by Mark Wandrey
Winged Hussars
Book Three of The Revelations Cycle
By
Mark Wandrey
PUBLISHED BY: Seventh Seal Press
Copyright © 2017 Mark Wandrey
All Rights Reserved
Get the free prelude story “Gateway to Union”
and discover other titles by Mark Wandrey at:
http://worldmaker.us/
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Cover Design by Brenda Mihalko
Original Art by Ricky Ryan
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License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This book is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.
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For Fafherd, the best cat I’ve ever known. I hope you forgive me.
Rest and hunt in the halls of the All Father. Good journeys.
For Kim Sommer, Robert Dean, and Rich Weyland.
Thanks for the celestial calculations!
And to my wife and son, always.
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“I looked, and behold, a black horse; and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand.”
― Revelation 6:5
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Earth Mercenary Ship Pegasus
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Contents:
Part 1
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Interlude
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Part II
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Interlude
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Interlude
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Part III
Chapter 38
Interlude
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Epilogue
About the Author
Titles by Mark Wandrey
Excerpt from Book Four of the Revelations Cycle:
Excerpt from Book One of the Kin Wars Saga:
Part 1
“More than three months after the last mercenary company returned from what many are calling the Alpha Contracts, we’d given up all hope of any more survivors making their way home. Needless to say, it was a complete surprise when the only company sent from the tiny state of Poland, the Winged Hussars, arrived one day. Like the other companies who made their way back to Earth, the Winged Hussars had suffered terrible casualties while completing their contract.
The only company which ventured off-world to serve as a space navy unit, Poland sold all its strategic reserves of rare earth and precious metals, as well as its ancient nuclear weapons, for a used military ship in order to qualify for what the Galactic Union’s Mercenary Guild representative termed a ‘fleet escort contract,’ one of the highest-paying contracts taken by an Earth mercenary company. They spent months making the ship combat-worthy before leaving with the other 100 companies to find their fortune in the galaxy.
The Winged Hussars not only managed to come home alive, unlike 96 other companies, but they also came home in a different ship than they’d left with. Successfully executing part of their contract, they earned a 50 percent payout. The exact amounts of contract payments are confidential, but it was the biggest of the Alpha Contracts, and likely exceeded the GDP of most of the world’s governments.
With four surviving companies back, and little chance of more, the survivors met in Houston to discuss the future. After the meeting, they noted the similar themes of their companies and logo designs, and they began calling themselves the Four Horsemen. The four companies, Winged Hussars, Asbaran Solutions, Cartwright’s Cavaliers, and the Golden Horde proclaimed that this was not the end of Human mercenary service, but only the beginning.”
Excerpt from “In Our Own Time – Dawning of the Horsemen”
by Jimmy Cartwright, Sr.
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Chapter 1
Obiya 199 System
Way Station Abyss
Inner Crapti Rift
The transport was roughly a mile across and twice that long, and shaped somewhat like a dowel. It maintained a steady spin to provide gravity for its occupants, even under acceleration, of which it had precious little. Built in a shipyard of a race that no longer existed, the UTS, or Union Trade Ship, Topul’s Pride had plied the space lanes of the galaxy for more than a thousand years. She’d changed hands hundreds of times, and always for a few more credits than the time before.
Known affectionately as ‘Heavy Haulers,’ her class of ships was officially labeled Behemoth-class, and it was a class whose existence was absolutely necessary for interstellar commerce to function. Topul’s Pride carried out many duties. She hauled massive bulk cargoes in bays ranging from a few dozen yards on a side to hundreds of yards. She carried as many as 25,000 passengers at a time, many more if they were packed in. A half dozen times, she’d served to evacuate refugees from war-ravaged worlds. She could also act as a transit rider, docking as many as 100 smaller ships either incapable of making the transition through hyperspace by themselves, or merely riding along for economy.
Displacing several million tons, the Topul’s Pride was one of the cheapest ships to operate in hyperspace, thanks to the inverse square rule that made huge ships cheaper and tiny ones more power-hungry. Her only downside was the glacial pace she maintained between a system’s emergence point and its stargate. She could manage, at best, a stately 0.5 gravities of constant ion-driven thrust, which meant as much as a 30-day transit between the LaGrange points in some systems. Her crew tried to transit through stargates at the highest possible speed to save travel time in the destination system, as you emerged from hyperspace at the velocity with which you entered it.
It was this which, more than anything else, determined the course the Topul’s Pride took as it moved about the galaxy. Her master endeavored to pick star systems which possessed emergence points closest to their stargates, and to arrive at them when their geometry was the most favorable, greatly reducing her transit times.
