The Soul Eaters (The Thin Hex Line Book 1)

by Gwyndolyn Russell

  "That's sickening." Five spat. "Think Zayla can figure it out?"

  "No." Fenris stood up. "It will be fine."

  "No it’s not! How can you fight like that?"

  It shrugged. Then it looked away. A door was cracked, the light off. Two sets of yellow eyes gazed out from the darkness.

  "Hey there," Jackal waved. "It’s safe to come out."

  "Don't bother. They won't come." Five said.

  "Why not?" Mjolnir asked.

  "Strangers. Some stupid rule they can't be seen without armor."

  "Not to mention, the great Eater of Worlds is here." Eight grinned at the valkyrie.

  "How did that come about anyway? He's never explained really."

  "She -- it, sorry, -- ate most of its siblings growing up."

  "What?"

  "The others bullied Fen cause it was the runt of the litter. Didn't think it’d live very long. It turned on them one night. Really showed it would survive no matter the cost."

  "I still remember it." Five chimed in. "Alarms woke us in the middle of the night. By time we got there, it already had five of its siblings dead and gutted."

  Eight scratched the top of the valkyries head with a soft smile.

  "This one’s a warrior. Best there ever was."

  "You don't seem...to be afraid of him?" Jackal asked. "Do you see that weird...form shifting thing too?"

  "Why would we be? We've been friends since it was a pup."

  "Not to mention, who wouldn't want to be friends with a fierce wolf?" Five laughed.

  Jackal and Mjolnir looked at one another.

  "I'm gonna grab the diamond blade. I'll be right back." Five stepped away.

  Jackal walked over to one of the glass rooms. Whoever was staying there ran off in a hurry. The room was a wreck.

  Fenris joined him, looking through the window.

  "My room." It tapped on the glass.

  "You stayed here? That must've sucked… being watched from every angle and no place to hide."

  It shrugged. "Never bothered." It tapped the glass again to point at the farthest corner of the room where a plastic desk was. "Slept there."

  "On the floor? Why not one of the beds?"

  "Surtr kept setting the bed on fire." Eight joined them. "Poor guy couldn't have anything."

  Fenris snorted, shaking its head.

  "We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to." Jackal said.

  "Whoa." Eight stared at Jackal. "You can hear her real voice?"

  "What are you talking about?"

  “I didn’t hear anything either.” Mjolnir added.

  "Her real voice. Schreider said valkyries have two voices, but she was the only one who could hear the other. She said it was their real voice. She's imprinted on you!"

  "Wait. Why do you keep calling him a her?"

  "Whoops." He rubbed the back of his head. "Technically, they aren't either. They just look like one. Wait, you mean you can't tell? Look at it! Thin waist. Wide hips. Real slender."

  Jackal looked the valkyrie over. Those features seemed more prominent now that they were pointed out. Even Mjolnir was checking the valkyrie out. He nodded in agreement.

  Jackal cleared his throat and crossed his arms over his chest. "Doesn't matter anyway."

  Eight's lips twisted up into a big, shit-eating grin. "It's good to see Fenris has a friend. What did you say your name was again?"

  "You can call me Jackal."

  "Oh, Reaper's side kick! You two were in the First Contact War, huh? Damn, it was before my time. Good job out there. Not bad for a civvy."

  Jackal raised a brow. This man was clearly older than him, how could the war be before his time?

  "Hey, Jack!" Reaper called.

  "Cap, what's up?"

  "Have you seen the doctor?"

  "No. I haven't."

  "You mean that pretty lady of yours? I saw her head down hall H there." Eight piped up.

  "Why would she go down there?"

  "Ain't nothing down there anymore. It was the testing area."

  "Testing for what?"

  "Skills and abilities. It's the safest area in the whole base. Not even a nuke can get through it."

  "Eight, you're talking too much again." Zayla sighed.

  "Sorry, ma'am." He rubbed the back of his head. "Does it matter though? It's all over anyway. Where's the harm in it?"

  "Over?" Fenris looked to Zayla.

