Chapter 2

This is an unedited first look at my next project! Scene details may change before the final draft, but the gist of the story is there. You may find the odd typo or a sentence that doesn’t read quite right, but all that will be polished up before publication.

The tactical plot above the planning table swelled with red contacts. Sergeant Ned Bresto gripped the arms of his jump seat, watching the tiny blue dot labeled CDNS Gauntlet try to outrun the multiple raider craft pinging the holoprojected display. Around the table, company-grade officers and NCOs sat shoulder to shoulder, white-knuckling their way through the transport’s rapid acceleration. 

The ops deck wasn’t built for this many bodies. Sweat and uniform starch turned the air a humid mess. It reeked of tension wrapped in crisp white-and-grays. Fresh faces and clean uniforms. None of them looked ready for what was coming.

Except for Kull. She sat across from him, blonde hair cut chin length to a militant edge, spine straight despite the crushing acceleration. Her mouth made a hard line as she tracked the incoming contacts. The gold and silver pips on her collar marked her as a major, but seeing her next to the others, it was clear: she was cut from different stone. A proper Aegian.

The tactical plot screamed warnings as new contacts streamed from the Identify-Friend-or-Foe feeds. Multiple raider destroyers, their predicted firing solutions tracking the orbital station designated Three-Alpha. Dozens of corvettes and strike fighters swarmed the larger ships in undisciplined escort patterns. But something about this felt different. Organized.

He’d never seen so many squid ships in one place. The raiders mostly kept to the edges of colonial space, picking off supply flights that strayed too far from the patrol lanes. And yet, the raiders weren’t the most dangerous things in the battlespace over the planet Aegia.

A large orb flashed red and blue, just thirty thousand meters from Three-Alpha. The confused IFF feed read CDNS Gerrund Halsey, one of only two heavy cruisers in the entire Colonial Defense Forces fleet. But incoming tac net data showed its rail guns hammering the besieged orbital and any friendly ships that came in range.

Bresto knew this wasn’t a friendly fire situation, or some attempted coup like the long-ago Golden Age. The Concordat, humanity’s archenemy, had returned. And they’d turned the CDF’s own ships against them. He didn’t know exactly how, but he’d seen enough of how they operated to hope, Twelfth willing, there wasn’t a single living soul left aboard.

Another large orb, colored a bright red dead, pulsed at the forward edge of the raider swarm: a Concordat forge ship. IFF returns flashed NO KNOWN MATCH, instead coloring and sizing the ship’s icon based on tonnage and threat estimates. There was no icon big enough, no color dangerous enough, to reflect the threat that thing posed. Bresto had been inside it. Fought the archenemy’s terrible machines and barely made it out alive.

Holy Mother, curse them all. He’d seen the truth with his own eyes. Ships like that had scoured Earth centuries ago, killing that precious blue world and leaving the remnants of humanity clinging to survival inside the Cradle Nebula. A survival that, until two weeks ago, had seemed all but assured. And its presence here, now, left no question that his last mission had utterly failed.

“Hold! On!” Runt’s broken colonial standard rumbled over the ops deck’s PA.

A burst of thrust gravity pinned Bresto to his seat. Above the holoproj, the Gauntlet’s vector line pitched hard to port, responding to some danger only Runt could see. The wolf was a damn good pilot. If there was a way through, she’d find it.

Another blue orb winked out—the CDNS Incandescent—a science vessel, according to the IFF. A rapidly expanding white orb replaced it, warning that the blast radius of its reactor death was just seconds away from the Gauntlet’s tiny dot.

The entire shipbegan to shudder. Lights and screens flickered from the electromagnetic interference riding the wave of charged particles from the Incandescent’s demise. It felt as if the Twelfth Herself had reached out and shook the transport like a child’s plaything.

“Shit,” the major seated across from him said as the shaking eased, more of a statement of fact than anything. “Remind me to thank our pilot.”

The other officers and non-comms smirked their uneasy agreement.

“Runt’s the best, ma’am.” Bresto eyed the cockpit hatch embedded in the forward bulkhead, then grunted quietly, “This damned ship though, not so much.”

“The lupanthae are bred for the void,” Kull said, almost wistfully. “Amazing what natural selection will do when your entire species exists on a few dozen starships.”

Bresto nodded. “Ma’am.”

