The Intruder Mandate Read online

  THE INTRUDER MANDATE

  BOOK 1 –

  The Farthest Star from Home

  By

  William Cray

  More than anyone else, I want to thank my father for encouraging me with everything I have ever done that had meaning. Those times when I seemed aimless and floating on the currents of life, he was always there to help me find a path through the good times and the bad. Thanks Dad. No son could have asked for a better father. Still miss you mom.

  Copyright  2017 by the author

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used ficticiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locals or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted by in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the author.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  My Brave Boy

  The Cabal

  Circus Macabre

  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

  Aftermath

  A Signal to Begin

  MY BRAVE BOY

  “We’re cut off. The tunnel collapsed.”

  Clara felt the press of fear in her platoon. It weighed on them like the incalculable tons of earth now suffocating them slowly. The earth wouldn’t kill them. Couldn’t. But fear could. The desperation, the impeding claustrophobia imposed by the crush of rock would eventually cause some of them to panic. Already she could feel their need. They all looked to her. They needed their Captain to reassure them. To show them the way out.

  She could feel something else too. They were being stalked. It was closing the distance through the earth. She had known they were down here somewhere, but now they were turning around and closing. The dirt and rock wouldn’t stop them. They lived down here.

  “Okay. Anyone hurt?” she asked. The first stage of reassurance. She already knew the answer, even before her suit relayed the status of her soldiers. No one was seriously injured and that would bolster some. It would hold the fear at bay as the dust settled.

  “We know what to do,” she said in her calmest voice, sending a companion thought to her platoon to ease the burden of their situation. “Everyone deploy your braces. Utoro, unlink your rockfish and send them down. See if there is a connection anywhere ahead of us. If we can get to a pocket we can hold there until the Sappers dig us out.”

  Steady boys and girls. We’ve all been down here before. This is nothing new. She sent the message as a gentle nudge to buoy them. This platoon of fighters were her children, the only ones she would ever have. But the Idoan half of her mind was screaming. They were in trouble. She could feel the creep of alien minds through the rock. They were searching for her.

  The temperature inside of her COMEX started to rise as the heat sinks were choked out by debris. Dribbles of sweat started to form on her skin inside the suit liner. It was so hot down this deep. The miles of earth above them hung just centimeters over their heads, pressing down… shifting. It was a mountain ready to fall on them.

  Clara started to take a sip from her hydration tube, but stopped as her lips pursed around the plastic shaft. If they were trapped, water would be precious. Had to be rationed. Better to start now.

  Her soldiers started to move a little, digging themselves out from the light debris, edging around the heavier stuff that pinned them in the shaft. The shimmer of arms and legs shifted the loose dirt and rocks that flowed down the incline they were following deeper into the tunnel. The linked seismic sensors on each COMEX pinged, creating a map of their surroundings. Tiny rockfish remotes would use the map to crawl forward in the fissures and loose earth to find them a path forward. The main assault shaft had imploded and almost two kilometers of tunnel had dropped behind them. The spur off the main line had held for the most part, but it would take time to reinforce it. The data links to the other platoons were severed. Air scrubbers were offline. No help was coming, at least not for days.

  “I can’t move.” She felt it before she heard it. It was the cherry. One of her replacements. Carr. His voice was weak, almost confused.

  “Relax cherry. We’ll get you out.” Carr’s squad leader responded.

  Good man, Clara breathed. But she sensed a spike of fear in others. More were pinned. They weren’t hurt, but the press of rock and debris held them close against the tunnel walls.

  “Fuck, I’m stuck too.” The others that were trapped were cutting in now.

  “I can’t move my arm.”

  “My optics are out. I can’t see.”

  It was a massive boulder. The sensors pinged out and the returns showed a huge block of pyrite sitting on top of them, perched on a spar like a blunt arrowhead teetering above them. The shifting dirt had taken some of its weight and the hardness of their combat armor and prevented them from being crushed into bloody fossils, but before they could jack themselves out of the shaft, the massive rock had to be braced.

  Clara listened as her squad leaders tried to organize braces along the shaft. She sent them commands from her Idoan training, sending encouragement as well. After the walls and that fucking boulder were braced, they could jack up the rock, freeing her trapped soldiers. If there was time.

  Her seismic sensors felt the ground shift again as more dirt and debris fell on them. The epicenter was further behind them. More tunnels were being collapsed. This wasn’t a cave in on a bad shaft. It was an attack along the main axis.

  A thin tendril of awareness wormed around in her skull as she issued instructions and reassured her troops. She felt the crease in her consciousness as the enemy brain sent out its feelers, looking for her. They were zeroing in. They knew where she was. It wouldn’t be long now. They had to get to a defensible position. The platoon was strung out in a line along the unstable shaft with that block of pyrite in the middle of them. Like a spear in the chest, keeping them from moving.

