THE CRUCIBLE III E-Book

Robert Stetson

• Herausgeber: BookRix
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

Engage the ruling fist of the Galactic Empire in a fierce battle alongside the Spencer Family. This final epic battle among the stars engages the Fog Pirates and the Council of 12. Share with us, the surprising secret of how the Spencer family sets themselves free in this epic adventure. Blast your way through the cannibal Fog Pirates into the valley of stars known as the Crucible and clash with the evil Council of 12. Please, keep this surprising and most secret ending close to your vest.

Leseprobe

Robert Stetson

THE CRUCIBLE III

BookRix GmbH & Co. KG81371 Munich

CHAPTER 1 LIGHT THE JOLLY ROGER

I am Brent Spencer, son of Tex Spencer. Having served at my father’s side for a few fiery decades, I have become stout of heart and lean of body. I am much like a younger looking twin.

My eyes are steel grey and my face is bearded. I have the aura of a swashbuckler and it serves me well.

No one gets to see the tender side of me. It would undermine my mission. My clothes are neatly tailored and my shoes are finely crafted leather buffed up to a high luster.

If I look like I am rolling in credits it’s because I am.

Our relationship with the Galactic Elite started out as a war of the classes hundreds of years ago. It was more of a socio-political thing and then the animosity grew.

The secrets, the lies, and the hatred escalated with each passing incident until we teamed up with the Fog Pirates.

Our alliance with the Fog Pirates turned out to be a dreaded mistake, for we made them the military power they are today.

The Fog Pirates have attacked our positions.

Now we are opposing armies in an all-out conflict and the war is getting hotter.

Fifty years ago we found out the Fog Pirates had become the most despicable of creatures, namely cannibals.

We have tried without success to get the Galactic Elite to cooperate by joining forces with us in a war against the pirates. We have also ceased to subsidize the Fog Pirates.

Fortunately, the Galactic Elite never realized that the companies who form the Polygon were ever a part of the alliance, or that the alliance still exists, or that the Polygon is responsible for getting the pirates set up in business.

Isn’t it amazing that just when you think things can’t get any worse, they do?

The head of the Council of 12 is Varner Von-Helming, a stern leader with an unforgiving eye for those who would harm the Galactic Elite.

As President of Metro Net Investigations, Incorporated, I want to discuss the plight of Galactic Elite Star Troopers becoming canned pirate food.

Von-Helming isn’t in the least bit amused at the canned food comment. He does share his concern with the situation regarding the cannibalism of Galactic Elite troops fallen or captured in battle.

As he speaks he becomes more and more agitated until he is in a rage.

I simply say, “I know we’ve not been on the best of terms, but we need to pit the combined forces of the Galactic Elite and our industrial powers against the Fog Pirates.”

Councilman Von-Helming agrees to a meeting the following week, to include the leaders of eight companies I recommend to form an industrial resource in the battle.

Our goal is to work out a deal where we pool our efforts and resources to ultimately extinguish the Fog Pirates once and for all.

I suggest that since the eight companies are already allies of the Global Elite, the relationship should progress nicely.

Councilman Von-Helming speaks, “Brent Spencer of the Metro Net Investigations Corporation supervises the search and destroy activities along with our Investigative services.

“Arvin Camber, President of the Russell Construction Corporation will manage the building of battle ships. They will also supervise construction beyond Earth.”

I smile and think it is wise to keep ones friends close and ones enemies even closer.

It will be difficult to balance all we learn against the need to not tip our hand with regard to the companies not being part of the Polygon.

The remaining six companies are either nonprofit companies or service organizations. Their role will be important both during and after the war is won.

It’s been a week of waiting and the meeting is about to begin. We’re not used to taking a week to begin an emergency meeting.

The Galactic Elite are so big and bureaucratic they can’t seem to get out of their own way. Having a meeting with the Council of 12 is an effort that will try anyone’s patience.

We’re reminded of why we consider ourselves to be at war with them. You don’t meet with the Council of 12; you convene under the ruling fist of the Council of 12.

Councilman Von-Helming lords over the meeting and we are not allowed to speak except as such privilege is granted by Councilman Von-Helming.

We are granted the floor and show the recording of the prisoners being processed for food by the Fog Pirates. There is wide scale vomiting accompanied by sobs and screams. An old man leaps from the audience screaming, “Cannibals!”

He nearly makes it over the barrier between the proceedings and the public observation section. One of the prisoners in the recording was his daughter, Heather Huggins.

He keeps screaming, “You sent her to be eaten!”

The guards take him away and hold him for unruly conduct.

I am surprised when the Council orders him released from custody with a restraining order against him.

The restraining order says he is not to come within the proximity of any company represented or any official present here today.

