Wolfenheim Emergent (Jack of Harts 6)

By Medron Pryde

Malcolm McDonnell grew up in a world before Contact, when we still thought we were alone in the universe. Then the Peloran brought medicines that nearly wiped out diseases, and extended the human lifespan into the centuries. They helped us study advanced technologies, and expand our colonies hundreds of lightyears from Earth. It was a golden age for mankind, but the Peloran were not the only ones to make Contact.

Four years after the Shang attacked us, Malcolm had used his contacts inside the Hurst Family to make the Wolfenheim Project a reality. His mission was to take humanity’s message back to the stars with that most human of responses. A new colony in Alien space. No Alien power would drive us from them. We were coming. We would always be coming.

But the head of the Hurst Family discovered he was funding the Wolfenheim Project and sent a fleet to impound it. Now Malcolm McDonnell and the Class One Colonization Ship Wolfenheim fly through Alien stars on their way towards a new home with a determined foe on their heels. One that Malcolm does not remember, but who most certainly remembers him.

First Printing, September 2019

• Language: English
• Publisher: Medron Pryde
• Release date: Sep 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463031131

Medron Pryde

Hello, my name is Medron Pryde, and I am the creator of Jack of Harts.Jack of Harts is a place I hope you like. It’s a place where we did things right, where we built a world we would be happy for our children to grow up in. It’s not perfect. There is conflict. But by and large, we made the hard decisions, and we did what needed doing. We made a good world. I know today that stories tend to go much more dark than that, dystopian futures where we have destroyed our world or enslaved our populations. Places where even the Good Guys are more dirty and hairy than they are clean-shaven and happy. Jack of Harts is not like that. It’s not a world where somebody takes a step forward to fix something and gets knocked two steps back. I don’t like those worlds. I don’t want to spend a lot of time imagining them.Jack of Harts is based in many ways on what I grew up wanting. I was raised in a Christian home, told to do onto others as you’d have them do onto you. I watched Bonanza, where the Cartwrights helped anybody who came along needing it. On Superman, I watched the Big Blue Boy Scout (even if he was in black and white) fighting the Bad Guys each week for Truth, Justice, and the American Way. On Quantum Leap, a man lost in time always found a way to make the world he dropped into each week a little bit better. On Star Trek, a bunch of people I liked traveled through the stars to go places that no man had been to before...because it was there. In Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers, and Star Wars, the plucky outnumbered heroes came back swinging with a smile, a joke, and a hearty laugh, and they never gave up hope that they could find or build a better world to live in. These are the stories I grew up with. These are what I enjoy, and these live on in my optimism.In Jack of Harts, I try to capture that. The characters of Jack, Charles, and Aneerin, just to name a few, are all people who lived in a world before The War came. When that happened, they aren’t the people who crossed the border to hide from the draft, the people who gave up hope and found a bottle or a needle to hide behind. These are the people who stood up, walked into a recruiting office, and volunteered to defend their ways of life. They may cover it up by saying they’re just in it for the money, or because that person over there just needed taking care of. But don’t let that fool you. They are the best of us, a reflection of the true Big Damn Heroes who grab a rifle, a pistol, and a bulletproof vest (or maybe a fireproof suit) to protect our freedoms and our lives everyday.Jack of Harts is a place where I like to think these people would like what they see. It’s a place I enjoy going to when I write, with people I’d like to share a beer with. I’ll keep it that way. I hope it’s a place you’ll enjoy reading, and I hope you come back each day or maybe each week to read some more.So have a good one, and I hope to see you again.Medron Pryde

Book preview

Malcolm’s Blackhawk starfighter shuddered as decoys and jammers shot out to confuse the enemy missiles. His laser cannons pulsed as the fighter squadrons around him laid down their own line in space and countermissiles shot out to kill the missiles that fought through the electronic warfare. Normandy added her own fire to the defense, along with every surviving ship in the fleet. Lasers, missiles, and energy shields destroyed them by the scores, but the fleet’s point defenses had been too badly damaged to stop everything the Shang sent their way.

