“Who is this ‘Romeo’ you speak of?” Ketrick pounded his hand on the bar with a wide smile. “He sounds like a wise human. I would meet him.”
“No,” Riot said, and she rolled her eyes, laughing out loud. She found herself laughing a lot these days. “Romeo is a fictional character. He’s a—”
“You eyeing my girl, Cyclops?”
Riot and Ketrick’s conversation was broken by a wide man with inflated muscles and a nonexistent neck, yelling at Vet and Rizzo. Apparently, the pretty brunette that had strolled over to the Marines was not unaccompanied.
“Leave them alone, Stan,” the brunette said, placing a hand on the large man’s chest. “I was just talking to them.”
“Answer the question, you one-eyed freak.” Stan ignored his girlfriend’s petitions to turn away. “Were you talking to my girl?”
Everyone in the bar quieted to see if the confrontation would escalate into a full-on fight. Riot already knew the answer. Rizzo wasn’t going to let anyone talk to his friend like that. In the Marines, there were ties stronger than blood, one of which was you never let your brother be singled out for verbal abuse. Plus, Rizzo liked to fight.
Riot took the lull in the events around her to examine their surroundings. The meathead had at least four friends sitting at a table to their right. The bartender behind her was already reaching for something under the bar. Whether he would use the weapon to end the confrontation or he was one of Stan’s friends still remained to be seen. Either way, Riot wasn’t going to let him draw a bead on her friends.
The powder keg was lit, the fuse already burning. Vet decided to speed up the process.
“I don’t see any livestock around here,” Vet said, peeking around the massive man in front of him, squinting with his one good eye. His left eye was made up of a steel plate that looked like an eye patch. “So, no, I guess I’m not talking to your girl.”
So much blood rushed to Stan’s pale face, Riot thought his head was about to explode. A vein the size of a rope pulsed on his neck.
The next moment, the bar erupted. Vet took the big man down, while Rizzo launched himself at the group of Stan’s friends who came from their table, running to help.
“Oh, good.” Ketrick bolted from his seat, already sprinting to throw himself into the fray next to Rizzo. “I love Earth!”
The bartender brought an ancient-looking, double-barreled shotgun up from behind the counter. As soon as he cleared the muzzle over the bartop, Riot vaulted over and landed next to him. A look of shock clearly written across his face.
Riot swatted away the barrel of the gun while delivering a hard strike to the man’s wrist, then to the side of his neck. The bartender’s grip on the shotgun loosened enough for Riot to rip it free.
The bartender stumbled back, stunned for the moment. Fear lit his eyes as if he thought Riot was going to turn the shotgun on him the next second.
The bartender must have been a local favorite, because there were other members in the bar who were already moving in on Riot to help their fallen friend. Riot pointed the shotgun at them as they tried to scramble over the bartop.
“Easy there, muchachos,” Riot said, cocking back both hammers on the shotgun to lend emphasis to her words. “I’m not looking to add to my body count tonight. No one has to be shot in the groin.”
The bartender scrambled back on his hands and knees until his back hit the end of the bar. His bad combover and stained shirt made him look so pitiful, Riot almost felt bad. Still, she kept the weapon trained on him and the handful of bar patrons who looked to one another with indecision in their bloodshot eyes.
Behind her, Riot could hear yells and grunts as her Marines and Ketrick finished the fight. Riot chanced a glance over her shoulder to see pretty much what she expected. The big man named Stan was unconscious on the ground below Vet. Rizzo wiped blood from the corner of his mouth with a grin. The two men he had dispatched lay in various states of borderline semi-consciousness. One was crawling for the door.
Ketrick held the last two’s heads, one in each of the crooks of his elbows. They looked as though they were rag dolls caught in the arms of a monster.
“I love this planet!” Ketrick lifted his chin to the ceiling and roared.