Councilman Von-Helming shouts, “Guards!

“Clear the chambers at once.

“Get a cleaning crew in here.

“Get this stench cleaned up.

“We’re adjourned until tomorrow.”

Councilman Von-Heming spoke in short spurts to enable him to speak without having to inhale too often or too deep.

The Council of 12 confiscates the recording, which we are expecting them to do. When we brought the recording, we made sure it was not the only copy.

The meeting reconvenes the next morning with a far more amiable Councilman Von-Helming.

We are asking about some engine design modifications included in the engines of the Fog Pirates.

A Galactic Elite Engineer says they have captured a Fog Pirate Battle Cruiser and have discovered some strange design modifications.

Since the engines are of the Russell Corporation design, we assume that you include these.

I deny any cooperative trade with the pirates and say, “they must have done that when capturing our ships and modifying them”.

I suggest that they may include the location marker feature and the destruct feature in case their ships are ever captured.

It is a blessing that no Pirate ship was ever captured because they make sure the ship is destroyed if they lose a skirmish.

I inquire, “By what means does the Council of 12 come by the information regarding the modifications?

“No Pirate vessel has ever been captured by the Galactic Elite.”

Councilman Von-Helming turns his head as though he doesn’t hear me and asks what their engineer thinks.

The Engineer says, “That sounds plausible.”

Von-Helming announces, “We must guard against the attitude of revenge.

“If we go to war with the Fog Pirates, we must ensure that it’s for the right reasons.

“If we fabricate a reason, it will be short lived.”

I answer, “Yes, only a fool would fabricate a reason to attack a sovereign nation and then find no evidence of their claim after conquering the enemy.

“As far as reasons go, we need fabricate nothing.

“They attack your ships and ours, stealing our supplies and eating our soldiers, as well.”

Councilman Von-Helming agrees, saying, “We will partner with you in eliminating this enemy, but understand this, when the battles have ended, there will be no more alliance.”

I say, “We agree completely, but let us now agree on the terms.

“If we assist the Galactic Elite in eliminating the Fog Pirates, we get half the ships, half the loot and half the prisoners from each battle we assist with.

“When the war is done, we get their Jupiter area asteroid bases.”

Councilman Von-Helming objects, saying, “You’re asking for half of the ships, half of the loot, half of the prisoners and all of the outer Bases? Are you insane?”

I suggested that we should have half the prisoners to use in our prison manufacturing facilities.

When the war is over, we keep the bases because we will need them for our manufacturing recovery.

I ask, “How can we be allies if there is nothing in it for us?”

Up to now the Galactic Elite have had no success in battling with the Fog Pirates on their own. In a bit to save face, Councilman Von-Helming agreed that this would be fair.

The Galactic Elite will prosper more for now, but in the end, we will take enough to make the exchange more than profitable.

Arvin moves in close so as not to be heard, laughs and suggests that we will indeed “get it in the end” when the problem is solved and the Galactic Elite don’t need us anymore.

I further add that conflicts with the pirates will result in neither of us keeping all of the ships, prisoners and loot if we are not teamed with the Galactic Elite at the conclusion of the battle.

Councilman Von-Helming agreed that if we fight on our own, we keep the entire spoils of the battle.

We exit the meeting with good feelings about the outcome.

We adjourn to Psyche Base and have our own meeting in which we decide to take on the Fog Pirates as often as possible without the aid of the Galactic Elite.

I say, “I want all the ships, loot, prisoners and whatever else they might have in tow.

We give the Galactic Elite troops training and information.

We withhold information regarding our knowledge regarding their bases or the embedded beacons and ship destruct mechanisms we plant in their Battle Cruisers.

We team up on patrols, looking for the pirates. They are easy to find because they are looking for us as well.

Now we have three transponders in our ships, as we have encoded a transponder with the Galactic Elite ship signature. We also make patrols in the absence of the Galactic Elite.

Vargus and I are on the bridge of the “Night Crawler”, one of the six mega-ships of our Orion Class Vessels.

We are of sufficient size that ambient hydrogen in deep space propagates to our hull and forms an atmosphere.

We capture most of this hydrogen and use it for fuel in our hydrogen drive when we fire our thrusters and accelerate.

We leave a trail of gasses as we slide from the middle of the hydrogen cloud and part of the cloud spreads behind us leaving us to resemble a comet.

We’re accelerating now because we have spotted a cluster of large ships approaching.

The Captain turns to face the view screen and says, “This is Captain Negus of the Polygon Flagship Night Crawler. Identify yourselves and state your reason for approaching.”

The Operations Officer says, “Their transponders identify them as pirates, sir.”

The pirate ships continue their approach.

