Quantum Dark: The Classic Sci-fi Adventure (The Star Rim Empire Adventures Book 1)

by R. A. Nargi

  Those three words sank into my brain and I felt my insides grow numb.

  My father was going to sacrifice himself to destroy Bandala.

  I knew he was just a bot, but that bot was still him. His consciousness. His essence. And maybe something else.

  “Why would he leave without talking to us? To me?”

  “He was monitoring the feed from the scanners. He saw the Mayir armada. He knew he had to leave immediately and he didn’t want to argue with you. Or Ana-Zhi.”

  I hammered my fist against the bulkhead. “Fuck him!”

  “Jannigan!”

  “That’s typical Sean grandstanding—”

  “He said that you’d understand, but if not, he’ll explain it to you himself.”

  “How?”

  “Umm, the comm…?”

  “Yeah, if we can get it working!”

  I seethed the whole way back to the bridge, and nothing that Chiraine said could calm me down. I couldn’t even explain to Ana-Zhi what had happened, so Chiraine did.

  Ana-Zhi seemed to take the whole thing in stride. “Take it easy, junior. It was just a bot.”

  Monkeying around with the comm got me more and more pissed off, until finally it came to life with a burst of static.

  “Vostok? Come in.” It was my father’s voice.

  “I can’t believe this,” I yelled into the comm. “What are you trying to prove?”

  “I’m not trying to prove anything, Jannigan. I’m sticking to the mission objective. There’s too much dangerous technology on Bandala. We cannot let it fall into the Mayir’s hands.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Yeah, but nothing, son. We now know how to activate the Kryrk. Chiraine and I both believe it can be made to destroy Bandala.”

  I looked over at Chiraine. “I think you guys messed up. In all those Shima legends about the Kryrk, it was never described as a suicide weapon.”

  “Very astute, JJ,” the Sean bot said. “And if we had more time, we’d be able to decipher the finer points of the weapon’s targeting system. But right now we know how to turn it on and get it to work.”

  This was insane. “And by work, you mean it will emit a high-powered tractor beam and catch a giant asteroid which it will smash into Bandala?”

  The Sean bot didn’t say anything. Neither did Chiraine.

  “I’ve been glued to the scanner,” I said. “There are no asteroids anywhere near here.”

  “I don’t know what to say, JJ. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. Then you pick me up and we think of something else.”

  “Something else? The Mayir are here in this system. They’re going to be gunning for us. Tell him, Ana-Zhi.”

  She leaned over to the microphone. “Sean, I’m seriously considering surrendering.”

  “What? No, Z. No, no, no.”

  “We don’t have any other play, captain.”

  “I’ll tell you what the play is. You take the Vostok down to Taullae or Ordilon. Someplace remote. You hide the cargo. Then you ditch the ship. Power everything down—”

  Ana-Zhi interrupted him. “Sean, they’ll find us.”

  “Not if you’re smart, Z.”

  “What about you?” I asked.

  “What do you mean, son?”

  “We should be reviving your body right now.”

  There was a long silence.

  “Hey?” I asked. “You there?”

  The Sean bot made a sound very much like a human sigh.

  “Jannigan, don’t worry about me. I’m not important—”

  “Bullshit.” My eyes began to cloud. “You’re totally important.”

  “No I’m not. I’m mostly an Aanthangan bot. If something goes wrong, I’ll self-destruct. Otherwise I’ll go down with the ship.”

  “No!”

  Chiraine moved close and pulled me tight. “It’s okay.”

  “Goodbye, Jannigan,” my father said. “You’re in charge now.” Then he cut off the comm.

  I burst into the first crew cabin I could find and crashed down on the bunk. My head was spinning with thoughts and feelings, but I just pushed them away.

  Focus. Calm.

  I began breathing deeply and tried to control my thundering heart.

  I didn’t want to see anyone or think about anything. I was still trying to process what was happening. Intellectually I knew that it was just a bot who had left me, but it felt like my real father leaving me. Again.

  And it messed me up. Again.

