by Lee Stephen
“Yow!” the blonde exclaimed. “Watch it, nerd, you’re killing my wrist!”
“Handcuffs were the worst idea, ever.”
Her eyes rolled. “Fitting that the worst idea ever came from you.”
As the rear bay door fully lowered, the Nightmen leapt onto the street. Scott rushed out behind them. “Becan, Will, you’re both with me!” As the Irishman and demolitionist took to his sides, Scott felt another hand grab the back of his shoulder. David.
“Be careful down there!” David yelled over the roar of engines and gunfire.
“How about quick?” asked Scott.
The older man nodded. “Quick works, too!”
Gritting his teeth against the throbbing pain in his right thigh, Scott leapt from the Pariah’s door to the rainy street below.
The Fourteenth had flown from Egypt on the wings of a prayer and little else. By technical measures, the extraction operation in Cairo had been a success. Centurion, one of the Ceratopians from the Interspecies Conflict in Siberia, had been recovered. “The Archer betrays you,” were the words uttered to Scott in German by H`laar, the Ceratopian whom Centurion had been assigned to protect. In the specific task of protecting H`laar, Centurion had failed. H`laar was dead. But the mere fact that Centurion was still alive kept a flicker of hope burning that the meaning behind H`laar’s message could be discovered in full.
The battered, black-and-green Ceratopian had received severe damage in the escape from Cairo. Though the alien’s breathing patterns had normalized during the flight, there was no debating that if Centurion didn’t receive medical attention of some kind—medical attention no one in the Pariah knew how to give—he would perish. And if that happened, then all of this was for nothing. Making sure Centurion lived had been priority number one—at least, until an Antipov redirect to land in Krasnoyarsk had been thrust upon them.
As soon as Scott landed and regained his footing on solid ground, he bolted for the cover of a nearby taxi cab, followed by Becan and William. The Nightmen—Rashid, Rodion, and Feliks—found cover around a building corner on the opposite side of the street. The three Nightmen were the last survivors of the extraction team for the extraction team: the Nightmen whom Antipov sent to pull Scott, Esther, Jayden, Boris, and Auric out of Cairo. The extraction team members were among the least injured of the Fourteenth’s crew. Because of that, they were assuming the role of primary offensive force.
Rashid Faraj, the old, Turkish fulcrum, was as no-nonsense a player as Scott had ever worked with. Despite his taking a back seat to Scott’s command in the aftermath of Cairo, Rashid made it abundantly clear that he wasn’t the “blindly follow orders” type. He questioned, he challenged, at times he even scoffed at Scott’s pre-Krasnoyarsk planning. All three were qualities Scott appreciated. At a time like this, when they simply could not afford mistakes, a cross-examiner was a godsend.
Then there was the former numerically-named duo, a pair of slayers that Scott knew next to nothing about beyond their names: Rodion “One” Sayankov and Feliks “Four” Petrukhin. What little he did know had been gleaned from Cairo—that they were dangerous.
“Junction Eight, this is Rashid Faraj of the Fulcrum Elite,” Rashid said through the comm. “We are here to assist you.”
Scott grimaced. That was as cold a lie as Scott had ever heard, because they weren’t there to assist anyone. They were there to retrieve someone valuable, then leave as quickly as possible. Leaning around the far corner of the taxi cab, Scott fired a volley through the sheets of rainfall toward the police force, which was moving back into position now that the Pariah was drifting away.
A panicked reply came through the static. “We see you, Fourteenth! We are inside!”
Rashid cursed loudly. Scott could hear him from all the way across the street. The whole purpose of Rashid being the voice of the Fourteenth was so that nobody would know it was the Fourteenth. So much for that. “They were going to see the collar, anyway,” Scott said to Becan and William as he got on the comm. “Travis, what’s the view?”
“We’re only gonna be able to do so much with the ammo we’ve got!” answered the pilot. “We might need to conserve some in case EDEN shows up in the air.”
Based on our luck, you can count on it. “Drop Jayden and Esther on the roof. See if Ess can find a way inside from above. We need to get inside that building as quickly as possible.”
