by Ben Wolf
Justin glowered at him, then he stared at the repeater. Its flashlight was off, and it wasn’t emanating its usual orange light. Its charge had been really low when he’d tossed it to Carl, and Carl had barely used one the whole time they were in the mine. Did he really not know it was empty?
“Then you’d better make it count, Carl,” Justin growled, his body tense, ready to move.
“Oh, I will.” Carl aimed the repeater at Justin’s forehead, then he pulled the trigger.
38
The repeater just beeped.
Carl looked at it, wide-eyed.
As Justin stormed forward, Carl put up his hands. Justin batted them away with his left hand and grabbed Carl’s throat with his metal fingers. And he began to squeeze.
“Justin, don’t,” Shannon said from behind.
“Mark was right. He deserves to die.” Justin squeezed tighter.
Carl sputtered, clutching at Justin’s metallic wrist but unable to move it. His mouth formed desperate, pleading words, but no sound came out.
“Justin!” Shannon said. “Stop! You’re not like him!”
Justin kept his focus on Carl.
Shannon was right. Justin wasn’t like him.
Carl had planned and executed the murder of his own brother. He had reopened a dangerous mine he knew to be unsafe. Then Carl had traveled across the galaxy to ensure the thorough cover-up of both of those truths, and then when all hell broke loose, he’d hired Inter-Planetary Marines to save him—and only him—from the danger.
Carl had bought and bullied and manipulated his way to reach this point. He’d lied and cheated and killed in order to preserve his own life—but worse than that, he’d done it to protect his wealth and status. In doing so, Carl’s choices had led to the deaths of hundreds of people, and he had expected to walk away from it scot-free.
Until now.
“Justin!” Shannon yelled again.
Justin had one final choice to make as far as ACM-1134 was concerned. He’d braved hideous, mutated coworkers trying to tear him to pieces. He’d survived killer androids bent on his destruction. He’d endured despite long odds and unfathomable costs, and he’d stared into the very soul of evil and emerged victorious.
Now he was staring at that evil again, hovering behind Carl Andridge’s crisp, blue eyes.
Have courage, the priest had said.
Keontae’s words from the spaceport, right after they’d landed on this godforsaken planet, came to Justin next: Doing the right thing ain’t always easy, and it doesn’t always make sense to everybody, but that doesn’t make it any less right.
Carl’s wide eyes bulged, and his mouth gaped open as he struggled to breathe.
Justin knew he should kill Carl, if for no other reason than self-preservation, but something within him couldn’t do it. This was not who he was, even though Carl deserved it.
“You’re right, Shannon,” Justin said with a sigh. “I’m not like him.”
Justin tried to release his grip on Carl’s throat, but his metal hand wouldn’t comply. A jolt of electric energy shot through his robotic arm, and his fingers constricted hard and fast, totally out of his control.
Carl’s mouth widened, and he spasmed. Blood spurted from the sides of his throat.
Then Justin’s arm yanked back and took most of Carl’s throat along with it.
Carl slumped to his knees, his hands clutching what little remained of his bloody neck, staring up at Justin in total shock. He toppled onto his side, motionless.
Shannon gasped.
Stunned and horrified, Justin stared down at his hand. Control of his arm returned, and he dropped Carl’s throat and stepped backward. Blood dripped from his metal fingers into the blue dirt below.
But he hadn’t done it. His arm had acted on its own, somehow.
And then he heard something behind him, perhaps from within the destroyed terminal, or from the ventilation system—he couldn’t tell for sure. Mark was laughing, quietly, faintly, unmistakably.
Justin looked back at Shannon, but she refused to make eye contact with him.
He started toward her. “Shannon, I didn’t—”
“Don’t,” she snapped and backed away from him. “Don’t come near me. Don’t touch me.”
“I didn’t do it!” Justin stopped.
“Shut up!” she shouted. “Just shut up! Get away from me!”
As Justin stared at his bloody right hand again, he said softly, “It wasn’t me.”
Shannon hurried aboard the transport, leaving Justin alone.
Justin dug his hand into the blue soil. He couldn’t go back to Carl’s ship with its owner’s blood on his hand. The blue dust of Ketarus-4 cleansed the blood from Justin’s metal fingers, and then he entered the transport.
Though Justin’s eyes kept pleading with Shannon, she didn’t meet his gaze as they flew back to Carl Andridge’s ship.
“Didn’t you hear him laughing?” he asked.
Shannon didn’t reply.
“It wasn’t me. I heard Mark laughing.”
Was that what had happened? Had Mark finally gotten his revenge through Justin’s arm? And did that mean—
“I didn’t hear anything,” Shannon finally said, scowling at him with reddened eyes. “But I saw exactly what you did.”
“It wasn’t me. I was going to let him go.”
“But you didn’t.”
