Havoc Canyon: HAVOC REIGNS, #1

By J. Scott Nelson

Willa Harmon can't seem to catch a break. Her ex-girlfriend is a freakin' psycho who just wants to pull Willa back into her web of needfulness. Willa doesn’t need the distraction, her life is complicated enough.

Using security work as a cover to keep her real job secret, Willa falls in on a gang of drug smugglers. Which leads to the Navy’s rescuing and resuscitating her. Her use of an illegal gun to signal for help, destroys a multi billion dollar launch system, putting her in the FBI’s crosshairs not to mention the assassins. Politicians want to use her but that would mean facing the gun charge and bring her into the open.

A handful of people know her real job is developing the next generation of technology that will take humanity to the stars. But every effort she makes draws unwanted attention. Keeping her secret may be as vital to humanity's future as it is to hers.

The Havoc Reigns Series is an epic space opera, sci fi, thriller, mashup that takes readers on an entertaining adventure sure to please readers of Terry Mixon's science fiction. Get your copy today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J. Scott Nelson
• Release date: Dec 14, 2014
• ISBN: 9780990362203

Book preview

Acknowledgments:

To all the family and friends who have supported and encouraged me as I worked on this.

First, wife Marquita, and my daughters, Brooke and Aubrey, and my son-in-law Cory was also very encouraging.

My old friend Roger, and his wife Annette also offered a lot of encouragement. But Roger did something no one else did, he listened to hours of my complaints and excuses and just continued to offer encouragement. All the while, he continued to challenge me to keep working.

Megan, thanks just for being who you are.

Janae Mundy, PhD, you encouraged me, and confirmed what I thought was wrong. You can’t fix it until you know it’s broke. I just hope it’s fixed now.

There are many authors who taught me a great deal, and took time to answer my questions. In no particular order, because I couldn’t categorize them. Thanks for all the help.

Johnny B Truant, Sean Platt, and David Wright of the Self Publishing Podcast inspired me, and taught me along the way. All of you answered questions, and Dave especially helped me out for months. These guy’s work in multiple genres including, Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Science Fiction, Thrillers and who knows what else. All three write independently and Johnny and Sean co-author together, while Dave and Sean also co-author together. You can find their books at http://sterlingandstone.net/.

Krystal Shannan, we’ve known her family for a long time, she was just a teen when we met, although we hadn’t talked in several years. I only found out in September of 2014 that she’d become an independent author. That was just three months before the original publication of this book. In those months, she could have doubled her word count if she hadn’t been answering my emails. Krystal has several series most easily described as Urban Fantasy/Romance, check out her work out at http://www.krystalshannan.com/.

Garrett Robinson also spent a lot of time and effort answering my questions. He’s also got a podcast, and a vlog and a blog. I don’t think he’s slept since 1995 or he wouldn’t have had time to produce so much stuff. Check out his Nightblade Fantasy series at http://garrettbrobinson.com/.

The guys at The Dead Robots Society Podcast, answered many of my questions I posted on the show’s Facebook page.

Terry Mixon writes Science Fiction and his books are available at  http://www.terrymixon.com/.

Justin Macumber is no longer involved in the podcast but founded it and participated in well over two hundred episodes. You can find his Fantasy and Science Fiction at http://www.justinmacumber.com/.

Paul E Cooley’s genre of choice seems to be Horror, but Fantasy and Historical Fiction can also be part of the mix. Find his books at http://shadowpublications.com/.

Scott Roche’s genres are a little harder to pin down, Science Fiction, Fantasy/Urban Fantasy and Steampunk are the obvious pigeon holes, but I’m not too sure. Check out his work athttp://www.scottroche.com/blog/.

The following authors and podcasters offered encouragement and help by email or commenting on Twitter or Google+.

Joanna Penn’s the Creative Penn Podcast is an industry standard. If you’re interested in self-publishing, you must include her podcast and blog in your routine. She writes thrillers that incorporate religious fantasy and has a vast pool of topics to draw from. She also writes nonfiction on writing, publishing and pursuing your life’s dreams. Check her out at http://www.thecreativepenn.com/.

Dave Robison produces the RoundTable Podcast that can be found at  http://www.roundtablepodcast.com/. It is focused on the art of storytelling. He also narrates for audio books and is a thespian. He has a new project that is huge in scope and is producing an e-magazine in collaboration with a slew of authors. His Wonderthings Studios is found at https://onderlibrum.com/.

I’m sure that there were others, and if I forgot you, you have my apologies as well as my thanks. My only excuse is that it’s hard to remember interactions after more than two years.

