Raiders of the Shadow: An epic space opera adventure: Book 1 of The Human Chronicles Legacy Series Read online

  “I’ve heard your argument before, Coop. But there still has to be a leader. And whether he, she or it is on a planet, in a spaceship or on a space station, he, she or it needs to be found.”

  “Roger that,” Coop agreed. “But first, it would be nice to have a name.”

  Kellan smiled, his face lit only by the light from the screen. Someone shuffled next to him in bed. The spy chief’s wife was used to these late-night calls, especially since he ran a network of agents spread across the galaxy.

  “Keep at it. I assume you’ll get another contract soon. Those Ryness pieces of shit can’t help but break down.”

  Coop nodded. “Job security, boss. And yeah, something will come along. I just hate wasting nearly a week for nothing, and especially letting such a high-priority cargo slip between our fingers.”

  “These things happen,” Kellan said. “In the meantime, you might check that lead you have on Resnor. That sounded promising. It’s better than nothing.”

  “Will do; it’s on the way back to base. I’ll keep you informed. Now, get back to your beauty sleep. God knows you need it … sir.”

  “Yeah, and screw you, too, Mr. Smith. Drake out.”

  The Ryness Cartel was a relatively recent thorn in the side of the Earth-run Orion-Cygnus Union, credited with some of the more spectacular raids along the Union and the Expansion border, with an emphasis on Formilian cargo vessels. Both sides were anxious to learn more about their activities and organization. Although Coop worked for Earth Intelligence, he was sure some of his intel was being traded to the Juireans for reciprocal intel on a variety of subjects. There was a tenuous peace between the two galactic empires, one that had existed for going on twelve years. However, the activities of the Ryness were causing tensions to increase as each entity wanted the right to pursue the raiders wherever necessary, even if it meant crossing borders. But the Cartel knew of the restrictions and used the border as a means to avoid capture. They would make raids on one side and then bolt across the border where their pursuers had no authority. It was a game they played, and it caused a slew of border-crossing incidents between the Union and the Expansion.

  Copernicus was tasked with locating the central headquarters of the Cartel and devising a plan to take it out. That was assuming that the Cartel had a central headquarters. Copernicus didn’t think they did. Unlike the Gradis, which was the largest criminal organization in the galaxy, the Ryness was more decentralized. They existed everywhere—and nowhere—at the same time. And they had an uncanny knack for dodging the authorities—at least when their ships were running. A breakdown made them vulnerable, not only to arrest and confiscation but also to tracing the ship’s movements over time. As a result, crews had standing orders to destroy their vessels rather than have them impounded. That told Earth Intelligence a lot: They were willing to lose ships and cargo to keep their central command a secret.

  Copernicus—more than most—had access to some of the Ryness Cartel ships—the ones that broke down—and as he worked on them, he would tap into internal navigation systems and draw data from the computers before relaying that information back to Kellan Drake. Earth equipped him with the latest technology for achieving this, which was also a problem. Should he get caught with the equipment, there would be no denying his true identity as a deep-cover spy. The tech was far too advanced for a simple starship repairman. And if he were caught, it wouldn’t only be the Cartel ship that was blasted to atoms by the crew. It would be Copernicus Smith, as well. The Cartel didn’t mess around when it came to security breaches.

  Chapter 2

  The planet Resnor was a pleasant-looking world of blue, brown and green, like most worlds suitable for Prime life in the galaxy. Or at least it used to be. What made Copernicus scowl with contempt was what happened to it over the past ten years, as reflected in the gaudy and confusing cluster of cities that had sprung up on its surface. One would think that New would mean modern and well-planned. But that wasn’t the case here. On Resnor, the phrase best used to describe urban planning was hurried and cheap. There was no plan, just a rush to construct as many buildings as possible in the relatively few flat lands on the Northern Continent. With cold-fusion power and water reclamation technology available, the settlements could be built anywhere a solid foundation could be laid without regard to traffic flow or natural resources.

