Frost Station Alpha 1-6: The Complete Series Read online

  Frost Station Alpha

  by Ruby Lionsdrake

  Copyright © 2015 Ruby Lionsdrake

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Acknowledgments

  Part I: Hunted

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Part 2: Seduction

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Part 3: Pirates

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Part 4: Contagion

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Part 5: Glaciem

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Part 6: Reckoning

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you for checking out Frost Station Alpha, a serial science fiction romance adventure originally published in six parts. Before you start reading, please let me thank Sarah Engelke for beta reading and Shelley Holloway for editing and formatting. I’d also like to give a shout-out to Deranged Doctor Design for the cover art. We hope you enjoy the story!

  Part I: Hunted

  Chapter 1

  The throwing knife thunked into the floating dummy, joining two others that protruded from a leering face holographically displayed on the front. The point had missed the eye by an inch and probably would not have stuck if it had struck a real person. An approving ding sounded, and the dummy stopped darting around the room and settled to the floor.

  “You’ve got low standards, bot,” Lieutenant Tamryn Pavlenko muttered, walking to the dummy to retrieve her knives. “A real pirate would have lived to shoot back.”

  A tendril of anxiety squirmed in her stomach, as it often did when she anticipated an attack on the station. She had been here three weeks, with nothing but space dust bothering the outpost, but she knew the place’s record. It was why she had requested the assignment.

  “With real pirates,” a male voice said from the doorway, “I believe you’re allowed to use laser rifles with smart scopes, ma’am.”

  Sergeant Wu quirked an eyebrow at the dummy as he walked into the communications room with just such a rifle slung across his back. He also wore mesh armor over his black fatigues, a helmet, and a TacVest with smoke and tear gas grenades dangling from clips. It was the typical patrol uniform for the infantry platoon charged with guarding the scientists and keeping criminals from harassing the station.

  “Besides, if you come face to face with any pirates in here, it means me and my team didn’t do our job very well.” Wu waved at the communications, environmental, and sensor consoles, along with the holo displays showing camera feeds from around the station.

  Or it could mean that she had gone out with the infantry soldiers to help with the attack.

  Not wanting a lecture from a non-com, even if he had twenty years of experience, Tamryn did not mention that she could see herself doing this.

  “Though I bet you wouldn’t mind some pirates barging in, would you, ma’am? You seem to be as happy snuggling with a gun as my infantry boys. You don’t see that real often from communications officers.”

  Tamryn grinned. “I would have joined the infantry if my da had let me. He approves of his children getting military experience, but not in a way that’s likely to get them killed.”

  “Then how’d you end up out here in pirate heaven?”

  “Even my da doesn’t always get what he wants.” Her grin widened.

  “Dear Buddha, you didn’t request this assignment, did you?”

  “I want to make a name for myself that doesn’t have anything to do with the rest of my family.”

  “Ma’am, that’s just... You know most of us are out here as punishment, right? Because we irritated a senior officer or got into some trouble just shy of requiring a dishonorable discharge.” His face grew bleak, making her wonder what he was being punished for.

  “One man’s punishment is another man’s—or woman’s—opportunity. Is there something I can help you with, Sergeant?” Tamryn did not mind company, especially since the nightshift tended to be slow, but Wu was a consummate soldier and did not usually pause in his rounds to idly chat.

  “Nah, just looking at something.” Wu walked to the sensor station as she plucked her knives out of the dummy. “There was a proximity button flashing down on the shuttle deck. The station seems to think something bumped into us. I checked it out on the cameras and didn’t see any sign of damage, and I didn’t feel anything hit, but I want to make sure we don’t have unwanted company sneaking up on us in the dark of night.”

  The anxious flutters returned to Tamryn’s stomach. It was probably nothing, but the station did have a history of being targeted, and there had been three attacks in the month before she had arrived. Tamryn hadn’t known the reason for the interest in the station until recently, but word of Captain Porter’s secret research project must have gotten out to the underworld months ago.

  Wu rapped a knuckle against the console. “Something wrong with the sensors?”

  “There’s a solar storm going on tonight. Communications were squeaky when I checked them earlier. I wouldn’t be surprised if the sensors were affected too.”

  “Solar storm? That’s bugging us way out here? On Frost Station Alpha?” Wu glanced toward the two portholes in the front of the room, though the bright yellow dot of the sun was not in view from their current angle.

  “Solar flares wreak havoc on the entire system,” Tamryn said. “Well, maybe not Glaciem down there.” She waved toward the white sphere that was in view, the icy moon representing the farthest out body that had ever housed a human settlement, even if that settlement was long gone.

  “So, you’re telling me a pirate could be dancing on the shuttle bay doors right now, and we couldn’t tell?” Wu ground his teeth back and forth and rubbed a scar on his cheek. He was a big, powerful man, and the irritation in his voice made him more intimidating. Woe to the pirate that danced into his sights.

