The Golden Horde (The Revelations Cycle Book 4) Read online

  The Golden Horde

  Book Four of the Revelations Cycle

  By

  Chris Kennedy

  PUBLISHED BY: Chris Kennedy

  Copyright © 2017 Chris Kennedy

  All Rights Reserved

  Get the free prelude story “Shattered Crucible”

  and discover other titles by Chris Kennedy at:

  http://chriskennedypublishing.com/

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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 Patty, 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 I could write it.

  I would also like to thank Jim Beall for his assistance with several aspects of the physics and biology in “The Golden Horde.” Any remaining errors are mine, in spite of his expert aid.

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  Cover Design by Brenda Mihalko

  Original Art by Ricky Ryan

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  “When the Lamb broke the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, ‘Come.’ I looked, and behold, an ashen horse; and he who sat on it had the name Death; and Hades was following with him. Authority was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by the wild beasts of the earth.”

  ― Revelation 6:8

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  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Titles by Chris Kennedy

  Connect with Chris Kennedy Online

  Excerpt from Book One of the Omega Wars:

  Excerpt from Peacemaker:

  Chapter 1

  25 Miles East of Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Earth

  The Tortantulas covered the hills at the edge of First Sergeant ‘Mun’ Enkh’s vision like a black blanket. If Mun looked hard enough, she could see the hillside moving, crawling with the giant spiders. She had never seen Tortantulas wait before, and it was disconcerting; normally, they threw themselves into combat recklessly and attacked at the first chance. In fact, they usually only took contracts that offered maximum carnage, which didn’t bode well for the waiting Humans.

  They should have charged, but they hadn’t. Obviously, there was someone from another race in charge of them. Based on that observation alone, Mun suspected a Veetanho lurked somewhere in their command structure, holding their chains until the exact moment the time was right. Tactical experts, the Veetanho rarely lost; Mun knew the attack would commence at the worst possible time…for her.

  The spiders continued to mill just outside the effective range of the Human mercenaries’ weapons, almost daring them to waste some of the ammunition she knew they would need once the attack began. With that many Tortantulas, she wasn’t sure there was enough ammo on the entire planet to stop their assault, much less the limited amount her battalion carried. It looked like someone had emptied an entire Tortantula world and sent its population here.

  She scanned behind her; the last of the noncombatants had emerged from the escape tunnel and were running as fast as they could to where the shuttles waited two miles down the ravine. As noncombatants, they were more used to sitting on their butts in the rear echelons than to this sort of physical exertion. “Running as fast as they could” was barely more than a quick walk for many of them. Her job was to hold off the spiders until the shuttles were safely away, but she could see that was going to be like holding back the tide. This was the worst possible time for an attack.

  The enemy commander must have realized it, too, for at some unseen signal, the Tortantulas moved forward as one, the blanket flowing forward smoothly. Mun shook her head inside her Combat Assault System, Personnel, or CASPer. Tortantulas never flowed forward smoothly. There was definitely a Veetanho nearby.

  “Here they come!” Lieutenant Colonel James Laverno transmitted. Not really necessary, Mun thought; the spiders had been the sole focus of the battalion’s combined attention ever since they had formed up.

  “Mark your targets!” Mun added. “Even though they look like a solid mass, they aren’t. Stay in your sectors and pick a target for every shot.”

  She activated the battalion’s targeting program, and symbology appeared on each of the trooper’s displays showing the area each was assigned to defend. When the spiders got closer, it would change to a defensive arc; right now, their targets were far enough away that the lines extended nearly straight out.

  With a thought, she armed all of her suit’s weapons. The eight-foot-tall powered armor currently mounted a heavy magnetic accelerator cannon, or MAC, on her left arm, a 15mm autocannon on the right arm, and a missile pack on the right shoulder. The Tortantulas wore armor on most of their exposed surfaces so lasers were usually a waste of time.

  Although it looked like a wall of spiders, there were places in the line where some of the spiders were slightly slower. Missiles arced out from across the battle line as the Humans tried to break the cohesion of the Tortantulas’ advance. She targeted three, and missiles leapt from her shoulder to detonate on the targeted aliens, killing them and wounding a number of other spiders in the area. The missiles also left a gap in the lines…until spiders from the following ranks sprinted forward to fill them.

  Unlike many races who wouldn’t attack without their comrades on both sides of them to provide support, the Tortantulas didn’t care. The spiders in the lead, who suddenly found themselves without their supporting squad mates, only raced faster to get among the hated enemy who had killed them.

