by Gary Hickman
The Light Reapers
End of the World
Gary Hickman
© Copyright Gary Hickman 2021
Black Rose Writing | Texas
© 2021 by Gary Hickman
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine or journal.
The final approval for this literary material is granted by the author.
First digital version
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Print ISBN: 978-1-68433-734-7
PUBLISHED BY BLACK ROSE WRITING
www.blackrosewriting.com
Print edition produced in the United States of America
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The well-intentioned leaders of China and the U.S. form a grand partnership to create human robots for every human vocation in every country in the world. The human robots proliferate, economic output soars, and the entire world prospers. It’s a new Golden Age. But there are unintended consequences—consequences that will place biological humanity on a road to extinction. Ultimately, it will fall to the human robots themselves to rescue biological humanity and restore its civilization.
DEDICATION
To my wife, Wendy:
Throughout our thirty years together, we have been through everything the world could throw at us and we are still standing. You have been there by my side even when I didn’t necessarily deserve it. Thank you for being an inspiration and I love you very much.
To my kids, Carly and Noah:
Carly, thank you for showing me strength and perseverance. Seeing you fight through severe Lyme disease inspires me to move forward regardless of the odds.
Noah, thank you for reminding me how to walk to the beat of your own drum. You are truly your own man and I am proud of who you are.
To Jennifer Rowell:
Thank you for being supportive through this entire process. I appreciate your excitement and willingness to help work on this book to make it the best it can be.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Recommended Reading
Dedication
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
BRW INFO
Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum
“Therefore, let him who desires peace, prepare for war.”
~ Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus ~
PROLOGUE
Near Kandahar, Afghanistan, weeks prior
The walls rattle as an RPG explodes against the side of the building. The insurgents had the Light Reapers Team trapped in this hovel for the last ten minutes. “Jesus Christ!” yelled Neville. Not one for a loss of words, Sargent Neville dove to the floor and rolled against the opposite wall.
The building they were using for cover was a blown-out hovel in the Dahle region. It was reinforced with clay brick, but that didn’t offer much protection.
Some family had abandoned it long ago because of the fighting in the region. It was tight quarters with all eight members of the team. “Nuts to butts” so to speak.
The building was approximately 12x12, but the addition of the broken furniture made it a tighter space for the team members and their gear. A table sat to the east side, probably used for dinner. There was a piece of furniture on the west wall that looked to have been a couch. The rugs that littered the floor were packed with sand and dirt.
This mission had been a cluster-fuck since day one. Intel was spotty, and there were “kids” trying to run the operation. Team leader, Captain Webb, didn’t even want to know the ages of those in S2 running this mission. It caused him acid reflux to even think about it.
“Cap’n, we gotta move!” Priest yelled. Master Sargent Priest commanded most of the moments of jocularity on the team, but this was not one of those moments. He was laying down suppressive fire towards the location of that last RPG.
“I’m working on it,” yelled Webb. Rounds ricocheted all over the room. Acrid, cordite smoke, dirt, and sand filled the already dusty room. Priest’s throat was dry and pasty. He tried to peer through the smoke, searching for a way out of the building that would allow him to flank these insurgents.
“Frag out!” screamed Staff Sargent Abarra as he threw a grenade through the front window. It bounced down the backside of the ridge just a few yards in front of the building.
Just before Abarra yelled, Priest locked eyes on a side door on the eastern wall. When he heard “frag out,” Priest sprinted the two or three strides and slammed his shoulder through the weak door.
He came out on the other side and rolled up on his feet like a cat. “Don’t let the fat fool ya,” he mumbled to himself. He used this line many times as a valuable, but painful, lesson in how not to underestimate your opponent. He was a martial arts instructor, and when sparring with a young, cocky black belt, he would ham it up by stretching, moaning, and groaning before the sparring match. The young black belt would soon incur a minor hit to their pride, along with a few bumps and bruises.
Priest dove for cover behind a small retaining wall two yards outside the broken door. He immediately heard rounds hitting all around him and felt their i
mpact in the dirt. He had attracted some insurgent’s attention. Priest worked his way down the retaining wall where it opened up at the mouth of a ravine which the insurgents were using for cover. Priest clicked on his comms, “I’m headed across the ravine from east to west. Cover me, and we’ll push the off button on these fuckheads.”
