PLANET KILLER

  THE ATERNIEN WARS BOOK #3

  G J OGDEN

  Copyright © 2023 by G J Ogden

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  These novels are entirely works of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  Illustration © Tom Edwards

  TomEdwardsDesign.com

  Editing by S L Ogden

  Published by Ogden Media Ltd

  www.ogdenmedia.net

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Routine inspection

  Chapter 2

  Getting underway

  Chapter 3

  Ludicrous heroics

  Chapter 4

  Keeping promises

  Chapter 5

  Suspicion and fear

  Chapter 6

  That ends today

  Chapter 7

  Cut and thrust

  Chapter 8

  Sweep and clear

  Chapter 9

  You did good…

  Chapter 10

  Inventio Research Expeditions

  Chapter 11

  The Skyhawk

  Chapter 12

  The hard way

  Chapter 13

  Friend or foe

  Chapter 14

  Coffee break

  Chapter 15

  Sanitas Pharma

  Chapter 16

  Higher ground

  Chapter 17

  Infiltrators

  Chapter 18

  Mathilde McCarty

  Chapter 19

  Ten out of ten

  Chapter 20

  Problems and more problems

  Chapter 21

  Boarding actions

  Chapter 22

  Heavy fire

  Chapter 23

  The Warden

  Chapter 24

  Noble intentions

  Chapter 25

  No greater teacher…

  Chapter 26

  Plan B

  Chapter 27

  Breaking and entering

  Chapter 28

  Into the depths

  Chapter 29

  A fate of your own making

  Chapter 30

  Cat and mouse

  Chapter 31

  Double trouble

  Chapter 32

  New tactics

  Also by G J Ogden

  About the Author

  ONE

  ROUTINE INSPECTION

  Space unfolded around his battle-scared shuttlecraft, and Master Commander Carter Rose found himself staring out at the shining blue orb of Terra Prime. Then his consoles screamed at him as fifty Union warships locked weapons, along with ten times that number of automated gun platforms. Any normal human might have panicked, but Carter was all too used to danger, and he calmly broadcast his ID and waited for the alerts to die back. It wasn’t the automated platforms that worried him, so much as the captains and commanders of the Union vessels protecting Terra Prime. Considering how the Aterniens had just soundly defeated their forces and wiped out the entire population of Terra Six, people were understandably a touch jumpy.

  The alerts ceased and the taskforce that had been gunning for him, resumed its regular patrol route, though not before Carter received a taciturn apology, sent as text only. With the threat of his own annihilation gone, he locked in a course to Station Alpha and sat back to let the autopilot do the work. JACAB was sleeping on the passenger seat next to him. In reality, the bot was simply in low-power mode, though Carter considered the two states to be comparable enough for the term to be applicable.

  The reason for JACAB’s self-imposed hibernation was the sheer boredom of the journey from Forward Operating Base Zulu to the Union homeworld. Admiral Krantz’s shuttle was on the verge of flying itself apart, which meant that he had been required to perform five soliton warp jumps in order to reach his destination. Each successive jump was delayed by the need to conduct minor repairs then spool-up the drive again, which was beginning to sound like a malfunctioning tumble-dryer. It didn’t help that he was almost blown out of space by nervous warship commanders at every stopover point.

  “Executive transport shuttle kilo-one to Station Alpha; requesting permission to dock,” Carter said into the comm.

  There was a pause while the station aggressively scanned the ship and interrogated his ID and flight plan. However, since Admiral Clara Krantz herself had approved his arrival, he didn’t expect any resistance.

  “Shuttle kilo-one, this is docking control. Permission granted,” the reply came back. “Please proceed to docking garage four.”

  “Understood, docking control, I’m on my way.” He expected the channel to be cut, but the faint crackle of interference suggested the controller was still on the line.

  “Shuttle kilo-one, we’re detecting a lot of damage to your vessel, including a minor reactor leak. Would you like us to tow you in?”

  Carter snorted and shook his head. There wasn’t a chance in hell he was going to be pulled into the dock on a leash. He’d rather activate his head covering and space walk to the station than face the embarrassment of being towed.

  “No thank you, Station Alpha, I’ll be fine.”

  “Very well, we’ll have an engineering and safety team standing by,” the controller replied. “Please land on pad ninety-nine.”

  This time the comm channel did click off, which was a good thing, considering the string of expletives that Carter hurled back at the man for forcing him to dock at the ass-end of the garage. Though, to be fair, he was flying a mildly radioactive heap of space junk that might explode the moment it touched down on the pad.

  Before long, Station Alpha had grown from a star-like twinkle of light in the distance to occupying almost his entire view outside the cockpit. The shuttle, which was still on automatic, orbited the station then began its final approach toward garage four. Carter suddenly sat bolt upright in his seat. After a solid day of boredom spent traveling across the cosmos, the sight of his old ship, the Longsword Galatine, felt like a shot of adrenaline to the heart.