“It wasn’t me!” Justin didn’t know how else to explain it. “My arm acted on its own.”
“Don’t talk to me anymore.”
“You can’t tell them what happened, Shannon.”
“I said, don’t talk to me.”
Justin swallowed. And then he noticed he was flying without getting sick or experiencing vertigo. Perhaps he was too traumatized to feel sick anymore. Maybe he couldn’t feel anything anymore. Numbness pervaded his whole body, his soul.
As the remote-piloted transport’s AI announced their impending arrival to Carl’s ship in orbit above the planet, a brilliant light flashed outside its windows. Justin didn’t have to look down to know what it was.
ACM-1134, the mine from hell, was gone forever, along with Etya, his friends, and Keontae. And the truth would die with them because no one would believe Justin and Shannon’s story.
When they docked at Carl’s ship, ACM officials ushered them into separate rooms and hurled question after question at them for several days. Justin told them everything truthfully, except the part about killing Carl Andridge.
As Justin had expected, they didn’t believe anything he said. But since Carl had ordered the mine destroyed, they couldn’t prove Justin wrong.
But if Shannon told them about Justin killing Carl, that would be the end of it. They’d lock Justin up and put him on trial immediately.
Instead, as the questioning process developed, the ACM officials gradually gave him limited freedom aboard the ship. Eventually, with no evidence to the contrary, they all but formally exonerated him from any wrongdoing.
That gave him little peace, though. All the while Justin kept wondering if he’d gone crazy. Maybe he really had killed Carl. Maybe he’d allowed his emotions to rule him, and maybe he had commanded his fingers to do the deed.
Yet the energy surge he’d felt—he couldn’t deny that it had happened. He couldn’t deny that he’d tried to pull away, but that his arm had held fast and squeezed and ripped and ended Carl’s life. And Justin hadn’t told it to do that. He’d had no control over it.
Ultimately, no one ever asked him about killing Carl.
Shannon hadn’t talked.
Weeks later, the ship arrived at Bizona-12, Shannon’s home planet, to drop her off.
Justin hadn’t spoken a word to her since they’d boarded. She had refused to talk with him and demanded that he leave her alone, and he had respected her wishes. He couldn’t blame her for it, based on what she’d seen and based on his flimsy explanation for it.
But in spite of that, he finally worked up the nerve to
say goodbye to her.
“Thank you for not telling them… you know…” he said to her as she waited to board the transport down to the planet.
Shannon’s decision not to tell the ACM officials what Justin had done gave him the sense that she believed him, at least on some level. That would have to be good enough.
Shannon stared at him for a long moment, her forest green eyes laden with sadness, hurt, and anger, but she didn’t say anything back to him.
That look told Justin everything he needed to know. She would never fully believe him, and thus she could never forgive him for what she thought he’d done, even though they were the lone survivors of ACM-1134.
But he didn’t hold it against her. He wouldn’t have believed himself either.
Shannon didn’t give him a second look. She just boarded the transport with a small bag of items she’d collected from her time aboard Carl’s ship and didn’t look back.
And Justin never saw her again.
Epilogue
It took Justin three more weeks to make it to Jevilos-6, a neutral planet where he could catch public transport to a system with copalion mines owned by one of ACM’s competitors.
Carl’s ship had refused to drop him off at a competitor’s mine, and he sure as hell didn’t want to work for ACM anymore.
But as Carl’s ship pulled away, Justin realized he didn’t want to work in any mine ever again.
Instead, he found a motel, got a room that ate up half of the pitiful hazard payment Carl’s people had credited to him, and crashed for the night.
As he lay in the darkness, his right arm began to tingle with energy. Then a green light flickered in his periphery. He turned toward it, and it glowed brighter.
Justin’s heart thundered in his chest. He knew he hadn’t killed Carl, and this confirmed it. If only Shannon had seen this, too, she would’ve understood.
The light took the shape of a man.
But it wasn’t Mark Brown.
It was Keontae.
This book is over,
but the mayhem doesn’t stop here.
I hope you had as much fun reading this book as I had writing it. If you did, please leave an honest review on Amazon and/or Goodreads. Reviews are integral to the success of this book and all the other books. Even a short review is helpful!
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Acknowledgments
Every published book is the culmination of a lot of hard work, dedication, and support. The author writes the book, but everything that comes after is equally as essential to the success of the book.
First and foremost, I want to thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Second, thanks to my parents for always encouraging me and for funding my early writing endeavors, trips to writers conferences, etc. You guys started to believe in me at an early age and supported all of my eccentricities me as I grew older. Thank you.
Thank you also to my sister, Lauren, who is always a ray of sunshine in my life.
Avily Jerome, thank you for being an exquisite editor for this book. I learned a ton from you, and you really helped me shape this beast into something sellable. I value you as a close friend and have ever since we hit it off in 2009 at that ACFW Conference.
