Lightning Strike (The Last Hunter Book 14), page 1
Copyrighted Material
Lightning Strike Copyright © 2024 by Variant Publications
Book design and layout copyright © 2024 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.
1st Edition
CONTENTS
Don’t Miss Out
Previously on The Last Hunter
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
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
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PREVIOUSLY ON THE LAST HUNTER
Jack and his crew were forced into the Confederation proper because of a Locust incursion, and now Hunter and Scorpius are the only ships that can fight off the aliens before they crush humanity. With their resources strictly limited, they need a base of operations. The best choice is Faust, but that is in the hands of the Poseidon Group.
While Jack and Amanda focus their attention in space, Lisa and Tina descend to the surface of Faust to try and turn the populace against their new rulers. They find new friends and manage to make inroads into the enemy computer systems. The secret police prove to be an obstacle, but not one that they can’t overcome, though their victories aren’t easy.
Scorpius had been detached for a scouting mission to see what the Locusts were doing at New Paris, and upon their return, they discovered a hidden gate that the Locusts were pouring out of and attempted to ambush them with disastrous consequences. In the end, Scorpius was crippled, and a significant portion of her crew killed.
Utilizing their hybrid technology, Hunter was able to ambush the Locusts and win a victory in space since Scorpius had destroyed the gate the Locusts were using. They discovered that the Tardan military had been in direct control of the Locusts, and they hadn’t been alone. A ship from the Kingdom of Kastelara was there. That was an unexpected and unwelcome complication.
Through the use of captured intelligence and the assistance of guerrillas working against the Poseidon Group on Faust, Tina and Lisa receive word that the leadership has retreated to a bunker, and they decide to attempt to either capture or kill them there. Through audacious maneuvering, they managed to infiltrate the planetary defense headquarters and take control of the security systems. Now, they were trapped with their enemies, but they were in control.
With the Locusts vanquished and reinforcements sent to liberate Tina and Lisa while taking the Poseidon Group rulers into custody, left Jack with a problem: a civilian leadership vacuum that had to be filled. With little choice in the matter and knowing that he would make no friends with his actions, Jack declared martial law and named himself Governor General of Faust.
Sara Nastasi would take over the judicial system to make sure that the guilty were punished while still separating those who were innocent. A badly injured India MacKinnon would take over as Jack’s deputy when it came time for him to strike out against humanity’s enemies.
With the situation at Faust finally under control, he turned his attention to the invaders. Time was in short supply, and he needed to act quickly if he intended to save the Confederation and humanity. It was time to hit them before they knew he was even there.
1
Admiral Jack Romanoff stepped out of the cutter and into the only operational small craft bay aboard the battleship Scorpius. The great warship had taken a beating defending Faust against a swarm of Locusts, and damage control operations were still in progress.
Personally, he didn’t hold out much hope that the warship would ever return to active duty. The destruction was just too great for that to be a reasonable possibility, particularly during the near term. For the time being—and potentially for all time—the warship would be stuck in orbit around Faust.
That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing because if the weapon systems could be repaired, it would be a powerful base even in its current condition. A kilometer-long nickel-iron asteroid could take quite the beating and still keep putting out destruction. If anyone wanted to seize this planet, they wouldn’t find it a pushover.
The vessel’s flag captain, Rear Admiral Ann Walker, stood waiting for him once he reached the deck. In addition to the patch she wore over her ruined eye, she had a bandage attached to the side of her face where she’d gotten a deep gouge during the fighting.
General Mack Turner, the senior Marine aboard Hunter, followed him out of the cutter with Jack’s fiancée, Vice Admiral Sara Nastasi, at his side. They’d just fled from the planetary council building where he’d declared himself Governor General of Faust. That had gone over as poorly as he’d expected. He couldn’t leave the Poseidon Group in command of the world, and they’d seen fit to execute the pre-existing government, so if he didn’t step in, there would’ve been complete and utter chaos.
That didn’t mean that the locals were pleased to see him seize power, and that’s exactly how many of them viewed his declaration. There would be resistance, and some of it would include violence, but there was nothing he could do about that. They’d do the best they could while he focused on the Locust invasion that threatened the Confederation proper.
