Ghost Squadron

by Kevin McLaughlin

  Her parents. The video. It all came flooding back in a rush. Her parents had said they loved her. That was something. It was worthwhile. It was a good thought. They needed her to live, to find a way through this. If she didn’t, they would die. They loved her, and she would die.

  Sam cruised the waves of thought and snatched up another memory. This one was pulled from the alien’s mind when it opened up to her to show her the terrible things it had planned for her and humanity. It had tried to hide the thought and almost succeeded. She’d only barely caught it and hadn’t been able to recall it until just then.

  The alien was aware that there was a logical fallacy in the reasoning it used. The assault it made on Sam was predicated on the idea that she didn’t have a right to exist, that she wasn’t really alive. She was a thing, not a being. Because she was an uploaded mind?

  But the entire alien species was made up of uploaded minds. Which meant that if she wasn’t a being, neither were they. Clearly, they considered themselves alive. Therefore so was Sam.

  And her parents needed her to stand up.

  Sam rolled sideways, dodging the queen’s sword as it stabbed into the ground where she’d been curled up. Every fiber of her being hurt. The wound in her side still bled. So did the cut on her arm. But she was herself again. She could feel those hurts, think clearly, plan her next move.

  “You should have simply lain still,” the alien queen said. “I would have made the end painless for you. Now I will have to cut you apart one piece at a time.”

  “Come and try it,” Sam said. She raised her sword into a guard position and blinked. It wasn’t the same sword she’d been holding before.

  That had been a plain blade, unadorned. But now she was holding her old sword from the early days in Valhalla. She’d once had a stone set into the hilt that allowed her to use frost magic. The sword she was holding bore the same glowing stone. Would it work here the same way it had in Valhalla Online? This was a battlefield of the mind. It might just.

  Sam spoke a word and pointed the tip of her sword at the queen. A blue line shot from the blade and struck the alien. Frost and then ice covered part of her armor. The ice curled up over more of her body, threatening to swallow the alien’s form whole.

  The queen screamed. The sound shattered the ice, sending chips of it flying back toward Sam. She raised an arm to cover her eyes and rushed forward, sword slashing. She had to keep the initiative. The sword darted in, striking the same armored plates she’d just frozen. Stressed beyond their tolerance, the armor shattered.

  This time it was the alien backing away and holding her side. She didn’t seem to be bleeding, but that hit had to have hurt. Good, Sam thought. It’s what she gets for trying to kill me.

  “Last chance, bitch. Go home and never come back, or we finish this,” Sam said.

  There it was. The alien’s eyes darted sideways, just for a moment. That was fear in those eyes. It was looking for courage, summoning a false face to show off. Bravado, not bravery.

  “I think not,” it said. “I will crush you and all your kind!”

  It rushed in. Sam swung her blade up high and parried the blow. Another shot rained down. Sam blocked it as well. She fired off a riposte that was deflected off the alien’s shoulder armor. They were both still too evenly matched. Sam couldn’t break through her defense, but neither could the alien get in a finishing blow.

  Time wasn’t on Sam’s side, and she knew it. The stab wound was still bleeding heavily. Sam could feel the hot liquid dripping down her side, across her leg. She was only going to get weaker, the longer this fight went on.

  Something Sam had learned in Valhalla came back to her. The worst opponent a swordsman could face wasn’t an expert. It was someone who didn’t care if they lived or died. The expert who cared about the outcome would always be cautious and hold back something for defense. In Valhalla Online, where everyone respawned after each death, some warriors simply impaled themselves on your weapon - just to get in a killing blow on you before they died.

  It was a hell of a risk. But she was slowing down again. The small burst of energy she’d recovered was fading. Time to take action.

  Sam turned sideways, then acted like she was aiming a high strike at the queen’s head. In doing so she left her guard open, her front exposed. The alien saw the opening and swung her sword high to block Sam’s, then slammed the long knife forward into Sam’s belly.

  Pain tore through her as the dagger ripped through skin, muscle, and the tissue beneath. It wasn’t enough to kill Sam outright, but the wound would be mortal. She’d suffered enough injuries to recognize that. But pain was an old friend for Sam, one she’d become intimately familiar with over the years. Shutting off the sensation so that she could still function took an extreme effort of will.

  The high swing had been a feint. Her sword swung high at first, but then Sam had drawn it in close to her body, aiming the tip directly at the opening in the alien’s armor where the plates were shattered. Too late the queen saw her danger. Her eyes widened, her mouth opened to speak.

  Sam slammed the blade home into her chest.

  No words came from her open mouth. The alien queen sank to the ground and collapsed, then vanished.

