Warp Wraith, page 1
Warp Wraith
Let the Galaxy Bleed, Volume 1
K.J. Coble
Published by Haymore House Publishing, 2025.
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
WARP WRAITH
First edition. July 31, 2025.
Copyright © 2025 K.J. Coble.
ISBN: 979-8230622895
Written by K.J. Coble.
Also by K.J. Coble
Against the Endless Dark
Flight of the Old Wolf
The Lure of Empire
Howls From The Deep
Webs of Treason
Spawn of the Void
Bedlam in the Beyond
Hell's Jesters
Hell's Jesters
Cry Havoc
Rebel Hell
Back Into The Fire
Hell or Highwater
Last Call
Heroes of the Valley
Defenders of the Valley
Blood in the Valley
Stand in the Valley
Warlock of the Valley
Scourge of the Valley
Curse of the Valley
Let the Galaxy Bleed
Warp Wraith
Void Siege
The Quintorius Chronicles
Lord of Exiles
Legion of Exiles
Republic of Exiles
The Vothan Guard
The Tome of Flesh
Crypt of the Violator
The Witch of Vendar
The Witch of Vendar
Hell at the Gates
Twilight in the City of God
Standalone
Magic Fire - Metal Storm
The Shadows of Maunathyrr
Ashes of Freedom
Beyond the Bulwarks
Watch for more at K.J. Coble’s site.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Also By K.J. Coble
Dedication
Epigraph
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
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Further Reading: Void Siege
Also By K.J. Coble
About the Author
To Glenn David Coble.
Musician, Actor, Activist, Soldier, Businessman, Father, Grandfather.
Who reminds me often that you're only as old as you let yourself be.
Cover Design: Illustration © Tom Edwards, TomEdwardsDesign.com
Chapter 1
MALIK’S HIBERNATION pod cracked open like a metallic egg, flaps of it peeling away and receding into the grated floor of his quarters aboard the battlecruiser Vengeful. A cloud of fumes purled forth, was quickly cleared from the air by straining ventilators. Malik emerged from this, scarred flesh still steaming, senses and sensation returning to a body that was no longer entirely human.
He wobbled once, mind and body shocked by the assault of stimuli he’d banished during the long hours of his meditation. But it was more than that, more than the return to a harsh, dark, metal existence.
The vision had returned.
He stood not aboard the flagship of his rebel fleet, hurtling through hyperspace. And he stood not in the now. He strode in the past, drifting nightmare-like through a snow-dappled night, through flames and wreckage and the screams of blasters and throats. He was stepping over bodies, drifting between torched shelters, clenching his force sword close.
And he was brought to a halt by the vision, that ghostly vision.
A girl on the brink of womanhood in the tatters of what almost looked like had been a festival gown staggered into his path. She froze at the sight of him, brown eyes as huge as planetoids while dirty-blonde hair unraveled in a smoke-marred breeze. A chain of flowers woven into that came apart, petals loosening, mixing with the snow and sparks from the flames. She said nothing as she trembling before him, surrounded by the slain members of her cult.
She never said anything.
A ping rang from an overhead speaker, mercifully banishing the ghost. A voice crackled from it. “My Lord?”
“Hold,” Malik rasped, striding towards the far side of the chamber. The relief of the anesthetic fog of his pod was fading, reminding him again of his ravaged lungs, throat, and ruined nose and mouth. Breathing was still work, even after years of healing and treatments. And sometimes, he could still feel the plasma fires that had done all that damage.
A panel whisked back from a wall at his approach. Shelves extended and Malik paused to consider the rows of masks. Each had a story and a purpose. One, fashioned of bone interwoven with plastic, had been a gift from the Nazzeradi, after he’d smashed the Theocracy forces that had held them down so long. Another was a nearly-featureless curve of steel, etched with thaumaturgic sigils, presented by the Fenreir, who believed him a god.
But his hand went to the one of black metal, crafted into a monstrous, fanged snarl. This, the cult on Galdamon had forged for him, and told him of the curse laid upon it only much later.
Considering the vision haunting him—the memory, he knew in all truth—it seemed a day for curses.
“Sir?” the voice from the speaker pressed.
Malik pushed the mask to his face, grimacing against it as tiny needles worked into flesh to knit with nerves. It fused to his face like a living thing, a symbiote that eased his tortured breathing and hid the damage and secrets beneath. He drew a long inhalation, savored air not knife-edged as it coursed into him.
“My Lord?”
Malik touched a control blinking from a wall panel and turned as a hologram wove together in the air before him. The man in the image wore an olive drab uniform of sparse decorations that he nevertheless gave a kind of gravitas with his stiff posture. Snow white eyebrows knit over his cold blue eyes, matching an equally white mane of hair and precisely-trimmed mustache.
“I thought I told you not to call me that,” Malik told the image, his voice metallic and deep—not really his, but as much his as anything could be.
