The Complete Harvesters Series

by Luke R. Mitchell

“Filthy—”

  Ashida struggled furiously then, but Brandt and the other raknoth held him tight.

  “Filthy animal!” he screamed.

  Krogoth watched Ashida all the while, his features dispassionate, save for the fire blazing in his eyes. When he spoke, his tone was formal.

  “We will no longer suffer your existence to taint the name of raknoth kind. Do you wish any last words, Nan’Ashida, oath-breaker, traitor to your own people?”

  Weak struggles and curses in Krogoth’s direction were the only replies the Nan had to give.

  And so ended Nan’Ashida.

  It was the second time Jarek had watched Krogoth tear off a raknoth’s head, and it wasn’t even remotely less disturbing than the first time.

  Afterward, Krogoth tossed Ashida’s head forty yards to the assembled soldiers and told them to be on their way—to help the wounded or clear out and never show their faces here again, he cared not.

  The men didn’t seem to have any qualms about leaving their late leader’s body behind as they loaded into their vehicles and sped away.

  “Well.” Jarek said when they were gone. “What a lovely tea party that was.”

  Krogoth gave him a look that made him want to close his faceplate.

  “Come on, Rusty. At least that’s two problems off the list.”

  The forced lightness in his tone wasn’t fooling anyone. They knew all too well just how many items were left on that list, and just how few resources they had left to deal with them.

  “When will the rest come?” Rachel asked.

  Krogoth looked skyward. “Impossible to know if they do not wish it so. But soon, I fear. Far sooner than we can hope to prepare for.”

  “Would time really matter?” Jarek asked. “Seems to me we need a better plan before we worry about not having enough time.”

  Krogoth’s glowing gaze remained skyward. “And do you have a better plan, Jarek Slater?”

  “I was kinda hoping the warrior with a few millennia of field experience might have a trick or two up his sleeve.”

  Krogoth sighed and dropped his gaze to the ground. “The only trick we have ever managed to pull on the Masters was to convince them we had met the void. Now that that has failed…” He shook his head. “Gada will likely wait for his brothers this time around. The harvesters will come. They will come in terrible force, and we will fight. There is no plan beyond that.”

  With that, Krogoth turned and headed for the ship.

  “He’s got the head-ripping down pat,” Jarek said. “Now if he could just bring the same intensity to pep talks…”

  Not that he’d been expecting an impromptu master plan from the raknoth. The rakul were a problem without a clear solution—maybe without any solution at all. The prospect of fighting Gada alongside ten creatures of similar power was terrifying, and there didn’t seem to be a single thing any of them could do about it other than to say, Hey, I guess we’ll try our best and fight it out to the end.

  At present, though, he couldn’t see how that end could be anywhere but the grave for all of them.

  They needed something the rakul wouldn’t see coming—something that could turn the tide and throw them the advantage before the rakul even realized what hit them. They needed a nuclear option, so to speak. Or maybe even literally. He made a note to ask Krogoth about the possibility, though he was almost certain there couldn’t be many functional nuclear weapons that hadn’t been either used or destroyed in the Catastrophe.

  “We should get back and check on the others,” Rachel said, breaking into his thoughts. “Elise was in pretty bad shape.”

  She was right. He hadn’t had a good look himself, but after listening to Rachel’s recounting of the cut Elise had taken, Jarek wasn’t so sure she’d manage to pull through, even with raknoth healing juice on her side. Of course, saying as much wasn’t going to help anyone. Rachel knew as well as he did that the fight had taken a toll on all of them and that there’d be plenty more to pay before this was over. Assuming any of them lived to see the other side at all.

  So he simply went with, “Aye aye, Goldilocks,” and set off for the ship beside her, sincerely hoping that they weren’t about to add another name to the far-too-long list of the day’s casualties.

  28

  With the recent exception—and nightmare—of having let tears fly in front of Jarek on his ship, as a general rule, Rachel didn’t cry. Not when there were people around to see, at least. But when they crept onto the Enochians’ ship…

  Seeing Elise, watching the way Haldin, Franco, and the others all hovered beside her, so clearly raw and torn…

  That nearly brought on the tears.

