The Chronicles of Benjamin Jamison: Call Sign Reaper (6 page)

They heard the hover craft coming down the road. It was after 2200, and it had been all fighting and foreplay for over an hour. She slide off his lap and sat next to him with his arm around her. They waited and watched to see who and what was approaching. It didn’t go on by. It was a hover truck and it landed in the field behind Harold and Janet’s barn. She felt Ben tense up and reach for the door.

“Wait, I’m coming with you,” Andrea said, grabbing his elbow.

“No you’re not,” he replied.

“Yes I am!” she said firmly, taking his face with both hands.

He thought about it for a moment. “Alright, let’s go,” he said finally.

He pushed the door open, grabbed his katana and ran towards the farm house. Andrea tucked in her shirt and zipped her vest. She popped the trunk and grabbed a rail gun rifle and three extra power packs with projectiles. She slipped her night vision goggles back on and adjusted them. Ben was halfway back to the house and the spacers were still standing around the hover truck. They had not seen him yet, which showed what amateurs they were. A laser blast went off and one of their people fell to the ground.

It looked like someone didn’t want to be doing whatever the rest of them had planned.
  One down and five to go,
Ben thought. The hover truck lifted off and went straight up 30 feet. Andrea knew whoever was flying would see Ben running to the house.

Mike was hovering above everyone. He knew he was high enough to monitor everything. As he was rising, he saw a figure running across the field towards the house. That had to be their target. He put the window down and stuck the laser rifle out, using the door to steady it.
I can’t miss
, he thought.

Ben didn’t see the hover truck, but he heard it and immediately changed direction slightly, but not enough to take him away from the direction of the house. He ran ten steps and changed again. Mike got pissed and just opened up with multiple shots, hoping one might score a hit on the guy. The rest of the crew saw the light show and then saw Ben running towards the house.

Two of the spacers made their way towards Ben and two ran for the house. Ben saw what they were doing and ran full out now, not caring about the hover truck. Mike saw he wasn’t changing course and took aim. Suddenly, he felt something hot in his midsection and looked down to see the huge hole in his body. The hover truck was spiraling down on a collision course with the ground. Mike was dead before it hit the ground. The spacers paused for a moment and realized they were committed now. Spaz and Jen were headed to intercept Ben and the captain had Smoke in tow trying to get into the house.

Spaz tried to fire his laser pistol, but even Ben could see the light was red in the dark, indicating it wasn’t ready to fire. He was running at him at full speed. Spaz threw the pistol at him and drew his combat knife.

Ben never slowed down as the katana came out of its sheath and took Spaz’s arm off at the elbow. He stopped five steps past Spaz and turned to see him staring at the blood pumping out from his elbow onto the ground. He spun and swung the katana again, lifting Spaz’s head off his shoulders. He took off at a sprint for the house again.

Andrea watched as Ben dispatched Spaz and ran on towards the house. The body falling, he sprinted away..
”
The captain kicked the door in with a crash and Smoke followed him into the dark house. Jen saw Spaz go down. Knowing she had no chance against Ben, she ran for the barn.

Andrea was still moving across the field towards the house when she saw Jen run into the barn. She made her way in that direction. The main door of the barn was standing open when Andrea got to there. Andrea switched her night vision to thermal vision and stepped into the barn. She pulled the door shut behind her. She slowly scanned the lower level and picked up no signatures. Taking a couple of steps up the ladder to the loft, she saw the outline of a body in a stack of hay.

“Hey you upstairs!” she called out. “Why don’t you come down and surrender now so we don’t have to dance around here in the barn? I know exactly where you are.”

She switched the rail gun to fire; it whined as the power built up. “This, she said, “is me getting ready to shoot right through the floor and you and the roof and send your body parts into outer space.”

Jen knew she wasn’t bluffing. “Wait! Please don’t shoot,” she yelled. She climbed down the ladder and put her hands in the air. Andrea was standing in darkness. She held the gun behind her so the ready light didn’t give away her location.

