He sighed. “Watching Riley die broke her. I’ve seen it before. She’d lost her will to live. That’s why she jumped out of the chopper and followed Fitz.”
He caught his reflection in Kate’s blue eyes. Meg wasn’t the only one who had changed. If he lost Kate, he wasn’t sure he would want to go on either.
No. I wouldn’t.
But I would have to.
“I saw it, too,” Kate said. “Meg was ready to give her life for Tasha and Jenny, almost eager to go down fighting. When she jumped, I had this gut-wrenching feeling I wouldn’t see her ever again.”
“She risked her life to save others. She died the same way Riley did.”
In the silence, the anguish tightened its grip on him. He shook it away and prepared to tell Kate something they had both wanted to deny.
“The time will come where I will have to risk my life again for you and our child. For Horn’s girls. For everyone.”
Kate avoided his gaze. “I know.”
Using a finger, Beckham lifted Kate’s chin.
“I love you, Kate Lovato.”
“I love you too, Reed Beckham.”
That precious word still didn’t seem like enough. Love couldn’t describe how he felt about Kate. It was much more than that—a deep, raw feeling that he’d never experienced this intensely before. Thoughts of the future raced through his mind as they kissed.
Could he have it all with Kate? Kids, marriage, a home?
Thinking of such things at the end of the world seemed naïve.
A rap on the hatch interrupted them, and Beckham slowly pulled away. After changing into his uniform, Beckham cracked the hatch open to see a sailor he didn’t recognize.
“Master Sergeant Beckham, we’re starting to assemble the strike team for Colorado on the flight deck. Lieutenant Davis has requested your presence.”
Beckham nodded. “I’ll be up there in a few minutes.”
When he closed the hatch, Kate was already changing into a pair of white scrubs.
“I need to get to the lab. Ellis is probably already there working.”
“On what?” Beckham asked. He grabbed his M4 and slung it over his back. Then he holstered the .45 he’d left on the side table.
“We’re trying to find out if the juveniles have a weakness. Something that the military will be able to use when they send troops to take back the cities.” Kate wrapped her hair into a bun. “There has to be something—something you can….”
She paused and bowed her head slightly.
Beckham went to her and titled her chin up again. “When I do go back out there, I’ll be prepared. I promise. We’re going to have a shit-ton of firepower and mechanized units. Way more than we had during Operation Liberty. And even more important, not some green-ass lieutenant that’s never seen combat. I’ll lead the damn platoon if I have to.”
He sealed the promise with a kiss. After they parted, Beckham whistled at Apollo. The dog followed them as they worked their way up the ladders until they reached the hatch leading to the flight deck. As soon as Beckham swung it open, the sound of pre-combat drills filled the open passage. A draft of warm air rushed inside with the familiar noise.
Kate paused in the entryway to watch from a distance. The crimson morning sun illuminated a Chinook racing away from the Cowpens. Flight officers jogged across the deck of the GW to get into position. They waved their orange sticks to direct the pilots as they lowered a crate marked Biohazard.
Kate grabbed Beckham’s hand.
“Is that the Kryptonite?” he asked.
“Yes.”
Apollo squeezed between Beckham and Kate. He sat on his hind legs, looked up at the box and let out a low growl, as if he knew what the shipping container held.
“I’ll be back before Davis and her team take off for Colorado,” Kate said. She kissed Beckham on the cheek, glanced at the shipping container one more time, and then hurried off to catch her ride to the Cowpens.
Beckham kept an eye on her as she left. Sometimes he still couldn’t believe he’d gotten so lucky to have found her. As her chopper ascended into the sky, he waved, and then continued with Apollo toward a trio of Blackhawks where several strike teams were assembling. Fitz was already there, sitting on a box with his back to Beckham.
“Mornin’, Fitz.”
The Marine’s broken blade clanked against the box as he swiveled. Beckham hardly recognized the man who turned to face him. The patches around Fitz’s light eyes were swollen and bruised. He blinked eyelids red with irritation, and centered his gaze on Beckham like he was trying to see from a distance.
