The Glorious Becoming (22 page)

Try as he might, Lilan couldn’t stop a smile from emerging.

“Did you put in that transfer request, yet?” Tacker asked, looking at Lilan again.

“No, not yet.”

“Toss it out.”

Lilan raised an eyebrow. “You’re sure about that?”

Tacker’s answer was immediate. “Yeah. Oh, yeah. I’m absolutely sure.”

It was as genuine a response as Lilan could’ve hoped for, and no amount of posturing could restrain the grin that captured Lilan’s face. All of the bad feelings of the day—every ounce—was gone. Lilan set his beer down. “Right now, I am not your colonel, and you are not my major. We’re just two men having a drink. Now talk to me.”

The younger man laughed a bit. “Just talk to you, huh?”

“Yep. Just talk.”

Blowing out a breath, Tacker leaned back. Silence followed for several seconds. “I hate this job.”

Lilan looked at him strangely, the bluntness of the statement catching him off guard. Then, he laughed. “Really?”

“Yeah, really,” Tacker said, sharing the amusement. “I’m not sure there’s a single thing I like. I used to not feel that way, but now...”

“You getting ready to dust off the old resumé? Sell insurance? Fix cars?”

“I wish.” Tacker shook his head in wonderment. “How can you stand it? With the scatload of garbage that’s been tossed at us, how in the world can you keep at it, day after day?”

“Well,” Lilan said, drinking again, “I think I’m struggling as much as you are.”

“Really?”

“I’m telling you the truth. I’ve never seen anything that even remotely resembles what we’re dealing with right now in Falcon. For a whole EDEN platoon to be turned into a post-graduate course, it’s astounding to me.”

The major huffed. “I wish you could have seen them today, in that exercise they set up. Terrible. It was
terrible
. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen something like that post-
Philadelphia
.”

“That bad, huh?”

“If that had been a real mission today, they’d all have been dead. Pitiful planning, pitiful tactics. They were supposed to be doing a ship infiltration, and my team could literally hear every step they took. I don’t think there’s a door they didn’t kick in.”

Lilan smiled. “Makes you appreciate what we had back in Chicago, doesn’t it?”

“Unbelievable,” Tacker answered, shaking his head. “What those boys did, the potential they had. Do you realize what we could’ve been?”

“I know it.”

“What Remington did with those guys, you can’t teach that kind of stuff.”

“I know it.”

Tacker leaned forward. “Speaking of which, guess whose team worked with me today? John Donner’s.”

“Get outta here,” Lilan said.

“He’s got ’em trained, I tell ya. I wish you could have been there to see it.”

“Well, he’s a lieutenant already, isn’t he?”

Tacker nodded.

“Pretty doggone fast.”

“He’s gonna be somebody’s XO before we know it. He’s just got it.”

Sipping his beer again, Lilan leaned back. “So who do we have to look forward to? Who’s our next Remington and Donner?” He already had a name in mind—Strom Faerber. But he’d save it until after Tacker’s input.

“You really want to know what I think? No one. Before today, I’d have said Peters or Quinton. That exercised cured me of that.” The major hesitated for a moment. “Today ruled Shivers out, too.”

“Why the pause?”

Tacker shook his head. “She gets tunnel vision. Easily distracted. She can fire a weapon, though. Every now and then she catches my eye.”

Ever so slightly, Lilan smirked.

The major caught it. “Not like
that
. Not that it wouldn’t be fun to go a round or two. Just a little too young for my taste.”

“What happened to that girl you were seeing? I don’t remember her name.”

“Alicia,” Tacker answered. “We split a few weeks ago.”

“Mutual?”

He took another drink. “For the most part. You know how women are.”

“More trouble than they’re worth.”

“Ain’t it the truth?” Tacker sighed. “Gave that woman every...” he cut off his own sentence, pausing for a moment before going on. “She just couldn’t deal with the callouts. That’s not her fault.”

Lilan knew the emotions Tacker was feeling. Most civilian women had no concept of the level of obligation it took to be a part of EDEN. Birthdays, anniversaries, even weddings were secondary to that beeping comm that never left your side. It outranked everything.

