Wholesale Slaughter: The Complete Series Books 1-6:, page 1
part #1 of Wholesale Slaughter Series
WHOLESALE SLAUGHTER
©2019-2021 RICK PARTLOW
This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of the authors.
Print and eBook formatting, and cover design by Steve Beaulieu.
Published by Aethon Books LLC. 2019-2020
All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
Contents
CONTAINED WITHIN
1
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
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Epilogue
2
Prologue
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
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Epilogue
3
Prologue
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
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
4
Prologue
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
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Epilogue
5
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
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Epilogue
6
Prologue
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
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
FROM THE PUBLISHER
Also by Rick Partlow
About Rick Partlow
CONTAINED WITHIN
WHOLESALE SLAUGHTER
TERMINUS CUT
REVELATION RUN
MAELSTROM STRAND
JUDAS KISS
REDEMPTION’S SHADOW
1
Wholesale Slaughter
1
T he guard huddled inside the heater coils of his jacket and muttered curses into the teeth of the north wind. Captain Lyta Randell couldn’t see his face, couldn’t quite make out the words, but she knew exactly what he was thinking. It was there in the shudders running through him, in the way he had his rifle slung over his back instead of held at the ready because his hands were stuffed into his pockets. It was universal.
He was cursing the cold, cursing the wind, cursing his sergeant for putting him on guard duty in the first place. He wished he was inside the main compound, impermanent and slapdash as it was. He had to see it teasing him—he was even closer than Lyta to the floodlights piercing the midnight darkness, turning snow flurries into a meteor shower, warmth and comfort hidden behind walls of aluminum sheeting. He was undoubtedly upset about missing out on the entertainment as well. On a world like this, barren, barely habitable, with nothing around for three jump-points, entertainment was hard to come by, and there was a fresh batch of new prisoners on the other side of those walls. Women, men, children, whatever he was into and his superiors would let him get away with.
A feral rage surged upward from Lyta Randell’s gut to her chest and she had to force herself not to give in to it, not to bring the muzzle of her carbine up and put a burst through the guard’s head. It would have been easy, quiet even with the integral suppressor… but there was always the chance the floppy hood the man was wearing would throw off her aim, that she’d hit off to the side instead of right in the brainstem, that he’d get off a warning on the radio.
So, she waited, knowing what was going on inside those walls, what the captives would be going through. She tamped it down like a powder charge and saved it for later. A hundred meters away, on the other side of the perimeter fence, there was nothing, no activity all the way from the wire to the compound. On the far side of the cluster of buildings, she saw the faint motion of a pair of bird-legged mecha shuffling back and forth on a security patrol, while more of the ten-meter, bipedal tanks stood motionless and unmanned nearby.
“Shadow One in position,” she subvocalized into her throat mic.
The answer was deep and male and nearly operatic in its smooth timbre.
“Roger, Shadow One. You are go in two mikes.”
“Two mikes, roger,” she echoed automatically.
Two minutes. The guard wouldn’t wander off in just two minutes. She thought it at him, a mental command not to move, to stay right where he was and shiver. It was an old soldier’s superstition, and she was a very old soldier. Old enough to count the two minutes down in her head without resorting to checking under the sleeve covering her wrist computer.
“Shadow Three,” she murmured. “Take him out.”
I used to do this sort of thing myself , she complained silently, to the only person who cared.
Still, Sergeant Marini was pretty good as a second choice. He made no sound, appearing like a wraith out of the blackness and snaking an arm around the sentry’s throat, silencing him in the spare moments before his knife plunged upward into the man’s armpit, a necessary weak-spot in the sort of cheap, basic armor the pirate troops could afford. The guard thrashed, trying to reach the rifle he’d slung for comfort, clutching through his heavy jacket for his equipment belt and the combat blade useless beneath it.
Blood spattered inky black on the powdered snow, Rorschach test patterns on the virgin white until the galvanic drumming of the dying man’s heels scratched them away. A long thirty seconds before all movement stopped and Marini dragged the lifeless body out of the glow of the security lights and into a stand of skinny, balding trees.
The rest of the squad was moving without having to be told. Scherer was still attaching the alligator clips of the dampener to the fence wires when Lansdale yanked out the cutters, slicing through the first strand of fence just as the green indicator glowed in muted cheerfulness on the dampener’s display. Captain Randell grinned beneath her face hood, unfolding from her spider-hole with a clicking and cracking of stiff, overworked joints, and waving the bulk of the platoon forward.
Off to the side, she made an approving note of Marini stripping the magazine and loaded round from the guard’s rifle and tossing the weapon aside.
6mm caseless , Lyta judged with clinical precision. Easy to fabricate the gun and the ammo even out here in Shitsville.
Lansdale flashed a thumbs-up back to Lyta, pulling back the section of wire fence she’d cut as Marini prepared to crawl through, waiting for her signal. She thumbed the switch for her throat mic.
