Empire (Empire, Book One) Read online

  Empire

  Empire, Book One

  Logan Rutherford

  Contents

  Empire

  A Note on the Military

  Episode One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Episode Two

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Episode Three

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Oblivion

  Authors Note

  Also by Logan Rutherford

  About the Author

  Empire © 2016 by Logan Rutherford

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, businesses, events, or locales is purely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover Illustration by Tom Edwards

  Editing by George Donnelly

  Fragments & Fictions

  A Note on the Military

  I come from a diverse military family. From the deserts of Iraq and the beaches of Normandy, to the battle of the Alamo and the Revolutionary war.

  That being said, Empire takes place in the distant future, which means things change. The military in this book is not meant to be an exact replica of the US military today.

  I hope you understand the changes made for the sake of this book.

  Thank you, and Happy Reading.

  Logan Rutherford

  Episode One

  Rise of the Empire

  Chapter One

  Anna sat up in her bunk at the sound of the alarms blaring.

  “It’s just another drill. They won’t miss one pilot,” Caleb said. He wrapped his arm around her chest from behind and tugged her back to bed.

  “What are you saying? I’m just another face in the crowd? Expendable?” She smiled.

  Caleb scoffed. “You know what I mean, Roscoe.” He could almost hear her eyes rolling.

  Anna brushed his hands off and stood up from the bunk. “You know better than to call me by my last name. Besides, our time’s almost up.” She pulled her dark blue pants on. Right on cue, desperate fists banged on the metal door to the bunk.

  “Open up in there, Anna! We gotta get our gear!”

  Anna shrugged as she smirked at Caleb. He threw a pillow at her and laughed. She caught it and tossed it back. She grabbed his wrist, pulling him up from the bunk. She planted a kiss on his lips, before tapping his chest. “You need to get ready too. They might miss me on the hangar, but they aren’t going to miss you on the bridge. They don’t hear how hard you slam your fingers on the keyboard, they’ll know something’s wrong.”

  “Okay, low-blow Roscoe,” Caleb said. They kissed again, before scrambling to get dressed, the sound of the blaring alarm and banging on the door their soundtrack.

  Anna took a quick glimpse of herself in the mirror. She fixed her frizzy dark hair the best she could. In the flashing red light, she couldn’t tell if any signs of her time with Caleb had marked her light chocolate skin, so she told herself nobody would notice and turned to let her roommates in.

  Three boys and two girls rushed in, scrambling around to grab the equipment they needed.

  “Slow down, guys,” Anna said as she walked out. “Just a drill.”

  “This isn’t a drill,” her bunkmate Savannah said. “Someone crossed the ETL.”

  Anna’s heart skipped a beat. She met Caleb’s eyes, and he looked just as shocked.

  Nobody had crossed the Earth Territorial Line in forty years. “But that’s an act of war,” she said. Nothing was wrong. It was just a mistake. A sensor malfunction. Or maybe the people in charge were bored of the same old drills. Wanted to spice things up. That had to be the answer. Because the other answer? That was something Anna didn’t even want to consider.

  “Just get to your station! We’ll find out what’s going on soon enough,” her roommate Will said as he brushed by her and Caleb on his way out the door.

  Caleb grabbed Anna and gave her one last kiss. “I gotta go figure out what’s going on.”

  “I’ll see you later,” she said as she adjusted the collar to his uniform, before giving it an affirmative pat.

  Caleb ran down to the right towards the bridge, while Anna went right, sprinting towards the hangar of the USS Ricochet.

  She reached the hangar in record time, her heart beating to the frantic pace of the blaring alarm. All the pilots were gathered around a nearby platform, atop which her CAG addressed everybody. She jogged over and listened in.

  “…unknown vessel crossed the ETL and is ignoring all of our attempts to secure a line of communication. We’re going out there to escort the vessel back across the ETL, and if we have to, launch an assault. Stay sharp, everybody. It’s alright to be nervous, I know you are. Use that to fuel you. Let’s get through this and have a story to tell the folks back home, alright?” Commander Renot yelled to be heard over the blaring alarm.

  “Isn’t this shit classified, Commander?” Rednose yelled, a smile plastered across his face.

  “Get to your ships!” Renot yelled.

  Anna turned and jogged towards her Q-50 fighter, the sleek silver craft sitting in its slot, pristine. Anna felt sick to her stomach as she climbed into the cockpit. She never thought she’d be put in this position. She didn’t think she’d actually be engaging with an unknown enemy. When she joined, they said she’d just be helping keep peace throughout Earth’s many colonies across its side of space. Nobody had seen anything that wasn’t human in forty years, not since the Murtok-Terran war. Which was exactly why the Earth Territorial Line existed. Humans stayed on their side, Murtoks and Livens on each of theirs.

