Topgun ice brutal respon.., p.1
TOPGUN: Ice (Brutal Response Book 2), page 1
TOPGUN: ICE
BRUTAL RESPONSE™ BOOK TWO
MICHAEL ANDERLE
This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.
Copyright © 2023 LMBPN Publishing
Cover copyright © LMBPN Publishing
A Michael Anderle Production
LMBPN Publishing supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
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LMBPN Publishing
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Version 1.00, February 2023
eBook ISBN: 979-8-88541-457-9
Print ISBN: 979-8-88878-184-5
THE TOPGUN: ICE TEAM
JIT Readers
Christopher Gilliard
Zacc Pelter
Daryl McDaniel
Dorothy Lloyd
Dave Hicks
Diane L. Smith
Kelly O’Donnell
Peter Manis
Jan Hunnicutt
John Ashmore
Editor
SkyFyre Editing Team
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
Author Notes - Michael Anderle
Connect with Michael
Books By Michael Anderle
CHAPTER ONE
Mia suppressed the groan as she staggered down the hallway toward her room, trailed by her friends Paul, Ryoko, and Karin. She’d always prided herself on her endurance. Countless wilderness training exercises had forced her to stay up for days, but somehow they hadn’t prepared her for her latest battle.
That’s the way she viewed the partying following the final exam, first at the station, then down on the planet. Her group of friends had something to celebrate: they’d all passed and earned their slots in the KCAP Navy’s Top Gun program, despite the last-minute necessity of putting together an alliance against conspiring top-level candidates.
It had been worth it. Mia wouldn’t have minded a true free-for-all, even if she didn’t think it was a good test. The biased and short-sighted scoring system the instructors had put together for the final exam demanded a proportionate response.
Top Gun was her future. It was also the future of her closest—first and only, for that matter—friends.
She still wasn’t sure how to classify Abigail. She was a friend, but she almost felt like a new replacement family.
There was the minor issue of Mia having to serve time on a prison planet first. The looming punishment hadn’t stopped her friends from wanting to hang out. She’d never imagined relaxation would prove so draining.
“Don’t you think this is all a bit much?” Mia asked.
Paul Stansford patted her shoulder. “Come on, Mia. Live a little. We’ve got time off and more time to party. It’s better than sitting around doing more exercises and busy work. You, of all people, should be living your last few days of freedom for a while to their fullest.”
Karin grinned. “Sitting alone in a small room and brooding is right up Mia’s alley. If they stuck a sim in her cell, she’d think it was heaven.”
Calling it heaven was going too far, but Mia couldn’t argue with the sentiment. She missed ground-based tactical training exercises, though a well-equipped gym and a solid fighter simulation setup went a long way toward keeping her satisfied. She doubted her cell would be so well-equipped. If it weren’t for her secret mission, her sentence was bound to be boring.
Ryoko gasped. “Karin! How can you say something like that?”
“Sorry.” Karin rubbed the back of her neck. “I shouldn’t be making jokes about you having to spend a month locked up.”
“It’s fine,” Mia assured her. “I’m prepared to serve my sentence. I never thought I could pull my prank and not suffer punishment.”
“I’m still blown away that you did it,” Paul put in. “Of everyone in the class, I figured you for the last person to do anything like that. Not that I mind. I’m impressed. Damned impressed.”
“It just happened. I didn’t plan it out.” Mia shrugged as she lied.
No matter how much she liked her friends, bringing them into her true mission was too dangerous. A lazy word dropped at the wrong time could get her and them killed. She’d have to continue down her lonely path to the truth until she could protect those around her.
“It will be useful training in POW survival,” she added. “That, in and of itself, gives it value. I’m considering the whole thing an extended training exercise.”
“POW survival?” Paul laughed. “How did I know you were going to say that? Not everything has to be a training exercise, Mia. You can just say it sucks you’re going to Ice.”
“No, everything doesn’t need to be an exercise. That doesn’t mean almost everything can’t be if approached with the right mindset.” Mia stopped at her door. “But I need to bow out for now. They told me I’m fine as long as I don’t leave the planet. They aren’t sending me right away.”
Karin leaned in and Mia tensed as her friend embraced her.
“Don’t get hauled off to jail before we see you again,” Karin ordered. “And don’t piss off any more superior officers.”
Mia managed a tight smile. “I’ll try. No promises.”
She would do whatever was necessary to get information about her father, including extending her stay on Ice if she thought it would help. For now, a month should be easy to take.
Ryoko yawned and stretched her arms. “I’m ready to turn in, too.”
