Codename: Night Witch

by Cary Caffrey

  Codename: Night Witch

  The Girls from Alcyone III

  Cary Caffrey

  Codename: Night Witch. Published by Cary Caffrey. Copyright 2015 by Cary Caffrey. 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. For more information, visit Cary Caffrey at carycaffrey.com

  This novel is a work of fiction created by the author. All characters, events and organizations portrayed in this novel are works of the author's imagination.

  Copyright 2015 by Cary Caffrey

  carycaffrey.com

  Cover art by Anne Pogoda

  Published by Alcyone Studio, NB, Canada

  All rights reserved

  Contents

  Books by Cary Caffrey

  PROLOGUE Cor Caroli

  Part One Awakening

  CHAPTER ONE Rebelle

  CHAPTER TWO Contracts

  CHAPTER THREE Escape

  CHAPTER FOUR The Mistress

  CHAPTER FIVE Jaffer

  CHAPTER SIX Highwaymen

  CHAPTER SEVEN The Crossroads

  CHAPTER EIGHT Sisters

  CHAPTER NINE White Knights

  CHAPTER TEN A Girl For Hire

  CHAPTER ELEVEN Presents

  CHAPTER TWELVE Operations

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN The Courier

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN Nuria

  Part Two The Night Witch

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN Betrayer

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN The Pirate King

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN The Hold

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Arms Of The Enemy

  CHAPTER NINETEEN Nemesis

  CHAPTER TWENTY Identify

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE Data Error

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO The Camp

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE Exodus

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR Resolute

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE The Road

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX Smith & Jones

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN Rolling Thunder

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT A Murder of Crows

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE The Crow's Nest

  CHAPTER THIRTY The Night Witch

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE The Kindness of Strangers

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO Master & Servant

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE Voices

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR End Game

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE The Wounded

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX Crossroads

  EPILOGUE

  PATRONS & CIRCLES

  Books by Cary Caffrey

  The Girls from Alcyone Trilogy

  The Girls from Alcyone

  The Machines of Bellatrix

  Codename: Night Witch

  Visit carycaffrey.com for more details

  For Gisele, and for the Monday Nighters:

  Ruthie, Matt, Matt, Sarah, Erika and Liane.

  PROLOGUE

  Cor Caroli

  April 22, 2354

  New Manchuria, Cor Caroli. Independent Space

  Captain Tomanek stared ahead, squinting against the setting twin suns of Cor Caroli. He raised his hand to shield his eyes, but more from the wind and sand than from the dwindling twilight. He paused on the hilltop to take one last look around, but there was nothing to see. The place was a wasteland, a rock.

  Sandblasted bits of rubble and stone foundations, piles of crumbling bricks, there was nothing left of the Independent colony of New Manchuria. It was gone, wiped from the face of the planet. Tomanek and his men had made certain of that. The Independents might have started this war, but he was going to finish it.

  For years he'd thought the Independents fools. They all had. Nine free worlds standing against the corporate might of the Federation? It was madness. But all that changed five years ago. The Independents weren't so mad anymore, were they? In one bloody night of violence they'd changed everything. The Council for Trade and Finance was dead, assassinated. It was still hard to believe. And they weren't done yet. These Independents were only just getting started.

  Next came Vega IV. Eighteen corporate enclaves put to the torch. But even that paled compared to Procyon.

  Procyon—Fortress Procyon! Tomanek spat in the dirt. It was gone, wiped out. His own brothers and sisters in arms murdered by the tens of thousands. And if the intel could be believed, it was all done by a single lone operative. The Witch. That was what they called her. The Night Witch. It was just a codename, something to frighten the proletariat. But witch or no witch, if she was here in New Manchuria, she was dead already.

  Tomanek scanned the devastation with the satisfaction that comes from a job well done. Genocide? That was a word for bureaucrats, not soldiers. He wasn't about to lose sleep over a few dead colonists. Wiping out this colony was just the start. The CTF would take back the Federation, even if they had to do it planet by bloody planet.

  For the first time since arriving, Tomanek permitted himself a smile. The war was over. They'd won. He found himself whistling as he left the watch post. The garrison encampment was less than one hundred meters away down the hill, a stone's throw, yet there was nothing to see. His men were well dug in and he was hard-pressed to spot a single temporary shelter or camouflaged bunker. Work had already begun on the revetments for the six Raven fighters and the handful of Starlings that were tasked with his air support. Soon those would be just as difficult to spot.

  The makeshift HQ was just ahead, half-buried in the sand and hidden behind a small stand of burned-out trees. The two guards on duty saluted smartly as he came forward. They drew the flap aside and he bent low as he entered. Inside, the men and women of Dog Company were busy working to set up the command post. They unpacked and hooked up the communications and monitoring gear, everything that was essential to establishing a garrison on Cor Caroli.

  "Status," Tomanek barked as he approached the lieutenant, a woman he'd served with through more tours than he could count.

  "It's quiet, sir. This isn't garrison duty, this is a vacation. I think our biggest problem is going to be keeping the men occupied."

  "I'm sure Sergeant Akiloye will find something for them to do."

