Alive. It fed the fury which drove him, the anger which fueled him. He snarled.
Rage tasted sweet.
More Abassi came out, like a moving tide of rats fleeing a sinking ship. Only these rats were armed with scythes, neutrino-edged blades which could tear him out of his suit in a heartbeat. He nimbly sidestepped a charging Abassi and thrust the barrel of his Lynx into the back of the alien’s head as it passed him. The muscular alien stopped cold as the barrel, white-hot from the massive amount of fire it had already lain down, cut through the skin and bone of the alien. For good measure, Gabriel fired a single shot into the cavity he had created within the skull of the Abassi. Brain matter and purple blood splattered in an arching pattern. The alien fell to the ground, dead before it landed.
They rushed him, and their bodies soon carpeted the ground. Gabriel felt no remorse or pity for the aliens as they came forth, nor did he feel regret or indecision. His blood ran cold, his temper flared hot. There would be no mercy from him, not this day, never again. He would burn them all with the hatred that fueled him; which gave him no respite.
“Peace? There is not a word that gives peace. As I hate hell, I hate all Abassi. All life. Let it burn. Let it all burn.”
A shape moved beside him, a familiar one. Another Wraith stepped up to his side, smaller than normal, armor blackened from proximity to a massive explosion. A small, still coherent part of Gabriel’s brain told him it was Twist. He decided not to kill the Boer and refocused on slaughtering the aliens.
“The shuttle is at the LZ!” Twist screamed at him. “Cover the civilians!”
“Kill the aliens!” Gabriel shouted back. He fired off more bangers. “Kill them all!”
“Omelet! Protect the civilians!”
“Fuck!” Gabriel’s cry came from the very depths of his soul. The burning desire for vengeance was overwhelming, but his deeply ingrained sense of duty and honor was pushing against it. He fired off every last banger he had at the oncoming rush and watched as the aliens fell to the explosive phosphorous grenades, their legs cut out from beneath them.
“Evac now! Move those civilians!” Beeker called out. Twist began to provide covering fire as the shuttle landed, the howl of its turbines drowning out all other noise as the Abassi began to assault them in one long, continuous wave.
Gabriel’s fury retreated, the anger slowly subsided. His mind, no longer filled with incoherent rage, assessed the situation. He was exposed, about to be flanked, which would mean the civilians would die. He took a single step back, away from the abyss, further from the warm embrace of the darkness. Then another. And another.
Gabriel continued to shoot anything which came close. “Fall back to the LZ!” Gabriel shouted as he unleashed another flood of phosphorous at the Abassi. Twist slowly walked backwards towards the shuttle as Gabriel continued his slaughter. He stole a glance back at the civilians, who had reached the besieged shuttle. Beeker stood next to it, protecting the men and women as best as he could as they struggled up the sloped ramp.
A woman fell, her hand clutching that of a little girl. The woman did not stand back up. The little girl did, though, and her eyes sought his immediately. A child who was young. With dark hair and bright blue eyes. Eyes Gabriel knew so very well, eyes he had lost himself in many times in the past. Sophie’s eyes.
He could not save Sophie. He would be damned forever for his failure to protect the one woman he had ever loved. Could there be redemption, though, in saving her child?
His child?
He had no other option lest his soul be damned for all eternity.
He moved. The child was crying, screaming in terror as another person she had known all of her short life died. Nothing else mattered but to rescue the child, her child. He snatched her up as delicately as he could. She screamed anew, pain added to her fear as the hot skin of his suit scarred her skin. Gabriel did not care, though. Scars meant a person lived. A scar showed the person survived. Scars were something that could be shown later and, best of all, scars could heal.
He bounded into the shuttle, the tight quarters becoming worse as the Wraith suit took up space. Twist and Beeker came aboard last, their heavy suits straining the weight capacity of the shuttle.
“Everyone’s on board. Close the ramp,” he ordered the shuttle’s crew as he gingerly set the little girl down. The ramp rose quickly and sealed, effectively locking out the alien threat. The engines howled loudly as the shuttle began to lift off.
