by John Lumpkin
The Desert of Stars
A Human Reach Novel
By John J. Lumpkin
The Desert of Stars is copyright 2013 by John J. Lumpkin.
The cover art is copyright 2013 Winchell Chung.
All rights reserved.
The starry background for the cover image is credited to NASA, the ESA, and the Hubble Heritage-ESA Hubble Collaboration.
The right of John J. Lumpkin to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as permitted by fair use laws in the United States of America.
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.
Kindle Edition, v1
To Charlotte and Theo
Acknowledgments
I again owe thanks for the help and encouragement of Winchell Chung, the cover artist and author of the incomparable Atomic Rockets web site, Claudio Bertinetto, Iyar Binyamin, Laserman 1st Class Luke Campbell, John Christensen, combat editor Mark Graves, Stephen Gustav, Eileen Lumpkin, Brian Mansur, Gregory Muir, Stephen Rubin, Shannon Sindorf, Alice Srinivasan and Christopher Weuve. I am also grateful for the thoughts of Ken Burnside, co-author of the excellent Attack Vector: Tactical game.
Details on the Human Reach setting are available at http://www.thehumanreach.net.
Novels of the Human Reach
Through Struggle, the Stars (2011)
The Desert of Stars (2013)
The Passage of Stars (pending)
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Dramatis Personae
Starmap
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Epilogue
Excerpt from The Passage of Stars
About the Author
About the Illustrator
“Only in a universe of unlimited resources can all men be brothers.”
— Robert Zubrin, The Case for Mars, 1996
“War is death, and a plague of the lack of small things, and toil.”
— Stephen Crane, Wounds in the Rain, 1900
Dramatis Personae
WOLF 359
USS Apache
Commander Roman Hernandez, Commanding Officer
Lieutenant Commander Nathan Howell, Executive Officer
Lieutenant Lorna Carruth, Operations Officer
Lieutenant David Ortega, Weapons Officer
Lieutenant (j.g.) Neil Mercer, Intelligence Officer
Lieutenant (j.g.) Jessica Barrett, Directed Energy Officer
Ensign Eve Cohen, Propulsion Officer
Astronaut Dacey Allenby, Sensor Tech
HMS Ajax
Commodore Duncan Metcalf, commander, Convoy 323
JDF Kiyokaze
Commander Genda Hotaru, Commanding Officer
Lieutenant Endo Daisuke, Intelligence Officer
CSS Gan Ying
Captain Qin Bao, Commanding Officer
ENTENTE (BETA COMAE BERENICES IV)
Republic of Tecolote
President Lawson Conrad
General Antonio Vargas, Chairman of General Staff
Major General Katherine Naima, Secretary of the Interior
Colonel Samir Lorenzo Garcia y Abdulaziz, Battalion Commander, District 7
Captain Park Kang-Dae, President Conrad’s bodyguard
U.S. Consulate, Tecolote
Paul Layton, Chargé d’Affaires
Andy Bonaventura, Consular Affairs
Martina Bandi, Foreign Service Officer
Lindsay Trujillo, Foreign Service Officer
Irene Gomez, Station Chief, National Security Service
Others in Tecolote
Akita Tadeshi, a Japanese operative
Misaki, his aide
Xavier “Tippy” Griego, a catering company owner
Das, a forced immigrant
Kao Xun and Kao Tai, siblings
Colonel Tan Pierce, a rebel
Elsewhere on or around Entente
Commander Marc Raleigh, U.S. Space Force Intelligence, Entente station
Major Amanda Clark, Executive Officer, 2nd Marine Orbital Assault Battalion
2nd Lieutenant Vanessa Salter, Jumper Pilot, 2nd Marine Orbital Assault Battalion
Gunnery Sergeant Ruth Harkins, 2nd Marine Orbital Assault Battalion
KUAN YIN (11 LEONIS MINORIS A III)
Rand’s guerillas
2nd Lieutenant Rand Castillo, formerly Leader, 3rd Platoon, Bravo Battery, Fires Battalion, 34th Brigade
Sergeant Hal Aguirre, formerly Commander, C Gun, 3rd Platoon
Private Rachel Lopez, formerly of the Targeting Section, 3rd Platoon
Combat Supply Cache Falcon
Colonel Regina Foster, formerly J-3, Joint Task Force Sequoia
Lieutenant Commander Kyle DiMarco, formerly Executive Officer of the submarine Bowfin
Major Isabella Cruz, a quartermaster, formerly Deputy G-4 for the 129th Brigade
Captain Catherine Gant, Reconnaissance Forward Support Company Commander, Brigade Support Battalion, 129th Brigade
Staff Sergeant Tim Ruiz, a Green Beret attached to the 129th Brigade
Sergeant Alicia Patterson, formerly an intelligence specialist with the 107th Brigade
Sycamore
Major General Xie Quanyou, commander of the People’s Liberation Army forces on occupied Sequoia
Major Shen Liang, staff intelligence officer
Major Wong Pengfeng, commander of the military police forces at the Sycamore civilian internment camp
Territorial Governor Solomon Rivera, a prisoner
Major General Hyram Chalk, a prisoner
Moira Tobin, a civilian prisoner
Michael Bannerjee, a young civilian prisoner
CSS Weisheng
Rear Admiral Kong Ruchang, fleet commander
USS Valley Forge
Captain Grace Mallett, Commanding Officer
Lieutenant (j.g.) Erin Quintana, Kinetics Warfare Officer
Brigadier General Rev Grogan, U.S. Army Special Forces
1st Lieutenant Gabriela Silva, U.S. Army Special Forces
EARTH (SOL III)
United States
Senator Darren Gregory, senior senator from New Jersey
