Battlestations! Read online

  BATTLESTATIONS!

  Far Beyond - Book 3

  Christian Kallias

  Contents

  Also by Christian Kallias

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright

  Dramatis Personae

  PREVIOUSLY on Far Beyond

  Prologue

  1. One hour earlier - on board the Osiris

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Epilogue

  Want to read three more books right now?

  Thanks to all my patrons

  Also by Christian Kallias

  About the Author

  Also by Christian Kallias

  The Universe in Flames Series

  Book 1: Earth - Last Sanctuary (Definitive Edition)

  Book 1.5: Ryonna's Wrath (Novella)

  Book 2: Fury to the Stars

  Book 3: Destination Oblivion

  Book 4: The Beginning of the End

  Book 5: Rise of the Ultra Fury

  Book 6: Shadows of Olympus

  Book 7: Armageddon Unleashed

  Book 8: Twilight of the Gods

  Book 9: Requiem of Souls

  Book 10: To End All Wars (Conclusion of Fury Arc)

  Books 1-5 available on Audiobook.

  Universe In Flames - Origins

  Episode 1: Course Correction

  Episode 2: Damocles Fall (Definitive Edition)

  Universe In Flames - Dark Legacy Series

  Book 1: NEMESIS

  Book 2: Unleashed (coming summer/fall 2019)

  Far Beyond Series

  Book 0: Across the Galactic Pond

  Book 1: Fire at Will

  Book 2: Make it So! (this book)

  Book 3: Battlestations!

  Rewind Series

  Book 0: Out of Time (short)

  Book 1: Rewind 717

  Acknowledgments

  Cover artwork by Christian Kallias

  [email protected]

  www.christiankallias.com

  www.facebook.com/ChristianKallias

  www.twitter.com/kalliasx

  Production Editor & Alpha/ARC Team Lead

  Paula Lavattiata Lopez- myeditcheck.com

  Editors

  Paula Lavattiata Lopez - myeditcheck.com

  Miliana Chipăilă

  Proofreaders

  Paula Lavattiata Lopez

  Miliana Chipăilă

  ARC Team (thanks everyone!)

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2019 by Christian Kallias

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  First Printing of original book, 2019

  Version 1.02

  Dramatis Personae

  Earthlings

  Kevin - 17-year-old human

  Boomer - Kevin’s dog, a beagle

  Arcadian Confederate

  Princess Kalliopy - Leader of the Arcadian Confederate

  Ziron - Cat-like alien species (called a Sphynx), Engineer, & Inventor

  Athala - Kalliopy’s sister

  Corso - Admiral in the Arcadian Fleet

  Mira - Artificial Intelligence

  Kregans

  Xonax - New Kregan Emperor.

  Others

  Lacuna - Humanoid (race: unknown)

  Darmak - Lacuna’s associate (race: Domdori)

  Myrianna - Humanoid Tech Sorceress (race: unknown)

  Orion 8-3-9-6 (eight-three-nine-six) - Artificial Intelligence

  0-0-1 (zero-zero-one) - Artificial Intelligence

  Leg’olas – Alien spider

  PREVIOUSLY on Far Beyond

  Book 0: Across the Galactic Pond

  Kevin receives a rejection letter from MIT, and his father loves to tell him how much he’s a failure and a loser at every turn. Having skipped dinner, Kevin witnesses a spacecraft crashing into a nearby lake. Going against his common sense, he swims toward the crashed craft to find a dying purple-skinned alien who implores Kevin to help save his people. All Kevin has to do is put a blinking pill under his tongue. After a short inner debate, Kevin does, and his consciousness is teleported to a far beyond (see what I did there?) galaxy where his thoughts are remote-controlling a deceased alien crew member aboard a super-duper top secret R&D ship with superior firepower. That ship is not only the key but the last hope for the Arcadian Confederate to defeat, or at the very least, repel the Kregan final assault. There’s only one hitch, the ship’s AI, Mira, has been disconnected from her ability to fly the ship, which is about to be destroyed. Kevin’s arrival changes all that, and his extreme compatibility with neuronal interfaces make him an ideal candidate to not only become the ship’s new captain but also save the Confederate.

  Armed with renewed motivation, Kevin helps Mira save the ASF (Arcadian Space Fleet) Thalamos and turn the tide of the Confederation War, thanks to the latest in R&D weaponry called Project Sigma. Paired with Kevin’s astute piloting skills honed from countless hours of video game practice back on Earth, Kevin is victorious, even though the Thalamos, a one of a kind prototype ship, is destroyed in the process.

  When presented to the princess on board Arcadia Prime, he’s granted one wish. He chooses a kiss that he, unfortunately, never gets the opportunity to receive, as the Arcadian Princess’ exotic scent makes him sneeze, and the device that allowed his consciousness to be present in the far beyond galaxy is lost in the process.

