Game Ender Volume Two

By B. James Patterson

I’m a killer. I don't remember every face of every victim, but I remember this: that look in the eyes of someone facing their end, the mixture of fear, resentment, resignation. It was my job, just my job. I stole lives. Now they steal my sleep, my peace of mind, my soul. The men, the women and, God help me, the children. I am a haunted man.
This government asked too much from its soldiers. It asked too much from its citizens. It asks too much from me.
Now, I'm asking for something. To get my soul back.
There are as many ways to disappear as there are people, but no one could have predicted this.
Yep. This game ender is for keeps.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Aug 17, 2014
• ISBN: 9781312443310

Book preview

Game Ender Volume Two

Game Ender

By B. James Patterson

Copyright 2014 B. James Patterson

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ISBN: 978-1-312-44331-0

Prologue

I’m a killer. I don't remember every face of every victim, but I remember this: that look in the eyes of someone facing their end, the mixture of fear, resentment, resignation. It was my job, just my job. I stole lives. Now they—the men, the women and, God help me, the children—steal my sleep, my peace of mind, my soul. I am a haunted man. This government asked too much of its soldiers. It asked too much of its citizens. It asks too much of me. Now, I'm asking for something.

. . . To get my soul back.

Kicking fate in the teeth, Capt. Stanley Eason goes off the grid, slips quietly off world, and makes a run for it. This story begins before Raven’s birth, before the battles of Saigus or Los Dabaron. Indeed, before any of it. This is Raven’s heritage; a time of war and killing, a time of human suffering on a galactic scale. This is the story of Raven’s father, the beginning of hope.

Chapter One

On April twenty-first, 2215, the ten-thousandth Peacekeeper space craft rolled off the line of the Eavesdown Space Docks in Janesville, (Mars Colony), a sky-blue, lightly-armed Cougar police cruiser. There was a big ceremony, speeches; the Lt. Governor even showed up.

Three days later, another ship rolled off that same line. No one gave two craps about her . . .

. . . but

they should have; because this 2215 Gazelle Space Freighter would turn out to be the most important vessel –no– the most important object in pretty much the whole universe.

She was first owned by Sal Guthrie—a moneyed alcoholic with two ex-wives and three blocked arteries. He had hoped to make amends for a life of self-indulgence. On any month without an R in it, he’d fly to the planets on the outer rim delivering Bibles to the poor, Gettin’ folks right for judgment day. That’s what he said.

After Sal Guthrie died, she—the Gazelle—ended up at Rainbow New and Used Spacecraft in Laurence where a young scientist bought her on impulse, that is, after a little advice from a friend.

Thirty-eight years later, that celebrated Cougar police cruiser, however—that same one, as near as Stanley Porter Eason could tell—wound up in his private hangar. No one else knew of its historic significance, so he got his dream ship for a song. Little of its blue still shown past large patches of gray primer, but nonetheless, optimistic Stan remained undeterred. For the last three years, he’d been pulling parts and replacing them with more modern gear. His plan for it, and for himself, was to have it change the direction of his life forever. At the time, he believed it was this ship that would impact his life course the most. But he was wrong. I guess that’s where this story begins.

***

And here is where it ends.

Captain Stanley Eason, ‘Swift’ to his men, had made a decision. He liked being a pilot. He liked every aspect of space travel.

He hated killing.

In fact, he’d rather be a ground-bound mechanic than to ever have pull a trigger again. To him, it felt better to have a wrench in his hand than a gun. Having grease, grime, and sweat coat his skin beat the snot out of drowning in the blood of innocent citizens.

Soon, he would resign his commission and go solo and, truth be told, work the other side of the law. If one day he got caught and killed, so be it. Presently, life, living, had next to no appeal, not that he wanted to die, he just saw no reason to fight the inevitable. He supposed, though, that there was an off chance things would improve. To that end, he had purchased a ship, an old Cougar D190 Interceptor. The onetime police cruiser had history, style, versatility, and a good, reliable temperament. Chock full of hidden nooks and crannies, it’d do nicely as a smuggler. The work on it was near done and it’d be time to get on with his life. The military, while not all peaches and cream, had it plusses. It gave him the opportunity to make a name for himself as a crack pilot. It also gave him the means to buy this old ship and the parts to get it flying again.

