A Star Rising (The Star Scout Saga Book 1)

by GARY DARBY

  Besides, these forays sometimes yielded information regarding the High Council’s inner workings. Information that he could use to further his cause, along with the personal contacts which were sometimes even more valuable in moving his nefarious schemes along.

  Therefore, he had gone and played the dutiful part of an Imperium official. However, it came at a cost to him with his incredible and stupid bad luck.

  Going days without communication with the organization, without having control over its innermost workings left Peller in an almost frantic state.

  Before the luxurious strato-cruiser’s engines could even begin to whine down, he was out the door and hurrying to his secret hideaway.

  Hands trembling from anger, he punched the code into the security device and slammed his hand down on the molecular recognition mechanism.

  He tried to push the heavy metal door to make it open faster. As with some politicians, all dictators, and certain criminals, he was like a drug addict going through withdrawal, cut off from his drug of choice, unfettered control, and power.

  He rushed to his chair and at a feverish pace opened multiple comms channels to his most trusted lieutenants. One by one, he made contact and regained his sense of perspective on the Faction’s doings, which caused his anger and near panic to subside.

  Hours later, he eased back, confident that everything went well in his dark and loathsome world. A nagging thought came to mind. He had forgotten something important, but what?

  In his mind, he retraced his steps, his actions, unable to pinpoint what he had left undone. Then he had it, and chastised himself for letting the matter slip, but rationalized his forgetfulness because of the urgency of other issues.

  He brought up the appropriate communication icon and waved a hand over the two stars. Long minutes went by without a reply. Irritation set in though he knew that the man couldn’t always answer right away.

  But the last several days had made him that much more short-tempered and even this small delay proved irksome.

  Just as he was clouding up in frustration from the lack of a response, the communicator lighted up, and Double Star’s holographic image floated midair. “Ah, there you are,” Peller answered in smooth tones.

  Double Star glanced at Peller but wouldn’t meet his eyes.

  In a heartbeat, Peller went on the alert. He had come to know this man very well over the years, and now his body language screamed that something was amiss.

  “What have you learned since we last spoke?” he demanded.

  For several seconds, the man hesitated, and then spoke slowly. “I tried to contact you but—”

  “Couldn’t be helped!” Peller snapped. “Incompetent ship’s captain steered us into a plasma flare, and we lost n-space capability, to include communications. But enough about that.”

  He peered at Double Star and became suspicious. The shifty eyes that wouldn’t meet his, the tight lips that he kept running a tongue over; the man was keeping something from him. But what?

  Peller waved a hand and ordered, “Go on.”

  Star again licked his lips and began. “I obtained some information about Marrel . . .”

  He trailed off before suddenly changing his voice’s tenor to become firmer, more confident. “It looks like you were right. I’m sure Marrel’s presence here on Earth is tied in with his brother’s disappearance and the Kolomite.”

  “I knew it!” Peller crowed.

  “Continue,” he ordered, pushing aside the fact that just moments before the man had been so hesitant to pass along such excellent news.

  “Marrel and Tuul are working together on a ‘project’ that centers on Veni. But they just left on some phony mission out to Sector Ten, a ‘joint intelligence operation’ they called it. We’ve never done anything like that before.”

  He waited and then commented, “It might be that they’re going to try and link up with Deklon Marrel.”

  “Where?” Peller demanded, “You have the coordinates?”

  “Approximately,” the man returned.

  “Send them, now.”

  A moment later, Peller eyed the projected flight plan. “This places them close to the Helix Nebula.”

  He nodded and noted, “A good hiding place but not good enough.”

  One side of his mouth turned up in a crooked leer and with a great deal of confidence, he stated, “We have them, it’s just a matter of time.”

  Eagerly, Double Star replied, “I believe I can help there. Since I couldn’t reach you and didn’t know when we would be speaking next, I took the liberty of taking care of this myself.”

  Peller turned cold and his voice became hard. “What do you mean you took care of this yourself?”

  Peller’s scowl grew while the Star Scout officer struggled to come up with the right words. Then, as a child would try to explain a misdeed to a parent and seek forgiveness, the man rushed through the last several days’ events.

  He detailed his daughter’s mission, and that she would report to him with what they needed to know.

  Peller sat stone still, staring at Double Star, his incredulity turning to anger. His mouth worked, but no words came out until he hissed, “Idiot! I already have a team working this. I’m just waiting for them to report in. Call her back!”

  “I—I’m not sure I can,” Star declared. “I’ve tried to communicate, but either there’s something blocking the messages from getting through or she’s not responding.”

  Peller slammed his fist down in hot fury. He leaned forward, the veins in his neck bulging from his boiling rage.

  Like a striking snake, Peller thrust his finger toward the hologram, “I said get her back! Get her back now!

  “You call her—this minute,” he rasped through clenched teeth. “From now on, don’t do anything regarding this matter until you’ve talked to me first.”

  He stopped to take a deep breath. “You get her away from Marrel, or so help me . . .” his voice became strangled as his rage overcame his ability to even speak.

