Iron Dogs

  Fire and Rust Book 1

  Anthony James

  Contents

  I. Tipping Point

  Graxol-4, Sestin Cluster. The Middle of Nowhere

  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

  II. Death Certainly, Glory Maybe

  Unity Station

  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

  © 2019 Anthony James

  All rights reserved

  The right of Anthony James to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed upon the subsequent purchaser

  Illustration © Tom Edwards

  TomEdwardsDesign.com

  Cover typography by Covermint Design

  Sign up to my mailing list here to be the first to find out about new releases, or follow me on Facebook @AnthonyJamesAuthor

  I

  Tipping Point

  Graxol-4, Sestin Cluster. The Middle of Nowhere

  The Viper-class assault ship ULS Fixer entered local space, thirty thousand kilometers from the planet Graxol-4 with the kind of violent shudder that threatened to break the alloys of its wings and dump the warship’s occupants into the void. Commander Jake Griffin held tightly onto the control sticks until the aftereffects of the transition died away and the Fixer’s sublight engines kicked in. He blew out his pent-up breath.

  “Establish a comms link with the Eternity. Tell them we’ve arrived.”

  “FTL signal on its way,” replied 2nd Lieutenant Harry Kenyon, his voice scratchy in Griffin’s earpiece. “Estimated two minutes to response.”

  The warship’s sensor officer, 2nd Lieutenant Cassie Dominguez sat behind and to the left. She got busy. “Initiating local area scan.”

  It didn’t take long to finish a local scan and Dominguez gave the all-clear. The chances of them exiting lightspeed anywhere close to an enemy spaceship were remote. Even so, Griffin felt the tension drain from his shoulders with the confirmation.

  “What are they expecting us to find out here?” asked Kenyon, knowing the answer and resigned to spending the next few days helping out with surface scans in hostile conditions.

  “They sent a whole carrier battle group to the Sestin Cluster. What do you think they’re expecting us to find?” asked Dominguez.

  “Yeah, I know,” muttered Kenyon. “But look at the place.”

  Griffin didn’t need an invitation. The Fixer’s tiny, dimly-lit bridge lacked windows, but the external sensors fed a 360-degree view directly into the high-res HUDs in the flight helmets. When Griffin turned his head, the image updated and he focused on the planet.

  “Storms, toxic atmosphere, cold. Another grey sphere. Welcome to the universe.”

  “There’s no way I’m going to find a rust mine in that crap,” said Dominguez. “It’s like a quarter of the planet is one big dust storm.”

  “Confirmation from the Eternity, sir. We are to proceed as planned. As long as it takes.”

  The orders weren’t unexpected. The ULS Eternity carrier group was out in the Sestin Cluster for the specific purpose of locating Fangrin rust mines and either disabling the enemy facilities or capturing them. So far, it was looking like a waste of ships when the aliens were kicking the crap out of the Unity League navy in both the Underlight and Daxon sectors.

  “No rust ore means no tharniol fuel for our lightspeed drives,” said Griffin. “Let’s get on with it.”

  He fed power into the Fixer’s sublight engines. Compared to low-altitude flying, acceleration through vacuum conditions was smooth and serene. The spaceship’s engines rumbled and the velocity gauge climbed steadily.

  “Let’s see what’s down there,” said Griffin. “You can spot a Fangrin shield from ten thousand klicks, right?”

  “More if it’s in the open, sir,” said Dominguez.

  It was tempting to set the Fixer on autopilot, but Griffin wasn’t in the mood to hand off control. Instead, he brought the spaceship in manually. Sublight acceleration continued and the life support unit found it hard to keep the interior stable. He felt the strains on his body, while the monitor in his spacesuit informed him his heart rate was elevated and climbing. Griffin was fit enough that it didn’t matter.

  “Think we’ll ever find anything, sir?” asked Kenyon.

  “If we don’t, the war is going to be over within a year.”

  “One year? That’s what they’re telling you? I didn’t think it was that bad.”

  “I’m not so important that anyone lets me know - this is my take on it. We believe the Fangrin have in excess of twenty-five active rust mines. Compare that to the Unity League’s eight, three of which are on Centrium. We’re already grounding spaceships and half of our processing plants are idle.”

  Griffin’s words made him glance at the charge level of the Fixer’s lightspeed module. It was below thirty percent – enough for a single, medium-duration jump before it would need refueling. The Eternity’s storage bay didn’t have enough left to keep its escort and attack ships going for much longer. After that, the long run home with nothing to show.

  And then, the unexpected happened.

  “Uh, sir, take a look at this.”

  “What’ve you got?”

  “A shield signature. I’ve sent you the coordinates.”

  Griffin stared at the details on his screen. “Are you sure?”

  “The raw data doesn’t lie.”