  Book 1: Fire at Will

  Kevin is back on Earth after saving the Arcadian Confederate by having his consciousness sent to an alien body in another galaxy. Upon his return home to his boring life, nobody believes his far-fetched story of intergalactic war.

  But when a Kregan agent is sent to capture or kill Kevin, the 17-year-old boy is thrown back into the mix. This time though, he and his pet beagle, Boomer, get transported aboard an actual Arcadian Confederate ship called the Osiris.

  There, Kevin meets Ziron, a cat-like creature called a Sphynx, who is the Confederate’s most inventive engineer. He develops next-gen weaponry and some more or less stable super suits called smart armor. Ziron enlists Kevin to help him save the Arcadian Princess, Kalliopy. The same princess Kevin was about to kiss (via the alien proxy body) before sneezing the tech into a lake.

  Kevin agrees to help Ziron save the princess, secretly hoping he’d finally get another chance to kiss the pouty lips of the beautiful Kalliopy. And so their adventures begin. First, Kevin and Boomer must locate the princess, and, to do so, they have to infiltrate a dangerous and extremely tall building on the planet Omicron each armed with smart armor that allow them to morph into anything their brain can conjure. The smart armor also allows Kevin’s dog, Boomer, to speak. Once they arrive at their destination, they meet with their contact, only to learn that person has been replaced.

  Enter Lacuna, a ruthless and manipulative humanoid who only agrees to help Kevin if they agree to take her with them. She tempts Kevin into getting the Arcadian C
onfederate an aging fleet of ships rumored to have disappeared a thousand years ago. They find the fleet and obtain information on Kalliopy’s location, but Lacuna tries to double-cross them and keep the fleet for herself.

  Kevin and Boomer thwart her plans, and while both Ziron and Boomer ask for Lacuna to get spaced, Kevin decides not to execute the young girl. Instead, he ties her up inside one of the Osiris’ shuttles and programs it to return to Omicron at a slow speed. A trip that would take many days.

  Meanwhile, Kevin and Boomer engage a fleet of pirates and Xonax’s capital ship. Xonax holds the princess hostage and tortures her trying to get vital information for the Kregan to win the war against the Arcadian Confederate.

  Kevin manages to rescue the princess, and right before he’s about to get his first kiss, she plants a personal transporter on him, and Kevin is beamed into the ship of the leader of the pirates—Altanor.

  Book 2: Make it So!

  Kevin wakes up on board the pirate ship to discover that Princess Kalliopy has betrayed him for his efforts to rescue her from the evil prince, Xonax. In a cold, dark cell he meets with a talking spider named Leg’olas who has the power of healing Kevin’s wounds.

  Meanwhile, on board the Osiris, Boomer is outraged to learn of the fate of his master and best friend and wants to mount a rescue, but he’s overruled by the princess who is laser-focused on first rescuing her imprisoned sister, Athala. Light years away, Lacuna receives a visitor on her slow trip back home. She is still bound to a chair inside the transport craft Kevin generously gave her after she tried to betray him, Boomer, and Ziron. The visitor is her associate and right arm, Darmak, who is more muscle than brains but who managed to track her subspace signal and come to her rescue.

  With newfound respect for Kevin, and upon learning someone else has conquered all her estates on Omicronia, Lacuna attempts to offer her services to Kevin, if only to repay him for sparing her life the way he did. Upon rejoining with the Osiris, she learns of the princess’ villainous act of trading Kevin for her sister’s life.

  Lacuna enlists Boomer, and with the help of Ziron, who provides them with less advanced smart suits, they head into Kregan space to rescue Kevin. Unfortunately, Kevin has been mutated into a tech-sorcerer killing machine by his pirate captors, his body modified by implants to simulate magic, his mind invaded, and his motor functions controlled by a vile AI named Orion 8-3-9-6.

  Unwillingly controlled by the AI, Kevin kills innocents and even helps assassinate Xonax’s father. Xonax then takes his father’s place as the new Emperor of the Kregan Empire. But he is wounded in the attempt and in critical condition when Kevin’s friends show up to try to rescue him from both the pirates and the AI controlling his body.

  An epic battle ensues, and Kevin must fight inside a matrix construct within 8-3-9-6’s main memory while his body is relentlessly trying to kill everyone he holds dear. Kevin is quickly out-gunned as the AI adapts to his fighting techniques borrowed from his time spent with comic books, anime, and movies. 8-3-9-6 progresses faster than Kevin can figure out new tactics. When all hope seems lost, Myrianna, the tech-sorceress who trained Kevin (before the implanted AI overrode his will and body), encourages him. Kevin finally defeats 8-3-9-6 and recovers control over his body.

  Kevin reunites with his friends, and they all leave Kregan space after having recovered Kalliopy’s sister in the process. Kalliopy is ashamed of her decision to deliver Kevin to the enemy, but Kevin, who also has a sister, can relate to Kalliopy’s difficult choice and forgives the princess. She tries to give him the kiss she owed him for so long, but Kevin simulates a sneeze and excuses himself. Instead, he has developed feelings for Lacuna, the badass, yet morally ambiguous girl who risked her life to rescue him.

