Blockade

by Craig Martelle

  Kaeden dug in his backpack with his armored hand. He pulled out a small sheaf of papers and started to read out loud. They kept their hoods in place within the partially depressurized airlock.

  “We don’t have any dice,” Cap said.

  “We’ll make do.”

  “My character is going to die, isn’t he?”

  “Probably…”

  Kae’s comm device crackled. “When you come to pick us up, bring extra shipsuits. Ours are in pretty bad shape, and I don’t think we’re the only ones,” Terry’s voice proclaimed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “Seventeen hours, total, for the infiltration operation,” Smedley told the group gathered around the conference table.

  The chairs had been removed and that solved the space problem for the small army that Terry kept bringing to the meetings.

  Nathan Lowell watched them from the screen on the wall. He nodded slowly. He had thought it would take it a week.

  “Cargo ships?” Terry asked, tipping his beer back for a long drink. It was his new ritual. Finish a mission, have a beer. A successful mission, have two. His second sat on the table, waiting for him to finish his first. Terry’s free hand was on Dokken’s head, absently scratching behind the German Shepherd’s ears. Char joined TH in keeping a hand wrapped up in the dog’s fur.

  “First deliveries have already been made. The ships are stacked and offloading as quickly as they can. They’ll requeue to load up with outbound cargo, but for now, they are on the road to recovery.”

  “Losses?” Terry wondered.

  Micky looked down. “Alien fleet took out two ships before we arrived. They were never able to restore power. Those two crews are gone. One hundred and seventy five died on the planet during the blockade.”

  “We lost a couple hundred people,” Terry whispered, grimacing at the thought.

  “Marcie, what’s the capture count?” Terry knew the number. He didn’t forget things like that.

  “We have one fully intact Ship of the Line, hat tip to Christina, with eighty fighters, twenty that survived the battle and all the ones trapped on the other carrier,” she reported, nodding to her parents. “We have one battleship, four destroyers, and four frigates. The remaining fleet is space junk after K’Thrall conducted a little extra target practice with the mains. We’ve deployed warning buoys around the area. We have nearly a thousand prisoners that we’ve consolidated on the alien carrier that we’re calling Sheri’s Pride.”

  “Sheri’s Pride?” Micky asked.

  “The wife of one of our squad leaders. She’s like the den mother, teaching the warriors social skills and stuff like that. Some of us would rather be in combat than study which fork is right for which course. We thought naming it after her might make her go easier on us. And, all the captives are male. We figured putting them on a ship named after a woman would be an eye-opening experience, along with breaking them in on the reality of equality.” Marcie smiled in Christina’s direction, acknowledging that the idea was hers.

  Kae had ordered six mechs to the ship and Kimber had put the remainder of her platoon over there to keep the peace. Fitzroy was in charge with Capples acting as his executive.

  “The prisoners aren’t giving us any trouble. Theirs is to obey,” Kimber added. “I think they like being free of the mental games and interacting with other humans who are genuinely interested in their well-being. Plus, they are keeping the ship in tip-top condition. Plato is running things from an AI standpoint, there, and on all the captured ships.”

  “What’s the status of the entity known as Ten?” Nathan interjected. He had read the status in the report, but wanted to hear it firsthand.

  Ted pointed to the black box on the table. “Plato and Ten have traded places. External links from within the box have been physically removed. All that Ten is exists within this space.” Ted drew a box with his hands around the black box. Ankh’s oversized Crenellian head squeezed into place beside Ted and peered over the edge of the table. Ankh nodded knowingly.

  “How can we study it?” Nathan wondered, squinting to better see the table and the mystery on it.

  “Ten is extremely dangerous,” Ted said, tipping his chin up to look down at the people in the room. “It took a great deal of effort to bring it down. Opening Ten up to the outside world will be a challenge. I recommend that Ten be transferred to R2D2 under maximum security for study. Don’t be confused. This is an alien entity that acts like an AI.”