Paul groaned. “I can’t believe you guys. Nobody’s even drunk and you’re already done? Do you have any idea how busy things are going to be for us once we settle in at Top Gun? It might be months before we can relax like this again.”
“We also have over a month before the next program round starts,” Ryoko pointed out. “We don’t have to spend that entire time partying. We’ll have plenty of time sitting around the facility.”
“No, we don’t have to party.” Paul offered her a toothy grin. “No reason not to. Don’t you get it? We’re going into the Top Gun program. We’re the elites of the elites. Work hard, play hard.”
Karin waved to Mia and Ryoko. “Rest a few hours, Stansford, and then go back to the battle.” She winked at Mia. “You don’t want to win the battle and go on to lose the war.”
“If you say so,” Paul grumbled. “I’ll win both.”
Mia nodded to her companions then opened her door and stepped inside her room. She’d never thought much about how small it was—barely a closet with a desk and bed and smaller than both her bedroom at her house and the room she’d lived in at Abigail’s apartment in Felsk.
She didn’t fear small places, though she’d spent most of her childhood in the wide expanse of the Wilderlands outdoors on her home planet. Countless training exercises had forced her into tight, confined conditions for long periods. She was ready for any possibility and prepared to suffer for the mission.
The size of her room didn’t matter. She did her exercise in other places, and a tight area meant she could concentrate on the matter at hand. Mia sat on the edge of her bed, considering. Would things be the same at Ice? A cell was more confining than a tiny room.
She’d purposefully humiliated an officer as part of a plan to get to Ice and find some information about her father that Abigail had tracked to the prison planet. Only her skill and Abigail’s connections had saved Mia from losing her position in the Top Gun program.
The thoughts swirled together as she took in the enormity of everything that had happened since Valerie Kalan had informed Mia of her father’s death. Mia’s investigation and attempted assassination had led her to jail, Abigail, and the training prep program for Top Gun.
Even if Mia wasn’t being sent to Ice, she would be leaving her room and sent to share space with the other Top Gun candidates in the barracks of a local base. They would spend their time on standby before the official training began.
A small chuckle escaped her. Between her jail time in Felsk and her upcoming incarceration on Ice, Mia was building up experience as a prisoner. She would prefer not to have to draw on it in the future.
Her datapad beeped from her desk followed by Debbie reporting, “Mia, Dr. Curie sent a message when you were out engaging in recreation.”
“You could have contacted me,” Mia replied. “Things were busy, but not that bad.”
“Dr. Curie has encouraged minimal communications through sources other than this pad for security reasons. She also made it clear it wasn’t a time-se
Mia nodded. “Okay. What did she have to say?”
“She wanted to confirm you were successful in your efforts.”
“I don’t understand. I already told her I was.”
“She was concerned about administrative changes, particularly, as she put it, ‘last-minute changes of heart that either made the situation better or worse.’”
“Everything’s the same,” Mia assured her. “I’m not sure, but I have the feeling the Navy is trying to keep this incident quiet, which is why they’re letting me stick around for a few days while they finish the arrangements to send me off to Ice. And they’re letting me walk around free. They could have thrown me in a cell and told me to wait.”
Debbie continued, her tone as clipped and British as ever, “Dr. Curie wanted to also confirm if you wanted to spend your last few days with her before any trips off-world to penal colonies.”
Mia let out a long sigh. “I’ve been thinking about that. And I’m not sure.”
“Oh? You anticipated the question?”
“I blew everybody off for the rest of the night,” Mia began. “But I am…enjoying spending time with my friends.”
The last word came out in a whisper, as if voicing it would make it disappear. Friendship and friends remained nebulous in Mia’s mind. The only thing certain was she had some humans besides Abigail that she trusted.
“Then I don’t understand the issue,” Debbie prompted.
“I was planning to sleep and spend more time with them,” Mia explained. “But I also want to spend time with Abigail.” She shrugged. “It’s almost like a kid torn between their friends and parents. Abigail’s the closest thing I have to family now.”
Mia didn’t know how to feel about that. She’d spent so much time with Abigail shortly after the death of her father. Projecting her filial emotions onto the scientist might have been unfair, no matter how much she wanted to help.
“I see,” Debbie replied. “I’m not programmed to make those sorts of decisions for you. I could easily select at random if you’d prefer.”
“That’s not what I want.” Mia lay back on her bed, staring up at the nondescript ceiling and wondering if there’d be more character in her cell on Ice. “So many things have happened since my dad died. I don’t always have a chance to sit down and think about it. I’ve had to focus so much on the investigation and getting through the program. It was…both easier and harder than I thought. Not everything can be solved by taking someone down. I’ve learned that the hard way.”
