by J. A. Scorch
Teve felt the crunch of the road below him as the truck bounced its way along to the nearest active airfield big enough to fly them to Central. The Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport had been wiped out during the initial invasion. The Zeal were once a mobile attack force, using the transport ships that came from the Cyclone carriers high above Earth's orbit to move freely about the planet. When enough cities had been reduced to rubble, the transporters settled down and became the bases that were now scattered across Earth.
Teve swept his eyes around the flatbed, finding his brother sitting opposite from him. Absent from the underloaded truck was Mish. She refused to go along with Teve and face a pointless death in space. He made a choice to fight of his own accord. Something in the back of his mind drove him on to keep opposing the Zeal no matter what until his last breath. If the MAF and the UEF could pull off the impossible, he would return to Earth and find her.
"Listen up, folks," said the driver over the comm. "We've got about six hours of driving before we reach the cargo plane that will transport you to Central Command. You'll be linking up with a few hundred other pilots and soldiers for the journey to Mars."
Teve spotted a few other trucks along the roads in the distance. It was like the war was moving on from Earth. He shook his head and muttered, not wanting to hear every little thought that popped into the driver's head over the next six hours.
Teve stood from the uncomfortable bench seat and stretched his legs. He spied around the cargo bay of the flatbed at the lethargic MAF pilots. He was the only UEF soldier on board apart from the driver.
Lieutenant Clay sat next to Bradley with crossed arms, leaning his head back against the wall of the inner flatbed. The sun was beating down hard, so the officer had a wide-brimmed MAF hat covering half of his face.
After stepping a few paces over, Teve sat down in the space beside him to get a slightly different perspective on the long trip. Clay stirred from his half-slumber and removed his hat to scratch his head. He noticed Teve sitting by his side.
"Are you enjoying the ride, Sergeant?" Clay asked, glancing sideways.
Teve didn't answer him straight away, letting out a long breath before he gave him a response. "Of course, sir. Who wouldn't love crawling along in this slow heap of junk?"
"Yeah, it's going to be a dull trip to Mars. Wish we had some of that Zeal interstellar tech to get us there faster."
A chuckle escaped Teve's lips. "Speaking of, how are the scientists going on that carrier the MAF took control of? Have they found anything we can use against the Zeal?"
"Last I heard, they hadn't learned much. Apart from working out that more of those things are on their way here, the taking of the carrier was almost a waste of time."
Teve glanced past Clay to Bradley sitting on the other side of the lieutenant. He knew that his brother had risked his life multiple times to take the Zeal carrier in one piece at the cost of many MAF lives. Knowing the effort pilots and soldiers like him had gone through to satisfy Command's desires to play God was fresh on Teve's mind. It seemed that both he and Bradley had been asked on more than one occasion to go beyond the call of duty for the sake of someone up top.
Clay continued without being prompted. "Yeah, if you ask me, we should have blown that carrier to hell when we had the chance. Maybe we wouldn't have lost a large chunk of our own fleet trying to take the ship alive."
"That's the brass for you," Teve said. The report he'd read on the final carrier mission seemed different in his head than hearing it from an MAF pilot's perspective. He wanted to ask Bradley about the op more than anyone else, but something told him the conversation would be short lived. "So how are we going to fight off this new fleet?" Teve asked.
Clay swung his head all the way around to Teve with raised brows. "You're asking me? That sounds like a question for the captain." Clay shifted focus to Bradley and gave him a nudge. "What's the plan, sir?"
Bradley seemed to snap out of a daydream when Clay got his attention. "Sorry? Plan?"
"For the Zeal," Teve said. "How are we going to fight them?"
Opening his mouth to show he understood the question, Bradley fell back into his seat as Teve stood and moved his way around to a spare spot by his brother's side.
Teve spoke first. "I need to know that there's a plan being put into motion when we head up there."
Bradley half smiled as he crossed his arms. "I'm sure Command has something wonderful planned for us all. I wish I could tell you more, but you know what it's like: they don't say anything until we absolutely need to know."
Teve let out an audible huff. "I was afraid you'd say that. I guess I was just trying to make sense of why I decided to come. If there were some sort of grand plan underway, I'd feel a little better about everything."
Bradley leaned forward and shuffled to the edge of his seat. He kept his eyes away from Teve's as if he was trying to contain his own doubts about the operation. "If I find anything out, I'll let you know."
"That doesn't sound too promising."
Bradley laughed. His boyish smile hadn't changed one bit since they last saw each other. "What's so funny?" Teve asked.
"Nothing. I just know how divided the MAF brass will be. They can never agree on a single approach. Our success so far has been at the hands of bold moves made by a lower ranked commodore on the MBC Andromeda and not the people at the top. I had to fight Commodore Garcia every step of the way, but in the end, she was always right."
Teve stared at Bradley as he leaned back in his seat with half a smile still on his lips. "Do you think she will have as much input this time around? From my experience, the people at the top don't like to be shown up by anyone lower than them."
