Hell's Own Read online

  Hell’s Own

  System Wars Frontier Wars Book One

  T.S. Weaver

  Published by Under the Moon, LLC

  Pelican Rapids, MN

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.

  Hell’s Own

  System Wars

  Frontier Wars Book 1

  ISBN: 978-1-938339-43-1

  Copyright © 2019 T.S. Weaver

  Cover Art Copyright @ 2019 Samuel Pray

  Editor in Chief: Terri Pray

  All rights reserved.

  Excluding legitimate review sites and review publications, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

  Copying, scanning, uploading, selling and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without permission from the publisher is illegal, punishable by law and will be prosecuted.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Author’s Note

  Hell’s Own

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Interlude One

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Interlude Two

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Interlude Three

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Interlude Four

  Epilogue

  Author’s Bio

  Author’s Note

  Hell’s Own is book one in the Hell’s Trilogy.

  And a part of the System Wars: Frontier Wars setting.

  All books in System Wars are clearly marked with their reading order to make the enjoyment of the series as easy as possible for readers.

  To my Sam, my Wolf, now and always.

  And Rage, thank you for the extra set of eyes.

  For Matt Jondar, one of my first readers so many years ago.

  You’ll never know how grateful I was for your support, and for your willingness to listen to my tales.

  Hell’s Own

  System Wars

  Frontier Wars Book 1

  T.S. Weaver

  Prologue

  “We got another series of malfunctions showing up.” Zac Brusard brushed his fingers across the screen, then tapped it, then reached for the mug of cold coffee, or what passed for coffee out here. He grimaced but took two swallows and set the cup down. No lid. He glanced back over his shoulder. No sign of the supervisor, Laura. He didn’t need another write up in his file. “I have to clean the display again, but I don’t think this is dirt.” He peered at the readout as he blindly searched for a lid and slapped it in place over the remains of his coffee. He rubbed at the screen with one thumb.

  Nothing changed. Three blips flickered in and out as they made their way across the display. “Haden? You see anything in sector eight, right the on edge?”

  “Give me a minute, bringing it up no-- oh. Yeah. Maybe we’ve got a couple of rogue asteroids coming in. I’ll see what the long range shows me.” Haden shoved himself, and the chair, across to the next set up, and keyed in the details. “Been a while since we had any excitement here. Could do with a change.”

  “If Laura hears you, she’ll schedule a drill to keep us on our toes.” Zac stared at the blips. If they were asteroids, they were large enough to cause a problem. He frowned as he worked out the destination if the unknowns kept to the same trajectory.

  Pluto.

  Heat drained from his face. He reran the numbers. Had to be a mistake. The long-range system would have informed them of the danger long before the objects appeared on his scanners. The navy would be on alert, ready to divert or destroy the approaching asteroids.

  “Anything?” A system error? Had to be, he wasn’t seeing three damn unknowns heading straight for them. Not on his watch. His mind reeled. Brandon, the man he’d taken over from, hadn’t mentioned problems. Maybe the guy had spilled a drink, causing the glitch. Or one of the kids had hacked into the system to play a practical joke? Dangerous, considering the entire set up technically belonged to the navy. Naval Intelligence had no sense of humor, a teen caught up in hacking faced a tribunal. But any of those would be better than the reality of three large pieces of debris hitting the colony.

  “Running scans on the system now.”

  Zac swallowed down a lump and fought against the urge to ask the man a hundred questions. Haden had seen them, or he wouldn’t be running a check. His heart raced as he tried to bring his fears under control. If they were asteroids, they could move them out of the way or destroy them. Nothing to worry about. The navy would welcome the distraction. Not as if they had much else to do out here.

  He turned his attention back to his screen. Haden would get to the bottom of it. The man knew what he was doing. Zac’s lips parted, a strangled cry escaping as he stared at the display. “No possible.” Had he spoken? The voice sounded like his, but he couldn’t remember talking. “They’re picking up speed.” Couldn’t be asteroids. Not even a comet would change speed without a massive increase in gravity. “Haden?”

  “Not meteors. Or asteroids.” Haden confirmed.

  “Then what?”

  “Sensors suggest they’re ships. Readings are like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Energy source unknown, material unknown. Engines, least I can’t imagine the energy flare being anything else, match on all three vessels. No transponders.” Haden slid over to the first console, pulled on a headset and hit a series of keys. “Unknown ships, this is Pluto colony, please respond.”

  Ships? There were always explorers and miners who attempted to find the next big strike on the fringe, but they all carried transponders. Zac pulled up the list of vessels, checking against the data. Not one of the ones who had left the system slipped out to find a new mineral claim, matched the size of the three now blinking on the screen.

  “Unknown ships, please respond and identify yourself. This is Pluto colony. Do you copy?”

  Zac grabbed his headset and listened in.

