Suicide Mission: Unity War Book 2 Read online

  “No.”

  “Promise me.”

  She shook his head when he didn’t answer straight away, clutching harder at his hair. “I promise,” he said. Just like when they were kids: her bullying extracted his promise; his honor made him keep that promise.

  And she knew it. She released him, a smug look on her face. “So you’ll do it?”

  “Do I get the rum first?”

  She handed it to him covertly. “You may be sorry you didn’t drink it after.”

  He drank it now anyway, all that she would let him. He coughed afterwards, his eyes tearing up at the taste. But even though he hadn’t yet forgotten, he had at least begun to mellow, to relax. He watched through bleary eyes as Ness swiftly hid the rest of the rum back in the air vent.

  “Get some sleep,” she said, and made her way back down the corridor towards her bunker.

  He didn’t want to go to bed, so he went to the rec room instead, and found An, Temple, Jaden, and Fault there. Emma Hepburn, one of Ilana’s co-workers before Ilana had transferred, sat beside An, one shapely leg draped over his lap. An and Emma had tried to hook up a short while back, and it looked like things still ran hot between them.

  Garner pulled up a chair. Jaden and Fault, immersed in an argument over which of them was the better pilot, barely noticed his presence, and although an argument was better than Fault sitting by himself, as he usually did, it nonetheless got under Garner’s skin that the one person Fault did interact with was Jaden. He tried not to let it bother him, but he couldn’t help feeling a pang of jealousy. An and Emma had started an arm wrestling competition (An in the middle of letting Emma win); that left Garner and Temple, and despite his improved mood, Garner really didn’t want to talk to Temple.

  Temple had a bowl of steak fries smothered in—of all things—mayonnaise. Garner couldn’t imagine where he’d gotten it or why he’d chosen mayonnaise instead of ketchup. Temple saw him staring, and a small, mischievous smile played at the corners of his lips. “I bribed the cook,” he said. “They make these special for the captain and some of the other higher-ranking officers. I was desperate for something unhealthy. But they’re truly awful.”

  He pushed the bowl within Garner’s reach. Garner hesitated, then chose a fry with as little mayonnaise on it as he could find, and took a cautious bite. It was weird. Weird but delicious. He finished the fry and dove in for another.

  “Oh, my God, you like it! You actually like it! But aren’t those fries just pieces of fried grease? I don’t think there’s an ounce of potato on them.”

  “This from the man who drowned them in mayonnaise.”

  “Mayonnaise is more than just grease. It’s got egg in it, and oil, and . . . All right, it’s just grease. But it’s refined grease.”

  “Right.” He dipped his fry in more mayo.

  “I knew going in that military food was going to be bad,” Temple said, and took a fry himself. “But I had no idea of the nightmare that awaited me. Canned peas. Oh, my God!” “No one likes military food.”

  “No, but it’s worse for me. My parents own—owned—a restaurant in New Shangana. They taught me all about fine dining. Besides, being high maintenance makes one acutely aware of quality.”

  Damn. Maybe it was the rum, but Garner was starting to like the bastard. He laced his bragging with an undercurrent of self-deprecation. Then what Temple had just said sunk in. “You’re from New Shangana?” Then, at Temple’s nod, “God, what . . . Are your parents okay?” The alien attack on Lotan had destroyed millions of homes and businesses, not to mention causing the ruin of as-yet-uncounted other properties, natural landscapes, and roads. The death toll had been abominable. And New Shangana had stood at the heart of that destruction.

  “Fortunately, they were off visiting my Aunt Rio in Karlstad,” Temple said. He glanced away when he said it, as if he had more to tell but didn’t want to. By now Fault had tired of arguing with Jaden and had gone off to sit by himself; Jaden had heard the last bit of the conversation and sat uncomfortably, clearly unsure as to whether to join in or pretend she hadn’t heard and wander off elsewhere.

  “My boyfriend Elijah got killed,” Temple said after a moment. “It’s all right. He was one of a string of men. We weren’t very close.”