Bradley tilted his head slightly at the thought. "Garcia might be the only ace up our sleeve we have left. If she's not a part of this whole thing, then we're all screwed." Bradley placed both hands behind his head and closed his eyes. Teve wanted to ask him more, but he knew there was no point in harassing his brother in their final hours they had left together
Teve crossed his arms and got comfortable himself to settle in for the slow trip to Mars.
As he slowly drifted off to sleep, he thought about the one he left behind. Mish's face filled his dreams and haunted him for the rest of the journey.
Chapter Forty-Three
Porter woke up when the truck pulled into the airport. After the personnel all piled out of the flatbed, they were ushered to a large UEF cargo plane due to take off once the last few MAF pilots and SF soldiers got on board. Porter and his small team settled in last.
Despite its name, Central was located nowhere near the middle of the country but in Florida. The old Kennedy Space Center that once launched scientific missions into space had been converted into the headquarters for the joint operation between the UEF and the MAF to ferry personnel from Earth to Mars. When Porter dropped out of orbit, he didn't need to go via Central as the station was only used to transport people into space.
After a short two-hour flight, the cargo plane touched down at one of the active runways and offloaded several hundred pilots and SF soldiers. The men and women were then transported to one of the primary launching pads for the biggest part of their journey.
Porter could see every launch pad was being used to send them all into space via the heavy-duty personnel lifters the UEF had managed to keep safe from the Zeal. Every major UEF base across the globe would be doing the same thing at that very moment, using whatever means they had to fly the right people to Mars.
When Porter strapped himself into a crash couch that would sustain him through the pain of the lifter being pushed up into space, he made sure Teve got the seat next to him.
"First time's the worst," he said to his brother.
"Don't tell me you can actually get used to this?" Teve replied.
Porter chuckled. "Of course not. I've only done this a handful of times."
"What's it like?" Teve asked as he buckled in. A corporal moved from se
at to seat, checking if the harnesses were secured correctly. The crash couches sat upright. As soon as the lifter was ready for takeoff, the seats would rotate back and pivot on a gyroscope to evenly spread out the excessive forces the journey would place on their bodies.
"Not the best. Unlike an MAF warship, these lifters only half counter the g-forces generated by the thrust needed to push us into space. These ships are older than anyone cares to think about."
"Well that puts my mind at ease," Teve said, doing little to hide his sarcasm.
"We'll be okay. These junkers won't be the thing to kill us this week. There's a whole bunch of aliens out there scheming to take us down. I doubt fate will let us die under such mundane circumstances."
Teve smiled. "How long have you been the MAF's chief morale booster for?"
Porter laughed at the joke. "How long have the Zeal been buzzing around for? That's how long I've been keeping this circus going."
"Feels like a circus sometimes," Teve said as the corporal checked his harness and gave it a slight adjustment. "So tell me this, then: What's it like being the big war hero who destroyed the Zeal fleet with his bare hands?"
Porter shook his head. "Is that the way people see me?"
"On Earth, yes. All I've heard about over the last year was a slightly less exaggerated version. Even Miller used to talk about you like you were some fearless demigod."
"Huh," Porter let out. "I doubt he thinks that now. Bastard is probably happy to know I'll be flying stick again. But to answer your question, it's all bullshit."
"What do you mean?"
A huff came out of Porter's mouth without thought. "I mean it's the worst part of this whole damn war for me. They treat me like I took out those carriers on my own, that I didn't have to witness hundreds of pilots die just to get me inside one of those damn Cyclones with a stealth fighter."
"It's hard to be the one who survives," Teve said. "I've seen so many young kids die under my command. Often too because of a stupid decision made entirely by me."
"It gets easier, though, doesn't it?" Porter asked.
"No, you get numbed with time. Over the last year, I've been killing my way into Zeal bases trying to save the prisoners inside before the Zeal flick a switch and kill them all. I stopped counting the dead regulars around me after the first mission. There were too many faces to remember. It's all one big blur now."
Porter's eyes fell at his feet. He toyed with the harness settings as Teve continued to speak about the past and the missions he'd survived as a regular soldier, one who wasn't enhanced with deadly alien nanites. The two had never swapped war stories before.
Porter realized his brother had been through hell fighting on the ground. It almost sickened him to know Mish was the only surviving soldier from his early USMC days when the war first began. The UEF was born out of necessity to combat the Zeal and unite the planet under one banner.
After a short conversation about the UEF, Teve filled Porter in on his time as a prisoner of the people he served. When Teve's nanite infection was first discovered, he got treated like an animal and was taken to various facilities for testing and enrollment in the Special Forces program. He was never given any choice in the matter until it came to light that the program was run by a deranged doctor operating without authority.
"So after I managed to escape that hell, I saw the man who had kept me prisoner be torn apart by the creatures he intended to control."
"That is all kinds of messed up. Beats me how you survived it," Porter said. "I think this war has done that to people."
"You're telling me. I don't remember the last mission I ran that didn't result in the deaths of thousands of people. Even with the greatest abilities in the world, I could never save those prisoners. None of us could."
"Don't beat yourself up. You did what you could. You fought the Zeal, using their own tech against them."
"Tech that's going to kill me," Teve said.
