by A. J. Allan
The northeastern part of the United States disappeared, and the Lopez’s view narrowed to the region encompassing Virginia and the Carolinas. He felt a sudden lurch, and then his descent decreased significantly. It now felt like a gentle fall toward the land as his parachute had deployed. He let out a long, long breath.
Ten minutes later, his BP landed with a noticeable but not violent thud on the bank of Lake Jordan. The coincidence did not slip Lopez’s mind.
For at least the time being, he could genuinely say “Mission accomplished.”
52
By noon that day, Irons had picked everyone up. Lake had the farthest landing point, falling somewhere near Richmond. The worst of the injuries was the blow to Li’s self-image, who felt faux embarrassment that the landing had messed with his hair.
The best moment came when they found their CO about twenty miles west of Lopez. Irons and Lt. Andrews hugged each other as family, the giddy laughter filling the air. The two invited the rest of Apocalypse Squad into a group hug, and they hollered in celebration. Lopez couldn’t have felt happier to have his commander back.
Though there were no signs of the xenoroaches, no one felt like taking any chances. It would have felt like just their luck that the aliens on Earth weren’t connected to the queen. More likely, based on what Lopez saw, only the unborn aliens could operate without a connection to the queen, but still. The last thing anyone wanted was another xenoroach.
Once they got to space, everyone collapsed to the floor of the Eagle. The heaviness of war came back. There are no unwounded soldiers in war. Even the ones who suffer no physical scarring suffer some of the heaviest mental wounds.
“Nicely done, squad,” Lt. Andrews said. “I’m proud of all of you. You stood up in the face of the devil’s spawn, spat in its face, and then defeated it.”
“Hear, hear,” Li said, raising a fist in triumph.
Lake smiled. Lopez raised his index finger, as if proclaiming humanity’s place. Irons cleared her throat as she stared at the deck.
“We’ve got inbound from the UGM,” she said. That got everyone back on their feet in a hurry. “The Caesar should be arriving any minute now. They’re just leaving a wormhole from TRAPPIST-1.”
She paused, made sure none of the outside comms were on, and said, “I’m so glad they could make a fucking cameo.”
“Private Irons,” Lt. Andrews said sternly. Irons matched his voice with her own intense eyes. “There will come a day when you have to make a decision, and no matter what you do, it will cost far too many lives for you to count. I am not saying that the UGM made the right decision. But I am saying they made a decision, and now they can salvage us. We will treat them as allies, not betrayers.”
The words did not sit well with Irons, and she only snorted. But she hadn’t disagreed, at least not out loud.
“All of you probably have some hard feelings for leadership, and I don’t disagree with you on some of them,” Lt. Andrews continued. “But the UGM exists to serve and protect humanity as it spreads across the galaxy. Sometimes, that means protecting resources or dispatching vessels to deliver information, even as people die. It sucks and it’s ugly, but that’s the reality. I’m not saying they will end up looking smart here. But give them a chance to tell their side of the story.”
Fine. But they better listen to ours. They better know what we experienced. And they had better prepare for it properly, because if we have to face these things again, I’m not doing so without some better equipment and resources.
At that point, everyone felt too exhausted to continue. Even when the Caesar appeared—the massive ship that made the Churchill, just on the other side of the planet, look like a shoe next to a person—no one bothered to glance up. No one bothered to admire one of humanity’s greatest engineering accomplishments.
But just before the Eagle boarded the Caesar, the latter’s tractor beam pulling it in, Irons pulled Lopez aside.
“Are you going to make your stand here?” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“You and Lake,” she said. “Now, more than ever, you two are heroes. You saved Earth. If you want to do what she talked about and what you think about, now’s the time.”
But Lopez didn’t believe so. Not after seeing them become self-serving by fleeing. He needed a better position and more leverage. At least for now… well… no, at least for now, he thought, he would wait.
“I’ll talk to Lake,” Lopez said. “But I think the time to do it is when the war with these things is done. We just won a battle. We’ve got a whole war in front of us.”
“I know, don’t remind me,” Irons said.
“Then I won’t from here on out,” Lopez said with a gentle smile. “I’ll let someone else handle it. But the good news is, I think for at least the rest of the day, we’ll have some leave.”
The ship docked, and other UGM soldiers came aboard. The crew of Apocalypse Squad said nothing. They just accepted their orders, took their food, received their medical treatment, and crashed hard when the time came to rest.
They would have plenty of time for debriefs when they woke.
53
“This is it,” Irons said as their Tesla U pulled up to 1551 East Spring Drive.
The early morning sun had begun to rise in the remote, distant town of Rocky Mount, North Carolina. In a town that only had a few hundred people, all over the age of retirement—and thus who had grandfathered out of Mass Media—no aliens had come. If the citizens of this town had slept through the night, they wouldn’t have known any better.
It was an odd sight, a city on Earth with restaurants, gas stations, and buildings that not only had not suffered damage, but even had humans without wealth or military insignia on them. Some older soldiers lived here, of course, but they had all retired a long time ago, content to live in the quiet area of Rocky Mount, about an hour outside Raleigh—Steve Jordan’s hometown.
