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  DEADLY DREAM

  (Logan Ryvenbark's Saga - Book 2)

  Gray Lanter

  Blue Shelf Bookstore

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

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  Deadly Dream

  © 2017 BlueShelfBookstore

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  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Deadly Dream (Logan Ryvenbark's Saga, #2)

  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

  For you convenience, this is a link to the next book on the Logan Ryvenbark’s Saga and the Discounted Box Set

  Get my ‘next releases’ notification,

  I’m publishing a second Series soon!

  Chapter 1

  It is said that Thomas Edison thought the phone he invented – a technological marvel of his day – was so profoundly annoying that he refused to have one in his house.

  When the j-phone – a technological marvel of our day – buzzed softly in my ear, I thought it was profoundly annoying too. For a moment the ears heard the soft, gentle notes of ‘Beautiful Dreamer’. If you’re with your special dreamer – and I was waking up in bed with Astrid by my side –, it should evoke a wistful smile and a warm feeling.

  Except the call came at 3 a.m. and I had been sleeping contentedly. The lovely song just made me grouchy. I am an expert in dozens of weapons and, usually, it doesn’t pay to make a weapons expert grouchy.

  Mentally I turned off the song, then tossed the covers off and barefooted to the study where the screen and my desk were. Screen doesn’t do justice to the techno-desk set-up. Let’s just say it was another technological marvel of our time. Of course, I was getting rather tired of technological marvels. I was thinking of a rustic, simple life when Belen appeared on the screen.

  “Should I say good morning or good evening, Logan?”

  “It’s not good anything,” I said, my voice reflecting my drowsiness. “Don’t you keep regular hours?”

  She answered something, but I was so groggy the words flew by me. In the distance, waves lapped at the shore. Astrid and I had the windows open on the resort house where we were staying. Two light purple moons lighted the waves and the beach. Another wave crashed on the shore.

  “Sorry for the interruption Logan, but I need you.”

  “No, you don’t. You have a huge corporate empire. You can find someone else to do the job, whatever the job is.”

  “Aren’t you curious about why I called you in the middle of the night?”

  “No.”

  “Neither am I.”

  I looked up at Astrid. She was clothed in a mid-thigh length blue bathrobe and leaned on the door, arms crossed. Her blue eyes didn’t look groggy like mine. They flashed anger. Lips curled with indignation. We were on vacation and didn’t expect to be bothered. Astrid is beautiful and sweet, gentle and loving. Except when she’s woken up from a sound sleep.

  “Hang up, honey,” she said.

  “Can’t really do that. Officially we are still on Belen’s payroll,” I said.

  “We can quit.”

  “That’s always an option,” I answered soothingly.

  “I can understand your annoyance and I apologize for the call, but this couldn’t wait,” Belen said. “It is an emergency. A security matter.”

  I frowned. The warlike race of Creagers had, about two months before, invaded Federation space and inflicted severe damage on the populations of two outlying planets. Although they are bipeds, Creagers look like the second cousins of Gila monsters. You don’t want to see them in a dark alley. For that matter, you don’t want to see them in the bright daylight either.

  The Federation scrambled our forces and in a recent battle had driven them back. Now our forces were planning a counterattack that would penetrate deep into their home solar system.

  “Belen, most of the Federation force is repelling the Creager invasion. You don’t need my help with that.”

  “This is not about the Creagers.”

  “It isn’t?”

  She shook her head. “This is something different entirely. As you noted, the Federation forces are tied up in a war. They don’t have a lot of ships and men to spare. Because you are always so creative, as well as being courageous, the Federation thinks it can use you.” She smiled. “So they asked me to ask you to help them out.”

  “What has the Federation done for me lately?”

  “Paid you a lot of money for the last assignment.”

  “They can pay somebody else this time. I won’t mind.”

  “Neither will I,” Astrid said. “Let’s go back to bed.”

  Belen showed a frown. She is an attractive woman with brown hair and stunning brown eyes. Usually she’s smiling. She’s so vivacious she can make jesters look gloomy. But tonight she wasn’t smiling, much less laughing. Her eyes looked troubled and the shoulders slumped, as if she had the weight of the world on them, or the weight of the Federation as the case may be. Usually, the tiny lines around the eyes and lips were almost invisible. But tonight they appeared to have deepened. Belen, with her corporate empire, is almost a nation unto herself; basic government without the bureaucracy. But she has a strong loyalty to the Federation. I wondered if another alien race had launched another invasion. That might get me to put on a Morganthal military uniform again. Although I’d had one or two minor differences with officials, I have a strong loyalty to the Federation too.

  “We need you two,” Belen said. “I know you have disbanded the Raiders. But we have a major security problem. The Federation needs you to get your company back together. We’ve got a situation we’ve never seen before or even dreamed of. Most of the Federation ships and men are on the Creager frontier, preparing to invade their solar system and end the threat to defenseless planets. But we’ve got another problem coming from the other side of the galaxy. It’s dangerous, and Federation officials agreed we need Ryvenbark’s Raiders. They have the best chance to complete the mission.”

