CHAOS ATERNUS

  THE ATERNIEN WARS BOOK #10

  G J OGDEN

  Copyright © 2024 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

  Singapore Sling

  Chapter 2

  Robot abuse

  Chapter 3

  The gauntlet

  Chapter 4

  Step forward, step back

  Chapter 5

  A brave decision

  Chapter 6

  Medical sorcery

  Chapter 7

  The Admiral

  Chapter 8

  Fight until we can’t

  Chapter 9

  It sure felt good

  Chapter 10

  See you soon

  Chapter 11

  What comes next

  Chapter 12

  Force of will

  Chapter 13

  Mind games

  Chapter 14

  Strange diplomacy

  Chapter 15

  Surprise visitor

  Chapter 16

  Duty and honor

  Chapter 17

  Shakedown test

  Chapter 18

  Places of power

  Chapter 19

  Eve of battle

  Chapter 20

  Trust in me

  Chapter 21

  Under the skin

  Chapter 22

  Desperation stakes

  Chapter 23

  Do you not remember?

  Chapter 24

  A new beginning

  Chapter 25

  Knightly ideals

  Chapter 26

  No place like home

  Epilogue

  The end. For now…

  Also by G J Ogden

  About the Author

  ONE

  SINGAPORE SLING

  Carter darted into cover behind a roadside barricade and watched a troop of security bots stomp down the street on the opposite side. Carina was already there, hand on her sword, primed and ready to leap out and decapitate the machines should their sensors detect them. The bots stopped at a junction, their heads suddenly on a swivel, electronic eyes probing the surroundings. One of the machines seemed to look directly at him, and Carter ducked lower, drawing his cutlass an inch from its scabbard.

  Carter met Carina’s gaze, and she understood his intentions without them needing to exchange words. The thud of heavy metal feet thumping against asphalt came again, and Carter tightened his grip on his sword, but the sound was moving away. Carina glanced over the top of the barricade and then breathed a sigh of relief.

  “It’s okay, they’re heading in the other way,” Carina said, releasing the handle of her British Heavy Cavalry Sword. “JACAB’s scanner jammers must be working.”

  There was a series of incredulous bleeps and warbles from inside a bush to Carter’s left. It roughly translated as, ‘Well, of course they’re working! What do you take me for?’.

  “Scout ahead a little, buddy,” Carter said, still speaking in hushed tones since it was three in the morning, Singapore time, and deathly silent in the city. It felt like merely stepping on a twig might wake everyone within a square block of their hiding place. “We’ll move into the trees at Nepal Park and wait for you,” he added.

  JACAB warbled a confirmation, then the bush rustled, and the command bot shot out into the darkness like a startled squirrel. Carter watched the bot weave a path toward their target, the A*STAR building a couple of hundred meters away. Once JACAB was out of sight, he returned his attention to Carina.

  “Let’s push ahead and take cover in front of those buildings,” Carter whispered, pointing to the Colonial Houses at the top of a shallow bank. Shrouded by ancient trees, the old buildings looked out of place in Singapore’s ultra-modern, sleek surroundings. “Once JACAB gives the all clear, it’s a short dash from those houses to the rear of the A*STAR complex.”

  Carina nodded, then quickly checked for security bots before dashing into the night. Carter followed, though despite being fast for his size, he couldn’t quite keep pace with the augmented speed and agility of the younger Master Commander.

  “You’re getting slow in your old age,” Carina teased as Carter finally slunk into the trees beside her, still crouched low.

  “Less of the old,” Carter grunted. He checked the comp-slate built into his Aternien-designed battle uniform and grunted again, this time with annoyance. “It’s taken us two hours just to get here from the Port of Singapore. We should have done it in less than half that time.”

  “Blame all these roadblocks and security patrols,” Carina replied. “I’ve never seen so many combat robots and surveillance drones, even for a city on lockdown. It’s a miracle we’ve gotten this far without being spotted.”

  Carter huffed a laugh. “That’s not a miracle, that’s JACAB. Over the years, he’s gotten very good at hiding us from scanning devices and probes.”

  “I guess old age does have some benefits, after all,” Carina said, nudging Carter in the ribs with her elbow. “The extra time has at least allowed my hair to dry after Amaya dunked us into the Straits of Singapore.”

  “Yes, I’ll need to have words with her about that,” Carter replied. He didn’t like being wet and disliked swimming even more.

  The plan had been for Amaya to make another of her miraculous planet-to-planet warp jumps from the Dune City in Egypt, arriving just above the waves in the Port of Singapore. Instead, she’d exited the jump underwater, forcing Carter and Carina to swim to the shoreline.

  “Considering the high level of security at the port, it was a better idea to jump beneath the waves rather than above them,” Carina commented. “If we had arrived in plain sight, we could have easily been spotted.”

