Magnitude: A Military Science Fiction Thriller (Multiverse Space Book One)
Magnitude
Multiverse Space Book One
Dean M. Cole
CANDTOR Press
For Donna.
Contents
Dean’s Books
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Part I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Part II
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Part III
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Part IV
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Fortitude: Multiverse Space Book Two
Get Updates, Win Stuff
Sector 64: Ambush Sneak Peek
About the Author
Dean’s Books
THE DIMENSION SPACE UNIVERSE
Dimension Space
Solitude
Multitude
Amplitude
Multiverse Space
Magnitude
Fortitude (Coming 2022)
Infinitude (Coming 2022)
THE SECTOR 64 UNIVERSE
First Contact (A Prequel Novella)
Ambush
Retribution
Onslaught (Coming 2023)
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Part I
Chapter 1
“Don’t think I’ve ever felt this unwanted,” Sergeant Leo Baker said, staring back at the pair of scientists who were scowling at them from a cafeteria table. The sergeant slid his tray farther down the railing and shook his head. “Half these blokes act as if we’ve pissed in their Post Toasties.”
Craig smiled inwardly. After sliding his tray farther down the railing, he helped himself to a double serving of peach cobbler. He shrugged. “I don’t know about you Aussies, but as a Scottish Staff Sergeant in Her Majesty’s Special Air Service, I usually feel unwanted in my own unit.” He cocked his head at the disdaining scientists. “These gits have nothing on a self-righteous Brit troop leader. Bloody bawbags, the lot of ’em.”
The cafeteria line crept forward, and the two military special operators sidled ahead.
Placing his tray against Baker’s, Craig shoved the man’s lunch farther along the rail.
The Australian soldier looked down. His appraising gaze fell on Craig’s dessert plate. “Well, Staff Sergeant Craig Carmichael of the Special Air Service …” Pausing dramatically, he made a show of pointing the flatware clutched in his hand at Craig’s scone-topped peach cobbler. “That looks delicious.” Then the man seemed to lose his ever-loving mind, extending a finger toward the blessed treat.
Craig slapped away the hand. “Keep your kangaroo-diddling, dick skinners away from my grub, mate!”
Baker gave him a sideways grin and then, arriving at the front of the line, swept his ID card across the scanner. The device loosed a celebratory tune. Picking up his tray, he stepped aside. “What do you reckon all of this is about, anyway?”
“I’m fucked if I ken,” Craig said as he scanned his ID. He hoisted his tray. They walked toward an empty booth along the back wall. Shrugging, he raised his meal appraisingly. “But I’ll enjoy the assignment while I can. It’s a damn sight better than another tour in the sandbox.”
“Yeah, mate, if I never have to babysit another group of wet-behind-the-ear, ab initio, wannabe commandos, it’ll be too soon. Those wankers would just as soon stick a scimitar in your back as follow your instructions.”
“Not been my experience,” Craig said. “Not always, anyway. Some of the best soldiers I’ve worked with came from in-country.”
A scientist in a white lab coat walked past their table. She gave Baker a long, sour look. Then she regarded Craig with a smile.
He had seen her around a couple of times. Like him, she was tall, a nice, purebred filly he’d fancy test-driving, and judging by the look she was currently giving him, he doubted she would spit the bit.
Looking at Baker, he saw the man staring back at him, grimacing as if he’d bitten into a lemon. “Oh, for fuck’s sake. And here’s me thinking she didn’t like the quick reaction force. Turns out she just doesn’t like Aussies.”
“I think you might be right. She certainly doesn’t seem averse to the presence of this member of the QRF.” Craig grinned, hitching a thumb at himself. “But I don’t think it’s all Aussies. Just the short, fat, bald ones.”
“Bugger that!” He pulled off his hat, revealing his glossy chrome dome. “Some of us have beautiful heads. The rest of you wankers have to cover yours with hair.” Then the stout man patted his rigid belly. “There’s no fat under this bonnet, and I’m taller than most … in bed, anyway.”
The two of them laughed uproariously, garnering them a few additional, less than affectionate sneers.
