Vendetta: A Near Future Thriller (Forsaken Mercenary Book 4) Read online

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  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons— living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

  Vendetta

  Forsaken Mercenary Book Four

  Jonathan Yanez

  Contents

  Books in the Forsaken Mercenary Universe

  Stay Informed

  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

  Epilogue

  Stay Informed

  Books in the Forsaken Mercenary Universe

  Books in the Forsaken Mercenary Universe

  Inception

  Dropship

  Absolution

  Fury

  Vendetta

  Annihilation (Coming Soon!)

  Stay Informed

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  One

  Six Days Until the Voy Invasion

  I sat down hard on the lower half of the coffin lid, the black mask with the Order symbol clenched in my hands, but I had already forgotten about the piece of cloth altogether.

  I was more concerned about what it meant. Amber, my Amber was alive or at least had been alive for a time. No body now didn’t necessarily mean she was alive today.

  The cold Mars air elicited puffs of steam from my lungs. I sat there for minutes, hours; I didn’t really know.

  “The woman from the Order,” I croaked when I finally found my voice. “X, call that channel she left us.”

  “Daniel,” X said. “I can’t imagine what you’re going through. With the loss of your memories and the emergence of all of these facts, it’s been nothing but ups and downs.”

  “Get to the point,” I growled, not sure X deserved that, but at the moment, it was all I had to give.

  “I’ll dial the channel the Cyber Hunter gave us, but they could tell us anything,” X said, finally revealing what she wanted to say the whole time. “You have to find out for yourself. And I’ll help you figure out the truth. I—I just don’t want you to get hurt more than you already have been.”

  “Thanks,” I managed. “Now call them.”

  X opened up the line using the channel the Cyber Hunter had given us. Back in the Badlands when we visited Sam in Cecile, she had paid us a visit, sparing the former Pack Protocol member and giving us a channel on which to reach her.

  The line buzzed inside of my head more than it rang. X was linked to me via a cerebral chip behind my right ear. She had proven herself invaluable time and time again since we’d started this crazy journey together.

  Even with my advanced healing, I would have been dead ten times over if it wasn’t for her. She didn’t deserve the way I talked to her.

  You’ll have to apologize for that, I told myself as the channel buzzed. She’s been nothing but kind to you.

  The buzz finally came to a stop. My heart leaped in my chest. I thought for a moment that there might be someone on the other end of the line.

  I tried to call before with no luck.

  Instead of a human voice, an automated greeting reached my ears.

  “User is unavailable,” the robot voice informed us. “If you wish to leave a message, you may do so at this time.”

  “No, I don’t want to leave a message!” I screamed into the night.

  I lost it. I wasn’t proud of my actions, but everyone has a breaking point. This was mine. The woman I loved was ripped from me. I went through mourning and now this. Now she might be alive or she might have been saved, just to die all over again.

  I slammed my right fist into the dirt wall beside me over and over again. Inside the grave, standing on the coffin, I was just able to see over the edge of the ground above me. I was still alone.

  The dirt wall made for one heck of an opponent. I didn’t hold back punching both fists into the wall now, over and over again. Hard-packed sand and dirt flew into the air around me.

  The knuckles on both my hands opened up, adding a spray of blood to the sand cascading around me. The pain was welcome. Nothing compared to the internal anguish I felt. The frustration boiling inside me demanded an outlet. If that outlet came with pain, then all the better.

  My lungs ached and burned. Air came in deep heavy gulps. By the time I was finished, an indention had been made into the dirt wall a meter deep.

  I must have looked like a zombie emerging from his grave. I was filthy from the sweat of both digging up the coffin and my outburst. Dirt clogged my ears, sprinkled in my hair, and streaked down my face.

  The skin on my knuckles was already beginning to heal. Blood smears ran down my hands. I grabbed the black Order mask that was as filthy as I was.

  I spat on the ground next to me, heading towards the gates of the cemetery.

  “We have an incoming call,” X said, ignoring the fact I had just annihilated the dirt with my hands. “It’s Captain Valentine.”

  “Oh crip,” I said out loud. I was supposed to meet her at the Hall of Power in Athens. I was just waiting for a call. This far out in Elysium, I wouldn’t make it back in time. “Put her through.”

  “Daniel, are you ready with that alien proof of yours?” Captain Valentine asked.

  “Yeah,” I lied. “I’ve got it, but it might take me a minute to get back to Athens.”

