Ghost Wing (The Ragnarok Saga Book 4)

by Kevin McLaughlin

  Ghost Wing

  The Ragnarok Saga Book 4

  Kevin McLaughlin

  Role of the Hero Publishing Company

  Contents

  Introduction

  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

  Author's Notes

  Ghost Squadron Sneak Peek!

  Other Books by Kevin McLaughlin

  Introduction

  About the Author

  Exclusive for fans of the Accord series!

  Find out how the story started… When Captain Nicholas Stein set out to stop one enemy ship, and set in motion events which shaped the course of human history for decades to come.

  http://kevinomclaughlin.com/accordoffire/

  1

  The alien ship burst into regular space in a frenzy of suddenly released particles as the bubble of warped space it was maintaining around itself popped. The effect was brilliant - a flash of light that could be seen across the solar system. The arrival was unannounced. The visitor made no contact with the residents of the planets around that star, remaining instead in orbit around one of the outer worlds.

  “We’ve tried to reach out to them?” Thomas Stein asked. He watched the view screen intently as the recording sped up to show a time-lapse of the continued activity around the ship.

  The command-and-control center of the United Nations naval forces was more than busy. He’d never seen such intense activity in all the years he’d been there. This was the day they’d all known was coming. The eventuality they’d all prepared against, planned for, and dreaded.

  “Yes, Admiral. No reply.” Captain Fairhaven was an excellent aide. She always had the information he needed at her fingertips before he asked for it. Thomas wasn’t sure how she managed it.

  “What’s the signal lag?” Thomas asked.

  “A little over four hours, sir. They’ve had time to respond if they were going to do so,” Fairhaven said.

  “Damn.” Thomas waved his fingers in the air. The screen responded to the gesture command, zooming in closer. The image was fuzzy at this resolution, but smaller objects were zipping through space around the more massive ship. Whoever they were, they weren’t just sitting there. They were building something, but he couldn’t tell what it was.

  “We think it’s a ring, sir.”

  The voice startled Thomas, coming from near his left elbow. He turned so quickly that he almost knocked over the small man standing beside him. Bespectacled, thin, with sandy hair that had to be longer than regulations allowed, the man was nonetheless in a uniform.

  “You are?” Thomas asked.

  “Commander Max Knauf, sir. I’m - I do a lot of our deep space research, sir,” the young man replied.

  From the looks of him, Thomas thought he did little else besides research. Everyone who spent a lot of time in space ended up looking somewhat pale, but Knauf seemed more so than the norm. A bookworm picked up by the service for his brains. Thom could respect that. Those were the folks who gave him one of the most potent weapons in battle, after all. Information was often more important than missiles.

  “A ring, you said?” Thomas asked.

  “Yes sir,” Knauf replied. He took the question as permission to take over the display, splashing a series of images from his tablet up onto the large screen. They flashed on the screen in sequence, showing the past construction, current level, and then what Thomas assumed were predictions of the future build. Eventually, the image stopped changing, settling on a computer-generated picture of a vast ring floating beside the planet Neptune, the alien vessel in space beside it.

  Thomas stared, frowning. “That doesn’t look good.”

  “No, sir. We’re not sure if it’s a weapon or something else. I’m leaning toward the something else option, though,” Knauf said.

  “Why?”

  “Because I think those points you see at the segment junctions are for power generation. They’re aimed inward, not out,” Knauf said. “We know too little about their technology to be sure, but my best guess is we’re looking at some kind of gate.”

  Thomas wished he could scoff at the idea. It sounded like something straight out of science fiction. But they knew too little about these aliens to leave any possibility off the table. They weren’t even sure which star they’d come from - only that they’d been here before, and that their return would probably be bad for humanity.

  “Why a gate?” Thomas asked.

  “My best guess is they plan to bring in more ships, sir,” Knauf said. “That ring will be large enough to bring in vessels several times bigger than the one they sent.”

  They had to destroy that ring before it was operational. Gate or weapon didn’t really matter. Either could spell the end for all of them. But the adversary had picked their base of operations well. Neptune was so damned far away! Thomas did some mental math, trying to figure out how long it would take their ships to arrive.

  “About three months to get a ship out there?” Thomas asked. “How long until they complete the ring?”

  “We can make it in two, actually. I did the math, and it would be hard, but we could get a few ships out there in about sixty days,” Knauf said.

  “Well, that’s good news.”

  “But at present rate of construction they should have the ring complete in less than thirty,” Knauf finished.

  “Damn,” Thomas said. He rubbed his jaw, thinking furiously. All the work they’d done to prepare for this day, out the window because the aliens had done none of the things they expected them to.

