It’s what he’d be doing right now, if promotions hadn’t just been handed out. Since he and Ramirez had been in the same class, as expected, they both got Lance Corporal’s pips. Edmondson and Davila had joined mid-tour; both had been bumped from private to private first-class. Payne had been kicked up to corporal.
The others felt this was worth celebrating. Boone might have required a bit of persuasion to join them, but now he was glad he had.
The transport came to a stop, handily deflecting Davila’s unspoken questions. Ramirez pushed to his feet, his palm lightly cuffing the top of Boone’s head. “C’mon Archangel. Let’s go get some chow, some real chow.”
As they piled out of the transport, Boone’s gaze was drawn to the coastline like a magnet, and he stopped to stare. It had been over a year since he’d set foot on the beaches of his homeworld. The city of Port Defiance was a sprawling mass of humanity, built up along the curving shore as far as the eye could see.
Buildings ringed the far side of Bay Harbor, clustered together along the beach. A massive pier stretched far out into the bay. At its other end sat the planet’s main spaceport.
From there, Beryl’s primary space elevator rose into the air. Its upper half glistened like a silky strand of spiderweb in the setting rays of Little Blue, the white dwarf about which the planet orbited.
He wondered again why he’d let Ramirez and Davila talk him into an evening at the Thirsty Whale when he could be quietly walking the strand. He’d much prefer that to an evening standing around in a crowded bar, shouting to be heard.
He took a few steps toward a stone pathway that led down to the beach. “You go ahead. I’ll catch up to you.”
Beside him, Davila hooked an arm around his neck in a loose choke hold. “C’mon man, no ghosting on us.”
Boone ducked, breaking free of the hold. “No worries. I’ll be there, just give me a few.”
Ramirez cocked a finger at him, firing an imaginary gun. “Okay, amigo, but if you don’t show up soon, we’re coming for you, comprende?”
Boone lifted his chin in silent acceptance of Ramirez’s well-intentioned but misplaced plan to force him to ‘mingle’ and clapped Davila on the shoulder before heading down the stone path that led to the beach.
He’d always been more isolated than most of the people in his platoon. He just needed a minute alone, and the sound of the waves was calling to him.
He kicked off his shoes and let his feet sink into the still warm sand of South Bay Beach. The cry of seagulls sounded above him, circling hopefully, seeking morsels of food he might have brought. When they realized nothing was forthcoming, they broke off to land on a nearby sandbar before taking off again when they spied another human in the distance.
The slight breeze tickled his nose with the briny smell of the ocean as he transitioned from dry sand to wet. He stood, eyes closed, and let the warm waters lap against his ankles.
Boone had spent the past year crammed into a destroyer with the forty-three men and women that made up his Marine platoon, along with thirty officers and more than two hundred enlisted Navy sailors. This was a welcome change.
To say space was at a premium—in space—had always struck him as ironic. Yet it was true. Nearly four hundred souls would comfortably fit into an Alliance destroyer; they hadn’t been anywhere near max capacity, and yet somehow it had still felt crowded. For the first month or two, things weren’t so bad. But as time passed, such proximity could begin to weigh on a person.
It helped that the barriers made of formation material slowly disappeared as they were harvested for the destroyer’s cooks to use. This had been a deliberate tactic employed by the Geminate Navy; they knew that slowly opening up space within a vessel would help ward off claustrophobia.
Still, nothing compared to being beneath open skies, on a planet with the wind kissing your face. This moment was the first in a long while where Boone felt he could truly breathe.
His gaze swept the shoreline, where historical landmarks still dotted the area, left by the original settlers centuries ago. In the distance, he could see shuttles taking off and landing at the spaceport and, farther off into the distance, container ships headed south toward the Tanzanian Atoll, and beyond into the shipping lanes that led to Beryl’s southern continent.
He took his time, waiting until the sun fully set before he turned his back on the open sea, brushed the sand from his feet, and made the trek back to the Thirsty Whale.
