“So do we have a volunteer to go first?” Jarek looked pointedly at Drogan. “I vote the bulletproof raknoth, personally.”
Drogan only crossed his arms.
“Dammit, Stumpy. My armor doesn’t regrow like your hide. You could walk straight up there and give those guys a good whack on the head—no problem.”
“Do not talk to me about whacking anything,” Drogan muttered.
Jarek smiled and reached up to pat the hilt of his beloved Big Whacker, the same sword he’d used to relieve Drogan of his hands a few weeks prior, before this entire alliance between human and raknoth had even been a twinkle in their wide, desperate eyes. Drogan’s hands had since grown back, and creepily fast at that, but he hadn’t stopped calling Drogan by the nickname Stumpy, if for no other reason than that it seemed to get under the raknoth’s skin. Or hide. Whatever.
“Fine,” Jarek said. “I’ll go do all the work. Again. Might I trouble you for some cover, Commander?”
Alaric drew his mismatched revolvers and nodded. Jarek drew one of his own pistols. It wouldn’t do to go killing potential allies, but a little suppressing fire might let him close on the gunmen without putting Fela through more abuse than need be. The poor exosuit had already been through too much lately. They all had.
He flicked a salute to Alaric and took off underneath the ornately carved arch that spanned the wall’s entryway.
Under his own power, Jarek was pretty fast. Aided by Fela’s strength and stability, “pretty fast” was upgraded to “impossibly fast”—at least for a human. At a full out sprint on nice flat ground, he could hit nearly sixty miles an hour.
The rock garden sand pit wasn’t exactly nice running terrain, and the Big Whacker strapped to his back, not to mention the people shooting at him, didn’t really promote textbook running form, but he was still well into the manicured yard before the first shots dinged off his armor.
He fired back in their general direction. Behind, Alaric’s revolvers added their own voices to the chaos in the courtyard. There was a pained cry from the front porch as Jarek rounded a giant boulder at the corner of the house. A second cry followed, and the thunderous roar in the courtyard dimmed to a few traded shots every couple of seconds.
“I thought the plan was not to shoot our potential allies,” Al said in Jarek’s earpiece.
“Yeah. And then there’s the hat too. Guy’s clearly out of control.”
In truth, he would bet money—if anyone had cared about money anymore—Alaric had only winged a couple of the gunmen to give the rest of them pause.
“Do you have a plan, sir?”
Jarek holstered his pistol, looked up to the first of the giant house’s multiple slanted layers of roofing twenty feet above, and smiled. “Have you ever known me to be a man without a plan, Al?”
Before Al had time to point out the alarming frequency of times he’d led them into dangerous situations without a scrap of a plan, Jarek gathered himself and jumped. With Fela’s legs, he easily cleared the edge of the rooftop and landed in a light crouch.
From the vantage point, he could see Alaric’s revolvers poking around the wall to fire a couple of blind shots.
Jarek took off over the slanted, rust-colored rooftop. Several tiles cracked underfoot as he went. Al dropped four pins on his tactical display, designating the locations of the gunmen. Nearing the first two pins, Jarek went into a slide and allowed the roof’s slant to carry him over the edge.
As he shot out to open air, he grabbed the rooftop edge and swung back under to land between the two men on the stone porch. Or at least he tried to.
Tiles shattered and slipped under his grip, and instead of reversing direction and swinging onto the porch, he ended up landing in the well-groomed bushes in front of it.
“Shit!”
“Well executed, sir.”
He looked up from the tangle of greens and his retort died at the sight of the two repeater rifles trained at his face.
“Ah. Hey, fellas.”
For a brief moment, the two Japanese men only stared at him in surprise. Then they snapped to it, tensing to fire.
Jarek leapt up and swatted the barrels aside hard enough to tear the rifles from their owners’ grasps. He landed on the porch and sent one of the guards into the wall—no, through the wall, it turned out—with an open palm strike to the chest. Feeling an inkling of remorse at the damage, he caught the second guard’s wrist to keep him from drawing his sword, bopped him “lightly” atop the head, and dumped him off the porch and into the bushes. That would keep him dazed for a minute or—
“Behind you, sir.”
