The Wages of War Read online

  The Fight For Britannia

  The Wages of War

  Saxon Andrew

  Copyright © 2019 Saxon Andrew

  All rights reserved.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locals, organisations, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please go to any online ebook store and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Contents

  Introduction

  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 • Chapter Twenty-Five • Chapter Twenty-Six • Chapter Twenty-Seven • Chapter Twenty-Eight • Chapter Twenty-Nine • Chapter Thirty • Chapter Thirty-One • Chapter Thirty-Two

  Epilogue

  Books by Saxon Andrew

  About Saxon Andrew

  Introduction

  The meeting was a large one. Supreme Admiral Grady Henricks looked around the huge table and saw most of the Senior Fleet Admirals were present along with the Prime Minister and President DeChirico. Cami was sitting beside Taffy and Admiral Grinstead sat next to Sweets on his side of the table; being a member of the Henricks family did have its benefits. President DeChirico looked around and said, “I believe everyone is present. The purpose of this meeting is to determine our next actions against the four civilizations threatening humanity. Admiral Henricks tells me that most of our old warships have been upgraded and can defend our planets against any attacks. We have enough of our warships modernized along with the new ones we’ve constructed to take the war to our enemies. After five years, I believe it’s time to remove these threats.” DeChirico turned to Grady, “Is that right Admiral?”

  “Yes Mr. President, it is.”

  “Have you and Admiral Dunhan come up with an attack plan?”

  Grady glanced at RJ sitting four chairs down from him before answering, “Yes, we have developed a plan of attack.”

  DeChirico smiled, “It’s been a long five years getting ready for this.” He glanced at Taffy and saw her looking away from him. “Mrs. Henricks, is something bothering you?”

  Taffy looked at the President, glanced at Grady, and turned back to DeChirico, “My husband has told me to keep my mouth shut and I’m following his instructions.” Grady’s head lowered and he began shaking it.

  “Why would you do that Admiral Henricks?”

  Grady blew out a sigh and turned to Taffy, “You just had to do it?”

  Taffy’s expression was pure innocence, “What? I kept my promise.”

  DeChirico asked, “What did you promise?”

  Grady was still shaking his head, “You might as well tell him.”

  “But I promised not to do that.”

  Grady nodded toward President DeChirico, “Do you think he’s going to let you keep that promise?”

  DeChirico’s eyes were narrow and he said as he stood up, “If you have something to say about our coming campaign, I demand to hear it!”

  “But I promised Grady…”

  “I don’t care who or what you promised! What are you supposed to avoid talking about.”

  Grady rolled his eyes, “I told you.”

  “Out with it, Mrs. Henricks!”

  “I’m sorry Grady but they need to consider it.”

  “CONSIDER WHAT!?!” DeChirico demanded.

  Grady turned to her, “Go ahead, it’s too late to back out now.”

  • • •

  Taffy looked around the room and said, “I don’t think we should be attacking anyone.”

  DeChirico sat down and the Colonies’ Prime Minister asked, “Why not?”

  Taffy turned to him, “Because we may get into something we want to avoid.”

  “Please explain, Mrs. Henricks.”

  Taffy looked around the gathering and began, “It seems that every time we encounter an aggressive, violent civilization, another seems to pop up out of nowhere. Britannia is attacked by the Core Civilization and in the process of trying to take them on, we run into the Fagan Civilization that is just as dangerous as them. Both of those civilizations were slightly more advanced than we were at the time and it took years to develop our technology to take them on. We win that fight and what happens. We discover the Stealth Civilization scouting us and they have a weapon we can’t stop; Britannia and New Melbourne were destroyed as a result. We also discover the two aggressive civilizations we left at the Galaxy’s Core had joined the Stealth Civilization attacking us. And if that wasn’t enough, a new civilization from the Triangulum Galaxy was discovered scouting the two civilizations at the galaxy’s core. They fully intended to invade the Milky Way and they would have except for misleading them toward Andromeda.”

  “We know all that Mrs. Henricks,” the Prime Minister replied.

  “I know you know that! But do any of us know what’s lurking in Andromeda?” The room was silent, and Taffy broke the silence by adding, “Andromeda is the largest galaxy in this section of the universe.” Taffy paused and continued, “So far we’ve been extremely lucky that the civilizations we’ve run into haven’t been so far advanced that we could ultimately match their advanced technology after a few years. What happens if we run head on into a truly highly advanced civilization there that we can’t come close to taking them on?”

  DeChirico turned Grady, “Has this been considered Admiral?”

  “Yes. We will not go after the Stealth Civilization in Andromeda. We’ll leave it up to the civilization in Triangulum to defeat them before we start operations against them and the two civilizations on the other side of the core.” Grady glanced at Taffy and turned back to DeChirico, “My wife is paranoid about the dangers this universe can send at us; I understand her fear and have made our plans accordingly.”

