The Fifth Reich: Blood and Honor Book One Read online

  J. Palliser

  The Fifth Reich: Blood and Honor Book One

  First published by Mex Am Publishers in 2016

  Copyright © J. Palliser, 2016 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise

  without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

  First Edition

  This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy. Find out more at reedsy.com

  Contents

  Prologue 1

  One 7

  Two 32

  Three 49

  Four 71

  Five 93

  Six 107

  Seven 129

  Eight 168

  Nine 186

  Ten 210

  Eleven 230

  Twelve 256

  Thirteen 286

  Fourteen 310

  Fifteen 320

  Sixteen 327

  Seventeen 331

  Eighteen 336

  Nineteen 347

  Twenty 351

  Twenty-One 358

  Twenty-Two 367

  Twenty-Three 370 Twenty-Four 374

  1

  Prologue

  'They keep coming back but we won't go away We'll never surrender, gonna win the day They might as well give up, we'll never give in They'll never beat us, 'cos losing is a sin Hail... Hail Victory'

  "Hail Victory" It takes a special kind of crazy to be a Luftwaffe star-fighter pilot. When a direct hit from a star-ship's plasma cannon can kill you in one shot, things can get insane in a hurry.

  Lieutenant Jacen Kruger was that kind of crazy, which was the main reason he earned the call-sign "Ace". He seemed to have no fear of anything. His former academy instructors and fellow pilots were both impressed with his skills and scared to death of his implacable nature behind the stick.

  Over NZ8-257, a lush Class M planet just on the Reich side on the edge of the Centuari Neutral Zone, Jacen pushed his Valkyrie's nose down as his target heeled over and dove, trying to avoid his cannons. His target, the last Falcon-class heavy fighter in the flight he and Rash had chased down, was trying like mad to just survive. Its shields were gone and it was venting plasma from its starboard nacell.

  The whine of the target lock sounded, and Jacen fired his last quantum missile. The missile struck, and the Falcon erupted. Jacen smiled grimly, then looked over at his wing-man, just off his starboard wing. "How'd you like that one, Rash?"

  "Not bad, Ace. Heads up. We have a pair of Kestrels inbound! 5 o'clock low!" "Roger that, Rash." He yanked hard on the stick and pulled the throttle all the way back, spinning in place and aiming his fighter directly at the lead Kestrel, pushing the throttle all the way forward. "Rash, you take the wing, I'm on lead."

  "Hail Victory," said Rash. Both Valkyries went full impulse in an instant, closing quickly. The Centuari wing broke to starboard, and Rash went after it. Jacen stayed on the lead, and fired his pulse cannons as soon as he had a lock. The Kestrel juked left and his shots grazed the shields on the Centuari bird as it returned fire. Jacen went into a barrel roll and barely avoided the volley.

  " Ace! Need a hand, here!" shouted Rash over the comm. Jacen squeezed off another quick burst and saw it connect as he snapped his stick left to assist his wing-man. He saw the situation, and Rash was in trouble.

  "On my way, Rash. Hold on." Jacen hit his warp burner and zeroed in on his wing-man.

  "This bastard reminds me of you, Ace! He's fuckin' good!" "Not as good as me, Rash!" Jacen grinned, knowing that Lieutenant Jacob 'Rash' Becker hated that nickname, which he had gotten as a result of a hover-cycle race gone bad.

  "Screw you, Ace! If I die here, I'm gonna haunt you!" "Don't do me any favors, pal." Jacen finally had the shot and fired an extended burst, just as the Kestrel's own burst hit Rash's starboard wing. The Centuari ship disintegrated.

  "Man, could you have cut that any closer? Hey, what happened to your target?" Rash asked. "He's back there somewhere. Your damage is pretty bad. Go ahead back to the Zeppelin. I'll mop up here and head on back in a moment." Jacen kicked his nose up and spotted the last Kestrel on his scope. He smiled and hit his gravity burners.

  " Roger that, lead. Condor Two is out. When you get back, beers are on me!" And with that, Rash gravity burned out and was on his way back to the KMS Graf-Zeppelin.

