Soul of the Reaper: A military Scifi Epic (The Last Reaper Book 11)

by J. N. Chaney

  “No.” I climbed higher, then crawled through a gap to look back the way we had come. The scene was something from a nightmare. From this vantage point, I could barely believe the rest of the city existed. Destruction was all that remained of Marsi.

  “Now isn’t the time for one of your dark moods, Reaper Cain. Please draw the enemy into a trap and destroy them in detail.”

  “Good call, X. Thanks.” I pointed to a hiding place between our position and the only possible way the Obsidian squads can come. “I’m going to taunt a drone and draw them after us. Hide right about there and let some pass before attacking. No mercy. We can’t afford it.”

  He turned up his right palm and bowed his head slightly. “Of course. Now is the time for slaughter, much as I regret the need to take lives.”

  He slipped away and disappeared within seconds.

  “Shit, X. I don’t feel good about this.”

  “You never do, Reaper Cain.”

  The first rays of sun pierced the morning gloom, shining directly in my eyes. “Well just fuck me running.”

  “Needless profanity detected,” X said. “Would you like me to hack into their drone system?”

  “You can do that? Why didn’t you say so before?”

  “I have been working on it since we first saw the drones,” X-37 said. “The first crack in their digital defenses has presented itself.”

  “Do it, X.”

  “I will be unable to offer assistance during your pending conflict,” he said.

  “At this point, X, that’s fine. Path and I will handle the dirty work.” I set off for a better position, hoping that I could take out the regular soldiers before the Obsidians rushed me. I worried about Path, despite my confidence in his abilities. If this went bad, it would be my fault.

  “Drone hijacking thirty-nine percent complete,” X-37 said. “There is a zero percent chance I can fully control them during this conflict, but I am able to see through their eyes and grant you real-time intelligence.”

  “Damn, X, that was quick. Didn’t expect you back.” I checked my D3D and Ryker 55 pistols. Aside from a disappointingly low level of ammunition, I was in pretty good shape. Maybe I could take one of the clone helmets and hope the man had better hygiene.

  “Two Obsidian troopers are advancing up the debris trail,” X-37 reported. “They are about to pass Path’s hiding place. I recommend that you move closer in order to assist him in case they both turn to address his ambush.”

  “That wasn’t the plan,” I said. The area I had chosen would require them to cross through a funnel where I could lie down a withering stream of D3D fire, then rush them with my pistols.

  “You must improvise, adapt, and overcome,” X said.

  When my LAI was right, he was right. I broke cover and hustled downward, looking for the two black armored figures. “Where are the regular troops?”

  “They are deployed in a containment perimeter,” X said.

  I slowed before I reached the pair of Obsidian assholes. After ducking into a shallow crevasse, I waited for Path to make his move. My heart pounded in my chest. My trigger finger itched to start shooting, even though I didn’t have a good angle.

  “The drones have moved beyond view of your position, Reaper Cain.”

  “I’ve got a feeling this will be over before you see me again,” I said, then tensed as Path emerged behind the pair of Obsidians, sword drawn and intent obvious. For about two seconds, I thought he would take them both out. A horizontal strike with his deadly blade and a reverse slash would end the clones, and we could get the hell out of here before the perimeter closed on us.

  At the last possible second, one of the Obsidian clones turned and raised an armored vambrace to deflect the attack. This forced him to release one hand from his rifle. He let it hang, drew a pistol with his off hand, and fired, striking Path twice in the upper torso.

  “My analysis of your visual data suggests they anticipated this tactic and were ready,” X-37 said.

  I ignored my LAI, aimed at the other Obsidian, and fired. He spotted me at the same instant and took his own shot. Our bullets passed each other halfway between us. The difference was, he was wearing a helmet.

  My D3D slug dropped him, opening a small hole in the front of his visor and a huge one on the side but close to the back. Blood sprayed into the air. I saw this but didn’t analyze it until after I fell sideways with a vicious gash down one side of my head. His shot had been rushed and poorly aimed, but it was far too close to the mark for comfort.

