Coalition Defense Force Boxed Set: First to Fight

by Gibbs, Daniel

"I will have the data sent back to Cyrilgrad for analysis. Doctor Zhikova should be able to figure it out."

  Semyon looked up from his station. "I have League shuttles on sensors. Very faint trace, no power signature. They are completely disabled. Likely from their own EMP weapon."

  "Are there life signs?"

  "Yes, Pavel Sergeevich."

  The brothers shared knowing grins. "Take us to them. We will learn what we can from them." Piotr said this, already looking forward to spacing the godless bastards once they were through with them.

  "Brother, the Lupa woman"—Pavel gave him a knowing glance—"are you still sure she is on their side? None of this would make sense if it were a diversion."

  "Maybe she was a dupe too. Perhaps she betrayed them too. I don't know," Piotr admitted. "But I do know we’ll find out, and if she is guilty, I will return her to the void we saved her from."

  Epilogue

  The Shadow Wolf arrived in Lusitania's system space right on point. Immediately, Cera killed the engine and let them coast, their standard procedure to hide the fusion drive. Even if they kept it dialed down, the drive byproduct was too different from their officially mounted plasma drives. "Engines out," she confirmed for Henry.

  "Now, we wait for Pieter to get the plasma drives going again, and we can make planetfall." Henry unlatched himself from Tia's seat and floated free. Artificial gravity was a low priority at the moment. He was already looking forward to hailing Caetano, but then it hit him. There was something wrong on the holotank. Specifically, the abysmal level of traffic moving to and from the Lawrence limit.

  "System Traffic Control is signaling," Piper said. "Putting them on."

  "Vessel Shadow Wolf, the system is currently under security lockdown due to terrorist attack," the voice said in accented English. "You are hereby ordered to dock at Cardoso Station for immediate investigation."

  "Traffic control, whatever's happened, we're on an urgent mission for the government," Henry said, mind racing as he wondered whether he should admit to working for Caetano or go with his known affiliation with Vitorino. He decided to hedge bets. "I'm sure the Defense and Trade Ministries both have us on file."

  While they waited for a reply, tension filled the bridge. Whatever happened wasn't just some riot in Gamavilla between political factions, not if the authorities had locked the entire solar system down. Henry felt a chill inside of him at the thought of this situation causing harm to Jules as well.

  "Identity confirmed, Captain Henry. You will land at Gamavilla Spaceport, Hangar 10D. Follow the assigned flight plan exactly. Any variation, and you will be shot down."

  Tia's eyes widened in surprise. Henry licked at his lips. "Understood, Traffic Control. We'll need a few minutes to get our plasma drives back under operation. We suffered a short during wormhole transit. Please acknowledge."

  "Acknowledged, Shadow Wolf. Traffic Control out."

  "What the hell happened down there?" Tia asked aloud as soon as the channel cut.

  "Oh shit."

  Piper's words won her the amazed attention of the bridge. "What happened?" Henry asked, his tone nearly a demand.

  "Someone bombed the National Assembly during a full session," she answered. "Most of the Lusitanian government is dead."

  * * *

  Paulina Ascaro woke with a splitting headache. Her thoughts were sluggish and undirected as her body reported lingering pain, her right hand being held, and a strange sensation in the left. She opened her eyes and looked down. She was in a hospital room, in a hospital gown, with an IV hooked up to her left arm that ended in a bandaged stub halfway down the forearm.

  Her eyes traveled around the room. Her husband, Martzel Aiza, was seated beside her, and their teenage son, Xabier, stared at a digital reader. She tried to speak, but between the headache and other pain she felt, it came out as a low groan. Martzel, already noticing she was awake, brought a hand up to touch her face. "Paula," he said. "You're okay."

  She blinked. Why am I here, again? Her mind refused to remember anything. She only had a few images and recollections of attending the Assembly. "What happened?"

