Equilibrium of Terror: Part 1 (Splintered Galaxy Book 3)

by Eddie R. Hicks

  “If I’m reading this map right,” Eupiar said, as she interacted with her laptops holo interface. “There should be a clothing outfitter not far from here.”

  “You got maps already?” Destiny asked.

  “The Radiance network here is stupidly unsecured unlike the ones on Earth,” Eupiar said. “Didn’t take long to crack the codes and get in.”

  Good to know, Jazz thought. “What else can you tell us?”

  “Most of the data I got now is limited to civilian stuff like maps, and transit times. I’ll need access to a com relay to get to the good stuff.”

  “We’ll keep an eye out.”

  Eupiar handed him a black triangular shaped object she had resting on the floor next to her. “Slap this on it when you see one, it will feed the data from it to my computer here.”

  “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear any of that.” Jazz and Destiny swung their heads around to see Chloe standing at the entrance to the cockpit, her arms crossed and her face unimpressed at their chatter.

  “Well, Chloe, guess this is where we part ways,” Jazz said.

  “If I find anything regarding Hannah, I’ll let you know,” said Chloe.

  Jazz was still opposed to the idea of Chloe heading off alone now more than ever knowing she had that gem, was healed just like he was, and had a connection to Hannah. “Alright, we got some shopping to do,” he said to Destiny.

  They stepped out of the Silver Raven, entering the hanger area where numerous ships were parked like an intergalactic parking garage. Chloe did exactly what she set out to do, and walked away, there was no goodbye, no see ya, nothing. Jazz didn’t even get the chance to see which direction she went. Never in his life had he seen someone so eager to get away from him. After all he did to help her too. Fuck it.

  Jazz and Destiny ventured deeper into the arcology as per Eupiar’s directions. They stepped across a foot bridge that hung above several buildings. If Eupiar’s directions were right, they should be entering a commercial district at the end of the bridge. And damn, it was a long bridge. It took them fifteen minutes just to get to the halfway point. A small ship like craft zipped past them. He wasn’t sure if it was a genuine flying car or not. Radiance weren’t keen on using personal vehicles from what he gathered on Morutrin Prime yet, he saw dozens of them off on the horizon.

  “Ironic, isn’t it?” Jazz said to Destiny as they took a break to gaze at the mind-blowing size of the city within the arcology. “Linl and Hashmedai used to come to Earth posing as humans, now we’re the ones coming to one of their worlds acting like Linl.”

  Another vehicle flew above their heads, the wind that followed caused Destiny’s hair to move with it. It was a strange sight to him, the low gravity combined with her hair blowing in the wind resulted in it slowly whisking about in the air.

  “Look at the size of this place,” she said, pointing at what appeared to be a large white wall, no doubt separating the city from the outside world. “Chloe said it was supposed to be a brand-new colony? I don’t think the cities on Mars are this big.”

  “Morutrin Prime has some big ass cities, but that place’s been around for centuries.”

  Destiny looked downwards and her eyes opened wide. She realized how high up they are. “Don’t look down.”

  Jazz did anyway as she looked away. It’s a long way down. He couldn’t even see people, even though there were clearly tram lines, walkways, roads, next to the buildings they were above. It felt like looking down at a city from a low flying airplane, he tilted his head upwards regretting it. Between looking at what was below and now what was above, it gave him vertigo.

  “Don’t look up.”

  Destiny did anyway, and took in the sights of what appeared to be another city above them. It was overhanging on a massive balcony above them. A city stacked on top of a city. “Oh my fucking god,” was all she said for the rest of their journey across the bridge.

  … … …

  ►► Radiance R&D Lab, Station 13, Rasi

  ► Barnard’s Star system

  Ure Sinzihea entered a dark and hidden lab deep within the mountain. She unbuttoned her lab coat giving her psionic cybernetics a chance to breath, while tossing aside her name tag. She saw scholar Ary Odelea sitting alone at her computer work station, the only source of light in the lab as it shone its blue light across her brown skin, yellow scales, and red wavy hair.

  “Katotea needs to be taken care of,” Sinzihea said to her. “What’s our status?”

