Reckoning: The Ixan Prophecies Trilogy Book 3 Read online

  Contents

  Copyright

  Traitor

  Chapter 1: Main Priority

  Chapter 2: Personal Revenge

  Chapter 3: Hangar Bay E

  Chapter 4: Scandium

  Chapter 5: Hang Out

  Chapter 6: Huddled like Sheep

  Chapter 7: A Conduit to Reality

  Chapter 8: Nanite Injection

  Chapter 9: Death in an Instant

  Chapter 10: Virophage

  Chapter 11: Something Hateful

  Chapter 12: For Their Own Good

  Chapter 13: Waste of Life

  Chapter 14: Launch Condors

  Chapter 15: Spherical Death Trap

  Chapter 16: Meat Grinder

  Chapter 17: Its Final Death

  Chapter 18: The Silencer

  Chapter 19: Ready for Anything

  Chapter 20: We Engage

  Chapter 21: Support Ships

  Chapter 22: On the Darkest Days

  Chapter 23: Mark

  Chapter 24: A Strange Way of Coming in Peace

  Chapter 25: Not a Weapon but a Tool

  Chapter 26: Consensus

  Chapter 27: Doomsaying

  Chapter 28: Scatter

  Chapter 29: Raging Animal

  Chapter 30: Screaming out into the Void

  Chapter 31: All Available Weapons

  Chapter 32: On Infiltrating Orbital Stations

  Chapter 33: Superintelligence

  Chapter 34: Toward the Wormhole

  Chapter 35: Brass Knuckles

  Chapter 36: Heavy Attack

  Chapter 37: Wreckage

  Chapter 38: The Next Phase

  Chapter 39: Unquestioning Tools

  Chapter 40: The Common Problem

  Chapter 41: Which to Let Burn

  Chapter 42: Admiral Keyes

  Chapter 43: Keepers of the Peace

  Chapter 44: Too Easy

  Chapter 45: The Strings of History

  Chapter 46: On the Fly

  Chapter 47: The Dynamo

  Chapter 48: Free Rein to Slaughter

  Chapter 49: Wholeheartedly

  Chapter 50: As Much Pain as Possible

  Chapter 51: Every Drop

  Chapter 52: In Fact as well as in Name

  Chapter 53: Always in Command

  Chapter 54: A Weapon Species

  Chapter 55: Reckoning

  Chapter 56: A Terrible Soldier

  Chapter 57: Into the Abyss

  Chapter 58: What's at Stake

  Chapter 59: We Must Pray

  Chapter 60: A Fortifying Moment

  Chapter 61: Execute

  Chapter 62: The Face of War

  Chapter 63: Expanded Cognition

  Chapter 64: Lust for Honor

  Chapter 65: Furious Battle

  Chapter 66: Not the Time to Mourn

  Chapter 67: Recover and Adapt

  Chapter 68: Fire Support

  Chapter 69: A Battle Group unto Herself

  Chapter 70: Slipping

  Chapter 71: Shock and Grief

  Chapter 72: A Chance

  Chapter 73: God Speed

  Chapter 74: Battle Spread Formation

  Chapter 75: Much Harder

  Chapter 76: Supercarrier

  Chapter 77: Tragic Majesty

  Chapter 78: Simple Mathematics

  Chapter 79: Detonation

  Chapter 80: Burnt Out

  Chapter 81: If You Can Call It Living

  Chapter 82: Trials Are Never Over

  Epilogue: No Matter the Cost

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Thank You!

  RECKONING

  © Scott Bartlett 2017

  Cover art by Tom Edwards (tomedwardsdesign.com)

  This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0

  This novel is a work of fiction. All of the characters, places, and events are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, locales, businesses, or events is entirely coincidental.

  Traitor

  Sign up for the mailing list and read Traitor for free, the prequel to The Ixan Prophecies Trilogy.

  Only mailing list subscribers get to read Traitor. The story takes place during the First Galactic War. It reveals how Fesky saved Captain Keyes’s life, and why Warren Husher came to be branded a traitor.

