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

by Stephanie Ricker

  The Vogel home was within walking distance of a launch station, as was nearly everything in Gahmuret—assuming that the weather cooperated. Temperature varied little in the equatorial regions, but the wet season typically brought heavy snowfall. Solar power was the predominant means of heating the houses during much of the year. A few families and businesses owned their own skiffs, small shuttles sturdy enough to fly through Anser’s atmosphere or even make it as far as the spacedocks in orbit. Most, however, simply rented one when needed or took the planetary shuttle system from the launch station to the docks.

  “Can I let the hunds out to say hello?” Elsa asked as they approached their bright blue house. The home wasn’t spacious, but what it lacked in sprawl, it made up in coziness.

  “For a few minutes, but then you need to leave for your lessons,” Lies answered. “I’m sorry we were late; I know it doesn’t leave you much time.”

  “I’ll hurry!” Elsa took off at a run for the hunds’ kennel, a small addition at the back of the house. The kennel provided shelter for the hunds but was kept cooler than the family’s home.

  Elsa opened the kennel door and was nearly bowled over by a rush of grey-furred animals. The hund team cavorted around her. The lead hund, Kaver, dodged in to lick her face as she attempted to keep her feet.

  “Go say hi—Mom’s home! Go on, sillies.” Elsa pushed Kaver away, and the lead hund took off for Helias and Lies, who were just entering the foyer. Most of the houses on Anser were designed with double doors to keep the cold—and tracked-in snow—outside as much as possible. The hunds swarmed into the foyer. As she followed the team, Elsa heard a cry of dismay from her father.

  “And here I’d just cleaned the floor in honor of your arrival,” he told Lies, shaking his head. Both of them shed their parkas after hugging the animals, and Lies carried the gear through the inner doors while Helias chased the hunds back outside.

  “Crazy critters, go play.” He ruffled Kaver’s fur. “Fine leader you are. They’ve all gone outside without you.”

  “Can’t Kaver come inside for a few minutes?” Elsa asked, hugging the hund.

  “You know he’s too hot inside, Elsa,” Helias told her.

  “Just for a minute! I have to go to school in a bit anyway.”

  Helias relented, holding the inner door open, and Kaver darted in, happy to take advantage of the rare opportunity.

  Inside, the Vogel home was small but comfortable. Like most inhabitants of Anser, the Vogels favored a modest-sized house that required less energy to heat. As a result of the climate, Anser’s people were relatively unconcerned with acquiring possessions. When Lies commented on this rare attitude once, Helias replied with a shrug. “You just have to keep stuff from freezing somehow. The more you own, the more you have to take care of.”

  “What happened to the ‘no hunds in the kitchen’ rule?” Lies asked innocently as Kaver bounded past her.

  Helias spread his hands. “How could I say no to that face?”

  She chuckled. “Do you mean Elsa’s or Kaver’s?”

  Helias pretended to consider. “Well, both.”

  Lies knelt down and joined Elsa in wrestling with the hund, who ended up sprawled on his back, chuffing as he enjoyed a belly rub from both of them.

  Elsa looked up quickly from playing with Kaver’s ears, apparently struck by a thought. “Mom, if there is a war, does that mean you’ll have to go away again for a long time?”

  Lies sobered. “It could be, Elsa. But don’t worry about that right now. There’s still plenty of work for me to do on the Wilhelm before she’s ready to sail. If I’m assigned elsewhere after the work on her is complete, we’ll discuss it as a family and decide what to do.” She met Helias’ eyes, though she continued to speak to her daughter. “Maybe I would quit my job and stay here with you and Dad.”

  “Would you do that?” Helias murmured, surprised. “I thought you loved the work.” Hope bled through into his tone.

  “I would if we went to war,” Lies told him. “I’m happy to stay on at the shipyards, but I won’t take any more deep-space assignments. Elsa needs her mother close by instead of at a distance measured in lightyears.” She lightened her tone. “And let’s be honest, you need a wife,” she said, plucking at his sleeve. “Really, Helias, this shirt? It needed to be thrown away years ago.”

  “It has character,” Helias protested feebly. “Not to mention sentimental value.”

  Lies gave him a skeptical look. “Do you even remember where you got it?”