  Double Star paled at the implied threat. He sputtered, “I’ll find a way to get a message to her. Stop her.”

  “Then do it, and now!” Peller screamed and cut off the communication. His labored breathing filled the room’s normal stillness. His hands shook with the rage that surged through his body and mind.

  He smashed his fist down on the console again, the massive blow rocking the console. The man's handling of the situation was wrong and inexcusable. His usefulness had come to an end, and the sooner Peller took care of this the better.

  If the daughter had to suffer the same fate as her father—so be it. Peller could care less if he hurt innocents; after all, he was the only one that was important, not they.

  His face dark with rage, he strode over to his StellarVue and scrutinized it for several minutes before he spotted what he needed, or rather, who he needed.

  And circumstances were on his side for who and what he required for this particular mission.

  On the StellarVue was the sign for an interstellar assassin, two mandible-shaped claws, silver in color with an eight-sided star centered between the insignia. Underneath the symbol was the numeral one.

  He smiled to himself. One of his hunter-killers was close enough to be within reasonable striking distance. He turned back to his console and within a few moments looked at a hard-faced man whose eyes showed no emotion whatsoever.

  Peller knew that the man’s rugged, but attractive features masked a sterile conscience, and his actions while on a job mirrored the vicious attack of a great white shark, swift, savage, and terrifying.

  Peller took great pride in that. He had given particular attention to this man’s training since his youth. Now, as a human killing machine, few, if any, equaled his prowess.

  “Assemble your team,” Peller ordered. “You’re going to the Helix Nebula. Here are the approximate coordinates. Drop everything else, I need this done, now. How soon can you be there?”

  With frosty eyes
, the killer analyzed the coordinates against several star charts before answering, “Traveling through a nebula is risky business, something I avoid if possible.”

  “In this case, I need for you to take the risk,” Peller ordered.

  Leaning forward, his eyes never left the man’s features. “At triple your usual fee.”

  The man lifted a corner of his mouth and gave a slight bow of his head. “But for you, we’ll cut through the cloud and reach the search coordinates inside six hours.”

  He gave a small shrug while saying, “It may take a little while to—”

  Peller held up a hand to stop the man. “You won’t have to search much,” and explained what Double Star had told him.

  “That should be easy enough,” the man agreed.

  “Good,” Peller replied. “This is how I want you to handle this,” and described his plan.

  Once done, he stopped and in a cold voice commanded, “When you have those two individuals, let me know.

  “As for any others,” he stopped and shrugged. “Give them your usual, undivided, and personal attention.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Star Date 2433.060

  The Helix Nebula

  Drifting weightless in the ship’s pilot pod after having turned off the artificial gravity generator, Alena’s stare was transfixed on the starry array that surrounded her on every side.

  Her ship had passed through the Helix gas cloud and into the core. But even here, the nebula contained hundreds and hundreds of glowing embers that wrapped around her for a thousand light-years in every direction, a cocoon of both light and dark.

  With the stars shining against the nebula’s radiant coils, the grandeur of the scene was both a powerful stimulant and a potent narcotic.

  The immensity of what she saw, and felt, overwhelmed and numbed her mind and body, perhaps because of how insignificant and small she felt in comparison.

  Another part of her drank it all in, eager and thirsty, as if she couldn’t get enough of the majesty that marched across this piece of galactic space.

  Like the mythical sea nymphs, the Sirens, who lured ancient mariners to their deaths with their sweet songs, the celestial beauty of the nebula beckoned her with a silent, serene call.

  She felt almost compelled to open the ship’s airlock and launch herself out into the vastness, to drift forever among the celestial lights. But then the reason for her being here would pull her back, her dark thoughts matching the blackness of surrounding space.

  Somehow, being Out Here connected Alena with her mother in ways she never sensed anywhere else. Her mother had loved deep space, and Alena not only shared that love, she understood why her mother had felt the way she did.

  Then, at times, bitterness shaded her feelings and emotions toward her mother. Had her mother loved roaming the stars more than her?

  Why, after Alena’s birth had she continued being a Star Scout? Why hadn’t she stayed with Alena instead of going to Veni and dying there?

  Alena had asked her father about it once. His stark, numb expression told her that she had reopened a painful, painful wound. He had tried to explain, but his choking, halting effort was almost incoherent, and she had never brought it up again.

  She had no doubts that her mother had loved her, but still in the back of her mind was the tiny nagging question of why she had left when she could have stayed.

  Once the ship had gone into hyperspace after leaving Luna, and for the sake of her mother’s memory, she had stripped off her Star Scout uniform and flung it aside.

  Now it lay crumpled, disheveled, and out of sight while she wore a simple camouflage uniform reminiscent of the one she’d worn as a novice scout.

  A tiny chirping from the communicator brought her mind back to the present, and she rotated her body to float above the console as she checked the ship’s operating systems.

  She had been here for a number of hours, having pushed the small craft as hard as its engines could handle. Now the vessel drifted, its propulsion system shut down.

