Ultimate Edition
Galactic Sentinel Series
Killian Carter
Copyright © Killian Carter
First published in the United States and Great Britain by Starcane Press, in 2020
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the publisher.
Any person who makes any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable for criminal prosecution and civil claims and damages.
The moral rights of the author have been asserted.
Written by
Patrick McLaughlin
as
Killian Carter
www.starcanepress.com
www.kccarter.com
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Contents
Newsletter
The North Star
GALACTIC SENTINEL - BOOK 1
1. Space Rat
2. No Enemies
3. Unexpected Guests
4. Low Roller
5. Critical Alert
6. Stork-V3
7. Old Locker
8. Stay Strong
9. Eyes Closed
10. The Artifact
11. Barracuda-V3
12. Dead Or Alive
13. Rolling The Dice
14. Gate Six
15. A Puck So Rare
16. BT-12-7HL99
17. Much Anger
18. Gut Feeling
19. Unlucky Number
20. Knives & Bullets
21. The Bunker
22. Hold The Gate
23. Bones
24. The Gray Tower
25. Into Darkness
26. Poker Face
27. The Tank
28. Belonging
29. Stacking The Deck
30. The Breach
31. Count Your Ammo
32. Double Or Nothing
33. Xerocorp Labs
34. The Way Up
35. The Elite
36. Fury
37. Around The Table
38. Starting Hand
39. The Hangar
40. Tools Of The Trade
41. High Roller
42. A Better Gun
43. Experimental Implant
44. En Prison
45. Project Zero
46. Straight Flush
47. Flight
48. Fight
49. The Sentinel
50. High Places
51. El Natural
52. The North Star
Enter The Shroud
Galactic Sentinel - Book 2
1. Information Extraction
2. Sentinel Tower
3. Another String
4. The Fist of Orinmore
5. Nakamura’s Crystal
6. Tight Spaces
7. Playing the Game
8. Raging Fire
9. Death on the Wind
10. The Thandrall
11. New Aegis
12. Out of the Dark
13. Another Favor
14. Dreamz
15. The Signal
16. Assault on Sentinel Square
17. Eye in the Sky
18. To the Tower
19. Expeditious Plans
20. Barricading the Doors
21. An Old Friend
22. The Data District
23. A Fair Fight
24. An Old Enemy
25. Trouble at Terminal Thirteen
26. Of Body and Mind
27. Mission Report
28. By Straiya’s Grace
29. Foster’s Rage
30. Beat Down
31. Evacuation
32. Ball Buster
33. Bullet in The Head
34. Death in the Hangar
35. Renegades
36. Enter The Shroud
The Shadow Falls
Galactic Sentinel - Book 3
1. Rattled Cage
2. Ember Rekindled
3. Night Shadow
4. Unbridled Tongue
5. Dead Allies
6. The Retrovirus
7. They Got Him
8. The Table
9. Hope in Dark Places
10. Sparring Bot
11. Two Doors
12. Lineage
13. Departure
14. The Distraction
15. Kragak Blood
16. The Clouds of Ushtar
17. Bad Tidings
18. The Refinery
19. Mass Grave
20. New Lead
21. The Kragak
22. Ushtaran Summoning
23. The Void
24. Web of Lies
25. The Shaman and The Ring
26. The Golden Krag
27. Answers
28. The Mark of Nahvoy
29. The Aknar Queen
30. Kragak Pit
31. Revelations
32. Arena Battle
33. Freedom From Slavery
34. Arena in Silence
35. Public Execution
36. Milling Giants
37. Upon The Skyways
38. Primelord’s Throne
39. Tough Decisions
40. Ushtaran Sky
41. Together
42. Starfall
43. The Pod
44. Superior Species
45. The Final Countdown
46. Incoming
Battle of Gorthore
A Galactic Sentinel Story
1. Zeta Team
2. Angel of Death
3. Welcome To The Jungle
4. Fight Fire With Fire
5. Holy Wars
6. Blood And Thunder
7. Metal Daze
8. Crazy Train
The Lunar Express Preview
Max Miller - Book 1
1. Happy Birthday
2. Unresolved
3. Grayson Tower
4. Wilder Building
5. Penthouse
6. Dark Alley
7. The Coffin
The Lunar Express - Max Miller
Contact
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The North Star
GALACTIC SENTINEL - BOOK 1
1
Space Rat
On any other day, she would have taken the abuse in her stride. Having grown up on Morigan, Ensign Clio Evans was no stranger to ridicule. Hell, as a Confederation Fleet pilot, it came with the territory. But while eating lunch aboard the starship Bakura, en route to Colony 115, she snapped.
