Ellis looked to Reed.
He shrugged. “You’re the one who said the juveniles are more cunning than serial killers.”
The thought of an Alpha or a juvenile Variant using human prisoners to attack SZTs made her feel nauseated. She gasped as her baby suddenly kicked harder than ever.
Reed gave her a worried look. “Are you okay?” He scooted close and placed his hand on her shoulder. He squeezed it gently. “Are you in pain?”
Kate shook her head. “No…I…I think the baby is just restless.” She looked up to meet his eyes, but Reed was already bending down next to her and placing his hand on her stomach.
Footfalls sounded from the hallway, and then Horn walked into the kitchen. He opened the fridge and grabbed a beer. Cracking the can open, he took a swig, wiped the foam off his lips and burped, not realizing or not caring that everyone was looking at him.
“Girls are asleep,” he said. He turned to Ellis. “So, Doc, what’s the bad news?”
-6-
It was 0100 hours and thick clouds were streaking across a sky choked by smoke, but Commander Davis didn’t need her night vision goggles to see. Panama City Beach blazed. Underground gasoline tanks continued to go off like fireworks, new infernos igniting every few minutes. Flames licked the few structures that had survived the bombing from Operation Liberty.
Davis could already hear what Admiral Humphrey would say about this mission: You risked your life and the lives of a team of Marines for a few civilians?
It wasn’t the first time she had done something like this, and it wouldn’t be the last. There were plenty of men and women who could serve as commander of the GW, but there weren’t many who would go out in the middle of the night in a burning city to rescue stranded civilians. At least the mission would keep her mind off the front in Europe—and Master Sergeant Fitzpatrick. She hadn’t seen him for months. Davis could only hope that they would meet again someday, but first she had a stronghold of survivors to locate.
“Let’s go!” she shouted as she crossed the deck of the aircraft carrier. Two Black Hawks waited, rotors already thumping. Davis and Diaz strode past a row of F-18s. Behind the two women were the Marines of fire-teams Rhino and Scorpion. Led by Sergeant Marks, the two recon teams included some of the most experienced men the USMC had left to offer.
Between them, they had killed over two hundred juvenile Variants and saved over a thousand human survivors. Davis felt a rush of heat at the thought. She was finally leaving this floating hunk of metal to go back out there, where she belonged: hunting monsters and rescuing civilians.
A concussion sounded in the distance, and Diaz paused mid-stride as another gout of flame and smoke rose into the sky over an industrial area. She was the least experienced of the group when it came to fighting juveniles, but Diaz had made her mark during Operation Liberty. She had ten kills under her belt.
“I told them to avoid that area,” Davis muttered, shaking her head. “It’s full of oil reserves.”
There was no time for a full mission briefing tonight. As they approached the big black birds, Davis stopped to give her orders. The two fire teams circled around her.
“The SOS was narrowed down to the Bay County courthouse. The building is still standing, but fires are quickly approaching and the smoke there is really bad.” She looked to Sergeant Marks. He was cradling his SAW.
“Sergeant, you have team Rhino. Scorpion, you’re on me,” Davis said. “Let’s move out!”
The two fire-teams separated and fanned out toward the choppers. Davis grimaced at the pain running up her legs and shoulders as she climbed inside the troop hold. She was hurting, but she wasn’t going to let it hold her back. She took a seat, reached into her vest, and pulled up her CBRN visor to swallow another handful of painkillers. That earned her a concerned look from Diaz, who took a seat next to her. The other four men of fire-team Scorpion piled inside, and a crew chief gave the pilot a thumbs up. Davis sucked down a gulp of water as the bird lifted off the deck.
“Command 1, this is Scorpion 1. We’re in the air.”
“Roger that, Scorpion 1. Good luck.”
Several people watched them from the windows of the CIC tower on the flyover. One of them was Belford. Davis knew he would handle things while she was gone, but she cringed at the thought of Humphrey waking up with him in charge. That’s why she planned to be back before Humphrey’s nap was over. This was going to be a quick in and out.
