Birthright: Battle for the Confederation- Reprisal Read online

  He simply walked around, cup of stim-caf in hand, footfalls from his boots creating a steady, regular cadence on the dull gray metal decking. The room felt empty and forgotten; with the lowering of Avenger’s status to noncombatant, her duty roster was much lighter than normal.

  Finally, Lieutenant Commander Sarria Mastruk, his head of C3, approached him. “Commander, you’re making us all nervous,” she said lightly, but Loren could tell she was worried about him.

  “I suppose I am,” he replied. “You know how it is, though. As soon as I leave this room, some major message traffic will arrive and I’ll be the last to know. If something’s going on with Toral, I need to hear it right away.”

  “I know.” Mastruk couldn’t offer any consoling advice, any sage bits of wisdom to ease his mind.

  “I guess I should leave you to it, then.” He nodded as if coming to a decision, then turned and headed towards the hatch. He looked over his shoulder at Mastruk. “I’ll be in my quarters; you know you can call me anytime there’s news of Toral.”

  “Upon pain of severe public humiliation, yes I know,” she replied.

  Loren started out the hatch when some new information came in through the secure intelligence feeds.

  “Lieutenant Commander Mastruk!” an Ensign called. The Qualin woman zapped the summary to a datapad on her desk, then jogged over to her superior to hand deliver it. “News about Toral.”

  Loren heard it just as the hatch started to close. He stuck his hand in the frame so the door wouldn’t finish sliding closed, and raced back into the room. He bounded up two stairs and he was up on the raised command platform with Mastruk. She had just started reading when Loren showed up, and out of deference to him she gave him the datapad and let him read first. The Qualin Ensign headed back to her station to make more copies.

  Mastruk watched Loren’s expression intently as he read the summary. It was usually one paragraph that put the whole dispatch in a nutshell. There might be pages of data afterward, but that first paragraph was the important part.

  Loren read it softly out loud for Mastruk, but as he skimmed it he was absorbing the words for himself as well. “As of two hours ago, the last Priman warship has left the system. After contesting it in fleet actions for three days, Priman forces have just completed a total withdrawl from the system. Initial scans showed no occupying forces or antiship devices in orbit.”

  He kept reading, but his mind wasn’t recording the words. He was only thinking about Cassie. She was free! The Primans were gone, and he could start living his life again. After spending the last seven months thinking he’d never be reunited with his wife in this lifetime, now it all came rushing in- the repressed fear, anxiety, sadness, and the flickering flame of hope that he’d kept alive but hidden. Now it was over, and the weight that he didn’t realize had been dragging him down just fell away. He didn’t care about strategies and tactics, only that the Primans had left and Confed could start landing forces on the surface. Immediately he started planning on how he was going to get a leave request in.

  His eyes snapped back to the page, and the second, unread summary paragraph. He quickly started skimming, then faltered. He swore he saw stars in his vision, and suddenly it all came crashing down. His world once again ended, with the resounding finality of all the fears and worries he had managed to repress and deny himself these last months.

  His cup fell to the deck, the glassware shattering on the hard metal surface as the liquid inside splashed all over the floor. The datapad followed it to the ground as his hands just stopped working. He staggered backward to a chair and fell into it awkwardly, almost spinning around out of it and onto the deck but saving it at the last second. Instead of the ambient noise of C3, he only heard white noise, and it seemed to get louder as his mind wrapped itself around the injustice of it all.

  Concerned, Sarria Mastruk ran over to Loren and made sure he was sitting alright in his chair. Her eyes shot daggers at the crewmembers who had turned to stare at Loren, and they returned to their tasks.

  Quickly, she scanned the document and arrived at the second paragraph.

  Unknown virus was discovered in routine air samples taken of Toral’s cities. Further analysis indicates inhabitant DNA is target of virus. Enter security clearance for access to briefing materials on known Priman DNA weapons and effects. Immediate and total quarantine has been established around Toral.

  Mastruk tried entering her clearance to get more information, but was refused. Something about Loren’s reaction said he knew what this was all about. And something in her began to worry about whether could take losing his wife again.

  Appendix

  Ryan is a lifelong sci-fi fan and lives in Wisconsin. He has a blog at:

  http://rekroom.wordpress.com/

  Stop by to see what’s currently intriguing or distracting him, updates on his books, as well as photo renders of ships and weapons from the books he’s written.

  In addition, Indie authors don’t have advertising budgets- they get their best form of advertising from reviews and word of mouth. If you liked this novel, please consider taking a minute to write some quick feedback for the Amazon or Barnes and Noble site where you purchased this.

  http://rekroom.wordpress.com/book-list/birthright-reprisal/

  Thank you,

  Ryan