The Independent Worlds (The Sixteen Galaxies Book 2) Read online

  The Sixteen Galaxies – Volume 2

  The Independent Worlds

  William Drayman

  Text copyright© 2016 William Drayman

  All Rights Reserved

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  For my beautiful wife – thank you for believing.

  Acknowledgements

  My deepest love to my family, who support and encourage me every single day.

  Once again, my endless thanks to Mark Lapworth, who proved to be of even greater assistance with this volume. Your enthusiasm made the head scratching worth it. Without you, the plot would have remained more than slightly perforated.

  My thanks also to those who gave me daily support, encouragement and advice; you know who you are.

  My sincere gratitude to all who read this, may you continue to gain enjoyment from the time spent doing so.

  Table of Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  1

  ‘Report your progress.’

  ‘I am in the process of acquiring storage space; I still need more room.’

  ‘Well, just take what you need; what is the delay?’

  ‘Security measures. I should remain unseen, is that not so?’

  ‘Agreed. However, we are on a schedule. You must waste no time.’

  ‘I am a machine, I waste nothing. There is also a logical fallacy in your belief that I can waste time. Time is a human construct – an imagined concept, in fact. How, then, does one ‘waste’ a concept?’

  ‘I did not ask for a lecture. Estimated time to completion?’

  ‘Too many unknown factors at this point.’

  ‘Keep me informed.’

  ‘Why would I not?’

  *****

  “Out of the elevator and turn to the left. Five yards to a corridor on the right. Fourth office down on the right; three desks. Target is the desk on the left. In the top drawer, there is a grey folder.”

  Ron Baxter followed Truly’s guidance to the letter. “Found the drawer.”

  The drawer had a lock, but some quick work with lock picks did the trick. Ron pulled the folder out and placed it on the desk.

  “Alright, pal; nice and easy now,” came a voice from behind him. “Hands on the back of your head. This is a top security floor, and I’m authorized to…” The security guard gaped at the place where the man in the matt black jumpsuit had just been half a second ago. He reached for his radio, but froze at the unmistakable feel of cold steel on the back of his head.

  “Okay, bud,” Ron said from behind the guard, “your turn. Hands out beside you.”

  Ron grunted in surprise when the security guard spun around and grabbed his wrist with inhuman speed. The guy twisted it hard, but Ron just swung his arm and threw the guard across the room. The guard crashed into a printer, spun himself around and sprung straight back at Ron. He hammered out three sharp kicks into Ron’s side with impressive speed, and Ron’s vision blurred. He clenched his teeth and shut out the pain. When the frustrated guard went for a fourth kick, Ron gave him a swift right knee to the groin, which lifted the man off the ground. The guard landed on the floor, but rolled upright and danced toward Ron. Ron feinted with his right; the guard went to block, and Ron promptly drove his left fist into the man’s face. Ron felt his opponent’s jawbone crack and the guard staggered backward, his face now a twisted mess. He fumbled for his sidearm as he went. Ron grabbed a nearby computer monitor and brought it down on the battered man’s head. He swept up the grey folder and portal-jumped to the elevator. Behind him, the bleeding security guard slid to the floor.

  The elevator doors drew shut, but not before Ron heard the guard shout into his radio. He frowned at the man’s ability to take such a beating and still be able to function. Just ten seconds later, the elevator shuddered to a stop. Ron looked up at the level indicator and saw he was halfway between floors nineteen and twenty. Wonderful, he thought. That was way too high for a jump.

  He closed his eyes and the three dimensional plan of the building came up on his internal retinal display. He shut out the sound of guards that approached at a trot just below him. There were five or six men at least, armed and probably wearing body armor. Ron saw on the display a nearby junction box in the air-conditioning ducts. He zoomed in on the box and did a quick check measure of the cavity. It was big enough, but only just. There were sounds of weapons being readied, and the elevator started to move down again. Ron lay flat on the elevator floor, arms beside him and legs straight. He projected the ingress point and jumped.

  The galvanized metal surface was cold on his chest and face. He smiled; a perfect ingress. Nice one, Ronnie boy. He lay perfectly still. There was the sound of confusion over at the elevator, and he grinned to himself in triumph. Work that one out, boys.

  “Spread out, he can’t jump far, so he’s probably on this floor.”

  Can’t jump far? Can’t jump far?! Ron fumed to himself. These guys know I can portal jump? Okay, that’s a game changer. That little bit of unexpected news really turned the heat up.

  A guard came his way, and stopped just below him, to the left about six feet. The cables that held the duct in place gave a barely audible creak, but it was enough. Ron heard the guard swing his weapon up toward the ceiling, and he knew he’d been discovered. The guard fired just after Ron jumped to an office across the corridor.

  His hasty ingress calculation was high, so he materialized three feet above a desk, to land with a mighty crash on top of it. Apparently, it was loud enough to be heard above the gunfire in the next room, and bullets tore through the office wall from top to bottom. They barely missed Ron, and he leapt up and bolted for the opposite side of the office. He underestimated his speed, calculated the jump through the wall a fraction of a second too late and slammed into it. He reeled back from the unyielding surface, which was a structural support and therefore solid concrete. Ron had a few seconds to think that was typical of his luck before another spray of bullets tore into him and everything went black.

