Maelstrom Strand Read online

  MAELSTROM STRAND

  ©2019 RICK PARTLOW

  This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of the authors.

  Print and eBook formatting, and cover design by Steve Beaulieu.

  Published by Aethon Books LLC. 2019

  All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  Contents

  Prologue

  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

  Epilogue

  FROM THE PUBLISHER

  Prologue

  Rhianna Hale was a beautiful woman.

  Colonel Ruth Laurent didn’t usually give much thought to the comparative looks of other women, but it was worth noting, given her heritage. A beautiful woman from a rich, powerful family, yet she had forsaken the easy life running the lucrative Hale family gas mining operations for a career in the military. She still wore her uniform here, as risky as it was. Spartan Mobile Armored Corps flashed red and blue on the shoulder patch of her fatigue top, resplendent in the glow of the morning sun, a major’s rank still fresh on her collar from a recent promotion.

  Yet here she was, deep within the heart of the enemy.

  “Being Lord Prime of the Starkad Supremacy has its privileges,” Hale said, leaning on the balcony railing, staring out at the snow-capped peaks of the Jotunheim Mountains from the fourth floor of the mansion. “The view is majestic.”

  “Appropriately, I think,” Lord Aaron Starkad replied, arms crossed in the unquenchable smugness that was a counter-weight to his perfectly sculpted features and long, flowing blond hair. “My great-great…” He rolled his eyes. “…whatever grandfather, the first Lord Starkad shed the blood to establish the Supremacy, and his sons and daughters have devoted their lives to defending and expanding it. A nice little getaway in the mountains seems a fitting recompense.”

  Laurent successfully suppressed the involuntary snort at the idea of the thirty-room mansion and its hundreds of square kilometers of land being referred to as a “nice little getaway,” and got down to business.

  “The question, Major Hale,” she interjected, “is what would you consider a fitting recompense for allying with our cause?”

  “Colonel Laurent,” Hale said, turning away from the towering wall of mountains that divided Stavanger’s largest continent in two to face her, “I have spent most of my life trying to live down the deeds of my uncle.” Her lip twisted into a sneer, marring the wonderful symmetry of her face. “Duncan Lambert the Traitor. The man who killed the Guardian of Sparta and lost the battle for the throne to his grandson, Jaimie Brannigan.” The sneer softened into something just as bitter but less strident. “Sometimes I think the lost battle is what people hate him for more than the regicide. I attended the Military Academy when I could have avoided service, fought and clawed my way up through the ranks in the Mobile Armored Corps despite the prejudice my family faced. Why do you think I’d be interested in your offer?”

  “You’ve maintained connections with the proscribed members of your family,” Laurent pointed out. She stepped closer to the railing, motioning at the expanse of pale blue above them. “When they called, you came. You left your unit without permission and travelled all the way to Stavanger. You didn’t take this sort of risk to tell us no thank you, that you’re happy where you are. You’re not satisfied being the good little girl, the devoted patriot.”

  Hale’s eyes flashed with anger, a fire behind the soft hazel.

  “There was a reason Uncle Duncan’s treason came so close to succeeding, why he attracted so much support. That reason still exist today. The Brannigans have turned the Guardianship into a hereditary monarchy much like your own Supremacy.” She nodded politely to Aaron. “All due respect to your institutions and traditions here, Lord Starkad, but that is not what Sparta was meant to be. The Council is supposed to choose the most qualified candidate, not simply validate whichever of the current Guardian’s children or grandchildren he or she chose to replace them. They’ve put the glory of their family over the good of Sparta, and their self-serving policies of containment and defense have allowed Sparta’s enemies to consolidate their gains and allowed the Jeuta to operate without fear of reprisal.”

  Her hands worked themselves into fists, then relaxed with a visible effort.

  “I know I’m not the only one who feels this way. I’ve heard the rumblings in the general staff about dissatisfaction with the Guardian’s lack of aggressive action against the pirates and bandits and Jeuta raiders. They remain silent out of fear, but if they thought there was a realistic chance of a regime change…”

  “If our two Dominions were to ally,” Aaron Starkad proposed, taking a step closer to Hale, “we would present a strong enough front against our rivals and enemies to make it possible to take real action against the Jeuta, to finally do what the Empire couldn’t, and put those beasts down for good.”

  Hale was a tall woman, statuesque even, but Lord Starkad still towered above her. Sheer odylic force radiated from those piercing blue eyes. Hale’s nostrils flared slightly, her pupils dilating. Laurent watched, fascinated, as if she were witnessing a nature documentary about the mating habits of bull elk.

  “All you have to do,” Starkad went on, voice smooth and seductive, “is rally those disaffected elements in the military, and perhaps a few among the Council families who feel they’re being overruled by allies of the Brannigans. With our aid, with a few strategic realignments of forces to draw attention where we want them to be looking, it should be possible for you to finish what your uncle started and bring Sparta back to the dream of its founders.”