This was why the crew found itself in the Obiya 199 star system—the transit time between the emergence point and the stargate was only six days. Unfortunately, that was also plenty of time for the ship to fall prey to pirates.
“We have hyperspace emergence,” chittered the sensor operator of the pirate cruiser Opportunity. At least, that wo
uld have been the ship’s name if it were translated into English from SleSha. The ship had once belonged to the Oogar, who’d called it by an entirely different name, before the crew had been brutally murdered by the SleSha boarding team.
“Excellent,” the Opportunity’s queen said. Both the ship’s master, commander of the fighting contingent, and queen of the brood, she was best described as the mother of every being on the ship. She ran her multifaceted eyes around the bridge to verify all stations were manned and ready, then extended her awareness to the boarding teams in their shuttles. Everything was as it should be. “Helm, accelerate toward the prey, full power.”
The Opportunity had been quite speedy before it fell into the pirates’ hands. However, the Oogar were only moderately G-tolerant, while the insectoid SleSha were extremely so. They’d recalibrated many of the safety features of the cruiser which now groaned under a tremendous 11 gravities of sustained acceleration, more than 10 times the emergency power of the hapless Topul’s Pride.
“Any signs of ships coming from the way station?” the queen asked.
“None,” the sensor operator confirmed. The consortium which operated the way station maintained regular patrols of the stargate, but only intermittent patrols of the emergence point. They’d been hovering near the emergence point for two weeks now, waiting for this target to come by.
The crew stood up well to the acceleration. The ship was capable of more, though not much, as using this much power further stressed the already tortured superstructure. The Oogar were giant purple ursoids who built their ships with massive open areas. The SleSha had placed reinforcing beams everywhere, but the ship was still developing structural cracks.
“We’re on intercept,” the navigator announced after 100 seconds of acceleration, “closing at 30,000 feet per second!”
“Initiate coast!” the queen ordered, and the ship’s thrust was instantly cut. The multitude that was the ship’s brood rocked from the sudden cessation of thrust, hanging on with the hooks on their four sets of legs.
“Eleven thousand miles,” the sensor operator said.
“Effective laser range,” the tactical coordinator said. “We have a firing solution on their weapons’ arrays.”
“Have they targeted us yet?” the queen asked. The sensor operator worked at the instruments for a moment.
“No,” it answered at last.
“Hold while we coast,” she finally pronounced. A display, one of the efficient single subject Oogar models, showed the Opportunity’s closing vector and range to the Topul’s Pride. The range decreased at over 6 miles per second. In under half an hour, they’d be on top of them.
“Range now eight thousand miles,” the sensor operator said.
“Get a firing solution on their facing defensive arrays,” the queen ordered, “and plot for the others. They will roll once we engage. Navigation, prepare to match their rotation. Order the boarding pod pilots to prepare for launch.” She didn’t have to order the boarding drones ready, she could feel their minor intelligences in her mind. They would fight until their bodies were destroyed, or she ordered them to stop.
“Firing solution ready,” the tactical coordinator pronounced. The weapons operators prepared to fire.
“Launch the boarding pods,” she ordered and gave them a few seconds to thrust away. She was an instant from ordering her ship to open fire when the sensor operator screamed, “New contact!”
Even though she didn’t have to, the queen turned her head to look at the sensor operator’s screen. It showed another ship, behind them.
“Identify it!” she chittered.
“Battlecruiser-sized,” the operator said; “range 5,000 miles and closing!”
“How?” the queen demanded. Their angle of approach was completely out of alignment with the emergence point. For the new ship to be where it was, it would have had to have been lying in wait. And how long? Also, they were going far too fast! The Opportunity’s sensors were powerful, there was no way they would have missed a battlecruiser accelerating behind them.
“We are being hailed,” the comms operator chirped.
“Let me hear it,” the queen ordered. A moment later the grunts and guttural growl of a mammalian race came over the bridge’s speakers, rendered into SleSha by the ship’s computer translator.
“Vessel Opportunity, this is the EMS Pegasus, flagship of the registered merc company Winged Hussars. Your weapons lock on the heavy hauler Topul’s Pride has been logged and recorded as an act of piracy. By the regulations of the Galactic Union’s Mercenary Guild, you are a fair and free target. You will power down your weapons and alter course away from the Topul’s Pride immediately, or you will be fired upon.”
