Starcaster Complete Series Boxed Set

by J. N. Chaney

  “Wherewegoin,” she slurred, so soft they didn’t hear.

  She dredged their thoughts again. Yes, they were terrified of her. Morgan got the sense of a split in the Bilau, with the ones who’d first brought her here considering her a prize, albeit a dangerous one. The others just thought she was dangerous. Far too dangerous to keep here.

  So they wanted to take her somewhere else. Maybe. Or—

  The shooting around the ship died down. A group of Bilau moved into the open, standing and waiting for her to be dragged before them. She bit her lip and pushed her thoughts further and harder, desperately struggling against the befuddlement of the drug that still burned in her arm.

  They were about to decide her fate. Some thought she might still be useful, but others just wanted her dead.

  There were more of the latter.

  Morgan was tossed into their midst. She dropped to her knees and looked up, seeing only blank, impassive helmets. The minds inside them flared like beacons, now, with fear, uncertainty, and a growing, deadly resolve.

  After all of this, they were probably just going to kill Morgan. Just kill her, and be done with it.

  Morgan shook her head.

  “No.”

  The Bilau closed in. She heard muffled voices, as they conferred, speaking across some sort of communications channel, arguing themselves into killing her.

  “No!”

  A final burst of chatter. One of the Bilau impulsively stepped forward and aimed its gun at her, the double prongs of its muzzles swallowing the world.

  “NO!”

  A surge of power swept through Morgan, burning through the haze of drugs. It roared like a furnace, fueled by her own terror, and anger, her outrage, her desperation.

  But the sense, as keen as knife-edge, that it was all just so—

  “NO!”

  Unfair.

  Morgan flung back her head and screamed at the sky.

  “DADDY!”

  23

  Tanner planted his hands on his hip and scowled at the Hecate’s hangar bay, currently unpressurized and sealed. “Why the hell has my ship become the crossroads of the ON?”

  “The Hecate’s a popular place, sir,” Thorn said. He could see the Gyrfalcon nudging its way into the bay, the magnetic guides bringing the fighter safely to a standstill, then docking clamps locking her in place. The outer doors rolled closed, and the pressurization sequence began.

  Tanner glanced at Thorn. “Have you heard from Wixcombe, Lieutenant?”

  “Uh, no, sir. Not for quite some time. Is there a problem?”

  The Captain just kept a keen gaze leveled on Thorn for a moment, then shook his head. “Not at the moment, no.”

  Thorn couldn’t help taking note of Tanner’s ambiguous answer. Not at the moment wasn’t the same as no. And Tanner wasn’t a man who embraced ambiguity; quite the opposite. So he’d meant to answer that way.

  A chime cut off his musings, as the pressure indicator for the hangar bay turned green. The airlock slid open at almost exactly the same time as the Gyrfalcon’s. Figures clambered out.

  Mol, which wasn’t a surprise, of course. Neither was the next one, who at least wasn’t a surprise to Thorn, anyway. Alys Densmore took a moment to stretch, then headed toward him and Tanner, her usual, slightly sly smile beaming ahead of her.

  The next two passengers to dismount surprised both him and Tanner, though. Damien Forester disembarked following Densmore, and after her—

  Kira.

  Thorn’s heart skipped a beat. Part of it was just seeing Kira again, after so long apart. But part of it was seeing her with Damien. Thorn knew the two of them were working together again. Tanner had briefed him on the tragic incident at Code Nebula.

  Thorn gave himself a mental shake, shoving the sudden glimmer of jealousy away. That’s what it was. Jealousy. It suggested that, on some level, he didn’t trust Kira, which was unworthy of both of them.

  “Captain Tanner,” Densmore said, stepping through the airlock. “Permission to come aboard your fine ship?”

  “What if I said no?” Tanner replied, his expression utterly unchanging.

  Densmore’s unsettling smile didn’t change, either. “Has any Captain ever said no to that question?”

  “Good to see you, Alys.”

  Damien and Kira followed her through the airlock, Kira stopping, saluting smartly, and also asking permission to come aboard.

