Epic: Book 03 - Hero (33 page)

The grotesque remains of the researchers’ bodies had been found. Their small dog—the East Siberian laika—was officially orphaned. The animal lay quiet during the entire ride back to The Machine, its nose buried beneath its paws.

Clarke’s corpse had been placed in a body bag shortly before the return flight began. It sat awkwardly propped in the corner, where no one had ventured to look for longer than a few seconds. Strangely, no tears had been shed.

It had been one of the eeriest and most uncomfortable flights Scott could remember. Never before had the line between ally and enemy felt so tangible. EDEN and the Nightmen were no longer forced comrades. There was no sense of camaraderie at all.

News about the European attacks had come over the airwaves during their return. Cities had been razed to the ground. Countless homes were destroyed and hundreds of thousands of people were dead. Rumors flew that even several members of Vector Squad had been killed. It had been the worst attack in all of Earth’s history.

Still, Scott wished he could have been there.

As the rear door was finally lowered with its familiar mechanical whine, Scott slowly rose. No one else near him stood. He stared at the ground as he stepped past his teammates, his expression a mixture of confusion, anger, and remorse. When he finally mustered the strength to look up, he was already halfway through the hangar. It didn’t take him long to find Max. The lieutenant technician was walking toward him from the opposite end of the hangar, where he’d apparently been waiting for them to return.

“
What the hell’s goin’ on, man? I been tryin’ to comm you guys for an hour!”

An hour. It felt as if the flight had been ten times longer than that. What was Scott supposed to tell him? Just filler. “I don’t know.”

“
You don’t
know
?” He turned his head to the
Pariah
. “Why isn’t anyone else getting out?”

“
I don’t know.”

Max watched, motionless, as Scott walked away. After several seconds, he called after him.

Scott slowed to a stop.
Max needs to know. He deserves to know.
“Clarke is dead.”

At first, Max offered no response. It was as if he hadn’t understood the words. Then his stoic demeanor crumbled. “How?”

“
He got killed by a necrilid.” He offered the only reassurance he knew. “Only Clarke died.”

He waited for Max’s response—whether there might be a span of confusion or denial. But there wasn’t. Instead, he heard the most collected response from Max since the first day he’d met him.

“
We can fix this,” Max said, looking Scott straight in the eye. His expression was genuine. “We can try.”

Scott’s gaze swept past Max’s shoulder, back to the ship. Several members of the Fourteenth were removing Captain Clarke’s body. The black body bag hovered over the ground as the operatives carried it out.

He felt the same uneasy silence as when Axelos from the Tenth had addressed him back in Chernobyl. And again, he offered the same response—he turned and walked away.

This can’t be fixed, Max. Today crossed the line.

Max watched Scott leave the hangar, then turned back to the
Pariah
—to the body bag that lay on the floor. He didn’t say anything, nor did indicate to the Fourteenth that he was even there. He just turned and walked away, too.

The rest of the Fourteenth mechanically attended to their myriad tasks. David and Oleg prepared Clarke’s body for departure, while Svetlana tended to Derrick’s leg. Although she was quaking inside, her hands remained steady on his wounds. She escorted him to the infirmary alone.

Esther remained next to Auric—they were the only pair of EDEN and Nightman operatives in the hangar. But their interaction was strained as they hauled equipment out of the
Pariah
for its standard prep-down. In a similar fashion, Boris worked inside the ship.

The small Siberian laika—the sole survivor of the Chernobyl rescue—lay motionless at the edge of the cockpit door. Of the entire crew, Travis wore the only occasional smile, though it was reserved for the dog. He would occasionally stroke its head in the midst of his prep-down procedure. It was the most meaningful interaction among the whole crew.

The only other member of the team besides Scott and Max to abandon them during prep-down was Dostoevsky. Leaving even his slayers behind, the fulcrum left the hangar as soon as the
Pariah
was parked. He disappeared without a word.

* * *

Dostoevsky whirled around, sending a spinning hook kick across a slayer’s face.

Two other slayers behind him lurched forward to grab hold of him, but he was too quick. Grabbing the nearest one by the collar, Dostoevsky jerked him close, using the slayer’s momentum to propel himself forward, where an uppercut with his free hand hammered the third slayer in the chin. He threw the Nightman he’d grabbed by the collar over his shoulder.

The scuffle took place inside one of the many separated fighting rooms in the Hall of the Fulcrums. The rooms were as secluded as they were simple: limestone walls, torch lights, and a circle drawn on the floor with red chalk. Anyone inside the circle was fair game. Anytime. It was a common practice among fulcrums to challenge multiple slayers to combative practice. This was one of those times for Dostoevsky.

He had said little since returning from Chernobyl other than quietly recruiting slayers for a fight—a request never refused when issued by a fulcrum. Judging by the condition of the three sprawled slayers, groaning and bloodied on the floor, a refusal might have been worth the punishment.

From just outside the room, from the archway of the open passage, an observer clapped his hands arrogantly.

Dostoevsky placed one hand on his hip, huffing slightly as he wiped sweat from his face. He didn’t even have to turn around. He knew the identity of the observer without looking. “What do you want, Strakhov?” The three battered slayers on the ground before him struggled to stand.

Oleg leered from the archway. “Can a good EDEN soldier not talk to his commander after a mission? Or am I not allowed to speak to Nightmen?”

One of the slayers, the one Dostoevsky had punched, assumed a weary fighting stance. He thrust out a jab, but Dostoevsky caught it in mid-air and twisted the slayer’s wrist. The slayer cried out and was flipped on his back.

“
You need to learn a new move,” Oleg said. “You do that one every time.”

“
Do you have somewhere you need to be?” Dostoevsky asked, still without looking. None of the slayers around him moved to attack.

