by Kal Spriggs
Valor's Cost
by Kal Spriggs
Copyright 2018 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*
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
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
About the Author
Join the Century Military Academy!
Chapter 1: Everything Changes
The sandstorm howled outside and all I could do was sigh and stare at my datapad.
I was supposed to be on a skimmer, landing at New Provo. I was supposed to be getting ready to meet my boyfriend's family. We'd talked about it for the past few months. I was going to spend Christmas break with him and his family, just like he had with me and mine last year.
Instead, there was this stupid storm. It had come howling out of the deep desert like a raging, stampeding beast. No one had predicted it and we'd only had a few hours warning from the weather satellites. My parents had apologized, of course, but I couldn't blame them. It wasn't their fault. This was one of the big storms that happened and it was part and parcel with living on the raw edge of civilization here at Black Mesa Outpost.
My parents were up at the main lab building, trying to get some of their latest research papers written up so they could put in for more funding in the next year. Granny Effy, my dad's mother was up there too, she'd come down earlier in the week to help out. Most of the rest of the outpost was there with them, all but the handful of support personnel and kids. I supposed they were grateful for the sandstorm, it gave them a little longer to work on their papers, sort of like a brief reprieve. I thought my mom had seemed grateful for it preventing the Admiral from coming to visit as well.
We'd lost connection with the planetary network, I couldn't even work on my homework for the Academy. My brother, of course, had already finished off all of his assignments. I couldn't help but glower at him as he played some kind of single player training game. While I was proud of how well he was doing in a sort of older-sister fashion, I was still a bit disgruntled at how easily he seemed to take to the things that had felt so hard to me.
I couldn't help but give another disgruntled sigh. I could be hanging out with Kyle right now, if the storm had been even a few hours later... My grandmother, the legendary Admiral Victoria Armstrong had actually been invited to Christmas dinner, which hadn't happened in the whole time I'd been alive. That kind of olive branch from my mom wasn't something I'd really wanted to miss, but I'd planned to take her skimmer back north, since I had my air-vehicle pilot's license.
But she'd had to turn back and I couldn't very well steal the Outpost's only skimmer, not when they might need it for search and rescue operations after the storm.
It will be alright, I told myself, it's just a few days difference... Kyle will understand and everything will work out.
Even as I thought that, the front door to my parent's house slammed open and my mom stumbled inside. I looked up, smiling and about to give her some grief about slamming the door... and then I saw her.
My mom looked ragged and disheveled, her hair was loose and wind-tossed. She held a rifle in her arms and the set of her face shot a chill through me. My smile died, “Mom, what's wrong?”
My mom slammed the door and bolted it from the inside. I saw her rack the slide on the rifle she held and she muttered a curse and threw it to the ground. She turned back to us, her face grave, “Jiden, William, I need you to listen to me.”
“Mom, what's going on?” I demanded. I noticed that she limped as she went to the mantle and took down my great-grandfather's bolt action rifle that had hung there since before I was born. She checked the rifle and then pulled down a box of ammunition from a cupboard. I hadn't even realized that my parents had ammunition in the house. “Mom, where's dad?”
She froze, midway through loading rounds into the rifle. I saw her hands tremble. She spoke without looking up, “Jiden, there isn't time for questions. I want you and Will to go out the back door. Head for the dig-site.” The main entrance to the excavation was only twenty meters or so from the back door to my parent's house.
Something was terribly wrong. I watched as she loaded up the rest of the rounds. “Go inside. Go all the way down and hide in the lowest levels. Don't come up until the storm passes. I'd come with you, but I need to buy you some time and I don't want to slow you down.”
My gaze went to her leg. I saw a spreading stain of red. She was hurt. I stood up, starting to go for the medical kit in the kitchen. “Mom, let me help you...”
“No!” My mom snapped at me. “There isn't time. You and will need to go, now.”
Will started, “But Mom--”
“Go!” She snapped. Just as she did, I heard shouts outside. “Get out of here!”
My training kicked in and I followed her orders. I ran to the back door, grabbing Will by the shoulder and whipping it open.
I heard a crash at the front door even as I opened the back. I stumbled out into the storm, just as I heard the sound of a gunshot from my mother. I couldn't stop. If I did, I knew that I'd freeze. I ran, hearing the sound of gunfire coming from my parent's house. Will and I ran. The wind buffeted me, throwing my hair in my eyes and the sand abraded my exposed skin, but I didn't care. I ran as fast and hard as I could.
