Rebellion (Rebel Wars Book 1)

  Rebellion

  Rebel Wars Book 1

  Michael Andrews

  Copyright © 2017 Michael Andrews

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Disclaimer

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, business, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. This story contains explicit language and violence.

  Blurb

  When mankind set their first steps into space, they started a chain of events that would alter human history and change the universe.

  Humans have taken to the stars and uplifted new colonies and planets in a new "manifest destiny". Old Earth slowly living out her last few days.

  Now the Corporation has taken control of Earth and enslaving every human they can get their hands on. Alice and the Rebellion won't stand still and let this happen. Guided by hatred and fueled by revenge, the Rebellion squares off against the Corp Commander- The Demon, in a winner takes all!

  Table of Contents

  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 1

  Fear stood behind Alice, grabbing her shoulders and laughing maniacally. It’s not real, she told herself and tried to shake the grip, that burning touch that raised the goose-flesh on her arms and neck. The emergency broadcast system of the colony was pouring that cheerful, tumultuous march she hated so much. The Corporation had arrived and its pre-emptive victory music was already filling the streets with its hateful agenda. Psychotic torture from the sociopaths that had invaded her home and taken her entire race for themselves. She wasn’t willing to give in that easy, a little music wasn’t going to force her surrender.

  She stood from her place in cover and assessed the situation. Bolts of light and solid projectiles ripped through the air, smashing into the steel barriers her team had erected. The incredible temperatures from the bolts melted the sheets and the slugs embedded themselves, weakening their defenses. Alice raised her hands and rewarded her attackers with an onslaught of her own beams from her palms and fingertips. The weapons she wielded were the weapons she had become. Her own voice raised from her throat in a scream of rage and she slung herself over the barrier in an incredible jump produced from the motors within her feet. Gaining height she threw bolt after bolt down on the lightly armored humans before her. They yelled in surprise and rage as the bolts threw them to the ground and burned through their skin and clothes. There had only been four of them, which meant there were others elsewhere. Completing the leap, she rose from her kneeling position taking a deep breath with her.

  They had come faster than she anticipated, predictably sending their human component first. The humans that had surrendered wholeheartedly to the ideas of the Corporation, buying into their hateful preaching of an upcoming Calamity. Unity they had preached right before taking control of Earth and all of its valuable people and resources. Her colony had played the part of the subdued, working in the dark to disrupt the Corporation. It was only a matter of time before they had caught on and brought their hammer to bear upon them. The grip of fear relaxed only to be replaced by the battle-fury of survival, a deep-seated roar of rebellion rising up from within her.

  “Stormbreaker. Where are you?” she said into the mic, the only communication they had left that wasn’t in the process of spewing the malignant theme-song of their would-be oppressors. Her feet carried her quickly through the corridors of the refinement plant she had taken refuge in. She had narrowly survived her encounters here and had taken no risk with survivors. She had to keep moving, she couldn’t stop until she knew her people were safe.

  “Alice. A pleasure to hear your voice. Me an’ the Pallys have taken back the loading docks. Transport’s been neutralized and the gates sealed. There’s still a whole squad of traitors and Corps in the camp. We’re heading there now. How many you have left?”

  “En route.” She stated, avoiding the question with the heartbreaking answer. Her few men had fallen in the battle to reclaim the refinement plant. Her squad had been small but had fought ferociously. They had broken the hold on the plant, but now it was time to clear out the camp. The camp was the term for the housing section. All of their civilians, workers, and refugees had been hiding there. Alice and Cal, Stormbreaker, had failed. That was their last line of defense and it was now under Corporation control. What could they do now? The doors oscillated as quickly moved through the empty halls. Her servomotors embedded in her boots gave her desperate speed as she pushed her way through the facility.

  Simulated sun-light washed over her dark cherry hair and pale-skin, giving her the look of a madwoman as she adjusted her goggles to filter the brightness. The cloak she wore over her shoulders picked up in the artificial wind and dust and fulfilled her look like an avenging angel. No moment of rest was given as slug-fire rapidly filled the air. No bolts of light followed this time, which was the closest she’d get to a lucky break all day. She spun around and released bolts of light from every part of her body that held an emitter. Fingers, palms, and joints became deadly flourishes of heated death that spread over the merciless army sitting at her doorstep. Groans of pain and shouts of disbelief followed the chorus of rage that she let loose upon them.

  One of the ten or so men that had greeted her took a shot to the chest, another to the face, and more to various limbs. One of the men dropped to his knees in agony and shouted

  “Damn you, Alice! Why can’t you just surrender?” He picked up his weapon with his remaining arm, the Earth’s signature camouflage armor he was wearing had been badly burned. His finger squeezed the trigger and released a volley of countless slugs towards her. Ballet-like movements took over her feet as she’d anticipated the attack, wheeling her body through the air in practiced spins and dips. Her foot came into contact with his jaw in the conclusion of the dance, her other foot coming down hard on his wrist. The cracked bones released the gun from his hand, the kick forcing teeth and blood from his mouth.

