Federation at War (Blue Star Marines Book 1) Read online

  Federation at War

  Blue Star Marines, Book 1

  James David Victor

  Fairfield Publishing

  Copyright © 2020 James David Victor

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Except for review quotes, this book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the written consent of the author.

  This story is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is purely coincidental.

  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

  Thank You

  1

  On the dark edge of the Scorpio System, five billion kilometers from the blue giant star, a lone Union cruiser, the Preserve, drifted. Silent. Dark. Hiding. The ice and rock of the outer asteroid sphere sparkled under the light of the distant blue giant. Hanging in the void, under no power, it would take three hundred years for the Preserve to orbit the star. Its drive assembly was cold, and weapons systems were on standby. The surveillance drones holding position kilometers away to port and starboard gave it maximum sensor range.

  The Preserve sat and listened. And waited. A Faction ship was nearby. Sooner or later, it would give its position away.

  All Captain Bates had to do was wait.

  Patience was the vital element in a hunt. A respected, feared, and skilled cruiser captain, Bates had brought three Faction ships into custody and destroyed one more, all in the last year. His kill rate was not as high as some other captains, but he preferred to bring his prey in alive. He enjoyed his days out on the Union central planet, Terra, to watch the Faction captains hang in front of the Union Fleet Command Headquarters. He took pride in his work, and once he had a pirate’s trail, he always landed his prey, no matter how long it took.

  The image on the holo-stage in the center of the command deck appeared practically still, with the star at the center of the image, and the location of the Preserve marked by a green dot. The last-known location of the Faction ship was marked by a red dot. There was a hazy red cloud surrounding the point of last-known location, showing the area the ship was likely to be. The shipboard tactical intelligence and Bates’s own skill were combined to deduce the most likely hiding place of the Faction ship.

  The hunting area encompassed dozens of asteroids in the outer sphere, the region surrounding the system, densely packed with space-bound rocks and ice. The asteroids of the sphere ranged from huge, moon-sized monoliths down to fragments no larger than a pebble. They were surrounded by clouds of dust and gas.

  It was a favorite hiding place for Faction pirates. And with every passing hour, that area grew larger. The pirate would be trying every trick to slip away. Bates was waiting for any movement in the dust caused by a ship’s thruster or any space-time fluctuation caused by a powered drive reactor core.

  It was slow work, but Bates took it seriously. Deadly serious.

  On the very edge of the Preserve’s sensor range was the massive outermost planet of the Scorpio System—the super-terrestrial Lastone. A red glow from the latest volcanic event on a surface almost perpetually wracked by volcanism ripped the frozen surface and showed on the live data-stream being fed into the holo-stage.

  The plume from the eruption punched high into the planet’s atmosphere and beyond, a billowing cloud of dust and gas spreading out into space.

  Nearby, a pair of asteroids were slowly falling together. The two had been drawn together over millennia by their combined gravity field. After thousands of orbits around the blue giant, they were finally due to meet. A rare event. Spectacular.

  And, Bates knew, this would be great cover for a Faction captain to make his escape.

  He leaned forward in his command chair. The two asteroids collided, their surfaces heating and shredding. Ice turned to steam and erupted from the point of contact.

  “Stand by drive. Stand by weapons. Set targeting protocols. If that pirate moves, I want the mass beam on his drive in a nanosecond.”

  Lieutenant Brosh, the Preserve’s second-in-command, called out from her position at the communication console.

  “Detecting a transmission that’s not using a Union verification code. It is a wide-band vocal transmission.” She turned and looked up at Bates in the command chair. “It’s for you, sir.”

  Bates slowly rubbed his chin with his thumb and forefinger and looked at the holo-stage, the plume erupting from Lastone and the debris field growing around the asteroid collision. And now a transmission.

  The Faction ship was preparing to move, he could feel it.

  “Track the signal location,” he ordered, knowing this was a trick to throw his concentration so that the ship could slip away.

  “It’s local, sir. An asteroid only five hundred kilometers to port.”

  “Put the message on speaker,” Bates said calmly.

  “Commander Bates, I am Mitri, Captain of the Faction ship, Rising Nation. We are a transport vessel with many civilians aboard, and our environmental controls are failing. We need to return to the central asteroid belt immediately to disembark our passengers. Please do not fire on us. We are defenseless. We will not change course. We just want to get to the belt.

  Bates deactivated the speaker system. He stood up, one hand behind his back, another in his jacket pocket.

  “Faction civilians?” Bates said with a sneer. “There are no civilians in the Faction. They are all criminals. Terrorists. Pirates. What is the location of the transmission?”

  The holo-stage view altered and zoomed in on an asteroid.

  “Load one combat drone and prepare to launch.”

  “What yield on the drone, sir?” Ensign Davak called up from the weapons console.

  “Don’t activate the warhead. I’m not wasting a combat drone on them. We’ll use it to flush them out and take them down with the mass beam.”

