Crimson Strike

by Peter Bostrom

  Contents

  Title

  Dedication

  Front Matter

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  Epilogue

  ebook backmatter

  Crimson Strike

  Book Two

  of

  GALACTIC KNIGHT

  Peter Bostrom

  For my three favorite admirals: Kirk, Adama, and Ackbar

  To be notified of future books in The Galactic Knight series, sign up here: smarturl.it/peterbostrom

  Peter Bostrom is the pen name of Nick Webb co-writing with other authors. Rebel Sword is by Nick Webb and Jacob Rennaker.

  Copyright 2020 by Hyperspace Media

  Other books by Peter Bostrom:

  The Last War Series:

  Book 1: The Last War

  Book 2: The Last Hero

  Book 3: The Last Dawn

  Book 4: The Last Champion

  Book 5: The Last Strike

  Other books by Nick Webb:

  Constitution, Book 1 of the Legacy Fleet Series

  Mercury’s Bane, Book 1 of the Earth Dawning Series

  The Terran Gambit, Book 1 of the Pax Humana Saga

  PROLOGUE

  “THIS WILL TEACH them to call me the skinniest kid in the system,” Walt Dawson said to himself.

  He lowered his wild, wiry hair and made sure his feet were planted shoulder-width apart. His big toes had worn holes in the top of his shoes and his patched pants were too short. Walt pinched his eyes shut, trying to forget about how much faster he was growing than the other ten year-olds and how his father kept promising to get him new clothes.

  Walt took a deep breath and tossed a ratty ball into the air. As it tumbled back down, trailing broken threads and bits of artificial leather, he swung his synthetic wooden bat and hit the ball with a loud crack. The ball wobbled high into the dimming sky, hesitated for just a moment, and then came crashing back down through the synthetic treetops of a nearby park.

  “Dad! Dad! Did you see that?” Walt squealed.

  He looked over and saw Harold Dawson shaking his head as one of his neighbors waved her arms and pointed to their run-down housing project. Sections of his father’s own wiry hair stood out at different angles, rebelling against his attempts to tame it. The man’s skin looked even darker while standing next to the fair woman.

  Walt thought the two looked like chess pieces, locked in a battle: a black king and a white queen. But Walter knew they weren’t actually mad at each other—they were mad at the city for letting the electricity in their housing project go out for the third time this week, essentially forcing them out into the night for fresh air.

  “Dad!” Walt yelled more loudly this time.

  Harold looked over and forced a smile. “What is it, son?”

  The boy beamed. “I hit the ball into the park!”

  The man lowered his head. “You’d better find it before someone else does—I traded our last sugar ration for that one.”

  Walt’s smile fell and his shoulders slumped. “Yes, sir.”

  He spun around, dodged an overflowing garbage bin, and ran down the street, past the flickering streetlights and old transports with broken windows. When he got to the park, he skidded to a stop. Only two of the lights were working, leaving most of the park in darkness.

  Walt wasn’t as scared of the dark as he used to be—he’d gotten used to the power going out in their project. But from where he stood now, the park looked like a monster with two brightly glowing eyes and a dark, gaping mouth.

  Walt looked back at his father for encouragement, but he and the fair-haired lady were both standing with their arms crossed, talking loudly. The boy turned back to the dark monster of a park, his heart racing. He tightened his grip on the uneven bat and shuffled slowly toward the park’s entrance.

  His eyes darted from the pale green synthetic bushes on the ground to their shadows and back again. No sign of the ball. He boldly took a few more steps into the fearsome mouth and suddenly heard a crunch. He froze and looked around frantically for the source of the sound.

  Nothing.

  He retreated a step backward, but a second crunch broke the silence and he yelped. His eyes shot to the ground, where Walt saw several empty cartons of water around his feet. He exhaled loudly and relaxed his grip on the baseball bat. Walt blushed imagining how his friends would laugh if they could see him now.

  He had to be brave—if not for himself, then for his father and the baseball they couldn’t afford to lose. Taking a deep breath, Walt straightened his shoulders and took a long step forward toward the darkness.

  From the shadows, something stepped back.

  The flickering pair of park lights revealed a spindly figure in dark clothing with a long, pale face. Walt gasped.

  He wanted to run, but his legs wouldn’t move.

  The creature drifted slowly forward, and with every inch it drew nearer, another terrible feature was revealed: bald head, pointy ears, large, bushy eyebrows, beak-like nose, and—worst of all—inhumanly long, yellow, pointed teeth.

  Walt’s heart was beating so fast he thought it would explode,

  But the weight of the bat in his hands snapped him out of his paralysis. He raised it to one side, and as soon as the creature was close enough, he swung with all his might.

  A pale hand shot forward and long-nailed fingers wrapped completely around the end of the synthetic wood, yanking it cleanly from Walt’s trembling hands. The creature stared, unblinking, at Walt out of bloodshot eyes. He flexed his long pale fingers and the top half of the bat erupted in a shower of splinters.

