by Lee Stephen
Nonetheless, they were in as much of a sync as was likely possible. The only unknown now was the unit’s impending reaction.
The moment the pair walked into the conference room and Scott saw the operatives gathered, reality struck him. It took mere seconds to perform a head count: thirteen. There were thirteen operatives gathered, including Scott and Natalie. From the floor by the door, Flopper lifted his head to look at Scott, the jingling of the dog’s collar drawing Scott’s attention.
Okay, fourteen.
That Flopper needed to be counted at all only highlighted the major problem with which Scott was faced. They were decimated. Of the operatives that were there, only seven were unscathed and could be considered truly combat ready: Becan, Jayden, Tiffany, Javon, Tom, Feliks, and Pyotr from Krasnoyarsk, who was looking like a better pickup by the second just for the increased body count he provided. I’m banged up, and so are Esther and Rashid. Auric and Catalina are sitting here in wheelchairs. Again, he looked at Flopper. And you’re a dog—no offense. Another dawning realization was that, of every single person present in the room, only Scott, Esther, Becan, Jayden, and Flopper were from the Fourteenth. Less than half.
The collective shift of focus from Scott to Natalie was dramatic. There were almost gasps. And instantly—as Scott had feared—his Type-2 scout rose to her feet. “What in the bloody hell is she doing here?” Esther asked, pointing at Natalie while she gaped at Scott.
Inhaling through her nostrils as she stood by Scott’s side, Natalie lowered her chin and said nothing.
“Sit down and calm down,” Scott said, raising a palm to Esther, who settled back into her chair. Drawing a breath of preparation, Scott broke the news. “I don’t need to introduce Captain Rockwell to any of you—we’re all quite aware of how she got swept up in this.” And here it went. “Having had time to soak in everything going on around her, particularly as it pertains to the big picture of what we’re doing, the captain has selflessly decided to lend us her trust. From this stage onward, and under supervision,” he said, giving Natalie as much of a stern look as he had the shamelessness to do, “she will be joining us as part of my command staff.”
Esther’s eyes went flat. “You…are joking.”
“I am not joking, and you will comply with this, Miss Brooking.”
“Miss Brooking? Since when am I sodding ‘Miss Brooking?’”
Scott was on the verge of saying something regrettable when Natalie cleared her throat. “If I may,” she said, glancing at Scott as if asking for his approval. When he offered it, she turned back to the operatives at the table. “No one is more shocked to find me standing here before you than I am. Yet, here I am.”
As he listened, Scott marveled at her composure. Her voice wasn’t even shaking to the faintest degree. It was right then that the difference between the two of them as leaders became striking. Scott led with passionate intensity—he was an adrenaline machine. Natalie was pure professionalism. I should have told her what was happening in Cairo. That failure will always be mine.
“As much as I would love to condemn you for your actions,” Natalie said, looking specifically at the spare members of the Fourteenth present, “what I cannot deny is that Falcon Platoon is, contrary to what EDEN claimed, alive—and that according to every single Falcon I had the privilege of sharing a quarantine cell with, a victim of EDEN betrayal. Those revelations were enough to make me consider the possibility that what happened in Cairo was the result of a well-intentioned operation going poorly.”
Well-intentioned? She was letting them off easy. Or at least, that was the hand she was showing.
“I want one thing: to know the truth. EDEN has a lot to explain to me. Your captain and I are going to discuss an operation this morning—one that will go a long way in satisfying my desire to know that truth.” She paused. “At the end of the day, either you’ll have deceived me twice, and I’ll have been blind enough to fall for it twice, or the organization I dedicated my life to serving will have betrayed us all. There is no good answer there. But I know there is an answer. And that’s what I want to find.”
The operatives’ reactions were as stunned as they’d been initially, but no one outside of Esther looked horrified. That partially made sense. Half of the people in this room had no part of Cairo at all. As far as Falcon Platoon was concerned, Natalie Rockwell was as innocent as they were.