  “Where are you?” Captain Valentine’s voice lowered an octave.

  “Elysium at the moment,” I answered.

  “Elysium!?” Captain Valentine asked. “What are you doing there? We have a meeting right now. It doesn’t matter. I can send a dropship to pick you up ASAP. Daniel, don’t make me feel like a fool here.”

  “I’ll have X send you the coordinates,” I said, looking down at my right hand where I still held on to the bloody Order mask. “I’ll be there. I’ll have Immortal Corp send the alien body.”

  “You better,” Captain Valentine clicked off the channel
.

  “X, can you—”

  “Already on it,” X said before I could finish the sentence.

  “About earlier,” I said. “I’m sorr—”

  “You don’t need to apologize,” X cut me off again. “I can’t imagine what you’re going through. If you needed to let off some steam, I get it.”

  I was making my way to the entrance of the cemetery when the noise of shouting reached my ears.

  The groundskeeper who had offered me the shovel to dig Amber’s grave up sounded angry.

  “Hey, you kids get out of here,” he yelled. “This isn’t some kind of amusement park. Have some respect for the dead.”

  “What are you supposed to be?” a kid’s voice I didn’t recognize asked. “Some over-the-hill wanna-be security guard?”

  “I’m the groundskeeper here,” the man answered. “No, you are trespassing. The cemetery is closed.”

  I could tell the confrontation wasn’t going to end with words.

  “X, how much time do we have until the Galactic Government dropship arrives?” I asked.

  “Flying top speed from Athens, even if they left immediately, they wouldn’t get here for another fifty-eight minutes,” X answered. “We have time.”

  “More than enough time,” I said, jogging back to where I had left the borrowed groundskeeper’s shovel and Amber’s dug-up grave. “I think he’ll forgive me for not putting back the dirt right away.”

  I lifted the shovel and made my way to where the shouting moved to physical violence. Just outside the groundskeeper’s small shed, a group of boys not out of their late teens surrounded the elderly man. There were five of them jeering and smiling.

  The most outspoken of them shoved the groundskeeper to the ground hard.

  “You know who my father is, tubby?” the kid asked. He wore a dark hoodie and long pants. “My father’s the mayor in this city. You know what that means? It means I get a free pass in doing whatever the crip I please.”

  I came up over the slope in the ground, revealing myself to the group of troublemakers. The groundskeeper rallied to his feet. He was the only one that didn’t see me. His back was directed my way.

  “Okay, okay, if that’s the way you want it,” the groundskeeper said, dusting himself off. The fabric of the pants over his right knee was scraped and dirty from the fall. “I used to be quite a brawler in my day. Even beat off a bully or two. Who wants some first?”

  The group of thugs took a step back upon seeing me. I didn’t blame them. I knew what I looked like. Dirt covered my face courtesy of the sweat I’d spilled. My hands were stained dark red with my own blood.

  The groundskeeper thought they were taking a step back from him. It bolstered his courage.

  “That’s right,” he shouted, wagging a finger at them. “What’s more, I’ll call the GG down on this place. I ain’t afraid. Daddy or no daddy, I’ll see to it that you get what’s coming to you.”

  Now I was the first person to admit that looks could be deceiving. Who knew? Maybe that groundskeeper could in fact take the five assailants in a straight-up fight.

  “That’s right, back up, back up then, young guns,” the groundskeeper said with pride, still not realizing I stood behind him with a shovel in my hand.

  “Who are you?” the son of the mayor asked me, finding his voice first. “You some kind of grave robber?”

  “Something like that,” I said.

  The groundskeeper wheeled around, surprised to hear my voice. He cracked a grin when he saw me.

  “I told you I’d bring back your shovel,” I said, about to toss it to him. “Almost forgot.”

  “Something tells me you might need it a few minutes longer, stranger,” the groundskeeper said with a twinkle in his eye.

  I eyed the five teenagers in front of me. They were well-fed kids probably about ready to go to college or maybe in their first year. A few of them looked like they could be athletes on a professional team.

  The last thing I wanted to do was throw fists with some kid. Worse, I didn’t want to cause them any permanent harm.

  “Go home,” I told them. “You heard the man; the cemetery’s closed.”

  “You didn’t answer me,” the one with the mouth said. “Who are you?”

