Interloper (The Askirti Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  Rachel entered a few commands, smiled and said: “we will be tucked away in fifteen minutes, Captain!”

  “Good job, Lieutenant! And an excellent performance this patrol. We didn’t catch any pirates this time, but it wouldn’t be due to the lack of a good navigator!” De Vitis responded. “XO, ready room, please. Lieutenant Mansfield, you have the bridge”.

  “Yes, sir! I have the bridge” Rachel responded.

  As the captain and his XO entered the ready room, he closed the door and gestured for Jackie to have a seat.

  “Am I in trouble, sir?”

  “No commander, you are not in trouble. Jackie, I just wanted to talk to you about our leave here. I am worried about you. Listen, your personal life is none of my business, but it just is not healthy to bottle so much up inside. I just wish you would use the next few days to meet somebody maybe or go hang out with some of the other officers, blow off some steam! I saw that you are on the schedule for the resupply and maintenance. Are you kidding me! You need time off like the rest of us!”

  “Jeri, I appreciate your concern…” is all she got out before her captain cut her off.

  “Please. I need my XO at the top of her game. It is evident to me you have something on your mind and are unwilling to discuss it. Go to a therapist, spent some time at the spa, go shopping! Maybe not all in that order, but do something to take care of yourself! You keep a frantic pace. God, I can’t run this ship without you! You do the job of two or three people it seems, and I’m always wondering where the energy comes from! But I do know this; it does run out. And when it does, you will hit a wall at an extremely high velocity and will be no good to me or anyone else. So go! Do something for you!”

  Jackie pondered what he said. What her captain didn’t know was her genetic predisposition to focus and boundless energy. She didn’t feel worn down, though she was very distracted. Lately, her dreams had been worse than usual filled with horrifying memories.

  She knew she needed help, but what was she to do? No, she’ll handle this as she always had…..illegal drugs.

  “Sir, I get your point entirely. I will remove myself from the schedule and return here after seven days of liberty.”

  “Thank you, Jackie. That’s all I needed to hear,” her captain responded.

  ##

  She wanted to stay on the ship to avoid what was to come. Her work kept her focused, having a goal kept her on track. Time off was the worst thing in the world for her because she had time to think. Worse, she had time to remember. So she sat on the edge of her bed in a cheap motel with a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a needle in the other.

  The whiskey will help me sleep, but the needle will help me to forget. God, I want to forget! But lately, it seems the memories won’t turn off.

  She chanced it and took the whiskey, setting the needle down, and then drowned herself in the bottle, half hoping she did not wake up again.

  ##

  It was a beautiful day, clear skies, and mild temperatures. Jackie was on a food run as their supplies were running low. Orlando was dangerous during the day, with the enemy troops ever present.

  She and her husband, Henry, wanted to flee the city with their children, but the soldiers had sealed it, making escape impossible. So to stay, she needed supplies.

  She spent hours getting to an old warehouse she knew had food. It normally would have been a hike of a few minutes from where she was at, but she didn’t want to get caught. So, the minutes turned into hours as she took alternate routes. But this would feed her family for days, so the trip was well worth it.

  After she had traversed the first sewer, she had to go top side because a monitoring system had been installed down there. A surveillance system in the sewers! She supposed her enemy was right to be paranoid; she was being thwarted, though her only master plan at the time was to feed her young children, Amanda, Mary, and Luke, who was just a baby.

  She dashed into an alley when she hit the surface. Her senses had never failed her before, and they warned her of an approaching scout drone.

  She had met no one who had her “sixth sense” other than other Askirti royalty. Something about her family was special, more special than others. She always sensed things before they happened, sometimes even saw them.

  No, she was special, and not just because she was an Askirti princess, whatever that meant in this upside-down world. But she was thankful for that specialness as it was helping her get food today.

  She crept down the street, maintaining as low a profile as possible. She always hated this part; the elementary school lay just ahead. On the first day of occupation, the soldiers sent a message, made an “example” in several areas, this was one.