  You’ll also be the first to know when Mercenary comes out - that’s the first book in the Darkstream Chronicles, a brand new series.

  Chapter 1

  Main Priority

  “We’re transitioning through the darkgate now, Captain,” Keyes’s Nav officer said.

  “Confirmed,” Werner said. “Sensor data will be available momentarily.”

  Keyes acknowledged the information with nothing but a nod. Since Hades, he lacked much interest in speaking, which had caused some breakdowns in communication until his CIC crew learned to watch his body language more closely. He’d rebuked those breakdowns harshly, and all had become well.

  As well as it can be, anyway, Keyes thought to himself. His hunt through Pirate’s Path was almost at an end, and though they’d checked each system thoroughly, Keyes knew where he’d find his prey.

  As they’d progressed through system after empty system, Casper had often become visible to sensors, shining dimly from many light years away.

  Whenever it had become visible, Keyes ordered Werner to put the visual on a splitscreen using the CIC’s main display. And he’d watched the star, his stomach roiling with heat.

  “There they are,” Werner said, a note of wonder in his voice. “In heliocentric orbit, two light-minutes ahead of Casper-3b. Their fleet is enormous. Mostly settlement ships, but still…where could Darkstream possibly have hidden all of this?”

  “Inside the gas giant itself,” Keyes said. “The same one their HQ orbits. They must have concealed them in Casper-3b as a contingency plan, which speaks to how paranoid they are. And they have good reason for paranoia, considering how long they’ve been screwing humanity.”

  “They’ve detected us already, Captain. It looks like you were right—most of the unaccounted-for UHF ships are here. A sizable battle group. They’re arranging themselves to confront us.”

  “Should I accelerate, Captain?” Nav said.

  “No. Maintain current speed.” Certainly, an all-out charge from the supercarrier would have been menacing, and it would have given their ordnance more punch as well. But he expected a leisurely approach would prove more effective psychologically.

  Plus, I want to savor this, he reflected.

  The darkgate sat across the system, directly opposite Casper-3b, and it took the Providence ten hours to cross to the enemy ships.

  For their part, the rogue UHF ships carefully arrayed themselves to intercept the supercarrier, spaced out to deny her the opportunity to take out two of them at once. Keyes would have to go through them if he wanted to threaten the settlement ships.

  His crew spoke little as they traversed the system. Keyes preferred it that way, now. Normally, he would permit himself at least one coffee break for a ten-hour journey, but not this one. He sat in the Captain’s chair the entire time, gripping the chair’s armrests and staring at the opposing formation.

  “Incoming transmission,” his Coms officer said the moment they were close enough for real-time communication.

  “Accept.”

  Keyes’s former XO, Bob Bronson, appeared on the viewscreen. “What’s your angle here, Keyes?”

  “Justice.”
r />   “Come, now,” Bronson said, clearly trying to sound self-assured. But Keyes heard the nervous hitch in his voice. “You can’t expect us not to defend these people. They only want to find a new home.”

  “They want to flee their crimes.”

  “I won’t let you do this, Keyes. I will oppose you.”

  “Then you’ll die.” Keyes glanced at his Coms officer. “Cut the transmission. Werner, put up a tactical display, full-screen.” Bronson vanished from the viewscreen. “Coms, verify with Colonel Fesky that Condors are ready.”

  “She’s ready, Captain.”

  “Then tell her to launch every last Condor.” During the entire voyage through Pirate’s Path, half of the Air Group had been on standby to launch. But in preparing to enter this system, Keyes had ordered every pilot to prepare for battle. “I want half of them on missile defense and the other half targeting the cruiser on the rightmost periphery of the enemy formation.”

  With the addition of former Falcon pilots from among the Bastion Sector insurgents, the Providence now boasted a fully reconstituted Air Group; four hundred pilots strong. And Keyes knew Fesky was eager to have them implement what she’d taught them.

