Galactic Breach Read online

  Copyrighted Material

  Galactic Breach Copyright © 2019 by Variant Publications, Hopper Creative Group

  Book design and layout copyright © 2019 by JN Chaney

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living, dead, or undead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved

  No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing.

  Version 2.0

  1st Edition

  Galactic Breach

  Book 2 in the Ruins of the Galaxy Series

  J.N. Chaney

  Christopher Hopper

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  See you in the Ruins!

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  Book Description

  Galactic Breach

  Ruins of the Galaxy #2

  A city on the brink of war. Marines held hostage by merciless warlords.

  After Lieutenant Magnus awakes from the orbital strike that nearly killed him, he discovers that a small contingent of his Marine platoon has also survived. Hope glimmers as he devises a plan to rescue them.

  But when Magnus learns that his men are being held hostage by a deadly tribe, he fears the worst.

  Aided by volunteers from a group of elite Marauders, Magnus must attempt to cross the hostile city of Oosafar.

  Time is running out...and he has no choice but to undertake the most deadly urban assault of his career.

  The pace quickens in Ruins of the Galaxy's second epic installment, captivating fans of Star Wars, Galaxy’s Edge, and Battlestar Galactica.

  Contents

  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

  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

  List of Main Characters

  Join the Ruins Tribe

  Get a Free Book

  About the Authors

  1

  Admiral Kane was surprised at how well the Bull Wraith’s captain handled being flushed from an airlock. Captain Pace stood at ease, hands behind her back, chin up, as Kane went through the list of her failures. Failure to confine the prisoners to their ship. Failure to prevent the prisoners from escaping. Failure to track the prisoners. Failure to recapture the prisoners. It was too much for Kane to overlook, as much as he hated to punish an otherwise worthy officer.

  But if you don’t, Kane, you’ll be just as guilty as them, the familiar voice said. Inconsistent, soft, weak. Those kinds of failings were why the Republic was crumbling, a shadow of its former self. He knew the voice was right.

  Immediately upon returning from the metaverse and the odd events that had transpired there, Kane learned of Captain Pace’s actions to capture Senator Stone and his family. It seemed that the captain had also taken on board a small contingent of Marines and navy personnel who, no doubt, assisted the Stones in killing several troopers and fleeing the Bull Wraith in the escape pods. Kane’s instructions not to harm the senator’s family had been explicit. Still, the captain had ordered her Marines to open fire on the escapees. At least she hadn’t targeted the escape pods, though Kane assumed that was more a stroke of coding luck than any wise decision on Captain Pace’s part.

  Still, even if the senator’s family had survived the descent to Oorajee, the planet’s inhabitants would have seen to their demise by now. Kane felt a strange taste in his mouth as he thought of his past dealings with the hyena-like beasts. “Savages,” he noted to himself as he stared at Captain Pace behind the airlock glass.

  Like you.

  “Not like me,” Kane replied. “I am not ruthless.”

  “But, sir,” Captain Pace protested. “I have served you faithfully for fifteen years without failure. If you would only—”

  “I am not ruthless!”

  The voice in his head laughed at that. He would have argued with it, but the voice was always right. It was cunning. It even had a name now, but Kane dared not say it.

  Kane’s rage boiled over as he thought of the Jujari slaying his daughter and devouring her flesh. More pain gripped his chest as he imagined what they would do to the granddaughter he’d never met.

  Then Kane wondered what she would think of all this.

  Why does that matter?

  “Because she’s the reason.”

  “She, Admiral?” Pace did nothing to hide the confusion on her face. “The reason for what? Are you speaking about me, sir?”

  “She’s the one who forced this to happen.”

  She is?

  “Yes,” Kane hissed. “If she had stayed with me, if she had resisted the Republic with me, none of this would be happening.”

  But I thought we went over this, Kane. You told me that you chose.

  “I did choose. I chose to move forward when she could not.”

  Then what she thinks about their deaths does not matter, does it?

  Kane thought for a moment, licking his lips. He looked out at Captain Pace. The woman looked so resolute—so confident—as she met her end.

  “Admiral Kane, if you are not ruthless, then you are at least mad.”

