CHAPTER RECON

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Born in Battle hits shelves tomorrow… Check out the first chapter!

American Cavalry Scout Nephi Bennett and the survivors of Crazy Horse Platoon now possess the key to returning home to Earth—a mystic artifact—but its secrets continue to elude even the wisest among them.

Fate twists when Bennett’s wife, Xochi, is snatched by their old foe Colonel Dietrich, propelling Bennett and his comrades to use the artifact to alter destiny itself in an effort to rescue her. Bennett vanishes into the depths of time, and Captain Brown faces an agonizing decision—unleash an all-out assault on the colonel with his dwindling forces, or succumb to the darkness that encroaches.

The very survival of Xochi’s tribe hangs in the balance, and only victory over their enemies and the godlike entity known as Smoking Mirror can safeguard the future and see Bennett’s friends home.

Halfway down the trail to Hell,

In a shady meadow green

Are the Souls of all dead Troopers camped,

Near a good old-time canteen.

And this eternal resting place

Is known as Fiddler’s Green.

Twenty-one carved obsidian markers stood proudly, arranged in regimented rows among the purple and red button flowers. I had argued there should only be seventeen—there were four that didn’t deserve to be there—but Captain Brown said they were his men and his failure and so we placed a score and one, each to memorialize a brother lost here in the Land of the Black Sun.

More would be added, of that I was certain.

I turned away and hiked down the beach to watch the breakers crashing on the sand and rocks. The sky was clear and the ocean reflected the myriad of bright stars overhead. Aside from the sound of the surf, the night was quiet and calm.

But my thoughts were troubled.

They always were now.

I sensed more than heard Sergeant Sanchez’s approach, but that was to be expected; the small man moved like a ghost.

“Can’t sleep?” he asked, moving to stand beside me. He took a drink from a gourd and handed it to me.

I held it to my nose. Octli. Fermented maguey sap. I shrugged and drank from the gourd. I wasn’t a drinker, not even celebratory sips, but maybe it was time to start. The liquid had a slimy texture and tasted like sour chalk. I suppose you get used to it. I handed it back to Sanchez with a nod.

“Nightmares,” I said.

“Would like to say it gets better, son, but it really don’t.” He took another sip. “Man could get used to peace like this though.”

“It’s just an illusion.”

Sanchez looked up at me. “Peace?” He barked a laugh and offered the gourd to me again. “That’s God’s own truth there, sir.”

“You don’t have to call me that, Top.”

“’Course I do. You’re breathing rarified air now, boy.”

I laughed and took another drink from the gourd. It really was foul stuff, but it warmed my insides and seemed to numb the pain. “I’m just a warrant.”

“Still an officer.”

“There isn’t even a WO MOS for what I am.”

“Is now. Triple-Aught Zulu: Magical Operations Technician. Wrote the occupational specialty specification myself.”

I handed the gourd back to him. “Then why isn’t Eps one too?”

“Need to keep that one humble.”

“Point.”

We watched the breakers in silence for several minutes. Something big with multiple humps breached the water in the distance. Good money said it wasn’t a whale. Sergeant Wilson had planned on surfing the Sea of Tears until he caught wind of stories about what swam under the waves here. The surfboard he’d carved remained unused. Whatever lurked under the surface made a great white look like a guppy.

Sanchez took a long drink and then handed the gourd to me.

“I really don’t drink,” I said.

“Just don’t get in the habit of drinking alone.”

I toasted him and took another swig. Sanchez laughed at the face I made and took the gourd back. “Acquired taste.”

“I guess so.”

“Quiets the demons though.” He drank and passed the gourd back to me. I was starting to feel lightheaded, but I took it anyway and swallowed more of the slimy brew. I staggered a little.

“Damn. You’re a lightweight.” He took the gourd back from me. “Should probably cut you off.”

“Told you I don’t drink.”

“Reckon not.”

“How do you do it, Top? Silence the demons? Without”—I waved at the gourd—“drowning yourself in that shit.”

“Box it away, push it back, motor on.” He took another sip. “Charlie Mike.” He paused. “Good woman helps.”

I looked down at him and quirked an eyebrow.

“I’m talking about a good woman, son. Not just a piece of ass. Good woman like yours.”

