Star Brigade: The Supremacy (SB3)
Page 51
“You mean where and when,” Khrome corrected him.
All eyes turned to him. “When that lightning struck me,” the Thulican’s flat, noseless features looked mystified as he spoke, “I ended up in Coiroque…a few orvs in the past.”
Marguliese frowned starchily. “Time travel?”
“Like those starliner passengers...” V’Korram growled through a curtain of sodden ginger hair.
“Bullshit!” Khal objected. He’d seen crazy things on this mission, but Khrome was venturing into fiction territory.
“By the Maker,” gasped Fiyan. “A lot of those passengers are still missing. And some reappeared on different worlds…days into the past.”
Tyris shook his head. “Time/space hijinks!” he muttered under his breath. “We better start, then. Fiyan, go back with UComm and debrief them. The Brigade will drop Mhir’ujiid back off in Quud territory, then head to Magnasterium with Taorr and Zojje.” The Tanoeen jabbed a dispassionate finger at Ghuj’aega’s containment tube. “After UComm MediCorps work on Ghuj’aega, we interrogate him.”
“Even if Ghuj’aega reveals anything,” Marguliese added, “we must find a way to destroy him.”
Khrome banged his fists together. “Sounds like a plan to me.”
“Alright,” Tyris nodded tersely. “Let’s find our teammates.”
Zojje, Taorr, and Mhir’ujiid were the first to shimmer away, transmatted onto the Phaeton. The containment tube holding Ghuj’aega followed suit. Fiyan disappeared in a blink of light onto one of the UComm vessels. The four UComm cruisers then broke formation and soared northeast. Khal, Tyris, Marguliese, V’Korram, and Khrome remained—the leftovers of Star Brigade’s 1st Combat Team.
“Solrao,” Tyris ordered, “get us out of here.”
After his first mission, Khal had anticipated the sweet taste of victory. Now, staring at the thick white fog and the silhouettes of ruined geysers, all he tasted were regret, loss, and fear.
The earthborn felt a familiar tingle of Phaeton’s transmaterialization. As Akkabe Plateau’s ruined landscape shimmered into white, Khal only hoped that Captain Nwosu and Lily were alive, and somewhere safe.
Epilogue
Liliana Cortes floated in endless dark, grasping blindly for the light of consciousness. The first thing she noticed was a nonstop, annoying whistle. Then there was this numbing cold seeping through her insulated field uniform and into her very bones. Lily’s eyes fluttered open, finding that light and blinking away tiny, white flakes. She was greeted by dreary monochrome skies, certainly not the dazzling white of Qos eclipsing Faroor’s sun. How could Akkabe Plateau suddenly get so cold?
Akkabe Plateau. In a flash, the mission, her team, and everything else thundered back into memory.
Lily sat up and heaps of powdery snow tumbled down her slender frame. Before she could digest this change, her rushed movements met icy shock. Lily trembled in surprise and hugged herself. Mercifully, her field uniform responded to the temperature changes, heating her body quickly.
She rose to a standing position and rubbed both arms feverishly to get warmer. At least the cold had dampened her splitting headache to a dull ache. Liliana’s heavy sighs condensed into cold clouds while she assessed her location. A snow-white wasteland stretched out as far as Lily could see, bordered only by the uneven teeth of silhouetted mountains in the distance. Mild drafts buffeted her face and scattered snowflakes in every direction but down. That explained the whistling.
Liliana was afraid. But letting fear paralyze her wouldn’t fix this dilemma. The doctor skimmed over the facts. Did that singularity toss me on one of Faroor’s polar caps? North? South? She had researched the starliner incident where passengers had appeared on different parts of Faroor.
Lily tapped her wristcom. “Crescendo to CT-1.” Static. She tried another channel. Static, again. Maybe that singularity had pulled CT-1 in, too. Recalling the vortex’s power sent a shudder through her…
“Hello! Captain Nwosu!!” Her words echoed across empty white plains. “Marguliese!” She almost called Khrome. Then she remembered, and her heart broke all over again.
