The Eagle's Last Stand Read online

  She whipped her head at Courtney. “Courtney, did this one say anything to you about any betrayals or traitors?”

  “Betrayals and traitors are redundant. And what do you mean?”

  “When it taunted you.”

  “I don't think so. Anyways, are there any Anunnaki still alive? Maybe you can use one of their bodies for this platform.”

  Dagos felt stupid for not thinking about that. She looked to Sledge and they decided on the unconscious overseer. They stood at opposite ends of it.

  “On three,” Dagos said, shaking her arms out. Anunnaki were usually several hundred pounds. This wouldn't be a cake walk.

  “Incoming!” Courtney cried.

  Dagos looked over her shoulder and saw five enemy soldiers emerge into the chamber. Her eyes met Sledge's. “Go!” she said, abandoning the body and racing to Courtney's platform, a scepter in tow.

  Heart racing, she pushed the designator into Courtney's hand as she hugged her.

  “Thank you,” she said, tears forming in her eyes.

  “I'm not dead yet,” Dagos said, patting her on the shoulder. “Now run like hell.”

  “We'll send help as soon as we can,” Sledge said, nodding at her intently.

  She watched them bolt for the wall, the former holding an Anunnaki hand he'd severed off a Sinserian guard. She thought back to one of Menendez's crappy jokes. Anunnaki hands really come in handy. Sledge pressed the hand against a wall and an opening formed. Yes, they did.

  Pulse surges whistled through the air after them, but they were out in seconds. The Anunnaki exchanged howls, a couple shoving each other. Then four disappeared, chasing after Sledge and Courtney. One remained in the chamber, watching her.

  “Your friends left you behind,” she taunted.

  The Anunnaki said nothing. For once, she hoped it spoke English.

  “Could say the same about you,” it said slowly, no doubt a little unfamiliar with the language.

  “You recognize me, don't you?”

  “The Eagle.”

  “Seems a little unfair that your friends get to go hunt and you're stuck here babysitting.”

  The Anunnaki angled its head in curiosity.

  “At least, it would be for human soldiers. My point is how would you like to say you've beaten the Eagle? We could have a quick skirmish. I'm right here.”

  The Anunnaki hissed. “I see. You think you can escape if I step on the pressure platform. You want to lock me in?”

  The thing wasn't as stupid as it looked. Though, to be fair, they looked an awful lot like humans. Just bigger and grayer.

  Its eyes went black and it began interfacing, striding toward her. “I'll calibrate the platform so it won't explode if I'm the last one standing on it.”

  That complicated things a little. She couldn't simply run off the platform now. She had to beat it one-on-one.

  “Thought you were going to trick me, huh?” the Anunnaki said, stepping onto the platform and flexing its hands.

  Shifting her grip on the lance, she carefully began circling the soldier. Every few steps, she feinted thrust attacks and studied the Anunnaki, trying to get a sense of its speed, timing, and reflexes. Battling Anunnaki caught off-guard was one thing. But she'd outright challenged this one to a fight and he accepted. Meaning he knew exactly what he was getting himself into. She did not. This Anunnaki could be a lazy soldier who rarely spared or a hand-to-hand combat champ.

  Without warning, he lunged and tore the lance from her grip.

  She flinched, but if she wanted any chance of winning she couldn't surrender the weapon to him. A jump and she clutched the scepter, trying to wrestle it free. His strength and size advantages overwhelmed her. Locking eyes with him, she leaned in and put all her momentum into a single maneuver.

  With a twist, she wedged the scepter out of his hands and it flew off the platform. That was the most she could achieve.

  The Anunnaki hissed. “Too easy.”

  Given the stats on unarmed humans versus unarmed Anunnaki, things were going to get even easier for him.

  She sidestepped away from a single strike then parried a second punch. Still, the impact left her off balance for a second then she regained her footing. As the soldier swiveled around to face her, she extended her leg at his left knee. With a sweeping blow, he knocked her to the ground.

  She met it with a roll and scrambled upright.

  “You do this often?” she mused, trying to buy herself a moment.

