Silent Order: Master Hand

By Jonathan Moeller

The galaxy is at war, and the raids of pirates can bring empires crashing down.

When Jack March interrupts a raid of the brutal Agotanni Pirates, he soon realizes that the pirates have stolen an ancient superweapon of lethal power.

Unless they are stopped, the pirates will auction off the weapon to the highest bidder.

And whoever holds the weapon can slaughter billions at a whim...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jonathan Moeller
• Release date: Apr 26, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463516867

Jonathan Moeller

Standing over six feet tall, Jonathan Moeller has the piercing blue eyes of a Conan of Cimmeria, the bronze-colored hair of a Visigothic warrior-king, and the stern visage of a captain of men, none of which are useful in his career as a computer repairman, alas.He has written the "Demonsouled" trilogy of sword-and-sorcery novels, and continues to write the "Ghosts" sequence about assassin and spy Caina Amalas, the "$0.99 Beginner's Guide" series of computer books, and numerous other works.Visit his website at:http://www.jonathanmoeller.comVisit his technology blog at:http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/screed

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SILENT ORDER: MASTER HAND

Jonathan Moeller

***

Description

The galaxy is at war, and the raids of pirates can bring empires crashing down.

When Jack March interrupts a raid of the brutal Agotanni Pirates, he soon realizes that the pirates have stolen an ancient superweapon of lethal power.

Unless they are stopped, the pirates will auction off the weapon to the highest bidder.

And whoever holds the weapon can slaughter billions at a whim...

***

Silent Order: Master Hand

Copyright 2018 by Jonathan Moeller.

Smashwords Edition.

Cover image copyright ID 71558829 © Luca Oleastri | Dreamstime.com.

Ebook edition published February 2018.

All Rights Reserved.

This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the author or publisher, except where permitted by law.

***

Chapter 1: Relics Trade

The Tiger hurtled out of hyperspace, and the distress call repeated in Jack March’s ears once more.

Mayday! said the woman’s voice, shrill and panicked. "Mayday! This is the Mercatorian freighter Howard Carter, and we are under attack by unidentified ships! I repeat we are under attack by unidentified ships! Her voice turned into a sob. Oh, God, oh, God, they’re landing on the ship, they’re landing on the ship…"

Her voice dissolved into static.

March ignored the rest of the message. He had heard it before. The Tiger had picked it up about five light-hours from his current location, on the other side of the outer Leonine solar system, which meant it had taken five hours to reach his previous position. That, in turn, meant the message had been recorded and set to continual broadcast.

It was possible whoever had recorded the message had been dead for hours.

Proximity alert, said another woman’s voice, cool and calm with an upper-class Calaskaran accent. It was the voice of the Tiger’s pseudointelligent computer, which March had named Vigil. Multiple craft and battle debris detected.

Acknowledged, said March, both his hand of metal and his hand of flesh flying over the controls as he powered up the weapons and both the kinetic and the radiation shields. He set the ship’s sensors to full power, which would make the Tiger stand out like a beacon, but any hostile ships in the area would have already detected the dark energy radiation signature from the Tiger’s arrival.

Sensor data flooded across the screens and March took in the situation.

The Howard Carter was about a million and a half kilometers in front of the Tiger. It was a big ship, a heavy freighter, long and boxy and designed to haul either asteroid ore or comet ice. March knew that the ship had not carried cargo for a long time, but had been refitted to serve as a base for archaeological expeditions from the University of Mercator.

He only knew that because his girlfriend had happened to mention it once, complaining how the University of Mercator and the Howard Carter had interfered with one of her expeditions, and that fact had lodged in March’s head.

At the moment, it didn’t look like the Howard Carter was in any shape to do anything.

The freighter’s radiation and kinetic shields were down, and the Tiger’s sensors reported that both the ship’s fusion reactor and dark matter reactor were offline. The Howard Carter had taken heavy hull damage across its midsection and stern, no doubt from directed weapons fire to disable its drives.

The ships that had done the damage circled the big freighter like wolves prowling around a dying elk.

There were eight of the ships. Two of them had the boxy look of shuttles, and the Tiger’s sensors reported the signs of heavy modifications – plasma cutters on the bow, extra armor plating, laser turrets mounted on the port and starboard sides. The shuttles had been configured to serve as troop carriers and assault transports, employed to board and take enemy vessels.

The remaining six ships were Raptor-class heavy starfighters, sleek and deadly-looking. Hiroth Foundries built the Raptor fighter and sold them to anyone who could pay the bill, and the Raptor was a favorite among mercenaries, pirates, and government black ops squads. The heavy starfighter was well-armored and armed with plasma cannons and missiles, though it was not terribly maneuverable. Usually, Raptor fighters were unmarked, since their owners did not wish to advertise their identities.

These fighters were painted crimson, their fuselages adorned with a jagged black symbol that looked like a cross between a shattered window and a spider’s web.