Trip Bell, Gregory’s chief of staff
James Donovan, Senior Operations Officer, U.S. National Security Service
Gardiner Fairchild, Senior Operations Officer, U.S. National Security Service
Sonya Chang-Hilliard, Assistant Deputy Director for Operations, U.S. National Security Service
Finn Kintsel, Operations Officer, U.S. National Security Service
Blink Riley, Science and Technology Officer, U.S. National Security Service
India
Lieutenant General Tyag Bahadar Singh, Indian Army
> Wing Commander Venkata Kurian Ramesh, Indian Space Force
Russia
Counteradmiral Sergei Pavelovich Komarov, Russian Space Defense Forces
Europa
Claude Delvaux, Colonization Minister
China
Shi Xiulian, an astronomer
Combined Joint Task Force 21
Vice Admiral Lesley Cooper, U.S. Space Force
Lieutenant Colonel Cyril Hellastrae, 75th Ranger Regiment (Spaceborne), U.S. Army
Lieutenant (j.g.) Leon Jackson, Deputy Engineering Officer, USS Ramage
ELSEWHERE
Flight Lieutenant Kieran Wu, Intelligence Officer, RAS Republic, Republic of Australia Space Force
Li Xiao, Operative, Second Bureau (China)
Prologue
Shanghai, China, Earth
Xiulian’s brain desperately wanted to interpret the rainy nighttime streetscape as a place of anonymity, where not even automated eyes could see what she was about to do. But she knew it was not so: The omnipresent police drones cared little for the weather or darkness. And although the new sniffers State Security were plastering on every streetlamp faced some difficulty in these conditions, they remained a threat, as they might smell her passage and alert a nearby patrol that they did not detect a corresponding radio transmission from her person. But the risk of being seen and fined for an infraction was preferable to the certainty that her movements would be recorded had she brought her identification caster with her.
Still, she gave the streetlamps a wide berth. This was not a part of the city she knew, but her contact had said it was a good place to meet. Shi Xiulian, astronomer, diplomatic adviser, interstellar traveler, mother of two fine boys, and traitor, would have preferred to pass this material to the Americans at an upcoming academic conference in Hawaii, but her co-conspirators had said it was too urgent to wait that long.
The datachip she carried held two things of note. The first was a report she had contributed to, and, more importantly, she was authorized to have. It detailed China’s knowledge of a great barren region of stars beyond those already colonized by the Americans, Japanese, Russians and Indians. China had reflexively concealed this knowledge, but Second Bureau was certain the Japanese had learned of the phenomenon, as well. The Americans, meanwhile, had yet to grasp their future would be confined to a long decline on their paltry three-and-a-quarter habitable worlds, but they would learn soon enough. How they learn it, and who they learn it from, may greatly influence their response, she believed.
Her second document was far more dangerous to possess: It was a list of senior members of the Chinese government, including her, who favored reaching out to the United States to negotiate the sale of some Chinese stars to them, so the Americans would continue to be able to search for new habitable worlds.
And feel no need to take them by force.
Xiulian and her co-conspirators feared that the prospect of finding no more colony planets would be too much for the Americans to bear, and the Japanese could manipulate them into an alliance in the coming war. A coalition between the technological masters of Japan and the still-dangerous Americans was not one everyone was certain China could overcome, particularly if they could rally other nations jealous of China’s good fortune.
Xiulian’s walk through this unfamiliar part of the city, then, was the first step into opening a backchannel to the Americans, one she hoped would blossom into diplomacy and a bargain that would forestall the coming violence.
And keep my boys from dying. Her elder son was a lieutenant in the submarine forces; her younger, wanting to emulate his brother, had enlisted in the Army and was stationed on Huashan. The thought of war tightened her stomach, even now.
Xiulian reached the appointed intersection and looked around. She saw no traffic. The rain grew harder, angrier. Why did they suddenly insist I meet with them in person? Why not just a dead drop of the datachip? The Americans are running too many risks.
There. A parked car, across the street, with three, no, four people inside. The driver, a woman, looked Chinese; the others, two men and another woman, did not. Why so many?
One of the men, the fair-skinned one, got out and walked over to her.
“Miz Shi?” he said.
She nodded.
“I’m Gardiner Fairchild. I’m sorry about all the rearrangements, but we have word that you may be under threat. Would you consider coming with us?”
He expects violence, or wants me to believe that. The other agents are for security.
“No, I will not leave my family,” she said. “Are you certain?”
