Retribution: Sector 64 Book Two Read online

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright copy

  Blurbs

  Dedication

  Part I

  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

  Part II

  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

  Part III

  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

  Epilogue

  Monument

  Thank You

  RETRIBUTION: SECTOR 64 BOOK TWO

  Dean M. Cole

  Retribution: Sector 64 Book Two

  Published by CANDTOR PRESS

  All rights reserved. This book was self-published by the author Dean M. Cole under Candtor Press. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without the express permission of the author. This includes reprints, excerpts, photocopying, recording, or any future means of reproducing text.

  If you would like to do any of the above, please seek permission by contacting the author at

  [email protected]

  Retribution: Sector 64 Book Two is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2016 Dean M. Cole

  All rights reserved.

  Cover Art © 2015 Emmanuel Shiu

  Blurbs

  What the Critics are saying about the Sector 64 series.

  Huffington Post - IndieReader.com - Best of Science Fiction

  LiquidFrost - Amazon Top 500 Reviewer

  "This series moves into the Space Opera world, officially … Retribution moves (even) faster than Ambush … Hits the ground with destruction; ends with destruction, with destruction in-between. So yes, it is a heartwarming tale full of rainbows and kittens."

  AudiobookReviewer.com

  "SECTOR 64: Ambush was a highly imaginative action packed apocalyptic assault on your mind. Take everything that you think you know about the current military, the knowledge that we are alone in the universe, and flip it upside-down. I will continue to listen to this series."

  IndieReader.com

  "SECTOR 64: AMBUSH is an engaging book from the very first page to the final words of the Epilogue."

  Audiobook-Heaven.com

  "Cole has a good thing going here ... His descriptions of aerial battle and military procedure are accurately detailed and his knowledge of the aircraft themselves fascinated me ... He created a couple of races of aliens, gave them their own histories and cultures and just made them outright interesting. His characters are realistic and believable as well. Sector 64: Ambush is a great read."

  For Donna

  PART I

  "Infuse your life with action. Don't wait for it to happen. Make it happen. Make your own future. Make your own hope. Make your own love. And whatever your beliefs, honor your creator, not by passively waiting for grace to come down from upon high, but by doing what you can to make grace happen... yourself, right now, right down here on Earth."

  ― Bradley Whitford

  CHAPTER ONE

  "This cold is going to be the death of me," Remulkin Thramorus said as he trudged through another waist-deep snow dune. Pulling the nanobot-enhanced parka tight around his ears, he lowered his head into the frigid gale. Buffeting him, it threatened to blow Remulkin back to the empty transport hovering to his rear.

  Leaning into the wind, the scientist looked through his eyebrows. Ahead, a jagged rock protruded a few stories above the ice plain. Buried under the polar ice cap, a huge mountain, hundreds of times taller than the visible portion, spread out beneath the camp.

  Only a month earlier, a construction crew had finished boring a science station into the mountain's exposed triangular peak. The camp's sole entrance lay ahead of Remulkin. Behind and to the sides of the lone scientist, the white plain stretched to the horizon, disappearing into the pole's perpetual night. Interrupted only by the snow dunes that always seemed to occupy the space between him and his destination, the surface was otherwise perfectly flat.

  Anchored at the pole of the newly settled planet, this part of the ice field sat motionlessly. Sub-zero temperatures and a thick, stable ice sheet that insulated the site from the planet's iron-rich surface made it the perfect region for Remulkin's experiment.

  One snow dune later, the scientist trudged up to the smooth outer skin of the camp's entrance. With the sound of tearing paper, a rectangular opening appeared in its seamless surface. A force field-entrained bubble of heated atmosphere ballooned out and wrapped him in its warm embrace.

  The scientist stepped through the hatch-shaped opening, an action that breathed life into ancient memories of his brief military stint. A lifetime ago, a much younger Petty Officer Thramorus had haunted the vast halls of an Argonian-manned battlecruiser.

  Dusting the frost from his ample belly, he frowned. In the years since his three-year, all-expenses-paid tour with the Galactic Defense Forces, his forehead had become a five-head, and his six-pack looked more like a twelve-pack.

  Remulkin stepped through the inner door into the compound's main room. In mercurial rivulets, billions of nanobots streamed from his bib and parka. No longer needed for insulation, the omnifunctional microscopic robots flowed into the mottled gray floor, rejoining the facility's matrix. The parka and bib morphed to their normal volume and function as a day shirt and pants.

  Excited to share the bounty of data garnered at the pole, Remulkin forgot about the day's isolation.

  He dusted the last of the frost from his shirt and looked around.

  His smile faltered.

  Why was it so quiet? Why was the common room empty? At this hour, it should be bustling with activity.