  "Now, you son-of-bitch, let's dance!" muttered Jacen as he accelerated directly at the last Kestrel. The Centuari pilot was still hitting his gravity burner as well, and seemed determined to play chicken with him.

  Jacen shunted all shields forward and locked his finger on the trigger. His burst slammed into the Centuari's forward shields as he saw the incoming green glow of a Centuari missile.

  "Hell, this guy is as crazy as I am!" muttered Jacen, as he banked hard right and barely missed being hit directly by the photon missile. Then the proximity fuse on the missile blew it and killed his engine. "Dammit!"

  Caught in the planet's gravity-well, his ship slowly began to descend into the atmosphere. He checked his scope, and the Centuari was on his tail. Centuari fighter pilots always made certain of their kills. Jacen smiled. "Good. Come on down, the atmosphere's fine." He kept juking and jiving his ship left and right, not giving the Centuari a solid lock.

  He was dead-sticking the Valkyrie in, but he had something nasty in mind for his killer. 'If I die today, I'm not dying alone', he thought to himself. As soon as he had enough atmosphere around him after the initial burn of super-heated gases around his hull, he pulled the stick straight back, flipping his Valkyrie upside down and locking the trigger to his stick. The blasts of pulse cannons shredded the Kestrel's port-side wing, and then he switched to the starboard side, shredding that wing also.

  *** On board the Kestrel, Commander Delaara couldn't believe what she was seeing. "He's insane", she muttered to herself. First he had risked himself to save his wing-man while leaving his back to her, and then he had burned toward her at top speed while firing his cannons constantly, depleting her shields. She proxed a photon missile and fired, knowing he would have to turn away. Her forward shield was gone, but the missile did its job and the Luftwaffe Valkyrie was dropping dead-stick into the atmosphere.

  Then the unthinkable happened. She followed him at a leisurely pace to make sure he burned up upon atmospheric entry, and was actually impressed that he had survived the initial burn. She smiled to herself and reluctantly rearmed her plasma cannons to fire on him when he heeled over upside down and shot both of her wings off with the last bit of juice in his cannons. She cursed profusely in Centuari as she tried to use her maneuvering thrusters to bring herself in. She followed the dead-stick Valkyrie with her own now dead-stick Kestrel, and made sure her repulsors were still working. At least she wouldn't die in a crash.

  *** Jacen did a quick systems check and discovered that his repulsors were still working. At the rate they were falling, it was going to be a hard landing for both fighters. He checked his six and saw that the disabled Kestrel was following him in. "Great. Pulse cannons are dry, I'm out of missiles, and now we're gonna have us a shootout on the ground. I salute you, sir." With that, he launched a middle finger behind him and made sure his MOD4 pistol was ready.

  The impact of both fighters was pretty bad. The Valkyrie hit the ocean and skipped like a stone up onto the island beach. Jacen popped his canopy as he saw the Kestrel hurtle by overhead, bounce off a giant pseudo palm tree, and flip end over end backwards into the ocean.

  He watched in stunned bem
usement at the sheer comedy of it, then realized that the floating Kestrel hadn't popped its canopy yet. It was capsized in the water, and Jacen made a life-changing decision.

  "Fuck, nobody deserves to die that way", he said to himself as he dove into the water and swam out to the capsized fighter. He dove under and saw through the canopy that the pilot appeared to be knocked out. He drew his taser and burned the catches on the canopy off, holstering it and unlatching the pilot's safety harness. He dragged 'her' out of the seat and made for the surface as the remains of the Kestrel sank to the bottom of the sea.

  2

  One

  Commander Delaara felt lips on hers shoving air into her as she regained consciousness and turned her head to violently expell the water from her lungs. She continued to cough as she felt moderate openhanded blows on her back to aid in the expelling of the water. She finally regained control of her breathing and thanked her rescuer.

  "Well, I had to express my admiration for that prox fuse trick on the missile. Couldn't let you die before I did that. It wouldn't be honorable."

  She leaped to her feet and glared at the smiling face of the Luftwaffe pilot standing up before her. Then she smiled.

