The Expansion Box Set Read online

  The Expansion Series Publisher’s Pack

  Books One & Two

  Devon C. Ford

  Book One

  RECON

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. Any names, characters, incidents and locations portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. No affiliation is implied or intended to any organisation or recognisable body mentioned within.

  Copyright © DHP Publishing 2018

  Devon C Ford asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive and non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen or hard copy.

  No part of the text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered or stored in or introduced into any information storage or retrieval system, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, known or otherwise yet invented, without the express permission of Devon C Ford and DHP Publishing.

  www.devoncford.com

  Cover design by Jamie Glover at:

  www.ceruleanfuture.com

  “The Earth is the cradle of humanity, but mankind cannot stay in the cradle forever.”

  Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

  Prologue

  Prologue – Lunar Arrivals Port

  “What was that?” Jake Santana asked, his ears pricking up and his brow knitted.

  “What was what?” Jamie Paterson answered. His head was half-buried in a shipping container full of machine parts.

  “I heard it too,” the young ensign, Kyle Torres said ominously. “It sounded like it came from the arrivals area. Come on.”

  The three of them walked out of the freight hangar, where the pilot and crew of the detained ship were waving their arms and shouting about their rights being infringed. Jake and the others ignored them, hearing more sounds that made their spines tingle.

  “Something ain’t right,” Jake said. His left hand dropped to the service pistol holstered on his thigh and hovered there. The standing orders not to draw a weapon unless fired upon echoed around his skull. He didn’t draw it, but he kept that hand on the grip, which made him swing the other arm awkwardly as he ran. They rounded a corner, hearing shouts of alarm interspersed with gunfire, then put their heads down and ran the two-hundred-meter length of the tunnel separating them from the main part of the lunar space port.

  “Alpha one from alpha one three,” Torres squeaked into his radio mic, the panic making his voice sound younger and more vulnerable than he already was.

  Jamie looked to him, and received a shake of the head when no answer came. Jamie tried his own radio, shouting the hail louder and more firmly than Torres had done. He repeated the call, but heard nothing back.

  As they neared the end of the tunnel, all three breathing heavily from the run, Jake decided to complete the trifecta and try his own radio.

  “Alpha one fr…”

  A scream tore the air, a person bellowing in guttural pain or anger, followed by the high-pitched, chattering thrum of automatic gunfire.

  Their radios erupted as one and the gravelly sound of their commanding officer’s voice filled their minds.

  “All hands, this is Commander Dassiova. Lunar Port is under attack. I say again, we are under attack. All hands: battle stations. All hands: battle stations.”

  The warning sobered everyone who heard it. Jake, Torres and Jamie all drew their sidearms and stacked up against the wall at the corner before Jake nodded and stepped out with his gun raised. Another metallic chatter of rapid-fire rounds answered his movement, shattering the tiles of the wall and punching holes through the cover where his head had been only moments before.

  “One shooter,” he said, gasping for breath among the dust. “Automatic weapon. Thirty meters.”

  “Draw fire,” Torres said, his voice rising in the panic.

  “No,” Jake snapped. “Keep your head down.”

  “We need to move, Seaman,” Ensign Torres said, a hint of sudden fire in his words.

  “The wheel’s right,” Jamie said as he mocked the young officer. “We’re pinned down here, and that rifle will puncture the dome if we don’t take him out soon.”

  Jake thought about it, his mouth set into a thin line as he considered what he had to do. He didn’t like it one bit.

  “You two break for cover over there,” he said as he pointed across the wide tunnel intersection. “I’ll take the shot.”

  They took off, running low and fast and holding their breath for the few seconds it took for the shooter to dial in their location. The gun sounded again, plumes of debris erupting behind the two runners and growing dangerously close to their heels as they darted across the space. Jake took a breath and stepped out. His gun was up, sighting along the barrel held steady in both hands to where the shooter had been. He squeezed off five fast rounds.

  The chattering gunfire stopped abruptly as the shooter fell to the ground. Jake took two long breaths, staring at the body of the first person he had killed up close. After a beat, he started toward him.

  When he was ten paces away the body blossomed in slow-motion, expanding outward in flame as the explosives strapped to his chest detonated. It was only a small charge, but it was enough to blow the body apart and fling the twisted remains of the automatic rifle past Jake’s head. The velocity would have killed him if he had been just a pace to his left. The other two caught up with him. Jamie said nothing, but Ensign Torres looked ashen. Jake steeled himself and took off at a dead run toward the sound of more gunfire and screams.

  Petty Officer Class Two Leslie Brandt waved two of the grunts from their squad forward. They had done this with a dozen inbound ships on their first day on duty. The most effective way to deal with passenger transport was to bring all of the passengers off and search the ship. They would then separate crew and civilians before searching them through a form of immigration, where their travel documentation and identification scans were completed. It was laborious, time-consuming and none of them felt good about detaining the civilians travelling to and from the Moon. After all, they were just going to work after it had been opened up for commercial travel less than half a year ago.