“There will be trust issues,” Natalie said, “of that I am certain. Whatever rules I am forced to operate under, I will comply with—if it means finding the truth. I don’t particularly look forward to working with anyone here, which I hope is understandable considering what I’ve been through. But I will do what I must. Until this operation reaches a conclusion, I will lend you my trust. I only ask for yours in return. You don’t have to like me, but I do want you to work with me. I aim to make a difference.”
“You’re already making a sodding difference,” Esther spat. She glared sharply at Scott. “You stupid fool.”
And that was it. “If you don’t want to be a part of this, Esther, you can leave,” Scott said.
Without hesitation, the scout rose from her chair. “I will not follow this woman. Not onto a ship, not on a ground mission, not even in a sodding cafeteria line. I’m gone.”
“Esther,” Natalie said, eyes showing her rapid loss of patience, though her voice stayed controlled. “Please allow me to—”
“Bugger off, Venus.” Esther’s glare pivoted to the others in the room. “Anyone who follows this woman is a buffoon.” Slamming her chair back in place, she marched straight for the door, past Scott and Natalie without so much as a glance at them. The tension in the air was thick.
As the door swung back shut behind the scout, Natalie eyed Scott sidelong. “Polyester, huh?” she murmured quietly.
Scott was fuming—fuming enough to want to storm out of the conference room, grab Esther by her neck, and shake the living idiocy out of her. Way to make our whole outfit look dysfunctional, Ess. And where in the world was Jayden during all this? He and Esther hadn’t been ‘dating’ long, but as her boyfriend, shouldn’t he have stepped in to at least try and calm her down?
It was right then, for the first time since walking into the room, that Scott realized Jayden and Esther hadn’t been sitting together. Quite the contrary, they were about as far away from each other at the table as two people could get. As Scott finally set his gaze on his one-eyed sniper, he was surprised by the total lack of compassion on Jayden’s face—in any capacity whatsoever. He looked just as irritable as Scott felt.
Without the need for any kind of prompt, Jayden shook his head and said, “Don’t look at me.”
How was Scott supposed to respond to that? By not responding at all. Clearing his throat and trying to not look wholly humiliated, he just went right on. “So as Venus—” Biting his lip hard, he actually growled at the slip. Next to him, Natalie looked at him with slowly narrowing eyes. “So as Captain Rockwell said,” Scott said, offering her an apologetic frown and whispering, “Sorry,” before continuing on. “A lot of trust is going to have to be extended to her during this mission.” Ess, when I get my hands on you… “What we should all keep in mind, however, is that the trust we’re to extend pales in comparison to the trust she’s already lent us. I’m being honest when I say it’s one of the most admirable gestures I’ve ever seen someone make.” It wasn’t flattery—it was the outright truth. “The two of us will work in tandem, and you’re to treat us both as your superior officers during the operation we’re about to talk about. Does anyone else here have a problem with that?”
At her seat at the table, Tiffany cleared her throat. Before Scott could raise an eyebrow, the Valley Girl said, “Cat and I talked about this a bit on the way here, and we just want to say that we’re both like, super excited to be working with the captain. You’re like, a total super-chick.”
Scott’s instinct was to slap himself in the face, though he somehow stifled the urge. A super-chick. Fan-frea
king-tastic. Glancing briefly at Natalie to gauge her reaction as the blonde prattled on, he was surprised to see, lo and behold, the faintest of wry smiles creeping out.
“And if we call you ‘Venus,’ totally don’t take offense to it, ’cause we both think it’s, like, the most totally rad nickname in the world! So if you ever wanna call us, like, Sapphire and Hellcat, that’s totally cool, too, ’cause that was gonna be my callsign after I graduated as a fighter pilot, and—”
“Tiff,” Catalina murmured, shooting Tiffany a panicked look.
The blonde went right on. “—everyone used to call her Hellcat, because when she did something awesome, they’d say, ‘Hell, Cat!’”
“Tiff!” Punching Tiffany in the arm, Catalina shot her daggers. The Valley Girl’s lips abruptly sealed shut. At the far end of the table, Javon shook his head and tried to hide a chuckle.
