Interloper (The Askirti Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  Halfway down the first hallway, she came across Phillip Black. He was a tall, handsome man who did not look very pirate-like. Clean cut, shaven, all his teeth, and nice ones at that. His clothes even looked fresh.

  “I have a package for you,” said Amy, holding it between the bars to his cell.

  Mr. Black raised an eyebrow, “Oh?” as he reached over for it. He opened it, while the marine sergeant just stood there, waiting with anticipation for what it could be. Phillip already had a decent guess. He peeled away the paper, then opened the box, he was not disappointed. He reached into the box, pulled out a plasma pistol, very rare, very expensive, very illegal. Immediately pointed it at Sergeant Amy Stulord and blasted a hole in her chest large enough to put two hands through, she was dead before she hit the ground.

  He then used the pistol to break open his cell by melting the locking mechanism. Once out, he used the key card on the dead sergeant’s body to open the rest of the cells. Almost eight hundred angry pirates were now loose right in the middle of Anderson Station.

  ##

  Jackie was enjoying a workout in the gym when the klaxons went off.

  “Alert, alert, prisoners have escaped! Seek safe haven while station security apprehends the prisoners,” the audio kept saying.

  Oh crap! Jackie thought.

  Protocol in this situation was to secure all attached starships immediately and cast off, at least for the ones with an operational skeleton crew. The ones that were empty, well, those would be a target in such a situation, if they even made it that far. There was no way the navy would allow the pirates to take a military starship. Once the pirates figured out how trapped they were, this would get real bloody.

  Armory! There was one nearby. It was also the one closest to the brig. Jackie ran for the elevators, then stopped herself, turned and ran towards the stairs.

  As she went down two flights, she heard yelling, then the buzz of gunfire. She cracked open the door, and there were pirates everywhere! And what saddened her was to see so many dead marines. Whatever happened here, it was quick, and it was bloody.

  A plan began to form, though, the pirates would need to secure critical sections of the station, but they could not use the PAUs, which required DNA from active military personnel.

  After a few minutes, the excitement at the armory calmed down, much of what the pirates would take had been taken, and only a token force left behind, maybe fifteen men.

  Jackie quietly slid the door open. Too bad the lights were still on, it would make her stealth truly invisible to these guys. At least they couldn’t hear here, not with her anti-sound going active.

  She rounded the first corner, taking the pirate by surprise and breaking his neck. Now she had his weapons. A carbine, a pistol, and four knives.

  Not a bad start.

  Next, she rounded the corner in complete silence. Even with the lights on, people often would not notice someone entering a room unless they were looking in that directly. These losers weren’t. They were arguing with each other about some girl, probably a former prisoner of theirs, a survivor!

  The insurrection had to end fast! The survivors were in a different section of the station, hopefully safe, and could not be allowed to end up back in the hands of these pirates! Barely breathing, she took a knife in each hand and threw. The knives both landed on target, striking each pirate in the neck, delivering a fatal blow for each.

  Her stealth was almost up. While not gunfire, the sounds of those two dying would make it to someone. Quickly she ran into the adjoining room with her newly acquired carbine and with machine-like precision killed pirates.

  Her movements seemed erratic to the untrained eye, but she was delivering one shot to each pirate right in the head. None would need a second shot. Also, she was shooting them in order of threat level. The ones closest to her or aiming a weapon anywhere in her direction were top of the list. This quick thinking rapid behavior was another gift from her ancestry.

  Jackie made her way to the powered armor, got in it and began the power up sequence. The armor recognized her immediately and resized accordingly. A lot of resizing was needed as she was a small woman. Once the system was on, it closed around her, guaranteeing that at least on Anderson Station, she was second to none in firepower nor armor.

  She ran out as fast as she could and towards engineering, it was closest of the obvious primary targets. She heard noises that sounded like the buzzing of laser fire and realized she could hurt or kill innocent bystanders or station marines with this behemoth. She stopped to flip through the menu and chose “safe kill.” Sounded like an oxymoron, but the principle was that if the system matched a list of targets to facial, and the systems lasers were activated, it would deliver a precise shot at the subject. It was much slower, but much safer and used none of the larger weapons that could damage the station. She could always override with a simple point and shoot. She smiled with a wicked grin as she linked in the prisoner manifest to the facial recognition for “safe kill.”

  She rounded another corner for engineering and much more suddenly than she was ready for she was in the thick of things. Gunfire, marines, and pirates were everywhere! Her armor immediately registered multiple hits but taking no damage. It also reported all the pirates it was killing, all automatically.

  She smiled again. I could get used to this!

  For engineering, she walked around in the contested areas, and the suit did most of the killing. The remaining marines there were jubilant to see her!

  She looked at one of the HUD indicators for the number of kills. From that one encounter, she was already at forty-one! She shivered to think what an enemy PAU could do if let loose here on Anderson Station.

  There was no time to stand still, she had to get to the next closest prime target, the central command center. She needed to go up a few floors, and there was no way this PAU would make it up in the stairwell. She decided to risk it with the elevators.

