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Title Page
Copyright
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TURNING POINT
By Jason Anspach
& Nick Cole
Copyright © 2017
by Galaxy’s Edge, LLC
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher and copyright owner.
All rights reserved. Version 1.0
Edited by David Gatewood
Published by Galaxy’s Edge, LLC
Cover Art: Fabian Saravia
Cover Design: Beaulistic Book Services
For more information:
Website: GalacticOutlaws.com
Facebook: facebook.com/atgalaxysedge
Newsletter: InTheLegion.com
01
Captain Keel looked from shock trooper to shock trooper, his blaster pistol leveled at the tall, deep-voiced soldier in front of him. The troopers kept Keel and Ravi in their sights despite Exo’s best efforts to defuse the situation.
“Everyone, calm down.” Exo lowered his palms in a soothing fashion, his blaster rifle slung over his shoulder. “If this had been anyone else, I’d say dust ’em. But Captain Ford is one of the best the Legion ever produced. Call sign was Wraith. He was on Kublar with me.”
The big shock trooper, who seemed to be the team leader, looked casually to Exo. “Then tell him to drop his weapon.”
“Drop your own weapons,” retorted Keel. “Exo here bought you a few extra breaths, but those won’t last forever, pal.”
“Be cool, Wraith,” urged Exo. He nodded back at the open grave of Kael Maydoon. “We weren’t coming for you. We were coming for him.”
Keel gave a sardonic grin. “So drop your weapons and go see him. He’s waiting patiently enough.”
The shock trooper standing before Keel flipped up his bucket’s front plate, revealing a stern, dark face with expressive brown eyes. “It is not so simple as that. You’re here. That raises questions my team will need answered. Why are you here, digging?”
“I’m an archaeologist,” Keel shot back. “Looking for potsherds and found a body. Happens all the time. My friend here is a professor at the University of Utopion.”
Ravi nodded. “Eighty-three percent.”
Keel knew that Ravi was relaying Keel’s chances of taking down every shock trooper with the Indelible VI’s guns. Eighty-three percent—those were odds Keel would take any day of the week.
Exo attempted to settle down the situation again. “Wraith, this is Bombassa, our team leader.”
Keel gave a nod that morphed into a disapproving shake of his head. “Great. Nice to meet you. I don’t care. We’re leaving now. Ravi, if they twitch, have the Six open up on ’em.”
Fearlessly, Keel turned to leave.
“Do not toy with me,” warned Bombassa. “We hold your life in our hands.”
Without breaking stride, Keel said, “Ravi?”
At once the Six spewed forth a blistering barrage of fire, knocking the unprepared shock troopers to the parched ground and sending their repulsor bikes up in flames. Keel was nearly hurled off his feet, but he steadied himself enough to keep his blaster aimed at the floored soldiers covering their heads. The dust and sand spewed up around them and rained down on their gleaming black armor.
Keel held up a hand, and the blaster fire stopped. “You can all thank Exo you’re still alive. Have a nice walk back to your ship.”
Exo coughed and spit sand from his mouth. He pushed himself to his feet and held out his hands.
Keel squinted to see what the shock trooper was holding. In one hand was a fragger; in the other hand was… a hand.
Maydoon’s hand.
“Not cool, Wraith,” Exo said between coughs.
The team leader, Bombassa, had been knocked out, and the rest of the shock troopers seemed too afraid to move. Or maybe they were dead. Keel was fine with either possibility.
“Don’t be stupid with that fragger,” Keel warned Exo.
Exo shook his head. “Not for you. Don’t worry.” He tossed the grenade casually over his shoulder, dropping it into the bottom of Maydoon’s grave.
The ordnance erupted into a plume of white-hot flame so intense it seemed like it would turn the sand at the lip of the grave into glass. A burner. Kill teams used these to erase evidence before it could be compromised, or to destroy weapons caches. There wouldn’t be anything left of Maydoon beyond carbon ash.
Exo held up the severed hand. “It’s not hard to figure out what you were doing here. Same thing as us. The fleet. We’re not the bad guys, Wraith. You know me. This is disruption to the status quo. This is opening eyes, man. It’s what needs to happen to save the Legion from itself and a corrupt Republic that’s poisoning it from the inside.”
Keel held out an open hand. “No. Give it to me.”
Exo pulled the severed appendage close. “You’ll have to shoot me to take it, Wraith.”
“Fine.”
Keel aimed his blaster, but didn’t shoot. Exo didn’t crack. Finally, Keel shook the barrel of the weapon up and down and holstered the weapon.
“So how’s this gonna work?”
“Guess that depends on who you’re working for,” Exo said.
Keel pushed a thumb into his chest. “I’m working for me and have been for years. I need that hand to rescue a crewmember of mine that Nether Ops kidnapped.”
“The girl?” Exo asked.
Keel hid his surprise that Exo knew about Prisma. “Yeah. The girl. And a couple others.”
“Good,” said Exo. “That’s good. We’ll help you rescue your crew from them psychopaths at Nether Ops. And we’ll get the ships. And the galaxy will be a better place for it.”