I inquire, “Why do they have transponders at all. What’s the advantage of broadcasting their identity?”

The Operations Officer answered, “The transponders serve to identify the pirates to each other sir. It’s so they don’t shoot at the wrong ships.

If they have no transponders and we turn off our transponders, then they would have no idea which ships are theirs and which ships are ours.”

The pirate ships continue their approach.

The view screen comes to life and the image of a stout man dressed all in leather leans forward with a stern stare.

He growls, “I am Pirate, Stomper Gofer.

“You will surrender your ship immediately.”

I can’t help but wonder if the leather is cowhide or human hide.

The Captain responds, “You are making a serious mistake, Stomper Gofer.

We are a Polygon vessel on a peaceful mission.”

The face in the view screen becomes red with anger, “We hereby claim the salvage value of your vessel, Captain. You have ten seconds to surrender. Neither you or your crew will be harmed if you do.”

Captain Negus was visibly controlling his rage.

He says, “Surrender? Be damned! We will never surrender, you cannibalistic slug.

“We set you up as an ally and now you turn on us, rob us and use us for meat?”

The pirate sits back and smiles. He glares at the Captain saying, “Your time is up. It’s a shame to scar and bruise the meat, but I had hoped you would refuse to surrender.

“I will ask my chef to prepare your liver for my dinner tonight.

“Thank you Captain.”

We hear a series of muffled thuds and the Captain shouts, “Grab Anchor!”

Everyone on the ship made a dive for a rail or other anchored object to hang onto. There was a loud bang. The whole ship shook and I am knocked off my feet.

“What the hell was that?” I yell.

Vargas has an eerie look on his face. I was somewhat puzzled until I realized that he is wearing an expression of stark terror and laughing at the same time.

“This is your first pirate attack, isn’t it?” he cries. He explains that the atmosphere of hydrogen is still on our hull.

The pirates launch a cluster of eggs containing liquid oxygen which mixes with the hydrogen.

The explosion that shook us so hard was the pirates firing their LASER guns at our ship to ignite the cloud. Combined with oxygen, hydrogen is explosive.

Vargas says, “The pirates call it lighting the Jolly Roger.”

The Captain is shouting orders and we are heavily into evasive maneuvers.

“We are armed to the teeth. Why not just blast them?” I ask.

“Lighting the Jolly Roger does more than rattle our teeth.” Vargas replies, “It lights the ship up like a fireball, notifying all the other pirates of our position.

Our LASER cannons are hydrogen gas fired and all our hydrogen was just depleted in the Jolly Roger fireball they lit on our hull.

“All we have to fight back with right now are the missiles and the drones. Those will have to be armed before they can be used.

“You might say they caught us with our proverbial pants down.”

Nearby, one of the crew overheard our conversation and explained while he feverishly worked the weapons control panel.

He says, “Right now we’re just trying to stay alive until we can recharge the LASERs and arm the missiles and drones. We’re making sure the oxygen is depleted and performing evasive maneuvers while we manually charge the LASER cannons so we can fire back.”

The gas seals slid over the cannon barrels and stored hydrogen reserve tanks fill the tubes. We managed to get a volley of LASER fire off.

One of the nine pirate ships spins out of control and vanishes in the dense darkness of space.

One of the remaining pirates brakes formation and follows the disabled ship.

Our missiles and drones hum to life and begin to be deployed.

After several minutes of fighting we see only three remaining pirate ships. They streak away into the darkness.

“We got seven of them!” the Captain says.

I stand there in disbelief, “The Polygon put the pirates in business long ago and made a generous deal with them.

“We give them ships and supplies and they are giving us the flaming Jolly Roger in return?

“Call Hawk Station and ask for backup.”

The Captain just shrugs and turns away.

Speaking with his back to me he says, “It happens all the time. Their ships are no match for ours.

“We made sure of that when we gave them to the pirates.”

I sit down and shake my head. “That’s not the point, Captain. We’ve furnishing these slugs with ships and supplies so they could attack the Galactic Elite freighters passing through this region.

We stopped giving them ships and weapons but they seem to be able to keep them running with not much more than spit and bailing wire.”

I got on the Com-Link and called Hawk Station to ask for back up.

Station Master Clive Hammer smiles and says, “Not to worry!

“We’re sending out a couple of Battle Cruisers within a short time.

“Hang on.”

The Captain says, “We put some hidden features in these Trojan horses.

Science Officer! Check your Science Officer’s display.”

The Science Officer told me, “There is no training required to use this feature. Just make sure you and any ally ships are clear of the blast.”

A new section of the display lit up. The Science Officer winked and says, “Time to rattle a few cages.”

Then two buttons appeared on the screen, one is marked “Press here to mark pirate vessels”, and another button is marked,” Press here to detonate pirate vessels.”

