The Complete Harvesters Series

by Luke R. Mitchell

  Jarek stumbled to a knee and almost dropped Rachel as a lance of fire grazed his calf, but then the ship settled down between him and the shooter. Michael slung the rifle and took Rachel from him.

  He tossed her staff after them just as Mosen bellowed “Bring the ships!” and hurled Alaric at the small tool shed nearby. Alaric hit the wood with a hard, cracking thud and bounced to the ground.

  Mosen paid him little attention. “Bravo team, move in! Now!”

  Then he turned with literal red fury in his eyes and leaped toward Jarek.

  A little over ten yards lay between them. Jarek could’ve covered the distance in Fela, but it was a leap that no human could have made from a dead start.

  Mosen made it all the same.

  Jarek opened fire as Mosen flew through the air. Judging from Mosen’s aggravated growl, at least one of the shots found their mark. Jarek tucked and rolled to the side as Mosen crashed down where he’d just been.

  He rose on a stinging leg, then ducked Mosen’s savage haymaker. Sensing an impending backhand, he pushed back but staggered as his calf protested.

  Pain exploded across his right cheek as Mosen’s fist impacted and knocked him spinning to the ground, bell thoroughly rung. He raised the gun he’d managed to hold onto and tried to shake his vision straight as Mosen stalked toward him.

  He fired once. Twice. The second shot must’ve found Mosen’s torso, his dazed brain insisted, but it didn’t stop him from sweeping in and kicking the gun from Jarek’s hand.

  The pain that shot through his fingers was like a splash of water in the face. His leg growled in protest, but he managed to bring it up in time to kick aside the stomp Mosen aimed at his stomach. In reply, he planted his good leg against Mosen’s chest and drove it home.

  Strong as Mosen was, Jarek had all the leverage at that angle. Mosen took several stumbling steps backward, just managing to keep his balance.

  Jarek would’ve been lying if he said he’d been planning what happened next.

  Al lifted the ship by a few feet and yawed it around clockwise.

  Jarek gathered his strength and shouted: “Fore!”

  The ship’s ramp smashed into Mosen’s shoulder. It wasn’t moving tremendously fast, but the sheer mass of the ramp and the ship behind it was enough to send Mosen bouncing across the yard like a ragdoll, superhuman abilities or no.

  A dozen different pains stabbed through Jarek as he pulled himself to his feet. “Thanks, Mr. Robot.”

  “Incoming ships, sir,” Al said. “I suggest we leave immediately.”

  Across the yard, Michael was pulling Alaric to his feet. They made for the ship, Alaric stumbling along as Michael fired a few suppressing shots at the Reds who were playing against Al’s ship-sized cover to line up a shot. One of them succeeded, and Michael cried out and dropped his gun.

  Michael’s cry seemed to snap Alaric out of his stupor. He raised his remaining revolver and gunned down the shooter. They staggered on and reached the ship’s ramp at the same time as Jarek.

  Mosen was stirring off to the left.

  Jarek limped up the ramp, helping Alaric and Michael do the same. “Get us out of here, Al.”

  The ramp began to rise beneath their feet as the ship lifted off the ground. Al’s voice came through the speakers: “I recommend everyone secure themselves. I anticipate mild turbulence in the immediate future.”

  Several bullets clanged off of the hull, and they all hit the deck as the ramp sealed shut and Al rocketed them away from Deadwood and into the empty night.

  19

  As peaceful as the greenery and mountain air of Deadwood had been, Jarek couldn’t say he was sad to leave the place behind, not once that fresh mountain air had given way to the scent of gunpowder and blood, and once that peace had—well, that part went without saying.

  They nursed their collective wounds on the return trip to Newark. No one had been fatally injured, but that was far from saying they were in good shape. Funny enough, the first to fall had come through much more smoothly than the rest of them. He’d be sure to make ample fun of Rachel later for sleeping through the entire fight, but for now, he kind of wished he could’ve done the same.

  He glanced through the cockpit door at her peaceful form and smiled. She was just so cute when she was all conked out on tranqs.

