The Movement of Pawns (Gravity Book 3) Read online

  The Movement of Pawns

  Book 3 of GRAVITY

  By

  Jeremy C Kester

  Copyright ©2016 Jeremy C Kester

  Cover design by Jeremy C Kester

  Images of Saturn and Uranus taken from Nasa.gov and used in accordance with commercial use guidelines

  All Rights Reserved

  To the people who help keep me writing:

  My wife, Carla

  My son, Logan

  My buddy, Marcel Alexander

  My siblings

  My Parents and in-laws

  Suzie Little, Mike Nelson, Chris Bedard, Mark DeCoteau, and the plenty of other folks who’ve been left out of this acknowledgement.

  Pawns are such fascinating pieces, too...So small, almost insignificant, and yet--they can depose kings. Don't you find that interesting?

  From “The Bookman” by Lavie Tidhar

  “So it worked then?”

  A young soldier stood in the entrance to the office. His emotions were as sterile as the walls surrounding him. “It occurred moments ago. Reports indicate a successful takeover of operative KΩ757. The operative was successful in elimination of the target. It occurred moments prior to the communications of the new directives.”

  “Report to Dimmings that the project was successful. I want this done immediately. He’ll be pleased at the results.”

  “Sir,” the young officer interrupted. “It isn’t normal using this tactic on one of our own. I am not sure that I understand the reasoning?”

  The high ranking officer frowned at the question. “Are you second guessing my approach?”

  The young officer’s eyes widened as he received General Fortner’s stern rebuke. “No, sir.” His hand shook some before he guided his hand to behind the small of his back.

  Gabriel mused for a moment. “I’ll humor your question. Information determined a high likelihood that Commander Feyet would be difficult to manage given her history with Rachid. Traditional means of repurposing would have easily failed or could be problematic at best. We needed to ensure that there was no chance of that. Does this suffice as an explanation?”

  The young officer nodded. “Yessir.”

  “Good. Now go deliver that message. I want it in Dimmings hands before I leave for the council meeting. And keep a close eye on Feyet. She may now be a risk to go rouge. Eliminate her if there are any signs of it.”

  Seven Years Prior

  Earth

  Haden was smiling uncomfortably. The red glow of embarrassment was subtle on his face. He was surprised that he felt that way. Such emotions became lost over time due to his training. She was responsible for breaking him of those habits.

  Surrounding him was the bright light of a warm afternoon. A few white, puffy clouds littered the skyline. Gentle breezes occasionally passed by toying with her hair. Haden watched happily.

  Kneeling down a few feet in front, Adrianna was getting visibly annoyed. “Will you hold still?” she complained. “It’ll blur if you keep moving.”

  “What are you doing?” Haden asked as he watched her meticulously pouring over the settings of the odd contraption of hers. He steadied himself to oblige her wishes.

  “Taking a picture.” She had told him already multiple times. Her hand reached up to move a few strands of hair that were placed in her way by the breeze. Her teeth shone as she smiled. It amused her that Haden wasn’t following. She didn’t know that it was because he was too focused on her rather than what she was doing.

  He was curious. None of what she was doing was anything less than foreign to him. Seeing dozens of her pictures before, Haden wanted to learn how they were made. They were oddly unmoving, flat images. Nothing like them existed in the modern world. Images that were unmoving were regulated to painted art or to the large printed symbols of the galaxy. There were no photographs to speak of.

  Each of her movements were meticulous, slow. Over and over she adjusted and readjusted the set points of the camera. She was absorbed in the task.

  Adrianna glanced up at Haden as his eyes enveloped her. He wanted to take her in whole. Their eyes met, and they both smiled. Warmth spread across each of their skin. Shyly, Adrianna looked away while lightly sliding more strands of her hair from view. The gadget regained the focus it had previously held.

  Looking into the viewfinder, she found what she was after. Depressing the button, the camera made a clicking noise. She then placed her fingers on a small crank and spun it several times until another, less obvious click sounded.

