“Shit. Keep trying, Millie. We can’t fight this war on our own.”
“Yes, sir. Anything else, sir?”
“No, that’ll be all. I’m going to try and get some sleep now. If there are any updates, you let me know. If everything keeps on failing, get some sleep yourself. We’re going to need to be at one hundred percent these next couple of days.”
“Will do, sir. Goodnight.”
The feed shut off and Ivan put away his tablet. He stood, groaning as he did. His whole body ached. He felt as if he hadn’t slept in days. He longed for his bed, even if he was only going to get just a few short hours of sleep.
Ivan didn’t even change out of his uniform. He collapsed onto the bed and let out a heavy sigh.
“Captain Ivan!” Millie shouted over the intercom in his room.
The urgency in her voice woke Ivan up instantly. “What is it, Cadet?”
“We’re receiving an incoming communication from McArthur Base in Virginia. It’s your daughter Mia, sir.”
Ivan jumped out of bed, sprinting for the bridge faster than any man his age.
Ivan reached the bridge in record time. Only the essential people were still at their stations this late. He paid no attention to their probing gazes as he barreled down the stairs. “Put it up on the screen.”
The face of his beautiful daughter filled the screen. She sat at a desk in a dark room, blinking lights from computer screens all around. “Dad!” she said barely above a whisper.
“Mia, I’m so happy you’re alive. What are you doing at McArthur?” Ivan asked, his heart beating so hard in his chest he could feel it.
“The civilian quantum network is down. I sneaked into this base so that I could get ahold of you. It’s bad here, Dad. I don’t know how or why, but the military isn’t able to do anything to stop the Mortuks. They came at once and started killing everybody. It’s awful. They even took over this base. I’m sure it’s not the only one,” Mia said, the words pouring from her mouth.
“You mean you’re inside a Mortuk base?” Ivan asked. It suddenly became hard to breathe as fear squeezed his chest. “Get out of there right now, Mia. You have to go. I can’t lose you, too!”
“I’ll be fine, Dad. I know how to get in and out without getting caught. It’s not safe anywhere down here. There are these monsters that the Moruks have—I’ve never seen anything like them. They hurt my friend really bad and he needs medical attention immediately. Can you send one of your stealth ships down to get us and bring us back?”
“Yes of course,” Ivan said. He turned and faced the few cadets still on the bridge. “Scan the area around McArthur and find an extraction point ASAP.” They went to work, trying to find something suitable. “We’re working on it right now,” Ivan said. “Stay on the line until we have something. Then you get out of there as soon as possible.”
“Okay Dad, I’m not goi—”
The door swung open behind her.
Chapter Forty-One
Mia spun around. In strode two Mortuks, guns raised. She reached for her pistol but they were on her before she could aim. The one on the left slammed its large muscular arm into her, sending her crashing into the computer console. She saw stars and was suddenly dizzy. She tried to push herself up but she just slumped off the console and fell to the ground. She could hear her father screaming something but it all sounded so far away. She could barely make out any of the words.
One of the Mortuks picked her up and held her with one hand. She found some of her strength but it was useless against the towering mass of a Mortuk.
“I see you followed my instructions,” a voice said in the doorway.
Mia craned her head around and her blood turned to ice. Sam stood in the doorway, a sly smile on his face, Beth held tight in his arms.
Beth looked up at the Mortuks, her eyes curious. She wasn’t afraid of them. She had no reason to be. Beth had no idea just what kind of monsters those things were.
“Sam, what’s going on?” Mia asked, afraid of the answer.
Sam stepped into the room. The Mortuks moved aside, allowing him to stand in front of them all. After muting Ivan, he faced Mia, bouncing Beth up and down in his arms. “It’s never a good idea to leave your child unattended with strangers, Mia.”
“I saved your life,” Mia said, betrayal stabbing at her heart. “I should’ve let you die, traitor!”
