Mineran Assault: Mineran Series, #3

By P N Burrows

Mineran Assault is the third novel in the 'Mineran', a gripping 5 book Science Fiction Series.

Mineran Influence

Mineran Conflict

Mineran Assault

Mineran Pursuit

Mineran Resolve

 

Sam Shepard must escape! Having been kidnapped and incarcerated, Sam faces a struggle to stay alive. He knows he must overcome adversity and thwart his captor's plans. Elsewhere, the Inner Sphere Parliament of Aligned Worlds (ISPAW) is in turmoil; their nemesis has struck once more. Sam's friends endeavour to locate and rescue him while struggling to uncover the identity of the Mineran traitor.

• Language: English
• Publisher: P N Burrows
• Release date: Jun 27, 2023
• ISBN: 9781913091125

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Greasy smoke billowed over the low, brown-brick wall that Timon crouched behind; his antenna camera peered over and fed the footage to his visor’s Heads Up Display.

He hadn’t enjoyed himself this much in years, and he’d missed the taste of battle more than he was willing to admit. The system fed various frequency streams which overlaid on top of each other to produce a near perfect picture despite the amount of smoke, fog, and the environmental conditions. The camera feed, the HUD system, and the limb replacements were the only exceptions to the ‘keep it simple’ mentality of the Shock Troopers.

The weapon he held in his new prosthetic arms felt heavier than the Mineran multi-payload assault rifle, or MPAR. It was certainly less functional, allowing only one type of twenty-millimetre ammunition to be loaded at any one time. This disadvantage was slightly offset by the two thirty-millimetre bore grenade launchers fixed underneath. Timon felt no shame in the fact that he cried during the prosthetic fitting. When the sensory feedback from the articulated fingers registered with his mind, he was overwhelmed. He gripped the weapon tighter, just to feel it in his hands.

Army doctrine suggested that the two built-in tube magazines at the rear of the stock, be filled with high explosive fragmentation grenades and armour-piercing, occupant-shredding grenades. These were used to destroy vehicles. Timon had swapped out the armour rounds for incendiaries as the enemy were only lightly armoured and their bare skin was vulnerable to the sticky, burning gel.

Six months ago, Erebos had convinced Timon that his supposedly dead wife was alive and was the traitor that they had all been looking for. The clincher was when Erebos produced the pathology report on the young female Mineran who had attacked the doctor. Her DNA was a match for his unborn daughter. Feeling emotionless he had agreed to Erebos’s request that he join the Shock Troopers and be the Mineran’s eyes and ears on the frontline. Now he could feel again as the doctor had managed to partially heal the damage caused by the parasitic insect used during the torturous scouring process. Rage and hate tore through him whenever he thought of his wife and at the wasted years he had spent mourning the lying bitch.

He didn’t blame the Minerans for the scouring; he had turned against them, betrayed them. He knew the risks, but his rage and love for his supposedly dead wife had blinded him at the time. He had been given an opportunity to make amends. In doing so he would help Erebos to discover the truth behind the people attacking ISPAW and, for some reason, the human, Sam.

He had breezed through basic training. The equipment and tactics used by the Shock Troopers had been designed for undisciplined, non-military recruits. Scoring top of his cadre, he had been assigned as the squad leader for a ragtag bag of vile miscreants, all of whom he would have previously shot dead rather than talk to. He didn’t want to waste precious time with the Shock Troopers’ training rotation of sending new troops into mopping up operations, which gave them first-hand experience of death and carnage. Timon instead had requested through Erebos that his unit be enrolled immediately and = assigned to the fast response units that patrolled the Sphere’s frontier. All of his men were murderers; they had all seen blood before.

Erebos had also managed to get his squad assigned to the sectors where they thought the next attack was most likely, having extrapolated the probable planets with the criteria of being poorly defended, recently enrolled to ISPAW, and within a reasonable distance of, although not too close to, the munitions manufacturing planet that Erebos captured six months previously. They had come up with an alarmingly large number of planets. Erebos had scoured the furthest by increasing the military presence in those areas, leaving a huge swath of sweetened space that had supposedly lost military coverage. Apparently, the human had come up with some unusual theories with his skewed perspective which further narrowed down the list of planets to six.

Timon’s squad was assigned to a small, fast response cruiser with twenty, five-man squads. Each squad was assigned to heavily armed fast descent troop carriers which also provided air cover when required. Typically, the raiding incursions from outside of the Sphere’s perimeter involved a small number of spaceships with less than two hundred scavenging mercenaries, pirates or, less frequently, trained soldiers.

The Fast Response Units or FRUs often eliminated the threat before the heavy battle carriers arrived. Life expectancy in the FRUs was considerably less than the thirteen years of the standard Shock Trooper. It was, in Timon’s mind, better than being stuck on a heavy cruiser, running training simulations while travelling to the latest battle site only to find the FRUs mopping up the last of the opponents.

Even so, the odds of them picking the correct spot were astronomically slim. Timon’s squad was currently on Snipl'ax, but not facing an aggressor that had been genetically modified. These were not the ones he had been sent to find and so, in Timon’s mind, they were wasting his time.

