REV- Rebirth

by T. R. Harris

  He was weak from grief. He’d been in the Marines for twenty-three years, and this was by far the greatest loss of life he’d ever commanded. As he hunched over the table in the Wardroom, alone for the time being, he tried to replace his sorrow with anger, but that wasn’t happening, not yet. Every time he tried to focus on the fucking Qwin and their backstabbing Lanic sycophants, it was replaced with the graphic drone images of his troops being blown to bits by well-placed IEDs and gunfire from an overwhelming alien force—a force they were told wasn’t there. Eventually, the pain would be replaced with rage, but for now he mourned the fallen.

  General Jack Diamond entered the room. Daugherty sucked in a deep breath to gather his composure. The general waited until the distraught junior officer had risen to his feet before saying to him, as you were. Newbie generals were the worst. Especially this asshole.

  Diamond moved to the coffeemaker and poured himself a cup, leisurely adding sweetener and cream before coming to the table.

  “How you holding up, colonel?” he asked. Daugherty got the impression Diamond didn’t give a shit; it was just polite to ask.

  “Working my way through it, general. Pretty soon I’ll be mad as a hornet and looking for payback. I’m not even sure who I hate more, the fucking Qwin or the natives who fed us all that bullshit about needing our help.”

  “I understand.”

  “How are your REVs doing?” Daugherty asked. He knew about the second REV being tended to in sickbay. Unlike Diamond, Daugherty really was interested in the answer.

  “Sergeant Savage looks like he’ll make it. The other one, not so sure. We’ll know in a couple of hours.”

  “That was some miraculous shit those guys pulled off. Weren’t those two of the REVs from the Temple mission?”

  “Ross and Johnson.”

  “That’s right. I thought they were dead.”

  Diamond pursed his lips. “So did I. I guess you can never count a REV out…apparently.”

  Daugherty frowned. That was a shitty thing to say, especially with Diamond being part of the program. You would think he’d be more excited about finding two of his senior REVs still alive after all this time. As a matter of fact…how was that even possible?

  “Didn’t I hear they were flying the younger one out to find some NT-4, that they had none left at Unity? Don’t Ross and Johnson need their own? It’s been three months since they landed at Unity.”

  Diamond sipped his coffee. “Give it a rest, Sam. That’s classified.”

  Daugherty sat up straighter. “Classified? Bullshit, Jack. I’m the senior Marine commander aboard the Eldorado. I need to know what’s going on.”

  “You may be in command, but you’re not the senior officer,” Diamond snapped. “As such, accept the fact that there are certain things you don’t need to know.”

  Daugherty considered the younger—yet higher ranking—officer for a moment. Then he stood up. “Thanks, general,” he said.

  Diamond frowned. “Thanks for what?”

  “For taking my mind off my dead Marines. Now I have something new to focus my anger on. Enjoy your fucking coffee, general, sir.”

  Daugherty stormed from the room, leaving General Jack Diamond alone…again.

  Captain Lofton led the small parade of concerned officers and enlisted to the vicinity of the sickbay. It was only the vicinity because this part of the huge battle-carrier was overflowing with people, both the injured and their attending medical staff. Anyone in the fleet with medical training had been shuttled to the carrier to help. Even still, there was far too many in need for the resources available.

  However, the REVs had been given priority since they had their own section of the sickbay devoted to their maintenance and recovery.

  Lofton and others worked their way through the ungodly landscape, where every room, corridor and alcove was occupied with the burnt, bleeding or simply dead. Already, another twenty-three Marines had been added to the casualty list, with more coming.

  When they entered the sequestered REV ward, many of Lofton’s surviving medical team were frantically working on Sergeant Savage. He was unconscious—as he would remain until given the RG-9 to revive him after most of the damage to his body had been patched up, but hardly repaired. From the look of things, that was going to take a while. His entire right side was one massive black bruise from where he was hit by the racing truck. His right arm was also broken, but not from the crash. This was a result of the battle with the alien REV. His face was barely recognizable, swollen to the point where his eyes were mere slits in the black and yellow flesh. There were other injuries, but at this point most of the minor ones were being ignored.

