Invaders: Dreadnought Ocelot (Invaders Series Book 4)

  DOOM STAR SERIES:

  Star Soldier

  Bio Weapon

  Battle Pod

  Cyborg Assault

  Planet Wrecker

  Star Fortress

  Task Force 7 (Novella)

  INVADERS SERIES:

  Invaders

  Invaders: The Chronowarp

  Invaders: The Antaran

  Invaders: Dreadnought Ocelot

  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 Lost Star Gate

  The Lost Supernova

  The Lost Swarm

  Visit VaughnHeppner.com for more information

  Invaders:

  Dreadnought Ocelot

  (Invaders Series 4)

  by Vaughn Heppner

  Copyright © 2020 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 sat alone in front of glass—or its Antaran equivalent—and stared at Saturn. This close, the rings looked fantastic. Our unmoored space station orbited the gas giant about midway between Saturn’s 82 moons.

  There was a loud crunching noise as I ate one pickle-flavored cracker at a time. I’d almost finished a small box of them. I’d found the box in a hidden storage unit yesterday and had kept the crackers for myself.

  I admit that was selfish, but my metabolism ran hotter and faster than anyone else’s here. Plus, I’d saved Earth from disaster a little over a month ago under the Antarctica ice shelf. I figured I deserved a few rewards.

  I knew the GGS Dreadnought Ocelot had arrived at the outer edges of our Solar System. We had seen the bright plume of its deceleration several weeks ago. Through his internal com-link, my crystalline buddy Rax had told me the captain said I could join the Galactic Guard as a cadet. Debby had said yes when I proposed, and she would join me in the alien service. Jenna of CAU would also join us in the Guard.

  I pulled out another cracker and popped it into my mouth. I didn’t particularly care for pickles and thus didn’t like the taste—this was an Antaran food. Antarans of the Institute had presumably built the station, stocked it and had precipitously fled before our arrival over a month ago, but that was another story, one I’ve already told. The box of crackers was the thing today, and I was ravenous and had actually started losing weight. Until the Ocelot docked, we were stuck here. Therefore, we’d started rationing food because there were too many of us on the station.

  I sighed as I leaned back in my chair and stared at Saturn again. The Ocelot was still too far to see with the naked eye, now that it no longer used hard deceleration.

  Saturn’s famous rings were mostly made of ice particles with a smaller amount of rocky debris and dust. Rax had told me that just before he’d fallen silent. I don’t know why the little crystal wouldn’t speak to me anymore. I must have pissed him off somehow.

  I shrugged, fishing around for another cracker.

  I was sick of the food rationing, sick of being around so many people in a confined space, and sick of the fact that Sand was running me off Earth and out of the Solar System.

  I know. Some of that might not make sense to a few of you. Sand was an ancient construct I’d found a little over a month ago deep underground the Utah salt flats. He wanted me back on Earth so he could shove a control unit into my brain and question me about what had happened in Antarctica. Naturally, I wished to avoid that, especially as Sand planned to kill me afterward so I would keep his great secret secret. Thus, I planned to leave the Solar System forever and could only do that by becoming a cadet in the Galactic Guard.

  With a hand in the cracker box, I fished around, but only felt a few crumbs. I removed my hand and peered into the box. I’d eaten all the crackers.

  The problem was that I was still hungry.

  I shook the box until all the crumbs were in a corner. Then, I tilted the box and poured the crumbs into my mouth. The pickle taste was stronger, but I chewed and swallowed anyway.

  Afterward, I was unbelievably thirsty. There had been too much salt on the crackers. I wanted something better than water, too. Beer would have been a thousand times more enjoyable. Whiskey—I don’t know what I would have been willing to give in exchange for a fifth of Wild Turkey.

  I tossed the box over my shoulder and began to pick the biggest crumbs off my chest, popping them into my mouth.

