Assimilated

by Nick Webb

  She swore silently to herself. Her hands were tied. The outcome had been decided before she’d arrived here—that much Oppenheimer got right. But it had been decided not by the Swarm, as he suggested, but by traitorous, bloodthirsty humans.

  God help them all.

  “Lieutenant Diaz, ready fifteen anti-matter torpedoes. Target each carrier. Full acceleration.”

  Diaz went through the process with his crew of arming the torpedoes, which took a full minute, since the anti-matter was an active reactant and required robust measures to prevent accidental detonation. She silently cursed President Avery for ever starting the research program that produced them.

  “Ready, Captain,” he said.

  “Back us off, Ensign.”

  Prucha entered the commands in, and the Chesapeake accelerated away, putting several dozen kilometers in between them and the Valarisi formation.

  “Fire.”

  The torpedoes leapt out from the Chesapeake’s hull, darting out in fifteen different directions, accelerating so fast her eye couldn’t track them.

  Fifteen separate explosions merged into one. She knew, intellectually, that she should have heard nothing, but in her mind the explosions rang and the cries of billions screamed.

  Terran Sector, Earth

  Bridge, ISS Chesapeake

  Lieutenant Diaz entered the ready room, and Captain Proctor stood up to greet him. “Thank you, Lieutenant. Please close the door.”

  She accepted the data pad he handed her, and sat back down across from him. “Is the analysis complete?”

  “Yes, ma’am. We were doing a full sensor sweep when the torpedoes hit. We can confirm the destruction of fourteen carriers. And the fifteenth … it was furthest from us, and obscured from direct line of sight when the other carriers exploded.”

  “So it could have escaped?”

  He shrugged. “Doubtful. But yes, I suppose it could have. But we read no q-jump signatures during the approximately three second window its location was obscured.”

  “The explosions could have interfered with sensors. They might have jumped, and we’d never have detected it.”

  “Possibly,” he said.

  She looked up from the data pad and leaned forward towards him. “Lieutenant Diaz, I want to be clear with you. The order I’m about to give is … well … let’s just say it lacks legal basis.”

  A smile tugged at his cheek. “I’m listening.”

  “I want you to lose this report. Consider it classified at Tau Twenty-one.”

  “Tau Twenty-one?” He slowly nodded. “Understood, Captain.”

  There was no Tau Twenty-one. Tau Twenty was the highest classification level in IDF and every other UE service. The penalty for compromising Tau Twenty was death. The implication she was making to Diaz was unmistakable. Don’t tell a living soul.

  “If that ship escaped, and it’s truly the last one, we’d turn into the very monsters that we’ve been fighting if we go hunt it down.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He stood up and took a step towards the door. “This report never existed. All fifteen were destroyed.”

  “Thank you.” With a few taps, she erased it from the data pad. “And the other information I asked you to look into?”

  “It’s there on the pad, ma’am. I think you’ll find it interesting.”

  She nodded and dismissed him, and plunged into his second report. He was right: it was very interesting.

  “Commander Oppenheimer, report to my ready room. Immediately.”

  Moments later, he was standing at attention in front of her desk.

  “Christian. I understand your sister works for TCN News.”

  She kept her tone measured, and neutral, but her implication was clear, and he understood it. It was almost as if he’d been preparing for this moment, and rehearsed his answer. “If you’re wondering, Captain, I have not been in direct electronic contact with my sister for over a month.”

  She smiled. “Ah. So you’re saying your message to her is untraceable.”

  “There was no message—”

  “I know there was no message, Christian. You covered your tracks very, very well. But I think you met her in person. Your movements right before we left certainly leave that possibility open.”

  He remained silent. She interpreted that as admission.

  “Get out. You’re being reassigned.”

  “But, Captain—”

  “I said get out!”

  He looked taken aback, but nodded once and retreated out the door. “Norton has my back, Shelby. He’ll never let you—”

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass what Norton says, what Norton thinks, or what Norton does. And don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone that you’ve compromised Tau Twenty information. You’re right. I have no proof. And you’re right, there’s no way in hell Norton would let any court martial move forward against you. But that doesn’t change the fact that you forced my hand. You, Christian Oppenheimer, are the most….” She searched her mind, trying to compose the more vicious insult she could think of.

