Pursuit: Rise Of Mankind Book 5

by John Walker

  Pursuit

  Rise Of Mankind

  Book 5

  John Walker

  Copyright © 2017 John Walker

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  DISCLAIMER

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, business, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. This story contains explicit language and violence.

  Blurb

  Earth’s mighty warship, The Behemoth, has been selected to receive the honor of formally joining the alliance. This momentous occasion opens new opportunities for the human race, a chance to help decide the fate of the universal government and participate in galactic affairs. As they prepare for the voyage and ceremony to come, not all are easy aboard the battleship.

  Clea An’Tufal, liaison aboard The Behemoth, wakes from a revelatory dream. Her first assignment ended in tragedy, the ship she served on was destroyed in a massive battle. Just before the final shot forced them to evacuate, she discovered a signal, an enemy secret that could change the tide of the war.

  Unfortunately, this information was stolen by a head wound, robbing her of all details regarding the mission. Now, it’s come back to her and she believes the information may still be out there in the wreckage of her former berth. The trick is to convince not only her friend and Captain, Gray Atwell, of the importance of finding it but the council as well for if this is a mere obsession with a tragic event, the whole mission could be a dangerous waste of resources…or a revelation able to end the conflict once and for all.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  A blast struck the side of their vessel, causing it to shake violently. The hit felt so much worse than in the simulators and Clea An’Tufal wondered how they survived it. Surely anything capable of moving the entire ship had to have gotten through the shields. Horror stories from the more experienced officers came back to haunt her, of times when the enemy blasted a cruiser to dust in a single pass.

  At least that didn’t happen this time.

  Clea focused on her work, trying to ignore the hammering of her heart and a rising sense of panic. This engagement, her first, seemed like a reasonable one. Eight alliance ships took on four of the enemy. Outnumbering their foes two to one sounded good in theory but analysis suggested their opponents actually thrived on encounters where they were outnumbered.

  Her hands flew over her controls, scanning the enemy vessels for any sign of weakness, any advantage the kielans might take advantage of. They seemed like unstoppable titans, creatures intent on killing without remorse or chance for parlay. Most forgot how they first met and what started the war. It barely mattered since no one had spoken to one of the enemy since long before Clea was born.

  The war itself didn’t start for several years after contact had been broken. History books stated after cooperation became impossible, the kielans moved on and didn’t look back. Whatever they said or did at the end pushed these zealots to an extreme of war. The attacks, merciless and sudden, began and continued on year after year.

  Clea watched her screen for a moment as two alliance vessels flanked one enemy. They hammered it with pulse cannons, taking some licks but tearing through the shields. As the enemy hull cracked and split, a cheer resounded in her department. She checked her scan and sure enough, they finished one off.

  Three to go.

  Fighters screamed by, engaging in dogfights throughout the area. Their chatter cluttered up scans, filling the area with white noise which had to be filtered through. Clea wrote a program to do so when she was still in the academy and applied it at the start of the battle. Piercing through the interference, she focused on one ship which seemed to be staying out of the fight.

  What’re you doing back there?

  Their power readings were maximum, they’d taken no damage and to her reckoning, hadn’t fired a shot. They just sat there, waiting. Maybe it’s the command ship. They knew little about the enemy and how they worked. Rank hierarchy and even specifics about their vessels remained mysterious. The latter came from the fact few of their ships were exactly the same.

  Maybe their captains are allowed to personalize.

  Most of the information the kielans had about the enemy came down to maybes and theories. Clea hadn’t been in the service long enough to have as many as some of her fellow crew but she started to form a few. This fight alone gave her ample cause to start guessing. An opponent with no face might be easier to kill but it made it hard to know why they had to.

  One of the kielan ships called out a mayday. Their shields went down and fighters hammered it from every direction. She checked just as their power core erupted, annihilating the small attackers around it. The suddenness of it meant no one escaped before it exploded. Every man and woman aboard had to be dead.

  “I’m on survivors,” someone shouted behind her.

  Good, I don’t want the duty of scanning for bodies.

  Clea blinked hard, forcing herself to focus. She stared at her screen intently, trying to breach the interference of the enemy’s drive core. Their shields fended off physical attacks but their engines emitted so much noise, they could only glean the most obvious details about their opponents.

  One of those was an assumption about communication. They believed to know when they tried to send messages afar but that was based on pure energy casting away from the ship. They could even block it by causing enough interference themselves but there was no code to crack, not that they discovered.

