The Complete Warlord Trilogy: An Aeon 14 Collection Read online

  THE WARLORD OF MIDDITERRA

  THE COMPLETE WARLORD TRILOGY

  BY M. D. COOPER

  SPECIAL THANKS

  Just in Time (JIT) & Beta Reads

  Jim Dean

  Lisa Richman

  Manie Kilian

  Timothy Van Oosterwyk Bruyn

  Gene Bryan

  Marti Panikkar

  Scott Reid

  Copyright © 2018 M. D. Cooper

  Version 1.0.1

  Editing by Jen McDonnell

  Cover by Andrew Dobell

  Aeon 14 & M. D. Cooper are registered trademarks of Michael Cooper

  All rights reserved

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  THE WOMAN WITHOUT A WORLD

  FOREWORD

  PREVIOUSLY IN THE INTREPID SAGA

  LOST

  APPEAL

  SUITE WITH A VIEW

  DEPARTURE

  PERSEUS

  EMPTY

  THE SEARCH

  CRASH

  BOLLAM’S WORLD

  TSARINA COMMERCE DISTRICT #3

  HAVERMERE

  EXPLANATIONS

  SACRIFICE

  REPRIEVE

  COMMUNIQUE

  VOYAGER

  INSTALLATION

  PHASE 2

  SEDUCTION

  CAPTAIN ANNA

  ESCAPE

  HOMEWORLD

  THE WOMAN WHO SEIZED AN EMPIRE

  FOREWORD

  IF ONLY A DREAM

  THE FIELDS OF PERSIA

  PROBED

  A FINAL NIGHT

  A NUDGE

  THE VOYAGER

  SEPARATION

  THE LADY MALORIE

  A BEATING AND A PROMISE

  A TRIP TO FARSA

  ANNA’S SUBTERFUGE

  THE ADMIRAL

  THE BEATING

  THE END OF DAYS

  REPAIR

  THE CHANGE

  ACCEPTANCE

  THE PLAN

  ROCKHALL

  A MEETING OF CAPTAINS

  A NECESSARY CONVERSATION

  CASTIGATION

  THE INSPECTION

  JACE

  THE WARLORD

  A NEW LEAD

  THE WOMAN WHO LOST EVERYTHING

  FOREWORD

  THE COUNCIL

  ORDERS

  DEMONSTRATION

  AN ALLY’S ENEMY

  LIES AND VERISIMILITUDE

  THE JUMP

  A NEW OUTLOOK

  THE MEET

  ADDERS

  TURNOVER

  CAPTURING MARION

  SANCTUARY

  ONE SMALL JUMP

  ASSIGNATION

  VOYAGER

  INTO THE FLAMES

  THE TEMPTRESS

  A SURPRISING PLAN

  DEFENSE OF TEEGARTEN

  BURN AND FEINT

  CAVALRY

  A RISK WORTH TAKING

  THE ADMIRAL

  THE WARLORD

  FALLEN

  FOUND

  EXPUNGED

  ESCAPE

  KATRINA

  THE BOOKS OF AEON 14

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  THE WOMAN WITHOUT A WORLD

  THE WARLORD – BOOK 1

  FOREWORD

  I have always wanted to write more about the events which occurred during the years the Intrepid spent at Kapteyn’s Star. Far more went on in that timeframe than ever made it into Building Victoria.

  Someday I will tell those stories: the work that went into building a stable world around a red dwarf star, how the peoples integrated, and then eventually split, tales of the young men and women who joined Joe’s academy, and later became the backbone of the Intrepid Space Force.

  Kapteyn’s Star was the crucible that forged Tanis and her people into a force that could withstand what came after they passed through the Streamer.

  Had it not been for the bravery of one man—Markus of the Noctus—who stood up to oppression and led the Hyperion to Kapteyn’s Star, Tanis and the Intrepid would not have been strong enough to survive the Battle of the Five Fleets at Bollam’s World.

  But there was another person who was instrumental in those trying times—without whom Markus would have failed. And with his failure would have come the loss of the Intrepid in the far future.

  That woman, standing at the side of the stage and ensuring that all proceeded as it should, was Katrina.

  This brave woman stayed behind after the Intrepid left for New Eden, supposedly lost in the winds of time, her part played.

  Or perhaps not….

  WHAT CAME BEFORE…

  In the year 4230, after suffering damage from saboteurs at Estrella de la Muerte, the Intrepid arrived in the Kapteyn’s Star System to make repairs.

  The system was supposedly uninhabited, but as the Intrepid approached, its crew discovered that a ship of refugees from the Sirius System was also inbound.

  Under General Tanis Richards’ guidance, the colonists aboard the Intrepid helped the refugees settle the worlds around Kapteyn’s Star.

  During the seventy years that the two groups shared The Kap, they fended off three separate attacks from the Sirians, who were seeking revenge against the refugees. The aggression culminated in the Battle of Victoria, where the Intrepid Space Force defeated a much larger Sirian fleet by unleashing their superweapon, the picoswarm bomb.

  The victory was total, and it was believed that The Kap would be safe from future aggression.

