Bloodlines Read online

  Bloodlines

  The Terra Nova Chronicles Book 2

  by

  Richard Fox

  and

  Josh Hayes

  For Carol,

  West Virginia Hot Dogs, riding lawn movers, and homemade ice cream, I couldn’t ask for better memories

  &

  To Nathan James Fox-Daddy loves you!

  Copyright © by Richard Fox

  All Rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission.

  ASIN:

  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 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  From the Authors

  Read THE EMBER WAR for FREE

  Read BREAKING THROUGH for FREE

  Chapter 1

  Missiles shot through the void, weaving through red-hot particle beams and spinning wreckage of dead warships. The point defense turrets on a white-hulled alien frigate fired methodically, destroying incoming threats with measured precision. Three missiles closed on the ship and their engines flared, launching them forward like tips of a hurled trident. The target ship seemed to realize its fate and shifted its fire to missiles targeting other vessels.

  Warheads exploded against the hull, sending blackened debris hurtling away. The missiles gutted the ship, leaving the keel and some of the superstructure intact. The frigate rolled over and succumbed to the gravity of the dusty red planet of Negev. The dead ship became a burning comet within minutes, joining dozens of other ships leaving smoky lines across the atmosphere.

  Another salvo of missiles rippled out of the deep green Ultari ships and bore down on their foes that arrived in the Terra Nova system with glistening white hulls. The warring ships had some design elements in common; a wide centerline dotted with cannons and shuttle bays, ventral and dorsal hulls that tapered to flat ridges running the length of the ships, superstructures for the command section, though the Ultari ships had irregular clumps of antennae around their bridges.

  The belligerents seemed to spring from a shared history, though what had caused the schism and subsequent hatred wasn’t written into their hulls.

  Particle cannons on the white ships massed fire on an Ultari ship and hammered it into slag in less than a minute. The Ultari missiles swarmed the opposing ships, scoring hits infrequently. Two destroyer-analogs from the white fleet exploded simultaneously, and the ship at the center of the fleet—it barely half again the size of the destroyers—maneuvered away from the fight and flew toward Negev’s northern pole.

  White ships pulled closer to the flagship, targeting any missile that homed in on the larger ship.

  From the Ultari fleets, larger missiles launched and closed rapidly.

  And then the battle froze.

  “There.” Governor Hale reached into the holo tank and touched the larger missiles. “You see those? Give me a full plot trace on those and enhance.”

  The holographic image flickered and zoomed away from the battle above Negev and stretched through the tank. Pulsing red dots appeared over the large missiles as they shrank from view. The Ultari ships became red diamonds, the white vessels green squares. With this god’s eye view, Chief Carson noticed the Ultari were in a loose formation, almost a mob of ships. Their enemies held a close knit formation as they attempted to escape the fight.

  The governor reached into the tank and touched the torpedo icons. A solid but wavy line traced from the Ultari ships to their targets. Hale traced along the path, watching the telemetry box that popped up next to his fingertips change.

  “XO,” Marie Hale said with a slight shake of her head, “scrub the data for a solid image. My husband was a Marine, never a ship driver. This isn’t his forte.”

  “Aye aye,” Edison said from a workstation near the holo tank.

  The tank rematerialized into a slightly pixelated image of one of the larger missiles. Measurements and more data overlays appeared.

  The four thirty-meter long cylindrical tubes hung in space, seconds away from impacting the white flagship. The front ends were sharp cones of what looked like some kind of reinforced steel. Just behind the base of the cone, five large claws had folded out from recesses along the hull.

  Boarding pods, Carson thought.

  As if he’d read her mind, Hale said, “Ship to ship assault...risky.”

  The assembled officers and colony directors nodded but remained silent. During the first few playbacks, several had made the mistake of trying to narrate the battle, which had earned them a quick rebuke from the governor.

  Hale crossed his arms, staring at the image in quiet contemplation. After several moments, he sighed. “Okay, bookmark this timestamp. We’ll come back to it later. Let’s finish this last run through.”

  The image zoomed back to the view of the entire battle and resumed. The battle degraded into a rout as the Ultari overwhelmed their enemies and ran them down one at a time. The Ultari vessels vanished in a flash of warp drive moments after the last enemy ship exploded into a rain of fragments that plummeted to Negev.

  Murmurs went up around the table as the alien ship disappeared. That the aliens had arrived in ships equipped with faster than light engines had been a shock to Terra Nova. Such technology only existed in theory back in the Milky Way.

  Carson watched in silence as data from the battle continued to trickle into the holo tank. She touched the screen built into the forearm of her Pathfinder armor and queried the computers for a body count from the battle. A graph appeared, showing 100 percent losses for the white fleet, almost sixty-four ships by the best estimate and roughly eighty vessels destroyed on the Ultari side. The Ultari had arrived with more hulls and seemingly better firepower, but the white ships fought with more cohesion and managed to inflict disproportionate losses.

  A dozen Ultari ships left the system.

