She looked at him, hopeful.
“We can only offer our best try at life, faults and all. We’ll make mistakes, and those mistakes will sometimes haunt us.”
“For how long?”
“Sometimes a day… sometimes a lifetime… Stacy, I’m sorry for what you’re about to go through. I regret that I’m the one who has to ask you to do it.”
“I not worried about the fight.”
He squeezed her hands. “As crazy as it sounds, the fight’s not the hard part. It’s the living afterward that’s hard. If we get through this, you might just understand what I mean. Hell…” He looked off through the half open tent flap, “I hope I’m wrong. I hope nothing worse than Samantha’s death gets under your skin.”
“It can get worse?” She said with a sarcastic laugh.
“A lot worse.” He touched the side of her face.
Lowering her eyes so he could see only her chin and nose, she asked, “You’ve dealt with things like this in the past. How’d you keep going then?”
“Hope and duty?” he asked, sincerely unsure. “Maybe stubbornness…”
“How do you keep a sense of duty after what they did?”
Jeffrey looked at his hands, turning the question over in his mind. “I don’t know. Why ask something like that?”
“Fifty years ago, when you came home, they turned their backs on you.”
“Not all of them did.”
Anger glowed in her voice. “A lot did.”
Jeffrey laughed heartlessly. “I do it… we do it because we’re not bankers or lawyers. Whether you like it or not, you’re a fighter. I know you don’t necessarily want to be, but when you’re needed, and now’s one of those times, all the bankers, lawyers, and elementary school teachers need you to do what they can’t. There are horrors they can’t face emotionally nor physically, so you and I have to do it for them.”
Stacy said, “And when the dirty work’s done, they can claim we don’t matter. They can say that the war never happened at all.”
“Not this time, not if I have my say. But even if you knew they would, you’d still fight for them.”
She looked at him with her intense, hazel eyes. “Why should we if they don’t care?”
“Because it’s how we’re built. When someone goes after those who can’t fight for themselves, we don’t have an off switch.”
A smile drew up the right side of her mouth.
He stood, pulling her to her feet and hugged her.
“Thank you,” he said.
She looked up at him. “What are you talking about? You’re helping me.”
“And you reminded me that I’m not alone.”
When she smiled, he said, “Do me a favor.”
“Sure.”
“Don’t die.”
“I’ll damn well try not to,” she said, with a sincere laugh, “but I hear my long term odds are pretty bad.”
Chapter Fifty-Four
That night Jeffrey dreamt he was sitting alone in the ready room of the U.S.S. Argalus, a ship long since decommissioned. His hands were young, unscarred; his right pinkie still had its last joint. Dim light came from the small reading lamps among the rows of seats. Maco walked in with his slow, sweeping gait, shoulders narrow, eyes wide like a bird of prey. Sitting down beside Jeffrey, he put his hand on Jeffrey’s forearm, fingers warm. On the left shoulder of his flight suit was the Hammerhead insignia, a shark with ghostly eyes, mouth open, tail curved under.
Jeffrey felt the long-dead pilot had something to say, but Maco, as had been his way, only nodded once. There seemed to be a contentment in his expression, an acceptance of the inevitable. As the ready room and Maco faded away, Jeffrey found himself in the pitch-black night filled with the sounds of insects and the falls. His heart settled into a rare tranquility as he drifted back into a dreamless sleep.
He woke with the glow of dawn, fat rain drops pattering across the tent’s fabric. Remembering the dream, he felt he understood. It hadn’t been his mind spinning with stress that had brought his dead wingman to sit with him. Against all logic, Jeffrey felt it really had been Maco, as though he’d come to give Jeffrey permission to send more to be with him.
As he dressed, he felt as though Maco’s spirit, calm and reserved, was still with him. When he left his tent, the rain had faded to intermittent drips, but the plants remained speckled with moisture. The air smelled clean. High up, strips of blue shown through the clouds, which the sun undercut, illuminating the sky fire-red. As he walked among the tents, the smell of boiled oats and coffee drifted in the cool air.
