ARC Angel Read online

  ARC Angel

  by

  Toby Neighbors

  ARC Angel

  © 2018, Toby Neighbors

  Published by Mythic Adventure Publishing, LLC

  Idaho, USA

  All Rights Reserved No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any print or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  Copy Editing by Alexandra Mandzak

  Books By Toby Neighbors

  Jack & Roxie

  Avondale

  Draggah

  Balestone

  Arcanius

  Avondale V

  Wizard Rising

  Magic Awakening

  Hidden Fire

  Fierce Loyalty

  Crying Havoc

  Evil Tide

  Wizard Falling

  Chaos Descending

  Into Chaos

  Chaos Reigning

  Chaos Raging

  Controlling Chaos

  Killing Chaos

  Lorik

  Lorik the Defender

  Lorik the Protector

  The Vault Of Mysteries

  Lords Of Ascension

  The Elusive Executioner

  Third Prince

  Royal Destiny

  The Other Side

  The New World

  Zompocalypse Omnibus

  We Are The Wolf

  Welcome To The Wolfpack

  Embracing Oblivion

  Joined In Battle

  The Abyss Of Savagery

  My Lady Sorceress

  The Man With No Hands

  Dedication

  To my angel, the woman who can overcome all odds,

  who inspires me every single day

  and who fills my world with her light.

  Sunshine Dreamer Neighbors

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  COLONIAL SPACE FLEET

  DEPARTMENT OF THE MARINE CORPS

  HEADQUARTERS OF THE CANNIS ONE GARRISON

  CAMP NAPOLEON, SHEPHERD CITY,

  MEMORANDUM FOR FLEET STAFF OFFICERS

  SUBJECT: New species behavior, first contact

  Concerning alien race hereafter designated as “swarm,” first identified through satellite imagery six days ago.

  The swarm, which were first thought to be an insectile race much like honey bees on Earth, have now begun to move across the ground en masse. Our efforts to track the swarm have been ineffective. Without constant visual contact, the swarm disappears at night. Efforts to use infrared and thermal imagining to track the swarm have failed.

  The swarm are consuming planetary resources at an alarming rate. The closest we can come to describing their behavior is that it is similar to that of locusts. The swarm consume everything in their path: water, minerals, botanical and animal life, as well as manmade structures.

  First contact was made at the Stillwell outpost, nine hundred and seventy kilometers north of Shepherd City. The outpost, which consisted of two buildings, one residential domicile, one maintenance shed, was overrun. The crops were consumed, along with the buildings, vehicles, and farming implements. All attempts to halt the swarm or initiate communications failed.

  One soldier was KIA while trying to initiate contact with the swarm. His body is missing and believed to be consumed.

  Cannis One Garrison Unit designated Charlie Platoon was forced to retreat after engaging the swarm. All reports indicate that conventional weapons have failed. CSF forces are gearing up to help with evacuation protocol.

  Request further orders in dealing with what can only be classified as an alien threat. The swarm is growing and at this rate will overrun the entire colony in a matter of weeks. Suggestions from planetside include but are not limited to aerial bombardment, smart weapons, engineered ordinance, and increased troop presence to protect the larger settlements.

  Fleet Operations Command Station

  Mars Orbit, Sol System

  “As you can see from this sat footage, the primary settlement was overrun,” Colonel Issak Jakobson said.

  “Damn, that’s over eighteen thousand colonists,” Fleet Admiral Basil Jennings said.

  He was a big man with a commanding presence. His naval uniform was spotless and the ribbons on his wide chest seemed strangely small on the broad expanse, despite the numerous recognitions he had earned in a career that spanned over three decades. His white hair was neatly combed in place. His face was lined with deep wrinkles that contrasted with his eyes, which were sharp and focused on the Marine colonel giving the intelligence report.

  “The planet is lost,” Jakobson continued. “We could recover the satellites but nothing on the ground.”

  “You’re telling me there’s nothing we can do to remove these interlopers,” Marine Corps Commandant Henrich Fuller said in a deep voice.

  “What I’m saying is the swarm adapts to whatever attacks we throw at them. The only weapons we haven’t tried are nuclear weapons, which would destroy the swarms and kill the queens, I suppose, but at what cost?”

  “Let’s not have that discussion again,” Admiral Jennings ordered. “We aren’t going to break every treaty of the past century by using nukes. We’ve lost Cannis One, that’s settled for now. What about the other colonies?”

  “We have reports of possible infestation on Neo Terra in the Tau Ceti system, although the swarms haven’t been located. There are also indications that Centauri Prime has been infected.”

  “What the hell!” Fuller rumbled. “That’s the damn Alpha Centauri system, less than five light years from Earth.”

  “We have to do something,” Marshal General Allison Sinclare said. “If we hit them before they swarm we could take the queen out.”

  “Only if we can find them,” Colonel Jakobson said. “So far we’ve been unsuccessful at discovering where they go once they make planet fall.”

