Dead Force Box Set

by S D Tanner

  Merc withdrew his hand and gave a sharp laugh. “I fight for the winner.”

  “Am I a winner?”

  Laughing even more loudly, Merc shook his head. “Not yet.” Then his smile fell away as quickly as it had arrived and his eyes seemed to darken. “But you might be.”

  Glancing at Judge, he saw the almost imperceptible nod, meaning he had to negotiate whether he liked it or not. “What kind of army do you have?”

  Demurring and refusing to answer his question directly, Merc’s upper lip curled. “I keep the city safe enough.”

  They should be fighting for their country, but Merc was well named, which meant he expected to be paid. “Name your price.”

  Merc smirked. “Well, now, usually I charge by food, women and children…”

  “Children?” Ash asked in surprise.

  “Always need new recruits.”

  He didn’t want a pact with a slave trader, but he needed an army more than ethics. “I don’t have slaves. What else do you want?”

  Looking past him at the shuttle, Merc grinned. “I like your transport.”

  “It’s not for sale.”

  Nodding, Merc raised his hand. “Of course not. You need it, but…” Lowering his hand, Merc’s eyes grew dark again. “If I help you take control of a region, then I’ll want a piece of it.”

  He glanced at Judge, seeing him give another slight nod. It was a terrible deal, one he could barely stomach to take, much less see through. His word should mean something, but even if he said yes now, he wouldn’t hand the country over to anyone like Merc. The man was acting as a security force for desperate people and, judging by what he’d seen inside the ruined city, he wasn’t good at his job.

  “Fine. What can you give me now?”

  Smiling again, Merc nodded. “I can give you a hundred troops, fully armed and trained.”

  It wasn’t a good deal. but unless he found the Dead Force he was stuck with whatever he was offered. His mouth twisted with contempt he couldn’t quite conceal. “Take me to the hybrid.” He’d already abandoned Brook once and, unwilling to dump her again, he added, “Bring Brook with you.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN: Hearing Voices

  Traveling by shuttle was faster than the Skimmer, meaning they arrived at the forest where the hybrid lived within twenty minutes. Brook sat opposite him on the shuttle with Merc, who was studying the interior as if it were already his. Although he and Judge hadn’t been able to speak in private, it was clear neither of them trusted Merc. Striking a deal with a mercenary left a bitter taste in his mouth, making his trigger finger itch to put a bullet through his head. Merc was the most vicious of the desperate, making him King in a world where only the most dangerous of men survived. What would Merc have done to Daisy had she been handed to him? Just thinking about it made his trigger finger twitch and he rubbed his thumb and forefinger together.

  Seeing the movement, Judge leaned over from his seat on the shuttle. “Time isn’t on our side.” It was a justification of sorts for their decision, but he didn’t like it. Seeing he was unconvinced, Judge added with a wink, “Improvise and adapt isn’t a one-time thing.”

  Judge was telling him they would deal with Merc and his so-called army in good time, just not right now. “Roger that,” he replied softly.

  When the shuttle landed on a cleared area near a rundown cabin, Hawk called cheerfully, “Get out!”

  In his view, Flak and Hawk were typical flyboys; overcontrolling when it came to their wings, but poorly behaved and undisciplined as frontline soldiers. Rising to his feet, he waved at Rok and Ash to open the back door. “Move out.”

  “Didn’t I just say that?” Hawk asked indignantly.

  “Yeah, but you lacked gravitas,” Flak replied smugly. “You don’t carry yourself with authority.”

  “Really? You some kinda expert now?”

  Shaking his head at their bickering, he half-turned toward the cockpit on the shuttle. “Keep the engines running and don’t leave without us unless the shuttle is at risk.”

  Replying in what he assumed was meant to imitate gravitas, Hawk said in a deep voice, “Yes, sir.”

  “Are you trying to be sexy now?” Flak asked in mock horror.

