The Glorious Becoming (5 page)

Farther away but aware of the scene, the battle-torn Bakma, Wuteel, watched the exchange. The image of the kneeling Dostoevsky reflected in Wuteel’s bulging eyes.

“This will hurt.”

The words were spoken softly. Turning from Dostoevsky and the fallen Bakma, Wuteel watched Svetlana lift his arm gently.

“Be brave.”

When her saturated cloth touched his wounds, Wuteel hissed and shrunk back. But the blond medic held on. After several seconds, the pain subsided. The wound cooled.

Wuteel watched curiously as she bandaged his arm.

Despite Viktor’s scarred reputation, he was part of a command structure that was strong. Scott had taken to captainship like a fish to water, with Dostoevsky’s experience and expertise a welcomed complement to the younger American’s more brazen style. As lieutenants, Max and Viktor were both more than capable. Scott had made it clear to the rest of the Fourteenth that Viktor was to be obeyed as a tertiary officer regardless of the unit’s negative feelings toward him. And it had been made clear to Viktor, by Scott, that he was on as thin a sheet of ice as there could be. The slick-haired Russian had been the beneficiary of good timing: he’d been promoted to lieutenant before falling from the unit’s graces. Personal sins aside, he had yet to do anything on the battlefield that would have warranted his demotion.

Looking skyward, Scott watched their transport make its approach. The Vulture Mark 2—one of the few variants at
Novosibirsk
—gleamed in the sunlight as it angled its nose for descent.

“Nice work up there, Travis,” said Scott through the comm. “What’s the status of the new crash site?”

“Thanks,” the pilot answered, his voice droning. “The new site’s about two kilometers west-northwest. Doubtful on survivors.”

Scott already knew the reason for Travis’s mood, but he asked anyway. “You all right, man?”

There was a pause. “Yeah.”

Scott’s expression softened, but he maintained a professional tone. “Inform NovCom. Tell them to send a cleanup crew.”

“On it, sir.”

Everything about the Vulture Mark 2, or V2, as people called it, was superior. Everything about it was sleek, sophisticated, and downright tough. Its introduction into EDEN had given a solid dose of muscle to the outdated Vulture class transport. In fact, for the Fourteenth, there was only one problem with their new ride.

It wasn’t the
Pariah
.

Unsalvageable. That was EDEN’s official word on their old, cursed transport. The hope and excitement of getting the
Pariah
back had been dashed by a single, emotionless memo. The
Pariah
had sustained too much damage. The feral dog had been put out of its misery.

Despite the obvious advantage of having a more reliable, sturdier, and more maneuverable transport, a real sense of loss had hit the Fourteenth with the
Pariah
’s demise. Yes, they could get to missions faster. Yes, they could defend themselves in the air. Yes, they could even absorb a hit or two. But the
Pariah
had been a special ship—it’d been
their
ship. This new ship didn’t even have a name.

Though the loss was felt by everyone, no one’s grief came close to Travis’s. It was like he’d lost a brother. Even to that day, the pilot wasn’t the same.

“All operatives,” Scott said on the open channel, “rally at the landing zone. We leave in five.” A chorus of affirmations came.

As far as missions went, this one had been fairly routine. A pair of Noboats, intercepted by Vindicators, isolated by the Fourteenth. It was a common callout. The third Noboat—the one shot down by the V2—was a bit of a surprise. The Bakma rarely attempted rescues of fallen vessels. Thankfully, the now missile-packing transport had been up to the task.

Scott turned off his internal heater. The air was cold, but not freezing, as Siberia had found itself in the midst of an unusually warm winter. With temperatures hovering in the forties, practically a heat wave for that time of year, there wasn’t a trace of snow in any direction. Some of
Novosibirsk
’s older veterans had seen this before. They deemed it an omen. Scott deemed it a relief.

