Thomas Webb

  Hidden Nemesis

  The Separatist Wars: Book One

  First published by Valiant House Press 2019

  Copyright © 2019 by Thomas Webb

  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.

  Visit the Author at www.thomaswebbbooks.com

  First edition

  This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy

  Find out more at reedsy.com

  Contents

  -1-

  -2-

  -3-

  -4-

  -5-

  -6-

  -7-

  -8-

  -9-

  -10-

  -11-

  -12-

  -13-

  -14-

  -15-

  -16-

  -17-

  -18-

  -19-

  -20-

  -21-

  -22-

  -23-

  -24-

  -25-

  -26-

  -27-

  -28-

  -29-

  -30-

  The Separatist Wars Continues. . .

  You Can’t Keep a Good Marine Down

  Glossary of Terms

  Also by Thomas Webb

  -1-

  Anesu moved swiftly through the capital city of Earth’s moon, checking the reflective surfaces both beside and behind her as she made her way down the crowded city street. Once upon a time SDR’s—surveillance detection routes—had been a way of life for her. And now here she was again, the tradecraft returning like an old, welcome friend.

  Anesu checked the Plexiglas of a nearby shop, and her eyes went wide; the two men half a block back were most certainly following her. She breathed in, clutching her ancient canvas messenger bag and forcing herself to remain calm. Panic killed just as quickly as a well-placed pulse round. It was the first of many lessons they taught the operators of the Kushite Royal Guard.

  Anesu slipped away, her steps both graceful and urgent, past a holographic sign advertising trips to an outer colony resort world. With her close-cropped hair, lithe frame, dark brown skin, and eyes the color of rich coffee, Anesu blended in with the mélange of the moon city’s inhabitants. Luna was comprised of a bustling mix—humans from both Earth and the Outer Colonies, alien races from planets that were part of the Interstellar Accords, and everything in between. Here, Anesu was just another tourist. The anonymity that the Moon city offered was probably why her source had picked it as a place to meet. He must have thought he’d be safe here.

  As it turned out, he was wrong.

  Anesu hurried past storefronts of plexglass and peristeel, ignoring the holographic salespeople hawking their wares. She passed all manner of beings, from Earth tourists to off-worlders. A group of children, their school uniforms bright, walked along the duracrete sidewalk. A teacher with garnet-red skin and a Delosian accent led them, reciting facts about Luna’s history as she pointed to the buildings around them. Anesu paused at an intersection, surrounded by the inhabitants and languages of a dozen planets, all waiting for the sleek personal vehicles and anti-grav cars to pass. A chime and a white light on the signal holo told her it was safe to cross.

  She hurried to the other side of the street, the scent of baking bread heady and warm for half a lunar block. She then followed the thoroughfare, making an abrupt left at the end of a section of art galleries.

  Anesu turned the corner onto a smaller side street. There she spotted her tail, trailing not far behind her. Two men. Both human, as far as she could tell. Both burly underneath nondescript jackets and slacks that were meant to help them blend in. But with their hulking builds, soldier’s movements, and the bulges beneath their coats, they stood out from the other inhabitants of the domed city like errant solar flares.

  How did it come to this? Anesu asked herself, though she already knew the answer. She’d served her time in the Kushite Royal Guard, helping to build the nation-kingdom of Kush into one of the mightiest countries on Earth. The kingdom had grown so strong, in fact, that they’d refused to join the United Nations, preferring instead to rule autonomously.

  Anesu had been an exceptional soldier and, later on, intelligence operative. She’d served her kingdom with distinction, right up until she’d tired of doing the government’s dirty work. Until she decided, instead, to seek out only the truth. That was how she’d found her way to journalism. And also how, she guessed, she’d drawn the attention of the two men who now pursued her.

  Anesu ducked behind a metallic office building shaped like a bright silver spire, then slipped into a narrow alleyway. Like all of Luna, the alley was spotless. The city practically sparkled, scrubbed clean each morning by the domed city’s fleet of automated service bots. She pressed her back to the wall, panting, and wondered how she would subdue the two men following her. Strange, to be contemplating violence in such a peaceful and pristine place as the capital city of Earth’s moon.

  Anesu gave her messenger bag a pat, reassuring herself that the box was still in there. Then she moved carefully to the other side of the alleyway. Sensing no immediate danger, she moved out onto the street and rejoined the flow of human, android, and alien foot traffic. When she was nestled among the crowd, Anesu spared a glance backward and caught sight of them again. The two brutes shoved their way through the afternoon rush, paying no attention to those they pushed aside. They were sloppy. Neither made much of an attempt to slip back out of her line of sight.

  They were sloppy, yes-but no less dangerous, if they managed to catch up to her.

  Anesu increased her pace before ducking into the entrance of a small clothing shop. The door hissed open, emitting a chime as she entered.

  “Hello, and welcome.”

  The clerk, a plump Salusian female, perhaps in her early sixties, greeted Anesu in Earth-standard English.

  “Hello,” Anesu replied, taking in the shop with a practiced eye. A few worried seconds passed before she spotted what she’d been hoping to see-a back exit.

