Warriors at the Gates- Trojan Wars Read online

  Warriors at the Gates

  Rick Royster

  Rick Royster © 2016 Rick Royster- Warriors at the Gates is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, situations, and all dialogue are entirely a product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously and are not in any way representative of real people, places or things. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording.

  Royster, Rick. Warriors at the Gates: Trojan Wars . Kindle Edition.

  Acknowledgements

  To my parents Bernard and Marjorie

  To my sisters Marliese and Christina

  To my family

  To my friend Brian Lee - an amazing spirit and soul. You will be forever missed.

  I always feel the love.

  Special Thanks

  Kevis Hendrickson- the Rogue Hunter of fiction writing. Every writer needs someone who is always there willing to read, encourage and criticize. Forever grateful.

  Mario Wibisono

  The Michael Angelo of the 21st century

  Your patience and talent are immense and your kindness and professionalism are unmatched.

  May Christ bless you All.

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER ONE

  Whoever fights monsters should see to it in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.

  ― Friedrich Nietzsche

  Treason was a choice. It was also just a word.

  Life was nothing if it wasn't about choices. It was one of the first lessons she had learned, and one that stayed with her. Right now, her choices were either life in prison or execution.

  Prison - Execution – Treason?

  None of those words was good.

  Captain Tressa Ladovitch stood at parade rest and pondered on what her immediate future held.

  Minutes earlier, she'd been jostled from her sleep by an urgent encrypted message and it continued to play like a dream of a dream in her mind. The nature of said message was treasonous.

  General Bozeman Chertoff sipped a cup of steaming coffee while surveying a stream of holographic information emitting from a pad on his desk.

  Tressa feigned being calm, giving no indication she already knew the mission’s details and that her instructions were clear: b

  etray the General, or her daughter would die.

  Tressa glanced at the clock on the wall; hidden cameras were everywhere. She returned her gaze to Chertoff.

  The General's desk was littered with a bewildering array of history books and American artifacts. In contrast, most of the Coalition's top brass kept their desks spotless — no papers, pens, notebooks, nothing they'd deem unnecessary. General Chertoff, though, was a throwback in both look and habit. He kept a copy of the Declaration of Independence, a reprint of the United States' Constitution, and a litany of books of famous American war heroes and presidents.

  This fixation always struck Tressa as unusual because of what America currently was. Or rather, what it used to be. America was no longer a country...or anything; on the contrary, it was destroyed like most nations had been during World War 3. History remembered it as a nuclear holocaust, though to those who had survived, it was more akin to perdition made manifest on earth. Those who fought in the Cataclysm remembered it as something far worse.

  And in that catastrophic conflict's wake, dominions replaced sovereign nation-states, independent territories were restructured as numbered zones, and casual violence supplanted common civility.

  Did he know about the message she received? Was this a setup? A test of her loyalty? She watched the General for the slightest vagary, a professional card player searching for her opponent’s minuscule tell.

  The cold air sent goosebumps crawling across her neck, anxiety driving her stomach up and perching it there, in the middle of her throat. She clinched her teeth and bit on the inside of her lip, hopeful that her inner panic wasn't being displayed by her outer features.

  Her eyes went back to the camera. Who was on the other side of the lens, watching her? Coalition police? A squad of Rangers?

  What felt like an hour passed, tormented all the while by the fear that some sign — like a sudden draught wind blowing her hair - would betray her.

  She hated the General's deck room; it was cold and dry, and she always felt exposed there, as though she was in a hospital. And now she felt like a patient waiting on a doctor to come in and give her a diagnosis on some incurable disease she'd contracted. But even that might be a better fate than this.

  No one knew she had a child; that was her secret. Coalition agents weren't allowed to have kids for this precise reason. Their enemies were ruthless in using any weakness against them, so if her superiors found out she’d lied, she'd be court-martialed and her daughter would die anyway.

  On the other hand, if she went through with it and betrayed the General, she'd be a soldier without a home, an enemy of both the Coalition and the United Federation of Globalized States.

  The General was the father she had never had, and she made many sacrifices for the Coalition and would do anything on their behalf, except sacrifice her daughter. Her mind began to roam as she worked out the details of how she would commandeer a shuttle and sneak off the base. Visions of being blown right out of the sky kept interrupting her hastily planned getaway.

  She still had two choices and could tell the General the truth that her daughter had been kidnapped, that she’d had a child at an extremely young age — before she joined the coalition – and that she’d given the kid up for adoption. And now, somehow, her daughter had been kidnapped and Tressa was being blackmailed as a result of it all.

