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FIRST STRIKE

The Kurgan War - Book 1

by Richard Turner

©2014 by Richard Turner

Published 2015 by Richard Turner

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission, except for brief quotations to books and critical reviews. This story is a work of fiction. Characters and events are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

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

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Books by Richard Turner

Chapter 1

Lieutenant Commander Moore’s commanding officer once described convoy escort duty as nothing more than herding cattle. Freighters of all shapes and sizes filled with fuel, food, and spare parts, the lifeblood of the outer colonies, followed close behind the warship. Until they became self-sufficient, which Moore knew could take decades if not centuries, the colonists and military detachments on the far-flung borders of the ever-expanding human colonization of space needed constant re-supplying.

It was the third watch aboard the Terran Star Ship—Raleigh and Moore, as second officer, was on duty on the bridge. The Raleigh was a light cruiser armed only with guided missiles for engaging targets and anti-missile batteries for defense, not that she had fired a weapon outside of training since she had been commissioned nearly twenty years ago. Aside from the occasional skirmish with rebellious colonists or acts of piracy, the Terran Fleet had not fought a war in almost a century.

Moore sipped his coffee as he paced around the bridge. A tall, thoughtful man, Moore had never intended to make a career out of serving in the military; however, after twelve years of service, he did not see a good reason to change professions. He turned his head and studied the tactical display on the main viewing screen. There were two dozen dots on the screen, each one indicated the exact location of the ships in the convoy trailing closely behind the Raleigh. He had made the run from the supply depot in orbit above Valerin-7 to the outer colonies four times in the past year.

It was becoming routine and dull. He had asked for a transfer in the hopes of doing something more exciting but had been turned down. He would have to finish his two-year assignment on the Raleigh before moving on.

On duty with him were three other people: Lieutenant Takeda, the navigator, Chief Petty Officer Murphy, the helmsman, and Petty Officer Ramirez, the ship’s communications officer. They were halfway through their watch when one of the vessels in the convoy reported that they were having engine difficulties and asked if the Raleigh could cut her speed slightly so she wouldn’t be left behind.

Moore nodded and then asked the navigator to re-compute their arrival time at Tyr-431, a barren rocky planet used as a military surveillance station monitoring the Disputed Zone. The Terran-Kurgan War fought almost one hundred years ago had ended not in victory but in a ceasefire. Both sides still claimed vast stretches of space; however, the treaty strictly forbade either side from entering the Disputed Zone without the permission of the other side . . . and this was never forthcoming.

Lieutenant Takeda, the navigator, looked up from his screen and said, “Sir, we can adjust our course and skirt the asteroid field on the far side of Tyr-431. We should be able to make up for any time lost due to the ailing freighter.”

“Do it,” replied Moore. “PO Ramirez, please inform Tyr-431 that we’ll be arriving a little late and that their shuttlecraft should be prepared to receive the freighters once we are in orbit.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” replied Ramirez.

Two hours later, Moore finished his duty report and started to get ready to hand over the bridge to the ship’s captain. He glanced down at his watch and saw that he had less than fifteen minutes left on shift. Moore was looking forward to getting a bite to eat followed by a run on a treadmill in the ship’s gym before putting his head down. On the tactical display he could see the convoy passing by the asteroid field. There were millions of rocks floating about. Some were no larger than a pebble while some nearly dwarfed the Raleigh in size. He ordered the helmsman to keep a respectful distance from the asteroids until they reached their destination in three hours’ time.

The doors to the bridge slid open.

Moore turned his head and expected to see the captain. Instead, Lieutenant Ford, a pale, slender blonde-haired man, who usually kept to himself, walked onto the bridge.

Perplexed, Moore said, “Mister Ford, what are you doing here? You’re not due on watch for another eight hours.”

Ford looked past Moore, his eyes fixed on the tactical display. “Where are we?”

“Passing an asteroid field near Tyr-431,” answered Chief Petty Officer Murphy, the helmsman, without looking up from his station.

“Good,” said Ford, his voice cold and emotionless.

