Planet havoc, p.1
Planet Havoc, page 1
part #1 of Zombicide Invader Series
Zombicide Invader
Planet Havoc
Six blue-shelled creatures emerged from the darkness, clawed fingers spread wide, mouth parts clacking softly, compound eyes unreadable.
“Jason, you take the ones in back. Lazara, Sal, we’ll deal with the ones in front. Don’t–”
The creatures emitted a high-pitched screech, the cries amplified by the cavern walls. Aisha raised her machine gun, set the selector switch to full auto, and started firing. The gunfire was loud as thunder in the cavern, and it countered the creatures’ screams to a degree. Their rounds tore chunks out of the aliens’ carapaces and broke off a number of spines, but they didn’t penetrate further, and they certainly didn’t slow the creatures down. If anything, the things sped up, clawed feet flying across the rubble of the cavern ceiling’s collapse, the uneven terrain no impediment to their advance.
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First published by Aconyte Books in 2022
ISBN 978 1 83908 124 8
Ebook ISBN 978 1 83908 125 5
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Cover art by Rafael Teruel
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This one’s for Robert Bloch, who, in his Star Trek episodes “Wolf in the Fold”, “Catspaw”, and “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” created perfect fusions of science fiction and horror.
One
“Long-range sensors have picked up a ship.”
These were not the words Luis Gonzalez had wanted to hear, but they hadn’t been unexpected.
“How far?” Luis asked.
“A little over half a million kilometers.”
“That’s the outer range of the sensors, isn’t it?” Luis’ hands tightened on the arms of the command chair. He might have been commander of the Kestrel for this mission, but it was his first time flying this ship – hell, it was the first time for any of them – and he wasn’t as familiar with its systems as he’d like.
“That’s right.”
“Can you tell what it is?”
Junior McManus was a big British man of African descent, and he had to hunch over to work the computer screen in front of him. His large hands looked ill-suited for anything other than breaking things, but they flew deftly over the controls. “Readings aren’t clear, but my guess is that it’s a light frigate. Out here, that probably means a Coalition ship.”
A large wall screen that looked like a forward-facing window dominated the room, but which was actually a computer recreation of the view outside the ship. It felt like a window, though, and that’s how Luis tended to think of it. He grimaced as he stared at a hazy blip, nestled among a field of stars displayed on screen, representing the other ship. The Kestrel was a caravel, a small craft, less heavily armed than a frigate, but faster and more maneuverable. Plus, it was fresh out of the shipyard. The Galactic Coalition encompassed a great deal of territory – hence the word galactic – and its forces were spread thin. The best crafts were reserved for admirals, Coalition Council members, and Guild leaders. Soldiers had to make do with whatever craft they were assigned, and those ships were rarely top of the line. As old as the frigate was likely to be, its sensor range would be less than theirs, which meant that at this distance, the Kestrel was for all purposes invisible to them.
“Is this going to be an issue, commander?”
Jena Woodruff – blonde, with the merest trace of a Swedish accent – stood next to Luis’ command station, her hands clasped behind her back, face utterly devoid of expression. She wore a gray jacket and pants, with Leviathan’s logo of a serpent coiled into a circle on her shoulder. She was the Guild’s representative on this mission, which meant that despite Luis’ title, she was ultimately the one in charge.
A woman of African descent with a shaved head stood on Luis’ left, and she answered for him. “Whatever happens, we can handle it. We’re the best – that’s why you hired us, isn’t it?”
Sirena Hancock was second in command on this mission, and Luis had worked with her for a number of years. He was used to her shooting off at the mouth, but Jena wasn’t.
Jena glared at the other woman. “I wasn’t asking you.”
Sirena glared right back. Luis stepped in before the two could start arguing. He disliked Jena as much as Sirena did, but the woman represented the Guild that was paying them, and that meant she had to be kept happy – to a certain degree.
“You’ve given us a good ship. It’s fast and has sensor deflectors.” Prototype deflectors, he thought, but didn’t say this aloud. “With any luck, we’ll be able to make planetfall without being detected.” Luck being the operative word.
“I have full confidence in the ship,” Jena said. “As for its crew…” She gave Sirena a last look before facing forward.
