The Wars of Zegandaria by Atanas Marinov, Atanas Marinov, Atanas Marinov, Atanas Marinov (find a book to read .txt) 📕

Plasma machine guns were one of the main weapons for holding off enemy fire.

Rodwell managed to withstand the onslaught of the enemy attack for exactly three days before capitulating ingloriously. Running out of ammunition was definitely a problem. Supplying new fresh manpower was too. Despite Neola's boastful words that oxygen bottles were plentiful - this was not true at all. In fact, they were almost out of them, but what was important was that this skilled pilot with a combat speeder was coming to them as a godsend. Edouard, who was considerably more intelligent, was a pilot, but with nothing to show for it. He would steer the crooked-left speeder - if only to get away from Rodwell.

The plan to kill Sasia was mostly dictated by the fact that they considered her a traitor. No pilot was going to fly completely alone over a semi-deserted area without marker patches on her spacesuit, much less drag some dancer dwarf behind her.

They could sense that Endwight was hesitant, so Neola had given them the authority to step in and do the job for him if the situation got out of hand.

- 'Get the piece of quizon ready,' Radsoil muttered.

- 'I'll take one too, if you can't handle it,' added Edouard. 'Endwhite must think we don't suspect his idea to dump us like a sack full of elendorans.'

- 'He thinks he can get away without us.,' Radsoil chuckled. 'The Chief gave clear instructions.'

Neola's goal, however, was not to return to Ensarian, but to dump all those fools. They were going to court martial them. Yes they were her battle comrades, yes they obeyed her implicitly because she kept them on life saving drugs. Without her, the wounds inflicted on them by the plasma weapons would have reopened. They would have perished. That gratitude was turning into power in her hands. But the trained Radsoil and Edouar the pseudopilot might not need her services soon. The situation wasn't in her favor, and she had to use the situation and beat everyone else to get away scot-free. She had heard of various ways to leave this planet without a trace and take up residence on one of the many uninhabited colonies beyond the asteroid belt. She just had no clear idea how to get there. There began a whole new world she hadn't even dreamed of. She had no idea how she was going to survive all alone, or if the conditions in those colonies were bearable for a lady with her rank of colonel and military doctor. The space around the asteroid belt in question was practically very poorly explored, but that was where reckless daredevils went, willing to do anything to survive. She could, if she was lucky, join someone to help her.

There was, however, one problem that worried her greatly. She couldn't count on the speeder holding up when she entered the stratosphere, and if there was no one up there to pick her up, she would just perish ingloriously.

Since Sasia was the only one who understood and read space maps well, though it was only peripherally covered in her pilot training, she had made a plan to make contact with some ships standing in geostationary orbit and patrolling near the planet. One was the Callisto 142, the other the Emsato 199. The two spacecraft were the only ones that could get them to that part of the planet, and that was assuming her calculations proved correct. Of course there could be a discrepancy in the plotted trajectories. But there was no avoiding that.

Neola was aware of her actions and had to admit that the plan to liquidate her was still on the table. Inwardly she didn't want to wipe out her talents, but what else was there to do when they were going to hold her responsible as a senior officer for the huge losses she had suffered. Ensarian Prison was a truly frightening place. Not that Neola wasn't used to the barracks ways, but it was a living hell in there. Life imprisonment with no right of exchange for a misdemeanor of her kind. An eternity between four walls. And eternal loneliness. Not if she had to spend the rest of her life somewhere, far better to do it in open space where there was still some hope of salvation.

She had also hidden an essential fact. The radio beacon was not completely empty. Quite by accident, she had intercepted something. The signals picked up, despite the interference, indicated that communication could be made with some of the enemy's forward outposts. But she had no desire to desert either, giving away valuable information. Everyone knew the Elohyn policy for dealing with deserters. They liquidated them once they got her.

So Sasia - the military pilot - who she'd only known for a few hours was her only route to salvation. Pretty ironic, but also pretty scary.

Her plan was to simply strangle Sasia with a piece of quizon, and then hide her in the cemetery, which was no more than fifteen minutes away from their habitat. They'd naturally rip off the identifying patches, and to make sure the tracks didn't show they'd just set fire to her corpse with some Interest fuel. The idea was at once very simple and very sneaky. But Neola had survived this way all her conscious life. How would the situation be any different this time? It was paradoxical that she had chosen to practice such a humane profession as a military medic. Using the Radsoil and the Eduar, she could attach herself to one of the two small patrol ships with the stolen speeder and hijack it. Then, she could ‘vegetate’ for a while in geostationary orbit after shutting down all possible systems on the ship and leaving it in hibernation. If he was lucky, he could use it as a decoy for a real battlecruiser with which to get to the Unknown Quadrant, or as it was also known 'Quadrant 426'. And then? Then he'd think of it...

