"Every single one of them. Thanks to Jackal and his team showing up when they did. Couldn't have done it without you." He patted Jackal on the back, nearly knocking him over.
"That thing really fucked you up, Cap." Jackal frowned. "Look like you just went through a meat shredder."
"At least I still look better than you," he grinned.
Jackal laughed.
"Mjolnir," Reaper said, "could we increase the guards and fire power around the perimeter? Lock the ship down and keep all the civilians inside. I don't want anyone coming outside. Not at night."
"Before you do that, let me pull a truck out." Jackal said. He hurried into the cargo bay without a further word.
Reaper called for him, but he was ignored.
"Son of a bitch. Ow." He winced at the nurse. "He can't be thinking about going back out."
"I'm sure he has a plan, Captain. Rest up, I'll take care of the perimeter." Mjolnir grinned and stepped away.
Reaper had been given pain killers he couldn't wait to kick in. One of the medical drones hovered overhead. It scanned over the injuries, then stitched them up with silk like glue. Bandages were taped down and he was free to go.
Just in time, too. Jackal had one of the all-terrain trucks out at the edge of camp. He was packing it up with a bunch of supplies. Ropes, hooks, mechanical tools, a few MREs, and lord knew what else. Reaper hurried over to see what he was planning.
"Where are you going?" He asked, grabbing the open back door.
Jackal stepped back from the seat and shrugged.
"Back out into the jungle. Not sure from there."
"Why? For more food?"
"All we really found was nuts and berries. Found something Yaaranam carried in. Needs to be tested before its cooked though."
"Doesn't answer my question." Reaper crossed his arms. His brow narrowed.
Jackal sucked on his cheeks, his eyes dropping down and away.
"I have an updated cartographer." He said, picking the device up from the front seat. "The radio works. I have supplies for just about any situation. Few cans of ammo, a pocket flamethrowe--"
"Why are you going back out alone?" Reaper held up a hand. He put on that Captain's voice which made Jackal visibly cringe. "I know when you're trying to hide something, Liam."
Another cringe. He looked like a child being scolded by his father.
"Tell me the truth."
"Okay. Okay." Jackal put his hands up. "I think Fenris needs help." He quickly dug into one of his pouches. He held out the piece of bloodstained fur.
"See? It's his. I know it is. There's a pond a few miles that way. I think he set up a barrier of his smoke." Jackal started to talk quicker, trying to get out all of his jumbled up thoughts. "There was a fight. Something big. A few of them. A lot of blood all over the clearing. There's a trail of his footprints I lost in the dark."
"All right. Breathe." Reaper sighed. "I know you're worried about him, but that can't be our priority right now. I know for a fact he's gonna be alright. If he's hurt, he'll come back. We need to focus on our own people right now, Liam."
"We can't just forget about her and pretend she doesn't need us!" He threw his arm to the side.
"Are you forgetting that Fenris was literally created to fight the eos?"
"That doesn't matter! I'm going out there to find her. I can use the cartographer to follow the trail."
Reaper's lips pursed. He rubbed his palm over his mouth. A habit of his when he thought hard about Spectre. If she was the one out there, he'd be going after her too. No doubt about that. He'd go through any length to make sure she was all right. How could he stop Jackal from doing it for Fenris?
"All right." He sighed. "Take Yaaranam and Nostra with you."
"You're...letting me go?"
"I'd rather you stay, but you're right. Just because you can do it alone, doesn't mean you should. Fenris needs our support. We can't sit idly by and wait."
FORTY-TWO
"Fucking shit!" Yaaranam cursed, attempting to get into the back seat of the truck.
The vehicle was a heavy duty, all terrain six wheeled pick-up truck with an extended bed to carry extra cargo. Four wheels in the back, two in the front. It sat up high requiring a two-step side skirt at each door. It even had various bars on the outside. Painted a matte white with gray accents, the windows were tinted just enough to make it hard to see inside, but not difficult to see outside at night.
Big as a bulldozer, Yaaranam still had trouble fitting inside. She was nearly ten feet tall and the interior of the truck was designed with humans in mind. Even I wasn't as comfortable as others would be; needing the driver's seat pushed back pretty far.
"Why don't you get in the gunner’s seat?" I suggested, taking the time to check that all the lights worked, and the truck was running fine. I even made sure the manual toggle for its height, and which wheels were used to drive worked.
"There's a gunner's seat?! This thing doesn't have a gun!"
"All of our trucks are ready for weapons to be mounted. We only keep a handful ready to go. The rest are used for transport."
"And you think the one without the gun is the best choice?" She shut the back door and climbed onto the roof.
"I was planning on going alone." I grumbled.
"Like that was ever going to happen."
Nostradamus sat in the passenger seat quietly, listening to the two of them go back and forth.
"Are you ready yet? I figured raven women didn't take as long as human women to get ready to go." I revved the engine.
"Shut your trap." She dropped down onto the seat of the hatch. She stuck half way out of the roof, rested against the door. "Let's go. I want to shoot something."
"Is it wise to be going far from the camp at night?" Nostradamus asked.
I rolled the truck forward headed towards the field back the way Reaper and his team had come from.
