Requiem of a Nightmare

by Jeremy Spires

  Acknowledgements

  This book goes out to the handful of fans who pushed me to keep writing it, a couple of fellow authors who propped me up when the going got tough and even wanted to work with me when random dreams became reality. Looking at you, Amanda Rose.

  To one of my biggest supporters outside of my family, Justin Hill, may you always have wind in your sails. Lastly, to my mate from down under, Joel, the inspiration for a character, an awesome friend.

  And finally, to my family, my friends, and my fans: Thank you.

  ---

  Dedicated to the brave fighting spirit of Dan Redfield and Kristen Fredric, and their beautiful daughter Ava Rose.

  ---

  Fallen Empires Book Two

  Requiem of a nightmare

  ---

  Prologue

  ---

  He didn’t need to know, she had decided, but the signs were getting harder to ignore as the days passed. He would, of course, eventually figure it out, and knowing would absolutely change his tactics on the battlefield. Considering that the battlefield tactics of the leader of the Vandorian and Phelb combined militaries was, without a doubt, brutal beyond words, adding more anger and brutality to those tactics could be a bad idea.

  It had been six weeks since the Vandorian Fleet had engaged a small force of Gilbaglian ships, and they had been roundly beaten. Our home planet, Vandor, had been obliterated by Gilbaglian weapons; not just pounded from orbit, the planet had been fully destroyed; pushed into the sun by a weapon that we knew nothing about. Fortunately, there had been enough warning that the city carriers had been able to get almost all the humans off the surface of the doomed world, losing less than a million in the process, although losing anywhere near that many was to be considered a massive tragedy.

  The Gilbaglians were unexpectedly ruthless and violent. They had posed as allies to Vandor, however, unknow to the people of Vandor was the knowledge that they had destroyed the creators of the human people, a species so advanced that they had accidentally created humanity and were revered as Gods for over six millennia by the Phelb Empire after evidence was uncovered that the root of human religion was false; their religion had sprung up to take its place. The Wingell family had escaped Earth with this knowledge, but it had been watered down into an obsessive mental illness into their last surviving ancestor, who had become a leader, a council member, and an object of our current leader’s strong distrust.

  The Phelbs had suffered grievous defeats at Vandorian hands, and they had pushed them back and taken Earth back, six thousand years after we had been forced off the world we had evolved on. During that battle, Destota Valentine had killed their nominal leader, and brought strong upheaval and change to the entire society of Phelb. Their new leader, the son of an enemy Destota had killed in a battle that opened the most recent war, had immediately asked for a cease fire, informed us about the attacks on their colony worlds, bordering what was now known as Gilbaglian space, and how the avian species was attacking them while Vandor fought them on the other front.

  The tall brown-haired woman sighed into the mirror and checked from the side again if there was a noticeable change in her physical dimensions. Not yet, so far, and her uniform still fit her flawlessly. She adjusted her uniform back and forth, sighing explosively. Her husband did not yet know about the new life growing inside of her. He would probably ask her to stay behind and not lead their fleet against the Gilbaglians. The frigate that he had captured during the last operation had been analyzed and the defenses of the Vandorian fleet had been bolstered and strengthened, as well as switching the main cannons to a particle cannon that had melted through the strongest blast armor they could manufacture.

  The Phelbs had surprised their new allies by offering to shelter the homeless Vandorian people on Earth, and providing aid, in exchange only for the life-extending gene therapy that Vandorian people used. In exchange for shelter, the Vandorians offered the full range of gene therapies, as well as offering to train the Phelb military in combat.

  She would tell her husband today, she decided.

  ---

  Chapter One

  ---

  Starship Shadow of Eternity

  Sol system, Earth Orbit

  Year 6,069 of the Human calendar.

  My name is Destota Valentine.

