Retribution (The Federation Reborn Book 3) Read online

  Retribution

  The Federation Reborn 3

  Chris Hechtl

  Copyright © 2016 by Chris Hechtl

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book and or portions thereof in any form.

  Cover art by Chris Hechtl, 2016. The models are owned by their respective creators and used under the usage license. Some models were made by Chris Hechtl; others were purchased on Daz3d.com or Renderosity.com.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and locations are fictional. Some may be parodies. Some characters are with permission. Any resemblance of some characters and places to others are strictly in the mind of the reader. :)

  Proofread and copy edited by: Wayne Gaskin, Jory Gray, Mike Kotcher, Poon Yee, Mike Boos, Duncan Anderson, Thomas Burrows, Ulrich Schlegel, Tim Brown, and Tom Stoecklein.

  Professionally copy edited by Rea Myers

  Formatted by Goodlifeguide.com

  Dedication:

  I try to pick different people each time to dedicate my books to since so many people have touched me in so many ways. In this case I'd like to dedicate this book to my Mom, Tanya Burrows, Marie Romero and all the other cancer survivors out there. Keep fighting, where there is life there is hope. Hope that not only we will find better methods of treatment, but that we'll also find a way to beat cancer in all it's forms once and for all.

  Table of Contents

  Introduction

  ACT I

  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

  ACT II

  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

  ACT III

  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

  Author's Afterward

  Cast

  Appendix

  Sneak Peek

  Note to the reader:

  Pirate Rage has turned into something of a mess. I had a bit of a goof when I put the Retribution Fleet in B-97B. It was supposed to be B-97C. B-97B is a subsystem of the empty stellar cluster and rarely visited.

  Second, I also put Prowler UFN-001P jumping for the same star system in chapter 62 and then entering B-97A instead in chapter 63. Oops??

  Also, obviously if you've read My Darling Caroline, you know the fleet size Admiral Irons mentions is inaccurate. That's 3 things. (wince)

  And the last one (I was on a roll apparently) I goofed when I said all 3 of Caroline's ships were going to Bek. It didn't make sense to send all 3 with just the helm crew for 1 ship! How'd they find the others so fast? And frieghters? In the rapids??? Even with milspec hardware, it doesn't make sense to risk them and their valuable cargo at this time. Again, oops?? So, I am retconning that too.

  I'm going to make the correction before releasing Retribution. So, if you have an old copy, delete it and re-download it.

  My bad.

  Introduction

  The United Federation of Sapient Star Systems was founded by several species and became a beacon of civilization for four centuries. Most of the Milky Way Galaxy had been explored in that short time period. One hundred and twenty-one sapient species counted themselves as full-time members. The federation advanced technology and the evolution of its member species. It was a golden age for sentient life in the galaxy. That was, until they made the mistake of expanding their exploration from the Milky Way to the nearest galaxy.

  The wormhole gate that was meant to open new worlds to federation explorers quickly became a portal to hell. Xenophobic aliens poured through the gateway, invading federation space and laying waste to everything they found.

  Seven centuries after the war wound down, a stasis pod was found in the outskirts of the Senka star system by a tramp tender running from pirates. Within the pod was a long lost federation admiral, Fleet Admiral John Henry Irons.

  Admiral Irons and his internal A.I. helped the mostly-female crew escape the pirates, then rebuild the ship during their journey. The admiral dealt with his time shock by setting a goal of restoring the federation and reigniting the light of civilization in the galaxy once more.

  But forces were at work to stop him. The pirates were far more than the simple scourge they had first appeared to be. Horath, their homeworld, declared itself an empire under the leadership of Emperor Pyotr Ramichov and launched a brutal offensive to take control of the sector, and eventually, the galaxy. The empire had started on a path of xenophobia and initiated acts of genocide against the populations it conquered.

  With the help of some new friends in Pyrax, Irons salvaged a federation warship, Firefly, and along with other long-forgotten ships, he was able to use them to fend off the initial pirate invasion. Irons and his newly-reformed Federation Navy was on their way to rebuild the federation, only to be driven out of the system into exile by Pyrax’s cutthroat politics.

  Irons had several harrowing adventures along the way before jumping into an empty star system and right into the hands of the pirates. Unaware of who they had captured, Irons was able to lead a successful mutiny and not only captured the ship along with the other ships in the star system, but also used them to defeat the enemy task force staging in the neighboring star system for an invasion of Pyrax.

  Once the battle was over, Irons took stock and led his battered forces with the newly-captured ships to Antigua. There he founded a new capital of the federation. Once he had a shipyard and the beginnings of ansible communications underway, he took a side trip to a secret research facility he had used to create the nova bomb and where he had been given his rebuilt body and A.I.

