Chapter Eight

The noise of the others had become a buzz in my ears long since, and despite the stress I’d almost fallen asleep in the adrenaline crash.

Now, as the lights bathed me, I reached up, accepting a hand from a battered Luna, who half dragged me to my feet.

“Fucks’ sake, boss,” she said, shaking her head. “I know you’re lazy, but having a nap in the middle of a firefight?”

“Hey... ,” I croaked, before licking my lips and trying again. “I made… sure the fight was done… first.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she said, shaking her head.

Gessh pushed in, grabbing me roughly in a bear hug and pulling me in tight. “You stupid fucker,” she whispered into the side of my helmet, barely loud enough for me to hear. “You saved me you stupid fuck, now what am I gonna do with you?”

“You’re gonna hand him over unless you ask me real nice to share.” Reign pushed her aside and took her place, staring into my eyes and shaking her head, before pulling me close. “You mad bastard,” she whispered, before pushing me back long enough to kiss me.

I grinned, then sagged as my knees buckled, others grabbed me and I was lowered into a sitting position as Reign checked me over, looking for wounds.

“You’re actually okay?” she asked a few seconds later, shaking her head as if she didn’t believe it herself. “How the hell do you keep doing this crap to yourself?”

“I just do what comes naturally.” I shrugged and got a disbelieving smile from her as I reached up and pulled the helmet off. “I swear I’m investing in a better fucking helmet though. I’m sick of them always breaking.”

“Kabutt.” The voice came from my left and I looked up wearily, seeing Julius limp over. “How you doing you crazy bastard?”

“I’m alright,” I said. “Tired, but that’s it, you?”

“I feel like I was hit by a transport.” He twisted slightly and winced as something twinged. “That was you then?” He jerked his head back behind him, taking in the fight presumably, and I shrugged.

“The EMP and the gunfire?” I asked. “Yeah, best I could come up with on short notice.”

“It nearly wasn’t enough,” he said, his voice low and tired. “They got a few good people.”

“Who were they?”

“The fuckheads who lived and worked here,” he said. “Shift-change apparently, they came in behind us and closed the place up, armed up, and came expecting to ambush us.”

“Nearly worked as well,” I agreed.

“Damn right.” He sighed, pulling his helmet off and scratching at sweat matted hair underneath. “That’s the problem with fighting specters, you get in the mindset of slaughtering them, they feel no fear, no remorse, and so the only way to take them down is with overwhelming firepower. The best way to kill them in a situation like this? It would be the worst against thinking opponents.”

“Why the hell didn’t they just fire from above?”

“Not enough room,” Reign replied, cutting in. “When we came up from behind them, the way the gantry twists, only two of us could get around, so they moved down, thinking they could spread out and kill the entire squad in one go. It was risky, but if not for you being a lucky fuck it’d have worked.”

“Luck-schmuck,” I muttered. “Tell me I’m getting better guild rates and a bonus after this.” I directed that to Julius, who snorted, then nodded.

“Maybe a bonus, but you’ll damn well pay your way like the rest of us,” he said, but I saw the quirk of a smile.

“Worth a try. So, what now?”

“We finish the sweep, make sure that there’s nobody else down here, and no more specters, then we report this, too many non-specter dead to avoid ACE being involved… and there’s the door.”

“Door?”

“A door,” Reign repeated. “Literally, a big fuck off door in the wall.”

“That’s where they normally are, right?” I said, too tired to give a damn about the details.

“True, but they’re not normally buried below the Artem City Wall, and they don’t normally offer passage through it,” Julius added dryly. “That’s one that ACE is going to go apeshit about.”

“I thought that was how all the portals built into the underside of the walls were? Like hidden ways in and out for the wall teams?”

“Yeah, they are, but they’re usually maintained and managed by the Wall. They’re under the city’s control. This one isn’t. This is a fucking secret exit and entrance. A smugglers route, or in this case? A flesh stripper team.”

“I’m calling in that bonus then,” I said. “Fuck this shit, we’ll help with the sweep, but any chance of us being out of here before those corrupt fucks turn up?”

“I think we can probably…” He trailed off as another of his guild member jogged over.

“Guild master, there’s another basin behind this wall,” the guild member said, nodding to the wall behind me.

“Fuck, gear up!” Julius ordered.

I waved at him wearily. “Don’t bother, I already cleared it, or most of it anyway.”

“You did that?” the guild member asked, frowning. “Who with?”

“Just him,” Luna said shaking her head. “Mad bastard jumped in and started fucking them all up, while we pulled back to rescue Todds.”

“Who?” I muttered blearily, only to have another figure step up and salute me, standing at parade rest.

“Corporal Severin Todds sir, scout,” he said as I stared up at him, grudgingly noting the perfect salute.

