Nicholas Smith - Extinction Age

Beckham forced himself to watch. Valdez had given his life for his men. He’d fought valiantly to the end so that his brothers would live. Looking away would dishonor him.

Halfway down the pier, the main mass of Variants surged over the concrete barricades. Thousands of talons reached toward the sky. The creatures climbed over one another in an effort to reach the feeding. What was left of Ryan and Valdez was quickly consumed, buried in the heart of the diseased flesh.

The pilots maneuvered over the river and pulled away from the city. Beckham said a prayer, scanned the ruined New York skyline one more time, and collapsed next to Jinx’s limp body. The nightmare that was Operation Liberty was finally over. A handful of heroes were dead and New York was lost, but he had a feeling the war had only just begun.

The monsters were gone, but signs of the nightmare they had unleashed on Plum Island were everywhere. Blood stains from the Marines who had tried to hold the Variants back crisscrossed the concrete. Bullet casings littered the ground. A single helmet remained on the tarmac.

Kate stood at the front of a group of civilians, waiting again for Team Ghost to return. A brilliant sun cast rays of morning light on the skeleton of the Chinook a hundred yards away. It sat there like a brooding beast, the darkened metal still steaming. Above it, the shape of a single Blackhawk sparkled in the sunlight. Kate squeezed Jenny and Tasha’s hands as they watched the helicopter approach.

“Clear a path!” someone shouted. Four medics in Medical Corps uniforms pushed through the group. They broke off into pairs and hurried across the tarmac carrying stretchers.

“What are they doing?” Tasha asked.

“They’re going to help the soldiers,” Kate replied.

“Is daddy hurt?” Jenny asked.

“No, honey.”

Tasha looked up with glossy eyes. “Is Reed?”

“He’s going to be just fine.”

Riley wheeled his chair to the front of the group and took off after the medics. Fitz followed close behind, ignoring the orders from a Medical Corps guard posted at the edge of the tarmac. Kate was still amazed at how fast the young Marine sharpshooter could run on his prosthetic blades.

Kate watched anxiously as the chopper set down and disgorged over a half dozen men. The medics rushed forward in a low run beneath the blades. They pulled two people from the craft a moment later, a soldier and a woman in a CBR suit. Team Ghost huddled around and helped the medics place the injured onto the stretchers.

She scanned the group, counting the survivors. Relief came flooding over her when the familiar faces came into view. Timbo, Peters, and Rodriguez were the first. Next came Chow and Jensen. Horn and Beckham were at the back of the group, jogging alongside the medics. A pale, limp hand hung from the stretcher on the right. There was no question then that another life had been lost.

The woman on the other stretcher reached up slowly, and Beckham grabbed her hand. Kate’s heart lurched at the compassionate gesture. After everything he’d been through, the fact that the hardened soldier could still be so gentle and kind was the thing she admired most about him.

Ellis stepped up beside Kate. She hadn’t heard him approach. He scooped down to pick up Jenny and then held her so she could see the approaching team.

“They found another survivor out there?” he asked.

“I… I don’t know,” Kate replied. “I overheard 1st Platoon had a couple of survivors, but they were taken to one of the destroyers off the coast.”

“Maybe Beckham’s team found someone else,” Ellis said.

“I guess so,” Kate said. She stepped back as the Medical Corps soldier in front yelled, “Make room!”

Jensen was the first to reach the end of the tarmac. He stopped to stare at the downed Chinook.

“He doesn’t know,” Kate whispered more to herself than anyone.

The commander took off his helmet and ran a hand over his head. Kate could only imagine what he was feeling. He’d returned from war to a home that had been ravaged by the monsters.

Major Smith pushed through the crowd and met Jensen and the others on the tarmac. Riley and Fitz were already there. The kid swiveled his wheelchair to watch the medics continue past, his blue eyes locked on the stretcher. He wheeled after it and then stopped, his hands falling to the sides of his chair.

Kate’s heart shattered at the sight. She saw Jinx’s face then—and the gaping wound that stretched across his neck. He was gone a moment later, the medics rushing him and the woman away.

When she turned back to the tarmac, Beckham was staring right at her. He stopped a few feet away, and she took him in with a quick scan. Every inch of his uniform was covered in blood and grime. She could smell the stench of raw sewage on him from where he stood.

Kate didn’t care. Horn ran to his girls, and she ran to Beckham. He wrapped his arms around her and squeezed her so hard she could hardly breathe. When he finally let up, she tilted her head and searched his eyes. They were still strong and confident, even now, after so much had been lost.

“Are you okay?” they asked each other at the same time.

They shared a sad, companionable chuckle that lasted only a fraction of a second. He pulled her in tight again and said, “What happened here?”

“Horn didn’t tell you?”

Beckham looked toward the medics and said, “There wasn’t much talking on the ride back.”

Kate wasn’t surprised. The last thing the men had needed to hear when they were in New York was that their home was under fire.

“That Chinook,” Kate said, pointing. “It was carrying a load of Variants for medical research. Eighteen of them. One of them got out. It killed the crew and the chopper crashed. The creatures escaped… and murdered over a third of the island’s population.”

“Christ,” Beckham said. “Riley, Fitz, you, and the girls… you’re all okay?”

“We’re okay,” Kate said. “We have Fitz to thank for that. If it weren’t for him, we wouldn’t be talking right now. None of us would be.”

Beckham’s features softened, his jawline relaxing. “Thank God for that.” When he turned to the Chinook, all trace of emotion disappeared from his features. He hardened back into an operator right in front of her eyes.

“How bad is it out there?” Kate asked in a voice shy of a whisper.

Beckham bowed his head. “It’s gone, Kate.”

“What’s gone?”

He caught her gaze and said, “The whole damn world.”

Jensen walked into a quiet command center wondering if he should have stayed behind instead of going to the front with Team Ghost and 1st Platoon. There had to have been something he could have done to prevent the massacre on Plum Island. Maybe if he had sat Operation Liberty out, the Variants would never have escaped the Chinook. Maybe he would have ordered the bird shot down before it made land.

No , you can’t think like that.

The domino effect of decisions could drive a man mad. If he had stayed behind at Plum Island, then he’d be kicking himself over Jinx, Ryan, Valdez, and the countless Marines who had died.

Regret was a part of war. Every single decision stayed with a soldier for the rest of his life. There were no take-backs, no time machines. You had to believe that everything went down the way it was supposed to, or else you’d go crazy.

Jensen strolled over to the observation window. All of this could have been avoided—the virus, the war. He couldn’t wrap his mind around the numbers. Even if he tried, he couldn’t picture what a billion people looked like, let alone six.