soares nodded to the bag he’d miraculously kept over his shoulders during their altercation.

  Cole used it to paint an R along the outer edge of the hovercar before returning. “Now how about those hands?”

  “I’ll be fine,” Soares muttered, convincing neither of them. Cole ignored him, leaving him in the chair as he ransacked the containers in the section behind them until he found clear plastic packets with a blue gel substance inside. He stupidly tried to read the glyphs on the packs until, shaking his head at himself, he pulled the tablet out to run the translation software.

  [HEALING SUBSTANCE USED IN TREATMENT OF MINOR WOUNDS]

  He stared at the translation, feeling a pang of something for the Tracker he’d left behind to destroy itself for them. Shaking his head again, he grabbed two packets of the blue goo and stuffed them under his arm along with a metal container he’d already checked the contents of and found to be water.

  Returning to the bridge, he pulled the small plastic bladder from Soares’ pack and filled it, poking the tube between his teeth after waking him and telling him to sip it until it was gone. Soares didn’t complain, not even when Cole opened the packs of gel and plunged a burned, swollen hand into each one.

  Cole couldn’t imagine the pain he was in, especially as they had no more medication to keep the worst of it out, but of all the things he knew about Soares, the man was nothing if not tough.

  “How far out are we?” he asked his younger driver through teeth clenched around the rubber tube. Already the fluids and the cold sensation of the gel seemed to be reviving him, even if it was just the temporary reprieve of the burning heat from his hands being taken away for a moment.

  “I reckon another two hours,” Cole said after a glance at the tablet wedged in front of him. He drove on in silence, skimming the treetops and weaving left and right to avoid as much of the remnants of the old world as he could.

  He took a second to try and fathom how much his world had changed in such a small amount of time, about the people he’d lost and found, about the things he’d learned about himself and his family, and in that same second, he pushed it all aside so he didn’t become overwhelmed and crash the hovercar to kill them both in a pointless ending after everything they’d survived.

  “You know, kid…” Soares mumbled, eyes half closed. “I’m not sure I ever told you this, but… but I’m proud of you. Your mom would be too, I think… I know Tom was. He always said you were the fighter, even when you were crawling around on the rug.”

  Cole said nothing, concentrating on the view ahead and keeping their speed steady and smooth.

  “Your brother, I mean, he’s a scrapper too, but you… you always had that cold-ass streak in you. You’d have made a good Marine, you know that?”

  Cole swallowed, unable to find the words. He’d spent weeks trying to get the man to open up about his family and tell him the things he craved the answers for.

  “I’m proud of you,” Soares said again before the drinking tube dropped from his mouth and his head lolled.

  “Soares…?”

  He didn’t move. Didn’t respond. Cole’s chest went tight and cold and he lifted off the throt
tle ready to dump the hovercar anywhere on the ground it would fit before a noise reached him and calmed him in a heartbeat.

  The gentle snore sounded to him like the most satisfied, most peaceful thing he’d ever heard in his life.

  Dex

  Dex shifted in his cot, finding the thing as lumpy and uncomfortable as sleeping in the forest, which he’d done a few times in his life. Maybe more than a few. He was grateful he no longer needed to pursue humans for miles and days, trying to reach the desperately fleeing Roamers. He tried not to think too long and hard about the things he’d done in his past, but he was aware that his memories were part of the reason for his restless sleep. The other part was the terrible mattress. He punched it a few times, trying to loosen the springs that dug into his back, but gave up, electing to rise early again.

  Their camp was even more packed now, with a few extra groups having found them in the last couple days; stragglers from the first west coast destination from Tom’s video feed. He glanced at the bunk above his, seeing Marisol sleeping soundly. She was part of a group he’d been forced to hunt, the ones that had fled from the slavery of the Occupation, and they were all stronger than he was.

  They’d done the right thing and fought proudly when the time had come. Her chest rose and fell in even movements, and he watched her for a moment, smiling to himself before finding the exit. The air was crisp this late in the fall, and the leaves around the lake had taken the turn from vibrant green, to red and yellow almost overnight.

  The sun was beginning its rise, and he took a deep breath, sending vapors into the cool morning. This was their new temporary home. Back at the lake. The cabins had been repaired over the last couple days, the roofs patched, the decks fixed up. There were still too many people here, but Dex didn’t expect most of them to linger after this week.