Even given what Lopez and Irons had come to Earth to do—a task they had not expected but had to take due to the sheer volume of deaths—the day still felt like the sliver of light had finally appeared on the other side of the storm cloud. That they could even come to this town without fear of the aliens attacking was nothing short of a miracle.
The few surviving aliens stumbled through the world, no more a threat than an uncoordinated electrical wire. Most likely, they had just dropped dead. It would make clean up a brutal proposition, one that might take years, but compared to having to defend oneself, it was a task well received.
But for what Lopez and Irons had to do now, it was a task that they feared. They had had time to process Jordan’s death. Would his parents even be suspecting the possibility of it?
“Hey,” Lopez said. “Are you OK? I can do this myself if you want. I know—”
“No,” Irons said wearily. “I’m not OK. But I can be strong. I will be strong. I’ll fight my own thoughts with this later on. For right now, though, we have to remember what Jordan asked us to do. To tell his parents what he said.”
“OK,” Lopez said, squeezing her elbow.
They stepped out of the car, once more wearing their most formal military uniform. Lopez tugged at his jacket, making sure it fit properly. Irons pressed her clothing down. They stepped across the gravel driveway, past the Ford truck in the driveway, ignoring the barking dog from one house down, and went up the steps toward the screen door which looked barely attached to the door.
“Do you want to deliver the news?” Lopez asked. “Or should I?”
“You do it,” Irons said as she knocked.
“Just a minute,” a voice from inside came.
Be strong. Be present. And be a rock that they can lean on.
An older woman came into view. She used a cane to move, but she still had clean, long brown hair, relatively smooth skin, and moved with surprising speed on the cane.
“Mrs. Emily Jordan,” Lopez began. “My name is Private Matthew Lopez. I have come to inform you—”
Her voice became more emotional as she yelled.
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” a creaky voice said.
“Come inside,” Mrs. Jordan said.
The two soldiers followed Silencer’s mother. Inside, she met her husband on an old brown couch. They held hands, their wedding rings still slid onto their fingers, their hands curving around each other as if designed to fit into the other. Irons and Lopez sat in rocking chairs across from them, separated by only a couple of inches. Mrs. Jordan sniffled, but kept her composure.
Lopez took a deep breath. Be strong. Be the rock for them right now.
“I have come to inform you that Steve Jordan was killed in action during Operation Apocalypse Frontier,” Lopez said as stoically as possible, referencing the code name the UGM had assigned the mission in its debriefing. “On behalf of the soldiers of the SLS Squad 7 and the entire UGM, I offer my condolences.”
The eyes of Jordan’s parents had grown red and wet, and moments later, both of them burst into tears. They turned into each other, Mrs. Jordan whispering, “Why? Why? Why him?” Lopez glanced at Irons, and though she remained stoic, her eyes glistened. Quietly, he placed a hand on hers and briefly squeezed. He did not hold her hand, but Irons squeezed back. It was the least Lopez could do—and sometimes, it was the least that made the most difference.
“Robert and Emily Jordan,” Irons began, her voice shaky but growing stronger with each word. She only spoke once the Jordans had looked back to them. “My name is Private Jenna Irons. Like Lopez, I served in the UGM in the same squad as your son. I… I was also engaged to him.”
“You’re Lifts,” Mrs. Jordan said.
Lopez had absolutely no idea which direction this was going to turn. He braced—
“You would not believe how much Steve talked about you in his letters,” Mrs. Jordan said. “He loved you so much.”
“He did?” Irons said, caught off-guard.
“Oh, quite so. He wrote us a letter every day. Every single day. We’d get them in batches because I guess that the UGM couldn’t deliver letters from space every day, but I kept all of them. Honey, he loved you so much. Let me find one.”
She stood without too much difficulty, walked her cane to a cabinet in the corner of the room, opened a drawer, went through hundreds of letters—which by itself spoke of the commitment on Jordan’s part—and finally settled on one.
“This one is from about a month ago,” Mrs. Jordan said. She opened it, cleared her throat, and read. “‘Dear Mom and Dad, How are you? I just found out that I am going to go on leave with my girlfriend Jenna and our great friend, Matt.’”
Great friend. He saw me as that. I…
“‘I know I have spoken to you before about Jenna, but I need to tell you some more about her. First of all, who else do you know in my life that I have gushed over so much that I speak endlessly about her? I know I am not the greatest about talking about my feelings, but I cannot help but write them down here. I have never met anyone who makes me laugh the way that she does. I have never met anyone who somehow has pulled me out of my quiet, serious shell. She knows when to work, but she also knows when to make a joke that I would never have had the courage or sense of timing to make. The only thing I dislike about our relationship is that I am fearful of asking her to marry me. Frankly, I don’t think I’m good enough that she will say yes.’ I told Steve in my letters back to not be silly, and, well, I’m glad you said he finally asked you.”
Irons laughed. It was unmistakably a laugh to push back tears.
