The tide of war, p.9
The Tide of War, page 9
And she was right. It helped.
Eyes still closed, head still bowed, he said, “So when do we reach Epsilon?”
“Reach it?” the technician asked. “Sir, you’re already on board.”
Kyle’s head snapped up, and of course, he instantly regretted it. Gritting his teeth, he closed his eyes again. “We’re already on board? I thought they brought us out of stasis before the transfer to the station.” Then he waved a hand. “Not that it matters.”
The tech laughed quietly. “It’s part of the briefing, but your memory’s going to be slightly fogged and might have some gaps for a few days. That’s normal, though. It’s also why you won’t even start your simulations right away. Not until you’ve had a complete physical and psychological eval.”
Kyle kept gritting his teeth, this time to keep the frustration at bay more than the nausea. He understood the adjustment period and the mandatory simulation hours, but it aggravated him anyway. He’d come here to shoot down as many Menarians as he could, not to dick off while the reptiles slaughtered people on Earth. The idea of standing around with his thumb up his ass while battles raged on without him hit all too raw a nerve.
As the stasis effects wore off, and Emily and Kyle could walk without difficulty, a young officer entered the room.
“Commander, Lieutenant Commander.” He saluted them both sharply. “Welcome to Epsilon. I’m Lieutenant Randall. I’ll be helping you get settled in.”
Who’d you piss off to wind up on bellhop duty?
“Good,” Kyle muttered. “I’d like to get out of this fucking place.”
The lieutenant nodded. “If you’re ready, I can take you to your quarters.”
“Yes, please.” Emily wrinkled her nose. “I don’t think the smell in here is helping my stomach settle.”
Kyle sniffed the air, and the sterile, medicinal smell definitely didn’t help. He grimaced. “Okay, so our quarters?”
“Right.” Randall gestured for them to follow him. “Your belongings are already there. You’ll have a day or two to settle in before you need to report for your evals, and then you can start your simulations.”
Kyle gritted his teeth again. Simulators. Fuck simulators. He’d been flying elite craft in simulators since his academy days. Everyone was trained on them in case they were needed for the squadron. He knew how to fly the goddamned thing. Enough with the simulations already.
But regulations were regulations. He’d play the game like everyone else.
As Randall led them through the corridors, Kyle couldn’t help feeling boxed in and claustrophobic. Irrational, of course. The hallways on the ground bases were virtually identical and had never bothered him before. Maybe he’d just spent too much time in that stasis chamber or hadn’t quite gotten used to the idea of being on an orbital station with less usable space than a ground base. And no escape. Nowhere to go jogging. The only time he’d leave would be to run missions on Menar, flying into the cities and laying waste to them before returning to this station.
Being permanently encased inside a metal globe that he couldn’t leave except in a fighter craft was just too fucking claustrophobic.
Get used to it, he reminded himself. You’re here for a reason.
He cleared his throat. “Can we see the planet from here, Lieutenant?” Kyle scowled, realizing how stupid that sounded. “I mean, is there a window somewhere I can look out?”
Randall nodded and gestured to the left. “This way. There’s a viewing deck not far from your quarters. I can take you there or to your quarters.”
Kyle looked at Emily.
She shrugged. “Your call.”
“Quarters first,” Kyle said. “But then I want to see this planet.”
Randall led them down one deck and into a corridor lined with doors labeled with two names apiece. Couples’ quarters, Kyle guessed, and the fifth one on the right turned out to be theirs.
Randall left them to settle in, promising to return shortly to take them around the rest of the station, so Kyle and Emily stepped inside to check out where they’d be living for the foreseeable future. These quarters weren’t much different than the ones at their previous base, if perhaps a little smaller. Simple and sparse. A bed for two. A table for two. Probably two stainless steel sinks in the bathroom, as well.
Two black uniforms hung on the wall between the closet and the bathroom door. Holding his breath, Kyle took down the larger of the two.
LCDR WEST, the white letters above the right breast declared. On the left, all his medals and ribbons had been neatly arranged. And above those medals, in shining gold against the sleek black background where his silver wings used to be, was the elite pilot insignia.
