Flesh And Iron (Delta Squad Book 5)

Book summary

A knight falls from the sky over Los Angeles and ignites a war on the eve of a new religious festival. With the power to turn others into mindless drones, he poses a terrifying threat. The Delta Squad, equipped with power armor, must stop the infection before it's too late.

FLESH AND IRON is a gripping sci-fi thriller.

Excerpt from Flesh And Iron (Delta Squad Book 5)

2010

“Cody, can you hear me, come in,” Heath tried to regain contact with the commander of the Squad through the radio, but all that came through was static. Blackfire Island waited for any signs of life. several minutes felt like hours in the command center.

The eyes of the lower floors were glued to their various screens, sticking to their posts and doing their jobs, trying to find ways to reestablish communication with the team.

A voice cut through the endless static. “Alive,” The signal was weak. “Someone clear that mess up,” Heath ordered once it was reestablished. “Rizan is dead. The team is alive, no survivors. No one made it,” Cody’s voice came through the static in broken pieces. Heath narrowed his eyes. He didn’t believe that. After all, they lived through it.

With no eyes on the situation, there was no choice but to trust them. He hated that. “Stand by, hold your position for pickup,” Heath replied. He sat down and let out a sigh of relief as he picked up the phone beside him.

“Erin. Mission accomplished. Send the Aurora and get them home,” Heath ordered and hung up. Of course, experience told him it was never over. He placed his hand back on the black phone again in anticipation of what came next.

Seconds later, the phone rang again, and he picked it up, rolling his eyes a few seconds later. “What do you mean did we get it? We are sending the chopper now. Your precious rock is MIA for now, and hopefully, it stays that way. No good can come of that thing,” Heath said, trying to keep his temper.

“Zeron forces lost what was there. All your people would have died too if they went. I don’t know how the Squad made it out alive or even what happened. I’m sure we’ll get eyes on the situation soon. I’ll send you the report when I get it. Tell your people to calm down. The crisis is over,” Heath said and couldn’t help but smile.

“Oh, you sent a file over. I’ll look at it and talk to you later,” Heath said, hung up the phone turned to a computer monitor to access his account. There was a file waiting for him as the Professor had said. It was marked “Cyranthis Stone Information.” Not thinking twice, he opened it.

Twenty seconds later, every computer screen in the command center went black with a message in red: “This is what you get when you send the Syndicate lap dogs to a job meant for the Guardians. Call us next time.”

“That bastard,” Heath said. “I’m going to kill them all someday,” he finished as his phone rang.

“Yes, I am aware that every system is down, Nick. Fix it. It’s their idea of a prank. We need an upgrade anyway. A few more terabytes never killed anyone,” Heath replied and stared at the black screen as he hung up the phone.

The chopper moved over the jungle. Smoke rose from a clearing below. Some of the primitive-looking buildings were on fire, but others were sinking into the ground, almost melding with the ground itself. The clearing was pitch black the earth had been burned by something strong enough to kill everything it touched.

“Our instruments are going insane. Do you see anyone down there?” one pilot said to the other.

“I don’t see anything, but God, what happened down—wait. I see movement, five of them down there,” the other man pointed towards the ground in their direction. On the ground, five men covered in blood and the black ash that covered the ground limped away from a building that burned with bright green fire.

The chopper landed. The side door slid open, and the five men wasted no time in climbing in. “Get us out of here,” Cody said as he pressed the communication button on the side of the chamber. Dustin looked out over the hellish scene of twisted, burning buildings and closed the door as the chopper began to rise.

“What the hell was that back there?” Josh asked, his bleeding left hand covering a blackened piece of flesh on his right arm.

“I don’t know. It’s dead, it’s all dead, and if we are lucky, we’ll never have to go back,” Wyatt replied. Blake stared at the floor. All he could think about was what he saw and was trying his best to forget all of it.

“If we’re lucky, this was our one service. That’s the deal, right? One big mission then retirement?” Blake asked, eyes not wavering.

“That’s the plan,” Josh replied, leaning back, grunting as his charred skin cracked while he moved.

“No more talking,” Wyatt replied. It hurt to talk. It even hurt to listen right now.

The rest of the trip was made in silence. In a few hours—how many wasn’t known to them as time was lost to their own personal thoughts—by the time they landed on Blackfire Island, they had recovered. The green light came on, and Cody opened the door and got out only to face their General standing there with arms crossed.

“Did you recover the stone?” he asked them as they got out.

“No, and it’s better we didn’t. That thing, whatever it was, isn’t worth having,” Cody replied as they started to walk to the door.

“What happened out there?” Heath asked as they walked around him. He turned around.

