The Ghost Pact: A Sci-Fi Horror Thriller (Tech Ghost Book 2)

by Ben Wolf

  Whether or not any of ACM’s other soldiers had seen the orange light, he didn’t know, but that was of little concern. It was an anomaly, and with precious few leads to pursue, it had shined like a beacon in the night, calling him to it.

  Before he could move, Vesh’s comms beeped in the uplink in his head, and a generic woman’s voice spoke.

  “Code Ebony. By order of Admiral Sever, all soldiers must head to the docking bay for immediate return to the Avarice. Repeat: Code Ebony.”

  The comms beeped again, and his uplink disengaged.

  A Code Ebony meant that no fewer than two enemy warships were en route, and as such, the Avarice was to regroup with the nearest ACM fleet so as to avoid a potentially unwinnable confrontation. It represented a fundamental contradiction of Admiral Sever’s mandate to Vesh.

  But given Vesh’s unique status, he could choose to remain deployed on his current mission rather than return to the Avarice. Doing so might invoke Admiral Sever’s ire, but if he succeeded in spite of the change in orders, it wouldn’t matter. Based on what Admiral Sever had told him, the mission’s importance to ACM trumped everything else.

  Even if he got stranded aboard this colonist ship, he’d find a way to survive until he could send a secure transmission requesting extraction, or he could steal a transport ship and escape, or he could pursue any number of other potential paths back to ACM’s headquarters in the core planets.

  The decision was his. Either way, time was short.

  Vesh changed his course and headed toward the source of the light.

  {: We’re all set. :} Keontae’s words scrawled across the screen in Justin’s hexpod. {: Retreat orders are issued. I handled everything so it looks like this ship’s about to be in some major shit. :}

  “I can’t believe you’re pulling it off.”

  {: Wasn’t easy. You’d better believe that. But yeah, it’s done. :}

  “You wanna jump back in my arm?”

  {: Not yet. Lots of movin’ pieces here. Gotta keep some of their communications jammed so the captain and the admiral can’t talk to each other, can’t figure out why their wires are crossed. Just grab me on your way out. There’s a surprise for you in the docking bay. I’ll handle the rest. :}

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  {: No reason to wait around. Doors will open for you whenever you’re ready to move, and only doors I want you goin’ through. That way you won’t get any nasty surprises as you move. You just gotta get past the brig guards, and you’re set. :}

  Justin glanced past his feet at the group of prisoners clustered in the common area. “No problem there.”

  {: Anyone you wanna take with you, now’s the time. Anyone left behind ain’t gonna make it. :}

  “Got it.”

  {: Then get your ass movin’. Gotta get you back to your girlfriend. :}

  “Damn right.” Justin grinned and slid out of his hexpod.

  When his boots hit the floor, he headed for Val’s pod straightaway. She watched him the whole way over.

  He leaned close to her and asked in a quiet voice, “You ready to get outta here?”

  She eyed him. “This again?”

  “Not a joke. Not a ploy. We’re ready.”

  She squinted at him, as if judging his sincerity. “You’re serious.”

  “Have been this whole time.”

  “Plan?”

  “There’s a song… hundreds of years old,” Justin said. “Perfect for this situation.”

  Val just looked at him, waiting.

  “‘Send in the Clowns.’” Justin nodded toward the rest of the prisoners. “Door’s open. Someone just needs to walk through.”

  Slowly, a smirk curled the right side of Val’s mouth.

  “You’re certain our information is correct?” Captain Jacob Gable asked his first officer.

  “Aye, sir,” First Officer Reyes replied. “Long-range scans show a fleet of Coalition warships warping toward us. The Nidus must’ve given off some sort of distress signal. The Avarice automatically issued a recall to our forces aboard the Nidus.”

  “I thought that had to be done manually.”

  “There must’ve been a software update from corporate. It didn’t give us an option—just jumped right to it, sir,” Reyes replied.

  “Yet you are unable to hail Admiral Sever?”

