Starcaster Complete Series Boxed Set

by J. N. Chaney

  Thorn couldn’t resist. “Including present company, sir?”

  “If she likes watching a man do paperwork and sit in endless meetings, sure,” Tanner replied, without even a hint of irony.

  “This is impressive,” Winuk said, gazing around at the vast interior bulk of the colony ship. “You’ve made a great deal of progress since my last visit here. I give you my sincere gratitude. Your currents are clear and productive, the tides mild.” Winuk waved two tentacles in a complex motion of thanks as he spoke.

  The ship’s original design as a cometary water hauler had called for a massive, unpressurized hull, which would contain raw ice kept suitably cold, or else melted into water and stored in pressurized tanks. The jury on which approach to take had still been out, as far as Thorn knew, when the design and existing hulls had been co-opted to help the Nyctus. That meant, of course, that several of these huge hulls had been built, without even knowing exactly what was going inside them.

  Design and management by committee. Enough said.

  The project’s Chief Engineer offered Winuk a grateful nod. “We appreciate that. Our crews have been working hard to meet the deadlines we’ve been given. The new drive tech and the Imbrogul gravity polarizers are going to speed things up a lot.” She turned to Thorn. “Thanks to you, I understand.”

  “I’m just one end of a long chain of people, ma’am,” Thorn replied, offering a self-deprecating nod. “It took way smarter people than me to turn that into stuff we could actually use.”

  Winuk rippled with the colors of amusement. “That is, perhaps, the way in which you are most unlike us, Thorn Stellers. A Nyctus would not hesitate to claim glory at any opportunity.”

  Well, there’s that difference—and the fact you started waging a campaign of apocalyptic genocide and we didn’t, Thorn thought. He didn’t bother actually saying it, though, in the interest of trying to maintain decent relations with the Nyctus. He settled on a pleasant smile and a single statement.

  “I’m not a Nyctus.”

  “No, indeed you are not,” Winuk replied amiably.

  The group carried on. While the interior of the big ship was still under construction, the engineering systems and drives had been installed, and she was scheduled for a shakedown cruise tomorrow. It would be a simple flight, from orbit here to an unremarkable star system about two light-years away, and back. It was a well-worn test course used by ON ships, so well-used that it had come to be known as The Groove. It was a bit of spacers’ lore that originated with Thorn himself. When he saved Code Gauntlet from a massive Nyctus KEW, he explained it as making a groove in space-time so the huge impactor would follow it instead of hitting the base. The idea and the term had stuck. Now, the word groove was used to describe any well-traveled route, but especially this one, the original, beginning at Code Gauntlet itself.

  Thorn thought it was kind of silly, but sometimes these things just took on a life of their own. In any case, it promised him an odd sort of immortality, because he was pretty sure generations of spacers yet to come would still be calling it The Groove long after Thorn was gone.

  They climbed up into a gantry and reached a platform about twenty meters above the outer hull below. A multitude of cargo containers had been brought aboard and now clung to the interior of the ship. It was amazing, Thorn thought, that all of them, even the ones seeming to hang down from above them, were resting there under their own weight. The entire hull had been lined with Imbrogul gravity polarizers, meaning that as far as the containers on opposite sides of the hull were concerned, the deck beneath them was down, and the opposing containers were above them.

  There were a lot of them, though, prompting Thorn to ask what they were.

  The Chief Engineer leaned on the gantry railing and waved a hand. “Stuff. Literally stuff. Anything from the shipyard and Code Gauntlet that wasn’t nailed down. We need to simulate the mass of all the water that’s going to be aboard this ship when it finally flies. The final mass distribution will be different, of course, but for her first Alcubierre flight, we just need to have it aboard.”

  “Will you accompany us on the flight tomorrow, Thorn Stellers?” Winuk asked.

  “First of all, you can just call me Thorn. And secondly, yes, I’ve already been told that I’ll be coming along,” Thorn replied.

  “In case of problems.”

  “Yes, in case of problems.”

  Winuk flickered with bioluminescence in a way Thorn recognized as bemused, with maybe just a tinge of sadness. “And by problems, we mean interference from my people opposed to this whole endeavor.”

