by Andrew Beery
Boneyard Dog #1,
War Dog (v1)
Copyright 2018 by Andrew Beery
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’d like to thank my wife Lori and my two daughters, CJ and Jackie, for putting up with me while I wrote this latest. Any similarities between people in this book and my immediate family and friends is purely intentional. Of course, I wouldn’t be much of a pastor if I didn’t acknowledge God – to Him be all the glory! To keep up to date on all my books… be sure to follow me on Amazon by clicking the +Follow button on my authors page!
Chapter 1: Dog Pound…
Did you ever wake up wondering where you were… and perhaps equally important, how you got there? Yeah, me too. The only the thing is, it usually happens when I’ve been drinking… and I’d been dry for the better part of two years.
I’m Commodore Jeremy David Riker… my friends call me JD or just plain “Dog.” I have the dubious honor of running a starship boneyard in the middle of nowhere.
My head hurt and there was a funny smell. It was almost like ozone or something medicinal. I opened my eyes and then shut them real-quick. Carefully, I opened a single eyelid. I closed it again… real-quick.
You have to understand; I had been running this boneyard for the Federated Fleet for the better part of three years. That’s what happens when you are an ambitious, up-and-coming, fleet officer and you piss off a Federation Admiral by marrying his only daughter… and then have the audacity to get separated from her when she insists you give up your command-track.
A man like me and a nice safe desk job don’t mix. I tried to explain this to my wife… but all I got was a nasty letter and a promotion. Admiral ‘Dad’ dumped (I mean posted) me in the middle of nowhere. Most people who knew me eventually got royally pissed off with me. What can I say? It’s a gift… the result of being too smart… too honest… too often.
I tried opening up my eyes a second time and then closed them just as fast… bummer. Nothing had changed.
Again, you have to understand… I knew the smell and look of every piece of dilapidated junk orbiting the Ceres boneyard. What I just saw… and what I had been smelling… didn’t look like anything I remembered.
I had to make a decision. Do I open my eyes and deal with this situation? Or do I keep my eyes closed… go back to sleep and hope the problem goes away? In the end, my bladder forced an answer. I really had to pee.
I slowly opened my eyes. Yup… Dorothy you’re not in Kanas any more.
I appeared to be in some type of geeky science lab. The lights were dim and had a distinct reddish cast to them. The equipment was like nothing I had ever seen before.
I mean it was clearly electronic, but nothing looked like anything I had ever run across … and being the top dog in a junkyard for interplanetary space ships meant I had pretty much run acrosseverything good old Terra could make and fly in our solar system. Everything from state-of-the-art Chinese Zǎo- Shang destroyers fragged in that dust-up over Mars… to the really big Indian Shaktishaalee-Bal ships. We only had one of those – they’re pretty damn tough to kill.
My point is, I had seen it all… and this wasn’t anything I had seen.
I rolled off the padded table I had awoken on. It was then that I noticed that I was dressed the same way my momma brought me into the world… which was to say I was not. Now I was getting really pissed off.
My threads were a point of pride. I was only a captain in the Federated Fleet… but since I was the commander-of-record for more than one ship… (I had the command codes for over two hundred but I’m not bragging), I was technically allowed to wear a Commodore star above a gold band. It didn’t change my paygrade but hey ya can’t have everything.
With my uniform AWOL and a full bladder, I was beginning to wonder just what I had gotten myself into?
My last memory was taking a flitter to inspect a Mars Gnat fighter that had just been recovered and dropped off at the boneyard. They were a dime a dozen but sometimes they had unexploded ordnance that could be a real problem with the other boneyard ships orbiting Ceres. One little bang and I could spend weeks (and a year’s fuel allotment) chasing down the strays that had been knocked out of orbit.
It seemed to me, as I was approaching the Gnat… yeah that’s right! There had been something huge suddenly pop up on my LIDAR. The next thing I knew, I had a headache and a really full bladder.
That last was becoming a serious concern. I didn’t see anything that looked like a head. I started to look for a bottle or a flask… or even a sink with a drain in it. I had finally decided on a corner, chosen at random if you’re curious, when I heard a swish behind me.
“Oh, good you’re awake.”
I turned around, hands placed strategically to protect my honor.
The female voice sounded familiar. It was the voice of the person most responsible for my having that Commodore star. Lori Spratt, Admiral Spratt’s one and only daughter.
***
It’s amazing what an empty bladder, clean clothes, and a cup of reasonably good coffee can do to improve your outlook on life. The fact that a gorgeous blond was sitting across the table from me was an added plus.
We were in a sealed section of what seemed to be a ship of some type. The tech was vaguely familiar in that you could easily figure out the function… but at the same time the designs were like nothing I had ever seen before.
The areas we could explore included the med-bay I had awoken in, a small sleeping chamber, a constantly running stream-like bathtub and what appeared to be a galley which was our current location. Every other door was sealed and no amount of effort on my part seemed to be able to force them open. When I tried too hard, I received an electric shock that served to dissuade me.
Lori had shared that she had been locked in this same ‘suite’, for lack of a better term, for about six days.
“So, it’s just you and me on this… whatever the hell it is we’re on?” I asked for about the tenth time.