  The sword’s weight became too heavy for Sam’s hand to hold. She dropped it to the ground. When had she sunk to her knees? Oh, god, it hurt so much to breathe. Her hand was over the terrible wound in her gut, but it was only slowing the flow of blood. Sam closed her eyes. Whatever happened to her now, she’d beaten her adversary. She knew her worth.

  It was enough.

  Thirty-Nine

  “Gurgle here.”

  The voice sounded like it came from far away. Sam felt like she was flowing away again, or maybe like she was flowing into something. New perceptions opened up for her. She became aware of more things around her. Ships floating in space. The last remnants of a battle that had just ended. All around her, little motes of light that were winking out.

  “Killed their queen. All under her dead now,” Gurgle said.

  “Really? It was that simple?” Sam asked. Her pain was gone. The wounds - there were none. But she wasn’t in that body, not anymore. What the hell had all of that been, anyway? Was it just images her mind had used to translate the battle into terms it could cope with? If so, Sam wondered what the fight had looked like to her opponent.

  She was in the mothership. No, she was the mothership. Sam’s consciousness had moved into the space all those aliens had been inhabiting. They were all dead - even the ones on the surviving fighters and other ships. Every one of them in Earth’s solar system had winked out like they couldn’t survive without their center. Maybe that’s precisely what it was - kill the center, and the rest couldn’t hold themselves together. The price of the aliens’ unity. They all shared the same fate when she killed their leader-unit.

  The ship was enormous. Sam couldn’t believe how much firepower she had at her fingertips. She could fly so fast, too! She wanted to whoop with joy and go rushing off into the stars to see just what she could do.

  Gurgle brought her attention back to more important things. “Max will blow up ring if you don’t talk to him. Gurgle in ring. Gurgle prefer not get blowed up.”

  “Oh! Yeah, sure. Let me just figure out how to radio them,” Sam said. Was there nothing on the ship as simple as a radio? Sam had to connect back to the systems in her Wasp, which was still sitting where she’d left it in the hangar after being captured. The radio worked.

  “This is Ghost One. Anyone copy?”

  A chorus of voices stepped all over each other trying to respond to her.

  “Enough!” Admiral Stein’s voice cracked like a whip through the noise. “Sam. Good to hear from you. What’s your status over there?”

  “We won,” Sam said. “I have control of the big ship. Gurgle is residing in the ring. The aliens are all gone. I think you’ll find that even their fighters and capital ships are empty now.”

  “What the hel
l happened over there?” Stein asked. “No - never mind. Not over an open channel. I’ll debrief you later. For now, we’re coming alongside your captured ship to make repairs.”

  “Aye, sir. I’ll hold position awaiting your arrival,” Sam said.

  This new form felt strange. Sam doubted she’d be able to handle it at all if it hadn’t been for the months she’d spent piloting a Wasp. How had Knauf managed to just load himself into a starship and keep everything straight? She was going to have to hit him up for advice. Assuming they let her keep the ship, anyway. They might not, and that would be OK.

  Sam was able to scan the radio and TV waves from Earth. The alien queen hadn’t lied. Political tides were changing back home. People were afraid - of alien invasion, of digitized minds, and more. When people got scared, they tended to do some pretty shitty things, and Sam had a feeling there was a bunch of that coming up.

  But they’d won. Her Ghosts had been instrumental in beating back the alien fleet. Admiral Stein had led the force that won the day. All that had to be worth something, didn’t it? Maybe they wouldn’t be celebrated as heroes when they returned to Earth, but Sam had hopes that things might at least improve.

  They’d better. Her people had earned the citizenship they’d been promised, and then some. Earth made promises to them. Sam intended to make sure those promises were kept.

  “Coming alongside, Sam,” Max said.

  Sam felt herself warm on hearing his voice. She cast aside the rest of those negative thoughts for the time being. Those were things she could worry about another day. For the moment, they were victorious.

  “Harald always did say to enjoy the moment, because each one mattered,” Sam said. She’d wondered how he had managed to retain that mindset even in Valhalla, where nothing at all mattered. What she’d learned was that when nothing mattered, everything did, equally. Which meant it all had meaning.

  “I did say that,” Harald said. “I still say it.”

  Sam laughed. “Still alive, old goat?”

  “More alive than ever, Sam. I think we all are, today,” Harald said.

  She couldn’t agree more. For the first time in her life, Sam didn’t feel like an echo of the physical person she’d been copied from. She was herself, her own person. Her own thinking, living being. It was enough for her. It was more than enough.