  He hesitated. “Uh...your mother?”

  “Nice try.”

  Helias hugged Lies from behind. “Since that didn’t work, I’ll just have to rely on my wiles.”

  Elsa twisted her face into a grimace. “Come on, Kaver, let’s go to school before they start making out again.”

  Lies extricated herself from Helias’ arms and came over to kiss Elsa on the forehead. “Have a good day, and study hard. I’ll see you this evening. Wildekreet lasagna for dinner tonight?”

  Elsa whooped. “Yes! With garlic bread?” Lasagna was a very rare treat. While most fruits and vegetables could be grown in Gahmuret’s indoor hydroponic gardens, they were almost prohibitively costly. Elsa had expensive tastes: her affinity for anything tomato-based was only occasionally indulged by her parents.

  Helias put his hand over his heart. “I do so solemnly swear. If I can get to the market.”

  Lies kissed Elsa on the forehead. “Bye, little bird.”

  “Bye, Mom.” Elsa ruffled Kaver’s ears one last time and went to find her school bag where she left it in the hallway to the bedrooms.

  “Call if you’re going to be late. And don’t forget your ice axe if you plan to play outside town afterwards,” Lies called after her as she grabbed her gear. “It’s slippery out there.” Helias nipped at his wife’s shoulder playfully, and she swatted him away.

  Elsa carefully closed the inner door to the house as Kaver slipped past her into the foyer, leaving her parents alone. Both of them had drilled the necessity of energy conservation into her from a young age—energy bleed from the house was far too costly to permit anything less.

  Elsa slipped on her parka and tucked her small ice axe in the parka’s belt sheath before putting on her gloves and shouldering her bag. She grabbed a flitter disc from the shelf in the foyer. Kaver was dancing by the outside door, still eager to play. Elsa opened the outer door, and the hund rushed past her, nearly bowling her over.

  “Watch it, Kaver,” she protested.

  He turned around and looked at her apologetically, tail still wagging.

  Bright glare from the snow hit Elsa’s eyes as soon as she stepped outside into the frigid morning air, and she pulled her snow goggles over her eyes and her hood up over her head. She threw the flitter disc for Kaver, and he took off across the snow to catch the flying toy in midair.

  Across the way, Elsa saw that her friend Godfrey and his father were outside fiddling with their family’s hund sled. She waved a parka-clad arm, and Godfrey left off his work to snatch his own school bag from the sled and trot in her direction. Kaver ran to him, and Godfrey took the flitter disc from the hund’s mouth and threw it again for the animal as the children set out for the schoolhouse.

  “Hey, Elsa.” Godfrey fell into step next to her.

  “What were you working on?”

  “Helping my dad fix the sled,” he said. “He busted it on the ice the other day. He’s the fastest sledder in town,” Godfrey bragged. “Faster than your dad, I’ll bet.”

  Elsa opened her mouth to argue, but Godrey’s father really was fast. She searched for some way to compete. “Well, my father may not be the fastest sledder, but he’s the tallest man in all the worlds,” she said.

  Godfrey looked skeptical but didn’t dispute the claim. Helias was the tallest man in Gahmuret, at any rate. “Well, you sure didn’t get any of his genes for height. When are you going to grow? You can hardly drive a sled.”

  Elsa’s face red
dened. This was a sore point with her. “Yeah, well, my mom says that learning about starships is more important than archaic modes of transportation.”

  Godfrey shrugged. “Starship knowledge won’t help you out on the snowpack.”

  “And a hund sled won’t help you to leave Anser,” she retorted.

  “Maybe I don’t want to leave Anser.”

  Elsa stared. She loved her homeworld, but she dreamed of the day when she could board one of the Fleet ships and see other worlds. “Fine, you stay here with your sled hunds,” she said. “I’ll explore the galaxy and come back with souvenirs for you.”

  “Bring me back one of those hoverbikes you told me about,” Godfrey said wistfully. “Tell me again about how warm it was on Atthis.”

  Elsa was happy to oblige. Her first trip offworld had been to Atthis last season, and it had caused no shortage of celebrity for her amongst her classmates. “It’s so warm outside, you’re too hot even in short sleeves. People never have to wear parkas, ever.”