  Rachel couldn’t claim to know Elise well. The girl had only been on Earth for a couple weeks, after all. What she did know, though, was that the girl was fierce.

  No, not the girl. The woman.

  Because, young as she might be, Elise was certainly not a kid anymore. She’d seen too many fights, felt too much pain. Elise and her fellow Enochians had all been through hell and back again, and once they’d returned, they’d decided to fly across the galaxy and risk their necks again anyway. And now it had cost her dearly.

  Oddly enough, though, Elise seemed less upset by the news of her paralysis than anyone else in the room. Instead, she looked calm—resolved, even. Her eyes flicked at regular intervals between Haldin, who was kneeling beside her cot, and Alton, who’d propped his legless body up against the wall.

  When Rachel tuned in, she realized Elise was sharing some telepathic communication with the two of them.

  Rachel couldn’t hear what was said, but whatever it was had Alton clearly uncomfortable, Haldin nearly manic, and Elise oddly at peace.

  Jarek, unable to sniff out the telepathic communication, stepped into the silent room and unknowingly interrupted it. “Hey, guys.”

  Some finality passed between Haldin, Elise, and Alton as Jarek and Rachel stepped into the room, the two Enochians looking in agreement and the raknoth looking decidedly unhappy about it.

  “Everything under control out there?” Johnny asked.

  Jarek nodded. “Ashida’s dead. Fighting’s over. Just a holy hell of a mess to clean up.”

  “Yeah…” Johnny said, the mood in the room absorbing the news right into a big fat reminder of the damage lying right in front of them.

  Rachel swallowed. “Is there anything we can do to help?”

  It felt like a stupid question, considering, but she had to say something.

  “We appreciate your support,” Franco said with well-practiced politeness, “but I think the best thing right now is for us to—”

  “Oh, sweet Alpha.” Elise sighed. “I’m not dead yet, Dad. Not yet. I’m paralyzed. And we can fix it.”

  “Elise…” Franco crooned, stroking her hair.

  “Don’t Elise me.” She turned her head toward Rachel and Jarek. “You mention that maybe hosting a raknoth to heal you up might not be the worst thing in the world, and suddenly everyone thinks you’ve lost the will to live.”

  Suddenly, the looks that had been passing between Alton, Haldin, and Elise made a lot more sense. That must’ve been what they were holding silent court about. But to host a raknoth… And what raknoth would be willing to…

  Rachel met Alton’s eyes. “You’re…”

  Alton crossed his arms and gave Elise and Haldin what was an impressively level look for a legless guy leaning against a wall. “Not agreeing to anything before we’ve had ample time to properly discuss the implications.”

  “Not even if we find a raknoth whose host is beyond repair?” Haldin asked in a tone that suggested this wasn’t the first time they’d had this discussion.

  “Annnd here we go again,” Johnny said. He cocked his head thoughtfully. “Though, now that I’m thinking about it, that Lietha guy was in pretty bad shape last I saw him.”

  Jarek’s finger shot up as if he had something to say about that, but he seemed to think better of it at some look f
rom Alton.

  Only… No. It wasn’t that Alton had silenced him.

  They were listening, both of their heads slightly perked—to what, Rachel couldn’t say. But judging from the soft crimson glow that woke in Alton’s eyes, it wasn’t anything good.

  “What is it?” Haldin asked, looking between them.

  And that’s when Rachel felt the familiar, wispy presence pressing in at the edge of her cloak.

  The look in Haldin’s eyes as he met her gaze told her he felt it to.

  “No,” Rachel whispered.

  Not now.

  Jarek had already whirled on his heel and was heading for the ship’s hatch. “Something’s happening out there,” he called over his shoulder.

  She could hear it now, on top of the pervasive presence shimmering around them—some shift in the buzz of voices outside. And there, in the air itself now, the subtle yellow glow that had crept into the room seemingly out of nowhere, barely perceptible but for its gentle, nebulous swirling.