  Walt turned to run, but another thin arm hooked around his waist and a cold, clammy hand covered his mouth. The boy squirmed as the creature opened his cavernous mouth and sunk his long, rotten fangs into the boy’s throat.

  Walt’s eyes grew wide. The creature removed his blood-soaked teeth, eyes glowing faintly. A smile played at the corners of the creature’s lips, and as he returned to the boy’s neck, Walt’s body slowly went slack in its arms.

  After a few moments, the creature released its grip and his prey fell limply to the ground. Walt’s head rolled to the side and his eyes followed the trail of flickering lights toward the tall silhouette of his housing project. With the last of his strength, Walt opened his mouth and whispered “Dad …” as he exhaled for the last time.

  The creature stared at the boy’s crumpled body and clenched his powerful jaw. He had gone too far. The Red Dragon would be unhappy… again. Not to mention those filthy, furry lycanthropes. He spat, but as he followed the boy’s line of sight toward the project, he saw dozens of people standing out in the cool night air.

  His smile returned and the creature slipped a spider-like hand into the neck of his coat and pulled out a gold chain. His long-nailed fingers opened to expose a finely crafted black metal vulture. Set in the center was a sun-yellow stone, twinkling in the half-light.

  The creature stepped backward over the sad, broken handle of the wooden
bat and returned to the shadows. In the darkness, the glowing golden light of the stone illuminated the creature’s ghoulish face as he opened his fanged mouth to speak.

  “The people of this moon are ready to harvest, as expected.” A pointy tongue darted out of his mouth and slithered along his thin white lips.

  “Ready the oculus and proceed as planned.”

  1

  “AGAIN,” COLONEL VAIEGA’S voice came loudly across the speakers. He stood staring at me behind the duraglass observation window and folded his arms across his broad chest.

  “But this time,” he said in his thick Kiwi accent, “bring in another squadron.”

  Aw, hell. Just when I thought my latest diagnostic session couldn’t get any worse. A cargo door hissed open and ten shifty-eyed soldiers joined the previous group of groaning men and women, all of which were wearing dark, thick helmets and bulky light green fatigues stuffed with padding. They looked like those old plastic toy soldiers I’d seen pictures of, but chubbier. And with plasma rifles.

  I had on my brand-spanking-new dull orange sergeant’s fatigues—without padding, dammit—and took a moment to move the crown-like sensor that circled my head to map by brain functions. I’d always thought fighting with a crown would be awesome, like I was some sort of warrior-king who had returned to claim his rightful throne and marry a breathy elf maiden. Instead, the crown-sensor that hugged my skull just dug deep into my scalp and made sweat drip into my eyes so I couldn’t see most of the time.

  I was in the middle of adjusting it over my messy red-brown hair when Colonel Vaiega barked, “Begin!”

  Pale blue streaks fired from the soldiers’ plasma rifles as I dove for cover. Luckily, their weapons had been re-fitted to deliver stun charges, but if one of those connected with you, it felt like you’d been hit by a Kraken. Or maybe a public transport vehicle. I slammed into the ground harder than I’d hoped and then clumsily scuttled behind a tall concrete barrier.

  Of course Vaiega would want them to start while I was empty-handed. I swear he was taking this personally. For the past couple of years, he’d been the United Federation of Sol’s most popular Peacekeeper soldier and had practically reached celebrity status with the media—which, unsurprisingly, were owned by the UFS.

  But another hero had arisen. Wait—nobody says that. If they did, they’d probably get their pants pulled down and stuffed into a locker. Man, if I’d had these powers when those bullies in secondary school were after me, I would have gone all Wizard of Earthsea on their asses and made them think twice about messing with me.

  Stun charges pounded against the concrete barrier as I wiped away the steady stream of crown sweat already blinding me. I needed a plan, and fast. I looked down and flexed my left hand wrapped in its woven metal. The room’s pale artificial light glistened off of the purple, deep orange, and red stones on the back of what I sometimes called my Power Glove—when Lopez wasn’t around. Whenever I say “Power Glove,” she interrupts and with “—Sorry Excuse for an Oven Mitt!” in a grandiose voice.

  Very funny.

  Anyway, the stones embedded in my badass magic Power Glove sit just below the first three knuckles and are attached to each other by tiny wires. There are two empty settings below the other two knuckles, and one more in the center of the glove, just in case I manage to kill another knock-off fantasy villain or three at some point and confiscate their philosopher’s stones.

  The rifle blasts started coming in at an angle on my right side, so I knew some of the soldiers were trying to flank me. Why couldn’t they just give me a break and keep firing at my barrier for a minute?

  I took a deep breath, held it for a heartbeat, and then exhaled loudly.

  Here we go again.

  I reached behind me and drew my sword from its sheath. Okay, to be completely transparent here, it was a meter-plus-long maintenance testing rod. Which I may or may not have held upside-down by the thick sensor at its top, since the flat, stabilizing cross-bars made for a perfect hilt. So, yeah. A sword. I called it my rod-sword. Just not around Lopez.

