Wizard Betrayed (Intergalactic Wizard Scout Chronicles Book 6) Read online

  Wizard Betrayed

  Book Six

  Intergalactic Wizard Scout Chronicles

  Rodney W. Hartman

  DEDICATION

  ______________________________

  This book is dedicated to my stepdaughter Haley. You are a bright light in a sometimes-dark world. You have a soft and tender heart. The world would be a much better place if there were more people like you. I’m more proud of you than you’ll ever know.

  Copyright © 2017 by Rodney Wayne Hartman

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover Design by Angie Abler

  Editing services by The Pro Book Editor

  ___________________________

  Other Books by Rodney W. Hartman

  Intergalactic Wizard Scout Chronicles

  Wizard Defiant Book One

  Wizard Cadet Book Two

  Wizard Scout Book Three

  Wizard Omega Book Four

  Wizard Rebellion Book Five

  Wizard Scout Trinity Delgado Series

  Trinity Unleashed

  Table of Contents

  ______________________________

  DEDICATION

  Copyright

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1 – Hidden Facility

  Chapter 2 – Jeena

  Chapter 3 – Escape Route

  Chapter 4 – Assistance Request

  Chapter 5 – Out of the Frying Pan

  Chapter 6 – Prophecy

  Chapter 7 – Governor’s Plan

  Chapter 8 – Giants

  Chapter 9 – Decision Made

  Chapter 10 – Treason?

  Chapter 11 – On Storage

  Chapter 12 – Midnight Blessing

  Chapter 13 – Alternate Reward

  Chapter 14 – Matthew

  Chapter 15 – No Help

  Chapter 16 – Youth

  Chapter 17 – Dreadnaught Destiny

  Chapter 18 – Tia

  Chapter 19 – Drakomar

  Chapter 20 – On the Verge

  Chapter 21 – Estos

  Chapter 22 – Attack

  Chapter 23 – Change of Plans

  Chapter 24 – The Mound

  Chapter 25 – Discovery

  Chapter 26 – Mutiny

  Chapter 27 – Decision

  Chapter 28 – Beachhead

  Chapter 29 – Dangerous Foes

  Chapter 30 – Admiral of the Fleets

  Chapter 31 – Dragon One

  Chapter 32 – Wait’s Over

  Chapter 33 – Captive

  Chapter 34 – Breakthrough

  Chapter 35 – In the Line of Fire

  Chapter 36 – Underground

  Chapter 37 – Active Scan

  Chapter 38 – New Friends

  Chapter 39 – Unexpected Gift

  Chapter 40 – Bond Link

  Chapter 41 – On the Way

  Chapter 42 – Gag Ball

  Chapter 43 – The Dream

  Chapter 44 – Running Battle

  Chapter 45 – Intimidation

  Chapter 46 – Missing

  Chapter 47 – The Sacrifice

  Chapter 48 – First Contact

  Chapter 49 – The Vow

  Chapter 50 – Hidden

  Chapter 51 – Desire for Revenge

  Chapter 52 – Delaying Action

  Chapter 53 – Unexpected

  Chapter 54 – Run Through the Tunnels

  Chapter 55 – Chief Tehac

  Chapter 56 – Casualty of War

  Chapter 57 – Next Step

  Chapter 58 – Alternate Plan

  Chapter 59 – Escape

  Chapter 60 – At the Oracle’s

  Chapter 61 – Politics

  Chapter 62 – To the City of Light

  Chapter 63 – Apology

  Chapter 64 – A Choice

  Chapter 65 – Emp-healer

  Chapter 66 – What Healers Do

  Chapter 67 – Sheshna

  Chapter 68 – Silverton

  Chapter 69 – Preparation

  Chapter 70 – Summoned

  Chapter 71 – Black Armor

  Chapter 72 – High Priestess

  Chapter 73 – Quid Pro Quo

  Chapter 74 – In the Garden

  Chapter 75 – The Park

  Chapter 76 – The Tree of Light

  Chapter 77 – The Lady’s Tale

  Chapter 78 – Presence of the Lady

  Chapter 79 – Hatred and Disappointment

  Chapter 80 – The Illness of the Tree

  Chapter 81 – The Seeding

  Chapter 82 – Power

  Chapter 83 – The Morning After

  Chapter 84 – Transportation

  Chapter 85 – Allies

  Chapter 86 – Aftermath

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Chapter 1 – Hidden Facility

  ______________________________

  [Begin Transmission]

  Four Balorian pirates in power-armor marched down the corridor in the underground tunnel system with their plasma rifles at the ready. Wizard Scout Richard Shepard shrank back into the alcove as far as his battle suit would allow. As the pirates walked by, one of them looked directly into the alcove. Richard expected the pirate to turn and fire. He didn’t. The armored soldier faced forward and kept on marching.

  “That was close,” Richard said to his battle computer in their shared space.

  “Actually,” said Nickelo in the shared space of Richard’s mind, “I wasn’t worried. I calculated an eighty-six percent probability that your battle suit’s camouflage would keep you hidden. It is fairly dark in here, you know.”