48
Did you see the look on the little one’s face when our Corporal Sean Rizzo picked him up by the throat?” Ketrick was roaring with laughter as he recounted the night’s events. “Marines are truly impressive warriors, both with weapons and in hand-to-hand combat.”
Riot and the group had decided to call it a night after the events at the bar, but it seemed he, Vet, and Rizzo were continuing to bond over the experience, even after their return to the Bulwark.
The Bulwark was an underground military installation built below the remains of Port Hueneme’s naval base. After the Syndicate had leveled the military base above ground, it was a perfect cover.
As they walked down the halls of the barracks level, their excited voices ringing off the walls, Riot caught sight of General Armon turning the corner down the hall. His uniform laden with medals looked freshly pressed despite the late hour. His perfect military buzz cut and greying mustache made him look every bit the part of a commanding officer.
“I thought that guy was going to piss his pants,” Vet said, roaring with laughter. “I—”
Riot shot her right elbow out and caught Vet hard in the ribs.
“Ugh…” Vet winced, rubbing the spot. “Why … ?”
His words trailed off as he caught sight of the stern-faced general closing in on their position.
“We should go to a bar every night and beat on the local populace.” Ketrick took off his sunglasses and removed the mouth guard on the upper section of his teeth.
Rizzo noticed what both Riot and Vet had seen already. He also nudged Ketrick in the arm and made a slicing motion with his right pointer finger across his own neck to signal for the Trilord to cut it out.
Ketrick looked at Rizzo and at General Armon, who was no more than a few yards in front of them now.
“That is taking things a bit too far,” Ketrick said with a shake of his head. His long, black hair came loose from his bun as he made the motion. “We don’t need to kill the people at the bars; just a friendly brawl would be enough.”
Riot looked over with large eyes at Ketrick, trying to catch his line of sight.
“Next time we get into a bar fight, we should—”
“Hello, General Armon,” Riot said, cutting off whatever else Ketrick was going to say, with a crisp salute to her superior. “Is everything all right, sir?”
Rizzo and Vet did the same kind of salute. Ketrick smiled and waved.
General Armon saluted back. Eyeing the four with a look that said, we both know I know what you were talking about, but we have bigger fish to fry.
“At ease,” General Armon said, looking each one of them in the eyes. He gave a brief, forced smile when he came to Ketrick. “Master Sergeant Riot, I need you to follow me, please.”
A look of unease passed over Rizzo’s and Vet’s faces.
“General Armon,” Ketrick said, finally catching on to why Rizzo was giving him the “cut it” sign. “If this is about tonight, I take full—”
“No, Ketrick,” General Armon said, shaking his head. “You’re fine. I need Master Sergeant Riot for a briefing, that’s all.”
Ketrick eyed Riot, looking to her as if waiting for the okay to leave.
What the heck does this guy think he’s going to do? Riot shook her head furiously, trying to hide another smile. He thinks he’s going to save me from the general?
Vet and Rizzo steered Ketrick away, toward their shared quarters.
“Come on, big boy,” Vet said with a yawn. “Let’s hit the sack.”
General Armon nodded in approval. He turned and led Riot down the hall to the elevator. Riot matched his stride, step for step. His silence was unnerving, but that’s how these officers liked to operate; they let you sweat it out u
ntil the last possible minute, before telling you everything was okay.
Unfortunately for Riot, everything was not okay.
“Doctor Miller and the rest of the staff are waiting for us in the briefing room,” General Armon said as the elevator doors opened for them. The general waited for Riot to follow before pressing the button for the first floor in the Bulwark where the conference rooms were located. “We received an answer to one of our calls.”
“Sir?” Riot asked, trying to think what calls he was referring to. “Are you talking about the messages sent out to the list of potential allies the Syndicate left?”
“I am.”
The elevator doors closed as the steel box traveled to one of the many underground levels. Riot’s mind raced with the information she knew. The Syndicate had left them advanced technology, along with a warning that a much darker, much greater foe was coming for Earth. The Syndicate explained that their presence had been for mankind’s greater benefit to make them stronger in the end.