As a senior officer, she was aware that the space of the Galaxy explored so far was divided into 452 quadrants, and they were in Quadrant 39. Collapsar jumps were the only way to bridge such a distance, and with all-out war breaking out on the planet, control of the central authority would be loosened and she might as well bite off a small piece of the pie before she got out.

 CHAPTER ELEVEN: THE NAVY

Starfleet was in a state of free 'hover' in open space near the orbit of Zegandaria. The view of the home planet from aloft was truly impressive. There was something primal and unique about it. It was sorely missed by everyone on the Enzoria crew. The ultra-modern military cruiser, capable of moving at superluminal speeds, was under the command of Rear Admiral Kenji Nolsuro.

It descended majestically on the bridge, but without unnecessary excesses. He definitely knew how to motivate the boys. Aside from being a talented military pilot and battleship commander, Kenji had another passion that was not at all surprising - martial arts. He himself was the founder of an ultra-modern style of army combat that incorporated elements of boxing, kickboxing, wrestling, grappling, and ninjutsu - as many would put it, 'a lethal combination.'

When they weren't on watch, soldiers liked to have free-for-all fights without rules in low-gravity conditions. For each of the recruits, it was a real test. It was basically a test of manhood, an entrance exam you had to pass to be trusted. The idea actually belonged to Kenji, who believed that ‘a weapon is nothing more than an extension of the arm.’ That is, training had to start with the limbs that nature had endowed us with.

- 'How are the quantum stabilizers, Enlow?,' he asked, standing behind the ship's first captain in the huge command room filled with hologram screens. 'Do we need to change the parameters in case an asteroid storm hits?'

Doug Enlow, the youngest captain of a top-tier battlecruiser in the history of the Zegandarian Air Fleet, smiled slightly, but answered in all seriousness:

- Everything is under control, sir. On-board computers report no one in our vicinity. The nearest one is in the Beta Centauri constellation.

- 'And how long are we going to wait for new recruits?,' Kenji turned to Doug with almost imperceptible impatience.

- You know it's not up to us, Commander, but from what I hear, it could be as early as today.

- 'Very well then,' Kenji said with a slight, elegant bow as he moved away and into his own quarters.

The quarters for senior officers of the zegandarian fleet, even the most senior, were not models of comfort and space. Kenji's quarters were no exception. But he needed to collect his thoughts. He'd been waiting like a misguided devil for a second week now, while those down there bickered about God knew what. But he had no choice. According to the arrangements they had with Elohy, resources from Ubunder's air fleet were supposed to be involved in transporting criminals. Of terrible war criminals, as his masters assured him. Despite his free-spirited temper, Kenji respected seniority. An order was an order. Sometimes he wondered how guilty those he was transporting to Labor Colony 206 actually were. But in these matters, he was kept completely in the dark. The honest and intelligent faces of the chained men, accused of treason, awakened the remorse of his conscience. He doubted whether he was doing the right thing, and this caused nightmares in his dreams.

Kenji was under no illusions that he was the man who was sending them to an unpleasant place. He knew that it held a special status and was practically outside the jurisdiction of the Ubunder Military Council and the Military Tribunal of Imgradon. Other laws simply ruled there. The laws of the colony.

His thoughts were interrupted by a light tapping on the hydron door.

- 'They have arrived, sir. They're here now!,' the voice was that of his adjutant, Winnow Richwater.

Kenji would have wiped away the fine beads of discoloured sweat on his brow, but that would have spoiled his immaculate hairstyle. And an officer of his rank had to keep up appearances.

- 'Understood, Adjutant. I'm coming!,' he uttered in a seemingly indifferent voice.

In less than two minutes the rear admiral, followed by his adjutant, reached one of the most untidy storage rooms on board, where they usually stowed the newcomers. Crates of supplies and various tools that warships such as the Enzoria delivered to the planet on which the colony was located rolled around.

The room was relatively dimly lit. With his excellent pilot's eyesight, Kenji could sense even in the dim greenish light that bathed the hold that his passengers were far from random this time. But he could not remember where he had seen these faces.

An entire platoon of 'ghost warriors' -