  “Correct, sir. His transport is unresponsive.”

  “He’ll figure it out soon enough when our men start leaving him behind.” Gable rubbed his chin. Something about this felt off, but he couldn’t say what. “Report any other anomalies you notice, no matter how small.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  The first group of prisoners bolted through the now-unshielded doors and overwhelmed the brig guards with their fists in a matter of seconds.

  They stomped them into submission, snapping bones and splattering blood across the lobby floor. Then they stripped the downed guards of their weapons and charged into the rest of the ship like a pack of monkeys escaping the zoo.

  Justin and Val followed behind at a cautious distance, heading through corridors behind them until a door closed behind the prisoners, separating Justin and Val from them. They skidded to a halt and looked around for alternate paths. A green light flickered down a corridor to their left, so Justin grabbed Val by her wrist and tugged her toward it.

  She yanked away sharply. “How do you know we need to go that way?”

  “My friend’s guiding us. Follow the green light, and the doors we’re supposed to go through will open on their own.” Justin tried to grab her wrist again, but she smacked his hand away.

  “I didn’t give you permission to touch me,” she said. “So don’t.”

  “Fair enough.” He motioned with his head. “This way.”

  Keontae’s green light led them through a maze of corridors within the Avarice. As promised, doors that were supposed to open did so, and other doors remained shut or closed as they approached. Without Keontae’s direction, Justin would’ve been lost after the first turn, and thus far, they hadn’t encountered even a single ACM soldier.

  That changed when the next door opened, this time not to another corridor but to a room. Inside stood racks and racks of rifles, repeaters, grenades, armor, and other weapons and equipment.

  An armory. Apparently Keontae thought they’d need weapons on their way out.

  But there before them, about to walk out as they were heading in, stood an ACM soldier with a confused look on his face and a handscreen in his hands.

  18

  Before Justin could react, Val was already in motion.

  She lurched forward, wrapped her hands around the back of the soldier’s neck, and drove her knee straight into his groin.

  He dropped the handscreen and crumpled to the floor, and Val drew the soldier’s sidearm from its holster as he fell. One quick blast from his repeater finished him off, and her head immediately swiveled, scanning the room for additional threats.

  Justin couldn’t believe how quickly she’d dispatched the guy. He gawked at her. “What the hell?”

  “I told you,” she said, lowering the repeater, “it cost me a lot to learn what I know, and I’m good at what I do.”

  “Apparently,” Justin said.

  “Come on.” She motioned him inside. “Let’s get what we need and get out of here.”

  When the first transport fired up and cruised out of the docking bay, Admiral Sever thought nothing of it. Transports between the Nidus and the Avarice came and went every so often, replenishing supplies and weapons, bringing over fresh soldiers to replace the wounded ones, and so on.

  But when the engines of a half dozen more transports hummed to life, Sever grew curious enough to leave the comfort of his personal transport and investigate. As he stepped out of his transport and into the docking bay, a wave of confusion swept over him.

  Hundreds of his soldiers were boarding the dozens of transports in the Nidus’s docking bay, and several of them had already taken off and were al
ready flying back to the Avarice.

  What the hell?

  He stormed over to the nearest transport and shouted, “Someone had better give me a damned good explanation for what’s going on here, or I’ll have the Avarice shoot your transport down the instant it leaves the confines of this ship!”

  The soldiers waiting to board the transport froze for a second and then scrambled to drop their gear and salute Sever.

  “Forget that bullshit,” he snapped. “Answer my question now.”

  They glanced at each other as if dumbstruck.

  Sever stomped his foot, and his boot clapped against the docking bay floor.

  “Admiral, sir,” one of the soldiers finally spoke up. “We received an automated message over our comms ordering us to return to the Avarice under a Code Ebony.”

  Code Ebony? Rival ships were coming for the Avarice? “On whose authority?”

  The soldier gulped and looked at his comrades.

  “Answer me, soldier.”

