by Troy Osgood
The plasma bombs fell in a line across the top of the building. We saw the explosion as the first hit. No sound but we could feel the pressure. A large funnel of red flames shot up from the gray metal building, followed by six more. The structure shook, the concussive blast from each bomb sending shockwaves throughout the building.
Then the second wave hit, falling through the gaps in the roof made by the first salvo. These hit the second floor, some falling to the first. We saw smaller fountains of fire as those struck. But the sides of the building flexed out, bursting at the seams.
And then it did.
The entire building shook and the walls exploded outward. Great balls of flame erupted into the air, metal sections sent flying. We ducked behind the rocks as smaller pieces were flung even this far.
A minute later it was over. The Raptors flew over the debris to make sure the building was completely destroyed. It was. Just a large pile of rubble. Even the flames had died out in the thin atmosphere of the asteroid.
Mission accomplished.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
A bit anticlimactic.
But that’s a good thing.
*****
That was it. Mission over.
The dropship came about ten minutes later, flying in from where it had been waiting outside the asteroid ring. It landed in the open space between the debris and us, we wearily boarded and within five minutes were were spaceborne and heading back to Rewe.
There were congratulations passed around inside the hold and I was included. Fortin pulled a bottle of whiskey from somewhere and we all shared a shot, even Treuto.
I’d forgotten what that felt like. Enjoying a successful mission. No wounded or dead. We’d accomplished our goal. I remembered plenty of missions that had failed, or someone had died. There wasn’t any celebration then so the rare ones that were no dead and a success, those got celebrated.
None of us mentioned what we had found and what we hadn’t found.
That would be for the debrief back on the still nameless station.
Now was just for being thankful we were all still alive.
“We’re making the hop,” the pilots voice came across the loud speaker about forty five or so minutes later.
The small ship shook and made its first hop.
*****
We felt the small ship shift as it turned to back into a docking slot. We heard the clang of the dock maglocks clamp onto the hull and the swish of air being blown into the airlock.
“Welcome back to Rewe.”
The rear door slid open and we all groaned. Inside the airlock were a half dozen 2E techs dressed in white hazmat suits and carrying assorted equipment that they were setting up in the corner of the airlock.
Portable decontamination showers.
I’d forgotten how much fun those could be.
Treuto moaned. It was going to be even worse for him.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
After decontamination was debrief time. I spent an hour, if not more, in a small room with three uniformed 2E officers. They asked me question after question, trying to trip me up and get me to tell the sequence of events differently.
I was an expert at these. They hadn’t changed techniques in five years.
Bored after the first five minutes I started playing with them, purposefully changing things in noticeable ways. They got on another five minutes later and we were able to get down to business.
The real debrief.
*****
I walked out of the small conference room and saw Colonel Jessups in the hallway waiting for me.
“Thank you,” Jessups said.
Nodding I shook his hand. He turned and kept pace with me as we walked.
“You’ll find some credits added to your account.”
I glanced sharply at him, biting back an angry jab. I hadn’t done this for money.
“We reinstated you in the Expeditionary Forces for the mission duration,” he said raising his hand to calm me down. “Also some back pay and Contractor payout.”
“Seriously?” I asked, part annoyed and part incredulous.
What kind of strings did Jessups pull to manage to get all that from the notoriously money tight 2Es. Also, what kind of future favor would be owed?
“We owed you,” Jessups said and I understood that he meant for more than just this mission.
Curious I linked my wristcomm to the stations system and pulled up my account. It took a bit but once I got connected I was a little shocked. That was a lot of money. Well, not really in the grand scheme of things, but for me it was a good chunk of credits. More than I’d had in the account for awhile.
The amount of money that definitely owed a future favor.
I’d be hearing from Jessups in the near future.
The question was now how to spend the money. Could get some needed repairs done on the Nomad’s Wind? Or save it for future rainy days which tended to be almost all of them? Some of both?
We kept walking towards the docking ring and I could tell that Jessups had more to say. I knew him well enough to know that what he wanted to say, he probably shouldn’t.
A couple Europans walked by, providing their version of a salute to Jessups who returned it. I looked over my shoulder at them. One almost all gray, the other black with some gray spots.
Humans were no match physically for the Tiat and that had always been a big advantage the Tiat held over us. Thesans had their natural agility but us Terrans had nothing to counter that advantage. But the Europans were the Tiat’s physical equals. It looked like the 2E leadership had finally come up with a way to offset that disadvantage.
“So did the Europans volunteer to join the Expeditionary Forces or were they convinced?”
Jessups gave me a sad smile. He suddenly looked older, more weary. The load on his shoulders was heavier than I had thought. I suddenly had the realization that he wasn’t being allowed to retire and fade away into the sunset. The 2Es needed him.
