The fifth column an inte.., p.1
The Fifth Column: An Intergalactic Scifi Adventure, page 1
J. N. Chaney
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The Fifth Column Copyright © 2019 by Variant Publications
Book design and layout copyright © 2019 by JN Chaney
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living, dead, or undead, is entirely coincidental.
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No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from JN Chaney.
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Wing of the Reaper (July 2019)
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The Fifth Column
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The Fifth Column
Book 1 in the Fifth Column Series
JN Chaney
Molly Lerma
Book Description
The Fifth Column
The Fifth Column Series #1
After a soldier is left for dead, Eva Delgado’s life begins to unravel.
The truth of what happened remains a mystery, and the government will stop at nothing to keep it buried.
Together with the unit’s medic, Eva finds herself branded a terrorist and enemy of the State, hunted by two opposing governments.
When the pair uncover a plot that could have ramifications for the whole galaxy, they know they have to act, but it will take all of their training, cunning and just a bit of luck to do what no one else has achieved.
But what do you do when every secret begets another? And how far will you go to find the answers?
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
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
Epilogue
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About The Authors
For the Renegade Readers. Your support has meant the world(s) to me.
-J.N. Chaney
To my daughter Annabell, my reason for everything and biggest cheerleader.
To Jeff, for seeing potential and taking the time to foster a fledgling writer, and without whom this wouldn’t have been possible.
-Molly Lerma
1
Getting punched in the face sucks.
I knew this because, at that exact moment, a blonde-haired Union bitch was ramming her fist into my mouth while my unit stood back and watched. That was Sarkonian mentality for you. Survival of the fittest. Not that they wouldn’t come to my aid if I couldn’t get my shit together, but that would come with more than wounded pride. The shame of being rescued in a hand-to-hand fight would follow me for the rest of my career.
I felt the warmth of fresh blood trailing from my split lip and grinned. The pain of the blow served as a reminder not to let an opponent get past my guard. I needed to deal with this so my team could finish the mission and get back to our base.
An order from above had brought us here, to Abatis, a small research station located in system Q-2790B on the edge of Union territory, to retrieve a cache of information. Our intelligence said the station was a low priority installation with little in the way of defense and we’d had no trouble breaching the facility. So far, this guard had been our only confrontation, when she came around a corner on a patrol and nearly tripped over me.
C’mon, Sergeant-Delgado. Get your shit together, I thought, not bothering to wipe the blood away. As a member of one of the most elite spec ops units the Sarkonian Empire had to offer, I had a reputation to defend. Besides, if I couldn’t handle one guard, I deserved to have my ass kicked.
The woman cocked back in preparation for another strike, her face a mask of focus and desperation. As she drove the blow home, I grabbed her wrist and pivoted, bringing my elbow up and connecting with her nose. An eruption of red fluid spurted, and I had the satisfaction of feeling something crunch. Her head snapped back, and she stumbled with the force of the impact.
I had to give her credit because she recovered quickly by rebounding into a fighting stance. She was taller than me, though not by much, with a wicked bruise forming around the bridge of her nose. The woman’s hair was pulled back in a tail and a mass of coils sprang out in all directions.
I smirked and dropped my guard just a little, giving her an opening. She took the bait and rushed me, grasping my shoulders with both hands. I anticipated her thrusting a knee into my ribs and mirrored the move. Instead of aiming for a body shot, I swung my knee into hers, sweeping her legs and throwing her to the floor. She made an oof sound as she landed, and the air left her lungs.
I moved forward before the guard could collect herself again and put a foot on her chest, holding her there.
“Stay down,” I advised, staring coolly down at the furious guard.
“Never, Sarkonian rombdin scum,” she hissed, glaring back at me with hate-filled eyes. Her hands pushed on my boot, trying to unbalance me, but I didn’t budge.
“Aww. Now you’ve hurt my feelings,” I said in a mocking tone. A quick flash drew my attention and I realized she’d produced a small blade from somewhere.
Son of a bitch, I thought as I jerked back too late and she buried it in my leg, managing to find a weak spot in the cheap armor.