  Messengers.

  Which meant—

  “No,” Haldin said. He’d gone rigid, his eyes flicking around the room.

  “It can’t be,” Alton said, his gaze distant and skyward.

  The voices were building outside, twisting from the dull buzz of conversation to sounds of anger and violence. A cry went up, only vaguely recognizable as human. A gunshot cracked in the distance. Then another.

  Shouts. Sounds of fighting.

  Jarek was already stepping through the hatch when Rachel turned around.

  “We’ll check it out,” she said.

  Then she took off after Jarek.

  “Wait!” Haldin shouted behind her, but she was already halfway to the hatch.

  She followed Jarek out of the ship and into utter chaos.

  After the shitstorm they’d seen down in Newark, she thought she’d seen it all.

  This was worse.

  Madness had erupted across the body-strewn battlefield. Everywhere, people were attacking each other. Krogoth’s forces, Ashida’s, the Resistance—it made no difference.

  Soldiers tore indiscriminately at one another, some with weapons, others with bare hands. Some even remembered how to use their firearms.

  Those men and women who were properly cloaked against telepathic influence or nestled within the generator fields tried to band together, to hold against the frenzied tide, but there were too many.

  More were flooding in from outside the battlefield, civilians from the surrounding areas who’d been caught up in the furor and driven here to the killing field. The furor must’ve been enormous to bring so many.

  And through it all, that soft yellow light flowed, shifting and undulating like something living.

  Rachel watched, frozen in place, unsure what to do, how to help.

  A new sound joined the chaos, spreading through the frenzied hordes like a thousand tiny disjointed klaxons blaring their alarms.

  Her stunned brain didn’t put it together until her own comm buzzed against her wrist and informed her with its own grainy blare.

  Retreat.

  Daniels, Alaric… It didn’t really matter who.

  The commanders were calling for a full retreat.

  “Rachel Cross!” a voice roared in her mind.

  She followed the tendril of thought and spotted Drogan sprinting toward them through the masses of raving humans, a bloody Lietha clutched in his arms. He plowed through waves of wild berserkers, his own eyes burning with frantic desperation.

  “Get back!” his voice hissed in her mind.

  “I don’t know, Al,” Jarek was snapping. “Just bring the ship and get Alaric and anyone else you can out of there.”

  “Jarek…” Rachel said slowly, trying to slow her thoughts enough to process any of it.

  The furor. The retreat.

  HQ. Was HQ even safe?

  And Michael…

  She reached for her comm, thinking to try for her brother.

  Before she could, Drogan gathered himself to leap from the crowd below.

  “Jarek, we have to—”

  Jarek must’ve seen Drogan coming himself, because he turned and shuttled her up the steps and through the hatch before she could finish the thought.

  A second later, Drogan thudded to a hard landing right where she’d been standing. He didn’t stop there, pushing past them and into the ship with Lietha’s bloody body, urging them along with him.

  “They come!” he cried, his tone wild, desperate. “We must flee this place!”

  “Slow down, Stumpy,” Jarek said. Or started to say before Drogan shouldered him to the wall, still clutching Lietha’s limp form to his chest.

  “Fool,” Drogan hissed. “There is no time!”

  He released Jarek and took off for the cockpit.

  Rachel and Jarek shared a stunned look.

  The furor outside was bad—worse than anything they’d seen yet. But for Drogan to insist on fleeing, and for the commanders to be calling for retreat…

  She turned back to the hatch, not wanting to look—not wanting to believe it could be true. Not now, after they’d fought so hard. After they’d won the day at so terrible a price.

  It was too much.

  They couldn’t handle more. She couldn’t handle more.

  But whatever was happening out there, it wouldn’t simply go away for her refusal to acknowledge it.

  So Rachel leaned out of the open hatch and looked skyward. Cold dread poured through her at what she saw, freezing her inside and out.

  “Oh, fuck,” Jarek said quietly beside her.

