Spinward Fringe Broadcast 15 Read online

  Spinward Fringe Broadcast 15: Pursuit

  Randolph Lalonde

  Contents

  Books by Randolph Lalonde

  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

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Afterword

  Books by Randolph Lalonde

  THE CHAOS CORE SERIES

  Trapped

  Cool Pursuit

  Savage Stars

  * * *

  THE SPINWARD FRINGE SERIES

  Spinward Fringe Broadcast 0: Origins

  Spinward Fringe Broadcast 1 and 2: Resurrection and Awakening

  Spinward Fringe Broadcast 3: Triton

  Spinward Fringe Broadcast 4: Frontline

  Spinward Fringe Broadcast 5: Fracture

  Spinward Fringe Broadcast 6: Fragments

  The Expendable Few: A Spinward Fringe Novel

  Spinward Fringe Broadcast 7: Framework

  Spinward Fringe Broadcast 8: Renegades

  Spinward Fringe Broadcast 9: Warpath

  Spinward Fringe Broadcast 10: Freeground

  Spinward Fringe Broadcast 10.5: Carnie's Tale

  Spinward Fringe Broadcast 11: Revenge

  Spinward Fringe Broadcast 12: Invasion

  Spinward Fringe Broadcast 13: Warriors

  Spinward Fringe Broadcast 14: Rebel

  Spinward Fringe Broadcast 15: Pursuit

  Spinward Fringe Broadcast 16: Hunters (Coming in 2020)

  * * *

  FANTASY

  Highshield

  Brightwill

  NEM: Awakening (Coming in 2020)

  * * *

  HORROR

  Dark Arts

  * * *

  www.RandolphLalonde.com

  Pursuit: Spinward Fringe Broadcast 15 © Copyright 2020 Randolph Lalonde

  Spinward Fringe is a registered trademark of Randolph Lalonde

  * * *

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher, Randolph Lalonde.

  * * *

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  * * *

  Thank you for supporting the author by purchasing this book. Every honest reader counts.

  * * *

  EBook ISBN: 978-1-988175-23-2

  Revision: 3

  Created with Vellum

  Chapter 1

  Now arriving…

  * * *

  The hull of the Veritas had been home to Dame and Easy for nearly two days. Specifically, the outer hull. To Dame's disappointment, no one came out to try to scrape them off. She wasn't eager to kill anyone, and the thought of sending a person into the wall of the wormhole surrounding the ship made her stomach lurch, but the suspense of what might happen when they stopped was chewing at her last nerve. A fight would have been a welcome distraction.

  Her rifle laid across her chest, heavy armour suit adhering to the hull of the Veritas, she stared through the light distorting wall of the wormhole. "You're not going to get a good shot at Rear Admiral West," Easy said over their point-to-point comm from beside her. "They've had two days to prepare, and all we could do was plant grenades on their weapon ports and aft shield emitters."

  "So, we can fly away, ignoring our mission." They’d had the discussion several times. It always came down to what she repeated then; "If we aren't surrounded by Order of Eden ships when we emerge, we'll shoot him when he comes out."

  "What if we're about to come out in neutral space and he asks for help from port security? That's what I'd do," Easy retorted with a sigh.

  It was the first time he'd offered that counter, and it surprised her. Then Edda's dogged dedication to her plan to take Rear Admiral Kenly West began to wilt along with her spirits. "Are there a lot of free solar systems left in The Cluster? I didn't get a chance to read about them all."

  "Yes. The Order doesn’t have a really heavy presence here yet. I know you want to pull through for the Fleet, but sometimes you just have to hang back, look around and then find your own way home," Easy said. "Or wait a few hours for Haven to get our message and come get us."

  "Hang back, look around," Edda repeated quietly. "So, you think we should spy?" It seemed like the least heroic thing to do, but if she were pressed Edda would admit it made sense. "If we can get away, anyway."

  "That's the big question, right? When we emerge from this wormhole, will this ship be headed straight into the bay of some Order of Eden carrier or something worse? But, yeah, I think we should take a good look around while we plan our next steps."

  "And watch for our chance to capture West or any Order officers," Edda added, more to frustrate Easy than to make a point.

  He grumbled under his breath a little before grunting; "Sure."