  A lone Tortantula is killable, though, and the battalion’s MACs, autocannons, chain guns, and heavy machine guns opened up across the front to pick them off. Unfortunately, killing huge numbers of the 10-foot-wide Tortantulas rarely stopped their advances; no matter how many you killed, they just kept coming. At least the dead aliens were big enough their corpses provided obstacles that slowed the following ranks as they had to go around.

  The firepower of the 170 CASPers was enormous, but they were spread out over a mile-wide front, with huge cliffs on either side of the ravine; each trooper had to cover over 30 feet of battlespace. Mun knew the ravine widened behind them; they would get even more spread out when they retreated.

&
nbsp; Despite horrific casualties, the Tortantulas continued to flow forward. The Humans couldn’t kill them fast enough, and it was quickly apparent the Humans would need to give ground, or they would be overrun. Mun had once read a historical report that said the worst thing in all of warfare was to be on the receiving end of a cavalry charge. Whoever had written that had never seen Tortantulas. The ground shook like a minor earthquake, and they seemed all but unstoppable. Worse, they hadn’t even fired a round at the Humans yet. It was overwhelming to see them ignore the devastation they were receiving and keep coming, and Mun had experienced it before. For the newbies, it was suit-wetting time.

  “Battalion, stand by to conduct a fighting withdrawal up the canyon,” Lieutenant Colonel Laverno ordered. Good, Mun thought; the officer had seen it, too. She checked her rear screens; the noncombatants were at least a half mile away. “Execute the fighting withdrawal.”

  Along with the rest of the battalion, she activated her jumpjets, and she flew into the air to land 50 feet back from her original position. At the height of her jump, she marked two new targets and launched missiles at them upon landing.

  The icon for Private Esendai Enkh went red in her display. He was dead.

  “I’ve got hypervelocity rounds incoming!” one of the sensor operators called. “The spiders have riders!”

  Gichii. Of course the lead Tortantulas would have Flatar riders. The Humans might have stopped the advance otherwise. Aliens that looked like foot-long chipmunks, the Flatar used hypervelocity pistols that fired a really small projectile at an incredible velocity. The bullet didn’t have much mass, but the kinetic energy it carried from the velocity was enormous. The dead private’s body, and the nearly half-ton suit he wore, were knocked backward by the impact.

  “Continue moving,” Mun ordered. “Even when you aren’t withdrawing, keep moving to make yourselves harder targets.”

  The battalion continued to withdraw, and more troopers were hit. When one of the CASPers went down, the ones on either side shifted to fill in the gap, with the rest of the battalion shifting slightly to cover the resulting gaps.

  “Damn it, Berke,” Sergeant Stan Jones, one of the squad leaders, radioed, “get back in formation!”

  Mun shifted her heads-up display to show the whole battlefront while she continued to pick off Tortantulas, and she immediately saw the problem. Private Berkelun Enkh was out of place. Way out of place. She had jumped to the right, probably to avoid terrain, but had gone almost all the way over to the next CASPer in line, leaving a huge gap in the line. Since she was still alive, the trooper to her left, her squad leader, Sergeant Jones, hadn’t moved over to fill in the gap.

  The spiders had seen it, though, and were rushing to take advantage of it.

  Mun activated her jets and jumped toward the opening as Sergeant Jones and Private Enkh both jumped toward each other to fill in the gap. Unfortunately, both soldiers chose the same landing spot and Private Enkh landed on top of Sergeant Jones half a second after he had touched down. Both soldiers went down in a tangle of metal.

  Mun jumped again, trying to position herself to cover them, but the two soldiers were overrun by the Tortantulas, and both suits showed red within half a heartbeat. She touched down in the center of the gap and blasted back into the air, firing the last of her missiles to break up the mass of spiders skittering into the gap. If she didn’t slow their advance, the spiders would be in a position to flank the rest of the battalion.

  Her missiles were effective, blowing huge holes in the ranks of the spiders, but the rest kept coming and were nearly upon her. Mun bounced back from the throng, but could see she was now the focus of all the nearby Flatar. She hit her right jet to throw off their aim, but a round hit her left boot, destroying its jumpjet. Unable to control her descent, she hit nearly horizontally, crashing onto her left side and rolling to a stop. A variety of yellow and red lights appeared in front of her blurred vision.

  Mun shook her head to clear her vision. One of the Tortantulas was already on top of her, its Flatar rider aiming his pistol down at her. The last thing she saw was her tactical display. The spiders had broken through the gap in the line. While some of them fired down the Human line in enfilade, others raced off to chase down the fleeing noncombatants. She had a second to realize they had failed, again.

  Then the Flatar fired, killing Mun instantly.