  A possibly true statement. But Elijah’s death had obviously affected Temple in some deep and meaningful way; his eyes went far away when he spoke of it, and his voice had a too-serene quality, as if he had distanced himself emotionally in order to accept what had happened. Garner had seen it before: Ness had shut down for a long time after her ordeal. Then she had emerged a different person.

  A highly unlikeable person. He hoped that wouldn’t happen to Temple.

  It hit him like a wave then, all that had happened—the death, the loss. He got up and left the rec room, not knowing where to go but wanting to get away. Tears blurred his vision. He walked at a good pace for several minutes, working to gain control of his emotions, and finally paused, put his hand over his eyes, and took a deep breath. He had come to the Mess. The hatch to the Mess stood open; the cook had yet to close down for the day. Garner went in, thinking to beg a glass of water.

  He stopped short when he heard Colonel Lange’s voice. He didn’t catch what his commanding officer said, but he also recognized the voice that replied: Captain Stephenson.

  “It’s the Osirians,” she said. “They’ve been having trouble with radiation. It seems one of the alien warships—or, rather, pieces of it—went down during the Freyr Ambush. It fell near a highly populated town, and it’s causing radiation damage.”

  Garner saw them now, the captain and Lange, sitting at a small table with an evening coffee. He moved closer and stood at attention where they could see him.

  “There’s an extremely high level of contamination in the area,” the captain said. “They naturally want someone to remove the cause of the contamination, namely the pieces of Snapper warship. Which of course brings Star Force into it, because there’s nothing more Star Force wants than to retrieve parts of one of the enemy’s warships. The Takarabune has been nominated for the role.”

  “And you think a small squadron of fighter pilots should do the job.” Lange took a sip of coffee, then recognized Garner. He nodded to the captain, who also noticed.

  “Lieutenant?”

  “Ma’am, I don’t mean to intrude.”

  “It wasn’t a private conversation. Speak up.”

  “Captain, if I may, I’d like to volunteer the 15th Squadron for this detail,” Garner said. The captain looked to Lange, who took another drink of coffee.

  “They’re who I’d pick,” he said.

  “Done.”

  “Vasilescu, you get Bai, Crewe, Hext, Bosch, and Nicolson in the ready room,” said Lange. “You’ll be briefed on the mission in full in fifteen mikes. You deploy as soon as we reach Osiris.”

  “Aye, sir.” Garner took his leave and headed back to the rec room to tell the others. He no longer felt the buzz the rum had given him; but he also no longer felt despair. For the first time since the Freyr Ambush, he had a purpose.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  In the Osiris atmosphere

  Cool air whispered through the shuttle, lightly stirring Garner’s hair as he brought the craft down towards Sobek, in a grassy field next to the Sobek Forest. He was keenly aware of Jaden sitting in the navigator’s seat beside him, her dark hair pulled back into a ponytail, her blue eyes narrowed, focused on the task at hand. She had sensuous lips, he thought, lips now puckered in an expression of concentration.

  Together he and Jaden landed the craft, a smooth, effortless landing on the soft hill. In the shuttle’s lights they could see deep grass waving in the breeze. They went to the back of the shuttle where the others—An, Fault, Lanei, and Temple—had just gotten out of their safety harnesses. Lanei and An started passing out the gear: white radiation suits with purple gloves, and the boxy yellow radiation detectors.

  The suits made plasticky sounds as the
y put them on. Despite the temperature regulation in the shuttle, Garner’s forehead began to bead with sweat. The radiation suits the team wore, unbelievably hot over their Star Force uniforms, were bulky and ungainly. They had to step into them, then zip them up the front before helping each other with the head gear, keeping their gloves off until the end. Garner gave Jaden a hand getting her head gear on. His hand brushed her hair as he did so, an accident that felt uncommonly intimate.

  They all wore belts with small flags tucked inside them to mark the pieces of the warship as they found them. This way they could come back with equipment to haul off anything heavy later. They checked to make sure their self-contained breathing apparatus and radios worked, then turned their attention to the radiation detectors themselves.