  Five years before, humanity had learned that there was life in other solar systems. Earth was given an ultimatum: come under the control of one being, and the aliens would negotiate. Fail to do so, and they would consider humans a threat to eliminate. The leader of the United Nations had moved heaven and Earth trying to bring all of humanity under his sway. He’d murdered, lied, started wars, and committed just about every evil action Thomas could think of. But he couldn’t entirely blame Choi for having done all that. He was trying to preserve humanity.

  While Thomas would rather see Earth burn than humanity give up all the good they’d been able to accomplish. He couldn’t help but recall the old quote - the man who will give up freedom for security deserves neither.

  They’d built up the fleet, pouring resources into new ships. The latest - and best - was a massive vessel under construction with what should be a working Alcubierre drive. The engines would create a bubble of warped space around the ship, enabling it to cross vast distances in less time than had ever been possible before. The Intrepid was a first-strike weapon, a tool with which they could go to other stars and meet the aliens on their home ground. If only anyone knew which star they were from!

  The Intrepid might be their only hope in this scenario, though. Once finished it could cross the distance from Earth to Neptune in minutes. “Fairhaven, I want all priority placed on getting the Intrepid launch-ready. We nee
d that ship.”

  “The drive is still untested, sir,” she replied. “But I’ve already ordered rotating shifts around the clock to finish all essential work.”

  Knauf coughed.

  “I suppose you’ve already done the math on the Intrepid’s completion?” Thomas said. He couldn’t help but crack a grin as Knauf blushed and looked down at his boots. That was a yes.

  “Yes, sir. Unfortunately, even with round-the-clock effort, we’re looking at about thirty-two days. Plus or minus three.”

  “Damn, that close?” Thomas said. “We’ll have to make sure it’s minus the three and hope we get there before they finish the ring.”

  He tried to imagine what the worst-case scenario might be, were they to complete the ring. How many ships might this race have that they could send through a portal? Dozens, certainly. Maybe scores or even hundreds. It was a nightmare. Their fleet was only a few dozen ships. Given that they were assuming the aliens had technological superiority, the odds were awful.

  “There might be another way to get out there,” Knauf said, his voice soft.

  “How?” Thomas asked, rounding on the man.

  “I’ve been thinking about this ever since we first detected the ship’s arrival,” Knauf said. “The problem isn’t our engines. We could reach Neptune in about three days if we could burn the engines at maximum the whole way.”

  “But the crew would be dead, which defeats the purpose,” Fairhaven said. The acceleration would kill a human, even with the best protection available.

  “Right. But what if we didn’t send a crew?” Knauf asked.

  “Our computer automation is good, but not good enough to survive combat. The aliens would take the ship out long before it got into range to do any damage,” Thomas said. “If you’ve got a point, make it.”

  “There might be a way to send people without sending people. Have you heard of Valhalla Online?” Knauf asked.

  Thomas recalled hearing something like that in a briefing once. It hadn’t seemed especially important, an interesting footnote of technology. The invention of technology enabling humans to upload their consciousness to computer systems had rocked the world. For a brief moment, everyone thought they’d finally attained immortality. Then they discovered that an uploaded consciousness could be cloned over and over. One human being could become a hundred, or a thousand. There was no practical limit. This was first noticed when a primary election was thrown wildly off when someone cast thousands of digital persona ballots. All effectively from the same person, but each one a different thinking, feeling copy of the original.

  Laws went into effect almost immediately stripping all rights from digital personae. They couldn’t vote or own property. They weren’t considered people, but software, owned by someone. This had created its own set of problems, with near-slavery of digital personae taking place in some countries.

  “You want to use uploaded minds?” Thomas asked.

  “Not just any minds. The Army’s experiments indicate it takes months for a mind to acclimate to the digital environment. It’s too late to upload, say, a group of our best star-fighter pilots. That would have been my first pick,” Knauf said. “But what about minds which were uploaded a while ago? Valhalla Online is an artificial afterlife, a place for rich people who wanted to hedge their bets to upload their minds so they could get an afterlife. Because the game involves combat, the US Army was involved from very early on. They have a few minds uploaded in there, and they’ve tracked the progress of VO carefully.”

  Thomas saw the practical applications at once. Clone a digital mind and you could have an infinite number of combat pilots or tank drivers, with no cost in human lives. If it worked. If people were willing to allow such a thing to happen. But under UN law all weapons had to be controlled by a person.

  “We can’t,” Thomas said simply.

  “I know about the law,” Knauf said, nodding. “Which is more important? Following that rule, or getting to the ring?”

  Without law, they were lost. But Thomas knew better than most that sometimes the rules were in the way of surviving. He might be tasked with upholding those rules now, but that didn’t mean he could not find a way around them.

