by J. J. Green
Once, when she’d grown to be a teenager, Dad had told her that, though she was female, she had the ability and stamina of the ancient knights who had fought to repel the Saxon invaders. Her mother said he was daft.
With the benefit of hindsight, she’d later realized her father’s motive hadn’t only been to nurture a special ability in his daughter. At times when they rested, panting and sweating after a tough session, she would sometimes see a certain look in his eyes—a sad, fearful look that chilled her blood. Looking back, she’d guessed that, even then, he’d known the days of peace in the Britannic Isles wouldn’t last forever, that one day the EAC would push across the Channel and seize the homeland.
He knew his family would not be among those who would accept the new regime and their strange religion. For them, it would be fight or die. Or both.
Abacha lunged.
Taylan stepped a little to the side, but not far, seeing at the last moment it was a feint, lacking a full commitment. As the man made his true move, an attempt to punch her in the side of her head, she ducked. She launched herself at him, long and low, thudding her shoulder into his chest and driving him upward, lifting him momentarily off his feet.
Pain lanced from her spine and she grimaced, trying to ignore it.
Abacha’s feet hit the ground. Off balance, he staggered and toppled backward. Before he’d entirely fallen, Taylan leapt at him, raising her knife.
But Abacha already had a knee up, ready to deflect her.
She landed stomach-first on his knee and grunted at the impact, which forced her diaphragm up and expelled the air from her lungs. He forced her off and over.
Now she was the underdog.
Her friend grabbed her right bicep to keep her knife down as he followed her rolling motion, jabbing his knife at her. With her free hand she knocked his arm away. Reaching out, she grabbed his wrist and gripped it, immediately twisting it.
Abacha grimaced but didn’t drop his knife.
Though his other hand remained wrapped around her upper arm, she could still bend her elbow. She jabbed his thigh with the blunt knife.
He gasped. They struggled. Her grip on his knife arm was solid. She continued to turn it to an unnatural angle. Abacha thrust his forehead down, trying to headbutt her, but she turned her face away and he only hit her above her ear. Her helmet protected her from the full effect of his blow. All the while, she was jabbing his unprotected thigh.
With a grunt of pain, he dropped his knife.
In another second, Taylan had rolled him over and was on top of him, her blade at his throat.
Abacha smiled. “Again! If only you played xiangqi as well as you fight, little chick.”
Taylan grinned and climbed to her feet. Holding out a hand to her friend to pull him up, she replied, “With your understanding of strategy, you’ll be an officer one day, while I’ll remain a grunt, butting heads with the other numskulls.”
“I’m not too sure about that. Another round?”
She nodded and stepped a couple of paces backward.
They fought again. And again. By their fourth bout, she was sweating and breathing heavily, and it was getting very hard to ignore the pain from her healing back.
It was also taking her longer and longer to gain the upper hand. At the fifth fight, she was seriously worried she might lose.
But she won again.
They moved apart and paused, each catching their breaths.
Abacha shook his head, flinging droplets of sweat from his nose. He waggled a finger at her. “You need a license.”
“A license for what?”
“You’re a deadly weapon.”
A snort of laughter came from above.
Taylan had forgotten about their audience. When she looked up, she saw it was Wright who must have laughed. He was smiling, while Colbourn’s stony face hadn’t cracked.
Ignoring the onlookers, Taylan said, “Call it a day?”
“Yeah. I wanna get out of here alive.”
As she walked past her friend on her way to the equipment store, she shouldered him. “Don’t be stupid. I would never actually hurt you.”
“Is that so? Tell that to my thigh. It’s gonna be black and blue tomorrow. I’d hate to fight you if you did want to hurt me.”
Taylan returned her knife to its slot and dropped her training equipment in the sanitizer before walking through the changing room and into the shower room, where she stripped off. She let the hot water sluice the sticky sweat from her skin and then washed her hair, all the while wondering why the two officers had been watching her and Abacha sparring. She hoped they would be gone by the time she left the gym.
She re-entered the empty changing room and put on clean clothes before slinging her bag over her shoulder and walking to the exit. The door opened, and she found her wish hadn’t come true. Wright and Colbourn were waiting right outside the door in the passageway.
“Back up, marine,” said the brigadier.
Inwardly groaning, Taylan reversed direction. She was tired and her back hurt like a bitch. Why were they intent on harassing her, a nobody of the lowest rank?
The two officers followed her in.
“From what I saw today, you have some skill at close combat, Ellis,” said Colbourn, “and from what Major Wright has told me, you’re handy with a rifle too. I’d like to put you to better use than your current rank allows.”
Not invited to answer, Taylan kept silent.
“I’m promoting you to corporal and reassigning you to the Valiant. You’re to assist in training. ‘Assist’ is the operative word. You don’t have the rank to supervise the sessions. But you may get there, depending on your performance.” She paused, as if waiting for something. “You may speak.”
“Thank you, ma’am. Could I ask...”
“Yes?”
“Could Abacha come with me to the Valiant? He’s my sparring partner. He could help me...demonstrate moves.”
