Any Port In A War_An Alien Galactic Military Science Fiction Adventure Read online

  Any Port In A War

  Enemy Of My Enemy Book One

  Tim Marquitz

  Michael Anderle

  Craig Martelle

  Any Port In A War (this book) is a work of fiction.

  All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.

  Copyright © 2018 Tim Marquitz, Michael Anderle and Craig Martelle

  Cover by Tom Edwards tomedwardsdesign.com/

  Cover copyright © LMBPN Publishing

  LMBPN Publishing supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  LMBPN Publishing

  PMB 196, 2540 South Maryland Pkwy

  Las Vegas, NV 89109

  First US edition, July 2018

  The Kurtherian Gambit (and what happens within / characters / situations / worlds) are copyright © 2015-2018 by Michael T. Anderle and LMBPN Publishing.

  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

  Epilogue

  Author Notes - Tim Marquitz

  Author Notes - Michael Anderle

  Books By Tim Marquitz

  Books By Michael Anderle

  Books By Craig Martelle

  Connect with The Authors

  Any Port In A War Team

  Thanks to the JIT Readers

  James Caplan

  Daniel Weigert

  John Ashmore

  Mary Morris

  Kelly O’Donnell

  Peter Manis

  If I’ve missed anyone, please let me know!

  Editor

  Candy Crum

  Prologue

  In the bleakness of space, death lurks.

  The Archangel II sliced through the infinite darkness. Silent, the superdreadnought careened toward the glowing passage of the Zendarin Gate, an out-of-the-way portal off the well-trodden space lanes. Its mission unknown, the Archangel II seemed to devour the distance between it and the gate, skirting the nearby asteroid field. Soon, the ship would pass through the gate and disappear, lost to the void forever.

  But if ever there was a chance to score a blow against the Federation, against Bethany Anne herself, now was the time.

  The Monger broke free of the asteroid field it had been hiding in and slipped round the lee side of the gate. The magnetic and temporal distortion, alongside the signal-scrambling river of asteroids, sheltered it from the Archangel’s scanners. The interference only lasted for a moment, but a moment was all the Wyyvan warcraft needed.

  As the Federation ship reached the gate, its nose gleaming in the coalescing energies of the portal, the Monger engaged its engines and shields and darted from the whirling shadows of the gate, set on an intercept course.

  Bursts of cannon fire erupted from the Wyyvan destroyer, dozens of bolts cleaving through space toward the Archangel’s engines with ill-intent. Bright flashes exploded in the view screen. The Federation ship vanished in the glow, and a roar of triumph filled the bridge of the Monger.

  The Monger’s guns spooled up, waiting for the order to fire again as the brilliant illumination flickered and began to fade. The cheers died on frozen tongues as the view screen cleared.

  Where the captain of the Monger expected to see floating debris and a listing superdreadnought, the Archangel II loomed. It was poised threateningly before the Zendarin Gate, barely scratched. Only a charred discoloration against its hull marked the place where the Monger had unloaded the whole of its arsenal with all of its ill-intent.

  Sirens screamed, breaking the tense silence, and the bridge was suffused in crimson as the Archangel II readied its weapons in reply. The Monger turned sharp and shot forward, desperate to avoid return fire.

  It failed miserably.

  The crown jewel of the Federation opened fire, piercing the Monger’s shields and punching holes in its armored hull with ease. Vented air billowed frosty into space, spilling from the breaches, and smoke filled the bridge. Warnings shrieked in electronic warbles. One of the Monger’s engines flickered and died, and the ship listed, tumbling end over end in the barren vastness, the crew scrambling to right it.

  The Archangel II continued on its stoic path in silence, entering the gate and triggering the energies within before disappearing a moment later.

  The Monger drifted without direction, the crew battling for control as the craft hurtled through the darkness, trailing smoke, wreckage, and lives.

  Chapter One

  Dirt peppered Taj’s goggles with steady plinks. The jagged floor of Everon’s canyon splayed out below her. Wasn’t more than maybe thirty meters away. It whipped past in blurs of green and brown and the occasional lonely yellow.

  All it’d take is for my harness to fail to add some red to the palette. A chuckle spilled loose at the thought.

  She tightened her grip on the strap lashed to the windrider’s hull, the crimped leather of her glove creaking against her palm and settled into the webbing that held her in place. She leveled the flashcannon, balancing it on her shoulder as the power core spooled up.

  Deep, throbbing vibrations ran down her arm. She grinned like a madwoman behind the mask that kept the sand from invading her mouth, whiskers twitching in anticipation as she sighted down the barrel.

  Taj loved this gack.

  “Get me closer, Cabe,” she whooped into her comm.

