Homeworld victorious, p.1
Homeworld Victorious, page 1
Homeworld Victorious
HOMEWORLD
BOOK EIGHT
T. E. BUTCHER
Copyright © 2023 by T. E. Butcher
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Contents
Untitled
Untitled
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
Thank You
A Word From The Author
A Preview of Armored Warrior Panzerter Blackwater
Untitled
Your Name
Your Address
Your phone number
Your e-mail address
(Your agent’s name)
(Your agent’s address)
35,600 words.
Untitled
HOMEWORLD 8
by T.E. Butcher
Chapter
One
1100 Hours, 4 April, 2036
Reality seamed to snap in on itself. Henry rubbed his head and fought off the nausea that came with jump sickness. But the songdrive had done its job. The Taal-S’an, massive supercarrier that she was, a monolith of armor and alloys, basked in the light of another sun, or rather three of them. The rest of the expeditionary fleet winked into existence around her, lighting up the tactical display with a flurry of icons.
Alpha Centauri A and B were both similar to Henry’s own sun, though the A star had significantly stronger gravity. Proxima Centauri, the third star in the trinary star system, was a red dwarf and the target of their efforts. Once they’d completed the survey of the red dwarf’s meager planetary system, they’d investigate the other stars for planets or useful materials.
“Well, we’re here,” Henry said as he sat in the Ground Force Command Center with Swayze, Bort and his buff new body, and Ari. “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
“One lunge for M’Nok-kind,” Swayze said. “A short tumble for the Keblarians.”
“Alright, smartass,” Henry replied. “Maybe not a big deal for your people, but a huge deal for mine.” He leaned closer to his monitor. “Let’s get ready to start rummaging through whatever Greith left behind.”
Proxima had four planets: Two rocky planets—a sub-earth and a bigger super-earth in the habitable zone— a modest gas giant with a thin ring system, and a captured comet at the tail end. Proxima’s status as a flare star and a red dwarf made the super-earth’s habitability questionable. Magnetic storms continually battered the planet’s magnetosphere, stripping away wisps of atmosphere every time it came into contact with it. Its incredible mass indicated the planet’s gravity would likely be incredibly uncomfortable for anyone born on Earth.
And yet Greith had the audacity to name it Salvation. The name didn’t stick, and the survivors from the Lost Light, chief among them Qaroww and his mother, had petitioned for them to name the super-earth Corruption.
The giant’s foreboding shadow was partially lit by the dim light of the red dwarf, but most of its mass remained shrouded in darkness, though flashes of lightning were visible from space.
“Lovely place,” Henry said as Mikey brought the image up on optical. “Easy to see why Greith picked this place.”
“His people just wanted off their ship,” Swayze replied. “I remember my parents arguing about this. Greith filled people’s heads with fear and doubt. You have to admit, your children dying in the dark as food and oxygen run out is a horrific image, and he paraded it around.” The M’Nok ran a clawed hand through his blond protofeather mullet before folding his arms. “Though, considering what happened, they might have preferred that option.”
Henry shook his head. They’d been so close. Had they stayed with the main exodus fleet for just a few more weeks, they would have been able to pick up Earth on their long-range telescope—the Promised Land, their homeworld, long lost to their history. Instead, a lot of them had been forced to tough it out on Corruption, watching as the dim star stripped away bits of their atmosphere the magnetic field couldn’t retain.
“We’ve got comms established fleet-wide,” Mikey announced. “The coast is clear and they’re sending in our special delivery.” The fleet lurched, thrusters pushing them away from the system’s jump point. Even across the vast distances and with comm delays, the fleet held incredible disposition and coordination, and within an hour, the fleet was clear of the jump point.
This was entirely necessary as the package had its own gravity well, and seconds after the tachyon pulse comm went out, a rippling flash indicated an incoming ship.
Fortress Nemesis blotted out the stars behind it. The glossy black mass bristled with weapons and fighters, all protected by a crust made completely of carbon nanotubes roughly twenty meters thick. With the breakthrough in nano-machine construction they’d inadvertently discovered at the second battle for Nemesis, they’d managed to covert both Psyche and Orcus into similar fortresses and move them into opposite orbits at the edge of the Kuiper Belt. With their home system protected, High Command had been much more comfortable with moving Nemesis into the next system over.
“Alright, we got fast boats Hacksaw, Broadsword, Katana, and Cutlass moving to commence a flyby of Corruption,” Swayze announced. “They’re going to deploy satellites before moving on to other planets.”
Henry leaned back in his seat as he watched the icons shifting on a screen. “All this staring at screen stuff is going to kill my eyesight,” he noted.
“That’s why you should both wear your readers,” Bort replied. “If you don’t use them now, you’ll need prescription glasses in your forties and fifties.”
