Harvest, p.1
Harvest, page 1
part #14 of Odyssey One Series
Harvest
An Odyssey Novel
Evan Currie
Copyright (c) 2025 Evan Currie
All rights reserved
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
With thanks to my Patrons on Patreon, who've been helping me with many aspects of both writing and other things I'm working on, and especially to the members of the Murder Tier who I get to slaughter in various ways within my books now.
Cheers guys, and I'm terribly sorry that a couple of you survived this book... I'll get you in the next one.
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Preface
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Preface
READING ORDER
Some confusion has been shown in what order the books should be fead in this series. Here is the author's suggested reading order, however this book is intended to be read by a new reader as well as an experienced delver of the Odyssey universe.
Optional Prequel - Holy Ground
Main Series :
Odyssey One
Heart of Matter
Homeworld
Out of the Black
King of Thieves
Warrior King
Odysseus Awakening
Odysseus Ascendant
Archangel One
Archangel Rising
Imperial Gambit
King's Fall
The Seeds that were Sown
Harvest (SOL Stands)
Chapter One
Gaian Destroyer Bug Hunt (Outer System, Imperial World Kazir)
Marcus Reid glanced at the feed as the Bug plummeted in system, data from the local Imperial Subnet trickling through his screens.
"Looks like the Contractor was right," He said aloud. "Another Imperial world in revolt."
"Seems so, Skipper," Mac said from beside him.
The Chief wasn't on shift, but everyone wanted to see what was going on as they entered the system. The Starsbane Empire, a laughably pretentious name for a political entity if ever Reid had heard one, had been fractured by the end of the war with Earth. Earth may have been turned into a snowball, but the Empire had burned that day... and he wasn't sure that the fires had ever been properly put out in the three decades since.
The current bit of fighting had become common within the boundaries of the former Empire, growing more and more widespread as the Imperial Navy continued to move in to stamp out each incident... and largely only succeeded in scattering the embers about willy-nilly as a result.
If someone in authority doesn't get their head out of their ass before long, the Empire will self-destruct from their attempts to save it.
Not that Reid, or any of his people would shed any tears if and when that happened.
The crew of the Bug Hunt were all Terrans, running an ongoing deep cover mission that had started thirty plus years earlier. The original task had been to scout out Imperial weaknesses, feed that intel back to Earth, and generally make the Empire wonder why Murphy had taken a dislike to them.
They'd done that job, but it hadn't been quite enough.
So when Sol burned, well they kept doing it. Survivors from Earth's military had coalesced around the old Archangel team and the Gaian Mercenaries had become what they were.
A thorn in the side of the Empire that the Imperials didn't even know existed.
It was a dirty job, but they were just the ones lucky enough to draw the short straw.
Of course, sometimes, that meant making it look like they were on the Empire's side.
Like now.
"Alright, Mik, take us in. We've got some people who need their bacon pulled out of the fire," He said to the Helmsman.
"Aye Skipper, taking us in," Ensign Eric Michaels said calmly as he reached over and worked the controls to bring the warp fields up.
The Tin Can started moving, squeezed through spacetime by the combined pressures of the warp fields pushing from behind and pulling from ahead.
Technically the kid was supposed to be running Ops, but Reid had opted to ask a senior non-com to handle the slot for the duration of this run. It wasn't that he didn't trust the kid, but there was a time and place to be learning on the job skills... and the middle of a hot extraction wasn't one of them in his book.
The Bug Hunt was on the move, though, so he expected that learning opportunities would be aplenty no matter what he preferred.
*****
Imperial World Kazir
The fighting had gotten closer through the night, the former governor of the planet noted with trepidation. The Imperial Navy had been keeping the rebels under control, but for reasons beyond his understanding they'd withdrawn their forces in recent weeks, leaving him at the mercy... a trait laughably missing in the rebels he knew too well... of the malcontents who were intent of tearing apart everything the Empire had built over the last centuries as thought none of it were worth anything.
"Where are they?" He growled, pacing the hard stone floors of the governor's tower.
Abandoned by the Empire, what else was he to do? He'd contracted with some mercenaries to fetch him off this backworld planet and take him back to civilization.
If they would just get here!
The concussion of a detonation in the distance made him jump, but it had been far out past the city limits. He could see the smoke rising into the skies, though, and it was closer than the fighting had been yet.
The governor stared, a thrill of fear rising up in him as he realized that the rebels were now within the defensive perimeter his militia had established through the night.
They'll be in the city soon! Where are those blasted mercenaries!?
