by Justin Sloan
SHADOW CORPS
JUSTIN SLOAN
DEDICATION
To all of my amazing fans who allowed me to go full-time in this amazing writing gig, and to my family for supporting me through all of this.
SHADOW CORPS TEAM
Beta Editor / JIT Readers
Tim Bischoff
Becky Young
Kelly O'Donnel
Edward Fray
Holly Lenz
Howard Lowery
Leo Roars
If I missed anyone, please let me know!
Editors
Diane Newton
Calee Allen
Shifting Dimensions (this book) is a work of fiction.
All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.
Complete Book is Copyright (c) 2017 by Justin Sloan of Elder Tree Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Justin Sloan.
CONTENTS
Prologue
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
About the Author
Author Notes
What Next?
PROLOGUE
HADRIAN’S SHIP: MILKY WAY
Hadrian wasn’t the type to abandon his people in time of conflict, but this wasn’t about them anymore. In truth, it wasn’t accurate to say the Elders were his people. They had brought him in, established him as one of their elites and charged him with leading black ops against the enemy forces allied against them.
The charge was his and he would see it done, but he would do it his way. His entire planet had been wiped out, after all. Since he was the only one left who could truly capture glimpses of what was to come, he had no doubt that his actions were the right ones.
Still, as he departed the Enderio Galaxy on his ship—a highly modified Destroyer he had taken to calling Noraldian after his lost love—he felt a pang of guilt at the knowledge that they would be attacked and lose at least one of their members. He didn’t know who, as his visions didn’t work like that. The alternative, however, was a complete defeat at the hands of their enemy.
Other versions of the possible future he saw in his visions involved defeat, but nothing like this. Dreams came at him of torn gates, massive ships, and worse.
One option would be to destroy all the gates, but that would leave the members of the Enderio Alliance cut off from each other, and Earth completely abandoned. Samantha, completely abandoned. He couldn’t allow that.
And even if he could stomach such isolation, leaving each race to their own defense, the inevitable defeat would simply take longer.
As far as he could see, only one path led to victory. There were many twists and turns along that route, potential pitfalls that could even lead the path to cease existing. But if it all worked out, if by some miracle everyone played their part to the closest possible state of perfection, there was hope.
One distant, barely visible image flickered through his visions… and it was glorious.
He would do all he could to see that vision come true, or die trying.
“Sir, proceed as planned?” his captain asked, and Hadrian nodded. “Roger that.”
They steered Noraldian toward the gate, and Hadrian made a motion across his display, waving a hand so that the gate’s nodes initiated. Purple and turquoise light flooded the area between the nodes, forming the portal that would jump them through several other galaxies before finally reaching the gate he had set up for Earth access.
“Take her through, Captain,” Hadrian commanded. “They’ve waited long enough.”
As the thrusters kicked in and the ship entered the gate, they were surrounded by the light, a river of flowing colors. It always reminded Hadrian of back home, before the attack. Before the day of the great destruction that had thrown his life upside down, but left him with these powers. The powers to become any one of the others who had sacrificed their lives so that he might live and save the universe. So that he might absorb their energy, as was their way, and fight as if they were still with him until the very end.
He was damn sure not going to let them down.
A vision came through, kicking him inside the head and filling his mind with images of blasters exploding and ships falling, crashing into each other.
“Prepare for battle,” he told the captain.
“But…” The captain knew better than to doubt, but his reaction made sense. There was no reason the enemy should be waiting for them on the other side of this jump, but Hadrian had seen it. He knew they were.
With a quick apology, the captain readied additional thrusters so that they could quickly make it to the next gate. Then he swiped his hands across his display, touching images on the screen as lights flared and announced blasters and turrets ready for defensive maneuvers.
“Strike that,” Hadrian said with a hint of a smile. “Offensive maneuvers, Captain. We need to send them a message, tell them to get the hell out of our backyard.”
The captain nodded, likely smiling too behind his golden faceplate.
As light stopped flowing past and new stars and planets became visible, alarms sounded and the enemy ships flooded into view. At least a dozen of them.
“Bring ‘em hell, Captain,” Hadrian mumbled, then took his seat on the command deck, preparing for the show.
There was no way they could’ve been prepared for Hadrian and his Noraldian. As they swept through the fleet, blasting them to debris with blasts of purple light, he imagined it was him and his love out there, tearing through their enemies as they had done in their youth. He let his body transform, glowing gold and then becoming her, in a sense, so that she could have her moment of victory there with him. It was how his people worked—absorbing the others’ energy when they passed. All were gone but him, so he had absorbed much energy.
