Hello, everyone! Here’s the last sample chapter I’m putting up from Bad Faith. Enjoy!
Chapter 3
Winds of Change, the Galactic Union Blockade Division flagship, drifted in a lazy orbit around the fourth world from the brilliant yellow star at the center of the Sta’Gloan system. Beneath the translucent blue haze of Lanx’s planetary shield, masses of cloud cover swirled above striated bands of dark ridges. Larger than either Sta’Gloa or Glo’Stea, Lanx was a rocky world characterized by soaring mountains and deep valleys. The majority of her population lay in a wide band around the equator; the rest of the world was too inhospitable to eke out much of a living.
Unfolding his lanky frame from his seat, Admiral Giles Chesnee crossed to the wide viewport forming the starboard side of his Flag Tactical Command Center. As he looked down at the world below, bright, artificial light from glowpanels in the overhead cast his reflection on the transparent metal separating him from the crushing cold of space. They were coming up on Lanx’s night side now; starbursts of lights denoting population centers speckled the darkness. In the distance, tiny lights strung out at random intervals told him blockade runners were being let past the shield.
Clasping his hands behind his back, he watched the closest convoy impudently stream through Lanx’s shield within range of his Chironex-class battlecruiser’s laser turrets. Oh, yes, he thought bitterly, they’re well accustomed to the lack of response from our gunners.
The lines in his craggy face deepened. Winds of Change had been orbiting Lanx since High Command reassigned him here four months before. In that time, he had studied every byte of available data on the Coalition’s blockade runners and had gotten a firsthand look at how they operated. What he found was a puzzle, a mysterious anomaly in G.U. military history.
To no one’s surprise, the Coalition’s smuggling trade sprang up after the G.U. cut their system off from the outside galaxy. What had surprised everyone was that the smugglers flourished. The blockade hampered them, but never succeeded in stopping them. No one understood why.
Until now.
Chesnee waited until the last ship disappeared beyond the shield before turning on his heel and striding back to his chair. He flicked blue eyes over his staff—a good number of them culled from personnel already in-system—and noted how every head was bent over his or her task.
On the surface, everything aboard the Change was calm. Normal, even—if life aboard a battleship patrolling a defiant star system could be called normal. Yet beneath their veneer of cool efficiency, he felt the bubbling uncertainty and burning resentment of forced inactivity emanating from his crew. This included his second-in-command, Captain Ian Sanford.
Most of the military men and women in the Blockade Division had never served under him. He knew they didn’t trust him yet. Given this Division’s murky command history, he didn’t blame them. They’d come around soon enough.
Unlike his predecessors, Giles Chesnee had a plan.
“Sir?”
He swiveled to face his chief aide. Lieutenant Josef Armal had been in-system for two years and Chesnee found his knowledge useful. He also found the younger man’s information about his former commander useful, but he broached that subject rarely and with great delicacy. “Yes, Lieutenant?”
“We have an incoming high priority transmission for you, sir.” Armal paused. “From Sta’Gloa, by the looks of it.” Though his olive face remained impassive, the minute tightening of his jaw muscles betrayed him. He was not pleased.
Chesnee inclined his graying blond head. “Thank you, Lieutenant.” Lifting his voice, he called out, “Dismissed.”
Armal saluted, snapping the palm of his right hand to his left shoulder, and stepped away. The rest of Chesnee’s staff saluted and filed out into the corridor after the lieutenant, but a few of them couldn’t quite hide flashes of something resembling frustration. They knew—or at least suspected—the identity of his caller.
In that, they have my sympathy.
During his brief sojourn in-system, Chesnee had gained a few pieces of the puzzle. This included the knowledge that the majority of both his staff and the Change’s crew were aware of what transmissions from Sta’Gloa or Lanx usually entailed. For that matter, he suspected the entire Blockade Division had an inkling of the truth.
Not that anyone could prove anything, of course.
Tapping a command into the control panel mounted in the arm of his chair, Chesnee watched as a full-size hologram of a trim little man coalesced on the deck before him.