  “If this intruder had a space suit and some magnetic boots, I suppose that would be possible,” Tamryn said. “I told Captain Ram about the storm when I got on shift. He—”

  A shudder shook the station.

  Wu’s head jerked up, his gaze turning toward the portholes. “Attack.”

  “It sounds more like we’re being hit by asteroids than that we’re being attacked.” Tamryn jogged to the security station. “External cameras.”

  “That’s not very damned likely. We’re not anywhere near an asteroid belt.” Wu tapped his Fleet comm patch and checked the cartridge in his laser rifle. “Sir? Wu, here.”

  The holo vids floating over the security console switched from displaying internal feeds to showing six views of the exterior of the station. Six fuzzy and static-filled views. Tamryn could barely make out what should have been clear, sharp views of Glaciem and the edge of the gas giant Mysterium that lumbered beyond it. She could tell that the shuttle bay doors had not been opened in the curving gray hull of the station, nor did she see any ships in that feed or any of the others. But one of the cameras was completely black, a white “signal lost” flashing at the to
p of the display.

  “That’s the one closest to engineering, isn’t it?” Tamryn asked, a shiver going through her belly. Was she about to get the action she craved? The chance to put down a pirate attack and keep the station and its top-secret work safe? Even if they hadn’t heard a blaster yet or seen a ship, Wu was right in that it was unlikely asteroids would have chosen the night of the solar storm to attack. It was even more unlikely that one would have smashed into that camera to keep it from displaying.

  The sergeant opened his mouth to answer, but Captain Ram’s voice came over the comm first.

  “Wu, where are you?”

  “Comm and Control, sir. With Lieutenant Pavlenko.”

  “Good. Stay there, keep the door locked, and don’t let her wander anywhere.”

  Tamryn kept her mouth shut, but she bristled at the implication that if she left to help, she would simply be wandering. As if she couldn’t do some good. She also bristled at the idea of hiding here while the rest of the station engaged in battle.

  “She gets herself shot, and my career is shit,” Ram added, frustration and aggravation mingling in his voice.

  Tamryn gritted her teeth, annoyed at the suggestion that she needed to be coddled, but suddenly understanding why Ram had been aloof and cold to her since she arrived. He thought her family would have him punished if anything happened to her. Great.

  “I’m not planning to get shot, sir,” Tamryn said, “but nobody’s going to blame you if it happens.”

  “The hell they aren’t. Wu, got that door locked?”

  “Yes, sir. What’s going on?”

  “Got nothing positive yet, but I can smell trouble like farts in a closet.”

  “A handy skill, sir,” Tamryn said. Ram had risen through the non-com ranks before switching to the officer track, and sometimes it showed.

  “Shut up, Pavlenko. Get those camera feeds back online and get ready to flash the day’s recordings to Fleet as soon as we have confirmation of trouble. I’m on my way to engineering with a team.”

  “Can I get Yakimov?” Tamryn did not want to admit that the communications computers were the only thing she had any expertise with, but this wasn’t the time to pretend she could dance her way through the security system when she couldn’t. She was only three months out of the academy, and Ram knew that.

  “I woke up Lieutenant Yakimov. He’s on his way. Now get me my—”

  A crash sounded over the comm, then a distant shout. The faint shriek of laser fire sent a chill through Tamryn.

  “Sir? Is someone on the station?”

  Ram didn’t answer.

  Sergeant Wu’s face had grown grim. He put his back to the environmental controls console and faced the door, as if he expected death to march through it any second.

  More lasers fired, sounding close to Captain Ram, then a boom drowned out everything. She heard it over the comm link but also felt the deck shudder. An alarm light flashed on the console behind Wu. If someone was hurling about explosives that weren’t rated for ship and station use, then getting shot wasn’t going to be the only thing they needed to worry about.

  A scream sounded over the comm, so close to the pickup that Tamryn worried it had been Ram. There should have been a whole team of non-coms in front of him. If whoever was attacking had already reached him... that did not bode well.

  A thump sounded and the comm cut out. The quietness of space filled Comm and Control. All she was doing was standing in a room, a throwing knife still in her hand, but Tamryn could feel her heart slamming against her ribs in the stillness. A siren wailed, emanating from the walls, and she nearly jumped out of her boots.

  “Intruder alert,” a computerized voice announced, echoing through the corridors of the station. “Intruder alert: all military personnel to battle stations. All civilian personnel to safety stations.”

  “Can you figure out where our people are?” Wu waved to the security controls while he kept his face toward the door. “Did they make it to engineering? Is anyone at their designated station?”

  Tamryn shook herself into action, annoyed that she hadn’t thought of that earlier. “Yes, of course.”

  She quieted the alarm, at least in Comm and Control, so she could hear herself think, then prodded at the holo keys. The Fleet comm patches all had tracking IDs, and the internal sensors weren’t as scrambled as the exterior ones. A map of Frost Station Alpha floated into the air before her, its massive spinning wheel ringing the cylindrical core that housed twenty levels of research stations, living quarters, and two weapons platforms protruding from the top and bottom. Small blips indicated that a soldier was stationed in each of the platforms, though she hadn’t heard anything to suggest they were firing at anything outside. Most of the blips were located in the center of the station, the double-level that indicated engineering. Some of them were moving, moving quickly, but others were still.

