Obsession Read online




  OF THEIR BLOOD

  OBSESSION

  ANDREW HALLGARTH

  Thank you for purchasing/reading this ebook. It is appreciated.

  Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 Andrew Hallgarth. All rights reserved. Including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof, in any form. No part of this text may be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the author.

  CONTENTS

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

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  22

  1

  The small ship’s velocity slowed as it approached the landing pad. Fifty, forty, twenty, then ten metres per second. With a press of a button the landing gear deployed as the ship was aligned with the pad.

  Typically such a landing would be done automatically, but this time the small ship was coming in manually under the control of the pilot. While not unheard of, it was entirely irregular and was only usually permitted if the docking computer had failed.

  Gripping both control sticks tightly, the pilot manipulated them carefully as the ship drifted closer to the pad. The stick on the left controlled vertical and lateral movement while the right stick controlled the pitch and roll. On the sticks were two triggers which controlled the yaw.

  The pilot controlled velocity in two ways. First was by foot pedals which were only really used at speeds below one-thousand metres per second. For velocities that were higher, more precise values were input via the control panel which went all the way up to the megametre per-second range.

  The ship slowed to a mere three metres per second, which was around twice that of walking speed. Nervously, the pilot pushed the left stick forward, and the craft began to descend before finally touching gently down onto the pad.

  Checking that contact was solid, the pilot powered down the engines. The electronic sound of the port’s computer voice spoke its confirmation, and the pad lowered itself down into the hangar.

  That was when the image behind the cockpit window changed. Instead of a hangar it was replaced by the pilot’s instructor and examiner both stood there observing at her.

  The examiner gave the pilot instruction over the speakers. “Please vacate the test pod.”

  Preia Lomas, the learner pilot, did as she was told and unbuckled herself from the seat before exiting the pod through the rear door.

  None of what she had been through had been real, at least in the sense that she had not been in a real spaceship. All of it had been nothing more than a simulated examination, and today she would either be given a pilot’s license, or they would tell her that she needed to retake it. She was hoping for the former.

  Moving around the test pod, she stepped up to both the instructor and examiner who looked over at her. “Three metres a second was a little slow on the final phase, but regardless you passed.”

  She breathed a sigh of relief. The last eighteen months had been rather difficult. From learning the controls to getting used to operating them as though they were second nature, it had been rather harrowing at times. Now that part was finally over, and she would have an official license.

  The examiner continued, “So, I see you have passed the theory tests and basic maintenance?”

  “And advanced maintenance,” she corrected.

  He looked it up. “Yes, you have. You seem to be better at that then with the flying part.”

  The instructor who had helped her learn how to fly over the course of the year cleared his throat, indicating his displeasure at the examiner’s comment.

  The examiner seemed to ignore him. “Have you considered doing a full engineer’s degree?” The examiner asked.

  “No, not really,” she answered.

  “Well regardless, you passed. We have some documents you have to sign for the license which you should have in about a week.”

  She shook both of their hands. “Thank you.”

  Her instructor, a guy by the name of Jackson, walked her to the main foyer of the pilot school.

  “Thanks again,” she said with gratitude. “You’ve helped me a lot.”

  “It’s my job,” he said with a smile. “You just make sure you put the license to good use.”

  “I am,” she assured him. “You could say it’s going to help me realise something that I’ve wanted since I was a girl.”

  “That’s good,” he said. “Good luck.”

  “Thanks,” she said as she signed out before leaving the school.

  Outside wasn’t outside, at least not in the sense that most people used it. She lived on a giant space station and had done since she was fifteen. Now twenty-three she hadn’t been on a planet for a little over eight years.

  The Marigold Colony, as it was called, was her home, and she lived in her grandfather’s old house that ran along the outer edges of the massive environmental enclosure in a gated district. The design of the enclosure wasn’t all that different from a town or city on a planet, complete with structures, roads and pavements.

  Her grandfather had died a few years back now and was the only family she had. Or at least that cared enough or were able to take her in after her parents and little brother had been murdered. It was their deaths were what drove her onward, what pushed her to do things she would otherwise not have done, would not do in the future.

  Stepping into a tram, she sat herself down and rode it to her destination by the LB landing bays. She then headed down an elevator to the deck four bay fourteen labelled MC-02 or Marigold Custom, hangar two.

  After showing her ID to the electronic security terminal, she was allowed entry. The doors slid open, and she set foot on the upper level and stared down at her ship below.

  The ship was being made by Marigold Custom, who rented out this and the hangar next door for their business which was building and customising ships. Usually, they were hired to modify an existing one, either to give it better engines, styling or a garish paint job. She had wanted a scratch build and for her money was no obstacle.

