by R. A. Rock
Fierce Fighter
A Post Apocalyptic Survival Adventure
(Book 1 in the Drastic Times series)
By R. A. Rock
Copyright R. A. Roque 2018
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
CHAPTER ONE
YUMI
“Where are we?”
“Why does my head hurt so much?
“What happened?”
I groaned and held my head as the questions of my friends hovered around me. I could smell the scent of forest in the fall. And when I opened my eyes it was still nighttime, though a large round moon glared down at me from the starry sky.
“I thought we turned the damn things off.”
“We did turn them off. But it was too late.”
“But where are we?”
Then I heard the telltale sound of a gun being cocked, which brought me up to full consciousness immediately. I dragged myself to my feet, trying to get my bearings and locate the shooter.
“Hands up.”
Ah, there he was.
A grubby man in his early thirties was easy to spot in the white light that cut through the trees. He had greasy brown hair and — in contrast to his dirty appearance — a perfectly maintained gun that glinted menacingly in the harsh moonlight. He approached us at a cautious pace through the stand of poplars.
Oh, we were so fucked.
The people on our team were me — my name’s Yumi. Chad was our team leader. And there were three others — Grace, Audrey, and Shiv. All five of us raised our hands in response to the stranger’s command, though Audrey was probably only following our lead since she couldn’t possibly understand him.
Goddamn it. This was bad. And it was all Chad’s fault.
I knew myself well enough by now to admit in the back of my mind that it probably wasn’t all Chad’s fault. The rest of us might have had a little something to do with it, too. But I didn’t want to admit that.
I was pissed.
And I wanted someone to blame.
The hot guy with the curly red hair and blue eyes that looked right through me seemed like a perfect scapegoat.
“Classified,” Audrey hissed to the rest of us. Her tiny form and blonde hair gave the impression of fragility, though I would hate to meet her in a dark alley. As she whispered at us, the man with the gun stopped and stared, as if he were trying to identify a new species of bug. “Everything is classified. Where we’re from. Who our spouses and partners are. Our jobs. What we can do. How we got here. All classified.”
“We don’t work for The Agency anymore, Audrey,” Grace said out of the side of her mouth, hands still in the air. The light wind that blew through the trees, rustled the dead leaves still clinging to the branches and it ruffled Grace’s long red curls, as well.
“Doesn’t matter,” Audrey whispered back. “It’s all classified. If you know what’s good for you, you won’t breathe a word about us to these people.”
She glanced sideways at me, silently asking for back up.
“She’s right.” That was all I said but it was enough.
Shifting my weight from side to side, I heard dead leaves crunching beneath my feet and smelled the wonderfully delicious odor of fall that can’t be explained but only experienced. It had been a while since I had been on Earth in the fall.
I heard a murmur of agreement from Shiv, the drop dead gorgeous genius of our team. He was tall and his parents are from India on Earth, so he has caramel skin and dark eyes. He’s better looking than any man has a right to be.
But he’s Gracie’s.
Not that I was interested. I wasn’t. There was never any spark between us. We were good friends.
But the man’s like a breath of fresh air after being on a space station for weeks — pure bliss. A girl can’t be blamed for looking.
“We don’t tell them anything,” Chad said, in a quiet voice.
And the king has spoken, I thought sarcastically.
“But that means you’re a foreigner, Audrey.”
“What?” she hissed, sounding somehow mad and confused at the same time.
“Because you speak Primary.”
“So do all of you.”
“But we also speak English… like him.”
“Fuck.”
It was decided then.
We wouldn’t tell them anything about us.
We couldn’t tell them anything about us.
Not without risking them thinking we were crazy and having them lock us up. I had a bad feeling about this place and the man coming towards us. And if there was one thing I had learned in the time when I had worked for The Agency, it was to trust my gut. Right at this moment, my gut was screaming to get out of here.
But the guy with the gun looked like he knew what to do with it. And I had already almost died in spectacular fashion several times over the past few years. I did not want to make this time the one where I finally got unlucky enough to actually stay dead.
“Hey guys,” Grace said to the four of us, as the man began moving towards us again, still out of earshot. He kept his gun trained on me the entire time as if he somehow sensed that I was the most dangerous member of our little group. “Is anyone else…”
She paused as if unsure how to ask what she wanted to ask without violating the we don’t say anything about ourselves rule that we had just made.
“I can’t do what I can usually do,” she said, carefully. “Is anyone else feeling that way?”