Malcolm held his hands on the controls as the surviving missiles came in for the kill. His left hand rested on the throttle controlling movement in every direction, his right hand holding the stick directing orientation. It was deceptively simple and complex at the same time, especially for someone who’d not played many fighter sims in his life. But training turned it into instinct. He no longer thought about moving.

Malcolm felt danger coming, and it was time to be elsewhere. He moved the throttle to the left without taking time to think about it. Slowing down to think about it could get a man killed, after all. The Blackhawk’s thrusters flared and the better part of a dozen fighters accelerated with him as the missiles entered their final attack run.

Several fighters moved between him and the missiles in the last instant, even as their final point defenses continued to fire fast enough he could see the heat radiating from them. One lost an engine and fell out of formation to a near miss that was still too close. Another came apart and her engines exploded out in every direction to a different missile. And a third fighter fired an entire stream of countermissiles at one missile before simply disappearing as it rammed another aimed directly at him.

The missiles kept coming.

By

Medron Pryde

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Books

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Forge of War

Angel Flight

Angel Strike

Angel War

Wolfenheim Rising

Wolfenheim Emergent

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Short Stories

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The Thunderbird Affair

The Gemini Affair

WOLFENHEIM EMERGENT

A Jack of Harts Novella By

MEDRON PRYDE

Copyright © 2019 by Medron Pryde

Smashwords Edition

Cover background designed by Stephen Huda under contract

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Printed in the United States of America

First Printing, September 2019

www.jackofharts.com

Dedication

I would like to dedicate this story to everyone who has served in the Armed Forces. It is thanks to all of you that we are here now, to enjoy this form of entertainment in the safety of our homes. I would especially like to thank every Marine aviator of Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 112. The Wolfpack in World War II, the Cowboys in recent decades. The Cowboys in this story are named in your honor.

I would also like to thank everybody who has helped me write this story, from those who brainstormed with me, proofread it for me, edited it, created art to bring it to life, or simply declined to roll your eyes when I nattered on about this story I was writing. Whether family or friend, whether I have met you in person or only over the Internet, your help and support is greatly appreciated.

Wolfenheim Emergent

Table of Contents

Prologue

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

Author Afterward

Prologue

Director Malcolm McDonnell ran one hand through his short, black hair and watched the stars from within the dimmed interior of the observation gallery. He sipped a cold beer as he considered just how different this starscape was from the one he’d grown up with on Earth.

The Pleiades Cluster was home to over a thousand stars within no more than thirty or fifty lightyears, and the old Republic-class light cruiser named Normandy was in the very center of all those stars. They filled the sky in a way he’d never seen before with his own eyes.

And there was that other little thing they’d come all this way to see.

It’s a beautiful sight, a voice said from behind him.

He turned as the redhead walked up and plopped down in the seat next to him with a firm movement. Today was a black leather jacket and jeans day. Those were always good days in Malcolm’s considered opinion. Not that he could remember a bad day involving her.

Dawn smiled and turned twinkling green eyes toward him. Then she picked a beer out of his cooler and popped the top with practiced ease. She tinked it against his before leaning back in her chair to take a long drink. Not that she needed it. Her robotic avatar couldn’t get drunk if she tried.

But there was camaraderie in drinking with a friend that Malcolm found comforting; especially on the days he was feeling lonely.

Dawn smacked her lips in appreciation of Callahan Brewery’s very best stock.

Yes, it is, Malcolm said with a smile.

Dawn raised a single eyebrow at him.

A beautiful sight, he clarified and waved his free hand toward the shimmering field of rainbow light hovering in front of their ship.

He swung his bottle out to tink hers with a smile and took another, long sip.

Malcolm didn’t know how many favors Charles had called in to find cybernetic intelligences willing to join something like the Wolfenheim Project, but he knew one thing for certain.

He’d come out ahead on whatever deal his old friend had made.

