First Duty

By Marva Dasef

A military officer must choose between her sworn duty or her rebellious blood ties.

Facing a life of drudgery on a repressive factory planet, Nyra Hutchings longs to escape. Her only option for release is to enlist in the Space Service, becoming a soldier for her own world’s oppressors.

She receives her first assignment: Guarding a charismatic rebel leader being transported to a prison planet. When rebel troops surprise them, Nyra fails to thwart the ambush. Despite a commendation from her Captain, she feels she must redeem herself by recapturing the handsome fugitive.

Shocked by what she learns during the pursuit–her own family’s past involvement in the rebellion–Remy faces a dilemma: remain loyal to the oath she swore as a soldier or join the rebel cause and condemn herself to a death sentence for treason. What is her FIRST DUTY?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Marva Dasef
• Release date: Oct 11, 2009
• ISBN: 9781452317489

Marva Dasef

Born in Eugene, OR and a grad of the UofO, I still made a success of my life by constantly changing jobs and cashing in miserable 401K earnings. Finally, I decided to hell with it. If I'm going to be poor, I might as well be a writer.

Book preview

FIRST DUTY

Marva Dasef

Copyright 2010 Marva Dasef

Cover Art

Copyright CCP Games 1997-2010

http://www.ccpgames.com

Discover other books by Marva Dasef at

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https://tinyurl.com/DasefAuthor

Print Edition ISBN: 978-1453636213

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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

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Important Information

First Duty and Ultimate Duty have the same plot, so if you have purchased one, you don’t need to buy the other. The difference between the two books is that Ultimate Duty contains sex scenes which are not appropriate for younger readers. Ultimate Duty also has additional battle scenes and more action. If you have purchased either of these books and would like to have a free copy of the other, send me an email. I’ll be happy to provide an edition for Kindle or MOBI ereaders. My email address is [e-mail]. Thank you for buying this book. I hope you enjoy reading it.

FIRST DUTY

Young Adult Edition

A military officer must choose between her sworn duty or her rebellious blood ties.

Nyra Hutchings, a woman born into a life of servitude on a repressive factory planet, is desperate for a different life. When she's accepted into the Space Service Academy, run by the organization that enslaved her planet, she discovers the truth behind generations of rebellion.

She receives her first assignment: guarding a charismatic rebel leader being transported to a prison planet. When rebel troops surprise them, Nyra fails to thwart the ambush. Despite a commendation from her Captain, she feels she must redeem herself by recapturing the handsome fugitive.

Now, she must decide what to believe, where her duty lies, and fight for more than her life against impossible odds. What is her FIRST DUTY?

ULTIMATE DUTY

Adult Edition

A military officer must choose between her sworn duty or her rebellious blood ties.

Facing a life of drudgery on a repressive factory planet, Remy Belieux longs to escape. Her only option for release is to enlist in the Space Service, becoming a soldier for her own world’s oppressors.

She receives her first assignment: guarding a charismatic rebel leader being transported to a prison planet. When rebel troops surprise them, Remy fails to thwart the ambush. Despite a commendation from her Captain, she feels she must redeem herself by recapturing the handsome fugitive.

Shocked by what she learns during the pursuit–her own family’s past involvement in the rebellion–Remy faces a dilemma: remain loyal to the oath she swore as a soldier or join the rebel cause and condemn herself to a death sentence for treason. What is her ULTIMATE DUTY?

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1 – Enlistment

Chapter 2 - Final Exam

Chapter 3 - Solution and Resolution

Chapter 4 - Captain’s Orders

Chapter 5 - Assignment

Chapter 6 - First Duty

Chapter 7 - Opposition Attraction

Chapter 8 - A New Assignment

Chapter 9 - Ship Life

Chapter 10 - On the Bridge

Chapter 11 - An Ulterior Motive

Chapter 12 - Fire in the Hole

Chapter 13 – Lies

Chapter 14 - Tiber

Chapter 15 - Walking Away

Chapter 16 - Orders to Kill

Chapter 17 - On Earth

Chapter 18 - The Games Begin

Chapter 19 - Terminal Encounter

Chapter 20 - Rivals Meet

Chapter 21 - The Mission

Chapter 22 - Escape

Chapter 23 - A Call to Duty

Chapter 24 - Going Home

Chapter 25 - Joining the Fight

Chapter 26 - The Chairman

Chapter 27 - Confrontation

Chapter 28 - The War Begins

About the Author

Chapter 1 – Enlistment

NYRA IGNORED THE loose strands of sweat-darkened hair tickling her neck. She concentrated on her nonexistent sparring partner. Standing ramrod straight, she bowed to her imaginary opponent and performed the kata again...and again. Kick, jab, shuffle, kick, lunge, jab.

When she had completed it to her own satisfaction she approached her teacher, watching silently while he worked with a younger student on technique. When Kiru, her Sensei, glanced her way, a slight smile crossed his stern lips, then quickly disappeared. She wondered how he kept his judogi, the traditional wear for martial artists, as white as his close-cropped hair. Grime built up fast in the gym the martial arts classes used in place of a real dojo. She looked down at her own zubon’s grubby knees, and decided tonight she’d have to scrub it by hand to get the dirt out. She didn’t want to look like a slob in her Sensei’s eyes.

May I demonstrate, Master?

At last, Kiru looked at her. "Hai."

She bowed, then began the kata, her kiai sound of power punctuating each sharp move. Completing the form, she faced her Sensei and again bowed to him, hands formally pressed together, palm to palm.

