Metal and Ash (Apex Trilogy) (28 page)

“We’re on our way to Monterey right now,” Rachel said, speaking out loud. “We’ll be there tomorrow evening at the latest.”

Good! Then we can get the shield down and get to land.

“We don’t have any codes, we don’t have any schematics, we don’t have shit,” Rachel said. “How will we get it down?”

Rachel could actually feel Beth grin.

Two technopaths like us? We’ll get it down.

“I have to be honest,” Rachel said. “I have no idea how to control that technopathy stuff. And, well… I’m not exactly up to my full strength.”

Me neither. Well, I do know how to control the technopathy. At least with BC.

“With what?”

Bioorganic metal. I’ll fill you in when you get here. Just hurry.

“Uh, okay,” Rachel replied. “Should I call you on this number if I need you?”

Funny. I’ll be in contact when I can. This takes a lot out of me.

“Copy that.”

See you soon, Rachel Capreze.

“You too, Beth Laughlin.”

Rachel waited until she was sure Beth wasn’t going to speak again and then took a couple deep, cleansing breaths. The headache that had been toying about, hanging on the edges, started to move forward and she could tell the rest of the night would be a might uncomfortable.

Behind her Themopolous watched Rachel closely, waiting to see if she spoke some more. But when she was quiet for a while Themopolous closed her eyes again, not wanting to get caught staring.

Thirty-Four

“Okay, so just when I think you can’t be more of a freak you totally space out for like three minutes while in the middle of building a fucking floating fort,” Melissa snapped when Beth finally acknowledged she was being spoken to.

“Oh, sorry,” Beth said, rubbing her temples. “That was unexpected.”

“You okay?” Desmond asked as he lay on the deck, his head wrapped in bandages.

“Shush,” Melissa said as she knelt and checked Desmond’s dressing. “Don’t worry about her.”

“Just because I lost the other eye doesn’t mean I don’t care about other people,” Desmond said, his voice more than tinged with pain. “We’re all in this together, but Beth’s the one that’s gonna keep us alive.”

“If she gets back to work,” Blue said. “That forward panel will need reinforcing. I have two techs checking the left quarter and right quarter now.”

“Yes, sir,” Beth said, her head throbbing. “I’m on it.”

She pushed the building pain aside and concentrated on the BC that was about her. She’d already used a lot of energy bringing the BC to the coastline, even though much of it had almost sunk to the bottom of the ocean just outside the bay. The sea water had added resistance, not because of the weight and pressure of the water, but because the chemical make-up of ocean water seemed to hamper her BC control. She hadn’t noticed it before with other tasks while they had been at sea, but then she hadn’t tried to salvage ten ships worth of BC before.

The forward panel, as Blue had called it, was a thirty foot high structure of pure BC. It went another fifty feet down and was anchored into the bottom of the bay. The wall stretched across the bay, an amazing feat of engineering even for the most accomplished designer, but for a novice that was winging it it was close to a miracle. Only Beth’s natural BC manipulative abilities kept the structure from collapsing.

While Beth worked her BC magic, Melissa spent her time going from one wounded American to another. She’d shown her own genius by making biochrome into field dressings that slowly helped knit wounds back together. With the help of one of the other Americans that had some training in field medicine, she was able to keep dozens of Americans alive that would have otherwise bled to death.

Blue watched it all, the work Beth was doing, the work Melissa was doing, and the way those that could help pitched in without orders of any kind. It wasn’t wholly American behavior he witnessed, but it was behavior brought on by a sense of purpose that only a people drawn together by severe tragedy could have.

He just wished...

“He’s out there somewhere,” Desmond said.

“How the hell did you know what I was thinking?” Blue asked. “You’re fucking blind.”

“Um, that has nothing to do with it,” Desmond said. “I couldn’t read minds when I had two eyes. Or even when I had one. So my being blind is irrelevant.”

“So?” Blue asked, his eyes moving to the two other ships that were fused to the one he was on. Beth had created a base behind the wall. And considering the fact that only maybe ten percent of the Americans were left, it was plenty space enough. “How’d you know I was thinking of Charlie? I have a lot more lives I’m responsible for than one lost shock trooper.”

