Enemy One (Epic Book 5)

by Lee Stephen

  “What you doin’?” Javon asked. “Been lookin’ all over for ya.”

  There was no need to answer, and Tom didn’t. He simply returned his gaze to the body bag. Walking to Tom’s side, Javon went on.

  “Hey—look at me, man.”

  “I don’t want to look at you.”

  Javon made a tsch sound. “Yeah, you do. Turn your head.” Tom complied reluctantly. “You know we gonna get ’em, right?”

  Shrugging his shoulders, Tom said, “It ain’t gonna bring him back.”

  “I ain’t said it was gonna bring no one back. But it’ll seal the deal wit’ you.”

  “They shot him, man.” Tom shook his head in a manner that made it seem like he’d only barely accepted the words. “They shot him in the veckin’ face.” The fact that EDEN had shot Donald in return for Donald’s firing on them first was of no significance, at least not to Tom. A wrong was a wrong, regardless of the action that’d prompted it. “Man, what I’m supposed to do? You know he kept me straight.”

  Looking down at the shorter soldier beside him, Javon paused for a moment, then said, “So keep yourself straight. Don’t you see what this is all about?”

  “Why don’t you tell me?”

  “We at war.” As the words sunk in and Tom’s lips pressed tighter together, Javon went on. “These boys we rollin’ with now, the Fourteenth…they got this all figured out.”

  Tom shot Javon a stupid look. “Man, what you gonna learn from the Fourteenth? You ain’t seen what they got goin’ on? They in a worse place than us.”

  “Hey,” said Javon, putting his hand on Tom’s shoulder and pivoting the soldier to face him. “We in this together, now. It’s you, and me, and them. Ain’t no one else left from the crew.” He punched Tom in that same shoulder. “We the pain, baby. Now it’s time to bring it.” The slender, afro-haired soldier nodded with assurance. “I get this Remington cat. He’s tryin’ to bring it all to the light. That’s what we gotta do.”

  “Man, so what if we bring it to the light?” Tom asked. “It ain’t gonna bring Don back. It ain’t gonna bring Knight back, or Mott back.”

  Javon only shook his head. “I ain’t said it would. But it’ll give their deaths meaning—and that means somethin’. But I’mma need you, King.” He held out his fist. “I got you?”

  For several seconds, Tom offered no response. He simply stared down at the body bag, as he had for so long before Javon walked into the hangar.

  “C’mon, T, don’t leave me hangin’.”

  Looking almost resigned, Tom hit Javon’s fist with a lazy one of his own. “You got me.”

  “Look at me.”

  “Why I always gotta be lookin’ at you?”

  With a voice that was completely focused, Javon said, “It’s time to be men.”

  Turning his head ever so slowly, Tom looked his friend in the eyes. After a moment of stillness, the shorter soldier nodded his head. “All right.”

  “Training begins now,” Javon said, taking a step backward as his departure began. “Let’s bring ’em somethin’.” Pivoting around, Javon made his way toward the double doors and out of the hangar.

  For a final time, Tom turned his eyes upon the bag containing Donald Bell. With his reddened eyes gone and his emotions poured out, he had nothing left to give his cousin other than purpose to his death. Purpose to his name. Sucking in a long, steady breath through his nostrils, Tom placed his hand against the bottom of the bag, where the demolitionist’s foot could be felt beneath it. “I love you, cuz.”

  That was the extent of Tom’s eulogy for his fallen. There were no prayers, no spoken reflections, no vows of vengeance. Just a parting expression of love. Donald would be the only one receiving Tom’s love for a long time. Taking a step back, Tom broke his gaze away from the body bag and focused on the double doors through which that Javon had just disappeared. Without looking back, Tom followed the same path.

  * * *

  Out.

  That was the only place Catalina wanted to be. Out. From the moment Falcon Platoon had been shot down over the Great Dismal Swamp, the girl her teammates called “Hellcat” had been a girl confined—literally and figuratively. The loss of function in her left leg, when combined with the time spent in a prison cell in Krasnoyarsk, then the medical bay at Northern Forge, had given the Canadian rocker the worst case of cabin fever she’d ever felt. The sudden need for beds in the medical bay for those injured at Hami Station had been somewhat of a blessing, tragedy of the dead and injured aside. It meant that Catalina, regardless of the progress of her recovery, was forced out of the medical bay by necessity. As far as Gavriil was concerned, Catalina had a wheelchair and a plaster cast. She was good to roll away.