  “But that didn’t suit you, did it, Mrs. Henricks?”

  Taffy shook her head, “If there truly is a dangerous civilization in Andromeda, it is probably watching the war between the Triangulum’s forces and the Stealth Civilization.”

  “Our probes haven’t detected any civilization entering that war,” Admiral Tarangelo said from the end of the table.

  Taffy waved a hand, “I hope you’ve noticed that we’ve left the two civilizations at the core alone so they could act as a buffer between the civilization in Triangulum and us. I suspect this advanced civilization would be doing the same thing and are allowing the Triangulum Galaxy to destroy the Stealth Civilization without interfering. But have you considered that if a civilization is advanced enough…” Taffy paused and then continued, “It would detect the probes we have there watching events? They’ll know they don’t belong to either of the civilizations fighting each other and wonder who sent them. I believe they would intend to find out before they make an appearance.”

  Grady jerked his head around to Taffy, “You’ve never mentioned that.”

  “Grady! It’s obvious.”

  “No it isn’t!”

  DeChirico saw Grady’s expression an
d asked, “Does this make a difference Admiral?”

  Grady nodded, “If what she says is true, then an advanced civilization wouldn’t act until they found an answer to that issue.”

  “What would they do?” Maranda asked.

  Grady looked down the table, “RJ?”

  “If there is an advanced civilization in Andromeda, they must have learned about the attackers coming from Triangulum. They’ll do the same thing we did when we discovered the Triangulum scouts in the Milky Way. They’ll attempt to find out who sent those probes. And Taffy is right; they won’t act until they make that determination.”

  Grady nodded, “And once the Triangulum Civilization wraps up the war with the Stealth Civilization and resumes their plans to invade the Milky Way, they’ll learn about us.”

  “Why?” The Prime Minister asked.

  “We can’t sit by and allow Triangulum to invade our galaxy and not respond to the threat.”

  RJ nodded, “We never should have sent those probes to Andromeda.”

  “That’s water over the dam, RJ.”

  “But our probes have not been detected!” Richard Tarangelo added to the back and forth.

  “Richard, can we detect our probes?”

  “Well…yes.”

  RJ turned to Richard, “If a truly advanced civilization is there, I suspect they can as well.”

  “But those probes are covered by our stealth coating.”

  “Even so, whatever technology can develop, technology can defeat,” Admiral Grinstead said softly.

  Grady nodded, “Our attack plans are on hold until this issue can be resolved.”

  “How do you intend to accomplish that?” DeChirico asked.

  Grady shook his head, “We’re going to have to go to Andromeda and take a good look around.” Taffy’s eyes widened and Grady said, “They don’t know we’re here. I’d rather find out there than in our own space.”

  Taffy shook her head, “It could lead to another war we might not win. The Wages of War is death.” Grady could only sigh and nod.

  Chapter One

  Grady sat in the cart in silence as it rushed underground toward his quarters. Taffy would glance at him but was reluctant to open the conversation. Finally, Grady sighed and turned to her, “Don’t beat yourself up over this.”

  “But I broke my promise.”

  “I wish you would have said something about the probes being detected before the meeting.” Grady was silent again and he shook his head before saying, “I didn’t consider that when making our plans.”

  “You and RJ have been overloaded getting ready for this meeting. You can’t think of everything.”

  “You did!”

  “Grady, I’m sorry!”

  “Don’t be. I do believe you’re paranoid about what lies out there in the universe, but you might have reason to worry about Andromeda.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “For the most obvious reason; it’s the largest galaxy in the local group. We know that the Stealth civilization ran into numerous civilizations they conquered to take possession of their planets there. That has to indicate there is a huge number of intelligent civilizations in Andromeda.”

  Grady’s eyes narrowed and Taffy asked, “What did you just think about?”

  “If this highly advanced civilization truly exists, why haven’t they already conquered all the civilizations in their galaxy?”

  Taffy shrugged, “Melbourne wouldn’t have learned about the Core Aliens for more than a thousand years if we hadn’t shown up and told them about it. The core was just so far away, Melbourne wasn’t concerned with it; they were focused on stopping Earth from finding them.” Grady nodded and was silent. “Grady, you’re driving me crazy; talk with me!”

  “It bothers me that the Stealth Civilization hasn’t been attacked by a large civilization in Andromeda. They were there close to twenty years and nothing showed up to challenge them. It took the civilization in the Triangulum Galaxy to launch a major war against them. I mean, if we detected an aggressive civilization entering the Milky Way, we would have immediately responded.”

  “Not if they entered the Milky Way far away from the areas we’re familiar with.” Grady turned to Taffy. “I mean, if the Triangulum scouts entered the Milky Way much further around the edge than where our planets are located, we’d never see them…would we?”

  “Probably not.”