Then Lily got a response from a gale-force wind, plunging the temperature further.
“GGAAH-AH!!” she cried, buffeted from every angle. Her knees buckled, ruthless flurries slashing her face even through her low-level uniform forcefield. She lowered her head and hugged herself as tightly as possible, fighting to stay upright. But as thousands of freezing needles stabbed at her uniform, Lily might as well have been naked. The shivering grew convulsive as the winds kept pummeling her.
Right when she swayed, nearly falling over in defeat, the winds calmed.
“D-Dulce M-M-Madre,” she hissed through chattering teeth. Her field uniform flooded her body with effusive heat. Once feeling returned to her legs, Lily climbed slowly back to her feet.
No use staying in one place, since movement helped the field uniform keep her warm. Liliana started trudging through the snow, which sometimes reached past her ankles. She focused on the uneven, far-flung silhouettes ahead. If she could find higher ground, then Lily might get a better signal for her wristcom. Star Brigade could be at different parts of Faroor, or still at Akkabe, fighting Ghuj’aega without her.
Two small shadows running—no, gliding across the snow toward Lily made her wheel around. She pointed both hands like a gun in case. When the figures glided into view, the doctor blinked with surprise and let her hands drop. Two beings also nearly tripped over themselves, stopped, and stared.
Tanoeens. Liliana had never seen any member of this species besides her teammate, Tyris Iecen.
Both looked carved out of ice with a faint blue shade, one standing a head taller than the other. Their bodies were lanky and lean, studded with several spiky icicles distinct to each Tanoeen. The pair gaped at Lily with wide cobalt-blue eyes, the only feature visible on their blocky faces. Looking at each other, they skated away across the snow at top speed. In moments, they vanished behind a curtain of white flurries.
Lilian stared after them, confounded. Tanoeens, with their unique crystalline ice biology, could only exist naturally on their homeworld Titanoa. That was why Tyris had to wear a special device to keep his temperature artificially cold… And Titanoa was nowhere near Union Space.
Liliana stepped back to steady herself. This was impossible. Despite all that Liliana had experienced during her brief Star Brigade tenure, she could not wrap her head around her current location.
Maybe verbalizing it would help the insane notion sink in.
“I’m on Titanoa, in Kedri Imperium Space?!” Her voice echoed across the snowy plains for a few moments, before the whistling drafts swallowed it once more.
Now Liliana felt sick with terror. Voicing her situation aloud made it worse. Getting transported halfway across the galaxy? Her brain nearly imploded on principle. The winds were picking up again.
Lily hugged herself tighter as she tried to figure out what the hell to do next…
TO BE CONTINUED in
STAR BRIGADE: ASCENDANT
Acknowledgements
First off, a big thank you to all those fans who asked repeatedly over the years when the next Star Brigade novel was coming. Your continued interest means more to me than you can imagine. Hope you enjoyed the ride!
Lots of thanks to Eos Prime and Corey Daniels for beta reading. To Claudette and Stephanie, my dynamic duo of editors, you always guarantee that my crazy stories will makes sense as well as making sure that I cross my Ts and dot my Is. I can never repay your consistently great service. Special thanks to Milan Jaram for crafting such beautiful cover at that captures such an electric scene in the novel. I look forward to a long working relationship with you. And a big thanks of course to my family who never discouraged my big science fiction dreams!
BOOKS by C.C. EKEKE
STAR BRIGADE
Star Brigade: Resurgent (Book 1)
Star Brigade: Maelstrom (Book 2)
Star Brigade: The Supr
emacy (Book 3)
Star Brigade: Ascendant (Book 4) – Coming in 2017!
Star Brigade: Odysseys (Anthology)
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A Note from the Author
I hope you enjoyed Star Brigade: The Supremacy. Don’t forget to leave an honest review on Amazon or Goodreads. The review doesn’t have to be a long essay, just a quick blurb about your thoughts
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Thanks again and see you next time!
C.C. Ekeke
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Free Short Stories
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Books by C.C. Ekeke
Free Short Stories
A Note from the Author