The moment didn’t last long, however, and as they left the remnants of enemy ships to fall off into space, defeated, he held his hand to his face and sighed. For you, Noraldian, he thought. I’ll kill them all for you, and then we will be together once again.
“Permission to jump, sir?” the captain asked.
Hadrian rose from his seat, transforming back into the old, haggard man he so often preferred—a broken face for a broken soul—and nodded.
“Well done, Captain. Proceed as planned.”
Specks of light flickered before his eyes, forming a faint path toward a pulsating glow somewhere out there, but not really out there at all. A vision that showed this path to be the right one. They were making progress.
1
EARTH: GROUND ZERO
The first time Samantha had seen the world end, it had terrified her.
Of course, that vision had been long ago. Over three years, if her estimation was correct. Since then, the vision had come to her in nightmares and flashes in her mind, and each time it seemed more blurred, more… unsure.
The vision was always the same—a
n alien armada unlike anything the world had ever seen. Not the invasion that had already taken over the world and held it in a state of martial law. No, this invasion would put their current overlords to shame. The Syndicate would fight and, in the end, be crushed.
It didn’t help that others called her crazy.
It also didn’t help that she was certain she would have a hand in saving the world, because that meant it could only end badly. Either she would be proven right, and an alien invasion greater than any they had ever known would destroy their world, or she would fulfill her destiny, but her so-called friends would go on thinking she was insane.
The latter would do, she decided as she stared out of her foxhole, waiting for the Syndicate drone to fly by. They always did at this time of day—a patrol, one of many set up to ensure everyone was in by curfew. If the drone was lucky, it would find members of the resistance, the Last Remaining Resistance, or LRR, as its members liked to refer to it.
There had once been a world with governments and their separate militaries, a Space Corps of Marines—and a resistance. That resistance had sometimes partnered with the Space Corps and other militaries, sometimes went out on their own, and sometimes even fought against the militaries. But not anymore. Now it was simply the LRR, a rag-tag group of survivors that had joined together when the Syndicate had won.
It all started with the day Samantha’s mom, Quinn, went missing. But Samantha preferred not to think about that, especially not when such thoughts could distract her and ruin her chance of hitting her target.
Their goal today was simple—knock out the drones within a one-block radius, then hit the local patrol mech.
Ever since the Syndicate had won, cities were scoured by drones looking for trouble. If they found it, patrol mechs would come through to collect prisoners… or leave bodies.
Samantha’s faction of the LRR had formulated a plan to secure a block, set up anti-air missiles and a defense against Syndicate air strikes, and then, if possible, take over one of the mechs. With Dan’s hacking skills, Samantha almost believed it could be possible.
She smiled at the thought of Dan, with his piercing blue eyes like ice. Not the kind of ice that would freeze your heart, but the kind that stopped you dead in your tracks. Too bad he was six years her senior, a fact he didn’t know, but bothered her.
A whirring sound came from nearby, and Samantha checked the display on her armband. It showed incoming blips that she took for at least three drones. More than she had expected, but not unmanageable.
She wrapped her arm in the sling of her rifle for stability, then sat cross-legged and formed a triangle with her arms, right finger on the trigger. Breathing in, she watched the sights rise slightly above the zone where she had spotted the drone pass the last three days in a row. Breathing out, the sights lined up perfectly.
The whirring grew louder. Her mind wandered to Dan again, imagining him down there, preparing his gear to make a move on the mech when it showed up. He was so diligent when he worked, so focused on the task and on achieving the goal. She smiled, remembering how they had met, him guarding her when she was imprisoned by a group of raiders and resistance.
How funny that now they were working together.
“Go time!” one of the women in the team, Ashley, whispered through the earpiece, pulling Sam back to the present.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
WHIRRRRR….
BAM!
She had squeezed the trigger, the bullet had hit its target, and down went the first drone.
Checking her screen, Samantha didn’t see the other two. In fact, she saw nothing. This could mean the others weren’t there at all, or it could mean their signals were being scrambled.
“Shit,” she said into her earpiece. “Anyone there?”
No response. They were definitely being scrambled. That was bad.
Without hesitation, Samantha stood, turned back to the fire escape she had been camped out on, and ran up to the roof, ducking between the brick stairwell exit and a series of fans.
