Retribution: Book Four of the Harvesters Series Read online

  Retribution

  Book Four of the Harvesters Series

  Luke R. Mitchell

  Copyright © 2018 by Luke R. Mitchell

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover design by Yocla Designs

  Cover illustration by Hokunin

  Editing by Lisa Poisso

  Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Epilogue

  A Letter from the Author

  Free Books!

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Luke R. Mitchell

  About the Author

  Dedication

  As we draw to the conclusion of this, my first full series, my nebulous little writer’s spirit has decreed that this one, finally, goes to my late father, David Mitchell.

  (Side Note: He actually used to announce himself to me on the phone like that, full name and everything—I shit you not. But I digress…)

  This one’s for my father, David Mitchell, who sarcastically taught me the Three Sacred Elements of Good Story, and a whole hell of a lot about life.

  I wonder what he would have thought of these books.

  1

  One month, she’d said.

  Glass shattered, and a maddened scream split the air, only distantly recognizable as human.

  Jarek hit the pavement in a half-crouch and pushed on without looking back, Fela’s powerful legs pumping beneath him, pounding the ground as he fled the first of the horde with his cargo tightly clutched.

  Three weeks ago, the sounds of the shrieks that spread through the streets behind him would’ve curdled his blood and given him a proper case of the heebie-jeebies.

  Now, though …

  Now that furor hordes seemed to be howling after them wherever they ran. Now that he’d seen more grown men and women tear each other to gory pieces more times than he wanted to count … All he could do was push on. It was all any of them could do right now.

  That didn’t stop the heebie-jeebies.

  One month of this madness.

  He could’ve taken them, of course. In small numbers, their fists and mindless rage weren’t exactly fair matches for Jarek’s armored exo.

  In horde quantities, though?

  Jarek had tried to avoid putting too much thought into it, but he was pretty sure Fela wouldn’t render him invulnerable to them going Wookie on his ass and pulling him limb from limb if they managed to catch him and swarm him to the pavement.

  So he kept moving.

  “Talk to me, Mr. Robot. Good news only.”

  A deliberate moment’s hesitation.

  Then, “That’s quite the lovely sunrise, sir.”

  On top of his crisp English accent, Al’s tone was cautious, searching.

  Jarek held his tongue, waiting for the digital construct to finish his sweep.

  Everything else aside, his friend wasn’t wrong. It was a lovely sunrise. The scrabbling feet and bloodthirsty calls of the horde just put a bit of a dimmer on things.

  “No enemy ships detected nearby, sir,” Al said after longer than usual, “though I’ll remind you my eyes aren’t as good as they once were.”

  Jarek grimaced and adjusted his cargo, shifting the enormous bag on his back and wrapping the straps of the second half-full duffle tighter around his left hand.

  Between the Net inexplicably failing last week and the secondhand sensory array Pryce and Al had cobbled together on Fela’s faceplate after a raknoth warlord had clubbed off the first one, Jarek imagined Al’s senses felt about as unencumbered as he currently did trying to sprint with a giant sword and a couple of oversized duffles awkwardly strapped to his form.

  That said, Al’s words at least offered some mild assurance that the rakul themselves weren’t about to drop down on his head. It was something.

  Jarek cut left down a wide alleyway, thinking to shake some of his pursuers, and nearly ran headlong into one of the wild-eyed berserkers. The man bared his teeth and sprang forward.

  Gently as he reasonably could, Jarek kicked the guy in the chest and sent him sprawling to the pavement ten feet back. As far as he could tell, the berserker’s coughing and sputtering were probably more a matter of mechanical fact than pain or discomfort. Those would come later, when the furor passed and the poor bastard hopefully regained control of his mind.

  For now, though, Jarek turned and leapt over a brown picket fence and into a heavily overgrown backyard.

  From what he’d seen, Syracuse, like most northern cities, had been largely abandoned for some time now. Ever since the Catastrophe, people had had enough on their plates just to survive without willingly adding contending with the winter cold to their lists.

  It was exactly what Jarek had been counting on when he’d ghosted into town at the crack of dawn. He’d even stuck to the outskirts as much as possible, just to be safe.

  Canned food. Oil. Batteries. Solar chargers. Anything that might help them survive. He’d stuffed his bags as quickly as he could, determined to not spend a minute longer than necessary in the abandoned ghost town.

  A harsh baying from the alleyway gave him an unneeded reminder that Syracuse was hardly abandoned now.

  “What say we blow this party and get back to our merry men, buddy?”

  Behind, the picket fence rattled with its first thudding blow.

  “That seems most advisable, sir.”

