Colonies Of Earth
Unity War Book 1
C.G. Michaels
Copyright © 2017 C.G. Michaels
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
2630. Humanity has made numerous advances: faster-than-light speed, laser pistols, ships and cyborgs that can and do kill by the hundreds . . .
The people of Earth have colonized six other planets, terraforming them to look much like the Earth the colonists came from. But despite their technological advances, humans have much to learn. Four of the seven worlds wage bitter wars against each other, for the same old reasons: resources, religion and intolerance.
When someone brutally attacks one of the neutral Colonies, Captain Brid Stephenson of the Earth ship Takarabune comes to their rescue. But she arrives too late; the enemy has fled, leaving behind unimaginable destruction.
The neutral Colonies are outraged. But what they discover next is something none of them ever expected: humanity’s greatest threat is not human.
Now the Colonies must band together to stop an alien threat that outnumbers and outguns them all.
Table of Contents
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
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
CHAPTER ONE
In the Lotan solar system
An incessant, warbling chirp woke Bridgette 'Brid' Stephenson from a deep dream. She groaned, rolled over, and drew her pillow over her head.
The chirping continued, louder now. Brid came up for air, her dark blonde locks falling over her face like a mass of golden spider webs. “All right, I'm up,” she said, her voice rough from sleep. “I'm up, godammit!”
Useless to complain, she knew; the alarm, which rang every day at five o'clock General Military Time, would not quit as long as she stayed in bed, awake or no. So she got to her feet, grateful for the pleasantly rough feel of carpet, and went to her en suite bathroom. As a captain in Star Force, she was among the few on board a warship who didn't have to share living quarters or a shower and toilet. Having risen the hard way up the ranks, she appreciated the little luxuries her station offered her.
The light in the bathroom came on automatically when she entered, just as the light in the bedroom had turned on once she'd gotten out of bed. She hopped in the shower, allowing herself a full ten minutes of steamy bliss before climbing out and wiping the fog off the mirror with the side of her fist. She blinked at her reflection: at 5'10”, she stood taller than some of the men on board, with a willowy figure and a long face. Her brows arched gently over large, dark blue eyes that never wanted to open at this time of morning no matter how early she went to bed.
God, her hair. She snatched up her brush and attacked, yanking mercilessly at the snarls she'd incurred during the night, knots which refused to come loose even when she applied conditioner. When she finished smoothing them out, her locks fell in waves past her shoulders, making her look almost too pretty. The word delicate came to mind. She whisked her hair into a smart ponytail; she had no intention of letting anyone think she cared more about her appearance than she did her job, much less thinking of her as a vulnerable little flower. That, she was not.
She completed her ablutions and put on her uniform, black with gold insignia and the Earth logo on the chest. It had a slimming effect, something she didn't need and which she thought made her look brittle. But the regs said you had to wear the uniform, and so she did, and had, ever since she'd enlisted at eighteen.
She ate breakfast in the captain's mess, then took her second cup of coffee to the bridge, yawning all the way. She hated mornings.
“Go-od morning, Captain!” Kaipo Horvat all but floated past her, five feet eight inches of Hawaiian and Croatian boyishness, tea in one pudgy hand. He had oiled his black hair into one of the more fashionable styles, slightly messy and irregularly parted. His dark eyes gleamed, and he wore a bright smile.
Sometimes Brid hated Kaipo.
She sat in her chair–ah, sweet ergonomic comfort!–and took another drink, the coffee so hot it burned all the way down. She opened her mouth to request a status report when Pilirani Sharma, Brid's communications officer and the only woman on the Takarabune taller than she, spoke.
“Captain, I'm picking up a distress signal from Lotan.”
One of the neutral colonies sending out an S.O.S.? Brid leaned forward in her seat. “Details, Sharma.”
“Ma'am, the signal originates in Shangana Military Base. But I'm getting calls from elsewhere on the planet, as well, all requesting military aid. They say they're under attack.”
Her brows rose as a cold sensation settled in her midsection. “From whom?”
“They don't say, ma'am. Best I can tell, the enemy is unidentified.”
Damn. “How far away are we?”
“Twenty-four hours going at top knot,” Kaipo said grimly.
Double damn. “Horvat, Reinder, set a course for Lotan, over Shangana Military Base. Full speed.”
“Aye, Captain.”
Brid leaned back in her chair, her mouth set in a thin line, her coffee forgotten. Now came the waiting.
* * *
None of the Day Shift did much sleeping that night. Even Kaipo was subdued the next morning, taking his tea with shadows under his eyes and his hair barely seen to.
“That's why I wear mine this way,” Minke Reinder said, briskly rubbing her tawny buzz cut. Minke, known as “Reindeer” to her friends, had eight piercings in each ear: seven along the lobes and helixes, and one in each tragus. Multicolored studs sparkled in those ears today, catching the light from her control panel. “No muss, no fuss.”
