Back Into the Fire Read online

  Back Into The Fire

  Hell's Jesters, Volume 4

  K.J. Coble

  Published by Haymore House Publishing, 2022.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  BACK INTO THE FIRE

  First edition. May 26, 2022.

  Copyright © 2022 K.J. Coble.

  ISBN: 979-8201636036

  Written by K.J. Coble.

  Also by K.J. Coble

  Hell's Jesters

  Hell's Jesters

  Cry Havoc

  Rebel Hell

  Back Into The Fire (Coming Soon)

  Hell or Highwater (Coming Soon)

  Heroes of the Valley

  Defenders of the Valley

  Blood in the Valley

  Stand in the Valley

  The Quintorius Chronicles

  Lord of Exiles

  Legion of Exiles

  Republic of Exiles

  The Vothan Guard

  The Tome of Flesh

  Crypt of the Violator

  The Witch of Vendar

  The Witch of Vendar

  Hell at the Gates

  Twilight in the City of God

  Standalone

  Magic Fire - Metal Storm

  The Shadows of Maunathyrr

  Ashes of Freedom

  Beyond the Bulwarks

  Watch for more at K.J. Coble’s site.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Also By K.J. Coble

  Dedication

  Part 1 – Setting the Board

  Part 2 – Opening Moves

  Part 3 – Counter Moves

  Part 4 – Stalemate

  Part 5 – Checkmate

  Part 6 – Re-setting the Board

  Part 7 – Epilogue

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  Further Reading: Hell or Highwater

  About the Author

  For the Cactus Air Force, for their heroism and superhuman endurance, and about whom too little is remembered.

  Part 1 – Setting the Board

  Within the globular hologram, a man screamed.

  Alexi Noovin, High Councilor of the Grand Galactic Alliance, smiled at the image hovering over his desk. That expression broadened as its subject—a handsome mid-forty-something, dark-eyed, dark-haired—was dragged through a parking garage to a waiting hovertruck by hulking figures in the riot armor of Penal Division guards. At the last moment, just as the back door of the vehicle slid open, the orange jump-suited man thrashed out of their grips and lunged for whoever was recording the incident.

  Alexi chortled. “He’s a nasty piece of work, to be certain.”

  “And a vocal one,” a voice said chidingly.

  Noovin looked away from the globular.

  He’d spared no expense for the den beyond, perched in the highest floor of his planetside estate on Nova Terra. A fire crackled from a hearth to one side, flanked by huge windows against which dumped an unseasonably early blizzard. These provided most of the light to a large, dimly-lit room of antiques from Old Terra, polished real wood surfaces, and bookshelves stuffed with ancient tomes he’d actually read.

  Not that any of the eight visitors lounging within it was likely to be impressed.

  “The Judiciary has already issued a gag order to the HoloMedia,” he replied. “And Brad’s penchant for confrontation has earned him a stint in solitary confinement. His outbursts will be forgotten soon enough, what with the war on. As well, encouragement from some of our allies at Omnipresent will see to it the public loses interest.”

  In the globular, one guards lashed a shock baton across the howling man’s back before he reached the holocamera. The cyan strobe of low-power blast bolt snowed the recording for an instant, even jolted the camera holder back a step. Two guards lifted the twitching prisoner from the blastcrete floor like a sack of produce and dragged him back to the vehicle. Another of their detail held up a hand to ward off the holocamera.

  “There’ll still be a trial.”

  Noovin worked to maintain the smile he’d honed to quicksilver perfection from the floors of the Galactic Assembly to the dais of the High Council. “Which, in light of his—and Syntar Fleet Corporation’s—crimes against galactic security, will be classified and kept sealed away.”

  “There’s always someone who leaks,” another of his visitors said snidely.

  “There is.” A bit of exasperation began to enter Noovin’s voice, despite his efforts. “And hearsay is always the chum of the Holomedia shark tank. In that feeding frenzy, the actual truth will be obscured.”

