Rogue Stars

by C Gockel et al.

  Twenty seconds of fire was enough to rip through most vessels’ primary and secondary shielding, much as it was doing right…about…now.

  The lead ship ripped apart into jagged metal shards, followed shortly thereafter by the bright white nova-like implosion-explosion of the sLume drive. His ship shuddered in his hands as the shockwave passed over it.

  He concentrated back on the HUD and the two outstanding attackers. The rush of adrenaline in his veins focused his thoughts and created the illusion of time stretching out. Intellectually, he knew nanobot regulators in his bloodstream were honing and directing the adrenaline to enhance the effect. Physically, he only knew his eyesight became sharper, his reflexes faster and his decision-making clearer.

  He’d exploited an advantage with the initial shot; they hadn’t known he could track them. Now they did. Predictably, the two ships began zigzagging while attempting to track his own erratic path.

  Maneuvering to slide behind them, he flipped the ship around and set the weapons to track one of the them until it gained a reliable lock then automatically fire. Unfortunately, while he did so the other attacker got a lock on him. The ship jerked in a violent wrench from the instantaneous impact of the particle beam. The shielding held but after two hits now stood at thirty-seven percent power.

  He tried to make his movement as unpredictable as possible. It was one of the reasons why humans remained better pilots than CUs. Even seemingly random variations by a CU were able to be predicted to a reasonable probability by another CU; an Artificial might be another matter, but building a synthetic neural net into a ship remained impractical, not to mention highly illegal. The decisions of a human acting on instinct under combat pressures, however, could never be predicted with any degree of accuracy. Or so the scientists said.

  Of course this meant he couldn’t predict their movements either. The weapons would fire within a picosecond of achieving a lock, though—and everyone paused at the controls for a picosecond or two. He was sweeping below and aft of the attackers when his weapons locked and the second vessel followed the first into the beyond.

  He made a snap decision and pushed the ship’s speed to one hundred five percent maximum. The mercs—one merc now—were fast, but not that fast.

  He had been traveling at seventy-five percent max sub-light speed when the attack occurred, and they had been gaining on him. Still, on the assumption the pilot of the final ship would spend at least a few seconds reeling from the close-proximity explosion and the fact all his companions were now dead, he figured he stood decent odds of escaping in those critical few seconds. Given the depleted state of his shielding, better odds than surviving another hit.

  “VI, divert non-critical power to impulse.”

  “Eighty percent of environmentals and utilities power diverted.”

  He amped the speed an additional twelve percent. It wouldn’t be maintainable for long without blowing out the engine—maybe ten minutes—but it should be long enough to lose the merc and transition to superluminal.

  “VI, divert communications power to dampener field.”

  “Communications is classified as a critical system.”

  “I’m aware. Divert communications power to dampener field.”

  A slight pause. “Dampener field at 97.2 percent strength.”

  He sped ‘north-northwest’ toward a region of denser interstellar gas and dust. Concepts like “north” had no real meaning in space, true. Nonetheless, the intrinsic human need for directional bearing had led to the development in the early days of extra-solar space travel of a heading scheme based on Earth’s location relative to the center of the galaxy.

  Eight minutes later he decreased his speed to ninety-eight percent max, sent the diverted power flow to the dampener field and began altering his route. He’d veer about for a couple of hours and approach Metis from a different angle than his previous trajectory. As a precaution.

  The air in the cabin started to get uncomfortably cold. He withstood it for another fifteen minutes, tucking his arms against his chest to maintain body heat. When his jaw shivered so violently he accidentally bit his tongue, he decided the success or failure of his escape had by this point surely been decided.

  “VI, return power to normal distribution.”

  “Standard power flows restored. Primary systems nominal. Two thermal blankets are located in the aft supply cabinet should you require them.”

  “Thank you, VI. I’ll be fine.” The breath he had metaphorically been holding since the attack began escaped in a very real expulsion of all the air from his lungs as he sank deeper into the chair. No longer required to focus on escape, evasion or keeping warm, the last of the adrenaline dissipated. He was left with little to do but sit there and attempt to wrap his head around what had just happened.

  How had they tracked him? For all practical purposes ships were not able to be tracked while superluminal. Theoretically the warp bubble could be detected, but to track it one would have to be traveling at the same precise speed on an identical trajectory. Even then, the minimal maneuverability coupled with the vast distances being covered made it effectively impossible to follow a ship in superluminal through a miniscule change in trajectory.

  At sub-light speeds his ship was virtually invisible from greater than 0.1 AU; the odds of a band of mercs randomly encountering him at such close proximity in deep space were so low as to be nonexistent. Certainly, merc bands loitered in space waiting on targets all the time; but they did so in populated, high traffic areas and preyed on far larger, less stealthy vessels.

  Lycaon was almost 0.6 kpcs behind him, Gaiae more than 0.7 kpcs to the southeast—and neither of those worlds were exactly hotbeds of activity. There was essentially nothing between here and the borders of explored space except the Metis Nebula.

  “VI, initiate an analysis of all systems and a nano-scale scan of the interior and exterior of the ship.”

  “What am I to look for?”

