Galactic Satori Chronicles: Kron Read online

  Galactic Satori Chronicles

  Kron

  Nick Braker

  And

  Paul E. Hicks

  Copyright © 2017 Nick Braker & Paul E. Hicks

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 1540509877

  ISBN 13: 9781540509871

  Contents

  Chapter 1 Bad-Ass Brock

  Chapter 2 Omarii Miguel

  Chapter 3 Mariangel

  Chapter 4 Amanda

  Chapter 5 Tess

  Chapter 6 Ruth

  Chapter 7 Galibri

  Chapter 8 Li Xin

  Chapter 9 Mira

  Chapter 10 Tia

  Chapter 11 Carena

  Chapter 12 Ryikoda

  Chapter 13 Kada

  Chapter 14 Bacteria

  Chapter 15 Katerra and Magnus

  Chapter 16 Magnus and Katerra

  Chapter 17 Alliance?

  Chapter 18 Katerra’s Ruse

  Chapter 19 Magnus Believes

  Chapter 20 Katerra’s Conception

  Chapter 21 Earth Fights Back

  Chapter 22 Another Portal

  Chapter 23 Launch Day

  Chapter 24 Katerra’s Pregnancy

  Chapter 25 Forasia

  Chapter 26 The Ritual

  Chapter 27 Fight One

  Chapter 28 Fight Two

  Chapter 29 Fight Three

  Chapter 30 The Queen Returns

  Chapter 31 Earth’s Counterstrike

  Chapter 32 Kron

  Chapter 33 Earth

  A Word from the Author

  About the Author

  DEDICATION

  Nick Braker:

  I owe a lot to those that have sacrificed their time to help make this book a success. Nothing is enough to thank these individuals for their effort, but I’ll do my best. Here they are in no particular order.

  Paul E. Hicks: co-author and understanding friend. I can be very pushy with deadlines.

  James Hagey: Beta-reader, longtime colleague and friend; an erudite and semi-professional historian. He knows just about everything.

  Tom Snipes: Beta-reader, longtime colleague and friend. He literally reads one word at a time. Yes, he found a lot of mistakes. No, you cannot steal him from me as a beta-reader.

  Jerry Moffett: Beta-reader and longtime friend. His input with plot holes and character personalities (on those days when I refused to listen to what my characters wanted to tell me) was invaluable.

  Charita Braker: Beta-reader and ultra-forgiving wife. We rewrote chapter one under her astute guidance after completing the book. It felt like nails on a chalkboard, but the product is better as a result. She reminds me of Seph.

  Jim Guyer: Longtime friend. I must tip my hat to this man for getting me started.

  Paul E. Hicks:

  It takes a lot of time and dedication to write a book. There are long wondrous hours planning the story and stepping through the adventure. Nick and I could spend an hour of lunch talking about the story and it feel like five minutes. As a writer, this is when the excitement fills you and you find the passion to throw the words into the story as fast as your fingers will type, then the real work begins. You read what you wrote and realize the characters forgot their lines and started ad-libbing. Sometimes this is good and other times, not so much. Then you let your coauthor read the scene. He gives his comments and fists start flying, along with a few choice names. Okay, okay, I may be stretching it a little bit. We decided long time ago that the friendship was much more important than the book. Right Nick? ...Nick?

  A lot of thanks need to be given to my coauthor and friend, Nick. Without his persistent pushing to work on the book, it wouldn’t be ready to publish.

  A thank you goes to James Hagey and Tom Snipes for beta-reading the book. Although, I don’t think we had to push them any as they were impatient to find out what happened next. Thanks guys for everything that you pointed out.

  Finally, some special thanks go to our wives: LeAnn Hicks and Charita Braker. They do, after all, put up with us on a regular basis. They read our story, give feedback and dirty glares when we get defensive... then we cower and get back to work.