  Odelea’s lizard like eyes never turned away from the computer screen that depicted images of DNA strands, diagrams of a human body, and a long list of text written in the Radiance language. “I need more time with these subjects, we found a few issues.”

  “Will it be done before Kasidey and Hannah return?” Sinzihea asked while she walked toward a large glass window, peering into a containment area full of cryostasis tubes, all of them containing humans.

  “These are humans we’re dealing with, they’re not as evolved as we are,” said Odelea. “The last group of subjects didn’t live long because of the issues we just discovered.”

  “We’re running out of time, and now test subjects,” Sinzihea said, turning away from the glass window.

  “If humans were part of the union we’d have billions of subjects are our disposal.”

  “Keep at it. I’ll contact my associates in Foicanta to see if they can reproduce your findings in their labs.”

  … … …

  ►► Scathing Hand, Hagil orbit

  ► Uemaesce system

  Yominv floated into the cargo bay, his yellow eyes fixed on the human built nuclear missile that was recently discovered in orbit around Hagil and brought aboard. A small team of engineers stood next to it, scanning the warhead with their handheld devices. Neviana hovered toward the entrance, overseeing the operation still wearing the outfit from earlier much to Yominv’s delight.

  “The eighth one at last,” he said to her. “Are they trustworthy?” He pointed toward the team of engineers.

  “Yes sir,” she said. “They have all pledged their loyalty to the Celestial Order.”

  “Splendid, begin reprogramming this human device at once,” he said with a scheming smirk. “Connect your mind to Fahia’s personal psionic assistant.”

  “Standby,” Neviana said as she shut her eyes to focus. A minute later she said. “I have their attention.”

  “Tell them to inform Fahia we have the last nuclear device,” Yominv said. “Our redemption is close at hand.”

  Neviana relayed the message telepathically as Yominv pondered his next move. Getting Neviana in his bedroom.

  CHAPTER 3

  ►► UNE base, Los Angeles, Earth

  ► Sol system

  “Left, left, left!” Corporal Tom Richards shouted as he and Private Karen Park neared the end of their holographic EDF obstacle course.

  Staff Sergeant Chris Boyd watched their progress from a projection at the end of the course impressed that they were handling the effects of their protect suits, unlike their last attempt. Failing to wall run did, however, produce some lively laughs from him. Chris saw Karen rapidly raise her rifle, gunning down a holographic Hashmedai warrior.

  “Target down,” she said and proceeded to their destination.

  “LZ in sight!” shouted Tom as he pointed toward a mock up transport ship.

  Chris grinned as he raised his finger to push a button on the holographic screen of his holo pad. Curve ball time.

  Suddenly the course began to rumble causing a holographic landslide to block the path they were going to take toward their LZ.

  “Oh shit,” Tom said quietly, seeing their blocked path.

  They ran off, looking for another path that would lead them to their final objective. Having found one, a gaping pit needed to be crossed. Tom gazed down into it then across.

  “Gotta keep moving,” Karen said, reminding him as she leapt across using the mass manipulation systems of her suit. She glided
across gracefully, landing at the far edge.

  Chris grimaced as he saw the brief hesitation in Tom as he eventually followed suit, leaping through the air at a reduced mass. Upon their arrival at the transport, the entire holographic course vanished, replaced by a grey boxed room in which Chris, Tom and Karen all stood.

  “Nice! Computer what was our time?” Karen asked.

  “One hour, eight minutes, five seconds,” said the voice of the computer.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Tom said. “That’s worse than the last time!”

  “You hesitated to leap, Corporal,” Chris said. “You need to trust in your suit’s ability to do the right thing when you need it to.”

  “Another run sir?” Karen asked

  “That’s enough for now,” Chris said, stowing away his holo pad.

  The trio exited into a hallway, all three donning protect suits, sidestepping various uniformed UNE staff who were hard at work placing Christmas decorations along the walls. A reminder to Chris that he had yet to start his holiday shopping as they walked across a skywalk, leading into the main building of the base. Chris stared out the window next to them. The sun was setting, turning the skies above LA into a vibrant orange.

