Starhold's Fate

by J. Alan Field

  Three standard days had passed and Pettigrew had taken full ownership of Knife’s Edge. One-hundred forty-three Coalition warships were now in the system, with a few more stragglers expected to arrive during the coming days.

  Pettigrew had ordered Captain Daemon to conduct today’s briefing in the belief that it would be good for the morale of his allies. Admiral Winston had so disrupted local Human-Lytori relations that Pettigrew felt a gesture of goodwill was in order. As for Winston, the xenophobic Ninth Fleet commander sat to Pettigrew’s right with not-so-subtle orders to keep his mouth firmly shut.

  “Approximately two-hundred ten enemy vessels are currently in Cor Caroli, and the structure which the Massang identify as the Oplacai is rapidly approaching completion,” continued Daemon.

  Admiral Marius rocked restlessly back and forth. “How do we know it is almost complete if we are not even sure what it is?”

  Nyondo used her most diplomatic voice. “With respect, sir, we know. Our long-distance probes have given Lytori and human scientists enough data to be sure that this is indeed a gigantic hypergate facility—what the New Earthers refer to as a Threshold. Our people at Dijana Research are absolutely convinced.”

  “As is our Radius Laboratory, sir,” quickly added Daemon, backing up his fellow staffer.

  “I’d feel better if we could get a closer look, not only at the Oplacai, but the entire enemy setup,” commented Admiral Leversee, sitting to Pettigrew’s left. “Long distance probes are fine, but nothing beats a pair of eyeballs.”

  “Agreed,” said Pettigrew. “The Massang aren’t likely to cooperate, but I may have a way around that.” Multi-species expressions of surprise greeted his statement. “We’ll come back to that in a moment. Daemon, why don’t you share the newest development with everyone—what you were telling me just before the meeting started.”

  The Lytori captain nodded. “Our long-range scans show the presence of Massang colony ships translating into the Cor Caroli system.”

  The conference room stirred. Even the Hixarans bristled with curiosity, tentacles thrashing about as they rapidly changed color. They were attending the conference holographically from the moist comfort of their compound.

  “Arkships?” cried out Winston, breaking his pledge of silence. “The Massang are bringing in civilian settlement ships? For what purpose?”

  Pettigrew leaned forward, interlacing his fingers on the tabletop. “Until now, we have assumed this Threshold, the Oplacai as they call it, was being built to project an invasion fleet into Coalition territory. Now, I’m not so sure. I believe the Massang may be preparing to do just what the New Earthers were originally trying to do before their Threshold malfunctioned and thrust them into our galaxy.”

  “They’re trying to run away,” said Lieutenant Aoki from her seat behind Pettigrew. “Just like we tried to escape the Adversary twenty-three years ago. They’re trying to move to a different part of the galaxy, a safe haven. They’re trying to escape—us.”

  “That is possible, Lieutenant Ah-Oh-Key” said Marius in a somber voice, “but let us not forget what the Massang have done over the past century. They have conquered dozens of planets, turning sentient peoples into slaves. They have committed genocide, exterminating entire worlds.”

  “Certainly, the Massang leaders have committed atrocities,” said Nyondo treading carefully. “But the Massang civilians aboard those arkships have not.”

  “The arkships could also be a trick,” Leversee cautioned. “They could be empty—diversions. This Massang battle force could still be an invasion fleet.”

  “Captain Daemon.” Sulla spoke up from her seat beside Marius. “How many of these arkships have arrived in Cor Caroli?”

  “Somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty.”

  “Twenty,” repeated Nyondo. “How many civilians could twenty arkships carry?”

  “We estimate that each vessel could hold as many as five thousand Massang colonists.”

  Everyone let that notion sink in.

  “So, we are looking at the possibility of hundreds of thousands of civilians right in the middle of a battle zone,” said Nyondo pointedly.

  Marius shuffled to the center of the briefing hall, causing Daemon to give way to the Lytori admiral.

  “May I remind everyone…” he began in a stern voice. The Lytori admiral was speaking to the group, but Pettigrew had the distinct impression that his alien comrade’s comments were actually aimed directly at him.

