Altis-5
Book #2 in the Sleeper Series
COPYRIGHT 2017
ISBN13 978-1973798378
ISBN10 1973798379
J. ALEXANDER BLACK
EDITED BY KAREN BLACK
Table of Contents Preface .......................................................................................... 0
Earth 2015 ..................................................................................... 4
Kaedians...................................................................................... 22
World Confederation...................................................................... 26
The Brigade to Altis-5 .................................................................... 34
DeVoot ......................................................................................... 49
Preparations ................................................................................. 54
Preparing Zeus ............................................................................. 72
The Departure .............................................................................. 82
The Wedding ............................................................................... 104
Murder! ...................................................................................... 111
More Murder!............................................................................... 125
Mystery Solved ............................................................................ 141
Hevinian Library........................................................................... 150
The Pirates .................................................................................. 156
Altis-5 First View.......................................................................... 170
Meanwhile, Back On Earth!............................................................ 179
Suspicious Reflections................................................................... 185
Second Brigade............................................................................ 191
HSS Orion ................................................................................... 196
Durack And Krabb ........................................................................ 203
HSS Zenon .................................................................................. 210
Altis-5’s Moons ............................................................................ 213
Mount Up! ................................................................................... 225
Assault Continues ........................................................................ 238
Intruders! ................................................................................... 277
Platform Up ................................................................................. 288
Durack........................................................................................ 296
Land Parcels ................................................................................ 299
Jank ........................................................................................... 307
Olympus Arrives .......................................................................... 310
Kaedian Troopers ......................................................................... 317
Murder on Altis-5 ......................................................................... 320
Imperial Command Ship Ark-Kaedia ............................................... 330
ALTIS-5 ...................................................................................... 342
Rescued...................................................................................... 354
Preface
Fourth Officer Dresden Carkon’s family was of the Kaedian warrior class. He and his four older brothers were raised in the traditional manner by their
Grandfather, a retired Fleet Commander, and trained to serve with distinction as the family had done for hundreds of generations. Their family history included many high-ranking officers, even a couple of Supreme Commanders.
Military training began as soon as he could stand and continued until puberty when he was promoted to Fifth Officer and released to the fleet. Dresden was the ultimate military Officer. Both fearless and brilliant, he was willing to risk death for the sake of the Kaedian Empire. After the academy, he spent three years as a Fifth Officer where he distinguished himself by piloting the nimble Barath Class Interceptors. Fighting in sixteen battles with distinction, he amassed more kills than anyone else in the service.
Just after he was promoted to Fourth Officer, the Cleb trials were completed and the call went out for volunteer pilots. Dresden knew he was approaching adolescence and his reaction time was beginning to slow. One more tour and he would be too old to fly interceptors. He had to move on and the Cleb program was just the ticket. He applied at once, however he was refused without explanation. He was furious; he knew why he was being denied entry to the program. His father must have used his influence. He requested and received two weeks leave from his unit. His
Commanding Officer was tired of his rants and thought it a good idea for him to go home for a while and cool off.
Three days later Fourth Officer Carkon, in full dress uniform, marched into the fleet conference room aboard his father’s battle cruiser. The room was full of senior officers seated around a large table with his father standing at a podium addressing them. His father frowned when his son marched in unannounced. Son or not, protocol was not to be violated and he was about to admonish Dresden’s brashness when his son approached and punched him full in the mouth. Pandemonium erupted in the room. Troopers on guard duty outside rushed in and grabbed Dresden and tackled him down to the floor as two of the officers at the table assisted the Commander to his feet, while giving him a cloth to control the bleeding from his mouth.
“Leave him be,” ordered the senior Drakker Carkon.
The troopers showed no sign of letting up on Dresden.
“I said leave him be!” the Commander bellowed.
The troopers stopped.
“Help him up and return to your posts. Everyone else sit down.” While everyone was settling down, he looked over at his son. His face was still sober, though mottled with dull red blotches where the guards had pounded on him, yet he stood tall and ramrod straight at attention.
The Commander turned to the group. “Gentlemen I would like to introduce my youngest son, Fourth Officer Dresden Carkon. He is upset at me for preventing him from volunteering to be a Cleb pilot.”
The group gave out a reserved laugh. The seasoned Commander looked hard at the proud young man before him, realizing he was looking at himself from half a lifetime ago. His expression changed to one of resignation, and he knew he could no longer stop him.
“Very well, if you are determined enough to risk a court martial I will not prevent you from signing up.”
He looked at the group in front of him and singled out one of them. “In fact, First Officer Pinde Jurr, you will be leaving us soon to take command of the Cleb program; will you take him?”
