Right to Rule: Hunter Wars Book Five (The Hunter Wars 5)

by SD Tanner

  “Shit. So, I’m stuck with this asshole?”

  “Yep, that’s how it works.”

  As the truth of his situation sunk in, Callum became angry. “Why’d you let Ruler do this to us?”

  “I didn’t. I didn’t know what he was doing until it was done.”

  “Why didn’t he possess you then?”

  That was an interesting question and he’d wondered that himself. “I’m not sure he hasn’t, but I think he’s done it in another way.”

  “Whatdaya mean?”

  With a smug smile, he said, “He’s given me powers. His powers. Which means I can kill just by thinking about it.”

  Callum scratched at his crotch and gave a long sigh of relief. “I’ve been wanting to do that for a week. These asshole demons have some bad habits. It’s disgusting having to do what they wanna do all the time.”

  Watching Callum enjoy the control of his own body again, a plan began to form in his mind. The demons were unreliable, but Hull’s Army weren’t. If he could work with Hull’s Army, they would do as they were told and still have the ability to control the hunters. It was a question of who was in lead. As it stood now, the demons were in lead, but if he ordered them to take a back seat, they would. Best of both worlds, he thought, my guys on point and the demons do as they’re told. That way I get my guys who are more reliable and they can also control the hunters.

  He put his arm around Callum’s shoulder and smiled. “It might work out better this way, mate. Now you can control the hunters and you can be in Hull’s Army, or better still, we’ll call ourselves the Dead Souls.”

  Callum shrugged his arm off. “That fucking demon doesn’t let me be in control.”

  He gave Callum a small self-satisfied smile. “He will if I tell him to.”

  Widening his eyes, Callum asked in surprise, “You can do that?”

  “You’re in control of your own body now, ain’t you?”

  With his hands in front of him, Callum wiggled his fingers. “Huh. Seems like I am.” A wide grin broke across his face. “This could work.”

  All he had to do was get Ruler to tell all the demons possessing the men from Hull’s Army to let them be in control and he would have his Army of the Dead Souls. Just as he was pondering when he could discuss his plan with Ruler, two more men who’d been in Hull’s Army walked up to him. He recognized one was a man called Grant and the other was known as Eddie.

  Grant waved as he walked up. “Thanks, Hull, it’s been fucking weird lately.”

  He looked at Callum, Grant and Eddie. “You’re back in control now?”

  “Yeah, looks like it, but it’s been a really shitty few weeks,” Grant remarked dourly.

  Confused by how quickly his plan was implemented, he asked, “You know you’re dead, right?”

  Eddie wiped the back of his hand across his nose. “Bein’ dead don’t seem to make much difference. I’m still breathin’ and I can scratch my own ass, so what’s the problem?”

  Surprised by their apparent lack of concern, he asked, “Why don’t you care?”

  Grant snorted. “If it’s either this or having some demon draggin’ my ass around all day long, then this’ll do.” Leaning into him and sneering, he added, “Like I said, it’s been a shitty few weeks.”

  Nodding in agreement, Callum added, “There’s an upside. I can’t feel anything anymore.”

  “What do you mean?”

  In response Callum began to hop on one leg. “Look at me, it’s like being a kid again. Nothin’ hurts.”

  Thinking Callum looked like an idiot, he said sharply, “Cut it out!”

  Eddie chuckled. “He’s got shit for brains, but he’s right. I used to have bad knees too, but nothing hurts anymore. No pain, no fear, dude.”

  “Nah, that’s true,” Grant said. Holding his hand out, he had a deep gash across the palm, and he poked at the still weeping wound with a stubby and dirty forefinger. “Can’t feel a damned thing. It hurt when he did it, but it don’t hurt now. Weird huh.”

  Callum shrugged. “Guess if you’re dead, you’re dead.”

  It didn’t add up and he wondered what else Ruler had done to make his men so compliant. Does it matter, he wondered? Probably not. As long as they had the skills he needed and they did as they were told, he didn’t care how they felt about their situation.

  Clapping his hands together, he smiled. “We’ve got work to do.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Lady Luck smiles (Captain Ted)

  The Isle of Wight was a small compact island just over twenty miles wide, by ten miles high, and it hung off the bottom of the UK next to two large ports called Portsmouth and Southampton. It was never heavily populated, but the main towns, Cowes, Newport and Ryde, had more than enough housing for the twenty thousand or more people they planned to relocate there. Although the island had no manufacturing, it did have the infrastructure to provide power and water to the houses, and was close enough to the UK ports to scavenge enough supplies for their immediate needs. Jordy had checked the set up for the power supply and told them that although there were some wind turbines, ultimately they wouldn’t generate enough power for the whole island. They needed to get the small power station working, and he recommended they have the electrical control engineers take a look, but in the meantime, to be prepared to live primitively. The transport ships could be used to provide power for communications and charge batteries, but life on the island would be basic until they got the power and water working again.

