by Andrew Beery
The Catherine Kimbridge Chronicles #9,
Rebirth
Copyright 2017 by Andrew Beery
Kindle Edition, v1
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’d like to thank my wife Lori and my two daughters, CJ and Jackie, for putting up with me while I wrote this next book in the Catherine Kimbridge universe. Any similarities between people in this book and my immediate family and friends is purely intentional. Of course, I wouldn’t be much of a pastor if I didn’t acknowledge God – to Him be all the glory!
NOTES from the author
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NOTE: Some of the events in this book are documented more fully in the companion Infinity Brigade series starring Commander AG Stone. This is especially true of the six months period between the events depicted in CKC#8 and those described in this book, CKC#9. Those events (a hard-fought ground war with King Astarte, the Imperial leader of the Ashtoreth Empire) are the primary focus of The Infinity Brigade #3 - Stone Breaker and are only briefly mentioned in this book.
The Catherine Kimbridge Chronicles is a serial adventure. It is highly recommended that the books be read in chronological order.
The Catherine Kimbridge Chronicles #9,
Rebirth
Chapter 1: Pirate Kings and Trojan Horses…
Personal Log: 2488 was the year the Galactic Coalition of Planets was reborn. The original birth of the GCP many centuries ago was a painful process… I know… I was there. Her rebirth was no different. The result, however was a new creation… a creation that learned from past injustices and was the stronger for it. The new Galactic Coalition of Planets would survive for a thousand years… and I would live to see most of it.
Admiral Cat Kimbridge was sweating profusely. She had been running a one kilometer circular course in the Yorktown’s gym. She had set the effective gravity to 5G. By lap twenty she was beginning to fatigue. By lap thirty she called it quits and dialed the gravity plating back to a respectable 1G so others could use the gym too. The ability to have a private 5G run was one of the perks of being the boss. Her Heshe enhanced body was infused with powerful and sophisticated alien nanites. These nanites meant she never needed to work-out to retain peak physical conditioning. That said, she worked out religiously. It was her way of remaining connected with her humanity. It was this need to remain human that drove her to run.
The GCP Yorktown’s track was not nearly as nice as the one she had grown accustom to at the Paradise Island Marine training facility located in Marine City.
Marine City was actually a seventy-square kilometer dome-covered habitat built into the side of a massive alien weapons platform called WhimPy-101. The sentient Heshe space station was the size of a respectable moon. It served as the home base for the Yorktown taskforce. Cat was the Admiral in charge of the taskforce and, by mutual agreement with the WhimPy AI, the Weapons Platform.
What a difference six months made, Cat thought to herself as she made her way to the showers. The fight against the Ashtoreth had been hard fought. Ultimately the battle had become a ground war fought on the surface of the Ashtoreth home world. The Ashtoreth Military had been defeated by the Infinity Brigade Marines under the command of Cat’s friend and subordinate, Commander AG Stone.
The Infinity Brigade had pushed hard to prune away the Ashtoreth military and economic support structures that kept the empire viable. Once they were gone, King Astarte had been forced, literally at gun point, to surrender. As part of the terms of that surrender; the King had turned over the identities of the replicants that had infiltrated the GCP. The list was daunting.
In this case, stopping the source of the threat was not the same as handling the threat itself. Dealing with the replicants that were already in place would be a monumental task… especially in as much as they controlled the flow of information and thus controlled the public narrative. As far as the GCP was concerned, Cat and her taskforce had gone and remained rogue.
Once the scope and nature of what had happened became public; Cat was sure that she and her taskforce would be cleared. But sadly, she knew it would not be as simple as feeding the relevant information to one of the various interstellar news services. Too much of the GCP had been compromised. This was why the Yorktown had temporarily parted ways with the rest of the taskforce which was still docked at their WhimPy-101 base. To win this part of the war, she would need help.
***
“Admiral on the Bridge!” Lieutenant Zimmerman barked crisply.
Cat looked over at the young officer and grimaced. Ziggy knew she was not a stickler for protocol but because the Yorktown was about to host a visitor, the crew took it upon themselves to step up their game. Everything was a little more dress-right-dress and had a little more spit-and-polish applied to it. It didn’t matter that the visitor would be Sharn Dragos… the man known as the Pirate King.
There were rumors floating around the cosmos that Dragos was immortal… that he was in fact the man known in the Christian Bible as Lazarus raised from the dead. Cat was quite sure she didn’t believe those stories but she had seen some pretty strange things over the centuries that comprised her own life.
Advances in science meant that physical immortality was effectively a reality… at least for some. The fact that she had died and been resurrected several times… and that she now had, under her ultimate command, an entire brigade of augmented Marines who were bio-replicants and thus had survived death… meant that the Big-D, as the Marines called it, had lost its stranglehold over life. How one died was not nearly as important as how one chose to live.