“
Slayers!” Oleg ordered. “Go away. Yuri and I have important business.”

The three beaten Nightmen looked at Oleg, then turned their attention to Dostoevsky. After a cordial exchange of nods, the slayers dragged themselves out of the room.

Dostoevsky placed his hands on his hips again, turning to face the eidolon. Though he wasn’t shirtless, his muscles bulged through his tight-fitting T-shirt. His black hair was dripping with sweat.

“
You are becoming a disappointment, Yuri. After such a tragic mission, you simply leave your unit behind to prep down the ship. That is not how a captain should act.”

Dostoevsky scoffed. “A captain. Clarke has not been dead for a day, and you are already talking about his replacement.”

“
There is nothing to talk about.” Oleg stepped into the room, pacing along the edge of the red-chalk circle. “
You
are his replacement. Did you have any doubt?”

“
I have not given it much thought.”

“
Perhaps you should. You have responsibilities now—more so than in the past. Hopefully you will be more effective as a captain than you have been as a commander.”

“
Clarke is dead, and you talk as if he has never existed. Do you not care?”

Oleg dropped his monotone and answered sharply. “No, I do not care. But you do. That is only
one
of your problems. You have become a liability to General Thoor. Baranov was a respected leader—you are not. When Baranov spoke, those under him listened. When you speak, they insult you behind your back.”

“
They have their reasons.”

“
I do not care about their reasons. The general does not care, either.”

Dostoevsky’s volume increased. “What does this have to do with anything? Why are we having this conversation? Do you not have important things to do?”

“
I have been doing important things all day.”

“
Name one important thing, besides letting the captain die.”

“
But the captain’s death was
very
important.”

Dostoevsky’s initial reaction was an ordinary stare. But moments later, it changed. His eyebrows furrowed with confusion. His head cocked to the side. “Oleg. Tell me you did not…”

Oleg stretched his arms to the ceiling. “You have not exerted your authority, so we have exerted it for you. Clarke has been removed, and now you will lead.”

Dostoevsky’s jaw dropped. “Oleg! You killed Captain Clarke?”

“
I did not kill him. You did.”

Dostoevsky remained dumbfounded.

“
You have not shown the general what he requires. You have not shown him the loyalty of Ivan Baranov. You have not even shown him the loyalty of Anatoly
Novikov
, may God curse his soul.” The eidolon stepped into the circle. “You have left us with no other options. You have not become a leader by choice, so now you have become one by force. This was our gift to you.”

“
But why did you do this? Why did Clarke have to
die
? Could you not have asked him to leave? Threatened his life? Explained to him that if he stayed, he would be killed? He had a wife and two daughters!”

“
Listen to yourself!”
Oleg’s words were so loud, Dostoevsky flinched. “This is why you gave us no choice! You are not even the
shell
of the man you once were.”

“
I—”

“
Be quiet! We are tired of your excuses,
Captain
Dostoevsky. You have gone from most feared to most mocked in a matter of months. You are an insult to the uniform you wear. You are almost an insult to EDEN, as pathetic as they are.” He went on before Dostoevsky could interrupt. “Consider Clarke’s murder your final opportunity, ordained by your own incompetence. Show us that we did not give you this new title in vain.”

Dostoevsky fought to express himself. His attitude, once hardened in a default position of coldness, was now broken in horrified shock. “You should have told me what would happen! I would not have—”

“
You would not have
what
? Become inconsequential? Clarke died for you and you alone, because your failures deemed it necessary. But listen to my words, Yuri. If you fail again,
you
will be the next name on my list. And for you, I will not come so quietly. You would be a joy.”

As casually as he’d first entered, Oleg turned and walked away. When he got to the archway that led into the Hall of the Fulcrums, he stopped. “Perhaps you can take notes from Remington. Spited or not, at least
he
knows how to take control.” The eidolon left the room.

Dostoevsky stood silent for several moments in the arena, listening to the sound of Oleg’s footsteps receding in the distance. A full minute later, he too walked from the room. But in the middle of the hall, he abruptly stopped—not because someone stopped him, or because he’d suddenly had an impactful thought. He didn’t stop for any reason at all.

He had absolutely nowhere to go.

19

Monday, November 14
^th
, 0011 NE

1915 hours

Later that evening

“
Dude, it just ticks me off,” William said through a mouthful of food. “They should have let me go on the mission. If I’d have known it was gonna be
that
big, I’d have stowed away in the landing gear or something.”

“
Right,” Travis said, unamused, “because that would have worked.”

The four operatives—William, Travis, Boris, and Esther—sat together at a table in the cafeteria. Of all the men and women of the Fourteenth, only they had grouped after the mission. The remainder of the unit’s members were as dispersed as they were divided.

“
The bottom line,” William said, “is that demolitionists should get called for every mission. You never know. You might be in the middle of recon or something, then
bam
, you get hijacked by aliens.”

“…
hijacked?”

“
Yeah. Then you just gotta blow people up.”

Neither Esther nor Boris had been particularly talkative since their return from Chernobyl. Boris had been shaken up since fleeing the facility. Esther was moody and edgy.

William spoke through another mouthful. “So you found a dog—alive?”

“
Yeah.”

“
That’s sweet. What’re you gonna name it?”

“
I don’t know. We don’t even know if we can keep it.”

“
Whatever you name it, it better be awesome.”

The conversation had been William’s alone since the four of them had gone to the cafeteria. He seemed the only one inclined to talk, and Travis exchanged conversation sparingly. William was also the only one eating. Travis and Boris picked at bowls of borsch, while Esther ignored a full bowl of porridge. There was the unspoken understanding among them that they
needed
to eat, they just weren’t particularly in the mood.