Unknown Worlds

By JB Steele

Do you ever feel like you've awakened from a dream in which you visited an unknown world? Some of the best dreams stayed with you whether you realized it or not. Here are five stories from the mind of JB Steele, ranging from the days of yore to a time far from now. Sit back with a mug of steaming cocoa on a cool night, or a cold drink on a hot night, adjust the light over that comfortable reading chair and dive into these stories.

The Falls of Beta Tucanae - Humans fight on in a long war that no one knows when the end will come. Can Captain Quinn finish his patrol and bring his crew home alive?

Attack on the Castle - Aleister Greyblade has a problem. It's one thing to handle the day to day running of the Castle Guard. That's his job. It's when someone tries to attack his King in more than one way, that's when he has a problem. How does he solve it? As directly as possible.

Tenuous Voyages - Perfidy reigns, and the Felin have to find a way to stop the attack. Maybe it's time to be more careful who they do business with.

An Onslaught Antagonized - She's had all she can stand and she's not going to take any more. Major Felicia Màrtainn is done, and there's going to be hell to pay. She's not the only one, either.

Waves - Being police detectives on the Gulf Coast is sometimes busy work. Sure, there are tourists walking the white sands and buying things the locals wouldn't be caught dead with. When people turn up dead in different ways, Detectives Alex Rountree and Stephanie Loenen get a bit busy trying to catch a killer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: JB Steele
• Release date: May 20, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310852978

JB Steele

JB Steele lives in the northwest part of the humid state of Florida, where the mosquitoes carry U.S. Air Force markings and drink jet fuel. He enjoys a great deal of fiction, and will read just about anything. He has a telephone book from 1987 or thereabouts that works if he can't find anything else he hasn't already read. He likes to write, paint, do woodworking, and pretend he knows how to fish. When he plays golf, he usually scores in the low 80's, then he plays the back nine. If he can't do any of those things and it's raining outside, he likes to grab a good book - hopefully not the telephone book. He can be found at Steele Writing Enterprises on the web for those interested in dropping him a line.

Book preview

Unknown Worlds

by

JB Steele

Copyright © 2016 

JB Steele

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 All Rights Reserved 

This book or any portion thereof including the cover, are the sole

property of JB Steele and may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

without the express written permission of  JB Steele

except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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Published by Smashwords, Inc.

 in the United States of America

ISBN 978-1-3108529-7-8

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Steele Writing Enterprises

6579 Bill Lundy Road

Laurel Hill, FL 32567

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Any similarities between any persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Questions about differences between real and fake, I leave to the fans.

Dedicated to every bookworm that ever flew high on the wings of imagination. 

Let's fly.

Foreword

Hello! Welcome to my stories. I'm very glad to have the chance to entertain you for a little while. In this book, you'll find certain little flights of fancy, in different eras. I wouldn't want to give away too much in my foreword, but I would like to mention this. If you like the good guys Getting Things Done, well, there's a distinct possibility that you'll see that happen. Read on, and let's see what's out there!

-JB Steele

The Falls of Beta Tucanae

Light spilled into the viewer of the desperately fleeing starship. A lucky hit on the Nadiradze had caused the hyper engines' coolant holding tank to rupture and vent to space. The engineers were working on something to fix it, but with the battle currently going on it wasn't easy.

 Captain Nelson Quinn took a quick breath. His ship was fighting for her life after being ambushed by a particularly ruthless fanatic element of the theoterrorist nation-state Collective Planets of Anarchy. The name was clunky, in many people's opinions, but their technology wasn't. The Republic of Stars that Captain Quinn served had been fighting the Collective for a little over fifteen years, and still held a very thin technological edge, but the enemy was getting closer and closer. As for the ship, her flex drive was still working, and that was red-lined in an effort to dodge the other ship's attacks.

The captain scanned his readouts, then snapped his orders.

Comms – rebroadcast our need-help call on Fleet frequencies and get us some backup. Guns, set up torpedo spreads for here, here, and here, he indicated where he wanted on his touch panel, and XO, find out what's taking the engineers so long! Go to Engineering if you have to, but find out!

A ripple of ayes responded and the lift doors rattled shut as his executive officer left the bridge to motivate the engineers.

Incoming spread, one-nine-three mark three-zero! Multiple spread! Look like plasma burners!

