Shepherd Read online

  Shepherd

  Phoenix Book 2

  by

  K.H. LeMoyne

  Published by DIGITAL CRYSTAL PRESS

  Copyright 2011 KH LeMoyne

  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.

  C
lay 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.

  Radar: Shepherd?

  Clay blinked the last of his nightmare away and tapped a security code sequence. Active.

  Radar: Status?

  Eyes have made target

  Radar: Still local?

  His network was secure. Even so, he couldn’t afford a hacker to relay all the information he’d unearthed. Two years they had been searching. Too long to trust to any network.

  Need to meet

  Radar: Location?

  3 @ lockbox The three eight-hour intervals would give him enough time to confirm his final intel on the return of Squad Five and their landing at the far edge of New Delphi’s grid. He had the rough framework of a plan for extracting their target, yet too many holes remained to risk any underground operatives’ lives.

  Radar: Add new team—you specify skills

  Start with medic

  Radar: Copy—stick with Onyx

  Worked for Clay. He trusted Onyx, Trace Boden, and had bypassed the need for security code names with him several years ago. He’d run several risky missions with the former Regent doctor. Trace’s personal connection with Aaron alone warranted his team presence. Building a new team around the plan would be harder. Although it seemed Radar was holding nothing back on this mission. Not that he blamed him.

  Clay had met their target, Aaron, when he was a skinny, punk-ass young man with the determination of a pit bull. From day one, the youth provided valuable reconnaissance and info for team members in the underground network. His capture had sent an angry ripple through the rebel teams.

  That the Regent scouts trolled Down Below for human resources was a way of life. Young teens, old enough for training as guards and soldiers, fell easy prey. Food, clothing, and a solid, if not long, career was hard to turn down when you were starving, poor, and at risk for much worse fates.

  Unfortunately, the Regents didn’t conscript twenty-one-year-olds for anything but the squads—suicide missions, one-way teams organized without longevity in mind. If Aaron had returned with the squad Clay had detected, and survived physically, two years would have seriously messed with his head.

  Few people knew the realities better than he did. The details of Aaron’s extraction brought the images of Clay’s dream back in a déjà vu that coated him in fresh sweat.

  His fingers tapped at the characters in the air with one hand as he initiated a second command keyboard. Five of the screens on the wall flashed to new images. Twenty-four hours wasn’t much time to find information on one unit returning to town. On the plus side, few people had the contacts in the network he’d managed to establish and a return of a death squad would stand out from even the Regent’s worst. Contacts in Down Below should be alive with rumors, ones he would have to weed out from the truth.

  The bigger problem—what to do with Aaron once they extracted him. Two years in hell meant his body would be tough and rugged. The question was, how much remained of his mind?

  ***

  Esme jumped at the knock on her bedroom door. Well, not hers really. That was the problem.

  “Esme. It’s Ty. If you’re there, I’d like to speak with you.”

  She had expected this confrontation from the moment she’d arrived a week ago. Still, she hesitated and then felt ridiculous for her reaction. It wasn’t as if the room or the door warded off confrontation. The illusion, however, had offered her peace while she fought through her demons from the last several months.

  No longer able to pretend invisibility, she crossed the room and opened the door. She’d taken several steps back before she realized Ty Vier hadn’t followed her.

  “I was hoping you would join me downstairs in the study to talk before dinner.” He stood patiently waiting at the threshold, his arms crossed and his broad shoulder braced against the doorframe.

  She frowned, not wanting to say yes, but she had no good excuse to refuse. She’d taken all her meals in her room and only once met the other inhabitants, more pressure for her to accept now.

  Seeming to understand her reluctance, he opened his hands in resignation. “If you choose to come down, the study is the first door on the right.”

  He stepped out of the room, pulled the door closed, and left her again in quiet, if not peace.

  Deep breaths did nothing to stem the urge to clench her fists and crawl back to her seat beside the window. Yet only a coward would hide away in this room. Given the reason Vier had married her, the study was probably a safer place to hide. With a measure of confidence under her belt, Esme made her way to the top of the stairs.

  Sinea Vier paused halfway up the stairs and stare
d at her as if she’d sprouted three horns from her forehead. Frail and petite, Ty’s first wife offered an initial impression of a young girl until one was close enough to see her translucent skin and the tiny lines of stress around her eyes. Esme didn’t make eye contact with the striking and painfully shy woman. Carley Vier, Ty’s second wife, walking next to Sinea, was a whole other matter.

  Esme started down the stairs, using Carley’s frown to test her own mettle. The buxom blonde exuded menace; however, since her animosity seemed to revolve around protecting Sinea, Esme ignored her. The two women passed her without a word. However, their inspection burned at her back all the way to the study’s door.

  Pausing before the double door, she glanced sideways to take in the huge marble foyer, vaulted ceiling, and high walls coated in programmable artwork. The day she arrived, the images had reflected a study in gray and black charcoals. Today’s décor resemble a more subtle and soothing collection of pastoral scenes.

  Who picked the daily view and where the artwork originated from wasn’t as important to her as the thought that a home with such opulence and culture might mask rage and torture.

  Not quite certain she was ready to head down that path of doubt, she pushed open the door.

  Ty turned from a vid screen on the wall, leaving the image of the street in front of the Vier townhouse and the rear exit visible. “I’m glad you decided to come down. Please make yourself comfortable.”

  He gestured to two facing chairs before a large, roaring fireplace.

  She didn’t want to sit and resisted her instinct to flee. He would only catch her or his security detail would.

  “You’ve been here a week, Esme. I wanted to give you time to settle in, but I think it would be best if we cleared the air between us. Unless you would prefer to continue locking your door every night in fear?”

  Her fingers dug into the silk of her pants. She forced a breath and released her hold with a great deal of effort.