  Chapter 1

  BAD-ASS BROCK

  Earth - Washington, DC

  Tuesday, October 13, 1987 - 11:55am

  Magnus

  Magnus wiped the sweat from his face with his sleeve while looking back for the extraterrestrial creature pursuing them. He took stock of the warehouse’s interior hoping to find a way out; anything to get his team to safety. Moments ago, he had ordered them to take cover in it. They needed to regroup. The run and the noonday heat in Nicaragua had left them exhausted and out of breath. Only seven of them stood against a single alien and her unwitting, human accomplices. They consisted of roughly fifteen, well-armed and well-trained Nicaraguans. The aliens called themselves the Kron and, using their technology, they had mentally projected one of their own into the mind of Nicaragua’s leader, Miguel Norina. The creature, they called an Omarii, controlled Miguel completely, allowing it to operate on Earth.

  Miguel’s men laid down suppression fire, storming the warehouse and moving into better positions. Magnus ordered his team to withhold their fire, hoping to keep their location secret; it offered them a small reprieve before they would have to run again.

  “Once they get into position, they’re going to attack,” Grep whispered. “They’ll eventually find us.”

  Magnus nodded at Grep. Grep sat with his back against a concrete wall, grime covered his face. From the direction of the smears of sweat and dirt, Grep favored his left arm and was trying to hide an injury. Blood and dirt covered Brock’s face and neck, but at least it wasn’t his own blood. Magnus wrinkled his nose. They all smelled of sweat from the heat and exertion.

  “Hell, Mag,” Brock said, trying to get his breath back. “Let’s just rush them with guns blazing.” Brock pushed Magnus’ shoulder urging him to attack.

  “Even as good as you are, there are too many, bro,” Magnus said. “We need a better plan.”

  When Brock was on, his Aliri augmentations made him a killing machine. Unfortunately, Brock vacillated between an above average human and an Aliri augmented human. None of them knew why and Magnus couldn’t handle another friend’s life forfeited on his watch. The Aliri were another race of aliens, ones trying to help humanity against the Kron. The two alien races had a long history of war between them and now Earth seemed caught in the middle. Their war had brought death to Earth. Magnus grimaced, remembering the pain once again.

  Tens of thousands of human beings, Bree, Rosalyn, Fira, Warren. Beth... they fucking murdered her. Not now, hold yourself together.

  Magnus breathed in, releasing it slowly. His shoulders relaxed and his head fell back, touching the concrete wall.

  “You okay, Magnus?” Grep asked.

  Magnus nodded, brushing Grep’s concern aside. Six heavy duty forklift trucks lined the left side of the warehouse’s rear bay behind them. Magnus’ team had used the trucks as cover to get deeper into the building under the assault of Miguel and his guards outside. The bay door stood completely open and, since it was wide enough for a small jet to fit through, Miguel’s troops had pressed their attack, pushing Magnus and team farther inside. Magnus’ team had taken up positions behind several concrete-walled offices that lined the interior side walls of the warehouse. Ahead of them lay row after row of triple-tiered storage racks reaching well over forty feet to the ceiling. Various sized cardboard boxes lined each row on all three tiers.

  Those boxes offer visual cover only but we don’t have a choice.

  “Let’s move deeper into the warehouse,” Magnus ord
ered. “We need to keep moving. You agree, Grep?”

  “Always,” Grep said.

  Sarcasm noted.

  “Mag,” Brock said, “Miguel has an entire army protecting his country. We don’t have much time before reinforcements arrive.”

  “WSO is on that,” Grep said. “World leaders are actively in contact with Miguel’s military commander, apprising him of the alien attack on their country’s leader. Now, whether this commander believes it or not is another matter.”

  “Enough talk,” Magnus said. “Move.”

  Magnus motioned the other four World Security Organization (WSO) agents to fall back to the storage racks. He would send his team along the rows down the left main aisle. If they were spotted, the cardboard boxes wouldn’t protect them.

  Brock and Grep moved back next, followed by Magnus. The WSO agents, whose names he didn’t bother to remember, covered them. The group repeated the process, moving back, row by row. Miguel’s men might try to flank them by moving around the warehouse from the outside, but Magnus had factored that in. If they did, they would have to split up and that was Magnus’ intention. Tactically used, separating the enemy gave his team a better chance to survive. He just had to make sure Miguel didn’t fight them on two fronts.

