Fleet of the Damned Read online

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  Wildside Press

  www.wildsidepress.com/

  Copyright ©1988 by Allan Cole

  First published in USA, 1988

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  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

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  CONTENTS

  THE FLEET OF THE DAMNED

  FOREWORD TO THE NOVEL SERIES

  THE STEN SERIES

  Dedication

  NOTE

  BOOK ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  BOOK TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  BOOK THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  BOOK FOUR

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE

  THE STEN COOKBOOK

  Recipe Index

  STEN

  THE WOLF WORLDS

  THE COURT OF A THOUSAND SUNS

  THE REVENGE OF THE DAMNED

  THE RETURN OF THE EMPEROR

  VORTEX

  EMPIRE'S END

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

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  The Fleet of the Damned (Sten #4)

  Allan Cole and Chris Bunch

  THE FLEET OF THE DAMNED

  Electronic version copyright © 2009 by Allan Cole.

  All rights reserved.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  FOREWORD TO THE NOVEL SERIES

  Hailed as a “landmark science fiction series” the Sten Series has thrilled millions of readers all over the world.

  Set three thousand years in the future, the eight Sten novels tell the tale of a tough, street-wise orphan who escapes his fate as factory planet “delinq” to become the strong right-hand of the most powerful man in the Universe—a man hailed by his billons of subjects as “The Eternal Emperor."

  THE HERO

  Sten is the ultimate survivor. He's lightning quick, mean streets cunning and blessed with the twin gifts of hungry intelligence and hard-won common sense. Born on a factory planet where life has less value than the lowliest machine, Sten rebels against The Company that enslaved, then killed his parents. He finds a new family of sorts—and the means for revenge—in the ranks of the Emperor's Imperial Forces.

  A series of crucial missions brings him to the attention of the Eternal Emperor himself. Sten's talents and unshakable loyalty are tested in crisis after crisis, brutal warfare, and assassination.

  Besides his “black ops” skills, Sten is armed with a weapon of last resort—he carries a small knife made of an undetectable substance in a flesh and muscle “sheath” in his arm. With a blade edge only one molecule thick, the knife can cut through any substance like butter.

  Sten rises swiftly until he becomes a confidante and advisor to the Emperor. Through all this Sten never forgets his lowly origins. Self-depreciating humor, friendship and luck in love shield him from Fame's blinding light. If anything his empathy and sense of responsibility for the common folk of the Empire grow with each new honor and badge of rank.

  Finally he is asked to make the supreme sacrifice—risking even those he loves—to stand up for the citizens of the Empire. Then, when he succeeds, he turns his back on the greatest honor of all.

  STEN'S WORLD

  Picture the greatest Empire history has known. Its boundaries are the Universe itself, containing more stars, planets and sentient life than could be calculated by the swiftest 21st Century computer. This is a space kingdom where humans live side-by-side with countless alien forms. In fact the word alien itself is offensive and all species are merely called “beings.” The planetary systems range from the sophistication of Prime World where the elite gather—to the rough and ready mining and frontier worlds at the Empire's edges.

  Ruling over all this is:

  THE ETERNAL EMPEROR

  As his title implies, the Eternal Emperor is a human who has mastered death through the use of secret cloning techniques and mind transfer. When he's in his cups, he sometimes boasts that although he's been the target of hundreds of assassination, only three were successful.

  The Emperor is the ultimate capitalist and when Sten steps onto the stage he has reigned for three thousand years. The source of the Eternal Emperor's power is a mysterious fuel—called Anti-Matter Two (AM2). It drives the star ships that link the Empire and provides the energy for all industry, agriculture and commerce. He alone controls its supply and price. And he alone knows where AM2 is to be found.

  The Emperor is no tyrant. He prefers wit to force, negotiation to confrontation. But if all else fails he has enormous military resources to back up his will. His past is a rigorously guarded secret and his future is permanently entwined with the Empire he created.

  Despite his vast power the Emperor greatly misses the familiar things of his 21st Century youth. On a bad day he would trade it all in for a good bottle of single malt scotch or the sweet sound of an old, hand-crafted violin. He spends his spare time in his antique-cluttered royal suites, restoring or re-constructing nostalgic objects from his salad days.

  The Emperor, who has the looks of a handsome, 35-year-old, is also a consummate cook and spends hours in his
Prime World kitchens recreating the recipes of ancient Earth, while hatching elaborate plans to confound his many enemies.

