FLIGHT OF THE INTREPID

  BOOK 1

  KEVIN MCLAUGHLIN

  Copyright © 2021, 2025 by Kevin O. McLaughlin

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, businesses, events, or locales is purely coincidental.

  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

  Author’s Notes

  Free Story!

  About the Author

  1

  Kyle Wagner checked his watch and cursed under his breath. He was going to be late, if he didn’t get a move on! Sure, this might be a dumb security detail and a pointless patrol, but of all the days to end up on report, this was not the one he’d pick. He all but jumped into his trousers and shrugged on his flight jacket, then stepped into boots which tightened and conformed to his feet as soon as they touched the insoles.

  That part still made him grin. He was old enough to remember when you still had to zip up your footwear. Getting used to the luxury of self-adjusting garments had been easy. If he ever had to go without them again, well… That would be more difficult!

  Dressed in a flash, he slapped the button beside the door to his quarters and stepped out into the hall beyond as soon as it opened for him. Kyle glanced up and down the hallway. Nobody around to see that he was running behind, which was good. Among other things, it meant he could literally run to make up a little of the lost time.

  Oversleeping wasn’t something he made a habit of, but the partying the night before had gone on into the wee hours of the morning. Honestly, he’d had to say good night to the other pilots while they were still in mid-revel, because unlike them, he’d pulled the short straw and was up for patrol duty today.

  The same thing was probably playing out across the fleet. Everyone was celebrating, on Earth and in space, across both remaining colonies—hell, Kyle was willing to bet there wasn’t a human being alive who wasn’t excited about today.

  Kyle’s head pounded with each stride, but he stepped up the pace anyway, moving to a light jog as he went down one hall, then another. Pilot quarters wasn’t too far from the flight deck, thank goodness. Smart planning, that. The Intrepid was a Star Carrier, a ship big enough to be called a city in its own right, and trying to get from one side to the other without a monorail ride was a major undertaking.

  He slid down a ladder to the next deck down, then continued on along the passage. Up ahead were the sounds of people working on fighters, the familiar banging and motor whines like music to his ears. He’d been at this game a while now. Long enough that the Intrepid was more like home to him than anyplace on Earth, anyway.

  Kyle came into the hangar and blinked in the suddenly brighter illumination. The flood lamps in this place always had it lit up to about Earth normal daylight. Important to be able to see what you were doing when monkeying with the most critical set of defenses the ship had.

  “Lieutenant Wagner! You’re late!”

  He turned and saw Jones headed his way. A good kid, a bit new to the game, but decent. Conscientious, too. It wasn’t surprising that he’d beat Kyle arriving. The kid had probably been there half an hour already, making flight checks.

  “Not late yet, Ensign.” Kyle did eyeball his watch again, just to make sure. He was cutting it close, but he’d made it in under the wire. “You ready to roll?”

  “Always,” Jones replied. “Our fighters are ready, fueled and loaded.”

  “Then let’s get this over with. My god, I wish I could have slept in,” Kyle grumbled. “This is a waste of our time.”

  “Patrolling on the day the war ends? Sure is,” Jones replied. “But orders are orders, right? Besides, I’ve never known you to avoid a chance to get in the cockpit.”

  Kyle had to admit the kid had him there. He loved flying, more than just about anything else. “All right, let’s get this show on the road.”

  He made for his fighter, an F-330 Lancer. State of the art tech, with all the trimmings, the fighter had all the gadgets and advancements humanity could create or buy tucked away inside it. Kyle walked around the vehicle, making a visual inspection. Sure, the flight techs had already done that, but… It was a good habit to do one’s own checks anyway.

  The pilots with bad habits were mostly dead.

  “Here, you look like you could use this,” a voice said from beside him.

  Kyle turned and saw Chief Decker standing there, a mug of something steaming in his hand. “If that’s coffee, you’re a saint.”

  “As if I’d hand you anything else.”

  He took the mug and sniffed. Strong, black, and probably overdone, it was nonetheless the best thing Kyle had smelled all morning. He took a hesitant sip, found it cool enough to drink, and downed some more.

  “Ah, thanks. Hits the spot for sure,” Kyle said.

  “Out a little late last night, eh?” Decker asked.

  “Weren’t we all?”

  “Not all. Some of us old farts prefer to celebrate the end of the war more quiet like.”

  Kyle’s chuckle wasn’t quiet. “Which means you found a lady friend to spend the evening with.”

  Decker’s romps were something of a legend aboard the Intrepid. The older man didn’t even try to deny the charge, just grinned back. “A man shouldn’t kiss and tell, you know that.”

  Kyle shrugged, trying to loosen the knot between his shoulders. This was a good day, damn it! So why was he stuck feeling like something awful was going to happen? He’d had that sense ever since waking and realizing he was going to be late if he didn’t rush. The last thing he needed was to be put on report, and that fear should be more than enough to warrant the vague unease still lingering.

  But he didn’t think that was it.

