Stolen Valor

by Kal Spriggs

  Stolen Valor

  by Kal Spriggs

  Copyright 2019 Sutek Press

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Books by Kal Spriggs

  Kal’s Amazon Page

  The Shadow Space Chronicles

  The Fallen Race

  The Shattered Empire

  The Prodigal Emperor

  The Sacred Stars

  The Temple of Light

  Ghost Star

  The Star Engine*

  The Renegades

  Renegades: Origins

  Renegades: Out of the Cold

  Renegades: Out of Time

  Renegades: Royal Pains*

  The Star Portal Universe

  Valor’s Child

  Valor’s Calling

  Valor’s Duty

  Valor’s Cost

  Valor's Stand

  Lost Valor

  Stolen Valor

  Hidden Valor*

  Fenris Unchained

  Odin’s Eye

  Jormungandr’s Venom

  The Eoriel Saga

  Echo of the High Kings

  Wrath of the Usurper

  Fate of the Tyrant

  Heir to the Fallen Duke*

  *Forthcoming

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  About the Author

  Join the Century Military Academy!

  Chapter 1: Hurry Up And Wait

  “Hey Vars, got a message for you,” a harsh voice spoke from behind me. I nearly didn't turn around, because that wasn't my name, after all. But then I remembered that for all intents and purposes, I was Vars. I'd taken his identity, taken his place, and for that matter, I had even taken his life...

  Then someone grabbed me by the shoulder, spun me around, and punched me hard in the gut.

  Now it seemed, I'd get to take his beatings, too.

  The punch caught me by surprise and my attacker didn't give me an opportunity to figure out what was going on. He drove his knee up towards my face. I managed to turn my head and take the blow on the side of my head, instead, but it still flashed stars in front of my eyes and I dropped to the ground.

  My attacker started kicking me after that. The blows weren't well aimed. I managed to shield my head and take most of the blows on my shoulders and ribs. It wasn't fun, but I managed to roll away as my attacker panted, swearing at me.

  Great plan, Will, I told myself, get him tired beating the snot out of you and wear him down. The sarcastic part of me seemed to be well aware it wasn't a winning plan, but I was sort of hoping someone would come along and stop the fight. Or beating. Or whatever this was.

  I got my back to the wall, gasping in pain, as my attacker came over, “You're supposed to be some hot-shot, Vars. If I'd known how easy you'd be to kill, I wouldn't have asked for so much money.” My attacker grinned as he pulled a short, gleaming knife from inside his uniform jacket.

  Okay, now this had just gotten out of hand. This idiot was about to kill me, presumably for money. We were in a narrow corridor, off the main living areas. Odds were against anyone just happening along, but I had to buy some time. At this point, I was hardly in the shape to fight. My attacker wore an officer's uniform. “I thought the Imperial Space Korps frowned on murdering one another.”

  “You're not in the DISK, not yet,” he knelt down a meter or so away from me. “And let me let you in on a little secret... I'm not either. Hardest part was getting a hacker to steal access codes for my implants. But you're just in holding prior to your training. You turn up dead, they're going to do minimal investigation, and I'll be gone. They'll figure it was a brawl or something. Happens all the time.”

  “You're just going to kill me and walk out?” I licked my lips, tasting blood. I'd split my lip, I guess. It didn't feel like I'd lost any teeth, so I had that going for me. I'd have all my teeth when they buried me. Or incinerated me, they're not too picky around here...

  “Pretty much,” he said, his attention entirely focused on me. “Normally I'd just do it, but I got to gloat a little bit. My little brother, he worked for you and your sibhal father. That is, until you shot him and dumped him down an incinerator. One of your surviving people told me what happened. Making an example of him, huh? Well, someone paid me real well to make an example of you.”

  “One problem with that,” I spat on the floor in front of him. “You should have asked for more money.”

  Even as I said that, the motion behind him resolved into a person, who stepped forward and drove her elbow into his temple. The blow caught him off guard and he dropped limply to the ground, knife clattering away in the corridor.

  I reached out and scooped it up, not really trusting this other person not be another assassin. I froze, though, staring at the blue eyes of Jonna. “Oh,” I blinked, “it's you.”

  “Yeah, it's me,” she snarled. “And look, it's you. Let's get out of here before this idiot wakes up or someone finds the three of us.”

  I started to my feet, but lost my balance and would have fallen, except she caught me by the arm. “Stupid fos. Why would you come here?”

  “I needed someplace to go,” I mumbled a response. My head was spinning, either from the blows or pain or maybe just a combination of both.

  “Not that, you idiot, I meant down one of these back corridors. People use these places to settle grudges and work out pecking order all the time. You were practically asking for someone to attack you, even if you didn't pick an identity where people actively wanted to kill you.”

