The Vassal World (The First Exoplanet Book 2)

by T. J. Sedgwick

  Two of the bar’s four walls were completely taken up with video displays. One was showing some kind of forest scene – perhaps from Gaia, thought Sorensen. The other was of some psychedelic flashing, swirling patterns, which seemed to pulsate with the repetitive, flute-like music that filled the air. There was also this strange clicking occasionally accompanying the music, similar to the sound bats make. It occurred to Sorensen that there might be frequencies in the music that were inaudible to human ears, but which sounded wonderful to the bar’s patrons. Alphas sat around in groups smoking from long pipes – taki-weed perhaps, thought Sorensen. Some other Alphas, as wells as most of the Outcasts, sat drinking various beverages of a kind that were completely alien to the human interloper. Androids served drinks and taki-weed from the bar, taking payment from their rowdy clientele by scanning their hands in a machine similar to the one he'd just seen at immigration control. Embedded RFID chips of some kind, surmised Sorensen. A few individual Alphas skulked in the dark corners alone, watching. Criminals? Spies? He didn’t know. He clutched his invisible battlerifle keeping it ready, but down, against his body and out of the way. Lakai went over to a group of five Alphas sitting in the far corner. Sorensen had to stand off for fear of colliding with someone in the crowded space closer to where Lakai now stood. One of the Alphas got up – Valkor. He conversed with Lakai and bade farewell to his smoking buddies, as they turned back towards the exit.

  Sorensen followed them back through the tunnel in the direction of the market, retracing their steps. While in the tunnel, his headset abruptly crackled to life, “Where the hell are you, Sorensen?” asked the perturbed voice of Captain Jen Martin.

  “Just trailing Lakai and the contact now – heading back towards the…”

  From nowhere, Lakai and the large Alpha, Valkor, were bundled into a dark side tunnel by a group of four angry-looking Alphas. They virtually rugby-tackled Valkor, dragging him along the ground into the darkness, which Sorensen considered no mean feat. Lakai was simply frog-marched after him.

  “Shit, something’s happening! They’ve been ambushed!” exclaimed Sorensen quietly, switching to nightvision on his augmented-reality contact lenses. He could see the four brutes had surrounded the two friendlies ten or so metres into the dark, rock-walled tunnel. It led no further and was perhaps a future expansion project, or maybe one that never proceeded. He could see gesticulating, hear raised voices and see body-language that even a human could interpret as intimidation. They seemed to be concentrating on Valkor while restraining Lakai.

  Sorensen tried to hail Lakai and coordinate with him, “Lakai, come in. I’m here with you, behind the four assailants. What do you want me to do?”

  Nothing. He’d had to leave his headset on the shuttle for fear of standing out as an Outcast agent.

  Two of the four assailants were armed with sidearms holstered on their belts – the two middle ones. Neither were drawn as they outnumbered them two-to-one. Sorensen approached quietly, but swiftly, crouching down behind the middle two aggressors. He allowed his battlerifle to rest on its shoulder strap and positioned each of his hands next to the holstered weapons. With a deft touch, he ever-so gently slid them out of the assailants’ possession and spirited them away in his suit pockets, hiding them from view. He retreated to the entrance of the dead-end tunnel where there were some fallen rocks and stones lying on the deck. He picked up several of the larger ones and moved to within five metres of the gang. He set his stance like a baseball pitcher readying himself to release a volley of four rocks in quick succession. One-two-three-go...The first two got off rapidly, both striking home on the backs of reptilians heads. The third needed to be transferred from his left hand to his right, as did the fourth. By the time they were on their way the right-two thugs had turned. The third struck home, the fourth missed. As the first-hit assailant bounded towards the source of the projectiles, Sorensen lay flush against the ragged rock wall, sucking in his breath. The second-hit reached for his pistol. He looked down when he realised it was not there and paused for a second before he and the third-hit thug dashed off behind the first. With three of the four now past him, Sorensen advanced on number four at pace. He raised the butt of his unseen rifle and connected viciously with the seven-foot tall Alpha’s face. Shocked, he bent over clutching his shattered visage, as Sorensen retrieved the stolen sidearms and gave them to the startled Lakai and the even more startled Valkor. They accepted the floating pistols and ran towards the entrance pointing them at the three Alphas who were now completely confused and in disarray. They thought better of pursuing, no doubt thinking they’d be able to track Valkor down easily in such a small colony. Who were those guys? thought Sorensen, as he made his way back to the shuttle seconds after the two relieved friendlies.