  Alaric and Michael sat with him in the cockpit. There wasn’t much to be done for Alaric’s injuries. Given how hard he’d hit that wall, Jarek worried about internal bleeding, but they weren’t exactly equipped to even check for that, much less do anything about it. Luckily, Alaric was a tough old bastard.

  Michael’s gunshot wound, they’d done their best with. Jarek had held him while Alaric had dug the bullet out. “Dug” was definitely an appropriate choice of words. It had been a bit of a butcher job. Thankfully, they’d loaded the kid up with some pain meds before they’d gotten started to ease the process.

  At first, he’d been worried about the potency of the drugs, as old as they were, but judging from the glazed look in Michael’s eyes and the easy smile on his mouth, they’d worked just fine. Of course, the kid was probably also a lightweight, given his disdain for alcohol.

  His own bright collection of battle favors didn’t really merit any specific care, though there was plenty of grating pain to go around. Even by his standards, this much fighting in twenty-four hours was excessive.

  “Can we go any higher?” Michael asked for the fourth time.

  “It’s all good, Mikey. We lost ’em, remember? No one’s gonna see us up here.” He finished the last of four sutures on Michael’s arm, wrapped the area up tight, and began cleaning everything up.

  “How are you holding up?” he added to Alaric.

  For a brief moment, Alaric looked lost—utterly, hopelessly without direction. Then he seemed to remember where he was, and dark anger began to creep over his face.

  “Too soon,” Jarek murmured. “Fair enough.”

  He backed out of the cockpit, his cheeks warming as he thought about the things he’d said to Alaric earlier that day—not to mention the fact that he’d unknowingly shot the guy’s son last night. And what the hell gave with that? Was Seth a Weston or a Mosen? Had he changed his name after everything that had happened?

  At least Jarek hadn’t accidentally killed Alaric’s son. That wouldn’t have made things any simpler. Not that having Mosen around made things simple—for anyone.

  Was he an asshole for thinking that? Probably. Okay, definitely. Maybe.

  He liked to think his heart was in the right place when it mattered, but sometimes he wished he was more adept at helping people without resorting to the gun or the sword. The internal threats—those were the tricky ones.

  Alaric’s situation with Seth was about as messed up as they came. And then there was the small contingent of Reds they’d left behind in his town. He’d been waiting for Alaric to go into a fit of rage and insist they return him to his people, but he hadn’t. Maybe because he realized the Reds would almost certainly be chasing after them instead of sticking around in Deadwood.

  Then again, for all Jarek knew, Alaric might simply be quiet right now because he’d had a nervous breakdown or some kind of stroke. How would he know? The guy was a steel trap.

  He started putting away the medical supplies Pryce had given him a few years back.

  Pryce.

  That poor old lovable bastard.

  If it wasn’t for Pryce, he wouldn’t have even lived long enough to earn that ridiculous nickname. Pryce had helped Jarek a hundred times through the years, maybe more. He’d never thought twice about it.

  And now—

  He stifled a manic laugh. Pryce would have just said the thought rattling obscenely in his mind.

  “He finally paid the Pryce for it,” he murmured, and clenched his jaw against the pressure of hot tears. “Goddammit.”

  “I do hope he’s okay,” Al said quietly in his ear.

  That made two of them. He’d tried Pryce’s comm h
alf a dozen times after the initial attack and another half a dozen times since they’d jetted out of Deadwood. The fact that he had yet to receive any answer didn’t mean that Pryce was dead. Neither did Mosen saying that Pryce’s blood was on his hands.

  But those things didn’t inspire confidence, either. If his experience in the post-Catastrophe world had taught him anything, it was that stories had bad endings a lot more often than good.

  None of that stopped him from hoping that Pryce was still alive. He just recognized the hope for what it was.

  The one (and maybe only) bright side was that they’d technically succeeded at their original mission: they’d recovered Alaric. Assuming things didn’t somehow fall to shit in the next hour, and assuming Alaric was stable and willing to get them to Hux’s safe place, he might actually get Fela back.