“What are you doing out here?” Fitz asked. He used a crutch to push himself up on his left blade. He reached down with a shaky hand to pet Apollo’s head.
It was subtle, but Beckham was used to reading the signs of battle shock. Fitz wasn’t ready to go back out there. He needed sleep and probably a couple of sessions with a counselor.
“Lieutenant Davis asked me to join her up here,” Beckham said. “Do you know where she’s at?”
Fitz shook his head. “Haven’t seen her yet.”
Beckham almost cringed at the silence that followed. He had thought of all the things he would say to Fitz when he saw him again, but standing here now, none of them seemed right.
“How ya’ holding up?” Beckham finally asked.
“Primed and ready.”
That was the response Beckham had anticipated. The downtime between combat was always the worst, especially during the aftermath of losing brothers and sisters. After weeks of intense fighting, neither Beckham nor anyone else knew what to do in the stillness and silence. Going back into the fray was a relief from being stuck in the mental prison of depression and survivor’s guilt.
Fitz strained his eyes again. He was no longer looking at Beckham, and a tiny grin touched the sides of his mouth. Beckham wondered if it was an optical illusion. The last thing he expected to see was a smile on his friend’s face.
The chatter of pounding boots commanded Beckham’s attention. Davis led a small group of Marines across the deck, carrying metal cases. She cradled two gleaming weapons across her chest.
Fitz crutched forward, mouth partially open. “Are those…?”
Garcia, a bandage on his forehead, ran after the group.
“LT, hold up!” the man shouted.
Davis halted and waited for Garcia to catch up. She turned away from the sun, and Beckham saw that the things she carried weren’t weapons at all—they were brand new prosthetic legs for Fitz.
“LT, I can do that,” Garcia said. He grabbed a crate from one of the other Marines. The gunmetal blades in Davis’s hands sparkled in the sunlight.
Beckham crossed his arms and took a step back as Davis and her entourage approached. They exchanged a nod before she handed the blades to Fitz.
“Told you I’d get you a new pair,” she said. “Hope they fit.”
Fitz took a seat on a crate and, with deliberate care, reached up to grab the blades. His lips trembled as if he couldn’t find the right words.
For a moment he just sat there, staring at the prosthetics. Unlike his old blades, these had a curled foot with a diamond-shaped spur on the tip.
“They’re made of carbon fiber and steel. You’ll be fast and strong, and that spike will break through a skull,” Davis said.
“Beautiful,” Fitz said, glancing up. “They’re absolutely beautiful. Thank you, LT.”
Davis twisted her lips to the side, uncharacteristically shy, as if she wasn’t sure how to reply either. Then she winked and said, “Try them on.”
Fitz pulled off his old blades and tossed them onto the deck. Apollo sniffed at the broken metal and pushed it to the side like a bone he didn’t want.
A few minutes later, Fitz had the shiny blades secured to his legs. He stepped onto the deck, the diamond tips pointing toward Beckham. The other Marines had stopped to watch. These men weren’t staring because of Fitz’s disability—they were admiring the war
rior in front of them.
Garcia stepped away from the group and pulled an axe from his rucksack. “Thought you might like this, too. Meg held onto it all the way from New York to the GW. One of the pilots found it in his chopper.”
Fitz grabbed the handle in one hand and studied the blade. “Thanks, Sarge,” he said with a smile. He wiped a tear from his eye with the other hand, and looked back to Davis. “Y’all are too kind.”
The sight made Beckham tear up too. The prosthetics—not to mention Meg’s axe—seemed to have given Fitz the confidence he needed, and it showed in his face. The color had risen in his cheeks, overshadowing the bags under his eyes.
Beckham couldn’t hold back a grin. He was no longer looking at a Marine damaged by war. Fitz was whole again, and he looked like a man who was ready to save the fucking world.
Kate stood outside the hatch to Lab A in a snug CBRN suit. The extra layers were designed to prevent direct contact with a range of contaminates, but she doubted it would protect her from the juvenile venom.
