Chaos Tactics (The Reckless Chronicles Book 1)

by Trent Falls

  “We need to get out of here.” Julie observed aloud. She took a deep serious breath. “These people are going to kill us, even if they get what they want.”

  Dekker suddenly laughed aloud. He laughed to the point that he started coughing. “Damn!” Dekker grunted in pain. He spat; blood.

  “Hey! Shut the fuck up in there!!!” the merc at the duty station outside yelled.

  Julie waited for a few tense moments. She spoke again, closer to the heating vent and in a lower volume.

  “What’s so funny?” she demanded.

  “You.” Dekker chuckled. “You’re a lot like your uncle.”

  Dekker coughed again.

  “Julie, you’re a sweet girl.” Dekker’s voice took a more serious tone. “You need to stop antagonizing these people or they will hurt you. Be a nice girl… keep a low profile.”

  “How are we going to get out of this?” Julie asked. She bit back tears for a moment.

  “I don’t know.” Dekker replied weakly. “We can… never lose hope, though.”

  The Tequesta emerged from hyperspace back into the black star-filled void of space. The planet ahead was partially green and blue, much like Earth only with significantly more land mass. Most of the planet was green. Cloud cover was white and distributed in much the same way as Earth.

  It was Altair Nine. The planet had been discovered near the end of the Earth / Xen War. It was largely unpopulated at the time. Even well over a decade after the end of the war, Altair Nine remained relatively untouched. It was simply too out of the way to merit development. It was a surplus planet, as many called the uninhabited worlds discovered during EEF and Xen expansion into the Milky Way galaxy.

  Altair Nine grew quickly ahead of the Tequesta as it raced toward the planet. John kept a keen eye on the navigation screens as Alex piloted the ship on manual control. The space between the Tequesta and the planet seemed very quiet. There was no other traffic, which compared to Earth and Mars was very strange to Alex. John eyed the long range sensor screen. He then flipped to short range.

  The center of the monitor frame showed a digital model of Altair Nine. The frame noted key features of the planet; its mass, its speed through space, its temperature and weather conditions in certain areas. A flashing blip appeared on the far side of the planet. The Tequesta’s computers went to work right away. A frame locked in on the blip and opened another information window. The frame expanded to show a large Xen carrier.

  “Damn it!” John exhaled with notable fear. It had been well over ten years since John had been that close to a Xen warship of that size.

  “What is it?” Alex asked, his attention still on his own instruments.

  “Xen Carrier.” John explained soberly.

  “Fuck!” Alex exhaled sharply.

  “Its transponder is noting it as the Xinglong. The Star Dragon if my Mandarin is still good.” John kept his eyes fixed on the short range sensors. “I don’t think she’s friendly either.”

  “Why do you say that?” Alex demanded.

  “Because she just launched her alert fighters.” John stated seriously. “Coming at us fast in attack formation.”

  “SHIT!” Alex panicked. “Can we run?”

  “Too close to the planet and those fighters will overtake us in a few seconds.” John answered.

  “So, what do I do?!?”

  “My advice?” John replied, trying to keep his cool. “Run for the planet.”

  Alex didn’t need to be told twice. He shoved his throttle levers forward all the way. The Tequesta jumped forward at max thrust. The sudden and incredible acceleration shoved John and Alex back hard into their seats.

  The Xen starfighters were in a wide bank trying to take up a good attack angled on the Tequesta when it shot forward. The two starfighters, delta winged and heavily armed with missiles and phase cannons, rocketed forward on their impulse jet thrusters to chase the large space plane form of the Tequesta.

  Alex kept his steely eyes forward, not flinching as the features of Altair Nine grew quickly ahead of his canopy window to fill more of his field of vision. The clouds went from a haze to being more detailed very quickly. Details like rivers and canyons were becoming more prominent; as though one were getting closer to another person’s face and making out more details and imperfections of the skin. The atmosphere was getting uncomfortably close and the Tequesta was getting there very quickly. All the same, Alex could feel the presence of the Xen fighters at his back, ready to blow him out of the sky.

