Vision's Gambit: A Military Sci-Fi Series (Vision Rising Book 2), page 1
VISION’S GAMBIT
©2023 LL Richman
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ALSO IN SERIES
Vision Rising
Vision’s Gambit
Vision’s Pawn
CONTENTS
Also in Series
PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS
I. Unknown Enemies
Prologue
1. GRAND CENTRAL
2. UNKNOWN ENEMY
3. AFTERMATH
4. MISSION FAILURE
5. MARAUDER
6. DIVERTED
7. GENERAL KIM
8. DOUBLE AGENT
9. THE FARM
10. DISCOVERY
11. GRAVE WALKING
12. FRACTALS
13. REVELATION
14. ABRUPT DEPARTURE
15. SENATOR
16. A FAST EXIT
II. Discoveries
17. BLACKRIVER
18. SHAKEDOWN
19. INFILTRATION
20. EXFIL
21. UNINVITED VISITORS
22. RUSSELL
23. HANGAR FIFTY-ONE
24. GOLDILOCKS
25. PATHFINDER
26. TRANSITION
27. KATA SPACE
28. INNER EYE
29. ENGEE
30. DAMAGE CONTROL
III. Repurcussions
31. LECTURE HALL
32. RUDE AWAKENING
33. QUARANTINE
34. DEVIL YOU KNOW
35. EXISTENTIAL CRISIS
36. SHIT, MEET FAN
37. POTENTIALS
38. ORACLE
39. MISSION PLANNING
40. EMBRACE THE SUCK
IV. Minefield
41. MOBILIZED
42. STRONG-ARMED
43. BATTLE PLANS
44. WE COME IN PIECES
45. CALL OF DUTY
46. DEIMOS
47. MINING LIFE
48. A LITTLE B&E
49. PULLING STRINGS
50. CERBERUS
51. BATTLEFIELD
52. BLOODED
V. Endgame
53. I TOLD YOU SO
54. TASK FORCE BLUE
55. KATA SPACE EVA
56. FIRE IN THE HOLE
57. TO SAVE A STAR
58. A HEAVY WEIGHT
59. CONFESSION
Acknowledgments
Thank you for reading Vision’s Gambit!
Also By Ll Richman
About the Author
PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS
UNITED TERRAN STATES
Elias Clarke: President of the United Terran States
General Frank Kim: Director, National Security Agency
Senator Wallace Russell: Chairman, Senate Intelligence
SPECIAL OPERATIONS – DELTA SABRE SQUADRONS
Major Zachary Holden: Commander, C Squadron
Sergeant Major Dixon: Holden’s aide
TEAM ONE
Master Sergeant Joe Kovacs: Team Leader
Weapons Sergeant Anthony ‘Chaos’ Garrett: Sniper
Medical Sergeant Amanda Gruwell
Intelligence Sergeant Dee Faulkner
Communications Sergeant Ramon Sanchez
Combat Engineer Sergeant Ben “Breeze” Suco: Sapper
TEAM TWO
Master Sergeant Matt Whitaker: Team Leader
Weapons Sergeant Jack Nguyen: Sniper/Overwatch
Medical Sergeant Scott Morris: Medic
SPECIAL OPERATIONS AERONAUTICAL REGIMENT
UTS CERBERUS
Captain Charles Vesey
Commander Evans: Executive Officer
Commander Sandi Rudd: Space Boss, Primary Flight Control
Lieutenant Patel: Communications
THE FARM
Carmen Alvarez: Intelligence Operator
Jeff Parks: Intelligence Operator
HANGAR FIFTY-ONE TEAM
Cass Anders: Project Manager/Senior Engineer
Priya Manu: Astrophysicist
Tom Bowers: Test Pilot; Retired SF
John Davis: Senior Engineer
Lenora Powell: Gunnery Officer, loaned to Prometheus
OTHER CHARACTERS
‘Smith’/Malcolm Reynaud: Field Agent, Terran Intelligence, FFS Spy
Angus Reynaud: President & CEO, Reynaud Shipyards
Darwin Cox: Former Director, Advanced Research Agency
Major Sharon Ingle: Current Director, Advanced Research Agency
To be human is to be at war.
PART ONE
UNKNOWN ENEMIES
PROLOGUE
Earth loomed large as Cerberus approached the homeworld. Ship’s crew crowded around every holoscreen, the chance to see the birthplace of humanity in person captivating them all. They ignored the fact that it was a feed, no more ‘real’ than a recording they could have accessed at any time, from anywhere. The simple fact that they were here, and it was happening now, overrode any such minor truths.