Jarek spun in time to deflect an incoming blade with a raised forearm. Said blade clapped thunder, and he realized it was a freaking shotgun bayonet he’d just narrowly avoided.
“Holy shit, dude.” He yanked the weapon free, swept the guard’s legs out with a kick, and planted a foot on the man’s chest before inspecting it more closely. “This is hardcore.”
Ahead, the last standing gunman snapped something at him in Japanese.
“He says, ‘Put down the weapon, steel demon,’” Al said. “Or something like that.”
“Great.” Jarek held the gun non-threateningly to his side. “Well tell him we came here to talk and that we wouldn’t have—”
Footsteps from inside. Rapid, padding thumps of—
Shit!
“Incoming!” Al cried.
Jarek was already dropping the gun and throwing himself backward. Too late.
The wall to his left exploded outward with a tearing sound, and what felt like a small freight train plowed into his side. Only the freight train appeared to have arms, mint green ones that wrapped around his midsection as they flew off the porch and into the courtyard below.
Jarek grabbed at strong mint green fingers and waited until the moment they hit the ground to rip and roll.
In a contest of pure strength, Jarek would have had his work cut out for him, even with Fela’s strength. Breaking free in the wild tumble of their landing, on the other hand, was easy enough.
He reoriented himself as they bounced to a halt and drove a heel straight into Minty’s face as the raknoth scrambled to regain his feet.
The blow sent Minty tumbling backward and bought Jarek a moment to roll to his feet.
“I was wondering if the adults were gonna come out to play. We need to talk to your boss. Uh, unless you are the boss … Sorry, I’m not great with faces. Zar’Kole?”
Minty pulled himself to his feet and brushed some dirt from the shoulder of his dark kimono. “Zar’Kole is not here, human. And I have no interest in talking.”
“Ah.” He caught a glimpse over the raknoth’s shoulder of Alaric and Drogan entering the courtyard. “Is it all right if I call you Minty, then?”
Raknoth tended to fight as if they were invincible, which made sense seeing as they nearly were against most foes. This one was no different.
He lunged straight for Jarek’s throat.
Jarek caught the raknoth’s wrists and pivoted to drive an elbow into his temple. Minty ducked the blow, hooked an arm through Jarek’s armpit, and stepped forward into what felt like the setup of a raknoth-powered body slam.
Jarek lifted his legs, and Minty reflexively supported his weight long enough for Jarek to replant his feet on the raknoth’s thigh and torso and kick off as hard as he could. The grating shrieks of claws on armor made him flinch, but the kick landed him back on his own two feet with Minty staggering backward to catch his balance.
The raknoth gave a battle roar and was tensing to spring at him again when Drogan stepped in on his flank and drove him to the ground with a devastating punch to the head.
Jarek threw his fists to the air. “Stumpy with the KO!” He walked over, grabbed Drogan’s hand, and raised it in victory. Or tried to.
Drogan shook his hand free in clear irritation. “Do not touch me, Jarek Slater. And he is not even … KO-ed, as you say.”
In testament to Dro
gan’s statement, Minty was staring between the two of them, clearly perplexed by the fact that Drogan wasn’t tearing Jarek’s head off.
“Okay,” Jarek said. “So no KO. But wouldn’t you say he looks thoroughly … stumped?”
It was hard to tell what with the lack of pupils and the uniform red glow, but he was pretty sure Drogan rolled his eyes.
“What is wrong with you?” Minty asked, rubbing at the spot where Drogan had decked him.
Jarek shrugged. “Hey, even we get bored sometimes. Well, maybe I shouldn’t talk for Stumpy here, but I—”
“Jarek …”
The tone of Alaric’s voice made him turn immediately. Four more raknoth stood under the stone arch of the entryway, watching them with crimson eyes. Minty gave a satisfied, hissing chuckle behind them.
Alaric drifted casually away from the newcomers and toward Jarek and Drogan. “I think our six o’clock is here,” he muttered when he was close enough. Not that the raknoth wouldn’t hear it from across the courtyard anyway.
