The Last Spartan: Different Paths

by A. E. McCullough

  THE LAST

  SPARTAN

  DIFFERENT PATHS

  A.E. McCullough

  Copyright © 2012 by Andrew McCullough

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, character, places and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author, except by reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

  Cover design by Andrew McCullough

  Images by Dreamstime® - used with the permission of the artists.

  First Edition: March 2012

  www.aemccullough.com

  www.aemccullough.blogspot.com

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  This novel is dedicated to the men and women of Louisville Metro Corrections.

  We do an important but thankless job for society. Day in and day out, we walk our assigned beat surrounded by negativity and hatred but we strive to never let it get to us. I am proud to stand by each and every one of you. We are officers, not guards. We are truly…Law Enforcement Professionals.

  A special thanks to Scott and Alex who were my early test readers and gave me some wonderful insights and suggestions.

  Several others could be mentioned by name but I will abstain. When you read this, you will know who you are and thanks for your inspiration.

  CHAPTER 1

  Heads.

  Tails.

  Heads.

  The two men watched the silver coin flip through the air with undisguised interest. A few of the nearby passengers on the tram aimlessly watched the ancient coin on its short flight. While the coin was still in the air the smaller of the two men glanced at the mass of people around them and sneered. He mentally compared the masses to cattle being herded to the slaughter house; they were totally unaware of their impending doom. He caught the silver coin and slapped a hand over the outcome. He wanted to savor this fateful moment. Would they get to live or die? It all hung on the toss of a simple coin.

  His larger companion nudged him. “Come on….let’s see it.”

  With a feral grin, he lifted his hand and cussed. “Dammit! Its tails! They get to live.”

  “Come on my friend, this is our stop and we have a job to do.”

  “One last toss, heads it’s my choice who we kill first… the husband or the wife and tails, it’s your choice.”

  The larger of the two men thought about it for a split second before answering, “You’re on!”

  The coin flipped once more and the fate of some nameless couple was decided.

  Silently they stood up and moved toward the door. The mass of people on the tram parted at their approach without a word from either man; young and old, punker or yuppie moved aside without comment. It wasn’t their style of dress. The flat black body armor was a common sight since the war ended. Many veterans still wore their old armor like a badge of honor. However, neither the weapons worn at their waist nor the aura of danger which they radiated was commonplace.

  Either of these would’ve been enough to warrant easy passage through the crowd but it was the five-pointed star hanging at their necks which provoked the most fear. No one in their right mind messed with a Galactic Marshal.

  CHAPTER 2

  “Dammit! Pick up!”

  “This is Spartan. I am currently unavailable. Leave a message and contact codes.” Beep…

  “Shit! Achilles, this is the Sergeant Major. I need you! Contact me as soon as you get this message. You know it’s urgent or I wouldn’t have called. I have a bounty and I need your help. It could be a matter of life or death, old friend.”

  Clicking the vid-phone off, the old man let his gaze sweep across the pictures and awards that hung above his desk. His Honorable Discharge certificate from the UNCF - United Nations Coalition Forces - hung next to the plaque handed to him by the Coalition President on the day he was awarded the Medal of Honor. The coveted medal hung in a nearby shadow box along with the Silver Star, Purple Heart and a dozen other Coalition Awards of Merit he’d earned over his twenty-two years of service.

  Reaching up, he carefully took down an old fashion photograph of his unit; the slightly discolored sides of the oak frame showed that he had performed this ritual many times in the past. As he moved to place it in the open briefcase on the desk, two small arms suddenly wrapped themselves around his legs.

  “Daddy. Daddy. I’m all packed.”

  Reaching down to remove his daughter’s arms, John squatted down to look her in the eyes. “That’s wonderful Eve. I’m almost finished here and Amy is getting the skimmer from the garage.”