  "There was a bombing," Martzel said. "The Assembly." He swallowed. "Paula, it was terrible. Most of the others…"

  Ascaro stared at him in shock. A bombing in the Assembly? That was a disaster for the planet, for their people, and for the democrats. It was the perfect excuse for State Security to seize power. "Who is… who is left?"

  "I'm not sure. The RSS is refusing to confirm who else survived. They fear more attacks." He raised his eyes, and Ascaro followed them. Two dark-uniformed figures were visible outside the door. The RSS was guarding her or, more likely, watching her. "The system is under lockdown, beloved. No ships are allowed to leave. The military is patrolling the streets."

  Despair started to fill her. Even flight was beyond their options. The incident would empower the fascists above everything else. Everything she believed in, a free and prosperous Lusitania, was likely to be crushed by Caetano's party and their enablers in State Security.

  The positive side of the despair was that it cut through the slowness in her mind. Even the headache started to fade a little as her mind focused. In turn, she felt defiance build within, pushing away the despair. No. If democracy and liberty die in Lusitania, it will die well and leave a memory to inspire our descendants to reclaim it!

  Martzel gazed at her. "Paula, you must recover. Now is not the time for speeches."

  "I will regain my strength, but tomorrow, I get back to work," she said. "Someone is trying to destroy our people, Martzel. They want to subjugate us. But with God as my witness, I'll do whatever I must to stop them."

  * * *

  The report from Commander Aristide left Hartford in a deep, pensive mood. Gaon had escaped again, and the crew of the Shadow Wolf was more skilled than External Security anticipated. The threat over his plans persisted.

  An incoming signal claimed his attention. A press of a key brought to his screen the visage of Admiral Seville himself. His eyes, one organic and the other an artificial replacement, focused on Hartford's face from across a thousand light-years. "Admiral Hartford, we are approaching the final moment. What is your status?"

  "Our plan proceeds. Our Lusitanian ally has come through again. The bombing, as expected, leaves their government shaken and vulnerable. As soon as we complete final modifications to our most recent acquisitions, the fleet will set out for Lusitania." Hartford did everything he could to hide his concerns about Gaon from his expression. Seville would only see quiet confidence. "The timing is precise, and our captains know it. We will meet your expectations."

  "Excellent." Seville gave him a significant look. "And there are no… complications?"

  Hartford kept his expression, but he already knew what had happened. Aristide had reported the situation with Gaon. "A minor one, but too late to impact our planning. Odds are good that our resources on Lusitania will deal with them permanently."

  "I should hope so, Admiral, for all of our sakes," Seville said. There was no threat or menace in his tone, but Hartford knew that results were expected, and if he failed, he would not enjoy the consequences. "I must be off. Minister Jenner requires my presence."

  "Understood, Admiral. Hartford out." He shut down the comm line and turned to face the window. The last of the ships they'd seized, a helium-3 tanker, was being outfitted with another piece of salvaged Coalition weaponry. His fleet was at the desired size.

  Doubt still gnawed at him. Miri Gaon was alive and free, and the ship aiding her had a competent crew that had already evaded two efforts to seize her. As much as he tried to push his fears away, he couldn't. His confidence in success felt more and more hollow, the more he considered these facts.

  But regardless, Social duty still had to be performed. They'd come too far and worked too hard to be stopped, especially not by vermin like these independent spacers.

  Hartford returned to the bureaucratic labors his position demanded, reassuring
himself that it would all work out. The great machine of Society could not be stopped by the ship Shadow Wolf and its crew any more than they could stop a supernova.

  That was the nature of things. Cogs, individuals, could fail, but the whole machine would not. They would succeed.

  They had to succeed.

  THE END

  Breach of Faith: Book 2 - Breach of Faith:

  Can Captain James Henry and the Shadow Wolf stop the League and stay alive? Find out now in Book 2.

  Tap here to get Breach of Faith now - only $2.99 for a limited time!

