Deception

by Jeremiah Kleckner

  Contents

  Title Page Kindle

  Chapter One - 1

  Chapter Two - 2

  Chapter Three - 3

  Chapter Four - 4

  Chapter Five - 5

  Chapter Six - 6

  Chapter Seven - 7

  Chapter Eight - 8

  Chapter Nine - 9

  About the Author

  DECEPTION

  REDSHIFT (BOOK ONE)

  By Jeremiah Kleckner

  Amazon Kindle Edition

  Copyright © 2018

  This is a fictional work and any resemblance to actual people living or dead, businesses, locales, or events is coincidental. Reproduction of this publication in part or whole without written consent is strictly prohibited.

  Thank you for reading. Please consider leaving a review wherever you bought the book so that others may find it as well. Your support is everything.

  Chapter One

  1

  Two starships spun in a lethal dance of soundless destruction as they sped away from an emerald sun. The smaller of the two ships slid behind an asteroid seconds before bolts of green plasma shattered the delicately spiraling rock into jagged fragments.

  Shaken, but undaunted, the smaller ship drove deeper into the expanse of floating asteroids.

  The crew of the Swift Destiny guided the gunship in cautious pursuit.

  "Who hides in an asteroid field?" Wren's voice trailed off over the gunship's internal comm link.

  A collision screamed off of the hull and the Swift Destiny jerked left.

  Wren muttered a string of curses.

  Captain Malik Carthen tapped the controls on the panel of his bridge command chair and opened a direct channel to the starboard gunnery bay. "Celwik's trying to lose us, Wren. Concentrate."

  Malik switched on the comm channel for the cockpit. "Carthen to Hosk."

  A moment of static hissed. "Hosk here, Captain."

  "Do we have a sensor lock?"

  There was a brief silence, followed by the clicking of switches. "No, and something is scrambling the signal from his Forward Pulse Inducer."

  "What do you mean 'something'?"

  "Just what I said. Every time Daton cracks it, a program scrambles the data we get back. We're putting it through to your display now." The round table in the center of the bridge lit up in blues and whites as the hologram projector hummed to life. In seconds, the Swift Destiny and the surrounding asteroids were laid out to scale.

  The small creature to Malik's right climbed out of his seat and scurried onto the edge of the table. He tapped three buttons and sharpened the image. The Abyssiet then pointed a thinly furred claw at the damage indicators on their ship's image and trilled, "Fix."

  "I know Rikt, I know, but it can wait," Malik said.

  They had been going at it with the smuggler for hours, but he was more damaged than they were and they couldn't afford to lose the advantage by giving him the opportunity to recover. Malik waved his hands over the display, scrolling the image ahead several hundred kilometers.

  Hosk's voice growled over the comm link. "There are seven large masses in the center of the field. Daton's betting me a chip that he's hiding behind the third one on our port side."

  "Don't start throwing chips away. We're rationed as it is," Malik said. He assessed the fog that covered the clearing in the center of the field. "What's with this gas cloud?"

  "It's thick, probably flammable," Hosk answered.

  Malik took another breath and examined the floating masses in the center of the cloud. "You and Daton can get us in there, right?"

  Another hiss of static greeted him, followed by Hosk's gruff reply. "We don't have much choice, do we?"

  "Not unless we want to go back empty-handed."

  "Then yeah, Captain, we can get there. Just keep the gunners on target. We can't take too many hits like before."

  "Understood. Full ahead. Carthen out."

  Malik switched off the link to the cockpit and Rikt scrambled back to his station.

  Jallo Celwik wasn't a part of the Shogol Network, but he did a great deal of business with them, which made him worse in Malik's eyes than if he declared an allegiance to the dark order. The Alliance had more than their share of problems, but at least they were consistent from system to system. That kind of reliability was necessary when hundreds of billions of lives were on the line. If their intel was right, and Jallo was smuggling ten metric tons of Necris, his capture could set them up to help keep the galaxy from falling into more sectarian violence.

