Independence: Book 1 of The Legacy Ship Trilogy Read online

  Contents

  Title

  Dedication

  Front Matter

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Epilogue

  Backmatter

  INDEPENDENCE

  Book One

  of

  The Legacy Ship Trilogy

  For J., L., and C.

  To be notified of future books in The Legacy Fleet Series, sign up here:

  smarturl.it/nickwebblist

  The Legacy Fleet Series spans two trilogies:

  The Legacy Fleet Trilogy:

  Constitution

  Warrior

  Victory

  The Legacy Ship Trilogy:

  Independence

  Defiance (coming soon)

  Liberty (coming 2017)

  In addition, there are Legacy Fleet novels written by other authors (with Mr. Webb’s permission):

  smarturl.it/legacyfleet

  Other books by Nick Webb

  The Pax Humana Saga:

  1: The Terran Gambit

  2: Chains of Destiny

  3: Into the Void

  Prologue

  Irigoyen Sector, San Martin System, Asteroid belt

  Asteroid Hauler Magdalena Issachar

  SIGNAL RECEIVED. 5/12/2680 23:48.25

  MESSAGE DECRYPTED:

  It’s time.

  END MESSAGE.

  Danny had been waiting in deep space for the signal for six days. Nearly an entire week of half sitting, half floating on his ass, the gravity plates only at one tenth power to conserve fuel, water, and food supplies dwindling down to near nothing—one more ancient, stale granola bar and he knew he’d vomit—and suffering through the constant banter of his two crew-mates.

  Thankfully, they’d gone to sleep hours ago. Only Danny had seen the message come in from their mysterious client—just as he’d hoped—passing it through the ten-odd levels of decryption, only to discover the text itself was only two enigmatic words. It’s time. Damn—these guys were paranoid. There must be a ton of platinum bullion in that giant crate down in the cargo hold. Or fluff-coke. Was he a drug-runner now? Shit. Or maybe a handful of Rigellian mail-order brides in stasis. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be within the law. Law-abiding citizens didn’t send hyper-encrypted messages to clandestine asteroid haulers this far out on the fringes of United Earth Space.

  He had only sneaking suspicions of who the client was, but it didn’t matter. The money was good, and the bonus hourly pay from the GPC was icing on the cake. The job had been high-priority—he wondered if the Secretary-General himself had approved the job. The Galactic People’s Congress wasn’t big enough yet to preclude the old man himself from giving the thumbs-up on even standard delivery missions.

  That would change, though.

  And this was no standard delivery mission.

  With gravity still at one-tenth, he pushed off from his bed, launched through the air of his cramped living quarters, and landed on both feet in front of the door a few meters away. As queasy as he got in low grav, he loved the feeling of being a superhero.

  A hero. Isn’t that why he’d signed up with the GPC in the first place? The fight against tyranny and oppression and greed and all that shit? United Earth thought it could bully everyone into line, but it hadn’t counted on people like Danny fucking Proctor. Watch your mouth! His aunt’s voice automatically echoed in his mind.

  Or was it the freedom of piloting his own asteroid hauler at only twenty-one years old? If he’d entered IDF academy like his aunt had urged him to, he’d be rotting in classrooms for the next five years. Promotions there would only happen if he learned how to kiss his commander’s ass with enough tongue. The Integrated Defense Force of UE had become a behemoth in the three decades since the decisive victory of the Second Swarm War, but bureaucracies were bureaucracies, and if bureaucracy was the noun then ass-kissing was its verb. On the other hand, if he’d signed on to the merchant marine, he’d be mopping gravity deckplates for the next ten years before they’d let him even breathe on any flight controls.

  But this—this was freedom. This was life. His own ship—even if he didn’t own it, he flew it, and that was just as good. He trailed his hand along the old corridor walls as he bounced his way down to the operations center. Ridley and Taggert would be asleep, or still having sex—it seemed like they never stopped having sex. A week of floating next to a giant rock in the middle of empty space was conducive to breaking down inhibitions, and his two crew-mates had succumbed to the flesh spectacularly. Either way, he wasn’t about to wake them. This was his mission. His ship.

  This was freedom.

  Once across the threshold, he jumped up a few meters and sailed across the operations center, landing cleanly in the navigator’s chair with the ease that came from months at low-grav. He entered in the coordinates for their next stop, Sangre de Cristo, the fourth planet in the San Martin system. Just a colony, really. A million or so religious fanatics had tired of the oppressive hand of a distant UE and its tin-eared government on San Martin, and had set off on their own. Shovik-Orion Industries had been only too happy to provide the domes and contract out the rest of the building effort. And the GPC was far enough in bed with Shovik-Orion that he assumed plenty of wallets were embiggening with each shipment to the fledgling colony.