  “Y-yours, sir,” the soldier replied.

  Sever’s eyes widened. What the hell was going on? He’d given no such order. Even with a Code Ebony, he would’ve kept his forces aboard the Nidus. Finding that which ACM sought was more important than the entirety of the Avarice and its crew.

  Whatever was going on, it had been effective enough to draw every single soldier of his forces away from Nidus City and send them back to the Avarice. That had to stop right now.

  “Belay that order,” he barked. “Get everyone off this transport immediately, and stop as many other soldiers and transports as you can from leaving.”

  This time, the soldiers didn’t second-guess him. They sprang into action, abandoning most of their gear behind as they spread along the docking bay.

  Sever retreated to his personal transport and tried to hail the Avarice onscreen, but for whatever reason, his transmission refused to go through. He waited twice as long as it would normally take to connect, then three times, four times, and five times as long, but the connection wheel on the screen just continued to spin.

  He cursed and hurried back out of his transport.

  To Sever’s dismay, the vast majority of the remaining transports abandoned the docking bay to return to the Avarice. The soldiers he’d managed to stop numbered about a hundred, and they’d successfully convinced another transport to stay put, but the rest had all gone.

  He noticed Commander Falstaff jogging toward him, and he didn’t try to conceal his ire.

  “Admiral,” Falstaff said with an abrupt salute, “perhaps you can shed some light on—”

  “I didn’t give orders to fall back or return to the Avarice. I didn’t give any orders at all,” Sever snapped. “Something went fritzwire over on the Avarice, and an automated order in response to a Code Ebony recalled everyone.”

  “So we are to stay here?”

  “Yes, and I’m sending you back to the Avarice with orders for Captain Gable to return all of my soldiers immediately.”

  Falstaff eyed him. “Why wouldn’t you just—”

  “The comms on my ship aren’t working. I can’t get through.”

  “Admiral, I’d be happy to take a look if—”

  “Sending you across the void is a faster, more surefire way of executing my will. I don’t need tech support; I need soldiers.”

  Falstaff nodded and saluted. “Aye, sir. I’ll leave right away.”

  “Order the remaining soldiers to rally to me,” Sever said. “I’ll lead them back into the city myself.”

  Falstaff’s eyes widened, and his saluting hand sank back to his side. “Admiral, are you sure that’s wise? For a man of your rank to—”

  “Did you lose your balls down in that city, Commander? You rarely question anything I command, yet you’ve protested my orders three times in the last thirty seconds.”

  “I’m sorry, Admiral.” Falstaff’s jaw tightened and his posture went rigid. “I only meant to look out for your best interests.”

  “What’s in my best interests,” Sever countered, “is to find our quarry, capture it, and bring it to Andridge. If it is what we believe it is, then we cannot delay, and we cannot let it slip between our fingers.”

  “Understood, sir. I’ll relay the orders.”

  As Falstaff turned and headed for the nearest group of soldiers, Sever returned to his personal transport and entered his private armory. There, he changed out of his dress uniform and into armor like the rest of the soldiers wore.

  Unlike the others, however, he donned a special underlayer of body armor on his torso. ACM’s outer armor was excellent, but another precaution wouldn’t hurt.

  Then he strapped a top-of-the-line plasma repeater and its holster to his right leg, clipped a bandolier with some grenades across his chest, and selected his favorite pulse rifle from the collection. Neither the plasma repeater nor the pulse rifle were standard-issue weapons, but as the admiral, he could carry whatever the hell he wanted.

  He also pulled the black failsafe orb—the Pilkington—out of his trousers pocket and stuffed it into a magnetized pouch on his tactical belt. He couldn’t risk leaving it behind, not with so much uncertainty. Sever patted his pouch to ensure the flap had closed, and he hefted his pulse rifle into his hands once again.

  Now armed to the teeth, he ventured out of the transport and approached the remaining soldiers awaiting him. When he came into view, several of the soldiers pointed at him, and the rest quickly turned to face him.