  Godfrey shook his head in disbelief. “Hard to imagine.”

  Elsa nodded sagely. “They have to cool the houses artificially so people don’t get too hot.” She made a face. “I didn’t like that. What a lot of trouble. I’d rather have to wear a parka.”

  “Well, I don’t know,” Godfrey said. “Could have its advantages. And the hoverbikes, those sounded good.”

  Kaver gamboled around them until Elsa finally threw the flitter disc again. “They were fun. After I stopped crashing,” she added. “But I thought you didn’t want to leave Anser?”

  “Not for keeps. But you can’t really ride a hoverbike here.”

  Elsa couldn’t dispute the truth of that.

  “Godfrey! Elsa!” A red-headed girl called to them from across the street. “Wait for me.”

  “Should we?” Godfrey murmured.

  “Be nice,” Elsa admonished. “Milcent’s smart, I like her.”

  “Too smart by half,” Godfrey grumbled.

  Privately, Elsa tended to agree. She and Milcent competed vigorously for the best scores at school, and while Godfrey didn’t care overly much about his scores, he wasn’t fond of know-it-alls.

  “Well, I’m leaving Anser,” Elsa said definitively, continuing the conversation as Milcent ran up, giving Kaver a wide berth. “I have it all planned out. I’ll enter the Fleet prep program when I’m sixteen, join when I’m nineteen, and study propulsion for a few years while I work my way through the ranks. I’ll be a lieutenant by twenty-two.”

  “And after that?” Milcent asked.

  Elsa shrugged. “By then I’ll be old, who knows?”

  “Twenty-two isn’t that old,” Milcent said. “I intend to be a captain by thirty. That’s still really young to be commanding your own ship.” Kaver gamboled a little too closer to her, and she eyed him suspiciously. Milcent didn’t like hunds, a fact that Elsa found incomprehensible.

  They had nearly reached the school grounds, though, and it was time for Kaver to leave. Elsa turned the hund. “Go home, Kaver. We have to go to school.”

  Kaver waved his tail slowly and whined.

  Elsa was sorely tempted to try to sneak him in, but she knew it would never work. “You know the routine, boy. Go home. Go on.”

  Kaver sighed and turned towards home, looking over his shoulder hopefully in case they changed their minds. Elsa knew he preferred to have all of the people he cared about in one place where he could watch over them, but sometimes it just wasn’t possible. He couldn’t protect everyone at once.

  Within an hour and a half of his arrival on Atthis, Bruno was leaving the planet again. But on this shuttle ride, he was escorting a renowned long-range sensor specialist to the drydocks above Atthis.

  It was Katrin’s turn to be jittery, and Bruno put a hand on hers to keep her from playing with her fingers.

  “This is most illegal thing I’ve ever done,” she whispered in his ear.

  “That is not true,” he retorted. “I was there when you climbed over the railing at the Falls to get a picture of that hummingbird, remember? As if the planet weren’t swarming with the little things.”

  “Mild trespassing doesn’t compare to breaking Fleet regulations,” she scoffed. “And I seem to recall that you were the one who was nervous that time. Why are you so cavalier about this?” She regarded him with a curious tilt of her head.

  Bruno hesitated. Now that Katrin was off the planet, his doubts about what to do were resurfacing. Why was he so willing to risk his career for a hunch? He looked down at his and Katrin’s hands, their fingers intertwined. He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it swiftly without replying. Katrin smiled at him.

  The shuttle docked, and Katrin stood, smoothing the wrinkles from her clothing in a businesslike fashion and raising her chin. She carried a case in one hand, ostensibly full of diagnostic tools—as long as no one opened it to reveal her personal possessions inside. She led the way out of the shuttle, walking with a purposeful stride to the processing area of the docks. The docks were abuzz with activity, with workers and Fleet crewmembers hustling back and forth. Sound echoed in the cavernous space, which was large enough to accommodate giant cendrillon girders, cargo transports, and anything else needed to repair Fleet ships.

  Katrin ignored the hubbub around her, cutting a straight line between a worker with a heavily loaded antigrav handcart and a group of Fleet crewmembers laughing together. Bruno maintained a position just behind her right shoulder as he scanned their surroundings. No one was paying them any attention, and his shoulders relaxed fractionally.

