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

by Dan Decker

  There was no response. I spread my heels apart and followed after her, wondering what new madness I would have to deal with now that she had abandoned me.

  She was crazy.

  I should’ve expected this, I thought, remembering how she had almost left me to die on the first day we had run from the grenling.

  I cursed as I followed after her, leaving the grenlings behind. Once I was clear of the mountain, I adjusted my altitude, so I was only fifty feet above the ground. I then spread my heels as wide as I could. Even though it seemed fast, I was not going to escape before the ship arrived.

  And there is no chance of me catching Roth.

  It was one of the small lurker ships, similar to what had attacked our camp earlier in the day. I thought it might have held as many as twenty-five lurkers, but that was a guess.

  Surprisingly, the ship did not turn to intercept me. It was not until five minutes later that I realized our assessment was wrong. It had not been heading towards us at all, it had been slowly ascending into the sky.

  “Roth, it was not coming for us.”

  There was no response. Even though it seemed like the immediate danger had passed, I stayed at a low altitude, going as fast as I could, while remaining on the lookout for obstacles that cropped up in my path.

  I approached a cluster of hills, nothing like the mountains we had just come from, but rather than navigate through, I figured I was close enough now that a solitary figure should not raise much of an alarm, so I just went over.

  If Roth has a problem with what I’m doing, she shouldn’t have left me to my own devices. I was no longer part of the classified mission, so there was nothing for me to give away.

  I looked down as I flew over the hills, scanning to see if there were any grenlings. When I saw movement in a small crevice, I instinctually pushed my toes down and moved up twenty feet before I corrected. I didn’t get a good look at the creature, but it was no grenling. If there were any here, they were well hidden.

  I was soon past the hills, descending until I was at a height of fifty feet.

  Camp Myers was quickly growing on the horizon. Unlike the training camp where I had come from, it had permanent buildings, some were as tall as five or six stories, towering over the surrounding wall that looked like it was intended more to keep local creatures out, rather than help them fight lurkers.

  They didn’t think the lurkers would find them here, big mistake.

  I no longer tried to hail Roth, she was long gone.

  Yet I still head towards the battle.

  It seemed the most logical thing to do. I still needed a way off this planet, if nothing else.

  There were dozens of lurker ships like the one that had left, maintaining an altitude of several thousand feet above everything else. The lurker carriers were above those. There were so many lurkers in the sky that they looked like swarms of dragonflies.

  A few minutes later, I was close enough that I decided to slow down and adjust my height until I was only twenty-five feet off the ground, which meant that I now had to focus on my surroundings a little bit more to ensure I did not run into anything.

  Surprisingly, and for the first time outside of the mountains, there were actual trees on the ground. They looked like hearty things, a cross between pine trees and cactuses. None of them were taller than ten feet, the majority were far shorter.

  I was lost in thoughts of home when I heard something approaching. I stopped and listened but did not see anything on the immediate horizon despite the fact I was twenty-five feet in the air. There were several low hills in front of me that I assumed kept me from getting a view of what was coming. After only a moment’s hesitation, I dropped and crouched beside a large boulder. If anything noticed me, hopefully, they would think I was just a discarded suit.

  The flashing red lights disappeared while I waited.

  I still didn’t know what that meant. I had no way of knowing if the shield had reformed or if I would shortly be out of power.

  I became angry when I thought of Roth.

  I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trusting that the suit would hide the noise.

  The buzzing grew louder, filling me with dread and making me wish for a better hiding spot.

  There were several of the strange looking trees in front of the boulder, but they were too short to provide much protection. I crouched down as best I could, feeling like I was painfully obvious to anybody who looked.

  The noise was close now.

  While doing my best to keep my head down, I shifted so I could look up. Not one minute later, the most massive swarm of lurkers I’d seen yet zoomed by overhead.

  It was easily a hundred, probably more. Sweat trickled down my face and back as they passed. It was the first I could recall perspiring during the last several hours, really since I had put on the suit. I had not even thought about it, but I assumed now that the suit had some sort of environmental control mechanism because I had been comfortable while inside of it.

  I didn’t dare move an inch as the lurkers passed overhead.

  They continued by without stopping.

  Perhaps it was lucky that they were in such large numbers, as a smaller group might have been more apt to investigate.

  All of the sudden, it seemed like the sun was blotted out. At first, I assumed it was another ship, but then I saw it was the largest lurker I had ever seen, easily as large as one of their smaller transport ships. It flew just over the swarm of smaller lurkers, headed in the same direction.

  Wherever they were going, they had a purpose. I watched as they left, fearing they were going back to where I had come from to legitimize Roth’s abandonment of me, but they took a sharp right and went over the mountain range in a different direction. I just assumed that there was some other human camp over there.

  I heaved a quiet sigh of relief. When I ran into Roth again, I was going to give it to her.

  I waited until they disappeared before I slowly lifted up off the ground by only five feet and skated forward. I was no longer in the mood to fly any higher. It just seemed too risky.