“Welcome aboard, Admiral,” Walker said. “I think we’ve got everything under control at this point, but things are still a bit hectic. Excuse the mess while we clean up.”
He smiled a little at the gallows humor. “I’m just glad the damage wasn’t worse. Not to say that you walked away without a scratch, but having Scorpius blow up would’ve been a disaster.”
“No argument from me, sir. We screwed up, and now everyone’s going to pay for it.”
He clapped a hand on her shoulder. “I’m not here to judge you. There will be a court of inquiry at some point, but that’s someone else’s problem. So far as I’m concerned, mistakes were made, and we learned from them. The situation is still salvageable, and I’ve got too much on my plate to worry about what’s happening here. I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you either. Hindsight is always twenty-twenty, and you had no reason to expect that the Tardan military would be exercising direct control over the Locusts.”
“If only we used our independent quantum drive, none of this would’ve happened.”
“Like I said, it’s easy to see what can be changed to correct what happened once everything has played out. How is India?”
Vice Admiral India MacKinnon, Scorpius’s commanding officer, had been badly injured during the battle, and he was here to see her both because he needed to let her know what was going on and to comfort her during this trying time. If Ann was blaming herself this much, India would be worse.
“The doctors agreed to move her to a private room near the medical center, but she’s still under supervision. Right now, that’s mostly done through the machinery she has attached to her, but there’s a nurse who checks on her regularly. When the explosion ripped through the flag bridge, something tore off most of her left leg, and she’s damned lucky that she didn’t bleed out right there. Someone wrapped a tourniquet around what was left of her leg, but we’ll never know who that was because they didn’t survive. She lost everyone on her staff. She’s in a dark place, sir. Very dark.”
“And I’m not sure if talking to me will make it any better, but I’ve heard a good recipe for getting oneself out of the dumps is to have something else to focus their attention on. I’ve come up with just such a task for her. She won’t thank me for it, and she’ll probably need your help. Can I count on you?”
“Absolutely, sir. A lot of my attention will be focused on trying to get Scorpius back into fighting trim, but I’m there for her. Whatever she needs, I’ll make it happen.”
“Good. It’s going to be a lot of work, and it’s nothing either of you has ever been tasked with doing before, but it’s important, and it has to be done. Since she’s not nearly as mobile as we would like, a lot of the footwork will fall on you. You’ll need to task your executive officer with making sure that the repairs on Scorpius happen. For the time being, your attention will be focused on this new work.”
She grimaced. “I’m afraid that my executive officer didn’t survive the destruction. I’ll have to pick someone new, and they won’t be really skilled at this kind of thing. Finding officers with the requisite rank and the experience to make that happen will be difficult.”
“That is a complication,” he agreed. “I’ll talk to Amanda when I get back aboard Hunter, and we’ll see about seconding Rear Admiral Toshi Shimamoto to you. He’s been acting as her executive officer, and while she’ll be a bit more lost without him, I think you could put him to better use. Honestly, I believe India will be consumed by the work I have for her, so I’m going to likely officially promote you to commanding this ship. That would mean that he would become your flag captain, and it would fall to him to get everything put back together.”
Ann pursed her lips. “So I’d be splitting time between running the ship and helping India? I can probably do that because Scorpius isn’t going anywhere in the near future. Frankly, I have my doubts whether she’ll ever be fit for combat again.”
“Maybe not as a mobile platform, but even under the worst-case scenario, we can put her back together enough to operate as a semi-mobile battle station in Faust orbit. I pity any idiots who decide to attack you here. Now, I’m afraid that I need to go break the bad news to your boss. Would you care to escort us and hang around so you can hear what I’ve got to say?”
She nodded. “Absolutely, sir. Please come this way.”
There were a lot of people moving through Scorpius’s corridors. Almost all of them were involved in damage control operations in one form or another. The scope of the destruction couldn’t be overstated.
They’d come into the Confederation proper with about 5,000 extra personnel who’d been slated to be the crew for Amanda Harris’s new command, and he’d seen fit to put 2,500 aboard Scorpius and keep the remainder aboard Hunter. Since Scorpius had lost about a third of her crew, he intended to transfer a number of people from Hunter to help with damage control here and to bring operations aboard the Navy station back under his control.
