The Glorious Becoming (Epic)

by Lee Stephen

  Tiffany was snoring from the bunk beneath her. The blonde was one of the noisiest sleepers Catalina had ever known. But after two years with Tiffany at Philadelphia, the Canadian was all but used to it by now. Easing down the side of the bunk, Catalina’s feet touched the cold tile floor. Wincing briefly, she crept to her closet.

  It was already later than she typically slept. Most of her comrades were probably already in the cafeteria. Slipping on her jersey, Catalina looked in the mirror. “Oh, come on,” she whispered. Leaning close to her reflection, she examined the newly-emerging pimple on the right side of her cheek. “Veck.” She wasn’t a fan of cosmetics, but when it came to pimples, all bets were off. Grabbing her makeup, she began masking the spot. That was one thing about Tiffany that annoyed her—the pilot was immune to acne. It was one of life’s numerous injustices. Satisfied with her efforts, Catalina tied her hair into a ponytail and made for the door.

  Catalina had joined Falcon Platoon with the December class of 0011, as had most of her teammates. In the two months she’d been a soldier, she’d crawled up to the rank of beta private. According to the rumor mill, she and Mark Peters were on the verge of a promotion to gamma, a rank she wanted to beat him to at all costs. But as much as Mark was her personal rival, it was a different soldier’s accomplishments that Catalina had her sights on.

  His name was Scott Remington. She’d never met him, nor did she care about him outside of one simple fact: he’d accomplished more in a shorter period of time than anyone else in EDEN history. As far as Lilan and Tacker were concerned, Remington was the golden boy of Falcon Platoon. He was a ghost who haunted the unit on a daily basis, someone whose accomplishments they’d repeatedly been encouraged to emulate.

  She’d first heard of Remington in Philadelphia, where he’d been the talk of the Academy after the Battle of Chicago. What he’d done was legendary. A soldier, on his first mission, taking charge of a strike team and leading it through hell to claim victory. Everyone had watched his press conference. He’d given every cadet hope that they could make a difference—that any one of them could singlehandedly win the war.

  Then he was gone.

  She wasn’t sure if it was because he’d merely been a flavor of the week, because something had derailed his career, or because he was dead, but no one ever talked about him again—at least not by name. Of course, the Battle of Chicago was still talked about. But instead of the discussions being about Scott Remington, they were about “that guy who was on his first mission.” Truth be told, she’d forgotten his name, too, until she ended up in his former unit. Until she ended up in his room.

  It was Major Tacker who had broken it to her that Room 419, the room she shared with Tiffany, was formerly Remington’s. That was all the coincidence Catalina needed to become totally driven. She wanted to do what he did. She wanted to do it better. After enlisting in EDEN for no good reason at all, chasing the ghost of Remington was the first driving purpose she’d felt. She wanted to catch him more than she wanted to defend Earth. It was egocentric, but it was better than no purpose at all.

  According to Tacker, Remington had been transferred to Novosibirsk, one of the larger EDEN bases, located in Russia. Apparently Novosibirsk was where people called Nightmen resided, but she didn’t know much more than that. Novosibirsk was the last that anyone had heard of the alpha private who’d won a Golden Lion. For all practical purposes, he no longer existed. That made him all the more challenging to catch.

  The cafeteria was bustling, like always. Everywhere Catalina looked, operatives were beginning their daily routines, eating breakfast with their units and making their way to wherever it was they were scheduled to go. Outside of the lack of creature comforts, life at Richmond wasn’t terribly different from life at Philadelphia. A day could be spent training and studying, with the only significant difference being that at any given moment, your comm could go off and you could find yourself in the middle of a field fighting loose necrilids. Comm calls happened with just enough frequency to prevent a sense of complacency.

  Catalina’s Charlie Squad teammates were seated together at one of the central tables, with Tom King and the black operatives several seats down from the whites. There wasn’t outright racial tension in the squad—everyone just seemed satisfied to sit with their own ethnic group. Once she had her tray of food, she approached the table and sat down.

