Extinction Age by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

Hill said.
    She glanced back at Riley and he winked at her.
    “You can’t see Beckham right now, anyway,” Riley said.
    “Why not?”
    “Because he’s about to leave for another mission.”
    “He just got back,” Meg said, shocked.
    “He’s Delta Force—and even if he wasn’t, that’s just how he
is,” Riley said. “He won’t rest until there are no more missions.”
     

-8-
     
    T he clouds vanished as afternoon turned into
evening. A carpet of blue stretched across the seemingly infinite sky. Warm,
radiant rays sparkled over the waves below. The view was hypnotizing, and Fitz
had a hard time leaving his guard post when his shift was up. If it weren’t for
Lieutenant Colonel Jensen’s sharp voice barking in his headset, he would have
kept staring.
    “Fitz, report to command, ASAP,” Jensen said.
    “Roger that, sir,” Fitz replied. He scoped the north with his
MK11 one last time, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Truxtun , but only
saw the vast blue of calm waters.  
    Fitz turned away from the view when he thought he heard a
distant scream come from the sea. Imagined or real, it was time to get moving.
He gritted his teeth and climbed the skeletal ladder to the beach. Each rung
put pressure on his thighs, the muscles burning with every step. When he
reached the bottom, he bent down to rub them and check his prosthetics. As he
examined the carbon fiber blades, the voices of his fellow amputees back at
Bragg came up from memory. They’d called each other Flex-Foot Cheetah and Blade Runner. Both were nicknames he’d never liked much. The legs didn’t
define him; they only helped him get from point A to B, like a car. And he
didn’t label his friends by what they drove.
    He wiped the sweat from his forehead with a swipe of his palm
and crouched down for a better look. There was a small dent on the right blade
just above the curve. He reckoned it was the result of his fall the night
before. A dark streak of blood that he couldn’t seem to wash off had settled in
the indentation.
    Fitz threw the strap of his rifle over his back. He stretched
for several minutes by reaching down to his blades. When his muscles felt
fresh, he took off running toward Building 1. Four soldiers were jogging across
the concrete path ahead. He couldn’t help but wonder if Jensen was cooking
something up. When he saw Beckham, Fitz knew the answer. Something was
definitely happening.
    So much for a nap, shower, and a shit.
    “Master Sergeant!” he yelled.
    Beckham halted at the base of the stairway to the command
building while the other men continued inside. The operator’s face lit up the
moment he laid eyes on Fitz.
    “Fitz, good to see you,” Beckham said. He looked him up and
down. “You look like hell, Marine.”
    “Clearly you haven’t looked in a mirror lately,” Fitz replied
with a chuckle.
    They shook hands and fell quiet, the somber mood of the day
taking over. Beckham looked away for a moment. Fitz could see the pain of a
memory surfacing on Beckham’s mind. It was evident in his posture and critical
stare.
    “Sorry to hear about Jinx,” Fitz said.
    “He was a good man,” Beckham replied.  
    Fitz didn’t know what to say, so he simply nodded and tried
to stand as tall as he could despite the pain in his thighs and knees.
    “Glad I caught you before going inside,” Beckham said. “I
haven’t had a chance to thank you yet for saving the day here.”
    Fitz grimaced and shook his head. “Man, you don’t need to
thank me. I did what anyone else would have done.”
    “No,” Beckham said sternly. “Most men would have run the
other way in your situation.”
    Fitz considered that as he glanced at the blue sky. He was a
Marine, which meant he was trained to run toward a fight, not away from it. But
Beckham was still right; Fitz had known men who had cowered in the face of
evil. The Variants were more awful than any enemy he’d faced in Iraq—that was
for damn sure.
    “Just doing my duty,” Fitz