“Captain Reukauf, drop the kinetic bombs. Wipe it all out. Settlement, Abassi base, everything.”
“Are you insane?” the captain demanded.
“Yes, I am. Follow your orders. Drop the kinetics.”
“But–”
“Drop them. Now.”
“Dropping kinetics. Impact in fifty-four seconds. May you burn in hell, Wraith.”
Gabriel ignored him. He cued the comm to the shuttle. “You have less than fifty seconds to clear the atmo before we’re all going to burn.”
“We heard, Commander,” the pilot responded. “Engines are already maxed out. We should be clear in thirty.”
“What about Esau?” Twist asked.
“We already picked him up,” the pilot interjected. “He’s in a coma but alive. His suit was trashed but it kept him alive long enough for us to extract him. He’s up here with my co-pilot.”
Gabriel looked at the survivors. Nine men and women, and a single child were all that were left of a packed colony ship and a Dominion world. Only one mattered to him, though. It was the small child huddled near a woman trying to keep the rest of the civilians calm. He peered at the young girl. Dark hair. Blue eyes.
What had he done?
Gabriel leaned against the bulkhead and sighed. He closed his eyes. He had done his duty. He was a destroyer, not a builder. He had rescued some, ruined more and was finishing the job. He was nothing more than a psychotic killing machine. All he had done was what a Wraith was supposed to do, what he was supposed to do.
Then why does it hurt so much?
He felt a presence near him. He looked down and saw the little girl looking up at him. Her tears were dry now, though her eyes were still red. A small cut was on her cheek but other than that, she appeared to be uninjured. He carefully knelt down and popped his helmet, tasting air other than his recycled can for the first time in a very long while. The jelly disappeared into his suit, ready for him to replace the helmet when he needed. He tugged off the thin, transparent breathing mask and removed his goggles.
She reached up and touched his face, his cheeks, his nose. She rubbed his smooth scalp and ran her palm across his chin. His brown eyes met her blue ones. He wanted to hold her, comfort her, but he was not sure she was the one who needed comforting. She was too young to truly understand what was going on, yet her eyes knew. Gabriel thought about what Sophie had said about the aliens tampering with her, making her grow faster and smarter than the average human being.
“I know you,” she whispered. “I saw pictures of you and Mommy. You don’t have hair anymore.”
“Yeah,” Gabriel swallowed, his throat constricting. “It happens.”
“Why?”
“We don’t have hair. I’m a Wraith.”
“Why are you crying?”
“Because...I thought I could save your mommy. I couldn’t.”
“Oh.”
Gabriel began to cry harder as waves of hurt crashed into him. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
“You saved me.”
“I guess I did.”
“Thank you.”
Some wounds would never heal. Gabriel knew this to be true. He also knew time could make it hurt less, though it would never truly leave him. Inner peace would never be his; but then, what Wraith could ever say he was at peace with himself? He was an anomaly, a mistake. He would never be able to give the little girl the life Sophie could have given her. Yet, perhaps there was something he could do for her. Something in his beloved’s memory.
> He had one more task for the Eye of Solomon, then he would submit himself for judgment at the hand of the Emperor.
Chapter Twenty-One
Gabriel sat in the cell, manacled from head-to-toe in heavy chains as he awaited his trial. He kept his head down, partly due to the insects which buzzed around in the filth-coated and ancient stone walls. He was tired, so very tired. He knew the charges against him, and he knew deep down he was guilty of every single one. Worst of all, he was going to be the cause of a lot of pain for every Wraith in the squad. Gabriel sighed and closed his eyes. It wasn’t supposed to end like this, he thought sullenly, his mind on the childhood adventure books he had read with his brothers. I thought I’d get pardoned, rewarded...something other than universal condemnation and a prison cell. The stories never show the repercussions of the hero’s actions. Stupid, lying books.
He looked across the cold, damp path between cells and looked Beeker in the eye. The black-skinned Zulu stared back, a wry grin on his tattooed face. Despite himself, Gabriel chuckled at Beeker’s expression.