Andrew Winch, thanks for being a close friend and a professional counter-balance to me for all these years. Splickety wouldn’t exist without you.
Arpit Mehta, thank you as well for your help with all things Splickety over the years and for the countless design and photography things we’ve collaborated on during that time. And thanks for introducing me to good cigars and whiskey.
Monét Camel—what can I say to you, my friend? Your life has been an inspiration to me in so many ways, and I have such a thorough respect and admiration for you. This book is dedicated to all the monsters in my life. You’re a monster of a different sort—the awesome, badass, take-no-prisoners sort. I love you, brother, and thanks for letting me base Keontae off of you. GG, 1984.
To my endorsers/reviewers/resident experts: Daniel Kuhnley, CW Briar, Kerry Nietz, Jason Joyner, Steve Rzasa, Kyle Pratt, Travis Perry, Peter Younghusband, Connor Mulcahy, E. Stephen Burnett, Robert Liparulo, Tosca Lee—you guys (and girl) are fantastic, and I really appreciate how you helped me further shape the story later in the process, particularly the story’s ending. I owe you all a debt of gratitude, and I appreciate your friendship.
Thanks to Randy Streu, who did a fantastic job narrating the audiobook, and whom I count as a good friend as well.
Thanks to my all-star duo of beta readers (Chris Hall and Mandy Walkden-Brown) for your excellent feedback, encouragement, and for having my back as intelligent readers.
Thank you to Chip MacGregor for your support, encouragement, and friendship. It’s nice to have a friend like you in this industry, and I’m glad we got to know each other.
Davis Bunn, you are such a huge blessing to me. To have someone with your level of wisdom and experience in this industry take an interest in my writing and in my career befuddles me, and I am humbled and honored that you’ve invested time to help me develop. Thank you for all your help and guidance over the last two years.
Thanks also to my mastermind group. It’s a secret group, but you all know who you are. (insert evil laugh)
To all of my editing clients over the years, thank you for trusting me with your work. I’ve sharpened my own writing skills by helping you sharpen yours, and you helped me survive the transition from the working world to freelancing. Thank you all.
Kirk DouPonce, you are a genius. The cover is exactly as amazing as I had hoped it would be, and I could not be happier. You’re the greatest cover artist in the world, in my opinion, and I’m right, so just take it and run with it, okay? Also, I hereby endorse your campaign for President of the United States.
I owe so much to the 20Booksto50k group as well. In just a matter of months, you have introduced me to a whole new way of doing things. I really appreciate your help and guidance.
Shayne Silvers, you are a titan. Thank you for pointing me in the right direction and for being the catalyst that got me going on the right path. Keep steamrolling your way to the top. Maybe someday we’ll see each other there.
Brandon Barr, thank you for your incredible generosity and time that you invested in answering my newbie questions on so many topics. I can’t express how crucial your feedback and input has been to me. Thank you.
Spencer Fisher, UFC veteran and friend, you have been a mentor to me and you singlehandedly taught me 90% of what I know about fighting. I have the utmost admiration and respect for you. Thanks also to Dirty Mike Hueser and the Boys at jiu-jitsu for encouraging me and teaching me while simultaneously beating me up. I’ll see you knuckleheads at practice, and I’ve got loop chokes for all of you.
Thank you to all of my readers. Without you guys and gals, I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing today.
Thanks especially to all of my haters and to the people who have treated me like garbage over the years. Your behavior has motivated me to become a better person (as in, not terrible like you) and to succeed so hard that you all get jealous of me. If you’re not jealous yet, you will be. Give it time. I’m just getting started.
If there’s an
yone else I neglected to thank, please forgive me. I still love you.
Thanks also to my kids, Liam and Violet, who at the time this book was initially published were nowhere near old enough to read it. But you’re still great kids, and I love you very much.
Marco, you’re my cat, my fluffiest little friend, and I love you. Thanks for distracting me from working whether I need the distraction or not.
Last of all, thank you especially to my intelligent, beautiful, thoughtful, and ultra-supportive wife, Charis. The mere thought of you fills me with joy, and I am so blessed to have you in my life. None of this would be possible without your hard work and sacrifices over the years. I love you.
About the Author
In 7th grade, Ben Wolf saw the movie "Congo." It was so bad, he wrote a parody of it set in Australia that featured killer kangaroos. So began his writing career.
Ben endeavors to produce stories that question the boundaries of morality, faith, justice, and interpersonal relationships. And he does it with lots of action, explosions, gunshots, sword-fights, and battles.
When not writing, Ben occasionally chokes people in Brazilian jiujitsu. He lives in the midwest with his gorgeous wife (no, seriously, she's profoundly beautiful) and their cat, Marco. He is almost as cool as he looks in the picture below.
If you want to see Ben’s pictures of Marco, follow Ben on social media (links below).
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