First Strike (Hammer's War Book 3)

by James McEwan

  St. Claire stood there watching in awe, “that’ll work.” He took Archie by the arm, “Come on bud let’s get you to the repair shop. You look like you could use some new paint.

  Kára unloaded Ruby, still sleeping, and took her to her stateroom, while Amanda wasted no time making her way straight for the bridge.

  Back on the ground, Thad wanted to go after his brother, but Eve had filled him in on the details and had convinced him that they needed to go to the shipyard and get off world as soon as they could. She was monitoring the battle nets and the fight was turning against Captain Wesson and the small fleet he brought with him.

  The fleet headquarters was a buzz of activity as there were all kinds of people running around. Areas were being locked down by reinforcements, but these were not regular reinforcements, these where the first of the Necromorph troops. Dead males and females from all races reanimated and mind controlled, they were little more than robots and far cheaper to make. The only problem with Necromorph troops was that after a few hours out of the cold storage they started to stink. Not these ones, somehow the NGE had developed a new way to keep the dead from rotting away.

  “See I told you they were making monsters,” Foster said, pointing at the troops standing between them and the exit.

  “What do you think Eve, about twenty of them?” Thad said taking a quick peek around the corner.

  “I count twenty two heat signatures,” She shot back at him.

  Thad changed the sight mode on his right eye to thermal and confirmed her count. He thought it odd that they gave off any heat at all considering they were dead. He could see the heat coming from the robotic implants that were acting like their brain. “Okay, so twenty two baddies. What do you say… eleven each?”

  Eve smiled, “I’m faster than you are so I doubt you’ll get through even five before I’ve finished my eleven.”

  “You want to bet on that?” Thad said as he unsheathed the force blade he had taken off of a dead soldier. Poor Foster couldn’t believe what he was hearing and began to wonder if his choice to come with these two was going to get him killed. Thad could see the fear in the young man’s face, “Relax kid, as you’ve seen I’m pretty damn hard to kill, and even then it’s hard to keep me that way for long.”

  Right then the plasta flesh on Eve’s wrists parted and she withdrew a long thin force blade, one from each arm. The edges started to glow green as she powered up the force blade cutting surfaces. Fosters eyes were as large as plates now, “Oh and don’t worry about Eve, she’s a one of a kind custom combat chassis covered in a love bot façade and inhabited by an AI,” Thad said.

  “Not an AI any longer my darling, I now prefer to be referred to as an Intelligence,” Eve corrected him. Thad looked at her with a confused look on his face. “Never mind, I’ll explain it to you later,” she said as she leapt into action.

  “Hey,” Thad screamed out behind her as he followed her into the fray.

  The Necromorphs heard Thad scream out and turned to see Eve running straight for them. The closest one tried to lift his weapon, but Eve was far too fast. She cut his weapon in half and then with her other arm proceeded to cut him in half. In the meantime Thad was right behind her. Just as he got close he leapt into the air and sailed over the deactivated half Necromorph that had fallen in front of him. He held his force blade out to the side and cut through another Necromorph’s head like a hot knife through butter.

  Foster watched from around the corner as Thad and Eve made short work of the Necromorphs. When it was all over, Thad had a body count of nine while Eve had taken out the rest. As Thad stood amidst the carnage Eve looked at him, his chest heaving as he sucked in air. “Not bad. You got more of them than I thought you would.”

  Thad laughed, “So what you’re saying is, not bad for a mere human?”

  “Thad honey, you’re no mere human, but yeah not bad,” Eve said as she redrew her blades and the skin around her wrists resealed.

  Foster came around the corner and walked up to the mess, “You two are insane.”

  Thad smiled and clapped his hand down on Foster’s shoulder, “Maybe a little kid, maybe a little.”