  I hated that my best option was still to head towards the battle.

  46

  I arrived at Camp Myers ten minutes later. I approached without any problems, skating just a foot or two above the ground while being careful about any obstacles. I had learned the hard way that if I got distracted for just a moment, something could pop up and I would be sent head over tail.

  I crouched behind some boulders that still left me feeling very exposed while I tried to get a lay of the land. The walls around the camp were fifty feet tall. I could easily hop over, but I didn’t know what I’d find on the other side.

  From my perspective here on the ground, it looked like the majority of the battle was in the air, but I didn’t want to jump over and find myself in a group of lurkers.

  Roth had been afraid the battle might be over before we got here, but as near as I could tell, it looked like it was still hot and heavy. Everywhere I looked, I saw suited soldiers engaged in battles with the lurkers, zipping this way and that, as the lurkers followed after them. There were far more lurkers then soldiers, but it appeared that our suited soldiers were superior to the average lurker. As I watched, one soldier took down three lurkers in a couple moments, all while receiving fire and never slowing in the slightest.

  If they’d trained us on the suits, the massacre at our camp could have been avoided.

  I hesitated for several minutes, trying to listen to anything that might be close by before giving up and skating forward. I paused again at the base of the wall and listened, wondering if my suit had sensors that could help in my present situation.

  I hopped over, watching every which way as I did, fearing that I would draw some lurkers to me. Once I knew it was clear on the other side, I hopped down, deactivating my anti-gravs when I was only a few inches from the ground rather than trying to properly land. The noise of the battle covered the small sound I made.

/>   I was surprised by the number of tents, I had expected more permanent quarters. Camp Myers was set up in the same fashion as our camp, except there were buildings towards the middle.

  A suited figure slammed into the wall twenty feet away from where I stood, breaking part of it, but doing less harm than I would have expected. It seemed he had used his anti-gravs to mitigate the damage, both to himself and the wall. Without looking at me, he hopped back up in the air and zoomed away, a lurker following after him.

  I had naturally shrunk back towards the wall, but now I forced myself forward.

  “Roth, are you here?”

  There was no response.

  Why didn’t I hear chatter from any of the other soldiers?

  I had just assumed we were all on the same frequency, it appeared that was not the case. Maybe my transmission to Roth was lost in all the noise.

  Or more likely, she just doesn’t care what happens to me.

  Squaring my shoulders, I walked into Camp Myers, my finger on the trigger, ready to press it the moment I needed it.

  47

  I crouched against a wall while I watched a suited soldier fight three different lurkers. One was on top of a building, another one was embedded inside, and the third was on the street. All slowly advanced on the man, as if expecting to catch him off guard at some point. He jumped up and down, moving every which way, while somehow avoiding the blaster fire coming his direction. I had a clear shot on one of the lurkers, but up until now, I had not fired my weapon, preferring to stay in the shadows.

  The man seemed to be doing okay, although I was a little surprised he had not killed any of them. While I watched, a laser blast came from his hand, but it completely missed the lurker by about five feet. He was already jumping as blasts converged on the spot he had just been.

  I caught a glimpse of the man’s face on his helmet. He looked younger than me, and judging by the height of his suit, he was far shorter as well. He landed on top of a vehicle I could only describe as a cross between a jeep and a moon lander, crushing the top as he came down, firing a blast at the closest lurker and missing it by two feet.

  Blasts came from the lurkers, hitting him in the chest and lighting up his suit. At the rate he was going, he did not have long before his shield would be deactivated and he would be a sitting duck.

  The lurker in the street hopped into the air, its buzzing wings echoing off of the walls.

  I brought up my hand, pressed the trigger, and pointed it at the lurker’s head, maneuvering my aim so that when it fired, it was a direct hit, cutting the creature out of the sky. It screamed as it turned on me and fired off one blast before it died.

  This drew the attention of the other soldier and the remaining two lurkers.

  I brought my weapon around to another, but it was already firing at me. One blast hit my chest before I jumped into the air and landed on the roof of a building, the metal indenting underneath me as I came down.

  I had just jumped over fifty feet without the anti-gravs. I had not known that I could do that.

  I brought my weapon around, but the other man had already taken care of it.

  The remaining lurker was between the two of us.

  Its wings buzzed. I thought it was going to flee but instead it jumped on top of the soldier, smashing him underneath. He had managed to get off a shot before he had gone down, but it had gone wild, careening into the side of the building and doing no damage. I jumped on top of the lurker, grabbing hold of a wing and pointing my other hand at its back while pulling the trigger.

  It jumped into the air and spun, trying to ram me into a wall. My weapon finally fired, tearing through its abdomen and up through its head, emptying its guts on the ground. I hopped off as it crashed into a building, knocking down half the wall.

  I landed with my trigger depressed and a weapon pointed towards it, but need not have bothered because it too was dead.

  I thought about commenting on the soldier’s poor marksmanship but bit my tongue.

