Planet Wreckers

  Anomalies Book 1

  Anthony James

  Contents

  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

  © 2020 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

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  Chapter One

  (S-Ops) Cal Kader, Type 1 Anomaly, slung his GEX assault rifle and climbed towards the top of the gully. The wind was blowing strongly – like it had from the moment he’d stepped off the armored shuttle onto the surface of Vantar – and carried with it stinging particles of sand which would eventually erode the polymers of his combat suit.

  The air temperature was two hundred degrees, but the lack of atmosphere meant the planet wouldn’t retain any of the heat once night fell. Overhead, the sun shone stark white, visible through the storm as a rough-edged circle. Here on the ground, it seemed peculiarly gloomy.

  Kader’s feet scrabbled for grip and found something solid enough to hold him. He raised his head high enough that he could peer up the rocky hill a short distance away. The wind blew and the airborne sand thickened. With a curse, Kader waited for the sensor in his suit helmet to adjust. When it did, he couldn’t see much improvement. He cursed again.

  “Sure you don’t want to call in an airstrike, sir?” asked Captain Benner, huddled at the bottom of the gully along with a full company of soldiers. Although the troops were nearby, the poor visibility made them seem like indistinct shadows wrapped in grey.

  High in the sky, the battleship Hardliner watched from orbit, packing enough weaponry to lay waste to much of the planet. Unfortunately, this nut needed to be cracked by something with greater finesse than a billion-ton sledgehammer.

  “Nothing would give me greater pleasure, Captain, but there’s too much Hasmium in those tunnels to incinerate. We’ve got the shuttle ready to lay down suppressing chain gun fire on the entrance. That’ll have to be enough.”

  “A couple of small explosives wouldn’t do any harm,” laughed Benner.

  “Direct orders. Small arms only.”

  “That’s what they’re calling a shuttle-mounted chain gun these days?” Benner’s eyes showed his humor through the visor on his helmet. He was an old hand and knew that when the brown stuff came down, it was best to put up his umbrella and wait for the clouds to blow over.

  “That’s what I’m calling it.”

  “Good shout, sir.” Benner blew out his breath noisily into the comms. “Alien assholes.”

  It seemed to be the most used phrase on Vantar.

  The Firvent renegades, as their government labelled the attackers, had chosen a good place to hole up. Having killed the mining crew and sabotaged the conveyor, the aliens just needed to sit tight. For what exactly, Kader didn’t know, but he wasn’t happy with the idea of prying them out from the mine workings.

  “The plans for the mine indicate the entrance is halfway up this hill and the workings extend for seven or eight klicks, with the deepest tunnel being a thousand meters below the ground,” said Kader, repeating what the company already knew. “Reports indicate we’re only facing fifteen or twenty renegades. It doesn’t matter where they hide, we’re going to flush them out and carry them out. Get ready to move.”

  Kader ducked down while the soldiers readied themselves. Whatever water originally formed this channel was long since gone, leaving it as dry as everywhere else on Vantar, and he leaned against the uneven sides of pitted stone. It seemed like the wind had taken his resistance as a challenge and it buffeted him angrily.

  Vantar was a shithole world in the parlance, also known as ABOR – a ball of rock – if you were in polite company. The only thing of value here was that Hasmium seam and it was enough for General Bison to order the Hardliner to divert. It was just Kader’s luck to be onboard.

  The company was ready to go and Kader checked in with Lieutenant McKenzie on the shuttle. It was in position and ready. Kader gave the order to move and waited for the first squads to scramble out of the gulch.

  “It’s going to be tough running up there,” said Benner.

  “Don’t I know it, Captain.”

  The two of them climbed out of cover and Kader’s feet pounded against the stone. In front of him, the Hardliner’s company of soldiers were spread out, with their heads lowered against the storm. The wind didn’t care and it changed direction seemingly at its own pleasure, hoping to knock them down like pins.

  A hundred meters from the gully, the ground rose steeply and the covering of stones was treacherous enough that Kader was forced to step carefully in case he tripped or broke his ankle. The other soldiers weren’t finding it any easier and their advance slowed. Captain Benner made hand gestures to keep them moving at the same time as he barked orders into the comms.

  “Mine entrance in sight,” reported one of the men from further ahead. “No visible hostiles, but in this storm, who knows?”

  “Lieutenant McKenzie reports no movement,” said Kader. “Sounds like the enemy have retreated into the cave.”

  At that moment, it all went to crap. A flash of white and orange appeared high above and to the east, and Kader snapped his head towards it.

  “Rocket strike on the shuttle!” he yelled into the open channel.

