Boots of Oppression Read online

  Boots of Oppression

  M.J. Konkel

  Boots of Oppression

  by M.J. Konkel

  Copyright © 2019 M.J. Konkel

  Cover art by M. M. Rainey Creative

  [email protected]

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form – electronic, mechanical, manual or any other form developed in the future - without the written permission of the author, except for excerpts used for reviews or articles as allowed by law.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events are the product of the author’s imagination and used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance of the characters in this work to real people is purely coincidental.

  Author’s Note

  Chapter 1

  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

  Chapter 30

  Author Notes on the Science of the Fiction

  Books by MJ Konkel from Amazon

  About the Author

  Author’s Note

  If you enjoy reading this book, I would be very grateful if you tell your friends about it and please leave a review on Kindle and/or Goodreads. Even if it is just one word.

  I would like to send a huge thanks out to my wife for reading through my manuscript and giving very useful suggestions.

  Chapter 1

  “Spacemen Charlant, Triton, Longshore, report to the Captain in his ready room,” a voice blared from a com unit behind me.

  My heart skipped a beat. What the bloody hell? Sandwiched between Charlant and Longshore was my name. Spacemen, the lowest rank in the Spitnik Navy, were not normally ordered to stand in front of the captain. It’s not like he was about to give us medals or promotions. No, this could not be good.

  Did someone find out about my clandestine hobby of accessing files other than the propaganda feeds? There was nothing else I had done to warrant attention from the brass. That had to be it. The flight and battle simulations that were supposed to be reserved for Spitnik pilots. And my studying ship schematics. Only Spitnik officers were supposed to have access to those files. Damn it! Perhaps I hadn’t been as discreet as I had thought.

  Regardless of the reason for my summons, I had to stand in front of the Captain. There was no place on the destroyer to hide. If I was going to be thrown in the brig, I thought I should just as well get it over with.

  And, who knows, maybe I was just called in for a reprimand or maybe even something that had nothing to do with those files. In which case I did not want to be the last one there by any significant margin because there was always a chance that would result in a verbal lashing or extra duties. Especially good chance of that if being called in for disciplinary action – and you’re not a Spitnik. That’s even if not guilty. But if unauthorized file entry was not the reason I was being called to stand in front of the Captain, then why?

  The red desert world I had stared at through the viewport disappeared from view as our ship rotated. I turned and double-timed it to the ready room behind the bridge.

  As I rounded the last corner of my trip, I spied Charlant and Longshore already at the door to the ready room. I had hesitated back at the viewport; my worries had delayed me.

  “Bastards,” I muttered under my breath as the other two rushed into the room ahead of me. If they had been decent about it, they would have waited for me to catch up so all three of us could have entered at the same time. Longshore grinned at me as he stepped through the doorway. He just couldn’t help himself from grating other spacemen. I think he got to be that way during the extended hazing he had received when he had first arrived aboard the ship. A defense mechanism he had developed or maybe it was payback. Whatever his reason, I had my own skin to worry about, so I dashed in and snapped to attention next to the jerk.

  “Triton reporting as ordered, Captain.” I stood up as straight and sharp as I could. Perhaps I was close enough behind Charlant and Longshore that my arrival would not be seen as late.

  Captain Orlov stared, without responding to our presence, at a screen at the back wall. He was an officer and could take his sweet time if he so chose. Did the screen have anything to do with the three of us?

  I sneaked a sideways peek at Charlant and Longshore. Maybe this had nothing to do with my covert screen time. I doubted they had also sneaked time to play flight simulations. Roberta and I had been close, and she had shared the secret codes with me. If she had shared her secret with others, I was pretty sure I would have known.

  “At ease, all of you,” the captain uttered.

  He had not singled me out, not even for being late. At least not yet. I did not relax though as the captain turned and faced us. I still had no idea why we were in front of him.

  “Pack your bags, coots,” he yelled. I couldn’t believe it. Coots was a derogatory word for those not from Spitnik, but I was used to being called that by the Spitniks aboard. Sometimes worse things. Overuse of a derogatory term has a way of dulling its edge over time. Still bludgeons you, but not an immediate deep stab. The order was what got my adrenaline flowing.

  “Sir?” I asked.

  “You’re being reassigned. Report to Major Krumm at Docking Station Two in fifteen minutes.”

  “Oh, crapola!” I mumbled. My day had definitely not gotten any better. Major was not a rank in the Navy. That was a GAT rank. The Ground Assault Troops. On other worlds they might be called infantry, army, or marines. Regardless of the term used, they are the ones usually doing the shooting and, more importantly to me, the ones being shot at.

  The captain glared directly at me. “What did you say?”

  “Ah, nothing, Captain. I just coughed. Dry throat’ s all.” I feared what would happen next. I was sure he was going to get up into my face.

  But he just chuckled. “Triton, it’s your mouth that has you going down with these two losers. Your superiors are tired of your crap. Ah, but who knows? Maybe with some luck you’ll live until the carriers return with a fresh batch of GATs, and things get cleaned up. Either way, at least I won’t have to deal with you again.” He turned his back to us and stared at the screen in the back again. Charlant and Longshore turned their heads and glared at me.