  Nathan pursed his lips and whistled. “Can we launch it into the sun?” he asked, knowing that he would not accept that course of action.

  “There is more of Ten. The place that the human cattle called Home World. Killing this one won’t end that threat. We need to continue the interrogation until we know all that Ten knows,” Ted explained more patiently than usual.

  “What about the EMP weapon. Who did Ten get that from?” Nathan said, leaning forward until his face filled the screen.

  “I have no idea who Ten got it from, but we stole it from the entity,” Ted replied. Nathan looked confused. Ted didn’t elaborate.

  “How did we take it from the entity?”

  “A dead ship that R&D bought from some scavenger. It had Ten’s EMP technology. Turns out that ship was a deep space probe. Which suffered a catastrophic failure because the human labor that Ten nurtured and trained wasn’t very good. We reverse-engineered the weapon from there, but that little tidbit never made it into the official database.”

  Nathan chuckled. “A genius discovery that was based on luck.”

  “Isn’t that where most breakthroughs come from?” Terry asked. Ted looked at Terry as if he was stupid. “Just asking a question, that’s all. Ninety-nine percent perspiration and one percent inspiration, that kind of thing.”

  Ted didn’t dignify it with a reply.

  “When are we going to Ten’s so-called Home World?” Char said, her voice cold and face set. Terry nodded and took another drink.

  “We have a population to liberate,” Terry said.

  “Bring up the galaxy map, please,” Nathan requested.

  Micky talked softly with Smedley and the galaxy appeared.

  “Zoom in on Alchon Prime, and also show Keeg Station. Now add where we think Home World is. And finally, put in Benitus Seven.”

  Alchon Prime stood within the extensive Federation belt that bordered the frontier. Keeg Station was off the beaten path, but within Federation space. Home World was well outside the Federation and Benitus Seven was in between, on the edge of the known frontier.

  “Talk to us about Benitus Seven, Nathan. How do you even contact someone that far out?” Terry leaned forward as he tried to guess the distances.

  “Benitus Seven is a planet of non-humanoids. They naturally commune with the Etheric, so we’ve been able to contact them in that dimension. No human has been to their planet, not as far as we know, anyway. There is a growing concern regarding a tear in the interdimensional boundary.”

  Terry made a strange face. “Sounds like a job for scientists. Why would the Direct Action Branch be involved with something like that?”

  “There are some baddies coming through and they seem to have a singular goal of removing all life on Benitus Seven. They only have a small foothold now and the Benitons have been able to put some roadblocks in their way, but they need help. Before the month’s out, I need you there to resolve the situation by eliminating this enemy.”

  “Are you picking our target for us, Nathan?” Terry asked. He had other missions on the front burner because they’d prioritized the missions based on the RFPs, the requests for proposals.

  “In this case, I am. It is a directed mission. The payment is nothing less than miniaturized Etheric power sources for our ships. You want gate technology on your drop ships? This is what it will take.”

  “A drop ship that could gate in?” Terry exclaimed.

  “Can I get a sample to study now?” Ted asked.

  “They are on Benitus Seven,
” Nathan replied.

  “What are we waiting for?” Ted wondered, glaring at Terry.

  “Don’t you want to see Felicity? Tell her all the evil things I did to you?”

  Ted looked defiant. “Damn right!” Char raised one eyebrow and started to chuckle.

  “Damn straight. We’re going back to Keeg Station for repairs, transfer Ten to a max security safe hold, drop off the captives and our booty.” Terry smiled. He never wanted to be a pirate, except when he always wanted to be a pirate. That was why he had taken up sailing in the first place. “We’ve added a few ships to our fleet, Nathan, and we need to get them reconfigured into a proper combat force. We’ll start that process, with Felicity’s help and a thousand new dock workers, and then we’ll go to Benitus Seven on our way to Home World.”

  “I’ll forward the Benitus mission brief to your private channel. Just so you’re ready, here’s an image of one of the invaders.”