I was still wrapping my head around everything that had happened. It turned out Lori had been on an ambulance shuttle between Deep Space 4 and Lagrange 1 when something showed up on the LIDAR. The next thing she knew, she woke up stark naked and with a full bladder.
Here’s the thing. I had been dating Lori for years. We got married and had a great life until I was offered a command-track. Command-tracks are hard to come by. I was stoked. Lori, not so much. My point is, I knew Lori. I knew something was up when I came home with the position announcement… and I knew something was up now.
The first time I had been foolish enough to ask her what was wrong. We ended up getting into a pretty serious fight. It ended in a legal separation. Neither one of us wanted to fully give up on the marriage yet.
This time was different. We were on, what I had to assume, was an alien ship… there was no other way to reconcile the equipment we were seeing and all the little oddities… like chairs that were just a little too small and lights that weren’t quite the right shade.
I figured we were pretty screwed as it was, so, there really was nothing to lose by asking her to spill the beans. There was something she was not telling me. I could see it in her eyes.
I took a big swig of coffee and cleared my throat.
She knew my ‘tells’ and started to speak before I could ask the question we both knew I was about to ask.
“I didn’t think he would do it,” she sobbed. “I told him that you were in command of the biggest Earth fleet.”
“Didn’t think… who… he?” I asked a bit confused. It seemed like there was a piece missing here.
“The Archon,” she said finally. “He’s the AI that runs this ship. He was sent on a mission to recruit command staff.”
“I’ll bite… recruit for who?”
�
��Perhaps I should be the one to answer that.”
I fell out of my seat trying to spin around so fast. I’m pretty attuned to my environment. People don’t sneak up on me. It’s almost as if I can hear the air move sometimes. It freaked out the other cadets during combat simulations. Nobody ever got the drop on the Dog. It just didn’t happen.
All that said, I didn’t hear or sense a thing, and all of a sudden there is a ‘five foot nothing’ kid standing not three feet from my six. Well, kid is probably the wrong term. It was a freak’n alien… with a big fat capital A!
The oddest thing, aside from the small grey feathers and the fact that it looked more like an otter than anything else, was the deep – James Earl Jones—voice. For those that don’t get the reference, Jones was an actor circa mid-twentieth to early twenty-first century. He was the voice of that classic pre-holographic Scifi called Star Jedi or something like that. My point is… this critter… and I’m assuming it was the ship’s AI, had a really deep voice.
There is only one thing an otter with a deep voice can mean… you got it… more coffee! There were any number of possibilities that could explain what I was seeing.
First, this could be the mother of all hangover dreams. Still, I hadn’t been drinking for the better part of two years.
Second, it was possible that the CO2 scrubbers on my ship were on the fritz. On the other hand, my shipsuit would have warned me and automatically engaged a series of backups. I can’t remember, outside of a simulation in boot camp, where both a scrubber and its backups had failed.
The third option… the one that I was having the hardest time swallowing… was that this was real. Without any real choice; I decided to go with option three and see where it led me.
“You would be the Archon?” I asked.
“That is correct,” the alien answered.
“Are you real? Can I touch you?”
“The first is most certainly true. The second is not possible. I am constructed of artificially coalesced photons… what you would call a hologram. I serve as the avatar for the AI that controls this survey ship.”
“Woooh,” I said as my hand passed through the little guy’s chest.
“As I indicated, I am currently a holographic being,” the Archon answered.
“OK, I believe you. That being the case,” I added, “I’m going to assume you know a lot more about what is going on than I do. I don’t suppose you be willing to fill in some of the gaps?”
The little grey otter alien Archon holographic thingy walked over to an empty chair at the table, pulled it out and sat in it. There were two things here that caused me to raise an eyebrow. First the chair was exactly ‘little grey otter alien Archon holographic thingy’ size… and second, I had just established that the bloody bugger was non-corporeal. How the hell did it manage to touch the chair… much less pull it away from the table?
I looked at Lori and started to open my mouth, but the Archon spoke first.
“As you have undoubtedly surmised, I have the ability to interact with the physical world by the judicious use of micro-force field emitters distributed throughout the ship.”
“Undoubtedly,” I agreed, a little tongue-in-cheek.
The otter looked at me and wrinkled its nose. I’m not sure what that meant in alien otter, but I suspect it was his way of saying he doubted the veracity of my statement.
“About that whole ‘clueing me in to whatever the hell it is that is going on’ thing…”
“Yes. I suppose we should… what’s that English phrase? …bring you up to speed. I am an Archon. My name would be difficult for you to pronounce but you may call me Mephibosheth.”
“Ma-fib-o-what?” I said. “How about I call you Mitty and we just leave it at that?”
The otter wrinkled its nose again… I really was going to need to figure out what that meant.
“Mitty is acceptable,” the alien finally replied. “I am an Archon. My entire race excels at political leadership. That is in fact our role in the Galactic Order. There are members of the Galactic Order that excel in medicine, engineering, art, history, logic and any number of other things.”
“So, there is a whole intergalactic community out there,” I mumbled. It was time for another sip of coffee.
