Epic: Book 03 - Hero (31 page)

Axelos had said it so casually.
Clarke is out of the way.
In fact, that was exactly how Scott had thought of it, too. The moment Clarke died only one thing had come to Scott’s mind. The captain was out of the way.
He
was in command. It was as if Clarke had been nothing but an obstacle.

Did I really just do that? Did I really just spit on Clarke’s death?

He could scarcely believe it. In the aftermath of what had to be one of the most brave and brazen things he’d ever done, he couldn’t believe his own heartlessness. It stabbed him to the core of his soul.

Oh my God. I’m really one of them.

Axelos never got his answer. He simply watched as Scott quietly turned away, leaving the Tenth’s captain standing awkwardly behind.

Scott walked out of the compound alone. He didn’t wonder about the presence of necrilids, outside of a general awareness that they could be near. If they were, they wouldn’t attack him. They’d be too afraid.

He couldn’t shake Clarke from his mind. He couldn’t shake his own lack of remorse. Leaders had to react coldly sometimes, of course. Sometimes it was critical to the survival of others. But this hadn’t been one of those times. He hadn’t stormed Chernobyl out of necessity. He’d stormed it out of rage.

He remembered the first time he’d met Clarke. The captain had been so pleased to have him there.

How could I have done this? How could I have responded so ruthlessly? Who am I?

For the first time in a long while, he remembered the rest of the world. The Bakma had assaulted northern Europe; they had attacked Stockholm and Copenhagen. They had come with their army. And the Fourteenth had missed it…for this.

Was what I just did worth Clarke’s life?

When Scott arrived back outside, the rest of the Fourteenth was there. He hadn’t realized it until he hit daylight, but his armor was dripping with blood. He looked like a robotic butcher.

When Scott removed his helmet, everyone’s eyes were upon him. Radio silence had been broken the moment Scott had called
Novosibirsk
. His teammates knew what he and the slayers had done without needing to see for themselves. Svetlana stared with total disconnection as Esther struggled to look away. David seemed to have aged ten years.

Gradually the truth dawned on Scott. He had proven David wrong, but triumph belonged to neither man. Scott had shown the Fourteenth that, yes, the Nightmen were on a whole other plane of superiority. And in the process, he’d shown them why. Because they didn’t care. They rejected what it meant to be human. Clarke had warned him of that from the start. He’d warned Scott not to let The Machine change him.

But that was exactly what Scott had let it do.

No one said a word to him as he trudged back to the
Pariah
and took his seat, intentionally avoiding looking at the captain’s body. His actions in Chernobyl had been comparable to his heroics in Chicago, but the aftermaths couldn’t have contrasted more. In Chicago, he’d felt like a champion.

Now, he was a fool.

PART II

17

Monday, November 14
^th
, 0011 NE

1322 hours

EDEN Command

One hour later

This one caught even Torokin unaware. For the first time in his career, not only as a judge but as a member of EDEN, he was at a loss for rationalization and words. This one scared him.

It had happened so fast—out of nowhere. There wasn’t a moment’s warning, not a second to prepare. It struck like an invisible hammer blow.

The Bakma had attacked. No, not just attacked. Invaded. Their Noboats materialized, not by the dozens, but by the hundreds. Their Carriers poured into Europe like locusts. Stockholm was razed. Copenhagen was decimated. Half of Europe had been completely overwhelmed. EDEN’s response, although no fault of its own, had been totally inadequate. EDEN simply didn’t have enough operatives to respond. Legions of Bakma warriors stormed through the cities like ants. Courier fighters fired plasma missiles into buildings and streets. And for the first time ever, Bakma Coneships had bombed. They bombed with a ruthlessness that suggested the war was about to end. The death toll was now well beyond the hundreds of thousands. It was verging on millions. With timing that only the Bakma understood, they had unleashed the full force of a fury that had never before been witnessed by humans.

In a single stroke, humanity had been completely overpowered. The human species had been shown that, even with its near-perfect ability to react, its forces paled in comparison to the alien threat. An entire continent had been thrust to its knees. But that wasn’t what scared Torokin. What scared Torokin was what happened next.

The Bakma didn’t press forward. They didn’t fortify their positions, nor did they make any effort to advance. Instead, they boarded their spacecraft and launched into space. They just left.

That scared him more than anything else.

Never before had President Pauling seemed so embittered or disturbed. He wasn’t alone. The entire gathering of judges was at a loss for an answer. Not even Javier Castellnou had words.

The president did not offer them a formal greeting to kick off the session, nor did he request opening statements. The meeting of judges began with one question alone.

“
What in the hell is going on?”

Torokin and Grinkov exchanged stoic looks. The same question was on their own lips.

“
I’m serious. What in the
hell
is going on?” He glared at the Council members around the table, then focused on Judge Rath. “Jason? Do you know?”

The Canadian offered no explanation.

“
Leonid? Dmitry?” Pauling turned to face Archer. “Benjamin? Anyone?”

No one spoke.

Torokin returned to deep thought. The Bakma had them right where they wanted them. They had reached out with their fists and grabbed Earth by the throat. If there was ever a moment to claim a stronghold for themselves on the planet, that had been it. Then for no reason at all, they let Earth go. They released it like a cat toying with a mouse. ‘What the hell?’ didn’t begin to cover it.

Pauling propped his hands against the table and lowered his head. “I am the first person to admit when I’m wrong. I am the first person to admit when I don’t know. But God help me, I cannot understand this. This is not like a war. It’s like some kind of damned experiment.”

Archer looked at Pauling for a moment, then turned away.

“
Everything else goes on hold,” Pauling continued. “Forget the Superwolf. Forget
Novosibirsk
. Forget everything. Right here, right now, we are going to get some kind of answers. I don’t care if we brainstorm for twenty-four hours. There’s coffee outside.”