  Not only that, but for the first time since the start of this war, Keyes’s ship was completely refueled, recharged, and reloaded. He liked to think that she thirsted for Darkstream’s blood as much as he did.

  “Let’s open with our primary laser,” Keyes said, “targeting the leftmost cruiser.”

  The tactically superior option would have been to target Bronson’s destroyer with the primary, neatly decapitating the enemy battle group and sending it into disarray. But efficiency wasn’t Keyes’s main priority in this engagement.

  His main priority entailed letting Bronson squirm for as long as possible.

  Chapter 2

  Personal Revenge

  Like a pack of wolves taking down an elk, half of the Air Group swarmed over the missile cruiser the captain had designated.

  Fesky had permitted Husher to handpick pilots in order to resurrect his Haymaker squadron. The current Haymakers weren’t nearly as skilled as Gaston and the others had been, and Husher missed the fallen pilots dearly, but he knew the fires of battle would harden this new squadron and make them strong.

  One of the best ways to speed up that process is to set a good example as their leader.

  The assignment given to this half of the Air Group didn’t involve protecting the Providence from missiles, but Husher believed in going above and beyond the call of duty. And so, after picking off one of the cruiser’s point defense turrets with a Sidewinder, he engaged his Condor’s gyros to swing the outer shell thirty-five degrees, firing engines briefly before swinging another nineteen degrees to shoot a Banshee fresh out of its tube.

  Immediately after, he rotated an additional thirty-five degrees, executing an Ocharium-assisted engine burn to avoid the kinetic impactors thrown at his Condor by the next set of point defense turrets. They missed by a matter of meters.

  “Whoa, Spank!” It was his new second-in-command, Omelet, speaking over a squadron-wide channel. “That was some fancy flying!”

  “Do you have something to report?” Husher snapped.

  “Uh, no, sir.”

  “Then stay off the radio and focus on your own flying until you do.” Without missing a beat, Husher drew a bead on the next turret battery and pelted it with kinetic impactors.

  It blew up, but not before it got off a missile that screamed toward Omelet’s fighter. Judging from the man’s flying, Husher’s second-in-command hadn’t even spotted it yet. Wincing, Husher picked it off himself, deciding to wait until after the battle to dump on Omelet the criticism he had coming.

  Fesky’s voice entered his helmet: “Spank. Status?”

  “Sitting pretty, so far. Haven’t lost a fighter.”

  “Acknowledged. I think it’s time to take the cruiser down. I’d like to see how well the former Falcon pilots are handling their Condors in battle, but I’d also like minimal risk. If they choke, I want your Haymakers to step in and pick up the slack.”

  “Can do, Madcap.”

  Over a wide channel, Fesky spoke again. “Okay, Trailblazer, Dicemen, Stinger, and Warhawk squadrons, get in alpha strike formation and hit that cruiser with everything. Now!”

  Watching on his tactical display, Husher watched the former Falcon pilots form up immediately, with pleasing crispness, to start hitting the missile cruiser with wave after wave of kinetic impactors. The enemy warship blew up with the third alpha strike.

  I’m starting to think I should have recruited some of them for the Haymakers.

  He brushed the thought away as the half of the Air Group assigned to offensive maneuvers—twelve squadrons, all told—attacked the next target, a corvette. It fell even faster than the cruiser had.

  Seeing so many Condor pilots deployed at once, fighting in concert, flowing around each other like a single, sleek predator in action…it reminded Husher of vids he’d seen from the First Galactic War, which featured the Providence in her heyday.

  Before this, he’d barely dared to hope that heyday could return, but today, his hopes were being realized.

  They moved on to the third target, which instantly stopped pressuring the supercarrier to attempt a retreat. The Condors gave no quarter, sprinting forward to hammer the enemy hull with ordnance.

  For the first time in decades, the Providence and her Air Group were in full fighting form, and the universe would remember exactly what they could do.

  “The enemy’s surrendered,” Fesky said a few minutes later, over a wide channel. “All Condors back to base.”

