Conflict: The Expansion Series Book 3 Read online

  “Sir,” Captain Hayes interjected, “we sure it’s UN? I mean, there are plenty of those Hyper assho– people here and their PMCs aren’t exactly team players.”

  “I’m well aware of the fact that the private military detachments with the fleet aren’t to your personal liking, Captain Hayes,” Dassiova said coldly, “but I have it on high authority that our corporate friends aren’t in play on this. In fact, they’re the ones who are helping with the new software and have just as much of a vested interest in keeping their prototype tech out of the hands of everyone who isn’t paying a million credits for a new armor or gun design.”

  Silence filled the room once more after the obvious concerns had been raised, until Massey spoke again.

  “We’ve used the new software patch to shut down the subspace comm array of every ship except the Indomitable, but that just means that the same pattern ends up in this ship being the one to send the messages, and we’re still no closer to figuring it out.”

  “What do you need from us, Admiral?” Captain Novak of the forge ship Anvil asked. Their Russian UNID man who had done so much to ensure the rapid building of the new ships had gone smoothly was beyond suspicion, given how he had been so tireless in ensuring their readiness. He was also infectiously happy and, like many Russians the assembled captains had met, was almost obsessed with everything from the American Territory. The Russians, after formally distancing themselves from the inter-territory squabbles that had threatened war on Earth after the original fleet had gone to the Centauri system, had firmly allied themselves with the British and the Americans.

  “I need you to start from scratch,” Dassiova said, “wipe all comm protocols and authorities from every one of your personnel and limit that access to a rolling encryption accessible via the bridge rotations. If we get another transmission, we’ll have a smaller pool to fish in.” Dassiova stood and smoothed down the body of his flight suit. “Now, if you wouldn’t mind making your ships ready, we’ll be heading out to sea at oh-six-hundred tomorrow. Dismissed.”

  Chapter One – Proxima Centauri

  Present Day

  The subspace sensor array left behind on their last visit to the Centauri system – the one hastily jury rigged and dumped at the same time as they jumped from the system after destroying the Va’alen’s only way to bring in reinforcements from wherever it was they came from – had been sending back a steady stream of intel. That intel, as sporadic as it had become over the last few months, served to show that at least their jump entry point was safe and free of the swarms of alien ships that had forced them to flee the system.

  Nobody considered that by destroying their enemy’s only way of leaving the system, they’d also condemned every Va’alen left stranded to fight for another way home.

  When the Ninth Fleet first arrived, so desperately underpowered and under-gunned, they had no clue that there were other races already there. That one of those races was a war-like species, capable of fighting with all the destructive power of an entire squad of human troops even equipped with the latest weapons tech Earth had to offer, was naively unexpected. The footage of Brandt’s small team engaging the pair of Va’alen on the eerily dark surface of Proxima had been classified to begin with, and after it had been studied and enhanced and picked over by so many experts, that footage had been clipped, sanitized and extracts had been made available to the fighting strength of each ship’s complement for educational and training purposes.

  Quickly, Zero and the others had become legends among the fleet, although every bit of footage containing Specter had been painstakingly removed, and that sense of celebrity spread like wildfire.

  None of them liked that, obviously, especially as the two special operators – Brandt and Zero – had that ingrained need for anonymity. Brandt couldn’t avoid people knowing who she was, not when she was the ground commander of the fleet’s recon ship, but Zero enjoyed walking around in his plain flight suit with no badge of rank or name tape. Even if he had worn his rank and name, that of Master Petty Officer James Conrad, he doubted anyone but a few of the crew would have known who he was.

  Now they were off-base and out in deep space – ‘at sea’ as they called it in some archaic throwback to their naval origins – it was far less of an issue, but the last few months on the Mars base and on the floating shipyards in orbit, he had been annoyed by every other person who found out who he was wanting to high five him or slap him on the back for simply doing his job.

  “Why do they have to be like that about it?” Zero had asked Brandt when they were alone after a briefing.

  “Just relax,” Brandt told him, knowing that it was really the attention he disliked, as though it painted a target on his back, “them seeing you makes them feel like we have super soldiers on our side. People are scared of the Va’alen and they need something to get behind. Something to believe in.”

  “We have a super soldier, only people outside of this crew don’t know he exists,” Zero grumbled back.

  Brandt, of all people, didn’t need reminding of that fact. Jake Santana, or at least the parts of him that hadn’t died and had been remade into Specter, had been kept from them almost the entire time they were resupplying and refitting on Mars. Zero hadn’t known him before, but as Specter was one of his team, he felt an affinity and a responsibility towards the cyborg. Spector had returned only for the last stages of their build-up training and Brandt was so busy with her duties as a commander that she barely had time to even acknowledge him. She ignored Zero’s complaints about their classified team mate and changed the subject.

  “How are you feeling about staying on the Ichi?” she asked. After the mission reports from Proxima and his initiative in finding out more of the story between the Kuldar and the Va’alen, he had been offered promotion to Command Chief and the lead of his own CP team. He’d kept his face neutral and his voice stoic as he’d politely asked if it was an offer or an order, before turning it down. But he was resolute in his choice to remain on the crew of the Ichi under Brandt’s command.

