Arisen, Book Eight - Empire of the Dead Read online

  But then Isabel frowned. “But you’ll go away when he comes back.”

  Emily closed the girl’s tiny fingers around the matchbook-sized MP3 player. “Then you can have this.”

  Emily lit up again. “To keep? Forever? And ever?”

  “Forever and ever.”

  Isabel’s smile seemed to light up the whole ship, the whole world. Emily thought maybe the girl was coming to find that her own little world had become safe, maybe even fun. And in so doing, she made Emily’s worth living in again. And worth fighting for.

  But then, as the eighteen-year-old and the three-year-old looked into each other’s eyes, Isabel’s smile started to fade again. She said, “Our mommy’s gone to live in heaven. She has to stay there forever.”

  Emily swallowed hard, searching for some response.

  “I’m scared Daddy’s going to go live with her. And leave us alone again. I don’t want him to.”

  Emily picked up the little girl and cradled her in her lap. Wiping a tear from the corner of her own eye, out of sight, she said, “He would never do that. Your daddy’s not going to heaven. Remember how he came all that way to find you, where you were in the last place? He’ll always come back for you. He’ll always come back.”

  Isabel just nodded as Emily rocked her.

  But, over the little girl’s shoulder, Emily could see Ben watching them. The older boy looked at her like he knew better. Emily guessed he was old enough to understand something about his father’s job – and to know that what she had said was not necessarily true. And, as she looked away guiltily, she knew it wasn’t true, either.

  Their daddy might indeed not be coming back, and would instead be going to heaven.

  Where he’d live – forever and ever.

  * * *

  Homer’s oxygen and strength were gone now.

  His family’s beautiful faces still called out to him from the shrinking pinhole of light, so far up above him.

  But he knew there was only one way to get back to them – and it wasn’t up there, at least not yet. He also knew his job would always be to stay between the dangers that pursued them down here in the cold and dark – and the innocent, defenseless, precious cargo on that bright ship above.

  And in the next second after he turned to swim away toward the surface… as he felt his consciousness begin to wink out… and he felt himself starting to inhale, no longer able to control his body… and as he could begin to feel the vise-like hand closing around his ankle… and his flesh tensed against the cut he felt coming… he knew that now was the time to execute his last gambit.

  He knew that now he had to be reborn.

  In a blur of bubbles, he reversed course – his body folding in half over itself and spinning 180 degrees in place, doing a lightning flip-turn in the water, as only a man who has spent half his life in the ocean can do. Instantly face-to-face with the pursuing Spetsnaz killer, Homer blocked the incoming knife strike with his left arm. And with his failing right one, he yanked the man’s regulator from his mouth and struck him viciously with two knuckles in the solar plexus – location of the nerve center that controls the whole cardiorespiratory system.

  The blow caused the Russian to instantly, and totally involuntarily, draw in a deep, full breath – of seawater.

  And now Homer just floated in place, very nearly dead himself, and watched the drowning man flail around and die.

  And then he got the dead man’s regulator in his own mouth, and took great deep draughts of the unbelievably sweet oxygenated air. When both his body and his mind had crawled back from the blackness at the edge of death, and dialed back up to something like life again, he got his own tank off, removed the Russian’s, and strapped the new one on.

  Finally, he pried the knife from the dead man’s grasp.

  Now he could finish this thing.

  You are NEVER Out of the Fight

  Jesus Two Zero - CSAR Mission, Over the South Atlantic

  Screaming, shuddering, howling as if being born into the world in blood and thunder, the Seahawk came out of its dive – just inches above the ocean surface – and somehow started to recover from its lethal spin. In a few more terrifying seconds, it had resumed something like normal flight, as someone up on the flight deck regained control.

  Unbelievably, it looked like they weren’t all going to die.

  Ali filled her half-collapsed lungs with air, heaved herself to her feet, lurched up toward the front, and stuck her head into the flight deck. She found the whole area splashed with blood – and large, ugly, spiderwebbed holes decorating the cockpit glass.

