Evolution of F.O.R.C.E. (The Origin of F.O.R.C.E. Book 3)
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Evolution of F.O.R.C.E.
The Origin of F.O.R.C.E. series
Copyright 2017 by Sam B. Miller II
All Rights Reserved
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of the eBook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of Sam B. Miller II. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite eBook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1 - Strategy
Chapter 2 - Destinnee
Chapter 3 - Change
Chapter 4 - Encounter
Chapter 5 - Below
Chapter 6 - Discovery
Chapter 7 - Standards
Chapter 8 - Arrival
Chapter 9 –Reunion
Chapter 10 -Whittle
Chapter 11 -Intruder
Chapter 12 -Taken
Chapter 13 -Prize
Chapter 14 –Fighting Back
Chapter 15 -Torture
Chapter 16 -Tide
Chapter 17 -Gambit
Chapter 18 –Ground Game
Chapter 19 – Bow Shot
Chapter 20 – Tactics
Chapter 21 – Shuttle
Chapter 22 –Clean Slate
Chapter 23 –Transition
About Sam B. Miller II
Chrysallaman Scout Saucer - A disc shaped object 40 feet in diameter and 20 feet in height. The craft is powered by one fusion reactor and a gravity drive module. The outer edge of the saucer emits cutter and heat rays in a 360 degree circle of death. 4 crew members.
Chrysallaman Mother Ship - Every mother ship is a heavily armored arsenal with 5 scout saucers clamped into docking bays around its perimeter. The structure is 350 feet in diameter and 165 feet thick. The craft is powered by five fusion reactors and a gravity drive module. The outer edge below the saucer docking bays emits cutter and heat rays in a 360 degree circle of death. 30 crew members.
Destinnee Flagship – The Destinnee is the former Flagship of the Chrysallaman Emperor; captured by Earth and refurbished for Humans. It has double the armor of a mother ship and has capacity for 10 scout saucers clamped into docking bays around its perimeter. Destinnee is 1,200 feet in diameter, 320 feet thick and powered by multiple FLIT gens. The outermost edge of the craft is lined with a glowing blue strip where the emitters for both force field and energy ray weapons are installed. The ship is controlled by Lloyd, an AI computer capable of both oral and telepathic communication. 50 crew members and 500 mission specific troops with supplies and equipment
Prologue
"I want them found and killed," General Harrier ordered. "I don't care who you have to eliminate, or what you have to destroy in the process."
Twenty Asiddian special ops warriors stood at attention in makeshift rows like an honor guard at a ceremony. Dust from pock marks in the walls and ceiling caused by disintegrator fire clouded the corridor in a smoke-like haze. Dark eyes filled with murderous determination were the only common thread visible on the stone-like faces of the soldiers.
"Whoever finds the Princess and kills the humans and their Chrysallaman collaborators will be rewarded," Harrier continued. "Anyone who does not show the appropriate dedication to saving her will receive this."
With no emotion, the General lifted his sidearm and shot the third trooper on the left between the eyes. A hole large enough to pass a closed fist appeared, and the dead body toppled forward. Not a single other soldier dared blink.
Harrier swiveled his gaze from face to face and asked, "Do you understand the depth of my concern?"
***
Muddy water ran down his forehead as Doug Jenson watched the Asiddian search team march by his hiding place. He'd lost count of the number of times he'd crawled beneath filthy, water soaked vegetation and garbage to avoid discovery. Becky Chang lay next to him, her breathing shallow but regular. Her body warmth was the only thing keeping his shaking fits under control. Cold, hunger and fatigue were his constant companions the last few days.
Access to the Chrysalis catacombs was nearby at last. Cherree Brookkss had been quite positive about its location, but she'd decided a circuitous route was best to confuse the dogged pursuit of the Asiddian search parties. If it wasn’t for Whatsit's confidence in her, Doug would've lost all hope in ever being rescued.
A couple of minutes after the Asiddians walked by them, the rag-tag group arrived at a gurgling drainage pipe. The pipe was almost three feet in diameter, and rain water from the storm filled with nasty debris sluiced into it. The native Chrysallamans ducked down and crawled into the dark pipe. Sighing with resignation, Doug and his companions followed them.
Chapter 1 - Strategy
Whatsit, Colonel Doug Jenson and Major Becky Chang had departed on a scouting mission to learn the extent of the Asiddian menace. The expedition was supposed to be straight-forward and uncomplicated. Reconnaissance was vital and not as dangerous as a direct confrontation. It never occurred to them that treachery from within Earth's military would leave them in peril, victims subject to enslavement or death at the hands of ruthless alien killers. Trapped on the planet Chrysalis, enemies all around, their Scout ship damaged beyond repair, Doug and his team could only wait and hope for rescue.
Their FORCE teammates back on Earth were determined to find them, but with no clue to their current condition or location on Chrysalis, an expedition to recover them was perilous at best.
