Earth gambit, p.1
Earth Gambit, page 1
Earth Gambit
The Jack Rhodes Chronicles Book 2
G.P. Hudson
Thavma Press
Copyright © 2023 by G.P. Hudson
Cover art by Christian Kallias
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission. This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-1990547-25-6
Contents
1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2
3. Chapter 3
4. Chapter 4
5. Chapter 5
6. Chapter 6
7. Chapter 7
8. Chapter 8
9. Chapter 9
10. Chapter 10
11. Chapter 11
12. Chapter 12
13. Chapter 13
14. Chapter 14
15. Chapter 15
16. Chapter 16
17. Chapter 17
18. Chapter 18
19. Chapter 19
20. Chapter 20
21. Chapter 21
22. Chapter 22
23. Chapter 23
24. Chapter 24
25. Chapter 25
26. Chapter 26
27. Chapter 27
28. Chapter 28
29. Chapter 29
30. Chapter 30
31. Chapter 31
32. Chapter 32
33. Chapter 33
34. Chapter 34
35. Chapter 35
36. Chapter 36
37. Chapter 37
38. Chapter 38
39. Chapter 39
Also By
Chapter one
The Imperium soldier growled at me, showing off his rows of sharp teeth. He stood at least a foot taller than me and had a powerful-looking frame that seemed well-suited to swinging from trees or cliffs. The Imperium uniform guaranteed that he knew how to fight.
How did I get myself into this again? I thought. For the past year, ever since the battle against the Raeth Collective, I had to deal with challenge after challenge from the Imperium soldiers stationed on Earth. Word had gotten around that I had killed three Imperium soldiers when I was abducted (for which I received a twenty-year death sentence) and that I had beaten the Schrik mercenary leader, Bothar, in a duel.
That made me top dog, and every alien tough guy wanted to test their mettle against me in a duel. So far, I was undefeated, which made beating me even more of a prize. It was too bad there was no money in dueling, or I would have become very rich by now. I honestly didn’t know why I kept accepting the challenges. Maybe it was ego. I’m not sure, but I just couldn’t back down. Humans had been treated like garbage throughout the galaxy, and I guess kicking alien ass was my way of getting even.
All I knew was that it felt good. Not just winning, but the fight itself. The typical weapon in a duel was the shock stick, and we each had two of them. As their name suggests, if you were hit by one, you got a nasty shock that would momentarily paralyze you. Usually, that was all it would take as the blows came fast and hard after that. In other words, getting hit was not an option.
Something about that tapped into a hidden talent, and I brought my A-game to every match. Sure, I had been genetically modified to eliminate any imperfections, but so had every other human in Black Company, so that didn’t explain it. Also, when I had been abducted and forced to fight three Imperium soldiers to the death, I hadn’t been genetically modified yet. No, the modification did not give me this ability; it merely enhanced what was already there. Beyond that, I had no answer.
The match began, and the alien came at me in a blur of arms, legs, and shock sticks. I shuffled backward, blocking what I could and dodging everything else. Most of the aliens I fought liked attacking first, seeking to overwhelm their opponent with their ferocity and speed. Their speed could be surprising, but if you got past that, they were usually quite predictable. This one wasn’t.
The aliens tended to come on hard at the beginning, giving it everything they had and looking for a quick win, but they eventually lost steam, and that was when I struck. I did the same with this opponent, only to find the business end of a shock stick in my face. I fell backward, barely evading the strike, but was now off balance dealing with another flurry of strikes. Without any good options, I let myself fall to the ground, and the alien moved in for the kill.
His shock stick landed on my shoulder just as I thrust mine into his stomach, paralyzing him as I lost control of my own body. The alien collapsed on top of me, and the air fled from my lungs. I was paralyzed and winded, and I had a heavyweight alien sprawled on top of me. I could see his eyes, though, and he stared back at me with malice. Everything now hinged on who would come out of their paralysis first. When the alien twitched, I thought I was done for.
I felt a tingling in my fingers but still had no mobility. The alien twitched again but seemed incapable of anything more. That would change. The tingling in my finger now turned to movement, but not much. Still, it was enough for me to feel the shock stick still in my hand. I looked at the alien again and saw that he was staring at the ground beside me with intense concentration. I realized that he was looking at his own shock stick, which was clearly out of reach. Lady luck was smiling on me once again.
The alien needed to move more of his arm to get his stick, while all I needed was my hand. When my hand’s mobility returned, I closed my grip around the stick and flicked upward. Somehow I missed the beast, and I felt him gain more movement in his arm. The alien was recovering faster than me and now reached down for his stick. I held my breath and tried again, flicking the stick upward with as much force as I could muster.
The alien’s body seized up momentarily and then turned to dead weight. My stick had touched him, paralyzing him for a second time. When I regained more of my mobility, I pushed the frozen alien off of me and rolled out from under him. I got up to my feet and stared down at the Imperium soldier. “Do you yield?” I said.
