by Sean Robins
The Golden Viper
The Crimson Deathbringer Trilogy Book Two
Sean Robins
Contents
Acknowledgments
Prologue
1. Alora
2. Tangaar
3. Voltex
4. Talmak
5. Voltex
6. Kanoor
7. Mantux
8. Earth
9. Voltex
10. Kanoor
11. Tangaar
The Black Fleet
Author’s Note
Book Review Request
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Copyright (C) 2019 Sean Robins
Layout design and Copyright (C) 2019 by Next Chapter
Published 2019 by Beyond Time – A Next Chapter Imprint
Edited by Ashley Conner
Cover art by Cover Mint
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author's permission.
Acknowledgments
I would like to express my deepest gratitude to:
Miika Hannila and his wonderful team at Next Chapter, who not only published my first book The Crimson Deathbringer, they also made it a bestseller.
My fantastic editor, Tyler Colins, whose suggestions and advice immensely improved my writing.
David Turner, without whom this trilogy would have never been written. Long story.
Everyone who helped me in writing my book. My beta readers, who helped shape a lot of my ideas, the members of the two writing communities I have joined (Writing Forums and Critique Circle), who freely offered feedback and guidance, and the Next Chapter Community (read family) who are the most supportive and passionate group of people you can imagine.
Last, but not least, I must thank my lovely wife Jenia, who is directly responsible for any achievements I make as a writer. It’s true what they say: behind every successful man, there’s a strong woman, one way or another.
Prologue
Kanoor
Standard Galactic Date: 054.03.5073
(Earth Date: 26/04/2049)
The deafening Death Siren cried out like the wail of a thousand animals being slaughtered.
Tarq, holding his baby granddaughter, Varma, in his arms, was dosing off on a comfortable sofa in his private residence when the scream of the siren hit his ears. They were in the living room, a large well-lit chamber with two huge windows and white or cream furniture. Tarq had recently redecorated his home based on the style he had seen and liked on Earth. Varma did not wake up. Like all Akakie children, she was practically deaf for the first three months of her life. With the ear-splitting sound giving Tarq a headache already, he wished he had been deaf too.
The Death Siren was an ancient planet-wide warning system, installed long before the Akakie’s technological superiority in the galaxy discouraged their enemies from trying to attack Kanoor. It was activated when an unknown (presumed enemy) fleet approached the planet, telling civilians to go to shelters and military personnel to report to their posts. It had not been heard in centuries, and why the Akakies still kept it running was a mystery to Tarq. Granted, his people were paranoid, but having a warning system for a planet that no one was so bold or stupid as to attack was too much, even for them. Someone had probably thought the Death Siren was a valuable historical relic or something.
Tarq carefully put his granddaughter down on the white sofa. He was reaching for his personal digital device when it started vibrating. His assistant, Barook, now a colonel, appeared on the screen, looking terrified. “The Xortaag fleet has just appeared in orbit,” he said, his voice shaking.
Tarq burst into laughter. He was a legendary prankster, and if Barook had thought he could pull a fast one over him, he had not learned anything during all the years they had spent together. “Seriously, you think you can prank me? And with such an outlandish idea? How stupid do you think I am?”
Barook gave him a sour look. “At times like this, very, actually. You do remember the Death Siren is fully automated, right? I could not have activated it even if I wanted to frighten half our people to death just to pull a prank on you.”
Tarq’s hearts started beating faster, and it took him a few seconds to realize Barook was serious. “How many ships?”
“Twenty thousand.”
Tarq’s four eyes widened. “How is it possible? After everything that has happened recently, how the hell did they get so many ships? And why did we not see them coming?”
“I have no idea, and it gets worse.”
“How can it possibly get any worse?”
Barook disappeared from the PDD screen, and the image of the enemy fleet replaced him. It was undoubtedly the Xortaags’. Designed for fast-paced dogfights, their single-pilot space fighters, with their rectangular shapes and the side laser cannons, were unmistakable. They were moving in close formation, looking ready for battle. For a brief second, Tarq thought he could hear the terrifying roar of their engines, which the Xortaags did not even try to mask because they knew it would strike fear into the hearts of their enemies whenever they started attacking the planet-based targets.
There was a blood-red space fighter in front of them.
A crimson Deathbringer.
The Crimson Deathbringer.
Tarq’s PDD fell from his suddenly numb fingers, and his hearts started beating so fast he felt he was about to have a heart attack. I saw him die; it has to be a ruse, he thought, but he knew enough about the Xortaags to understand they would never assign that particular color to another space fighter out of respect for their dead general. Moreover, what would be the point of such a ruse, when it would last all of five minutes, just enough time for someone to contact the ship and confirm the identity of its pilot? If the pilot did not identify themselves, it would be safe to assume someone other than that galaxy-conquering madman was in the cockpit.
