Retribution: Sector 64 Book Two Read online

  Newcastle rested his elbow on the spacesuit helmet he'd stowed on the left console. The big man scratched his head. Thick fingers left short-lived furrows in the stiff bristles of his graying flattop.

  Casting a nervous look over his right shoulder, Jake scanned the battlefield.

  Several kilometers behind them, a broken and burned asteroid hung motionlessly against the backdrop of stars. It was the tattered dead remnant of the only remaining enemy ship.

  Every time he looked that way, Jake half-expected to find the asteroid bearing down on them, the alien face sculpted across its hundred-meter width glaring at him.

  A mental image of spraying arterial blood crowded out his thoughts.

  Jake shook away the memory, forcing out the unbidden image.

  He focused on the enemy ship. It still wasn't following them, but he knew it never would. Jake and his wingman, Captain Richard Allison, had searched the interior of the hollowed-out asteroid.

  There weren't any enemy aliens left, none living, anyway.

  Of course, there weren't any friendly aliens left either.

  A few weeks ago, Jake had been a simple fighter pilot, just an Air Force officer training for another combat deployment to the Middle East. In preparation for the air war against ISIS, Jake and a wingman had taken a pair of F-22s out on a night training exercise over Las Vegas's Nellis Air Force Base.

  Events of that night had led to Jake's presence here today.

  Now he and Colonel Newcastle—an officer he hadn't known until a few hours ago—drifted across a cluttered battlefield in a human-made spaceship—a space fighter that Jake hadn't known existed before this morning.

  Hundreds of tumbling ships of varying sizes drifted around the mammoth Galactic Guardian, all of them undamaged. They were also fully functional.

  And completely devoid of life.

  As far as Jake knew, the two of them were the only living souls in Earth orbit.

  Captain Giard shook his head.

  No, not orbit.

  Hell, things would have been a lot easier if they had been in orbit, if the battle hadn't taken place at a relative hover.

  One of the first lessons a fighter pilot learned was that, in aerial combat, speed and altitude are the currency of life. Without one or both, a fighter pilot wasn't long for this world.

  Here they had altitude, had it in spades, but in space, the lack of orbital speed rendered said altitude a liability.

  Gravity drives held every one of these ships aloft. A reverse-engineered version of the same technology even held their small space fighter up here as well.

  As Jake had already seen, if a ship's gravity drive failed, the vessel would drop like Wile E. Coyote one second after he'd chased the Roadrunner over the cliff's edge.

  During the battle—far below a geostationary altitude, and nowhere near orbital speed—anything that had lost its protective gravity bubble had fallen like a homesick rock.

  In the aftermath, small drifting space fighters didn't pose much of a threat to the planet below. However, hundreds of incredibly massive ships hung two hundred miles above the North Atlantic Ocean like the hammer of God stayed by a slowly unraveling technological thread.

  Only gravity drives and their currently unmonitored power systems held the enemy asteroid ship as well as the Argonian carrier and its complement of stadium-sized battlecruisers at bay. Without one of the two, they'd instantly drop into the planet's gravity well.

  A lesson Jake had relearned only a few minutes earlier.

  After he and Captain Richard Allison had finished sweeping the alien asteroid, they had parted ways. Newcastle had instructed Richard to take a small spaceship called the Turtle back to Nellis Air Force Base for supplies and personnel.

  Yes, if you squinted just the right way, the ship looked like a turtle—sans head and legs—albeit a very, very fast turtle.

  Anyway, the two ships had no means of coupling. Without a docking connector, Jake's transfer to the colonel's ship had required a spacewalk.

  From the Turtle's airlock, Captain Giard had saluted the colonel.

  "Permission to board, sir?"

  Newcastle had returned the salute, then waved impatiently. "Let's go, Captain."

  After a moment to estimate the vector and necessary force, Jake pushed off of the Turtle. As soon as he had cleared the round-topped ship, he'd foolishly notified Richard of the fact.

  Unlike its namesake, the Turtle was fast, the now-you-see-it-now-you-don't kind of fast.

  Jake slowly floated across four feet of open space with his hands extended toward Newcastle's fighter.