  “How the hell did you find that? I thought you were scanning the plains to the north?”

  “Just got lucky, sir.”

  The significance of it struck home and Griffin reduced the Fixer’s speed until it was travelling at a few hundred meters per second. He double-checked the data and found nothing to indicate that Dominguez had fouled up.

  The Unity League hadn’t located many Fangrin rust mines since the beginning of the war, but they all had one thing in common – each mine was protected by a massive shield to keep out attackers. The shield’s emissions were unmistakable and Dominguez had just found one on Graxol-4.

  “Send an FTL comm to the Eternity. Inform them what’s out here and request an update to our orders.”

  “You know what they’ll do, sir,” asked Kenyon.

  “Yes.”

  “Shouldn’t we take a closer look? Maybe find out what kind of defenses they have?”

  “And stir the hornet’s nest? Send the message. Admiral Holbrook can decide.”

  The lightspeed comms transmitter required a tharniol booster to amplify the signal and the spaceship’s reserves fell another percent. Griffin exhaled in frustration. Every damn thing of any importance seemed to need the rarest substance in the known universe to function.

  “Got the response, sir,” said Kenyon. He hesitated. “We’re to sit tight, Admiral Holbrook’s bringing the entire attack group to Graxol-4.”

  “ETA?”

  “Twenty-eight minutes.”

  “One last throw of the dice before we go home.”

  “We need this,” said Dominguez.

  “No one’s arguing that.”

  Griffin brought the Fixer to a standstill and waited. The discovery of a Fangrin rust mine was a rare event and now they’d located one, far from the battlefront. Somehow, he didn’t think the aliens would have left it unprotected.

  Twenty-eight minutes later, the carrier group emerged from lightspeed right on the doorstep of Graxol-4. As soon as Dominguez got a sensor lock on the friendlies, Griffin zoomed in his HUD view to see what Admiral Holbrook had brought with him.

  “The Eternity, two heavy cruisers, four light cruisers and whatever Vipers returned to the bay before departure.”

  “Six in total,” confirmed Kenyon.

  The carrier wasn’t much to look at – a twelve-hundred meter, high-sided spaceship with a broad beam and a hull covered in five different types of countermeasures. The Eternity’s offensive capabilities were stored in the main bay.

  The support ships clustered around and the heavy cruiser, Tyrant, caught Griffin’s eye. The Tyrant was a hulking craft, not long out of the yard and packing some of the Unity League’s most advanced weaponry. It was a powerful force on paper and as-yet untested.

  “Two, four and six. Doesn’t sound much when you read out the numbers,” said Dominguez.

  Kenyon checked in with c
ommand and control. “They’re readying a planetary bomber.”

  It seemed premature. “They can’t send in a bomber without knowing what defenses the enemy have,” said Griffin.

  “Looks like that’s the plan anyway, sir.” Kenyon exchanged a few more words with one of the comms officers on the Eternity. “We’re acting as escort for the Hell to Pay and the No Fear.”

  Griffin raised an eyebrow. “A bomber and a dropship?”

  “We’re to enter the storm a thousand klicks west of the enemy shield and wait for the order to attack.”

  “That’s it?”

  “The carrier group will station themselves directly overhead and draw out any Fangrin spaceships in the vicinity. It should free us up to drop the shield-breaker.”

  “Not exactly subtle,” said Dominguez.

  “High command must be getting desperate. I’ve spoken to Admiral Holbrook before and he does things by the book. It looks like mission orders are to force a confrontation and damn the consequences.” Griffin didn’t like it. When high command applied pressure in the wrong places, mistakes happened – usually fatal ones.

  “Find out what’s going on,” he snapped, suddenly angry.

  “Yes, sir,” said Kenyon.

  Griffin’s hunch was right.

  “The entire carrier group has been recalled,” said Kenyon. “The order was waiting for them when they re-entered local space.”

  “Why?” asked Dominguez in disbelief.

  “A Fangrin attack fleet turned up at Centrium, sir!”

  “That’s the biggest extractor of rust in the entire Unity League!”

  Griffin clenched his fists - the timing couldn’t have been worse. “We’ve found a Fangrin rust mine at the same time as we might lose three of ours.”

  “And now Admiral Holbrook is going to throw everything at Graxol-4 in the hope we can take an eye for an eye.”

  Kenyon’s startled voice interrupted him. “Well shit, I’ve got the old man on the comms for you, sir.”

  “Bring him through.”

  The fizz of static made Admiral Holbrook’s powerful voice sound faint. “You’ve heard the news, Commander. We’re about to lose the Centrium mines. Graxol-4 is good news come at a bad time and we’ve only got this one chance at it.”

  “The attack seems premature, sir.”

