The Battle of Castle Nebula (The Cendrillon Cycle Book 1)

by Stephanie Ricker

  “Just over a year,” Bruno replied. “We celebrated our anniversary at Somerled Falls when I was in port last.”

  “Good choice, the Falls are beautiful. Does your wife work at the repair yards? Seems like half the inhabitants of Atthis do. They’re always hiring down at the drydocks.”

  “Takes a lot of personnel to keep the Fleet sailing,” Bruno agreed. “But no, not usually. My wife works at the university most of the time. Long-range communications research. They called her in to work on the Laika a while back, though. She and her team souped up the long-range sensors.”

  “Not much to hear on the long-range comms these days, is there? No one’s out very far anymore.” The crewman’s voice turned wistful; many in the Fleet regretted the necessity of curtailing exploration in recent decades.

  Bruno shook his head. “It’s true, there aren’t many ships in the Periphery.”

  “That’ll change, though,” the crewman said confidently. “Sooner or later we’ll have to chase the Demesne away from the chthonian planets and take what we need. The Common Union can’t grow without more cendrillon.”

  Bruno shifted uncomfortably, surprised by the man’s comment. He didn’t know how to respond, and fortunately another shuttle rider caught the crewman’s attention, sparing Bruno the necessity of a reply. Was everyone convinced that a war over cendrillon was inevitable?

  When the shuttle docked planetside, Katrin was waiting for him. He didn’t know how she did that. Somehow, no matter what time he came in, she was always standing on the shuttle platform, the nearly ubiquitous sunshine of Atthis making her long black hair shimmer. The smile on her face chased away his worries about the troubling conversations he had heard today. He dropped his bag and swept her up in a bear hug, inhaling the familiar scent of her hair. The top of her head reached just the right height for him to kiss it as they embraced.

  “You’ll roast,” she protested, tugging his long Fleet coat off his shoulders and slinging it over her arm. He relinquished it willingly; even at the climate-controlled docks, the temperature was still considerably warmer than it was aboard the Laika. Unlike the fourth world in the Avis system, the snow planet of Anser, Atthis was warm and humid, with inhabitable areas consisting of islands strung out across Atthis’ vast oceans. Too hot throughout most of the year to be a popular tourist destination, the planet nevertheless was a favorite place for crew shore leave while the Fleet ships were being repaired at the yards. The heat never seemed to bother Katrin, but Bruno could already feel the prickle of sweat on his forehead.

  “Missed me, I see,” she teased him when he resumed the hug, now free of his coat. But she was the one to grab a fistful of hair at the back of his head and draw him down for a kiss. He was briefly grateful he hadn’t got his hair cut that week as he’d originally planned.

  Two crewmembers disembarking from their shuttle whistled at the embracing couple, and Bruno broke the kiss. “Maybe that’s a sign we should go home and have dinner,” he said.

  Katrin raised an eyebrow with the mischievous smile he knew so well. “Do you mean have dinner?” she asked, making air quotes around the words.

  “Quit reading my mind,” he murmured, wrapping an arm around her waist and scooping up his duffle bag with the other. Seeing her again eased a tension in him that he didn’t know existed until it dissipated in her presence.

  He steered her towards the catamaran docks while they exchanged stories from the past two weeks. They found seats on the crowded catamaran without really paying attention to their surroundings. Bruno was only peripherally aware when the high-speed boat began its trip, taking them from the island dock to Illiger, the city where Katrin lived—and Bruno, whenever he could make it planetside, which was as often as he dared. Thousands of employees commuted by catamaran to the repair yards each day, some continuing on by shuttle to the system of drydocks in synchronous orbit ten thousand miles above the planet, some remaining at the planetside facilities, which sprawled over one of the largest islands in Atthis’ main northern archipelago.

  “I don’t believe you,” Katrin said after he had related some of his experiences with Humphreys. “You and the famous Isambard Humphreys, gabbing together?”

  He grinned. “He found my winning personality irresistible. He’s going to name his next ship after me.”

