by M. R. Forbes
Earth Unrelenting
Forgotten Earth, Book Two
M.R. Forbes
Published by Quirky Algorithms
Seattle, Washington
This novel is a work of fiction and a product of the author’s imagination.
Any resemblance to actual persons or events is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2018 by M.R. Forbes
All rights reserved.
Cover illustration by Geronimo Ribaya
Acknowledgments
THANK YOU for picking up the second book in the series. I hope you enjoy it as much as the first.
THANK YOU to my editor and beta readers for their hard work on improving me grammer and fixing my speling.
THANK YOU to my wife. It takes a lot of support, dedication, and patience to deal with a storyteller trying to work out a plot.
1
Five days ago…
Special Officer Lynn Nguyen sat back in her chair. Her eyes were getting heavy. Her stomach was complaining. It had been too long since she had eaten, and sleep didn’t come quickly last night.
She had spent her entire career assessing and mitigating risk, both inside the Centurion Space Force and in her secret capacity as an employee of the syndicate known as the Trust. It was her job to quantify deals and decisions, to ensure that due diligence was committed on every action using a suite of tools her department had developed over the last two dozen years. Hardware, software, artificial intelligence, social engineering. Each was a means to an end, like a fork to eat or a gun to kill. She was a consummate professional. She took great pride in her work.
And Nathan Stacker had fucked everything up.
It wasn’t the nature of the former Space Force captain’s escape that had ruined her nights and her appetite. While she had approved the plan to kill Niobe Rivera Stacker and signed-off on the decision to frame Nathan for it, she could only make judgments based on algorithms, not do the work for the other members of the group. Instead, it was the knowledge that he most likely controlled the very thing that could destroy everything she and the others had worked so hard to build.
The information that had made his wife’s murder inevitable in the first place.
She allowed herself a small smirk at the absurdity. The carelessness. The simplicity. They said that little things make big things happen. In this case, the smallest bit of leaked data had caused all of this to occur. It was information that no one on Proxima should have ever found or been interested in, and yet Niobe Rivera Stacker had.
She didn’t know what that information was herself. It was classified to the top level of both Proxima Command and the Trust, and the fact that it had been exposed at all had led to a massive lockdown on anything even remotely associated to it, as well as the untimely deaths of a number of technicians. Even if she could have accessed it, she wouldn’t have gone anywhere near it. The organization valued her, but not that much.
“Special Officer Nguyen?”
She was jostled out of her head by General Haeri’s deep voice, calling on her to deliver her report. She glanced over at the older man, noting the bags under his eyes. He hadn’t been sleeping much lately, either.
“Sir. Sorry, sir,” she said, leaning forward and pushing herself to her feet. The other members of Command smiled knowingly. None of them could deny these meetings were necessary, but also less than thrilling.
She straightened the front of her uniform against her petite frame before making her way to the front of the conference room. She pushed a lock of black hair away from her eye and then waved her hand in front of her Oracle to activate the holographic projector embedded in the table. A three-dimensional star map hovered over the group, with Proxima B outlined in red. She closed her hand, and the map zoomed out until there were blank spots around the edges in a nearly perfect sphere. She wiggled her fingers, and areas of the sphere began to vanish.
“As you know, the areas that are falling off are the areas we’ve already explored, mapped, and logged.”
The other Officers were quiet. They knew her routine. They waited a few seconds for the explored areas to go dark. It left a black hole in the area directly around Proxima and a lot of white stars beyond. They had all been doing this too long to be affected by the amount of space still to be cataloged, but if there had been a newcomer to the meeting, they would have ogled at how much uncharted space remained after nearly two centuries of exploration.
Was it any wonder they had never found their enemy?
She wiggled her fingers again, navigating through her presentation on her Oracle. A few of the white areas turned green.
“These are the exploration patterns Colonel Bard has submitted for the next round of sorties. I’m transmitting the full docket to your Oracles now so you can review personnel and ship data. Of course, as you probably already know this schedule has been recently altered to allow for the repair of the Praeton Space Force complex’s airlock, which is limiting operations from our largest base.”
“What is the ETA on the repairs, Special Officer Nguyen?” Brigadier General Brie asked. She was a larger woman, with white hair tied back into a bun behind her head. She was as no-nonsense as they came.
“Three weeks, ma’am,” Lynn replied.
“I thought the repairs were supposed to be done by now?” General Haeri said.
“They were, sir. We had a minor setback with one of the hydraulic arms. Xin Yamaguchi discovered a flaw in one of the replicators. Unfortunately, the size of the arms means they take time to produce. Yamaguchi Corp has been asked to triple-check the entire process to ensure this doesn’t happen again.”
“Thank you, Special Officer.”
“My team has run full due diligence against the suggested exploration patterns,” Lynn continued. “Our confidence level is over the ninety-fifth percentile on all of the suggested missions.”