  “May I remind everyone that most of the remaining Massang forces are the Vanguard. They are the enemy’s most fierce fighters and most notorious criminals. The Vanguard have committed atrocity after atrocity, all in the name of Massang racial superiority.

  “Five years ago, the Vanguard arrived on the planet Brax. The Braxi were a Pre-Industrial race, a peaceful arachnid species. The Massang no doubt targeted them because they were helpless. Upon taking control of the planet, the Vanguard rounded up all of the Braxi younglings and surgically removed three of their eight limbs. Not the adults, just their offspring. Mind you, the Braxi hadn’t done anything wrong, hadn’t even tried to resist the occupation of their world. They complied with every Massang order, and yet, the Vanguard commanders ordered this appalling, sadistic act—maiming children, no less.”

  The room was silent as Marius’ gaze shifted from one person to another, working its way around the conference area. His voice choked with emotion in a way Pettigrew never thought possible for a Lytori. “Can you imagine? An entire generation of sentient beings mutilated simply to satisfy the sadistic urges of the Massang leadership. And now, the greatest instrument of their evil, the Vanguard fleet, gathers at Cor Caroli. It presents us with a unique opportunity, one we may never have again. This is our chance to halt their madness. My friends, we must not waver.”

  Translation: Pettigrew, YOU must not waver.

  Pettigrew leaned back in his chair and tried to summon a witty comment to lighten the mood, but it clearly wasn’t the time for levity. The passionate words of the Lytori leader resounded throughout the gathering.

  “We really need to get a closer look at that system,” muttered a dumbfounded Nyondo as she turned to Pettigrew. “Sir, you mentioned earlier that you may have a way?”

  “Perhaps. Resting in one of Crossbow’s shuttlebays is a scout ship. She’s got some years on her, but her stealth abilities remain second to none. The ship is designated CS dash one-one-two, but Captain Nyondo, you might be more familiar with her name.”

  She stared blankly at him.

  “Kite.”

  Nyondo’s eyes went wide. Kite was one of a handful of Sarissan superstealth scout ships. There were only three in the entire fleet, and he had managed to pry one loose from the grasp of Central Command.

  “Now, all we need is a good pilot, someone who can really fly,” Pettigrew said, letting a grin form on his lips. “Any idea where we might find a volunteer, Captain Nyondo?”

  12: So Much Fun

  Spaceport

  Prosperity City

  Pontus

  By mid-morning the day following their initial encounter with Beetle Dash, Carr and Sanchez had returned to the spaceport to check on their borrowed ship and use its specialized communications equipment. Answering the computer’s security challenges, they boarded the yacht and found the vessel empty, which was exactly as it should be. The three-man crew was being lodged at a nearby villa until they were needed for the homeward trip.

  “Is there anything else you need at the moment, Major Carr?” asked the projection of a uniformed man in front of him.

  “No, that’s it for now, Captain Townes. Just keep a tight lock on our personal beacons.” He and Sanchez wore homing chips subcutaneously implanted in their arms which enabled the orbiting frigate Dagger to track their whereabouts.

  “There’s no doubt we’ve made contact with the enemy,” stated Carr. “I’m just not sure whether it’s the right enemy. We’ll be in touch again, soon. Carr out.”

&nb
sp; He stood as the figure of Dagger’s captain dissolved and moved into the stateroom where Sanchez was tinkering with some gear.

  “I overheard the tail end of your comments about the enemy,” she said holding a small pistol. “Were you talking about Beetle or Beckman?” Their local OMI contact had been tailing them everywhere over the past several days, but he had offered no real help aside from the information he shared on the night of their arrival.

  Carr ignored her comment, instead gesturing at the array of firearms his wife had laid out before her. “What’s with the arsenal? You know we can’t sneak any of these past the Arco security scanners.”

  She held up two small pistols. “These we can,” she said with a sparkle in her eyes. “Specialty items, lovingly produced by the folks at the OMI labs for just such occasions.” The pistols in her hands were fabricated from a special alloy and contained stealth chips, electronic hardware designed to deceive security scanners.