“Walk to your left and walk straight. Stop when I tell you to,” Andrea instructed. Jen turned to her left and walked straight ahead even though she couldn’t see a damn thing.

“Stop!” Andrea said, moving up behind her. “Put your hands behind your back.” She zip tied Jens’s arms behind her back and helped her sit down on the barn floor. Andrea knelt down in front of her and lifted her goggles. Jen saw the look in her eyes as she explained about the nice old couple who was in the house and how she hoped for Jen’s sake that nothing happened to them.

“I will try to talk him out of killing you, but I’m not sure he will listen to me if they are hurt,” Andrea said.

“Please go help him save them,” Jen begged.

Ben came through the front door of the house not long after the captain and Smoke had busted in. He stopped and listened. There were four people in the house and no one was moving or making a sound. Suddenly, a laser blast hit the wall above his head and he dove down to the floor. The laser shot had come from the sitting room and Ben was in the living room.  Ben crawled to the kitchen and then the dining room working his way back to the sitting room. They kept all the doors propped open. He could see Smoke crouched in the corner between the loveseat and the wall. He was still pointing his pistol towards the living room where Ben had been. Ben didn’t have a gun; he needed to draw him out so he could use his knife.

He decided to toss his katana into the living room and see if that would make anything happen. It did. He watched Smoke and saw he would close his eyes every 10 seconds for a couple of seconds then open them. He waited, counting the seconds between, then got ready. It was a 10 second count and toss. The katana arched through the air and stuck in the wall.

Smoke jumped out of his hole and started firing, once, twice, three times — then
click
. The laser needed to recharge. He had taken a step forward towards the living room with each shot. The air smelled of ozone and he was looking at his pistol when the knife entered the back of his skull. Ben lowered Smoke’s body to the floor as quietly as possible.

The captain called out. “Smoke, did you get him?” Ben smiled a deadly smile. Now he knew where the last one was.

Andrea could see the flashes of the laser fire as she walked quietly up to the house. She looked through the open door and saw Ben’s katana stuck in the wall with laser holes and burning wall paper all around it. She eased in and looked to her right. There was a body on the floor. She turned the goggles to clear and saw it was the small guy — Smoke, she thought his name was. She didn’t see any damage to his body, until she rolled his head over and saw the hole in the back of his head. His eyes were open so she closed them and laid his head back down.

Ben walked through the house to where the two bedrooms were on the main floor. He heard sobbing now from the bedroom down the hall. He dropped down and crawled to the door, which was wide open. He could hear Harold telling Ma that everything was going to be ok.

The captain snarled at Harold. “Do you really think so?” he hissed. “I’m pointing a laser pistol right at you.”

Ben had to see where the captain was standing in order to make his plan work.

“My boy will save us and you will be dead, mister,” Harold retorted.

Ben took a quick look right then because he knew the captain would be looking at the old man, ready to threaten him again. Ben pulled his head back and smiled. He turned to go retrieve his katana but came face to face with some beautiful ice blue eyes. He held a finger across his lips and motioned Andrea to move back. She followed him into the other bedroom and handed him his katana. He took it and walked over to the wall and lunged forward from two feet away. Andrea’s eyes went wide as she watched the blade and Ben’s hands go through the wall at an upward angle. He held his position and Andrea heard two gasps from the next room.

He told her to get in the room and disarm the captain. Andrea walked into the bedroom and saw the captain had a meter of sword coming out of his chest. His arms hung limp to his side. He was still alive, but barely. Andrea took the laser pistol from his hand and saw Harold and Janet staring at her.

“Dawn, dear, what are you doing here, and dressed like that?” Ma asked.