  Mark Peters, Leslie Kelly, and Frank Smith were sitting together. The moment Catalina saw Mark, her jaw clenched. She wasn’t over yesterday. Not by a long shot. And despite her desire to join her other friends, he was the last person she wanted to be around. As soon as she sat down, Mark cleared his throat. “Well look who decided to wake up. Morning, Hellcat.”

  The nickname was one she’d earned on her first mission. She’d pulled off a fairly incredible long-distance shot against a retreating Bakma during a Noboat assault. She’d tagged the alien square in the back of the head from several hundred meters out. The effort prompted Mark to blurt, “Hell, Cat,” and the moniker stuck. But if he thought throwing out pet names was going to soothe her over right now, he had another thing coming.

  “Where’s your blonder half?” Mark asked.

  Catalina blatantly ignored him. Looking directly at the other two, she smiled. “Good morning, Leslie Kelly. Frank.”

  “Good morning, Cat,” Leslie said. She was the unit’s technician, a young woman who leaned a little on the plump side, with bright eyes and short, almost orange-red hair. She was also the only operative never called by first name alone. Everyone called her Leslie Kelly for the sake of cuteness.

  If Leslie Kelly’s name owned the cuteness title, Frank Smith’s owned the generic one. The unit’s medic, he was a fairly boyish young man with a mess of curly brown hair and a smile that was both innocent and goofy. He was well-intentioned.

  Of the four of them, Mark was the only one who looked like a prototypical soldier. He had muscles that were defined enough to give him an athlete’s appearance, but not obtrusive enough to make him look like an ox. He looked cocky, from his dark red hair to the seemingly permanent smirk that was plastered on his face. On a good day, she found his smirk alluring. Today was not a good day.

  “What? You ignoring me?” he asked.

  Catalina swallowed a bite. Her stare remained fixed on Leslie and Frank. “Would one of you kindly inform Mr. Peters that at the moment, he does not exist in my world?”

  “Gimme a break,” Mark said. “You gonna do this all day?”

  Catalina chewed, saying nothing, with the only indication that she’d heard him being a knowing smile that barely curved up.

  “C’mon. Talk to me.”

  She pointed at the other two, indicating to Mark that if he intended to communicate, it would have to be through them.

  Mark’s expression said lame. He turned to Leslie. “Kindly ask Ms. Shivers if she plans to ignore me for the rest of the day.”

  “Catalina,” Leslie said, “Mark would like to know if you plan to ignore him for the rest of the day.”

  The Canadian nodded. “Yes, I do.”

  “Yes, she does.”

  “Well, that’s just great,” said Mark.

  Catalina swallowed some orange juice. “You may tell Mr. Peters that, should he choose to confess his shortcomings yesterday, his silent punishment might be rescinded.”

  “Mark, should you choose to—”

  “I heard her, dingbat.”

  “In addition,” said Catalina, “he must apologize to Leslie Kelly for calling her a dingbat.”

  Leslie smiled smugly at Mark.

  “So guys,” Frank interjected, “last night I read in Tech Weekly—”

  “Shut up, Frank,” the other three said simultaneously.

  Mark crossed his arms. “Leslie Kelly, I’m sorry you’re a dingbat.”

  Catalina cleared her throat sharply.

  “I’m sorry I called you a dingbat,” he corrected.

  Leslie shrugged. “Semi-accepted.”

/>   “Please express to Ms. Shivers my extreme disappointment in the events yesterday that led to her trepidation,” Mark said.

  “Trepidation,” Leslie said. “Nice word choice!”

  Catalina leered at Leslie as she took another bite of her breakfast.

  “However,” Mark went on, “I cannot apologize for shortcomings I do not have.”

  “And here’s where he blows it,” Leslie said, shaking her head.

  “Perhaps if Ms. Shivers wasn’t so secretly infatuated with Major Tacker, she wouldn’t unconsciously place herself in situations where he needs to rescue her.”

  Catalina glared at him. “Oh, grow up!”

  “The vow of silence is broken,” Leslie said solemnly.

  “Do you seriously think I would do that to myself so Tacker could rescue me?”

  Mark shrugged. “If it looks like a rat, and it smells like a rat...”

