The Complete Harvesters Series

by Luke R. Mitchell

  “We will talk to Nan’Dola,” Drogan finally said, looking none too pleased about it, “and I will see to it that he listens.”

  That settled that, then.

  The Complex’s main command room featured an impressive collection of computers, entire walls of displays whose numbers bordered on overwhelming, and other equipment Rachel couldn’t even guess at. A good deal of it even still seemed to be working, though she wasn’t sure how much good that could be doing anyone now that the Net was down.

  As she’d half-expected, if not hoped, they found Zach there, poring over a group of displays with a couple others. There was, however, no Mayor to be found.

  “We were hoping to talk to Dillard,” Rachel said when Zach looked up to take in her and Drogan.

  Zach eyed them as if it was an unreasonable and highly annoying request. Since his Mayor’s decision to accept their forces into The Complex, Zach seemed to have come to the decision that, if there really was some fresh new hell coming for them all, it must’ve solely been the fault of the pesky newcomers.

  “I’ll check if the Mayor is available.”

  He said it as if there were every chance he might check only to find Dillard had stepped out for a coffee or a mid-morning golf appointment. As if the guy could’ve been anywhere other than locked into this cozy bunker with the rest of them.

  Zach sat at a nearby console and proceeded to click around for entirely longer than Rachel thought he actually had to. Finally, though, he stood and beckoned to them with a hint of irritation.

  “He’ll see you. Just finished touring the facilities with your commander.”

  That was unexpected.

  She hadn’t realized his high Mayor-ness had been planning to take the time to accompany Nelken and Pryce around the base.

  It made her uneasy.

  “Thanks, Zach,” she said, keeping her tone as sincere as she could manage.

  Whatever else was going on, no reason they couldn’t try to play nice. Especially not if they were going to think about trusting these people with precious cargo in their absence.

  Zach considered her, and she had the distinct impression his mind traveled out to the big rotary guns, which he’d no doubt discovered by now had indeed been disconnected. Finally, though, he shrugged, mumbled, “No problem,” and turned to guide them to Dillard.

  The Mayor’s office was close to the command room, just down the hallway opposite the one they’d entered through.

  Zach knocked and, upon the muffled call to enter, made a point of sticking his head in to have a private word with his beloved raknoth Mayor before allowing the pesky outsiders entry. Not that Drogan couldn’t probably hear it all, and Rachel as well if she’d properly focused her senses. But Zach didn’t know that.

  When Zach pulled back, he looked miffed, and when he swung the door open wider and waved them through, Rachel saw why.

  Nelken was already there waiting for them.

  From across a small gray coffee table, Dillard waved them wordlessly to join him and Nelken in the pair of empty, no-frills armchairs.

  “Thank you, Zachary,” he said. “That’ll be all for now.”

  “Mayor,” Zach said slowly. “Sir, wouldn’t it be better if I—”

  “Oh, don’t worry about me, Zachary,” Dillard said with a convincing smile. “I think we all have bigger concerns on the horizon than a hostile takeover. I’ll be safe enough.”

  Zach looked less than convinced. “Sir, I don’t feel comfortable leaving you with—”

  Dillard sighed, and Zach quieted.

  “You do feel comfortable,” Dillard said in a flat voice. “You will return to your duties, knowing that I am safe and that you have done well.”

  Zach nodded blankly. “Yes, Mayor.”

  And with that, he stepped out of the room and closed the door behind him.

  Nelken looked suspiciously between the closed door and Dillard like he wanted to say something.

  Rachel, having felt the tendril of telepathic influence Dillard had just used on Zach, was less than pleased by the display herself, but she swallowed the reservation and reminded herself why they’d come.

  Inside, the office was arranged to the textbook definition of minimalism. A standing desk to one side of the room housed a computer, its display, and absolutely zero clutter. A single cabinet beside it must’ve housed everything else Dola ever required in his day-to-day activities.