Abarra barked, “Copy. Shaw, get your big ass to that window and lay down some shit!”
“Copy that,” Staff Sargent Shaw said and brought his M48 to rest on the window frame. He started dropping .50 cal rounds downrange, clipping off the top ridge of the ravine.
The insurgents tried to duck down deeper into the gorge to escape the rapid weapon fire coming their way. Some were successful, some weren’t. “Get some, goat fuckers,” Shaw bellowed, tobacco juice dribbling down his chin. Shaw had the tobacco wad nice, warm and juicy. He had a nasty habit of spitting a glob of tobacco spit in the face of every insurgent taken prisoner. Right between the eyes. Outlaw Josie Wales was one of his favorite movies. Shaw seemed to value insurgent POW’s about as much as Josie Wales did the stray dog in the film.
Webb shouted to his men, “Check your fire; Priest is getting close. We don’t want to take his fucking head off.”
Just as he hoped, they preoccupied the insurgents with Shaw and his barrage of rounds, so Priest could traverse most of the ravine basically untouched. He rounded another curve in the terrain with his M4 locked into his shoulder, where he finally spied the chaos of the insurgents. Two of them had their heads down, running right at him, looking for cover.
“Hello ladies,” Priest said before he opened up a three-round burst on each.
The insurgent on the right took two rounds center mass. The third round trailed up the man’s jaw, taking most of the right side of his face with it. Teeth shot out the side of his face while his tongue lolled out of the cavern that had been the lower half of his jaw. Blood spewed from his face, and he dropped face-first to the ground.
The insurgent on the left had a split second more to react and ducked to his left for a half measure. One round blew through his forearm, while the other two embedding themselves in the side of his torso. The exit wounds exploded with blood and pieces of his ribs. He screamed as the rounds ripped through his body, only to be silenced by a follow burst that Priest laid into him. Those he expertly placed in the side of his head, obliterating it like an M-80 inside a ripe watermelon. Blood, brain matter, and shards of a skull painted the ground as the insurgent went limp and collapsed with his ass in the air. Priest shook his head and moved on. “Way too many jokes for this situation, which I don’t have time for,” he thought.
Shaw kept up his suppressive fire on the ridge of the ravine but trailed his firing to the left, staying 20 yards ahead of Priest.
Webb yelled out, “Myles, go back up Priest, and cover his six.”
“Copy,” Myles yelled back. Corporal Myles ran out the door, down the retaining wall and into the ravine.
Webb keyed Priest, “Priest, you copy?”
A second or two of silence, “Busy here, Captain,” Priest blurted, showing only a slight bit of sarcasm.
“Myles is coming up on your six, don’t shoot him.”
Priest retorted, “No guarantees, but good copy.”
Webb looked over his shoulder to see something unusual to most, but normal for this team. Sargent Shin was meditating, and Neville was now playing cards with Doc. “Are you shit heads aware of what is going on out here?” Shin never opened his eyes from his meditative state.
“Yes, Shaw is providing suppressive fire along with Abarra. You are providing oversight to Priest in the ravine.”
“Okay,” Webb said. “What about you two?” referring to Neville and Doc.
“Damn Cap’n., I’m sure nobody needs sniping,” Neville objected.
“I didn’t hear anybody calling for a medic,” Doc exclaimed. “Besides, nobody else can fit next to Shaw and use the rest of the window as a firing position with his big ass in the way,” Doc quipped.
Shaw spit some tobacco juice. “Yep, that’s about right. This window only accommodates one man… or the two of ya’ll!” he chuckled.
“Keep firing, or I’ll come over there and slap the shit out of that big, corn fed, redneck head of yours,” Doc bitched.
“Yep, that will be about the time you cease to exist, son,” Shaw muttered.
“Pipe down, you assholes, Priest is coming close to finishing things off,”, Webb barked.
It didn’t take long for Priest and Myles to reach the rest of the insurgents. Priest fired into the group. Myles threw a grenade on the far side of the group. “Frag out!” he yelled.
The two dropped to the ground for cover. BOOM! Dirt, blood, and scraps of flesh rained down, followed by screams. The two Reapers trudged through the destruction and systematically ended the screams for good.
