Stone Soldiers 4: Shades of War by C. E. Martin Read Free Book Online Page A

a heavy boot crushed into his groin. He felt his hips dislocate under the impact even as he was pulled through the air and tossed over the soldier’s head. Before he could stop himself, he had crashed into the object on the chamber's central pedestal.
    After the pieces had settled, the flying man picked himself up, holding his weight on his hands as his body hastily repaired his legs. Then he screamed in rage as he noticed the shattered, green pieces of his most prized possession, laying in broken bits on the floor around him.
    "Mothership? You really are crazy," the soldier announced from atop the pedestal.
    Then he slammed a fist down, his entire body weight and all his concentration behind it. The large fist smashed into the wounded flying man’s kneecap, tearing it free and causing it to slid around, under his skin, to a position behind the knee.
    The soldier unleashed another mighty blow, but the wounded man caught it with one hand. "Do you know what you've done?" the flying man demanded.
    The soldier pulled his hand free, slipping it around and grabbing his opponent’s wrist. He immediately followed this up with a vicious palm strike to the back of the elbow. The flying man’s arm suddenly bent backwards.
    "No, Clint, what have I done?"
    At the mention of his real name, the downed man’s face contorted. It contorted to the point of transformation. His whole body seemed to shrink to a far thinner frame. The whiskers on his face and the hair on his head lengthened by several inches. But as quickly as he his body had withered, he swelled back up again, his beard and hair shortening, his limbs and chest swelling with muscles.
    "Don't call me that!" the man named Clint demanded. "That was my Earth name!"
    "Earth name? Just who do you think you are?"
    “Your death!” Clint spit out. His arm suddenly snapped back straight, and his legs quickly straightened as well, his body instantly healed in one quick transformation.
    The soldier had been waiting for that.
    “Not today,” he said, his hand suddenly filled with a sawed-off, double-barreled rifle. The barrels were pressed firmly against Clint’s face, over his left eye.
    The parahuman could see up the barrel of the weapon where a sparkling red gem was pointed at him. Even as he recognized the enchanted crystal, the gun fired, and the makeshift projectile rocketed forward.
    Clint had used all his remaining energy reserves in this brief fight, repairing the tremendous damage inflicted on him by the soldier. He had put all his energy into healing his body and turning it into a powerful, nearly indestructible mass of dense flesh and bone. He had no energy left for moving at speeds faster than bullets.
    The enchanted crystal smashed into Clint’s eye, obliterating it before entering his cranium. It tunneled through his brain then struck his skull. Had it been a regular bullet, the round would have flattened against the now-unbreakable bone. But it was not. It was an enchanted crystal- taken from his own follower. An unbreakable gem.
    The makeshift projectile erupted out the back of Clint’s head, then buried itself into the floor of the chamber. His body fell lifeless to the floor.
    Clint watched as the soldier stepped back and nudged the body with one foot. He watched it from above the floor, where he was now floating in the air. He felt as though he should be rising slowly upward, but he resisted the sensation and remained in place.
    The soldier rolled the body over and felt for a pulse. Satisfied his enemy was dead, he holstered his double-barreled weapon. Clint watched as he began to investigate the chamber.
    The soldier walked to one of the large silver tubes and touched it. The shining metal began to retract into the floor, revealing a glass-like tube filled with smoke and ice. The soldier leaned in closer, peering into the tube.
    “I’ll be damned!” he said.
    He may have said more, but Clint’s view of the world was quickly fading away. His last view of his