Asteroid Return: An Arek Lancer Novella Read online

  What kind of strings did Jessups pull to manage to get all that from the notoriously money tight 2Es. Also, what kind of future favor would be owed?

  “We owed you,” Jessups said and I understood that he meant for more than just this mission.

  Curious I linked my wristcomm to the stations system and pulled up my account. It took a bit but once I got connected I was a little shocked. That was a lot of money. Well, not really in the grand scheme of things, but for me it was a good chunk of credits. More than I’d had in the account for awhile.

  The amount of money that definitely owed a future favor.

  I’d be hearing from Jessups in the near future.

  The question was now how to spend the money. Could get some needed repairs done on the Nomad’s Wind? Or save it for future rainy days which tended to be almost all of them? Some of both?

  We kept walking towards the docking ring and I could tell that Jessups had more to say. I knew him well enough to know that what he wanted to say, he probably shouldn’t.

  A couple Europans walked by, providing their version of a salute to Jessups who returned it. I looked over my shoulder at them. One almost all gray, the other black with some gray spots.

  Humans were no match physically for the Tiat and that had always been a big advantage the Tiat held over us. Thesans had their natural agility but us Terrans had nothing to counter that advantage. But the Europans were the Tiat’s physical equals. It looked like the 2E leadership had finally come up with a way to offset that disadvantage.

  “So did the Europans volunteer to join the Expeditionary Forces or were they convinced?”

  Jessups gave me a sad smile. He suddenly looked older, more weary. The load on his shoulders was heavier than I had thought. I suddenly had the realization that he wasn’t being allowed to retire and fade away into the sunset. The 2Es needed him.

  And he now had his opening to speak.

  “Things aren’t as peaceful as they seem,” he said glancing around. We were alone. “We think there will be another Galactic War in the next ten years, maybe less.”

  Things were never truly peaceful as I well knew. I’d just helped blow up a Tiat facility afterall. But what Jessups was saying, that was shocking. Not good at all. The truce and cold war was fine, the rest of the galaxy didn’t care if we sniped at each other in the background. But things were moving towards a full on war?

  I lived the last war. Parts of the galaxy were still recovering.

  A new one would be worse.

  “And we may not have the allies we thought we would,” he added.

  I looked at him. That was surprising. The Tiat were hated. To a lesser extent so were we but no one sided with the Tiat ever, not even their supposed allies.

  “The greater galaxy has always been angry with us,” Jessups began. “Our early expansions sparked the Third Galactic War and we didn’t learn our lessons. Even now with the threat of war and the trouble on Rewe, we’re planning an Expeditionary Flight. Probes went out over a year ago and next month the scouts are scheduled to leave. The rest of the Flight will be a couple months after that, long enough to make sure the beacons stabilize. The Planetary Council has been trying to talk us out of it for months.”

  We had expanded quickly to the two other planets we controlled, the ones outside our home solar system of Sol. But those had been planets we knew about, colonization aided by the Thesans.

  There had been only one Expeditionary Flight in my lifetime. The one to Rewe. Standard procedure was to send out drone probes into wildspace with programming to hop out randomly. They’d do a rudimentary analysis of the system, if they managed to arrive safely in a system, and then hop to the next charted system. Eventually, after a set time, they’d follow the hop path back. Lots of smart folks back on Earth would analyze the data and determine the next system to expand into. Scout ships would go out, set up beacons and colonists would arrive soon after.

  Honestly, I didn’t blame the galaxy for being angry with us. Humans and our need to expand had caused millions of deaths in the galaxy already. And it seemed like we were going to cause more. There was a lot of risk in our style of expansion. Who knows what we’d run into out there. What other civilizations or beings. We could end up poking the bear and not liking the response.

  We walked a while in silence. I could tell the future was weighing heavily on Jessups.

  “You said we may not have the allies, but once they’re told about the virus the Dyer, Engyn and Serit will stand with us?,” I asked.

  Jessups long pause really told me what I needed to know.

  “The speculation of a virus you mean,” he started with a sign. “Until we can decode what the team brought back, we have no proof. We’ll inform the planetary governments of the experiments and they’ll do what they want with the information. Can’t inform the Planetary Council without true proof. We may not even tell the Engyn.”

