Discarded Gods: A Bastard Cadre Story

  Discarded Gods

  A Bastard Cadre Story

  Lee Carlon

  Big Epic Studio

  Copyright © 2017 by Lee Carlon

  All rights reserved.

  Thank you for supporting the author.

  Contents

  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

  The Bastard Cadre

  Also by Lee Carlon

  1

  493rd year of the True Gods

  2 Years after the Cleansing

  * * *

  “Wakizashi,” Ethan Godkin said the word, and it felt strange in his mouth.

  The emergency exit squealed as he pushed it open then slammed shut behind him as he stepped out onto the rooftop high above the city streets. Heat from the sister suns warmed his skin, and he squinted against the bright midday light.

  The city was silent. The only sounds came from the wind whistling between the buildings and the gravel crunching beneath Ethan’s heavy combat boots.

  “Wakizashi,” he repeated the word, wondering if he’d remembered it correctly.

  He dropped his backpack on the gravel and only now questioned why he’d bothered to bring it with him, carrying it up fifty flights of stairs. He walked toward the edge of the building, the backpack already forgotten behind him.

  “Wakizashi.” The word felt like an incantation, and in some ways, he supposed it was.

  He placed his laser-cutters carefully against a wall. He’d spent twenty years maintaining the weapons, no reason to stop now.

  He drew the shorter of the two swords he carried, the wakizashi.

  Almost three decades ago his first military instructor, his first real instructor, had named the sword and its longer counterpart, the katana. He’d given the pairing another name, but Ethan no longer remembered it. The instructor had lectured him, and the other trainees, about the history of the swords, and Ethan had assumed he was telling stories to delay the moment he’d let his students loose with the ancient weapons.

  He’d claimed warriors back on Earth had used their wakizashi to commit suicide if they suffered a defeat. He’d had a similar name for that too, seppu-something, but Ethan couldn’t remember it.

  He couldn’t even remember the instructor’s name, just wakizashi.

  “What happened to you? Did one of the Gods claim you when you died or do you drift in the Abyss?” Ethan asked the empty sky.

  He placed the katana on the ground next to the laser-cutters, but he held onto the wakizashi. Warriors had disemboweled themselves with the swords, at least, that’s what the instructor had claimed, but even as a teenager, Ethan had dismissed Earth as a story people told to give little kids hope and something larger than the real world to believe in.

  He stood up, leaving the katana and the laser-cutters, and walked the rest of the way to the edge of the building. A chest high wall guarded the perimeter. Ethan placed the wakizashi on top of the wall and climbed up. He was fifty floors above the street, and when he stood with nothing between him and the drop, his head spun. He crouched to one knee and placed his left palm on the warm concrete slab to steady himself. He looked along the length of the slab topped wall and thought, It’s almost like it was designed for this. He peeked at the drop again and pulled back when vertigo threatened to topple him over the edge.

  Perhaps not.

  He wrapped his fingers around the wakizashi’s hilt and stood up slowly, keeping his eyes on the tops of the buildings around him to get his balance.

  This wasn’t a large city; he didn’t even know which city it was. He was fairly sure he was still in Rhyne, but it was possible he’d drifted across the border into Balimar.

  This was the tallest building in the city, but he wished it were taller.

  Best to make sure, he thought, but when he looked down again, risking vertigo and losing control of his final act, he added, It might be high enough.

  He scanned the city, passively taking in the shapes of the steel and glass goliaths. Many of the buildings were utilitarian blocks that might as well have fallen in place from the sky, but others had been designed with flair and looked like sails and twirling ribbons.

  Is a life spent bringing improbable things into the world any more meaningful than a life spent breaking things? he wondered.

  No, he decided.

  Sometimes in cities like this, he would see something other than empty, pristine buildings and deserted polished streets. He glanced across the city, wondering if anybody watched him from a window, but he didn’t see any faces looking back at him. If he searched for long enough, he knew he’d see metallic tomytons carrying out their programming, blindly cleaning up after people who’d been gone for more than two years.

  Golden sunlight caught the razor-sharp edge of his sword when he held it up, and he pressed his left palm against it. He pulled the sword against his hand as hard as he could, and in one swift motion, the sword was by his side.

  Against almost anybody else, the edge would have severed the hand, but against Ethan, it didn’t leave a scratch. He flexed his left hand, the touch of the wakizashi’s edge already forgotten by the nerves in his hand.

  He glanced at the drop again and told himself, It might be high enough.

  Movement in the distance drew his eyes, and he saw the silhouette of two dragons crossing the sky. From this distance, they looked elegant, and it was possible to forget the cruel efficiency of their teeth and talons or the deadly heat of their flames.

  Ethan’s shirt pocket buzzed, and he jumped at the unexpectedness of it. He reached into the pocket and pulled out an AI. A new message displayed on its gleaming, black surface.

  Please respond.

