Reapers: The Shadow Soldiers

by Josh Collins

“Well, you do have the resources we need,” Burns noted. Alvarez didn’t seem amused.

  “Yes, but unlike you, I’m not stupid enough to think that my boys could take on a fort of that scale,” he grumbled.

  “Valor is superior to number,” Burns argued, remembering what Rhett had said back when he himself was unsure of the chances.

  “Right,” Alvarez simmered. Burns figured it best not to push him further. His teammates hadn’t yet come to that conclusion.

  “You lack faith in your men, Lieutenant?” Brosi asked, noticing that Alvarez was not a very inspiring leader.

  “Faith has nothing to do with it,” he let on.

  “Then what’s keeping you out of the fight?” Brosi continued, gaining more ire from the man.

  “The fight?” he repeated. “Were you there when the Collective started their assault on Fort Ledger? Were you there as they systematically hunted my surviving troops?” Burns remained silent. “I didn’t think so. That’s why we don’t fight.” He turned back toward Burns. “The truth is, Colonel, in this life, there are no heroes—there are only survivors!” he exclaimed, clearly putting the possibility of Survivor reinforcements off the table. Though Burns suspected it wasn’t for the reasons he let on.

  Looking over at one of the medics who had patched him up, Burns remembered where he’d heard the name Alvarez before. Alvarez was one of the nurses in the VA facility, the one who had helped him secure the Flenin. She’d talked about how proud she was of her soldier father, and she had talked about how she wasn’t scared for him.

  “I’ve met your daughter,” Burns blurted out suddenly, causing the Lieutenant to look up once more. Not out of malice but instead out of wonder.

  “How?” he asked, losing his typical grumpy bite.

  “She’s a nurse at the VA on Fifth Street. She helped me,” he told him. Alvarez eyes began to shimmer a little.

  “She got the job,” he whispered to himself with a sliver of a smile. Burns slightly smiled.

  “Yes, she got the job,” he repeated.

  This was why Alvarez was hiding. It wasn’t a lack of faith or what he’d seen the ULC do. He was in this cave because he didn’t want his daughter to be alone. He didn’t want her to have to live without a father. Burns looked back at the man, this time only trying to calm his fears.

  “You don’t have to worry about her, she’ll be safe,” he mentioned, gaining the man’s attention.

  “Are you sure?” Alvarez asked. “I’m her only family. My tour was almost up—I was going to be there for her. Forever,” he said. Burns reached out his hand and placed it on the man’s shoulder.

  “I’m sure,” he confirmed warmly. Alvarez looked at the rocky ground, struggling with something. After a few seconds of rumination, he looked back up.

  “I’ll talk to the others,” he ensured. “I’ll see if we have any fighters left in our ranks.”

  Burns took a deep breath. He’d gotten what he wanted. Though he began to wonder if he had some of Alvarez’s inhibitions. Was he saving or was he still only surviving?

  FRACTURED PAST: PART IV

  Juliette holding cells, Fort Hermara, Mardius, 20 years and 1 standard month prior

  The night prior, Evelyn Wescott had broken her strict moral code to be with Burns.

  Waking up, he couldn’t help but smile ear to ear. This was the best morning he’d ever had. This was how life was supposed to be; this was what he’d always held out for. To be able to see the person you loved the first thing in the morning—he wanted that for the rest of his life.

  Eve woke up only minutes later. She too immediately gained the same smile on her face.

  It seemed they were both in the place they were always meant to be.

  They lay there for several minutes. They didn’t move or speak. They only looked into each other’s eyes.

  The cell bed may have been hard as a rock and only wide enough for one person, but they made it work. They’d overcome much adversity to be with each other and now were peaceful. No explosions, no bloody corpses, no anger or fear. They were together and happy, and it was the beginning of a new day. A wonderful day.

  After freshening up a bit and eating one last packaged meal, they headed for the capital to board their transport and start the future.