  “A tracking device or item capable of sending out a signal, but I’ll settle for anything which doesn’t belong. Also, run diagnostics on the dampener field and let me know of any errors.”

  “Acknowledged. A scan at such a level of precision will take 3.62 hours.”

  “Understood. Inform me of any anomalies as soon as you find them.”

  He didn’t expect the VI to find anything amiss. Security on Division’s wing of the spaceport was as tight as that of Headquarters; tampering with the ship would have been quite difficult, though he had to acknowledge not impossible.

  For the moment he had no choice but to operate under the assumption the ship was clean….

  So how the hell had they found him? And more relevantly, why had they been so eager to vaporize him on sight?

  16 Atlantis

  Independent Colony

  Matei stepped through the wide doors and into the foyer of the ballroom.

  His position was two-thirds of the way down the receiving line for the dignitaries, a prelude to the final gathering of the Trade Summit. It was the appropriate station for a junior member of the Senecan delegation—after the diplomats and CEOs, before the administrative personnel.

  The disguise wasn’t perfect. There were limits to what even glyphed cybernetics could do, the most significant one being they couldn’t alter bone structure. That had been one of the factors in choosing the victim though, so it wasn’t a major issue. Silica-cellulose injections added sufficient depth to his cheekbones and prominence to his chin; block-heeled shoes added the extra four centimeters.

  His skin had darkened two shades, eyes hued to light green and hair tinted to a chocolate brown and cut to match Candela’s style. Foam padding beneath the borrowed clothes provided the extra thirty pounds to his lean frame.

  A friend or family member of Mr. Candela wouldn’t be fooled—but the man had no friends among his coworkers, and his family was kiloparsecs away.

  Matei had made public appearances over the course of the day only when necessa
ry, during which he remained quietly invisible among the Summit attendees. Here, he had positioned himself in line between two Alliance officials; he would not be expected to speak to them.

  As the line continued its slow procession forward, the polite greetings and repetitive small talk began to rise above the low din of those who forewent the receiving line. The line was an odd, anachronistic formality, a tradition he thought had perhaps become malformed somewhere along the way. Nevertheless this night it was to his advantage, for the man he impersonated would not otherwise be allowed to get so close and he might have been forced into a more risky strategy.

  The woman in front of him took another step, and he entered the critical zone. He didn’t look around—not for security or agents, nor for cams or sensors. He knew where they were and had factored them into the plan.

  In the next step he triggered the release of nanobots into his bloodstream which secreted a specially formulated epinephrine compound. It heightened his senses by twenty-two percent and sped his physical reaction times by thirty-six percent above already genetically and biosynthetically enhanced capabilities.

  He spotted Mr. Nythal sitting at a table to the right, his eyes a little wide as they scanned up and down the receiving line with a drink in hand for easy access. If the man spooked security with his vaguely panicked expression, they would have…words.

  The next advancement brought him to the Atlantis Governor. He smiled politely and shook the woman’s hand. His voice, though not loud, was clear and crisp so as to be easily overheard and later recalled by those in the vicinity.

  “A pleasure to meet you, ma’am. Chris Candela, Seneca Trade Division.”

  She smiled as all politicians do, possibly with a tad greater warmth than most since she oversaw a resort world. “I hope you’ve enjoyed your stay here, Mr. Candela.”

  “Very much so, thank you.”

  The Senecan Trade Director was occupied talking up the trophy wife of a Senecan dignitary and didn’t even glance at him as they shook hands. All the better.

  Without altering his gait or demeanor he stepped face to face with Alliance Trade Minister Santiagar and extended a hand in greeting.

  “Chris Candela, Seneca Trade Division. It’s an honor, sir.”

  His eVi activated the virus which had been quarantined in his data cache for the last week and directed it through his cybernetics into his hand. As he shook Santiagar’s hand, he shifted his grip so his index finger made contact with the Minister’s index finger on release.

  Like every person in society above the poverty level, the Minister’s index finger contained the conductive fibers necessary for interaction with a variety of screens, panels and the millions of other electronic devices which pervaded the world around them. The fibers at a minimum connected to the man’s eVi, which at a minimum connected to his brain.

  In Santiagar’s case, the files indicated his body contained a reasonable amount of additional cybernetic enhancements. The minimum would have sufficed, but the enhancements removed all chance.

  There wasn’t even a vibration or tingle when their conductive fibers made contact and the virus passed from his fingertip into the Minister’s cybernetics. He smiled, dipped his chin in appreciation and moved on.

  He made a point to have his pace appear aimless while winding between the milling guests toward the plain door in the right wall.

  The first gasps of horror and panic began to echo behind him as he slipped through the door.

  17 Metis Nebula

  Outer Bands

  Caleb frowned at the Evanec screen again.

  Static wasn’t something one commonly encountered in the twenty-fourth century. Yet static was precisely what he was looking at.

  Upon entering the golden-blue wisps of Metis this morning, communications had begun to deteriorate. First the exanet feed had stuttered for a few minutes then died. Being cut off from the endless avalanche of media populism and celebrity gossip and pseudo-political intrigue was mostly a welcome respite, but it did nag at him that if anything of actual import were to happen, he’d remain ignorant of it for a time.