He slowly released his breath as he ran his fingers across the smooth, cool surface of the gold emblem, the very one he’d coveted every time he’d looked at those posters in the subway. Deep down, he’d been sure that if this ever happened, if he ever saw that insignia above his name, he’d barely be able to contain himself. He’d expected to be ecstatic with pride.
And he felt . . . nothing.
“It’ll look better once you’re wearing it, you know.” Emily was already stripping out of her clothes. “Quit staring at it and put it on.”
Oh, what the hell. Kyle set the uniform down again, and then took off his shirt. He stripped completely, pulled on the uniform, and zipped up the front. It was a perfect fit, tailor made for every inch of him. Even the boots slipped on as if they’d been molded for his feet. Hell, maybe they had been. He had been in stasis for a while.
Once he was dressed, he stared at himself in the full-length mirror. “This is all so surreal.”
Emily appeared beside him and wrapped her arms around his waist. “Yeah. I still can’t quite believe it, either.”
They held each other’s reflected gazes, and neither cracked a smile. Neither showed a flicker of pride at the uniforms they wore. Kyle forced every emotion as deep beneath the surface as he could. He wasn’t ready to break down over his family. Not yet. Between the grief he’d encased inside lead-thick denial and the simple disbelief that he was standing here on this station wearing this uniform, Kyle had never been so numb in his life.
He freed himself from Emily’s embrace and turned away from the mirror.
“You okay?” she asked.
“I . . . think so.” He took a ragged breath. “I guess being here and wearing this”—he gestured at the uniform—“kind of makes it all real.” He forced back the lump in his throat. “All of it.”
“I know, sweetie.” She cupped his face in both hands and stood up on her toes to kiss his forehead. “You going to be okay?”
“I don’t know.” He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her close. “I have no idea what I feel. All I know is that you’re all I have left.”
“You’re all I have too, Kyle.”
For a moment, they just held on to each other, letting the finality of the station and the uniforms and this entire goddamned existence sink in.
Then Kyle muffled a cough and released her. “I guess we should, um, go check out the rest of the station.”
Emily nodded. “Yeah. I guess we should.”
Less than an hour after he’d left the stasis chamber, Kyle’s eyes had adapted, and now he stood at a thick window and peered outside.
So that was Menar. Home of the reptilian sons of bitches.
No wonder they wanted a piece of Earth. The atmosphere was black and opaque, sickly swirling clouds encasing the entire planet. He couldn’t see the scorched world underneath, but he’d seen hundreds of images before. It was much like Earth below those clouds—a charred, malignant Earth made toxic by industry and war, not to mention gutted for resources.
Kyle swallowed, pushing his shoulders back as he watched the planet below them. Its similarity to Earth brought a renewed sense of defensiveness to the surface, a need to protect his home from Menar’s inhabitants. That, and a thirst for vengeance. As far as he was concerned, every living creature on Menar was responsible for Griff’s and Brendan’s deaths. And they would pay.
His throat ached. The grief he’d forced under the surface was trying to claw its way up, but he pushed it back. He wasn’t here to grieve. He was here to change the war, to take those bastards down. Once he’d accomplished that, then he could surrender to those emotions. Not a moment sooner.
“Kyle?”
He startled at the sound of Emily’s voice and turned. She and Randall watched him. The lieutenant’s head was cocked slightly. Emily’s eyebrows were raised. Kyle suddenly wondered how long he’d been standing there staring at Menar.
He cleared his throat. “Sorry, what?”
Randall glanced at Emily, then back at him. “I was just asking if you’d like to see the rest of the facilities on the station.”
“Yeah. Sure.”
On the way out, Emily gestured at the windows behind them. “Do the Menarians ever attack the station?”
Randall shrugged. “Quite honestly? If they do, I don’t want to know about it.”
She eyed him. “That’s comforting.”
