“Well?” asked Adisa in a deep resonating voice, emphasised by the acoustics of the War Room.
The other man spoke in what could only be described as a dour Scottish accent.
‘The Breath of Vengeance is preparing to leave Sir. The Wolverines will be launched on schedule,’ he said. ‘I will personally be overseeing the mission.’
‘…and is your man aboard?’
The Scottish man nodded curtly. ‘He will transfer over in a couple of days once the Hand of Valour returns to Cairn. He’ll be meeting the Captain of the Might of Fortitude as planned.’
Adisa paused and screwed up his mouth, deep in thought.
‘This had better work Fife,’ he said. ‘We’re placing a great deal of trust in this man of yours. I checked his record. He’s not exactly an exemplary officer.’
Fife took a deep intake of breath before answering.
‘His mission reports are exemplary. He was fundamental in our victory at Belatu-Cadros on Mars, and on Horizon, Cubecca, Thalos...’
‘Admitted,’ replied Adisa. ‘He also has seven reports for insubordination, four aboard the Hand of Valour which were lodged by Commodore Ciaputa and several other disciplinary matters on his record still pending. He smokes, he drinks…’
‘He fights hard!’ Fife snapped, cutting Adisa off in mid-sentence.
Fife was probably the only Admiral in High Command who would have dared to interrupt Adisa like that. Taking a deep breath, Adisa narrowed his eyes and fumed quietly for a moment with tightly drawn lips.
‘He might not be the most… conventional officer in the navy, but he’s a born fighter. Don’t worry Sir. If anyone can pull this off, he can…’ said Fife firmly.
‘You had better be right!’ Adisa growled.
CHAPTER 2 “MEMORIES”
Commander Skelat was a real bastard. He knew to be true this because he’d had a lot of people point it out to him over the years. He had very few redeeming qualities. He liked being in charge and he liked pushing people around. He was one of the old-school troopers in the navy. He had been part of the British Army back on Earth, before the United Worlds Space Navy had even been thought up. There, he had been a drill sergeant and his reputation preceded him like a bad smell. He was a hard-nosed, vicious little bugger and those were in fact, his best qualities. Currently he was bawling at his platoon, as was his habit on a bright morning after he’d had his morning bowel movement. It was said that Commander Skelat suffered from haemorrhoids and that was why he was always in such a bad mood first thing in the morning. It wasn’t true. Whether he had piles or not would make little or no difference. Skelat was a bully, simple as that.
‘Move it, move it, MOVE IT!’
The parade ground was covered by thick red dust from yet another storm that had blown down last night from the slopes of Olympus Mons. The fine particles of pumice bit at the back of the trooper’s throats as they stood to attention in the purple light of dawn on Mars. Lieutenant Bird and Sub-Lieutenant Trenchard were handing out the new rifles that had just arrived by transport, fresh from the Papaver Corporation’s munitions factory. Each was carefully removed from a large wooden crate as the wind whipped up the polystyrene packaging and sent it dancing away across the parade ground. The rifles were covered with a thin film of oil and Trenchard fumbled with the one that he had just picked up. The rifle slid from his grip and clattered to the dusty ground.
‘Be careful with those Trenchard, you festering little bum boil!’ Skelat yelled angrily.
‘Yes Sir, being careful Sir!’ Trenchard shouted back through gritted teeth as he picked up the rifle.
‘Those are brand new, straight from that Froggy little twat’s shiny factory!’ Skelat barked. ‘I don’t want to have to be the first officer to send one back broken, do you hear?’
‘Yes Sir.’
Bird caught Trenchard’s eye and winked. Trenchard rolled his eyes and pulled the last rifle out of the crate. Then Bird and Trenchard joined the end of the first row of Troopers and faced Commander Skelat and Lieutenant Commander Hedges square on. Skelat took a deep breath, swelling his considerable chest out to bow in front of him like the prow of a ship. Then he snarled his top lip, making his neatly trimmed moustache curl up under his flattened, once broken nose.
‘Right, you ‘orrible little lot. This,’ said Skelat, holding one of the rifles out in front of his puffed-up chest, ‘is the new model 15-C, void capable case-less assault rifle. That’s a bit of a mouthful, I here you say, as the actress said to the bishop…’
There was a marked silence at the appalling joke. Skelat snorted and carried on after a pause.
