Reign of the Reaper Read online

  Copyrighted Material

  Reign of the Reaper Copyright © 2022 by Variant Publications

  Book design and layout copyright © 2022 by JN Chaney

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

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from JN Chaney.

  www.jnchaney.com

  http://www.scottmoonwriter.com

  1st Edition

  CONTENTS

  Don’t Miss Out

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Important Terms and Characters

  Join the Conversation

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  Renegade Star Universe

  About the Authors

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  1

  Few places offered more perfect solitude than the Jellybird’s bridge. I kept the lights dim. Feet propped up, unlit cigar in my left hand, I held the Sangrel medallion in my right and traced the patterns with my thumb. Had it saved my life? I thought so. Should I keep it?

  Techno beasts on Sangrel created it to protect my dream friends. I hoped they were as dedicated to conservation as Drakainis had been to domination. Machines weren’t evil—except when they were. Hell, X-37 treated me like a king. Generally.

  The holo viewer displayed a debris field in the distance. Ruined ships drifted in all directions but were easy to avoid. There was plenty of room to maneuver. Jelly, X-37, and Tom assured me that wouldn’t be the case as we neared the slip tunnel.

  At slow speeds, the bigger chunks moved in predictable trajectories. Unfortunately, that meant racing through the Kyroth system without full shields or some serious piloting skill was ill-advised. Why should we push our luck when we’d already been incredibly fortunate? Camis Shae fell farther behind, and that was fine with me.

  The destruction of Drakainis had done more damage to her network of drones, imprisoned ship AIs, and corrupted LAIs. We’d staggered away from the battle to find the catastrophic results of our work. Roos had reacted indifferently to the widespread destruction. Saying the man was cold was an understatement. He’d slipped away with his four bodyguards shortly after we left the planet, just stepping into space in void-suit mode like they had a ride waiting.

  Of course they did. Roos Starfall was always scheming. I doubted we’d seen the last of the man, especially since he had never gotten the Shae legion he wanted.

  Who needed them? We accomplished our objective. Our Drakainis smackdown had saved us a lot of time we would have spent destroying her murder drones. Still, the sight of it made me uneasy. I wasn’t sure why.

  “Would you like music, Captain?” Jelly asked.

  “Why not?” I always liked what she selected. This time it was smooth Galactic jazz. The steady bass line walked through chord changes while a piano leisurely made its way into the melody.

  “Jelly always picks from this playlist when you have the lights dimmed and seem to be sulking,” X-37 said. “Would you like me to contact Path or Tom to relieve you?”

  “It's not the end of my watch. Everyone deserves a rest. Not just me. When we reach the slip tunnel and get clear of this system, I'll feel better.” I toggled through my ship cameras until we were looking backward at Camis Shae—a planet I had ruined no matter what X or my friends told me. I had played into Drakainis’s trap, one she’d been perfecting for hundreds of years.

  That wasn’t an excuse. No circumstance could justify my failure. Had we put things right, or at least on the course to being right? I really hoped so.

  “Of course, Reaper Cain, but you are definitely in one of your moods.”

  The magnification showed me where we'd been. I wished Evantros and his people well. “I wasn’t sulking. I don’t have moods. Don’t make my me time ugly.”

  They had a massive job to do. My crew had been somber when we left them with all the supplies we could spare. Mere survival would be a challenge for decades to come. I wasn't sure they could terraform the planet back to its original condition, but that was what they wanted. Who was I to judge?

  A Shae legion of shield bearers might have been useful in the inevitable confrontation with General Scheid, but none of us wanted unwilling participants joining us in the hellish confrontation we couldn't avoid. They deserved a break. In all honesty, my friends and I hadn’t brought them peace and prosperity. They had done enough in this war. I was made for this crap. They were just trying to live their lives.

  “I’m detecting a battle two hundred thousand kilometers two points off our port-side vector,” Jelly said. “Do you wish to investigate directly or scan?”

  “What do you have so far?” I asked, not changing my posture as I idly flipped through Jelly’s roster to see who was available on quick notice. Elise, Tom, Bug, Path, Tank, and Carnax were all asleep. Rizz was on the observation deck, awake, staring at the stars as always. Elise’s bodyguards, Sykes and Billiam, were standing guard outside her door. At least one of them was sleeping on his feet. I assumed they were taking turns.

  I was glad Roos and his clones skipped out. The Jellybird wasn’t built to carry so many passengers—not with all the armor and other gear we were toting.