When ‘lock-and-web’ sounded, everyone aboard hustled to stow loose items, prepping for the zero-gee that would come when the ship entered the no-wake zone. Last-minute stragglers dove for the nearest available crash seat. Those already in place barely spared them a glance, eyes riveted to the planet most hadn’t been to in years, if ever.
One group was too busy for such things. The two Delta teams in the ship’s combat information center were handpicked by the National Security Agency, recalled to Earth for a mission so secret it was being run by the director himself.
All eyes were on their commander, Major Zachary Holden, as he handed out orders.
“Briefing’s at fifteen hundred this afternoon, NSA headquarters. Civilian dress. Low-key. Mix and mingle, grab a bite on the way. No one draws any attention, you copy?”
He paused, and murmurs of ‘copy that’ and ‘yes sir’ swept the table.
“Kovacs. Sanchez. The general wants you there early. Thirteen hundred local.”
Master Sergeant Joe Kovacs glanced over at Sanchez, the only person in the CIC who wasn’t a Unit operator. “We’ll be there.”
Doctor Ana Sanchez was the sexiest woman he’d ever seen. Hot as hell and a pain in his ass, she was the reason Joe’s team had been pulled from the Sabre Squadrons.
Ana had planted a mysterious device in Joe’s head. A device with absolutely no provenance. A device alien in origin.
The chip had been a final resort, a last-ditch effort used to restore Joe’s eyesight after an experimental piece of equipment struck him blind. But the implant had done much more than restore his sight. It had given him second sight. The ability to see all possible futures to an event before it unfolded.
Joe was still learning how to manage the visions, to use them as any other weapon the military provided, but there was so much they still didn’t know about it. And he had yet to explore its full capabilities and limitations.
A distinct, two-toned chime reverberated throughout the ship, and Joe felt himself go weightless. Dee Faulkner’s blue-black hair haloed around her. When it drifted into her face, the intelligence sergeant pushed it absently aside.
“Any news on how long this TDY will last, sir?” she asked.
“Assume it’s not temporary duty,” Holden’s aide, Dixon, advised. “When General Kim pulls operators from the Sabre Squadrons, they rarely return.”
Holden activated the table’s holoprojector and an image flashed up on the screen. “Right now, all you need to know about the mission is what’s in this file. Get your butts planetside and report to the general. He’ll take it from there.”
“Hooah,” Joe said, along with the rest, but his attention was on the NSA file stamped ‘TS/SCI.’
Top Secret, Secured Compartmented Information was nothing new to the teams. They dealt with it on the regular. The file’s name meant nothing to him, but it did t
It was just one word: Tyke.
ONE
GRAND CENTRAL
The first thing Joe noticed when he stepped outside Grand Central was the sweet smell of fresh air. It was the first non-recirculated breath he’d taken in five years. He came to a stop and stared up at the sky. “Man, I’ve been deployed too long.”
“Hooah, brother.” The heartfelt sentiment came from Breeze, the team’s sapper. He stared at the crowd that parted around them, rushing to catch a lift to the station. “Damn exposed too.”
A loud complaint heralded the arrival of the rest of the team.
“Dammit, Breeze, can’t you do something about this heat?”
Chaos rounded on the sapper, his face a beet red. He fanned it with a battered cowboy hat—the ‘lucky’ hat the sniper had brought on every mission for as long as Joe had known him.
Breeze swiped at it, but Chaos swung it out of reach.
“Ain’t gonna have a breeze in the Doldrums, asswipe,” the sapper told Chaos. “The elevator was built out here because there’s no wind.”
Grand Central was Unity One’s largest structure and the artificial island’s crowning feature. Built just off the Ecuadorian coast to anchor Earth’s first and largest space elevator, the island was one of the busiest spots in the world, no matter the time of day.
Just beyond the spaceport was a wide swath of green. Broad walkways spanned the grassy areas and connected to one of several airports. A steady stream of aircraft took to the skies, bound for major cities on each continent. In the distance, the ocean shimmered, filled with the blocky forms of ships. Antennae jutting into the sky reminded him of the masts on ancient sailing ships, giving the vessels an oddly anachronistic feel.
Ana trailed behind the two teams, quiet. There was a wariness about her that Joe didn’t like. He motioned her over.