  The Golden Horde Headquarters, 20 Miles East of Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Earth

  Sansar Enkh removed her helmet, and her long, straight black hair fell into her almond-shaped eyes. She pushed it back to reveal her broad face with a sigh. The Horde had failed to stop the assault. Again. She stood up and stretched.

  “Sorry, Colonel Enkh,” the computer programmer responsible for the simulation said. He stood up out of respect. Although average height for a Mongol at five and a half feet, he towered over his commanding officer, who was an inch under five feet. “I thought they were going to make it that time, ma’am, and one of the shuttles did make it off. I mean, they were doing a great job holding off the Tortantulas, right up until the end when it all went to…”

  “When it all went to shit,” Sansar replied. “Yes, they did look better on this run, but ultimately, it didn’t make any difference. The Horde all died, as did two shuttle loads of people and material. I have to tell you, though, the representation was exactly what I was trying to portray; your simulation was spot-on. I couldn’t have asked for any better.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” the programmer answered, a glow suffusing his cheeks.

  While Sansar smiled at him, she shuddered inside. Yes, the simulation had looked exactly like what she had intended…it was exactly the same as she had dreamed it the last three nights. It was all she could think about as she awoke in a cold sweat, the sheets torn from the bed as she visualized herself jumping, always jumping, trying to escape the black tidal wave coming for her Horde. She couldn’t get the image from her head—no matter what she did, she couldn’t get away…and no matter what the Horde did in the simulation, they couldn’t stop the waves of spiders from rolling over the people she was sworn to protect.

  But she hadn’t participated in the simulation. Would her presence have turned back the Tortantulas? Would one of her actions be what it took to win the battle? She sighed. She didn’t see any way the Horde could have fought better; the Horde’s leaders had performed flawlessly. And still the civilians in two of the shuttles had died.

  They had failed…again.

  25 Miles East of Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Earth

  The simulation ended, and Mun’s suit was released from the stasis lock that had held her prisoner after her “death” at the hands of the Flatar hypervelocity pistol. Although she had been able to watch the rest of the defense from her suit, she hadn’t been able to talk to anyone. There were a couple of opportunities where the battalion could have done things differently; however, once the Tortantulas broke through the line, for all intents and purposes, the defense was over. Able to pour raking fire down the Humans’ line, the Tortantulas had finally pulled out the weapons they had been carrying—missile launchers—and wiped out a large number of the Horde’s forces at close range.

  After that, the rout had been on.

  “Let’s go, everyone,” Lieutenant Colonel Laverno transmitted. “Battalion debrief in 15 at the shuttle launch pad.”

  Mun decided to walk a bit of the distance, rather than jump there, in order to get some of the bruises and stiffness out of her body from her crash. It had been a pretty serious one; she hadn’t hit that hard in a long time. Although the defensive battle had been a simulation, the crash had been all too real; her suit would need some serious maintenance before it was ready to operate again.

  Her operational picture still worked, though, and she saw two of the battalion’s suits weren’t headed toward the debrief. Sergeant Jones and Private Berkelun Enkh. She tried to call them, but neither answered.

  “I’m going back to check on Sergeant Jones and Private
Enkh,” Mun called, turning back around. “I can’t reach them on the radio. Their suits may have sustained serious damage in their collision.”

  Mun jumped to where the datalink showed their suits, and she landed next to them. Both suits were open and unoccupied. Shaking her head, she opened her canopy. With it open, she could hear yelling from the north, but she couldn’t see anything due to a small hillock.

  “It’s all your fault,” a male voice yelled, followed by a skin-to-skin slapping sound. Mun jumped down and raced around the intervening terrain. “We could have won that time,” the voice continued. Another slap. “That is, we could have won, if it weren’t for you, you worthless piece of shit.” Another slap.

  Mun rounded the hillock to find Sergeant Jones standing over the private. Jones, an American, was over six feet tall and easily twice the mass of the Mongol girl. He had a handful of Private Enkh’s uniform front and held her off the ground while he slapped her with his other hand. The private appeared unresponsive; her head lolled off to one side.

  “Put her down,” Mun ordered. “Put her down, now!”

  Jones either ignored her, or he was too far gone into his rage. “Do you hear me, bitch?” he yelled, lifting the private’s face up next to his. “I’m talking to you!”

  “Last chance, Jones,” Mun shouted. “Put her down or you’ll have me to deal with.”

  “In a second, First Sergeant,” Jones replied without looking. “I’m not done talking to her yet.”

  Mun took three steps and dove at the sergeant, intending to tackle him, but the burly man heard her coming. He turned slightly, still holding the private in his left hand, and backhanded Mun, knocking her to the ground. She rolled to a stop, trying to clear her head of the cobwebs.