  “What did it just do?” Haden asked.

  “You never saw one of these?” Adrianna replied in question as she looked through the viewfinder again. Another click. Each time that she took a picture, she manually rolled the small crank until it clicked once again.

  “No,” Haden said. “It’s a strange, little device.”

  “I found these when I was a little girl. My grandparents kept a lot of old stuff from our family. There were all kinds of gadgets and trinkets from hundreds of years ago. Something about the camera drew me to it. It had a few old books with it too. Some of the terms were outdated and hard to figure out, but I learned that I loved it.”

  “It would be like you to take up such an ancient hobby.”

  Adrianna laughed. “It’s only a few hundred years old. I would hardly call that ancient.”

  “Humanity was barely figuring out how to get off of this planet,” Haden retorted.

  Her fingers once again revisited the camera as she changed the various settings. She looked up and back at the camera trying to judge how to capture what she was seeing in her mind. “Don’t move,” she instructed.

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” Haden replied jokingly. A smirk spread his lips slightly exposing his teeth. Adrianna loved that smirk.

  Finally she was satisfied with the aperture, focal length, and exposure settings. She looked up to make sure Haden was still posed how she wished. Something about the way that the sun was reflecting off of Haden’s skin was a mystery to her, though it made him so much more attractive. Her eyes scanned over him. She wanted to absorb what she saw before her.

  They were both enjoying one of many days in leave that Haden had built up. It took some convincing, but Adrianna was able to drag Haden to the wheat fields by her aunt’s farm. Reluctantly Haden followed, but eventually he found himself quite content.

  As he looked out at the horizon, he felt the urge to drop everything and leave. The feeling had been with him for weeks. It began as a small kindling of flame burning quietly long before the thoughts materialized in his mind. As Adrianna and he became close, the kindling burned hotter until it became something he could no longer ignore.

  “I want to leave the Alliance,” he said plainly.

  The words took a few moments before Adrianna knew what he was saying. “Can you? Why?” She was concerned and confused by the words. Haden saying such things held a heavy weight. It was a weight that Adrianna wasn’t sure that she was ready to carry.

  Looking glum and contemplative, Haden gazed at the girl ahead of him. She smiled nervously. “I won’t give them much choice. I want to be with you,” he said.

  “What are we going to do then?”

  “We just leave. I can figure everything else out. Surviving is what I am trained to do.”

  Adrianna laughed. She was unsure of what to feel. “Where would we go?” It felt like a joke to her.

  Haden pointed up. He smirked. Adrianna quickly looked into her viewfinder her and snapped a picture.

  “Haden, you know I won’t fly anywhere. I don’t want to travel into space.” Her heart rate was elevating. “I just don’t think that it is a good
idea. What if you get caught?”

  “They’ll imprison me and attempt to kill me,” he offered nonchalantly. “But I can avoid that easily. I don’t think that they’ve developed a prison yet that can hold me.” His comment was nonchalant and jocular. Adrianna chose to dismiss it. She wanted to stay diligent to the task at hand. It helped distract her.

  Adrianna felt the stress building inside of her. The world felt as though it was becoming overexposed erasing any traces of the image whose light hit it. “What’ll happen to us, Haden?” she asked. “How do you know we’ll make it?”

  Haden shrugged. Taking another opportunity to take a picture she realized that the camera had stopped. “Dammit” she whispered to herself. The film had run out.

  While still looking at Haden, she picked up a small sack down at her feet. It was a dark, black sack that appeared to shine unnaturally against the sunlight. Inside, she kept a small inventory of analog film. As though she had done it thousands of time before, she swiftly exchanged the old film with a new roll. As film was nearly non-existent, she often made her own.

  It was a cumbersome hobby often stealing away any free time she had. Photography was a passion she couldn’t leave despite the extra effort to manage such devoid technology. It was not so unlike Haden. She couldn’t imagine life without either.