Dawn gave him a mirthful look before tipping her head back and taking another sip of Alpha Centauri’s best beer.

He watched her swallow out of the corner of one eye while considering their current position.

The massive twin bright giants dominated the exact center of the Alcyone Quintuple Star System with a blinding blue-white light. The smart wall built into the observation gallery’s forward bulkhead dampened that down to merely bright light, but it displayed the system perfectly. Including the softly glowing spherical field of rainbow light the size of a planet hanging in front of them.

The Gateway between Peloran and Terran space.

A holoform flickered into existence beyond Dawn, and Malcolm nodded as Captain Olivia Wyatt’s long, brunette hair popped into focus around her. Brown eyes returned his gaze, and if she looked a day over twenty-five in her white navy surplus uniform he would eat his shirt. He’d never been stupid enough to ask her real age, but she’d served the United States Navy for decades before she joined the Wolfenheim Project, and they used some of America’s best anti-aging drugs and treatments.

She’d commanded the only American warship to come home after the disastrous Battle of Epsilon Reticuli, and the powers that be in the American Navy rewarded her by taking her ship, her career, and her reputation. They declared her a coward, a disgrace, and unworthy of her rank. They cashiered her and kicked her to the curb.

Malcolm knew that defeat had not been her fault. He’d seen the real reports of that battle. Her leadership was the only reason any ships had survived Epsilon Reticuli. The fact that only Los Angeles made it home was a testament to her moral courage to make the hard decisions that had to be made. The real reports about Serenity and Alpha Centauri proved that beyond any doubt. So he knew one other thing.

He’d come out ahead on this deal as well.

Gateway Command has given us permission to transit, Director, Olivia said from her position on Normandy’s bridge.

Malcolm nodded in understanding.

They’d spent the last five months crawling across the four hundred lightyears between Alpha Centauri and the Pleiades Cluster for one reason. The Gateway. What the Peloran used to travel to Earth’s region of the galaxy. What the Wolfenheim Project was going to use to travel to their region of the galaxy.

This is your show, Captain, Malcolm said with a smile. I certainly don’t need to micromanage you.

As you wish, Director, Olivia said with a smile of her own. Proceeding to transit, now.

The escorts moved through The Gateway one at a time, each disappearing in a rainbow flash of light as they penetrated the glowing sphere. The massive colony ship disappeared next to last, leaving Normandy alone in the near darkness.

Malcolm double checked his seatbelt, nodded in approval, and waited as Normandy approached The Gateway. His eyes opened wide when the rainbow road opened before them and sucked them into hyperspace.

The tunnel surrounded them with a spectrum of colors crossing the entire range the human eye could see, and more only machines could detect. And beyond that tunnel was a blackness darker than any black he’d seen in his life. They were running deeper into hyperspace than any ship could dive. The titanic gravitic energies of over a thousand stars held the tunnel in firm hands as they left the Pleiades star cluster behind.

Malcolm wondered how fast they were moving. He wondered if they were moving at all. Their destination lay twenty-four hundred lightyears down the length of the Orion Arm of the galaxy. Did they travel through the space in between? Or were they taking a shortcut though a hole in the universe? Malcolm didn’t know. And despite all the big words scientists could spout on the subject, he doubted they did either.

Humanity was new to this kind of travel. An ancient author once said that any technology sufficiently advanced would seem like magic. Malcolm gazed at the rainbow road spread before him and knew without a doubt that he beheld magic in all its glory.

Then the tunnel opened wide like a blooming flower and sprayed colors in every direction. Malcolm held tight to the chair arms as gravity pulled him everywhere at once.

Up was down.

Right was left.

His inner ear rebelled as it told him the utter impossibility that down flowed in every direction. Even up. Especially up. He knew it was impossible, but his body told him he was falling forever and ever and ever all while he rose higher and higher at the same time.

Well, Dawn said from his right. That’s something you don’t see every day.

Malcolm turned to look at her, feeling his entire world shift to the side as he did so.

