Reclaim: Books 1-3

by J. A. Scorch

  Teve got halfway across without hassle until a blast of water hit his face and caused one of his feet to slip the slightest amount. He tried to correct the imbalance, but the move only made things worse as his overcorrection sent him off the edge and to the right.

  In what felt like slow motion, Teve flew through the air and caught sight of the spike that would kill him as his body came closer and closer to being impaled upon the sharpened pole. As he readied himself for death, a strange thing happened. Teve landed with a thud on a dusty padded surface. He instantly patted around his body, convinced he had fallen onto a spike.

  "What the hell?" he asked out loud. Ward dropped down to his level and pulled him up off the ground.

  "Did I say you could take a nap, Tower?"

  "Sir, no, sir," Teve said.

  "Then drop down and give me thirty push-ups. Go."

  Teve complied, dropping all the way to the ground and back up again, unsure how he was still alive. His eyes spotted a few projectors creating the illusion of the spikes. A smile formed at the corner of his mouth.

  "You think this is funny, Private?"

  "No, sir."

  "Then why don't you retake the course. Show us how to do it. See if you can finish the damn thing this time instead of falling on your face like a piece of shit recruit."

  Teve stood and scurried up a nearby ladder, happy to be alive. The spikes were not real. He let the thought sink in, hoping that Pendle wasn't full of crazy COs and guards all out to kill him.

  The others all watched on as Teve redid the obstacle course, each of them sizing him up from below. He finished this time without falling like a moron and came up to his CO with a smile.

  "Good work, Private. Now, let's do that again with some real danger." Ward slapped a button on the first wall and released a series of spikes from the ground, their metal tips making a loud noise as they all stabbed out into the world.

  Teve stumbled back as the lieutenant approached. "Four minutes, maggot."

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Porter, Briggs, Cannon, and Smith worked through the night, all occupying Garcia's control room, going over what data they had on the surviving carriers. The attack by the Zeal had done more harm than anyone thought possible.

  Cannon read out a summary of her report "Turns out the Andromeda held up the best. Cigar, Hoag, and Sombrero all suffered near critical damage and are barely operational."

  "Can they launch fighters?" Briggs asked.

  "About fifty percent. Some of the slingshots were destroyed intentionally by the Zeal. Bastards knew what they were doing."

  "I still don't understand. How the hell did they know what to trash and where to find it?"

  "The more important question," Porter said, "is how did they predict our attack schedule."

  Cannon stepped in between the two pilots. "Might be luck. I can't accept that they knew we were about to launch everything."

  "I think we might need to. There's a very real possibility that the fleet has been compromised."

  "Compromised," Smith spat out. "How?"

  "Don't know. Best thing I can guess would be they understand our network. Maybe they hacked in."

  "Aliens?" Smith asked, scoffing his words.

  Porter raised his brows. "How else can you explain it? They pre-emptively struck our fleet and cut its capabilities in half with only minimal cost to their remaining numbers. I'd hate to see what would have happened if they employed this eagerness from the start."

  "Best not to think that way," Garcia said as she entered the room.

  "Any news, ma'am?" he asked, attempting to hide his concern.

  "Just an update on the death toll by a few hundred."

  "Any pilots?" Briggs asked.

  Garcia faced him as she set down her gear and rearranged her desk. "Twenty-three more pilots KIA."

  A collective groan filled the room. Briggs slumped down into the nearest seat. "Where does that leave us?"

  Cannon tapped a few commands into her tablet. "367 pilots flight-ready."

  "Jesus Christ," he said. "How many of that number are combat-ready?"

  "270 including us. About half of those are cadets."

  Porter scoffed as he paced over to her. "So we're going in with an outnumbered, imbalanced force. Should be great. I'll start lining up the coffins now. Save us some time."

  "It's not all doom and gloom," Garcia said, speaking louder than before. "We still have the X90S in operation."

  Porter chuckled. "One damn stealth ship. Big deal. Do you honestly think they won't see that coming?"