Somehow, word got around of his leaving the service, and of his piloting skills. Always in the market for such men, representatives of Bricklyn Ironworks came to offer him a deal of which Swift agreed to. One catch: he could tell no one.

On his twenty-seventh birthday, Troy Younger, his longtime friend and soon to be replacement, found him fiddling with his spacecraft, getting it ready. So focused was Swift that his birthday would’ve slipped by if not for Troy.

Troy ran a hand along one wing’s leading edge. It’s looking good, Swift, he said, glancing up at his captain.

Sitting atop a wing, Swift had a cover off to admire the two new Cyrus Thurmite engines. The Bricklyn Ironworks prototypes were remarkably small.

One more week, Troy added, then what? Are you going to wind up in my crosshairs?

Swift slid the cover back into place and locked it down. With a sigh, he gave his friend a careful, measured look. I’ve found work, actually. Legal work.

Yeah?

Test pilot for a major corporation. They found me, really. He slid off the wing to land on the ground with a muffled thump.

And who might they be?

Sorry. Can’t say. Sworn to secrecy, you understand.

So, Swift, you think I won’t arrest you if our paths cross out there? Troy wasn’t smiling.

Command Central had registered Stan’s call sign as, ‘Swift,’ early on. His skills as a pilot were in a league all their own.

Restraining a grin, Stan shrugged. I imagine, Troy, my friend, you’ll do what you must if, of course, you can catch me. That isn’t going to be easy, though.

No?

Stan leaned closer to whisper, I’ve replaced the Cougar’s two Diclan engines with better.

Oh? Troy chuckled. Some serious muscle, no doubt.

Unless Swift missed his guess, the four Slip-band Cyrus Thurmites’ combined drive would beat anything going. Bricklyn’s modifications made his Cougar a ship to contend with—or so he believed. Anyway, his job was to put the prototypes through their paces. If their were glitches to find, they’d show up when he abused them. If Troy thought he knew what the ship was capable of before, he’d now have to rethink it. The recent discovered Slip-band energy, or Zero point energy as some called it, a free-for-the-taking fuel, came to the Confederacy as only a promise. Bricklyn Ironworks’s R&D had developed Cyrus Thurmites engines to exploit the unusual energy source. Testing was still ongoing. It’d be months, maybe years before such engines were placed in a military ship.

Bricklyn Ironworks is working on some pretty impressive stuff, Troy said, fishing for answers. As cops went, Troy was one of the better, but his tricks would work on Swift.

Are they? Swift grinned. Know anyone there? Could you get me a job with them?

I wish, Troy said. I was just thinking, if you combined their latest proto-engines with the Cougar’s many smuggler’s holds . . .‍

You wanna fish, find a lake. I will tell you nothing. The years Swift had spent in law enforcement gave him the knowledge he needed to enter the life he now longed for. Troy knew that. He knew him. Though the well-to-do openly frowned on smuggling, privately they bought anything they could get their hands on from such men. There was big money to be made in that line of work, and Troy knew to Stan, smuggling represented freedom. The guy could dress the way he wanted, arm himself as he chose, and work as often or as little as he saw fit. It also afforded Swift some distance from all the indiscriminate killing of an Enforcer –‍slash‍– peacekeeper –‍slash‍– government sanctioned killer. Still, with one week remaining on his tour of duty, both Swift and Troy knew the military still had time to ruin Swift’s plans, and if he wasn’t careful, his life.

Chapter Two

(Two days later)

The oldest were grown men, twenty-six and twenty-seven-years old. One was twenty-four. Most were younger, eighteen or so.