  Garner picked up his radiation detector and zeroed the scale, then used the Circuit Check function to confirm the functionality of the circuitry. He had to take special care because the radiation-proof gloves, large enough to fit the meatiest hands, all but swallowed his thin fingers. Jaden, standing next to him, wore a smaller suit, but she, too, struggled.

  Once they had completed their checks, the team ventured outside. Night had fallen in the town of Sobek, and the Osiris moon, Bastet, glowed softly among the stars. Because of their face masks, the team could not wear night vision goggles, but had to rely on flashlights they attached to their wrists so as to keep their hands free to hold and work the radiation detectors.

  They had landed outside the Sobek Forest in order to avoid the worst of the radiation until they got their gear on. Piloting a shuttle would have proven next to impossible in the suits, so they had to wear the gear only after they had landed. They knew about where to start, and had landed as close to that area as possible without the threat of contamination.

  Since Garner had shown initiative in volunteering the 15th, Lange had named him commanding officer on the mission. He took point, leading the team down the steep, grassy slope to the forest below. In a moment the trees took the light: pines, mostly, and very tall. The group had to take care not to trip, as the underbrush became dense and clingy. Bits of dirt and forest detritus, damp from a recent rain, stuck to their suits.

  Already they had walked into some radiation. The detector’s needle, which indicated safe levels at white, then designated low levels in yellow, higher and more dangerous levels in orange, and critical levels in red, now pointed squarely to yellow. When the needle hit orange a few meters later, Garner had everyone fan out. The radios in their suits and the beams of their flashlights kept them in touch.

  It took a while; they must have landed farther out from the source of the radiation than they had thought. Eventually the needle hit the edge of the red section on the detector’s screen. “It’s over here,” he said, and began searching for the remains of the warship that had crashed. It had shorn off the tree tops here; large branches and entire trees littered the area, letting the moonlight in.

  The team converged upon that area, still maintaining a certain distance from each other in order to cover more ground. The detectors gave small, crackling beeps that increased in speed and volume as the needles drove deeper into the red.

  After a minute Garner saw a shadow, blackest of blacks. It seemed to eat up the moonlight. He knelt beside it, turned it over. It measured about a foot in diameter, and had less weight to it than it appeared to have. Part of the warship’s hull. It felt slick and smooth beneath his gloves.

  He marked the area with a red flag, thinking it unlikely they’d glean much tech from the piece but unwilling to leave that to chance. The piece didn’t emit much radiation by itself, though something in this direction was setting off his detector.

  “I found something.” Temple waved at them from the top of a rise. They all climbed up to join him, their heavy boots slipping in the damp dirt, fighting to keep hold of their detectors while pulling themselves up the steep slope.

  When they reached the top, Temple showed them his detector: the needle bobbed in the middle of the red now. Below them, down a sharp, rocky decline, lay more fallen trees; and among them, a very large section of a Snapper warship. They couldn’t possibly haul that back in the shuttle; they’d need something bigger, like a cargo vehicle.

  They made their way down the decline, their cumbersome suits getting in their way as they half-slid, half-fell to the forest floor below. Lanei actually sat down and scooted her way to safety. Cautiously, they approached the target, which they now saw was a partial oblate sphere—the “M&M” of the alien warships, as An liked to call it. It rested at an angle, a massive, black thing with a series of lights situated along its length. Most of the lights had gone out, but one winked, ghost-like, in the darkness.

  “This thing gives me the creeps,” Lanei said, and shuddered. If Adam had been here, Garner thought, he would have tried putting his arm around Lanei’s shoulders, half-comfort, half-come-on. Adam had had a real thing for Lanei.

  “Do you think the Turtles actually think these ships are aesthetically pleasing?” An asked.

  “God, what a thought,” said Temple.

  They had made their way to the other side of the M&M, the inner portion. They knew the alien warships deployed Copperheads from the M&M, but this part of that section showed no indication of that. There were consoles with data screens, controls, and lights all over them, and there was no shortage of the strange alien script some of them had seen in a fallen Copperhead not that long ago. Some of the controls Garner recognized as being similar, too, to those they’d seen in the Copperhead; others, in some way or another, resembled human technology; and some completely boggled the mind. Bits of wires and sections of cables hung from the open bulkheads—likely not live, but the team kept their distance in case.