  Then, as one, they began to hoot and applaud.

  Normally Sever would’ve disdained such a response, but given the previous confusion, he decided he didn’t mind. Even so, he held up his free hand to calm them.

  “You men and women are the last remnant of loyal ACM soldiers who rightfully disregarded the false order given over the comms. Reinforcements will soon join us, but let us show them that we don’t need their help anyway. Together, we will venture into Nidus City and seek out our targets: a group of scientists hiding somewhere within this ship.

  “Our mission is of the utmost importance to Andridge’s corporate headquarters. We cannot fail, and so we will succeed. Join me in the glory that comes with securing our company’s place in this galaxy forever.”

  All 200 or so of the ACM soldiers bellowed, “Aye, sir!”

  “Follow me.” Sever led them past the second-to-last transport, which took off and headed for the Avarice with Commander Falstaff on board, and toward the docking bay doors.

  As he progressed, he checked an indicator on his wrist. It showed Vesh’s location within the city. He would be their starting point, and he looked to be coming toward them, albeit from quite far away.

  Soon they would be reunited, and they could seek out the scientists and their quarry together. Soon this would all be over.

  The Avarice’s docking bay beckoned Justin and Val inside, but they both hesitated. Even though they now wore ACM uniforms and carried standard-issue pulse rifles, venturing into the docking bay was still an intimidating prospect.

  But Keontae had insisted that they move fast, so they kept moving.

  They headed along a catwalk mounted to the back wall of the docking bay, still following the blinking green light overhead. By that point, dozens of ACM troop transport ships were returning from the Nidus, and soldiers were disembarking.

  It looked like the entire force had decided to return to their ship. The sight amazed Justin. Keontae had done it—he’d actually pulled it off.

  Now they just had to get off this damn ship before Keontae did whatever else he was going to do.

  Ignoring all the commotion below, they headed to the far end of the docking bay until the green light stopped on the ceiling. Below it sat a ship that looked incredibly similar to the one Hallie and her team had arrived in, only brand new.

  “That’s incredible,” Justin marveled. “He wants us to steal that ship… too bad I don’t know how to fly one.”

  “I know a bit,” Val said.

  Jus
tin looked back at her. “So do you believe me now? About getting out?”

  Val’s pierced eyebrow rose. “We’re not out yet.”

  Together, they descended a staircase toward the ship, all while keeping a careful watch on the arriving transports and the soldiers inside. When they reached the ship on the docking bay floor, they quickly discovered they couldn’t access it.

  But Keontae could.

  Justin searched for a console or a panel with a screen of some sort where he could receive Keontae back into his arm. He saw one near a door on the main floor.

  “Stay put,” he told Val.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To get that ship open.”

  Justin headed over to the panel and pressed his prosthetic hand against the screen. It flared green, and his fingers tingled as Keontae made the jump.

  “You done?” Justin asked.

  [Everything’s in motion. We got maybe five minutes to get clear of this place. Ten minutes tops. If not, you’re gonna join me as a permanent resident of the afterlife.]

  “What did you do?” Justin asked.

  [Armed their antimatter missiles. They’re gonna blow sooner rather than later. Should cripple the ship, at least.]

  “Shit.”

  “Sir?” a voice said from behind him.

  Justin whirled around in time to see a trio of ACM soldiers in full armor. He caught sight of his surprised reflection in their mirrored face shields.

  They looked him up and down. He was wearing an officer’s uniform—damned if he knew his own rank, though…

  The one in the center asked, “Sir, is everything alright?”

  “Fine, soldier,” Justin replied, hoping his voice wasn’t shaking too much. “Just dealing with the usual bullshit around here.”

  That was generic enough, right? He certainly hadn’t outed himself as an imposter in only a handful of words.

  “Yeah,” the lead soldier said. “Hard to know what to make of the admiral’s orders.”

  [I ordered them to return under a Code Ebony,] Keontae explained.