As he watched from the second story window of his office, Captain Stanley (Swift) Eason tossed a baseball straight up a few inches and caught it without looking. Below, men grunted and strained and cursed as they drilled in hand-to-hand martial arts. The tarmac below was alive to the thumps of well-delivered fists and feet to chests or cheeks, punctuated all too often by the drill sergeants’ shouts whenever a punch or kick failed to connect. Missing the mark would cost a crack on the back with a bamboo rod. Capt. Eason still bore the scars of his own training. Few soldiers didn’t. Colonel Ketchum strode among the new recruits, face reddening beneath his graying whiskers, muttering at them one and all. Eason has never seen the old training commander look more fierce. You there, look alive, he said to one. On your toes, to another. No. No. No.

His sergeants stayed to the perimeter, for the most part, darting in now and again to deliver a crack to a deserving back and scream obscenities into the offending man’s face.

Eason snatched his ball midair and looked back at his lieutenant who sat on the couch. These men don’t seem to learn as quickly or fight as well as we did.

With an arm stretched out across the couch’s back, and a calf resting across a knee, Lt. Troy Younger reclined. Command had registered him in the lists as ‘Ice,’ a flight handle that suited him to a tee. In a few days, this squad would be his. Swift did his best to make leading the job look easy. Troy knew it was not. Aspects of the job had taken their toll on Swift. Now it was Troy’s turn in the barrel.

Following a sharp rap on the door, a soldier stepped into the office and handed Swift a thumb-sized Digi-pod. Your orders, sir. With that, the young man glanced at Lt. Younger, dipped his head in salute, and left quickly. Troy had, with an icy look, a knack for making his subordinates uneasy.

Before reluctantly touching the small device to his left forearm, Captain Eason glanced at his first officer. The info in the pod transferred to his implanted nanites, micro-machines implanted just under his skin, a requirement for every soldier. At rest, they looked like whatever pattern the user programmed into them, innocuous swirls, a loved one’s face or whatnot. Activated, they became an interactive touch screen illuminated to paint text and images across one’s forearm.

The tat-pattern changed to text; orders from Command Central appeared. Studying the message, he scrolled down with a flick of a finger. If what he read was correct, these instructions were distressingly unacceptable. Every day, they sent increasingly worse orders. He feared Command had lost its collective mind. Now this.

In a hot instant, he flung his baseball across the room. It glanced off a wall and brought the bookshelf down with a crash.

Lt. Troy Younger stared at him for a moment with an unyielding face before glancing at the fallen shelves and the books scattered across the floor. Wow. Really?

Swift released a sharp Hmph!

I take it, Cap, they’re bad?

Swift glared at Troy. Blasted straight! I can’t believe they’re asking us to do this.

Asking, sir. With raised eyebrows, Troy cocked his head. Are they giving us the option to decline?

Swift stepped to his desk, stiffened his arm, and sent everything careening to the floor. If he could have lifted the huge oak desk, he would have thrown it through the window. Appalled at his own uncharacteristic display of anger, Swift stopped. Get a hold of yourself, man, he chided himself. What’s gotten into you? Where did this dangerous stupidity come from?

Troy slid to the couch’s edge to rest his elbow on his knees. I take it, that’s a ‘no’.

Command has gone insane.

Look, Swift, if I‍—‍ But the look in Swift’s eyes was enough to clamp Troy’s mouth shut. Okay. Fine, he said. I’ll just let you deal with it. Retreating from saying more, he stood, took the Digi-pod from his commander, touched it to his own arm, and read it to himself. Good gods. He whispered in disbelief. Ah, hell no. Very little got a rise out of Troy.

Really? Swift said, turning angry eyes to his longtime friend. What could it actually be saying then? Turning away, he pulled his helmet from his locker. Small hand-painted hash marks, each representing a Trog, covered one side. Each kill had started out as a source of pride, but now the hashes served as a constant reminder. He considered it for a moment, then flung it at Troy who caught it with one hand, and without looking.

Swift pointed at the helmet. Once done, Troy, some things can never be undone. If we do what Command orders, there’ll be no going back. They’ll own us forever.

Troy pondered the numerous hash marks for a moment. Maybe HQ knows something we don’t. It’s a mission. I say we do it and trust our higher-ups. Besides, one or one hundred, what difference does it make?

Swift considered his senior Lieutenant. He had managed to get his longtime best friend, Troy Younger, as his second in command, but was now wondering why.