  He felt a brief flutter in his abdomen, and the colonel's ship rocketed upward. To his right, Jake saw the speed-blurred image of the Turtle blazing toward the western horizon.

  Richard had left for Nevada.

  He shifted confused eyes to Newcastle's fading fighter.

  "Uh … Colonel Newcastle? Where are you going, sir?"

  Then Jake saw another problem. Every ship in the battlefield had flown away from him.

  "Oh shit!"

  He had swapped one zero-G frame of reference for another.

  Jake was falling.

  Of course, he'd felt like he was falling as soon as he stepped out of the Turtle's one-G interior field and into its external zero-G buffer.

  But now he was truly falling.

  And truly fucked if nothing changed.

  Like Wile E. Coyote, Jake fell feet first into Earth's gravity well. He could almost see the cartoon swoosh above his head. Unlike said cartoon character, Jake didn't have a Help! sign to hold up.

  So he screamed it.

  "Help!"

  Nothing. No one responded.

  As far as he knew, his suit's radio was only designed for short ranges, although this was the first day he'd ever used one.

  "Richard!"

  No reply.

  "Colonel?"

  "Hang on, Captain. Almost there," Newcastle said, sounding maddeningly calm.

  Jake's body had rolled forward a few degrees—that might've had something to do with his flailing arms. Craning his neck, he looked upward again. A bright point of light moved against the backdrop of stars. In seconds, it expanded into a space fighter.

  "Thank God!"

  Hyperventilating and not wanting to look down, Jake focused on the fighter. With a hundred and fifty miles of empty space between him and the upper reaches of the atmosphere, he didn't want to think about how fast he'd be going when he got there.

  So of course, it was all he could think about.

  His heart pounded in his ears. Wide-eyed, he watched as Newcastle matched his acceleration. Then the Air Force colonel overtook him and slid his ship under Jake. From Jake's perspective, the colonel's fighter had swooped in from above, but now it hovered under him.

  "Holy shit!" Jake screamed.

  The Atlantic Ocean already looked closer.

  "Don't look down, Captain," Newcastle said. He pointed two fingers at his own eyes. "Focus on me."

  Jake did as the officer said.

  After a moment, he reined in his breathing and stopped flapping his arms.

  "That's better," the colonel said.

  The space fighter slid a few feet closer.

  Jake felt a flutter in his abdomen again. For a second, he floated a couple of feet above the fighter. Then, the ship's internal one-G gravity field pulled him onto the ship's outer skin.

  The smooth metal surface sloped toward the ship's edge.

  Jake started to slide toward the precipice.

  "Oh fuck!"

  The fighter's bubble canopy shot upward. A vice-like hand clamped down on his forearm.

  Before Jake knew what was happening, the big man had dragged him into the cockpit.

  After a few seconds, he caught his breath. Swallowing hard, Jake fought to rein in his racing heart.

  His suit's helmet retracted as the cockpit pressurized.

  "Sorry about that, Captain," Newcastle said, his Texas a
ccent even thicker in person. "My fault. Should've let Allison know that my gravity bubble doesn't reach as far as the Turtle's."

  "I can't believe Richard didn't come back."

  "He didn't know. I didn't radio him. Figured I could get you."

  Jake blinked. "I'm glad you were so sure, sir."

  Newcastle twisted his helmet and removed it. Setting it on the left console, he gave Jake a crooked, sideways grin and winked. "You're welcome, Captain."

  That had been several minutes ago. Now they were back, flying through the field of slowly tumbling ghost ships.

  Jake's stomach knotted up again as his thoughts returned to their final battle in the Zoxyth ship. Every time he thought of the short, close quarters battle, the image of Victor's spraying arterial blood filled his mind's eye.

  Captain Giard shifted his gaze outside. The real-world image of an emptied Galactic Defense Force fleet pushed out the memory and the doubts it fed.

  A GDF starfighter tumbled past them. The ship was a smaller, sleeker version of the Turtle. Not unlike the vessel he'd encountered less than three weeks earlier, during the training flight.