Sam threw his head back and laughed. His whole demeanor had changed. No longer was he the bumbling soldier that she knew. Now he stood with authority, fire burning in his eyes. “I’m no traitor, Mia Ivan.” He set Beth down on the console behind him and pulled a large knife from his pocket. He flicked it open, revealing the black blade. “This blade is made from ultanium, a material we discovered thanks to you people.” He wrapped his hand around the knife. “Ultanium has a peculiar reaction to Mortukian blood.” He squeezed his hand around the blade, slicing the skin. Black blood oozed from between his fingers, dripping down. It sizzled and steamed whenever it came into contact with the ground, but didn’t seem to be acidic as it didn’t melt through the ground. He unwrapped his black, bloody hand and showed it to Mia.
“You’re a Mortuk?” Mia asked.
“Well, yes, that’s what this whole demonstration is about. You see, we Mortuk’s have been quite busy these past few decades.” He turned to Beth, and used her shirt to wipe the blood off his blade.
Mia thrashed around, trying to escape the grasp of the Mortuk that held her. Rage blazed deep within her. “Don’t you touch her!” she screamed. “Don’t you lay a fucking finger on her!”
Sam shook his head and chuckled. “You don’t get it, do you?” He grabbed Beth’s hand and stretched it out. She looked up at Mia, her eyes wide and filled with fear. Mia tried her hardest to escape but it was useless. The Mortuk wasn’t even struggling to contain her.
Sam’s blade inched closer to Beth’s finger and the blade nicked her. She let out a scream and cried, as small drops of black blood oozed from the cut.
“I’m going to kill you for that,” Mia said through her clenched jaw.
Sam rolled his eyes, stepped forward, and plunged the blade, black as obsidian, into Mia’s side.
Chapter Forty-Two
Ivan thought he was going to throw up. He’d never felt so sick in his life. His head was light and he gasped for air. For one of the few times in his life, he was at a loss for words. He just stared, tears dripping down his cheek. Mia let out small gasps of pain. He admired her resolve at not giving anybody the satisfaction of hearing her scream.
The man who stabbed her—the man Ivan wanted to kill more than anything in the world—turned and faced the screen. “Captain,” he said with a mocking salute.
“I know how to hurt you. You let my daughter go or I’ll rain hell down on you,” Ivan said.
“Oh, sorry, Captain, I’ve still got you on mute,” Sam said, pointing down at the keyboard in front of him. “Whatever it is you’re saying, it seems very important. But here’s the deal. I’m going to tell you the terms on which I will return your daughter to you. Trick is, you can only say yes or no. One word. Anything more than that and I kill your daughter.” He reached off-screen and picked up the baby he’d seen Mia with earlier. “Oh what the hell, I’ll throw the baby in too. She may be Mortukian, but your daughter has taken quite the liking to her. Even named her Beth, if you can believe it! I imagine poor Beth is rolling in her grave right now. And this Beth will join her should you not comply.” Sam set the baby down.
Ivan couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He was helpless to stop him. He couldn’t take his eyes off his daughter, slumped over, blood pouring from her wound.
“Here’s the deal. You, Joshua Ivan, are the most hated man on our home planet, Mortuki. We went to great lengths to acquire your daughter. We’ve been watching her for a while. Baby Beth’s parents were, in fact. I hope her little flesh wound will let you know just how serious we are.
“The second most hated person, however, is G
erald Keys. Now we already have Gerald and his precious wife locked safely away on one of our motherships, so don’t even think about planning a rescue. As for the Keys, we have something special planned for the whole family. Only problem is, the son of Gerald, Hayden Keys, is aboard your ship. We’d hate for him to miss out on all the fun. You hand over Hayden, we’ll give you Mia.” Sam smiled big and placed his hands on his hips. “That’s all there is to it! A simple exchange. You walk away with Mia and get to spend what little time you have with her before it’s your turn.”
Despair crushed Ivan. He had no idea what to do. Sure, at first he had a strong dislike for Hayden. But he couldn’t deny that he’d saved his life and that of everybody on board. He was the one who figured out they should use bullets instead of lasers on the Mortuk ships. If they were going to beat the Mortuks once again, Hayden Keys was going to play a large role in that. He already had.