And if I don’t do this? If I refuse? What then?

Younger sighed as he set Swift’s helmet on the desk, then turned away to peer out the window at the men below, perhaps, or perhaps at the Dart-class fighters at the bays far end. Perhaps he looked at nothing at all before turning his attention back to his captain. Swift, please don’t put me in that position.

I need to know where your loyalties lie, Troy.

Troy’s face masked all emotion right then. Nuts to that, Swift.

What are you going to do, Troy, if I turn away from this insanity?

Sir, we’ve been friends forever, but if I’m pressed, I’ll do what I must.

Career man, huh?

Troy turned an uncompromising face to Swift. I never hid that from you.

Capt. Eason glared at him. "That means what, exactly?"

If we start to question our orders now, there’ll be no end to it. We’ll have to revisit everything we’ve ever done. But I think you know that.

While in their teens, Stan had taken Troy under his wing to help him get past a rough parental divorce and an abusive father. Troy was a year younger, so Stan got his friend into the academy by vouching for him. For the last five years, they had flown together as a team. But in spite of their history, they seldom saw eye to eye anymore. The fact was, because of their friendship, Stan had turned a blind eye to what Troy had, over time, become. Truth be told, there were real reasons to hate the man.

The aristocracy thinks he’s the ideal soldier. They can think what they want, but I know better. If that is my best friend, thought Swift, what does that say about me?

His mind panned back through the days and weeks in search of the trigger that changed his mood . . . his outlook. Oh, yes, that new kid.

Carl Ogier—fresh and full of promise, an exceptional pilot, sharp and always ready—had joined them just a month ago. Even from the first day, Swift noticed that no matter how hard he tried, the kid could never meet his gaze. It was as though something about Capt. Eason acutely disturbed Carl, as though the kid perceived something in his captain’s soul that was . . .

Swift couldn’t put his finger on it, but it certainly bothered him.

He dropped his head to consider the mess at his feet. To be honest, long before Carl joined the squad, Swift’s growing anger started to take on a life of its own. The kid’s boyish face—or the troubled look in his eyes—seemed to bring to the surface what Swift had, up until then, had kept buried.

Swift’s mind jogged back to the time he first joined a fighter squad like this one. Just as Carl seemed now, back then Swift had high ideals; thoughts of changing the Confederacy toward the better, toward a proletariat living without the threat of Trogs mucking about. But the more Trogs Swift killed, the more prolific the buggers became. There seemed no end to this enemy.

Problem was, Trogs knew how to blend into the population at large, making them near impossible to ferret out. Only eyes on the ground provided a sure way to discover who was who. This was exasperatingly difficult, though. Many once loyal citizens who had discovered Trogs wound up, themselves, contaminated and turned.

This next mission, tomorrow’s mission, was designed to alleviate the Trog problem, or at least show them that the Confederacy was serious about their defeat.

Still . . . that unknown something gnawed at the pit of Swift’s stomach. One way or another tomorrow would change everything.

All right, Troy. Gather the men. I’ll be down shortly.

Chapter Three

Carl Ogier wondered what this day would bring to him and his fellow pilots. Would Wolverine Squad see more of the same, just more killing? He had thought killing from a discrete distance would be somehow easier, less heart-wrenching. However, he had learned that whether up close and personal, or from the quiet confines of his Dart’s cockpit, it made little difference. Killing was killing.

Suited up, he shut his locker and tucked his helmet under an arm. Captain Eason had marked his kills by painting hash marks on his helmet. A few of the pilots kept score like him. The rest in other ways. Swift’s XO, Ice, tattooed his kills spiral-fashion around his own neck. Call sign ‘Ice; that was Lieutenant Troy Younger-a cold, calculating, killer.

Three hundred plus, Ice had bragged.

Sick.

The very idea, whether traditional or not, repulsed Carl. He had started to paint small hash marks on his helmet, two in all, then scrubbed them off a few days later.

Fighting a mix of acceptance and irritation, Carl sighed before turning to his boss, avoiding his eyes.