  The clerk offered up what passed for a Salusian smile. “Anything I can help you with?” she asked, her pink skin glowing underneath the artificial lights.

  Anesu’s eyes darted back and forth, her attention divided between the rear exit and the front door. She spotted the men, now just outside.

  They’d found her. And they’d be on her in seconds.

  “No,” Anesu replied, tying to think. “Thank you,” she added. “I’ll let you know if I need any help.”

  “Alright,” the clerk said. “I’ll be right here if you need anything.” She returned her attention to a small holo screen floating to the left of the shop’s credit scanning station. The dialogue from a popular Salusian soap opera blended in with the background music of the shop.

  Anesu grabbed the first garment she saw-a green silk dress-from the rack and slipped into the changing room. As she shut the door, the shop’s front entrance slid open with a hiss.

  “Can I help you gentlemen?” She heard the clerk ask. Anesu stood stock-still inside the small dressing room, listening.

  The two men made no reply. Anesu heard nothing, except for the droning of the actors on the holo screen and the heavy stomp of booted feet trudging through the store.

  Anesu dropped the garment and reached inside her bag, retrieving two items—the small box containing the thing that had cost the arms dealer his life, and a piece of experimental tech secured from a friend who worked in the Kingdom’s top-secret research and development wing.

  Anesu eyed the untried technology—a flat piece of nondescript metal alloy the size of a handheld personal comm device—with skepticism.

  I hope this works, she thought.

  She activated the device, coded specifically to her DNA, with a simple touch. The square of metal grew warm in her hand and began to vibrate, emitting a slight hum.

  According to Shemi, her friend in R&D, the device would open a slight tear in subspace, accessible only by her. It would make for the perfect hiding place. If it worked, that was.

  She held the arms dealer’s box next to the device, just as Shemi had instructed her. The humming increased, the metal square becoming a blur in her hand. There was a brief flash of blue light, and the box was gone.

  Anesu breathed a sigh of relief. She had no idea how the thing worked. Only that it had, and that she was glad for it. With the object safely tucked away in subspace, Anesu turned her attention toward her more immediate problem—namely, how she was going to get out of this store.

  Anesu closed her eyes and breathed in deep, centering herself. A moment later she opened them again, now calm and ready, and prepared for what was to come. She removed her messenger bag and set it on the changing room bench. Then she picked up the silk dress, gripping it tight as she opened the changing room door.

  The two men spotted her immediately, wasting no time in coming for her. When they were only a few meters away, one man paused, allowing the other to approach her first. So they would come for her one at a time, then? Perhaps they

thought her easy prey? Another amateur mistake.

  Anesu set her feet in a fighting stance. I may have given these men more credit than they deserved.

  The first one swung, the action eliciting an audible gasp from the clerk. Anesu slipped the punch and twisted the green dress around the man’s wrist, pulling him in and slamming home an upward strike to his throat in the process. She then grabbed the back of the larger man’s neck with both hands, squaring him in front of her and snatching his head downward. With the man temporarily stunned, Anesu delivered a vicious set of Muay Thai knees to his gut, solar plexus, and face.

  “I’m calling the authorities!” the clerk shouted, reaching for her personal comm.

  Anesu’s second attacker, smarter than the first and wanting no part of the former Kushite Royal Guard’s unarmed combat skills, pulled his pulse pistol. The clerk screamed and dropped behind the counter.

  As she held the first man down, Anesu spotted a pulse pistol shoved into his belt against the small of his back. Anesu yanked the pistol free, stood Attacker Number One up and spun him around as his partner opened fire.

  The clerk screamed again. Anesu heard and felt the thump thump thump as the pulse rounds impacted her human shield, then felt the man spasm and die in her grasp. Before the fresh corpse fell, she shoved her commandeered pulse pistol underneath its armpit and fired. Together Anesu and her reluctant protector’s corpse collapsed to their knees.

  Anesu combat-glanced at the pistol’s pulse magazine, checking the power level. She’d pumped half the charge mag into Attacker Number Two before she released the trigger.

  She shoved the body of her first attacker away and stood. A millisecond later she was headed for the rear exit, leaving the two dead men and the poor screaming clerk behind to sort it out for themselves.

  The wail of the Luna City Cyber Police sirens began ringing in her ears.

  “Fala!” she swore to herself. I knew interviewing that arms dealer was a terrible idea!

  She cursed her own stubbornness, and her foolish quest to find the truth, no matter the cost, while she was at it. The arms dealer had died before she was even able to understand whatever he’d given her. Now someone was after what he’d left for her at the drop site, and that same someone had almost gotten to her.

  She’d have to be more cautious. More careful. And she had to do something with the mysterious item the arms dealer had left her before he was killed. She rushed to the changing room and retrieved her bag, taking a quick look inside to make sure the subspace device was still there, then whispering a prayer of thanks when she saw that it was.

  Desperate to get her newfound intel into the hands of someone who could help her make sense of it, Anesu raced past the other changing rooms and burst through the back door.

  Right into the barrels of four waiting pulse rifles.