Riley and his cronies dined at their usual table, across the floor from Clio’s solitary spot. They looked over their shoulders and laughed. Twice, they even muttered her name, as if she couldn’t hear from less than twenty feet away.
Having lost her appetite, Clio forked a white protein cube indifferently, and it sprang off her plate, landing on the gray table with the sound of a wet sock.
The cadets in the far corner joined the mockery, one boisterous girl in particular even having the nerve to point. Clio’s fork handle bit into her fingers. From her periphery, she committed the rowdy girl’s face to memory. In her experience, those with the loudest mouths benefited from lesson
s of the physical variety. She inhaled deeply and eased her iron grip, the tension in her arms and shoulders slowly melting away. Teaching a mere cadet such a lesson would hardly be worth the trouble.
Clio checked the Fleet standard issue SIG strapped to her left arm and was relieved to find that breakfast was almost over. She pushed her unfinished meal aside, and played with the fork, waiting for the Bakura’s notification system to relieve her.
“Someone should tell chef there’s a rat in the mess hall again,” Riley quipped. “Maybe she’ll send it back to that shit-hole of a planet it came from.”
Unbridled amusement filled the room like noxious gas.
Clio’s fork snapped.
Childish insults didn’t bother her at the best of times, especially when uttered by lumbering fools like Riley. She preferred to fly under the radar when she could, but in Riley’s case, Clio knew that was part of the problem. Had she taken care of him when she first transferred to the Bakura, the idiot would have known better. Riley was right about one thing. Morigan was a shit-hole back-water colony; but it was Clio’s shit-hole, and no one was allowed to bad-mouth it but her.
Like a calm before the storm, silence descended as she swept across the mess hall with the resolve of a heavy cruiser at speed. Clio poked Riley’s shoulder, and without turning, he rose from his seat like a mountain.
“Tell me that dirty rat-bitch didn’t just touch me,” he spat before spinning on his heel to look down on her.
Riley was of robust stock, with broad shoulders and roped muscles; somewhat handsome if a little rough around the edges. He wore an insufferable smirk that made one cheek dimple. His doltish eyes peered down at Clio from under a heavy-set brow.
“If you’ve got something to say, ass-hole, say it to my face.” She poked Riley hard in the chest this time. He knocked into the table behind, the scraping plastic a roar in the otherwise deathly silence.
Riley’s bewildered expression told Clio that he hadn’t expected such strength from someone so comparatively small. With all the grace of a landslide, he kicked his chair out of the way and shoved Clio’s shoulders, forcing her back several steps. “Don’t come anywhere near me, bitch. I’m allergic to rodents.”
“I wish I could see things from your point of view, Riley.” She smiled nonchalantly. “But I can’t get my head that far up my own ass.”
Laughter shattered the silence like glass, and Riley’s cheeks flared red. Embarrassment quickly turned to rage, and he stepped forward, fist drawn. “I’ll teach you to watch your mouth, smart-ass.”
He aimed a punch at Clio’s face. She sidestepped it with ease. He moved fast for a man so big, but he was nowhere near fast enough to hit Clio. She ducked under another swipe and withdrew to a safe distance. A silver-chained medallion, bearing the O’Donovan family crest, swung free of Riley’s uniform collar. He’d often boasted about his family being among the most affluent powers on Mars.
“Your family tree must be a cactus to have such a large prick on it.”
A cocktail of giggles and curses rolled through the gathering crowd. Riley ground his teeth and launched for Clio, swinging another right hook.