Henry glanced at Swayze, and they both shrugged. Reaching into a cargo pocket in his utility uniform, Henry withdrew a glasses case he hardly used and donned the glasses he felt added ten years to his age. Swayze did likewise with a pair of readers that clipped to his snout.
“While we’re waiting,” Henry said. “Let’s pull up all the intel we have on this place.”
In a few moments, Mikey had opened a new window featuring crude maps and various reports.
“We’re looking at a tidally-locked planet with some atmosphere and a powerful enough magnetosphere to maintain one to begin with,” the AI said. “On Corruption, we have three main points of interest: an ancient temple on the surface, the Lost Light colony site, and a Blacktide graveyard.”
Henry nodded and pointed to a hazy image taken from their helmet cams during the Lost Light war. The desiccated corpse of a tidepool filled the center of a decrepit M’Nok mothership.
“Let’s talk about the Blacktide graveyard,” he said. “I feel like that’s the big draw here.”
“Right,” Mikey said. “According to survivor testimony, the first expeditions to the planet discovered mountains and seas filled with the corpses of Blacktide ship-monsters. The ship-monsters, unlike anything encountered in the ancient past, showed clear signs of advanced age. Many were bursting with cancerous growths and bore scars from millennia of space travel.”
“Micrometeorite abrasions,” Swayze said. “So this doesn’t seem to be the site of some massive battle.”
“No.” Henry shook his head. “This is where aging Blacktide come to die. Maybe it’s like an elephant graveyard?” He scratched his head. “With our equipment, though, wouldn’t we be able to see them travel into this system?”
“I think it would go back further than that,” Ari said. “The Lost Light split off just before I was born, and probably got there when Ozzi and I were learning to walk. From what we know of the Blacktide, they’re pretty brutal about other living things being near them.” He leaned back and held up his hand. “So how did they build a settlement on top of a Blacktide graveyard and not get completely curb-stomped by the Blacktide when they came there to die? Even if a shark cruiser had cancer, it would have devoured the Lost Light before it just pummeled the settlement with kinetic kill weapons. So how did Greith show up on Earth with an invasion force twenty years after he got here?”
“Good questions,” Henry said. “Could take a few years off for their travel time to Earth, but still, assuming the Blacktide frequent here, how did Greith’s community survive?” He tapped on his chin as he looked through the report. “That ancient structure might have some answers for us. Mikey, what intel do we have?”
“Not enough,” the AI replied. “We know Greith found the first samples of his strain of Blacktide in the temple, but none of the other members of his expedition returned.”
“Interesting,” Henry replied. “Either Greith killed them off, or something in that temple’s dangerous.” He took another look at the images and rubbed his head.
A step-style pyramid rose from the tortured soil of Corruption. Metallic bits poked out from the crust and rock of the structure, but the amount of soil that had built up, hardened, and eroded again indicated the structure was absurdly anci
“Our ancestors would have stopped here to top off on water from the gas giant’s rings,” the M’Nok said. “No way they don’t notice a big metal temple sitting on the equator.”
“But would they have bothered looking?” Henry said. “I mean, the planet was probably as much of a hellscape then as it is now, not to mention how close it is to Earth. Why settle on a dirtball so close to the people who kicked you off your home planet?”
“Fair,” Swayze said. “But I feel like they would have given it a cursory glance and spotted it nonetheless.”
Henry folded his arms and sat forward.
“Mikey, let’s get Qrora and Admiral H’Kai on the line,” he said. “I want Midnight to check out that temple once we’re in the clear.”
As the satellite net came on system wide, more information became available. The other rocky planet shielded Corruption from most of the flares and magnetic storms. This had scorched and tortured the soil of the world far beyond the tolerances of anything living, granting the ball of rock the name Torment.
The gas planets were already being mined by shuttle drones. Helium-3 and water filled the reserve tanks of the fleet. Even so, they’d earned the monikers Lust and Gluttony to go along with the theme of naming the Promixa planets after bad things.
“Foreboding system,” Henry said as the planet names flooded the screen.
“A lot of bad stuff went down here,” Swayze said. “I think it’s fitting.”
Henry cocked his head back.
“Ari, you’ve been pretty quiet. You good?”
The small M’Nok nodded.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I’m just going over my rescue ops stuff, and damn would I hate to operate on any of these planets.” He shook his head as he stared at his monitor. “Radiation storms, huge temperature fluxes, massive static discharges around the settlements—ugh, it’s a nasty environment down there.”
“Honestly, I’m more interested in that damn temple,” Henry said. “Greith discovered something big there, and I wanna know what.” With a sigh, he leaned back in his chair. “No matter how long I’ve been doing this, the waiting is always the worst.” He sat up again and rested his elbows on his workstation. “At least it’s due to light delays from the fleet’s formation instead of people not talking to each other.”