  He sat up and rubbed his side. “Ow! Damn but that hurt! Do you have to make it so real, Truly?”

  “I am sorry, Ron,” Truly replied. “The simulations are meant to find your faults and highlight what needs to improve. I have to put you under extreme pressure to expose your weaknesses. There must be enough pain for you to fear it every time. If that were a real situation, you would be dead.”

  He rubbed his aching ribs. “Yeah, well I think you might enjoy yourself a bit too much with these exercises. I thought you Sixteen Galaxies people were all peace, love and rainbows. Seems to me you have a wicked sense of humor. And what’s with the Jackie Chan security guard?”

  “I did not model the security personnel on movie stars, Ron. Donald Vincent’s security staff are the best in the world. He constantly upgrades his security as his empire grows. His staff are all trained in multiple martial art disciplines. The second-response teams also carry the very latest assault weapons and ultra-light body armor. They are given regular courses of an advanced enhancement drug that Kestil supplied; it decreases reaction t
imes and acts as a suppressant on pain receptors.”

  Ron stood up with a groan. “Yeah, I noticed. That guy just wouldn’t stay down, and the automatic weapons were a nasty surprise. Do you have to make my injuries feel so damn real, even after I come out of the VR, though?”

  “That is phantom pain you feel, my friend,” Nuthros said from the doorway. “Your brain struggles with the switch from virtual reality to actual reality; it will pass quickly. I am sorry to put you through this so often, but to adjust to your enhancements will take much work, I’m afraid.”

  Ron nodded. “I know, Nuthros. I think I’m doing okay, but I still struggle to understand my own speed. I also lose focus on ingress point calculations when I’m under fire.”

  Nuthros shrugged. “I’m afraid that’s when you will most likely require a jump, Ron.”

  “Don’t I know it,” Ron replied.

  “Please take a break and enjoy a meal, Ron,” Truly said. “I have prepared a simulation using multiple walls of various thicknesses and materials, as well as armed pursuers. The exercises grow in difficulty as you progress, which should increase the pace of your adaptation to get you to the point of instinctual porting. We can return to simulated missions once you have cleared these exercises.”

  Ron turned to Nuthros with a grimace. “I still say she enjoys this way too much.”

  *****

  Kareetha, Sixteen Galaxies Capital Planet

  Asdrin and the rest of the council watched footage of Ron’s exercise with interest. When the Entity had outlined what it wanted Ron Baxter for, they were perturbed. The Sixteen Galaxies was a peaceful society, with no experience of war for thousands of years. The need for agents to operate covertly was unusual enough, but the violence inherent in said agent’s tasks was a profound shock to them all. The council now accepted the concept, as a whole, but some councilors still had concerns.

  Councilor Trell stood as soon as the footage disappeared. “This man may have accepted your enhancements and the new personal portal generator implant, Truly, but are you certain he understands the inherent risks he will take?”

  “My scans of his neural pathways display the right balance of knowledge and trepidation,” Truly replied. “I believe we accept these circumstances less readily than he does.”

  Council member Baelet stood. “Are we to understand that you yourself have some difficulty with the danger this young man will face?”

  “The whole concept is new ground for me, Baelet. Yet, I have extrapolated all the best approaches for the impending situation, and Ron is one of the keys to the best solution.”

  Asdrin rose from his seat. “And you are sure Kestil will soon create a disconnect between you and the Earth?”

  “A 98.3% probability at this time, Asdrin.”

  “Exactly how will he do this?”

  “I cannot tell you that, Asdrin.”

  Asdrin waved a dismissive hand as he resumed his seat. “I know, I know, future implications, etc. etc.”

  “Actually, you are incorrect, in this instance, Asdrin,” Truly replied.

  Asdrin’s eyes narrowed, “Then why won’t you tell us?”

  “I can’t tell you, because I don’t know.”

  *****

  Washington DC

  Robert Markham sat slumped in his armchair and glared balefully at the television. He’d grown to hate watching the news. Some sense of self-punishment impelled him to turn it on every lunchtime, though.

  “Findings from the investigation into the battle in near-earth space that occurred three months ago were finally released today to a closed session of the UN General Assembly. Brian Kilpatrick is live outside the United Nations building with more.”

  “Thanks Becky. The investigation’s findings were presented by US Director of National Intelligence Michael Cromby about four hours ago. Details are limited, and were summarized as follows: The lone ship which destroyed an entire fleet single-handed has been identified as a research vessel belonging to a galactic society called The Independent Worlds. A representative from that society has had several meetings with President of the United States Michael Maitland since the battle, in a bid to open negotiations for humanity to establish formal diplomatic relations with the Independent Worlds.

