Titan Fleet: The Invictus Read online

  Titan Fleet:

  The Invictus

  By

  Jason J Black

  Content copyright © 2014 by Jason J Black

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted at any time or by any means mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior, written permission of the author.

  The right of Jason James Black to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents act 1988.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  December 2014

  Front cover image courtesy of

  Victor Habbick at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to my gorgeous wife, Sara, who has supported me through thick and thin, not only while I have been writing, but also throughout our 20 years of marriage.

  Sara has been responsible for keeping my spirits high, encouraging me to write, and also for having the arduous task of editing this book, and I thank her with all my heart for helping to make my dream come true.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Chapter Seventy

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  Chapter Seventy-Five

  Chapter Seventy-Six

  Chapter Seventy-Seven

  Chapter Seventy-Eight

  Chapter Seventy-Nine

  Chapter Eighty

  Chapter Eighty-One

  Chapter Eighty-Two

  Chapter Eighty-Three

  Chapter Eight-Four

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  The sun beats down once again on the inhabitants of Foloss. A new day has begun. The sand kicks up from the ground like little tornados grasping at ankles. Large smudges of blue and red blood eats into the ground, eagerly escaping the heat.

  Footstep after footstep, Pace slowly tries to make his way back to the city with his prize. Dragging behind a large hideous creature with his one arm, the other had been ripped off by the creature in an epic battle for survival. Drip, drip, drip flows the blood from his gaping wound. With every drop he grows weaker, his eyes start to feel heavy and as he stumbles over a rock, he thinks to himself that this was probably not such a good investment after all. His head slamming into the dust, he can't take any more and defiantly he slips off into unconsciousness.

  Chapter Two

  Pace now can see things clearly. He had travelled out on his rover, after seeing a ship explode in orbit and debris falling to the ground, to the area that was in flames. Arming his gauntlet with explosive shot, he moves cautiously towards a large generator for the salvage.

  A large piece of metal hits him from the left and a huge being pounces on him, tearing at his left arm with its metal claws and eventually severing his arm, after taking a blast of explosive shot to the head. The creature, still clinging on to his arm falls back with a mighty roar, but then regains its footing; readying itself to finish the job it had started. Rushing with an unreal speed, the creature slams into Pace once again, this time slashing at his stomach with no luck. Pace stumbles backwards, his arm outstretched, clawing at something to grab onto to steady himself. His hand finds a polron capacitor and in an instant he realises what he must do, and uses the two broken prongs to electrocute the creature in what he can only imagine to be its eye. The skin is turned from a blue-purple to a black char around its eye. It found its mark with vengeance.

  But the creature is not done yet, by any means. It craves flesh plain and simple, and as it begins to swipe at his legs, Pace fires another shot into the creature. It seems with no effect, as the creature is still coming, and Pace is running out of ideas. The creature finds bone once more, in the hole where the arm used to be, and flings Pace up into the air to fall again, hitting beams on his way down. Then the creature begins its final run for Pace. It can only mean Pace's death. Pace screams out loud in pain and rolls over lining up his next shot, but he knows the creature is a tough one and he fires the second round into the fizzling generator which explodes, cutting the unsuspecting creature in two.

  After a second or two, Pace pushes himself up to his feet and marks the location as his on his mapper. He grabs the head and part torso of the creature and begins to walk. He is not happy because his prized rover was also taken out in the blast, but the salvage should be plenty enough to buy something new.

  Chapter Three

  In the white light around Pace there appears some colour, and then he begins to make out some simple shapes. Then more colour, and a room starts to form around him. He feels a tugging on his left hand side and he tries to focus on a figure, but it all seems a blur to him. He tries to speak, but can't, so watches on for a while until the figure notices that his eyes are open.

  “Don't worry, you will be ok. Different, but ok, and alive is all that matters right now. So rest, sleep a while. I will be here when you wake.” The figure moves over to a table and blurs out of sight.

  * * *

  Waking abruptly, Pace scans the room for the creature he had just fought. Sitting up, he realises that he is alone, and no creature is to be se
en. He was in a medbay and felt good once again. He looks to his left arm wondering how he had pushed himself up, only to find a large metal robotic arm attached to his shoulder and as he begins to feel it he finds it so alien to him that he wanted it taken off straight away, and his own arm put back on. He reaches for the button to call the nurse who arrives at his bedside in seconds.