  “Hadn't thought about that,” I admitted. Mostly I'd liked the solitude: getting away from the crowded bunk rooms where they kept us, entrants for the Drakkus Imperial Military Institute and enlisted preparing for their initial training as well. I'd been here for nearly three months at this point. I was almost to the point of crawling the walls to escape.

  “You're an idiot, come on,” she helped me down the hallway and then around a corner, down a short set of steps and through a security door. I'd been past that door dozens of times and always found it locked, but it opened at her presence and she pulled it closed behind us. The hallway beyond was much the same as the other one: narrow, poorly lit, and empty. Walking down a few more similar corridors, we came to another security door, which again opened at her presence and she pulled closed behind us. There was a small room, beyond. A table, a chair, and some miscellaneous electronics. A couple of datapads, it looked like, though my eyes were having difficulty focusing. Concussed, I thought to myself, you're concussed you idiot. Oddly enough, the voice in my head sounded a lot like my sister.

  Great, now I was being haunted by the ghost of my dead older sister.

  Jonna helped me into the chair and then pulled out what looked like an aid kit. She checked me over quickly, scowling as she shined a light in my eyes. “You're definitely concussed.”

  “That's what she said,” I muttered.

  “What?” S
he stared at me.

  I shook my head. I wasn't about to tell her that I was hearing my dead sister's voice, not even concussed as I was. Shaking my head was a mistake. I fought the urge to throw up.

  “Alright, I've got something for that. I hoped to save it for me if I needed it, but...” She frowned and then jabbed me in the side of the neck. “Medical quick heal, should fix the concussion. You get your attacker's name?”

  “Assassin,” I muttered in response, my head feeling woozy. The quick heal stuff, I suspected. It was going straight to my head and the first thing it would do before it went to work was numb things and shut everything down so it could work. In this case, it was numbing my brain and shutting it down.

  “That's why you're asking me questions now,” I blinked at Jonna, “so you can get good answers.”

  Oh, she's clever, I like her, my sister whispered inside my head.

  “Shut up,” I muttered.

  “You're loopy,” Jonna said, settling back on her heels as she stared at me. “But you're not entirely wrong. Why did you come here? Were you trying to find me?”

  “Nowhere else to go,” I told her honestly. “No ships going to Century, taking Vars' id— ident—” I stumbled over the word two or three times before I got it out. “His ID, it didn't give me many options. I figured I could take his place at the Military Institute, maybe get a chance to jump ship at some point... I went to Century's Academy Prep School, did you know? I finished best in my class.” Jonna's face blurred before my eyes.

  “That's great,” she snapped. “So I've got junior idiot here, wearing a big target on his back and probably bringing a lot of attention down on me, in the process. I should have left you in that hallway.”

  “He would have killed me,” I told her. I did not like the disconnected feeling in my head. She knows that, you idiot, my sister's voice told me.

  “Probably, but you're probably going to get me killed. I can't afford to keep an eye out for you here. Initial screening starts next week. It's hard enough to survive that as it is. I don't want to be dragging you along.”

  “I'll be fine, best in my—”

  “Academy Prep School, whatever that is, yeah, I get it,” Jonna growled. “This isn't your Academy. People die in training. Not ones or twos, entire Flights. That can happen when one person makes a mistake.”

  “Good thing you have me, then, I never make mistakes,” I smiled. The world was spinning at this point. I blinked, but my eyes didn't seem to want to open again. That was fine. It was nice with my eyes closed.

  You idiot, you're going to get us both killed. I wondered what my sister's ghost meant by that. After all, if she was already dead, then what did she care?

  As lasts thought went, that was pretty good for someone before they lost consciousness.

  ***

  The next morning, Jonna kicked me in the shin to wake me up. “Let's go, you don't want to miss morning muster.”

  I felt ridiculously good. It shouldn't have surprised me. Quick heal was the good stuff. It took away all the aches and pains, fixed any bruises or injuries. The stuff on Drakkus seemed to be even better than anything we had back on Century. I didn't ache, I didn't have bruises. I felt good.

  We hurried out, “How did you...” I gestured at the security door.

  “Friends in the right places who owed my father favors,” she answered quickly. “Don't mention it out in the main corridors. They monitor everything.”

  “Right,” I told her.

  “I've been watching you for the past month. You're pulling off the impression well enough, though you might have been better to go after some of the weaker entrants and trainees, establish a reputation as being tough. It might keep more assassins off you.”

  “I don't want—”

  She didn’t wait for my response, opening the security door and leading the way into the area I'd been waiting in for months. “Initial Screening starts soon, they'll begin pulling Entrants in over the next few days,” she told me. “I'd wager that your friend made his attempt because of that. They'll start flying us out to the Institute in batch lots.”

  “Is it far?” I asked.

