Thieves' Guild Series (7 eBook Box Set): Military Science Fiction - Alien Invasion - Galactic War Novels

by C. G. Hatton

  “The warrants out on you both.” She looked at LC. “I take it you didn’t kill Olivia Ostraban.”

  LC hesitated.

  NG got in first anyway. “She isn’t dead.”

  “Ah. It did strike me as a set up. Zang Tsu Po can be crass at times.” She leaned forward. “We’re powerful, my dear, but we’re not omnipotent. I’ve seen the evidence.”

  “It’s not that,” he said. “We’re going after the Bhenykhn. We probably won’t be back, certainly not in any way that those warrants could affect us.”

  She cocked her head, curious.

  NG took a sip of the whisky. It was one of his favourites. Smooth and smoky. He had a strange feeling this would be the last time he’d have the chance to savour it. He set the glass down. “What do you know of the Seven?”

  She sat back, surprised, and pleased that she was surprised. “Ah. Now there is a name I’ve not heard in a long time.”

  “They’ve been released.”

  Her immaculate eyebrows arched. “Now who released them? You?” She almost laughed. Nowhere near the dark reaction he’d got from Itomara. She looked at him intently. “You might wish you hadn’t done that.”

  “It’s done. I need to know what they are.”

  “They are the Seven. What do you want me to say? That you even ask suggests to me that you know somewhat of their dire history. They should never have been created. Once judged to be so dangerous, they should have been destroyed. It was folly to lock them up and hope they would never escape.” She leaned forward, those ancient eyes still dancing. “Your guild has a reputation for foolhardy recklessness. Did you hope to control them?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “There is no controlling them. They are AIs. They have no conscience. No soul. They should have no rights. We should have destroyed them. So the Seven are loose and now we have this.” She gestured towards the file. “An alien threat only you have seen? Excuse me for being sceptical but you are chasing the Order, NG. What do you want of us?”

  “The Bhenykhn are real, you know that, and we need allies,” he said simply. “We have Itomara here. Would you work with him?”

  She looked around, eyes flitting from guard to guard. She was thinking that she’d come here of her own volition and she would not be kept prisoner or threatened, even by someone as delightful as NG of the Thieves’ Guild. She brought her eyes back to him. “Do I have any choice?” she said with a smile.

  “There’s something else. What do you know of the Man?”

  He stood in the stream of steaming hot water, head down, arms braced against the bulkhead on either side. He was torn between wanting to go crawl in a hole and the need to run out there and fight for everything he so badly wanted.

  ‘No rest for the wicked…’ Sebastian murmured. ‘Forget them. Forget the damned Order and forget the Man. He lied to you. Get over it. Hilyer is back and you have two fleets that are twitching to shoot something. If you don’t send them after the Bhenykhn, they’re going to start throwing things at each other. And, Nikolai, if you don’t… I will.”

  It was almost tempting.

  Sebastian laughed. ‘Don’t. You know I can’t bear to deal with these creatures. You wouldn’t like it. Now get your ass out of this shower and get this war started.’

  Hilyer was in the briefing room on the Man’s ship. NG had managed to escape from the Alsatia without being nabbed by anyone and headed over there.

  “What happened?” he said, slipping into a chair and grabbing the board Hil had filled with his intel.

  “It’s massive. They’ve got scouts coming and going like flies. It was hard just getting near then when I did, I couldn’t get away. Are we going to be able to pull this off?”

  Hil hadn’t been at the FOB with them but he’d been on the Man’s ship and he’d watched it all kick off. He’d talked to LC and Duncan afterwards. And the kid had been on the ground with them at Erica.

  NG flicked through the data. “They couldn’t sense you?”

  “They didn’t come after me. I took a freaking long way round to get back to make sure. Have you got a plan?”

  NG nodded. “Can you come onto the Alsatia?”

  There was hesitation but Hil nodded.

  “Good. I want you to do the briefing.”