  Edda allowed herself a little chuckle. In truth the two days had been tense, but she'd gotten to know Easy, and she liked him. He enjoyed a lot of banned sports, it turned out, like cyborg fighting and zero gravity obstacle course racing. The racing was exciting, she watched a couple recorded ones with him, but the fighting aspects of his favourite spectacles were grisly, requiring more ingenuity in the workshop than skill on the field. He'd been married once, but after nearly fifteen years they split up because they'd grown apart. He didn't like androids much, but understood why they were important to the Fleet, and he enjoyed having a lot of friends, a big social group. That, along with most aspects of his life fell apart when the holocaust virus hit.

  That was something they did to pass the time while they were bound to the hull of the Veritas; traded questions. She had plenty for him, and he seemed to have many for her, but he didn't ask much about Lorander, which was unusual. Easy seemed more interested in where she came from and what her past was like, not so much about the features of her culture, or what technology was like where she came from. It was interesting, running into someone who seemed to understand that she was a person, not as a source of information about her home. She'd started the trip thinking that she wasn't very interesting, but Easy started to make her feel like that wasn’t true, and she appreciated him for that. "Hey, we've batted this ball back and forth the whole trip. Looks like we're almost done decelerating here, so we're about to find out what's waiting for us," Easy said. He was about to propose an idea. It was something he did a lot. "How about I follow your lead if it looks like things are about to go in a military way because you have all those virt
ual infantry qualifiers passed and done now."

  "That makes sense," Edda agreed. It was true; after the first day she'd used the simulation tech in her suit to finish three infantry qualification simulations that addressed features in her armour, tactics, equipment, and other aspects of suit bound combat with rifles and other hand weapons. The last level was the most difficult, but she managed to pass. That put her two qualification levels above Easy.

  "All right, but if it looks like we have to escape and go underground until we can find a way back to the Haven System, then I take control. I've been around a bit, well, not like you have, but I've probably seen fifty worlds or more in this part of space."

  "You know more about the cultures and different governments here," Edda said, helping him clarify his point.

  "Right. I've been trying to find a way to tell you that you don't seem to have a good grip on how things work outside of the Fleet here without making it sound like an insult, but…"

  "You're right, I haven't seen many human cultures outside of my own galaxy. Not in person, at least," she looked to a window she'd left open on the left side of her display where she had been watching a stream of advertisements that were from another cluster world. It was paused on one for pit fighting. Two beings with striped fur, long tails and claws were about to leap at each other. A little research revealed that they weren't Nafalli or some other race, but humans who'd had extensive genetic and surgical modifications done so they were part cat, qualifying them for something called the Animal Pit. Live fighting between members of a league that had similar work done. "There is a lot I don't understand about this part of the universe." The advertisement noticed that she was staring at it and began playback of a video that showed clips of different animal people clawing, biting, rolling with and throwing each other around a caged ring. With a double-blink, she closed the window and shuddered. "I'll follow you if we have to hide."

  "Good, uh, glad we got that settled because we're emerging now," Easy said as the distortion of the wormhole around the ship faded away and they slipped into normal space.

  The main deceleration thrusters at the front of the ship stopped firing. Smaller manoeuvring thrusters took over. Edda wanted to move to an airlock and break inside, capture West, but she knew better. They were clinging to a blind spot, a part of the Veritas' hull that none of the ship's little turrets could hit right above the main aft thrusters. It was highly likely that the crew knew they were there and would detect their footsteps on the hull if they moved to an airlock. "I'm going to activate our bombs," she said.

  "Now's as good a time as any. I'm not picking up any Order of Eden ships, but I've only scanned a few thousand kliks out so far. Waiting for them to send a scan pulse so my sensors can pick up the results."

  Edda activated an icon on her Heads' Up Display and felt the hull under her back pop several times. Her tactical sensors reported that all eleven small turrets and the missile door were heavily damaged. Most of the grenades they rigged belonged to Easy, and it was amazing that they were able to throw each at the turrets before they were able to turn and fire at them. "The turrets are disabled, and the missile door is badly warped. I don't think they'll be able to open it."

  "You don't think? You're not sure?" Easy asked.

  "I am not sure," Dame said. "We should have used your suppression grenade on it."

  "That might be one of the only legal weapons we have. We might need it if we run into trouble on a civilized word. There are a few in the direction this ship took off in. Wait, they're talking on an unsecured channel."

  After a moment Edda found the transmission he was talking about and tuned in. "…hijackers. Again, we are requesting the assistance of Port Wilmington and the Rodus Government in defence of our ship against pirates who are trying to break into our hull." The voice was that of Rear Admiral West. “I have the platinum to pay for assistance from private security forces as well.”

