by M. R. Forbes
FIRE AND BRIMSTONE
CHAOS OF THE COVENANT, BOOK TWO
M.R. FORBES
Published by Quirky Algorithms
Seattle, Washington
This novel is a work of fiction and a product of the author’s imagination.
Any resemblance to actual persons or events is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 by M.R. Forbes
All rights reserved.
Cover illustration by Tom Edwards
tomedwardsdesign.com
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THANK YOU for picking up the second book in the series, your continued support is immensely appreciated. With your help, Hell’s Rejects made it into the Top 20 sci-fi bestseller lists in the US, UK, CA, and AU regions (it made it to Top 100 in the overall store in CA and AU, Top 200 in the US, and Top 300 in the UK). That’s AMAZING and I hope after reading Fire and Brimstone you’ll be back for round three.
THANK YOU again to my beta readers, Mike and Julie whose sharp catches have hopefully saved me from some bad reviews about the editing (even if a few typos always seem to sneak through, grrrr).
THANK YOU always to my wife, because I wouldn’t be writing these stories without her encouragement.
1
Gloritant Salvig Thraven lowered his head.
Only for a moment. A single, brief instant to respectfully acknowledge the passing of his finest Evolent. Trinity. It was a shame she had to die.
When he raised it again, he smiled.
“Is this how it begins?” he said to himself. The Great Return. The promise of the Covenant. A new Evolent in the making, perhaps the strongest of them all. “Perhaps stronger than me?”
He laughed at the idea. He was a Gloritant of the Nephilim. He had survived the wars. He had seen civilizations rise and fall. He had been in the Extant for millennia, tending to his flock, preparing them for the future when the promise of the Father would be fulfilled. A promise born of the cycle of all things. Chaos. Strife. Death. Power. Control. The Outworlds, the Republic. They were labels. Two shards of a broken whole, but only two shards. He would unify them, as he had been ordained to unify the Extant. He would harvest them, as the Father had promised the harvest.
Nine hundred planets. Twenty-two species of advanced intelligence. The most successful evolutions to arise from the countless seeds that his kind had helped God sew across this universe.
Until the rebellion. Until his demise at the hands of the Father, when the Nephilim no longer followed his commands or accepted his rule. When his technology became their technology. When his blood was filtered to become their Gift.
It had been left in ruin. Primordial. Basic. It had taken time to start over. They had waited in the Extant for the crops to grow. They had been patient, as their Father told them to be patient. Their civilization rose and fell and rose again, and he remained above it all. He never forgot the Covenant. He never lost hope. It was promised to them, and the Father didn’t break promises.
He stood up and walked over to the transparency, through which he could monitor the construction of his fleet. Ninety-nine ships rested across the plains of Kell. The Fire was the largest. It sat at the head of the group. Peaceful. Calm. Patient. It was proof that the ways of the past, the technology of the first Nephilim would see them rise once more. He would be the uniter. He would bring his flock back where they belonged, never to flee again.
He had taken a risk putting the Brimstone into the field, dangling it in front of the Republic so brazenly. He had taken a bigger risk allowing the imbecile Ursan Gall to go to Drune with the hopes of rescuing his wife. He had never expected the Outworlder to be sensitive enough to feel the change in her Gift. While Ursan had accepted it, he didn’t believe in it. He wasn’t capable of believing in it. His mind was so filled with vengeful hate that he couldn’t see how the power of the Gift could carry his potential beyond his emotions. He had taken it because Trinity had asked him to. Whether that decision would transform him or devour him was still to be determined. Thraven had known his Evolent would revive after her first mortal wound. He also knew she wouldn’t revive after the second. Abigail Cage, an unlikely Potential, had taken her head.
Would she take Ursan’s as well?
He laughed at that thought, too. With the Fire under his control, the Brimstone was expendable to serve a greater purpose. With Trinity’s death, a new force would rise.
By the time it did, his fleet would be completed, the war machine of the Nephilim revived once more, the promise set to be fulfilled.
The harvest was nearly ready.
2
Abbey sat up. She blinked a few times. She turned her head toward the medical bot standing beside her, staring at her.
“I’m not dead,” she said.
“No,” the medical bot agreed.
“I should have been dead.”
“Yes.”
“Why am I not dead?”
“I do not know. I am currently in recovery mode due to a systems fault. I am unable to diagnose.”
Abbey looked down at herself. Bits and pieces of her hellsuit rested across her flesh and on the table, expelled from her body as it knitted itself back together. The suit was still intact on her feet and calves and missing from her upper torso where she had taken the most damage. Dried blood was caked across her skin, marking her everywhere. When she thought about it, she could still feel the bullets hitting her. She could still feel the pain of the mutilation.
And that was what had happened. She hadn’t just been shot. She had been mutilated. Torn up by the collective firepower of an entire platoon of soldiers, most of them in battlesuits. Where had that shuttle come from? And who the hell was the asshole that ordered them to kill her?
