Emergence: Book One of the Dark Tide Trilogy Read online

  “But boss…” one man began.

  “Enough. Did you do what I ordered you to do?”

  “Yes, boss, we set the charges,” the first fake Guard replied.

  Charges? Shit, Kimberly thought. Her boss appeared to be a traitor. Two Guardsmen were frauds. What was going on here? She had to tell someone.

  She selected the link address of an old friend. Isabelle, she began, are you there?

  I’m here, Kimberly, Isabelle Thorpe replied through the link after a pause. What’s the matter? She knew Kimberly would only contact her if it were important.

  Kimberly took both a deep breath and calmed her mind at the same time. I’m at the Galatian Accords conference dinner and I observed strange behavior from two Shadow Watch Guards. My supervisor, Richard Segwyn, told me to stand down and ignore it. I disobeyed his orders, which I will answer for, and am witnessing him and the two false Guards discussing charges, which I must take to mean explosive charges. The Guards would not answer me or offer any support. I don’t know who else to turn to. She shook, though the words she transmitted through the link remained clear and concise. Her first major mission and she was bungling it.

  You did the right thing, Kimberly. Patch me through to the Shadow Watch frequency.

  But the false Guards may overhear, Kimberly protested.

  I don’t care, they can hear this too.

  Kimberly pinged the Shadow Watch Guard neural network as requested. An angry reply came back seconds later.

  We told you not to contact us on this line again, Agent Hague. Cease communication attempts or we will report you to your station commander.

  Kimberly felt Isabelle connect through her connection. Shadow Watch Guards, this is Isabelle Thorpe. We have received information that the president and other delegates may be in grave danger. We suggest evacuating the building and proceeding with an immediate search of the premises.

  Deputy Director, the voice stammered. We didn’t realize you were on the line.

  We will discuss the matter of how you treat my agents at a future time. Right now, focus on protecting the president.

  Right away, ma’am.

  One of the fake guards interrupted Richard speaking. “Shit, they’re onto us. We have to move now, boss.”

  “They’re onto us…,” Richard repeated. “But how…” his eyes drifted to the door to the roof. He met Kimberly’s gaze. “You!” He drew his laser pistol and fired it toward the door.

  Kimberly shut the door and felt it absorb the heat of the laser. She withdrew her own laser pistol from the holster on her thigh. Ma’am, I hate to cut this short, but I’m in the middle of a firefight now.

  I’m sending reinforcements. Stay alive. The link closed.

  Easy for her to say. Kimberly ripped her dress at the knees. She took a deep breath and listened for movement or voices on the roof. Below, she could hear shouts and raised voices. She opened the door and burst out, rolling and coming up on a knee behind cover. She peeked around the corner. They were boarding a small dropship. She leaned out further and fired several bolts of energy at them. The distance was too great and the lasers missed their mark.

  Richard held out what looked like a handheld remote. Or a detonator. He flipped the top on it and depressed the button. At first nothing happened, but a moment later Kimberly felt a rumbling beneath her feet. The floor beneath her feet buckled. She felt herself falling and darkness met her.

  Chapter 3 - Invasion

  Marine 1st Lieutenant, Derek Jamison wiped sweat from his brow as he surveyed the landscape before him. Hell on earth, he thought. The desert region of the colony world of Serpentis III was a popular destination for Marine training due to the extreme heat. He and a platoon of new recruits fresh out of basic trudged through the light brown sand on their way back to Heredon Peak, at the edge of the desert region.

  “Ugh, it’s so hot,” he heard one of the new recruits, Greg Fernz, a short Selucian with tan skin and dark brown hair, complain. His voice grated on Derek’s ears.

  Greg apparently did not have the fortitude of his ancestors that had imparted that tan skin to him. He raised his voice. “Sergeant Reiken, please see that Private Fernz is on latrine duty tonight.”

  “My pleasure, sir,” the grizzled sergeant said.

  Private Fernz’s grumbling ceased.