The starfighters belonged to the Agotanni Pirates.

That was bad. March had tangled with the Agotanni Pirates before. Pirate gangs tended to varied wildly in skill and ruthlessness, but the Agotanni were both capable and disciplined combatants, and utterly without mercy. The Agotanni Pirates preferred to leave behind no witnesses, which meant that every man and woman on the Howard Carter was either dead or about to be sold into slavery.

It also meant that the pirates would do their best to kill March.

He hesitated, eyes flicking over the tactical and sensor displays as he considered his best move. Under normal circumstances, he doubted that the Tiger could take on six Raptor-class starfighters and win. Yet it looked like the Howard Carter had put up a hell of a fight. All six of the Raptors showed battle damage, and none of the starfighters had any missiles left.

The pirates themselves did not seem to like their odds. Both the assault shuttles plunged towards deep space, and the Tiger’s sensors detected a surge of dark energy gathering around the ships. The shuttles were getting ready to escape into hyperspace, and four of the Raptor fighters fell into formation around them.

Two of the fighters broke away and hurtled towards the Tiger, and the alarm of a weapons lock filled the ship. The two fighters had expended their missiles, but the Raptors had forward-facing plasma cannons and rear-facing laser turrets.

March sent the Tiger towards the oncoming Raptors. The fighters came straight at him, making no effort to evade. The Tiger was a Mercator Foundry Yards Class 9 blockade runner, and a Raptor starfighter had better armaments than the stock configuration of a Class 9 blockade runner.

March had modified the Tiger’s armament quite a bit.

He locked onto the Raptor approaching from port, selected one of the firing solutions that Vigil had calculated, and started shooting. All four of the Tiger’s forward-facing plasma cannons opened up, and the railgun mounted on the ship’s keel spat a tungsten rod. The volley of plasma bolts and railgun round hit the Raptor at the same time. The Raptor’s radiation shield soaked up the plasma volley, but the railgun round overwhelmed the starfighter’s kinetic shield and punched through the fighter’s starboard wing. The Raptor wobbled, damaged by the round, and March’s next volley of plasma fire tore through the radiation shield and ripped the starfighter to debris.

The second Raptor swooped towards the Tiger, its plasma cannons blazing. Three plasma bolts slammed into the Tiger, the ship shuddering with the impacts. The radiation shield lost thirty-five percent of its power, but it held, and March sent the Tiger spiraling into a rapid evasive maneuver. As he did, his fingers danced over the tactical controls, and he set the ship’s laser turrets to lock onto the Raptor. The turrets rotated and sent their invisible beams into the Raptor, firing even as the Tiger twisted and banked. The Raptor’s radiation shield proved sufficient to deflect the beams.

But the lasers nonetheless weakened the radiation shield.

Which meant that when March brought the Tiger out of its evasive pattern and onto an attack vector, the Raptor’s radiation shield didn’t have enough charge left to repulse a volley from the plasma cannons. The shield collapsed, the plasma bolts burning through the Raptor, and one of the bolts punched through the starfighter’s pilot cabin.

The Raptor broke apart, and March swung the Tiger towards the damaged Howard Carter.

The dark energy sensors chimed an alert. March looked at his displays and saw a surge of dark energy radiation from the remaining four Raptors and the two assault shuttles. Even as he looked, the radiation level spiked, and then the six Agotanni ships vanished into hyperspace.

Vigil! said March. Calculate their vector. Can you figure out where they went?

He waited, his hands tense on the controls. If Vigil could establish their vector and destination, March might be able to follow them. It was possible the pirates had taken hostages, and if they had…

Calculation complete, said Vigil. Fifteen potential target systems.

Acknowledged, said March, letting out a long breath as he looked over the tactical and sensor displays. Chasing ships through hyperspace was a fool’s game. It would take weeks to search all fifteen systems. For that matter, the pirates might have made an emergency jump into hyperspace, traveling a thousandth of a light-year outside of the system to escape. From there they could make a more accurate hyperspace calculation, and there was no way that March could pursue them.

No, the Agotanni Pirates had gotten away clean, and that was that.

The important question was what March would do next.

He had to inform the Royal Calaskaran Navy of what happened here. The Leonine system had no habitable planets, but several colonies mined the asteroids and multiple space stations harvested gas from the system’s gas giants. The Agotanni Pirates might target those installations next. For that matter, the Leonine system was a short hyperspace flight from the Alexandria system, one of the core systems of the Kingdom of Calaskar. Emboldened by their success, the Agotanni might try to raid the Alexandria system next.

But that would come later.

First, he had an obligation to check the damaged Howard Carter for survivors. March doubted he would find any, but if he did, he had to help them. And investigating the damaged freighter might tell him why the pirates had attacked an archaeological ship. The Agotanni Pirates preferred high-value targets, not ships carrying dusty relics of academic value.