“Hell happened out there. I don’t know, but it’s over. You’d be better off not knowing. The stone, the Cyranthis cult, and everyone who was sent to that place is dead. I couldn’t tell you why they died or how. All I can tell you is that everything burned when the golden light touched it. It will be in my report. I’ll be sure not to leave anything out,” Cody said and followed the others inside.

“I can’t wait to read that. Hope it’s longer than a page,” Heath said and followed them inside.

“Maybe two pages,” Cody replied as they walked through the door.

Wyatt got into his quarters and put his mud-covered sword across his lap as he sat on his bed. “Aren’t you lucky? The others have to put their weapons in holding, but I get to take you with. Yeah, you’re special or something,” he said to his blade. “Let’s get you cleaned up. Jungle mud and blood aren’t a good look for you,” he said, not wanting to get too comfortable. He got up and started the process to clean the blood off before he would take care of himself.

Dustin walked into his room and sat down on the bed. “Why?” he asked himself as the reality of what they did set in. Even here in the quiet, he could still hear all the screaming. “Just shut up,” he said, reached over to the table beside his bed, opened a sliding door, and pulled out a bottle of deep red liquor. He twisted the cap off and swallowed a bunch of it.

“Just shut up,” he said again, closing his eyes.

Josh moved into his room and punched the wall as soon as the door shut behind him. “They got off easy,” he said, pulling his throbbing hand out of the dented metal wall. He could feel his broken knuckles pop back into place as he stretched his hand out. Josh wanted to make them suffer. It wasn’t right that they all torched by some weird lightshow. As much as he wanted to go back and do it over, there was nothing to do now but clean up and do his best to move on.

Blake opened his door and looked down. There on the ground was the dime he left at the top of his door. “Someone was in my room,” he said while picking it up. He scanned the room and saw that everything else was how he left it. Everything but a long black hair laying on the floor, he almost missed in the fluorescent light.

“Emily, what were you doing in my room?” he asked no one. He dropped the hair in the trash. It was a mystery for another day. Right now, he wanted to get cleaned up.

Cody walked inside his room and tore his already ripped-up shirt off. It was so caked with blood that the thing broke as if it were frozen instead. He did his best not to think about it.

“Everyone’s alive, mission success, man I’m good,” he said. With a smile, he climbed into the shower. Before meeting back up with the others, he figured he’d call home to see how they were doing. It was always nice to connect with Mom and Dad.

It was a half hour later that the five of them met up in the briefing room at about the same time.

“So, who else never wants to do a Syndicate mission again?” Dustin asked.

“Yeah, it sucks, but it was our suck at least. Who’s up for going home?” Cody asked.

“Hell yes,” Wyatt said, sitting in a chair and leaning back, stretching with a big yawn.

“Yep, I’d say it’s time to go home. Rule of one, we all made it and are home free, heroes forever,” Josh said with sarcasm, but the word “heroes” didn’t make any of them feel that great. They wouldn’t call what they did heroic, only necessary.

Emily walked into the room and got all their attention at once. She held a silver case at her side. “Guys, you did well out there. Once I get your reports, we can send you all home. Of course, you all know the rules, and the Syndicate will take care of its own,” she said as she sat down, took a strange-looking recording device out, set it on the table, and turned it on.

“Emily, what were you doing in my room?” Blake asked. Emily’s eyes got wide for a second.

“It was a thirty-six-hour shift. I was walking down the hall and figured you wouldn’t mind,” she replied.

“Hey, what’s wrong with my bed? You can sleep in my room anytime you want,” Wyatt said with a slight chuckle. Emily rolled her eyes at the comment.

“I’ll remember that for next time. Now, if we’re done, we can get started,” she replied. The five of them sat at the table. Their silence told her all she needed to know.

“And here we go,” Emily said.

The unorthodox debrief lasted for four hours as each member told their version of the events. The last one to tell his story was the commander. After the last sentence was said, she shut off the device. After all the conversation, the silence felt weird. Emily took the initiative to break it.

“You all seem alright to me, considering what you went through. As always, this will go into the archives, classified of course. You men are free to go wherever you like. We will be in contact if we need you. Keep your phones,” she said and placed the case on the table, opened it, and spun it around to reveal five black, average-looking smartphones.

“Each of you gets one. If it rings, pick it up. No one else will have this number but us. Go out and enjoy the world you just helped save. You earned it,” she said and leaned back in her chair as each one took a phone, one by one, and looked at it for a second. “Those won’t come out for a couple of years, so be sure to keep them out of sight. The tech boys tell me they’ll be the next big thing,” Emily said, and Wyatt tapped on the black screen.