"Probably not. I imagine this thing can outrun anything we come across. Plus with her up there and a gun, we should be all right." I flipped the switch to turn on the extra lights on the hood and roof of the truck. We could see straight ahead for several meters, the extreme amount of lumens lighting the terrain up as if the sun was shining bright in the sky.
"They already moved the bodies?" Yaaranam asked.
"Friendlies, yeah. I don't think they touched the eos." I answered.
"Well, they aren't there either."
We looked out where we last saw the corpses of the eos. The blood was still there. The debris just as it had been. The human bodies were long gone. Apparently the eos bodies were, too.
"I didn't even see them drag them in." I said, scratching the back of my head.
"Perhaps Dr. Reynolds wanted to examine them." Nostradamus proposed.
"Sounds about right." Something didn't sit right about it.
I shook the feeling away and hit the gas. I hooked the cartographer to the trucks systems so the map would display on the screen in the dash. Unfortunately, we couldn't see the location of other cartographers out there. All we had to go off of was what appeared on the map. It was only a basic topography of the surface and ours seemed to be updating once every hour. They should update quicker than that.
"Fenris does not seem to be on a certain path." Nostradamus pointed at the screen.
What showed up zigzagged around, and at times looped around with little changes. It seemed he was primarily heading north.
"It last updated ten minutes ago." I said. "Could you find the newest change?"
"Of course! Let me plug in…" Nostradamus jumped up at the idea. A series of dots flashed on his face.
After a moment an exclamation point appeared.
"I've connected with the system! It will take me a moment to find the newest changes."
I headed north, keeping an eye out for any sign of Fenris. The eos seemed to be few in number. Either because Fenris already killed most of them off, which I doubted, or scared them into hiding. They could just have a small p
opulation here though. Fuck, how was I supposed to know anything about this? They didn't exactly teach much about biology or science in the military. Couldn't even call it teaching. It was more like instructions for oddly specific situations. I knew my equipment, and my ship, that was it.
The rest of this stuff dumbfounded me. Made me realize that there was a lot of stuff I didn't know. I still remember learning how to handle liquids in space. All the times I fucked up and let water loose in the cabins. Using the toilet was the hardest part. Learned that one the hard way. They tell you to time it right, but they don't tell you why. That was a long night in the medical bay.
Listening to my squad talk back and forth, I learned that I didn't have many experiences. Not like them. No parents to speak of. No siblings, or cousins. I was stuck on the streets and in the mines of Mars, trapped under the thumb of the Executor. I thought I was smart. Had a good head on my shoulders. Then I enlisted to escape that street life and potential prison sentence and found out that I was actually pretty stupid.
Not just due to the lack of peaceful experiences, like vacation trips, and dating, but school and careers. I didn't even know what "school" was until it was brought up in basic.
All I knew was the military. It was the best choice I ever made. I was the only martian in my unit, and the hurdles were high as hell to get over, but in the end that was my family. The only good in my life.
Now they were all gone save for Reaper and Spectre. I was back to being the outcast. It was hard making friends. Especially when you know they would die at some point.
"It seems the last update was thirty miles north, northeast of us." Nostradamus stated. "We should receive updates more frequently the closer we get."
"Looks like a smooth ride." I gave the wheel a twist, turning to head more eastward. I sped up, pushing the truck as fast as it would go; about fifty miles an hour.
"I must admit this is awfully exciting!" Nostradamus said. "To see the eos up close is a tremendous endeavor! I sure hope we don't get eaten!" He hummed in thought. "Though, if perhaps being eaten whole is an option, I would very much like that!"
"I think your brain might be damaged." I raised a brow. "You want to be eaten whole? Is that some sort of robot fetish?"
"If I could see a living eos from the inside, I could learn all about how their bodies function!"
"You could just...scan it, y’know?"
"Bichani will go through insane stretches to learn what they don't know." Yaaranam shouted from outside the truck.
"Must it be death inducing?"
"If I die learning more about the cosmos, then so be it! Perhaps on the other side, I will spontaneously know all there is to know." A smiling face.
"You talk about it like it's a living thing."
"That's because it is!"
"What do you mean? It's just a thing. It's a space."
"Incorrect!" He was cheerful as ever. "From our collected knowledge, the entire universe is a living, breathing organism much like we are. At least it has all the same characteristics. Just on a grander scale."
"That sounds like bullshit." I said. Then I sighed. Like I knew any better. This guy was an actual scientist, who spent his whole life studying the universe.
"It is hard to believe, I know, but it's the simplest solution. Simplicity is always best. Things that are over complicated have a tendency to be false."
"Right. So, we're like cells in a body?"
"It’s possible!" He nodded. "We won't know until we ascend, however, and we haven't quite figured that out yet."
"Ascend?" I remembered Fenris mentioning that before. Something about guiding the way for humans to ascend.
"As you know, there are multiple dimensions. An infinite number. We do not know exactly what entails with each dimension, only that it is possible to transcend the veil between them."
"So, like Heaven and Hell?"
"It's possible, but we have no way of knowing. It is believed that death is the key to the next dimension. It's only a theory since we can't exactly bring the dead back to life. Not without significant brain damage and memory loss."