The entrance to the excavation was a large, square gap in the side of Black Mesa. Will and I ran through and started down the tunnel. The sound of gunfire back at the house had stopped. I tried not to think about what that meant. We'd only gone a few meters when a rough-looking man stepped out in front of us, “What do we have here?”
I saw he had a rifle and his smirk and confidence told me everything I needed to know. I wasn't sure if he underestimated us because of my size or our age, I didn't care. I dove forward in a tackle, driving my elbow into him as he fell back. I heard him start to shout and then we hit the stone floor. “W
ill!” I shouted, “Run!”
The man grappled with me and he was stronger than me. I drove my elbow into the side of his head and kneed him in the groin.
Will didn't run. He joined in the fight kicking the man until he let go of me and then pulling me to my feet. “Let's go!” I gave the downed attacker one last solid kick to the head and then we ran.
I slowed as I realized that I should have taken our attacker's weapon. It was too late, though.
The lights were evenly spaced, every ten meters, but they weren't really adequate for the black stone walls of the shaft. There was a danger that the man near the entrance hadn't been the only one. I looked at Will, “If we run into someone, I'll distract them and you need to run.”
“I'm not going to leave you,” Will stubbornly set his jaw. “Whatever this is, whoever these people are... we need to stick together.”
“No,” I hissed the words. “We need to stay alive, if we can. And if one of us survives, that's better than both of us dying.”
“Why should you...”
“Mom put me in charge,” I snapped. “Besides, I have rank on you, plebe.”
His expression soured, but he didn't argue. I really hoped that my words had penetrated his thick skull. My brother could be stubborn sometimes. I didn't know where he got it from. We continued downward.
We were almost to the excavation site itself when I heard the sound of voices. Please, I thought, please be some of the archeologists...
Yet as we drew closer, I realized that we'd run out of luck. “...even know what we're looking for?” A woman whined. “Wessek and the others are up at the outpost having fun, we're down here for what? A couple of computers that are thirty years out of date?”
A man answered her, “Wessek said to grab all their research notes. You saw the alien stuff down here, these sand grubbers are onto something and Wessek knows it could be valuable. Besides, we're almost done.”
“Yeah, yeah, but you know they're going to keep any good loot,” the woman grumbled. Pirates, I thought to myself. The outpost had an Enforcer station, but there had only been two of them. I could only assume that they'd already been killed.
“Just shut up and help me with this pad, will you?” The man grunted.
I peeked around the corner. I saw the two of them, over by the far wall, in pretty much the perfect spot to prevent us from slipping past: it was well lit and it was the narrowest part of the entrance shaft. A network of metal struts, connected together with metal latches, held up this part of the ceiling, though now and again, trails of sand cascaded down.
This was one of the alien complex's old air shafts and it had been entirely filled with sand tens of thousands of years ago. My parents and the other archeologists had tunneled through, bracing the sand above with sheets of metal held by those braces... but they had only tunneled a relatively narrow gap.
The two pirates were just outside that gap, loading up a couple of crates on a lifter pad. We couldn't sneak past them. I felt my chest clench as I realized that I was going to have to distract them so my brother could get through.
I looked over at him, “Alright, Will, I'm going to go in first. I'll keep them busy, you run through. Once you're on the other side...”
“No,” he whispered back. “There's only two of them, we can take them.”
“They're armed, Will. They'll kill us both if we stay here fighting them,” we didn't have time for this. More pirates could be on the way.
“I won't leave you,” My brother's jaw was set and I knew that he was going to force me to accept his help. I felt absurdly grateful, even as I knew it was the wrong decision. I guess I just didn't want to die alone.
“Let's go,” I whispered.
We crept down the tunnel, moving as quietly as we could and keeping to the shadows until we were only a few meters away from the two pirates. I tapped my brother on the shoulder and pointed at the man. Will was taller and bigger than me and while I had more martial arts training from my kerala classes, my little brother wasn't really little anymore.
He gave me a nod.
The two pirates had rifles slung over their shoulders, so their hands were free to work, I waited until both of them were bent over a heavy box and then I ran forward, charging at the woman.
She saw me at the last second and turned, so the elbow I threw at the side of her head struck her in the shoulder instead. She spun with a shout of alarm and kicked out. The blow caught me in the stomach and knocked the wind out of me. As I doubled over, she caught me by the hair and then threw me head first into the metal support struts.
I hit hard enough that I saw stars. I tried to straighten up, but I found myself stumbling, barely able to stand.