  Static.

  “Please respond, or we will be forced to assume you’re approaching with hostile intent. Do you copy?”

  What was the drill if approached by a hostile? Zac punched up the information. They’d never dealt with a hostile, and if an SOP - Standard Operating Procedure - had been created, Zac didn’t know it. Scrolling through the database produced a three-line basic outline. “No, there has to be more than this,” he murmured as he brought up the search and keyed in the details. Another handful of lines. All right, this wasn’t what he’d expected. “Why isn’t there a blasted SOP for this situation.”

  “What situation?” A sleepy voice asked from behind him.

  He didn’t turn his attention away from the screen. “Possible hostiles.”

  “You drunk?”

  “If he is, then it’s contagious.” Haden waved without turning toward the newcomer. “Laura, you know of anything else about dealing with unknown ships? Nothing in the handbook.”

  “Because we’ve never picked up signals before, let alone ships. It would be under unresponsive vessels, military and civilian. Pull up the section on communicating with approaching vessels, Haden.” Laura leaned over Zac’s shoulder. “Bring up the information on the ship, and zoom in, I want to see what we’re dealing with.”

  Zac obeyed.

  The screen
shifted, and the three blips became elongated ovals. At this range, his scanners weren’t designed to provide fine detail. “At the rate, they’re approaching, they’ll be here in ten minutes.”

  “From the edge of range? That’s impossible. Has to be a computer glitch.”

  “Maybe for Terran vessels, but they aren’t carrying transponders, or if they are, they’re turned off. Haden’s run the troubleshooting program our systems are fine. No problems reported.” Zac tapped the screen. “They’re jumping or moving so quickly our scanners aren’t keeping track.” Which didn’t make sense, unless they had shields in place? Shields with the capability of masking their presence.

  This wasn’t happening. Not here. Not now. Zac pulled up all the information the sensors offered. It didn’t make sense. Not with the way things had always worked. “Who are they?” His mind provided answers he wasn’t willing to listen to. Aliens. Unknown ships, no communication, and readings which made no sense. Why weren’t they responding to hails?

  Sound the alert.

  He couldn’t. He didn’t have the authority, not while Laura and Haden were present. They had rank and time on him.

  “No damn idea, but they’ll be in orbit soon enough if they don’t change course and head for Earth.” Laura slid into her seat. “Opening up a secure channel, I need to let the UTG know what’s going on.”

  “Right, and they’re going to accuse you of being in the hooch.” It wouldn’t be the first time someone had been drunk and opened the channel to Earth. Thankfully no one had realized it was him and had put it down to a kid playing a prank. “I’m pulling up extra data and-- God, I can’t get a reading on lifeforms, or the type of metal used on the craft, if it is metal and not another material we don’t recognize.” Aliens. Freaking aliens. He wasn’t ready for this. Command wasn’t prepared for this, or there’d be an SOP in the damned system.

  “I can’t get the secure line to work.” Laura cursed. “I’ve tried three different encryptions. Nothing but static.” She yanked her headset off.

  “They’re jamming outgoing communications. It’s not just the secure channels.” Haden announced. “Trying to break through it.”

  “All of...” Zac’s words faded as he reached for the alert.

  “Incoming fire.”

  “Trigger the alarm.”

  Zac thumped the red button, his mind racing. Attack. They weren’t supposed to be at risk out here, not from unknown ships which wouldn’t respond to hails. This wasn’t how things worked on the outer edge of the system.

  The noise reached him before the first of the vibrations. Alerts sprang to life across the board, and he stared, unable to move.

  “This is a colony-wide alert. We are under attack. Repeat, we are under attack.” Laura’s voice broke through his thoughts in the second before the building shuddered.

  “We’ve got to move. Get down into the shelters.” He darted for Laura.

  “Not going anywhere. We stay at our posts,” she snapped. “Get back to your station.” She flicked the comm again. “Colony wide alert. Get to the shelters. All military are to report for duty. Repeat, this is a colony-wide alert.”

  Would the colony hear her? “If they’re blocking all channels, they aren’t going to get the warning. Not the verbal. Only the alerts.” Which operated both on hard lines and channels.

  “Get back to your post,” Laura ordered.

  “You’re insane. You can’t seriously expect us to stay here?” The ground trembled again, tipping him off balance as he reached for the back of a chair. His legs refused to hold him up, the grip on the chair doing nothing to keep him on his feet. He cried out, stumbling to the floor, the chair falling with him.

  “It’s our damn job, Zac. Get to your station.” She didn’t turn and made no attempt to look at him. “All section hands report to your supervisor. All civilians are to seek cover.”

  No reaction from her. Was she operating on automatic pilot? Why weren’t the alarms sounding? He swore under his breath and avoided the temptation to return to his station to find out what was going on. Staying here was a fool’s game. Like hell was he going to die at his post like a good little soldier.