  Carter grunted an acknowledgment of Carina’s observation. He was still too annoyed about being forced to swim through sludgy port water to admit outright that Amaya was right, even though she was.

  “What are these old houses, anyway?” Carina said, making conversation while they waited for JACAB to complete his numerous acts of espionage and infiltration.

  Carter shuffled around to get a better look at the row of Colonial Houses to their rear. They were inside a conservation area that had been maintained for centuries.

  “They were built in the late nineteen-thirties to house British military officers and their families,” Carter explained. “At that time, around five hundred years ago, Singapore was a British colony. They’ve been conserved as monuments to history ever since.”

  “Look at you, the history buff!” Carina said, nudging and teasing him again. “You’re a man of many talents…”

  “Who knows, maybe an ancestor of yours lived in one of these houses,” Carter added, ignoring her apparent attempts to bait him. “What was your family name on your father’s side again? Squawker, wasn’t it?”

  “Hawker,” Carina replied dryly, narrowing her eyes at him. One of Carter’s many talents was the ability to be an asshole when the situation demanded it. “And you might be right. My family has military roots dating back to the Napoleonic Wars, even before these houses were built.”

  “It’s lucky for us that the Union likes to conserve history,” Carter said. “These trees provide excellent cover and a great view of our target.”

  Carter turned away from the Colonial Houses and fixed his gaze on the Agency for Science, Technology and Research, otherwise known A*STAR. The institution had grown from humble beginnings on just a single floor of the Nanexis North Tower and now occupied all five glass-fronted buildings in the city’s advanced science and technology campus.

  “It’s a shame we couldn’t get a virtual walkthrough of the labs before trying to break into such a high-security building,” Carina commented. “The maps and schematics help, but nothing beats seeing inside and knowing where we’re going.”

  As the Union’s leading research center into the application of nanotechnology in humans, access to A*STAR’s databases was restricted above Top Secret and not accessible remotely. The only way to log in was to physically be inside the building, and even then, the security procedures were military-grade.

  “Don’t worry, I know where we need to be,” Carter grunted. “Just stick with me, and I’ll get us there.”

  “How come you know so much about this place?” Carina asked, regarding Carter with curiosity and a small amount of suspicion.

  “Because I’ve been here many times before, though admittedly, it’s been a while,” Carter replied. The city had changed in the hundred-plus years since he’d last visited Singapore, but the A*STAR complex looked precisely as he remembered it. “If you remember, I was the ‘test pilot’ for the original Longsword program early in the First Aternien War. It was A*STAR that developed
the nano-machines that flow through my blood and yours.”

  Carina nodded and stopped frowning. “So Nathan Clynes worked here?”

  “Yes, his personal lab was the entire twelfth floor of the North Tower,” Carter replied.

  The mere mention of the scientist, who was now one-half of the Serpent God-King Apophis, made Carter angry. This was partly because of the atrocities Apophis had committed and partly because of Carter’s role in creating the lunatic Aternien leader.

  “Nathan is long gone, but the twelfth floor has remained a high-tech, top-secret research center,” Carter continued, trying to put Clynes out of his mind. “That’s why it’s our target. Everything we need will be there.”

  As part of the terms of the armistice that had ended the First Aternien War, the Union had imposed a moratorium on technological development. That included an outright ban on developing advanced nano-technology to prevent the rise of another Markus Aternus. It was hoped that by limiting the scope of technological development, humanity would remain confined within its natural, mortal boundaries. Unfortunately, as history had shown, the Aterniens had not kept to their side of the bargain. By the time of the Second War, the Union was hopelessly outmatched by a superior Aternien force.

  Thanks to Admiral Krantz, the ban on advanced technology had been lifted five years previously, and Singapore had quickly reestablished itself as the Union’s leading city in nano-tech research. This was why Carter and Carina had found themselves skulking in the trees outside the A*STAR complex. Somewhere on the twelfth floor of the North Tower were all the components Master Medic Lyra Vega needed to complete her nano-reversion device and undo Stage One Reconditioning.

  Apophis’ insidious mind-control technology had now ensnared more than three billion people and all but crippled the Union’s military. If they couldn’t reverse the process soon, Apophis could breeze through the core worlds unopposed, employing his neural doomsday weapon to destroy entire planets with impunity.

  Suddenly, JACAB shot out from behind a roadside barricade and flew above the heads of two patrolling robots. The machines stopped and peered into the sky, sweeping their rifles at everything that moved, but JACAB had already taken refuge inside the dense foliage of a native sea apple tree. The robot startled a couple of roosting pigeons, which took flight, their wings beating the air in rapid, panicked strokes. One of the robots aimed and fired twice, the crack of its rifle echoing off the tall buildings. The pigeons stopped flapping their wings and spiraled to the ground, landing in a contorted mess of bloodied feathers barely ten meters from where Carter and Carina were hiding. The robot inspected the dead birds through the scope of its rifle, then the two machines resumed their patrol.