  ***

  June 6, 2063: Valkor’s Bulk Metal Freighter, Gaia Orbital Approach, Avendano System

  Eventually, the secretive Valkor came clean about why they were jumped back on the Taserai-5 asteroid. As Jen had guessed, it was one of the colony’s more enthusiastic loan-sharks calling in one of Valkor’s many gambling debts. Lakai would need to report this to his intelligence officers as a potentially compromisable asset that needed fixing. How they fixed it was their business, thought Lakai. Soldiering for the soldiers, skulduggery for the spooks.

  Valkor was insatiably curious about his human passengers, having never met the small talking mammalians before. The only constraint over his questioning seemed to be Lakai’s willingness to indulge him with translation services. As far as Sorensen could work out, Lakai, was an all-business-no-play kind of Outcast. They wouldn't be hanging out as buddies any time soon, so it suited him and the other two humans that they had a focused, professional commando on their team. Without his exo-suit, as he’d been on Taserai-5, he was too jelly-legged to be much of a fighter on land. With the hard-shelled suit of armour supporting his flexible, but powerful body he was a match for any human in strength and agility.

  Permission had been granted several minutes ago to enter Gaia orbit in preparation for re-entry. It had all gone smoothly with no Korgax patrols demanding boarding and inspection. But what they’d seen on their approach, and what was even more abundantly clear now, was the massing of ships around the enemy’s homeworld.

  “Valkor says there’s a lot more ships here than last time,” conveyed Lakai.

  “When was last time?” asked Jen.

  After a pause asking, then getting a response from Valkor, he replied, “In human terms, three months ago.”

  “That’s slightly worrying – Gaia would’ve been swimming in military ships then too – it was just before they sent the fleet to Earth,” said Jen.

  “These are mainly transporters now – not destroyers, as they were three months ago,” replied Lakai without consulting Valkor. “There are a few destroyers, but just escorts probably. What we are witnessing here is a planetary invasion fleet. One this big has only one destination – Earth.”

  Jonah and Lakai carefully documented their observations and transmitted the data back to Exelon via EQP transceiver. Their data was an important update on the massing of enemy vessels around Gaia. They finished the transmission during the final orbit of Gaia before re-entry and now the critical phase was about to begin.

  With the blast of retro-thrusters, the battered old freighter started its re-entry towards the surface of the enemy-held planet. They bade farewell to Valkor – who would handle the formalities with Korgax air traffic control – and left the bridge. The four commandos went to the lower airlock chamber and joined the black equipment crate, repacking the EQP transceiver inside it. The two-cubic metre capsule-shaped crate carried mission-critical equipment and would parachute down into the sea with the four troops.

  They continued straight and steady, the roar of re-entry eventually subsiding, but leaving the already hot airlock’s limited air volume sweltering. Sorensen followed Jen and Jonah’s lead in activating his battlesuit’s thermostatic regulator to a comfortable twenty-o
ne degrees Celsius. They felt the freighter turn towards a different heading while continuing its rapid descent. It was night time on this side of Gaia and they would soon leave the ship and skydive headlong into the night. For Lakai it was a homecoming, for Jen and Jonah a return. For Sorensen there was an element of the unknown, although similar to HALO jumps he’d done numerous times on Earth.

