Dead Man's Fury (Dead Man's War Book 3)

by Dan Decker

  A blast from the ship hit the lurker again and it cried out in alarm. It was a soul wrenching high-pitched sound that made my skin crawl.

  A moment later, the lurker at the front of the ship fell out of the sky and the ship suddenly lurched up, but not for long. Several more lurkers attached, staying clear of the weapon that had killed their fallen comrade.

  They were fifty feet from the ground when the bottom of the ship blasted open and soldiers dropped out.

  Two, four, six, ten, twenty.

  All were caught by their anti-grav boots and fled in different directions. Several of the lurkers left to chase the runners, but the majority stayed to make sure the ship was pushed down. By the time it was to the ground, I’d seen no fewer than forty people flee the ship.

  Lurkers chased the fleeing soldiers. Several had been caught right away, but others had already made it more than a mile.

  Hoping against hope that my boots had been activated as well, I pressed the buttons, but still nothing happened. I ground my teeth. Even if my boots had worked, I didn’t know what I would’ve done about Sampson.

  I could not leave her. I might have tried to take her with me, but didn’t think that would work very well. If those runners were to have any chance at all, they needed every bit of speed they had.

  I leaned toward Sampson. “Now is the time to run while they are all distracted by the others!”

  “But where would we go? The nearest place to hide is miles away. The lurkers will have dealt with all of them before then.”

  If both of us had anti-grav boots, or even if mine had just worked, we could have done something more than just watch the other soldiers die.

  A lurker that had been hidden from our view hopped from the ground, grabbed a straggler that had been flying away, wrapped its leg around it, and tossed it like it was a worn-out doll. The anti-grav boots still worked and slowed the man’s descent, but the lurker followed, firing its blasters.

  I realized it was Logan when the body hit the ground fifty feet away from us.

  His face was then blasted into oblivion by the lurker.

  Sampson looked on without any sign of squeamishness. I did not look away, but my stomach wrenched.

  Logan had been my enemy but it was difficult to watch him die in such a fashion.

  He was recruited against his will too.

  Several soldiers still glided away, going as fast as the anti-grav boots could take him.

  The lurkers were faster.

  Perhaps it was fortunate that my boots had not worked, because the lurkers hunted them down with ease, even those who were miles away. The anti-grav boots, while nice and seemingly fast, probably did not go faster than maybe fifty or sixty miles an hour, judging by how fast the soldiers flew and how quickly they were caught.

  Perhaps it was just the limit of how fast they could go and maintain control. Maybe the limiting factor was that they did not have goggles to protect their eyes. Regardless, these lurkers flew like they’d been born flying and caught every single one of them.

  A little dot in the distance disappeared as a lurker converged on it and destroyed it.

  I opened my mouth, intent on suggesting to Sampson that it was time for us to use the distraction the ship had caused to take refuge in one of the tents that had already been searched when a lurker appeared overhead.

  A blast ripped into Sampson, nearly severing her in two.

  I dove and crawled under the tent as fast as I could.

  10

  I waited to die.

  My heartbeat was in my ears. Every breath in my body was labored as the terror rolled through me. I could hear the final gasps of Sampson from where she lay on the ground, separated only by the mere canvas of the tent.

  The low-pitched sound of the lurker’s wings was all I could think about, like nails on a chalkboard, it moved up and down my back, making me want to cover my ears, so I did not have to experience it any longer.

  But then it was gone.

  I had expected the lurker to come after me, but it had left.

  Had it not seen me?

  My first thought was that this was a trap, but why would the lurker go to the effort of doing that when they had already won the day?

  It could’ve just ripped off the tent and blasted me until I died.

  That’s what I expected it to do.

  I looked at my watch and told myself I would not move for a full two minutes. I had been dead set on moving to another tent that I’d seen a lurker already examine, but was not so sure that was the right move any longer. I also didn’t think I could stay one more minute in this camp than I absolutely had to.

  When two minutes passed, I rolled to the wall and carefully lifted the canvas by no more than an inch to look outside. It did not look like there was a lurker’s shadow above me, but I still waited.

  The lurker had apparently been satisfied by killing Sampson. It was difficult to not look, and when I did, I did not focus on it.

  I hadn’t known her for long but I’d already liked her. She seemed a decent woman. It was a shame for her to have died so easily after both of us had survived the worst part of the battle.

  Taking a deep breath, I lifted the canvas up so I had a clear view of the surrounding area. Once I was certain it was clear I rolled out and looked around. There was not a lurker nearby. Several flew in the vicinity, but they did not come my way.

  They were leaving camp.

  My first thought was to get Sampson’s rifle, but it had been destroyed in the blast. The muzzle had been warped and twisted beyond any usability.

  I dislodged the ammo magazine and put it in the pocket of my jumpsuit. It was better to have something than nothing.

  Maybe I would find a rifle somewhere.

  The smell of death threatened to make me empty my stomach as I crept forward to examine the camp.

