Incursion: Merkiaari Wars Book 5 Read online

  Contents

  Incursion

  Book Description

  A word on language and pronunciation

  Sign-up

  Part I

  1 ~ Do Not Go Gentle

  2 ~ Into That Good Night

  3 ~ Rage Against The Dying

  4 ~ The Dying of the Light

  5 ~ Scavenger

  6 ~ Visitors

  7 ~ Harmonies

  8 ~ A Matter of Honour

  9 ~ Born Scientist

  10 ~ Show Time

  11 ~ Summoned

  Part II

  12 ~ Sebastian

  13 ~ Homecoming

  14 ~ Possibilities

  15 ~ Chaos Theory

  16 ~ Broken

  17 ~ Options

  18 ~ Reaper

  19 ~ Weaponise Me

  20 ~ High Table

  21 ~ Contact

  Part III

  22 ~ Staying Human

  23 ~ Learning Lessons

  24 ~ Eternal Friends

  25 ~ News From The Front

  26 ~ Enclave

  27 ~ Honoured Guests

  28 ~ Damaged Goods

  29 ~ Convention

  30 ~ Titans

  31 ~ Live Fire

  32 ~ Orientation

  33 ~ Inconvenient Tails

  34 ~ Five Credit Tour

  Part IV

  35 ~ Merry Christmas

  36 ~ Sudden Drop

  37 ~ Refugees

  38 ~ Stepping Up

  39 ~ Balance

  40 ~ Taking Stock

  41 ~ Well Met

  42 ~ Scholars

  43 ~ Time's Up

  44 ~ Remember Me

  45 ~ Epilogue

  46 ~ Bonus Chapter

  Other titles by this author

  About The Author

  Star Map

  Copyright

  Acknowledgements

  Incursion

  By

  Mark E. Cooper

  v1.001

  Like many of you, I buy so many great books that when I get around to reading them I've forgotten what they're about! For those of you like me, I've included a brief description here to remind you why you chose this book. Enjoy!

  Book Description

  The war games are on, but the real battle has just begun…

  The Alliance is ready for the war games. The spectacular show of innovation and strength may change the way war is waged, but on far-flung worlds devastating incursions have already begun. The Merkiaari are back, but news can only travel as fast as a foldspace drone.

  Captain Eric Penleigh of the 501st Infantry Regiment looks forward to an easy assignment. All he needs to do is evaluate the best cutting-edge tech the Alliance has to offer and make nice with new alien allies. But when preparation for the games turns into a deadly war, nobody will be ready for what comes next.

  Get the fantastic audio edition narrated by Mikael Naramore

  A word on language and pronunciation

  These books were written and produced in the United Kingdom and use British English language conventions. For example the use of ‘ou’ in the words colour and honour instead of the American spellings: color, honor. Another example would be the interchangeable use of ize and ise in words such as realise or realize. Both are correct.

  The Shan are an alien species with their own verbal and written language, but for story purposes all Shan dialogue is translated into English. However, names of characters remain as close as is possible to the actual alien name. See examples below for pronunciation:

  Shima = Shee-muh

  Tei’Varyk = Tie-va-rick

  Kajetan = Kah-jet-an

  Fuentez = Foo-en-tez

  Evrei Xabat = Ev-rye Za-bot

  Parcae = Pah-k-eye

  Kisa = Key-sah

  Merki = Mer-key

  Merkiaari = Mer-key-ah-ree

  Orbit = year

  Cycle = day

  Seg = hour

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  1 ~ Do Not Go Gentle

  Aboard ASN Odyssey, Faragut orbit.

  “Kill that,” Captain Jane Powell said, highlighting a Merkiaari ship on the main viewer with her control wand.

  Odyssey bucked and rolled as Merki cap ship missiles repeatedly slammed her from all sides. They were hammering her into scrap despite her dreadnought armour and shields. She held station on the planet and soaked up the punishment, not out of choice, but out of necessity. Her drives and aft section had been reduced to slag. Despite that she was still a powerful unit, and one in a much better condition than the rest of her squadron. The dead hulks of Faragut’s picket force drifting throughout the system attested to that. Odyssey was the only ship left in any condition to fight.