  “What’s the E-rating on Altair Nine???” Alex asked loudly and in a hurry.

  “Uh,” John searched really quick. “Nine point one.”

  “Still too damned fast!” Alex exhaled sharply. “We’re coming in too hot!”

  Alex turned the controls of the Tequesta. The big white and blue trim transport nosed up under his control. The cabin began to rock sporadically.

  “Damn!” Alex cursed.

  They were already hitting the outside of the atmosphere. Alex needed to raise the Tequesta’s reentry angle, otherwise they’d burn up in the atmosphere. Changing that angle, however, meant slowing down, allowing the Xen fighters time to catch up.

  And catch up they did, in short order. The delta-winged craft opened up with their phase cannons. The Tequesta had turned up, putting its slow hefty form into a prime angle of attack for the Xen pilots.

  Photon blasts flew all around the Tequesta, striking her twice along her dorsal line.

  The Xen pilots, in grey and red trim flight suits, sat in their single-man cockpits. Their faces were obscured by a flight helmet and vacuum rated respirators. Their cold eyes were fixed on their HUDs, lining up the wedge-form of the Tequesta.

  Their cannons pulsed again, firing angry staccato trails of red photons after the big transport. The Tequesta attempted evasive maneuvers. At that speed, most of the photon rounds missed except for the two or three that popped into the upper hull.

  The cockpit reeled violently from the strikes.

  “FUCK!” John yelled. “Don’t you have any guns on this boat?!?”

  “Normally, there’s no need, John!!!” Alex shouted back sarcastically.

  Alex again shot the throttle arms forward. He rolled the ship over to escape the phase cannon fire then oriented the ship upward again. Alex shoved the throttle arms up further. The Tequesta blazed forward with intense speed; at near escape velocity.

  “What the hell are you doing?!?” John was genuinely scared.

  “What choice do we have?!?” Alex yelled back. “We’re dead anyway if we don’t…”

  A photon round exploded behind the Tequesta.

  “DAMN!” Alex yelled. He dove again.

  The Xen fighters had a hard time keeping up with the Tequesta when it flew in a straight line. The delta wing fighters continued shooting after the craft.

  One of the pilots switched the weapon control on his flight stick to the Xen character for “missiles”. The pilot’s HUD target reticule, trying to catch the Tequesta, changed shape slightly. A consistent beeping accompanied the targeting reticule as it moved over the Tequesta’s image, buzzing once it was locked on the craft. The pilot squeezed the trigger.

  The Tequesta’s radar went insane. It whined loudly with an electric warning.

  “Is that what I think it is?” John looked at the short range sensor screen.

  A pair of blips were flying towards them… very fast!

  Alex exhaled and flipped a switch.

  The missiles flying directly towards their ship suddenly wavered in flight, finally spinning out of control to explode in two violet fireballs behind the Tequesta.

  “Scatter jammers?” John breathed.

  “Yeah.” Alex pressed his lips together. Sweat was beading on his forehead. “They won’t make that mistake again.”

  The gamma radiation from the scatter jammers had caused the missiles targeting systems to go out of control as they tried to reacquire a target they could no longer find.

  Alex
nosed the craft down again. The Tequesta was getting tougher to control. The fighters would be on them again.

  “I got to get this bird on the ground.” Alex observed. He flipped a pair of switches overhead then entered a code into the keypad of the console behind and to the right of his control yoke.

  John understood the flight controls and could see what Alex had done. The readings on his fusion reactor jumped. He had released the compensator from the fusion process. Output was increasing beyond normal limits. 101%. 103%. 106%.

  “What are you doing?!?” John’s eyes widened.

  “Don’t worry. This will work.” Alex assured him.

  “What will work???”

  The Tequesta, shrouded briefly in ionized flame, rocketed into the lower atmosphere. The big white and blue trim craft soared down towards a thin band of status clouds, then on towards a thick mass of heavier cumulus. Alex had purposely chosen a higher latitude to come down, thinking that the cold air might help him out.