Jarek traded an uncertain look with Drogan then gave the four raknoth a wave.
“Hey there, fellas. I don’t suppose you’d have a minute to talk?”
If Jarek had felt bad knocking a goon-sized hole in the wall of Zar’Kole’s home earlier, he felt even worse when the raknoth invited them peacefully inside. Kole, it seemed, didn’t share Minty’s aversion to talking before hitting. Lucky them.
Inside, the abode was eloquent in its simplicity. Wood floors, paper-thin walls, and a nearly complete lack of clutter. Guards eyed them wearily and fingered weapons as they passed. Jarek didn’t need to tell Al to keep his robot eyes peeled in every direction as they settled in to talk with Kole’s four raknoth posted around them.
“Oh dear,” Al said, speaking quietly in his earpiece. “Do please refrain from … well, being yourself, sir. I don’t like our odds, and Minty back there still looks like he wants to eat you.”
Jarek didn’t turn to verify Al’s assessment, he knew his companion was right. Drogan was pretty good in a rumble, and Alaric was quick on the draw, but the latter didn’t do them much good against raknoth, and they were heartily outnumbered.
“Lips sealed,” he murmured.
“What was that?” Kole asked.
God, it was creepy how much they heard.
Jarek willed his faceplate open as a sign of good faith. “Just talking to the voices in my head.”
“Clever, sir,” Al said quietly.
He suppressed the urge to tell Al to shove it as Kole considered him for a stretch.
“You may leave us,” Kole finally said, directing his gaze to each of his raknoth in turn. “Let our guests rest easy knowing they will not be attacked again as long as they do not give us cause.” His gaze lingered on Minty as he said the last part.
The raknoth left without a word, and Jarek did rest easy—or unclenched, at least.
Once they were alone, Kole sank to his knees on the thinly-matted floor and sat butt-to-heels, gesturing for Jarek and the others to join him. Drogan sank easily to the floor to mirror Kole’s position. Jarek traded a look with Alaric, and they both sat cross-legged by some unspoken agreement.
A flicker of amusement played across Kole’s features. The host he occupied had been Japanese and maybe in his late fifties. Jarek was under no delusions that the raknoth wouldn’t rip the life out of him given cause, but for now, he looked kindly enough.
“You’ve come to warn us about the harvesters,” Kole said once they were all settled. “And to ask for my help in defeating them, if I’m not mistaken.”
How did he—
“You heard the messengers call?” Drogan asked. He looked taken aback himself.
Kole tilted his head back and forth. “Perhaps. Certainly, I felt a troubling disturbance as I dreamed two weeks ago. Meditated, rather,” he added at Drogan’s clear confusion. “Dreamed is a poor choice of words.”
Drogan nodded, still looking uncertain. “And this disturbance?”
“At first I thought little of it. The thought continued to nag at me, though, which is why I finally went to speak with our ship today. Our messengers confirmed that it had not been my imagination. They felt it too. Your Zar was capturing messenger scouts, wasn’t he? And now they’ve escaped?”
Drogan shot Jarek and Alaric a pointed stare. “The nest was compromised.”
Jarek held up a thumb and forefinger. “We had a tiny bit of a misunderstanding. Lives were threatened. Stumps were made. I think the important takeaway is that we all screwed this pooch together.”
Kole cocked his head as if picturing such an act.
“The true point is that we believe the Masters come for us presently,” Drogan said. “And, annoying as some of their numbers may be, I do not see how we can survive without the humans, which leaves us at an impasse.”
Jarek refrained from mentioning how, speaking of annoying things, he personally thought it was kind of annoying how the raknoth had come to their planet out of the blue and then decided to blow it to smithereens after the humans had thwarted their original plan to feed them to the harvesters, who were now kind of ironically coming to eat all of them together. In the interest of not starting a fight with the only raknoth who hadn’t outright refused to listen to them, the poetic justice alone would have to do.
Four gold diplomacy stars for Jarek.
“It was only ever a matter of time,” Kole said. His tone was tranquil, and his gaze distant. “Unfortunate that the lives of our peoples have become so irrevocably intertwined, but so it is. And so we will do what we must.”