  "It's something. We fight with what we have at our disposal. Anything else is a dream now."

  Porter held his tongue. It was easy for Garcia to speak about the op as if it was nothing. She wouldn't be the one throwing herself into the teeth of the enemy in less than eight hours.

  "What do you propose we do with the stealth ship, then? It's not like we can lob off another nuke inside if Command still wants the carrier intact."

  Garcia glanced to her left and right as if she were about to say something classified. In her defense, the Zeal could have been listening or watching given the recent attack.

  "I propose we use the stealth ship to place a small team of MAF Marines inside. They would then attempt to disable the Tritons and help us avoid the turkey shoot we're all expecting."

  Porter scrunched up his brow and pinched the bridge of his nose. "What is it with you and crazy plans, Commodore?"

  "Who knows? Probably has something to do with the fact that Command can't get rid of me."

  He shook his head with a smile. "Well, we haven't come up with much ourselves. So how does this plan of yours work?"

  Flipping over her tablet, Garcia brought up schematics of the X90S Stalker. A section underneath the ship that resembled a delivery package stood out to Porter as he picked up the screen.

  "That's new," he said, tapping the display.

  "Not exactly. The unit was part of the design. I had the techs strip the option out last time so we could fit the nuke. We've still got the thing down in storage. At least we did until the Zeal showed up."

  Porter grabbed the tablet and studied the dimensions of the package. It was smaller than the ones found on a standard Stalker when the MAF was still delivering supplies to Earth. Garcia continued.

  "You could fit a fire team of Marines within this space. They would be covered by the ship's stealth tech. If we can insert the X90S inside the Cyclone again, it could drop them off to an ideal location to maximize their chances of sabotage."

  "That simple, huh?"

  "In theory. In reality, there are about a million things that could go wrong."

  Without a word, he handed back the tablet. "Sounds like any other mission you send me on. When do I launch?"

  "I never said it had to be you, Captain."

  "Cut the crap, ma'am. We both know you want me on this mission. I have the most experience with the X90S."

  She smiled at him. "Thank you, Porter. I understand I demand a lot from you, but this plan might just save a heap of pilots. Our only problem is the lost package ..." She trailed off as she studied her tablet.

  "Do you have a backup?"

  "No. And you can forget about a standard issue X90 unit. They won't fit."

  Porter scratched at his chin. "So how are we supposed to do this without the delivery system? The X90S is a single-seater."

  "There's a second X90S delivery unit sitting on one of the carriers—the MBC Mayall. If we can retrieve the package in time, we can fly a team of Marines inside the Cyclone."

  "I thought the Mayall had been destroyed?"

  "Officially, yes. But unofficially there are a few remaining on board keeping the old girl going. The surviving crew abandoned ship, leaving behind a defective X90S on one of the decks with its package unit still attached. She's waiting to be picked up."

  Porter whistled as he shook his head. "You don't ask for much, do you? Anyway, we'll get it done, ma'am. There's n
o other choice. Command's plan is only going to push us back further when it all falls apart. The Zeal will regain the upper hand."

  Garcia nodded a few times as she half chuckled to herself. "To think I almost had you sent back to Mars." The commodore gazed off into the distance for a moment.

  Cannon and Briggs rallied around Porter, giving off as much confidence as possible.

  Briggs stepped to his side and faced Garcia. "How can we help?"

  The commodore took her eyes off her tablet and lowered the device to the table. "Briggs go with Porter. Take Smith with you as well."

  "Huh?" Smith muttered.

  "You'll be fine, Cadet." Garcia turned back to Porter. "Cannon will stay here with me and help plan the op."

  Porter nodded to his superior officer and glanced from Garcia to Cannon and back again. "Just clear us to board the Mayall so we can retrieve the damn unit. We'll have her over here within the hour." He gave Nicole a quick look and began to leave the control room with Briggs and Smith. The commodore and Cannon wished them all luck.