  “Squad leaders, break out the struts. Brace that rock, forget the walls.” She used her suit’s sensor suite to find her way forward on her stomach, through the gaps and loose dirt to get closer to her trapped soldiers. “Utoro, find us a way out. Follow the path of the tunnel as far forward as you can. Find us a place to hole up. Quickly.”

  The sharp awareness of her platoon began to wane, turning from purpose to unease. Fear now, panic was next. The Idoans in her command felt the tendrils also. She calmed herself, conveying the thoughts along the Idoan wavelengths to her men. Breathe… calm… serenity… focus on the task in front of you. But her thoughts weren’t holding her children together. She could feel them sliding into fear.

  Clara isolated the searching tendrils snaking around them. She sensed juvenile minds among the enemy. They were wild and undisciplined when used in mass, but this battle was g
oing to be single combat in tight quarters where her platoon would be unable to deploy its superior weaponry.

  She felt the briefest sense of relief from Utoro. He had found something.

  “I’ve got an opening ahead, thirty-five meters, bearing two-three-two. It’s the spur. Its still up.”

  “Good. Teest, you and Jan, work your way up there. Utoro, pick out a good section and reinforce it. We are going to blow this tunnel behind us once we’ve extracted.

  “Movement behind us!”

  Clara looked back through her suit. The call had come from her second in command at the trail of her platoon. She was stomach down, near the pyrite mountain and she tried to push up onto her knees, but the rock was too low. She felt the dirt shifting below her. They were coming up. The schhhhhing of variform blades unsheathing sounded as fear surged into the minds of her troops.

  “Everyone forward. Move. Jack us clear. “

  “What about us?” She heard the cry. It was from one of her trapped soldiers. Carr.

  All movement stopped. The platoon froze, waiting to hear her answer. In the quiet her audio sensors could pick up the scrape of talons on rock all round them. They had minutes. Clara hesitated then closed her eyes. In her mind she sang.

  My brave boys push on tonight…my brave boys onto the light…

  She kept up the song. Using all of her force to push out the fear and panic rising in her trapped platoon. She sang in her mind until she heard it begin to echo over her com unit. Throughout time, soldiers had buoyed their courage though common song and she needed her boys to be brave now. The voices started to rise. Only those who were trapped didn’t sing.

  Clara left the song as it was carried along by her platoon as they dug. The experienced Idoans in her platoon started to dig out fighting positions, trying to clear enough space to get up to their knees and wield close range weapons or place directional mines. They were getting ready to fight.

  She focused on her trapped soldiers, starting with her newest, Carr. She could feel him writhing in his suit. Flailing against the rock. Trying to wriggle out, she could sense the pressure on his chest as if she were pinned in the suit with him. His mind kept repeating, “Don’t leave me… please don’t leave me.”

  Her sensors could make out the string of her platoon all inching forward through the light debris. Picking their way through it with song still in their heart. She edged over next to Carr. She wanted to make physical contact with him, to let him feel the reassurance she was sending to him through her mind, but she couldn’t break the seal on her suit.

  The first scream stopped the song. Then the flood of fear drowned out everything else.

  “Miggy!” Panicked voices called out. Gurgled screams sheared away by sharp talons ripping and thrashing on armor in the dark.

  “They’re in front of us,” another screamed.

  Clara unsheathed her trench knife from her forearm. The voices in her platoon started to rise as they frantically tried to dig out fighting positions. She worked herself up to her knees and turned around. Feelers shot through the loose dirt behind her and she severed the translucent strands with a stroke of her knife. The severed ends retreated down the gap and she chased them with a squirt of fire from her plasma gun. She held her position and listened to the battle going on around her, using all her Idoan abilities to fortify her soldiers. Maybe they could hold.

  Trapped against the rock and unable to maneuver, wiry tentacles shot through the gaps, grabbing and piercing the armor of her beautiful boys with hardened tips. The rapid fire crunch of talons shooting through the gaps in their armor like a nail through a crab shell erupted into screams. They pecked harder and harder until the soft flesh inside was impaled on the bloody spears. Panic filled their voices as they thrashed back against the attack.

  Men and women screamed as tentacles constricted around bones, crushing them. They yanked her soldiers free of the rocky vice before jackhammering through their armored faceplates to the soft fleshy eyes they so abhorred. Rokon juveniles always went for your face. They hated human eyes more than anything. She heard the crack of bones and shrieking of her children as Rokon talons sliced into flesh like a dull knife cleaving meat.

  For one terrifying instant the cavern lit up and she could see the horror with perfect clarity. Thick translucent tentacles wrapped around her soldiers as they thrashed and sliced with their blades trying to free themselves. The thump of the explosion and cloud of vaporized rock blinded her. Her audio sensors cut out the sound of grenades going off. Her children sacrificed themselves in the flash as they tried to burn away the attackers. When the audio cut back in she could hear them dying. The minds of her soldiers broke free and the terror set them mad.

  Carr was simpering, so unprepared for this, so unready to die. Clara slipped back down onto her stomach and worked her way back towards Carr.