And he now had his opening to speak.
“Things aren’t as peaceful as they seem,” he said glancing around. We were alone. “We think there will be another Galactic War in the next ten years, maybe less.”
Things were never truly peaceful as I well knew. I’d just helped blow up a Tiat facility afterall. But what Jessups was saying, that was shocking. Not good at all. The truce and cold war was fine, the rest of the galaxy didn’t care if we sniped at each other in the background. But things were moving towards a full on war?
I lived the last war. Parts of the galaxy were still recovering.
A new one would be worse.
“And we may not have the allies we thought we would,” he added.
I looked at him. That was surprising. The Tiat were hated. To a lesser extent so were we but no one sided with the Tiat ever, not even their supposed allies.
“The greater galaxy has always been angry with us,” Jessups began. “Our early expansions sparked the Third Galactic War and we didn’t learn our lessons. Even now with the threat of war and the trouble on Rewe, we’re planning an Expeditionary Flight. Probes went out over a year ago and next month the scouts are scheduled to leave. The rest of the Flight will be a couple months after that, long enough to make sure the beacons stabilize. The Planetary Council has been trying to talk us out of it for months.”
We had expanded quickly to the two other planets we controlled, the ones outside our home solar system of Sol. But those had been planets we knew about, colonization aided by the Thesans.
There had been only one Expeditionary Flight in my lifetime. The one to Rewe. Standard procedure was to send out drone probes into wildspace with programming to hop out randomly. They’d do a rudimentary analysis of the system, if they managed to arrive safely in a system, and then hop to the next charted system. Eventually, after a set time, they’d follow the hop path back. Lots of smart folks back on Earth would analyze the data and determine the next system to expand into. Scout ships would go out, set up beac
ons and colonists would arrive soon after.
Honestly, I didn’t blame the galaxy for being angry with us. Humans and our need to expand had caused millions of deaths in the galaxy already. And it seemed like we were going to cause more. There was a lot of risk in our style of expansion. Who knows what we’d run into out there. What other civilizations or beings. We could end up poking the bear and not liking the response.
We walked a while in silence. I could tell the future was weighing heavily on Jessups.
“You said we may not have the allies, but once they’re told about the virus the Dyer, Engyn and Serit will stand with us?,” I asked.
Jessups long pause really told me what I needed to know.
“The speculation of a virus you mean,” he started with a sign. “Until we can decode what the team brought back, we have no proof. We’ll inform the planetary governments of the experiments and they’ll do what they want with the information. Can’t inform the Planetary Council without true proof. We may not even tell the Engyn.”
Which might be a good idea. The species was blunt to a fault. They had no filter. They did what they said, didn’t hide what they felt. They were not good at keeping secrets. Telling them that the Tiat were experimenting on captured Engyn would probably be enough for the Engyn to start the next war themselves.
“The Serit have been moving towards isolation for years and this could just push them further. The Dyer, we’ll tell them, and they’ll start their own clandestine investigation and operations.”
We stopped outside an unmarked door and Jessups looked up and down the corridor before speaking again.
“Destroying the facility was a mistake in hindsight,” he said. “Now the Tiat know we are aware of the experiments. If there are other facilities, they’ll tighten security or move them. They could cease operations altogether and all this concern will be for nothing. It’ll be us and our allies chasing our tails and wasting resources. That’s what I’d do.” He shook his head. The situation was not good and was only going to get worse. “Or they double their resources into the project and finish it that much quicker. There are too many variables and I’m afraid we may never catch this one.”
I didn’t envy Jessups or anyone in the 2E right now. Not even Coulson who was also going to be neck deep in this mess and of course doing what he needed to come out smelling good.
But that wasn’t my concern. Not today.
The door opened and Kristin stood there, smiling at me. She was pushed aside and Kaylia ran out of the room, jumping into my arms.
I hugged her tight and for that moment there was no impending war, no potential species killing virus, nothing but her. And all was right in the galaxy.
Author’s Notes
Welcome to the first collected edition of Arek Lancer’s adventures. All these stories have appeared before except for Europan Switch, which was written for publication but never submitted.
I envisioned Arek as a mix of Jack Reacher, Malcolm Reynolds and a little Han Solo. The introduction of Kaylia kind of changed that. Which was a surprise for me but Kaylia just kind of took over and said she wanted to be in the books, so she is. Which allows that side of Lancer to appear in the prequel stories.
Delivery To Orso was written to serve as the “magnet”, or giveaway, that entices readers to sign up for my mailing list. I don’t remember where the name ‘Yortusk’ came from and the Dyer meaning is never revealed in this story. That happens in Volume 4 of Lancer, when the Yortusk reappear. Coulson and Romer were created initially for this story but each will appear in other novels. They’re too fun, and their history with Lancer too rich, not to use again.