  Lakai spoke through the headsets. “Valkor reports two Korgax fighter drones on an intercept course. They say he has deviated from his flight plan and must return towards the land. He has no choice – they will open fire if he does not comply soon.”

  Jonah checked his inertial positioning that he’d constellation-fixed while in orbit. “Tell him to push it just a little longer – we’re still some way off from our LZ,” he requested.

  “Okay, I will ask…” said Lakai.

  A few seconds later came the reply. “No, he cannot. He is about to open the airlock. Get ready to push the crate and jump,” he ordered.

  The airlock opened, revealing a roaring rush of airflow of a magnitude that Sorensen was not expecting – even with it muffled through his battlesuit helmet. They rolled the crate out and piled out in quick succession, plunging through the night sky, as the freighter turned back towards its sanctioned route. Sorensen turned to look back up at the freighter. Two twinkling lights gained on the old bulker from behind then decelerated to match her velocity. It was a narrow escape – just seconds later and the drones’ forward-facing sensors may have picked them up. His chute opened, decelerating him to a gentle descent. Just ten seconds later he splashed down into the dark alien sea. Once more Jake Sorensen, US Navy SEAL was back in his element, fifteen light-years from home.

  ***

  July 4, 2063: Recon Report #5 [SECRET, Level 2], Sgt Jake Sorensen, Zeta-One Patrol, Near Korgax Army Base #17, Large Continent, Gaia

  SUMMARY

  Asset & Troops Build Up

  Since Report #4 (dated June 29, 2063) there has been a large delivery of the following additional troops and assets to Army Base #17:

  45 x Type 1 VTOL Heavy landing ships (+15%)

  22 x Type 2 Hover Troopships (+12%)

  10 x air-drones, fighter Type 1 (+4%)

  850 approx. x Exoskeleton Infantry Type 1 (+15% approx.)

  58 x Armoured Fighting Vehicles Type 1 (+21%)

  15 x Heavy Hover Tanks Type-Unclassified (new)

  Training Exercises

  The patrol has observed the following enemy exercises taking place in and around Army Base #17 since the last report.

  Landing troops and AFVs under air cover, securing multiple LZs simultaneously.

  Test-firing of ground-based particle weapons (Heavy Hover Tanks) as well as plasma cannons (AFVs)

  Jungle warfare exercises using exoskeleton troop and non-exo troop formations, supported by AFVs.

  Other Observations

  TOP PRIORITY ALERT (Notify POTUS, SECDEF, CJCS, OLC):

  Three dead humans discovered 5.2km due south of the base in forest. Cause of death: unknown. Identity: unknown – DNA samples (skin) acquired. No equipment to analyse in field. Photos attached. Request testing equipment be supplied to Outcast subsea base here.

  ...

  Chapter Ten

  October 1, 2063: R&D Bunker Complex, Groom Lake AFB, Nevada

  United States Vice President, Blake Jefferson had spent more time underground at the site of the fabled Area 51 than he’d ever thought possible for a serving VP. Since the first Korgax attack, back in April, this had become the primary research centre into the FTL technology on which they were so reliant. Without FTL, even being able to reach the enemy system, fifteen light-years away, would be out of the question. The main focus was on reducing the sphere of positional uncertainty. It seemed the further an object was sent, the less accurate its final location would be. Cracking this could prove to be a crucial step forward. Once solved, an FTL gate could then truly turn into a weapons delivery system. Whichever side got there first – humanity or the Korgax – would be almost invincible. The secondary focus of research was to scale up the maximum FTL gate diameter to allow larger ships to pass through. Evidently, the Korgax had cracked that one, enabling their sixty-metre wide destroyers to jump to near-Earth space. Humanity and their Outcast allies were playing catch-up.

  He thought through all of the questions he wanted updates on as they were led into the large underground lab where six FTL gates stood in one long row. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and an entourage of military and civilian personnel accompanied Jefferson on the tour. Researchers were trialling different adaptations on each of the six gates and assessing the results – a lot of trial and error, which made it slow going. The underlying reason was that the theory behind the tech was just not fully understood by scientists.

