OCTOSQUID

  Copyright © 2024 by James R. Harnock

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.

  www.WhaleWriter.com

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Book Layout © 2017 BookDesignTemplates.com

  Cry Havoc / David Whale.—1st ed.

  ISBN 978-0-9958100-7-5

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Cry Havoc (Radko's War, #3)

  Cry “Havoc”! and let slip the dogs of war

  PROLOGUE

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  Also by David Whale

  Radko’s War

  Out of the Black

  Cry “Havoc”! and let slip the dogs of war

  - Williame Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

  PROLOGUE

  Robesombel.

  The moon had, in days past, been a favoured vacation spot of wealthy icarans. Crystal clear lakes, towering plantlife featuring cascades of blue and yellow and orange flowers when in bloom, impressive - but mercifully vegetarian - megafauna that featured prominently in both advertisements and souvenirs.

  Brigadier Arysis of the Icaran Votol Commandos had never had the means to visit Robesombel until the war with the ril-galas had sent her there. While she had no doubt it was a beautiful place to rest and relax, her current situation was not amenable to either.

  Standing on a high ridge, knee deep in the wide-bladed, pale orange grass, the Brigadier intently scanned the valley below. Running north-south, the valley was wide and flat, easy to traverse and dotted with ponds and streams of fresh water where she and her team could allow their mounts to drink.

  The valley could not have been a more perfect path forward if Arysis had designed it herself.

  It was a trap, of course.

  It was always a trap.

  Narrowing her three good eyes, she focused on the far treeline, before the other wall of the valley rose up in a sheer, ivy-covered face of rock. Though she could see no movement, she discerned dark spots just inside the treeline that, from the position of the suns, could not have been shadows cast by trees. And were much too small to be the native megafauna.

  "The same trick?"

  Arysis turned as her second in command, Eltraar stepped up beside her. One of the tallest icarans she'd ever encountered, Arysis had to look up to meet his gaze. He'd brought both of their mounts—tall, lithe beasts covered in thick fur, that the Commandos called kyroos, after the sound they made, because none of the soldiers could pronounce the indigenous name.

  "It would appear so," said Arysis, absently stroking the snout of her mount, Otyro. "Which concerns me."

  "They are becoming predictable."

  Arysis bobbed her head and scratched at the ever-itchy socket of her missing eye.

  "They've stopped trying," she said. "Which is very different. What have you noted about their number in our last two encounters?"

  Arysis was testing him, and he knew it. He had stiffened ever so slightly, and she noticed a small nerve twitching beneath his primary left eye—a sure sign he was annoyed. Not that she was trying to annoy him, but Eltraar had only just been given the place of second in command, and it had been over Arysis's objections. She needed to test him.

  "They are fewer every time," he said finally. "As we are thinning their numbers."

  "They are fewer in number, but not entirely of our doing. The enemy no longer tries to defeat us, but delay our progress."

  Without waiting for a response, Arysis swung herself up on Otyro's back and scratched the kyroo between her shoulder blades just the way she liked.

  "Bring up the others," she said, detaching one of the two vayan pistols affixed to her chest plate. "We need to spring the trap and find out what's beyond it."

  Eltraar mounted his own kyroo and left Arysis alone, returning moments later with the remaining six members of Arysis's team.

  Though the path into the valley was steep, the wide, six-toed, clawed paws of the kyroos, with their near-opposable first and sixth digits, were perfectly designed for difficult ascents and descents. The team was on the valley floor within moments.

  And Arysis saw movement within the trees.

  Small shapes, and larger ones.

  Broad heads, waving slightly back and forth.

  "Foot soldiers," said Eltraar.

  "And stalkers," said Arysis, adopting the nomenclature for the smaller, more agile ril-galas that had come through in the shared information packets from the humans.

  Significantly smaller than the typical ril-galas foot soldier, standing roughly six feet when fully upright, the stalkers had a similarly manta-shaped head, though like everything else about them, it was sleeker, more streamlined. They were also leaner, their digitigrade legs ending in almost bird-like feet. Their smaller, secondary arms were the ones ending in canons, unlike the foot soldier, and these were kept tucked close to their chest while the primary arms, ending in long, sharp talons, served as the stalker's primary weapon. Between the claws on their primary arms and those on their feet, stalkers were excellent climbers and the perfect units to use in an ambush. Perhaps the most unsettling difference between the foot soldier and the stalker was the latter's inclusion of a wide mouth full of row upon row of sharp teeth. The foot soldier's mouth wasn't visible, if it existed at all, while the stalker's was clearly weaponized.

  Ril-galas foot soldiers were slower than an icaran, mounted or not, but the stalkers were both remarkably fast and, with their knife-like claws, remarkably dangerous. A ril-galas stalker had, in the Brigadier's very first encounter at the start of the present war, taken her eye. By any measure, Arysis had more than exacted revenge: she'd successfully lead the defense of Ballesaan Station, liberated the colony of Jessik, and, after having been cut off from the rest of the icaran armed forces, fought her way single-handedly through the Battle of Heetraphaar.