Countermeasures! Helm, roll to port ninety degrees! Guns, fire your panel!

More affirmatives. The tactical officer's voice cracked betraying the fear of this unholy mess they were all in. She had kept working on what her captain wanted, and pounded the fire control key after the last few keystrokes detailing her strikes. Her voice stabbed out.

On the way! The ship shuddered as the torpedoes left.

Not for the first time, Captain Quinn wished for the new invention that some of the newest capital ships mounted. Energy shields had recently been created that shrugged off the impacts of asteroids and explosions from torpedoes like so much confetti. The power requirements was so great, however, that relatively small ships like his had no way to handle it. He didn't have it, he reminded himself for the thousandth time, and sternly told himself to be content with the new phased-bonded composite armor upgrades. That at least helped, but the ship still shook fillings out of the crew's teeth. Now he wished for better inertial damping systems.

The Nadiradze shook as the second and third torpedo countermeasure spreads were shot out one after the other in spasms. For all the worlds, it seemed like the ship sneezed. No one remarked on it, since they all happened to be a little too busy at Action Stations.

Evasive action, helm! Three-one-six mark eighty-one!

Three-one-six by eight-one, aye! The helmsman's voice snapped, and the ship canted toward a sextuplet star system.

The bridge doors rattled open again, and the captain absently thought to himself that the doors really needed to be fixed. The first officer climbed through the entryway. He was smudged and oily, with a few rips in his uniform. An eyebrow was burned off and that side of his face was red. His voice was still strong as he reported.

Skipper, engineering reports that a makeshift tank is in place. We've suffered casualties in some of the ratings and Ensign Benson was killed. Chief O'Reilly reports that the hyper engines can run enough for power generation, but not hyper-skipping.

The tactical officer broke in.

Sir! Direct hit from one salvo, close hit from another, and clean miss on the third! Enemy's hurt! Captain Quinn clenched his fist.

Set up another spread, fire it, and send them to hell!

The captain's voice was hard and emphatic. His eyes flashed green fire. The tactical plot updated with a static symbol showing the enemy ship and the star system that his ship was boring deep into. The captain's eyebrows drew together and his eyes gazed in complete concentration. His gaze fell upon the huge molyalum panel displaying the tactical plot.

Before the tactical officer could acknowledge his orders, the communications officer broke in.

Sir! Distress call from the enemy!

Belay those firing orders, Lieutenant Mayer, but hold 'em ready!

Lieutenant Meyer’s Aye, sir! was ignored as the captain crossed to his comm officer. The young man looked up at his captain. The executive officer was close behind, and turned around so he could listen in and also keep a wary eye on the tactical plot.

Sir, there's still some damage to my equipment, but I am positive there is a distress call emanating from that Collective ship. The captain grunted.

Hail them, Mr. Wicker. Get their information and needs. We'll see. XO, he turned to address his first officer. Lieutenant Wicker hit the switch to call out to the other ship and hailed them.

Yes, sir. Captain Quinn shuddered as the exec turned to face him, with one eye literally on the tactical plot and the other eye on him.

Jesus, Marty, that still freaks me out, Captain Quinn complained.

Sorry, skipper. The other eye joined its twin in a fluid motion and the first officer blinked. Captain Quinn shook his head while gesturing toward the plot.

While Lieutenant Wicker's busy with them, get on the horn with our Marines and get them ready for boarding actions on that ship.

The other man grinned at his captain.

I anticipated you, sir. Before I left Engineering, I got a call out to them and got them moving. They're ready, the moment you give the word.

The captain smiled wolfishly. Marty was a damned good man and a damned good exec. He was going to be a hell of a captain one day soon, and his CO didn't care to think about having to look for another good first officer.

The young communications officer motioned to the pair. Captain Quinn leaned down, while the XO turned his one eye back to the plot.

What do you have, Mr. Wicker?

Sir, they report sporadic life support failure and loss of some of their command personnel and enlisted. Captain and first officer shared a look. The captain spoke.

Good. Less for us to worry about. Go on.

They report that their drive bottle is losing containment and could go at any moment.

Captain Quinn grimaced.

Lieutenant, are your intraship comms repaired yet?

The communications officer's panel blinked, and he replied with a grimace.