  Moving laterally, I ducked down, came back up, and fired again, this time hitting him in the torso as he climbed to his feet and stripped off his helmet. He didn’t fall as I expected but staggered sideways. When he flung away the ruined helmet, I saw that I had created a similar wound to what he had given me.

  There was a chunk of flesh hanging from where his ear should be, but that didn’t offer much consolation. Only a fatal wound would win this fight, and I had just pissed him off.

  We closed on each other, moving and shooting, scoring hits on armor but never a kill shot. The whine of bullets through the debris was the music of a madman playing a broken instrument.

  “All drones are returning to your location,” X-37 advised. “Reinforcements will follow close behind.”

  I let my rifle hang, which caused it to magnetically lock to my armor. Drawing both my pistols, I jumped over a fallen I-beam, firing in midair and forcing my enemy to duck. With his helmet off and a matching wound, he could have been my mirror image.

  “Surrender!” he shouted.

  I fired again, then leapt to the air to kick him in the chest while he was dodging clear of my shots. He flew backward, bounced off the uneven surface of this hellish environment, and fell on a pile of bricks. “What you meant to say was something like ‘surrender, you son of a bitch.’”

  “Reaper Cain, I strongly discourage your use of this particular insult, as you do in fact love your mother,” X-37 said.

  “Not. Now. X.”

  The Obsidian came to his feet, both of his pistols locked back, out of ammunition.

  “That is what is wrong with you, rebel,” he said. “No refinement at all.”

  I lunged forward and to the side, looking for a kill shot. “Suck it.”

  “You are crude and imperfect!” he spat.

  I pulled the trigger on my own weapons and realized they were also empty.

  “Fistfight imminent, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

  I dropped both weapons and launched myself through the air, left hand forward to aim and right hand cocked back to deliver a strike I hoped would break his jaw.

  32

  Grabbing the back of his neck, I slammed my right fist into his mouth. He countered with a savage strike to my rib cage, and then two more for good measure.

  I closed my eyes against the spray of his blood as he cursed me. We danced in a circle, giving and receiving violence. Few fights were graceful, but this one was particularly undignified.

  I tripped him up against a twisted beam of metal and caused concrete to tumble down on both of us. None of the blocks were large enough to do damage, but I coughed and spat to clear the dust from my mouth. My eyes stung. I lost my footing and slipped to one side.

  He slammed his knee into my face, launching me backward. I landed on my back but didn’t stay there long. The moment I rolled aside, he landed where I’d been with both feet. The armored boots threw up a spray of grit.

  I spun in a tight circle, kicking his feet out from under him. He fell on his back, and I jumped on him—not with my feet, but with one knee to his abdomen. I used the other foot to block his escape, planting it on the ground right before he tried to roll in that direction. The final part of my attack was a downward punch on his jaw.

  The strike stunned him. Wasting no time, I twisted him onto his side and snatched him around the neck with one arm. He fought the rear choke, but I had it locked in. It had been a long time since I’d killed a man like this, an
d it sickened me. Even this clone thing deserved better. Sure, he’d slaughter me as soon as look at me. Maybe I was getting soft, but I let off the pressure as soon as he passed out.

  What I didn’t do was release him. I was getting soft, not stupid.

  “Path, where are you?”

  He staggered into view, covered in blood. His hands shook as he removed a cloth from the inside of his coat and wiped the blade clean before sheathing it. “No man has ever fought that hard.”

  “Tell me about it,” I said, still holding onto my victim.

  “You didn’t kill him?” Path asked.

  I had nothing to say.

  “No mercy must mean something different to you, clone,” he said.

  “Now that’s bullshit, Path,” I snapped. “If you really knew me, you’d understand that these brainwashed clones are far more likely to kill without remorse than I ever was. I never liked it even when I did it.”

  He stared at me for a long time. “It was a test question.”