  There the school was, all of its staff and pupils. They had been stripped naked and nailed with spikes to the exterior walls of the school. They were all alive when it happened. Men. Women. Children. Little children. The bodies were rotted now. Some had fallen off their spikes.

  She held back the desire to vomit and snuck past the school.

  Two more blocks, then I can get food.

  She heard noises coming from just up ahead. She heard soldiers. Heard laughter. Heard….babies? Paying extra attention to the sound of her own feet, stepped lighter than ever, seemingly holding her breath forever. Her pulse was spiking; she thought her heart would beat out of her chest!

  As she quietly approached the corner, she was expecting a lot of things. Expecting evil men doing evil deeds. But nothing prepared her for what she witnessed.

  There were a dozen or more soldiers gathered; they were all very drunk. They had these big carts, and inside each cart was about a dozen babies. They had a device a few feet away from the carts.

  One of the soldiers scooped up a baby no more than six months old, the age of her youngest child. He walked, no, to stumble over to the device and set the child on top. Another, equally drunk soldier, pushed a button that instantly catapulted the small child ten meters or more into the air! Out of nowhere, another one of the soldiers was throwing a spear! Where did he come from? The spear intersected the child, impaling the baby, then the spear and the child fell to the ground!

  The soldiers threw up their hands and yelled out “SCORE!” They were so excited, howling and laughing at the death of this child!

  Jackie gasped and watched in horror as the soldier, outright giddy, walked over the to where the child fell. That is when she saw it. There were at least a hundred tiny bodies already on the ground. Murdered.

  They have been at this a while, she morbidly thought.

  She wanted to scream! She wanted to help the poor children whose deaths still awaited them! But she was powerless at that moment to do anything but watch as the soldier placed one of his boots on the dead baby, and with both hands on the spear, pulled it free of the tiny corpse.

  ##

  It was a blood-curdling scream that Jackie woke up. Her body was shaking, drenched in sweat. She curled up on her bed in a fetal position and sobbed for a good half hour.

  Then she reached over and grabbed the needle. At least now she wouldn’t dream.

  ##

  The next day she ventured out and into the station. She knew where. After grabbing a quick breakfast at a street side vendor, she went to the usual spot. The area where she bought her drugs.

  She was running low after all, and the captain said she needed to take care of herself. At least that was the thought that got her through this each time she took highlights.

  She saw her usually contact, a wiry guy named with a weird name of “Bix.” She was certain it wasn’t his real name, but with all her lies, who was she to say something about his phony name?

  “Bix, what’s up?”

  “Oh, hi there girl! Come for some more? Or come for some me?” Bix replied with a smirk.

  “Cool it. You’ll have better luck with that lamp post than this girl!” she responded.

  Bix snickered, “Hey well, I just want to keep you informed as to my availability status!
I would be remiss not to do so!”

  “Gee, thanks. Listen, I’ve got stuff to do, but I need my usual.”

  “Sure, follow me!”

  They both went down the alley they both knew so well. Bix gave Jackie her “usual.” A six-month supply of the illegal substance “highlights.” Well, six months for her. Most would burn through this amount in a month, but she took small doses, and not every night. She ordered in bulk due to military deployments and did not want to run out. She would make a separate stop to get the needles on her own. No way she would trust this guy for clean ones!

  With their business concluded, Bix said “Next time!”

  Jackie left him in the alley and walked towards the street.

  It was then two men approached her. They were large, both muscular and fat. Both had crooked noses, and the one on the left had a scar down his left cheek.

  “Hey little miss!” the one with the scarred face said. “I was looking to have some fun on this beautiful day! Then I saw you! My buddy and I would like to ask you out. But I really do bad with rejection. So here’s the thing. You come with us, you do what we say, and for as many times as we say to do it. Do this, and you live. We just want to party for a while! And by the looks of who you were talking to, I think you are who we are looking for! So let’s have fun together!”.