  Derek wanted to grumble, but refrained. Another training mission. Another batch of raw recruits training on a planet at the ass end of nowhere. Not to mention this generation was more entitled than twenty years earlier. How had he ended up there again? Oh, High Command ordered him there. They fed him the typical bullshit line about it being an honor to train the next generation. He’d had no choice. He would rather be off fighting Imperial-sponsored “mercenaries” or raiding pirate bases, not babysitting.

  A high priority alert came through his neural implant. All forces, unknown forces are inbound from outer solar system. I repeat, unknown forces are inbound. We believe them to be hostile. Prepare for combat. This is not a drill.

  Hostile forces? Unknown? Derek stopped, prompting the platoon to lumber to a halt. He turned to face them. “HQ sent a communication,” he said, tapping his head. “We may have enemy contact soon. We need to head back to HQ double-time.”

  “You heard the Lieutenant, form up!” Sergeant Reiken barked.

  Heredon Peak lay ten klicks from their position. The troopers jogged toward the town. Beyond Heredon Peak lay the joint naval/Marine outpost for the planet. A dozen starfighters, looking like tiny insects from such a distance, took off from the ground and sped toward space.

  Derek tapped into the military bands when they were five klicks from Heredon Peak. At first, he heard nothing but chaotic messages, shouted orders, and counter-orders. The tactical commander aboard the orbital ring attempted to maintain order, directing each group to communicate in a professional manner and to use their intra-squad channels as directed. No one heeded the directions.

  Shit, they destroyed the Pride of Serpentis, one voice said.

  There’s too many of them! another voice shouted.

  Derek shivered. The Pride of Serpentis was the heavy cruiser assigned to the solar system, and the flagship of the admiral. If the most powerful ship in the planetary defense force went down…

  A flash in the sky to the west broke his concentration. He stopped in his tracks, causing two of his Marines to skid to a halt behind him. There, a massive object descended from orbit. It looked like a rock covered in greenish material. The rock slammed into the naval base. Dirt and debris and green material flew into the air. Derek switched to the naval base channel and heard screams.

  “Acid, it’s like acid, aaaagghhhh,” one voice cried.

  “Shit, it’s eating people alive,” another voice proclaimed.

  Blood drained from Derek’s face.

  This is Colonel Evans. Evacuate the base. I say again, evacuate… the transmission ended as another rock fell from the sky. To add insult to injury, in the far distance pieces of the Pride of Serpentis crashed to the earth, throwing up a large cloud of dust.

  Derek’s Marines stared at the naval base and ruins of the Pride of Serpentis with a look of shock on their faces. One recruit, bent over and retched. “Combat mode, now!” Derek shouted, jerking them out of their stupor. He raced toward the city.

  He activated his helmet as he ran, causing actuators in the collar of his nano-fiber armor to de-moleculize the extra thick layer there. The metal flowed up his neck and encompassed his head in mere seconds. Nano-projectors made his helmet appear transparent from within. His HUD showed various combat-relevant data elements. To an outside observer, his helmet still appeared solid and would show a visor where his eyes were. It was an attempt to humanize soldiers in the eyes of the public.

  His platoon followed him and they soon reached the edge of the colony. Another rock fell from the sky to the north of Heredon Peak.

  People ran around in panic. Doors on prefabricated buildings lay wide open as they rushed to
evacuate their homes.

  Many colonists fled toward the entrances to the emergency bunkers scattered beneath the colony. They were self-contained and intended to survive biological or chemical assaults and other environmental hazards.

  Other colonists fled toward the civilian spaceport. One group ran into the spaceport and moments later came back out screaming.

  Two civilian freighters lumbered out of the docking bays and headed toward space. Two unknown ships came barreling from the west. They fired missiles that reminded Derek of smaller versions of the large rocks falling from the sky. Several hit the freighters and holes appeared in their hulls. Both freighters fell to the Earth and exploded. The enemy fighters looped around to make another pass.

  Derek beckoned to his Marines and pointed toward the spaceport. “Weapons free,” he said. He removed his laser rifle from his back and checked the energy level. Full charge.

  Guttural screams emanated from within the empty spaceport as they approached. A high-pitched squeal announced the enemy fighters passing overhead. A rumbling suggested enemy fire on a nearby location.