  If I wasn’t so beat up and grateful to be alive, I would’ve had a few choice words for him—all of them profane as hell. Right now I just needed to know what to do with my prisoner. “Can you find something to tie this guy with?”

  Path considered the question, then squatted near me and my victim. “I believe there are restraints in their armor storage compartments. But I don’t think they will be sufficient with the enhanced strength of this gear. The man I fought was far faster and more powerful than he should’ve been without some sort of enhancements, and since these clones lack the cybernetic augmentations, it must be the armor.”

  “You’re not wrong, Path. Help me get him out of this stuff, and we’ll tie him up,” I said.

  “We should hurry,” he said.

  “The drones are circling your location,” X-37 said. “And the regular Obsidian soldiers are moving in.”

  “Change of plans,” I said. “Let’s tie them up and get moving. He will break free, but we don’t have time to be thorough.”

  “If you think that is best,” Path said. “I will not argue in favor of murder, even if that would save us a fight tomorrow.”

  We tied him in the most awkward position possible and then slipped away from the regular soldiers. X-37’s drone view helped immeasurably.

  The helmet of the man I had destroyed was ruined, but Path’s victim had lost his entire head without excessive damage to the helmet containing it. I had wiped it out the best I could and put it on, trying not to think about what I was doing too much.

  We approached the armored car on the perimeter. Two men guarded it, the driver and the heavy gunner. I walked toward them like I knew what I was doing.

  “Change of plans. We’re heading back to base,” I said. “This man has been working with us. Don’t talk to him unless you want to go into isolation after the mission. Top-secret protocol applies.”

  “Yes, sir,” the gunner said, snapping a salute.

  The driver followed his lead but seemed much more reticent as he drove away from the busy search operation. “Why didn’t we receive new orders? No one else is heading back?”

  “I am placing a digital message ordering him to comply on his dashboard now, Reaper Cain.”

  I pointed toward the screen next to the steering mechanism. “Top-secret orders. Not to be repeated on any channel, even if secured. There’s more to this operation than we realized.”

  The soldier read the message, then started to drive without further questions.

  I wondered about the Obsidian mechs as we slipped closer and closer to Scheid’s main base. I’d been lucky not to get Path killed. Our last battle would’ve gone differently had we been facing the giant war machines. Ten feet tall and loaded with more armor and weapons than a regular Obsidian could carry, they would’ve slaughtered us had we been caught in the open.

  Odds were, they wouldn’t have let us get to the debris field before forcing a confrontation. I suspected Scheid was using them for his personal bodyguards, which marked him as more of a coward than I had assumed even though I had never had a high opinion of the man.

  “The clones and drones have completed their search of the blasted city and concluded you are not there,” X-37 said. “Meanwhile, I have achieved partial control of the drone fleet. I can shift their movement patterns by several percentage points or take complete control of one drone.”

  “Leave your options open for now, X.”

  “What was that, sir?” The gunner asked.

  “Direct communication from General Scheid,” I said, leaving him to imagine the rest.

  We drove in silence for fifteen minutes.

  The driver parked, then faced into the passenger compartment. “This is as far as I can go without new orders.”

  “Of course,” I said. “My contact and I will continue on foot.”

  The Obsidian soldiers shared an uncomfortable glance.

  “That’s not procedure, if you don’t mind me saying, sir,” the driver said.

  “Of course.” I lowered one hand to a pistol. “Let me ask you something.”

  Each man gripped his pistol a beat too late. This was going bad, and they knew it.

  “How did you become part of Scheid’s personal army? You’re not Reaper clones, and we’re a long way from Union space,” I said.

  The driver’s face turned red, and his eyes had forgotten how to blink. The gunner sweated profusely, his gaze darting from me to Path to his partner.

  “You know I’m not an Obsidian.”

  “You’re the real Reaper,” the gunner said, easing his hand away from his pistol.

  The driver gripped his weapon tighter, probably under the mistaken belief that would help him draw faster or shoot more accurately.

