Odyssey

by Michael Stephen Fuchs

  * * *

  But then he was proven wrong – and the stakes got raised.

  Bright red tracer rounds streaked out over the top of the porthole glass, and over Homer’s head, arcing off over the glassy surface of the Atlantic. And they were spaced close enough together that Homer didn’t have to guess what was putting them out: one of the GAU-17 miniguns on the Mk V, at something between 2,000 and 6,000 rounds of 7.62mm per minute. As tightly stacked as those red tracer rounds were, Homer knew there were four invisible ones in between each. Which was an awful lot of lead in the air.

  All of it about ten feet over the heads of his children.

  Stealing a look behind him, he saw Sarah crouching over Ben and Isabel in the main cabin. If that minigunner depressed his weapon two degrees – or the Mk V hit a swell that dipped its prow – Sarah’s body would do even less to shield the kids than the carbon-fiber hull of the boat, which was basically nothing.

  The corner they were in was getting narrower by the second, and Homer had to make a decision. Looking back, he could see the other boat gaining fast, pulling out to port to come alongside. Knowing this wasn’t any real solution, Homer shouted, “Hang on!” – and then sent them careening into a 90-degree starboard turn, throwing another small tsunami of seawater into the evening sky, and also sending everything and everyone not lashed down sliding to the port side.

  This got the Mk V off their tail – briefly. Now they were heading parallel to the shore, south. But, in seconds, the Mk V was overtaking again. Homer pulled the same maneuver again – in toward shore. And then a third time, heading north back up the coast. He was buying a little time. But he also knew he was just spiraling them into a corner.

  The Mk V, and Odin’s Ulfhednar aboard it, were going to run them to ground. And that was even if they didn’t get any more vessels out there after them, which Homer now had to worry about as the mouth of the waterway came up again fast on their left. And no sooner had he felt the worry than it was realized.

  The flat-bottomed SOC-R came blasting out of it.

  The top speed of that craft was only 40 knots. But it was ahead of them, cutting them off, and along with the Mk V, would make short work of bringing them to heel. Homer had to decide how much more he could risk his children, in what was an increasingly doomed attempt to escape. The minigun fire was bad, but a high-speed boarding would be risky for everyone, as well. He racked his brain for new ideas.

  But his hand reached for the throttle. To bring it down.

  And then a cone of flame erupted from the deck of the SOC-R, ahead and to the left, and a sparking dart streaked through the air. It was a missile launch, something man-portable, probably a Carl Gustaf or AT4, maybe a LAAW, Homer couldn’t be sure, it was all happening fast. At first he thought it was coming straight for them, and somebody had decided both he and the Stiletto were expendable after all.

  But in fact the projectile streaked in past their stern and exploded behind them a fraction of a second later, just at the waterline, and when Homer got a look at the pursuing Mk V…

  It was settling in the water and disappearing in their wake.

  It took him another second to work out it had been a direct hit on the Mk V’s stern and its engines. Now it was powering down and slowing fast, not to mention listing and burning. Whether there were casualties on board wasn’t obvious, but Homer also didn’t care all that much. What did have his attention was the SOC-R, the river boat, coming up on them, fast. He veered to starboard again, out to sea, with nothing but open ocean ahead of them now. Open water ahead, but the other vessel behind, angling in on their port side, gaining at its top speed before Homer could accelerate back up to theirs.

  He checked their four o’clock, then five. The Mk V was now out of sight, except for the light of its flames. He kept them blasting forward another minute until even that disappeared.

  Then he throttled down and took their engines offline.

  Finally, he grabbed his rifle, exited the wheelhouse, and climbed out on deck as the Stiletto slowed beneath him, having to wait only about another thirty seconds until the river boat came alongside. He brought his rifle to his shoulder as it did, and took aim at the single figure standing at the pilot’s controls.

  Kili.

  Guilty

  “It’s okay,” Kili said. “Do what you’ve got to do, brother.”