Lost in thought, he came into the ready room clearing and found himself standing in front of more than two hundred pilots, twenty-two special warfare operatives, and the support staff.
He squared his shoulders as he looked over their faces, young, some pretty, some strong, some closed-off, others nervous, all venerated by him.
Conversations faded as all attention became focused on him.
“Those who’ve gone before you gave their lives so that the world could live. Make no mistake, your odds of following them tomorrow are high. I know you’ve signed on for no less. In that you give of yourselves wholly and completely… and selflessly. Because of that willingness to sacrifice—” Emotion welling in his chest cut him short, “you are the true north I set my will by, and I am proud to call you all Hammerheads.”
Kodiak stood, punched his fist in the air, and gave a deep, resounding whoop, which the entire group echoed. Jeffrey held up his fist as well, but made no sound as he was overwhelmed at the pride he felt in them, and the grief already growing for what he knew was coming even if they found victory.
He remembered something Admiral Cantwell had said to him years before. Wars are not won, they are survived.
As he scanned the faces of these new Hammerheads, ready to face the horde one more time, he said, “You’ve all had the chance to test your new limits with short flights, and I’m impressed with how well you’ve adapted to them. Now on to business. When we fly out tomorrow one pilot will have a Special Warfare operator, the other will have a second singularity warhead. You must stay dark and undetected, so fly low. By low I mean within feet of the ground. We have no precise recon, so you’ll have to scout your own landing area. This stage contains the largest risks to the mission. You must remain undetected until the warheads can be triggered. Passively scan for vehicle and airborne signals and avoid them at all costs. If you fail here, we all fail. One Sthenos destroyer in orbit is already more than enough for our Wraith pilots to have to face.”
“All singularity warheads will be hard triggered.” He looked to special warfare. “At 5PM tomorrow GMT, correctly placed or not, they’ll activate. We can’t risk manual triggering. If upon arrival at the location, no hiding location can be found, you’ll keep the warhead on your back so it remains stealthed and wait with it. You let it take you. Is that clear?”
“Yes sir,” all the special warfare operators said without hesitation.
“Good. Thank you all.”
“If,” he looked back on the pilots, “the Sthenos destroyers are not disabled at 5PM GMT, you are to go live and kamikaze the second singularity warhead in. That’s forty-four singularity warheads dedicated to this attack. We have only nineteen more. Those will be with the Wraiths.
“The Lakota pilots who aren’t assigned attack groups are on clean up. You’ll be assigned one of two staging points, one in south eastern New Mexico, the other in Luhansk, Ukraine. From there you’ll wait until 5:01 PM GMT before attacking Sthenos forces in Denver and Moscow respectively.”
“Once the Sthenos destroyers are taken out, break radio silence to confirm. We will not respond. At that point, all surviving Lakota fighters will move to join forces in Denver or Moscow. From those locations we’ll begin working through remaining Sthenos forces. If our current experience in atmosphere holds true, you’ll be able to readily outfly the Sthenos fighters.”
“You’ll move from one former Sth
enos destroyer location to the next. After Denver will be L.A. When L.A. is clean, move on to Tokyo. You’ll have to scavenge your own fuel and supplies along the way. You’ll run out of ammunition. When you do, you must find more. Success tomorrow will not bring us to the end. The Sthenos will be on Earth for a long time to come. There will be issues with the human populations as well. Warlords may rise up. If we’re successful tomorrow, we’ll see the best and the worst from human society over the next several years. Those who live will help rebuild the world. Are you ready to do that?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Good. Now I hope you said your goodbyes because as of right now your asses belong to me. When Holloway has assigned your group and destination, prep your aircraft and get the hell out of here. I want all flights outbound at dusk.”
He stared at them for a moment before asking, “Do you all understand?”
“Yes, sir,” came the booming chorus of pilots and special warfare.
“Does anyone have any questions?”