Some of it, sir. I've got Sickbay, all the torpedo bays, the shuttle bay, the Marines, and the mess hall. That's it. The XO shook his head.

And on this class of ship, Engineering was supposed to have uninterruptible links to the Bridge. The Captain sighed, and shared a commiserating look with his communications officer. Lieutenant Wicker, for his part, shrugged helplessly. He couldn't do anything about it except report it and work around the problem the best he could.

Well, Commander, we'll have to do it the old fashioned way. You're the runner, since I don't have anyone else. Get down there and tell Chief O'Reilly to prepare for emergency docking and away boarding. Take the team she assigns and get the Marines loaded along with medical personnel. While you talk to Chief O'Reilly, Lieutenant Wicker will call Sickbay and the Marines and get them turned out and ready. Lieutenant, send the med people to the Marine bay. Got all that? 

They nodded. 

Then get on it.

Captain Quinn turned back to eye the tactical plot and the door rattled shut behind his fast-moving first officer. In the private recesses of his mind, he wondered what would be found on that alien ship. He hoped that if it was a trap, that his old ship would survive it.

< = >

Marine Second Lieutenant Colby Powell listened to his CO relay Captain Quinn's orders. Commander Fulton was a pretty good guy, but that eye thing he did gave him and a bunch of others the willies. The Marine commander, Major Ferguson, had listened to the executive officer's verbal orders, then turned to his go-platoon and delegated. That happened to be Powell's Second Platoon, and now he and his Gunnery Sergeant was doing a quick inspection of the platoon's members and their combat load-out.

Several of the group had non-regulation blades on hand, but he carefully chose to ignore that fact. A few times, the gunny met his eye with a careful non-expression, but the young lieutenant wasn't fooled. Gunny Pierce couldn’t hide the gleam of slight avariciousness, but didn't comment either. Lieutenant Powell would have bet that his gunny would be asking questions later, if only to get his own blades. He made a mental note to make sure he told the gunny to get one or two for him too.

Each squad got through the hurried inspection, and the military axiom 'no combat ready unit ever passed inspection' was going through the platoon leader's mind. While they finished up, Commander Fulton suited up to go with the platoon. He was the only man that Lieutenant Powell or any of his Marines knew that routinely wore two blasters for use in boarding actions. Legend was that he shot ambidextrously, with each eye aiming independently. No one was quite sure of this, since no one was brave enough to bet him on a shooting match. All the Marines wanted to keep their pay – or at least, lose it among themselves.

Powell was re-wrapping a utility strap that wasn't molding correctly, when he felt Gunny Pierce brace to attention. He did too, and met the eyes of Commander Fulton. The man's glance was measuring.

Stand easy, Lieutenant, Gunny. Are we ready?

Yes, sir, loaded hot and locked tight. We can move on your command.

Good! But, and he motioned the gunny closer as he closed the distance, something about this whole thing doesn't feel right here. Pass the word to keep sharp. The sergeant nodded.

Beg pardon, sir, but do you have anything specific?

Just something that didn't add up earlier. On the bridge, Lieutenant Wicker reported that the Collective ship out there had sporadic life support failure. Regardless of what their political leadership is or isn't like, their engineers are top-notch. They don't just get 'sporadic life support failures.' Unless, that is, whoever supervised the construction of that ship out there was doped up on something. That's unlikely, at this the Marines nodded in agreement, so watch your asses. More nods, more seriously.

An intra-ship hail whistled from the communications unit on the wall. One of the enlisted Marines answered it, then nodded to the unseen speaker and looked around for someone. He met the first officer's eyes and gestured respectfully toward the comm unit. Commander Fulton acknowledged the corporal with a raised forefinger and turned back to the other two.

If it were me, I'd draw a little more ammo for load-out. Never happens to be enough rounds, you know. Not that I personally waste any, but still. Never hurts to be careful about things like this. He jerked his head in a short nod and moved off to answer his call. The gunny stared after him, then shook his head.

Well, that settles it for me. I'm definitely not going to match him. The lieutenant started in surprise.

You're the Corps' second runner up in marksmanship. If you won't, I damned sure won't! But he's got a damned good point. Move quick and see about more rounds.

Aye, aye, sir. 

Gunny Pierce braced to attention and set off. Soon the sounds of extra energy