“Someone knows what you are doing. We don’t know who. Please, then, pass me the datachip, and we’ll be on our way. Quickly, now.”
Xiulian reached into her coat pocket, felt the small plastic chip resting in the fabric.
A red-and-blue police flasher cut through the darkness.
“Stay where you are,” a female voice said in Mandarin. Xiulian and Fairchild both looked to its source – a small monitor drone rising shakily from a low rooftop. Its spotlight pointed at them.
Fairchild put a hand to his face and hunched over, striding quickly back to his car. Xiulian fled in another direction, running, running, running. She heard the Americans’ car hum away.
The drone did not follow her. But she was sure she had been tagged, and the security net would track her every movement.
She didn’t know what to do, but she thought her sons might be saved if she simply went home to await arrest. She threw the datachip into a gutter on the way.
She waited. She called in sick to work the next day – why create a spectacle at her office?
But State Security never came. She went to back to work a week later, wondering if they were watching her to see who she was working with. And as 2138 became 2139, she reflected on the event, over and over, during the rising tensions with Japan, during the initiation of the war she tried to prevent, and she realized she had never heard a Shanghai police drone broadcasting a female voice before.
Chapter 1
PARIS – Bidding for colonization rights for a suspected terran world orbiting 10 Tauri has reached an unprecedented E200 billion, a record that even exceeds bids on planets that have previously been confirmed to be habitable by humans. The planet, in European space, will not be subject to a close survey until 2147 at the earliest, when a wormhole is expected to open there. European officials have not indicated whether they will accept any bid and have hinted they may opt to colonize the planet themselves, or perhaps allow multiple nations to colonize different regions of the world. Colonization Minister Claude Delvaux has ruled out accepting bids from any belligerents in the war, a move that some experts suggested may prompt Iran to withdraw from the conflict to pursue the planet instead.
USS Apache, Wolf 359
“Contact!” The astronaut’s voice was shrill with excitement. “Two candles lit at Thales keyhole. Drive signatures indicate they are Whiskey-12 and Whiskey-15.”
“No, no, no!” Apache’s executive officer grew louder with each exclamation. “They can’t be back in action yet. Intel, didn’t you tell us that those Hans would be out another three weeks?”
“Aye, sir,” said the intelligence officer, desperately searching for a way to mollify his superior. “Analysis had indicated the Gan Ying needed additional repairs.”
“The analysis was fucking wrong, Lieutenant,” said the XO, a lieutenant commander named Nathan Howell. He seemed to believe swearing made him sound serious, but most of the Combat Information Center crew simply regarded him as coarse. “Can’t you people get anything right?”
The target of his outburst, a recent addition to the Apache’s staff, remained mute. He hadn’t performed the analysis, just relayed it from the technical experts in the fleet who had studied the damage suffered by the Chinese ship in a skirmish several weeks ago.
“Someone needs to go wake up the captain and brief him,” the XO went on. He looked at the intelligence of
ficer. “Since you aren’t doing us much good here, how about you?”
“Aye, sir.”
The officer pushed off from the console, with a little more force than normal, in hopes of getting out of the CIC before the XO could reload and fire again.
But as he departed, the astronaut at the sensor station tapped his elbow. The officer halted his motion on a handhold.
“Sir, am I pronouncing Thales right?” said the astronaut, her voice hushed. She was a nervous 19-year-old first-cruiser named Dacey Allenby. She pronounced the planet’s name as a single syllable.
The officer smiled gently. “No. It’s pronounced ‘Thay-leez,’” he said. “The planet is named after a dead Greek philosopher. But don’t worry about it. Everyone knew what you were talking about.”
“‘Thay-leez.’ I’ll get it right next time, sir,” the astronaut said.
The officer nodded and pushed off again, reaching the vessel’s axial tube without the XO launching another barrage. Captain Hernandez’s quarters were three decks below.
The captain didn’t always respond to his handheld when he was asleep, so the officer knocked on the hatch and waited. He heard coughing within, and the hatch opened.
“I trust you have a good reason for waking me, Mister Mercer?” he said hoarsely.
During his brief, Lieutenant (junior grade) Neil Mercer did his best to ignore his captain’s frail condition. Commander Roman Hernandez was only in his late fifties, but a life in space had taken an extreme toll. He had made too many transitions from gravity to weightlessness, and he had taken too many stray neutrons from the fusion candle and protons from solar flares. Despite all the modern shielding, exercise regimens and drugs, his body was failing.
Neil politely paused the brief each time the captain lapsed into a bout of coughing. Hernandez had good and bad days, and scuttlebutt was the ship’s doctor was, out of loyalty to a friend, not reporting the severity of the captain’s condition to higher command, as that would see Hernandez replaced. A darker rumor held that Hernandez was from a family that refused genetic improvements, and the Space Force had declined to have him removed to avoid appearing it was discriminating against him.
The captain had a stubbled, rotund face topped by short gray-and-white hair. He completed a twenty-second fit of coughs, the last of which launched a small comet of phlegm that darkened a spot on the left sleeve of Neil’s khaki uniform.
