by Scott Moon
“I don’t want to carry that heavy piece of junk while Solaa’s band chases us and we don't know what the fire breather is gonna do,” Dog said.
“Your call,” Jojo said. “We need to hold on to Droon. He could be our ticket off of here.”
“How solid is your information? Is he that valuable?” Dog asked.
“My intel is not exactly new.”
“Do we need consensus?” Dog asked.
“Your call,” Dwarf said.
Jojo nodded, although he was staring at Droon’s cryo-chamber as though trying to figure a way to move it more quickly.
“All right,” Dog said. He climbed up the sand dune and looked toward the sound of Solaa’s hunting party, rotating to keep pace with the sound of her scouts. “We are avoiding contact this time. Hauling ass is the order of the day. Head for Dead Man’s Draw. From there, it is equal distance to the airship or the nearest way station. If things look favorable, I might consider a mission to retake what belongs to us.”
“Unless something happens with Kin and that freak,” Dwarf said.
“You care about Kin now?” Dog asked.
Dwarf shrugged uncomfortably. “I don’t like the new Reaper.”
Dog grunted. “Me neither. Let’s call it Reaper X for now.”
“Roger,” Dwarf said.
“Jojo, you are on point. Dwarf, rear guard.” Dog grabbed the handles to Droon’s prison and started dragging.
“What are you trying to do?” Jojo said.
“I can do this for a while. When it is time to drop it, I will. With luck, they will stop to investigate the other boxes and let some of those parasites out.”
He knew it was a mistake even before he made the decision. Everything felt wrong, from the angle of the orange sun to the sound of grating sand on the carbon fiber container. Dwarf kept looking toward him, checking his weapons too often and jumping at sounds and shadows as night fell. In the light of the purple moon setting on the desert horizon, there was an image of Jojo, motionless as he looked down on Dog’s position.
Sweating and grunting, he no longer cared about anything. Keeping the Reaper in the box had become both the means and the end — to what, he had no idea. He refused to give up even if it got him killed. The complete irrationality of his decision scraped the inside of his brain like a blunt scalpel and he knew it was the wrong decision, but he could not stop or change what he was doing.
Solaa raced ahead of her warriors like she always did, jumping past Dwarf and heading for Dog. Muzd moved at her side, eyes flashing red as he unhinged his jaws to roar a wide-mouthed challenge.
It wasn’t the first time Dog had fought these two, but it felt like it might be the last. Encountering Kin and all the old memories he brought had set them all off of their game. Jojo was almost lethargic compared to his energetic, often contrived and dramatized, espionage. Dwarf made overtures of reconciliation not only with Dog, but with Jojo, as though he expected to die and wanted a clean slate.
Dog thought the stocky soldier might even make peace with Kin if he had a chance and there was no living human his friend hated more than the Enemy of Man.
“Dog-a-da-chief!” Solaa’s voice cut the air like a laser-sharp whistle. “You die!”
He dropped to one knee and parried not only her attack but her entire body, sending her sailing over him into the darkness. Muzd came lower, just slow enough that Dog hesitated and lost his balance to be in the right place at the right moment.
His hand came forward with the hatchet from his survival kit. It was a weapon he had never used against these particular monsters and Muzd didn’t see it coming. The blade bit into his groin, lodging deep into the pelvis. Dog stood, driving forward, and flung his adversary back with a spectacular wound that turned out to be more devastating than he hoped for.
With his other hand, he shoved two attackers down the slope almost without realizing it, then turned to face them. Dwarf fired his heavy shotgun past him at Solaa and he knew his flank was covered, at least for the moment. The buckshot concussion of a near miss felt like an angry lover’s kiss to Dog. He laughed deep and low.
“Hell yeah!” Dwarf shouted as he advanced toward targets, stroking the semi-automatic trigger at precise intervals.
“Too many!” Jojo screamed.