‘So the Johnnies at High Command ‘ave decided to nickname it the “Vicar”.’
Skelat deftly swung the rifle around and slapped a full ammo cartridge into the bottom of the rifle. There were a series of uncomprehending stares from the troopers.
‘I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that V.C.C.A.R. doesn’t spell Vicar. But it sounds a lot better and people like a nickname, don’t they? You lucky lot are going to be the first to field test this marvellous new piece of kit.’
There were several groans from the troopers.
Skelat raised an eyebrow. ‘Did I here a flippin’ complaint?’
‘No Sir!’ shouted the platoon in unison.
‘I didn’t fucking hear you lot of testicle inhibited bastards!’
‘NO SIR!’ shouted the platoon at sufficiently raised volume to satisfy Skelat’s ego.
Skelat eyeballed the troopers. ‘Now, this particular Vicar ain’t the nice kind that you invite round for tea and fucking cucumber sarnies, oh no he’s not. He’s the sort of Vicar who sticks a crucifix up the enemy’s arse and then drowns them in the bloody font!’
There were a few reserved chuckles from the troopers. Skelat wasn’t renowned for his humour, but he did have his moments.
‘This weapon fires the standard ten-millimetre case-less rounds and is powered by a gas cartridge in the stock. It has a targeting laser guide attached above the barrel and soft foamy grips so your little tingies don’t suffer from vibration damage, which I’m sure you’ll agree is an ‘ealth and safety nightmare! It also has a warming mechanism in the chamber to avoid misfires, in the event that you have to discharge your weapon in a vacuum.’
Trenchard raised a hand. Bird gave him a hard stare out of the corner of his eye and gritted his teeth.
‘What are you doing?’ Bird whispered urgently through his clenched teeth.
‘Having some fun…’ Trenchard replied with a glint in his eye.
Skelat’s eyes narrowed. ‘What’s the problem Trenchard?’ he growled from snarling lips.
Trenchard cleared his throat. ‘I just wondered why you would ever need to fire it in a vacuum, Sir?’
‘Were you indeed…’ snarled Skelat, his eyes narrowing even further.
‘Yes. I mean, wouldn’t your domestic cleaner be pissed that you’ve broken her Hoover?’
Several of the troopers smirked or sniggered. Even Lieutenant Commander Hedges, who was standing right beside Skelat, stared down at her boots, her shoulders shaking uncontrollably with silent laughter.
Skelat’s left eye twitched so violently that it almost closed shut. He passed the rifle firmly to the quaking Hedges next to him, clicked his neck bones and walked forwards to stand right in front of Trenchard. Skelat leaned in so closely to Trenchard that their noses almost touched. Trenchard could see the Commander’s veins throbbing in his face.
‘Do you think you are a funny little fucker, Sub-Lieutenant Trenchard?’
‘No Sir,’ said Trenchard, deliberately quietly in order to annoy the Commander further.
Out of the corner of his eye, Trenchard could see the main gate to the compound. It had a barrier and a simple wooden guard hut. A crowd of civilians had suddenly converged upon the gate. The sound of distant shouting reached Trenchard’s ears on the dusty air. Several other troopers had noticed too and a few of them chanced quick
glances towards the commotion.
‘What was that Trenchard? I must be going deaf!’ screamed Skelat, reaching a near apoplexy of anger.
‘NO SIR!’ shouted Trenchard, his eyes now fixed on the gate.
Skelat finally noticed that he didn’t have Trenchard’s full attention. ‘What are you looking at Trenchard? What’s so fucking interesting that you…’
BOOM!
The troopers all instinctively hit the ground and scrabbled to cover their heads with their arms. Only Skelat remained standing resolute, with his fists on his hips. A black cloud of smoke was mushrooming up from the gate area. When the smoke had cleared sufficiently, the troopers could make out a large blast radius, black at the centre but with smears of red flesh around the outer edges. The barrier and the guard hut had gone, smashed to smithereens. The surviving troopers at the gate were picking themselves up off the ground and staggering around helplessly in bemused shock. Then, just as they were recovering, the angry mob burst into the compound and began to club the stricken troopers back to the ground. The throng were followed in by at least twenty figures, all dressed in local R.D. militia uniforms. They were armed. Even at this distance, Trenchard could see that they were carrying navy issue assault rifles, although much older models.