Luis glanced at Sirena. She was clenching her teeth so tightly he thought they might shatter under the pressure, but she didn’t immediately lunge for Jena and wrap her hands around the woman’s throat, and he considered that a win. Leviathan was paying Luis’ team extremely well for their services, and he was certain that helped Sirena restrain herself. Killing an employer’s representative wasn’t the best way to ensure you received your pay.
Tensions were running high on the Kestrel, and it was a wonder they weren’t all at each other’s throats. The PK-L system was off limits to anyone but Coalition military, and the penalty for unauthorized travel here was a lifetime prison sentence – no trial, no appeal – assuming your ship wasn’t simply destroyed by a missile or mass-driver projectile. No one Luis had ever spoken with knew why this system was forbidden, although he’d heard plenty of rumors. He was certain the Coalition Council knew, and he figured Leviathan did too, or at least they suspected, otherwise they’d have never risked sending in a team.
They were headed for planet PK-L10, nicknamed Penumbra, and their mission was to land, get something, and take it to a Leviathan research outpost several light years distant. What this something was, Luis didn’t know. Jena did, but she refused to tell the team until they landed on Penumbra. When he’d asked her why she wouldn’t give them all the details of their mission ahead of time, she’d said, “In case we have to abort for some reason. Leviathan doesn’t want you to be able to sell the information about why Penumbra is important. And some of you would sell it. You’re mercenaries, aren’t you?”
He had to admit she had a point.
But whatever they were supposed to get on Penumbra, the almost obscene amount of money Leviathan was paying them made the risk worth it. A score this size, if Luis and his team pulled off the job, meant that they could retire if they wished – or, in his case, pay off a longstanding debt. It had hung on him like a crushing weight for so long, he couldn’t imagine being free of it, but he was looking forward to finding out what it would be like.
The Kestrel’s bridge was small. Space was at a premium on any starship, but more so on a caravel, and the bridge was crowded to the point of being claustrophobia-inducing. There were nine people present, four more than Luis would’ve liked, but who had asked him? He was just the goddamned commander. The command station – a computer console in front of an unnecessarily uncomfortable chair – had been placed in the center of the bridge, and a quartet of workstations sat in front of the viewscreen. One was for communications and sensors, which was where Junior currently sat. Another was for weapons, and if the need arose, Sirena would take that one. The third was for life support, including control of the ship’s artificial gravity, where Aussie Dwain Lange sat, and the fourth was for navigation, tended to by Bajan Lashell Brower. Three others stood off to the side – two men and one woman. Aside from whispering to one another occasionally, they remained quiet and kept to themselves. The man in the middle was a cyborg, and while he looked human, he remained eerily still when he wasn’t performing a specific action.
Cyborgs had that in common with androids, Luis thought. It was an easy way to tell them apart from humans, but it creeped him out a little… not that he’d ever admit it to anyone. These three composed the documentary crew that Leviathan had insisted on sending to make a record of the “expedition”, as they liked to call it.
The rationale for the trio’s inclusion wasn’t completely clear to Luis. Leviathan was a new Guild, one that had grown swiftly and amassed a great deal of power in a short time. Maybe they wanted this mission recorded for propaganda purposes, the footage to be used both inside and outside the Guild – assuming the mission was a success, that is. Luis’ suspicion was the Guild wanted the record in case their “expedition” went tits up, so they could better prepare the next batch of poor bastards they sent. Not exactly the greatest show of confidence.
The cyborg, Oren, served as the crew’s camera. When he was recording, his left eye lit green, and it was always green. When Jena had first told him the trio would be coming along, she assured him that they’d remain in the background, quiet and unobtrusive, and everyone would soon forget about them. So far, that hadn’t been the case for Luis. He always felt their eyes upon him, especially the cyborg’s. He told himself not to worry about it. Maybe the holo-footage would be a good advertisement for him and his team and lead to more Leviathan Guild work. Assuming they survived, of course.
Six more personnel were currently in the ship’s galley, which doubled as a lounge, and tripled as a meeting room. It was just as cramped as the bridge, if not more so, but at least you could get a cup of khavi there. Luis wondered what the chances were of someone getting him a cup if he asked. Damn close to nil, he figured.
Their course through the system had been plotted before their departure, using the latest intel on Coalition patrol routes to ensure they wouldn’t encounter any ships on the way to their destination. Based on the sensor readings showing their proximity to a Coalition ship, it looked like that intel wasn’t worth the money that Leviathan had paid for it.
