Invasion (The K'Tai War Series Book 1)

by PP Corcoran

  “But I’m a civilian!” Sue protested. “I have a family that needs me! What right do you have to hold me here against my will?”

  Reynolds pursed her lips; she wanted to dismiss Sue’s argument out of hand, but the school teacher was right. Governor Vandenberg had never implemented martial law, so in theory Sue could just stand up and walk out whenever she felt like it, possibly compromising the whole base. Reynolds’ mind raced to find a solution and the one she came up with escaped her lips before she thought better of it.

  “Under the Defense Security Act, Article fifty-eight, Sub-paragraph two, you are hereby conscripted into the League Marine Corps for the duration of the current emergency.”

  Sue felt a wave of disorientation sweep over her. Conscripted! You have got to be joking! The confused look on Sue’s face only emboldened Reynolds, who saw the opportunity to push her advantage and took it. “Welcome to the marines, Marine Carter. You are confined to sick bay until further orders. Any attempt to leave will be treated as desertion. In wartime desertion is punishable by summary execution.” Reynolds spun on her heel and marched out of the sick bay, Turay hot on her heels.

  The sergeant major managed to hold it together until they were out of earshot of the sick bay and the still stunned Sue, before the largest grin Reynolds had ever seen the career soldier display spread across her face. “Defense Security Act, Article Fifty-Eight refers to the safe disposal of raw sewage.”

  Reynolds did not slow her pace as she replied in a deadpan voice. “Best I could come up with on the spot. Let’s keep that minor detail our little secret, shall we, Sergeant Major?”

  “Just do me a favor and give me a chance to get out of this solar system before you tell Marine Carter that she isn’t actually a marine, will you? A school teacher that woman ain't, and the way she moves, she has received some serious training.”

  “Roger that, Sergeant Major.” The pair continued to walk on in silence, Reynolds mulling over Turay’s observations. Whatever Sue Carter was, Reynolds had little doubt that she was as lethal as they came and that was something Reynolds would need in the fight against the K’Tai.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Heirs

  DAY FIFTEEN

  A small tremor indicated the successful docking of Graceful Dancer. The inner airlock door receded soundlessly before the heavier outer door slid aside with the gentle hiss of hydraulics. As the thick door settled into its recess, the captain of the private yacht stepped to one side wordlessly to allow his employer, Maddix Henderson, and his private secretary, Margaret Finlay, to step past him, crossing the thin red line on the docking bay’s floor which indicated that the aging man was now officially aboard Fleet Naval Station Normandy. Standing ready to greet the shipping magnate was a ludicrously young-looking ensign. The ensign’s deep blue uniform was spotless and the shine from his black polished shoes was enough to blind. Stepping forward with a welcoming smile, the young man thrust out his hand to Maddix, who blatantly ignored it, leaving the outstretched hand hanging in midair. The ensign, apparently unfazed by Maddix’s slight, dropped his arm and introduced himself.

  “Welcome to Normandy, Mr. Maddix. I trust your journey here was not too fatiguing. My name is Ensign Handley and…”

  “Where is Admiral Helbrunn, young man?” demanded Maddix, cutting Handley off to the consternation of the naval officer.

  “Eh… The admiral regrets not meeting you personally, Mr. Maddix. As you can imagine. the current situation in the Agate system…”

  Maddix fixed the man with cold, steely eyes, voice barely above a whisper. “You mean the invasion.”

  A line of sweat broke out on Handley’s forehead. This was meant to be a simple meet and greet. Escort some rich guy whose only concern was his undoubtedly substantial assets on Agate to the guest quarters and then pass him off to the Public Relations staff. Instead, it was going to hell in a handbasket faster than he could keep up with. Clearing his throat to stall while his mind tried desperately to think of something to placate Maddix, he was thrown another curve ball as the equally elderly woman accompanying Maddix stepped forward, a data chip sitting in her open palm. Handley plucked the innocuous looking piece of plastic and metal from her open hand and slipped it into his data slate. With a subdued beep, the slate acknowledged the successful electronic handshake and began to read the information held on the data chip, displaying the contents obligingly on the crystal-clear display. From his position in the airlock the yacht’s captain failed miserably to suppress a chuckle as Handley’s face went ashen and his mouth dropped open. Maddix’s impassive expression implied that he had apparently failed to hear the stifled chuckle; Margaret Finlay, however, swiveled her head in the captain’s direction, and with a flashing glance to ensure the stunned ensign was still engrossed with the information scrolling down his slate, she gave the yacht’s captain a conspiratorial wink. That was just too much for the captain, who was forced to bow his head and duck around the edge of the airlock’s frame, hand going to his mouth to cover the sound of his laughter at the ensign’s predicament.

