Warp Marine Corps- The Complete Series

by C. J. Carella

  “If defeat in battle is certain, then one must not fight, even if the Queen wishes otherwise,” Seeu Teenu said.

  “The only certain thing is your death, for defying your Queen!”

  “I think not.”

  The Guardsmen in the Audience Room leveled their rifles – towards the throne and the assembled courtiers.

  “What is the meaning of this?”

  “I anticipated this moment, and replaced the Guards with my men. Perhaps you should have paid enough attention to your servants to recognize their faces. You might have realized that the new captain of the guard is Colonel Neen, formerly of First Army and a true servant of Kirosha.”

  The Queen gasped, clearly at a loss for words. Eereen looked around for a way out, and saw more Guards – or rather, more Army men in Guard uniforms – enter the audience chamber, blocking all exits. False Guard Captain Neen blinked pure hatred towards the Queen and the assembled courtiers and magistrates before him. His men looked equally resolute.

  The Marshall had been truly busy last night.

  Eeren’s legs grew rubbery, and he swayed on his feet. He refused to believe his fortune could collapse so swiftly and completely. He had put thousands to death with the stroke of a pen and without giving the matter a second thought. That he might one day share their fate had never seriously occurred to him, not with the visceral understanding that overwhelmed him at this moment.

  “If a ruler would lead her people to slaughter and defeat, that ruler must fall. That too is Ka’at,” Seeu Teenu told the Queen before turning to his men and making a curt gesture.

  Twenty rifles went off in unison.

  Year 163 AFC, D Plus Thirty-Three

  Fromm opened his eyes.

  Heather was sitting next to his bed; she smiled at him.

  “Awake at last,” she said. “Took you long enough.”

  “How long?”

  “About five days. Five eventful days.”

  “I could query my imp, but I have a headache and I really don’t want to check my messages yet. Will you brief me on what I missed?”

  “Straight to business, eh? I can appreciate that. We have an extended cease-fire in place. There’s been a major political realignment in the Kingdom. The Queen’s dead, and her only surviving son – the other three all suffered unfortunate accidents on the same day Her Supreme Majesty died – has been designated as the Heir Apparent, under the regency of former High Marshall Seeu Teenu. The Regent has repudiated the Queen’s decision to attack the Enclave, and claims she fell prey to bad advice from the Preserver faction and their ‘pet monster from beyond the stars.’ He shipped us the head of said monster, inside a gift-wrapped box, by the way. A sign of good will, he said. It was indeed a Lamprey. Hard to tell what killed him, with just the head to autopsy, but my guess is he was hacked apart with assorted chopping implements.”

  “Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.”

  “They’ve restored water service and food deliveries to the Enclave. They even sent us the fabber they salvaged and its remaining feedstock. It’s not much, but it helped us care for the wounded.”

  “Seeu is a wily bastard. I’m never going to forget or forgive what he did, sending children off to die, but I have to respect the son of a bitch,” Fromm said. “Although he must be hoping like hell that the next ship that shows up is one of ours.”

  “Yeah. He really burned that bridge when he beheaded the Lamprey secret agent. Then again, the Marshall has been studying Starfarer history, and he realizes now that the Lhan Arkh wouldn’t make good allies. He claims he never wanted war, but was just following orders.”

  “I think I’ve heard that line before,” he said. “Maybe one day he’ll get to recite it in front of a firing squad.”

  “We’ll see. Not sure what we’ll do with him, not that anybody is asking for my opinion. Above my pay grade. Oh, forgot to add: we got a QE-telegram about the battle at Paulus System.”

  “Way to bury the fucking lead! What happened?”

  Heather made a ‘V’ sign with her fingers. Victory.

  Fromm grinned.

  Year 163 AFC, D Plus Thirty-Seven

  “Are you sure about this?” President Jensen asked Timothy for the third and hopefully last time.

  “Yes, Elder. I will not abandon these people.”