  That sonofabitching Spetsnaz sniper had killed their pilot. Right through the damned glass. That was the seam he’d found. But it wasn’t an irreplaceable part.

  Because the co-pilot had taken over the controls in time to save them – but with almost no time to spare before they hit the water. Ali didn’t know what would account for the nearly lethal delay between the pilot losing control and the co-pilot regaining it. But she hadn’t been up here, she didn’t know how things had gone down, and the only emotion she felt entitled to was gratitude. All she really knew was that it had been photo-finish close. And that they’d all been saved from a death that had seemed inevitable and imminent.

  Not for the first time, Ali’s fate had been out of her hands. But the great thing was to control everything you could; and then get lucky with the rest.

  Now she could actually see little sea waves cresting out the front, coming at them head-on – they were that close to the water. Finally the co-pilot, breathing loudly and raggedly, started to get them some altitude. He didn’t seem inclined to speak, and Ali wasn’t sure she could spare much breath for words either.

  But she couldn’t see the Russian helo, so she finally managed: “Can you bring us back around?”

  The co-pilot didn’t turn to face her as he answered, speaking just loud enough to be audible. “Half the crew’s dead, and the other half’s wounded. I think we’re out of this fight.”

  Ali exhaled heavily. She wanted to tell him not to be so dramatic – only a quarter of the crew was wounded. And, much more importantly, she wanted to tell him something Homer had taught her:

  You are NEVER out of the fight.

  Ma-RINES! We Are LEA-ving!

  SAS Saldanha - Main Warehouse

  As Juice jogged around the last section of the perimeter, looking for doors to secure, his radio went again. He was starting to really regret turning the command channel back on.

  “Biltong, CIC. Be advised – there are A LOT more dead inbound, and you are out of time. It’s a big-ass contact, and you’ve got to get out of there now or never. Also be advised: THE JFK IS OUT OF TIME – we are raising anchor to steam north. You’ve got to exfil and RTB – NOW!”

  “Biltong copies all.”

  And with that, the two remaining combat-effective fire teams of this expedition, consisting of two men each, met up exactly where Juice expected they would: at the same door where they originally came in, the one that led to the room with the booby traps.

  “Sitrep,” Juice said.

  “Good to go,” Lovell said. “Found two doors, one external, one internal. Both sealed up tight. Even shoved a crate of crap in front of each of ’em.”

  “Awesome,” Juice said. “Now let’s get our guys and get the fuck out of here.”

  As they turned and trotted back toward their casualty collection point (CCP), Juice continued to monitor the drone video from outside. But he quickly realized there were two problems with this: one, all he could see outside were heaving throngs of dead guys. And, two, while he could look down from the eye-of-God POV of the Fire Scout with this monocle video feed, he couldn’t move the damned camera around where he needed it.

  “CIC, Biltong Actual, how copy.”

  “CIC copies, send it – FAST.”

  Juice struggled to manage his breathing, facing the challenge of trying to speak intelligibly while running in full battle rattle. Thank God f
or those conditioning runs on the flight deck with Pred, he thought. Wish I’d had the foresight to do it wearing sixty pounds of crap…

  “Yeah, can you have your drone pilot fly a quick loop around our position… and let me know if there’s any side of this structure that’s not like a Dead concert?”

  “Affirmative, Biltong. Wait one.”

  No sooner was this said than Juice saw the drone view looping and banking in his monocle. At its current rate it would complete a full circuit in only a few seconds.

  Now the four of them emerged into the open area where they’d left the others. Marines, even banged up, were still consummate pros – the healthy one they’d left here had gotten Raible loaded up onto a gurney, a bag of plasma tucked into his side, ready to move. And everyone’s wounds had been wrapped up and squared away to the extent possible.

  Even O’Bannon, the man who’d been grievously wounded in the face, and whose head was now two-thirds wrapped in bloody gauze, looked not only ready to move – he looked ready to fight.

  Juice was impressed.

