Twin Stars 1: Ascension

by Robyn Paterson

  The explosives he and his brothers had placed had done their work, and smoke trails rose from many points around the residential and business zones. Gravitic flyers buzzed about the airspace like angry bees, trying to find the source of the attack and fight the damage done, but Io knew the damage was just beginning.

  Let Ganymede and his brothers question his devotion now!

  "Brother Io, we have seized control of the key systems of the station."

  Io allowed himself a smile, The Black was with them today.

  "Excellent, Brother Ganymede. What is the situation in Colony Control?"

  "The command staff have been returned to The Black, and our brothers are doing final preparations now. Will you be joining us?"

  The missionary looked down at the web of metallic silver lines that had just finished enmeshing his body. "No, brother. I have another detail to see to in the docking ring. Please inform me when you are done disabling the safeguards on the reactors."

  "As you say, brother."

  Ganymede’s presence disappeared from his awareness, and Io flexed his arm, letting a power surge run along it to form sparkles in front of his hand. The Battle Array was almost done growing, and when it was, he would be ready to make sure that none escaped the doomed station.

  He was doing good work today, work he could be proud of.

  He started to hum again.

  Praise to The Black.

  * * *

  Getting through the security detail guarding the entrance to Colony Control had been disappointingly simple- Tysen had only needed to explain who he was and why he was there and they had let him through. With their seniors likely on other duties, he could have blamed it on the inexperienced guards who seemed to be guarding the entrance to the command hub, but they still should have run a proper background check.

  Sloppy. So very sloppy.

  In fact, as he threaded his way through the corridors, his first real problem came when he ran into the simplest and oldest obstacle of all- a locked door.

  The command level where Colony Control was located had been completely sealed off from the rest of the hub by a large emergency bulkhead door dropped down from the ceiling to lock into place with the floor beneath it. It didn’t accept his codes, and there was still no answer from Colony Control itself- a giant black space now existed around the command center’s link systems, and that made him nervous.

  Could there have been another bomb here, as well? Had the bulkhead slammed down to deal with a breach? He shuddered at the thought, but if that were the case, command would have gone to auxiliary control and he should have been getting replies or messages from them.

  Instead- nothing from anyone.

  So what is going on?

  “A tough nut, isn’t it?”

  The voice came from behind him, and Tysen spun- startled.

  Behind him stood the too-tall Noble he’s seen earlier with the woman on the street, his short salt and pepper hair almost brushing the ceiling of the corridor. He had a surprisingly soft voice for such a large man.

  “Oh! Sorry sir, I didn’t hear you approach.” Tysen said. “I’m from the Star Guard Cutter- we’re trying to learn what’s happening here.”

  “A little out of uniform, aren’t you young man?” The tanned man had a touch of amusement in his voice as he stepped past the young officer and ran a white gloved hand along the bulkhead door.

  “Oh. Umm. Yes, sir.”

  Although Tysen had no idea to this man’s identity, or his rank, his bearing made it natural to defer to him- thus he had chosen a respectful title. He also had that air of leadership about him that Tysen had felt when he’d seen him earlier.

  Finished with the door, the man looked at him and smiled gently. “Don’t worry, my boy- your secret is safe with me. You have tried all means, then?”

  “Yes, sir. I tried everything- even the emergency channels, none of them work.”

  “I see,” the man nodded. “Most unfortunate. Luckily for us I have brought someone quite good at opening doors. Esther?”

  This was the first time Tysen had realized that there was another person there; he’d been so focused on the door and the Noble that he hadn’t even noticed a companion. Ironic, since she was the reason he’d noticed either of them in the first place. She had been standing behind her master when they approached, and he’d been so large Tysen hadn’t even been aware of her presence.

  “Sir Fawn?” The beautiful Squire said, stepping forward.

  “Be a good girl and open this door please, Esther.” He told her, gently motioning for Tysen to stand away from the door’s control panel. “We need to learn what’s happening on the other side.”

  “Of course, master.” She answered, reaching up to place her perfectly proportioned hand flat against the panel’s surface. “Engaging active Linkspace probe.”

  Lilacs, she smelled like Lilacs, Tysen found himself thinking as she passed.

  Tysen heard another chuckle from beside him, “What’s the matter, young man? I find it hard to believe you haven’t seen a Squire before.”

  Tysen blushed, suddenly aware of the expression he must have had as he looked at Esther.

  “Yes, sir. I mean, no sir,” he stammered. “I have seen one sir, but not one...”

  “…so beautiful?” Sir Fawn finished with an amused look. “Yes, you’re not the first to have that reaction to her. Don’t worry, young man, she’s more than just a pretty face, however.”

  “Oh, sir. I didn’t mean to imply…” Tysen protested.

  Sir Fawn raised a finger. “A moment young man, I think Esther’s found the right spot.”

  Suddenly there was a loud cracking noise, followed by a gentle hum as the bulkhead doors retracted back into their housings to reveal the empty corridor beyond. It was filled with air, and showed no signs of decompression.

  So much for the explosion theory.

  “Access granted,” Esther stated. “I have gained back-door entry into the command systems of this station.”

  “Excellent, hide us from internal sensors as we approach.” Sir Fawn ordered and then gestured ahead. “Now, young man, shall we see what dragon sits at the center of the dungeon?”

  “Stay behind me, sir. I’ll take point.” Tysen started forward, but a large hand appeared before him to hold him back.

  “With what, I might ask? You’re not even armed.” The knight patted the blade at his hip. “No, young man, you will stay behind me.” Sir Fawn moved to take the lead. “Esther, keep an eye on the boy, will you?”

  “Yes, master.” She nodded, then looked at Tysen with a polite smile that still made his heart skip a beat. “Please, allow me to escort you.”

  How could Tysen say no?

