Fireteam Delta by J. Halpin (ebook reader that looks like a book txt) 📕

Chapter 22: Means to an End

It was hot. That was the only thought in Rhodes’s mind as he lay there, barely conscious.

The world around him resolved. It was filled with smoke, fire, and gore. He could smell burning flesh. It only took a moment before he realized it was his own.

“Shit . . .”

Nearly a dozen others lay dead around him. His gun was nowhere to be seen.

Rhodes grunted with effort, only barely managing to sit up. The right side of his face was numb, but he could feel the steady trickle of blood running down to soak his shirt.

“Goe vik!”

The voice that called out through the haze was unfamiliar, probably one of the elves they’d brought along. He crawled toward the nearest body, grabbing a rifle from beside it. A heavy, uneven scraping caught his attention.

Rhodes angled his gun as a black, tarlike limb flailed uselessly nearby. He let loose a burst of fire, and it fell to the ground.

An inhuman shriek erupted from somewhere in front of him. Rhodes ignored it. He got to his feet, reloaded his magazine, and started forward.

This was what they’d set out to find. God only knew what they were expecting. But he’d kill this fucking thing if it was the last thing he could manage.

Another scream—a woman this time. Rhodes turned to see their interpreter, Nisha, on the ground. One of his own was looming above her, weapon in hand. Most of him, anyway. The soldier had probably been closer to the same blast that caught Rhodes. The mad look in the man’s black eyes told Rhodes that he was gone. Just like the others, a thrall of whatever the fuck that thing was.

Rhodes fired, and the man fell limp. The elven woman scrambled to her feet an instant later, running in the direction opposite.

“Good girl.”

Rhodes couldn’t even think anymore. He just kept moving forward.

Then he saw it. The towering beast looked like something out of a nightmare: a black mass of squirming limbs and faces, as though they had been stitched together, from creatures he couldn’t even recognize.

The abomination screamed again. Its left half was wrenched open, the bone and viscera inside exposed. Whatever that blast had been, however many it had killed, someone had done good work. The blackened arms that extended from the beast’s body clawed impotently at the ground.

It was trying to run.

Rhodes fired. He cut down every squirming arm he could see. By the time he was done, the creature sat stock still. Rhodes knew these things didn’t die so easily. He watched one head at its center. Where the others were just features on the monster’s body, this one’s eyes followed Rhodes. There was an intelligence there. A fear.

Good.

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Summers watched as guards continued to unload their wagon. Rhodes looked on, impassive as they waited for everything to be loaded up.

“I can sympathize with what you’ve been through. Trust me on that.” Rhodes appraised the group carefully. “But these folks depend on me, and I can’t just be giving a ship out in the middle of a war.”

Even Summers heard the implication in the man’s voice.

“And what about after?” Nowak asked.

“After? Well . . . that all depends. You chip in, I’ll give you whatever the hell you want. A ship—hell, I could even part with a couple guns. Then you can be on your way, and we’ll never have to deal with each other again.”

Nowak considered that. “What would we have to do?”

“Nothing much. I wouldn’t even ask you to fight. Just help me get these assholes”—Rhodes gestured to his guards—“up to speed.”

“That’s it?” Nowak looked skeptical.

“Hand to God.” Rhodes smiled back at them. “I didn’t like getting rough. But you gotta understand, I have an obligation to these people. To them, I’m some kind of divine savior. These people that are coming, they don’t take over peacefully. Given the chance, they’ll kill every man, woman, and child here . . . well, probably take those last two for themselves, but you get the idea.”

The caravan guards watched from the sidelines. They were tense. Synel muttered something to them. Summers wasn’t sure what it was, but it was clear the woman was not happy.

“That why you don’t want to go back home?” Summers watched the way Rhodes’s men moved around him. They showed deference even as they passed.

“Why would I want to leave?”

“To go home.”

Rhodes just looked at them. “Here, I tell someone to jump, they ask how high. Don’t get the wrong idea. I’m still a red-blooded American. Consider this an investment for the army—so long as they deal with a few of my terms, they’ve got a foothold in the North. And I think they will.”

Summers couldn’t help but think Rhodes’s “terms” would leave him with this city as his own little fiefdom. The very fact he’d assumed they’d been sent by the army probably meant there was a good reason the army would send someone. That alone was as good an indication as any that he wasn’t the benevolent “savior” he was pretending to be.

“Besides . . .” Rhodes turned back to them. “If you knew how bad things were, trust me, you’d be staying here just like me.”

“What?” Nowak just looked at the man, confused.

“Tell you what, you agree to help, and I’ll tell you everything once this is over. Might even change your minds. And then, we can talk about some long-term plans.”

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Summers walked alongside the others. Guards flanked them on both sides as they headed toward the inner walls of the city.

The only reassurance Summers felt was that, should Rhodes have wanted them dead, he had no doubt the man would have killed them already. Though, even at a glance, Summers could