Resurgence: The Ship Series // Book Five

by Jerry Aubin

  Resurgence

  The Ship Series // Book Five

  Jerry Aubin

  Lekanyane Publishing

  If you purchased this book without a cover it would be pretty surprising. You’re missing a cool cover! Go out and buy a copy that actually has a cover.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2018 Jerry Aubin

  Illustrations copyright © 2018 Jerry Aubin

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  For any information, please contact jerryaubin.author@gmail.com.

  Lekanyane Publishing

  Austin // Amsterdam // Cape Town // Sydney // Christchurch

  ISBN 978-0-9970708-9-7 (pbk)

  ISBN 978-0-9970708-8-0 (ebk)

  For K, P, W, and Q

  Contents

  The Story So Far

  1. Why the hell are they torturing us like this?

  2. That’s pretty creepy, but I understand why you did it.

  3. I don’t have any patience for that noise right now.

  4. Now!

  5. Numbers, Doran.

  6. CAG—don’t let her get away!

  7. I won’t let you down.

  8. One way or another.

  9. I’m confident I can get the Boss to do as I advise.

  10. I can’t wait to hear what this craziness is all about.

  11. It’s all true.

  12. I have more evidence.

  13. Now what?

  14. You have sixty seconds!

  15. If you want to survive, put on a helmet.

  16. They have to find out if it worked!

  17. All of you will get a turn with it.

  18. Let’s crack this thing open.

  19. How may I repay you?

  20. Get off my bridge.

  21. The asteroid has not disappeared.

  22. Ma’am—the asteroid just launched a missile!

  23. This is an extremely bad plan.

  24. That’s not going to work this time.

  25. You first, CAG.

  26. You’ll be climbing the walls before you know it.

  27. She did what?

  28. How did that happen, Alpha?

  29. This isn’t over until I say it's over!

  30. How do we do that?

  31. I’m happy to still be here.

  32. We have a plan.

  33. Stay frosty, everyone.

  34. We did our job.

  35. A virus.

  36. It’s great to finally meet you, Zax.

  37. Thank you.

  38. He doesn’t care for us very much.

  39. All rise for the Supreme Tribunal.

  40. The defendants shall rise.

  41. I will bear the responsibility.

  42. How are you?

  43. I had already planned on it.

  44. CAG—we need you on the deck right now.

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Jerry Aubin

  The Story So Far

  LANDFALL introduces us to Zax and Kalare, two cadets approaching their sixteenth birthdays, as they work to establish their careers in the Ship’s Crew. The two catch the eye of the Flight Boss, the second most powerful member of the Omegas running the Ship, and he offers to mentor the one who comes out on top after a series of training competitions. Mikedo, a Flight Lieutenant, leads their instruction and quickly forms deep bonds with the two cadets. The training culminates with a mission to explore a planet prior to colonization where Zax makes a startling discovery—what appears to be a spacecraft built by unknown humans. Mikedo convinces Zax that his discovery is a danger to the Ship’s fragile society, and her fears gain credence when she dies under mysterious circumstances shortly thereafter. Zax identifies sufficient circumstantial evidence to suspect the Flight Boss of conspiring to kill Mikedo and hide the discovery of unknown humans, and he publicly confronts the man with it. The Boss laughs off the accusations and punishes Zax by banishing him to the bottom of the Ship’s hierarchy.

  REVOLUTION picks up one year later with Zax and Kalare moving in two different directions. She has thrived under the Boss’s mentorship and loves the Pilot Academy, while he toils in the literal bowels of the Ship serving under the most clueless of its officers. The civilian uprising triggered by Zax’s discovery of the human fighter boils over into full revolution. The two cadets, along with Zax’s longtime nemesis Aleron, become enmeshed in a mission to help Sergeant Bailee, a fierce Marine, keep the Boss out of the civilians’ hands in order to protect the Ship. Along the way, Zax runs afoul of Rege, a leader of the revolutionaries, and shockingly discovers their movement is led by no other than Imair—a civilian woman he had worked side-by-side with for a year. Zax accepts a mission to kill the Boss rather than allow the civilian revolution to succeed, but he fails when the man appears to betray the Crew in order to save himself and remain in power. The Boss rewards Zax and restores him to his position atop the Crew’s hierarchy with an appointment to the Pilot Academy, but it is an uneasy truce as Zax continues to believe the man is a murderous traitor.