The lab was spotless. Every inch of floor, wall, and ceiling had been scrubbed. At first glance, the average onlooker would have had no idea what had occurred hours earlier.
In her mind’s eye, she pictured Yokoyama’s final moments. His screams in Japanese and the reek of his smoldering flesh would stick with her forever. State-of-the-art air filtration systems and buckets of bleach couldn’t remove that stench from her mind. She knew the phantom smell wasn’t real, but it was just as powerful as the real thing.
Kate continued across the room to a station where Ellis and Ronnie were already working. They were huddled around a computer monitor, their bulky suits blocking the screen from view.
“Hey, Kate,” Ellis said without turning. “Did you get some sleep?”
“Too much.”
“Good, because I’m about to drop a bomb on you.” He craned his helmet up from the monitor. “We already found a weakness. Ronnie, you want to explain?”
The technician stepped away from the computer to make room for Kate. “It’s pretty simple. We ran panels of chemical analyses and exposed tissue samples to a broad range of radiation. Remember how the adults are sensitive to ultra-violet light?”
“Yes, of course,” Kate replied.
“Well the juveniles seem to be extremely sensitive to gamma radiation. The ionized radiation tests revealed something remarkable. Watch this.”
On screen, a dime-sized sample of Lucy’s flesh rattled and shook inside the radiation delivery machine. Within minutes, the sample began to hiss.
“I’m only using a few rads,” Ronnie said.
Kate couldn’t believe her eyes. That much radiation would have little short-term effect on a normal human, but it was cooking the sample right in front of them.
“Do we know if their armor will shield them?”
Ellis nodded. “It does, to an extent, but not by much.”
Kate continued to study the screen. “Tests on the adult Variants have shown the exact opposite—a strong resilience to a wide range of radiation. So why are the offspring more sensitive?
“You’re right,” Ellis said. “It doesn’t make much sense.”
“Well that’s just the beginning. We found something else, too.” Ronnie looked at Ellis.
“I think I can now prove that the eggs aren’t a self-destruct system,” Ellis said.
Both men gave Kate meaningful looks—the type that told her they were about to give her some very bad news.
“Take a look,” Ellis said. He punched at his keyboard and pulled up the results from the CT scan. An overlay of Lucy’s vascular and glandular systems filled the computer screen. “We got the results back from the CT scan that we ran before the autopsy. Remember those glands that we pumped the contrast into? They weren’t all glands, Kate.”
She processed the development quickly. “It’s connected to the venom, isn’t it?”
Using a gloved finger, Ellis pointed to shadows. “I think what we thought were glands, in some cases, were the eggs holding the venom.”
“They’re all over Lucy’s body,” Ronnie added. “Her arms, legs, chest….”
“And what are those?” Kate asked. She ran her finger over a network of small tubes that connected to the shadows.
“I’m not sure,” Ellis said.
“There’s no way to know now that her corpse is so damaged,” Ronnie said.
Kate’s mind went into overdrive as she studied the images. For the first time in days, she felt like her old self. Her brain was functioning at the level it had before the outbreak. Her own theory quickly emerged. She wasn’t an expert in reading CT scans, but she did recognize the darker tubes connecting to the pouches of venom.
“They were still growing,” she said. “Do you see those?”
Ellis and Ronnie leaned in and followed her finger.
“I knew it,” Ellis whispered. He turned to Kate, eyes wide with awe. “The venom is a weapon, but Lucy’s delivery system wasn’t fully functional. She was still growing.…”
Kate was already crossing the room by the time before Ellis finished his thought.
“Where are you going?” he shouted after her.
“To the CIC. We have to warn the strike teams heading to Colorado,” Kate yelled back. “I have a feeling President Ringgold is going to want to hear this from me in person.”
-17-
“Take care of my dog, Fitz!” Beckham hollered from the deck of the GW. He shielded his eyes from the sun with one hand, and waved with the other. A crowd had gathered around him to watch the three Blackhawks and Chinook take off to Colorado.