  Deciding that he had been delayed enough by naval red tape, Maddix Henderson took matters into his own hands, deftly stepping around Ensign Handley and heading for the station’s inter car. With a loud clearing of her throat, Margaret Finlay managed to drag Handley’s eyes from the slate; with a perfectly manicured finger she pointed at the receding back of her boss. Handley did a quick double take as he realized one of his charges was about to disappear into the bowels of the expansive station. Margaret made a shooing motion with both hands, which was enough for Handley to set off like a startled deer, calling the older man’s name. With a resigned sigh Margaret headed off after him, ignoring the sounds of muffled laughter coming from the yacht’s airlock. It was refreshing to hear a little joviality from the crew; the past few days had been nearly too much to bear. She had been a confidante of Maddix Henderson for over half a century and could recall starkly the two occasions her boss and friend had shown such signs of worry.

  The first had been two decades ago with the loss of his only son and his wife in a boating accident while on a surprise holiday that Maddix had arranged. The guilt which consumed Maddix took him to a dark place that even Margaret had found hard to reach him in. If not for the presence of Kyle, grandson and now sole heir to Maddix, Margaret had feared that she would have lost her oldest friend completely.

  Kyle had been barely a year old when his parents had died, and was being cared for by Maddix and his wife, Marlee, at the time of the accident. After a week locked away in his private study, refusing to see a living soul, Marlee had ignored Maddix’s demands to be left alone. Carrying the infant Kyle into the room, Marlee deposited the child on Maddix’s lap, reminding the grieving man in no uncertain terms that he was not the only victim of this tragedy.

  The second had come a scant two years later. The seizing of the cruise liner Queen of the Stars by pirates was ended by the unexpected intervention of two extraordinary individuals, who had acted decisively when the local governor had refused to meet the pirates’ ransom demands; so, the pirates selected two members of the crew, the liner’s purser and an engineering crewman, along with a woman traveling with a child, as examples of their resolve. The pirates forced the two crewmen and the screaming woman into an airlock as the crying child lay on the cold deck at a pirate’s feet while he spaced them. Unknown to the pirates, the woman had been Marlee Henderson, en route with the infant Kyle from Earth to the company’s new headquarters on Tarin. The bodies were never recovered.

  Now, though, the K’Tai invasion of Agate had brought the unfortunate specter that, once more, tragedy might overshadow the Henderson family.

  The arrival of the inter car broke into Margaret’s melancholy. Ensign Handley ushered his two charges into the empty car and into waiting seats, before entering his override authorization which would take the car nonstop to its destination, the level which held Admiral Helbrunn’s office. Seating himself opposite Maddix
and Margaret, he looked briefly once more at the information on his data slate and the prominent seal of the office of the League Secretary General hovering majestically above it all.

  #

  “It appears that you have some powerful friends, Mr. Henderson. However, I don’t take my orders from the Secretary General’s office. I take my orders from High Command, so I am at a loss as to what you expect from me.” Admiral Christina Helbrunn eyed the man sitting opposite her with growing impatience. Who did Maddix Henderson think he was? He might have a letter signed by the Secretary General himself, requesting that all facets of the League provide ‘all possible assistance’ to the bearer, but her interpretation of ‘assistance’ did not extend to briefing him in on confidential military operations.

  Maddix’s reply was not what she expected. “And the High Command work for the Secretary General. Quite simply, Admiral, I demand to know what you are doing to remove the K’Tai from Agate and secure the safety of the civilian population.”

  Helbrunn exploded out of her seat, face flushing red as she leaned into the space between herself and Maddix. “You demand! How dare you waltz on to my station, flaunting a letter which you obviously believe will have us poor military types bending over backward to comply, before making ludicrous demands? I strongly suggest you take your expensive suit…” Helbrunn waved a hand at the patiently waiting Margaret. “And your lackey here and get the hell out of my office before I have a couple of marines do it for you.”