  Flying over the island, he was again struck by the fertile greenness of the farming land. Their other two islands were glorious in a beach holiday kind of way, but this island was a deep green and he would have enjoyed exploring it if he had the time. Axel told him that there was a population of about a hundred and thirty thousand people living on the island, but since the outbreak of the virus was over eighteen months ago, the hunters had mostly starved and there were very few left for them to deal with. Being mostly fertile farmland, the road system on the island was very simple, and with such a small population, the hunters did almost no damage to the island. In Cowes, Ryde and Newport there were row upon row of mostly two story terrace houses where he figured they could assign up to ten people per house. His only concern was the combat shooters only had time to do a superficial check of most of them, and there was a slight risk there might be a few hunters still hiding inside. Given the weakened condition of the hunters they’d found, he doubted any remaining hunters could cause them any problems, but to be sure, he ordered the combat shooters to help the survivors check their house thoroughly before they moved in.

  He planned to have each transport ship dock one at a time at the wharf. It wasn’t a large wharf, but it was big enough to take a transport boat. His pilot was flying over the wharf, and appreciating the value of the aerial view, he studied it closely. It had a large triangular area that was cleared for people and deliveries, and behind it was a large building and a smaller one he assumed was used to process people and shipments. Next to the wharf was a large platform that was used to ferry cars to and from the mainland. The car ferry meant there was a large parking lot behind the buildings on the wharf where cars once queued for their ride across the water. Next to the parking lot were a collection of small double storied houses tightly packed together. He wondered who would have wanted to live so close to such a busy area, and then decided with a population of only a hundred and thirty thousand, maybe it was never very busy anywhere on the island. The town of Cowes was cut down the middle by a long stretch of water that finished at Newport. It meant people would live separated by water, but although there were no bridges, there was a primitive and effective boat system where a platform on chains was pulled across the shallow water. It seemed inefficient to him, but the combat shooters found it easy enough to use and he figured the survivors would too.

  All he’d done since he arrived a few days earlier was check on the combat shooters clearing the island of hunters. There was nothing much to report,
and he was keen to spend the rest of his time at the ports on the UK mainland investigating what was inside the thousands of containers. Usually these types of missions were led by Pax or TL. This was his first solo run setting up a major camp and he wanted to get it right, but also get it done fast. The pilot was taking him to the Southampton docks with the thousands of containers that looked like they hadn’t been opened. In addition to the container area, there were multiple areas to dock, some container ships and plenty of fuel. Better still, it was a short ten-mile trip across the sea from the container shipping area to Cowes on the Isle of Wight. He was confident there would be food supplies amongst the thousands of containers, and now he had survivors arriving, he wanted to make sure the scavengers started moving the food supplies to the island. Flying over the section of the port that held the containers, he smiled to himself. The containers were stored in columns of about fifty with around fifteen containers in each column. Without counting, he estimated there must be about ten of these blocks of containers. Having never paid much attention at school, his math skills were poor, but he guessed he was looking at over seven thousand containers, plus those that were still on the container ships.

  Over each block of containers were ten cranes that were obviously used to lift a container out of the row and place it on one of the docked ships. It was an enormous logistics activity, and as the pilot flew over the dock, he saw one of the cranes was already moving and assumed the scavengers were making sure they could use the equipment. His excitement grew, while the bird slowly flew over the seemingly endless rows of containers. With so many of them, he hoped there would be enough supplies to last them for months. That would give him the time he needed to establish the Isle of Wight, recon the UK, identify further sources of supplies and start farming the land. His pilot landed in a clearing close to the banks of containers and he jumped down from the bird.

  Seeing Logan with half a dozen scavengers, he strode over. “How are we doing here?”

  Logan nodded to him. “We’re about to start opening the containers. Had to clear out some hunters.”

  “Have any trouble?”

  “Nope. All good.”

  He’d learned Logan was a man of few words, and always conscious he’d been a Colonel in the US Army, he was impressed by his leadership and steady mind. He hadn’t thought too much of his commanding officers in the Marine Corps, but now he suspected that was more to do with his own immaturity than their skills. He guessed he’d benefited greatly from the one-to-one mentoring he got from Pax and had grown up a lot in the last year and half. It was only now he felt like he knew what he was doing at least some of the time. More importantly, he knew when he when he was out of his depth and to ask for help, but right now he was feeling reasonably confident. The transport ships were en route and they were bringing a month of supplies. The island looked to be clear of hunters, but they were still double-checking the area. He had a team breaking open the containers and they were already learning to use the equipment. He had about three hundred combat shooters on the island and fifty scavengers here at the port. Everything seemed to be under control and moving in the right direction.

  Looking across at the wall of containers, he asked, “Have you opened any of the containers yet?”

  “Nope. I wanted them to focus on getting the equipment working. That’s taken a lot of our time. We needed fuel and the engineers had to work on the engines. And we need to be able to lift the containers to access them, so it’s had a priority.”

  He clapped his hands together with genuine glee. “Well, then I’ve arrived for the fun part.” Unable to contain his contain his enthusiasm, he exclaimed, “Fuckin’ excellent!”

  “What’s so damned interesting about the containers?”

  “It’s like Christmas. You just dunno how lucky you’re gonna get.”

  Deciding Logan could be a bit too serious some days, he bounced over to the first of the containers and shouted, “Let’s get this bitch open!”