  Breach of Faith - Book 2 - Breach of Faith: Sneak Peak

  Henry's eyes moved up and down, from the barrel of the gun to Li's face. His eyes burned with zealous anger. This guy's a true believer, Henry thought to himself. More than the Third Class Inspector back on New Hathwell. He recognized that he was alive only because Li had a bigger plan in store. It gave him time. "It was just a job," Henry said. "We were hired to get our passenger back to Lusitania."

  "Do you believe that matters?" Li shook his head once. "You would. It's typical of your people. You're all short-sighted, arrogant, and foolish. You don't grasp anything beyond your immediate wants."

  "So we were just supposed to surrender?" Henry asked. "Just like that?"

  "Just like that." Li shook his head. "The… individualism in this galactic arm never ceases to disgust me. You're all a bunch of animals, hurting and killing each other for baubles."

  Li spoke the word “individualism” like the foulest word in the English language. Henry wanted to keep him talking, so he asked, "What's wrong with being an individual?"

  "You might as well ask me what's wrong with murder," Li said. "That's what individualism is."

  Henry, despite everything, found this comment interesting. Then again, all of my previous experience with the League was either fighting them or bribing them. "Just because I see myself as an individual doesn't mean I want to murder people."

  "Doesn't it?" Li asked. "That's the truth about being 'an individual.' An individual is insignificant. Nothing more but a pile of urges and drives to be satiated while the reason, if it exists, cowers in terror at the inevitably of death. The individual is a hollow shell desperate to find something to fill the vacuum within."

  Li spoke the words with barely restrained fury. Henry wondered where the anger came from. Before he could reply, Li continued as if only his words mattered. "Some of you ignore that hollow feeling. You embrace material wants and desires in your desperation to fill in the void. You became little more than voracious beasts, gorging yourselves until your appetites cannot be satiated, then the hollowness returns. And you go on, demanding more and more, to ignore the truth of your own insignificance."

  Henry didn't say anything. For one thing, the longer Li spoke, the more time he had to figure out something, so why interrupt? For the other, he knew then he was in the presence of a True Believer 1st Class, someone to whom the League's ideology was set into the very marrow of his bones, such that he resented the refusal of the universe to bow before the blindingly-obvious truth he felt burning within him.

  "And some of you instead turn to superstitions from millennia ago," Li continued, harshness in his voice. "What was once used by the unadvanced humanity of the old ages to explain the things their feeble science couldn't, you use to fill the void within, convincing yourself in the truth of those superstitions. You look to religion to give your meager lives direction. Purpose. Anything to fill the shell."

  A retort formed and came from Henry's throat before he could stop himself. "You resent the competition, huh?" Li's nostrils flared at that, and for a moment, Henry thought he'd pull the trigger out of sheer anger.

  Bad move, Jim. Never provoke fanatics.

  After considering lunging for the gun, Henry decided to continue the safer course of biding time. "I'll take that back. Thing is, I'm not religious myself anymore, but I know plenty of people who still are that're good people."

  Li laughed. "That's what the superstitious always say. They're good people, they love other beings. It's all lies, of course. The history of religion is ignorance, torture, and mass murder. It's a blight on humanity."

  "You think you're better, even with all of the torture and murder the League's pulled?" Henry asked. He felt offended, if just for the sake of Jules and Vidia and men like Reverend Gill, the head of his family's church in Tylerville.

  "We are," Li hissed. "Religion's a lie, and you know this deep down. You know your superstition for what it is. So the hollowness continues to gnaw and demand material pleasures to satisfy your urges. After all, look at yourself." When Henry glared, Li shook his head. "You were religious once, as you've said, and your record confirms. Then you were cast out. You could have taken up the cause of the workers and poor of your Coalition. You could have worked to make their lives better. Instead, all you thought about was your own happiness. Now look at you. Just another spacer fighting for scraps in the neutral worlds, bribing and smuggling and killing to earn a few measly credits. No greater cause, no higher purpose, nothing but your individual needs."

  Henry couldn't keep the angry look from his face. His lips curled into a snarl. "You don't know shit about me, Leaguer."

