Countdown to Apocalypse, page 1
Superhuman :
Countdown to apocalypse
Evan Currie
ALSO BY EVAN CURRIE
Atlantis Rising Series
Knighthood
The Demon City
Odyssey One Series
Into the Black
The Heart of Matter
Homeworld
Out of the Black
King of Thieves
Odysseus One: Warrior King
Odysseus Awakening
Odysseus Ascendant
Heirs of Empire
Heirs of Empire
An Empire Asunder
Warrior’s Wings Series
On Silver Wings
Valkyrie Rising
Valkyrie Burning
The Valhalla Call
By Other Means
De Oppresso Liber
Open Arms
Other Works
SEAL Team 13
Steam Legion
Thermals
Copyright Info
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2018 Evan Currie
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Forword
Welcome to book two of Superhuman. Similar to the first book, you’re getting it hot off the keyboard with only minimal copyediting. That is, the grammar and spelling should all be pretty good, but there are bound to be some errors here. In return for putting up with that you get it early and cheaper than the end price I’ll set for this story. When the final edits are available, I will make upload them and amazon will autoupdate them for you.
Hope you enjoy this one, it was a lot of fun to write.
You can keep up to date on the latest releases at my website, Facebook account, or other social media accounts (check the “contact me” link after the story), or sign up to my newsletter at:
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Cheers, everyone, and enjoy the book.
About the Author : Evan Currie is a Canadian author of science fiction and fantasy novels whose work has been translated into multiple languages and sold around the world. Best known for his military science fiction series Odyssey One and On Silver Wings, Evan has also dabbled in far flung space fantasy like Heirs of Empire and steampunk-ish alt-history, among other worlds.
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Prologue
Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, People’s Republic of China
Li Shen groaned quietly as he rolled over on the cold hard surface beneath him, slowly opening his eyes and trying to remember how it was he’d come to where he now found himself.
It was dark, the air stank of something he couldn’t place. There was fuel oil mixed with blood and a stench beyond both. His heart rate increased as he snapped awake, pushing himself off the ground. He almost hit the ceiling when his push somehow propelled him several feet straight up, arcing into a wall before he bounced off and hit the ground again with a thud.
“Ayio,” Shen moaned, holding very still for a moment while he tried to combat the pain in his head. “Who hit me with a truck?”
“If you find him,” Another voice said in similarly accented Cantonese, “I command that you kill him for us both.”
Shen rolled over onto his back, looking up at the open sky between the buildings that towered above him. “Qi, is that you?”
“Who else would it, idiot?” Shau Qi, Shen’s girlfriend asked, her voice irritated and in seemingly no mood for any sort of small talk.
Shen was about to answer when another groan caught his attention and he forced himself up again, slowly this time, and looked around.
“What in all the demons…” He trailed off, eyes widening as he saw body after body laid out around him like so many slabs of wood, fallen in the street.
There were dozens, if not more than that, most were still but some were now stirring like he and Qi. He scrambled fully to his feet and backed up until he was pressed against the side of the building he’d bounced off earlier, eyes wide.
“Shen?” Qi looked at him from where she was still lying on the floor, “Are you alright?”
Shen shook his head, “Nothing is alright about this.”
He recognized some of the faces, clothing, and such as members of two of the largest Traid groups in the area. Worse, unless he was greatly mistaken, he was almost certain that he was looking at two of their leaders… men who shared only hatred for one another.
This will not end well, Shen thought desperately as he looked around for a way out. I need to get Qi and get both of us out of here.
He lunged forward, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her to her feet, “Come on.”
“What is wrong with you, Shen?” She snapped, pulling back against him.
He jerked her close, twisting her around to show her the scene behind her, clapping a hand across her mouth as she sucked in a breath to scream.
“We should go now,” He said, hissing the words in her ear.
Qi nodded fearfully as the pair started to back away from the bodies that were, even then, beginning to stir and awaken.
*****
Su An Yan grunted as he snapped to a sitting position almost instantly, eyes blazing as he looked around desperately without seeing.
“What in the nine hells was that!?” He snarled angrily, heart thudding in his ears.
He felt like a man waking from a nightmare, but somehow he knew that wasn’t so. He could remember the bodies of the dead pressing up against him, limbs and organs floating freely as something reached into his chest and…
Yan shook his head, forcefully pushing the imagery out as he slowly climbed to his feet and looked around, this time with eyes that saw his surroundings rather than imagined memories.
He recognized many members of his Triad, the Commercial Guild of Shining Righteousness, as well as several key members of their key rivals the 20 Thousand.
He instantly reached for his pistol, only to find it gone and as he looked for it in his clothing Yan realized that he was wearing the tattered remnants of his twenty-thousand dollar suit.