But when March had met his girlfriend, he had learned that archaeological relics sometimes had value far beyond the merely academic.

That lesson had nearly killed the both of them.

Vigil, said March. "Life sign and environmental scan on the Howard Carter."

Acknowledged, said Vigil, and March turned his attention to the tactical scan. He also set the dark energy sensors to maximum to give advance warning if the pirates returned, or if other scavengers came to pick over the Howard Carter’s wreck.

Scan complete, said Vigil. "Life support is still functional on the Howard Carter. Life sign scan inconclusive due to battle radiation interference."

Right, said March with a grimace. He would have to dock with the Howard Carter and look for survivors himself. March would also take the opportunity to examine the ship’s computer and copy its cargo manifest. Perhaps that would explain why the Agotanni Pirates had targeted an archaeological vessel.

He steered the Tiger towards the Howard Carter, matching the damaged freighter’s vector and speed. As he drew closer, he cut the fusion drive and brought the Tiger in with the ion thrusters. It took some careful maneuvering to bring the Tiger up against the Howard Carter, but March matched his ship’s stern cargo airlock to the bulky freighter’s port-side airlock. A few gentle taps of the controls and the Tiger shuddered once, a clanging noise echoing through the flight cabin.

Docking maneuver complete, announced Vigil.

Good, said March, pushing himself out of the pilot’s acceleration chair. "Keep the dark energy scan going. If we detect a dark energy surge within one hundred million kilometers of the ship, notify me at once. Also, keep the life sign scan going on the Howard Carter, and notify me if the ship picks up anything." Perhaps proximity to the damaged ship would let the Tiger’s life sign sensors punch through the background radiation from the battle.

Acknowledged, said Vigil.

March stepped into the dorsal corridor. Doors lined the corridor, leading to the crew cabins, the galley, the gym, and various other rooms of the ship. March stopped at the first door on his left and opened it.

The armory was crowded, but March’s work required a lot of weapons.

Wire shelves and metal cabinets lined all four walls, and the shelves and racks held a variety of pistols and rifles, both kinetic and plasma-based, and grenades, knives, batons, and other weapons. March also stored other equipment here, mostly things that would be useful in hand-to-hand combat, and he started arming himself. A bandoleer went across his chest, and he loaded it with spare power packs for plasma-based weaponry and grenades. He buckled a gun belt around his waist, and he put a heavy black plasma pistol in either holster. A gas mask and a pair of heavy goggles with electronic low-light vision and image enhancement covered his face. March networked the mask and goggles to his phone and put an earpiece into his ear, which would allow him to communicate with Vigil from the Howard Carter. For his primary weapon, he took a heavy plasma assault rifle and hooked it to his bandoleer with a strap, allowing the weapon to dangle when he needed his hands free.

March took a few more tools and weapons and either tucked them into the hidden sheaths up the sleeves of his coat or onto his belt and then tapped the earpiece. Vigil. Status?

Dark energy scan negative for incoming vessels, said Vigil. "Life sign scan on the Howard Carter remains inconclusive."

Acknowledged, said March, stepping into the dorsal corridor and locking the armory door behind him. Notify me immediately if anything changes.

March headed down the corridor and descended the ladder into the cargo bay. At the moment, the bay was full of cargo he was hauling to Alexandria Station, a load of rare minerals from an asteroid mine in an otherwise empty solar system. The payment from the cargo would cover the costs of his recent mission and leave a healthy profit. Not that March was currently hurting for money. The business on Rustaril had paid well, as had the rescue fees the Calaskaran government paid out for rescued passengers from the Alpine. And all that had been before the reward he and Adelaide Taren had received for rescuing Lord Admiral Theodoric Stormreel from the Wasps.

Still, the best way to keep money was not to waste it.

March threaded his way through the stacked pallets of ore in their cargo webbing and walked to the cargo ramp. The ramp was sealed for flight, but there was a personnel airlock in the middle of the ramp. March had docked the Tiger so that the cargo airlock was mated to the Howard Carter’s port airlock.

He checked the airlock controls, saw that the seal was good, and cycled the system. He stepped through the inner door, waited for it close behind him, and then the Tiger’s outer airlock door opened. The Howard Carter’s airlock cycled open. March felt an instant of disorientation as he passed from the Tiger’s gravitics to the Howard Carter’s, and then he was through the airlock and onto the damaged freighter.

He found himself in a long corridor. The main power had failed, and emergency lights shone from the ceiling. The HUD in his goggles informed him that the air contained a dangerous quantity of smoke. March looked up and down the corridor, rifle in hand, but saw no sign of anyone alive or dead.

Vigil? said March. Status?

Unchanged.

Acknowledged, said March, and then he set off, rifle held ready.

He was familiar with this class of ship, and he made his way towards the bow. The smoke grew thicker, and March was glad