Dog turned, surprised to see the small, non-violent trooper so near the action. “Almost tripped over you. What’re you doing?” For an instant, he wondered if Jojo would thrust a sidearm under his patched armor and shoot. The visualization passed quickly despite its unexpected power.
“There are more Reapers than we can handle. We have to go, Dog. We have to go now.”
Dog stopped everything and stared. “You’re scared.”
Jojo swallowed. “First time for everything. Listen, there is no one who will regret losing Droon more than I will, but we will die unless we run.”
Dog shoved him away and rushed forward to meet an attack he sensed as much as saw in his peripheral vision. Throwing up his hands to catch Solaa as she descended, he felt his feet sliding backward on the sand as a dozen more of Solaa’s best warriors crested the hill.
“Cut and peel!” he shouted.
Dwarf fired, moved back, fired again.
Jojo emptied a magazine at the fresh wave of Reapers, turned, and fled without looking back.
Taking his time despite his hurry, Dog pushed Solaa side to side, establishing a rhythm before he launched the most powerful front kick of his career. He chambered his leg and unleashed its power when he had the Reaper Queen off balance. She tried to bite him as she was launched into her warriors.
Dog turned and ran.
He didn’t look back, but he heard them coming after him.
“Tell me you can fly that airship,” he said as he caught up with Jojo and Dwarf.
“If we can reach it, I will figure something out,” Jojo said.
“Radio ahead and get Peter Morvil and his militia to meet us at the airship,” Dog grunted. Turning with the hatchet in one hand and a gun in the other, he drove the lead Reapers back several strides before retreating to stand near Dwarf. His stocky friend charged a short distance, slowing the pursuit once again as he blasted targets with the shotgun.
“Jojo, give me a status report,” Dog said.
“Morvil is already at the airship,” Jojo reported.
“That bastard was going to steal it!” Dwarf panted.
“He still might if we don’t hurry.” Dog rushed up the sand and waved his arms at the ship pilot, who was supposed to have gone back to the prison two days ago.
The sound of turbines warming up sounded from over the next hill.
“They better help us fight these sons-a-bitches,” Dwarf said.
The ship lifted off.
“You bastards!” Dwarf shouted. “You’re fucking dead, you shit-for-brains mother fuckers!”
Dog held his breath as the airship gained altitude, nose pointing toward Meridian Canyon several days forced march to the west. The ship started that direction, but the side doors slid open and he saw two men warming up the chain guns. Then, at the last moment, the ship turned and swooped toward Solaa and her warriors.
“That’s too low.” Dwarf said the words like a curse, under his breath and full of dread. Dwarf and Jojo shouted at the same time.
Zykzym hurled a spear as Muzd snapped one of the rare energy whips. Solaa ran up behind Muzd, stepping on his back, then his shoulder, and flung herself into the open doors moments after the Zykzym’s spear killed the side gunner.
CHAPTER FIFTY
Run
EVASION was a skill that troopers mastered on Hellsbreach. Kin had moved away from the Rage — intent to somehow fulfill the creature’s impossible demands — only to encounter a band of Reapers led by a female like he’d never seen. Her spines waved high and she physically dominated the males as though they were children. She ate first, killed last, and made Droon seem like a rational intellectual.
Twice he had seen collection
s of Earth Fleet, Mazz, and Wingers grouped together to face Reaper onslaughts. There were other females, not as monstrous as the first, but covered in spines and surrounded by males and their mating dances. Kin’s heart sank. There was little hope of defeating the Rage. He had no chance of breaking his connection to Droon’s destiny. Everything pointed to his death on Hellsbreach just as Admiral Shield and Emperor Onderbock, the Omega, had planned.
He did not know the name of the Rage.
By the time he reached the embattled troopers and their desperate allies, they had moved or been slaughtered. Crossing the night sands near Meridian Canyon was surreal and terrifying.
Once, he nearly re-joined Dog’s crew as they spied on a group of Wingers and Mazz soldiers and argued about joining or robbing them. He hesitated and soon found himself running from another band of Reapers with the female leader.