  Cocking her head slightly to the side, Eve’s platinum blonde locks fell in front of her blue eyes exposing her slightly pointed ears that marked her mixed heritage. Looking around the office while absentmindedly toying with a crystal pendant that hung on a silver chain around her neck, she asked the question he most feared.

  “Daddy, why are we leaving tonight?”

  John felt his heart twinge at his daughter’s question. She wasn’t scared, just confused. How does a father tell his only child that the sins of his past were coming back to haunt him?

  Taking a deep breath he said, “Eve, it’s hard to explain.”

  Gazing into his daughter’s eyes he saw the immeasurable trust that the young have in their parents. He knew this was a wonderful age…before the dreaded teenage years, before boys and shopping and the independent thinking that comes with growing up. This was an age where their children still thought their parents knew everything. It was a wonderful if not frightening time.

  Pulling his mind back to her question John said, “Let’s just say that we have to play a game of hide-n-seek but a grown-up version. There are people trying to find us, so we have to hide.”

  Eve clapped her hands together and just accepted his explanation. “Okay Daddy. I’m good at hide-n-seek.”

  “I know you are princess. Now, let me finish in here so we can leave.”

  Thump. A noise from the front of the apartment filled the room.

  John quickly drew a pistol from his shoulder holster; a slight hum filled the study as the pistol powered up. “Quick Eve, hide! And don’t come out until me, Amy or your uncle Achilles comes for you. Now go!”

  Moving to the door, he glanced back in time to glimpse her blonde hair disappearing into the panic room. Gripping the pistol in his right hand, finger on the trigger, his left hand cupping the right to provide counter-tension; the retired sergeant major stepped into the hallway.

  Moving slowly, his eyes scanned the area before moving on. Though it had been nearly a decade since he served, it seemed that old habits die hard. Only subconsciously did his brain register the empty spaces where pictures had hung only hours before, the rest of his mind was absorbed in the environment, listening for unusual noises or watching for movement. Reaching the doorway that opened into the kitchen, John took a deep breath and burst through the opening ready to blast anything that moved.

  Whatever he was expecting, finding his wife standing in the kitchen crying was not one of them. With a flick of his finger, he powered down his pistol and he replaced it in his shoulder holster.

  “Honey? What is it? What’s wrong?”

  Moving forward to embrace his wife, his instincts screamed at the wrongness of the situation but he ignored them. “Amy…us leaving is only temporary. We’ll be bac
k.”

  She shook her head as tears streamed down her face and moved in to embrace her husband. For a brief second she clung to him with all her might. Pulling out of his grasp, she plunged a butcher knife deep into her husband’s chest and screamed, “No, we won’t!”

  Pulling out the knife, she stabbed him again and again; stopping only when his corpse lay on the floor in a growing pool of blood. Amy took one last glance around at her kitchen, pulled a hand towel off the rack and made a quick cut with the knife. Dropping the knife at her feet, she tied the two towel pieces together thereby doubling its length. Wrapping the makeshift cord around her legs right above the ankles, she sat down with her legs folded underneath her. Retrieving the knife, she placed the razor sharp edge on the side of her neck, smiled briefly and with a quick slash, sliced through her carotid artery.

  CHAPTER 3

  “One minute until re-entry. Please secure all loose cargo and fasten all seat-belts.” Pax’s monotone voice echoed over the speakers throughout the ship.

  Iaido moved forward, seated himself into the captain’s chair and clicked the five-point restraint system into place. “All right Pax, arm all missiles, ready the cannons and power up the deflector shields.”

  “Affirmative.”

  Iaido could tell that Pax, his ship’s A.I. - Artificial Intelligence - was slightly offended at being told the obvious but then he didn’t like leaving anything to chance. He studied the star chart on the screen at his side before adding, “Prepare evasion programs Charlie and Delta.”

  “Affirmative.”

  Iaido glanced out the cockpit window. He could tell that re-entry was only seconds away by the way the lights danced around his ship.

