Phoenix Rising (Book Two of The Icarus Trilogy) (47 page)

“Of cour-”

“Then stay right where you are.  Every single person in this facility is completely expendable
except you
.  We can’t risk a stray bullet or any time out in the open for you and we don’t have time to train and brief a new clone before the EOSF will firebomb this place.  If I could I would lock you in a safe and open it back up on Earth, but obviously we don’t have any with air holes,” the EOSF traitor said as he walked closer to the newborn Jenkins, who was regaining his balance and glaring at the older man.

“She brought me back, Laurence.  I have to save her!”

“I’ll do it,” a lone voice said, breaking the confrontation.  All eyes turned to the artificial Jenkins, who was cradling his rifle in his hands.  He looked somewhat sorrowful, but put on a false grin in order to sway his audience.

“Look, what’s it matter which Jenkins goes to save her, eh?  We both owe her.  Besides, I’ll run really fast,” the artificial soldier said with a forced smile, but it seemed his audience was immune.  Each one looked at him with a somber gaze.

“Kid, you don’t have to.  No one is going to guilt you into it,” Carver said, fully intending to relieve the fake soldier of his burden.  “I’m already old, I can go instea-“

“That’s the point, Carver,” Jenkins said while hoisting his rifle up to his shoulder.  “You’re old.  And slow.  And Jenkins Christ over there is going to need your rifle backing him up in the shootout.  And besides, didn’t you say that I could walk my own path?” the artificial soldier said with a knowing smile.  Carver looked at the young boy in front of him and couldn’t help but feel admiration.  He chuckled softly and shook his head.

“And here I thought no one listened to me anymore,” the veteran said before looking back at the smiling revolutionary.  Templeton watched the exchange but decided that it didn’t matter what words had been said between them.

“We need you here to cover the entrance, Ryan.  I appreciate our Dr. Kane, too, but she’s not important to the mission.  She’s done her part.  And I doubt the Hammerheads are going to kill an unarmed doctor.  She stays there.  You stay here.  I can’t let you go,” Templeton said before stepping towards the artificial man, who looked at him warily before stepping back to maintain their distance.

“Fuck your missions.  You can manage for ten minutes, bring Carver, Laurence and Albert to the main entrance and hold position til I get back.  You’d only be missing one soldier,” Jenkins said with a sneer.  He didn’t appreciate this thin, little man telling him what he could do.  After all, Jenkins was supposed to be a free man now.

“Two, but you’d still be covered,” Cortes said weakly from the outside of the huddle.  The revolutionaries turned to the Spaniard, who wasn’t exactly prepared for the attention.  The smaller man gulped in air and steeled his nerves.  This was something he had promised himself; he would follow his messiah wherever he went.  The Spaniard wouldn’t let him go unprotected.

“No.  Fuck no,” Templeton started, but the newborn Jenkins stepped in between the two dissidents and squared up to the thin, black man.

“Look, Templeton.  You’re just going to have to deal with it.  Either they go, or I just run along and become cannon fodder out in no man’s land.  You lose your messiah or temporarily lose two soldiers, who could likely pull off a flanking maneuver once we’re under siege,” the would-be messiah said to the senior revolutionary, feeling awkward in his clunky power armor.  Templeton looked down on his mission and sighed before turning to look at his recruits.  They were all viewing with that same disdain he had held for his own superiors back in the EOSF.  He turned to Laurence, who merely shook his head and sighed.

“Fine,” Templeton said as he brought his hand up to rub his forehead.  “Just go and get back quick.  I’ll try to rearrange things until you’re back.  Keep contact with Comms, alright?” Templeton said as he looked at the floor.  He sank into his armor and wondered how these men could be so stubborn.  It was just one girl.  He looked back up and expected the pair of soldiers to be gone, but they were still just standing there.  Templeton almost gave into his anger at that.

“Well, fucking move, then!  Go,” he commanded.  They broke from the huddle and ran towards the entrance, almost bursting through the doors into the cold air of Eris.  Templeton turned from the entrance and wondered how he could rearrange things tactically.  They had such a good setup, before.  Warner and Corrigan were off on their own, ready to blow up the hallway as soon as the Hammerheads made their appearance.  Abrams and Feldman would be just fine with the drones, but they had to stay there.  The revolutionary was out two soldiers and had no other options.  Templeton hoped Norris and the other three would remove their enemies before they became a problem.