“So … does that mean you’re in?” Jarek asked. “Just like that?”
Kole smiled, and it wasn’t creepy or predatory or ominous. Just a sad smile. “We have all been ‘in’ since the moment my kin first decided to wreak nuclear havoc on this world and mask our continued existence from the Masters. Truly, my kind have been ‘in’ since the moment the rakul sent us to Earth, and since the moment your own kind decided to try to stop us. This has been centuries in the making, and if it must come to a head now, I will not fight it.”
So … did that mean he was in? Jarek still wasn’t quite sure.
“You will fight beside us, then, when the time comes?” Drogan asked.
“If the time comes. Yes. But first I would speak to the Masters. The messengers in our ship should suffice to reach them. I will commune with the rakul and see if we might not find peace this side of bloodshed.”
Drogan tensed. “Do you think it wise to contact them before they arrive? If we are wrong—”
“Do you believe you are?” Kole asked. “Do any of you?”
Silence.
“Neither do I,” Kole said. He rose to his feet in a smooth motion. “And even if you were, harvest has always been an inevitability. At worse, we quicken its fall. Either way, I tire of living in fear. Now is the time.”
Jarek clapped his hands together after a length of hesitant silence. “All right, then. Lucky for us, we brought our hiking boots. Let’s do it.”
Kole gave a small shake of his head. “It is almost certainly better if I speak with the rakul alone. You should continue to rally what forces you can.”
Coming from most people—or raknoth—that probably would’ve put Jarek’s back-stab alarm at blazing conflagration status. There was something about Kole, though. Jarek didn’t trust the raknoth, not by a long shot. Jarek didn’t trust anyone that wasn’t Al or Pryce. Rachel might be getting dangerously close to worming her way onto that list as well, but sure as shit not Zar’Kole. Still, Jarek didn’t get the feeling that Kole was actively trying to screw them over.
But you never really knew until you knew.
“It would help if we had your endorsement,” Drogan said. “Krogoth’s ascent by challenge to Zar has not been well accepted by all.”
Kole raised a hand for pause. “Krogoth slew Golga?”
“Technically, I’d say our people did most of the work,” Jarek said, �
�but Krogoth definitely finished it.”
“Golga would not fight the Masters,” Drogan said. “He had to be removed if we had any hope of surviving.”
Kole’s hand slowly lowered. “I believe that. Golga was powerful. Had he not been sent here with us, he might have soon joined the ranks of the Kul. Very well. I will send an envoy with you to represent my commitment to standing with those who would fight for survival. Lietha.”
Their old pal Minty stepped into the room with barely a moment’s pause. “Master, please do not—”
Kole silenced his underling with a raised hand. “It should not be for long. You heard everything?”
Minty—or Lietha, apparently—hung his head. “Yes, my Zar.”
“Then you will be my voice in this expedition for now. Go with Al’Drogan and see to it that we are ready should the worse happen. If peace cannot be found, I will join you soon.”
Lietha nodded, pulsing crimson eyes held toward the floor.
Drogan rose to his feet and bowed. Jarek and Alaric followed suit, after a fashion.
“I thank you, Zar’Kole,” Drogan said. “And should it come to pass, I will be honored to fight by your side.”
Kole inclined his head, bidding them farewell.
Jarek paused at the door. “Do you really believe there’s a chance? For peace, I mean.”
Kole was silent for several seconds, then he gave his head a small shake to confirm what his wistful expression already said.
Jarek swallowed, gave Kole a silent nod, and turned to follow the others.
At least they’d have the Zar on their side when the shit hit, right?
Maybe. But would it even matter?
On paper, the day might have been a victory, but somehow, as they headed back to the ship, Jarek couldn’t seem to find anything other than cold dread in his chest.
Three
Rachel’s head continued on its shaking swivel as if by its own free will.
“I just don’t get it.”
She looked around at the others, searching for some confirmation that she had not in fact slipped into some bizarre reality where this all made perfect sense. “How the hell is Jarek the only one who got a yes?”
Reaping Day: Book Three of the Harvesters Series Page 3