  “Fuck you,” he told the device and let it slip from his hand and fall to the street far below.

  That was only the second message he’d ever received on that device. The first had been earlier that day, and it had read:

  Come home. I need your skills.

  He realized now, that message was the catalyst that ended with him standing on this ledge. My skills. He’d spent most of the last year trying to learn new skills and forget the things he’d done with his old skills.

  He looked at the elaborately designed buildings again and realized he’d asked himself the wrong question earlier. The question wasn’t if people who spent their lives building things had more meaningful lives, it was if they had fewer regrets.

  Looking at the empty city, Ethan wondered if things could have been different. Perhaps if he and others like him hadn’t served the Chosen and their Gods in their petty wars things would have been different. Perhaps he could have lived a life without regret. Perhaps the Cleansing would never have happened, and this city would still be full of people. Perhaps Maria wouldn’t be dead…

  “No! Let me go!” A high pitched voice, diminished by distance, snapped Ethan out of his reverie.

  He scanned the buildings closest to him, looking for the source of the voice.

  “Let me go!”

  He heard it clearer this time and saw a man and a child struggling against each other on another rooftop.

  Ethan strode confidently along the wall, the drop to his left forgotten, to get a better look.

  The man was big but fat. He had his back to Ethan and wore a stained t-shirt and dirty pants. He had his right arm around a boy half his height, trapping the b
oy between his arm and torso.

  “Let me go!” the boy shouted again as he struggled to get free.

  If the man spoke, the words didn’t carry to Ethan.

  They were on a rooftop two buildings over from Ethan’s. The man carried the boy toward a large aviary.

  Ethan jumped from the wall. His boots crunched gravel as he strode to his laser-cutters and the backpack. He crouched at the bag and opened it. The contents were neatly organized, and his hand went straight to the telescopic sight. He dropped the bag and collected one of his laser-cutters. He strode back across the rooftop, but he didn’t hurry.

  At the wall, he quickly looked to see if things had changed. The boy still fought to get free from the man. The aviary door was open, and the boy had his feet braced against both sides of the door frame to stop the man pushing him inside.

  “Let me go!”

  Ethan checked the laser-cutter. Its power cell was full. He attached the telescopic sight, clicking it into place without rushing, focused on each small task he needed to complete. With the sight locked in place, the small panel on the side of the weapon glowed orange as the two systems synchronized. The panel flashed green, and the light went out.

  Ethan braced himself, leaning into the wall with the laser-cutter out in front of him. He checked the sight and adjusted his aim until he had the man’s back in the crosshairs. The boy still fought, pushing back against his captor, and making it difficult for Ethan to get a shot that he was confident would hit the man and not the boy.

  He studied them through the sight, and it occurred to him, They could be related.

  He stepped back from the weapon, leaving it on the wall, and felt his breath rush out of his chest. Horrified that he’d been about to intervene in what could be nothing more than an ill-tempered father disciplining his son.

  My skills, Ethan thought, always pushing him to draw one type of conclusion that called for one type of response.

  Ethan took a breath and stepped back up to the wall to look through the sight. Make sure, he told himself.

  The boy’s legs were still braced against the door frame, but the man brought his free hand into play, swiping at the boy’s left leg and knocking it off the door frame. From there the man used his bigger size and strength to bully the boy into the aviary. The boy tried to fight back and escape, but the door slammed shut on his fingers, and he screamed in pain and retreated into the darkness holding his hand. The man closed the door and walked away.

  He wasn’t a father disciplining his son. He had the manner of a man at work. Ethan had seen flesh traders in the years since the Cleansing and this man fit the profile.

  “Who are you? Why are you doing this?” the boy shouted at the man’s back.

  Not a family tiff, Ethan thought.

  He kept his eyes at the sight and watched the man walk casually away from the imprisoned boy.

  As soon as he was clear of the aviary, Ethan took the shot.

  The man dropped with a loud startled cry. Ethan had hit him in the chest.

  The aviary door shook as the boy tried to open it, but it stayed closed. The boy kicked the door, but it was no use. He kicked it again.

  Ethan looked back at the man and saw a trail of blood leading out of sight where the man had crawled to take cover behind the wall circling the rooftop.

  The boy kept kicking the door but with less enthusiasm. He kicked it three more times and then leaned against it, his eyes wide and searching.

  “Move,” Ethan grumbled and looked along the sight.

  He didn’t think he could shoot the latch off the door, but with the boy pressed up against it, he wasn’t even willing to try.

  Minutes passed. The injured man occasionally shouted something or groaned. The boy had settled against the door, preventing Ethan from even attempting the improbable shot.

  Eventually, Ethan said, “Shit.”

  He crossed the roof to his backpack, belted on his swords and left the rooftop.

  2

  Ethan paused to catch his breath at the door that led out onto the rooftop. He’d ridden the elevator almost to the top of this building and then taken the stairs the last few floors. It was almost fifteen minutes since he’d shot the man in the chest, but he could hear the man’s voice through the door.

