Shepherd

GENRE: Paranormal/Fantasy Romance

License Notes

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it please return to the place of purchase and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Shepherd – Phoenix Book 2

Copyright 2011 by KH LeMoyne

Published by Digital Crystal Press

Cover Art designed by Robin Ludwig Design

ISBN:
978-1-937080-04-4

Publisher’s Note:

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual event, locales, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

2180 A.D. — One hundred and fifty years after genetically enhanced crops and livestock decimate the Earth with a lethal bacterial strain of Salmonella only twenty percent of the world’s population remains. Small pockets of civilization flourish, supported by computerized technologies and vaccinations against the bacteria, the new cities built over the ruins of the previous age. Regents, the owners of the technology, govern the interests of their individual cities—shining examples of progress and advancement.

In a race against time, the Down Below underground network plans for the rescue of one of their own from the Regent death squads. The success or failure of their plan hinges on the loyalty of a deadly former Regent guard and one of the most brilliant and dangerous weapon’s designers in New Delphi’s history.

CODE NAME: Shepherd

Designation: Ox 5348 4550 4854 5244

JOB: Underground intelligence/recon, monster of the Regent’s army

SHEPHERD: Clayton Ebris

CODE NAME: Karma

JOB: Widow/Wife/Traitor/Weapon’s designer

KARMA: Esme Loures Vier

Chapter 1

2180 AD

The overhead rumble of airships droned in Clayton Ebris’s ears as he moved through the conifers. Laser cannon strapped to his forearm, he positioned for a shot and scouted his section of the grid. He anticipated movement from his targets. He prayed in equal measure they had fled.

Unfortunately, the heat sensors in the main airship’s reconnaissance filter maintained a 99.9% accuracy rating. His recent border patrol sweeps validated their accuracy. Fifteen encampments located with infected adult humans, all of whom battalion A6F had terminated over the last hundred miles of wasteland.

It was impossible to tune out the dismal memories in the midst of this barren forest. What little life existed burrowed deep and played dead when the termination squads marched through. The tundra just beyond the timberline had proved to be an even less hospitable environment. Clay suspected the targets had gone to ground there, using the forest only to forge for water.

A flash of blue cloth caught his eye. The color blinked for an instant, and then disappeared between branches ahead. One sharp crack echoed, and reflex sent him to his knees. He focused on the target’s location but stopped breathing as three faces stared back at him from behind scrub brush and a fallen tree trunk.

The communication chip embedded behind his ear crackled to life. “Third Officer—target in range. Launch now.”

Stunned recognition of the view before him delayed him a second too long as the command reverberated through his mind. “Negative. Civilian children. I repeat. Target has children.”

In a high-pitched whine, followed by a quick whistle, the world went to hell.

Rocks and debris exploded in bright, sharp images before everything in his periphery morphed into a painful white haze. Three more concussive explosions shook the ground. Clay noted the number, but his consciousness wavered too much for a response.

He didn’t feel himself go down. The frozen ground slammed against the back of his head and body. Arms spread wide, he lay motionless, still clutching his weapon. He struggled to fend off the thick fog of disorientation. His brain barely responded, and his head and hands refused his commands to move. The position offered a clear view of the gray wisps in the blue sky above but no line of sight to the other soldiers from his unit. Four had flanked him on each side.

Seconds, perhaps minutes later, he blinked at the layer of smoke and sparks brushing across his face. The fleeting thought registered that he hadn’t received confirmation of a hit to the targets.

His next thought held for longer—he couldn’t move his legs or shift his spine. He could turn his head enough to confirm three members of his unit lying beside him, their injuries permanent if the gaping head wounds and unnatural body positions were any indication. He glanced at the team stat meter on his wrist; seven slashes—one for each team member. Three depicted black for dead, the remaining four reflected red for critical injuries.

The breeze blew more smoke. A small bit of blue fabric drifted within his line of vision. He canvassed what he could see of the timberline. Sparks smoldered, one lighting to full flame before the blue bit vanished in the thickening smoke. Clay closed his eyes with a wince.

“Commence vaporization.” The command from his comm device cut through his regret, provoking his response.

“This is Third Officer Ebris, request pickup of wounded.” Not receiving a response, he shouted the command a second time.

A groan echoed to his right, cutting off a third attempt. The wind swirled, and he got a clear glimpse of his first officer, Fremier, shooting each of the junior members through the head with his laser rifle. That explained who had survived. Clay ground his teeth and fought against the paralyzing hold on his body as another sizzle of the laser sounded.