  Getting in, it was a cargo-sized elevator, perhaps large enough for three PAUs. Once the doors closed, the dinkiest music came on that had Jackie rolling her eyes.

  To her surprise, the elevator ride was boring, and absolutely nothing happened. That is until the door opened.

  ##

  Rear Admiral Josh Waters was barricaded in the command center with much of his staff, waiting for the inevitable. How the prisoners got out was anyone’s guess, but an inside job made the most sense to him.

  Monitoring the pirate's progress from there had been downright depressing. They had mowed down so many people, marines, and naval personnel alike in cold blood. The marines, for their part, were giving them the business. They were well armed on the station, and the armory that fell to the pirates was not the only armory on the station. Anderson Station was a massive installation with over twenty armories. There was simply no way for the pirates to take the whole station, not with most of it automatically sectioned and sealed once the alarms went off, and many of those sections were full of heavily armed marines! But they did not have to take it all. The command center would do nicely.

  BAM BAM BAM

  He knew it was only a matter of time. They had the key entranced all blocked off.

  BOOM! The walls shook!

  Even though he knew it was useless, he changed the camera’s view to the area just outside the secure command center. Better to watch than merely wait for them to get through the bulkhead. What he saw was both encouraging, and unsettling. There sat a PAU. Seeing those loose on a designated target planet was normal during operations. Seeing those free on a space station was almost unthinkable!

  While he watched, the PAU unleashed weapons meant only for planet-side incursions, and considered insane to use inside a station surrounded by the vacuum of space. The plasma cannon fired first, taking out the first set of barricades, the thirty well-armed pirates behind it, and much of the surrounding structure. Then it fired rockets down the corridor taking out at least as many pirates at the opposite end, and wrecking muc
h of the subflooring and ceilings. Were they close to the exterior of the station, which they were not, it would have been an utterly reckless move.

  It was a terrifying sight to see how much damage one PAU could do in so little time.

  The PAU moved swiftly to the dead and the dying. Using the massive mechanical hands, Josh watched in horror as the operator pulled the heads off the dead bodies and tossed them further down the corridor at the next group of pirates, a tactic he recognized as both brutal and efficient for taunting an opponent.

  Then with one of the severely injured pirates and much to the shock of Josh and his command staff, watching literally on the edge of their seats, the PAU grabbed at the torso and ripped him in half like it was nothing, tossing each half down the same corridor.

  Holy crap! Josh thought to himself.

  Josh looked at the monitor showing where the remaining pirates were, and there were still a lot of them, and they were terrified! By his estimate, there was at least forty still capable of putting up a fight.

  He turned another monitor on to the systems of the PAU itself, which was easily accessed by any interested command staff. There on a large screen sat not a burly marine, but the lithe woman with the whitest hair and skin he had ever seen, and those sparkling emerald green eyes. After a moment of shock, he remembered who that was. He could not believe his salvation was in this tiny naval officer who he had assigned to the Colt! What was she doing in a PAU? And what was that sound coming from one of the monitors?

  She’s actually listening to music while wiping the floor with these guys?

  Her vitals, all displayed on the screen, showed someone with the stress level of a slow walk, having a regular heartbeat and respiration. Her face showed no inflection as she raced to the pirates and picked one up in each mechanical hand and used them like a bat against the other pirates and pulled them limb from limb while she simultaneously leveraged both her lasers and plasma cannon to decimate anyone not in arms reach of her PAU.

  He watched in fascination as she showed zero emotion while cornering and butchering the remaining pirates in this section! She was so at peace. She looked like she could be watching a drama video, or doing her nails.

  Man oh man, I’m glad that one’s on our side!

  ##

  “Commander Campo, I am not one to stand on ceremony, that is why the small gathering here,” Josh said.

  Present were Rick, Jeri, Alexie, Rachel, and Emilia.

  “So, for bravery in the face of imminent danger, and going above and beyond the call of duty, I present to you the Medal of Valor. It is well deserved,” Josh said. “I also thought the more….intimate…setting would meld better with you than a larger audience would.”

  The setting was very informal, Josh’s favorite spot, and he was buying.

  “Thank you, sir,” Jackie responded, drink in hand.

  Medal of Valor. Now they will call me a hero! How do you get that by just taking out the trash? she thought.

  “And now, Jackie, speech!” Rick said enthusiastically.

  Now she was panicked, and it showed, which drew a few snickers from around the table. Some present were shocked just at the thought she could express emotion on any level.

  She thought about Orlando, she thought about her family. She thought about the families of those the pirates killed just on this station and how the needless deaths of those loved ones would devastate so many.

  “It is the right of every individual to live without fear of the unrighteous. It is why I joined the Federation. Those men ceased being men as they cared only about short term pleasures at the expense of so many lives. We are all better off for their passing,” Jackie said to a tipsy group.

  They all raised their glasses and drank in agreement.

  Chapter 12

  Anderson Station

  Office of Rear Admiral Josh Waters

  “Jackie, I know who you are,” Josh said. He wasn’t mad, or even upset sounding, but he just laid it out for her. “I received a confidential folio concerning Orlando, concerning you.”