  “Yes sir. How can I help?” The robot reaches out towards Pace gently stopping him from falling off the edge of the bed.

  “I want my arm, not this, this thing. What is going on? I want answers NOW!”

  Getting a head rush of blood, Pace slips back against his pillow in eager anticipation of answers.

  The robot smiles and her white face seems to redden a little bit.

  “Sir, you were almost dead, and we could do nothing with what was left of your arm. We got the best in we could and we re-built you again. It is not so bad having robot parts you know, sir.” The robot injects a sedative into Pace and brings over a mirror. She holds it by his left side and moves it slowly around to the back so he may view better.

  “However, sir, we had to use some of the creatures muscle and skin to seal the wound completely. Our bio-engineer cross matched your DNA with the creatures and found a good match in some ways.”

  “Some ways! What have you done to me? Robot! Tell me!” Pace grips the edge of the bed with his new arm and crushes the metal strut. The robot moves close, seemingly unmoved, and takes his pulse.

  “Don't worry. I'm sure you will be fine. My name is Padley, sir, not robot. We have rights too, you know.”

  Chapter Four

  Pace awakens once more to the sound of hustle and bustle of a new morning. The air scrubbing unit in his apartment is making the usual grinding noise, and it has been two weeks since Pace had left medbay. It is finals day at the academy so he thinks to himself; all has to be clean and ready to go at 0900 hours. He checks the clock and it is only 0600 hours.

  Ah, perfect, he thinks as he rolls back his sheet and puts his feet on the cold floor. He goes into his bathroom and takes a shower in the grey water and then puts on his clothes and picks up his tool belt, leaving his gauntlet behind. He will not need the gauntlet today, as he has to pass his engineering course, so he can earn more money to be able to buy a ship and get off this hot rock. He stuffs the last triangle of toast into his already full mouth, squeezing it in and chewing briskly, with scant regard for breathing as he closes the hatch to the walkway above, and begins to walk down the under-tunnel towards the academy. He passes by the endless rows of scrap dealers to the hatch, pushes his ID card into the slot and the hatch opens out into a small lobby, spotlessly clean, free from dust and sand. He passes through a large door into a waiting room where he takes a seat on a bench next to several people fussing over their tools and gear. Pace smiles and thinks how well organised he is compared to others, and how the last few weeks were a challenge to say the least. He knows life is all about now, this moment, this day.

  “Hey, move up won’t you?” Standing before the man next to Pace is a beautiful red haired woman. Her hair is long and curly, and as the light catches it, it flickers like waves of fire. The man smiles and lets the woman sit down. Her eyes meet with Pace’s and they both exchange a smile, and then Pace’s name is called over a loud speaker.

  “Engineer Joseph Pace. Room one, please,” says a stern voice. Pace finds the room quickly and the hatch opens as he arrives. He walks in to find three people sat at a desk and a large robot in the middle of the room tattered and broken. It looked like it had been in a war and not been repaired in years. The woman sat at the middle of the desk looks up from her computer screen and smiles before announcing her task. She did not mention her name, nor did the others who, it seemed to Pace, were part of the military somehow. Not that the military was used much anymore.

  “I would like you to do something with this robot, Pace. This is your chance to shine.” The woman points over to the robot and waits quietly.

  Oh great, thinks Pace, what do they want me to do with that, it’s a rust bucket for sure and it probably doesn't have a working gyron to power it. He removes the back panel with his power driver tool, and he was right, no gyron to be found. The wires were a mess and there had been a small fire where the gyron had melted down. Turning around and standing up tall, Pace looks at the grey haired woman, and with gritted teeth tells the truth about what he has found.

  “It depends on what you want it to do really, I could patch into its reserve power supply if it still works, providing that’s not melted too, and get it walking for you.”

  The woman stands up and walks over to Pace and runs her hand along the robots arm.

  “I would like you to get it combat ready. You have fifteen minutes before it needs to be ready, starting now.”

  Pace has a puzzled look on his face. Combat ready? This is not a defence robot, nor is it a robot with much power.

  “Time is ticking.” The woman sits back down and a large glass defence screen is lowered in front of the desk for protection.

