Gun Ship
Gun Ship
Mark Wayne McGinnis
Table of Contents
Prologue
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
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Acknowledgments
Other Books by MWM
Copyright
Prologue
OB5 Asteroid Belt—Outlying Fringe Space, Demyan Empire Territory
He held his tongue as the pilot ratcheted up the controls—first left, and then right. Loham Babar, although confident of the pilot’s keen abilities, straightened his back, doing his best not to appear nervous. With shoulders that were both broad and muscular, Babar emanated raw strength. The top of his head was hairless and his facial features striking—a long, aquiline nose, high cheekbones, a strong jawline, and intelligent eyes that missed absolutely nothing.
“Move it, Puk . . . they’re gaining on us . . .” Babar said, in a measured tone.
“Well aware of that,” Puk said back, with an edge to his voice. “Sir . . . why don’t you sit down. You’re making me nervous, hovering over me like that. Or maybe go back and check on your new passengers.”
Mintz, the co-pilot, laughed out loud at that.
Babar stood directly behind the pilot’s chair. With Puk piloting the point ship, the three Dow Dynasty Defender-Class Stingers were traversing the dense debris field at five times the velocity of what would be considered treacherous. Babar marveled at the pilot’s skill as he glanced down at the control board. The autopilot was disengaged. This was all Puk—doing what he did best.
The three Stingers flew in a tight formation—dodging one space boulder after another. Mostly fragmented asteroids, some were small, about the size of a medium sized spacecraft—perhaps as small as a scouting frigate—but a few were as large as a battle cruiser.
Mintz, seated next to Puk, was currently manning the guns. Each Stinger was equipped with an array of weaponry: six 360-degree pivoting plasma cannons—two forward, two mid-ship, two aft—and two big Pounders, projectile-firing rail guns, mounted forward and aft. And if that arsenal wasn’t sufficient enough, there was a full complement of longer-range missile ordnance at the ready. For their relatively compact size, Stingers were among the most-menacing warships within the Dow Dynasty’s vast fleet. Could they hold their own against an Empire battle cruiser, or a dreadnought? No, of course not. These menacing smaller ships were better suited for special operations, like the one they’d just completed. Now, if they could just make it through this debris field in one piece, they could engage the Zyln-strap and jump to faster than lightspeed.
On each side, both port and starboard, bright green plasma bolts shot past them. The wraparound, boomerang-shaped bow starshield window enabled Babar to watch two vessels, now accelerating forward on the right.
Babar yelled, “Portside!”
“See them!” Mintz said, manning the virt-stick controls.
Babar felt the plasma cannons come alive, a repeated pap-pap-pap sound as they fired. First one, then the second Empire Rage-Fighter erupted into fireballs.
“Two down . . . twenty Demyan Rage-Fighters still on our tail,” the copilot said.
Babar relaxed a little, realizing he’d been holding his breath. Even twenty Empire Rage Fighters were no match for the three Dow Dynasty Stingers.
“Aft shields down to 72 percent . . .” Mintz said.
“Six hundred thousand meters ‘till open space . . . just keep our friends back there occupied for a few more minutes,” Puk said.
Babar allowed himself a brief smile. Had they actually done it? He shook his head in disbelief. Their three ships had accomplished—well—the impossible. Each Stinger held a complement of fifteen highly trained Special Ops personnel. They’d infiltrated deep within Empire lines. Stolen Empire craft identification codes had allowed them access into Broudy-Lum itself, the largest of the spacial cities of the Demyan Empire. The starstation was more like a planet than a station, holding one billion inhabitants. The three Dow Dynasty Stingers had only one destination, the Enclave; a municipal structure even more protected than the royal palaces down on the planet Demyan. Today’s success was nothing less than historical enormity. The course of events from today’s mission would be spoken about for a millennium. Parents would tell this tale to their children, who would later share it with their children, and on and on. Today would be the day that brought back home their own aristocracy—the Dow Dynasty’s Magistor and Magistra Pietra, and their two teenage children, Prince Markus and Princess Lena—the royal family having been abducted exactly four years prior.
On that day, Babar—Noble-Fist to the aristocracy and Protector of the Realm—was not aboard that infiltrated ship. Instead, many light years’ distance away, he remained in a coma on their home world of Calunoth—recovering from injuries incurred during a vicious, albeit unsuccessful, assassination attempt against the Magistor.
The Empire had become far more aggressive over the last decade, causing strife within the realm through covert proxies, some thought to have been among the most loyal of subjects—even within Cristine Castle itself, the center of the Dow Dynasty. This time, it had been the Magistor’s personal tailor, Jod Ringman, who in the process of measuring the Magistor for a new ceremonial garment, had pulled a Gnar-Rasp, a small throwing blade. From across the room, Ringman had put all his significant weight into the throw. The intended target, the Magistor, would surely have been killed if Babar had not dove in front of the lethal weapon, taking the strike himself in his upper chest.