  I’m homeless, for the time being; an orphan as well. I stand staring out the viewport of my shared quarters with Mallory on the Shadow of Eternity, looking down on the blue, green, tan and white disk of Earth beyond the transparent bulkhead. Earth was a terrible name for a planet, I decided. I had researched the Phelb database and discovered that no human knew why our home planet was called “Earth”. It was an ancient word that literally meant soil, or dirt. Planet dirt. This is where we were going to live now, brilliant.

  My wife, beautiful and radiant stepped out of the bathroom that joined up to the main living area of our quarters. The room was sparse, for the most part, the viewport where I stood was transparent, curved as the hull was along the length of the carrier. The rest of the room was silver-grey, polished walls with orange accent around the roof. The bathroom was white and brightly lit, so I turned and looked on my wife.

  Vandorians as a rule are tall, with a few strong exceptions, like me. Even though I was not finished growing yet, I already stood at six feet nine inches, which is something like two meters, or something. I don’t know, because soldiers like me aren’t taught the metric system. Mallory, my wife, stood right at six feet tall. She was slender, with brown eyes and freckles on her face, olive skin that was soft to the touch, belying her incredible physical strength and her fierce intelligence. She was a beauty for the ages, and she could kick your ass.

  “Good morning, my love.” I said to her. “I do not like having an arm that is younger than the rest of my body.”

  She blinked rapidly at me for a moment, then frowned. “You say the strangest things sometimes.”

  “I do not,” I repeated, holding up my left hand and looking at it. “Like having an arm younger than the rest of me. What if it doesn’t know how to do the things I need it to do?”

  She raised an eyebrow and gave me a half smile. “It didn’t seem like you were having any issues with me last night.” She winked at me.

  I am no prude, nor am I shy about sex. But this woman could turn me into a blathering idiot in mere seconds without much effort. “Yes, well that’s different.”

  “I need to tell you something.” She said, looking both coy and nervous, of which she was neither.

  “You can tell me anything, at any time, for any reason.” I replied, reaching out my left hand. I had to avoid being gun shy with it, because it was my arm, technically. My arm had been severed in hand to hand combat with a Gilbaglian, had been regrown in a tank with stem cells and reattached. It was my arm, with all the same muscle tone and strength and did everything I asked it to. It just felt weird still.

  She took my hand and we sat on our bed, large and comfortable. She folded her hands in her lap, drew a deep breath. “I’m…”

  “Pregnant.” I finished, with a grin.

  Her eyes went as wide as saucers and her lip trembled slightly. “How did you…?”

  “I can’t read minds.” I assured her, taking her hand again. “You keep looking at yourself in the mirror from the side, you keep throwing up every time you smell meat, which is really strange, since you love to eat meat.” I didn’t tell her that I’d ordered the ship’s primary doctor to tell me what was wrong with my wife because I was afraid she was dying.

  Her face was a mixture of fear and relief. “And how do you feel about this?”

  “What, that we are going to have a baby Valentine?” I smirked. “I couldn’t be
happier.” Also, slightly untrue. Because of what I do, I am by nature a solemn person and not prone to theatrics. Although I had once challenged over a thousand Phelb soldiers to combat, armed only with a knife and a sour attitude.

  She half gasped, half sobbed and put her arms around me. “I was afraid you’d want me to stay behind.”

  “I am aware that a woman can be both pregnant and good at what she does.” I replied. “I will not force you to stay back…as long as you agree to keep Eternity at the rear of the formation. With most of the Night Stalkers onboard, it makes more sense. We wouldn’t want to lose our entire special forces battalion with one well placed shot.” The night stalkers are what define me as a person. I am their leader, and currently the leader of the joint Phelb and Vandorian military force, by order of the Chancellor of the Phelb. We had trained on Vandor from age seventeen all the way until our twenty-first birthdays, to the peak of our military science, to the best of the ability of the Vandorian people, specifically to fight the Phelb on the ground, while others like Mallory had been trained to both fight and command ships, which had also been outfitted, designed and built specifically for killing Phelb. Our ships had been refitted before the battle of Earth, with redesigned drives that moved our fleet faster than even the Gilbaglians could travel.