  And once he had Fela, if Pryce was alive, he’d find him. He’d cut the entire damn Red Fortress to ribbons if he had to.

  With that resolution, he stepped back into the cockpit and settled into the pilot’s seat.

  The trip clock updated by a couple of minutes. Just under an hour left.

  In the copilot’s seat beside him, Alaric gazed out the windshield with faraway eyes. For a while, they sat in silence. Behind them, Michael seemed to have slipped into an opioid-enhanced doze.

  To Jarek’s surprise, Alaric broke the silence. “I reckon you might’ve had a point.”

  He looked over at Alaric. His expression hadn’t changed.

  “I’ve been running,” Alaric said. “For five goddamn years, I’ve been running, and for the life of me, I don’t know where I was hopin’ it’d take me.”

  “There are worse ways you could have spent those five years, man. You were helping people.”

  “I was. But not the ones who really needed it.”

  “I’m sure that’s not how the people you’ve kept safe see it. Matter of perspective, I guess.”

  Alaric turned to him, his gaze intense. “And what do you see when you look at my son from your perspective?”

  Christ, how was he supposed to answer that? Somehow, “a sadistic monster” didn’t really seem like the right thing to say. “What happened to him, it’s not your fault, Alaric. We’re dealing with shit we have no comprehension of when it comes to the raknoth.”

  “True enough,” Alaric said. “Doesn’t forgive our mistakes, though.”

  “If you’re not happy with the direction you’re running, there’s no reason you can’t change course.”

  “You get that from a fortune cookie?”

  He smiled. “Just a snippet from the vault of good life advice I can’t ever seem to follow myself.”

  “Mmm,” Alaric said, possibly with the faintest trace of a smile.

  “And for what it’s worth, that business about shooting your son back in Newark—sorry about that.”

  There it was: the deepest, surliest frown he’d ever seen. Apparently, all the others had been warm-ups.

  “I just, uh, didn’t really see it all playing out this way. I mean”—he spread his hands—“how was I supposed to know when he’s going by Mosen?”

  Alaric’s frown didn’t soften. “Mosen was his mother’s maiden name. I imagine the Overlord has him going by the name as some kind of sick joke after what he made Seth do.”

  Jarek ran a hand through the back of his hair, searching for some reasonable response. “Right. Makes sense. I guess. I, uh—”

  Behind them, Rachel gave a hoarse groan and shifted on the cot. Bless her sleepy little heart.

  “I better go check on her. Good talk.” He stood and made haste toward the cabin.

  “Jarek.”

  He froze and turned back.

  Alaric gave him a deep nod. “Thank you. For what you said a minute ago.”

  Jarek nodded back. He went to check on Rachel feeling confused and shaken and maybe just a little bit helpful.

  20

  A hand caressed Rachel’s cheek, warm and gentle in its touch if not in its texture.

  “Nap time’s over, sweetheart.”

  She blinked and squinted through bleary eyes to find Jarek Slater’s stupid grin hovering over her. Why the hell did that make her want to smile back? And on top of that, why were they back in Jarek’s ship? And in the air?

  “What the hell happened?”

  “You totally snoozed through a whole big battle,” he said. “Not cool, by the way, but probably forgivable on account of all the tranquilizers and everything.”

  Too disoriented and apparently hungover on tranquilizers to formulate a clever comeback, she simply groaned and rolled over.

  He patted her back. “There, there. We’re almost back to Newark. Just wanted to make sure you’re ready to move.”

  From the feel of it, “ready” was going to be a stretch anytime in the near future, but she pulled herself up.

  The feeble glow of Newark was in sight when she sidled into the cockpit a few minutes later. The few dull patches of poorly lit browns and grays that parted the thick darkness below them looked about as shitty as she felt.

  “So, uh,” Jarek said, “can someone tell me where it is we’re actually going?”

  Alaric glanced back. “It’s still the old terminal?”

  Michael nodded his sleepy confirmation from the bench opposite her. Alaric dropped a nav pin on the map northeast of Newark. Almost immediately, Al began banking the ship northward and gaining altitude, skirting around Newark nice and high in the night sky.