“Greetings, Admiral,” the man began in fluent Tarynian, offering him a slight bow. “I—”
Chesnee cut him off with a brusque wave of his hand. “Let’s dispense with the pleasantries, shall we, Representative Pamos? What are you after this time? Come to offer me another bribe?”
He steepled his fingers, suppressing a frown. The use of Dion Pamos’s official title was intended to nettle him. The man held a place on the Coalition Triumvirate that governed the Sta’Gloan system’s interplanetary affairs, but denied any political involvement in his clandestine Hypernet communications. Chesnee found that hard to swallow.
Pamos lifted dark eyebrows in an expression of mild astonishment before molding his face back into its usual bland placidity. “Admiral, once again may I remind you that I come bearing no authorization from the Triumvirate. This is purely a business matter. My associates and I have a final offer for you.”
Chesnee braced himself. Here it comes. “Continue.”
“We are prepared to give you one thousand ounces of platinum and five thousand ounces of gold.”
It took a great deal of control not to keep his shock from showing. He had to swallow twice before his vocal chords worked. “That…is several times the size of your last offer.”
“Yes, it is.” Pamos nodded solemnly. “Which is why it is our final offer. This money will be transferred directly to you with the understanding that your forces leave our ships alone for the duration of your command.” He paused. “There will of course be annual bonuses as a reward for your cooperation.”
Performing a few rapid calculations in his head, Chesnee went very still. That’s a lot of money. More money than he was likely to see in his entire career. Precious metal prices fluctuated across the galaxy, but an ounce of gold was still worth hundreds of G.U. credits. Platinum was even more valuable, though not as common.
“It is a…tempting…offer,” he said at last. “Very tempting.” Hard currency would be difficult to trace, too, a wistful voice that sounded like his wife noted inside his head.
He drew in a deep breath. “That notwithstanding, I must inform you that my answer remains the same. I refuse to compromise my mission or my honor.”
“Ah, yes, the old answer.” Pamos let out a dramatic sigh. “You would be surprised how many times I’ve heard it.”
Chesnee prepared for the Sta’Gloan to end the transmission just as he had done on the two previous occasions they spoke. To his surprise, Pamos merely tilted his head.
“I think, Admiral, it is more likely you refuse to compromise your pride.”
“What?”
Pamos quirked his eyebrows. “You heard me. Obviously you do not believe you are here because your career is at an end.”
Chesnee’s confusion must have shown on his face because the other man laughed.
“Oh, yes, Admiral, I am aware of the Blockade Division’s reputation within the Galactic Union StarFleet.” Pamos smiled, but the expression did nothing to soften the granite in his eyes. “They consider you a joke, a place where misfits who cannot make the grade are shuffled to prevent them from becoming any more of an embarrassment to the Fleet than they already are. Being given this command is a death knell to an officer’s career.”
“In two decades, none of your predecessors ever managed to find a way past Sta’Gloa or Lanx’s planetary shields.” He lifted his shoulders in an eloquent shrug. “Most were also inept at maintaining the blockade—in fact, it is a miracle you’ve hung onto occupied islands of Glo’Stea as long as you have.”
“I’m sure Coalition gold had something to do with that.” The words came out more sharply than Chesnee intended.
“We saw an opportunity for mutual benefit and took it.” Pamos spread his hands. “Think about my offer, Admiral. Do not be a fool.”
His wife had said the same thing before he left Taryn, but Chesnee was not about to tell Pamos that. “Or you could join the Galactic Union.”
Pamos laughed. “That, Admiral, is not a deal I am prepared to make.”
“Pity.”
“Should you change your mind, you know where to reach me.” Pamos bowed again and his hologram vanished.
For a long moment, Chesnee regarded the spot where Pamos had been with grim thoughtfulness. He disliked the man for a multitude of reasons—the first being that he was a politician and the second that he was a Coalition politician—but he had to give him credit for his ability to sow discord and discontent.
The offer was beyond generous. But, more than anything else, Chesnee wanted the honor and prestige that would come from succeeding where no one else had even come close. Especially since he had no idea what he had done to warrant being given—or demoted to, he wasn’t sure—command of the blockade in the first place.