  Wow, Husher thought. Just like that, it was over. For today, anyway. But we’ve only just begun to flex our muscles.

  He opened up a two-way with Fesky. “You could sound a little happier, Madcap. That may have been the fastest anyone’s ever won an engagement. Plus, we can rest easy now. Darkstream won’t be allowed to continue putting the entire universe at risk by using dark tech.”

  “That’s just it, Spank,” Fesky said. “We don’t know that for sure.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I just listened in on the command channel while the captain spoke to Bronson. He’s letting Darkstream’s fleet leave.”

  “Are you kidding me? How could he do that?”

  “In exchange for their promise not to use dark tech again. But I’m beginning to think this was never about dark tech.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  Fesky clacked her beak, which inside Husher’s helmet sounded like a sharp click. “Because Captain Keyes also demanded Bronson hand over Tennyson Steele.” She paused, seeming to hesitate, but then continued. “I’ve suspected this for most of the trip, but I didn’t want to say it: I think the real reason the captain brought us here was so he could carry out his own personal revenge.”

  Chapter 3

  Hangar Bay E

  Husher hopped out of his Condor the moment he landed it, putting off post-flight checks until he had a chance to speak with Captain Keyes.

  Marching toward the CIC, footfalls echoing off the bulkheads, he encountered the captain headed toward Hangar Bay E. Keyes registered his presence with the briefest glance, not altering his stride or offering anything in the way of greeting.

  “Is it true you’re letting the Darkstream ships go?” Husher said, spinning around and matching the captain’s brisk pace.

  A curt nod was the extent of Keyes’s reply.

  “I can’t believe it,” Husher said. “First you fail to discipline Wahlburg for threatening a civilian on the Vermillion Shipyards, and now this.”

  “Bronson gave me his word that Darkstream won’t use dark tech again.”

  “Sir, with all due respect, since when was Bronson’s word good for anything? Of course they’re going to use dark tech! What else can they do? How else can they leave?”

  “They could use the old wormhole network.”

&nbs
p; “You mean the wormholes that destroy a significant percentage of the ships that pass through them? I highly doubt Bronson will subject himself to that sort of risk, for something so insignificant as honor.”

  Keyes turned his head to hold Husher’s gaze. The captain’s famous stare had been effective before Hades, but since then, it had gained an edge that almost made Husher want to abandon this conversation. Try to find a drink, maybe.

  “Dark-tech-enabled wormhole generation doesn’t work anymore,” Keyes said. “Remember? The wormholes that are produced destroy all organic matter.”

  Steeling himself, Husher answered: “Only the ones that were connected to Ochrim’s master control. Sir, if Darkstream went through all the trouble to build this resettlement fleet and hide it, I’m sure they also took the precaution of having at least one wormhole generator not connected to the master control. In fact, they wouldn’t have wanted these ships connected to anything. That would have made it possible to find them.”

  “The Darkstream ships will be allowed to leave, Husher. End of story. We can’t afford the time and effort it would take to arrest two million people and escort nearly three hundred ships back to Sol.”

  Husher shook his head. “Arresting them was the entire reason the Commonwealth agreed to let you go on this mission. It’s the only way to make sure they stop using dark tech.”

  The captain didn’t reply, so Husher pressed on. “What’s this really about for you, Captain? Did they take away your principles while you were imprisoned over Hades?”

  That drew a sharp warning glance, but nothing else.

  “Sir, I started to worry when you failed to discipline Wahlburg for his misconduct. You said it can wait until after the war, but that’ll only encourage others to engage in misconduct. This is exactly the type of thinking that led to Hurst and the corruption of the UHF. We have to stay true to the reasons we opposed the UHF in the first place, don’t we? If not, we’ll be right back where we were two months ago.”

  When Keyes still didn’t say anything, blood started rushing in Husher’s ears, and he felt his hands curl into tight fists. “Tell me the truth: is vengeance the only thing motivating you, now?”