Boone could feel the energy that emanated from the bar before he even stepped inside. Despite excellent sound mitigation, the deep thrum of bass notes and the muted strains of a stringed instrument wafted on the air as he approached the entrance.
He spotted Ramirez, Edmundson, and Davila immediately. The three were hanging out next to a stage where a small band played. They held drinks and were scoping out a small crowd of female bodies crammed onto the dance floor, moving to the beat.
Boone lifted a hand in response when Edmundson spotted him and raised his beer in salute. Boone envied the seeming ease with which they slipped back into civilian life, even though he had no real desire to join them. For Boone, mingling felt about as comfortable as an ill-fitting pair of combat boots.
He sought the shadows, his back to the wall as his gaze swept the darkened interior. A few meters away, a bartender eyed him with a knowing look. Pulling a glass off the top of a stack, he filled it from the tap. Rounding the bar, he headed Boone’s way.
“Just off a tour?”
Boone accepted the proffered drink with a brief smile. “You profile all your patrons?”
The man chuckled. “Only the ones who look like they’ve forgotten what civilian life is like. You getting out, or are you between deployments?”
“The second,” Boone admitted.
“Well, there are plenty of those here tonight, too.”
The bartender inclined his head toward the far wall. Boone turned to look at the table the man indicated, studying it for a long moment. The people grouped around it were a bit older than he, but not by much. They also had the seasoned look of the quiet professional.
Boone coughed a short laugh, his gaze fixed upon the people who sat there. They looked… exhausted. Wrung out. And yet they had an indefinable quality, an alertness Boone had only seen twice before. In both instances, Callaghan had stopped to pick up a small team of elite warfighters. “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t group myself in with them. Those folks are way above my pay grade.”
An enigmatic expression crossed the bartender’s face. “We each walk our own paths. There’s no shame in that, brother.” He slapped his hand lightly upon the top of the bar and then pushed away, leaving Boone to his thoughts.
Boone studied the special operators at the table, for he was certain that’s what they were. Three men and a woman, one slightly older than the rest. They carried themselves with an assuredness he envied and hoped one day to attain.
And that had his mind returning right back to the decision he had ahead of him. One look and he knew his friends wouldn’t notice if he slipped away. He set the glass down, nodded his thanks to the owner, and stepped outside.
3: HELL WALK
The Thirsty Whale
Port Defiance, Beryl
(Sirius B)
The muscular, dark-skinned man at the table Boone had just been studying sat contemplating the beer in his hands. He’d been doing that a while, actually; it was just too much damn effort to bring it to his lips for a drink.
Despite the fact the bottle in his hands was his first of the night, Thad Severance already felt hung over. It wasn’t the kind that came from too much alcohol, though. This hangover was courtesy of Hell Walk.
The grueling, aptly named experience came at the end of a six-month, invitation-only Qualification Course. Successful completion earned warriors the right to wear the tab of the Special Reconnaissance Unit.
Thad let his gaze drop to where the image of a coiled viper readying itself to strike sat on his sleeve. He’d
been set on attaining it, of moving from the Marines into the special forces group ever since he’d enlisted four years earlier.
Around the patch’s border was inscribed the Unit’s motto:
Fortitudo, Furtim, Celeritate.
Strength, Stealth, Speed.
He glanced down at the beer cradled between his hands and then around at the people in the bar, blinking hard to shake his lethargy. A mix of civilians and military personnel populated the Thirsty Whale. Some crowded into the darkened area surrounding the bar proper; others spilled out into the wide expanse of the Whale’s back deck.
Two large, hangar-like doors were suspended high in the air. They allowed the briny scent of the ocean breeze to waft in, along with the sight of a brilliant sunset over crystal blue waves. Real tiki torches speared the amethyst sand that fronted the outdoor eating area, with cheerful lights strung between. They twinkled in the gathering dusk.
Everywhere he looked, Thad saw a civilian life that felt nearly alien to him, now. With a strange feeling of dissociation, his eyes dropped to the beer in his hands, his fingers tracing the logo of the local microbrew etched into the bottle’s side.