General Tom Blunt steeled himself for the mission. Defeating the Asiddian murderers who controlled Chrysalis wasn't a personal preference; it was an unfortunate necessity. Now that the Asiddians knew of Human existence, they would inevitably search for the bipedal animals’ planet of origin. Better to stop the menace now than wait thirty years for the marauders' arrival in the Sol system.
Finding volunteers for the expedition was easy. FORCE Commandos stood in lines waiting for the opportunity to rescue their fellows, and no earthbound Chrysallamans were going to ignore the chance to save their home planet Chrysalis.
"Yes, volunteers are everywhere," Tom thought. "Mutual cooperation and trust are the problems."
The history of the relationship between Chrysallamans and Earthlings can be distilled from decades of preparation for invasion and tumultuous battles recounted in top secret historical texts.
Chrysallamans were a warrior race of beings best described as man-sized, tail-less iguanas. As a result of their vocal chords and tongues being unsuited for verbal interaction, evolution had compensated by developing their ability to communicate telepathically. Over several thousands of years Chrysallamans had learned to telepathically control the brains of other living beings and used that ability to conquer the peoples of several planets, turning the slave-like survivors into an organic food source as the Chrysallamans colonized the conquered worlds. Superior tec
hnology coupled with unmatched mind control made victories extremely easy. The Chrysallamans happened upon Earth, a very nice planet ideally suited for colonization populated by, and this is a direct quote from the logs of Hisspat Zeck, commander of the discovery expedition, a primitive, animalistic culture so physically and technologically inferior they truly deserved to be annihilated to make room for Chrysallamans.
Overconfidence breeds arrogance and complacency. Chrysallaman military leaders soon discovered when they began the attempted conquest of Earth that humans didn't like to be controlled.
As one of the lizard's military commanders had opined, "The obstinance of humans to any form of control, no matter how benevolent the control happens to be is unsettling. Humans don't easily accept authority. In fact, the harsher the punishment for disobedience, the more unruly the blasted creatures become!"
The Chrysallaman invasion fleet was composed of a combination of military and civilian populations. On the civilian side 20,000,000 Chrysallamans, fully one-third of the population of Chrysalis, had been ferried to the solar system of planet HG-281 in huge spaceships called mega-liners. Each of the 200 mega-liners in the fleet held 100,000 Chrysallaman colonists in stasis pods. The colonists were made up of a standardized mix of educators, factory workers, tradesmen, skilled craftsmen, farmers, doctors, religious leaders and all their family members. Every skill and person necessary for a self-sustaining New World colonization was included in the migration. In addition a complete panoply of Chrysallaman animal and plant life had been included in the cargo of each transport.
On the military side there had been 50 mother ships and 250 scout saucers all heavily armed and crewed by bloodthirsty soldiers. The humans of Earth used a combination of reverse engineering of Chrysallaman technology, brilliant technological advances in power generation by Earth's greatest scientist and genetic engineering to escape the Chrysallaman planned genocide. Only one mother ship and five scout saucers survived the Human counterattack.
The Chriks, as they were unfondly referred to by humans, had been defeated; however, the danger of an invasion by advanced militaristic aliens armed with light speed capable spacecraft had been frightening. The Human military machine was determined not to be caught empty-handed again. The first thing they did was awaken some Chrysallaman civilians to help provide knowledge and insight about spaceship design. At first unwilling to accept their defeat, the reawakened colonists grudgingly found most humans to be socially tolerable and somewhat intelligent.
Dr. Heinbaum and his team dismantled the fast-as-light Chrysallaman drive mechanism and learned the aliens' secret to lightspeed travel. Using what they learned about the HKG (the Heinbaum Kinetic Generator), Heinbaum and his team discovered FLIT, an instantaneous form of space travel. FLIT stood for Folded Link Instantaneous Travel, and it gave humans a technological edge over the aliens. It was time for Earth to build its own spacecraft to confront the alien menace; however, God has a sense of humor. The Human plans were disrupted by the arrival of the Chrysallaman Emperor.
The Chrysallaman home planet Chrysalis had been attacked by advanced war-like aliens called Asiddians. A bird-like culture, the Asiddians conquered and enslaved the Chrysallamans on their home planet Chrysalis and over a period of 31 years slowly exterminated them. The Chrysallaman Emperor was a coward. Fleeing from the onslaught, he fled to Earth (Planet HG-281) where he hoped the victorious 50 mother ships and 250 scout saucers were awaiting him. Unknown to Emperor Horcunt, the Human animals had defeated his invasion fleet and were on guard. The humans captured the Emperor and his flagship, and with the help of the civilian Chrysallamans, they toiled to make weapons strong enough to match those of the Asiddians.
In an effort to determine the fate of the surviving Chrysallamans left to die by Emperor Horcunt, Whatsit and some of his friends journeyed to the Chrysalis system in the scout saucer Salterr. After spying on the Asiddians, Whatsit and his crewmates were betrayed by a band of evil humans, captured by the Asiddians and marked for death. Fortunately the Chrik Resistance was alive and well. It rescued Whatsit and his friends from their ultimate demise and hid them in the secret passageways and chambers honeycombing the palace; however, Whatsit and his Human friends weren't welcomed by some of the Chrysallamans in charge of the Resistance.