Keel didn’t like this, but he didn’t know what better play he might have. He looked to Ravi, who only shrugged in reply. “Okay. You can come with me.”
“What about the rest of the team?”
“Who cares?”
“Wraith, I care. You don’t let down your squad.”
“Fine. You got planetary comm capabilities in that helmet of yours?”
Exo nodded.
Keel gave a slight frown. He knew all this, but he wasn’t going to tip his hand. Not until he felt he’d fully vetted Exo. “We’ll tell them where to find us after we’re in the air. Anything else?”
“Bombassa comes with us. He’s not gonna be happy when he wakes up, and I’ll need to be there to let him know there’s been a change of plans.”
Looking down at the unconscious trooper lying prone in the sand, Keel pulled down on his chin with the palm of his hand. “Fine. But he’d better behave himself on my ship or I’ll send him out an airlock.”
“It’ll be fine,” Exo promised.
&nbs
p; “Okay.” Keel moved toward the ship without turning his back on Exo. “I’ll let you get him on board.” To the shock troopers he said, “Enjoy the walk back home!”
***
Exo chewed on his glove as he watched Bombassa’s vital signs on the medical bunk’s holoscreen.
Better than my nails, he thought. He’d chewed those down to the point of bleeding over the past several weeks. He was on edge—had been on edge for a while now. Part of it had been the jitters of going up against the Legion in a head-on fight. That was daunting, but they’d gotten it done. They’d shocked the galaxy with a victory at Tarrago.
But the rest of it, what was causing him turmoil now, was twofold. Goth Sullus was not… normal. Exo had seen the way he just… manipulated things. Made them move of their own accord, like some kind of armored space wizard. Up to the point when he fought at Sullus’s side on Tarrago Moon, Exo had figured the enigmatic leader of the Black Fleet was just a sound strategist. A former leej who, like Exo, was tired of the galaxy’s best dying in droves for a government that didn’t care. But clearly he was something more.
For Exo, this unknown caused worry.
Wraith was the other concern. Not the man specifically, but what he represented. Wraith was Exo’s first former comrade to have seen Exo in his new skin: the black shining armor of a shock trooper. If Wraith held it against him, it didn’t show. Then again, Captain Ford seemed done with the Legion himself, content to live a life in open space.
But would his reaction be typical? If Exo ever ran into Chhun or Masters… what would they say? Exo had a speech all planned out, but would it matter? Would they understand that he was doing what he was doing in order to save the Legion from extinction?
Bombassa moaned but didn’t open his eyes. Exo watched the shock trooper for a moment, then looked again at the vitals on the screen. He had no idea if they were good or not. He had never been a medic, had never moved much past applying skinpacks or giving out pain nullifiers. Combat stuff. Bombassa had been unconscious for a while now, and Exo remembered reading somewhere that long stretches like that were a bad thing. Like, the longer you were out, the more damage might be done. Something like that.
“Hey, man.” Exo gently smacked Bombassa on the face, which probably wasn’t good for him either. “You okay? Wake up, Bombassa. You okay?”
Bombassa stirred and let out a groan. He opened his eyes and blinked at the bright lights shining down on him.
“Dim lights,” Exo called.
The ship responded, and Bombassa looked around, clearly confused by his surroundings. “Where—” He began to sit up.
Exo pushed him back down, gently. “Take it easy, bro.”
The two men had only gotten to know each other in the weeks since Tarrago—having been assigned to the same team by Goth Sullus himself—and had taken a liking to one another. They’d both experienced similar travails in the Legion. As for the rest of their six-man team… that was more complicated. They were good fighters—a little vindictive, but capable—but when talk came to Legion days, they never had much to say.
“This is not our ship,” Bombassa observed. “Whose is it?”
Exo gave an apologetic smile. “Wraith’s.”
“The fool who shot at us with blaster cannons?” Bombassa sat up again, this time successfully resisting Exo’s attempts to push him back down. “We are prisoners? We must take the ship. We—”
“We’re not prisoners,” Exo said, gesturing to his blaster rifle. “See? What we are is lucky to be alive. A bump on the head for you is pretty good, considering how jacked up things could have gotten. He could have killed us, bro.”
“Hmm,” Bombassa growled, sounding not at all convinced. “You feel good about this. I do not.”
“Trust me,” Exo said. He leaned against a counter containing a tumbler bot encasement. Wraith had some serious tech on board from what Exo had seen so far—like he’d raided a Republic supply closet. “Wraith told me he left the Legion after they used him up, same as you and me. Only he’s been making his living on the smuggler and merc circuit. We have a shared goal, and trust me when I say, he can help. He’s legit the best leej I ever served with.”
Bombassa poked a forefinger into Exo’s armor. “You, I trust. But this man…”
“Is probably listening in,” Exo said, eyes shooting upward at the ceiling. “Aren’t you, Wraith?”