A hand came into his field of view, knuckles rapping smartly on the table in front of him. “You’re thinking too hard, butterbar.”
Thad glanced up, his gaze colliding with that of Shadow Recon pilot Captain Rafael Zander.
Since Shadow Recon was a different branch of the service, in casual settings like this, the formalities of rank could be ignored. Because Rafe was an elite pilot who flew special forces teams into dangerous places and then pulled their asses back out again, Thad usually greeted Zander with a respectful ‘sir,’ anyway.
Not tonight.
This Shadow Recon pilot had inserted himself into Thad’s Hell Walk and purposely suckered him into lowering his guard. Thad figured he still owed the man some grief for that.
Zander chuckled as if he knew what was going through Thad’s mind and gestured to the chair across from him. Thad waved a hand in silent invitation, and Rafe pulled out the seat and deposited himself into it.
No one who took the Q-Course knew precisely when Hell Walk would begin. It was rumored that it started with each candidate being taken captive. Like so many others who’d come before him, Thad had been convinced he had the skills to outwit his trainers. He’d been wrong.
Rafe had been instrumental in taking Thad down, and he’d done so when Thad least expected it.
Thirty-two out of the two hundred fifty-three men and women who had begun the Q-course made it to Hell Walk. All thirty-two had been ambushed during a tradecraft exercise, where they’d each been sent out to different locations to either conduct surveillance on a target or execute a pick-up from a staffer posing as a human intelligence source.
When Rafe showed up as Thad’s HumInt source, Thad had been mildly surprised, but he’d rolled with it… and walked right into Rafe’s trap.
Thad narrowed his eyes at Rafe in mock anger. “You owe me, you know.”
The pilot spread his hands, a look of innocence on his face. “Hey, don’t blame me. I didn’t take you out.”
He dipped his head, looking pointedly at Thad from under lowered brows, and then jerked a chin in the direction of a nearby table. Thad didn’t need to look to know the identity of the woman who sat there. He’d spotted her right away when he’d first come in.
Captain Lane Reid, Special Recon Unit Team Four, had been one of the people called upon to assist during Hell Walk. In particular, she had been lurking nearby while Rafe played decoy, drawing Thad out with the promise of an intel exchange.
Thad’s eyes slid over to Reid and back again. He grunted and took a swig from the bottle in his hand. Rafe mistook that for annoyance. It wasn’t. Thad knew very well that the attack had been orchestrated as part of the Unit’s strategy to test his mettle in every possible way. He was simply too damn tired to respond.
“You were supposed to be blindsided,” Rafe reminded him. “And you knew they take volunteers from active-duty personnel in the area.”
Thad shot him a sardonic look, a tired smile playing on his face. “Let me guess. You were in the area, and they figured out we knew each other.”
Rafe laughed. “Yep, you got played. That was the general idea, to see how well you handle the situation when the unexpected comes at you and the enemy has the upper hand. Start with nothing and work from there.”
The goal of Hell Walk was to push already skilled warriors to the limit, to see how they performed when faced with a challenge of unknown difficulty and undetermined length. It wasn’t the intent of the instructors to break the trainees but to hone them to the finest edge—and to instill in them the understanding that no man or woman was an island.
The Geminate Navy neither wanted nor needed supermen, hot-doggers, or heroes. They worked to develop strong, intelligent, and capable individuals who knew their strengths and their limitations, and who knew that collectively the team was going to be far more successful than any individual.
Rafe waved his beer bottle in the direction of Thad’s sleeve, breaking into his thoughts. “Doesn’t matter. You’re patched now. You’re Unit.”
Thad blinked and glanced down once more at his patch, feeling a sense of unreality as he stared at the symbol that embodied everything he’d been striving for these past years. He looked away, striving to appear nonchalant. The knowing gleam in Rafe’s eye told him he hadn’t quite pulled it off.
“You look like you just woke up.” Rafe squinted into the distance. “That’d be about… nineteen hours straight of rack time. More’n you’ve had in one stretch in sixteen weeks, am I right?” He paused for Thad’s response.