She looked across the troop hold at the shadowed faces of men she hardly knew. Everyone was dressed in camouflaged CBRN suits over a layer of body armor. On top of the suits, they wore vests stuffed with magazines, frag grenades, and the sleep grenades the military had developed for use on the juveniles.
Davis recognized one of the men, Lance Corporal Nick Black, only because of the thick Mohawk crunched under his domed CBRN helmet. He offered a sly grin and heaved his M249 across his chest. A Benelli M1014 twelve-gauge shotgun hung from a strap around his back. The other members of the fire-team held modified M4s with grenade launchers.
“You’re Scorpion 3, 4, 5, and 6 on the comms,” Davis said, pointing down the line. Four helmets nodded back at her.
Davis looked to Diaz. “You’re 2 on the comms.”
“Yes, Commander.”
She took a moment to study the lance corporal. Davis could tell Diaz was nervous even though she wasn’t showing it. She saw a lot of herself in the younger woman, and they shared more than losing their husbands to this war. They both had problems following orders.
Davis felt her stomach growl. She cursed under her breath, remembering for the first time that she had skipped dinner during the bombing of the juvenile strongholds. The pills she had swallowed were going to eat at her guts. She fished a power bar out of a pocket on her vest and pulled her helmet up again to take a bite. The nutrition would tide her over for a few hours. She washed it down with another mouthful of water.
“We’re about two minutes out,” one of the pilots said. “We’ll circle once before touching down.”
“Alright people, lock and load,” Davis ordered.
She pulled her helmet back down and grabbed a magazine from her vest. She slammed it into her M4 with a satisfying click. Then she stood and crouch-walked to the open door, her CBRN suit crinkling as she moved. Wind forced smoke from the burning city into the troop hold.
The crew chief pointed past Bunkers Cove and Massalina Bayou. “LZ is down there, Commander!”
Davis raised her scope to her eyes as they flew over North Cove Boulevard. Millions of dollars worth of boats burned in the water, some of them capsized, others on their sides in the oily water. The tip of a burning sail slowly sank to its final resting place, the water swallowing the flames and bubbles frothing to the surface.
Another explosion bloomed in the distance, sparks raining down over derelict city streets. Smoke drifted across the harbor, masking her view of the courthouse. The Black Hawk carrying Rhino Team flew ahead.
“Scorpion 1, this is Rhino 1. Be advised. We have eyes on a pack of juveniles moving along the intersection of North Cove and East 6th Street.”
Sergeant Marks waved from inside the other helicopter and then pointed to the road below.
Davis flicked her muzzle in that direction. Fires framed the asphalt on both sides, and flames continued to dance in all directions. There was motion halfway up the street, but she couldn’t tell if it was the smoke or something else.
“Making our first pass,” one of the pilots said. They banked to the left and followed the other Black Hawk over East 4th Street. The bridge sagged into the water, the center a charred crater where a bomb had blown it in half. The west side was clogged with charred vehicles, but there was only a single car on the east side.
“There!” Diaz shouted. “They’re making a run for the bridge.”
At first Davis didn’t see them, but as she zoomed in and switched to infrared, she saw the four heat signatures. She pulled her visor away from the scope, squ
inting at the juveniles galloping toward the bridge. Their armored bodies were covered in soot and ash.
“Holy fuck, those are the biggest I’ve ever seen,” Black said.
“Not so little anymore, are they? We might need to stop calling them juveniles,” Diaz replied.
“Scorpion 1, Rhino 1. We got four bandits on the East 4th bridge,” Marks reported. “Requesting permission to engage.”
“Negative, Rhino 1. We got this,” Davis said. She turned to Black. “Get on the 240, but conserve your ammo. We may need it.”
“With pleasure, Commander.”
She stepped out of the way to allow the large man past. He grabbed the gun and didn’t hesitate to fire.
“For my mother!” he yelled. “And my father!”
Diaz looked at Davis with wide eyes, but Davis slowly shook her helmet from side to side. She had seen soldiers deal with their losses in different ways, and Black wasn’t the first to avenge his lost family members.
