I've finally finished my short story that kicks off the sci-fi series I've been creating for the last two years. In that time I've been very sick (rare genetic disease) and both my kids have it too. But that's a story for another time.
But... I digress...
My editor said that my story has a hint of Firefly, Starship Troopers and Stargate and set in a world similar to Halo (although I've never played the game or seen the movies).
The free story is available through my website if you sign up for my bi-monthly newsletter. You can unsubscribe at any time and I promise never to spam you.
I'm adding the first chapter of the story below (under the three book covers) so you can get a feel for the setting and characters. I hope you like it!
The first book in the series is due out within the next month so if you like the short story, you're going to love the full book!
Follow my progress here on Steemit or via facebook or my website here: [Angie Arland] (http://www.angiearland.com)
Please note that this is subject to copyright and may not be used in any way of form without my express permission.
VELOCITY RESIST
Chapter One
This story occurs approximately six cycles before the beginning of Velocity Rising, the first book in the Velocity Resonance Series.
Location:
Zadran’eki, a Dinnarei Collective planet, Varus-III Quadrant, Sector Nine-Delta-Two in the Perseus Spiral Arm of the Milky Way galaxy.
Mission:
Locate the distress beacon and rescue the Dinnarei luminaries from the planet surface.
“Sir, we have company!” Aiden relayed through the comms to his commanding officer. The Terudithan troop carrier he’d been tracking on his holo swooped in to land on the outskirts of the crumbling city of Eldizan’aki. Signals Operator James Harper had forewarned them of the enemy’s impending arrival but it still hadn’t prepared Aiden for the shock of seeing the enormous alien ship firsthand.
Aiden wanted to believe he and the crew would make it out of the city alive, but doubt welled up when he realized the enemy contingent, if at full capacity, outnumbered them sixty to one. The odds were not in their favor, nor would they have enough firepower to stage a worthy attack against such a large enemy force. He reminded himself their objective was recon, nothing more. They just had to evade the enemy. How difficult could that be?
He swallowed hard and crouched beside a block of rubble, surveying the scene as dust devils churned the parched terrain. Just before touchdown, the enemy carrier held airborne on columns of thrust from its six vertical engines. A high-pitched squeal exited the thrusters at full velocity, provoking hundreds of squawking native birds to rise from the surrounding fruit-laden trees.
Aiden checked his wrist holo. The tiny green blip on the orbital signals radar was visible, giving him a small measure of reassurance. Their scout ship remained in a low geosynchronous orbit with their pilot/engineer Mister Finnegan, Comms Officer Ryder, and SigsOp Harper ready at a moment's notice to render assistance. The ship was thirty ems overhead and, from his experience, a shit-ton could go sideways in the short time it would take for them to descend to the planet’s surface.
“Sir, the carrier has landed. Repeat, the carrier has landed. South side of the city.” The engine noise was hard to miss, but Aiden decided to play it safe and relayed his findings through his helmet comms to the captain and other crewmembers as they scouted the ruins of the deserted city.
Tightening his grip on the plasma rifle, he checked the holo. According to the readings, the enemy ship was eight hundred and twenty-three yards away. Enough for him to remain undetected and giving him time to gather information that may help in the war against the Terudithan forces.
The carrier’s underside held twelve pods and, according to fleet intel, each one contained around two-dozen of the gray aliens. He felt tempted to fire on a couple of pods, take out a bunch of terudithans at once, but he stayed his hand, at least until his team discovered the source of the distress beacon they came to investigate. Still, the enticement was strong, threatening his grip on reality and forcing him into doing something stupid—something he’d regret. He took a deep breath and shook his head, re-focusing on the mission.
“Sir, do you copy?” Aiden waited for the captain to respond. A few moments later, he finally heard two squelch delays through his comms earpiece, which meant the rest of the team were either close to finding their target…or the enemy was nearby.
The carrier’s landing struts extended, and the white-hot engine exhausts burned up the dry vegetation as it landed. The matte-gray and olive-green outer-hull, meant to camouflage the carrier against its surroundings, was stark in contrast to the dark-red baked soil. The ground trembled under its forceful landing and, without hesitation, all twelve cargo bay doors slammed open, revealing three-hundred uniformed alien soldiers, each holding a standard-issue HEL—High Energy Laser—weapon.
The distress beacon must have gained their attention…unless they had returned for something else. Even more reason to find the Dinnarei luminaries they came to assist and disable the beacon. Not that it would help their situation, three hundred against five were not good odds; if engaged, they’d be squid fodder fast.
“The enemy haven’t deployed yet, sir, but once they have, I estimate we’ll have around seven to eight ems before they’re all over us and our target,” Aiden reported, assuming the captain and crew could hear him.
He switched his visor HUD to zoom in on the aliens using the virtual binoculars. Their ash-gray, wrinkled, shark-like skin reminded him of the elephants that once roamed the Earth—now extinct like every other living thing on the planet they once called home.
The alien’s lifeless charcoal eyes were so large, they reflected images of each other. Each soldier wore a military uniform covered in patches of gray and mottled olive-green with dark-gray, seamless, ankle-high boots.
Trembling with anger and anticipation, he wanted to kill every damn last squid scum alive. They had ripped his family apart. He wanted to watch on with a glorious vengeance as each terudithan choked on its own violet-pink blood. But he reminded himself his fellow crewmen needed time to find the beacon before the aliens were alerted to their presence on the Dinnarei planet. If he opened fire now, it’d be game over. He even considered charging the carrier, but that would lead to certain death. Still, he estimated he could take out a third of the squid inside if he overloaded his rifle’s three fully-charged power cells.