The alien stared back at me wordlessly. I knew he could speak, but he was opting for a beating instead. Maybe it was some kind of honor thing, but to me, it was just stupidity.
I landed a heavy blow on his torso and asked again, “Do you yield?”
No answer.
“Okay,” I said. “This is on you.” I then proceeded to pummel the alien, giving him a beating to remember. I didn’t want to kill him, but I did want to be done with the match. Finally, when I figured he’d had enough, I asked again, “Do you yield?”
“Yield,” the alien said, and cheers erupted from the crowd.
I nodded and said, “Good match,” before turning and walking away. I saw my daughter, Jessica, in the crowd and went to her first.
“I wish you’d stop fighting these duels, dad,” Jessica said, looking me up and down, searching for injuries. Jessica had been trained in medicine at the Imperium university and now taught Earth’s doctors Imperium medicine.
“I’d think you’d have more important things to do than to come and watch me fight aliens, Jess,” I said with a grin. “Besides, I couldn’t walk away from a challenge, could I?”
Jessica rolled her eyes. “You get challenged practically every day.”
I shrugged. “Maybe so, but someone’s got to put these aliens in their place.”
“Well, now that you’ve done that, how do you feel about coming over for dinner?”
“Sure, will Flavinus be there?” Flavinus Antistius was the Imperium Governor of Earth and the great-grandson of High Commander Quintillus Antistius Magnus of the Imperium Fifth Fleet. High Commander Antistius had defeated the Raeth Collective at the battle of the Sol System a year ago. High Commander Antistius was a Roman Centurion when he was abducted two thousand years ago, and I preferred to refer to him as The Centurion. I guess it sounded cooler than High Commander. I didn’t know how he felt about it as I had never met him. I had met his great-grandson, however. He and Jessica were in a relationship when they were both at the Imperium university, a relationship that had recently been rekindled.
“Yes, he’ll be there.”
I shrugged. “Okay, I’ll come anyway.”
“Dad, stop. Flav likes you.”
“Relax, I was just joking. How are things going between you two anyway?”
“They’re good. No complaints so far.”
I smiled. “I’m happy to hear that. Just let him know that if he breaks your heart, he’ll have me to deal with, and I don’t care who he’s related to.”
“No one’s breaking my heart, dad.”
“That’s my girl.”
Chapter two
Kosta sat on the sandy beach, gazing out at the azure waters of the Mediterranean sea, remembering his childhood. Even after all these years, the sea still had a calming, even spiritual effect on him. After Earth joined the Imperium, he was free to return to his homeland for the first time in over two hundred years. It had been strange at first, despite the hero’s welcome he received.
He had been considered a hero not just for all the Black Company had done for Earth but also for fighting for Greek independence over two hundred years ago. He was at once a hero of the past and of the future, and his image was everywhere. Yet all he wanted to do was visit his village and see his house. Unfortunately, despite all he had accomplished, that was a wish that could not be granted, as his old stone house no longer stood.
Records showed that an earthquake leveled the house shortly after World War 2, and another was built in its place. His descendants, however, still lived there, leaving him grateful that the property had stayed in the family. One of the children was even named Kosta. Even though these people were his descendants, there were ten generations between him and them. That said, they were his blood, and they insisted that he stay a few days with them. At least philoxenia was alive and well in his descendants, and they enjoyed many delicious meals together.
Walking the streets of his old village brought back many memories, both good and bad, and discovering that his father’s ancient olive trees still thrived brought tears to his eyes. While the locals regarded him with awe and reverence, they nonetheless considered him one of their own. A local boy who had gone out into the world, or galaxy in this case, and had now returned. The same as Greeks had always done. He figured he was probably related to half of them one way or another, and he pointed that out at the first of many feasts the village had for him.
“If you’re not careful, they’ll turn you into a saint,” Yianni said, his descendant and host.
“They’ll be happier praying to me, I can tell you that,” Kosta said, slapping the table with a huge hand and erupting into loud, contagious laughter.
That had been a year ago, and since then, he had done his part, training Earth’s soldiers for the realities of galactic combat. That kept him busy, though every chance he got, he returned to his little village. He had once thought that when he gave up the mercenary life, he would retire on some lush planet somewhere, but now he knew there was only one place for him, and that was this little village by the sea.
“I want to be a soldier like you,” little Kosta told him one day.
“I had no choice in the matter,” he replied. “You are a smart boy with your whole life in front of you. Why not become a doctor and heal people instead of hurting them?”
“But I won’t be hurting people,” little Kosta continued. “I’ll be killing aliens. And I’ll see the stars.”
Kosta nodded sagely. “The stars are the new oceans. We Greeks have always been drawn to the sea. Now we will sail amid the stars.”
