The Glorious Becoming (3 page)

Tacker motioned to the damaged Cruiser. “I came back here to help Shivers, then I found where this thing got hit in the intercept.” At the back of the Cruiser, a hole exposed the engines beneath its hull. “When I first realized what I was looking at, I thought I had to be wrong. There was just no way this was possible. But I’m
not
wrong.”

Lilan scrutinized the hole in the vessel. The hull was dented and cracked inward, where the metal was shredded. “What am I not seeing, here?”

“Look at the edge of the impact zone. Look all the way around. Tell me if you catch it.”

The colonel narrowed his eyes in scrutiny. The engine had burst and the metal was torn. That was all typical of a missile strike. The dents, the gashes, the scorch marks—

He stopped at that thought. There were no scorch marks, not so much as a singe. “Wait a minute.” He pointed to the scar-less cavities. “What’d we hit this thing with?”

The major nodded. “Exactly. There’s not an exterior scorch mark in sight. Every air-to-air weapon we carry creates an explosion. This hull didn’t explode—it got crushed.”

“How is that possible? There’s not a weapon that can do that.”

Tacker hesitated. “Actually, there is. There’s one weapon fully capable of doing this. I’ve seen it done before, just not to a Cruiser.” Several moments passed while the major stared at the vessel. “That weapon...is a neutron cannon.”

Lilan raised an eyebrow.

“I don’t think we hit this thing at all, colonel. I think other Ceratopians did.”

PART I

1

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 7
^TH
, 0012 NE

1945 HOURS

RICHMOND, VIRGINIA

SHORTLY AFTER

C
ATALINA SLAMMED
her spare magazine onto the rolling ammo cart, her brown eyes viciously narrowed. Behind her, the remnants of Charlie Squad exited their Vultures to prep down. The Canadian’s armor and helmet were removed, ready to be taken in for clean-up and repairs. Her hair, still dripping with sweat, fell around her shoulders in shiny black tangles.

“Cat!”

She ignored the approaching voice.

“C’mon, Cat, give it a rest...”

Spinning abruptly, she shoved the approaching soldier as hard as she could. “Give it a rest? Are you kidding?”

Mark Peters raised his hands in protest. “You want to blame me? Fine, blame me, I don’t care. But the truth is, if you had just listened to me in the first place and—”

Laughing threateningly, she turned away.

“Cat, stop freaking out for one second.”

“I am walking away from you right now.”

He followed her. “We had a string of good missions. We knew this would happen eventually. Both of us screwed up.”

“I am
walking away
.”

“You’re such a little girl.”

She turned on him, her hair flying, and jammed a finger straight in his chest. “Don’t you even
think
of trying to spin this as both of our faults!”

“I—”

“You leave me behind out of nowhere in the middle of a Ceratopian Cruiser, and you have the gall to try and turn this on
me
? I’m left outside, chasing a necrilid
by my vecking self
, and you act like I should be fine with that?”

A second woman—a blonde in a flight suit—approached the two. Her hazel eyes were deep with concern.

Catalina went on. “I could have been dead back there! Do you even understand that?”

“But you’re not dead!”

“Ungh!” She clenched her own hair. “You drive me insane!”

“Do we have a problem here, privates?” asked a new voice. Catalina, Mark, and the blond-haired pilot all turned to find Major Tacker, who was eyeing them with disapproval from several meters away.

“No, sir,” they answered in unison.

Tacker said nothing else; the operatives resumed their prep down.

Colonel Lilan was removing his armor when Tacker approached him. “I asked
Richmond
Command about the intercept,” Tacker said. “Turns out there
was
none. Not from the continental U.S., anyway. They thought it might have been a remnant from some other intercept.
Nagoya
or something, just coming down here.”

Lilan tossed down his shoulder guards. “Did you tell them what we found?”

“No, sir. I thought you’d want to tell the general yourself.”

“Lizards shooting lizards.” The colonel brushed back his crew cut. “Friendly fire, you think?”

“While fighting
what
?”

Lilan sighed in frustration. “I don’t know. And that bothers me. I’ll talk to Hutchin tomorrow morning. We’ve got a meeting scheduled, anyway.”

“Yes, sir.”

* * *

T
HE DOOR TO
Room 419 opened; Catalina and the blonde stepped inside. As soon as the door was shut, Catalina pulled off her jersey and flung it to the floor. “I’m gonna kill him. One day, Tiff, I’m gonna kill him. I’m gonna rip his red hair out by the roots.”

The brown-eyed blonde, Tiffany Feathers, unzipped her flight suit. “You two are totally meant for each other,” she said, smirking. Catalina moaned in aggravation. “What-
ever
, you can moan all you want. You guys are totally getting married one day.”

“Like, totally, right?”

“Har, har.” Untying her ponytail, Tiffany shook her head back. Her hair fell down in shiny locks.

Catalina looked at herself in the mirror. Her hair was shiny, too, but for a different reason. It looked greased. “You look like a model. I look like a witch.”

“You so do not,” Tiffany said, inspecting her teeth in the mirror. Satisfied with their whiteness, she moved on. “So you killed a necrilid, huh? That is so cool.”

“Tacker killed it, actually.”

“Oh. Yah, not quite as cool...”

“And, of course, who got busted for breaking orders?” Catalina raised her hand. “That would be me. Never mind how Mark screwed up, he doesn’t get a word from Tacker. Just me.”

“I think Tacker has the hots for you.”

Rolling her eyes, Catalina grabbed a towel and a cosmetic bag. She stared at Tiffany again. “If I could only be so lucky. I’m going to take a shower. I’ll be back.”

“Later, gator,” Tiffany said, waving as Catalina stepped out.