Aiden dismissed the futile notion and reset his helmet’s visor HUD to standard view mode. His time for revenge would come. Just not today.
“Lomax, fall back to my position.” Captain Jack Wright’s voice blasted through Aiden’s earpiece. He sounded angry, which was a clear projection of his standard mood of late.
“Aye, sir.”
A high-energy laser burst hissed past Aiden’s shoulder and chewed into the rubble. A barrage of concrete pelted his armor, dinging the blades like plasma fire.
That was too damn close!
Swinging his rifle, he returned fire. The alien's head exploded in a violet-pink eruption, and its body crumpled to the ground. Five more terudithans emerged from a building down the street, their swift pace taking him off guard.
“Sir, do you copy?” He pulled the weapon to his chest and tucked in behind the brick wall, reaching cover in the nick of time. “The enemy has boots on the ground. Must be an advanced scout team. I had a close call, but they didn’t see me. At least six squid exiting a building, half a click north of my position.”
“Get to higher ground and hold tight. I’ll send Grimes to cover you, northeast of your position.”
If Zoe Grimes was about to do what he thought she was about to do, he wouldn’t have much time to get out of her way, especially if she was using the new nitro-tipped armor-piercing rounds. Not that he didn’t trust her targeting skills, but he’d rather face ten terudithans than piss off the Small Arms Specialist.
He backed along the brick wall until he found an entry point and forced himself through the jagged opening. His visor adjusted automatically to the darkness inside the building. Once he checked the area was clear of life-signs, he forged ahead, dodging structural pillars and debris to find the base of the stairwell. Switching his visor to thermal infrared mode, he took the stairs two at a time, pausing at each floor to check his six in case the enemy had followed.
If the terudithans on the carrier had been alerted to the weapons fire, he and the team would have no chance of survival, nor would the Dinnarei luminaries. If the terudithans hadn’t gotten to them first.
He went as far as the stairs allowed. The remainder were sheared off mid-flight from the recent aerial bombardment of the city. Panting hard, Aiden backtracked down a floor and took up position near an open window. Switching his visor back to day-mode, he scanned for Grimes.
Across the street, he spotted her sniper rifle glinting in the sunlight. The silencing muzzle hung out the window of the opposite building as she aimed at a group of terudithans patrolling the street below. Known to fellow cadets as Dead Shot, Grimes fired round after round with extraordinary precision, silently painting the ground below with violet-pink alien blood. Their lean bodies contorted as the nerve endings severed mid-signal, dead before they hit the ground.
“Clear!” Grimes confirmed via comms. She swung the sniper rifle directly at Aiden and spied him through the scope. “Are you trying to get yourself killed, dumbass? Next time watch your six!”
Aiden grimaced. At least she had the decency to change to direct comms. Zoe Grimes wasn’t one to mince her words, but that was part of her appeal. He’d have time to return the favor later, but they had a mission to complete.
“Thanks, Grimes.” He gave her a dazzling grin and hoped he didn’t have leftover spinach in his teeth from this morning’s ration pack. “I’ll try to remember that next time.”
She was right about one thing, he was a dumbass. He’d been too busy gawking at the carrier and thinking of ways to destroy the enemy.
Damn my own stupidity!
During his last post, he taught a situational awareness module to the new cadets. He'd just broken all the rules, allowing his personal shit to impede the crew’s safety and inhibit his own external senses from doing their most basic task. He cursed under his breath and gave Grimes a friendly wave.
He’d been with the scout crew for less than one cycle, and he’d already made the wrong impression, something he hoped to remedy on this mission.
“How we gonna get through all those damn squid?” Grimes pulled her rifle from the window. “I reckon we don’t have enough power cells with us to plow through them all. I don’t mind popping their heads like watermelons, but hundreds of the bastards?”
“One squid at a time, Grimes. One squid at a time.” It’s something his father used to say…before he was killed.
Aiden was barely twelve cycles and waiting for his father to join him on the AT shuttle prepping to return to the fleet’s battleship, the Ancora. They’d been visiting the Dinnarei outpost to trade for supplies and geology maps of nearby planets in the sector.
But his father was destined to die that day along with many others. Hundreds of terudithans stormed the outpost’s landing platform, shooting their way through the crowd. Human and dinnarei alike dropped to the platform as their lives were extinguished in a mass slaughter. Among the fleeing crowd, his father ran toward the AT shuttle, dodging HEL fire, desperation plastered on his face.
Aiden screamed, “No!” and bolted halfway out the shuttle’s hatch before he felt a strong pair of arms restraining him, dragging him back onboard.
The look on his father’s face still haunted him as the last embers of life drained from his body. Desperation, shock, regret, etched deep as he crumpled to the platform with mounds of bloodied bodies.
Weapon’s fire hit the hull of the shuttle, shearing the fins off the port thruster. The pilot didn’t wait, and the shuttle lifted off the platform. The arms released him, and Aiden crawled across the deck-plating to the open hatch, looking down upon his father’s lifeless body in disbelief. He watched the carnage below as the shuttle gained altitude. That’s when he knew he was going to kill them all, even if it killed him in the process.
“Lomax, Grimes, fall back to my position.” Jack’s voice dragged his thoughts back to the present. “We’ve found the source of the beacon.”
“Aye, sir.” Taking a breath, he cast his eyes over the street below. Visually it looked clear, but the enemy were known for blending in to their surroundings, as he’d witnessed on their last mission.
Large blocks of rubble blocked parts of the street. He’d have to chance it. Removing the safety from his plasma rifle, he hurried back to the stairwell to join the rest of the crew, guided by the life-signs projector on his helmet’s HUD.
** I hope you enjoyed the first chapter**