Home in the Stars Box Set

by Mason, Jolie

  “Mr. Carnes, To what do I owe the pleasure?” She put a certain formality in her response to him that made her feel, at least, that she wasn’t drowning in the memories. A small lie, she supposed.

  “No pleasure at all, Ari. I have bad news, and I need your help.”

  “Bad news?”

  “The Space Hag fell off tracking about twenty five minutes ago. They hadn’t gotten far. We can’t raise them at all, and, my fighter fleet had been tracking mercs in the area since a standard day ago. It’s got us all nervous.”

  Ari felt the world slow down. Her brother left yesterday for a mining mission. They could take a few days or a standard month to survey terrain and select a drill target. She looked at the clock. They wouldn’t have even gotten in scanning range of the planet yet.

  “Twenty five minutes doesn’t seem like a long radio silence, Caden.”

  “Not radio silence, Ari. Nothing. No tracking echo. No backup ping. Nothing. Nor any word from our fighters. We need a ship to take us out and assess the situation. You’re the only armed ship in dock at the moment. Besides, I thought with it being the Hag, you’d want in.”

  “I would. Let me order the crew ready, and you come aboard anytime.”

  “I’m on my way now.”

  The Space Hag, an unarmed mining ship, convoyed everywhere with two point fighters. If those fighters could have, they would have responded to comms. Her hand shook as she hit the button to call the ship to ready. The Klaxon went off three times before her voice calmed enough, and she made her announcement.

  “We’ve been asked to do some recon on a missing mining convoy. Ready weapons and recovery equipment.”

  On a private channel, she commed Ra’dan. “Notify me once Mr. Carnes has boarded, and you have accounted for all the crew.” On planet, the crew would receive a klaxon through their comm to get back on board immediately. They had half a standard hour, as always. That should be sufficient as no one was allowed out of port.

  He indicated assent, no doubt already more than halfway through those orders before they were even given, she thought. Ra’ddy took to space naturally which was surprising since he came from a planet of farmers.

  It was less than ten minutes and one quick shower later when he commed. “Crew aboard, Captain. Passenger boarding now.” She breathed thankfully that there wouldn’t be a delay waiting for crew.

  “Acknowledged. Order launch when passenger is secured.”

  She strapped into the launch seat on the wall before the ship wide announcement even began. Ari really hoped this was a wasted trip. She felt as though she'd just gotten her brother back. It would be cruel to lose him now, but Ari hadn’t noticed too much kindness in the Universe lately.

  *****#*****

  Caden had been deposited in a sterile passenger cabin with Kane by a crewman who scurried off to other duties with scarcely a word. Two shelved bunk units and a small desktop console furnished the stark, small sleeping quarters. Pretty straightforward. Like the rest of the Bell, it reminded him very much of its captain. Sleek, plain and pretty; all at the same time. The Bell didn’t pretend. What you saw was what you got.

  They’d all strapped into the launch seats lined up on the wall and suffered through the jump through atmosphere. Caden hated launch with a passion, but he’d learned to grit his teeth and bear it over the years. It was either that, or keep to one planet.

  Once launch was over, the ship transitioned smoothly to FTL, which always made him feel his skin was folding away for a moment. At least, it was better than launch, and over more quickly. Nothing to do but soldier through it and wait for space.

  Now, he sat on the bunk and toyed with the memory of her in the afternoon sun, baking under that Carry Bell uniform. The smooth fabric slid over curves in a way that made him itch to trace the lines just to see if he remembered where they go. Her auburn hair slipped out of the high piled knot on her head. Sweat glistened on her neck, that took his thoughts to memories she couldn’t know he was having, and she would definitely know. All she had to do was look down.

  He had to focus on his missing ship, her brother and the potential disaster unfolding for his company. More and more of his ships, crew and facilities were getting hit, experiencing losses. His gut screamed that something wasn’t typical here. It was all too organized. Increased security measures had worked, resulting in a short hiatus between attacks, until today.

