Target: Earth (Extinction Wars Book 5)

  SF Books by Vaughn Heppner

  LOST STARSHIP SERIES:

  The Lost Starship

  The Lost Command

  The Lost Destroyer

  The Lost Colony

  The Lost Patrol

  The Lost Planet

  The Lost Earth

  The Lost Artifact

  THE A.I. SERIES:

  A.I. Destroyer

  The A.I. Gene

  A.I. Assault

  A.I. Battle Station

  A.I. Battle Fleet

  EXTINCTION WARS SERIES:

  Assault Troopers

  Planet Strike

  Star Viking

  Fortress Earth

  Target: Earth

  Visit VaughnHeppner.com for more information

  Target: Earth

  (Extinction Wars 5)

  by Vaughn Heppner

  Illustration © Tom Edwards

  TomEdwardsDesign.com

  Copyright © 2018 by the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the author.

  -1-

  I slipped through a forbidden hall to do the unthinkable because crazy guilt had consumed me for eight long years.

  It was dark within the corridor, but I wore special goggles that allowed me to see in the pitch-blackness. It was freezing in here as well, so I wore a special metallic-looking garment, a skintight thing that kept out the cold. A small bubble of warm air circled my head, generated by a tiny device attached to the base of my neck.

  I’m Creed, by the way, no longer Commander Creed of Earth, but the Curator’s Galactic Effectuator.

  Yeah, I know, you have no idea who the Curator is or what a Galactic Effectuator does. The Curator—an old man who looks like Michelangelo’s God, the one in the famous painting on the Sistine Chapel ceiling where He's reaching out to touch Adam’s finger and fill him with life—runs the Fortress of Light in the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. The Curator claims the place is the Creator’s, not his, but never expanded on the idea. The Fortress, or Museum, as some knew it, orbited the massive black hole at Sagittarius A*. One pronounces that as Sagittarius “A” Star, incidentally.

  I was the Curator’s Galactic Effectuator, as I said. The easiest way to understand that was to think of a glamorized movie spy, and that was me. I often left the Museum—the Fortress of Light—in a special stealth ship and took care of problems. Sometimes that meant liquidating a troublesome alien warlord. Sometimes that entailed sneaking into an ultra-powerful stronghold and removing an object that would otherwise cause future problems. Sometimes, I just poked into things here and there, and found out what was really going on, relaying the information back to the Curator.

  In many ways, I was his scalpel for cutting out trouble, and I’d done a damn fine job since resigning my post as Earth’s war-leader.

  Earthlings or humans are the little killers of galactic lore. According to legend, we’d been patterned after the First Ones—not given the same grand powers, but dangerous enough in our own right.

  Just so you know, I hadn’t had any communication with Earth these past eight years. There was a reason for that. Our galaxy was divided into varying levels or zones of civilization. Earth, for example, had a 6C Civilizational Score, which was low. Those in higher zones weren’t supposed to interfere with those in lower zones.

  As I hurried through the dark cold corridor, pangs of homesickness hit. That always happened when I came here.

  From somewhere ahead, I heard the floor creak as if by a stealthy footfall.

  I froze, my hand on a blaster secured to my hip. The blaster emitted what I thought of as a disrupter ray.

  I couldn’t just shoot, though. I wasn’t supposed to be in this part of the Fortress of Light. That meant killing the person ahead was probably out of the question. The best thing was to not get caught so I wouldn’t have to explain myself later.

  I released the blaster and eased into an alcove.

  Sometimes, the best Effectuator work was as simple as playing hide-and-go-seek like a kid.

  I heard another creak, an ominous sound that indicated someone big. Then—

  I leaned out of the alcove, straining to hear. I thought I heard a click. There was a sudden rushing sound afterward. I frowned. That could have come from someone teleporting away, air rushing in to occupy the vacated space of a vanishing body.

  Who would be teleporting here? The Curator could, certainly, but why would he bother? Had enemies found a way inside the Fortress?

  I eased my shooting hand back onto the disrupter. As I did, doubts assailed me. Had I really heard the floor creak, heard a click and a sudden rushing sound? Maybe I’d made the noises up in my head.

  Why would I, though? Hmm… Maybe guilt had caused an overreaction. Coming here always brought deeper guilt that I’d never learned to deal with. Maybe my subconscious wanted me to leave and thus invented these things as reasons.

  I shook my head and forced myself to face the guilt. It was the least I could do.

  I slipped out of the alcove and resumed my trek, creeping slower than before as a precaution.

  I’m not proud of the act that caused the guilt, but I’ll tell you about it anyway. There was this sweet girl named Jennifer. I’d met her when I’d become an assault trooper back on Earth. Later, she’d joined a grim expedition to the portal planet, a place that linked our space-time continuum with an evil dimension holding Abaddon and trillions of xenophobic Kargs.

  Abaddon had been a First One, and the next thing to the Devil. A case could be made that the First Ones had been the archetypes for angels and thus bad First Ones the pattern for fallen angels or demons. Kargs were robot-like aliens from a different dimension, perfect companions for Abaddon.