Tacker cracked open a second beer. “But to answer your question, no, I don’t think we have another Donner or Remington.”

Lilan smiled a bit. “Well, we might now.” When Tacker raised an eyebrow, he continued. “Faerber’s for real.”

“No joke.”

“The kid’s for real. I worked him today harder than I’ve worked anyone else. I couldn’t make him slow down. So far as physical specimens go, I’ve never seen anyone like him.”

“Attitude’s good?”

The colonel nodded. “It’s outstanding. He’s got a chip on his shoulder the size of
Philadelphia
. Hates the media, hates the hype. Can’t wait to get working.”

“That’s excellent.”

“Only problem is,” Lilan went on, “Hutchin’s orders are to ‘keep him clean.’ He doesn’t want him seeing any action—scared of what might happen if he gets killed.”

Tacker looked at him strangely.

“So we need to find some kind of way to get use from this kid. I think he has potential, real potential. Orders are orders, but we’ll figure out something.”

“Un-vecking-believable.”

Lilan took another drink. “We’ll figure something out—write it down.”

In the midst of the conversation, Tacker’s personal comm chimed. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled it out and examined the name on the display. “Speak of the devil. That’s Alicia.” He stood. “You mind if I...?”

“No, no,” Lilan said, waving his hand, “take the back room.”

“Thanks.” The major excused himself from the room. He shut the door to the back bedroom, his voice muffled by the wood.

As Tacker carried on his private conversation, Lilan rose from his sofa and walked to the window. Looking out into his yard, past the driveway where he and Tacker’s vehicles sat, the old colonel released a long, tired sigh. He was glad that Tacker had come, the memory of the major’s earlier tirade already purged from his mind. He was glad for Strom Faerber. He was glad to have a soldier to look forward to and a friend in the major to help break him in. But even with all of that gladness, there was a new sense of disheartenment that struck Lilan. Outside of Tacker, and outside of the career he was married to, he was alone. At the very same time that he was staring into the emptiness, Tacker was in the back talking to someone who obviously cared for him, at least enough to call him postbreakup. Who did Lilan have?

The negative emotions that had assaulted him recently were new for him. Throughout his career, he had been all business, all the time. No time for family. No time for a woman. No time for friends. Just get in, get the job done, and help humanity win the war. And that had always been fine.

Until Cleveland. That was when everything began to fall apart. That was when Falcon Platoon turned from a symbol of veteran experience into a turnstile for Academy graduates. And if Cleveland was to blame, the buck stopped with Lilan.
He
failed in that mission.
He
didn’t get the job done. Had Falcon performed well enough under his leadership, the city would have been saved, Falcon wouldn’t have fallen back, and he’d still have his group of veterans. At the time, he had blamed the mission’s failure on bad information—underestimation by
Richmond
Command. But even then, he knew that line of thinking had been a cover. Cleveland was a failure because
he’d
failed. The situation he was in now was one he’d rightfully earned.

There was no gratification in self-pity, nor could there ever be resolution. Lilan needed both. Emotions were blindsiding like they never had before. It was time to get a grip on that.

Turning around, he looked at the closed door to his back room, where Tacker’s muffled voice could still be heard. The major was a good man. The woman—Alicia—would be an idiot not to take him back. He hoped she would.

And just like that, the door opened.

“Yeah,” Tacker said quietly into his comm. “All right. I’ll be there soon.” The major closed the channel. Looking at Lilan, he blew out a heavy breath.

Lilan smiled. “Maybe
some
are worth the trouble.”

Laughing softly, Tacker nodded. “Yeah, we’ll see. I’m sorry, sir, I hate to jet like this...”

“Back together?”

“No. Not yet. But we’re going to talk, so. That’s better than nothing.”

“You okay to drive?”

Nodding, Tacker threw away his beer can. “Yeah, good enough, I think. I should be fine.”

“Go get her, major.” Extending his hand, Lilan met Tacker with a solid handshake. It was a rarity so far as gestures were concerned, as the two usually lifted hands only for salutes. It was a fairly new sense of casualness, even for them.

Walking out the door, Tacker climbed into his jeep and backed out the driveway. The colonel listened as the jeep distanced down the road.