“They’ll be back,” Roberts said from Templeton’s right.  The black man looked over at the boy soldier and felt disgust at the comment.

“No, they won’t.  We’ll just have to manage,” Templeton said as he looked at his batch of revolutionaries.  All of them were competent, but guarding Jenkins was going to be difficult no matter how many men they had.  Asset protection was not something Templeton really cared for.

“They’re just running to the clinic and back, Templeton.  Cut them some slack,” Roberts said, losing his patience for the revolutionary’s antics.  The man whipped around and almost struck the smaller man.

“Roberts, this is no time for slack.  Don’t you get it?  I’ve worked for years to further the resistance and those two are jeopardizing the mission for a woman.  This is literally the most important thing in all of our lives.  We can’t just… slack,” Templeton said as he looked towards Laurence, who would understand his words.  Instead he found the old man shaking his head and closing his eyes at the comment.  When Laurence opened them, Templeton knew he had misplaced his trust.

“Templeton, they’ll be fine.  Jenkins is from the hero program, remember?” Albert asked from his position near the door to the mess hall.  The black revolutionary rolled his eyes and looked at his compatriot.  He wondered how Albert had managed to keep his cover all this time; the oafish revolutionary was much too simple for Templeton’s tastes.

“They made him a killer, Albert, not a hero.  He might kill more of them, but he still dies the same,” Templeton said before he was spun around to face his would-be messiah.  Jenkins had only malice in those eyes.

“Then be fucking glad, Templeton.  The less of them there are, the better, right?  And we all know that you don’t like him, anyway,” he said, remembering his conversation with his clone.  It felt like he was talking about his own brother.  “If he’s gone you don’t have anything to complain about.”  The thin man looked over his ready-made messiah and squinted at the newborn.  He didn’t agree with the messiah-figure, but Jenkins had a point.  Templeton was starting to see why Atlas thought they could turn this man into a poster boy.

“This conversation is over, Jenkins.  I let them go.  That’s that.  Let’s take our positions and get ready.  Hopefully they’ll get back in time,” Templeton said as he turned towards the mess hall and began walking.  When he didn’t hear footsteps behind him he looked over his shoulder and glared at his team.  “That means you get inside our little fortress, Jenkins.  That part hasn’t changed,” Templeton said before breathing out heavily.  The newborn soldier reluctantly left his comrades after giving them a nod and passed by Templeton without acknowledging him. 

The agent remembered the messiah figure’s psych profile and cursed the man who prepared it.  It had said nothing about the man’s stubbornness.  While he was lost in his thoughts Laurence and Albert had passed by and followed Jenkins into the mess hall.  Templeton looked past them and noticed Carver standing next to Roberts.  The revolutionary looked at the veteran quizzically, but the old man just shrugged and nodded towards the entrance.

“I was floating around anyway.  Obvious choice,” he said in his usual gruff and fatalistic manner.  Templeton nodded, appreciating the man’s reason.  Carver seemed to be the only one who knew how to act under these circumstances.  Templeton turned back to the mess hall but heard the old Crow clear his throat again.

“You were EOSF.”  It was a statement, not a question, so Templeton didn’t bother to answer it.  He had assumed the veteran would have figured it out by now, anyway.  The black man stood there with his back to the veteran, waiting for the follow-up to that statement.  “This ain’t the same, Templeton.  This isn’t some black-ops mission for some corporate backers.  Different rules.”

“What are you saying?” Templeton asked, lifting his head towards the fluorescent lights of the hallway.  He wanted to get back to the mess hall and prepare for the onslaught.  He wanted to field commands from his headset and make sure everything went well.

“What I’m saying is that we might as well just treat this like a game, except we’re not fighting for money anymore.  Different stakes, but our opponents aren’t some insurgents or backwater militias.  They’re the same old slave soldiers we’ve been fighting for years.  And I hate to break it to you, Templeton, but us Crows have a
lot
more experience with that.”

“I’m a Crow, too, Carver.”

“Then act like one.  We don’t let innocent women die if we can help it.  We’re just people; not real soldiers.”