“Fuck’s sake, Todds, we’re not the army,” Julius said.

“No sir, but I need a new team, and this one rescued me.”

“Subtle.” Reign sighed, before nodding to Todds. “He’s a father of two, single parent, so he needs the income, sarge, he’s a damn good stealth assassin and scout, as well as not a complete asshole…”

“Thanks, Reign.” Todds grinned and relaxed as I stood, returning the salute.

“I mean, sure he’s an asshole…” She grinned. “Just not a complete one.”

“And there’s the Reign we all know and loathe,” came another voice as a full blooded elf stepped up, joining the group. “Blunt and graceless in everything, but that’s the human side for you.” The elf glanced from Reign to me, and then clearly dismissed us both as he turned to Julius. “We’ve completed our guild obligation, and we’re leaving. Have our cut sent to us by breakfast.”

With that he turned and strode off, and I looked over at Julius, waiting for him to go apeshit, and was stunned as he just glared off after the departing team.

“What the fuck?” I said. “He’s a dick to you, and you just fucking take it?”

“Leave it, Kabutt,” Julius snapped, turning his back and walking away.

“The fuck I will.” My adrenaline-ravaged body straightened, as I turned to the retreating elf. “OI!” I bellowed. “You, ya pointy eared cock-holster, get your arse back here and help clear the site, the jobs not done!”

My voice echoed around the basin for long seconds as he froze, before turning back and glaring at me.

“You dare to speak to me like that?”

“Yeah I fucking do,” I growled, feeling new strength running through my body, driven by the surge of anger as I picked my way across the piled bodies towards him. “Considering I just saved your fucking life, and you don’t even have the good manners to fucking help clean up? Yeah, I’ll speak to you however I want, dickhead.”

“You forget yourself!” he hissed. “You’re nothing but a failure, kicked out of the army and without the good grace to slink away and die. Instead your surround yourself with mongrels and think that our forbearance is approval. Learn. Your. Place. Or I’ll personally see you thrown from the guild, and stripped for parts!”

I stared at him, stunned by the vitriol, the sheer hatred I’d seen in his eyes, then I reached behind my back, and dragged the plasma hilt free, gripping it tightly.

“You fucking want to try that right now?” I asked him in a low, rough voice. “You ready to back your fucking words up?”

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“Kabutt!” Julius barked at me from behind. “I told you to leave it, Sergeant!”

“Sir.” I looked back at him, then to the elf, seeing the fucker was already walking off with his team.

“Leave it.” Reign was there by my side. “Trust me, I’ll explain later, just… leave it for now.”

“He…”

“I know. Please,” she said, and I glared at her for long seconds, before slapping the plasma blade back against the mag-plate.

“This better be good.” I stomped back off and followed the others through to join Julius, who’d set off ahead of us.

“It’s not good,” Julius admitted when he saw I wasn’t going to let it go. “It’s not good, and I hate the situation, but that’s life, we all have to put up with things now and then, and Trees is one of those.”

“Trees?”

“It’s the name he goes by, he’s old school, thinks all humans are an affront against nature, Orcs should be enslaved with obedience chips and dwarves? Best not to even go there,” Reign said grimly. “As to ‘half breed bastards’? We should have been drowned at birth and our parents executed for the shame they brought on their houses.”

“I thought the elven corpos were all about breeding the rest of us out of existence?” Luna asked, looking unimpressed, but unconcerned as well.

“They are, and yeah, they’ve been driving the whole ‘spread the blessings’ mindset for a while.” Reign shrugged. “Some just refuse it. He’s one of those that got kicked out for mouthing off too much. So now he and his team have to live with us filthy ‘lesser races’ and get real jobs. The majority of the guilds won’t let their kind in, they cause too many problems…”

“But we needed money.” Julius sighed. “I shouldn’t have taken it, but we damn well needed to hire more to cover the contracts we have, and since I took it, well. He pushes more and more each day.”

“The jobs not done ‘til we’ve confirmed the site is clear though, right?” I asked, and he shook his head.

“The job for a reserve team, one pulled in when the shit hits the fan, is only to help rescue the survivors. His contractual obligation was done as soon as the fight was over, and Todds here was rescued. Now, if we’re going by the contract, the job falls back to the original team…” He shrugged. “It was intended so that if someone was a dick about things, then the original team could get some help, but not have to share the overall completion bonus—if there was one—if someone arrived right at the end and hadn’t really helped.”

“That sounds…”

“Look, the contract is letter and intent, alright? The letter of the contract means they’re done. The intent is clear that they should stay and help, but they don’t have to.”

“And threatening to have me booted?” I asked.

