Ghost Squadron: A Jericho Johnson Story Page 4

  Chapter 3

  There was a tradition among the Ghosts following every successful mission that included, but was not limited to, a feast filled with laughter, battle-scar stories, and armwrestling.

  The main course was mostly ice-spider legs that had been skinned and slow-roasted over a spit in the Ghost barracks while the only thing to drink besides snowmelt, or smelt, as it was commonly known, was a concoction Baron had discovered years ago officially called ice-spider wine.

  But, after years of drinking and making it, Baron had shortened the name to swine.

  “You won’t find that stuff in any militia kitchen, love,” Gustav assured Kavi while she peered curiously into the cup he’d given her. “Tell her how you make it, Baron.”

  Baron groaned as if he’d already explained it thousands of times, which he had, and said, “You know what’s in it.”

  “C’mon, big guy,” Rone chimed in, propping her boots on the table of the small mess hall. “We want to hear it from the master.”

  Sighing, Baron gave up and explained the delicate process to Kavi, her eyes widening with each word. The first ingredient was the residual oil left over in the bottom of a pot after boiling spider skins in it. Then the oil was added to about a gallon of smelt and placed in a cellar to ferment.

  But, like one would think, ice-spider wine didn’t get its name exactly from the oil part of the recipe as much as the few drops of ice-spider venom added to the gallon and a half container before letting it ferment.

  “There’s poison in this?” Kavi blurted after Baron had finished his meager seminar on the culinary arts.

  The big man merely shrugged at her.

  “Don’t drink more than two cups a day,” Piper said, heading for the door. “Their venom isn’t exactly toxic but it will give you hallucinations from helheim if you’re not careful.”

  Then she left the bewildered girl with her fellow troops.

  Piper pulled on her white hood before sliding her hands in her coat pockets, her boots making soft clanging noises on the iron catwalk as she headed for her quarters. All mech and tech operations had ceased for the night and Piper took in the silence, glancing down at the empty bays as she walked slowly, relishing the quiet.

  Then her holotab lit up on her right wrist and Arc's face hovered above it. “How was the Bear hunt?”

  Smiling, Piper touched his face and entered into the holochat. “Not too bad. Kavi did alright for her first time.”

  “You mean she didn't die.”

  “Yeah, that.”

  Arc laughed before asking, “What's your plan for the rest of the evening?”

  “Well, I was hoping to share a quiet supper with this handsome geologist—except I don't know where he is.”

  “That sounds amazing, dear,” he said and Piper frowned.

  “But?”

  “I have to pack. Winter was over a month ago so I need to hit the trail hard for Anchorage in the morning while there's still time.”

  Piper had known Arc was leaving soon but she didn't know exactly when. This had happened more than once in almost three years and Piper had thought that it would eventually get easier to abruptly be separated from someone she cared about without any warning.

  At least with Arc the separation was only by miles and not death.

  “Will you come see me before you leave?” Piper asked.

  “No,” Arc said with a smile.

  “Shut up,” she laughed, signing out of the holo-chat.

  It wasn't a strange thing for clansmen to leave their wives and children for months during the summer for hunting and fishing. But as harsh as Svalbard had been, the worst days there weren't even close to the good ones here.

  When she made it back to her quarters she removed her long coat, dropping it over the back of a chair before changing out of her black jumpsuit into her normal sleepwear-

  A lime-green American Eagle t-shirt and faded jeans.

  She'd tried to throw the clothes away several times and even actually made it far enough to get the outfit given to her by Jericho years ago in the disposal bin only to immediately dig the clothes back out. She even had the blue shoes he'd called Chucks except the black and white laces had been removed and wrapped around the hilt of Red Falcon two years ago for better grip.

  Climbing into bed, Piper pulled the thick covers up to her chin and peered at the ceiling.

  The worst part about Arc leaving was that he made her forget. The only times she was able to not think was when she was fighting or with Arc. When he was at the Rebel base she was either topside fighting or at base with him. Even if they were too busy to talk some days it was still fine because he was around.

  But after he was gone and there wasn't anyone to fight, Piper would end up lying in bed like she was now, staring up at the ceiling and trying to not remember.

  But if she was in such a hurry to forget the past then why keep mementos and sleep in them every night?

  Those were always the first thoughts to creep in and those alone were enough to make her question everything.

  She would fall asleep eventually most nights but even sleep sometimes brought dreams overflowing with the ghosts of days gone by. Most were of Jericho and even Bjourn the Berserker, her chieftain, found his way into her dreams.

  “Take care of her, Beck,” Jericho would say, turning on his heel.

  “Don't leave!” Piper would scream except her love couldn't hear her over the sound of hundreds of blacksmiths beating on hundreds of red swords.

  This night was no different and Arc hadn't even left yet. She dozed for what felt like five minutes before she felt someone sit on the bed.

  “Stay warm out there, Arc,” Piper said quietly, her voice sounding like it needed more sleep.

  “Arc's been gone for over an hour,” Beck said, startling her.

  Sitting up quickly, Piper asked, “He didn't stop by?”

  “He stopped by but said you looked like you needed to sleep.”

  Piper squinted against the bright blue light when she switched on her holotab to see was time it was.

  6:45 pm. The day after Christmas.

  “How're you feeling?” Piper asked the synthetic girl while swinging her feet to the cold floor.

  “Sorry for the hour,” Beck said, ignoring the question about her health. Standing, she added, “There's something you need to see.”

  Most people would have asked if it could have waited a few more hours but Piper knew Beck well enough to know that if it could have waited a few hours she wouldn't have came herself to get her.

  In less than a minute Piper had got into her boots and pulled her white long coat over her green shirt, following Beck out of her quarters.