The Officer leaned back in his chair and seemed to study the younger Carkon. “I don’t know Sir. He seems a bit wimpy to me.”
The group roared with laughter. Jurr waited until the laughter quieted. “I am aware of Fourth Officer Carkon’s abilities, dedication and bravery Sir; I would be honored to
include him in the program.”
“Very well,” replied the senior Carkon. He turned and asked his son, “Are you satisfied? You now have what you wanted.”
Dresden looked at his father. “All I have ever wanted is for you to be proud of me, father.”
“Even if you had to beat the crap out of me to get it,” said his father, laughing heartily. Suddenly his expression changed, his eyes beamed and he placed his hand on his son’s shoulder. “I am and have always been proud of you. Now be on your way I have serious business to discuss here.”
Dresden stepped back, saluted, and left. His father watched him go, straightened out his uniform jacket, then turned to his staff officers.
“As I was saying, I have received orders to increase our defenses on occupied planets and boost our colonization efforts due to the increased Hevinian presence in this sectant. Their involvement in the Defense of Erth was a surprise.”
“Was it not the Erth’s forces that were lucky against our fleet, and not the Hevinians?” queried one of the group.
“Do not delude yourself. Luck had nothing to do with it. The Erth forces were brave, determined, wellorganized fighters with surprise on their side but the Captain of the Hevinian ship was right there with them. Our forces were expecting an easy victory and were unprepared.”
He looked over at the hologram of the sectant and pointed at five highlighted planets.
“I want a squadron of twenty-five attack fighters to escort and support a Battalion of five hundred troops that will garrison each planet. Once the garrison is in place, twenty of the fighters will return to the fleet. One planet,” he referenced his notes, “Kryton, the fifth planet in the Altean system, is being prepared by the Hevinians but is not yet colonized. My informants tell me that this is the planet where they plan to place a colony from Erth. We do not have a confirmed itinerary but it is likely to be very soon. I intend to get there first. A detachment under Fleet Commander Durack will depart as soon as the battalions are readied. They will rendezvous with and escort a colonial transport to Kryton, to establish a garrison and colony there. Surveyors are on the way to meet up with Durack when he arrives. Durack is to leave fifteen fighters on Kryton to support the troops. When the Erthers arrive, they will find this time we are the surprise. Of interest to note, the High Command has placed a Krammar on the Orion and the leaders of the Erth fighters.” The seated officers nodded their approval, each one wishing they would get the opportunity to collect the Krammar.
“I have been informed that new orders for the fleet are forthcoming. I suspect it will involve a major offensive to drive the Hevinians out of this sector so we must be prepared to move the battle fleet when Durack returns. That is all gentlemen.”
1
Earth 2015
President William Umberto, former Secretary General of the United Nations, now interim President of the World Confederation, stepped out onto the helicopter-landing pad on the roof of the United Nations building. The breeze was strong at that height, causing his unbuttoned overcoat to flap around his waist. He walked over to the railing and looked down at the busy streets below. At 8:30 in the morning it looked like any normal New York City commute as if nothing unusual had ever happened. It was hard to believe that just a few weeks ago, the human race had faced total obliteration. The world had waited as a battle raged in space just beyond the Moon. But as soon as the news came back that the Earth Defense Force was victorious, New York went straight back to business as usual chasing the almighty and essential dollar.
He looked up into the sky; it was cloud covered but the weather forecast said the sun would come out and it would warm up by noon. Not that it made any difference to him since he rarely got out of the office these days. Maybe in a year when his interim tour as President ended he and Andrea could take some time off. He tried to remember the last time they’d had a vacation together. Has it really been ten years?
He turned and walked back to help his wife down the steps, for she was staring, mesmerized by the transport hovering in front of them. Named after a melanistic Jaguar similar to Earth’s Black Panther, the vessel was all black with a gloss that looked as if it was covered in thick, wet oil. The 40-foot-long, 8-foot-high 10-foot-wide body curved down to a knife-edge at the front and the rear. The body narrowed slightly as it flattened. Under the nose of the ship was a rectangular scoop like appendage about five feet wide that dropped down about a foot and a half. Etched into the nose were the curved lines of a closed iris. On either side of the iris, about six feet apart, were two dark hollow oval targeting ports. When the targeting system activated the ports glowed a golden yellow. Officially classified as a short-range scout ship because she carried only enough air for a crew of four for five days limited her range to six hundred million miles at light speed. The classification belied how lethal the Jaguar was. The iris concealed a cannon capable of firing the equivalent of 50 mm rounds at 500 rounds per second from a magazine holding 50,000 rounds.