Making his way through the collection of operatives, Scott found Svetlana. The blond-haired medic was hard at work tending to Wuteel’s wounds, her careful hands moving from injury to injury as the Bakma curiously observed. Scott never approached Svetlana, nor did he make his presence known. He simply watched her from afar, the fulcrum’s expression hidden behind his faceless helmet. Her hair was longer now. It dipped just past her shoulders in golden locks. He liked it that way. He liked it any way at all.

“Remmy,” Becan said through the comm, “body count’s at thirty-three. We probably killed half o’ them. Add one canrassi.”

From Scott’s vantage point, he could barely make out Svetlana’s face—just enough to see her expression. She was smiling at the Bakma. It was the same kind of smile she’d used with him many times. The kind of smile that said, “it’ll be okay.” And it always was.

“Remmy, did yeh get tha’?”

Looking away slightly, Scott answered, “I copy. Thirty-three, one canrassi. Half killed by the Fourteenth.” He’d heard Becan the first time.

When he turned back to Svetlana, she was staring at him, too. One of her hands was still on the Bakma; her other tucked her hair behind her ear.

To the Bakma, she was just another human—one with a compassionate touch. If it only knew that it was in the most sincere hands it would ever come across. If it only knew that
its
best interests, not hers, were at the core of her heart. There was no better place, no warmer place, for anyone to be.

Her gaze lingered on Scott for a moment longer before it broke, the slow turn of her head reflecting golden sheens of sunlight off her hair. He watched her look at Wuteel again.

If the alien only knew.

Little else of significance occurred at the crash site. As ordered, all operatives returned to the landing zone within the specified five minutes, boarding the V2 for the voyage back home. As was typical, a jovial atmosphere permeated through the troop bay, with but few exceptions. As was typical, the sounds of banter drowned out the roar of the engines.

Novosibirsk
. The Machine. Home. There was no place Scott wanted to be more.

The ride back went as smoothly as the mission. Not even the Bakma complained.

3

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 7
^TH
, 0012 NE

1549 HOURS

NOVOSIBIRSK, RUSSIA

F
LOPPER WAS THE
first to exit the V2, his paws peeling out before the rear door was even down. Tongue flailing about merrily, he pranced around the nearest pair of sentries.

“Go!” said Max, marching after the dog. “You gotta go,
go
! Stop playin’ with the murderers!”

Ears perked, Flopper abandoned the sentries for the side of the hangar, where concrete met grass. The canine’s territory was then adequately marked.

The rest of the Fourteenth was not far behind. Auric escorted out Wuteel, the Bakma prisoner; Scott followed them. “Deliver him to Petrov,” Scott told the sentries in Russian. “He stays in Confinement, not the Walls.”

“Da, Captain Remington.”

The Fourteenth’s captives were never taken to the Walls of Mourning,
Novosibirsk
’s torture room—by Scott’s orders. He had never returned to the torture chamber since his first encounter, and there wasn’t a bone in his body that desired to go there again.

Unfastening his helmet for the first time, Scott surveyed the dutifully prepping-down Fourteenth. Small scars decorated his face from a missile strike explosion during a forest mission months ago, along with several other “badges” he’d collected over the months. There were even a few gray hairs here and there, giving the twenty-four-year-old a look beyond his years. He looked like a veteran. Considering his involvement with the Alien War was nearing only its first anniversary, that said quite a bit. EDEN was still yet to learn of his joining the Nightmen, and he was in no rush to tell them. As for his captainship, he’d achieved it at a frighteningly fast pace, shattering every rookie-to-officer record in the books. He wondered on occasion whether his rise to leadership would have been newsworthy had he been anywhere but
Novosibirsk
. Thankfully, at least in his eyes, he lived in a place that the rest of the world chose to ignore. Base-wide notoriety was more than enough for him.

“He will be fine.”

Svetlana’s voice caught Scott off guard, and he turned to find her approaching his side.

“The Bakma,” she said, catching his bewildered expression with a smile.

“Ah.” He watched as the sentry escorted Wuteel out of the hangar. “Nothing too serious, then?”

