Odyssey

by Michael Stephen Fuchs

  ARISEN

  Hope Never Dies.

  First published 2018 by Complete & Total Asskicking Books

  London, UK

  Copyright © Michael Stephen Fuchs

  The right of Michael Stephen Fuchs to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any other means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the author. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  About the Author

  MICHAEL STEPHEN FUCHS is co-author of the first eight books of the bestselling ARISEN series; as well as solo author of Books Nine through Fourteen, the prequels ARISEN : Genesis and ARISEN : Nemesis, and ARISEN : Odyssey – which have repeatedly been Amazon #1 bestsellers in Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction, #1 in Dystopian Science Fiction, #1 in Military Science Fiction, #1 in War Fiction, and #1 in War & Military Action Fiction, as well as Amazon overall Top 100 bestsellers. The series as a whole has sold over a half-million copies. The audiobook editions, performed by R.C. Bray, have generated over two million dollars in revenue. He is also author of the D-BOYS series of high-tech special-operations military adventure novels, which include D-BOYS, COUNTER-ASSAULT, and CLOSE QUARTERS BATTLE (coming in 2019); as well as the existential cyberthrillers THE MANUSCRIPT and PANDORA’S SISTERS, both published worldwide by Macmillan in hardback, paperback and all e-book formats (and in translation). He lives in London and at www.michaelstephenfuchs.com, and blogs at www.michaelfuchs.org/razorsedge. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter (@michaelstephenf), or by e-mail.

  ARISEN

  ODYSSEY

  MICHAEL STEPHEN FUCHS

  For Tim.

  (Friends stick around.)

  PART ONE

  THE ODYSSEY

  “Tempus edax rerum. [Time devours everything.]”

  - Ovid

  Angels

  Michigan, USA – Western Manistee National Forest

  [End of Year Two of the Zulu Alpha]

  Sarah Cameron drove the truck in silence, Homer also wordless in the passenger seat beside her – and still strangely at ease. Like he no longer had a care in the world.

  Or, rather, as if he had made a decision.

  When they were two miles from where they’d dropped the rest of Alpha team, she rolled the ravaged 90s-era Ford Expedition to a stop again, took it out of gear, and put the brake on. She turned in her seat and said, “I’m not going with them.”

  “It’s okay,” Homer said. “Neither am I.”

  This pulled her up short. “What?”

  He just looked warmly at her, as he thought about what he ought to tell her. But before he could formulate it, she pulled the hand mic from the radio under the dash. She powered it up, flipped through channels, and hailed Command Sergeant Major Handon, Alpha’s new leader, all while still looking at Homer. The radio antenna was gone, but it was only a couple of miles back to the team, and line of sight.

  In a few seconds, a response came back. “Handon here, you’re five-by-five. Everything okay?”

  “Everything’s fine,” Sarah said. “But listen to me. I’m not coming with you. Not right now.”

  “What?”

  “I have to go back to the cabin. I might not love my husband anymore, but I can’t leave him like… that. And my son… I’m the one who has to do it.”

  “Do what? They’re gone, Sarah. The explosion…”

  She swallowed heavily, before pressing the transmit button again. “I don’t think they died in the blast. And if they did, I can’t know that they’ll stay dead. Also, I saw… something, in the headlights as we were escaping. I’ve got to go back and make sure.”

  “Fine. We’ll wait for you.”

  “The hell you will.” Her voice went deadly serious now. “Don’t make me remind you what you’ve got with you there, or what your mission is. We left when we did to ensure the success of that mission. And you’re going to keep going now for the same reason. We’re not risking that. Not for me, not for my peace of mind.”

  When Handon didn’t immediately respond, she clicked back on. “Get to your extraction point. I know where it is – the airport on Beaver Island. And I’ll join you there – with a little luck, before your plane leaves. Maybe before you get there yourselves. Now go. I’ll meet you there.”

  “It’s too dangerous on your own. You’ll never make it.”

  Sarah looked tired in the dark. “Look, if anyone can make it up the coast of Lake Michigan, it’s me. Believe me, I’m prepared for this. I know the terrain. I know their behavior. I’m ready. Now – you have to go. This discussion is over.” She let her hand and the mic drop toward her lap – but then brought it back up again. “Oh – I don’t think your SEAL is going with you, either.” She let off the button and held the mic toward Homer.

  He shook his head. “Tell him Ali can explain.”

  She nodded, keyed the mic, and said it.

  There was a long pause on the other end. Sarah swore she could hear the grizzled sergeant major gritting his teeth, and cursing in his head, from two miles up the road. Finally he spoke. “Sarah. Listen. COME BACK. You hear me? You make it to that extraction point. We need you.”

  What Handon didn’t say, but what she could hear perfectly well, was: I need you.

  “That’s received,” she said quietly. “Five-Five-Eight Tango Papa out.”

  * * *

  Sarah looked over at Homer in the dim instrument lights as she put the truck back in gear. Then, facing forward again, down the long dark road they faced, she got the vehicle rolling. And she asked Homer a question.

