Enemy One (Epic Book 5) (68 page)

The moment her feet crossed the threshold, she was pelted with a flurry of ice and snow.

Shielding her eyes and shrieking back, Esther ducked down as violent blasts of wind threatened to blow her clean off her feet. Against the burn of subzero Siberian temperatures, the scout looked around her. Neon red blasts of neutron were flying past her, met by the tatter of assault rifles. Two rows of buildings surrounded her; she was standing in the center of a wide, unpaved street. Through the whipping of snow flurries and explosions of ice and ammunition, she could make out EDEN soldiers diving for cover. She recognized the place instantly.

Khatanga.

Whirling around, the scout looked in the opposite direction, where a horde of Ceratopian warriors were creating a stronghold. Far past them, almost entirely out of view, another unit of EDEN operatives was moving into position to surround the beasts. The Eighth.

“Look familiar, Molly Esther?”

Esther spun back around, coming face-to-face with Ju`bajai’s construct of herself. The ponytailed doppelganger was clad from head to toe in EDEN armor, only the lower half of her face and her ponytail exposed, the latter of which was flapping in the wind. Ju`bajai sashayed calmly toward Esther.

“We are mere moments away from your first royal disaster. You’ve grown quite accustomed to destroying everything you touch, haven’t you?”

Blindsided by the suddenness of Khatanga, Esther stared blankly at the construct. Her heart pounded in her chest.

Flipping out her comm from her belt, Ju`bajai held it nonchalantly at her side. “It’s a beautifully simple device, really. Only a fool could mess it up.”

“Why are you doing this?”
Esther cried through the snowstorm.

“Ah, ah,” said Ju`bajai, holding up her palm to silence Esther. “Time to shine.” Lifting the comm to her lips, she pressed the button and said, “Their attention’s away from you, engage now!”

Esther stared horrified as a voice she recalled all too well emerged from the other end of the line. “Are you
sure
?” it asked.

“Yes!” Ju`bajai said. “You have to engage
now
.”

“We are going.”

The corners of her lips curling upward, Ju`bajai’s brown eyes practically twinkled as she winked at Esther. “Showtime.”

Esther knew what was coming next. Turning back around in the middle of the street, she watched as the Eighth engaged the Ceratopians—who were right there waiting for them. The EDEN forces ran into a wall of neutron, the energy beams crushing in the attackers’ armor as the massive Ceratopians mowed them down. The carnage was as real as she remembered. Every detail was accounted for. Behind them all, in a fit of desperation, the Fourteenth joined the assault.

“Do you realize,” Ju`bajai asked, “that none of your comrades in the Fourteenth have
ever
incorrectly used a comm? Only you managed to pull off something so catastrophically stupid. And that was after you bragged on yourself so very, very much. What a silly little thing you turned out to be.”

As the Ceratopian onslaught continued around her, Esther’s knees weakened. She stared at Ju`bajai haplessly. She had no fight left.

Eyes narrowing, Ju`bajai marched closer. “You embarrass everyone. You
lose
to everyone. And ultimately, you destroy everyone.” Pausing a single pace away, she asked, “What would Scott Remington have ever seen in you? You never had a chance.”

There was a great gust of wind, and Ju`bajai vanished. Esther flinched as the construct appeared behind her, whispering in her ear.

“All this will end when I am freed. Until that day comes, you will not rest, you will not have peace, you will not have a secret to your name; I will reveal to everyone
everything
. You will stand before them humiliated, stripped naked of every security like a quivering child in the rain.” As Esther spun around to face Ju`bajai, the construct was gone. Only its voice remained, echoing amid the wind, “Reveal me to your friends, and they will suffer.”

Turning back in the direction she’d just faced, Esther’s eyes widened as she beheld Scott violently approaching. Tearing his helmet off as he neared her, he yelled, “What in the hell was
that
?”

“Can I help you?”

Esther blinked, the world of Khatanga fading away. Inhaling sharply, she refocused ahead.

From beside the medical station, Inna the night nurse eyed her curiously. “Miss Brooking, is everything all right?”