Kaipo sipped his herbal brew and glowered at her. “Braggart.”
Brid scarcely took notice of their friendly banter. While some of her crew opted for frivolity to distract them from the current situation, she could not afford to take her mind from the business at hand. Lotan, the second Colony to sprout from Earth, didn't, and never had participated in the infighting in which most of the other Colonies indulged. Brid couldn't fathom why anyone would want to wage war against them, particularly when Lotan's leaders tried the hardest to act as an unbiased party and help organize negotiations between the warring worlds.
She only hoped the Takarabune wouldn't be dragged into the fighting. Nommos had forced them into a battle once before, five years ago GMT. No one blamed Earth for that, because Nommos had fired u
pon the Takarabune, afterwards claiming they had mistaken the Earth ship for an Osirian vessel. In reality, Brid surmised, the Nommosians had been angry at Earth for her recent aid to Gharadite war refugees.
Pilirani had lost her right arm in that skirmish. Since then she had acquired a high-tech prosthetic limb, one (Brid had heard) that came from Osiris itself and that could feel as well as move. It worked, in fact, better than the original.
“We've entered Lotan's orbit, Captain.”
“Main viewscreen, please.”
An image of the course they travelled popped up in front of them, stark, glittering white stars against deepest black; and in the middle of it, a lovely, warm little globe of brown and blue, soft white clouds drifting over its surface.
Lotan. One of the Takarabune's junior medical officers had been born there, as she recalled. Nothing looked amiss at first. But as they drew nearer, points of light ignited on the planet's surface–orange, yellow, red.
Flames, she thought. Lotan was in flames.
“Helm, take us closer. Pilirani, send out a reply to the distress signals on all channels. Tell them we're on our way.”
“Aye, Captain.” All business was Pilirani. She never joked like Reindeer and Kaipo, never questioned orders, and never complained. A long, narrow nose and full lips dominated a thin face so dark one could almost call it blue: a beautiful face, a serious face. She had tied her curly black hair back in a bun, but one errant lock, that bit she kept dyed electric turquoise, hung in her round eyes.
“Captain, I've got bogeys on the horizon.” Reindeer's strong voice belied her stature; Brid had often thought it had the capability to cut through steel, given the chance.
Brid crossed the bridge in three long strides. She peered over Reindeer's wiry little shoulder to see a squadron of shapes barely distinguishable from the black of space. “Can you improve visual? I want a good, close look.”
Reindeer's fingers danced over the controls. The focus cleared, then tightened to rest on one of the crafts. Fighter class, surely. Nothing else flew in formation like that, though she had to admit she didn't recognize the configuration.
“On main viewscreen.”
The image sprang up so everyone could see. Only the sheen of starlight divided the contour of the fighter from the void–that, and two orbs of yellow light that glowed in the fore of the ship like eyes. The vessel was triangular, with sweeping wings that arced back from the body of the ship. It had a trio of aft thrusters that burned cold, blue-white fire.
“Tighten up on the canopy.”
“This is as good as it gets until we get closer, Captain.”
Brid narrowed her gaze at the viewscreen, straining to see anything beyond blackness. She could just make out what appeared to be glass partitions, but could see nothing more than a dim glow of light from within. The fighters were using only emergency power so as to avoid detection until the last possible moment.
“They're going in dark,” Kaipo said.
“Then why the forward lights?” Reindeer asked.
“Good point,” said Brid, and mentally chided herself for not having noticed the same. “And why go dark at this point in the game? Surely they realize we know by now that they're there.”
“Maybe they want to hide their identity.”
That would make sense; any Colony attacking a neutral planet would come under heavy political–and perhaps military–fire from other Colonies. But which Colony was to blame? Brid didn't know these ships, had never seen their ilk. “Adelard, what do you make of these?”
Adelard Daniau, weapons master, knew just about every model of ship ever made on any given Colony, and Brid could usually count on him to remember spec details as well. But today he lifted one muscular shoulder in a shrug. “I have no idea what they are or where they came from. I assume Osiris, given their technological advances; but while that's an educated guess, Captain, it is still a guess.”
“Reindeer?”
“I'm comparing them to known and suspected craft from the computer database, Captain.” A moment passed. Then, “No match, ma'am. Whatever they are, they've never been seen before.”
“Not by us, at any rate,” Kaipo said.
Somebody had been keeping secrets. Brid paced the deck, thinking. “How close are we to breaking atmosphere?”
“Still fifteen miles to go,” Kaipo said.
Damn. “Are we the only ship in range?”
“So far, ma'am,” said Pilirani. “The Abraham Lincoln is on her way, but she isn't scheduled to show up for another three hours.”
