Maelstrom of Treason Read online

  Erik nodded slowly. If Miguel didn’t want to elaborate, he wasn’t going to press him, and something told the detective the anecdote wasn’t the amusing kind.

  “The thing is,” Erik continued, “one of the big differences with my new job is that I won’t always be in Neo SoCal. I’ll need to travel all over Earth, and probably to different planets. Maybe even outside the Solar System, eventually.”

  “Damn, Detective.” Miguel whistled. “The Army dragged your butt all over the UTC for thirty years, and you didn’t get enough? You need to go back out there and find some space raptors to fight?”

  “Something like that.” Erik chuckled. “I could use a good, dedicated mechanic, not just for the MX 60, but for other vehicle work.”

  He hadn’t yet asked Alina to check into Miguel, but it didn’t hurt to feel the other man out. There were still a couple of holes in the team roster that needed to be filled, and a talented man like Miguel could be a major asset. Alina had made it clear she was willing to bankroll their little team. She hadn’t mentioned compensation limits, but it wasn’t like Erik was going to offer Miguel ten times his monthly profits.

  “No offense, and thanks for the offer, but I can’t do that,” Miguel replied. “Zero percent chance of me taking you up on that.”

  “You’re going to say no? Just like that?” Erik raised both palms. “I haven’t even made you an offer.”

  “I love working on your flitter, and I’m sure if I went with you, I’d get all sorts of awesome opportunities to do custom work, but I’m a Torres. And we Torreses don’t move, at least the ones in my family.”

  “Huh?” Erik would have assumed the other man was making a joke if he didn’t look deadly serious.

  Miguel pointed to the ground. “I’m an Earther through-and-through. I’m never leaving this planet, even if the Zitark army starts eating everyone on it. I’ll just hide until they throw hot sauce on me and finish me off.”

  “You don’t even want to see the moon?” Erik pointed in a not-so-random direction behind him. “It’s only a twelve-hour flight.”

  Miguel responded with a harsh shake of his head. “Nope. Whenever you’re in Neo SoCal, I’m glad to help you out and do jobs, even emergency ones, but there’s no way I can up and go into space and do weird stuff. I don’t care if it’s the moon, Mars, Venus, or any other planet.”

  Erik put up his hands in front of him in defeat. “If you feel that strongly, I’m not going to try to persuade you. I’m just surprised. You could make more money working with me.”

  Miguel sighed. “It’s not you, Detective. It’s me. My family. Like I said, I’m a Torres, and not moving is in our genes. If anything, the last few generations are mutants compared to most of my family.”

  “I’m totally lost, Miguel.”

  “My ancestors all lived in Mexico City, all the way back to when it was still Tenochtitlan.” Miguel straightened his back, a proud smile taking over his face. “And I’m sure their ancestors probably lived there for a long time. My grandfather was the first person in my family to move somewhere else in, like, forever. He moved from Mexico after the Summer of Sorrow to help rebuild, you know? I figure my branch of the Torres family can’t leave Neo SoCal, let alone the US or Earth for…” He started ticking off fingers, mumbling before looking back up. “Five hundred years, at least.”

  Erik burst out laughing. “I’m not saying you have to move to the moon or anywhere else. I just want you to travel with me so I’ll have a dedicated mechanic.”

  Miguel shook his head. “I know it’s hard for you to get with you being all over the UTC, but it’s a Torres thing, Detective Blackwell. I can’t go against my nature. For me, it feels wrong to not have a job in the place you live. One of my descendants can leave Neo SoCal permanently in five hundred years, and maybe one of them can leave Earth in a thousand.”

  “I can’t say I’m not disappointed, but I respect your dedication to your family’s, uh, genes.” Erik stood and put out his hand. “And thanks for all the work you’ve done.”

  Miguel stood with a smile. “You’ve paid me a lot of money. So thank you, and always, if you’re around here, I’ll be here.”

  “Yeah. For five hundred years.”

  Erik flew for several minutes in silence before his feelings finally slipped out. “Damn it.”

  “I presume you’re upset that Mr. Torres didn’t take your offer?” asked Emma.

