War for Orion: Ghosts from the Past Read online

  War for Orion: Ghosts from the Past

  by Conner Walworth

  Smashwords Edition | Copyright 2015 Conner Walworth

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  War for Orion Copyright © 2015 by Conner Walworth.

  All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations em- bodied in critical articles or reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For information www.connerjwalworth.wix.com/author-page

  Book and Cover design by Conner Walworth

  ISBN: 123456789

  First Edition: January 2016

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  Chapter 1

  Donnchadh grinned, finally besting his old friend. "Now Armino, all we have left is you and your worthless son, Anlon."

  Before he was able to utter another word, the front door came crashing down and the house was swarmed with police. Donnchadh clenched his fists and silently cursed to himself before turning the Arachnid and Darza.

  "Get to the cruiser now!" he yelled. "I'll finish these two!"

  Donnchadh pulled his pistol out fired a shot at Armino, hitting him in the head, and fired another shot at Anlon as he ran out of the house. Anlon slouched down in the chair, breathing quickly from the excruciating pain of the bullet entering his abdomen.

  A young woman ran to him and put her hands on his shoulders. "We need a medbot! Go get MB-398 right now!" she ordered a hovering robot.

  "Yes ma'am," The robot replied, before turning to leave.

  A tall, black, human officer came up behind her and put a hand on her shoulder. "Looks like he's the lone survivor here. Let the medbots take care of him while we take a look around."

  "Who would do something like this Giustino? You can't tell me that this was some random homicide."

  "Someone very pissed off. And by the looks of the dead bodies, it was someone who knew what they were doing with more than enough resources to get the job done without getting caught."

  "They left this one alive, they can't be too smart if they left behind a witness to the crime."

  "Mistakes were definitely made here Kanti. We just need to make sure we find who did this before they come back for their biggest mistake."

  MB-398 came into the room. "What can I do Officer Kanti?"

  "This man has been shot. I need you to take care of his wound immediately," Kanti ordered.

  "Everyone was killed by very advanced weaponry, except for these two," Giustino continued. "I can tell you these two were shot with a regular handgun, like our ancestors would've carried during Exodus Era, but the rest were killed with much more advanced weaponry."

  Kanti walked over to a pile of ashes and bent over to examine them. "You think that this was a person before?"

  "I have no doubt in my mind that those ashes were once a person."

  "Any idea what kind of weapon would turn someone to ashes?"

  Giustino nodded. "It was a highly advanced laser weapon, but that's all I can tell you. There are too many different models to know what exact one, but I know for a fact that some of the higher end pistols have the ability to turn people to ashes, though I've never actually seen it until now."

  "Okay, what about the skeleton? What could've done this?" she pointed.

  "I have no idea Kanti. I've never seen, or heard, of anything like that. I haven't seen anything like the boy next to the skeleton either. All I see on him is red bubbly skin, but other than that there are no other apparent wounds, so I'm not sure how he could've died," Giustino rubbed his hands over his face. "This is going to be an extremely hard case to solve."

  Kanti looked away from the dead bodies. "MB-398 appears to be almost finished with the wounded man, so maybe he could tell us something about all of this."

  He shook his head. "Not too much right now. Let's get him to a hospital to be checked for anything else before we drill him with questions. After seeing some of these bodies, who knows what may have been done to the kid. In the meantime, forensics will come and start doing their thing which will give us some time to piece some other things together."

  "Alright, I'll go see if he's able to come with me," she replied, walking towards Anlon.

  Anlon slowly regained consciousness and squirmed in pain as something pricked inside of his abdomen. A large robot was bent over him working diligently to heal the bullet wound he had taken. He had only witnessed a robot like this once, but was relieved it was here to remove the bullet.

  "Hey that hurts you stupid robot!" Anlon swatted it.

  "Sorry sir, I will give you some more anesthetics," It pulled out a needle, inserting it in Anlon's side and releasing the clear liquid.

  The pain instantly subsided and Anlon gave the robot a thumbs up. The robot continued to work at getting the bullet as Anlon watched it closely, amazed at when it finally pulled the small piece of metal from his insides.

  The robot looked at Anlon. "You will be alright. The bullet didn't damage any internal organs and came out in one piece. The anesthetics will wear off in a couple of hours, at which point you will feel a little bit of pain from where the bullet was extracted," The robot typed something in its arm and pulled a red container out of its chest. "Here are some pain pills to help you when the anesthetics have worn off."

  Anlon looked away from the robot and saw the female officer coming towards him. He slowly pushed himself off of the ground and walked towards her, noticing that she was about the same age as he was. She was human with bright blonde hair and stunning blue eyes that pulled him in to her.