  In 4304, twelve years after that final battle, the Intrepid left The Kap, resuming its journey to the New Eden System where the Future Generation Terraformers still waited to greet the colonists.

  Before the Intrepid left The Kap, they assisted in creating a new stellar government where each planet, moon, and major station had a voice. This new stellar nation was named The Kapteyn Primacy.

  One of the Primacy’s first actions was to create the Veil Act; a law whose purpose was to ensure that the Kap System appeared uninhabited and unworthy of notice.

  Not long after the ratification of the Veil Act, the Intrepid failed to send its one-year-status message.

  Katrina, the last of the original generation of refugees from Sirius, was still in her final year as the President of the world of Victoria when this occurred. She pushed to have a scout ship sent out, but her efforts were in vain.

  And so a second year of silence from the Intrepid passed.

  When the Primacy finally did send a ship out in search of the Intrepid, they found nothing. The scout ship searched fruitlessly for two years before being recalled.

  Some people of the Primacy had family members on the Intrepid, and they petitioned long and hard to send a larger search effort, but were ultimately denied.

  The new government did not want to violate the Veil Act they had just enacted; they also did not want to alert the terraformers waiting at New Eden that anything was wrong. If the terraformers believed that the Intrepid was lost, they would grant the system to a new group of colonists.

  And so the Primacy’s official policy was set. They would wait.

  When this decision was made, the Intrepid’s projected arrival at New Eden was still fifty-six years hence. With the nine years it would take for the arrival message to reach The Kap, it would be another sixty-five years before the people of Kapteyn’s Primacy learned of the Intrepid’s fate.

  Katrina was not prepared to wait sixty-five years.

  In defiance of the Primacy and the Veil Act, Katrina sent a message to New Eden where the terraformers still waited, praying that they had news from the Intrepid, praying that the great ship was safe.

 
LOST

  STELLAR DATE: 04.11.4330 (Adjusted Gregorian)

  LOCATION: Katrina’s Quarters, High Victoria

  REGION: Victoria, Kapteyn Primacy, Kapteyn’s Star System

  “How much longer?” Katrina asked as she settled down at her kitchen table, coffee in hand.

  Troy replied over the Link.

  “Dammit, I know,” Katrina swore. “This is killing me. Stars’ light, where could they be? What could have happened to them?”

  Troy didn’t respond, which was unusual for the AI. Perhaps he was feeling more anxious than he let on. Or it could be that the question wasn’t a new one, and the conversation that typically followed had become old and tired years ago.

  It had been twenty-six years since the Intrepid had gone silent. Twenty-six long years of waiting and worry.

  Laura entered the kitchen and placed a hand on Katrina’s shoulder. “I take it no word has come yet?”

  Katrina shook her head. “Not yet, but it’s been enough time. We should hear back at any moment now.”

  Laura smiled and leaned over to place a chaste kiss on Katrina’s cheek. “I’ll make you a sandwich—it’ll give me something to do at least. What do you want, Kat?”

  “A BLT,” Katrina replied. It seemed fitting.

  Watching Laura prepare the meal was a welcome distraction. Her personal assistant was a lovely young woman. Full of life and excitement, but very conscientious and exacting. It was why Katrina had chosen her from all of the applicants when her old assistant had passed away seven years ago.

  Over that time, Laura had become a close confidant, and eventually, Katrina had shared with her the knowledge that she had violated the Primacy’s Veil Act and sent a message to the terraformers at New Eden.

  Laura made a BLT for herself as well and, after topping off Katrina’s coffee, sat down to eat with her. Afterward, they played a game of cards, and then Laura rose to put the dishes in the wash, while Katrina rose to pace.

  She had not taken three steps when Troy called out.

  Troy’s mental tone was more excited than he had been for years.

  Katrina felt the message hit her mind, and then a man’s face appeared in her vision. He was young, something which surprised Katrina. The Destiny Ascendant, the ship that had been tasked with terraforming the worlds of New Eden, had left Sol over five hundred years ago.

  Their senior leadership—those she expected to respond to her message—should be quite old by this point; unless they had already passed on, and a new generation was in command.

  Katrina suspected that she would never know for sure. The FGT ships were secretive and rarely communicated with anyone anymore; the fact that they had responded to her was a miracle in and of itself.

  “Hello, my name is Assistant Director Huron of the FGT Worldship Destiny Ascendant. I regret that Director Kallias is not present to respond to you. She long ago took the Ascendant on to our next assigned system.”

  That made sense. The FGT Worldship didn’t need to wait for the Intrepid. It would appear that Assistant Director Huron had drawn the short straw, and likely waited for the Intrepid with a skeleton crew.

  “Your message troubles us greatly, and we’re dismayed that the captain of the Intrepid has misled us in his communications regarding their delays. That being said, it is quite fascinating that they worked with you to terraform the Kapteyn’s Star system—we may send someone to view the work you’ve done.”

  Troy said.

  Katrina nodded slowly, remaining silent as Assistant Director Huron continued.

  “We had already sent out a scout ship in search of the Intrepid, and turned our arrays toward the Kapteyn’s Star System, but there is no sign of the ship—neither whole, or otherwise.”

