Talosian Chronicles 5: Raptor Squadron

Raptor Squadron

Talosian Chronicles – Book V

By Ben Winston

Copyright © 2016 Ben Winston

Published by Blue Space Publications, LLC.

Disclaimer

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed by a newspaper, magazine, or journal.

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Talosian Chronicles

Olympus – Book I

Star Dancer – Book II

Talosian Alliance – Book III

Neptune’s Massif – Book IV

Raptor Squadron - Book V

Armeggedon - Book VI (Release Date TBA)

Dedication

Respectfully dedicated to all the people of the planet Earth.

May we find harmony in our diversity,

Compromise in our differences,

And may we join together to finally reach for the stars, in peace.

• Raptor Squadron
  
• Disclaimer
  
• Dedication
  
• CHAPTER ONE
  
• CHAPTER TWO
  
• CHAPTER THREE
  
• CHAPTER FOUR
  
• CHAPTER FIVE
  
• CHAPTER SIX
  
• CHAPTER SEVEN
  
• CHAPTER EIGHT
  
• CHAPTER NINE
  
• CHAPTER TEN
  
• CHAPTER ELEVEN
  
• CHAPTER TWELVE
  
• CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  
• CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  
• CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  
• CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  
• CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  
• CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  
• CHAPTER NINETEEN
  
• About the Author
  
• Connect with the author or Blue Space Publications, LLC.
  
• Books Published by Blue Space Publications, LLC.
  

Raptor Squadron

The story so far…

Roughly forty-five hundred years ago, a Talosian Federation warship, the Heavy Cruiser, F.S.S. Olympus, crashed on Earth’s moon as the result of an attack. Faced with almost irreparable damage to the ship, the loss of most of its crew, and the total destruction of their ‘race’, Commander Zeus came up with a radical plan to try and save his race.

His plan was to leave the
Olympus
on the moon, go down to the beautiful blue planet, and breed with as many of the inhabitants as possible. The
Olympus
, under the control of the AI, would remain on the moon, make repairs, and then begin searching for someone with the correct genetic markers to assume command of the great ship.

A young pilot trainee that was orphaned in the attack asked the Commander for permission to take her own life since she no longer wished to continue without her mother and girlfriend. Zeus didn’t have the heart to grant her request, so he asked her instead to go into cryogenic suspension and assist the new Commander, once one was found. Believing that she would never wake up, Talena agreed.

After watching the last of the crew depart, the ship’s AI had his hologram walk young Talena to the Cryogenics bay. He told her he would be there when she awoke. She just smiled sadly at him and said good-bye.

With Talena safely in cryo-sleep, the AI, also named Olympus, set about his first task of repairing and decontaminating the ship; it took far longer than it had estimated. 900 years later he had finally completed all the repairs he could. However, the ship remained on the moon for the simple reason that, since it was never intended to land, the ship had no means of lifting its large, multi-megaton mass off the surface.

Hoping the new Commander would have an idea, Olympus turned its full attention to the planet the crew had emigrated to. After an exhaustive (even for him) survey, he was dismayed. It appeared that only a few of the natives showed traces of his former crews. Fearing that the Commander’s plan had failed, but bound by his final commands, the old AI resigned himself to monitoring the small planet and awaiting his eventual core systems failure.

In an effort to occupy his time, Olympus rechecked for the proper genetic sequences once every fifty or so years. Realizing that the planet needed help, but knowing that interference could very well make things worse, he began to influence man in small subtle ways, avoiding politics and religion, that, while not correcting major issues, kept mankind from killing themselves long enough to learn how to fix it themselves.

Then one day, one of his probes reported finding two young people that were almost exact genetic matches for Commander Zeus and Colonel Hera, the ship’s second in command and bond mate to Zeus.

Taken somewhat by surprise, the old computer shifted his full attention to the young couple. The fact that they lived only four blocks apart and were best friends amazed him. Excited and full of anticipation, he continued to monitor them as they grew and directed his remotes to continue to check the entire populace – this time with far more optimism. Shortly before Ian Williams graduated from high school, Olympus convinced him of his heritage, and Ian accepted the responsibility as Commander of Olympus. Ian followed Talosian tradition and rechristened the ship ‘Star Dancer’ and changed the male AI avatar, ‘Olympus’, to a female, ‘Star’. He immediately began recruiting a crew after taking his best friend as bond mate. Suspecting that the ship had sustained further, possibly undetected damage, Ian ordered diagnostics run on the ship. After rescuing young Talena from her impossibly long four-thousand-five-hundred-year stasis, the small group found out how badly damaged the ship actually was, and even Star was surprised by how close to killing the new crew they had come.

Not letting the unwelcome report deter him, Ian ordered major sections of the ship to undergo emergency repairs, to include the total removal and replacement of its primary power reactor. While waiting for the ship to become safe for occupancy once again, Ian and crew set up a corporate township in New Mexico as a cover for recruiting new crew members, as well as introducing suppressed technologies and ‘green’ research.

The ship’s repairs finally were finished, and a method to lift off the lunar surface was devised. Shortly after officially assuming command of the newly rechristened
Star Dancer
, Ian and crew launched the old warship back into the heavens where she belonged. 