  The Eternal Emperor sees a bit of his long ago self in Sten. After all, as he occasionally implies, his roots are as common as Sten's. If their relationship was not by necessity that of ruler and subject they might even have become friends.

  Sten admires the Emperor. Perhaps, in a way, he even considers him a father figure. And he has sworn absolute loyalty to the Empire. In the end, however, he will realize that his loyalty is to the idea not the man.

  OTHER CHARACTERS

  Sten's world is filled with bizarre and wonderful characters. Among the more important are:

  ALEX KILGOUR: Sten's sidekick and confidant. An incredibly strong heavy-worlder of Scots descent, Kilgour's passion is shaggy-dog stories. All of which are so awful that his mission mates can hardly wait for the bad guys to kick in the door and interrupt him.

  IAN MAHONEY: Sten's mentor. A top military man, Mahoney excels at both cloak-and-dagger and more conventional warfare, and prefers to lead from the front. He is totally loyal to Emperor.

  DOC: A furry alien with the psionic talent to make people like him. It helps that humans think he's a cute, cuddly teddy-bear. Carnivorous little Doc would just love to tear their throats out for that.

  IDA: The brilliant Gypsy operative (and hotrod pilot) whose hobby is making huge amounts on the stock market. She could easily retire, but she loves the challenges and danger of black operations work. Fat, mustached and foul-mouthed, she delights in harassing authority.

  And there are many more, including the various beautiful and multi-talented women Sten squires during his adventures. Ranging from a tough Prime World detective, to the princess of a barbaric race of space pirates.

  STREGG—THE DRINK: This heart-stopping booze appears first in Book Two: The Wolf Worlds, where a race of Viking-like beings is introduced. Hailing from an ice-planet, their ancestral enemy was the Streggan, a fierce beast that hunted the Bohr almost into annihilation. Finally, they turned the tide and wiped out the beast entirely. They named their favorite drink Stregg, in honor of their ancient enemy. The names were inspired by a boozy session the authors’ had at Harry’ Bar in Century City, California. There they discovered the wonders of Stregga, the Italian liqueur. It means witch. To make Stregg for yourself, mix one part Stregg and one part white tequila. Some prefer a little simple syrup. We did not.

  The Food: The recipes created in each book by the Eternal Emperor have become as famous as Alex Kilgour's jokes. Many readers have requested a Sten Cookbook. Wishes granted. At the end of this Sten episode you'll find a complete Sten Cookbook, suitable for printing.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  THE STEN SERIES

  Sten

  The Wolf Worlds

  The Court of a Thousand Suns

  Fleet of the Damned

  Revenge of the Damned

  Return of the Emperor

  Vortex

  End of Empire

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Dedication

  To

  Shelly Shapiro

  and

  Owen Lock

  Indictable Co-conspirators

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  NOTE

  The titles of Books 1, 2, 3, and 4 are derived from 17th-century A.A. Earth and were a series of commands used to bring oceanic warships of the British Navy into battle. Book 5's title was a semiformal command to ship's gunners.

  —AC and CRB

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  BOOK ONE

  LINE OF BATTLE

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE THAN BATTLE cruiser arced past the dying sun. The final course was set, and in a few hours the ship would settle on the gray-white surface of Fundy—the major planetary body in the Erebus System.

  Erebus would seem to be the last place that any being would want to go. Its sun was so near extinction that it cast only a feeble pale yellow light to its few heavily cratered satellites. The minerals left on those barren bodies would barely have supported a single miner. Erebus was a place to give one dreams of death.

  Lady Atago listened impatiently to the radio chatter between her crew and the main port com center on Fundy. The voices on the other end seemed lazy, uncaring, without discipline—a marked contrast to the crisp string of words coming from her own crew. It grated her Tahn sensibilities.

  The situation on Fundy had been neglected too long.

  Lady Atago was a tall woman, towering over many of her officers. At casual glance some might think that she was exotically beautiful—long, flowing dark hair, wide black eyes, and sensuous lips. Her body was slender, but there was a hint of lushness to it. At the moment it was particularly well set off in her dress uniform: a dark green cloak, red tunic, and green form-fitting trousers.

  At second glance all thoughts of beauty would vanish as a chill crept up the spine. This was Tahn royalty. A nod of her head could determine any one of many fates—all of them unpleasant.