  We’d closed the portal planet, but during our escape to our dimension, we’d accidentally left Jennifer behind. As we’d fled, Abaddon had communicated with me, letting me know that he’d caught my girl and would twist her into something vile. He assured me that she would hate my guts for the rest of eternity.

  It had been hard, but for the good of all, I’d bailed on Jennifer, sealing Abaddon behind in the evil space-time continuum.

  Wouldn’t you know it, Abaddon had still found a way into our dimension? It happened some time later, and he’d only been able to slip through with a handful of spaceships instead of billions of star-crafts as he’d originally intended. He’d brought the altered Jennifer along, of course. Through a dream, he’d told me Jennifer would personally slit my throat. It hadn’t worked out that way. We’d killed Abaddon and beaten his Karg-Jelk Super Fleet. We’d also captured Jennifer—she had indeed hated me with a particular fury. Abaddon had thoroughly corrupted her, as well as having elongated her body and speeded her reflexes.

  These days, the Curator kept Jennifer in stasis, having promised me eight years ago that he’d try to cure her.

  Well, the old boy had not kept up on his end of the bargain. I knew, because I came from time to time to check up on her. In some manner, Jennifer always sensed me, and it upset her because she began to squirm in her stasis sleep. But I’d come to talk to her anyway. The guilt at what I’d done would come upon me like the tide, stronger at some times than others. At high tide, the guilt became so strong that I had to slip in and see her again. I needed to tell her I was sorry for leaving her behind, for the umpteenth time. I needed to tell her that I
was a worthless piece of shit—

  Okay. I’m sorry about that. I try to keep this clean, or as clean as I can. And I’ve told myself countless times that negative talk wasn’t going to help me fix this.

  I’d failed my girl in the worst way at the worst possible time for her—

  I shook my head.

  I wasn’t going to play the negative mental tapes anymore. Instead, I was going to do something positive like free Jennifer and let her live whatever life she could with whatever time she had left. Keeping her like sleeping beauty for the rest of existence was wrong, and I was finished wronging Jennifer.

  I turned a corner and reached the door to her chamber. It was open, and it was dark in there, without even a glow from her sealed tube.

  With a silent oath, I tore the blaster from my hip and moved through the hatch, flattening myself against the wall on the other side. I used my goggle-enhanced vision to scan.

  None of the medical machines showed signs of activity. It seemed that someone had turned them off.

  Was Jennifer dead or had someone kidnapped her? Had the kidnapper teleported away with her? Had I just missed them in the corridor?

  With a sense of dread, I pushed off the wall, straining to sense something more. I reached the tube, and noticed that the far end was open.

  Hurrying there, crouching, I saw the worst. Jennifer was gone.

  -2-

  For three days, I searched throughout the Fortress. I found no sign of Jennifer, no sign of forced entry onto the Fortress of Light. I went over the corridor with a special tracking device. It showed signs of me being there, but no one else.

  I pondered the possibilities. I checked records. No one had left here except for me from time to time. Jennifer wasn’t in stasis and wasn’t anywhere inside the Fortress, well, anywhere that I could access.

  The Curator had sensitive areas for his higher-grade functions. One of them was a unique viewing chamber that allowed him to see anywhere in the galaxy that his mind projected. I’d been in the chamber when we used it to hunt down Abaddon eight years ago.

  Would the Curator allow Jennifer there? I seriously doubted it. He had said eight years ago that he wouldn’t allow me access to her. Might he have woken her and put her somewhere I couldn’t easily reach?

  What about the teleporting sound? What about the creak in the floor?

  Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to know what had happened.

  I marched through a brightly lit area toward the Curator’s quarters. There were many strange portraits on the walls showing various alien life forms. In one of them was a painting of a stylistic Adam and Eve in a beautiful garden.

  I wore the same metallic-like garment as before. It was as supple as spandex but harder than the bio-skin I’d worn as an assault trooper. I no longer had the circle of warm and breathable air surrounding my head. I simply inhaled the normal air of this area. I still had the blaster attached to my hip, with a special force blade on the other side.

  I was a big guy, always had been. Back in the day as a Jelk Corporation assault trooper, I’d received a few modifications. The first had been forced injections of steroid 68. That had allowed me to pack on slabs of muscle until I looked like a beefy gorilla. My old friend Rollo had become even bigger, but I was big enough. The Corporation surgeons had also inserted neural fibers into me, quickening my physical response times.

  “Creed,” a voice said in the air. “Why are you here?”

  That was the Curator’s voice. It was rich and deep, as you’d expect it to be.

  I halted and said, “I’d like to talk to you, sir.”

  “I’m busy. Come back some other time.”

  “I, ah, insist, sir.”

  For a moment, there was nothing. Finally, “Why are you here exactly?”

  “Could I talk to you in person, sir? It will make more sense that way.”

  He sighed. “I sense your anxiety from here. What have you done wrong now, Creed?”

  He hadn’t needed to add the “now” to that. It made me bristle. “What have you done wrong?” I countered.