  “So these creatures hit our colony planets and we can’t do anything? Is that what you’re telling me, Colonel?” Fleet Admiral Jennings said angrily.

  “Actually, sir, what I’m trying to say is that we haven’t found a successful tactic against the swarm. As you know the aliens are like locusts. They feed on a planet’s resources: water, minerals, plant life, you name it. Cities are no exception, they consume the manmade materials, concrete, glass, ceramics. They even consume the chemicals in the bombs we set as traps. Less than twenty-five percent of the engineered ordinance we set up actually detonated as planned.”

  “Tanks on the ground,” Commandant Fuller declared. “We can plow right through those bastards and take out their queen.”

  “Actually, that was tried on Cannis One,” Jakobson corrected the head of the Space Fleet’s Marine Corps. The tanks move too slowly, their ordinance is too easy to detect and evade. Drone strikes are the same. All our weapons are built to move in a straight line.”

  “The path of least resistance,” Marshal Sinclare said.

  “That’s correct. We have smart missiles that can track enemies who try to evade, but the swarm is, by all accounts, a hive mind. That means that all the creatures are controlled by a single source, which we believe to be the queen. When we shoot at the hive, no matter what the ordinance we use, they simply separate. Our bullets and missiles fly harmlessly past them. Then they reform into an organized group. When we target the center of the swarm, hoping to kill their queen, they form up around her and protect her with their lives.”

  “Everyone has a weakness,” Jennings said. “We just have to find it
and exploit it.”

  “Give me the green light, Admiral,” Fuller said. “We’ll land enough men and weapons to stop these creatures.”

  “Weren’t you listening at all,” Marshal Sinclare said. She was head of the Fleet’s Air Forces, managing all manned fighter craft and drones. She had a PhD in aeronautical engineering, and more than ten thousand hours in various atmospheric and hard vacuum fighter jets. Her hair was tied back in a tight ponytail without a single strand out of place. No make-up, and a small mouth that rarely smiled, she was respected in all three branches of the Colonial Space Fleet. “Throwing more men and guns at the problem won’t change anything.”

  “I respectfully disagree,” Fuller said. “All we’ve ever done is utilize the small garrison on Cannis One. We didn’t hit these bastards with any real force.”

  “Overwhelming firepower would, we believe, have an effect on the swarms,” Colonel Jakobson said. “Unfortunately, it would be very costly and time consuming. And that doesn’t take into account the possibility of the swarm changing tactics. We don’t know if they are intelligent fighters. To this point, their straight forward attacks have proven successful. If we send in enough troops to stop their advance, they might simply retreat and choose a different target. Worse still, with their greater speed and continuity, they could flank our forces.”

  “The colonies on Neo Terra and Alpha Prime are much larger than Cannis One,” Sinclare added. “They have multiple cities with large populations. We don’t have the manpower to protect them all. You put troops on the ground in one location, the swarm could simply attack another. We can’t move all our people fast enough. We could build up drone companies and have them deploy from orbit at the first sign of the enemy. It won’t be cheap but it will be faster and less dangerous.”

  “Unfortunately, we don’t think drones will suffice,” Colonel Jakobson said. “Let me introduce Lieutenant Commander Hikari Sozu. She’s been working on finding a solution to the problem and has more knowledge of the swarm than I do.”

  “Hello,” Hikari Sozu said nervously, stepping toward the table where the three highest-ranking officers in the CSF sat waiting for her report. She could feel her hands trembling and her knees were weak. She didn’t like giving reports, or really even interacting with people she didn’t know well. As a scientist in the CSF Research & Development division, her job was to analyze problems and come up with creative solutions, which she normally did in a small office all alone. Her work had never been picked up by her superiors until recently, and she was sorely out of practice when it came to reporting to high-ranking officers. “We don’t think the drones would be successful because we can’t be sure that the swarm wouldn’t interfere with the remote controls.”

  “We don’t know how they communicate, do we?” Fuller said. “How the hell can we know they would disrupt the drone signals?”

  “We don’t know how they share information,” Sozu agreed. “But we know it isn’t through verbalizations. We have video footage of the swarms from Cannis One. We’ve analyzed it extensively. They don’t leave their dead behind, so we haven’t been able to dissect one of them to really know how they operate, but our drone operators have reported interference with their craft when engaging the swarm.”

  “Well, we can’t bet the lives of thousands of colonists on our drones working if they might have a way to interfere with the controls,” the fleet admiral said.

  “We should at least try,” Marshal Sinclare said. “We don’t know that the swarms can stop our birds.”

  “Yes, I agree,” Admiral Jennings said. “But we can’t count on the drones. We need a contingency plan, which is what I’m hoping we’re getting to, Colonel Jakobson.”

  “Yes, of course, Admiral,” the chief of intelligence nodded in agreement. “Lieutenant Commander Sozu has a very interesting theory on what might actually work.”

  “We’re all ears,” the admiral said.