A big lesson learned from previous battles had been that fleet formation mattered. Instead of keeping their ships well within visual range of each other—a ridiculously close range by astronomical standards—they spread out their forces.
Now their ships were far enough apart that standard radio wave traffic experienced delays, ranging from slight to annoying depending on where your ship was in the formation. They only tolerated this outside of combat, however. In battle, all external comms were routed through tachyon burst comms which worked instantaneously but consumed massive amounts of power, thus necessitating the need for standard comms to save energy outside of combat.
“Heads up, boys,” Mikey said. “We’re clear for a mission to check out the temple, but Qrora wants a separate team investigating the settlement.”
Henry scratched at his chin. He figured Qaroww needed to get a look at the surface, and the M’Nok mutant’s incredible strength would be a boon in close quarters.
“Here’s personnel assignments for both missions,” Henry said. “I’ll go in with Fury to investigate the temple. Midnight Eclipse can check the village. Swayze, you have the eye in the sky?”
“I have it,” Swayze said. “Now the fun begins.”
“Issue warnos and create the plan?” responded Henry incredulously. “Then contingency plans, drills, and a back brief? Probably ten hours of prep for a two- or three-hour mission?” He rose from his chair and stretched. “You have a weird definition of fun.”
Chapter
Two
“We have a possible ID on the structure.” Mikey had to almost shout through the headset ro be heard over the roar of the winds. Corruption proved to be every bit as hospitiable as it’s name implied. Reddish rocky dessert extended for miles in every direction. The soil was rich in iron oxides, and hardly suitable for any kind of agricultural pusuits without the aid of fertilizer. Outcropings of ancinet bedrock broke up the iron sea, and the curtains off dust whiiped up by the wind sparked at their armor with a kigh pitcjhed click sound.
“We should have brought a combat rover,” Henry mused as he flipped his thin poncho to try and absorb more of the dust in place of his armor. Overhead, auroras danced across the sky, whisps of gray flitted like ghosts between splashes of blue and green. They weren’t anywhere near the poles, but rather it was a product of the amount of radiation deflected by the magnetosphere. “Let’s hear this ID Mikey.”
“Well records are hard, but two possibilities stand out,” Mikey said. “This structure is either a relic of whoever buried the Relentless in the desert, or the M’Nok who won their civil war against our M’Noks ancestors.” Henry stumbled ans another fierce gust of wind buffeted them with dust. Cursing and growls filled the net.
He glanced back at the bulk of Midnight Fury and Sun picking themselves off the ground or leaning into the dust. Looking back to the front of their impromptu formation, he saw Qarroww trudging on, unfazed. The powerful M’Nok mutant walked…no, prowled through the raging storm, his swagger unfazed by the hellscape around him. He spent his formative years here, even if he can’t remeber it to well because of that mindfog Greith had on him.
Henry figured Qarroww would forge on ahead, no matter the cost, just to find awnsers as to what happened. He had his own thoughts, that a midwit demagouge had smooth talked himself into getting a following before getting in over his head. Still, if it helped Qarroww put somethings behind him, it was best to have him out here.
“That brings up what happened to those old M’nok,” Henry said. “We have no idea what happened to them, how does a spacefaring civilization just dissaper?”
“Great Filter?” Mikey offered. “An AI uprising? Another war? All of the above?” Henry shook his head. “We just figure it wasn’t a meteor, at least by istself.” As they continued walking, Henry began regreting his decision to land the dropships roughly two football fields away, but the need for stand off just in case the structure had some kind of advanced automated defenses. In any case, he’d rather not call down Ari’s team into a hot LZ ten feet from the structure.
He could see it better as they approached, that is when he wasn’t getting a faceful of iron dust. It’s basic shape was pyramid like, with a rectangular looking cuts resembeling stairs. Two ramps ran from the base of the strucure to it’s apex, with a cut into the soil between it descending into darkness.
“I’ve got eyes on an entry point,” Qarrow announced. “At least I think it’s one.” They carried Spike rifles and new spike reapters, close quarter weapons that lacked the power and range of spike rifles, but made up for it in rate of fire. As much as Henry would rather have more firepower going into the unknown, he figured the structure would be tight quarters and thus he made the best decsions he felt he could. Still, he kept Excaliber strapped to his back, and it was likely the most powerful weapon they had.
Midnight Sun would hold the entrance with Bort, while Henry and Midnight Fury would venture into the structure. As the iron dust whipped past him and sparked his armor, he couldn’t tell weather he dreaded whatever the structure held enough to not be eager to get out of the hellish planet.
“This is an…interesting place to call home,” Five observed. Qarrow looked back at them without breaking his implaccable stride.