  “What about the civilians, sir?” Brosh asked.

  “There are no civilians. They are all terrorist scum.” Bates stepped down from his command chair and took position at the holo-stage. “Prepare rescue pods. If the ship is destroyed and any escape the destruction alive, we’ll take them prisoner and return them to Terra for interrogation, and then the rope.”

  With the combat drone tube ready to launch, Bates took one last look at the surroundings—ice asteroids drifting in the sphere on one side, the planet Lastone on the other with its fresh volcanic plume rising into space. The location of the communication signal and the predicted location of the pirate ship he’d been tracking for weeks showed on the holo-stage.

  He had them trapped, but not yet caught. They were getting desperate. They would make their move soon.

  Bates would not let them escape this time.

  The new signal was immediately identified by the Preserve’s antimatter detectors. The tactical intelligence presented the threat on the holo-stage. It was rated as a low threat. An old, obsolete Union Fleet torpedo moving toward the Preserve from a nearby asteroid.

  A holo-file appeared alongside the new signal and showed the antimatter yield that had been detected on the torpedo. The file appeared on Bates’s armrest holo-display.

  “It’s hardly enough to put a dent in our stability field,” Bates said, a half-smile creeping over his thin lips.

  He rubbed his bottom lip and watched the torpedo�
�s approach on the main holo-stage, noticing its speed and heading.

  “The torpedo is heading for the lower quarter of the forward section of the Preserve,” Lieutenant Brosh called out. “Thirty seconds to impact.”

  Bates sat back in his chair. The torpedo was no threat to his ship. It was another attempt to distract him from his prey. The Faction pirate ship would no doubt be using this new distraction to cover their escape.

  “Lock onto the torpedo with the forward mass beam. Eliminate it when in range. Maintain scanner vigilance. That Faction pirate will be making his move any moment now.”

  Captain Mitri ran across the flight deck of his ship. As the torpedo raced away toward the Union cruiser, Mitri prepared to detonate explosives he had previously hidden on several of the nearby asteroids. He had prepared this hiding place with distractions ready to cover their escape. This was his ground, and he’d prepared it well.

  He ran to the flight console and brought the power systems to full readiness.

  Mitri’s second-in-command, Lewis, stood by the weapons console.

  “Do you think they’re going to buy that crap about transporting civilians?” Lewis asked.

  “It doesn’t matter. We bounced our signal around these asteroids enough to throw them off our scent. The torpedo and the asteroid explosions we are about to set off will blind them just long enough for us to shift position. They are practically on top of the Rising Nation and will spot us any second if we stay here.

  The captain reflected a moment on the ship’s new name with a smile. ”You know, I quite like the new name of the ship. Rising Nation sounds kind of appropriate for a Faction ship, don’t you think?”

  “She will always be the Bonesaw to me, Captain,” Lewis said. Then added, “Didn’t your father ever tell you it was bad luck to rename your ship?”

  “He also said it’s bloody bad luck to have a Union cruiser blow a hole in your hull.” Mitri’s finger hovered over the detonation panel. He watched as the torpedo moved into mass beam range of the Union cruiser.

  “Stand by to kick full power into the drive. And hold onto something, the artificial gravity is still a bit on the temperamental side. We might end up getting knocked around the decks a bit, but it’s better than floating through space and freezing to death.”

  The mass beam from the Union cruiser slammed into the torpedo, the outer casing collapsing in on itself, obliterating it in an instant. At that moment, Mitri set off the series of explosions on several nearby asteroids. The thermal and percussive shock from the coordinated detonations blinded the Union sensors for a fraction of a second, while simultaneously delivering a glut of false reactor core signals.

  Mitri had no time to admire his genius. He ran.

  Commander Bates watched as the incoming torpedo was obliterated and the signal vanished from his holo-display. Then the sensors overloaded as a dozen nearby explosions ripped across the search area, tearing asteroids to shreds. He spotted the signal from the sensors showing what looked to be a Faction ship blasting off from the surface of a nearby asteroid.

  “Drive flare detected off our starboard quarter,” Lieutenant Brosh called out. “Space-time fluctuations consistent with Faction drive reactor. Receiving intercept course from the tactical intelligence now.”

  Bates looked at the various signals on the holo-stage. This pirate was a clever one. Or desperate.

  “Hold position. Focus on the region a thousand kilometers around the Preserve. Something tells me we are right on top of them.”

  Then a flash of a signal came just as an ice plume erupted from a nearby asteroid, water and dust billowing out.

  “That’s them.” Bates leaned forward in his chair. “Set a course.”

  “Setting course now. The asteroid will be within weapons range in a few moments, but I’m not detecting any drive signal, sir,” Lieutenant Brosh said, throwing the data onto the main holo-stage. “It looks like a micro meteorite impact on the water crust of the asteroid.”