  Her expression turned earnest. “Seeing Beetle’s goons yesterday at the restaurant… I just want to even the odds a bit, that’s all.” She lifted one of the guns and held it out to him, her eyes begging him to take it.

  “It couldn’t hurt,” she added, stretching her arm to move the weapon even closer.

  “I think we should ditch the hotel and move back here for the remainder of our stay,” he said taking the weapon from her. He also grabbed a back holster off the table. “I forgot how nice this yacht was.”

  “Yeah, nice and small,” she reminded him. “We were cooped up in here for three days coming to Pontus and it’s going to be another three days on the return trip. Our hotel suite is excellent, by the way. What’s the problem? Do you just want to be out of the reach of Beetle?”

  “No,” replied Carr, pulling her off the sofa and wrapping his arms around her. “I want to be out of reach of those creepy mannequin housekeepers.”

  Sanchez gave a short laugh, then patted him on the backside.

  “C’mon,” she said. “Time to go ride bikes. We haven’t done this for a long time. It’s gonna be so much fun!”

  * * * *

  They had taken one of the few taxis in Prosperity City to the spaceport, and the same cab took them back across town to the motorcycle rental. There wasn’t a great demand for taxicab services in a city where most of the residents lived in just three buildings, but almost a quarter of the town’s population lived outside the arcologies. If you could mentally block out those three monstrous structures, the rest of the Pontian capital looked like any other human city in the Renaissance Sector.

  Sanchez stared out the window at the Prosperity City skyline as the cab raced along the Spaceport Parkway. “What did you find out from Dagger’s computer?”

  Carr picked up his mobile and projected an image into midair. It was an older man with a thin, diamond shaped face. He was wearing the uniform of a Gerrhan Commonwealth admiral.

  “This is Beetle Dash’s sick old has-been,” said Carr. “Lucas Bettencourt, formerly of the Gerrhan High Command. He and a sizable portion of his staff disappeared in the days following the Battle of Eupraxa. That was six years ago.”

  “Wasn’t this the guy that helped Brin Choi defect?”

  “The same.”

  “Just how sick is he?”

  “Vermis amostosmia.”

  “Come again?”

  “Vermis amostosmia, also known as Galbraith Syndrome. It’s a degenerative neurological disorder—somewhat rare and can’t be cured, but it can be controlled with the right medication. Most people would be under a physician’s care, but since this guy has gone to ground…”

  “And the medicine he needs to keep the condition in check?”

  “A drug called Walzirin. We find a source of Walzirin here in town and we might also find the good Admiral.”

  Sanchez scrunched her face in doubt. “Frank, that’s pretty thin.”

  “I know,” he admitted, closing Bettencourt’s projection. “But I was thinking our girl Yunru Lin might help us out.”

  “Speaking of…” Sanchez said as she picked up her own mobile. “Damn, I missed her call, but she left a text. She says she can’t meet us at the rental shop and wants us to go on ahead. She’ll meet us at a place called Flower Bank Park in an hour.”

  Carr greeted the news with a sour grunt as the taxi pulled up to the rental place and the two of them got out.

  He looked around, scanning the surroundings. “On a scale of one to ten, how much does all of this smell like a trap to you?”

  Sanchez raked her fingers through her hair. “Oh, I’d say about a twelve.”

  * * * *

  People had loved riding on motorbikes since the ancient days of Earth’s twentieth century. It was the feel of the open road, the pleasure of the sun on your face… OK, he was kidding himself, Carr thought—it was all about the speed.

  Most bike enthusiasts owned their own rigs on Sarissa or Earth, but for the inhabitants of arcologies, space was at a premium. Paying for an extra storage area for a bike was something that would stress the budgets of most Pontians, so there were rental shops at various points around Prosperity City which offered customers a chance to ride anything from small scooters to racing machines.

  For today, Sanchez picked out two of the sportiest bikes the place had to offer, a pair of DeGraff XR90s. She tried to coax him into going with a pair of Galbanese Ryangs—real crotch-rockets—but Carr talked her down to a slightly less powerful model. Personally, he didn’t care about the bikes. This was still very much about the mission, about meeting up with Yunru Lin and coaxing her to spill some much-needed information.