  With surprising speed for a man of his age, Maddix rose from his seat until he was nose to nose with Helbrunn. His mouth opened to say something when a firm hand grasped him by the shoulder and pulled him back.

  “Perhaps we should lower the temperature a fraction,” said Margaret in a gentle, conciliatory tone. Helbrunn didn’t fail to notice that the look she gave Maddix implied that the suggestion was more an order, and one he followed without protest, regaining his seat with a loud harrumph.

  “Admiral, if I may explain our reason for coming here?” continued Margaret in the same placating voice.

  Helbrunn pressed her lips together, the adrenalin surge through her tensed muscles was fading. She eyed the now sitting Maddix, who refused to meet her gaze, choosing instead to stare at the deep piled carpet. White-knuckled fingers gripped the arms of his seat. Helbrunn realized that there was more going here than a company boss worried about investments. Temper cooling, she found herself strangely intrigued and wanting to know more. Sitting, she straightened her uniform blouse, nodding her assent to Margaret.

  “Thank you, Admiral. As you can imagine, Henderson Shipping has significant assets within the Agate system. Bulk freighters, orbital facilities, and offices, to name but a few. These assets represent, conservatively, billions of credits, and their loss would be a major blow to the company--but something that we, as a company, would recover from. What the company, Mr. Henderson, and myself, would not recover from is the loss of Kyle Henderson. That’s Mr. Henderson’s grandson and heir to Henderson Shipping…”

  “Now hold on, Ms. Finlay,” interrupted Helbrunn. “I cannot and will not make military decisions based on the safety of a single individual. There are eight million humans in the Agate system and no matter how much money and influence they have, each one is as important to me as the next.”

  “As it should be, Admiral, as it should be. The importance of Kyle to Mr. Henderson cannot be overstated so we, shall we say, took steps to ensure his safety in the event of something untoward happening in Agate. Admittedly a full-on K’Tai invasion was something that even you could not foresee.”

  Helbrunn had to bite her tongue. Implied or not, it was her fault that she hadn’t recognized the signs that the K’Tai had planned to occupy Agate.

  “It is our belief that the steps that we took may be of assistance to you in any future planning.” Margaret produced a state of the art security container from the small valise she had been carrying. The container, no larger than a small purse, dutifully popped open as it detected Margaret’s DNA signature. Reaching inside, Margaret retrieved a data chip and passed it to Helbrunn, who accepted it, slipping it into the reader on her desk. Immediately the display blinked red and a twenty-second countdown clock appeared. Nineteen…eighteen…seventeen… If Helbrunn didn’t enter her classified access code by the time the countdown reached zero, the information on the data chip would automatically erase and the chip itself would be turned into slag by the embedded nanites.

  Helbrunn was surprised at being handed a piece of Zeta-encrypted material. The highest classification in the League would have to wait as her fingers flew over her desk’s inbuilt keyboard as she entered her codeword clearance. The smart desk hummed to itself as it compared the access code Helbrunn had entered with the one held on file by the station’s central computer. All the time, the countdown clock was remorselessly heading for zero.

  With two seconds remaining, the blinking red screen was replaced by the icon for a single file. Helbrunn looked from the display to Margaret’s veiled, inscrutable face. Maddix Henderson regarded her with a look that was more doleful. Returning her attention to the hovering icon, Helbrunn tapped it with a finger, and it opened to reveal two personnel and one data file. Both personnel files were bordered in red, indicating that they would require further codeword clearance before they could be opened. Helbrunn’s interest had been piqued and she hurriedly entered the codes to access the files. Once opened the admiral began to read, brow furrowing as she tried to assimilate the information. Every few paragraphs she would tear her eyes away and focus on the two civilians, who sat silent and unmoving in their seats. With a shake of her head in disbelief, Helbrunn continued to read. Now and then a choice expletive would slip from her lips. The silence in the room stretched on as the admiral read the personnel files twice to make sure she hadn’t missed anything before she moved on to the data file. Its contents got another string of similar expletives. Finished, Helbrunn closed the display and regarded Henderson and his companion in a new light, marshalling her thoughts before she spoke.

  “These… er… assets are… formidable, Mr. Henderson. And what exactly do you want in return for making them available to us?”

  Maddix Henderson leaned forward in his seat, voice shaking slightly. “Locate Kyle and get him off planet at the first opportunity.”