“You grind your teeth,” Desmond said as he shifted his position. He forced himself not to cry out as white hot pain filled his head.

“You okay, Lieutenant?” Blue asked as he crouched next to Desmond.

“Despite the lack of ocular ability?”

“Don’t get smart, Hale,” Blue warned. “I’m still your superior officer.”

“You grind your teeth every time Charlie is out on a mission,” Desmond said, finishing his observation. “You always have. It’s your tell.”

“My tell,” Blue nodded, not that Desmond could see him. “Good to know.” He patted Desmond on the shoulder and stood up. “Get some sleep if you can. It’s a cool evening, but tomorrow this deck will be roasting hot. We’ll have to move the wounded below, not that it will be any cooler inside.”

“Power still not up?”

“About twenty percent capacity right now,” Blue said. “Techs will have it going soon, but I can’t say when.”

“You think Capreze’s people are coming for us?”

“I don’t really know, Hale. I don’t really know.”

***

The grief was overwhelming. It shut out the pain of his injuries, the severity of which he didn’t even know. As he stared up at the night sky, floating on his back, the shock suit keeping him from going under, he cradled his Nancy’s body to his chest. He knew he needed to let her go, that he needed to get back to the coastline and rendezvous with the rest of the Americans.

But he couldn’t. He just couldn’t.

He didn’t know if he had left her and her father in the UK whether or not they’d still be alive. The chaos, murder and destruction the Three had caused all across Europe told him that she probably wouldn’t have been left to live. Especially if her connection to a damn jack had been found out.

But he didn’t know and that uncertainty petrified him. What did it matter, what did any of it matter, if the ones that were loved the most were lost? He asked himself that question over and over as the waves gently rocked him and Nancy’s corpse.

Fresh tears welled in his eyes and he laughed, actually laughed at them, thinking they had dried up hours before. He’d pulled himself together enough to keep his shock suit on and not send himself to the deep below. He’d said his sorrys and goodbyes to her, kissing her cold face over and over. And he had come to terms with the reality of her death.

But the heart didn’t give a fuck about reality and Charlie began to sob once more.

His whispers of apology lifted on the ocean air and were lost in the briny mist that had formed about him as the night cooled.

***

The fabric adjusted, allowing the healing vectors of the nanobot components and BC sutures to go to work, as Melissa shifted the material about a wounded tech’s abdomen. With the blood and shit and piss she’d dealt with since they’d rendezvoused in the Monterey Bay, she could have cared less that the tech was stark naked and she had his crotch just inches from her hand. Modesty was gone when you were fighting for your lives.

She made sure the BC fabric was secure and moved to the next person, but didn’t stay long as the trooper was already gone, the gaping wound in her chest too much for Melissa’s creation to handle. She sucked it up and forced the sorrow away. She’d felt worse loss than a stranger’s death. Not that the woman was a stranger since Melissa had been training with her for weeks and even helped adjust her shock suit hours earlier.

But Melissa made her a stranger in her mind because a stranger’s death didn’t hurt, right?

She happened to glance over at Desmond and could see him talking with Colonel Masterson. She wanted to yell at him to shut up and rest, but that would have disturbed those that actually were resting. The man could be infuriating and it took every ounce of control not to stomp over and give him a piece of her mind.

But for what? Saving her life?

She had headed for the coastline, just like the rest of the troopers. She had to duck and dodge sinking ships and fiery debris as her suit propelled her through the water. Then it all went black. She remembered hearing the explosion, but had no idea what had been destroyed; maybe another ship, maybe a torpedo going off next to her. She didn’t know.

What she did know was that she woke up with most of her suit blasted off her body and she was secured to a floating piece of debris. Next to her, his arm wrapped tightly about her waist, and his head bleeding everywhere, was Desmond.

There had been so much blood.

She called his name over and over, but he didn’t respond. When she went to wipe the blood away she realized that his eye, his last good eye, was missing and most of the bone around his ocular cavity was shattered with splinters sticking straight out from his face. She’d wanted to wail in anguish, but she had been taught better than that and the Ghost training kicked in.