  And roll, she would.

  Despite the outward severity of her conversation with Tiffany, their spat wasn’t something that was hanging heavily on her mind. She and Tiffany had gotten into heated arguments before—such was life with a roommate, as they’d been at Philadelphia Academy. That this brief one had been among their most cutting was a testament only to the high-pressure situation they’d suddenly been thrust into. She and her bestie would be fine.

  And so out Catalina went, not in search of Tiffany or anyone else in particular, but simply to roam the base that she’d been living in for several days but had yet to explore to any real degree. It was nice to get out and about, even if it wasn’t on two legs. She was already in terrific shape, handicap aside, so pushing the wheelchair along was something she quickly became accustomed to. As long as her extended leg stayed out of harm’s way, she could speed right along.

  Her exploration began on Level-3, the heart of Northern Forge, with its auditorium, conference room, cafeteria, and lounge—among other small rooms sprinkled here and there. It was fascinating, but busy, and she quickly found herself more an obstacle for others to dodge than a carefree, free-wheeling explorer. She didn’t linger there, quickly opting to take the elevator down to Level-2, base storage. It was there, somewhere in the middle of the grid-like labyrinth of storage rooms, that Catalina became lost.

  For as simple a layout as Level-2 was, with rooms clearly identifiable as for armor, weaponry, general storage, and other things, it was surprisingly difficult to gather one’s bearings after several turns had been made. With no clear signs pointing to the elevator, Catalina found herself on several occasions passing one of the same rooms she’d seen, with no idea how she’d looped back around to it. Too embarrassed to ask for directions—and not entirely sure she’d be able to decipher the Russian answers, anyway—she opted to wander until she found the right way to go. It wasn’t like she had anything better to do.

  It also didn’t help that Level-2 was deceptively large. It seemed much larger than Level-3, which, despite its variety of rooms, was pretty straightforward. And so the Canadian rocker wheeled on, half-exploratory, half-panicked, keeping her eyes peeled for both new things and the elevator, which she intended to make a beeline for when she found it.

  Though Catalina and Tiffany’s exchange would be mutually forgiven, the swelling of Catalina’s emotions to the surface of her heart—particularly as they pertained to Mark Peters—would be difficult to shake. It had been five days since Mark had been killed along with so many of their other teammates over the Great Dismal Swamp. Five days since he’d been sucked out the back of their Vulture in an explosion of fire. There’d been no meaningful last words between them—no lingering, final look into his eyes from afar. One second he was there, and in the next…

  …in the next, she was rolling around in a wheelchair in Northern Forge. There’d barely been enough time between then and now to breathe, let alone grieve. Besides the tears that’d fallen as a result of her leg injury, she’d scarcely cried any at all. She’d just been numb.

  Mark had been more than a teammate to her. The two of them had had something. Was it special? She didn’t know. But it’d been theirs. She’d never called it love, even when Mark had asked her outright about it. But it wa
sn’t just lust, either. They pushed each other physically and emotionally. Truth be told, had she wanted to take their relationship further, into the realm of the definable, Mark probably would have gone for it.

  Of course, none of that mattered now. Mark was gone. Life had changed. Thinking about what could have been—what perhaps should have been—was of no benefit in her current situation. Instead of facing those feelings, she tried to block them out for the sake of moving on.

  Tried to.

  At least she still had Tiffany.

  Catalina had never envisioned herself as a sidekick, yet in the duo that was she and Tiffany, that was what she’d become. While Catalina had never been one to demand the spotlight or put herself in a position to be the center of attention, she exuded more than enough confidence to slide naturally into the role. People went where she wanted them to go. People did what she wanted them to do. People wanted to know what she was up to. Or at least, that’s how things had once been.

  Simply put, Catalina had been upstaged by a mall rat.

