“One more thing,” he says, turning back to us. “It’s crucial that the subjects are alive when you bring them back.” He pauses for a moment, shrugging. “Anyone who stands in your way is expendable. Now, you’re dismissed. Get back down to the barracks and begin your preparations. I want you deployed as soon as the recon officer shares her intel with you.”
When the door closes behind him, I grin. I can’t help it.
Humans with Loric powers. I don’t really know how that’s possible, and I don’t care. I don’t have to understand. All I know is that I have a mission. I’m back in the fight, and no prey will escape me.
It’s time to go hunting.
CHAPTER SEVEN
A FEW HOURS AFTER THE CAPTAIN IS DONE WITH us, the recon officer sends a list of names and locations to each squad leader’s tablet. We divide the targets based on location. I assemble my men. They talk quietly to each other. I don’t join in or bother to figure out who is who. It doesn’t matter what they call themselves—I’ll learn their names when they’re telling stories of our victories in the future. When they’ve proven themselves. All these troops have to do is follow my orders. And they will. It’s what we were born to do, what will win his favor.
Hail our Beloved Leader! Forever may he reign!
Our first target is a teenager in a wealthy suburb north of Chicago who has been talking on some form of internet media about how he just made his computer float across the room. There are a few photos pulled from his web profile that I can use to identify him. We load up a Skimmer with weapons, restraints, and syringes full of a sedation compound, just in case these humans are able to use their newfound powers with any sort of skill. Then we head to the boy’s home, where the messages originated, according to the IP address. It’s far enough away from the city proper that they must think they’re safe. That we might overlook them.
Stupid humans. As if our reach didn’t span this entire galaxy.
The street is tucked away and quiet, full of big houses on big plots of land. The mansion we’re going to is at the end of a cul-de-sac. Secluded. Still, we take out a few power lines before landing, killing the streetlights. Combined with our stealth shielding, it makes for a fairly quiet approach.
We tread silently, the four troops following my lead. There are dim lights moving in the windows of the house. The orange glow of candles and the intense white of flashlights and battery-operated electronic devices. The people inside are likely confused, scared.
Just how we want them.
The front door is large and thick hardwood. It’s a narrow entryway for my squad, so I motion to my left, and they follow me around the side of the house, where floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors look in on a large room. There’s a woman standing inside. She’s lighting tall candles in some sort of centerpiece on a side table. Her eyebrows are knit together, forming deep grooves as she moves from one wick to the next.
She sees us a moment before one of my troops throws a huge cement planter through the glass door, shattering it. The woman barely gets a chance to scream before our blasters open fire. She falls quickly, knocking the long candles over as she goes down. They ignite a piece of cloth laid across the table, lighting up the room with warm flames.
A small smile spreads across my lips.
“Find him,” I grunt, and my men move.
The house is too big, with too many places to hide. Fortunately, most of the people inside come rushing to us, trying to figure out what broke the glass. Why the woman screamed. There are more humans than I’d anticipated. Maybe friends or family of the owners hiding out in the big house—evacuees from the city who figured they could lay low for a while farther away from the warships. They go down just as easily as the first woman did, most too shocked to react to the sight of our faces. Our weapons. I wonder if their brains even process what’s happening before they fall silent.
The humans are like the Loric in some ways. Anatomically, for instance. Their bodies don’t disintegrate and disappear, becoming one with the universe. With Beloved Leader. Instead, they lie there. Dead. Bleeding. A reminder to everyone who sees them that they were unable to survive. They rot if left in the open, at a far slower pace than our trueborn—the best parts of our leaders disappear just like the vatborn do. A human’s end is disgraceful. There’s no honor in a death like that.
The acrid scent of blaster fire fills the air, mixing with the smoke rising from the flames, which continue to spread across the table. I inhale deeply. For the first time in a long while, I feel satisfied. I feel like I’m doing what I was born to do.
The boy we’re after makes a brief appearance before turning tail and fleeing. Running up a set of stairs. Coward. We chase after him, leaping over bodies. Our boots stomping on cold, shiny tile floors in the home’s entryway. Before we get to the first steps, a shot rings out. A human holding a double-barreled shotgun starts to reload. One of my men is down. It’s his own fault—it was his duty to be watching our left flank. He’s not dead, but injured. His left arm is gone, along with his blaster. Fortunately, he still has a dagger. He draws it from his belt and leaps. His shouts are pure rage as he lands on the human, taking him down. The man’s head hits the tile floor with a crack. That alone probably killed him. But just in case it didn’t, there’s the blade. Blood pools on the floor. I leave my trooper to his work and head upstairs with the other three squad members.
We find our target in a bedroom, hiding under a desk. I drag him out and lift him in the air with one hand, holding up the electronic tablet next to his head with the other. It’s him.
“Stop, please,” he says, beginning to beg. “I’ll do anything. We’ve got money. Is that what you want? If you let me go to my parents’ room, there’s a—”
I jab a syringe into his arm. He goes limp. I let his body hit the floor and motion to one of my men, who picks up the boy and throws him over his shoulder.
“Move out,” I say.
Downstairs, my one-armed soldier stands over a mangled mess that was once a body. He appears to have used the hot barrel of his blaster to cauterize the stump where his arm used to be. Human blood drips from his uniform.
“Piece of shit,” he says, kicking the lifeless corpse. “That was my good hand.”
We leave the way we came, stepping over the fallen. The flames from the overturned candles have spread to the carpet but are threatening to die out. I spot a large cabinet full of bottles nearby. Alcohol. I pull the whole thing down. Glass shatters. The alcohol spreads across the floor. As we step through the space where the sliding door had been, the liquid ignites behind us with a satisfying whoosh.
Technically, the fire will make it harder for anyone to determine what really happened here. But honestly, that wasn’t what I had in mind when I pulled down the cabinet. I just wanted to watch the place burn from the sky once we made it back to the Skimmer. To see the night lit up in flames.
And just as I expected, the sight of it as we shoot into the sky is glorious.
CHAPTER EIGHT
WE DROP OFF THE SEDATED CAPTIVE AT THE warship. Our injured man is replaced with a new soldier. He curses under his breath, insisting he can still fight, but I need everyone on my team operating at one hundred percent. Then we head for our next targets. Two more teenagers, this time in Wisconsin, where we don’t have any warships located.