  In the globular hologram, the subject, Bradley Boxer, former CEO of Syntar Fleet Corporation—former clandestine fundraiser for Noovin’s own political ambitions—was flung into the back of the hovertruck with a boom. The hiss of its automated doors sealed off his groaned protests and the view froze as the recording ended.

  Noovin looked around at his guests. “What?” he said with hands up, deciding to let his irritation show. “Are you not all pleased?”

  The five men and three women looked at each other in the warm gloom before turning their collective gaze back on Noovin.

  “We need assurances, Alex.”

  The speaker was a slim, sour-faced woman with black hair scraped back into a severe bun. A plain but impeccably-tailored pants suit of Nova Terran silk, adorned with a single ruby at the left breast—a gem from the fire-mines of Golcana—made her a creature of careful, yet expensive tastes. Her eyes were completely black, drained of color, draining to anyone they looked at.

  Most of the rest had the same eyes.

  Noovin didn’t pretend to understand what caused that, some side effect of their vast, vast lifespans. He, himself, had had the surgeons restore his own irises to the wolfish blue-gray they’d once possessed, long ago, before he reentered public life. But the others seemed to revel in their unnatural states.

  Methuselahs. Beings of urban myth. Legends, as they no doubt thought themselves.

  And, apparently, rattled ones.

  Noovin steepled his fingers together, leaned back in his desk chair, and shrugged. “And just what do you call” he gestured at the hologram “that, Karissa?”

  “A loose end,” the ageless, ancient woman replied.

  Noovin glanced at the others as they shifted and murmured. “Very well,” he growled and leaned forward over the desk. “My contacts can see to it he never lives to see that trial.” Another shrug. “An accident, I suppose.”

  “Reckless,” another of the Methuselahs sneered. Unlike his compatriots, who’d cultivated various flavors of fixed-agedness, this one had embraced his hideous oldness, a cadaverous, misshapen gray wisp in a black, outdated suit. The creature glowered around at the others. “I don’t know why we allowed ourselves to be taken in, again, with his scheming!”

  “Power,” Noovin said over the surge of the others’ voices. They stilled as he turned his gaze on the ugly one. “Power, is why, Anton.” He looked around at the others again. “Power is the reason we brought the Sabbat back together again, after lying so long dormant.”

  “Power to steer galactic affairs,” Karissa hissed. “Not to watch them spin even more out of control than they had under the mortals.”

  “Things are under control,” Noovin said, waving dismissively.

  “Are you daft?” another of the Methuselahs snapped. This one affected the high-fashion of a Primus society gala-goer, sheathed in a shimmering black suit, but without tie, dress shirt open to the third button to hint at a sculpted chest. Smirking, he had the look of a spoiled, late-twenties mo
nied scion, bored and foppish. Both the latter were true, in fact. “Half the galaxy is in rebellion against the Alliance!”

  “It’s more like a third, Julian, and—”

  “And the loyal worlds now suffer from shortages of every kind, not the least of which is with hyper fuel!” he cut Noovin off. “It’s panicked the markets and led to all manner of unrest, even here on Nova Terra! Why, the Opera season had to be delayed because of food riots, this past month!”

  “Truly hard times,” Anton sneered from his chair, and to the chortling of the others.

  “Oh, shut up, you decrepit ruin!” Julian snarled back at him. He turned flashing, depthless eyes on Noovin. “You promised us power, Alex, but this is anarchy!”

  “Anarchy is power.” Noovin had to control the snarling rise of his voice. “The transuranic supply crisis has compelled the Council to nationalize the hyper fuel industry, taking control from Syntar and the lesser private firms. And with Syntar’s implosion, the Navy’s ship-building program has been, likewise, placed under emergency Alliance oversight.” He offered his fellow Methuselahs a predatory grin. “These things, we now control directly, through the Council.” He couldn’t help adding, “Through me.”

  Cautious smiles began wrinkling the false faces of some of his guests.