  I looked over at Logan’s body.

  Had he really been in his teens?

  That was a shame too.

  I didn’t know what happened to us after we died here, but Logan shouldn’t have had to experience what he went through. When I thought of how he had taunted me the night I had been put in the brig, part of me felt he had got what was coming to him but I pushed the thought away and did not let it enter again.

  Jeffords’ body is probably out there as well.

  I crawled forward until I was at the edge of the tent, and looked around. A pillar of smoke came up from the shuttle the lurkers had forced to the ground. It looked like the engine had lit several tents on fire.

  There were now two fires burning in camp.

  I moved into the open, expecting a blast to hit me, but the lurkers were gone.

  I spun, looking in every direction until I remembered that the main force had gone northwest. The last lurkers I had seen had gone that way. I ran to the west side of camp, heedless of the danger, and before I reached the edge I saw that the lurkers were all flying northwest.

  Most were already far enough away to just be dots on the horizon.

  I had survived.

  11

  To: Lieutenant General John Lincoln

  From: Brigadier General Katrina Roth

  Log date: 00429.211-10:17:23

  Re: Package Request

  General Lincoln,

  Can you assure me that the package has been evacuated?

  Brigadier General Katrina Roth

  12

  I let the relief wash over me for longer than I should have. I had survived, against impossible odds I still stood when so many others around me had fallen. I did not know how, but I had Jeffords to thank, at least in part. If he had not sent me to run that last lap, I would have been on the ship.

  His spiteful act had saved my life.

  At least until I die of thirst or hunger.

  My first order of business was to find a weapon. I didn’t know what else could come at me, but I suspected it would not be long before I needed to defend myself.

  Grenlings. Lurkers. C
rocs.

  Or something entirely new I had not yet met.

  What I really wanted was Roth’s weapon. It had exploded and nearly cost me my life, but I wanted it anyway.

  Despite all the dead, I had a difficult time finding a working weapon. Most of their rifles had been destroyed. The majority of the barrels were broken.

  I felt like a thief as I went from dead soldier to dead soldier. I also checked the tents I passed for the supply depot we had stopped at earlier. I didn’t find it.

  I pilfered a backpack from a corpse and filled it with all the ammo I could carry.

  When I finally found something that looked like a working weapon, I dislodged the magazine, pulled back the slide, and looked through the barrel. Relief flooded into me when I could see light coming through the other side.

  There’s only one way to know for sure.

  I rammed the magazine back in, slid a round home, made sure the safety was off, and aimed at the horizon. I considered taking a potshot at one of the lurkers, but decided against it. I did not know how powerful the bullets were, but the last thing I wanted was to have a mad lurker coming back to hunt me. Instead, I faced the opposite way and aimed for a cliff in the distance. When I pulled the trigger, I expected recoil as I fired the bullet but there was none.

  The gunshot was comforting.

  For the first time since coming here I had a loaded weapon, even though I barely knew how to use it.

  My next order of business was to find something to drink. All the activity had left me parched and I knew that if I did not find water soon, there would be little need to do anything else.

  Water, then food. I touched my bare head. And a hat.

  The camp had been destroyed, but I still found the mess tent.

  It was crushed, like almost all the other tents, but using a knife I had taken from a dead soldier, I cut into the canvas and began searching around inside.

  The attack had commenced right before breakfast, so I wasn’t surprised to find large covered vats of food that were still in the warming trays, most had been overturned but a couple still stood. After rummaging around, I found a plate and loaded up some food. The juice dispenser was on its side and when I pressed the button it didn’t work. Anxiety started to well up inside of me, but it turned out I need not have feared because I was strong enough to put it upright, something I could not have done in my former body.

  When I pressed the dispenser button this time, I was rewarded with a mugful of juice. I downed it and then did two more, just in case. I wished for something to carry more, but as I did not have that option, the next best thing was to make sure I was as hydrated as possible.

  After I had eaten the food, I went back outside and felt better for having refueled.

  I felt bad stealing from the dead, but that did not stop me from pilfering a hat. It seemed small at first, but when I put it on my head it expanded to fit me. It felt so good to have proper protection from the sun again that I almost whistled aloud.

  A glance at several nearby corpses kept me from doing that.

  I next went to the south side of camp to figure out where the ship had come from.

  It could not have been hidden in a tent, which meant it had come from someplace else. The only logical conclusion was an underground hanger.

  I paced back and forth, trying to find the garage while wondering why the transport had been kept hidden.

  Perhaps to keep recruits from trying to escape?

  The ground around us was unstable, so it seemed futile to bury a vehicle.

  I looked around where I stood and tried to get my bearings.

  When I had originally awoken in this camp, the place where I now stood had probably been in the middle. The new ravine was several hundred feet south of me.

  The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that there was an underground garage.

  I might find another ship if I could get inside.

  To go where?

  I dismissed the thought. One thing at a time. I needed a way to flee before I could do anything else.