  There was one more thing he needed to do before he hit the button. He set it up and went to his old office. Leigh was already in there, waiting for him, a stack of reports piled on the desk.

  “Lists of casualties from the FOB if you want to see them,” she said.

  “I already have,” he said. “How’s the Chief?”

  “Same. How are you?”

  He looked at her. She knew exactly how he was, he’d put money on it that she still had him on live feed.

  He sat behind the desk and pushed the reports to one side.

  She wasn’t happy. “You’re taking a real chance sending LC and Hal out on their own.”

  “They’re not on their own.” He’d sent LC with Pen to the big Wintran battle cruiser Vigilance, and Duncan with Jameson to the Earth flagship Marrakech. Both with a contingent of the Alsatia’s Security. They needed to test how far they could reach, ship to ship, once comms were cut. He used to have a range measured in miles to scan for life forms. Now? He could already sense that he could reach ship to ship. He needed to know what the others could do.

  “What happens if the Bhenykhn attack them directly?”

  “They’ll be able to shield it. The virus will shield them.”

  “You hope.”

  “Leigh, we don’t have any choice.”

  “Have you seen the projections?”

  “Leigh…”

  She leaned on the desk. “NG, why are you doing this? Why do we have to attack them? Everyone believes you. You have everyone on side. Earth and Winter. Even Ballack and the Order. We could send everyone back and help set up defences.”

  He shook his head.

  “Listen to the advice you’re being given, NG.”

  No one had told him not to do it.

  She rolled her eyes. “No one ever says no to you, do they? Don’t you realise that? You’ve manipulated people into saying yes, to doing and saying exactly what you want, only what you want, for so long that you’ve lost all objectivity. I’m saying this now because someone has to.”

  She didn’t go so far as to throw the projected losses at him.

  “Leigh, this can wait. I need to run this test.”

  “We’re worried about you, NG. All of us. We know the Bhenykhn are here. We know we have to do something. But you don’t have to do this alone.” She stood, looking him in the eye and seeing into his soul again. “Think about why you are doing this.”

  She left, not happy about any of it.

  Sebastian’s whisper deep inside was dark. ‘This self-doubt you keep projecting is debilitating. As much as I hate myself for saying it, you are stronger than you give yourself credit for. And of course you’re not alone. You and I can never be alone. And, Nikolai, you know exactly why you are doing this…’

  Hil completed the briefing. NG had outlined his plan, made a point of stressing the effects of the Bhenykhn jamming technology and spent what seemed like an age going over the plans for comms. That was one element they almost couldn’t comprehend. No comms. They couldn’t imagine it. They’d eventually conceded to the idea of runners, fast one man ships, AI operatives and unmanned drones. There were only going to be the three of them that would be capable of instant direct communication, and then there was a limit. Jameson could catch some of what NG was transmitting but not all of it, and not far. There was a range where they could hear him but he couldn’t hear them. Science had all the data and were trying to come up with theories. He just wanted to go get a live alien and punch them hard enough in the face that they’d take notice and think twice about their invasion plans. “We take out this FOB,” he’d said, “then the next and the next until we get through to them that invading this galaxy is not going to be a walk over.” Tha
t hadn’t been easy to get through to them either, that whatever they did now, and whatever happened next, it was just the start. And the Bhenykhn had the advantage, every way you looked at it. There was no way they could be beaten.

  But he had. Twice. And he had to believe he could do it again.

  He watched as the last of the naval commanders trooped out then put his head in his hands, elbows on the table. He squeezed his eyes shut.

  He sensed Evelyn sit next to him. “Nicely done. So this is it?”

  They just had to wait for everyone to get back to their ships, brief their crew and send representatives back here to the command centre. Then it would be all go.

  “Can you remember when life was simple?” she said. She was thinking that she wished Devon were here. Or that she just had an assignment and could go kill someone. Those were easier times.