  "No doubt, sir."

  "Sir!"

  Tomanek spun around to see two soldiers burst into the tent. The soldiers were out of breath, their faces flushed. They also had their assault rifles unslung and at the ready.

  "Sir, there's something—" The private pointed frantically up. "There's something up there. It's coming in."

  Lieutenant Madison was already at the tactical station, hovering over the duty officer's shoulder. Her station gave her access to all the monitoring sats they'd parked in orbit; ground radar, motion detectors—she scanned each in quick succession. The systems were completely automated, designed to detect even the smallest traces of motion. She shook her head. "Scope's clear, sir. There's nothing out there."

  "Tell me carefully, Private," Tomanek said. He didn't remember the soldier's name, but the tactical scanner embedded in his contact lens flashed the private's name before his eye. Mendez. "Tell me, Mendez, what exactly did you see?"

  "Not just me, sir—we both saw it." Mendez jabbed a thumb at the other soldier; she took a half-step backward, distancing herself from Private Mendez. "It's a ship, sir. I swear it."

  Growling his irritation, Tomanek grabbed a pair of macro-binoculars from the rack and walked quickly outside—if this was another false alert…

  The two privates and Lieutenant Madison followed in his wake. Mendez pointed toward the darkest part of the sky. "There, sir. It's there, sir, I swear it. I spo
tted it at thirty-six degrees, elevation nineteen thousand meters, descending fast—straight vertical trajectory."

  The macro-binoculars had excellent night optics. The captain made the adjustment, zooming in before panning up and pulling back. He almost missed it: the single black speck, no heat signature, falling fast, like a stone or maybe a meteorite.

  No, not a meteor. "A glider."

  Madison was already gripping the comm strapped to her wrist. "Sound general quarters! I want those Ravens in the air yesterday. All triple-A on station. Now!"

  The encampment erupted into life. Camouflage coverings were swept aside to reveal row after row of antiaircraft emplacements. The screaming whine of the Ravens' suborbital engines powering filled the night air.

  Raising the binoculars again, Tomanek scanned the skies. The incoming ship was closer. He could just make out its silhouette. Juncos! They were using Juncos. "Bloody antiques…"

  The glider was dropping in from orbit, unpowered with all its systems switched off. The pilot's tactics were desperate, but there was a method to his madness. None of Tomanek's automated defenses could be brought to bear on the single fighter. With no heat or electronic signature, his crews would be forced to fire line-of-sight. Even radar was useless; proved as their signals deflected harmlessly away by the Junco's ancient but still highly effective radar-absorbing materials.

  These Independents were nothing if not committed. They were bloody fanatics. It was madness. The attacker was committed to the suicidal descent, unable to maneuver—or fire his weapons, for that matter. Tomanek knew they would wait to the last minute before switching everything on. And when they did, Tomanek's men would destroy them.

  Of course, it was more likely the ancient fighter would simply smash into the ground, taking care of his problem for him. Still, he had to admire the pilot's zeal, even if it meant his death.

  High overhead, the first puffs of black smoke appeared followed by another and then another after that: flak exploding as his triple-A crews zeroed on the target. This would all be over in moments.

  Yet his lieutenant was shifting uneasily at his side.

  "Spit it out, Lieutenant."

  "Sir, with respect, one fighter? Isn't this exactly what happened on Procyon?"

  Not quite. Procyon was a major naval facility, the largest in the CTF, with tens of thousands of ships coming and going at any time. Here, the skies were clear, and that fighter was a sitting duck.

  Still, perhaps there was a danger. "Tell the men and women to prep for atomic protocols. Just in case."

  Madison let out a long breath. "Aye, sir."

  And there was something else nagging at him. "Any word from our overwatch? That fighter can't have got here on its own."

  The immense sonic boom caused Tomanek to jerk his head up.

  His jaw went slack; he didn't need the macro-binoculars to see what was looming above him. Giant, black as night, and filling the entire sky above them was a ship.

  Captain Tomanek understood too late what was happening. The aging Junco was a feint, a distraction from the real attack. As mad and desperate as the fighter's attack was, it was nothing compared to what he was witnessing now. The fools had dropped their carrier from orbit using the same insane tactics. Unpowered and flying dark, the small escort carrier had slipped past all their defenses. It had probably been going ballistic for days, sailing unnoticed through Cor Caroli space.

  It was also completely suicidal. The six-hundred-meter vessel was on course to crush anything in its path.

  The captain reached for the comm unit, but it was already too late. Less than a thousand meters overhead, the escort carrier came alive. Its engines roared to life in an explosion of smoke and flame that threatened to burn everything and anyone alive beneath it. Weapons ports shot open, revealing row after row of heavy guns, each of them belching out tens of thousands of rounds per second, tearing apart what wasn't already set afire. The few Ravens that made it into the air were ripped to shreds by the wall of ordnance filling the sky.

  The fate of Tomanek and his command was sealed. But so was the fate of the carrier. Braking at maximum overboost, decelerating at what had to be at least twenty-five Gs, the six-hundred-meter vessel fought valiantly, desperately trying to halt its descent.