  One in six had died in that battle.

  "They're coming."

  Bursting from the treeline, the ril-galas charged the icarans. The enemy had broken cover too soon for the trap to have been effective and were now wasting time crossing open space.

  The stalkers came first, loping across the open field with an unnerving sideways gait, their taloned hands hanging loosely at their sides. Stories had reached Arysis that the silence of the stalkers had terrified some humans, but so too had the faceless battle helms worn by icarans once terrified humans. Arysis was not so arrogant as to say she never felt fear, but she could say without hubris that she'd never experienced terror.

  As the stalkers charged, a low rumble rolled up from Otyro, and her head crest flashed in bursts of yellow and red bioluminescence.

  Be warned, she appeared to be saying, I am not easy prey.

  Raising her vayan and nudging Otyro onward, Arysis took aim at the leading stalker and fired a superheated projectile through the creature's head, and a second through its chest as it fell. A second stalker lunged at her and she shot it out of the air and suddenly Otyro reared up on her hind legs and slammed downward, driving her armoured head crest into a ril-galas foot soldier, driving its head down and crushing its chest cavity.

  And as Arysis spun to find her next target, her heavy pistol sweeping the battlefield, she found no more targets. While a handful of ril-galas lay dead or dying, at least twice as many were disappearing back into the trees.

  Re-affixing her pistol to her chest plate, Arysis patted Otyro's shoulder while she opened up a communications channel to the icaran naval task force in orbit around Robesombel.

  "Yes, Brigadier Arysis—you have news?"

  "The enemy tactics have changed, Commodore Orenphaar. I believe them to be covering a retreat."

  A moment of silence followed before the Commodore voiced what Arysis herself had been thinking.

  "The ril-galas do not retreat. If they..."

  "Commodore...?"

  "One moment," said Orenphaar.

  Arysis could her a smattering of voices in the pause that followed, but nothing clear enough to understand.

  "Brigadier," said the Commodore. "We have confirmation of ril-galas pods leaving the surface of Robesombel and docking with their carrier ships. By all appearances, they are abandoning the moon."

  Once again, Arysis's three good eyes narrowed. She glanced around the valley, scratched Otyro's neck, looked up into the sky. Though it was still daylight, she could see some of the brighter stars above.

  "Commodore," she said finally. "The ril-galas wouldn't be abandoning this moon unless they were called to be someplace else."

  1

  Though the deck plates shook violently beneath her feet, Lieutenant Commander Amira el Bahari stood her ground, hands clasped behind her back, stubbornly refusing to hold onto a railing to steady herself. In a moment, it would be over, she reminded herself. The ril-galas battleship before her was already rupturing with dozens of small explosions over its hull, and the glow from its primary beam weapon was fluctuating angrily.

  In her peripheral vision, el Bahari saw the engines of the badly-damaged HMCS Goose Bay finally flare to life as the ship began to move away from the attacker that had very nearly destroyed it.

  An attacker that had very quickly turned its attention to the ship that had intervened in the fight.

  The ril-galas vessel wasn't allowed a final salvo.

  "Forward rail guns, fire," said el Bahari.

  Almost immediately she felt the thrum through the ship and saw the projectiles tear into the enemy. The ril-galas ship became a large, brief sphere of fire, and then became nothing but small pieces of flotsam.

  The HMCS Vimy Ridge had added another chapter to its growing legend, though this time under a different commander.

  The left corner of el Bahari's mouth twitched upward ever so slightly in a fleeting ghost of a smile. The destruction of a single ril-galas battleship was hardly as impressive as the victory against the so-called Hornets' Nest - the alien command station that had been the lynchpin of the ril-galas occupation of Earth - that victory had been achieved under the command of Finn Radko. She knew she was his equal, but the crew of the Vimy Ridge... they were fiercely loyal to Radko. If she was to command them, she would need to prove herself to them.

  And to do that-

  "Commander, incoming communication from the Venn Shakara."

  El Bahari nodded.

  "Put it up here," she said, stepping over to the secondary sand table.

  She was in the observation dome of the command deck, a reinforced transparent dome ringed and crossed by catwalks, with a platform in the centre holding a mirrored version of the holographic display interface - the sand table - that sat at the centre of the main command deck below.

  "Admiral Rhekar," said el Bahari, when the channel flashed active in the small holographic window hovering over the table. "What can I do for you?"

  "Commander. Have you any word on the condition of Commander Radko?"

  Trying to hide her annoyance at being asked the same question - yet again, by yet another person - el Bahari forced a smile.

  "Nothing yet, Admiral. I'm sure we'll have more information soon. Is that all?"

  "We have reports from icaran space. The ril-galas appear to be in the process of a massive redeployment."