  Other than those two pieces of furniture, there were the four armchairs, not decadent by any sense of the word, and the small gray coffee table between them. The light blue-gray tone of the walls was uninterrupted throughout the room, except for the single framed photograph of a beach sunset hanging on the wall by the computer desk.

  “Don’t tell me you’re a beach guy,” Rachel said as she and Drogan settled down in the empty pair of armchairs, facing each other across the table while Nelken and Nan’Dola did the same.

  Apparently, Dola wasn’t interested in banter. “I’ve been expecting you,” he said, looking between them. “You must have a lot of questions.”

  Drogan wasted no time. “Was it you who killed our brother?”

  Dola only hesitated a second before giving a curt nod. “Nan’Troga. He and I had ever-deepening disagreements on how things should be run here.”

  “Explain.” There was no question in Drogan’s tone.

  “He did not wish to conceal his true identity any longer.”

  “And so you murdered your brother for his failure to embrace your life of cowardice?” Drogan rumbled. “You used his demise to elevate yourself amongst your pathetic flock.”

  Rachel thought she saw Dola give a nervous swallow, though his expression remained controlled and his hands still rested lightly on the arms of his chair.

  “All I ever wanted,” he finally said, “was to be left alone. To forget my doomed heritage and simply live my own life away from our people.”

  “Coward,” Drogan said.

  Dola stared through the table with a distant gaze, not arguing.

  “But why this?” Rachel asked before she could stop herself. “The silver thing, all the holy demon propaganda… Why make a camp of anti-raknoth zealots?”

  “Oh, for several reasons,” Dola said, not looking up. “For starters”—he plucked the silver pendant hanging at his chest and held it up demonstratively—“controlling the facts of vamp existence allowed me to place myself above the shadow of doubt in their eyes, while simultaneously condemning Nan’Troga. As for the religious zealotry…”

  He finally stirred himself from his distant stare to look between Rachel and Nelken, a humorless smile pulling at his mouth. “Well, I don’t have to explain to the two of you how powerful a tool religion has proved in the rapid propagation of unquestioned dogma among your kind. It seemed the easiest of the options before me. And…” He shrugged, lost in thought again. “Perhaps some part of me wished to forget the truth as well.”

  Across from Rachel, Drogan shook his head, looking at Dola as if he were too disgusted to even bother with putting it into words.

  After a length of silence, Dola roused himself. “Alas, it was never to be.” He gestured toward Nelken. “If what you have all told me is true, and I have no reason to doubt that it is, my time of pretending has come to an end, whether I choose to admit it or not.”

  “How awfully accepting of you,” Rachel said.

  Across from her, Drogan gave an unsympathetic grunt.

  “Yes,” Dola said slowly. “Well, now that we’re here and they are most unfortunately out there,”—he waved at the wall in a distant gesture—“I suppose it’s prudent we should begin discussing your plan for the impossible.”

  “We should,” Rachel said, “but we have something else to discuss first.”

  Dola took in her and Drogan’s resolute expressions and Nelken’s slightly soured one. “I take it there are plans of which I have yet to be made aware?”

  Rachel looked to Nelken, waiting for him to acknowled
ge their discussing the plan, rough as it was, with their raknoth host.

  Reluctantly, he nodded.

  “We still have people out there,” Rachel said. “Good people. People we’re gonna want around when the shit inevitably hits.”

  “I see,” Dola said slowly. “People, I take it, you’d like to bring into The Complex.”

  “Once we find them,” Rachel said.

  Dola tapped on the arm of his chair, glancing at Drogan intermittently in the thoughtful silence. “Al’Drogan did not come here to ask my permission for such a mission.”

  “Decidedly not,” Drogan said.

  Dola nodded, looking like he wanted nothing more than to look up only to find that he was alone in the room and that they’d never come along and ruined his peace and quiet.

  “How, then, might I be of service?”

  “We need your word we can trust you with our people while we’re gone,” Rachel said.

  The first hints of anger colored Dola’s face. “You sit safely in my home and think to question my intentions, human?”

