Nightmare Factory, page 19
“Thank you again, Captain, for plucking our asses out of that shit down there.”
“Just doing my job, ma’am. Tips are accepted, and please leave a review.” The man tapped a few buttons on his console and the section of a solid wall in front now showed an external camera. Sunlight reflected off a large and rather ugly ship coming into view. The carrier Alice Springs. It was one of the monolith class ships along with Denali, Stone Mountain, Everest, and Kilimanjaro. Banshee had been assigned to her once several years earlier, but Bayou lost track of the deployments. After a while, one section of ship’s hull looked pretty much like every other. Generally, they were in the Hermes class anyway, more cramped, but more effective for an orbital drop platform.
“Better strap in, we will have to match spin.”
She didn’t bother. As long as she didn’t have an outside view, the spin inside the TriCraft was undetectable. If she had bothered to watch, she’d likely be hurling her lunch in a matter of seconds. The thought made the pain in her ribs shoot through her again. She patted the pilot and stumble- walked back to where the rest of her team were seated. Both Jenkins and Bishop had their eyes closed; they were all drained from the narrow escape, but she had questions that needed answers.
“Banshee Actual to Prowler.” They weren’t in combat, but she wanted Joe to know he should watch his mouth, assuming he answered. Using his call sign was normally enough of a clue. Tactical comms were supposed to be private, but any soldier that believed that probably also still left cookies out for Santa.
Joe didn’t answer, and that didn’t leave Bayou with a good feeling. She left him a brief message relaying her thanks, and that they were safely off-planet. Now she wanted to know what in the hell had happened to her world down there.
Ballistic drop troops didn’t rank too high in the hierarchy of the Spaceborne Infantry Division. So, when the senior flight controller for the Alice Springs summoned Debra a short while later, she was relatively sure it wouldn’t be for tea and cookies.
“Lieutenant Riggs reporting, sir!” she said to the middle-aged woman seated behind the desk. Orbital charts, vessel loadouts, and various other hard copy reports littered the major’s workspace. Every billet on Space Force craft was small. Few were private, with most people hot swapping with other shifts. The CAG’s office was about double the size of the rest.
“At ease, soldier,” the woman said without looking up from the tablet she was reading.
“You were on a recon mission in Central America.”
“Yes, sir.”
“By your report, that mission was unsuccessful.”
The words stung, but Bayou had known they would.
“That is correct. Objective not reached, and we lost one member of my team.”
“Sorry to hear that.” The lieutenant wasn’t sure to which point the major was referring, so she remained silent.
“Do you have any idea the magnitude of the destruction down there?” the woman asked, placing the tablet face down on her desk and making eye contact for the first time.
“No, sir, not really.” She didn’t want to mention the calls with Kovach. Those were off the books and against regs during a mission. To be honest, they were only hearsay, as Joe also only really knew what he himself could see.
Major Kerns pulled up a display wall. It was dominated by what must have been a real-time view of Earth. The scene showed a condensed version of the first wave of attacks hitting the East Coast of America, followed by the launch of a counterattack. Then, similar missile tracks over Europe, Russia, and the opposite American coast. Debra looked on as a red overlay started from each impact spot that began spreading out in the animation.
“In five days, much of our planet is now a wasteland,” the major said. “I don’t have time to give you a full briefing, nor do I think you are worth it. I do want to know how you could requisition a pickup from my Space Force assets. My assets. How were you in one of the few places on the globe unaffected, and how did you fail to accomplish a simple recon mission? One that might have prevented all of this.”
Riggs was stunned. She had already felt like a failure, an emotion that was totally unfamiliar to her, but this woman was trying to lay this entire disaster on her command. Not fucking likely.
“Major, you are not a part of my command chain. I am here out of common courtesy. My team’s deployment and its evac is above both our paygrades. Do you have anything helpful to add before I attempt to file my final mission reports?” Riggs asked with authority. The disrespect which female officers received hadn’t changed much in the last century, and Riggs damn sure would not take it from another woman, no matter her rank.
The Combat Air Group commander was obviously not expecting that. The woman looked ready to snap, but her eyes fell on the arm patch. Bayou was an operator, Special Forces. Clearly not someone to get off on the wrong foot with. Kerns steepled her fingers on her desk and eyed the younger woman carefully.
“Maybe I was a bit rash, Lieutenant. You are correct, I do not know your M.O., it was classified, and as I said, we do welcome you aboard. Our carrier group rarely has RDT teams on board, but we may be the best place for you right now.”
She stood and moved gracefully around the desk, movements that came only with years living outside Earth’s normal gravity.
“Come with me, Lieutenant. I believe you will want to see this.”
CHAPTER
FORTY-FIVE
LUX
The smell was back, and it was dark.
“Ah, you’re awake,” a woman’s voice said from nearby.
Lux yawned, realizing that he was lying on something soft. A bed or sofa. “Where am I?”
“You’re in our house. My son found you asleep in our yard. Are you lost?”
“Your son? I need… I need to go.” He did. That’s what mom would want, but something smelled like food, and he was so hungry. “I need to get home.”