“No,” came Wraith’s voice over the comm. “Look, Exo says you’re willing to work with me. You want some ships, I want my crew. And you have the hand—which I’m not willing to kill a member of Victory Company over—but you don’t know where to use it. I do.”
Bombassa shot Exo a look. “Why did you tell him we didn’t cypher the location of the fleet?”
“Because we didn’t,” Exo said. “Stop acting like a point. This gets the job done a lot faster than sending thousands of probe bots into space and hoping one gets lucky.”
Bombassa folded his arms. “I’m not acting like a point. I don’t trust your friend.”
“I don’t trust you either, pal,” Wraith replied. “But if I wanted to kill you…”
Bombassa growled again. “What of the rest of our team?”
“Contact ’em and tell ’em to meet us at the Cresweil Bazaar on Porcha in two days. And tell them not to show up looking like commandos. We gotta shake any potential tails before we get to our destination.”
“Sound good?” Exo asked, pleading with his eyes.
“Very well,” said Bombassa.
Exo clapped. “Yes! See, Wraith, I told you he’d listen. We really are working for the same thing.”
“I’m working for me, Exo. If the Legion gets saved in the process, I won’t try and stop it. But I’m not getting dragged into your little revolution.”
***
Keel switched off the comm and leaned back in his seat. He turned to Ravi, who was calculating navigational jump points for after they left Wayste’s atmosphere. “Still listening in?”
“Yes,” Ravi said with a nod. “They are discussing what to do if you were to double-cross them. They do not seem to trust you.”
“I wouldn’t trust me, either.” Keel rubbed his chin. “Think they’ll try something?”
Ravi shook his head. “They seem to be leaning toward working with you.”
“Good.”
“That is probably the last mistake either of them will ever make.”
“Or, if they’re like me, they’ll get to relive their mistake over and over again. Like when I left that planet with you on board my ship.”
Keel flipped a switch that locked and unlocked a predetermined series of doors, letting the two shock troopers move about. Allowing them some freedom of movement ought to gain Keel some goodwill, but he wasn’t going to let them go wherever they pleased.
“You seemed happy to have me along, as I recall it,” Ravi said.
“I was acting. Just like with Exo.” Keel flipped on his autopilot and swiveled his chair to face his navigator. “Ravi, I can’t believe he joined up with Sullus. What’s he thinking?”
Not looking up from his console, Ravi said, “You should ask him.”
“Trust me, I will.”
Ravi’s fingers danced across his display, then stopped. He placed his hands in his lap. “I have the jump coordinates determined, per your instructions. The shock troopers on board transmitted the location of the rendezvous to the rest of their team.”
Keel nodded. He flipped the comm back on. “Exo, I wanna leave atmo and make the jump. Time’s wasting. Did you tell your team yet?”
It was Bombassa who replied. “Yes. Are we free to move about the ship?”
“It’s all yours except my quarters and the cockpit. I’ll come back and show you around once we reach hyperspace. Wraith out.”
Keel angled the Six upward, feeling the force of its thrust as the ship climbed through Wayste’s stratosphere.
02
Phasia, on the Planet Demetrion
Th
e zhee armada came out of hyperspace and hit the beautiful garden world of Demetrion first. Ten heavily armed, fully loaded former Republic next-gen battle cruisers smashed through the local system defensive fleet first, leaving a diplomatic frigate burning into atmo. The spreading debris field of the local corvette-heavy defense group assigned to guard the world expanded away, forming dozens of new navigational hazards for the pleasure traffic that had Demetrion as its destination.
Phasia, the capital city of this high-end luxury world, reacted quickly. Klaxons erupted across the sculpted city as bots and automated warning systems instructed the citizens to seek shelter immediately. Routes to the underground hyperloop system Demetrion boasted to the rest of the galaxy about revealed themselves on devices and every form of advertising. Gone were the promises of endless delights, culinary adventures, and once-in-a-lifetime experiences. Now adventure-vacationers were advised to flee into the tunnel system that had also been designed as a doomsday bunker of sorts, seeing as it was eight stories deep.
The zhee battle cruisers were utilitarian, with a workmanlike weapon system courtesy of the House of Reason. They had barely been secured from orbital descent before they were dumping assault transports out into the blue skies above palatial Phasia.
The eight-minute approach to the marked LZs the MCR technical advisors had set up for the zhee attack force seemed like some momentous pause before an approaching storm. In that brief time the citizenry raced for the automated escalators and lifts that would lead them down to the main platforms and then into the hyperloop rail tubes. At every level, heavy blast doors with alabaster facades were marked with ghostly bluish laser light holograms indicating countdowns before the bunker system would seal itself off from the outside world.
The first orbital strikes hit west and east of the city, destroying the underground escape arteries buried beneath eight tons of rock. Orbital strikes fell under the “weapons of mass destruction” category and were considered a war crime by the House of Reason—which meant only the House of Reason could authorize the Repub Navy to employ such dire measures. But to the zhee there was no such thing as a war crime… as the citizens of Demetrion were about to find out.
Turning Point (Galaxy's Edge Book 7) Page 1