  Some of the people stuck here were aliens, Tosks, to be exact, huge werewolf-like creatures that had served the Antaran geniuses that had fled the station. I’d forced the Tosks into prison cells, as they had started to get antsy and demanding, and they were big, dumb, alien soldier brutes, not the kind of guys to let run loose. There were also giant robots locked away in a vault. The robots belonged to Sand—his enforcers, you might say, so I’d return to Earth.

  That left about forty CAU personnel along with Debby and me. CAU was Earth’s Counter Alien Unit. I used to believe the U.S. Government had set up the unit. Now, I knew Sand had done that.

  My stomach rumbled.

  As I leaned back in the chair, I felt around for a water bottle.

  I brought the plastic bottle to me, twisted off the cap and guzzled the water. I crumpled the plastic afterward and twisted the cap back on, tossing that behind me, too.

  You ever have the feeling that something was off? Of course, you have. We all feel that now and again. Now, I know I’d said last time that the Director of CAU was cured and everyone got back home. That might have been a little premature. I figured with the Ocelot coming that everything would end well.

  These days, I still had a feeling that something was off but couldn’t quite put my finger on what.

  I sat alone in here trying to figure it out. Two weeks ago, Debby had said she would marry me, but was this really the right time for that? We were going to be in a transition period, cadets in the Galactic Guard service.

  For anyone joining my adventures at this point, I’ll just tell you that metaphorically I was like an old Western character stumbling through the desert, one who’d found a U.S. Marshal dead in his bedroll. I’d taken the star, pinning it to my chest, cinched his six-shooters around my waist, put on his boots and ridden his horse into town, proclaiming myself the new marshal. In actuality, several years ago, I’d found a tiny crystal entity named Rax, a Galactic Guard shuttle crash-landed on Earth—it could act as a submarine or spaceship—and had undergone gene therapy. That therapy had made me stronger and able to heal faster and better than normal. Afterward, I’d acted like the Galactic Guard sheriff of Earth, stopping several alien incursions or invasions.

  Earth and the Solar System were off-limits under Galactic law. Our planet was something of a preserve, not so much because humans were stupider than aliens but because of ancient, historical reasons that included the godlike Polarions of legend.

  Anyway, I’d lost the Guard ship in Antarctica. But that didn’t matter if I was leaving the Solar System.

  I scowled at the rings of Saturn. Rings, ring, wedding, my own—was that the problem? Debby had started acting differently about a week ago, becoming cold toward me.


  Hey, don’t get me wrong. Debby was a wonderful woman. I wouldn’t have asked her to marry me otherwise. We’d had fun together. But she had been an alien slave for a heck of a long time, a captive to a Neanderthal and a Homo habilis and later an Antaran prisoner. Could any of them have fiddled with her—I don’t know—her personality? Or was her strangeness showing up due to the close confinement?

  A loud knock on the hatch interrupted my thinking. My carefully balanced chair tipped back, and I windmilled my arms so I wouldn’t fall.

  The hatch slid up. I looked to see who was bothering me, and my chair crashed back against the deck, throwing me so I sprawled into a heap.

  Jenna Jones put her hands on her hips and stared at me. She was a tall beauty with blue eyes, long dark hair and a statuesque figure. She also happened to be a CAU field agent and took herself quite seriously. She wore Antaran coveralls and had found a cap to screw onto her head, and she kept a blaster belted at her side.

  I climbed to my feet and noticed her frowning at me, at my chest in particular.

  I looked down and noticed a bunch of crumbs on my chest. I brushed them off and gave her a grin.

  She glanced at the cracker box and then at me again. “We all agreed to eat in the main area so there would be no cheating.”

  “I know.”

  “The rules don’t include you?”

  “Why are you here?” I asked.

  She stepped into the compartment and the hatch slid shut behind her. She glanced at Saturn, and her gaze stayed on the rings.

  “It’s crazy that we’re the ones who made it out here,” I said.