  He glanced up at the sky, where the American transport ship tasked with evacuating all Starfarers on Jasper-Five floated in low planetary orbit. A flotilla had arrived after the combined American and Wyrashat fleets had defeated the Lamprey’s attack. It had been a tough battle from all accounts, but this corner of the galaxy had been secured.

  “The State Department has made it clear that anyone who stays behind does so at their own risk,” Elder Jensen said. “I feel terrible about leaving myself, but I have to see to the welfare of everyone in the mission.”

  “I understand. But they need me, the Jersh Caste. Five thousand of them at least, possibly twice that number. They can’t stay here, and the US won’t take them in. They need me.”

  “And I will do what I can to help,” the mission president promised. He already had done a great deal. The refugees would be ferried to a distant island chain that had never been inhabited. Several fabbers would be left with them, along with metric tons of Kirosha weapons and equipment. There, they would be safe to learn, build and seek their own destiny.

  Timothy knew it would get lonely, being the only human there. But after the war was over, other missionaries would come. Until then, he would be happy building and helping his fellow Saints, only fighting if absolutely necessary.

  It would be a good life.

  * * *

  Lisbeth Zhang enjoyed her final dinner on Jasper-Five in the company of Heather McClintock, who no longer wore a Navy uniform now that her spookier skills were back in demand. Heather’s gyrene boyfriend was too busy doing paperwork to join them.

  “It’ll be nice to go home again, back in CONUS,” Lisbeth said after savoring the local version of wine, which didn’t taste half bad and lit a warm fire inside her. “Even if I’m headed towards a demotion or even a court-martial.”

  “I somehow doubt it. The demotion and court-martial bits, that is. Everyone involved here is putting a good word in for you. Peter’s letter has you all but walking on water.”

  “Ground-pounder shit. Out in the black, where it counts, I got my ships blown up.”

  “We’ll see,” Heather said after taking a sip of her drink. “My guess is, we are going to need every trained officer we have.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  Things went quiet for a bit while they considered the situation. Lisbeth had a better appreciation than most people of how bad things were. There weren’t enough hulls to cover every possible front in the coming war, and building new ones would take time. The Lampreys had seized several major warp nodes, giving them the initiative. They were going to take losses, a lot more than they already had.

  All we have done is awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.

  An enemy had said that about the US, many decades before First Contact. Things were different now, however. Filled with resolve the US might be, but if it was a giant, it was surrounded by other, taller giants.

  “Cheer up,” Heather said. “It’s not that bad.”

  “It kind of is, but fretting about it won’t help. Where do you think you’ll end up, oh, alleged State Department hack?”

  “Heh. I’m hoping I get a crack at the Galactic Imperium, myself.”

  “Better you than me. Their ships are massive; I wouldn’t want to trade broadsides with their battlecruisers, even if they gave me a battleship. Forget about their capital ships.”

  “On the other hand, they are the most decent ones of that bunch. And they are a federation of different species. Which means there are a bunch of fracture points to exploit, if one is crafty and cunning.”

  “Not my kind of thing. I’m into fields of fire and sensor sweeps and
blasting the enemy into floating debris.”

  “It’s going to take all kinds of things to win the war.”

  If we can, Lisbeth left unsaid.

  * * *

  Shipboard again. The old regiment was being put together at New Parris. Russell would be glad to see the old bastards from his battalion. Some more than others, of course, but even the assholes would be better company than any fucking ETs. When lasers and gravitons were flying, the only people you could count on were your fellow Marines.

  He’d also be happy to see the whores at New Parris. He hadn’t spent any more time with Ruddy women even after the ceasefire. He’d killed too many locals to ever feel safe among their kind; most of those whores must have lost a brother or cousin or father in the fighting, and you never knew if one of them might decide slicing off a Marine’s balls would do for payback.

  Might as well make the most of his time on Leatherneck Planet, because they wouldn’t stay there for long. This war was going to be a whooper. No less than four ET gangs were involved, making it one of the biggest shindigs in recent galactic history. To Russell, war was a time of opportunity. Lots of fighting, which he didn’t mind, and plenty of angles to play; a smart and enterprising fellow stood to build up a nice nest egg. Well, he might if he didn’t blow it on whores and booze, but most of the time he figured they were worth it.