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You all have my most heartfelt thanks.

Scott

Introduction

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Nations became self-interested and none stood to hold back the tides terrorism and governments preying on their own people. Leaders weren’t willing to stand up to the terrorist, or their enemies. They only pursued their own interest, wealth, and power.

We can see governments repeating the actions that led to the great wars of the last century. The main difference now, is the technology for waging war and the ability to bring the conflict into our living rooms no matter where it occurs. People see the conflict as far away and targeting someone else. The reality is it come closer with every attack.

The Havoc was a global war unlike any other in history. Governments and peoples didn’t wage war one against the other. People waged war against their friends and neighbors, and against their own families. Men, women and children, they fought or they died.

The violence lasted only a few short months, but over the next two years pestilence and deprivation killed as many as the violence did.

When it was over only two billion people were left to rebuild where eight billion had lived before.

One young woman now leads humanity out of the past and into a new future. Only three people know of her. The technology she’s developing can raise humanity above our history, or it can destroy us as we repeat our failures.

The peoples of Earth came together under one government less than thirty years ago. We follow a dream that started before the Havoc. We reach to the planets and the stars. We reach for peace. We reach to become more than we are. But...

Just when we think we’ve put the violence behind us, we find that there is a secret army building to overthrow the world government and subjugate us all.

Monday August 24, 2093

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UEA Mumbai, Saturn Orbit, Near The Moon Mimas

0730 Hours

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Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy Angus Chianina Bull, was the senior non-commissioned officer in the UEA Navy. There was just no way Bull was going to follow this order. No one got a position like his in any military by refusing to follow orders. But this order was just plain stupid. And it didn’t, it couldn’t have anything to do with any mission. It was so stupid it was suspicious.

Today the candy dish in the ward room was full of red candy, cherry or maybe strawberry. Bull had never seen anything but butterscotch in it before. The ship’s order for the crew to have one candy with every meal was absurd. He wasn’t going to follow that order and no one could force him to. It had been six weeks now but he still checked the candy dish every time he entered the wardroom. The order made the candy dish important. Bull paid attention to anything odd. The order to eat the candy was odd. In a ship out in space, odd can get you killed.

It had been six weeks since the Captain issued the order and today was the first change he’d seen in the dish. He granted that it was a strange ship’s order. He’d experienced worse ship’s orders in his career but none seemed as senseless as this one.

Ship’s orders were usually reserved for issues of safety, operational security, or they might be as simple as team building. But this ship’s order wasn’t about any shipboard concern Bull could imagine.

Chief Bull would never follow this particular order. He couldn’t explain why, but it just went against every instinct he’d ever felt. Bull didn’t really consider or think about his instincts. He hadn’t spent a moment considering the candy. He just wasn’t going to eat that candy.

If it had just been left in the ward room with no orders attached, he wouldn’t have thought about it. He would have had a few pieces of the candy after every meal. But being ordered to have one, not some candy, but just one piece, triggered something in him. He would take a candy, unwrap it, then palm the candy and pretend to let it dissolve between his cheek and teeth. Later he would discard it in the head.

Two hours after breakfast the Captain ordered all hands to stand to in the main cargo hold. The ship was station keeping so even the Engineers Mates were present. Another thing that didn’t make sense. Bull didn’t see the first officer, the comms/sensors officer or the helmsman. He didn’t know all the bridge crew but he couldn’t think of anyone else that wasn’t in the meeting. Even for an all hands, bringing that many of the standing bridge crew this far from the bridge didn’t make sense.

Comms systems and aural implants made it possible for anyone on the ship to hear anything directed to them. It was unheard of to abandon operational stations for a meeting while the ship was out in free space.

Tied to the quay at Vulcan or von Braun would be different, because then there would be no reason to man a station. But Mumbai was station keeping above a moon orbiting Saturn while her entire crew was crowded into the main cargo hold. If a stray chunk of rock came along, which was likely since they were a mere five thousand kilometers above the rings of Saturn, there wouldn’t be enough time to get the crew to their stations in order to maneuver. Out here near Saturn though, piracy was the real concern.

In the last fourteen years the United Earth Navy had lost four ships. All of those losses occurred in the vicinity of Saturn. These losses prompted Fleet Command to issue an operational order that no ship will go to the Saturn system alone. But Mumbai was alone in the Saturn system.