  Inside the spaceport, bodies of men, women and children littered the floor. Blood coated everything: the walls, the tiles underfoot and even the ceiling. Derek knelt by the body of one man. An unknown weapon had caused a gaping wound in his chest; no laser or gauss rifle caused that.

  The unnatural screams sounded closer. The Marines moved through the minefield of corpses, checking docking bays as they passed. The same scene met them in each. They rounded a bend in the spaceport. Flashes of light came from docking bay thirteen.

  Derek and his Marines lined up on the wall leading to the entrance to the bay. He held up his fist, then counted down.

  5…4…3…2…1…go! The platoon of Marines swept into docking bay thirteen and lined up, keeping their fields of fire open.

  A light gray rectangular-shaped freighter occupied the docking bay. Two quad-linked turrets occupied the top of the vessel and a viewport filled the nose.

  In front of the ship stood half a dozen monstrosities of stone. They each stood at least ten-feet tall.

  Milling in front of the stone monstrosities were two dozen four-legged, spider-like creatures with upright torsos, pincers for hands, and mandibles surrounding circular mouths filled with teeth.

  One creature lunged toward a stone giant. The giant swung its fist and sent the creature flying. A kick sent a second creature barreling backward.

  A man and a woman stood behind the stone guardians in front of the vessel. The man wore a brown vest over shirt and trousers. He had short dark brown hair. The woman next to him wore a gray jumpsuit and had long red hair.

  The man wielded a pair of laser pistols and fired into the crowd of creatures to poor effect. The woman stood like a statue. The man spotted them and waved. “Here to help?” he shouted above the din.

  Derek thought the man was unusually calm, but nodded. He pointed at the unknown creatures and said, “Fire at will.”

  Several of the creatures jerked as surprise laser fire from behind slammed into their carapaces. Cries of what sounded like pain emitted from them. They turned on the Marines.

  The first wave of half a dozen creatures skittered across the floor of the docking bay toward the Marines, running through a barrage of two dozen beams of lasers. One of them stumbled and fell, its carapace glowing red and cracked. The rest closed the distance in moments and were on the Marines. The first creature launched itself into the air and slammed into one Marine, carrying him to the ground. Claws pierced the Marine’s armor. The Marine writhed before falling still.

  Shit, Derek thought as he trained his laser rifle on the monster that had just killed one of his men, and fired. His first shot hit the armor of the creature and left a small heat mark. He cranked up the power on his laser, causing it to emit a small hum as it charged the bolt. He fired again. The second shot hit the creature in the leg, causing it to buckle. More shots struck home on the carapace and arms and near its head. It tried to skitter further but another shot to its leg caused it to topple forward.

  The other four creatures from the first wave reached the line. One Marine parried an assault with his laser rifle. The barrel of the weapon cracked under the weight of the assault. They were so strong!

  Three more Marines fell before the six creatures lay dead or dying on the ground. Too many dead, Derek thought.

  The other sixteen creatures forgot the stone giants and turned toward the Marines. They couldn’t stop that many…

  “Now that you boys are here,” the woman in the jumpsuit shouted, “I can do this!” She gestured and a dozen more stone creations rose from the earth, six of them in front of the Marines. Then she extended her arms and summoned a huge ball of flame. It hovered between her parallel hands before she made a throwing motion and the flame crashed into one creature.

  The stone constructs conjured in front of the Marines held their ground against the rush of enemies and repulsed most of them. Three of the sixteen got through and the Marines focused their fire on them to kill them. The Marines then focused on the remaining creatures.

  Derek let out a sigh of relief as the creatures within the ring of stone constructs died. Movement to his right caught his eye. A new creature towered over Greg Fernz. The creature was bipedal and wore an organic carapace, like that of the four-legged monstrosities the Marines faced. It held a staff with a curving black blade at each end in two hands. Derek opened his mouth to shout a warning, but it was too late.

  With one fluid motion, the two-legged enemy swung its staff. One black blade sliced clean through Greg’s neck. His head toppled to the floor, joined a moment later by his body.

