by J. J. Green
THE VALIANT
Star Legend Book One
J.J. Green
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Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Author's Notes
“Cowards die many times before their deaths. The valiant never taste of death but once.”
Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
Chapter One
The distress signal was impossible, yet there it was: a flashing pinprick of red on the console screen, and steady beeps—three short, three long, three short—from the comm officer’s headset. It was an ancient code, yet the ship’s computer had recognized it and flagged it for immediate attention.
Major Wright gazed down at the enigmatic dot and passed the headset back to its owner.
“Where is it coming from?” he asked again, leaning closer to peer at the mountainous topography of the region.
“Nantgarw-y-garth,” Corporal Singh repeated patiently. “West Britannic Isles.”
“Nantgarw... Where the hell’s that? It looks like the arse end of nowhere. Why would we have anyone there?”
The corporal didn’t answer, no doubt guessing the question was rhetorical. “I didn’t know if I should alert the brigadier, sir,” he said. “Only...”
Singh didn’t need to say any more. He hadn’t wanted to wake Colbourn in the middle of the quiet shift. Smart choice.
Wright slammed one hand against the console and straightened up. A few of the officers on the Valiant’s bridge looked his way. He remembered he was barefoot and wearing crumpled standard issue pajama bottoms. He began to fasten the uniform shirt he’d pulled on after Singh had commed him.
“Might be a covert mission,” he murmured.
“Yes, but...” Singh ventured.
“What?”
“West BI? I thought the place was entirely EAC now, along with the rest of the country.”
“It is,” replied Wright. “Has been for a couple of years.”
The European Democracy’s epicenter, Berline, had fallen to the Earth Awakening Crusade a decade previously, and the organization had pushed steadily westward, breaking down civilization as it went, eventually occupying the entire Britannic Isles. Wright had fought in some of the battles for his homeland, earning promotions, scars, and memories he would never forget.
“But,” he added, “if they are covert operatives, why aren’t they alerting SIS? Why send out a general distress?” He’d heard of resistance groups that were fighting on in some areas, but he couldn’t see why any of them would broadcast a code that hadn’t been used for centuries.
The two men regarded the puzzling blip.
Singh coughed. “If it is a genuine distress signal...”
“Yes, yes, all right,” said the major testily, tiredness making him irritable. “I don’t need you to inform me of the urgency of the situation, corporal.” He loved his job, but a good night’s sleep came a close second place in his heart. He rubbed his beard shadow, and then tried, absent-mindedly, to smooth down the tuft of hair that stuck up from the crown of his head. He was unsuccessful, as always.
“There’s nothing for it,” he said. “I’ll have to tell the brigadier.”
“Rather you than me, sir.”
WRIGHT HAD FAILED TO raise his superior officer via her ear comm, and she had refused an implant, so he had no choice except to wake her in person. By the time he reached Colbourn’s quarters, he had finished fastening his shirt and had tucked it into his pajamas. He thumbed the door buzzer and leaned on the bulkhead, propped on his forearm, as he waited for a response. When none came, he pressed again, long and hard.
“Goddammit!” growled a voice over the intercom. “Someone had better be dying.”
“It’s Wright, ma’am. Something’s come up that requires your immediate attention.”
The intercom was silent, then, “Well, what kind of something?!”
“A distress call, only...”
Suddenly, the cabin door slid back, and an older woman’s bony head thrust through the gap. Her eyes were narrowed, angry, and piercing.
“Only what?” Brigadier Colbourn asked, between clenched teeth.
Wright knew he wasn’t receiving the full potential force of her ire, that she tolerated him better than others, yet he still took half a step backward before explaining about the incongruous signal.
“West BI?” asked Colbourn. “What the...?” Scowling, she said, “Hold on.”
She withdrew into the darkness of her quarters. Seconds later she re-emerged, wrapping a gray bathrobe over her sleep suit.
As she marched down the passageway, he kept pace by her side and laid out the details of the situation.
Age and tiredness showed in the lines of the brigadier’s face, and her white hair was cropped close to her scalp, making her head look positively skeletal. He always thought of her as an old war horse who deserved to have been put out to pasture years ago. But she never spoke of retirement. Like him, service was in her blood, and she would probably die with her boots on.
When he finished updating her, the brigadier slipped in her ear comm and began barking orders. One of the Valiant’s companion corvettes, HMSS Daisy, was to be prepped for a mission. The BA’s corvettes were their only warships capable of space-to-surface travel.
Turning her head sharply toward the major, Colbourn said, “I want you to assemble a rescue task force.”