  “Then it’s probably you,” the Canadian said.

  The conversation was interrupted when Donald, Javon, and Leonard approached them. Prior to then, they’d all been sitting together further down the table. “Hey,” Javon said, “y’all interested in goin’ over some close-quarters tactics?”

  Mark nodded immediately. “After last night, hell yeah.”

  “Big Don’s gonna bring it up wit’ T. See if we can’t get somethin’ set up for next week.”

  Donald nodded at the slang reference to Tacker. “T’ll be cool. I’mma talk to him after here.”

  Catalina stared quietly at the tabletop as the conversation continued.

  “Just let us know when and where,” Mark said.

  “A’ight, a’ight.” Javon looked at Catalina for several seconds, her discomfort impossible to miss. “Don’t let King get to ya, Shivs. He wish he could have what you got.”

  Mark raised an eyebrow.

  “Man don’t know when to keep his mouth shut.”

  “What you guys talking about?” Mark asked.

  Javon nodded casually. “Jus’ Tom bein’ Tom. Girl walk by, you know he gotta say somethin’.”

  “I was walking to the shower,” Catalina finally said, offering Mark a flat stare. “Tom made a remark. It’s not a big deal.”

  “Anyway,” said Javon, “I’ll let y’all know what’s what. We go’ head out.”

  Mark nodded. “Sounds good, man.”

  The three black men left. Silence prevailed after they were gone as Mark eyed Catalina suspiciously. Finally, it got to her. “What?”

  “You didn’t tell me anything happened last night.”

  She rolled her eyes, then stood up. “I was mad at you.”

  “Hey, don’t leave!”

  “I’m making a waffle, Mark.” Turning away, the Canadian disappeared through the crowded cafeteria. After tapping his fingers and bouncing his legs for several seconds, Mark pushed his chair back, stood up, and went after her.

  Leslie observed his departure as she munched on her omelet. “Yeah,” she said with half a mouthful, “they’re getting married one day.”

  “So anyway,” said Frank, “about that thing in Tech Weekly...”

  Leslie rolled her eyes.

  Catalina’s focus was solely on her waffle, its scent filling the air around her. Hands resting on the counter, she intentionally tried to ignore everything else. Unfortunately, everything else wasn’t ignoring her. She sensed Mark behind her before he even touched her. The hairs on her neck bristled as his lips hovered just above them. It was impossible for her to keep her eyes open.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered, placing a kiss on her skin. She quietly exhaled. “I was wrong last night.”

  It wasn’t the first time Mark had kissed her—or gone considerably farther with her, for that matter. Their relationship was both dynamic and conflicting, a constant flux between heated rivalry and recreational... something. Or maybe more than something. She didn’t know. Mark was hard to figure out, and if she was being honest, she wasn’t quite sure she knew how she felt about him, either. At times, she felt close to him. At other times, the mere sight of him raised her blood pressure. They had a certain chemistry. It just tended to be flammable.

  “This isn’t even about last night, is it?” She spoke softly despite the seriousness of her words. “This is about Tom.”

  “I don’t want Tom messing with you. I want you to tell me when he does.”

  “So you’ll what? Get in a fight?”

  He was silent for a moment. “If I have to.”

  “He made a remark. That’s just what he does.”

  “Not to you.”

  Catalina turned around. “You really upset me last night. You left me behind. You assumed I’d be okay—you assumed. Is that all I’m worth? An assumption?”

  “Cat...”

  “No, Mark, I need you to listen.” When he fell quiet, she continued. “I want you to be there. That’s it. I don’t want you to leave me behind while you go off saving the day.” It was a dual-purpose statement. She wanted to feel worth something to him. She also didn’t want him stealing any potential thunder. As to which part bore more weight, she wasn’t quite sure.

  “Cat, we’re soldiers.”

  “I know we’re soldiers. We’re the best damn soldiers on this team. But that doesn’t mean I’m okay with you leaving me behind. What’s that translate to off the battlefield?”

  His expression became annoyed.

  “That’s why I’m upset. If you left me behind there, will you leave me behind here?”

