A Pale Dawn Read online

  A Pale Dawn

  Book Eight of The Omega War

  By

  Chris Kennedy & Mark Wandrey

  PUBLISHED BY: Seventh Seal Press

  Copyright © 2019 Chris Kennedy & Mark Wandrey

  All Rights Reserved

  * * * * *

  Get the free Four Horsemen prelude story “Gateway to Union”

  and discover other titles by Mark Wandrey at:

  http://worldmaker.us/

  * * * * *

  Get the free Four Horsemen prelude story “Shattered Crucible”

  and discover other titles by Chris Kennedy at:

  http://chriskennedypublishing.com/

  * * * * *

  Do you have what it takes to be a Merc?

  Take your VOWs and join the Merc Guild on Facebook!

  Meet us at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/536506813392912/

  * * * * *

  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 products of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  * * * * *

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to longtime reader Dirk Flint, who lost his battle with cancer while it was being written. Fair winds and following seas, my friend, and thank you for all of your support over the years. You are already missed.

  * * * * *

  Cover Design by Brenda Mihalko

  Original Art by Ricky Ryan

  * * * * *

  Contents

  Dedication

  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

  Epilogue

  About Chris Kennedy

  About Mark Wandrey

  Titles by Chris Kennedy

  Titles by Mark Wandrey

  Connect with Chris Kennedy Online

  Connect with Mark Wandrey Online

  Excerpt from Book One of the Salvage Title Trilogy:

  Excerpt from Book One of the Earth Song Cycle:

  Excerpt from Book One of the Kin Wars Saga:

  Excerpt from Book Ten of The Omega War:

  * * * * *

  Chapter One

  SOGA HQ, São Paulo, Brazil, Earth

  “The latest messages we just received from Capital Planet still give no indication of a Keesius attack,” Captain Drakayl reported. She looked at her notes. “Based on the distance and the timing involved, the Guild Speaker believes the attack must have been foiled and has indicated she intends to return to the planet.”

  Peepo nodded. If the attack still hadn’t occurred, it wasn’t going to. The Keesius ships were single-minded; once activated, they carried out what they were programmed to do. The ship would have blown up Capital Planet by now if it were able to. The fact that it hadn’t indicated the Humans had—somehow—stopped it.

  Although that was good from a certain perspective, she almost wished the ship had been able to complete its mission. The destruction of Capital Planet, along with the leaders of most of the other guilds, would have left a power vacuum the Mercenary Guild could have easily stepped into. It would have been so simple; they would have not only rid themselves of the other guilds but could also have allowed the most troublesome members of the Council to be on the planet when the Keesius arrived. It would have been perfect. Peepo would have had free reign to do…just about anything she wanted.

  Having taped the admission that the Humans had activated one of the Keesius ships, she wished she had one of her own that she could use to complete the mission. It would have been nothing short of a masterstroke. Queen Peepo? Empress Peepo? Both sounded great, although she was leaning toward Empress. Alas, that wasn’t to be…but she filed that plan in a certain section of her brain to be used if she ever found another of the ships.

  “General Peepo?” Captain Drakayl asked.

  “Yes?” Peepo asked, shaking herself out of her reverie.

  “I asked if you had any return messages for the Guild Speaker.”

  “Yes, I do,” Peepo replied. “Please let her know that I received her message and that we will be returning to our original plan. More and more of Earth comes under our control every day, and it won’t be long until all of humanity is under our leadership…or destroyed. I am waiting to hear back from our fleets, but the Humans’ major colonies should soon be in our hands, and I am expecting word from some of our spies on the location of the Winged Hussars secret base. Once that falls, integrating the Humans into our overall plans will be nothing more than a matter of logistics. Once Prime Base is destroyed, the Humans will have nowhere else to run.”

  * * *

  CIC, EMS Arion, Paradise System

  “Shit,” Lieutenant Colonel Walker said under his breath, looking at the Tri-V screen. Louder, he added, “Yeah, that’s it. Paradise. Never was a planet so misnamed.” He shook his head, then added one more time, “Shit.”

  “What did the planet ever do to you?” Captain Teenge asked. An Aposo, the captain was from a race that looked generally like the Veetanho, only a little more squat and rodent-like. They were also much more direct. Although it was rare to see the knife when there was a Veetanho after you, you always knew when you pissed off an Aposo.

  “The planet? Nothing. However, its indigenous life forms ate a few of my friends and colleagues. It’s also where I had to kill my mom and dad. Aside from that, the exterior of the planet is a wasteland populated by stupid-looking cows and the giant sand worms that hunt them.”