“Seriously?” Esther asked, her face deadpanned as the Pariah moved back in over the structure. The disheveled scout was still wearing her black maxi dress and pearl earrings from her blazing trek through Cairo Confinement and the Anthill.
“It’s just a little rain,” answered Jayden.
She crinkled her nose. “Says the man wearing a hat.”
Readying his sniper rifle, Jayden trotted toward the rear bay door, Esther at his side. Neither operative had any armor available, a detriment shared by all of the Cairo team with the exception of Scott, whose gold-trimmed armor had been brought to Egypt by Rashid and company. Fitting his brown cowboy hat—the lone personal item he’d retrieved from the base—over his head, Jayden raised his sniper rifle and peered through the scope with his one good eye. “All right, I’ve got some kind of group movin’ in on the building from the alleys in the east,” he said through the comm. “Veck, man, it’s EDEN.”
Esther gripped the handrail next to the open door as her glare bore a hole through Natalie Rockwell. The captain of the Caracals was sitting against the wall, her hands tied to a pipe with strands of strewn-about chestnut hair falling over her face. Auric, whose busted knee had disqualified him from joining the others on the ground but who could still point a pistol, was keeping watch over her.
Initially, Natalie had been as simmering and confrontational as anyone would have expected for a woman betrayed then kidnapped for leverage. Every effort made by the Fourteenth to talk to her was met with seething silence and a turn of the head in the opposite direction. The Caracal captain had not been in the mood to listen.
Until a dead man showed up.
A subtle shift occurred in Natalie the moment Antipov relayed to Scott his new assignment: retrieve Colonel Lilan and the survivors of Falcon Platoon from Krasnoyarsk. EDEN had said that Lilan and company were dead. EDEN was supposed to be the good guy in this scenario. Good guys weren’t supposed to lie. Then again, Scott was supposed to have been a good guy, too.
Though she said nothing outright, the change in her demeanor was apparent. Deliberate attempts to flare her nostrils and look the other way were swapped for all-too-obvious attempts to eavesdrop and pick up anything and everything the Fourteenth discussed about Falcon Platoon. So noticeable was the change that it even prompted David to make a remark to her imploring her to consider their side of the story. Expectedly, she met his words with silence, but the message had been received. Her emerald eyes looked more frightened now than before.
Of course, not everyone was eager to appeal to her sense of discernment—her primary antagonist being Esther. More than once, the British spitfire had been caught mouthing off to “Venus,” much to the chagrin of her comrades in the Fourteenth, who made their disapproval clear. Esther simply shrugged.
Now, Esther stood by the open bay door awaiting her drop off on the roof, her stare once again on the embattled captain. After several seconds of this, Natalie took notice. The two stayed motionless, several feet away from one another with their eyes locked, before Natalie finally asked, “What?”
Esther pursed her lips before answering. “I was just thinking of how useful you could be on the rooftop.” She paused. “I could use a good shield.”
“Bite me.”
“And do you the pleasure?” Esther turned back to the door. “I think not.” Bending her knees, the scout, alongside Jayden, leapt from the warmth of the Pariah into the frigid, battering rain.
The moment Esther came to her feet, she gasped. “Frigid!” Smoothing her hair back and with her dress clinging to her skin, she bolted after Jayden,
who was running to the corner.
As Scott sunk back to reload, the Texan’s voice emerged through the comm static. “Got about a dozen EDEN operatives headin’ to the building!” The crack of a sniper rifle echoed over the storm.
“Try not to kill any of them!” said Scott.
“I’m not—just givin’ ’em a reason to pause.”
Next to Scott, William unleashed a fiery burst from his hand cannon. The projectile soared through the rain and slammed against the police car, which lurched upright and sent the police behind it scattering. The car fell back to the street with a crash.
Looking across at Rashid, Scott said through the comm, “You guys go back and stop that EDEN advance! We’ve got this.” The Turkish fulcrum affirmed the order as he, Rodion, and Feliks disappeared around the corner and out of view.
Next to Scott, Becan cleared his throat. “We’ve got this, eh?”
“Well,” said Scott, his focus returning to the street before them, where local militiamen were joining the police. “It’s a goal.”