  Aided by Fela’s considerable strength, Jarek easily hopped the fence on the other side of the yard and took off once again, weaving through crumbling buildings at a hard northwest clip.

  The sounds of his frenzied pursuit faded into the distance over the following minutes until the most prominent sounds were his labored breathing and the rhythmic pounding of his armored feet on the asphalt.

  Pissed beyond all Earthly reason, they may have been. But, try as they did, the furor victims couldn’t match his Fela-enhanced pace, even encumbered as he was. It was exactly why the group had agreed Jarek should make the run solo when they’d pulled up a few miles outside town in the first hints of the coming daylight. Not that anyone minded sitting out and letting Jarek do the heavy lifting.

  No one but Mosen, at least.

  That glinty-eyed bastard only saw Jarek’s usefulness as a threat to his authority in the group. Why Mosen cared so damn much about that authority was still a bit perplexing to Jarek.

  Maybe the guy had simply spent too much time immersed with the raknoth and their draconian pecking order. Or maybe it was just Mosen’s way of trying to feel in
control of the situation.

  If it was the latter, then Mosen was even crazier than Jarek had already thought. Out of the many things they collectively were, in control was not on the list.

  The rakul had seen to that. And then some.

  The three-mile trek back to their temporary hideout fell quickly to Jarek’s amped nerves and racing thoughts. Quickly enough, in fact, that he wondered if they shouldn’t have holed up further out of town. At the very least, he probably should have taken off in a different direction and looped his way back around.

  “No pursuit detected, sir,” Al said in his ear, apparently sensing his hesitation as he finished tromping across a field of wild grass that might’ve once been a golf course.

  “Thanks, buddy.”

  He pushed into the last little woodland divider separating them from the dilapidated apartment building they’d decided to bunk in for the day. A tiny weight tugged at the back of his mind, whispering frightening thoughts and forcing him to glance back over his shoulder, across the grassy expanse.

  “Keep an ear out anyway?”

  “Of course, sir.”

  Jarek closed his eyes, consciously let out a long breath, and forced himself to turn for the apartments. There wasn’t anything left to do now but to load the new supplies, divide the food as best they could afford, and get some rest while they could.

  They still didn’t really understand whether there was some pattern to the furors, or exactly what goal the rakul were driving their puppets to pursue—outside of mindless violence. From what Jarek had observed, though, he doubted the horde would track him this far.

  Plus, more likely than not, they’d be moving on from the apartments tonight anyway.

  For all they knew, the rakul could be orbiting the planet, watching them night and day with technologies Jarek couldn’t comprehend, but logic still dictated that traveling under the cover of night was probably the smart move. Especially for a band of squishy meat sacks like them trying to avoid the notice of the ridiculously powerful intergalactic conquerors that may or may not be currently tracking them like alien bloodhounds.

  He ducked under a low-hanging branch, suppressing a shudder at the thought of bloodhounds and the memory it kicked up of the thing that had chased him and Michael out of HQ almost two weeks ago.

  As if he’d needed more material for his never-ending vault of nightmare materials.

  Along with the thought of their flight from HQ came the sudden and inevitable pang of aching worry, like a glob of churning ice water in his core. It was a sensation he was almost growing used to in a horrible kind of way. The same one he had every time any little thing reminded him of—

  No. Not now.

  He had hungry soldiers and a not-so-distant horde to worry about right now.

  Later, when he could lay down to rest with some degree of certainty he wouldn’t wake up to snarling teeth and wild eyes … then he could have his worry-streaked pitty party.

  But until then …

  One foot in front of the other.

  And again.

  And again.

  The ship was still there, right where Al had parked it that morning, under the partial cover of the encroaching tree line. Jarek considered stopping to leave what extra supplies they wouldn’t immediately need inside but decided it wasn’t worth the time or organizational effort right now.

  Most of what he’d scavenged had been food anyway, and they weren’t nearly so flush on food as to think today’s haul would last longer than tonight. Turned out, keeping a platoon of hungry men and women fed wasn’t a walk in the park when food was scarce to begin with and a pack of super-monsters had you on the run.

  It wasn’t like anyone had had time to pack rations for this lovely little adventure of theirs.

  Whether or not the rakul knew it, if the hordes or the beasts themselves didn’t catch and kill their group, the running—and the hunger it was driving them to—might.

  A glance at each corner of the apartment building ahead showed that their lookouts were posted and watching him. He hefted the duffel in his left hand and shot a casual salute their way.

  The Resistance woman, Chambers, returned a wave and a friendly, maybe even excited, smile.

  In contrast, the reaction of the soldiers posted at the other two corners—Mosen’s men—was like an icy slap to the giblets.

  They stared at him and his cargo, looking like they’d rather eat him and take his suit than accept his handouts yet again.