Porter dropped his head and realized what he had just mentioned. "Sorry, I didn't mean to remind you that—"
"It's fine," Teve said. "I've come to accept it."
"Really?" Porter asked as he attempted to lean closer toward him.
A few seconds had passed before Teve answered. "No. I thought I could push it out of my head and stay distracted, but—"
An announcement boomed through the ship, cutting him off. The voice simply reminded people to check their harnesses. Once the noise had disappeared, Porter motioned for Teve to continue.
"Doesn't matter," Teve said. "I wasn't going to say anything worth mentioning,"
Porter could tell he was lying, but he let the issue go for now. If the UEF and MAF managed to prevent the new Zeal fleet from turning the solar system into a wasteland, then the problem of Teve's health would become a priority. Until then, all either of them could do was pretend that he wasn't dying from within.
Chapter Forty-Four
Sergeant William Pérez tapped the metal surface of a built-in table top on an endless loop. He was sitting alone inside a Martian warship in a closed-off room. The tiny space reminded him of an interrogation chamber he once spent a few hours in on Mars at the local police station. The main difference with the current place he found himself in was there was no obvious two-way mirror dominating one of the walls with several impatient cops waiting behind it to trip him up.
After a few more minutes of time coming to a standstill, Pérez decided to stretch his legs and move about to give himself something to do. Right when he stood from the seat, the door behind him opened. An MAF commodore walked in, studying a tablet in her one of her hands while she held a small, metal container in the other. She practically ignored Pérez as she moved into the room and sat down in the opposite chair.
"My name is Commodore Garcia. Please take a seat, Sergeant," she said.
Pérez was unsure if this was an order or a request. Either way, he was in no position to argue against a commodore, so he sat back down on the solid chair.
"My apologies for the delay. Things are a little crazy around here, as you can imagine."
Pérez raised his brows without realizing, grabbing the officer's attention.
The commodore glanced up from her screen as a thought came across her face. "Sorry, I just realized who I'm talking to."
"That's okay, ma’am. I'm still not used to the thought that I've been unconscious for four years. In fact, the whole thing freaks me out."
Garcia placed her tablet face down on the metal table and focused all her attention forward. "How much do you understand about the past four years?"
"Not much. Just what the civvy captain of the freighter ship could tell me. The aliens I encountered made themselves at home and took over Earth. Mars managed to avoid the same fate by fending off the single ship that attacked the planet. He also told me a year ago the war took a turn in our favor."
"That's right. The MAF destroyed the Zeal fleet."
"Zeal?" Pérez asked.
Garcia raised her brows. "Oh, right. The Zeal, Sergeant, is what we all named the aliens. We don't know what they call themselves, nor does it matter. As I was saying, until recently, we were working together with the UEF to take out the remainder of the aliens still on Earth."
"Ma’am?" Pérez asked. "What do you mean recently?"
Garcia let out a long breath as she toyed with the tablet by sliding it across the table. "The destruction of the Zeal fleet, while being one of the greatest victories we've experienced, has only sparked the aliens to send a second fleet."
"A second fleet?" Pérez let out. "Like three more of those giant ships?"
The commodore shook her head. "If only. No, this new fleet not only has ships we've never seen before, but it is three times the size of the first. We had to throw every trick we had up our sleeves at the first oversized alien carriers to take them down. We even managed to take control of one of the big ships. But to take on a force three times as large almost seems impossible to think about."
Pére
z found his hand on his face. He began to rub his eyes with fury at the information being thrown at him by Garcia. He had missed the last four years of existence floating inside a small life pod while the world outside fought the enemy he tried so hard to warn humanity about.
"It's a lot to absorb, Sergeant. If circumstances allowed it, I would be giving you some time to adjust, but unfortunately, time is an asset we no longer possess."
Pérez removed his fingers from his eye and gave the officer his full attention. "Why am I in this room? I should be out there back in the ranks getting ready for this next wave."
A raised hand stopped Pérez from asking another question. "While I commend your enthusiasm, Sergeant, we have far too many items to discuss before we can let you continue to serve."
Pérez screwed up his brows a little. He was starting to get the sense he was being kept inside the room because the MAF thought of him as some sort of threat. He had to tread lightly with his words—if he could manage such a thing, of course.
"I've already been over everything three times now with the previous people you sent into the room."
"I realize, Sergeant. And from what I can tell, your story seems to match up to Officer Souza's. You two were lucky to escape."
Shaking his head, Pérez thought about the escape the commodore had mentioned. Out of two ships full of MAF personnel, including an exploration team, a science team, and a squad of MAF Marines, Pérez and Souza were the only two people to survive. Flashes of the tall aliens slaughtering his people plagued his mind until Garcia regained his attention.
"The reason you are here is because of this item you handed in the second you came aboard the MBC Andromeda." Garcia proceeded to open the small, metal container that had been sitting on the table. She rotated the lid and revealed the small object Pérez had kept safe inside his armor during his four years of unconsciousness. The device resembled an old data stick from a hundred plus years ago Pérez had seen in a museum. The only reason he had kept the strange object was because he found it in the hands of the dead officer who had sent out the dozens of soldiers and scientists to the remote location where the aliens first arrived.