  Pace springs into action, he knows something is coming. He begins to mumble out loud to himself about power, and digging deep inside the robot he finds a polron capacitor. He smiles to himself. Could this help a second time around? He quickly finds the reserve power generator and patches the capacitor to it, to store power and then dispense the power through that capacitor to some of the other systems. It will take ten minutes for the capacitor to charge from the trickle power supply, but the robot would have full power for five minutes. Power supply solved, he thinks to himself. Um, now a weapon. Pace looks around, but there is nothing. Um, robots have shields to avoid damage in hostile places. If I can overload the shield on the arm, the power when the arm touches something would be pretty nasty. Pace smiles and connects up the last few wires before popping the back panel back on.

  “Ok, it’s ready. Now let me in with you. There is just over a minute left.” Pace taps on the screen, but emotionless eyes are all that stare back.

  “Can you hear me?” A red light begins to flash and a black container is lowered into the room. Pace switches the robot on and stands behind it with his hopes and heart in his mouth. The robot buzzes and its head turns to Pace and speaks.

  “Thank you, sir. Awake at last. What is your command?”

  Pace shouts “Defence!” just as the container doors swing open.

  A blue and purple creature appears from the shadows. One of its eyes is missing and half of its body is of robotic design.

  “You must be kidding me, you sick, sick people.” Looking at Pace, the creature stood menacingly strong and proud. As it began to move, the robots capacitor kicks in and full power was now in flow. There was a blue electric glow to the robots left hand and Pace watched as the robot clamped its feet into the floor like diggers. The creature ran towards the robot, not as fast as Pace remembered it running before in the plains, but with a strong thumping of metal, which would give you nightmares for years. The creature attacked the robots left arm. Ha-ha! Bad mistake, thought Pace. The connection was a good one and the creature was sent flying into the glass shield, making the people in the room jump up in fear. By biting down on the robots arm, the creature had felt the full force of the overridden power surge and one naked wire had been enough to blow it off its feet, and now it struggled to get back up. The robot just stood its ground, not moving.

  “Get him!” yelled Pace, wanting the robot to do as much damage as possible before the power failed in the system.

  “No sir, I am conserving power, and I am attempting to tap into the power conduit below me.” Pace notices concrete dust rising up from the robots feet. It must be drilling down through the floor. A sturdy robot, this one, he thinks. The creature is attacking once again. Even before Pace has time to think, it tears a chunk out of the shoulder of the robot and tosses it to the floor in front of Pace. Pace moves out of the way, making himself the target, and buying time for the robot.

  “Come on, you and me;
let’s do this once and for all. COME ON!” Pace clenches his metal fist and is at the ready, but to his surprise the creature is not interested in him. It wants the robot. Pace launches up off his feet and swings at the creatures head, and a bone crushing blow it is too, as the creature is thrown again to the floor.

  “Fight me, damn you!” Pace begins to pound the face of the creature over and over again, a blue and purple mess beginning to appear around it head. A clanging loud noise is heard above and a second container is lowered into the room. A second creature appears different from the first one, but larger in size and shape. Pace stands up and crushes the first creatures bleeding head once more, this time it’s a killing blow.

  “No contest.” Pace can’t believe he does not have a scratch on him, but by this time he turns to see the second creature is flying through the air at the robot. The robot takes a direct hit to the chest, but the creature only gets a mouthful of rusted metal for his trouble. The robot swings once more, electricity flowing into the second creature and charring its skin. The creature falls back, pulling the robot on top of him, exposing a wire that the robot had linked onto. The concrete had given way under the pressure, but the robot had stood strong. The weight of the robot was holding the creature down for now, and the robot was pounding at the head and chest of the creature. There were screeches of pain from it and blue and purple blood spraying all over the room. Has this fight been won, thought Pace, or had he jumped the gun, he realised, as a third container was starting to be loaded. Crying out a warning to the robot, Pace can’t believe his eyes, and with quick thinking he grabs the power supply from the foot of the robot and, whilst being electrocuted himself, he runs over to the screen and slams the wire into it.

  With a massive explosion, the screen shatters and the occupants behind the desk get showered with hot molten plastic, and are thrown back by the blast. Pace then dives over the desk himself and looks at the computer screen. Manically stabbing at buttons, he manages to stop the third container from being dropped into the room. At this point the grey haired woman is being picked up by the two men, who then stand with their gauntlets at the ready to defend her. With the last of its power the robot anchors itself to the wall strut with its other foot, and fires a chain-like grapple through the second creature, pinning it to the ground.