  Caden felt the FTL spin down through the telltale little tug at his stomach. They’d reached propulsion distance.

  He moved fluidly to the Codex and checked on the Hag’s status. No signals of any kind. Fighters were on scanners. He left his cabin to seek out the Captain on the bridge.

  She stood leaning over the console with a blonde far too young to be a pilot. The girl looked to be seventeen, if she was a day. The bridge stood ready and open. “Permission to enter, Captain.”

  “Any news from your crew? We don’t follow military protocol on this ship, Carnes.”

  If he’d hoped for a thaw, it was obviously in vain.

  “My scrambled fighters will be there in moments to give a report. Shall I patch us in?”, he asked.

  “Please”, she nodded to the comm panel. It took him a few seconds to figure out the panel’s configuration, and then the garbled voices of pilot’s comming each other filled the bridge.

  “Right, Syndicate One, this is Red five. Area is clear. No sign of debris or the Hag.” Static filled the line.

  “Red Five, Do you have any visual on our ships?”

  “Affirmative. We have Blues two and niner in visual. According to scan, all systems are down both vessels. No visible breaches or battle damage. Dead in space, Syndicate One.”

  “Roger, Red Five. Recovery vessel inbound your location. T minus twenty.”

  “Syndicate One, acknowledged. We believe Blue Niner may still be alive. Advise.”

  Static filled the line again for long moments while someone back at HQ sought permission to do the impossible, and everyone knew it. Probably, even the pilot asking the question knew the answer would be negative.

  “Syndicate One, Advise.”

  “Acknowledged, Red Five. Your vessel is not equipped for rescue operations or tow. Be advised to hold your position until the Carry Bell arrives your coordinates.”

  Ari looked toward her pilot who’d already begun procedures. “Punch it.”

  The Carry Bell accelerated toward the disabled fighter at propulsion speeds he hadn’t seen in a Merchant Class Tiger. Ari had apparently made modifications to the ship. Perhaps, it would be enough. He doubted it. Space got cold very quickly in a dead fighter.

  “Syndicate One, scans indicate no jump echo. Red Four requesting permission to recon immediate area.”

  “You are a go, Red Four. Don’t go far.”

  “Syndicate One, be advised Carry Bell will be at location in T minus ten to begin rescue.” Ari’s young pilot reacted calmly and professionally, all while taking the ship to propulsion speeds it was never designed to hit, something she had to do manually. On ship wide, she said, “Medical to cargo bay hatch. Rescue teams on standby.”

  The ship’s crew would be scrambling in the below decks to get to their positions. Ari tapped her foot by the still blank screen display, as they were far outside visual range. He knew her. She was waiting impatiently to actually lay eyes on her problem, to give it a face. Knowing her, she wanted very much to punch it in the face.

  Ari looked up to catch him watching her. “No jump echo means those bastards are close by.”

  No one was questioning the idea of pirates now. The Hag and her crew wasn’t there.

  “Yes, it does.”

  “Does my ship stand a snowball’s chance if I find them?”

  She wanted the answer because she wanted to go after them. Ari wanted something to fight, and she wanted her brother back. She tapped on a control panel anxiously.

  “Yesterday, I’d have said yes.”

  “And today?”

 
“Today’s a different day, Ari. My fighters are state of the art. The pilots are some of the best. We’re gonna need my security fleet out here.” He stepped up to the comm panel. “Syndicate One, this is Cardinal One. Please, contact the Merriweather requesting their presence.”

  “Roger, Cardinal One. Merriweather dispatched to your position.”

  “Everyone’s invited”, Luca laughed.

  “The Merriweather?” Ari asked.

  “It’s my fleet carrier. We need manpower out here. Somehow, someone has trumped my technology.”

  “A fleet carrier, no less.” She whistled mockingly.

  “Captain, we’re here.” The ship decelerated smoothly as the young pilot spoke.

  “Good work, Luca. Let’s get that man out if we can.” Ari threw a mobile comm headset on over her tightly bound hair, and pushed the button to light up her display. “Syndicate One, we are retrieving Blue Niner first. We will update you shortly. Carry Bell out.”