  Taking Jallo down should be easy, if they can get to him.

  Another crash against the hull shook the ship.

  Rikt let out a soft whine that Malik recognized as frustration. He then rasped, "Wren and Zeeb are not good shots."

  "That's not it," a low, synthetic voice said from the port tactical station. The lean figure tapped three keys on his console and the event replayed on the center display. "Zeeb shot something that broke apart and we were hit with the debris."

  Malik nodded, having learned to trust the analyses of this tactical officer. Joer was one of the last of his line, a Genetically Engineered Bio-Replicant, built to withstand space travel and hostile environments. Many defected and were lost or destroyed in the war with the Shogol. It was a shame, they were magnificent creations. Joer was rarely wrong, even less so while being fed constant data at a bridge station of a starship.

  The ship rattled violently and Malik was thrown to the floor. The bridge lights shut off for a moment before the emergency backups flickered on in their place. Malik stood and examined the damage alert indicators that flashed all over the holographic display of the ship.

  "What happened?" Malik shouted. "More debris?"

  "Impossible," Joer said flatly. "That first wave should have been the end of it."

  "So then why are we blind?" Malik asked. He braced himself against the holographic display table and stepped over to his command chair. "Rikt, power up a few bots for the repairs."

  The beaked creature chirped his understanding and ran out of the back bridge door.

  Malik then spoke into the comm-link to the cockpit. "Hosk. Ahead one-eighth. Let's see if we can get into the clearing."

  "Without sensors?" the pilot responded. There was an ounce of excitement to her voice, as Malik knew there would be. His former protégé was, to say the least, eager for a challenge. "There are a lot of moving rocks out here."

  "The center is more open," Malik said. "Have Daton pull up our last reading and run a predictive program. Just get us away from this mess."

  "On it," she said. The link switched off and the ship bounded forward with a shot.

  Joer opened a channel to the port and starboard gunnery bays. "We're moving. Only visual is available. I'm forwarding the display data to your stations now. Make it work." He then turned to Malik. "I'm routing tactical to the cockpit."

  "Do what you need to," Malik said. Before he finished his sentence, Joer walked through the forward bridge door into the cockpit.

  The door whispered shut and Malik found himself alone on the bridge, blind and deaf. He had always found the choice to split the cockpit and the bridge into separate sections a questionable decision at best. It isn't a favored design among human captains, but Malik had grown accustomed to it.

  The Amun Empire, while it existed, had so little use for war. Even when there was a dispute within a system, the arrival of a Necri ship meant the end of the argument. There was no fighting. The Necri weren't a fighting race. There was no need for it. Times are much more complicated now that the Necri are gone.

  Suddenly, the table hummed and 3D images came alive on the display. The communication link signaled and Hosk's voice sounded through the speakers. "We're back up and runn
ing, Captain."

  "I see that. How're we doing up there?"

  "It was dicey for a while, but it's nice to have eyes in front of us again. Joer's headed back to tactical now." She stopped short and Malik heard other voices behind her. "Captain," Hosk growled, "We're losing power."

  Malik walked up to the table and placed his fist on the image of their ship. He stretched out his fingers and the image expanded. Alongside the image, readings and system status updates flashed, many of them in red. Malik scanned these for a moment, perplexed. "I see it, but I don't get how this is happening. The damage isn't that bad."

  "Ahead still?"

  "Yeah, let's keep moving," Malik said. "Celwik already has too much of a lead as it is."

  The door from the cockpit slid open and Joer stepped through. He and Malik nodded to each other, but said nothing as Joer resumed his station.

  Behind him, Daton dashed into the bridge. He trotted up to the display, then magnified the image of the port engine with a wave and selected three flashing zones. "The bots spotted them and sent the images back."

  The flashing zones froze and an image overlay mapped over the diagram.

  "Whatever Zeeb shot back there must have been carrying these," Daton said with some pride. Three masses seemed to be growing off of the hull like grey and leathery sores. "They're some sort of inorganic parasite, probably nano-tech. Celwik must have laid them out like mines."