  "Well, you not only survived initial entry with a dead engine, but you managed to shoot my wings off. Well done." Jacen bowed slightly in respect and thanks for her compliment and looked her over. He had to admit that she was gorgeous, and reminded him of a Centuri woman except for some minor forehead ridges that Centuri didn't have. That and this lady was actually smiling, something Centuri women didn't do. Her body under the flight-suit she wore was toned and athletic, judging by how she had felt when he carried her ashore.

  "Well, if we aren't going to continue to try to kill each other, my name is Ace. And you are?" he asked.

  "Call-sign? Must be, unless human parents have sick senses of humor. My call-sign is Foxhawk." "I noticed your rank insignia. Commander, right? Well, you're definitely a fox, so it kinda fits." He smiled at her and turned to walk back to the wreckage of his fighter.

  ' What does he mean by that?' she thought to herself as she followed him. She looked him over and thought that he was definitely well built for a human. He had short black hair, dark blue eyes, and he had a wiry musculature that she had to admit was attractive, even if he was human.

  "Oh, hell. Dammit!" said Jacen as he held up the destroyed distress beacon. "Your quantum missile ripped my engine apart and destroyed the distress beacon."

  "Well, we could go get the one off my ship", she said. "No dice, Commander. We can't dive that far down. I know Centuri and Centuari are tougher than us humans, but even you couldn't survive that kind of depth. I took a scan on my way down and the drop from the land shelf is approximately 2 kilometers straight down after the first 50 meters off the beach. Unless that beacon is automatic upon crashing, it's useless." Jacen looked at the ground and shook his head.

  "You're lying. You just don't want to end up in a Centuari prison camp!" she snarled at him. Jacen walked toward her until they were nose to nose. "Look, Commander, I want to get out of here as much as you do, even if it's as your prisoner. Now, I guess we just wait and see who comes looking for us and if they care enough to do suborbital scans. This planet's ionosphere wreaks havoc on shipboard scanners." He then walked back to get his smartpad and survival rations from his ship, leaving her standing there dumbfounded.

  "Wait!" she yelled and ran after him. They made camp and Jacen unzipped his flight-suit down to the waist, tying the arms around himself like a belt. Fixing the damned beacon seemed to be a lost cause, but he had to try. Sensing eyes on him, he looked over at Delaara and noticed that she was staring at him.

  "You look like you want to say something, Commander." "I was wondering what your rank and name are. All you've told me so far is 'Ace'." She chuckled. Her voice was kind of low and smokey, and he had to admit she was drop dead beautiful. He couldn't believe he was thinking this way about someone who was trying to kill him only a few hours ago.

  "Lieutenant Jacen Kruger, ma'am." He extended his hand, which she shook after realizing that this is how humans introduce themselves. She also flushed a bit at the term of respect he used.

  'He's definitely handsome, and he has a nice smile.' she thought to herself.

  *** He finally gave up on trying to fix the beacon and sat down beside her to watch the sun set. There were some light clouds in the sky and they turned red as the sun started to dip below the horizon.

  Jacen looked at Delaara and said "There are worse ways to spend the day than watching the sun set with a beautiful lady." She felt the smile on her face as she heard what he said and turned towards him. "Thank you, Jacen. You have manners and show respect. You're not so bad yourself, for a human", she said in her smokey voice, and he actually blushed.

  "Where are you from in the Empire, Commander?" he asked. "Centuari Prime. I miss it, sometimes. I love the stars, but my parents are there, still." She gazed up at the stars as they started to appear overhead. "By the way, we shouldn't stand on rank here. You can call me Delaara, Jacen."

  Jacen smiled at that. He couldn't help but like her. Not only was she a hell of a pilot, but she was also beautiful and he was definitely getting hard under his flight-suit. That was the main reason he had tied his flight-suit arms around his waist, since his thoughts about her had caused his current hard-on, and it hadn't gone down yet.

  "Hmm? What was that?"

  "I asked where you were from", she said with that sexy smile.

  He blushed. "Oh, I'm from Earth. A town called Lake Walker, Nevada."

  "Do you miss it?"

  "Occasionally. This beach reminds me of it, though. Same type of sunsets", he smiled back at her. Delaara was suddenly hot below her belt as he smiled at her. 'What am I thinking? He's the enemy!' Then she thought 'But he's a nice guy, too. He even saved my life! Damn it!'