  “Don’t move Ms. Chewasa,” the lead woman, a tall blonde with lifeless eyes, sunburnt cheeks, and a scar across her jaw, said. “And don’t even think about trying anything.” The woman pointed at the bag over Anesu’s shoulder and the pulse pistol in Anesu’s hand. “Just put the bag down. And place the pistol on the ground. Slowly, if you please.”

  Anesu eyed the door behind her, calculating whether or not she could get inside and close it faster than those pulse rifles could sight in and fire. All thoughts of the possible escape route vanished when a tall Andarian armed with his own pulse pistol strolled out.

  She was caught. She swore to herself, more angry than afraid.

  Anesu made a show of dropping the pulse mag from the weapon, while at the same time touching the bracelet on her wrist. A tiny nanobyte drone zipped from a fold in her clothing, unseen.

  Anesu slid the worn canvas bag over head, kneeling to set both the bag and the pistol down in front of her. Then she stood and placed both hands in the air. They would sweep her for tracking devices and external nanotech as soon as they got her someplace quiet. Thanks to her sleight of hand with the pulse magazine, they wouldn’t find any. She mouthed a silent prayer to the Gods that the nanobyte drone would reach its destination. The approaching wail of the android authorities grew louder.

  “Make sure those cyber cops are suppressed,” The woman ordered one of the others. “Wouldn’t want them interfering. You-,” she pointed to the Andarian blocking the door behind Anesu. “Clear her for weapons.”

  The Andarian searched her, his pale blue hands patting down her jacket, scarf, and cargo pants. She watched as he kicked the pulse pistol away, and confiscated the knife hidden in her right boot. He took her personal comm device as well. When he was satisfied, he nodded to the woman.

  Anesu frowned. His search had been disappointingly thorough.

  “Nice work Tharos,” the blonde said to the Andarian. “Get her secured. And watch yourself—she took out two of our hired locals without even breaking a sweat. The rest of you, cover her.”

  The woman keyed up her comm unit. “Overlord-this is team one,” she said. “We have the package. Repeat-we have the package.”

  -2-

  Hale breathed out as he pushed up and off the duracrete. His back he held rigid. His toes he’d placed up on the thin edge of the bed frame. He exhaled again as his hands pressed into the grey engineered material that comprised the floor.

  The room was a study in whites and greys, the space both sparse and clinical. A viewscreen dominated one entire wall, its images of planets, celestial bodies, and landscapes shifting and changing at precise, thirty-second intervals. This was a cold, sterile environment, and for the last four weeks it had comprised almost the entirety of Trace Hale’s world.

  It was the nicest prison cell Trace had ever been in.

  Hale pushed again, savoring the burn in his arms, chest, and back. He’d been working elevated pushups for the last few minutes. He was just now feeling his pump, working up a nice, even sweat. Hale smirked. Life in the brig isn’t so bad.

  He could still say that to himself, only one month deep into a six month-stretch. But how would he feel three months from now? Or four?

  Hale kept pushing, his breaths coming more labored now. He grunted with exertion. The PT, or Physical Training, was one of the few things that kept his mind focused and sharp. That, along with copious amounts of meditation-a nice little trick he’d picked during a six-month pump onboard a deep space battle cruiser.

  Yeah. The brig wasn’t so bad.

  “Could have been a hell of a lot worse,” Hale snarled to himself.

  After all, beating the ever-living shit out of a superior officer-even one who was so clearly in the wrong, and who had subsequently fled from the authorities-was severely frowned upon in the Corps.

  Hale continued to push, breathing in the antiseptic scent of his cell and breathing out the same. He heard the young lance corporal’s approaching boot steps, listening for some time before she even came into view.

  She was short and petite, with a splash of freckles across her nose and cheeks. Her mousey brown hair was pulled back into a tight bun. The buckle of the duty belt around the waist of her camo armor was hand-polished to a bright, brassy shine. You had to love that military sense of tradition.

  The lance corporal grinned as she came to a halt outside Hale’s cell. “How you doing this fine Marine Corps day, Staff Sergeant?”

  Hale shook his head and smiled. Even when your whole world went to shit, there were still some things you could believe in—and the eternal optimism of lance corporals was one of them.

  “I’m good Marine,” Hale replied. He pumped out one final pushup. “You back so soon?” She’d only just delivered him his morning chow, not two hours before.

  Hale put his feet on the deck and stood to his full height, not bothering to cover his torso. He watched her eyes steal down to his chest, still covered in sweat. Hale didn’t consider himself a bad looking guy. He had the otherworldly beauty of his Swedish mother and the square jaw of a handsome father of African descent to thank for much of that. Being nearly two meters tall and weighing in at one-hundred-six kilograms of fairly chiseled muscle didn’t hurt either, he supposed. The young lance corporal’s reaction seemed to back that assumption up.

  Hale did alright for himself in the romance department, when he had the inclination. Or the time. Or when he wasn’t locked up in a military prison. For a second he wondered if fraternization was still a punishable offense . . . if you’d already done your time in the brig and been dishonorably discharged first, that was.

 

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