The royal family had subsequently been abducted while vacationing, and only later was it discovered that they had been placed into stasis-tubes—each one asleep, lulled into suspended animation ever since. They’d been kept under heavy guard for many months.
Eventually, the news spread quickly within the Empire—the infamous Pietra family were to be exhibited at the Museum of Calico’s Enclave. The Empire took great delight in flouting their superiority over the weakening Dynasty, encouraging their loyal subjects to come to gawk and disparage the royal family, as they languished unaware, on display in their respective hyper-tubes.
For as long as anyone could remember, it had always been Dynasty versus Empire. But after the abduction, the skirmishes that had seemed evenly balanced between the two galactic superpowers began to get ugly and unbalanced. Over the past f
ew years, the Empire had been chipping away at the Dow Dynasty realm. The outer-rim frontier planets were the first to go, though to date, no core worlds had been attacked. As such, officially, war between the two ruling realms still did not exist.
The two realms methods of ruling could not have been more different. While the Empire ruled with an iron fist, the Dow Dynasty was far more benevolent. Newly acquired Empire subjects, such as from those from frontier-space worlds, were taught early on that full compliance would be their only means of survival. Whereas the Dow-Dynasty had little interest in realm-building and had renounced all forms of capital punishment more than a thousand years prior, the Demyan Empire’s very foundation was built upon subjugation—brutish power and control over the masses.
In the swerving ship, Loham Babar reflected back on the day’s rescue mission—one that he had led himself, and that had gone off almost more perfectly than planned. Approaching Broudy-Lum StarStation, the three Stinger gunships, equipped with sensor-deceiving identification tags (which had cost the Dynasty a small fortune), had disguised themselves as innocuous and pre-approved sub-space moving crafts. Having timed the incursion late at night and during a security shift change, the three vessels had landed within a rarely used, remotely opened delivery bay.
The ten-man, highly practiced special operations team stealthily invaded the Enclave. The patrolling guards, fresh from a shift change, had been killed, one-by-one, mostly from behind with their throats cut from ear to ear. The infiltration team had found the four towering stasis tubes, each eerily glowing green in the dimly lit museum. Babar had been shocked and momentarily paralyzed at seeing the royal family floating there within their individual, glass-like containers. Looking up into each of their faces, he found the sight both disheartening and infuriating. He’d ordered his team to get the stasis tubes configured for transport. Finding several museum hover-carts within a backroom, the royal family had been quickly and quietly transported out through the hushed interior of the Enclave to the awaiting gunships. Although he’d never been held responsible for the loss of the Magistor family, he still felt the weight of that burden just the same. Only now was some of the weight starting to lessen.
The Stinger banked sharply to the right, bringing Babar back to the present, as Puk maneuvered around an approaching jagged asteroid. After all the planning—the success of the mission—being killed here in this asteroid field was unthinkable. Glancing back over his shoulder, into the narrow passageways and bulkheads, he looked upon the ship’s primary hold. Within it were two hyper-tubes holding Prince Markus Pietra and Princess Lena Pietra. Their parents’ tubes were held within a similar hold, but onboard the trailing Stinger, now positioned on their starboard side. Soon, the Dow-Dynasty aristocracy would return to the throne, perhaps more a symbol of power than of actual power. It was what the realm badly needed right now—essential, too, if the realm was to repel further enemy incursions.
“No! No!” Puk yelled out as he maneuvered around another asteroid.
“I see them!” Mintz yelled back.
“What is it?” Babar asked.
“More . . . a lot more Empire fighters have just joined in the pursuit,” Puk said. “Must have been stationed within Quadrant Nine. Complicates things . . .”
“How many are there?” Babar asked.
“Another twenty . . . no, make that close to thirty.”
Babar’s earlier mood of jubilation evaporated. Fifty total Rage Fighters? They truly were screwed. “Maybe we should turn around? Go deeper into the asteroid field.”
Puk yanked the controls, first left then right, narrowly missing a satellite rock the size of a house. “Ultimately, you’re the one in charge . . . Noble-Fist. What say you?”
Before Babar could respond, a barrage of incoming plasma fire illuminated both side windows of the bridge.
“They have a targeting lock on us . . .” Mintz said, both hands wrapped around the virt-stick controls while firing off multiple weaponry systems at once.
Babar, hurrying over to one of the console seats behind Mintz, took up an ancillary set of virtual joystick controls. “I’ve got the Pounders!” he yelled. The moment his hands came into contact with the virtual, full-tactile touch joysticks, a 3D model of the localized battle logistics projected above the console before him—one identical to both the pilot and the co-pilot. He realized how desperate their situation had become. The fifty or so Empire Rage fighters were not only pursuing them, but had assumed incoming flanking positions on both their port and starboard sides as well. Babar unleashed both forward and aft Pounders rail-gun systems at once.
