Alien Firestorm (Fire and Rust Book 2) Read online

  Alien Firestorm

  Fire and Rust Book 2

  Anthony James

  Contents

  I. The Death of Satra

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  II. Meat Storage

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  © 2019 Anthony James

  All rights reserved

  The right of Anthony James to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed upon the subsequent purchaser

  Illustration © Tom Edwards

  TomEdwardsDesign.com

  Cover Typography by Covermint Design

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  I

  The Death of Satra

  Chapter One

  “This is it folks,” said Jake Griffin, captain of the Hunter class light cruiser Star Burner. “New Destiny.”

  “Bringing it up on the viewscreen,” said Lieutenant Cassie Dominguez.

  Griffin shook off the lingering aftereffects of the recent emergence from lightspeed and fixed his eyes on the sensor feed. His instrumentation told him the planet New Destiny was a quarter of a million klicks away, but the image was sharp enough.

  “Looks beautiful.”

  “Same as it always was, Lieutenant Kenyon. Your first visit?”

  “Yes, sir. A tourist paradise.”

  “It’s a bit more than that.”

  It was understandable why New Destiny was still thought of as a holiday destination. From here in space, its azure blues and lush greens made it appear like the closest thing to Earth in the entire Unity League.

  “Two weeks of shore leave.” Dominguez couldn’t keep the excitement from her voice. “First in over a year.”

  “Sounds like you’ve got a hot date lined up.”

  “Right. Like I get on all the FTL dating sites when we’re out on patrol.”

  Griffin rubbed his hands together. “Shore leave,” he repeated. “They call it the peace dividend.”

  “Except we’re not really at peace, are we?” Kenyon wasn’t normally one to break the mood, yet here he was giving it his best shot.

  “We aren’t shooting at the Fangrin and that’s what counts,” Griffin replied, trying to keep it light. “The Raggers aren’t here, so I’m going to have some fun.”

  “I didn’t know senior officers were permitted to have fun, sir,” said Dominguez. “I thought there was a regulation making it a court-martial offense.”

  “I’ll take the punishment.”

  Griffin fed power into the propulsion system and the cruiser accelerated strongly. Its sublight fuel levels were low and the tharniol drive’s reserves were nearly depleted. On top of that, the Star Burner was only patched up after the railgun strike it suffered a couple of months ago in a fight with Ragger spaceships. All the status lights were green, yet the controls didn’t feel exactly right. The spaceship required a complete overhaul and that’s exactly what it was going to receive here on New Destiny.

  “Want me to let someone know we’re here?” asked Kenyon.

  “I was enjoying the peace,” said Griffin. “Check in with Durham, please.”

  The Durham military base was the only ULAF facility on the planet with the capability to refit a spaceship like the Star Burner. Some of the more industrialized planets in the Unity League – such as Earth - had a dozen such shipyards. The Durham yard was well-run and the Star Burner didn’t have enough tharniol to reach one of the bigger yards.

  “Uh, Durham’s on alert, sir.”

  That wasn’t expected.

  “What kind of alert?”

  “The maximum kind of alert,” said Kenyon, suddenly all business. “I’m trying to find out what the hell is going on. This is definitely not an exercise.”

  “Commencing surface scans,” said Dominguez. “We’re too far away for me to get you a fast result.”

  “I need answers,” said Griffin.

  His mind spun with the possibilities. The Unity League had signed a declaration of peace with the Fangrin exactly seven weeks ago. The details were still to be ironed out, but there had been no reported confrontation between the two sides since the accord.

  Which left only one possibility.

  “Raggers? It can’t be,” he said. “How did they manage to locate New Destiny?”

  Griffin was speculating, but when you were in the dark about a maximum alert, guesswork was all you had.

  Kenyon pieced together an outline from the comms. “The base lost contact with its two Hunter classes thirty minutes ago, sir. They were in orbit and then they stopped reporting in.”

  “Do we have sightings of enemy warships?” Griffin felt the frustration rising. “Dammit, do we have anything?”

  “Negative to both, sir. The base sent an FTL distress signal twenty-nine minutes ago. It’s got a long way to go to reach anyone.”

  “Lieutenant Dominguez, check for wreckage. Lieutenant Kenyon, see if you can speak to anyone on those cruisers.”

  “I already tried, sir,” said Kenyon. “We’re linked into the planetary comms satellites and neither the UL Craster nor the UL Vincent are offering a receptor.”

  “Shit,” said Griffin. The planet was a long way off, but he didn’t want to fly in blind. If this was the Raggers, the aliens would blow the Star Burner to pieces in moments. “Get me something.” He struck the front of his console with his gloved fist. “How the hell did they know where to come?”

