The Complete Harvesters Series

by Luke R. Mitchell

  It would be slow going, sure, but what path to rebuilding the world from the ground up wouldn’t be? Conner was using the Iron Eagles to build a new future—one where people wouldn’t kill their neighbors just to steal their food. It seemed like a pretty damn worthy goal to Jarek.

  “Is this is all you guys do?” Jarek asked Mark as they drove back to Boston behind the food-laden van and the rest of the escort detail. “I was expecting a lot more… I don’t know, mercenary stuff.”

  “This isn’t the entirety of what the Iron Eagles do,” Mark said, shaking his head. “We also do a bit of the ‘mercenary stuff,’ but Conner is pretty strict on how that side of the business is run.” Mark stared at the clouds for a long moment before shrugging to himself and adding, “He tries to make sure no one has to do anything they don’t want to.”

  Once they’d seen the van safely to the walled compound of the Iron Eagles’ headquarters, Mark veered off to return Jarek to Frank’s little inn. He told him that Conner would be along to talk and maybe show him headquarters the next day if Jarek was still interested, then he shook Jarek’s hand and told him to watch his back, regardless of his decision.

  A few steps from the SUV, Jarek paused to turn back.

  Mark rolled his window down. “What’s up, kid?”

  “I was just wondering… what do you think I should do?”

  Mark raised his eyebrows at that. After a long moment, he let out a huff of air, shaking his head. “I don’t know what to tell you, kid. The world’s a messed up place right now. I hear stories about the things that did all this,”—he waved a hand at the quiet, barren city around them—“people talking about honest to god vampires running around with glowing red eyes, eating people and swatting down the establishments.”

  He fixed Jarek with a serious look. “And then I see people like you—well maybe not like you, but people on the streets, hungry and cold and afraid that some asshole’s gonna come along and stab them just for their shoes or their coat, and I don’t know…” He gave Jarek a wan smile. “I guess I just like feeling like there’s a real problem I can tackle with the Iron Eagles. Like there’s a difference I can make somewhere.”

  Jarek nodded slowly, thinking about that. Mark hadn’t exactly answered the question, but he’d come close enough. Mark gave him a mock salute before driving off, and Al and Jarek decided that they liked the guy.

  That evening, they talked at length about what they’d seen. Al remained responsibly dubious after what had only been a single glimpse of the Iron Eagles, but he at least admitted that the group looked more promising than he’d expected. The AI’s reserved demeanor didn’t dampen Jarek’s enthusiasm. With the Iron Eagles, Jarek saw a future where he’d be able to use Fela for something more than just staying alive for the sake of it. He could protect people. He could make the world a better place (and enjoy reliable food while doing it). On top of all of that, for the first time in almost six years, he’d have a family watching his back.

  It was a dream come true.

  He knew that Al would remain dubious for now (the AI didn’t really trust anyone aside from Jarek, after all), but after a long discussion, they at least agreed that the Iron Eagles were worth a shot.

  Rose crept into his room to visit later that night. She was even less enthusiastic than Al about the prospect of Jarek soldiering up, but he didn’t really blame her for that. Her only experience with the Iron Eagles had been with the bad apples of the bunch, and try as he might to explain it, Rose just couldn’t fully understand what the opportunity meant to him when she’d had a father and a home all these years.

  Soon enough, he worked up the courage to exchange words for kisses, and when their lips finally parted, they gladly moved on to more whimsical topics for the remainder of the night.

  By the time Conner came by the next day, Jarek’s only real question was how soon he could start.

  6

  Life with the Iron Eagles was everything Jarek had wanted.

  Over the next six months, he and Mark ran escort missions all across Massachusetts, protecting dozens of truckloads of food bound for Boston. When they weren’t on duty or resting up, Mark was teaching Jarek to shoot and fight. On more than one occasion, their escort details came under attack, and Jarek quickly learned how to handle himself under enemy fire.

