EDGE OF CONQUEST
THE RESTARATION ARMADA BOOK 1
HUGO HUESCA
To my father.
Hugo Huesca © 2017
Illustration © Tom Edwards
Tomedwardsdesign.com
CONTENTS
1.
Chapter One
2.
Chapter Two
3.
Chapter Three
4.
Chapter Four
5.
Chapter Five
6.
Chapter Six
7.
Chapter Seven
8.
Chapter Eight
9.
Chapter Nine
10.
Chapter Ten
11.
Chapter Eleven
12.
Chapter Twelve
13.
Chapter Thirteen
14.
Chapter Fourteen
15.
Chapter Fifteen
16.
Chapter Sixteen
17.
Chapter Seventeen
18.
Chapter Eighteen
19.
Chapter Nineteen
20.
Chapter Twenty
21.
Chapter Twenty-One
22.
Chapter Twenty-Two
23.
Chapter Twenty-Three
24.
Chapter Twenty-Four
25.
Chapter Twenty-Five
26.
Chapter Twenty-Six
27.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
28.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
29.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
30.
Chapter Thirty
31.
Chapter Thirty-One
32.
Chapter Thirty-Two
33.
Chapter Thirty-Three
34.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Acknowledgments
Also by Hugo Huesca
1
CHAPTER ONE
ALFONSO
The woman winked at Alfonso Petras as the nanobots entered his bloodstream.
“Please,” Alfonso begged, “I’ll tell you everything I know.”
“Yes, that’s the entire point.”
She hunched over a holographic screen, green light and numbers dancing on her pale face, casting green shadows on her lab coat. Alfonso’s forehead burned with fever. Inside his body, the nanobots skittered on his brain and scanned his neural activity.
“From now on, darling,” the woman said, “don’t you dare tell a lie. The nanobots won’t like it.”
A woman was strapped to a similar chair next to Alfonso’s. She was dead, her body barely recognizable. The tools their captors had used were still lodged in her torso cavity.
“Please!” Alfonso begged. “Don’t do this…”
The doctor calmly readied her tools at a spot just outside his field of vision. Alfonso could hear the tinkling of the metallic instruments hitting the tray as she lovingly ordered them. She ignored all his complaints and pleading until she was done. Then, someone else entered the room.
The man wore a standard-issue gray jacket, white shirt, and gray trousers, the same clothing all mid-level bureaucrats in the station sported. But by his posture, it was clear he was in charge. His features were hidden by the darkness of the room, but Alfonso could feel the man’s dispassionate stare, and the sting of his mint aftershave, which clashed with the situation like a sledgehammer to the teeth.
He sat next to Alfonso and rapped his knuckles against the chair the port worker was strapped to.
“Alfonso Petras,” the man finally said. “Aged twenty-six. Pilot. Two children, residing at planet-side. Confirmed EIF relations.”
Alfonso almost nodded to show his willingness to collaborate, but he realized that the man wasn’t talking to him at all, but to a tiny black camera he was holding between his fingertips.
“He’s accused of collusion with John and Jane Doe in the ongoing Newgen case—”
That was the first hint Alfonso had about what he was doing here. “I don’t—”
The man’s glacial stare shut Alfonso up, and the man continued his speech to the camera:
“Interrogation and sentencing is performed by Colonel Nicholas Strauze, forensic examination by Doctor Angelique Kircher.”
“Forensic examination—” whispered Alfonso, eyes wide.
“Careful,” said Doctor Angelique Kircher, “with your words. Speak without thinking, and you may tell a lie. The nanobots will catch it whether you lied on purpose or not.” Going from her tone alone, Alfonso may have thought she was genuinely concerned for him.
“Three months ago,” Strauze started, “you accepted the bribe offered by a couple, man and woman, to smuggle a piece of unregistered hardware for them into planet Dione.”
“Everyone does it,” Alfonso said, not bothering to deny the charges. He barely remembered the people Strauze talked about.
A man and a woman. John and Jane Doe. Alfonso looked at the dead corpse next to his own chair. The memory had faded, but she could easily have been one half of the couple who boarded his freighter.
Alfonso had thought of them as just a pair of down-on-their-luck prospectors, same as anyone who had the misfortune of ending up in a dead-end Star System like Elus.
How was he supposed to know?
“Those two you helped were rogue agents,” Strauze mentioned, like a normal person may talk about the weather.
It was then that Alfonso realized he wasn’t going to get out of this one, no matter what he did.
So he started fighting back against his restraints, hoping against hope that he would be able to beat the plastic material. The struggle barely earned him a glance from Nicholas Strauze. The man produced a small, black cube from the pocket of his jacket and held it in front of Alfonso.
“Do you know what this is?”
“It’s a Shota-M,” said Alfonso in a barely audible rasp. It was the same computer the couple—the agents—had bribed him to smuggle into the planet. For what little Alfonso knew about computational gizmos, people had used Shota-M’s as the computational equivalent of a safe before newer technologies rendered them obsolete. “It’s like a decade old, man. What’s the big deal? Just get someone to crack it.”
Strauze nodded, more to acknowledge Alfonso’s words than to answer him. He looked back at the camera.
“Of course, the agents’ device has been heavily modified. We can’t get what’s inside without compromising the data. Given the implications, we believe the expense of a series of Alcubierre couriers with updates to the Capital are justified, with this information being in the first one. Until new orders are received, I will personally lead the investigation and ensure that the Edge’s best interest are maintained at all times. End of communication.”
The man got up. For a brief second, the faint glow of the corridor’s LEDs reflected the hard lines of his face and his powerful jaw. Without another look in Alfonso’s direction, he turned to leave.
It was too much for Alfonso. Until tonight, he had been a normal person. He had paid his taxes, dammit, he had done his job as best as he could.
“What’s going to happen to me?” Alfonso asked, knowing he was going to regret the question.
Strauze answered without turning back:
“The penalty for aiding EIF terrorism is the suspension of your human designation. As of right now, you’re no longer a person, Petras. Doctor Kircher will handle it from here.”
Alfonso felt the cold bite of a needle in his neck before Strauze had fully exited the room. The pilot’s body quickly lost mobility, but without sensation loss. His scream died in his throat.
“Don’t worry,” he heard Kircher’s half-purr at him while she toyed with her instruments somewhere beyond his range of vision. “You’re in loving hands.”
He could imagine those loving, pale hands working in the corpse next to him. The doctor would do unto him as she had done unto the dead agent.
Before the needle could fully paralyze him, Alfonso Petras took the last brave action of his life. He locked glances with Kircher, and said, “I do not hate you.”