In an instant she’d sent BC sutures through the wound to clear the bone fragments and stop the blood. Her on-the-ocean field work was rough and she knew that even if they did survive, Desmond wouldn’t be able to get an ocular implant in that socket. It was too destroyed. She’d kissed his forehead again and again as they floated along, praying, wishing, hoping he’d wake up.

By the time Beth had come along in a makeshift boat she’d clapped together, Desmond had started mumbling something about needing his wench and Melissa had cried with joy.

“Fuck me,” Beth said as she slumped down next to Melissa, bringing the girl out of her reverie. “I think I died about six tons of BC ago.”

“How’s your head?” Melissa asked.

“Fine,” Beth replied quickly.

“Fucking liar,” Melissa said. “I can see the pain on your face. How bad is it?”

“I’m fine, Mel, really,” Beth insisted.

“Bullshit.”

“Okay, it’s bullshit, feel better?”

“Yes. You know being right always makes me feel better,” Melissa smiled.

“Bitch,” Beth teased.

“Twat,” Melissa joked back.

They sat for a second until someone started to call for Melissa. She began to get up, but Beth grabbed her hand.

“I need to talk to you,” Beth said and her tone of voice told Melissa just how important it was.

“I’m needed,” Melissa said. “Let me just make sure no one is going to die and I’ll be right back.

“Ok,” Beth nodded. “But hurry.”

“I always hurry, freak.”

***

The destruction around what was left of the Americans was enough to send any man into a tailspin of depression and despair, but Blue Masterson was not just any man.

“Will that hold against the Three’s navy?” Blue asked as he walked up to Beth. “How much time will it give us?”

Beth got up wearily and looked out at the wall of BC she’d put together. The wall’s shiny surface was easily visible due to its size and the lights reflecting off it. It towered above any ship that the Three had, but that wasn’t the issue.

“I honestly don’t know, sir,” Beth said. “It should take quite a few direct hits from torpedoes or cannon. I can repair as it takes damage if I concentrate, but if we’re at that point it may already be too late.”

“Understood,” Blue said. “Just trying to get a handle on our situation.”

“Not the best situation, is it?” Beth asked. “Not unless we get the shield down. Capreze has people on their way now.”

Blue spun on her, startled by the news. “And how the fuck do you know that?”

Beth tapped her head and frowned. “I spoke to his daughter, Rachel. She is walking her mech this way with another mech and pilot and their doctor.”

“Themopolous is coming?” Blue frowned. “Don’t know if I trust her.”

“I think Rachel does,” Beth said. “I didn’t feel her lying.”

“I’m not going to even ask how you communicate,” Blue said. “I helped approve the project that created you. I know there’s some weird shit in your DNA.”

“Should I be offended?”

“Are you?”

“No,” Beth replied flatly.

“Good,” Blue said. “How close are they?”

“Tomorrow evening they’ll be in Monterey,” Beth said.

Melissa came up to both of them and nodded to the colonel.

“You up for that chat?” Melissa asked. “If you don’t need her anymore, Colonel.”

“I’m good,” Blue said. “Gonna try to get some shut eye for a few minutes. You girls talk away.”

They waited until Blue was out of ear shot before sitting down.

“What’s up?”

“I hear voices,” Beth said.

“Yeah, I know,” Melissa replied. “You’ve always heard voices.”

“No, no, those went away when I fully integrated,” Beth said. “Now I can hear real people’s voices.” Beth looked about to make sure they weren’t being listened to. “I could talk with Rachel Capreze with just my mind.”

“Rachel Capreze?” Melissa asked. “Isn’t that the chick you got your rockin’ bod from?”

“You think my bod is rockin’?”

“Damn straight! You never see the guys staring at your ass when you walk away?”

“Fuck you,” Beth smiled. “I’m being serious.”

“Seriously insane.”

“Dammit, Mel! I didn’t just hear Rachel!” Beth grabbed Mel by the shoulders. “I fucking heard Stone, too!”

Melissa nearly shit, pissed and puked at the same time. “What the fuck, Beth?” she whispered. “Stone? The mother fucker that killed Heather? The guy that chased us halfway across the fucking globe?”

“Yeah.”

“He’s dead.”

“No.”

“Where is he? Tell me where he is, Beth, so I can kill the fucker. I’ll walk across mother fucking water to get to him.”