  His own included, so no complaints.

  The main drive activated with an ear-deafening roar—one irritating quirk of the ancient freighter—and the inertial cancelers struggled to keep up with the three g burn. He could q-jump in and save half a day, of course, but the client had specified no q-jumping. Harder to track that way—q-jump signatures could be seen half a system away with the most basic sens
or packages.

  Luckily, Sangre de Cristo wasn’t that far from the asteroid belt. They’d be there in four hours, and with any luck, Ridley and Taggert would still be asleep, or having their morning coffee. Or their morning screw.

  He dozed off after setting the nav computer to autopilot. The ship would swivel one hundred eighty halfway out to Sangre and automatically start the decel burn. And he’d need to be awake and alert for the actual delivery—planetary re-entry on an old rickety freighter like the Magdalena Issachar was like trying to screw a discount mutated whore on Rigel Three while half-drunk—it required a certain amount of concentration, but not so much concentration that you realized with horror what the hell you were doing.

  It had only seemed like his eyes were closed for a few minutes. The alarm was persistent, and it took him several shakes of his head to realize that that particular flavor of alarm was a proximity detector.

  Shit. Something was close. Close enough to trigger a proximity alarm. He scrambled to activate the external video feed and brought up the view on his screen.

  They were nearly there. Sangre de Cristo glistened far below, its massive oceans reflecting the distant sun’s weak blue light. Only internal mantle heating kept the water liquid. He could barely make out the massive kilometers-long cylindrical domes dotting the rusty-colored eastern island, each transparent city-wide window keeping the noxious carbon dioxide atmosphere at bay while letting in enough light to sustain photosynthesis in the genetically modified plants that could survive on such minuscule solar irradiance.

  But what caught his eye was the ship less than a kilometer away, coming in fast. It was smaller than the Magdalena Issachar, but even at this distance he could see it was armed to the teeth. He didn’t recognize any hull markings at this distance. It was obviously human—Dolmasi or Skiohra ships looked unmistakably alien—but their transponder was running silent—a flagrant violation of United Earth law. And Russian Confederation law. Hell, every human government required active transponders, even the GPC. Some in the UE might consider the Galactic People’s Congress a terrorist organization. But at least we keep our transponders running.

  “Unidentified ship, this is the Magdalena Issachar out of Britannia on a delivery mission to Sangre. Mornin’ fellas. Please respond, over.”

  He tried to keep his voice level and conversational. He felt anything but. Other ships never flew right up to you close enough to wave through the window. Not unless you were intentionally docking with each other, or, Danny feared, being forcefully boarded.

  “Unidentified ship, please respond.”

  Nothing. Whatever they were playing at, the other ship was getting uncomfortably close. He toyed with the idea of making a break for it. Would they fire on him? The closer they got, the tighter the knot in Danny’s stomach pulled.

  He flipped on the navigational controls and started adjusting the Magdalena’s course. The other ship matched his movements, and moments later, another alarm started flashing on his board.

  They were targeting weapons.

  “Come on, fellas, let’s not get carried away here….”

  The message was clear. Don’t move, or you’re dead. From the sleek lines of the other ship, the heavy armaments, and general lack of scuffing and micro-meteor impacts, it was clear this was no pirate ship trying to relieve him of his cargo.

  Someone knew about that crate down in the cargo hold. And whatever was in it was worth shooting at his ship.

  It was worth his life.

  A docking tube began to extend out from the other ship’s port, and on instinct Danny leapt out of his chair, soared across the operations center, and landed in the corridor at a bounding run. Running at one-tenth g meant a series of powerful, one-legged jumps, and by the time he reached the cargo bay he’d only touched the floor five times.

  Inside the bay he ducked into the auxiliary airlock just as he heard the ominous metallic sounds of the two ships mating together at the main docking port. At a touch to the wall panel he closed the door most of the way shut, leaving just enough of a slit for him to see out into the space beyond, and part of the walkway that circled the upper part of the cargo bay.

  And just in time. The docking port opened with a groan, indicating something on the other side was forcing it. Through the slit he could see several figures in vacuum battle armor launch through the hatch, brandishing guns. Big guns. One motioned to another and pointed towards the giant crate in the center of the cargo bay. The indicated soldier let his gun hang at his shoulder while he pulled out a hand terminal and started working the controls as the other two stood guard around him.

