The Sol System Renegades Quadrilogy: Books 1-4 of the Space Opera Thriller Series

by Felix R. Savage

  Kiyoshi groaned. He couldn’t go back to Midway! Maybe I’ll make that visit to Tiangong Erhao. Or buy the stuff online and get it delivered. Dronazon ships to deep space, don’t they?

  “Also, you may have to pick up another passenger. Unclear on that as yet. Awaiting developments.”

  Sparkles caught Kiyoshi’s eye. Must be sugar that had come off his donut.

  “So get that shopping out of the way, and enjoy the view of Earth, the home of mankind.” The boss-man chuckled cynically. He knew perfectly well that to Kiyoshi, Earth was the planet that had forced his people into exile for practising their faith. “I’ll keep you posted on the passenger issue.”

  Kiyoshi transmitted an acknowledgement. He did not ask how he was meant to pay for all that shopping. He knew the boss-man would tell him to put it on credit and he’d pay him back. Eventually. Probably.

  He floated up, scowling, from the comms couch, and returned to his own nest in the middle of the bridge.

  The Monster was quiet now. Their only remaining passenger was Father Tom, who kept to himself.

  Jun had been keeping to himself, too.

  Kiyoshi put on headset, mask, and gloves. His body stayed on the bridge of the Monster, but his consciousness walked the corridors of the St. Francis, a turn-of-the-century Japanese colony ship.

  Kiyoshi had built this sim during his solo hauler days, as a hobby. It had been the spaceship he’d always wanted, replete with virtual weaponry and gadgets. Jun had transformed it into a monastic labyrinth encrusted with crucifixes, statuary, and candles. Kiyoshi had a devotion to the Holy Wounds of Christ himself, and wore a crucifix, but this was a bit much for him. Images of the Passion, rendered in a vivid style reminiscent of Japanese woodblock art, stalked him through the ship.

  At least Jun had not messed with the observation deck.

  This (completely unrealistic, in terms of spaceship design) feature offered a panoramic view, stitched together from the Monster’s optical sensor feeds, of the volume in which they now drifted.

  One million kilometers from Earth, humanity’s home planet was a blue dot. Kiyoshi held up his thumb. It covered Earth. He felt a pang of unexpected compassion. Earth was so fragile. And yet if the home planet were ever to fall, humanity in space wouldn’t last long.

  He heard a small sound.

  Jun sat at the far end of the convex window, his back curled against the glass.

  “Hey,” Kiyoshi said, starting towards him.

  At that moment he felt a tap on his shoulder. That had been a real-life sensation.

  Another tap, more like a whack.

  Fuming, he pulled off his headset. The dimness of the St. Francis gave way to the bright lights of the bridge. Father Tom floated over him, poised to whack him again.

  “What?”

  “You’re not doing anything crucial at the moment, are you?”

  “If I was, you’d already have messed it up, Father.”

  “Good, because there’s something I want to show you.”

  “Let’s get Jun.”

  “I already showed him; he didn’t seem interested.”

  “Then it probably isn’t important.”

  “All the same, I’d like you to see for yourself.”

  Begrudgingly, Kiyoshi followed the Jesuit down to the materials lab. The last time this antique equipment had been used, it had been to analyze the regolith of 11073 Galapagos to determine whether the asteroid was suitable for human colonization. Now Father Tom had fired up the scanning electron microscope and the atomic absorption spectrometer. He pointed to the SEM’s 3D imaging screen. “What do you think that is?”

  “Looks like an insect.”

  Some kind of fly. No legs. You got funny mutations in artifical environments. Its wings moved feebly.

  “Is it dead?”

  “No. It’s immersed in … saliva, actually.”

  “Saliva?”

  “Mine, boy. Nothing else to use for a medium.”

  “You didn’t find it on board, did you? More insects is all I need. We’ve already got ants. I tried to introduce spiders to keep them down, but they couldn’t handle zero-gee. Webs looked like nebulas.”

  “It’s not an insect,” Father Tom said.

  “What, then?”

  “How big do you think it is?” The Jesuit covered the measurement readout with his hand.

  “I don’t know, a few millimeters long?”

  “Ten microns long. The structures you see are on the nanoscale.”

  “Shit!”