  Which might be a good idea. The species was blunt to a fault. They had no filter. They did what they said, didn’t hide what they felt. They were not good at keeping secrets. Telling them that the Tiat were experimenting on captured Engyn would probably be enough for the Engyn to start the next war themselves.

  “The Serit have been moving towards isolation for years and this could just push them further. The Dyer, we’ll tell them, and they’ll start their own clandestine investigation and operations.”

  We stopped outside an unmarked door and Jessups looked up and down the corridor before speaking again.

  “Destroying the facility was a mistake in hindsight,” he said. “Now the Tiat know we are aware of the experiments. If there are other facilities, they’ll tighten security or move them. They could cease operations altogether and all this concern will be for nothing. It’ll be us and our allies chasing our tails and wasting resources. That’s what I’d do.” He shook his head. The situation was not good and was only going to get worse. “Or they double their resources into the project and finish it that much quicker. There are too many variables and I’m afraid we may never catch this one.”

  I didn’t envy Jessups or anyone in the 2E right now. Not even Coulson who was also going to be neck deep in this mess and of course doing what he needed to come out smelling good.

  But that wasn’t my concern. Not today.

  The door opened and Kristin stood there, smiling at me. She was pushed aside and Kaylia ran out of the room, jumping into my arms.

  I hugged her tight and for that moment there was no impending war, no potential species killing virus, nothing but her. And all was right in the galaxy.

  Author’s Note

  Here it is, finally, the third book in the Arek Lancer series. I hope it was worth the wait.

  I’m hard at work on the fourth book starring Arek and Kaylia. The working title is “Moon-Sized Debt” and if you’ve read all the Lancer stories, including the shorts, then you might be able to piece together the plot.

  Notice I added Kaylia. She’s just as important to the stories now as Arek. It’s still Arek’s book, but Kaylia is always going to be there and have some kind of impact on Arek even if it’s just background like most of this one. But no Kaylia and no series.

  I never envisioned Kaylia when I set out to write the adventures of Arek Lancer. She just happened and she stuck around. Which changed the whole series. The Jack Reacher/Han Solo/Malcolm Reynolds character I envisioned now had responsibilities. I had the idea of these three women that would feature and Arek would kind of bounce around between them. They’re still going to be here, in fact you’ve met two of them already, but it just won’t be as originally planned.

  Which ends up being a good thing I think. Hope you do too.

  I want to get three more Arek stories out this year. We’ll see if that happens. I’ve got a lot fires burning, including an Arek spin-off short story (that is planned to show up eventually on the Patreon page), and a new series. I’ve still got the second Taleweaver’s Song book to finish up and it’s proving to be the
most difficult thing I’ve ever written. It just does not want to be told, but I’ll make it eventually.

  And yes, the Patreon page is up and running. There you’ll find original content including exclusive stories set in my established universes as well as new. Currently, the first chapters in a Taleweaver’s Song story is being published there.

  If you like what I’m doing, please add a review on Amazon and Goodreads.

  As always, I hope you enjoyed this adventure and come back for more.

  Thanks for reading,

  Troy

  As always, you can find me on the web (Ossy Writes), twitter (@troynos), Amazon and Goodreads and don’t forget to join the Ossy's News mailing list.

  Please visit, and support, the Patreon page for exclusive content and original stories.

  Other Books by

  Troy Osgood

  www.ossywrites.com

  All stories available on Amazon unless noted otherwise. All stories ebook only unless noted otherwise.

  (Current at the time of publication)

  Short Stories

  Doom Walking

  Two Gunslingers

  Taleweaver’s Song

  (published by Barking Fire Publishing)

  The Skeleton Stone

  (print and ebook)

  Arek Lancer

  (published by Barking Fire Publishing)

  (listed in chronological order)

  Kinn’s Pirates

  (part of the New England Speculative Writer’s mailing list: http://newenglandspeculativewriters.com/mailinglist/)

  Delivery To Orso

  (available with sign-up to the Ossy’s News mailing list)

  The Last Child

  Armageddon Theft

  Asteroid Return

  Asteroid Return is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  First Edition 2019

  Copyright 2019 by Troy Osgood

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Barking Fire Publishing, Northwood New Hampshire

  Barking Fire Publishing and its logo are registered trademarks of Barking Fire Publishing, LLC

  Cover art by GermanCreative

  Barking Fire logo by Kat Howell

  www.barkingfirepublishing.com