  That was putting it crudely, and any effort her mind made to describe things in such a way was met by immediate self-chastisement. She was no more special than Tiffany, and most certainly no more deserving of the perceived limelight. She just wasn’t used to being forgotten. It didn’t anger her. More than anything, it made her reflect. Perhaps she wasn’t the wildcard she’d always thought she was. Maybe Catalina Shivers was part of the backdrop. Somehow, she couldn’t accept that—yet there she was, rolling around on her own, lost on Level-2 of Northern Forge, with no one seeking her out or asking for her input on anything. Had they, she’d have gladly given it. No, this operation was Tiffany’s, the new adopted sister of the Fourteenth, led by the man Catalina herself aspired to emulate at Richmond—to the point where maybe, just maybe, Catalina was a little bit bitter about it. But friends didn’t get bitter. Or, at least, they weren’t supposed to. Perhaps she wasn’t as good a friend as she thought she was either. Had she been a neutral third party observing her own behavior, she’d have dubbed her mindset, “self-pity, party of one.” But she knew that thought was silly.

  This wasn’t a party at all.

  At long last, the sound of something new caught Catalina’s ears. Though it wasn’t the dinging of the much-sought-after elevator, its strangeness drew her toward it. It was grunting, coming from a room just ahead of her. Deep grunts, followed by heavy breaths, repeated over and over. There was no mistaking what it was: someone was working out. But on Level-2? Did Northern Forge have a gym that she didn’t know about? As things turned out, the base did, tucked away in the middle of rooms dedicated to foodstuffs, clothing, and boxes of ores. The room wasn’t a genuine gym—it was as makeshift as one could be. This was empty space that’d been repurposed with weights, mirrors, and a handful of workout machines, just slightly less elaborate than one would expect to find at a mid-rate hotel. But that a gym existed in the labyrinth of Level-2 wasn’t what surprised her the most. What surprised her was who she found in it. There, in the middle of the room, sitting in his own wheelchair with weights in each hand, was Auric Broll.

  “Auric?” she asked from the doorway.

  Stopping in mid-curl, the facially-scarred German slayer turned his head in her direction. When he saw Catalina, he smiled. “Hello.”

  Of all the members of the Fourteenth, Catalina had come to know Auric the best, by proximity. The two had been side-by-side, literally, during their entire stay at Northern Forge. Though she wouldn’t have described her knowledge of him as “well,” she nonetheless had exchanged a decent amount of small-talk with him in the medical bay over the course of their time there. He seemed genuinely nice, for what little she knew. She’d referred to the two of them as, “Team Cripple.” He’d laughed at it.

  That was the extent of their friendship.

  The raven-haired soldier rolled toward him. “What are you doing? Should you be doing that?”

  Laughing deeply, the sweat-covered German answered, “That is why they are fifteens.” He lifted up the weights.

  “Fifteens, or not,” she said, giving him a look that was part wry, part wondering if he was crazy, “you just had major knee surgery. I…kind of can’t even believe you can do that.”

  “Do not let your backup see the field,” Auric said. When she gave him a strange look, he chuckled. “I learned that from the captain. It is, umm, American football term, I think? I must show that I am useful, or I will be replaced.” As Auric thought about it, another small laugh escaped. “Ironic, I think Remington was a backup.”

  As Auric exhaled and set the weights down on the rack, Catalina wheeled up to him. “Just, you know, don’t hurt yourself. Your knee’s being held in place by plaster, not titanium.”

  “Oh, yes, I know.” He smiled. “It hurts.”

  Catalina eyed the German curiously as silence fell between them. At long last, she tilted her head and asked, “You’re kind of like a human battery, eh?”

  “I am sorry?”

  “You just go, and go, and go. Even in the medical bay, you were fidgeting the whole time. You just…you have to be doing something.”

  Nodding his head, he looked down almost sheepishly. “Oh, yes. Yes. I like to work.” He stretched toward the rack for a towel and wiped the sweat from his face. “You came here to work out?”

  “Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no, no.” She smirked. “I actually value my recovery. I’m here because I’m lost.”

