Refuge 9 (Fire and Rust Book 5) Read online

  Refuge 9

  Fire and Rust Book 5

  Anthony James

  Contents

  Surprises

  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

  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

  © 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

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  Surprises

  Fleet Admiral Randell Douglas Stone tried to suppress the cough that was determined to break free from his new lungs. He breathed in slowly and carefully, hoping the tickling sensation would subside. It didn’t and after a short period of futile resistance, Stone coughed. It felt good and he did so again, louder this time. The dam broke and his body launched into a series of racking coughs that were both painful and relieving at the same time.

  “Sir, you mustn’t do that,” admonished a voice.

  Stone lifted his head from his desktop console and sighed wearily. “I don’t want to spend every hour of every day fighting my own flesh, Dr Austin.”

  Dr Lea Austin was mid-thirties with her brown hair pulled severely from her face and tied in a bun. Her expression was one of sympathetic tolerance, with no trace of patronization. “Your body already rejected your right lung once, Admiral. Do you want the same to happen with the replacement? Even the slightest provocation might damage the tissue.”

  “Part of me thinks it would be worth it just to be free of this constant irritation in my chest.”

  “I’ll give you some more tablets,” said Dr Austin. “And it’s time for your immunity boosters.”

  She rose and went to the cabinet over by the wall. Stone watched her rummaging inside for more of the life-saving drugs that he was required to fill his guts with a dozen times a day. It was an uncomfortable reminder of his mortality. On the other hand, it was far better than being dead.

  Stone leaned in his chair and waited for Dr Austin to bring him his pills. Given everything that was wrong with his body after breathing in so many toxins on Qali-5, he was aware that he should still be in hospital where they could monitor him more closely. Unfortunately for Stone, the Unity League had more pressing concerns than his lung replacement, liver failure and the cancers that were popping up faster than the drugs could deal with them.

  Just thinking about it brought a twinge of pain in his chest and Stone plucked the two green-colored painkillers from Dr Austin’s palm. She had a glass of water in the other hand and he knocked back the tablets, before scooping up the rainbow of other pills and cramming them into his mouth.

  “Dammit,” he swore, choking them down with the assistance of cool water. “And you say I’ll have to do this for the rest of my life?”

  Austin was one of those people who cared and she looked pained at the words. “It’s possible we’ll figure out how to flush your body completely clear, Admiral. Until then, you need these drugs to keep you alive.”

  “Thank you,” he muttered, trying not to be too ungrateful. The other survivors weren’t having it much better, he knew. Lieutenant Park required constant medical attention and, last he’d heard, the Fangrin Governor Wrekstin was in a bad way. None of the other captives from the Ragger transport hub had made anything like a complete recovery.

  “I’ll let you get on,” said Austin, by which she meant she’d sit quietly in the corner of his office in case he collapsed, or some other dire medical emergency cropped up.

  Stone nodded vaguely, his mind already focused on his console. The device comprised a wide, curved screen more than a meter wide, with keyboards and touch panels. Using the console, Stone could access live reports from anywhere in the ULAF and coordinate with his senior officers.

  He accessed the flight logs for the spaceships in the fleet. Since the new aliens had shown up, lightspeed travel was forbidden except in exceptional circumstances. Even then, a warship’s commanding officer was obliged to follow a list of strict new protocols to ensure that if an enemy happened to be following, they would have no way of locating another of humanity’s worlds.

  Stone’s attention wandered. The numbers on his console were a pretense of certainty and control, when in reality he had neither. The new aliens – some of the troops called them Shades - hadn’t reappeared since they wiped out life on Rundine, but Stone had little doubt it was only a matter of time. And in that unknown quantity of time, the combined might of the Unity League and Fangrin had to come up with a solution – a way to respond that was reliable and didn’t involve extensive loss of life. He closed his eyes and hoped for inspiration.

  The console’s in-built communicator buzzed and a light flashed to indicate a reminder notice required his attention.

  “Is it time?” asked Stone.

  “Yes, Fleet Admiral. It is time for your strategy meeting,” said the slightly feminine, emotionless voice of his computerized personal assistant.

  “Room 3A-2?”

  “Fleet Admiral, your memory is astounding.”

  Dr Austin’s jaw fell open when she heard the PA’s insolence. The expression on her face made Stone laugh.

  “It reminds me that I’m only human, even when everyone calls me sir,” he said.

  “I see.”