  Powell sat at her ease with legs crossed and her control wand in hand. Her crew were working at their stations with precision and skill like an extension of her will. She ignored the burning remains of Odyssey’s comms shack; the acrid smoke pouring from it and the engineering console dedicated to monitoring the drives, did little to break her concentration. The tactical situation on the main screen and its duplicate on her number one monitor, held her full attention as she evaluated and discarded targets. She pointed her wand at a heavy cruiser and highlighted it. Battle damage appeared beside the flashing icon, and she nodded her approval. The earlier battle had already degraded its armour and shields by a significant amount.

  “Kill that,” she said and dismissed the cruiser from her mind to inspect another target.

  Obedient to the order, Odyssey’s gargantuan particle cannons and grazers swivelled on their mounts, locked on, and spoke. The ravening energy poured into the hull of the Merki ship and smashed on through. Deck after deck after deck succumbed to the massive outpouring of energy. The beams speared the ship clean through and hammered another ship on its far side. Both ships blew apart in a spectacular display of fusion pyrotechnics.

  Powell noted the destruction and highlighted another ship. “Kill that.”

  Commander Stevenson, Odyssey’s XO, looked up from his place at scan. “The cruisers are withdrawing, Skipper. Shame we can’t pursue.”

  “Yes. Shame,” Powell said and highlighted a cruiser lagging behind its fleeing brethren. “Give that a broadside, tubes one through twenty.”

  “Aye, ma’am. Target locked. Firing,” Lieutenant Sinclair said. He was more than happy to oblige.

  Twenty missiles raced into the void; each had a fifty megatonne nominal yield. One and then two more missiles failed for one reason or another. They lost lock and were left behind by their speeding brothers. Half were decoyed off track and wasted themselves on destroying a multi-tonne decoy, but that left eight unwilling to be shaken off.

  All eight struck.

  “Target destroyed, Skip!” Sinclair said happily, but then with a dejected sigh he said, “No targets in range, Skipper.”

  “New contacts!” Commander Stevenson announced. “Multiple contacts incoming. Merkiaari assault ships with dreadnoughts and escorts.”

  “How many?” Powell demanded, already knowing that even one assault ship was too many for Odyssey in her current condition.

  “Five assault ships and fifty dreadnoughts plus the escorts, Skipper,” Stevenson said grimly. “And you remember that formation holding back on the edge of the zone?”

  She nodded. “What about it?”

  “It’s advancing. Marauder class transports plus escorts.”

  Five dreadnought squadrons paired with Marauders and escorts. They had a full-scale incursion on their hands, not a raiding force as earlier assumed. The Red One Alert had suggested it might happen. Everyone knew it could happen some
where in Alliance space, but it was happening to her right here at home. A Merki cleansing fleet was loose in Alliance space and no one outside of the system knew it. She was witnessing the start of the second Merki War and she couldn’t tell anyone. She eyed the still smoking comms shack bitterly.

  It didn’t matter.

  She was dead, and so was her ship. All that mattered now was making the Merki pay dearly. Sector HQ would receive Faragut’s drones posthumously. She knew at least one had reached foldspace before the squadron was blown away. The information it carried was incomplete, and she regretted that, but there was enough for Admiral Fischer to put it together.

  He would avenge Odyssey and her crew.

  “More for us to kill,” Powell said, trying to sound confident for the crew’s sake. “Target the assault ship in the central formation.” She highlighted the huge ship with her wand. With luck the Merkiaari’s First Claw would be in that unit. They usually did use assault ships for command and control. He could be in any of the five they’d brought, but the central ship seemed most likely. “When it's dead take targets of opportunity.”

  “Aye aye skipper,” Sinclair said and programmed his fire control computers. He hesitated for a moment afterwards, but then he activated a program he’d prepared called Doomsday. “Target locked.”

  “Helm! Can you give me a barrel roll?” It would enable both of Odyssey’s ravaged broadsides to bear on the target.