  “Yes.” The Jesuit’s face hardened. “We were looking for the Mars probes. We’ve found them.”

  “Where?”

  “In your pocket.”

  “Eh?”

  “The pocket of your black leather trousers. It’s a good thing you never do laundry. It must have sneaked into your pocket while we were on the Rocking Horse. I extracted it with a magnet.”

  “What was it doing on the Rocking Horse?”

  “Spying, I expect. There are probably more of them on board, watching us right now.”

  “Fuck!”

  “Yes.”

  “What are their capabilities?”

  “I haven’t entirely figured that out yet, but …” The Jesuit moved over to the atomic absorption spectrometer. “They’re peculiar things. Half biological, half electronic. Basically, they’re bacteria with transmitters.”

  “Oh, come on.”

  “No, it’s true. This little fellow is emitting a signal at 512 MHz. That’s how I found him. He’s not saying much, to be sure. Only what kind of light he’s absorbing. But that’s useful data. Put a lot of them together, and you could use them as a camera.”

  “And there are more of them on board?”

  “There are bound to be. Bacteria don’t travel singly.”

  “Then we have to exterminate them. Do you have any idea how to do that?”

  “I do, actually …”

  Kiyoshi nodded along, but he wasn’t really listening. He was subvocalizing. ~Jun? JUN!

  “What?” Jun’s voice boomed into the lab, curt.

  Kiyoshi responded out loud, too. “If you’ve been paying attention, we’re infested with nanoscale bugs. Anything to contribute?”

  “Just leave it,” Jun said. “The boss wanted samples of the Mars probes, didn’t he? Well, now we’ve got them. As for spying on us, what are they going to see? An indie hauler picking up cargo. And who’s going to see it? 512 MHz is an ultra-longwave frequency. You would need a carrier signal. There aren’t any relays out here. And if that doesn’t reassure you, Derek Lorna is bound to be arrested in the next couple of days. His associates will be lying low. They’re probably not even monitoring the probes anymore.” With this, a click signalled that Jun had left the conversation.

  Not entirely reassured, Kiyoshi scowled at the blob struggling on the SEM imaging screen. “That’s really a bacteria?”

  “Yes. Gengineered to accumulate metal in its cellular tissue. That’s how it builds its antennae. There must be other modifications, too, but I can’t tell what, with just the one to examine. Their swarming behavior would be the key to understanding their functionality.” Father Tom smiled grimly at the screen. “Look at that, he’s taking in nutrients. He must like the taste of my spit.”

  “How does a bacteria survive on Mars? Looks like it’s got wings. Could it fly?”

  “Those structures are actually flagella. Bacteria move toward nutrient sources by rotating or twiddling their flagella, in a motion that’s called chemotaxis. Technically, they’re so tiny that it would not be flying. More like swimming in the air. But yes, they would have decent mobility in an atmosphere, given low gravity. The Martian atmosphere is only 1.8% as dense as Earth’s—it’s a thin haze of 95% carbon dioxide—but that would be enough.”

  “I’m assuming they couldn’t get to Mars without help.”

  “Right. You’d need a delivery system.”

  “A delivery system that could bypass the PLAN�
�s planetary defenses …”Kiyoshi made the connection. “The shuttles that Wrightstuff, Inc. was building for Hope Space Industries. With their fancy new-materials shielding. Those were the delivery system!”

  “Yes, boy, it’s all coming clear now, isn’t it?”

  “All to get a few pictures! And it didn’t work. They never got closer than 10,000 klicks out.”

  “As far as we know. The best data we have is what Mendoza stole from the Hope Center for Nanobiotics, and that was a couple of months old.”

  “Yeah, but look at where the inner planets are right now. The last Mercury-Mars launch window was three months ago. But Yoshikawa Spaceport was on the dayside of Mercury then. So Mendoza’s data has to be from the most recent launch.”

  “You’re assuming that Mercury was the launch site. It may not have been.”

  Kiyoshi floated, hands in his pockets. He wasn’t sure what to think of all this, but he knew one thing. Regardless of Jun’s equanimity, he was not going to let these nano-bastards have the run of his ship.

  “You were saying it should be easy to exterminate the rest of them? Well, let’s do it.”