  Furthermore, they could detect their power reserves but even when they’d damaged one of their ships, they weren’t suddenly granted a view of the internal values of the ships. They couldn’t gather intel on ship layout or crew composition. Attempts at hailing them, more in the early days than recently, were always met with silence.

  Many believed the enemy could hear them but refused to listen. Some suggested that was not the case, that they simply blocked all attempts at conversation because they had no intention of speaking to their victims. Many hoped to be able to force a conversation, to try appealing to any shred of conscience they may have.

  Some of the rank and file soldiers couldn’t be totally brainwashed. They had to have families and friends back home, the same as the kielans. Maybe internal revolt was possible if only they heard the desperate cries of the people they so mercilessly killed.

  Another enemy vessel went up, this one by the combined efforts of fighters and one of the capital ships. They unleashed torrents of blaster fire in a concentrated section near the bridge. Clea checked the readings to see what she might learn from the assault. Her people pinpointed a specific area, no more than eighty meters around and battered it.

  Excellent coordination.

  “No survivors,” someone called. A solemn cloud fell over their department. Clea sighed and continued her work on that lone vessel.

  Wai
t a minute…what’s this?

  Clea noted a pattern to some energy emitting from the ship, something that seemed random merely because it took so long to repeat. One of her personal applications found the consistency and alerted her. She brought it up for further analysis, saving it to the ship’s storage unit. It came from what might’ve been their bridge, connecting to the other ship.

  Communications? Clea hummed, trying to work quicker. The computer program continued to diagram the pattern, offering suggestions to what it might be for along the way.

  Remote control of the entire other ship.

  A constant line of voice communications specially coded.

  Transfer of energy to provide bolstered shields and weapons.

  Then, the energy signal burst from the vessel as it had in the past, moving far off from the battle. Clea checked and grinned. The pattern was the same only mired in interference. I found something! The data got saved immediately and she started a deep dive analysis to determine exactly what it was used for.

  Another blow to the ship caused such a violent tremor, Clea was tossed to the floor. Others in her department cried out as some maintained their seats and others collapsed. She pushed herself to her feet just as the alarm went off. Red lights overhead began flashing. A voice piped through the speakers.

  “Alert, alert. All hands evacuate. Repeat, all hands evacuate. Hull breach on deck seven through thirteen.”

  Oh no, Clea thought, the engines are on deck ten!

  She climbed to her feet and went back to her station, tapping at the screen to download the data. Someone grabbed her by the arm. “We have to go! Now!” Clea tried to shake them off but they wouldn’t let go. “That’s an order Zanthari! Move it!”

  Clea cursed under her breath as something exploded behind her sending sparks flying into the air. She rushed out of the room with the others, hustling down a hallway as hoses burst and the entire ship shook. When she sat at her terminal working, she could fight the fear but now, in a blind run to the escape pods, full panic grabbed her stomach.

  They rounded a corner, two hundred meters from their destination when something hit them again. We’re already done, you monsters! Why are you still shooting us? Another heavy shake sent her against the wall, her head bouncing off the metal panel. Queasiness overtook her and she couldn’t feel her limbs.

  I think I’m dying…

  As she fell in slow motion, someone caught her, dragging her backward. The ceiling became dark then red, dark and red over and over before consciousness slipped away. The last sound she heard came from the automated emergency system. “Alert, alert. All hands evacuate. Repeat, all hands evacuate.”

  Chapter 1

  Clea woke with a start, her heart racing in her chest. The dream remained fresh in her mind, gnawing at her as she climbed out of bed and moved over to her desk. Tapping the computer screen, it came to life and she began to write down the events so she wouldn’t forget them.

  How did I forget all about that event? Indeed, she’d been in several battles but that one in particular totally escaped her. Perhaps the injury, she did remember being hurt for several days but somehow glossed over how it happened. Maybe I didn’t want to remember. If it was as bad as the dream, then I understand. I never wake up scared.

  A voice echoed through the halls of the Behemoth, Ensign Agatha White telling everyone they would make Earth orbit in three hours. Clea’s alarm would’ve woken her in an hour. She wanted to be on the bridge when they made orbit, to see them safely returned to where they belonged. They had a great deal to report, from the mining operation mission to first contact with a bristly new culture to a dramatic space battle.

  At least repairs didn’t take long. Before they left, they needed to perform some minor repairs but finished before jumping. Once they were prepared to go home, everyone remained on duty through the process. Not a single member of the crew wanted to be surprised by a second mishap though Clea was certain nothing would happen.

  Maury Higgins remained in the medical bay recovering from being shot. The doctors said he would come out okay but it would take time. When they arrived back at Earth, he would be transferred to another medical facility where he could mend properly. He already made it clear he wanted to come back immediately.