  Descending from uptown, Burns and Evelyn strolled through the crowded streets toward their transport. They held hands and had become inseparable. Not even the crowds of refugees pushing past them could break their hold.

  Nearing the large, double-decker space transport, the couple passed an elderly woman who’d fallen to the ground. She seemed to be groveling around in the dirt, searching for something. The woman had ruffled, muddy clothes and seemed quite desperate.

  Burns watched as people walked by her, oblivious to her plight. Slightly scowling at their intolerance, Burns kindly knelt near the woman and asked her what the matter was. She was a jumbled mess of words, but she managed to tell him that she’d lost her ticket and couldn’t afford another.

  People were desperate to get off the planet. Newly annexed worlds were a rough place to be for quite some time. Another panicked citizen must have stolen the ticket from her.

  Gently helping the old woman to her feet, Burns assured her he’d buy a replacement ticket. He still had a few dollars left from hazard pay. However, the ticket counter was back in uptown, and the shuttle was bound to be leaving soon. With a hint of foresight, Burns thought it best if Evelyn got on the shuttle and held the pilot to the ground until Burns and the woman were aboard. She agreed heartily and departed.

  Briskly arriving at the ticket counter, Burns had to resort to flashing his military verification number in order to purchase a ticket past departure day. The clerk wasn’t too fond of making an exception, but eventually Burns purchased a ticket and was on his way back to the transport. He hoped Evelyn had been able to convince the pilot not to lift off.

  Arriving at the center of the city once more, Burns saw Evelyn had been successful, and the transport was still in its place.

  All that was left was to find the old woman, and they could board and be free of this world.

  Looking around, over the heads of the crowded masses of the capital, Burns couldn’t manage to find the woman. He didn’t know where she could have possibly gone.

  Then he spotted something else.

  He saw Jonathon Gambi.

  The man was standing squarely on a rooftop. He was still wearing the same body armor, exposing his large, muscled arms to the world. He certainly seemed out of place here. Especially on a rooftop.

  What’s he doing up there? Burns thought to himself. He’d figured the man would be celebrating victory with other Loyalists.

  Had he come to wish another farewell to the happy couple?

  Then Burns realized what he was really doing up there.

  His heart skipped a beat.

  The IEDs. All those months ago. He hadn’t asked Burns to locate the explosives so he could disarm them. He was going to repurpose them. Jonathon Gambi was a double agent—he was going to blow up the capital!

  Burns began to run toward the man. He had to stop him.

  However, he’d only taken one step before a fiery force blew him backward. Everything went black after that.

  Faintly, he could hear the savage howls of dying people, the crumbling of large buildings toppling over, the definitive popping of fires. The sounds were muddled though. Burns had trouble distinguishing reality from nightmare.

  Was this real? Did this really happen? Could this only be a panic attack from his earlier brush with death? He desperately hoped so. He wanted to wake up and see Evelyn, her beautiful smile, the calm of the morning. He wanted to see everything all right—like it was before.

  Fearfully opening his eyes once more, he saw that it was all real. It was all too real.

  His head pounded like a drum, and his arms and legs were bleeding profusely, but that wasn’t the worst part. He w
as totally fine—that was the worst part. As he stood and looked around the blackened, crumbling city, he couldn’t help but wonder why he was fine. People had been torn apart by the explosives, and he’d only suffered minor scrapes and bruises. Or perhaps he’d suffered much worse.

  A couple feet ahead, through the smoke and debris, Burns saw the jagged remains of the interplanetary shuttle.

  Overlords might! Evelyn! he thought to himself.

  She was on that shuttle, and it looked like it had taken the majority of the hit.

  Burns hobbled forward, dismissing the shots of pain, as he quickly approached the carcass of the shuttle. He hoped—desperately—that he could pull his best friend out of the rubble. That, somehow, she was as uninjured as himself.

  Yet, as he climbed up the smoldering shards of the busted shuttle and began digging around, his hopes became desperations and soon those were degraded to denials.