“Dr. Curie wanted me to make it clear that this is optional,” Debbie told Mia. “She won’t be offended regardless of your choice.”
Mia had gotten this far because of Abigail. She would have never come up with the idea of going into Top Gun herself. The cold truth was that Mia’s big secondary plan had been to invade Valerie Kalan’s old office and see what she could come up with or beat the answers out of the next batch of assassins.
Upon reflection, she saw all the issues with the idea. It would almost certainly have ended with another shootout and no easy way to escape a much longer stay in jail.
Mia owed Abigail far more than she could repay. The mission to discover the truth of her father’s death would be over if it weren’t for Abigail.
“I’ll see my friends again at Top Gun,” Mia decided. “Even when I take into account the time I’ll lose on Ice, we’ll have time together before the pressure of the program fills up our every waking moment. I need to practice thinking long-term. This is a good time to do that.”
“Shall I relate to Dr. Curie that you intend to visit her, then?” Debbie asked.
“Yes. I’ll take a shuttle over in the morning. I have to stop somewhere first to deal with the consequences of my actions.”
Mia flexed her fingers and frowned at the thin white band tight around her wrist. She looked at the bored MP tapping away at his datapad. He kept glancing between the pad and the band.
“You ever have a DT before?” he asked.
Pointing out that they hadn’t bothered to stick a demerit tracker on her when she’d been in jail didn’t seem necessary.
She was taking a huge risk by giving up her position. She hadn’t thought much about it until the previous night and was working on a plan to deal with the problem, one that would require outside help.
“Don’t try and take it off under any circumstances,” the MP ordered. He snickered. “Not that you’d be able to break the magseal without taking off your wrist in the process.”
“And have you seen that?” Mia asked.
The MP’s brow went up and he shrugged. “Once. AWOL soldier picked up after murdering his CO. The guy…” He grimaced. “If you’re getting any crazy ideas, the guy died from shock from his wounds shortly after getting his DT off.”
“I don’t intend to lose my hand,” Mia reasoned. “My muscle memory would be thrown off by prosthetics.”
“Ah…” He shrugged. “More power to you if you want to try, and in case you’re thinking you don’t have to cut through your wrist, the thing’s programmed to send out an alert after more than two failed code attempts. That alert’s going to bring people with guns who aren’t going to be happy.”
“And this does more than keep track of me,” Mia noted.
The MP nodded. “Yep. Also, think of it as your ticket for Ice.” He smirked. “It’ll let the transport know where you’re going, and they’ll let you know via the DT when you need to report for transport.” He lowered his datapad, his smile fading. “And don’t leave the planet. Not even suborbital. You try that, you’ll be considered a runner, and then people with guns and ships will come looking for you. It’s not any easier to get off in zero-G, either.”
“I don’t intend to run from my punishment. I have Top Gun waiting for me after I serve my sentence.”
The MP rolled his eyes. “Yeah. I heard. Must be good to be connected.” He nodded toward the door. “Now get out of here. I don’t want to see you again until I have to salute you and call you ma’am.”
Mia hadn’t thought much about her commissioning. None of the cadets passing the exam would be granted their rank until they arrived at the Top Gun program, though they were already subject to military regulations as official active-duty cadets. That left her in a bizarre limbo despite having earned the right to join the KCAP Navy’s most elite fighter program.
She headed toward the door. “It’s unlikely I’ll ever do anything like that again. I doubt we’ll see each other again.”
“I hope not,” the MP shot back. “Because that means you’ve gotten in trouble. And someone like you has better things to do than rot inside a cell. Leave the stupid bullshit for the non-elite idiots and stick to doing what you do best.”
She stopped at the door. “And you don’t find what I did offensive?”
Her curiosity had been building. The danger of the strategy of antagonizing a high-ranking officer came partially from his connections to the rest of the local military.
The MP scoffed. “Everyone’s trying to keep shit quiet, but we all know the only reason you’re getting nailed despite being a Top Gun elite is because an asshole was banging someone he shouldn’t be and got caught. The only reason he’s not getting busted down right away is because the higher-ups don’t want the Navy to look bad. Bad luck for you that your prank pissed him off. Hard to say if things would have been better or worse if there’d been two civilians in there when you did it.”
“Yes,” Mia replied. “Nothing but bad luck.”
The public perception of the incident fascinated Mia. To her, the whole situation above the station and her careful, targeted flaring of the officer screamed obvious planning. No one, including the victim, appeared to agree.