  “So where are you sending things to, Jack?” asked a Two-Star Army General to the lead scientist, Jack Epstein.

  “Most of the time to Exelon orbit. It’s obviously in the same system as Gaia and the friendlies there send back the results via Christina Frewer and the EQP. We need to send a lot of standard objects to get a coordinate spread which defines the uncertainty sphere. Results are looking promising.”

  “How promising, Jack?” asked Jefferson.

  “Sir, we’ve come on leaps and bounds since April. The best we’ve achieved so far is a radius of +/- 5km sphere of uncertainty at the 95% confidence level over fifteen light-years. We were achieving this same precision to low Earth orbit back in April. Still not good enough to pepper a distant enemy fleet with nukes though,” he said.

  “But what about using them on the fleet in orbit around Earth? What’s the best achievable precision there?” asked the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

  “Still 1km uncertainty...” he said to confused looks amongst the huddle of guests. “...I know, it’s counter-intuitive, but the relationship is not linear,” he continued. “And besides, it’s still five-times better than six months ago.”

  “Not good enough though, given the uncertainty of the enemy fleet up there,” said the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, looking up to the ceiling. “Those destroyers are whizzing around the Earth once every ninety-minutes – hitting a set of moving targets like that involves even more uncertainty. Anyway, we just don’t have the strategic nukes at hand unless we start cannibalizing the ones on our remaining nuclear subs – something I have no intention of doing. Current efforts are going into production of backpack nukes for surgical strikes by direct action teams on Gaia,” he continued, shaking his head – somewhat ungratefully in Jefferson’s opinion.

  “Well, I agree that you’ve come on leaps and bounds and you’ve done some amazing work here, Jack. Please pass on my thanks to the wider team,” smiled Jefferson. “Liberation of Gaia Day, known as, LG-Day, is now just three-and-a-half months away. Where do you think we’ll be on precision by then, Jack?”

  “Sir, much as I’d like to give you an estimate, it’s proved impossible to predict progress thus far. It seems to go in fits and starts, sometimes running backwards or hitting a dead-end. It’s because we’re doing much of this by trial and error.”

  The tour continued, and there was more good news regarding maximum size and mass. However, without precision or capital ships to send through the FTL gates it would be an advance of limited value.

  ***

  October 1, 2063: Outcast Underground Base, Exelon

  President Stephen Powell waited in the shared human quarters for his Secretary of Defence, Diego Romero, to return from his discussions with General Rafai. The spartan quarters had been setup by their Outcast host to provide an atmosphere breathable by humans, with twenty-one percent oxygen and a lower temperature and humidity. It’s amazing what you become accustomed to, thought Powell, considering the basic spaces he’d called home for the past six months. He checked the EQP transceiver, making sure it was ready to go as soon as Romero was back. They had a conference call to make with Vice President Jefferson. It was a call which could turn out to be a
seminal, given the recent movement in many areas of the multi-pronged war strategy. It had been nearly six months on Exelon for Powell, Romero and Christina, and over that time they’d slowly started to comprehend the full extent of their sacrifice. Although Christina missed her partner, Jim, enormously, it was hardest for family-men Powell and Romero. They’d discussed bringing their families to the base they’d called home on many occasions. Although by this time many humans had arrived on Exelon – mainly Special Forces soldiers and a few volunteer aides from the White House and DoD – the three had formed a close bond. They’d been the constant human presence on the distant moon. So far they’d resisted the emotional desire to reunite with family – a trip that would be one-way while the enemy controlled the Solar system’s space. It was just that there always seemed to be a reason to wait just a little longer as time marched closer to the end game. Where would family be safer – Earth or Exelon? At the moment that was a very open question. The asteroid, FTL improvements, and the planned attack on Gaia – these factors and more would determine the best course of action for their loved-ones’ safety and prosperity.