  “Yeah. We’ve got you and Cutter for pilots, Jia and me for investigation and fights, but this isn’t going to work without a good mechanic and engineer.”

  “True, but it’s only been a short time since you accepted the offer, and you’re still working for the department.”

  Erik didn’t respond immediately, instead taking a moment to lower altitude and enter a new lane. “You’re right. It’d be nice to have a whole platoon backing us up, but we’ll get who we need.”

  “Even if Agent Koval has to be the one to provide them?” Emma asked.

  “We’ve already taken her ship and her pilot. It’s too late to worry about her screwing us.” Erik watched a few flitters pass above and beside him. “Besides, Alina knows not to double-cross me because she knows how far I’ll go to get revenge against anyone who does.”

  “I would caution you, Detective Blackwell, against planning to take on the entire galaxy.”

  “If I have to, that’s exactly what I’ll do,” Erik replied.

  Emma chuckled. “You’re setting a poor example for your child.”

  Erik smirked. What had he released in her?

  Chapter Five

  September 29, 2229, Neo Southern California Metroplex, En Route to Police Enforcement Zone 122 Station

  The MX 60 zoomed through the skies of Neo SoCal, trailing the dense fog of other flitters on their way to work that morning. Erik had stopped by Jia’s place to give her a lift because there was a new diner he wanted to check out before their shift started.

  There was something soothing about the flow of vehicles. At the typical height of most towers, she didn’t get to see many natural flocks of birds.

  She’d take the next best thing: colorful flying machines.

  It hadn’t been birds on her mind that morning. Instead, she had related her adventure the night before at the training center. She was curious about what Erik would think.

  “Yeah, I’ve been through that kind of thing.” Erik let out a soft grunt of irritation. “I had to do survival and evasion training early in my time in the Army. They basically drop you in the woods in the middle of Germany and make you survive while being hunted by soldiers and drones. You’re unarmed, and they don’t let you go after the people chasing you, so it’s just a matter of time before you get caught. I pissed them off, though.” He grinned. “I kept evading them until they had to bring in reinforcements.”

  “They got you?”

  “Rather hard to hide from sub-atmosphere satellite imagery and them pinging a chip on me. After that, it’s a matter of dealing with a simulated POW camp.”

  Jia grimaced. “A POW camp?”

  Erik nodded. “In the back of your mind, you know it’s not a real camp, but you still have to sit there in cells, getting screamed at and interrogated. You’re never going to escape from the pursuers, and you just have to grin and bear the camp. It’s about training your mind, not your body. No-win situations to build backbone.”

  “I wonder how aliens treat prisoners?” she mused.

  “Probably with a lot of salt, or a little lemon.” Erik grinned.

  “Not all of them eat meat,” Jia countered.

  “Then I have no clue what kind of seasonings they’ll use. But enough about that. Let’s get back to you. A natural, huh?” Erik shot a glance at her from his seat. “That’s nice to hear. It doesn’t sound like he was just blowing smoke up your ass.”

  “You don’t sound surprised,” Jia commented. “I thought you would be.”

  “Why?”

  She shrugged. “Because I haven�
�t cared about flying a flitter. Honestly, it surprised me once I realized how much I enjoyed the idea of flying a ship. It’s one of the reasons I’ve been spending all my off-time there, even if it’s costing me sleep.”

  Erik gave her a lopsided grin before gently easing his vehicle into a new lane. “A ship isn’t the same thing as a flitter. I saw this kind of thing all the time in the service.”

  “People suddenly deciding they wanted to be pilots?” Jia watched his face; he looked relaxed but not amused. “I imagine you Army types didn’t take too kindly to that.”

  “Hey, the Fleet doesn’t control everything that flies. The Army runs atmo-based support. Besides, I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about discovering hidden talents. If you’ve never had a chance to do something, how do you know if you’re any good at it? I didn’t grow up thinking I’d make a great soldier. I stumbled into it.” Erik’s breezy smile was disarming. “And I think I did a damned good job of it. Same thing with being a cop.”

  “I suppose,” Jia murmured. She lifted her hand. “Not that I’m saying you aren’t a great police officer.”