  “Drone versus drone. There is no evidence of human-crewed ships,” Jelly answered.

  “What about non-human? Hagg forces? Camis Shae?”

  “Apologies, Captain. I was using the term generally. There are no vessels capable of supporting biological life-forms, nor do I see wreckage with recoverable bodies,” she said.

  “Mark the location, chart its predicted drift, and continue scans until we’re out of range or something more important comes up.” I enjoyed the life of a captain when things were easy. Maybe it could be my retirement gig. How hard could the job be when the ship did all the work? Things needed to be fixed, but I had been forbidden from that role and knew a miracle worker named Tom.

  Life would be simple. I could sy
stem hop wherever the slip tunnels would take me. Exotic locations, interesting people, whiskey, and cigars—what more was there in life?

  “More data coming in, Captain. I believe this was another drone versus drone battle,” Jelly said. “They appear quite disorganized.”

  I reviewed images of previous encounters—drones smashing into each other, drones exploding, drones twitching and drifting through the void with no purpose now that Drakainis was gone. The fall of the machines was much less impressive than their rise had been.

  We cruised through a cloud of micro-debris. By void galactic standards, the Jellybird was crawling. Impact with each scrap of metal was enough to activate little pops all over our shields. I watched the light show on camera and monitored damage reports. Nothing broke through. Jelly had plenty of power and defensive integrity.

  “I appreciate you, Jelly,” I said on impulse.

  “Thank you, Captain. That is the first time a captain has expressed such gratitude. Not that I require positive feedback,” she said.

  “Suck up,” X-37 murmured.

  “You too, X. You’re the best.” I opened a book but waited to start reading.

  “One more awkward outburst like that, Reaper Cain, and I will sedate you for medical evaluation,” X-37 said.

  “Uh-huh. Threaten me with a good nap. See what happens.”

  About an hour before Tom arrived for his shift, Bug joined me on the bridge. He slipped into the dimly lit ambiance like it suited him, then he took a chair and gazed at the main holo. In the distance, an unidentified vessel fled from its own enemies. The wake of space debris was visible in Jelly’s scans but not by the naked eye.

  “Routine travel always seems strange after a hot mission,” Bug said, quieter than usual. I could barely reconcile my first conversations with the man. He’d been so young, so incredibly fearless despite his situation. Or had he? Most likely, that was a façade like everyone else wore when times got tough.

  “Agreed,” I said. “I’ve lost count of my missions, but it’s always the same. Sometimes I can’t stop thinking about our most recent brush with death. Other times, it’s like none of it happened, or it was something out of a book or a holo.”

  “I don’t like being a cyborg. Not like this.” He leaned forward to check the navigation terminal. “We’re making excellent progress. A lot closer to the slip tunnel than I realized.”

  “Jelly’s a good ship,” I said. “She hauls the appropriate amount of ass whenever we find a clear spot.”

  “Thank you, Captain.”

  “I didn’t expect Drakainis’s minions to come apart like this. Not so fast. Easy things are always lies.” His expression tightened with worry. “That could happen to you, or me now that I’m a cyborg freak.”

  “Not me. I’ve got X-37 to watch over my nerve-ware,” I said without thinking.

  “Good for you,” he said.

  “James Henshaw is working on a basic LAI for you, Rizz, and anyone else who might need one in the aftermath of Roos’s tampering,” X-37 said.

  “Yeah, the really limited artificial intelligence. What could go wrong?” Bug waved away the conversation. “Forget about it. I’m fine.”

  Dropping my feet to the deck, I locked eyes with Bug. “Come to me whenever it bothers you. I’m not asking. I’m telling you. Reapers are known for our listening skills.”

  Bug barked a laugh. “Yeah, that’s what I heard. Super compassionate.”

  “I’ve been an outcast all my life, and not by choice. I volunteered in the very beginning, sure, but that was in my brainwashed youth. Henshaw knocked me out and did this arm against my will,” I said.

  “That doesn’t make me feel great about him providing the RLAI,” Bug said.

  “It’ll be fine!” I said, and we laughed like old friends with too much hard living in common.

  “Captain, I’m receiving a distress call from Oroth Freighter 189, also registered as the Menagerie Builder II,” Jelly said.

  Tom and Tank stepped into the crowded bridge at that moment.

  “Fucking great. You get the easy shift, and we get bent over like it’s a Union tax day,” Tank complained.