  "Hey, I'm Kanti Cordula. I'm going to get you to the hospital to make sure that you're okay," she said. "There's some weird stuff here and we don't know if you have been more than just shot."

  "I'm Anlon Valens," He took her hand. "Don't you want to know what happened here before you take me? I promise I'm fine. Your robot took really good care of me."

  "No, my partner thought it would be best if you were double checked at the hospital by an actual human and some better machines. We haven't seen anything like this before and we don't want you to die from wounds we may not see."

  "Once we know you're better and there is nothing wrong with you, then we will be questioning you," A deep voice boomed from behind them.

  Anlon turned to see the voice had come from a large black man with his hand placed on his hips. Unlike Kanti, he didn't look inviting in the least bit.

  "My name is Giustino Ignace. From the looks of it, this was more than just some random homicide."

  "Yes it was," Anlon nodded.

  "We'll go over it in further detail later. With some of the special weapons that were used here, I want to make sure that you're okay before we start questioning you, as Kanti has already told you. She'll take you to the car and escort you to the hospital."

  Anlon nodded and followed Kanti to the car. Thoughts raced through Anlon's head about everything that had just happened, still not fully grasping that it had actually been reality. He didn
't know very much except that those races had known his father, and had hated his him for some reason. He had never seen the hate and rage that filled the black Malak's eye's that had led the attack.

  There were still a few things for sure: races, names, and a planet that they had mentioned traveling from. Anlon knew the types of questions that he would get from the two officers, but he wasn't sure how he was going to answer them.

  The things that he had just seen done to his family infuriated him and he knew there was only one thing he could do now that would make him feel better; find out who killed his family, why they killed his family, and get vengeance for their murders. In order to do that, he would have to leave out some very important details. Deep down he knew it was wrong, but he could feel the rage he saw in the Malak's eyes boiling somewhere from deep down within himself.

  "So what all went on back there?" Kanti interrupted his thoughts.

  Anlon turned to face her. "Ummm. I'm not really sure, to tell you the truth. These races just broke in and used all these different kinds of weapons to kill my family."

  Kanti nodded. "I'm very sorry for your losses Anlon. I've never seen anything this horrific in my life. When I came to Gaea a couple of months ago from Demeter, I was told this was a very peaceful planet with very little crime, especially this District."

  Anlon looked at her puzzled. "You came from Demeter?"

  She smiled. "I grew up there, but I never really fit in since humans aren't the dominant race. The family that raised me was part of the Kaneen race so I grew up farming on the land, like most everyone else on the planet. I was ready for something different though, mainly to be with a race that looked like me for a change. I was tired of being the odd one out."

  "Oh. So I'm taking it you never knew your real parents?"

  "No. My Kaneen family told me I was dropped off as a baby for them to raise. They never told me who my real parents were, but to tell you the truth, I don't think they even knew who my parents were."

  "Sorry to ask. It must have been weird growing up on a planet where you were the outcast race."

  "It wasn't that bad. Most of them seemed to accept me and didn't ask questions. Not knowing who my real parents were is what bothered me the most. I thought coming here and becoming a police officer might help me find them, but I know now it won't," Kanti sighed. "There aren't any human families in Orion with the last name Cordula. Unfortunately, I'm one of a kind."

  "I'm sorry to hear that," Anlon tried to comfort.

  Anlon knew he had to ask Kanti more questions. If she had come from Demeter to find her family, that meant there was something in the police station that could search for races.

  "How exactly did you find that out that no humans shared your last name? The Galaxy is a big place, there's bound to be at least one human with your last name, if not another race."

  Kanti kept her eyes on the road. "There's a database at the station where you can search names and races. Someone on Demeter told me about it, though I'm not completely sure how they found out about it. Anyway, you can limit it by ton of criteria. You can find almost anyone with it unless they're trying really hard to stay hidden. In which case, they have to be really good because this can find literally any race on any planet that they're hiding. I've tried everything, and I promise you, I'm the only Cordula in all of Orion," She looked over at Anlon. "Don't tell Giustino I told you that though, because only races with official clearance are supposed to know about the database. I was able to sneak down there one night using Giustino's key. He'd flip if he knew I had broken into his office to get into the database without permission."

  Anlon knew he had just found a way to track down his family's killers. He had more than enough information about the races in order to track them down, at least from what Kanti said anyway. The hard part would be finding where this database was and how exactly he would get in once he did find it. But if Kanti had snuck down without anybody's knowledge, he was sure there was a way that he could too.

  "So once we start my questioning, this is how you will find who killed my family?" Anlon asked, trying squeeze out more information.

  Kanti shook her head. "Yes. They shouldn't be too hard to find. Leaving you alive made it a lot easier for us to track them down."