  Lofton caught the eye of the lead surgeon. He sent the captain an encouraging nod and a thin smile. The officer had been around REV ops long enough to have seen far worse, and still the operative had lived. It was a testament to the miracle of NT-4. Or in Pete’s case, NT-5.

  Lofton debated telling the doctors about the variant in Pete’s veins. He didn’t know if it would make a difference. If he was scheduled for a maintenance boost, then maybe. But right now all the doctors were doing was repairing the damage—damage that unfortunately was commonplace for a REV after a Run.

  He looked over at the other patient in the room. Ross, Johnson and Captain Drake were near the bed as other doctors worked on the comatose REV, but at a much less frenetic pace. The man was on the verge of dying, having had his life-preserving residual NT-4 drop to a dangerous level. Larry Hand—that was his name Lofton remembered—was on the maintenance bed, his arms and legs in restraints. A guard with a tranquilizer gun was on station as a precaution. Sergeant Hand was about to be shot up with NT-4 in a desperate bid to save his life. The problem: If his residuals were too low, all the drug would do is activate the REV to the point of terminal cascading, with nothing to hold back the effect.

  “Stand back,” the doctor ordered.

  Everyone in the room knew why. If this didn’t work there wouldn’t be much left of Larry’s body afterwards.

  The NT-4 was injected, all at once and a full combat dose.

  Where once Larry Hand was peacefully asleep, a moment later he let out the primal scream of a REV, while arching his body and back at an impossible angle. The restraints held, and the body fell back on the bed with a thud. Larry’s eyes were open impossibly wide, with the whites now literally blood-red. He was frothing at the mouth and writhing—not in pain, since at this point REVs felt no pain—but from pure electric energy. His body was cascading and would soon reach the first plateau, the operational level where he would be during a Run. If everything went right, be would stabilize. At that point, there was a good chance he would survive.

  But then the doctors scrambled back to the bedside, falling on their wriggling patient to hold him still. All the IVs had been torn from his flesh in the first few seconds of activation; now they struggled to reattach them, while others resorted to pneumatic injection guns to deliver the Twilight to the rapidly cascading REV.

  Lofton and the others stepped back. They knew what was coming.

  Larry Hand’s chest exploded, as did his eyes, spraying the medical team with blood and sinew. The intensity of the discharge was incredible, as his heart had been beating at over two hundred beats per minute and his blood pressure was over three hundred fifty. But it only lasted a second, before Larry’s mangled body settled back onto blood-soaked sheets. Fountains of thick red liquid continued to shoot from the grotesque chest cavity for a moment longer, dropping in volume with each passing second. Soon, all was quiet, all was still.

  Even for a team of REV doctors, this was too much for some. Two of them turned away and vomited. Everyone was covered in blood, as were the walls and the stunned observers.

  There was a moment of quiet in the REV ward, as even those attending to Pete Savage stood in silence, looking through a window at the carnage in the adjoining suite. But then they turned back to their patient, many whispering a soft prayer that it wasn’t
them in the other room.

  Someone had the courtesy to drape a clean sheet over Larry’s body. It helped, for a moment, until blood began to seep through the fabric.

  Kyle, Donovan and Drake moved away and into the corridor outside the room. They had blood on their uniforms, but not like the medical team. Lofton joined them, he, too with REV blood on his khakis.

  “I’m terribly sorry,” he said after a moment. “I know you were close.”

  “Closer than most,” Captain Drake agreed. “We spent four months together on Unity, and without all the normal segregation between REV and crew like on a starship. I got to know Larry as a person, and not just as a REV.”

  “We all did, captain,” said Kyle Johnson. “He was a good man.”

  “You did your best,” said Lofton, “more than most could’ve done.” He nodded toward the other hospital suite and the still chaotic activity around Pete Savage. “And Pete owes his life to you. It could have very easily gone the other way.”