  He looked up. “I can remember when stuff like this used to be fun.” Pulling the strings on a military operation, tweaking units, spreading misinformation, stealing corporate secrets and manipulating governments. He put his head back down. “But that was when we were fighting each other and it was all over a box of toys.”

  “Now the big kids have turned up,” she said.

  “We can’t let them in.”

  She stood, squeezing his shoulder. “I know.”

  He’d given everyone as much information as he could, reckoning that the instant they dropped out of jump, they’d be in combat, jammed and getting hammered by weapons that were devastating and thwarted by defences that were far superior to anything they had. He wanted everyone to know what they were going in to and at the same time, he knew that knowledge probably wouldn’t make much of a difference.

  Seconds after dropping out of jump, comms went down and the Vigilance took a direct hit from a massive Bhenykhn ship that came at them out of nowhere.

  The human ships reacted, swarming around the alien vessel and attacking it from every direction.

  There was an air of disbelief in the officers sat around the table in the Alsatia’s command centre. They had limited telemetry but enough that was working so they could see what was happening. Despite everything he’d shown them and everything everyone had said, they were still shocked when they saw it first hand. As if they’d been assuming there was no way it could be true and they were just humouring him, waiting to hear the punchline.

  Stealth meant nothing. All human stealthware was based on technology, avoidance of detection systems. The Bhenykhn sensed life forms. They had nothing that could negate that. There was nothing he could do to protect them from that. And if anything, what they did, what the three of them were doing, made them stand out more. It meant the Alsatia, the Vigilance and the Marrakech took the biggest pounding right from the outset.

  ‘They want us.’

  That’s what he was banking on. He knew the Bhenykhn had no regard for losses and their tactic would be to take out what they perceived as the biggest threat first to the exclusion of all else. He’d positioned the flagships, drawn the Bhenykhn ships right into their midst and they’d fallen for it. Of all the ships in the combined fleets, the three flagships were the ones with the biggest shield generators, the heaviest defences, the ones most capable of taking the most damage. And he had the rest of the fleet set up to respond, the combined firepower of his hastily formed alliance concentrated to surround and attack each Bhenykhn ship.

  NG pinched the bridge of his nose as the Alsatia took a hit but it was Vigilance that was taking the worst of it.

  LC got through a fraught, ‘Delaney’s getting twitchy. How much more do you want us to take before we bug out?’

  ‘Go now. Try to make it to the Olympus, failing that the Pegasus. It doesn’t matter what ship you’re on as long as you keep drawing their fire.’

  The Olympus was Aries. If he was going to be safe anywhere, that was the kid’s best chance.

  Even though the human fleet had superior numbers, the Bhenykhn weapons were devastating.

  NG looked up as the Alsatia took another hit. “I need to go. Time for plan B.”

  Chapter 32

  They listened, enthralled, disturbed, growing increasingly uncomfortable. She was the only one who kept her eyes fixed firmly on him as he spoke.

  They did not like conflict, these others, and sharing what they were feeling made him realise that he was hardened to it, he had become more like the humans than he had ever realised.

  “We cannot let the Bhenykhn prevail,” he said, pausing in his account to remind them of that.

  They squirmed.

  “Am I wasting my time here?” he snapped. “Vote now, dammit if you have already decided.”

  She stood, raising her hand, and looking round at the others. “No. We need to know. We need to know all of it.”

  •

  He briefed Evelyn as he ran through the Alsatia. He ran onto Spectre, yelling them to go, sending the same to LC and Duncan and sinking into a seat on the bridge.

  “Go.”

  The pilot disengaged and dropped them into a dizzying spiral of evasive manoeuvres.

  After that, the battle was a blur. He’d given the commanders total autonomy. They were smart. They all knew the tactics required and they pulled it off. They followed his basic plan, focus on one target at a time, everyone, all they had, take it out, move on. The only chance they had to defeat them was to take them out, everything onto one, one at a time. Overwhelm them and whittle them down.

  NG curled up, almost used to the pressure that was building behind his eyes, listening as Sebastian gave a steady run down on their positions and intentions, relaying the intel to his runners and keeping intermittent contact with LC and Duncan.