Some people believed the Syndicate. Others still saw them as monsters. Whatever the case was, the fact remained that they had brought advanced alien tech, and with the warning, a list of potential allies that might help defend Earth in time of its greatest need.
Ketrick and the Trilords were the first name on that list. Thus far, everything the Syndicate had told them had been true. A message had been sent out to the second name on the list of possible allies, as soon as Riot and her crew had arrived back safe on Earth a week before. No answer had come, until now.
The doors to the elevator dinged open again. General Armon and Riot walked out onto the catwalk that overlooked a massive bullpen with floor-to-ceiling screens on every wall. Dozens of additional screens rose from the floor in front of desks and in the cubicles of the workers below.
The room was a living data stream of scientists, both military and civilian, who were busy monitoring and mapping the known universe. The data the Syndicate had left behind when it was defeated would take years to analyze, even with a full staff sifting through the information day and night.
Riot followed General Armon to a set of steel spiral stairs that spilled out onto the main floor. They passed red-eyed technicians hard at work at their desks. Coffee cups littered nearly every workstation, like some kind of ancient burial ground where caffeine went to die.
“We’re over here,” General Armon said, pointing to a hall. The first door on the right was his own office, previously occupied by Captain Harlan.
He led Riot past his office and to a set of double doors on the left. Riot entered the room, still dressed in her civilian clothing. She was tired, but she dealt with it like any good Marine. She acknowledged her fatigue, then cleared her mind and focused on what was in front of her.
The meeting room was mostly bare with plain walls. A large, brown oval table sat in the middle of the room, with rolling high-backed chairs all around. A large blank screen was set in the wall at the far end of the room.
Nearly every seat was taken by a gathering of military uniforms and white-lab-coated technicians. Riot recognized a few faces and returned head nods. She noted the ever peppy Doctor Deborah Miller, who was waving to her with a high hand in the air. As luck would have it, the only two empty seats in the room were on either side of the doctor.
The light chatter in the room died down as General Armon made his way to the head of the table, next to the monitor.
“Riot,” Deborah said, motioning to her again in a loud whisper. “Riot, over here. Over here, I saved you a seat. Riot?”
“Oh, hey, Sunshine,” Riot whispered back just as loudly, a plastic smile on her face. “I didn’t see you there.”
“Really?” Deborah smiled as she moved the chair back for Riot. “I was waving to you since you entered the room and whispering really loud.”
General Armon cleared his throat.
The room fell silent.
“We all have things to do, so I’ll make this quick.” General Armon reached for a remote on the edge of the table. “We’ve been trying to contact the list of possible allies that the Syndicate has left for us. After the Trilords, the second group is a race called the Grovothe. We have some FTL and a gate to reach them, but it can be done thanks to Syndicate tech and information left by one called Hadrian. As for communication, it’s been a week since we sent our message. We were already debating whether to send another or move on to the third name on the list, when we received a response from the Grovothe.”
General Armon moved aside from the large screen so everyone would be able to see. With his remote, he dimmed the lights and played the message.
The black screen sprung to life with color. To Riot’s utter surprise, what looked like a heavyset dwarf with hard eyes and a scar on the right side of his face filled the screen. A thick, greying beard added to the overall sense that this alien was straight out of a fantasy novel. He sat behind a steel desk with a window behind him that displayed a kaleidoscope of twinkling stars in space.
He wore a blue uniform pinned with so many medals, Riot wasn’t sure how his uniform fabric kept them all up. His firm gaze bored into the screen. When he spoke, his booming voice demanded every ounce of attention his viewers could muster.
“My name is Admiral Tricon. I am the leader of the Grovothe forces on Shaynar. We received your transmission a week ago. In all honesty, we have been debating whether to contact you in return. Our indecisiveness was based not on questioning your morality; rather, it was a question of your strength. But dire times call that all holding the banner of hope and freedom band together. We are offering a meeting to talk about the possibility of an alliance between our two worlds. A time and location will be sent along with this message.”
