Oblivion: The Complete Series (Books 1-9)

by Joshua James

  “We don’t want to appear hostile,” LeFay said. She lowered her voice. “But you call me a freak again and I’ll show you what hostile is.”

  The pirate gave her another sour look, but after trading a look with his buddy, he lowered his rifle.

  LeFay, of course, knew that she had a pistol, a pistol-sized grenade launcher, and a very dangerous drone stowed away inside her augmented body. But it wasn’t her fault that everyone else was woefully unprepared for trouble.

  Clarissa frowned, but put her rifle down. The others did the same.

  As the group of four hoverbikes appeared on the horizon, Clarissa felt her fingernails biting into her palms as she balled up her fists. She wanted badly to have a weapon in her hand. She knew LeFay was bristling with them, so it was easy for her.

  But Clarissa knew she could do damage without one. She felt the knife strapped to her ankle. In a pinch, it would do fine.

  Clarissa watched the trail of black dust that followed the approaching hoverbikes, and hoped they weren’t looking for trouble. She’d happily dive for her weapon, but there was just nothing to be done if these guys wanted to start shooting.

  The first thing that stood out as the four reached the group and started doing circles around them was how beat-up the soldiers riding them looked. According to their uniforms, they were UEF, but barely recognizable.

  “These bastards have been embedded for a while,” Tomas murmured.

  Their uniforms were filthy, their armor scuffed. Pieces of their protective spider-weave Kevlar were mismatched, looking like they were stitched together, not only from different units in their own army but some from the enemy as well.

  “Don’t trust ‘em,” Clarissa’s husband said from beside her. She’d been seeing him much less lately, but she had a feeling that was about to change.

  “Agreed,” Clarissa said. She noticed Tomas glance at her, but the others were too focused on the bike riders.

  They all had goggles on, ratty scarves over their noses and mouths. So insistent they were on their current actions, the soldiers kicked up a huge cloud of black dust all around them.

  “Uh-oh,” LeFay said.

  “‘Uh-oh’?” Congo said. “Is that all you have to say?”

  “That’s never good coming from her,” Clarissa said.

  “What is it?” asked Tomas as his gaze tried to nervously follow the soldiers.

  “I think I know them,” LeFay said.

  “And that’s bad?”

  “It’s not good.” LeFay put her hands up. The rest of the group followed suit, except for Congo and Ada. Ada was too weak, and the doc had to dedicate one arm to holding her up.

  The hoverbikes suddenly stopped circling. What Clarissa assumed was the leader slowly floated by them and threw down four pairs of magnetic restraints.

  He said nothing. Clarissa looked around at the others. The command was pretty clear.

  “This is bullshit,” Tomas said.

  “What were you expecting?” Clarissa asked.

  The other soldiers began to circle lower on their bikes and made a show of pointing their guns, menacing. They were doing all the talking that needed to be done.

  A few minutes later and they were all on the backs of the ramshackle soldiers’ hoverbikes, hands bound in magnetic restraints. Each was on a different bike, except for Ada and Congo, who were together in a support buggy on one of the bikes.

  Not one word was said from the time the soldiers stopped circling the group to the time they reached the UEF scout base nearby, but there were plenty of sights to fight the awkward silence. Clarissa noticed Ada, in particular, taking an interest in her surroundings and suspected that the Marine wasn’t as bad off as she wanted the soldiers to think.

  At least, she hoped not.

  Ada was uneasy.

  For one thing, she still wasn’t at full strength. Her ribs burned, and breathing was difficult in the thick, humid air. Her health hadn’t been improved by hours of walking across the seemingly endless barren green and black expanse.

  At least now she had the hoverbike to do the work. But watching the ground, littered with the husks of burnt-out tanks and APCs, zoom past didn’t help her mood. It was like a graveyard of wars past and present.

  Next, Ada’s captor flew through an actual graveyard. There were rows and rows of rifles, butts in the air, barrels buried in the black soil with helmets and dog tags hanging off them. Each was a soldier who’d died defending that accursed moon. Each was someone’s loved one lost. Each represented the destruction of a world all their own. Going by the sheer amount of graves, she could tell that wherever they were wasn’t a safe place.