  Most of the construction teams rotated every six months. They lived and worked on the surface of the Moon under the domes and new energy shields, but the human traffic between the Moon and Earth was still relatively new and subject to security measures.

  Through her earpiece, Brandt heard that another ship was inbound, this one bearing a construction team due to swap with the raucous group currently in departures. Their banter made it clear the waiting group was eager to get back planet-side and spend the double wages they’d earned over the last half-year. There was barely anything on the surface of the Moon to spend them on. One of the other squads was patrolling and searching other areas, and Brandt didn’t know if she or they had drawn the short straw. She left a third seaman overlooking the ship being searched as the passengers clutched their luggage and waited in line to be processed.

  Brandt walked toward the newly arrived ship as it taxied through the airlock. The door popped its seal, hissing as it opened, and the metal staircase was rolled toward the opening. Brandt prepared to go through the same scripted speech, pulling the card from her leg pocket beneath the holstered sidearm, and putting on her fake smile.

  “Welcome to Lunar Arrivals,” she began. “On behalf of the combined terr…”

  She didn’t finish her greeting. Gunfire erupted from the dark recess inside the ship above her, spraying out wildly and causing instant chaos inside the arrivals hangar. Brandt went down, two small rounds puncturing her lower torso, but miraculously missing everything vital. Her head hit the edge of the steps and knocked her out cold as rapid footsteps stomped down the metal ladder.

  The group calling themselves The Freedom to Choose was the cause for the heightened terrorist threat their unit had been briefed about. The group had made public declarations of hostility toward the four main colliders on Earth, the energy source creation machines established to create and harness singularities. This threat had resulted in entire divisions of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force being deployed to push the no-go and no-fly zone out miles further away from the enormous machines.

  The Freedom to Choose objected to humanity pushing the bounds of their natural state and leaving the planet to colonize the closest body in space. They were mostly just making noise until the plans to create the energy-domed colonies on Mars were announced.

  Then the splinter faction of the group, The Choosers, decided on a militant approach. They took up arms to hamper the efforts of the UNPF and private corporations as they spread humanity’s metaphorical wings across the galaxy.

  What had started as a legitimate political movement, like countless other times in human history, had festered and mutated away from its original goals to become something far more dangerous and corrupt than anyone could have envisioned.

  The singularity drives, powered by the new energy source in mass production all over the globe, were capable of continual acceleration in the vacuum of space. This allowed for a journey of less than six hours to reach the Moon. This new technology put Mars colonization well within reach, and the teams working to build the domes to sustain life had been there for almost a decade already, building the basic infrastructure before the expansion plan kicked into high gear.

  The Mars program was officially based at the lunar base and was predominantly staffed by private companies with little to
no UNPF or CTSF, the Combined Territories Security Forces, interaction. They operated on the Moon because it was the one place left they could work outside the law; they claimed their own land and made their own rules just like in the wild west.

  But still, The Choosers had never conducted military-scale attacks before, and Brandt’s men and women were unprepared, poorly armed and caught totally by surprise.

  Armed men and women sprayed indiscriminate bullets everywhere as they flooded off the transport shuttle and into arrivals.

  From the way The Choosers conducted the attack, it was obvious they were on a suicide mission. After the duty unit responded and drew their sidearms to concentrate their fire at the foot of the metal stairs, the invaders’ intention was clear. One of the terrorists was hit, collapsing forward with flailing limbs to make the others scatter panicked away from their downed body. Seconds later the attacker detonated, a suicide vest rigged to their biometrics blowing savagely as the heart stopped and the bomb timer started. The terrorists continued the attack, spreading out and overwhelming the too-few defenders rapidly as pockets of leaderless peacekeepers were pinned down by the superior firepower. There were no heavy-weapon platforms, no automated gun systems and no armed drone surveillance programs operating. The place was still treated as a frontier outstation.

  The secured doors leading out of the area closed in their attack. Other than the hangar airlocks, the only other way out was the long service tunnel to the freight arrival dock. A large pallet containing what looked like a bomb was unloaded from the newly arrived shuttle hovering six inches from the ground, courtesy of the four repulser jets at each corner propelling it quickly across the open space toward the dome edge. The way the terrorists treated it with almost equal care and fear combined with the wires and makeup of the device screamed bomb to anyone watching.

  The sporadic gun battles had faded, becoming an occasional outbreak of firing as both sides ran low on ammunition. Just as the bomb was bumped into the inner dome, a group of three UNPF burst from the access tunnel and sprayed the three terrorists arming the device. If they weren’t stopped it would rip open the dome and depressurize them all out into space.

