Far From Home: The Complete Series

by Tony Healey

  FAR FROM HOME

  The Complete Series

  Tony Healey

  Copyright, Tony Healey

  FAR FROM HOME: The Complete Series

  Smashwords Edition, Copyright Tony Healey 2012-2013

  This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form without the express permission of the author.

  Edited by Laurie Laliberte

  http://laurielaliberte.blogspot.com

  The Far From Home Series

  http://tonyhealey.com/books/the-far-from-home-series/

  Table Of Contents

  PART ONE LEGEND

  PART TWO COMMANDER

  PART THREE HERO

  PART FOUR DIRECTIVE

  PART FIVE ALLIES

  PART SIX FOES

  PART SEVEN BALANCE

  PART EIGHT WARRIOR

  PART NINE DEFIANT

  PART TEN EMISSARY

  PART ELEVEN SALVATION

  PART TWELVE ENDGAME

  AFTERWORD

  BONUS CONTENT SUN HAMMER PART 1

  ABOUT TONY HEALEY

  FAR FROM HOME

  The Complete Series

  For my girls – as it should be

  PART ONE

  LEGEND

  1.

  Battered and bruised, the Defiant slowed on its approach to Starbase 6.

  Commander Jessica King occupied the captain’s chair. She’d hoped that one day she would get to sit in such a chair as Captain of her own vessel. She never once thought that the privilege of doing so would come at such a cost. It filled her with no joy to carry out her role as Acting-Captain in Andrew Singh’s absence, especially so considering he was lying on a mortuary slab two decks under her feet.

  “Starbase has made contact, sir,” Ensign Boi reported from the comm. station.

  King nodded. “Okay Ensign. Patch me through.”

  She waited a few seconds for the connection to be made. “This is Commander Jessica King, Acting-Captain of the Union Starship Defiant.”

  “Please state your prefix number,” a mechanical-sounding voice said on the other end.

  “T.U. zero-one-one-three-eight,” she said.

  There was a brief delay, and then the voice announced that they were cleared to dock. “Docking bay three. Please do not exceed standard thruster speed.”

  “Close channel,” King said.

  She looked ahead at the large circular space station. It was a tall centrifuge at the centre, with spokes extending to a wide outer ring. Along the ring were enough docking bays to accommodate up to twenty vessels. There were several ships already docked, all much larger than the Defiant. That wasn’t to say the Defiant was a small ship.

  But she was old.

  At one time the Archon Class vessels had been the backbone of the fleet. Now they were relics twenty years past their sell-by date. If the system-wide war between the Union and the Draxx didn’t still rage on, they’d have been decommissioned and retired already.

  Still didn’t stop us holding our own in a fight, did it? King thought. She might be old, but she’s got it where it counts.

  “Banks, I think I can leave the parking in your capable hands?” King asked as she got up from the captain’s chair.

  Lieutenant Kyle Banks swiftly worked the controls across the front helm console.

  “I’ve got it covered,” he said.

  “Good. Then I will be below decks,” she said.

  The bridge crew looked up from their stations, but when she looked around at them they hurried back to their assigned duties.

  King walked toward the exit. Insulation and wiring had erupted from the ceiling during the battle and hung like copper intestines in places. She ducked beneath it on her way out, her feet crunching on bits of broken plastic and glass.

  On her way to her quarters she passed the scorched carcasses of burned-out conduits, pipes that were still dripping onto the deck plating from leaks that hadn’t yet been attended to.

  The ship had taken a beating, it was true. She was proud of the crew, and of the ship itself, for pulling through. They hadn’t run away from the battle like cowards. They faced the danger and hit back with what they had.

  Several crew saluted as she strode past them. She quickly saluted back.

  It lifted her spirits, despite all that had happened, to see the crew still going about their duty as they were meant to. The men and women she passed looked tired, dirty, some of them injured. But they carried on with grim determination and a sense of duty. King walked with a determined gait, showing the pride she felt for her crew.

  When Jess got to her quarters she headed straight for the shower to freshen up quickly before her debriefing. She knew that Admiral Grimshaw would want to hear the full account of what had gone on despite having a copy of her report already on his desk. He would demand to hear it first-hand from someone who was knee deep in it all. The fleet had lost a brilliant Captain, and there were questions that must be answered.

  In her quarters, she got out of her dirty uniform. Standing in front of the mirror in her tiny bathroom she looked tired, beaten.

  Her temple carried a long cut from when a Draxx missile had hit the side of the Defiant, sending her flying against a bulkhead. Dr. Clayton had yet to treat it properly.

  Her eyes were red, ringed with dark, puffy circles. During the journey to Starbase 6 King had done her fair share of grieving for Captain Singh. But she knew there would be more to come at some point. That loss was an open wound. Over time it might heal a bit, but never enough so you didn’t know it was there.

  She stepped into the shower and tried to wash the difficulties of the last week away. But they were in there with her. She stood under the stream of the water, bowed her head, her hands up against the tiles. She started to sob. In the shower no-one could see her. No-one could hear her. In the shower she had privacy to give freedom to the grief.