He didn’t like the sounds in the night. It reminded him of the terror he still felt from the Reaper birthing pits.
Hellsbreach was no place to be during the mating season.
He fled one group of Reapers after another until he was back where he started — an unchained, seemingly free prisoner of the worst nightmare a world of nightmares had ever seen.
Watching the Rage eat was like listening to his soul die one piece at a time. Kin wanted to harass the monster, comment on his apparent revulsion for the meal, but couldn’t bring himself to mock the Slomn-Reaper that resembled an immature boy in too many ways. Kin had never seen anything eat a Reaper and found the spectacle disturbing. It didn’t help when the Rage gagged and nearly vomited.
When it was done, the Rage looked up at Kin from the sinkhole where he had caught his victim. “I am in Hell, Kin Roland.”
Unsure of what to say, Kin nodded. There were moments of opportunity too good to pass up. When the Rage covered his face with his hands, Kin turned and ran.
He was a strong runner with decent technique. From his earliest days as a recruit, he had known that working on the mechanics of his stride and following the right strength-training regimen would make him faster. Somehow, there never seemed to be time and he could already outrun most of his peers. On Crashdown, he had raced men and boys and girls from Crater Town during festivals and done well. He was fast enough to survive many confrontations with Droon.
“Kinrolanda!”
The shapeshifter mutant bounded out of the sinkhole and raced forward. Kin looked back, just for a second, and realized his escape attempt was already over. Desperately, he looked for some place to hide and saw only a few sinkholes in the sand and distant rock formations.
“Kinrolanda!”
He looked back, and when he faced forward, the Rage was sliding across his path, jaws flashing, claws bunched into angry fists.
“Kinrolanda! Stop or I will kill you!”
Kin veered to his right but stopped, deciding to save his strength. Breathing deeply, he shook his head as he met the Slomn-Reaper’s gaze. “Had to try.”
“You did not have to try. Everyone betrays and uses the Rage. You must do what I ask and never betray me.”
“Trust me, I know how you feel.”
“You are the Enemy of Man. You are a traitor to Earth Fleet. What can you know of what has been done to me?”
“The Omega and the others used you, are using you. What do you think they did when they sent me to Hellsbreach — both times?”
The Rage sulked. “It does not matter what they did to you. It only matters what they did to me.”
“Sure. Okay, that makes perfect sense.”
The Rage opened his jaws wide enough to swallow the face of a Reaper.
Kin put up his hands and backed the monster off. “Okay, okay. Your nightmare, your rules. The universe has been extra mean to the Rage.”
“Do not mock me,” the Slomn-Reaper said. “And stop calling me the Rage. I do not like being called the name the Omega gave me.”
“How about Alpha? I can call you Alpha, like you are the first and most important.”
“No.”
Kin rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands, then looked up. “Can you just kill me?”
The Rage stalked closer, looming over Kin with fire glittering in his eyes and peeking between scales and finger joints. The squirming tunics of short tentacles and little Clinger mouths pulsed with multiple heartbeats. “I did not ask you to make up a name for me. I said you must find my real name.”
“How do I do that?” Kin asked.
The Rage snapped his teeth at him, then stepped back. “You are starting to bore me, Kinrolanda.”
“Well, that’s too bad,” Kin said as he pointed toward a mirage on the horizon. Several fast-moving warriors spread out to attack from several directions. “I think the relatives of your last meal are coming for payback.”
The Rage shed his juvenile petulance and squatted like a true Reaper. Fire of different colors and temperatures flickered up and down his spine. His eyes burned like plasma. Sand melted into glass under his feet. Looking over his shoulder, he addressed Kin with stern malevolence that had more in common with the Omega-Mazz Emperor than the thing the Rage had become on Hellsbreach.
“You will wait for me. Try to escape, and I will make you regret it.”
“I already regret everything,” Kin said.
The Rage laughed slowly but with significant volume and intensity. “Rebecca thinks she can defeat me.”
Kin didn’t know what to say.