  Lieutenant Glenn turned toward her. “I haven’t got much left, Skipper, but I’ll try.”

  “Do your best.”

  “Aye aye.”

  Glenn used his few remaining thrusters to push the ship into a spin on her longitudinal axis. It took time but they had a while for the Merki to come back into range. Odyssey began rolling in place, sweeping space around her with targeting sensors.

  “Here they come!” Glenn whispered.

  “Target in range. Firing!” Sinclair snarled.

  Every weapon on Odyssey’s port side opened up and went to rapid fire. The roll brought her starboard broadside to bear and she slashed at the Merki with laser, grazer, and particle beams. Missiles raced into the void adding their destructiveness to that heaped upon the approaching ships. Two full broadsides slammed the Merki, and then Odyssey’s portside weapons came to bear again.

  They spoke like the breath of God unleashed.

  Merkiaari decoys and point defence could never hope to stop all the fire aimed their way, but they tried. Tried and failed. Perhaps a third of the missiles reached their target and space erupted. Merki shield generators howled, taking the load. In one case, notably Sinclair’s original target, the generators failed and the assault ship added its own magazines to the fury boiling in space. Two dreadnoughts joined the ship in death amid the chaos.

  “Excellent shooting, Weps,” Powell said. An assault ship and a pair of dreadnoughts dead in one salvo was remarkably good luck. Lucky or not, it proved the Merkiaari’s shield tech hadn’t improved significantly. Shame she couldn’t tell anyone. “Continue action.”

  “Aye aye,” Sinclair said, but he didn’t need to intervene in the attack. His computers had their targets already. He simply held down a key marked timeout override and let his computers fight the ship.

  As the range closed the Merki began firing. Odyssey returned fire but it wasn’t enough. Merki cap ship missiles sleeted in and detonated. Odyssey writhed at the heart of a sun. Her titanic shield generators howled and began to fail. A grazer beam strong enough to destroy a city breached engineering, and Odyssey’s already useless drives along with her entire engineering staff were wiped away. Every single boat bay was ripped open to space a moment later, and small craft spilled into the void to burn up as they entered Faragut’s atmosphere.

  Odyssey continued her roll presenting her port shields to the Merki fire. On the bridge all was quiet until a Merki particle cannon slashed open the compartment. One moment Sinclair was at his station, the next he was gone leaving an empty chair contrasted starkly by the star speckled blackness of the void. Atmosphere blasted through the hole in the bulkhead behind his station, but he was the only casualty on the bridge. Everyone had their helmets on and sealed.

  Odyssey’s computer noted the timeout override suddenly begin counting toward zero and followed its programmed instructions. The magazines of an Alliance dreadnought contained thousands of nuclear missiles, something a tactical officer like Sinclair had known intimately well. As the counter reached one hundred Odyssey ignored the sudden consternation on the bridge and jettisoned every nuclear device in her magazines. Her fire was suddenly cut in half as her launch rails ran dry, leaving only her energy mounts to rage at the Merkiaari.

  “What—” Powell began to say.

  In the eternity between words, Odyssey had plenty of time to activate her already scattering munitions—almost nine hundred milliseconds-worth of time, in which every missile the ship had carried uploaded Sinclair’s program.

  Odyssey rolled on and her failing starboard shields again presented themselves to the attack. Environmental was destroyed and with it CIC. Magazines one through four were obliterated and her energy fire suddenly became erratic as targeting sensors shut down or were destroyed. Power runs fused and energy mounts locked as their data feeds cut them off from the firing circuit. Marines in battle armour took over and continued the fight in local control, firing the huge guns as the Merki ships entered their engagement envelopes.

  Odyssey turned, soaking up damage and her starboard shields failed disastrously. The Merki beams peeled away her armour devastating an area reaching from her drive tubes all the way forward to the gaping hole that used to be CIC. Her entire starboard broadside was gutted.

  “—is happening?” Powell said. Her ship bucked and yawed end over end.