  There was a tinge of skepticism to Hale’s smile.

  “You make it seem so easy. Brannigan is no fool and he’s surrounded himself with strength. General Anders, General Constantine…”

  “Anders is a straightforward man,” Laurent judged, remembering the files and reports she’d reviewed. “He’d be more likely to recognize a threat from without than one from within. But Constantine…”

  “He’s been Jaimie Brannigan’s Chief of Intelligence for twenty years,” Hale said with a tone of grudging respect. “We’ll need to get him out of the way before we move.”

  Laurent couldn’t quite keep the grin off her face. Hale had bought in.

  “He’d be a valuable source of intelligence himself, if we can take him alive,” she said, something akin to hunger twisting in her stomach, the feeling she’d used to get as an analyst from following a lead back to the nugget of truth at its source.

  “I’m sure we can work something out,” Lord Starkad said, taki
ng Hale’s hand in his. She looked up into his eyes, licking her lips perhaps unconsciously. “For now, I’d dearly love to show you my riding stables. Perhaps a nice horseback ride to show you the borders of my land?”

  Laurent motioned to a line of dark clouds blowing in from the east.

  “There’s a storm coming,” she warned them. “You’d best hurry.”

  1

  Wholesale Slaughter, follow me!”

  Logan Conner fell out of the sky with fifty tons of metal wrapped around him and a fusion rocket strapped to his back. He’d never done a high drop in the Sentinel before and his stomach told him exactly what it thought of the idea of dumping a twenty-meter-tall strike mech out of the bottom of a drop-ship two hundred meters above a surface too shrouded in fog to even see. The external lift pack rumbled in a murmur of raw power, braking his forward momentum with a six-gravity deceleration thrust and pressing him into the mech’s padded “easy chair” with enough force that he nearly blacked out.

  Wouldn’t matter much if I did. Can’t maneuver worth a damn with these things.

  It was times like these he missed the lighter, more versatile Vindicator assault mech he’d piloted when he’d simply been a platoon leader in the Spartan Mobile Armored Corps instead of…

  Well, instead of whatever the hell I am now.

  Technically, he was a colonel, though he still commanded a company of mecha, but not in the Mobile Armored Corps. Most company commanders didn’t also have their own starship and a Ranger Company at their disposal and certainly didn’t get to make policy decisions that could change the course of Dominion politics. But then, most weren’t also the son of the Guardian of Sparta and commander of the most intricate and far-reaching covert military operation in Spartan history.

  “Colonel Slaughter, this is Bohardt, come in.” The voice in the earphones of his helmet was keyed up, on edge, which wasn’t unusual for a mech-jock running his first ballistic insertion. Logan checked his Identification Friend or Foe display and saw Bohardt’s transponder below his, almost on the ground, with his mercenary mecha company arrayed in a diamond formation around him.

  “This is Slaughter,” he replied once the thrust pack had dialed back to a more reasonable gee-load, beginning the controlled descent. “Go ahead Captain Bohardt.”

  Jonathan Slaughter had been his cover for two years now, head of Wholesale Slaughter Private Military Contractors LLC. Once, when he’d first begun this mission, he’d nearly lost himself in the role, even thinking of himself as Jonathan rather than Logan, but the stakes had levelled off a bit since then…and the mission had evolved.

  “Bohardt’s Bastards are on the ground and ready to move,” the older man reported. “It’s your show, sir, you give the order.”

  Logan bit down on the mouthpiece of his helmet and tensed up as a flashing yellow light signaled landing was imminent. The Sentinel vibrated violently enough to blur his vision and he was pushed down into his seat again as the lift pack burned out its engines on one final, heavy-gee landing blast. Sucking in a breath through creaking ribs, he pushed a lever downward at the rear of his cockpit and felt the Sentinel stagger as the lift pack fell off its shoulders. Through the transparent aluminum of the cockpit canopy, he saw little more than he had on the way down. The fog was so thick, he could barely make out the hulking, shadowy masses of the mecha around him, their jump-jets still glowing yellow from the drop in the blackness of the moonless night.

  “First platoon is down, Boss,” Captain Valentine Kurtz reported, sounding cheerful about it. The IFF display showed his Golem and the other four assault mecha in his platoon lined up along Logan’s right flank. “We’re all good to go.”

  “Second platoon down, sir,” Lt. Summer Prevatt chimed in from the other side. “No damage reported.”

  “Captain Bohardt,” he finally replied to the mercenary commander, “lead the way. Your people have point.”

  It was a hard order for him to give. Bohardt’s Bastards had a good reputation, but they hadn’t proven a damn thing to him, and he was about to trust them with the lives of innocent people instead of counting on his own troops. It wasn’t the choice he would have made a year ago, maybe not even a month ago.