  Would the General really arrest her if she told the truth, she wondered? He cared for her, sure, but he was still a hard man, one who saw the big picture. She was sure he'd do what was best for the Coalition.

  Maybe they'd do the right thing and help her save her child, or at worst, not try and prevent her from rescuing her. She stopped herself from fantasizing because she knew that was no option at all. While yes, the Coalition was all about sacrificing for t
he greater good, this only applied if they were not the ones doing the sacrificing - and only if they, the Coalition, were to be the beneficiaries of those greater goods.

  She observed how the edges of the General's low fade were razor sharp, his goatee perfectly trimmed. His silver hair complemented his dark skin as if an interior decorator had picked out the colors for him.

  He placed his cup down on his desk next to a silver statue of the archangel Michael. Tressa thought the statue was staring at her, looking her up and down and maybe even judging her, she always thought that about the statue. Well, this one gave her the creeps. Sure, she'd miss things about Air Station Alpha, but that creepy statue wouldn't be one of them.

  Tressa scanned the walls, observing the numerous medals and commendations the General had received over the years.

  Among the wall of gold, Tressa noted a picture of herself, fresh out of the academy.

  She continued to rack her brain; who could have sent her that message? There was no way for her to find out without the entire Coalition knowing. Even if the trace wasn't encrypted, which it was, she wouldn't get past, "Wait, you have a daughter?" before they were hauling her off to some Coalition prison.

  What used to be the People's Republic of China - now Region Three - and the former Korea peninsula now named Zone 4, were the only two regions not completely under Global Union control – and, consequently, they were by far the best places to exchange information.

  Following a brief moment of consideration, she immediately ruled Zone 4 out. They were leery of sending their own agents out in the field, so there was no way they'd trust a foreigner to bring them information, no matter how valuable they thought it was.

  Zone 3 avoided conflict with the Global Union at all costs. While they would use an agent to bring them something of value, they wouldn't risk antagonizing the Global Coalition and, consequently, reigniting the charred world with the fires of renewed war.

  The General folded his hands together, and it was the first time since she'd been in the room that he looked at her. "Certain information has come to light," Chertoff said.

  To bolt for the door now was Tressa's first instinct as her temperature spiked and her heart fluttered, but her legs stayed still as if paralyzed.

  "We have a dangerous mission for you," The General said calmly.

  Did she hear that right? Mission? For her? She wasn't going to jail?

  She tried to ask a question but heard no words come out of her mouth, probably because her brain and legs were still arguing about why she wasn't already in a dead sprint out the door.

  It dawned on her she'd caught an unbelievable break. With any luck, she'd have the assignment alone, and she could then veer off and go save her daughter.

  "We've lost contact with our intelligence team on ACIC-3, and there’s highly sensitive data on that station. We need you and your soldiers to recon the area and make sure everything checks out. We lost connection with field command three hours ago, zero contact. We need you to mobilize immediately."

  Tressa nodded. "Yes, Sir, I'll squad up and move out."

  Now she had to let those closest to her know what she was planning and let them decide for themselves how to proceed.

  It wasn't that you couldn't leave the Coalition; not at all, as she could quit at any time, but the process of getting out was tedious. If you did go, you were also banned for life from ever returning, and the simple truth was that her daughter didn't have the luxury of waiting for her to be released from duty.

  "There's one other thing," the General said, taking another sip of coffee.

  Tressa turned back to him, immediately wondering if she'd been too eager in taking the bait.

  He was stalling her, waiting for her to confess - and she'd fallen headlong into his trap. Her hand hovered near her thigh, but nothing was there. She glanced at the door, expecting a dozen MPs to barge in and take her down.

  Then the General pressed a button on his desk and behind her, the metal doors hissed open.

  Tressa’s eyes swept across the General's desk and then high to the ceiling, checking for anything she could use as a weapon and also another way out.

  Then there he was, and a cold chill washed over her as her chest tightened.

  "The Desani will assist and lead your team."

  Cayden Battle, the Fleet Lycan.

  He stood just over six feet tall and was clad in wolf-gray armor from head to toe. Well-built, he had brown skin and wore an expressionless, relentless stare.

  Tressa returned her gaze to the General, gauging his reaction. A visible shiver ran through the General's body. They knew Cayden not for what he was, but for what they knew he could be. Bozeman Chertoff was a veteran of war and no stranger to death and danger, but a being such as Cayden, a man who possessed a supernatural power, created a sense of fear in the bravest of men. She understood - she understood all too well - because she felt the same cold fear herself.

  The General hated their kind, believing they were not to be trusted, and he had said this to her more than once.