  Ada’s captor flew towards a medium-sized building surrounded by a system of three low walls, lined with soldiers who looked to be in just as rough shape as those on the bikes. Despite the fortifications around it, the tattered walls looked like they’d fall to a stiff breeze, let alone a strong offensive force.

  Soldiers watched silently as their comrades brought in the strangers from the wastes. The hoverbikes docked inside the walls. The leader instructed everyone to get off, but they weren’t patient about it.

  Congo was taking her time with Ada—more than Ada probably needed, but she wasn’t above playing up an injury to her advantage. One of the soldiers lost patience and grabbed them by their magnetic restraints and pulled them off.

  “Easy there, tough guy,” LeFay said darkly.

  She got a rifle butt to her jaw for her troubles. That did little but make her smile and lick her split lip.

  “She’s injured,” Tomas said. “That’s all she’s saying. Go easy.”

  “Shut up, pirate!” One of the hoverbike soldiers punched Tomas in the stomach, causing him to bend over.

  “Come. This way,” ordered the leader of the hoverbike soldiers.

  Ada had assumed that they’d all be led to a holding cell, where they’d have to explain themselves. That would have been standard UEF treatment. She’d been mentally preparing an explanation when they’d been led right past a large central structure and instead into a smaller building in an altogether different part of the base.

  It didn’t take long to figure out what it was.

  “So this doesn’t seem to have worked out exactly how we’d hoped,” she murmured.

  “You think?” Clarissa snapped back.

  “It could always be worse,” LeFay said.

  Congo looked bewildered. “What is this place?”

  “This is an incinerator room,” Tomas said.

  Congo trembled in her restraints. “Are you certain?”

  “Well, if the piles of trash and the smell of gas weren’t enough to tell you, I promise you that I used to clean these out at Fort Inov on Earth.”

  “Are you sure it’s a UEF base?” Congo asked. “Those didn’t look like UEF soldiers that led us here.”

  “They looked like what I’d expect on this hellhole,” Ada said.

  The walls were charred and blackened, caked with the decay of decades of use.

  “It smells like shit,” Clarissa said. Her eyes swept over the bags of refuse and chunks of metal debris. “Maybe they should actually fire this thing up from time to time.”

  “Careful what you wish for,” a staticky voice boomed from a pair of speakers someone had half-heartedly hung next to a thick window of reinforced duraglass.

  Through the stained and cracked glass, Ada watched as what she assumed was the leader of the hoverbike group that had led them here took off his goggles and pulled down his scarf. He looked unremarkable, except for an eyepatch with gauze underneath it.

  Ada heard LeFay audibly gasp next to her.

  “I have a few questions,” he said. “And then I’ll happily take care of the trash.” His gaze seemed to settle on LeFay.

  “Things just got worse,” LeFay said to Clarissa out of the side of her mouth.

  “We’re in an incinerator,” Clarissa hissed. “Surrounded by UEF soldiers.” She gave Ada a withering st
are with that last point. “How much worse can it get?”

  “Hello, Sarah,” the man said.

  LeFay cleared her throat awkwardly. “Hey, Darren,” she choked out at last. “You’re looking good.”

  A smile slowly crept across the man’s face. A wicked, terrifying smile that seemed to grow and grow.

  Ada felt a chill. Things had just gotten much worse.

  LeFay stepped up to the glass. “Is this really necessary, Darren?”

  “You know this guy?” asked Clarissa. Her question wasn’t answered, at least not directly.

  “I don’t know, Sarah. Was leaving me and my men to burn to death in that damn ship necessary?” Darren asked.

  “Sarah?” Ada was confused.

  “I had no choice,” LeFay said, knowing just how hollow her words sounded. “Mission first and all that, right? No reason to take it personally.”

  LeFay tried to turn on the charm, but she knew from experience that she came across as more irritating than anything else. It was her special skill.

  “We were engaged!”

  “Don’t be dramatic, Darren,” LeFay said.