  “Always a berth for you aboard the Hecate if you need it, Lieutenant Commander Wixcombe. And congratulations on the promotion. It was well-earned.” Tanner turned to Damien and extended his hand. “Forester—sorry, Acting Lieutenant Forester—good to see you, too. How are you doing?”

  Thorn glanced at Tanner in surprise. He knew that the man actually did have a heart, somewhere under all those medals, but he didn’t reveal it very often. He did now, in a genuinely concerned tone to his voice.

  Damien offered a smile that, to Thorn, seemed mostly genuine. “I’m okay, sir. Tired, mostly. Kira and I have been living out of kit-bags for a while now, moving from ship to ship. It wears on you.”

  “Tell me about it. I’ve been doing that for almost thirty years,” Tanner replied, smiling.

  Thorn leaned closer to Kira. “Good to see you—ma’am.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “You forgot to salute, Lieutenant.”

  They locked stares for a moment, then broke into smiles. Since Thorn was in the company of Tanner, a more senior officer, he wasn’t required to salute. But, still smiling, he did so anyway. “Congratulations, ma’am. Like the Captain said, well-earned.”

  “That doesn’t sound right, you calling me ma’am.”

  Thorn gave her an innocent look. “Oh, I don’t know. Yes, ma’am. No, ma’am. Please, not again, ma’am—”

  “You two can get a room,” Tanner snapped. “After we attend to business, that is.”

  Densmore stepped up beside Kira. “Stellers, it’s been a while since we’ve met, at least in person.”

  Thorn got the message. It was time to come clean.

  “Captain Densmore,” he replied, then gave Tanner a rueful smile. “I think we can drop the story, ma’am, yes?”

  “By all means.”

  “Story?” Tanner asked, his brows lifting as Thorn extracted a small data-chip from his pocket and handed it to Densmore. “Alys, surely you aren’t telling me that Stellers was involved in something off the books? With you?”

  “Perish the thought! But, yes, of course. While Stellers was meeting with the Imbrogul and the other races around them, he was doing some intelligence gathering for me,” Densmore said. She held up the chip. “I gather it’s all on here?”

  Thorn nodded. “It is ma’am.”

  “Well, then, we should review this, the sooner, the better. Captain Tanner, I’d like Stellers to brief us about the contents of this chip. It’s quite possible the course of the war hinges on what it tells us.”

  “Did I ever mention I hate spooks?” Tanner said, gesturing for the group to follow him.

  Densmore’s crafty smile became an equally crafty grin. “Every time we meet, Galen. Every time we meet.”

  Thorn handed the data-chip to Osborne, the Hecate’s Tactical Officer, who plugged it into his console and tapped at his controls. The ship’s main view-screen shifted from an image of Bertilak’s ship keeping station a few klicks away, to a star chart. Thorn knew it well, having studied it while traveling the region aboard the Jolly Green Giant, but this would be the first time any of the others on the Hecate’s bridge had seen it. Everyone, from Osborne to Tanner, instinctively leaned toward it.

  “This is the area of space Bertilak and I travelled. Or, we travelled through it, anyway,” Thorn said. He then began to highlight the different-colored sections of the chart, pointing out the space controlled by the Astarti and the Imbrogul, as well as two more races, the insectoid Owath, and the avian Philomek.

  “We didn’t actually do much with the Owath or Philomek, aside from quick good
will visits to each,” Thorn said.

  “And it’s the Imbrogul that produced those amazing gravity-polarizers you and your big green friend dropped off at Code Gauntlet, correct?” Densmore asked.

  “Yes, ma’am. They seem to be the most dominant of these four races, but not through force or intimidation or anything like that. They actually just seem to be highly respected by the other three. The Astarti, who are incredible miners and metallurgists, act as the gatekeepers for the Imbrogul. The Owath produce a lot of agricultural products, timber and rare woods and exotic spices, that sort of thing. And the Philomek are a particularly aesthetic society, all about art and song and stuff like that. They also weave this amazing cloth that feels like silk, but instantly goes rock-hard under an impact.”

  “So toad-like miners, bug-like artists, and bird-like farmers,” Tanner said.