  Grateful he was leaving his pilots on the shuttle, he walked down the ramp onto the wild grass. The forest surrounding the cabin had been cleared enough to plant a small vegetable garden and let chickens roam through the low grass. The cabin had been assembled from a mixture of wood and what he assumed was some form of plastic, making it look more like a rambling shed than a home. It might have once been a traditional log cabin with a porch, but now the roof lurched and the steps to the front door were rotted.

  Judging by the rusty pump, the cabin didn’t have running water, making him suspect it also didn’t have electricity. At least the people in the city still had access to solar power, which was what they used to fuel the Skimmers. It didn’t seem the cabin had even the most basic of needs, and he wondered why the hybrid had chosen to live there. Did she hate the aliens who had turned her into something less than human? He was short on allies and maybe she would be one. Their situation was becoming increasingly desperate, and he’d take any help he could get, even if it came from the likes of Merc.

  Appearing by his side, Brook elbowed him sharply. “Let me do the talking.”

  Darting ahead of him, Brook made her way onto the porch that was lurching at such a steep angle it was in danger of collapsing. She banged on the door, calling to the woman inside. “Hello! We need to talk.”

  Standing to the side of the door, hoping he was out of view, he heard another woman’s voice. “You made a mistake.”

  Puzzled by the woman’s reply, he tapped Brook’s arm. “What does she mean by that?”

  Clearly the woman heard his question and she answered for Brook. “They know.”

  “Know what?” He called back.

  “About you.”

  He assumed she meant the aliens knew they’d broken their protocols. Given they hadn’t tried to conceal their presence, he wasn’t surprised, but he wondered if they knew about Jessica. Moving in front of the door, he tried to see through the cracks. “Do they know how?”

  The door to the cabin opened, revealing a tall, slender woman with striking blue eyes, and long, dark hair hanging in waves around her delicate face. If there as one thing he’d come to appreciate, it was the aliens only took the best of human DNA. This woman was so beautiful it was hard to believe she could kill him by spitting acid.

  Instead of inviting them inside her home, the woman walked to edge of the broken porch and dropped gracefully to her rear, patting the spot next to her for him to sit. “Who is Jessica?”

  Obeying her unspoken invitation, he sat on the step next to her, making the wooden decking tilt even further. Under any other circumstances he would have enjoyed talking to a woman so far above his league, but not today. Her knowledge of who they were and what they’d done had sent a chill through him.

  Deliberately ignoring her question about Jessica, he asked, “How do you know we went to the floating city?”

  The hybrid’s fingers were long and moved in a graceful and dreamy way. Tapping the spot between her perfectly arched eyebrows, the woman gave him a slow smile that drifted from her mouth to her eyes, making them sparkle with mischief. “I hear voices.”

  He suspected the aliens communicated telepathically, so her answer didn’t surprise him. “Can you talk to them?”

  Her dark blue eyes became shadowed as if she’d seen things she would rather forget. “Yes, but I don’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I am incomplete.”

  Looking her up and down, he admired the slender, tanned ankles poking out from the frayed cotton trousers that had turned gray from being washed too many times. “You look complete enough to me.”

  Seeming to enjoy his appreciative once over, she gave him another lazy smile, proving she was at lea
st in part the woman she appeared to be. “They want things I don’t.”

  “What do they want?”

  “Control.”

  “Over what?”

  “Everything. You.”

  Her answer surprised him and he pulled back from her, looking directly into her eyes. “Me specifically.”

  The laugh came from deep within her chest, giving it a throatiness he liked. Pointing to a chicken that was pecking at the ground near her feet, she asked, “Do you see that bird?” When he nodded, she moved her arm so that it rested on his knee. “And that one over there?” Leaning closer to him, she asked, “And what about that one?”

  The chickens were rhythmically pecking at the ground, driven more by instinct than need. “Are you saying the aliens see us as chickens?”

  “As a flock of birds.”

  His upper lip curled in contempt. “We’re farm animals to them?”

  “Some are farmed, others run wild. Not like before.”

  Her answer confused him. “Before what?”