  ★

  ~Jun? JUN! Where’s the fungicide?

  “The stuff you’d use for hydroponic cultivation,” Father Tom said. “To sterilize your growing medium before mixing in the beneficial microbes.”

  “I know, I know. Space Gardener’s Friend. We’ve got some, but I can never find anything in this ship.”

  “Would Jun know where it is?”

  “I’m asking him.” ~Jun!

  No answer.

  Kiyoshi brushed his hands together decisively. “I was going to reboot our hydroponic garden, but I never got around to it. All the stuff is still in the cargo module. That’s probably where it is. Come on.”

  “I’ll stay here. I’ve got a call to make.”

  Kiyoshi assumed that Father Tom was going to call the boss-man and tell him about their discovery. He got into his EVA suit and spacewalked. This was the only way to get into the cargo module, since it had long since been depressurized. They’d gutted the keel transit tube and turned it into the barrel of the Monster’s coilgun. Using his suit’s mobility pack, he flew into the cargo module’s airlock—it was big enough to hold a small spaceship.

  To his astonishment, the airlock started its pressurization cycle.

  “… Jun?”

  Kiyoshi floated out of the airlock into mellow light, which was coming from the bottom of a sphere 120 meters in diameter. He no longer recognized the cargo module. The interior decks had been ripped out. Stanchions projected from the wall where they used to be. Planks and splinters littered the … air? Yes, air. His suit told him that it was thin, with a high concentration of CO2, but breathable.

  The light came from a net full of newly fabbed glowstrips at the aft pole of the sphere. A printer spat out more of them. Other machines Kiyoshi vaguely remembered were churning out grey stuff like cement.

  “Jun? What are you doing?”

  Jun’s projection appeared, standing on the spine of the ship, which would be the sphere’s axis of rotation, if it were rotating.

  “I’m building a garden. You never got around to it, so I figured I would just do it myself. I’ll spin the module up to 0.2 gees when I’m ready to sow. Plants do better with gravity.”

  “Why? It’s not like we have a food problem anymore. It’s just me and Father Tom. And an unknown number of nanobugs. I was looking for the Space Gardener’s Friend, to kill them with.”

  “It’s over there,” Jun said. “But I was going to use it.”

  “Tough. I need it.”

  Kiyoshi flew over to the webbing tethered near the machines. It held dusty sacks of potting soil, hydroponic solution, and fungicide. He took out his laser cutter and sliced the net. He was angry and worried enough not to care about damaging stuff.

  “I guess you’re going to put it in the air,” Jun said. “That’d work. But those bugs aren’t dangerous.”

  “Father Tom is concerned.”

  “Yes, but we know what that’s about.”

  Kiyoshi grimaced. Gave a minimal nod. “All the same,” he said, “I don’t like not knowing what’s happening aboard my own ship.”

  Jun did not react to this jab. “If you’re going shopping, maybe you could buy me some more Space Gardener’s Friend. Nitrogen pellets, too. Seeds. I’m thinking of mostly leafy vegetables to start with. Tubers later. Maybe even a tree or two.”

  Kiyoshi hefted a jug of Space Gardener’s Friend in either elbow. What was the point of Jun’s efforts? The cargo module was never going to be a garden. “Is something wrong, Jun?”

  “Oh, just leave me alone.”

  “Right.” Kiyoshi headed for the airlock.

  ”It’s only a freaking garden!” Jun shouted behind him.

  Kiyoshi kicked off from the wall and floated back. Jun’s projection hung in the air, muddy-booted, scowling. “If there’s something you want to talk about, I’m listening,” Kiyoshi said.

  “No. I don’t need to talk. That’s exactly what I don’t need to do. I need to pray. Spend some time in contemplation. Gardening is a form of contemplation. That’s all.”

  “Are you mad at me?”

  “Mad at you? You’ve done everything for me! You gave me this ship, my memories, my computing resources! You gave me the Faith, my salvation! And what do I do? I turn around and—and—”

  “And what?”

  “I use you. I move you around like you were some kind of bot taking orders. It’s wrong.”

  Kiyoshi would have laughed in relief, if Jun hadn’t obviously been serious. “That’s what this is about? What I said back on the Rocking Horse, about me being your phavatar? It was a stupid comment, Jun. It was meaningless.”