  “And the war,” he went on. “The war has given the electorate an appetite for more decisive measures from its government. The Assembly’s gone especially quiet, no more demands for peace envoys to the rebels, and the Committee for the Conduct of the War has suspended its meetings. No one wants to rock the boat.”

  “Wars are uncertain things,” Karrisa said slowly, “and the enemy—the Union of Free Stars—gets a vote.”

  Noovin didn’t bother hiding his scowl, now. Pathetic. All that remained of the once mighty Sabbat; now shrunken by excesses, accidents, and self-destruction. These craven survivors preferred the shadows, the creep of slow, quiet corruption. But once upon a time, having discovered the means to prolong their lives indefinitely, they’d used the long-viewed wisdom and preternatural patience of immortality to guide the affairs of humanity across the stars.

  It may not have been enlightened or even benevolent, but it had been grand.

  “The Union is a joke,” Noovin grumbled. “And after a few early successes, they’re reeling. Our victories of the last few weeks have thrown their fleets back to their starting points, abandoning worlds that had only just gone over to their side. The fallout from that is pulling the Union apart. And Fleet Admiral Harrison briefed the Council last week. He’s moving on Bolingbroke, Fury, and Saipan by now. With those worlds back in our grasp, we can reopen the transuranic mines there and relieve the energy crisis.”

  “The Union won’t just sit idle while we fly in and take them,” Karissa replied.

  “I hope they don’t!” Noovin exclaimed. “I hope they’re there waiting for us. Resistance will cost them ships and crews they can no longer afford to replace. It will accelerate the end!”

  “It had better,” Julian said with smoldering eyes.

  Noovin met the irritating stare. “Or what?” He stood from behind his desk, came around to stand in the middle of the room, in the midst of them, looking around. “Any of you?” Glowers met his own, but no words. “No?”

  A few looked away.

  “Good,” Noovin snapped. “Because you all chose this. You all chose me, to insert us back into the corridors of power, to take control back from the mismanagement of lesser beings. It has taken me decades and a fortune—so much I had to risk it all, allying with that brute, Boxer—but we are here, now” he clenched a fist, shook it “right at the cusp of taking it all!”

  They looked back to him, now, most of their dark stares unwavering. A few even nodded. Karrisa folded her arms, obviously unsatisfied but unwilling to press further. Julian muttered. Anton sat as still as the grave he looked like he belonged in.

  The disgust in Noovin rose to near-unbearable levels. He lowered the fist, unclenched it, felt as tired as he had in decades. “We’ve been at this a long time.” That much was true, hours of pouring over holographic reports, tables of organization and planning, holovideos of Assembly hearings, riots, war. “I’ve arranged for refreshment downstairs. Might I suggest we all retire there for a late dinner?”

  “Not quite yet,” Anton said, sitting up from the depths of his plush chair. He glanced at Karrisa before pulling a fingernail-sized crystal from a wrist band, hidden till then in his baggy sleeve. Spidery, liver-spotted fingers inserted it into the data input slot of the coffee table before him. “There is still this.”

  A new globular flashed to life from the table’s projector, kept flashing as slivers of lighting slashed the image within in. Stars spun in the background. Metallic shapes ripped through the foreground. One intersected with a streak of cyan and ruptured like a rotten fruit, pumped full of petroleum and thrown against a wall. Against that fiery smear of death, a second steely shape streaked—

  —and froze, held there by a pause in the holorecording.

  Noovin recognized the starfighter, felt a thumb of ice run down his spine.

  “You no doubt know of these?” Anton asked.

  “Hellhound,” Noovin replied. “Standard attack flitter of the onetime terrorist organization known as the Hell’s Jesters.” He shrugged. “What of them?”

  “You don’t seem especially concerned,” Karissa noted.

  “We haven’t seen much of them, of late,” Noovin replied, “what with them having folded up into the Union Fleet, proper. They took heavy losses at the Battles for Loudon, by all accounts.” He fixed Anton with a stare. “Am I supposed to be more concerned than that?”