  “All right,” She said, hugging me again. “I can agree to that, it is sensible.”

  “What are we going to have?” There was not going to be any twenty-week wait for discovery of the gender of the baby, with a standard DNA test and the first set of genetic modifications injected into the fetus.

  “A girl,” She said with a wide smile. “What do you want to call her?”

  “Alyssa,” I said immediately. It was the name of a girl I had liked in school as a little boy, but I had always loved the name. “Alyssa Dariela Valentine.”

  She nodded. “That sounds perfect,” A slender eyebrow rose slightly. “But why give her my middle name?”

  “Because I think it is beautiful.” I replied, pulling her into my arms to kiss her. “Because you are beautiful.”

  ---

  “Just because I said you were beautiful,” I said, glaring at her from my spot on the bridge of the Eternity. “Does not mean that you get to unilaterally decide on these things.”

  “We need to bring Eternity to the docks for refit,” She protested. “And we need to vacate the ship. There’s no reason why we can’t just…go to the surface and see what planet Earth looks like, is there?”

  I sighed.

  “Besides,” She continued quickly with a grin. “I would like to have a honeymoon at some point in our marriage before I get too pregnant to move.”

  That sealed it for me and I shrugged, giving in. The idea of spending a few days on a nice beach somewhere with my wife was far too exciting to pass up.

  “There are some really bad places down there, still.” Said the voice of Peter Stevins from behind me. “Anywhere in the central North American continent, and most of the northern Eurasian continent are uninhabitable.”

  “Why?” I asked, deadpan.

  “A lot of nuclear fallout still. When the first Phelbs took over the globe, they used nuclear weapons to root out any pockets of resistance. It’ll be another twenty thousand years until its habitable again.” He said, looking slightly sad.

  I stared at him with a half smirk. Other than some very, very unusual sources, Vandorian genes were hardened against the radiation caused by nuclear weapons and we suffered very little ill effect of anything with the exception of thalaron radiation, which only came from the vast, thick nebula that surrounded Vandor that was. “Really?” I asked, deadpan once more.

  Peter glanced at me, away, then back. He sighed. “This is another one of those times when you tell me I’m an idiot because you can’t die or be harmed or something, isn’t it?”

  “You’re learning quickly.” I replied. “And, for the record, all the Phelbs that have undergone gene therapy are also now immune to most of what we are. Our doctors and scientists are still tweaking and immunizing for diseases that developed while our people were separate.”

  “Is there anything we did good that you didn’t?” He asked with a frown.

  “You make very good food,” Mallory said suddenly, joining the discussion. “Oddly enough, I don’t believe any Vandorian can quite get enough of Phelb food.”

  “That is true,” I agreed. “I’ve never had anything quite like the ‘beef’ that you provided.”

  “You’ve never had beef?” Peter asked. “There are no cows on Vandor?”

  “We got evicted,” I replied. “We didn’t exactly have time to load up a fucking zoo, okay?”

  “Valid point,” Peter said. “Statement withdrawn.”

  I rolled my eyes and turned back to my wife. “What about that island there?” I pointed at the tablet she was holding, showing a small island off the coast of north America. The computer file, linked to Phelb data sources, identified the island as ‘Puerto Rico’. According to the data source, Mallory had an ancestor that came from that island, while mine were identified as coming from a place called ‘Alaska’. Upon looking at the historical review of the planet Earth, the data showed that Alaska used to be partly tundra, partly semi-tropical with very little sunshine and cold winters. My father’s people had been from there, while my mothers came from another place called ‘France’ on the European continent.

  The biggest advantage of coming back to Earth was just that, learning so much about where we had come from using our more advanced computers on the Phelb records was an easy and fun way to prove how superior we were, even if I wasn’t supposed to be thinking like that anymore. But hey, I was a soldier, a competitor, and I refused to let the Phelbs ever think they were as good as me.