  The fateful events of that night had embroiled Jake in a decades-long well-intentioned global conspiracy.

  The world was going to change for the better!

  And Jake was going to be part of it!

  Apparently a lost colony of Argonians—or humans, as we call ourselves—had been stranded on this planet tens of thousands of years ago. In the intervening millennia, we lost touch with that past and integrated with or eliminated the indigenous populations—as witnessed by the disappearance of Cro-Magnon man and the recent finding of Neanderthal genes mixed with our own.

  But humanity was no longer a lost colony.

  After detecting nuclear detonations in backwater Galactic Sector 64, the Argonian leadership of the United Galactic Federation sent agents to establish first contact.

  The emissaries arrived in the year locally designated as 1947. They soon discovered the planet was inhabited by Argonians.

  Their initial foray into Earth space ended in tragedy, an incident popularly known as Roswell.

  After recovering from that unfortunate event, the emissaries met with world leaders of the day. They laid out a seventy-five-year plan to incorporate our world into the galactic government.

  In spite of our genetic relationship, the Argonians decided to follow their standard integration protocols. During the intervening decades, the process had streamlined our global culture and economy for inclusion in galactic society.

  As Jake had learned, we were approaching the point of disclosure, the time when the entrusted governments could reveal the secret to the world.

  Then Zox happened.

  This morning, a fleet of sixteen city-sized asteroid ships showed up on our doorstep.

  The Zoxyth, an ancient reptilian race with a deep-seated hate for Argonians, attacked Earth. They'd used a new weapon of a type and capability that even the GDF hadn't anticipated.

  The whole thing had been a coup de main, a ruse to draw the Galactic Defense Forces into an ambush.

  Jake shook his head as he considered the tragic irony.

  Our genetic lineage had made us the perfect pawn. The bastards had hit us with a genocidal weapon that eradicated anyone with Argonian genes.

  Unfortunately, the GDF had been late to the party.

  In less than an hour, the fleet of sixteen asteroid ships depopulated most of the world's capital cities.

  Jake had seen the aftermath firsthand. The weapon left nothing but a pile of clothes where the person had been. Everything else remained untouched: birds chirped, banal elevator music maddened, driverless automobiles and unpiloted airplanes met fiery ends.

  You know. Typical end of the world shit. Shit for which even dozens of apocalyptic movies and books hadn't prepared Jake.

  He shook his head again.

  A lot of good that integration plan and our genetic lineage had done.

  Too bad our ancestors hadn't mixed with a few more Neanderthals. Maybe a little more genetic diversity would have rendered the enemy's gene weapon ineffective.

  Jake pointed at the Galactic Guardian. "Would it have killed the bastards to give us a little heads-up? A simple Oh, by the way, there's a race of giant, pissed-off reptiles out there. Here are some ships to defend yourself would have been nice."

  Without responding, the colonel leveled off the fighter a few feet above the carrier's hull.

  Jake still hadn't seen an access point. He pointed over the colonel's shoulder. "I think their fighters launched out of the back of the ship."

  Newcastle nodded. "That's where I'm headed."

  Below the space fighter's belly, the Galactic Guardian's skin flowed like black mercury. To Jake's left and right, curled protrusions of unknown purpose scrolled past like frozen waves on a sable river.

  "You know," Newcastle said softly. "They did ultimately give their lives."

  "What, sir?"

  "Those bastards you mentioned. They sacrificed themselves … for us."

  Jake felt his face flush.

  The reason these ships were now empty was because the Galactic Defense Forces had stayed in the battle, even after Jake had warned the GDF commander about the effects of the enemy's weapon.

  Ultimately, the commander and his troops had sacrificed themselves to save Earth.

  Jake wanted to shout at the colonel. Yeah, a lot of Argonians had died here today, but down there, millions more had lost their lives.

  Jake ground his teeth together.

  The image of Victor's head falling to the floor followed a second later by his body flooded Jake's reddening vision.

  "Son," Newcastle said in a paternal tone. "I know what's really eating you. I told you not to kick yourself."

  "Excuse me, sir?"

  "From what you told me, Lieutenant Croft died a hero."