  I closed my eyes and listened for the faint music emanating from the small philosopher’s stone I had fitted into its handle, music only I could hear—it sounded like a pre-synthetic orchestra tuning their instruments. In my mind, I stood before this imaginary orchestra and raised a thin, white baton. The orchestra went silent. Then, when I suddenly brought the imaginary baton down in a grand swoop, a series of booming notes sounded, like the rhythmic beginning of an ominous marching song heralding a tall, black-clad villain in a dark cape and even darker helmet.

  I opened my eyes, and the long, tapered base of the testing rod—sword—was glowing a radiant yellow, with wisps of light rising from its surface. I brandished my weapon in one hand and spun to the right, deflecting the pale blue stun charges with my bright blade and sending them zipping back toward the soldiers who had fired them.

  One of the soldiers was hit in the leg by her own blast and shrieked in pain or frustration—probably a little of both—as she dropped to the ground, stunned. Ouch. But they were trying to hurt me too, so fair was fair, and I quickly ducked behind a second long and low length of concrete just a few meters away.

  Moving between the two barriers, I glanced up and saw that the soldiers had separated into two groups. The group trying to flank me was composed of the fresh batch of soldiers, and they’d gotten pretty far—they were only about ten meters away. That was a little too close for comfort.

  I summoned the simple, heroic combination of trumpets and trombones that came from my glove’s purple stone and it began to glow. With my back against the barrier, I shifted the crown sensor a bit and imagined a massive wall of glistening blue ice to the right of me.

  As soon as I had it pictured in my mind, I peeked around the corner, raised my gloved hand, and pushed it forward. There was a faint shimmer of purple in the air and the soldiers on that side of the room went flying backward, as if they’d been hit by, well, a massive wall of ice.

  They slammed onto the artificial concrete floor with staggered thuds. I ducked back behind the barrier. Yikes. Hopefully their padded armor would absorb most of the impact. But judging by the relentless pounding of stun charges I then felt against the barrier, I got the impression that these soldiers didn’t have my well-being in mind.

  This wasn’t too surprising, since there were rumors going around that my power stones made me a lot more powerful than they actually did. Normally, that wouldn’t have bothered me—I mean, it’s kind of refreshing to be treated like a demigod after working on a maintenance crew for so long.

  But recently, another rumor started making its way through the ranks. It suggested that I could have used my massive, allegedly limitless powers to save a whole lot more soldiers from the Dominion. Instead, according to this rumor, I was only worried about climbing the Peacekeeper ranks—other soldiers be damned.

  That wasn’t the worst of it, though. According to these idiots, not only did I supposedly withhold life-saving assistance, but in my arrogance and unchecked ambition, I had singlehandedly provoked the enemy to come out in full strength against us and caused countless unnecessary casualties. If I would have waited for Peacekeeper leadership to fully strategize and mobilize, these deaths could have been avoided. The Peacekeepers would have defeated the Dominion once and for all, and we wouldn’t still be fearing for our safety. Or so the rumor went.

  For those who believed this space trash—especially those whose friends had died back on Pluto—today’s “diagnostic session” was a chance for them to get even with me.

  I took a deep breath and silenced the purple stone’s heroic music. The stone’s inner light dimmed, and as I summoned to mind the orange stone’s drum-heavy cadence and electric guitar riff, it began to glow.

  Still ducking behind the barrier, I turned around and faced the barrage of stun charges that were slamming against the concrete.

  I imagined I was an Amazonian—a super masculine one—twirling a massi
ve handful of golden lassos above my head. I was still gripping the rod-sword in my right hand, which I stretched out so that its glowing yellow tip poked out along the other side of the barrier.

  As expected, the soldiers focused their fire on that end of the concrete slab, giving me the distraction I needed.

  My gloved hand was twirling slightly to help me keep the images of the lassos clear in my mind. I popped up from behind the barrier, cast my hand toward them, and imagined each of my ten lassos dropping over a soldier. I gave the imaginary lassos a quick tug and yanked the soldiers off their feet and forward several meters.

  As I let go of the lassos and quieted the orange stone’s up-tempo music, my stomach growled. Dammit—I was almost out of energy and soon wouldn’t be able to use the stones to fight any longer. Which meant this would quickly devolve into one messy-haired Peacekeeper with a funny-looking glove and a standard testing rod versus twenty-ish other soldiers who wanted to, frankly, kick his ass as much as they possibly could without getting a court martial.

  Both of the groups of soldiers were quickly recovering, so I had to do something drastic, and fast. I looked down at my Power Glove and considered using the remaining stone to blast them all with bright red bolts of light. But since it was my newest asset and I still wasn’t exactly sure how it worked, I decided against it—no use in giving the rumor fans yet another reason to hate me.

  It looked like I was going to have to use the purple and orange stones together, instead. Granted, I’d only used this trick once before, and it was against an invader from another dimension with a yellowed skull for a head and surprisingly chiseled abs, but hey—I was desperate now, too.

  What do purple and orange make? Brown?

  It wold have to do. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a metal bolt I kept for good luck and tossed it into the air.