A Hero

by Stephen Arseneault

  A HERO

  (Vol. 1)

  CORPORATION WARS

  By: Stephen Arseneault

  "I slept for a thousand years. When I woke, the people were all different, but they were still the same."

  --SA

  View the author's website at www.arsenex.com

  Follow on Facebook at StephenArseneault10

  Follow on Twitter at @SteveArseneault

  Read Stephen's bio here

  Character on cover from alientan.daportfolio.com

  Ask a question, leave a comment, or join the email list for notification of new releases at comments@arsenex.com

  Copyright 2019 Stephen Arseneault. All Rights Reserved

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law, or in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  A HERO (Vol. 1) CORPORATION WARS

  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

  Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30

  Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33

  Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36

  What's Next? Books

  — Chapter 1 —

  * * *

  The putrid smell of charred flesh fouled the air. I stumbled, wanting to gag. Even after decades of fighting, it was a stench I could never get used to.

  I paused and steadied myself before reaching up to rub my burning eyes. I had to press on, to will myself forward. To stop was to lose, and we were so close to victory.

  "Hold it together, Ray. Almost there..."

  Togmal warriors lay scattered and dead in the surrounding hallway. Their reptilian hearts no longer beat. Their scaly, gray bodies simmered and smoked. I felt no remorse.

  I pushed my squad of nine as we quick-stepped around and over the product of battle. My sergeant sprinted ahead, checking the next side-room before waving us forward. It was a maneuver we had performed dozens of times that day.

  Plasma bolts streaked by blue, then erupted as orange on impact. Wave after wave of shock reverberated through my body. It felt as though I was running a gauntlet through a gathering of boxers. The constant pounding was unforgiving.

  Three weeks before, the remaining Togmal attacked the orbital colony of Bitma Station. In a final act of defiance, they slaughtered the eight thousand inhabitants. We stormed aboard Bitma that morning, committed to taking it back.

  A single Togmal warship, the last of its kind, sat docked several hundred meters ahead. We blasted our way toward its location. I vowed no living Togmal would escape.

  Acrid smoke swirled. Damaged corridor lights flickered. The bright yellow walls, once intended to keep inhabitants happy, now resembled a furnace. I could almost feel the heat.

  My throat grew raw as I yelled out commands. "Forward, Marines! Keep moving!"

  The war had been horrific, taking the lives of more than a billion of our citizens. Humanity had been pushed to the brink of annihilation before fighting our way back. We had to right the wrongs done to our kind. I had to right the wrongs done to me!

  Klaxons blared. Moans and screams of pain echoed. They seemed to come from every direction at once; sickening evidence of the gruesome brutality of war. The adrenaline pumped through my arteries and veins. It was the only thing keeping me sane.

  I blasted a lock and kicked a pair of side doors open. I stormed into what looked like an auditorium only to be shocked. The Togmal had allowed several hundred of our people to live but neglected to provide food or normal sanitary care. Most of the Togmal decisions during the war had defied human logic. This was no different.

  The funk of human decay was overpowering. I flinched at the smell. The odors and images slapped my humanity, nearly bringing tears to my eyes. Only half still clung to life.

  Their faces were gaunt from starvation, their eyes sunken and dark. Their only hydration had come from a decorative fountain in the room's center. It was dry.

  Those who had the strength held out arms and hands in my direction. They were little more than skin over bone. My empathy for the victims was almost too much to bear. Being human compelled me to help, but I had nothing to offer.

  We checked the room for Togmal before turning back toward the corridor. My heart clenched, knowing any aid for the victims was still hours from arrival. I took one last look as I drew in a heavy breath. The stench forced me to quickly turn away.

  We were Marines. Our orders were to move forward, to cleanse our station and the surrounding space of the savages who had waged war on us for two decades. I reported the situation and dragged myself back to the hall.

  The corridor from there split, going in two directions. I checked a map on my comm. It wasn't clear. Responses from my command for guidance had been anything but immediate. We were one of hundreds of squads on the march on Bitma.

  My best friend and top sergeant, Arthur T. Mayhew, the Master of Disaster, bolted ahead, impatient. I scowled as I again looked over the map before deciding to run his way. The blue flashes of plasma ahead said it was the right decision. I yelled at him to stop as he neared a corner.

  Then it happened... the thing I feared most every day. As Art turned into the next hall, a blue plasma bolt entered the left side of his chest, exploding violently outward as an orange corona. It wrenched the life from his body. He fell backward to the floor just in front of me. In retaliation, I blasted the Togmal who had taken him down.

  I hesitated over Art's remains. His insides still burned. His eyes looked up with a dead, expressionless stare. For the last nine years, we had kept each other alive. I had just failed him... hard.

  Only a minute before, Art was running beside me with a determined grin on his muscled face. His weapon was spitting plasma from its emitter, dispensing vengeance for the brutal losses he himself had suffered. He would never see the war over, his revenge unsettled. I vowed at that moment to finish his commitment for him.