Cat had sent Harry Bedmore on a mission to recruit the Pirate King. The Yorktown taskforce would need the special capabilities his organization possessed if they were to have any chance of dealing with the seriously compromised upper echelons of the Galactic Coalition.
“Status of the Brown Recluse?” Cat asked.
“Admiral,” Captain Ken Kirkland said from his command chair. “Captain Bedmore is on final approach.”
“Very good. Is our surprise ready?”
Ken looked up from the holographic display he was monitori
ng. The wicked grin that spread across his face told her all she needed to know.
Cat smiled. She had been looking forward to the return of her friend Harry Bedmore, a.k.a. Ricky Valen, for several days. Harry was a covert operative for Admiral Melbourne. He was a part of her Melbourne Maniacs. In point of fact, the entire crew complement of the pirate vessel the AM Brown Recluse was a part the M & Ms. This was, of course, known to the Pirate King, Sharn Dragos… who was, himself, affiliated with the Admiral’s intelligence network… albeit not as tightly affiliated.
“Honey has been written in on what is happening?” Cat asked cautiously.
Ken looked at the Admiral with a look of mock panic. “Of course Admiral,” Ken said sharply. “None of us would be foolish enough to mess with her husband without her expressed permission. That said, she was more than willing to contribute several ideas for taking things to the next level. Several of these involved locally procured spirits. I have put the med bay on notice to expect a potential influx of business.”
Cat raised an eyebrow.
“Hangovers can be debilitating… especially given the lack of regulation on Talus IV and the paint thinner they produce as a result. Better safe than sorry,” Ken added.
***
Commander Ben First strolled into the Yorktown’s main hanger deck. He was in his human form… a form that resembled Cat’s late father, Doctor Robert Kimbridge. His nanite-infused body could transition quickly between any number of configurations from a six-legged D’rlalu to a bipedal human. Experience had taught him that humans were intimidated by large canine species and so he chose a form that would be more-likely to put their visitors at ease.
The Honey-Dipper, which served as the Brown Recluse’s command shuttle, had just powered down her drives and settled onto the deck plating. An illuminated red safety circle that surrounded the craft changed to green as gravity clamps locked the craft in place.
The shuttle had brought a small number of visitors over from the Brown Recluse. Ben was Admiral Kimbridge’s Executive Officer. He checked with Yorky, the ship’s AI to see if the preparations on the Flag Deck were complete. They were.
While Captain Kirkland commanded the Yorktown, Cat Kimbridge commanded the Yorktown Taskforce. As her Executive Officer, the D’rlalu cyborg was responsible for managing the Flag Deck which was the only area of the Yorktown that Captain Kirkland did not have absolute authority over.
The side-mounted hatch to the Honey-Dipper recessed slightly and then slid into cavity in the hull. At the same time, a small ramp extended. A man, who appeared to be middle-aged, stepped out of the shuttle first. Ben recognized Sharn Dragos immediately. The man had a command presence that could have fit in the upper echelons of the GCP easily.
Following right behind the Pirate King was a man currently going by the name… Harry Bedmore. Ben chuckled softly to himself. He and ‘Harry’ had a history. He had first met the man many years ago when he had been calling himself Ricky Valen. The Captain of the Brown Recluse changed names on a whim like others changed their shirts. He was every bit the pirate swashbuckler. Still he was a good man who had risked his life more times than Ben could remember in service to the Galactic Coalition. He was one of Cat’s oldest friends and for that reason alone deserved a modicum of respect.
Of course, one never got Harry without also getting his better half – Lieutenant Heather Arris, who everyone called Honey. She was a sentient android of Heshe construction. She carried with her the Heshe’s deep and abiding love of all life. She was a synthetic being who exuded warmth and compassion… unless you were foolish enough to threaten her husband. She and Harry were married in what Ben assumed had to be the ultimate in mixed marriages.
Honey’s greatest gift and greatest challenge was her ability to temper some of Harry’s wilder ideas. She provided the impulse control he seemed to lack. As she exited the shuttle she gave Ben a thumbs up. Her part of the plan was in place.
The crews of the both the Brown Recluse as well as the GCP Yorktown had been operating on high alert for far too long. Some rest and relaxation was called for. To that end, it had been decided by Cat Kimbridge that a holiday was called for. As it turned out Harry’s birthday was only a few days away. What better excuse for a surprise party?
Senior staff on both ships had been briefed and duty stations would rotate through reduced staffing to allow the two crews some much needed downtime. Honey had handled this for the Recluse’s crew while the Yorktown’sFirst Officer,Commander Andrew Martinescu handled things for the Admiral’s flagship.