“‘Though we sometimes get in fights, most of the time, it is my fault. Irons has a way of expressing herself that I can never hope to match, and though sometimes it can be overwhelming, you always know where she stands. Because I prefer listening over talking, she doesn’t always know where I stand. I will make it a point on this trip and when we get back to be more open with her. Maybe, in fact, I’ll even finally propose to her. Otherwise, life is good. Our new CO is a real pain in the… butt—’”
Irons and Lopez laughed, a reaction appropriate given how Jordan’s parents also laughed at Mrs. Jordan’s self-censorship.
“‘But I can tolerate him. The rest of the crew is great. Diverse, a couple of unusual guys, but all people I would trust in any situation. I will write again tomorrow with specific plans for leave. I also hope that the next time I see you, I have the beautiful Australian with the perfect laugh, the soulful brown eyes, the flowing brown hair, the gregarious personality, and the heart of an angel by my side.
Love, now and always, your son,
Steve Jordan.’”
Lopez looked at Irons, who just stared up at the sky. Soldiers reporting on the death of a comrade to family weren’t supposed to cry. They were supposed to comfort. They were supposed to support.
But who could blame Irons? Who could blame her after learning the depth of his care for her in a way that he was not capable of expressing from before?
“Our son loved you so much,” Mr. Jordan said. “And Lopez, he cared about you as a teammate like no one outside of Squad 7. He… I’m sure he died in the name of your squad.”
It was then that Lopez noticed the prosthetic leg the elder Jordan sported. He knows war, too.
“Not only our squad. The very reason Earth is here is because of your son,” Lopez said. He heard a few sniffles from Irons, but he did not want to put unwanted attention on her. “Your son had grit unlike anything I’ve ever seen. We crash-landed in Las Vegas, and I saw no way that he would’ve survived. But he pushed through for over 24 hours past wounds that would’ve crippled me. And when he died, he allowed us to escape. He delivered a killing strike to the aliens here.”
“Nothing could make me prouder,” the elder Jordan said. “Steve had his own way of doing things. But… I’m proud of him.”
Lopez, for the first time since entering the house, smiled compassionately. Nothing would replace the loss of Jordan. Nothing would ever make up for the fact that Irons could never meet his parents with him by his side and get to experience small-town North Carolina. Nothing would make her feel as she did with him in the private moments that not even Lopez had access to.
But the memory of him, and of all of the soldiers who had fallen, would push them pretty damn far. It would help them win this war against this new alien species. It would help them stand tall in moments of terror. And it would help them prevent the apocalypse from coming, and ensure that Earth would not fall.
No, humanity and Earth would stand tall. Humanity would rise back up from the ashes of both the enemy’s ravaging and its own mistakes. And it would emerge more powerful than it had ever been.
“We’re all proud of Steve Jordan, sir,” Lopez said. “He showed us what it meant to be a man and a soldier. And all of us will honor his legacy by defeating the enemy, but also loving our allies and close friends for as long as we live.”
Epilogue
In a small office, Lt. Andrews sat across the table from General Ravikar. He sipped on a glass of scotch, the drink designed to relax the CO of Apocalypse Squad, but the meeting very much a serious one.
“You know that we have not seen the last of the noctura,” Ravikar stated.
“I’m all too aware,” Lt. Andrews said. “I’m also entirely aware that if we sit back and try to survive them, that we’re not going to win. Attrition can’t be our strategy here.”
“And it is most certainly not. However, we have a major problem, and it’s sitting on the other side of the planet.”
The Churchill, Lt. Andrews thought.
“What of it?”
“One, that ship has the transmission you spoke of, the one where the noctura threatened to annihilate us. None of the ships here have that communication, and we need to get that message because of the second problem. You said that an enemy showing yellow eyes appeared on that, correct?”
“Yes sir.”
“Do you ever recall any
of the noctura having any eyes, let alone yellow ones?”
Shit. Not even the queen had eyes. They all moved without traditional vision, somehow. Whatever had sent that… no, could it be?
“The neagala?” Lt. Andrews said.
“Unlikely,” General Ravikar said, assuaging Lt. Andrews’ fears. “It appears we are dealing with an enemy that dispatched the noctura, or at least a more evolved form of the monsters. We have to get as much information as we can before we strike, otherwise we’ll get sucked in and annihilated. And we have a second problem.”
I don’t know how it can get much worse. The race we just fended off is controlled by something else?
“What is it, sir?”
“You said that the general’s personal flagship escaped the Churchill before annihilation began. Well, the ship may have left. General Watson never did.”
God. Damn.
“Unfortunately, it pains me to say that I cannot imagine any scenario in which General Watson has survived the invasion of the noctura on board that ship,” Ravikar said. “But we cannot leave that battleship just floating through space. There is too much valuable information on board that craft for us to abandon it.”
“So I see where this is going,” Lt. Andrews said.
“Yes,” Ravikar said. “Lieutenant Andrews, your orders are to gather the survivors of Apocalypse Squad and head toward the Churchill. You are to recover all sensitive data and clear out the ship of any noctura you come across.”
“They aren’t dead?!?”
Ravikar sighed.
“By our best indications, two pods reached the Churchill shortly before the Caesar cleared the wormhole and arrived.”
That’s what those three things were for. But the third, then…
“I will send a second squad with you for protection. But we need to recover as much as we can from that ship, Lieutenant. And I need Apocalypse Squad to lead the charge.”