  “Allí están,” one of Miguel’s men yelled.

  “Run!” Grep ordered, waving his arm forward.

  Their machine guns shredded the cardboard boxes, sending pieces of plastic and packing foam into the air. The group sprinted down the left main aisle. Magnus pushed two WSO agents along, forcing them to run faster. Bullets whizzed by and several ricocheted off the concrete wall on their left. Only a miracle had saved them so far.

  “Move, move!” Magnus ordered, yelling over the machine gun fire from their right side. “Brock, cover fire.”

  Brock, still on the run, fired six times toward the source of gunfire behind him and to the right. Grep joined him. Both couldn’t possibly see their targets but Magnus intended to slow the enemy pursuit, hoping to give them pause. Ahead of his team, a twenty-foot wall stood at the end of the aisle. Its dull, metallic shine screamed cover to Magnus. He had to get his people behind it. More bullets sprayed the area as Miguel’s troops fired randomly through the cardboard boxes and their contents.

  They reached the metallic wall. Magnus had no choice; he had to cut right, along the wall even though the path would take them closer to the opposite aisle. Magnus knew another group of Miguel’s people covered the right side main aisle and they would mow his team down in the open.

  More gunfire scattered dust and debris into the air. One of his agents dropped, sliding left into the metal wall. The agent was hit. On the run, Magnus sidestepped left toward the man and wrenched him up by the belt, pulling him along. At the end of the metallic wall, on the left, was a door. The door was part of a large walk-in freezer. He had two choices, continue running to the opposite aisle where certain death waited or take cover inside the freezer. He dreaded both options so he took the lesser of two evils.

  “Inside,” he ordered.

  Miguel’s troops might be split, but they still had the tactical advantage. Magnus had to get his team cover first. They managed to get inside and then Magnus shoved Grep through the doorway, slamming the metal door closed behind them. The impact of multiple bullets followed. Several of them ducked, but the bullets did not penetrate the thick metallic freezer walls. Their rapid breathing puffed steamy clouds into the room after each gulp. The icy air felt good compared to the heat but they couldn’t stay. They were not safe here either. Exhaustion permeated them and uncertainty lined their faces. Magnus could see it in their eyes, they didn’t believe they would make it.

  “You, check this man’s injuries,” Magnus ordered. “Is anyone else hurt?”

  One of the agents Alexandria had assigned to the mission assessed the fallen man. The rest patted themselves down, nodding that they were fine.

  “Alright, we need a way out of here,” Magnus said.

  Brock disappeared through a door-sized section of clear, flexible plastic strips. They hung from the ceiling, separating this smaller area from the rest of the walk-in freezer.

  “He took a hit to his lower leg, sir,” an agent said. “He has a nasty bump on his head, too. He’s coming around though.”

  The wounded agent groaned as Magnus leaned down to him.

  “You’re going to make it, Agent...?” Magnus asked.

  The man’s eyes focused on Magnus.

  “Davidson. Pete Davidson.”

  “Right. Sorry,” Magnus said, “Pete, you’re gonna have to walk. We’re not leaving you behind. Can-”

  “I’ll run if I have to,” Pete said, locking eyes with Magnus.

  Magnus grinned.

  “Good man. Bind his leg. We have to move now,” Magnus ordered.

  Brock reappeared.

  “Mag, we got another exit out of here. It’s a big ass’d door on the far side of the other room.”

  Magnus pointed at several of the agents.

  “You, you and you,” Magnus said, “put down some suppression fire through the door we entered.”

  “Yes, sir. And the name is John, sir.”

  “Thanks, John,” Magnus said, feeling guilty for not remembering their names.