  Cayden was one of the Desani, the deadliest warriors humanity had ever known. To the common man, they were only a myth, a legend belonging in a fairy tale or biblical fantasy, but here he stood, flesh and bone, in front of them.

  The Desani didn't exist to fight for the affairs of man, but they served a higher purpose, where ultimately their fight would be with each other. A battle that had raged eons ago across the heavens had now been brought to bear on earth. But their battle must be drawing to a close now, because the few that were left had chosen sides. Some served the rebellious Coalition forces and others ruled inside the Global Union.

  It didn't change the fact that even for someone with Tressa’s skills, the gray-armored figure standing tall in the doorway was like a cold nightmare straight out of the darkness.

  And although they took orders from the Coalition, their skill and power made them almost exempt from any law or authority.

  She'd seen him in action. He’d once rushed into an enemy stronghold and taken down twenty heavily armed soldiers with nary a scratch.

  Even among the Desani, he was feared; he might be the deadliest of them all. She had known him – it now seemed - three lifetimes ago. He wasn't like the rest. The Desani were Angels in human form, Angels that crossed a dimensional portal to enter the earth… but not Cayden. He was borne of flesh and blood, but somehow - like a great Arthurian tale - he was imbued with their powers.

  Her mission went from improbable to impossible. Going into the heart of controlled Global Union territory, entering a heavily guarded facility and securing an object, was one thing. But putting down a Desani — and she had no doubt she'd have to kill him – was a different kind of demon entirely.

  The General stood. "You are to leave at once."

  For the first time in her adult life, Tressa found something more important than duty: the Coalition or defeating the Global Union. When she had given her daughter away almost two decades ago, she had thought she'd never see her again. Now, with the chance to save her, she made a silent vow that nothing would stand in her way.

  CHAPTER TWO

  "Nothing is more wretched than the mind of a man

  conscious of guilt."

  ― Plautus

  Standing thigh-deep in black waters, Cayden watched the life spill out of her beautiful eyes as he pulled his hands away from her neck, her body slinking beneath him, drifting into the dark and bottomless ocean.

  He knew the face; it was one he'd never forget.

  Inside the cockpit, Cayden awoke to the soft hum of a jet engine ripping through the cool autumn night.

  The Scavenger - a Coalition attack shuttle - streaked through the skies of Region One like a ghost. The vessel was encased in mirror-metal, invisible to the naked eye.

  Cayden stirred in the co-pilot’s chair and took a deep breath before opening his eyes. The sweet caramel aroma of the fresh-brewed coffee filled the air.

  Gears, the woman se
ated next to him, pulled down the throttle and tapped the landing controls. She turned to him, grinning. "What do you know? Even you need sleep."

  It had been three full days since he’d slept; he unfastened his seatbelt and glanced at the control panel. He winked at Gears and again closed his eyes. Chasing the nightmare from his thoughts was as futile as hugging a storm cloud.

  Sleep did come easy for him this time, however, and he wished it hadn't - because it brought dark nightmares with it, dreams in which his former lover somehow always died at his hands, her eyes staring at him, beautiful, betrayed, accusing. He couldn't shake the images of her jet-black hair and captivating smile. It was like a dazzling tattoo on his shoulder, always close by on the peripheral, following him wherever he went.

  Cayden stood and stretched his stiff arms, then put a hand on Gears’ shoulder as he ducked under the door and exited the cockpit, stepping into the cabin area.

  He turned to an approaching Tressa, her scarlet hair obscuring her electric green eyes momentarily. In another life than this, she would have been a cover model, but in this one she was a soldier trapped in a never-ending cycle of war and death.

  Tressa nodded and handed him a cup. "Commander," Tressa said.

  Cayden accepted the drink and took a sip. He took a step farther into the hull where a half-dozen soldiers were seated. Yawning and stretching, he pressed one of the buttons that lined the ship’s upper-walls and the center of the floor opened in a square, a circular console rising from its depths.

  “Listen up," Cayden said. "We have our orders. This is an extraction. What we know is that a group of scientists and intel agents are working on a top-secret project in Zone Seven. They've made zero contact in the last three hours, so the best-case scenario is a communication error, but it's a high probability the group has been compromised."

  "They're dead," Tressa cut in, eyes peering at Cayden. It wasn't a question, but her statement echoed with a sentiment for hope. The Coalition soldiers stared at one another, eyes hardened and battle-ready.

  "We don't know that, Captain," Cayden said, glancing back at the console. He tapped a few buttons and a 3-D holographic map sprang up. "They had a job to do, and now we will do ours."