  “So. What’s your new mission?”

  Homer looked across at her in the dark, and felt the weight, the impossibility of what he was doing now. Duty to unit, to country, to humanity, had always come first – for outstanding reasons. They had to come first, always. That he was putting all that aside now and seeing to his family instead was wrong. He knew it was wrong. And he knew he’d be judged for it. He just no longer had the strength to resist.

  He was weak. And he was a sinner.

  “My mission is the same as yours,” he said. “I’m going back for my family.”

  “Small world,” Sarah said.

  Homer smiled. “Why don’t you let me help you with yours, before you drop me off.”

  She nodded. “You can help me. But after that… wait, where’s your family?”

  “Virginia. Tidewater region.”

  Sarah nodded again. “I hear it’s nice there.”

  Homer looked across at her again.

  Strong woman, he thought.

  * * *

  Homer gently pushed the rifle’s optic away from Sarah’s eye. He pressed his mouth to her ear and said, “Let me do it.” She nodded rapidly a couple of times and moved aside. Homer slid into her place behind his own weapon.

  The two of them were belly-down on a rise in the forest, 200 yards from the overrun and burned-down survivalist cabin. A lot of trees interceded, but they could peer through them, and had a pretty decent view of the clearing. It was now just another piece of property squatted upon by the dead.

  This was damned difficult, but Homer thanked God they were able to spot them from here, both the man and the boy. Horrifyi
ngly, the two writhed on the ground beside each other, thrashing, grasping. But if they hadn’t been visible from here, Sarah and Homer would have had to go back and scour the scene from close up.

  Homer hadn’t really expected to find them at all, not still moving. But they must have been protected from the worst of the blast by the great mass of dead that had pressed around them. And Sarah knew what she had seen. Homer also figured they had already been in the process of turning. Handon would probably lacerate himself about the way this had played out, for years, if not forever. But there had never been any saving these two. Sarah’s family had been dead on arrival.

  Sometimes the only possible salvation is God’s.

  So Homer sent them off to Him, first one, then the other, with single rounds at standoff range.

  They were too far for the sound of the suppressed shots to carry. Homer slid the rifle back off the rise along with his body, then rose and took Sarah’s hand. He led her through the forest back to the high section of road where the truck was parked up. He thought he had to lead her – it was pitch black, and only Homer had NVGs. He had ardently wanted not to take one of the team’s dwindling supply of night-vision gear.

  But he would have had to explain why he was leaving them.

  That had been the moment when his irreconcilable duties had finally come into fatal conflict. And for the first time, his duty to the uniform, and the team, and the world, had come in second. There was no point in wallowing in guilt about it. If he had acted wrongly, one day he would be judged.

  Though that day might at least be a little further off, with the help of the NVGs…

  * * *

  The two sat in silence in the dark of the truck for a few seconds.

  “Thank you,” she said finally. “I thought I could do that. I thought I had to.”

  “You could have done it. But you shouldn’t have to.”

  She nodded and squared her shoulders. “So tell me how you plan to get to Virginia.”

  Homer shrugged. “Pick up a vehicle. Make my way overland.”

  “I’ve got a vehicle,” Sarah said, wryly. Homer inched away from her on the seat, not liking where this was going. “I’ve also got supplies.”

  “Last I checked, your cabin was burned down and overrun. And the team cleaned out your truck.”

  “You don’t think those were our only supplies, do you? I’ve got a cache in the woods a mile from here.” Homer looked skeptical. “We had to be ready to go on a second’s notice if we lost the cabin. It’s even bear-proof.”

  Homer smiled, but shook his head. “It’s incredibly kind of you. You’ve already done so much for us. And I’m sure I’ll never forget your generosity, and goodness. But you need to get to safety, to the carrier. You don’t need to be messing around with me on highways and in population centers.”

  “But your carrier’s sitting off the coast of Virginia, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “So if we can make our way to the Virginia coast, we can certainly get to the carrier.”

  “Those are big ifs. Including fighting our way across a third of North America. No, this is for me to do. Alone.”

  Sarah knew she was making an impulsive choice. But she was feeling her sudden freedom, and this decision felt like the right one. The only thing that could mean anything, now or anytime, was our love for the people in our lives, however strangely they had come into them.

  And the sacrifices we made for them.

  “Handon told me about your family,” she said. “About how you had to leave them, to try and forget about them, all this time. In order to do your job, and progress your mission. To save the world. Well, you came with me for my family. You didn’t leave me alone with that. And I’m not going to leave you alone to search for yours. Also, maybe… maybe yours can still be saved. And I’m not letting you go alone.”

  Homer looked across at this radiant woman in the dark. Simply, he was trying to figure out if she was an angel. He remembered someone once saying: There might not be angels, but there are people who might as well be angels.

  “Okay,” he said, exhaling fully. “It’s a road trip, then.”

  They both laughed at the silliness of this. If it was a road trip, it wouldn’t be like any they, or anyone, had ever taken before.

