Chaos Tactics (The Reckless Chronicles Book 1)

by Trent Falls

  “She’s in.” Alex’s voice confirmed. “The net’s down.”

  John slapped the charging handle of his M10 forward, locking a round in the chamber. He turned his upper body around the left side of the tree, firing several shots at the mercs trying to flank him. They were close; very close! It wouldn’t be long.

  “I’m pinned down.” John yelled, firing several shots back at the mercs. The shots were broad and meant to try and delay their advance. “Get her outta here! I’m not going to be able to make it!”

  “No way in hell!” Alex said within the cockpit, looking out his left window at what he could see of the firefight far below.

  Julie had made her way up to the flight deck and stood behind Alex, cautiously and nervously. She could hear their communication over the cockpit speakers.

  “There are too many of them, Alex! They will shoot you out of the sky if you wait!!!” John yelled.

  More gunfire. John exchanged several rounds with the mercs. John killed one, shooting him through the heart, but there were too many more.

  “She was the mission Alex! She always was!”

  “We’re not leaving you behind!” Alex argued.

  “GODDAMNIT YOU KNOW I’M RIGHT!” John fired several more rounds in his defense. “GET OUT NOW!”

  Alex, in the cockpit, paused for a few uncertain and precious seconds. In the end he pressed the switch to close the cargo bay ramp.

  “What are you doing?” Julie asked, in bewilderment at first.

  “He’s right.” Alex breathed in grim heartbreak. He pushed the throttle controls and his flight yoke forward.

  The Tequesta slowly pushed forward like a helicopter.

  “Strap yourself in.” Alex spoke to Julie in a cold professional tone that hid his grief.

  “No! NO!!!! God damn it! You can’t leave him!” Julie protested, becoming hysterical. She was ready to reach for the flight controls herself to get Alex to stop.

  “Get in that seat!!!” he yelled back over his shoulder at her.

  “No! Please! I’m begging you! They’ll kill him!” Julie began crying, eventually sobbing.

  “I… John’s right.” Alex noted grimly. He pushed the throttle up further on his handgrips.

  The Tequesta picked up forward momentum, eventually shutting down its repulse emitters to transition into standard flight.

  “They’ll kill him.” Julie wept uncontrollably. “Pleaaaase! Please, go back! Pleaaaase!” Julie’s words eventually trailed into outright crying.

  “I’m sorry.” Alex tried not to cry himself. “I’m so sorry.”

  John had watched the Tequesta leave out of the corner of his eye. The wail of the repulse emitters and jet thrusters was gone, leaving only the deafening sound of automatic weapon fire to ring out in the cold air.

  “I love you Jules.” John said aloud. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

  John picked up his rifle to his sights again. If he was going to die, he would take as many of Euler’s hired hands with him as possible. He jumped out from behind his cover. Focused, he managed to stay clear of a volley of bullets coming at him from his opposite flank while shooting another merc in the chest. Another fell, and a third before John fell back behind cover.

  There were still over a dozen mercs.

  John killed two more on his left. He was low on bullets based on his count.

  He was about to die. Several mercs fired angrily back at him, forcing him back behind his failing cover of the tree.

  A bright red beam cut out from the sky, burning in a flash across John’s field of view. The red lasers chewed up the muddy ground, turning the dirt’s moisture content into steam.

  Another powerful laser flashed out across the battlefield, fanning out in the opposite direction. John watched, stunned, at the brilliant red beams as they cut through the mercenaries in front of him. In a moment John’s fate had completely changed.

  Two spike shaped devices shot out to stick deep into the ground far into the mercenary ranks. John dove behind the tree, knowing they were charges.

  The forest beyond John’s tree cover detonated into an exploding fountain of black dirt. Two blasts ripped apart what was left of the mercenaries. John could hear several mercs yelling in pain. A few, perhaps, might have escaped but the damage was grotesquely significant. Smoke remained in the air from the lasers and the explosion, veiling the grim details of what remained in a thick grey haze.

  John again could hear the whine of jet thrusters and repulse emitters. He looked over his shoulder towards his savior.