  The Xen starfighters screamed down through the atmosphere. Their thrusters wailed furiously once in the air. They doggedly pursued the Tequesta. Once in more level flight and in clearer skies, they opened up with their phase cannons.

  The Tequesta managed to escape the streaming red glowing bursts, diving down into the thick clouds ahead.

  Water droplets streaked across the sides of the canopy of the Tequesta. They were in a rainstorm. John eyed the reactor output again. 112% output! It would go critical soon. Coolant pressure was redlined.

  Alex dialed back in the reactor safeguard just in time to prevent overload.

  “What the hell?!? Your core pressure is still through the roof! If they hit us…”

  “They won’t.” Alex assured him.

  They broke through the clouds. They were about 1,000 feet above the jungle!

  “Oh FUCK!!!” John screamed.

  Alex switched off the reactor. He then pulled back as hard as he could on the flight controls, using what seemed like every muscle in his body to get the nose up. They could just make out detail of the canopy jungle treetops ahead when the Tequesta’s nose pulled up hard. The whole ship seemed to be trying to shake itself apart. Alex then played his trump card. He slammed his hand down on the emergency coolant purge.

  Outside, all of his reactor coolant water sprayed out quickly from a series of nozzles at the underside of the ship just behind the cockpit. The super hot water expanded in the atmosphere into steam, shoving the nose of the ship upward violently.

  The Xen pilots behind them weren’t as resourceful. They both screamed in mad panic before their GV-47 starfighters flew at incredible speed into the jungle, exploding in a fiery wrath.

  The Tequesta soared on at a more horizontal plane but still in poor shape. The ship was too damaged to climb and it was unsafe to power up the reactor again without water. The Tequesta flew on for a while, mostly on its own inertia as a massively heavy glider. They cleared the rainforest and flew out over a long green field. Luck! They soared only about a hundred feet above the field.

  Alex pulled back on the flap controls. “Crash position!”

  The flaps on the short ends of the lifting body extended along with a pair of speed break fins. The Tequesta quickly lost altitude. Its shovel-shaped lifting body was reinforced well enough for spaceflight. They had to hope it could withstand a crash landing.

  John had barely lowered his head to his knees when the whole of the ship slammed down. John thought they were done; dead! The Tequesta seemed ready to break apart; and might have at any moment.

  The wedge shaped craft cut a massive trench into the moist grass and moss of the plain. The Tequesta slowed as it approached a number of trees, but not enough. The large transport snapped into one tree after the next, breaking their thin trunks, snapping limbs, and churning up a big trough of muddy dirt in their wake.

  Finally they stopped. John looked up at the canopy. Mud and dirt streaked the canopy but there was a clear enough patch where John could see the overcast sky outside.

  They were alive.

  John’s hands immediately went to his restraint harness. He unlocked the chrome clasp and threw aside the straps. Alex got out of his seat restraints as well.

  “We need to get out of here. Who knows how many other of them there are up there?”

  John got up from his seat and ran back to the cargo compartment. Once there, he

  retrieved his M-10 carbine. His 9mm GX9 was still strapped to his belt in its holster.

  Alex was at another compartment. He pulled out one black backpack, then a

  second, one from the storage locker.

  “Here!” Alex threw one of the packs at John. “We’ll need these.”

  “Survival gear?” John asked, throwing a strap of the backpack over his right shoulder.

  “Yeah. I keep them here in case I get stranded in some Godforsaken hell hole.”

  John was unsure of what Alex meant by that.

  Alex’s running footfalls clanked against the metal deck. The rear ramp opened, filling the interior of the cargo area with cool moist air. It was refreshing. The light was grey and hazy outside. The rear ramp lowered into the muck of the trench they had created. John approached the ramp behind Alex and stared outside.

  “Come on.” Alex called out behind him before running out into the dark brown dirt trench. “Be careful. The ground is soft.”

  John walked quickly down the ramp but slowed to a stop at the edge. The rain outside sizzled off the Tequesta’s hull, which was still very hot.