  At first it was hard, shooting at living, breathing people (even if they were ragged, wild marauders who looked like they’d just as soon eat their foes as the food they were trying to steal). Had it not been for the convoy and his brothers-in-arms, Jarek would’ve rather run than fight and hurt people. Once he saw Mark and the others being shot at, though, shooting back turned out to be easy—almost disturbingly so.

  When the smoke had cleared on Jarek’s first combat kill, Mark clapped a hand to his armored shoulder and told him to remember what he was fighting for.

  Earning the respect of the other Iron Eagles was a tenuous process that seemed to progress at a rate roughly equal to the number of their asses he managed to pull out of tight spots over the following months, but Jarek didn’t mind. He kept his head down and soldiered on, finding a kind of dignified gratification in paying his dues.

  After the first few months, Al even began to come around, assuming the decreased frequency of his cautionary reminders could be counted as such. Even if the AI construct wasn’t ready to become Iron Eagles fanboy number one, he at least didn’t begrudge Jarek the fulfillment of his new position.

  All in all, things were going pretty damn well.

  Right up until the day bulldog Doug Stetson conscripted Jarek and Mark for a mission to reclaim a homestead in the Franklin area that had been seized by marauders.

  “This is a new one,” Jarek said quietly to Mark as they marshaled up with a dozen of their brothers in the base’s small, bland briefing room. Until then, Jarek had been assigned almost exclusively to convoy duty. Playing defense was one thing, but—

  Mark clapped him on the shoulder. “It’ll be a walk in the park, kid.” He grinned. “Just watch my ass out there, yeah?”

  The wriggling in Jarek’s stomach calmed as he frowned at Mark. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  Mark gave Jarek a firm pat on the helmet—a gesture that had become common between them. He didn’t mention the fact that Jarek, snug and secure in Fela, had less to fear in any fight than his brothers-in-arms did. The rest of the Iron Eagles weren’t easy targets by any means, especially when they were loaded head to toe with a range of fiber-weave armors and ceramic strike plates, but that was hardly the point.

  It wasn’t the danger that had Jarek’s stomach twisted up. It was the idea of walking into a fight on purpose. Maybe Mark picked up on that, or maybe he didn’t. Either way, he didn’t give Jarek any grief. Possibly because he didn’t have a chance to.

  “If you daisies are done talking about who’s gonna look at who’s ass,” Stetson said from the doorway, “maybe we can get started.”

  Jarek swallowed then fought not to smile as Mark wiggled his eyebrows at him and settled into one of the brown folding chairs arrayed through the room.

  Stetson strolled in and wasted no time launching into his shortly-worded briefing. The man was efficient if nothing else. The ball of tension in Jarek’s guts eased considerably when Stetson announced that the mission would be primarily non-lethal, with lethal force authorized only if necessary.

  Mark shot him a wink as the spiel ended, and Jarek let out a deep breath as they followed their teammates to gear up in the armory.

  Fifteen minutes later, they’d loaded up, and Jarek sat next to Mark in the back of their transport truck, gnawing at his lip.

  The drive was a fairly long one. Their truck was the second to reach the homestead. By then, teams from the first truck were already sweeping across the compound.

  Jarek and Mark were the first out of their truck, bean-bag shotguns raised and at the ready.

  The bulk of the homestead was comprised of one big farmhouse and two sizable bar
ns. Several smaller sheds and shacks had been erected around the farmhouse, and several more boxy living units—clearly additions—protruded from its sides. Of the two barns, one was larger and newer-looking, and the other… wasn’t.

  Stetson met them at the first truck and sent Mark and Jarek along with two others to sweep the second barn.

  They approached the dark wooden building from the front as their two brothers looped around. The structure was twisted and chewed up by the ravages of time to the extent that Jarek was mildly surprised it was still standing. He grabbed the handle of the man door to the right of the larger barn doors. Locked.