  She shot me a look. “Not really. It's in one of the spires on the far side of the spaceport, in the Heart. The Institute is separated from the rest of the city, only way in or out is flying, or maybe climbing.” She paused as we came near the exit of the corridor. “Go ahead. I don't want them to see me with you. They'd start asking questions.”

  I gave her a nod and jogged out of the passage. They held musters here three times a day, just before each meal. My attacker had hit me after the dinner muster. This was the breakfast muster. I got into the formation. They'd made me the Flight Leader since I knew how to stand at attention and I was bigger than the others. What that meant was I had to take accountability and make sure everyone was there.

  I counted heads, called names off a list that they had transferred to my implant, and then turned and waited. Most of the trainees and entrants stood in a gaggle, shuffling from foot to foot and looking around. They were in rows and ranks, but only barely.

  The facility cadre didn't care beyond getting them where they needed to go as efficiently as possible. One of them came out and called off a list of names. I hadn't heard Jonna's name, but she was in the group that ran out for the doors. I didn't know her last name, maybe they'd addressed her by that. “All of you, out front now!”

  So much for your only ally, boy, you're in trouble now, huh? It was Jiden's voice again. That was disconcerting. I knew she was dead, after all. So how exactly was I hearing her voice? Don't worry, I got your back.

  I was losing my mind. Maybe the quick heal had some serious side effects treating my concussion. Maybe it was the black-market surgery that had installed my stolen implant or even the files I’d copied over from my dad’s datapad with all their alien notes and translated code. I didn't know which option was worse.

  I marched my flight over to chow and piled them through. The facility cadre wanted us to move through quickly and they didn't like it when we were slow about anything. Yelling and shoving some of the others was far nicer than some of what I'd seen, but it got people moving through the lines quickly so that I had time to eat my own breakfast before they kicked us out.

  I peeled off a couple of the new guys to work cleaning the kitchen and open bay barracks. I had to warn them that if they didn't do a good enough job to keep the cadre happen, then they'd deal with me. Since I knew from experience that we'd spend all day cleaning both areas if they messed up, I was pretty loud about how I told them that. Being loud seemed to be the way to get listened to around here.

  Then I had a few hours to myself before lunch muster. I could do what I'd been doing, which was downloading every military manual I could get my hands on. Or...

  Or you could walk over to that security door your girlfriend opened and we can have a little talk.

  “She's not my...” I trailed off, looking to see if anyone had overheard me.

  Don't talk to yourself, they'll think you're nuts and I don't want to see what actions they take to prove it.

  I thought up some choice curse words. The voice in my head seemed to find them amusing, particularly the ones I'd picked up on the streets of the Barrens.

  Oooh, that's a clever one, I like that, she told me at one point. But are you going to listen to me or not?

  I didn't say anything out loud. I started going through an annoying song I'd learned in school, one I'd played on the toy recorder Granny Effy had given me. Jiden had always hated that song.

  Stop it, you're sooo juvenile. I am trying to help you.

  I kept up a few more stanzas of the music. Then, though, I got up and headed for the corridor. This time I kept an eye out behind me. I didn't see anyone following me. I got to the security door and paused. “It's locked,” I muttered.

  I can hear you if you just think it at me, the voice answered. And... there. Try it.

  I pulled the handle and to
my surprise, it came open. Of course, it didn't help seeing as I was a little fuzzy one which way we'd gone from here.

  Great, now follow my directions. My sister's voice guided me through the corridors to the room, unlocking that door for me too. The table and chair were still there, as were the pair of datapads. “Okay, I said,” what's going on? Why am I hearing my dead sister's voice in my head?”

  I'm not dead, you nullbrain, she told me.

  “I saw you die. You were crushed by thousands of tons of sand,” I didn't know where I was supposed to be looking when addressing what was either an incorporeal voice or a voice inside my own head. I settled for looking around the room for anything of value. That was pretty fruitless. Jonna must have taken most of her things with her, the only things left were a pair of old datapads that wouldn't power on and a bag with some trash, including the quick heal injector she'd used on me.

  What are you... oh, right, the pirate attack on Black Mesa. But that wasn't me and she didn't--

  “Wasn't you?” I demanded. “You're talking with my sister's voice. Are you a ghost or not?”

  Not really, she told me. I mean, in a technical sense, I'm sort of like an impression... She trailed off. You really think I'm dead?

  “You're the one inside my head, what do you think?” I asked.

  She didn't answer me for a moment. Look, Will, I may be inside your head, but I'm not, really. I don't have access to your inner thoughts, just the ones you project. I wouldn't want that, even if it were possible. You're my brother and I love you and all, but that's like way too close.

  That sounded awkward, so I decided to change the subject, “I know Jiden's dead. The pirate who killed our parents, Wessek, he got punished for it. He was supposed to take her alive.”

  He got punished because he didn't capture her, not because he killed her, my sister told me. Trust me, I heard all about it...