  Jake was sweating and out of breath when he reached the main arrivals hangar, more from the adrenaline than the physical exercise. Glancing around the corner, he realized they were on the near side of what looked like an explosive device. It seemed to be being rigged to blow underneath one of the main support beams of the huge dome. He ducked back and filled the others in.

  “Bomb,” he said, his eyes wide with adrenalized fear. “They’re trying to blow the goddamned dome!”

  “We can’t let that happen,” Torres said, stating the obvious with all the manly gusto he could summon.

  “Duh,” Paterson said, embarrassing the boy. “Not if we like living.”

  “On three,” Jake said as he gripped his service pistol, which felt inadequate for the challenge. “One, two… three.”

  They stepped out and opened fire, dropping the three people rigging the device as the small 6mm subsonic rounds drilled into their bodies and expanded on impact. Their bodies exploded before the three ambushers reached them. Jake saw the detonator—the flashing lights of the display indicated ‘ready’ beside a red button with the clear plastic safety shield raised.

  Movement to his right caught his eye as another terrorist burst into view; he was a ragged-looking man about Jake’s age but his eyes displayed none of the discipline and belief that the seaman possessed. The two men raised their guns at one another. Both pulled their triggers at the same time, and both guns clicked. Jake’s gun had run dry and the old machine gun in the hands of the terrorist jammed. Both men’s eyes went wide, and both reacted at the same time.

  Jake stepped back, dropping the magazine out and grabbing another from his right hip to slap it forward into the gun. He almost made it but having to keep his eyes on the advancing terrorist threw off his aim and the magazine struck the housing and didn’t sit snugly. He glanced down to try and make it fit, to will it into the housing so he could draw back the slide and drill the bastard. He’d keep shooting until the gun clicked dry once more. Jake finally managed to get the magazine in and grip the short slide to feed a round into the chamber just as his eyes met his attacker’s. He pulled the trigger, snatching it fast and repeatedly to pump bullet after bullet into his chest.

  But the other man didn’t go down.

  Each report of Jake’s pistol was answered by the sound of crackling electricity and a metallic thudding noise. Every shot he fired just bounced off the man who was quickly on him, knocking the gun from his grasp. They grappled. Jake maneuvered to allow the forward momentum of his attacker to become his downfall. He took two fast paces backward, grabbing the man’s collar below his snarling mouth and throwing his right leg up and over the man’s neck as he spun to bring him down. This was what his training had taught him to do through repetition. They landed in a heap, Jake’s strong, conditioned arms and legs wrapped around his thinner opponent. He doubled down on his hold to choke his scrawny neck between his thighs.

  The man was trapped, choking slowly and powerless to break free of the robust hold the soldier had on his throat. His right hand fluttered at Jake’s groin, weakly trying to grab his balls and use them as the key to open the lock, but Jake snatched hold of his wrist and pulled it tight.

  The terrorist’s eyes bulged from the added pressure and pain. His focus darted to the sparking cable lying between the blood and viscera beside them. It had been damaged by the explosion of one of his own people. The man’s eyes darted back to Jake’s again, just as his left hand made a desperate grab for the cable.

  Jake made an instant, instinctive judgment call and released his prisoner, unwrapping his legs and rolling away like he had been electrocuted, which was exactly what he feared. Instead of frying him, though, the terrorist grabbed the cable and thrust the exposed live wire into his own mouth. He jerked like a landed fish, and as the electricity stopped his heart, it also stopped and started the one-second fuse to detonate the device on his chest.

  Jake rolled in panic, but he couldn’t get away fast enough. Just as he got to his feet in a crouch, the bomb went off. The blast had been contained and shaped to explode outward like a wide blade of unstoppable energy, cutting Jake’s legs off in a spray of red mist as it atomized everything between his thighs and his ankles.

  His right arm was blown away in ragged, spinning chunks by shrapnel thrown in the blast and some of those same fragments embedded themselves in his back and skull.

  His eardrums imploded with the concussive force of the detonation, and the world went dark for him in a blinded instant.

  Leslie Brandt opened her eyes and blinked herself back into consciousness. The pain ravaged her left flank where the bullets had passed through her flesh. She was dazed, confused, and her eyes focused on the distant view of Jake reloading his pistol faster than she had ever seen.

  She saw the muzzle flashes, saw the man who wasn’t wearing visible armor keep coming at him. It was like this man was wired on stims in order to feel no pain. Instead of going down, he threw himself at her friend. She saw Jake incapacitate him and smiled a little to herself. There was nobody in their squad better at grappling on the mats than he was. But that smile turned to horror, then to fear as she saw him scrambling to escape.

  She watched the explosion, watched his almost limbless body flung away at an odd angle. The ravaged and burned torso spun sickeningly to a stop thirty paces from her. She began to crawl to him, willing her arms and legs to move faster. But just as she reached desperately from a dozen paces away to try and touch him, her consciousness fled and left her in the same inky dark.

  1

  The Previous Day, Lunar Approach