  Jake's head snapped back as if the colonel had slapped him.

  In a day chock full of fucked-up shit, somehow Victor's death weighed heaviest on him.

  The colonel was right.

  Jake shook his head, and his shoulders slumped as the fight left him.

  "If I had acted quicker, sir, he might still be alive."

  "Quicker? You were the one who realized it was a ruse, that the Zox were using our genetic ties with the Argonians to draw the Galactic Defense Forces into a sneak attack. If you hadn't figured out the enemy's plan when you did, they would've wiped out the GDF."

  "My call didn't do them much good." Jake pointed at the empty Galactic Guardian. "They still got wiped out."

  "Yeah, but not before the good guys hit first. Your quick thinking allowed them to take out all but the last ship. If you hadn't warned them, the Zoxyth would've fired that damned weapon with their entire fleet still intact. How many millions or billions more would've died?"

  Jake turned from Newcastle and looked at the battle-blasted remnant of the enemy ship. The colonel's words sent a chill down his spine.

  The Zoxyth vessels weren't as big as the carrier, but they'd dwarfed the GDF's battlecruisers. All sixteen had been unique, each a collection of hollowed-out asteroids held together by trusses and skyscraper-sized metal structures. Serving as the ship's bridge, a huge, sculpted Zoxyth bust with a human skull clenched in its jaw headed each, literally.

  After Jake had warned the Galactic Defense Forces, the Argonians opened fire, hitting the Zoxyth fleet with a continuous laser barrage. The GDF commander, Admiral Thoyd Feyhdyak, told them that an enemy ship under an active shield couldn't fire the gene weapon.

  They had to keep the enemy pinned down.

  No matter the consequences, they had to keep the Zoxyth ships under constant fire.

  The humans had remained outside of the gene weapon's range. However, the Argonian fleet was trapped between the enemy ships and the planet. They couldn't get out of range, not without leaving Earth unprotected.

  As some of his lasers diverted to vaporizing de
bris falling from the hovering enemy fleet, the GDF admiral had requested assistance from Colonel Newcastle's space fighters.

  The combined firepower of Argonian lasers and human nuclear bunker busters had peeled back the defending ships like layers of an onion.

  Finally, only the scorched bridge section of the commander's ship remained. However, as the last missile closed in on the unshielded ship remnant, the bastard had fired the gene weapon. In the millisecond between the failure of the last shield and the impact of the missile, the genocidal weapon's energy wave surged across the battlefield, completely enveloping the GDF fleet.

  In the blink of an eye, every Argonian in the Galactic Defense Force's hundreds of ships ceased to exist.

  Hovering in the middle of the surreal scene, the intact alien face chiseled into the front of the enemy bridge glared across the battlefield.

  The final bunker buster had passed through the hollowed-out asteroid without detonating.

  Jake, Richard, and Victor had boarded the ship remnant, armed with only pistols and shotguns. Inside, they met no resistance. At first, only mangled enemy bodies greeted their arrival. Then they found their first and last living Zoxyth on the top floor of the bridge.

  The massive, heavily injured reptilian beast had attacked with a ferocity Jake hadn't thought possible. Unscathed by multiple shotgun blasts, the monster attacked Richard.

  In an instant of uncharacteristic valor, Jake's junior wingman, Lieutenant Victor Croft, charged the beast.

  Looking over the colonel's shoulder, Jake consulted the fighter's clock.

  Only two hours earlier, the enemy commander had beheaded his friend and wingman.

  Jake hadn't reacted fast enough to save him.

  "Hell, son," Newcastle said softly. "I owe you a great debt. Because of you, I'll get to see my grandchildren again." Not waiting for a reply, he patted Jake's protruding knee. "Now let's get back to work."

  After a long pause, Jake nodded. "Yes, sir."

  CHAPTER THREE

  "Nellis Tower, this is Turtle One, over," said Captain Richard Allison.

  "Roger, Turtle One. This is Nellis Tower. I don't have you on radar. Please state aircraft position and type."

  "Nellis Tower, I'm currently fifty miles south, descending out of flight level two thousand five hundred."