  “That’s a big ask, Mr. Henderson,” replied Helbrunn, looking deep into Henderson’s pleading eyes, seeing the desperation in the man’s soul. “However, these assets you offer may be invaluable to our future operations on the planet’s surface and if, and it’s a big if, your grandson can be located and retrieved with, and I emphasize this so there is no misunderstanding between us, no undue effect on military operations, then I believe we have an understanding.”

  Maddix Henderson felt the heavy weight that had been pressing down on him ever since hearing of the K’Tai invasion of Agate lift ever so slightly. “Thank you, Admiral Helbrunn. I appreciate your candor. Now if there is nothing further, we shall return to my yacht and await developments.” Standing, he held out his hand to Helbrunn, who stood and shook it warmly.

  “We can make quarters available on the station for the duration of your stay, Mr. Henderson, if that would suit you better?”

  For the first time, a small smile broke through Maddix Henderson’s somber face. “I spend so much time on Graceful Dancer these days that she has become something of a second home to me.”

  Helbrunn gave him an understanding smile. Sitting in the expansive luxury of her own quarters on the Normandy, she at times wistfully found herself wishing she could be back in the cramped spartan quarters of her own first command, a small, underpowered, underarmed intra-system gunboat. It might be a relic compared to the massed ships that she commanded today but, well, you never forgot your first command. Touching a control on her smart desk brought Ensign Handley into the room like a puppy eager to please its master.

  “Ensign. Please escort Mr. Henderson and Ms. Finlay back to their
ship and inform the Dock Master that the ship will be remaining here for the foreseeable future.”

  A snapped salute was accompanied with an, “Aye aye, ma’am.”

  With her guests on their way back to their yacht, Helbrunn tapped a wrist comm code into her desk. After a couple of seconds, the image of Robert Matheson hung in the air above the desk. “Would you be so good as to round up Commander Del Mastro and join me in my office, Robert? I’ve had an offer I’d like both your inputs on.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Raiders

  DAY TWENTY-FIVE

  The fabric of space itself heaved and split apart as the eight heavy cruisers, ten light cruisers and two fast attack carriers of Rear Admiral Robert Matheson’s Raiding Force Scorpio re-entered normal space. LPN Cheetah’s ship’s systems raced to reconfigure themselves after the destabilizing shock of transition back into normal space. Even after thirty years serving aboard ship, Matheson still suffered just as much from transition as the rawest sailor. He had just learned to ignore the flip-flops his inner ear performed as he waited for his ship’s sensor suites to come back online. For all he knew, the entire force could have transitioned slap bang in the middle of the K’Tai battle fleet. A wry smile formed on his lips; well, at least my death would be quick.

  “Sensors coming back up, Admiral … The force is in clean.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Anders. Please inform Kraken and Bremen that they may launch when ready.”

  From the two fast attack carriers, a flight of four sleek Lancer fighters surged from their launch bays while a slower, heavier Cyclops electronic warfare bird launched from the main deck. The Lancers formed up on the Cyclops, with one group pushing ahead of the raiding force, call sign Spear Zero One. They would be Scorpio’s eyes and ears, while the second Cyclops and its escort headed sunward. To the pilots and crews of call sign Shield Zero Two went a more dangerous, if far less glamorous, task. Robert had no doubt the K’Tai would eventually become aware of his presence in the Agate system, especially given that his orders were to cause as much destruction and mayhem as he could. What he desperately needed to know was how quickly the K’Tai could react and what forces they might bring to bear. Shield Zero Two would get as close to Agate as possible while remaining undetected. When the K’Tai reacted to Scorpio’s presence, the monitoring equipment on the Cyclops would record every scrap of information about the enemy ships that it could. Drive signatures, shield harmonics, weapons output, communications methods. Anything the K’Tai let slip would be of unquestionable value, if not now, then when the push to free the system came. Robert had no doubt Admiral Helbrunn was determined to free Agate and its human inhabitants. Before Scorpio had left Doberman, he had witnessed for himself the arrival of the first heavy units, a squadron of Mars-class heavy cruisers, their drive shafts emitting the tell-tale strain signatures of being pushed to the maximum during their head-long dash from Arata to Doberman. Helbrunn’s working theory was that the K’Tai had no intention of extending the conflict beyond Agate; however, once Matheson and Scorpio began offensive operations, there was no guarantee the K’Tai wouldn’t launch an attack on Doberman.