"Better, Kōohai, almost acceptable, but your wheel kick is still too low. If your foot is not at the proper angle when you connect with your opponent’s jaw, you will only graze his head. Kiru struck the palm of his left hand with his right fist. You want to connect firmly, with force." The Sensei turned and walked away.

Nyra’s shoulders slumped. Determined to get it right, she repeated the kata, watching herself in the mirrored wall to make sure her foot would connect firmly, with force, on her opponent’s jaw just like Master Kiru wanted. She practiced for another hour, then approached the Sensei again.

Since he stood alone observing students practicing, she walked quietly as he had taught her, trying to take him by surprise. He turned toward her before she reached his side, a flicker of amusement in his dark eyes. Damn! I’m never going to sneak up on him. She bowed. May I demonstrate, Master.

"Proceed, Kōohai," he answered in his always soft and steady voice.

Once more, she performed the kata, but, this time when she finished, her Sensei only nodded and walked away. Relief washed through her. She’d finally gotten it right. Now, she need only pass the rest of her final exams, and she would be ready for the next stage of her life.

* * *

First light came, the dim Acadian sun transforming the sky above the dome into its usual dismal polluted gray. Hurrying, Nyra wanted to reach the recruiting office well ahead of the other applicants. Stepping off the slidewalk at the proper ramp, a turn of the corner showed, sure enough, the building stood dark, its doors locked.

An hour later, when the doors opened, she stood at the front of the line with the dozen or so others waiting with her. Many rocked impatiently from foot to foot, each holding the infopad containing the record of their lives. She stood quietly, not because she felt calm, but because she wanted to appear that way to the ever-present surveillance system. Looks and actions—every one of them at every moment—mattered.

Everyone standing in the queue with her desired the exact same thing. Each of them shared a preferred career path. Each competed for less than a handful of chances, and they all knew only a few would make it. Nyra had a visceral conviction she would be one of those few.

After graduation, she’d chosen the one life plan nearly everybody who wanted off Acadia selected—the military arm of SemCorp.

Created when the Semyon-Bratva Cartel merged with Canopis Corporation, SemCorp evolved into the de facto government. Eventually, twenty-three inhabited worlds merged into a massive commercial enterprise. At first, the individual planets maintained separate governments, but over the years, they became superfluous and all but disappeared.

Nyra’s own home world, Acadia, was one of the last holdouts against assimilation. Combining the planets under a single government made a certain amount of sense. Subsidiaries handled all trade among the member worlds. It didn’t take long for the planets to hand over the rest of the governmental functions. Now SemCorp controlled it all—education, entertainment, business, the security forces, the Space Service...everything.

The military arm kept the peace, tracked down contraband and smugglers, and made the Einstein-Rosen Bridge system of navigating between worlds safe for legitimate traders. With the recent resurgence of a rebel group disrupting interstellar trade, the Space Service also monitored insurgent activities and arrested the terrorists when they could find them.

Her parents had encouraged her to do anything except remain in the factories of Acadia. They pressed her to apply to the merchant fleet, but she thought it no better than a factory job. She didn’t want to move freighters back and forth on milk runs between planets. Where was the adventure in chugging through wormholes in a freighter?

When the door to the recruiting office opened, she tucked her infopad under her arm and walked to the nearest application console. She had completed the entrance exams weeks before, but had to wait until she graduated to apply formally to the Academy.

She held her left wrist near the reader, which scanned and confirmed her identification. Like every other citizen of the SemCorp worlds, Nyra had received the ultrahigh-frequency chip, UFID, implanted in her ulna bone, shortly after her birth.

She only needed to tweak some of the outdated information in the databases. Her public records appeared on the screen. Nyra put her infopad by the reader and updated the database. She scanned her current profile to check what might need an update. To the right of her current holophoto, her life appeared in a few brief lines.

Nyra Carole Belieux Hutchings

Born: Tenth month, twenty-second day, Std. 3424CD. Evangeline, Acadia

Height: 180 c. Weight: 65 k. Eyes: Hazel Hair: Red

Graduated Std. 3440 CD, Evangeline Normal School, Honors Student

Sports: Martial Arts, Black Belt in Ffegga

Space Service Academy entrance exams: Passed, 95th percentile

It went on with her biometric data, describing her down to her DNA structure.

Nyra Hutchings, Cadet. It sounded good, she thought. All she needed was the Academy for four years’ studies in military sciences, navigation, and flight school. She could hardly wait to get going, get on with her life away from the choking atmosphere of the factory and mining planet, Acadia. Such a lovely name for a hellish existence. IncPlan turned over the entire planet to manufacturing and mining, with no concern about air pollution or preservation. Everyone wore air filters when forced to go outside, but most people did not leave the domes. It was certainly not the place she wanted to spend her life. She always wondered why her parents didn’t go off-world themselves.

She voiced the last bit of information and waited for the application process to approve her for the Space Academy.

. . .Please wait . . . Unable to complete processing . . .

Now what? Assist. The screen displayed the help entry form.

. . .Information System

. . .Please select a topic

Nyra scrolled through the list, but saw nothing about incomplete processing.

. . .Select: Other

. . .Description

Nyra spoke clearly to the computer. Application held. Unable to complete processing. Please advise. She waited for the system to respond. Finally, it flashed on the console:

. . . Proceed to Fifth Floor, Room 542 . . .

Damn it! Nyra swore, then closed her mouth abruptly as if