Once back in space, Ian and his people focused on preparing for the arrival of a Caldarian ship and whoever else may be planning on showing up. After months of preparation and worry, the Caldarian ship arrived and immediately began searching the system for Ian and his people.

Seeing the opportunity to play it safe and possibly save some of the lives of his people, Ian kept a low profile and began a guerrilla war against the Caldarians. During the attacks, it became impossible for Ian to keep his existence from the governments of the United States and the rest of the Earth. However, that wasn’t the only government to notice Ian and his people; just as the Caldarian Super Nova hadn’t been the only ship to make the jump to the Sol System.

In the aftermath of the final battle, other ships that had jumped to Sol were revealed to be Talosian Heavy Cruisers, the same model as
Star Dancer
herself.

Once the shock of discovering that all the Talosian people hadn’t been killed had worn off, Ian and the two newly arrived Commanders sat down and discussed the battle and what would likely happen now that the Talosians knew Ian had one of their ships.

After discovering that the better part of the galaxy, the Alliance of Races of which the Talosians are a part, is at war with invaders from another galaxy, it soon became clear that there is a problem brewing in the Talosian Ruling Council.  Nowhere is that more evident than in the sour relations the Talosians have with the other races of the Alliance of Races.

Half the Council believes that everything in the Sol System should fall under their control and in most cases dominance. While the leaders of the Council believe that the Sol System is a separate, autonomous entity. Two members of the Council along with the two highest ranking members of the Talosian Military came to the Sol System to negotiate the situation.

After a sabotage attempt perpetrated by one of the Council members failed, Ian and the other members of the Talosian Council discovered the extent of the corruption in the Talosian Ruling Council, and the plot to over-throw the Council. Ian and his friends worked out a plan to help the Talosians prevent a civil war that would allow the Empire to over-run the Talosians.

During all of this
Star Dancer
received a distress call from a Benesian ship; a civilian passenger liner registered to the Benesian ruling oligarchy. Cindy's new ship, the Raptor
Damocles,
is the closest and responds to the distress call first. Ian puts the dignitaries ashore at the moon base and heads out to assist the Benesians as well. Arriving first, the
Damocles
was heavily damaged by an Imperial warship that was destroyed in the initial exchange with the
Damocles
.

The Benesian ship hid and began repairs. When
Star Dancer
arrived, they located the Benesian ship but not Cindy’s Raptor,
Damocles
.

After locating the
Damocles
,
Star Dancer
helped the Benesian ship finish repairs, but while escorting it to a jump point, an Imperial Task Force arrived. After speaking to the Alliance of Races Military, Ian and the
Star Dancer
remained in the system to gather intelligence for the Alliance of Races. Impressed with Ian and convinced that the humans of Sol Sector are not the same humans of Talos, the Alliance of Races opened diplomatic relations with Sol Sector and invited them to take part in the assault on the task force Ian encountered while assisting the Benesian liner.

The diplomatic relations allowed the people of Sol Sector to take care of another issue that had been waiting for the Council to make a decision. The underwater Caldarian base in the Atlantic Ocean under the sea mount called Neptune's Massif.

Almost as soon as the underwater base was secured, the political situation on New Talos deteriorated into civil war. A militant faction intent on racial dominance staged a coup that killed almost half of the Grand Council of New Talos and took control of the population and all the military assets in the system. During the Coup, Admiral Goya and Councilor Noren tried to send the self-destruct commands to the Talosian fleet. Councilor Noren was gravely wounded in the attempt. A Council guard made a lucky shot and killed the assassin, and another Councilor assisted Goya in sending the Council override command to the fleet, destroying the ships controlled by the rebels, but leaving the loyal Talosian Military basically unarmed.

Ian devised a plan to retake New Talos and restore the Council to power, but lacked the forces on his own. First Admiral H'Joles of the Alliance of Races sent several Talosian units under his command to Ian in order to restore New Talos. Before leaving, Ian ordered the construction yards in Sol Sector to begin rebuilding the Talosian Fleet and to use the new designs developed by the researchers in Sol Sector.

While Ian and the task force were busy at New Talos, the Empire pulled their forces back to a forward staging area. The new Commander had a change in tactics to implement and wanted to take advantage of the New Talos incident to spread suspicion and mistrust in the Alliance.

Shortly after Ian and his remaining forces returned to Sol Sector, the Empire began using their advanced hyperspace travel system to stage terroristic hit and run raids on unprotected Alliance worlds. It worked, the Alliance citizens began to panic and lose faith in the Council and the Military.

The Alliance Council called for an emergency meeting of all races to discuss the situation. First Admiral H'joles also called for the Alliance Military leaders to meet and discuss options for countering this new threat to the Alliance.

Intending to send them out searching for intelligence after providing security for the meeting, Ian took all available Raptor teams with him to the meeting. However, once they arrived, the First Admiral shared some new information with him. An Alliance social survey probe had captured images of three large rings near the main Imperial base. It was believed that these were the devices that gave the Empire the ability to jump hundreds of light years almost instantly. Ian and H'joles agreed to send Ian's Raptor teams to investigate and destroy the devices. After briefing the team leaders and their AI, First Admiral H'joles dispatched the Raptor Squadron.