  “You okay, Spongehead?” she asked.

  The wrap on Michael’s arm was thorough, and he looked entirely more zonked than usual.

  He shot her a happy thumbs-up.

  “Mikey’s feeling great,” Jarek said. “No worries.”

  “What happened? And what the hell did you give him?”

  Michael held his bandaged arm up. “I got shot, Rache.”

  “Annnd we gave him something for the pain before we dug the bullet out,” Jarek added.

  But he’d been wearing her catcher, hadn’t he?

  “How did—”

  Her fingers brushed the small disk clipped to the front of her belt.

  She looked at Michael. “Why the hell weren’t you wearing the catcher?”

  “Asked him the same question,” Jarek said. “He had to leave you unattended to grab Alaric. He was worried you might take a stray bullet or something.”

  Michael bobbed his head agreeably.

  “Jesus. I pass out for a couple of hours, and all hell breaks loose.”

  She closed her eyes and breathed out some of the tension. It was done. At least everyone was still alive.

  Jarek was watching her when she opened her eyes again.

  “Not to be a bother, but you guys mind strapping in for landing?”

  She rolled her eyes at what she assumed was an unnecessary precaution. She should have known better, coming from Jarek.

  Once their harnesses had each clicked, he brought them down fast enough that her stomach found its way into her throat. Removed from the city lights, it was hard to tell how close they were to the ground, but he waited until well after what seemed like the too-late zone to pull them out of the dive.

  Her stomach lurched into her pelvis before settling back into place, and then they were skimming along over the surface of a river that was nearly too dark to make out. After a few more minutes of bobbing and weaving, they came to a hover in an enormous lot filled to the brim with rusty old shipping containers.

  “Fun ride,” she grumbled.

  “Not the first time a lady’s said that to me.” Jarek extended his fist to Alaric for a bump.

  Alaric gave the fist a stern frown, turned back to the windshield, and gestured to a spot where several of the dilapidated containers formed a nice alcove. “That’ll do just fine.”

  “Thank you, Wild Bill.” Jarek retracted the unbumped fist and guided the ship gently into the parking space.

  No one spoke as they left the ship. Michael shuffled ac
ross the lot at the head of the pack, apparently recognizing where he was despite the drugs and the monotonous repetition of their surroundings. At least his head seemed to be marginally clearing now that he was up and moving.

  After a quarter of a mile or so, he and Alaric veered toward an unassuming, rust-red shipping container. It didn’t look remotely different than its neighbors, but they seemed to recognize it somehow, maybe by the serial code printed on its side.

  The container’s doors weren’t locked, and inside, it appeared to be empty—“appeared” being the operative word, she assumed.

  Her assumption turned out to be accurate.

  Michael crossed to the back wall of the container, felt around for several seconds, and slid a small hidden panel aside to reveal a dimly lit keypad. Alaric pulled the container door shut behind them as Michael tapped a sequence into the pad and slid the false wall panel back in place, leaving them standing in darkness too thick to see one another.

  Nothing happened.

  “So, uh, granted I’m not an expert on secret hideouts,” Jarek said after half a minute had stretched by, “but I thought super-secret access panels were usually supposed to open doors or, ya know, do something.”

  “Double verification protocol,” Michael said. “There’s the code, then the IR cameras, and they’re probably calling up the chain right now to check about you guys.”

  “Isn’t that triple—agh, never mind. This is why you Resistance guys never get anything done. Too busy running around playing spy-party grab-ass.”

  She allowed herself a small smile in the darkness. It faded a moment later when Michael’s words set in and she realized the Resistance goons were probably watching.

  “Jesus,” Jarek said a minute later, “We should have brought drinks and made it a—”

  A series of tiny pops sounded, followed by the steady hum of an electric motor. A line of light appeared across the floor and stretched into a rectangular opening as two sections of the floor slid apart to reveal a descending concrete stairwell.

  “Maybe you can talk your way into a drink down there,” Michael said.