  She laughed, and the sound of it only strengthened his grin. He loved to hear her unabashed, full-body laughter whenever she found something truly amusing. He always felt as though he’d won a small victory when he was the cause of it.

  A stir among their fellow travelers made Katrin lean over to look out of the window. A pod of merswine some distance away were breaching, but the catamaran whisked past so quickly that the travelers were past them almost before they saw them.

  Bruno glanced out once, disinterested. Somehow, travelling by catamaran felt less like sailing to him than travelling by starship did. The catamarans moved so quickly that there was no opportunity to view the surrounding ocean with any clarity, and the waterjet propulsion eliminated any rocking sensation from the waves. He knew it was illogical—the Laika moved at tremendously greater speeds—but he much preferred the illusion of tranquility as the starship sailed through space to this hectic race above actual water.

  He found the woman in front of him far more entrancing than the view outside. The slanting sunlight illuminated Katrin’s strong profile as she watched the waters outside of the catamaran. She was sensitive about her long, thin nose, he knew, but secretly it was one of his favorite things about her. He liked her decisive features, set in a face tanned from Atthis’ sun.

  His stomach growled loudly, announcing the fact that he hadn’t taken the time to eat after his shift before hastening from the Laika.

  Katrin laughed at him as he grimaced at the noise. “Sounds like we should make actual dinner first, husband of mine.”

  He opened his mouth to argue, but his stomach protested vociferously again. “Er, maybe something quick…” He ducked his head and smiled.

  “I love that goofy smile,” she said, nudging his leg with her knee.

  “Yeah?” he asked, nudging back. “Well, I love you.”

  The high-rise buildings of Illiger filled the windows of the catamaran, and soon they were disembarking. Their home was in one of the wind spires, slender housing buildings that soared to heights of eighty stories or more. Each apartment inside was round, clumped together in a flower-petal formation in such a way that almost half of the living space of each dwelling faced the outside to catch the breezes that gusted across the tropical planet.

  Bruno only relinquished his hold on Katrin’s hand when the lift arrived at their apartment so that he could place his palm on their door scanner. The door warbled discouragingly.

  Bruno shook his head as he tried again. “It doesn’t like me.”

  “It just doesn’t know you,” Katrin consoled. The door still refused to unlock, so she pushed his hand aside gently and put her own on the palm scanner. This time the door opened with an obliging chirp.

  “I think I’ve just been judged by my own door,” Bruno complained, picking up his duffle bag and following Katrin inside the apartment. He couldn’t maintain even the pretense of grumpiness, though—not when he was with Katrin. Every time he came back, he wondered how the Laika could ever have felt like home to him without her presence.

  He dumped his duffle bag in the living room, whose tall, open windows overlooked the city and past that, the ocean. The breeze off of the water billowed the white curtains back into the room. He stood in the window a moment, inhaling the fresh air.

  Katrin came up next to him and wrapped her arms around his waist from the side, nestling under his arm. “What was that about dinner?” she asked.

  He twisted slightly in her arms and tipped her head up for a kiss. He felt her smile against his lips, and she chuckled. “Not that kind of dinner,” she said, letting him go and taking a step backward towards the kitchen. “You can take care of the fish.”r />
  With a good-natured sigh, Bruno began cooking thuni-fish steaks while Katrin made a salad and set the table. As they prepared dinner together, Bruno told Katrin about the conversations he had heard about the unexpectedly precarious political situation. Unexpected only to him, perhaps—Katrin nodded as he spoke and seemed unsurprised.

  “I had a feeling things might reach that point,” she said, startling Bruno with her abruptly serious tone.

  “Really? I just have a feeling I’m slow on the uptake,” he said. “I didn’t see this coming at all.”

  Katrin laughed. Bruno had always assumed that the allure of her mirth would fade eventually, but a year later, he still got a kick out of it. “Don’t feel too dumb,” she said. “I don’t think most people have any idea, and that’s probably exactly how the mining companies want it.” Her smile faded, making her face look suddenly severe. “But I am concerned. Full-scale war between the Demesne and the Common Union would be disastrous for everyone involved, but especially for the people here on Atthis. Sure, there would be an economic resurgence as more labor is needed at the repair yards, but Atthis would also become—”

  “A tempting target for the Demesne,” Bruno finished, frowning. “Yes.”