Get answers. That seemed obvious to Torokin. To the rest of the world, it must have seemed ridiculous. Nine years of war and no explanations. But what people didn’t understand was that this was an enemy that couldn’t be explained.

The Alien War had begun like a normal campaign. After Hong Kong, the Bakma turned their sites to near space. Shackleton and Peary—the two lunar outposts—had been destroyed. Malapert Junction, not even an outpost, met a similar fate. cmf-1 was obliterated from Mercurial orbit, and Arsia Mons was annihilated before it began. It made tactical sense: squash man’s attempts to spread beyond Earth; stop humanity’s expansion. It was a logical first step for a campaign.

But then logic stopped. The Bakma destroyed Earth’s orbital telescopes, but left communication satellites untouched. In effect, they were allowing mankind to coordinate and to organize a response. It made no sense.

Pauling pulled out a notebook. Of all the technology around him—wall-sized monitors and computers—the president of EDEN was reduced to paper and pen. “Here is what we know,” he said, scribbling as he spoke. “The Bakma and Ceratopians do not work together. The Ithini work independently of
themselves
. No one presses to win.”

Still no judge spoke.

“
I am pleading with someone to make sense of that.” Pauling dropped his notebook on the table. “I’m starting to feel like we’re the punch line of an interstellar joke.”

It wasn’t a joke, thought Torokin. It wasn’t a game. He refused to believe that either was true. He had fought the Bakma and the Ceratopians. He had fought the Ithini among both. He had experienced their wrath, fervently fighting for…what? For Earth? They could take Earth if they wanted it—that much was proven in Europe. They wanted Earth for something, but not enough to take it. What were they waiting for? What was the point?

“
I want Kang in here, now.”

Collective surprise registered around the table.

Pauling pressed in the speaker comm button. “Kang Gao Jing, report to the conference room at once.”

A response came quickly, but it wasn’t from Kang. It was the voice of a woman. “Sir, Director Kang is in interrogations.”

“
Then get him
out
of interrogations.”

Archer sighed and turned to the president. “Sir, the director is not responsible for this. This falls on our shoulders. It falls directly on mine.” Rath stared at Archer oddly. “I have been working hand in hand with Director Kang since my arrival. I have been in interrogations. I am as responsible for our failures as much as anyone else. There’s no need to bring him into this.”

The woman’s voice emerged from the speaker again. “Sir, the director wishes to know if it is urgent.”

“
He’s doggone right it’s urgent.”

“
I’ll tell him right away, sir.”

As Torokin’s mind raced, he ignored the mounting tension in the room. Two extraterrestrial forces, the Bakma and the Ceratopians. Both were working for their own purposes, sharing a common ally in the Ithini. Of late, the Ceratopians had hardly been a factor. Their attacks had drastically slowed since the summer. And as the Ceratopians pulled back, the Bakma pressed harder. Was that a coincidence? It had to be. The Ceratopians and the Bakma weren’t working together, which was something the general populace didn’t know. The two species weren’t allies at all.

They were at war.

It had happened only two recorded times—a Bakma Noboat and Ceratopian Cruiser crossing paths. Both times, the results had been the same: the Ceratopians blew the Bakma out of the sky. No one outside of EDEN Command knew that—they didn’t need to.

The speaker crackled on again, and a voice rarely heard addressed the room. “You call for me, Mr. President?”

Director Kang’s Chinese accent was unmistakable. Kang: the most obscure man in all of EDEN. A man who didn’t exist.

“
I need you here, Kang,” Pauling said. “Right this very minute.”

There was a pause. “I apologize, Mr. President, but I cannot come now. I am making progress with Ceratopian No. 12.”

“
Ceratopian No. 12,” Pauling repeated in frustration. “Refresh my memory on Ceratopian No. 12.”

Archer cleared his throat. “Ceratopian No. 12, we believe, is a ranking officer. I’ve been working with him for some time. Or, trying to, at least. If the director is making progress, well, that’s very good.”

Pauling looked at Archer briefly, but Kang spoke again before the president could.

“
Would you like me to cancel this interrogation, Mr. President?”

For several seconds, Pauling deliberated. After reaching a decision, the older man sighed. “No. If you’re making progress…then no.” He rubbed his eyes.

“
Very well, Mr. President. I will get a report to you soon.” The speaker clicked off.

Torokin continued to think. Two species, at war with one another, fighting over the same world. Was Earth the sole reason for their war? Or was this spilling over from something else? Where did the Ithini fit into the picture? Those were questions that had all been asked before.

In the end, those things didn’t matter. Humanity wasn’t involved with extraterrestrial politics. All that mattered to Earth was survival. If there was one silver lining in the Bakma pullout, it was that it gave Earth time to strengthen a chink in Europe’s defense.

He stopped in the middle of that thought.
If
there was one silver lining? The fact that the Bakma pulled out alone was a silver lining. Why didn’t it seem that way? It was almost as if the pullout was worse than if the Bakma had advanced. Only because the pullout clouded the waters; an advance would have made sense.

Pauling pressed the speaker again. After several moments, the woman’s voice reemerged. “Yes, Mr. President?”

“
Get me Carol.”

“
Right away, sir.”

An advance would have made sense. For some reason, that thought stood out to Torokin. Were the Bakma intentionally trying
not
to make sense? What would that accomplish? What would be the point? And why had there been no attempts at diplomacy on the Bakma’s part? Or the Ceratopians’? No one wanted to talk.

Judge June’s voice came over the speaker. “I’m here, sir.”

Pauling wasted no time. “I know you’re busy at
Novosibirsk
, but I need to get this to you now. We need a major push for recruitment in Europe. It can’t wait until you get back, you’ve got to start now.”