  “This whole thing reminds me of a private who got sent to my unit as part of a group of late reinforcements during Wolf’s Rebellion.” Erik smiled wistfully. “I didn’t understand why the guy didn’t wash out of Basic. The guy was sloppy, slow, and jumped at the sound of his own voice. Some of the other guys liked to mess with him—crap like holographic Zitarks just to see him jump. They nicknamed him ‘Raptor Bait,’ and the name stuck. I felt sorry for the guy. I tried to help him out, but it felt like he wasn’t cut out to be a soldier.”

  Jia folded her arms and glared at Erik. “And I remind you of that guy? Gee, thanks.”

  Erik laughed. “The situation does. You don’t. For one thing, you’re a lot hotter than him.”

  “I’d hope so,” Jia grumbled. “And I hope this story goes in a far different direction.”

  His grin never left his face. “Anyway, the point is, we all thought he was going to get someone killed, and nobody wanted him in the platoon. That posting wasn’t rearguard garrison duty. We were in the middle of a major anti-insurrectionist offensive. We were having to go door-to-door in some places to clear out insurrectionists.” Erik averted his eyes for a moment, a distant look on his face. “Emma, take over for me.”

  “I’ve taken control, Detective,” she replied.

  Erik released the yoke. He’d mentioned losing his arm during Wolf’s Rebellion but hadn’t volunteered anecdotes about his participation in the conflict otherwise.

  Everything Jia had read about the rebellion painted it as a brutal campaign of slow attrition, where Army soldiers were constantly forced into dangerous situations in which it was difficult to distinguish noncombatants from insurgents. She could understand why he didn’t want to talk about it.

  A year of dealing with criminals had left her unsteady at times. She could only imagine what decades of dealing with terrorists and insurrectionists had done to Erik, even if he was good at covering it up with a handsome, easy smile.

  “We were called to flush some insurgents out of an industrial park,” Erik continued. “It’d been hit pretty hard by arty during a battle a few days prior. It was supposed to be clear after that, but we’d gotten intel on scattered forces using it as a staging area that was backed up by recon. Our unit was the closest, so we went there to hit them hard and fast before they could dig in and get reinforcements.” He narrowed his eyes. “But…”

  “But?” Jia whispered.

  “It’s not like Molino’s the only time I’ve been ambushed,” Erik ground out. “We had bad intel. Very bad intel, and the recon was incomplete. We saw what the insurgents wanted us to see, so when we showed up, they waited and then took out our CAS. They were ready for us, and they obviously had better intel on us than we had on them.”

  “CAS?” Jia asked. Several possibilities popped into her head, but she often found herself lost when Erik fell into full military acronym mode.

  “Close air support,” Erik explained. “You have to understand that we were expecting a few insurgents with old rifles. We thought we’d be able to mop them up without taking a single casualty.” He looked around for a moment, pulling together his thoughts. “But that’s not what happened. What we got instead was a well-disciplined and entrenched unit with anti-air batteries and heavy weapons. They were well-led. It was one of the top local insurgent commanders.”

  “I see,” Jia murmured. “But this was just a…normal ambush?”

  Erik narrowed his eyes. He let out a quiet scoff, and his expression softened. “Those guys were the people we expected to be fighting. Their weapons might have been beefier than we expected, but no one was using experimental tech. Back then, I didn’t have conspiracies gunning for me.”

  “Not that it makes it any better,” she admitted.

  Erik stared straight ahead. “Yeah. The thing is, you and me? We’ve fought a lot of people, but none of those guys were set up like true military units, let alone insurgents doing their damnedest to force the UTC military off their planet. It’s one thing when you know you just have to blast your way through a few guys with guns. It’s another when they’re raining missiles on you or lighting up your vehicles with turrets. When people start dying quickly, animal instinct kicks in.” He looked her way. “It’s easy to be brave when you have the bigger gun and you expect to win. The real test of courage comes when you think the opposite. I’ve been there more than a few times in my life. I’ve managed to make it this far without forgetting what it means to be brave.”

  Jia nodded slowly. “And that’s what happened? A bravery test?”

  “We were pinned down on all sides.” Erik gestured to his side as if an enemy might be floating there with a gun at that exact moment. “They were jamming our comms, and we had no idea when reinforcements were going to get there. That’s when the Lady decided to play her greatest prank yet. If I hadn’t been there, I might not have believed it.”