Lilan didn’t remain up for very much longer. Having placed the unopened beer cans in the refrigerator, the colonel dressed down for the night and climbed into bed.

Tomorrow would be an interesting day. Not only would it be a second day to work with Strom Faerber, but it would be an opportunity for him and Tacker to sit down and come up with creative ways to sneak the rookie into action. Hutchin could go to hell. If he truly thought that Lilan was going to be handed a promising young soldier only to do nothing with him, he had another thing coming.

The squabble amid Charlie Squad wasn’t a concern. He’d leave Tacker to handle that unless the major requested his help. He respected Tacker enough not to butt in unless absolutely necessary. He had a feeling it wouldn’t come to that.

That was the rundown of the day and the agenda for tomorrow. Lilan may have earned himself into his current situation, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t earn himself out of it. And that, he had every intention of doing.

13

TUESDAY, MARCH 13
^TH
, 0012 NE

0609 HOURS

NOVOSIBIRSK, RUSSIA

THE NEXT MORNING

S
COTT COULDN’T
remember the exact time that he’d fallen asleep, but he knew exactly what time he’d been awoken. It was 0600 hours when his comm sounded, not with a mission callout, but with a communication prompt. It was General Thoor, ordering him to report to the Citadel. No explanation was given, but when Thoor was the one dishing out orders, none were required.

And so morning began, not with a training session, but with the donning of his Nightman uniform and his reporting to the Terror.

As impossible as it was to fully remove his incident with Esther from his mind, Scott tried his hardest to at least push it to the back burner. The ache was still there, and he still wanted to pretend that everything had been a bad dream, but reality spoke otherwise. He was afraid of seeing her again. She was probably just as afraid of seeing him.

With the entrance to the Citadel so close to his room, it took Scott no time at all to descend down its limestone stairwell. He was standing outside General Thoor’s door within ten minutes of being called.

The general was waiting for him atop his throne. Gone was the casualness of yesterday. Visor cap shrouding his eyes and cloak flowing around his body, Thoor was back in his theatrical element.

“General,” Scott said. It struck him at that moment just how dysfunctional his relationship with Thoor was. He hated Thoor, but he obeyed him. Thoor was brethren and foe. Would Scott kill him if he had the chance? He honestly didn’t know the answer.

“Prepare yourself, Remington,” Thoor said in his methodically droning voice. “Your flight leaves at 0715 tomorrow.”

Scott blinked. His
flight
? “Come again?”

“I am dispatching you to
Cairo
under the guise of a base transfer. Your objective is to identify and secure the Ceratopian prisoner for transportation to our facility. Once the target is secured, you will be extracted.”

He wants me to bring back H`laar!

The Terror went on. “EDEN is eager to remove their personnel from this base. Arrangements for transfer have already been finalized. Despite your present position, your last rank on record with EDEN was that of lieutenant. You are being transferred under the pretense of a new promotion to commander. Upon arrival at
Cairo
, you are to orient yourself with the base’s layout and establish relationships with Confinement personnel.”

Thoor was serious. He was literally sending Scott on a covert operation, disguised as EDEN, to recover a prisoner Thoor felt he’d wrongly lost to EDEN. He wasn’t even leaving room for debate.

“Recovering H`laar is your only priority. Everything else is irrelevant. You may select four operatives from the Fourteenth to accompany you, one of which must be promoted to lieutenant. You will join Captain Rockwell in
Cairo
for the formulation of a new squad, with all other chosen assets from the Fourteenth remaining here. No additional operatives from
Novosibirsk
will be accompanying you. Captain Rockwell is not aware of our operation.”

A million thoughts were flying through Scott’s head. He was about to leave
Novosibirsk
. He was about to double-cross EDEN. He was about to divide the Fourteenth.

Thoor continued without missing a beat. “You may choose whatever operatives you wish, with one stipulation: Voronova must remain.”

At that, Scott cocked his head.

“Failure to accomplish your task in a prompt manner will result in her execution. Let this serve as motivation for you to work efficiently.”

That Thoor was using Svetlana as leverage was of zero surprise. He’d done it the day before. “I already lost my fiancée,” Scott snapped. “Do you really think losing Svetlana would affect me?”