She was back in
Northern Forge
, standing at the threshold of the medical bay, where she’d last been. Her flustered gaze found Inna. Swallowing sickly, she murmured, “Everything is fine.” Her attention turned to Ju`bajai’s cell. The Ithini was staring at her.

“Is there something I can help you with?” Inna asked.

Esther stood silently for several moments before answering weakly, “No, not at all.” Taking a wobbly step back, she reached out with a trembling hand to hit the door button. The metal door slid shut. Propping her hand against the wall, the scout leaned over.

The hall felt like it was spinning. It took Esther almost a full minute of standing there to regain her balance. Sliding a hand over her head, she pushed her hair back. Her stare was despondent.

Esther made no further attempt to enter the medical bay. Stepping away from the door, she uneasily turned around and went back down the hall. Her eyes met no one else’s.

Wednesday, March 21
^st
, 0012 NE

0858 hours

Norilsk, Russia

The next morning
 

THIS WAS GOING to be interesting. As Scott stepped out of the elevator on Level-3, Natalie in tow behind him, all he could think about was what the reaction would be when operatives saw the former Caracal captain walking into the conference room with him. He honestly had no idea how it would go.
Ready or not, here we come.

Scott had awoken at five o’clock, something which struck him as odd considering the hell they’d all been through the previous day. Nonetheless, it proved an unexpected blessing, allowing him time to start what felt like the first proper morning he’d had in ages. Quiet time with God, a cup of hot coffee in the cafeteria, then time to simply sit back and mentally prepare for what was to come.

Though the unit-wide meeting was destined to be uncomfortable, it wasn’t his first tense encounter of the morning. That honor had gone to his meeting with Valentin Lukin. As soon as 0800 rolled about, Scott made a beeline for the keeper’s suite to relay the news of Natalie’s release. It went about like Scott had expected. Shouts were exchanged, saliva was spewed, and a chair was hurled across the keeper’s suite by the keeper himself. In the end, though, priority won, just as Scott knew it would. Like it or not, Antipov had given Scott operational control. If Scott wanted Natalie on this mission, it was in his grounds to arrange it. As infuriated as Valentin was—and he was—he knew better than to cross the chief of the eidola. All it took was one remark from Scott about his needs not being met and it would be Valentin’s corpse bouncing down the mountainside, never to be seen again.

Not surprisingly, Valentin wanted no part of Scott’s meeting with the Fourteenth and Falcons. He wanted no part of Scott at all, other than to keep as much distance as possible between the normal, everyday affairs of
Northern Forge
and the operation Scott was running. That was fine with Scott. If minimal communication between the two of them meant minimal confrontations, then it was all the better.

After talking to Valentin, dealing with Natalie was easy—almost a joy. When Scott knocked on her door to retrieve her, he found her showered and dressed in full Nightman uniform—something he never thought he’d see, despite the lack of any alternatives at the base. But he liked it that way. It made Natalie
feel
in line with the rest of them. She looked good in black.

More importantly than how she looked was how she came across, and that was controlled. Though she and Scott would likely not be friends anytime soon, she was at minimal cordial. Considering all they’d been through and how he’d betrayed her, cordial was lightyears ahead of where he thought they’d ever be.

And so the two of them set off in Tiffany and Catalina’s wake, lingering behind just enough to give them an elevator ride down in private to do some last minute prepping for the meeting. For all practical purposes, Scott was treating Natalie like his XO. Though the irony struck Scott that this was exactly the opposite of how things had been presented in
Cairo
, when he showed up as commander to her captaincy, he dared not mention it. He was sure that had crossed her mind already. Her humility shamed him. He wasn’t sure he’d have been able to summon up the courage to approach this in the way she was approaching it now. Scott was fairly certain that made her a better person—and leader—than him.

Nonetheless, they were in as much of a sync as was likely possible. The only unknown now was the unit’s impending reaction.

The moment the pair walked into the conference room and Scott saw the operatives gathered, reality struck him. It took mere seconds to perform a head count: thirteen. There were thirteen operatives gathered, including Scott and Natalie. From the floor by the door, Flopper lifted his head to look at Scott, the jingling of the dog’s collar drawing Scott’s attention.