Following the hand signals to his squad, they broke away to take the indicated positions. Timon broke cover and repeatedly fired his incendiary grenade launcher as he swept the rifle from right to left. The slow arc of the first sausage-shaped grenade ended while the other four remained in their parabolic trajectory. Fire erupted, a brief bright ball of flame expanding outwards, carrying within its explosive concussion the burning balls of incendiary gel. Timon’s men opened fire on the group of lightly armoured scavengers, the twenty-millimetre rifle rounds exploding on contact, expelling a concussive wave that carried the bullet fragments deep into the target.

It was over in seconds – twenty dead and several buildings set on fire. Another hand signal and the squad reformed and moved onwards to their next designated target.

On Timon’s first ever encounter as a Shock Trooper, he was shaken to his core at the carnage the Shock Troopers caused in their roles as planetary defenders. One of the primary functions was to preserve the lives of the locals. But being the brutal front wave that was designed to physically break the enemy’s advance came at a cost. The collateral damage they caused was staggering.

Looking backwards, Timon threw an airwave grenade into the heart of the fire that he had created. This simple non-lethal device exploded within the fire and extinguished the flames. He had suggested that all squad leaders carry such munitions to help preserve the planet's infrastructure. Shock Trooper command had disseminated it as an advisory. Timon never saw another squad utilise them; they were, after all, criminals and no one cared.

The day on Snipl'ax was short, the battle shorter still. The Shock Trooper battle carriers dropped troops to join the affray five hours after Timon and his squad landed. Timon's squad accounted for more kills than any other that day. For capturing the commander, Timon was awarded a commendation. He was more interested in the experience it provided his men than the meaningless accolade. They were still only a semi-cohesive force, not the crack squad he needed them to be. He was, in a perverse way, proud of them. They had come a long way from the scared scumbags that had enlisted to save themselves from a death sentence or a lifetime of loneliness on a penal planet. They had learnt to trust him and their equipment, and thankfully none of them fouled their armour during battle anymore.

Timon didn’t know whether to laugh or cry with his new-found emotions when the last communication came through. The stupid human that caused this was missing. Someone had kidnapped Sam Shepard from DK Station and Apate was ripping it apart looking for him.

CHAPTER 2

Sam was roused to a semi-conscious state by a droning voice, Mr Shepard, I must insist that you wake up.

Ah, God, my head, Sam groaned as he tried to sit up, banging his head as he did so. What?! Oh, God, what the hell Tom? What's going on?

Mr Shepard, I must insist that you exit the capsule, the mysterious voice drawled.

Opening his eyes produced searing pain as the light hit his retinas; he immediately curled into the foetal position, gently pressing the balls of his palms into his eyes.

The unidentified voice called out seemingly un-intelligible commands incessantly. The pain in Sam's head finally subsided, leaving him with an after-migraine queasiness. Gently opening his eyes, Sam discovered that he was in a long coffin-shaped box with a transparent lid from his waist upwards.

Tom, what's going on? he queried in a soft rasp; his throat felt like it was made out of broken crackers. He tried to swallow several times to moisten his mouth.

Tom? Sam raised his left arm and put his finger in his ear to initiate a conversation. Noticing his arm was bare, and with a slight growth of body hair, he cautiously looked downwards to discover that he was completely naked, with the exception of a Medicast on his right forearm. Examining the cast with bewilderment, he turned his arm over and back again, not believing it was there and, in the rationale suggested by his groggy mind, hoping that it might disappear.

That's not Mineran issue, he outwardly declared to himself.

The offending item was cheaply made, but it was adequate for the role of supporting a broken arm. Sam recognised the overall design as he had broken his radius and ulna bones on many occasions during training. The Mineran Medicasts showed the internal damage on little screens and administered pain medication if required; this was an inert cast that could be found in any planet's medical facilities for the poor.

Mr Shepard, I must insist that you exit the capsule immediately.

Sam looked up as if hearing the voice for the first time What?

Mr Shepard, I must insist that you exit the capsule immediately.

Sam examined the interior; his chest was strapped to the padded base with an elasticated webbing. Large red letters in Unilang One urged caution before pulling the exit release handle, as opening it during descent could cause death.

Sam pulled the lever and heard the capsule’s pressurised air ventilate out, the clear panel slowly rose from the midsection to vertical. Sam peered over the edge to discover that he was in an unembellished off-white room, illumination was provided by ceiling panels.

Where am I? he demanded.

You are on a penal terraforming planet, Mr Shepard. Your precise location has been deemed unnecessary information and will be withheld, the voice informed with no inflexion. I must insist you that you exit the capsule immediately. Failure to perform your duties within the scheduled time will result in punitive actions.

Duties? No! There's been a mistake. I'm enlisted with the Mineran force; I am an ISPAW operative, he declared loudly, wincing as the sound of his own voice. Oh God, my head hurts.

Prisoner Samuel Shepard, number… The computer system proceeded to reel off a long series of alpha-numeric characters that Sam soon lost track of. Six triptych sixths were awarded, instigating direct penal incarceration for possession of an illegal military weapon, possession of a concealed military firearm, and for shooting at a member of law enforcement.