After a beat, he asked, “We’re going in?”
“Of course we’re going in,” the brigadier spat. “Do you think we should leave them there? It’s our distress code they’re sending. Those are our people. The only problem is, we don’t have time to arrange a stealth op. We’ll have to get in and out fast, before the EAC have time to respond.”
“But what if they aren’t our people? It could be an EAC trap.”
“Then it’s a damned good one,” Colbourn replied. “They must know we’d never abandon our own.”
The brigadier strode through the door to the bridge. Every back in the place became bolt upright, and all eyes became intent on their screens.
“Singh,” Colbourn snapped as she sat down. �
��Report on the origin site of the distress signal.”
“Yes, ma’am. It’s called Nantgarw-y-garth—”
“I don’t give a shit what it’s called. Wright’s already told me it’s in the back of beyond. I want to know terrain, population, latest intel, if we have any. You know what I need. Do I have to spell it out to you in words of one syllable?”
“Yes, ma’am. S-sorry, ma’am. I do have some information...” His voice petered out under the intensity of her glare, and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.
“Dammit, man. Speak!”
“It’s mountainous,” Singh blurted. “Highest elevation five hundred and fifty meters. Latest population estimate, er, zero point three people per hectare. No known military installations. Scan data doesn’t indicate any evidence of armaments either.” He rattled off the local temperature and weather conditions, which were wintry. “I still haven’t established contact with the signal originator.”
“Better. Wright, where are you with assembling the task force?”
“Nearly there. I’ve picked twenty of the best from the platoon aboard the Daisy.”
“Good. You’re leading the mission?”
“I was planning to.”
The brigadier’s stern expression grew pensive, and she didn’t answer immediately.
The situation troubled Wright, too. No one in the Britannic Alliance would send a distress call from enemy territory unless they were in imminent peril. Even then, they might choose to fight it out rather than endanger the lives of their rescuers. This was going to be a high-risk expedition. They had almost no knowledge of what the rescue team might expect, and they would be under extreme time pressure.
He waited for Colbourn’s decision.
Briefly making eye contact with him, she gave him a curt nod, adding, “I’ll speak to SIS while you’re en route and update you about anything pertinent.”
Her words weren’t particularly reassuring. If the individuals requesting rescue did have something to do with the Secret Intelligence Service, that didn’t mean SIS would tell them anything relevant or helpful. In Wright’s experience, the government department frequently operated as if it were independent, with interests and aims wholly distinct from those of the Britannic Alliance.
Yet, despite his many reservations, at the end of the day, Colbourn was right: if there was a chance it was the BA’s people calling for help, they could not ignore them.
“I’ll head over to the Daisy,” he said.
Colbourn turned to speak to Singh again.
Chapter Two
The game of xiangqi wasn’t going well for Taylan Ellis. It was her turn, and she’d been trying to figure out her next move for the last five minutes, but she couldn’t see a way to reverse the tide of battle. The enemy general was well beyond her reach, while her own was trapped in one quarter of the board, harried by soldiers, chariots, and cannon.
She looked up into the face of her friend, Emeka Abacha, knowing she would find no mercy there. He gazed back, amusement twinkling in his dark blue eyes.
“Take all the time you need, little chick,” he said expansively, his voice not much more than a soft rumble among the snores of their fellow Royal Marines in the ten-rack cabin.
She’d never understood why he’d given her that nickname. She was far from little, and her days of being a ‘chick’ were long gone. Abacha was the only person Taylan would allow to call her that, and he knew it. At times like these, he took full advantage of the concession.
Strike that.
She did know why he used the nickname—it was to rile her, and he was doing a good job of it.
She screwed up her face in frustration.
Abacha’s grin grew wider.
Wearing only undershirts and shorts, they crouched over a small table set against the bulkhead farthest from the cabin door. A single overhead lamp spilled its light over the table and aged board game. The lines of the game were nearly worn away, and the plastic pieces were barely identifiable anymore. But the game was the only thing the two insomniacs had to occupy them after lights out, when all electronics were banned.
Taylan reached toward one of her adviser tiles.
Abacha’s eyebrows rose.
She hesitated, her hand suspended over the tile, before she dropped it to her side again and scowled.
Her friend leaned over the table and gave her shoulder a friendly slap, nearly knocking her from her seat. “Concede defeat! There’s no shame in it. It’s only a game. Besides...” he stretched his long arms wide “...it’s late and I’m sleepy.”
Taylan’s scowl deepened, and she studied the positions of the tiles on the board more closely. There had to be a way out of her predicament, if only she could see it.