  Rachel didn’t flinch away from his stare. “You murdered your own brother and brainwashed these people for fifteen years. Why the hell wouldn’t we question every word out of your mouth?”

  Dillard showed them a humorless smile. “Because you already know exactly what I’ll do to protect this little haven of mine. And because you know as well as I do that I lack any means of hoping to defend against the rakul on my own. If you have allies who stand any hope of offering us some chance, they will be welcome here.”

  Rachel glanced at Drogan, who met her eyes with a meaningful look.

  “Well that’s good to hear,” Rachel said, “but you’ll have to forgive us if we’re not ready to take your spoken word for it.”

  Dola’s expression darkened. “I don’t suppose I have much choice in the matter.”

  “None,” Drogan said.

  Rachel almost felt bad for Dola, so suddenly relegated from master of his domain down to pawing for Drogan’s mercy. Then she remembered the little factoids. That said domain had been built from brainwashed humans. That Dola had betrayed and slain one of his own to secure it.

  He deserved more than some of Drogan’s intimidation for what he’d done.

  And he was about to get a little taste of it.

  Dola closed his eyes, absorbing what was to come next, and finally gave a nod. “Very well. I suppose it’s not worth asking for you to be gentle about—”

  Judging from the pained looked wince that took Dola’s features, Drogan was anything but gentle as he punched his way into the other raknoth’s mind to assess his trustworthiness in the only way that was above doubt.

  Rachel started to reach out to have her own look beside Drogan but paused, thinking.

  After everything she’d seen the raknoth do and everything she’d learned…

  It wasn’t the first time the thought had occurred to her.

  To see the things they’d seen—to do all the terrible shit they’d done to Earth and god knew how many planets and species before that…

  She still couldn’t really see how any raknoth could live with all of that for thousands of years without a good amount of either insanity or cold, hard psychopathy. And even if they could, she wasn’t so sure she wanted to go rolling around in a mind that could pull all that off and keep living with itself.

  So she withdrew her extended senses and waited as Drogan sat with eyes closed, calmly scanning a less-than-comfortable looking Dola for any hint of dishonesty or treachery.

  “He will not harm our people,” Drogan finally said a handful of minutes later, sounding almost a touch disappointed with the finding.

  “So glad we could sort that out,” Dola said, opening his eyes to shoot a dark glare at Drogan.

  “We might as well tell him the rest of it,” Drogan said, ignoring Dola’s displeasure.

  Neither Nelken nor Rachel saw fit to argue.

  “Pray tell,” Dola seethed. “What happy secret am I privy to now that I’ve joined this most precious circle of trust?”

  It was the first time Rachel could ever recall seeing Drogan roll his eyes. He waved at her in invitation, apparently too exasperated to do the honors himself.

  “The two we brought in on covered stretchers,” Rachel started slowly, “they were… special.”

  Dola wrinkled his nose. “And you question my honesty. Special how?”

  “Kind of like me,” Rachel said. “But also…”

  “They are bound symbiotically with two of our own,” Drogan said.

  A deep frown creased Dola’s brow. “Symbiosis? But who of our brethren would consider such a thing? And why not simply take—”

  “Because our brethren require these allies’ skills and powers just as much as those allies require the strength our kind can offer them,” Drogan said.

  “Skills and powers,” Dola mumbled, tearing his incredulous stare from Drogan to study Rachel. “Special… You said these humans were like you. Forgive me for having to ask, but what on earth could be so remarkable about a human—even a mentally gifted one—that a raknoth would resign themselves to”—he wrinkled his nose in distaste—“symbiosis?”

  Rachel smiled. “Well, remarkable might be a strong word, but…”

  Gathering her will, she telekinetically yanked Dola several feet into the air.

  He gave a startled grunt, reflexively trying to extending his legs and arms only to find them pinned concretely in place.

  “. . . I guess I can be useful here and there,” Rachel concluded.

  With that, she released her hold and watched with some small satisfaction as Dola plunked back down to his chair and proceeded to gape from her to Drogan to the chair and back to her.