  There were times when she believed they were taking advantage of that fact as the build time was glacially slow with over a year in development. She had hoped to have it finished well before she got her license, but that didn’t look likely at this point.

  The reason for this was because she would also need her ship to undergo an inspection for certification. This process took longer on custom builds, such as this one and she would also have to ship in a specialist team to do it which wouldn’t be cheap.

  She also needed a weapons license to stock torpedoes which again would take time and a full background check. The dual energy cannons were unlocked by default as a means of defence, but they were far from the most powerful out there being civilian grade.

  All the hassle she had to go through was worth it, though. Every time she came to see the progress all her doubts faded away.

  The ship was quite a bit bigger than she had initially imagined. The vessel included six cabins, a front lounge, a standard sized docking port on the rear and a nicely sized cargo bay. At forty-eight metres in length, eleven high with the landing gear retracted and thirty metres wide, it all added up to something of quite a significant scale. At least to her.

  Preia moved down the steps over to Gable, the guy who was in ch
arge of not only Marigold Customs but also the build. He was also the guy who kept encouraging her to go bigger and bolder with the build, something she knew he had done to get her to spend more and more money.

  Initially, it had started as a much smaller ship. There had been a single cabin and no lounge and certainly no medbay. Regardless, Preia was satisfied, despite being initially against it.

  Gable, who was looking a holographic data readout, turned and looked at her. The readout faded away into his wrist as he greeted her. “She’s almost finished,” he told her. “Just some carpets and furniture to add in and she’ll be ready to go.”

  “She still needs to pass a certain test to prove it’s space worthy.”

  He waved his hand dismissively. “She’ll pass, don’t you worry about that. You want the tour?”

  “I can go inside and take a look around?” she asked looking her ship up and down.

  “Sure, everything’s in place. Well, we still need to hook up the stardrive systems, and there are cables strewn everywhere. Apart from that, everything’s in place.”

  Preia nodded. “Sure, give me the tour.”

  “We’ll take the inspection platform.” She followed him over to the platform and climbed on after him. He stood at the controls and activated it. A few moments later it began to levitate off of the ground.

  The pod was a simple design. It had a cylindrical base with a waist-high railing all around it. It hovered by using a small gravity engine and had a very slow speed of around four kilometres per hour. The speed was adequate for what it was. It was an inspection platform, after all, used for inspection, not for racing.

  The first thing they came upon was the rear port gravity engine. It was huge. Preia believed that she could almost walk inside it. The engine itself was a basic cylindrical design with the gravity coils running along the inside in what was known as a gravity funnel. The engine itself was hollow, and from front to back, you could see straight through it. One the outer edge of the engine was the name of the ship, Astraea which was written in large block capitals.

  The pod continued forward where they passed the three port cabin windows and the forward cannon. They then moved to the front where the cockpit and two torpedo launchers lay.

  Gable spoke. “No torpedoes for you I’m afraid. We can’t stock them.”

  “And I currently don’t have the permits,” she added. “So don’t worry about it.”

  The pod moved over the cockpit and along the dorsal section towards the aft. It was mostly smooth featureless hull apart from the windows.

  At the rear was the stardrive with the central rectangular FTL charge banks and the two cylindrical jump engines that were projected out above the back of the ship.

  Gable spoke again. “Up to forty light years in a single jump,” he said. “And the gravity engines have a top speed of four megametres per second, though it will take a good hour to get to that speed.”

  She smiled. They were what she had spent the most on during this build. Each gravity engine cost almost as much as the rest of the build excluding the stardrive, which itself was the second most expensive thing. With them, she could outrun near everything on the market. They were oversized for the frame, but not ridiculously so and complimented the rest of the arrowhead design of the ship rather than ruined it.

  Finally, the inspection platform moved around the rear of the ship where Gable pointed to a ring that circled the rear airlock.

  “That’s the cyclic shielding system,” he explained. “Better than your average shielding system. It uses two cycling shields to boost the power and durability.”

  “Not cheap,” Preia said.

  “You said you wanted the best,” Gable pointed out.

  “And you’ve delivered. Astraea is turning out far better than I’d hoped.”

  “Thanks. Do you want to see the interior next?” Gable asked as the platform landed back where it had started.

  “Actually, it’s probably best I don’t. At least today,” she said. “I need to be heading home, got things to do.”

  “Well, it’s probably for the best. As I said earlier, we have a lot of cables and equipment all over the place. Makes for a bit of a tripping hazard.”

  “When do you think it will all be cleared up?”

  “By the end of the week, I should think,” Gable said.