  "We can't make any more valkyries. This is our last pack and we'll be sending them straight to Skao with what we can as soon as they're old enough."

  "What about the missing armor?" Reaper asked.

  "I have nothing to offer you, but if you could retrieve it, that would be marvelous! It shouldn't be left in the hands of humans. It belongs to the valkyries. The new armor sets are vastly improved on with eos DNA, so I can't guarantee anyone's safety if they wear it."

  "What could happen if a human wears it?" Reaper asked.

  "Sick." Fenris answered.

  "That's an understatement. We haven't fully tested the effects eos have on humans. What we do know...there's no fix. No cure. They die horrible, painful deaths. A lot worse than what happened here."

  "Then we need to get that armor from Spectre before it's too late."

  "You should take Fenris back to Skao where it belongs. It needs to be with its own kind. They need it."

  "No." Fenris shook its head. "Will not return." It pointed to itself. "Exiled. Pack...does...not want Fenris."

  "What? Why not?"

  It snorted.

  "What about the artifact on B-58?" Jackal asked.

  "Artifact? I don't know what you're talking about."

  Jackal watched Fenris for a moment. "He knows there's an artifact on that planet that could help fight the eos."

  "You told them about the eos?"

  "He didn't say much. Could you elaborate?" Reaper frowned.

  "The eos are ancient creatures. They crop up every few millennia according to the books we have here. They are part machine and part flesh. They're the only things we know of that can spontaneously evolve at will."

  "We tested all of our weapons on them," Eight chimed in. "You have to destroy their core to keep them down. Fire works best when they've been weakened."

  "That's why the valkyries were made. To fight the eos. We took their DNA and turned it against them."

  "Can the valkyrie...evolve like that, too?" Jackal asked.

  "Yes. I think they have more control of it, too. It's hard to determine."

  “Take it they’re pretty hard to deal with then.”

  “If you’d like I can send you a map file. We’ve been keeping track of all suspected eos locations.” Zayla said. “Maybe you can convince everyone else of the threat. If the Council would believe our data, this issue would have been taken care of a long time ago.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  “This is just a lot of information to process.” Reaper rubbed his forehead.

  “What’s there to process?” I said with both of my hands out as if his answer would just fall right into my arms. “The eos are real. They’re coming. They’re even further than Avant-Garde thinks!” I pointed to the map displayed over his desk.

  A basic star chart with the addition of red highlights where Avant-Garde believed the eos to be located. It blipped from time period to time period on a loop with the red highlights over taking significant chunks of the galaxy each time.

  I tapped on the desk to make it zoom in to the sector B-58 was located. The highlights stopped just to the edge of the sector.

  “Fenris says there are eos on that planet.” I pointed again. “Avant-Garde doesn’t even know it.”

  “How does Fenris know it though?”

  “Gut instinct?”

  “You don’t think what Zayla said was the truth?”

  “The truth? A theory is stretching it!” I rolled my eyes. “Connected to everything by strings? Intangible, or not, that’s pretty farfetched.”

  "Ho
w do you explain your bond with Fenris?" He crossed his arms. "He obviously listens to you. He knew to guard the ship from Spectre without even knowing her or if she were coming. He speaks in a way only you understand."

  "Maybe I treat him like he matters. I'm not afraid of him."

  "I don't know." Reaper frowned. "I'm not sure I believe it myself...but what about how everyone reacts to him? Those kids called him by a name they couldn't have known. Hid in fear from something they wouldn't know to fear."

  "If I didn't know what made that sound, I would've ran, too."

  "Okay, what about the people on Empyree? If Fenris has always been on Skao until meeting Fauriei, then there's no way those people would have known him. Solstice, too. That was his first time there and there were still people who knew him."

  "Word of mouth? How does everybody know who you are?"

  "I'm not a secret working on secret missions." He put a finger to the desk. "Zayla said it herself, nobody knows anything about valkyries or their existence aside from those at Avant-Garde and the Syndicate. Fauriei would be the only other one. There's no colony on Skao since its overrun by eos."