  He looked at the people around the table: Gonzo, Doobie and three spacers who’d joined in the game. The spacers had a lot of money burning holes in their pockets, and they couldn’t bluff for shit.

  This was going to be fun.

  * * *

  Fromm watched Jasper-Five recede into the dark as the transport headed towards its optimal warp jump coordinates. Heather was in the transport as well. The Powers that Be had arranged for a week’s leave in Lahiri for both of them. Fromm suspected former RSO Rockwell had been behind that unusually-kind gesture. They would make the most of it.

  After that, they would be going their separate ways. Once his leave was over, he would head to New Parris to meet up with Charlie Company, his new command. Third Platoon would be waiting for him there as well; he reminded himself not to treat it as his personal unit. It was time to stop thinking like a lieutenant.

  Heather would be going to Earth. Same war, different assignments. They’d made no promises to each other. It was the smart thing to do. They lived in a universe full of broken promises.

  Jasper-Five disappeared from view. Fromm idly wondered what Regent Seeu would do with his new kingdom. The US had let him keep his job, at least for now. The bastard would probably surprise everyone.

  Not his problem, though. America had its own problems. The biggest war it had ever fought was at hand. Twelve million citizens had died; his desperate battle at Jasper-Five had been a tiny victory, one of a handful outposts that hadn’t been overrun and slaughtered during the month-long period that history would refer to as the Days of Infamy. America, the Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere and the Wyrashat Empire faced the Lampreys, Vipers and Galactic Imperium, three of the oldest and wealthiest polities in known space. The odds weren’t good.

  Fromm shrugged. They couldn’t be worse than they’d been in Kirosha.

  The ghosts of the dead awaited him in warp space.

  No Price Too High

  Warp Marine Corps, Book Two

  By C.J. Carella

  Published by Fey Dreams Productions, LLC

  Copyright @ 2016 Fey Dreams Productions, LLC. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced, displayed, modified or distributed without the express prior written permission of the copyright holder. For permission, contact cjcarella@cjcarella.com

  Cover by: SelfPubBookCovers.com/VISIONS

  This is a work of fiction. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  “Legionnaires, you became soldiers in order to die, and I’m taking you to a place where you can die!”

  - General Francois De Negrier

  “The most noble fate a man can endure is to place his own mortal body between his loved home and the war’s desolation.”

  - Robert A. Heinlein

  “Our arrows will blot out the sun!”

  “Then we will fight in the shade.”

  - Exchange of words before the battle of Thermopylae, 480 B.C.E.

  Prologue: A Hasty Defense

  Star System Melendez, Year 163 AFC

  BATTLE STATIONS. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.

  Rear Admiral (Upper Half) Horacio Elba was halfway down the corridor leading to the Tactical Flag Command Center before the all-hands alert had fully filtered down to his brain; the keening sound of the General Quarters alarm hammered his eardrums and finished waking him up. He’d been sleeping in his uniform ever since the war began, like every other officer in CRURON 56. They’d been on full alert for two months, and their worst fears had finally come true. The aliens were coming.

  “Warp emergence, forty light-minutes,” the Space Watch Officer announced as Elba walked into the TFCC. The specialist hesitated for a second before delivering the rest of the bad news. “Sir, we’ve evaluated the energy signatures of the opforce. Given the number of hulls detected entering the system, this has to be the entire Lhan Arkh Upper Quadrant Fleet.”

  Despair is a sin.

  The thought did little to comfort Admiral Elba as he glanced at the holotank display, where the sensor data that had taken the better part of an hour to reach his fleet was being assembled into icons representing the enemy ship classes. Three dreadnoughts. Five battleships. Nine battlecruisers. Twenty destroyers and twenty-five frigates. This was a main thrust into human space, and all he had to oppose it was a pitiful fifteen-ship formation.