  Aiyana’s black v-shaped starship hovered in the sky behind him. She could see her in the cockpit of the small mining exploration vessel. The twin mining lasers of the craft were extended out below its v-shaped hull. Aiyana flagged him to get inside.

  John needed little compulsion. He ran towards Aiyana’s ship, which descended enough to allow him to get in. Aiyana’s ship was pointed like a triangle along its dorsal line. The back tapered out into an inverted triangle, with the main thruster at the wider top portion. The access hatch to the ship was at the narrow bottom-end of the triangle. The airlock door to the ship hissed up into the hull of the ship to open, revealing a narrow and short metal stairway leading directly up into the flight deck.

  John ran inside and up the steps. The door hissed down again to seal behind him. His head came up just behind and below Aiyana’s station to the right side pilot seat. John hurried up the steps and set himself into the copilot seat; exhausted and relieved.

  “Get your five-way on! We’re punching it!” Aiyana spoke indirectly to John as she maneuvered her ship forward.

  John set his M10 on safe and tucked it next to him. He then clicked the five-point harness of the seat shut around him.

  Aiyana’s vessel shot forward with incredible speed. Light weight and fast, it made the Tequesta feel like a lumbering oaf. Aiyana’s ship was a sports car version of a starship. Before John could realize where he was they were rocketing up through the overcast. They were flying at high altitude in no time at all.

  John breathed. He took a deep breath and exhaled. He was so overjoyed he nearly laughed. He then looked at Aiyana; the one-time love of his life who had just saved his ass. She was cool and professional, keeping her attention on flying and the sky ahead. Her black hair was pulled up around her head. A small headset stuck out from her black locks.

  “Thank you!” John spoke to her through his crashing adrenaline and the ebbing of his state of terror. He was grateful to be alive and to see her. She was, as she had been before, his guardian angel.

  “Don’t mention it.” Aiyana smirked even if she did express some agitation. “Just me saving your ass again is all. Sit back.” Aiyana pushed forward her throttle controls. “We’re going to pick up some speed.”

  The black mining ship shot forward, taking off at a sharp angle into the sky. John was pressed back into his seat by the g-forces.

  In a few seconds they were out of the atmosphere and out into open space.

  Chapter 18

  Julie, messy with the sweat and dirt of her ordeal, continued to cry uncontrollably as she sat in the flight engineer station. Her heart was broken. Freedom from her confinement had come at a terrible price. Her uncle was dead, or very likely was. Julie’s sobbing grew more uncontrollable as she imagined how her uncle might have died. Had he been captured? The unknown added even more heartbreak. She also thought of Dekker for a moment. He was dead too. So much had happened in such a short time. Mostly her thoughts were of her uncle.

  She remembered how he looked upon rescuing her.

  She remembered how he looked when he had shown up at her house after her mom had died.

  She remembered their trips to the Magic Kingdom, to Colorado, to Yosemite, and to the Grand Canyon. The family outings. Birthdays. Even the arguments brought on by teenage angst were painful to remember. From the time she was eight, John had been more than an uncle; he was her father.

  Now, she had no one.

 
; Alex remained stoic in the pilot seat. The sound of Julie crying was the most painful thing he could recall in his two centuries of life. John was his best friend. Even though Alex had been assigned to watch him, they had become the best of friends. It was a kind of sadness Alex hadn’t known in some time. All the same, he could bring himself to do nothing but focus on flying the Tequesta.

  The starship raced away from Isis at top sublight speed. The blue and green planet and its two moons vanished behind the Tequesta as it sailed on through the stars.

  The mood inside the Tequesta’s cockpit remained grim. Alex and Julie said nothing to each other for several minutes. They had said nothing to each other since leaving Isis’ atmosphere.

  “How could you do it, Alex?” Julie’s voice finally cracked through her tears. “How could you… leave him.”

  “I didn’t want to, Jules.” Alex’s voice cracked as well from the long silence and his grief. “I swear it wasn’t meant to happen like this.”

  “We can still go back for him. We can…” she pleaded.