The woman came at me, a look of anger on her face. “You little brat, I'm going to kill you!”
I backed up and stumbled falling into the sand tunnel. The woman took a step forward and kicked at me and I rolled and caught the blow on my thigh. She leaned in to punch and I managed to kick up, hard enough to knock her back and buy me some space. I stumbled to my feet, backing down the shaft. “Will!” I shouted.
I heard him grunt something, but he and the bigger man were locked in a fight. “Get out of there!” I shouted.
Then, behind him, I saw flashlights. More pirates were coming down the tunnel, we were out of time. As I hesitated, the pirate I'd been fighting reached forward and caught me by the shoulders, “I got you!” She crowed as she slammed me, back first into the supports. Sand and grit rained down on us and I felt the whole support structure sway.
I drove an elbow into her stomach and she doubled over. I punched her in the side of the head and tried to get away, but she still hung onto my shoulder and I tripped and fell, sprawling out, halfway in the tunnel and halfway on the far side.
She grabbed my foot and started to pull me back towards her, “I got her!” she shouted, holding onto my shoe, “Wessek, I got the girl, the one you said you wanted!”
They weren't just pirates, I realized, they were after me. That thought sent a shiver down my spine. I knew, somehow, that I didn't dare let them take me alive.
My eyes locked on the support stanchion nearest me, the thin metal had been knocked slightly to the side when she'd thrown me into it, it wasn't quite lined up right anymore and the metal plate above it had dropped a little. Sand rained down from the ceiling in a slow, steady, inevitable pace.
I used the female pirate's grip on my leg as leverage and kicked hard at the stanchion. The support collapsed and more sand began raining down. Several of the other supports groaned and the metal plate above us creaked alarmingly.
“What are you doing?” The woman stared at me in horror. Beyond her, I saw several more pirates pile onto my brother. There was no way he was going to escape. I'd failed my mom. I'm sorry, mom... I tried.
I kicked out at another support and it collapsed. The plate above us groaned and sand poured down around us.
“No!” the woman screamed and she let go of me and tried to run.
I kicked out at the last support on this side and then the world came crashing down in a terrible rumble.
***
I didn't die. With the way the supports had been designed, they'd actually collapsed outwards, so as to preserve the artifacts in the dig site.
I woke up, half-buried in sand, in the dark. The collapse must have severed the power conduits to the lights. Those lights had emergency batteries, but they must have run out while I was unconscious. Anyone who thought a little sand falling on you wouldn't hurt... well, I'd like to see them pummeled by tons of it. My body ached and I felt like I'd been severely beaten. Then again, that pirate did a number on me, too... I dug myself out, wincing as I pulled my leg free of a metal strut that pinned it to the floor. I lost a lot of skin doing it, but I didn't care.
I felt around in the dark until I found one of the emergency kits near the wall of the tunnel. My parents had been in charge of the dig site for decades, they'd made safety one of their key part
s of the dig and since this had been considered the most dangerous part of the site, they had several emergency kits in the area. I fumbled with it until I found a miniature portable lantern and then turned it on.
The black basalt of the walls pretty much absorbed the light, but I was able to make out the collapsed section well enough. Thousands of tons of sand had cascaded down, though the bracing on this side had mostly channeled that away from me. The emergency kits had water and food, I would survive until someone realized that the outpost hadn't responded. Someone would eventually dig me out. I was lucky.
I choked on that thought. Lucky... I probably just killed my brother and I consider myself lucky.
All the implications of what had just happened came crashing in on me. My father was almost certainly dead. The expression on my mom's face as she'd come back to the house told me that, just as certainly as the end of gunfire at our house told me that she too, was most certainly dead. Granny Effy, my dad's mother, the sweet old lady who used to sneak me cookies before dinner and had given me my first datapad... she must be dead, too.
If the collapse of the sand tunnel hadn't killed my brother, then the pirates probably would have. After all, what did they need with him? It was me they were after. They'd said as much. The woman had been after me. She had recognized me somehow, from a picture or a video she'd been shown... the pirates' leader, this Wessek, had wanted me.
I pulled my knees to my chest and leaned against the wall. It was all to much. In just a few minutes I had lost my entire family and it was all my fault. I put my head on my knees and began to cry.
***
Chapter 2: The Family Tradition
I'd lost track of time, but I was guessing it was a few days later when I heard the sounds of equipment and shovels on the other side of the collapsed section.
I was standing, waiting, when the first shovel broke through. “Is there anyone there?” someone shouted.