  Thramorus shook his head. "I'm back," he said, yelling toward the back rooms. "Is everyone on break?"

  Silence.

  Raising his voice, he said, "I go away for one day, and you all take a holiday?"

  Nothing.

  "Hello?"

  Anger—and the first hint of concern—chased away his good cheer.

  "Guys, this isn't funny."

  All he heard was his voice's fading echo floating in the still air.

  Determined to find someone, he walked and then jogged through the subterranean compound.

  "Hello?"

  Still no answer.

  Now panting, he ran from room to room.

  They were all empty.

  He even checked the ladies restro
om.

  As Remulkin turned to exit, he saw movement. After a confused moment, he realized the scared, middle-aged, portly man was him.

  Blinking and wheezing, Remulkin studied his reflection in the vanity mirror. His normally pale, freckled skin was ruddy, glowing above and below his ring of red and gray hair. His mother had once told him that you never really see yourself until you think you're looking at someone else.

  He shook his head and turned from the unsettling image.

  Finally catching his breath in the camp's elevation-thinned atmosphere, Remulkin exited the restroom and walked to the last door, his quarters.

  Shaking his head after a final confused glimpse back toward the entrance, he stepped into the room … and jumped right the hell back out.

  A body had popped into existence in front of his face.

  In the middle of his private room!

  "Damn holograms!" he screamed, once his pounding heart and hitching breath permitted speech.

  "Sorry about that, Mr. Thramorus," said an uncharacteristically dour-looking Falinch Meklem. His assistant—usually jovial to the point of annoyance—stared grimly from the pre-recorded hologram.

  Annoyed at the intrusion into his quarters, holographic or not, Remulkin searched for the deactivation key.

  "I know how much you hate these things, but I don't have time for anything else."

  There it is, he thought as he found the virtual shutoff key floating on the front right corner of the hologram. Remulkin reached for it.

  As if reacting to the scientist's movement, his assistant held up a hand. "This is important, sir. You'll want to hear it."

  His finger hovered over the virtual button. Then Thramorus pulled it back as if he'd touched a hot surface.

  What the hell was he thinking? His disgust with the invasion of his privacy had banished all other concerns. Remulkin's wife would have loved that one. She was always saying he was too stuffy, too worried about privacy and personal space. She had begged him to let them connect their Electro-Organic Networks to the colony's matrix. Then they could use the neurally implanted EONs to stay in constant contact.

  Oh, joy! Remulkin thought.

  In the hologram, a running man bumped into Falinch. The assistant lunged forward. Remulkin heard a shouted apology. Regaining his feet, the man pushed his tousled blond hair out of his eyes and appeared to stare at Remulkin.

  The uncharacteristic seriousness in the young man's eyes had Remulkin's short hairs standing on end.

  Meklem pointed a thumb over his shoulder. "The sensor network detected a Zoxyth fleet entering our galactic sector."

  "My Gods," Remulkin whispered.

  The assistant continued. "We're all leaving to be with our families. Everything should be fine. The Galactic Defense Forces can't be far behind."

  Another person ran through the image. "Sorry."

  Falinch waved at the person and then continued. "We tried to call you in, but couldn't detect your terminal."

  "Shit!" Remulkin shouted. A sinking feeling struck his gut as he recalled disabling his hand terminal's external link during the experiment.

  Falinch continued speaking as Remulkin worked to activate his terminal.

  "Sorry for the short message, we have to get on the transport. As soon as it drops me off, I'll set its autopilot to return for you."

  "Anyway, I'm sure this is an overreaction. The GDF has those green-blooded, ancestor-worshipping lizards on their heels … Don't they?"

  As holographic Falinch began to dematerialize, Remulkin saw a look of trepidation leak through the man's brave facade.

  "No, no, no," Remulkin said, growling in frustration. Hunched over the hand terminal, he tapped furiously. "Come on!"

  The scientist shared his assistant's apprehension. They were at war with the Zoxyth. The fanatical leader of the reptilian race had declared a holy war against all Argonians. He had sworn to right an ancient wrong, to avenge a supposed Argonian attempt to wreak genocide upon their sacrosanct Forebearers. The visceral Lord Thrakst had vowed to eradicate every last Argonian from the galaxy.

  A chill ran down Remulkin's spine.

  Finally, his terminal finished its digital handshake and connected to the station's network.

  A multi-pitched storm of audio alerts announced a flood of messages and warnings. Red, strobing icons streamed across his screen.

  "Oh Gods." This was bad, real bad.

  Remulkin scrolled through the news updates and government alerts in sequence. Most had timestamps more recent than the assistant's message. They painted a picture of a rapidly deteriorating situation.

