Soldiers of Misfortune: Trial By Fire

By Kyle Winter

A tortured past, a strange addiction, and a secret identity. What will it take stop the nightmares?

Son of the richest man in the galaxy, Dante Opulen has a colorful past. He's an award-winning holo-film star, a war hero, a husband and a father. Despite his success, Dante struggles with the nightmares of his past. To pass the sleepless nights, he's become a masked vigilante. He stalks the streets at night looking to scrub clean the human refuse that lurk in the shadows. And to aid in his pursuit he's become addicted to expensive surgical procedures that cybernetically enhance his abilities.

How many implants will it take before he feels strong enough? How many criminals must he apprehend before the nightmares end? Is such a thing even possible?

There's only one way to find out.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kyle Winter
• Release date: Dec 11, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005496609

Kyle Winter

Having failed as an author bio writer, I decided to try my hand at science-fiction. I'm basically just a guy who takes my imaginary friends too seriously.When not running my characters through a gauntlet of misery I run paper & pencil RPG's, get beat up at jiu-jitsu and train my dog not to put his junk on things.

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Trial By Fire

Kyle Winter

Copyright © 2019 by Kyle Winter

All rights reserved.

Edited by Patrick Burdine.

Cover illustration by Kyle Winter.

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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Corporations run the universe. The money we earn working for them is spent on their products. That feeling of safety and stability they provide means their marketing campaigns are working. Every aspect of our lives is controlled or manipulated in some way by people at the top of the corporate food chain and we are forced to live in their shadows.

Most companies are willing to conduct clandestine operations to drive their competitors into the ground. Blackmail, vandalism, thievery, kidnapping, and murder are just some of the ways companies knock each other down a peg. No self-respecting businessman would sully his hands with such a project, thus an underground network of civilian operatives fills that need.

Individuals who are brave (or insane) enough to assist in these secret missions are rewarded with either a fat check or a dirt nap. Due to the dangerous and unpredictable nature of these missions, civilian operatives are often called…

Soldiers of Misfortune

Also in this series:

Novels

Parasite Lost

Forerunners Anthology

Short Stories

Trial By Fire (Forerunners)

Cradle to the Grave (Forerunners)

The Black Maw (Forerunners)

Grudge Match (Forerunners)

Trial By Fire

Private Jinks cradled his knees and stared in horror as smoke rose from a hole in Sergeant McHain’s skull. Jinks and the rest of his squad were virgins to combat, and the slow orbital rotation of this planet made the already grueling daylight hours even longer. They weren’t used to staying awake for twenty hours a day, and the resulting stress caused their nerves to grow taut like a steel cable waiting to snap.

Intense heat baked them. Their uniforms clung to them like thick, musky saran wrap. Their fingers were raw from holding their metal weapons. Blistering heat branded faint handle patterns and maker’s marks into their palms. Munitions powder, sweat and desperation made the claustrophobic space stink. Fluids seeped out of Sergeant McHain’s wound and onto the concrete, which added a tangy metallic smell to the grim potpourri.

One of the other soldiers stranded in the bunker, Private Gerns, peered through the embrasures. A haze of smoke blurred his view of the tropical paradise he and his squad mates were stranded in. It also hid the myriad things trying to kill them. He saw a flicker of movement and a swirl of dust. They had been using defensive chain cannon to fire into the haze but, despite their best efforts, all the squad had done was chew up the earth surrounding the bunker and cut down a few trees. Enemy infiltrators were still closing in, hidden by the dust and debris choking the air. Gerns was tempted to fire at the wisps of movement in the forest before he remembered that was how Sergeant McHain got a face full of shredder rounds. A throaty bark echoed out from the trees. It wasn’t human.

You hear that? Private Gerns asked.

A return bark echoed from the opposite side of the forest. Everyone clutched their weapons and tried to ignore the ten-legged arthropod scuttling across their dead sergeant. Its jagged mandible pinched open and closed, tugging at flesh and tendons as it searched around his head wound for something worth eating. Private Sloan retched as the arthropod tugged at the sergeant’s exposed brain.

Get on the horn with command, we need reinforcements, Private Hammar ordered. With their only officer dead, the men were thankful to have some direction. Private Jinks grabbed the sat radio off sergeant McHain’s body and attempted to get in touch with command. He switched on the comm and spoke into the receiver. When he only heard static, he switched channels and tried again. Another series of taunting barks echoed around them.

What do we do now? Gerns asked.

What can we do? Sloan said, wiping bile from his lip. This was supposed to be a get your feet wet mission, not a damn suicide run.

Maybe command already knows we’re frakked and is sending in backup.

Don’t be an idiot. We can’t patch through to them and we’re in the middle of nowhere, anyway.

Both of you, shut up, Hammar ordered.

Their comments weren’t helpful, and he needed to focus. He peered through the smoke to get a handle on the