  “John was right, Jules.” Alex noted blankly. “We’re in Xen space. This ship has no weapons. If we had stayed… they would have shot us down. They would have killed us all. Your uncle… sacrificed himself…. he…”

  Julie tried to keep her tears back but was unsuccessful.

  “John did… what he thought was necessary.” Alex forced himself to continue. “He did it to save you.”

  Julie continued crying, holding her face in her hands.

  “All he thought of was you. From the moment they took you….” Alex added, pressing his lips together to restrain his emotions. “All he thought of was you. Getting you back home safe.”

  Julie’s crying eased for a moment. She turned to look over her left shoulder at Alex. “If he was captured would they…”

  “Explorer seven oh nine this is Nightwing.” John’s voice suddenly came through the ships speakers.

  “UNCLE JOHN?!?!” Julie jumped to her feet to stand over Alex’s shoulder.

  “You sonnova bitch!” Alex smiled broadly. “Damn it! Unbelievable!” Alex picked up his headset com and put it on over his dreadlocks. “John… er… is this who I think it is?” Alex asked over the com, remembering they may be monitored by the listening station.

  “Yeah it’s me.” John’s voice noted happily.

  “Oh, my God! I thought you were dead!!!” Julie yelled out euphorically.

  “I might have been but I had a friend help me out.” John noted warmly. “It’s good to hear your voice, sweetheart.”

  “It’s good to hear yours.” Julie smiled broadly. Her right hand brushed the side of her own face. She was nearly overwhelmed with joy.

  “This friend. Is it… who I think it is?” Alex asked.

  “Yeah, our mutual friend from the old neighborhood.” John’s voice answered.

  “Where are you? I can’t pick you up on my screens.” Alex looked at his instruments and the monitors on the flight deck.

  “Yeah, I can’t pick you up either. You’re still running jammers.” John noted. “We’ll beam coordinates over for an intermediate jump. The Nightwing has a universal docking collar on its dorsal line. We can meet up once we’re out of hyperspace.”

  “Copy that.” Alex replied happily. “Hot damn!” he exhaled.

  Julie cried again, breaking into tears of joy. Her heart was so relieved that her uncle was okay.

  The coordinates were beamed over from Aiyana’s ship. Alex entered them into his jump drive right away. “Strap yourself in.” Alex noted to Julie seriously. “You’ve been past light speed I take it?”

  “Once.” Julie replied as she strapped herself into the copilot seat. “And I was locked in a closet and didn’t see anything.”

  “If you’re going to sit in that chair I’ll ask that you don’t touch anything.” Alex noted to her with an emphasis on his authority. “Trust me, the experience of FTL is better up here.”

  Alex flipped up the master ignition switch cover for the warp drive once the coordinates were set.

  The Tequesta shot forward in an incredible burst of speed, turning the stars ahead into elongated streaking lines.

  Sergeant Lee looked around at all of the carnage. He had been outside the compound when John had detonated the liquid oxygen fuel farm. Lee had rushed to help contain the fire, only to later find out it was but a deception. By the time he followed the other mercs out after John it had been too late. Aiyana’s lasers had cut through half the squad before he could reach the fighting.

  Another charred body was removed from the smoldering wet forest. Lee looked out down the gentle slope of the forest, seeing where the lasers had cut a crisscrossing swath of death. Bodies had been charred in half as easily as the severed trees.

  Lee’s forces were severely diminished. Over half of his men had been killer. Andrew Rochette was dead, leaving Lee in charge.

  “How many so far?” Lee asked one of the tan fatigued hired soldiers helping to clean up.

  “Sixteen out here.” The soldier responded. “About ten at the house, including Rochette and Roberts. Maybe more.”

  The Xen tech, Quan, had survived the assault. He looked around at all of the devastation as he walked up to Lee’s side.

  “This is bad.” Lee noted aloud as Quan approached.

  “The shuttle is fucked.” Quan added. “It was damaged in the fire. Jeffries, on the ground crew, was caught in the blast. He’s dead too.” Quan looked around some more. “How many do you think we lost?”

  “Thirty one so far.” Lee sighed. “We think Carn killed almost twenty on his own.”