I sighed.

“Let’s walk you home, sir. You got a family waiting for you, probably wondering where you are. Family that loves you.”

“I’m good.”

He scratched his eye. “Trouble with the missus?”

“No.” I blew out my cheeks. “Maybe.”

I was silent for a long minute. He waited patiently as I stared out across the water.

“Xochi says I never came home. Part of me’s still in the Land of Mists. The part she loved.”

He nodded. “Lot of men don’t come back.”

“I think I died there, Sarge. I feel like a ghost.”

“You have changed. We all see it. Some things can’t be unseen. Some wounds don’t heal. Good woman can help with that too… if you let her.”

“I think she’s given up on waiting for me,” I said to the ocean.

More minutes of silence passed.

“Looks inviting, don’t it?” he said eventually.

“Sarge?”

“The ocean. You could walk right out into it and disappear forever. Let the waves close over your head and end the pain. You’re thinking about it now. I can see it in your eyes. Seen that look in a lot of brothers’ eyes before they chose the easy way out.”

“I’m not going to—”

“But you want to.”

Silence.

“Yes.”

“You thought about how?”

More silence.

“Yes.”

“Figured. It’s okay to talk about it. It’s good to talk about it. I’ve sat in the darkness and spun the cylinder. Pulled the trigger. Heard the hammer fall on an empty chamber. I’ve been there. A lot of us have. More than you think. But you’re not alone. We’ve all got your six. We’ll never give up on you. And your wife won’t either. She’s sitting up waiting for you to come home. Praying for you. We all are.” He laid a hand on my shoulder. “Fiddler’s Green can wait. It’s not your time. Not by a mile. Come on, son. Let’s get you home.”

***

I slipped through the curtain that served as the door to my home. Our home. Xochi’s and mine. A windowless hut of woven grass and leaves, not so different from the homes of most of the Kuauchanejkej refugees we lived with. They were my wife’s people. My people now. Sturdier buildings of adobe brick were starting to rise around the settlement, signs of hope that maybe this secluded valley ringed by tall cliffs and mountains on the edge of the Sea of Tears wasn’t just a temporary refuge for those who’d been forced to flee their beloved forest when Colonel Dietrich’s men razed Kuauchanko.

The heart of the Kuauchanejkej people, Nantsin, their Beloved Mother, a colossal, ancient tree that covered acres of the old forest and whose great boughs had cradled the arboreal royal village for centuries untold, was dead, but the tribe endured.

Perhaps they could build a new Kuauchanko here.

The valley reminded me vividly of a place called Kalalau I had visited once with my family on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. It was surrounded by soaring cliffs more than two thousand feet high, with a broad and relatively flat bottom that opened onto an expansive bay. The soil was rich and fertile, the weather perfect for growing crops. It was an Eden isolated and hidden in this hellish world we called the Land of the Black Sun.

The tribe called their new home Tepeuakan.

When I entered our hut, Xochi was sitting on our bed of woven reed mats lit by the light of a resin lamp. The warm flickering glow cast soft shadows on walls lined with colorful tapestries bearing complex geometric patterns. The people called my wife Siuapilxochicuauhtli, which roughly, very roughly, translated as “Princess Flower-Eagle.”

She watched me slip through the curtain and smiled, but I could see the worry in her eyes. Across the hut on another pile of woven mats, First-to-Dance slept fitfully. She’d been a member of my squad when we were in the Land of Mists, but she had become more than a subordinate to me. She was iuctli. My little sister. We had walked through the Shadow of the Valley of Death together. On our return Xochi had insisted we take her into our household as an adopted sister-daughter.

My wife moved over to make room for me, and I lay down, curling around her. She ran her fingers through my hair.

“You’ve been drinking,” she said. It wasn’t an accusation, just an observation.

“A little, with Top.” I stared at the wall of the hut as the shadows flickered and danced. I had seen shadows come to life and rip men to bloody shreds. I tried to blink away the memories.

“I’m glad you were not alone tonight,” she said. “You’re too often alone. So many nights. Walking alone. I wonder where you walk in the darkness. It worries me.”

I exhaled slowly, thinking about what Sanchez had said. It was good to talk about it, he’d said.