  While there, he woke the sleepers that remained and tripped a Xeno virus. He was also declared president pro temp by the last president of the federation in a message that transcended time itself.

  He returned from the facility with the group of sleepers, including two additional flag officers. Admiral White, a Neochimp, became their battle fleet commander and took the fight to the enemy in Protodon while Admiral Subert took over Pyrax and set up shop there. Between the two shipyards, the federation began to build the ships and weapons needed to crush the Horathian pirate threat once and for all.

  But the Horathians weren't sitting idle. They had begun expanding their empire, and when word of the admiral and his reborn federation was picked up by forces en route to Protodon, they moved in with the intent to destroy the upstarts and crush the seed of free civilization once more.

  With grievous losses, Admiral White's Second Fleet fought them off and forced the remaining Horathian warships to retreat.

  As the battle for Protodon raged, Admiral Irons ordered Firefly to go to Epsilon Triangula to find out what was going on there. She was a
mbushed by a pirate task force led by Admiral von Berk, who then retreated when fresh federation reinforcements started to flow into the star system. The federation fleet did it's best to stop them, but the enemy used captured and brainwashed victims to pilot their ships to get around the blockades.

  Word spread by courier vessel to the Horathian capital. A force was dispatched under Admiral De Gaulte, one of the Horathian Battle Fleet’s leading strategists. He, alongside his OPS officer, Commander Catherine Ramichov, and also the eldest princess of the realm, marshaled a fleet to oppose the federation.

  Admiral White's reinforced Second Fleet moved in to block Admiral von Berk, but before they could engage, the battle cruisers they'd fought earlier reappeared in the star system. The battle cruisers fought a delaying action, allowing von Berk to escape.

  However, Admiral White received additional reinforcements and went after them. Admiral Von Berk took his captured slaves and personnel and escaped just before Second Fleet arrived with blood in their eye. Trapped in the cul-de-sac system, the remaining Horathians were torn apart in a bloody battle the likes of which they were ill-prepared for.

  Admiral White fell back on the neighboring empty system of B95a3 and found additional reinforcements waiting for him there. He began the march towards Dead Drop and the inevitable clash with the Horathian Empire, unaware that Admiral De Gaulte had launched his much larger and more powerful offensive force known as the Retribution Fleet.

  Two navies were about to go head to head in a titanic clash with the fate of the galaxy itself in the balance.

  Act I

  Chapter 1

  Petty Officer Third Class Kelsea Travere slowed her pace and cocked her head as she noted the skipper was at the navigational station. She frowned thoughtfully. “Something wrong, Skipper?”

  The captain didn't look her way, just kept working at the console. When she was finished, she plugged a chip in and then turned. “No, nothing is wrong.”

  “Um …”

  “Captain, something's going on with the computer,” PO Blake Hale said from his post manning the ship's sensors. “I just lost all the log files … there is a script going on … do we have another virus?”

  “Indeed we do,” the captain said as she noted the 100 percent mark on the screen in front of her. She pulled the flash chip and then placed it on a chain. The chain went around her neck. “I just deleted our navigational data,” she said.

  “Um …”

  “The only record I've kept is with me. And I've encrypted it,” she said.

  “We're only going to exit in Nightingale, ma'am.”

  “That's not the only reason I'm doing it.”

  Blake frowned thoughtfully as Kelsea came over to relieve him. He rose from the chair, and she slipped in his place.

  “We're exiting hyper in a few minutes, ma'am. Why did you do that? It might throw our heading off a bit since we no longer have the way markers behind us to compare to,” Blake said carefully.

  “My business,” the captain said tightly, eyes narrowing.

  Kelsea frowned as she put the arm of the chair down and then logged into the computer. She checked the status board and nodded.

  “Paranoid much, ma'am?” Blake asked, not ready to let the subject go.

  “Just being careful. I don't want our find to be taken from us,” she stated.

  “I like the sound of the 'us' there, ma'am,” Chief Faver stated as he came in to the compartment behind them.

  Captain Bellerose eyed him, sizing up his loyalty. She wasn't certain if the chief or anyone else had made a copy of their log. She hadn't seen a copy mark in the file, but then again that was easy to delete. He hesitated then seemed to ignore her look as he went over to the electronic box connected to the helm station.

  “A problem, Chief?” Kelsea asked.

  “Some signal noise we're trying to run down and clean up. The software filters keep pointing to a hardware issue.”

  “Okay,” Kelsea replied thoughtfully. The chief was hopefully on to something. Marengo had the occasional filter issue from time to time that haunted the crew—more so now with their new additions to the ship's bridge network. She watched out of the corner of her eye as the chief hooked up his gear to test the data lines. It sucked that they'd run electrical lines not ODN. They hadn't had any spare ODN lines long enough for the project.