If I’d been wearing my combat gear, the little knife wouldn’t have stood a chance. Unfortunately, I was wearing a stealth suit for the op, and like the name implied, it was light and only covered vital areas. Designed for quick and quiet movement, most of what wasn’t protected with N02-99 alloy was slash-proof material, but not all. A cheap synthetic blend that might as well have been made from t-shirt fabric made up the rest.
Like the spot she’d just stabbed.
I grunted and stumbled back, giving her the opening she needed to stand up and get into a fighting stance, still holding the knife.
“Sergeant-Delgado, we don’t have all day,” said Commander-Navari in a bored voice. My superior officer and team leader sounded less than pleased. “If you don’t finish this, one of us will.”
“I’ve got it!” I snarled, pissed that I’d allowed this to happen. Blondie rushed me then, maybe thinking I was distracted. It was a sloppy attack, the weapon swinging wide, and I easily sidestepped, blocking the blow. She stumbled and I grabbed a fistful of the springy hair like a rope, yanking her back to me. I threw my right arm around her neck, releasing her hair, and seized her knife hand with my left.
“Really?! Hair pulling?” She attempted a laugh, but it came out a weak gurgle as I cut off her air supply.
“Next time choose efficiency over looks,” I returned. My own hair, like that of many women of the Sarkonian Empire, was cut in one of the approved bobs. For missions like this I kept it tightly braided so no opponent could latch onto it as I’d just done.
“You Sarkonians,” the guard sneered. “No honor, no…”
I squeezed harder and the woman’s words died on her lips. I let go when she finally went limp, and her body dropped to the floor with a thud. Pulling some ties from one of my side pouches, I bound her hands and legs, then dragged her to the desk she’d been manning.
Back with the unit, Navari locked eyes with me. “Why is she still alive?”
“Commander-Navari,” I said, standing straight with my hands clasped behind my back and addressing her by full title and name as custom dictated. “My apologies. It shouldn’t have taken so long to incapacitate her.”
“Even less had you just dispatched her,” she pointed out, obsidian eyes ripe with disdain. Like many true born Sarkonians, her skin had been bronzed by the bright suns that Sarkon orbited. Her black hair fell in a silky sheet to her chin where it had been sheared off to a razor’s edge. I preferred mine out of the way for fights, but she rarely got her hands dirty like that.
“Yes, sir,” I replied, dropping my gaze in acknowledgement of the unspoken reprimand.
Without another word, Navari turned on her heel and gestured for us to move forward. I stared at her back for a moment, not moving immediately in silent rebellion. She didn’t like me; never had from the moment I’d joined the unit. The feeling was mutual, although I suspected her dislike stemmed from the fact that I was a nonni—not Sarkon born—and therefore not a true Sarkonian in her eyes. My homeworld, Spiro, had been claimed by the Empire when I was a child and its inhabitants forcibly turned into citizens.
A movement at my side pulled me out of my thoughts. Sophie, the team medic, nudged me and shot me a concerned glance, prompting me to get my ass in gear. Everyone else called her by her last name or Medic-Singh but she was my best friend and in private we went by first names.
Sophie had the deep tan of a Sarkon native, but her eyes were a shade of green that wasn’t the norm. Thick auburn hair that usually reached her shoulders had been braided up like mine, with the excess wrapped in a tight bun.
She and I had attended the same academy. Sarkonian military schools aren’t for the weak and fighting was hardly discouraged, at least between students. I’d noticed Sophie around the campus—she was always by herself, studying or playing one of the few approved games on her pad instead of with a group, so she’d stuck out.
For some reason, she’d been nice to me on several occasions, which was completely different from all the other Sarkonians I’d met. I had mostly ignored her, having made up my mind that everyone sucked. Besides, it didn’t look good to befriend the weaklings.
Then, one day, everything changed. A group of girls had cornered Sophie in an empty hallway, and I found them kicking the shit out of her.