Sam's hand flew instinctively to his nether regions for reassurance that he still possessed his wedding tackle. Computer, there has been a mistake, I do not have a triptych, and I have not been turned into a bloody eunuch! His left hand frantically scrabbled to remove the Medicast from his right arm.

Your Medicast is due to be removed in two weeks; the surgical facilities will become available at the allotted time. Please do not resume harming yourself. Punitive action will be taken if you do not desist.

Think! he said to himself gripping his head firmly. Think! smashing his palms onto his forehead. DK Central, the station. Someone, a female, waited for me to remove my suit, to be vulnerable. Bitch! The scene flooded back to Sam; he had been goaded by Apate to another unassisted, unarmed combat. He'd removed his BEE suit for the match and left it soaking in a nutrient gel in his quarters. He remembered the sound of a woman entering the locker room as he was changing. He'd thought nothing of it as it was normal for the Minerans to share communal facilities. They had no gender boundaries. Still shy and conscious of his body’s reaction to the sight of the naked and athletic Mineran females, he'd faced the lockers before she entered. He tried to nonchalantly cover himself before turning to address a question from the newcomer. He knew that all the women on the station found it funny to flaunt their sexuality in front of him; they seemed to go out of their way to discuss trivial matters with him as they towelled themselves down or performed their warm-up stretches. He felt his face redden every time; they would only leave him alone if he were accompanied by Apate.

He never saw the woman's face as he turned, her hand was up by his face, spraying him from a perfume bottle. His legs wobbled, and he slowly collapsed on the floor, suddenly weak; he remembered that he was so very tired.

Think! he cried out loud with incredulity. ‘Brunette, she was a brunette. That doesn’t help – they all are. He tried to visualise her body as he plunged to the floor. Breasts, bigger than Pat’s. Oh, God, think. No scars. No, that’s not right! She had faint stretch marks, she’d tried to conceal them with makeup. He remembered that part of his brain had flagged that as important as he slid into oblivion… Minerans don’t have stretch marks. He tried to think of her as he fell lower. Definitely brunette, beautiful legs, older than Pat." He didn’t consider why he always thought of Apate as a baseline for female Minerans or notice his smile as she crossed his mind.

Computer, who authorised my incarceration? he bellowed.

The name of the Mineran officer is marked as classified. I must now insist that you exit the capsule.

Shut the fu— Sam was interrupted by the computer’s stern reply.

Penitentiary disciplinary atmosphere initiated. Compliance compound levels at fourteen percent, oxygen levels normal.

Sam gripped his throat, his uncomfortable dryness forgotten as a burning sensation seared downwards into his lungs.

Mr Shepard, I must insist that you exit the capsule immediately. Failure to do so is detrimental to your well-being, warned the computer voice.

Sam crawled out of the capsule and collapsed onto the floor, his entire respiratory system burning from his nose to his sinuses, down his throat and deep within his chest. His reluctance to breathe making him dizzy, his lungs overrode his control, and he inhaled another lungful of the pain-inducing air.

Atmosphere returning to normal, the annoying voice announced. Please breathe deeply, Mr Shepard to purge your lungs. The pain should subside shortly.

I didn't know you are allowed to torture people? Sam gasped wheezily.

Punitive action in many forms is permissible to ensure compliance, Mr Shepard. Your stay here does not have to be painful; many inmates take pride in their work, and they find a feeling of peace that they would not otherwise have attained.

I keep telling you, there has been a mistake. I am not a criminal, Sam protested.

This habitation unit has been in operation for one thousand and twenty-three years. Twenty-seven percent of the inmates relocated here have also claimed they have been unfairly incarcerated. This facility has no jurisdiction or abilities to alter your incarceration here.

Re-located? You mean imprisoned?

While I am programmed to prevent any physical or mental injury from occurring to the guests that reside here, you, as they, are able to walk outside of this unit’s perimeter of influence.

To suffocate as my suit runs out of air, Sam protested. Why am I arguing with a bloody computer? A cheap one at that. Put me through to your superiors. Now! he demanded.

Besides the short-range suit communicator, there is no capability of any external communication other than the status lights above the habitation abode. All forms of long range electronic communication are blocked across the entire planet.

But you must receive updates, news, and what about repairs? he queried angrily.

Information and library updates are cascaded through the DNA re-sequencing of the food slurry that is piped to each Penal Habitation Abode. It is a one-way communication system. The PHA is designed to preserve and protect your well-being, prevent you from communicating with any outside party, and to slowly transform this planet into a hospitable environment for oxygen-breathing, carbon-based entities such as yourself. You must now proceed with today's duties. As you are new here, there will be a brief period of acclimatisation and familiarisation.

Gee, thanks, he retorted sarcastically.

You will find an environmental suit in the foot locker of your descent capsule, along with your umbilical cord, the emergency suit repairer, and a toolkit which attaches to the suit’s belt.

Sam took a few deep breaths to see if the compliance compound had left him