  In a way, the planet reminded him of his beloved Liave-3—whose name had since changed to Navarus—the world where he had his first starship repair facility. When he was there, Coop lived in the quaint coastal enclave of Balamar on a beautiful and tranquil crescent-shaped bay. That was until the city of Kanac sprung up nearby. That cesspool of depravity soon came to dominate the area around Balamar, eventually morphing into an ugly metropolis of over two million creatures of nearly every shape, size and description.

  Copernicus was glad he didn’t live there anymore, leaving Balamar and his long-abandoned repair facility to his friends Sherri Valentine, Adam Cain and Riyad Tarazi. And now Resnor was following the same progression, from peaceful paradise to overcrowded slum. And what was even more depressing about the similarities was the fact that, although Resnor was thirty-eight thousand light-years from Navarus, both planets came to be the way they were from the same inciting incident.

  And that was when Kracion—the Mad Aris—began his reign of terror through a swath of the Kidis Frontier that would later become known as the Dead Worlds.

  With seemingly unstoppable force spawned from the alien’s three-billion-year-old technology and his immortality, Kracion ravaged over a hundred worlds in the region, creating in the process the largest mass migration of living creatures ever seen in the Milky Way. The rich, powerful and well-connected fled the Kidis in droves ahead of the destruction, seeking out the farthest reaches of the galaxy from the Dead Worlds as a way to delay the inevitable—Kracion’s complete domination of the galaxy. Although the planets in the systems around Resnor weren’t the farthest from the Kidis, at the time, the area was some of the least populated in the galaxy, situated along a remote stretch of border between the Human Orion-Cygnus Union and the Juirean Expansion. Initially, the area was just a line on a map, located along what the Humans called the Pegasus Arm when Humanity declared that the so-called Far Arm of the Milky Way would forever be known as Human space.

  At the time, neither empire cared much for this throw-away region of the galaxy. Humans never ventured into this part of space until recently, although it had been part of their Union for over twenty years. And the Juireans only occasionally visited the region throughout their four-thousand-year-long reign as the masters of the Expansion.

  The small cluster of nineteen star systems was discovered by accident, hidden as it was behind the immense gravity influence of a globular cluster along the outskirts of the Pegasus Arm called N421. It was only through the effects of gravitational lensing that it was learned the systems existed. As spaceships entered the region, the stars appeared to move faster as their true locations became known behind the immense gravity source. Early explorers facetiously labeled the area The Shadow because it was obscured from the main part of the galaxy by the gravity shadow of N421.

  Then everything changed.

  Ten years ago, hordes of frightened—yet well-off immigrants—flooded into the area, using the Yaster Space Lane that ran nearby for access. The Shadow was well hidden and of little importance to the rest of the galaxy, meaning that it would be the last place Kracion would focus his attention. And the planet Resnor was the first world one came to when entering the region.

  The primary space lanes ran above the ecliptic plane, away from ninety-nine percent of the mass of the galaxy, where rogue gravitational influences were nil. To achieve truly impressive faster-than-light speeds, space had to be free of even the most negligible gravitational influence, be it from stellar bodies or other gravity-drive starships. The space lanes provided this clear space, and the Yaster Lane was one of the widest to be found, allowing for a large volume of traffic where the truly massive behemoths could crank up their gravity wells without interference.

  And so the immigrants came, dropping from the Yaster near Resnor before moving to the more developed planets within The Shadow.

  At the time, Resnor was an undeveloped planet with a primitive native population of basic Primes. Their culture was similar to early communities on Earth, with a functional written and spoken language. The natives—called Selvons—were clustered in vast cave-based settlements, mainly across the Northern Continent. They knew of mechanical power, telescopes and even basic electricity. Unfortunately, that was the extent of their technology, meaning they had nothing to offer the pampered and spoiled aliens invading the region.