  Chapter 41

  Drake had been on the Lord Emperor’s flagship when the battle had started. The Vault of Souls as the crew had nick named it, on account of the ships main purpose, was on the far side of the planet from the fighting, but as battle raged on Drake ordered the ship to come about. Because of the size and mass of the ship, she took her time getting to the battle and even though the NGE had lost a lot of ships they were winning the battle. Most of the StarGuard ships were either in pieces or had withdrawn. The last few ships were holding open a small whole in the planets blockade.

  All manner of ships were fleeing the planet’s surface and soon as they broke through the atmosphere, they jumped into hyperspace. As part of the plan, Eve had been able to contact the leader of the resistance. It just happened to be the former Chief of Police for the Capital District. In conjunction with Eve’s efforts, he was able to organize simultaneous raids on several spaceports. He was now directing the evacuation of as many people as he could. The men and woman of Isis were doing their best to hold the ports so people who had been in hiding could escape. However, against the overwhelming force of the NGE troops and their Necromorph reinforcements they couldn’t hope to hold out for long.

  Drake was busy directing the battle when the Vault of Souls cleared the planet rise and he finally got a firsthand glimpse of the battlefield in space. It was littered with debris, burning ships, and frozen bodies of the dead. He had seen plenty of battle vids of battles like this before and it didn’t faze him bit, “Get me firing solutions on those remaining ships, and send out shuttles to police up those bodies, no sense letting them all go to waste.”

  “Aye sir,” the comm officer answered.

  “I want to mop up these fools and get back planet side before dinner,” Drake said as he watched his crew working to carry out his orders.

  Back on the Eden Amanda had made it to the bridge in record time, “Eve put me in touch with the Damocles at once,” she ordered.

  The video screen in front of her was awash with white nose and static, but slowly a picture came into focus even though it was broken and hard to see. “Daniel, can you hear me?” Amanda asked.

  “You’re coming in broken, but readable Eden,” was the reply.

  “I need to speak to the Captain NOW!” Amanda said loudly.

  “The Captain is a little busy right now Admiral,” the comm officer answered back.

  The transmission got a little better as Eve worked to boost the signal. Amanda was not in the mood to deal with the answering service, “Damn it patch me in to the Captain right now, that’s an order!”

  Five seconds later Captain Wesson’s face appeared on the screen. She could see from the blood on his helmet visor that he had been wounded somehow. “What can I do for you Amanda?”

  “You okay Daniel?” She asked out of concern for her friend.

  “I’m fine. The last missile we took knocked loose some of the ceiling tile and one hit me on the back of the helmet. It threw me forward onto the command console. I bit my lip and coughed out the blood, but you didn’t call me in the middle of battle to ask if I was okay,” Wesson responded.

  “No I need you to do something for me,” she paused, “and you’re not going to like it.” Wesson waited for the order. “You have to take out that flagship. Do whatever it takes, but that ship must be destroyed,” Amanda said with the look that all commanders get when they know they’re ordering their people to their deaths.

  “Amanda, say again,” Wesson said as the video crackled.

  “I said that flagship must be destroyed at all costs,” she repeated her order.

  “That’s what I thought you said,” He paused this time, “Alright Admiral, I’ll get it done. Oh and one more thing, it was an honor Sir,” He stood up and saluted her image.

  “The honor was mine Captain,�
�� she returned his salute. “God’s speed Captain!” Amanda said as the video transmission cut off.

  On the bridge of the Damocles the bridge crew all knew what the order meant for them. Piper, the first officer, was first to break the silence, “Did you guys really think we were going to live through this?”

  One of the two ship’s pilots whispered to the other, “I was kind of hoping to, yeah.”

  “Weapons status?” Wesson barked out.

  “Missile racks depleted, Mag canons down to one round each, and the forward lasers are gone,” the tactical officer called out. “But Captain, even if we had every weapon system online we wouldn’t even make a dent in that beast. Sir, I don’t know how we’re going to stop that ship,” she reported.

  Wesson gripped the side of his command chair, blood still dripping from his lip, “Helm set a course for that abomination.”

  “Aye sir, speed sir?” replied the pilot.

  “Give me all the speed you can muster. Our only hope is to close before her guns can tear us apart,” Wesson said.