  “Not really,” she said, focusing on me again. The frown reappeared, as if I had been found wanting in some way.

  I righted the chair and put a booted foot on the seat, leaning my elbows on my knee. In case you’re wondering, there were gravity stabilizers in the station—what Rax had called them anyway. The stabilizers gave the station Earth-normal gravity.

  “I think we have a problem,” Jenna said.

  I raised my eyebrows.

  “It’s Debby,” she said reluctantly.

  “Oh?”

  “Logan, she’s been acting strangely. At first, I thought it was the idea of leaving Earth for good. Now, I think she’s…” Jenna shook her head, perhaps not certain how to explain it.

  I blinked with surprise as I took my foot off the chair. I realized that I had been dense. During the past few years, Jenna had come on to me a few times when we’d worked on cases together. Women were quicker than men at noticing such things. Debby could surely tell how Jenna felt about me and that must have angered her. That might even have gotten Debby mad at me, which would explain her coldness or strangeness toward me. Jenna would have picked up on that, of course, and this was her way of retaliating against Debby.

  I smiled.

  “What?” Jenna snapped.

  “A catfight,” I said, deciding to tease her. “That’s what this is about.”

  “What?” she asked in outrage.

  I chuckled, shaking my head, maybe laying it on too thick. “I should have seen this coming. Look, Jenna—”

  “You moron!’ she shouted. “This has nothing to do with a catfight. How dare you say that?”

  “Hey, don’t get mad,” I said, raising my hands defensively.

  Jenna turned red. “You think every woman wants you? Debby is acting strange, not like—I don’t know. She’s become secretive. I’ve caught her slipping into the control room. When I asked her—quit grinning like a moron!” Jenna shouted. “This isn’t a catfight.”

  “Okay, okay,” I said. “I was just kidding.”

  “What?”

  “A joke. Look. Why shouldn’t Debby be in the control room? What’s strange about that?”

  Before Jenna could answer, a siren stated to wail. It was loud and long, and it indicated—

  “A transfer unit,” Jenna said. “Rax told me the siren sounds whenever the transfer pads are activated. Logan, someone is transferring onto the station.”

  “Or leaving it,” I said a second later.

  Jenna’s eyes widened. “Come on. We have to check this out.”

  -2-

  Before the Antarans fled, the space station had been anchored to the moon Titan. The station was of modular construction with many curving passageways. It wasn’t particularly sturdy, at least according to Rax. The station was likely supposed to have been a temporary thing. It lacked motive power, and the equipment was Antares Institute standard.

  Rax was a sentient crystal from Rax Prime. He had been my Guard Advisor and had bequeathed temporary Guard status to me. He was the size of a metal-encased cell phone and was supposed to be in the control room. As I said earlier, he’d stopped talking to me, stopped talking to anyone for that matter.

  “Can’t you run any faster?” Jenna shouted from ahead.

  “I’m not wearing a gun,” I said.

  “Don’t worry. I have a gun.”

  “You should give it to me.”

  Jenna gave me a withering look over her shoulder. Then, she slowed down and began climbing a metal ladder.

  I followed. Who could be transferring here or transferring away? Then it hit me. Someone from the Ocelot must have transferred over. The GGS Dreadnought had probably just come into transfer range.

  Transfer technology was a lot like teleportation. Unless the transfer was extremely short range, one needed transfer pads on both ends. Teleportation just needed one set of pads. My Guard shuttle had had teleportation technology, so despite my “primitive” status in Galactic parlance, I was something of an authority on the subject.

  Jenna reached a landing and I followed. She drew her blaster, eyed me and reached for a hatch. She hesitated and looked at me again.

  “Maybe you should go first,” she said.

  I shrugged, brushed past her and opened the hatch, scanning a clear corridor. I walked fast instead of sprinting, deciding I didn’t want to burst onto the scene like a frightened Earthling, half out of breath. This would be the first Galactic Guard agent I’d met. The skeleton in my stolen Guard ship several years ago didn’t count. I wanted to make a good first impression.

