Reclaim: Books 1-3 Page 2

  "You're not wrong." Teve slapped him on the shoulder and said, "Hop in. Time to go home."

  The fire team, made up from former US Marines and ex-civilians, melded back through the remains of a small city once identified as Glendale. The town skirted the edge of the many great Californian canyon ranges, taking the four up to an area once called Hidden Springs. The aptly named region held a forward operating base for the United Earth Forces. A collective of the world's remaining armies, the UEF was the only force opposing the Zeal on the surface of the planet.

  "Not bad, huh?" Teve said to Mish as she climbed into the driver's seat. He settled into the back of the truck to cover her sector.

  "Took out the target, took out four Stiltz, Adams got his hands dirty, and we didn't lose a soldier."

  Mish gave him a weak smile and turned her head back to the view of Los Angeles in the distance. She switched on the electric engine and started a slow and silent journey up a mountainside highway, passing scattered debris and deep holes on the road.

  The city was no longer a city but a smoldering garbage dump of decay. At the center of the mess stood a tall jagged structure the Zeal occupied their time with. Their constant expansion and remodeling of Los Angeles reminded its former citizens that Earth no longer belonged to humanity.

  His thoughts shifted to the sky as Teve wondered if the soldiers of Mars were ever going to step foot on the home planet and retake the lost cities of Earth. In particular, he thought about his slightly older brother, Bradley—a Mars Armed Forces pilot serving on a Martian battle carrier he hadn't heard from since before the war began. For all he knew, his brother was another name on the long list of those killed in action.

  He turned back to Mish and soaked in her eyes in the rearview mirror.

  "One day we'll kick these assholes out of here and rebuild. For now, though, we need to take every victory we can get."

  Her eyes remained focused forward as the Humvee bumped over a half-destroyed road. She lifted her face to his and said, "You and I will never see that day."

  Chapter Two

  Lieutenant Bradley "Sosa" Porter stared at a distant Earth from the cockpit of his X90 Stalker. He tried to peer past the alien fleet blocking his way from the Mars Armed Forces battle carrier, the MBC Andromeda, to his home world. The blue planet had lost its great coloring ever since the Zeal began terraforming the ancient rock. The Scientists of Mars theorized the blue glow would soon turn to a dark purple within a few years if the war continued.

  "Launch tube Zero-Seven-Niner. You are a go for slingshot."

  Porter turned his head to one of the monitor arrays in his single-seat fighter to see the launch tube tech give him the all clear. In a few moments from now, he would be shot out the side of the kilometer-long ship via a mass driver like a cannonball into the depths of open space, aimed only at the alien fleet in front of him.

  "Mission number Three-Zero-Five, Porter. In and out. Back home for dinner," Caesar said. Porter's wingman, Lieutenant Andre "Caesar" Briggs flew every sortie with him. The two pilots had each other's back for the dangerous job of package delivery to Earth. The simple description of the profession didn't even scratch the surface of the actual nature of the task.

  "Launch tube Zero-Seven-Niner. Launch in three, two, one. Mark."

  In less time than he could blink, Porter's fighter accelerated down a 100-meter shaft to a speed of 500 meters per second, propelled by a sequence of powerful electromagnets. His engines were automatically engaged as soon as he cleared the tube, enabling him some semblance of control as he and 100 other pilots were ejected out into space.

  Their mission was simple: deliver vital supplies and data to Earth. The only problem standing in their way came in the form of the Zeal fleet that hung in Earth's orbit. Three oversized alien carriers nicknamed Cyclones dominated the pilots’ views, reminding every single one of them what they were up against.

  "All fighters away," Command relayed over the comm. "You know the drill people. Let's get those packages delivered."

  Delivered wasn't the word Porter thought of during the process. The actual job resembled something like a paperboy from the olden days tossing a paper from three counties over through a hurricane, all the while hoping the bundle would land on the right person's doorstep.