  “I’m a guy having a really bad day,” I said, moving to stand in front of him. We were so close, I could reach out and touch him now. “Don’t give me an excuse. Go. Now.”

  “You hear that?” the kid asked his friends with a laugh. “Mr. Dirt here says it’s time for us to go. But I don’t feel like going, do you guys?”

  “Nope,” a chorus of voices answered.

  They circled me like a pack of predators ready to go in for the kill.

  The kid with the daddy for a mayor took a step back with a smile on his wide lips.

  “So what’s the plan here?” the groundskeeper said, lifting his fists into the air and shadow boxing with a few clumsy jabs. He almost tripped over his own feet. “You go low, I go high?”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Okay, you go high and I go low, then,” the groundskeeper said. The small actions he took while warming up left him breathing heavily.

  “You just take it easy,” I told him. “I’ll handle this.”

  They came at me from all directions, feinting in and out, jeering. I stood still until I could actually reach one of them. The first unlucky kid to come within striking distance of my shovel took a steel spade across his face.

  I hit him with the flat side. I wasn’t trying to kill them, at least not yet.

  I must have struck him harder than I thought. The tool vibrated in my hands on contact. A hollow thud reached my ears before I pivoted in an upward arc to land the head of the shovel between the legs of the next kid.

  I hit him in the balls hard enough to elicit a high-pitched whine from him that didn’t remind me of any sound I had ever heard a human make. He grabbed his privates and fell to the ground in a heap.

  The other three kids were smart enough now to try and tackle me at once. One grabbed my shovel while another applied a chokehold on me from behind.

  The kid with the father in the government balled up a fist and sneered at me, “Oh, I’m going to enjoy this.”

  “You and me both, kid,” I wheezed with a smile.

  Two

  My response must have caught him off guard. The kid was coming in for a punch then pulled back when I grinned at him.

  I released the shovel from my grip, letting the guy who was wrestling it from me have it and sent him falling backward.

  The one in front of me with the daddy connections started throwing punches. To his credit, he did a good job striking my face and chest. Why he started hitting my chest was beyond me. A few chest blows wasn’t going to take anyone out of the fight.

  I let him have his way while I concentrated on the monkey on my back. The guy on my throat was pressing down hard, making me choke. That pissed me off a little. I reached behind me with my right arm and found his ear.

  I didn’t mean to tear it off completely, but I guess I was caught up in the heat of the moment. I felt it give and a warm splash hit my hand.

  The kid fell off my back cursing and yelling in pain as he tried to press his torn ear back into his head like that was going to help.

  “What the crip!” he shouted, writhing on the ground. “He tore my ear off! He tore my freaking ear off with his hands!”

  I caught a right across the jaw and a left in my eye.

  The other one, who wrestled the shovel free from my grip, came at me now. He swung wildly, allowing me to easily duck under the blow. As fate would have it, he hit the mayor’s son full in the face with the flat side of the shovel.

  Blood exploded from his nose as he staggered back.

  “Here, you shouldn’t be trusted with that,” I said, jerking the shovel out of the kid’s hands in one move. In another quick motion, I turned the shovel and brought the end up into his chin.

  A loud crack sounded
as he slumped to the ground.

  “Hot dog!” the groundskeeper cheered, looking at me with wide eyes. “Hot dog, mister, when that woman came to me in my dreams and talked about you, she never mentioned any of this. What are you some kind of secret agent or G-man?”

  I ignored the praise of the groundskeeper for the moment going over to where the mayor’s son clamped a hand over his broken nose. Blood covered his otherwise clean hoody.

  “My dad—my dad is going to get you,” he sputtered, half in fear and half in anger. “You don’t know what you just did. You signed your death warrant. He’s going to bury you.”

  “Get out of here,” I told him. “Don’t ever come back or it’ll be you they’re digging a hole for next.”

  The kid seemed to have run out of stupidity, because instead of words, he staggered to his feet. Those able to help their friends did so as they exited the cemetery, leaving a trail of blood in their wake.

  Something caught the corner of my eye, something to the right of the cemetery behind one of the headstones. I saw it for only the briefest of moments. It looked like a person dressed all in black. I couldn’t tell if it was a woman or man.

  “Did you see that?” I asked, looking in the direction with my neck craned. I remembered too late I had night vision mode now with the aid of X. I blinked, concentrating hard to see in the night. Everything went a golden hue, allowing me to see as if it were as bright as day. There was nothing there.