  “Come on!!!” Alex urged him.

  John took a single step out into the mud. He paused, looking down at his boot recessed in the mud. Over a decade had passed since he had set foot on an extrasolar planet. The next steps came quicker and soon he was running, cautiously, through the muck after Alex.

  The rain was very cooling. The muddy gouge the Tequesta had cut in the ground was quite long; possibly a half mile in length. The ground was warm; treacherous in some areas. Alex and John found a shallow side of the gouge wall and climbed up onto the undamaged surface of the field.

  The green grass beneath their boots was short bladed and wet. Everything was very green, with moss appearing in some patches. The rain that fell on their skin was rather cold, as was the air. It was almost like an overcast late winter day in New England with some elements of odd tropical growth here and there.

  John and Alex looked back at the Tequesta as they hurriedly walked away from the crash site. The top of its white hull was barely visible above the dirt mound that surrounded it. While it was partially obscured by trees, some of which had fallen over, the Xen were likely to find the wreckage. The massive gouge in the earth was probably enough for a scout ship to spot from the air.

  Alex, unnoticed by John, had pulled out what looked like a tall plastic cylinder. The black plastic device looked to be somewhat symmetrical and split down the middle. Alex pulled apart the black segments, revealing a flexible semi-transparent screen that rolled out in the middle. A number of characters and icons appeared on the roll-out screen. Alex tapped a few and shut the device again.

  John had looked over at his friend the instant the screen vanished, hatching just the hint of the colorful display in his eye.

  “What was that?” John asked with some surprise.

  “Nothing. Just setting the ship on secure.” Alex answered plainly.

  “But what was that device?” John demanded.

  “Just a remote. Damn! Relax!” Alex looked at John crookedly.

  John exhaled a fraction of his stress.

  Alex looked around at the deciduous rain forest ahead of them. “What’s our play now? This planet it uninhabited.”

  “Not completely.” John noted. “There are a few colonists here and there.”

  “Yeah, but this is a Xen planet, John! Tell you what. I’ll let you knock on the door of the first farm house we find.”

  “Huh!” John laughed sarcastically.

  The two men
silently walked on in the light rain into the forest. There was an incredible peace in their surroundings. The air was clean; almost sweet. The feeling of it made one want to breathe in deeply.

  John looked down into his arms, remembering that he was carrying his M-10 carbine rifle.

  “The Xen will be sending scouts down.” John observed in a cold tone. “They’ll come looking for us.” He paused in thought. “We need to wait until the opportunity presents itself then try to take one of their ships.”

  “I don’t know.” Alex shook his head slightly. “Their scout ships are just transatmospheric jumpers. They probably won’t have warp drive and won’t be able to get us away from this rock.”

  “Then we double back to the ship. Maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll leave.”

  “Very unlikely, John.” Alex noted sternly.

  “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right.” John let out a deep breath. “Well, we’ll just have to figure it out.”

  Richmond Howe’s breath echoed in the confines of his hard suit. He normally rather liked being in the black and gold trim protective suit as it held him snugly in its shell. It was one of the few places on the planet that Howe could truly be left alone, even if it was in a somewhat claustrophobic sense.

  On this particular outing on the Martian surface, Howe was not alone. He had accompanied several members of the Martian Police Force to an open plain on the eastern Arabia Terra region. The Martian Police had surrounded a wide area and scoured the surface looking for evidence of a crime.

  Howe and three Martian Police officer stood over the bloated remains of the terrorist known as Black. Black’s body had expanded like a balloon in Mars’ thin atmosphere. Two Mars Police officers in their forensic division scanned over the body. One examined the physical condition of the corpse, removing any items from Black’s clothing and placing them in protective clear plastic evidence bags. The other ran a hand-held scanner over the body. It was a combination of radar, FLIR, a spectrometer, a MagRes scanner, and other sensors into a large flashlight-sized unit. The data collected from the device showed up both on a small screen on the device and was fed into the HUD of the forensic officer’s helmet.