  He shook himself to clear those thoughts away. If there was something bad coming, then at least he’d face it in a Lancer, like a warrior. “All right, let’s get this party started.”

  “Sooner we get you out there and back, the sooner you can join the actual parties here on the ship, eh?” Decker asked.

  “Something like that.” Kyle grinned back. Then he turned toward Jones, who was already boarding his Lancer. “You ready?”

  “Born that way.”

  Kyle climbed the ladder and settled into his cockpit, running final pre-flight checks with the ease born of long practice. That didn’t mean he’d skip steps, mind. Even a routine patrol could turn deadly if there was something wrong with the fighter. As well-maintained as these ships were, it was still the job of the pilot to do those last steps and make sure his ship was flight-worthy.

  He was unsurprised to see the Lancer pass with flying colors. Decker and his flight crew were dynamite. Kyle personally thought there wasn’t a better crew in the fleet, although the pilots of other ships had been known to disagree with him on occasion.

  “Flight Command, this is Lieutenant Wagner with patrol sixteen alpha, prepared for launch,” Kyle said into his radio.

  “This is Command. You are go for launch as soon as the flight chief gives you a green light. Good luck, Lieutenant.”

  “Roger that,” Kyle replied. Then he toggled his radio to the patrol setting, so he could communicate freely with Jones.

  Outside his cockpit, the flight crews had already pulled back. Decker was still there, standing between the fighters—but he was wearing an environmental suit. The reason became apparent as the fighter bay doors opened up to space, revealing a brilliant show of stars beyond.

  A pale, translucent blue force field was the only thing separating them from the vacuum beyond. Each Lancer was equipped with a ‘friend’ transponder, which allowed them to pass easily through those shields. The energy field would literally part around them and then reseal behind them. Barely any atmosphere was lost when a fighter passed through the shield, but there was always the chance something would go wrong.

  Transponder checks were one of the most critical of the pre-flight system checks. If a fighter tried to take off with a bad transponder, it would run smack into the force field like it was the side of a mountain.

  Decker caught his eye with a pair of semaphore flags, beating a series of movements which told him he was clear to launch. Then the Chief ducked down, making himself small. The hanger was about to get pretty warm…!

  With a gentle movement of his hand, Kyle ignited his thrusters, sending the small craft jetting forward at incredible speed. He didn’t quite break the sound barrier while he was still within the ship’s atmosphere, but he came close. The Lancer could accelerate at mind-boggling speeds. Only alien technology to reduce the inertia the pilot felt enabled them to survive the acceleration at all.

  As it was, Kyle was pushed back hard against his seat as he jetted through the barrier into open space.

  Which…was every bit as gorgeous as he remembered. His thrusters carried him clear of the Intrepid in seconds, leaving him free to enjoy the view. Earth whirled by, a fist-sized marble in his cockpit window. Luna wasn’t in sight. The moon was around the other side of the planet, right now.

  All around him, the stars beckoned. He’d always felt their call, the siren song of deep space. His mother said it was in his bones, even in his DNA. His father had been a spacer, too.

  And an early casualty in the war against the Drechnai.

  “All right, Jones. Let’s pour on the thrust. Sooner we conclude this patrol, the sooner we’re back,” Kyle said.

  “Shouldn’t be anything out there but space dust,” Jones replied.

  Yeah, the patrol was a formality. The Intrepid’s captain was a stickler for protocol, and everyone aboard knew it. Just because the war was ending today didn’t mean they could slack off. Patrols would still happen. Kyle wanted to think they were wasting their time out there, but he’d seen Captain Oliver’s habits pull their asses out of the fire far too many times. There was a reason Oliver remained a stickler for protocol: because it kept people alive.

  As a result, his crew didn’t tend to complain much.

  Kyle laid into his thrusters, accelerating to max speed. Behind him, Jones matched his pace. Space blurred around him as the fighter rocketed forward into the black, looping outward in an arcing patrol which would carry him far enough from Earth that any ships trying to approach silently would show up on his scans.

  Because neither side had been above using ambush tactics to wind battles during the war. Sure, maybe humans had shown that particular trick off first, but the Drechnai learned fast, and before long were ambushing humans as often as things went the other way around.

  With the Intrepid being the last Star Carrier in Earth’s orbit, it had sole responsibility for protection of the human home world. The rest of the fleet was off as a show of force at the meeting where Earth and Drechnai ambassadors were signing an agreement to end the conflict between their species.

  Couldn’t happen soon enough. As hard as they’d been fighting, Kyle couldn’t shake the idea that humanity had been losing the war. Thank god the enemy didn’t feel the same way, or they’d never have agreed to a peace deal…

  2

  Captain George Oliver stood on the bridge of the Intrepid, hands gently clasped in the small of his back, and stared out into the stars. He watched the little two-fighter patrol take off from his vessel and then accelerate, quickly becoming motes of light before vanishing entirely as they sped away. Part of him hated sending them out like this. Almost, he’d been willing to let it slide, just this one time, and allow his entire crew to celebrate the end of the war together.

