Chapter 1
Blood Moon Rising
Detective Rowan Sydal was awake but his eyes stubbornly refused to open.
An unpleasant prolonged machine sound was repeating over and over somewhere near his head, like a robot with a stutter. Was this what hell sounded like? If oblivion had a soundtrack, did it consist of annoying sounds for eternity?
Sydal finally managed to force his eyes slowly open. He went from darkness to overwhelming brightness as he was assaulted by fluorescent ceiling lighting. It flickered on and off. Figured, Sydal thought. So few things on the moon worked properly.
“Matthew!” Sydal tried to yell out, but his throat was dry and sore. He tried sitting up. He was in a hospital room of some kind. Every inch of his body yelled at him to stay down, using pain to prove its point. That didn’t stop him. He sat up in his bed.
Several IVs fed Sydal fluids. The hospital room was empty. A tube in his nose must have helped him breathe while he was out.
How long was I out? Where’s Matthew? What did they….no, don’t think that way. You’ll find him. You’ll get out of here and find him.
Sydal knew he had to move. Time was his enemy. His son’s trail would go cold soon. If nothing else, his job had taught him the importance of urgency.
The first thing Sydal did was rip the IVs from his arms. Then came the tube in his nose that had fed him oxygen when he was unconscious. Alarms went off on the machines around him monitoring his health. They made the previous beeping sounds seem positively therapeutic. He ignored them. He ignored everything.
If he was going to make it out of this hospital, Sydal knew he had to get out of the hospital gown and into his own clothes. He’d worked enough nasty business, homicides and worse, to know that they normally put the clothes a patient was wearing inside a bag in their room, assuming they hadn’t had to destroy his to save him. His head was groggy, and he couldn’t quite seem to remember the circumstances of his ending up here. He looked all around the room, then saw a closet with a long mirror on it.
Sydal reached to open the closet, eager to change out of his gown. That was when he saw himself in the mirror. One of his eyes was swollen. There was a big bruise on the opposite cheek. Wrapped around his head was some gauze with blood that had seeped through and stained. He had the beginnings of a beard.
How long was I out?
Sydal tried to ignore the sad sight in the mirror and continued to look inside the closet. Sure enough, hanging from a hook was a white plastic bag with the hospital’s logo on it.
As he got dressed, Sydal found it odd that he didn’t hear anything. There weren’t the voices of nurses and doctors. He didn’t hear the sound of footsteps in the hallways outside his room running to check on him. It was creepy and didn’t feel right.
Sydal, now dressed, walked across his hospital room towards the exit. He pulled down the door handle and tried to push it open. It barely budged. Something was blocking the way.
Annoyed, Sydal pushed again with more force. It took a little bit of elbow grease, but he got it open.
And he also saw what was blocking it.
A dead body—a nurse, from the look of her uniform—was slumped on the floor in front of his door. When he looked up, he saw several more bodies scattered across the hallway.
“What the hell?” he croaked through the pain and soreness in his throat.
Sydal didn’t know exactly what he’d expected to see outside his door, but he knew it wasn’t this. Maybe UEF armed guards, or Waterman-Lau security outside his room, but not death. He sat silent and still, trying to sense any movement. Nothing. He had a feeling the scene in front of his door was just the beginning, an appetizer for a hellscape to come.
He stepped carefully over the corpse and entered the hallway. It was dark. Only the light from a handful of open rooms lit it. As he walked out a little further, his shoes hit something metal.
Sydal knelt down and picked up spent shell casings. He didn’t need to be a detective to know that something bad had happened here. He pressed forward, hoping to start connecting dots.
He noticed blood smears on the walls. Many had bullet holes in the middle of them, and bodies right under them. Someone, or a group of someone’s, had come into this hospital and started shooting. With the seemingly random placement of bodies, it wasn’t done execution-style, but haphazardly. And according to the shell casings Sydal had found, military-grade weapons had been used.
When Sydal reached the end of the hall, he peeked around the corner to make sure no one was there. All he saw were dead hospital staff. A couple were still behind their desks. This death, this killing, he figured it must’ve come as a surprise. One poor bastard, a janitor by the look of it, still had his mop in his hand. His own blood mixed with the dirty mop water on the floor.
“HUD, give me the lunar news feed,” whispered Sydal as he looked around for a downed security guard. Hospitals had security guards. And security guards were usually armed. He’d feel a lot better if he had a weapon.
To Sydal’s surprise, there was no feed. There was only static. He couldn’t remember a time that that was the case. Even when there were the AIC guerrilla attacks a few years earlier, the feeds had stayed on.
“HUD, track Matthew Sydal. HUD ID #34576890.”
Sydal didn’t want to use his tracker. It ran through his department, and anyone watching would know he was active. He’d never imagined a world where he couldn’t trust his fellow cops, but right now, he didn’t trust anyone.