  But she came up blank. There was no insult worthy of him. Nothing could capture how she felt. He’d turned her into an arch-murderer, ten billion times over. An architect of genocide.

  He smiled. “The Survivors of New Dublin Society just declared you a hero on TCN News, and is conferring the Diamond Cross on you. You’re a hero, Shelby. An honest to god hero, just like Granger.”

  The smile was more of a gloat. He was looking the words at her: I won.

  She grit her teeth, pursed her lips, tightened her brow, struggling to contain an outburst. “Dismissed. Be off the ship within the hour.”

  She sighed back into her chair and reached for her cup of tea in the receptacle on the wall. Oppenheimer’s final words rang in her ears. You’re a hero. Just like Granger.

  The words repeated like a refrain, over and over. Finally, after several sips, she replied to the silent voices—the voices of the billions of humans killed in the war, the tens of thousands of Skiohra she’d inadvertently killed when she’d bashed the Matriarch over the head, the tens—possibly hundreds of billions of Valarisi she’d just unwillingly killed. The voice of Oppenheimer, taunting her with the siren call of hero worship.

  “Peace, please,” she whispered.

  “Please.”

  The Pax Humana Saga was my very first foray into Space Opera. I only made it three books in before I set it aside and started writing Constitution, but it was only a temporary pause, and book 4, The Sons of Oberon, is on its way, followed by the next few books. I think there will be around 7 in total, possibly one or two more, depending on how the story develops.

  There is an optional short story trilogy that precedes The Terran Gambit (book 1), and Against the Rising Force is the first of those. In this short story trilogy, we meet Lieutenant Jacob Mercer, a young cocky fighter pilot in the middle of the Earth Resistance’s battle for independence against the empire. Young Mercer ends up being made the captain of his ship by the middle of the first novel, but this is sneak peak at his glory days as a carefree daredevil pilot, fighting to survive against all odds.

  Against the Rising Force

  Part I of Prelude to Resistance

  Nick Webb

  The galactic war was only an hour away, and Jacob Mercer’s pants were on the floor.

  Glancing out the viewport at the field of stars, Lieutenant Mercer sighed contentedly as he pulled Ensign Kelley in close to his chest, and counted the light cruisers assembling into a strike force in high-Earth orbit. From his vantage point on the drab, steel bunk in the utilitarian quarters, he watched another sleek Comet-Class light cruiser pull into formation, shining white against the brilliant blue backdrop of the Indian Ocean, bringing the total to thirteen.

  Thirteen light cruisers, two Centurion-Class Capital ships, eighteen full squadrons of fighters that had declared their loyalty to the new Earth Resistance Fleet, dozens of smaller merchant freighters, subversively outfitted for the long-plan
ned covert war against the Empire, and, he thought, smiling at the brown-haired woman nuzzled in his arm, one smokin’ hot lady.

  “You’re going to be late,” Ensign Kelley murmured into his chest without opening her eyes, dark-rimmed and lined from days of preparation for the upcoming war. A war that no one in the Corsican Empire would see coming.

  That was the hope, at least.

  “So are you.” Jake’s eye caught the telltale flicker of motion that indicated a gravitic shift, and he watched the fourteenth and final light cruiser instantly materialize and move to enter formation. The Pritchard-formation, ideal for dislodging an enemy strike group from low-Earth orbit. At least, that was the theory—they hadn’t tested it in battle yet.

  That would come soon enough.

  “Bull,” she said, “I’m on second shift. I sit the first wave out unless my team loses a few gunners, which I’m a little worried—”

  “Relax, honey. No chance in hell we’re losing a few. Admiral Pritchard has this thing planned out to a ‘t’, and has for months. Years even.”