  At some point, my lack of sleep got the better of me and I must have dozed off into a deep dreamless sleep.

  I don’t know how long I was asleep, but I was awoken by Chiraine.

  “You have to see this,” she said, but wouldn’t explain further.

  We returned to the bridge and Ana-Zhi told me to look at the scanner’s display.

  I saw something large and very fast-moving on the screen, but my brain must have been still fogged with sleep because I couldn’t figure out what it was.

  “An asteroid,” Chiraine announced.

  “And a big one,” Ana-Zhi said. “At least two hundred fifty meters across. It came out of nowhere and it’s not on any of the historical scans.”

  “The Kryrk…?” I couldn’t believe it actually worked. It was impossible.

  “It looks that way,” Ana-Zhi said.

  “And its course…?”

  “Straight at Bandala. Impact in four hours and twenty-four minutes. But that’s not all.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Ana-Zhi flicked at the display, changing to a different screen. “That Mayir armada? They’re here. Looks like a long-range freighter with a squadron of fighter escorts. And a tug.”

  Oh shit.

  “What are we going to do?” Chiraine asked.

  I looked over at Ana-Zhi, but she just shrugged and said, “You’re the captain, Jannigan.”

  This wasn’t what I wanted, but I didn’t really have a choice.

  “My father was right,” I said. “We need to get out of here. But we’re not going to Taullae.”

  “Oh?” Ana-Zhi asked.

  “We’re going back to Yueld.”

  “Isn’t that the first place the Mayir will look for us?” Chiraine asked.

  “Not where I’m thinking.”

  “The Well of Forever?” Chiraine wrinkled her forehead.

  “Yes.”

  She smiled at me. “Brilliant!”

  Ana-Zhi nodded. “Not if one of those K’Lortai Dragons decides to eat us.”

  We set off at full speed towards Yueld, monitoring both the asteroid and the Mayir. It was just a matter of time before they tried to make contact with the Vostok, so Chiraine and I worked on disabling the comm unit. We wouldn’t be completely invisible, but it might buy us some time to get away and hide.

  A half hour from Yueld, the scanners went crazy.

  “What the hell is going on?”

  The readout registered a massive surge of radiation about 200 kilometers from Bandala.

  We all crowded around the display, trying to figure out what had happened.

  Then I called up the projected course of the asteroid.

  My god. The blast was right on the path of the asteroid. That could only mean one thing.

  “Those fuckers blew up the asteroid.”

  I fiddled with the ship’s cameras until I got a visual. And then we all saw it for ourselves: a globe of superheated debris exploding outwards.

  “Shields up!” I yelled.

  “I think we’re fine,” Ana-Zhi said, but she goosed the proximity plates anyway. “We’re pretty far away and not really in the path.”

  Far away or not, the visual display flared orange and then burned white until the sensors compensated and grayed out the screen. The last image I saw was an exploding halo of particles and gas.

  All the color had drained from Chiraine’s face. “We failed.”

  “Not completely,” I said. “We still have a ship full of artifacts
.”

  “We need to get them away from here,” Ana-Zhi said.

  “And back into the hands of someone responsible,” Chiraine said. “Maybe someone at Marlington.”

  “Hey, princess, let’s not be too hasty. This cargo is worth more than I can imagine.”

  “We can debate all of that later,” I said. “For now, let’s concentrate on getting back to Yueld.”

  “Aye aye, captain.”

  THE END

  Free Prequel Story

  What really happened to Sean Beck seven years ago…?

  Find out in the FREE Star Rim Empire short story Marauders of Bandala.

  Get your copy at:

  https://www.randynargi.com/bandala/

  The Well of Forever

  Special Sneak Preview of the Next Star Rim Empire Novel

  “Beware the stories you read or tell; subtly, at night, beneath the waters of consciousness, they are altering your world.”

  Ben Okri

  Without warning, the Vostok lurched hard, throwing the three of us off our feet. Then the ship twisted around and suddenly up was down and down was up.