  “We can’t wait. We’ll draw the Fangrin spaceships away from their shield and the Hell to Pay will break it open.”

  “I hear a dropship is coming along with us.”

  “Lieutenant Colonel Saunders is onboard, along with sufficient ground forces to capture the mine.”

  “A ground deployment can’t secure an enemy facility in a few minutes, sir.”

  The Admiral laughed and no amount of background static could hide the underlying pain he was feeling. “I’ll make the decision when the time comes, Commander. Once the Fangrin shield is down we’ll either bombard the facility from space or we’ll depart for Centrium.”

  “Leaving us to hold.”

  “Yes.”

  “How long until we’re reinforced?”

  “You don’t need me to answer that, Commander. It’ll come when it comes.”

  It figured, not that Griffin was about to complain. Sometimes the shit came thick and sometimes it came like a gentle brown rain. Once in a while, it didn’t come at all. In the military, you accepted it all and you smiled like it didn’t matter.

  “Anything else I need to know?”

  “Come back in one piece, Commander. We’re running out of skilled pilots.”

  For some reason, Griffin was left with the impression that Holbrook was referring to the wider League, rather than the carrier battle group.

  “I’ll do my best, sir.”

  It seemed like the conversation was over, until Holbrook dropped one final bombshell. “Did you hear that our mines on Giol-1 and Giol-2 dried up?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Just like that, within a few days of each other. The Unity League is now using twice as much tharniol as we can extract from our rust ore.”

  “And we’re about to lose Centrium?”

  “Yes. This is the tipping point.”

  Hearing the words from someone as senior as Admiral Holbrook filled Griffin with the stark, all-consuming pain of a kick to the balls. The comms went dead.

  Chapter One

  Griffin kept the Fixer steady at an altitude of sixty klicks, just below the upper reaches of the storm. Outside, the winds of Graxol-4 blew with savage force, hurling themselves against the heavy spaceship. The external sensors relayed the sound of grit rattling against the hull and Griffin couldn’t tune it out no matter how hard he tried.

  The storm brought plenty of other problems. Dominguez was having a hard time seeing anything useful on the sensors and the carrier group – a thousand klicks higher - appeared and then disappeared from the tactical. The only thing she was confident about was the position of the planetary bomber Hell to Pay and the dropship No Fear. Both vessels were within five klicks.

  “If we have to start shooting anything in this, I don’t know if our Ultor missiles will lock,” she said. “Not from a long range.”

  “I know. We’ll handle it.”

  Kenyon wasn’t finding it much easier. The windborne dust interfered with the comms much more than expected and he wasn’t sure of the cause. Whatever the reason, the voice link to the Eternity crackled and spat like the signal was fighting through a thousand kilometers of solid rock.

  Griffin checked the wraparound instrumentation display - the rust mine appeared as a glowing red circle on his tactical, hidden from visual by the curvature of the planet and the whipping storms of surface dust.

  Everyone was anxious. The Fangrin hadn’t put in an appearance yet. The aliens were aggressive and liked a fight. Maybe the importance of this rust mine was enough to curtail their fighting instincts and keep them on the defensive.

  “What happens if the Fangrin don’t show?” asked Kenyon nervously.

  “We’ll crack their shield and the carrier group will incinerate anything underneath it.”

  “Won’t be long,” said Dominguez.

  “Nope.”

  Dominguez had a knack for guesswork. Griffin heard the rapid movement of her hands across her control panel. He turned.

  “What’ve you got?”

  “A possible sighting.” She swore under her breath, like it kept her mind focused. “Not possible, definite. seven, eight…nine mid-sized warships.”

  “The Eternity is aware, sir,” said Kenyon. “They confirm nine Fangrin cruisers closing in. Oh shit, two heavies coming after.”

  The two heavy cruisers were going to make this a close-run thing.

  “Any update on our orders?” asked Griffin. “We’re fully armed and ready to join in.”

  “Negative change, sir. We’re to wait here.”

  The enemy spaceships climbed rapidly towards the upper atmosphere. Dominguez tried to get an enhanced visual, but the best feed she could obtain showed a series of long, grey shapes, spilling heat from atmospheric friction.

  “Fast,” she said.

  “Yeah, real fast.”

  Griffin held his teeth together until the muscles in his jaw ached. “Who picked us for surface duties?”

  Admiral Holbrook was showing faith by giving him this. It didn’t make it any easier to watch the action without being able to help out.

  “I hate being blind,” said Dominguez. “I think we’ve had a weapons launch from both sides.”

  The lead Fangrin cruiser was engulfed in flames and plasma fire trailed like a comet’s tail, made grey by the curtain of dust. The alien craft didn’t slow and the fires didn’t go out. The tactical estimated its altitude at five hundred klicks and then it left the planet’s atmosphere behind.