“Okay, honey,” the voice said again. “Hey, Bill, can you come here?”
Flickering light started painting its way up the walls, and the shadow of a man came into view. The candle he was holding began softly illuminating the small living room. Lux saw he was lying in an oversized chair.
“So, our guest is awake? You get a name yet?”
The woman was younger than Lux’s mom, pretty, with long, straight hair. It looked dark colored. His mom’s was blonde like his, but the candlelit room was still so dim it probably could have been any color.
“Not yet, I was just asking him if he was lost.”
“I’m not lost. I don’t think I am. Marcie knows where we are but…”
“Is she with you?” the woman asked.
“No… she’s, um… she stopped working when the car…”
The two adults looked at each other and nodded, something unspoken passing between them.
“Were you in a car… on your way home, maybe, when the cars stopped?”
Lux’s stomach cramped and made a loud growl. “Do you have anything I could eat, please?”
The woman looked at the man, who seemed to shake his head slightly.
“We don’t have much, but how does a bacon and tomato sandwich sound?” she said, rising and giving the man a glaring look.
“I’ve never had bacon, but I like sandwiches.”
“Oh, so you come from one of those kind of families, huh?” the man said with a small laugh. “You only use the processed food from the machine, or are you vegan?”
The woman left the room down the same dark hall the man had come from. Lux heard voices in the other rooms, kids’ voices.
“I don’t know what vegan means, but we eat lots of stuff. My mom works a lot, though, so yeah, mostly delivered meal kits and stuff from the processor. It’s good. I can make some things myself now.”
“That’s good,” the man said. “I think we all have to do more for ourselves from now on.”
He moved around, so the candle showed more of his face; he had a beard. Lux didn’t think he knew any men who had beards. It was a strange thing to see, and it made him think of old-fashioned pictures where it seemed like all the men had them.
“I’m Bill, by the way. My wife is Laura.” He saw the boy looking at him, then realized the reason. He stroked his beard with one hand. “You like it?”
“I’ve never seen anyone with one. Was it hard to get?” Lux asked. His stomach growled another protest.
“To grow, you mean? Yeah, it took a while. Lot of farmers up this way, several of them have gone back to the older ways of doing things. Beards, making bacon, and such.”
Lux realized there was a face staring into the house through a glass door past the man. “Your dog saved me.”
“No way!” the man said. “Timber brought you here?”
“Is that his name, Timber? Yes, he found me one morning. I thought it was a bear or something.”
“Yeah, that’s awesome. I named him that ‘cause he loves the woods so much,” Bill said without realizing the boy didn’t catch the connection. “You were up on the main road then… that’s quite a walk from here. Didn’t know Timber roamed up that far.”
The lady came back in and set a sandwich on a napkin with a cup of water. Lux downed the water in one long swallow. Then he bit into the sandwich and all thought of other food drifted away. It was the single best thing he’d ever put in his mouth. Even better than birthday cake.
“My taste buds are dancing,” he said between bites. He was wondering if his mom had ever tried bacon. Surely not, or she would have made it all the time. “Sorry, ma’am,” he said, having devoured the sandwich in minutes and looking down at the now empty napkin. “I mean, thanks. You know… thank you for everything.”
CHAPTER
FORTY-SIX
KOVACH
I unwound myself from the steering wheel, my foot getting hung up in the strap of my rifle. We’d decided to sleep in the truck, which had only made it about thirteen miles before the charge was completely gone. Damiana was watching me from her equally awkward position, wedged between the seat and window on the other side.
“She okay?” I asked, nodding my head to the rear seat.
Damiana nodded, “I think so.”
I opened the door and stepped out. My foot sank into mud. The storm had hit with force just as we fled down the rural mountain roads. Now I wanted food, and I needed coffee.
The other woman joined me as I built a quick fire. I wanted proper food, not the prepackaged stuff.
“So, what’s the plan?”
“The batteries will need to recharge. We’ll probably need to stay here all day and maybe be good to go tomorrow morning.”
“What about the… you know.” She looked back the way we had come.
Weird how neither of us wanted to talk about what had gone on back at the facility. “I don’t know, Dami. Can those things move fast enough to catch up to us?”
“Yeah, maybe… I just don’t know,” she responded.
“Look, can you see if you can find some dry wood? I just need coffee.” She wandered off, and Sumo hopped lazily down from the pickup. He gave me a look.
“Don’t you start with me, buddy. I wasn’t the one who fell in a hole with a cannibalistic kudzu vine.” He snorted and left to go do his morning business. Truth was, I had no freakin’ idea what to do. My plan ended when that building came crashing down. I was on borrowed time now.
“Sergeant, confirmation that the remainder of Banshee team was successfully evac’d off world. Bayou is on an Alliance craft.”
“Good. Thanks, Ada.” At least one less thing to worry about.
I moved the starter block around to ignite more of the fatwood I kept in my go-bag. By the time the woman came back, I had the coffeepot set up and was getting some of our food supplies cooking. She dropped the wood by the fire.