  “Not that often,” the Anunnaki shrugged.

  She became aware that this fight was only a form of self-gratification for the soldier. She spitted to the side. He had officially rubbed her the wrong way. She hadn't sparred with Orun just to let enemy warriors get the better of her.

  Based on the size differences and her lack of weapons, a specific fighting style called out to her. Aikido. Her old training rushed back to her.

  She was the tori, he the uke. Facing the Anunnaki, she took a deep breath for focus and awaited his charge. Evade, get him off balance, and throw.

  The Anunnaki launched in with a punch, and she pivoted out of the way, cradling the punch in her hands. As their momentum synced in aiki, she felt the flow of his weight. Now she could channel his force as her own.

  In a swift, controlled maneuver, she threw him down and bent his arm in her direction. The Anunnaki growled in agony. Without a second thought, she pulled on his arm to generate leverage and jutted her boot against his cranium. The enervating blow knocked him out. Or maybe it killed him. She didn't care.

  Her forehead slick with sweat, she hopped off the platform, grabbing the bloodied scepter.

  Not too soon, either. The overseer was waking up. The first thing it saw was the lance at its face.

  “You get to help me escape,” she said, digging out an EpiPen from her back pocket.

  And then she plunged the needle into the overseer's head, poisoning him. If he wanted the antidote, he'd have to do whatever she asked.

  22

  Thanks to the ship's gravity generator, there was no need to strap in or even sit down. The Anunnaki ship was flying at several thousand feet an hour and all she felt was a mild vibration beneath her feet. Anunnaki didn't use windows, so she couldn't see the land rushing below them. She had to take the overseer's word that he was flying her to safety.

  He would succumb to her demands if he valued his own life. When she said she didn't have the antidote to the poison, she wasn't lying. More than likely, the New Mexico base would have it. But who knew? She wouldn't shed a tear if the overseer died after saving her.

  “I'm telling you that they'll shoot us down before letting you go free,” Overseer Drekken grumbled, seated in a black console that almost resembled the exoskeleton of a scorpion, the tail linked to the ceiling. The rest of the capsule was oval shaped with about fifteen feet between the control console and the walls on each side.

  She squeezed the scepter and swung it up to the overseer's face. “Didn't they ever teach you how to make an escape in snaker school?”

  “What do you think?” he snapped.

  She walked over to the walls and tried to distract herself with the glyphs. Humans called them Signs, for a lack of better understanding of what the hell else to call them. They encompassed virtually every form of glyphic writing system found in the ancient world. And then some. Far too complicated for a human to learn unless you were Courtney. That was the intelligence of the enemy they were fighting every day. As if that weren't enough of a challenge, there were quite possibly enemies within their own ranks.

  She rubbed her hand over her hair.

  “I have a question for you. Did you screw up our chopper's engine?”

  “Oh, I wish we had. I would've loved to take credit for that.”

  This was the answer she was afraid of. They'd really been sabotaged by someone on the inside. She pictured Commander Ham. But when she factored in Sledge's admission of the tip-off, she knew Ham wasn't the real culprit.

&nb
sp; He'd complained a lot of the politicians and the suits with agendas. At first, her and the Snake-eaters attributed it to healthy griping by a man who'd gotten his hands dirty. But over the years, Ham would accuse certain people behind their backs. He'd tell her to watch out for the snakes among them as much as the snakes from outer space.

  There'd be no way to know who to blame really. She couldn't ask Ham and she couldn't report this anomaly to any other superiors. None were trustworthy. She could only keep this between her and Sledge. Maybe a few other soldiers that she would vet in time.

  Massaging a knot in the back of her neck, she couldn't help imagining what she would do if she were in Commander Ham's position. She would plan an operation so carelessly that any politician with half a military brain would protest. She would see who protested and who signed off. Whoever green-lit a self-sabotaged operation was the one she'd continue watching. As for the soldiers, she'd send her best. Because deep down, she'd know they were good enough to pull it off. Probably. If not, she'd remind herself that it wasn't all her fault. The pressure of the Anunnaki and the limits of bureaucracy were the real problems. And she'd use the loss to make sure the right heads rolled.