“It worries me too,” I admitted.

“Sit up, my husband.” She spoke in the pidgin of English, Spanish, and her native tongue that we all used now. Some words, like “husband,” didn’t exist in her language.

I rose and crossed my legs beside her, and she placed my hand on her belly. She smiled at me. It seemed impossible to me that someone so beautiful could exist in a universe with so much ugliness.

“What are these lives inside me?” she asked softly.

I’d teased out the two threads coexisting with her early on after returning from the Land of Mists. She was carrying twins. Boys.

“They are us, together,” I replied.

“Yes, you and I, made one flesh. But also something else.”

“What’s that?”

“Sons who will need a father.”

That stung.

“Look at me,” she said.

I lifted my gaze. Her amber eyes glowed in the lamplight like twin pools of molten gold. The warm illumination made her honeyed bronze skin glow with a luminance that seemed to come from within. A long scar ran down the side of her face, starting at her temple and ending in the corner of her mouth. It plucked at her lips, giving her a permanent lopsided grin—or a grimace—depending on her mood. It didn’t make her any less beautiful to me. If anything, it made her more beautiful, like kintsugi pottery.

“What do you see?” she asked.

I saw so many things, but I knew the answer she was looking for.

“A woman who needs her husband,” I whispered.

“Come home to me. Come home to us.”

“I’ve been trying, Xochi. I’ve been trying so hard. I don’t know anymore if I can. The man you loved died on a desolate mountain in a doomed world. I’ve witnessed… too much evil. Too much pain. Too much suffering. My heart is a stone.”

She laid a hand on my chest. “Not dead, my love. Not a stone. I still see the man I love in your eyes, though he is a world away. Come home, Nephi. We are waiting for you.”

She wrapped her arms around me and buried her head in my shoulder. Her hair shone like polished obsidian and smelled of avocado oil and spring blossoms. I took in her scent and closed my eyes, searching for the thread of divine energy that was her, and saw it entwined with mine and that of our sons inside her. We four wove a pattern in the fabric of the universe, but the warp and weave in my own cloth was tangled. I could lace a cut closed and knit a bone back together by working threads of teōtl, the strands of pure intelligence that made up all of creation, but I didn’t know how to mend the tapestry of my broken soul.

***

“Form up that line!” Lieutenant Whitlock shouted, reining in his thunder-stag. The beast he rode was huge, elephantine really, and pranced on its hind legs. It wasn’t anything like a stag; it was a dinosaur. A hadrosaurid, technically, according to Captain Brown. Commonly called duck-billed dinosaurs. It trumpeted loudly through the large horn-like crest on its head and lowered itself onto all fours to paw the ground.

We’d brought some souvenirs back with us when we left the Land of Mists.

The formation of Kuauchanejkej warrior women mounted on ten-foot-tall flightless warbirds straightened out. Sanchez rode behind them on another thunder-stag as the entire line wheeled right. The warbirds were powerful creatures with long, thickly muscled legs and necks and stout, wickedly hooked beaks. If you’re thinking ostriches, you’re way, way off. These were terror birds.

I stood on a small rise with Captain Brown, watching the lieutenant put the troop through its paces. He keyed his radio.

“Forge, Red Platoon needs to pick up the pace without losing cohesion.”

“Working on it, Bishop,” Whitlock replied. “Dazzler, get your gals squared away.”

“Roger,” Falling Leaves answered crisply.

“Mystique, split Green off and form a column of fours,” Brown transmitted. “Hit the targets with a caracole.”

“Roger. Green Platoon in column of fours,” Flaming Feather replied. “Attacking in caracole.”

Correction: Lieutenant Flaming Feather.

There’d been some changes in the last year.

She raised a conch to her lips and blew out a series of clear, deep notes. In response, a section of the troop formation split off from the line and re-formed in a tight column riding four abreast that charged a company-sized stand of man-sized scarecrows. But instead of closing to melee range, once the platoon was about thirty meters away the front line let loose with a volley of javelins as they peeled off and raced back to the rear of the formation. The second rank did the same, and the third, all down the column until the first rank was again at the front. The result was a withering storm of projectiles, unending, without the platoon getting any closer to the targets.