“You okay?”
Her gaze bounced around with nervous tension. “Cox is here.”
“He can’t get to you. The general’s made sure of that.”
She nodded, but the look in her eyes told him she didn’t quite believe it. He hooked an arm around her waist and tugged her against his side.
“Stick with me. You’ll be fine,” he said gruffly.
“How’s the, ah…” Her voice trailed off as she tapped her ear.
Because they had yet to fully explore the alien device, Joe was saddled with a Faraday block while on Earth. The block was a hell of an inconvenience. It neutralized the alien implant, but it also deactivated his military one. He couldn’t make or receive calls, query the global net for directions, or search the planetary database for information.
“Feels weird. I’m not used to all that silence in my head.”
“Ah.” Ana nodded. “I can imagine.”
Everyone had neural accessories. Children had to make do with wearables until their brains reached full maturity at age twenty-five, but after that, they were universal.
Joe recalled the hazing he’d received as a young grunt, fresh from Basic at age eighteen. Drill sergeants and senior teammates loved ribbing the younger soldiers, calling the wearables ‘training wheels’ and anonymously gifting their footlockers with diapers and pacifiers. It was a rite of passage and taken good-naturedly; the seniors in the platoon often found arthritis creams and adult diapers in their own lockers as payback.
Joe wasn’t looking forward to fumbling his way through a city as large as Concordia, the seat of Earth’s centralized government, without it.
Suck it up, he told himself. The team is here. They’ll pick up the slack.
“So, what’s the plan?” Chaos’s comment pulled Joe’s attention back to the present. The sniper’s eye was on a row of food trucks nearby. “I’m hungry.”
“Is he always hungry?” Ana asked.
Her question was greeted by a chorus of yeses.
The sniper grinned at her and readjusted his ruck, the soft case enshrouding his rifle riding high on his back. “Gotta stay fueled, doc. Ready for anything.”
Ana’s doubtful expression had Joe laughing. “Look, Ana and I are the only two with a tight deadline. Why don’t we split up? We’ll hop the first flight to Concordia and head for our meeting. We’ll catch up with you for dinner at the hotel later.”
Chaos didn’t bother to answer; he just headed for the food truck with a sign that read lotus house.
“Sucks to be you.” Breeze slapped Joe on the shoulder and followed Chaos.
“Go on,” Matt said. “I’ll keep an eye on them… make sure they don’t marry strippers while you’re gone.”
“Fat chance. No stripper would have them,” Dee said dourly, eliciting a hoot of laughter from Breeze.
Joe coughed to hide his own laugh when he caught sight of Ana’s confused expression.
“Strippers?” she asked as he placed a hand at the small of her back, guiding her toward the row of air taxis up ahead. “I don’t understand…”
“There he is.” A man wearing the livery of a limousine driver nudged his companion and pointed.
The crowd parted long enough to reveal a group standing in a huddle. They wouldn’t draw a second glance from the average person, but like called to like. The chauffeur instantly saw through the façade to the warriors concealed beneath. He pulled absently at the collar that constrained his thick, muscled neck as he studied them.
It wasn’t their appearance that gave them away. They were all casually dressed; some had shaggy haircuts, others had stubble or close-cropped beards. It was the way they carried themselves, a deceptively casual demeanor that hid a trained watchfulness.
Four men stood in close discussion while the rest covertly monitored their surroundings. The one with dirty blond hair waved a beat-up cowboy hat at a stocky man with dark, slicked-back hair and a trim beard. He was flanked by two men—one with a shaved head and cocoa-colored skin, the other with close-cropped brown hair and piercing blue eyes.
To the throng of civilians surging around them, they remained unremarkable. The seasoned eyes of the limo driver had no trouble picking them out. It helped that he also had files on them all.
“Which one is Kovacs?” his partner asked, thumb and forefinger smoothing the sides of his mustache out of habit.
“Blue eyes, brown hair.”
His partner grunted, running a beefy hand over his own thinning scalp. “Wonder why they didn’t ride down the Pershing Strand? That’s the military elevator. Would have dumped them right onto Farragut Naval Station.”
“Don’t know. Don’t care. Makes our job easier, though. You know how hard it is to get on base without military ID.” The chauffeur shook his head. “My guess? Kovacs has orders to report ASAP to NSA headquarters in Concordia. Unity One’s the closest to the island. Landing at the base would have added half a day to his travel time.”
