Theogony 3: Terra Stands Alone Read online

  Terra Stands Alone

  Book Three of The Theogony

  By

  Chris Kennedy

  PUBLISHED BY: Chris Kennedy

  Copyright © 2014 Chris Kennedy

  All Rights Reserved

  Discover other titles by Chris Kennedy at:

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  License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

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  I would like to thank Linda, Jennie and Jimmy, who took the time to critically read this work and make it better. I would also like to thank my mother, without whose steadfast belief in me, I would not be where I am today. Thank you. This book is dedicated to my wife and children, who sacrificed their time with me so that I could write it.

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  Cover art by Genesis Graphic Design

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  Author’s Notes

  Note: When more than one race refers to a planet or star in Janissaries, the same name is used by both races in order to prevent confusion. Also on the topic of planet naming, the normal convention for planets is to take the name of the parent star and add a lower case letter (i.e., Tau Ceti ‘b’). The first planet discovered in a system is usually given the designation ‘b’ and later planets are given subsequent letters as they are found. In order to prevent confusion in Janissaries, the closest planet to the star in a star system is given the letter ‘a’, with the rest of the planets given subsequent letters in order of their proximity to the star.

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  You can ask me for anything, except time.

  ― Napoleon Bonaparte

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  Stargate Map

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  Contents

  Stargate Map

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from Book 1 of the Codex Regius

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  Prologue

  Terran Government Headquarters, Lake Pedam, Nigeria, December 10, 2020

  The president watched as the battlecruiser emerged from the stargate. Within seconds, light flared as the first of the antimatter mines guarding the stargate detonated alongside it. Designed for stargate penetration, the ship’s shields absorbed the blast, and its lasers began firing as the battlecruiser’s crew tried to fight its way clear.

  Unlike the static minefields of old, though, this minefield was mobile; each of the 50 pound devices had a motor that gave the mine a final burst of speed toward its target. As the inner layer of mines attacked the warship, the next layer moved inward, filling in the spaces of the mines that had detonated or been destroyed. Flashes showed that some of the ship’s lasers found their targets, but space is big. The mines, comparatively, were very small, and the asymmetric nature of the threat made them extremely difficult to counter. The battlecruiser was caught in a web of mines and a second mine exploded. A third mine exploded seconds later, overloading the warship’s shields with its 215 megaton blast.

  A second battlecruiser emerged from the stargate in time to see a fourth mine detonate alongside the first battlecruiser, engulfing its engines in the explosion. 30 anti-ship missiles, launched from canisters at point blank range, followed closely after the explosion. Powerless, the ship’s crew was unable to defend itself, and the missiles hit the center of the ship from opposite sides, ripping it in half.

  The second battlecruiser was unable to go to the first ship’s aid, as the second warship’s emergence had triggered the next layer of mines. Its crew tried to avoid the fate of the first ship and successfully eliminated over 30 of the mines as they approached. Unfortunately for the crew, the minefield numbered in the tens of thousands, and it was not long before one got close enough to activate. Again, the first detonation was absorbed by the ship’s shields. The second and third mines exploded nearly simultaneously, their blasts overlapping to knock out the battlecruiser’s shields. The ship’s crew tried to make it back to the safety of the stargate by flipping the ship end over end, but the ship’s path was blocked by the emergence of the battleship that followed the battlecruisers into the Solar System.

  Over 1.5 miles long and massing over 4 million tons, the battleship was better prepared for the minefield; it had an improved tracking system that could find and target the mines. It also had over 150 lasers and gamma ray lasers (grasers) of various sizes with which to defend itself. As the crew identified the missile canisters for what they were, counter-missiles leapt out from missile ports to preemptively target them. Working in concert, the battleship’s crew methodically tried to cut its way out of the minefield.

  Programmed to target the aft end of a ship, one of the mines reached the back of the second battlecruiser, and power on the ship died as its engines were destroyed in a massive explosion. Another mine struck the front of the ship, vaporizing a 45 feet long section of its hull and splitting a large seam down the starboard side. Fluids, people and equipment were sucked out of the ship as it tumbled out of control. Worried that the ship might make it past the minefield, the defenders launched five more missiles from the periphery in a coup de grace that destroyed it.

