Darklight Pirates Read online

  Mutiny!

  "Lower that rifle, Spaceman," Cletus grated out. "Stand at attention!"

  This drew the man's attention. The laserifle shifted away from Donal Tomlins to center on Cletus. Without a weapon of his own, Cletus knew only one course of action was possible. He sprang forward from his half crouch, ignoring the pain in his gut and chest. If he lacked projectile or energy weapons, he still possessed his hands and feet, the knowledge of hand to hand combat as real to him as troop movement or dreadnoughts converging in space battle.

  He closed the distance, reaching for the laserifle to deflect it. He saw the shivering nimbus around the discharge ring at the end of the barrel and knew he was a fraction of a second too late. The pain from the Drop plaguing his chest turned to sudden fire as the laser unleashed its hellish beam.

  Cletus blacked out as he fell to the deck, the stench of burned fabric and flesh in his nostrils.

  Darklight Pirates

  by

  Robert E. Vardeman

  Darklight Pirates ©2017 Robert E Vardeman

  This edition published by

  The Cenotaph Press © 2017

  Cover © 2017 by Robert E. Vardeman

  Dreamstime Illustration

  License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.

  This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other

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  person, please purchase an additional copy for each

  recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase

  it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please

  purchase your own copy.

  Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  If you'd like to learn more about the author, please visit the website at The Cenotaph Road

  Table of 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

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Sample chapter Weapons of Chaos #1, Echoes of Chaos

  Author Biography

  Darklight Pirates

  by

  Robert E. Vardeman

  Chapter One

  Four missiles lifted skyward, hit apogee at the edge of the atmosphere and descended.

  "I don't see the point," Programmer General Donal Tomlins said. He adjusted his viewer and identified every pertinent aspect of the rockets, the warhead throw weight and potential destruction for either air burst or subterranean bunker-buster detonation. Given such information with ample time to defend, the attack was little more than a training exercise, and not a particularly good one. "You are leaving obvious trails for countermeasures and defensive fire."

  "Watch," said Supreme Leader. The small man dressed in plain military fatigues without any insignia smiled slightly, sending a shiver up Donal's spine. Something evil communicated in the tiny upcurl of the otherwise impassive man's thin lips. It might have been the glint in his dark eyes or the barely hidden pleasure he took anticipating rocket-borne destruction. Whatever it was, Donal wanted this demonstration to end quickly because it wore at his ethical core.

  They had negotiated weapons and treaties and trade between their planets for more than a week. Donal had used every trick at his command to understand the Supreme Leader of Far Kingdom and had never felt he gained an advantage that wasn't handed to him as a gambit or enticement to a one-sided trade. If anything, Supreme Leader took the name of his planet too literally, maintaining a social and intellectual distance measured in light-years and millennia. Far Kingdom rested out on the far edge of the Orion Arm, almost an afterthought when it came to settlement from the old planet. Donal had studied the history of the diaspora from what, on Earth, had been known as the Middle Kingdom, in an attempt to find the right incentives to finalize the treaties with his own world, if nothing else.

  Mostly, he had failed.

  Supreme Leader masked his anticipation and now betrayed no emotion. Donal brought up a small display window on his viewer. He hid his continued disappointment. Even the most sophisticated monitoring devices had failed to show a flicker of the other man's true thoughts. Every time Donal thought he had pinned down Supreme Leader's mood, a new and more subtle objection arose to the details, as if he ignored the greater picture in favor of the trivial. Supreme Leader never treated him as an inferior, but the feeling persisted. No matter what happened, Donal felt cheated and wished he could ignore the entire planet, but Far Kingdom, with its thirty billion mouths to feed, was too lush a trading target. His country of Burran needed off-world trade to maintain its economic position among other, if lesser, avaricious nations on Ballymore. Such political infighting had formed the basis of the planet's entire history since its colonization during the Great Migration a century after Far Kingdom's settlement. Donal envied Supreme Leader's unified world, even if he cared little for the strict command-and-control government. Such a hive approach would fall apart in less time than a quantum transition on Ballymore. The culture of his country and its imperialist neighbors guaranteed squabbling. Burran had fought two adjoining nations in bloody wars lasting more than a hundred years and resolved nothing but minor borders. The economic struggles afterward were hardly better until the Blarney Stone went online and pushed Burran to the world's forefront.

  In its way, the Blarney Stone was the ultimate in command-and-control─even as it wasn't, being programmed by understanding humans for humans. Donal knew the consequences of equipping any computer with Artificial Intelligence. Humans always lost. As Programmer General he insured that humans, at least in Burran, always triumphed.

  With a decent trade agreement between Burran and Far Kingdom, there would no longer be any question that Burran controlled Ballymore's fate. He needed Supreme Leader to sign the compacts. But why was the damnable man smiling when his sallow face had been carven from a block of citrine only an instant before?