  She jabbed his abdomen with a long finger, which Jake knew was intended as poking fun of his hero-worship of Admiral Pritchard, but which he found only sexy. He glanced over at the clock on the wall display and considered pursuing a second round. Nothing like pre-battle sex. Better than make-up sex. Not that he would know. Make-up sex required a relationship. Jake didn’t have time for a relationship. His life was the fleet and his love was his bird.

  “I don’t know what you see in him. I mean, he’s alright. British. Curly mustache. I mean, I get it, curly mustaches inspire loyalty and devotion, right?” Her mocking tone sounded flirty to Jake’s ears, and he took it as a resounding ‘yes’ to his exploring fingers.

  He rolled to lie facing her. “I sat next to him at the bar last night. Did I tell you? That’s why the men love him—he drinks with us like he’s one of the boys.”

  She twisted around to face the viewport, apparently ignoring his renewed advances. “And? Did he say anything about today? Geez, you sit next to the mastermind of the Resistance at the bar and you don’t ask him what’s up? What the strategy is? They’ve been keeping us in the dark for weeks.”

  “Hey, I didn’t say that. Of course we asked him. But he just held up a hand and shook his head and wouldn’t say a word about it.” Jake pulled her in closer and nuzzled into her neck. “At least, not until he got pretty drunk.”

  “And?”

  “And he told me something odd. He leaned in close to me and he said, ‘I’ve got a secret’.”

  She pulled away and looked at him, confused. “That’s it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He told you he has a secret? Like about the strategy?”

  Jake shrugged. “Don’t know. Wouldn’t say. I pressed him for more, but he just winked at me and then left. It was actually pretty weird—he was pretty drunk.”

  The klaxons nearly deafened them.

  A stern female voice sounded over the comm system. “Red alert. Red alert. All hands to battle stations. Repeat, Red alert. All hands—”

  Jake vaulted off the bunk and landed on his boots, nearly knocking him off balance as he reached for his pants.

  “What the hell?” Ensign Kelley stared out the window, and Jake, seeing her slackened jaw, followed her gaze.

  Four Imperial Centurion-Class capital ships hung like spectres against the speckled backdrop of stars, surrounded by an impressive fleet of smaller cruisers, missile frigates, and a swarm of fighters.

  With a deafening roar, an explosion rocked their ship—the newly redesignated USS Fury—as the rapidly advancing Imperial capital ships opened fire with a full spread of railgun slugs and ion-cannon beams.

  Jake gulped. All the careful planning. All the drills and meticulously drawn battle strategies, the freighter modifications, the fighter squadron maneuvers practiced until Jake’s ass was numb from sitting in his cockpit for so long. All for nothing—it looked like the Imperials had caught Admiral Pritchard and the infant Resistance fleet with their pants down, and they were about to get spanked.

  That secret had better be good.

  Running like a madman down the curved corridor while still struggling to zip up his pants, Jake collided with a damage control crew running the opposite direction down the stark, crimson-lit hallway.

  Another explosion rocked the ship, and Jake shoved one of the shell-shocked men out of the way. He felt a twinge of guilt at his rough treatment of the wide-eyed young man, but he didn’t have time to regret his manners. He had a fighter to fly.

  And enemy bogeys to blast out of orbit.

  And a co-pilot to track down.

  Would Kit meet him in on the flight deck? If he didn’t there’d be hell to pay. Aw, who was he kidding, the excitable balding gunner had probably camped out in the cockpit of their fighter, so worried he was about the impending war.

  A war that had come exactly one hour too early.

  Down two sets of crowded stairs, and several debris-littered hallways later, he finally emerged onto the bustling flight deck and sprinted over to his fighter, a sleek, narrow bird with wings meant for both soaring through the atmosphere and outfitted with an array of high-powered ion-pulse guns for lightning-paced space battles.

  Jake grinned when he glanced up at the cockpit—sure enough, Kit was in his seat, hands fluttering over his console. Jake jumped through the hatch and settled into his seat. “You ready, Rooster?” he asked, using the man’s callsign.

  “Sure thing, Shotgun. Nice of you to join me. Just have a seat and the flight attendant will bring you your refreshments shortly—” Kit said without so much as a wry grin.