Luis felt a vibration beneath his feet then, accompanied by a queasiness in his gut. He recognized the sensation as a fluctuation in the ship’s artificial gravity. Dwain quickly worked the controls at his station, but several seconds passed before gravity was restored to normal. The crew members exchanged uneasy glances, and he knew what they were all thinking. Getting to fly a brand-new, state-of-the-art ship was great, but they would’ve been a lot more comfortable if the craft had been given a proper shakedown cruise first before they’d been dispatched on their mission. Luis wasn’t superstitious as a rule, but he couldn’t help thinking of the gravity fluctuation as a bad omen. If any of the ship’s systems were less than one hundred percent, if he was forced to put any strain on them – say by having to avoid a Coalition Frigate – they might crap out when he and his people needed them most.
He turned to Sirena. She was the most intuitive person he knew, and he trusted her sense of how a job was going to go down, a sense that became sharper the closer they came to their objective. He didn’t know if she was psychic, but her instincts were good, and they’d saved the team’s ass on more than one occasion.
“What’s it looking like to you?” he asked.
Her eyes narrowed in concentration. After a few moments, she said, “I think I should go to my station.”
Without another word, she walked over to sit at the weapons console.
“What did she mean by that?” Jena asked.
“It means you and your camera crew had better find something to hold onto. Junior, can you switch the front screen to a view of the frigate’s location?”
Junior sighed. “Don’t tell me. Sirena got one of her feelings again.”
“Bite me,” Sirena said, but Junior did as Luis asked.
There was nothing to be seen other than a starfield, one that looked similar to the thousand others Luis had seen in the course of his career, both as a soldier and as a mercenary.
“Computer enhancement,” Luis said.
Junior’s fingers worked the station’s controls. The view zoomed in on a Coalition Frigate. Luis knew he was studying a simulation based on sensor data rather than the actual thing, but he got a cold feeling in his gut nevertheless. He debated the wisdom of increasing the Kestrel’s speed. A sudden burst of acceleration could alert the frigate to their presence, but it could also put them farther outside their sensor range, so…
“They’ve trained their sensors in our direction,” Junior reported.
“On purpose or as part of a routine sweep?” Luis asked.
“Unknown.”
“There’s no cause for alarm,” Jena said. “The Kestrel’s sensor deflectors will conceal our presence.”
She sounded less confident than Luis would have liked. The deflectors were, after all, only prototypes.
“We’ll find out soon enough,” he said.
But he already knew what would happen. Sirena’s instincts had told him.
Two
Aisha Barakat sat in the command chair on the bridge of the Stalwart, bored out of her goddamned mind.
She was a tall, lean woman of Middle Eastern descent in her late twenties, young for a starship captain. The Stalwart was her first command, and she’d initially been honored and excited to obtain the post, especially after the mess on Janus 3 that she’d been involved in. She’d expected to be court martialed for that, at the very least, and as far as she’d been concerned, she’d deserved it. Instead, Coalition Command had made her captain of the Stalwart for “bravery in the face of overwhelming odds” . That had been eighteen months ago. Now she was ready to eject herself out of an airlock.
It hadn’t taken her long to realize that patrolling the PK-L system was a shit detail, and she’d been placed here as a punishment. Nothing ever happened in this system, absolutely nothing, and she and her crew of three were bored out of their minds. Although she wasn’t sure about Jason. Who knew what androids felt?
Originally, Aisha and her crew were supposed to be rotated out of this post, but after the twelfth month, Coalition Command had informed them they were required to stay on “for the duration”. When she asked why, Command had said only that the Coalition Council was debating what to do about the PK-L situation, whatever that meant. She knew it had something to do with one of the system’s planets, PK-L7, which she’d heard some soldiers refer to as Hellworld in hushed tones, though none of them had been able to tell her the name’s origin. The Coalition had erected a network of satellites around the planet, both for defense and surveillance, although defending or surveilling what, Aisha didn’t know. She wasn’t even allowed to access the satellites’ data. That was transmitted directly to Coalition Command. She’d tried to hack into the satellites’ network once, but she’d been unsuccessful, and she’d received a scolding from Command along with a warning to never attempt that again unless she wanted to spend the rest of her life in military prison. She figured if Command could’ve found someone stupid enough to replace her, they’d have done so. Still, she didn’t try to hack the satellite network again.