  Odyssey gave her next command and thousands of missile drives roared to life. Like a pack of wolves the unguided missiles began hunting. Milli-seconds later they found the Merki and raced to the attack.

  “We’re—” Commander Stevenson began to report.

  The Merkiaari lasers and grazers slashed in and smashed through Odyssey’s unprotected starboard side. Captain Powell smiled goodbye to Stevenson and her ship’s fusion containment failed.

  A miniature sun was born and Odyssey began her final journey, burning and breaking up as she entered Faragut’s atmosphere. Less than a minute later Sinclair’s last present to the Merki arrived. Four assault ships had been his target, all four ships survived.

  * * *

  2 ~ Into That Good Night

  The Cradle, Duchy of Kentmere, Faragut.

  “It feels damn good to get out of the palace for a while,” Nicholas said as he gazed up at Mount Cho. “That suffocating pile will kill me one day, you see if it doesn’t.”

  “No one ever died of boredom, your Highness. Climbing accidents now, they’re pretty common.”

  “Nonsense. The conditions are perfect.”

  “Accidents happen.”

  He shot her an irritated glare but Major Eleanor Hutton had fielded worse. She was his aide and bodyguard in one pretty package. She’d witnessed all his moods. His father had assigned her to him when he left Faragut to attend the Naval Academy on Earth. They’d served together for more than a decade since then on various ships.

  “I’m sorry, Ellie.”

  She shrugged. “Not your fault, your Highness.”

  He winced. “Do you have to be so formal, even up here? You used to call me Nicky.”

  “That was a long time ago. You’re my prince not my boyfriend.”

  “I want to be more than either. We’re a good match.”

  “Not good enough. Letting you marry me gives no advantage to your father.”

  That was true. Earl Peckforton’s stranglehold on the upper house meant more to the king than his heir’s happiness. It had to. Unfairness didn’t enter into it, and even Nicholas understood that. Richard Windsor loved his son, but in public his alter ego, King Richard, loved nothing but power. He c
ouldn’t afford to, lest it be used against him. Everything he did he did for Faragut; even if it sentenced his heir to a loveless marriage.

  “The king can be reasoned with. Help me do that.”

  “Renouncing the throne isn’t a reasonable tactic. It’s idiotic.”

  “It won’t come to that. Just work with me, Ellie. Help me!”

  “I am helping you, you idiot.”

  “By abandoning me?”

  “By stepping aside. I won’t make you choose between me and your father’s throne. Disowning you would break his heart.”

  “And you’re breaking mine!”

  The hoods of their coats and the high altitude masks they both wore hid their expressions from one another. Frostbite was a real danger at this altitude. He didn’t need to see her face to know the expression she wore. The hurt and accusation must surely be there. He’d promised. On his honour he had promised to ask his father to reconsider his betrothal upon their return to Faragut, but he hadn’t bargained for his father’s eagerness to cement an alliance with Earl Peckforton. To his horror they’d arrived home to find the Palace had leaked his betrothal, and the newsies were already broadcasting it all over the system. He wondered what Lady Charlotte thought. Not that it mattered. Like him she hadn’t been consulted, and like him, she was expected to marry her father’s choice.

  “We need to get going, your Highness.”

  Ellie carefully probed the way ahead with the long handle of her axe and left him behind without a glance. Her spiked boots made the snow creak with every step she took.

  Her impersonal tone hurt. She was already putting distance between them in anticipation of his wedding. It would be all he ever heard from her in future if he didn’t do something. He would be HRH Prince Nicholas to her, or Commander Windsor. Her principal. Someone to guard not love. Never again just Nicky. He watched her go for a space, and then followed before the rope linking them ran out of slack.

  The trek to base camp gave him time to consider and discard various plans. In the end it came down to one of two options. Marry Charlotte or defy his father. No choice at all he realised, and felt his spirits lighten. He would defy his father and if pushed to it he’d renounce the throne in favour of his little brother. William was still in school but only barely. He’d make a fine king… in twenty years. He sighed glumly knowing it for truth, but maybe that would work in his favour. Their father knew it too. It might help his case. It would certainly add some pressure.