The members of Command shared another knowing smile. None of them could remember the last time the Assurance Department had come back at less than ninety-five percent for an exploration mission. Budget decisions, on the other hand…
“All in favor,” General Haeri said, putting the proposed mission parameters to a vote. Eight hands went up in unison. “Approved.”
“Thank you, sir,” Lynn said. She sat down again, leaning back and drifting away as the meeting continued.
Stacker. His escape had made him a wildcard against the efforts of the Assurance Department. Their calculations suggested he wasn’t a threat, and that the odds of his return from Earth were as good as nil. Maybe that helped them sleep at night, but the odds of losing control of such destructive intel had been as good as nil too.
The Trust had sent one operative to deal with the crisis. One, when the data had suggested a seventy-eight percent success rate versus a ninety-one percent rate if the entire squad remained under their control. They didn’t want that many people knowing they had screwed up and Imani Shia was supposed to be one of the best.
Lynn hoped so. The entire syndicate was on edge, waiting for Judicus to return.
“That’s all we have on the agenda today,” General Haeri said. “Dismissed.”
Lynn stood up again and started for the door.
“Special Officer Nguyen, if you could wait just a moment?” General Haeri said.
“Of course, sir,” she replied.
She stood in front of her chair, straightening her skirt. The General motioned her over once the other members of Command had cleared the room.
“Lynn,” he said, indicating that their meeting wasn’t official Space Force business. “I have a package for you.”
“Yes, sir,” she replied.
His eye twitched as he worked his Oracle. A moment later, hers signaled she had received a file transfer.
“I want you to prioritize this assessment,” he said.
She opened the file and scanned it. “What’s the impetus behind this?”
“We have some new concerns, which are outlined further in the package.”
“Our contact on Earth?”
“Yes. The last shipment we received was less than optimal. We need to remind Tinker who he’s working for.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll get this into the system immediately.”
“You’ll find a new deposit to your account in thanks for your diligence. I know this whole Stacker thing has turned into a much bigger mess than we anticipated, but we can’t afford to let that hold up the rest of our operations.”
“Of course, sir.” She saluted the General.
“Dismissed.”
She headed out of the conference room, walking briskly along the long corridor toward the lifts. The Assurance Department was on the top floor, with an incredible view of both Praeton and the river. She scanned the file on her Oracle while she walked, smiling at the proposal. The Trust had reconsidered her earlier recommendation.
This wasn’t about Tinker or the supplies he was delivering to them. They would never admit it openly, but this was a preemptive decision to raise the success rate to one hundred percent confidence that neither Nathan Stacker or his wife would ever come back to haunt them.
Chapter 2
General James Stacker dropped the helmet of his Mark Three Advanced Combat Armor on the long table. He stared at himself in the mirror hanging over it for a moment, making a visual note of the anger that pulled the skin tense across the bone.
“This whole thing has turned into a fucking mess,” he grumbled.
“Sir?” Major Sarah “Doc” Anderson replied from behind him.
She was the only other person with him in the small room, his personal changing area beneath the structure that formed the base’s armory. Her voice was as tense as her face.
James grabbed one of the metal gauntlets with the other, twisting until it snapped and hissed slightly, and then gently dislodging it. He did the same with the other and placed both on the table beside the helmet. He remained in silent contemplation while he turned to the right and took two steps back. A spider-like group of arms shifted from its mount on the wall, locking onto specialized bolts in the combat armor, turning them exactly nine-tenths of a centimeter and releasing the suit’s locks. The forward armor slid aside, each metal plate collapsing over the next until his body was free from neck to knees, revealing the man beneath it.
Even with the armor gone, it was difficult to assess which part of James Stacker was organic and which was mechanical. Tarnished metal reached up to a newer polished metal ring, which was slightly overlapped by puckered skin below the hips on both sides, which vanished into a pair of ragged underwear and a t-shirt that covered his groin and upper torso. There was more puckered skin and another set of metal rings beneath the sleeves of the shirt, as well as a molded metal plate that ran along his left pec and down along his side. One brown eye and one black eye shifted slightly to make contact with Doc’s gaze, and then the general stepped out of the armor and onto the cracked tile floor.
“A fucking mess,” he repeated. His voice was rough, with a slight reverberation that betrayed the synthesized nature of it. “Nathan wasn’t supposed to be here.”
“Yes, sir. You were the one who saved his life.”
James took a step toward her. She backed away. He wasn’t normally a violent man, but stress could make him do things he often came to regret, and he was feeling more than a little stressed.
“What would you have done?” he asked. “We still haven’t recovered the chip. We need the continued support if we’re going to complete the trials, especially now that we’ve shown our hand to the Centurion Space Force.”
“I wouldn’t go that far, sir. We destroyed the dropship.”
“Wonderful. And what do you think is going to happen when it never returns to Proxima? Do you think Command is going to shrug it off? Even if our contacts manage to delay the response, there will be a response.”