  The playback ended and Carson breathed a sigh of relief when Hale didn’t ask for yet another replay. Catching the boarding craft had been a new development, but she wasn’t sure what more could be learned from the recording. Neither side had shown the slightest interest in the human colony on Terra Nova once they realized they shared space over Negev.

  The lights inside the headquarters building brightened slightly as the hologram faded. From across the table, Carson could tell the governor wasn’t pleased. Hale’s face was frozen in a mixture of deep contemplation and frustration. Not that she could blame him. Arriving on Terra Nova to discover the first colonists were missing, the only city overrun with homicidal brutes and rescuing the first wave of settlers from alien despots had not been the plan for the Enduring Spirit or her crew. The governor bore the mantle of leadership and the knowledge that his brother had turned traitor and escaped with the Triumvirate. Carson didn’t envy Hale, but she knew he was up to the challenge. The man had fought through worse.

  “All right,” Hale said finally. “What are we looking at?”

&
nbsp; All at once, the gathered leaders of Terra Nova began speaking.

  Hale put both hands up. “Wait, wait. Enough. Okay, we’ll go around the table. Commander Edison.”

  Russell Edison, Enduring Spirit’s executive officer, the flagship of the 2nd Terra Nova Fleet, rubbed his chin. He shook his head and said, “Obviously, both sides are advanced races. I’m definitely going to have to get a look at a more detailed report of their weapon systems, but on the face of it, they are much more advanced than we are. Maybe another fifty years or so on beam weapon technology, but everything else about it seemed fairly standard.”

  “Except for the faster than light travel,” Elizabeth Tanner said. The colony’s chief engineer stood a few people to Carson’s left, arms crossed, head canted to the side. “Did you forget about that, Commander?”

  Edison worked his jaw, glaring at the woman. “No, Ms. Tanner, I hadn’t forgotten about that.”

  “Of course you didn’t,” she said, giving him a half-smile. “I mean, I know ship drive technology is at the very bottom of the list for you navy types. They’re not as loud and shiny as those new weapon systems I saw you eyeing, but they are extremely important.”

  Edison opened his mouth to answer, but Captain George Handley, the ground forces commander of the new Colonial Militia, beat him to it. “I’m actually more concerned that the Ultari commander mentioned he was part of the ‘true Ultari Empire.’ I thought the Triumvirate were Ultari. And why did they look so different? They were organic, not cybernetic like the Emperor and the other two.”

  Carson shuddered as the images of the mechanical monstrosities flashed in her mind. The skeletal aliens were creatures straight out of a nightmare, their skull-like faces and thin metallic chassis made them visually intimidating to say the least. Not to mention their speed and impressive strength.

  “That’s a very good question, Captain,” Hale said. “Ms. Danielle, any insights into that?”

  Danielle Scartucci, one of the original colonists Carson’s Pathfinder team had rescued from the Triumvirate, looked up at Hale’s words, seeming to shake herself from thought. “What, I’m—”

  Two images flashed into existence over the holo-table; one, the robotic head of the Triumvirate leader, Emperor Kyrios, the other, the Ultari Fleet commander. The Emperor’s sleek, metallic head was featureless, save for the crown of razors surrounding the top of its skull. Its eyes glowed bright yellow, its mouth nothing more than a line set at the bottom of its face. The fleet commander’s skull looked similar to the Netherguard soldiers, only smoother, less bestial. A ridge of bone extended from above its eyes, back over the top of its skill, edges adorned with gold rings. Its eyes were sunk back into deep sockets, one glowing green, and the other orange.

  Danielle stepped back from the table, wide eyes locked on to the image of the Emperor. After a moment, she looked away, obviously shaken. “I’m sorry.”

  Marie Hale stepped up next to the woman, putting a hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay. Take your time.”

  Danielle sniffed, pursing her lips, and lifted her eyes to the holographic image. “I’m okay.” She seemed to shake off her earlier shock and took on an air of pure determination. “The Triumvirate are the old leaders of the Ultari. We could never figure out exactly what happened, but most of us believe the others, the ones in the white ships that mentioned a Supreme Intelligence, defeated and imprisoned them. But that’s only a theory.”

  “And their robotic bodies?” Hale asked.

  Danielle shook her head. “They never gave us the truth. Jared Hale may have known, as he worked with them constantly, but he never told it to us while we were there as slaves. The first sob story the Triumvirate fed us was that they were survivors from some long dead civilization. Then it became clear they were the true rulers of that civilization. It wasn’t until after we were moved to the mountain with the faces that we realized Negev was their prison. That the Supreme Intelligence fleet was so upset with us for mucking about with the Triumvirate, reinforces that those monsters were imprisoned here.”

  “Why didn’t the Ultari come looking here sooner?” Marie asked. “Terra Nova is habitable. A prison without guards or walls?”