“No. He is lucky. To be in such good condition
and
to have a captor who didn’t kill him. Both are very good things.”

“He was pretty lucky to have you, too.”

Svetlana smiled faintly. “I would not go so far as to say
that
...but if you insist, thank you.”

Scott was well aware of the attraction between them. He was also well aware of his sense of guilt. Nicole’s picture still sat on his nightstand, where it had been since the first day he’d received his own private quarters. She was still his fiancée—the love of his life. But that didn’t stop him from wanting to spend time with Svetlana. It didn’t stop him from increasing the frequency with which he requested medical reports, to be delivered by her to his quarters, usually ending with two hours of conversation and laughter. It didn’t stop him from occasionally deviating from his training schedule and sending the Fourteenth to the pool, just to see her in her teal one-piece. It didn’t stop him from wanting to kiss her. Though no such kiss had occurred, the want was still there. He was fairly sure she wanted that, too. The moment had just never come.

Turning back to the V2, Scott watched as the operatives bustled about. Then his stare found Jayden. The Texan, who wore a black eye patch to cover his empty left socket, hadn’t said a word during the whole flight. He was doing his prep-down alone.

Svetlana sighed sadly. “We might need to talk about him. He...” she searched for words, “...things are not going well.”

This was only Jayden’s third mission since his release from the infirmary, and only the second in which he’d been allowed to actually participate. His accuracy was still there, shockingly enough. But his body was in anything but good shape. The Texan was frail. Months in the infirmary had decimated his muscles, and a rushed recovery had cheated him a chance to fully heal. He could barely hold his own. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the bad part.

During his first phases of recovery, prior to the revelation of Varvara’s infidelity, Scott had seen a determined young man who’d refused to accept defeat. Behind occasional and understandable self-pity was a purposed and stubborn spirit. Until the affair. From that day forward, Jayden gradually fell apart. Varvara had accomplished what the loss of an eye and the destruction of a body couldn’t. She’d crushed his will. He was a shell of the man the Fourteenth had once known. The Texan was quiet now, moody. On some days he was perfectly stoic. On others he hated the world. Scott had no idea what was happening beneath the surface of Jayden’s emotions, but he feared something was psychologically wrong. For all he knew, his sniper had gone sociopath.

“I’ll talk to him,” Scott said, still watching the Texan work. “I’ll call him to my room.”

Svetlana didn’t reply audibly. She simply smiled, reached out, and squeezed his hand—her way of telling him she approved. Together and without another word, they joined the Fourteenth for prep-down.

* * *

TWENTY MINUTES LATER

W
ILLIAM HUMMED
blissfully beneath a blast of steaming shower spray. The massive demolitionist was among the first to claim a curtained stall, as he typically was. Grabbing his shampoo-bottle-turned-microphone and bristling back his wet crew cut, he closed his eyes and belted a falsetto. “And I took the devil for a
riiiiide
!”

“Hey Willie?” Becan asked as the curtain behind William was tugged open.

The demolitionist blinked and turned around. “Huh—?”

Poof!
A white cloud erupted as flour pelted William’s face. Hacking frantically, the southerner stumbled and wiped his eyes. “
Veck
it, man!
Again
?” A chorus of laugher erupted outside.

Such juvenile post-mission antics were normal in Room 14, particularly after missions as successful as that day’s—and shower pranks led the way. William’s flour facial was only the latest instance. The previous week, Esther had hopped in only to discover, seconds too late, that her entire bottle of conditioner had been replaced with ranch dressing. Wisely, the culprit was yet to step forward.

By far the most daring display of tomfoolery had come against Max, who’d once finished a shower to discover that the entire room had been emptied of people, and more importantly, clothing. Even the bed sheets had been removed. The sole article of
anything
left behind had been a single piece of white lingerie. “Coincidentally,” a call had been placed to Tanneken Brunner moments earlier asking her to rush to Room 14 as quickly as possible. Needless to say, she was more amused by what she found than Max was that she’d found it.