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  Lynch’s Legacy

  (Spineward Sectors: Middleton’s Pride, Book Six)

  by

  Caleb Wachter

  Copyright © 2016 by Caleb Wachter

  All rights reserved.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. All resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental. Respect my electronic rights because the money you save today will be the book I can't afford to write for you tomorrow.

  Other Books by Caleb Wachter

  As of 08-06-2016

  SPINEWARD SECTORS: MIDDLETON’S PRIDE

  No Middle Ground

  Up The Middle

  Against The Middle

  McKnight’s Mission (A House Divided)

  Middleton’s Prejudice

  Lynch’s Legacy

  SPHEREWORLD NOVEL SERIES

  Joined at the Hilt: Union

  SPHEREWORLD NOVELLAS

  Between White and Grey

  SPINEWARD SECTORS: A TRACTO TALE

  The Forge of Men

  SEEDS OF HUMANITY: THE COBALT HERESY SERIES

  Revelation

  Reunion

  IMPERIUM CICERNUS SERIES

  Ure Infectus

  Sic Semper Tyrannis

  Books by my Brother: Luke Sky Wachter

  SPINEWARD SECTORS NOVEL SERIES

  Admiral Who?

  Admiral’s Gambit

  Admiral’s Tribulation

  Admiral’s Trial

  Admiral’s Revenge

  Admiral’s Spine

  Admiral Invincible

  Admiral's Challenge

  Admiral’s War - Part One

  Admiral’s War - Part Two

  RISE OF THE WITCH GUARD NOVEL SERIES

  The Blooding

  The Painting

  The Channeling

  RISE OF THE WITCH GUARD NOVELLAS

  The Boar Knife

  Join www.PacificCrestPublishing.com for future beta reading and other early access opportunities—or possibly even exclusive material!

  Table of Contents

  Prologue: A Matter of Priority

  Chapter I: I Ain’t Your Lord

  Chapter II: Captain on Deck!

  Chapter III: Down in Blue Fang Country

  Chapter IV: Gazing into the Abyss

  Chapter V: A Brief Detour

  Chapter VI: Into the Storm

  Chapter VII: Some Technical Explanations

  Chapter VIII: To Hear is Human, but to See…

  Chapter IX: Wally’s World

  Chapter X: The Long Nap

  Chapter XI: Reporting In

  Chapter XII: The Expanse

  Chapter XIII: Project Doppelganger

  Chapter XIV: A Clearer Picture

  Chapter XV: Lurking in Shadows

  Chapter XVI: I Made a Mistake

  Chapter XVII: A Sign

  Chapter XVIII: A Cryptic Warning

  Chapter XIX: Pushing the Timetable

  Chapter XX: A Premonition

  Chapter XXI: The Big Bang(s)

  Chapter XXII: Triage

  Chapter XXIII: No Time to Mourn

  Chapter XXIV: A Warning

  Chapter XXV: Taking a Breath

  Chapter XXVI: A Message From Beyond

  Chapter XXVII: An Unexpected Boon

  Chapter XXVIII: Final Preparations

  Chapter XXIX: The Blockade

  Chapter XXX: Out on The Hull

  Chapter XXXI: The Welcoming Party

  Chapter XXXII: Earning Your Hazard Pay

  Chapter XXXIII: The Unseen Knife

  Chapter XXXIV: The Conduit

  Chapter XXXV: Limping across the Finish Line

  Chapter XXXVI: The Next Step

  Chapter XXXVII: Learning to Mourn

  Chapter XXXVIII: A Fork in the Road

  Chapter XXXIX: One Warrior to Another

  Chapter XL: The Imperial Capitol

  Chapter XLI: Angels or Demons?

  Chapter XLII: The Verdict

  Chapter XLIII: Back at Base

  Chapter XLIV: A Game of Dominoes

  Chapter XLV: The Plot Thickens

  Epilogue: A Cryptic Word of Advice

  Preview: Fear God and Dread Naught, by Christopher G. Nuttall

  Prologue: A Matter of Priority

  Commander Lucius Minervini looked out the viewing portal on the seemingly serene, sunless world below. His hands were clasped rigidly behind his back as he stood there, appearing for all intents and purposes to be a statue on the bridge of the latest-generation Special Operations Cutter, the Constans Vigilantia, of which it was both Minervini’s sworn duty and privilege to serve as inaugural commander.

  His eyes required the benefit of the viewing portal’s light enhancing features just to see the rocky world over which his ship had taken up residence for the past two days. He imagined the molten magma which his computer analysis confirmed had surged through the planet’s sundered crust just a few short days earlier. The planet’s crust had been fractured by a standard set of subterranean charges not unlike those which Minervini himself had deployed on more than a few occasions as last-ditch control measures for securing sensitive locations from the enemies of humanity.

  But the magma was no longer flowing, and even if it had been it would not have been visible even with the assistance of the viewing portal before which he now stood. The molten rock, much like the trail of those who perpetrated the attack against the so-called Beta Site, had cooled far too much for any further clues to be gleaned from such a remove. Though, like the magma had done two days earlier, Minervini’s temper seethed through the micro-fractures in his previously polished veneer.