  HOMEWARD opens with a trip back in time and introduces Adan—a brilliant innovator who designs a spacefaring ark to save humanity from Earth’s environmental collapse. Along with his fearsome bodyguard and trusted lieutenant Markev, Adan travels to Earth’s asteroid belt and returns with a massive space rock that becomes the foundation of the Ship. The Chancellor, the ruthless leader of the West, supports Adan in his efforts, but her cooperation comes at the steep price of Adan’s independence. He regretfully compromises even further when he makes a deal with the General Secretary, a foe who has led the East for decades in its battles against the West, to gain access to the East’s consciousness transfer technology that Adan requires for the Ship’s powerful fighter craft. Back in Zax’s timeline, Imair leads the Ship along with her murderous lieutenant Rege as it starts a twelve-year journey back towards Earth in search of the mysterious humans. Zax’s dream of piloting a fighter is finally within reach as he starts his training at the Pilot Academy and meets his new friend Mase—a precocious younger cadet who hacks into the Ship’s Artificial Intelligence systems in his spare time. Zax thrives professionally and reaches the top of his Academy class, but his personal life gets thrown into upheaval when Kalare tires of his suspicions about her beloved mentor the Flight Boss and walks away from their friendship. Zax discovers his paranoia about the Boss is well-founded when he learns the officer has hit Zax with enough demerits to get him Culled, and Zax’s timeline comes to a close as he descends into cryosleep.

  RENDEZVOUS revisits Adan’s timeline where the genius builder of the Ship is feigning cooperation with his adversaries in exchange for their consciousness Upload technology. The East’s General Secretary recognizes something is amiss and dispatches a special agent to identify how Adan is preparing to betray them. Rilee discovers secret cryostorage facilities on the asteroid along with an illegal stockpile of nuclear missiles, but she’s nearly killed by Adan’s lieutenant Markev before she can report back and warn the General Secretary. When she awakens from a year-long coma, Rilee’s worst fears prove true when Adan nukes Earth before launching the asteroid’s journey. The Ship’s creator initially convinces those around him that wiping out all life on their homeworld is necessary, but when Markev eventually pushes back Adan murders him along with the rest of his first Crew as part of a descent into evil that culminates with the abandonment o
f his humanity. Adan Uploads his consciousness into the Ship’s AI system and transforms into Alpha, where he proceeds to secretly manipulate the Crew into doing his bidding across the thousands of years that lead up to the Ship’s current timeline and Zax’s awakening from cryostorage. It’s been twelve years since he was Culled, and even though Zax remains a young cadet, Kalare has aged into a senior leadership role and is preparing for a final showdown with the other humans the Ship has battled during their voyage to Earth. His friend Mase discovers secret log files that reveal Adan’s actions and Alpha’s true identity, but Zax pushes the knowledge aside rather than risk running afoul of the Boss yet again. The Ship arrives at a restored Earth that appears devoid of human life, and Zax accompanies Kalare into a final battle against the other humans. Unfortunately for them and the rest of the Crew, they are quickly vanquished when their fighters are neutralized and the Ship’s engine disabled.

  RESURGENCE returns to the Ship as the Crew deals with the aftermath of their stunning defeat…

  1

  Why the hell are they torturing us like this?

  Reveille sounded and Zax swore under his breath. He had no interest in waking up. It wasn’t that he was exhausted, even though he was. The bigger issue was the toxic stew of boredom and foreboding affecting everyone on board for the past two months. He closed his eyes and dozed for a few additional mins until he was startled fully awake by a shout.

  “The damned RTF has done it again! No showering until further notice. Why the hell are they torturing us like this?”

  It was the female pilot who bunked next to Zax. She had become more and more agitated over recent weeks, and the stridency in her voice suggested she might have reached a breaking point. Zax had avoided discussions with her, but the same could not be said of the man from Engineering who bunked across the aisle. He enjoyed amplifying whatever upset the woman expressed even further and took advantage of the opportunity yet again.

  “It’s not torture, it’s rationing. It’s right there in their name—the Rationing Task Force.” The engineer turned away from the woman and addressed Zax. “Are all pilots as stupid as she is? Maybe that’s why the lot of you failed to do your jobs, and we’re all stuck in this mess.”

  The pilot dropped her gear to the deck and charged across the aisle. The pitch of her voice rose and spittle flew from her mouth.

  “We didn’t do our jobs? You idiots in Engineering had one simple task—make sure the Ship could escape if necessary. How did you let the FTL engine fail when it was needed most?”

  Zax didn’t want anything to do with the drama unfolding yet again before him, so he hopped out of his bunk. It was time to get ready for work and, even though he wasn’t enjoying his new job, it offered something to occupy his mind beyond observing the ever-increasing stress levels of all those around him. When he reached the showers, Zax discovered the sign which had triggered his bunkmate’s ire.

  By order of the Rationing Task Force, there shall be no showering effective immediately.

  First introduced via morning newsvid ten days after the Ship’s capture, the Rationing Task Force was charged with stretching the Ship’s supplies as long as possible. The shower system recycled the vast majority of bathing water, so the supply situation must be dire if the RTF was forcing everyone to fester in their own filth. Zax activated a sink and was pleasantly surprised when water flowed out. Bathing was off limits, but at least he could scrub the sleep out of his eyes and brush his teeth.

  Once he was done getting ready, Zax made his way to the prearranged location to meet his new trainee. The man was there waiting and extended a hand in greeting. He was a head taller than Zax and wore a red Engineering uniform.