While they hurriedly consumed their meals. Craig noticed others casting annoyed glances in their direction. He understood. The presence of the two special operators in their digital camouflage uniforms stood at odds with the facility’s laboratory environment. Their M4 carbines with underslung grenade launchers worsened the visual disconnect. The military weapons painted a jarring contrast, standing out starkly in the supercollider’s sterile atmosphere.
Baker paused between bites. “I still don’t understand why we have a multinational quick reaction force based here at CERN. I mean, what the bloody hell are we guarding these nerds against?”
“The captain seems to ken.” Craig shoveled in another bite and spoke through his food. “But she’s been pretty tight-lipped.”
“You got that right,” Baker said through a mouthful of mash. “Speaking of the captain,” he gestured at Craig’s watch, “how much time we got?”
“Five minutes,” he answered, not bo
thering to check his watch. He had a finely tuned inner timepiece. Whether catching a helicopter EVAC or the five o’clock movie, his mental clock had never failed him. “Eat up. We need to get back to the Labyrinth,” he added, referring to the complex of cubicles that constituted their base of operations.
Baker nodded as he continued eating.
They finished their meals and wolfed down their desserts, smacking lips and clanking forks, earning themselves another wave of leers.
A few moments later, they deposited their empty trays and walked toward their quarters, although to call them quarters might be stretching the meaning of the word.
The base of operations was more like a hangar. Their hosts had been kind enough to give them cubicles set within the sizable warehouse-type facility. Craig hadn’t known much about CERN, but he’d learned this facility sat atop the ATLAS Experiment. A large, circular hole adorned the center of the building’s floor. A metallic grid filled the top of the cavernous shaft, breached only by a stairwell leading down into the collider’s subterranean depths.
Craig had discovered that the shaft adjacent to the labyrinth of cubicles had initially provided access through which the construction crews had lowered the equipment and tools they’d used to build the supercollider. They had also lowered ATLAS’ largest pieces down the expansive, vertical cavern.
“What do you think?” Sergeant Baker asked, pulling Craig from his thoughts. “What are badass SAS special forces operators like ourselves doing guarding a bunch of lab coat-bedecked lassies? What are we protecting them from, Al Qaeda?” He shook his head. “And our munitions … What the bloody hell is up with that?” He patted the side of his rifle. “I’m pretty sure these depleted uranium sabot darts would punch through a tank.” His face twisted. “I mean, what on earth are they expecting?”
“I doubt it’s terrorists,” Craig said. “But even if it was, you’re right. This is serious overkill.” He patted the double-drum Beta C-Mag that hung beneath the breach of his M4 rifle. “Durka-Durka Six ain’t gonna roll up in a BMP, much less a tank. He’s going to run in, shouting some nonsense and spraying bullets, or blow himself up, or some such.”
“Exactly, mate.” Frowning, he shook his head as he looked at the twin coffee can-sized drums hanging from his own M4. The contraption held a hundred depleted uranium rounds. “These heavy-assed DU rounds are serious overkill. I'm getting sick and tired of carting around all this weight.”
Craig shrugged. “Whatever the target is, it must be hardened because you’re right about those rounds. It’d be a bloody war crime to fire it at a person. The actual darts are tiny, not much bigger than a finishing nail. The entry hole would be barely visible, but a depleted uranium sabot leaving your body at fifteen hundred meters a second would suck your arsehole right out the exit wound.”
“A human-sized anal prolapse,” Baker agreed through a chuckle. Then he turned a hoisted eyebrow toward Craig. “Maybe that’s what happened. Maybe someone already hit the collider.”
“You mean the power supply problem they had?”
“Yeah, seems odd that the place lost all of its electricity just a month ago. They’ve been working on it day and night ever since.”
Craig shook his head. “No, I heard that had something to do with someone hitting the big red button.”
“Big red button? You mean like an Easy Button, mate?”
He shrugged. “I have no idea what it looks like, but word is, someone activated the emergency disconnect last month. It physically cut every power line in the ring’s seventeen-mile circumference.”
“Why on earth would anyone do that?”
“You answer that question, and I’ll tell you why they deployed an international quick reaction force here.”