  Now he had to do his part – and get the survivors the hell out of there and back to safety.

  While the getting was good.

  * * *

  “Biltong, CIC – it looks to us like only the southwest edge of your building is anything like clear at this point in time, how copy, over?”

  Juice not only copied this – he’d seen it himself, taking in the same view as the drone operator.

  “Biltong, the good news is that’s also the side facing the docks, and your ride out of there – the southwest side.”

  Juice started to inform this guy of the bad news: there wasn’t a fucking door on that side of the warehouse. But he decided to save his breath. Anyway, for people with explosives, door was a fluid concept. And the whole team was already up and moving through the maze-like interior toward that side.

  “Biltong, be advised – our asset in theater is armed with a full load of APKWS rockets, and can help clear you an exfil path.”

  Juice grunted in response. Now that was actually useful. He grinned, thinking: Things do always go smoother when your Kill Weapon System is both Advanced and Precision…

  As the group reached the inside of the southwest building edge, he put down his corner of the gurney, unslung his assault pack, dug around for a couple of breaching charges, and got them stuck on the wall.

  “Breaching!” he shouted, causing Marines to duck behind cover, or else lay their own bodies over the wounded.

  “Wait!” shouted Lovell. “We just sealed this place up. Now you’re going to blow it open?”

  Juice stopped. “Good point.” He had definitely missed a trick there. “Who’s got rope?” A Marine produced a 100m coil from his pack. Juice nodded toward the nearest big pallet of crates. Lovell caught his meaning, and helped him loop the rope around it, then secure it.

  “Breaching!” Juice repeated.

  The two small charges went up – opening up a hole just large enough for a man to squeeze out of. Two healthy Marines went out first, setting perimeter security. Juice could hear them engaging instantly – shooting fast and steadily. There clearly wasn’t going to be a ton of time for this escape maneuver. Working as a team, they got the wounded out, others joining in the gunplay as they emerged – including the wounded.

  Stepping out last, and squinting against the daylight, Juice scanned the area – and could see there were a fair number of dead in sight, most stumbling, some running. A few started heading toward them now, following the sound of the gunfire, suppressed though it was. Juice also got a strong sense there were a hell of a lot more just around each corner of the warehouse. And he didn’t intend to hang around here until they all showed up.

  Spitting once into the grass, he nodded at Lovell, and the two of them slung their rifles, grabbed the rope that emerged from the hole, and put their backs into it. Slowly, but just as predicted, the pallet inside scraped across the cement floor, inching toward the hole they had made. When it got there, it should effectively seal it up.

  As they hauled for everything they were worth, and the pallet started to close the last few feet… two gray hands appeared around the ragged steel edges of the opening, and a dead dude hauled himself out. He was frantic, and moving jerkily, clearly a fast one. But Juice was faster, dropping the rope and quick-drawing his side arm in a blur, putting a lightning double-tap through its mouth. It collapsed, lifeless – right in the fucking hole, and in the way of the pallet.

  Juice could also hear the shooting behind them ramping up even more. This meant that with every second they spent here there would be more dead – and less ammo. He holstered his pistol and grabbed one arm of the protruding dead guy while Lovell grabbed the other. But even as they started to yank it out, another Zulu appeared from inside, trying to climb out around the first. Juice drew again and put it down.

  “What the fuck?” Lovell said. “We cleared that place!”

  Juice keyed his radio. “CIC, Biltong, can you tell me if the dead are still somehow getting inside this structure?”

  There was only the shortest pause, which Juice used to steal a look over his shoulder. He didn’t like what he saw: figures running at them from all directions, all converging on their position – like a zombie explosion filmed and run backward through the projector. The Marines were all shooting and reloading constantly now.

  “That’s affirmative, Biltong. Looks like maybe some structural blast damage, near the north corner. It’s not a big breach, but the Zulus appear to be fighting their way inside one at a time, over.”

  “Copy that. Listen, I’m going to need you to start walking some of those rockets on, RFN. Start one-zero-zero meters southwest of our position. And keep hitting them in a straight line all the way to that dock. How copy?”