  “Hello. My name is Haydon. Thanks for escorting me to the hangar. I haven’t been there for many years, and I remember it can be confusing to find your way around.”

  “I’m Zax.” He paused for a moment to stare at the man’s face. “You look familiar. Have we met?”

  The man smiled awkwardly. “You were an instructor when I was in Gamma Cadre. I was hoping you wouldn’t recognize me since I was a jerk to you back then.”

  The memories flooded back. Haydon was the boy who was so disrespectful the day of the Revolution, only to turn around and suck up to him a few days later once Zax’s role in saving the Boss was made public. Like everyone else he had known from that time, the boy had passed by him in age during the years Zax was in cryostorage.

  “Now I remember. You were a complete oxygen thief back then.”

  Haydon looked down at the deck. “Fair enough. I suppose I have that coming. We should get moving.”

  They had only gone a few paces when Haydon spoke again.

  “I heard you flew with the CAG when we fought the Others. I wanted to be a pilot, but my scores were never good enough. What was the battle like?”

  Zax grinned. He was well aware that Haydon wasn’t cut out to be a pilot having delivered plenty of demerits to him during their time together. His smile evaporated immediately, though, once his mind flashed back to the last battle and its immediate aftermath. He responded with a tone intended to shut the conversation down.

  “We lost. What more is there to say?”

  The man was silent for a moment, but then he stopped walking and grabbed Zax’s arm and forced him to halt. “Come on, Zax. They haven’t told us any of the truth about that day. I gave you plenty of reasons to hate me back when I was a stupid kid, but I’m dying to know how we lost.”

  “Fine. You want to know how we lost? They rendered us useless with golden missiles that somehow neutralized our fighters. I was in the same fighter as the CAG and couldn’t even speak with her. I sat there all by myself terrified about what might happen next. Then I get back to the Ship and have to stand there while some spacecraft I’ve never seen lands in our hangar and drops off warrior ants. We were so prepared to win, and then they not only beat us but they made it appear easy. There isn’t anything else to say.”

  Haydon spoke quietly. “Yeah—I was in Engineering that day. Everyone geared up to fight as the ants approached on the security feed, but then the order came down to just let them in. They carried a bunch of crates and marched straight into the FTL compartment like they had a map of where they were going. They evicted the civilians and all of their explosives, so now the damned bugs control the engine and have us stranded. What do they even want?”

  “If there hasn’t been a single communication from the Others in two months, I have no idea what might happen to change that. Maybe they’re just waiting for us to run out of food. Or to start killing each other so they don’t have to do it themselves.” Zax checked the time via his Plug. “Come on, we need to get going or we’ll be late.”

  They started to walk and Zax enjoyed the silence until Haydon reached into his pocket and pulled out a nutripellet. Once the man had his pellet opened, he tossed the wrapper on the deck as had become customary for everyone in the month since the RTF mandated them for breakfast. The maintenance staff had kept pace with the new source of litter for the first few weeks, but Zax had noticed ever increasing trash piles forming in the higher traffic passageways. None of the empty wrappers belonged to him, though. Zax had once subsisted on the vile pellets for so long that just the sound of one being unwrapped threatened to trigger his gag reflex.

  They entered the hangar just as the force field that covered its exterior entrance slowly flashed green. Zax pointed it out to Haydon.

  “That means an ant shuttle is arriving. We need to double-time it.”

  They reached their workstations as the shuttle settled on the deck. A group of Marines lined up on either side of its exit ramp, and Haydon turned to Zax with his eyes wide.

  “Those are the largest and most fearsome-looking Marines I’ve ever seen!”

  “I assume that’s exactly why they’ve been assigned this duty. There hasn’t been any violence the whole time I’ve been processing these shuttle deliveries, and I assume it’s because of all those mu
scles. Well—their blasters and stunstiks probably play a role as well.”

  The exit ramp of the ant shuttle cracked open and descended to the deck. The Marines standing on each side tensed in preparation for whatever might happen next, and Zax did the same. There was finally movement from within followed by a sight that rendered Zax dumbstruck. Haydon whispered in awe.

  “Those sure don’t look like any of the colonists the newsvid has shown getting dropped off before.”

  The first shuttle delivery had arrived weeks earlier without any communication from the Others. Given the expectations that it was the arrival of their captors, Zax had watched the landing live on the newsvid. When the ramp opened, everyone was disappointed to find a group of humans wearing animal skins. The shuttle was not filled with the Others, but instead had delivered a pathetic group of savages that was the sorry remnant of a colony the Ship had left behind a few centuries earlier. Soon after the Ship had departed their system, the group fragmented into warring tribes and eventually reverted into a clan-based, hunter-gatherer society. Their language skills had devolved, but the Ship’s linguists deciphered their history and learned the colonists had been herded onto the shuttle by a group of ants without any explanation.