Pain bringer the constan.., p.1
Pain Bringer (The Constant War Book 2), page 1
PAINBRINGER
©2024 J.E. MAC
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Contents
Also in The Constant War
Prologue
Part I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Part II
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Part III
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Part IV
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Part V
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Epilogue
Thank you for reading Pain Bringer!
Also in The Constant War
Tempered in Steel
Pain Bringer
For Steve Beaulieu,
There wouldn’t be
a second one
if it wasn’t for you.
(Or a third).
(Although, I’ll blame
Rhett for the third one :p)
So, uh…
Here ya go ;)
“When it’s time to step into the darkness of the unknown,
faith is knowing that one of two things shall happen;
either you will be given something solid to stand on,
or you will be taught to fly.”
—Edward Teller, father of the hydrogen bomb
Prologue
“What’re we doing out here?”
Mitch Cabrera surveyed the barren grey landscape. Large withered trunks lay on their sides, lifeless and dead. Triangular formations, easily mistaken for mountains, jutted through the surface.
Garret Valin glared at his partner. “You havin’ a laugh? You’ve forgotten the job already?”
“Course not. I meant, what are we doing out here when we could be up there?”
Mitch pointed at the sky. At the Heavens.
Or more precisely—Heaven.
And the Sakamoto Six next to it. The metallic stations glinted in the sunlight.
Behind them that great blue-green marble known as Earth held them in orbit via invisible strings.
Earth, their home.
Sorta.
Mitch rubbed his helmet with the back of his forearm. It didn’t scratch the itch that had been dancing on his brow for the better part of an hour, but he hoped the gesture would at least fool his brain into thinking he had.
Garret shook his head at his partner. “We’re rescuing the whole of humanity. What’s left of it anyway.”
Mitch squinted into the sun. “Doesn’t that seem off to you?”
“How d’ya mean?”
“You and me, out here alone, given the sole responsibility of saving the human race. Doesn’t that seem odd?”
“Well, when you put it that way—no.”
Garret grabbed hold of one of the nearby ring-shaped ridges protruding from the underbelly of a fallen grey trunk. He tugged on it, testing his weight, and used it as a handhold to scale the face of the odd formation. At the upper ledge, he leaned over, secured himself on a fleshy nodule, and pulled himself on top, disappearing from view.
A few moments later, he reappeared. His hand was at his brow, shielding his eyes from the glare as he stared out at the distant landscape.
“Seems perfectly natural to me.” His voice carried down to Mitch. “We’re the only ones qualified.”
“Sacrificial lambs if you ask me,” shouted Mitch.
“Wasn’t asking you.”
“It’s still weird.”
A faint glint like a twisting diamond niggled the corner of Mitch’s eye. He spun, trying to spot whatever it was that appeared to be moving on the periphery. But when he surveyed the area, he found nothing out of the ordinary, just endless twisted trunks and triangular jutting mountains.
“Did you see something?” Mitch shouted up to Garret.
“Gotta be more specific than that, mate.”
“I don’t know. Thought I saw something.”
“Just us out here on this rock.”
“Rock?”
“You know what I mean.”
Mitch chortled. “Big tough guy like you. You don’t want to say it.”
“I’m sure that’s it.”
“You totally can’t say it.”
“What? That we’re orbiting the sun on the corpse of an Old God the size of Earth?”
Mitch’s mouth gaped open in faux-disbelief. “I can’t believe you said it.”
Garret shrugged. “Wasn’t tough.”
On top of the trunk, Garret backed away from the ledge and vanished from view.
Mitch sized up the fleshy nodules and lumpy ring-shaped protrusions, nodding at them. It was his turn to climb. The fallen trunks cut across their path for hundreds of kilometers. The only way past was up and over. Mitch found his footing, and climbed.
By the time he reached the top, Garret was already down the backside, across a small valley and starting to hoist himself up the next fallen trunk. Mitch placed both hands on his knees and took a breather. The horizon was an endless sprawl covered in fallen grey trunks and triangular pointed mountains as far as he could see. Completely lifeless.