  “None of us knew what we signed up for.” He raised both hands, then motioned to his friend. “He’s got us, Dale. Don’t do anything stupid.”

  “Yeah, Dale. Listen to your friend,” I said.

  “You fucking assholes are what started all of this,” Dale, the driver, said. “We’d still be part of the Union, not eleven years away from home with no chance of seeing our families again. Scheid won’t let anyone start over. Not allowed to stay with a girlfriend for more than two weeks, no chance of ever having kids, so it’s just us and our duty. No legacy. We just get to die out here in the armpit of the galaxy.”

  “Sounds like a good reason to join my side,” I said. “Everyone on Maglan was free before you came.”

  “The Council of Oroth did that. We didn’t start this war,” the gunner said. “Let go of that gun, Dale. This guy had to have killed Wraith and Striker Cain, which means we don’t have a chance.”

  “Scheid will reward us,” Dale said.

  “With isolation and a firing squad,” the gunner said. “Come on, bro. Get your hands up. Just fuck all of this. Let’s go on the run. Can’t be any worse than failing Scheid. Maybe we get away. Did you ever think of that?”

  Dale drew and fired.

  I took the bullet on my chest plate, charged forward, and snatched him out of the driver’s seat. The sound of the ricochet barely registered until I heard the gunner cry out.

  “Fuck, Dale, you shot me!”

  “Brit!” Dale said, barely able to talk with his face pressed against the floor.

  I motioned to Path, who retrieved a medical kit from the back of the troop compartment, sprayed Brit’s wound with antibacterial cleaner, then plugged the hole with sterile gauze and wrapped it.

  The moment I let Dale sit up, he spat at my feet.

  “You’re a piece of work, buddy,” I said, then handed him his pistol. “You’ll need this.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  I opened the troop ramp and tossed him out. Path helped Brit down while I gathered a survival kit and launched that at Dale. He caught the bundle, staggering under its weight.

  “Do whatever you want but stay away from me. Try to keep your friend alive and make better decisions,” I said. “You failed
General Scheid. If I were you, I’d be looking for a place to hide as far away from Marsi as possible.”

  Path raised the ramp.

  “Can you drive this thing?” I asked.

  “Not well,” Path said.

  I climbed into the driver seat.

  “There is a high probability that the driver was telling the truth,” X-37 said. “If you continue, the Obsidian mechs stationed around Scheid’s inner perimeter will use deadly force more than sufficient to destroy this conveyance.”

  “I’m going to run the perimeter. Avoid triggering that response,” I said.

  “Excellent idea, Reaper Cain.”

  Path lay prone with binocular optics taken from the Obsidian armored vehicle pressed to his eyes. Beside him, I used a similar pair but got more utility out of them due to my LAI enhanced nerve-ware—not as good as my old cybernetic eye, but pretty damn powerful.

  The Hagg troops were hard to miss, nearly as tall as the average human soldier. Their shoulders were thicker, their arms longer. Powerful legs moved them quickly down the hard packed gravel road toward Scheid’s outer perimeter. If Path and I had remained in our first observation post, they would have marched near enough to touch.

  But we’d moved based on a gut instinct. Take that, X. Random ass luck works.

  I couldn’t see the flat faces or hooked thumbs of the humanoids from here, but I knew they were Hagg soldiers from Say’d in the Zakion system.

  “I have seen them but never ventured close enough to have a problem,” Path said.

  “This force has better gear than the ragtag grunts I crossed paths with,” I said. “All of it their own design. The units I encountered must have been in the field a long time or AWOL.”

  Three Obsidian armored cars raced by the alien infantry, blasting them with dust and grit from their tires. Hagg troopers hissed and shook fists at the cars.

  “That’s it. Give those jerks the finger,” I said, but my amusement faded when one of the cars skidded to a stop, then backed up at dangerous speeds. The lead vehicles halted and aimed their main guns at the Hagg infantry.