Kull sat forward in her chair, eyes focusing on the display floating above the center of the table. She reached out a hand, then paused.

“May I?” she asked.

“You’re the ranking officer.” Bresto stifled a frown. “It’s your ship, ma’am.”

“A technicality.” The display reacted to her touch, rotating as she flicked the edges of the holoproj’s field with her fingers. “Where is Lieutenant Park, anyway?”

Bresto thumbed the nub of his left ring finger through his glove. A nervous tick he’d picked up somewhere years back. Details of his and Park’s mission were classified, and he doubted Kull had the red-level clearance required for them. And while that mission might technically be over, there would be serious repercussions. There had been a tribunal back aboard Three-Alpha. Lots of flag officers. Even a councilman. And that was before the Concordat followed them home. He wasn’t about to invite more trouble.

Kull blinked. “Do you know where your CO is, Sergeant?”

“Classified, ma’am.”

The Twelfth does not hold in Her hand liars and cheats, went the old refrain. But he hadn’t lied, not really. Just because he didn’t know where Park was, didn’t mean the lieutenant’s location wasn’t a secret.

Kull opened her mouth to speak when her gaze returned to the strategic display. A flat disc labeled Orbital Two-Gamma cast a blue glow on her face. Dozens more blue orbs, tiny next to the massive orbital, clung to the edges of the disc. One labeled CDNS Victory began to flash when she touched it.

“There she is.” Kull smiled, then tapped the communicator on her wrist. “Colonel Reede, this is Major Kull.”

Silence fell over the ops deck as the tac nets routed Kull’s transmission. IFF feeds and ship schematics flickered to life beside the Victory’s tiny blue avatar. It was an exped, an expeditionary transport, built to ferry six exo-reinforced companies of Marines almost anywhere in the Three Colonies in under 48 hours. Except Vestia. That backwater was weeks away even on the fastest light chasers.

The communicator chirped an acknowledgement. “Reede here. Sitrep, Major.”

“En route from Three-Alpha, sir.” Kull squinted at the holoprojection. “ETA is fifteen mikes, if the raiders don’t fuck us on the way.”

“Copy,” Reede said, his gravelly voice fading between squalls of static. “What’s going on out there? Tac nets are backed up and what I am getting is a little hard to believe.”

“Believe it, Skipper. We’ve got a genuine Concordat ship in high orbit, making an end run for Aegia.” The major’s eyes locked on Bresto. There was a hint of something primal in them, deeper than fear, then gone in a blink. “CDF forces have engaged the Lost at Three-Alpha.”

“Holy Mother,” Reede began, then the transmission went silent. A few seconds later, “Solid copy, Major. Any good news?”

“I liberated your command staff from the O-Club,” she said to another round of light laughter before catching Bresto’s eye again. “Not to mention some wayward Marines in need of more enemies to kill.”

A grizzled NCO, a first sergeant according to the mass of black pips on his collar, wrinkled his permanent frown in an approving nod.

“And it’s a good thing,” Kull went on. “I guarantee we’re not the only ones with personnel stuck planetside right now.”

“Not for long,” Reede said. “As soon as we clear our moorings, we’re burning hard for low orbit.”

“What’s the mission, sir?” Kull asked.

“Vestebrae.” The word buzzed through the choppy interference. “We’re to reinforce Planetary Reserve efforts to prepare for a possible assault on the capital.”

Angry heat rose in Bresto’s core, like a lava vent ready to explode. Lyra, Sammy, and Kaffy were down there, less than a click away from Aegia’s capital settlement. Lyra had a commission in the PR, and if she was being mustered, that meant their children would be with their block captain down in the shelters.

He let out a slow breath. The Holy Mother would keep them safe. Just like She had always done for Her people, from Dead Earth to the Cradle. Yes, they’d be safe. Even if his duties took him somewhere else. 

“Transmitting mission packet now.” Reede’s tone grew solemn. “Twelfth keep you, Major.”

“Don’t worry, sir,” Kull said with a grin. “We’ll be there in plenty of time to dress for the ball. Kull out.”

The major pulled a datapad from her shoulder bag and watched the screen with a frown.

“I guess the tac nets really are jammed,” she said when the device finally pinged. “Shouldn’t be possible on quantum data freqs.”

“All our tech is based on theirs,” a lieutenant seated next to her said. “Makes sense they could affect it.”

“They can definitely do that,” Bresto said.