After a moment of accessing and approval, it brought up a search window. After a minute, it had tracked his son’s HUD implants.
“Shit…that’s not ideal.”
According to the tracker, Sydal’s son was smack-dab in the middle of the lunar UEF base.
Sydal took a moment to catch his breath. He took inventory of his situation. Without knowing what was going on outside the hospital, he had to assume it was just as bad as on the inside. He was unarmed; he needed a gun, a dead security guard. He needed something to drink, which shouldn’t have been that big of a problem. There had to be water, soft drinks, juices, anything he could think of somewhere in this facility. He needed something to deal with the pain, and the pounding headache making him nauseous. Once ready, he’d tackle the seemingly insurmountable task of saving his son.
If he was still alive. If he was still Matthew.
Sydal found a security guard just outside the employee break room. He, too, looked like he’d been taken unaware. The guard had a pistol with one extra magazine. Sydal pocketed both. Then he raided the cabinets and fridge in the break room, trying to ignore the dead bodies sitting at the tables. One poor doctor had been shot from behind as he was at the vending machine, his innards sprayed on the glass.
Fed, with a bag full of snacks and water bottles, Sydal was ready for the last step before leaving the hospital. Not being in the medical profession, it took him a little while to find where they stored the drugs, the good stuff. It took him even longer to figure out which to take when he did find it. But if there was any time to take a gamble, this was it.
Sydal made his way down to the hospital lobby. He wasn’t prepared for the cruelty, the results of which were all over the bottom floor. Doctors, nurses, guests, and patients were stacked up in piles.
There were no flies in the moon domes, but there were stray imported pets. Dogs, cats, and the ever-popular Dats—exotically bioengineered dog-cat hybrids, feasted on the free flesh seemingly offered up to them by some unknown benefactor.
Sydal raised his newly acquired pistol and fired a shot into the ceiling. It was impulsive and dangerous, likely to draw attention, but he was too disgusted. Most of the strays went running off into the dark, though a few bold souls stopped just beyond the doors.
With the collar of his shirt up over his nose, the detective made his way through the lobby towards the blown-out front doors.
They’re gonna pay for this. So help me…I’ll kill all of them.
Chapter 2
The End Of The Beginning
“Are you sure this was a great idea?” asked Ben as he and his father were escorted through the halls and corridors of the AIC Veruvian. Behind them were four guards, all with their guns trained on their backs, the desire to shoot their enemy practically oozing out of their pores.
“It’s the only idea, Ben. The only plan. The only way we’ll win,” responded Lee.
“And an alien told you how to do it?”
“Yes.”
“Quiet, you two!” yelled one of the AIC guards.
“A little grey alien with glowing yellow eyes? Who also has telepathic powers?”
“Yes,” whispered Lee, a little surprised. “You know it?”
“I had a run-in with that yellow-eyed thing myself.”
“What did he tell you?”
Ben looked behind him. For a moment he was worried that the guards escorting him would think he was crazy. Then he remembered he didn’t give a shit about them or what they thought.
“He told me how to free yo—” Ben got hit in the back with a rifle butt, hard.
“I said shut up!” yelled the surly AIC guard.
Ben and Lee reached the captain’s quarters on the Veruvian. Standing in front of a wall-sized window was Captain Rhule, back to his shackled guests, hands clasped near his lower back. Director Engano sat on a couch in the corner, sipping what looked to be some kind of alcoholic beverage. She smiled and waved at Ben and his father, just with her fingers.
“Leave us,” ordered Rhule.
“Sir?” The surly soldier was surprised.
Rhule turned his head and looked at his subordinate. “That was an order, Private.”
“Sir, yes sir.” The guards left the captain’s quarters, leaving them alone.
“Come take a look.” Rhule said it like a suggestion, but Ben knew that it wasn’t. He and his father walked over to the window.
From the window, Ben and Lee could see Europa in the distance. Between them and the battlefield that was Jupiter’s moon, they saw a floating ship graveyard. They were a mix of AIC and UEF vessels, but many more of the latter. A fleet of fully operational AIC warships, battleships, and dreadnaughts, with their fighters in tow, waited alongside the Veruvian.
Rhule turned to Ben and Lee. “I’m guessing you’re wondering what happened here. Let me tell you.”
“We won,” interrupted Engano. Rhule gave her a dirty look. She shrugged. “Not that it will matter in the end.”
“Won what?” asked Ben.
“After the attack on Vassar-1, by what command believes was your United Earth Federation, all our ships and troops were recalled from throughout the universe. All of them. We haven’t been impressively organized of late, certainly not in the last few years of this bloody war, but that business on Vassar-1 had quite an effect. I have to hand that to you.”