  Next the Evanec had started to flicker in and out, and after an hour the ship couldn’t establish a connection to Senecan security channels or anywhere else. It shouldn’t be a problem, seeing as he wasn’t expecting to be engaging in ship-to-anything communications deep in the void of space…though the static was a bit unnerving.

  Finally, his eVi’s communication system fell silent. Locally stored messages remained, but any attempt to send or receive a message or ping the network resulted in a chilling response:

  Connection unable to be established. System is not connected to exanet infrastructure. Messages will be queued until able to be delivered.

  Well. Should Division feel the need to alter his mission, he wouldn’t get the memo. Should they need him for a more urgent mission, he wouldn’t get that one either, which bothered him a marginal amount more. If something happened to Isabela and he didn’t know…but he’d only be here for a few days. It would be fine.

  His gaze drifted to the viewport. The Nebula’s luminous, misty haze formed an eerie, even ghostly environment. Not frightening as such; only dust, gases and the charged particles of the pulsar wind inhabited the sky, and they wielded neither sentience nor intentionality. Rather, it created the impression one had crossed over into an ethereal, incorporeal plane of existence—an effect without a doubt magnified by the disconcerting silence of a formerly ever-present and quite loud civilization.

  He assumed the particular makeup of Metis’ EM signature interfered with transmission protocols, both governmental and commercial. Given communications were ‘classified as a critical system,’ he imagined the VI might be somewhat concerned about the matter.

  “VI, do you know the reason for the interference in communications?”

  “Though no single emission is strong enough to interfere with our systems, the overall EM makeup of this region is nonetheless diffracting all external signals to the point their integrity is lost.”

  “How so?”

  A pause, far longer than normal. “I cannot determine the precise mechanism at this time.”

  Though cognizant it consisted solely of qubits, he felt a strange urge to reassure the VI. “It’s fine, it doesn’t matter.”

  “I will continue to analyze the problem.”

  Wave diffraction was a common enough occurrence, if not often to such damaging effect. Space in its natural state did not always cater to human preferences. On his return he’d submit a log of the interference, and within a few months the Senecan security protocols at least would be adjusted to counteract it. So long as the region stayed uninhabited, the exanet purveyors weren’t likely to give a shit.

  He played with the Evanec settings for a while, but refining the bands merely seemed to make the problem worse—not that ‘null’ could really be made worse. Resigned to the fact he did not possess the ability to improve matters, he relaxed in the pilot’s chair and surveyed the situation.

  Whatever the source of the anomalous readings which had sent him here, it was a solid day to day and a half away based on the rate of increase in the signal strength. The probe had traveled more than a hundred parsecs farther into the Nebula than his current location.

  Still, for obvious reasons he took things slowly. This was unfamiliar territory with unknown factors at work and no safety net should something go wrong. While he would be the first to go in with guns blazing where the circumstance called for it, this one did not. So he moved carefully, scanning and recording for future analysis by those more scientifically minded than he.

  He was standing up to go make a sandwich when the physical sensor blinked an alert. He eased back into the chair and magnified the screen.

  Buried in the shadow of backlit clouds, 0.01 AU away, floated a small planet. The initial scan indicated moderate gravity and a reasonable atmosphere, albeit one consisting of toxic air and volatile weather patterns, which didn’t co
me as a surprise. What star did it belong to? The pulsar? It wasn’t common for pulsars to have planets, though it did happen. Perhaps it was a rogue, ejected from orbit in the eons-past supernova explosion.

  He called up his astroscience files, projected them to an aural and scrolled down them in an effort to recall—

  —a flicker…no, an absence, a dark gap in the nebular clouds, caught the corner of his eye. In a breath he shifted to full alert.

  There was no logical explanation for why his senses were instantly hyper-focused and nanobot-aided adrenaline already rushed through his veins. But preternatural instincts was one reason the government paid him a rather generous salary.

  He swung around to sweep the area in a broad arc, and came up empty. The sensors detected only the noise Metis radiated. Yet a moment later a well-defined void was distinctly silhouetted against a dense fog of dust, illuminated by the pale golden glow of the Metis interior. He checked the scans again. Nada.

  The sensors told him the region was empty. His eyes told him otherwise. His ocular implant strained to zoom in and focus on the distant shadow; he would have a headache later. He tensed as the silhouette solidified in his vision into the outline of an artificial construct. He’d call it a ship, but….

  Then it whipped about and accelerated toward him and he decided it was most definitely a ship. Aerodynamic and tinted an inky black, it resembled nothing so much as a bird of prey preparing to swoop down upon him.

  “Son of a bitch!” How the bloody fuck had those mercs tracked him here? This vessel was supposed to be stealthy. It was stealthy. The scans of the ship had come up squeaky clean. No bloody fucking way could they have tracked him—except for the fact they very plainly had. He slid into the heavier gas clouds to his right, using the visual and EM cover to strafe to the side of his adversary.

  Based on the trajectory and speed when the ship had been visible, he estimated the amount of time until it drew even. With a jerk across the controls he emerged from the clouds and fired on where it should be.