  There was more silence. I usually spoke with the utmost courtesy to the Curator. There was a risk in doing otherwise, but I was upset and told myself I couldn’t help it.

  “Very well,” he rumbled. “Turn left at the next corner and keep going. I’m in the Hall of Mirrors.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “We shall see,” he said, ominously.

  -3-

  The Curator wore a long shimmering ice-blue robe that almost reached his perfectly manicured toes, which were supported by leathery sandals. Like the Michelangelo painting I’d mentioned earlier, he had long white hair, a massive white beard and the most dangerous blue eyes in the galaxy.

  The old man gripped a dull-gray-colored metal staff. It was a deadly weapon when he wanted to use it as one and it was incredibly heavy, like Thor’s mythical hammer.

  As I walked toward him, I saw hundreds and then thousands of Curators. They all looked and moved alike. Soon, I saw thousands of Creeds heading through the aptly named Hall of Mirrors.

  It was a creepy place if you let your mind wander. Back on Earth as a kid, I used to perch up on the bathroom counter and position the hinged mirrors just so. I would look down long corridors or rows at young Creeds staring into the endlessly long depths of doubled and redoubled reflections. I used to wonder if those Creeds were in different dimensions or worlds that I could enter if I knew the right way to go about it.

  While in the Hall of Mirrors, those old ideas came rushing back with a vengeance.

  I knew the Curator liked coming here to think. He’d told me so several years ago. Maybe he liked looking at the endless possibilities as I’d done as a kid. Maybe the reflections helped him in some other way.

  The Curator was a million times smarter and wiser than me. He’d screwed over Abaddon back in the day, when the Devil-like First One had gone searching in other space-time continuums for who knew what. The old boy had trapped Abaddon out there in the Karg Dimension. It had been neatly done in my opinion, although the Curator had seemed to feel guilty about the action eight years ago when he’d told me about it.

  That got me to wondering. Maybe the Curator had his own guilt to deal with. The last few years, we’d stopped talking as much. I think we’d both gotten sick of each other. The old boy didn’t keep too many other people in the Fortress of Light. Maybe he was the solitary type and I’d gotten on his nerves with my extended stay. I’d helped him solve a host of problems he’d let pile up. Maybe with those fixes behind us, he no longer felt a need to humor me.

  “Hello, sir,” I said.

  He turned to face me. So did thousands of other Curators.

  “I’m surprised,” he said. “Few have navigated the Hall of Mirrors as effortlessly as you’ve just done. How did you know which corridors and turns to take?”

  I shrugged. “Just lucky, I guess.”

  He stared at me with those scary blue eyes.

  Despite my best efforts, I felt words forced out of me. “You helped train me, remember? You gave me a greater than ordinary awareness.”

  His broad brow furrowed. “Oh,” he said, as if he’d forgotten about that.

  “Are you okay, sir?” I asked.

  “Quite well,” he said. “It is this place,” he added. “When I’m here, I lose myself in ancient memories so I have a harder time focusing on the present.”

  I nodded, hoping he wasn’t going to ramble on with one of his endless dissertations.

  “Right,” he said. “You wished to see me. You know I don’t like people needlessly walking near my quarters.”

  By people, he meant me.

  “This is important,” I said.

  “Humph,” he said. “What you consider important and what I consider important are often two different things.”

  He was in one of his moods clearly. During the Abaddon affair, the Curator had been enjoyable to work with. After I’d become his Effec
tuator, I’d learned about his grumpy side. He could become cross and positively fairy-like. By that, I meant the fairies in the old stories, where the supernatural creatures were unpredictable, as willing to curse as to bless.

  It was dangerous to anger the Curator at those times.

  “You are going to bother me, aren’t you?” he asked.

  “I am, sir.”

  His eyes narrowed, and his breathing deepened. “I’m not in the mood, Creed. You had best leave while you’re able.”

  I actually thought about it. I was readying my mind to give the impulses that would move the muscles that would turn me around and walk away. Then the guilt hit.

  I’d left Jennifer behind with Abaddon, saving my own skin. Could I do that again?

  I shook my head.

  “Humph,” the Curator said again, and he tapped the bottom end of his staff against the polished floor.

  It sounded like a peal of doom. But instead of quailing, I got pissed. If this meant my death, okay, it meant my death.

  “Jennifer is gone,” I blurted.

  “Eh?” he said, his bushy eyebrows lifting. “What do you mean by gone?”

  “She’s not in her tube.”

  “Well, of course she’s not there. I released her.”

  “You did? When?”

  “Here now. You’re not in my employ to question me. If anyone does any questioning, it will be done by me of you. Besides, how do you know she’s not in her tube? Have you gone into the chamber? I explicitly said you were forbidden to enter that area of the Fortress.”

  A hot retort rolled onto my tongue. I barely kept it from rolling off. This was the Curator and he was in one of his moods. This might be the time to use—

  “Honesty,” I said aloud.

  “What’s that?”

  “Sir, the guilt for what I did to Jennifer became overwhelming—”

  “Hold it right here,” he said, interrupting. “Did you or did you not go into the chamber?”