The Gaians had earned a remarkable reputation over the decades since they'd appeared, easily carving out a place for themselves as soldiers for hire who were more than pirates and brigands. They didn't take jobs lightly, and refused to operate against the Empire... which was unsurprising as only the greatest of fools would willingly fight the force of the Imperial Navy... but rarely failed to accomplish a job once they did accept it.
Rarely didn't mean never, however, and he was feeling more than a little pressured in that moment as the worry that this might be one of their rare failures weighed heavily on his mind.
"Where are they?" He fretted, sweat beading on his face as he turned and paced back across the room.
He almost jumped clean out of his skin when his communications link snapped open.
"Governor Jarvin, Gaian Destroyer Bug Hunt."
"It's about time!" He snapped, grabbing up the device. "Where are you?"
"Approaching orbit. There is fighting over your balance points, Sir. Do you know which forces are friendly?"
He snorted, "If there were friendly forces in orbit, Captain, I would not have had to call you. The rebels are as fractured as they are foolish. At least three groups are trying to claim that they're the rightful representatives of the people here, and not one of them has any real claim to the title."
"Understood. Governor, we do not engage with Imperial military. All of the fighting forces are broadcasting Starsbane codes, and that puts us in a bit of a quandary."
The governor flushed, "None of them are Imperial military, Captain! You have my word."
"We will require your bonded statement as the governor of Kazir. Transmit with your authority, sir, or we will not attempt to breach the fighting lines."
The governor fumed, but he knew the Gaian's contract as well as anyone could. They were adamant about not conflicting with the Empire, and had more than once refused or invoked contract clauses to abandon tasks assigned to them when a client tried to put them into such a position.
"Fine. Transmitting now." He said, sending the codes of the Planetary Governor to the mercenary ship.
"Codes received, Governor... authenticating. Cleared. Very well, advise that you get to the top of your tower and wait for us, we're beginning our approach."
The signal went dead then and he slumped.
I'm saved.
*****
Gaian Destroyer Bug Hunt
"Take us in, Ensign," Reid ordered.
"Yes Sir." Eric 'Mik' Michaels said calmly as the destroyer responded to his touch and they broke their orbit and began the plunge in toward the planet.
"Quinn, eyes on those ships," Reid ordered. "If they look like they're taking an interest in us instead of just beating the ever loving crap out of each other... light them up."
"Aye skipper," Beverly Quinn said with a feral grin. "With pleasure."
Reid noted that with some mild concern, but he would be lying if he said he didn't feel it just a little bit himself.
The Gaian rule of never taking a mission that engaged with the Empire had bought them trust within the Empire, and left the Gaians with a surprising level of access through Imperial space. It was something that they couldn't lose, as the results would be catastrophic to their efforts...
But, after what happened to Earth and Sol... well, any chance they got to fire on an Imperial ship without risking that access and trust? It was not a chance any man or woman in the fleet, nest, or prometheus itself would let slip from their grasp.
"Colonel," He said, after opening a commlink to the Marines down in the small launch bay. "Stand by for drop."
"Roger, Captain. We're ready to go."
"No doubt. We're entering the planet's gravity well... now. Drop in five."
"Oorah, Sir."
Reid closed the connection and sat back, forcing himself to relax. He'd done his part, for the moment at least. All he could do now was let his people have their fun too.
*****
The Bug Hunt was a prize ship, captured from a pirate crew that no longer had need of it when the Gaian Marines had finished with them. Built by one of the Free Stars polities, it was not a particularly impressive piece of kit... not when the prize crew took it over originally, at least, but in the intervening months a great deal of work had been done to bring it up to certain minimum standards by the Terran engineers who'd been let loose on her.
So, now, she was in as good a shape as she'd been when new... most likely better shape actually, but she was still just a tin can from a third rate polity that barely knew how to build a ship that could keep from leaking atmo into space.
Not an Archangel, and certainly not a Heroic, but her crew were as good as any that served... so far as Reid was concerned, and that made the little Destroyer a very dangerous ship indeed.
She came screaming out of the black, no announcement of her arrival was offered, and by the time anyone of the rebels fighting over the Lagrange stations even had a chance to notice her she was through their battlelines and plunging for the outer edge of Kazir's atmosphere.
There was a brief lull in the fighting as the Bug Hunt ripped past, the crews of the feuding rebels clearly wondering if they should be paying more attention to her, but the moment past and a shot scored off a rebel held station started the fighting up again as the leading edge of the destroyer bit into the atmosphere and pushed out a blazing trail of flame ahead of them as the friction lit the air itself afire.
*****
"Marines away, Sir," Mac said from Ops, the slight lurch in the decks the only tangible sign of the Marines' drop ship launching.
"Very good. Mik, how long for a tight orbit?"