The silence that followed was deafening. Once again, Scott found himself sighing in defeat. “Right. Thank you, Miss Feathers, for that heartfelt endorsement.”
“Ain’t got no problem wit’cha, Vee,” said Javon, nodding in Natalie’s direction.
What, she’s ‘Vee’ now?
“S’far as I’m concerned, you always was one of us.”
Across from Javon, and notably more subdued, Tom said, “I got no problem.”
“Lookin’ forward to workin’ with yeh, captain,” said Becan, offering Natalie a supportive nod, as did several others. The lone exception was Rashid, which wasn’t surprising. She’d be a hard sell for an old fulcrum like him.
Just the same, it was good to see Becan filling the role of professional among the Fourteenth. Scott was proud of him. Sneaking a peek at Natalie’s expression once again, Scott was pleasantly surprised to see her actually convey a level of comfort. That almost half of the group consisted of Falcons had to contribute to that. Taking advantage of the lull, Scott steered things back on track. “So I’m sure you guys are wondering about this operation we keep talking about. I think everyone in this room is aware by now that the answers we seek are at Nagoya. This has been confirmed by Iosif Antipov—he’s basically the Nightman equivalent of EDEN’s Intelligence department.” There was no need to go into any more detail than that. “Unfortunately, infiltrating Nagoya is a non-option. Not only are we unfamiliar with it, there’s no way that EDEN would allow this to happen again after what took place in Cairo.” And that was as much as he wanted to reference the worst experience in Natalie’s life. “Antipov has arranged for the device we’re after to be transported via bullet train from Nagoya to Tokyo as a transfer for the purpose of research. This train is what we’ll be intercepting.”
“We’re hijackin’ a bleedin’ train?” Becan asked, the Irishman’s eyes widening. Others bore similar expressions.
“That’s right.” Approaching one of the monitors along the wall, Scott inputted the memory chip from his comm that contained Antipov’s data. Seconds later, the information appeared on the screen. “As you can see, the car we’re looking for will be a red one with the identifier, ‘NP 469759.’ It will leave Nagoya at 2214 local time on Tuesday. This is the car that we must intercept.” He offered them a somber look. “There are no bones about it. This is our whole reason for being, right now. If we fail to retrieve the device inside that car, we might as well turn ourselves in.” And likely, hand Earth over to Archer and his alien conspirators. “This one’s a must-win.
“Captain Rockwell and I have not yet discussed the actual plan for pulling this off, but it likely won’t be very complicated. We’re not going to be able to hop on at the train station. This is going to boil down to landing a transport—presumably the V2 that’s sitting in the hangar—on top of the car we’re after.” Max’s arrival was paying new dividends. With the Pariah in such poor condition, they’d be up a creek without that extra transport. “While Tiffany provides air support in her Superwolf, a team will gain entry to the car, obtain the device, and get back on the ship. Our angle of approach is going to be critical, and I’m sure it’ll be discussed in full. EDEN’s going to know what’s up the moment we touch down on that train, so this will be a fast in-and-out operation.” Hesitating, he finally said, “This should be easy.”
Becan rubbed his face with his hands and murmured, “Bollocks.”
“I know,” said Scott, raising his hand to quell the impending sense of doom. “Hami Station was supposed to be in-and-out, too. We did the best that we could—and we’ll do that again on the train. Let’s hope for the best and be prepared for the worst.”
Speaking for the first time, Rashid asked, “What is the worst?”
“The worst would be getting detected before we land—anything that cuts into our allotted time. This needs to be fast. But we can do it.” They had to do it.
An air of seriousness coming over her, Tiffany asked, “If I’m in the Superwolf, who’s piloting the V2?”