“Damn, that was fun,” the Zulu said, fierce pride and acceptance heavy in his tone. Gabriel shook his head, forgetting his failure for the time being.
“Only a doos would say that was fun,” Twist muttered from futher down the dungeon. Gabriel turned his head and looked at the imprisoned Wraith. The man from Ibliss smiled darkly. “And yeah, Zulu man, that shit was definitely fun.”
“You wouldn’t change anything we did?” Gabriel asked, surprised. Twist and Beeker both laughed out loud, their guffaws filling the prison with a moment of light.
“Change? If I could change anything, I wouldn’t have signed up for this job,” Twist stated after the laughter died. He scratched his head and frowned. “But regret stealing a spaceship, jetting across the galaxy, saving two planets and who knows how many lives? Riding a nuclear bomb down to a planet like a drunken idiot? Getting to destroy half of a city nobody but the rich and elite wanted in the first place? Recovering my home world and pissing off every single Perfect in existence? Just another day as a Wraith in my book.”
“Well, I’d try to avoid missiles, that’s for sure,” Esau called out from his own nearby cell. Another round of laughter filled the dark prison. “I missed all the fun.”
“Yeah, you have to watch out for those missiles moving at four times the speed of sound,” Gabriel said. His mood grew somber for a moment as he reflected on his actions. “Should have done more to help Joshua and Markus. Well, Markus at least. He sacrificed himself so we could get those civilians to safety, and bought us enough time to be rescued.”
“It happens,” Beeker said with a shrug. He leaned back on his cot and rested his head against the filthy walls. “Markus died well, and Joshua...well, we don’t have to listen to his whining anymore. So, it’s a win all around.”
“You guys are really messed up in the head,” Gabriel told them.
“No Gabe, we’re not,” Esau stated. Gabriel heard him jump off his cot and walk around inside his cell before he continued. “You just aren’t messed up enough. We’re crazy, mano. You aren’t. You’re just depressed.”
“You got...that girl out of there,” Beeker reminded him, carefully editing out the fact Gabriel had a daughter. That was a secret they all knew they would take to their graves, a promise they had made on the shuttle to the Eye of Solomon. Even Captain Reukauf had made such a pledge as his master-at-arms was slapping the metal bracers on the Wraiths the moment his stated mission was completed. Aurelia deserved a chance at a normal life, one unburdened by the knowledge of who her father really was. Of what society said he was.
With his parents as her legal guardians, they had given her that chance. Nobody would take that away from her, and nobody would ever know her father was just another worthless Imperfect.
The label no longer bothered Gabriel, though he did not want his child going through life with the social stigma of what he was. He didn’t think anything of it anymore, the ostracizing title nothing more than a brief reminder of his substandard being. He had done far greater things than any Perfect could ever hope to achieve, and been more of a man while doing so. He had loved a pure love, and now sat in a prison cell because of that love. But...
“No regrets,” Gabriel whispered as he closed his eyes, his mind picturing Sophie’s face. It had been a long time since he had looked at her picture, but she remained perfect in his mind. Past self-doubt that no longer existed, her face etched permanently upon his soul. Every single, miniscule detail was so exacting in his mind it hurt his heart to think about it. Had she known just how perfect her–no, our daughter was, he wondered. Did she know whether Aurelia was free of genetic flaws, like her?
“Gabriel Espinoza?” a deep voice called out from the entrance of the jail. Gabriel raised his head and glanced towards the speaker. A man in blood-red robes stepped into view, his hands holding a small datapad. Two guards accompanied him, one on each side. Gabriel stood and squared his shoulders, his eyes never wavering from the face of the prison adjutant.
“That’s me,” Gabriel answered, his tone steady.
“For crimes committed against the Emperor and the Dominion of Man, you are hereby ordered to appear before the Regla Verdugo to determine your guilt and, if need be, your sentence. May the Emperor’s blessing be upon you for your upcoming trial,” the man intoned, his face a wooden mask as he spoke. “Will you come forth peaceably to accept the charges laid against you?”