  His squadron consisted of the City-class battlecruiser USS Charlotte, six antiquated President-class light cruisers, and eight escorts, evenly split between frigates and destroyers. Until a few months ago, this sector, centered around Star System Melendez, had been considered ‘safe;’ his ships were there to prevent piracy and to keep an eye on the Butterflies and Lizards, the two Starfarer nations with warp lines leading into the system. Both polities had been relatively friendly, but good fences – and decent-sized fleets – made for the best neighbors. The Days of Infamy had changed everything. Several human outposts inside Butterfly and Lizard territories had been attacked and destroyed by angry mobs covertly supported by the Lampreys. The fact those massacres had been allowed to happen turned those Starfarer nations into potential hostiles, and CRURON 56 was far too weak to protect the sector in the face of a serious attack from either of them.

  The decision had been made to evacuate Melendez System before one of those notional neutrals switched sides or allowed the Lampreys to move through their territories. They’d hoped there would be enough time to save most of the civilians and merge CRURON 56 with other picket squadrons further down the warp-line.

  The Lampreys’ arrival meant that the aliens had bribed, bullied or otherwise persuaded one of the two neighboring Starfarers to allow a fleet to enter their territory. Admiral Elba’s guess was it’d been the Lizards, who had skirmished with the US a few decades back and were known to hold a grudge. For all he knew, the scaly little bastards might have joined the anti-human coalition.

  The admiral shook his head. None of that mattered at the moment. He had a system to defend.

  There were twelve million people on Melendez-Four, the only inhabitable planet in the system. An additional million spacers who’d lived and worked on the star system’s asteroid belt had been evacuated in the two months since the order was given. Removing the planet’s inhabitants was taking far longer. Spacers knew how to travel light and move fast. Dirtsiders had no clue, most of them, anyway. Elba had spent ninety of his hundred-and-fifteen years inside some artificial vehicle or installation, always knowing that the hard vacuum of space was never further than a few dozen feet from where he slept. He understood how quickly things could go hell far better
than those who spent their lives at the bottom of a planet’s gravity well and took basic life support for granted.

  To make matters worse, twenty percent of Melendez-Four’s inhabitants, a little under half of those who had been born on the planet, could not endure warp space. Leaving them behind was a death sentence, but taking them into warp, even under full hibernation, would result in over seventy percent fatalities, and any survivors would become incurably insane. Abandoning two million Americans to the tender mercies of the Lampreys would haunt Elba and everyone in CRURON 56 for the rest of their lives.

  Removing the nine and a half million who could be saved was proving to be difficult enough. Every freighter, passenger vessel, troop transport and logistical support ship in range had been mobilized and had spent two months ferrying refugees out of Melendez System. Their efforts had saved one million refugees from the planet proper in addition to the spacers. More ships were joining the effort, but it would take three more months to evacuate those that could and would flee.

  Time had run out.

  “Warp emergence! Ten light minutes from M-4. Same energy signatures.”

  That would be the enemy’s next to last jump. The final warp emergence would put the Lamprey Fleet some ten to twenty light seconds away from Melendez-Four, which would give the enemy time to recover from warp transit and maneuver towards the target, three to five hours away at normal sub-light cruising speeds.

  “All ships. Prepare for warp transit,” Admiral Elba ordered. His cruiser squadron would emerge in geosynchronous orbit around Melendez-Four. Normally he would have tried to engage the enemy fleet as far out as possible to thin out its numbers, but given the disparity in firepower he decided to operate under the umbrella of the planet’s defenses.

  Melendez-Four had two orbital fortresses, four Planetary Defense Bases and a local defense fleet comprised of eight monitors, STL ships unable to warp but as heavily armed as a cruiser. Those installations would double CRURON 56’s available firepower. If their combined forces inflicted enough losses on the Lampreys, the aliens might break off the attack and allow the evacuation to continue. The hideous ETs weren’t known for their intestinal fortitude when it came to pitched battles; they preferred to rely on trickery and would attack only when victory was certain. From what he knew about Lamprey capabilities, his chances of achieving a stalemate were maybe one in three. Not exactly gambling odds, but it was the hand he’d been dealt, and he intended to play it as well he could.