  Stone left his seat and headed for the door, with Dr Austin following. It was a beautiful day outside, even though the view was obscured by the surrounding buildings of the New Texas ULAF-1 base. The high walls of glass, steel and concrete weren’t enough to completely block out the pristine blue sky.

  “I wish we were in better times,” Stone said wistfully.

  He wanted to stop and admire the view for a while longer, but instead he left his office and walked through the antechamber outside. A squad of armed soldiers and a staff officer were on permanent duty in the room and Stone offered a thin smile.

  The ULAF-1 admin building’s corridors were filled with personnel, all of them in a hurry. Even with warmth and sunlight streaming in through the reinforced windows, it was as cold as ever and, for the first time, Stone noticed the ambient chill seeping into his body. Not into his bones like most old-timers reported it - instead, his organs throbbed dully.

  Stone ignored the discomfort and did his best to act like the fit and healthy fifty-nine-year-old man that he’d been only a few weeks ago. The thought of spending the rest of his life
in a constant battle against his own body was infuriating.

  Room 3A-2 was one of the larger rooms, with seats around a central table and screens on the wall. It was already filled with personnel, most of them drinking coffee and talking quietly amongst themselves. Four of the wall screens were lit, with other senior officers on different worlds connected by flickering, uncertain FTL links.

  Everybody was already present, since Admiral Stone didn’t like to be kept waiting. He pulled out a chair and sank into it, trying not to appear too grateful to be off his feet. Dr Austin had the highest clearance so she wasn’t asked to leave. She waited near the door, checking her ever-present tablet computer.

  “Well, ladies and gentlemen,” Stone began. “Where are we at?”

  The first person to raise a hand was Lead Tech Lana Mullins, who headed up one of the propulsion research teams. She was bright-eyed and with an unlined face despite her fifty years.

  “LT Mullins,” said Stone. “Do you have an update on how the enemy managed to follow AF2 through lightspeed to Rundine?”

  “Not yet, sir. We’ve been working closely with the Fangrin – as you know they have a rudimental method which allows them to predict the end point of a lightspeed journey. They have been quite open with us on the computational methods used. We had our own research programs looking into the same thing and by combining our knowledge, we have been able to make significant advancements.”

  “Advancements we can put to use?”

  “Not so far, sir. Once we’ve nailed down the theory, then we can figure out how the enemy is using the method. After that, we’ll start work on countermeasures.”

  “If you had to pull a date out of the air, Lead Technician?”

  “I wouldn’t like to guess, sir.”

  “If I wasn’t clear enough, I would like you to guess,” said Stone.

  “Months, sir. More than six months.”

  It was disappointing, but there again, it was unreasonable to expect new methods to be developed and perfected overnight. Stone looked around the room.

  “Has anyone got anything positive? Something I can take to the League Council and show them how the ULAF is fighting tooth and nail to stop billions of our citizens being murdered by whatever aliens happen to crawl out of the woodwork and decide to annihilate a few of our planets?”

  Not everyone met his gaze and those who did had little more than apologetic looks. Again, it was nobody’s fault and Stone couldn’t point his finger at any team or individual. Nor could he throw any more resources at them. The ULAF was awash with money, offered willingly by the League Council. For once, the military couldn’t spend it all – the limitation was in the number of personnel available. The Unity League had plenty of bright people, but it took time to for them to adjust from civilian projects to military ones.

  “Sir?” A woman raised her hand. She wasn’t anybody Stone recognized, but he had a lot of people working for him.

  “Name and rank?”

  “I’m Catalina Dudley, sir. I don’t think I’ve been given a formal rank. I was drafted in from a medical research project here on Earth.”

  “What kind of medical project?”

  “I study tissue decay, sir, and how we can limit its effects. My research has many applications in the field of medicine and I…”

  Stone raised a hand. “Does this have anything to do with to how our new enemy kills their victims?”

  “Yes, sir, I think it might. Unfortunately, I’ve been forced to rely on eye-witness testimony in order to deduce what is happening.”

  “The life-stealing?”

  Dudley winced at the term. “I believe that instant tissue atrophy is a more accurate description.”

  “Try telling that to everyone else,” said Stone, not interested in what she wanted to call it. “What do you have for me?”

  “My team has reached the stage where we require tissue samples in order to advance our research. I believe some came to Earth on one of our fleet carriers?”

  Stone nodded. “They decayed into particles within days of going into storage and believe me, we tried everything to prevent it happening. We have no tissue for you to study.”

  “Damn.”

  This was turning out to be another of those meetings where nothing much was said and even less got done. Stone pointed his finger at another one of his officers, a scientist from the weapons lab called Marcus Peck.