She reached up and rubbed her face, picking some of the blood away. She held it between her fingers, staring at it. The Blood of Life. That was what Thraven’s killer, Trin, had called it. The Gift that had made her somewhat bulletproof, and now, seemingly immortal.
“You only have half,” she remembered Trin saying to her. Half of the Gift. Half of the power.
What could she do with the rest? Set herself on fire?
Benhil called her the Demon Queen. That didn’t mean she wanted to be one for real.
That wasn’t right. She wasn’t immortal. As far as she knew, she had never stopped breathing. She had never stopped living. She had come as close to the edge as anyone would ever want to be, but she hadn’t gone over. There was a distinct difference. Somehow, her team had gotten her out of there. Somehow, she had survived.
She leaned over, pulling the scraps of her hellsuit off her body.
“Do you have a robe?” she asked the bot.
It walked over to a nearby shelf and retrieved a thin white cover, holding it out to her.
“Thank you,” she said as she took it and slipped it on. “I’ll send Gant back in to reset you. If I have time later, I’ll see if I can update your programming to accept miracles as a potential cure.”
And that’s what it was, wasn’t it? A fragging miracle.
She wished it were that simple. She was afraid of what it really meant. The only things she knew about Gloritant Thraven scared the shit out of her. He had access to a power unlike anything she had ever seen or heard of before, something a part of her wanted to call magic, while the other part wouldn’t believe such a thing existed. He was building an army that included any number of warships. He had control over the Fire and the Brimstone, the two most powerful starships the Republic had ever made. Oh yeah, and some of the soldiers in that army could only be stopped by removing their heads.
What. The. Frag?
“Painkillers?” Abbey said.
“Yes.”
She smiled. “I’m not in pain.”
It froze for a moment, clearly trying to process the statement. Then it put the pills and water back.
“I will prepare your discharge report. You are free to go.”
“Thank you,” she said, not that she needed the bot’s permission to leave. She hopped off the table, looking back at the mess she had left behind. “Are you able to sterilize the room in recovery mode?”
“Yes. I will clean up.”
She didn’t envy the bot. There was blood everywhere. Only the Gift had saved her. She wished it felt like a gift. She couldn’t help but think it was more like a curse.
She opened the hatch, stepping out into the dim corridor of the Faust. The air smelled heavy. Burned. She wasn’t surprised they had been forced to fight their way out. A simple mission to make contact with a single Skink, and it had gone to hell. Completely to hell. They had been led right into the middle of something that stank worse than she did right now.
Trin had told her the Fire and the Brimstone were inconsequential in comparison to the bigger picture, and she couldn’t find an argument to counter that statement. She had been up for less than two minutes, and she was already on her third terrifying thought.
She needed to talk to Captain Mann, to update him on what had happened and to find out what he knew. She was willing to bet that it was more than he had let on. He wouldn’t have been a very good HSOC if it wasn’t.
She made her way from Medical back toward the ladder that would lead up into the rest of the starship. She was surprised Gant hadn’t been waiting for her outside the clinic, his fingers working feverishly on some bit of metal or another in an effort to keep himself calm. The absence forced her to consider that he hadn’t made it off Drune. That he had been killed.
Scary thought number four.
She heard voices as she neared the ladder, feeling a small sense of relief that she wasn’t alone on the Faust, even though she knew the idea was ridiculous to begin with. Someone had carried her back here. Someone had flown them out.
“I’m telling you, it’s fragging suicide,” Benhil said. “You saw what happened to Queenie. That woman that attacked her, you saw what she was capable of doing. She was on fire, for shit’s sake. And did I mention those soldiers? They were burned to a fragging crisp, and they were still coming at us. What the hell was that? Damn, we needed all the collective luck we had left to make it out of there alive. I don’t know about you, but I’m done. Let Mann drop me, seriously. You hear me, Ruby? Tell him to flip the switch, because this isn’t fun. I’d rather die easy than go back out there and get thrown around like the invisible hand of God is bitch-slapping me or get taken out by a fragging piece of toast.”
“It was always ninety-nine percent suicide, Jester,” Airi said. “Do you think rotting in Hell is better?”
“I think anything is better. Whatever the frag is happening out here, it isn’t normal. It isn’t even human.”
“Neither am I,” Pik said.
“That’s not what I mean. It’s - I don’t know. It’s like a horror stream. Demons, you know. For real. Monsters. Nightmares. Shit.”
“Can you just cool it for a minute,” Bastion said. “Ruby, don’t tell Mann to kill Benhil just yet.”
“I have no intention to,” Ruby replied. “Yet. I may be synthetic, but I still understand emotions.”
“Jester, the mission is to recover the Fire and the Brimstone. We do that and we’re free and clear. We don’t have to fight the bogeymen; we just have to get the ships back.”
“And how the frag are we supposed to do that? We ran away, which means we don’t even know where the hell they are. Which means we’re back to square one.”
“Your whining is giving me a headache,” Pik said.
“Frag you, Pik,” Benhil said. “Seriously, Bastion. Our only lead was on Drune, and even if he isn’t dead, there’s no way we’re going back there. Gant is missing. Queenie is dead. We’re screwed, even if none of you want to admit it. I don’t want to die, but letting Mann do it is a hell of a lot less painful than what’s in store otherwise.”