  Technically, any starship equipped with a hyperdrive could enter or exit hyperspace at any point in space. For ease of trans-galactic travel, the Galactic Marshals had set specific marker buoys throughout the region and those routes were logged into every astronavigation computer. However, re-entry from hyperspace was always tricky. Certain natural phenomenon such as comets, solar storms and meteors tended to affect ships traveling in hyperspace. A few unnatural objects could do the same thing, most notably a gravitational generator.

  Grav-gens were a piece of hardware designed to create artificial gravity for use on orbiting space platforms. It was a wonderful peaceful invention that the military perverted for its own wartime uses. It had been known to be used as a method to pull ships out of hyperspace early or at wrong locations, such as near a planet where the gravitational forces would pull it to its doom or into an ambush. With the war officially over, several mercenary companies had gone rogue and had been raiding known shipping lanes. At least one of these pirate bands had a working grav-gen and was using it to good effect.

  The Galactic Marshals hadn’t been able to capture these pirates yet and had placed an ample bounty on them. Iaido wasn’t even tempted by the sum…at least not until it was double the current amount.

  Pax triggered an alarm notifying him of re-entry. A sudden lurch forward and the stars settled into normal patterns was all that marked their emergence from hyperspace. Iaido quickly pulled up and back on the yoke with a quick turn to starboard, thereby taking his starship into a ninety degree vector from his initial re-entry. A quick glance at one of the monitors showed that his prisoner was secure and in relative good health.

  “We have company. Two bogies at three o’clock. Twenty-five kilometers out and closing fast. Preliminary scans show both vessels to be Raptor Class, Mark 4s.”

  Iaido’s HUDs, heads-up-display system, began showing him all pertinent data on the enemy ships. The Raptor M4 was a one-man starfighter with no hyperspace drive but large sub-light engines capable of pushing the ship to speeds of zero point eight the speed of light. Standard armament consists of ten anti-matter missiles, one .75 caliber projectile cannon, two turbo-lasers and minimal deflector shields. The Raptor was a military grade starfighter primarily meant for interplanetary defense. Built by Titan Avionics, they were originally designed and built for a Coalition contract in 2120 but lost the final contest to the Avionics Strategic International Dragon which has become the standard UNCF Fleet starfighter for the last quarter century. Titan Avionics was left to peddle their starfighter to the colonists. However during the war, the Confederacy had used the Raptor to deadly effect. Iaido wasn’t overly concerned over the turbo lasers or the Raptor’s cannons. Neither were powerful enough to penetrate his shields on any single hit, a constant barrage would most defiantly hurt but nothing short of that would harm his ship. On the other hand, the anti-matter missiles the Raptor carried could easily disable or destroy his starship. Since these bogies were the latest version of the Raptor; Iaido knew that these pilots took care of their ships.

  “Incoming transmission from the lead Raptor,” Pax said. “They are maneuvering for missile lock, target jammers at max but estimate missile lock in twenty-five seconds, plus or minus five seconds.”

  “Roger. Evasion pattern Charlie. Prepare countermeasures and plot an escape vector back to hyperspace.” Nodding in satisfaction at Pax’s efficiency Iaido said, “Now put this idiot through.”

  “Starship Nemesis, power down all systems and prepare to be boarded.”

  Iaido toggled his mic. “On whose authority?”

  “This is Captain Dixon of the Jupiter Defense League.”

  “My apologies captain but I have checked my nav-system and I am in inter-galactic space. So, I will have to respectfully decline.”

  “Starship Nemesis that was not a request! You will power down all systems and prepare to be boarded. You are harboring a known fugitive and we plan to take custody of him.”

  “Now we are getting somewhere, Captain Dixon,” said Iaido. “You want Jagger Jax? That’s a simple matter; pay the bounty on him and he’s yours.”

  While his wingman broke to port, the JDL captain slid his ship onto Iaido’s tail tighter than a bra on a ten-dollar whore. “We don’t pay bounties!”