“Entropy!” the queen cursed. Escape was their only option. “Helm, skew turn, 90 degrees off axis from the former target. Get us away, emergency thrust!” The boarding crew and their pods were a total loss. Or were they? “Order the pods to continue with their boarding operation,” she added. “Tactical, fire two salvos. Disable as many of the transport’s defenses as possible.”
The Opportunity yawed, her weapons pulsing coherent light at the still unsuspecting transport. As soon as the pirates had altered their rotation, the drive system dumped super-cooled hydrogen into the ship’s dual reactors and the fusion torch channeled raw energy out of the reaction chamber. The G forces quickly climbed to past 15 Gs.
“Structural failure in Bay 11!” the damage control monitor chittered.
“Ignore it,” the queen barked. “We must gain speed if we are to—”
“Drone fighters,” the sensor operator said. It didn’t sound excited; it sounded resigned. “At least five squadrons incoming. They anticipated our course. Intercept in five minutes.”
“Skew course 90 degrees!” she ordered.
“The ship will not survive that radical maneuver at this thrust,” the engineering controller said, the first comment he had made. “I’m decreasing power to twelve Gs to mitigate ongoing structural failures.” The queen wanted to go over and rip his antennae off, but pressed into the bear-shaped command couch under 12 gravities, she couldn’t move.
“Fine,” she said. “Tactical, stand by to fire missiles at the battlecruiser.” The Opportunity shuddered, and the lights flickered.
“Weapon impact,” the tactical controller said. “Particle beam, 10-terawatt range! It only grazed our shields. We have partial shield failures in three quadrants. I’m trying to compensate.”
“Return fire!”
Missiles left the bays of the Opportunity on all sides, spun, and accelerated away at almost a thousand Gs. At the same time, the four heavy laser cannons mounted on the ship’s sword-shaped fuselage maneuvered along tracks that provided purchase and power until they were able to bear on the mercenary ship, then they opened fire.
“The battlecruiser is matching course, but not accelerating at its probable top rating,” tactical said. “Why not?”
“Because they don’t have to,” the queen said. Four minutes later the drone fighters arrived. The Opportunity’s close-in defensive lasers began pulsing at the drones, tiny autonomous gun platforms mounted on fusion-powered drives which danced around the pirate ship and ripped at its shields. The pirates’ over-stressed tactical coordinator concentrated on trying to defend against the drones, which left them momentarily open to attack.
The Opportunity shuddered and moaned like a wounded animal. Primary power failed on the bridge, and all thrust ceased. Several bridge crew were sent spinning across the space. The lights and bridge controls went dead, then the backup lights came on. A greenish hue, the lights were ideal for the Oogar; unfortunately, it was a portion of the light spectrum invisible to the SleSha, and it took an agonizing minute for regular lighting and some computer control to be restored.
“Damage report,” the queen said, dreading what she would hear.
“Another particle beam,” damage control said; “the shot was perfectly aimed. It destroyed the main power and dat
a conduit from engineering. I have a team trying to reroute. All weapons are down, but we still have minimal shielding.”
“The drones appear to have ceased fire,” tactical announced. “We destroyed two of them.”
The comms station beeped for attention. The queen glanced over to see why the operator didn’t answer it, only to find it impaled on a broken support, spurting bodily fluids.
“Someone take the comms operator’s job,” she ordered, and one of the currently unoccupied weapons crew did so.
“Opportunity, this is EMS Pegasus. Our last shot was targeted to disable. You will stand down now, or you will be destroyed. You have 10 seconds to comply.”
Chapter 2
Alexis Cromwell, commander of the Winged Hussars and captain of the company’s flagship, the EMS Pegasus, was strapped into her free-orienting acceleration couch in the combat information center, or CIC, quietly enduring the ship’s three gravities of thrust as the battle developed. The drones had done their jobs, and when the crazy SleSha refused to give in to the inevitable, she’d pumped a shot from her ship’s spinal mount through the stolen cruiser’s guts.
“I need that ship in one piece,” a disturbingly deep voice purred from the rear of the bridge. Alexis stole a glance at their guest and contract holder. The Equiri was humanoid, though about seven and a half feet tall. He sported a rather unexpressive horse-like face with all-black eyes, complete with upright ears, but his mouthful of razor-sharp teeth indicated he didn’t chew grass. His only hair was a wild mane of crimson fur, and he wore a ship’s uniform familiar to any Human. Across his shoulder was the blazing blue logo of the Peacemaker Guild, a splayed tree that always reminded Alexis of Yggdrasil from Norse legend. “The writ is not one of death, and the ship has a claim against it.”