  “Is that all?”

  “Yeah. Other than that, I don’t have anything against it.”

  “How do you know so much about the planet?”

  “I grew up there.” Walker shrugged. “When I left, I swore I’d never return. That’s a promise I’ve broken now…twice.”

  “Ma’am?” the comms officer asked. “I’ve got comms with the planet.”

  “Good,” the captain replied. “Let them know we are just passing through but would like to refuel and re-provision our ship before heading out-system.”

  “I did, ma’am, and they said they could handle that for us; however, they are requesting payment of a more…unconventional nature.”

  Captain Teenge frowned as she turned to the comms officer. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Apparently, they’ve heard there’s a war on, and they’re requesting assistance in fortifying their defenses in lieu of repayment for services rendered.”

  “There are a lot of ships in orbit,” the sensor officer noted, “but they’re all commercial. They don’t have any space-based defenses I can see beyond some customs cutters. How the hell do they expect to defend the system from a serious attack? Hell, we could kick their asses ourselves, if we wanted.”

  “We could take the orbitals,” Walker
replied, “but taking the planet would be a heck of a lot harder.”

  “What do you mean?” the captain asked.

  “Just what I said.” Walker waved at the Tri-V display. “Look at the planet, it’s mostly desert.”

  “I see that,” the captain said. “I would assume that would make it easy to attack. There is nowhere to hide.”

  “It’s easy to get to the surface, maybe,” Walker explained with a half-smile. “The problem is that the deserts harbor a species of sand worm that attacks anything moving across them. Because of that, all the habitations were dug into the rock of the planet…where you can find rock, anyway. The original colony here was started by a bunch of religious crazies, who were responsible for naming it. Once they started tunneling out a place to live, though, they found deposits of semi-precious gems and rare elements. Nothing along the lines of red diamonds, but enough to keep the colony funded.

  “A couple of mining companies came in to exploit some of the bigger deposits, and two underground cities were established to support the mining operations. I think their total population is now over one hundred thousand.

  “The problem you have in attacking those cities is that they are entirely underground, and they are dug in like an Alabama tick. Just trying to get at them would be a bitch.”

  Captain Teenge nodded in understanding. “So you could bomb them and exterminate them, but actually capturing them would be difficult.”

  “Even exterminating them would be difficult. Some of those tunnels go pretty deep, and that doesn’t take into account the rock. A lot is just sandstone; however, vast sheets of heavy basalt are overlaid in parts like a damned armored plate. Paradise is a tough nut to crack, no matter how you slice it.”

  “And they want to make it better defended,” Captain Teenge noted. “I wonder if we have anyone from a company that specializes in defending installations…” She let the thought trail off and looked at Walker with a half-smile.

  Walker stared at the planet’s image for several seconds, then sighed as his shoulders slumped. “You’re going to make me go down there and help them, aren’t you?” he finally asked.

  “We need the supplies and you’re the best person we have to go sing for our supper. The Hussars may be able to take planets, but you guys know how to hold them.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Walker said. He turned to leave, but he paused to look back at the Tri-V and added one more time, “Shit.”

  * * *

  Tunnels, Underdeep, Paradise

  “You really think they’ll come here?” Colonel Ken Ferguson asked, his head cocked slightly.

  The head of Underdeep’s police force—and now their defense force—was a short man, as many of the people who lived underground were. Perhaps they felt more comfortable in the tunnels; at six feet tall, Walker hated being inside them. It was bad enough growing up in the tunnels carved into the face of the cliffside. He had hated it when his parents brought him to one of the bigger complexes—tunneled deep underground—for supplies.

  “I don’t think it’s outside the realm of possibility,” Walker replied. “They captured Earth, and it looks like they’re moving on some of the colonies.”

  “But why? What have we done to them?”

  “To them?” Walker asked. “No idea. Maybe we were cutting into their profits. Maybe they got tired of losing to us. Hell, I don’t know. Maybe they heard about the new CASPers we have coming.” He shrugged. When he saw the skeptical look Ferguson gave him, he added, “No, really; I hear they’re pretty good. I don’t think they’re going to be that much better than the ones we’ve already got in the Horde, but they will provide an additional edge against some of the other races, who already see us as taking too many of their contracts.”

  Ferguson spat. “Seems stupid to me. If we’re doing things to get better, why don’t they?”

  “No idea.” Walker shrugged again. He pointed to the bend in the tunnel. “This would be a good point for additional defenses. It’s a natural bottleneck.”

  “Yeah, it would. Still seems stupid to waste money on additional defenses—we really don’t have much of anything they’d want.”