  “Thirty one! Shit! One guy?!?” Quan responded in genuine surprise.

  “He was in the war and an EEF Marshall.” Lee noted grimly. “With time and enough ammunition he probably could have killed us all.” Lee looked around again, finally turning his gaze back up in the direction of the manor stronghold. “We were unprepared.” Lee exhaled. “We didn’t expect him to hit us here and it cost us huge.”

  “So, what do we do now?” Quan asked.

  “We’re stuck on this planet until we can get a working shuttle.” Lee answered. “Beam the information we got from Dekker to the Ao Shun. Tell Euler that Rochette is dead. Let Euler and Shin decide what they want to do. We lost enough good soldiers today, a lot of them ours. This ‘official unofficial’ operation the High Council has going… I don’t want any part of it anymore.”

  Lee walked away slowly in disgust, leaving Quan alone in the war torn forest. Quan eyed Lee for a moment. It was not generally a good idea for any Xen to openly criticize the High Council, especially a soldier. Lee was clearly disappointed in what had transpired and in having lost so many men.

  Quan pulled out his phone from his pocket. The phone, logged into their local secured com network, dialed the manor stronghold.

  “Station Two.” A Xen Private picked up the other end.

  “This is Quan. Set up a secure uplink to the big dish.” Quan ordered into the phone. “I’m on my way back.”

  “Yes sir.” The Private on the other end acknowledged.

  The copilot seat of Aiyana’s ship felt like a racing seat. The ship had been built not just for utility but for speed; making the lightweight frame of the seats a necessity. The Nightwing, as John and Aiyana had hastily dubbed the vessel, was an advanced version of a typical asteroid mining vessel. Aiyana’s ship had been designed for prospecting the asteroid belt for precious metals. Working in the asteroid belt required the vessel to operate on a continuous scan autopilot, where the ship would automatically maneuver away from potential impact threats, often to the discomfort of the pilot.

  Aiyana’s ship was state of the art. The instrumentation panel of the flight deck contained the newest components, housed in a flat black anodized dash. The canopy ahead was a long inverted trapezoid, with elongated triangular glass wedges enclosing the sides. They were triple paned and perfectly clear, like all spacecraft, offering an inspiring view of
the streaking stars of faster-than-light travel ahead.

  John relaxed in the copilot seat, almost falling asleep. He was crashing off the adrenaline. His clothes were wet and dirty. He was exhausted. He wrestled silently with the things he had just done. It was like being back in the war. John forced himself to open his eyes. He looked at Aiyana. John knew her birthday from memory and calculated she was forty two. Forty two and still damn hot! Her black flight suit, John thought, and the way her hair was pulled up made her hotter.

  “Stop it.” Ana noted to him indirectly.

  “What?” John asked innocently.

  “Stop looking at me like that.” Ana demanded flatly. “Damn it John, we lived together for five years. I know that look.”

  John let out an amused breath. He grinned and relaxed back in the chair.

  “Jesus!” Ana grumbled in a very agitated tone. “The very last thing I want to do is have sex with you when you, literally, still have blood on your hands!”

  John held up his gloved hands to take a look at them. She was right. There was still someone else’s blood on his right glove. Guilt returned to his mind and a grim mood fell over him once more. John grimaced for a moment, closing his eyes to relax back in the chair again. “How’d you find me?” John asked aloud, his eyes still closed.

  “Well… I never really left.” Aiyana admitted. “I turned back towards Sol but only got a few hundred thousand MSK. You boys were unarmed. I figure I could at least shadow you to make sure everything was okay.”

  John remained silent for a few moments. Ana thought he had fallen back asleep.

  “Well, thanks.” John spoke. “Seriously, you saved my ass. I… I thought that was it…” John opened his eyes and turned to look at her, “you know?”

  “Yeah, I know.” Ana replied, her tone noticeably softer.

  Again, they both fell silent. It was the first time in well over ten years they had such a private conversation.

  “I can’t believe what you did.” Ana added. “I was monitoring your transmissions with Alex. You told him to leave you behind??? I can’t… I mean…”