The Last of the Firsts Read online

  The Last of The Firsts

  Book three in The Planetsider Trilogy

  G J OGDEN

  Copyright © 2019 G J Ogden

  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.

  Published by Ogden Media Ltd

  Cover design by germancreative

  Editing by S L Ogden

  www.ogdenmedia.net

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to Sarah for her work assessing and editing this novel, and to those who subscribed to my newsletters and provided such valuable feedback.

  And thanks, as always, to anyone who is reading this. It means a lot and I hope you enjoy it.

  Chapter 1

  Maria pulled back on the throttle control, cutting power to the main engines, and began the final approach to the spaceport using only the ship’s existing momentum and thrusters to make minor course corrections. Bringing in the small UEC shuttle on manual was part of the plan that she and Page had discussed. Standard procedure was for the UEC control station to remote-pilot ships down during the final stages of the approach but, if Maria and Page were to have a chance of escaping, they could not land on their assigned pad. To do so would mean instant capture, or a firefight that would probably get them both killed.

  Instead, Page had transmitted ahead that the shuttle had taken damage during blast-off that had seriously affected key control systems, and that they had also suffered heavy causalities, including General Kurren. They would have preferred not to have specifically highlighted the General amongst the injured, as this would almost certainly prompt a heavier emergency response presence on deck, but they couldn’t risk that either Major Darien or Governor Kuba would request to speak with him before landing. Both would be eager to hear of the mission’s outcome, and since they were returning without the second, much larger ship, and therefore without the UEC and GPS survivors who escaped to the planet with Maria, it would be obvious that the outcome was not positive.

  Maria took slow and deliberate breaths and moved the control yoke with such delicate precision that the adjustments were almost imperceptible to Page. Only the faint hiss of the thrusters firing, and the fractional changes in the pitch and yaw of the ship told him that Maria was doing anything at all.

  “Have you done this before?” asked Page. He realized he was gripping the arms of the co-pilot’s chair.

  “A few times, though not in something of this size,” said Maria, coolly. “Fighters are a lot more nimble.”

  “But you can do it, right?”

  Maria laughed. “Relax, I’ll get us down okay. Just be ready when I do.” She noticed Page’s knuckles had gone white, and smiled. “Loosen up, before you tear the arms off that chair.”

  Page relaxed his grip, but not by much. “Sorry, I’m not great at flying.”

  Maria focused ahead and made a fractional course correction. The moon base now filled the window and the docking pod to the space port in the administration sector was getting larger by the second. Maria looked at the range counter and observed the number fall below three hundred meters. She reached down and unclipped the buckle on her holster, then gently placed her hand back on the control yoke. “We’ve only got a couple of minutes before we’re inside the docking pod. Get ready to manually vent the coolant from the main engines as soon as we pressurize on the inside. We have to make this look good.”

  Page leaned forward and checked the control station for the sixth time in the last ten minutes alone. The command was still prepared and ready to execute. “Just say the word, Sal. I’ll be ready.”

  Hearing Page call her, ‘Sal’, instead of ‘Maria’, or ‘Commander’ felt good, but it was also bittersweet. She thought back to the final message that Chris Kurren – her former partner, and the General’s honorable younger brother – had left her, before he died. He had been the one who had come up with the nickname in the first place. Maria was the name of my ex-wife, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to be reminded of her every time I see you! he had said, only a few hours after they had first met. Without realizing, Maria had placed her hand on the PVSM strapped to her left wrist; it had been Kurren’s and still contained the message in its databanks.

  “You’re drifting off a little there, pilot,” said Page, with a sudden urgency.

  Maria look up and placed her hand back on the yoke, pulsing the thrusters three times and setting them perfectly back on course. Ahead of them the aperture of the docking pod slid open silently. “Thirty seconds, Karl.” Maria pulsed the forward thrusters, slowing their approach to that of a gentle stroll.

  The commlink crackled on: “UEC Search and Rescue Alpha, you are cleared for Pad D. Repeat, you are cleared for Pad D. Remain on manual and insert ident for gate security clearance.”

  Page reached into his breast pocket and took out the smooth, gray ident card. He glanced over at Maria, and then tapped the card on the console in front of him. “Here comes the last official act of Major Karl Page, before his inevitable court martial and execution for treason,” he said, whimsically, and then slipped the card into the ident reader. The panel lit up green and the docking gate inside the pod began to retract.

  “I’m loving your optimism, ex Major Page,” said Maria, with a wry smile.

  They entered the docking pod and Maria pulsed the thrusters again, killing their forward momentum completely. The gate and aperture closed behind them.

  “Commencing pressurization,” said the voice on the other end of the commlink.

  Maria flexed her hands, squeezing them into fists and then straightening her fingers, as if she was limbering up to play a complex piece of music on an intricate musical instrument. She watched the pressure indicator rise.

  “Fifty percent,” she called out.

  The indicator continued to rise sharply.

  “Seventy percent… start venting!”

  Page reached forward and activated the emergency venting sequence. The docking pod immediately started to fill with a thick gray fog.