  “A human organization, pairing up with machines and artificial intelligences of a reputedly high level of sentience?” Anton’s lips peeled back from the crooked, yellowed shards of his teeth. “That doesn’t sound familiar to you, at all?”

  It did, of course. But Noovin sighed derisively. “You mean Ghost in the Machine?”

  Despite his tone, the room stilled, as though he’d spoken the name of some eldritch spirit. In fact, the specter of the homicidal AI that’d plunged the entire galaxy into decades-long strife and brought the Methuselah-controlled order down in flames, clearly haunted them still. And even Noovin felt the chilly caress of those dark days in the back of his skull.

  “We never knew if we got every copy of it,” Karissa said in a hushed voice.

  “You’re right,” Noovin said, “but this isn’t that. It’s an outlaw party wielding outlaw tech; nothing more.”

  Julian arched his perfect eyebrows. “You seem very certain of that.”

  “We’ve heard rumors otherwise,” Karissa added.

  “Oh, your whisper networks have picked up on something missed by the Crime Division of the Cybernetics Bureau?” Noovin asked incredulously. “Or by the AIB?”

  “That would be the same Alliance Intelligence Bureau that didn’t know an entire task force of Alliance ships and crews would desert to the Union at the war’s start?” Anton quipped with a rat-like smirk.

  Exasperated, Noovin held flung up his hands. “Fine. You want to hear it?” He pivoted to glare at each of them, as though he was haranguing the full Assembly and High Council. “It’s concerning. Of course, it is. But unless one of you brings evidence that not one of the intelligence departments of the entire Grand Galactic Alliance has uncovered, I’m not exactly certain what you expect me to do about this!”

  “Assurances, Alex,” Karissa pressed. “We need to be sure.”

  “How?”

  “Destroy the Jesters!” Anton snarled with venom so sudden a tendril of spittle drooled from his awful teeth. “Wipe them out and every shred of whatever tech they’re utilizing!”

  “You think we haven’t been trying?” Noovin fired back. “For years?”

  “But you know where they’ll likely be next,” Julian said in an even voice clearly meant to calm the outburst. “Those intelligence apparatuses have
at least been keeping tabs on them.”

  “Yes.” Noovin nodded slowly, gave his anger time to settle. “Yes, they have. The chatter from the Admiralty is that the offensives against Bolingbroke and Saipan are likely to be stubbornly-resisted, full Union commitment. Their fleet movements suggest it. And Saipan just declared for the Union, last month. Levine and his traitor government don’t want to be seen abandoning yet another world after losing so many.”

  “And the third world?” Karissa asked. “Fury?”

  “Looks to be defended on a shoestring,” Noovin replied. “The Union landed a division of former-Alliance marines, there, six months ago—a hardened force.”

  “Traitors.” Anton wiped the slobber from his chin.

  Noovin nodded. “To be sure, but tough ones. They hold the most habitable regions, as well as the mining sites, and have defeated the local Alliance forces’ attempts to break their beachhead. But their aerospace assets have been whittled down to near nothing and the Navy has been increasingly successful at ferrying in reinforcements.”

  “So, all eyes turn to Fury?” Julian prompted.

  “It’s rumors,” Noovin replied, “but Naval Intelligence does suspect the Union will throw the Jesters into the mix there.”

  “Then there’s your opportunity,” Karissa said.

  “And, again, I’d ask what it is exactly you expect me to do? These are military matters, not civilian ones.”

  “You’re a High Councilor of the Grand Galactic Alliance, Alexi,” Julian drawled. “Placed there by the Sabbat to right the affairs of the galaxy, to bring them back where they belong after being torn away from us, so long ago.”

  “By a machine,” Anton snarled.

  “If the Hell’s Jesters come back out in the open,” Karissa said, “you are to ensure every resource is marshalled to ensure their destruction and the destruction of whatever technology it is that stands behind their remarkable successes.”