Another window opens up on the screen and it is both an automated and an animated recorded message.

The messenger in the recording says, “The pirates are attacking our ship. The button on your Science Officer’s panel is to be pressed only if you are out of rage of the fusion blast.

“It has a range of less than one quarter parsec. It dissolves the plasma capsule enclosing their fusion reactors resulting in a hydrogen reaction explosion.

“This automated feature makes sure you have achieved an adequate distance of over one quarter parsec before pressing the button.”

The Captain looks to the Science Officer and asks how far the pirates have gotten.

The Science Officer responds, “One half parsec, Sir.”

The Captain barks “Press the pirate attack button, Lieutenant.”

The Lieutenant responds, “Eye Sir. Press the pirate destruct button.”

He reaches up and presses the button to mark the Pirate Vessels, and then the other button began to flash marked, detonate the Pirate Vessels.

The Lieutenant presses the detonate button. One flash lit the view screen behind us for the aft sector.

The Captain looks puzzled, “There are three ships. We only detonated one.”

I say, “The Pirates are converting Galactic Elite ships to their fleet, sir.”

The Science Officer says, “The other two ships are within one quarter parsec of the ship that detonated, Sir.

“They are destroyed along with the ships we were able to destroy in the blast.”

Our reinforcements arrive in short order from Psyche and we are scanning the debris of the nine ships.

We find some salvageable vessels along with some loot and pirate prisoners in the aftermath.

We send their wounded to sick bay and gather the prisoners together on the main deck of the Flag Ship Night Crawler.

I am standing on a platform overlooking the prisoners, who are all restrained in neck collars.

Each guard has a controller. If a guard presses a panic button, all the collars in the room are activated. If a guard enters the three digit number displayed on a collar, only that collar is activated.

These collars are brutal, as they inflict sufficient pain to drive the prisoner to screams and ultimate unconsciousness.

Being physically elevated, I looked down on the crowd of what appeared to be about two hundred prisoners.

I make sure they know that, unlike the scum they are, we don’t eat our prisoners.

I laughingly say, “If you taste like you smell, I won’t be able to keep my dinner down.”

One of our guards flies into a rage and screams, “I think we should roast each of these pigs alive!”

CHAPTER 2 ROASTED PIG

The guard pushes the panic button and holds it down until two of the other guards wrestle the controller from him.

The two guards put their hand on his shoulder and speak quietly to him. The three of them stroll from the room.

I ask, “What’s going to happen to him?”

General Weld replied, “They’re taking him to the Officer’s Club and the three of them will have some drinks together and discuss his pain.

“ He lost his wife to the Fog Pirates and we’re not going to blame him for his rage.”

I turn to face the general and ask, “He isn’t going to be disciplined?

“He isn’t even going to be reprimanded for his actions?”

The General looks at me and just smiles. I swear I heard a chuckle under his breath.

He says, “That man is a good soldier. He is up for possible promotion next month.

“I’m going to award him that promotion effective immediately along with the Star of Valor.

“You bleeding hearts don’t care if soldiers die defending your petty property, but you get all righteous when we display our feelings.

“Do you have any more questions?” I look out over the heap of two hundred comatose prisoners.

It’s going to take a long time to carry each of these pirates out on a stretcher and place them in their respective holding cells.

We need a plan to accelerate the process of destroying the Fog Pirates before they bleed away our resources for the next six generations. Also, the thought of one more person remaining cattle to feed these cannibals is a disgusting proposition.

The Galactic Elite military meet with us in a military strategy meeting.

It’s going much better than the Council of 12 meeting we attended in that we seemed to have the upper hand.

We present our strategy and tactics which are met with eager acceptance by the Galactic Elite Generals.

I will coordinate the effort and the Galactic Elite soldiers will take direction from me.

We explain that since seven people are pooling their resources to fund our contribution to this war, we will call our segment of the allied forces, the Polygon.

I have prepared a plan that should shorten the duration of our war with the Fog Pirates, but it will cost us in the number of usable bases we recover at the end of the war.

We have to realize that in any endeavor, any gain in one area results in a loss in another area. It’s a basic rule in engineering circles. It’s also true in warfare. You can’t gain an advantage without cost.

The Galactic Elite have a plan to create expendable soldiers for the conflict. They are downsizing hundreds of thousands of workers while they choke the economy.

With people going into bankruptcy and foreclosure, hundreds of thousands of young eligible people will join the military in financial desperation. They and the Goons are the cannon fodder.

I propose a plan and code name it Operation Star Fire. I propose that we form three armadas of two hundred ships per armada.

That means the Galactic Elite and the Polygon each have to come up with six hundred Battle Cruisers.