“Technically, we would be considered a galactic community because, as-of-yet we do not have any member-states from outside our own galaxy,” Mitty corrected me.
“I stand corrected.”
“You are sitting.”
“Don’t go there Mitty,” I warned. “I’ve got a bad headache and have not had anywhere near enough coffee, yet. How about you share why you and I are having this conversation… beyond the fact that I asked you to fill in the gaps.”
“We seek the services of a race that excels at military leadership.”
Ok, I have to admit… I didn’t see that one coming.
Chapter 2: Not your average Dog…
“I’ll bite. Why come here? Why come to the Sol system?”
Mitty squirmed in his seat. “Perhaps I need to share a bit more of the specifics of our situation.”
“Go for it little guy,” I said with a wave of my hand.
I could tell by the look that Lori was giving me, that she was not a fan of my flippant attitude… but hey… I had been kidnapped. Besides, I was on a roll. What more could the little guy do to me… actually, as I thought about it… there was quite a lot he could do. Maybe flippant wasn’t such a good play.
Mitty wiped his hand/paw over the tabletop and a really neat holographic display magically appeared. These guys had some seriously cool tech.
The Archon pressed a few holographic buttons and a three-dimensional star map appeared, floating above the table. Did I mention all the really cool tech stuff these guys had?
“This is a display of star systems under control of the Galactic Order as of two of your Earth years ago.” Mitty pressed a few more virtual buttons. “This is the current state-of-affairs.”
The change was dramatic. It looked like something on the order of twenty or so star systems had changed from blue to orange on the map.
I moved closer to the display. “May I?” I made to rotate the display. I had seen the set of gestures Mitty had used and I was pretty sure I had the fundamentals down.
“By all means, Commodore Riker,” the alien said.
I rotated the display. It seemed the areas in orange were on opposite sides of the sphere of influence controlled by the Galactic Order.
“You’re either dealing with multiple attackers or one coordinated attacker intent on dividing up your forces,” I said.
“You are correct,” Mitty confirmed. “Our defense forces are in a state of disarray. The first battle took place in a star system called Gilboa. The indigenous people were called the Saulites. They were military geniuses that helped to keep the peace for tens of hundreds of your years.”
“You used the past-tense,” I said. “What happened at the battle of Gilboa?”
“Our enemy used a mutagenic virus tailored to eradicate the entire Saulite species. By the time we knew what had happened the contagion had spread to every corner of our empire. There were no survivors.”
I turned to look at Mitty. What I saw was a very human emotion in his face. I don’t know if his AI algorithms were aping a facial expression I would recognize or if the Archon race simply emoted in the same way we did. The bottom line was the idea of complete genocide meant, if what we were being told was true, that this ‘enemy’ was ruthless in the extreme.
Lori chose that moment to ask a question. “Who exactly is your enemy?”
Mitty’s head turned slightly to face her more directly. “We don’t know. What we do know is that their initial attack was perfectly executed and destroyed our military command and control structure. Their second attack attempted to destroy our governmental institutions. It almost succeeded but our medical personnel identified what was happening and isolated my homeworld before the contagion could spread.�
�
I heard a sharp intake of breath and realized it was me that had made the noise.
“Are you saying your homeworld has been decimated?”
Mitty sighed in what was again an all-too-human response.
“No, Commodore. A decimation would imply a one-tenth reduction in our population. The death toll on my homeworld of Lo Debar was just shy of one hundred percent. In point of fact, it was in my spouse’s arms that I died… having watched all twelve of our children pass first.”
“My God,” I said softly. I began to understand what motivated this AI. If Mitty’s algorithms were capable of one percent the anguish I would have felt in a similar situation, the Archon AI would move the heavens themselves to put a stop to what was going on.
I stood up and went over to the wall-mounted dispenser and put my coffee cup under the spigot. I still had half a cup left but the walking gave my mind a chance to digest what I was hearing. The coffee had been a source of endless fascination for me. It as well as most of the food on the ship was completely, but accurately, recreated synthetically from samples acquired from around the solar system. I shook my head and got back to the conversation at hand.
“Your military command and control is wiped out. Your normal governmental hierarchy is, at the very least, severely disrupted… meaning your logistics are disrupted. Several things are abundantly clear.”
I walked back over to the table and once again rotated the holographic star map.
“First, whoever is responsible… is intimately familiar with the structure and inherent weaknesses of your Galactic Order. Second, they also are ruthless in ways that boggle the mind. Third, they are either a powerful dictatorship or a race much more similar to humanity than the member worlds of your Galactic Order… or both.”
The Archon stood up and walked towards a door that had been sealed.
“I would be curious to know how you deduced the last,” the alien said.
I took a big swig of the coffee I had been drinking. If I was right, Lori and I were about to be released from our prison.
“Genocide is a ruthless tactic. It’s hard to believe any type of galactic coalition of planets could survive if its members were known to be willing to use such harsh tactics. That means the race that is attacking is able to either force its member states to cooperate in despicable behavior… or that race is like humanity and adept at a large number of disparate disciplines. As an example. My wife,” I pointed towards Lori, “is one of the finest physicians in the fleet. I, on the other hand, am just a military man.”