  He requested a comms channel. The shuttle’s receptors were green but Kader didn’t know if Lieutenant McKenzie was alive to answer.

  “Where’s the launcher?” asked Benner. “Somebody find me that damned launcher!”

  “The cave! It’s in the cave!”

  Kader snarled in anger. The Firvent had somehow managed to get a launcher heavy enough to damage the shuttle into the mine tunnels with them. He surged ahead, sending smaller pieces of gravel and stone skittering down the slope. The entrance was visible now – a dark smear through the sand. A momentary lessening of the winds allowed the sun to bathe the hillside in harsh light, before the storm reasserted its dominance.

  That split second was enough for Kader to identify the glint of metal hiding in the darkness of the mine tunnel. A mobile launcher. Dammit. So much for no movement.

  Without hesitation, Kader hit the entire entrance with an invisible zero-time field. Anything inside the field wouldn’t know about it, but to everyone outside the field, it would be like the occupants were frozen in time. In reality, everything in the field was only slowed right down. Not quite zero, but near enough.

  One thing was certain - the Firvent wouldn’t be able to reload the launcher before Kader and his team were in a position to do something fatal to the perpetrators.

  “Z-time on the launcher,” he shouted.

  The target wasn’t far and Kader’s breath was becoming ragged from the effort of running uphill in one-point-three gravities while wearing full combat gear. He glanced to the left and saw figures struggling onwards. The view to the right was the same and Kader was suddenly in the lead.

  Forty meters from the entrance, he slowed to a walk and brought his rifle to his shoulder. The company was approaching at an angle, making it harder for the Firvent to detect the attack.

  A man appeared at Kader’s side, his rifle also set for a shot. Two others half crouched and began skirting right in order to cover the entrance. The first man found his spot behind a waist-high rock and there he waited.

  “I reckon that shuttle’s coming down,” said Benner.

  It was an easy prediction. An irregular, lumpy grumbling sound rose above the droning wind. Vantar’s atmosphere didn’t carry enough oxygen to support life, but it was thick enough to bring the shuttle’s death note to the troops.

  “Shit, where is it?” said Kader, sparing a moment to sweep his gaze across the skies east with his suit’s heat sensors active.

  He saw a shape, white and reds on the heat sensor. The shuttle was on a slow, lazy trajectory that would soon bring it into the hillside several hundred meters away. Kader tried the comms again. No response.

  The shuttle was secondary
for the moment and he closed on the mine entrance. A low-slung shape with a long barrel protruding came into sight which he recognized as a Firvent auto-targeting rocket turret. It was a sophisticated piece of kit to be in the hands of renegades.

  Kader knew exactly how far the zero-time field extended, even if the soldiers couldn’t see it. He ordered the soldiers nearby to halt and approached the mine.

  The entrance was square, about fifteen meters wide and held up by alloy beams. The damaged conveyor, covered in blueish pieces of stone and unmoving, emerged from the opening and continued down the hillside to the processing works which were less than two klicks east.

  Another few steps and Kader could see right into the mine. The tunnel was in darkness, though his helmet sensor didn’t mind too much. The three-meter-high launcher was on the near side of the conveyor, with its five spare self-loading rockets held in two magazines – one on either side of the barrel.

  Three Firvent were locked in zero-time at the rear of the weapon, one stooped over the targeting panel, and the other two standing nearby. The aliens were bipeds, about human height, dark-furred and wiry, with rodentlike faces and red eyes. These ones were dressed in black military combat suits which made them appear bulkier and concealed their features. From their positions, Kader’s first thought was that they were having a problem with the launcher.

  Without remorse, Kader aimed into the zero-time. He fired a handful of shots at the crouching Firvent, the assault rifle’s discharge note flattened by the thin air. He changed aim and fired again at the second alien, then repeated it for the third.

  The moment the bullets entered the time field, they stopped in the air, their potential waiting for the field’s collapse.

  Or for Kader to cancel it.

  He shut off the field and the bullets resumed their trajectory. The shots hit their targets and three aliens toppled simultaneously, jets of blood spraying into the wind.

  “Three hostiles down,” said Kader.

  With the zero-time gone, he didn’t want to become the target of other Firvent deeper in the tunnel, so he stepped out of sight and put his back against the smooth alloy of the upright.

  That’s when it struck him. The comms had been quiet for the last ten or fifteen seconds. The only sound was that of his own breathing and the labored, stuttering propulsion of the shuttle.

  “Captain Benner, report,” he said on the comms.

  Kader turned his head towards the slope. The comms were silent, yet he could see the man behind the rock and the other one nearby.

  “Report!”

  Nothing.