  "They are not happy today," Briggs said as the lead Cyclone began to launch its version of fighters in response. The alien carrier held an unknown number of small interceptors the MAF had come to call Tritons. The fast-moving ships were shaped like a three-bladed spearhead and each housed a dual, short-range pulse laser system capable of firing in rapid succession.

  "When are they ever happy?" Porter asked. "For once, I'd like it if they'd just let us through without the welcoming party."

  "Oh, come on, Sosa. Where would the fun be in that?" Briggs lined himself up along Porter's side, enough so they could see each other's cockpit. The reflective canopy showed a skewed view of Earth and a thousand plus Tritons scrambling out toward them.

  "Here we go," Porter said. The enemy fighters were still beyond range but on a clear path toward the MAF ship. Behind, the MBC Andromeda would be preparing itself for incoming. An array of batteries would fire missiles and short-range flack to fend off the approaching Tritons.

  "Caesar. You see the opening? I'll send it to you now." Porter's heads-up display showed him a potential weakness in the Tritons' approach. He traced the exit and beamed it across to Briggs. Their mission wasn't to battle the incoming Zeal but to break through the barrage of death and drop the packages sitting within the small holds of their fighters into Earth's atmosphere.

  "I see it. Looks tight. Should we engage first?"

  "Negative. Can't risk the bloodbath. Follow my lead."

  "Fine, dammit," Briggs huffed. "Breakaway. I'm on your ass."

  Porter took a deep breath and broke out from the formation of fighters by his side. The two of them dropped away from the fight and made a long arc back up to the exposed section of the Zeal line. They needed to slice through the pack without dying. Their payload was worth more to the people of Earth than taking out a few Zeal ships.

  A hail of gunfire blazed past Porter's side and splashed into a distant Triton ahead. The small fighter exploded into a radial ball of violent energy. The scout ship was too far in front of the pack.

  "Caesar. Check your goddamn fire. You're too close."

  "Sorry. Just trying to thin out the edges."

  "Form up on me," Porter said.

  Briggs burned closer to Porter's side.

  "Now, keep her steady until I break. We are going to go through the side of the fighters."

  "What? You shout at me for killing the scouts, but we're going through the pack sideways?"

  "Just something I want to try, but don't engage. It should increase our chances of punching through, in theory."

  "In theory? So, we're the test pilots for your little experiment?"

  Tapping a few buttons, Porter brought Briggs up in a display to his left. He looked him in the eyes. "If we do this right, we can show the others how it's done. You in?"

  Briggs glanced away for a moment. Porter noticed the frustration on his face. The man wanted to be in the battle, living each moment as if it was his last. Delivery duty wasn't dangerous enough for him despite the number of deaths the job produced.

  "Fine. Lead the way. I'll keep my finger off the trigger, I guess."

  "Good. I need you focused on my path."

  Porter's fighter broke away from the main pack before the fight began. He aimed the ship on an angle and barreled through the side of the alien formation.

  "Engage e-burners on my mark. Mark." Porter hit his emergency burners to drain almost one-eighth of his fuel in less than ten seconds. The added power pushed his fighter through the side of the pack. At this speed, none of the enemy ships would get a lock on him or Briggs. They were simply accelerating too fast for the Zeal to prioritize them as targets.

  Porter's eyes darted about as he antic
ipated the Tritons’ pathways. His HUD did what it could to warn him of collisions. The alarm sounded every few moments, enough for him to disable the feature. Briggs stayed tight on his tail as they zigzagged their way across the formation, narrowly missing ship after ship.

  Within a minute, they had broken free of the pack's side and straightened out for Earth. The Zeal didn't bother chasing them, having too many other fighters to battle.

  "It worked," Briggs said. "It actually worked."

  Porter let out a long breath, not realizing he'd been holding in a lungful of air. "We did it." He glanced at a live feed displaying a view from his tail. The battle behind began to rage as the MAF fighters fought hard to keep the Zeal busy. Only ten of the hundred ships had broken through without needing to engage the enemy. The remaining Stalkers would be stuck in the fight until they either died or limped back to the Andromeda.