  “Fine,” he drawled, drawing the word out in a way that added a little shine to his accent, “the way I see it, if they want to pin another shiny on my chest for just doin’ my job and give me my own team, then that offer’s just as likely to be on the table when we get back after this trip. If it aint? Well, at least I’m where I wanna be right now. I’ve already made Master off the back of this, and some publicity stunt making me Chief half a dozen years ahead of the curve just smells like propaganda to me. No, ma’am; that dog won’t hunt.”

  Brandt nodded, accepting his stilted compliment even if he didn’t know he’d given it to her. Before anything else could be said between them, the ship’s intercom buzzed.

  “Commander Brandt to the bridge.”

  Brandt stood, recognizing Torres’ clipped tones and also knowing that he had used the intercom because it was faster than hitting the few additional commands on his console to get her comm directly. She stood, told Zero to get to his gun position and left the soldier’s ready room, which had become a kind of duty team crash deck, to walk the short distance past the armory towards the bridge. The doors hissed as they slid open and Brandt walked onto the revamped bridge with the additional tactical station to manage the uprated shielding and weapons arrays. She nodded to Torres, who had glanced up as she entered, and she sat in the seat beside him.

  “Fully charged and ready to go, Captain,” Rogers called out confidently from the helm.

  “Signal from the Indomitable,” the comm officer said, “we’re to jump last again after the Vengeance.”

  Torres nodded his understanding and gave the string of orders that would see them ready for action on their arrival in the Centauri system.

  “Shields to maximum,” he said confidently in a raised voice that demanded immediate compliance, “Helm, plot the course and stand by for my mark. Commander? Are your gunners in position?”

  Brandt looked down at the console to her right, seeing the
four readouts all showing green lights across the board as her troops signaled their readiness.

  “Good to go, Sir,” she answered.

  “The Vengeance has jumped,” the ensign at the tactical station said.

  “Lieutenant Rogers, you can go now.”

  Tense minutes passed as they traveled through the curious nowhere of the Fold Drive’s effect. Very few of them understood exactly how they worked, but the commonly accepted explanation was that the emitters folded space and time so that two places impossibly far apart could be manipulated to be closer together. Instead of the journey between their entry and exit points of this nowhere being thousands of years’ travel apart, it reduced the time to mere minutes. Various terms were used when talking about it; wormhole, FTL, Fold Space, jump. They seemed to collectively settle on each activation being referred to as a ‘jump’ as it seemed the most natural terminology to explain the science in very simple terms.

  “We have the rest of the fleet,” the tactical officer said after their re-emergence into the galaxy.

  “Everyone where they’re supposed to be?” Torres asked.

  “The Anvil is slightly off, but the formation is within limits,” the report came back, satisfying the captain that their jump accuracy problems had been almost entirely solved.

  “Sensors?” Brandt asked, meaning to check if there was any trace of the enemy.

  “Nothing on active sweeps,” tactical responded, “nothing from the sensor buoy or the rest of the fleet.”

  “Understood,” Torres said, “hail the Indomitable.”

  “Incoming comm from the Admiral, Sir,” the comm officer said as she half turned, wearing a smirk that spoke of great minds thinking alike.

  “On screen,” Torres said. Dassiova’s bridge blinked into existence on their large display that gave the impression of their ship having a giant windshield.

  “Captain,” the admiral growled, giving the impression that he was perpetually annoyed with everyone, when that was actually his good mood.

  “Admiral,” Torres answered before pre-empting the orders, “you want us to jump ahead?”

  “Yes,” Dassiova said, “push out a light year and go dark. Indomitable out.”

  Torres, well accustomed to their fleet commander’s brusque style, took no offence at the brevity of the orders and gave his own.

  “Rogers, plot the jump and go when ready,” he said, before catching Brandt’s eye and getting the nod from her that she still had her gunners ready. “Prepare the Shroud device and activate as soon as we drop.”

  The Ichi jumped, appearing in empty space and shimmering out of existence as soon as the ship emerged and setting off at three-quarters sub-light speed on a heading towards the twin suns further into the system. They maintained passive sensor sweeps as they slid along in their invisibility, acting in their primary role as fleet recon far more effectively now that they had been given the addition of the device that masked their visible signature from the prying eyes and devastating weapons of the Va’alen.

  They saw nothing, and their protocol of waiting to see if their jump signature was answered with an incoming squadron of enemy ships yielded nothing. None came, and far from that lack of response giving the Ichi’s crew a sense of bravery and reassurance, it made them all the more nervous.

  “Tac, don’t you take your eyes off the scanners, not even for a second,” Torres said, betraying his nerves at the same time he reminded his crew what was required of them.

  “Yes, Sir,” the young ensign manning that station answered, sounding energized by his captain’s words instead of unsettled.