  “Un-freaking-believable,” Clarissa said, shaking her head in disbelief.

  “What, like you didn’t have a husband and two kids in your undercover op?” LeFay snapped.

  “You weren’t undercover,” Clarissa said. “That was never your job.”

  “You’re not the only one that had to do things for the Director that you aren’t proud of.”

  “Can we maybe focus here?” Ada asked. “I’d like to not get incinerated by your angry ex.”

  LeFay gave Clarissa one last withering stare before she turned back to the duraglass window. Darren looked good. He looked older and rougher, but so did LeFay. “Let my friends go, Darren,” she said. “And then we can discuss our…differences.”

  “Or how about this,” Darren said. “This time, you have to save your friends from burning to death. By being honest! I know that’s something you and your kind have some trouble with, which really sucks for your comrades here.”

  “Seems like he does know you pretty well,” Tomas opined. “And he is exactly…” Tomas left it hanging, waiting for LeFay to fill in the blanks.

  “This is the most stubborn person I’ve ever met.”

  “You fit that bill yourself,” Ada said.

  “This is Lieutenant Darren Werner,” LeFay said, loud and clear so Darren would hear her. “Corporal, this is—”

  “Captain,” Werner corrected her.

  “Nice to meet you,” Ada said in a weak voice. She was fading. The stim shot was starting to wear off, LeFay assumed, and the strain was starting to take its toll.

  “Your friends here. Who are they, Sarah? Spies like you? And how’d you manage to slip through the blockade?” Werner’s nose was an inch or two from the glass as he looked over LeFay’s motley crew.

  “No, only me and…” LeFay looked around, found Clarissa, and put her arm around her while pulling her in close. “Claire here are spies.” She pointed at Ada and Tomas. “That blonde bombshell and her spicy Latino friend are actually two of yours, UEF military. And lastly, the doctor there, well, she’s a pirate.”

  Congo hissed at LeFay, but she just shrugged. “Hey, he’ll like you more than Claire and me.”

  “Can you let go of me?” Clarissa said in annoyance as LeFay ended the insincere hug.

  Werner took a moment to process the new information. His eyes shifted their focus to Ada. “You’re UEF? What are you doing in the company of pirates and spies?”

  “It’s a long story, sir. We were on the Atlas,” Tomas answered for Ada, since she was half unconscious at that point.

  “The Atlas!” Werner didn’t expect that answer. “You’re shitting me.”

  “No, sir. I can give you my authorization codes, you can check it out yourself,” offered Tomas.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Werner pressed his finger against the glass, pointed at Ada.

  “She’s in rough shape, sir. She needs medical attention.” Tomas meant it. He was worried about Ada. She was the toughest Marine he’d ever trusted his life to, but she was in a world of hurt. And he wasn’t going to be able to live with himself if he didn’t do everything he could to save her.

  Werner stroked the edge of his eyepatch. “If you have authorization codes, she’ll get it.” He motioned to someone beyond their view. “Open it up, Robinson,” he ordered.

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea, sir?” asked one of Werner’s subordinates, who must have been the aforementioned Robinson.

  “That was an order, Private. We need all the help we can get to deal with what’s coming. Open it!” Werner stood back.

  The doors to the incinerator slid open.

  “Thank you, Darren. I knew you would see reason—"

  LeFay was about to step out first, but she was met with Werner’s pistol pointed at her gut.

  “Not you, or your spy and pirate friends. Just them.”

  “That’s cold,” LeFay said.

  Tomas couldn’t help but notice the way she stepped back like she’d been expecting it. She knows, he thought. She knows he’s not going to help her. Tomas thought about how to keep her alive if it came to that. He couldn’t sit back and watch LeFay die here, anymore than Ada. They’d both saved his neck.

  “Yeah, something like that. Does she need help? Robinson, Kiermeyer. Help her up and to the med bay.” Werner instructed his men to help Ada. Then he addressed Tomas. “You. I never got your name.”

  “Sergeant Tomas Ruis. Special Forces Weapons Sergeant Tomas Ruis, sir.”

  “An operator? Good. We can really use your help here.”