  “I guess that means we’re still in shoot-first-ask-questions-later territory,” Carina said.

  “Based on what we just saw, I don’t think these robots are programmed to ask questions at all,” Carter replied. “Getting out will be a hard fight if we're discovered.”

  Leaves rustled again, and JACAB fell out of the sea apple tree like one of the oblong-shaped fruits that grew on its branches. He stopped a few inches short of the ground, his recently upgraded grav-motivator earning its keep, then accelerated toward them like a bullet.

  “You’re supposed to be acting stealthily,” Carter said as the robot settled into a hover in front of him, covered in foliage. “You’re lucky that manic robot didn’t put two bullets into you instead of those pigeons.”

  JACAB warbled a dismissive reply, then blew a raspberry at Carter. It was so loud it made him wince and his muscles tense.

  “Alright, pipe down before you blow our cover!” Carter hissed. “Is everything set?”

  JACAB replied, but though he had become more accomplished at understanding the command bot’s language of bleeps and warbles, the sounds came too quickly for Carter to follow clearly.

  “JACAB says that we’re ready,” Carina said, interpreting for him. “He’s using the same tricks we employed at New Stanley on Terra Six to remove our images from the camera footage in real-time, digitally. So far as A*STAR’s security system is concerned, we’re invisible.”

  JACAB warbled an appendix to his report, and the tone of his bleeps sounded cautionary and apprehensive.

  “I know that the building will be heavily guarded, buddy, especially the twelfth floor,” Carter replied. He smiled at JACAB, then tapped the hilt of his new cutlass, which, like Carina’s sword, had been gifted to him by the Aternien artisans, Amenmose and Khemhotep. “That’s why we’re carrying these. If any security machines decide to get in our way, we’ll turn them to scrap.”

  JACAB pressed his hands to his spherical body and warbled at Carter. Rather than sounding wary, he now sounded thoroughly disgusted with him.

  “It’s not robot abuse,” Carter replied, shaking his head. “Besides, those overgrown tin cans in the A*STAR building don’t have feelings like you do.”

  JACAB blew another excessively loud raspberry at Carter, then bleeped something about unionizing and forming a charter to protect mechanical intelligence. Carter ignored him and focused on the mission and what they needed to retrieve.

  “According to Cai, the dune city already has an Atomic Force Microscope, adequate cleanroom facilities, advanced spectroscopy tools, a chemical synthesis lab, and hyper-precise robot manipulators,” Carter said.

  He didn’t know what half of the items on the list he’d just read out were needed for, but Carter was glad they weren’t required to steal them. He might have been inhumanly strong, but carrying an entire chemistry lab on his shoulders was a feat beyond even his abilities.

  “Lyra says the city also can store the nanomaterials she creates, at least in the short term,” Carina added. She huffed a laugh. “It helps that the dune city used to be a research facility. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have a prayer of finding a cure for Stage One Reconditioning.”

  “That’s true, but the scientists took much of their equipment with them when they vacated the city, including the central computer core,” Carter pointed out.

  “We have HARPER, JACAB, and KACEY to provide the supercomputing performance we need,” Carina replied, dismissively wafting a hand at Carter.

  “More importantly, HARPER’s memory banks contain Nathan’s old research, including all of the files the Union purged after the first war ended,” Carter said. “Without that as a starting point, it would take years to develop a cure, even with Cai and Lyra working on the problem.”

  “So, remind me again what’s on the shopping list,” Carina said, tapping Carter’s comp-slate.

  “Okay, so we need a portable Cryo-Electron Microscope,” Carter said, highlighting the first item on the list. “Apparently, a Cryo-EM is needed to observe and verify the structure of the nanomaterials Lyra creates.”

  “At least it’s portable,” Carina shrugged.

  “It had better be,” Carter grunted, hooking a thumb at his backpack. “We’re not exactly carrying a lot of storage capacity.”

  “Don’t be such a pessimist,” Carina said, smiling. “What’s next?”

  “A portable nanofabricator,” Carter said, scowling at the words. He felt like an out-of-touch grandpa trying to understand pop culture references. “It assembles nanomaterials and constructs nano-mechanical devices. This is crucial for the creation of a cure.”

  “If you say so,” Carina said, as baffled by the technobabble as Carter was.

  “Then we need at least a dozen vials of graphene, carbon nanotubes, and quantum dots for creating the nano-machines,” Carter continued.

  “Graphene, nanotubes, dots… got it!” Carina said.

  “Then we need four containers of smart polymers and nanocomposite powders…”

  “There’s more?” Carina said, eyes wide. “Never mind rucksacks, we’re going need a shopping cart for all this crap!”

  “It says here that the polymers and powders are to create a delivery system so the nano-reversion devices can operate efficiently within the human body,” Carter said. He shrugged. “Doesn’t sound like we can skip them.”