“You will be with her soon,” the Rage said. “Wait for me while I kill these demons of Hellsbreach.”
Kin counted the growing number of attackers and decided it was up to thirty warriors that might or might not be in bloodlust.
The Rage slaughtered them one at a time and in groups. Halfway through the battle, the burning claws dimmed but still sliced through flesh with disturbing ease. Wounds inflicted on the Rage opened, then closed. It seemed to slow him only marginally, although Kin thought there was an energy cost to heal traumatic injuries.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Orange Sun, Purple Moon
ORANGE sun, purple moon, bleeding sands — Droon was able to see his home but not reach it because he was in a dream. This mind-place was different because he was not in control. There was no way to manipulate the landscape to generate terror and the emotions that fed him more than blood and flesh. There was no victim. Nothing lived anywhere between Droon and the horizon. As it often was with Droon, there were many things true at once. He could see the landscape, yet he could see nothing. All was blackness. His existence was eternal night. He felt trapped.
Desperation grew in the middle of his thoughts.
Pain pulsed with the beat of his heart.
Anger and resentment caused sour chemicals to leak from the roof of his mouth and drain down his throat like acid. He felt small while also feeling too big. It was as though his entire body was a bruise that was swelling but could not be swelling because he was bound tightly from every direction.
There was a temptation to remember the past. It was a place he could go to and stay for a long time because he had lived for more lifetimes than Kin-rol-an-da could imagine. The human with the Blood Knowledge of the Reaper Kindred should never have come to Hellsbreach. Droon didn’t know why, but he understood there was a reason he had not killed the human. The most important secret he recovered with the Blood Knowledge were thoughts that were not words — as was right and sensible for a Reaper. Words were not emotions, but poor thieves of true feelings. Droon understood things he could not explain and had no need to explain.
Living so close to Kin-rol-an-da was ruining him. His thoughts were full of too many words, which showed him the flow of time, promising him it was true even though it was not. Time was a thing for humans and plants, not for the Kindred.
Droon wants to go home.
He tried to open his eyes and failed. The only sounds he could make were throat clicks and sobbing from even deeper down. Droon can’t see. Droon imagines his home.
The men who captured him had been dressed like Earth Fleet troopers who forgot some of their armor and did not take care of what they had. Droon liked their fear. Even the big, dangerous man was full of fear. It radiated from him like a red sun — bloody, bright, and hot.
Droon dreamed of a mate; he hated and needed the glorious female he had seen from a distance. She would be a hive queen if he didn’t kill her — Queen among queens. If the Burning One didn’t kill her. If Earth Fleet and the Mazz and the Shapeshifters didn’t hunt her and all the Kindred to extinction. He needed to be free but could not move.
The worst thought of all Kin-rol-an-da’s questions tortured Droon.
Why is Droon here?
How does Droon escape?
How does Droon get close to his queen?
His entire world crashed with the force of a falling star, but his prison remained intact. Darkness reigned eternal.
Droon will die.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Concentration of Forces
THE mechanized Mazz armor stood like a black titan of death, small movements revealing there was a pilot inside, but little else. Rebecca shifted until sand poured from the back of her brilliant new Earth Fleet Mech, enough to improve her mobility but not reveal her hiding place. She wouldn’t have risked even that much exposure if she hadn’t recognized Rickson and the dog as they approached the Mazz camp. She worried about the kid, tough as he was, but a lot of her attention was spent on mild self-pity and frustration.
It wasn’t fair that the universe had delivered to her the most powerful single-pilot weapon ever made only to pit her against a Mazz version that was probably at least as good. If not better, she thought.
She ran a full scan on the scene, checking infrared for lurking Reapers and finding a score of them just out of normal weapons range — normal for a man with a rifle or an old version of the FSPAA armor. Storm clouds reached toward the sky. Lightning flashed with the fury of an injured planet. On the ground below the distant tempest, another battle glowed with energy and violence. In her gut, she knew it was the Rage and wondered if Kin were alive.