  Jackie sat up a little straighter, with a feeling of shock. She did not show her concern, ever the cool professional.

  “I know you are from Earth. From Orlando. I know your age is not twenty-five, but forty. I know you were married and had children. I know you were a member of some local religious sect who called themselves Askirti.”

  Suddenly uncomfortable, she shifted in her seat. “What is it you want from me, sir?” Jackie asked him, working overtime to remain calm.

  “I just want to know what it is you are after. You have lived through something that nobody should have to suffer. You have seen more bloodshed than most would think possible in this lifetime. What do you want? Why are you here?”

  “Are you looking to get rid of me?”

  “Depends,” Josh responded.

  Her heart sank. She steeled herself before answering, “the Federation failed me, sir. It failed my family, my city and my planet in the most spectacular of ways. It is my goal and my sincerest hope that this federation will not fail like that again. My father taught me that for evil to have a place, good people only had to remain still. He also taught me that if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. My mission, sir, is to be part of the problem for all those who would jeopardize the innocent.”

  “Okay, let’s say I buy that. Why the lies? They seem unnecessary,” Josh asked.

  “Questions.”

  “Questions?”

  “Yes. I wanted to avoid questions. Everyone will ask, everyone will want details,” she said in a shakey voice. “It is not a part of my life I am willing to discuss with others.”

  “Okay, but the age thing? Why that lie?”

  “Every woman’s dream,” she said with enthusiasm and a hint of fear. “And I look young enough to get away with it.”

  Josh laughed. “I didn’t realize you had a sense of humor! Okay, look, I’m going to let you keep doing what you are doing. But remember this, I’m watching you.”

  “I will keep that in mind, sir. May I ask, have you informed the captain of this information?” Jackie asked nervously.

  “He knows you are from Earth, from Orlando. But none of the rest, yet.”

  She closed her eyes. Captain De Vitis is the only person to who she actually felt a connection. His friendship and his respect had become more valuable than she cared to admit. And he now knew at least one lie she has told.

  “I see,” is all she said.

  “Dismissed.”

  ##

  Jackie was back at the gym working out and drawing none too few stares. She noticed but rarely cared. The few who were foolish enough to approach her learned quickly to buzz off. She was here trying to process her place in this universe.

  She found that it was hard to keep people out. She was already more relaxed around Rick than she cared to admit. There were even times she felt the pull to open up more to her bridge crew. It was just so hard to go there. Her heart was a shattered wreck, and she was still using highlights at least once a week, usually two or three times a week.

  Just then, a young marine walked up to her.

  Oh please. Is it my lack of eye contact or my ‘drop-dead’ attitude that keeps them coming?

  “Excuse me, sir?”

  She kept doing her weight set.

  “Commander Campo?”

  Can’t take a hint.

  “And you would be?” she finally responded.

  “I am PVC Mark Turner, sir. I just wanted to say thank you. One of the marines killed during the pirate break-out was my girlfriend,” he looked down and paused. “I know it was an inappropriate relationship and all, being in my unit, but we really loved each other. I just wanted to thank the person who ended the men that ended the woman I loved.”

  She wanted to make a difference, and now that she had she was not sure what to say after misjudging him so badly.

  Okay, I feel like crap, but he deserves better than my sil
ence.

  “You are welcome. It felt good to get that scum off our station, if only in body bags.”

  “You are right, sir. I took down one of them, and it was pretty scary but downright satisfying. They certainly got what they deserved. In any case, I just wanted to say thank you.”

  With that, PVC Mark Turner walked off, leaving a Commander Campo lost in thought.

  ##

  “New orders,” Rear Admiral Josh Waters said.

  “If they were official, then you wouldn’t be issuing them in a bar!” Jeri De Vitis said casually, sipping his beer.

  “Ha, well there is that. And tell me, when was the last time I used my office when it was just you and me? This is my office away from my office.”

  They both snickered.

  “Listen, the pirate patrol is going on hold.”

  “Wait a minute. Tell me you didn’t use one of your favors?” Jeri ask.

  “No, these are official.”

  “Requesting me, or requesting a destroyer? You do have eleven of them to pick from.”

  “Well, you got me there. I think it’ll be a good change of pace for you and your crew,” Josh answered.

  “Well okay, what’s the gig?”

  “Escort duty.”

  Jeri raised an eyebrow. “And who might I ask we are escorting? Not sure this destroyer is useful for protecting many interstellar high-value targets!”

  They both laughed.

  “No, it’s nothing like that. You’ve read up on the new Titan-class battlecarriers?” Josh asked his friend.

  That got two eyebrows. “Yeah, a thing of beauty! Got to be married to the president or something to be running it though!”

  They laughed much harder this time.

  “The WFS Nemesis was commissioned two months ago, the first of the Titan-class. They will be going on a diplomatic mission to the Commonwealth to try to form some sort of treaty. God knows we don’t need another war with that crowd,” Josh responded.

  The Commonwealth was an empire nearly twice the size of the Westerly Federation and had gone to war with them no less than four times. Besides being much bigger, it was much wealthier and more technologically advanced too. Such were the benefits of having twice as many colonized worlds to rule and tax.