  “And the Imbrogul, who are basically humanoid, running the show,” Densmore put in.

  Thorn shook his head. “I think running the show is a little strong, ma’am. They’re more the glue holding this alliance together. The other three races provide the raw materials, which the Imbrogul turn into high tech products, that they trade back to the others in payment.”

  “So these four races essentially have a single, integrated economy,” Damien said.

  “That’s right. They cooperate closely in just about everything,” Thorn replied.

  Osborne leaned into the conversation. “Maybe I’m missing something obvious, but why are these four small empires, or whatever they are, important to us now? I get the value of the gravity tech, but are we interested in them beyond that?”

  “Damned right we are,” Thorn replied. “Call up that second overlay.”

  Osborne did, and a series of gently curving lines appeared, connecting star systems among all four of the races’ territories. Thorn pointed, though, to a cluster of lines that vanished off the bottom right corner of the chart.

  “This is why they’re important. Those are trade routes with the Nyctus. All of them have commercial agreements with the squids. And that’s why the squids never seem to run short of resources or supplies. They’ve been receiving them from these guys,” Thorn said.

  “Ah. Ouch. Hate to have to prosecute a war against them as well as the Nyctus. Think that’s probably a losing battle,” Tanner said.

  Thorn offered an unabashedly triumphant smile. “We won’t have to, sir. Turns out that the Nyctus love of infiltration, deception, making Skins, and all that, has come back to bite their rubbery butts.”

  He went on to explain how the Imbrogul, although many things, were generally incensed by dishonesty. Again, he suggested, it went back to the fact that they were terrible liars themselves, thanks to their scent-influenced way of seeing and communicating with the world around them. They prized honesty, and considered bluntness to be a truly noble quality.

  “A little contradictory from the kind of ethereal way you described them, but okay,” Tanner said.

  Thorn nodded, then drew the knife he’d been gifted by Ondric. “They made this for me, from a meteorite that I, uh, kind of brought down out of orbit.” He went on to explain the circumstances around that.

  “Crashing a meteorite into their planet was about as blunt as you could possibly be,” Densmore said. Kira chuckled, and even Damien grinned.

  Thorn offered a shrug. “Well, it seems to have worked. The Imbrogul have soured on the Nyctus, which means the other three races have, too. They’ve sent word to the squids that they’re ceasing all trade relations with them immediately. They want to open up diplomatic and trade relations with us, instead. That includes discussions about locating ON forces and bases in their territories.”

  A moment of stunned silence hung over the bridge. Osborne broke it, with a simple, “Holy shit.”

  Tanner stood. “Holy shit indeed.” He walked up to the viewscreen, studied it for a moment, then looked at Thorn.

  “That opens up the squid’s entire left rear flank to us. With the Danzur on their right, it means we’ve got the Nyctus open on three sides now. That’s good work, Stellers.”

  The Captain glanced back at Densmore, then looked at Thorn again. “So tell me what this cozy little secret job was, that you were performing for Captain Densmore.”

  Thorn looked at Densmore, who just shrugged. “You said being blunt is a virtue. And Captain Tanner is being characteristically blunt.”

  “Captain Densmore asked me to scope out the military capabilities of these four races, their leadership, their power structures, the key players. I did that and used Joining to confirm it.” Thorn pointed at Osborne. “That data-chip plugged into the Tac O’s station has three more overlays, detailing all of it.”

  “Which, needless to say, is classified above the level of at least some people on this bridge,” Densmore immediately cut in. “So we won’t be calling those overlays up.”

  Tanner’s eyes narrowed at Thorn. “You, ah, weren’t just being a diplomat, you were being a spy. Risky business, that, Stellers.”

  “Yes, sir. But Captain Densmore felt that we needed to be ready, in case things didn’t go our way and these four races decided to stick with the Nyctus, against us.”

  Tanner turned to Densmore. “And you’d have used that information to strike at them, decapitate their leadership, undermine them, that sort of thing.”

  “It’s what I do, Galen,” Densmore said.

  “Yes, the exact opposite of blunt.” Tanner turned back to Thorn. “Glad you weren’t caught being a spy. That could have gone very wrong.”