  "You must not be in too much of a hurry in your observations. Witness." Supreme Leader pointed to the missile contrails.

  Donal started to again voice his opinion of this being an attack scheme too easily detected when his son, Cletus, put a hand on his shoulder. Strong fingers clamped down so he couldn't shrug it off. He glanced at his son, so handsome in his full dress uniform, auburn hair cut short and face burned almost black from long duty tours in open space. Cletus' extra five centimeters in height above his own 180 was good in a commander of armies, an admiral of space navies─the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces now. Everything Cletus had done so far had shown his aptitude for military leadership, in strategy, in tactics and in the way he inspired those in his command to obey without question. His soldiers, his marines and spacers would give their lives for him. The protests of nepotism had faded as Cletus showed his political skills, unusual in one so young.

  Donal bit back his sarcasm for Supreme Leader's demonstration and looked to the sky, following his son's gaze.

  The four contrails suddenly exploded in a fan of brightly colored smo
ke.

  "They all blew up." The condemnation slipped from him before he could check it. It never paid to insult the leader of the world you desired as a trading partner.

  "No, Father. That's a countermeasure." Cletus touched the magnification on his viewer, then began cycling through an entire spectrum hunting for radiation.

  "Only for the visual."

  "For any form of radiation," Cletus said is a whisper. He was clearly in awe of the demonstration. "The missiles are now invisible to radar, lidar, millimeter wave detection and everything from IR to UV. Nothing can track them. Not even our dark energy emitter detectors."

  "But they─oh." Donal understood now. Within the cloaking rainbow clouds, the missiles undoubtedly shifted trajectories, homed in on new targets in ways designed to prevent interception.

  "They can lie doggo for hours or proceed immediately to the target," Supreme Leader said, "all the while avoiding detection."

  "I see," Donal said. He laughed ruefully. "Rather, I don't."

  "That's the idea, Programmer General." Supreme Leader held out his hand, palm up, in a liquid gesture that belied any bones in wrist or fingers. The petite woman at his side carefully laid a slender quartz message capsule in his grasp.

  Donal wondered at her position in the Far Kingdom's political hierarchy. She had proven as enigmatic as the planet's ruler, spending considerable time with his son, seemingly the most open of the delegation but revealing little of either herself or her leader's intentions. Leanne Chang had been introduced as a weapons expert, though she hardly looked old enough to hold a position on Supreme Leader's staff. Donal had to remind himself that his own son was hardly twenty-five. Leanne might be younger by only a year or two. From what he had learned of Far Kingdom's society, her entire life had been directed to only one field: armaments. Cletus spoke highly of her strategic planning ability, though he claimed her grasp of tactics was inferior to his own. Donal wondered if this wasn't a way for Leanne to stroke the young commander's ego and drill a hole through which information about Burran might be gleaned.

  "You selected four of the targets on the test range, Programmer General," Leanne said.

  Supreme Leader squeezed tightly around the small crystalline message capsule. The four targets popped into full holographic detail between him and Donal, tiny but with intricate detail for such a tiny projector.

  "Those are the targets," he agreed.

  "Trust my word. No one has opened the capsule before this moment." Supreme Leader held out his hand so that Leanne could train a small flashlight on it. The beam swallowed the 3D images. "The range, if you will."

  Four targets exploded simultaneously, the brilliance from the flares hurting his eyes. Donal lifted his hand slightly to protect his face, but the destruction lay twenty kilometers away.

  "If you want to examine the targets, you will find no collateral damage. Only the four structures you chose and recorded have been destroyed."

  "Three buildings and an APC," Donal said mechanically.

  "The missiles are fire and forget." Cletus sounded more excited than his father could remember. "We can literally mine the skies with this weapons system. The initial cloaking lasts for weeks, making the missiles undetectable. This can stop Uller's infiltration across our border."

  "Yes, raiders from a neighboring country, I believe," Supreme Leader said. "They seek to bleed you dry by stealing or destroying valuable crops."

  "The warheads won't hurt the crops?"

  "Not a stalk of wheat will be harmed. Aqua culture liquids will remain uncontaminated. Only those thinking to make serious incursions will be destroyed at a time and place of your choosing—without risking troops or making desperate forays that are too late." Supreme Leader tilted his head to one side, as if listening. He nodded curtly. "Even better, the missiles, once activated and hidden, can be brought safely to the ground for use at another time, given the proper codes."

  "You programmed the warheads with the images right here on the spot," Donal said. "So they can be rendered harmless in the same way?"

  "They can." Supreme Leader tilted his head to the side again, and his face went impassive. "Come with me, if you will, Programmer General. My council has a proposition to make concerning trade."

  "Go on, Father," Cletus said. "Citizen Chang promised to show me another of their weapons systems."

  "Take Captain Sorrel with you. His expertise in space systems might prove useful."