  So that was a no on the thank yous, then.

  Suffice it to say, there was a reason Jarek hadn’t stepped out of his armor in over a week—even after Al had upped the awkward ante and made it crystal clear, just in case any of their assembled forces should have any wild ideas, that Jarek was the only person on Earth the suit would be functioning for anytime soon.

  It hadn’t earned him or Al any points with Mosen or the other refugees from Camp Krogoth, but at least no one had tested Fela’s durability with a knife while he slept. Yet.

  Jarek stepped into the entryway, pulled the door shut behind him, and paused at the bottom of the rickety old stairs.

  “Honey, I’m home,” he called up.

  Thanks to Fela’s amplified auditory sensors, he didn’t miss the irritated huff Mosen let out, and he could almost feel the a-hole rolling his eyes.

  When Mosen leaned over the banister above, though, his practiced look of smug indifference was fully intact.

  “Marvelous. You had me so worried.” The red glint in Mosen’s eyes as he scrutinized the duffels conveyed about as much worry as a hungry alligator closing on its prey. “What do you have for us, sweetheart?”

  “Oh, you know”—Jarek slid his helmet faceplate open with a careful thought and started up the stairs—“this and that. Batteries. Bandages. Oil for Al’s squeaky motors.”

  “I’m not the one who’s weighing the ship down every day, sir,” Al said out loud through Fela’s speakers. “Or the one who beat it within an inch of scrap metal.”

  Jarek might have bantered back, but Mosen had paused from eyeing the duffel to shoot him an expectant, severe look. It kind of ruined the mood.

  “And food,” Jarek added, suppressing a sigh as he held the first duffel out.

  He had yet to make up his mind on whether or not he, Michael, and the rest of the Resistance soldiers had made a mistake in partying up with Mosen and his faithful Mosenites when they’d unexpectedly crossed paths not far outside of what remained of New York City.

  Joining forces had seemed like the smart move. They were all allies in this fight against the rakul, after all, and more soldiers meant more security, more lookouts, less sleepless nights. All objectively good things. But, then again, there were also more mouths to feed—and to listen to.

  Mosen snatched the bag from Jarek’s hand, his expression unreadable for a few seconds. Jarek expected him to tromp out, but Mosen hesitated for a second.

  “Don’t suppose there’s been any news?” Jarek finally asked.

  Mosen showed him a morbid grin. “What? Besides the entire world being fucked out of its mind?”

  “Yeah, I don’t particularly need a reminder on that one right now.”

  Mosen frowned. “You run into trouble out there?”

  Jarek nodded grimly. “Another horde. Or maybe the same one. Shit, I can’t tell.”

  Mosen hissed through his teeth. “Well fuck, maybe you could have started with that, Slater.”

  “Started with what?” came Michael’s deep voice from the hallway beyond, followed a moment later by his dark, haggard face.

  Christ, he wasn’t looking hot.

  Not that any of them were, having been on the road for nearly two weeks with little in the way of commodities most of that time.

  “Started with the fact that those crazy bastards could’ve followed our Soldier of Charity straight back here,” Mosen growled, shooting a disgusted look at Jarek before whirling for the doorway.

  Michael held Mosen’s eye
s with a stern expression and took his time in stepping aside to let him pass.

  “Mosen,” Jarek said.

  “I need to go tell my lookouts,” Mosen said without stopping.

  “Seth.”

  Mosen froze at Jarek’s use of his first name, then rolled his shoulders and looked back to meet Jarek’s eyes with frosty amusement.

  “Yeah, Papa Slater?”

  Jarek did his best to keep his expression peaceful as he nodded to the duffel in Mosen’s hand. “See to it everyone gets their fair share?”

  Mosen looked between Michael and Jarek, his amusement only growing. “I wonder what it is you two think passes for fair about any of this shit.”

  And with that, he left before either of them could say anything more.

  Michael looked worriedly from the empty doorway back to Jarek but seemed to relax a bit when he took in the full bag still strapped to Jarek’s back.

  He didn’t have to speak his mind. Jarek knew exactly what he was thinking.

  It would be an interesting day, to say the least, if—or, more likely, when—they came up short on rations.

  “I take it you ran into another furor out there?” Michael asked.

  Jarek nodded. “Kinda feels a little too much like it’s following us at this point. I could’ve sworn that town was deserted, and that was a pretty damn big horde that popped up.”

  Michael grimaced. “I hate that word.”

  Jarek didn’t need to ask about that one either to know Michael was referring to the word, horde. They’d already had a few discussions about the mindless zombie connotations, and Jarek knew Michael could relate a little too much to the feeling of being made a telepathic puppet.