The formation of Amazon Troop had been Captain Brown’s brainchild since before our mission to the Land of Mists to secure the Compass of the Gods, but it’d only been in the last several weeks that he’d been able to see it implemented. He had visions of fielding a full regiment, but the sacking of Kuauchanko had taken out a lot of skilled warriors among the Kuauchanejkej, not to mention their mounts, and it would take time to rebuild the former strength of the tribe.

The troop was composed of Red, Blue, and Green Platoons, led by Falling Leaves, Jade Talon, and Heart-of-Darkness, respectively. Each platoon comprised four squads of nine women apiece—one squad leader and eight warriors.

And then there was X Team.

My good friend—and newly promoted staff sergeant—David Wilson led the special team, assisted by Team Sergeant Ross Cameron and Specialist (E5) Jesus García, with Specialists Timothy Cohen, Isaiah Lawrence, Epasotl, and Kiktú filling out the body. We also had Cory Anderson, our freshly minted PFC. He should’ve been a specialist ages ago, but he could never keep the rank. Kid was a little slow and had the worst luck of anyone I’ve ever known. He didn’t mind being a perennial private though; he was just thrilled to finally make E3 again and keep it for more than a few months.

Oh, and of course me. Warrant (WO1) Nephi Bennett, magical operations technician slash team sniper. My promotion was so new, Xochi hadn’t embroidered the rank insignia yet, and I was still getting used to responding to the informal title of “chief.”

But most of the time they all still called me Mr. Short Bus. I didn’t think there was any way I was living that one down.

In all, Amazon Troop was composed of one hundred and twenty-four men and women commanded by Captain Amos Brown and Lieutenants (L1) Mitch Whitlock and (L2) Flaming Feather. And the entire outfit was held together by the indomitable will of First Sergeant Diego Sanchez. The man was a force of nature, and another good friend. A second father, really. A cranky, quiet, homicidal second father with a compassionate side he tried hard not to let anyone see.

“Troop’s looking good, sir,” I said to Captain Brown.

“Coming along.” He smiled slightly. “Slowly but surely. They’re teaching me as much as learning from us. The Kuauchanejkej are skilled mounted warriors. Many of their tactics remind me of the ancient Mongols, but I know a few tricks from history I can still teach them. We need to drill them more. They might operate as a group, but they still don’t think as one. Makes command and control difficult.” He chewed on his lip. “We’re running out of time.”

He was probably right. The settlement had been safe so far, but for how long? The rainy season would soon pass and it would be the dry season again. The Season of War. Were Colonel Dietrich’s forces still hunting for us, or had he forgotten about us? We’d hit him hard when we destroyed the soul forge. And then we’d raided his warehouses for gear and munitions as a bonus eff you.

Yeah. He hadn’t forgotten.

“Time,” I echoed. It was a common refrain, and something we never had enough of, even though I had a literal time machine hanging in a pouch on my belt. Or something of the sort. We still didn’t know how the artifact I’d come into possession of worked, other than it was an ancient artifact that had allowed the Tlacaōcēlōtl, a race of jaguar-men, to travel through space… and presumably time. And we didn’t even understand how time worked either. Was it an infinite fixed loop where the past couldn’t be changed and the future had already happened, or was it… something else?

If time was fixed, then how had I seemingly gone back and changed it? Assuming that was what had happened. We had lots of theories, but all of them were full of holes. All I knew was that we had lost—everything—and then, somehow, we won.

And Epasotl and I were still trying to parse the book we’d found in an abandoned hovel in the Land of Mists. Most of the strange Mesoamerican language it was written in was still opaque to us, and the pages and pages of mathematical notations were far beyond either of our abilities to comprehend. What we were sure of was that it was some sort of instruction manual for the Compass, an artifact that we believed could get my brothers back home—to Panama, Earth, 1989. We were sure there was some combination that would unlock that destination, but we were light-years from figuring it out.

We needed help.

And we knew who could help us.

The problem was we didn’t know where—or was it when?—he was.

And more puzzling than all that was the revelation that the author of the book… apparently… was…

Me.

I found the ramifications of that to be absolutely terrifying. Because whoever had written the book was lost in space and time, trying to find his way back home.

Back home, and back to the woman he loved.