  “Oh?” At that, Auric laughed. “Lost, okay. Umm, where were you trying to go?”

  She didn’t have an answer for that. “Honestly, I just wanted to get out on my own. I’ve been cooped up so much—you know the feeling. But I guess, uhh, now I’m looking for the elevator.”

  “Ah. Okay.” Pointing toward the doorway, he motioned to the left. “Follow this hall, right there, to the third-to-last intersection. Go left, it is in the middle of that hall.” He shook his head and gave her a funny look. “It sounds harder than it is.”

  Watching him for a second, Catalina nodded her head. “Well, all right. Thanks.”

  “No problem.”

  As the Canadian slowly wheeled backward a few feet, Auric turned back to the weight rack, reaching for the pair of fifteens he’d just set down. Only when he was on the verge of resuming his curls, did she speak to him again. “Okay, what’s the deal with you?”

  “I’m sorry?” Auric asked, huffing and setting the weights back again.

  “I feel like we should know each other better. We’ve been side-by-side for days. What’s your story?” she asked, going on with more questions before he could answer. “Where are you from? Why are you here? How’d you get the scar on your face? Stuff like that.”

  Eyes widening a bit at the mini-barrage of questions, he laughed and half shook his head when she was finished. “Well, the face is easiest. I was shot by a plasma bolt.”

  Catalina’s jaw dropped. “In the face?”

  “Yes.” Auric motioned around his neck and shoulder. “Interspecies Conflict. Bolt hit here—boom. It splashed up and got my face.”

  “And you’re not home, with your feet propped up, slamming a beer?”

  Auric shook his head, his pleasant expression remaining. “No, I couldn’t.”

  “Gotta keep working, eh?”

  “I don’t drink.”

  Staring him down as if waiting for him to laugh, Catalina narrowed her eyes when he didn’t. “You don’t drink?” she finally asked.

  “No.”

  “Everyone drinks.”

  Now, his smile widened. “No, not true. There are a few in the unit who don’t. The captain, myself…Sveta, the commander—at least, not anymore.”

  “You strange, strange folk.”

  “But, to answer your question, no, I could not have left Novosibirsk, even after the plasma bolt. I have nothing else to do.” After a momentary pause, he motioned to her. “Will you leave? Now that you have that?”

  Her jester’s smirk widened, and
she nodded her head. “Sure. I’ll just retire, nice and quietly. ‘Dead girl returns home.’ I’m sure that wouldn’t make the news.”

  “Well, you know,” Auric said, “if you want to go home, you will find a way. As I will find a way to make this leg work again, to put on armor, and to fight once more. It is what I really want to do.” When Catalina offered him no real change of expression, the German said, “You are not happy.”

  “My leg is destroyed, I’m rolling around in a wheelchair, and I’m lost in the middle of a secret mountain base in Russia. I don’t have very many reasons to be happy.”

  He indicated to her nonchalantly. “But you are alive.”

  Her face remained unchanged. “Yes. I am alive.”

  “But it is not about any of the things that you said. You are sad in a place much deeper.”

  “Is that a statement or a question?” Silence prevailed between them as Auric didn’t respond. At long last, Catalina released a long, weary sigh. Rolling a floor tile closer, she said, “Everyone knows what they want. You want to get better so you can fight—you live for this, it’s obvious. Tiffany wanted to fly for her father, now she wants to fly for Travis. Captain Remington, I’m sure he has passionate reasons for doing what he’s doing.” Though Auric nodded, he remained quiet. “Then, there’s me. I’m not here for a grand purpose, Auric,” she said with self-depreciative smugness. “I’m here because I was bored. Ta-da, look at me.”

  Auric made a deep, mmm, sound.

  “I could be the lead singer of a rock and roll band.” Her tone retained its almost sing-song matter-of-factness. “But I was like, whatevs, and got the wonderful notion to enlist with EDEN, so I could get shot out of the sky by EDEN, to end up here, sitting in a wheelchair talking about life’s futility with you. Wow, I have certainly gone astray.”

  Despite the mocking irony in her voice, the look Auric offered her was not amused or eager to placate. Rather, he simply looked sad.