"Didn't you die though?"
"No. Technically, I shut down. I entered a form of stasis where time does not exist. I was paused until you put me back together."
"The eos. They eat souls, don't they? That's what Fenris said. That means souls are actually real?" A bunch of questions started popping into my head. It was all I could do to keep from spewing them all out in one breath.
Nostradamus perked up, smiling. I guess he was happy someone was interested in what he had to say.
"I have no true definitive answer. I believe they are. An intangible entity of the next plane. It's simple enough, but it's hard to study for proof. It brings up a lot of theories from around the galaxy." He fell quiet as he thought.
"Actually, almost all religions in the galaxy, which is well over a thousand, mention souls, spirits, ghosts, and other similar entities. They all speak of gods and goddesses that closely resemble one another in appearance and roles. In fact, many of the tales match up quite well! It may be safe to assume that we are all in fact connected to one another."
"Which leads back to the idea about the universe being a living organism." I scratched my cheek.
"I think it's all garbage." Yaaranam said. "The Emperor says there's no need to trouble ourselves with theories and ideas of afterlives. They probably don't exist at all, and even if they do, we aren't there, so it's not our problem."
"I see. I suppose your leader dictates what is law and what is not." Nostradamus frowned.
"Sounds like he's a dictator." I rolled my eyes.
"There's no point in sitting on your ass and thinking all day when there are missions the Emperor needs done."
"Aren't you like exiled or something? Your emperor wants you killed publicly." I stated.
"It is well deserved. I disobeyed my orders."
"You make no goddamn sense, woman."
She huffed, kicking a foot up to the ceiling.
"Will you just keep an eye out for any eos? One of those bats might try to pick you up."
"I'd like one to try."
"Nostra, you've heard of the eos before right?" I asked.
"Humans call them eos, but they have many names."
"So you know a lot about them?"
"Unfortunately, any information on them has been lost to time. They are treated more like ancient tales passed down by word of mouth. If there is any information written down, it would most likely be in the Great Library. I do know they have not been physically seen for millions, if not billions of years."
"Have people really existed that long?"
"One of the oldest books in the Library tells the story about the beginning of everything. How three extra dimensional entities gave birth to the cosmos and to intelligent life that created the planets, stars, and in their loneliness, created life such as the fleebeeron, and elhfrin. It goes on to say that these people and four others went to war across the entire universe. They wiped each other out, but from their blood lust and the chaos of war these starving creatures rose from the Abyss to devour all they saw. Those that survived the war had to flee these monsters. The tale ends abruptly there. It's possible that the fleebeeron were the only survivors."
"It sounds like they're demons."
"Perhaps they are. Born of chaos, anger, and hatred, their curse is an insatiable hunger that drives them mad. They must fight, kill, and eat else they cease to exist."
"How long have the bichani been around for?"
"Nearly a million years now I believe. We did not keep a good track early in our existence. What of you humans? You haven't been around very long have you?"
"Oh, I'm not the right guy to ask. I...I don't know much about human history."
"Do humans not value their history?"
"I guess not." I sighed.
"Humans are young. There is much to learn! Do not fret, Lieutenant Jackal, there is time to learn."
/> His face flashed yellow.
"It seems the map has been updated."
"Already? How long have we--"
"An hour. The new area is just five miles to our east."
"Hey, are you seeing this?" Yaaranam called. "Just a mile north. It looks like there was a war!"
"Can't be. Unless the eos fought each other?" I looked to Nostra.
I wanted to go east, but drove north for half a mile. I parked the truck, grabbed the binoculars off the dash, and climbed up to stand on the hood. We all looked out to the field.
The grass was scorched to ash. Craters dotted the field. Trees were burned and snapped in half. Bodies laid out everywhere. Ripped to shreds. Dismembered limbs scattered around. We couldn't tell blood from soot, not at this distance.
Many of the creatures were still alive. Ripped in half, missing body parts, they dragged themselves through the dirt. Their goal? To sink their teeth into anything they could. Those that were capable gobbled up the weaker ones. Their hunger drove them to keep feeding to no end.
Scavengers had arrived. Various carnivores not above a free meal. Who could blame them when the pickings were this good? Helpless, dead, and dying creatures crawling around in misery. Some had even turned to eating their own entrails since they could not reach anything better.
"It’s...disgusting." Yaaranam's face scrunched up.
"It’s disheartening. Those poor souls." Nostra sighed.
The sight made me hungry. Maybe it was just the idea of food. I hadn't eaten since breakfast. I briefly thought about snagging an MRE on the way back into the truck, but I instead envisioned my teeth sinking into a blood soaked steak. I shook the thought away.
"Do you see any smoke?" I asked.
"Smoke? Like a fire?" Yaaranam raised a brow.
"Black smoke. Hangs low to the ground."
"No, I don't see it."
"Let's go. We might be able to catch up with him."
We all slipped back into the truck. I took a sharp turn and headed downhill. Straight east, right towards the last charted area.
"You think Fenris did that?"
"I wouldn't be surprised." I said.
"Jackal, your eyes." Nostra leaned closer to me.
The Soul Eaters (The Thin Hex Line Book 1) Page 35