“I don’t think you’re giving them enough credit, sir. The next group of Spacers to come down will scan the area, find the wreckage, and determine the crash an accident. Even if it clearly wasn’t. Our people will see to that.”
“Will they?” James asked.
“If they want to stay hidden long enough to finish the trials, they will. If they want to keep the information Nathan’s wife discovered a secret, they will.”
“They never should have lost it.”
“Do you even know what she found that was worth killing her over, sir?”
He shook his head. “No. And I don’t care. The less we know about the details, the more focused we can stay on our goals. What I do know is if they go down, we go down. No Contact Protocol or not, Proxima Command will nuke our fucking asses from orbit and call it the end of a good day.” He looked down at her, his expression grim. “I’m not ready to lose this, Sarah. Our work isn’t done yet. Tinker’s work isn’t done yet.”
“If Tinker’s missiles had worked the way he said they would, none of this would be an issue. His comms hack worked flawlessly to give us notice that the Explorer was incoming.”
“And that the Spacers were dropping from high-altitude,” James said. “But it’s fucking useless if the ordnance doesn’t do its job.”
He shook his head again. He could feel the veins in his forehead throbbing. He had lost a lot of good soldiers going over to Manhattan to deal with Stacker and the Spacers. Soldiers that would have been put to better use. Tinker had never been the most stable man, even by James’ standards. He’d been getting steadily worse as the trials drew closer to completion.
The founder of the Liberators was becoming reckless, his work shoddy. It was nothing like when James was first made. It was nothing like when Tinker acted as a father and a creator, instead of a messiah.
James turned away from Sarah, crossing to the other side of the room and a row of lockers bolted to the wall. They were old and faded and partially eaten by rust. The hinges whined when he pulled the door to the largest one open. He had a change of clothes inside. It was a replica of a United States Space Force uniform, dark green with the eagle and star logo on a patch over the chest. Even as a more recently made fake, it was still faded and worn. Edenrise only had one textile fabrication unit, and it struggled to keep up with demand.
He pulled it out of the locker, along with a clean t-shirt and underwear. A knock on the edge of the door frame drew his attention.
“General Stacker, sir,” a soldier said, coming to attention outside the doorway.
“Lieutenant Hong,” Stacker said. “Report.”
“Sergeant Poole reported back, sir. Three more of the Spacers are confirmed KIA, including our contact.”
James nodded. Their tracking system had counted eight targets during their attempted HALD drop. Two had died on the way in. Three more in this recent fighting was five.
“We’re still missing three of them?” he asked.
“No, sir,” Hong replied. “Not missing, sir. They managed to take one our cars. Poole has a unit in pursuit. They’re still in the city. He said they must be Special Forces because of how difficult they are to kill.”
James sighed, reaching back into the locker to hang up the uniform. “I suppose I have to go back out there and deal with them myself?”
“Sergeant Poole requested the Hellion, sir.”
James clenched his jaw. The pulse in his head intensified. He wasn’t about to send his best weapon into the city over a few Centurions. He closed his eyes, considering the options.
“Tell Sergeant Poole he has ten minutes to report that the targets are destroyed. If I make it back out into the field, he won’t be making it home.”
He could see Hong’s shiver at the ultimatum. “Yes, sir,” hi
s Lieutenant said, saluting. Then he headed off to deliver the message.
“Like I said,” James repeated. “A fucking mess.”
He returned to the combat armor, stepping back inside.
Sarah watched him, a look of concern on her face. She had always been a worrier. “What about Nathan, sir?”
“Keep him sedated and search him. We need to know if he has the chip. I’ll find you once I get back.”
“Sir, we don’t need him alive to—”
“No. He survived this long; he may prove useful.”
“Feeling sentimental, sir?”
“Because he’s a Stacker? Not in the way you think. Every asset is valuable, Major. A replica like him is more valuable still. I know they wanted him dead, but seeing as how he’s made it this far, I believe we can put him to better use.”
“They aren’t going to be happy, sir. Neither will Tinker. You could be making a mistake.”
James smirked. He wasn’t arrogant enough to think he never made mistakes. He was arrogant enough to believe this wasn’t one of them. “We’ll see, Major. We’ll see.”
Chapter 3
“I thought this would be easier,” Animal said, ducking his head as more bullets hit the rear of the car. A few of them found the open space where a window had once been and thumped into the thick cushioning behind them.
“Based on what?” Sheriff Hayden Duke replied.
They reached the end of a city block, and he made a hard right that caused the rear of the car to fishtail on its already beaten rims. He expected the vehicle to give out any second.
“I don’t know. The enemy's air support took off. I figured that would be the end of it.”
Hayden didn’t say it, but he had thought so too. He was surprised the group that had assaulted them in the hospital was still on their tail, still giving chase, and still shooting at them. Whoever was in charge really wanted them out of commission.