Still, despite it all, Hayden was no match for the love of a father.
“So, Ivan. I can see you’re thinking, but your time is up. Will you hand over Hayden Keys? Yes or no?” Sam clicked a button off-screen.
“Yes.”
“I’ll send you the details soon. In the meantime, I’ll have your daughter patched up. She did the same to me, you know. Not that I needed it,” he said with the hint of a smile. “See you soon, Ivan.”
The call cut out.
“Tell me you’ve found an extraction point,” Ivan said, turning away from the screen.
“There’s a field about two miles away from the base that’s clear,” Millie said. “Preliminary scans of McArthur Base show lots of alien life signs but there’s a large amount of human life forms as well. About one hundred and fifty of them in total.”
“So they’ve got plenty of prisoners,” Ivan said, turning to look back at the screen. The motherships that placed themselves around Earth filled Ivan with anger. They were marring the view of his home—tainting it. He wanted to kill every last one of them. Earth was about two-thirds covered now. “If we’re going to do this, we need to act fast.”
“Do what, sir?” Millie asked. “You aren’t going to hand over Hayden, are you?”
Ivan scoffed and shook his head. “At the beginning of this all, I just might’ve. But you heard the man. Me and the president are the two people most hated by the Mortuks. No way they’re just going to hand my daughter over. I never believed it’d be a clean deal like that—not for a second. No, what we’re going to do is rescue her. The prisoners, too.” Ivan gave one last look at the Earth, fires of rage roaring within him. “We’re going to remind the Morutkians why they hate Joshua Ivan so damn much.”
Chapter Forty-Three
Hayden stood on the other side of the conference room from Ivan. “You should hand me over,” he said.
“Don’t be an idiot, Hayden,” Ivan responded.
“I’m being serious!” Hayden leaned forward on the table. “You hand me over and I’m on the inside. I’ll get my parents out and you guys can swoop in and pick us up.”
Ivan chuckled and shook his head. “You’re not thinking straight. You have no idea what it’s like on one of those motherships. There’s no way you can do something like that without getting yourself killed. If that was possible, don’t you think your father would already have done it? The best thing we can do is put some fear into the Mortuks. Let them know we’re not going down without a fight. We take out McArthur Base and rescue all the prisoners they’ve got there. They’ll start to realize we mean business.”
Hayden couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Stop trying to act like you’re not biased,” he said, his hands shaking with anger. “You just want to save your daughter. You hate my father. You don’t want to rescue him.”
“That’s not it at all, Hayden, and you know that. First of all, you can’t tell me that you really think you can infiltrate the Mortuk mothership and get your parents out without any weapons. They’ve been planning this for God knows how long. It’s not going to be that easy. Secondly, your father is the President of the United States. The commander-in-chief. If there’s anything we need right now, it’s a leader—a commander to unite us. The symbol of hope that your father is to Earth and her colonies? Even I can’t deny what that would do to help us. But we need every soldier we can get right now and I’m not about to give you up just so you can get yourself and your parents killed. I’ll throw you back in the damn brig if I have to, am I understood?”
It took Hayden a moment to calm himself to the point to where he could answer without letting his emotions get the better of him. “Understood, sir.”
“Okay then,” Ivan said, calming down. “Now those motherships are almost done surrounding Earth. Who knows what’s going to happen when they all get here, which is why I need you to listen up. I’m only going over this once.”
Chapter Forty-Four
Hayden had spent the past few hours going over the plans for McArthur Base. His eyes were heavy but as he got closer and closer to go-time, the adrenaline was doing its job, keeping his eyes from shutting all the way. He sat in his Mamba, eager to begin the mission. The stealth transport ships had left the Empire almost two hours ago. Once it hit that two-hour mark, they would’ve had enough time to reach Earth and get everything set up in the tunnels underneath McArthur Base. The tunnels hadn’t been on any of the blueprints they had but Ben Tillows, of all people ,mentioned them—said his father was stationed there at some point and told him about them.