  “What are you waiting for? Dismissed. Get the frick out of here!” the captain yelled over his shoulder.

  “Yes, sir,” the three of us yelled.

  “And you’re right, Triton. You’re in for deep crapola,” the Captain yelled as I scrambled out through the doorway.

  We were being reassigned to the surface. Why? Was the resistance stronger than what was officially described? If that was the case, I was indeed in a whole heap of crapola. Those of us in the Navy had only limited weapons training and almost no hand to hand. If the GATs couldn’t handle the locals, how the heck could a clumsy spaceman like myself have a chance in the cosmos.

  Twelve minutes later the three of us burst into the bay for Docking Station Two within seconds of each other and found the major as he was gearing up into an armored suit. Only his hands and head were not yet covered. He screwed up his face and glared at us as we drop
ped our bags and snapped to attention. He was shorter than any of us by several centimeters and looked like a bowling ball. His suit covered it up, but I was betting it was not fat – just solid muscle.

  “Two from the Pride and now these. Huh! Told ‘em I have five slots left on this last shuttle, and this is what they give me. Cosmos, we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel,” he grumbled in a low gravelly tone. Then yelled, “What the frick you three waiting for? Get the hell in there.” Even the finger he used to point at the hatch to the shuttle seemed muscular.

  “Yes, sir,” we yelled, snatched our bags, and scrambled inside – more out of fear of the major than anything else.

  The major was right behind us. “Find a crash bucket and strap in. I suggest you’re strapped before I get in.”

  I sought out the nearest unoccupied seat in the mid-size shuttle. There were about a hundred of the coffin-like seats. Appropriate, I thought, for in case we didn’t make it to the surface. Almost all had bodies already strapped in.

  I saw an unoccupied one and raced toward it. Charlant reached it first and tossed his bag under the seat. I cursed under my breath as I scanned for another.

  I raced toward the rear and found an empty coffin a ways back, tossed my bag in the bin under it, hopped into the seat, and flicked a switch on the side. Webbing flew over me and tightened not long before I felt us drop away from the Spitnik’s Fist.

  You don’t really fall away by jumping off a spaceship in orbit. But the Spitnik’s Fist rotated, giving artificial gravity aboard it. It also gave the attached shuttle angular velocity. Once our shuttle was released, we shot away from the destroyer, and our artificial gravity suddenly disappeared.

  But then thrusters fired to slow us down from orbital velocity, shoving me forward into the webbing. I wondered if Longshore had found a crash cage seat in time, but, if he hadn’t, that was his problem. Not mine.

  There was no screen for me to watch our descent, but I felt it anyway. In a few minutes, our shuttle hit the atmosphere. At first it was just a bumpy ride with dampeners taking up most of the vibrations and smoothing out the worst of the bumps. Then, as we got deeper into the atmosphere, we deaccelerated rapidly. I was pushed forward into the webbing of the crash cage as if I were falling, only with five times my normal weight. My chest crushed up against the webbing. I wanted to swear, but I couldn’t because I couldn’t even breathe. It didn’t help that the cabin pressure had been slowly lowering to match the surface pressure.

  My weight slowly lessened, and I could finally breathe again. And my vision cleared as my eyeballs returned back to their original shape. Then something approaching normal gravity appeared as our shuttle descended vertically onto a steelcrete landing pad. The full trip took less than ten minutes but seemed a lot longer.

  “Alrighty, listen up, boys and girls,” the major barked. “Navy babies first. Longshore, Charlant, Chen, Triton, Estevito. Grab your bags and report to Sergeant Runner straight ahead off the ramp. A word of advice, don’t keep the good sergeant waiting. GATs, look up at your HUDs and find which truck you’re on. All of you, move it, or I’ll start using my boot.”

  “Yes, sir,” I mumbled as I pushed the button to release the webbing over me and then scrambled up out of my seat.

  GATs all around me popped out of their coffin-like seats as well and grabbed their bags and rifles. They seemed to have not been affected by our descent. Perhaps it was because they were already in their armored suits, ready to hit the ground fighting. I later learned that GATs came down in suits because if the shuttle was hit and depressurized, the suits would keep the soldiers contained until they reached the surface. I guess if that had happened on this trip, I would have just been out of luck.

  Without a suit to protect me, I felt all stiff and bruised like I had taken blows over my entire body and head. Moving was painful.

  Regardless, I wasted no time in grabbing my bag from where I had stowed it and stumbled out through the hatch among all the other suits and bodies. Down a wide metal ramp that bowed slightly from all the weight on it. I felt a hard elbow in my back, and I started to fall but somehow managed to regain my balance.

  Longshore wasn’t so lucky. He stumbled at the bottom of the ramp and nose-dived directly into the red sand. No, I didn’t shove him, although I wasn’t sorry to seeing him spitting out sand.