  I squared my shoulders and adjusted my clothes. They might have been a little ripe. We were probably all ripe, but had gotten used to ourselves.

  “Are you finished?” Jenna asked scornfully.

  I ignored her, reached the main hatch, breathed deeply to catch my breath and tapped on the wall controls.

  The hatch slid up into a hangar bay-like area. There were two parked Antaran floaters in here. Each floater was approximately the size of an extra-large semi-trailer. A floater had two bubble canopies, one of each end, with a swivel beam cannon like a .50-caliber machine gun. We’d used these floaters, having picked them up in Antarctica.

  As I headed into the transfer area, I noticed Debby standing at the control panel. She was wearing a silver-colored one-suit and had long blonde hair and super-red lipstick. She was stunning, my girl, and I noticed she wore an Antaran blaster at her hip just as Jenna did.

  That’s when a Gigantopithecus stepped into view. I didn’t know the genus name at the moment, but in the interests of clarity, I’ll call him that from the get-go.

  He was huge, probably nine feet tall, almost twice the height of a refrigerator. He was hairy like any great ape of Earth and must have weighed more than a horse. The creature wore a tight-fitting black uniform with shoulder boards showing two stars on each. He also wore a military-style cap and had a metal baton swinging from a belt. He was shaped like a gorilla, just far bigger and more massive.

  A Gigantopithecus, by the way, was supposed to have lived on Earth six million to possibly 100,000 years ago, if you go in for school-taught theories. After what I’ve witnessed, I’m not so sure anymore. Gigantopithecus would have lived from the Miocene Period through the Pleistocene Period and supposedly ate bamboo like a panda and had the strength of more than twenty men.

  This fello
w did not wear shoes, and his great size mandated a simian manner of locomotion. He walked on all fours like a gorilla, using the knuckles of his hands. He had a gorilla-like face, although intelligence shined in his close-set black eyes.

  I cleared my throat as I approached, as neither Debby nor the Gigantopithecus had noticed Jenna and me. Debby had been speaking urgently to the giant ape.

  The two now turned. Actually, the Gigantopithecus shuffled around on all fours, while Debby turned.

  “Logan,” Debby said, sounding surprised. Her eyes shifted. “And Jenna with you. I should have known.”

  “Hey now—” I said. It was time to nip this in the bud.

  Debby shook her head. “Don’t bother explaining. I can read the signs as well as anyone. You don’t love me anymore.”

  “That’s crazy,” I said. “You’ve been imagining things. Of course, I love you. I wouldn’t have asked you to marry me otherwise.”

  Jenna stepped up behind me and whispered, “Can’t you see she’s playing you? Why isn’t she explaining why she helped that ape onto the station?”

  I didn’t like hearing that, but Jenna had a point.

  “What’s going on here?” I demanded.

  “That’s what I was going to ask you,” Debby said.

  The Gigantopithecus had glanced from me to her and back at me. He looked preposterous in the too-small uniform.

  “I don’t want you hanging around her anymore,” Debby said as she indicated Jenna.

  “She’s faking the outrage,” Jenna whispered in my ear.

  I scowled, glancing back at Jenna. Had Jenna caused Debby’s suspicions against me? Had Jenna Jones—I don’t know—been stoking flames of jealousy and doubt? As a CAU field agent, she was good at subterfuge and deception.

  “Remember, Debby is old,” Jenna said while staring me in the eyes.

  That was unfair and unkind, if holding a modicum of truth. I’d first met Debby in a Far Butte, Nevada side dimension under the control of a crystal entity known as the Starcore. Debby had been there since 1951 while only aging eight years. That meant Debby had much more life-experience than her physical attributes would indicate. That had caused problems between us in the past. Someone two or three times your age has a different outlook on things, different perspectives. But we’d worked that out, I thought.