Everild, Admiral of Malik’s ragtag fleet, flinched. “Of course, sir.”
Malik’s ruined features crinkled into a smile under the mask. Rumor had it that Everild had been a midshipman back in the days of the Empire, before its collapse into the Theocracy. And the old man still had the habits and manners of that lost order.
“What is it?”
“Less than an hour till hyperspace exit, sir,” Everild replied, sounding very much like he wanted to make sir into sire. “You told me to inform you. The briefing is assembling as we speak.”
“Any sign that our approach has been detected?”
Everild’s lips pinched under the mustache, as though the question offended. “We won’t know for certain until we revert to real-space. But there were no warnings when we left Farbanks. I anticipate we will breach the Anea System with no resistance.”
“Very good. I will be there, shortly.”
Everild bowed stiffly. “My Lord.” The hologram dissolved before Malik could tell if that had been a mistake.
Malik snorted under his mask and stepped away from the shelves, turning to another closet as it opened from the wall. But he paused, stood flexing the fingers of his fists, fully working the feeling into them. He flexed his mind as well, and his other senses.
The Flux thrummed in his blood as he called it to him. Hurtling through hyperspace, still a parsec out from a living world, it was as sparse as fog burning away before a dawn. The bloodstream of the Universe, all living things fed it, filled its great, glistening springs beneath the material plane. In Silence, one could call upon it, to shift reality, to clear or cloud minds, to help or harm.
The Silence that Malik had honed in the solitude of his pod like a blade’s icy edge should have cut through all.
But it couldn’t cut the spectral fragment of that vision.
Anea System, he thought. Where it all ended. Where it all started. Where, he knew, the vision had had its birth.
The Flux, it seemed, would not aid him in forgetting. It seemed It wanted him to remember. He’d long ago learned that his destiny was not truly his to control.
He tried not to fear that.
THE CONFERENCE ROOM was an amphitheater-like chamber, situated aft of Vengeful’s bridge. A plastisteel dome curved over it and offered a shimmering, purplish view of the weird space-time vagaries of hyperspace whipping by the starship. These gave the room an uneven, unsettling light.
The harsh blue of a massive hologram countered this as the Revenants, Malik’s rebel—or criminal, depending on who you asked—organization gathered. The image of a star system shined from the projection as men and women filed into tiers of seating overlooking it. The rumble of their many conversations filled the air. Tension under-pinned these, giving the atmosphere a crackle that was as much physical as it was in the Flux, stirred by their turbulent souls.
All of this stilled as
Silence descended, save the scuffle of the last of the Revenants hastily finding spots. As they settled, their gazes invariable rose to him. And he would be a sight, he knew. The mask’s fearsome effect would be complimented by the black leathers, reinforced with blastisteel armor strips and studded with steel that was functional as well as frightening. An equally dark cloak flowed about behind all this, puffed out by the stirred air of the chamber like a living shadow.
Few of those gathered would know his attire closely mimicked the garb of the now-defunct Sacred Band of the Theocracy. Only Everild, still standing and expectant by the holographic projector, knew the symbolism behind that.
Malik held up a hand to the Admiral. “Let us begin.”
“Sir.” Everild touched a projector control and the image of the star system at its heart flickered with pointers and labels. A bluish halo pulsed at the rim of the system’s elliptic plane. “We expect to enter the Anea System here. The other elements should emerge from their rally points in roughly the same vicinity. The System is G-type, a yellow primary, four worlds, two of which are too close to the star to support any settlement.” He touched the control again and a pointer touched the largest planet in orbit. “The furthest, Bahamut, is a gas giant. There are several occupied moons and we know the Theocracy’s primary fleet base is there.”
A lesser hologram popped out from the main one to show a closeup the giant and its satellites. One of these blinked and schemata scrawled into being beside it, detailing space stations and construction docks. But this view swerved, shifted dizzyingly down-system to a lesser, blue-green marble.
“The primary inhabited world is Circe, here,” Everild continued. “The angle of our entry should allow us to cut between it and any response from Bahamut. We do expect there will be patrols near Circe and certainly orbital defenses.”
“We’ll make short work that,” a voice called out from the crowd. A youthful, burnt honey face turned towards Malik, met his gaze arrogantly but likeably. “We’ll make short work of all of it!”
Rumbles of agreement and a few whoops joined the statement. The speaker’s lips peeled back from shining teeth and his green eyes glinted merrily. He wore his battered olive uniform vest unbuttoned and informal, almost slovenly, but notably festooned with decorations. The winged star of the Revenants’ starfighter command winked from his collar.
Dashawn—Dee—Callisto hadn’t been with Malik as long as Everild, but he’d been with the Revenants longer than most.
Waving away the burst of jocularity, Malik nodded to Everild. “Continue, Admiral.”
“Most of the system’s industry and strategic value—such as it is—comes from the mining operations in the asteroid belt around Bahamut,” Everild explained. “But most of its population and material sustenance is on Circe. Thus, it is not without its defenses.”