  Katrin approached one of the processing stations and waved her commlink with her clearance information over it. The screen lit up red.

  She turned to wrinkle her nose at Bruno behind her. “Told you,” she said. She turned back around and hit a few keys, requesting an operator’s assistance.

  A harried-looking man appeared on the station’s screen. “How can I help you? What error are you receiving?”

  Katrin blew hair out of her face forcefully, doing her best impression of an overworked, underpaid expert. “This blasted work clearance hasn’t been renewed yet,” she said in exasperation. “How the heck am I supposed to get the job done? ‘Come in,’ they said. ‘We’ll pay you time and a half since it’s your day off,’ they said. Well, how can I get aboard the damn ship to take care of this so-called ‘rush-job’ ”—she raised her eyebrows and made air quotes with her fingers as her voice rose—“when they don’t even renew the blasted work clearance?”

  “I know, I know,” the man said, attempting to placate her, “it’s the same story all over the yards.”

  “Inefficient,” Katrin fumed. She looked like she was gearing up for another explosion.

  The man hastened to intervene. “Don’t you worry, we’ll get you straight, let me just—oh, wait. Hang on.” He frowned at something, presumably the screen in front of him.

  Bruno stiffened. Had they been caught already? Katrin glanced over her shoulder at him, her face frozen.

  The crewman shook his head. “These arrival notices come in faster than I can keep up. We’re understaffed in the controller office, as usual. Ore barges be spaced, why do they all have to come in at the same time? Gotta find room for another three ships.” He shook himself. “Sorry. Which ship did you say you were supposed to work on?”

  “I didn’t, but it’s the Laika,” Katrin said carefully. Bruno held his breath.

  “Ah, okay. Let me just…” The man’s fingers flew over the keys, punching in codes. “Go ahead and swipe it again.”

  Katrin waved her commlink in front of the scanner. The screen lit up green this time.

  “There you go, all set,” the crewman said.

  “Thank you,” Katrin said. Bruno saw her shoulders sag slightly in relief. “Finally, some efficiency around here.” She smiled disarmingly.

  “No problem, ma’am,” the crewman said in abstraction, already disconnecting to help someone else.

  Katrin
turned to Bruno, who was grinning fit to split his face. “Well done, wife,” he said. “I didn’t even have to play the Fleet officer card.” Which probably wouldn’t have worked, so he was glad it hadn’t come to that.

  “Why, thank you, husband,” she said, handing him her case. “Here. I’m shaking too hard, I’ll accidentally open the thing.”

  “Nonsense. You were cool as a spring day on Anser. I think you have a flourishing life of crime ahead of you. Not going to lie, that was pretty attractive,” he added, walking close enough to her that their hands brushed.

  She gave him a look. “Let’s save the celebrating until we’re aboard the Laika, if you please, Ensign Lorengel.”

  “Certainly, Dr. Lorengel,” he said smoothly.

  Several lift rides and one mag-tram ride later, they reached one of the airlocks leading to the Laika. Personnel leaving the ship for the planet took the shuttles from the sloop, but crewmembers servicing the ship or taking on supplies did so through the drydocks.

  “Shouldn’t we go through the cargo lock?” Katrin whispered as they approached the main personnel lock, guarded by two sentries and another commlink terminal. “This seems a little bold.” The thrill of making it this far had worn off on the ride over, and Bruno could tell her tension was returning.

  She wasn’t half as tense as he was. From here on out, it was up to him. Bruno pursed his lips and shook his head before answering her question. “Nope. The cargo lock is the obvious choice for smuggling contraband. We want the choice that’s not obvious. No one will notice if you breeze through the main entrance like you own the place. As you’re very good at doing,” he added dryly.

  “Contraband?” Katrin asked in mock outrage. “Is that what I am to you?”

  Walking just ahead of her, Bruno turned around briefly so that his back was to the lock and only Katrin could see him putting a finger to his lips. He flashed her a grin that he didn’t really feel and turned back around without breaking stride.

  He nodded to the guards, who gave him the Fleet salute. “Long-range communications expert to work on the Laika’s sensor array,” he said, gesturing at Katrin. She stepped forward to scan her commlink at the terminal.