“I swear I thought I saw something move.” His voice echoed through the valley.
“Stop it. You’re getting yourself worked up over nothing. The whole place is dead.”
Maybe Garret was right.
Maybe his imagination was playing tricks. They’d been out here for eight months now and every fallen grey trunk looked like the other. Every jutting triangular mountain was indistinguishable from the next.
He had no reason to think otherwise.
But his mind yearned for something different, constantly painting gremlins in the corners of his eyes, just out of sight. Every time he thought he saw something, he turned, only to confirm what he already knew—it was just him and Garret on this dead, desolate, and very deserted Old God corpse.
For all his lollygagging, it took Mitch little time to catch up to Garret. He was much faster going down than up. The cliff faces of the trunks had become so familiar that he hardly paid attention to what he was doing anymore. His feet and hands found holds automatically. Even without proper climbing gear, he traversed the backside with the speed and rapidity of a professional rock climber.
Perhaps that was what he was, what they both were. Not engineers, but professional rock climbers.
Seemed lately, he spent more time doing that than what he had been trained for.
Maybe that’s why they were always chosen for these particular away missions? He should add that to his resume. Maybe his next employer might find it helpful?
Very good rock climber.
Mitch jogged to the next trunk, quickly hauled himself up and down, closing the distance on Garret.
Through winded breaths, he asked, “How do you not find this strange? Like, surreal, man. I mean, like look at this place.”
Mitch hovered over a shoulder.
It was clear that Garret didn’t need his help. Nor wanted it.
But an unwarranted distraction?
Who couldn’t use one of those?
Mitch leaned his weight into one of the smaller coiled trunks at the foot of the machine, pushing it clear. This one wasn’t more than a couple meters in length. He lowered his shoulder, propping it up. The surface bunched, creating folds like a curtain pushed along a rod. Despite its grotesque appearance, the coil squished. Mitch raised it, revealing one of the circular hoops on the underbelly.
“Check this out.”
Garret glanced away from his work long enough to register disgust. “Leave it alone, will ya?”
“Just look at it.”
“I’ve seen it before. Leave it be, mate.”
“Look,” Mitch teased. He grabbed the sides of the ring-ridge and squeezed it together. It took some effort, but he folded them into the shape of a mouth. Moving the ridges back and forth, timing his hand movements to his voice, an exaggerated thing a couple octaves lower than his normal register, he said, “Don’t you love me, Garret? Gimmie a kiss. C’mon, pucker up and plant a big wet one right here.”
Garret slapped it away. “Will you get serious? We’ve got a job to do.”
“Buzzkill. ’Sides, if we ever fall behind, they’ll just send out more people to finish the job.”
“It’s not about more people. It’s about precision. That’s why we’re out here and they’re not. We’re the only ones that know how to do this correctly. How to do it efficiently and in a timely manner. Like real professionals, ya know, cuz that’s what we are.” He glared at Mitch for a moment. “So start acting like it.”
“If you say so. As much as my ego wants to agree, still say it’s a mistake having us be the only ones out here.”
“Yeah, well, we’ll be the heroes. When historians look back on who saved humanity, they won’t look back at Heaven and the exodus. Nor the skirmishes of the Constant War. They’ll say, those blokes, Valin and Cabrera, single-handedly—”
“—think that’d be joint-handedly—”
“—whatevah. They’ll say those blokes joint-handedly saved all of humanity, bringing a definitive conclusion to the Constant War. They’ll throw parades in our honor and build statues.”
“Statues? Of both of us?”
“Course, of both of us!”
“Well, I mean, I understand statues of me. But you? With that mug?” Mitch made a face.
Garret elbowed him in the ribs. “Shove off.”
He returned to the open fuse box and made a few more adjustments. He gave a nod, stood up, and clapped his hands together, expelling dust. “Think that should do it. She’s all hooked up. What ya say we give it a go?”
“Thought you’d never ask.”