I immediately tested and then frowned, glancing in dismay at Chad. I heard Shiv swear and Audrey groan. Chad looked back at me, worried.
This wasn’t good.
But there was no time to contemplate our sudden lack of abilities because the man was speaking.
“Everyone keep your hands up,” he said in English. I found his accent strange and unidentifiable.
“We don’t want any trouble,” Chad said responding in English and using his best diplomat’s tone. He gave the man a friendly smile, which seemed to have absolutely no effect on him.
“Do any of you have weapons?”
I snorted.
Did a wolf howl?
Did a bear eat?
Of course I had weapons.
Everyone looked at me.
The man scowled as he contemplated innocent little me.
I was
wearing tight black pants and a black T-shirt, but with a long black overcoat that hid the multitude of knives and guns I had strapped to my body. It also hid the sword on my back. The sword was mostly for fun, though, the guns were my serious weapons.
He continued to gawk at me as if by doing so he could see through my coat.
I’m a slim woman with long black hair, black eyes, and delicate Asian features. I look like a china doll and people tend to underestimate me — to their detriment, I might add, since I was trained as an assassin and soldier from the time I was a young girl.
I supposed that it would be no different for him. He would underestimate me. I would kick his ass. End of story. My gaze drifted to Chad and he gave me a barely perceptible shake of the head.
What?!
He didn’t want me to fight?
I frowned and he gave another firm shake.
No fighting.
Shit. That was no fun.
“Yeah, I have some,” I said to the stranger, my first language feeling odd on my tongue. I hadn’t spoken it in so many years.
“Lay it on the ground,” he said. “Slowly.”
It?
I almost laughed again, but managed to control myself.
I moved my hands in slow motion to open my coat and take it off. I threw it on the ground and again hid my amusement at the expression on his face.
I proceeded to unstrap a hand gun from each thigh and toss them on the ground. I pulled a knife out of the strap on my right calf and a tiny dagger from my left boot and threw them on the pile. I unbuckled my sword sheath and dropped the whole thing with the others.
Then I stepped back.
“That all?” the man said, clearly taken aback. I didn’t think he really thought there would be any more, but it seemed as though he was asking out of habit.
Chad turned his head and gave me a look.
I rolled my eyes. The guy had to ask.
I crouched down, rummaging through the pockets of my coat and pulled out a hand grenade and another gun, setting them on the pile with the other stuff.
“Now that’s it?”
“Sure,” I said with a shrug.
I wasn’t going to tell him about the hairpins in my bun. Those were hairpins. They did hold my hair up. They were pretty sharp for hairpins, but that was none of his business. At least I would have something other than my bare hands. And though my hands were deadly enough on their own, I did love my weapons.
The others handed over their guns and a few knives. And we were officially his prisoners.
“What do you want with us?” Chad said, all trace of the smile gone from his face.
“It’s not what I want with you,” he said. As he spoke, people swarmed down from the trees around us and out of the shadows. They looked malnourished and unhappy as they gathered up the weapons and surrounded us. “You’re on Brett’s land. And that makes you his. Now let’s go. It’s a twenty minute walk back to the compound.”
And just like that we had gone from a terrible situation to an even worse one in the space of five minutes.
Yeah, this mission was going to be great. I couldn’t wait to meet this Brett. He must be a real charming guy.
Chad and I exchanged a glance and it pissed me off that I knew exactly what was in his head and that he probably knew what was going on in my mind, too.
But at that moment, the sharp pain of the memory of her sliced through me like a scimitar blade cutting through my guts. I almost couldn’t breathe for a moment from the ache of losing her.
That had been his fault too.
And I couldn’t forgive him for it.
I never would.
I hoped this Brett would attack me and give me a chance to fight. I needed something to do with the agony coursing through me. And since I couldn’t take it out on Chad, who was still my team leader and co-worker, this Brett asshole would have to do.
I followed our captors through the gloomy forest, biding my time, and waiting for a chance to attack.
CHAPTER TWO
CHAD
It must have been nearly midnight when we crossed the gates into this Brett person’s compound. The derelict buildings and garbage on the ground were all illuminated by the pitiless moonlight. Behind us, the gates were slammed shut, the screech of metal on metal jarring my senses. I swallowed hard as a feeling of being trapped like a caged animal descended upon me.
On my left, I was flanked by Shiv. Grace and Audrey were behind us. And Yumi was to my right, a tightly coiled cobra ready to strike. I only hoped it wouldn’t be me she would kill.