One of the ways to bring the ship back into being one solid piece was to melt various sections of the nickel-iron hull and re-form it. That would have to be done, and extra material would need to be pumped in to fill the gaps. Considering how long it had taken for Hunter to do that after some of her battles, it would be a protracted job for Scorpius. Even getting the necessary material into Faust orbit would take time and care.
When they took the lift to the appropriate deck, and he passed by the medical center, he could see that the wounded continued to overflow the area where the doctors were working. The worst had been transferred to the Navy station or even taken down to Faust to be put into some of the hospitals where medical professionals could see to their immediate care, but things were still a bit uncertain below, and he didn’t want to risk too many of his people without having the necessary guards on hand to make sure that no one did anything stupid.
And attacking his people while they were injured would be incredibly stupid. Sadly, that didn’t mean that there weren’t idiots that would do it. It was his job—or rather Mac’s—to make sure they stayed safe. He had no doubt the Marine officer would see to that.
Once they were past the medical center, they moved into a side corridor and found a pair of Marines outside one of the hatches. They stiffened to attention as he and the other officers approached, but since this wasn’t his ship, he allowed Ann to take the lead.
She pressed the admittance buzzer, and when the hatch slid open, she led the way inside. Jack followed, with Mac and Sara at his heels. His Marine guards stayed in the corridor and joined the others.
As soon as the hatch closed, he focused his attention on his old friend. She was propped up in a medical bed in what was likely supposed to be a storage room. Whatever had been in the compartment before had been cleared away, and now it was her temporary home until she was well enough to be relocated elsewhere.
India looked gaunt, and her face was more than a bit gray. She looked exhausted and dispirited. She also looked resigned.
“Is it time?” she asked. “I’m ready.”
“That depends on what you think is about to happen,” he said as he took off his cap and greatcoat and hung them on the stand by the hatch. “How are you doing?”
“I’m tired of waiting for the sword to fall. Just get it over with.”
“If you think I’m here to punish you for what happened, you’re wrong,” he said as he sat in the chair beside her bed. “You’ll tell me that you made a mistake that cost lives and potentially your ship. That may be true, but it’s a mistake that anyone could have made. The Locusts don’t normally work with the Tardan military right there at hand, and you had no reason to expect that they would this time. How many times have I used the hyperdrive to attack a swarm of Locusts? This could have happened to me as well, and it’s only pure chance that it didn’t.”
She laughed without the slightest bit of humor. “You at least knew what you were going to fight when you dropped in on them. I made an assumption, and I was wrong. I got so many people killed.”
“People die in war, India. It’s hard to hear, but even under the best of circumstances, things can go wrong. There were times when I used the hyperdrive without having a complete understanding of what I was attacking, and I could have paid for it. You can’t live your life looking back at the mistakes you’ve made. Look forward instead and try to make their sacrifice mean something.”
Before she could respond, he reached out, took her hand into his, and squeezed it. “There have been plenty of times when you’ve given me tough advice that I didn’t want to hear. Now it’s my turn. Don’t let this destroy you. Fight. Find something to hold onto and get back on your feet. Well, foot, I suppose.”
She laughed, this time with at least a bit of humor. “You’re not supposed to make jokes about my injury. It’s too soon. Didn’t anyone ever teach you that?”
“Made you smile. Put the battle behind you and focus on your recovery and what comes next. If you’re looking for punishment, I suspect that what I’m about to do might qualify.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What does that mean?”
“I just came up from the surface. The Poseidon Group leadership has been detained, but there’s no one to fill the void left in the leadership of this planet. I declared myself the Governor General of Faust, and as one might imagine, there was lots of shouting, screaming, and, indeed, shooting. It’s another hat that I have to wear, but I won’t be here to oversee what happens. Since you are so conveniently stranded without a ride, you are now the Deputy Governor General of Faust. It will be your job to deal with all the screaming and shouting, though with hopefully less shooting.”
She stared at him for long seconds without saying a word. Then she sagged a little. “Can’t you just run me out of the service instead?”