  Jarek waited for Mark’s nod, then thrust his shoulder roughly into the door. It tore from its hinges with a splintering sound and slammed onto the barn floor with a crash. Jarek looked up in time to see a haggard older man leveling a shotgun at him, and—

  Boom! Jarek winced at the roar of Mark’s shotgun going off beside him. An explosively-propelled bean-bag round slammed into the marauder’s chest, and he toppled back into the wall with a series of shocked gasps that sounded like they would have been cries of pain if he’d had the air to manage such things. Mark stalked into the small entry room and applied a stun rod to the guy’s neck. Jarek covered him while he pulled out a pair of zip ties to bind the marauder’s wrists and ankles.

  The barn was much less open than Jarek had expected—partitioned by dark wooden walls into rooms and corridors in a way that made him think the building might have been used for living space rather than farming.

  “Sir, something’s not right here,” Al said in Jarek’s ear. “I don’t think—”

  “Not now,” Jarek mumbled under his breath as Mark gestured to him.

  They moved through the narrow hallway at the back of the room and found two more marauders waiting for them in the next corridor—a man and woman, similarly armed. He ducked back behind the wall as a hail of buckshot and what Al identified as a .223 slug tore chunks out of the spot where his head had just been. Jarek gritted his teeth, his heart hammering up into his throat. At least he was using non-lethals…

  Jarek fired one blind shot around the corner before popping out to send three more bean-bag rounds pelting from his semi-auto.

  The first shot caught the woman in the left shoulder, the second went wide, and the third struck the man square in the abdomen. The guy went down. To her credit, the woman recovered enough to bring her shotgun up with her uninjured right arm as Jarek raced toward her. The shotgun roared, nearly kicking free of her awkward one-handed grip, but Jarek had already brushed the barrel aside as he moved in with his stun rod. The shot went wide, and her shotgun clattered to the floor as Jarek applied the stun rod to her side.

  To Jarek’s left, Mark closed on the second marauder and delivered his own stun rod treatment.

  “Sir,” Al said, more urgently than before, “these people—”

  Jarek tensed as a wordless cry rang out from the room adjacent to Mark, and he turned in time to see a kid that must’ve been roughly his own age come barreling out of the room and smack Mark across the back of the head with a rusted shovel.

  The fact that Mark was wearing a helmet very well might have saved his life. The blow drove him to the ground, where he lay in a slack-limbed stupor as the kid raised the shovel again to try to finish the job.

  “Wait!” Al cried in his ear as Jarek caught the kid by an arm and shoved him roughly at the wall with one hand, ripping the shovel from his grasp with the other.

  The kid hit the wall with a huffing cry that jolted through Jarek’s core.

  “Jarek!” Al barked. “What the hell are you doing?”

  Jarek looked slowly down at the shovel in his hands, his breath caught in his chest. He licked his lips and tossed the shovel aside as their two fellow Iron Eagles rounded the far corner.

  He glanced to see that Mark was still breathing, and called, “We’re clear here. Someone check on Adams,” then Jarek turned to the teenage boy he’d just nearly killed.

  The kid was slumped against the wall, gasping for air. He recoiled as Jarek approached, his pale blue eyes beaming pure hatred. Jarek let out a long breath and murmured, “Faceplate.”

  Al slid Fela’s helmet open as Jarek knelt down next to the kid. “What are you doing here?”

  “Who the hell are you to ask me that?” the kid said between gasping breaths. He spat on the floor in front of Jarek, and his saliva was tinged red with blood. Jarek swallowed.

  “This is my home,” the kid said.

  An icy hand clutched at the pit of Jarek’s stomach. The woman and the two men they’d just taken down… they’d barely been armed. Two shotguns and a hunting rifle? And why was there a kid here with them? His mind raced in furious circles, pulling tighter and tighter, threatening to collide into a terrible conclusion at any moment.

  A baby cried out in the adjacent room, and realization struck home like a sack of lead bricks to the head.

  “Bandit scum,” the man who’d taken a bean-bag round to the stomach said from the ground, barely possessing enough air in his lungs to make the words audible.

  “No…” Jarek stood, looking around, waves of nausea rising in his chest.

  What the hell had he just done?