  Kader whipped his head once more in the direction of the shuttle. The vessel still hadn’t come down and it sank reluctantly lower, like it was involved in a brutal fight for its own survival.

  “Lieutenant McKenzie, do you copy?”

  Dead. Static.

  Gravity was the inescapable victor and the boxy shuttle crunched into the ground at a low enough speed that anyone onboard and alive would probably make it.

  With the shuttle’s fate decided, Kader chanced another look into the tunnel. It was unchanged from last time, with no indication the remaining Firvent were readying themselves for an attack. He turned towards the soldiers. No others had emerged into visible range and those he’d seen moments ago hadn’t moved. Not one inch.

  Something was wrong and Kader had no idea what it was. To buy himself some breathing space, he blocked off the tunnel entrance with a second zero-time. The moment the field went up, his stomach began growling, reminding him that pissing about with nature had its price. He pulled out an injector from his drop bag and gave himself a shot of high-energy fluid, before dropping the needle at his feet.

  “What the hell is going on?” he said on the comms, hurrying to the man crouched behind the rock. He thought about requesting a channel to the Hardliner but dismissed the idea. Best to find out what was happening first.

  Kader stopped next to the man crouched behind the rock. The soldier’s eyes stared out from his visor, unblinking, and his body didn’t move at all, despite the wind pushing against him.

  “Soldier!” snapped Kader, waving his hand in front of the man’s face.

  There was no response. Kader reached out, grabbed the soldier’s upper arm and gave it a shake. It was stiff. Worse than stiff – it was solid and utterly unmoving, like flesh dropped into liquid nitrogen and anchored to the ground.

  With mounting desperation, Kader left the first man and ran across to another. He found Captain Benner, one knee on the ground and his assault rifle tucked into his shoulder. The weapon was aimed uphill towards the mine opening. Kader gripped the barrel and pulled. He couldn’t get it to move.

  “Captain Benner?”

  No answer, no recognition.

  A thought sprang into Kader’s head and he wondered if something had gone wrong with his zero-time – that he’d inadvertently trapped these men in a much wider field than he’d intended to create. He shook his head angrily – the zero-time never malfunctioned. It was Kader’s own creation and he was in full control. There was no field holding these soldiers.

  With nothing to lose, Kader erected a small-radius zero-time over Benner and cancelled it immediately. The result was like he expected. He swore again and turned slowly around, not knowing what he was looking for. The wind and sand swirled around, uncaring.

  Kader did an evocate, calling up the memory of time on this part of Vantar. The effect was like a visual rewind of events, seen only in his mind. He saw the soldiers, frozen in place and then they started running backwards down the hill, their mouths moving behind the visors of their helmets, but producing no sound. All around them, time’s memory of the windborne sand was little more than a faint discoloration.

  The rewind gave no indication about what had occurred and it left Kader struggling with the insanity of the situation. Resisting the urge to lash out at something, he requested a channel to the battleship.

  “Hardliner, this is S-Ops Kader, do you copy?”

  The battleship’s receptors were flickering between green and grey, meaning the signal was poor. One of the comms guys up there should be picking this up, Kader knew. His request for a channel went unanswered.

  Hoping it was an issue with signal degradation, Kader hurried further down the slope, heading away from the mine. He came across a group from his company – some were mid-stride, others were crouched. All were frozen like those Kader had found closer to the tunnel.

  A couple of minutes later, he stopped searching. Everyone he came across was locked in whatever pose they’d been in when it happened. Whatever it was. Kader spun slowly around and was left with the feeling he was trapped in a museum of perfect statues.

  For some reason, Kader wasn’t part of the exhibition and he didn’t have a clue why.

  Chapter Two

  The shuttle bumped and shook with the turbulence, though not enough to spill the drinks. (S-Ops) Lori Hawk, Type 1 Anomaly, lounged in one of the rear seats, out of the way of the other passengers. She marveled at the quality of the upholstery, the little refrigerated drinks cabinet in the padded armrest and the quantity of legroom.

  Across her lap, the fully loaded Tor Ultra Scope rifle was a comforting weight - an old friend she wouldn’t be without. Not on this mission. Maybe not even for a trip to the grocery store if she could get away with it.

  Resting at her feet was a red vacuum proof helmet to go with the red vacuum proof suit she was wearing. Around her waist, she wore a belt and holster. In the holster was a silenced hand cannon, for backup and emergencies.

  Using both hands, she lifted the rifle and ran a critical eye over the cylindrical scope, the long barrel and the stock containing the silenced gauss power unit. The weapon was ready to put an alloy slug through the skull of a bad guy, potentially from several thousand paces - which was exactly what she hoped to do once the shuttle docked.