The Athena Operation Read Online Free PDF Page A

regulars, who decked themselves out in fancy suits or military armor. Probably a tourist who’d stayed out past curfew. Seraph pulled his handgun from its holster and approached the man slowly.
    The man whipped around to face Seraph. “Don’t come any closer,” he warned. He wrapped the woman in a headlock and pulled down the hammer on his gun.
    Seraph held up a hand. “Easy now. Let’s just talk this out, eh?”
    “No! Don’t you understand? We’re starving! You and all of them, you’re killing us!” He clenched the gun tighter. “You don’t fucking care.”
    Seraph tried to keep his voice even. “Where are you from? My people can help. Who are you? Tell me what’s going on.”
    The man pushed the gun harder against the woman’s temple and glared at Seraph. “You won’t do anything,” he said. “None of you have ever cared about my people. I’ll show you what happens when you fucking leave us for dead.” Seraph tried to react, but the man was faster. There was a loud crash as the man shot the woman through the head. Her body fell limp and slid to the ground.
    Seraph and the officers behind him opened fire. The man’s body was torn apart by bullet holes. He hadn’t even aimed the gun at Seraph or any of the soldiers. He had meant to be a martyr. The sounds of gunfire started to cease behind Seraph. He let his gun clatter to the ground.
    Seraph stared at the woman’s body.
    “Goddamn it,” he whispered.
    One of the soldiers came up and placed a hand on his shoulder. Seraph’s eyes met his.
    “You tried,” the soldier said.
    The soldier’s words stung him like a bullet wound. He had done just that. Tried. But failed in the end. Seraph stared back at the body of the woman and shook his head in disbelief.
    The Confederate Chamber would have his ass for this. Not only did he get into an affair that he should’ve let security handle, but it was his fault she died. The Chamber didn’t appreciate his methods for handling missions, and the fact that this hostage situation ended badly wasn’t going to do him any favors. They were looking for any excuse to discharge him.
    His methods had once benefited the Chamber, but ever since they’d decided that he was a liability, he’d been kept under close watch, working back-end, pointless missions like the ones on Torca.
    He shifted his focus back to the woman. She was dead, and it was his fault.

 
    CHAPTER 8: MAINSPRING
     
     
     
     
    The last thing Seraph wanted the next morning was to be woken up early. He’d spent at least an hour after the hostage situation lying in bed, replaying the scenario in his mind. Seraph would tell himself that there wasn’t a way he could’ve saved the girl, but deep down, he knew that to be false. If he would’ve sacrificed his own ego and let the soldiers move in, if he hadn’t hesitated to take that shot…
    Eventually he’d fallen asleep, but his dreams all circled back to the dead woman. He knew Sadhis thought him heartless, but he cared just as much about innocent lives as Sadhis did. He saw the whole greater than the parts that made it up, willingly giving death to ten if it would save a hundred.
    A small rumble had woken him up. The entire military command building was shaking gently. He opened his eyes halfway and brought his hand to his face to block the light streaming in the window. Another rumble, this time much louder, caused the building to shake violently. Seraph leapt from the bed and slipped on his standard issue military shirt. He scrambled to grab his pistol from the bedside table.
    As soon as Seraph began walking through his doorway, the building shook again, so hard that Seraph was nearly thrown to the floor. It took him a moment to realize that the building was beyond shaking now; now it was falling, swaying as it collapsed floor by floor. Seraph was thrown against a wall as the building swayed. The floor collapsed and he went crashing down to the room below. He dove to the right as debris came