  “Sir, why don’t we pull the same maneuver we did with the Valor?” the pilot asked.

  “Because that was a one in a billion shot that I doubt we could pull off again. No, I have something else in mind,” Wesson said answering his question. Wesson could see by the looks on their faces they were trying their best to prepare themselves for their deaths. “Don’t worry I don’t intend to die today.”

  Back on the planet below combat raged as the resistance was doing their best to hold the spaceports. Thad, Eve, and Foster didn’t plan on trying to get off world that way. They chose instead to steal a ship from the fleet shipyard. The trio had made it to one of several flight decks that served the fleet headquarters building.

  Stealing a shuttle was no problem as Eve remotely hacked the shuttles flight controls and activated the weapons system, then used them to take out the troops that had just exited the shuttle and were standing on the deck awaiting orders. They walked passed the bodies and right up the loading ramp unopposed.

  The two pilots were so busy trying to figure out why they had suddenly lost manual control that they didn’t notice Thad until he placed the barrel of a laser pistol to one of their ears. “Excuse me gentlemen,” Thad said softly. His cool demeanor scared the pilot more than the pistol to his head. “I am sorry about this, but we need your shuttle,” Thad continued gently

  Both men held up their hands slowly and the pilot spoke, “Okay buddy, we don’t want any trouble.”

  “Good, because your lives aren’t worth this piece of junk,” Thad said as he looked around the old craft.

  The two pilots carefully looked at each other, before the pilot spoke, “She’s all yours,” he said as he slowly stood up. Thad backed up to allow the men room to move. It was tight in the cockpit area and Thad didn’t want to give the two men any reason to try to be heroes. Thad marched them to the back while Eve jumped into the pilot’s seat.

  Eve didn’t need to operate the shuttle manually as she could fly it remotely by computer, but she seemed to really enjoy doing things hands on like a human. Her hands were a blur as they moved over the controls. They flipped switches, punched in data into the flight computer, and came to rest on the flight controls. “Ready to fly,” she called out.

  Thad was marching the pilot and co-pilot to the exit when the pilot chose a bold move. He spun on his feet to face Thad. The barrel of the gun was pointed right between his eyes, yet he showed no sign of fear. “I don’t know who you are, but I’ve always been a good judge of character and you sir seem to be a reasonable man,” he said. Thad was not sure what the pilot was up to, but other than turning around quickly he had done nothing to give Thad alarm. He decided to hear him out.

  The pilot continued, “I can see that you’re no fan of the NGE, and I have a feeling you have a plan to get off this rock.” Thad nodded in confirmation. “Good, then if I may be so bold as to ask, will you let us go with you?”

  This question didn’t surprise Thad as he already had a convert working with him. He thought it over. Neither man had made any attempt to stop him nor do him harm, not that they could if they tried. The pilot could see that Thad was debating the answer so he slowly reached his left arm over to the NGE patch on his right shoulder and tore it off his flight suit. “Look I don’t want to work for these bastards. They gave us a choice, do it or be shot. But if I have a chance to get off this planet and rejoin whatever’s left of the StarGuard, I’m going to take it.”

  Thad thought about it, as it seemed probable many of the former StarGuard members had been pressed into serving the NGE and didn’t have any choice. Thad lowered the pistol and spun it around then held it out for him to take. It was a test. If the man tried to shoot Thad then he would know for sure where their loyalties stood.

  The man took the pistol with his left hand then stuck out his empty right hand for Thad to shake. Thad took the man’s outreached hand and shook it. “Lt. Commander Lionel Kelly and this is my co-pilot Lt. Michael Jefferson,” the pilots introduced themselves.

  Eve had been monitoring the entire exchange between the men and decided to lift off now that they had joined their ever-growing band of rebels. “Five minutes to the fleet ship yard so hold onto something, it could get a little bumpy,” Eve announced over the shuttles comm system.