  “I get you any closer, and you’re gonna be eating raw trrilac tail for supper, butt-fuzz and all,” Cabe, the pilot of the windrider, the Thorn, told her with a raspy laugh, his voice roughened by the nip he constantly nursed on.

  “Mmmmmm, my favorite.” Taj thumped her heels against the hull like spurring a horse on.

  Cabe sighed into the mic, and the Thorn’s nose dipped in response, engines whining as it throttled up. The windrider coughed, once, twice, spitting out billows of black smoke, then engaged. “Hold on. She’s a bit sluggish this morning.”

  “When isn’t she?” Taj’s hair flailed behind her, ebony tendrils waving like a flag as the ship jolted forward. She howled as the herd of trrilac drew closer, the flashcannon’s sensor’s beeping at their proximity.

  “Careful what you wish for, Taj,” Torbon told her. He waved at her f
rom his perch on the other side of the craft. “Remember last season’s migration.” She could hear the grin in his voice.

  He hadn’t been grinning then.

  “I remember someone squealing like a little girl,” Lina said, her voice crackling across the comm. Buried in her tech-cage in the core of the Thorn’s engine chamber, if something so tiny could be considered a room, her messages were always filled with static, making her sound as if she were light years away. It made her voice cold, robotic; inhuman.

  “That someone would be you, Torbon,” Taj delighted in telling him. She pointed at him with her eyes, an eyebrow raised, not that he could see it under her goggles.

  “How was I supposed to know the trrilac had a ferion spider sack attached to it? Or that the heat of the cannon would make them hatch?” He shuddered, clearly remembering the moment.

  Cabe shrieked, mimicking Torbon. “Get `em off! Get `em off!”

  “Hey. You weren’t the ones with metallic spiders trying to crawl into your every orifice now, were you?”

  The crew chuckled. Taj leaned into her webbing, the straps groaning as she blinked away amused tears. “You should have seen your face.”

  “Yeah, well—”

  The Thorn shuddered, engines barking as Cabe eased off the throttle. “Eyes on the prize, folks,” he told them. “As much fun as it is to question Torbon’s pluck, the herd looks spooked for some reason. Stay sharp.”

  Taj glanced out over the gathering of trrilac and drew in a deep breath. Despite how many times the crew played shepherd to the flock of strange, graceful beasts, she had to remind herself how dangerous they could be. That’s why they were there to begin with.

  Though they weren’t normally aggressive, in essence, the trrilac were giant, flying, furry, carnivorous whales, and that made them naturally dangerous. Monstrous bodies and sharp teeth were a deadly combination.

  Great bulbous bodies trundled through the air, rising and falling with every coordinated flap of the multitude of colossal, membranous wings that trailed down their spines. Wide, round eyes that shone like bright blue moons stared out at the world from above great gaping mouths. Millions of serrated teeth filled their maws, the trrilacs’ chewing up anything unlucky enough to cross their path. Eddies of wind whirled around the creatures, kicking up dust and dirt as they wound their way through the valley that led to the Maladorian Plains.

  Home—Culvert City—lay on the other side of those, the town’s communal herd of balborans roaming the fields beyond, and the trrilac were headed straight toward the stock. They had done the same every turn for the last twenty turns of the crews’ lives, desperate for a meaty meal to see them through the lean winter season. The herd inched closer to the ground with every kilometer.

  Taj steadied her flashcannon and eased a finger over the trigger, a claw scraping against the leather of her glove. “Flash in three…two…one…”

  She squeezed and fired. The flashcannon fhwumped, spitting a glowing ball of light over the heads of the trrilacs. After it passed, it exploded, filling the air with a sparkling wall of brilliant stars, raining down in front of the beasts.

  The trrilacs wailed in response, the sound sending goosebumps skittering up Taj’s arms. The creatures swayed, bumping into each other, a chain reaction of fuzzy blubber wavering across their hides. The herd held its course, hemmed in place by their cluttered mass and the rocky sides of the valley.

  “Firing!” Torbon triggered his cannon, the resulting explosion a bit closer to the trrilacs than Taj’s shot was, but again, the creatures held fast, clearly determined not to be swayed from the feast at the end of their long flight.

  Taj lashed out, kicking air with a boot, her harness creaking from the motion. “Get along, little woggies.”

  “Interesting tactic. When explosions fail, try positive thinking?” Torbon chuckled over the comm.

  Taj ignored him. “Get us closer, Cabe. These things are as dense as Torbon. We’re gonna need another round to turn `em about.”

  “Roger that,” Cabe called out. The Thorn trembled and whined, darting forward with a leap that set the two wranglers swinging in their harnesses.