  Jake, accustomed to his co-pilot’s deadpan wit, quipped, “I thought she was my refreshment,” as he strapped his harness into place and closed the hatch.

  “Unfortunately, she’s a bloke. I don’t think he’ll take kindly to your advances.” Kit’s British accent still peeked through after all his years living in North America, not like Admiral Pritchard’s outrageously exaggerated accent. Jake half-believed that the man played up the stuffy British admiral shtick to inspire admiration and loyalty from his mainly North American and European resistance force.

  “You’d be surprised,” said Jake, spinning up the gravitic drive that would repel the artificial gravity field from the deck plates underneath the fighter, “I can be very persuasive. What’s our launch order?”

  “We’re up in thirty seconds.”

  “Orders?” Jake hadn’t heard anything over his personal comm during his sprint to the fighter deck, and assumed his ever-responsible co-pilot would know.

  “Pritchard ordered our squad to ignore the fighters and go straight for the heavy cruisers.”

  Jake pulled up on the controls, lifting the fighter gracefully off the deckplate. Other pilots, gunners, and the deck crew scurried around the bay, rushing to deploy the two dozen or so fighters lined up near the starboard wall. “Really? Won’t that leave the other squads outnumbered? That’s kind of a last-ditch kind of strategy.”

  “Sure,” Kit said, nodding, “but he says that will draw the battle around the Imperial cruisers rather than us, meaning that as they fire at us and miss, they’re far more liable to hit another Imperial ship than not.” He glanced down at his console. “Ok, we’re good to go.”

  Jake pushed forward on the controls, swung the bow around to face the opened bay doors, and the fighter sprang forward, shooting out of the fighter bay like a fiery arrow. “Yeah, but what happens when they fire at us and don’t miss?”

  “Trouble,” said Kit, straight-faced.

  There is no sound in space.

  A convenient lie, of course, as most modern day fighters in the year 2675 come equipped with a fully integrated surround-visual-and-sound media system which alerts the pilots to all moving ships, firing patterns, obstacles, debris, and friendly fighters with an impressive and utterly realistic array of audio and video effects.

  So as Jake swiveled his
head around to watch the unfolding battle, the sounds of rapid-fire pulsed-ion guns sounded out from the wave of imperial fighters bearing down on them, accompanied by the ominous booming rumble of the dozens of railguns blazing off the hull of the four Centurion-Class Imperial ships, and the dull pounding of the high-velocity slugs on the hull of the USS Fury and its accompanying cruisers. Ion beam cannons on the Resistance ships belched out columns of eye-piercing white and blue beams towards the aggressors, announced by an almost ethereal sound over the speakers surrounding Jake’s head.

  The comm flared to life. “All Resistance fighters, this is Admiral Pritchard.” Jake turned his head towards the speaker, still keeping an eye on the approaching wave of fighters. Whenever the admiral spoke, people listened. And not just because of his accent. But because the man was brilliant. Simply brilliant. Surprise attack or not, there was no way the Imperials were going to out-maneuver them. Not with Pritchard in the lead.

  And he had a secret, after all. A new weapon? An innovative strategy that would stop the enemy short?

  Pritchard cleared his throat and continued, “We’ve a bit of a setback, chaps, but not to worry, I trust you boys completely. We were expecting the South American fleet at any moment, but they’ve run into problems and will not be joining us today. Their president sucks dogs’ bollocks if you ask me, but don’t tell him I said so.”

  Kit shot Jake a look that said, “Oh shit.”

  The South Americans weren’t coming? Jake swore to himself as he reconsidered the wave of fighters that had nearly crossed the chasm of space between the two fleets. He glanced down, towards the shimmering blue globe below, just barely making out the outline of New Zealand as twilight enveloped it.

  Pritchard continued, “But not to fear, ladies and gentleman. You are the best, and don’t forget it. So keep calm and carry on. Draw the fight to them. Keep their cruisers away from ours at all costs. The success of our mission depends on it. And remember: our mission is not just to kick the bloody Corsican Empire off of Earth. Our objective is freedom for every man, woman, and child on the planet, whether they want it or not. Pritchard out.”