  Jia managed a quiet laugh, some of the tension draining with the noise. “I often think that about some of the things we’ve been through together.”

  “Yeah.” Erik’s grim visage vanished, the familiar jokester mask returning. “This wasn’t just a bravery test. It was also when Raptor Bait became a man. The insurgents had downed most of his squad. He was cut off from the rest of us, including my squads, and we were taking so much fire, it wasn’t like we could do much. He stabilized the other soldiers in his squad, and then he made his move, despite being under heavy fire and by himself.” He shook his head, a faint look of disbelief on his face. “We’re all sitting there getting the shit shot out of us when we hear him shouting. He amplified it with his gear so even the insurgents could hear him. He wanted them to hear him. I might be misremembering how things went down, but I swear that everyone stopped shooting at the same time because we were all trying to figure out if we were crazy because of what we were hearing. Then he yells it again a few more times, and I know we’re not hearing things. The world had turned crazy, not us.”

  “Crazy?” Jia asked.

  “Yeah. Because you know what that worthless scrub was yelling in the middle of a firefight where we stood a good chance of getting massacred?”

  “’Die, insurgent scum?’” Jia guessed.

  Erik shook his head. “Something like that would not have done it. That kind of thing they hear all the time. He’s yelling something way different.” He took a deep breath, a chuckle escaping with his exhalation. “I swear this is a direct quote, ‘I am Raptor Bait, God of All Zitarks. You humans have offended me with your presence. Prepare to die and be eaten!’”

  Jia gasped. “No!”

  He nodded. “Yes. True story.”

  “He actually said that?”

  “Yeah. Like I said, he yelled it several times. He finishes off another rant, and then there’s a burst of gunfire out of nowhere. Everyone starts firing, but we’re all confused. Less than a minute later, we se
e a flare, and we realize Raptor Bait’s cut through the enemy surrounding him, taking advantage of their confusion, and he’s flanking their entire force. He threw their whole defensive line into disarray. He’s taking insurgents down left and right, even after taking several rounds. He keeps ranting and raving about being the God of All Zitarks, and how the insurgents have defiled his Holy Sheep Shrine, and now they have to pay with their offerings.”

  Jia listened in silence, rapt.

  “We still don’t know what’s going on, but we get that we have to take advantage now.” Erik pointed to the side of his head. “We figure maybe he’s just lost it, but that didn’t change the fact that he’s taking people down so quickly, the insurgents are having to send reinforcements to his area, leaving holes for the rest of us to exploit. We get it together, and we push. It was a pincer, with most of us on one side and Raptor Bait on the other like he’s some badass from a movie. The whole thing’s over in five minutes. We’d surrounded them, and the enemy who didn’t die quickly surrendered.”

  “And Raptor Bait?” Jia asked, dread knotting her stomach. Heroic charges often ended with equally heroic deaths.

  “The guy’s taken multiple rounds. He’s got shrapnel in him.” Erik’s lips parted in disbelief. “I don’t even know how he was still moving with those kinds of wounds. From what the medic said, he should have been dead from blood loss alone, but he’s still conscious and smirking like he’d just single-handedly defeated the insurgency. So, the medics slapped patches on him, then I get around to asking him if he knows where and who he is.”

  “You figured he’d just lost it?” Jia asked.

  Erik nodded. “Yeah. But he gives me his name, rank, and ID number. I ask him about the Zitark stuff he was shouting, and he looks me square in the eye and says, ‘I had to do something. Shit intel was going to get us killed. What do you care? It worked, didn’t it?’”

  He laughed. “We got our reinforcements soon after reestablishing comm, and the wounded were evacuated, including Raptor Bait. We all recommended him for the Medal of Valor and Sacrifice. Raptor Bait almost washed out of Basic, but when the pressure came, he was better than any of us. After that, we started calling him ‘Raptor God.’ The guy ended his tour with more medals than most squads earn together. That whole thing taught me that you never know what a man or a woman can do until you give them a chance. They might have some hidden strength they haven’t had a chance to call on.”