Soul at War

SOUL AT WAR

A JOHN SHAP NOVEL

BY

MARTYN J. PASS

Copyright © 2013 By Martyn J.
Pass

Follow my blog at:
http://mjpass.blogspot.co.uk

Twitter: @martynjpass

Email:
[email protected]

The right of Martyn J. Pass
to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him
in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All
rights reserved.
Any unauthorised reprint
or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be
reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic
or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any
information storage and retrieval system without express written
permission from the author.

All characters in this publication are
fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is
purely coincidental.

ALSO BY THIS AUTHOR

AT THE DAWN OF THE RUINED
SUN

WAITING FOR RED (with Dani
Pass)

THE WOLF AND THE
BEAR

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks go to all those around me who
made it possible for this work to even reach the final page! If it
wasn't for people supporting me and taking the work seriously, I
think I would have just packed it in a long time ago. Thanks go to
my brother, Dani, who took the time to read through and encourage
me to get it out into the public in one form or another. Thanks
also to those who read it in its first form on 'Kindle' and gave me
some great feedback, mainly Chris Denby who picked up on the
character of 'Karen Brand' and demanded to read more of
her!

For Mum &
Dad.

PROLOGUE

The city burned like tinder.
Flames licked up at the great cloud of smog that engulfed the
highest of the tower blocks, a vapor that billowed out of the
devastated chemical plant six miles south of my position. It
had
received
the most severe bombing
campaign in the entire war, three nights of prolonged artillery
barrage that was designed to leak the deadly mix of acid based
fluids from huge underground vats into the water system. From there
it would decimate the entire farming industry, the clean water
supply and any hope of salvaging the planet. The enemy had wanted
Pothos from the start, wanted it’s rich agricultural stores to
supply their force as it advanced through this sector. It’s
location provided an excellent foothold for them and if they
couldn’t have it then they would make sure nobody else could
either.

We had been deployed as part of a
defense force who’s task had been to secure and protect the third
nuclear installation to the north, but when the lander had lost
it’s bearings we found ourselves dropped miles from the target and
were forced to head there on foot. The city could not be crossed at
any speed as each building was riddled with snipers and we’d lost
eight good men from our squad already.

Troops from several other squads were
advancing in teams across the war scarred streets, moving slowly
between the smoldering heaps of machine and flesh. Already the
piles of fused debris were restricting maneuvers and the fear of
traps and mines laid in the wake of the retreating enemy force was
growing amongst the men and women of my unit. Through the steaming
lenses of my NBC mask I could make out a few of them as they picked
through the mess, uniforms bleached white by the toxic ash falling
like snow around them. They looked like the walking dead. Ghosts
from another war.

"Advance in threes, heavy resistance
inbound." The digi-com crackled in my ear, the voice of the area
commander who no doubt was in a bunker somewhere, watching from the
floating cameras above the war zone.

"Received, sir," I spoke into the
throat mike, then hand signaled my number 2. From cover behind a
smashed car he came jogging up, head down and weapon slung. Talking
through the NBC mask was impossible so I waved at my throat
mike.

"Yes Lieutenant?" He responded, his
voice broken by interference from the chemical cloud
above.

"Advance in threes, keep it tight.
Hostiles inbound."

"Yes sir." Crouched again, he sped
away towards a nearby building and waved out his squad, breaking
them up as ordered.

Looking across the landscape, it was
hard to see where civilization ended and hell began. It was as if
the two were melting into one, fusing together along the city's
edge. I knew one thing though. That cloud meant it was over,
whether they were retreating or not. The planet would be dead by
the end of the year and our mission to secure the reactor became
pointless. Given the choice I would have turned back there and then
and avoided the risk of losing more troops. But orders were
orders.

"Sir, hostiles inbound. South east
corridor," The digi-com again.

"Numbers?" I began to cross the
street, passing between two shredded tank hulls that looked like
abandoned snail shells. The blackened skeletons of the crew hung
from the hatches, their empty eye sockets staring straight at me,
accusingly.

"Twenty or more, one mobile launcher.
Looks like a Tank buster squad sir, must have got cut off from the
rest. Permission to engage?"

"Granted. Keep me
informed."

On the other side was a five-man team
ready to clear the last building in this block. As their squad
leader kicked in the flimsy door, I took the next place in line,
pistol in hand. We pushed through quickly, clearing the ground
floor in seconds as another round of shells blew the remaining
chemical vats to oblivion. The ground trembled, even this far away.
Dust and bits of plaster fell from the ceiling.

Up a flight of stairs the team stopped
and waved me up to the front. Wallpaper peeled from around a
crumbling door frame and the floor was littered with debris. A lone
doll’s head tumbled down the hallway and hit my boot.

"We’ve got movement," The squad leader
said.

"Where?" I whispered. He pointed
towards the first room on the left, the only door fully shut and
not blown in by the concussion bombings. I crossed the landing
carefully, pistol gripped in both hands, taking deliberate steps in
the direction of the door. I felt the rest of the team spread out
into the rooms behind, covering my back in absolute
silence.