  The assistant director paused for a moment and his expression grew sorrowful. “I don’t know what to tell you, President Katrina. The darkness between the stars is a dangerous place—no one knows this better than the FGT. We will continue to search for any sign of the Intrepid, but I fear the worst.

  “I must also send a message to Director Kallias. There are protocols for ships that do not arrive, and the Intrepid will soon reach the end of their extensions. When that happens, we will have to rescind their colony grant and inform the Generation Ship Service in Sol that New Eden is once more accepting colony applic—”

  Katrina stopped the playback. She had no desire to hear whatever else the man had to say. His apology was genuine, but all he had done was create more questions.

  Laura had silently waited as Katrina watched the message. When it was done, the young woman spoke quietly. “Your eyes have told me all I need to know.”

  Katrina shook her head. “It is as I feared.”

  “Will you bring this to the Primacy, then?” Laura asked, her tone soft and wavering. “Or will you leave us?”

  Katrina walked toward Laura and placed a hand on her arm. “You know the answer to that. My time here is over.” She looked up and closed her eyes. “Will you come, Troy?”

 

  APPEAL

  STELLAR DATE: 07.13.4330 (Adjusted Gregorian)

  LOCATION: Landfall Capitol Buildings, Landfall

  REGION: Victoria, Kapteyn Primacy, Kapteyn’s Star System

  Katrina sat patiently outside of President Leanne’s office—an office that had been hers some decades earlier.

  It always felt strange to be the one out here, forced to wait on another’s pleasure while they dealt with matters of state. Sometimes—not often, but sometimes—she wished to be back in that room. On the other side of the desk.

  There were so many things she would do differently…

  “The President is ready for you now, Matrem Katrina,” the man sitting at the desk next to the door said.

  “Thank you,” Katrina answered, rising slowly and fighting the stiffness in her knees from sitting too long. At only two hundred and eight years, Katrina should not be feeling her age this much; but she had forgone rejuvination for some time, wanting to age as gracefully as she could alongside her late husband.

  An age she had retained in memory of Markus.

  What would you do, Markus? Katrina sent the question off into the ether as she pushed open the doors into the President’s office. Her husband always had the answers to whatever troubles the colony had faced. She missed his swift mind and sure hand.

  Katrina shook her head as memories of their many years together flooded in. She recalled more than a few times when Markus, too, had been frustrated and uncertain.

  OK, maybe not all the answers, Katrina thought with a smile on her lips. But you always had me, and Tanis, and so many of our friends that came with us from Sirius. But they are all gone now. I feel that I have nothing in common with this generation.

  “Katrina!” President Leanne said as she rose from her desk and walked around, holding out her hands for an embrace.

  Katrina pulled her mind back into the world around her as she approached Leanne. “Good afternoon, President Leanne,” Katrina said before accepting the hug.

  “Katrina, please, call me Leanne,” the current Victorian President said as they separated. “You spent more time behind this desk than I have—and in more troubled times, too, I might add.”

  “Thank you, Leanne,” Katrina said as she inclined her head and sat in one of the chairs in front of the desk.

  She knew it was rude to sit first in a formal setting such as this, but if the years of service she had given weren’t enough to let her sit when she was tired, then she didn’t know what could possibly earn such leniency.

  Leanne didn’t react to Katrina�
��s informality as she leaned against her desk.

  Perhaps no one cares about our old ways anymore.

  The president certainly didn’t dress as her forbearers; there was no reason to expect that she would honor their traditions.

  Katrina wondered what Markus would think of the president’s tight, single-piece outfit, complete with flashing and swirling colors. It would have fit in perfectly in Luminescent Society in the Sirius System—at least Leanne was far too tall to ever pass as a Lumin.

  It amazed her that now, four generations later, the people of the Kapteyn Primacy were emulating the very culture that had enslaved their ancestors. A culture that had launched more than one assault on the Kapteyn’s Star System.

  And they wonder why I want to leave…

  “To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?” Leanne asked, her brilliant green eyes glinting above her smiling blue lips.

  “I think you know,” Katrina said. “I want a ship. I’m going after the Intrepid.”

  Leanne sighed and ran a hand through her sparkling white hair.

  “You were already denied a ship by the Primacy Parliament. What makes you think that I can grant you one?” Leanne asked.

  “Because I own it,” Katrina replied as she leaned back in her chair. “The Victory. It is my ship. I didn’t want to have to do this, but I will if you force me.”

  “What?” Leanne asked. “The Victory is an active vessel in the Victorian Space Force. It’s not your ship.”

  “You’ll find, Governor, that it is my ship. If you look at the records, you’ll find that Captain Jason Andrews of the ISS Intrepid gifted that ship to me personally, to use should I ever wish to journey to New Eden. At the time, I could not imagine leaving the colony that my husband and I spent so long building…but things are different now.”

  “Huh,” Leanne grunted as her eyes darted across records only she could see. “I was not aware of this; it was over thirty years ago.”

  Katrina nodded. “And the lease renews every five years. I have allowed it to do so in the past, but not this time. I thought that I would give you a heads-up before I reach out to the Secretary of Defense.”