  “My daughter calls them the Monsters,” Thorn said.

  “Yes, as opposed to the Radiants. I gather that refers to the manner in which she changed the Nyctus of Tāmtu to render them non-hostile. It affected the luminescence of the entire population. Now, all Nyctus who are choosing to collaborate with humanity are called Radiants.” Winuk waved a tentacle. “It isn’t an unpleasant name. In fact, I rather like it.”

  Thorn gripped the railing for a moment, then looked at Winuk. “Yes, well, it’s too bad that you Radiants couldn’t have headed off this war before it happened. Instead, you let the Monsters have their way and start it.”

  “It was more complicated than that,” Winuk countered.

  Thorn considered just dropping it. But no. To hell with that. He’d earned the right to question why his family had been killed, his childhood destroyed, the woman he loved and their daughter imprisoned and tortured.

  “Oh, I’m sure it involved all sorts of squid—sorry, Nyctus politics and intrigue and special interests. But, you know what? I don’t care. In the end, your people started an unprovoked war, so you all bear responsibility for it.” He focused the hardest glare he could muster on Winuk. “You might not have pulled any triggers or thrown any of those KEWs, but you also didn’t stop the ones who did, now did you?”

  Winuk flickered with momentary anger, but it quickly faded into the dreary shades of mourning. “No. We didn’t. And I’ll regret that to the day that I die. We allowed unchecked, wild forces to take over our thinking and tried to shape it and accommodate it. But it wouldn’t be shaped or accommodated, and the result was disaster for everyone.”

  “Yes, it was,” Thorn said, then turned back to the expansive sprawl of the colony ship.

  “I realize that this will be little comfort, Thorn, but I am going to say it anyway. I am truly, deeply sorry for what we have done. And I am even more truly and deeply sorry to you, for the loss of your family on Cotswold, and for what subsequently happened to Kira Wixcombe and, in particular, your daughter,” Winuk said.

  Thorn glanced quickly back at Winuk. “Checked up on me in whatever dossier your people maintained on me, huh? Hope it was a good read.”

  But Winuk flickered with denial. “No. Admirals Scoville and Urbanek and Commodore Tanner made certain that I knew your history. I’m glad they did.”

  Thorn stared. Two Admirals and a Commodore not only knew his story but wanted to make sure the Nyctus knew it, too.

  He turned back to the panoramic view of the massive ship for a moment, then looked back at Winuk.

  “Well, since you know all about me, what about you, Winuk? What’s your story?”

  In response, Winuk flickered with fond gratitude. “Thank you for asking, Thorn. It is such little things that will eventually bring healing to our two peoples.”

  Thorn nodded.

  “Eventually, it will, yeah.”

  17

  As far as the ON was concerned, Thorn wasn’t part of a ship’s crew. He was a Mission Specialist. Still, he knew enough about spaceships to know when one was a wallowing, cumbersome hulk. And this new colony ship, now christened Conveyor One, was just that.

  Thorn felt the drives burning as a steady hum through the deck plates but saw no evidence the ship had even started to move. Eventually, the image on the bridge’s main viewscreen began to change, the moon beneath them finally beginning to slide out of fra
me. It took almost five minutes before it finally vanished.

  The ON Lieutenant manning the Nav station leaned back in her seat and sighed. “You guys can wake me up when we have to, you know, navigate somewhere.”

  The Acting Captain, an ON Lieutenant Commander named Styles, shot her a glare. “If you want to sleep, Lieutenant, I can arrange a nice little room with a bed for you. Oh, a toilet, too.”

  The Nav O sat up. “Sorry, sir. Just not used to crewing something with the flight characteristics of a footlocker.”

  Styles couldn’t resist a smile. “The ON promised you’d see the galaxy, Lieutenant, but didn’t promise it would happen quickly.”

  Thorn smiled at the banter but kept his attention on the viewscreen. A graphic had been superimposed on it, showing Conveyor One’s projected trajectory, leading to the point where it would eventually activate its Alcubierre drive. Engineers, both human and Nyctus, bustled around the bridge, keeping a close eye on strain gauges and damage sensors. Aside from a few ominous creaks and groans from the big ship’s structure, though, everything seemed to be holding together.

  “Conveyor One, Hecate here. You guys can get underway anytime.”

  Styles sighed at the voice of the Hecate’s former XO, and new Captain, Reynaud. “If it takes me a while to answer, Hecate, it’s because I’m debilitated by the power of your jokes.”

  “Noted. We’ll work on new material,” Reynaud replied, a laugh barely contained.

  The Hecate led the colony ship’s escort, a flotilla of destroyers and light cruisers backed up the escort carrier Corregidor. The flight was considered low-risk, being confined in relatively secure ON space, so the Third Fleet’s capital ships not on patrol or engaged in training exercises had been left at Code Gauntlet—a far more tempting and critical target. Bertilak and Mol had both stayed there, too, having no particular need to make this there-and-back-again trip.

  “Thorn, I am going to inspect the ship,” Winuk said. “Would you care to accompany me?”

  “Sure. Lead the way.”

  As Thorn followed Winuk, another pair of Nyctus, and a pair of ON engineers, he reflected on how strange this seemed. He’d grown up despising the Nyctus as murderous, psychopathic brutes, only good for killing. And yet, here he’d not just gotten to know one as an actual individual, with a unique and even somewhat charming personality, but he could actually think of Winuk as a friend.

  A squid. His friend. It was a seismic shift in the way Thorn Stellers viewed the universe.

  Not for the first time, he wondered if that had been the key all along, if Morgan hadn’t had it right. He had the means to change the universe, so why not just change the Nyctus into something like her Radiants and end the war that way?

  But that question, as it always had, answered itself. Who knew what the unintended consequences of that might be? And, anyway, was it right to impose something like that artificially on a people? Wasn’t this the right way, earning and building genuine trust through hard work and mutual understanding?

  Again, as always, the thoughts began chasing themselves through Thorn’s mind, a whirling cycle of question leading to question leading to question, like a dog chasing its own tail. He flung them away and concentrated, instead, on what the others were saying.

  “—strain gauge up there, showing deformation in the hull plates above what we’d expect,” one of the ON engineers was saying, pointing up with one hand, a data pad in the other.

  “Is it a problem?” Winuk asked.

  “Not yet. We’re going to keep an eye on it, though—”

  A sudden, dazzling flash followed by a thunderous boom cut him off. Thorn winced, blinking at the dazzling afterimage seared into his retinas, trying to shake off the high-pitched whine suddenly filling his head.

  A howling gale swept past him, almost knocking him over. He gaped at a section of Conveyor One’s hull that had simply vanished, replaced by a gaping hole with torn, glowing edges. His immediate thought was a mechanical failure, but then he heard the general quarters alarm faintly ringing through the thunderous rush of venting atmosphere.

  Fortunately, there was a lot of atmosphere to vent through a relatively small hole. Despite the howling wind tearing at him, trying to pull him toward the hole, Thorn was able to hastily summon magic and fling a barrier of force, a Hammer ’casting, over the rent in the hull. The decompression instantly stopped, leaving Thorn with sharp jabs of pain poking through the ceaseless ringing in his ears.

  “Is everyone alright?” he shouted.

  Winuk and the other Nyctus had wrapped their tentacles tightly around whatever was handy and clung on. One of the ON engineers wasn’t so lucky. She’d been pitched over the railing and sent plunging down to the deck below. Thorn couldn’t attend to her now, though, and could only glance helplessly at her unmoving form sprawled beneath him. Instead, he turned his attention back to the barrier he’d created. It would seal the hole, but only for as long as he maintained it. And although it was a simple ’casting, even simple ’castings had their cost. Thorn could hold a paperweight at arm’s length in his hand for a long time, but eventually, his arm would tire out. This would be the same.

  Thorn turned to Winuk. “Call an evacuation of this section. Now. I’ll hold the air in until you do.”

  Winuk flickered acknowledgement and activated the comm hung at his side. Thorn turned back to the hole, ensuring his ’casting was still solid, then yanked out his talisman and flung his perspective into the void surrounding Conveyor One.

  A battle raged around the colony ship.

  Thorn saw the Hecate and her consorts accelerating around the massive ship, forming a protective screen. He shoved his awareness even further into space, focusing on the enemy now charging headlong into the fight. How had the Bilau even known—?

  No. Wait. The attackers weren’t Bilau. They were Nyctus.

  An evacuation alarm sounded. Winuk plucked at Thorn’s arm. “We have to return to the next section so this one can be sealed off!”

  “I’ll leave when everyone else is in the clear,” Thorn growled back, most of his attention on his ’castings.

  He felt Winuk hesitate, then again caught flickers of agreement from the corner of his eye. The old Nyctus turned and barked orders to those nearby, both squid and human. None of them hesitated. That gave Thorn a momentary flicker of fond humor. His attitude, his clipped words, even his tone reminded Thorn of Tanner. He wondered what the gruff Commodore would think of being favorably compared to a squid?

  The compromised section was quickly evacuated, a crash team retrieving and extracting the fallen engineer. As it did, Thorn watched the battle unfold. The Nyctus ships, nine in all, seemed determined to either destroy the colony ship or die in the attempt. A ferocious firefight raged only a few thousand klicks away, building in intensity as the Corregidor’s Kestrel fighters swarmed into the fray. Two of the Nyctus ships were already tumbling derelicts, but so were two of the ON escorts, the Hecate’s sister ship, the destroyer Caliban, and a frigate. The biggest of the attackers, a squid heavy cruiser, doggedly drove straight through the melee, fixated on breaking through the ON line and getting a clear run at Conveyor One.

  It was a real threat. If she got even a momentary clear line of fire, she could loose a volley of missiles that they likely wouldn’t be able to stop. The colony ship’s point-defenses were only partly complete and activated, and there was nothing else available to intervene.

  Except for Thorn himself.

  He turned to Winuk. “Go! Get to safety, then tell them to seal this compartment.”

  “What about you?”

  “I seem to live half my life in a witchport open to hard vacuum, Winuk. I’ll be fine. Go. Now.”

  The old Nyctus hesitated a moment, then slapped a tentacle against Thorn’s arm, turned, and fled for the airlock opening in the nearby pressure bulkhead.

  As soon as it sealed, Thorn wrapped himself around the railing, then released the barrier he’d ’cast. The roaring wind i
nstantly picked up right where it left off. Thorn grimly hung on until the wind began to die. The thick, muffled silence of vacuum started to close in around him. He crafted a bubble of survival—cocooning himself against a suddenly hostile environment in the same way he had on the tomb planet. When the last of the air had vented, he let go of the railing, stood, then clambered down the nearby scaffolding leading to the deck below. Fortunately, the Imbrogul gravity polarizers were still online, so he was able to hurry across the forty meters or so of open deck to the hole blasted in the hull.

  A surge of vertigo swept through Thorn when he reached the gaping opening, provoked by the sudden transition from having solid stuff within a few meters of him, to endless light-years of empty nothing. He swallowed it down, took a moment to get himself oriented, then turned toward the battle. It raged at his ten o’clock and high, visible to the naked eye only as sparks of light that flared and died against the stars. But he wasn’t constrained to what he could physically see and once more sent his perception racing across the void, until it encompassed the vicious firefight. Smaller ships like the ones that made up most of this battle lacked the stately majesty of capital ships hammering away at one another at range. This was more like a street brawl, ships accelerating through hard, abrupt maneuvers, seeking one another’s weak spots like two street rats in a knife fight.

  The ON was going to win. Thorn could tell. The new drives and gravity tech installed on even just a few of the ON ships gave them a decisive edge. They could accelerate, decelerate, turn, twist, and even bank in ways that let them dodge the worst of the Nyctus attacks, while slamming their own home. Winning this battle wasn’t going to be the problem.

  Thorn focused his attention even more, locking it like a targeting scanner on the heavy cruiser. That was going to be the problem.

  The squid strategy was clear. Their other ships sought to tie up the ON ships long enough for the big ship to finally break the line and take the clear shot at Conveyor One she so desperately craved. Once her missiles were clear of the point defense systems of the ON escorts, even the new drives wouldn’t be enough to catch them. Their last and only line of defense would be the handful of working point-defense batteries on the colony ship and whatever ’castings Thorn could contrive.