Scott actually had a simple answer for that. “The same pilot who flew it here. And no, I don’t know who he is. But he’s going to be ‘voluntold.’” Very faintly, Scott smirked. “Not I, nor Becan, will be flying this transport, if that’s what you were wondering.” Becan scoffed, while Tiffany offered a smirk of her own. “What I want us to do for the remainder of the week and over the weekend is get to know each other. We’re accustomed to working with each other in the Fourteenth, but as you can see if you look around, those from the Fourteenth are a minority here.” And he certainly wasn’t going to factor Esther into the equation. “The camaraderie that we have can’t be constructed in a weekend, but we still need to try. You get to know people well enough, and you can tell just by their tone of voice what their situation is. That familiarity will be necessary—at least to whatever extent we can achieve it.” Looking at Natalie, he asked, “Is there anything that you want to add on that?” Keep her involved, Scott. Make this her mission, too.
Looking surprised to have been called on, Natalie quickly cleared her throat. “Not at this time, no. I’m sure I’ll get a chance to talk to each of you at some point or another.”
Nodding his head, Scott addressed everyone again. “I know everyone here is curious as to what will happen to Donald and Travis’s bodies.” As the two were brought up, a growing-all-too-familiar hue of somberness arose. “Keeper Lukin is arranging for them to be taken into Norilsk today to be buried. I don’t know where, but he has assured me it’s going to be in an actual grave in an actual cemetery. I know that isn’t the ideal way we wanted to see them laid to rest, but it’s all that we’ve got.” His frown deepened. “Obviously, we won’t be going to a funeral, so pay your final respects today—soon. I’ll be going right after this meeting, so anyone who wants to join me can feel free. If there is a good thing that can come out of this, I hope it’s that it makes us all realize how serious this situation is. The line we’re walking is razor thin.” It felt too thin. “Let’s get our hearts right, then our minds right, then our bodies right.” Every part of them needed to be in as close to top form as possible—particularly those recovering from injury. “You’re dismissed.”
As could have been expected, ending the meeting on such a solemn note, there was a distinct lack of post-meeting chatter amongst the operatives. Scott was certain that overall unfamiliarity with each other contributed to that, but more so, he knew everyone was thinking about Travis and Donald. It was no surprise to him at all when, as everyone filed out of the room, they made their way quietly en masse to the hangar, where their comrades’ bodies were laid out.
Though pleased, Scott was not surprised to see Natalie join them. For her part, she was doing everything right, particularly for the odd set of circumstances with which she’d entered the unit. There was still the faintest part of him that wondered if this was all a setup of some sort—treachery from the one he had personally betrayed in Cairo. But for the life of him, she didn’t strike him as that kind of person. Were this only the Fourteenth, then he likely wouldn’t have released her at all. But Natalie had chosen Tiffany as her am
bassador to retrieve Scott the night before, and Tiffany had nothing to do with Cairo. Tiffany and the Falcons were innocent victims in all of this. Unless Natalie had truly taken a turn for the bloodthirsty, he couldn’t imagine her willingly lying to them, particularly if the endgame was to bring EDEN’s wrath down on them all. She was being driven by genuine curiosity. She’d picked up on the talk, and she, herself, had to know what was going down. Scott couldn’t blame her.
As the group circled around the pair of body bags containing Travis Navarro and Donald Bell, there was a distinct lack of parting words spoken. Everyone was just quiet, their eyes downcast—some tearing up—as they stared down quasi-numbly at the reality before them: that any one of them could meet their end today, tomorrow, or any day from there forward. It was a chilling reality, the inevitability of death. Scott and his comrades had become comfortable via survival. But death loomed. It was hunting them. And one day, be it by these events or another, it would catch them. Scott just hoped they all had a little more time.
Scott wasn’t sure how long they’d all stood around the bodies, but it didn’t feel like a terribly long time. It was likely that everyone wanted to move on. No one seemed more ready than Tom, who was the first to leave the hangar after what couldn’t have been more than five minutes. He left alone, leading Scott to believe that the soldier must have already told his cousin goodbye. Tom would be an interesting one in all this. He had an intensity and a volatility to him that Scott hadn’t encountered in very many people. He wasn’t sure anyone from the Fourteenth could compare. Truth be told, everyone in this new outfit would be interesting, in their own way.