They approached the double steel doors that led to the warehouse that served as their base of operations. Baker reared back and kicked the lock bar. As his boot made contact, knocking the door open, a loud bang echoed through the facility.
“Geez, Baker. You sure someone didn’t piss in your Post Toasties?”
From beneath a puckered forehead, the Aussie gaped at the now open double doors. “That wasn’t me, mate. I didn’t kick it that hard.”
“No worries. Everything echoes loudly in this place.” Craig tugged at the man’s sleeve as the doors began to swing shut. “Come on. Can’t let your grand entrance go to waste.”
“Whatever.”
As they emerged into the facility, Baker pointed into the air, indicating the large structure’s ceiling. Dust was falling from it. “Told you it wasn’t me. Looks like someone’s working on the roof.”
Both men stopped in their tracks as four additional booms shook the building, each as loud as the one they’d heard when Baker had kicked the door.
The ceiling rocked visibly, launching another cascade of dust.
Craig exchanged a glance with Baker. Then both men broke into a run, heading for their base of operations, a base lying directly beneath the now visibly sagging ceiling.
Chapter 2
As Craig rounded the final corner, the sound of shrieking metal came from above.
Ahead, Captain Laurent came flying out of the Labyrinth with the remainder of the quick reaction force following close behind her.
Seeing Craig looking up, she spun on her heels. Trotting backward now, the captain raised the muzzle of her HK416 and pointed it at the visibly trembling section of roofing.
Using hand signals, she silently ordered the troops behind her into a semicircle.
Then the French Special Forces captain pointed at Craig and Baker and gestured to the near side of the formation, ordering them into position next to her.
Craig nodded. He and Baker kept their M4s trained on the ceiling as the two of them moved to shore up the right side of the semicircular formation.
Standing next to Captain Laurent, Craig leaned in and spoke under his breath. “What the bloody hell is happening, Captain?”
She shook her head as she continued to stare up at the facility’s high roof. “I have no idea,” she replied, her French accent clipping the words. “Maybe nothing, but they are supposed to warn us if they’re doing any work up there.” She dragged her gaze from the sight of the still-shuddering ceiling and gave him a meaningful look. “I received no such warning.”
A new sound blared from above.
Wincing, Craig and the captain looked up.
The squealing wail of shredding metal pierced the air.
Dozens of shiny, metallic spikes slammed into view as they penetrated the roof.
Craig took an involuntary backward step. “What the holy fuck is that?!”
Wriggling and writhing, the spikes sawed through the roof, slicing through sheet metal and structural members like a shark shredding a newspaper.
Baker aimed his gun at the moving spikes. “Hell if I know, mate. But if that’s just an overzealous roofing crew,” his index finger slid into position over the trigger, “they had better cut that shit out, or their day is about to go south in a big fucking way.”
The large, circular section of roof bowed farther downward.
The thrashing spikes continued to oscillate.
Then they sliced through the last structural member, cutting both ends of it simultaneously. The entire assembly fell twenty meters and crashed to the floor, crushing the base camp’s labyrinth of cubicles beneath it.
A ring of dust raced outward from the point of impact and quickly filled the large, hangar-like facility.
Having already donned his goggles, Craig swiped the dust away as he continued to aim his rifle at the jagged hole in the roof.
No commandos manifested in the opening.
No ropes fell into view.
Only the too-bright light of the midday summer sun blazed down through the aperture .
Beside him, Baker suddenly flinched. “Crikey!” He yanked his weapon down to aim at something in front of them.
Jittering rays of sunlight danced through the dust, reflecting
off obscured surfaces.
Shifting his M4 to also aim into the swirling mass, Craig stood transfixed as he glimpsed gleaming metal through the thinning particulates.
Then a huge, articulated golden machine resolved from the haze as if borne from the dust itself.
Blinking, unable to accept the information streaming into his visual cortex, Craig gaped at the collection of massive mechanical monstrosities standing atop the ruined section of collapsed roof.
All gleaming metal and sharp angles, the things were as big as horses. Each had multiple legs, but it was their massive heads sporting insectile razor-sharp mandibles that had him stunned into inaction.