  As the three headed down to Deck C, Briggs put his arm around Smith. Porter glanced sideways at the cadet, seeing his nerves come out. Briggs addressed the problem head on.

  "Don't worry, Smith. This will be a cake walk. In and out, back home for dinner."

  "Okay," he said. "Should be easy. Just need to wrap my head around everything that is happening."

  "That's the MAF for you, man. We go from one cluster fuck to the next."

  The cadet let out a small laugh as Porter turned his attention back to the job at hand. "Let's just get through this mission before we worry about the next one. It's all we can do. If you sit back and take it all in at once, you'll lose your shit."

  The three pilots moved through the chaos of Deck C and found a transporter to take them over to the Mayall. Porter climbed into the two-seater cockpit with Briggs and began doing his preflight checks while Smith settled into one of the bays.

  Briggs shot him a familiar look. "So, what do you really think about all of this? The cadet can't hear us."

  Flicking a few buttons on a panel above his head, Porter couldn't help but let out a laugh. "Well, we're being sent on one insane mission after the other just to take on an enemy that seems to outsmart us at every turn. We couldn't be more screwed if we tried."

  Briggs smiled out of the corner of his mouth. "Wouldn't have it any other way."

  Porter completed his preflight checks and rumbled the engine online. The bulky transporter didn't shoot out the side of the ship. Instead, the truck-in-space gently flew out beyond the Andromeda. Porter pointed it toward the Mayall and flicked on the autopilot.

  "ETA: ten minutes." He kicked back and took a moment to close his eyes. Opportunities to rest were becoming rarer by the day. The Zeal and the MAF weren't going to stop until one side was dead.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Teve finished the obstacle course a third time without falling to his death. He wasn't sure if the real threat of deadly spikes set up all around the area was any different to the fake superimposed ones that existed a moment ago, but something got him across the line in a shorter time without fault.

  "Pathetic, Tower," Ward yelled. "You think that time is worthy of my attention? I'd send you back through again, but I don't feel like mopping up the blood from your asshole when you fall on one of these spikes like a moron."

  It was a fair call to make as Teve stood there, not short on breath, but short on control. His mind was scattered and unfocused. A foggy haze had replaced his laser-sharp instincts.

  Teve waited for the other four to finish the course again. None of them slipped up or came close to dying, their times better than his. It felt strange not being the leader of the group. His experience in the UEF had always left him thinking he was the best of a bad bunch with the exception of Mish. Now he could barely stay within a minute of the next private's time.

  "All of you get the hell out of my sight, now. Hit the showers and report to the mess. You've got ten minutes to shower and ten minutes to eat; then we start training.

  "Training, sir?" Pocket asked.

  "Yes, Pocket, training. What? Did you think this was training? This playground is nothing but a warm-up. Hit the showers, now. I can smell the stink of failure on all of you."

  Teve fell in line, following Romeo and Bean. He had no idea where anything was in Pendle and hoped they at least knew the layout.

  "Where do we go?" Red asked in his Russian accent.

  "Don't say a word," Romeo said. "The CO will be watching our every move."

  "But he is still back there. How could he hear us?"

  "Trust me, Red, he's listening. Probably has cameras everywhere. Now shut the hell up and follow Tower."

  "But it is late at night. We should be in bed to rest."

  Teve sensed the tension in the air as Red grumbled in Romeo's direction. Bean and Pocket continued, their silence giving the group some sense of calm.

  Pocket led them to the showers through the head, somehow knowing the layout. Teve tried to remember the way, realizing it was a different shower block to the one he had already been in. It was hard to memorize the floor plan with Prescott shocking him every step of the way.

  As soon as they arrived at the showers, they all began to strip off and bathe with hot water. It felt amazing compared to the ice-cold delousing Teve suffered on his arrival. He figured Prescott was only trying to rile him up via the typical army training methods. If a soldier was kept angry and obedient, they became a useful tool to be utilized in the field. Simple.