  “You need my code, sir? If you check it, you’ll—”

  Werner snorted. “We can’t check shit right now. I was just busting your balls. I know the real thing when it’s in front of me.”

  “Sir?”

  “Most of my men, they’re new, raw. Softer than baby shit. My original detachment...well, you probably passed them on your way here, they’re dead. So Earth sent me these kids, and I need some help getting them organized for what’s to come. Can you help me with that or not, Sergeant?”

  Tomas was a bit stunned. He’d thought that Werner was a man he could trust, but he hadn’t expected to get so much immediate trust in return. It made him suspicious.

  “Of course, sir. But may I ask that the pirate go with her? She’s a doctor, and has been looking over her. She can tell your doctors what’s been going on, and—"

  “The pirate?” Werner looked at Congo. “She doesn’t look terribly dangerous. That works. You, go with her. Help our medics fix your friend.”

  Tomas was reassured that Werner was a reasonable man. But no sooner was Congo clear than the doors slammed shut.

  “Seriously!?” LeFay smacked the window in frustration.

  Tomas looked back and saw Clarissa standing behind LeFay, arms crossed, her visage standing out clearly from the blackened walls of the incinerator beyond.

  Tomas wanted to stay, but Werner was clearly testing him, expecting him to follow Ada and Congo.

  “They saved our lives,” Tomas said to Werner.

  Werner again rubbed his eyepatch. He nodded. “Good to know, Sergeant. Now take a trip to medical. We need you to get checked out, too.”

  Tomas hesitated, but something about Werner’s demeanor told him that he could trust him. Reluctantly, he walked away.

  Behind him, he heard Werner turn back to the window. “Now, Sarah, let’s talk about why you’re here. And remember, you lie and you fry.”

  Three

  Collapse

  Detective Sydal crawled out of an open sewer grate onto the streets of the Lunar Dome. That he was thankful to still be alive was an understatement. He’d never been so scared and so happy in his whole life.

  The questions started flooding the detective’s inquisitive, curious mind. What the hell just happened? What was Bausman? Is Detective Janis okay? W
as he in on it? How many people are in on it? What is it? How many soldiers are working with the cult? What the hell were in those crates? And what was that rock they were all praying to?

  But one question above all else overrode the others: Are the kids okay?

  Sydal had to get home. Before he did anything else, he had to be certain that his children were safe, especially after his confrontation with the Shapeless version of Bausman back at Aitken Basin. He harbored suspicions about his wife, Maria; that she wasn’t...her. If he was right about that, and it wasn’t his imagination, wasn’t his cancer…

  That horrible thought crept back into the detective’s head. What if this was all in his head? His doctor had told him that if it got worse, it could cause hallucinations. No, it was real. He was resolute. Just to confirm his own sanity, he touched his chest, where that monster pretending to be Bausman had taken a swipe at him. To his relief, it stung like hell to the touch.

  Sydal picked himself up out of the alleyway. First things first, he needed to drink something, anything. He was so thirsty the puddles on the concrete, with pieces of trash debris and cigarette butts floating in them, looked enticing.

  As Sydal got closer to the actual street, things sounded...off. It may have just been from the blood loss and the dehydration, but it was late evening under the Lunar Dome on a Friday. The streets should’ve been packed; the sound of rover horns, talking, arguing and laughing was usually so prevalent the weekend night soundtrack should’ve reached the alleyway. Instead of revelry and activity, the detective heard almost nothing. When he stepped out he realized why.

  UEF soldiers marched down the streets of the Lunar Dome. It was an odd, unsettling sight. Not only because of what Sydal had seen in the tunnels, but as a supposedly freedom-loving UEF citizen. Sure, there was the odd group of soldiers on the moon; it was the main docking and building base for the Navy. But they’d never been here in such numbers before, in formation, all business.

  Sydal looked in one direction and saw what looked to be a line of lunar citizens, maybe two hundred deep, waiting at a bus stop. Street vendors closed up their shops early, while armed soldiers supervised. Tanks corralled rover traffic towards the nearest exit.