  “I… see,” he finally said. “I’d heard rumors, but never seen any evidence that…” He frowned. “The defenses at the front entrance.”

  Rachel shrugged. “Just a couple yanked cables. No big deal.”

  Dola tapped the chair arm. “Most interesting. And the raknoth who have volunteered for this… unusual alliance?”

  “Al’Braka,” Drogan said, “and one of the Shieth.”

  Dola turned that over for a stretch, the rest of the resentment fading from his expression. “Well, it seems the fates are clearly determined to deprive me of my boredom.”

  “You should thank The Void they do not yet deprive you of more,” Drogan said, glancing impatiently at the door.

  “We don’t really know how much longer their, uh, transition is going to take,” Rachel said, “which is why we wanna do whatever we can to keep your people from stumbling onto them and busting out the holy water.”

  Dola nodded. “I will see to it these . . . symbiotes remain undisturbed.”

  “You might be wise to start thinking on how you’re going to break the news to your people, too,” Nelken said. “We learned the hard way that fear of a greater evil isn’t sufficient motivation to get everyone to join hands and play nice. I can’t imagine your people will take it any easier than ours did, but we don’t want to leave that moment for if and when the red eyes have to come out.”

  Dola closed his eyes and rubbed his temples in a very human fashion.

  “Commander Nelken speaks truth,” Drogan added, to which Dola only rubbed harder. “In the meanwhile, it will likely lessen complications if Rachel Cross and I are able to leave The Complex discretely.”

  “That, at least,” Dola said, glancing up, “I have an easy solution to.”

  19

  Out of all the bullshit, psychopathic “sentiment” Conner had tried to fill his head with—especially right at the bitter end—one piece of the deluded bastard’s wisdom had always stuck with Jarek.

  “The moment you think everything’s well and good—the moment you’re sure you’ve got it in the bag… That’s exactly when things are most ready to blow up in your face, kid.”

  Goddamn Conner.

  And goddamn his undying “wisdom.”

&
nbsp; As Jarek descended the stairs, there was an abrupt wrenching sound outside, like the world’s largest can being smashed to a crumpled heap, followed by another chest-rumbling roar from the thing that could only be Kul’Gada.

  “Gear up, people!” Jarek shouted into the chaotic living room. “We’re outta here as soon as we make the trucks.”

  “It’s—it’s fucking huge,” a wide-eyed Mosenite sputtered from his perch at the corner window.

  Definitely sounded like Gada.

  “Yep.” Jarek picked up the Big Whacker 2.0 and strapped it to the waiting connectors on Fela’s back, uncomfortably aware of how many aches the simple motion caused. “You let me worry about that big bastard.”

  He turned to Mosen and Chambers. “Get them on the road, whatever it takes.

  Over on the stairs, Michael was shaking his head. “Jarek, we’re—”

  “Getting the hell out of here alive,” Jarek snapped, turning for the entryway. “No waiting. No heroics.”

  A second awful metallic screech from outside reminded him he didn’t have time to wait for any answers.

  By the time he reached the front door, Mosen was barking orders at the stunned platoon.

  Jarek clenched his fists and kicked the door clean from its hinges—in part to draw Gada’s attention away from what sounded like the ruthless slaughter of their convoy vehicles and in part just to psych himself up.

  Drawing Gada’s attention, at least, worked just fine.

  For one gut-sinking moment, Jarek took in the devastation Gada had already wrought on two of their ground vehicles. Then Gada whirled to face him, eyes blazing crimson, gleaming fangs bared in an eager snarl.

  Fucking huge was not a bad place to start in describing Gada. Spiky, steroid-abusing bipedal dinosaur from hell wasn’t too shabby either.

  The Kul’s enormous fingers began lengthening to chitinous claw-blades at the sight of Jarek stepping onto the porch—a creepy but sure sign of Gada’s murderous arousal.

  Jarek suppressed a shudder. “Guess you’re happy to see me, huh, Spike?”

  By way of reply, Gada flexed his growing blade fingers and let loose another roar.