  He probably wouldn’t hear me anyway.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  It took me a moment to respond, because I was shocked that I could hear his voice. I saw his lips move on his projected facial image, so I knew that it was him talking.

  “You can hear me?” I asked.

  “Yeah. I take it you’re a newbie.” He looked at the dead lurker. “You’re not doing too bad if you are.”

  “I’ve only been here for like four days.”

  He laughed. “Nothing like baptism by fire. Thanks for the assist. What outfit are you with?”

  The question took me off guard.

  “Outfit?”

  “You know, what group?”

  “They never told me.”

  “Huh, strange. What camp were you at?”

  “I honestly have no idea.”

  “Seems like they were trying to keep you in the dark. That’s all information they tell everybody here on the first day.”

  “This is a training camp as well?”

  He gave me a strange look. “All of the camps are.”

  I had dozens of questions, but he was already hopping into the air and looking up at the lurkers, obviously itching to get back into the battle.

  “Any chance you know how to activate my weapons?”

  “You’re using your laser just fine, what else do you need? It is the best weapon we have for these things.”

  “It has a five-second delay.”

  “Aw, sorry, that really sucks. I can’t help you with that, you need to talk to a superior officer.”

  “She—”

  I started to say that she had abandoned me but decided that was probably not the brightest idea. I didn’t need him wondering why a commanding officer would leave me behind.

  “You want some help?” I asked.

  “Sure thing. We have a target-rich environment up there.”

  “I heard we were abandoning this base.”

  “More like this whole planet, but why leave any alive if we can kill them?”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  “You got a name?” he asked.

  “Anders.”

  Anderson.

  “I’m Smith. James Smith.” He hopped into the air while activating his anti-gravs at the same time. I jumped and followed after him, pressing the anti-grav buttons before I dropped to the ground. A small smile flitted across his face when I flew to the left because my toe was out, but he didn’t comment on my lack of skill, which was a good thing because I probably would’ve told him that he was a terrible shot.

  He zoomed up at an angle using the suit’s propulsion system.

  Cursing, I realized that had been a perfect opportunity to see if he could teach me how to use it.

  I tried to keep up, but he was already gone. He had just assumed I could follow.

  I stopped high in the sky but he had disappeared

  I hesitated as I spun around to make sure no lurkers were heading my way.

  “James? Are you there?”

  No response.

  Interesting, he could only hear me when we were in proximity to each other.

  I could not talk to him again unless I was lucky enough to catch up with him.

  I brought up my hand, pulled down the trigger, and took aim at a lurker that had its back to me, but just as the laser was about to fire, another soldier got in the way, so I released it.

  “Did you make it here?” Roth’s voice was equal measures shocked as well as aggravated, she might have been a little impressed as well.

  “No thanks to you.”

  “Might as well make yourself useful.”

  “Where are you?”

  “There’s a big building in the middle of camp, it’s six or seven stories tall. You will find me on top. Hurry.”

  48

  I saw the building Roth had mentioned and headed straight towards it. A lurker came right at me, so I bounced up while bringing my hand down to aim at it while pulling the trigge
r, but I was past it before I could fire the laser.

  Releasing the trigger, I increased my speed, hoping to get ahead of it, but it must have flipped around because a moment later, my suit lit up with light as a blast hit me in the back. Cursing, I turned and went down while flipping around and depressing the trigger, bringing my hand up on the lurker. It wrangled out of the way at the last moment, my blade of light going harmlessly into the sky, directly towards one of the ships. I could not tell if it was a hit, but I doubted it would do any damage.

  The lurker came right at me as I zigzagged out of the way, several blasts coming close. I pulled the trigger again and brought it around, aiming on count four at the middle of the lurker’s body, and this time it was a direct hit. It severed the back half of the lurker’s body, and while it had to adjust to keep in the air, its wings were all in the front, so its flight ability was not affected by the wound even though it was having trouble navigating.

  “Anders, are you coming?”

  “I’ll be right there,” I said while holding down the trigger again and pointing it directly at the lurker’s head as it came straight at me. Not wanting to miss my chance to meet up with Roth, I didn’t move to the right or left, choosing instead to absorb the blasts into my chest before the laser finally shot out and tore off the creature’s head and ripped down its back.

  It was dead, without question.

  I was almost to the building when another lurker got in the way.

  “Is that you?” Roth asked as it came down like a vicious insect bird of prey.

  “You mean the fool that has a weapon that won’t fire immediately so he can’t deal with sudden problems?”

  “I’ll take care of the lurker, you just focus on getting here.”

  I hopped over the lurker while depressing the trigger and aiming for the middle of its body as I zoomed past, hoping I might get it before Roth, but I had no such luck. A moment later, it was right on my tail, firing blasts at me.

  I landed on the building with a thud, my feet sinking into the roof by a couple inches and breaking loose some tile. The lurker landed right behind me, doing far more damage than I did, but it was dead, having been shot by Roth.