The popular myth that guns cannot fire in the oxygen-free vacuum of space, had finally and forever been put to rest in the recent Battle for Earth. This ammunition contained its own oxidizer, a chemical that triggered the explosion of gunpowder, and thus the firing of a bullet, anywhere in the universe, no atmospheric oxygen required. The cannon more than proved its worth in defeating the intruders. The Deruzion coated rounds were capable of penetrating most defensive screens and wreaking havoc in an oxygen rich environment when the encased high explosive detonated on impact. In addition, she carried twenty multiple warhead missiles attached to wing-like weapons platforms that were currently folded into either side of the body. All of this was lost on Andrea as she appreciated its clean lines. On the rear was painted a triangular patch, a gold lightning bolt over a blue background -- the symbol of the First Earth Defense Brigade. Technically the pilot was not a member of the Brigade but his Jaguar was undergoing routine preventive maintenance in the hangar aboard the orbiting Hevinian Supply Ship Orion.
“It’s beautiful,” she said under her breath. As she stood admiring it Andrea Umberto realized there was no sound emanating from the craft or if there were it was so slight that the noise of the busy city around them must be drowning it out. It did not bother her that this was like nothing she had ever seen. As a child of the sixties, her world had been turned upside down many times as it re-invented itself. She no longer marveled at the way technology was playing leapfrog trying to satisfy the consumers thirst for a faster and more powerful multitasking gadget.
When William told her earlier that morning at breakfast that their ‘Taxi’ was space-capable and could travel at light speed she just said, “That’s nice dear,” and finished eating her hard-boiled egg.
The craft lowered until it was hovering a few inches above the pad. The skin on the front left side of the ship seemed to dissolve, revealing an access hatch. Steps unfolded, the hatch opened and a very tall handsome man in an olive-green bush jacket and jeans stepped down. She recognized him at once.
William turned to his wife. “You remember Ray Wright,” he began, but Andrea interrupted him as she smiled and held out her hand. “The man who saved humanity from annihilation, yes of course I remember, good morning Mr. Wright.”
As he took her hand, she could feel the strength developed by his 20 years at a blacksmith’s forge. Ray Wright was as human as they come but had been born on the distant planet of Hevinia. Assigned to Earth as a sleeper, his mission was to watch and report the progress of Earth’s humans by sending routine reports of significant activity and progress back to Hevinia. He was to become part of the population, to put his identity to sleep, blend in with everyone else, and become insignificant. So, for the past twenty years, he had lived the quiet life of a local blacksmith in the western mountains of Maine. He had graduated from Jayton Mill high school, hunted in the local woods, fished along the Androscoggin River, and drank his beer straight from the bottle. He was a model citizen. Just an ordinary man, married to a local nurse, who had rem
ained unnoticed by the rest of the world; And still would be if not for the threat of planetary invasion from an equally human but aggressive warrior race known as Kaedians.
“Mr. Wright, we shall be forever in your debt.” She looked around him to the interior of the Jaguar. “And where is the infamous and ever-present,
Mr. Blackstock?”
“I am right here, Mrs. Umberto,” said a voice from
inside the Jaguar. A tall well-built man in jeans and a
flannel shirt stepped out of the Jaguar and shook
Andrea’s hand.
“We owe you a great deal also, Mr. Blackstock,
more than we can ever repay.”
“Thank you, Ma’am,” was all he could say. A deadly
fighter and staunch friend of Ray, he was always
uncomfortable in the presence of powerful women
especially one as stunning as Andrea Umberto. Andrea
studied the baby-faced, ex-army Fister who had earned
more medals than he could wear. Umberto had
described Kris Blackstock as 6-foot-2, slim waisted, with
a ten-minute walk from shoulder to shoulder with the
same smile a shark has when it is about to bite off your
arm.
He doesn’t seem so tough, she thought studying
the awkward looking man shuffling his feet. It was
common knowledge he had twice saved Ray from attacks by Kaedian sleepers, single handedly wiped out a Kaedian strike force, and convinced the President of the World Confederation (her husband), the then Secretary of the United Nations, to form the first ever Earth Defense Battalion. Andrea loved William and would never consider having an affair, but deep inside her a tiny voice said if you ever did, either one of these two
would do nicely.
William took her hand and helped her into the back
seat of the Jaguar. She put her hand on the unfamiliar
material; it felt something like soft leather but not quite.
She was nervous, understandably, because she was
Altis-5: Book #2 of the Sleeper Series Page 1