  “I didn’t think so.” Iaido tapped several commands into his nav-system. “If you aren’t willing to pay, then no deal.”

  “This is your last warning Nemesis...power down or die.”

  “Not today, Captain.”

  Although the Raptors were newer, smaller and more agile than his aging warship, Iaido was a veteran of many battles and had numerous tricks in his arsenal. Cutting the power to the engines, he pulled hard up on the ship’s controls while firing the maneuvering jets causing his warship to flip on its axis. It was now facing the complete opposite direction; right toward the JDL Captain’s Raptor but was still moving forward on its previous vector. Having never encountered that particular trick before, Captain Dixon panicked and pulled his ship hard up which exposed his engines to Iaido. A quick burst from the Nemesis’ 50mm railguns and the JDL Raptor was floating helplessly in space.

  Seeing his commander in trouble, the JDL wingman altered course to intercept and fired.

  “Incoming missiles. Anti-matter signature,” said Pax. “Firing counter-measures and engines. Initiating evasion pattern Delta.”

  Iaido could do nothing but hold on as Pax accelerated to combat velocity and twisted the Nemesis in an intricate evasion pattern that confused missiles and pilots alike. The JDL Raptor dropped in behind and the chase was on. Of course, the Raptor was one-fifth the size of the Nemesis and probably three times as maneuverable but they didn’t have Pax. Iaido was a skilled pilot; his flight log would show that but he also knew his limits. With two anti-matter missiles homing in on his ship, he knew that Pax was their best chance for outmaneuvering the missiles. All missiles operated on a scaled down version of A.I.s, not anywhere near as advanced as Pax and very limited, but still fully capable of tracking starships through an asteroid field. All A.I.s operate on an advanced algorithm that Iaido didn’t understand nor did he want to, however he knew when to let Pax do her thing and when not to, and this was a time to let go of the reins.

  Pax danced the warship through several har
d banking moves which caused Iaido to experience over one hundred times the normal gravity force for several seconds. He felt the G-forces trying to push the blood out of his torso and into his extremities. But at the same time, he knew his armor would react to the increased pressure; the interior lining would automatically constrict on his legs and arms forcing blood out of his extremities and back into his torso. Having years of space combat experience, these maneuvers were unlikely to cause him to pass out. Even so, if Pax continued pulling those types of turns there was still that possibility.

  Iaido glanced at the monitors and could see that the missiles were closing. Pax dropped a few more countermeasures and took the Nemesis into a corkscrewing spin, getting faster with each revolution. Iaido watched as the missiles also started the corkscrewing motion. With each rotation the missiles got closer together until they finally ran into each other which detonated their warheads.

  The Nemesis rocked slightly with the force of the explosions but it was already outside the dangerous blast radius and closing on the remaining Raptor.

  “Pax, charge the EMP cannon and give me manual controls.”

  Twisting the ship, Iaido fired a quick burst of cannon fire. The 50mm railgun rounds flew harmlessly to the port side of his opponent yet the JDL pilot reacted by banking hard to his starboard. With a slight grin, Iaido twisted the controls a bit and let another burst, this time to starboard. The JDL pilot immediately banked to port, showing Iaido how unskilled the pilot really was, he was reacting reflexively to cannon fire that had no chance of striking his starship. Iaido began to herd the Raptor with short blasts from his cannons while using the powerful engines on his warship to close the distance.

  Pax announced, “EMP ready and active”.

  EMP, Electro Magnetic Pulse, cannons have disadvantages and advantages in combat. The disadvantages are severe considering combat conditions; EMP cannons take time to charge, require a lot of energy and have a very short range. The effective target range was less than three thousand meters, which is almost point blank range for combat situations in space. However, Iaido had always found that the advantages offered by the EMP cannon especially useful in trying to capture a mark. There was no need for a target lock since the blast covered a wide area in front of the cannon and any ship caught in it would find all of its electronic components immediately disabled.