Meanwhile, Travis was flying the Pariah at near-street level and had taken to maneuvering it sharply through the cityscape valleys in an effort to outrun a pair of military helicopters that were in pursuit. Jerking the stick while Tiffany held on, Travis sent the Pariah’s underbelly flinging upward as its nose whipped around an intersection.
The move sent everyone in the troop bay flailing, from the few operatives who remained, to Flopper, whose paws were digging out desperately, to Ju`bajai, the Fourteenth’s newly-acquired Ithini female. Centurion groaned loudly as his body slid against the wall. David placed his hands on the giant beast. “Easy, big fella. We’re just hitting some turbulence.” He snapped a glare at the cockpit. “Watch it, Trav, we’ve got valuable cargo back here!” Next to David, Boris slammed against the wall completely upside down. The Russian tech slid headfirst to the floor. “And Boris, too!”
Rain tattering against the rim of his cowboy hat, Jayden fired another shot at the approaching team from EDEN, who were now aware of his location and taking pot shots at him from around their cover. As a burst of E-35 fire peppered the concrete roof guard, the Texan ducked down into cover. Adjusting his black eye patch, he called out to Esther, “I can’t do much more over here!”
As if on cue, Rashid’s voice emerged through the comm. “We have arrived at the back of the building—engaging EDEN now.”
“Try not to kill any of—”
“Target down,” said Rashid and Rodion simultaneously.
Jayden sighed then engaged once again.
Esther’s hands were shaking uncontrollably as she knelt down over a rooftop hatch at the structure’s center. The soaked and freezing scout’s lips were blue as she tried desperately to operate the hatch’s ancient, corroded handle. Whipping the wet fringe of her bangs out of her eyes in frustration, she screamed into her handheld comm, “The sodding handle is rusted!”
“Bullets are a universal cure-all!” Jayden said.
“Bullets are a universal cure-all,” Esther mocked back. Holding out her handgun and leaning away, she closed her eyes and pulled the trigger. The lock sparked and came apart. She grabbed the hatch’s side and strained to lift it, screaming when her shoulder, injured during their escape from Cairo, flexed its muscles. Gritting her teeth against the pain, she finally shoved the hatch open. She readied herself atop the ladder it revealed. “Going down,” she said as she descended, leaving Jayden behind to hold the fort down on the roof.
Ducking back behind the taxi cab as shots ricocheted around him, Becan looked at Scott and said, “We’ve got a problem, Remmy! EDEN, twelve o’clock.”
Following the Irishman’s indication, Scott caught sight of a cluster of EDEN operatives diverging behind the various obstacles in the street. The element of surprise that he, Becan, and William possessed was now gone. Snarling, he too ducked back. “How’s the extraction coming?” he asked through the comm.
“Ask me later!” Esther answered.
“We don’t have later, Ess, we need to extract the targets now!”
“Bloody hell,” Esther said as she trotted down the maintenance hall, handgun ready to fire as she rounded corners that were composed of giant, jutting pipes and decrepit walls. Out of the storm but still shivering, she carried on until she came to a metal door. Aiming her handgun at the knob, she squinted her eyes and looked away. Then, she stopped. Eyeing the knob suspiciously, she lowered her weapon and gripped it. It pulled open without a hitch. “All right, then.”
Outside the door was a small stairwell that led up to another one—this one wooden. Weapons fire racketed behind it. Pistol at the ready, Esther opened the door, where she was met by the wall of a hallway that ran in both directions—toward the front of the safe house, where the majority of the weapons fire was coming from, and toward the back, where the intermittent sound of Rashid and his slayers could be heard as they engaged EDEN in the back alleys. Her back against the wall, she tracked toward the front of the safe house.
The Pariah was flying like its tail fin was on fire. Its rear thrusters kicked in at full blast as it weaved through Krasnoyarsk’s city valleys, slowing only to make hairpin turns that kicked the ship’s underbelly completely sideways. Behind it, the pair of helicopters were in pursuit. Tiffany’s free hand held onto the cockpit handrail with white knuckles as the momentum of the ship’s turns jostled her.
Engaging the Pariah’s vertical thrusters for the sake of turn assistance, Travis once again brought the battered Vulture around an intersection.