Garret put an arm across his waist and bowed. “The honor is yours, my dear compatriot.”
“Good sir, I am humbled by your generosity.”
“You know what they say—”
“What’s that?”
“One small step for man…”
“Oh right, one giant leap for a massive Old God.” Mitch pulled the lever on the side of the fuse box.
The machinery rumbled.
The rumbling wasn’t contained to the mechanical structure. The entire planet, or rather, the Old God they stood on shook, once again coming to life.
Loose dust slid from the machinery and rained down on them like an early spring shower, not that either man had experienced rainfall, or seasons for that matter.
Towering three hundred meters overhead, four towers at the top of the mechanical structure lit up. Red lights illuminated in sequence like a countdown toward the Heavens. From the top of the machine, puffs of black smoke coughed. Several stuttering attempts later, a solid cone of blue flame burst to life. At its base, yellow light danced. The cone pointed at Earth, angrily roaring, at its ancient arch-nemesis.
Garret pressed a few buttons on his wrist tablet. The display flicked to a new screen.
“Castor log: Engine one is operational. We’re on track with the deadline.” He punched in some calculations. “If everything stays on course, it looks like we’ll have a week or so to spare. I, for one, am all for coming home early. Valin, out.”
“Only seventeen more to go,” said Mitch.
“Let’s head back to HQ and broadcast our report to Heaven. They’ll want to know our status, ASAP.”
“Right,” said Mitch. He put his hands on his hips and leaned back admiring their handiwork. Heat radiated off the engine as it roared loudly at Heaven.
This wasn’t the first time humanity had built technology to save itself from a Doom’s Day event. And it certainly wouldn’t be the last. But it was a marvel to behold all the same.
Mitch turned his attention back to the task at hand, slightly surprised that Garret hadn’t given him grief for taking his time.
But Garret was nowhere to be seen.
He spun, expecting to see Garret climbing the side of the nearest grey trunk, heading toward HQ.
“Garret?”
Mitch trotted toward the far side of the machine. Maybe Garret had doubled back? Maybe something needed fixing or adjusting? There was always something in need of a good tweaking, and failure on one of the engines was the last thing either of them needed.
Better safe than sorry, he figured.
Garret was a stickler for that sort of thing.
Mitch rounded a blind corner, but Garret wasn’t at the rear panel either.
He scratched his head, or rather his helmet, and turned, looking out amongst a sea of grey trunks and jutting triangular mountains. Raising his wrist comm to his mouth, he said, “Garret, where’d ya go?”
It was a silly question. Stupid even.
Where’d he go? Where could he go? It was a giant unoccupied corpse floating in the middle of space. And they were the only ones out here.
Faint scratching noises clawed at the gravel behind him. Barely audible.Was his mind playing tricks again?
The noises mixed with the hum and vibration of the engine. But he could hear it.
Distinct.
A harsh rasp against metal.
Cautiously, he moved toward the noise. “This ain’t funny, Garret.”
He noticed a crack in the base of the structure.
Settling onto a knee, he ran a finger across the deformity in the metal surface. It left behind a dark grease stain on his glove.
In the grey dust at his feet, there was a splotchy trail. He had never seen anything like it before. Not in the past eight months working out here, and certainly not onboard Heaven.
The trail led to the crevice in the side of the machine. It was patterned. Instead of the rolling dust mounds present everywhere, these were their inverted opposite. Tiny craters. Inside, pools of fluid had gathered, creating miniature lakes.
Mitch leaned down and dipped his finger in the nearest crater. It came back crimson.
“Garret? Man, are you okay? I got—I think I got blood here.”
He looked up at the crack in the side of the machine.
Only now it looked back.
He couldn’t see anything in the inky darkness, but he knew in the depths of his soul that something was staring back at him.
Before he allowed himself a chance to think, he was sprinting across the barren landscape toward the nearest trunk. Stumbling, crawling, righting himself, as he tore across alien terrain.
His reaction was irrational.
But that didn’t stop the voice in his head from screaming, Get the Hell outta here!