  “CIC copies all. Confirm danger-close airstrikes at one-zero-zero meters southwest your current coords.”

  “Confirm, confirm!” Juice turned to Lovell. “Now – mo—”

  “Biltong, please reconfirm danger-close strikes at—”

  “Break, break. Motherfuckers! Put those rockets in now, or you can put ’em as close as you like – because we’ll all be fucking dead.” He twiddled down the volume on that channel and turned back to Lovell. “Move out. You lead the team now. Get to the boat.” And then he bent over to duck back inside the warehouse.

  “Bullshit!” Lovell shouted over the outrageous noise of small-arms fire – which was, even then, being drowned out by the first rockets, close enough for them to feel the heat of their exploding warheads. “We’re not going without you.”

  Juice paused fractionally, sighed, and just said: “This job’s not done yet. Hold at the dock as long as you can, and I’ll try to be right behind you.” He considered telling Lovell that if he wasn’t back in a few minutes, or if they found themselves in danger of being overrun, he was to cast off and get back to the Kennedy. But it didn’t need saying. Lovell wasn’t stupid, or anything like it.

  And before the Marine NCO could protest any more, Juice had disappeared inside. Lovell saw the dark hole light up from half a dozen more pistol shots. Then, somehow, that big pallet got pushed, from the inside, right up to the breaching hole.

  And like that, it was sealed up.

  And Juice was entombed inside.

  Going Toward the Light

  JFK - Bridge

  Drake finally seemed to come back to the room, taking in his XO’s urgent advice – that, after their Predator had been shot down, they couldn’t long survive without having eyes on the enemy ship. “Okay,” he said. “Recommendations?”

  “We’ve only got one option,” said Abrams. “Re-task the Fire Scout.”

  Drake crinkled his brow, considering this. “Just give me a second…”

  “Sir, we don’t have a second.” He picked up a desk mic. “CIC, Bridge.”

  “CIC, go ahead.”

  “You need to re-task the Fire Scout UAV. We need it up at 15,000 feet, to give
us radar and video imaging of the enemy surface contact. And we need it urgently.”

  “Copy that, Bridge. Wait one.” There was a one-second pause, after which Campbell herself came back on.

  “Bridge, CIC. That is negative, negative on re-tasking the Fire Scout. Right now the shore team is in heavy contact. We are using that asset both as ISR for their maneuver – and close air support for their breakout and exfil. Repeat: we have troops in contact, and are doing fire support with that asset.”

  Abrams looked over at Drake, then responded. “Copy that, LT. But be advised: this is a priority highest tasking. We have to have eyes on that battlecruiser.”

  “Copy that. How long do we have?”

  Abrams wanted to tell her they had 0.0 seconds. But he knew that, with the Russians a bit over 400km out, and the range of their Shipwreck missiles only 200km, they had a little time left. It was terrible not to know what the Russian ship was doing. But it wouldn’t necessarily be lethal. Not right away, anyway.

  Campbell came back on. “Sir, let me finish my gun runs. And clear the Marines’ way out of there.”

  Abrams exhaled. “Get it done – ASAFP.”

  “Roger that. ETA ten minutes for that re-task.”

  Abrams put the mic back down. He started to look over at Drake to see how he was faring. But then his gaze was immediately drawn back out the screens, on the landward side. Onshore, they could now make out tiny explosions blossoming across the base. They seemed to be starting inland and walking out toward the docks, and the water.

  The faint sounds of the blasts reached them through the open hatch a few seconds afterward.

  * * *

  Nine minutes later, Campbell was back on the line.

  “Bridge, CIC. I’m ready to re-task the drone. But be advised: unless we can find, engage, and suppress that missile shooter on shore, the one who took down the Predator… then in order to move the Fire Scout without losing it, we’re going to have to get it way down on the deck, keep it at that altitude until it’s way offshore, and then climb. All of which is going to take time.”