  It happened so fast that the inertial compensators and artificial gravity couldn’t react in time. Neither could the gyrostabilizers.

  Chiraine Portelle screamed and Ana-Zhi Agrada bellowed. I was too shocked to make a sound. I was concentrating on not breaking my neck as I smacked into a ventilation pylon that used to run from the floor to the ceiling and was now coming diagonally at my head.

  Urgent klaxons sounded and console’s displays flashed alert upon alert. The main viewport showed a creature so large that I could only see parts of it: a muscled appendage, rippling in the mist.

  I knew what it was, of course. It was the one thing we feared running into. A cthulian.

  We had been flying blind through the mist-filled chasms of Yueld. The sensors on the Vostok weren’t much better than what we had on the Freya—even though the Vostok was a newer vessel—but I had hoped they were enough to help us avoid the megafauna that dwelt in the lower reaches of the planet.

  No such luck.

  “Prox plates!” Ana-Zhi yelled, as she tried to right herself.

  The ship heaved again and all I could think of was how impossible it was to toss a 40-meter spaceship around like a child’s toy. But impossible or not, it was happening.

  I plummeted down towards the console as the power flickered.

  “Jannigan!” Ana-Zhi bellowed.

  I managed to grab ahold of the pilot’s seat she had been sitting in moments before, and hung on to it. The Vostok shuddered again. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the shield control, but I was too far away to reach it.

  My muscles burned as I tried to pull myself up on the side of the upside-down chair. Somewhere below me I saw Chiraine’s body crumpled on the ground. She wasn’t moving. And a wave of panic washed over me.

  “Chiraine’s hurt!” I yelled at Ana-Zhi.

  “We’re all going to be worse than hurt if you don’t hit those shields!”

  The Vostok groaned and trembled and new alarms sounded.

  Screw it.

  Before the ship could change its orientation again, I dove for the console, twisting my body as I fell towards it. I stabbed out at the shield control and managed to flip the auxiliary power rocker for the proximity plates.

  Then I crashed down to the ground, narrowly missing Chiraine. Pain spidered through my shoulder and back, but I rolled just like I had been trained to do.

  The lights flickered again and then faded off, plunging us into darkness.

  That went well.

  “Jannigan!” Ana-Zhi yelled again.

  “I thought I got the shields!”

  It turned out that I did activate the proximity plates. The process wasn’t instant, though. The plates took a few moments to charge. A loud electrical whine filled the cabin, and then through the main viewport I saw a shockwave of lightning dance over the hull.

  The ship’s hull creaked again, girders complaining at being twisted at such unnatural angles. I felt the ground beneath me shift once more, but this time it was gradual. The various inertial and gravity systems were finally coming back online.

  I crawled over to where I thought Chiraine was, and found her limp body in the dark,

  “Chiraine? You’re going to be okay.”

  I was relieved to feel her pulse. She was alive, but unconscious. Beyond that, I had no idea.

  Chiraine moaned. I hoisted her up over my shoulder and made my way down the walls as the Vostok gradually righted itself.

  On my right Ana-Zhi wiped the blood from her forehead, eased into the pilot’s seat, and started checking the systems. “Fucking cthulian.”

  “Is it gone?”

  “I think so. I’m going to try to find that cave mouth and get us someplace safe. How’s the princess?”

  “Messed up,” Chiraine groaned. She looked up into my eyes. At least she was conscious.

  “I’m going to take her to the infirmary,” I said.

  “Check on Qualt once you’re done. But don’t let him out.”

  “Obviously.”

  Chiraine faded in and out of consciousness as I made my way down to the infirmary with her in my arms. I’d get her settled in a MedBed before checking on the former captain of the Vostok, Agon Qualt, who was now residing in the brig.

  “This is what it takes to get me in your arms?” she joked woozily.

  “We don’t have time for anything else,” I grinned back at her.

  Even though the MedBed here on the Vostok was newer than the one we had on the Freya, it was automated enough that I didn’t have any problems operating it.

