Earth Unrelenting (Forgotten Earth Book 2)

by M. R. Forbes

  “In the tunnels,” Nathan said. “The thing that attacked me. I heard General Stacker call it Betty as if he knew it.”

  He had thrown the statement out of nowhere, curious to see how she would react to the question. She didn’t miss a beat.

  “There’s a much longer answer to that statement,” she said. “The short version is that the United States Space Force was researching ways to counter the trife before we lost the war. Mary Stacker was originally part of that research, and her work continued long after our defeat. Their descendants are carrying on with that end of the war effort today.”

  Nathan glanced at her. Was she suggesting they had created the Stalker? “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “Monsters to fight monsters,” she replied, confirming he was on the right track. “Betty was one of the experiments. They dropped her off in the tunnels on Manhattan island to see how the trife would react.”

  “The trife were afraid of it.”

  “Yup. They got some good feedback from that project. I’m sure General Stacker would have preferred to let her continue living there if she hadn’t attacked us.”

  Nathan walked a few steps in silence. Then he looked over at Doc again. “The creatures Tinker is making. Does he use replicator tech?”

  “Tinker doesn’t make them. He’s more interested in technological advancement than biological advancement. He thinks the trife as a whole evolve too quickly to keep pace through genetic modification. Betty was able to keep the trife on Manhattan away from her, but only because the Manhattan trife are isolated. When nests can cross-communicate, they start learning to overcome certain obstacles.”

  “Like the Stalker?”

  “Exactly. We still have a department dedicated to that area of research, but it isn’t Tinker’s main focus.”

  They reached a smaller building behind what he assumed were barracks. A pair of heavily armed guards were standing outside. Like Private Shao, they looked confused by him, and he almost laughed at how their body language translated their uncertainty in how to react.

  “At ease, soldiers,” Doc said. “This is Nathan. He’s a Stacker, like the general. That’s all you need to know.” She paused, glaring hard at them as they came to attention. “Nobody else needs to know about him from you. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” they replied.

  “Good.”

  She led Nathan past the guards and into the armory. There was a small antechamber, and then a pair of heavy steel doors which were currently hanging open. Inside was a treasure trove of weaponry. It was all neatly organized, but it was still overwhelming. There were standard projectile rifles and sidearms, but also plasma rifles, laser pistols, and other Spacer tech forbidden for use outside of Space Force. Whoever had sent the items to the Liberators would be executed for treason if Proxima Command knew about it. If the right people in Proxima Command knew about it, anyway. Nathan was sure at least a few of the sitting officers were members of the Trust.

  There were other weapons, too. Weapons he didn’t recognize. They looked somewhat like Proxima tech but modified in different ways. He identified one of them as the large rifle General Stacker carried. Those guns appeared to be one of a kind.

  “The second largest cache of ordnance in the eastern United States, at least,” Doc said. “Maybe in the world.”

  “The first is in Edenrise?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “Damn. This is probably bigger than any cache on Proxima. Including the Centurion complex in Praeton. Where is everybody?”

  “Our squad is probably already waiting in the briefing room. General Stacker ordered me to deliver you to his private quarters to get suited up.”

  His eyes traveled the stockpile one more time as he followed Doc back out the two steel doors and through another non-armored door on the right. She led him down a corridor and into a separate staging area. There were showers, lockers, and other non-lethal equipment there.

  Doc led him through the staging area, to a separate door on the left. It was currently open, and Nathan could see the corner of James’ combat armor bathed in shadow inside.

  She brought him over. James was sitting on a bench near the armor, eyes closed, body peaceful. He heard them and opened his eyes.

  “Nathan,” he said, a smile splitting his face. He stood up. “How are you feeling?”

  “Sir,” Nathan said, coming to attention. “Ready for action, sir.”

  James’ smile grew bigger. “At ease.”

  Nathan relaxed slightly. He didn’t know why, but just being in James’ presence gave him a fresh level of confidence and motivation. He was going to get Niobe’s ring back. He was going to find out what was on the data chip.

  He was going to kill Sheriff.

  Chapter 16

  “First things first,” General Stacker said, getting to his feet. He approached Nathan, putting a hand on his shoulder. “What was your rank in Space Force?”

  “Captain, sir,” Nathan replied.

  “Not anymore. Any Space Force soldier is better trained than an Earth soldier. That’s just the way it is. Your rank should reflect that. I’m promoting you to colonel, effective immediately.”

  “Sir?” Nathan said, surprised by the gesture.

  “That puts you only under me in the chain of command, at least here at Fort McGuire. Doc, make sure word gets out.”

  “Yes, sir,” Doc said. She turned to Nathan. “Congratulations, sir.”

  “Thank you,” Nathan replied, forcing himself to leave off the ma’am. It felt strange to go from her subordinate to her commanding officer just like that.

  “I’m not putting you on the books right now for obvious reasons,” James said. “But my people will keep your existence hush-hush. Second order of business. Did you have a call sign?”

  “Of course sir,” Nathan said. “Relentless.”

  “Was that the hand of fate or what?” James said.

  “I’ve always considered it a Stacker personality trait, sir.”