At the first shot, Skelat broke his silence and bellowed a single order; one word, but it was enough to motivate every single trooper in the platoon.
‘MOVE!’
Trenchard was jolted awake by turbulence and the dream instantly began to fade. He was slumped into one of the more comfortable chairs in the rear compartment of a shuttle that was transferring him from the Hand of Valour over to the Breath of Vengeance. The journey back from Europa to Cairn had taken a couple of days which had been taken up with paperwork, packing his things and saying his farewells to what was left of his platoon. He’d stayed awake most of last night drinking coffee with Dasilva and they had recounted endless stories to each other. When he had settled into the comfortable seat in the shuttle earlier this morning, he had been so tired that he must have dozed off.
As the vivid dream faded, Trenchard rose groggily from his seat and staggered forwards towards the cockpit, using the seat backs to support him. Out of the cockpit window he could see the troop deployment carrier Breath of Vengeance looming ahead. It was slightly smaller than his last ship, the Hand of Valour, but it was no less fearsome a sight. There were many more hangar bays on the habitation pods to accommodate the hundreds of drop-ships and shuttles needed for ferrying troops down to a planet’s surface. There were also four distinct shapes strapped to the rear of her hull, missile shaped hunter-killers; the brand-new Wolverines. Trenchard switched his gaze from the Wolverines to the back of the pilots’ heads.
‘How long till we dock?’ he asked with a deep, rumbling, early morning voice.
The co-pilot turned around to face him. ‘Just a few minutes Sir,’ she said. ‘You should return to your seat and strap yourself in.’
Trenchard raised a brow. ‘Why? Are you that bad at landing?’
The co-pilot chuckled. ‘No Sir, it’s just regulations.’
Trenchard grunted and was about to return to his seat when the co-pilot spoke up again.
‘Sir?’
Trenchard looked back into her face. She was very young, as were many sailors these days. Her eyes still sparkled with hope that had yet to be knocked out of her by the relentless war against the insurgents.
‘What is it, Able Spaceman… Gerrard?’ he said, reading the name off her lapel badge.
The young woman blushed. An odd reaction, Trenchard thought to himself.
‘I just wanted to say that it’s been an honour meeting you Sir!’ she said with an excited note in her voice.
The pilot, an older male, let out a deep sigh of exasperation. Trenchard glanced towards the pilot to see that he was gently shaking his head from side to side. Then Trenchard looked back towards Gerrard in confusion.
‘Erm, thank you?’
Gerrard gave Trenchard a quizzical look. ‘You don’t know who I am, do you Sir?’
Trenchard shook his head. ‘Should I?’
Gerrard took a deep breath. ‘My father served with you on Mars Sir. Your actions in the battle for Belatu-Cadros saved his life. I was fourteen when the uprising happened. Dad was brought back to us with no legs, but he was still brought back to us. I’ll always be grateful for that.’
Trenchard felt the kernel of a memory forming at the back of his mind. ‘Gerrard… Hector Gerrard?’
At the mention of her father’s name, Able Spaceman Gerrard beamed. ‘Yes Sir!’
‘He was a brave man. I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to save his legs. He took the full force of a shrapnel-packed I.E.D.’
Trenchard paused for a long time as the stark memory flashed through his mind. That first day of the battle for Belatu-Cadros had been disastrous for the United Worlds. It was etched into every trooper’s memory, for those who had survived the bombings. Trenchard had recounted most of it to Dasilva over several espressos and it must have been sitting at the back of his mind even in sleep, haunting his dreams. Dasilva hadn’t been there when the battle had started, but more United Worlds troopers had been shipped in as quickly as was possible and Dasilva had been in the second wave. They both bore battle scars from Mars.
‘How is he these days?’
‘He’s okay. He managed to get a pair of Pap-Corp’s new artificial legs. He’s back in the navy now Sir, it’s only a desk job, but it’s at Star-spires. We’re very proud of him Sir.’