  Alexandria had assigned the new recruits to him at the last minute when she learned another Omarii planned to destroy Earth again. The creatures took mental possession of other beings. It’s what they did. Today, it controlled the mind of the leader of the Nicaraguan people, Miguel Norina, and it had used Miguel in a second plan to try to destroy Earth, this time with a pandemic substance. Using Miguel’s desire for power, he had unknowingly allowed an Omarii to control one of his scientists who claimed to have found a way to grow food in nearly any environment. The powerful lure of an unlimited supply of food caused Miguel to fund the research blindly. That was the ruse. The real goal of the Kron agent lay in creating a virus capable of destroying the world’s food supply. According to Grep, the aggressiveness of the virus to plants surpassed that of measles to humans.

  The World Security Organization had contained the pandemic substance, but the Omarii and her unwitting human followers were now the problem. These humans had no idea that a being from another part of the galaxy controlled their leader. In their eyes, Magnus and team were assassins who had to be stopped at all costs. While Earth might be safe, Magnus and his team were not.

  “Where are we?” Pete asked, still trying to clear his head.

  “It is an industrial-sized refrigeration room or, more precisely, our coffin,” Grep answered. Magnus glared at Grep, who held up a hand, continuing. “If they get a grenade in here, we’re all dead. The concussive force would paint the walls with our blood and entrails. We are the paint cans.”

  Several more bullets hit the door, ricocheting off.

  “Go,” Magnus said, motioning them into the next area.

  Magnus lifted Agent Davidson to his feet, putting one of the man’s arms around his shoulder. John flung the door open and fired blindly through it, keeping cover on the right side of the doorway. The other two stayed on the left, firing as well. Miguel’s men returned fire. Several rounds hit the back wall of the room and around the doorway. Their gunfire paused. John glanced through the doorway, shooting back. Magnus helped Davidson into the next room, leaving the three agents to protect their flank.

  “I count around twenty, sir,” John said, yelling over the weapon fire.

  Damn it, there are more than I thought.

  The three agents fired again, this time John had a weapon in each hand.

  “Three down,” John yelled.

  “I can’t believe you’re letting him have all the fun,” Brock said. He glanced several times toward the other room where John and team were keeping the enemy at bay.

  “This shit ain’t over, yet,” Magnus said. “Get that rear door open-”

  The enemy’s bullets pelted the wall in the first room, forcing the agents to take cov
er. Magnus set Agent Davidson down carefully, wrinkling his nose at the air around him. The room smelled like freezer burn tasted. Boxes lined the shelves on both sides, covered in frost. This section of the freezer was colder. The icy temperature seeped into his clothing and the gun leeched the heat from him as the cold burned his hands.

  “Keep your head down, Magnus,” Brock said, getting into position on the right side of the new door. “I’m gonna open this thing.”

  One of the agents hasn’t returned fire.

  “Move now,” Magnus ordered. “We’re losing men.”

  Damn it.

  Gunfire from the first room continued.

  “We can’t continue like this,” Grep yelled.

  “Then come up with a better plan, genius,” Magnus snapped. If it weren’t for his self-control, Magnus’ reaction would have been much worse.

  “Two more down,” John yelled, “but Zach is hurt. He’s bleeding bad.”

  Magnus clenched his teeth. People were dying. He had to do something.

  “That leaves about 15,” Magnus ordered. “John, shut the door, grab Zach, and-”

  “Grenade!” John screamed. The grenade bounced inside the first room. Tink, tink, tink. “Zach. No!”

  The concussive wave rippled through the two rooms, the blast knocking them to the floor. It slammed Grep into the far wall. Magnus shook his head trying to clear it. How much time had passed?

  “-coffin,” Grep managed to say.

  Magnus lay on the floor, barely hearing the last part of Grep’s comment. Grep had his hands over his ears. Magnus shook his head, trying to force his ears to hear again, his augmented healing already repairing his eardrums. He rolled to his feet and ran to the front section. He staggered, but managed to steady himself on the door frame. The three men were down; likely dead. Parts of Zach’s body lay in shreds on the floor, the rest of it splayed like paint along the walls and ceiling.

  “Help me get them to safety,” Magnus yelled. “Grep, cover fire.”

  Grep unloaded on the enemy, firing through the first door. Magnus grabbed the only man still moving in the room and pulled him through the now blackened and shredded plastic strips.