  James nodded, still smiling. “I hope you’ll use it to good effect for me now, Relentless.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  James pointed to one of the lockers against the wall. “Your bodysuit and uniform are in there. Do you have a preference for weapon style? You’re a Spacer, so you probably prefer laser or plasma, right?”

  “Yes, sir. But I can use whatever you give me, sir.”

  “I’m sure you can. Doc, find Bright and have him pick out one of Tinker’s plasma rifles for Relentless.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Doc saluted them both and headed out of the room.

  “Go ahead and suit up,” James said. “I’ve got to finish getting dressed too.”

  He moved back toward the combat armor.

  “The major told me Tinker made that for you, sir,” Nathan said as he took the bodysuit from the locker and started slipping it on.

  “That’s right. Tinker makes all sorts of things. He’s a genius. He’s going to save the world. We’re going to win the war because of him.”

  “How so, sir? If you don’t mind me asking.”

  “He’s spent the last ten years working on a nerve agent that completely fucks up the trife, plus a delivery system to send it across the globe.”

  “The entire planet?”

  “Yeah.” James turned around and stepped back into the armor. Nathan watched how it reacted to his weight, the metal plates sliding up and over him, quickly covering everything except his head. “That’s the trick to beating the trife. Since they adapt so fast if you find something that works you have to hit them with it all at once, or they’ll become immune and you’re starting all over again. So it’s not enough to create a virus to spread from one nest to another because by the time you get to the third nest the immunity is already in their genome. Are you following me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “In which case, the real trick becomes delivering the agent around the globe in such a way the trife w
on’t have a chance to mutate in an immunity. That’s where Tinker’s deal with the Trust comes in. They send him components. Parts. They think he’s using them for the stuff he’s sending back, but only about twenty percent gets returned. The rest have been going into building the carrier drones.”

  “Sir, you’re saying that you already have a functional virus?”

  “Almost. We’ve been conducting limited field trials on isolated groups of trife. We’re planning to move to a bigger trial soon. That’s what makes the timing of your arrival interesting. We’re only expecting a few more shipments from the Trust, and then we’re planning to cut them off. So we throw them a bone with the Spacers, and we give them the finger with you.”

  The helmet of the powered armor lowered onto James’ head, covering his face. Nathan heard a pair of clamps unlock, and then James stepped forward, fully protected. Nathan finished putting on his bodysuit, and then pulled on the dark green Space Force fatigues.

  “Comms?” Nathan asked.

  James opened the visor of the helmet. “In the locker, top shelf.”

  Nathan found the small comm device there, and he stuck it in his ear. A wire dangled out at the side, pressing against his cheek.

  “Bite down to activate it,” James said. “Bite down twice to turn it off.”

  “Roger,” Nathan replied.

  James’ visor closed over his face again. “Relentless, do you copy?”

  Nathan bit down. “I copy, sir. This is Relentless.”

  “Copy that. Follow me.”

  James opened his visor again and started moving, the powered armor almost too big to fit through the doorway of the room and out into the corridor. They went back through the staging area to the other side of the armory and into an open room. There were a half-dozen soldiers in the room, including Doc, all of them dressed in the same dark green fatigues Nathan was wearing.

  “Alpha Squad, AH-Tehn-SHUN!” Doc shouted, seeing them entering.

  The soldiers scrambled into a tight line, coming to attention.

  Nathan didn’t need direction. He went to the end of the line, coming to attention beside Doc. He felt a small swell of pride as he did. It felt good to be a soldier again. He had been made for this, after all.

  “At ease,” General Stacker said. “You should have all seen the mission briefing that was passed around earlier, except for the newest member of our little family. Colonel Stacker, please come forward.”

  Nathan stepped forward. None of the soldiers looked at him without permission, despite the interest and curiosity he was sure they felt.

  “This is Colonel Nathan Stacker. He’s a former Centurion Space Force officer, a replica like myself. He’s the man the Trust wanted us to kill. In fact, a couple of you were helping me try to kill him last night. As you can see, we failed in that mission, and as a result, I’ve decided to let him join our cause instead.”

  “Yes, sir!” the soldiers shouted.

  “His call sign is Relentless. You will give him a warm welcome.”

  The soldiers turned to him then, whooping and clapping. Nathan could feel his face flush. He wasn’t used to this kind of attention, especially not from real humans.

  “Thank you, General,” he said once the clapping died out. “I’m happy to be here with you. All of you. And I’m eager to get underway.”

  “I couldn’t have said it better myself, Colonel,” James said. “Alpha Squad, we’ll take the chopper back over to the island. We’ll start the reconnoiter near the trife nest. That was the last place I saw the Spacer alive. We’ll head east from there, into the city with C-Dog in tow. If the Spacer is above ground, C-Dog will sniff him out. If he’s underground, the Amtraks will know where he is.”

  Nathan was surprised to hear James mention Rhonna’s family. They had made it sound like they had never interacted with the general or the Liberators before. They didn’t know James, but James knew them.

  “If they don’t know where he is, they’ll help us find him. If they don’t help us find him?” He paused, a fresh smile spreading across his face, so cold and malevolent it gave Nathan a sudden chill. “Let’s just say that isn’t an option.”