  David Bohardt seemed competent and his people moved out smartly for a group of guns-for-hire. Mercenaries in general were unreliable, deserters and rejects barely better than the bandits and pirates they were hired to fight, but once in a while you came across mavericks who just didn’t fit in with the military in their Dominion. He was hoping Bohardt was one of those.

  At least he’s better equipped than most of them. No slapped-together Hopper scout mecha fabricated in backwoods shops or ancient wrecks salvaged from battlefield spare parts. Bohardt piloted a broad-shouldered Valiant assault mech, in good repair and freshly painted with all-season camouflage and the Bastard crest, while the rest of his company were in a mix of older but still serviceable Warlocks and Agamemnons. No strike mecha like his Sentinel, but mercenaries tended to stay with machines no heavier than assault models since they were the most versatile and easier to transport.

  Bohardt led a standard company, five platoons of four mecha each, which was also decent for a mercenary unit. No dedicated Arbalest missile carriers, but a nice variety of payloads and certainly enough for the enemy they were after today. They kept to a textbook double-wedge formation, staying in perfect alignment despite the treacherous footing of the muddy plains and the nonexistent visibility. Thermal and infrared were fine for spotting enemy forces, but they weren’t much good for making out a mud puddle from a ten-meter deep trench.

  “Move out, Val,” he told his second in command. “Stay close and keep an eye on them.”

  “You sound like a damn mother hen, Boss,” Kurtz said, his low chuckle a burst of static in the headphones. “It’s just a bunch of half-assed pirates. Even Momma Salvaggio’s bunch could have taken them, and these guys are a damn sight better than they were.”

  “They pay me to be nervous.” Logan wanted to snap at the man but controlled himself. Val had been with him since the beginning and if he thought Logan was being a nervous mother hen, he was probably right.

  Kurtz led his platoon off behind the mercenaries in an echelon left formation, the hunchbacked Golems plodding along like toddlers splashing through rain puddles, then disappearing into the dense fog. He envied their agility. His Sentinel strode forward ponderously, circular footpads two meters across sinking a meter deep into the mud with each step, then yanking free with a series of shuddering jolts.

  Prevatt’s platoon trailed behind him in echelon right, stretched out in a straight line with the platoon leader’s mech to the left end of the formation and farthest forward, the opposite of Kurtz’s array. It was all glowing lights on a screen to him, a collage of thermal, infrared and sonic sensor readings mixed with the transponder readouts and converted to the best simulation the Sentinel’s computer systems could provide on his Heads-Up Display. That was the reality for him, not the vague, nebulous darkness outside his canopy. He’d learned to work off the display, to convert it to an image of the world inside his head and move through it instinctively.

  The objective was five kilometers due north, and the enemy had surely seen the drop-ships inbound, detected the mecha insertion. They’d be coming out to meet them, sending everything they had because running was no longer an option. Their next move would be to try to use the hostages as a shield and bargain for safe passage. He’d trust Lyta to handle that end of the battle. She and her Ranger platoon had parachuted in along with Bohardt’s infantry force on the first pass before the mecha insertion. He wondered if she was just as hesitant about letting the mercenaries lead the way as he was.

  Ah, the hell with it. I’m the boss and I need to see these guys in action.

  “I’m moving up, Val,” he transmitted. The other man didn’t argue, even though he must have wanted to.

  The Sentinel had long legs and a lot of power to play with despite its mass and the deep m
ud, and all it cost him to move past Kurtz’s lighter assault mecha was pain. The strike mech concussed like a drumhead with every plunging step, shuddering violently each time it pulled free of the muck. The easy chair was padded and fitted with a pneumatic suspension but he still felt as if he were being shaken in the teeth of a gigantic beast.

  Just one bad step, worry nagged at him, and this thing will wind up face-down in the mud and I’ll look like the galaxy’s biggest idiot.

  But the ground grew firmer the closer they came to the pirate base and he quickly caught up with the Bastards’ formation, passing between a pair of gangly Warlock assault mecha and coming even with Bohardt’s Valiant before he slowed back down to their patrol speed.

  “Coming to look over my shoulder, Colonel?” Bohardt asked him, his tone light, his clipped Clan Modi accent coming through a bit stronger than usual, the only sign he wasn’t joking.

  “Just wanted a front-row seat, Captain,” he assured the man.

  “You’re in luck, then, because the show’s about to start.”

  Logan didn’t have to ask what he meant. The Sentinel’s radar and lidar were flashing red icons across his threat display, a dozen of them coming overland and nearly as many flying in on jump-jets, on a trajectory to touch down only fifty meters ahead of them. It was a heavy company, numbers wise, a lot for a half-assed group of bandits, but mostly scout mecha.

  If they had any brains, they’d just run off into the swamp and hide until we left. He shrugged. Of course, that would mean being stranded on this barely-habitable rock, so maybe I’d fight to the death, too.