  Despite his battle computer’s confidence, Richard breathed a sigh of relief. His mission was recon. He wasn’t here to fight. He’d had more than his share of fighting during his life and didn’t need anymore.

  When the last of the pirate’s footsteps faded into the distance, Richard stepped into the metal-walled corridor and continued moving toward his next destination, grateful this section of the pirate’s facility was relatively empty.

  “I would recommend not being too grateful,” warned Nickelo. “Living beings are not your primary concern. The technological security systems in this place may be even more dangerous than live opponents.”

  A smudge of energy on Richard’s passive scan gave credence to his battle computer’s warning.

  “Do you see that, Nick? I’m betting it’s another of those automated weapons arrays.”

  “I concur,” replied Nickelo. “Recommend you set up an active scan and neutralize it.”

  Although Richard hated to waste Power, he formed an active scan with his mind and wrapped a stealth shield around it. Reaching out with the scan, he cautiously probed the area around the energy reading. Sure enough, the smudge was another hidden weapons system.

  Richard stopped short of the intersection containing the automated weapons. “That’s the sixth we’ve encountered in the last thirty minutes. The security here is crazy.”

  “Well, crazy or not, you need to get past it, so do your thing.”

  Reaching out with his mind, Richard looped two lines of energy inside the weapons array back on th
emselves. Once done, he hurried through the section of the hallway those weapons had been covering, then released the two energy lines back to their original flows. He held his breath for a couple of seconds, halfway expecting to hear an alarm. When none sounded, he continued moving down the corridor toward his destination.

  Richard took his time. “Why so much security? It makes no sense.”

  “Well,” said Nickelo, “I guess that’s why the Imperial High Command sent you here. If everything was normal, they would not have wasted one of their only remaining wizard scout assets doing something a normal recon unit could do. My advice is to keep moving and see what we can find out. For Creator’s sake, keep the noise down. You sound like an elephant tromping through a china shop.”

  “Don’t exaggerate,” Richard said. “I saw an elephant once at a zoo back on Earth. I’m confident I’m being a lot quieter than one of them. Besides, I’m doing the best I can. It’s not easy with my battle suit activated. It basically doubles my weight. This metal deck isn’t helping any either.”

  “Well, truth be told,” admitted Nickelo, “you are not really making all that much noise for a human. I calculate most living creatures would not be able to hear you. However, there is bound to be some listening devices in the area. Plus, for all we know these Balorian pirates have some tele-bots in the area.”

  “Doubtful,” Richard said trying to sound hopeful. “It’s not the pirates’ style. Just to be sure, though, maybe you should make a pass with that new sensor Brachia installed in our battle helmet.”

  Brachia and his sister Dren were Richard’s adopted nephew and niece and were ultra-geniuses. They’d made several upgrades to his battle suit and helmet since he’d first met them during his junior year at the Academy three years earlier. Their latest modification was a sensor that could not only detect but also deactivate tele-bots.

  A bunch of numbers scrolled down the heads-up display of his helmet.

  “Negative on the tele-bots,” said Nickelo. “As you can see, the only ones in the area are the six the central computer has monitoring you.”

  “You and I both know ‘the One’ has them tracking me,” Richard said. “The central computer’s just a small part of ‘the One.’”

  A momentary flash of anger at the thought of ‘the One’ consumed Richard’s thoughts. The entity was the bane of his existence. Every few weeks, ‘the One’ tended to teleport him to another dimension to perform missions. As often as not, his missions were tens of thousands of years in the past, in the magic dimension, with some of the missions lasting years at a stretch.

  “Now, Rick, don’t get side-tracked thinking about ‘the One.’ You know how upset you get. My recommendation would be to concentrate on the mission at hand.”

  “I’m tired of going on missions for him in the magic dimension tens of thousands of years in the past. Some of those missions lasted for decades. Not to mention as often as not, ‘the One’ wipes large parts of my memory when the mission’s over. My brain’s so full of holes I have trouble keeping things straight. Hell, I don’t even know how old I am.”

  “First off, from a physical standpoint, you are twenty-six. You will always be twenty-six physically. Since you have been out of the Academy three years, the Empire’s records have your official age as twenty-nine. As for your true age, all you have to do is check the time interval on your DNA baseline. It was taken five-hundred and ninety-eight years ago. So, add twenty-six to that, and you have your true age of six hundred and twenty-four years old. See how easy that was?”

  “Yeah, well, you’re just making my point. I don’t remember most of those mission years, and the parts I do remember seem more like dreams than reality. One of these days I’m going to figure a way to get out from under the thumb of ‘the One.’”

  “I have no doubt you will,” said Nickelo. “In the meantime, we need to complete our mission and get out of here.”

  Richard knew his battle computer was right but opted not to admit it in his shared space. “Fine, but it’s not like our mission briefing was all that well-defined. I mean, ‘Find out what the Balorian pirates are doing on asteroid Alpha 13’ isn’t much of a briefing.”

  Nickelo laughed. “True. You have to admit this briefing was a lot more detailed than some of your briefings have been recently.”