  Just then, Master Sergeant Bull Bullock pushed his way through the crowd of nurses, doctors and attendants in the corridor to reach the REV ward. He was cut up and bleeding, but so far had not received any medical attention. His injuries weren’t severe enough to take time or attention from the more critical. He took in the horrific scene and the solemn expressions of the blood-splattered men.

  “And Savage?” he asked Captain Lofton.

  “He’ll make it, thanks to these men.”

  Lofton could tell the huge black man had already heard of the unexpected rescue of Pete Savage at the Bountiful stadium. Now he blinked several times staring at the two REVs.

  “Ross…Johnson, what the hell are you doing here?”

  “Hello master sergeant. Long time no see.”

  Captain Lofton frowned. “You know each other?”

  “Yeah, I was their instructor at Camp Slater.”

  “What’s Camp Slater?” Lofton asked. “I’ve never heard of it.”

  “It was a secret base for the training of special REVs,” Bullock said, figuring everyone here were old friends, so no need to keep secrets.

  “For the REVs who went on the Temple mission?” Drake spit out. “Now it makes sense. So you know about them, what they’re like?”

  “I’m surprised you do, sir,” Bullock said.

  “What’s going on here?” Lofton asked. He was at a loss as to what everyone was talking about. He appeared to be the only one.

  Kyle looked at the officer and smiled. “Well, sir, I say we all get a change of clothes and meet somewhere for a private debrief. I’m sure you’ll find what we have to tell you will be interesting, to say the least.”

  It was obvious the gunnery sergeant thought he was the only one with secrets. Lofton smiled. “Sounds good. And I have a few secrets of my own to reveal. Let’s see who has the most startling.”

  Donovan and Kyle looked at each other, questioning how Lofton’s information could be any more startling than theirs? But Lofton knew about Diamond and NT-5. He’d also witnessed the unusual behavior Pete displayed on the Run. He’d made conscious decisions. That had to be a result of the new formula, Diamond’s formula.

  Lofton allowed himself a small internal smirk. Just wait until they hear what I have to tell them. It will blow their goddamn socks off.

  Thirty minutes later—and in the unit’s briefing room at the aft end of the battle-carrier—it was Captain Lofton who sat with his mouth agape, stunned in disbelief at what he’d just heard, his socks figuratively blown across the room. He looked into the faces of all in attendance, which included the two REVs and Bullock. Hell, even Captain Drake knew, apparently. And from their uniform expressions, Lofton knew everything he had just heard was the absolute truth. It made his tidbits of gossip pale into insignificance…and yet they could be related. He decided to tell them anyway. But first….

  “You can survive without maintenance boosts?” he asked the REVs.

  “Yes, sir.” Donovan answered.

  “And it’s this natural NT-4-like substance that does it?”

  Again the affirmative.

  “Why am I just now hearing about this?”

  “There’s only a handful of us like this,” Kyle answered for the pair.

  “The team that attacked the Temple?”

  “That’s right. Now with Mike and Zac dead—”

  “We aren’t sure about Zac,” Donovan pointed out.

  Kyle shrugged. “Even if he isn’t now, he will be soon. The Antaere don’t like keeping prisoners around. For sure there are only three of us: me, Don and Angus.”

  “And Cross knows about this?”

  “Yes, sir. We were on our way back to Earth to be studied when we ended up at Unity. I assumed Zac and Angus made it. We didn’t get any outside news at the enclave.”

  Lofton wasn’t sure how his information related, but instinctively he felt it did.

  “Here’s the news I have that might contribute to the mystery, gentlemen. Have any of you heard of NT-5?”

  There were negative responses around the table. “I assume it’s an advance form of NT-4,” Captain Drake offered.

  “We all know the illustrious General Diamond….” Frowns confirmed the universal sentiments towards the so-called intelligence officer. “Well he brought a batch of the new formula with him. That’s what Pete Savage had in him during the Run.”