The hologram zoomed in till the blue-green globe took up its entirety. Details of its surface crystallized. The image rotated slowly, giving all a view of a single, winding continent, coiled like a great dragon with its tail unravelling into a long chain of islands across its equator. Rugged mountain ranges gave the dragon its scales. Plains opened up at one point, giving the beast its soft underbelly.
Points of light winked out from this, highlighting settlements and installations. A series of these flashed red, most of them situated atop mountain peaks or at high elevation points.
“There are anti-orbital batteries at these locations” Everild gestured “and planetary-scale deflector shield generators.” He scowled at his audience. “They are proof against a stand-off bombardment.”
“They’re no proof against our starfighters,” Callisto declared, his smile never slipping. “Those fusion batteries can’t track us. We’ll give ‘em the slip and make a hole for you all!”
“We don’t just need a hole,” Malik rumbled and stepped down from his spot at the top of the amphitheater seating, strode between seats. “We’ll need control of at least one site.” He paused as he came to stand before the projector and pointed up at a particular icon. “This one.” He turned to a figure seated off to Everild’s side. “Ingrid?”
The long-legged, iron-muscled woman stood from the front row and took a step forward. A mane of chestnut hair was drawn back into a severe ponytail and her hard-boned features only contributed to that severity as she looked around with silver-gray eyes. She wore her olive drabs tight to accentuate her athleticism. A tattoo of a wolf-like creature snarled from along the left side of her exposed neck.
The beast symbol marked Ingrid Vulfsdottir as a proud daughter of Clan Fury of the Fenreir. And despite her cold loveliness, that palpable fury kept most standing a least a step clear of her. Her ferocious rages were as notorious as her passions.
Malik smiled behind his mask, being familiar with both.
“Once the defense satellites are down,” she said with her thick-voweled accent, “and whatever fighter cover Circe has is distracted, strike teams will drop on this installation.” The mountaintop anti-orbital installation winked as she gestured to the hologram. “Malvik Station, once under our control, can provide the planet-side forces top-cover. And its elevation and position mean it can hold off any over-the-horizon artillery.”
“What about planet-side forces?” Callisto asked. “The Theocracy’s got to have at least a couple divisions of garrison troops, maybe Shock Troopers. And there’s a Dark Science installation down there, too. So, we’ll be dealing with whatever weirdness they’re cooking there, too.”
Weirdness, indeed, Malik thought, eyes settling on an otherwise unremarkable icon squatting atop a spur of mountains that ran down to what passed as the planet’s capital city. The Dark Science Citadel was color-coded appropriately red, like the hellish things he knew filled it. Even as a mere hologram it tormented like a sore, like an oil-slick stain on the surface of the energetic sea of the Flux.
More than anything—more than Circe or the whole system or the cause of rebellion, itself—that was Malik’s target.
“The Freedom Brigades report they can muster the equivalent of three divisions of light infantry,” Ingrid was replying. “Reinforced with our own battalions and our heavy weapons, we estimate they’ll actually outnumber the local garrisons.”
“So they say,” Callisto snorted.
Everlid cleared his throat. “Commander.”
Callisto’s lips pinched together at the scolding note and he relented. “Sir.”
“The catch with all this,” Ingrid resumed with a chilly sideways glance at the starfighter commander, “is that the Brigades will need time to muster in force. To that end, they’ll send crack units to these mountain passes, to block up a reaction force out of the capital city of Aleister, to the south, here.” Points highlighted gaps in a notably rough-looking mountain range. “Reinforcing those will be our priority, after seizing the Malvik compound. We have to hold there to keep Theocracy armor from breaking through to these plains until the Brigades are ready.”
She paused, turning her gaze towards Malik’s at the last. Cold eyes warmed for a moment and the ghost of a smile flicked across her lips. Truly, she was frightening, and thrilling in the same moment. More than one kind of Hunger quickened within Malik and he had to banish the thoughts as he nodded and looked around at his ragged, piratical bunch.
“The first few days will be the most dangerous,” he declared. “After that, the Brigades, popular uprising, and momentum will all combine in our favor.”
No one answered that immediately, though the unease of the gathered commanders was obvious in their sideways glances and shifting.
Clearly sensing it, Everlid cleared his throat again. “Questions?”
“Yeah, a few,” Callisto quipped to nervous laughter.
“Commander,” Everild sighed tolerantly.
“Admiral.” Callisto nodded to Everild, but turned his eyes fully upon Malik. “Sir. We haven’t done anything on this scale before. This is an invasion; not simply raids in support of a local resistance movement. And we’ve brought almost the entirety of the Revenants.” He stood from his bench, glanced about once. “So, I’ve got ask what everyone else is thinking: does this have the support of the Rebel Stars?” He locked gazes fearlessly with Malik. “Or are we on our own in this?”