  Before Richard could agree, the tunnel opened into a large cavern filled with thousands of metal containers. Some of the containers were the size of hover-trucks. Many of the containers were stacked one on top the other until they reached the ceiling thirty meters overhead.

  Richard bent low and crept next to a stack of olive-drab containers about a meter in length and half again as wide. A quick glance at his heads-up display confirmed no life forms were in the immediate vicinity, but Richard had learned long ago that even his battle suit’s sensors and his scans could be tricked by a good stealth shield. Nevertheless, while a heavy concentration of workers appeared to be milling around on the far side of the cavern, the tall stacks of containers prevented line of sight, so Richard felt relatively safe.

  Touching the side of one of the containers, he traced some words in intergalactic standard that were stenciled on the side of the metal.

  MISSILE, ANTI-PERSONNEL, HAND-HELD, 2-EACH

  Directly below the writing were the words, ‘Deloris Armaments Corporation.’

  “Nick,” Richard said. “I want a video of this. Are you recording?”

  “Affirmative, wizard scout.”

  “The central computer gave you another one of those special security interfaces for this mission. I’m assuming you can access the tele-network?”

  “You assume correctly. I have partial access. Why?”

  Richard glanced at several of the containers around him before replying. “I want you to run a check of these lot numbers against any known losses registered by Deloris Armaments. The manufacturing date for this box of missiles is last month. I haven’t heard anything about an Empire supply ship getting taken by pirates in over two months.”

  “Ah,” said Nickelo. “I understand your curiosity. I am requesting that information now.”

  Richard inspected another container. The date on the side was even more recent than the last.

  “Negative on the lost equipment, Rick. In fact, according to the information available to the central computer, that lot number doesn’t exist. Very strange.”

  Strange indeed, Richard thought as he continued moving down the aisles taking videos of lot numbers painted on the sides of the containers. When he got to a container the size of a hover-truck, he noticed the words ‘X501 POWER SUITS, ANTI-RADIATION ENHANCED, 50 EA.’

  “What are these?” Richard asked. “The manufacturer is CGL. I’ve never heard of the company.”

  “Hmm,” said Nickelo. “CGL is the stock exchange symbol for the Conglomerate. However, nothing on the tele-network indicates they directly manufacture anything. The only information I can find on X501 is an experimental power-suit the Deloris Armaments Corporation tested two years ago but never put into production.”

  Richard glanced down the aisle. Both sides were made up of stack after stack of the large containers marked as X501 power-suits.

  “Well,” Richard said, “if each container holds fifty of them, there’s tens of thousands just in this one cavern. My passive scan’s picking up several caverns within a ten-kilometer radius. There’s enough gear here to equip an army.”

  “Maybe the containers are empty,” suggested Nickelo. “Maybe this whole setup is some kind of ruse.”

  “What are the odds of that?”

  “Less than one percent. I was just trying to remain positive to cheer you up.”

  “Don’t bother. It’s been twelve hours since we were inserted onto this asteroid. I’ve had to use every tool at my disposal to sneak in this far and actually get into one of the caverns. Now I find the things full of weapons and armor. I’ve got a feeling if we check out additional caverns, the mystery is only going to deepen.”
/>
  “Be that as it may,” said Nickelo, “our mission from the Imperial High Command is to find out what in this place is important enough for the advanced security. What are you going to do, wizard scout?”

  Richard checked his passive scan again and concentrated on the other caverns. He had a feeling that when he got to them, he was just going to find more of the same. He came to a decision. “I need to open up one of these containers. I need to know exactly what’s inside.”

  “I highly recommend against that, Rick. Your best stealth shield has kept you safe so far. I calculate if you start ripping containers open, there is a twenty-seven percent probability you will give yourself away. In case you have forgotten, this whole asteroid is magnetically sealed. It’s three kilometers back to our extraction point.”

  “I haven’t forgotten. The shielding around this asteroid’s too advanced for Balorian pirates acting on their own. Plus, it’s surrounded by a stealth shield that appears to be a mixture of technology and magic. I doubt even the best electronic sensors on one of the Empire’s R36 recon ships could spot this asteroid.”

  “I concur,” Nickelo agreed. “If that Balorian turncoat hadn’t given the Imperial High Command the location, I doubt even a wizard scout could have spotted this place. Uh…present company excepted of course.”

  “Of course,” Richard said, smiling in spite of himself. “Thanks for the vote of confidence. Even if I’d spotted it, the only reason the Empire’s Deep Intelligence Division was able to locate a weak point in the shield suitable for teleportation was from the information they got from the Balorian spy.”

  “That brings us to why you are here,” said Nickelo. “If the primary transporter on Velos hadn’t been able to teleport you through that single weak point, I calculate nothing could have gotten past their defensive shield short of a full-scale attack by an Empire fleet.”

  Richard shook his head. “I’ll bet the dolgars or that spirit-horse of mine could’ve done it.”

  “Perhaps,” replied Nickelo sounding unconvinced. “However, they aren’t here, are they? They haven’t answered any of your calls on your last six missions either.”

  “Whatever,” Richard said. “As I was saying, I think I need to open one of these containers and take a gander at what’s inside.”