  Soon Chiraine was being scanned for a concussion, broken bones, internal injuries, and anything else the AI thought might be relevant. She was also being pumped full of pain suppressors, anti-infectives, an array of stabilizers, coagulants, and neuroid picobot healants which would repair any physical damage.

  “I’ll be right back,” I told her—though at that point she was too out of it to notice.

  As I grabbed a Medascap case, the overhead lights flickered ominously. They weren’t supposed to do that—given that Lampreys were designed with probably a half-dozen back-up power systems. But I couldn’t worry about that now. I borrowed Chiraine’s AuraView and set a timer. I’d return to the infirmary once her treatment was complete.

  My next stop was the cabin where we had stowed my father’s unconscious body. Thankfully, Ana-Zhi had secured him with the webbing that was a standard part of every crew bunk, so he hadn’t been banged around. Even though he was wearing his exosuit, being slammed around a cabin probably wasn’t the best thing for someone who had been preserved for seven years.

  The power indicator on the suit still glowed strongly. Thank Dynark for Welkin’s wafer battery technology. Even this old model was rock-solid in the power department. And the various power losses and surges from the ship’s power seemed not to have affected the suit.

  “We’ll get you out of there soon, Dad,” I said more to myself than anyone else. It was a promise I intended to keep, but we needed a stretch of at least 24 hours when we weren’t running from exploding asteroids, fascist armadas, or creatures bigger than our ship.

  I returned to the top level of the Vostok, and made my way to the brig.

  Even out in the corridor, I heard Qualt groaning—although I’m not sure if he was making those sounds for my benefit or not.

  “Fucking A, kid. What the hell happened?” He was slumped on the floor in the small cell, but didn’t look injured at all. “A.Z. forget how to fly a starship?”

  “Never mind,” I said. “I just wanted to make sure you weren’t dead.”

  “Almost, sport, almost. Seriously, what the hell is going on? You didn’t break my ship, did you?”

  “The ship’s fine,” I said. Although, in truth, I wasn’t so sure.

  “It better be.”

  As I turned to go, Qualt called afte
r me. “Hey, kid. Come back a sec. There’s something I want to run by you.”

  “What?”

  “Listen, I don’t know what your boss is playing at, but this is rapidly turning into a situation here. You feel me?”

  “Not really.” I was curious what his angle might be.

  “I’m guessing that the Mayir are either in system already or real close. What do you think will happen when they hail the Vostok and no one answers?”

  “Not my problem.”

  “Not your problem?” he chortled. “I beg to disagree, manito. See, when Uncle Prundt realizes he’s got a rogue ship on his hands, he’s going to assume the worst—i.e. traitors, thieves, hijackers. I believe you and your compadres fall into that latter camp.”

  “Again, not my problem.”

  “Bear with me here, sonny. Because a ’57 Lamprey-class such as the Vostok has some intrinsic value, the good Field Marshal may be a bit hesitant to reduce it to so many scattered atoms, so he’ll knock out the engines and send a dozen of their crimson legionnaires in to do pest control. No offense. I can see you’re a studly guy and all, but you are no match for a legionnaire. And likewise for Miss Agrada and little Professor Ladybug.”

  I didn’t say anything—just let Qualt talk. He was on quite a roll.

  “There really is only one play here, son. Let me out so I can answer when the big man comes a-calling. And then we hand over the Kryrk and bask in our collective rewards.” He grinned at me. “I can see those wheels turning, Jannigan Beck. You know I’m right.”

  “Uh huh. We’ll see.” With that, I spun on my heel and strode away from the brig.

  “Beck!” Qualt called after me. “I am not fucking around. You need to let me out of here pronto.”

  When I returned to the bridge, I found Ana-Zhi cursing at the console and flipping through displays seemingly at random.

  “That doesn’t look good,” I said.

  “It’s not. The cthulian broke something. I just can’t trace it.”

  I could tell from looking out of the main viewport that we had set down somewhere. Judging from the darkness, it was probably inside the cavern that ran a half a kilometer into the base of the mesa beneath Roan Andessa.