He nodded. “Sounds like someone to be reckoned with.”
“She is very influential.”
Halloran turned to her. “And then there’s Kendra. The swashbuckling Captain of the high seas.”
“I don’t understand that sentence.”
He grimaced. “Translators need some help with flowery sentences.”
“Are you calling me a flower of some sort?” Her eyes lit up again.
Halloran wished she’d take her hair out of that accursed bun…
He laughed out loud. “A flower you are not. So, Engineering? I heard from Trigg Wyatt that you’re a whiz. Travers, too.” He didn’t leave her time to argue. “You’ll take over on C Deck for Life Support and Engineering—get the crew up to speed on the jump drive and make us ready to jump back to Sol System.” He shook his head. “If only John Buston could see us now.” He remembered something. “Axxa said this ship was made of pure ‘Tavarran steel.’ Does that mean anything to you?”
Kendra frowned at him. “Impossible. The element to make that metal is extremely rare and only found on a Fleet-controlled planet in the Struve system.”
“Another mystery…this ship is full of surprises.”
She tapped the nearest bulkhead. “I sense it’s a good ship. The drive will need to be overhauled and even then it may only get us short jumps at a time. I’m good, but I’m not a Prax engineer, and neither is your Axxa.”
“Understood. You have all the resources I can get you at your disposal. Just tell me where to point this ship.”
Kendra exhaled. “Is that all?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
“That device. The one that wiped us from the Valor’s sensors. I want you to work with Axxa to puzzle it out. Find something in the ship’s computer—operations manual, plans, anything—I want to know how it works.”
She nodded. “That I will be happy to do. Even if it means working with that Prax.”
“We’ll drop him and Deacon with your Admiral Kendall the moment we get to Mars. Before we go back for my people in Rat City.”
“You’ll take this ship to Earth?”
“Yes.” He half-turned to go. “No one left behind.”
“I think I’ll like fighting in Halloran’s war,” Kendra said to his back.
He looked over his shoulder. “Just get us back home. Then we fight.”
Earth - Tropical Ocean in the Western Hemisphere
The heat was nice. Elexxan rubbed his hands together, enjoying the warm breeze blowing over the land. Too much moisture. Otherwise it was acceptable.
Alexa called over the open channel. “Ready to detonate.”
Elexxan looked at his assistant standing next to him and nodded. “Proceed.”
There were seven in the team that stood on the land, watching out to the blue-green water. Behind them stood the shuttle that had ferried them across the planet from Rat City. They watched and waited, unsure of what to expect of this new weapon.
Suddenly, an immense lump of water expanded upward, as though a boil upon skin were about to burst. At the same moment came Alexa’s voice over the comm. “Firing now—.”
Then, the boil burst open and the air seemed to electrify above the ocean. For a moment, sea and sky seemed to merge in a blur of white and blue-green foam. As Elexxan held his breath in excitement, the sea then exploded in a massive column of froth, hundreds of kilometers in width, lifting toward the atmosphere. Up, up, up climbed the distant water spout until it reached the clouds, spreading outward and upward toward space itself.
“By the seven stars,” murmured a tech standing behind him.
The rising mountain of spray at last reached the edge of its ability to defy gravity, and the entire column shuddered. Even at this great distance, the reversal of direction of what must be enormous quantities of water was quite obvious.
“We have detonation, analyzing now.” called Alexa from Rat City. “Do you have a visual?”
“Oh, yes,” chuckled Elexxan. Yes, we do.”
A technician spoke up. “This is far beyond our nuclear weapons’ yield capability.”
Now the column collapsed upon itself. The mountain of green water fell into the horizon as it left a white-blue haze of spray floating high into the lower atmosphere. It was, truly, as if the sky was falling.
“Do a surface scan, Alexa,” ordered Elexxan as he checked his own instruments. The yield of the weapon was excellent. One warhead tested…and now he knew how they could be prepared for insertion into the Praxxan delivery systems.
A few long moments later, Alexa reported in. “Sensors detect a water wave of significant proportions approaching your position, Lord.” His voice held a touch of awe. “It is moving incredibly fast.”