  “How were you planning to approach them?” Thomas asked.

  “The Army has an officer with an uploaded avatar,” Knauf said.

  “The person is still alive?” Thomas wondered how they’d managed that. From everything he’d heard about Valhalla Online, all the digital minds uploaded there were of dead people.

  “It was a unique occurrence. I thought we might ask the officer to speak with her avatar,” Knauf said.

  It could work. Thomas tried to figure out how he would feel, speaking to someone who was literally a copy of himself. It was an uncomfortable thought, but he also had the sense it might be the most convincing person he could speak with.

  “Make it happen. I’m putting you in charge of it. See to it - personally,” Thomas said.

  “Me?” Knauf squeaked.

  Thomas lifted both eyebrows and stared at Knauf, who quickly understood he was being dismissed. He dashed away, leaving Thomas to stare at the screen again. He watched the aliens continue their construction. Like bees buzzing around a hive, little ships darted around, setting up the framework for what would finish as a massive construct.

  The clock was ticking.

  2

  A fireball splashed against the wall just a few feet from Sam’s head. She ducked instinctively. When she rose, it was to send her own blast of flame back at the enemy. She didn’t think it connected. They were at a stalemate.

  “Gurgle! Can you take out that caster?” Sam called out.

  “Gurgle do.” The dragon beside her launched into the air, winging down from the wall and breathing ice across the enemy ranks.

  Sam smiled. Nothing like a dragon flying by overhead to make the other side look for cover. Gurgle was only one of her secret weapons, though. The opposing force was making their big push. It was time to push back. She stuck her sword into the air and made a circle with it, then aimed it toward the enemy ranks.

  “Black Knights! Let’s finish this!” Sam shouted. She rushed forward with a yell, her guild members’ shouts joining hers as they crashed into the other army like an unstoppable wave.

  This, she was good at. Sam felt in her element in this place, leading these people. She parried a sword slash with her own blade and stabbed, forcing the other fighter back a step. The enemy line was crumbling. She spotted their leader just ahead and pushed her way closer to him.

  “You’re going down this time, Grimalf!” Sam called out, laughing.

  “Like the last three days? Not this time, Samantha. Look!” Grimalf shouted back. He pointed his sword.

  Sam looked at the hillside where he was directing her attention. A new band of troops was pushing forward from hiding, attacking her left flank. She didn’t think it would be enough to overcome her people, but it was a sneaky move. Much more thought than Grim usually put into his tactics. He was more of a brute-force sort of guy.

  “Devious. I’m impressed,” Sam said. She slashed out toward his head with her blade.

  He blocked. “I’m learning from the best!”

  “Flattery will get you everywhere,” Sam replied with a grin. “Loser buys the first round?”

  “As usual.”

  Gurgle was already banking over the new attackers, coating two of them with ice and distracting the rest. Sam was confident he would slow the advance long enough for the rest of her people to react. Grimalf was getting better, but her team was still the best. She feinted at his head and then whipped her sword around to the other side of his body, slicing his leg just below his armor. Grimalf winced and took a step back. Sam pressed the attack with a flurry of blows he barely blocked. She smiled, sensing how rapidly her opponent was tiring. It was time to finish this fight.

  All at once everything faded around her. Sam blinked, trying to figure out what had happened. The hills
, the fields, both armies - all of it was gone. She stood on a surface she couldn’t see, mist obscuring everything from her knees down. The same pale grey fog colored everything as far as she could see. The place reminded her a bit of the Helheim zone, but even that place had some objects scattered about as reference points. This limbo had none.

  She’d been all over Valhalla Online, but this place was like nothing Sam had seen before.

  “Hello?” she called out. Her voice vanished into the mist without an echo. “Is anyone out there?”

  There was no reply. Sam sheathed her sword. She could draw the weapon quickly enough again if she needed it, but there were no apparent threats, so she felt foolish with the blade in her hand.

  The mists swirled. Were they parting up ahead? Was there something moving out there? She couldn’t be sure, but better to go out looking for something than standing in one place forever. Sam’s first step was a cautious one. She couldn’t see what was under her feet. It was hard. Her feet didn’t sink into it. But it didn’t feel like any normal surface she could recall.

  It supported her weight readily enough. She stalked forward, growing more confident with each stride. She’d figure out how she’d come to be in this place - and who brought her there. It was probably a who. Usually, Sam found her troubles came down to someone screwing with her life.

  Whoever it was this time was going to regret it, same as the rest.

  “I told you she’d move,” came a familiar voice from behind her. “Better go talk to her now before she’s really pissed. Take it from me, you don’t want her to get angry with you.”