  “Get the video feed for engineering,” Wu said, watching over her shoulder. “Send it off to Fleet.”

  Tamryn almost yes-sirred him. Four years at the university and two years in the academy said she was an officer and the one in charge, but for all her eagerness for a pirate fight, she wasn’t the one with the experience here. She was silently glad that she wasn’t alone.

  She left the external displays up, especially that dark one in case it flickered back to life, and she brought up the feed that covered the engineering level. The last time she had glanced at that camera, the cavernous, equipment-filled chamber had been lit. Now, darkness smothered it, though she did spot a couple of flashlight beams in the distance. She also spotted bodies on the floor, bodies in black Fleet uniforms. Their weapons had fallen about them, and some still gripped them in their hands. They had died fighting.

  “Shit,” Wu said.

  Though she did not want to, Tamryn made herself zoom in, trying to get a glimpse of whoever was doing the killing. She also tried to find enemy bodies among the fallen—surely pirates weren’t taking down her colleagues without suffering losses themselves. But all she saw were black uniforms and a few larger figures in white Fleet combat armor. At least a handful of men had found time to don the full-body suits, suits that should have protected them from bullets and laser fire. One soldier’s armor had been cut open, as if with an axe or sword, but neither weapon should have been able to do more than dent the sturdy suit.

  “Has anything other than pirates ever attacked you?” Tamryn asked, her mouth dry. She wasn’t sure what other she suspected, but she had a hard time imagining scruffy thugs doing this kind of damage to a highly trained infantry platoon.

  “Like what? Aliens?” Wu sounded like he’d meant to make it a joke, but it came out sarcastic. He must be worried and frustrated that he wasn’t down there helping his comrades.

  Tamryn shook her head. The secret project here involved the study of ancient alien ruins and artifacts found down on Glaciem, but she’d never heard anything to suggest that there were any aliens left alive in the system—or anywhere in the galaxy. According to archaeologists, the most recent ruins had been occupied ten thousand years ago—eighty-five hundred years before humans had colonized the system.

  “A mercenary outfit, maybe,” Tamryn answered the sergeant. “Or some finance lord’s private army?”

  “The mob sent a private army last year, when word first leaked out about the artifacts, but we took care of them, the same as we take care of half-organized scum with stolen weapons.” Wu clenched his jaw and started pacing back and forth in front of the door. “It’s been pirates and small infiltration teams since—what’s that?” Wu pointed to the engineering video, at a dark figure moving at the edge of the video pickup.

  Tamryn leaned in for a better look as the figure strode closer. It was a man with a dark green dragon tattoo covering the left side of his face. Framed by black hair that fell past his shoulders, his angular face carried a fierce expression, his strong jaw set, his blue eyes cold and determined. He was probably handsome under the tattoo and th
e blood spattering his face, but he looked too much like a walking deliverer of death for Tamryn to think of him as anything other than an enemy.

  Unlike the fallen Fleet soldiers, the intruder was not wearing armor, neither a full suit of combat armor, nor the lightweight TacVests and helmets that many soldiers preferred. Instead, he wore only a threadbare black vest that looked like it had been picked from a salvage table at the flea market, along with wrist bracers not dissimilar to ones Tamryn had worn when she competed in archery tournaments as a kid. His arms and shoulders were bare, revealing thick, corded muscles so lean that the veins stood out, as did several old scars. The hilt of something that looked like a giant axe rose above one of his shoulders.

  As he approached the camera—he was staring right at it, right at Tamryn—he lifted a laser rifle. It looked like the exact same model that the Fleet soldiers carried. With a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, she realized it probably was one of their weapons. He pointed it at the camera and was about to fire when something moved on the floor behind him, just visible past his shoulder.

  One of the fallen soldiers lifted his head. He had lost his helmet, and Tamryn recognized the bloodied face: Captain Ram. He was at least fifteen meters behind the intruder. His arm shaking, Ram raised his hand, a hand still holding a weapon.

  With a surge of hope, Tamryn silently willed him to shoot the hairy savage in the back. Ram fired, and she was already pumping her fist when the intruder blurred into motion. He dodged so quickly, disappearing from the video pickup, that Tamryn didn’t know if he had ducked or dived to the side. Ram’s crimson laser fire screeched toward the feed, slamming into a wall below the camera, and the display jostled momentarily. Even with the shaking, she didn’t have any trouble seeing an orange laser blast slam into Ram’s eye. He shuddered and collapsed, smoke wafting from his ruined face.

  A second later, the muzzle of a rifle filled the display. Orange flashed, and the feed turned black. A “lost signal” message replaced the view of the room, the same as the one from the station’s exterior.