  “Hey, buddy, check this out,” Carter said, rapping his knuckles on the spherical chassis of the bot.

  JACAB warbled and squawked indignantly then finally expanded his glowing red eye from a pinprick-like dot to a golf-ball-sized circle. He hovered above the seat, saw the Galatine, and let out the bot equivalent of a long, low whistle.

  “I know, right?” Carter said, beaming a smile from ear to ear. “She looks almost brand-new. Kendra is a marvel, that’s for sure.”

  JACAB looked at him and bleeped.

  “Sorry, Kendra and RAEB are both marvels,” Carter said, correcting himself so that his Master Engineer’s bot also got some credit. He rested a hand on his gopher. “And so are you, buddy. We’re going home!”

  JACAB bleeped with excitement and settled in for the final part of their return journey. The outer door to docking garage four opened and Carter switched to manual, guiding the shuttle to the conveyor pad that would ferry them to their final docking location. The shuttle connected with a solid thump, the outer door closed, and they were lowered into the pressurized docking area.

  Carter released the controls and shut down their bleeding reactor core. The conveyor deposited them unceremoniously on pad ninety-nine, where a crew of dock workers and engineers were waiting for them, all wearing full hazard suits. Then he saw that there was someone else also there to greet them, and she was simply wearing her Longsword battle uniform.

  “I’d be careful where you stand,” Carter said, heading outside the shuttle and walking over to Kendra Castle. “This thing is kicking out enough radiation to give you a sunburn.”

  Kendra smiled then pulled Carter into an embrace, which took him by surprise, though he didn’t fight it.

  “Good to see you again, boss,” the Master Engineer said. She then turned to JACAB. “And you too, you old tin basketball. Come here and give me a hug!”

  JACAB warbled and zoomed past Carter’s ear, straight into Kendra’s waiting arms. She hugged the bot like he was a puppy then rubbed the top of his chassis, as if ruffling a child’s hair.

  “Where’s the normie?” Kendra asked, looking at the still-open hatch as if she was expecting more people to alight the shuttle.

  “If you mean Major Larsen, she’s still on FOB Zulu,” Carter replied, grabbing his bag from the footwell.

  “Is she okay?” Kendra asked, with genuine concern.

  Carter blew out a sigh. “She will be, yes. Terra Six was a bit rough, even for the likes of us, so she got knocked about a bit.”

  “I heard about what happened. If she’s still alive after all that, then she’s tougher than she looks,” Kendra said.

  Carter smiled and nodded. “She is. Though don’t tell her I said so, or it’ll just go to her head.”

  “I also heard about Cai and what happened to his wife,” the engineer added, in a more somber tone. “I wish I could have been there for him. That must have been difficult.”

  Carter swallowed hard. The memory of his Master Operator, fallen to his knees out
side the hospital on Terra Six and sobbing at the death of his wife, was still raw. “Cai has other priorities now, so we’ll continue the mission without him,” he replied, dodging the subject as best he could. “On that front, how about you show me around the Galatine? I caught a glimpse on the way over, and she looks incredible.”

  Changing the topic of conversation to the Galatine was tactical and designed to stop Kendra from asking him any more difficult or probing personal questions. Given that there was nothing in the known universe that his Master Engineer loved more than the Longsword, besides perhaps her bot RAEB, his tactic succeeded.

  “She’s not one hundred percent, but she’s front-line ready,” Kendra said, guiding them toward the exit to the dock with a spring in her step. Behind them, the hazard-suited dock workers were busy covering Admiral Krantz’s shuttle in a compound that helped to absorb and neutralize the radiation from its leaking reactor. “There are just a few admin chores to take care of, then we can be under way. You know, the usual Union bullshit, where all T’s have to be crossed and all I’s dotted.”

  “So long as you say she’s ready, that’s all that matters to me,” Carter replied.

  Three strident bleeps were emitted by JACAB, but unlike the bot’s electronic vocalizations, this was a separate warning tone. Kendra checked her comp-slate and examined the bot like a doctor, with a consternated frown furrowing her brow.

  “It looks like JACAB needs a bit of an overhaul too,” the engineer said, still concerned. “It’s been more than a century since he had a proper tune-up, and with all the excitement of the last few days, he’s looking a little cooked.”

  JACAB’s eye narrowed and looked to the floor, and the bot began shivering with fear.

  “It’s okay, you’re not in any danger,” Kendra said, which helped to reassure JACAB and raise his spirits, as well as the angle of his eye. “Once we’re on-board the Galatine, I’ll get you stowed away in engineering. You’ll be in low-power mode for a few hours and when you emerge, you’ll be right as rain again.”

  “In other words, go get some well-earned R-and-R, buddy,” Carter added, patting his bot. “I’ll make sure to wake you if anything exciting happens.”