  King could still see him lying there on the deck, dying in her arms. She could still hear his final words …

  The mangled mess of his legs. The blood pooling from his mid-section. His face grey, washed-out. Tears streamed down her face.

  Her voice cracked as she spoke. “Please don’t go, please.”

  Captain Singh shook his head slowly. Smiled. “Jess … We each have our time. My own is at an end …”

  “No …” she managed to say.

  Singh reached up, stroked the side of her face. “Now it is your turn to do as much as you can with the time you have …”

  He smiled again, then his eyes seemed focus on something far away. The light in them faded. Singh’s hand fell away from hers and the sound of his last breath issued slowly from between his lips.

  “No …”

  She felt the thud of the ship as it jutted up against the docking bay. She came back to reality, regained her composure and set about washing herself, then got out of the shower.

  She walked to the comm. unit on the wall, pressed the button that opened a direct line to the bridge.

  “Bridge,” she said. “Equalise the pressure seals and reduce all systems to idle status. I’ll meet all senior crew members at airlock four in fifteen minutes, so be sure to have your stations locked down. Please inform Chief Gunn and Dr. Clayton to be there also.”

  “Aye aye sir,” a voice reported back to her. It was Lieutenant Banks.

  Jessica closed the channel. Again she stood in front of the mirror.

  Now she looked better. Not great, but better. Less tired and dishevelled. More like a woman. It felt good to be washed, wearing a clean uniform.

  “Let’s get this over with,” she told her reflec
tion.

  2.

  Non-essential crew filed through the airlock. Her command team arrived quickly. First Lieutenant Kyle Banks, followed by Ensign Jack Boi and Lieutenant Lisa Chang. Then Ensign Olivia Rayne, and Dr. Clayton. Chief Gunn took a while to make it up from the medical bay, but Jess knew it was chaos down there. When she saw the dried blood on his hands she wondered whether she had made the wrong decision in pulling him away from his work.

  “I just wanted to say a few words,” she said. “Who knows what might happen in the next few days? I might not get a chance to tell you just how proud I am of you. All of the crew. The whole ship. I really mean it, from the bottom of my heart.”

  “I think I can speak for us all when I say how proud we are of you, too,” Lieutenant Chang said.

  “Thanks,” King said. “I’m heading for a de-brief with Admiral Grimshaw. I want you all to know that I’m putting in a good word for you all. You’ve earned it. No ship has ever had a finer crew … no ship I’ve served on at least.”

  They each nodded their appreciation.

  “Okay, you’re dismissed now,” she said. They stood to attention, and she matched their salute.

  Dr. Clayton turned and headed back to medical. Chief Gunn left in the same direction, as did Lieutenant Chang. Rayne, Boi, and Banks thanked her before they stepped through the airlock. She watched them go, then turned in time to see two orderlies approach carrying a stretcher between them. King recognised the patient immediately. She found her spirits lift at the sight of Lieutenant-Commander Del Greene conscious and aware.

  “You’re back in the land of the living then?” she said with a smile.

  Greene lay flat out on the stretcher, his head wrapped in pressure bandages.

  “Nearly didn’t make it out of the land of the dead, I can tell yuh,” he said in his thick London accent. “They’re taking me to the infirmary now. Our medical bay’s a bit wrecked. Dr. Clayton’s got his work cut out down there …”

  Clayton had warned her of the possibility of Greene never waking. And they’d advised of possible side effects from his head injury, such as trouble speaking, walking, eating on his own. He was his usual sarcastic self, and in good spirits.

  “You’ll be all right,” she said.

  “What about the Captain?” Greene asked.

  King looked down momentarily. Any mention of Captain Singh came as a blow, each one tinged with sadness and loss.

  “They know,” she said simply. “I’ve already filed my report.”

  Two crew members squeezed past on their way off the ship.

  “Yeah … and what about the Captain?” Greene said in a low voice.

  Jessica stiffened. She knew he meant the funeral arrangements. “There’ll be a service tomorrow morning. As you know, he didn’t have any actual family.”

  Greene considered this. “No, he was a lonely type. A damn fine man. A generous human being … and a great Captain,” he said, choked.

  “My de-brief is in a half hour. Grimshaw wants all the gory details I suppose,” she said, a look of disdain on her face.

  “Now it’s my turn to say ‘You’ll be all right,’ yeah?” Greene said. He reached out, held her forearm. “We’ve been through a lot. Don’t sweat it.”

  “That’s the same as saying all right,” she said. “Now get going, I’ll see you on the other side.”

  King gave the two orderlies a sharp nod and they made short business of taking the Lieutenant-Commander through the airlock.

  She waited a moment before going through herself. She straightened the tunic of her uniform, took a deep breath and headed through it. The decontamination jets blasted her from all sides. On the other side, she walked to the nearest buggy that would ferry her to the central command deck. She passed row after row of observation ports that showed the exterior of the Defiant against the exterior of the station. It was too close to make out the smooth shape of its main hull, the hammerhead shaped secondary hull at the bow or the rear fin that allowed for communications and reactor cooling at the stern.