“Whoever ruined my clothing is going to die,” He pledged through gritted teeth, “Slowly and painfully.”
“You always were a vain pretty boy, Yan.”
He spun on the voice, recognizing the leader of the 20 Thousand Triad who was now getting to his feet.
“Luca.” Yan spat, “If you had something to do with this…”
“you’ll what?” Sho Ah Luca asked, rolling his eyes, “Kill me more than you already plan to? I’m not afraid of you, Yan, so spare me the mindless ravings about your pretty boy fashion sense and personal psychosis.”
“Perhaps that’s always been your problem, you should be,” Yan shifted threateningly, hands balling up into fists.
“You think to threaten me, pansy boy?” Luca laughed, lifting his hands to gesture in a ‘come and get me’ manner. “I’ll kick your ass to the curb, twice, then do the same to your whole damn gang.”
Yan’s heart was hammering in his chest, the sound of it drowning out everything else around him as he felt himself roar and lunge. The speed of his strike surprised him just as much as it appeared to shock Luca, who barely managed to get his arms up in defense. It didn’t matter, though, too little, too late. The blow struck through the weak defense and Yan’s fist struck low in Luca’s chest, lifting him clear off the ground and sending him flying back across the street they were in until he slammed into a building. The cement of the old tenement cracked, and the building visibly shuddered under the impact as dust and chips rained down from above.
For a moment, no one moved.
The shock on all faces was evident, none more so than Yan’s own. That shock was only multiplied, however, when the body of Luca shifted and moved and the Triad leader pried himself out of the indentation he’d made when he struck the building.
Luca dropped a few feet to the ground, looking back at the damage with surprise on his own face, and then down at one of the chunks of cement that had fallen when he broke himself loose. He knelt down, picking up the material, and turned it over in his hands as he marveled at just how good he felt.
Luca closed his fist, turning the cement to powder as a manic grin spread across his face and he looked up sharply to where his rival was standing, staring.
“This is an interesting development,” He said simply, right before launching himself across the darkened street at Yan.
*****
Shen’s eyes widened, and he would be hard pressed to say whether it was more in shock or horror, as he watched the two gang leaders tear into one another with a fury normally reserved for the cinemas. Granted, none of them were as skilled as the action heroes in the local cinema, but they made up for it in sheer power and ferocity.
The air visibly shook as they rained blow after blow upon one another, making the whole scene like a surreal moment out of time from what he could tell.
“Wh… what is happening?” Qi asked, her voice stunned.
“I… do not know. I hope I am dreaming,” He answered. “Because if this is real, no nightmare could be worse.”
Qi nodded beside him as the pair shrank more into the shadows, desperately trying not to be noticed.
They weren’t the only ones. Many of those others in the street who had awakened, or been awakened by the fighting, were scrambling to get clear of ground zero. Some just kept running, as best he could tell, ducking into an alley and vanishing into the night, others were making a circle and already starting to cheer on one or another of the combatants.
How strange, Shen though, I would have expected them to remain surprised at little longer than that.
Apparently, loyalty to their leaders was overriding the natural fear and wonder that had to be in their little brains somewhere. The members of the Triad gangs were giving both combatants a fair distance, but Shen didn’t think the distance between them and Qi was nearly enough.
“Come on,” He urged Qi, “We have to go.”
She nodded numbly, allowing herself to be pulled along as the fighting only intensified.
Then a blast of sound and shock swept over them and Shen felt Qi suddenly yank back against his grip as he turned.
*****
Yan planted himself and defended against the flurry of Luca’s counterattack, both shocked and enthused by the strength he felt running through himself, though dismayed that he was seeing similar in his rival. He could tell that the blows were fierce, with a force unlike anything he’d every experienced, but they felt little more than normal to him as he parried off the strikes with counters of his own.
When an opening presented itself he struck back, delivering a cross to Luca’s chin and rocking the other man around jarringly. Luca recovered quickly, however, and returned the favor in kind. Yan was staggered, stumbling away from the blow as he felt dazed by the force but only that.
He spun back, swinging with a wild punch that Luca ducked under and felt a jab into his gut lift him off the ground. Yan grunted, but recovered and swung down as he returned to the ground and tagged Luca hard as the other man was drawing back from being overextended.
Luca was driven down to the ground, but roared and drove up from his knees to hammer his shoulder into Yan’s midsection, lifting him off the ground and charging across the street into the side of a building.
The old skyscraper shook from the blow, and lights came on all up and down the street as their fight finally attracted attention as something to be bothered getting up for.
Yan hammered his fists down into Luca’s back, swearing profanities to the skies as he did so, even as Luca reared back and hammered him into the building again. A chunk of cement fell, and Yan reached out to pluck it from the air as if in slow motion and, with vicious speed, slammed it down into the back of Luca’s head.