The last ship lost had been the frigate Tarbisu, lost in 2091, while responding to a distress beacon from another missing ship. Since then, there had been four attempts to find evidence of those losses. Each attempt had consisted of three destroyers and six frigates. Those had been new ships with repulsor arrays and fully integrated MF fabric. Mumbai was all alone. She only had thrusters and no upgraded systems. It had taken almost all of the last six weeks for her to thrust out here from Jupiter. Mumbai had been ordered back to Vulcan, at her Captain’s discretion, for decommissioning and scrapping.

At forty-eight years old Mumbai had a lot of history. She predated the UEA and the Havoc by eighteen years. So it was thought that a farewell tour of her operational area was in order. This included Mars, Jupiter, Luna, and the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Bull couldn’t imagine how but he just knew that this little visit to Saturn’s moon, Mimas, had something to do with that screwy order to eat one piece of candy after every meal.

Protocol dictated Bull should be near the Captain when he addressed his non-commissioned personnel, so he was beside the forward hatch to the cargo bay when the Captain entered and said to Bull, Bring the troops to attention.

Ten hut. Bull’s voice boomed in the cargo space with the presence of an explosive device. All three hundred personnel snapped into a straight rigid posture. Of course in microgravity all but two or three of them began to drift about. Attention was an order that was out of time and place in a weightless environment. But it was still a relevant order in the Navy and still hammered into recruits during basic training. In a weightless environment the order was reckless, foolish, and not to mention, a dangerous order to give.

Mumbai was too old for MEGAN Fabric upgrades to simulate gravity and provide an anchor for persons standing at attention. Even with MF fabric, at least half of the people hearing that order would have floated off. The suddenness of the order would have caused them to jump and break contact with the surface. Mumbai didn’t even have any work surfaces covered in MF fabric, not to mention decks or bulkheads. She was the only naval ship in service that still operated completely in microgravity.

When the crew was ordered to lock their bodies into a stiff position in microgravity, those bodies become high mass objects in motion. Under those conditions people tend to suffer injuries or damage equipment. Or they can activate or disengage equipment, all of which can escalate to deadly situations in space. Bull shoved his left arm through a loop strap near the hatch as he snapped to attention allowing his massive arm to clamp down on the strap, keeping him in place.

The Captain just stood there watching for about ten or fifteen seconds. When most of the crew was floating free of any objects he spoke into his wrist comp and his voice was amplified through the ship’s speakers and the crew’s aural implants. You will remain at attention until I order you to stand down. No one else aboard this ship has the authority to countermand this order. The Captain shoved off and through the hatch which whined shut behind him. The next sound they heard was the cargo bay door mechanism starting to cycle. It took two command officers to sign off on the computer safety protocols to override the fact that the cargo bay wasn’t sealed, occupied nor pumped down.

Bull and everyone else now knew that something was wrong. As wrong as it could get aboard a ship. Bull abandoned the attention stance and glanced at the ship’s officers to his left. Nineteen men and women, all of whom outranked Bull. All he saw on their faces was a determination to remain at attention. Each was floating further away from safety. If the bay doors opened while they free floated they would die. None of them moved, not at all. They seemed frozen in place. A few of them looked like they could panic at any moment but they didn’t move. Their eyes were wide and darted around looking for a way out. But none of them moved. None of them even moved their heads to look to the side. No one spoke. Bull was the only person in the cargo bay who seemed able to defy the Captain’s last inexplicable order.

The maglocks on the cargo bay doors released and the Master Chief bellowed, Abandon ship! Still, Bull was the only one who moved.

From a mechanical perspective Bull knew the ship better than anyone. He held on to the strap with all his strength, praying that it could hold a man of his size through the storm to come. At first it was a tiny whine that ramped up into a shrill whistle and was suddenly a roar which died away to silence, all in less than two seconds. The bay doors were massive, seventy five meters long and fifty wide. Before they were even two meters open the rest of the crew was sailing out into the vacuum above Saturn. Bull was the only one who had fought for his life. The rest of them would die an agonizing death in the emptiness of space.

His eardrums ruptured instantly. His eyes started to throb and he could feel the popping of the tiny blood vessels in them. His instinct was to hold his breath but training said to exhale and to keep exhaling. He would have about twenty seconds to reach safety. His blood did not begin to boil because of the drop in pressure like the popular myth said it would. Skin and blood vessels provided enough containment to prevent that horror. Although, the dissolved gases in his blood and tissues began to expand and bubbles started to form in the blood stream. The debilitating pain of the bends began in his joints.

