Shadows of the Son by E L Strife

Author:E L Strife [Strife, E L]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-12-12T16:00:00+00:00

—Threads of War—

Chapter 31

BENNETT STRAINED AGAINST THE URGE to kill former Sergeant Reju where he sat. The man’s posture was too proud. His black eyes stared them down with self-righteous arrogance. A wristlock held Reju’s hands together in front of him. Still, Bennett had to keep his distance to maintain his control while listening to the man’s thoughts through Ether.

Replacing the shepherds in his carefully-designed crews that morning had been an exhausting and upsetting process. Most of the shepherds lost had been with their co-shepherds. Still, individuals had to be reassigned to unfamiliar teams.

Reju didn’t look like he felt an ounce of remorse. A sickening level of joy was written across his face today.

Atana sat at the table with Baern across from Reju. They’d interrogated Claymor and Dieshi earlier. The woman had been the first to be caught. Claymor was the first to break, to admit he’d conspired with the Linoan, Gark, under the command of Claymor to take care of the sparks. They’d found him on a collector and hidden him during the return to Earth to drop off civilians.

But Reju wouldn’t break. He was a total and utter snot.

“What is this? Good cop, bad cop, girl cop?”

Atana lunged out and slammed a fist across his face, splitting his cheek open. “Which one am I again?” She growled.

“Sergeant Atana.” Baern grabbed her arm and calmly directed her back into her seat. “This behavior solves nothing.”

Bennett pushed off the wall and rested a comforting hand on her shoulder. He hadn’t said a word to Reju yet. He’d probed through Ether repeatedly, finding nothing more than he already knew. Reju was putting up a fight.

“So, what was in it for you?” Baern asked Reju.

The man scoffed, his locked wrists dragging across the table. “You only ask that question because you’re trained to. You don’t even know what it means to want things.”

“You made sacrifices to get here, gave up your freedom, your life for a cause,” Baern continued, unfazed by the accusation. “Why?”

“And you didn’t?” Reju scoffed and curled forward, pointing at Baern and Atana. His eyes slid up to Bennett. “Let me ask you this: did you not lose your freedom when you became a shepherd? Do you not kill to protect your system of order? How about the smaller sacrifices? Friendship, family, love?”

“Our purpose is greater than that of an individual,” Baern defended. “You used to know that.”

“Bah!” Reju’s hands fell to the table with a clang. He slumped back in his seat. “I never wanted that. The glory seemed interesting. But there was always someone watching, someone to take the fun out of everything.”

“Who?” Atana asked.

Reju looked at her for a long moment. “Command, of course.”

The delay made Bennett pause and close his eyes. Why was the response not prompt if it was an answer we’d all know?

Images of other Linétens formed up in a bunker swerved through his mind. A male shouted orders. Diagrams marked dirty glass walls. Bennett scoured Reju’s memories of the schematics and caught a nameplate on a desk.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.