“I’ll consider your request. Supporting training sessions is one thing I have in mind for you. I’m sure I’ll find more for you to do. Perhaps some covert missions.” Colbourn leaned in, focusing on Taylan’s eyes, which stared ahead. “You might receive invitations to work for other branches of the BA’s military, or from SIS. You’re to ignore them. That’s an order. You’re a Royal Marine. You’re mine. Do you understand?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good. Remember it.”
Taylan was struggling to figure out what this new development could mean. When she’d joined up, her intention had been to help free her homeland from EAC control. She’d had other, more personal, motives, but a free West BI would help her achieve them. She wasn’t sure this new direction Colbourn was pushing her in would allow her to do what was important to her.
“What’s that?” the brigadier suddenly asked.
She was glaring at Taylan’s necklace.
Her heart rate began to speed up. “It’s...uhh.”
“Uhh what?” Colbourn pressed sarcastically.
“It’s my, my...” The words wouldn’t come out. Taylan was exhausted from the sparring session, in pain, and under pressure from this nasty woman. To her shame, tears pricked her eyes.
The brigadier reached for her neck and, before she knew what was happening, the woman had fastened her fingers around the necklace and ripped it away from her, breaking the thread.
Taylan sucked in a horrified breath.
“This is not regulation,” Colbourn spat, the necklace dangling from her fingers. “You are only to wear the items you’ve been issued.”
Without another word, the brigadier pivoted and strode away.
Taylan’s knees turned weak. She wanted to protest, to demand the evil bitch return her property, but she was too shocked.
Before she knew it, both Wright and Colbourn were at the changing room door.
The major gave her an apologetic look as he stepped through the opening, and then the two officers were gone.
Chapter El
even
Colbourn had left the Valiant to attend General Council and military meetings at a secret location on the surface. With her departure, tension among everyone aboard had dropped a notch and morale had risen. The reprieve was only going to last a week or so until the brigadier returned. For the time being, however, Wright was in charge, which meant he had to carry out his superior’s duties as well as his own.
He didn’t mind too much. He never had much use for free time anyway. The Royal Marines was his life—his soul, even. He’d never wanted anything more and couldn’t imagine living any other way.
The only thing that came close to his love of serving was sleeping.
So devotion to duty wasn’t at the forefront of his mind when, after a long day carrying out Colbourn’s work and his own, he was woken by a message alert just after he’d fallen asleep. Groggy and confused, he slapped behind his ear, trying to silence his comm implant like it was an old-fashioned alarm clock.
Then he woke up properly and turned off the alert with his mind.
His cabin was pitch black and cool air from the fan wafted over him, just how he liked it for a good night’s sleep. Sighing as he remembered this was the second time he’d been woken from a deep slumber recently, he opened the message.
It was from the duty doc in the sick bay.
“The man you rescued from West BI is coming around, major. I’m not sure how to proceed. I’d appreciate it if you paid us a visit.”
Coming around?
How could that shadow of a human being he’d carried in his arms down the mountainside still be alive, let alone approaching consciousness?
He hadn’t given the man much thought since completing the mission. As far as he was concerned, his part in what happened to the mystery figure he’d taken from the cave was over, and now it was up to Colbourn or other higher-ups to decide what was to be done with him.
Only now he was the highest-up, on the Valiant anyway.
Puffing out a breath of sleepiness and frustration, he sat up and smoothed down the annoying tuft of hair that always appeared after he’d slept. After getting out of bed and quickly pulling on his pants, shirt, and shoes, he was out the door and on his way.
THE MAIN SICK BAY WAS empty. Wright stopped outside the intensive care room, unsure if he could go in, and commed the doc to tell her he’d arrived.
“It’s okay,” she replied. “Come and see him.”
As he entered the room, she explained, “We’re thinking of moving him into the main room tomorrow. We’re confident he isn’t harboring anything infectious, and he’s doing really well.”
Wright couldn’t equate his memory of the dried-up mummy in the mountain cave with the idea of someone doing ‘really well’.
The doc moved to the side to give him a view of the patient.
His mouth fell open.
“I know, right?” said the doc. “He’s made amazing progress.”
Self-consciously snapping his jaw shut, Wright walked to the unconscious man’s side and stared down at him. The patient remained asleep, but his eyes beneath their lids were moving, and his lips moved, too, as if he were having a conversation in his sleep. If it weren’t for the blue-black animal tattoos on his upper body, the major would never have believed this was the same person he’d rescued.
He was looking at a tall, well-built man in his thirties. The skin that had been pale, dry and leathery as parchment was now plump and fleshy, and the wound on the man’s stomach had disappeared, as if it had never existed. The sunken eyelids had filled, and the wisps of hair had been replaced by a thick fuzz on his face, scalp, and lower arms, promising to grow out red-gold. His muscular chest rose and fell in a deep, steady rhythm.
An electrode at each temple and a drip inserted into the back of his hand were the only signs that the man had hovered once between life and death for untold years.
On a table next to the bed sat the man’s thick, ornate torques.
Wright turned to the doc.
“Can he hear us?”
“It’s hard to say. Possibly.”