  7

  “Let me get this straight,” Conner said, pacing back and forth behind his polished wooden desk. “You not only disobeyed direct orders, but also abandoned your brothers during an active engagement, placing them in harm’s way and jeopardizing the mission.”

  Jarek had about a million corrections to make to the statement, but he bit down and held his tongue until Conner ceased his pacing and faced him, leaning palms-down on his desk. “Am I understanding Stetson’s report correctly?”

  Jarek shifted in his chair. “Mark needed medical attention. I had to get him back to the medic.”

  “And after you’d done that?”

  Jarek looked down. “It’s not like our men were in danger without me—those were civilians we were fighting.”

  Conner straightened from his desk. “Whether or not that’s true, that was not your call to make.”

  Jarek leaned forward to argue but paused when Conner held up a hand. “We’re looking into why there seem to have been civilian families on the homestead. It’s”—he scratched at his beard, his expression darkening—“possible that our client misled us. He had detailed knowledge of the compound. If he didn’t live there, he was the best damned liar I’ve ever seen. Could’ve been he had a falling out with his people and was hoping to have us take care of it.” Conner looked genuinely troubled by the thought. “I don’t know, but we’ll find out. What I do know is that I can’t have soldiers disobeying orders in the field.”

  “Even if those orders are to round up innocent families?”

  The words left Jarek’s mouth almost before he knew it. He swallowed, waiting for the reprimand.

  Conner only let out a long sigh, running a hand through his well-groomed hair. “Look, Jarek… you’ve been a good kid since I’ve known you. You’re shaping up to be an even better man. Better than most of the men behind these walls.” He pursed his lips. “What you did today was probably the right thing, but as soon as one man is free to disobey the chain of command, even if they’re right, everyone else starts thinking they’re free to do the same.”

  He pointed in the direction of the barracks. “Their hearts are not as pure as yours, Jarek. They need order to keep them from doing things like what Nathan and his brothers were trying to do to Rose back in that alley.”

  By the time he finished speaking, there was an intensity in Conner’s eyes that Jarek hadn’t seen before.

  Jarek held Conner’s gaze for several seconds before breaking and looking down at his feet. “I won’t hurt innocents.”

  “And I won’t order innocents hurt,” Conner said, sitting down at his desk and leaning forward on his elbows. “Today was a SNAFU. There’s no getting around that, but we’ll sure as hell do our best to make sure it never happe
ns again.”

  Jarek shifted in his seat. SNAFU was putting it lightly. He’d almost accidentally killed a kid that had only been trying to protect his home.

  Conner leaned back in his chair, staring off at something in a distant corner of his mind. Was he actually going to punish Jarek, or was this just a warning?

  Jarek was about to ask if he was excused when Conner suddenly snapped out of his mental deliberation. “I think you and Mark should accompany the team I’m taking to Newark,” he said.

  That was unexpected.

  “Yes sir,” Jarek said by reflex. Conner might’ve used the words ‘I think you should’, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t an order. “What’s in Newark?”

  “We’re meeting with a potential supplier,” he said, waving a hand as if the details weren’t important. “Nothing exciting, but I think it’ll be good for you and I to spend a little time together—make sure we’re on the same page about these kinds of things.” A hint of sympathy crept into Conner’s eyes. “I forget how young you are sometimes.”

  “I’m not—”

  Conner held up a hand. “I know. You’ve grown up well beyond your years already. You’ve had to. But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing left for you to learn. I just want to make sure you get the kind of support you might need when you’re faced with things like what happened today.”

  “Uh, thanks…” Jarek said slowly. Conner’s words might’ve felt a little patronizing, but at least he cared.

  Conner shrugged. “I was an orphan once too, man.” He splayed his hands. “You’re with family now.”

  Jarek ran a hand over the back of Fela’s helmet. “Right. I, uh… Thanks.” Jarek stood. “So when do we leave?”

  “Meeting’s tomorrow night,” Conner said. “We’ll head out after morning drills.”