  See you on the other side, Art. You, Pam, and your boys will have justice!

  I glanced down for only a second. I didn't have the luxury of time to stop and grieve. "Move out!" I yelled at the rest of my squad. We hustled on.

  The Togmal were losing and losing big. That had been the case since the corporations took over management of the war. For years I had thought our weapons to be inferior, our supplies slow to arrive, our tactics, strategies, and leadership just wrong. That all changed when the authority to prosecute the war switched hands.

  Our politicians, in desperation, had practically thrown the reins of power to an entity calling itself The Corporation. It was a move that many, including myself, worried was permanent. The Corporation execs had since taken steps to cement their grip on power. It was a growing concern, but not one I had spare time to think on. There was fighting to still be done.

  I rounded the next corner at a near-full run. My shoulder bounced hard off the wall to my right and I again charged ahead. The dense soles of my combat boots, u
nstoppable, pounded out a warning of my wrath—I was coming for the enemy who remained. They would not deny me victory or vengeance. So long as I lived, I could not be denied.

  Kick it, Ray! For Art and the others!

  A heavy plasma bolt raged down the corridor toward me. I turned my head as it sizzled just past my left ear—like a flash of blue light against the red fog of war. It impacted an access panel in the wall by the corner I had rounded only seconds before. Whatever the contents behind the panel had been at that moment, exploded. Shards flew in every direction, taking out two of the seven Marines still with me.

  Debris from the blast battered the side of my helmet and the back of my body armor. I dove forward to the floor. My chest heaved. I dared take in a breath of the rancid air.

  A dead Togmal warrior was lying beside me, his upper torso shredded and burned. A contorted, pained expression was on what remained of his rugged face. An open but lifeless eye stared in my direction.

  "Got what you deserved, asshole."

  As my teeth gritted together, I fired off the plasma rifle gripped tightly in my hands. I followed with a loud shout—coming from so deep in my lungs it seemed to echo on forever. It was my way of denying fate. I would not die like Art, even though death might only be an instant away.

  Bright blue flashes filled the corridor as what looked like a platoon of Togmal warriors charged in ahead of me. I was compromised, unable to move to seek cover. Plasma bolts flashed off the floor and walls surrounding me as glowing orange bursts. The Togmal were pushing hard my way.

  While my team laid down suppressing fire from behind, I reached back to my belt and retrieved an Amatex grenade. The variegated osmium-lead shell gave it the appearance of a kid's toy. The damage from its detonation was anything but play. I chucked it toward the Togmal fighters as they closed on my position.

  Only seconds passed before everything went silent—except the high-pitched ringing in my ears. A spray of hostile fragments came flying my way. Bits of metal bounced off the surrounding walls, ceiling, and floor before peppering the face shield of my helmet, leaving it dazzled with pits and scratches.

  As the last of the blast passed, my chin jerked from the impact of a heavy shard. I had never been punched so hard. I could feel the warm wet flow of blood on my neck as it ran toward the floor. My mind was in a sudden fog.

  Is this it? Am I done?

  For a moment I shifted realities to a place where there was no more war, no more time. My vision dimmed. My body, weary, begged me to stop, to give up. But my mind would not give in. The light of life came flooding back as I opened my eyes.

  A hand grabbed me under my arm, yanking me to my feet. "You got 'em, sir!"

  Four of my Marines raced past as a fifth who had slowed to assist, prodded me along before he too burst ahead. I touched my ragged, aching chin, bringing back a bloodied glove as my legs began to work again, to propel me forward.

  Get your crap together, Ray! We have a war to win!

  At the next corner, a transparent wall ran the length of the corridor. The Togmal ship was now in view.

  I again took command. "Houser, Ballard, clear the rooms on the left! Bowman, LaFleur, follow up! Forbes, come with me!"

  I had just seen the ass-end of a hostile warrior. He slipped into an airlock and onto the crosswalk going to the warship docked beside us. We sprinted ahead.

  Before we could reach the access, the massive steel door of the airlock zipped closed, clanging out a low frequency gong as it contacted its frame. The sound of locks engaging filled the sudden silence of the final corridor. I banged my fist on the door in frustration.

  Through the transparent walls surrounding the door, we could see the warrior running. He glanced back for only a moment. I was certain it was a grin I could see showing on his ugly Togmal face. But before he reached the ship, the access door at the other end slammed shut, leaving him stranded.

  "Where's that grin now, jackass?" I said to myself.

  A content expression covered my face.

  The metal support structure of the crosswalk then whined and screeched as it tore from its moorings. The transparent cross-tube fractured. The last of the Togmal warships was pulling away. The last Togmal warrior we would ever see alive, tumbled into the cold, dead of space. The flash from a plasma cannon turned his body to vapor. It was a fitting end, mirroring the devastating loss I had suffered so long ago.

  I stood, staring. My heart raced and my chin was a mess. My other Marines came up beside us. Their body armor was bloody, scraped, dented and scorched. I wondered how any of us had made it through.