  “Excellent, okay,” Sozu said, trying to calm her nerves. “The problem with our attacks is the linear nature of our weapons and the superior coherency of the hive mind. None of our traditional weapons or vehicles can move fast enough to be effective against them.”

  “We have drones that can reach mach 8,” Marshal Sinclare said. “That isn’t fast enough?”

  “I’m afraid I miscommunicated,” Sozu said. She was Japanese American, and spoke English fluently without an accent, yet she often found verbal communication difficult. “What I meant to say was that we can’t change direction fast enough. The swarm can avoid a bullet because bullets travel in a straight line. What we need is something that is unpredictable. Something that will confuse and possibly disorient the swarm’s hive mind.”

  “And you have a solution I hope?” Admiral Jennings asked.

  “I have developed an Assisted Rapid Combat suit that would allow us to move quickly and in unpredictable patterns. With the right pilots I’m confident the ARC suits would give us an advantage in our attacks.”

  “You want to fight the swarms in mechanized suits?” Fuller asked.

  “No, not fight,” Sozu said. “The ARC mech suit would merely confuse and disorient the swarms, allowing the conventional forces to be more effective.”

  “And you’ve tested these ARC suits?” Admiral Jennings said. “They’re ready to deploy?”

  “We have a prototype, Admiral,” Jakobson said. “We weren’t ready to allocate funds for full development without the joint chiefs’ approval.”

  “You have it, Colonel. I want every option available before we lose cities on any more colony worlds. And nothing from this meeting gets out, people. The last thing we need is to start a panic on Earth about a possible alien invasion.”

  “Will these new mechs be under my command, Admiral?” Commandant Fuller asked.

  “Do they fly?” Jennings asked Sozu.

  “No sir, they don’t fly in the conventional sense,” she said.

  “Fine, they’ll be a Marine unit when they come online. We don’t have a lot of time here, people. We’ll be sending two armadas with everything we’ve got to Neo Terra and Alpha Prime. Let’s start moving people and resources ASAP. We’ve got an empire to save. Let’s get it done.”

  Regional Gymnastic Meet

  Bakersfield, California, U.S.A.

  She was breathing hard, but she stuck the landing and all she had to do was wait for the judges’ scores. All the training, all the sacrifices were worth it in that moment. She had just given her best floor performance ever, and it was enough, she hoped, to make the team. There were scouts in the stands, she knew that, everyone in the building knew that. She had narrowly missed the national team last year, and she was big enough to be the base, which meant she had less competition from the younger girls.

  Angela “Angel” Murphy walked quickly over to the bench where her coach was waiting. He gave her a thumbs up and a quick smile. She knew he preferred working with the younger girls, but unlike most people in gymnastics circles, he had looked beyond her body size and judged Angel on her talent. She was good, better than most, and despite her large frame, was as agile as any girl half her size. Angel was eighteen, a dinosaur in most competitions, and almost six feet tall. She weighed one hundred and fifty pounds with a body mass index of 18, which was officially considered underweight, but almost every other competitor in her sport looked at Angel as if she were a whale.

  Angel had learned to deal with the looks, from sidelong glances to the flat out stares of the most snobbish people in her sport. It wasn’t just the athletes either, the judges and coaches were just as biased toward pixies, a term that had taken hold in gymnast circles to describe the undersized competitors who typically won the all-around competitions. Angel had no control over her genetics. She had to work twice as hard as everyone else in her sport, yet she loved the absolute control she demanded from her body. Too big for most of the events, she was an animal at the floor competition. She had the strength to tumble and jump as well, if not better than most pix
ies. And she had the body control that allowed her to bring a sense of style to her performance that most competitors lacked.

  It was more than enough to land her a spot on the national team, and from there she could secure her place on the next Olympic squad. All she needed was a good score from the judges, and Angel was certain they would give her top marks. She had hit every move, never getting out of balance, and certainly not falling. Her final landing hadn’t been perfect, the nerves finally getting to her, but it had been good. This was her year, she could feel it in her big bones.

  “Fantastic job,” Natalie said as she scooted closer on their team bench. “You were amazing.”

  “Thanks,” Angel said, finally catching her breath.

  The other girls on her team respected Angel, but Natalie was her only friend. The younger girl was only fifteen, and at an age where her body was outgrowing her strength. She was struggling with balance issues even though she was only one hundred and ten pounds. Angel thought that Natalie’s problems, which had occurred only after breaking into the triple digits with her weight, were more mental than physical.

  “You’ll make it,” Natalie said. “I know it.”

  “Don’t jinx it,” Angel said.

  The scores came up on the oversized display that hung on the far wall of the gymnasium. Angel’s heart dropped and she felt tears stinging her eyes. No one had ever accused the gymnast community of scoring fairly, and once again the judges had failed to look past Angel’s size. The scores were well below what they should have been and Angel dropped her head in defeat.

  “This isn’t fair!” Natalie shouted. “Were the judges even watching her?”

  “Enough, Parkins,” their coach chided. “We respect the judges even when we disagree.”