  “Yes, sir!” the other soldiers shouted, save for Nathan.

  He had watched James kill the Stalker. Once the trife realized their tunnel-bound nemesis was gone, the Amtraks were as good as dead no matter what they did. The general had to know that. He had to have known that when he killed the creature. And yet, whatever he was threatening, Nathan had a feeling it would be much, much worse.

  “Let’s move, Alpha Squad!” James said, turning back to the door. The other soldiers moved behind him, leaving Nathan standing alone at the end of the line.

  He really hoped he was doing the right thing.

  Chapter 17

  C-Dog turned out to be a robot, a rectangular mass of metal connected to four legs that carried it across the tarmac toward the helicopter, which Alpha Squad was in the process of climbing into.

  Nathan turned to watch it scamper from the building Doc had called Operations, its legs carrying it quickly to them. It slowed when it neared General Stacker, coming to a stop beside him. A closer look at the robot left Nathan confused about how it navigated. He didn’t see any cameras or anything outwardly apparent as eyes. Its body was a sealed compartment of matte black alloy with no seams or cracks.

  “It’s a sensor-bot sir,” one of the soldiers said. He was an average looking man with one blue eye and one brown eye. “There are all kinds of fancy tech thingies in there that make it able to suss out pretty much anything the General wants. Name’s Glitch, by the way. Private First Class.”

  “Nice to meet you, Glitch,” Nathan said. He looked back at the robot. “How do you control it?”

  “We don’t control it,” Glitch replied. “General Stacker does. It’s built into his armor. He can see all of its readings. Sound. Light. Infrared. It’s even got molecular filtration, whatever that means.”

  “Tinker made it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  James took C-Dog by a small crease on its back, lifting it like a package. Its legs tucked in under it, making it a nearly perfect rectangular box. He pivoted and handed it up to two of the other members of Alpha Squad, who struggled with the weight while stowing it on board.

  Glitch climbed up into the helicopter. Nathan followed him. Doc was already strapped in, sitting beside a dark-skinned woman with a shaved head and a cheerful smile.

  “Corporal Shawna Lake, sir,” she said by way of introduction. “But these grunts call me Needle.”

  “Because she can put a round through the eye of a needle at five hundred meters,” Glitch said.

  “You’re a sniper?” Nathan asked.

  “Typically.” She patted the rifle resting between her legs. It had a relatively short barrel and a large magazine and didn’t look like a sniper rifle to him, save for the scope on top. “It’s a Gauss rifle. Tinker designed it.”

  “It can punch through armor at half a klick,” Glitch said. “Punch through a trife at two k.”

  Needle smiled proudly and flicked her thumb toward the other two soldiers. “Those two are Privates Grimes and Pokey. If you think they look similar, it’s because they’re brothers.”

  “Colonel,” Grimes said, waving to him.

  “Colonel,” Pokey said.

  Nathan could see the resemblance. Both men were tall and fit, their muscles pressing against the sleeves of their uniforms. They had short-cropped light brown hair to go with pale complexions.

  “Buzzcut is up front at the stick,” Doc said. She leaned back and tapped him on the shoulder, and he flashed them a thumbs up.

  Nathan took one of the seats in the back of the helicopter. The middle of the floor was open, though there was a high-powered cannon mounted to the port side, fed ammunition from a box clamped to the floor beside it. Glitch sat beside him on one side, Pokey on the other. Grimes joined Doc and Needle.

  General Stacker jumped onto the choppe
r, landing with enough force to bounce it on its wheels. He moved to the center of the vessel and lightly pounded the ceiling. Buzzcut reacted by increasing throttle to the rotors, and a moment later they started to rise.

  Nathan looked out toward the ground as the helicopter lifted higher into the air. The noise of the rotors and engine was loud, but as they neared a hundred meters Buzzcut flipped a switch, and almost all of the sound seemed to disappear.

  Nathan looked around, surprised by the sudden dampening. He noticed James’ head was facing him, and he wondered what the Stacker thought of his reaction.

  “Counterbalanced audio frequencies,” James said through his comm. “Reduces noise slip to less than twenty centimeters. The United States Marines developed them during the war. You can imagine how useful they were for inception and extraction in hostile territory.”

  “Yes, sir,” Nathan replied, forgetting to activate the comm. The other soldiers looked over at him, and each grinned as they looked away again. He bit down, activating the comm. “Yes, sir,” he repeated.

  The chopper swung north, accelerating forward. Nathan watched as they passed over a line of fencing around the base. There were a few trife walking along the perimeter and a dead one beside the barrier. A line of trees stood beyond it, and he noticed a road to the west. It was brown and gray, beaten and faded, but it offered clear passage. There were dead trife on either side of it, black spots along the side of the highway. The Liberators had taken that same road to the island hours before.

  “How do you keep it clear?” Nathan asked. He could see there were a lot of paths leading off the main roadway, and most of them were grown over or made more narrow by vegetation and time.

  “Once you move the old junkers out of the way, once you clear out the weeds, it’s clear,” James said. “The trife are going to come. Just don’t let them catch you.”