  Anlon saw the hospital coming into view and readied himself to exit the vehicle. As soon as Kanti pulled up to the front, Anlon stepped out of the car and waited for her to come around and lead the way in. She talked to a robot at the reception desk and then led him through a door that labeled Patient Checkup. Upon entering the room, Anlon saw humans, robots, and other races moving all over the place.

  An old nurse approached them. "Hello Officer Kanti. What can I do for you today?"

  "He's been shot with an Exodus Era style handgun," She pointed to Anlon. "I had MB-398 do work on him and make sure that everything was okay, but Giustino just wants a person to check up on him to make sure that he's in good health."

  "Oh, is that right?" The nurse held her hand out to Anlon. "Well you come follow me young man. We'll make sure that there is nothing out of the ordinary wrong with you."

  Anlon followed the nurse into a room and sat on one of the white operating benches. The entire room was a sterilized white, not a grey smudge anywhere. He turned around on the bench and stared at a black hole in the wall.

  "That's where we'll put you to make sure that everything is okay," The nurse smiled. "I just need you to lay down on the operating table and we'll slide you right on in."

  "What's it going to do to me?" he asked.

  She smiled. "It's just a really big scanner is all. It will check for poisons, wounds, sicknesses; just anything that is wrong with your body that's out of the ordinary. Once it is finished, it will print off a report to let me know if there is anything wrong with you."

  "Wow that's really cool," Anlon raised his eyebrows. "What if there is something wrong with me?"

  "It will give me a list of different medications that I can give to you if it's not severe. If it's severe, we will send you to Apollo where they will carry out any advanced procedures that we can't carry out here, but those are just the extreme cases. I can tell you right now that you don't need to travel to Apollo, so just lay down and we'll get this over with," she chuckled.

  Anlon laid down on the operating table. He had heard of Apollo and the very intelligent race that had made it their home. Something had happened to the land of the planet very early in its life, he couldn't remember exactly what though, but the race had evolved and overcome the disaster. Over time, they specialized in healing of all types and all of Orion went to them for cures and different advanced procedures.

  Anlon closed his eyes as he felt the table float backwards into the dark hole behind him. When he entered, he opened to see only darkness enveloping him, until a light started quickly circling around him. It did it for several minutes and changed colors and made noises throughout the process. When the lights stopped, the bench hovered back out into the room and the white momentarily blinded him. He hadn't felt a thing while he had been inside and had actually been waiting for something to happen other than the lights circling him as he emerged from the hole.

  "Well, there's nothing wrong with you. MB-398 did an excellent job of taking care of your wound," The nurse walked over with papers in her hands.

  Anlon smiled. "Thank you for the good news."

  "You can go back out to Kanti now. She told me she wanted to let you rest here for the night before taking you down to the station tomorrow."

  Anlon got up off of the table and pushed the door open to see Kanti already waiting outside of the room for him.

  "So is everything okay Anlon?"

  He nodded his head. "Everything checks out. She said MB-398 did a great job and that there is nothing else wrong with me."

  Kanti smiled. "I'm glad to hear that Anlon. I'll take you to the room where you'll rest for the night," She turned around and started walking down the hall. "We'll take you in for questioning t
omorrow to try to figure out some more things. Forensics is at your house right now, but I'm sure you'll be able to tell us a lot more in detail than forensics can ever gather in evidence. They're good, but first-hand accounts are always better."

  Anlon nodded and followed Kanti to the room he'd be staying in for the night. He knew he had to be careful about how he answered some of the questions the next day, but he couldn't make it obvious that he was hiding things. He hadn't been blindfolded, and he knew they knew that, so he'd have to tell them they weren't human killers. He was sure that wouldn't matter because the races were most likely already off of Gaea and headed back to Plouton by now.

  He would tell the officers everything he knew except for the names of the races and that they had come from Plouton. By telling the officers the other things, there was a chance that they could actually help him find the killers before they had the chance to track them down themselves.

  Anlon knew it was going to take a lot more than just finding these races to avenge his family's execution. He would need weapons, combat and survival training, and a ship to get to Plouton. Finding out exactly who these races were and why they wanted to kill his family was just the beginning. He had no doubt that he would find them and when he did, he would be ready. Training was the one thing that he was good at; at one point he thought that it would be useless, but he now knew that it was the most important thing he possessed.

  Chapter 2

  Donnchadh and his men made it to their ship undetected by any law enforcement, which was easy since cruisers weren't a common sight in the Hassental District. Donnchadh had done extensive research before coming and knew exactly what to expect at all times. He had carried the mission out at night so the dark would mask his ship from any possible onlookers. He eased up the controls of the cruiser and pulled it underneath his black ship, Cerberus. They got out of the cruiser and Donnchadh pressed a series of hidden buttons on the bottom of the ship, prompting a hidden compartment to hiss open and take up the cruiser.