That was it. The screen went black.
“Heartwarming,” Riot said as General Armon turned off the screen and raised the lights in the room. “I just feel so wanted and loved right now.”
If General Armon were capable of cracking a smile, Riot imagined he would. Instead of a grin, all she got were a few nods from her commanding officers around the table. A few of the other military officers and scientists smirked at her comment and mumbled agreements. It was as though the Grovothe had run out of options for the school dance and Earth was the last option.
“Unlike the Trilords, the Grovothe seem to be a fairly advanced race,” Deborah said, speaking up. “They may be either at the same level of technology as the Syndicate, or perhaps even ahead.”
“They’ll be powerful allies when war returns to our planet,” General Armon said, nodding to a major who had his hand in the air. “Major Noe?”
“Sir.” A muscular officer sitting on the opposite side of the table cleared his throat. “Are you hinting that you are aware of an impending attack?”
The room was silent as a tomb, every eye awaited the General’s response.
“War is always on the horizon, major.” General Armon took the opportunity to sweep the room. “It’s not a matter of if, but when. The sky will fall.”
49
Your team is to leave tomorrow,” General Armon said, sitting in his high-backed leather chair.
Riot stood at ease in the small office that had once been occupied by her friend, Captain Harlan. The room was just like she remembered, with an old flag mounted on the wall to her right, splattered with dark crimson spots. In front of her, the general sat behind a desk, and behind him, an empty bookcase.
“Admiral Tricon sent us the location of where the meeting is to take place. Our navigation team tells us it’s above a planet called Raydon.” The general paused, steel brown eyes looking past Riot’s shoulder as he thought hard.
“But we’re wondering why there,” Riot said. “It’s clear we’re not their first choice when it comes to allies. They want something from us. Or could it be a trap?”
General Armon’s dark eyes shifted to Riot’s. “I don’t think so, but you’re to use all caution when dealing with the Grovothe. We have no reason to think
they are luring us into a trap, but neither do we have anything but the Syndicate’s words saying we can trust them.”
“Understood.”
“You and your team are to gear up and leave in the morning.”
“By my team, you’re talking about Wang, Rizzo, Vet, Doctor Miller, and Ketrick?” Riot asked. She had never directly addressed the inclusion of Ketrick into her unit, but there was no assuming in the Marines.
“The Trilord Ketrick is an ambassador between his planet and ours. I’m not eager to put him in harm’s way, even if he is.” General Armon leaned back in his chair as if he were anticipating a rebuttal from Riot.
For the first time, the real possibility of Ketrick not being by her side confronted Riot. The feeling of loss and disappointment she felt surprised her.
Hold it together. You’re not a teenager, Riot chided herself. He’ll be here when you get back.
“Would you be willing to hear what he has to say?” Riot asked as a light bulb exploded in her head. “I’d hate to disappoint the newest member of our intergalactic alliance if he had other ideas than the ones planned for him.”
General Armon gave Riot a sideways glance like he had when he ran into her and her unit after they’d returned from the bar. Instead of answering Riot, he pressed a finger to a comm key on his uniform collar. “Lieutenant Mahaffey, will you see if Ketrick is still awake, and if so, escort him to my office? Thank you.”
“I appreciate it, sir,” Riot said, nodding her thanks.
“It’s the least I can do,” General Armon said. “Doctor Miller’s very, very, very long and extremely detailed report of the goings-on during your first mission with SPEAR makes you look like a hero. That, with your track record and the shining recommendation by Captain Harlen, makes your request an easy one to accommodate. So does my decision to promote you to Warrant Officer.”
Riot’s jaw dropped. Not only was she unaware of her consideration for a promotion, but jumping from the rank of Master Sergeant to Warrant Officer felt unprecedented.
War Wolves: Boxset 1-3 Page 20