The Shadow Recon pilot was correct; Thad felt all kinds of fuzzy right now.
“Yeah,” he said, shaking his head hard to try and clear it.
Rafe drained his beer, set the bottle down, and then leaned back in his chair, waving a hand around.
“I remember it well. Makes things a bit hazy at first, especially with all the extra medical nano they pump into you at the end, to help your body recover from the shit they put you through. That alone is enough to wipe you out.” He nodded and his expression turned distant. “They did something similar to us when we went through Shadow Recon.”
Thad cocked his head, straining to recall a detail he knew well. After a moment, it came to him. “Green Platoon, right?”
“Yep. And let me tell you, that underwater part really messes with your head.” Rafe lifted his bottle, frowned, and then pulled up the menu to order another. His gaze floated over the crowd as he settled back in his seat. The pilot’s relaxed demeanor was deceptive. Even here, surrounded by Navy personnel, the pilot was ever vigilant.
Thad could relate.
“This chair force smartass bothering you?” The words, spoken in a jovial tone, came from a dark-haired man wearing the insignia of the Navy’s Criminal Investigation Command. With him was a woman, whipcord lean and with short, dark hair. She sported the same patch Thad wore on his sleeve.
Gabe and Asha had completed the Q-Course, just like Thad. A swift, assessing glance told him they, too, were still recovering from it. Both took seats, Gabe sliding in beside him while Asha pulled out the chair next to Rafe.
“Chair force. Please.” Rafe shot Asha an easy grin and pointed to Thad. “I’ll have you know, this Shadow Recon pilot had no problem distracting that butterbar right there long enough for a certain SRU badass to get the drop on him.” Rafe sat back and crossed his arms with a grin.
“Cocky fils-putain,” muttered Thad, narrowing a one-eyed glare Rafe’s way.
“Fils—? Ahhh,” Gabe broke off as his wire helpfully translated the unfamiliar phrase from its Cajun patois into the standard ‘sonofabitch.’ He looked from Rafe to Thad. “Well, you probably got the ‘cocky’ part right. I can’t comment on the other.”
Rafe saluted Gabe. “Smart man. And that’s fils-putain ‘Sir,’ to you, jarhead,” he told Thad, pointin
g at Thad with the neck of his beer bottle.
Thad barked a short laugh and raised his up to meet Rafe’s. “Sir, yes, sir,” he said as he clinked the bottles together.
With a shake of his head, Gabe dismissed the byplay and turned to face Thad. Bracing his forearms on the table, he murmured under his breath, “Told you you’d make it through.”
Thad looked the other man over. “Want the truth, mon ami? I wondered if you’d make it through.”
Gabriel Alvarez wasn’t like all the other candidates who’d gone through this final test before being pronounced members of the Geminate Navy’s elite SRU Teams. He was a good ten years older than any of the warriors who’d gone through the course.
Alvarez chuckled and shook his head before pulling up the bar’s menu on the small holoprojector embedded in the center of the table. “You and everyone else, lieutenant. You and everyone else.”
Rafe leaned forward, peering through the menu at Gabe. “What made you decide to subject yourself to that kind of torture, anyway? You’re NCIC. Technically you’re not even a soldier, you’re a cop.”
“We prefer the term Special Agent.” Alvarez’s tone was dry. He selected a brew, swiping his finger through the image, before dismissing it. He scrubbed a hand through his hair, a thoughtful look crossing his features.
“It was a special kind of torture, though, you got that right. As to why…” Gabe blew out a breath. “The deputy director thought it might give us some training tips we could implement with our own people.”
Thad nearly choked on the beer he just swallowed. “You’re shitting me, ami.”
Alvarez shrugged. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”
Thad stared at the man. “Well, you did okay… for an old guy.”
He grinned when Alvarez lowered his chin and stared back at him.
“This old guy came in ahead of you in more than one point on that course.”
“With all that bulk on him, it was pretty easy to slip ahead of him during the recon and surveillance sections,” Asha agreed.
Sudden Death (A Military Sci Fi Thriller) (The Biogenesis War Files) Page 3