  After what was a short but jarring ride, Eve gently touched down on the deck of the Fleet Command’s shipyard. Thad had chosen this shipyard because it only built ships for the fleet’s top brass and the elite. These were small personal use ships or ships used for diplomatic use. Thad wanted a small fast craft that would slip through unnoticed. The majority of the shipyard was automated with work bots whizzing back and forth, going about their business. They paid no attention to the new arrivals.

  Of course there were a few employees who stopped working long enough to see just who had landed, but when Thad and the rest of them disembarked from the old shuttle they went back to work. Thad looked around and could see half a dozen ships on the assembly line, but no finished vessels. “Eve,” he said.

  “I’m already on it,” she replied as she went to work hacking into the shipyard’s computer system looking for a working ship.

  While Thad was waiting on Eve a small round man came running up to them. Thad smiled as he recognized him, “Bernard!” Thad cried out. The man stopped and looked at Thad, trying to figure out who he was.

  “Do I know you friend?” the man asked.

  Thad remembered the chance encounter with the man. It had been in the tunnels beneath New Houston on Nova Texas. However, that had been in another dimension. Thad answered him, “Well yes and no. Long story, but Bernard we need a ship.”

  Still looking confused Bernard asked, “Do you have a requisition for one?” Thad patted the pistol tucked in his waistband. “Ah the best kind,” Bernard replied.

  “Got it,” Eve said.

  However, before Eve could say more Bernard interrupted her, “Well I only have one ship that’s space worthy. She just rolled off the line this morning. In fact, she’s so new the paint’s still drying. Don’t even have a name for her yet.”

  Eve smiled as she read the name on the requisition form, “Oh Thad honey, you’re just going to love this. The ship was newly commissioned by none other than Drake himself. We’re going to steal his brand new personal yacht.”

  “Outstanding,” Thad said with a large smile on his face. “Let’s go relieve him of his property!”

  “Right this way good lady and gentlemen. Let Bernard show you the way,” Bernard said with a dramatic flourishing wave and bow.

  He led them to a grav sled. Not a small attack sled, but rather one made for moving people around the yard. After they were all aboard Bernard lifted off the tarmac. “Here we go,” he said, and off they went.

  Bernard weaved in and out of different areas of the shipyard’s operation. He acted like this was more like a tour, talking about each area they passed through. Thad was start
ing to wonder if he understood they were here to steal a ship not place an order for one.

  Just as Thad was about to say something to Bernard, they rounded a building and right in front of them sitting on the tarmac was a brand new captain’s yacht. She was no Eden, but she was no hunk of junk either. She was smaller than the Eden, lacked the grace and beauty and raptor like quality of the Eden and had fewer weapons as well, but the ones she had were more than capable of defending her, and she certainly wasn’t bad looking.

  “Here you go folks, the first of the new S class yachts. She’s fast, beautiful, and has teeth too. This baby is my baby,” Bernard said, with all the pride of a father holding his first child. “Yep, designed her myself. I know every inch of that bird.”

  That gave Thad an idea, “Hey Bernard, why don’t you come with us? After all, I have two pilots and a medic. We could use a Chief Engineer. What do you say?”

  “Really?” Bernard asked with the eyes of a child on Christmas morning.

  “Yeah really, come with us. Besides you don’t want to stay on this rock any longer, trust me,” Foster chimed in.

  “Chief Engineer Bernard Chapworthy reporting for duty, sir!” Bernard said as he snapped a crisp salute.

  “Welcome to the crew Mr. Chapworthy,” Thad said as he gave him a pat on the shoulder. “Now you two go with Eve to the bridge and get us ready to lift off,” Thad said pointing to the two pilots. The two men nodded and followed Eve up the loading ramp.

  “What would like me to do?” Bernard asked.

  “What is her fuel status?” Thad asked.

  “Fully fueled, and her weapons are loaded, but we haven’t had time to load any crew supplies,” Bernard replied. He pointed to a stack of crates and containers.

  “How long to load them?” Thad asked, knowing that their window for escape was closing fast.