  “And they could launch their invasion and we’d never know they were coming until they showed up in our space, right?”

  Grady nodded and turned to her, “I think if an advanced civilization knew about the Stealth Civilization invading Andromeda, they wouldn’t have hesitated to act; just like we did when we found out about the scouts from Triangulum. I believe there’s a good possibility that our probes haven’t been detected yet.”

  “Why?”

  “The war between Triangulum and the Stealth Civilization has been going on for five years and if there was an advanced civilization watching it, they would have acted by now.”

  Taffy’s brow furrowed, “But you said in the meeting, they would hold off if they detected our probes. How would they know those probes don’t belong to the Stealth Civilization; they use stealth technology?”

  Grady lifted his communicator, “RJ!”

  “Yes Grady.”

  “Send a command to our probes in Andromeda to turn off their stealth coatings and start searching for Triangulum Warships.”

  “Why?”

  “There is a possibility that any advanced civilization observing our probes wouldn’t know if they were constructed by the Stealth Civilization or someone else. The probes will self-destruct before any Triangulum Warships get near them.”

  RJ’s brow furrowed and he nodded, “I’ll send the orders to the probe controllers and get them moving on it. You know this may not work.”

  “It has to be done. I’ll contact you when I get home and discuss what Taffy and I have been discussing.” RJ nodded and ended the contact.

  “Does that mean we don’t have to go to Andromeda?”

  “No, Taffy. We need to see what’s in that galaxy.”

  “Are we going to attack the core civilizations and Triangulum?”

  “Not until we find out what’s in Andromeda. I’m still going to have the Core Civilizations take on Triangulum before we act; we’ll remove the winner.”

  “Do you think we can?”

  “We’ll see. The Stealth Civilization recalled all their scouts searching for the colonies after Triangulum launched an attack against them and we’ve made huge progress in getting our naval forces ready to take them on. Before we do anything, we’re sending ships out to look around Andromeda.”

  “Please tell me you won’t be sending Cami.”

  “Taffy, Cami graduated from Fleet Academy and is an officer in the Navy. She’s still our best telepath and this mission needs her on it.” Taffy started shaking her head and Grady took Taffy’s hand, “Taffy, you’re a grandmother! You have Rick and Britt Jr. to fill your heart and you’ve got to focus on those that need you and love you. I suspect Sweets and Charlie will start a family soon and you have more children than you can handle that require your attention. You’re only focused on our children and are allowing yourself to be tied in knots worrying about them. That has to stop now!!” Taffy stopped shaking her head and Grady added, “It’s been our family that has gone out and defended mankind. That’s what we do, and you know it. Trying to prevent the younger generation from continuing that is a mistake; they are the best ones to do it now.”

  Taffy stared into Grady’s eyes and said softly, “We won’t live forever.”

  “No, we won’t. And like you said when I resigned as Britannia’s President, it’s time to allow others to take our places. Their time is now.”

  Taffy nodded and sighed, “Cami is gone most of the time anyway.”

  “Then focus on Rick and BJ! They love you and you need to be a larger part of their lives. You can mak
e a huge difference in making them become the heroes I know they can ultimately be.”

  Taffy smiled, “You’re right; I’ve been selfish.”

  “All you had was Cami to fill the hole in your heart when Candy and Britt left. But now our family needs you more than you know. Don’t let them down.” Taffy hugged Grady and he knew she was herself again. Since Cami went to the Academy, she had been despondent. He saw that she understood what he was telling her, and it was confirmed when she said, “If Sweets has a baby, I’ll be a great-grandmother.”

  “You’ve always been a great mother and grandmother. And I know you’ll be a great great-grandmother.” Taffy laughed and kissed him.

  • • •

  Cami went to the cafeteria in Fleet Operations and picked up a tray. She looked around for a place to sit and saw Justin sitting at a table with his head down staring at some documents. She walked over and said, “Do you mind if I join you?”

  Justin looked up and his smile was huge, “Cami! It’s great to see you. My goodness how much you’ve grown!”

  Cami sat down and smiled, “I’ll be seventeen on my next birthday.” She saw the two silver stars on Justin’s collar, “Congratulations! When were you promoted to Admiral?”

  “About seven months ago. I’m going to command the telepath scout fleet that’s being formed. I have to admit I was shocked at the promotion.”

  Cami smiled, “You deserve it. How’s Charlotte?”

  Justin’s smile disappeared and he blew out a breath, “She left me about five months ago.”

  “Why? I thought the two of you were solid.”

  Justin tilted his head as he replied, “When I went to the advanced training center to prepare me to command a fleet, she found someone while I was gone.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  Justin blew out a breath, “She just couldn’t get Funny Man completely out of her mind and it led to her turning her attention to someone else in my absence. I hate it but…I also understand why. There are always consequences to one’s behavior.”

  “Are you alright?”