  I glanced around. It was red everywhere, except for the blue cloudless sky.

  To my left was a wide expanse of craters which did not appear natural. We must have bombed the heck out of something there. A military base perhaps. And then the Spitniks built their base almost right on top of it.

  Ahead I saw an armored suit standing about a hundred meters away next to a bunker. His legs were spread, and his arms were behind his back. I figured that had to be Sergeant Runner, so I marched in his direction. The others followed me.

  We were ten meters away when the man, dressed in a fully armored body suit, stepped toward us. It was hard to tell with his suit, but he appeared to be a big guy. His face was chiseled with a big scar across one cheek. His nose didn’t quite look straight, like it had been broken at least once.

  “Halt!” he yelled at us.

  We all jumped to attention and froze as he leaped forward, yelling in our faces.

  “You Navy soft-bellies are in the GAT now,” he yelled into our faces. I felt spittle hit my cheek as he passed. “When you go someplace, you will be double timing it. GATs don’t walk. It’s not in our frickin’ dictionary. Have I made myself understood?”

  “Yes, sir,” we all shouted. I tried to stand up straighter.

  “You all think I sit on my ass all day?” He shouted. “I am not an officer. I work damn hard for a living. You will address me as sergeant. Have I made myself understood?”

  “Yes, Sergeant,” we yelled in unison.

  “Good. Now drop and push this dirtball of a moon away thirty times so you all remember that.”

  As I dropped down to my belly, I heard the roar of the thrusters from the shuttle as it took off. Dust and sand blasted us, and it felt as if an oven door had just been opened. I popped out the push-ups, returned to my feet, and stood at attention. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the shuttle shooting up. I was sorry to see it go – sort of felt like I was being abandoned.

  “Do GATs walk?” Sergeant Runner yelled.

  “No, Sergeant,” we shouted.

  “What do GATs do?” he yelled.

  “Double time, Sergeant,” we all shouted.

  “Good. Now you soft-bellies can double time it to where that shuttle dropped your sorry asses off and then back here. Go.”

  I started running toward the landing site.

  “All of you who forgot your bags, can come back and get them. Then give me another thirty before you double time it.”

  We all started back toward our bags.

  “I heard too much groaning, and I didn’t hear a ‘yes, sergeant.’ Make that forty.”

  “Yes, Sergeant,” we yelled. I dropped down next to my bag and starting pushing the ground. I hadn’t been on Bahram ten minutes, and I already hated the moon and especially hated being in the GATs.

  Chapter 2

  Maybe I should back up a bit and tell you a little bit about myself and how I got to be stuck on Bahram.

  I was born on Riva Lontana. That’s the seventh moon of the seventh planet around Pulchrastella. It is a rather new star system on the universe’s long timescale, so my home moon has not had enough time yet to have become tidally-locked to the gas giant it orbits, Nubes Magna. In school we were taught that the ultimate fate of the inner two planets was to plunge into the star while the fourth and fifth would crash into each other and merge, becoming a super Earth. Those events were a few millions years away though. So who knew what might happen by then? Even farther into the future, Pulchrastella will become too hot for our world.

  But hey! If you are going to start worrying about stuff that far ahead, you might as well start worrying about the real bigg
ies like how the whole universe ends someday. Personally, I always have more immediate shit to worry about. More on that later.

  Riva Lontana has a 36-hour day and no seasons to speak of. Our world takes 46 of our days (69 standard days or cycles as they often called) to revolve around Nubes Magna. Since we have no seasons, we have stuck with a standard year (or a standard as we call them - equivalent to an Old Earth year) for our calendars.

  Our moon is large with a gravity 9% greater than a standard G. It is also almost a water world. Over 95% of it is covered by ocean. Only four long mountainous archipelagos and some scattered islands rise up out of the deep ocean. The weather is almost always pleasant on the bits of dry land, but quakes and tsunamis are very common.

  Like all the worlds of human space, our world was colonized by a seed ship from Old Earth. An AI fusion ship that carried frozen embryos and raised them to be the first generation of people on the new world. Same for all the animals. Those first few generations lived under a dome until the world could be terraformed.

  Relative to many worlds, Riva Lontana was on the easier side to transform. Microbial life seems to be everywhere in the universe there is liquid water, and Riva Lontana was no exception. It even had a good amount of oxygen in the atmosphere which apparently still baffles the scientists since oxygen-producing bacteria should not yet have had enough time to evolve.

  Our world had maintained radio contact with the other known human worlds spread throughout this region of the Orion Spur. All 32 of them. There were originally more, but some dropped off the network over the centuries. It is believed by most people that those were all failed colonies. But who knows for sure?

  Oddly, by the time the fusion ships reached their destinations, Old Earth had stopped transmitting. So it was never a part of the network. Of course, news from the other worlds was always old news due to the limitations of light speed. And the farther away the world, the older the news.

  Technology hadn’t advance much since most societies focused on survival and then just recovering what had been lost since the AI ships left Old Earth.