  JACAB warbled his agreement and they made a pit-stop at engineering before Kendra began the tour of the revamped Galatine. RAEB was already in engineering, and the two bots chatted for a time, before JACAB set down in one of the repair bays that had been specifically designed for Longsword gophers. His red eye dimmed almost to the point of going out, and the shelf of the bay retracted, taking JACAB into the diagnostic suite.

  “How about you, RAEB, do you need a tune up?” Carter asked.

  RAEB extended two mechanical arms and flexed them like a body builder at the Mr. Universe contest.

  Carter laughed. “I’ll take that to mean you’ve already had your spa treatment?”

  RAEB nodded then hovered away to continue his work. Carter took another look at JACAB, waved goodbye to the bot, despite him being unable to wave back, then followed Kendra out of engineering to begin the inspection.

  For the next two hours, Kendra gave him a whistlestop tour of the work she’d done to make the Galatine combat ready. Unsurprisingly, this focused on the engineering levels, taking in the two large engine bays and the soliton warp drive chamber, which was as impressive as he remembered. Occupying four entire sections across three decks, it was more than double the size of any other drive in the fleet, and employed technology the Union no longer understood.

  The cylindrical device, housed in a chamber large enough to accommodate a basketball arena, was capable of manipulating spacetime and transporting the Galatine half-way across the galaxy in the blink of an eye. Its capabilities had never been fully explored, for fear the Galatine might warp itself outside of the universe, or into another one, but with a steady hand on the tiller, it was safe and reliable.

  “If we do manage to find Amaya, she’ll be chomping at the bit to spin this up again,” Carter said, admiring the device and Kendra’s workmanship.

  “So long as she sticks to warp jumps and regular, Newtonian maneuvering, I don’t care,” Kendra hit back. “The sort of stunts she was able pull with this drive active made me feel queasy. And I’m a rollercoaster addict.”

  Kendra had been referring to the Galatine’s gravitational maneuvering system, which only Amaya and Master Navigators like her, could perform. He understood his Master Engineer’s intense dislike of the disorientating capability but couldn’t deny it had saved their skins on many an occasion, and likely would do so again.

  Departing the warp drive chamber, Kendra stopped by the revamped and re-stocked armory, before showing him the upgraded communal area. As a ship of war, the Galatine possessed few creature comforts, and rightly so. But while the revamped space was still far from the quality of bars and cafes that lined Station Alpha’s promenade, the chairs were comfier, and the hot beverages from the new machine were light-years better than he remembered, though the coffee still looked like mud.

  The last destination on Carter’s tour was arguably the most important, at least to him. The bridge. He finished his chamomile tea, placed the cup in the cleaning processor, and followed his Master Engineer into the main central corridor. The ship was still crawling with engineering crew, all of whom had gone to great pains to avoid meeting his eyes. Then he spotted Captain Engineer William Schultz and was reminded of how Admiral Krantz had ordered the head of Station Alpha’s engineering department to work under Kendra’s authority. The man had not taken the order well, to say the least.

  “How has Schultz been this past week or so?” Carter asked, as the Captain Engineer skulked away, head under a storm cloud. “He still looks as angry as a horse with an itchy nose.”

  Kendra smiled then glanced behind to make sure the captain was out of earshot. Carter was impressed; tactful forethought – or just tact in general – was not really his engineer’s forte.

  “He used to make a show of complaining loudly and often about how his authority had been undermined, but for all his protests, he does what I tell him.” Kendra stopped and thought for a moment, as if Carter’s question had stirred a memory. “If you’d have asked me a few days ago, I would have said he was a grade-A dick splash, but he’s actually been quite nice to me of late, so it must be your presence that’s making him sour.”

  Carter grimaced as he pondered over the meaning of Kendra’s colorful, phallus-derived metaphor but decided that he was probably better off not knowing. Then another, far more troubling thought entered his mind. “Why is he suddenly being so nice? You’re not banging him, are you?”

  Kendra shot him a dirty look that even Major Larsen would have struggled to beat, then rolled her eyes at him. “Of course, I’m not; what do you take me for?” Her offended expression then softened and she shrugged, lazily. “But there’s a security lieutenant assigned to dock one that I’ve been tussling with. It helps to pass the time.”

  Carter laughed and shook his head. “A lieutenant? How old is this guy? Twenty-four, twenty-five?”

  Kendra flashed her eyes at him. “Twenty-five,” she said, with a wicked grin.

  Carter laughed again. “Does he know you’re more than six times his age?”

  Kendra shrugged again. “Age is just a number, and yes, he does know. He tells me all the time that I don’t look it, though.” She sighed, blowing out her cheeks in the process. “I think he’s actually quite smitten with me, the poor bastard.”

  “Kendra Castle, breaking hearts for more than a century and a half…” he replied, still chuckling to himself, and Kendra nudged him playfully.

  Finally, they arrived on the bridge, which was showroom fresh. In a way, it seemed almost too pristine for a war vessel that had seen countless battles and had spent the last century wrecked on an exo-planet thousands of light years from Terra Prime.