She smiled, motioning them to climb across the bed where they were hiding and leave the room. She walked up to the captain and looked him in the eyes. “I told you so,” she said with no compassion. She slapped the wall a couple of times; the blade withdrew from the captain and he fell to the floor. Before he closed his eyes he saw a pair of boots and a bloody sword pointed at the floor with blood dripping off it. They stopped in front of him. A moment later he exhaled for the last time.

Andrea put her arms around him as he looked down at the dead captain.

“Harold is calling the sheriff,” she said. “What do we do with the woman I have secured in the barn? Do you want me to turn her over?”

He thought for a moment. “No,” he answered. “Do you have your com? I need to make a call.”

She pulled a pocket sized vid-com from her back pocket. He gave her the number to contact. She looked at him inquiringly and he held up a finger as it was trying to connect.

“Hello...” The woman’s eyes got wider when she saw Ben. “Benjamin, why are you calling so late?”

“Hey Val,” Ben answered, “is Nick awake?”

“I am now.” Val held the vid in Nick’s direction.

“I need a favor, Nick,” Ben said. He turned to the major.

“Andrea, what dock is their ship in?” Andrea held up four fingers, not talking and just staring at him.

“Nick, can you go to Dock 4 tomorrow and inspect the ship there then file a salvage or abandonment claim against it?” Ben asked.

“Ben, what makes you think it’s either one of those situations?” Nick answered, pulling the vid towards himself with a puzzled look on his face.

“Well Nick, I know the crew isn’t coming back from hell to fly that ship anywhere,” Ben said wryly.

Nick’s eyes got wide as he looked at Ben in the vid and squinted. “Ben, is that blood on your face?”

“Nick, will you do this for me or not?” Ben said. “You can put the claim in both our names.”

“Yes I will do it for you,” Nick answered, “but under one condition.”

“What is that?”

“You tell me on Monday all about what’s going on and who the hell Major Andrea Andersen is. I see you are using her com.” Before she could object, Ben turned the com towards Andrea.

“Does that answer the question?”

“Yes it does, and brings a dozen new questions to mind.”

“Like what?”

“Does she have a sister?” Nick asked.

   “You ass!” he heard Val say, followed by a slapping sound in the background and some laughing. Ben disconnected the vid and handed it back to Andrea. She just shook her head and walked away to find out if the sheriff had shown up.

  Sheriff Kilroy had arrived with an unmarked van and some deputies. Andrea walked back to Ben, took his katana and knife and laid them on the floor in the bedroom with the dead captain. Ben followed her outside and sat down in a chair on the porch. Sheriff Kilroy walked up and sat beside him.

“Can you tell me what the hell went on here tonight?”

  Ben pointed to his right without looking. “That guy was shot by his own people,” he said. “It’s my thought that he didn’t want to participate in what they were going to do here tonight. I think it was the captain who did the shooting.”

“That guy,” he continued, pointing straight ahead, “got in my way as I was running for the house. He pulled a laser pistol. I moved him out of my way.”

“What about the guy in the hover truck?”

  “I didn’t do that,” Ben said. “I was running across that field and he was shooting at me from the hover truck with a laser rifle. I zigged and zagged until I saw them go into the house then I ran full out. I heard the hover truck take a hit then crash. The guy in the sitting room was hole up in the corner behind the love seat. I came into the living room and he took a shot at me and missed. I crawled around and sat in the dining room watching him. He closed his eyes and I threw my katana into the wall of the living room. He jumped out of his hole and started firing, it was three shots and he didn’t realize it but he was walking forward as he shot. His laser shut down to recharge and he was just staring at it. I stepped up behind him put my hand over his mouth and shoved my combat knife in the back of his head. Severed his brain from his spine and mixed it up a little for good measure.”

  “Ok, so the captain?” the sheriff asked.

  “The captain was in the back bedroom. I quietly worked my way back and listen to him threaten Harold and Janet. I quickly caught a glimpse of where he was standing and retrieved my katana. I then shoved it through the wall and through him. Major Anderson disarmed him and got my family to safety. Harold called you. I think that’s it.”