  “OK, what exactly is going on?” I said, uncomplaining.

  “Are you aware of the Terlor System?”

  “Vaguely. Long way away from here. Three planets. Inhabited. Haven’t had too much contact with them because they are so far away. Exchanged a few ambassadors and the races seem like very nice people. Had no trouble with them. Let’s see... hasn’t one of them, the Oreganians, established a small diplomatic office on Earth?”

  Belen sighed. “Yes, and that small office is all that remains of the Oreganians.”

  That woke me up.

  “The planet is...”

  “Gone. It’s a lump of dirt orbiting a sun. That’s all. No life. No Oreganians. No animals. No plants. No bugs. The planet was obliterated.”

  “So we now have an enemy who can and will destroy a planet of innocents?” I said.

  “Not just a planet and not just the Oreganians. There is currently no life – no life at all – on any of the three planets in the Terlor System. All is ashes and rubble. Whatever came at us, Logan, came from another galaxy. They sent us their best and they’re coming this way. So we’re sending them our best: Ryvenbark’s Raiders.”

  Chapter 2

  Ten minutes later,
a shirt and regular pants had replaced my pajama togs. I had washed my face and Astrid put on some coffee as the equivalent of orange juice. I sipped the coffee as I sat down before the screen again.

  “So, do we have a hint about who or what hit the Terlor System?”

  “We have a little more than a hint. Just beyond the system there is a sphere five hundred-mile big. Maybe a hundred miles thick. It looks like a long, solid rock. We suspect it may be connected with the destruction.”

  “A rock? Since when has a rock attacked someone?”

  “This is more than just a rock. We don’t believe it is from our galaxy. It is made of a substance that we can’t define. It doesn’t show up on any of our scanners,” Belen said.

  “Really? Never heard of anything like that before.”

  “We have scopes in that section of space. If we look through the scopes, we can see it. But there’s nothing but empty space on our scanners. But we know for certain that it recently passed through the Terlor system. We think it caused the destruction, although for what reason we have no idea. If it produced that much destruction, obviously it can’t be just rock. Some weapons have to be inside.”

  “Could it be a ship instead of a sphere? A spaceship?”

  “Our best scientists think that’s doubtful. But there are ships out there: two ships are flying with the sphere. We think they are totally artificial. No sentient life forms. Robots, perhaps. Androids, maybe. But nothing human or humanoid.”

  “Odd.”

  “That’s one way to put it. There’s something else odd too. We don’t know what the outer shell is made of, but it’s the hardest substance we have ever seen; I don’t understand why there are two ships around it. The sphere doesn’t need protection. I can tell you a lot more when you and Astrid arrive here. I have a ship on the way to pick you up. You’re getting the light speed treatment.”

  The light speed treatment left your ears ringing. And gave you the time zone rush. I felt dizzy and disoriented when Astrid and I walked into Belen’s study a number of hours later. Astrid, with her bright smile and cheery demeanor, looked fine. She did two minutes of complaining about being yanked away from vacation and then her basic merriness took over. Although she did note she would personally rip to shreds the sphere, ship or whatever it was that had disrupted our idyllic beach stay.

  I appreciated our beach house even more because there were three feet of snow around Belen’s headquarters. Why she wanted to locate on the top of a mountain continued to baffle me. She stood before a mega-screen with what I guessed was the sphere on it, floating through the blackness of space.

  “It doesn’t look impressive,” I said.

  “No, it doesn’t. Currently it looks like a big rock traveling slowly. But after it moved through the Terlor system, nothing survived. It’s passing through another solar system now, but none of the eight planets can support life. The first three are too hot and the next five make the Arctic look like the Bahamas.”

  I focused on the not-impressive big rock. It wasn’t rugged like meteors. The outside looked smooth, even polished. Light brown sheeny with stripes of white. Long and wide. And that was it. Below it, a silver spaceship flew. It was so small I couldn’t make out any details.

  “It doesn’t show up on any scanners?” Astrid asked.

  “No, that continues to be puzzling.”

  “Whatever it is, it can’t be artificial,” Astrid said. “Some race, some aliens, created this and, we must assume, aimed it our way.”

  “That is one theory Federation scientists are considering. But we can theorize all we want to. What we have to do now is destroy it. Since the rock is impenetrable to our best weapons that will be a problem.”

  “Leave it to the Raiders. We can do it.”

  I looked at my smiling, beaming wife. “You’re sounding really confident. This may be a bit tougher than it looks. And to be honest, it doesn’t look all that easy.” I turned back to Belen. “Velocity? What does it use to move?”

  “Don’t know yet. No details either on possible weapons or place of origin, besides being from outside our galaxy,” Belen said. “Although, one hypothesis is that since we can’t destroy it from the outside, we’ll have to destroy it from the inside.”

  “It has a hollowed out inside?”