  He was kitted up in full tactical gear, and had his rifle clipped to him on its sling. But his hands were empty, out in plain sight. A spent launcher tube lay on the deck by his feet. And he was alone. Homer lowered his rifle.

  The river boat was slowing to a stop as it came abreast. Homer looked up and around. The sun was now gone behind the hulking mass of North America behind them. And the open Atlantic, out ahead, was growing black and glossy. The Mk V couldn’t be seen to their south, not even burning.

  And there was nothing else on the water. For now.

  Homer put his hand out – and Kili tossed him a line. He secured it to a cleat, tying the two boats together. He put his hand out again.

  And he hauled his friend on board.

  * * *

  “The mission you sold me was a total fabrication.”

  The two of them sat up on the hull, just outside the hatch to the main cabin. Homer stole a look inside, where Sarah still sat watching the kids. He held a hand out palm-first to tell her to stay put, and stay with them. He didn’t figure this was going to be a long pow-wow. But he also had a feeling it was going to involve topics the kids shouldn’t hear.

  Kili shrugged in the near dark. “Figured you’d work it out.”

  “Why?” Homer asked. “Why the story?”

  “Because I knew you’d never be a part of it. If you knew what the mission really was. Hell, I told Odin as much.”

  Homer shook his head. “And what about you? How could you be a part of it?”

  Kili looked mostly guilty, but also a little defiant, or maybe just defensive. “It was Odin’s call. He’s CMC. And we’re still NSW.”

  “No,” Homer said. “NSW was answerable to someone – the NCA. Odin answers to no one.” He squinted, trying to read Kili’s face. “The officers. They didn’t just drift away, did they?”

  Kili exhaled, nostrils flaring. He grabbed at his beard almost as if for comfort, or solace. “Some did, sure. But not everyone.”

  “Tell me it wasn’t a mutiny.”

  Kili shook his head, looking more beaten down. “In effect. But it was a palace coup – happened behind closed doors, with just a few people. Odin and his guys did it.”

  “Did they actually murder officers? Or just run them off? Which amounts to the same thing anyway.”

  “I don’t know. Anyway, we definitely didn’t know about it while it was going on. By the time the rest of us figured out what happened, it was all over.”

  Homer shook his head. “So now Odin’s a law unto himself. And everyone’s lost their way.”

  Movement caught Homer’s eye – and he swiveled to see Sarah moving to the bench nearest the open hatch. Close enough to hear what they were saying. But the kids were still back on the opposite side.

  Kili saw her, too, but also didn’t comment. He just responded to Homer. “You’re not alone in feeling that way. A lot of the guys have their reservations.”

  “About Odin? Or about this mission? The one that will kill all the survivors in the whole area.”

  Kili looked down again. “Both. A lot of us are outright opposed. For God’s sake, those are our former friends and neighbors we’d be zapping. You don’t think we know that?”

  Homer didn’t know what to say to him. He definitely didn’t understand how they could know that – and then also go through with it. His lifelong position of never judging anyone, never mind his own teammates, was being seriously tested.

  Kili seemed to read his mind. “We’re not strong enough to oppose Odin. He’s got a stranglehold on power. And he’s marginalized the guys most opposed to him, and this plan.”

&nbs
p; “Just marginalized, huh.”

  “Yeah, not just. There have been a few… who’ve gone outside the wire. And not come back.”

  “I’m guessing the Ulfhednar always come back.”

  “Yeah. Pretty much. Look, there was actually enough opposition that this thing never happened, for over a year.”

  “So what changed?”

  “Aside from you coming back? And making the mission more achievable? It was that storm, the ten million dead guys that rolled in. It could have swept us all away – and the next one still could. And that decided them – Fuck this, we’re killing everyone. It became about team survival.”

  “And nothing matters but the team, right?”

  Kili shook his head, and took another look at his boots. “I don’t defend it. I can’t. I’m as guilty as anyone. I didn’t save Ellie. I never stopped the killing of survivors. It’s such a slippery slope, brother. We’re all dirty, none of us clean, all covered in blood.”