  Derek stared at the corpse of Private Fernz for a long moment. He shook his head. This couldn’t be happening. He brought his laser rifle to bear on the newcomer as he shouted “Behind us!”

  His Marines faced the new threat. Several laser beams streaked toward the enemy and disappeared into a cloud of darkness swirling in front of the creature like a shield. More lasers aimed toward various parts of its body met the same fate. A blue gem occupied the top of the shaft below the blade.

  The newcomer advanced and twirled the staff. A blue circle caused by the blue gem spinning created a blue circle outlining the void shield. The gem seemed to glow brighter as it absorbed more shots.

  A clawed hand wielding the staff snaked out, sliding through Private Jennifer Rankins’ nano-armor as if it weren’t there. She crumpled to the ground.

  Wild shots continued from the remaining Marines as they stepped back.

  The next Marine targeted tried to block the strike with his weapon, turning it vertical to stop the sweeping blow. Metal met metal with a loud clang.

  With a fluid motion the alien pivoted the staff to strike with the other end. The staff sliced off the Marine’s left arm.

  The Marine’s rifle clattered to the ground as he clutched at his shoulder. Blood spurted out. His helmet muffled whatever expletives he was likely screaming.

  The creature bisected the Marine’s head with his blade, dragging it down to his chest. The creature slid the blade out and the Marine’s corpse toppled to the ground.

  The remaining quadrupeds skittered toward the bipedal alien. The constructs knocked two back, but four escaped the encirclement and attacked the Marines from the rear.

  Pincers from one creature crushed the throat of one Marine and then pierced a second Marine in the back. Mandibles ripped his head from his body.

  Several soldiers fired toward the new threat. Several stone constructs engaged them. A handful of Marines stumbled away from the staff-wielding enemy.

  The alien eyed cocked its head to the side and surveyed the gathered Marines like a predator studying its prey.

  Derek withdrew a grenade from his utility belt. Grenade! he warned through the platoon link. He activated it and threw it toward the alien.

  The grenade sailed through the air and vanished into the void shield. No sign of detonati
on escaped the inky, swirling cloud.

  Derek reached for a second grenade, but before he could throw it the alien advanced toward him. He lifted his rifle and fired. The same void shield absorbed the laser bolts. He braced himself for melee combat with the alien.

  The creature raised its staff high. Derek shifted his grip on his rifle and held it above his head, bracing himself for impact.

  Before the staff could descend, a ball of flame slammed into the ground in front of the creature. Flames rose several feet, creating an artificial wall of fire. The void shield absorbed the center of the wall, but the creature ceased its strike and stepped back.

  The woman in the gray jumpsuit readied another ball of flame. Several stone giants melted back into the earth, as if she were conserving her strength. Derek had heard mages could only perform so much magic before needing rest. Perhaps she was low on energy?

  Before she could launch her ball of fire, the void shield became less cloudy and took on a more defined shape. It looked like a portal. The creature stepped through the opening and the portal collapsed into a single point.

  The man beside the woman abandoned her and ran inside the ship.

  Moments later, another portal opened behind the woman and the staff-wielding enemy stepped out. The portal shrank, taking on its cloudy look again, and swung around to the front of the creature.

  The woman faced the alien. The void shield absorbed the ball of flame she threw at it. She backed away and raised her hands. What was she doing? The creature stumbled to a halt and looked down. There, hands of dirt held its feet in place.

  The alien tried to move its feet, but it was no use. After trying several times, it reached into its armor and withdrew a spherical object with a rough, pock-marked surface. It threw the object over the woman's head toward the Marines.

  The object exploded in mid-air, raining green, gooey liquid onto the remaining stone constructs and some Marines. The goo eroded stone where it landed. It had a similar effect on the armor of the Marines, eating through like the acid spoken of through the neural net earlier. One Marine tried to brush off the goo. It transferred from his helmet to his gauntlet. He tried to wipe it from his gauntlet onto his chest armor and it transferred there next. Moments later a hole formed in the helmet and it dripped onto the exposed head of the Marine. He squirmed as the goo burned through his hair into his skull.