  Haden continued to sit in the field contemplating his next steps. The sun was approaching the horizon leaving slivers of light. As he looked at her, he realized that he would have to leave her behind.

  And that scared him.

  ISS Intrepid escape pod

  En Route to Rhea Colony

  Delilah woke with a start. She was shivering. Despite the temperature of the confined space of the pod being near 303 kelvins, she was cold.

  Looking around, she immediately saw Gliphon laying down on the ground next to her. He was curled up and sleeping. She looked at his face and felt that he looked strained and worn. Something had happened. She didn’t know what. As though entranced by it, Delilah watched the slow rhythmic breathing before shaking it off and looking around again.

  Escape pod, she thought to herself. Though she was curious as to what had occurred, she couldn’t take her mind entirely off her shaking. To get warm, she pulled her arms in tightly. She felt pain inside of her head as well. A dull pulsing throbbing was almost squeezing her eyes from their sockets.

  “Gliph,” she whispered. Her voice was hoarse, tired, and barely audible. Trying to place her hand out to touch him, she only got about halfway before she recoiled back. The shaking was unbearable. “G-g-g-g-gliph,” she called out louder.

  Gliphon was sleeping. Instead of trying to call him she decided to fall into him as she couldn’t pull her arms apart enough to nudge him otherwise. The thud jolted Gliphon awake and instantly he rose to be sitting up.

  “Shit! Are you alright, Delilah” he asked. His tone was frightened. He grabbed her and pulled her close trying to give her some extra warmth. He was sweating and uncomfortable, but he ignored that feeling over his concern for her.

  “I’m c-cold. I I I c-c-can’t st-st-st-stop shaking.”

  “You took a crazy hit to the head,” he said running his hand gently through her long black hair. She winced as he ran over a few of the wounds. “We were attacked. You were knocked out on the first hit. They stormed the ship. Everyone is dead.”

  The cold numbed her response. She wasn’t quite sure as to what she was hearing was real or not. There was not enough energy to put out the terror that she should have felt. They were all gone? How was it possible? The cold and pain took over without remorse breaking the thoughts.

  Gliphon continued on his own: “Captain just froze. They started shooting, and he froze.” Gliphon’s tone was nervous but steadfast. “I tried to shake him out of it, but he just wouldn’t budge. I saw you lying on the ground. You were pretty beat up. I grabbed you, got in the escape pod, and ran.”

  A meek, “thank you,” was all that Delilah could muster. In her mind, she kept thinking about the Constantine. She didn’t know if he would still be alive or if the Alliance killed him as well.

  Constantine had been like a father to Delilah. She was an orphan spacer left behind at the colonies on Io. Her parents left her there when she was young after they were victims of an accident. She had no idea of the tragedy, and she always believed that she was purposefully dumped.

  Growing up and trying to survive she soon developed a knack for technical applications, and eventually she earned food and lodging through that talent. Despite this and with the help of occasional bartering and sparse generosity, she lived in squalid conditions and she had to supplement her income with theft and other favors.

  On one of his supply runs Constantine found the young girl huddled behind a dumpster with a contraption she had set up to steal from him. Though he knew what was going to occur, he allowed her to achieve her goal as a way to test to her mettle.

  He was impressed. He followed her to a small area of the colony. It was deserted. She had more traps set up with a technical sense he had not seen in a long time. He decided to confront her there.

  “Who are you?” she asked coldly holding up a strange device as though it were a weapon.

  “You seem pretty handy with that stuff. Are you hungry?” Constantine held out a food ration. It was wrapped in a silvery pouch. Delilah looked questioningly at the offer.

  “What kind of question is that?!” she pushed the device forward.

  Constantine took a step back holding his hands up. “I am just asking a simple question. Are you alone?”

  “I’m indentured you piece of shit. I am hiding from my owner. You here to take me in? I’ll fucking kill you if you try.” It was a lie. Constantine decided to go along with the ruse.