  What little trajectory the ship had left would carry it to the nebula’s heart, in about a million or more years.

  Satisfied just to let the craft coast along, Alena waited for her quarry to arrive—then she would pounce, and the hunt would be on. By letting the ship lie still and motionless she hoped to gain the advantage of shock and surprise when she sprang her snare and use that edge to its fullest benefit.

  Now she played the game for one reason and one reason only, and the charade needn’t go on any longer. With the aid of her father, she had set the trap that would bring at least one Marrel to her, and who knew, maybe all.

  As she ran her eyes over the pilot’s console, she glanced at the communication display. There were several data entries that scrolled across the screen. From their routing identifiers, she knew who had sent the message and refused to answer.

  Not being a strong man, her father could well be calling to plead for her to return, to rethink their plan.

  But there would be no rethinking, no second-guessing. They were past that now, had cast the die, and she wasn’t about to turn tail, not after having waited all these years.

  She rechecked to ensure that the distress call transmission beam was tight and aimed in the right direction. It wouldn’t do for just anybody to receive the bogus communication, though she realized that there was just the off-chance that another ship would intercept the message and respond.

  Since there wasn’t anything she could do about that particular possibility, she shrugged it off as an unknown variable in her lethal equation. Her only thought was that if anyone got in her way, well, it would be too bad for them.

  Unbidden, the image of her mother came to her mind and she squirmed with the thought that her mother would be ashamed of her actions, but she pushed the agitation aside.

  What she did was for her mother; to right an awful wrong and to seek justice—that, and to bring some sense of closure to her unwarranted death.

  She smirked as she thought about how her father used to call her his “little angel.” Well, his little angel had grown up to become an avenging angel with a terrible sense of righteous pent-up anger that would consume the Marrels.

  Her father had set her free to do what she must, and she let her eyes close in rest, the silence deep around her. Peaceful and calm, it soothed her churning, fitful mind and soul.

  She stayed that way for some time before the communicator’s sudden squeal startled her from her almost trancelike state. She peered at the vu-screen and her surprise deepened. She didn’t recognize the sender’s identifier, and it wasn’t her father attempting to contact her again.

  But whoever sent the incoming alert did so in a low-energy-level communication, and with a tight beam. It was obvious that they didn’t want anyone else to pick up the signal.

  She furrowed her brow in consternation. No one knew her location but her father, and he wouldn’t try to contact her in this manner. Or would he?

  Her mind grappled with the possibilities. Perhaps in not answering his earlier hails, she had forced him to make a desperate move to find her and communicate.

  Maybe the information was so urgent that he hoped that she would answer a call from a different source since she refused to respond to his earlier attempts.

  Had something so drastic and unexpected happened to the Marrels that they needed to change their plans, or worse, postpone to a more suitable time?

  For long seconds, she waited, her natural wariness preventing her from acting, the more so to stop her father from trying to call off what she had to do, for both of them.

  With some reluctance, she decided to take the prudent course. If it were her father on the other end, he might have information that she needed. She reached over and opened the channel.

  Without identifying herself, she responded, “Go ahead, I’m reading you.”

  “Roger,” the voice returned, “I have a message from your father. It’s important that I speak wit
h you.”

  A little shocked at hearing an unknown person bring up her father, Alena began, “You must be mistaken—”

  “Alena,” the voice interrupted, “I have a message from your father that I am to deliver to you personally but not over an open, unsecure channel.”

  Alena reached down and turned on the vu-screen. It filled with the image of a handsome man in a Star Scout uniform.

  He nodded before saying, “I understand why you’re a little cautious but let me assure you; we’re on the same side. You’re not the only one who hates the name of Marrel.”

  Alena couldn’t contain her gasp. She calmed herself and asked, “The message from my father?”

  “My orders are to deliver the message in person,” he replied, “I’ll vector to you and do a ship-to-ship spacewalk so that we can talk.”

  He looked aside as if checking his nav board. “I have your signal locked in, and your coordinates computed. My ETA is ten minutes.” With that the vu-screen went dead.

  Dumbfounded, Alena stared at the black rectangle for several seconds. Uneasy, she revisited the conversation, feeling as if there were something wrong with the whole situation.

  But the scout not only knew where to find her but without question, knew why she was here. Just one other person knew those details—her father.

  It was unexpected and astonishing that he would bring someone else in on the plan, but there must be a reason of supreme importance that he would do so.

  With that thought, she pushed her doubts aside and waited for her unexpected visitor, confident that he must be part of her father’s plan to deal with the Marrels.

  In a short while, a small hyper ship coasted to a stop mere meters off her starboard bow. She watched as a lone figure in a P-suit stood in the neighboring craft’s airlock portal before pushing off to float the short distance between the two vessels.

  In seconds came the mechanical noises of her ship’s airlock cycling through the pressurization phases.

  The Star Scout floated out of the unit. He reached out to a nearby stanchion, pulled himself upright and let his magno-boots click on the metal floor. He pushed back his helmet and smiled.