Okay, fourteen.

That Flopper needed to be counted at all only highlighted the major problem with which Scott was faced. They were decimated. Of the operatives that
were
there, only seven were unscathed and could be considered truly combat ready: Becan, Jayden, Tiffany, Javon, Tom, Feliks, and Pyotr from Krasnoyarsk, who was looking like a better pickup by the second just for the increased body count he provided.
I’m banged up, and so are Esther and Rashid. Auric and Catalina are sitting here in wheelchairs.
Again, he looked at Flopper.
And you’re a dog—no offense.
Another dawning realization was that, of every single person present in the room, only Scott, Esther, Becan, Jayden, and Flopper were from the Fourteenth. Less than half.

The collective shift of focus from Scott to Natalie was dramatic. There were almost gasps. And instantly—as Scott had feared—his Type-2 scout rose to her feet. “What in the bloody hell is
she
doing here?” Esther asked, pointing at Natalie while she gaped at Scott.

Inhaling through her nostrils as she stood by Scott’s side, Natalie lowered her chin and said nothing.

“Sit down and calm down,” Scott said, raising a palm to Esther, who settled back into her chair. Drawing a breath of preparation, Scott broke the news. “I don’t need to introduce Captain Rockwell to any of you—we’re all quite aware of how she got swept up in this.” And here it went. “Having had time to soak in everything going on around her, particularly as it pertains to the big picture of what we’re doing, the captain has selflessly decided to lend us her trust. From this stage onward, and under
supervision
,” he said, giving Natalie as much of a stern look as he had the shamelessness to do, “she will be joining us as part of my command staff.”

Esther’s eyes went flat. “You…are joking.”

“I am not joking, and you will comply with this, Miss Brooking.”

“Miss
Brooking
? Since when am I sodding ‘Miss Brooking?’”

Scott was on the verge of saying something regrettable when Natalie cleared her throat. “If I may,” she said, glancing at Scott as if asking for his approval. When he offered it, she turned back to the operatives at the table. “No one is more shocked to find me standing here before you than I am. Yet, here I am.”

As he listened, Scott marveled at her composure. Her voice wasn’t even shaking to the faintest degree. It was right then that the difference between the two of them as leaders became striking. Scott led with passionate intensity—he was an adrenaline machine. Natalie was pure professionalism.
I should have told her what was happening in
Cairo
. That failure will always be mine.

“As much as I would love to condemn you for your actions,” Natalie said, looking specifically at the spare members of the Fourteenth present, “what I cannot deny is that Falcon Platoon is, contrary to what EDEN claimed, alive—and that according to every single Falcon I had the privilege of sharing a quarantine cell with, a victim of EDEN betrayal. Those revelations were enough to make me consider the possibility that what happened in
Cairo
was the result of a well-intentioned operation going poorly.”

Well-intentioned? She was letting them off easy. Or at least, that was the hand she was showing.

“I want one thing: to know the truth. EDEN has a lot to explain to me. Your captain and I are going to discuss an operation this morning—one that will go a long way in satisfying my desire to know that truth.” She paused. “At the end of the day, either you’ll have deceived me
twice
, and I’ll have been blind enough to fall for it twice, or the organization I dedicated my life to serving will have betrayed us all. There is no good answer there. But I know there
is
an answer. And that’s what I want to find.”

The operatives’ reactions were as stunned as they’d been initially, but no one outside of Esther looked horrified. That partially made sense. Half of the people in this room had no part of
Cairo
at all. As far as Falcon Platoon was concerned, Natalie Rockwell was as innocent as they were.

“There will be trust issues,” Natalie said, “of that I am certain. Whatever rules I am forced to operate under, I will comply with—if it means finding the truth. I don’t particularly look forward to working with anyone here, which I hope is understandable considering what I’ve been through. But I will do what I must. Until this operation reaches a conclusion, I will lend you my trust. I only ask for yours in return. You don’t have to like me, but I do want you to work with me. I aim to make a difference.”