  “Who’s your owner? Who do you owe?”

  A laugh escaped her mouth as Delilah began to look around for an out. She never considered the possibility of being cornered. Her panic was surfacing as Constantine remained calm before her. “I’m not telling you that! You can’t take me back! He’ll kill me!”

  “What if I buy your indenture?” he asked plainly.

  The words made Delilah even more nervous. “So I can be your slave? Fuck you, old man!”

  “Eat this.” He threw the ration at her. She caught it accidentally dropping her weapon. She recoiled with widened eyes trying to see where her weapon went and where the strange man quizzing her stood. When she regained her composure she saw that Constantine had not moved.

  “Why didn’t you attack me?” she asked. She was startled by Constantine’s inaction.

  “Not interested. I have a good feeling you and I would benefit each other. I lost my engineer, so my ship is without anyone who really knows tech. You seem to know something about that.”

  “And how can you help me?” she asked relaxing enough to lower her weapon at the strange man’s offer.

  “You need food and a good home. You’ll have both as a member of my crew.”

  Constantine asked her to become part of his crew or she could go back to her old life. She accepted without second guessing her decision. He treated her well and she became a valuable part of his crew. That was nearly 15 years ago. Up until the Intrepid was lost, she served Constantine as chief engineer and second mate.

  Gliphon gazed at Delilah with the look of concern. “I hope there’s a doctor that can get to you wherever we land.”

  “Rhea,” Delilah mumbled finding it difficult to form the words. “The pod is p-r-r-r-rogramed to go to 1-1-1A on Rhea.” As she stuttered, she felt noticeably more nauseated.

  Gliphon knew in that moment who he’d take her to. “Lay down and rest,” Gliphon said calmly. “We’ll get there soon enough.” As he said this, he watched her suddenly begin to pass out.

  His words felt slippery and distant to Delilah as she slid unconscious. “Delilah? Delilah?!” Gliphon called sounding like he was down a long tube and she was falling further away.

  TSV-D Kladeos (Tethys Security
Vessel - Destroyer)

  Extended orbit - Neptune

  It failed again. Jonathan stared at the scanners in a state of disbelief. He was annoyed. It was the 16th time that he had tried to get the new weapons array to function properly, and it was the 16th consecutive failure. He clenched his jaw and pounded his fist against the console.

  The inventor scowled behind him. Viey was not pleased. Her dark brow furrowed as she glared at the console over Jonathan’s shoulder. She was unable to inspect the initial installation prior to the tests, and now her adjustments trying to correct any errors wouldn’t take. Such failures angered her. Patience was only a virtue during design. All other matters were not so fortunate. “I don’t want to hear that you didn’t do anything wrong,” she said in her thick Ioian accent. “I do not help fund this operation for my sport.”

  He shook his head. He had repeatedly checked the schematics that Viey had sent. Again the same excuse came to his mind: “We followed your instructions to the letter,” his response remained. He doubted how accurate he was in saying that.

  Jonathan Delarosa was captain of a small destroyer class ship with Tethys, a large, well-funded security company that serviced a few of the colonies and companies that operated in and out of Alliance space. Jonathan’s ship, Kladeos, was one of only 22 war ships for the Tethys Fleet.

  His ship was the one chosen to trial the new designs from Viey and her company. These upgrades would effectively triple the firing capacity of the ship making it able to take out an Alliance frigate with minimal effort.

  Viey’s company, Hunter-Delta Industries, was a private firm that focused on military products. They found a more lucrative existence moving themselves to the outer worlds rather than remaining in Alliance space competing with other companies for government contracts. It was preferred as it also allowed the company to experiment with technologies that the Alliance would have regulated to such an extent that they would remain on paper alone. They sold rights and licenses to secondary manufacturers circumventing the standard checks normally encountered. Operating in that manner allowed them to sell ideas for enormous sums of credit and limit liability and government oversight.