The shuttle pilot, listening in on the channel, was already powering up the engine as Elexxan and his forward observation team stepped into the open bay door. As the ship rose vertically, a team member pointed excitedly. “There, Lord!”
Elexxan looked. A wall, at least ten meters tall, of blue-green descended upon the small island they had been perched on. As the shuttle rose into the sky, they saw the wave devour the island whole, passing over it as if it weren’t there at all.
“Hover here,” he called to the pilot.
When he looked down again, the wave receded into the distance and the island once again appeared as the foam-filled water receded all around it. But not a scrap remained on the land there; trees, debris, small human dwellings, the bodies of the slain residents—all were gone as if they have never existed.
“Take us back to the Center,” Elexxan ordered. He looked around the group. “Begin your measurements. No doubt the humans on Mars will sense the explosion. But they won’t know what to do about it. And then,” he smiled, “The Prime will have his long-sought victory. Time waits not for the weak!”
“Time waits not for the weak,” responded the group out of habit.
“Alexa, I will personally deliver this report to the Prime upon my return, is that clear?”
“Clear, Lord,” the voice came over the speaker in the shuttle bay.
“Begin construction of our new design immediately. These weapons can be immensely improved. A new era dawns, Alexa!” Elexxan closed the channel and clapped his hands together. And my ascension will be assured. Talxen will not dispose so easily of me…
The shuttle lifted away and sped to the east, avoiding the dissipating radioactive cloud that blocked out Sol’s light.
—————
Halloran, Axxa, Kendra and the crew of the USS Serapis will return in Book Two of the Halloran’s War Series! Turn the page to read a snippet of “Resolve of Steel.”
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Resolve of Steel - Halloran's War Book Two
One time-transplanted sub captain. One dead alien ship brought back to life on the side of humanity. A crew ready to die for both that ship and man.
Thomas Halloran is becoming a reluctant leader in the future war he barely understands. The twenty-first century nuclear submarine captain and crew struggle to learn how to use their captured alien warship while in the midst of battle with relentless alien forces.
As Halloran and his assembled crew of Americans and allies face both their inadequacy and duty, they realize that without each other no one will survive. And that the new allegiances and friends of this turbulent future may be their only hope of avoiding a death in the cold of space.
Will Halloran’s burning desire for revenge overcome his own duty to his crew and jeopardize them all? The journey home will take much longer than he expects…
Resolve of Steel is the fast-paced second book in the Halloran’s War military sci-fi series. If you like tormented captains, embattled ships and crews, space battles and a time-travel twist, you’ll love J.R. Geoghan’s futuristic tale.
Reserve your copy Resolve of Steel and fasten you
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(Excerpt From Resolve of Steel - Book Two of Halloran’s War)
Struve System - 11.53 LY from Sol
By the time Halloran reached the medical center on B Deck he knew there was trouble. The lights were flickering a red-amber color; some kind of warning tint to the Prax, he surmised. The air was thick with choking electrical smoke. The moment he dropped out of the ladder tube his ears were assaulted by the roar of broken equipment and his feet slipped on debris strewn in the passage.
He dodged a thick pipe that had split and bisected the passageway with its bulk. Beyond that a man lay on the decking, facedown and unmoving. He was about to bend to the man when he heard his name called.
Wilson was down the passage, waving at him. “Come on, sir!”
With a last look at the dead man but unable to place him, he chased after the Petty Officer while trying to compensate for the light gravity and avoid smacking his head on the ceiling. Wilson passed the medical center at a bound and Halloran had a glimpse of bloody tables through the clear plexi.
“Down, sir,” cautioned Wilson as he ducked under another disjointed piece of structure. “Very sharp edges, sir, be careful.”
“Life Support?”
“Ops Center and Life Support both, sir.” Wilson slowed and put his lips near Halloran’s ear. “They’re close together and the shot cut the place to ribbons in a second!”
“Plasma?”
“Projectile! It was a big one, sir.” Wilson’s face betrayed his amazement.