  The three-dimensional galaxy faded, replaced by the picture of a creature with red, fibrous skin, pointed ears, and horns.

  “Looks like the devil,” Terry stated matter-of-factly as he chewed on the inside of his cheek.

  “That’s right,” Nathan replied. “The stories about the devil weren’t fantasy or horror. These creatures exist on the other side of the Etheric, and now they’ve found their way onto Benitus.”

  The End of Blockade, Book 2 of The Bad Company

  If you like this book, please leave a review. I have to partition my time and with a number of series needing attention, I will give the next story to the one with the most reviews. It could be The Bad Company. That depends on you, the readers.

  Please, help me to best prioritize.

  Don’t stop now! Keep turning the pages as Craig & Michael talk about their thoughts on this book and the overall project called the Age of Expansion (and if you haven’t read the ten-book prequel, the Terry Henry Walton Chronicles, now is a great time to take a look).

  Terry, Char, and the rest of the Bad Company’s Direct Action Branch will return in Price of Freedom.

  Author Notes - Craig Martelle

  Written December 15, 2017

  Thank you for reading beyond the end of the book and all the way to the author notes. You are the bomb!

  And Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah, Happy Festivus, Happy RamaHanuKwanzMas, or simply, Happy Monday. I want everyone to be happy all the time and although that isn’t possible, I can still want it.

  If you join my mailing list (stop by www.craigmartelle.com and look for the sign up link), you’ll get notified on release day for every new book in this series, and every new book is only 99 cents on release day, as a reward for those who are on my newsletter list and follow me on Facebook. Thank you very much for coming on board. There are so many stories left to tell.

  And I still live in the Sub-Arctic.

  It’s that time of year where it is hard to tell what time of day it is. It’s dark most of the time. It’s cold, not really cold, but temps have only gotten down to minus twenty or so a few times. Nothing too extreme. They are hovering around zero Fahrenheit which is about normal. Average temperature in January is minus ten. We’ll see if it drops to hit the average.

  We had a lot of snow before it got cold, so the picnic table is completely buried. The tractor is working magnificently, and I have already moved a veritable mountain of snow this winter.

  I got the flu when I went to Las Vegas and it lingered for an obscene amount of time, despite taking a great deal of time off. I watched three full seasons of Babylon 5 and have started the fourth season. All the while, doing nothing but watching and napping. That still didn’t help. Do you know what finally helped me kick it? A weeklong trip to Hawaii. The heat and sea air helped me over the final hump on the road to recovery. Thank goodness. I have way too much to do to not work for weeks at a time.

  I needed some more character names so I canvassed my friends and fans and here’s what we have. Sheri is in honor of Sheri Mellott’s 29th birthday. She and Frank are good friends from well before I started writing. Finally, she makes it into one of my books. Happy Birthday, Sheri!

  The dive restaurant, Click, Click, Boom (the activation sequence on a claymore mine) and the author within is a shout out to my friends and fellow authors, Jonathan Yanez and Justin Sloan for their book of the same title set within Justin’s Seppukarian universe.

  I am managing the Age of Expansion area for the Kurtherian Gambit Universe (Michael Anderle’s fabulous creation). We had a great launch of a few new books, the successor series following Gateway to the Universe. The Ghost Squadron by Sarah Noffke and JN Chaney has been well received. Thank you to the kind readers for embracing that story line.

  Amy DuBoff’s Uprise Saga also did quite well out of the gate. I’m quite pleased across the board with how the stories are turning out. Good stories from good people.

  A number of people helped me with some language. I want to thank Robert Tonkiss for his “nose in a snit” comment because I was lamenting the fact that The Bad Company had received a few two-star reviews. But the Bad Company was a deviation from what people were used to with the Terry Henry Walton Chronicles and despite the fact that we used Gateway to the Universe as a transition book, some people still didn’t like the shift, or as Robert said, they got their nose in a snit. I’m sorry that some readers didn’t take the new book as well as I would have liked, but I was done with the Nomad story line as it was. I simply cannot churn out more of the same. I enjoy the new lives and new challenges that await Terry and Char as they help expand the Federation.