The other triad leader slumped from the blow, giving Yan the opening to bring his knee up and hammer Luca in the face. The force of that strike lifted Luca into the air, and Yan moved like lightning to finish his enemy.
Yan struck again, hitting Luca in mid air with enough force to send the other man flying across the now badly damaged street and slamming him into the corner of a building with enough force to blow through the cement and send shrapnel flying in all directions.
Yan, focused on his fallen foe, brushed himself off as he stalked forward.
“Anyone still professing loyalty to that piece of a turd… dies here tonight.”
He looked at the fearful eyes of his enemies, and the near worship of his own people, and exulted in the moment.
A howl of pure rage put an end to it an instant later, however.
*****
“Qi! Qi!” Shen sucked in a desperate breath as he realized she had fallen to the ground.
Shen dropped to his knees at her side, noting the blood streaming from her head as he clutched at her.
“Speak to me, Qi!” He demanded, getting no reaction.
Shen felt the blood roaring in his veins, each beat of his heart drowning out all else as they melded together into a single roaring rush of blood. His eyes blazed as he snapped his head up and saw the arrogant bastard smirking as he walked down the street amid throngs of his troops.
The same bastard who was responsible for Qi lying there on the ground.
Shen howled.
It was no sound of sadness, but one of pure and unadulterated rage. He didn’t even notice as he rose to his feet and turned to face the gathered triads who were all beginning to turn in his direction.
Shen just saw the looks of shock on their faces, not the blaze of fire that was shimmering into existence right behind him. Heat was pouring off the amorphous form, enough to be felt quite some distance away but it meant nothing to him as he roared his range uncontrollably at the bastards who hurt Qi.
A Dragon, of flame and spirit, rose up behind him and echoed his roar with a noise that shook the city for blocks around.
The last thing Shen remembered seeing was the Triad foot soldiers and their leader scattering as the blazing figure swept past him and began its rampage down the alley and into the street beyond.
*****
USS Ronald Reagan, CVN-76, South China Sea
“Captain on deck!”
“As you were,” Captain Mathew ‘Matt’ Hallows said as he stepped onto the command deck of the Gipper’s Island. The watch crew were setting about their business in the pre-dawn light of the South China Sea, the entire task group having been on alert for the last day and a half.
No one was really sure what it was all about just yet, of course, but Matt had a good idea that it had to do with China judging from their deployment orders. Though, given how the news was exploding about the events in Houston, he supposed it might be linked to that too.
“Orders from SOCOM, Sir, Presidential authorization.”
“Thank you, XO,” Matt said, accepting the printout from his executive officer, Captain David Burke. He read through it quickly, noting that it was advising him of the imminent arrival of a SOCOM asset. “Do we have any inbound flights?”
“Nothing scheduled, nothing on RADAR,” David responded simply. “I’ve had the group running sweeps, looking for them. Requests to SOCOM for more details have been ignored.”
Matt nodded, not entirely surprised. SOCOM, Special Operations Command, could be vague and cagey bastards at the best of times. Still, they wouldn’t generally try and drop something like this on a carrier group without reasonable warning.
“Continue sweeps,” Matt ordered, “Be sure I’m advised as soon as the SOCOM asset makes contact. Hopefully he’ll know what the hell is going on.”
“Aye Skipper.” David replied simply before he left to relay the orders.
Matt didn’t much like any of what was going on, but that wasn’t a requirement of the job he supposed. He walked over to the hatch and stepped out of the command deck onto the walkway where he could look out over the flight deck as operations were underway.
The slight gradient of the sky showed that they were just into astronomical dawn, the sun wouldn’t be up for a while yet but its light was filtering over the horizon just enough that it was no longer technically night. Matt looked out over the black sea rolling around them, eyes spotting the lights of the Ticonderoga Cruisers and Arleigh Burke Destroyers running the picket around the Gipper’s position. He knew that there were a pair of attack submarines in close as well, and two more running point along their source, and a final two taking up the rear.
Combined with the projection power of the Reagan herself, there were few things on the planet with the power to match a Nimitz Carrier Task Force.
“Captain,” David called softly, though his tone had an urgent hint to it as he leaned out the hatch, “We have something.”
Matt pushed off the rail and headed back in, “What is it?”
“Unknown contact,” David said, “Closing fast. We couldn’t pick it up, the Shiloh reported it. We have a repeater of their screens up here. It’s strange, Skipper.”
“Let’s see it,” Matt frowned.
David Burke was a Carrier qualified pilot and matched his own skills entirely, which meant that he’d have seen damn near everything there was to see over his years of service. For him to call something strange in these circumstances was, in itself, strange.