  "Sir—tell me they aren't—getting away," a huffing Corporal Ballard grunted out.

  I slowly shook my head. "Not in this lifetime." It was a statement I made with confidence.

  Plasma charges spewed from the Togmal warship's cannons as our own fighting ships came to bear. Bright-blue, piercing streaks of plasma filled the black emptiness of space. The orange corona from impacts grew and faded into the void as the fierce battle ensued. The armored hull plating of the warship failed as our cannons proved their worth. Smiles crept onto the faces of my Marines as we witnessed the last enemy vessel being gutted in an ever-so-satisfying way.

  I closed and covered my eyes as an extreme white flash filled my field of vision. The see-through walls in front of us flexed from a powerful shockwave after the Togmal warship's energy banks ignited. A third of the great ship splintered and shattered. The rest moved into a slow roll as a constant barrage of plasma picked it apart. I stepped back as a wave of debris crashed into the heavily armored sides of Bitma Station.

  Vengeance was ours. There would be no Togmal survivors on the warship, just as there were no Togmal left alive on Bitma. The last vessel of the alien species who had invaded our space, decades ago, inflicting so much pain, so much suffering—was now gone forever.

  In that moment, as the adrenaline coursed through my veins, I knew the war was over. We had won. I had survived. The Togmal menace was now but a chapter in our history. Twenty years of suppressed anger and hurt rushed to the surface.

  My emotions were running wild. I experienced a profound feeling of elation for our victory and then of depression over my loss. Those feelings were quickly tempered by an equal sense of foreboding over what might come next with The Corporation in charge.

  I dropped to my knees and wept. I wept for my losses early in the war; I wept for Art and for his family—slain by the Togmal on Demos IV; I wept for the millions of citizens and for the thousands of Marines I had fought alongside who had not made it through. My tears of sorrow and joy formed a spattered puddle on the floor.

  This was it. The endless war with the Togmal was over. Finally, over...

  — Chapter 2 —

  * * *

  Twenty years earlier...

  "Mr. Rayford T. Jackson!"

  I turned and saw my friend and classmate Thomas Clarence Goodall. I called him TC. He approached with a ready high-five.

  TC stood a full head above me. His sandy blonde hair was in stark contrast to my deep brown. He had a slender, model-like build with squared shoulders, a handsome face, and blue eyes.

  The ladies, the few who were on Baxter Colony, were constantly flirting with TC. And he was always one to flirt back, but in a reserved and coy way. His personality reflected his elite status.

  I gladly accepted a numbing smack to my hand as I grinned. "Son of Aarlis. Can I take that as you passed? Or am I the only one?"

  I was medium height and weight, with brown eyes. Most would say I was unremarkable, making me your dull, boring, average guy. I liked to think it made me every guy or any guy, not that it was of any benefit.

  "You can take it however you want, Ray. Passed or not, I'm just happy it's over. I never wanted to be done with something so bad in my life. You look pleased. But of course, you would be, being the prof's little pet."

  TC was always ribbing. He had a sharp sense of humor, unlike me. My jokes were scattered few and far
between. His quips, although often sarcastic, were never made with malice and no one ever seemed to take offense. Everyone liked him. He was just one of those strong people you wanted to admire.

  "Hey now..." I feigned hurt. "Professor Stephens offered those bonus sessions to everyone." It was a lame attempt at defending myself when no defense was needed.

  "Yeah, but your sessions were the only ones in private." TC smirked. "I still wonder what kind of bonus points you earned."

  We had just completed the final exams of a mechanical engineering program. I had asked my wife, Denise, over the comm device on my wrist, to come and pick us up. She was on her way, flying a rented shuttle. Next up for me was the cold, cruel world of job hunting. But not before a bit of celebration. We made our way toward the building exit.

  I took a step to the side to avoid colliding with a custodial bot. It passed as it cleaned the hall floor in front of us. I wondered how something being sophisticated enough to be autonomous, couldn't avoid people.

  I made a face and glanced over at TC. "You believe that? Little buggers are just rude! And nothing happened with Prof Stephens. She's not bad, but I've got everything I want with Denise. Wouldn't risk that for anything."

  TC sighed. "Can't fault you for that. Denise is great. And once I bump you off—I'll be taking her for myself."

  We exchanged a few friendly shoves before pushing open the door to outside. A bone-chilling wind hit us, finding its way into every tiny crevice and crack in our clothing. Going outside was something we rarely did. School shuttles normally picked us up and dropped us off in warmed docking bays.

  TC stopped, exposing his wrist comm as he looked at an incoming message on the display. His expression soured.

  "Everything okay?" I asked.

  He ignored my question.

  With one hand I pulled tight on my collar. With the other I shielded my eyes from the bright Baxter Colony sun reflecting off the snow. We left the building exit at a run. TC scowled as he wrapped a scarf around his neck a second time.