  Homer felt himself soften. There was no easy path – and no easy decisions. He knew that in his bones. He said, “I should have stopped Odin years ago – back in Afghanistan.”

  Kili looked up. “You reported him. For what he did.”

  “Eventually. But I looked away for too long. I convinced myself the mission justified the abuses. I should have done more. We’re all guilty. We’re all sinners. But we can also be redeemed. Salvation is right here in front of us.”

  Kili looked up, his eyes wet. “Homer… about Ellie…”

  “I know.”

  Kili startled, stared into Homer’s eyes, looking puzzled. “You know what?”

  “That she didn’t kill herself.”

  “What?” Kili’s face twisted in alarm, then bafflement.

  “She would never do that. She was always stronger than me.” Homer half-smiled. “She had to be. And she’d never give in to despair. Give up on her faith. Give up on me. Mainly, she would never, ever give up on Ben and Isabel. She’d never leave them.”

  Now Kili looked not just alarmed – but genuinely and deeply horrified. “What are you saying?” he asked, his own voice like a child’s. And Homer realized – Kili didn’t know. He really didn’t.

  Homer said, “She didn’t walk outside the wire. Odin put her out there. And made sure she didn’t come back. For opposing the mission. Just like he did with the guys who opposed him.”

  Now Kili looked like he had been put out in the wilderness himself. “But the note…”

  Homer shrugged. “Faked. Had to be. It’s okay. You really didn’t know. I understand that.”

  Kili choked a sob. He couldn’t speak. Homer guessed he did know, or at least suspected, on some deep level. But it was too much to acknowledge, and he couldn’t allow himself to believe it, or to think about it. It would have killed him.

  Homer said, “You’re my brother. And I’ve got nothing but love for you.”

  * * *

  “Homer. We have to go.”

  The two turned to look at Sarah, leaning out the hatch. “There were more boats on that dock. And if they can get one running that fast, they can fix others.”

  Kili seemed to come back to the world. “She’s right. You need to take your kids. And get the hell out of here.”

  Homer smiled as he moved past them into the cabin. “You’re both half right. Sarah and the kids are getting out of here. I’m going back.”

  “What?” Sarah and Kili said this in unison.

  Sarah watched Homer as he climbed back inside. And she could instantly see it. He was different now. He was his old self. From the minute he made the decision, back in the billet, to get them all out of there, he’d become himself again, the Homer she originally met – calm, determined, resolute, unflappable, patient, and inspired by his faith. All the doubt was gone. He knew what he had to do. She figured, if they somehow did get out of all this and back to the carrier, they’d both have oceans of time to indulge all their remaining doubt, regret, and remorse.

  But not today.

  Homer’s mission had become to get his kids out of there, and back to safety on the carrier. And he was not just coming back to life to do it. He was going to do whatever was required to do it. That much Sarah understood.

  What she couldn’t understand was why, suddenly, it was no longer important to get himself out with them. And that made less than zero sense. Then again, she had never had someone – other than herself – murder her spouse. That would make anyone crazy. Following him down inside, then up into the wheelhouse, she found him facing away at the controls.

  “Homer. I know how you must feel. I do.” Actually, she didn’t, but she kept talking at his back. “But think of Ben and Isabel. Revenge is pointless. Don’t do it.”

  As she stepped up beside him, Homer continued poring over what looked like a navigation console. But he answered her as he worked. And when he spoke, his voice was calm. Whatever else, he didn’t sound riven by grief, or rage. He wasn’t crazy.

  He said, “You’re right. I don’t care about revenge. And God will judge Odin. It’s not for me to do.” He stabbed and swiped at a couple of screens, including digital nautical charts. “But if I don’t go back there and put an end to his reign, he’ll execute this mission – and all the survivors in the region are going to die.”

  “He can’t execute it,” Sarah said, grabbing his arm. “We’ve got the boat they were going to use, plus all the supplies. And, mainly, we’ve got you. Your access. He won’t be able to do the mission.”