  It was a silent journey with nothing but footsteps echoing for ambiance and the quiet hum of the elevator as they ascended to Beck's quarters. Piper frowned when Beck passed the door to her room and went into the war room instead not ten feet down the hall. Since the council consisted of Beck, Piper and Arc, the room wasn't large.

  “Sit down,” Beck ordered, motioning to the steel table that was used for tactical planning.

  “Ritu contacted me today,” she said, pulling up her holotab. “She said Cross would be leaving for Anchorage this week sometime because his new test subject did extremely well on his or her first trial run.”

  Frowning, Piper said, “Arc just left for Anchorage.”

  “They won't cross paths considering your precious geologist doesn't have air clearance and will be traveling foot if that old snowmobile of his breaks down,” Beck told her. “But I didn't wake you to talk about Cross.”

  Now Piper was really confused. “What, then?”

  “Not thirty minutes after Ritu told me about Cross leaving she contacted me again looking battered and said that the test subject had escaped. So I sent out one of the drones to see if I could get a look at Cross's new toy.”

  Beck hit a few keys and Piper's holotab lit up. “Take a look for yourself.”

  Pi
per opened what she'd sent her and the drone footage started. At first all she could see was snow until a lone figure dressed in black with a hood appeared moving quickly down the sidewalk. When the figure entered an old apartment building the drone camera stopped suddenly.

  “Skipping forward an hour,” Beck said as she pulled the hologram slider along the bottom to skip forward.

  Then Piper saw a five man team enter the apartment building. Rogues, most likely, due to the mismatched battlearmor they all wore. The drone then flew around the other side of the complex when it heard a commotion coming from that side.

  Piper wasn't shocked at first when she saw the hooded figure climbing the side of the building—until she noticed that whatever was climbing at the alarming rate wasn't wearing a suit of any kind that she could see. “How-?”

  “Oh, but it gets better,” Beck said just as the man in black dropped from the top of the complex into free fallwith his arms outstretched, snatching a Rogue who had just leaned out a window for a better shot on the way down, pulling the armored man deep into the snow. Piper frowned again when a bright blue flash exploded from the snow and ice, instantly melting a large radius.

  “Was that an EMP grenade?”

  “I thought it was,” Beck muttered while the drone hovered close to the building and peered through a shattered window.

  “Keep watching.”

  Piper saw the hooded man fall into a window soaked from the water he'd just made and his foot seemed to get stuck in the refreezing liquid. In a few seconds once he'd freed himself, one of the Rogues tore through the ceiling and kicked him across the gallery almost twenty feet away.

  Piper was stunned when the man in black got to his feet and leapt the large gap between he and the armored assailant, taking the man to the floor before grabbing his helmet and-

  “What was that?” Piper asked suddenly, sitting forward in her chair when she saw the same bright blue flashes. “That wasn't a grenade. That came from his hands.”

  “I know. I watched this already, remember? It looks like loads of voltage the guys packing somehow.”

  The remaining Rogues barreled down the stairs then and the hooded man shouted something at them, holding up both his hands, blue/white licks of electricity crackled in his hands and the streaks crawled up his arms to his shoulders.

  Piper couldn't hear the exchange but it ended with the man lowering his hands and one of the Rogues approaching him. The drone lowered a floor on the apartment building, zooming in on the hooded man talking to the armored Rogue.

  Then the video paused.

  Piper glanced at Beck after she stopped the vid and saw she was watching her. “What?”

  “I just wanted to let you know that this next part shocked me a good bit so just, I don't know, steel yourself.” Beck told her.

  Then she played the video.

  Piper saw the Rogue's helmet open and recognized the the female pilot instantly. “What's Red doing chasing after loast science projects?” she asked.

  “That's not the wild part, Pipe.”

  Then the man in black removed his hood and shook hands with the suited red-haired woman.

  Piper's heart stopped.

  “You okay?” Beck asked, crossing the room to her.

  She couldn't speak.

  “Look, I don't know what's going on but we just need to think about this and make a plan of action.”

  Piper wasn't listening while she stared at the man glancing around the burned out gallery of the complex.

  It was Jericho.

  Epilogue

  Beck and Piper sat silently at the table in the war room for a long time after watching the vid from the surveillance drone.

  Then Beck broke the silence. “We know he's with the Rogues.”

  “And we don't know where the Rogues are,” Piper countered, standing. “I'm going back to bed.”

  Piper, wait,” Beck tried. “Don't do anything stupid,” were the last words Piper heard before she exited the room and climbed into the elevator. Once she was back in her room, she locked the door, removed her long coat, then began slowly pacing the small room, questions bubbling to the surface.

  Jericho Johnson was alive.

  But it couldn't be true, could it? Where had he been the last three years if it really was him? Why hadn't he tried to find her?

  Jericho Johnson was alive.

  Why was he so fast and able to climb up a vertical surface without a suit? Why was he wielding lightning like the god of thunder and why did he go with the Rogues?

  Jericho was alive.

  She sat on the bed and drummed her fingers on the blankets before standing and resuming her pacing, her hands covering her mouth.

  Jericho.

  How could this have happened? She saw him die, had she not? She'd survived for three years without him, had she not? Why was he suddenly alive and back? Piper had spent years trying to forget him because she knew he was gone and he was never coming back.

  He was dead to her and she had given what was left of her heart to someone else because she just knew he was gone.

  But he wasn't gone.

  Jericho was alive.

  Piper didn't know what the future held in store for her right then while she laid in her bed. Somehow, though, she found sleep easily that night as no memories seemed to plague her and she knew, as her eyes slipped shut the last time before falling asleep, that her nights of tossing and turning were over.

  She didn't know what the future held but she did know one thing.

  Jericho Johnson was alive.

  Her Jericho was alive.

  THE END