  "Redeployment to where?" she asked, already knowing - or at least strongly suspecting - the answer.

  "We compiled reports from several locations, once the pattern was first noticed on Robesombel," said Rhekar. "All of the retreating forces are following similar paths."

  "To Earth."

  "To Earth," said Rhekar.

  "We dealt them a serious blow in destroying the Hornets' Nest," she said slowly. "But they still have a massive force."

  "Our greatest advantage was that they had begun to spread themselves too thin. It was one of the reasons our assault was so successful."

  Rubbing at her temple, el Bahari swore under her breath. It was amazing how quickly a stress headache could come on.

  "If they consolidate and reinforce their occupation force on Earth, it will be just like the victory over the Hornets' Nest never happened. Thank you, Admiral, I'll be in touch shortly," she said, quickly ending the communication.

  Just as quickly, she picked up her personal tablet and tapped in the code to activate one of her private channels. She sincerely hoped Ironhorse was available to pick up.

  "Yes?"

  She let out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding.

  "We don't have as much time as we thought. The ril-galas are pulling out of icaran space and heading here. What's your status?"

  "Radko's going to be arrested once he's cleared to leave the hospital. Could be any time now, from what I hear."

  "Keep me posted."

  "Of course. The other situation seems to be moving forward as well."

  "Damn it. How quickly?"

  "Hard to tell. She plays her hand very close to the vest," said Ironhorse. "Honestly Amira, we may not know until it's already happening."

  "I'm getting stress headaches again."

  "I've had one for two fucking years."

  "Fair. Take care of yourself," she said, and disconnected.

  Giving herself a moment to breathe, and to close her eyes and calm herself, el Bahari locked her tablet - there were too many secrets there to leave it open - and headed down to the main command deck.

  "Owens," she said, "we need to call back the fleet."

  As she half expected, he didn't execute the order, but instead looked up at her questioningly. With self-control that amazed even her, el Bahari explained the information provided by the icarans before re-stating her order.

  "We need to do this quickly, Owens. We have to assume they're redeploying from other, closer areas as well."

  "Understood."

  "Thank you. I'll be in my office, seeing if I can get anything out of Thor's Hammer," she said.

  In what had almost become tradition, the connection sat idle for several minutes before Upshaw picked up.

  Head of the private military contractor ATC Castle, newly-appointed Deputy Prime Minister of the Commonwealth, and unofficial overseer of the Commonwealth Armed Forces, Bianca Upshaw looked even more imperious than usual. Her hair and makeup were flawless, and while el Bahari couldn’t help but marvel at the woman's ability to expand her own influence, the career naval officer disliked Upshaw more every time they spoke.

  "Congratulations Amira," said Upshaw, with a smirk. "I told you I'd see that you got your own command when Radko was out of the picture."

  "We need more ATC Castle resources deployed," said el Bahari, ignoring Upshaw's gloating. After all, she was commanding the Vimy Ridge because of Radko's injury, not because of anything Upshaw did.

  Upshaw's eyes narrowed.

  "The Deputy Prime Minister doesn't take orders from a Lieutenant Commander in the Commonwealth Navy."

  "We’re spread too thin out here, Bianca-"

  "Commander el Bahari. We have icaran and udukiin warships on our doorstep. I will not pull resources from the defense of Thor's Hammer with those hostiles ready to pounce. Not to mention the continued threat of the Soviet presence," said Upshaw. "Honestly, Amira, I recruited you because I thought you could see the bigger picture. Was I wrong?"

  "No," said el Bahari, shaking her head. "I do see the bigger picture. I'm just starting to feel that the picture you're seeing is from a paint-by-numbers book."

  Upshaw's face reddened.

  "You-"

  "The ril-galas are preparing a counter-attack. The Vimy Ridge is sending you an information packet. We need to act on this, Bianca, or none of our plans are going to come to fruition," she said. "Resources. Ships. Soldiers."

  But Upshaw had terminated the transmission.

  2

  Chaos.

  It was both the best and only word Commander Finn Radko could conjure to describe the aftermath of what people had already begun to call the Battle of the Hornets' Nest. The battle itself had been mere hours old, and when the Hornets' Nest itself—the orbital facility used by the ril-galas invaders to support their occupation of Earth—had exploded in a spectacular, if brief, fireball, it seemed no one on either side of the conflict had known what to do.

  For the ril-galas, destruction of their spaceborne stronghold had likely been unthinkable.

  And though he was loathe to admit it, for many in Joint Task Force One - the name given the combined human, icaran, and udukiin fleet - Radko was certain that victory had been equally unthinkable.

  Now, for the first time in the entirety of the war against the ril-galas, humanity had dealt the invaders a massive, destabilizing blow. Their ships had zoomed about aimlessly, without a specific target to defend, but JTF1 was similarly discombobulated, without a specific target to attack.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25