As they continued out into the corridor, he said, “Sorry. The station has manned defenses on the other decks. If I ever went down and asked them how many times we took direct fire, or the Menarians got close, I’d probably never sleep again.”
Kyle wasn’t sure how anyone slept up here in the first place, but he had to admit, Randall had a point.
Emily didn’t push the issue, thank God, and Randall led them around the station. He showed them to the mess decks, the supply shops, a couple of lounges, the library, and the enormous and more or less well-stocked cantina, of course. As they walked from place to place, he ran them through some of the regs unique to Epsilon, such as the water rations and where emergency oxygen equipment was stored in case the breathing systems failed. He didn’t take them down to whatever defenses the station had—now that Kyle thought about it, he was grateful.
“So that’s Epsilon,” Randall said as they wandered down yet another long, windowless corridor. “You’ll meet part of the squadron tomorrow. Indoc is at 0700 tomorrow. I’ll be at your quarters at 0630 to escort you there.”
“Even in alien worlds, the day starts early,” Emily muttered.
Kyle laughed. “The early bird catches the Menarian worm.”
Emily just groaned and rolled her eyes.
Lieutenant Randall gave a quiet laugh too. Then he pushed open a door marked GYMNASIUM, and as soon as they stepped into the gym, Kyle was met with the pungent scents of rubber, sweat, and disinfectant.
Heavy grunts and hard smacks drew his attention to one end of the room. There was a regulation-sized boxing ring there, and a man and a woman sparred ferociously at its center. The woman was as lean and fit as Emily, the harsh overhead lights picking out the deep grooves in the ab muscles between her black shorts and tight sports bra. The definition in her arms and legs were as impressive as the jabs and punches she threw at her opponent. Kyle knew immediately who she was; even disheveled and drenched in sweat, that short black hair was distinctive, and the mouth guard she wore didn’t soften her sharp jawline at all. There was no way in hell she was anyone other than Ogrufina Teterev.
Which meant, if Kyle wasn’t mistaken, that her opponent was . . .
“Kyle, I swear to God,” Emily whispered. “If you make some sort of squealing starstruck noise right now, I will club you.” Speaking just loudly enough for Kyle to hear, though, she added, “My God, that woman is gorgeous.”
He chuckled. “Now who’s starstruck?”
“Oh, I’m not.” She kept her gaze fixed on the boxers. “That’s all lust talking.”
He laughed and kept watching. Starstruck or not, he was definitely mesmerized. By both of them. Teterev was fast and vicious, giving as good as she got even with a larger and slightly taller opponent. Dezhnyov was power and fury personified. The way the two of them stared each other down between attacks, Kyle never would have guessed they were married, never mind happily. They fought like they were out for blood.
Others in the gym watched, though, and didn’t seem concerned. Some grimaced and cringed when a blow landed beneath Teterev’s ribs or across Dezhnyov’s face, but no one seemed inclined to stop them.
“Is this, um, normal?” he asked Randall.
“With these two?” Randall laughed dryly. “Ohh yeah. I’ll warn you right now, if you ever want to get in any boxing time, make sure you get to the ring before they do.” He gestured at Dezhnyov and Teterev. “This is how they blow off steam, and once they get going, they’ll be there a while.”
“Good to know,” Kyle said.
Just watching the two of them box made Kyle’s muscles ache with phantom fatigue. He considered himself pretty damned fit, but he didn’t think he’d last thirty seconds in the ring with one of them. Judging by the sweat on their skin and the empty water bottles lying beside the ring, they’d been sparring for some time.
Small wonder they were the faces of the Elite Squadron back on Earth. They epitomized everything Fleet members were supposed to be if they wanted a shot at flying out here. Powerful. Fierce. Relentless.
Kyle caught himself wondering if he could even hold a candle to them.
Maybe I shouldn’t be here.
No. He absolutely belonged here. He didn’t have to be a superhuman boxer, just a damned good pilot. Besides, he’d sworn on the memories—there’d been no graves, no headstones—of his family that he’d fight the Menarians until Earth won the war or he was shot down. He would see this all the way to the end and bring down as many of those fuckers as he could in the process.