  “I’ll come by on Saturday, then?” she suggested.

  “Weekend,” he reminded her. “Unless you want to pay us overtime?”

  “Monday, then?” Preia said.

  “Perfect. She’ll be ready.”

  “Not until we have the furniture in,” she said.

  “That is for someone other than me. Sam will hook you up with something.”

  “I plan on hooking myself up,” Preia answered. “I know what I like.”

  “So does Sam. Don’t let her force you into anything you don’t want.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” she assured him. “I can handle her. I’ll see you Monday. Keep up the great work.”

  “Monday,” he confirmed.

  Preia made her way out of the hangar and back to the elevator. The pilot exam had taken a lot out of her, and she felt like taking it easy for the rest of the day. She felt like she deserved it.

  Despite what people some people might think about her regarding her wealth, she rarely took time for just herself. Every waking moment felt like she was working towards a goal, one that she hoped would ease her mind and let her sleep properly at night without the help of aids.

  The moment she got home, she headed straight for the kitchen and made herself something to eat before heading through into the workshop which required a passcode.

  She stepped inside, closing the door behind her then made her way over to her desk where she brought up the schematics of her very own build on the holographic monitor.

  It wasn’t a spaceship, but it was just as crucial for her plan. It was an armour suit known as an AMAS or an Advanced Mobile Assault Suit, and it was piloted, not worn. It stood towards the rear of her workshop in a frame, and was two-point-five metres at its full height which made it too large to get out of her place if she walked it out, but when the time came, she would be taking it apart and moving the pieces separately, reassembling it aboard her ship once she was out of the station.

  The truth was what she was doing was illegal and the method she was going to use to control the armour was even more illegal. If she went through with it, that was, and she intended on going through with it.

  The assault suit, as it was, required an outlawed spinal interface to connect with the user directly. She, however, had no interface implant and getting one was both expensive and very risky.

  In all honesty, Preia wasn’t sure if she was going to go through with the interface or not, despite having already parted with the money. It was a big step, one that would change her life forever. But she was driven by a need to see justice, justice for her family who died in front of her.

  The one responsible had an army of people around him, or supposedly had an army. To get close enough, she needed an edge and an illegal tech suit with enough firepower to level a small city was that edge.

  Right now, though, the suit had no ordinance whatsoever. Getting those parts together was proving to be a lot more difficult. There was only so much one could do even with a lot of funds at their disposal, and she was undoubtedly experiencing that first hand.

  She couldn’t give up, though. This build had been going on for years. She was seventeen when her aunt had first sent her the plans. She had learned everything she could, researched and studied hard on as much as she could about engineering and about the old wars where they had used assault suits such as this one. Unfortunately, they had been expensive to build and maintain, both financially and in regards to the toil it took on those that were unfortunate enough to be picked to pilot them.

  There were unpleasant stories from those days. Armour pilots that were in constant pain from the implant. Those tha
t suffered a form of phantom limb syndrome every time they were out of the armour. Others had breakdowns because their sense of self became confused. Were they the human, or the machine?

  It was a huge risk, but she felt like there was no other reason to live, except for her goal. Her life from when her family had died when she was fifteen had been on a single course, and now she didn’t know if she could change it if she wanted to.

  Preia performed a full systems check on the armour, despite knowing that nothing would have changed since she last did one which was this morning. As expected it was the same old armour that was almost complete sans armaments and a way to interface with it.

  For the next thirty minutes, she tweaked a few of the settings. She wasn’t sure why she bothered as come tomorrow, she would probably end up resetting them right back to what they were.

  The real reason she was there wasn’t to run diagnostics or to alter settings. She was waiting on a return message regarding where she could acquire some weapons systems. So far after nearly a month of waiting she had received no such reply and was starting to think that she never would.

  That meant she would have to start the hunt for another contact and that posed a risk as she didn’t know if they were genuine or if it was a trap set up by the authorities to catch arms dealers and criminals. She didn’t want to have to do it, which was why she had already waited a month and would continue to do so for at least another.

  “What’s the hold-up,” she mumbled to herself as she stood up. Sometimes it felt like nothing was happening and that she would never reach her goal. It frustrated her to no end at how long it was taking for everything to come together. At this point, it had been years, literally.

  Thankfully, today had been a considerable step forward. Preia had passed her final test, and while she had to wait for all the finalisation of all the various documents, that was out of her hands which was yet another thing she had to wait for.

  The truth was that Preia was fed up of waiting. She felt like she had been waiting for her entire life. Things were moving forward, but it was at a glacial pace. But she was driven, and no matter how long it took, she would see this through to the end, because there was nothing else she knew.