Frontier's Reach: A Space Opera Adventure (Frontiers Book 1) by Robert James (beach read TXT) 📗

The grief-stricken captain straightened his back, like any good CDF officer would. “You’re right.”

“I can’t leave the sphere, Captain,” the civilian man said.

“Professor Petit,” Marquez began, “you have no choice.”

Petit?

“If you stay here—”

Footsteps echoed outside the antechamber. A lot of them. Everyone turned to the entrance.

“Too late,” Tyler said with a forlorn expression.

“Can we have our guns back now?” Jason asked the major. But Tyler was right, it really was too late.

“Take up defensive positions!” the Marine yelled at his men.

The assailants came streaming through the entrance and everyone dived for cover. Their attackers were covered in black from head to toe with full body armor and helmets atop their heads. The mysterious soldiers raised their unique weapons, which curved from their shoulder down to their hands, and fired.

Green bolts shot forth and dust and rock kicked up, creating a blinding haze. Jason pushed Tyler behind a rock formation as several blasts came their way. A Marine fell down beside them with a gaping hole through his chest. Jason quickly grabbed the dead stomper’s rifle and joined Tyler with what little protection they had.

“So,” Tyler said, “I guess Conrad was right after all.”

“We’re not dead yet.” Jason pointed the gun over the rock and fired off a few shots, but the bullets simply bounced off their armor. “We might as well be firing popguns at these guys.” He scanned the antechamber to see how everyone else was faring, but it was hard to make out with all the weapon fire and dirt flying about.

Jason took his chance and discharged a few more shots. But it was no use. “They just keep coming!”

A blood-curdling wail escaped the Marine major’s lungs on the other side of the antechamber, and he went flying against the rock, his lifeless body falling in a heap.

Jason peeked back over the rock as half a dozen of the soldiers converged on them. He put an apologetic hand on his brother’s shoulder, about to say sorry for dragging him into all this mess, but something stopped him.

A voice echoed around the antechamber.

“Cease fire!” it commanded.

That voice…

The soldiers stopped firing and formed a line on each side of the antechamber entrance. Then the dust settled and a figure emerged down the steps.

No…

He wore the same black-clad body armor. However, unlike the others he had no helmet obscuring his face.

How?

He wasn’t a day older than when Jason had last seen him. The day he died…

“Nash?”

Lieutenant Christian Nash walked up to Jason and smiled.

“Hello, Cassidy.”

Twenty-Three

“Is it really you?”

“It’s really me.” Nash instructed his soldiers to disarm everyone.

They took Jason’s rifle and commband from him, while he did a quick body count. The Marine major and one of his men were dead.

“But how?” he asked Nash. “You—”

“Died?” Nash smiled. “My pod was destroyed in the nebula that day, yes. But I wasn’t killed.”

“What happened?”

“You’re so impatient, Cassidy. Nothing has changed.” Nash stepped closer to him. “Just when I thought I’d tracked the Bombay down, another ship appeared. Like something from an old horror movie we used to watch at the academy. It was blacker than the night.”

Jason recalled the haunting image of the ship above Orion V. It had been burned into his mind.

“They closed on me quickly and fired. I dodged a few blasts, but they eventually got me,” Nash continued. “I thought I was dead, but when I woke up on their ship I discovered they’d spared me.”

“And they couldn’t find it in their hearts to take you home?”

“They’re a private people, as you can well see. I was never going home.” Nash gestured at the shrouded soldiers. “To be honest, even if they offered, I would’ve said no.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to.”

Anger bubbled inside Jason. He believed his friend had been dead for four years. He’d allowed it to ruin his life. “And now? You’re serving them?”

“I suppose that’s one way of looking at it, but I prefer to consider myself more of a liaison, between them and you.”

“And who are they exactly?”

“They have no name. At least not that they’ve ever told me. I know them only as Seekers. They’ve been on a quest for a very long time.” Nash pointed to the sphere. “Legend has it this was hidden millions of years ago, in this sleepy part of the galaxy.” Nash stepped toward the artifact and put his hand on it. “That’s how they found me four years ago. They were searching the nebula for clues.”

“Inside a nebula?”

“The Seekers were after the same thing as us.”

“The Bombay.” Jason furrowed his brow. “Tyrell?”

Nash nodded. “Benjamin Tyrell. He wasn’t a Centauri rebel. He was a scientist at the Tokyo Institute of Advanced Sciences, just like Professor Petit. And Doctor Tai, his eventual replacement.”

Jason regarded the pair standing beside Captain Marquez.

“Doctor Tyrell was on the run because he’d threatened to expose work on the discovery of an intelligent extraterrestrial life. Unfortunately, like the crew of the Raptor, they never found him.” Nash turned to the sphere. “But good things come to those who wait. Who would have guessed it would have been humans who discovered it?”

“What does it do?” Jason asked.

Nash bit his bottom lip. “It’s the beginning and end of everything.”

“Sounds like mumbo jumbo,” Tyler said.

Nash stepped toward Tyler and examined him as if he were a pet. “And this must be your brother. Jason spoke of you a lot when we served together.”

Tyler seemed surprised at that.

“Mumbo jumbo?” Nash continued. “To those who can’t perceive more than what their five senses tell them, I guess that’s a fitting way of describing it.”

“How were you aware we’d discovered it?” Petit asked him.

“Ah, Professor Petit.” Nash approached him. “As I’d said, the Seekers have been keeping a constant eye on this region of space for quite some time. We’ve also been listening. We were naturally curious with a commlink sent to Earth regarding the discovery of an object beneath the surface of Orion V.”

“But those communications were encrypted.”

“Your codes are child’s play