  “So, Richards,” Chris asked. “What do you think of the team so far?”

  “I’m digging the protect suits. Don’t know why we don’t have all our forces use them.”

  “Limited supply since they can only be made on Lejorania Sanctum right now,” Chris said. “Besides it’s easier to master either an exosuit or a protect suit.”

  “I hear you there, sir, I’m still getting used to this after spending years getting used to the exosuits the marines use.”

  “You better get used to them fast or your times will always be slow in the simulator, sir,” Karen said.

  Tom gave her a cold glare while she smiled at him, brushing her black bobbed hair backwards. Chris enjoyed Karen’s enthusiasm. She was the shorter of the two but still managed to outperform Tom in that last run.

  “She’s got you there,” Chris said after a chuckle, asking her. “How are you enjoying things?

  “I’m grateful for being selected to join,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to venture into space, but I ain’t no scientist or explorer.”

  “You could have joined the marines,” Tom said.

  “That would have gotten me as far as Pluto,” Karen said. “I want to go beyond.”

  “Staff Sergeant.” They stopped their walk down the hall turning toward Sarah who was running to catch up with them from behind. Her bouncing dog tags reflected the setting sunlight that was beaming into the skywalk.

  “You two go on ahead I’ll catch up,” Chris said to Tom and Karen, then stepped toward Sarah as she got near. “What’s up?”

  Sarah handed him a holo pad, which he gripped with his large armor covered hands. The projection that appeared depicted a listing of UNE transport ships, and outposts that had all been destroyed, including the most recent one discovered by the ESV Sun Tzu. He was hesitant to look at the casualty list. People being killed by the enemy before the holidays seriously pissed him off.

  “This,” Sarah pointed to the Sun Tzu report, “happened last night.”

  “Has to be the empire.” He shook his head. “The HLF aren’t advanced enough for this, never mind the fact that we fucked them good.”

  He handed her the data pad back, and groaned.

  “It’s the only other option,” she said.

  “Shit.”

  “We got new orders to return to the Winston Churchill and await further instructions.”

  “Well, there go my Christmas plans.” He discovered after recovering from his wounds aboard the John F. Kennedy that some of his family survived the invasion. Christmas dinner was something he never got the chance to participate in during his time as a Navy SEAL. Throw in living on an alien planet for five years and being in cryostasis for a combined total of sixteen years and it was understandable. “All right get your team ready, I’ll pass this along to mine as well.”

  “About that,” Sarah winced. “Command hasn’t finished selecting personnel to join my team, so as of right now you are looking at my team.”

  “My fourth hasn’t been selected either.” He crossed his arms. “Well then, let’s break the bad news to the rest of our team.”

  … … …

  ►► ESV Winston Churchill, Earth orbit

  ► Sol system

  Twelve hours later, Chris, Sarah, Tom, and Karen floated in zero-g aboard a transport positioning itself to latch onto the side airlock of the ESV Winston Churchill. Karen moved toward the cockpit, wide-eyed at the large Earth battleship as sunlight reflected off its hull. In the distance, was the ESV Barack Obama fresh out of construction from the shipyard, as a new and as yet unnamed ship entered the initial stages of construction.

  “It’s a lot bigger than I thought,” Karen said. “How’s the gravity in the habitat rings?”

  “Decent,” Tom said. “Slightly lower than you’d expect on Earth but you’ll get used to it and be happy it’s there.”

  The transport docked and the airlock doors all slid open and all four floated through into one of the many corridors in the main fuselage of the ship. Staff Sergeant Jacob Miles greeted them as they came aboard. Like the rest of them, he wore a tank top and pants. For the first time ever, Chris could see some of Jacob’s many tattoos, including his infamous Canadian flag with the caption ‘Made in’ written above it.

  “Sir, good to see you again,” Tom said, saluting Jacob.

  “Aye, congrats on gettin’ accepted into EDF,” Jacob said. “He ain’t giving ye too much trouble, Boyd?”

  “Just slowing down our simulator runs,” Chris said.

  “And you must be the FNG, eh?” Jacob said to Karen.

  Karen nodded and gave him a swift salute. “Private Karen Park.”