  “If this is the Raggers, they could have pulled the coordinates from the Fangrin comms data they took off Zevrol,” said the warship’s engine officer, Lieutenant Kroll. He’d been quiet up until now and his first words weren’t exactly welcome. “New Destiny is one of the four Unity League worlds the Fangrin know about.”

  “There’s nothing here!” said Dominguez. “Oceans, forests, cities! A place to take two weeks of shore leave with a cocktail in one hand and a book in the other.”

  “Maybe the Raggers don’t know there’s nothing here. Maybe they saw a target and came for a look.”

  “If they know about New Destiny, they know about three more of our planets,” said Griffin. “Send out an FTL comm. Recommend every planet goes on full alert.”

  “If the Raggers unscrambled that comms data, the Fangrin are going to have their hands full in the near future,” said Lieutenant Carina Jeffrey. “Same way we are.”

  “That depends how it was encrypted wit
hin the Fangrin data arrays,” said Kroll. “We don’t know for sure. The Raggers might have only extracted a fraction of the information so far.”

  “It’s not going to get any better, is it?”

  The planet, which had recently appeared so inviting, now seemed diminished - a place which threatened death rather than a place which promised happiness.

  “Lieutenant Dominguez? Have you located a target?”

  “I can’t see shit, sir. You know how hard the Ragger ships are to find. If they’re sitting in place above the planet’s surface without firing their weapons, I might never find them.”

  The words were painful but true. “Have the enemy made contact with anyone?”

  “Negative, sir,” said Kenyon. “And we’re only assuming it’s Raggers.”

  “It seems safe to assume the worst.”

  Kenyon swore with surprise. “The base is receiving a stream of data through the comms network. They don’t recognize the source.”

  “What’s the data? Can they track it?”

  “Waiting on a response, sir.”

  The response didn’t come immediately. The Star Burner was within a hundred thousand klicks of the planet’s surface and Griffin didn’t want to commit himself to an engagement without more facts. This situation filled him with a sense of dread. He maintained speed and the planet came ever closer. The patterns of clouds above the oceans were vivid and he convinced himself he could see them drifting slowly towards land.

  “It’s language data, sir. Some kind of simplified version that we’re running through the computers now. It’s confirmed as coming from the Raggers.”

  “They want to talk,” said Kroll.

  “Do we want to listen?”

  The choice wasn’t theirs to make. The computers on the Durham base were already loaded with Ragger language modules provided by the Fangrin when the peace treaty was signed.

  “The enemy demand our surrender, sir.”

  “That’s not something Colonel Doyle has the authority to offer. Not even close.”

  “No, sir.”

  “Do we have a channel to respond to the aggressors?”

  “Yes, sir. The Ragger signal is coming in to a receptor on one of the comms satellites.”

  “Have we traced it yet?”

  “That’s going to take time.”

  The next message from the aliens was terrifying.

  “The Raggers have offered a demonstration.”

  “Of what?” asked Jeffrey.

  “We don’t want to know, Lieutenant.” Griffin struggled against his fury. “Lieutenant Dominguez, time is running out.”

  It wasn’t Dominguez who located the Raggers.

  “Sir, the Durham base is relaying a number of reports from the city of Satra. People living there have observed objects in the sky above the city.” Kenyon paused while he listened to the next update. “Like a shimmering or a distortion in the air.”

  “That’s the Raggers,” said Griffin. “Satra’s less than a hundred klicks from the Durham base,” he said. “Lieutenant Dominguez, focus your efforts on the city.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Any news on this demonstration?” It wasn’t going to be something positive.

  “The Raggers have not communicated further, sir.”

  Griffin had one ear on the Durham base comms and things were getting understandably frantic. Nobody really knew what the hell was going on or what was coming.

  The time came.

  “Sir, I’m detecting a surge from the outskirts of the city. It’s not a recognized power source. This is definitely coming from a spaceship flying at a low altitude.”

  “I need a weapons lock.”

  “I’ll try and push it onto the tactical, sir.”

  Griffin didn’t see what weapon the Raggers deployed, but he saw the effects. A series of orange dots appeared in a hexagonal arrangement midway between the city center and the outskirts. The dots expanded with such ferocious speed that Griffin was convinced they wouldn’t stop growing until the entire planet was burning. Everything caught within the overlapping detonations – people and buildings - was turned to ash or rubble.