  That’s exactly what she said about you, too, isn’t it? Ignore her.

  “And I… I have nothing left to say, sir.” Pace straightened her uniform and raised her chin.

  Precisely how she will look in the end. When she defies you unto death.

  “Perhaps.” Kane looked down. “No, I… I can’t do it.” He gripped his head. The stabs of pain between his temples were coming more frequently. “I can’t.” He looked back up. In place of Captain Pace’s face was another face—her face. “I won’t.”

  Then I will.

  His fist swung up and pounded the blinking “Open” button beside the airlock’s frame. Captain Pace screamed as her
body was yanked into the void, but no one heard her.

  * * *

  “I don’t care about his infernal dark arts,” Admiral Kane roared at the man in the holo-vid. He sat alone in his quarters, lights dimmed, his teeth bared, fists clenched on his desk.

  “Perhaps you should,” the man said. “Never underestimate your enemy, Kane.”

  Kane had grown tired of the implicit insults and blatant condescension. This senator—who was he, anyway? He wasn’t much older than Kane. He’d never seen combat, never led men and women into battle, never escorted them to the gates of hades and left them to rot.

  Not like you have, Kane, the voice said. His power is so shallow. So political. Yours, however, is real power, the power to hold someone’s life over the edge of eternity—something he’s never known aside from ordering back-door executions. Why do you still tolerate him?

  “I don’t know,” Kane replied.

  “Don’t know? You should have ended him while you had the chance, Admiral. You’re getting sloppy.”

  “Terminating the Luma emissary was of greater importance,” Kane replied, still seething. He wanted to strangle the senator and watch his eyes bulge beneath his manicured gray hair. The picture of doing it gave him a strange satisfaction. “She obviously knew the location of the quantum tunnel, as did her crew. We couldn’t allow them to live.”

  “Be that as it may, you must now dispose of the Luma master. Since you don’t know what’s in the book he took from the temple, he’s a liability. If you hadn’t been busy tying up irrelevant loose ends, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation right now.”

  Are you going to let him order you around like this? When are you going to put a stop to it?

  “When the time is right,” Kane muttered.

  “What was that?”

  He is, after all, a part of the system that stole them from you—that stole all of it from you—isn’t he?

  Kane’s eyes snapped back to the senator. “I said, I will strike when the time is right, Senator.”

  The gray-haired man sat back and stroked his chin, considering Kane. “You forget your place, Admiral. You belong to us. Everything you have is because of us—because of me.”

  “Everything you have?” Kane, you cannot let him demean all of your work, all of your sacrifice. You belong to no one. Let me talk to him. I will make things right.

  “No, no,” Kane said with a wave of his hand.

  “What was that?” The man leaned forward, his face filling the holo-vid.

  “I mean, no, you’re right. I forget my place.”

  Do not betray yourself, Kane!

  “Very well. Consider yourself reminded.” The senator relaxed a little. “I want So-Elku dead and the book he took recovered.” The senator tented his fingers and sat back. “Now, what else have you brought us from beyond the void?”

  Kane cleared his throat as the other voice tried to punch through his will. Don’t tell him, Kane! Don’t you dare.

  “I found no ships worth salvaging.”

  “No ships,” the senator repeated, unimpressed.

  “Our scans indicated thousands of vessels docked throughout the city, but all of them were in severe disrepair.”

  “Disrepair? Did, did, did you at least explore them?” the senator stammered. “Did you—did you glean from their technology as discussed?”

  You see how he second-guesses you at every point? He doesn’t trust you—he doesn’t want what’s best for you. Let me speak, Kane. Please let me speak.

  “No!” Kane said far more forcefully than he intended to. “I mean, yes, we explored them. But what we found was…”

  “Yes? What did you find, Kane? Get on with it already.”

  Don’t say anything, Kane.

  “It was old. So old.” He could feel himself trail off into the memories of that other world lost to time. “Consumed by the jungle and swallowed by age.”

  The senator waited for more. He stroked his chin again. “And?”

  Kane’s eyes snapped back up. “We were thorough, but there was simply nothing to obtain. It’s not what we had hoped for.”