  “Damn, Cabe,” Torbon shouted, bobbling his flashcannon as he scrambled to reset himself inside the webbing. “Easy on the throttle.”

  Taj could almost hear Cabe’s shrug from inside the cockpit. “Gears are sandy from last week’s storm. She needs a tune-up.”

  “That’s why you call her Thorn,” Torbon replied, “because she’s a—”

  “Pain in the ass!” Taj, Torbon, and Lina shouted all at once.

  “You’re gonna hurt her feelings,” Cabe warned, smoothing out the ride. “There. Better?”

  “Perfect.” Taj watched as the lead trrilac drew closer and closer, its great tailfin slicing through the air a few meters below and whipping up warm currents.

  She raised her flashcannon, feeling it prime, and went to squeeze off a shot. That’s when something deep inside the Thorn rattled. There was a loud clunk, then the nose dipped unexpectedly. Taj jolted forward, her harness slamming her into the hull with a thump. The flashcannon went off.

  The shot arced downward, striking the trrilac they’d been trailing. The spark detonated with a whistling squeee. The trrilac shrieked and lunged to avoid the heat. Blackened smoke billowed from a scorched wing that flickered with tiny flames.

  “Oh…gack,” Taj muttered as the trrilac reared back and rose like a wall before them.

  “Hold for evasive action!” Cabe screamed.

  “We’re gonna die!” Torbon screeched over him, throwing himself against the side of the windrider and clawing at the hull as if looking for a way inside.

  The Thorn convulsed, and Cabe geared down, dropping them like a stone. Taj’s ribs rattled, and her stomach roiled, feeling as though the organ had leaped into her throat. She clamped her teeth against its attempted mutiny. Still, the trrilac tail loomed, filling her wide eyes and leaving room for nothing else. Its shadow washed over her, blocking out the light.

  “We’re not gonna make it!” she shouted, catching a whiff of roasted trrilac skin through her mask filters. It smelled like burnt rubber and charred fish, and she peeled back her upper lip to try and clear the stench.

  Cabe grunted into the mic, but a grinding noise drowned him out. The stubby little wing of the windrider shifted upward as Cabe tried to dodge the flailing behemoth. It would be too late.

  Taj tossed the flashcannon aside, regretting seeing it topple toward the desert below because Gran Beaux had given it to her. She yanked out the viblade sheathed along the outside of her lower leg. A flip of a switch set it to vibrating. The blade became a blur, and she slashed the buckles of her harness away with a couple of quick twists of her wrist. Gravity welcomed her into its arms.

  Her legs swung loose, momentum carrying her into a backward swing as the trrilac grew closer and closer. With no time to wonder if what she was doing would work, she waited until her legs were above and behind her, then she yanked hard on the strap—the only thing holding her to the windrider—and let go.

  She shot over the top of the Thorn right before the trrilac’s tail slapped against the side, scraping a trail down the hull where she’d just been. The windrider juddered, and Cabe veered hard to the right at the impact. Taj bounced off the roof, clawing for a handhold that wasn’t there, and slid across the smooth hull, careening toward Torbon.

  “Heads up, turtle!” she shouted. Torbon popped his head up in time for her to slam into him.

  “Ooof!” He stiffened as they collided, and she wrapped around him as if she were climbing a tree. She jammed her boots through his webbing to lock herself in place as he swung an arm around her waist to stabilize her. The harness groaned.

  The trrilac hurtled past, squealing, its tail catching the short, stubby tail wing of the windrider as it flitted by. There was a reverberating thump, and the Thorn spun on its axis. Taj and Torbon’s heads clunked together, her goggles and mask pressed into the side o
f his helmet as the ship rolled over and over.

  “I’m so gonna be sick,” she screamed through clenched teeth, right into his ear. Torbon turned green behind his goggles. She could see his whiskers pinned flat to his huffing cheeks.

  “I don’t want to die with vomit on me,” Torbon shouted, clawing at the hull. “Or without it, but especially not with it, so we’re clear,” he squeaked out.

  Then there was a jolt, and the Thorn righted itself, shuddering to a rumbling hover. Torbon and Taj thudded into the hull as the momentum died off.

  “I want off the ride, please,” Torbon moaned as he gasped in an effort to catch his breath.

  “Ain’t out of the kettle yet,” Taj mumbled, moving her head so Torbon could see the rest of the herd barreling straight toward them.

  “Well, ain’t that glorious,” he groaned. “We’re gonna die!”

  “Get us gone, Cabe,” Taj howled.

  The Thorn sputtered in reply, lilting a little to the side but not moving.

  “Engines are smoked out,” Lina’s mechanical voice rang out over the comm. “They’re not engaging.”

  Torbon squawked and ducked his head behind the cover of the hull as the herd closed.