  A numbness took hold of Griffin and he heard Jeffrey weeping behind him. All the while, the Star Burner flew on towards the planet and the ruin of Satra. The Ragger incendiaries didn’t expand much further than the outskirts. They ran out of fuel and burned down slowly, leaving a scene of devastation that far exceeded anything in the war against the Fangrin. Pockets of flame were visible on the sensors and a darkness rose from the ground. It was the smoke of a dead city. Griffin cursed the Raggers and hated them with every fiber of his being.

  Chapter Two

  “Do I really need all this crap on my face?” asked Lieutenant Tanner Conway. He was sitting in a comfortable chair in front of an oversized mirror, staring at his face and unsure whether he should feel embarrassed.

  The makeup artist smiled thinly. She’d heard it all before and she continued dusting his face with a brush covered in a cream-colored powder.

  “This stops the studio lights reflecting off your skin, Lieutenant Conway,” she said. “Without it, the audience won’t be listening to what you’re telling them about your exploits in the war. They’ll be too busy squinting at the brightness of your forehead.” She smiled again and this time it reached her eyes. Conway decided he’d cut her some slack.

  In the adjacent seat, Private Elvis Kemp was loving the attention and talked non-stop to his own makeup artist. Conway tried to check out the others surreptitiously. Private Barron looked like she was born to it, while Corporal Freeman didn’t seem to care one way or another. Sergeant Lockhart, at the far end of the row had the thousand-klick stare he usually got when he wasn’t feeling comfortable.

  “And now for some liner to accentuate your eyes, Lieutenant.”

  Conway winced inside and let her get on with it. When it was done, he rose from his seat. He was already dressed in full combat armor at the insistence of the studio. They wanted everyone to see the professional, mean-as-hell soldier, rather than the man underneath the suit. That and the fact his new face was prone to smudging if he got dressed after it was made up.

  With the job done, the five of them filed from the room. The interior of the TV studio was clean, modern, and impersonal – all white walls and industrial carpet, with too many people in a hurry and too many perfect smiles. It was also like a rabbit warren and Conway paused in the corridor to get his bearings.

  “Hey Lieutenant, you look great,” said Barron, offering him a wink.

  “Like a man comfortable with himself,” said Kemp. He turned his face and pointed below his chin. “I had a spot here. Can you see it?”

  “All gone,” said Freeman. “Like it never existed.”

  “What time is the interview?” asked Conway, keen to get it over.

  “Exactly one hour from now, sir.”

  “I promised my wife I’d give her a call once she picked Emily up from school. Maybe I should get my suit helmet and tap into the local telecoms network.”

  “The rest of our kit is still locked in the back of the transport, sir,” Lockhart reminded him.

  “In that case, I’ll use the phone.”

  Conway fumbled out his personal communicator from a pocket on the side of his combat suit. The device wasn’t meant to be used with gloves, but it was too much hassle to undress just to make a call.

  “Meet you in the waiting area, sir,” said Barron.

  “The VIP waiting area,” added Kemp. He looked like he couldn’t get over it. The local boy made big. Conway was a little more ambivalent, but orders were orders. Colonel Doyle wanted a bunch of real hero-types in front of the cameras, not a team from the back office.

  It was hard to find somewhere private and, in the end, Conway had to venture onto the pavement outside. The UL3TV studio was on one of the main avenues that ran through the center of Satra. It was a warm, sunny day and it was busy with people and vehicles. He even spotted
a few gravity cars which hovered a couple of feet above the surface. Satra was a wealthy place.

  Conway breathed in deeply. He swore he’d never stop enjoying the little things and the scent of clean air mixed with the odors of the city was one of those things. The air from a suit rebreather always had this stale quality that made you feel like there was something wrong with it.

  While the civilian population had grown tired of the Fangrin war, the military had never stopped being popular. A few of the people passing by smiled at him and others greeted him. He nodded acknowledgement, opened up his communicator and leaned against the wall, with his head tipped back in order to see blue skies overhead.

  He checked the time first. His wife and daughter had wanted to see him at the studio, but school came first. Alice should be home by now and he pictured her long blonde hair and her eyes which only stopped glowing when he told her he was going away again.

  Alice picked up quickly, like she’d been waiting for him, and her face appeared on the tiny screen.

  “Hey, beefcake. Wow, look at you all made up.”

  Conway laughed. “Hey, baby. How was the school pickup?”

  “Same as it always is. Mrs Purvis says Emily aced her spellings.”

  “That girl has got her mommy’s brains and looks.”

  “She’s got something to tell you.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  The camera spun crazily and the face of his daughter appeared, with a front tooth missing that had only been wobbly that morning. He pretended not to notice.