  I idly pressed the buttons of my watch to see if it would activate my anti-grav boots, but nothing happened. I would continue to check just in case something changed. I did not expect it to, but it would be a shame if I died with working anti-grav boots because I had not thought to check.

  Try as I might I could not figure out where the ship had come from, so I wandered away to give my subconscious time to work on the problem.

  The transport ship’s engines were still going—even though it had been crushed by the lurkers—but not as powerfully as before. I approached from the front where it had been smashed flat. I had thought about checking for survivors but saw now that would be impossible

  A vain hope had formed that I might be able to use the ship to fly out of here, but it would never move again.

  Something whizzed by my head.

  I spun, thinking it had just been a bug, but then I saw a man in the middle of camp with a rifle aimed at me.

  As I dove I saw the flash of a firing muzzle.

  The bullet grazed my shoulder as I landed.

  13

  I rolled, heedless of the pain in my right shoulder as it contacted the hard-sandy ground. Bits of sand dug into the wound making it smart all the worse, as if salt had just been rubbed into it. When I looked up I that saw that the man who had shot me was now coming towards me.

  He was short and had a distinctive walk.

  I knew him very well.

  Jeffords.

  Acting more on instinct than actual thought, I rolled my rifle off my shoulder and pulled the trigger. He went for cover.

  He didn’t expect me to know how to use a rifle.

  Thank you, Sampson.

  My watch beeped, signaling it was time to put on more block.

  The only thing Jeffords ever told the truth about is the need to put on block, I thought, remembering how he had told us that even if we were taking fire, we should stop to put it on.

  I knelt. I brought my rifle up and fired again in Jeffords’ general direction, bracing my arm on my side to improve accuracy.

  Both shots went wild.

  I focused on the spot where he had gone down—it was a flattened canvas tent—and switched the lever on my rifle to burst and fired twice more, sending a handful of bullets at him. I dashed forward until I was back in camp, firing another burst as I ran, and then went down behind a flattened tent to catch my breath.

  “We both know how this is going to end,” Jeffords yelled, it sounded like he was about fifty feet away. “We both know you have no training. If you make me come find you, I will make it as painful as possible. If you stand up now, it will be over in just a moment.”

  “Was this why you didn’t train us, to make it easier to kill me?”

  I pulled out a knife and slit a hole into the half-collapsed tent I was using for cover and slipped inside, intending to go to the other side to set a trap for Jeffords.

  I was surprised to see it was the medical tent where I had first awoken, perhaps I might have recognized it if it had not been crushed. I crawled to the far side and waited, hoping Jeffords would talk again.

  He must have seen what I had done, because I could hear him walking, bits of sand crunching under his feet as they impacted the hardened sandy ground. He moved carefully.

  I had planned to cut a hole in the canvas, but could not do that now without him discovering my location.

  I should have just left him to die in the battle with the grenlings.

  When I looked at my watch I remembered that I needed to put on block. After laying my rifle carefully beside me, all while moving as quietly as I could, I pulled out the bottle and applied it to every exposed square inch of my body, even removing my hat to make sure I got the top of my head.

  “I’m glad you chose the hard way,” Jeffords said. “I’ve been looking forward to making you pay for everything you’ve done to me.”

  I finished with the bl
ock and slipped it back into my pocket. I picked up my rifle and waited. The canvas was about two feet over my head. My best move was to go on the offensive and kill him outright the first chance I had.

  “Have you figured it out yet?” Jeffords said even louder. “You know I am John Jeffs, don’t you? You tried to pretend like you didn’t figure it out, but you and I both know you’re not stupid. You put it together and that’s why you made that foolhardy leap off into the ravine. Come on out and face me like a man. You were a coward to put me behind bars. You should have just taken me out and shot me. Or tried to hunt me down yourself so we could face-off man-to-man. Instead, you hid behind the justice system.”

  I controlled my breathing as I thought of my wife and son.

  My initial instincts were to hunt down Jeffords, but perhaps that was the wrong thing to do, even though the moment seemed to make it imperative.

  When I finally got to civilization, or when others came looking for survivors, would they believe Jeffords had just died from friendly fire?

  Maybe I could find a lurker weapon on a corpse and make it look like he was killed with that.

  I still had no idea of my captor’s present level of technical capabilities. Even though it seemed like we were alone and far away from anybody else, it was best to assume that whatever I did here would get back to the higher-ups.

  A moment at the crossroads. Do I want revenge or to find my family?

  I ground my teeth, wanting to figure out a way to do both, but I knew so little that I was not willing to take that risk.

  I needed to find a way out while leaving Jeffords alive if I could.

  I tried the buttons on my watch but my anti-grav boots did not engage. A moment later I was glad they had not, because that might have given away my position.

  I’m too wound up.

  I have to think this through.

  “I missed on that first shot, you know that, don’t you? I wanted to give you a sporting chance. Something you never gave me back on earth. It was the fair thing to do. It was the right thing to do.”