  ~

  “Set a course for Proxima,” Dassiova ordered, “signal the fleet to follow in formation. A stereo response of “Aye aye,” came from ahead of him as his pilot and fleet-comm officer acknowledged their orders. The plan, which was all going as expected, was to secure the closest end of the system where the dull, red sun gave an eerie glow to the shadowy exoplanet locked in its orbit. That planet, the former temporary home to the rescued Kuldar, was to be secured and retaken before the rest of the fleet pressed closer to the twin suns and the ultimate goal of eradicating the enemy in the system and harvesting the planet that was deemed Earth-like.

  The problem, at least in Dassiova’s mind, was that when plans went so well, there was obviously a monumental setback locked and loaded, ready to fire at him.

  The Venture, the repurposed colony ship which had set the UN back a few billion credits, now held the deployable space station that they planned to drop in deep orbit of Proxima Centauri to be their base in the system; their toe-hold, their beachhead. From there, with their supplies on the Cortez and mobile forge ship, the Anvil, able to rebuild and repair any damage to their fighting ships, they could utilize their Fold Drives to send the fighting elements of the fleet to any part of the system in minutes.

  That was the plan, anyway, and Dassiova knew from hard-earned experience that no plan survived contact with the enemy.

  “Still nothing on sensors?” He growled at the tactical station.

  “Nothing Sir,” came the response, “active or passive.”

  “And the array?” the admiral asked, meaning their automated and shrouded buoy left behind and almost a third of a light year ahead of them.

  “No, Sir. We detected the Ichi jump signature on its long-range sweep but nothing since. Skies are clear, Admiral.”

  Dassiova said nothing but frowned.

  Where the hell are you, you bug bastards? he thought.

  He wasn’t surprised that they’d detected the Ichi jumping in. No matter what they tried, no matter how they recalibrated and regardless of whatever tests they conducted to attempt different ways of dropping out of the artificial wormholes they created, their ships re-emerging into normal space set off a flare on sensors visible for close to a light year. The smaller the ship meant only a slight reduction in the signal spike, so for the massive Indomitable to jump into a system meant that anyone with sensors within two hundred and fifty million kilometers would know about it.

  As much as they didn’t like it, there was no way to mask their arrival in the system, but that didn’t mean that they had to hang around and wait for the Va’alen to turn up and start ripping them up again. He was both apprehensive and excited about the prospect of meeting their enemy again; mostly to prove that the redesigns and upgrades he had insisted on – at astronomical cost – would be up to the task of defeating the aliens who had torn their ships to shreds during their last conflict.

  “Take us in, Mister Moon,” he ordered the chief pilot of the huge carrier flagship.

  “Aye aye,” Moon answered, fingers dancing over his console like a maestro performing a solo recital in front of an audience of thousands.

  “Signal the Venture to start pitching her tent,” he instructed one of the bridge’s comm officers, eager to get their stall set out and their defense array in place so he could go to work.

  So he could start hunting.

  Chapter Two –Alpha Centauri A Orbit

  The Va’alen supreme commander, Muq Da’kath, stalked from his headquarters in a foul temper. All around him, other Va’alen, all of them smaller, scattered from his wrath and all hoped that they weren’t the cause of his evident bad mood. He was the Do-Ch’aal; the First Warrior and leader of the expedition, and he was deeply concerned.

  It’s too soon, he thought angrily to himself, how can the humans be back already?

  He knew that his anger was just a reaction, that it served no good purpose and wasted valuable energy on emotion instead of action. Whether he knew it or not made no difference, because they were back, and his engineers had yet to manufacture enough of the new devices to get his legions out of the system. Even if they had managed it, it would mean them abandoning not only the system and the resources they had found, but it would also mean scuttling so much of their hardware and probably leaving behind more than a few non-essential personnel to the mercy of the humans.

 
He didn’t know if they had any mercy, but he knew for certain that any humans left behind when his forces had run them out of the system would have found no mercy in his treatment; they would have been tortured for every scrap of information they possessed, taken apart piece by piece until they had nothing left to say, before being fed into the biological recyclers to feed his legions.

  He stormed towards the empty engineering bay where the engineers were building and fitting the device they had reversed-engineered into the single ship. On seeing him approach, his fearful entourage scurrying along in his wake, the lead engineer broke away from the production line and ran to kneel before the head of their race.

  “Supreme Commander,” he hissed, his faceless head bowing and the two right arms resting on his right knee as his left sank into the soft earth. The supreme commander paused as he walked past but didn’t break his step, allowing himself a feeling of smug power as the lead engineer rose quickly to his feet and ran to catch up.

  “Tell me when you will finish,” he snarled at the underling.

  “We still need thirty rotations to fit what we have made to the ship. Twice that to test it and make refinements…”

  “Too long,” the commander said, without looking down at the engineer. He just kept his face blank, scanning the workers assembling the devices and guessing that his presence alone had just taken a day off the estimate he had been given. He ignored the engineer, half turning to address a Va’alen half his intimidating size to pose a question he didn’t want the answer to.

  “How many did they bring?”

  The aide hesitated, not for too long, because he had no desire to be the second member of the entourage to have an arm ripped clean off their carapace for failing to answer a question, and then to spend painful days having the limb re-grown. The supreme commander turned a little more to look at her, prompting half an involuntary step backwards before her mate held out the arms on his right side to stop her, making her remember that she was a warrior.