  “Ninety percent. Best grab that chair again, soldier…”

  Page grabbed the arm rests and pressed himself back into the seat, clenching his teeth, and pretty much every muscle in his body, tightly.

  Maria grabbed the yoke and throttle, and any hint of her former delicacy with the controls was gone. “95 percent…”

  The inner doors slid open and the ship was drawn forward. Maria watched the doors slide wider, and wider. Not yet… not yet… she said to herself, frequently glancing down at the indicator, waiting for the gap to widen enough for the shuttle to fit through. They needed as much of a head start on the UEC soldiers as possible. The engine coolant started to creep across the window, but soon it wouldn’t matter.

  “Now!” she called out, and slammed the throttle forward. The ship’s main engines burst back into life, propelling the shuttle forward and pressing them both into their seats with a force that felt like they were blasting off from the planet’s surface again. Within seconds they had accelerated past their designated docking pad and were hurtling toward the far edge of the space port, past the still-blackened remains of the hangar that had been destroyed by Kurren’s forces moments before Maria had managed to escape the moon base with Diana. It seemed like a lifetime ago. She tried to put th
e memory out of her mind, but the faces of Diana Neviah and Kira Raina flashed in front of her, as if their images were burned into her retinas.

  “Sal!” Page called out as they hurtled towards the wall.

  Maria throttled back and pulsed the starboard thrusters, spinning the ship one hundred and eighty degrees in less time than it had taken Page to shout out in terror, then she rammed the throttle forward again and slowed them to a dead stop in the blink of an eye. Maria lowered the landing struts and dropped the ship down hard on the deck. Page bent over the side of the chair and vomited. He felt like his insides had been left in the docking pod.

  “You weren’t kidding about being a bad flyer!” laughed Maria, but Page was not amused. “Come on, let’s go.”

  Page didn’t need telling twice. He unbuckled his harness and sprang out of the chair, but almost instantly fell over. “Remind me never to get in this damn thing again,” he said, gripping the back of Maria’s chair, his face white.

  “Just don’t throw up on me, okay?” replied Maria, unfastening her own harness and then bounding to the side hatch, pulling on the emergency release. The hatch blasted open, and clattered across the deck.

  They both drew their sidearms and stepped onto the ramp. In the distance, near their intended landing pad, they could see emergency vehicles already coming their way, lights flashing, and among the convoy was a Security Corps ground transport.

  “That transport will be packed with soldiers from Kurren’s unit,” said Page, ominously.

  “We don’t have much time,” said Maria. “The access hatch into the sub-structure is about fifty meters over towards that bulkhead.”

  Page loaded his sidearm and clicked off the safety. “Go, I’ll cover you!”

  Maria ran out from the ship and almost instantly bullets clattered off the deck, fired from the moving UEC ground transport. Page stepped out, took careful aim and then shot back at the vehicle, striking the cabin several times and causing it to veer wildly off course and screech to a halt about a hundred meters from their downed ship. The other emergency vehicles braked suddenly, banked sharply and accelerated away at high-speed.

  “That didn’t take long,” Page said out loud, but only he was around to hear it, since Maria had already reached the bulkhead and taken cover behind a power substation. Maria attached the jacking cable from her PVSM to the hatch controls, while Page covered the door of the transport, waiting for the UEC soldiers to file out, keeping a watchful aim on where he knew they would emerge onto the deck.

  Suddenly the side-door to the ground transport was flung open and Page immediately opened fire, sending the disembarking soldiers scrambling for cover. At least they aren’t wearing armor, Page thought, as he observed the soldiers in regular combat fatigues take up their positions. I hope this old blue suit can take a bit more punishment. He switched the sidearm to his left hand, and ran down the ramp shooting wildly in the direction of the soldiers. This time the returning fire was more accurate and Page could see the sparks flying off the deck as the rounds landed all around him. Suddenly, he felt two solid blows like hammer strikes to his chest and thigh, and he fell, tumbling end over end, sliding on the deck like an ice cube gliding across a glass table. He recovered and shielded his head as two more solid thumps hit his body, knocking the wind from his lungs. He pushed on and dove behind the power sub-station as another round struck his lower leg, piercing the armor like a needle prick.

  “Are you crazy?” shouted Maria. “I could have covered you!”

  Page dragged himself up and checked himself all over. The armor was peppered with dents and small punctures, and was scratched so badly that barely any of the upper armor was still blue. Blood tricked from the surface wound to his calf, and he reached down, pulling the bullet out of the blue metal and tossing it to the deck.

  “There wasn’t time, we need that hatch open,” said Page, wincing as the delayed pain of the multiple bullet strikes finally registered, despite the dulling effect of the adrenalin surging through his veins.

  “Throw down your weapons!” The demand came from the direction of the UEC ground transport, amplified by an external speaker.

  “Speaking of which, we could really do with this hatch being open, now!” added Page.

  “This is your last warning, throw down your weapons and surrender or we will open fire!”