  Hasty settlements were constructed on Resnor by the invading horde, primarily as a staging ground for those arriving and moving to the more developed planets farther in. The natives posed no challenge for the newcomers, and there was little conflict between the Selvons and the aliens, not after the first few bloody encounters. After that, the natives became almost beasts of burden, integrating slowly with the alien communities.

  Very few established businesses from the Expansion settled on Resnor; there were more opportunities on the core worlds of The Shadow. The one exception was Xan-fi. To Copernicus, it made sense. As the second-largest weapons company in the galaxy, the environment on Resnor was perfect for Xan-fi and their products. It was a planet with no law, using only force of will and weapon to enforce whatever conventions were established. The facility assembled a supply of their long-barreled energy weapons, employing primarily native labor in the effort and selling exclusively to the residents of The Shadow, thus cutting out the middleman. They also had a new line of weapons they called Line-of-Sight, which Copernicus didn’t quite
know what they meant. Every weapon they produced was line-of-sight. You sight the target, press the targeting computer button and then wait for the beam to lock on. There was no great mystery in it. It was the same with the Maris-Kliss handguns, which also had computer targeting.

  Copernicus smiled. The slight delay as the computer locked on target had saved his hide a dozen times in the past. He didn’t see that changing any time soon. It was probably just some advertising gimmick, the new and improved same ol’ shit.

  Either way, Xan-fi was making a killing selling weapons on Resnor, as well as other worlds in The Shadow, no pun intended.

  Although Copernicus had only been working his current assignment for a little over six months, he had been to the planet dozens of times. With his particular brand of clientele, he avoided the more civilized worlds in the region. The people of Resnor didn’t bother with such trivial things as law and order, using an ad-hoc system of supply and demand instead. Every activity on the planet was governed by pragmatism. If an activity or service were needed, then someone would fill the void. And if these entrepreneurs had the power or savvy to hold their positions, they would do so. If not, then others would take their place.

  It was Coop’s job to supply starship repair services to the criminal element in The Shadow, and primarily, the Ryness Cartel. Unfortunately, he wasn’t the only one. Kinorus was one of the early refugees to the region and had been filling this role for years. And he didn’t much appreciate an upstart like Copernicus elbowing his way into his territory. The slimy-skinned bastard had a fleet of six repair vessels and a solid reputation. Coop was only able to make inroads with the help of Kellan Drake and Earth’s intelligence services laying the groundwork for his introduction. And with the secret backing of Earth, this allowed Coop to undercut Kinorus on just about every job, which was essential to thieves, pirates and cutthroats. It helped contribute to their bottom line.

  Of course, his presence in The Shadow made him and Kinorus competitors, if not enemies. But there was plenty of work to go around, and even more after the Ryness Cartel moved into the area. If not, then Kinorus would have put a stop to Coop long before this.

  Copernicus set the Star Surfer down in a disorganized mess of a spaceport outside the urban blight known as Dashious. From the air, the city looked more like an enormous burn mark across the landscape still smoldering from the devastating fire. Upon closer examination, the town was merely made up of thousands of low-flung structures with old-fashioned fireplaces consuming most of the surrounding forest with no regard for conservation.

  A Borkis-Class freighter wasn’t the typical repair ship. It was too big and costly to maintain. But Coop reasoned that with the dual cargo compartments in the rear, he could move smaller vessels inside as he worked on them, making the process more efficient and comfortable for the crew of the crippled ship. He’d done this on a few occasions, but not enough to justify the expense. Mainly, Copernicus kept the Borkis as his flying base of operations. He was on his own in The Shadow, so he carried with him an impressive array of weapons and emergency supplies generously provided by Earth. Coop maintained a small repair facility on a planet in the next system from Resnor, a place called Sorakin, but spent little time there. He couldn’t do his job unless he was out boarding Cartel starships and milking them of their secrets. Besides, he had no intention of putting down roots in the area. He would complete his mission and move on. And that couldn’t come soon enough.