  No one picked up on the significance until Lofton explained more. “During the Run, Pete exhibited definite signs of forethought, reasoning and decision making. He ran from the Antaere mech warrior, bypassed targets, and then devised a plan to defeat the enemy. Aren’t those the same traits you mentioned Murphy showed that got this whole thing started?”

  “So Pete’s like us?” Kyle asked.

  “Looks like it,” Lofton confirmed.

  “Or was it the drug?” Drake asked.

  Lofton shook his head. “Who knows? But get this, Mr. Diamond has ordered us not to reveal the presence of the NT-5, and he’s also having Pete sent back to Earth as soon as he can be moved.”

  “What the hell is he and Cross up to?” Drake asked.

  “I don’t know,” Lofton said. “But it’s clear that they’re trying to discover others like the gunny sergeants.”

  “Or create us with this new NT-5,” Kyle added. Then he gave the officer a sly grin. “And now you’ve gone against a direct order to tell us. Shame on you, Mr. Lofton.”

  “Hey, this entire mission has been a clusterfuck from the beginning,” Lofton snarled. “Diamond had no business screwing with things, not in the field. Do your damn tests under more controlled conditions, not during the first Run in nearly a year. There were too many lives at risk.”

  “And now there’s another special REV,” Bull stated, joining the conversation. “That means there could be more. But let me say, while I was at Camp Slater, there were plans for more REVs to be transferred in. Cross must have already known—or suspected—there would be more. But we never got the chance after the Temple of Light mission.”

  Something dawned on Kyle. “You don’t suppose we were given this NT-5, instead of -4, and that’s why we are the way we are?”

  There was silence around the table as each man considered the possibility.

  “But you’re producing a natural chemical,” said Captain Drake. “That takes time for the body to adapt, to mutate. I can’t see how a single dose of a new drug could create such a drastic change so fast.”

  “So they’re unrelated?” Kyle asked.

  Drake shook his head. “I’m with Captain Lofton; confused as hell and with more questions than answers. Only General Diamond and Colonel Cross have the answers, and they’re not talking, at least not to grunts like us.”

  There was another moment of silence in the room before Donovan spoke up. “So what now?” He looked at Kyle. “What happens to us?”

  “The ship is heading back to Crious,” Lofton reported. “That’s where nearly all the REVs are being held. But if Cross want
ed you on Earth before, once he finds out you’re with the fleet, you may be whisked away in a heartbeat.” He smirked. “After all, as General Diamond said, you belong to the Corps.”

  “As we all do,” Drake threw in, a sour look on his face.

  “He didn’t have to remind us.”

  13

  It had been a harrowing thirty-six days before the Zanzibar and her passengers entered what could be considered Human space. The designation was fluid with the everchanging dynamics of the war. Even then, they still had another twenty-eight days to go before reaching Earth.

  Feeling safe enough to make contact with Earth Military Command, the passengers opened a channel, and soon a four-ship escort showed up to provide cover for the remainder of the journey to the homeworld. During this time, Command had wanted to transfer the Corollaries to a faster ship, until it was demonstrated that there were no faster ships in the fleet than the Zanzibar. Besides, General Bill Smith wanted to personally deliver the documents to the planet. Although he’d already sent a video of the sacred texts to Earth, it was only through the authentication of the originals would he and the REVs find absolution for their perceived sins. He didn’t trust the documents to be in anyone’s hands but his.

  While still in Antaere space, about the only news they received was from Qwin-censored sources. As usual, the broadcasts were full of stories of the destruction of the Temple of Light, as well as the near-constant confessions of Zac Murphy. Smith and the others knew it was all bullshit, but it wasn’t until they got closer to Earth that the counter-broadcasts began to filter through, explaining how the images of Zac were computer-generated. The Earth-originated reports were convincing, if people took the time to listen. They showed microscopic images of the recordings, detailing how Zac’s image was digitized, along with other tell-tale signs. The Antaere countered these reports with ones of their own, claiming how the so-called proof was itself fake. It was a vicious circle of charge-counter charge.