“He takes care of me!” Fitz replied from inside one of the Blackhawks.
Apollo scuttled to the open door, nails dragging across the metal, eyes on Beckham as the Blackhawk ascended into the sky. Fitz grabbed the German Shepherd’s collar and pulled him back just as the dog leapt toward the door.
“It’s okay, boy, we won’t be gone long,” Fitz said. Apollo sat on his hind legs, but his eyes didn’t leave Beckham.
“Damn, loyal dog,” Garcia muttered. He tilted his black helmet to get a final look at the GW Strike Group. The USS Florida surfaced below, its sail rising through the waves. Several figures climbed out of the hatch and looked up at the birds. Every sailor, civilian, and soldier on the vessels watched.
The human race was counting on a handful of soldiers for the next stage of Operation Extinction. Fitz was right there in the thick of it with Apollo and a troop hold full of Marines. It sure as hell didn’t seem like enough, but this mission didn’t require an army; only a small squad of well-trained, experienced men and woman.
And that’s exactly who Fitz had around him right now.
As the pilots changed course, Fitz got his first good look at the members of Strike Team Spartan, the name picked out by Lieutenant Davis.
Sunlight filled the troop hold, casting a warm glow across the men and women decked out with armor and weapons. Like the other soldiers, Fitz wore plates of dark impact armor that covered him from his thighs to his chin. It was lightweight and durable, yet strong enough to stop the claws of a Variant. Each plate locked or fastened together across all vital areas. Beneath the armor, he wore matte black fatigues that were already wet from his sweat. He cradled his helmet against his chest, avoiding the reflection in the mirrored visor. He’d rather look at Davis.
She slid her helmet over her shoulder-length red hair, pushing it down to obscure her green eyes and her sharp jawline. Reaching down, she flipped up the face guard so Fitz could see her lips.
But Davis still hadn’t said a word. She was staring in the direction of the GW, the place she had made home for the past six weeks. Fitz didn’t know much about her, but what he did know, he liked. She had pulled Meg out of that building and helped save innocent civilians.
To her right sat another impressive woman. Marine Staff Sergeant Jeni Rico had proven herself during Operation Liberty, and was now called up again to fight on th
e front lines. No one complained about her unregulated hair or the blue highlights frosting the tips. She'd gone rogue, to hear her tell it, right after the Variant threat emerged. And besides, Fitz thought, shit like regulation hairstyle didn’t matter anymore. Even better, Rico's contagious smile and sense of humor were a welcome addition to the team.
The two Marines sitting next to Garcia were Staff Sergeant Dan Murphy and Corporal Marcus Hoffman. They were both in their mid-thirties, although Fitz wouldn’t have known it. Hoffman had more wrinkles and gray hair than most men his age. Murphy, on the other hand, looked like he was in his twenties, with a clean-shaven face and big eyes. Both were well built, with defined muscles under their armor.
Unlike their team’s ancient namesake, these Spartans wore all black. But like the warriors of ancient history, every man and woman aboard this chopper knew the brutality of war. Their helmets hid their haunted eyes and the high-tech armor covered their scars, but they were all, in their own ways, walking wounded.
Even after it is over, war has a way of changing people. Physical wounds heal with time and treatment, but the mental anguish is too often left to fester. It surfaces when you least expect it.
Everyone dealt with it differently, and some, Fitz knew, took the only way out they could see, and ended the pain themselves. Fitz had even thought that might be how he'd go out. That was before Team Ghost had pulled him from Bragg and got him back in the game. But he didn’t think like that anymore. The hurt was there still, and probably always would be. This time Fitz wasn't going to walk away from his life and his duty, and neither were the men and women with him now.
They all hurt, and they all licked their wounds in their own ways. Rico twisted her blue frosted hair and chewed on bubblegum. Davis stared stoically out the door at the water below. Garcia kept his head bowed in prayer. Fitz simply patted Apollo’s head.
Extinction End (Extinction Cycle Book 5) Page 21