  “Before you were flock.”

  In this new world, he supposed humans were livestock, but perhaps the hybrid was from an earlier time. “Do you remember what it was like before?”

  She gazed into the distance, a small smile playing on her lips. “Cities on land. Many different flags. Plenty of food. Good beds.” Elbowing him in the ribs, she leaned into his shoulder, giving him a slow wink. “Great sex.”

  The woman must have been assimilated when the world was still intact, which might explain why she was so human. “Are you flock?”

  Her face dropped and she looked at the ground between them. “I am not one nor the other.”

  Looking back at the cobbled together cabin, he understood why she lived in the forest. She didn’t belong with humans or aliens, leaving her nowhere to be other than alone. “Will you help me?”

  “Do what?”

  “Get rid of the aliens?”

  Now her eyes widened, but not with fear. “Will you kill me?”

  He wanted to say no, but it would have been a lie. Like Lolo, this stunning woman was their enemy, and he would kill any of them until either they were gone or he was.

  Judge had been standing back, but now he stepped forward, making the woman looked up at him. “When it comes to the aliens, Tag isn’t sane and he will kill you.” Leaning toward the woman, Judge spoke in a low voice. “But if you help us, then he’ll have to kill me first.”

  The hybrid appraised Judge, giving him a wide smile as if she approved of what she saw. “What do you need?”

  Not wanting to lose control of the interrogation, he glared at Judge before turning toward her. “Where are the Dead Force?”

  “Sleeping.”

  “I don’t care what they’re doing. Where are they?”

  The woman shook her head, making the dark hair drift around her face. “They sleep until they are woken.”

  “Do you know where they sleep?”

  “They do not belong to me.”

  “Who do they belong to?”

  Her eyes grew a darker shade of blue as if she had turned inward. “They obey Immortalis.”

  Judge shook his head, giving the woman a skeptical look. “Do you mean they obey God, because the aliens aren’t any God I worship.”

  She titled her head at Judge, a knowing smile playing across her full mouth. “You are Defensors. You do not know much.”

  Relieved that she had at least confirmed the Dead Force existed, he ignored the casually delivered insult. “How do I wake them?”

  “They are loyal.”

  “Who to?”

  “They follow orders.”

  “Whose orders?”

  “Their protocols dictate their master.” Touching his face, she nodded as if something had just occurred to her. “You have a different master.” Narrowing her eyes, she gave him a knowing smile. “Clever girl.”

  Feeling his back straighten, alarm flooded through his body. “Don’t tell them about her.”

  The hybrid shrugged as if she didn’t care. “They know what I know.”

  If he’d understood the woman correctly, just by meeting her he had compromised Jessica. The realization brought him to his feet and he pointed his gun at her. “Do they know now?”

  She tilted her head at him, seemingly unsurprised by the gun in her face. “Keep her safe.”

  “Tag, no,” Judge said softly.

  “She knows about…” In the face of what he now realized was his enemy, he couldn’t bring himself to even speak Jessica’s name. Without looking at Judge, he added, “It means they know too.”

  Judge’s hand fell heavily on his shoulder. “It’s too late. What’s done is done.”

  Just as he was about to lower his gun, the woman grabbed the barrel, pushing it against her forehead. Her voice was low and insistent, sounding as if she were desperate to end the life she’d never asked to have. “Keep her safe.”

  The sound of his gun was loud enough to make the chickens scatter. Their feeble wings fluttered as they lifted into the air, only to land clumsily and cluck wildly in fear. Her eyes were open as she lay flat on her back, her legs stuck out awkwardly on the broken step. The slim, tanned ankles he’d admired only minutes earlier were still, and one arm rested against her waist while the other was flung over her head. The small, round hole in the middle of her forehead was all that indicated she was dead, but there was no blood, proving she hadn’t been human.