  “For the same reason, you surrendered. It’s in my blood to fight, and yours to be a coward.” She spat upon the ground as she adjusted her feet to give her full stability. He looked up at her, his eyes blood-shot and his grin to match.

  “Call me what you want. But I’m on the right side of history here.” She coldly brought her palm up to his eyes, the terror widening them as the emitter spat forth her closing argument. He slumped to the ground and she shook her head. He was wrong, and she’d never go to their way of thinking. The Corporation had interrupted the greatest era of Human history. They’d finally come to a consensus on the proper ways of thought and communication with each other, humankind had started to truly work together after 2400 years. Ideology and religious differences took a back-seat to progress. Diseases previously thought immortal were wiped out in a matter of years and resources were plenty. Humans had become what
they had always been destined to be, and yet the Corporation had other ideas for their fledgling race.

  “Cal, status?” Lines of dust were ripped from the ground as she sped across the deserted town. Her eyes hastily studied each building as she went, looking for signs of life and struggle. Scorch marks were all over the streets but the buildings were widely untouched, perhaps the Corporation was afraid to destroy its new property? Signs of struggle were on every few feet, her insurgents had given them hell, but it concerned her that she saw no bodies. Where were they taking the killed?

  “Ma’am. You’re going to have to just shut the hell up and meet us at the Camp.” His slight accent used to bring a smile to her face every time she heard it, but this was said through clenched teeth. He was in danger, and if the Stormbreaker was having trouble that meant there was more to this invasion party than she had considered. Her gaze turned upwards, there was no blue-sky like earth, only a dull white screen of what the programmers had thought clouds looked like. Why they’d chosen that motif, she didn’t know or truly care about. What she did care about is that it was her sky. This was her land, and these were her people and she wasn’t going to just let them take everything she had built for their so-called “Calamity”. She didn’t give a rat’s ass (as they said on Earth-Past) about the Corporation’s imagined war.

  She kicked off the ground and landed atop a water processing tower some thirty feet in the air. The jump was too much for her servo-motors so it required a few kickoffs of the tower to get her to the top. Bringing her wrist to her eye, a small digital screen folded outwards from the apparatus on her skin. The video processed the mile and a half distance to the camp in seconds and gave her a clear view. There was no sign of Cal and his Paladins. Her heart pounded faster in her chest, the adrenaline renewing its icy plunge into her veins. The refugees and civilians were being forced into a large container. They were evacuating them! Why the hell were they trying to take them off the colony? Questions burned even as her feet kicked her off the tower and she gracefully fell to the ground. The kinetic absorbers drank in the force of the fall and kicked her forward even harder than before.

  This made no sense. The standard colony acquisition program involved a force of humans moving in first. The human-corporation alliance officers would begin their dogmatic approach to recruiting the rebel first. Heavy-handed conversation lined with threats and insults and the “right side of history” crap they had fed themselves with. Alice had shut them down early and step two had begun. The playing of the Corporation’s theme through all acquired channels, filling all but the most encrypted communication lines with the torturous song. The third step was the final one, and it was a full-out assault on the colony. They would take over the plants, the camps, and the workers. They would force them all back into their homes while they captured or killed the remaining fighters. Once the “Dangerous Ones” had been neutralized, operations would go back to normal. It was important to the Corporation to lose no time in manufacturing and creating. So why were they now trying to ship them off the world? The colony couldn’t produce if it was unmanned.

  The question’s answer was obvious in retrospect, but as of now, it was a mystery to Alice. All she knew now was that the main Corporation forces were waiting for her in the camp as they stocked all of her people like cattle in a shipping container. She couldn’t bring herself to think of a plan, she was in the throes of hatred and rage. In her mind, she was a vengeful god about to unleash hell upon those who stood in her way. She had no plan, no masterful strategy, and absolutely no fear. She was a master of her own rage and she had planned to wield it like the lightning bolts of Zeus from Earth’s Past. The buzzing of her apparatus was barely heard beneath the waves of that horrible music assaulting her ears, but it was enough to alert her. Her warpath paused as she examined the control layout on her wrist. Her weapons were recharging, using the movements she made to create the energy they would need to function, but she would have to rest a moment.