  Katrin seemed about to speak, but she turned her attention to the orange solanum she was chopping instead. The vegetables grew prolifically on the islands, and Katrin adored them in salads.

  Bruno looked at her expectantly. “What is it? You obviously have something on your mind.”

  Katrin set the knife down. “I heard something today,” she said. Bruno was unaccustomed to hearing hesitation in her voice, and he stopped prodding the thuni steaks. “I was fiddling with the old receivers,” she continued, “trying out some of the unused frequencies to see if we could reuse them for some of the newer transmitters. I didn’t expect to get anything,” she said in a rush, “and none of our ships have used those commlines in years, I thought.”

  Bruno took the steaks off of the stove, intrigued as much by her unusual demeanor as by her words. “But you heard something?”

  Katrin nodded. “I picked up a communication, using the old data encryption from the colonial years. Nobody has the software to decrypt that anymore.”

  “Except you,” Bruno said. Katrin’s family lineage was full of cryptographers, and she had made a hobby of going through her great-grandmother’s old files.

  “Except me,” she agreed. “I ran them through the software. If I did it correctly, it sounds like Common Union forces attacked several ships at a Periphery world in disputed space. What ships could they be but Demesne?”

  Bruno stared at her in astonishment. “Katrin, that’s huge! If Common forces so much as sailed through that area, it could be cause for war. If they actually attacked the Demesne openly, we are at war.” He struggled to process what it would mean for them all if this information were correct. “When did this happen?”

  She toyed with a piece of solanum, still uncharacteristically hesitant. “Within the past week, if the transmission is to be believed. Even through subspace, it took the communication a while to get here.”

  “Do you know exactly where the attack was made?” He needed as much information as possible about the situation. He had to notify Volkova as soon as he could.

  “Not exactly,” she said. He waited. Her reticence was making him nervous. She finally met his eyes again. “But it was near an inhabited world,” she continued, “since the communication mentioned the possibility of civilian casualties. I was unfamiliar with the planetary designation they used, and when I looked it up, I couldn’t find it on any of the charts. One comm response called it by a colloquial term, though.”

  “What was it?”

  Katrin shrugged helplessly. “Even the decryption software had trouble translating it. Something that sounded like Hayzeltry. I’ve never heard of it before.”

  Bruno tried to imagine what the repercussions of such an attack might be. Not just an attack on the Demesne, in disputed space, but near an inhabited world. Outright war seemed inevitable. And if that were the case…

  “Katrin,” he said slowly, “if you were the Demesne commander, and you knew you were at war with the Common Union, and you knew you didn’t have long before you were going to have to face the combined forces of the Galactic Fleet, wouldn’t you do all you could to cripple that Fleet before it could move against you?”

  Katrin narrowed her eyes. “Of course. And the Fleet is building all those new ships at Anser.”

  Bruno threw the fork he had been using on the fish on the counter and reached for his coat. “I have to tell the Captain and get back aboard the Laika. She’ll notify everyone—”

  Katrin caught his arm and looked him in the eye. The expression on her face arrested his motion. “Two things to think about before you do that,” she said quietly. “One: why do you think the Laika has been on patrol in this system for so long? A sloop of war, babysitting one star system for well over a year? And why do you think the Fleet would have me and my team upgrade the Laika’s sensors to such an extent last year, if not to monitor for ships moving on Anser?”

  Bruno stared at her. She couldn’t be saying what he thought she was saying. “You think the Common Union has been planning the attack for that long, that they were afraid the Avis system would be a target nearly two years ago when the Laika was first assigned here?” he asked in disbelief. “If so, why not assign a much larger armed contingent here? The Laika is good, but she’s just a sloop; she can’t fight against the entire Demesne.”