  "Do you have anyone special back home?" she asked then, feeling the burning in her pussy grow as she found herself more and more attracted to this human.

  "No. It wouldn't be fair to any lady I was with, since I'm gone so long at a stretch. How about you?"

  "Nobody. I just haven't met the one yet, I guess." She couldn't believe she had opened herself up like that. "Well, there's someone out there for everyone. I'm a firm believer in that", Jacen replied with a hint of a smile on his face as he stared up at the stars.

  She couldn't take it anymore. The burning inside her wouldn't be ignored any longer. She reached over and turned his face towards hers, leaning in and kissing him hungrily.

  Jacen was caught a bit off-guard by this at first. His eyes went wide as the enemy pilot kissed his lips, then thought 'to hell with it', closed his eyes, and kissed her back.

  They kissed hungrily at first, then with even greater urgency as their mouths opened and their tongues began the ages old duel of passion. Jacen met the Delaara's invading tongue with his, and their oral digits dueled. Delaara's arms slid around him, and he tightened his embrace on her.

  Finally the kiss had to end and shaken people stared at each other, gasping for breath. Moving as if in a trance, Delaara opened her flight-suit and let it slide down her bare shoulders. Her eyes, full of fire and need, held her new lover. She didn't care if he was the enemy. She was going to let Jacen pleasure her!

  Jacen watched as the flight-suit slid down, uncovering Delaara's breasts. What he saw amazed him! Nipples thick as his little finger projected from dark circles capping her gloriously full orbs, which rose and fell enticingly with Delaara's heavy breathing. His hand trembling, Jacen touched one of the swollen breasts.

  "Oh, yes, Jacen!" Delaara groaned when her Jacen's hand contacted her hot, smooth flesh. "Touch them! Please! Touch me!" His touch was soft and tentative, and thrilled her like no man's touch ever had. Nobody else had ever come close to making her feel the way Jacen was making her feel right then!

  Carefully and gently, Jacen explored Delaara's breasts. Delaara's hands covered his, pressing them against
her and her rigid nipples bored into his palms.

  Delaara laid back on the sleeping bag, but Jacen stayed seated, his hands roaming over her chest. He had to know what it felt like to suck her nipples! He bent, took one of the rigid tips between his lips and sucked it gently.

  "Oh, Jacen!" Delaara groaned. Her back arched and her hands went to his hair as his lips and tongue tortured her turgid bud wonderfully. Jacen, her wonderful, beautiful lover, was sucking her breasts and doing it delightfully!

  Overjoyed by how much pleasure he was giving Delaara, Jacen was determined to give her more. He kissed from one nipple to the next through the valley between her majestic mounds and she continued to arch her back and pull at him, beseeching him to do more, to make her feel even better.

  "You're so wonderful!" she crooned, her body quaking, "God, Jacen! You make me feel so good!" While his lips were nibbling on his Delaara's breasts, driving her crazy, Jacen slid his hand over the silken, softly mounded surface of her belly to the lush mat of black crinkly hair between her legs. Between Delaara's legs his hand stole, onto the startlingly soft, silky, wet skin of her labia.

  "Uh!" Delaara whimpered when Jacen began caressing her pussy. Her hips rose off the sleeping pad and her legs strained from the delight his touch caused her. "Jacen! Yes!" she cried.

  Jacen was not inexperienced, but he fumbled a bit, been so long being with a woman, not sure what he was doing or what he was doing at the moment, then his thumb hit a swollen ridge at the top of Delaara's pussy.

  "Yah!" the woman he was touching cried and her body lurched upward. Jacen began stroking it between his thumb and forefinger, as if he were jerking her off. As he worked Delaara's clit over with his thumb, he continued his oral onslaught on her nipples.

  Delaara was unprepared for the feelings which beset her while Jacen explored and adored her body. Nobody had ever kissed and licked her breasts the way he was doing it, and her breasts had always been so sensitive! Her hands pulled at him, then raked the sheets. Her body twisted and turned, her back arched, and her legs flailed as feelings more fierce than any she'd ever experienced suffused her.