  She couldn’t be gone. This wasn’t the plan. She had to be alive. She had to have jumped out or found some sort of shield or something, he reasoned. Yet, deep down, he knew she couldn’t have survived. The odds weren’t there. It didn’t seem like anyone had survived.

  No one except him.

  Burns collapsed onto a jagged piece of the shuttle and slid to the ground. He didn’t weep or scream. He just sat in the middle of the flaming city with a blank look on his face. He’d just lost the only person who’d ever cared for him.

  He reached into his pocket and removed the picture that she’d given him. Her military portrait. His battered hands smeared blood around the edges and atop her beautiful face, but he didn’t care—he just needed to see her again.

  A fire then burned bright inside his heart. This fire burned so hot, it rivaled the inferno that had consumed the city.

  He was going to kill Jonathon Gambi. He promised himself that.

  It was then that he heard someone shuffle behind him. He stood to see who had approached. Sure enough, standing stoically among the fires was a Dominion soldier. His gray fatigues dictated that much. As to what branch, Burns wasn’t sure. He didn’t look like he’d been around at the time of the bombing, and he didn’t look like a first responder. His rough face and slicked back, greasy hair painted him more in the light of a Special Forces man. A soldier on the ragged edge.

  Indeed, from a holster strapped to his belt, the man removed a small revolver and held it out to Burns.

  Without any words spoken, Burns knew what the man was offering. He was offering a chance to go after Gambi, to get that promised revenge. All Burns had to do was take the revolver and Gambi’s life was his.

  He hesitated for a second, looking at the destruction one last time.

  He remembered the life that was about to start, the life that was about to begin.

  It was over.

  Someone needed to make amends, and he seemed the best for the job.

  Burns looked forward into the rough man’s soulless eyes as he definitively grabbed the revolver, binding his new allegiance.

  “Good choice,” the rough man grumbled, a sickly smile coming over his face.

  The two then disappeared into the dense jungles surrounding the city as the responders arrived on the scene.

  He knew it would only be a few hours before they found his misplaced tags in the rubble and confirmed it—Ben Burns was dead. No one was coming to save him. Not this time.

  PAYING THE PRICE

  Rhett’s ceremony took place in a section of the mine where the miners had busted out of the shallow side of the mountain and left a gaping hole. Burns could relate to that. He’d come down to save lives, yet he may have let another one be sacrificed in the process. He’d come out of the shallow side of his own mountain.

  The ceremony was small, with few people in attendance, but it was still quite nice. No one spoke; instead they stood silently and honored Rhett as a slow burning flame encompassed his body. Behind the pyre, the gleaming sun shined through the mountainous peaks of Silverset. The fresh air nipped at Burns’ face, and the wind blew his hair. It was a solemn moment, but it was the most beautiful he’d ever seen Silverset. It was more than they could have asked for. He just wished some of Rhett’s family could have been there. If he had any family, that is.

  The others in the team seemed to be taking the loss in different strides.

  Carmen was still difficult to read. Brosi, however, was an open book.

  The man stood still, jaw clenched. He seemed intense. Brosi and Rhett had had their differences, but Burns knew that Brosi had trusted the man to the ends of the galaxy. Why else would he have followed him into the cannon and then defended the logic of the action later? Maybe—maybe Brosi even felt responsible for what had happened. Burns would say that was foolish, but it was pretty hard to judge when he shared the same feeling.

  The truth was, neither of them had any bearing on Rhett’s survival. That was the cost of war: sometimes the good guys didn’t make it out.

  “Gambi is going to pay for this,” Carmen growled suddenly, and Burns’ heart skipped a beat.

  “Gambi?” he restated, trying to catch his breath.

  “He’s the commander of ULC forces here on Silverset,” Brosi told him.

  He began to see the fires of Mardius in Rhett’s pyre. He couldn’t believe that Jonathon Gambi was here. This mission wasn’t just about the cannon after all.