~~~~
Captain Sanford called him from the bridge that afternoon. “Admiral, I have a Bumblebee-class freighter heading toward Lanx on one of the trajectories you ordered monitored.”
His pulse quickened. “Excellent. Initiate Phase 1.”
“Understood.”
One of his staff pulled up the bridge data stream on his console. No one, not even Armal, had ventured to say a word about the Sta’Gloan transmission. “Transponder codes identify it as the Rusty Jalopy out of—”
Chesnee brushed the information aside; the ship’s name and origin were irrelevant. All that mattered was the fact that she was preparing to land in Uva, a city in Sector 4 near Lanx’s capital—well within range of the Winds of Change’s laser turrets. This is the opportunity we’ve been waiting for.
When the Galactic Union first attempted to assimilate the Coalition, they had been astonished to find themselves confronted with a shield system unlike anything they had encountered elsewhere in the galaxy. With the exception of Glo’Stea, a gas giant called Xana 5, and a forsaken rock called Lurline 7, every world in the Sta’Gloan system was fully protected by an energy sphere created and sustained by thousands of generators scattered across their surfaces. The generators produced convex energy circles that melded with each other to form a seamless planetary shield.
Among all the data he had devoured when he first assumed command, Chesnee had noticed a startling change in the blockade runners’ flight patterns. Most pilots were smart enough to keep the mass of a world between themselves and the battleships prowling their system. Their departures and reentries, while not always convenient, were carefully timed to avoid any unwanted interaction. As a result, they were nearly impossible to catch.
Records for the past few years, however, told a different story. Coalition smugglers grew bolder and more arrogant, trading safety for speed. Their flight paths grew steadily closer to the danger that was G.U. blockade ships. Under his direction, each of his ships had kept close tabs on the shields for the last three months to learn how quickly openings were manipulated. Then all they needed was a ship to fall into the trap.
Their flagrant contempt will be their downfall.
Chesnee motioned to his chief technician, Lieutenant Commander Tryl, who pulled up a real-time display of Lanx and her energy shield. As they watched, the Rusty Jalopy began to maneuver past the shield. The deck rumbled beneath their feet, signaling that the laser turrets were powering up, and he allowed himself a faint smile.
There was no way the Shield Control tower in Uva would be able to close the gap in time.
~~~~
“Cap’n, I don’t like this. We’re too close to that battlecruiser.” Hogan Baer, copilot and first mate of the Rusty Jalopy, hunched forward in his seat, broad shoulders tense.
“Hogan, you’re starting to repeat yourself—you’ve said that six times in the last hour.” Cal Zuko looked away from his controls long enough to shoot an exasperated glare at his copilot. The fact that his ship was making its way toward the Uva Spaceport and they would be setting down on solid ground for the first time in days was cause for celebration. “It’s too early for you to be getting paranoid. When was the last time they actually blew somebody out of the sky?”
Hogan passed a hand over his face, tugging unhappily on his dark beard.
“Well?”
“That ain’t the point!” Hogan pounded a fist on the control panel before him and Cal winced. “We’re in range of their guns!”
“Breathe.”
Hogan took a deep breath and unclenched his hands. In a more controlled voice, he asked, “Why do we have to land in Uva?”
“Let me remind you of the valuable cargo the Jalopy is carrying and the person who is waiting for us in Uva.” Cal threw a pointed look at his first mate. “Let me further remind you what Pyu will do to us if we don’t show up. We’ll be lucky if we can get a job on a garbage skiff.”
Hogan shook his head mulishly. “I still don’t like it.”
“I don’t pay you to like it; I pay you to do it. The money we’ll get for this job is more than enough to set us up for the next supply run to Nebullia for spare ship parts.” Cal motioned to the comm panel. “Contact Shield Control and tell ‘em to let us through.”
“Aye, Cap’n.”
Moments later, a hole swirled into existence in the translucent blue shield. Cal flew the Rusty Jalopy past it into the lower edge of Lanx’s upper atmosphere and looked over at Hogan with a cocky grin. “Was that so hard?”