Clio wove around Riley’s arm and stepped inside his guard. She slammed a palm into his chin, snapping his head back. Momentum sent Riley into a table, and his legs got tangled in a chair. He landed in a comical position, his limbs sprawling at ridiculous angles. A cheer erupted, followed by another roar of bloodthirsty mirth. Clio’s palm-strike had knocked people out in previous fights, but Riley had augmentations of his own.
He extricated himself from the furniture and tossed a chair at Clio. It went wide and almost took out another officer whose objections went ignored. Riley charged like a raging bull and unleashed a wild flurry of punches.
The heavy weapons officer may as well have been swinging his arms through molasses, for Clio dodged each jab with barely so much as a thought.
“Stand still, you slippery bitch!”
Riley kept punching, and Clio kept evading, until he began to slow, his forehead gleaming with sweat. Realizing his strategy wasn’t getting him anywhere, Riley changed tack and kicked out with his right foot. Clio caught it with both hands, twisted her hips, and kneed him hard in the lateral femoral nerve. He crumbled against a table, clutching the crippled leg and gritting his teeth in agony.
“What’ve you done to me?” He spat, and a thick blob struck Clio’s face.
She wiped Riley’s saliva from her lips with the back of her sleeve. Being spit upon was something of a tradition when growing up on Morigan, and unfortunately for Riley, it brought back one unpleasant memory in particular. A heavy fog descended, obscuring her thoughts. Clio couldn’t recall how she had gotten there, but she suddenly found herself straddling Riley’s chest, her right fist smashing his nose, as though of its own accord. His face cracked under the force. A second blow knocked his head into the ground. Her arm lashed like a whip again and again. The room became a blur until someone dragged her off Riley’s still body, fractions of her mind suddenly snapping back into place.
Clio inhaled the mess hall’s stale air deeply, and it occurred to her that she may have killed the man. Worry flickered on the edges of her consciousness, barely tangible, like an elusive shadow behind angry flames. It wouldn’t have been the first time she’d killed someone in a blind rage.
Through the arms and legs milling around the fallen officer, Clio caught a glimpse of his chest rising and falling, and she sighed with relief.
Those who pulled Clio across the cold floor scattered as she climbed to her feet. Her knees threatened to buckle, and she steadied herself against a table.
“Let this be a lesson to you dumb shits!” The person shouting didn’t feel like the Clio Evans she knew. “Never pick a fight with a starship pilot. Or have you all forgotten that we’re fitted with neuroptical implants?” She took several uncertain steps toward the door and sneered at the cadets. They recoiled in fear, averting their eyes as if they had been innocent bystanders in the whole affair. Fucking kids!
On wobbly legs, she exited the mess hall and headed in the direction of the gym. An innate urge to punch something still burned inside Clio’s chest. Pretending the punching bag was Riley would have to do.
The altercation would no doubt cause trouble with her superiors, but it would also be the last time anyone on the Bakura called her a rat. The thought of being compared to the mammal made Clio cackle involuntarily and earned her a troubled look from a passerby. Why a rat?
Perhaps it was because she was slight in stature. Or maybe it was just what people like Weapons Officer Riley O’Donovan thought of people from planets like Morigan. Either way, it was ironic that of all the insulting animals available, the crew choose a rat. It was a good thing they had no idea how close to the truth they’d come, for if that truth ever got out, Clio would have more than a fist-fight on her hands.
2
No Enemies
Clio empathized with the Bakura as the ship groaned under her deceleration engines. She sat in an uncomfortable chair opposite Commander Grimshaw as he read the report, a deep crease furrowing his brow.
The Bakura’s hum and the grim tick of the archaic clock above the Commander’s head contributed to the unsettling atmosphere. The clock’s swinging pendulum gloated as though it knew something Clio didn’t, as though it longed for her inevitable reprimand.
She fought a shiver, and her breath escaped in warm puffs. The Commander gave no evidence that the cold bothered him in the slightest. Some claimed he chilled his office to keep unfortunate visitors on edge. Others said it had something to do with an old injury. Clio figured it was a show of power, but she’d been on the other side of the Commanders desk enough times to know what to expect, even to grow accustomed to it.
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