Sharn Dragos had been remarkably cooperative and had even supplied a few bottles of Tarkin Sugar Ale, which was both somewhat rare and somewhat illegal as Tarkin was a class one world who had not yet been approached for inclusion in the GCP. The race that inhabited that beautiful little world had not yet reached a sufficient level of technological advancement to allow them to integrate with other more advanced races. The rules surrounding class one worlds were put in place to protect those worlds from being overrun by more advanced members of the Coalition.
“Well met Commander First,” Dragos said with a broad grin on his face as he confidently strolled up to the D’rlalu cyborg with a big beefy hand shoved forward.
Ben shook the proffered hand. “Good to see you too Sir,” Ben answered.
“Sir?” Drago responded with a bemused smile. “I’m a ‘rough and gruff’ pirate. If you keep calling me ‘Sir’ and people might get the wrong idea.”
Ben nodded slightly and grinned. “As you wish you swashbuckling reprobate.”
Dragos laughed and swatted Ben on the back with enough force to have staggered a normal human… Ben, of course was made of sturdier stuff.
“Better… much better.”
“If you will follow me. We have a surprise waiting on the flag deck.”
At this last, Harry’s eyes lit up. “Surprise? I like surprises!”
***
As Ben and his party exited the turbolift which had carried them from the shuttle deck to the Flag deck, he entered a room whose lighting had been deliberately dimmed. Ben knew this was the work of Captain Kirkland’s wife, Commander Rebecca Ann Kirkland who was the Admiral’s executive chef.
Ben’s cybernetic eyes quickly adapted. At the same time, he knew that the Heshe enhancements enjoyed by Harry and his wife would likewise negate the dim lighting. They only people adversely affected by the lighting would be Sharn Dragos and the crew of the Yorktown already on the flag deck… and in the case of the Pirate King… even that was questionable. Still the subdued lighting set a mood.
When the lights suddenly came up to full brightness and the mass of officers and friends yelled in a unison voice that threatened to shatter eardrums…“Happy Birthday!”
Harry Bedmore, always the consummate actor, pretended to be suitably surprised.
Admiral Kimbridge was the first to walk forward and hug her long-time friend.
“Happy three hundred and fiftieth birthday… Harry or Ricky or Ralph or whatever you are calling yourself these days. You don’t look a day over fifty,” Cat said with a broad smile on her face.
“Beggin the Admiral’s pardon but by my calculations she’s got me by another fifty years at least… and she’s look’n mighty fine herself. If I weren’t a married man I might be make’n some moves… if’n I weren’t a married man.”
Honey shook her head. “Men,” was all she said as she glared at her husband. Something about the Y chromosome inhibited their common sense. As a result, many times they just didn’t know when to keep their mouths shut… they would do the dumbest things… like commenting on the attractiveness of another women while in the presence of their spouse.
Harry apparently missed the obvious visual cues. In point of fact, he enjoyed getting himself into hot water. Instead trying to patch things up he just looked around the room and asked the question that was foremost on his mind. “Is there cake?”
Cat and Honey broke into laughter.
“
Indeed there is…” Cat started to say. Before she finish there was a sudden surge of electromagnetic energy in the room. A normal human would never have detected it… other than perhaps the raising of hairs on their forearms… but for Cat, whose Heshe enhancements ran the gauntlet from superhuman strength to hypersensitive senses… it was as if someone had shined a bright light into a pitch black room.
The RF energy was radiating from Sharn Dragos… and it was increasing at an exponential rate. The man everyone had assumed was the Pirate King turned to face Cat. He spread his arms wide, smiled… and without a word… exploded.
Chapter 2: Dark Nebula…
Milliseconds before the explosion Cat leapt into action. Her hyper-responsive reflexes had saved many a life in the past and today was no exception. The concussive force of the explosion that took place on the flag deck was easily strong enough to shatter the bones of anybody within twenty meters of the replicant that had been posing as Sharn Dragos.
Fortunately, Cat was able to signal the ship’s AI, Yorky a fraction of a second before the blast took place. That fraction of a second was all that had been required. The ship’s AI erected an energy barrier around the intruder and at the same time instructed the nanite-infused exterior hull of the Yorktown to open up a breach. For a brief second a small isolated section of the flag deck was exposed to the vacuum of space.
This had the effect of shunting the energy of the blast out of the ship. Yorky collapsed the force screen back into the breach and then sealed the hole in the exterior hull. There was a partial depressurization of the flag deck but the environmental systems quickly compensated.
“What the hell happened?” Ken Kirkland barked as he simultaneously used his AI link to call medics and security teams to the scene. “Did Dragos just try to kill us all?”
“I’d be very surprised if that was really Sharn Dragos. He never struck me as the suicide bomber type. I suspect we were dealing with a replicant plant with orders to cripple or destroy us,” Cat answered as she helped a wounded ensign to a couch. The young man would need to be one of the first people seen by the medical staff once they arrived. He had a serious gash across his forehead that refused to stop bleeding.