  Three of the scavengers walked over. One was carrying heavy bolt cutters, another had an angle grinder with a small generator, the other held a solid looking rubber mallet All three men were built like heavyweight wrestlers and he figured Logan had hand-picked them for the job. They cut through the lock and hammered the metal slides that held the doors closed. Once they had the door locks off, they pulled hard on the rotating handles on the right door. The solid doors creaked, but swung open easily. The hinges were still working and he guessed the containers were designed to be stored outside under all weather conditions for a long period of time.

  Eager to see what was inside, he immediately stepped forward to inspect the inside of the container, but all he saw were stacks of wooden crates with foreign writing on the side. Several more scavengers stepped up, and wearing thick gloves, they pulled one of the crates from the top and dropped it heavily onto the concrete floor outside the container. He couldn’t begin to guess what was in the crate, but whatever it was, it was heavy. A man with a smaller crowbar, levered the crate open and he peered inside curiously. There were rows of metal squares with lids, and he was still none the wiser as to what they were.

  It didn’t look like anything useful or interesting and sounding puzzled and feeling disappointed, he asked, “What the fuck is this?”

  One of the scavengers leaned over the crate and pushed and pulled at the tightly packed squares until one came loose. Grunting with the effort, the scavenger managed to lever the metal square out until it became obvious it was a green tin with foreign writing on it.

  “I still dunno what this is,” he complained. Looking back into the container at the stacks of identical boxes, he realized whatever it was, he now had a large shipping container full of it.

  The can was about seven inches by seven inches, and the metal cap on top of it was offset into a corner of the large and heavy can. Feeling annoyed, he pulled out his KA-BAR and levered the cap off and sniffed the contents.

  Looking up at Logan, he said, “I still dunno what the fuck it is.” Fed up, he stuck his index finger into the can and felt a cold fluid. He rubbed the fluid between his thumb and forefinger and realized it was oil. Holding it to his nose, he sniffed at the fragrant oil and then tapped a little on his tongue.

  Shaking his head, Logan asked dourly, “Do you think that’s the best way to learn, soldier?”

  A fragrant taste filled his mouth and grinned at Logan. “It’s fuckin’ cooking oil.” Chuckling, he looked up at the container. “We have a years’ supply of cooking oil for twenty thousand people in here.”

  The scavengers began to laugh and so did he, but Logan looked perplexed. “What’s the big deal?”

  “It’s fuckin’ food, Logan.” Waving his hand at the thousands of containers, he added, “If one container has food then odds on, there’ll be a lot more.”

  “Yeah,” one of the scavengers said happily. “It means we ain’t gonna starve.”

  Logan shook his head. “There was never a risk of that, son.”

  He didn’t agree with Logan, but decided it wasn’t worth arguing over. It was a good start and he was pleased. It meant there was food in the containers and that was the one the thing he really needed to know. If there was one container full of cooking oil, there would no doubt be more. Relief flooded through him, and he realized he’d been more worried about supplies than he’d been willing to admit to himself.

  They spent the next four hours hammering open containers and he found a wealth of goods. Not all of it was immediately useful. Some containers were full of plastic pipes, car parts, clothing and other items that they didn’t urgently need. One container had been full of teddy bears, and remembering he was now co-father to a baby, he took some of the bears to take back to the base. The equipment to move the containers was now working, but they were still training people in how to operate it, and he couldn’t get access to the containers that were buried deep within the rows. He wasn’t worried. They’d managed to open over thirty containers and found
a wide range of goods and food supplies.

  He surveyed their haul with more than a little satisfaction. In one container they’d found stacks of large bags of rice. Another container was full of tins of meat in gravy, and they’d all enthusiastically each opened a tin. It might have been cold meat in sticky gravy, but he thought it was the best meal he’d had in months. He was still sitting on a crate, enjoying the sun and chewing on the last of the meat from his tin when Logan walked over and sat next to him.

  With a mouthful of cold, salty, gravy soaked and stringy meat, he asked, “Where we at?”

  Logan glanced up at the sun that was now starting to set. “Time to pack it up for the night.”

  He nodded in agreement. To stay safe from the hunters while they slept, the scavengers stayed on a small boat they pulled a small distance away from the dock at night. He contemplated heading back to Cowes for the night, but decided he would stay at the port.

  “Do you think we could head inland tomorrow? I want to take a look at the surrounding area. The first transport ships won’t be here for another day or so, and I figure it might be worthwhile taking a look around.” Contemplating the scavengers who were now resealing the containers and their precious cargo, he added, “The people Gears brought back from the UK said there was a renegade gang here called the Krays. We’ve been doing aerial recons and we haven’t seen any signs of life yet, but we know they’re here somewhere.”

  “They could be a long way inland. What you want to do is not a casual mission. You need to plan it.”

  Maybe in the past they could afford to plan everything down to the last detail, but these days, thanks to Pax, he’d learned to run things fast and loose. “I hear you, but we don’t have the luxury of the Army anymore. These days we have to get the job done and live with the consequences.”

  “It’s not how I was trained to undertake a mission, Ted. Bringing our people home alive was paramount and that takes planning.”