  “‘Not what we had hoped for?’ I see.” The senator picked up a data pad and flicked through a few screens. “You couldn’t have explored for very long, then. The log says here that you were only gone for… this can’t be right.” He glared at Kane. “Less than four hours?”

  Don’t you say a word, Kane. He doesn’t need to know—doesn’t deserve to know. Lie.

  “That’s incorrect, Senator. That should read less than four days.”

  “You’re saying the navigation computers are wrong?”

  “I’m saying I need to have a talk with my XO. It will be taken care of.”

  “Human error, then,” the senator stated, unconvinced. “We have redundancy for this sort of thing. Why are you leaving AI calculations to humans?”

  “It will be taken care of.”

  “Even still, three and a half days, Kane? We press the Jujari into a corner, spend countless lives, years, and resources to do so, and all you give me is four days?”

  I told you he doesn’t trust you! Why do you put up with this?

  “It’s just a matter of time,” Kane said.

  “I don’t follow,” the senator replied.

  “Time. However long ago—thousands of years maybe?—the Jujari received that stardrive, and the civilization withered to nothing. It would be like searching the ruins of Goroboro for blaster technology. It’s just not there to be found anymore.”

  “I don’t believe you,” the senator said.

  He confesses! You see? Let me put him in his place, Kane. Just once.

  “I will forward you the data files we captured,” Kane said.

  “That’s not enough. I want you to go back.”

  “Back?”

  “Yes. Now. Leave So-Elku to me. You cannot come back empty-handed like this.”

  “But, Senator—”

  “There are no buts, Admiral. I order you—”

  “The quantum tunnel is closed,” Kane said.

  The senator’s face froze. It was several moments before he even blinked. “What did you say?”

  “When we returned from the metaverse, the tunnel was nowhere to be found.”

  “Impossible.”

  “There were no guarantees that it was going—”

  “That’s impossible,” the senator said, raising his voice and leaning into the screen.

  “I’m only reporting what happened.”

  “Like reporting your missing three and a half days?”

  “I will forward the sensor scans, sir,” Kane said. “It’s gone. There’s no going back.”

  The senator wiped his face with a hand and sat all the way back. Kane heard the chair’s leather squeak beneath the man.

  Very good, Kane. Very, very good.

  “I will take care of So-Elku,” Kane said. “Then we move forward with our plans without the Novia tech. We have enough without it.”

  “Do we?”

  “Yes, sir. We do.”

  “I’m not so sure anymore,” the senator said, his voice lowered. “Await my orders, Kane. I must confer with the others on this. You are clearly unstable.”

  The fool. This is why he can never be a part of the future. He lacks imagination. Let the dead awaken, Kane. And let the living go down to die. It’s time to set things right. It’s time that you release me.

  “As you wish,” Kane said, looking at his clenched fists. “As you wish.” He opened his hands.

  * * *

  The admiral stood in his quarters, pacing with short steps and quick turns. He caught glimpses of his bald head and puckered flesh in the mirror. Then he stopped and stared at his eyes. His pink eye grew dark like the other. Then both began to enlarge until new black irises pushed the white sclera to the edges.

  The space felt cramped. He never understood why the most important person on a ship this size was relegated to such a small room. He would need
to change that. He would need to change a lot of things.

  The air felt stale, and his head ached. There was a growing throb in his forehead, and his nose felt dry. He needed to get out. Kane waved the doors open, stepped into the corridor, and turned toward the main elevator at the end of the hall. His boots clipped along the glossy black floors as he pulled his uniform taut.

  Crew members saluted Kane as they passed. He nodded. They seemed more afraid of him than usual. As some of them looked away in disgust, he felt something running out of his nose.

  Kane touched his black-gloved fingers to his nose and brought them away. Blood covered the tips. He pulled a white handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at his nostrils. By the time the bleeding stopped, crimson blood soaked the fabric. Kane folded the damp cloth and pushed it into his pocket.

  The elevator gave a soft chime as the doors parted. Two crew members emerged and looked away from the admiral’s face as soon as they’d saluted. That often happened when people first saw his one pink eye and one dark brown eye. But Kane also imagined that his nose and lips were not up to cleanliness standards. At that moment, however, he didn’t care.

  “Rear observation deck,” he said.