This was an unimaginable nightmare. Tarq did not know how, but General Maada was back, and somehow he had found a fleet. Worse, he had managed to appear on Kanoor’s orbit freaking undetected.
Tarq had never been a brave person. He was a strategist, not a warrior. He had been afraid plenty of times in his life, like when their fleet was destroyed on Alora’s orbit (where her only child Varina was killed), which meant his whole species faced extermination, or when they were about to lose the final battle on Earth, and he decided to commit suicide if it had happened. However, when he looked at his granddaughter, sleeping peacefully on the sofa, the mind-numbing fear that grasped his soul was ten times worse than whatever he had experienced before. Panic pierced through his chest like a huge nail and made it difficult to breathe.
Not again!
1
Alora
Standard Galactic Date: 036.03.5073
(Earth Date: 05/03/2049)
“Space. The final frontier,” I said.
“Seriously?” said Venom.
Kurt covered his eyes and growled.
Undeterred, I continued, “These are the voyages of the starship Invincible. Her mission: to kick the Xortaags’ ass and free their conquered worlds. To boldly go where no man has gone before.”
“Jim, do you have to do this every time we have a meeting?” asked Kurt.
“Between this ridiculousness and your perfume, one of these days I’m gonna lose it, and we’ll have a mass shooting on our hands, starting with you two,” said Oks
ana.
I grinned at them. “Why aren’t you more excited? We were about to invade another planet. Who would’ve thought?”
We were sitting around a white oval table in Invincible’s briefing room. There was a small built-in monitor in front of each of us, and several VR screens were mounted on the walls. There were two huge windows to my left, through which I could see, well, space. Kurt and Oksana were dressed in the Marines’ khaki long-sleeve shirts with green trousers, and I was wearing the fighter pilots’ dark blue uniform. We were waiting for Tarq, who was late as usual, to make his grand entrance. Experience had taught me the more important the meeting, the grander his entrance would be, and with us getting ready to liberate the first Xortaag-occupied planet, this briefing was as important as it got.
When the Earth and Akakie officials met four weeks ago, less than three months after the insectoids helped us liberate Earth from under Xortaag occupation, they decided to form a task force to kick the Xortaags out of some of the planets they’d conquered before they got the chance to kill off all the inhabitants. The idea was as long as the enemy didn’t know how we freed Earth, we could use the same trick again and again. Akakie Intelligence believed with the complete destruction of Maada’s fleet and the colonists’ convoy, the Xortaags didn’t have enough ships to mount an offensive or even to fortify their defenses, and it was the perfect time to strike. They estimated there were around thirty planets whose local population were still alive and needed to be saved before the Xortaags used their mind-control machine (called Orbital Mind Control and Brain Over-Write System, aka Mind-Fuck Machine) to annihilate them. With the Akakie Space Folding Device, which had a much better range than the Xortaags’, the task force could reach each of those planets in two or three days. It was our chance to pay the Xortaags back for what they’d done to us before they could figure out how we’d hit them.
The Akakies gave us Invincible, two transport ships, and five thousand brand new top-of-the-Akakie-line space fighters called AH-35. They looked exactly like the old Vipers (triangular, twin-elliptical fins and rudders, a bulbous cockpit and droopy nose, and yes, I still wished I could make love to her), but they were much faster and had better firepower. We called them Viper Mark II. The Akakies politely requested that we return the remaining four thousand original Vipers (since Tarq had stolen them, after all), but we refused, equally politely, claiming we needed to keep them on Earth for planetary defense. The task force also included an Akakie starship and five thousand space fighters flown by their own pilots, whatever good that would do. One of our transport ships, Serenity (still a nerd and still proud of it), also carried two thousand Marines—experienced Commandos trained for things like boarding and defending a starship or dropping on a planet and establishing a beachhead. I’d urged Kurt to call them Space Force, but Mr. No-Sense-of-Humor turned me down flat.
I was initially surprised when Earth’s new president, Edward Jackson, announced we’d join force with the Akakies to attack the Xortaags. Jackson hadn’t struck me as a brave man, and to be honest, I didn’t really care for him. He was a career politician, the shady type, and a populist, with a history of questionable policy decisions and business deals. He had ridden to power on a platform of xenophobia and fear, playing on people’s hatred towards the Xortaags, having made promises he couldn’t possibly keep, such as invading Tangaar and killing all the aliens. His campaign had also been extremely successful in third-world countries, where he’d promised the locals to provide them with the same level of economic progress as Europe and North America, another promise he couldn’t keep even if he intended to. Later on, I realized he saw our invasion of the Xortaag territory as a PR campaign that would appeal to his core supporters.