Kinn’s Pirates is another story written to serve as a “magnet”. This one was put into an anthology available from the New England Speculative Writers mailing list. There are a lot of homages in this story to one of my favorite cartoons from the 80s, and one of the favorite of all time. The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers. Captain Kinn is based on Captain Kidd from that cartoon and the aliens that make up his crew were also patterned after Kidd’s pirates from that show. I like doing little homages like that. This story has a couple others that appear at the back of the story. Kristin Higareda is based on the character of Kristin Ortega from Netflix’s first season of Altered Carbon, as played by Martha Higareda. Her partner, Waleed Abboud, is based on her partner in Altered Carbon, Samir Abboud as played by Waleed Zuaiter. Kristin pops up throughout the stories.
Europan Switch was written to submit to a anthology put out by a small press publisher. I missed the deadline, which was my fault, so the story sat around until this collected edition. It was meant to serve the same purposes as the other two, a magnet to draw readers to the rest of the stories. I don’t remember where the story came from, but I wanted to do something with the moon Europa and my wife loves otters so the race was created. I liked the idea of giant space otters so much after this story that I put one into Asteroid Return and came up with a reason for them to appear in more stories.
One of the themes I want to hit with Lancer is that there is no good or evil, just people living and doing the best they can. In the books, Terrans aren’t good. To a lot of the galaxy, earthlings are expansionists that started a galactic war. That plays out with how the Terrans treat the Europans.
Lancer himself isn’t a good or bad guy. He’s just a guy trying to make a living and protect the ones he loves. He tries to do the right thing and sometimes he fails.
The Last Child didn’t go how I thought it would. The idea of Lancer came first and then the first story just kind of happened. I didn’t really intend for Kaylia to stick around, that would put a crimp in Lancer’s wandering lifestyle and romantic interactions. I had three different women thought up for him to interact with. Then Kaylia showed up and changed things. Somewhat. Changed for the better I think. I threaded things throughout to set up future storylines and worked up a rough timeline of what the next stories would be. That timeline didn’t last long.
Armageddon Theft came out of nowhere. I was watching or reading something about a world ending and the idea just built from there. Can’t remember exactly what caused this one to happen but it kind of messed up my roughly laid out plans for the series. This was never meant to be book two. But it works. It pushed the other stories down. As did the next book.
Asteroid Return wasn’t meant to be book three, it just kind of happened. I also had meant this story to be told in the past, a story from Lancer’s soldiering days, and in the present. Two parts telling the same story. The original mission to the asteriod and the present day mission to the same asteroid. But it didn’t end up that way. Before I started writing the first past chapter I decided not to tell stories about Lancer’s days as a soldier. The period between when he left the Expeditionary Forces and The Last Child are open to any story but I think I’ll leave his days in the 2Es alone. Like other stories, there are a couple of homages here as well.
The Castellan Ship Builders tend to take their ship design ideas from the same inspiration. LEGO. Nomad’s Wind is based on an old LEGO set, 497-1 from 1979, the F in the ship’s designation comes from Serenity from the TV show Firefly. The Hammers BT6894 are based on the LEGO Blacktron 6894-1 from 1987 and the Raptors X6932 are based on the LEGO Stardefender 6932-1 from 1987. Expect to see more such homages in more Castellan ships.
That’s it for this edition. Thank you for reading and I hope you look forward to the rest of Arek Lancer’s stories. Check out my website below for a full listing of my published works as well as other writings.
Thanks for reading,
Troy
Ossy Writes website: https://www.ossywrites.com
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About The Author
Born and raised in the granite state of New Hampshire, Troy is a lifelong and avid reader of comic books and novels (mostly in the fantasy, sci-
fi and adventure/thriller genres). The ongoing serial storytelling methods of comic books and television has always fascinated him and provided inspiration for his writing. He’s always had a love of creating and world building and dreams of someday seeing his creations expressed across all media: books, comic books, movies, TV and even toys.
When not writing, Troy can be found outside hiking, kayaking or out back at the bonfire with beer in hand. Don’t expect to bother him during football season, especially when the Patriots are playing.
The Collected Lancer Volume 1 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 entirely coincidental.
First Edition 2019
Copyright 2019 by Troy Osgood
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-7338562-1-8
Published in the United States by Barking Fire Publishing, Northwood New Hampshire
Barking Fire Publishing and its logo are registered trademarks of Barking Fire Publishing, LLC
Cover art by GermanCreative
Barking Fire logo by Kat Howell
http://www.barkingfirepublishing.com