Something told Moore to be wary. “Mister Ford, I asked you a question. Why are you on the bridge?”

“To do this,” replied Ford as he suddenly pulled a hidden pistol from behind his back. Before anyone could react, he fired three shots, coldly killing each man on the bridge with one shot to the head. Ford walked over to the engineer’s console, locked the doors to the bridge and quickly changed the passcode preventing anyone from overriding the computer to open the doors. Next, he moved over to the weapon’s console and with the flip of a switch, he turned off all of the ship’s self-defense systems. It was now helpless against an attacker. Ford smiled, made his way over to the communication’s console and pushed the dead body of Petty Officer Ramirez onto the floor. Using his sleeve to wipe away the blood on the workstation, Ford opened a channel.

“It is done,” he reported.

A second later, just over three hundred kilometers away, a dozen triangular-shaped fighters detached themselves from behind some of the larger rocks they had been using as cover in the asteroid field and raced toward the hapless convoy. As soon as they had a lock on all of their targets, the fighters let loose with a barrage of missiles. Without waiting to see the impact, the fighters quickly banked away and sped back into the asteroid field.

Alarms rang throughout the ship. Ford shook his head. He had forgotten to disable the alarms. Not that it mattered anymore. He stood there watching the incoming missiles speed toward their intended targets. He felt nothing for the thousands of people that were about to die. He was doing his duty. Over the speakers, he could hear the ships calling, pleading for help. None would be coming today. He reached over and turned off the comms system. Ford sat down on the captain’s chair and watched as one by one the ships vanished from the tactical display. Behind him, people were frantically banging on the sealed doors demanding to be let onto the bridge. He knew that it would not take them long to find a torch to cut their way in, but they would be too late. Ford stared intently at the screen as three missiles streaked through the vacuum of space toward his ship.

Opening his arms as if he were about to embrace a loved one, Ford warmly smiled, closed his eyes and said, “Lord, protect me and cleanse my soul of all my sins.” A second later, the first missile struck the Raleigh, obliterating the bridge section and Ford with it. In the blink of an eye, the other two missiles hit, blasting the cruisers into a million pieces, killing the fifty men and women on board.

The first act of a bloody war had just been played out.

Chapter 2

The sound of an alarm clock buzzing slowly stirred newly commissioned Second Lieutenant Michael Sheridan to life. Without bothering to open his eyes, he reached over and turned off the alarm. He took a deep breath and then felt his stomach turn. Like a runner taking off at the sound of the starter’s pistol, Sheridan ran for the bathroom. In the dark, he nearly tripped over one of his friends still passed out on the floor of his room. A second later, with his head spinning and his guts churning, he dropped to his knees in front of the toilet and threw up everything from his stomach. 

Gagging and gasping for air, Sheridan cursed his stupidity. He and three of his friends, recently graduated from the Marine Ground Warfare Battle School, had gone on an all-night bender, drinking anything and everything they could get their hands on. When all he had left in his stomach was bile, Sheridan let out a moan and sat down on the cold floor of the bathroom. For a minute, he waited to see if he was going to be sick again; when he was not, Sheridan reached over, grabbed hold of the sink and pulled himself up.

He flipped on the light above the sink and felt his pupils shrink as the light burnt his bloodshot eyes. Taking a minute to wash the sleep from his face, Sheridan looked at the young man staring back at him in the mirror. At twenty-two, he was just about to begin his career as an infantry officer in the Marine Corps. Sheridan had short black hair, deep-green eyes, and a square jaw with a scar running down the right side. For him, it was a constant reminder of the tragic accident that had taken his sister’s life when he was only ten. His body was fit and toned. At just under two meters in height, Sheridan was of average height for the Corps. The son of a fleet admiral, Sheridan had been expected to follow the family tradition of serving as an officer in the fleet. However, he had never liked the idea of being cooped up inside a ship for months at a time. He preferred getting his feet dirty and breathing real, not recycled, oxygen.

He quickly brushed his teeth and then, feeling somewhat more human, he walked back into his room and flicked on all the lights.