  City after city in this newly settled world had fallen silent.

  The arrival of an enemy ship preceded each event.

  Reports of a brilliant light.

  Then nothing, all contact with the area lost.

  On the final newsclip, Remulkin watched as the godsdamned aliens closed in on the last settlement.

  His new home town.

  In this new colony, everyone lived in or near a town.

  Whatever the bastards were doing, they had done it to every settlement, every man, every woman, every child.

  Save his.

  Now Remulkin's home was in their sights.

  The last item on his terminal, a recorded video message, opened.

  "Baby, I'm scared," his wife said. "Why won't you pick up?" Farene's eyes pleaded. "I need you, baby!"

  In the background, daylight streamed through the windows of their home. Suddenly they darkened as if a black cloud had passed overhead.

  "Oh my Gods! They're here now!" she said, her voice cracking with fear.

  Remulkin touched the image of her face. "Farene!"

  His pounding heart threatened to burst from his chest.

  To either side, his son and daughter clutched at their mother. At nine years old, their son, Wilby, stood taller than his younger sister, Freena.

  His wife stared into the camera he'd mounted over the kitchen door. She'd asked him to put it there. That way the scientist could watch his wife's experiments with cooking—just one of the many things they'd both had to learn as colonists on a new settlement.

  "Remulkin?" she said, her eyes pleading. "Why aren't you answering?"

  Through tear-muddled eyes, he saw unnatural light burst through the room's window coverings—curtains Farene had painstakingly selected for their new home.

  "Baby!" his wife screamed as she doubled over. Collapsing at her feet, both of their children cried out, writhing in pain.

  The yellow light's brilliance—and his family's shrieks—grew until the image completely washed out.

  "Farene!" Remulkin screamed. "Oh Gods!"

  "Wilby!"

  "Freena!"

  "No!"

  Remulkin stared helplessly into the whited-out image.

  "No," he said again in a weak whisper.

  The light streaming through his splayed fingers faded and then disappeared, taking their screams with it.

  And then there was deafening silence.

  "Farene?" Thramorus said through his constricted throat.

  Pulling his hand away, he watched as color and shadow returned to the image. Three unrecognizable, multicolored clumps sat where his family had been.

  Trying to blink the tears from his vision, Remulkin pulled the screen closer.

  Still arranged as they had been when their wearers had fallen, his family's emptied garments lay strewn across the kitchen floor.

  "No, no, no," Remulkin uttered between whimpers.

  Clutching the terminal to his chest, he rocked back and forth.

  Then, keening like a mortally wounded animal, the last man on the planet collapsed to the floor.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Under a three-quarter moon, an angular, white space fighter flew through a vast field of tumbling ghost ships. Ahead of the weaving vessel sat a swelling black void, a hole cut into the field of stars.

  Inside the small starfighter, United States Air Force p
ilot Captain Jake Giard squinted, trying to resolve some detail, hell, anything within the wide, gaping maw of starless space. He could almost imagine they were flying into the event horizon of an elongated black hole.

  But it was no rift.

  No, this was a ship.

  A damned big one.

  As they neared the enormous stealthy carrier, it blotted out a sizable portion of the universe. None of the crisp, brilliant stars that crowded the rest of the sky reflected off of its light-absorbing skin.

  Named the Galactic Guardian, the three-mile-long alien carrier hovered two hundred miles over the North Atlantic, defying gravity.

  For now.

  A few hours ago, thousands of Argonians had lived aboard the mammoth vessel.

  Like the hundreds of other vessels crowding this moon-sized region of space, it, too, was an empty ghost ship.

  And Jake needed to find a way to board it.

  If he didn't get in there soon, things were going to get significantly worse.

  Considering the day's events, that was saying a lot.

  The colonel had crammed Captain Giard into the small space behind the single-seat fighter's sole ejection seat. Now his legs were going to sleep. Jake shifted his weight to return circulation to his numb extremities.

  In front of him, the squared-off gray and white flat top that protruded above the ejection seat twisted left and right.

  "Son of a bitch!" Colonel Zach Newcastle said, shaking his head.

  Tugging at the ejection seat's shoulder harnesses, Newcastle managed to turn his upper body. Regarding Jake with his left eye, the colonel cocked a salt-and-pepper eyebrow. "I thought the enemy ships were huge." He pointed through the fighter's bubble-shaped canopy. "I knew it was damn big—you could see that when they showed up." He paused. "But God, there must've been thousands of people in there."

  Facing forward, Newcastle settled back into the seat. He shook his head. "Shit," he said again in a hoarse whisper, drawing the word out into two syllables.

  "Yes, sir," Jake said with a nod. "The whole thing is royally fucked."