  “The Ultari must not have known,” Hale said. “This dwarf galaxy is still massive, even if it’s not the Milky Way. Imagine tossing a diamond in the ocean a thousand years ago and expecting someone to find it. Thank you, Miss Danielle,” Hale turned to Handley. “What’s the status on the security of the colony?”

  “My ground forces have secured the area immediately surrounding the city, and I’ve set up round-the-clock guard posts and patrols. We’ve cleared out any and all Netherguard from the city, though a few have been seen on the outskirts. Nineteen were destroyed in the last twenty-four hours, no casualties on our side. They don’t seem to be active during the night. I’m reading sweep and clear teams for morning. As far as protection against space attack…” He shrugged.

  “I understand,” Hale said.

  Everyone present knew the answer to that question. If an enemy force attacked Terra Nova from orbit, the colony would have little chance of surviving. The only military ship they had was the Valiant, and even that was a little more than a fast transport with a single railgun mounted to the hull. A pea-shooter in comparison to the weapons they’d observed during the battle over Negev.

  “Our first priority is to get Spirit’s foundries spinning on components for some kind of space defense force,” Hale said. “I know whatever we manage to put together in the short-term won’t be able to stand up to those Ultari or these Supreme Intelligence ships, but something is better than nothing. Commander Edison, draw up a plan to have the Spirit re-fit for void combat. We also need to dedicate one or two printers for colony ground defense.”

  “Of course, sir,” Edison said.

  “I’d like to get my hands on those alien ships,” Marie said. “We could still salvage something useful from the wreckage. It’ll give us a good idea of what we’re truly dealing with.”

  “There could be survivors,” Carson spoke up. “The satellites we left over Negev caught the big ships, weapons with massive energy signatures. The two fleets went at each other without mercy; they strike me as the type that would use a life pod for target practice.”

  “It’ll be some time before the Valiant can reach Negev,” Hale said, nodding. “Chance of survivors is slim.”

  “Search and rescue is one of our—”

  “I know damn well what the Pathfinder’s mission is, Chief,” Hale snapped. He rubbed a thumb against his temple and pointed a knife hand at her. “Prep your team. Get wheels up and void borne soon as possible.”

  Carson stepped up to the table. “Yes, sir.”

  “Take Ms. Danielle and an engineering team with you,” Hale said. “Your primary mission is reconnaissance. I need information, not heroes.”

  “Roger that, sir.”

  An aide stepped up behind Captain Handley and whispered something into his ear. He frowned as the man finished and straightened.

  “Marie,” the governor said, “you have the operations center. Seems there’s a situation at one of the guard posts that needs my attention.”

  “What is it?” Marie asked.

  “A ghost. A ghost named Shannon Martel.”

  Chapter 2

  It was slightly cooler in Valliant’s cargo bay than usual, but Carson found it oddly comforting. She rubbed her temple, shutting her eyes against the twinge of a headache building behind her eyes. The stims were starting to work. Even after a short nap, the effects of the alcohol she’d consumed at the welcome home party were still lingering.

  I didn’t even have that much, she told herself, counting off how many drinks she’d downed before Hale had summoned her to the command post. She’d never considered herself a light-weight before, but if she felt like this after just three drinks, Carson decided that might very well be the case now.

  The Valiant had broken Terra Nova orbit a few hours ago, and the sh
ip had another day before it reached Negev. Spending transit time sitting on their hands was not the Pathfinder way. She and her team would prep constantly for the mission, and the first step was to take care of their equipment so the equipment would take care of them in the void and in combat.

  But doing the inspections coming off of an alcohol buzz was not ideal. She remembered this sort of thing being a lot easier when she was in her early twenties.

  She took a deep breath and considered the sealed void-suit sitting on the deck in front of her. Finding the Pathfinder’s gear, stored away in the bowels of the Enduring Spirit, hadn’t been a problem; it was clearing all the debris from the battle with the Netherguard and ensuring hull integrity before any of it could be retrieved. Now the majority of the team’s gear was scattered across the Valiant’s cargo deck, waiting to be inventoried and sorted by her team that appeared to be in the same boat as Carson.

  Senior Voidman Vishnya Popov, the junior member of Carson’s team, dropped another supply container down at the end of a short row of similar containers, the sides painted with blue and white stripes. “Eight,” she said, breathing heavily.

  Staff Sergeant Jose Nunez, who’d been sitting on his blue and white striped void-suit container, his head in his hands, looked up at the commotion, glaring at Popov. “Are you serious, Cherry?”

  The rookie Pathfinder straightened, hands on her hips. “Don’t call me that. And if you’d have gotten off your lazy ass and helped me, I would’ve been done already.”

  Nunez grimaced. “Good luck with that; I can’t even stand straight right now. Keep it down, will ya?” He put his face back into his hands.

  Across from him, Staff Sergeant Luca Moretti held up a small silver package. “Here.”

  Nunez waved him off. “I already took some. Not that they helped. I’ve got a killer headache.”

  “That’s just the stims working,” Moretti told him, putting the pills back into his kit. “You’ll feel great in another thirty minutes or so.”