  Although several mines exploded alongside the battleship, none succeeded in breaching its shields. Seeing that the battleship might make it through their defenses, the Solar System’s guardians activated all of their manual defenses, and anti-ship missiles began launching at the invader from all sides. Each canister only held one missile, but the defenders had over 1,000 of the large canisters, and they launched 250 missiles at the battleship. From a range of only a million miles, the battleshi
p’s crew only had seconds to intercept the missiles accelerating at over 100,000 times the force of gravity (100,000 G’s).

  Counter-missile missiles leapt from ports all around the battleship, and counter-missile lasers retargeted on the incoming ship killers, but there wasn’t time to stop them all. 87 missiles from the first volley made it through the ship’s defenses. Almost half of these spent themselves on the battleship’s redundant shields, but the battleship’s shields finally failed, and the Terran missiles tore gaping holes down its sides.

  Seeing that they were incapable of stopping all of the weapons arrayed against them, the battleship’s crew rotated the ship to retreat to the safety of the stargate. Flashes of light could be seen down the length of the battleship as another volley of 250 anti-ship missiles struck home, killing its defenses and its defenders. As the ship accelerated back toward the stargate, one of the missiles hit the aft end of the ship, knocking out one of its four engines.

  The battleship neared the safety of the stargate, but two more mines were in its path and detonated alongside it. One hit the middle of the craft, taking a 100’ bite out of its side. The other mine functioned as intended and struck the back of the ship, where it knocked out two more of the warship’s engines and caused the fourth to go out of line. Already screaming at maximum power, the remaining engine skewed the ship as the off-center thrust spun the ship in a circle. Its crew and the system’s defenders watched in horror as the massive ship hit the stargate sideways, and an invisible knife cut the ship in half. The aft end of the ship entered the stargate and went through, while the front half spun off to the side of the stargate, unpowered and out of control.

  The general in charge of the briefing turned off the recording. “As you can see, Mrs. President,” he said, “we were successful in stopping the Drakuls from entering the system; however, it looks like part of their ship made it back to the other side of the stargate. They are going to know that there is a civilization on this side, and they will probably come through next time in much greater force. If they do, we are going to be in trouble... just stopping those three ships used up over half of the defenses we prepositioned at the gate.”

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  Chapter One

  TSS Vella Gulf, Dark Side of the Moon, December 8, 2020

  “General Quarters! General Quarters! All hands man your battle stations. Launch all alert fighters! General Quarters! General Quarters! All hands man your battle stations. Now launch all alert fighters!” Calvin rolled out of his bed. What? Another drill? It seemed like all they’d done since they got back was drill and drill and drill. As he started throwing on his flight suit, he realized with a start that the voice hadn’t said, “This is a drill.” There were only two things that they’d call general quarters for, a loss of pressure or actual combat.

  Drakuls, he thought, lacing up his boot. A shiver went down his back. The Drakuls were the Terran’s worst nightmare, a race of 10-feet tall bloodsucking frogs that were headed toward the Earth. The Drakuls must have come through the stargate. That was the only reason they’d launch the fighters.

  “Attention all hands,” said a voice over the intercom; “make preparations to get underway. The Vella Gulf will lift in 10 minutes. I say again, the Vella Gulf will lift in 10 minutes.”

  The squadron commander for the Vella Gulf’s 12 fighters, Lieutenant Commander Shawn Hobbs, or ‘Calvin’ to his aviator friends, had the closest stateroom to the squadron’s ready room, so he was the first one there, aside from the three officers that had been watching a Tri-D movie on the ready room’s Mrowry TV.

  “What’s up, Clarisse?” he asked the duty officer, Lieutenant Clarisse Boudreau.

  “Ops just called, sir,” said the Canadian officer, “and we’ve got Drakul ships coming through Stargate #1. Two battlecruisers and a battleship so far, eh? The defenses are responding and Skywatch has asked for all available ships to get there ASAP.”

  “Shit,” said Calvin, “it’s just us. The Terra hasn’t returned from Epsilon Eridani yet, and the battlecruiser is still being fixed.” The Terra, the Earth’s newest (and only) battleship, had just taken its first crew aboard, and they were on a short cruise to get everyone trained. The fleet’s other acquisition, a still unnamed battlecruiser that the Vella Gulf captured on its last mission, was also unable to lift, as maintenance crews were still repairing the graser holes that the Terra made through its bridge and galley.