  But no.

  He couldn’t bend, not on this, not now. If he’d been less enthusiastic in his attitude, perhaps the Intrepid would be out there with the rest of the fleet meeting the enemy for the treaty signing, rather than back on guard duty. He chuckled under his breath. That’s what the navy had come to, then? Serving their role, protecting their home planet, had become a punishment detail.

  Oliver didn’t think that little fact had leaked out too much into the general crew, at least not yet. The last thing Oliver wanted was for even one of them to feel like this posting was their disgrace. It wasn’t; it was his. His punishment for being too loud in voicing his displeasure had been to continue in the duty he’d performed so well over the years: keeping Earth and her people safe.

  “Captain, we have an incoming transmission from Admiral Hathaway’s flagship. It’s the admiral herself, sir.”

  Oliver glanced at the speaker. Like the rest of the crew of this ship, she looked very young to his eyes. Most of those aboard had never known a life without the constant threat of Drechnai attack looming overhead. The war had begun before they were born, and their entire lives had been spent in one long, running battle. “Thank you, Lieutenant Ruiz. I’ll take it in my office. XO, you have the ship.”

  “Aye, sir. I have the ship,” Tyler Johnson replied.

  A good man. Johnson had been his executive officer for two years now. The man was due a promotion to a vessel of his own sometime soon. Not a Star Carrier for his first command, most likely… No, he’d end up captain of a battle cruiser or something similar, Oliver thought. But soon enough, he’d lose Johnson and have to break in yet another new XO. It wasn’t something Oliver was looking forward to. Change wasn’t his favorite thing on the best of days, and least of all when it was change that impacted the efficiency of his ship’s operations.

  Of course, that assumed Oliver still had a job when all this was over. That wasn’t by any means certain.

  He strode off to the right, leaving the main viewer behind. A few paces brought him to a set of doors which snapped open at his approach. They closed behind him. With a wave of his hand, the doors locked. No one could enter until he allowed them admission.

  It was one of the few real benefits of his post, a quiet side effect of being captain of such a large ship that Oliver truly valued. None of the smaller vessels he’d commanded had a captain’s office just off the bridge. Over the years, he’d commanded a corvette, a destroyer, and a battle cruiser before taking command of the Intrepid. All three vessels had been far too cramped to spare any room for such a luxury.

  But the Star Carriers were capital ships, the biggest vessels in the fleet. There were only six of them in service today. Soon, there would be only three. Once the war was concluded with this treaty, one element of the armistice was that humanity would decommission three of their biggest starships. To prevent aggression against other species, was the given reason. Oliver had darker thoughts about their old foes’ true intentions.

  The Intrepid would be one of the vessels decommissioned, although that process wouldn’t begin for many months yet. Oliver settled himself behind his desk. The office was small, but well appointed, with room for a trio of guests to meet with him if the occasion demanded it. He also had full access to the ship’s systems through the console on his desk. A tap on the console, which read his biometrics automatically, and he was in. Another tap, and Admiral Hathaway’s face appeared in the small screen mounted on his desk.

  “Admiral, it’s good to see you,” Oliver said.

  “And you. How’re you holding up?”

  “Well enough, ma’am. We’ve just launched a standard patrol. We should be hearing back from them within the hour,” Oliver said. “With luck, they won’t pick up anything. I still wish we’d left more forces behind on Earth. Did the entire fleet really need to be present for this treaty?”

  Hathaway laughed. “Still on that, are you? Yes, you old dog. The Drechnai insisted on us having our entire fleet present.”

  “And we agreed to all but one,” Oliver replied. “It could just as easily have been all but two.”

  “The only reason they went along with leaving the one behind was that we told them we’d already begun the decommissioning process on the Intrepid in preparation for doing our part to uphold the treaty,” Hathaway said. “It turned what would have been a diplomatic incident into a feather in our cap.”

  “I know,” Oliver replied. “It was my idea.”

  He’d pushed hard for some sort of failsafe to defend Earth. Thrown away his career in the process, most likely. Once the Intrepid was decommissioned, he’d probably be put out to pasture. That was all right in his book. Oliver spent a life in service to Earth. He’d hardly shirk that duty to save his career when he’d risked more than that time and again.

  The entire thing stank, as far as he was concerned. Oliver had been on the front lines for many years. Few had as much combat experience in command as he. Most more experienced captains were dead. The Drechnai were winning. Their request for a cease fire and then a treaty made no sense at all.

  Humans had only been exploring the stars for a little over a hundred years, had established only the barest few colonies outside their own star system. To humanity, expansion into new planets was as natural as breathing. Humans had always done that: explored new lands, then settled there. It was part of human nature as much as anything else. Probably built into our DNA, Oliver mused.

  The Drechnai were the opposite. To them, expansion represented a threat to the stability of the galaxy. Expansionist cultures were carefully watched, and if they didn’t curb their actions, warned.

 

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