Dawn aimed an amazingly calm smile at him and then her lips opened to reveal perfect, gleaming teeth. Focus on me, Malcolm. Only on me.

Malcolm blinked and looked deep into her green eyes. She became the focus of his universe in that instant, the one true thing in all the worlds that mattered.

And then everything came to a stop. His stomach stopped trying to eject everything he’d eaten in the last week. His eyes stopped trying to jump out of his head like a Saturday morning cartoon. And his toes stopped trying to curl up into his forehead.

Dawn relaxed back into her seat and gave him a pleased look. That’s better. You were turning green there for a bit.

Malcolm looked around at the utterly normal observation gallery, gravity set to a perfect one Earth gee, and dim, comfortable lights. He swallowed once. Twice. He licked his lips.

That was…interesting, he intoned very thoughtfully.

Sorry about that. But there must have been a grav eddy at the last moment, Dawn said in a matter of fact tone. Gateway transits aren’t usually that rough.

Right. Usually.

Don’t worry, Dawn said and clapped a hand on his knee. A few more times, and you’ll be an expert.

She smiled and took another chug of her beer.

Right. Expert.

Director Malcolm McDonnell placed his beer on the deck and concentrated very carefully on keeping everything he’d eaten in the last day where it belonged.

Then he looked out through the observation gallery’s smart wall to see a new set of alien stars around them.

That was the moment everything changed for Director Malcolm McDonnell, scion of one of Earth’s greatest families.

He was in alien space.

The words of an ancient astronaut flew through his mind and fell out of dry lips.

One small step for man. One giant leap for mankind.

I learned something at Arnami Prime. The Arnam are not simply humans with blue skin and black eyes. They are Alien in a way most of us never realize. They don’t show it to us when they come to our space. They try to act more like us. They wear sunglasses to avoid disturbing us with those black orbs in their eye sockets. And they rarely walk around in natural formation while in our space. The truth is that they are born soldiers, designed from the ground up as the ultimate weapon in a war that ended two thousand years ago. Now we’ve found them another war to fight. God help us all.

I

Rainbow light invaded normalspace, heralding Normandy’s arrival at a distant star thousands of lightyears from Earth, and hundreds of lightyears from the Peloran Gateway. That bridge across the stars was months away in the past, and Normandy and her consorts had traveled deep into Arnam space.

Into the very deepest part of it, in fact.

Director Malcolm McDonnell leaned against the bridge’s rear bulkhead and watched the main screen render the Arnami Prime system, home of the Arnam race, in all its glory. It was probably one of their most heavily defended systems. It was certainly the busiest one he’d seen in the last few months.

Hundreds of spaceships plied the lanes between planets, asteroid belts, and moon systems. Miners, transports, and warships called out their presence via transponders, while defense stations drew lines in space where no ships dared pass.

It was an impressive sight.

It looked much like the swarm of ships always moving around Earth, but there was something different here. It lacked something.

So Malcolm watched and tried to puzzle it out. That had always been his job in the old days. He was the watcher. The one who looked and analyzed things. Charles had been the thinker. The one who came up with the plans. His brain shied away from the third member of their group. The one who had done things.

Malcolm blinked that thought away and let his eyes unfocus. He sat still and the lights representing thousands of spaceships played over his eyes. He frowned. There was a pattern. He just couldn’t see it on the wall. He blinked again as that thought came to mind. He wondered what it meant. He examined the thought, looking at it from every angle to see where it could go.

And that is when he recognized the problem.

Could you show that in three dimensions? Malcolm asked.

The bridge crew looked towards Captain Olivia Wyatt and she raised one eyebrow in his direction. Normandy and her sisters had been designed as flagships for the Republic of California, complete with full flag bridges, but Malcolm had signed off on Olivia’s request to repurpose their flag bridge years ago. The Peloran had heavily upgraded the standard bridge they stood in now, but it was still old and small compared to modern starships. It simply didn’t have room for the