  The only Terran defenses still in-system were the Vella Gulf, a 3,000 year-old cruiser, and its complement of 12 space fighters. There was another cruiser, but it was a Mrowry ship, not Terran. A race of felinoid warriors that looked like Bengal tigers, the Mrowry had been a space-faring nation since the beginning of the Neolithic age on Earth. Even if the Mrowry cruiser joined them, two cruisers versus one of the battlecruisers wasn’t a fair fight. And the battleship wouldn’t even notice as it drove over them. “Damn it,” said Calvin, shaking his head. “I can’t wait for a battle where we’re not fighting ships that are bigger than we are. Is the Emperor’s Paw responding?”

  “Yes sir,” replied Lieutenant Boudreau. She looked at her watch. “The Mrowry are going to be lifting in about 15 minutes.”

  “Good,” said Calvin. At least they wouldn’t go to their deaths alone.

  “Hi Skipper,” said Lieutenant Sasaki ‘Supidi’ Akio as he entered the ready room. “I’m ready to go when you are.” The Japanese man was the officer that normally flew with Calvin as his Weapons System Officer (WSO), the person who operated the navigation, communications and weapons systems for their space fighter. Ever since being crewed with Calvin, Supidi had exhibited an almost unnatural ability to show up whenever Calvin needed him.

  “They said to start launching as soon as we’re ready,” said Clarisse. “Skipper, you’ve got Asp 01 and Guppy, you’re in Asp 02.”

  Calvin looked at the two other officers that were in the ready room, Lieutenant Terry ‘Guppy’ Gupton and his WSO, Lieutenant Martyn ‘Tinman’ Sinclair. Both had just checked into the squadron the week before. Although they had both received their implants and downloaded their training, neither had actually flown in the fighters yet. Their whole experience with flying space fighters was a two-hour flight in a simulator. There was also the whole love/hate relationship, as Gupton was from Australia and Sinclair from New Zealand. Their relationship was mostly good-natured...most days.

  Still, they flew well together in the simulator; when things got ugly, they melded into a good team. “He’s not half bad...for an Aussie,” Sinclair was heard to have said afterward. Still, if there were Drakuls coming through the gate, the time for Earth-borne conflicts was well past. “Man up 02,” Calvin said. “We’ll try and take it slow at first, but we’ve got to get out there.”

  “Yes sir!” they chorused, and the four men left to get into their fighters.

  Bridge, Drakul Ship Mangler, Ross 154, December 8, 2020

  Captain Bullig hated most of the things about his life. He especially hated his ship, which had been built by one of the conquered alien races. The Overlord had given him command of it as punishment; the nine feet high ceiling was far too low for his 10 feet height. He had to walk around the ship stooped, which made it uncomfortable to go anywhere. While a new bed had been installed in his cabin, the room itself was only nine feet long, so he was unable to stretch out. He hated the race of giant caterpillars that had built the ship. The only thing they were good for was dinner.

  He hated this star system. The star known as Ross 154 was a red dwarf that had two planets in its habitable zone (the distance from the star where it was warm enough to have liquid water, but not so hot as to boil it off). Unfortunately, both of the planets were barren, as Ross 154 was also a flare star. The star would flare up every few decades, reaching out to cook off anything growing on the two planets. This occurred across the star’s spectrum, from x-rays to radio waves, sterilizing the planets at an unpredictable rate before the star subsided again to its normal luminosity. It was a
waste of prime real estate that could have been used to support a civilization worthy of conquering. He hated being stationed here.

  “The battle group is proceeding to the stargate,” said his communicator.

  “Good,” said Bullig. “I hope they all die miserably.” He had petitioned to be included in the Drakul exploratory force, but had been denied. He hated all of the crews that had been picked to go, while he stayed behind on this side of the stargate. The Mangler was the system’s picket. Its crew’s mission was to wait behind and, if an enemy came through the gate, to run back to the High Command and warn them.

  “Why is that?” asked Commander Chark, the Mangler’s executive officer (XO). “Don’t you want them to go and find new planets to pillage and plunder?”

  “No,” said Bullig, “I want me to go and find new planets for me to pillage and plunder. Waiting here on the chance that we’ll need to run back to the High Command is not a worthy task for a warrior. I want to KILL!”

  The ship’s steward brought Bullig a punch bowl full of one week-old hatchlings. When he was in this kind of a fury, the crew had learned that it was better to give him something to take his anger out on, rather than the bridge crew. They were already starting to run short-handed, and they’d only been in the Ross 154 system for three weeks.