“Continue with vaporization countdown and send a beam for me.” Fremier turned and met Clay’s gaze.

The comm device crackled again. “Confirm again the load for the extraction beam?”

“One.” Fremier adjusted his aim and pressed the trigger. The hot bite of pain, as the electrical jolt fried Clay’s communications device, stole his breath, his voice, and seared the few muscles still responding.

“An effective hybrid would have taken the shot.” The only man in the unit without the cyber adjustments for endurance and harsh duty, Fremier squatted beside him with a look of disgust. The first officer, a premier scientist with Regent’s glacial army unit, had obviously decided to scrap the entire team in favor of newer cyber-soldier upgrades. “I would have put you out of your misery if you’d at least done your job, Ebris.”

Clay could only watch in mute resignation as a red beam of light descended over Fremier, phasing him to translucence before extracting him to the safety of the personnel ship several hundred feet above.

Sixteen fucking years of horrific surgeries, demeaning security enhancements, ruthless training exercises, followed by nightmare missions, and now he faced incineration like trash. Clay gritted his teeth and glared at the sky, waiting for a first visual of the end. Fermier’s betrayal was a surprise, but this ending was inevitable. Not that he ever had another choice—once forcibly recruited, no one left the Regents’ service. Neither circumstance made the bitter taste in his mouth dissipate.

The blue fabric had snagged on the end of a branch, jiggling to break free in the breeze. He fixated on the cloth, preparing for death, until a shadow passed over him. Blinking, he tried to make sense of the large man with a visor shield standing over him. The cloak and hood of brown leather hid the man but not his stature.

Clay would have flinched from the touch as the man squatted beside him as Fremier had. Without muscle control, he had no choice but to submit to whatever the stranger planned.

A soft flicker of lights and the low hum of a med scanner hovered over Clay’s body, assessing his injuries. The faint sounds were quickly drowned out by the rapid beeps and a heavy thrum of the vapor field at the far edge of the tundra. The airship had begun its sweep.

“You need to leave.” He grunted out the words. The man made no move to escape, though he lowered his shield, and they scrutinized each other. Dark brown skin framed eyes the color of sand; dozens of narrow, dark braids capped his head.

The man tapped the side of his head. “Level of injury?”

The beeps from the air ship intensified.

An unfamiliar voice said, “Spinal and right ambulatory quadrant severed. Functionality reparable with some work via his digital interface.”

At the second voice, Clay’s eyes widened. He squinted against a brief break of the sun through the smoke, struggling to make out the shimmering replica of another man standing behind the squatter. No substance or solid outline framed the three-dimensional rendering of the semitransparent form.

“Go. The vapor unit will kill you.” Clay tried again, the effort comparable to sandpaper working down his throat. He didn’t care. He couldn’t take another innocent life on his way to purgatory.

The man glanced at the sky and then unbuttoned his cloak. “Radar, counter measure and estimate?”

“Nine-foot projection shield activated,” responded the ghost image. “I’ll need to temporarily disable his network to project dormant stasis.”

“This is going to hurt,” the man said to him as he positioned a knee on either side of Clay’s hips to cover them both with his cloak. A pulse of vibration curled against Clay’s flesh, followed by a low-level beep.

The sizzle of the Regent’s vaporizer was close enough he considered it responsible for the sensation, if not the noise. Yet the vapor’s rising heat registered only along Clay’s extremities not covered by the cloak. An internal shock, accompanied by mind-numbing pain, coursed along his major nerves as the silicon network controlling his legs, spine, and the extra chambers of his heart seized and then stopped.

The beeps grew faster and louder, challenging the pain for his attention.

The beeps won.

“Fuck.” Clay sat up in his bed, scrubbed at the sweat on his face to dispel the nightmare, and glared into the darkness as the beeps from the next room intensified.

One minute later, he curled his fingers over a cylindrical illumination of letters and numbers and focused on the six screens generated against the back wall. The neurofibers in his left eye cycled through the last five hours’ worth of images from each of the screens in seconds, distinguishing movement, tactical positions, and threat levels. The bubble communiqué transmitted over his secure network held his attention for longer.

Minute deviations in pitch and frequency—digital codes wrapped like layers of skin around innocuous transmissions from New Delphi’s public communication platforms—resonated against the crystal microphone chip at his eye’s center. Each bubble of sound vibrated. The wrappers dissected and translated in an instantaneous process within his cybernetic eye—a seamless integration of sound and sight sealed to the cerebral cortex of his brain. Neither enhancement left him feeling remotely human.