  Maria finished the final sequence of commands and the hatch seal popped open. Air hissed from the gaps; it tasted bitter and stale. “Maybe you can stop complaining, and get in?” she shouted, pulling the panel clear of the bulkhead. Then a savage volley of gunfire rippled all around them, causing both to duck instinctively.

  Page grabbed Maria’s sidearm from her holster and thrust his into her hand instead. “You first, I’ll hold them off.”

  “You can cut it with the chivalry, Page, I can take care of myself,” said Maria, curtly.

  “To hell with chivalry! I’m wearing armor, and you’re not!” Page hit back. “It’s called common sense.”

  Maria scowled but then climbed inside the hatch as more bullets ricocheted around them. Page peeked around the side of the sub-station and fired semi-blind at the soldiers that were advancing towards them, hitting one and forcing the others to dive to the deck, but suppressing fire from the ground transport forced him back once again.

  “Come on!” cried Maria from the gloom of the crawlway inside the sub-structure. Page ran for the hatch, just as a grenade landed beside the sub-station. “Quickly!” shouted Maria.

  He grabbed the hatch and pulled it towards him as the grenade detonated, blasting the hatch shut like a door slamming in a storm, and hurtling Page against the metal-paneled walls of the tight crawlspace.

  Maria pulled him up. “Are you okay?”

  “I don’t think they’re very happy to see us,” said Page, shaking his head and cradling the old wound to his shoulder, sustained while holding off the maddened in the underground city back on the planet. He remembered the expert ministrations of Gaia after they were safely back in the engineering complex, and wished she was around to check him over again.

  “Let’s go and find some friendly faces then,” said Maria. “If we head through this section, I think I can find us a safe space to get our bearings and figure our next move.”

  “You’re the boss…” Page’s voiced tailed off as a vibration rippled through the deck. “Wait, what was that?”

  Maria thought, and then realized the danger. “The sub-station, the grenade could have destabilized it! We have to move, now!”

  Maria went first, pressing on through the narrow crawlspace on hands and knees as fast as possible, feeling a burning sensation as metal grated against skin. Behind her, she could heard the clank and scrape of Page’s metal armor, and she wished that she had the same protection. Another violent shimmy vibrated along the crawlspace and Maria quickened the pace; she felt blood soak into the knees of her pants, but she clenched her teeth and pushed on. Then the sub-station exploded and she was flung to the roof of the crawlspace like a doll and then pressed back to the decking as walls and tubular framework buckled around her. The lights went out and smoke filled the space, filling her lungs with acrid, bitter dust. She coughed, and spat a gritty mucus on the deck panels.

  “Page!” she wheezed, and then coughed again several times, clearing her lungs. “Page!” she repeated, this time more clearly. “Are you okay?”

  “Just about, but my leg is trapped!” she heard him call back, and then cough bitterly. “I’m going to have to lose the suit.”

  Maria pushed herself up and tried to look behind her, but her eyes were still adjusting to what little ambient light managed to seep into the sub-structure from the outside. She could just about make him out, wriggling like a snake shedding its skin.

  “We made it, Karl!” said Maria, feeling almost euphoric. “Now, come on, before this crawlspace comes crashing down on ours heads!”

  Page coughed again and then croaked a reply. “Right behind you, Sal.�
��

  Maria crawled a few meters ahead, then stopped and for some reason she laughed out loud. They had made it back alive – their crazy stunt had actually worked. And, although they were far from being out of danger, just making it this far gave her the sort of giddiness that comes only from an unexpected victory. That wasn’t why she had laughed, though.

  “What the hell is so funny?” she heard Page call out of the darkness.

  “I was just thinking… I hope you’re wearing clothes under that armor!”

  “Seriously? We just crashed into a hostile base, got shot at and blown up, and you’re worried about whether I’m wearing underwear?” Then, despite himself, Page laughed too.

  Chapter 2

  The cool autumn breeze whipped over the rough, grassy banks and tugged at Ethan’s jacket as he gazed down at Forest Gate, empty and seemingly lifeless at the edge of the valley. In the distance, the derelict megacity of Green Haven dominated the horizon, foul black smoke still leaking into the air from when the fragment of the GPS space station had smashed into the once great metropolis. The impact had been like stomping on an ant’s nest, except that the creatures which stirred from the belly of the decayed city were not insects, but the maddened, and they now swarmed out of the valley in their thousands, like a plague.

  “How does it look?”

  Ethan glanced over his shoulder to see Yuna standing just behind him; he had been so swept away by the sight of his abandoned home that he hadn’t heard her approach. She pulled the fabric of her olive-green jacket tightly around her body in an attempt to block out the chill breeze; having spent all of her life in a heated underground complex, she wasn’t used to braving the elements.

  “I’ve never seen it empty like this,” said Ethan as another biting gust whisked past. Unlike Yuna, the feel of the outdoors was invigorating to Ethan, certainly compared to the stale stuffiness of the underground complex that had been his temporary home after the toxic fallout from the impact had driven the settlers from Forest Gate. “The damage doesn’t look too bad, though. The big problem will be repairing the gate, so we can make it secure again.”