  It also sucked that the lines ran through the ship's hatches. At least the chief had been smart enough to drape it rather than have it as a trip point. Only the tall people had to watch out for it.

  But what interested her the most about his temporary distraction was that he was watching the skipper intently. And from the occasional look she managed to sneak to the skipper, she was also aware of the subterfuge going on.

  “As you were people,” the captain said. “I'll be in my wardroom,” she said as she stalked out of the compartment without a backwards glance.

  The chief seemed to exhale like air coming out of a balloon. Kelsea shook her head and then went back to refining the sensor data for the transition out of hyper.

  :::{)(}:::

  Kelsea's day wasn't quite over when she got off shift. She picked up her dinner and then went to the compartment where the aliens were. She had a stable stomach, but the stench hit her right when she came through the airlock Doctor Cloutier had set up to prevent it from fumigating the ship.

  “Your turn? Thank the gods,” Maevus said, shaking her head as she got off the stool. She handed Kelsea a tablet and darted through the hatch before the other woman could say anything.

  She juggled the tablet, her drink and plate until she got to the stool. She heard a soft moan but ignored it. She took a seat and started to read out loud in-between bites.

  It was all a part of the service apparently; the boss lady wanted everyone to get familiar with their prizes and to read to them. It wasn't quite out of a mommy complex; the doc insisted seeing humans in a nonthreatening light would help them with their interactions. And tone mattered apparently so, hence, the reading. It was also an attempt to keep the aliens sane; something that was a worry of the doctor.

  They knew the aliens couldn't understand them, nor vice versa. The skipper had thought to set up the life support, harvested from a Gashg habitat, but she hadn't factored on the need to communicate with a species that didn't understand them in return. Doctor Cloutier had also overlooked the problem, and he kept muttering about their universal translators.

  Whatever. It didn't matter. An order was an order, so Kelsea stood her shift like everyone else. She refused to barter to cover other shifts for other people though, no matter what they offered her in return. She wasn't that much of a masochist, thank you very much, she thought acidly. She glanced at the clock and then took a sip of tepid water. There was a sputter in the tank. She glanced at it, then back down to the tablet.

  She was so not amused when she realized she was reading Moby Dick.

  :::{)(}:::

  Sputtersque noted the new human but ignored her. She and Brrfrak had long since given up attempting to communicate with the two-legs … humans. Whatever.

  She'd almost given up talking to her partner. She'd been sullen for weeks blaming him for their sordid state. She hadn't let go of the matter, but she'd come to miss talking to someone. Besides, if she had to endure hell at least he was along with her.

  He deserved that much.

  She glanced at the human again with an eye stalk as she fluttered a fin. The last human had been like this one with globs of fat tissue on its chest below the shoulders. She wasn't certain what to make of it, nor of the thin strand like tentacles they had on the top of their heads where a blow hole rightly should be.

  :::{)(}:::

  Sputtersque refused to eat. When that caught the attention of their captors, the two-leg who attended to them used rigid structures to force her beak open, then some sort of clear tube was fed into her mouth and deep into her guts. She was fed like that until she felt bloated and heavy.

&nbs
p; She thrashed in her tank but to no avail. When she soiled herself, she flicked her flukes and flippers to move the waste to her beak and then sucked it in in an attempt to clog the tube or dislodge it. She bashed her body against the tank in discontent whenever a two-leg came into their squalid compartment. Her keening seemed to deafen her partner.

  “We are miserable. They can see it. They tend to us but love …”

  “This is your fault!” she lashed out at Brrfrak. He had no defense and knew it. He hung his head in shame.

  She lashed out each time the two-legs attempted to force feed her. When she knocked a few of them and cut one up with her tentacles, they retaliated. Brrfrak was forced to watch in horror as they cut off her fins and tentacles one by one.

  In shock Sputtersque dropped to the bottom of the tank and tried to die by sucking water into her blowhole. The two-legs used straps to force her to the surface as they drained the water and flushed it. She hung there limp in the straps as the two-leg who cared for them used another tube to suck as much of the dirty water out of her lungs as he could. He then listened to her flank with another tube.

  Brrfrak was distressed by the whole situation. He knew he was watching his future mate die. There was nothing he could do about it. His impotence made him angry, not just at the two-legs who he now considered a mortal enemy but also at himself.

  :::{)(}:::

  “Doctor …”

  “I'm sorry, Captain, but she is suicidal and there is nothing we can do to get her out of it. Worse, her lungs still have fluids in them. We can't get them out. She's developing some sort of pneumonia. The infections are spreading.”

  “Give her antibiotics! Something!” Captain Bellerose raged.

  “Don't you think I haven't tried?” the doctor replied in despair. “We can only hope at this point that she'll pull through. That some spark will remain. But since she's giving up, I find it highly doubtful.”