  Hitting a button on the underside of her wrist, steam poured from the vents lining her body. The intake engines clicked on and drew in oxygen and nitrogen from the surrounding air. The suit she wore was a magnificent piece of technology. It was a weapon she could not be denied of and it was far more efficient than a standard firearm. Though Cal seemed to argue that point with his own set-up, she was still of the opinion that old-fashioned arms and armor should be left to the past. She felt like a woman capable of anything when in the embrace of her apparatus, and most of the time she was. These weapons were the only thing she enjoyed about Humanity’s joining with the Corporation. They had idolized the gods of the past and their fictional heroes, and these pieces of equipment were designed to raise them to their ranks. The Corporation people lived shorter lives than humans though, their genetic make-up giving them a predisposition to accomplishing more than the average human but at the cost of fewer years. She supposed that’s why it made sense for them to idolize those who could bend the natural laws, because it justified and fed their appetite for control. That’s all it was to Alice. She didn’t and would never believe their ranting of the upcoming Calamity. They wanted to own everything they saw, and she wouldn’t let them own her. She doubted they were going to let her get away with what she’d done to them.

  “Alice, we’re in position. They seem to be putting everyone in containers. They must be waiting on another transport.” His voice was lined with worry, as it had likely cost him more than he wanted to take down the first transport they’d sent. A Stormbreaker with a worried voice gave Alice a bit of pause. Cal had seen the eye of the storm, and killed it. For him to be worried meant a lot more than she was able to process currently.

  “Cal. I’m on my way. You want to start the fireworks, or should I?” It never occurred to her that the Corporation would use the civilians as hostages, it wasn’t really their way. They preferred an open fight and it somehow instilled further trust in them from those they conquered. That was one thing she could never say about the Corp: that they were cowards. There wasn’t a yellow-blooded man or woman in their ranks. They weren’t cold, unfeeling monsters either, but that made them easier to hate. It was hard to truly hate iron-blooded automatons. You couldn’t truly hate a tiger for eating a man, it’s in their nature. Alice found it easier to hate them knowing they loved, they laughed, they feared, they desired. They were identical to humans in that regard, they felt. And oh god she was going to make them feel this.

  Her apparatus showed green and she was off again. There was nothing that could stop her now, she feared the rest would give her too much time and calm her nerves, though it seemed the opposite now. Cal’s voice never graced her headset, instead the sound of the Corporation’s anthem graced her ears and she clicked it off. They’d been hacked, and it was now time for action. She approached the gates of the camp and slid into the shadows produced by the slight walls. The walls were not designed for defense and were low, easily covered with a single show of energy from her boots. Three guards looked up at her and fell before they could raise their weapons. She spared the corpses a single glance before she sped through the small shacks and bunks. Arriving into the central area she could see about twenty of the human guards herding her people into the containers. Surprise and shouts echoed through the camp as they took notice of her.

  She ignored her first instinct to take to the air, the worried smile of a young girl being pushed into a container spurred her forward. The beams of light emitted from her body took down a few of the guards while a lucky slug took her in the knee. She stumbled, the armor absorbing most of the impact but it was enough to slow her carnivorous assault. Four of the men formed a flank and open fired, buffeting her with shots. The ground shook and Cal landed behind them, flashing light from his sheer blade coming down and laying three of them low with one gigantic swing. Cal’s crimson armor reflected in the artificial sunlight as she stood and released a beam to take down the remaining man. She imagined behind his horned face-plat Cal was grinning. T
hey couldn’t speak, so she simply nodded and continued reaping what the men had sown. Her and Cal were a force together that few could hope to stand against, a solar flare ripping apart an unprepared vessel. Cal’s Paladins were cloaked in similar armor as their captain, only they were much smaller than he was. Towering above them as he led his inferiors throughout the camp they were untouchable. She was the avenging angel, and he was her flaming sword.

  The low hum of a transport echoed through the colony, spreading the Anthem even louder than before as it blared the song through its speakers. The ship was over a mile long and was capable of holding over 40 of the containers that her people were being liberated from. Smiles and thanks assailed them as they busted the doors open and freed the fearful refugees. Alice and Cal formed a line with his remaining men to shield the people as the doors of the steel-blue transport opened. Expecting wave after wave of soldiers, she cursed through gritted teeth as only one object fell from the sky. A container of a different sort hit the ground and left an impact by its weight. She raised her hand and fired blast after blast into the container.

  The container had no shields and each blast ripped it apart to reveal a glowing core, something she had not been expecting. This was not their usual tactic, this was something else. The core erupted into arcs of lightning and ozone as it spread the heartbreaking realization of sudden death. Bursts of energy quaked the ground and ripped the fake-sun baked earth from the colony. The violent explosion threw everyone standing to the ground and disintegrated the few that stood too close. Cal’s paladins were reduced to ash and his armor was ripped from his body as he fell before Alice. Her back cracked against one of the shacks as the force of the bomb took its toll on her. Her hatred was replaced once more by her old friend Fear, and her vision swam.