  “This must be the bridge,” said Jaden. She went to a screen that still flickered with life, alien characters and what looked like numbers scrolling across it in a seemingly random pattern.

  “It probably used to be above the docking bay,” Lanei said. Then she gestured to the others. “Take a look at this.”

  A smooth hole roughly the size of a baseball sat in one of the consoles. Beside it was drawn a graphic of what looked like a wormhole. Lanei put her fingers in the hole and felt around. “I wonder, does it react to touch?”

  “We’ll find out once the techs get their hands on it,” said Jaden. “Let’s go; we’ve found our source.”

  “Wait,” said Lanei, who was looking at her detector. “This isn’t the real source of the radiation. It’s contaminated, sure, but it’s not giving off the kind of reading you would expect for the sort of damage the Osirians are reporting.”

  “It’s in the red,” Jaden said.

  “But not at the far end of the spectrum. If—”

  “Hold on,” Fault said. “My detector’s goin’ wonky.”

  They looked. The needle on Fault’s detector bobbed furiously back and forth in the red zone, indicating severe radiation. But Fault was pointing the detector south, away from the warship’s bridge.

  They all pointed their detectors south. Their needles went wild, too.

  “There,” Temple said, pointing. “What the hell is that?”

  He had indicated a large, thorny shrub growing right up against a slender pine. Beneath the shrub, something glowed softly.

  It was almost like moonlight: pale, cold, and white. But a faint blue hue tinted it, reminding Garner of a halogen bulb. The team crept up to the glow and saw the needles on their detectors move straight to the highest mark.

  “Whatever it is,” said An, “I think we’ve found it.”

  Garner had to agree. He lifted a section of the shrub away from the ground, taking particular care not to let the thorns pierce his gloves or sleeves. Lanei helped, holding branches up away from Garner’s arm. In a minute they saw the source of the glow, and the reason for the extreme amount of radiation in the area: an orb the size of a baseball. It didn’t pulse, but rather gave off a steady, uniform glow.

  “What the
hell is that?” asked Lanei.

  “Whatever it is,” said Garner, “we’re taking it back with us. An, give us a hand.”

  An drew back the branches to Garner’s right, expanding the space Garner had to work in. Garner got down on his belly and reached under the shrub. His fingers touched the orb but couldn’t quite grasp it. He worked his way closer, so close that the branches scraped his face mask.

  After a moment of frustration, he withdrew. “I can’t reach it. It’s too far in.”

  “I’ll do it,” said Fault.

  It irritated Garner to have to relinquish control to Fault, but the mech did have two inches on him, and therefore a longer reach. He considered telling Temple to do it—he was Fault’s height—but could think of no decent excuse for doing so. He moved aside for Fault to take over, and Fault got down, reached in, and retrieved the orb, just like that.

  Sometimes Garner hated Fault.

  “This looks like it would fit right inside that hole we found in the bridge’s console,” Lanei said. “The one that had the wormhole graphic beside it.”

  They all stared at the orb.

  “Guys,” An said, “I think we may have just found the Snappers’ wormhole technology!”

  * * *

  The next night, Garner went on his date with Agda. There wasn’t much on a Star Force warship you could do that was romantic, so Garner decided on a few regular activities, starting with eating supper together. Agda refused to participate in the conversation, only commenting briefly now and then with a, “Really!” or a “Wow.” She acted more interested in staring at him than at what he had to say, her eyes never leaving his face (or his body) even when eating.

  After supper, he took her to the rec room, which had so many other people in it that they couldn’t get a free table. “Do you want to hear some music?” Garner asked.

  “Okay,” she said; it was the first of many “okays,” as that seemed the limit of her decision-making abilities. He asked what she wanted to hear, and she replied, “Whatever,” so he chose a popular dance tune.