“One of the conditions they slipped into the contract when I took their money was that he can demand a review of any team and its actions, including any loot you might have recovered and not handed in. If that was the case, then yeah, he could enforce that we booted or censured you,” Julius admitted.

“Fuck’s sake, man, seriously? You mean that fucknut’s got his boot on my neck?”

“Only if you break the rules,” Julius said. “The first job? I told you it was fine as a welcome bonus, after that? He could, yeah.”

“So if we loot the mods, we could be booted.”

“Yeah… and you know he’s going to demand an accounting of your actions soon.”

“I’ll give him an accounting alright.” I lifted my plasma sword again.

“No, you’ll damn well stay out of his way, sarge.” Julius straightened, speaking with authority. “For now, I don’t want you anywhere near him, and I’ll be taking the recording of your actions today now, please.”

“What?”

“The recording,” Reign said quickly. “Yes, Guildmaster, our apologies.” She sounded properly humble, which left me even more confused as I cut the recording, then sent it to Julius.

“All of you…” he said, then nodded. “Got them all, thank you. Recording off?”

“Yeah.” I grunted, finally understanding as the hints were dropped.

“Great, so again, watch yourself. I’ll have the guild AI scrub the majority of that conversation from the recording, but in future, remember anything you or we say, he might get his hands on.”

“I don’t give a shit,” I said tiredly, sitting on a mound of corpses as the others looked around.

“Kabutt,” Reign said after a few seconds. “How many of these did you kill?”

“I don’t know… All of them?”

“ALL of them?” Julius repeated after a few seconds, as the others with him, the remnants of the other squad and Todds, one of the apparent survivors of Team-22 looked at me in shock.

“Yeah?” I said, shrugging. “It took a while, but apart from a handful of them that Gessh got earlier, I got most of them?”

“Okay people, lets reactivate recording please.” Julius grinned. “I want this entire section scanned visually from one side to the other, I need a fucking record of this please.”

“Of what?” I asked, forcing myself to my feet and looking around.

“Just do as you’re told, Kabutt. Accept that as someone that rose to lead a fucking guild, I have the occasional reason for what I do.”

“Yes, sir.” I sighed, starting to look around, searching for the ghoul from before. Resolving that I might as well loot that fucker and get my damn knife back. It took a minute or two to find him, and most of that was spent fielding stupid questions, like; ‘why are these all burned?’

“Because I set a pair of incendiary grenades off on either side of me,” I replied grimly.

“On either side?” the idiot asked. “Why?”

“Because I was surrounded, obviously.”

“But they’re incendiary grenades!”

“Yeah?”

“They could have killed you!”

“And if I hadn’t, they fucking would have.”

“But the air temperature, even if you didn’t get cooked to death straight away…”

“And that’s why I stabbed myself in the face with a medikit.” I sighed. “Seriously, if it didn’t work? I was dead anyway, if it did? Well, here I am.”

“I think the Sergeant has had enough of your questions, Filbert,” Julius said, and I nodded him my thanks. “So, I think I’ll need the AI to confirm this, but we’re looking at over three hundred specters.” He nodded to the room at large.

“Yeah?” I asked.

“In this basin,” he clarified.

“Right?” I replied not getting what he was saying through the brain fog that had returned with a vengeance.

“You, Kabutt, personally killed more than most teams manage in a week,” he said clearly. “We’ll talk later about your bonus, but yeah, you earned the right to fuck off and avoid this part of the job.”

“No.” I sighed.

“No?”

“No,” I repeated. “You’re down a squad, and as much as I want to, we’ve already had a team of dickheads sneak up on us. We’ll stay, but…”

“Yes?”

“The assholes who tried to ambush us?”

“Yeah?”

“We need some new gear…” I hinted.

“You killed at least four of them between you,” he agreed. “Grab what you want, on my authority, and the guild will cover the cost of repairs of it.”

“Fuck yeah.” I grinned. “Stealth suits all round.”

“Grab what you want, as I said, but sweep the area first, as near as we can tell the place is clear, but there were hidden rooms, so let’s be sure,” Julius clarified, and we did.

The cleanup and search took another hour, just making sure, and through all of it, Gessh hobbled, determined not to admit to the pain she was in, and leaving bloody footprints here and there.

We’d given her our medikits, and we’d found several more scattered about. We’d also—quietly—once we were sure the recording devices were off, and there was nobody nearby, looted one of the storage crates of mods.

The majority we left, they were needed to help to identify next of kin after all, but the ones that were in sets, and removed from single donors?

We looted something from each, and when we left, sitting back in the air-cab—enjoying a massage—we had a trunk full of parts. The massage was compliments of Johnny-cab and paid for by the ‘discretionary fund’ that was going to be fucking increased if I had anything to do with it.

‎