  The siren howled. Lights blinked into life. Patterns and sounds Zac had seen only once before, during a test drill.

  “The dome.” His throat tightened mouth dried as he tried to make his body work. “They’ve damaged the dome. We’ve got to get out of here.” His suit. The emergency suit. He slapped his hands down on his belt, frantically searching for the small box which contained the emergency suit and mask. Not heavy enough to withstand a full spacewalk, but enough to keep him alive until he made it to a shelter.

  “Then pull it on and get back to work.”

  No, he didn’t belong here. Couldn’t stay. Fear clawed at him, dark tendrils of terror wound their way up from his stomach and around his heart. Breathing stuttered, a tight band wrapped about his rib cage. He stood, one hand on the suit box. “I’m not staying here. You shouldn’t either. Haden, come on.”

  “Run if you want, I’m not giving up,” Haden growled. “Get out before she decides to shoot you for deserting your post.”

  Insane. They were both nuts. No one was paid enough to deal with this.

  Zac took a step toward the door as the alarms continued to ring out. The suit, he couldn’t leave the room without his suit in place. Air, protection for his skin, the cold would get to him, but he’d be safe, below ground, before it happened.

  He scrambled to pull it on, sealing the thin gloves over his fingers, and connecting the suit to his boots before he smoothed glanced up again.

  Laura stood in front of him. No longer at her console. Her flechette sidearm no longer in its holster. “You should have run when Haden told you to go.”

  “Laura, you don’t have to do this.” He took a step back. She wouldn’t pull the trigger. It wasn’t like her. They’d worked together for years now.

  Above them, the dome shattered under the assault from the unknown ships, and the last thing Zac heard before the darkness claimed him was the alarm increasing in pitch and volume...

  1

  Glasses flew through the air as the table toppled, a body slammed into the black plastiwear, tipping the table over as the four who’d claimed it, grabbed their drinks and stepped to one side. One man growled as the rest found a safe place for their drinks before diving on the man who’d hit the floor. The man who’d started the fight grabbed one of the four men by the back of the neck and hauled him off his target.

  Shouts and cries mingled. Complaints at knocked tables, spilled drinks, and disturbing the night. No one called for security to end the fight, nor would there be a point if they had. Jones’ bar had many things, but men or women paid to bust up scraps wasn’t one of them.

  “Another dull night, I see.” Cora Bloodlaw pulled out a chair and sat down, her gaze following the fight. “This is the first one I’ve seen since we arrived.” She braced herself, half expecting the next rolling mess of humanity to collide with the table. With one hand wrapped around her drink, she didn’t relax until she was confident the combatants had rolled the other way, shouts increasing as the men continued to tussle, yell insults and throw punches. “Won’t be the last though.” Not with the types who found their way to the Get Away.

  Fights were normal, as were many other types of quasi-legal or illegal activities. Everyone knew about the bar, even if they didn’t formally acknowledge its existence.

  “You break it, you pay for it,” Jones called out from behind the bar. “This means you, Norris. Hey, you listening to me?”

  “He needs to learn how to throw a punch. Break his wrist or fingers if he isn’t careful.” He scraped his fingers through his short dirty blond hair, the movement made no difference to the brush cut. The style was not uncommon. Most of the men she worked with kept their hair short, not completely scalped but close enough to it. “Doesn’t he know how to fight? Shit, he’s an amateur,” he continued.

  C
ora arched an eyebrow, a smile pulling at her lips. “Then why don’t you join the fun and show them how it’s done, Ready? Be interesting to see how you handle the fight before I have to walk in and drag you out to save your ass.”

  “If you’re going to let him do this, at least give us enough warning to get a betting pool going.” One of the other men sat down, beer in hand.

  “Hah, as if you’d need to rescue my ass. They’re civies, doubt it would be anything more than a waste of time. Civies don’t listen to uniforms. Not around here anyway.” PFC Jackson, better known as Ready, lifted his drink and drained half the remaining liquid, then flipped the other man the finger. “Bit like coming here and expecting decent beer, when we know they brew the stuff themselves.”

  “Would you prefer it if we hit the approved bars, and have to deal with the rules? The ones were we’re watched every second, our drinks counted, and we’re cut off long before any of us hit buzz level?” Cora set her glass down. “Go ahead. You’re welcome to head out and see what they’d put up with. I’m not stopping you. Me, I’m going to stay here and enjoy the brew.”

  “Stop teasing Ready. He’s still too wet behind the ears to understand when he has a good thing going here.” Corporal Hudson claimed a chair and twisted it around before he swung a leg over and sat facing the back of his chair. “He’s dreaming of those back home. And doesn’t know how nice he has it here, he could be out on a backwater colony--oh, wait, he is.”