Abbey decided she had heard enough. She could feel herself getting more and more angry, the sensation of motion beneath her skin beginning to return as she did. She wanted to shower and change, to get back into a suit and have the familiar pressure on her flesh again. She was glad to hear the others standing up for one another and the mission. Or maybe it was self-preservation and denial? It didn’t matter. They weren’t quitting, and they certainly weren’t letting Captain Mann shut them down. Especially not now.
She started climbing the ladder.
“Frag me?” Pik said. “Why don’t you come over here and say that to my face?”
“Number one, because your face is too ugly for me to look at,” Benhil replied. “Number two. Oh, there is no number two. It’s because you’re ugly.”
“That’s it,” Pik said. “You want to die? I can take care of that.”
“Pik, wait,” Airi said.
“Move, Fury, or I’ll move you.”
“Do you think because you’re bigger and stronger you can just tell me what to do?” Airi asked.
“Pretty much,” Pik replied.
Abbey reached the top of the ladder. The others were assembled around it. The only one who noticed her was Ruby, and while a smile played at the synthetic’s face, she didn’t say anything. Abbey turned her head, finding Airi in the middle of pulling a knife from a belt at her waist, while Pik advanced toward her. Benhil was behind them, wearing an angry, frightened expression, while Bastion was leaning against the bulkhead, waiting for the whole thing to play out.
“Enough,” Abbey snapped, sharply enough that she could see the muscles on Pik’s back tighten as he froze. “I want you Rejects at attention, right now.”
She glanced over at Ruby. She had a full smile now as she snapped to attention. So did Airi and Pik. Benhil glowered for a couple of seconds before joining them.
“Nice dress,” Bastion said.
Abbey glared at him. He was smiling, too.
“How much did you hear?” Benhil asked.
“I heard enough to know you’re on my shit list, Jester,” she replied. “You could have at least waited to be sure I was dead before you started your bitching.”
Benhil looked at the floor. “Shit, Queenie. Did you get a look at yourself?”
“I can’t believe you healed from that,” Bastion said. “I mean, I was hoping you would. We all were, in our own way, even Bennie, but damn. Whatever they gave you, I want some.”
“No, you don’t,” Abbey said. “This isn’t a gift, no matter what that bitch called it. It’s uncomfortable as hell, and it’s fueled by anger and hate.”
“I don’t mind a little anger and hate,” Airi said. “That’s my natural state of being.”
“Yeah, you’re not really dissuading me with that argument,” Bastion said. “Three hours ago you looked like you got stepped on by a mech. Now you’re back in one piece. And I repeat, nice dress.”
Abbey realized the back of the gown had slipped open. She grabbed it and tugged it closed. “That’s two.”
Bastion laughed in reply. “You have nothing to be ass-hamed of.”
“Oh, you didn’t,” Pik said.
“That was bad,” Benhil agreed. “Really bad.”
“Okay, enough jokes,” Abbey said, having to force back her smile. They didn’t know how much she needed a dose of levity at the moment. “I need a debrief. Start by telling me what happened to Gant.”
“Dunno,” Pik said. “He went apeshit when he saw you were getting hit.”
“Gantshit,” Benhil said.
“He was on a rampage,” A
iri said. “He killed four of their soldiers, and it looked like their commander tried to use his magic on him, and he just shrugged it off like it was nothing.”
“It isn’t magic,” Ruby said.
“Then what is it?”
“Inconclusive. Magic doesn’t exist. Therefore it isn’t magic.”
“Magic is any science we don’t understand,” Abbey said. “FTL used to be considered impossible, and the properties of disterium were called magic. In that sense, magic does exist.”
“True,” Ruby agreed.
“Then let’s call it magic for now,” Bastion suggested. “It’ll make it easier to talk about it.”
“We could always settle on fragged-up-demon-shit,” Benhil said.
“That’s a mouthful,” Bastion replied.
“Get back to the point,” Abbey said. “Where is Gant?”
“Back on Drune?” Bastion said. “I looked for the little freak-monkey. I couldn’t find him, and we had to blow off the planet.”
“You left him behind?” Abbey said. “I assumed he was dead.”
“He could be?” Bastion said.
“You don’t know for sure?”
“No.”
Abbey stepped toward him, and he pressed himself against the wall in response.
“Queenie, wait. Come on, that’s not being fair. You were dead. The whole place was a war zone. I had to get airborne, or we would have all been dead with you, and we don’t heal.”
“He’s right,” Benhil said. “We all looked for Gant. If we had seen him, we would have tried to grab him.”
Abbey turned around again, looking at each of the Rejects. “Airi, Pik, do you agree?”
“Yes,” Airi said.
Pik nodded. “Sorry, Queenie. I know you two were friends. The good news is that the little guy may still be alive.”
Abbey decided to drop it. She hoped Gant was still down there, hiding out somewhere. She imagined he would send a message their way if he was.
“Where are we now?” she asked.