  Homer smiled sadly over his shoulder at her. “That won’t stop him. Believe me, he’ll find a way. That’s what team guys do.”

  Sarah just couldn’t believe any of this. “Is any of that worth making your kids orphans for? Leave them alone, with no one, both their parents gone? And all to save a bunch of strangers? I don’t give a shit how many backyard barbecues you had with them. These are your children.”

  When he didn’t answer, Sarah started to think she was banging on a thick stone wall. If Homer thought this was his duty, he was going to go through with it. She guessed he’d risked his life ten thousand times in the course of his career, to do his duty, his family notwithstanding.

  But when he turned to face her, what he said surprised her.

  “It’s not just the civilians,” he said. “It’s all the good men left on the team. There are a lot of them. And someone has got to free them from Odin, if they’re going to be able to do some good for everyone else. The world doesn’t have much left going for it. It needs these people.”

  Sarah squinted back at him in the dim wheelhouse. “And what about Alpha? What about your duty to them? Not to mention your mission with them, the vaccine – the mission to save the whole world, or what’s left of it? Everyone left alive?”

  “That mission will be there,” Homer said, still bizarrely serene. “And if I don’t make it back, the others will bring it home. No one man is indispensable.”

  “So if no one is indispensable, then what the hell does Odin matter? Anyway, you said it yourself – the guys who get to be SEALs are selected precisely because they’re the ones who might die, but will never quit. Right? He’ll never stop, never give up on his mission – not unless…”

  Homer looked into her eyes, his own shining in the dark. “My wife died trying to stop him. I can do no less. She’d expect me to. And she’d understand.”

  Sarah opened her mouth to object again.

  But Homer spoke first. “Remember what we talked about, back in the barn? What I said?”

  She didn’t, and shook her head.

  “I said what matters in our time here are the choices we make.”

  Oh, yeah. Now she remembered. “And then you said… it’s what we do for other people that gives life its meaning.”

  He smiled. “Now I need to you to do something for me.”

  Sarah tried to shake off her amazement, and resistance. As Homer had said before, this argument was over. But this time she had lost. Maybe she was always going to
lose, or was even supposed to. She couldn’t stop him. She couldn’t save him. But it looked like there was one thing left she could do for him. Had to do. She tried to focus, to pay attention, as Homer pointed to a spot on a digital map on the console, with a little marker flag.

  “Motor out to this waypoint, quietly, at quarter speed. Then kill the engines and lay to. No lights, no noise. You should be undetectable, either on radar, or visually from the air. I’ll meet you there. Or else I’ll radio if the plan changes.”

  “Check,” Sarah said, trying to keep her voice steady.

  He looked across at her. “But if I don’t come back, and you don’t hear anything from me, in sixty minutes… start the engines again. And you head out to sea, this time at your top speed.” He zoomed the map out. “The Kennedy should be roughly here, based on their top speed and last known heading. So your heading to intercept them from your waypoint is going to be thirty-four degrees six minutes magnetic. At this boat’s top speed, you should reach them in a little over eight hours. Which will also be just about when your fuel runs out.”

  “What do I do then?”

  Homer ignored this. “After two hours underway, start hailing them on the boat’s long-range radio, every fifteen minutes. I’ve already set the channel. When you make contact, they can correct your course as necessary. Or send a helo.”

  “And if we don’t make contact? Before we run out of fuel?”

  Homer nodded toward the stern. “There’s a CRRC, a mil-spec Zodiac, in the wet dock in back. It’s fully fueled, and will get you another eighty or so nautical miles. Which may be the eighty you need. Or may be the second boat you need.”

  “Great. So we’ll be at sea in a lifeboat.”

  “Shouldn’t come up,” Homer said. “But—”

  “Two is one. Yeah. Check.”

  Homer climbed back out of the wheelhouse into the main cabin, where he hugged both his kids, exchanging a few whispered words with each. Then he hefted his rifle.

  And he climbed out the hatch again.