The Atlantis Plague(69)
Dorian glanced over at the snoring pilot again. He was barefooted. Dorian held the boots up to his feet. A little small, but they would do, depending on how far he had to go. And he needed to find that out.
He crawled over to his sidearm and sat phone. He glanced again at the pilot, and considered his next move. The area around the gash in the pilot’s leg already showed signs of infection.
Dorian punched the phone.
“Fleet Ops.”
“It’s Sloane—”
“Sir, we’ve—”
“Shut up. Put Captain Williams on.”
“General—”
“Captain, why the fuck am I stranded in the woods inside enemy lines?”
“Sir, we’ve sent two rescue missions. They’ve shot them both down. You’re deep in their firing range.”
“I do not want to hear how many times you’ve failed, Captain. Send a topographic map to my phone with an overlay of their firing radius.”
“Yes, sir. We think Ceuta may be sending ground troops to your location—”
Dorian held the phone out and studied the map, ignoring the captain. From his location, Dorian thought he could reach the nearest rendezvous point outside Ceuta’s firing range in about three hours. He glanced at his burned feet. Four hours was more realistic. It wouldn’t be an easy trek, but he could make it.
The pilot let out a snore that caught Dorian’s attention. He looked over, annoyed. What to do? The gun and magazines loomed just beside him, silently presenting the solution.
His eyes drifted away as his mind explored alternatives. Every other option he considered was met with a single thought, cold and final: Don’t be a fool. You know what must be done. For the first time in Dorian’s life, he had a face to put with that voice: Ares. He knew it now. For the first time, he could feel his own thoughts, his true thoughts, the person he was before the first outbreak, when his father placed him in the tube. This moment was a microcosm of every difficult decision he had ever made: a struggle between what his emotional, his human self wanted to do, and that cruel, cold voice. Ares. Ares was the drive that had lingered in the background, unseen, prodding Dorian, shaping his thoughts. Dorian had never been fully aware of the struggle within him until this moment. Ares cried out again: Don’t be weak. You are special. You must survive. Your species is depending on you. He is another soldier lost to our cause. Don’t let his sacrifice cloud your judgment.
Dorian raised the phone to his face. “Captain, I just sent you some coordinates.”
He looked at the pilot, then at his burned feet—feet he could still walk on.
“Sir?”
Dorian’s mind rocked back and forth like a tiny ship on rough seas. The voice was firm now. This world wasn’t built for the weak. Dorian, you are playing the greatest chess game in history. Don’t risk a king to save a pawn.
“I’m here,” Dorian said. “I will be at the extraction point in…”
Don’t—
“…eight hours. Be advised, I have another survivor. If we’re not at those coordinates, the rescue team’s orders are to move into the woods and search for us on a heading bearing four-seven degrees.”
And like that, the voice was gone, silenced. Dorian’s thoughts were his own. He was free. He was… different, or was he the person he was always meant to be? The voice in his ear interrupted his reflection.
“Copy, General. Godspeed.”
“Captain.”
“Sir?”
“The girl in my quarters,” Dorian said.
“Yes, sir. She’s here—”
“Tell her… that I’m all right.”
“Yes, sir, I’ll see to it—”
Dorian ended the call.
Dorian fell back to the ground. He was hungry. He needed to eat, needed his strength, especially with the extra weight he had to carry. He would have to hunt.
In the distance, he heard a low rolling rumble. Thunder? No. It was the beat of horses charging through the forest.
CHAPTER 58
Somewhere off the coast of Ceuta
Mediterranean Sea
For the better part of the last hour, Kate and David hadn’t done any talking, and that made her very happy. They lay there, both naked, in the sheets of the king bed centered in the wood-paneled master stateroom.
It felt almost surreal to her, like they were lying in a luxury hotel room, as if the world outside had been only a bad dream. She felt safe and free, for the first time since… since she could remember.
Kate’s face rested on his chest. She loved listening to his heart, watching his body rise and fall with every breath. She traced her finger around the red burn marks on his chest. It looked like he had been branded. “This one is new,” she said softly.