As soon as the rush of escaping atmosphere faded to silence, he put his feet against the bulkhead behind him and kicked off toward an escape capsule on the opposite side of the cargo bay. The forward pair was sixty meters away and he realized an instant too late that he had pushed too hard. If he couldn’t get a hand hold he would bounce off the bulkhead and die.

Gas bubbles started forming throughout Bull’s body and the pain was building in his joints. It had already passed intense and was approaching excruciating. His vision was getting hazy and he started to worry about blacking out. He was almost blind already. He still had to open the capsule, get in, and activate it without triggering a jettison. Reaching forward he could just make out the gray bulkhead approaching but judging the distance was no longer possible.

He hit the wall four seconds sooner than he had expected and much harder. Flailing with both hands he found the handrail to the number four capsule and his grip opened it. The air inside hit him like a truck but it dissipated so fast he didn’t have time struggle.

Bull was well known for being the largest man in the Navy, so he had to squeeze himself in through the hatch. At two point seven meters tall, shoulders a meter and a half wide and a barrel chest, Bull lived up to his name. His dad named him after two breeds of cattle known for their strength and size. His mom objected but not for long. Her objections were routinely beaten out of her. By the time Bull was ten he was an orphan. Dad had killed mom as she tried to protect her son. The police had killed an enraged dad once he’d turned his attention back to Bull.

After that, Bull swore that no one would ever hurt someone he loved again and he started working out. Poor and alone he used whatever he could for gym equipment. Blessed with a genetic history of large and powerful men, he grew and bulked up. Now he had shoulders that were twice the width of the average man’s. The depth of his torso from sternum to spine was equal to the average man’s shoulder width.

Turning his body sideways to the hatch, he pulled his head and shoulders in until he wedged tight across his pectorals. Then stretching his arms out, he planted his hands inside the opening and shoved with all his might.

He’d needed a special waiver to remain in the Navy for this reason alone. He just no longer fit in the standard survival capsule. The last three times he was required to demonstrate that he could get through the hatch. Each time he’d stripped down to his custom tailored EnviroSkin and ripped it off his torso squeezing through the hatch.

Today he was wearing a work vest with tool pockets adding still more bulk to his torso. Knowing that he was running out of time, Bull shoved with his massive arms and felt his sternum give way and his heart was pounding against it. It was just one more pain at this point, hardly noticeable as he suffered from the bends, but it got him in. His vision was so blurred he had to do everything by feel. It took him precious seconds to find the activation panel and tapped the pad, praying he’d remembered the proper part to tap.

Aware that there could be a need to seek safety from a depressurization incident when leaving the ship wasn’t recommended, the designers wrote a lot of automatic checks into an escape capsule’s startup sequence. It not only checked for atmospheric pressure outside the hatch but inside the ship too. So it pumped up the air pressure to one and a half atmospheres to help counter the bends.

After resting for a few minutes most of the pain subsided, except for his ears, eyes and chest, which now hurt the worst. Reaching for the med kit panel, he selected the ‘exposed to vacuum’ icon and the on board system dispensed several consumable tablets. Two were in a pouch labeled ‘Put one in each ear’ the others he swallowed. He ignored the injury to his chest.

The capsule was designed to support five men for three days, so he figured that he had fifteen. Mumbai was an old ship but the capsules were the best up to date models. The Navy kept all ships outfitted with the most current survival equipment.

After about ten minutes he got sleepy and passed out. When he woke the pain in his ears was gone and the blurriness in his vision had cleared up. The elapsed time on the control panel indicated that he had slept for ten hours. It was now late in the evening.

The time almost startled him.  But after seeing the ship’s crew die and even more bizarre, the crew had obeyed an order that essentially killed them, Bull couldn’t believe that they weren’t looking for him. Sensors had to tell them that he hadn’t died. Capsules had systems that automatically reported on the condition of any occupants.

Escape capsules had a minimalist sensor set. It took a few seconds for the system to indicate a completed sweep and he leaned over to check it out. There was another ship docked with Mumbai. He knew for a fact that the nearest Fleet vessel had been over two days away only minutes before the all hands, so this had to be a pirate vessel.

Bull’s memories of the crew being betrayed and his own struggle to survive flooded into his consciousness and rage overwhelmed him. I’m going to kill that... As angry as he was, Master Chief Bull’s attention was pulled away from his thoughts by what happened on the sensors screen. The cargo bay on the pirate ship opened and dozens of bodies drifted out, some were flailing around. This made the quiet reserved old sailor talk aloud to himself. "Why would the Captain betray everything and kill his crew for the pirates? But the bigger question was why would the pirates do the same thing?

"This ship is old. She needs a large crew