  That’s it – break’s over, back to writing the next book. Peace, fellow humans.

  ***

  Please join my Newsletter (www.craigmartelle.com – please, please, please sign up!), or you can follow me on Facebook since you’ll get the same opportunity to pick up the books for only 99 cents on that first day they are published.

  If you liked this story, you might like some of my other books. You can join my mailing list by dropping by my website www.craigmartelle.com or if you have any comments, shoot me a note at craig@craigmartelle.com. I am always happy to hear from people who’ve read my work. I try to answer every email I receive.

  If you liked the story, please write a short review for me on Amazon. I greatly appreciate any kind words, even one or two sentences go a long way. The number of reviews an ebook receives greatly improves how well an ebook does on Amazon.

  Amazon – www.amazon.com/author/craigmartelle

  Facebook – www.facebook.com/authorcraigmartelle

  My web page – www.craigmartelle.com

  Twitter – www.twitter.com/rick_banik

  Author Notes - Michael Anderle

  Written December 23, 2017

  Well, now that Lord of the Cosmos (LotC) Craig has co-opted my “Thank you for reading the story and NOW, reading the author notes as well” comment, I guess I have to go back and rely on an old and dependable start.

  HELLO!

  (Didn’t see that one coming, did you? You did? Well...shit.)

  TKG is over two years old, and now the ‘official’ full expansion of going with collaborators just turned 1 years old on December 8th. In this year, we have stretched and expanded with new ages, new series, wonderful collaborators and a bump in the road (or two.)

  How do all of these stories fit together?

  To answer that questions, I usually send fans to the websites and the timeline(s). One of them seeks to place the answers into a real timeline, but is behind on the updates. The other is more up to date on the books, but isn’t quite as pretty.

  The second timeline (Clickable) is here: http://kurtherianbooks.com/timeline-kurtherian/

  The first timeline (Printable) is here: http://kurtherianbooks.com/timeline-kurtherian-printable/

  We are JUST getting started with the Age of Expansion here at the end of 2018, and have many other series planned or in the very early stage. We even have one series with a new author where I would
describe the series as a cross between Boston Legal and maybe a Judge Dredd? We are still working on it at the moment.

  DO YOU LIKE AUDIO? Or do you LOVE audio?

  On another front, we have well over fifty audiobooks published, and will be doing MORE this year. I imagine we will continue our effort of five to six books a month for the foreseeable future. If you have a particular series which you would like to hear on Audible that we don’t have yet, drop a line to Stephen Campbell at Readershelp@Kurtherianbooks.com and give him a shout to put the request in the queue!

  How do you find out about new books to listen to?

  Also, if you like audio can you let us know HOW you find out about new audiobooks? (Send to the same email as above – Readershelp.) We are struggling with our marketing in this audio arena. Further, we would love to know how you hear about, see, click on adverts, or whatever way you learn about books that are on audio and how you choose to use your credits, or purchase the books.

  German Editions

  I like to speak to some things that LMBPN Publishing has accomplished from time to time that I find cool, without sounding like a total shill for us because I’m excited with what we have done. It is beyond me that two years ago, I had just released my fourth book and I am just now seeing a $100 day of sales and thinking “Can I maybe do this as a living?”

  This time, I’m going to say WHOOP because Death Becomes Her has been published in German (the language) and is titled Mutter der Nacht. The reason we can’t use Death Becomes Her is German law about duplicating titles in the country.

  Thanks to a crack team (I’ll speak about them more, later) we have Queen Bitch heading to German release at end the of January.

  Thank you SO MUCH for coming on this adventure with us, we can’t do what we do without you.

  Ad Aeternitatem,

  Michael Anderle