Second Strike

by Tim C. Taylor

  Residual senses told me that I’d come to an abrupt deceleration, tumbled and was then still.

  I tried calling Silky’s name – was she hurt? – but I couldn’t tell if sounds came from my mouth.

  “Help me!” I screamed. Or tried to. Endlessly.

  Eventually, calm came to me, because I was too exhausted to scream, and screaming was such a physical action and I no longer possessed the senses to connect me with the physical world.

  I wasn’t ready to die. For years I had said the opposite, but not now! I had too much to live for.

  The fight to continue energized my mind, but as disconnected as I was from my body, that only fueled my frustration to panic levels.

  FIGHT… Fight… f i g h t…

  I was an energy cell draining fast.

  I hoarded my dwindling energy, jealous of every erg that remained.

  But I was falling ever faster into oblivion, following my ghosts down into hell.

  The blackness clawed at me, a malign physical force pulsing deep inside my mind, displacing everything that had once been Ndeki Joshua McCall.

  I fought to hold on, but then the darkness overcame my will, and with a final jolt of horror, I was gone.

  FOLLOW NJ McCALL IN REVENGE SQUAD

  NJ McCall will return in Blood Feeder.

  Panic grips Port Zahir when bodies start choking the sewers, drained of blood, and with bite marks puncturing their veins. When the authorities can't even slow the pace of these ‘vampire’ killings, the city turns to an unconventional savior: Revenge Squad.

  But Revenge Squad’s most effective agent, NJ McCall, lies crippled by devastating injuries, and can think of nothing else but his own personal revenge.

  BONUS NOVELETTE: DAMAGE UNLIMITED

  Set in the Naddox Archipelago, some 800 miles from his Revenge Squad base at Port Zahir (and where the gun laws are considerably laxer!), a forestry client activates their revenge clause when an unknown assailant slaughters every living thing at a remote logging site. The forest around here is an extremely dangerous place to be, but so too is NJ McCall. Some battles, though, can’t be won by GX-Cannon and railguns alone…

  This story is a novelette (about an hour to read) and is set between ‘Hurt U Back’ and ‘Second Strike’, but works as an introductory self-contained story.

  At the time of writing, this novelette is available exclusively for signed up Legionaries. Receive the Legion Bulletin (featuring NJ’s column, Ndeki’s Notes), enroll in swag competitions, and download a free starter library introducing you to the worlds of the Sleeping Legion, Human Legion, and Revenge Squad. Enlist today.