“Just great. One more thing to add to the list.” Kull sighed, then her datapad chimed again. She swiped the screen with a lazy finger. “Huh. An alert bulletin from the Autonomous Weapons Division.”

“Twelfth-damned bot jockeys.” The lieutenant beside her laughed. “Where the hell are they now? So much for the future of colonial defense.”

The first sergeant at the edge of the group cleared his throat, somehow looking meaner than before. Kull set the datapad down, her eyes still fixed on Bresto.

“Don’t take it personally, First Sergeant,” the lieutenant went on. “I’m just saying, the Alexander Lehman is parked in high orbit thirty thousand clicks out and I don’t see a single drone in the battlespace.”

“They’ll be here.” Bresto had no love for the Division either. There was something unholy about what it took to be a bot jockey—circuitry in their brains and all. But he’d fought with one of them back aboard the forge ship, a smart ass ace named Kerry Sevvers. Even grown to respect him. He didn’t like parting ways when they did, but Kull outranked him and needed a ride.

“You don’t say, Sergeant.” Kull’s tone took on a frosty edge. She slid the datapad across the table, one hand drifting to her side.

Bresto blinked. His own face stared back at him from the screen, right next to the face of Kerry Sevvers. Large block text scrolled beneath the images in caution yellow.

Master Specialist Kerry Sevvers: Wanted for the unsanctioned use of Division combat intelligences. Sergeant Ned Bresto: Wanted in connection to the escape of Kerry Sevvers from Division custody.

Major Kull placed her sidearm, a CP-6 standard-issue blaster pistol, flat on the table in front of her with a heavy clunk. She angled the barrel toward him, her finger flat against the trigger guard.

“I’m waiting, Sergeant.”

Bresto met the major’s glare, anger once again hot behind his eyes. At least they hadn’t named Olsom, Myers, and the twins. They were in the cargo bay with the other Marines, had acted on his orders, and Kull didn’t seem above spacing all of them on her way back to the Victory.

The lie stuck in his throat, but only for a second. “Classified, ma’am.”

“Cridshit.” The pistol’s capacitor whined as Kull flicked the safety off. “There’s a war on, and I don’t have time to drag you back to Division HQ.”

“Sevvers reports to Lieutenant Park, same as me,” Bresto said. At least, Sevvers used to, before everything went to shit. “Suggest you take it up with our CO. Ma’am.”

Kull’s gaze narrowed, her finger reaching for the trigger. “You expect me to believe you had lawful orders to break some skeeg out of a Division brig?”

Bresto leaned his bulk over the table, splayed fingers jabbing its polymer surface. The mouthy lieutenant jerked a pistol from his holster and leveled it unceremoniously at Bresto’s face.

“That skeeg’s the only reason the lieutenant and I are still breathing,” he said between slow, practiced breaths, snatching a quick glance at the second weapon pointed at him. There was a nervous energy in the lieutenant’s eyes. He wouldn’t shoot.

Kull would.

“That might be the first true thing you’ve said in the last five minutes, Sergeant,” she said, the hint of a smile lifting the corner of her mouth.

Klaxons roared to life, their frantic tone piercing in the small ops deck. Running lights in the bulkheads switched to danger red, pulsing in time with the bleating alarms. The strategic display rotated on its own, tracking the Gauntlet’s current location. Raider fighters appeared at the edge of the globe, three smaller points of light closing fast, their firing solutions tracking.

A long, melancholy chord erupted over the PA. Runt’s warning call. This was going to be close.

“That’s wolf speak for tuck it in,” Bresto growled. “You want to finish this now, ma’am?”

“You watch your mouth,” the lieutenant sneered, motioning with his pistol as if to remind Bresto it was still there.

“Later, sir.”

Kull lifted a hand and waved for the lieutenant to holster his sidearm. He did so, his angry stare locked on Bresto as he thumbed the holster strap closed. The major did the same, pausing to safety her weapon. The capacitor discharge sounded almost disappointed.

“As you say, Sergeant.” Kull leaned back in her chair and tightened her straps. “Later.”

“Aye, ma’am.” Bresto brought his wrist comms to his lips. “Myers, you copy?”

The connection was instantaneous. “Yes, Sarnt?”

“You tell those trigger pullers back there to buckle up.” The raider fighters’ weapons vectors began flashing rapidly. “We’ve got incoming.”