  The reason Coop came to Resnor this time was to follow up on a lead he’d put together from the navigation readouts of three Ryness Cartel ships he’d worked on recently. At different times during the past ninety days, all three had left Resnor to go on raiding missions. That wasn’t unusual. The planet supplied fuel pods to the vessels, along with other provisions and even replacement crew. What was unusual was that the ships had each come to the Resnor a few months earlier and without carrying cargo or heading off afterward on raiding missions. They would simply arrive, stay for four days and then leave. And each time, they took off to other parts of The Shadow without carrying any cargo listed in the computers. Were they messengers, carrying critical correspondents where even CW comms couldn’t be trusted? Or were they personnel shuttles, transporting Cartel VIPs from one planet to another? Their movements didn’t make sense, which made them suspect. Cartel raiders didn’t make frivolous trips. If anything, they would head out to transit points and sit there, waiting for prey. Most times, however, they had specific targets in mind, which made Earth Intel suspect that the Ryness was working with another entity, one that had access to ship movements on both sides of the border. That would make them much better connected than first thought, and hence, more of a threat. And it was like this since the first day they showed up, with no learning curve or making any obvious mistakes.

  And then the way they played with the authorities for both empires. The Cartel had advanced noticed of where and when Union and Expansion patrols could be found; in fact, Saans Vos had confessed to that earlier, knowing that a Juirean ship had been sent out and what time it would arrive at the stricken raider. They did the same on the Human side of the border.

  They had to have informants on the inside. That wasn’t too hard to do in the Union but virtually impossible within the Juirean governmental structure. Juireans didn’t trust anyone, and they rarely turned against their own kind.

  To Copernicus and his handlers, there was more to the Ryness Cartel than met the eye.

  Chapter 3

  Coop coughed as he left his ship, sucking in the filthy exhaust from a recent liftoff. The spaceport had a crude and crumbling layer of tarmac marking its boundaries, but no one cared to it. There were foot-wide cracks, muddy puddles and even a few impact craters from either landings or take-offs that went bad.

  It was late afternoon in this part of Resnor, with a stiff breeze blowing down from the North. Starships were lifting off and landing in the back part of the facility, beating the moratorium on after-dark operations. There weren’t many comings and goings happening after dark; the port’s instrument landing system was crude, to say the least. For safety reasons, most landings were done by line-of-sight and during daylight hours.

  There was a time when Coop would have felt right at home in such a place. But he was getting older—now forty-one—and savored his creature comforts a little more these days. He couldn’t wait to finish this mission before heading back to Earth for a rare visit. It had been years since he’d been to the homeworld. Some of that time off the planet hadn’t been his choice, but that’s another story.

  Fifteen minutes later, Copernicus approached the worn-down shack that was the office of the Harbor Master. There was a crowd nearby that caught his attention; a presentation of some kind was taking place. He walked over to get a better look.

  As it was everywhere he went on Resnor, Copernicus was the only Human in the crowd. But that wasn’t saying much. Everyone here was an alien to the planet, with very few of the same species. Resnor was a melting pot. When the refugees from the Dead Worlds swept through ten years ago, they mainly left in groups, leaving only the stragglers that had hitched a ride away from Kracion’s deadly attacks. With nowhere else to go, they settled on Resnor, and mainly in the festering sore of a city that was Dashious.

  A pair of well-dressed, green-skinned aliens were giving a demonstration. Coop recognized them as employees of Xan-fi from the myriad of long-barrel weapons they had on a table. To his surprise, there were also a pair of black handguns, and they weren’t MKs.

  So, the rumors are true, Coop thought. Xan-fi is branching out. He snickered. That’s going to piss off MK. For a thousand years, the two companies had respected an ancient agreement worked out by their founders: MK would make the handguns, while Xan-fi made the rifles. Unfortunately, that left Xan-fi at a disadvantage, as rifles were more expensive and harder to carry. As the centuries passed, MK rapidly took the lead, growing to become the largest privately-owned business in the galaxy. Even so, Xan-fi couldn’t complain. They were number two.