Babar felt thunderous vibrations rising up through the deck plates as thousands of explosive projectiles blazed toward the enemy fighters and surrounding asteroids alike. While smaller asteroids were quickly eviscerated—turned into mere space dust—the fighters were blasted into fireballs, one after another.
“Not bad for a realm aristocrat,” Puk said.
“Shields down to twenty percent!” Mintz yelled out.
A sudden and intense explosion catapulted Babar out of his seat. Struggling to get back to his controls, he yelled, “Are we hit? Was that us?”
“No! We lost Stinger 3! She’s—she’s gone . . .” Puk said, his voice filling with dread.
Babar felt the gravity of those words. Along with the fifteen crew members onboard that craft, the Dow-Dynasty’s Magistor and Magistra Pietra were also now dead.
The loss was beyond horrific, although it had always been a possibility, perhaps even a probability. As the weight of their new reality took hold, Babar fought the despair that wanted to bring him to his knees. In a single moment, he’d lost his charge, his reason for being—not to mention his best friend—Magistor Pietra.
“Shields are officially down!” Mintz shouted.
Babar again reseated, back at his controls, trying not to think, let loose with a devastating hail of fiery destruction. One Empire fighter after another fell victim to Babar’s single-minded rampage of revenge. He would destroy them all—until every vile Empire Demyan was eradicated.
A klaxon wailed from above.
“Damage reports coming in. Five compartments breached portside!” Mintz exclaimed.
“What about the hold?” No one spoke out.
Another brilliant explosion caused Babar to almost lose his seat for a second time. He didn’t need to hear Mintz’s words to know they’d just lost Stinger 2 on their port side.
“I’ve lost helm control,” Puk said, no longer yelling. Outside, beyond the bay window, the vastness of space spun around and around before their eyes. Any moment now and they would careen, either into an asteroid or into an Empire Fighter, or be blown to smithereens by the heavy incoming fire.
As they spun violently, the motion sickness had all three of them retching, but Babar still managed to rise to his feet. Grabbing ahold of the nearest bulkhead, he headed aft. “Get this ship stabilized, Puk . . . whatever you have to do . . . do it!”
“Where are you going?” Puk asked, his fingers a blur of flying motion across his control board.
“Primary hold. To be with the Prince and Princess.”
At that same moment, one of the smaller bridge-side windows began to splinter, web-like, into thousands of tiny hairline cracks.
“Shit! Get out of here, Babar!” Puk yelled, forgetting his antagonism as the dire situation became clear. “Get into an EnvironSuit! Hurry!”
Loham Babar hesitated, reluctantly taking a step backward across the threshold and off the bridge. In that brief instant, just as the hatchway door slid shut before his eyes, he saw the front window explode outward.
Chapter 1
Justin Trip
Bridgeport High School—Bridgeport, Chicago
Partially obscured behind the screen of his MacBook Air, Justin’s eyes momentarily flicked up, taking in the quiet, soft-lit surroundings. It was 7:22 p.m., and the Bridgeport High School library was as deserted and lifeless as a graveyard. Sitting at his
favorite table, Justin’s eyes scanned his E-trade Pro screen, checking the closing figures of three new stocks he was prospecting for purchase when the stock markets opened in the morning. Justin, who was seventeen, had been buying and selling penny stocks since he was fourteen. Three aspects of playing the stock market set Justin apart from most other traders. First, of course, was his young age. Second, 90 percent of his weekday trading was made from one classroom or another; his iPhone, hidden below his desktop, generally rested on his lap, in constant use. And third, Justin was a millionaire. A millionaire three times over.
To say Justin was circumspect about his life would be an understatement. He loathed being noticed, would rather have jumped in front of a city bus than been caught in the limelight. The number of folks who knew about his monetary exploits could be listed on one hand: his mother, his banker, and his best friend, Kyle Hombly. Actually, Kyle was more a virtual friend—he lived in Manhattan, was in his twenties, and also dabbled in buying and selling so-called penny stocks. Also, oddly enough, the high school’s vice principal, Mr. Stanpipe. But their tie was mainly due to the number of times Justin had been sent to the VP’s office for “screwing around” with his mobile phone during class-time. The good news there—Stanpipe was keen on getting into day-trading.
Situated now where there was little to no foot-traffic, and a good distance from the other tables, Justin was assured of the one thing he desired most—isolation. About six feet tall, Justin’s slim frame was long and lanky. Having avoided athletics, taking any excuse not to be outdoors more than absolutely necessary, he’d built up little in the way of musculature. He wore his blonde hair short on the sides and longish on top—mod-style. His mother had donned the scissors. For the most part, his facial features blended together well enough, and he’d have been considered handsome by most people’s standards. Yet handsome he was not.
In a single, absentminded motion, Justin ran several fingers down the left side of his face, feeling his cheek’s now-familiar ragged contours. The skin mask of crisscrossing scar tissue so aptly afforded him an ugly moniker: “Scarface.”
As his mobile phone vibrated on the table, he leaned over and saw a text from his mother: