Starcaster Complete Series Boxed Set

by J. N. Chaney

  Thorn started to pace. “So the squids fought someone at Messier-4 and got their assess kicked. The most likely candidate for their opponents is the Bilau.” He stopped and looked at Kira. “Shit.”

  “Yeah, shit is right. It’s going to be hard to convince the Council and the Admiralty that an alliance with the Bilau is not a good idea when they seem to be beating the crap out of the squids,” Kira said.

  “In fact, it’s evidence to exactly the opposite effect,” Densmore put in, smiling sweetly.

  Thorn grimaced. “Every other race considers the Bilau to be untrustworthy, backstabbing, warmongering assholes. But here we are considering leaping into bed with them.” He banged a fist onto the back of the pilot’s seat and swore softly under his breath.

  “It’s the idea of a quicker end to the war that’s so appealing, I guess,” Bertilak said.

  “Oh, it’ll be quicker alright. We’ll take out the squids, then the Bilau will take us out—”

  “Uh, dad?”

  Thorn turned abruptly. “Sorry, Morgan. I got carried away there.”

  “Yeah, well, there’s more. See, the Monsters are especially upset about something called a proton—” She stopped and chewed her lip. “No, wait. A proto—no, a pro-toe-type, yeah, that’s it! They have something called a pro-toe-type drive, and they’ve lost two of them, and only have one more, and they’re really deps—desperate— to not lose that one, too.”

  Thorn, Kira, and Densmore all took a step toward Morgan. “A prototype drive? Are you sure about that, Morgan?” Densmore asked.

  “Yeah. Totally sure. It seems to be a really big deal for them.” She sniffed. “Seems to be a really big idea for you guys, too.”

  “It could be, Morgan, yeah. It could be a huge deal,” Thorn said.

  “We need to find out more about it. See if we can find out where it is, and if we can grab it for ourselves,” Densmore said.

  Kira glanced at her. “Prototypes don’t always work. It might be nothing, ma’am.”

  “True. But it might be the thing that changes the war. And that’s why we need to find out more about it.” Densmore moved to stand right in front of Morgan’s image. “Morgan, can you find out more about it? Its location would be fantastic, but anything at all could be helpful.”

  “I dunno. Maybe? I’ll try and see what I can do.” Her image suddenly shimmered slightly, as though seen through hot air over a sunlit tarmac. She rubbed her eyes, then her nose between them. “Getting a headache here. I think maybe I should say goodbye.”

  “Do that, Morgan. Go, rest, and don’t worry about trying this again for at least a couple of days,” Kira said. Thorn caught a new tone in her voice, one of flat certainty, that clearly was not going to take no for an answer.

  He smiled. It was Kira’s mom voice.

  Morgan must have recognized it, too. She gave a tired smile and waved. “Okay. Almost dinner time here, anyway. See you. Love you guys!”

  Her image vanished.

  “Unbelievable,” Thorn said.

  “We have got to find out how she does that. That could be as much of a game-changer as any prototype drive,” Densmore mused, staring at the spot where Morgan’s projection had been.

  “We might not be able to figure out how she does it. She probably doesn’t know. She just knows she can, so she does it,” Bertilak replied.

  “And, if it comes to it, it will be her choice whether she agrees to let her be studied,” Kira said to Densmore. She was still using her mom voice.

  Densmore seemed to recognize it, too. She smiled a genuine smile. “Of course. I might spend a lot of my time in the shadows, Wixcombe, but I’m not some sort of psychopath.”

  “Besides, if you tried to force Morgan to do anything, she’d probably just erase you from existence,” Bertilak said, his voice bright and cheery.

  Densmore’s smile slipped slightly, but she nodded.

  “Yeah, there’s that, too.”

  9

  Thorn counted the ships as they popped back into normal space. He reached seventeen and thought, screw it. What mattered was the ON had taken this seriously. Fleet had dispatched a task force, and a potent one at that, built around a pair of carriers, the Hammerhead and the Vicious. But even that wasn’t the most striking part. That would be the officer commanding the task force.

  It was Tanner.

  Commodore Tanner.

  “Congrats on the promotion, sir. Well-earned,” Thorn said.

  Tanner nodded, once. “Appreciated. I think we need to get you promoted now, Stellers. You’ve been a Lieutenant long enough.”

  Thorn waved a hand. “Rank doesn’t really mean much to me, sir, so it’s no big deal.”

  “You’d get paid more,” Tanner said.

  “Not to mention that your, ah, special lady friend currently outranks you,” Kira put in, grinning.

  Thorn looked from one to the other. “Okay, you both make good points, and can we agree not to use the term special lady friend ever again?”

  Kira gave a sweet smile but said nothing.

  “So I see that, despite your promotion, you’re still aboard the Hecate—sir,” Densmore said, smiling her typically sly smile. She put a bit of additional emphasis on the sir.

  “For now. It’s where my kitbag is, after all,” Tanner replied, then cut himself off and looked offscreen. Thorn heard someone speaking.

  Tanner turned back to Thorn. “Okay, looks like it’s showtime already. Guess the squids saw us coming out of Alcubierre space and decided to try and catch us flat-footed.”

  Thorn glanced at the Jolly’s tactical display. Sure enough, a swarm of ships had emerged from The Ghosts, then dropped back into normal space within striking distance of the ON task force.

  “I think that clears up who owned all those ships we saw gathering inside The Ghosts,” Kira said.

  “Stellers, your little force of two ships is going to stay detached, while the rest of the task force engages. I want you to keep a sharp eye out for anything that might look like it’s powered by this prototype drive, whatever the hell it is. And if you see any opportunities to exploit, go for it. Now, I’ve got a battle to run. Tanner out.”

  Bertilak stared intently at the tactical display. “Huh.”

  “Huh, what?” Thorn asked.

  “Huh, those Nyctus ships are behaving strangely,” Bertilak replied.

  Thorn leaned in to look at the display. At first, he didn’t see what Bertilak was talking about. And then he did.

  “They’re just charging straight at the task force. They’re not even trying to maneuver, or do anything remotely clever,” Thorn said.

  “Unless that’s what they want us to think,” Kira noted.

  Densmore leaned closer to her. “My thoughts exactly. Seems like I’m starting to rub off on you, Wixcombe.”

  “I mean this with the deepest respect, ma’am, but holy shit I hope not.”

  Densmore laughed.

  Thorn kept his attention focused on the impending clash between the two fleets. Tanner had gone for a standard deployment, a skirmish line of destroyers, frigates, and corvettes leading the capital ships. Missile frigates were already spewing ordnance at the onrushing squid ships, and the Vicious was launching her fighter wing, two squadrons of the nimble Kestrels, backed up by a squadron of heavier fighter bombers similar to the Gyrfalcon. The Hammerhead retained her fighters for now, a potent reserve Tanner could commit if he needed them to plug a hole in his battle line or run down and destroy a fleeing enemy.

  The Nyctus, in contrast, just barreled headlong toward the ON ships. Their line was a ragged sprawl of vessels each apparently just burning as hard as it could to close with their opponents. They’d barely formed a coherent attack formation to begin with. Now, slight differences in thrust were smearing their line into an even more ragged, haphazard sprawl of ships. Those mounting missiles were firing them with wild abandon, pumping them out at their maximum rate of fire.

  “There’s something badly wrong her
e,” Kira said.

  Thorn nodded. “It’s like the squids are desperate to get into battle. The question is, why?”

  “Do you see anything that looks like it might have a spiffy new prototype drive installed?” Densmore asked, but she got headshakes from everyone.

  The fleets continued to converge. Missiles began to trigger point-defense fire on both sides. A moment later, warheads began to detonate with dazzling pulses of light.

  “Okay, I have to admit, I do not like just sitting out here on the flank, playing spectator,” Thorn finally said.

  “Yeah. We should be in there, helping the fleet,” Kira replied, giving a firm nod.

  Densmore, who’d resumed her seat at the back of the bridge, stretched out her legs. “I will point out that Commodore Tanner didn’t say we couldn’t fight. He just said we remain detached and aren’t considered part of the fleet.”

  Kira looked at Thorn. “She’s got a point. We do remain a detachment, under your command.”

  “Despite being junior to both me and Wixcombe,” Densmore put in.

  Thorn stared at the tactical display, then tapped his comm. “Mol, we’re going in to join the fight. Our priority, though, remains trying to track down any squid ship that might be using a new or experimental drive.”

  “Best way to do that is to get in there for a nice, close look,” Mol replied.

  “I don’t think she likes being a bystander any more than we do,” Kira said.

  Mol made an emphatic uh-uh sound. “I absolutely do not.”

  “Okay, then. Mol, you fly wing for the Jolly. Bertilak, you may join the battle at your earliest convenience.”

  Bertilak grinned. “As a matter of fact, I think I’m ready right—now.”

  He tapped his controls, and the Jolly shot forward, toward the battle, the Gyrfalcon falling in behind, scissoring from side-to-side as cover.

  Thorn lashed out a blast of Hammer magic that slammed a bolt of force into the flank of a squid heavy cruiser like a battering ram. Bertilak spun the Jolly on its vertical axis and followed up with a stream of emerald blasts that raked the enemy ship along its length. Just a few tens of klicks away, Mol punched out a railgun shot at a squid destroyer trying to close on the Jolly, then loosed a pair of missiles for good measure. She was thorough in her pursuit of destruction. It was just one of her many good qualities.

  Ahead of them, a big Nyctus battleship spun crazily as Bertilak rolled the Jolly, trying to maneuver for a shot at the next squid ship in line. The battered heavy cruiser fell away behind them, leaking atmosphere in billowing clouds from its shattered hull.

  “Still don’t see anything that looks like our target,” Densmore called out, then raised a hand. “Wait. Four o’clock, low. That squid destroyer seems to be burning a lot stronger—”

  There was a searing flash as the ship she’d started to indicate blew apart. A flight of Kestrels streaked away, searching out a new target.

  Thorn gripped his talisman and focused on the battleship looming ahead of them. “Well, if that was a prototype drive, it’s not anymore,” he said.

  But Kira shook her head. “Don’t think it was. What looked like some supercharged plasma exhaust was just its reactor losing containment.”

  Thorn glanced at her. “How do you know that?”

  “Because I’m the one who made the squid engineer cut out the containment system.”

  “Ah. Gotcha.”

  Thorn dug down into his stores of magic, drew up a slug of eldritch power, and cast it ahead of them. It enveloped the Nyctus battleship in a shimmering halo of light. Dazzling, blue-white electrical arcs flared and crackled along its hull. The battleship’s weapons immediately fell silent, knocked offline by the sudden rush of power surging through its systems. Bertilak drove the Jolly in hard, pouring streams of green energy into the massive hull. Each strike blasted open hull-plating, shredding interior compartments and structural components. Mol joined in with the Gyrfalcon’s railgun, each shot punching right through the big vessel’s hull and erupting from the opposite flank in clouds of debris. The rounds flickered away into space at hideous velocities, only visible by the gleam of dispersing gases as they left on a trip into eternity.

  The battleship flashed past. As it did, Thorn ’cast again, this time sweeping his awareness across the minds of the crew. If this ship was the one mounting the mysterious new drive, then it should probably register in the minds of at least some of the squids on board, if only because their ship had just been badly damaged. Only he sensed nothing but furious desperation and burgeoning panic as the extent of the damage became clear. Nothing even hinted at experimental drives, or experimental anything else.

  The Jolly and Gyrfalcon swept clear of the melee, soaring straight up and away from the plane of the galactic ecliptic. It took them out of the immediate swirl of battle, letting them take a moment to scan the squid fleet, or what was left of it.

  “Mom! Dad!”

  Thorn turned. Morgan’s image once more hung a meter or so off the deck. She looked haggard but determined.

  Kira scowled at her daughter. “Morgan, I thought I told you not to try this again until you—"

  “No, you have to listen! I can feel them. The Monsters. Their shamans. I can feel what they’re thinking.”

  “Okay, and what are they thinking, Morgan?” Thorn asked.

  “That you’re gonna take their special new drive. They’re really scared of that because they think it’s their only chance. That’s why they’re gonna run!”

  Thorn glanced at the tactical display. He saw nothing to suggest the Nyctus were contemplating a retreat.

  “Morgan, I don’t think the Nyctus are planning to run away,” he said. “They seem pretty determined to—”

  Bertilak tapped his arm. “Thorn, look at the unengaged squid ships.”

  Thorn did. Sure enough, they were decelerating hard, maneuvering to break off and make a run for it, probably back into The Ghosts.

  “Morgan, that’s great. Thanks for your help. Now, it must be night on your part of Nebo. Go to bed,” Kira said.

  “Mom, I want to see how the battle turns out!”

  “We’ll let you know in the morning. Now, girl, get your butt into bed.” Kira’s tone brooked no argument.

  “Aww. I never get to do what I want,” Morgan snapped, then vanished.

  Thorn couldn’t help laughing. “That was such a touching family moment, and it happened across freakin’ light years, in the middle of a massive space battle.”

  “Doesn’t matter. She’s twelve, and it’s late. She’s supposed to be in bed,” Kira said.

  Thorn smirked. “Yes, Mom.”

  His wry smile became a yelp, though, when Kira punched his arm.

  “Your daughter’s right on top of things, I’ll give her that,” Tanner said over the comm. “The squids are suddenly trying to execute a general disengagement. If they weren’t so damned uncoordinated, they might even be able to make it work.”

  “She’s definitely a valuable source of intel,” Densmore said, then raised a hand as Kira glared at her. “If and when she wants to be, of course.”

  “Yeah, Alys, I’d say you definitely don’t want to make this kid or her parents mad,” Tanner said.

  “Sir, we notice that a whole squadron of squid ships bringing up the rear of their attack have already broken off. It doesn’t look like you’ve got anything available to stop them,” Thorn said.

  “We do not. We’re fully engaged with the rest of the squid fleet. We’re going to win this, but it’s going to take us a couple more hours simply due to physics and time,” Tanner replied.

  “Roger that, sir. In that case, we’re going to chase them.”

  “It does stand to reason that if they have some experimental prototype drive they’re trying to protect, it would be a priority to pull out of battle,” Kira said.

  Densmore crossed her ankle onto her knee and leaned back in her seat. “That’s assuming it was even here to begin with.”r />
  “Only one way to find out.” Thorn looked back at Tanner. “Sir?”

  “Your show, Stellers.”

  “We’re going after them,” Thorn said.

  Tanner gave a firm nod. “Couldn’t agree more. Good luck in that damned nebula, Stellers. I’ll send a squadron after you for support, but it’s going to be at least two hours behind you. Unless, of course, you intend to magic things along.”

  “Rather not, sir. We don’t know what we’re going to find in there, so I’d rather keep myself fresh.”

  “Roger that. Tanner out.”

  “Once more into the breach,” Densmore said as they started their first Alcubierre hop into The Ghosts. Fortunately, the Jolly’s scanners kept a firm lock on the squid ships. Only four of the original eight that had fled the battle were still ahead of them, the others having succumbed to battle damage and dropped out of the chase. Kira and Thorn were both certain that none of them were anything more than run-of-the-mill squid warships, with no special tech installed.

  Thorn glanced back at Densmore. “Once more into the breach?”

  “You’ve never read Shakespeare, Stellers?”

  “Uh, no, ma’am. I prefer authors who’ve written something in the past, oh, couple hundred years, anyway.”

  “You don’t know what you’re missing. Romance, sex, war, swordfights, he’s got it all.”

  Thorn just shook his head. They were chasing aliens through the swirl of dust and gases of The Ghosts nebula, intent on capturing some tech that could be instrumental in the greater conflict—and talking about Shakespeare while doing it.

  “Another squid ship just fell back into normal space, and—and he just. . . exploded,” Bertilak said.

  “So three left,” Densmore said, sitting forward.

  “Yeah, a battlecruiser, a destroyer, and a frigate. That’s still a lot of firepower, ma’am,” Thorn replied.

  “So are you, Stellers. And Wixcombe. And me. We’re a lot of firepower, the three of us.”

  Thorn couldn’t argue with that.