  Jackie instantly kicked the crotch of the one of the left and then shoved her foot into the knee of the one on the right, both howling in agony.

  But then, just as she thought she was free, she felt a thud hit her chest at the same time that she heard the buzz of a laser. As she collapsed, she looked behind and to the right of the two men that just tried to take her. There was a third person. How did she not see him!

  ##

  Jackie heard the large man say “…So let’s have fun together!”

  She blinked quickly. It happened again. Her life was in danger, and she saw just a little out into her future. Into her death.

  This time she kicked the crotch of the one on the right and shoved her foot into the knee on the one of the left. Then she quickly reached down into her boot and pulled out a knife, throwing it where she knew the third man was.

  Sure enough! There he was, weapon in hand, and now knife in the throat! He made gurgling noises and collapsed.

  There were sounds of screaming in the crowds at the sight of the dead man. Jackie used the momentary confusion in the area to disappear into the adjacent building. She went to the opposite side of the building and exited with an emergency exit, which went unnoticed. And with that, she disappeared into the crowd and went about her day.

  ##

  “Josh, this stuff is killing me!”

  “I don’t make the priorities, Jeri. I just do my job with the tools given to me. And right now, you and that ship of yours are a scarce resource for me. Listen, piracy is a real threat! Yes, it sucks to be stuck doing this, but the need is real, and it is growing, my friend! Listen, if you hadn’t been such an excellent officer, you’d have my job by now, and I’d be retired! Let’s get another round, on me this time.”

  “Sucks to be me,” Jeri said.

  “Sucks to be you.”

  Rear Admiral Josh Waters was a short, stocky man with known Jeri since early in their respective careers. They both served together on more than one ship and had a trust born of brothers in service.

  Jeri knew his friend was right and hated him for it. He hated himself more for it. Just couldn’t keep his mouth shut.

  “You are right, as usual. Better the alcohol than food right now. You’re getting fat!” Jeri quipped.

  “Hey now!”

  They both laughed.

  “How’s that mustang of yours working out?” his friend asked.

  “The crew calls her the Ice Queen.”

  “That bad?”

  “They don’t know what I know, and they don’t see what I see in her. Josh, she’s the best XO I’ve ever had, and the best officer I’ve ever seen! That includes you and me both! Her performance reviews are excellent, and her decision-making capabilities are through the roof! While many crew members blow off steam by consuming alcohol from an illegal distillery I’m not supposed to know about, she blows off steam by sparring with the marines on board!” Jeri said.

  “Most navy pukes would consider it a life-extending procedure to avoid that,” his friend said. After a moment’s hesitation, and with more than a bit of curiosity, “So, how does she do against them?”

  “That’s the thing, Josh. She goes up against the best! Her idea of a friendly session is with someone three times her size!”

  “Jeri, I’m beside myself here! Why would she even challenge them? Isn’t she a little thing?”

  “She is,” Jeri responded. “but that’s not the scary part. The scary part is how few times she loses. And those times, I would swear to you she threw the match to spare the feelings of those guys! I know it, but I don’t think she knows I know it.”

  “Crap man. Is she augmented?”

  The Navy was serious about screening for augmentation of the human body. They felt once a bunch of computers was placed in someone’s head, even if they are the best person out there, it could be hacked. And with augmented strength, they could easily compromise the chain of command. Augmentation of any sort was forbidden within the military.

  “No, she’s been scanned thoroughly and repetitively. I’m not sure what to think of her. She is absolutely impressive in every way. Serving together these past two years….I’m getting soft. I love her Josh. Like my kid, I mean. She’s family on that ship, and that is how I see it. But I see her holding on to something. There are a few times I’ve seen something else in her face than that calm professionalism. It only happened a few times; both were late on the shift when we were all tired.”

  “Well don’t leave me hanging, dude! What did you see?”