“Then let’s talk outside.”
Outside intensive care, in the quiet, dimly lit sick bay ward, the doc said, “His brain activity is increasing. That was why I messaged you. I expect he’ll wake up in an hour or so.”
“Look, I’m out of the loop on this. What’s been happening with him?”
“Yeah, sorry. I forgot we’ve been reporting to Brigadier Colbourn. Let me show you his chart.”
She began to move away, but Wright said, “A summary would be fine.”
“Oh, okay, well, it’s been remarkable. I’ve been the one doing obs on him every day since you brought him in, and even I can’t quite believe it. We started him on intravenous fluids immediately, of course, though it was nearly impossible to find a vein, and when we did find one we weren’t sure anything would go in. He was hypothermic, too, so we used warm water to irrigate...you probably don’t want to know about that part.”
The doc paused and gave her head a small shake. “The fact that he still had a heartbeat while in that condition is a medical impossibility. And there’s no way his brain could have recovered from the degree of dehydration it suffered, yet here we are. His brain, liver, kidneys... everything’s functioning normally. To try to understand what was happening, I gave the lab some of his inner cheek cells to culture. They found they were reproducing at a phenomenal rate and growing healthier at each new division.
“I still don’t understand it,” the doc went on. “I’ve never seen anything like it or read anything comparable in case studies. The lack of precedent means I have zero idea what to expect when he regains consciousness. By all rights, he should have severe brain damage and remain in a vegetative state, but, honestly, right now all bets are off. I can’t guess what his ongoing health status might be.”
If the doctor didn’t know what to make of her patient, Wright certainly didn’t. If the miracle mystery man’s history so far was anything to go by, he would probably wake up, invent an intergalactic space drive, and disappear to explore the universe.
The major knit his brows. Colbourn hadn’t left any instructions regarding their surprise visitor. She might even have forgotten about him. She’d seemed preoccupied before leaving for the General Council meeting. He didn’t want to bother her with non-urgent comms.
Should the man be allowed to return to full consciousness? Should he be questioned about what he’d been doing in the cave, and where on Earth the distress signal had come from? Or should he remain under sedation until Colbourn returned and decided what to do with him?
A sudden roar of anger came from the intensive care room, followed by yelling in a language Wright didn’t recognize.
The man from the cave had woken up.
The door to the room jerked open, and the man stood there, stark naked, blood dripping from his hand where he’d ripped out the cannula. His eyes were round and staring and his body was rigid, his fingers splayed at his sides.
“Hey,” said the doc, “you need to—”
Giving another roar, the man raised a fist and ran at her.
Wright dove between them just in time. He grabbed the big guy around his chest and tried to heave him upward, planning to unbalance him and push him to the floor, where he might be able to subdue him.
But the patient was having none of it.
He punched Wright in the head.
Sparks flew into his vision, and darkness closed in, but he clung on to the man and concentrated on staying upright.
As the threat of unconsciousness cleared, he became aware of someone grabbing his arms trying to force them apart. He realized his captive was trying to free himself. The major gripped tighter. Another great roar of anger came from the big man’s mouth. Wright tensed, expecting to be punched again. A second hit would put him out of the game for sure, but there wasn’t anything he could do to defend himself. If he let go of the patient, he would go for the doctor.
The punch
didn’t come. Instead, he heard a hiss, and the struggling, fighting figure in his arms went limp and very heavy. He found himself trying to hold onto him as the man slipped from his grasp.
“Put him down gently, if you can,” said the doc. She was holding up a discharged pressure hypodermic. “It’s always good to have some knockout juice on hand.”
Wright squatted and tried to ease the man’s fall, but he slumped ungracefully to the floor and knocked his head on the tile.
Wright stood up. The man was entirely out of it, his mouth open and his eyes closed. The doc was silently mouthing something, probably sending a comm, requesting assistance to get her patient back into bed.
Taking a second look at the prone figure, Wright said, “That decides it. I want him sedated until Colbourn gets back. And in restraints.”
Chapter Twelve
In the Caribbean Kingdom, on the island of Barbados, Hans Jonte, head of the Secret Intelligence Service, was taking a final look in his hotel suite mirror, appraising his tailored suit, polished shoes, and groomed beard. His suit fitted like a glove, accentuating his broad chest and narrow hips; his shoes were real leather, including the soles, and they showed it; and his beard had been freshly styled that morning.
He couldn’t fault his appearance.
He smiled, nodding approvingly at his reflection. His large, white, even teeth shone.
Appearances counted for a lot when you wanted to look the part among the people who count, and the meeting of the General Council was the perfect occasion for that purpose.
He went into the bathroom, where he’d placed the unique cologne he’d brought along. The scents had been perfectly matched to his pheromones, designed to create an attractive and alluring scent. Visual input was important to humans, but smells were even more important. Aromas triggered emotions and remained embedded in memories, so that the whiff of a long-forgotten perfume could conjure up an event from decades ago.
And he wanted to be remembered.
He puffed the cologne over his neck and face before massaging the fine droplets into his beard and skin. After washing and drying his hands, he left the suite.