  For the briefest of moments it looked like the carrier might actually save itself. But it wasn't to be. This was a one-way mission. Unable to halt its suicidal descent, the ship pancaked into the garrison. The resulting explosion, fueled by the kinetic energy and its overtaxed reactors, sent a pillar of flame mushrooming into the night sky so high that it could be seen for more than twenty-five kilometers. It flared brilliantly, scorching the clouds around it.

  But there was no one alive to see it.

  ~ - ~

  The engines of the aging Junco fighter sputtered to life only to die again. Five more alarms sounded in the small cockpit. Amber and red lights blazed across the pilot's heads-up display, nearly blinding her. The ground was rushing up quickly, all too eager to greet the free-falling fighter craft.

  "Blast," the pilot said.

  With a flick of her gloved hand, she did the only thing she could. She opened the fuel intake to maximum and set the reactor to overboost. Her finger hovered over the master switch. If she was hesitating, it was for good reason. This action could just as easily blow her to bits as it might save her. There was nothing for it. Holding her breath, she lit the candle.

  The resulting explosion nearly tore the Junco apart. The engines roared to life, crushing her back in her seat. The prolonged blast of 17.6 Gs was enough to kill most normal humans. But then, she wasn't exactly normal, was she? And perhaps by some accounts, she wasn't strictly human either.

  She fought the G-lock as long as she could, but even for her this was too much. She blacked out. When she came to moments later, the Junco's automated systems had her back in straight and level flight, albeit inverted and staring up, or was it down, at the ground below.

  Tearing the helmet from her head, she took in huge gulps of air. Her blond hair was matted and wet from sweat from the exertion of her abrupt reentry, and she pulled it away from her eyes. Grabbing hold of the stick, she righted the craft and began a slow circle, dropping down low over the devastation. She scanned the area for any sign of resistance, but there was nothing. The company of soldiers, the support personnel, everyone, they were all gone. Wiped out.

  Thumbing the comm switch, the girl pressed the tiny microphone to her lips. "You're clear. It's all clear. There's nothing left."

  She didn't wait for a reply, as none would be coming.

  Torn apart by flak and the sudden restart, the Junco's engines were still misbehaving and the fighter bucked with each wheezing cough of the thrusters. She had to land, and the sooner the better. Spying a reasonably flat stretch of sand, she nosed the craft down, bringing it in for a skidding, bouncing landing. She brought it to a stop not far from the smoldering crater.

  Nothing remained of the carrier or the garrison. Only a burning pit. Smoke roiled upwards, trailing away in the stiff wind. The fire would burn for weeks, months even, continuing until the last of the carrier's fuel reserves were gone.

  The Junco's thrusters whined loudly as she popped the canopy. She ran quickly through the shutdown sequence, then wondered why bother? The fighter was finished. The aging relic would never fly again.

  The charred earth crunched beneath her boots as she dropped from the cockpit. It was hard to believe that there was ever a CTF encampment here. The entire company of men and women were disintegrated, snuffed out in a flash. But they weren't the only ones to die here, were they. Before the marines came, before the CTF, a settlement had stood in this very spot.

  Farmers, workers, mothers, daughters. Families. They were here first. This was their home, and this was their land. But that hadn't stopped the CTF from moving in. That hadn't stopped the CTF from killing them all.

  Eviction. That was what the Council for Trade and Finance called it. The pi
lot knew otherwise. This was genocide. The marines didn't deserve her sympathy, and her mistress was right to order their destruction.

  Not far away, a small ship came in for a landing. With her flight helmet tucked under her arm, she strode toward it.

  The girl waited, watching as the ship settled on its struts. The hatch's seal opened with a hiss and the door swung up. The ship's single occupant emerged. She was tall, quite a bit taller than the pilot, who was, in fact, remarkably short. The woman's shoulder-length brown hair featured a brilliant streak of silver that curved about a face that was as commanding as it was handsome.

  When the woman saw the girl, she smiled, a familiar gesture the girl didn't return.

  "Glad to see you're in one piece," the woman said. "I have to admit I was skeptical of your plan. Remind me not to doubt you again. Now come. We don't have much time. I don't wish to be here when their compatriots show up."

  "Compatriots?" the girl said. "You mean reinforcements. Already?"

  "It seems a fleet of Earth ships has arrived in system. I don't think it would do for us to be here when they arrive. I can't imagine they'll be all too happy with us. And they're not alone. They brought mercenaries this time."

  "Mercenaries, mistress?" the girl asked, for she had been a mercenary herself once, though that had been another life and a long time ago. It was a life she desperately wanted to remember. Of course, those memories were gone, and to remember was forbidden by her mistress. The past was the past, and her duties didn't permit indulgences like nostalgia. Still, she couldn't help but wonder.

  "Do you think they're the same mercenaries who made me?"

  "No. I told you. Those people are dead. All of them. They perished long ago."

  "But even if they're not the same, perhaps they know. They might be able to tell me—"

  "They won't."

  There was a sharpness to the woman's voice, and the girl stepped back as if slapped. Her mistress was losing patience again, which could mean only one thing: she would be returned to the dark and to her treatments.