The figure of her friend suddenly stiffened, and Taylan, sensing the change in him, looked up. “What’s wrong?”
“You don’t hear it?” he asked.
She concentrated on the sounds around her. Aside from the noises of slumber from the other marines, all she could hear was the hum of the Daisy’s engines.
Then she realized what Abacha meant: the engine noise had risen in pitch. They were no longer maintaining orbit, flanking the Valiant, they were on the move. Her stomach registered the new direction. The corvette was descending, which could only mean she was on her way to the surface.
A quiet excitement rose in Taylan.
“We’re going down,” she whispered.
“Uh huh,” replied Abacha, but his look of delight as he’d anticipated beating her at xiangqi had faded. Now he looked sad.
She wondered what was bothering him, but then she felt the beads of her necklace under her fingertips. When she’d realized they were going to Earth, her hand had unconsciously strayed to the child’s jewelry she always wore around her neck.
She snatched her fingers away and looked down, embarrassed.
Abacha was silent, and the cabin remained quiet, the sleeping marines unaware of the changing circumstances.
Taylan raised her gaze to her friend, and saw him touching the side of his head, listening to a comm. Every marine had an implant surgically installed just behind their left ears. When you were given an order, there was no avoiding it, whether you were asleep or awake. If the device sensed you were sleeping, it would break into your dreams with an alarm that wouldn’t turn off until you were conscious. The comm would repeat until you gave the mental response you’d received it.
Abacha’s eyes refocused as the message ended.
Grunts, groans, and the rustle of sheets came from the racks as marines began to stir.
Abacha got up and went to step away from the table, but then he halted. “You didn’t hear it?”
“Nope,” replied Taylan. “What’s happening?”
“Rescue mission. Gotta attend a briefing.”
“Hm. Looks like I’m not invited.”
“Looks like it.”
Abacha began to leave, but Taylan grabbed his wrist. “Rescue mission on the surface?”
“Wright didn’t say, but I guess so. That’s where we’re headed.”
“If they’re sending a corvette down, it must be somewhere dangerous. Did he say where it is exactly?”
“No, he didn’t.”
Overhead lights came to life. Three or four grumbling marines dropped from upper racks to the floor and hastily pulled on their uniforms. The sleepers who hadn’t been called to the briefing groaned and pulled their blankets over their heads.
Taylan hadn’t released Abacha’s wrist. She was thinking.
“Hey, I have to go,” said her friend.
“How about...” She hesitated. “Wanna swap places with me?”
He sighed. “You know I can’t do that. Wright ordered me on the mission, not you.”
“I’ll say you’re sick and I’m taking your place.”
“I haven’t been to sick bay. If he checks out your story and finds out we both lied, I’ll be in a world of trouble.”
“I’ll tell him
...as soon as you woke, you threw up. Or something. C’mon, do this for me. How often do we go to the surface these days? This might be the last chance I get.”
“You don’t even know where we’re going.”
“I know we were above Europe.”
“That doesn’t mean anything. We’re aboard a freaking starship. The rescue could be anywhere.”
While they argued, the marines who had received the summons had dressed and run out of the cabin. Abacha looked toward the open door. “Tay, the briefing’s in five minutes. I have to be there.”
“C’mon!” she urged. “When do I ever ask you for a favor?”
“Well, there was that time you made me help you get the cook drunk so you could shave off his eyebrows.”
“Okay. But he deserved payback for the slop he serves up.”
“And I distracted that warrant officer for you while you hid her helmet in the freezer.”
“She’s a tool, and you know it.”
“And let’s not forget you persuading me to help you smuggle Boots aboard.”
Boots was the ship’s cat—a stray Taylan had rescued from the battle zone at their last engagement.
“Give me a break!” she protested. “Boots is the best thing that ever happened to this ship.”
Abacha shot her a skeptical look. He might have been thinking about the cat’s resistance to all attempts to house train him.
“You have to admit,” Taylan went on, “he keeps the cockroaches down.”
Abacha gently prised her fingers from his wrist. “I have to go.”
She slumped against the bulkhead. “See ya later.”
He put on his uniform in record time, and then strode quickly across the cabin, last to leave. Taylan felt bad. He would be reprimanded for being late. When he reached the doorway, however, he stopped and turned.
She’d been watching him, resigning herself to the fact she wouldn’t be going to the surface. When Abacha halted, she sat up.
“How do you do it?” he asked.
“Do what?”
“Be so annoying yet so pitiful at the same time?”
She jumped to her feet. “You’re gonna let me take your place?”
