The Soul Eaters (The Thin Hex Line Book 1) by Gwyndolyn Russell (e reader txt) 📕

"What about the artifact? We know nothing about it, but Fenris says it's key to defeating them."

"We're putting a lot of faith in one person here." Reaper looked me in the eye. "An enigma of a creature that we know almost nothing about beyond it being a starving, world eater who was exiled by its own kind."

"Are you scared of him?"

"Are you fucking not? All we know, this is a trap."

"It's not." My chest hurt just thinking about his doubt. "I know for a fact it isn't."

"How can you be so sure?"

"I don't fucking know! I feel it." I tapped on my chest.

Reaper stared at me for far too long. I tugged on my pants to loosen their hold on my thighs. Couldn't bring myself to maintain eye contact. He had that stern captain's look while he thought. The kind of look that made you feel small and everything you just said was wrong. In the silence I started to believe I was. I wasn't necessarily right all the time and certainly not as often as Reaper was. If anything, he had the track record of being right all the time. Wrong only when Spectre was involved.

"We'll go back to Solstice." He stated abruptly.

I actually jumped up. My heart raced.

"Make a list of supplies and we'll have logistics gather everything. I'll have Torch do the same so we can have the ship ready. When we have it all we'll go to B-58 and help Fenris get that artifact."

"Really? Are you sure?"

"If the data checks out and these things are a threat to the galaxy, then it is our duty as soldiers of the Federation to stop them."

I felt a smile creep onto my face.

"Yes, sir!"

I pushed myself out of my seat. Gave him a salute, which I rarely did, and rushed out the door. As soon as I flew out, I smacked right into a metal mass.

I groaned and rubbed my nose.

"Sorry, didn't see you there."

Fenris looked at me, a twitch to his jaw. The lights on his armor seemed to cascade upwards like rain instead of the usual waterfall flow.

Now, Fenris can't make many expressions. An outer shell of metal was as emotionless as it could get. All visible emotion was displayed in his posture and how he moved. Without skin to contort the visible muscles twitching and stretching did nothing more than give it a macabre appearance.

His posture dropped. Cloak hugging his frame. Even the fur around his neck seemed to hang instead of float around like grass. The eyes...now those were different. All the other lights flowed up in trickles. The lights in the cracks of his eyes flowed down.

The weight of his shadow pulled on my spine. It seemed to pull on his, too.

"Fen…? What's wrong?"

His head turned slowly to look at Reaper who was still sitting at his desk, watching us. Then without any visible motion to do so, he floated backwards away from me.

"Hey! Wait a second!" I called, but he was already gone.

I glanced back to Reaper. He shrugged, not knowing why either.

With a sigh, I hit the button to shut the door and headed down the hall. I made my way down to the barracks where I found Mjolnir going over the stock. He must have read my mind.

"Lieutenant!" He waved. "I'm almost done with logging all of our supplies. We are dangerously low on ammunition and meds. We used a lot fighting off those pirates. I didn't have time to run a check before we left Solstice."

"That's all right. We're headed back to Solstice to get everything we need. Captain wants a thorough list of everything to purchase." I took the tablet from him to read over his work.

"Hopefully we'll have time to get everything. Eight mentioned fire is effective against the eos."

"Let's make sure we order enough so everyone can have something. I want our medics geared up just as well as the soldiers."

"Flamethrowers aren't cheap. Depending on grade, it'll waste more money than eos."

"Incendiary ammo and grenades will be useful, too. Maybe we could settle for less flamethrowers with that. Save it as mounted weapons for the trucks and a handful of handheld."

"What of their armor? Fenris is impenetrable! Surely they are, too."

"Armor piercing. We can get Raven made ammunition. It's better than Federation Standard."

"I will need a new hammer!" He declared. "I'll take time to find one while we are there."

"Write down anything else you come up with. I'll give the list to the logistics team when we get there. I'm going to find the doctor, I have a few questions."

"Good luck! I haven't seen her since we left Avant-Garde."

It was great to know how well I could rely on that ardrizi. How he could have thought that far ahead was beyond me. We had yet to tell anyone the plan. I decided to leave our stock in his hands to chase down ideas for medical supplies. I wanted to make sure all of my men were taken care of. We still knew nothing about the eos. A xeno-threat brought up a lot of concerns. Our standard suits would protect us from foreign bacteria in the air, but what if someone got injured? Exposure to unheard of bacteria could result in an entire army dying overnight.

I stopped at the medical bay, thinking Reynolds would be there. Every other medical personnel was. I headed to the back where Ianisse was kept.

He was stuck in that pod. Sound asleep. He looked much better than when we brought him back. That poor guy. He didn't deserve it. Looking at him now, the anger and hate welled up in my chest. How could she have done that?

I shook the thoughts out of my head. He was okay now. Oddly, I wanted to protect him from that ever happening again. He would never be around another Alpha if I could help it.

I looked around the room. No one. Where the hell did Reynolds disappear to? She wasn't