  Teve stood naked in the steam, absorbing every thin blade of water that hit his back. His eyes couldn't help but wander around the room, landing on Pocket and Romeo—the only two women he'd seen in recent times other than Mish. Their perfect, young bodies only reminded him of his friend and sent a stabbing pain through his chest.

  As the steam began to fade, he saw the telltale signs of the virus in each of the privates' systems. None of them had the purple eyes but the odd Zeal tech breaking through various sections of skin. Teve only had the Zeal eyes himself. It was at that moment he realized everyone here had to be between twenty and twenty-five years old, leaving him to be the oldest one.

  "Hey, Tower," Romeo said. "Are you going to stare at my tits all day, or are you going to get the hell out of the shower and head to the mess?"

  "Sorry, I was in another place. Just trying to get my head around everything."

  "I didn't ask for an excuse. Just keep your shit in check. I don't need a good reason to break your neck." Romeo threw on her clothing in a hurry. It was as if she'd been through this place before and knew what was coming next.

  To fit in, Teve dried off as fast as possible and got dressed. His fatigues stuck to his still-wet skin, making the task more difficult to achieve, but a few minutes later, they arrived in the mess hall.

  The area was modest, with only a basic kitchen attached to five tables. It was then that Teve realized he hadn't seen any other soldiers training in the facility. How few in numbers were the Special Forces? He tried to squash the thought as he slammed a disgusting meal down his throat that Romeo served them directly from the kitchen herself. There was no staff to be found to serve up whatever food they were about to eat. Time had a way of getting away from him.

  He finished what he figured to be a plate of gruel, taking in every calorie possible, not knowing when the next supply of energy was coming. Basic taught him the valuable lesson not to assume the next meal would come as scheduled. Your CO might storm in as you were about to take your first bite of the day and demand you all clean the latrine again.

  Ward burst through a set of double doors attached to the kitchen as if on cue and came charging up to the table of five. He was still wearing his reflective shades. "Forks down, assholes. It's time to train."

  Teve couldn't help but stare at the grin on the man's face. His lips pushed up his thin mustache, baring his white teeth. "Did I stutter? We're going to start t
he session off with some light running.

  "But, sir. It is late," Red said.

  Ward ignored the private and leaned a few inches closer to the group.

  The five privates all jumped up from the fixed, metal table.

  "Something wrong, Privates? Did I not make myself clear? Start running, right now. Go."

  Like a swarm of birds scattering from an eager toddler in the park, the five all ran in different directions. Teve tried to follow Pocket, Pocket tried to follow Bean, and Bean stopped in the middle of the room when he saw Romeo leave.

  "That way," he said. "Follow Romeo. She knows what's going on."

  "Sounds good to me," Teve said as he ran after her. The rest followed, Red included. Ward kept the pace behind them, nipping at their heals with his clomping feet over the hard surface of the base.

  There was no soft outdoor area to run along underground. Only the hardened, artificially-lit environment that Pendle created greeted them as they ran as one through the halls. After a few minutes, Teve figured it didn't matter where they went, as long as they were running. Ward kept his mouth relatively shut, only ever opening it with the occasional bit of ranting.

  Romeo seemed to be taking them on a large loop of the facility. She had to have gone through the training before. There was no way she could be that switched on to the place. The thought sent a pang of anxiety down Teve's back. The idea of going through this process more than once made him want to die.

  "Listen up, maggots. It's time to kick this little Sunday stroll into gear. On my mark, I want you to book it double time."

  "What?" Red asked, not understanding the lieutenant's various idioms and expressions.

  "Go, go, go," Ward yelled.

  Staring ahead, Teve checked to see what Romeo did. She charged off, her tied-back blonde hair bouncing along. He pumped hard after her, making sure to keep her pace. If they were all running a marathon, they'd each be burning their legs out within a few minutes. But they were not ordinary people.

  Teve looked down as his limbs took long, powerful strides, blurring together as one without him feeling strained. He felt like a robot, but he could stay like this all day.