  Kevin visits Lacuna, and they kiss. She invites him into her quarters aboard the Osiris, and when they’re about to get passionate with each other, Kevin starts losing control of his motor functions again. 8-3-9-6 has returned. A small part of the AI’s code has survived, and he’s reconstructing himself inside Kevin’s mind.

  When Kevin’s friends propose to help disable the AI, 8-3-9-6 warns them that if they attempt anything, he will make sure that Kevin dies in the process. When the AI mentions only its master (0-0-1) can truly deactivate him, Kevin asks his friends to put him in suspended animation and set a course toward the planet where he was turned into a powerful tech-sorcerer, hoping that Myrianna will be able to disable the AI once and for all.

  Meanwhile, Xonax survives his surgery, albeit disfigured and with half of his face replaced by cybernetic parts, and now sits on the throne of the Kregan Empire. With a vengeance and hatred searing inside his heart, he orders the construction of an invasion fleet to take over the world he considers the biggest threat to his future: Earth.

  And now the conclusion of the Far Beyond saga.

  Prologue

  Six weeks later - on Myrianna’s planet

  Kevin looked at the blood on his right palm he just swiped off his face. His heartbeat was dangerously fast.

  I can’t lose this battle! The stakes are too high. I need to save Boomer, Lacuna, and my entire world.

  You can’t hope to defeat my master, said Orion 8-3-9-6.

  Fighting an AI-possessed Myrianna was difficult enough; after all, she had trained him. But having 8-3-9-6 in his mind while trying to focus made things worse. The AI did not fully control his body but managed to interfere in crucial moments of the fight to make sure Kevin did not hurt Myrianna, and by association, the AI’s master.

  “Myrianna! I know you’re in there somewhere, please fight this!” Kevin pleaded.

  But the tech-sorceress answered with more fireball spells heading toward him.

  So be it! Let’s do this the hard way then!

  Kevin deflected all but one attack and blocked the last one with his right hand, adding his own spell and growing the attack tenfold. When he was ready to throw it back to his enemy, the AI paralyzed his arm for a fraction of a second, which was plenty of time for Myrianna to kick Kevin’s arm and have the powerful attack fly upward into the sky. It dispersed into a large formation of dark-red clouds as it continued its trajectory toward the stratosphere of the planet.

  I won’t let you win! exclaimed 8-3-9-6.

  Kevin knew that he had no other choice but to use his only ace in the hole. Ziron had given him a nano-pill that once ingested would briefly disrupt the AI. But his feline-looking friend could not tell him how long the interference would last.

  When Kevin’s body fell back toward the ground, Myrianna threw herself at him with a vicious series of power punches and kick combos, sending him into the dust hundreds of meters away. Myrianna, who didn’t appear in a hurry to dispatch Kevin, walked toward him at a brisk pace.

  Not that I have a choice, anyway. Fighting her with all my senses on the best of days would already be difficult, I can’t have 8-3-9-6 throw a monkey wrench into all my tactics. Or this battle won’t last long.

  If only there weren’t so many lives at stake, perhaps Kevin could fight with a clear-headed mind. But with his friends in prison and Xonax heading to Earth with his shiny, new fleet, time was running out.

  Kevin mentally opened a subspace channel.

  Zee, are you there?

  What can I do for you, Kevin? answered Ziron. How is it going down there?

  Bad. I need to use your pill. I wish I knew how long it would be effective, and I haven’t been able to get through to Myrianna yet.

  That’s unfortunate.

  You can say that again. I hate taking a shot in the dark, but 8-3-9-6 is undermining me at every turn. I haven’t been able to inflict any significant damage.

  Seems like you don’t have a choice then.

  Can you do me a favor?

  Anything, Kevin.

  If I don’t survive, promise me you will rescue my friends and try to save my planet.

  Don’t say that, Kevin! I don’t want to hear this from you.

  Zee! There’s no way to know
if I’ll survive this fight. It doesn’t look good, you know?

  But you must, Kevin. I am only an engineer. I can promise you I will try, but I can’t guarantee the outcome. When it comes to fighting the Kregan, you’ve demonstrated that you can out-think them at every turn.

  Myrianna was getting closer. It was time to wrap things up with Ziron. Kevin knew that even if his Sphynx friend had the best of intentions, Kevin’s request was far beyond this feline’s strong suit.

  Use your friend’s strengths, Kevin, said a female voice inside his mind. And never give up.

  Myrianna?

  But she did not answer.

  Zee! She’s in there. I just heard Myrianna. You need to try to hack me a communication’s channel with her after I disable 8-3-9-6.

  And how the hell do you expect me to do that? By snapping my paws? Besides, I’m busy modifying Boomer’s suit so I can beam it down to you. I can’t possibly work on both these things at once.