  “Acknowledged, Carry Bell. Good luck.”

  They waited as the rescue teams dropped the docking net with uncanny precision to rope the front bar of the fighter. The disabled ship was harder to dock without propulsion shipboard, requiring the larger ship’s crew to eyeball the docking manually using a tow crane. Caden watched the instruments with more than a little appreciation of a well trained crew. Ari ran a tight ship.

  The process took less time than expected. Quietly, the moments ticked by as the three on the bridge waited anxiously for word. That pilot may be the only information they would get on the convoy attack.

  “Captain, this is medical. Pilot is critical from hypothermia. He cannot be transported from Cargo Bay until he is stable.” A distinctly alien accent filled the comm in Caden’s ear.

  “Understood, Sillio. Keep me informed. Syndicate One, we have your man.” A whoop echoed on the line, presumably from Syndicate One’s comm room where they’d been waiting on a team mate to live or die. “He’s critical, Syndicate One, but my team is doing everything they can. Carry Bell out.”

  They received the word that the Cargo Bay was cleared of med teams, finally, and retrieval of the second fighter could begin. The bay had to be empty of crew in order to open it to space. The crew of the Carry Bell repeated the process one more time, even dispatching a second med team to wait at the hatch, even though no one really believed this pilot was alive.

  This one took a bit longer. He and Ari waited as the docking net tangled twice, and the increasingly frustrated operator swore into his helmet. Ari began to pace from the console to the wall. She would lean a moment, and repeat the process.

  Caden tried to focus on the problems at hand, but Ari distracted him. She was just so different, and also the same. It astounded him that this woman who wore her command so easily had ever been the kid he knew.

  Eventually, that same alien voice chimed through his headset. “Captain, second pilot is deceased at 1434 standard time. Probable cause of death, hypothermia from exposure.”

  “Thank you, Sillio.” Ari said sadly. She sighed and tapped her comm on the console panel. “Syndicate One, your second pilot is retrieved and pronounced deceased 1434 standard ship time. My condolences, Syndicate One.”

  This time the voice on the line sounded deflated. “Acknowledged, Carry Bell. Thank you for your efforts. Syndicate Out.”

  They’d all known it was a long shot getting both pilots before the deep freeze of space permeated the cockpit of the fighters, but the whole crew of the Carry Bell had fought those odds in spite of the impossibility of the job. It probably saved one man’s life, Caden thought.

  “Luca”, Ari put a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Every long range scan you can think of while we await the Merriweather. Get a mechanic in there on those fighters. I wanna know what knocked them out.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  Ari indicated he should follow her off the Bridge. “Luca works better without my hovering. We’ll leave her to it. We better eat now while we can. How far out do you think your carrier is?”

  “It’s in Traygon”, he answered. “We have some time.”

  Ari’s demeanor changed in the last hour as her crew had worked on those fighters. During the rescue, she’d been in control and detached. Without something to do, she seemed tense, angry, as they made their way to the mess for sandwiches and coffee. Ari repressed a hell of a lot of emotion at the moment. He wondered how much she repressed usually, before he remembered it wasn’t his business anymore.

  The Captain’s table sat among an army of small, round tables spread across the mess, but, where those were a funny periwinkle shade of blue, her table was a deep blue. Orange border ran the entirety of the mostly white mess. The interior of the ship as a whole struck Caden as clinical and controlled. He wondered if Aria had built the ship custom or bought a refit.

  Sitting down with her tray, Ari listened intently to her comm a moment, then smiled. “Sillio says our patient is going to make it, but he may be unconscious a day or two. He was Cheklakan. From an ice planet colony. That’s how he lasted so long.”

  “That’s good.”

  They ate quickly. The fighters should be analyzed soon, she told him. They would go to the Cargo Bay next.

  He’d known it would be hard to be this close to Ari. He hadn’t thought it would be killing him like this. It was as if, for twelve years, he’d loved her through a filter, and the filter had been removed to allow all that potent woman into his senses and back into his life.

