Jada fingered the ring that hung from her neck, and walked down to the bottom of the pit. It was just sand and broken pieces of buildings, but now that she was deep enough to be out of the wind, it felt as far down as the bottom of the world. This was the black hole in her universe, the crushing singularity that filled her waking hours with angst and her sleep with nightmares.
Jada pulled her hood down from her head, ignoring the increasing fatigue in her battered body and then removed the re-breather.
The fetid air stung Jada’s lungs, but it was a familiar miasma and strangely comforting. The merc knelt down in the dust and drew her boarding knife from its sheath. With her other hand, she removed the necklace from her throat and wrapped it around the handle of the knife.
Tears suddenly began to streak her face. She held the razor sharp blade before her for a moment, considering its sturdy construction and the dull gleam of the ring now affixed to the hilt. There were only two paths from this point, that much she knew, and for what seemed like an eternity, she remained still, the knife gripped firmly in her hands.
Then, her decision made, she pulled the pin loose that held her hair in a knot at the back of her head and let it fall in a tumbled mass around her shoulders.
The Reapers had never much cared about having regulation hair policies and marines could keep themselves groomed how they liked so long as it did not interfere with their helmets or their duties. The Dire Swords were much the same.
George had loved her long, silky hair.
She raised the knife to her head and pressed it against her skin.
Jada’s hair fell almost to her waist and the weight of it helped with the cutting. Blood ran down Jada’s face as the blade bit into her scalp in a few places despite how carefully she rasped the edge over her head.
Before long, the ground before her was covered with a mound of long, dark hair splattered with drops of blood. When she was finished, Jada held the knife up once more, taking in the sight of the ring.
“Enough, now,” whispered Jada, kissing the ring. Then she raised the knife in both hands and drove the point of the boarding knife through the dark locks and into the ground.
Then the merc stood up and unslung her rifle just in case there were hostiles lurking out there thinking they could make easy prey out of a wounded interloper. The fight would certainly have attracted the attention of any scavengers or hunters in the area, though the carnage would likely repel more than it attracted. True predators rarely attacked prey that might cost them a pound of flesh in the taking of them.
She climbed up the slope and out of the pit so she could consult her nav-unit then began limping towards the landing craft.
She did not look back.
8. DIRE SWORD
Jada reached the landing craft without further incident and knew that the crew inside were watching her approach through the security feeds. They had been given explicit instructions not to leave the ship and had no doubt taken notice of the firefight earlier.
Jada approached the hatch and punched in her access code as she slung her rifle and lowered her hood so that the feed could get a good look at her face. The pilot checked her code and upon seeing that it matched, he lowered the boarding plank. The merc entered the airlock, and once the hatch closed behind her, she removed her cloak and stripped off the disposable body glove. Once those were stuffed into the small incinerator unit, she stepped under the de-con showerhead and let the scalding hot solution of water and neutralizing chemicals cleanse her of the last remnants of Vorhold.
The water shut off and gusts of air dried her skin in seconds. The shower had stripped off a thin layer of skin, giving her elegant body a dull gleam. She padded over to a locker next to the shower and pulled a simple one-piece flight suit from the rack. While the Praxis Mundi exploration craft had been incredibly expensive to lease, it offered the kind of amenities that made this journey possible.
The merc entered the craft’s main deck minutes later and upon confirming that she was back aboard, the crew set about preparing for takeoff. She walked through the small craft until she reached the pilot’s deck, and after entering another code confirmation, was permitted entry. The door slid open and she could see that the pilot had the craft fired up and was ready to leave.
“All systems are green, ready to return to the nest,” said the pilot as the merc nodded, then sat down with a small involuntary groan of pain to strap herself into the chair next to him, prompting the pilot to add, “I have med-bay on alert. They’ll be waiting.”
The ship’s thrusters ignited, and moments later, the craft was streaking up through the troubled atmosphere of Vorhold.
The merc watched as the ship passed through the clouds of the lower atmosphere and into the sparkling void.
Somewhere out there lurked Sword Base, a place where no one had last names and no legacy beyond their deeds, where she would return and wait with the other flawed warriors until the next contract sent them into battle and made them whole once more. Their war with the universe would be unending, that struggle the only peace possible for veterans of such quality, and in that, there was purity.
Jada did not look back as the craft arced over Vorhold on its docking trajectory with the mothership.
It was time to let the Reaper die so that the Dire Sword could be born.
No attachments and no mercy.
9. UNTIL THAT DAY
Thank you for taking this dark journey alongside the mercenaries of Sword Base, who have played their violent part in the ceaseless wars for profit waged between rival corporations and the gradually unfolding mystery of the Gedra.
After working with real-life military men and women for so long, I wanted to take a stab at responsibly including some elements of PTSD, the motivations of a person who would choose to keep fighting long after the money is no longer an issue, along with exploring the anti-narrative that is the common experience of many soldiers engaging in modern warfare. I hope that my efforts to present such themes, albeit with a heavy sci-fi twist, have been well received and entertaining.
I invite you to continue adventuring with me in an expanded universe as the Necrospace series continues with more stand-alone novels. We will explore the lives and struggles of a variety of characters, some familiar and some brand new, all inter-connected in the great web of commerce and combat that is Necrospace.
Read on for a free sample of In Perpetuity: A Military Science Fiction Thriller.
* In Perpetuity contains strong language.
“What you are holding in your weak little hands is called an A6 plasma rifle! Also known as a scorcher!” Master Sergeant Lawrence Kim bellowed at the fifty rows of fresh cadets that packed the antechamber to the combat simulator. There were twenty-five cadets per row, but Kim focused his attention on just a handful in front of him. “You will only refer to your rifle as a scorcher! It will not be called an A6! It will not be called a plasma rifle! If I hear any of you motherfucking pieces of shit referring to a scorcher as anything other than a scorcher, I will personally turn you all into bottoms! Am I understood?”