  "We are not pirates," Edda growled irritably.

  "If Rodus doesn't recognize Haven as a legitimate government, or an ally, then that's what we are," Easy said.

  "I know," Edda admitted, conceding. "Rodus shouldn't be able to see through our cloaking systems." The Veritas rolled and she saw where they were headed - a blue green planet with a massive city on the edge of one of the largest continents. "Do you see any Order ships?"

  "A few, but they're non-military, still flying Regent Galactic or subsidiary flags, like transports for retail stores and the like. There are nine Intercept fighters on their way to us, though. They’re signalling the Veritas, coming to assist."

  "I don't want to cause an incident with these people. I'd almost rather be a pirate than to leave West, but…"

  "We gotta go," Easy finished. "There's a pair of customs corvettes on their way. Port Wilmington is taking this really seriously."

  "I know, we can’t fight. Cloak and jump. Then I follow you," Edda said, activating her cloaking systems.

  "I think that's the best we could do. I planted a tracker on the hull, by the way. It's one of the new ones, they'll never find it," he said as they both leapt from the hull.

  The thruster systems in their suits fired on low power so their cloaking fields could keep them hidden, and they passed one of the customs ships as it started scanning the Veritas. She looked at the passive scan results of the vessel, which was ninety metres in length and had several docking points. "That ship's technology is military but old."

  "It's a customs ship, they probably only deal with smugglers and minor infractions. I bet their fighter support takes care of anything really dangerous," Easy replied as he maneuverered his suit into the lead position just ahead of her. "And they must have a few destroyers around here or something."

  "I hope you're right. After the Order lost Iyagda, they're probably looking for another civilized system to conquer."

  "Or contract. Look," Easy said, his tone withing in disappointment.

  A section of space he selected on their tactical display came to the fore and Edda gasped at the sight of a distant shipyard in the planet's orbit. There were two new Order of Eden heavy cruisers and several destroyers in later stages of construction. They were still in huge, claw like support frames, but there were thousands of people in suits with fabrication rigs moving around, working on the finer points of the hull. Scanner scattering systems were in place too, preventing them from seeing what was inside those ships. "I don't think the fleet knows about this," she told him.

  "They should, though. This is how it's done here, at least by the Order. They pay smaller companies to build a chunk of their fleet so they have ships everywhere. We destroyed a few of their shipyards, sure, but I wonder how many subcontractors are out there? I wonder how many shipyards are operating in this system."

  This was a higher calling, West was suddenly a much lower priority. "We should find out. What's the best way?"

  "I love how direct you are," Easy said with a chuckle. "I'm not sure, but we've gotta get down to the planet so we can catch a ride back on anything with a faster than light system to the Haven System. We'll piggyback if we have to. Watch the scanners for something we can hide on while it makes atmospheric entry."

  Her instincts told her that they should get closer to the shipyard and fly around. There was an opportunity to get details about those ships, who was building them, and who knew what else. Then she recalled how the Order were able to see through all the cloaking technology they had. It would only be a matter of time before that trick, or tech, or program was spread to everything the Order had, if they weren't already in possession of the counter-cloak technology. "You plan on hiding down there? On the planet?"

  "Yeah, maybe we can blend in. If not, there are huge wastelands, junkyards, ruins everywhere. It might not be glam, or even clean, but it'll be better than getting caught," Easy replied.

  Chapter 2

  Planet Rodus

  * * *

  A freighter called the Zero Loss was chosen to provide Dame and Easy wi
th a ride into the atmosphere. Navnet said it was being guided to a port that was sitting in the middle of an area called the Grey Zone. Dame spent a few seconds trying to figure out what that meant before asking; "Why is this a Grey Zone?"

  "It's privately owned by a group of companies and wealthy investors, so the government is fully corporate. Most of the owners there are competing with Regent Galactic. Looks like this boat is delivering it's cargo to Panda."

  As the Zero Loss began to enter the atmosphere and the temperature started going up. They would be safe, riding it down on the aft section shielded by their armour. Edda reluctantly set her rifle to self-destruct and tossed to her right, where it would explode. It was the only safe way to dispose of it so no one would notice, and no one would find it. If they were going to try to hide in the population, they couldn't carry military arms around with them. She looked up the public data on Panda and snickered at the image of a fuzzy black and white bear dancing behind a city skyline. Bouncing letters saying; ALL WELCOME FOR TRADE MAKING! in an arch around the top half of the image. "We are not going to mix in well here. It doesn't seem like a very serious place."