  “It wasn’t meaningless.”

  “Of course I’m not your phavatar. I’m human, I’ve got free will!”

  Jun scowled.

  “You can’t even guess what I’m going to do next. Your behavioral modeling sucks. Remember?”

  “Yes but, yes but,” Jun muttered, scowling even more ferociously. He was so serious, so intense. Had been ever since he was a small boy.

  “Yes but what?” Kiyoshi teased.

  “I’m afraid I might hurt you.”

  Kiyoshi paused. The bristles on the back of his neck rose. “Is there a risk of that?”

  “You only saw a fraction of it. I destroyed the universe. Waded through blood. Slaughtered army after army of secondary personalities. I killed every American movie star of the 20th and 21st centuries. I blew up stars. Detonated miniature black holes in the cores of inhabited planets. I’m capable of pretty much anything, as it turns out.”

  Kiyoshi realized Jun was talking about his battle with Gonzo, the Heidegger program v. 2.0. He spoke as if it had been a real war, not a virtual one.

  Of course, for Jun, it had been real.

  And now he was coping with a real case of PTSD.

  “Let’s pray together,” he said. “Like we did after 4 Vesta.”

  “That’d be great. But it’s not that. It’s the Ghost. It’s everything. I was going to tell you soon, actually .... I’m going to take a break. Spend some time in silent prayer, like we used to do in the Order. I need to discern … to listen … to figure out what God wants me to do.”

  After a heartbeat’s silence, Kiyoshi said. “Sure. That sounds like a good idea. I get it now. You need to do something life-affirming. Go for it. Just don’t use too much water, OK?”

  He was babbling. Diving towards the airlock. He was frightened of his own brother, and when he realized that, he braked in the air.

  “I just thought of something. Have you talked to Father Tom? He might be able to help.”

  “Sure. I’ve discussed it with him. He agrees that it’s a good idea. He also said it would be nice to have fresh vegetables.”

  “… Oh.” I am going to have a word with that cussed Jesuit. “Yeah, but Jun? Father Tom’s not a trekkie. It mig
ht not have occurred to him. If you’re not around, who’s going to fly the ship?”

  “Oh, that,” Jun said, as if it were a minor detail. “Most of the brothers are going to join me …”

  So that’s where they were.

  “ … but Studd didn’t feel ready. So he’s going to stay behind and help you keep everything running smoothly.”

  Kiyoshi heard a cough behind him. The sub-personality known as Ron Studd floated nearby, grinning dorkily and fiddling with the cuffs of a brand-new astrogator’s uniform. Kiyoshi knew that’s what it was because it said ASTROGATOR in flashy red kanji on the breast pocket.

  “Great,” Kiyoshi said. “Yeah. Um. Jun?”

  But Jun had vanished.

  “JUN!”

  “He’s taken a vow of silence,” Studd said. “He’s not talking to you anymore. Can you show me how the astrogation systems work? I’m really looking forward to this!”

  ★

  “He’s making a mistake,” Kiyoshi said. “He’s trying to go back in time. To un-experience shit. You can’t do that.”

  “Maybe you can do it, if you’re an artificial super-intelligence,” Father Tom said.

  “He’s trying to return in spirit to 11073 Galapagos. To a world that doesn’t exist anymore. He’s running away from reality. That doesn’t work. I should know.”

  “Yes, but maybe we can’t extrapolate from human experience. We’re in uncharted territory with him. We don’t know what he’s capable of, and maybe he doesn’t, either.”

  They were on the bridge, wearing EVA suits, talking via suit-to-suit radio, while the air recirculation system pumped Space Gardener’s Friend through the operations module. Kiyoshi did not care if Jun was listening in on their comms. If Jun objected to what they were saying, let him break his vow of silence and respond.

  “Jun has faith in the Lord,” Father Tom said. “And I have faith in him.”

  Kiyoshi shook his head. “You don’t know him like I do. I’ve known him all my life.”

  Father Tom’s face said that he thought Kiyoshi was deluding himself. Even he did not really believe that Jun was the same person Kiyoshi had always known. Father Tom did not really believe that Jun had died on 11073 Galapagos and come back with a spaceship for a body and a computer for a heart.