  “Yes, it does, doesn’t it?” Bates said with a hint of admiration. “The Faction captain is shielding his ship from our sensors with the asteroid. The torpedo, the detonation on the nearby asteroids, the volcanic plume on Lastone, it is all helping to cover his escape. He is using the natural cover and then a few evasion tactics, and I bet he thinks he’s getting away. I think we’re dealing with a captain with some Union Fleet training under his belt. Stand down the mass beam. I am going to take this terrorist traitor alive. If he is former Fleet, they will save him for a hanging in the square in front of Fleet Headquarters on Terra. If he’s not, then I’ll shoot him myself on the Marine deck. Move in and prepare the grapple beam.”

  Mitri gripped the flight console, his knuckles white as the deck and console shook violently, practically on the verge of disintegration. Lewis was shouting something, but the sounds of the vibration in his ears deafened him. He looked at the small holo-stage that was flickering and blinking in and out of life before him. For a moment, the image resolved clearly, only for a fraction of a second, but Mitri could see he was fully concealed by the asteroid. The Union cruiser was out of sight on the far side of the icy body.

  And then around the terminator of the asteroid, highlighted by the distant glimmer of the blue giant star at the center of the system, Mitri saw the silhouette of the Union cruiser.

  “They are on us.” Mitri dropped to the deck that was shaking violently and crawled across to the weapons console. He climbed up to his feet, using the console for support, and looked down at the vibrating panel to select the rear hail cannon. Kinetic hail use was outlawed system wide on penalty of death, but if Mitri allowed himself to be caught, there would be no better outcome. It wouldn’t take them long to discover his service record. He could only expect torture and interrogation, then the noose.

  “Target the forward sensor assembly on that Union cruiser!” Mitri shouted so hard that his throat burned. He lost his footing as he turned to the targeting console beside him. “Give me a perfect shot and we might escape!”

  Mitri barely heard the reply of his second, who was shouting right next to him. The target was locked. This was Mitri’s last chance.

  “Firing now!” Mitri shouted. The flight deck was so loud from the violent shaking that he couldn’t even hear himself speak. He tapped the fire button.

  The gout of kinetic hail exploded from the rear cannon, and the explosive shrapnel cluster maintained its maximum density as it closed in on its target.

  Commander Bates saw the threat appear on the holo-stage. Kinetic hail. Somehow, he knew this terrorist would deploy illegal weaponry in his last desperate moments. Even as the kinetic hail raced toward his ship, Bates knew he was only a few moves from victory.

  “Angle the hull stability field and deflect as much of that hail as you can. Brace for impact. Deploy surveillance drones and scan ahead for the origin of that hail shot.”

  The hail clattered against the forward section of the Preserve. The fragments detonated in flickering cascade of explosions. The holo-display flickered, vanished, then returned to the primary scanning display as the forward surveillance assembly was compromised by the high-density hail shot. The barrage of densely-packed kinetic frags also contained high-yield explosive frags. The impact of them creating micro explosions that shredded the Preserve’s forward sensor assembly.

  Lieutenant Brosh ran around the command deck looking at one console after another.

  “We have a hull breach at the forward section. Maintenance teams are responding. Casualty report: one dead, several wounded from the forward scanning array control room. We’ve got the location of the terrorist ship, but they are moving away at high speed. A ship that old cannot maintain its velocity. She’s going to lose hull integrity and disintegrate any moment.”

  Bates sat back in his command chair. He linked his fingers together and rolled his thumbs one around the other. This Faction terrorist was desperate and knew it was either escape or death.

  “Bring the mass
beam back online. We just need to give that ship a tiny nudge and she will be utterly out of control. They will either spin into an asteroid or the drive system will go offline. Get me in range and give me manual control of the mass beam trigger.”

  “Captain,” Lieutenant Brosh called out, “we are detecting a new signal emerging from the sphere dead ahead. Power system signal is unknown. It might be an aberration. Permission to deploy a surveillance drone and investigate.”

  Bates unfolded his hands and stood up. This Faction captain was good. Maybe good enough to draw a Union cruiser into an ambush. He looked at the main holo-stage and the new signal as he called out his orders.

  “Give me every reading you can on that new signal. Load a combat drone and set for full yield. Bring the high-energy laser assembly and mass beam to full power.” Then he muttered, more to himself, “This clever bastard might think he’s won. He might think he’s beaten a Union cruiser. Who would have thought I’d have had enough of this cat and mouse game? No more games. Looks like I’m gonna have to rob the hangman of a day’s pay.”

  With the deck of the Rising Nation rattling beneath his boots and his ears thick with the deafening noise of a ship on the edge of disintegration, Captain Mitri finally lost all effective communication with his small flight deck crew. He staggered over to the surveillance console and checked the data on the new signal emerging from the sphere right in front of his ship. It seemed to appear out of the void. He’d been so careful, so clever, but it looked like he was trapped.