  Bringing his attention back to Earth, Porter focused on the next phase of the sortie. The planet came up faster than he realized as they head across and away from the three Zeal carriers toward North America. The two other Cyclones sat beyond the planet, guarding the other continents against a direct approach. More Zeal fighters launched at the detection of the two lead delivery boys. Porter only hoped they had enough of a head start to avoid an outnumbered skirmish.

  "We are coming up on the East Coast of the United States," Porter said. "You ready?"

  "Affirmative. Package is secure and engaged for drop off. Comms are online."

  "Roger that. Take the lead." Porter allowed Briggs to move ahead and release his crate first. The process involved getting as close to the planet's atmosphere as possible to dip down enough for the package to be able to fall to the surface. They also took the opportunity to beam down data packages to several receivers on the ground to allow communication between Earth and Mars.

  A virtual display showed up in Porter's HUD, guiding him to the exact location he needed to be in to make a successful drop.

  "Lining up. I'm approaching the green zone," Briggs said.

  Porter watched his wingman until the green zone popped up in his HUD. A sea of red surrounded a tiny section of green, superimposed over the planet's atmosphere. It was like shooting a target through a mail slot at 10,000 meters. If they released too early or too late, the package would miss its drop and be guided down to the wrong location. If they managed to insert the box correctly into the virtual hole, the container would use its limited fuel to guide itself to predefined coordinates and land where supplies were needed the most.

  "I'm having trouble getting a solution," Briggs said. "My HUD keeps flashing off. I've got nothing but red."

  "Shit," Porter said. "I see the same. We need to go deeper."

  "Are you serious?" Briggs scoffed. "We're already skimming close enough to the planet as it is. If we go any lower, we won't be able to burn back up again."

  "Step aside then. I'm making this drop." The success rate of deliveries was two in ten, something that bothered Porter after every failed mission.

  "Sosa. It's not worth it. Who's going to make the next drop if you're dead? We've got too many green pilots out there as it is."

  Porter gazed out at the battle. The thousand Zeal fighters were overwhelming the forces. A third of the MAF ships had died or had fallen back to the carrier according to his readout.

  "I can do this," he said. "Either follow my lead or get the hell out of here." He dipped down farther into the atmosphere. A dozen warnings chimed away, begging for attention. Porter disabled every single one of them as he dropped down closer and closer to the point of no return.

  Failure was not an option. The soldiers on Earth needed the supplies now more than ever. Porter's mind drifted to his brother, Teve. The UEF soldier, if he were even alive, would be depending on these drops to keep giving the Zeal hell.

  "This is insane," Briggs said as he followed his wingman.

  "We can do this. Just keep diving." Porter felt the forces of the atmosphere begin to rattle his fighter. Soon the ship would disintegrate into a fireball if he didn't pull up and out. Before death could come for him, the HUD splashed a small section of green, poking through the red. He released the package and connected to a receiver on the ground. The transition took less than ten seconds to complete. "Finally," he muttered to himself.

  Briggs confirmed his own successful drop a moment later. "Okay, I'm done. Now can we go?"

  Porter shook his head to clear his mind. "Let's burn home." He hit the e-burners again for an even longer burst to drain a quarter tank of fuel. There was more than enough to reach the carrier.

  The ship rattled under the opposing forces as his fighter battled the bonds of gravity until it broke free into the Earth's orbit and beyond. The enemy fighters had since arrived on their tail, catching up with ease thanks to the delay.

  "We've got company," Briggs said. "At least a dozen Tritons. Orders?"

  Porter analyzed the small group in the few seconds he had to do so. He and Briggs were out of time and couldn't risk wasting fuel to do a long enough burn away. "Engage."

  "That's more like it." Briggs shot away to the side and completed a full flip to face the fighters. Porter did the same, seeing the Earth rotate in front of him. The move always felt more sickening when a frame of reference such as a planet was present.

  "Through the middle and break," Porter said. "Split them up. Pick off the stragglers."

  "Copy that."