Trenchard nodded then asked, ‘How old are you now Gerrard?’
‘Eighteen Sir.’
‘You’ve done well to get to A.S. by now. I take it you joined the academy junior cadets when you were sixteen?’
‘Yes Sir. My father inspired me to join the fight against the terrorists. He and I owe you a great deal Commander Trenchard.’
Trenchard felt a little uncomfortable. He wasn’t used to this sort of adulation, particularly from pretty, young, eighteen-year-old girls. Especially when he knew their fathers.
‘I was just doing my job,’ he managed with a tight smile.
‘Well keep on doing it Sir!’ said Gerrard. ‘Strap in.’
‘What?’ said a suddenly confused Trenchard.
‘We’re on final approach. I need you back in your seat Sir.’
Trenchard nodded and carefully made his way back to his seat. Hector Gerrard’s daughter, he thought as he stumbled along the passageway; an eighteen-year-old co-pilot. Jesus, that made him feel old. He’d managed to cram a lot into four years. After Mars, he’d been promoted to Commander and had toured the galaxy aboard the Hand of Valour. That was all behind him now. His future lay ahead aboard the Breath of Vengeance which drew nearer with every passing second.
CHAPTER 3 “A BIRD IN THE HAND”
A short while later, Trenchard stepped out of the shuttle into the hangar bay of the Breath of Vengeance and grumpily threw his heavy kit bag to the floor. Able Spaceman Gerrard was happily waving at him out of the cockpit window. Trenchard threw her a forced smile and stepped off the ramp, making sure to put his right foot first. It was admittedly an ancient naval superstition, but walking onto a new ship with the wrong foot could get you shunned for weeks. “left footers” were deemed to be unlucky.
The place was bustling with urgent activity. Shuttles loaded with armaments and supplies were arriving constantly from the nearby dusty ball of rock that was misleadingly named “planet” Cairn. Far out on the edge of the Solar System, beyond the Kuiper belt and just inside the icy Oort cloud, Cairn was either a very large asteroid or a dwarf planetoid, depending upon your viewpoint. It was a remnant of the planet forming process and was slightly smaller than Neptune or Pluto. The one thing that Cairn had going for it was an immensely dense core, which gave the small rock almost exactly the same gravity as Earth. For that reason, the Space Navy had chosen it as the location for their supply base and naval training academy.
> The surface of Cairn was packed with pressure domes that held offices, classrooms, storage warehouses and training areas, to say nothing of the bars, restaurants and cinemas where the battle-weary troops could spend their shore leave. Trenchard hadn’t even had so much as one pint of “Old Speckled Gobshite” with Dasilva in Mike’s Bar. Everyone else was down on Cairn having a good time. Trenchard was completely sober and in a fouler mood than usual.
He still couldn’t work out why he had been chosen for this mission, or who had specifically requested him. It was annoying and a little mysterious. It wasn’t the way that the navy usually worked, and that made him feel nervous. Someone was playing games with him, but who?
As Trenchard surveyed the organised chaos, a small female officer came rushing over through the bustling crowd of technicians, mechanics and pilots. Trenchard calmly took a cigarette out from its packet. A disparaging look from the Techs who were re-fuelling a shuttle right next to his put him off lighting it, so he just let it hang limply from his lower lip.
The woman came to a halt in front of him, panting heavily. Trenchard could tell that she was a Warrant Officer from her insignia, but just like Gerrard, she looked terribly young. The navy were pushing recruits through the academy faster recently. That inevitably had a knock-on higher up the ranks. It was also dangerous. Officers needed experience. The woman standing in front of him didn’t look old enough to legally buy a beer, let alone operate weapons systems. Or was that just the jaded perspective of his ageing mentality? She had bright red hair, not ginger but dyed a distinctive red colour. She had about her the air of a bouncy Labrador puppy. Trenchard looked her up and down with disdain as the woman saluted and caught her breath.
The Space Navy Series Books One & Two: Including the Kindle novellas Josiah Trenchard and the Might of Fortitude & Josiah Trenchard and the Morgenstern Page 3