  “You’d have to amputate everything to keep me away.”

  Clea found the image disturbing but the sentiment seemed good natured.

  They were close enough to the alliance ships for her to access historical records. She brought up a log of the battle in a mineral rich sector some distance from their home world. Four enemy ships against eight alliance vessels, that’s what the log titled it. Not very compelling but descriptive I suppose.

  The overall result of the conflict was three kielan vessels were destroyed and four of the enemy. Hers, the Tempered Steel, was the second of their ships to be taken out. Various people wrote logs about the affair, explaining the tactics used, analyzing the failures and successes of the mission.

  Clea frowned, trying to find her own log but couldn’t locate one. She did locate a roster of individuals who were injured or slain. Her name appeared on the list, near the bottom as crew transferred to medical. This required a cross reference check for more information. Her eyes widened when she found her file.

  How did I forget being in the hospital for six days?

  Clea remembered it being bad but six days seemed excessive. The report stated she was unconscious for the first three days. Afterward, she recovered quickly and moved on to the psychiatrists. There, she endured a number of conversations about her post battle state of mind. She recalled not being too badly off, especially since she could not remember the destruction of her ship.

  Small blessing back then but why remember now? They warned her the memories might come back at any time. She didn’t think they would through a dream. She never gave much stock to the ramblings of night time fantasies but this felt entirely too vivid to be a flight of fancy. This held information she could not believe she lost.

  What information did I find? And how much of what I just witnessed was made up? My mind may have filled in the blanks with something more interesting than the truth.

  Clea made a request for more information, sending it to the tech officer aboard the kielan ship. Storage capacity was never a problem so they would have access to the documents, even from all the way back then. She hoped to find more information than the cursory glance into the public documents. Her new rank might even afford her some priority to get her request finished.

  One can only hope but I doubt I’ll find anything particularly exciting in what they send. I’m afraid my personal information is probably lost.

  Clea read back over what she wrote and felt thankful she’d done so. The dream already faded from her mind, disappearing into the ether. She decided to shrug it off for the time being and went to clean up. They had a full docket when they arrived at Earth and she wanted to be fresh for the interrogation like briefings she expected, both from the humans and her own kind.

  Everyone wants a story and considering how many we have, I’m guessing this’ll take a while.

  ***

  Tim Collins and Amos Roper were set to be transferred from the ship to military authorities the moment the Behemoth made Earth orbit. Military guard prepared a highly secure shuttle which was destined for a maximum security facility. There, the two men would wait for their trial, which surely would not go their way.

  Captain Gray Atwell met with Commander Adam Everly and Lieutenant Colonel Marshall as soon as they made Earth space to discuss everything that happened. They penned an extensive report regarding their investigation and detailed the actions of the three traitors. Lieutenant Theresa Conway’s final moments of violence were also documented, right up to her death while holding a hostage.

  When they were done, Gray insisted on speaking with Tim. Adam advised against it. “What good will come from it, sir? He’s going down for what he did. There’s nothing he can say that would
make any difference now, don’t you think?”

  “I trusted that man,” Gray replied. “I considered him a fine officer and he betrayed all our trust. I’ll look him in the eye before I turn him over, while he’s still under my command, and see if I can tell why he did it.”

  “Because he had sex,” Marshall replied. “Conway turned him but it wasn’t hard because she used Jameson against him. She developed an asset with her body and there wasn’t a whole lot he could do about it. Smart as Collins was, he had enough naivety to be taken in by a pretty face…and a forceful one too from my analysis.”

  “So you’re saying he betrayed us all over a chance with a woman?” Gray shook his head. “I don’t buy it. He had to know they weren’t going to succeed. His life would be over. And what if their tampering killed us all? I need to see him myself now that things are calmed down.”

  Adam nodded. “Yes, sir. Just…don’t be too disappointed with the lack of answers you’re going to receive. I don’t think he’s going to have a good explanation.”

  “He can at least try.”

  Gray went to the brig alone and let the guards know he wanted to speak with Collins but to leave the man in his cell. They escorted him back and he dismissed them, standing straight with his hands clasped behind his back. Collins reclined on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. He didn’t look anything like himself, drained and pale. Nothing like the vibrant officer who had served on the bridge since before they finished the ship.

  “Now’s your chance to talk,” Gray said. “If you’ve got anything to say to me personally.”

  “I don’t think so, sir.” Collins replied. He spoke in monotone, barely moving as he did so.

  “Don’t say anything!” Roper shouted. “They’ll just use it against us!”