  After syncing up their helmets to their personal networks, they were off. The heads-up display on the face shields let them see each other and chat as they rode. A HUD map overlay guided them to Flower Bank Park, which was on a winding rural highway traveled by only the random landcar. A few klicks outside the city and the road became a switchback which snaked its way up a steep hill. After they made the first hairpin turn at moderate speed, Sanchez’s face took on a mischievous expression.

  “Race you to the top, old man!” she howled just before speeding ahead of him. The DeGraffs had plenty of kick, and suddenly Carr found himself racing up the mountainside byway at ludicrously reckless speeds.

  Ten minutes later, they arrived at a parking area overlooking the breathtaking view. The hillside below them was bathed in flowers, all in full-bloom. Swaths of color—vivid blues, brilliant reds, and shimmering yellows—ran over the landscape for kilometers in all directions, broken only by the ribbons of zigzagging roadway they had just traversed.

  They were only a few kilometers from town. In the distance were the silhouettes of the three arcologies, suffocating reminders that even in the glory before them, nature was at the mercy of man. Or was it? Hundreds, perhaps thousands of years from now, those towers will stand crumbling as the offspring of these plants blossom again and again. The dance between nature and humankind was delicate and difficult. It was never easy to know which was master and which was servant.

  “They should have built this overlook on the other side of the mountain, facing away from the city,” said Carr.

  “It’s still an unbelievable sight.” Sanchez stood beside him, helmet tucked under her arm as she drank in the vista. “One of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.”

  “It would be more beautiful if Lin were here.”

  “You always did know just what to say to a girl.” Sanchez’s mouth twisted in sarcasm. “You’re a real mood crusher, you know that?”

  “You know what I mean,” he grumbled. If Lin was going to stand them up, then most of this day would be wasted. They had been on Pontus nearly a week now and had almost nothing to show for it.

  Two other couples shared the overlook with them. From the stray conversation, Carr gathered that one pair were tourists from the planet Olybria and the other couple were locals. The Olybrians tried their best to strike up a conversation, but Carr didn’t feel
like engaging. As for Sanchez, it was clear that she just wanted to be left alone for a few minutes to enjoy the view.

  “Must be the day for bikes,” said the Olybrian man pointing down at the switchback. “Here come some more.”

  Four motorcycles were weaving their way up the hill and doing so at a good pace. The vehicles all looked to be hotshot rally types, so the hill was presenting no problems for the quartet. As they came closer, the Olybrian man tried to take pictures of them with his mobile.

  “Hey! They’re robots!” he said so everyone could hear. “Will’ya look at that! I didn’t know they could do something like that!”

  Carr and Sanchez promptly put their helmets back on and used the smart face visors to magnify the view. The oncoming bikers weren’t technically robots, they were androids— Vahtaran imports to be precise, the same faceless model their hotel kept to supplement the housekeeping staff. The automatons weren’t wearing helmets and as Carr looked down at them, the lead rider tilted its head upward. If it had had eyes, it would have looked straight at him.

  That blank pale face sent a shiver down Carr’s spine, and then he noticed something more disturbing—the androids were all wearing shoulder holsters with pistols. Not plasma pistols, which had to be used close-up to be effective. These were classic slug throwers, just like he and Sanchez had hidden under their shirts. In actual fact, no modern personal weapon could match the lethal power of the ancient ways. Launching a small metal projectile over seven-hundred meters per second was just about as deadly as you could get no matter the prevailing technology of the day.

  “Tell me there’s a back way off this mountain,” said Sanchez as they sprinted for their bikes.

  “Working on it,” Carr answered as he rapidly peppered queries into his helmet’s voice interface.

  “Hey!” yelled the Olybrian man as they fired up their bikes. “Don’t you want to see the robots?”

  “Carr, they’re about to make that last turn,” said Sanchez urgently, her image popping up in the upper right-hand corner of his face visor. “…and the defensive positions on this overlook are shit.”