Before his first mate could respond, proximity alarms began to screech, filling the cockpit with strident noise.
“What the—” Cal launched into evasive action, but it was too late.
Much too late.
~~~~
Bursts of searing energy hurtled through space and the unprotected lacy wisps of Lanx’s upper atmosphere to impact directly with the Jalopy. The freighter exploded in a blazing fireball, flinging shards of debris everywhere. The rest of the salvo punched through the dissipating cloud of metal and plastic to rip into the exposed sliver of Uva planetside.
Chesnee held his breath, as did everyone else not engrossed in a vital task. They had caught the Lanxians off-guard, that much was obvious, but their window of opportunity grew narrower with every passing second. We must locate the generator and destroy it or months of planning and the element of surprise will be wasted.
Through a combination of triangulation and patient observation, they had determined its general location. As the Change continued to rain energy blasts down on Uva, several of them found their mark. Uva’s shield flickered once and died, exposing the entire area it protected.
“Uva’s shield is down, Admiral,” Captain Sanford reported smugly.
“Cease fire, Captain.” Chesnee felt the turrets still. “Inform the troops the moment has arrived.”
“With pleasure.”
Chesnee heard Sanford’s bridge crew cheering in the background. A ghost of a smile crossed his face. We’ve taken the first step to victory.
They were ready for this. He was ready for this.
In a matter of moments, troop transports would shoot out of the Winds of Change’s carrier bays. Those men would be the first to set foot on Lanx in twenty years. The impossible had just been proved possible.
“Give me stats on Uva.” Chesnee looked down at the tiny hologram of Lanx, imagining plumes of black smoke drifting up into the atmosphere. A good chunk of the city was now smoldering ash.
While he regretted the inevitable loss of life, he had done his best to reduce casualties. Uva was not an important city; they had no factories, research centers, or mining operations that would suffer as a result of orbital bombardment. He had chosen the city for that reason.
Since the beginning of the blockade, G.U. politicians had opposed orbital bombardment as a possible means of breaking through the Coalition’s shields. They wanted its riches intact and clung to the belief that the Coalition could be brought into the fold by other means. Hence twenty years of effort that had accomplished nothing but to waste time and taxpayers’ money.
Ah, well, that’s in the past now. Shaking off his thoughts, Chesnee focused on the here and now.
“First troop transports away,” Lieutenant Armal reported with fierce joy.
“Excellent. It will be interesting to see how the Lanxians handle this.” Chesnee watched the transports—bulbous ships suited more for deep space than atmospheric use—streak toward the gap in Lanx’s defenses.
A short while later, Tryl waved him over to his console. “Sir, you’d better take a look at this.”
“What’s the matter?”
Tryl pointed to the shield plates around Uva. “They’re doing something I’ve never seen before, sir.” Enhancing the image, he highlighted the shield. “Look.”
As Chesnee watched, the shield rotated and stretched. “Are they attempting to compensate for the missing shield generator?”
“Not sure yet, sir.” Tryl’s fingers danced over his console in an attempt to find an answer. When the edges of the shield curved inward and dropped, his eyes widened in disbelief. “They just cut Uva off from the rest of the planet!”
“Of course they did.” Chesnee held back an irritated sigh, even as he marveled at how casually Lanx could sacrifice an entire city. It was too much to hope everything would go without a hitch of some kind. Although, being able to land at all is an unmitigated success.
Dion Pamos’s face appeared in his mind’s eye and he smiled. No doubt the Representative would be contacting him soon, panic underlying his oily words. Chances were the new bribe would be even greater, but it didn’t matter.
My career isn’t over yet. I’ll do what all eight of my predecessors failed to accomplish. I’ll take this system one planet at a time, one city at a time.
He looked over at his comm officer. “Lieutenant Darkon, get me Admiral Tyler.”
The tide had turned.
_______________
The Guardians: Bad Faith is available from the following retailers (among others) :
I am so hooked.
I’m glad! That’s good to hear. 😀