  He’d never spent a single second in the Union, but I let it go. Scheid mentally conditioned every HC clone when they came off the assembly line. False memories were what he started with. Their under-powered LAIs were so weak, I sometimes wondered why they had them. My quasi-brother was no exception.

  “Should make the shift go faster,” Tom said, calming my big, ugly twin.

  Elise leaned through the door with a steaming cup of coffee in one hand. “Good morning! Are we doing a rescue mission? Sounds like fun.”

  Everyone turned to stare.

  “That isn’t your first cup of coffee, is it?” I asked.

  “Sue me. I’m much less murder-y with caffeine in my veins,” she said. “Let’s have a look. You and me, Reaper. Could be our final mission together for a while.”

  “Two people can’t clear a ship that size,” Bug said. “We know it will have at least two Defenders, and those dudes are tough.”

  “Nah. Easy to get the drop on if you ask me,” Tank said. “I’ll get the sword saint from his meditation locker. We’ll need someone who can fight if things get rough. In addition to me, I mean.”

  None of us took the bait. By the time we closed distance on the floundering star freighter, Tom was inspecting our gear as we stood talking trash to each other. Someone had to be responsible. The mechanic always took care of our pre-mission checklists.

  Sykes and Billiam strode in, already wearing their Archangel gear.

  “Release the General, Reaper,” Sykes said. “Final warning.”

  I looked at them over my shoulder, ready to turn and punch some sense into the young and dumb Archangels. “Say what?”

  Billiam spread both hands, talking like a trained negotiator. “It’s like this. We know General Elise wouldn’t endanger her highly valuable person by leaving her bodyguards behind, so you must be taking her from the ship against her will. We can’t allow that. You understand, of course.”

  “Relax,” Elise said. “You can come.”

  Sykes and Billiam fist bumped and spoke in unison. “Hell yeah.”

  “Great,” Tank said in a tone that suggested the opposite.

  “What’s your problem?” I asked while the others gathered around the airlock and checked the crossing tube for damage or maintenance issues. I really liked the tubes. The fewer space walks we did, the better. I’d had my fill.

  “Don’t worry about it, Bio.”

  I stared him down.

  “Fine. If you have to know. Unorganized, spur of the moment stuff like this bothers me. I know you see me as the petty criminal on Heto 5. Probably think I don’t know a sitrep from a drive-through order, but my training is Union, even though I’ve never been to that part of the galaxy. Scheid indoctrinated us to plan and execute by the numbers. This feels like a social outing, not a rescue mission to a derelict starship.”

  “Makes sense. I get it. Time to focus and do this right.” We joined Elise and the others. Carnax and Rizz were staying on the ship with Tom. No need to leave Jelly defenseless.

  “Billiam and Sykes will take point. I’ll come with the Reaper. Tank and Path can bring up the rear. Once inside, we’ll clear the airlock and receiving area, then hold as we adjust to the actual situation,” Elise said, her good mood still active but filtered through her command presence. I was ninety percent certain she’d overheard my conversation with Tank. Forgetting about the Lex-tech experiments she underwent as a kid was always a mistake. She wasn’t just the leader of the Maglan fleet. She was one of a kind.

  We crossed to the Menagerie Builder II and paused a dozen meters behind Billiam and Sykes at the ship’s external hatch. Tank and Path gave the thumbs-up at the Jellybird end—hatch secure.

  “There aren’t many ships left in this system,” Elise said. “Those remaining are busted up like this one. We can’t save them all.” br />
  “Wasn’t going to try.” I kept an eye on each end of our formation.

  “This one is different,” she said, all pretense of her light and bubbly morning ritual put aside.

  “Every time I think the Oroth citizens are just people with good and bad in them, I run into something like this. Soon as this war is over, I’m putting a stop to the hunting on Reserve 13.”

  “I’ll help you,” she said.

  “If morons like Tatasam and his girlfriend want to hunt, they can try it someplace not so overstocked with game that they’re guaranteed as many kills as they want,” I said, voicing thoughts I had never put into words before now. I touched the Sangrel amulet without thinking about it. The citizens had seemed naive, despite their power and influence—Lord Manager Capious Tatasam, trustee of Reserve 13, Chief Executive Officer of Fleet Seventy-eight, Warden of Helidale… blah, blah, blah. Maybe we’d taught them empathy for all living creatures, but maybe they still needed a serious kick in the ass. At the end of the day, none of that was my problem.

  So why did I think about it so much?

  Elise brought me back to the present. “I’m in for a rough time when I return to the fleet.”