  She wasn’t the first person he’d killed and she wouldn’t be the last. Judge was wrong. Wars weren’t won by playing fair. Telepathy gave the aliens even more of an advantage, and there was nothing he wouldn’t do to even the odds. Sometimes the only way to catch a thief was to send another one after them. The aliens had been ruthless and he would fight fire with fire.

  Shouldering his gun, he pushed past Judge who was staring at the woman in shock. “Move out!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY: She Crazy!

  “This is your ship?”

  Brook was standing in the middle of the Bridge, slowly turning on her heel. The wonder in her tone made him realize how lucky they were to have the ark. Rok had called them death ships and they were, but with Jessica in control, their ark was an asset. After meeting and then killing the hybrid, the ark had swept into the atmosphere just long enough to teleport them aboard. Anything they had been touching traveled with them, and no one had bothered to hold Merc’s hand. No doubt he’d been left bewildered and confused as the squad had disappeared before his eyes. Hawk and Flak had lifted off, landing the shuttle inside the open docking bay on the ark. He hadn’t meant to leave Brook to die in the desert, and had she spoken up he would have done things differently, but she couldn’t have known that. Just as they were about to teleport, he’d impulsively grabbed Brook by the arm.

  “It’s more Jessica’s ship than mine.”

  As he spoke her name, Jessica walked out of the room attached to the Bridge with Joker behind her. “You killed the hybrid.”

  Jessica’s tone lacked inflection, making her sound more like the robot she was. Turning to look at Jessica, Brook seemed to appraise her in the subtle way women did, then she shrugged as if she didn’t care. “Merc was impressed.”

  He wasn’t interested in impressing a low-life like Merc. If he had his way, and he fully intended to, Merc would die the moment he wasn’t useful.

  Judge had been leaning against a console at the back of the Bridge, but now he launched to his feet. “Tag did what he had to do to keep Jessica safe.”

  After killing the hybrid with a single headshot, he’d expected Judge to be angry, or at least to challenge his decision. “You agree I had to kill her?”

  “Every case is different, Tag.”

  Judge was letting him know he wouldn’t let him kill Lolo, not that he needed to be reminded. His hatred of the aliens had run deep before he’d been to the floating city, but seeing Jessica held prisoner and tort
ured had cinched the deal. Now his anger toward them was pathological. He wouldn’t rest until they were dead or he was. The aliens were his enemy and, having lost everything to them, he would spend the rest of his undead life killing them.

  “They die easy,” Jessica said quietly.

  Brook had the ruddy and full face of a young woman, whereas Jessica was so smooth and pale she appeared to be made of plastic, which he supposed she was. The robot version of Jessica gave only the barest hint of the woman controlling her. Hanging from a ceiling inside the city was the real woman, the one he had to save, but the only way he could talk to her was through the robot version of Jessica.

  Walking over to Jessica, he stroked her cheek, giving her a warm smile. “Not if they see you first.”

  Returning his smile with one of her own, Jessica replied, “They use others as weapons.”

  “What other weapons do they have?”

  Clearly reaching the end of her protocol-controlled mind, Jessica’s face grew blank. “I am Servator to the arks.”

  In other words, Jessica’s insight was limited to what the aliens allowed her to see. Stroking her cheek again, he nodded. “And we are grateful for that every day.”

  Brook peered at Jessica, curiously examining her waxen features. “Is she ok?”

  “She’s a machine, like a robot.”

  Brook’s screwed up her face in disbelief. “You don’t act like she’s just a robot.”

  “The real Jessica is in the floating city.” Thinking about Jessica made him worry the aliens might know what she was doing, and he spun around to look at Judge. “We have to go back to the city.”

  “Why?”

  “We have to get Jessica out.”

  Judge shook his head. “We can’t get her down without killing her, you said so yourself.” Flicking his head at robot Jessica, he added, “And if Jessica dies, then we lose the Extrema. How’s that gonna help?”

  He’d already thought about a way to free Jessica, but he didn’t think Judge would like it. “Lolo should come with us.”

  Narrowing his eyes, Judge squared up to him. “I won’t let you kill Lolo.”