  “No, of course not,” Katrin said. She sounded patient, but Bruno knew that voice. She used it when she was keeping her emotions tightly in check. “But with the sensor upgrades, she could see any forces coming with enough time to call in support. Didn’t you tell me that the Fleet has been keeping a frigate within a day’s sail of the system for the past year?”

  Bits of overheard conversations began to make sense to Bruno. “It’s true. And now I understand why they would send the Sovereign here to Atthis for a refit at this time, and why the Laika is waiting for her to arrive instead of just dropping Humphreys off and going back to patrol.” He frowned. “What’s the second thing I should think about?”

  Katrin smiled mirthlessly. “That your wife found this out using illegal software to spy on Common Union communications. Tell your captain if you must; I’ll take whatever consequences there may be. But consider whether it’s worth it, especially since I suspect your captain is well aware of the threat.”

  Bruno put his coat back on its hook by the door as he digested that.

  “I’ve had a little time to think about this,” she said into the silence. “I know it sounds wild, but it makes sense, doesn’t it?”

  “You,” he said finally, “make an excellent point. Such a clever Katrin I have.” She grinned at him in relief as he chewed the inside of his mouth, mulling the situation over.

  “You can’t stay here,” he said suddenly, making his decision.

  She frowned at him. “What? What do you mean?”

  “Hear me out,” he said, putting up a hand to forestall the arguments he knew she would make. “Anser is where the new Fleet ships are built, true. But Atthis is where the existing ships are repaired. The Sovereign is coming here to Atthis, and there are plenty of other Fleet ships in the drydocks. This place is as much a target as Anser. You can’t stay here.”

  Katrin heard him out, but she shook her head at him the whole time he was speaking. “Bruno, I installed the comm sensors on the Laika myself. With the new systems, she can hear any ships in this sector, let alone the star system. We’ll have at least two days’ warning before any Demesne ships can make it here”—he turned away from her in vexation and she moved to keep in front of him, raising her voice slightly—“which is plenty of time for the Fleet to amass a counter force, you have to admit! The Demesne ships will never reach Atthis,” she declared. “You’re the one in danger; the Laika will doubtless be part of the counter for
ce. If the Demesne even attacks here,” she added, some of the intensity draining out of her voice. “We don’t know that they will.”

  “All the same,” Bruno replied, “I have a bad feeling about this. What if even one ship breaks through the Fleet forces? You can bet they’ll come here if they can. I can’t risk having you here.”

  Katrin’s mouth was set into a firm line, which boded ill for Bruno’s chances of winning the argument. “Flip the situation around,” she said. “What if I said that I wouldn’t risk letting you stay aboard the Laika? You wouldn’t leave. I know you, Bruno.”

  “That’s different; it’s my job to protect others aboard the Laika. I couldn’t just leave, you know that. I’m not saying your work at the university isn’t important,” he said hastily, seeing the anger flare in her eyes, “but you have to admit, leaving your job isn’t quite the same as me deserting from the Fleet.”

  “For the sake of this argument, say that I did leave Illiger. Where would you have me go?” Katrin flung her arms wide, exasperated. “We’re on an island here, you know. Nowhere to run.”

  “I know,” Bruno said, his voice quiet. “So come aboard with me.”

  Katrin laughed shortly. Then she frowned as she saw that his face didn’t change. “You’re not joking, are you?”

  The firm line was back, but Bruno was adamant. He wasn’t accustomed to making decisions based upon a feeling, but this foreboding was too strong to ignore. He said, “I am not.”

  “But I don’t have clearance to be on board; that expired months ago.”

  “I know.” Bruno frowned as he thought about how he could possibly make it work. “We’d have to sneak you aboard.” It would be tricky indeed.

  “Ohhh no, you don’t, Ensign Lorengel,” Katrin said, shaking her head. “Don’t even think about it. That’s against regulations. It would ruin your career, you know that!”

  “Only if they caught you,” Bruno reasoned, his voice matter-of-fact even as the thought of that possibility gave rise to a feeling of panic. He squelched it lest she see it in his face.