  Author’s Notes

  I have to tell you, returning to the Accord universe was a lot of fun. But popping the Valhalla Online universe into the Accord universe? Melding these two together so that they perform as a cohesive whole? That was a challenging task!

  With luck, you’ve already read all those novels - the Accord of Honor Trilogy and the Valhalla Online trilogy (soon to be completed as a quartet). If you haven’t, I was careful not to lay too many spoilers into these books. I think you’ll find that reading about the earlier adventures of the heroes from this tale can be a lot of fun!

  There’s more to come from this series, which will wrap up with “Ghost Fleet”. The alien threat may be gone - at least for now - but as the alien queen pointed out, often the worst enemy of humanity is other human beings. Sam and her people will have challenging days ahead.

  This trilogy, of course, is the lead up to the events from the Lost Planet Warriors books. There’s a good gap of time between this novel and those stories, and a lot happens during those years, so we’ll probably see some more books telling those stories down the road.

  If you want to follow the entire Accord Universe storyline, it is at present (and near future plans):

  Accord of Fire (short story)

  Accord of Honor

  Accord of Mars

  Accord of Valor

  Valhalla Online Books 1-3 (with 4 coming later in 2018); these books take place about the same time as Accord of Valor.

  Ghost Wing

  Ghost Squadron

  Ghost Fleet (2018)

  Dana Stein’s Trilogy (forthcoming)

  Lost Planet Warriors Books 1+2

  Lost Planet Warriors Book 3 (late 2018)

  Whew! After all of those, who knows what might come next? This is a long arc as it is, and it IS an arc. Although we see some heroes fade from view for a while, they’re going to have a tendency to pop back up now and again. At least some of them.

  Thanks for reading. If you loved this book, please drop a review on Amazon! Each and every one helps other readers find a great story to enjoy.

  Exclusive for fans of the Accord series!

  Find out how the story started… When Captain Nicholas Stein set out to stop one enemy ship, and set in motion events which shaped the course of human history for decades to come.

  http://kevinomclaughlin.com/accordoffire/

  Other Books by Kevin McLaughlin

  Adventures of the Starship Satori (Space Opera blended with military SF)

  Finding Satori - prequel short story, available only to email list fans!

  Book 1 - Ad Astra: Book 2 - Stellar Legacy

  Book 3 - Deep Waters

  Book 4 - No Plan Survives Contact

  Book 5 - Liberty

  Book 6 - Satori’s Destiny

  Book 7 - Ashes of War

  Book 8 - Embers of War

  Book 9 - Dust and Iron (May 2018)

  Valhalla Online Series (GameLit SF/Fantasy)

  Book 1 - Valhalla Online

  Book 2 - Raiding Jotunheim

  Book 3 - Vengeance Over Vanaheim

  Book 4 - Hel Hath No Fury (Summer 2018)

  Accord Series (Military SF)

  Accord of Fire - Free prequel short story, available only to email list fans!

  Book 1 - Accord of Honor

  Book 2 - Accord of Mars

  Book 3 - Accord of Valor

  Blackwell Magic Series (Urban Fantasy)

  Book 1 - By Darkness Revealed

  Book 2 - Ashes Ascendant

  Book 3 - Dead In Winter

  Book 4 - Claws That Catch

  Book 5 - Darkness Awakes

  Book 6 - Spellbinding Entanglements

  By A Whisker (short story)

  The Raven and the Rose - Free novelette for email list fans!

  Lost Planet Warriors (Military SF with light romance)

  Book 1 - Desperate Times

  Book 2 - Desperate Measures

  Dire Straits - Free short story for email list fans!

  Dead Brittania Series:

  Dead Brittania (short prequel story)

  Book 1 - King of the Dead

  Book 2 - Queen of Demons

  Raven’s Heart Series (Urban Fantasy)

  Book 1 - Stolen Light

  Book 2 - Webs in the Dark

  Book 3 - Shades of Moonlight

  Other Titles:

  Over the Moon (SF romance)

  Midnight Visitors (Steampunk Cat short story)

  Demon Ex Machina (Steampunk Cat short story)

  The Coffee Break Novelist (help for writers!)

  You Must Write (Heinlein’s rules for writers)

  About the Author

  When not practicing hobbies which include sailing, constructing medieval armor, and swinging swords at his friends, Kevin McLaughlin can usually be found in his Boston home. Kevin’s award-winning short fiction is now available in digital form at all major ebook retailers. His urban fantasies “By Darkness Revealed” and “Ashes Ascendant” are available in ebook and print. His latest stories, the “STARSHIP” series and “King of the Dead” serial, are ongoing.

  I love hearing from readers!

  www.kevinomclaughlin.com

  kevins.studio@gmail.com

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