  “Yes. But that’s merely another guess. We’re getting a new ship ready for you. The George S. Patton. It’s the best my scientists could build. I hope it’s good enough to take down the sphere. Since there are two ships surrounding it, your buddy vessel will be the Nathaniel Greene.”

  “Great general. Probably they wouldn’t have won the Revolutionary War without him. Who’s the captain?”

  “Wade Markley.”

  “Don’t know him, but he has a good reputation.”

  I glanced back at the screen. The sphere hadn’t changed any.

  “I’ll need the Cajun Asian,” I said.

  The Cajun Asian is Kayli Neugen, good singer, consummate wit, and the finest astrophysicist on the nearest six solar systems. She is also one of Ryvenbark’s Raiders.

  “I thought you would. She has already been contacted and is on her way here as we speak. She wasn’t as grouchy as you were when we buzzed her. She just smiled and said, ‘Must be time for another duo between me and Logan.’ The duet you two sang that night at the Celestial Stars is now famous far and wide. But you always did have a good singing voice.”

  “So does Cajun, but right now I’m not interested in how good she carries a tune. She’s one of the best astrophysicists in science.”

  “And a good shot,” Astrid said.

  “Which appalled a few other astrophysicists, but the trait came in handy.”

  Belen went back and sat behind her desk. “I’ve also sent for your right-hand man, Master Sergeant Rabelais. He was as grouchy as you were.”

  “Sounds like Rab. Guy is the bravest man I’ve ever served with. Nothing scares him.”

  “Nothing scares you either, honey,” Astrid said.

  “Anything else you need?” Belen said.

  “Yes, we should always know the enemy. You have any photos of what the three planets looked like after this thing passed through the Terlor system?”

  “I’ve made you an office about three doors down from this one. I can send them to you, but there are not many. When I said there were just ashes left, that was a very accurate statement. There’s nothing to see. The few buildings that are left are in ruins. No atmosphere either. Whatever the sphere used, it not only killed men, women, children and animals, it also destroyed the atmosphere on the planet. When we say a ‘dead planet’, the statement is not an exaggeration. Nothing is living on the three planets now and nothing ever will in the future.”

  “If I recall, at least one of the civilizations had space travel, but in a primitive form. They could travel to the other planets in the system, but nothing beyond that.”

  “Correct; when the ambassador of the Oreganians came to Earth, one of our ships had to deliver him and his party. Their own ships were limited. The other two planets were even less advanced,” Belen said.

  “How many inhabitants?”

  “All together, about five billion.”

  I shook my head. “It makes no moral or military sense to rain death on people who pose no threat to you... unless whoever created the sphere wanted to use it in all-out war. Which, I guess, is apparently what they did.”

  “Why not? If this came from another galaxy, it would be difficult for us to counterattack, at least for the time being, but we do have some warp systems being designed...”

  “We may need them. If this thing fails, whoever made it may be sending us other spheres of death too.” I looked at Belen. “Five billion?”

  “Yes.”

  I turned and started to walk to my office. After a half-dozen steps I stopped and looked back at the screen and the floating sphere.

  “You annihilated three planets. I will stop you. The Raiders will stop you. After we’ll be th
rough, we’ll find your creators and pay them back for what they’ve done.”

  “Now who’s sounding confident?” Astrid said.

  Chapter 3

  When I walked into the office I blinked twice in surprise. The vice president of the Federation sat behind the desk. We’ve had dealings before, so I returned his smile.

  “Major Ryvenbark. Good to see you again. I’m glad your last mission was so successful. I trust your next one will be just as successful.”

  “Thank you. Nice of you to come.” I pointed at him. “But aren’t you in my chair? Ouch!”

  Astrid slapped my shoulder.

  “Ignore the major, Mr. Vice President. He flunked out of the diplomatic core.”

  She walked over and extended her hand. “Such a pleasure to see you again, sir. We are honored by your visit.”

  Mr. Anson stood up to shake her hand. “Thank you, Astrid. Unlike your husband, you would do very well in diplomatic service.”

  He laughed. “But your husband is correct. I do have his chair.”

  He eased around the desk and sat in one of the two black, cushioned chairs in front of the desk. Astrid took the second chair. I smiled and walked behind it and sat down.

  “I assume you are not here just to wish us luck on our mission, Mr. vice president. So what can I do for you?”

  “Your Raiders have semi-official status with the Federation, but you are not under our legal authority. So I need to request you allow us to send several scientists with you on your mission.”

  “It’s a military mission and usually those don’t include civilians. It could be dangerous,” I said.

  “It is also the most staggering scientific development in the last hundred years. That sphere out there holds mysteries and we’d like to solve some of them. We have two geniuses who have done remarkable work for the Federation and now want a close look at the sphere. Ever heard of Dr. Bay Boudoin?”

  I nodded. “I’ve heard the name and know of her reputation. I would say she’s the best in her field. I think she’s the only one in her field. She combines several fields of study.”