Tiffany was Catalina’s best friend. The two had never met prior to
Philadelphia
Academy, but had been roommates during their entire stay, Catalina as a soldier, Tiffany a pilot. They weren’t opposites, per say. They were both partial to the party scene, and they shared many of the same likes and interests. But there were definitely differences.

Catalina was a self-prescribed rocker chick. She could play the guitar and actually sing quite well. Unlike most people at the Academy, she had no idea why she’d joined EDEN. The urge had struck her one day, and like any right-brained free spirit, she just went with it. She was there because she was there.

Tiffany Feathers, on the other hand, had a reason for being a pilot. She’d been born with a set of wings—literally. Her first official baby gift, as ridiculous as it sounded, was a sky blue, two-seater FunJet, courtesy of her father. She grew up learning how to fly and graduated from the Academy as a Vulture pilot. She was also a ditz—a bona fide California Valley Girl. She defied everything about the pilot stereotype.

As different as their origins were, Catalina and Tiffany were as close as best friends could be. They had been together through the best and worst of
Philadelphia
. That they’d been assigned to the same unit upon graduation was just icing on the cake.

Ahead of her in the hallway, a cluster of African-American operatives was gathered. Their voices were loud, prevalent. Impossible to ignore.

“Nigga screamin’ like he seein’
roaches
!” Obnoxious laughter erupted from the gathering, directed at one of their own. “Nigga like,
ahhhh
!”

The Canadian lowered her head, making no effort to stop her hair from covering her eyes. Anything to avoid eye contact. There were five of them in total, and they’d been on the mission, too. They were her teammates.

“Coach be screamin’, N’awlins be trippin’ over hisself, all like,
ahhhh
!”

The target of the ridicule finally replied, “Man, what you do? Why don’t you enlighten us, King? What you do when a necrilid jumps in ya face?”

“I don’t be shootin’ the floor!
Pa-pow, ahhhh!
” The laughter reached new heights.

The men were gathered between Catalina and the women’s shower room; she had no choice but to walk past them. As soon as she was in their vicinity, all sound stopped.

Don’t look up. Just walk past them.
She felt every eye on her, and she immediately regretted stepping out of her room in less than a full uniform. That didn’t always bother her—she liked to be looked at, to feel sexy. She didn’t mind putting on the occasional eye show for the boys. What she
did
mind was when boys tried to touch. Fortunately, this time, none of them did. But that didn’t stop the obligatory comment.

“Purr for this, momma.”

Hushed hooting ensued.

She knew what the remark was in reference to. On her back, behind her right shoulder blade, was a tattoo of a cat’s paw. She’d always been called
Cat
by everyone she knew. The ink fit. She enjoyed showing the tattoo off at the appropriate times, when she wanted to be noticed by the opposite sex. This was not one of them. She said nothing in reply to the comment—she just went about her way.

“
Scaw
, walk away, woman.”

Catalina had never had a problem with black people. In fact, she came from a fairly ethnic circle of friends back in Vancouver. But none of them made her nervous. This crew did.

Their ringleader was Tom King. He was an alpha private from Atlanta, Georgia. Ironically, he was one of the smallest in the gang, barely five feet and eight inches. While there were many words to describe Tom,
quiet
and
modest
were not among them. Every word out of his mouth—and there were lots—was loud and obnoxious. But the worst thing about Tom was his million-dollar smile. It gleamed like a superstar’s, and if Catalina was being honest, it was one of the most attractive smiles she’d ever seen on a man. Unfortunately, the jackass it was attached to made it almost unbearable.

The second was Donald Bell, who was actually her superior and a demolitionist delta trooper. Technically, he was third in command of all of Falcon Platoon, despite the fact that he wasn’t an officer. What he
was,
though, was Tom’s first cousin. The two had grown up together, and their mere presence brought an essence of family to Charlie Squad. Just not Catalina’s kind of family. Donald was actually a decent person. He didn’t flaunt his rank, remained generally quiet, and treated everyone above and below him with a level of courtesy that was both rare and refreshing.

In fact, she could say that same thing about almost all of them, with the exception of Tom. When on their own, each of the men was cooperative and personable. It was when they were together, and particularly when Tom was leading the crew, that their raucousness arose.

There was Javon Quinton, handsome and tall, with both the build and attitude one would expect from a professional soldier. He had a unique sense of style, often wearing sunglasses that looked two sizes too big for his head and hair that stuck out in all directions, like someone who’d been electrocuted.

Demorian Mott was from Louisiana. Catalina knew this because, at every available opportunity, his cohorts jokingly called him either “N’awlins” or “that trash from New Orleans.” He was the shortest of the crew, about an inch under Tom, but built like he should have been seven feet tall. He was a miniature bruiser.

Then there was Leonard Knight. In Catalina’s sincere, televisioninfluenced opinion, Leonard looked how she imagined a gang member should look. He was tall, and his arms were muscular—not the streamlined muscles of someone who lived in the weight room, but thick muscles that looked earned on the streets. He had various tattoos, none of which Catalina could make out. Complimenting his stoic expression was a head topped with cornrows, completing a package that screamed
criminal record
, despite the fact that he kept mostly to himself.

The five of them—Tom, Donald, Javon, Demorian, and Leonard—formed the meat of Charlie Squad. All of the men, with the exception of Donald, the demolitionist, was a soldier. The only
other
soldiers in Charlie were Catalina herself and Mark Peters. Perhaps that was one of the reasons she was attracted to Mark, despite their occasional spats. They were birds of a feather in a group that was different from what she was accustomed to.

They weren’t all of Charlie Squad, of course. There were a handful of operatives who weren’t soldiers. There was Leslie Kelly, a sweet girl and the unit’s technician. There was Frank Smith, a lovable and somewhat innocent medic. Then, of course, there was Tiffany. They and Mark made up the part of the crew with which Catalina felt infinitely more comfortable.