  “How is work progressing on the tharniol warheads, Research Lead Peck?”

  Peck was thin and wiry. He had glasses perched on top of his head, even though sight-correcting surgery was available to every citizen in the Unity League. He shifted uncomfortably. “It is progressing slowly, Fleet Admiral. With the partial lockdown on lightspeed travel we have greater quantities of tharniol upon which we can experiment, but the substance does not mix well with our regular explosives. Once you scale up – such as to the size of a warship detonator, then we can make a pretty big bang. As soon as you shrink the equipment and try to produce the same reaction, that’s when it responds with much less potency.”

  “Can you overcome these hurdles?”

  “Yes, sir. In time. We’re working on multiple projects both here and in collaboration with the Fangrin. They’ve experimented with tharniol, but believe it or not, their research has mostly been civilian applications.”

  Stone felt the urge to cough well up inside his chest again. He looked across and found Dr Austin staring at him, like she somehow knew exactly what was going through his mind. With effort, Stone suppressed the cough and took a drink from his glass of water. It didn’t help.

  “Anyone else?” he asked. The meeting hadn’t lasted long. In truth they rarely did and Stone always knew in advance what his personnel had prepared for him. Maybe it was time to cancel these meetings and let everyone get on with their work.

  A couple of the other personnel offered some minor snippets, but it was nothing Stone wasn’t already aware of. He was on the verge of ending the meeting early, when the voice of his PA intruded.

  “Fleet Admiral Stone, we have received a comms message routed from the Durham base on New Pacific,” spoke the computer.

  Stone frowned. His PA knew this meeting wasn’t to be interrupted, so it must be something important. Not only that, he couldn’t think of any reason why a comms message would be routed from Durham to here instead of coming directly.

  “Who is it?”

  “First Echelon Hass-Tei-112, Admiral.”

  “Who the hell is that?” asked Stone, unable to place the name.

  “According to Colonel Doyle, it is a Ragger. It demands to speak with you.”

  Stone recovered quickly from his surprise. He ushered the technical staff and Dr Austin from the room and ended the FTL links to the wall screens. His intel staff were permitted to stay and their expressions ranged from utter shock to complete bemusement.

  “This Ragger demands, does it?” asked Stone.

  “Yes, Fleet Admiral. The signal is voice and video. Would you like me to put it up on the main screen?”

  Stone didn’t feel like sitting anymore. He faced the primary screen in the room and waited to see what First Echelon Ragger Hass-Tei-112 had to say.

  Chapter One

  The troop transport was large enough for the ULAF to give it a name. Whoever chose Iron Cell was either completely ignorant of what it was like to fly on anything similar, or with extensive experience and a warped sense of humor. The spaceship wasn’t exactly packed with comforts, but it was a marginally preferable place to exist than the rocky surface of a planet clad in frozen methane on the fringes of known space.

  Captain Tanner Conway looked around at the bare walls and the torn coverings on the seats in the large upper passenger bay and asked himself what the hell he was heading into this time. The rumors were everywhere and certain ones cropped up with such regularity that it seemed impossible for there to be no truth to them. It didn’t matter how badly high command wanted to keep secrets, a version of t
he truth always leaked one way or another.

  The bay was filled with fifty or sixty human and Fangrin soldiers in combat suits, many with their protective helmets in place. Everyone had a rifle close at hand and the bay wall weapons racks were at capacity. Nobody knew what might happen – when your enemy could appear wherever they wanted, seemingly at will, then it paid to be ready.

  Life on the transport was dull, even with the threat - or promise - of looming action, and most of the soldiers talked crap to fill the time of day. The Fangrin were unphased by most things and they mingled freely, talking their own version of the same crap. The aliens gave off a smell of damp fur, which pervaded every part of the transport and mixed with the usual odors of oil, grease and technology. It wasn’t unpleasant once you got used to it and Conway assumed that the Fangrin had similar thoughts about the scents given off by humans.

  A figure emerged from the packed crowd which surrounded the two food stations. It was Corporal Barron, carrying a drink in each hand. She offered one to Conway.

  “You look like you need something to pick you up, sir,” she said, her voice raised over the background chatter and the drone of the engines.

  Conway peered at the cup of pale brown liquid. The scent of coffee rose and mingled with the odors of dirty steel and humanity. He reached out and took it, noticing the grey smudges of tharniol dust on the fingertips of Barron’s gauntlets. It seemed to stick like glue.

  “Thanks.” He took a sip and grimaced. “I guess.”