  "Good job," Malik said, then opened a channel to the robot bay. "Carthen to Rikt."

  Seconds later, the tone signaled and Rikt warbled through the speakers. "Rikt here."

  "I need you to redirect three bots to scrape parasites off the port engine."

  Rikt chirped and the link shut off.

  Malik looked back at Daton and collapsed the expanded 3D display to show a large swath of the center of the asteroid field. "What are we looking at as we get closer to the center?"

  "Well, the fog gets thicker," the navigator responded. "That's one thing."

  "And these masses here?"

  "Two are just dead rocks," Daton said. "It's the big one that has my attention. We have a visual confirmation on several deep caves."

  "Are these big enough to fit Cewlik's ship?" Malik asked

  "They're big enough to fit two of ours side by side, but there's more," Daton said. "We're experiencing sensor irregularities."

  "From the short earlier?"

  "That's what I thought at first, but no." Daton flicked a few of the display readouts and zoomed in on the numbers. "There's a huge energy source within 1000 kilometers. In spite of that, our sensors are kicking back readings as though this rock were no different than the other two."

  Malik examined the display for a breath. "A 3rd generation cloaking device."

  Daton smiled. "That's my suspicion exactly.

  "If that's the case, then he already knows we're here," Malik said. "Get back up with Hosk. I'm going to open a channel and see if he wants to do the right thing."

  The door slid open as Daton walked into the cockpit.

  Just then, Rikt walked in from the back door and climbed into his station. "The suckers are gone. Bots are in their bays."

  "Good work, Rikt," Malik said. He opened an internal link to all stations. "Are we all ready?"

  Zeeb, Wren, Daton, Rikt, and Hosk all checked in. Malik looked over at Joer, who nodded.

  Malik then opened an outside channel. "Jallo Celwik. This is Malik Carthen, Captain of the Swift Destiny and formerly the Liothern of Sector 5849 of the Amun Empire. There are six more Liothern on this ship with me. On behalf of the Liothern Collective and the Alliance, you are charged with smuggling for and abetting the Shogol Network. Stand down and turn over your cargo."

  Malik sat in his command chair, and waited. A few moments passed in silence, but he was used to this. Celwik was feeling the same indecisiveness that all animals felt when they're trapped. Living creatures have a fight, flight, or freeze instinct. Celwik was no different. Malik just had to wait to find out what decision the smuggler was going to make.

  The display shimmered as the surface of the asteroid changed. In the place of a sheer rock face, a large metal docking bay glistened. Three steel sensor dishes and four cloak emitters jutted from the asteroid. A massive engine kicked two short bursts, rotating the asteroid to face them.

  "It's an old Necris processing station," Malik said. "He must be using it for the storage space."

  Three small objects shot out of the docking bay and sped toward them in a tight formation.

  Joer spun from his station to face Malik. "Fighters."

  The attack ships closed the distance to 500 kilometers and split off into a flanking maneuver.

  "I see them," Malik replied. He switched off the outside channel and spoke over the internal link. "Alright. Let's get to work."

  Chapter Two

  2

  Fire licked the hull as asteroid debris pounded the shields. The Swift Destiny held.

  "Nice shot, Joer," Malik said, "but we need to not blast these things so close to us. The gas cloud is more flammable than we thought."

  "Understood, Captain," Joer replied. He had shot down two of the three fighters in the first thirty seconds. "Amateurs," he called them.

  The remaining pilot was better trained. Early in the fight, Zeeb nipped him from the port gunnery bay, but the fighter rolled left before he could finish the job. Worse yet, Hosk couldn't shake him off of the Swift Destiny's tail.

  "He's targeting the engines," Hosk said over the link.

  Malik stood over the table and examined the field. He spun the display and zoomed in on a tight cluster of asteroids. "Then let's make them harder to hit."

  Malik sent the coordinates to the cockpit and tactical stations. "We're going here."

  "You really want to take us this far from the Celwik's base?"