“You didn’t even need this, did you?”
“We do… we will,” I corrected. I placed a few of the still damp pieces closer, so they could begin drying out. “Truth is, I’m not exactly a morning person, or a people person. I don’t really care for either.”
She smiled. “Can’t really blame you on either count.”
We sat by the fire waiting for the coffeepot to boil. “All the technology in the world and suddenly we are back to camping out like the original settlers did hundreds of years ago,” she said.
“In the Army, we had a saying that nothing ever really changes.”
“Some things change,” she challenged. “Flesh eating plants and zombie battle bots are new.”
“Point taken. Just new and inventive ways of doing the same old things—killing your enemy. Names change, flags change, weapons evolve, but the goal remains the same.”
Minutes later, she poured us both a cup, and I was glad to see she took it black. “I never really even thought about it… the killing, I mean. It was just a job. To see if we could make something better than the competition. They kept most of us away from guys like you.”
I sipped my cup, savoring the familiar warmth. “That’s the problem when wars become driven by money.”
She eyed me suspiciously. A look in her eye, I couldn’t completely place.
“The military industrial complex,” I said. “There was a time when we made better weapons to fight wars. Now we fight wars to make better weapons. There is a sizeable profit in war… or used to be, last week, for example.”
“Your dad was part of that system. One of the few who had gotten his hands dirty out on the battlefield,” she said.
“And he hated it like most military commanders. The actual warriors, not the appointees who make decisions for their men, sitting behind a desk thousands of miles away from the battlefield. The system in place to wage those wars doesn’t really take the men—our needs, into consideration. We’re trigger pullers.” I smiled at an old memory. “When I was fresh out of Recon school, I thought I was king of the jungle. Hell week is a brutal beast of a final exam. One of the instructors, a beast of a man named Stouten, asked me if I knew what I was now. I told him I was a weapon, a lethal weapon of war.”
“Ballsy,” Damiana said.
“Stupid,” I admitted. “He pulled me aside and got right in my ear. ‘You, Kovach, will never be a weapon. You aren’t even the barrel of a weapon.’ He then pointed up to the grandstand where my dad and a bunch of other invited military dignitaries were watching. ‘They are the weapon. You are just a single round in their gun. They point, the gun fires, you go meet the enemy. You are a meat-filled bullet, nothing more.’”
Damiana laughed; it was a good laugh. I liked it.
“Then you joined the RDT and became a drop trooper.”
I got her meaning. “Yeah, I literally became a bullet being fired out of a gun at the enemy. Irony is a bitch.”
“So, you don’t have any thoughts on what happened, the who, the why?”
“Does it matter?” I asked. “After all these years and, well… all I’ve been through, I know my lane. Figuring out shit like that is for people further up the food chain. I would like to know the how they did it as that could be useful to our survival… your survival,” I amended sadly.
Her face darkened. “I am sorry about that, Joe. I know you need that med kit.”
She got a distant look, and I could tell she was considering something.
“What?” I asked.
“Iron River wasn’t the only site Magnus used.”
I poured us both another cup of coffee.
“I’m listening.”
CHAPTER
FORTY-SEVEN
I only had one problem with Damiana’s news of another lab—she didn’t know the location.
“She might.” Damiana was pointing toward the pickup.
“Carol?”
She nodded. “All our work at Iron River is…was compartmentalized, but I know what she was doing was to be used for a new prototype weapons system. Something called the ZR-12s.”
“And you think that was at the same facility?”
“Relatively sure. Magnus mentioned it several times, and over the last year, he spent more time at that facility than anywhere.”
“Does it have a name?”
“A code name. I heard it referred to by Marcus simply as the Rainier site.”
Ada cut into my thoughts, “The name has several possible references. Most likely connection is an ancient Germanic name that means army advisor or the deciding warrior.”
I hadn’t mentioned my internal AI to either of the women, and if it was part of what Damiana knew about me, she never brought it up. For now, I had kept it to myself.
“Never heard of it. I assume that was not one of the places I was treated.”
She looked away, considering it, then shook her head. “I followed your case rather closely. Your enhancements… I mean, you were essentially a prototype. My job was to help document certain steps for the doctor. I know some things they did were classified beyond my clearance level, but I don’t think any of those were at the other site.”
Damiana rose to her feet. “I need to go check on Carol.”
I looked at her and realized her silhouette was familiar. She could have been in the medical ward that day, standing by the door. I filed that away for later.
Sumo came over and lay down. I fed him part of my breakfast and rubbed his head. The dog turned and licked my hand. Who would take care of him if I were gone… when I’m gone, I corrected. Truth was, Sumo would probably be fine on his own. He hunted with me and had survival tactics hard-wired into his DNA. Humans were the weak ones. Even the enhanced ones like me.
I sat there enjoying the moment with him for a long time. Just looking out over the rolling hills extending into the distance. I could hear Damiana fussing over her friend but didn’t detect any response from Carol. My battle suit had administered some pretty strong sedatives, so I wasn’t surprised she was still sleeping it off.
