‘God. Now he’s talking to the damn thing,’ Drummer mutters.
‘None of that.’ Ratchet twists the blade to catch the light. ‘Her name’s Fero, and you’ll show her proper respect. She’s killed for the enemy. Now she kills for us. But above all: she’s mine.’
Myra scoffs, tightening her grip on her black-bodied sharpshooter rifle. ‘I guess it is about as close as you’re ever going to get to a woman.’
‘Always did want someone with an edge.’ Ratchet moves to tap the flat of the blade against Myra’s shoulder, but she’s ready, shoves him backwards just hard enough that he stumbles in the dirt, though it’s a playful gesture. He slides back up to us, shaking his head. I’m pretty sure he’s not totally sane. ‘As I was saying, my sense of smell is a gift.’
‘If you want to play this game, ask Fukasawa,’ Drummer says. I straighten at hearing my name. Reaper Fireteams are a tightknit bunch and I’ve not earned my place yet. Drummer’s the only one who’ll give me the time of day.
‘The new guy?’ Ratchet jostles next to me, his armour scraping against mine. ‘How about it, Fukasawa? Gifted? Or freak?’
It’s the first time he’s really spoken to me and I’m not sure what to say. ‘Not going to give you the satisfaction of answering that,’ I say.
Drummer snorts as Ratchet shakes his head. ‘Can’t understand a word. That New Vladi accent is a real cheese grater on the ears.’
‘Enough,’ Alcatraz says. He’s fireteam leader, so everyone snaps to. ‘We’re approaching the waypoint. Weapons up, eyes peeled.’
Myra’s perched up on a lip of mossy rock, peering down the scope. ‘Down there,’ she mutters. ‘Get ready, boys. It’s not pretty.’
My insides sour as we climb down the rocky slope and cross the bridge into the outskirts of the bombed-out town. Rows of bodies have been nailed to giant metal poles. There’re thirty, maybe forty of them, their armour dented and damaged. They’ve been savagely beaten, missing fingers, ears, teeth, and eyes. All Reapers. Some are still in their armour, their legs and feet burnt black where flametorches melted their boots away. Others have been twisted into tortured positions with razorwire and spikes, their crisscrossed arms pinned to their chests, heads propped up.
It’s a grotesque mockery of the Reaper salute.
‘They left them like this for us,’ Drummer says, a hoarseness in his voice. As nausea claws up my throat, I feel the stormtech tighten around me like a secondary suit of inner armour. I sink into it and the sickness seems to fade, my senses sharpening, as if numbing parts of me and diluting others.
Alcatraz steps forward. ‘It’s the work of the Canine King. See how they’ve had their helmets ripped off? He takes them as trophies.’
We stiffen. We’ve all heard the rumours of the insane Harvest warlord, prowling the battlefield like a mad wolf. Posting bounties for famous Reapers and Commanders, hunting down our best squads, baiting Reapers to chase him while setting traps for them. There’s a rumour he’s building an army of Dog Commandos, a killsquad, the beginnings of his own empire of killers.
Ratchet’s trembling with rage beside me. ‘Screw him. We cut our people down, now.’ He’s already pulled the same blade from his harness when Alcatraz puts a hand on his chest, stopping him.
‘Those bodies are rigged with smelter-grenades,’ Alcatraz says.
‘I don’t care.’
‘I do. You go near one of them, you’ll be nothing but smoke and meat. Stand down.’
Drummer pulls Ratchet away, still grumbling and glancing back at the bodies. Behind me, Myra’s calling in an ordnance disposal unit to deactivate the explosives and retrieve the bodies. If I draw on my stormtech, listening hard, I can hear the dull click of a primed grenade from the nearest pole. The stormtech enhanced that sense to keep me alive.
Just how powerful is this stuff inside me?
Alcatraz steps back, his head tilted up. ‘Nothing we can do here except stop it happening again. Move out.’
We tear ourselves from the horrific display. I realise I’m resisting the urge to glance at the forests and hillsides for incoming hostiles. The stormtech’s writhing inside my chest, spreading fire through my limbs. Alcatraz falls into lockstep with me. ‘Don’t let them get to you.’ He presses two armoured fingers to his mirrored visor, before pressing them to mine. ‘I’m looking out for you. That’s what we do for each other out here. I need you focused. You hear me, Reaper?’
I nod, swallow. It doesn’t stop the memory of those tortured and butchered Reapers flashing through my mind. But it helps me deal with it, makes me feel more connected to my fireteam as we move through the bombed-out town. Corrugated silos and agricultural domes sag against tumbledown housing, shattered into mountains of rubble by artillery fire and jamming the roads. Gravel and glass crunch underfoot as we pick our way around, the waypoint reconfiguring to match our new path.
‘Smell anything yet?’ Drummer asks Ratchet. I swap my marksman rifle for a close-range, black-barrelled scattershot as we leap down an escarpment and enter a waterlogged tunnel, our helmet lamps flickering on. Our tech crackles in the darkness. ‘Any berserker squads or warlords you’d like to tell us about?’
‘Can we talk about something else?’ Cable asks.
‘I’m with the big guy,’ says Myra. ‘Shut up, you’re doing my head in.’
Ratchet pretends not to have heard. ‘Don’t much care for your scepticism, Drummer,’ he says with a loud sniff as we emerge in an abandoned shipbreaking facility. Collapsed cranes and scaffolds shatter the geometry of space into a nightmare of concrete and metal. ‘Actually, there might be something—’
I drop to the ground, pulling Ratchet down with me and yelling for the others to join me before I’ve fully realised I’ve moved. The rest of the fireteam’s barely down when a salvo of superheated gunfire shreds through