  “I’m in,” I said, with a shrug. “Is there going to be beef?” I added hopefully.

  “They have beef on that island.” Peter said with a smile. “They also make a pork dish called ‘Pernil’ and I can’t even explain that to you. It’s insane. Beyond reason delicious.”

  “Definitely sold.” The beef had been delicious, no question, but the introduction of pork to my people had created something of a battle within the ranks of my people, the introduction of bacon was a near disaster. The supply had run out inside of a day, and the Phelbs had laughingly provided an entire cargo ship loaded with the delicious salty treat.

  So far, our agreement with them was holding firm and in the last six weeks they had shown us better farming technology and we had shown them how to terraform Earth. We were going to attempt to make the planet below us habitable again, even if there were far too many humans now for one planet to support them all.

  “A message from the Shockwave,” The communication officer said. “They are escorting the city carriers into orbit now.”

  “Wonderful.” Mallory replied, slipping into her Admiral voice. “Send my compliments to Captain Jones.”

  The comm officer nodded and I watched the planet swing into the screen more fully as the Eternity maneuvered into position to take a station at the orbital shipyard.

  “It looks different.” I said, nodding at the viewscreen as Europe came into view. I pointed out Italy. “Without all the fighters and dropships attacking the planet.”

  “Does it look different without those masks on?” Peter asked, referring to our particulate masks that we had painted with angry looking skull visages.

  “Want to take an orbital drop without a vehicle and find out?” I asked in response, turning to look at the smaller man. He’d taken gene therapy as well, but Phelb adults would not experience any great changes, as they needed to be introduced as infants. He was bigger, however, and would experience a lifespan in the higher two-hundred range, rather than the seventy to eighty that Phelbs currently enjoyed.

  “I had my gene shots,” He replied. “Doesn’t that make me invincible?”

  I looked down at my left hand. “Not exactly.”

  He nodded. “Fair enough. Colone
l…” He said. “I…received a request.” He was acting as company First Sergeant since Vearse had been killed.

  “What is it, Sergeant?” I asked, feeling my gut tighten. I had thought that David Vearse, with his calm, no-nonsense attitude, bald head and dry wit would survive with me throughout anything that the galaxy threw at us.

  “First Sergeant Vearse’s family has requested an audience with you, sir.” Peter said, looking down at the deck.

  “They are aboard?” I asked briskly. I had made a point of trying to station as many families together on the ships as we left Vandor.

  “Yes, sir.”

  While a massive and powerful warship, the Vandorian need for amusement was sometimes overly consuming, and therefore the huge carrier was fitted with no less than four bars that served alcohol, and two decent restaurants. The idea was, that on an extremely long deployment, soldiers, navy staff and their embarked family members would need a place to unwind. At Mallory’s suggestion, one of the refits was an actual play area for small children.

  “Ask them to meet me at Deck Six.” I said, referring to the officers-only bar that was usually off limits to civilians and enlisted personnel.

  Peter nodded and consulted his tablet, then looked at me. “Thank you, sir.”

  “They wanted you to speak to them, didn’t they?” I asked.

  He nodded. I frowned slightly, trying to puzzle this together. “Sergeant?”

  “I can’t…” He said, choking back a sob. “He was the one training me, sir, we fought together on Earth, we were at the Cetoplin home world together, sir. He was a good friend.” Peter looked away, and I felt my own eyes sting.

  “I think he deserves a promotion, Sergeant, don’t you?” I asked. It was hard to lose a friend, especially in combat. I felt even more useless, since I had been wounded in action and had been useless in the battle that followed.

  “Yes, sir, I think that would be fitting.” Peter replied, blinking rapidly.

  “Admiral Valentine,” I said to Mallory, who turned and looked at me with misty eyes. She had trained with Vearse, the same as I had. The difference was, Vearse had grown up two homes down from mine in Crescent City. I had known him since I was nine months old. “Would you do us the honor of entering a promotion for First Sergeant Vearse into the record?”