  He couldn’t distinguish individual words, just a disjointed mumble.

  Ethan thought, He’s not alone.

  He’d known it was a possibility and that’s why he’d circled around to this building rather than taking a direct route and risking being shot at.

  With his breathing under control, Ethan held his long-barreled laser-cutter ready. The handheld laser-cutter was tucked into his belt, and he wore his swords on his hips. With his free hand, he carefully pressed the bar to open the door.

  The mechanism clicked, and Ethan waited.

  “I told you this was a bad idea.” The voice was still loud, but the final word trailed off.

  Ethan waited with the door open a crack.

  “We’ve taken some dumb jobs in our time, but this one is the dumbest yet.”

  It was the same voice. Ethan waited, hoping to hear the man’s companion reply and give away their location.

  The man groaned, but his companion remained silent.

  Ethan pushed the door open enough to peek through the gap.

  The man he’d shot was slumped against the perimeter wall directly opposite the door. Ethan had time to see him and register his hand coming up, and then the edge of the door splintered where the man had fired his own laser-cutter at Ethan.

  Ethan shouldered the door open and fired back.

  Something hit his left arm, knocking him back and turning him that way, but he planted his feet and dropped into a crouch. He opened fire as another laser blast swooshed past him and struck the door behind him.

  His second shot hit the man against the wall in the face. Ethan stayed low and scanned for the man’s companion. He was in a narrow corridor between the edge of the building on his left and a windowless structure to his right. He scanned up and around to check the man’s companion wasn’t up somewhere behind him.

  Satisfied he wasn’t in anybody’s line of sight, Ethan crept forward, trying to keep the sound of his footfalls as quiet as possible.

  The man against the wall was dead. A messy bleeding hole in his cheek below his left eye marked the spot where Ethan had shot him the second time.

  The aviary door rattled, and Ethan hoped it was just the boy trying to shake it loose. If somebody held the boy with a gun to his head, there wouldn’t be much Ethan could do. He reached the corner of the structure and peeked around it. There was an open space with garden furniture and a barbecue next to the aviary where the boy was held.

  Ethan waited for a ten count. There was somebody up here, but where were they?

  On ten he crouched around the corner and advanced on the aviary, his laser-cutter out in front of him, scanning for targets.

  When he saw him, the boy started to speak, but Ethan signaled for him to be quiet.

  Wide-eyed the boy closed his mouth.

  Ethan whispered, “Where is he?”

  The boy shrugged and looked at the fat man Ethan had just killed.

  Ethan glanced that way again, searching for signs somebody was hiding close by, but there was nowhere to hide.

  He told the boy, “Wait.”

  The boy watched him and kept quiet. Ethan padded along the length of the aviary, looking for other hiding places. There was a shed next to the barbecue. The door to the shed was open a crack, but it was too dark to see anything inside. Ethan stepped carefully past the garden furniture and crouched down to pass under the shed’s only window.

  He waited, listening for somebody to reveal their position.

  Something creaked, but it came from the wrong direction. Ethan spun. The boy had leaned against the aviary causing the sound.

  The boy’s eyes went even wider, and his skin paled.

  Shit!

  Ethan
lowered the weapon and took a deep breath.

  The shed door was still in the same position, but he’d have to cross the opening to get a look inside. If there were somebody in there, they’d see him and have the advantage. He stepped forward, his weapon out in front, he used his left forearm to open the door and sweep his weapon across the interior of the shed.

  Something came at him out of the darkness, and he pivoted back, further into the shed and fired.

  Two halves of a broom, the ends smoking where Ethan’s laser-cutter had sliced it in two, fell to the floor.

  Shit!

  He scanned the rest of the shed, but there was nobody there. He stepped back out onto the rooftop, still scanning until he got to the aviary and the boy.

  A latch kept the aviary door closed, but there was no lock. Ethan flipped the latch and pulled the door open.

  The boy stayed in the shadows, his eyes wide and fixed on Ethan.

  “It’s all right,” Ethan said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  The boy still didn’t move. “Suit yourself,” Ethan said and went to the dead man.

  The laser-cutter he’d fired at Ethan was still in his hand. Being careful not to point it at himself, Ethan clicked it into the off position. A second weapon lay on the floor by the dead man’s left hand.

  You should have tried shooting me with both of them, Ethan thought.

  He picked up the second laser-cutter and examined it. Judging by the scratches, dents, and grime, it had been stored in a toolbox. Its power cell was half full.

  He knelt by the dead man to search him. He removed an AI from one pocket and a bunch of keys from the other. He dropped the keys in the man’s lap. The AI was locked, so he placed the dead man’s hand on the screen. The display came to life, and Ethan thumbed through different options. There wasn’t much data on the AI, but after a few seconds, he found a message.