  The two pilots charged through the center of the group and fired a wave of thirty-millimeter explosive rounds from their twin autocannons at a few fighters to make a path. Two of the twelve Tritons exploded; one managed to cause fatal damage to a third ship from the debris generated.

  "Break. Break. Break," Porter said, prompting them to go separate ways. The Tritons became overwhelmed with confusion and began firing at each other in an attempt to hit the two human ships.

  Porter slammed his e-burner for half a squirt to clear their barrage and completed a full, controlled flip to get the drop on another three Tritons. He lit up the first two with a decent blaze of fire, sending a hail of metal into their engines with ease. The third scrambled away, taking a few hits.

  Briggs had pulled off a similar move and had taken out all three of his targets.

  "Four left. One of them is clipped, though. Clean 'em up," Porter ordered.

  Briggs cut out wide and opened a secondary gun port on his fighter. He fired off two smart missiles. The first missed, falling victim to a laser point defense system the alien ships possessed. The second moved through the countermeasures and hit its target, exploding with a hail of blue.

  Porter opted to shoot his remaining fighters with bullets, knowing nothing could stop them. He was down to his last target—the one already clipped—when the Triton completed a flip and exploded from the slow burning rounds embedded in its wing.

  "Got you, asshole," Porter muttered until a piece of the enemy ship smacked into the canopy of his fighter. The impact sent his Stalker into a half spin. "Shit," he yelled as he tried to regain control. His X90 twisted until its stabilizers realigned the fighter.

  "What's the damage?" Briggs asked after he cleaned up the last Triton.

  Taking a second to think, Porter ran a quick diagnostic on the ship. "I'm fine. Just need to head back to the Andromeda before I run out of fuel. I think there's a leak." The warning light chimed away on his fuel indicator. He was in the red and running on fumes. Before he could calculate if it would be enough, the canopy of his ship started to crack.

  "Oh, come on," he said. "My canopy is about to break. Switching to emergency oxygen."

  Briggs laughed down the comm. "Wouldn't be a mission without you busting up your ship. Command is going to have your ass when we land."

  "If we land."

  "Hang in there."

  The oxygen drained from the cockpit as the area vented into space. Porter's helmet supply kicked into action. "The hit is clean through. I'm breathing tank air now. Just leave, Briggs.
Go help them bring it home." Porter sent his wingman a directive to engage the pack and fight his way back to base. The Andromeda would stop any Zeal ships that got too close to home. He just had to survive another push past the thinned-out numbers.

  "I'm not going anywhere, and you know it," Briggs said. "Now quit your whining. We're going home before they close the front door."

  Chapter Three

  Teve's mind began to drift on the drive back to base. He blanked out a few times, desperate to rest. The mission had taken them longer than anticipated, forcing him to be on duty for two days straight.

  Sleep would have to wait as a shimmer of light caught his eye in the distant when a familiar object temporarily covered the setting sun. He pulled up his rifle scope to spot an MAF crate in the wind, slowly drifting toward Zeal territory.

  "Mish. Pull over."

  She complied in a hurry, lurching the vehicle to a stop. "What's wrong?"

  "To the north. We've got a lost package."

  She raised her weapon and eyed off the descending box. "Looks like one of its maneuvering rockets failed to ignite. I'd say its beacons must be fried, too. It'll be in the hands of the Zeal in a few minutes."

  "Not exactly," he said, looking at his e-slate. "According to the map, that sector is neutral. We should be able to snatch it up before they send out a team."

  Mish lowered her rifle. "Neutral, huh? The map might say that, but any idiot can recognize it's on the edge of Zeal infested territory. Do we really want to be caught out in the dark with a few hundred Stiltz on our ass?"

  He let out a sigh. The directive was clear: retrieve any fallen packages unless they land in the red zone. The box settled down a moment later in what came up as an orange area on all systems.

  Lowering his scope, he faced Mish in the mirror. "We can't let the opportunity pass by. Those MAF pilots do a lot of dying to send these supplies to us. Without them, we'd have no weapons to fight back with. Not to mention the data they beam down."