It was dangerous being out in the open, but she had to see what they were up against. She spotted Ashley on the next building over, under a tarp spray painted gray so it acted as camouflage from anyone above. The woman saw her too, gesturing for her to get back down.
Ashley held her hand to her ear and said something, but nothing came through. Ashley’s face scrunched up, and she repeated herself. It was a look she wore too often—a look that seemed to say “Why are you so stupid?” A look that Samantha had more than once wanted to smack off that pretty face.
Maybe it had something to do with the fact that Ashley and Dan had been rumored to have feelings for each other, though there hadn’t been any proof on the matter.
Wait a minute, Samantha realized. If Ashley didn’t know the comms weren’t working, maybe hers still were? And if only Samantha’s weren’t, that meant at least one of the drones was on her side of the building.
She threw caution to the wind and ran to the edge of the roof, staying low as best she could until she reached the ledge. She ducked and took a deep breath, then lifted her rifle and spun, aiming down, searching.
She spotted one.
BAM!
It fell, only to be replaced by another a moment later. This one had spotted Samantha immediately, and a red light flickered on at the drone’s metallic nose.
“Shit shit shit!” Samantha said. Then, to her surprise, a click sounded in her earpiece.
“What’d you do, girl?” Ashley demanded, and Samantha realized taking out the one drone had canceled the interference.
BAM! She shot, and missed. Blasts flew out from the drone, sending bits of the concrete barrier into the air as Sam ducked, pulling herself across the rooftop and back to cover.
The whirring grew louder, and she turned to see the drone rise over the ledge. It aimed in at her, and then—
BAM! Ashley had fired, clipping the drone’s wing and causing its shot to barely miss Samantha.
The mech turned, did a quick scan of the area, and then retreated.
“It’s pulling back until reinforcements arrive!” Samantha shouted, leaping to her feet and giving chase. “DAMMIT!”
She reached the ledge, put one foot on it to use her knee to stabilize her rifle, then fired. The shot made contact, causing the drone to veer to its left and then crash into the building.
But it was too late. The signal had been sent out and, when she looked at her screen, there were five or six more incoming. And something large.
“Guys, that mech is coming back, but it ain’t alone.”
“We see that,” Ashley’s voice responded, the electronics not failing to hide the irritation.
“Just stay sharp,” Dan said. “I’m coming up.”
“We need you down there,” Ashley said. “That mech won’t be ours if you don’t do your job.”
“And if you two die, we’re in trouble.”
Sam knew he was right. He would need all hands covering his ass while he hacked into the mech. And since the LRR had sent a team of only five, losing two would be a big loss.
“I got this,” she said, this time standing and deliberately walking back toward the edge of the roof.
“No!” Ashley called out. “Not this again! Come on, someone get this whacko under control!”
“I can do it, I swear.” The words caused her mouth to go dry. She had done it before, this magic. More than once, as a matter of fact. She’d had a teacher back then, a man who had shown her how to manipulate matter. To do magic, if you wanted to call it that. He didn’t, though. He said it was simply science, learning how to connect with matter and change it to your will.
But she had been younger then, barely a teen. The memories were fading, and lately she had even started to wonder if the others were right, if it had all been a dream and she was a nut-job.
The man who called himself Gunny—nothing more, just Gunny—insisted in his insensitive way that she had “Gone ape-shit” the
day her mom went missing. Others, including Dan, had heard about her exploits even before then, and speculated that she had gone crazy years before her mom’s disappearance.
None of their accusations mattered to Sam, though. Sometimes at night she would wake up, feeling the power course through her. She would imagine that day her mom had left, as Dan had said it happened. She had likely believed Samantha to be dead, a thought that haunted those dreams more than any other.
Samantha had survived the explosion. She had saved her mom’s life.
Wherever she fell on the spectrum between normal and bat-shit crazy, she was sure of those two things.
And right now she was going to put her powers to the test.
Feet planted firmly apart, she focused on her breathing. Deep breath in, slowly letting it out. Focus.
The whirring drew closer, nearly upon her. Ashley’s cursing grew louder in her ear, until finally Samantha tore out the earpiece.
Again she focused on her breathing, but as the whirring grew louder she knew her heart was beating too fast, her palms were too clammy—it wasn’t happening.
“Dammit, girl!” Dan shouted, appearing next to her with his plasma blaster at the ready.