  The remainder of the storm clouds had passed. The sky was clear. And there, high up in the atmosphere, descending from god knew where, were half a dozen ships, all of similar shapes but various sizes. All decidedly not of this world.

  The harvesters had come.

  Epilogue

  After spending nearly a year working their way across the galaxy, jump by jump, Haldin was no stranger to a quiet ship. On the contrary, the quiet times had often been some of his favorite. The times when he’d sat deep in meditation, glimpsing at that elusive inner peace with which his old mentor had been so attuned. The times when he’d lain with Elise for hours, feeling the soft warmth of her bare chest rising and falling against his, infinitely mesmerizing and undeniably vibrant with life.

  But now Elise’s body was broken.

  That inner peace was nowhere to be found.

  And this quiet…

  This quiet was different.

  This quiet told of defeat and despair, of guilt and shame at having fled to fight another day, even when no one fleeing had any true expectations that that fight would ever be one they could win.

  This quiet was absent hope, and Haldin had been sharing it with Alton for too long now, staring the raknoth down in more ways than one as they waited for Elise’s change to truly begin.

  Alton had propped his legless body up against the wall of Haldin and Elise’s bedroom. Haldin stood over him, arms crossed, lost in thought.

  The position might’ve given him some kind of psychological advantage against another human—never mind that any such human would currently be screaming in pain following the beastly double amputation Alton had suffered—but Alton was far too old and cunning to care about such things.

  And so they’d been here, locked in a mostly silent stare for the better part of an hour.

  It almost seemed like a waste of time, like they should go do something productive—take charge, establish a plan, a next move.

  Except this was the next move. THE Next Move. The only move left. He just needed Alton to see it.

  “It’s unnecessary.” Alton sent for the thousandth time. “Dangerous.” He looked over at Elise’s still form, his face more expressive than he often allowed, filled with uncertainty and maybe even fear. “Bad enough that Elise and Lietha were forced into this. The least we can do is protect them until they’re ready to stand together.”

  Haldin crossed to
Elise’s side and knelt down to softly stroke her fair cheek and her raven dark hair. He resisted the urge to pull back her blanket to inspect Lietha’s entry site yet again and resigned himself instead to the long, pensive silence.

  The weight of his old friend, Guilt, prowled the perimeter of his mind, seeking some weakness through which to enter. He shut it out with the resolve he’d learned out of necessity back on Enochia.

  It wasn’t his fault.

  It wasn’t Alton’s.

  They hadn’t brought Elise here—hadn’t brought any of them.

  They’d simply set out to accomplish something together, he and Alton. Elise, Johnny, the others… They’d all made their own decisions, for their own reasons.

  Elise was a warrior. She was the love of his life, the one that he’d die to protect—would give anything to protect—over and over and over again. Every time.

  But she’d chosen to come here, chosen to fight.

  She controlled her own destiny, not him.

  He had to remember that, had to respect it. Had to hold onto it with desperate, bloody fingertips to keep from being sucked down the bottomless hole of despair and self-loathing that waited, always there, just below love and reason.

  He had to forgive himself.

  But scud, was it hard.

  And demons’ depths take him now if Alton thought he’d sit here and let Elise suffer this new fate alone.

  “We’re doing this, Alton.”

  The raknoth crossed his arms. “This… symbiosis is unnatural to us. It will take time to perfect. Too much time. You trust the others to ensure our survival meanwhile?” He tilted his head toward Elise. “You trust them to protect your love?”

  Haldin studied Alton. “You really think we have a choice? That there’s any other way we win now?” He was quiet for some time. Then, “Wasn’t this always the plan?”

  Alton gently shook his head, silent for a long while. Then, finally, “I’m afraid, Haldin.”

  It hadn’t been what Haldin had expected to hear, but he wasn’t surprised to hear it, either.

  Human, raknoth—it didn’t matter.

  Who wouldn’t be afraid right now?

  After a thoughtful silence, he went and sat with Alton. With careful deliberation, he planted his hands on the raknoth’s shoulders, holding Alton’s gaze with all the steady conviction he could muster.