CHAPTER 1
Present: 101st Airborne Division, Ft Campbell, KY
The Light Reapers are a special operations group within the 101st Airborne Division, ran by Captain Marcus Webb, call sign “Spider”. Marcus Webb was a tall, thirty-eight-year-old black officer from the streets of Philly, who commanded a lot of attention when entering a room.
Webb’s second in command was Master Sargent Alec Priest, call sign “Father”. Built like a brick wall with a bald head and sizable grey beard, Priest intimidated most people with just a look. He had extensive combat experience, but often told jokes in the middle of combat which brought his sanity into question.
The next in line was SFC Gabriel Abarra, call sign “Bacardi”. Abarra, from Puerto Rico, was an expert troop manager and former drill Sargent who liked to jack around with the rest of the team. A short man in stature, but large in character. The lines in Abarra’s face represented his twenty-plus years of military life.
Next, Staff Sargent Jeremiah Shaw, call sign “Cotton”. Hailing from Alabama, he was an enormous man standing 6’4”, weighing 280lbs and with a baby face that was a tremendous hit with the ladies. As the team’s entry breach expert, his size came in handy.
Then there was Sargent Renaldo Neville, call sign “Voodoo”. An expert sniper and recon soldier, Neville had a sarcastic attitude but performed his missions flawlessly. He was from a mixed-raced family and grew up in bayous of Louisiana.
The spiritual member of the group was Sargent Sung Shin, call sign “Gandhi”. He was from South Korea and a Buddhist. Shin was an expert with numbers and calculations, so his spotting skills were important for Neville as a sniper. When he was spotting for Neville, they both shared the call sign, “Overlord”.
Their medic was Sargent Joseph Mancini, call sign “Doc”. The team called him Doc as units in the military tended to do. Being from the Bronx, he had a heavy NY accent and a WTF attitude. He had a habit of providing graphic narration during combat.
Their newest recruit was Corporal Dominic Myles, call sign “Motown”. From the streets of Detroit, he was an excellent fighter and loyal soldier. After a heartfelt plea from his mother, he gave up the thug life and joined the military.
The Light Reapers are a quick deployment unit, which maintained constant deployment readiness. Their equipment, standards, and tactics differed from the regular military. They played by their own rules and stayed out of the political theater and dog and pony shows. They executed Black Ops flawlessly and were not on the radar of any Congressional chamber.
The team was cleaning and checking their gear when Webb ran into the load-out room. “Priest, Abarra, you’re with me. Major briefing, now!”
“Up to the principal’s office again?” Priest lamented.
Abarra hit him jokingly on the shoulder, “Come on, you probably have detention again.”
The three made their way to the 101st Airborne Division HQ building. HQ was a magnificent building designed with the building’s atrium doubling as a museum, with bronze statutes of eagles and soldiers lining the walls, and the front of the building is the highlight as you walk into the round room. Hanging high above the statues were oversized battle streamers and photos of every Medal of Honor winner. A revolving display in the back highlighted important battles and times for the division. Overhead, hung a life-sized paratrooper, his parachute dangling from the windows above.
Arriving at the top floor, Priest and Abarra followed Webb into the division office suite. Standing in the doorway of the War Room was Colonel Madison, the commander and handler for the Black Ops branch of the 101st Airborne. All three reported with a respectful salute.
“Sit down, gentlemen,” Colonel Madison motioned to a large conference table in the middle of the War Room.
The War Room was impressive — a wall of monitors on one wall and a single massive screen on the opposite wall. Old school maps were hanging on any wall space available that wasn’t being taken up by some form of technology. The maps weren’t used so much anymore, but Madison was nostalgic and liked the reminders of the old school. Seated was a team of communications and mission controllers in front of various computers on tables were against one wall.
Colonel Madison was an avid runner with a lean body along with close-cropped, graying hair and blue eyes, standing about six feet with digicam ACU’s. Madison reminded Priest of Cal Ripken Jr. He was drinking coffee out of an enormous mug, even though it was 15:00 hours in the afternoon. Madison was an all-day coffee drinker. Priest thought, “All that running will not help him if his kidneys give out from all the java.”
“Gentlemen, we have a potential problem that may require your expertise.” Madison continued without waiting for a response. “We have intel that some bad operators are working together to bring about an objective that could affect the rest of the world.”