  “Hey, Danny, what the hell is going on? I thought I heard—”

  Through the slit he watched as Matt Ridley, who’d apparently just woken up, padded barefoot onto the catwalk surrounding the bay, still rubbing his eyes. He wore only underwear, which didn’t do much to conceal his raging morning wood. His mohawk had lost some of its usual stiffness and seemed to flop like a rooster’s comb.

  A loud crack echoed through the bay, and Danny had to bite down on his fist when he realized what had just happened. A hole blossomed in the middle of Ridley’s forehead, and a fine pink mist had sprayed out behind him. He still looked confused as hell as he collapsed.

  The one-tenth g seemed to take forever to pull the dead young man to the deck.

  Danny’s stomach rose up into his mouth, and he fought the watery feelings of nausea beginning to overtake him.

  He had to get out.

  He had to get out.

  The locker nearby held a vacuum suit. All he had to do was put it on without drawing the attention of the soldiers, open the auxiliary airlock, and jump out. Easy. He could do this.

  He had to get out.

  And then what? Didn’t matter. All that mattered now was getting away from those guns.

  He had to get out.

  The image of the pink mist spraying back from Ridley’s head, of him jerking back as the bullet pierced his brain, forced itself back into his thoughts, and to avoid retching he set himself to work.

  He pushed the door closed all the way, locked it, and frantically started pulling on the suit, finally clamping the helmet on less than a minute later. Luckily, the data connection to the ship was working, so he brought up the heads-up display, and navigated over to the video feed from the cargo bay. Two of the soldiers were pulling the front panel off the crate, and then one of them retrieved something from a bag hanging from his shoulder. Some sort of electronic device. He attached it to the contents of the crate with a magnetic lock.

  Holy shit. The contents of the crate. There was only one thing in there, resting on the center of a pallet.

  It looked remarkably like an atmospheric-reentry nuclear missile. Square tail fin and all.

  A gentle sway in the ship’s gravity field told him that the engines had cut out and the inertial cancelers compensated for the change in the acceleration vector. They’d arrived at Sangre.

  And just in time. He worked the airlock controls with one hand while trying to get the comm open to Taggert. Silence. Either still asleep, or….

  He shook the thought, and initiated the airlock sequence. The air cycled out of the chamber, and the outer hatch opened, and not looking back, he pulled himself out.

  Sangre de Cristo’s oceans glistened below, and he could just make out one of the vast cylindrical domes on one of the peninsulas. He clung tightly to the handholds lining the hull, and started climbing around the Magdalena, away from the view of the other ship.

  A whisper crackled in his ear. “Matt? Where are you? Matt? Danny? I hear people out there. Matt? I—”

  He was about to key in a response when the sound of a door opening came through the comm, followed by a sudden sharp intake of breath by Taggert and a whispered oh god. And a second later, a loud crack, identical to the one that had emptied Matt’s head.

  Danny tried to cover his mouth, pawing at his face shield, putting up a valiant effort to stem the flow of v
omit. The rancid smell pierced his nose, and he swore as he realized the contents of his stomach now covered the face shield of the helmet, obscuring his view.

  Below him, he felt the maneuvering thrusters of the ship burn. He hadn’t programmed that. The intruders were moving the ship. The Magdalena Issachar slowly turned to point straight down to the planet below. He looked back. The other ship had retracted its docking tube and fired its own engines.

  The Magdalena started accelerating. The pull of his own inertia nearly broke his grip on the handhold.

  With a dull ache in his roiling stomach, he realized he had a choice to make. The soldiers, whoever they were, had clearly set the ship on a course that would take it down into the atmosphere, and crash on Sangre de Cristo. Bail now? Or try to re-enter the ship and override whatever course the soldiers had set?

  And that missile—there was no question what they were trying to do. He made his choice, pulling himself back towards the auxiliary airlock. There was still time. He touched the exterior control panel. Not operational. He yanked on the manual override, which didn’t budge.

  He’d been locked out. Whatever tech the soldiers had, they’d been able to override the manual override’s controls, which he thought was technically impossible.

  That left the only alternative. He crouched down on the side of the ship, perpendicular to the horizon, and with a grunt he jumped as hard as he could. The ship fell away from him, and now that he was free of its acceleration, the Magdalena Issachar shot forward, speeding towards its doom. He wondered if he’d jumped clear in time to make orbit, or if he’d similarly fall to his death. Would the atmosphere burn him up first, or would he get to at least enjoy a few minutes of free-fall? Why was he thinking of enjoying a free-fall? He’d just watched one friend get his brains blown out, and heard it happen to the other friend.

  He was fucked.