  Something had finally crossed over.

  Chapter Two

  A few days earlier…

  The soft vibrations of the ship reverberated through the floor and up into Hayden Key’s head. He kept his eyes closed, blocking out the nervous, nauseous, and curious faces around him. Blocking them out was something he’d learned early on in his father’s political career. All the eyeballs staring at him, examining his every move, waiting for him to make a mistake. That skill was a valuable one, one he was happy to have as he focused on the vibrations of the ship’s engines. It a
llowed him to be alone in a shuttle filled with nervous cadets as they flew up to the ship that would take them to where the USTS Empire was stationed.

  Hayden’s stomach turned as they blasted through the atmosphere. The inertial dampeners did a good job at keeping the g-forces to a minimum. No, the sickness came from the thought that the next time he was back in Earth’s atmosphere, he would officially be known as Lieutenant Key, an officer in the United States Space Force. Almost two years of training as an L-Cadet led up to this final training mission, the ultimate test of an officer’s abilities.

  Hayden rubbed the stitching of the seatbelt that would hold him down to his seat as they crossed the threshold and entered zero-gravity. They still had a few more moments before that happened, and he cherished his last few seconds of natural gravity before spending the next few weeks trapped on a ship with the artificial kind.

  “Hey, what’s your plan?” a voice next to him asked.

  Hayden opened his dark green eyes. Lots of faces turned away, trying to pretend they weren’t watching. Next to him sat one of his best friends, Vick. His curly red hair floated around him as the ship entered the edge of Earth’s gravity.

  “What do you mean?” Hayden asked.

  “You gonna be a dick to your ‘constituents’,” Vick asked with a satisfied smile.

  Vick was poking fun at his political upbringing, using a word like that. But Vick had been with Hayden ever since basic training, so this was something he’d grown used to. He was one of the only people that Hayden tolerated stuff like that from. “My only job is to make sure everybody stays out of trouble and reports to duty on time. I’m not their ruler.”

  The noises from the ship got louder and louder. That meant the people sitting on board had to yell to be heard, sending everyone in an endless cycle of increasing volume .“What are you guys talking about?” yelled a girl from across the aisle.

  Hayden paused, waiting to see if Vick was going to respond or not. Hayden glanced over at him, and given the glazed over, infatuated look on his face, Hayden assumed Vick wouldn’t be doing any talking anytime soon. “Vick and I are Cadet Leaders.” Hayden reached out and grabbed the laminated card that hung on a lanyard around his neck as it floated towards the ceiling. He showed her the card with the CL printed in large black letters on a red background.

  The girl reached into her jacket and pulled out an identical card and showed it to Vick and Hayden. “Same here.”

  “Oh yeah?” Hayden took another look at her. He didn’t recognize her, but then again, he didn’t know most of the people on the ship. “And what name is on the back of that card?” He all but yelled to be heard over the increasing commotion, finishing his question with a smirk.

  The girl flipped her card around on her fingers, and her picture came into focus on the opposite side. “Millie Roscoe.” She smiled.

  “Nice to meet you, Millie,” Hayden said. “Vick and I were talking about how we’re going to keep all our soldiers under control. Any ideas?” each

  Millie glanced up and down their shuttle aisle at all of the people. “They seem like a rowdy bunch.” Her dark brown eyes returned to meet Hayden’s gaze. She pushed a frizzy curl of hair out from in front of her face. Drops of sweat floated off her dark brown skin.

  Sweat peeled its way off Hayden’s forehead, tickling his skin. He hadn’t even realized how hot he was, but now, he was painfully aware. Air conditioning wasn’t a priority on a vessel used only for the short trips between a planet’s surface and the ships above.

  “I say we throw them out the airlock and have free run of the Empire ourselves,” she said. “I heard someone on the Canadian Space Force actually did that once.”

  Vick let out a sharp laugh, too loud. He looked around, his face reddening, clearing his throat and looked down as if fascinating by the Empire’s metal deck.

  “Don’t mind him,” Hayden said. “He’s afraid of heights, so the whole being miles above the Earth thing is really throwing him for a loop. Now I think you can probably add Canadians to that list too.” He looked back over at Vick whose face was as white as the fields of Milona flowers on the planet Dawn. Vick clearly hadn’t thought about how high up they were yet.