  The proximity sensors on her suit signaled that something close was moving. As she tried to reorient herself to meet it, a powerful rope of muscle lashed her leg, pinning it. She flailed against the tightening grip but couldn’t move. She chased the tentacle with another squirt of blue plasma, but it was on the other side of her body. It loosend briefly and she tried to rip free, but the tentacle wrenched down again. It had her now. She knew she would die.

  Like a good mother, she turned her attention to her last child. He was the only one left now. Poor, poor Carr.

  Through the blinding panic, she settled him. Breath…I am here next to you… you aren’t alone.

  Clara felt him calm. He latched onto the voice in his mind. Carr didn’t speak, but his breathing slowed. She felt the utter sadness as he realized he was about to die. He didn’t want to die alone.

  With a command to her suit, she released her armored gauntlets and wiggled her hand free against the dirt of the shattered tunnel’s floor. With a small mental push of reassurance, he did the same.

  “Carr, take my hand. I am here.” She said.

  Her fingers explored the tunnel floor expecting her hand to be suddenly impaled on a spike, but she kept searching. Then she found it. She grasped Carr’s slippery hand. At first they gripped each other hand in hand in a hard clasp, like two people holding each other in victory, but soon the hands relaxed, just two humans holding hands, providing comfort to each other.

  The tentacles had reached her torso. She could feel them tighten around her legs now, rending her suit to pieces. The bone-crunching grip would have mauled her legs if she had any, but she lost them long ago in another tunnel like this one. The suit’s integrity had failed and warnings flashed across her faceplate. She wouldn’t escape this time, even if she could. She wouldn’t leave him. She wouldn’t leave the cherry alone now that he was all that was left of her children.

  The first violent yank on her legs came as a shock. She tightened her grip on Carr’s slippery hand as she prepared for the second. The next one came an instant later and she slid. The tentacles twisted her onto her back as she could feel the peck… peck… peck of nails on her suit. Still she held on to Carr. He was crying out to her.

  She felt his grip tighten again before the next rip came, breaking them apart. Carr’s fingers reached for her as she was dragged down the waist high tunnel as fast as only a Rokon could move. As she was ripped away she heard the clatter of armor as her body passed across the ruined shells of her children along the path. Carr cried out again in desperation as he was left alone.

  In her Idoan voice, Clara said good-bye to him.

  THE CABAL

  3025 P.F.C.

  (Post Flare Civilization)

  “We live in interesting times.”

  “Yes Caleb, if you live as long as you have, interesting things are bound to occur now and again. My only desire is to find out what you find so interesting and why the others are not here.”

  The ice blue sun hadn’t risen above the horizon but its brilliance sent waves of dancing colors across the upper atmosphere, announcing its imminent arrival. Ambrose Polesti inwardly revele
d at the view. It was as beautiful as it was dangerous. If the collection of Consentors standing on the terrace now were still here in an hour, they would all be dead. This would be a brief meeting, whatever the reason they had been called here, and there was good reason to be cautious.

  Caleb Barbaron had summoned them to the terrace in secrecy. He was in violation of strict protocols to have an undeclared meeting with Seconds of the Council, but he was doing it anyway. Taylor, Nicodemous, Carolous and old Marshal Zhakarkin all stood waiting as Caleb grandstanded at the terrace.

  This is a strange cabal, Ambrose thought, especially the Marshal. What possible relevance would trigger his presence?

  While Ambrose considered himself within the orbit of Prime Caleb Barbaron, he was not this elite and certainly not inner circle. Two of the others, Nicodemous and Taylor, certainly were close associates of Caleb, but himself and Carolous were relative outsiders. The presence of the Marshal was an aberration in the extreme.

  A wide smile came across Caleb’s face as the horizon flashed in a spectrum of purple and blue hews. Caleb swept his arm in a wide arc at the glaciers in the distance as the Pavonian sun broached the surface. The defensive sprites and sensors hovering around him flowed with the sweep of his arm, reflecting against the background like magic dust. Taylor’s tiny birds and baubles danced around him in an outburst of joy at the sight.

  This was the moment he was waiting for. Caleb was showing off the natural beauty of his icy planet, and at the same time, trying to create a moment of shared intimacy within the group.

  Interesting times indeed, Ambrose thought as he forced a smile. Caleb Barbaron was theater incarnate. Whatever was coming would be a dangerous to all of them.

  Ambrose felt a small pang of jealousy looking at Caleb. Primes like Caleb lived extraordinary lives that scaled centuries. Of the hundreds of Caleb Barbarons existing throughout the past six centuries, he was the true genetic source for all. Law guaranteed that history would remember only the grandstanding entity sitting with them on terrace right now, but Seconds of Caleb Barbaron had contributed to culture, commerce and combat around the limits of the human expanse. All of their combined lives amounted to the sole history of the Prime sitting with them and the five genetic lifetimes that the law allotted him.