  As her ship punched into landing orbit, she glanced over at her captain, who was monitoring the actions of the crew.

  "Soon, my lady."

  "I'll require one squad,” she said.

  Her head turned away, dismissing the captain. Lady Atago was thinking of those undisciplined fools awaiting her on Fundy.

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  The big ship settled to the ice about half a kilometer from the port center. The engines cut off, and the ship was instantly enveloped in gray as sleet slanted in from a stiff wind.

  Most of the surface of Fundy was ice and black rock. It was an unlikely place for any enterprise, much less the purpose it was being put to by its present occupants.

  The Tahn were preparing for war against the Emperor, and the Erebus System was the cornerstone of their plan. In great secrecy, Erebus had been converted into a system-wide warship factory.

  So distant and so undesirable was Erebus that there was little likelihood that the Eternal Emperor would discover their full-out effort to arm themselves until it was too late. Thousands of ships were being built, or converted, or refitted.

  When Lady Atago's battle cruiser entered the system, she could partially see those efforts. Small, powerful tugs were towing hundreds of kilometer-long strings of the shells that would be turned into fighting ships and then transported to ground for final refitting. Huge factories had been hastily constructed on each of the planets, and the night skies had an eerie glow from the furnaces.

  The Tahn had drafted every available laborer down to the barely skilled. The poor quality of their work force was one of the several reasons the Tahn had chosen to concentrate so much of their manufacturing on planets rather than in space. Deep space required highly trained workers, and that was something that the massive arming had stretched to the near impossible. Also, deep-space factories required an enormous investment, and the Tahn could already hear the coins clicking out of their treasury vaults.

  They wanted as many ships as possible, as cheaply as possible. Any malfunctions, no matter how life-threatening, would be the problem of the individual crews.

  The Tahn were a warrior race with stamped steel spears.

  Lady Atago paused at the foot of the ramp, surrounded by a heavily armed squad of her best troops. This was her personal bodyguard, chosen not only for military skills and absolute loyalty but for size as well. Each member of the squad dwarfed even Lady Atago. The troops shuffled in the sudden, intense cold, but Atago just stood there, not even bothering to pull her thermo cloak about her.

  She looked in disgust at the distant port center. Why had they landed her so far away? The incompetent fools. Still, it didn't surprise her.

  Lady Atago began walking determinedly through the snow; the squad followed her, their harness creaking and their boots crunching through the icy surface. Big gravsleds groaned past, hauling parts and supplies. On some of them, men and women clung t
o the sides, catching tenuous rides back and forth from their shifts at the factories that ringed the port with smoke and towering flames.

  The Lady Atago turned her head neither left nor right to observe the strange scene. She just stalked on until they reached the center.

  A sentry barked from a guard booth just outside the main door. She ignored him, brushing past as her squad snapped up their weapons to end any further inquiry. Their boot-heels clicked loudly as they marched down the long hallway leading to the admin center.

  As they turned a corner, a squat man came half running toward them, hastily arranging his tunic. Lady Atago stopped when she saw that he was wearing the uniform of an admiral. The man's face was sweating and flushed as he reached them.

  "Lady Atago,” he blurted. “I'm so sorry. I didn't realize you were arriving so soon, and—"

  "Admiral Dien?” she said, stopping him in midgobble.

  "Yes, my lady?"

  "I will require your office,” she said, and she walked on, Dien stumbling after her.

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  The Lady Atago sat in silence as she scanned the computer records. Two of her squad stood at the door, weapons ready. The others had placed themselves strategically about the overlush offices of the admiral.

  When she had first entered the office she had given it one quick glance. A slight curl of a lip showed what she thought of it: very un-Tahn-like.

  As she scrolled through records, Dien muttered on in an endless stream of half explanations.

  "There ... there ... you can see. The storm. We lost production for a day.

  "And that item! We had to blast new landing strips to handle the freighters. The pressure was enormous, my lady. The sky was black with them. And we had insufficient facil—"

  He stopped abruptly as she palmed a switch and the computer screen went blank. She stared at it for a long, long time. Finally, she rose to her feet and turned to face the man.

  "Admiral Dien,” she intoned. “In the name of Lord Fehrle and the Tahn High Council, I relieve you of your command."

  A painter or a physicist would have been in awe at the shade of white the man's face became. As she started out of the room, one of her squad members came forward.