The green streaks of tracer rounds shot across the bridge. A barrage of 7.62mm rounds followed, kicking concrete into the air and raising the street like a massive animal was moving under the pavement. The crack of the gun filled the troop hold.
Black centered his fire on the beasts and closed in. One of the rounds clipped the slowest creature in the back leg. Blood painted the concrete as the juvenile tripped and crashed to the ground. Black fired again, and a salvo of rounds hit it in the midsection. It spun into a guardrail, flipped over the other side, and plummeted into the water.
“Oorah!” Black yelled. “Oo-fucking-rah!”
Davis patted him on the back to remind the Marine to focus. “Three left! Don’t let them in the water!” she yelled in the respite of gunfire.
He raked the muzzle back and forth as the other beasts spread out and zigzagged. The wave of smoke cleared across the road on the other side of the bridge, giving Davis her first glimpse of the yellow brick building that was their target.
The beasts were heading right for it. Davis remembered the message they’d received from the survivors:
To the military or anyone that can hear this, stop firing on the city! There are over fifty children and adults at …
Black continued to unload a barrage of fire. He hit the smallest of the remaining juveniles in the head with a lucky shot. It crashed to the pavement, sliding limply to a stop.
“Hell yeah! Nice, Big B!” yelled one of the other Marines.
The final two creatures made a run for the ten-foot-wide gap in the center of the sagging bridge. He killed the one on the right with three rounds to the back, but the final juvenile was faster than the others. If it made the leap across, it would have the abandoned vehicles on the other side for cover.
“Hurry!” Davis shouted.
The beast suddenly increased its pace, limbs blurring as it raced for the edge. In a last-ditch effort, it launched its body into the air and leapt over the missing section.
Black raised the gun slightly to correct his aim and fired a burst that sent the beast cartwheeling through the air.
Davis whooped, unable to control herself. Black let up on the gun and roved it back over the terrain.
“That’s all of them, Command,” Davis said into the headset. “We’re preparing to land, over.”
The next transmission froze her to the core. “Scorpion 1, this is Wolverine 1. Get your ass back to home plate, ASAP.”
Every eye in the troop hold focused on Davis.
“Guess Humphrey couldn’t sleep,” she said with a grin. “Take us down over there. We’ll head back… as soon as we’ve got those survivors.”
Fitz threw up out of the open door of the Black Hawk. The taste of bile burned his throat and tongue. Sniffling, he ran a sleeve across his nose as a hand clapped his back. He knew it was Rico, but he couldn’t look her in the eyes. Not with tears in his own. He wasn’t the first man to lose his breakfast this morning. Stevenson had coughed up his several minutes earlier.
“Here,” Rico insisted. She waved a stick of bubble gum in front of Fitz.
Stevenson reached out with a gloved hand. “You got an endless supply of that shit or what? I’ll take a piece.”
“He can have mine,” Fitz said.
The 24th MEU had survived the night, but it had come at a horrible cost. On the horizon, the sun peeked over the cliffs of Normandy, spreading the first rays of golden light over the scene of the massacre. Team Ghost clustered together in the troop hold to stare at the beaches. The bodies of dead Marines bobbed up and down in the water. Hundreds more dotted the sand. Bones protruded from the charred flesh of those who had been caught in the deadly inferno.
Throughout the graveyard, the tanks, Humvees, and MATVs looked like overcooked lobster tails, their armored guts flayed open from the hellish fires that had blown the vehicles apart from within. Everything was covered with the green residue of the juvenile toxins.
Of all the battles Fitz had seen, this was the worst. Even Operation Liberty didn’t compare.
“Unreal,” Tanaka said. He continued cleaning a sword with a bloody rag. “I thought Command knew what they were doing this time.”
Fitz nodded silently, his gloved hand on Apollo’s head.
“Never did say thanks for what you did back there,” Rico said. She clapped Tanaka on the back. “You’ve got some pretty sweet moves.”
Tanaka ran the rag down the Katana one last time, leaving the blade so clean Fitz could see his pale reflection.
“You would have been better off using your rifle,” Stevenson said.