“I will,” Gabriel nodded and shambled carefully to the door to his cell. The guards unlocked the steel door and let it swing open. Gabriel nodded to them and shuffled out, the leg irons around his ankles hobbling him slightly. He looked back at Beeker, whose face was downcast. Gabriel felt a small surge of rebellion well up within his heart. “Don’t mourn, Zulu. Rejoice in our victory, for it was a great victory indeed.”
Gabriel turned and walked down the narrow passage between cells, the two guards flanking him closely. The red-robed adjutant was close behind them, his own face betraying no emotion whatsoever. He’s seen this a million times before, Gabriel guessed as he passed an empty cell.
“Omelet,” Esau said, pressing his face against the cold metal bars of his cell as Gabriel neared. Gabriel paused and looked at his best friend. Esau had become his best friend the moment they met at MITC, though Gabriel had not realized it until much later. He approached the steel bars which separated the two men. The guards remained close by, giving Gabriel a small amount of space out of...
Respect, Gabriel realized suddenly, hope and love flaring in his heart. The bond between men who suffered in battle was unbreakable; faith in something greater than oneself unshakable. Even the guards, who were Wraiths like the men in the cells, shared that bond with him. He looked at Esau and smiled.
“I’m ready for my trial,” Gabriel whispered to his friend, the man he considered his brother in many respects. “I’m ready for my death.”
“It’s not your death we will celebrate before we all meet our punishment, Gabe,” Esau said as he reached out through the bars. Gabriel grasped his hand and clutched it. Esau’s voice was firm and strong, much like his grip and his faith. His voice brought back the memory of their first meeting, long before, in a tiny barracks on an entirely different world. “We celebrate our life, and yes, it is a life well given. Civilized farewells, my friend. We will meet again.”
“One way or another,” Gabriel agreed firmly. He let go of Esau’s hand and looked back at Twist. He nodded to the Boer. “One way or another.”
“Live with your heart striving upwards, Gabriel,” Beeker said from behind him. “The Emperor’s light is with you, my brother. Indumiso uku nesibindi!”
His head held high, he walked out of the prison cell, the manacles on his wrists nothing more than decorations, the bracers holding his legs, ornaments. He looked upwards towards the unseen heavens, a thoughtful smile on his lips. The guards were his escorts, the adjutant a mere functionary. The prison was his kingdom,
the men behind him his warriors. No bars could hold what he was, nor hide what he had become. The men were his brothers, and they would remain so in spite of what society proclaimed them to be. Men. Not Imperfects; men, equal, answering the call of their Emperor, standing tall and proud in the face of death. They were men, each and every one of them.
They were Wraiths. They were brothers.
I am Wraith kin.
He knew there could be no finer calling.
The noose tightened. His neck broke. Darkness fell as he died.
The agent looked up at the swinging body of the young Imperfect and grimaced. The few spectators who had turned out for the execution were already out of sight, the hanging forgotten. Another Imperfect hanged for defying the will of the Law, they would tell their children later. For now, though, the agent was content with the fact nobody would see what the DIB, under orders, would do next.
He motioned towards the body. Two men hurried to the scaffold and carefully, surgically, began to lower the body. The agent checked his timer.
“Eight minutes, gentlemen,” he reminded them. “We have only eight minutes. Hurry it up.”
They lowered the body to the ground. He pushed the gurney over and together the three men hoisted the body of Gabriel Espinoza onto the cart. The agent checked his timer again.
“Let’s go,” he ordered and they quickly wheeled Gabriel into a small, enclosed area, away from prying eyes. He leaned over his brother and patted him on the head. “Six minutes.”
With curt nods, the two men began to work.
Andrew continued to watch the clock.
“Five minutes.”
“It’s going to be tight, sir,” one of the technicians stated.
“I know. The Emperor decreed this Wraith, and the others, will live to fight another day.”
“They’ve been recruited into the–”
“Yes.”
“Damn. I never met a–”
“Four minutes.” He stared long and hard at the technicians. “Do not fail.”
Wraithkin (The Kin Wars Saga Book 1) Page 31