The Coming Storm_A Pax Aeterna Novel

by Trevor Wyatt

  Thing is, can I do the right thing? Can I trust myself to do what’s right for our child?

  “He died. Years ago.”

  “What?” Ashley croaked, suddenly surprised.

  Jeryl continued immediately, “I know he went down with the station, but that wasn't Kaine. That wasn't the man I knew. The man I called brother died all those years ago...the one that in league with the Tyreesians, the one who rose against his own race—that one is nothing but a murderous traitor.”

  Jeryl said that last bit with so much venom that it unsettled him. He didn’t know how deeply affected by Kaine’s actions he still was.

  Ashley began to rub his back gently and soothingly, reassuring him.

  “I guess in a way, I’m still mourning him,” Jeryl said. “The one I called my friend is truly gone. What came after him was a monster.”

  Jeryl turned and took his wife’s hands.

  “If such a thing can happen to Kaine, of all people,” Jeryl started, “how much less me?”

  “Don’t, Jeryl,” Ashley said. “Don’t compare yourself to that monster.”

  Jeryl nodded. He looked away for a moment.

  “What I’m saying is this,” he continued, staring at her passionately. “I don’t want to become what Kaine has become. If it can happen to Kaine, it can happen to even the best of us. What if I lost you? What if I lost our baby?”

  Ashely remained silent, holding his hands and his gaze with a steadfast strength.

  “I think that...maybe it’s time to step down from my role as captain,” he continued. “It’s no longer just me and you. There’s a third one coming, and he requires all of our time and dedication. I don’t see that happening if I’m still commanding The Seeker.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Ashley said, her eyes brimming with hope.

  “I mean, we don’t have to leave the Armada,” Jeryl said. “They’ll still need our help.”

  “True,” Ashley replied. “We have a few more patrol assignments. After that, we could hang our hats.”

  “Settle down for an office position on Earth or New Washington,” Jeryl said.

  “Or one of the Union’s more beautiful worlds,” she said.

  “Right,” Jeryl said. “No more crazy antics. No more wild missions. No more putting our lives on the line. We have a family to worry about.”

  With a smile on her face, Ashley agreed. “Yes.”

  And then they kissed.

  Family, Jeryl thought, that's what matters now.

  Ahead of them, a new life awaited.

  Chapter 36

  Cassius

  Cassius took a huge bite of the specialty pasta that had just arrived. It was from his favorite restaurant, and he only allowed himself to indulge once every two months. His tablet dinged at him and he set the fork down with an annoyed grunt.

  This better be good, he thought as he wiped his hands and picked up the tablet.

  It was the encrypted message he had been waiting for.

  The pasta would have to wait. He looked at it with longing before decrypting the message.

  Operation complete. Meet at the designated location, was all it read.

  Cassius smiled in triumph. The son of a bitch made it. The plan had been ambitious at best, a suicide trap at worst. He only held a tenuous hope for success, and fully expected failure.

  The message was exalting. He wanted to run out to the meeting place right away. He half-stood, then sat down in disappointment. The meeting wasn’t until 0230. Cassius poured himself a celebratory whisky, the food now forgotten.

  Unable to sleep, Cassius shook his security detail early and drove around Fairdale. His old stomping grounds brought back memories of growing up poor and in the clutches of the local gang, the Rolands.

  The Rolands still ran the place, for the price of his Chancellorship. When he was young and half-starved, he never imagined he would make deals like that. He was naive and righteous. He had no idea how things worked in the real world.

  He held that view until his wife and son were killed by a manufactured plague.

  That incident was covered up quickly, and Cassius was forced to do questionable things to ensure the future of his two daughters. Fairdale had come a long way since those days. Each house and apartment had the basic requirements now, and he had instituted a food program. No one on his planet would ever starve again. That alone was worth it.

  He pulled into the shipyard and killed the lights. It was the middle of the night and thanks to his crime boss brother, the security lights and cameras were ‘on the fritz’. This was where the Rolands conducted their shadier business deals. Francis Ojun declared it off limits for the night at Cassius’s request.

  The brothers had almost become enemies in Cassius’s early days of politics. Cassius had dreamed of cleaning up the organized crime that held his family figurative prisoners for so many years. Instead of aiding the poor that the government didn’t give a rat’s ass about, they extorted them further. Luckily, Francis changed most of that when he took over. While they still had their illegal operations, he used the excess profit to help those in need. He also gave a lot of hard working people legitimate jobs. Upon reflection, Cassius realized the gang leader had turned out more noble than the Chancellor.

  I regret nothing, he lied to himself.

  Bored with cruising, Cassius arrived early. The person he was set to meet wasn’t there yet, so he was left in the silent darkness. The shipyard gave him the creeps. It was ominous enough in the daylight, but the cargo containers that littered the place cast nighttime shadows that looked like monsters ready to ambush the unwary.

  The fact that the Rolands had dumped more than one corpse there didn’t help.

  He stayed in the locked car, content to drink his coffee until he saw headlights pull up beside him. He unlocked the passenger door as a shadowy figure lumbered toward it. He got in and made himself comfortable. Cassius relocked the doors.