“Shadow One has a breach. I say again, Shadow One has a breach.”
There was a long silence, and for just a heartbeat, she had the paranoid notion the Gomers had twigged to them and were jamming their signals. But then…
“Shadow One, execute.”
She made a slashing motion at Marini, and the Rangers began scrambling through the hole in the fence, scattering to cover positions on the other side.
About damn time. It’s been way too long since I killed some pirates.
Kathren Margolis shoved her hands tight against her ears and tried to shut out the screams. The walls of the storage closet were pressed particle board, the door hollow plastic; they might as well have not been there, yet they were her only defense from the fate looming on the other side, the only fate she could imagine worse than what had already happened. The screams were high-pitched, inhuman, but she thought it was the Captain of the transport. She’d spoken with him once on the voyage from Nike and recognized his pleasant tenor somewhere underlying the agonizing wails.
He wasn’t the first. They’d started with the Navigator three days ago, then the First Officer yesterday. She hadn’t seen it, but she’d heard every last, excruciating second, and still she’d preferred to concentrate on the screams than what was happening to her in that closet. But the screams wouldn’t stop and she couldn’t shut them out and the floor was ice-cold and rough against her skin and she was shivering and scared and she felt so dirty she might never feel clean again, and if that closet door opened again, she was going to just make them kill her.
The closet door opened.
Light flooded in from behind the man, but she knew him by the massive shoulders, the heavy gut that might have been absurd on someone who was less of a sadistic animal. They called him Sergeant Kuschel, but she’d never met a sergeant with a gut like his, or an unkempt beard. They seemed afraid of him, and with her right eye swollen nearly shut and the bruises on her arms and legs, she understood that part well enough.
She scrabbled back from the door, leaning against the wall. Disdain battled pleasure across his scarred face; he liked to intimidate women, she’d seen it from the first.
Not this time.
She pushed away from the wall and lunged forward, intent on punching him in the balls, hurting him badly enough for him to lose control and beat her to death this time. Her legs betrayed her, wouldn’t support her weight after three days without food or sleep, and she fell half a meter short, landing on her side hard, the wind gushing from her lungs.
Stars filled her vision and she couldn’t see Kuschel’s twisted, filthy smile, but she heard the laugh and she knew the loathsome smirk accompanied it. She heard his heavy footsteps as he circled around her, toying with her, and she tried to move away from them, bringing her knees up to her chest. He kicked at her, not hard, not like he had the first time, just a jab to sting her shin with the steel toe of his combat boot. He was playing with her, a fat, stupid cat to her mouse.
“What did you think you were going to do, flyer girl?” Kuschel mocked in an accent that was harsh, grating, metal scraping on metal. “You going to beat me up and fly away?”
His laugh was sharp and ragged and devolved into coughing. He coughed a lot; he’d probably damaged his lungs and never had access to advanced health care to get them repaired. She wished it had killed him.
“You won’t fly away from this, little flyer girl.” He bent over her, grabbing her face between the roughened fingers of his beefy hand. “After we’ve had our fun, then you get to be the last one.” He jerked a thumb back toward the door, toward the screams.
But the screams had stopped. Kuschel seemed to notice about the same time she had, and he straightened slightly, twisting around to look behind him. She tried to use the opportunity to wriggle free, but his fingers tightened on her face. She felt the painful compression on her cheekbones, the dull pain in the bruise over her right eye, and she couldn’t see past his bulk, past the unwashed grey of what had once been a uniform from one military or another.
“What the…” Kuschel’s exclamation was cut short and suddenly something warm and wet splashed across Kathren’s face. She tasted copper and salt and spat reflexively. It was blood, but not hers.
Sgt. Kuschel toppled, an ancient oak felled by one storm too many, his fingertips scraping across her face as they slipped free. Kathren desperately wiped at her face, trying to get the big man’s blood out of her eyes. A tall, black-clad figure stood in the doorway, a faint curl of smoke rising from the muzzle of a suppressed carbine still trained on Kuschel’s inert form. Kathren’s first thought was this was an attack by a rival pirate group and she felt a surge of hope they’d just kill her outright.
A long-fingered hand left the fore-grip of the carbine and pulled up the featureless black hood and night vision goggles, revealing the sharp-edged, not unpleasant face of a woman, somewhere in her late thirties or early forties, her hair dark brown and cut short and spikey. Her eyes glinted green in the faint light filtering in from outside the room, and a grim smile played across her lips as she finally concluded Kuschel was really dead. Behind her, other black-clad commandos spread out into a defensive formation, stepping over the corpses of the pirates to reach the captives they’d brought out of their cells. She saw one man pulling open a nylon bag marked with a small, subdued red caduceus, a medical kit.
“I’m Captain Lyta Randell, First Spartan Rangers,” she announced, her voice slightly raspy, as if she’d spent too many years yelling at the top of her lungs. She extended a hand, a clear offer to help Kathren to her feet. “Are you all right?”