  Her own understanding unnerved her almost as much as the possibility of this itself.

  It was like Sledge had said, she'd changed. She'd adopted some of her commander's principles by osmosis.

  The overseer claimed that Sledge and Courtney had made it out alive. As a result, Jakarta automatically shut down the snake-holes. That's why they had to take a ship out. She wondered how her and Sledge's operations would go down from here on out. Would he request a transfer? Or would he continue, only calling her “ma'am” instead of her name?

  Suddenly the ship shook violently. Her heart pounded. This wasn't a plane. There wasn't turbulence.

  “What happened?” she cried.

  “They're blasting us.”

  She squeezed the scepter so hard her hand cramped up. She couldn't even die fighting. That angered her the most. Not the dying part. Dying was the easy part. Because all your worries went away with you.

  “How bad?”

  “Another clear shot and we're going down.”

  She didn't need to bother asking about a weapons system. She'd chosen this ship for speed. It was a high-velocity shuttle.

  “They're preparing another volley,” Overseer Drekken said.

  “Take us down,” she said.

  “You want me to land?” he asked with relief.

  “Yes.”

  A few seconds later, he said, “We're on the ground. I've signaled that you're surrendering”

  “Oh, I didn't say anything about surrendering,” she said. In a single stride, she had the scepter against his head. “Up the gravity generator to its max.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “And if I refuse?”

  She pressed the blade against his skull. “I don't have to kill you. I can several your temporal lobe. Render you among the most mentally limited of your species.”

  He hesitated.

  “I'll make it easy. Do this and you can leave. I don't care if you die here with me or later when my fellow earthlings wipe you all out.”

  “Fine.”

  And the overseer hurriedly clicked a series of buttons on his console.

  If Commander Ham or whoever wanted a martyr, they'd have one now. The seconds seemed to speed by. Like she was watching the closing scenes of her life. She couldn't quite wrap her head around it. All her emotions escaped her.

  “You're on your own,” Overseer Drekken said.

  “Yes, I am,” she said, giving his neck a swipe with the blade. Clutching his throat, he palmed the wall, and staggered through the freshly formed exit. Smiling at the only reality that awaited her, she launched the scepter to the other side of the ship. It was as good as useless against an Anunnaki pursuit team. She might as well have been unarmed.

  Already, the ship began warming up, the whir of the gravity generator filling her ears. She licked her lips and decided to prepare herself. Her camo uniform, her boots, her over-pants. She removed them until she wore only a tank top and a pair of skin-tight leggings. Then she took a deep breath and laid flat on the floor of the ship. The vibrations tickled her insides, but within a few seconds they turned into pricking sensations.

  Something bit on her head as hard as a sirrush. In seconds, the migraine spread from one end of her cranium to the next.

  The gravity generator would fail eventually. No Anunnaki ship possessed one powerful enough to go on forever. You needed a planet for that. By the time it shut off or broke, though, she'd be dead. And her body probably beyond recognizable. She might've shuddered at the thought, but the tight force of gravity was pressing down on her. She felt like she was back in those deep-water operations where the pressure could burst an ear drum. As if on cue, a painful pop went off in the right side of her head.

  By now, the Anunnaki would've surrounded the ship. She'd left Overseer Drekken literally speechless, so he wouldn't have a chance to warn them.

  A whine came from her stomach followed by an intense pain. That must've been one of her organs. Something else inside her shuddered, and she felt an intense nausea. The capsule began spinning and black dots spawned in her vision.

  Then sunlight spilled in along with a group of Anunnaki. She was too weak to count. Eight? Ten? A dozen? In a blur, they hit the floor beside her. The combination of the gravity and their weight made them as good as dead. She relished the thought. She'd just topped off her kill ratio nicely.

  And then a cold pain swept through her entire body. Too much to bare. Worse than any gunshot. It was a surprise her nerve endings hadn't gone out yet. How long before her heart burst, she wondered? The pain was there. Like a giant drill pressing into her chest.