Captain Eason’s manner and voice were always calm and self-assured—leaderly—but Carl hated looking into eyes that veiled all emotion. If vampires existed, he imagined they’d have eyes like Eason’s. The man never called Ice by his call sign, though; only Troy or Lt. Younger.

Geared up and ready? Eason said, then turned away and headed for the situation room without waiting for a response.

Yeah, sure, Carl muttered, knowing full well Cap couldn’t hear him, nor would the old man care even if the words registered. Carl glanced at Billy, the ‘other’ new pilot.

Billy Taft shrugged and shook his head. That old guy should retire or take a desk job. What’s he now, twenty-five?

Twenty-seven, Carl answered softly.

"Hmph! Kind of old for a Dart pilot, don’t you think? Shouldn’t a man that old be lumping cargo from place to place?"

Considering Eason’s replacement would be Lt. Younger, his XO, Carl shuddered.

Lt. Troy Younger nearly burst at the seams with a toothy grin. Great day ahead of us, boys, but tomorrow will be even better. More Trogs will meet a just end. Yehah! He headed out behind Cap.

It was clear to Carl that Ice was once again in his element. Murder came so easily for the man that it set Carl’s teeth on edge.

Freaky, Billy Taft muttered, referring to Ice as he brushed past Carl.

Yeah, Carl answered, following him and the older pilots into the situation room.

Capt. Eason stood at the head of the room in front of a large computer screen waiting for his pilots to find their seats. Troy stood to one side.

Get the animals fed? Cap asked Troy, just as he had each and every morning.

"Yes, sir. Wolverines are ready, Cap."

The only chair open sat in the middle of the room, just in front of Lt. DuMass, Troy Younger’s wingman. His handle, DA. Contrary to what he was told, did not stand for District Attorney, as in ‘The Prosecutor.’

DA’s saving grace? He was an exceptional pilot, and that was enough to keep him around. Paired with Ice, the two were formidable.

Carl grudgingly took the chair. Any moment now Jessup DuMass would resort to his typical childish behavior. Carl waited for it; as expected, a wadded piece of paper smacked his head from behind, and Jessup chortled like a schoolgirl.

Carl turned to the man behind him. You’d think that a man with as much gun under his belt as you have would act like an adult.

DuMass snapped a closed fist at Carl’s face but stopped short of connecting.

Carl didn’t flinch. Well, apparently not, Carl added. He quickly wiped the annoyed frown off his face and turned back to focus on his captain.

Cap coded his arm com, then slapped a palm to the screen. The info in his nanites transferred to the big screen.

Everyone read it in silence. Carl heard whispers behind him.

Captain Eason dragged a finger across the screen to pull a digital star map to its center and expanded it for all to see. With Parandi, the Confederation’s capital planet, at its center, the map showed most of the surrounding star systems. Its nearest neighbor, Atheron, sat just four light years from it. And that is where Wolverine Squad was based. Cap tapped the map with a knuckle.

"That’s right. Our target will be overhead soon. The cruise liner will be nearing Atheron, boys, and that’s when we’ll hit it. We’ve just received intel that suggests the ship, Emperor’s Princess, is infested with Trogs. Key Trog leaders, actually. We can’t allow the ship to make landfall; not here, not anywhere."

Carl reared back. Had he heard right? "Intel ‘suggests,’ Cap? Does this mean no one’s certain?"

Cap’s eyes, as cold as ever, focused on Carl. The Consul has ordered the ship’s immediate destruction before its passengers contaminate Atheron. Is there a problem, Ensign?

Capt. Eason, what about the innocents there? Are they doomed to die alongside the guilty?

Would you like to sit this one out, Ensign? No one will fault you‍—‍

Well, I will fault him, sir, Troy snapped. "If he has issues with the Consul’s orders, Cap, demote him. We fly Dart Interceptors; if he wants a surgical strike, he can hoof door-to-door looking for Trogs under beds and in basements. I don’t need anyone on my flight team hesitating in the midst of battle."

That’s enough! Cap glared at Troy. I don’t fault the man. In locking horns with his First-in-Command over this issue