  “Not two weeks ago, I asked you straight up if you loved me, and you told me no,” he said. “Now what the hell is this?”

  “Forget love, I’m not even talking about love. I’m talking about trust.”

  “It’s burning.”

  She looked at him strangely. “What?”

  “Your waffle. It’s burning.”

  Turning around, Catalina looked at the waffle. Gray smoke was rising from the machine as a burnt odor hit her nostrils. “Veck!” She lifted the lid, exposing the char beneath. Grabbing a spatula, she pried the burnt waffle from the maker. She switched the device off. “Nice job, Cat,” she mumbled to herself. Discarding her would-be breakfast in the garbage, she turned around.

  Mark was gone.

  Placing her hands on her hips in frustration, Catalina scanned the cafeteria. He was nowhere to be seen—not even at the table. He’d made his exit. “This is why I don’t love you,” she said disgustedly. “If you wanted to know.”

  Catalina eventually did get her waffle, at which point she collected herself and walked back to the table. Leslie and Frank were still there, engaged in what sounded like a fairly technical discussion about medical scanners. Before too long, Tiffany joined them, and the conversation became much more frivolous. They discussed everything from the previous night’s mission, to the training Javon was attempting to organize, to how Tiffany could stomach eating an omelet with ketchup. They discussed everything a unit full of young people should.

  Mark’s name never came up.

  6

  MONDAY, MARCH 12TH, 0012 NE

  0707 HOURS

  NOVOSIBIRSK, RUSSIA

  FOUR DAYS LATER

  ITS TEN FINGERS—talonless, crimson-purple claws—curled purposefully around the bar over its head. Tightening firmly, its wrists and forearms hardened. Amid the quivering of focused breathing, the alien pulled itself off the ground.

  “Kaat.”

  Exposed abdominal muscles tensed as the motion was repeated.

  “Kaat-ya.”

  And again.

  “Kaanis.”

  So far as captives were concerned, the Bakma was a marvel. The heaping muscles of its upper and lower back constricted then released as the upward and downward motions continued.

  “Kyotaana. Kyonassa. Nek`raa.”

  Behind the Bakma, the cell door slid open. Releasing the bar, the alien landed in a solid crouching position, one hand touching the floor as it slowly turned around.

  Scott had been
watching Tauthin since the workout began, unbeknownst to the alien until then. He admired Tauthin. To see the once frail and lifeless alien returning to its former condition was both satisfying and motivational. Tauthin was the only specimen in Confinement whose cell had a custom-built pull-up bar, installed by Petrov and his scientists at Scott’s request. It was the only piece of equipment Tauthin had, and apparently the only one that he needed.

  “Good morning, Tauthin,” said Scott as he stepped into the cell.

  “Gaad muhnig, Remata.”

  “This is Esther.”

  Behind Scott, the British scout stepped into the cell. Her hesitant brown eyes met Tauthin’s.

  Prior to Scott’s more intimate study of the Bakma species, he—like many—had assumed all Bakma eyes were black. It wasn’t until he’d sat across from Tauthin face-to-face that he discovered the alien’s eyes were a dark shade of violet. According to Tauthin, Bakma eyes came in several shades of purple, blue, green, brown, and of course, black itself. The shades were so faint, at least to humans, that they all appeared black without careful scrutiny. Through the eyes of the Bakma, the shades were much more discernible.

  Scott had also grown accustomed to the Bakma’s unique smell. The species had a musky odor, not unlike the smell of wild game, though undeniably more potent. Initially, it had been stomach-turning, though now the odor was almost pleasantly familiar to Scott. He wasn’t nearly as affected by it as his comrades.

  Tauthin cocked his head curiously as Esther approached him. He then looked at Scott.

  Scott understood the root of Tauthin’s confusion. The alien had never seen a human of darker skin. Despite Esther’s fairly light complexion for an African-Briton, she would still look quite different from what the alien was used to, especially in a pale environment like The Machine.

  As soon as Esther was within sniffing distance, she crinkled her nose, deepening the lines on her face. “He smells utterly disgusting.”

  “Yeah, well you probably smell bad to him, too.”