  Both of them looked ahead into the darkness. Sarah started the engine, released the brake, put it in gear… and then she and Homer went forward into the black night.

  Hell Week

  Open Ocean, Off the Coast of Coronado

  [22 Years Earlier]

  Handheld spots slashed and cut another and even blacker night, roving across the obsidian surface of the Pacific. Searching. Picking out the heads of those still above water.

  And looking for those going under.

  Homer and his fellow candidates were at least a mile off shore tonight, in the middle of a black and nearly moonless night. The group was only halfway through a six-mile swim – and the class down to less than a quarter of its original size. Homer was one of twenty-two survivors, so far, of Hell Week. This was down from the 112 who had entered BUD/S Class 228.

  BUD/S (Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training) was the notoriously brutal six-month training and selection course that was also the reason most people can’t and don’t become SEALs. It was also only the opening salvo of a 30-month training pipeline before newly minted SEALs could deploy with their teams.

  But Homer felt as if he’d already been there 30 lifetimes.

  BUD/S itself only began after US Navy boot camp, then graduate recruit training, plus SEAL pre-indoctrination training, and finally the three-week INDOC course itself, which introduced SEAL candidates to the horrors of life at Coronado – specifically, the Naval Special Warfare Center (NSWC), which assessed, selected, and trained prospective Naval Special Warfare Operators, otherwise known as Navy SEALs.

  BUD/S was conducted in three phases: The third was Land Warfare, and the second was Diving. But it all started with Basic Conditioning – the relentless physical testing that included the infamous Hell Week. Phase One consisted of endless PT – thousands of push-ups face-down in the freezing surf, flutter kicks in the sand until their midsections burned, then lost all feeling, and then burned again. Teams of exhausted SEAL candidates carrying giant logs through the darkness of the Coronado beach on their shoulders.

  All of which resulted in a whole lot of them “ringing the bell” – the official signal that a candidate was voluntarily withdrawing, known as DOR’ing or dropping on request, along with placing his helmet in the quitter line at the edge of the Grinder. This was the notorious and unforgiving cement PT courtyard, overlooked by the office windows of the commanders, who scrutinized every slip-up, every moment of anything less than full and selfless effort.

  Every day, nearly every hour, the line of helmets grew.

  Homer had learned that the DORs accounted for most of the attrition, but not all – there were also some who got injured: stress fractures, shoulder separations, soft-tissue damage, ACL tears, plantar fasciitis, crippling shin splints from endless running on sand. There were also subpar performers, those who didn’t make time on the four-mile runs or the O-course, or were too weak to help carry the inflatable Combat Rubber Raiding Craft (CRRCs) with their assigned boat crews. Some of the injured and poor performers got rolled back to a later BUD/S class. And some of those even made it through on a second, third, or fourth attempt.

  But not many. And definitely not most.

  And just when it had seemed to Homer that Phase One couldn’t get any more hellish, there came Hell Week, which commenced with instructors raiding the candidates’ tent in the middle of the night like an assault, rousting them out of bed, with sirens tearing the night. They had then gone straight into nonstop PT, at a level that made the first weeks of Phase One seem like grade-school recess, with water-hoses turned on the exhausted, hurting, and sleep-deprived men.

  In total, over five days, Homer knew from those who came before that the
y would be subject to 200 miles of running, most of it with a 320-pound boat on their heads, as well as 20 hours of PT per day – all of it on four hours total sleep for the week.

  Phase One – before, after, and especially during Hell Week – was the end of the line for the vast majority who entered BUD/S. In Homer’s class, three men had asked to DOR after breakfast on the first day of Phase One. That very first PT session – with over 500 pushups and 60 pull-ups – was worse than a shock of cold water. Nothing – not training, not the warnings of those who came before – had prepared them for it. On the second day, two DOR’d before breakfast. In the end, fewer than ten percent of those who began this journey would remain.

  In Class 228, so far at least, Homer was one of them.

  Tonight, the third night of Hell Week, the water temperature was barely 60 degrees. And the 22 men out in it were barely awake, having gotten no more than two hours of sleep over the last three days. Hence the searchlights – the instructors were looking for drowning men.

  While NSWC took a dim view of actually killing the candidates, the primary job of BUD/S instructors was, simply, to drum people out of the program. To weed out anyone who wasn’t SEAL material – which was almost everyone. The whole point of their selection process – even more so than similar programs across the special operations community – was to systematically make the candidates so miserable, exhausted, pummeled, and demoralized, that anyone willing to quit absolutely anything, under any circumstances whatsoever, would ring the bell – packing it in and going home.

  And this was for the straightforward reason that only those who refused to quit, against all reasonable odds, were the only ones who could do what SEALs needed to do.

  Unfortunately, packing it in didn’t really mean going home – in fact, it almost always meant going back to the surface fleet. Which, for enlisted men like Homer, would mean a life of crowded, smelly berthing compartments belowdecks – and tiring, thankless, long-hours jobs up top. At least four years of it.