  It cannot end like this, he thought darkly. It must not end like this!

  He had reviewed the after-action reports for the disastrous event which had taken place merely a week earlier, and had brought his sleek vessel into orbit before any other Imperial forces had arrived. He had known that Senator Raubach aimed to lift his House far above any station it deserved to occupy, but never in his wildest dreams had he believed the man would be capable of such a monumental failure as actually losing a Core Fragment of MAN.

  “Commander,” reported one of the com-techs assigned to the Constans Vigilantia and, by extension, to Commander Minervini’s embedded operation within the so-called Reclamation Fleet commanded by Rear Admiral Arnold Janeski.

  “What is it?” the Commander asked over his shoulder, his eyes remaining fixed on the surface of the dark, barren world below.

  “A soft-coded message sent in the open, Commander,” the tech replied promptly as Minervini moved to stand over him and his station. “It fails to satisfy security requirements for such a transmission, but…” he hesitated.

  “But?” the Commander repeated icily, hoping for the sake of the young man’s career—and his psychological safety—that he had not unduly interrupted him from his ruminations. It was so difficult to train in com-techs on this generation of equipment, and Minervini had little desire to indulge in petty torments which his fellow officers would call ‘enforcing discipline’ when there was serious work to be done.

  “Project Archie was clearly referenced, Commander,” the tech finished, steeling his voice. Without a word, the Commander leaned down and accessed the file describing the message. The file contained all connected data, including the route the message had taken, the ident of the operative who had made it, the timestamps for the various p2p transfers required to bring it to him and, naturally, the message itself—which was alarmingly brief.

  Project Archie was the codename for a program which had been authorized over a century earlier—and, it should be noted, that program had been the brainchild of
House Raubach. The program had, ostensibly, attempted to discover the location of one of the hallowed MAN Core Fragments. ‘Archie’ had become synonymous among the Imperial Intelligence community with this particular Core Fragment.

  That Core Fragment, just like its counterparts, was unique in all of the universe. It was the only hope for humanity to reinstate its one, true god. It was, put simply, humanity’s only hope to survive. Without the Data God’s eventual revival and reinstatement at the center of all human affairs, the primitive human species would fall asunder to tribalism—and other, even more repugnant social forces better left to the confines of a zoo than the galactic community—within a few short centuries. As a member of that species, Commander Minervini felt it was his duty—no, it was his life’s purpose—to assist in the recovery and resurrection of their data god however he was able.

  In his mind, the window for the human race to return to what it should be was fast closing, and House Raubach might have just slammed it shut forever with their unforgivably negligent stupidity.

  But this lead was precisely what Minervini had ordered his team to scour the local data nets for ever since learning of the disastrous loss of the Core Fragment.

  Without asking the tech, he confirmed the itinerary of the message himself with a quick examination of the file’s contents. The transmission had originally been picked up by a freighter which unwittingly served as a data gathering unit: a small transceiver which had been surreptitiously installed nine months earlier. The name of the freighter, its crew manifest, cargo, and present location were only a tiny fraction of the information available to Minervini as he perused the transmission.

  After being picked up by the freighter, it was forwarded to the first available Imperial vessel. But that been three days since the freighter had first received the transmission, which meant that he was already four days behind. Normally such a delay would have angered him to no end, but the truth was that this was good news; before receiving this message he had been well over a week behind his quarry, and with that interval nearly cut in half he now had an idea where his quarry was headed.

  “The Overton Expanse,” he mused, pulling up star charts and transposing his present position—mostly out of habit—while doing the same for the transmission of the message he had just processed.

  There really was just one possible destination that made any kind of sense, given the available data, and it had been his intention to go there even before receiving this particular piece of evidence. He would have already done so if Rear Admiral Arnold Janeski had not held such longstanding ties to House Raubach. Ostensibly, House Raubach and House Cornwallis had been at odds for several decades; according to rumor, the last time those Houses had been fully united in purpose had been fifty years earlier.

  But Minervini hadn’t lived a century and a half, most of which had been spent in some variation of his current capacity, by taking the bait on such thin rumor and innuendo. More often than not, such rumblings were nothing more than clever attempts by the Great Houses to mislead their rivals into exposing their secrets to their supposed ‘allies.’ And Minervini’s loyalties were most certainly not with either of those Houses.

  No, there was the distinct possibility that Arnold Janeski himself had been involved in this travesty. But even if that was the case, the task of bringing him to justice for his complicity would have to fall to another member of the Imperial Intelligence Agency—Minervini had just picked up the scent, and like any tracker he was keen to commence with the hunt.

  “Helm,” he turned to his command chair on the minimalistic bridge of his Pulsar class Cutter, which was the epitome of Imperial technology as far as he was concerned, “enable silent running protocols.”

  “Silent running engaged, Commander,” his helmsman acknowledged just before Minervini had taken his seat. The lights on the bridge dimmed and several status icons flanking the main viewer were replaced as the ship’s systems shifted over to their second-most stealthy settings.

  His mouth quirked, slightly at first, before his leathery lips peeled back in a feral grin, “Take us to the hyper limit…and plot a least-time course for the Conduit.”