Maybe he wasn’t Teterev or Dezhnyov, but there was a reason he was on the Elite Squadron.
Teterev put up a hand. Dezhnyov nodded and lowered his gloves. They both dropped from defensive stances to flat-footed ones, and finally, they actually looked like the match had tired them. They were breathing hard, muscles trembling. Maybe they weren’t superhuman, after all.
Kyle still couldn’t make himself look away as they wound down from sparring, removing their gloves with shaking hands and stepping out of the ring on equally unsteady legs. A few onlookers applauded, one or two jeering at Dezhnyov for letting his lady work him over like that. All it took was one glance from her, though, and they shut their mouths.
Dezhnyov spat out his mouth guard and then rubbed a towel over his face before taking a long drink from a bottle of water. Teterev did the same, and then they faced each other. He put a hand on the back of her neck and touched his forehead to hers. They spoke, but Kyle couldn’t hear them. Then she raised her chin and kissed her husband, and the grins they exchanged belied the fierce fighting they’d done just a moment ago. They’d been brutal in the ring, but now they were playful and even affectionate.
Teterev’s gaze suddenly shifted, and she met Kyle’s eyes from across the gym. Before he could turn away and pretend he hadn’t been watching, Dezhnyov turned his head.
Kyle’s heart jumped. Maybe it was the scruff on the man’s jaw or the fact that he was disheveled and out of breath, with sweat running from his short dark hair down his flushed face and shirtless torso, but he was even more stunning in person than he’d been in posters and motivational videos. There was something in his eyes—wow, they were blue—that put Kyle off guard. Something the camera had never quite captured, but Kyle couldn’t miss now if he tried.
Dezhnyov’s expression was unreadable, but he definitely noticed Kyle. He offered a slight nod, an even slighter grin, then put his arm around his wife’s waist before they headed toward the locker rooms.
As the Russians walked away, Kyle shook his head and faced Emily again. She smirked, and he rolled his eyes.
“Not a word,” he muttered.
“What?” She showed her palms and batted her eyelashes. “I didn’t say a thing.”
“Uh-huh.”
“So,” Lieutenant Randall said, gesturing at their surroundings. “As I said, this is the gym. You can PT anytime, day or night.”
Kyle nodded. “Great.”
“There’s one more thing I want to see,” Emily said.
Lieutenant Randall inclined his head. “Yes, Commander?”
She grinned. “I want to see our bird.”
Kyle’s heart sped up.
“All right,” Randall said. “I don’t know which fighter craft will be yours, but I can show you one of the squadrons.” He gestured for them to follow him. “The hangar is this way.”
Seeing the dormant squadron took Kyle’s breath away.
The elite craft were nothing like the fighters on Earth. Reasoning that the only way to fight the Menarians on their own turf was with their own equipment, the Fleet had replicated as much technology as possible from a captured Menarian craft. It had taken years, but they’d succeeded, and the stunning aircraft in front of him were the result.
They were sleek, black, and boomerang-shaped, smoothly curving like less angular versions of the triangular stealth fighters the U.S. military had used long ago, which the fighters on Earth had been based on. He’d never liked the look of one of those boomerangs careening around a corner and firing at him, but standing here, knowing this bird was his weapon now, he was impressed. Absolutely awestruck.
Kyle ran his fingers over the cool surface of one of the aircraft. He’d faced down countless birds like this during battle, and he looked forward to flying one for real instead of in a simulator. They banked like no other. Could damn near turn on a dime. They were also fitted with technology that fucked with bogey detection; these things had driven Kyle insane with their ability to sneak past orbital first-line defenses.
In the simulations, he could fly one of these better than the fighter he’d flown back home. They handled more smoothly, and he was one of only twelve pilots to complete one hundred simulations in an elite bird with fewer than ten crashes. He was the only one with fewer than five.
I was born to fly this, he thought as he ran his hand along the smoothly curving wing.
He caught his reflection in the sleek finish and held his own gaze for a moment.