They stumbled over some electrical debris that shifted and grabbed at their boots as they crossed it. The Operations Center was just ahead, but blocked by a massive section of the deck above that had collapsed into the passage. But Wilson shimmied through an impossibly-narrow gap against the bulkhead. Without pausing, Halloran followed the other man through with an eye for edged chunks of metal that seemingly protruded everywhere. His pants were slashed through by an unseen sharp section and his forehead caught the frayed ends of a wire bundle, scratching deeply.
The Ops Center was torn open as though with a giant can opener. The bulkhead had been crushed down by the force of the collapsing deck and smoke poured from the hatch the Halloran remembered let into Life Support control adjoining. Two men wrestled in the opening with fire-extinguishing equipment. The Prax version of the firehose was a series of tubes emitting a suppressive foam product that no one had been able to figure out the origin of. Even Axxa hadn’t known how the system worked. But now there was the big alien reaching out a hand from the burning area, grasping at the hose being unrolled by Reyes. The Chief looked up to see Halloran approaching over the broken metal. “Sir, we’ve got three dead in there and several more wounded. Antonov took those to the doc before the deck finished falling in on us!”
Halloran stooped to the Chief. “Glad you’re still with us, Abran! What’s the status of Life Support?”
Reyes passed another hose kit to Axxa, whose grime-stained face Halloran now saw framed in the opening. Wilson stepped between them and through the hatch to join the Prax.
Reyes watched him go before turning back. “Who knows, sir? This ship was impossible to figure out before they blew it all to hell.”
“Are we going to suffocate?”
Reyes exhaled with a huff. “We need to get this ‘lectrical fire out first, then we can assess damage.”
Halloran took him by the shoulder. “You’ve got this, Chief?”
Reyes nodded. “You get back to the bridge, sir.” As Halloran nodded and began to turn he grasped the Captain’s arm. “And stop in the med center for a minute—but no more, sir.” His eyes said the rest.
Halloran squeezed through the tangled wreckage and made his way to medical, pausing to compose himself before opening the door.
The scene inside shocked him. Half a dozen crew were spread around the room in various states of injury. Blood was everywhere.
Whitney saw him from where he was planted over someone working on what looked to be a chest wound. “Captain.” His clothes were bloodstained and his voice stretched with exertion.
Several eyes turned his way. There was Flagler, holding an arm with blood soaking the sleeve. Cassis the Tavarran was next to her on the floor, and Halloran immediately saw the glazed-over eyes that signified shock. Also there was Seaman Don King, laid on a table and holding his hands over his abdomen. They were glistening red. Halloran couldn’t see the face of the man on the table beneath Whitney. Halloran felt the weight of these people’s life weighing on him. It wasn’t a new sensation by any means, but the new circumstances frustrated him. He was out of control, out of his depth in space.
“Sir, you’re bleeding,” observed Flagler, her dark eyes fixed on him.
Halloran felt his forehead and the slickness on it. He forcefully wiped the blood with a sleeve. “Everyone keep it together, we’re almost out of harm’s way.”
Back in the noisy passage Halloran paused to suck in several lungfulls of air. His crew was dying in front of his eyes. And what for? He felt sickened by the stunt he had pulled with Calxen in the adrenaline of being near him again.
The man on the floor groaned and rolled over. It was Antonov. He looked up at Halloran. “Captain, you’re down here…who’s got the conn?”
“Kendra. Are you okay?”
He sat up and held his head until Halloran reached him and levered him up. “I had dropped some wounded off at the medical unit and was returning to the bridge when that,” he pointed to the collapsed piping and mechanicals, “Fell on me.”
“Get back there and have your head checked. Then go help Chief Reyes figure things out.”
Antonov stumbled on a chunk of metal. “Our ship is a mess.”
“Tell me about it.”
—
Resolve of Steel will release in March 2019
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About the Author
J.R. Geoghan resides in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania with his family and loves writing and fast motorcycles. He grew up on Long Island, New York in the roaring seventies. Somewhere along the way Jeff picked up a knack and a love of writing that decided to reassert itself after the lingering effects of a management MBA wore off…many years later.
www.JRGeoghan.com
War Without Honor (Halloran's War Series Book 1) Page 38