  “Fear. Something in her past that she is holding on to” Jeri said.

  At this point, Josh was becoming concerned what kind of XO his friend had. It was Josh who assigned her to him. Her scores were off the charts, and well, he thought it would be funny to assign someone with such unusual looks to his friend's command. A joke really, but with the best intentions.

  Nobody looked like Jackie. Nobody. The alabaster white skin with bright emerald green eyes, and natural white hair. The navy demanded to test for modifications of any sort. The anti-aging treatments were the only changes allowed by naval standards.

  The joke was almost nobody looked like his best friend, Jeri. The charcoal black skin, while not the rarity of Jackie’s skin, was extraordinarily rare inside the Federation. Jeri, being not just unusual, but having very attractive features, had always been approached by women wanted to steal him away from his wife, whom he loved eternally.

  Josh knew nothing would happen between Jeri and his XO, but between Jeri’s unusually dark skin and Jackie’s unheard of white skin, he just cracked up at the thought of those two serving on the same bridge. The Colt had two of the most unusual looking officers in the fleet. Apparently, his little joke was lost on Jeri.

  Perhaps I should retire... Josh thought to himself.

  “Josh, I worry about her, that’s all. I see her pushing herself, and not talking much.”

  “Well my friend, at least you’ll have the next three months of pirate patrol to drag it out of her!”

  “Crap,” Jeri said. “Waiter, another round! Quick!”

  Chapter 3

  Six days later

  Anderson Station

  Administrative Building

  “…so now we have the new patrol routes. Any questions?” Josh asked his captains.

  There were twelve of them in the room. Josh and his eleven destroyer captains. He wished there were more. He wished he had two modern cruisers instead of eleven destroyers past time for retirement.

  “So, we go into these systems, we shoot off more Troy’s, get more nothing, come back here, rinse and repeat?” Captain Timothy Merde asked.

&nbs
p; “Tim, we have a job to do. Freight has gone missing. People have gone missing. People with families, like yours. Goods that are needed for where they are going. Food, medicine, essential supplies. And no, I don’t expect you to shoot your Troy’s … no comments please”. Snickers erupted immediately.

  They are worse than children sometimes! Josh thought.

  “Allow me to show you something.”

  Josh pressed a button on the computer, and a hologram appeared.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce you to the new Mark-4b’s.”

  Talking, and even shouting broke out.

  “What the hell is a ‘4b’?” someone asked.

  “Just what we need, more broken equipment!” another exclaimed.

  “Folks, quiet! Please!”

  Everyone settled down.

  “While I know you all have been begging for new probes, and while the thought of getting a full complement of Mark-4’s makes you happy, the Mark-4b is not exactly a glorified beer can! Please hear me out as I cover the specifications!” Josh paused for a moment. “The Mark-4b’s have most of the same sensor suite as the Mark-4’s. A few of the toys have been subtracted that significantly reduce the cost. And for the mission at hand, these babies will be an asset! These are lightyears ahead of the Troy-15’s, but the full-on Mark-4’s are still reserved for the capital ships. Here, let’s look at specifics.”

  Josh turned on the wall screen...

  ##

  That evening, Josh was sitting at the bar with his favorite beer in his hand. He was pondering where this was all going, as there was a definite trend. On the one hand the loss of freight, some of it critical, and he didn’t even mention that some of it was military transportation. While only some of this piracy occurred in his sector, it was not an insignificant amount. He was not being reinforced. Yes, the Mark-4b’s would help with detection, but all of his captains had destroyers. All the destroyers were the old Centaur class. While not unusual in of itself, those were plentiful both in the fleet and the inventory of mothballed ships, what was unusual was the almost cavalier attitude the Admiralty had regarding his situation. His requests for supplies were treated as unimportant, and they denied every request he made for more modern ships. Getting the Mark-4b’s was an extraordinarily rare moment of cooperation from the powers that be.