In the troop bay, David was barking out orders to Boris. “Grab that harness. We need to strap him down!” Centurion was sliding all over the bay, the colossal beast growling in pain with every slam against the hull. “Travis, could you possibly fly any less vecking erratic?”
“Sure!” the pilot answered. “One missile impact and we’ll all be resting peacefully!”
* * *
EDEN Command
The same time.
THROUGHOUT HIS military career—one that spanned almost four decades—Leonid Torokin had experienced a wide variety of situations. He’d been in the midst of the Georgian Revolution of 0035 OE, when he was a seventeen-year-old militia member in Karachayevsk. He’d been a part of the Soviet Reclamation, where he spent fifteen years rising from front-line infantryman to Spetsnaz GRU captain. He was one of eleven men who formed the original Vector Squad when the Alien War began. He’d seen children firing assault rifles, a terrorist-led hostage crisis, and the gaping jaws of charging canrassis.
But this was a first.
From across the Council’s oval table, Judge Javier Castellnou was slamming his fist and shouting something about outdated Vindicators in Nagoya. Torokin wasn’t really listening.
EDEN Command had just removed Ignatius van Thoor from power in Novosibirsk, felling the Terror in one of the more shocking and decisive victories in modern history. In a single blow, The Machine had been brought to its knees and unceremoniously executed. Thoor was vanquished with a whimper at the hands of Torokin’s comrade and friend, Klaus Faerber. It was the kind of sweeping victory that folktales were made of. And in the span of a single message from EDEN’s base at Cairo, it had been completely overshadowed.
A Nightman named Scott Remington had infiltrated the Egyptian base with a handful of his Novosibirsk agents. He’d escaped with two alien prisoners, leaving a massacre in his wake. All signs pointed to a conspiracy involving the Nightmen and extraterrestrials. Whether Remington was the mastermind or a pawn was yet to be determined. That he was a traitor was indisputable. But it was even worse than that.
Scott Remington was a Golden Lion.
Torokin remembered the mission that had thrust the young EDEN soldier into the spotlight for his fifteen minutes of fame. Remington had led the remnants of a decimated unit into the heart of an alien stronghold, capturing a Bakma Carrier without taking a single casualty. Though he was far from a household name, all it took was the mention of, “that
guy from the Battle of Chicago,” to conjure up recollection. At that time, he’d been hailed a hero. Now he was conspiring with the very forces EDEN was defending Earth against. How had a Golden Lion fallen so far? It was embarrassing and infuriating.
Closing his eyes and rubbing them tiredly, Torokin listened to the sound of his counterparts yelling. Yelling at each other, yelling at the situation. Coming undone.
“It’s not the Council’s fault that we don’t have enough Superwolves to make a sweep of the whole vecking eastern hemisphere,” said Richard Lena from Torokin’s right. “It’s a matter of realism and logistics. We just sent that half of the world to Novosibirsk!”
At the far end of the room, pacing with his arms folded but attentively listening, was Captain Klaus Faerber of Vector Squad. Still clad in his purple and white armor, still stained with the blood of General Thoor, he bore the distinction of being one of the few humans on Earth who could invite himself to a Council meeting without having to ask for permission. Leaning against the wall behind him was Vincent Hill, Vector’s second-in-command—the only combat medic in EDEN to hold such a distinction for such an elite unit. He was the only Vector to accompany Klaus into the meeting. Both men had, for the most part, remained quiet.
It had been discovered that one of the transports that had shot down Falcon Platoon and slain Klaus’s son, Strom, belonged to Remington’s unit, the Fourteenth of Novosibirsk. Though transfer logs confirmed that Remington was at Cairo at the time that the interception of Falcon Platoon took place, there was no reason to believe that he wasn’t involved to some degree. It was his transport, his unit. He must have been knowledgeable to some extent.
That Klaus was partaking in this meeting was troubling to Torokin. Despite the German’s icy exterior, Torokin knew Klaus was in the middle of an emotional undertow. Remington was involved in the murder of Klaus’s son. Tracking down Remington and the Fourteenth was important for a variety of reasons. Revenge was not supposed to be one of them.