“You were.”

“Past tense, Templeton.  I got out of it for that very reason.  And really, aren’t we trying to change the world and get away from that kind of thinking?”

“Our enemies won’t change, old man.  They’re going to use whatever tactics they need to.  They’ll kill Kane just to remove the possible threat.  It’s a waste of time and tactical utility,” Templeton said as he turned to face the veteran. 

“You keep thinking like that then the Trade Union’s already won.”  Templeton sneered at that.  This was no time for better men; that world would come afterwards.

“If I don’t think like this, then we don’t have a chance in the first place.  Get to your post,
Crow
,” Templeton said, making sure to make the moniker sound as insulting as possible, “and I’ll get to mine.  We’ll see what wins this battle.”  The thin man turned and walked into the mess hall, furious at the veteran’s antiquated thinking.  Templeton had used it before to sway other men, of course, but there wasn’t a place for it when blood was about to be spilled.

Carver watched the young man depart and sighed.  Hopefully Templeton would learn soon enough, but it would have to come at a different time and different place.  The old Crow turned and hunkered himself down behind one of the tables from the mess hall.  He looked over to find Roberts peering at him from the corner of his eye.

“You have something to say, kid?” Carver asked, looking down at his rifle, trying to calm himself before the coming storm.  No use giving into nervousness.  He had faced death before; he didn’t have to view this day any differently.

“It’s already been said.”

-

Five.  Five soldiers dead and gone.  Charlotte looked at the dark chasm of the loading bay and wondered how she was going to live with herself.  She could try to justify that until the end of her days, but it would still come down to that number.  They didn’t have working minds; they would die as soon as they were discovered by the loyalists.  It didn’t change a thing for Charlotte.

She had resurrected and brought five soldiers into the world just to die in pain and terror.

The raven-haired doctor fell back into her chair and collapsed physically and mentally.  She had just sent the last dead body through that dark portal and couldn’t stop herself from crying.  With the first three resurrections she had done her best to steel her nerves and deaden her compassion, but as she amassed visions and memories of glassy eyes and the lack of comprehension on each man’s face she couldn’t help it anymore.  As the fourth Haywick passed into oblivion she had broken down and crawled into the corner of the chamber.  She was unable to deal with this new guilt; guilt she was trying to avoid with these very acts.

The good doctor had regained her composure, she didn’t know how long it had taken, but she had convinced herself to try just one more time.  Through tear-rimmed eyes she had restarted the process and brought another malformed Haywick into the world.  She knew she didn’t have enough time to suffer a mental breakdown; she had to get back to the barracks before any enemy soldiers arrived to remove Jenkins from the world.  The doctor had decided to try just one last time; one more time to save this man who had been tortured for so long.

But she had failed.  This last resurrection was just as terrible as the others.  This Haywick hadn’t even bothered to look at her; didn’t even bother to take his first and last breaths.  He had been delivered to her stillborn, his body unable to adjust to the process of synchronization.  She had wanted one last chance; she had been given a corpse.  Charlotte had held her resolve for a moment, keying in the process for cell retrieval, but as the loading arm disappeared into the black she had despondently walked back into the Control Room.  That was when she collapsed into the chair.  That was when the world crashed around her.

“Charlotte!  Charlotte, where are you?”  The voice brought her halfway back from the haze of misery; she could perceive the room, but the memories remained just as vivid as before, but now they were about that other poor soul.  She remembered how she had cried as Ryan convinced her that it wasn’t her fault.  She remembered how Jenkins had tried to be strong for her as she emptied the syringe of the chemicals that would kill him.  Charlotte Kane was still lost in her misery when she noticed that same man enter the Control Room.  The Crow was standing there panting and concerned; but this only confused her.  Ryan was living in plain sight, but in her memories he was dying with tears in his eyes.

“Doc!  We have to get out of here!” he shouted as he neared her position in the Control Room.  It brought her closer to reality and she remembered where she was; she remembered what was at stake.  She blinked away her tears along with the memories and noticed Cortes standing in the doorway.  Charlotte wondered why the coward was there, but it didn’t really matter.  She shifted her attention back to the poor soldier who was shaking her by the shoulders.