  But from what she could see, the damage to the Defiant was dramatic. Large black scorch marks like Godzilla-sized scratches ran along its hull. In the places the Draxx weapons had penetrated they’d left gaping holes like punches through the metal sheeting. Those decks had been evacuated and sealed after the fact, though that hadn’t stopped many lives from being lost. Repair teams had found the bodies of crew members in their quarters, killed instantly by exposure to the void.

  She arrived at a buggy with a half dozen other passengers on it. She stepped on board and went to the back. Nobody looked at her. The buggy started to move, racing along a specially laid track that allowed fast and convenient travel of goods and personnel around the station. King glanced behind her at the view of the Defiant through the view ports. She turned back around, took a deep breath. The buggy continued on. She arrived at the centrifuge in no time at all.

  * * *

  Admiral Grimshaw’s office door was already open. She knocked anyway to announce her presence. He looked up from his desk. King saluted him.

  “Ah. Commander King. Please, come in and take a seat,” he said with a sloppy salute back.

  There was an older woman there with a data pad, presumably to record the minutes of the de-brief. She got up and shut the door.

  “You’re feeling well?” Grimshaw asked King.

  “As well as can be, Admiral. Considering,” she said.

  His face grew serious. “Yes. Well, Captain Singh was a very good friend of mine. And it’s a terrible blow not only to this fleet, but to me personally. I believe there is a service tomorrow?”

  King nodded. “Yes. In the morning. In the conference centre.”

  “I’ll make sure that I’m there, Commander. He was a good man, and a fine officer. I might say a few words, too. I trust you will be …”

  She hadn’t thought that far ahead. Everything was such a blur. But she said “Yes,” anyway. There was no doubt she would.

  The Admiral nodded to the older woman in the corner for her to start taking notes, then he proceeded to get down to business.

  “I’ve had time to read your report, Commander. And I have a few things to say. But first of all, I want you to tell me what happened in your own words. From the horse’s mouth, so to speak. I want to be entirely clear on all of the details,” he said.

  “I understand,” Jess said.

  “Would you like a coffee or something before we get on?” Grimshaw asked her.

  She shook her head. “No thank you sir.”

  Grimshaw smiled. “I understand completely, Commander. I’ve been in your shoes more times than I can count. I don’t envy you in the slightest. Now. The Defiant was tasked with protecting a convoy of ships through the neutral zone between Draxx space and ours, correct?”

  Jess nodded.

  “Everything was proceeding without incident. But at 1600 hours, there was a problem,” the Admiral stated. “Why don’t we start there?”

  She cast her mind back, swallowed.

  “We detected several unknown craft approaching the border. The Captain ordered Lieutenant Chang to monitor them and report on their progress. After a while we lost sensor contact.”

  “But they came back,” Grimshaw said.

  King nodded. “Yes sir. We held a tight formation behind the convoy when the Draxx re-appeared on the long range sensors. The Captain ordered that we go to red alert. We polarised the hull plating, charged the main batteries.”

  “Normal procedure, in other words,” Grimshaw said.

  “Yes,” Jess said. Already her mind shot back to that day. As she spoke about it, she began to relive it all as fresh and vivid as though it were happening all over again. “Normal procedure.”

  “I understand this is difficult for you, Commander. Especially given the losses sustained. Please press on.”

  King swallowed.

  “There were three of them …”

  3.

  “Lie
utenant! Time until they are within firing range,” Captain Singh snapped.

  Lieutenant Chang did a quick calculation in her head before answering. “Forty seconds and counting.”

  Singh nodded. He strapped himself into the captain chair, pulled the restraint tight around his waist. “Everyone buckle up.”

  “Twenty-nine seconds,” Chang reported.

  “Ensign Boi, instruct the convoy to maintain a tight formation. Follow our vector. Stay close at hand so that we can protect them if this is an attack,” Singh ordered.

  “Aye,” Ensign Boi answered.

  He turned to King. “Commander, we have birds in the tubes?”

  King nodded. “Yes, Captain. Tubes one to four are ready to go.”

  She strapped herself in at the secondary tactical station below Lieutenant Chang then set about monitoring the bogies progress into their close-range sensor sweeps.

  “Eighteen seconds,” Chang said from behind King.

  “Let’s see them on the main display,” said Singh.

  A second later the front viewscreen switched from the convoy ahead of them to a data readout. The imaging processors showed the blips on their sensors to be ships Draxx ships. There was one in lead ahead of the others. It was immense.

  “The first ship. How big is that? What are the dimensions?” Singh asked, cocking his head to one side.

  King peered over at Chang’s readouts. “Three … thousand metres!”

  “My God …” Singh said. At that length, it was more than ten times the size of the Defiant. At that size it was several times larger than even the biggest Union dreadnought classes.

  “Eleven seconds,” Chang said, her voice a little constricted.

  “Red alert,” King said, throwing a switch. The lighting dimmed to a dull red, and power was instantly diverted away from non-essential systems to give priority to combat and defensive operations.

  “The bogies are slowing sir,” Chang reported. “They’re holding off at two thousand clicks.”