  He could feel the thrill of anticipation course around the small bridge, causing shoulders to straighten and visages to sharpen as the impact of his order sank in. “Yes, Commander,” his helmsman acknowledged a tick later than was preferable.

  His sleek craft easily pulled away from the planet, invisible to all but active sensors as it did so, but it only took six seconds for his com-tech to report, “The Commodore is ordering that we maintain position in the formation, Commander.”

  “Let him eat static,” Minervini said coolly, steepling his fingers before his eyes as the least-time jump itinerary appeared on the main viewer. An icon began to flash on the left arm in his command chair, but he ignored it as a series of contingency plans flitted through his mind in a blur.

  A moment later his com-tech said, “The Commodore is demanding that you receive his connection, sir.”

  “Is it a p2p?” Minervini asked without breaking his focus, knowing full-well that it was not.

  “Negative, Commander,” the tech replied, the barest hint of amusement in his voice.

  The Commander briefly considered a reprimand, but he and his people had been at the beck and call of these low-brow thugs for far too long. So in a rare display of mercy—one punctuated by the ominous delay in his reply—he allowed the tech to go unpunished this time. “A Special Operations vessel operating under the auspices of the Imperial Intelligence Agency does not respond to broadcasts or unsecured hails while carrying out a Zeta Priority package. Ignore it.”

  “Yes, Commander,” the tech replied, his ears turning a pleasant shade of red as he took the unspoken rebuke precisely as Minervini had hoped he would.

  He and his people had been compelled to comply with Janeski’s orders, or those of his subordinates, only because until this very moment he had lacked actionable evidence which would permit him to pursue a task more worthy of he and his peoples’ talents.

  Within minutes, the sleek craft had successfully cleared the rogue planet’s hyper limit. The hum of the point transfer drives was short-lived as they surrounded the ship with strange particles—particles which permitted the ship to briefly ignore several supposed ‘laws’ of physics, including those governing the movement of matter across the fabric of space-time. With a barely-perceptible flash, the Constans Vigilantia transitioned from the hyper limit of the so-called Beta Site to a point twenty light years closer to the Conduit, which lay on the far side of the Overton Expanse.

  It would be a dangerous journey, primarily because there was zero trillium to be found in the Expanse. The Vigilantia’s crew would therefore be required to ‘improvise’ in acquiring a sufficient supply of the precious material prior to undertaking his ultra-secretive mission. Otherwise, assuming their quarry had already laid in a large enough supply of the material, the Vigilantia would not only find itself adrift in the least hospitable portion of this galactic arm, but the thieves who had stolen the Core Fragment might return to the Empire before they could be intercepted.

  With luck on their side, the buffoons under Janeski would eventually piece the data together and send a detachment of their own to pursue the vessel. But, for reasons both official and political, Minervini was determined to reach the precious Core Fragment first.

  It was time that he and his crew did what they had trained to do, what they yearned to do, and what the far-too-fragile race of humanity demanded them to do—and nothing in the universe could hope to stop them from pursuing their MAN-given purpose.

  Not even death.

  Chapter I: I Ain’t Your Lord

  “Take a load off, Nikomedes,” the enigmatic Lynch instructed, gesturing to the chair opposite his own as he sat himself down on the far side of the metal desk. “Looks like we’ve got some palaverin’ to do.”

  Nikomedes deliberately moved to the indicated seat before slowly loweri
ng himself into it. His eyes scanned the room for any warning signs just as he always did when entering a potentially dangerous area. After seeing the Starborn prince do battle with Senator Raubach, Nikomedes knew it would take very little in the way of advantage for the heavily-augmented Lynch to overcome even the mightiest warrior Tracto had to offer.

  And it took no pride or vanity on his part to know that’s precisely what Nikomedes was: the mightiest warrior from his planet, at least among the current generation.

  He had accomplished things that he suspected would impress even the most legendary heroes of antiquity. From his slaying of the kraken as a stripling of a man, to earning his place as Felix’ second a few short years later, to surviving—and indeed thriving—among the Ice Raiders of Blue Fang Pass, he had accomplished more before the age of twenty than most warriors could claim to have done by fifty.

  And all of that was before he had been tasked with a ‘holy quest’ by the god of his people. That quest had taken him to the so-called River of Stars, where he had slowly, quietly, and patiently laid the groundwork for what would have been the greatest victory ever achieved by his countrymen.

  “Why’d you lie about your name?” Lynch asked, snapping Nikomedes back to the present.

  “I did not lie—“ Nikomedes began, only to be cut off by the dark-skinned Lynch.

  “Is that really how you wanna play this?” the other man asked harshly. “Because if it is, I ain’t gonna space you; I’ve got plenty of use for brainless thugs if that’s all you are. But before we begin this little relationship of ours, it’s important you understand something,” he said, leaning across the desk and fixing Nikomedes with the weighty gaze of a man who rarely knew defeat. “Even if you think I’m as stupid as you are, you’d do well to keep it to yourself. I haven’t survived this long by wasting my time with thick-thewed morons who try to play word games. When that’s what’s playin’, I change the channel—and I usually do it with prejudice. Feel me?”