  "I know all I need to," Li said, his voice confident. He spoke with the tone of a man finally giving vent to pent-up feelings. "You're no better than the other individualist filth out here in this barbaric arm of the Galaxy. It sickens me to see human beings live as you do."

  "Right," Henry scoffed. "In fact, I'm willing to bet your hands have way more blood on them than mine."

  "I fight for a true cause!" Li retorted angrily. If there'd been a driver in the front seat, the ferocity of the shout might have startled them into a crash. "I fight for something better than petty individualist desires! I fight for Society!"

  "And that’s supposed to be noble?"

  Li nodded. "It is! We of the Society have found the only way to overcome the deficiencies of the individual. We fill the hollowness with Social awareness. Instead of being an insignificant speck in an uncaring universe, a person becomes a part of a greater whole. Their need for fulfillment comes from finding their place in Society and working, always working, to make it a better place. Instead of needing satisfaction for their base instincts, they find it in bonding with others. The weakness of the individual is swept away by the strength and unity of Society. And while death will still come for them, they can face the end of existence content in the knowledge that Society continues."

  Henry swallowed. Not at the gun now quaking in the hand of a zealot, but at the sheer feverish force behind Li's diatribe. There was no room for doubt in it. He was a man who'd found his faith, a faith blinding in its purity. He believed in the League and its society with a devotion that matched, yet contrasted, the gentle warmth of Jules Rothbard's.

  As aggravating as Jules' faith could be, it was tempered by kindness and compassion for other beings. Jules believed in a God of love and acted in that respect. Li's faith wasn't in a god or spirit but in an idea, the idea of humanity—indeed, of all sapient life—bound to an all-encompassing unity that stripped it of all individual thought and belief. Stripped not just of their individuality, but of hope, compassion, and love, anything that might distract from the soul-consuming devotion the machine demanded.

  This was the difference between them. Jules wanted a galaxy where everyone lived in peace and brotherhood, and none went hungry because of the love in their hearts. Li wanted a galaxy where everyone lived in peace and brotherhood because they were molded and hammered into those places by a system devoid of love. A galaxy of beings reduced to cogs in a machine, with pain and death for any who dared question their place in that machine.

  Henry's thoughts were interrupted by Li, shaking with his anger now being spent. "That's the truth that we came to the Sagittarius Arm to bring, Captain. When we’re done, none of your superstitious madness or self-centered prattle about 'freedom' will matter. Even if it takes us
decades, centuries, of war, nothing will stop us from bringing you all into the glory of Society."

  Henry whistled and shook his head, the reply surprising Li. "You're about the most arrogant man I think I've ever met."

  "And you are the most foolish," Li said. "Now…" There was a tone from within his uniform jacket. He pulled out a commlink and spoke into it. "I am busy, what… ah, excellent." He grinned widely. "Excellent. Bring her to the embassy security offices. We will get the voice sample needed during her interrogation. And begin launch preparations for my ship."

  "A pleasure trip?" Henry asked.

  "Oh, Social duty as always for me, Captain," Li replied. "My people have Miri Gaon in custody." A wide smile formed on his face. "If anything, this should demonstrate the futility of your actions. Despite everything, the League has prevailed. As it always will."

  CONTINUE READING NOW

  Breach of Faith: Book 2 - Breach of Faith:

  Can Captain James Henry and the Shadow Wolf stop the League and stay alive? Find out now in Book 2.

  Tap here to get Breach of Faith now - only $2.99 for a limited time!

  Get Two free & Exclusive Daniel Gibbs Books

  FREE BOOK: Read the story of Levi Cohen and his heroic fight at the first battle of Canaan in Echoes of War: Stand Firm.

  FREE BOOK: Join Captain James Henry as he tries to survive in the independent worlds after being cashiered out of the Coalition Defense Force. Can a broken man rebuild his life? Find out in A Simple Mission.

  Both available FREE, only at

  www.danielgibbsauthor.com/standfirm.

  Also Available from Daniel Gibbs

  Battlegroup Z

  Book 1 - Weapons Free

  Book 2 - Hostile Spike