"Fifteen minutes at the current rate, but we'll be running... Mach Twenty plus when we come back around if I keep this speed, Sir," Michaels said without looking up.
"Understood," Reid said, shrugging, "Be a little rough on the Marines if we tried to pick them up running that fast, so get a little deeper and a lot slower."
"Yes sir. I'll bring it down to Mach five by the time we loop back around, but we'll be a couple hours getting back to them."
"They're Marines, they'll be ok."
"Aye sir. Dropping altitude, deploying aerobraking. Hold on, this is going to get a little... bumpy."
****
Colonel Rafael Cortez eyeballed the rest of his Marines as his guts tried their best to crawl out his mouth, freefalling from near orbit was an acquired taste that he'd never managed to acquire. His team, however, were clearly enjoying the hell out of things as they plummeted through the thickening atmosphere.
"LZ is in ten, Colonel," Captain Jimmy Sweet called over his shoulder. "Get ready."
"Born ready, Captain," Rafael drawled. "Call the drop."
"You got it."
Rafael looked over the team, sounding a tone over their systems so that they'd pay attention. Once they were all looking his way, he nodded.
"Get ready."
"Born ready, Colonel!" They all yelled back, echoing his own words. "Oorah!"
The LZ shouldn't be too hot, at least from their brief, but he'd learned a while ago that clients lied, and politicians lied like normal humans breathed, so he was expecting a shitstorm and they were armed for kodiak and ready to make some poor bastard rebels very unhappy indeed.
"Kinda fucked ain't it?"
"What was that corporal?" Rafael looked sharply over to the man who'd spoken.
"Sorry sir," The Corporal winced, not meaning to have spoken quite loud enough to be heard apparently. "I was just saying that it's kinda fucked, saving an Imperial governor from the rebels and all. I mean, they are fighting the Empire too, right? The enemy of my enemy..."
"The enemy of my enemy is an asset, Corporal, not an ally." Rafael cut him off. "They're all Imperials. The Rebels aren't pissed that the Empire fucked Earth over, they're pissed that they got burned in the action."
"Yes sir. I understand."
Rafael doubted he did, but the corporal would learn in time. The rebels weren't friendly, even if they were potentially valuable as assets to the cause. Turning any members of the Empire into allies would be a job of generations. Rafael wasn't against that happening, in time, but that time hadn't come just yet.
"Final checks," He ordered. "Make sure it's hot, strapped, and ready to burn."
The men got busy with that as the numbers dropped while they were buffeted about by the turbulence in the increasingly thick atmosphere.
They were almost finished with that when the drop ship fired thrusters and they were all pressed hard into the belly of the craft as Sweet started deceleration.
"Two minutes," Sweet called out.
"Get ready!"
"Born ready! Oorah!"
*****
The governor looked over his shoulder fearfully as he exited onto the rooftop of the tower that served as the planet's capitol building as well as the governor's mansion and many other purposes. The wind buffeted at him, pushing him around as he turned about, eyes seeking salvation.
The fighting had already progressed into the city, and security had reported that rioters were filling out the streets at the base of the tower.
If they hadn't already pushed through the lower levels, then they would in short order, of that he had no doubts.
None of this would be happening if the fleet hadn't abandoned me! Those military fools care only for their own affairs, while we do all the real work in the Empire.
A distant roar made him jump initially, thinking it an attack on the city, but as it grew and came to be accompanied by an odd whine he was able to locate the source and spotted the crude looking craft approaching the tower. It was clearly not an Imperial vehicle, which he supposed made sense if it belonged to the mercenaries. They were supposed to come from the so called Free Stars, and their equipment would certainly be lesser for it he expected.
The governor watched as the craft grew closer, slowing to a hover over the tower and buffeting him with more winds from the downdraft of the powerful engines keeping it aloft as it settled toward the landing circle.
Doors opened as it drifted over the tower, still well above, and he started with shock as men jumped out.
They glided down, unnaturally, with puffs of gas steering them into a landing a short distance away where they hit with enough force that his bones ached just watching them.
Most of them spread out quickly, weapons up as they moved across the rooftop, but one walked straight toward him.
"Governor."
He nodded shakily.
"You are the Gaians, I presume?"
"That's us," The single armored man said, alone among the group to not have a weapon in hand. "Are we waiting for anyone?"
"No. I am the only passenger."
"Understood, we'll get you loaded up shortly then, and be on our way."
"The sooner the better," The governor said, wrapping himself up tightly in his coat. "Why are we not already moving?"
"Lander don't touchdown until the roof is secure," The man said firmly. "We'll be moving soon. No point in rushing anyway, our lift offworld won't be back around for a while anyway."