  “What if what they want is us?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What if they just want to capture as many Humans as they can to serve in some new sort of unit they’re creating?” Walker asked. “We’ve heard reports that they’ve been heavily recruiting merc forces on Earth.”

  “I don’t know,” Ferguson replied. “It still seems stupid.”

  “Well, I—”

  “Lieutenant Colonel Walker, EMS Arion,” a voice in his pinplant interrupted. “Standby for the captain.” It was followed quickly by Captain Teenge’s voice.

  “Walker, we need you back here immediately,” the captain said without any additional greeting. “A Merc Guild force just transitioned into the system that is bigger than I can take on alone. I’ve sent a shuttle to pick you up, but it’s going to be close.”

  “It’ll take me some time to gather my troops and make it back to the surface,” Walker replied. “How big is the force?”

  “The three cruisers are probably more than I’d want to face by myself, but then there are also a number of destroyers and other supporting ships. I’m a good captain, but I’m no Alexis Cromwell. If they all concentrated on me, I would be easily defeated.”

  “How much time do I have?”

  “None. I need you on the surface now or we won’t be able to get away in time. They also have three transports, so I expect they’ve come to stay.”

  Walker shook his head. He was several miles below the surface and some of the squad he had with him were even deeper. Even if he left his gear and ran to the surface, he’d still need at least 20 minutes to get there; it would probably take at least an hour to get all of his troops there, too. “Leave us,” he said finally.

  “What?” Captain Teenge asked. “The Winged Hussars don’t leave people behind.”

  “This time you’re going to have to,” Walker transmitted. “It will take too long to get my people assembled.”

  “But—”

  “Trust me, Captain, there is no place in the galaxy I want to be less than here, but it comes down to the squad of us or the entire crew of the Arion. Go. Go back to New Warsaw and get the fleet, then come back and save me. We can…no, we will hold until you get back. We still have a little time to work on the defenses; the Merc Guild is going to have a much harder time getting at us than they think.”

  “But—”

  “I appreciate the thought, Captain, but you and the Arion are more important than we are. Humanity needs the Arion’s capabilities. Go.”

  Walker could hear the captain sigh, even if it wasn’t transmitted over the comm link. “We will be back for you.”

  “Good,” Walker replied. “Because I hate this fucking planet.”

  * * *

  Private Quarters—Lockdown, EMS Arion, Paradise System

  Taiki Sato glared at the locked stateroom door as the Egleesius-class battlecruiser finished its maneuvers. He still had some access to the ship’s computers, so he knew they had dropped to a slightly lower orbit to make it easier for supplies from Paradise to be transferred aboard. He’d have loved a chance to go down to the surface.

  “Sand worms,” he mumbled, and played one of the tiny files on the creatures with his pinplants. He possessed four separate pinplants, though they were not all discreet units as most Humans possessed. Since he’d been involved in normalizing the technology for Humans, through self-experimentation, his were highly unusual. As a byproduct, he needed little sleep. That suited him just fine; sleep was wasted time better spent learning.

  The sand worms didn’t resemble the famous ones written about by a 20th century American novelist. These were only about 30 meters in length and not really all that fast. While the ones from fiction were massive beasts that could eat entire buildings, the sand worms of Paradise were stealth hunters who could wait unmoving for
weeks until you moved too close, then wham, dinnertime.

  “I’d love to dissect one,” he said to himself. Sure, biology wasn’t his forte. Who cared? Research suggested the worms could exude an acid to dissolve solid rock! Oh, not quickly, only over time. Tunnels had been found five kilometers under the surface! “There’s no reason to keep me locked in here,” he said to the door again. Maybe I’m a tad stir crazy, he thought. No, just bored.

  It had all started when he decided someone needed to investigate the ships Alexis Cromwell, commander of the Winged Hussars, had brought back from 2nd level hyperspace. They looked like the Egleesius-class battlecruisers they’d found, but the two “new” ships were subtly different.

  Sato managed to convince Colonel Cromwell to let him investigate. Oh sure, her authorization contained carefully worded limitations, but he’d been used to getting around such things all his life, although that skill almost cost him his life during his time in the Science Guild.

  Using his modified Mk 7 CASPer, he’d flown to the strange ship and eventually found a way to get aboard. It was just as strange on the inside as it was on the outside. Even stranger. Space naval architecture was one of his many fields of interest. He’d studied it enough to realize these unusual ships weren’t designed to be crewed in the same manner the Egleesius were. Their interior structures more resembled a maze, a hive, or even a spider’s web. Quite unique!