  His son's face turned to stone, but it was readable. Cletus and Sorrel had found no common ground during the month long trip to Far Kingdom, and once on planet, the Shillelagh's captain's disapproval of everything they had been shown ran counter to Cletus' high praise for both the power and subtlety of the weapons systems.

  "If I might suggest," Supreme Leader said, "your ship's captain will be useful during our discussions. We would purchase hulls for starfighters to enhance our own defenses. Your metallurgical science is far advanced over ours. The process making the aluminum-lithium alloy used in your warships is a valuable technology."

  "Such a scientific transfer does not require Captain Sorrel's approval as admiralty officer." Donal considered his options. The rest of his negotiating team had failed to spark a response. This was the first time Supreme Leader had requested any from Burran's delegation by name to take part in the bargaining. "But his expertise as a former dry dock commander would give invaluable insight."

  Supreme Leader bowed slightly, then turned to a waiting car. Donal felt as if he was entering a trap, but it was one with familiar rules. The weapons Far Kingdom displayed so openly and easily were better left to his son's expert evaluation. Finding what Supreme Leader wanted in exchange would give insight into the society and its needs. If Sorrel could lend a hand finding what Far Kingdom valued most highly in the trade, so be it.

  He glanced over his shoulder to see Cletus and Leanne standing, shoulders pressed together, rapidly exchanging ... what? Those on Far Kingdom avoided physical contact with others, yet she showed no discomfort at Cletus' casual touch. He spun about and sank down in the rear of the limousine. Supreme Leader silently entered the vehicle seconds before it sped off.

  "He'll never allow them aboard the Shillelagh." Cletus frowned in concentration. His disputes with Captain Sorrel ran deeper than even his father understood. Donal Tomlins thought the conflict was only based on an alpha male squabble, Sorrel being passed over for higher rank as Cletus assumed the command of Burran's entire military.

  It went far deeper than a struggle for power. Cletus saw in the ship's captain─and senior member of the admiralty board─a dedicated insistence on keeping Burran weak. Sorrel proposed cutbacks in the High Guard space force at a time when Uller and Eire built their military, both on planet and off. If the other two countries had concentrated on cargo vessels, Cletus would have worried but not as much as he did when he saw nothing but a slow, steady christening of the other countries' war craft, from small dartabouts capable of taking out satellites to the heaviest fighting ship, the dreadnought. In spite of the Shillelagh being under Sorrel's direct command and Burran's unofficial flagship, the captain refused to augment its defenses with state of the art equipment in favor of cosmetic modifications that were both pointless and costly.

  "Would you like to try on a suit?" Leanne fixed him with her dark eyes. It was as if she read his soul.

  "There's nothing I'd like more."

  Cletus went to the rack and ran his hand over the sleek dark surface of the exoskeleton. A soldier wearing such armor enhanced his strength a hundred fold, yet kept a touch so fine that he could write his name with an old style graphite pencil. He grinned at the idea. In the exo, he could sharpen the pencil with a laser, sign his name, and then use the pencil eraser to remove only a single letter wherever he wanted. Once he finished with such fine work, he could jump onto the roof of a two-story building, run faster than any unenhanced hunting animal on any planet settled by humans, then use the firepower slung at his back to level a city.
r />   "Not quite," Leanne said.

  "What's that?" Cletus blinked. His eyes felt as if they were a size too large for his head.

  "It's not quite as easy as you must be thinking."

  A fleeting look of concern crossed her face, replaced by her smile and easy way. She reached out and touched his arm lightly in what constituted intimacy on Far Kingdom. The whole time he had been here, only twice had he seen one person touch another, and he was not sure the greeting handshake given his father by Supreme Leader counted. That lack of touch hadn't bothered him until this moment, when he realized he missed it. On Ballymore casual physical contact could hardly be avoided with everyone greeting with slaps on the back and even bone crushing hugs. That was their way, just as the physical isolation as if they lived in an invisible bubble governed the people of this planet. He felt a cold knot form in his chest when he realized this allowed the weapons designers to create devices without regard for their opponent. No touch, no sharing, no camaraderie. Even with those from Eire and Uller he felt some bond of history and brotherhood. Battle was hot-blooded, not impersonal.

  He had heard children on Far Kingdom were raised in creches without knowing their parents. A touch of sadness filled him, but he did not reach out to comfort Leanne. She moved her hand away quickly, as if already sorry for this breach of etiquette.

  "Who can look at the exo and not want to test it? That was what you were thinking?"

  "I was." He stepped closer to the exo to distract her so she would not experience any shame at her unguarded moment. "Why is the exterior dark? That absorbs energy rather than reflecting it."

  "It has on-demand reflective capabilities. The skin adjusts to reflect the wavelength of incoming energy. A heat blast causes a change different from that if an x-ray laser strikes. If there is no attack, it adopts the coloration necessary to blend in with its surroundings."

  "A chameleon suit." Cletus was impressed.