“Reindeer, get me a scan of those fighters. Deep scan, internal and external.”
“Aye.”
Brid resumed her pacing. “Where are these ships coming from? I see plenty of fighters, but no warship.”
Reindeer, who prided herself on her ability to multi-task, replied. “I have a vague blip on radar, but am unable to pinpoint the exact location. There is something out there, Captain; we just can't find it.” She sounded perplexed, and well she should; Reindeer never failed to attain whatever information Brid needed.
“Can you give me a basic direction?”
“Somewhere off our starboard bow, ma'am. More exact than that, I can't get.” A beep rose from her console, taking her attention. “Scan is finished, Captain. I've got a basic blueprint of the outside of the ships.” She put it on the main viewscreen.
“Internal scan?”
Reindeer shook her head. “Nothing. Something must be blocking our radar.”
“Pilirani, reach out on all wavelengths and try to contact those vessels.”
“Aye, Captain.” She opened up a ship-to-ship connection. “Unidentified craft, this is the Earth ship Takarabune. Please respond.” She repeated the request, broadcasting on all channels, then spoke again to Brid. “There's no reply, Captain. But I am picking up odd chatter on a wavelength normally not used by the Colonies. Shall I put it on speaker?”
Brid gave a brisk nod. What she heard next caused her to stop pacing and cock her head as she listened. High-pitched gurgles emanated from the Takarabune's speakers, and try as she might, Brid couldn't make out anything intelligible.
“What is that, a chipmunk?” Kaipo asked. Reindeer laughed and touched her fingertips to his.
Brid looked to Pilirani. “Well?”
“It's no language I know, and it isn't in the computer's database, either. Whatever it is, it appears to be a kind of shorthand. Notice how brief the words are.”
They all listened. “I can't say the words apart,” Kaipo said. “It's all gibberish.”
“No,” Pilirani said, “it does have a pattern. Sounds are repeated, just as in any language. Note the breaks, here”–she tapped the air as a pause in the sounds occurred–“here, and here. It's just a very rapid speech. And as I said, the words are all succinct; it's as if they've abbreviated everything.”
“What, like saying 'regs' for 'regulations'?”
“Exactly.”
“It's military lingo,” Adelard said.
“I'd bet on it,” said Pilirani. “No one knows how to shorten words like the armed forces.”
“Well, that makes sense,” Brid said, “but it still doesn't tell us what language it originates from.”
“It also doesn't tell us how human vocal chords are making those sounds,” Reindeer said. “It sounds more like animal noises than words.”
“Not if you listen carefully,” Pilirani said. “And you'd be surprised what human vocal chords are capable of. Not that this transmission couldn't have been made by a machine. But if it is a machine doing the talking, then it's the most realistic voice I've ever heard a machine produce.”
“Which again points to Osiris,” Kaipo said grimly.
“Let's not speculate,” Brid said. “Pilirani, send out our inquiry on the wavelength that transmission came in on. See if they bite. In the meantime, let's see if we can get a little closer to those devils. If our scanners can't tell us what's going on, maybe our eyes can.�
��
“We'll try, Captain,” said Kaipo, “but those things are fast. Faster even than our Banshees.”
“Do what you can.” And she would do what she could. For the moment, that amounted to studying the footage they'd taken of the bogeys and trying to make out any distinguishing characteristics.
But what it really felt like was doing nothing.
CHAPTER TWO
In the Lotan solar system
Brid had often wondered if Earth and the neutral Colonies were doing anyone any favors by staying out of the fighting; if one or more of them took a side—offering manpower, or weapons, or both—maybe a tide would turn and the fighting would end. She'd also thought they might not manage to stay neutral for much longer, not with the Regemites begging for help detoxing their people because of an extraordinarily potent drug the Nommosians brought to their planet, the Gharadites getting persecuted for their religion as much as for their politics, and all of the warring Colonies coming to the neutral ones for medical aid, rebuilding efforts, and anything else they could ask for that wouldn't compromise the other Colonies' neutral stance.
It occurred to Brid now that she may have just come across an action that would finally push Earth into taking one side or another. As long as the warring Colonies stuck to killing each other, Earth and the others could remain impartial, but if someone attacked a neutral Colony without cause, well . . .
She peered over Reindeer's shoulder again, trying to hazard a guess as to who might be responsible for the odd-looking fighters, then immediately rebuked herself for doing so. It wasn't her job to speculate.
“Enemy fighters are in range,” the weapons master said.
“They're not our enemy, Daniau. At least, not yet.”
Adelard turned in his seat, his back a bit too straight. “Permission to speak freely, Captain.”
“Permission granted.”
“These fighters are attacking innocent people. That makes them our enemy. Permission to fire on hostile craft.”
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