  “Glad you made it back. Did anyone see you?” Cassius asked. It was vital that no one could connect them.

  “Nah. It doesn’t matter here anyway. No one knows who I am.”

  “Good point. Did everything go according to plan?”

  “Down to my second fake death,” Kaine Reed grinned.

  Cassius opened his mouth to speak, when an urgent beep came from his console.

  “Shit, we gotta move,” he muttered and started the car.

  “Why?” Kaine tensed up and drew his gun.

  “Calm down. My security team is too close. I gotta ditch them again.”

  “You talk about being seen, and now we have to run from your own security?”

  “You got a better idea?”

  “No.” Kaine sat back and sulked.

  Cassius maneuvered the aircar out of the shipyard and lifted off. He preferred driving on the ground, but flight was quicker and more flexible. He expertly weaved around buildings in figure eight patterns, doubling back, forward and sideways. He had disabled the car’s tracker, but his men were good. It was only a matter of time before they found his hiding place. Once he was sure he lost them, he set the car down in a forgotten alley and killed the engine.

  “So, how are you going to explain this?” Kaine asked in amusement.

  “I dreamt of my mother and wanted to cruise the old neighborhood.”

  “Nice touch.”

  “Thanks,” he said sarcastically. He couldn’t believe that he just used his dead mother to cover a plot. That was a new low, even for him. There was nothing he could do about it now. He had been waiting long enough to hear about the operation.

  “So? Any problems?”

  “Nope. The whole thing got blamed on the Tyreesians,” Kaine gloated.

  The Tyreesians were dumb and aggressive—the perfect scapegoats. As long as the Terran Union looked at them, Cassius was free to manipulate the future as he saw fit.

  “Good work, Captain.”

  “I got the Terran Armada running around like chickens with the
ir heads cut off. And they think they’ve won,” Kaine slapped his knee as if that were the funniest thing he ever heard, “And Jeryl Montgomery can kiss my ass.”

  For a man like Kaine, the juvenile remark took Cassius by surprise.

  “Don’t let your personal vendetta get in the way of our objectives,” he warned.

  “Don’t worry, Chancellor. They go hand in hand.”

  Yes, they did. That was the reason Cassius had chosen a worm-like Kaine to begin with. Someone who had a turbulent history with the Terran Armada would be more loyal than some random band of mercenaries. So far, his instincts were correct. One misstep could send the man over the edge, but Cassius was prepared for that.

  “How did you get out of there?” he asked, eager for a daring tale of escape. He spent way too much time in a stuffy office.

  “With style,” Kaine said but wouldn’t elaborate. A man as slippery as Kaine needed his secrets and guarded them ferociously. He got the job done, and that was what mattered.

  But, dammit, Cassius wanted details.

  “Good god, man. Give me something!” he demanded.

  Kaine tapped his chin, pretending to think, “Here’s something,” he paused dramatically. “Montgomery’s wife and first officer, Ashley Gavin.”

  “What about her?” He was losing patience with The Ghost’s captain. The man was a facetious prick.

  “She’s pregnant and still on duty.”

  “What the hell has that got to do with anything we’ve planned?”

  Sure he would get nothing more, Cassius started the car. They were halfway to the shipyard before Kaine answered.

  “Nothing. Just something that could be useful if the need arises.”

  Cassius said nothing and landed beside Kaine’s car.

  “Don't think of yourself as a valiant knight, Chancellor. You roll in the mud just like the rest of us,” Kaine said and then jumped out, slamming the door before Cassius could respond.

  As much as Cassius hated to admit it, the captain was right. But if rolling the mud was what it took to achieve his goals, then Cassius would gladly do it.

  Over and over again.

  Homefront

  Shadow Agent Chronicles Book 1

  A Pax Aeterna Novel

  Copyright © 2017 by Pax Aeterna Press

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons is entirely coincidental. This work intended for adults only.

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  No-One

  The alleyway between the twin fifty-story buildings facing the lab provides cover for me. The three-lane road cutting the space between the twin towers and the lab stretches through the heart of the Industrial Estate, which is the commercial and political heart of Sonali Prime. As such, the road is heavily trafficked by cars, Sonali and a sprinkle of humans and other species.

  On Sonali Prime, there are still primitive land-based vehicles, like rovers and bikes, which are used for short distances travels. These primitive vehicles are also used by the poor. Poverty is as much a problem on Sonali Prime as it is on Earth. You’d think a government that could send its people to the stars would extinguish poverty as it went into space. But no, that’s not the case here.

  It’s late in the afternoon, and I’m standing closer to the structure on the left, my eyes kept peeled on the two-story building that houses the research lab I’m going to be sharing with the xenoarchaeologist, Gresh.

  For the past few days that I’ve been on Sonali Prime, establishing my presence and cover, I’ve been going over the information we have on Gresh. All it says is that he is a renowned xenoarchaeologist who publicly supports the Origin Movement, which is dubbed Anti-Ascension in some quarters. Today, I’m going to meet him for the first time and get a feel of who he really is and not just what his dossier says.