At the door I was tempted to try the
handle, but for some reason I paused. Something was wrong;
something didn't feel right about it.

"Want me to blast it?" The trooper
behind me asked. I waited a bit longer, unable to put my mind at
ease. A trap maybe? It wouldn’t be the first time a hunch had saved
a soldier’s life. There seemed only one way to be sure.

"No, stand down. I'll take it."
Reaching down to my belt kit, I pulled a white ball from one of the
pockets - an incendiary grenade. Holstering my pistol I waved back
the rest of the team and lifted my boot to the door. "Clear!" I
shouted. As the weak hinges gave way, the digi-com burst alive in
my ears.

"Sir, there are reports of civilians
in...”

The grenade flew across the room and
detonated. Flame belched out of the door as we pulled back away
from the immense heat. As the flames began to die down a sound
could be heard over the crackling wood.

“What the hell is that?” A trooper
said. I strained my ears to hear it and when it was safe to go into
the room, I went in.

There was a wardrobe in the far corner
engulfed in flames and I got as close as I could to it, realising
that the sound was coming from inside.

“Someone’s in there!” I shouted,
throwing myself into the fire and grabbing the brass handles. The
flesh on my palms instantly charred and the pain sent me reeling
backwards as my uniform began to burn. A trooper wrestled me to the
floor and began patting down the flames while another kicked over
the wardrobe and used a portable extinguisher to put out the blaze.
As the brittle wood came apart, the body of a young boy lay amongst
it, his skin melted from his bones. Above all that he was still
breathing, at least for several seconds before he died.

His name was Jacob and he’d been five
years old when his Mum had told him to hide in that wardrobe. For
three weeks he’d lived off scraps of food and kept him self alive
by playing with his only toy – a stuffed horse. His mother had been
captured by the enemy but had been rescued from one of the POW
camps not long after. I took it upon myself to be the one to give
her the news, it seemed only fair.

After that I realised something was
wrong. I felt broken in a way that I didn't think could be fixed
again. Straight after I took my leave of the army for good and
returned to Earth still not knowing what to do next.

CHAPTER 1

Shortly after I was on a civilian ship
back to Earth. Most of my team was already moving out of the sector
now that the planet had been officially declared uninhabitable. A
fresh faced Lieutenant straight out of the University on Mars
quickly stepped in to fill my size elevens, but found a hostile
reception once they heard I was packing it in.

I'd put in for my leave straight away,
even though I'd been advised against it. The Army believes you
should tackle a problem like this as it tackles all of its problems
- head on. Take it by the horns, jump back on the horse, get back
in the saddle... well, you get the drift. I tried to tell them, but
they weren't for playing. So they threw the usual tactics at me.
Promotion, extended leave, they even offered me a desk job. In the
end I did the only thing that would guarantee me a trip back home.
I tried to deck my CO. He was the regiment’s champion boxer and I
might as well have e-mailed the shot to him when I found him in the
mess hall eating. He’d gotten up from the table after I’d tapped
him on the shoulder (I wasn’t a coward, but I could have saved
myself the trouble and whacked him with a pipe where he sat), but
when I swung he ducked swiftly, launching his own hammer-like fist
upwards into my ribs, cracking two with one punch. I went down in
tears and screamed at him to let me leave. Seeing that if I stayed
I would no doubt end up a head case, he gave me permission to go
that same hour.

Then I was Earth-bound on the
next craft - which was two days later. Perhaps one of the good
things about the Army when they
do
actually let you leave is that you don't have to
do ‘good-byes’- it's bad luck. So I just grabbed my bags and left.
Just like that. A month later I landed at the lunar junction and
caught a commercial flight to Canada, somewhere my grandparents
used to own, a nice little ranch in one of the last surviving
villages where I could be left alone to work out just what had
changed so much that I could throw away eight years as a career
soldier.

The place had been well looked after
by my older brother. The house was a gleaming white image from the
skyline as the taxi began to land in the field opposite. There were
well-tended crops, a garden at the front in full bloom and best of
all it was secluded from the village – at least two miles away. As
the taxi glided down, a well-dressed man with a tidy haircut opened
the door for me, his open hand greeting me as I got out. We
shook.

“My name is Mark, I am the Pastor at
the village church. You must be John.”

“I am, sir.” I said.

“Then I am afraid I have some bad news
for you. Would you join me inside the house?”

We walked up the drive as the taxi
disappeared in a swirl of hot air and ozone. Mark strode ahead,
pushing the door aside and I followed, dropping my Bergen at the
porch. The place smelt of summer and a cool breeze drifted lazily
through the rooms.

“Can I get you a drink?” he
said.

“I think you had better tell me how my
brother died.”

Mark stopped. “I’m not stupid. No
speeder, no shoes at the door. I’ve worked with death all my life,
Pastor.”

“How did you know?”

“A feeling. We haven’t spoken in three
years. Even over the Vid-link I could tell he was ill.”