  There was authority and power in her voice. Knowledge and training in her movements and actions. She was so far removed from that kid he’d loved that he was beginning to think she might be out of his league. This Ari fought hard for what she wanted, took no prisoners. She wasn’t a girl anymore, and she wasn’t how he’d imagined her to be. It was like meeting her all over again.

  They had to find the Space Hag, and quickly, for everyone’s sake, but, mainly, for his peace of mind. There was no way he could resist the urge to try one more time, for old time’s sake.

  *****#*****

  The Cargo Bay froze him to his bones. It was as warm as it could be, but it required outerwear provided on hooks by the hatch. Ari donned the black thermal without saying a word. Her mind remained occupied almost entirely by the tasks before her, and a good amount of worry for her brother, no doubt.

  Two fighters nearly took up the whole bay. The space was occupied by metal and bodies, as about ten workers swarmed the ships to pull data manually. A young man in a crew mechanic’s jumper approached with a handset typing furiously. The boy looked familiar to Caden, but he couldn’t remember where he would have met the young mechanic. He dismissed the thought as he watched the boy approach with something clearly on his mind.

  “Captain. Hello, I need to see you a moment.” He spoke to Ari familiarly, almost informally.

  “It’s too loud in here", she shouted over the noise of machinery and workers. The engine hummed just beyond the dense walls as well.

  She gestured for the young man to step out of the hatch and into the hallway they’d used to get to the hold. Caden trailed behind.

  “If I’m right, there’s only one possible explanation. An EMP.”

  “Banned electromagnetic pulse?” Ari cut him a look of surprise.

  Jace nodded. “No question. Both ships were hit with a pulse only seconds apart. Systems are fried. I’m waiting on telemetry from both fighters to get a feel for the weapon. But that may not help us much, even if we can recover the data.”

  She shook her head. “Break that down for me, Jace.”

  “I’ll be guessing. Until this attack, space to space EMP weapons were highly regulated, until R and D had virtually stopped in the private sector. Targeting technology isn’t anywhere near precise enough to have a functional pulse weapon up and running.”

  “Except, clearly, it is.”

  “Right. Basically, this targeting system, if I’m right, is miraculous”, the boy said in awe. “Whoever has it is l
ooking to start a real fight. Worst case scenario; this thing could take out a fleet. Best case, it’s just as good for a surgical strike, like say taking out fighter guards and leaving a mining ship intact and active. That’s why it’s banned. To stop the wrong people from getting this kind of strategic advantage.”

  “Any thoughts you want to share yet?”, Ari asked fondly.

  He shook his head. “It would have cost a pretty penny in R and D. That’s the best I can tell you for certain.”

  She tousled the kids’ hair, and gently told him. “Understood. Now, I need to talk to you in private. Step aside with me?”

  He watched the confused mechanic walk with her farther into the recess of the hallway. Caden studied his face. She was giving him bad news. The kid took it stoically, but Caden could tell it was hard for the boy to hold it together. He was very young.

  He heard Ari gently tell the boy to take a break.

  She held his hand. As they stood there with heads together, the woman he’d loved and this kid he didn’t know, he realized they were close. She let her hand trail away from the kid’s arm as he walked back toward the hold, then past Caden into the open bay hatch; back to work, not on break. Ari stood at the end of the hallway with her eyes firmly planted on her boots as she kicked the wall absently lost in unhappy thoughts.

  Whatever else he was to her, he certainly wasn’t just crew. It struck Caden then how much of their lives were a mystery to each other. Twelve years was a long time. Ari had that part right.

  She waved Caden back down the hall to her. “We have some wait time.” She said it as they made their way slowly through the deck toward crew quarters. “I imagine you’ll want a shuttle transfer to the Merriweather when she arrives.”

  “Not necessarily. The Merriweather is no better equipped than your vessel, and the fighters are here. I want to get as much out of the investigation as possible. As long as you wish to be part of the search, I think we could manage that just as well from here.”