  "It's 200 kilometers away from where we already are," Malik said. "Fly by the asteroid's docking bay, drop two mines, and keep an eye open in case Celwik makes a run for it."

  The fighter followed, narrowly avoiding setting off the mines as he maintained his tight pursuit.

  The Swift Destiny darted between asteroids in the cluster. Once inside as well, the fighter laid down a constant fire. They were all misses, which Malik knew they would be.

  "Captain..." Daton started.

  "I know," Malik said. "He's breaking the asteroids."

  "The shattered rocks will tear us apart," the co-pilot continued.

  "Follow the flight plan and have a little faith," Malik said. He waited for a count of forty, then said, "We're in far enough. Daton, drop a mine. Hosk, find a clearing, drop us twenty kilometers, spin us one hundred and eighty degrees, and pitch our nose up. Wren and Zeeb, keep the debris off of us. Joer, you're on our boy out there."

  The Swift Destiny cut through the field in time to execute Malik's maneuver and avoid the shock of the mine's explosion.

  To his credit, the fighter pilot dodged the explosion and shattered rocks, but Joer pummeled him with the ship's heavy neutron guns the instant he made it out into the clearing. The guy didn't stand a chance.

  Malik ordered the Swift Destiny back to the station.

  "Now what?" Hosk asked over the comm link. "Waiting Celwik out could take months and we can't just blast the station to pieces. Not while he's holding that much Necris."

  A familiar and unwelcome chill ran up Malik's spine. He knew the others felt the itch as well, in their own way. "Agreed," he said. "We're going in after him."

  Chapter Three

  3

  "I'm reading a breathable atmosphere and 0.8 gravity on the station," Daton said over the comm. The Swift Destiny sailed toward the station. He spoke again as they passed through the thin energy field that separated the docking bay from cold space. "Also, there's a blast door at the end of the hangar."

  "Understood," Malik said, then looked to Rikt. "You, Joer, and Wren are with me. Get the suits ready."

  The Abyssiet chirped and darted
from his station. The back bridge door hissed open then shut behind his small frame.

  Malik stood from his command chair and nodded at Joer. The Replicant routed weapons to Hosk's station and they left the bridge as well. They were halfway down the main corridor when the internal link signaled.

  "Captain," Hosk's voice growled through the speakers, "Jallo Celwik's ship is not in here."

  "He's here," Malik said. "I can feel the Necris he's smuggled."

  "I feel it too," Hosk said. "But the lack of a ship means that there is something going on, another port, maybe."

  Malik and Joer got to the aft of the ship as Wren and Rikt were nearly done suiting up. He slid into his exo-frame and felt a lethargy sink into his bones. It wasn't the suit. It was as light as ever, so light that some Liothern even wore it under their clothes. Nothing like what the Alliance Shock Troops used. But the Liothern were not infantry. Those grunts needed the protection. All a Liothern needed was breathability in space, minimal shielding, plenty of maneuverability, and a gauntlet emitter at the end of each hand that cuts and throws a decent charge. Everything else, a Liothern can provide for themselves.

  "Nothing else came up when we scanned the surface," Daton said over the comm. "I did at least two scans after the cloak dropped."

  "Even so," Hosk's voice followed. "His ship has to be somewhere."

  "Why don't we ask him?" Wren asked. Her specially-fitted exo-frame lit up as it screwed itself into her cybernetic implants.

  Joer smiled a perfect row of symmetrical teeth. "Ladies first."

  "No," Rikt snapped. "Fix first."

  The four Liothern grew quiet for a breath and looked to their captain.

  "He's right," Malik said, breaking the silence. "We'll not be any good if we're dragging out there. Half-tabs only."

  With that, each Liothern reached into their pockets and drew out a small container. Malik pressed his thumb on the DNA scanner and waited for the device's approving tone. Some of the other carriers were less sophisticated, thumb IDs or simple latches. Sometimes, when the supply got thin, Malik wondered how hard it would be to lift a quick Rise at one of his crew's expense. The idea always passed, but he did think about it.