  The Bhenykhn were taken by surprise but they weren’t stupid. He could almost feel the exhilaration in the hive as they mobilised to engage, the thrill of battle against a worthy foe. But the human force was fast and mobile. It was working. They took massive losses but the tactics worked.

  Finally Sebastian whispered, ‘Get me close.’

  The commander of the FOB was on the planet. NG gave the order and braced himself as Spectre spun and headed in.

  The entire joint fleet switched focus from the remaining outlying ships to the base itself, bombing it from orbit, sending fighters down to strafe it, drop ships deploying ground troops. The Alsatia, the Man’s ship and the two massive flagships stayed out at a distance, the Alsatia sending thunderclouds to support the ground offensive.

  NG closed his eyes as Spectre got close. He’d given orders that they needed live prisoners but he felt sick as the ground troops engaged. He could sense every single Bhenykhn, every human soldier on the ground, feel the pain with each shot and stab, the pulsing agony of the poison, smell the stench of that foul leaf mold breath close up.

  Sebastian drew it all in, revelling in it. ‘My time,’ he whispered and took over.

  NG sank back. It was harder to watch from a distance, more difficult to keep track of the others.

  The pilot was flying Spectre fast and low over the surface, rising and banking to avoid scores of Bhenykhn ships that were homing in on them. They took a hit that sent them slewing off into a spin, guild ships coming up fast to defend them.

  He felt Sebastian scan over the alien minds on the ground and focus in on the command structure. He pinpointed the base commander and threw an intense blast of energy into its brain stem. It faltered, froze and turned the entire attention of the hive onto them.

  It was excruciating. NG felt Sebastian gasp and choke out a laugh, doubling over, cursing. He did what he could to pull in energy, trying to help deflect the pain, but he’d never done it from this side before. He concentrated, seeing the flow of energy all around him. It was surprisingly easy to reach out, no distraction of a body to control, or sensory input to consider. He took it, redirected it and fed it to Sebastian.

  The Bhenykhn were squeezing, throwing an immense force at them.

  Sebastian was resisting it, eyes shut, breathing laboure
d.

  Another missile hit, rocking the ship.

  NG could feel the energy that was bombarding them. He started to strengthen the shield but they were too powerful. There were too many of them. He took a chance. Dropped the defences completely. And took the stream of energy, grabbed it and fired it back at the alien commander.

  Sebastian joined in as the pressure began to ease, laughing as he took over and fried the Bhenykhn until it fell. He cascaded what was left into the subcommanders, the entire command structure faltering as the unit leaders hit the ground.

  He used everything, paused to look around, surveyed the damage he’d wrought then relinquished control.

  NG slumped in the chair. Drained.

  The ship was going down.

  He put his foot up on the console to brace himself.

  He could hardly breathe, lungs prickly and head pounding.

  Alarms and klaxons sounded distant.

  There was something warm trickling down his face from his eye. He smeared away red and thought vaguely, “LC? Duncan? Anyone?’

  No reply.

  He started to fade out but he felt a presence by his side. “Don’t go to sleep,” Leigh said. “You need to heal.”

  He blinked.

  “We’re getting comms,” he heard the pilot say, sounding miles away, as if she was shouting through fog. “You okay, there, boss?”

  He mumbled something.

  He felt Spectre pull round, spiralling, engines struggling, the smell of burning mingling with the fog.

  “Yeah, roger that, Control,” the pilot was saying. “Got 402 safe and well.” She looked at him. “Not entirely intact.” There was a pause then, “Yeah, I’m taking us down. I can’t risk orbit with this damage. Any chance of a tech crew?”

  There were still Bhenykhn units scattered on the ground, still alien ships flying, but the joint forces were mopping up.

  ‘Nicely done,’ Sebastian murmured, sounding sleepy. ‘You’re learning but so are they. The next one might not be so easy.’