“No, sir.”
As the area cleared, Stacy walked up to Jeffrey, gave him her winning smile as she said, “You ready to make history?”
Jeffrey returned her smile as best he could manage. “Yeah.” But his heart wasn’t in it. Win or lose he already grieved for her. He’d seen brilliant souls worn threadbare too many times before.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Stacy had to cover eight miles in a few hours with a fifty-five pound pack on. Her legs burned. To keep herself going, she picked small points along the road to reach. Ahead she saw a stoplight, blinking red, somehow still powered.
Get to that in ten minutes.
The clock on her HUD ticked down. She reached it a few seconds late. The traffic signal tilted in the breeze. She looked ahead for her next goal. Her back and shoulders hurt. The main weight of the pack rested on her hips as it should, but the straps still dug into her shoulders and she felt her balance weakening as she put miles behind her.
At the drop off point, when she powered up the suit, her arms had disappeared save a slight shadow thrown by her HUD to show her body position. She’d given the suit the command to shut the ghost off. She felt exposed when she could see her outline even if no one else could. She’d waved her hand in front of her eyes, marveling at the efficiency of the suit, which masked her visually, on radar, the electrical and heat signs of her body, and cooled her exhaled breath to ambient temperature. Ten years earlier Jeffrey had defeated special ops mercenaries equipped with stealth suits by reading the CO2 which had been exhaled. Since that time, CO2 scrubbers had been added, which left her effectively invisible. She could only hope the Sthenos didn’t have some form of detection they hadn’t considered.
At her back, the suit’s small fusion power source gave off a tiny whine. A seed-sized hydrogen sun burned behind her shoulder blades. Without its electromagnetic shielding it would simply burn out, but not before cutting her in half. The shielding was programmed to fail first away from her, but a catastrophic failure, immediately cutting power from the back up battery, would kill her. Everyone who wore the suits tried not to think about it.
In the distance, she could see the spire of the over mile-high Sthenos destroyer towering above dark-green oak trees. As she walked out of the empty streets of Clifton NY, she felt unsure. She’d expected the interstate to be jammed with cars. There were none. The Sthenos had either let those on the freeways go, or had stopped them before they could fill the roads.
Soon she saw the towers of the NY skyline catching the sun. She was right on schedule. As she walked, the sun hung in a brilliant ball straight above, but she didn’t feel the warmth of the day nor the wind. The suit kept her at a comfortable temperature. She did feel the burn in her thighs and sweat running down her back. She drank now and again from the tube at her jawline, which she could use without lifting the face mask. The suit had been designed for an operative to remain stealthed for days, only needing to shut down the shield to eat or relieve oneself. She would hope to need neither in the next few hours.
In another tiring but steady hour, she reached the edge of the Hudson River and the mouth of the Lincoln tunnel. As she approached, she found that a large structure with matte-black, armor-plated walls had been constructed around the mouth of the tunnel. She assumed the other bridges and tunnels had similar defenses or had been destroyed.
Scaling the ivy-covered embankment to her left, she climbed over a concrete barrier into an industrial area. She walked among the buildings—all dead quiet. Cars remained neatly parked, a few with their doors or rear hatches open. She touched the hood of a black sedan where it seemed an electrical arc had burned the paint.
Where have the people gone?
As she considered it, she guessed she didn’t want an answer. A deep humming rose up from behind her. Returning to the barrier, she looked down to the four lanes of concrete, which would have led into the tunnel if not for the armored obstruction. She rested her chest on the barrier to relieve the weight of the pack. The humming grew to a rumbling. It seemed to be coming from the direction from which she’d come. The ground and the barrier began to vibrate. To the west, a massive vehicle came into view, rounding the final bend in the highway. The night-black transport hovered a few feet off the ground on a warping energy field. Approaching the tunnel entrance, it stopped perhaps 100 yards from the metal wall. The rumbling faded away as it set down. Between seams in the armor, the side of the transport dropped inward and slid to the side. Something moved in the dark interior.