  I find the Origin Movement to be a very fitting name. Aside from the fact that it’s a cool way to address Gresh and his fellow free-thinking Sonali friends, it also hints at the reason for the whole ruckus that engulfed Sonali Prime since the “Arrival of Terrans”, an issue for which I’ve been sent to the Sonali homeworld to spy on them.

  I scoff in my hiding spot. I know I haven’t been exactly as efficient as I was during the war against the Sonali. Believe me; no one knows that better than I do. Nevertheless, I don’t see how sending me to this fucking boring mission is a good use of my skills. I should be at the front of the Galactic Council formation, collecting information concerning just how powerful Tyreesian Collectives’ matter transportation technology is, and not watching some scientists that don’t want to go through puberty.

  I squint my eyes in mild disgust, before pushing the thought out of my mind. A good agent doesn’t let her emotions get in her way. I may not like my current babysitting mission, but I shouldn’t let that affect my opinion of Gresh. Otherwise, it would influence the way I speak to him, as well as my actions, and maybe—just maybe—even blow my cover.

  I’ve decided to get the job done here on Sonali Prime. Gather all the information the Armada Intelligence Service could ever need. Prove to those bastards that I haven’t lost my edge. Then right before they want to make their way into their good favors again, I’ll stick it to them hard. I am not called No. 1 in Armada Intelligence for no reason.

  I know I could’ve fought the assignment. I just didn’t. Not now. A good solider knows when to fight and when to bow down. The war is a long one. I don’t have to win every goddamn battle as long as the war is won. I am very patient…Oh, and I never forget. Never…

  “Who goes there!” bursts a thick voice behind me.

  I freeze for a moment, my mind running the possibilities. Who could be behind me? How did they sneak up on me? Is he an assassin? If he’s an assassin, why give away his position?

  I slightly push away from the side of the building and inch towards the center of the alleyway, so the light from the road covers my form by flooding the Sonali’s eyes.

  “Who are you and what are you doing hiding here?” the voice asks, getting closer by the second.

  I hear the Sonali’s footsteps as he approaches.

  I don’t respond. I’m wearing an atmospheric regulator on my face—even though I don’t really need it. The nanites coursing through my veins can help me breathe, along with a host of other things it can do. But no one knows I have them. And I really don’t see the need of letting the whole world (or worlds…) know, ergo an atmospheric regulator, which I use to hide my face.

  Now, if I speak, the Sonali behind me, which I am assuming is security, will have a record of my voice which they can run through a voice analyzer. They may come up empty since I’ve not had my true voice recorded by the Sonali security department. They would have my voice recorded as a cop assailant with what I’m about to do to this Sonali. I can live with that—I wouldn’t be a great spy if I couldn’t. But it’ll be like living in a tent filled with flies. It’ll be a damn inconvenience.

  Of course, I’ll choose ease over inconvenience, every time. But that’s not what you’ll see in the holovids. In the vids, the lady spy would turn and say a cool line, and then maybe the Sonali gets off a round, which she so conveniently dodges before pulling out her weapon and getting off a shot that drills a hole in the middle of the Sonali’s eye.

  “Turn around!” yells the Sonali.

  I turn around. I know the light will still hide my face, so why resist?

  The Sonali, however, is visible for me to see. From his uniform, I confirm that he’s a security personnel. Probably patrol. I look through the Spartan alleyway all the way to the end, which is about the length of a block. I see a hovering security air car. I blink my right eye, mentally calling the scanning control of my nanites. The world turns a very bright
orange hue in my right eye and a grid overcast upon it.

  The Sonali before me appears as a deep red. There are also deep reds all over the place, signifying other life forms. But there’s none in the car. I blink my right eye again, canceling the scanning protocol.

  The world is normal again.

  The Sonali police officer is alone. I’m sure he was flying by when he spotted me leaning nefariously on the side of the building.

  “You’re wearing a regulator,” he says. “So, you’re an alien.” Then with a twist in tone from confrontational to sheer hate. “You must be a Terran, for your stature. A female, I would guess.”

  I notice he hasn’t pulled out his weapon yet. He doesn’t see me as a threat. I almost scoff at his colossal misjudgment.

  “Are you here to bomb the towers?” he continues, taking a step towards me with each word. “Is that your mission?”

  When he’s within range, I mentally call up my voice modifier.

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” I say in a transmogrified voice.

  The slits on this Sonali widened impossibly, and I see raw fear pass through his eyes as I jab against his throat and have him grabbing his neck and gasping for air. I slam my booted foot into his right knee, hearing the bone crack and feeling the muscle tear.

  The Sonali screams and collapses to the ground.

  Still gasping for air, he grabs his communicator. “Officer under attack. Assailant is a suspected, female alien wearing an atmospheric regulator.”

  I knock him out with a punch smack in the head.

  I pull up to my full height.

  “That ought to teach you not to mess with a girl,” I say in my transmogrified voice. “We Drupadi women are tough as old boots.”

  I’m not a Drupadi, and neither am I disguised as a Drupadi. But the operators at the Sonali Security Ops Center who are still listening in through the cop’s active comm unit don’t know that. They’ll probably now be recording the “suspected female alien wearing an atmospheric regulator” as Drupadi