The so-called powerful picking on innocent people infuriated me. Call it a flaw or whatever—the academy certainly did—but unable to stand by and do nothing, I stepped in. Sarkon does not reward mercy and we were both docked rations and free time, although my punishment only lasted half as long because the headmaster was impressed with my fighting skills.
After that, I couldn’t shake her. The taller girl had followed me around, pestering me to be friends, until finally I gave in. She had been failing her combat training and I needed help with academics, so we worked together. Eventually, she could handle the bullies without me, and I could pass mathematics on my own, but by then we were friends.
Now we were in the same unit and she kept me balanced. Particularly when I was about to open my mouth and get into trouble. Like now.
Nodding curtly to tell her I was good, I fell in step behind her to bring up the rear while the rest of our five-man team moved forward. Navari was second from the front spot and Ensign-Lukas Haas, our tech specialist, stayed so close to her it was a wonder he didn’t step on her heels. I didn’t much care for him either. Like me, he wasn’t Sarkon-born, but he was totally devoted to the Empire and sucked up to the commander like an attention-starved child.
Our last team member, Lieutenant-Mateo Kamal, took the forward position and my gaze lingered on his well-muscled form. I could only see the back of his head where jet black hair was cropped tight to his skull, but we’d been friends so long that I knew every feature of his handsome face. We were all highly skilled, but Mateo possessed impressive firearms abilities. The man could shoot and hit anything, every time. At least, I’d never seen him miss.
I dragged my eyes away and refocused my attention on the empty hall ahead and checking our rear. The guard must have knocked something loose because daydreaming in the middle of an op was not habit. The job came first, and I cleared everything else away as we continued to our target.
When our group reached the next corridor, Commander-Navari touched Mat lightly on the shoulder then held up a fist signaling us to stop. She consulted her pad, verifying the route, then pointed to the left.
“This way for another fifty meters then down another hall,” she instructed. “The lab will be at the end of it. Stack up.”
Since he would be opening the door, Haas took the lead spot with Mateo covering from second position, a barrage of pistols and extra magazines strapped to him. He carried his favorite rifle at the ready while Navari took the middle—typical, it was damn near the safest spot—also carrying a rifle. Her weapon of choice was usually a blade of some sort, but that wasn’t practical here. Sophie stayed in front of me, packed with medical gear, though she still had a rifle in her hands and a pair of pistols in holsters on her right hip and left thigh.
I maintained my own position in the shuffle and carried a rifle along with a pistol and a few half kilos of putty explosives, but just for backup.
With everyone in position, we moved on the target location as one, clearing the next two corridors. We saw no one, not a single soldier stood guard when we reached the final passage. This wasn’t altogether surprising because the underground facility we’d broken into was on a Union-controlled planet.
In fact, it was one of only two facilities on the entire world and as such wasn’t heavily guarded. The majority of the soldiers patrolled the grounds outside the facility. The Union was arrogant and probably thought that any enemies would trigger their sensors long before they reached the ground. If the Union was anything like the Sarkonians—cheap—they wouldn’t want to pay for more soldiers than they felt were needed.
Typical government cutback bullshit while politicians probably lined their pockets. It was hard to complain though since their oversight was making our op a cakewalk.
The door was made of thick steel with a card reader to the right of it, exactly as we’d been briefed. Haas looked back at Navari, who nodded her approval. He removed his kit then turned to the panel and began disassembling it. Sophie and I covered the hallway behind the group, keeping an eye out for threats.
“Scan the door,” Navari said from behind us. “I don’t want any surprises on the other side.”
“It’s clear,” Haas confirmed a few seconds later, his voice slightly muffled. “The radio scan shows twenty meters in. Three warm bodies, I assume unarmed. Lab rats by the looks of them.”
“Good. Get it open, Ensign.”
A few minutes later, the door still hadn’t opened, almost tempting my attention away from my post to see what was happening.
“What the hell is taking so long, Haas?” hissed Navari, her tone sharp with impatience.
“We’re in,” said Haas from the entryway.
2
The door slid open, revealing the lab within. Mateo entered first, weapon up, and swept the room, the rest of us fanning to opposite sides.