  “Yes, sir, it could have.”

  “Well, that’s okay, because as long as you’re a member of this crew, you’ll never go behind my back on some covert op again, isn’t that right, Stellers?” Tanner was speaking to Thorn, but he was looking squarely at Densmore.

  Thorn gave an inward sigh. It was no fun being caught between Captains jockeying for control. He finally decided that blunt had worked out better for him, and nodded. “That’s right, aye, sir.”

  Densmore said nothing, and just smiled her furtive smile.

  Damien broke the tension with a laugh. “Okay, I’ve been a career diplomat, pushing twenty years of service. And in just a few months, you’ve helped wrangle a cooperation agreement with the Danzur, and made what amounts to an alliance with four other races. You’re in the wrong line of business, Thorn. You’re the real diplomat here.”

  Thorn tried to shrug it off. The fact was, he was proud of what he’d accomplished, and rightfully so. But he was also realistic.

  “No, I’m not. I’m just the pointy end of something much bigger. Everyone here is part of it. Everyone on the Hecate, and in the ON is part of it,” he said.

  “That sounds like something a diplomat would say,” Kira said, provoking laughter around the bridge.

  “Well, I must admit, this is the best news I’ve heard in a long time,” Damien said, when the laughter died off. “Personally, I can’t wait for this war to be over, and this seems to bring that a little closer.”

  No laughter at that. Someone just said, “Truth.” Thorn wasn’t sure who, and it didn’t matter, anyway.

  Thorn swung his leg over the bench-seat and settled himself on the hard metal. The Hecate’s mess was a far cry from the hospitality of the Imbrogul, or even from Bertilak’s ship, in terms of creature comforts. Somehow, though, he felt more at home sitting on a hard alloy bench, about to eat a mass-produced meal from a metal tray. Plush furnishings and sumptuous food were fine, but only as an occasional treat, he’d decided.

  “I’m taking the liberty of joining you two,” he said to Kira and Damien, who were already sitting at the table.

  “Always room for one more,” Kira said.

  Thorn turned to Damien. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to you yet. I’m doing that now.”

  “I appreciate it, but there’s probably nothing you could say that I haven’t been told already.”

  “I know that. That’s why I’m not saying a
ny of it. Just consider it said.”

  Damien met Thorn’s eyes, then gave a genuinely grateful smile. “I really do appreciate that, Thorn. Thank you.”

  “You are blunt,” Kira put in.

  “Hey, it works for me, what can I say,” Thorn replied.

  “It does indeed. I just want to say it again, Thorn, you did some damned fine work. Much better than anyone expected, I think,” Damien said.

  “He got us a bunch of new allies, denied the squids a bunch of resources, and opened up both their flanks? Yeah, I’d say that’s a good day’s work,” Kira said, offering Thorn a fond smile.

  “And I understand you guys are touring the Fleet, chasing down Skins,” Thorn said.

  Kira nodded. “We are. Not a bad success rate, either. Thanks to Damien’s keen insights into human behavior, he’s able to point me at likely candidates. I use Joining to confirm it. We’ve rounded up almost two dozen Skins so far, with no false positives.”

  “One of them was the Deputy Chief Engineer on the Arcturus. Admiral Scoville was really happy we uncovered her, because she could have done a lot of damage to his flagship,” Damien added.

  “A lot of damage, as in, boom,” Thorn said.

  Kira smiled and nodded again, opening her mouth to say something. Whatever it was vanished—

  —into a howling scream.

  24

  “Sir, we’ve got reports coming in from every ship and installation within twenty-five light years, and a few messages already showing up from beyond that,” Osborne said. “Starcasters everywhere have been hit with—well, whatever this was.”

  The XO, who’d only just returned to the Hecate from leave and hadn’t even yet unpacked, gave a grim nod at her own tactical display. “It’s not just Starcasters, either. Lots of ordinary people, too. Panic, nightmares, explosions of violence, vandalism, the list goes on.”

  Tanner drummed his fingers on the arm of his command chair, then turned.

  “Starcasters everywhere, except for you, Stellers,” he said.