Chapter Fifty-Six
As the thing emerged into the sunlight, it brought back a long forgotten memory of a black widow Stacy had found in her garage as a child. The spider had looked as though it were leather-wrapped, shining and vicious. It was quadruped, but with two arms making six limbs total. The long legs, thin at the joints, bent backward as it walked. Its waist was narrow and the chest curved inward, giving the creature a stalking appearance. The arms, like the legs, were thin and pitch-black. It held a long metal bar, most likely, Stacy assumed, some kind of weapon. Its narrow head and long jaw gave it an almost hatchet-like appearance. Its dark visor caught the sunlight with a flash of light. Stacy understood then that she wasn’t seeing the creature but a helmet and environmental suit, or perhaps defensive armor. Two hoses ran from the sides of the face to a finned backpack. Waves of heat came off the pack as the creature moved forward.
They’re cooling arrays.
Glancing at her HUD she saw that the ambient temperature was 84 degrees.
…and yet they still need to stay cool.
Two more Sthenos emerged, holding the metal bars as if a street gang armed with lengths of high-tech pipe. As they gathered at the end of the ramp, the first swept its arm in command and a keening sound punctuated by clicks and a low vibration sounded out, resonating in Stacy’s skull.
A young man emerged from the darkness. A metallic bar bound his hands together, and a cable between his ankles caused him to take short steps. A woman, perhaps twenty years old, followed him. Another cable connected them at the waist. Another woman appeared and then a young man. As the chain gang grew from the side of the transport, the first man tripped, falling forward. A Sthenos made low sounds laced with menacing clicks as it held out the bar. An arc leapt away from it, stuttering from the young man’s heel up to the base of his skull. The arc left its ghosted memory on Stacy’s eyes as the young man convulsed on the ground. The Sthenos let out the low resonation as it pointed toward the building.
Stacy’s trigger finger curled closed.
The man pushed himself up to kneeling. As he tried to stand, his legs trembled, and he crouched back to his knees. The woman behind him said something to him. Coaxing the man to standing as best she could with restrained hands, she helped him walk toward the building, the chain of people following in a single file.
As Stacy watched the people come from the transport, she noticed that there were none overweight, none younger than teenagers, and none old
er than perhaps forty. This group had been processed elsewhere, distilled from the general population. They were young and strong. But why?
The Sthenos weren’t here to destroy humanity. They wouldn’t have transported these people here in that case. This wasn’t just about water and ore. Jeffrey’s theory on slavery came to mind again, but something she couldn’t pinpoint told her it didn’t fit.
She counted in tens until the last person emerged from the doorway. Two hundred in total. The last was a girl of perhaps fifteen, tall and thin but athletic. She still had a touch of a little girl in her cheeks. Her shoulder-length, dark hair shone in the sun, reminding Stacy of her own sister. The girl’s head rose and scanned the top of the wall where Stacy crouched. When the girl’s eyes passed her location, Stacy wished she could uncloak for a split second to give the young girl some hope that someone had come, that she wasn’t alone, but the girl’s eyes, hollow as if they’d been cried empty, swept past.
As the chain of people approached the structure, a tall doorway slid open. The metal was at least a foot thick. More Sthenos came out, these wearing red suits with a similar leathery sheen. As the young man and the woman, still helping him walk, approached, one of the red Sthenos held up a metal rod, it’s end sparking. Stacy’s gut tightened and her shoulders glowed with adrenaline with the desire to step in, but there was nothing she could do. Live or die, those people were on their own.
The chain-gang moved into the tunnel, disappearing from view one at a time.
They might have turned the tunnel into a prison, which would be smart. Only two points to guard and no way to effectively blow doors without sending shockwaves down the tunnel or drowning the prisoners.
Still, something about that felt wrong to her as well. She guessed that the chain gang’s destination was in Manhattan. She looked up to the Sthenos destroyer towering over the skyline, clouds catching on its upper reaches.
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