  “Wait,” Brosi murmured, “how did you know Gambi was here, Carmen? That was privileged information,” he revealed, stepping up to her. She scoffed and responded, but Burns didn’t hear a word of it. He didn’t care.

  Here he was, getting all sappy about everything, and Intelligence still had “privileged information” up their sleeves. This was a big one too. This surpassed all of their other lies. Everything Control had said about needing him, every example Index had showed him as to his importance—it was all a lie. He wasn’t important because he cared or because he was a good leader—no. He was important because, out of every man in this galaxy that had hunted Jonathon Gambi for his actions on Mardius, Ben Burns was the one who did it the best. All those years spent killing out of rage and anger. They had picked him because of that. They had picked him for simple revenge. They were snakes. His past—Evelyn’s death—was not an asset to be played with. Burns’ fist crumpled up as he walked forward, pushing Carmen out of the way and grabbing Brosi.

  “How could you keep this information from me?” he growled. Brosi put his hands in the air.

  “Colonel, I didn’t know it was important!” Burns only scowled through the drapes of his dark hair.

  “Of course it is!” he growled. “Anything that’s privileged is important!” Brosi shook his head.

  “I’m really sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to—” He didn’t finish as Burns pushed him away. He needed to get out of here before he did something stupid. He turned around and meant to head back into the mine, intending to take Carmen with him, only she was nowhere to be found.

  “Where did she go?” Burns yelled, turning back to Brosi. The man only shrugged his shoulders. Burns let out a sigh—maybe she was still hiding something. He really didn’t want to deal with her right now, but the last time his problems took precedence, soldiers ended up dead. He had to find her. He didn’t know what she was doing or where she was going, but he had to find her.

  Briskly proceeding through the damp tunnel hallways, he was having a difficult time locating her. Not only was it dark but a number of refugees had also passed him. If she wanted to, she could have easily hid among their numbers.

  He really couldn’t believe it had come to this, chasing one of his own down a section of tunnels.

  Lieutenant Alvarez then approached, and Burns tried to side step him, but he insisted on talking.

  “I tried to rally an army, but they aren’t listening,” he said. Burns kept walking while he turned toward the man.

  “I’m sure you’ll figure out something, Alvarez,” he ensured.

&nbs
p; “No, they’re exhausted. Done with war,” Alvarez told him. Burns stopped, letting out a large sigh. Yes, he wanted to find Carmen and figure this whole situation out—but if he didn’t get the support of the Survivors then it wouldn’t matter whether she was still on board or not.

  “Don’t they want the planet back?” he asked the Lieutenant. Alvarez only shook his head.

  “You don’t get it. Silverset was a cushy post—we aren’t used to fighting. Not like this!”

  “Then how did you get this camp?” Burns asked. Alvarez stepped up a little.

  “You mean a damp mine?” he asked stringently. “Poor planning and poorer luck.” Burns tried to think of something that would get the other soldiers on board with storming Fort Ledger, but nothing came to mind. It was a suicide mission—running full on toward a fortification of that magnitude. You had to be crazy and know for sure that people weren’t going to miss you at home. Burns shook his head; he could quite possibly be the only person on the planet who fit that criteria.

  A comm notification then beeped inside his helmet, prompting him to put it on. He motioned to Alvarez, telling the man to hold his thoughts for a second. Entering the warmth and security of the helmet, Burns checked the message. It was Brosi—he was trying to make contact. Burns flicked his eye and opened communications.

  “Brosi,” he started in. The man came online.

  “I have info on Carmen’s whereabouts,” he exclaimed. Burns’ eyes opened wide.

  “Where is she?” he asked.

  “Mine entrance. A few guards saw her walk out.” Burns shook his head—she was going AWOL.

  “Thanks, Brosi,” he told him, closing comms and returning to the conversation with Alvarez.

  “I’ll get back you,” he said, turning and beginning to head to the center of the crosscut. Alvarez spoke behind him.

  “They call you a colonel,” he stated. “You know, a lot of men work hard for that title, and they just gave it to you.” Burns turned around again.