Rhule nodded at Lee as if he were personally responsible for the ruin that was the AIC capital world. Ben expected his father to refute the charge, or at least clarify that the UEF wasn’t at the heart of all this, but he merely glanced at the warships outside. “And they were all sent here, to this moon,” Lee said.
Rhule raised his eyebrows. “Do you know why?”
Rhule and Lee had a couple of things in common. One that really stood out in that moment was how hard they were to read. Their body language and tones of voice gave little hint as to what they were thinking or feeling.
“A counterattack,” Lee said without hesitation. “Take out or take over Europa, and the path to Mars and Earth’s moon is clear. Take out Earth’s moon, and Earth is vulnerable.”
“Exactly so,” Rhule said calmly. “That’s what the AIC intends to do, as revenge for losing our capital. This is one last all-out offensive meant to end this war, either in victory or defeat.”
Lee cocked his head. “But you have your doubts?”
Ben sensed it too, and he wasn’t nearly as perceptive as his father in these little games. Rhule clearly wasn’t on board with his side’s plans.
A muscle twitched in Rhule’s neck. He glanced at Engano. “I do.”
He turned again to face the image of the warships outside. “We’ve never had the resources to match the UEF. We didn’t in the beginning or the middle, and especially not now that we’ve lost our capital planet.”
Ben thought the destruction outside was an indication that they were correcting that, but Rhule seemed to read his mind.
“We had the element of surprise here, which allowed us to overwhelm and defeat the blockade whose remains you see out there in the void.” Rhule turned away from the display. “But now that’s gone. The UEF knows we’re coming.” He paused. “Now add this new alien wrinkle that you and Madam Director here have provided, which leads me to doubt that it was even the UEF that attacked our capital world in the first place. In fact, I have reason to believe that there’s conspiracy afoot.” He took a seat behind his desk.
“Conspiracy?” asked Ben.
“Oh, it gets good here,” Engano said. “One of my agents on Earth’s moon. Their last few reports were disturbing, to say the least. They said that people have been mysteriously disappearing in the lunar facilities. Scientists, military personnel, and dock workers have been showing up torn to shreds.”
“Torn to shreds?” Ben asked. “Like how the Shapeless leave their victims?”
“Exactly. Now, these bits of information are coming along with reports of mysterious deliveries to the moon’s warehouses and docks. Waterman-Lau left, closing down all their shipbuilding operations. And then the latest bit, the most disturbing one: the UEF military has taken over, implemented martial law. From what I’ve been told”—Engano paused here to lick her lips—“the UEF seems to be working with the Oblivion cultists to maintain order.”
“That’s—” started Ben.
“Impossible? I’m afraid not. We lost communications with my agents a couple of days ago, after they reported ‘processing centers’ popping up all over the Lunar Dome and the dark side. Sound familiar?”
“Does your command—generals, admirals, Senate—do they know this? Do they know about the Shapeless?” asked Lee.
“They do,” Engano said.
“And they don’t believe it,” Rhule said. “They’re dead set on the idea of getting their vengeance or dying trying to. In fact, Commodore Thorne is already down there on Europa right now, with a mission to wipe out any and all UEF presence.”
“He’s a fanatic, all right,” Engano offered, as if she were discussing the man’s general temperament.
Ben raised one eyebrow. “But you’re not going to join him?”
“No, I’m not. Neither is my admiral, or the 4th War Fleet.”
“Why not?” asked Lee.
“Like I said, I believe that there’s more going on beneath the surface. We”—Rhule nodded at Engano—"managed to convince Admiral Wulff as well. We’re on hold as the admiral reaches out to command and his fellow admirals to redirect our efforts towards peace talks and fighting our true enemy.”
“Why did you take this meeting with us?” Lee asked. Ben looked sideways at his father, but Lee’s eyes were boring a hole into Rhule. Ben sighed. His father wasn’t one to hide his thoughts. “Surely you don’t need us, Captain. At least, not yet.”
“Because I respect you, Captain Saito.”
Lee looked nonplussed.
“And because I owe my life to you.”
For the first time, Lee seemed to be caught off-balance. “How so?”
“The Battle of Acheron.”
Lee furrowed his brow. “That was a long time ago.”
“You had command of a battleship,” Rhule said.
“The Glasgow,” Lee said.
“After the UEF crushed our small fleet, you were tasked with cleaning up and taking prisoners. The other battleships simply destroyed the surviving members of my fleet. You hesitated. You hesitated, and allowed me and my crew to escape. You hesitated long enough that I knew it was an invitation to retreat. One that I took.”
Lee was silent for a long moment. “I remember that.”
“So do I,” Rhule said simply.
Lee was thoughtful. Ben could feel what his father must be thinking. Rhule was returning that long-ago favor with an opening of his own right now, one that Lee had to take advantage of.
“I need a favor, Captain,” Lee said. “One that might save all our lives.”
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