  I shook my head. I couldn't wrap my head around the idea of a universal connection by way of invisible thread. I would sooner believe one could survive a fall into a black hole than believe a bunch of nonsense like that.

  "You gonna use that as an excuse to hunt Spectre down? Feels like you're building up to that."

  "If that armor is really that dangerous, we should at least tell her."

  "I think she can handle herself. Seems to be doing just fine if you ask me. The bigger danger is the eos. According to Zayla they are spreading fast. We need to find out why and stop it."

  "We couldn't handle the ones on the Utopia. We couldn't possibly take on more."

  "Maybe we don't have to? What if we convince the Admiral of the threat? If we got hard evidence he couldn't deny it. He'd have to go to the President with it. The Federation would have to take action."

  "So, you think we should go to B-58, or Skao?"

  "Fenris doesn't want to go back to Skao."

  "We might not have a choice if we're gonna fight the eos."

  "What about the artifact? We know nothing about it, but Fenris says it's key to defeating them."

  "We're putting a lot of faith in one person here." Reaper looked me in the eye. "An enigma of a creature that we know almost nothing about beyond it being a starving, world eater who was exiled by its own kind."

  "Are you scared of him?"

  "Are you fucking not? All we know, this is a trap."

  "It's not." My chest hurt just thinking about his doubt. "I know for a fact it isn't."

  "How can you be so sure?"

  "I don't fucking know! I feel it." I tapped on my chest.

  Reaper stared at me for far too long. I tugged on my pants to loosen their hold on my thighs. Couldn't bring myself to maintain eye contact. He had that stern captain's look while he thought. The kind of look that made you feel small and everything you just said was wrong. In the silence I started to believe I was. I wasn't necessarily right all the time and certainly not as often as Reaper was. If anything, he had the track record of being right all the time. Wrong only when Spectre was involved.

  "We'll go back to Solstice." He stated abruptly.

  I actually jumped up. My heart raced.

  "Make a list of supplies and we'll have logistics gather everything. I'll have Torch do the same so we can have the ship ready. When we have it all we'll go to B-58 and help Fenris get that artifact."

  "Really? Are you sure?"

  "If the data checks out and these things are a threat to the galaxy, then it is our duty as soldiers of the Federation to stop them."

  I felt a smile creep onto my face.

  "Yes, sir!"

  I pushed myself out of my seat. Gave him a salute, which I rarely did, and rushed out the door. As soon as I flew out, I smacked right into a metal mass.

  I groaned and rubbed my nose.

  "Sorry, didn't see you there."

  Fenris looked at me, a twitch to his jaw. The lights on his armor seemed to cascade upwards like rain instead of the usual waterfall flow.

  Now, Fenris can't make many expressions. An outer shell of metal was as emotionless as it could get. All visible emotion was displayed in his posture and how he moved. Without skin to contort the visible muscles twitching and stretching did nothing more than give it a macabre appearance.

  His posture dropped. Cloak hugging his frame. Even the fur around his neck seemed to hang instead of float around like grass. The eyes...now those were different. All the other lights flowed up in trickles. The lights in the cracks of his eyes flowed down.

  The weight of his shadow pulled on my spine. It seemed to pull on his, too.

  "Fen…? What's wrong?"

  His head turned slowly to look at Reaper who was still sitting at his desk, watching us. Then without any visible motion to do so, he floated backwards away from me.

  "Hey! Wait a second!" I called, but he was already gone.

  I glanced back to Reaper. He shrugged, not knowing why either.

  With a sigh, I hit the button to shut the door and headed down the hall. I made my way down to the barracks where I found Mjolnir going over the stock. He must have read my mind.

  "Lieutenant!" He waved. "I'm almost done with logging all of our supplies. We are dangerously low on ammunition and meds. We used a lot fighting off those pirates. I didn't have time to run a check before we left Solstice."

  "That's all right. We're headed back to Solstice to get everything we need. Captain wants a thorough list of everything to purchase." I took the tablet from him to read over his work.