  “A potential Space Fleet officer who’s afraid of heights and Canadians?” Millie asked.

  Hayden shrugged. “Trust me, Vick is full of surprises.”

  “Alright kids, we’re docking with the USS Gettysburg, so brace yourself for artificial gravity,” a man named Sergent Novak over the loud speaker boomed, silencing all the voices throughout the shuttle.

  Hayden grabbed his CL badge and shoved it back inside his dark blue uniform. He held onto the bottom of his seat, and braced himself for the incoming gravity.

  The ship shook as it docked with the Gettysburg and the hissing of the airlocks filled the room. The atmosphere now equalized, the whispers of the excited soldiers filled the air.

  This is it, Hayden thought. The end of my training.

  “Artificial gravity at ten percent,” Sergeant Novak said.

  Hayden’s insides grew heavy and the seatbelt across his shoulders did less and less to hold him down. The voice counted up by the tens, before finally, the artificial gravity reached one hundred percent.

  “Alright everybody, get up from your seats and I want each row to stand in a single file line. The entry corridor is a little tight, so we’re going to exit one row at a time,” the voice said over the speakers.

  Hayden undid his seatbelt, and got up. The excitement was electric as everyone buzzed with anticipation. He stood straight behind Vick, who was a little wobbly to stand.

  “Are you sure he’ll be okay?” Millie asked, the look on her face growing serious as she watched Vick.

  Hayden patted Vick on the back, trying to do so hard enough to bring him back to reality without Millie noticing. “Oh, don’t worry, he’s good.”

  Millie nodded and turned her focus back in front of her, but Hayden noticed the sideways glances she kept giving Vick.

  “Alright, Row A, you’re up,” the voice boomed.

  Hayden was in Row C out of D, so he was going to have to be a bit more patient before getting off the cramped shuttle. The whole process was only going to take less than a minute from start to finish, but to Hayden, time seemed to slow as the final step in his training approached and his destiny awaited.

  The next row left, and Millie gave the two of them a small wave as she walked off.

  “Row C, follow suit.”

  The people in front of him began moving, and Hayden hesitated. This was really about to happen. He was really about to begin his journey to the ship he’d heard about all his life, to complete his final training that he’d been planning towards for years, before moving on to the career he’d been dreaming of since he was a kid when he’d first learned his father was a war hero.

  And yet, he couldn’t take the step.

  “Move it, your highness,” a gruff voice said behind him.

  Anger bubbled up within him, but it was just the push he needed. He caught up to Vick, and along with the rest of the scared and determined soldiers of Row C, stepped onto the USS Gettysburg.

  Chapter Three

  The room Hayden was bunking in buzzed with activity. It housed ten people, most of whom were strangers to each other. Except Hayden, of course. Hayden was no stranger to them. Word spread fast on the USS Gettysburg. It wasn’t long before he saw people walking past the open door to their room, slowing down to try and get a glimpse. To try and see if the rumors were true.

  The bunks in the room were built into the cold metal wall, one on bottom and one on top. He sighed and sat down. He had to lean on his knees since the top bunk was too low to keep from hitting his head on it.

  Vick pushed off from the top bed, landing in front of him. “You meet your squad yet?” he asked.

  Hayden shook his head. “I’ll introduce myself at dinner.”

  “Why wait? Gotta assert your dominance early,” Vick said, smackin
g a fist into his opposing palm.

  Hayden raised an eyebrow and chuckled. “It’s not like we’re actually their squad leaders. We can’t even boss them around really, just make sure they don’t die. Hardly meaningful work.”

  Vick shrugged. “Gotta start somewhere.”

  “How’d you ‘assert your dominance’, Vick?” someone asked.

  Vick turned and stared at Millie standing there. Hayden smiled as he realized she’d been listening the whole time. She was sly. He thought of himself as perceptive, but she was so into unpacking her belongings and placing them inside the drawers that sat next to the bunks. He never thought she was listening.

  “I—uh, you know. I, uh, just told them to, you know…” Vick stammered.

  “I don’t know,” she said, smiling as she shook her head. “That’s why I’m asking you.”

  Vick let out another one of his hard, loud laughs. “Yeah, I know! I just mean, you know. I told them who’s boss.”

  She looked him up and down and smirked. “Oh, I’m sure you did.”

  Hayden laughed and shook his head. It was nice to see someone giving Vick shit for once.

  “Is this how you act whenever anyone talks to you?” Millie asked, squinting her eyes.

  Vick’s face flushed bright red. Hayden wanted to laugh even harder, but he held it in. He wanted to see where this was going.