I knew I had to keep her from fighting if I could. She was the best warrior I knew and could probably have taken all those guys that surrounded us earlier when we were captured.
I mean, don’t get me wrong, the rest of us are pretty damn good, too.
But Yumi was like no fighter I had ever known — graceful, swift, and more deadly than you would ever expect from looking at her.
She isn’t very tall and has a slim build. But she’s strong and keeps in excellent shape. Her face is pretty with these almond shaped eyes that just… man, I can’t even describe them. She’s not gorgeous but there’s this something about her that catches your eye. An intensity. Or an energy, maybe, that shines through her.
There’s just something about Yumi.
But I can’t have her fighting these guys right now.
We came to this place blind. We have no idea where we are, exactly, or what the situation is and that’s vital information that we need.
And the only way we were going to get that information was by interacting with the locals. So, we needed to infiltrate this camp, find out what we needed to know, and then get out.
I wanted to save Yumi’s skills for the getting out part. If they already knew how good she was, then they would keep her under close guard and it would make escaping that much more difficult. I wanted to tell her all of this, but with our abilities gone, I couldn’t tell her anything until we were alone.
I pushed the thought of what had happened to our abilities to the back of my mind. It didn’t matter. Right now, we needed to find out what the situation was and then get out. That was all that mattered.
Once we arrived at the part of the camp that contained the shacks that I assumed passed for houses, we saw small groups of dirty people hanging out around metal barrels with fires in them. There was a feeling of desperation and despair about the place.
I didn’t like it.
I also noticed that their clothes were as dirty as their faces and hands. They were torn and none of them seemed to have been mended. I felt completely bewildered.
Where the hell were we and what the hell was going on?
We approached a bigger building that seemed to have once been a trapper’s cabin and looked considerably more sturdy than the shacks we had passed by. I hoped that we would soon meet this Brett person so I could get some answers to my questions. And if he wouldn’t tell me anything, then I would question our guard and find out some things that way.
There would be someone who would talk. There always was. And I could be very charming when I wanted to be. I would find someone who would talk to me. Yumi’s talent was fighting and mine was talking. We had been partners at The Agency — each of our skills complementing the other’s — and there was no doubt that we had been good together.
But she had come between us and now Yumi hated my guts. She couldn’t forgive me for what I had done. And I couldn’t forgive her for not forgiving me. Our partnership was over. And no matter how well we had once worked together, I didn’t think we could ever go back to those glory days because we simply didn’t trust each other anymore.
We followed the man into the cabin. Inside, a couple big guys patted us down, checking for weapons again. They brought the five of us into the living room where a man sat on a couch.
There was a woman beside him, but I got the distinct impression that she was only there for show. She seemed beautiful by candlelight but I
would be willing to bet that she had had her share of troubles if she had ended up here.
We stood across from him in a line.
The cabin was bare and lit by candles, making dark shadows dance on the walls. We couldn’t properly see the guy on the couch until he leaned forward. And then I kind of wished he had stayed in the darkness. He had once been handsome but now had a terrible scar that ran up one side of his face from his neck. I didn’t react but it was hard not to look at it.
Nobody said anything. And once I had got over my initial reaction to the scar, I took the time to read his body language and facial expression as I had been taught to do in my training.
He seemed confident, his expression smug and pleased with himself. But I sensed an underlying lack of self-assurance that belied his satisfied expression. It was in the way his fingers twitched nervously and the way his eyes darted from face to face. This man was not truly confident in the least — and believe me, I know the difference between pretending to have confidence in yourself and actually being confident.
Hm. Curious.
“Are you from Sipwesk?” he said without preamble.
Gracie and I exchanged a look. We had known some people who had cabins on that lake when we had lived in this area. But we had been gone for a long time and obviously a lot had changed since we left. He said the name as if it were a town or community, not a lake with weekend cottages.
“No,” I said.
“Right.” He looked completely unconvinced by my answer. “You come into my territory with an armed assassin, looking clean and rich, where else would you be from?”
“We’re not from around here.” Shiv told him, his face grim. And Brett looked him over, probably taking in his height and ethnicity — Shiv’s parents came from India before they moved to Canada.
“Sure you’re not.” Then in a quieter voice, he asked himself. “Are they hiring-in their soldiers, now?”
After a moment’s silent reflection, he shook himself.
“Doesn’t matter. You’re my prisoners now.”
Grace’s eyes flashed and I tried to catch her attention but she ignored me.
“Your prisoners? Why? Just for being in the wrong place?”