  "Hopefully we'll have time to get everything. Eight mentioned fire is effective against the eos."

  "Let's make sure we order enough so everyone can have something. I want our medics geared up just as well as the soldiers."

  "Flamethrowers aren't cheap. Depending on grade, it'll waste more money than eos."

  "Incendiary ammo and grenades will be useful, too. Maybe we could settle for less flamethrowers with that. Save it as mounted weapons for the trucks and a handful of handheld."

  "What of their armor? Fenris is impenetrable! Surely they are, too."

  "Armor piercing. We can get Raven made ammunition. It's better than Federation Standard."

  "I will need a new hammer!" He declared. "I'll take time to find one while we are there."

  "Write down anything else you come up with. I'll give the list to the logistics team when we get there. I'm going to find the doctor, I have a few questions."

  "Good luck! I haven't seen her since we left Avant-Garde."

  It was great to know how well I could rely on that ardrizi. How he could have thought that far ahead was beyond me. We had yet to tell anyone the plan. I decided to leave our stock in his hands to chase down ideas for medical supplies. I wanted to make sure all of my men were taken care of. We still knew nothing about the eos. A xeno-threat brought up a lot of concerns. Our standard suits would protect us from foreign bacteria in the air, but what if someone got injured? Exposure to unheard of bacteria could result in an entire army dying overnight.

  I stopped at the medical bay, thinking Reynolds would be there. Every other medical personnel was. I headed to the back where Ianisse was kept.

  He was stuck in that pod. Sound asleep. He looked much better than when we brought him back. That poor guy. He didn't deserve it. Looking at him now, the anger and hate welled up in my chest. How could she have done that?

  I shook the thoughts out of my head. He was okay now. Oddly, I wanted to protect him from that ever happening again. He would never be around another Alpha if I could help it.

  I looked around the room. No one. Where the hell did Reynolds disappear to? She wasn't in her office. Maybe her room?

  I made my way to her room and knocked. No answer. I knocked again.

  "Doc! It's Liam!" I shouted.

/>   Another knock. I listened for any sound from inside the room. For a while, I heard nothing. Then there was a scream. It didn't sound very loud, but it could have come from far from the door.

  I took a risk, scanned my key card over the pad. The door unlocked. I pulled myself in slowly.

  A light was flashing on the far wall of the living room.

  "Stop! Stop!" A woman screamed.

  I pushed myself a little faster. I came around the corner of the kitchen. Her space suit and helmet were floating around the room.

  I found her sitting at a desk, her feet keeping her in place. She was leaned over, chin in her hand. Wide, green eyes stared at the flashing screen of the computer. Endless amounts of papers, folders, and books floated around the room haphazardly. A notepad and pen held by one hand.

  I was just about to announce my presence when her medical drone whizzed right by out of the kitchen with a cup of coffee.

  The drone was basically a metal ball with two arms and a pair of propellers at either side. A big red cross painted on its head and a round lens for an eye. It beeped as it flew around. It delivered the cup straight to her hand. Beeped cheerfully and scooted off to gather all the loose stuff hanging around.

  "Midi, look at this." She said.

  The drone beeped and flew back to her. I joined them quietly.

  On the screen was footage from a security camera. Dated in the middle of the Earth year 2243. Static popped up on the screen every so often. It even artifacted occasionally; an obvious sign the file was corrupted.

  A large room filled with a series of obstacle courses and target drones. Water to tread, ramps to run up, ropes to climb. A rock climbing wall in the far corner stretched over the ceiling. Bars hung down, still a dangerous height from the floor. Weapons were lined up on tables dotting the courses, drones wandering aimlessly.

  A group of almost-human-looking kids were traversing the course. I knew the course at a glance. A stereotypical set up for training in boot camp. Team work was required to get through it, but you still had to pull your own weight. Seven of the children worked together. The eighth one lagged behind, unable to keep up and completely ignored.

  “They’ve grown so much…” Reynolds whispered under her breath. “This is just a year later. They look like teenagers!”