  Her instincts began taking over. Begged her to give in, to accept the darkness forming at the edges of her vision. Yet she thought of the little blonde girl waiting for her. Her happy laughs and giggles. Laura. She wouldn't become an orphan.

  With the last of her strength, she willed her body to hang on. But everything was darkening.

  EPILOGUE

  The roar of AH-64 Apache rotors filled the air, tarnishing the otherwise serene landscape of the Santa Fe National Forest. Roving mountains covered by rich firs and junipers stretched for miles and miles. Normally, you couldn't find a nicer scene in the Southwest.

  Harveth inhaled deeply, smelling a mingle of pine and sun-baked bark. But also ash. His ears were still ringing from the recent engagement. Apaches on Anunnaki. They had lit up the Anunnaki ships with Hellfire missiles. The Pentagon even deployed a few F-35s for good measure. Together their jets and choppers overwhelmed the Anunnaki fighters. Collateral damage was to be expected, of course. They'd driven out the Anunnaki and that was what mattered. Now it was onto the retrieval phase.

  A steady fire was consuming a patch of trees five hundred meters down the slope, smoke gushing up, forming a haze in the stark blue sky.

  No signs of the enemy. You're clear to proceed to the landing site, the base's logistics operator reported.

  “Copy that,” Harveth said with a thick Southern drawl. The former Army Ranger hopped out of the olive drab open top jeep and onto the grass. With his M4A1 cradled against his body, but aiming down, he approached the landing site in quick, athletic strides, the rest of his patrol squad bringing up the rear.

  Something urged him on even though he knew the Eagle was as good as a goner. Reports from the choppers suggested she'd activated the Anunnaki ship's gravity generator. By now it had shut off, but he didn't want to imagine how it had affected her body. Even if she was still recognizable, her organs would've given out and that included her heart.

  Still, they ordered him to bring his VIP life preserver. In a way it annoyed him because if he lost it, they'd have his ass. The life preserver was so valuable, their base only possessed one. Apparently, the Eagle's handler believed there was a chance. Rumo
rs were that the Eagle's handler had also once been her lover, though. So more than likely it was just a desperate hope.

  Close up, the Anunnaki ship was surprisingly intact on the outside. It looked like a stealth bomber, but silver and angular, curving smooth instead of forming edges where it bent.

  Within five minutes, he and his three fellow patrol officers clambered up the side of the ship and were walking to the opening the Anunnaki had formed.

  “We sure the generator shut off?”

  “Of course,” Harveth said, leaving no room for any more silly questions.

  Without a second thought he reached the edge of the opening and leaned in. A scene of death hit him. Bloodied Anunnaki, their bodies locked against the ground. In the center was the Eagle's motionless body. Her tank top and leggings hugged her body. Veins webbed across her arms and face, marked by red sores. Her eyes stared blankly, blood-red.

  Even though he'd expected worse, his stomach sank at the sight. He let himself down and nudged an Anunnaki with the barrel of his M4A1. To his surprise, it gave a slight moan. His entire body tensed and he stepped back, leveling his rifle. Was it alive or was that just a sound from its body? He noticed one of its fingers twitching.

  Better to be safe than sorry.

  “How's it look in there?”

  “Clear out the Anunnaki,” he ordered and began double-tapping each of the bodies.

  In a matter of seconds, he and his squad had ensured all the Anunnaki were eliminated.

  “Holy shit,” his teammate cried, knelt beside the Eagle. He removed his fingers from her neck. “I got a pulse!”

  “How sure are you?”

  His teammate checked for a pulse again, and his face lit up. “I'm certain.”

  Harveth didn't know what to say, but he knew exactly what to do. He tore the small VIP preserver Epipen from his tactical vest, swooped in, and plunged it into the Eagle's arm. What exactly the VIP preserver contained was beyond his clearance level, but rumors suggested it used some kind of Anunnaki nanites that could stabilize someone close to death. Cardiac arrest, internal bleeding, oxygen loss to the brain. Didn't matter. The nanites would fix any fatal injuries. The rest the doctors would have to fix the old fashioned ways.