“Didn’t see you firing yours,” Tanaka replied with a glare.
Fitz directed his gaze back to the beach, too exhausted to intervene. Normally crews would already be on shore cleaning up and preparing the KIA for transport, but the flames and the sand were toxic. Colonel Bradley had ordered survivors to regroup farther down the beach at a new location for the FOB.
How could this have happened? How could the juveniles have known we were coming? I told those assholes at Command…
Fitz swallowed the anger as they passed over the Mesa Verde, the Ashland, and the Iwo Jima. They were anchored a quarter-mile away from the shoreline.
The Forrest Sherman continued searching the waters to save any Marines who might have survived. But Fitz wasn’t holding his breath. They hadn’t pulled a survivor from the ocean for over three hours.
“How many?” Fitz muttered. “How many did we lose?”
Ospreys, Black Hawks, and Viper attack helicopters patrolled overhead. Fitz glanced up at the black birds. They had lost several of them in attacks from the winged juveniles, but in the end, the newly-evolved monsters had been no match for Stinger missiles and 7.62mm rounds.
The cacophony of thumping blades drowned out the chatter over the open comm channels. Tanaka cupped his ears with his hands and then pulled them away. “Recent report isn’t good, sir.”
“Numbers?”
“Three hundred confirmed KIAs and twice that many MIA,” Tanaka said. “The first wave of mechanized units was completely wiped out. Zero survivors, sir.”
Fitz felt the bile rising in his throat again. He thought about asking Rico if she had another stick of gum, but she was too busy staring at the nightmare below. He swallowed instead, straightened his back, and took a deep breath as the Black Hawk passed over the Forrest Sherman.
The deck was stained red from the injured and dead. Boot prints marked a path through the carnage. Medics ran from tent to tent on the flight deck. A team carried a stretcher with a Marine who had lost a leg. He was holding the stump and screaming what sounded like, “Mama!”
Fitz closed his eyes briefly. “You will fight again, brother. Hang in there,” he whispered to the Marine below.
A transmission cracked in Fitz’s earpiece.
“Ghost 1, Tango 1, report to the FOB, ASAP.”
“Copy that, Tango 1,” Fitz replied. He rose from his crouch, his blades groaning like the bones of an old man.
&n
bsp; Team Ghost gathered around as the pilots changed course. The bird flew over the burned mechanized units, providing another grisly glimpse of the final resting places for the men and women of the first wave.
Stevenson made the sign of the cross, and Tanaka closed his eyes and bowed his head. Fitz focused on the open hatch of an M1A1 Abrams below and the skeleton sticking halfway out, nothing but green bones left. Reaching down, Fitz patted Apollo on the head and whispered, “It’s okay,” although he wasn’t sure who he was trying to reassure.
If Beckham could see this…
But Beckham wasn’t here. The man had given everything to fight the Variants, and he’d more than earned his retirement. It was up to Fitz to carry on his legacy and lead Team Ghost. He felt the weight of that responsibility more than ever as he looked down on the battlefield.
This was just the beginning…
The bird continued for the FOB to the west. Another wave of LCACs was ferrying a second group of vehicles from the anchored ships. Tanks, LAV-25s, Humvees, and Assault Breacher Vehicles were already cruising across the beach. Marines in bulldozers worked on building a perimeter.
Colonel Bradley was down there. Fitz didn’t blame the commander of the MEU for the attack or the decision not to risk extra Marine lives to bury the dead—even though it broke the rule to never leave a man behind.
“All it takes is all you got, Marine,” Fitz said, echoing the motto of Sergeant Jose Garcia. He finally understood why the French and European Unified Forces weren’t here waiting for them with wine and cheese on the beach. Europe had fallen into darkness because the juveniles here had grown up. They were adults now, and they were smarter, bigger, and more deadly than any Fitz had faced back in the States.
Another transmission crackled in Fitz’s earpiece. Scouts advancing up the beach reported a pack of Variants prowling the cliffs above the FOB. A pair of attack Vipers peeled off to engage the bandits.
The Extinction Cycle (Book 6): Extinction Aftermath Page 10