F.O.R.C.E. Command resolved to rescue Whatsit and his friends. Reconfiguring the Chrysallaman Emperor's flagship Destinnee was a key to the scheme. Incorporating many improvements conceived by Dr. Heinbaum and his team into the starship had taken weeks but at last it was time to return to Chrysalis. With Lloyd, their artificial intelligence computer controlling Destinnee, the humans along with Whatsit's girlfriend Chellsee and their newfound Chrysallaman civilian allies were as ready as they could be to face the Asiddian threat.
***
The day for departure of the mission to rescue the crew of the Salterr arrived. The time was long past for preparations and formulating strategies for rescuing their friends. From now on fate and luck would determine the outcome of the mission. Tom mused about the speed with which Dr. Heinbaum and his team had evaluated and improved upon the Chrysallaman tech as he boarded the Nevada Base elevator and ascended to the tarmac.
Recalling the conference with his staff, Tom smiled to himself.
In addition to Stoneman, Kurstow and McPherson, he'd asked Dr. Heinbaum, MerrCrr Z. JnnWall and Chellsee Brookkss to attend the meeting. The Chrysallaman natives had firsthand knowledge of Chrysalis and its people. Tom intended to use every bit of information available to help rescue his friends.
Colonel Jason Stoneman was a Navy Seal Commander with special expertise in chemical and biological warfare. Within seven years from his enlistment, Jason had risen to be a Seal Task Unit Commander with tours of duty in Iran and Afghanistan. Standing 6 feet 2 inches tall, he kept his head shaved completely bald. He had piercing brown eyes and an upturned nose that hinted of Irish ancestry. A deep knife cut left a long white line in his left cheek. He always said the scar on his cheek was there to remind him to move quicker. Jason was in charge of all sea-based offensive and defensive facilities.
Amanda Kurstow had deep blue eyes and hair so light blonde it almost appeared white. Her thick-set body was composed of 6 feet of weathered skin covering the solid bone and muscle profile of a professional weightlifter. As a specialist in high yield explosives triggered by what she referred to as esoterica, she once fashioned a bomb made out of a ball point pen ink refill. The pen had a polymer covering that reacted only in the presence of a specific DNA sequence. The vile son of an Iranian dictator was handed the pen to sign the death warrants of several Kurdish citizens. The explosion had left little to bury. Major Kurstow was in charge of all land-based offensive and defensive facilities.
Captain Jerome McPherson was a member of Dr. John Heinbaum's team and had spent most of his career teaching Heinbaum how to cope with military personnel. McPherson was a tall very white-skinned man with flaming red hair and a physique resembling a grizzly bear. He was one of the original members of the FORCE team and had proven to be an expert at reverse engineering Chrysallaman weaponry. It'd been his discovery of the effect of magnetic fields on the alien power modules that had led to the breakthrough discovery of the Heinbaum Kinetic Generator and the ability of the FLIT drive to tap the black hole energy source that now powered all the Human technology. The McPherson Atomizer or MA ray was named for him, and it was the only known weapon capable of blasting through Asiddian absorbisteel.
Dr. John Heinbaum was an Astro-Physicist from Harvard University and a leading theoretical scientist on the unified field theory postulated by Einstein. A member of the original group tasked by the Pentagon to develop technologies to defend Earth from the invading Chrysallaman Empire, he had become the recognized Human expert on Chrysallaman energy technology. The shape of his face unfortunately made him look like a rodent. His eyes seemed just a bit too close together, and his nose was long and slender. Over the years his youthful black hair had turned completely gray. He
still combed the thinning strands backwards with so much grooming oil it appeared he could quite easily grease the underside of a car with his head. He wore round gold colored metal framed glasses that had a tendency to slide down his long nose on a regular basis.
MerrCrr Z. JnnWall was a native Chrysallaman. An expert in telepathic communications and mental control over lower life forms, his previous job and expertise had been teaching and strengthening the ability of Chrysallaman soldiers to mentally control others. JnnWall was Whatsit's brother, born from a fertilized egg his parents had conceived before Whatsit and his dad left on their ill-fated trip to planet HG-281. MerrCrr looked strikingly similar to Whatsit, only twenty years younger.
Chellsee Brookkss was also a native Chrysallaman. She was a forty year old female enslaved by the Chrysallaman Emperor Horcunt just before he fled Chrysalis. Five feet 6 inches tall and very slender, the shape of her black eyes reminded some people of Elizabeth Taylor's eyes in the movie 'Cleopatra'. Her skin was finely scaled and seemed to glow with an iridescent shimmer as she moved. Having a lot of spunk for a Chrysallaman female, she'd once tried to stab Whatsit through the heart for calling her names. Her father had taught her many things about martial arts, and she was quite competent with her fists and leg kicks.
"Ladies and Gentlemen we have to be cautious," Tom said as he stared around the conference table.