“You boys ready?” Baxter, still the CAG, asked over the radio.
“I’m ready to go,” Hayden said.
Many other voices said they were ready, including Vick’s.
“When we get back we need to come up with some call signs,” Hayden said.
“That’s a great suggestion, Your Highness,” Vick said.
“Oh shit, did we just come up with Hayden’s call sign?” Baxter asked.
“Hell no,” Hayden shouted.
“Whatever you say, Your Highness,” another one of the pilots said.
“Making sub-FTL jump in sixty seconds,” Millie’s voice said over the intercom.
“Alright everybody, cut the chatter,” Baxter said. “Be ready to go as soon as the jump is complete.”
Hayden took a deep breath and prepared himself. Ivan had wanted him to stay on the ship but Hayden refused. No way was he going miss the chance to kick some Mortuk ass. He just hoped he was making the right decision.
“Thirty seconds until jump.”
Hayden gripped the controls tight. They’d have to fly out of the Empire as fast as possible, heading straight for Earth. They’d be landing a safe distance from McArthur Base. They’d wait for the signal from the ground team that they had successfully rescued Mia before moving in. If the Mortuks got wind of the attack before they had rescued Mia, they’d kill her for sure.
“Ten seconds until jump.”
The countdown continued and Hayden braced himself. It was time to take the fight to them.
“Initiating jump sequence.”
Everything stretched around Hayden as the ship began its short sub-FTL jump. They were so close to Earth that getting there would almost be like teleporting.
Everything snapped back into place.
It was time.
“Go, go, go!” Baxter shouted over the radio.
Hayden cranked up his speed, and shot out of the Empire’s hangar. Earth stretched below him, vibrant and beautiful. All the Mambas aimed for an open hexagon. The Mortuk motherships were hundreds, if not thousands, of miles apart. From up close, you could barely see two of them at a time. From far away though, Hayden knew what they looked like—an infection, and the infection was spreading all around Earth. There were only three or four motherships left before the pattern would be complete. What that would mean, Hayden didn’t know. Nobody except for the Mortukians did. All Hayden knew was that he wanted to be back safe on the Empire whenever it was time to find out.
Chapter Forty-Five
&nb
sp; Mia opened her eyes, the light blinding her. She’d passed out due to the blood loss but she didn’t feel pain anymore. She felt her side where Sam had stabbed her but there wasn’t any blood. Not even a bandage. Just her smooth skin. Hell of a doctor they got around here.
She scanned the room and saw she was in a private infirmary. A sheet surrounded her bed but through a small crack she could see the door to her room. It was closed. She listened as closely as she could. She didn’t hear anybody else in the room, so she figured she was alone. “Hello?” she called out. She prayed no one would answer. Nobody did, so she sat up.
She was pulled right back down into bed, though, by a strap that wrapped across her forehead and two pairs of handcuffs that tethered each of her hands to the hospital bed. Of course. No way they’d leave me unattended and not tied up. She yanked on the cuffs, trying to get free, but to no avail. They were fastened so tight the metal felt as if her circulation was being cut off.
A flash of light caught her eye. She craned to look over the side rail of the bed, and saw a tray sitting there, lined with medical utensils. The light reflected off the scalpel as if to say ‘Pick me!’. Mia stretched out her right hand as far as she could, trying to reach it with all her might. She fought down the yelps of pain she wanted to let out. It felt as if her wrist might snap at any moment. She wiggled her fingers, waving her hand back and forth, trying to get her fingertips to at least touch the scalpel.
In her frenzy, she accidentally hit the side of the tray, sending the thing careening through the air. The utensils went flying and the tray clattered to the ground.
But the scalpel landed on her bed.
She reached for the blade, frantic. It sat next to her knee, taunting her. She could almost reach it. She almost swore she felt the cool metal touch her skin.
Empire (Empire, Book One) Page 15