Whatever Jackson’s motivation was, I was happy about his decision. For one thing, both Kurt and I believed the Xortaags would come back for Earth if we gave them the chance to regroup and plan another invasion. For another, my thirst for vengeance hadn’t been quenched by massacring first the aliens on Earth and later their colonists—all twenty million of them. And we had to consider the fate of the people on the Xortaag-occupied planets too. I wouldn’t want us to stand by and watch idly as the enemy committed genocide on thirty planets, especially if we could do something about it, great-power-great-responsibility and all. Liz had once compared me to Spider-Man. That memory brought a sad smile to my face.
Tarq finally graced us with his presence, followed by Barook. They were both in their Native-American holograms. It was good news for me because I still had nightmares about the Akakie’s real appearance, which looked like a cross between a praying mantis and a shark. Plus, Barook’s bushy beard never got old. Tarq wore black armor, complete with a cape and gloves in the same color. There were control panels on his armor’s belt and chest plate. He’d probably thought this was some sort of a spacesuit, but all he needed was a helmet to start saying, “Luke, I am your father.” First that Luftwaffe uniform and now this. I decided to have a word with him after the meeting and encourage him to space-google his appearance the next time.
“Where is Captain Wood?” he asked.
“I’m on the bridge, Commander,” said a woman’s voice with a British accent. “Some last-second ship business came up, but I’m monitoring the briefing from my command chair. Please proceed.”
Tarq raised an eyebrow. “We are about to attack the Xortaags, and you did not see fit to join us in person?”
“I assure you I’m perfectly capable of multitasking, Commander.”
Tarq looked displeased. I knew he loved these briefings and his presentations. He shook his head and sat at the head of the table. With a flick of his hand, he brought up a holographic image of a yellowish planet at the middle of the table. “A quick recap: this is Alora, which as you all know, is where the Xortaag fleet defeated us and then occupied the planet using OMC-BOWS. There are currently twenty-two million Xortaags on the planet, supported by three thousand Deathbringers. Like the first few months of Earth’s occupation, security is practically non-existent because the Xortaags do not expect any trouble on a planet where the local population worships them as gods. We will send down a small team wearing Xortaag uniforms in one of our invisible spy ships, and…”
He went on and on, explaining the details of the operation, but I didn’t pay much attention. It was mostly the same plan as Operation Royalty. We were going to hack into the MFM controls and use their former slaves to attack them by surprise. There was one thing I really wanted to know though. “Are you going to finally tell us how you found out where the MFM controls are? Don’t tell me Allen has come back from the dead and figured out this one too.”
“Do you remember I once mentioned there was a Xortaag spy who used to work for Mushgaana’s brothers but switched sides and started working for us? We sent her ahead in one of our spy ships. She landed on the planet, went to SH-3, and found the information we needed to carry out the plan.”
Slaughterhouse had officially become a military term, for which I took all the credit.
“How did she manage that?” asked Kurt. “She couldn’t have just asked, could she?”
“Actually, I think that is exactly what she did,” said Tarq. “Why don’t you ask her yourself?”
As if on cue, the briefing room door opened and a goddess walked in.
There hadn’t been a shortage of attractive women in my life. My own wife, Liz, was one of the most beautiful girls who’d ever walked on this planet. Hell, Oksana, who even in uniform and with no make-up could feature on a Vanity Fair cover, was sitting right there. But this was next level. The woman was stunning. She had flowing golden curls and piercing green eyes, and the body-hugging knee-length black dress she wore showed that everything in her sculpted figure was perfectly proportioned. My testosterone-bombarded brain still noticed she didn’t have a Xortaag-pleasing unibrow. Her skin glowed, and something radiated from within that made her irresistible. She was at least 6’1” and had long, long legs (sucker for long legs, that was me
). It was like two-thirds of her height was because of her legs.
“Not exactly a compliment,” said Venom. “And listening to you, one would be forgiven to think feminism never happened.”
Kurt and Oksana were staring too, speechless.
“I fail to see what the big deal is,” said Cordelia.
Both Tarq and Barook paled a little, like every single damned time they heard Cordelia’s voice. They’d both vehemently objected to letting her roam freely in Invincible’s systems, but I was the commander of the fleet, so what I said went. I’d even give her full access to my Viper.
Tarq exchanged a triumphant look with Barook and giggled; then he told the Xortaag woman, “Xornaa, can you please take it down a notch?”
The woman nodded, and suddenly it felt like a weight was lifted from my brain. My hormones subsided to their more or less normal levels. She was still hot, only not enough to burn your eyes out.
I blinked a few times. “This was some sort of a psychic attack?” I couldn’t help raising my voice.
The woman, Xornaa, held her hands palms up. “No, not an attack. This happens naturally because of my psychic powers, but I usually have it under control. Today, however, Commander Tarq asked me to come in guns blazing. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry about that.”
I immediately noticed the difference between her speech patterns and the other aliens I’d met: she used both contractions and idiomatic expressions (the aliens never used the first, and always had problems with the second, except for Tarq who apparently spent hours learning and practicing English idioms). She could blend in as a human and nobody would even notice.