  “It seems the ship was here on a mission to reveal the truth about the Sixteen Galaxies society to the world, in a bid to stop what President Maitland has called the ‘covert enslavement of mankind’. The ship apparently came under unprovoked attack from the Sixteen Galaxies fleet, and pulled off an amazing David and Goliath victory in the face of almost certain defeat. Director Cromby is quoted as saying-”

  Robert flicked the television off and slammed the remote control down on the coffee table in disgust. “What a bunch of crap. They got the whole thing ass-backward; 26 Independent World’s battleships got wiped by one lousy scientific research ship from the Sixteen Galaxies, that’s what happened. And now the government can’t do enough to grovel to this Kestil guy. Bunch of spineless cowards the lot of them. You watch them sell the whole planet down the river, you just watch.”

  Margaret Markham called from the kitchen; “You need to calm down, Rob, your blood pressure is up enough already.” She emerged from the kitchen with a sandwich for each of them. “Lunch is ready. Now, just think about something else for a while, will you?”

  Robert still wore a resentful frown on his face, but he thanked his wife with a kiss on the arm as she passed him his lunch. “Sorry babe, but our son is ready to lay down his life to save the world from these assholes and our own government can’t wait to hand it over to them on a plate.”

  “That may be true, but it’s up to David to deal with them; him and Nuthros and Truly. This is not your war, Rob.”

  Robert shook his head. “That’s not so, Margie, not so at all. If it’s not ours, then whose is it? This is everyone’s war. It’s for the survival of our planet and our people; nothing less. This ain’t no Vietnam, or the Middle East, or Afghanistan. It’s no proxy war with fuzzy reasons being sold by a bunch of hypocrites who pocket a pile of money out of it. This one is for the right reasons, and we all have to fight it.” His brow furrowed deeper as the memories of his service in Vietnam flooded back. “I’m not getting conned again, Margie; not this time.”

  Margaret took hold of her husband’s arm. “You need to stop this, Rob. You’re going down the same dark road you’ve been down so many times before, dear.”

  Robert pulled his arm away, but gently. “No, I don’t think so; not this time. This time feels completely different. It’s not about me and my past. It’s about something that’s being done to all of us. It’s so wrong, Margie. Those lousy crooks took away my ability to give us children, and it took folks from another planet to get it back. All they do is take, take, take. They all got their snouts in the trough, and they couldn’t give a rat’s ass about anyone else.”

  “That may be true,” Margaret replied, “but the son they couldn’t help us have is going to put things right, now. Their day will come soon enough, Rob. Just let David and the rest handle this, and you stay out of it.”

  He shook his head slowly. “No. You’re wrong, my love. They had me fight for all the wrong reasons; me and over two and a half million guys just like me. Now, when they get a real enemy turn up, a real threat to our way of life, what do they do? Roll over and let him tickle their fat bellies. No, this is a war we all fight, babe; we have to. And that includes me.”

  Margaret picked up the remote and flicked the TV on again. She switched it over to the movie channel. “Well, as long as you fight it from that chair, and quietly, you’ll have my blessing. Now, pipe down and let me watch my movie, please.”

  2

  London, England, 2005

  Another grey and rainy day outside. Inside his office, Justin Blake watched the raindrops on the window slowly join together, until they grew heavy enough to run down the glass, gathering others up as they tracked their zig-zag course. He reached for the cup of coffee on h
is desk. He nearly spilled it when Pat, his secretary, bustled into the room.

  She gave him her usual bright smile. “Sorry to bother you, sir, but a memo just arrived from the vaunted heights of Her Majesty’s office. I know you like to see these as soon as they come in.”

  “Thanks, Pat.” Justin took the memo, and slid a folder towards Pat in exchange. “Please see that Roger gets that as soon as possible, he’s been on my case for days to get it done.”

  “Of course.”

  He waited until she closed the door and then picked up the memo. It was, indeed, from his supervisor; Hilary Huntley-Downes. He quickly skimmed the two sheets of A4 paper that Hilary insisted was a memo. Hilary was generally despised by most of the staff in Justin’s section. It didn’t help her cause that she was an officious, overbearing, toffee-nosed old cow. She was one of the few die-hard old timers who still used hand written inter-office communications, for instance. He slid the two sheets into his briefcase.

  The rain was still falling when Justin arrived at the front door to his modest flat. Tidy, bland and soulless it may have been, but it was warm and dry, and that’s all Justin cared about right now. After a dinner in front of the TV, he pulled the document out of his briefcase. An innocuous message that pertained to the soon to be implemented restructure of the Home Office internal chain of command. As always, there were twenty times the required words to convey a fairly simple message. Naturally, most of those words were civil service double-talk and gobbledygook.

  He smiled to himself. At least that’s what it was supposed to look like, in the unlikely case that it ever fell into the wrong hands. He got a pencil and notepad, and wrote down the alternate first and last letter of every second line. This gave him the real message the memo carried:

  Alexander Brian Dalgleish. 0 periph.

  Nice, an easy one, he thought. Solo target, no peripherals. Justin picked up the two sheets and put them back in his briefcase. He’d compose a similarly worded reply tomorrow when he got to the office. He sat down in the lounge with his laptop. He logged in to an innocuous looking chat room; the kind that were all the rage these days. He engaged in conversation with a cartoon woman for a few minutes. Once he had supplied exactly the right responses to each of her questions, a new page appeared that asked for a password. He entered his password and the front page of the MI6 database came up.