  “Richards, show her up to the habitat ring, will you?” Chris asked.

  “Aye sir.”

  “I’ll go with them, I got some things to sort out,” Sarah said.

  As they vanished down the corridor, both Jacob and Chris traveled in the opposite direction. Chris wasn’t exactly ready to unload his duffel bag just yet, as it meant his plans had been put on hold officially. No, a nice glide down the corridors was needed to delay the inevitable.

  “Did your Christmas plans go to hell like mine?” Chris asked.

  “The moment I heard Hashmedai were fuckin’ around in our backyard I cancelled ‘em,” Jacob said. “Honest though? Ain’t nothin’ gonna happen, there’s no signs of a command ship, no way in hell would the Hashmedai send ships so far away without one.”

  “Then what do you think is going on?”

  “It’s all been scout ships, probably just deep space recon checking to see what has become of those assassins they sent back in October.”

  Jazz and his Hashmedai assassin partner, what did become of them? The last known report was that they were in Geneva causing a whole lot of problems. Then in a strange turn of events, he begged the president to help him fake the assassination and ran away. Joke was on him, she came clean about what he tried, and she was still in power and had no plans of ever backing down. “Radiance fleet isn’t here anymore, they’ll report that back.”

  “Only, they haven’t gotten close enough to Earth to know that for sure. We’ll be fine.” Chris stopped in front of an observation window gazing out into the darkness of space. He felt Jacob’s hand come down on top of his shoulder. “You miss her eh? Even though she shot ya in the balls?”

  Painful memories of being shot in the groin came back into his head. The wielder of the gun? Chloe or at least someone that looked like her. Sarah, who was also shot, swears by it. They managed to recover but neither one of them could have children as a result of their injuries. Chloe, the real one, was never found once the UNE fleet showed up to clean up the mess. At least sex was still possible the doctors assured him, so not a total loss.

&n
bsp; “You know that wasn’t her man?” Chris said.

  “Yeah, I hear ya. But with the cam footage on the JFK scrabbled to hell we’ll never know who that person was, or where Major Vaughan vanished to.”

  “Staff Sergeant Miles,” a voice said across the intercom. “Please report to the cargo hold.”

  “Duty calls,” Jacob said and floated away, leaving Chris to stare out into space longer.

  … … …

  “This better be good, crewman,” Jacob said as he entered the cargo hold.

  “We’ve had these containers here for the last three weeks, sir. I was wondering if you can shed some light on them as they were addressed to be shipped to you.”

  The cargo hold had dozens of large crates held down by magnets. The crates in question were indeed addressed to Jacob, though he had no memory of needing new inventory. And nobody told him about them when they arrived.

  Of course not, they weren’t supposed to exist.

  “Ah shit, completely forgot about these, new gear for the marines.” His finger keyed in a pass code on the side of the crate, the top opened and his hands entered to pull out a rifle. “Have these all sent to the armory ASAP.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the crewman as he rounded up the remaining crates.

  The rifle he held was a heavily modified eRifle. The biggest difference was the inclusion of a retractable plasma bayonet at the end of the barrel. Since Hashmedai preferred melee combat over ranged, the bayonet helped even the playing field allowing marines to use their rifles to stab or slash Hashmedai that got too close. There was another set of crates with his name on it, larger ones containing a newer and larger exosuit. These heavy exosuits had been designed with protection in mind over fire power. Stronger shields, including arm mounted ones, deployable cover, mounted plasma missile launchers. It was a walking tank, something UNE never got around to replacing when they began to upgrade their military with what they use today.

  The sole reason these new toys were in the hold of the Winston Churchill and other UNE ships? The demise of the Radiance fleet orbiting Earth. After the defense platform was hijacked and turned against the Radiance fleet, the remains of their ships crashed down onto Earth, while other hulks remained floating in orbit. A massive and secret salvage operation began in which all the debris was collected and searched for anything useful, especially through the Radiance ships that tried to flee during the massacre. They might have been disabled, but were still largely intact. Radiance had no knowledge that Earth was looting their dead, and Earth needed to keep it that way as best as possible.