When he decided to go up to his mountain, many of the locals accompanied him, as did his descendants. So, he took them and showed them his hiding places and the cave where he often slept. He also showed them where he and his comrades had ambushed the Turkish soldiers who hunted them, and they all hung on every word. Here was a real-life Klepht, right out of the history books, giving first-hand accounts of his struggles and triumphs.
“Were you scared?” a little girl had asked.
“Oh yes,” Kosta said. “Very scared.”
“The Turks should have been frightened of you!” she pronounced.
Kosta laughed. “I’m happy they weren’t. It made them careless. When they learned to fear us, they were harder to kill!”
The villagers joined in, and they all laughed at that.
That was a year ago. Today, as he sat staring out at the sea, he thought about his childhood and remembered a time when he did not think of war. Back then, his only concern was finishing his chores so he could play with the other village children. It was a day like this when his childhood ended, and his life was altered forever.
In those days, Greece still suffered under Ottoman Turkish rule, and Greeks were treated as second-class citizens in their own homeland. Kosta had not been aware of much of this reality as a child, and short of the odd complaints from his father and uncles about the corrupt Turkish officials, life went on as it always had. This all changed one day when his older sister, Eleni, did not return home when expected. Kosta remembered the panic in his parents’ eyes as they searched for their daughter. They found her in a field, ravaged, beaten, and left for dead.
The poor girl, they later learned, had caught the eye of a passing Turkish official. The culprit must have thought he killed the girl, but Kosta’s mother nursed her back to health, and she told them what happened. Her violation was too much for Kosta’s father to bear. Under Ottoman rule, there were two legal systems in Greece, one for the Greek Christians and another for Muslim Turks, with the latter considered superior. Since a Greek had no rights in a Muslim court, they had no way of defending themselves or seeking justice against a Turkish criminal. So, Kosta’s father did the only thing he could do and took matters into his own hands.
With the help of his brothers, Kosta’s father tracked down the official and took vengeance on the man, brutally killing him and his two guards. As expected, the Turkish response was quick and merciless. Kosta’s father and his uncles were all rounded up and executed; their bodies hung at the entrance to the village for all to see, including young Kosta. Where other children might have avoided the sight, Kosta stared at his father and his uncles every day until his mother had to pull him away from the macabre sight.
But Kosta would always return, refusing to look away. This was the reality of Turkish rule, he realized. It was then that he vowed to become a Klepht and kill as many Turks as he could, and when he was old enough, he did. That had been his life until that crazy AI plucked him off his mountain and forcibly introduced him to life in the Imperium.
Sometimes he wondered if fate was real. Those experiences turned him into an exceptional fighter and helped him survive the experience with the AI and the alien warlord who purchased him. Could it be that all of that was just a coincidence? He could see how the human mind was drawn to believing that everything was preordained. He had believed that once, but all that changed when he was abducted and saw what really existed in the universe. He wondered now if it hadn’t changed earlier on when his sister was raped and his father and uncles killed. How could that be preordained? What was the point of such injustice?
Kosta shook his head ruefully. All these years later, here he was, back on the beach he played on as a child. And all these years later, he still remembered his father’s lifeless body swinging at the village entrance. Kosta sighed at the thought. Nothing could bring back his father or his family. They were all stolen from him, first by Turks, then by aliens.
Kosta stood up and brushed the sand off his clothes. He had spent enough time reminiscing. It was time to get back to work.
Chapter three
Sergeant Jameson finished his drink and paid the bartender, making sure to leave her a good tip. She had been very nice to him and gave several signs that she found him attractive. She didn’t know who he was, and he wondered if she would feel the same if she knew he was old enough to be her great-grandfather. Thanks to Imperium science, though, he still looked like the young man he was when the AI took him from the trenches during World War One many lifetimes ago. In all respects, he still was a young man, with all the energy and vigor one would expect and then some. Still, he was not in the mood for company this night.
He left the bar and stepped out onto the dark, quiet city street. Returning to Earth had been bittersweet for him. He had lost his family when he was a little boy and had grown up in an orphanage. Life there had been hard, and he learned how to fight early on. He had no choice.
As he grew older, he got into plenty of trouble and eventually learned how to pickpocket. One day, as he was lifting the wallet of his latest mark, the man turned and seized his wrist in a grip like a vice. A stabbing pain shot up his arm, and he tried to yank his hand free.
“Let me go!” he shouted, but the man did not budge. It was then that the young Jameson realized the man wore an army uniform. He felt like an idiot for not picking an easier target than a soldier, or at least a drunken soldier instead.
“Where are your parents?” the man said.
“I don’t have any.”
The man frowned. “Where do you live?”
Jameson considered lying but gambled that the man might feel sorry for him and let him go. “At the orphanage.”
“Do they know what you’re up to?” the man said.