  * * *

  This was definitely not right. The station security was such a disorganized mess that the controllers clearly couldn’t find their asses with both hands.

  The sooner we’re off this station, the better. Ping An decided as she walked down a corridor in the docking ring with half the landing party in tow. They’d split into two groups to minimize suspicion in the chaotic station environment, and her team had just gotten off one of the lift tubes.

  "Ping-An, when you hit the main concourse take your group to the shuttle," Camus told her. His group was just ahead of them with another knot of civilians. "We’ll meet there and fly out to the...hold on, I’ve got some kind of ruckus ahead…" Then she felt a feeling of shock and surprise run along the connection and Camus’s link was suddenly cut off.

  "Camus? Can you hear me? Camus!" She sent, worried.

  No reply came. She looked through the moving crowd at the two men closest to her- Justin and Leederman. The link had been a group one, and everyone involved had been listening in to Camus’s orders.

  “Leederman, Justin, can you get him?”

  Leederman shook his head.

  “Uh-uh. Link’s dead, Bosslady.”

  “What about the others?” She asked Justin.

  “
All dead, ma’am.”

  Ping An bit her lip. Was it the link that was dead, or them? An EMP pulse would knock out the Linkspace grid in this part of the station, of course, an explosion would do the same but…They hadn’t heard or felt anything.

  “Anyone armed?” She asked the group, knowing the answer- but hoping she was wrong.

  “No way,” Leederman confirmed. “You know nothing gets on board past the sensor drones.”

  Ping An’s jaw tensed and she made her decision.

  “Alright then, here’s how we’re going to do it.” She informed them. “When we hit the main concourse I want all of you to stay close. I tell you to move, you move, okay? I tell you to sit, you do it like a good doggie- got it?”

  “Sure ma’am,” Justin nodded. “No problem. But…What are you going to do? You sneak something in?”

  Ping An made herself smile.

  “Yeah,” she said with confidence. “Me.”

  * * *

  “I would have expected some resistance, but it appears we really do have the element of surprise,” said Sir Fawn, sounding both perplexed and perhaps a little disappointed.

  A slow, cautious advance past scorched walls and the burnt remains of station personnel had brought the three to a place just outside of the colony’s main command center. Now, crouched just around the corner from the main doors they waited, and discussed their next move.

  “They may not be as much of a threat as I feared.” He finished.

  “Sir Fawn, who is “they”? What’s going on around here?” Asked Tysen, who felt they were wasting precious time.

  The older man shrugged. “I’m afraid, young man, I know little more than you do. I am here on business, but when the call to action rang out I felt obliged to see what I could do. Obviously someone has taken control of this station, although I am at a loss to say who or why.”

  “Pirates probably,” Tysen considered. “The border patrol here is stretched pretty thin right now.”

  Sir Fawn chuckled. “Young man, for the border patrol to be thin there would first have to be a border patrol worth speaking of. This system sees a patrol ship, what, once every three months?”

  “About that.” Tysen admitted reluctantly.

  “Keeping borders is the last thing on the Admiralty’s mind these days, Lieutenant. They are far more concerned with their political games and gathering power to bother with anything resembling doing their jobs.”

  Tysen knew what the man was saying was true, but he couldn’t help but bristle a bit at the insult to the service- “You may be right, sir. But, there are still some men in the service who care- like Admiral Veer, sir. He doesn’t do those things you mentioned.”

  That earned him a melancholy smile from the old knight. “No, Ferris doesn’t play those games, does he?” he said, a touch of regret in his voice. “Well, here’s to his good fortune and continued health- for all our sakes.”

  Tysen wanted to ask him what he meant. Who was this man who used his mentor’s first name in such a casual way? Were they friends? Veers had never spoken of a man like this, but then Tysen didn’t expect to know all of the Admiral’s close friends. Instead, he decided that such questions would wait for a better time and place.

  “Can your Squire tell us what’s happening inside?” He asked the older man.

  “Esther?”

  The Squire turned to look right at Tysen, making his breath catch in his throat for a second and a shiver run down his back. He was starting to get annoyed with himself- what was he? A first year cadet with a crush?

  “Sensors in the room are still offline; however, I am detecting the passage of six individuals with similar chemical scent patterns through this corridor in the last two hours. Five are armed with newly artificed weapons, the other has a Battle Array.”

  Tysen noticed that the mention of a Battle Array brought a quick end to Sir Fawn’s seemingly endless good humor. Not that Tysen didn’t agree with him- a Battle Array made the wearer into an armored mobile weapons platform, and clearly explained the devastation they had seen as they’d made their way here. These were highly illegal for civilians, but perhaps if it was a pirate raid…

  “He’ll be the one to watch for, then.” Fawn said, drawing out his long gleaming blade. Tysen could see the sword had a dark, oily sheen to it that seemed to absorb rather than reflect light. “No notes on what kind of Array? There’s quite the variety.”

  “Energy based, I can detect ozone where it was activated before they went in. Assuming it’s a based on a standard template it will likely have the expected defensive and offensive capabilities.”

  “If that means a military template,” Tysen put in. “We can expect he’ll have a defensive field and be able to generate shock weapons for close-in fighting and probably energy pulses for ranged targets.”

  “Quite so, Lieutenant.” Sir Fawn nodded. “I will watch for those.”

  “But sir, even if you get close, you can’t penetrate his defense fields with just a sword.”

  Sir Fawn gave him a knowing grin. “Leave the battle tactics to me, Lieutenant. I have been doing this for a very long time. You and Esther will follow me in after I have them distracted- try to see what they’ve been up to. Don’t engage unless I ask you to.”

  “Sir, I’m a trained combat officer of Noble blood, I can help.” Tysen protested.

  “I will let you know if you’re needed, Lieutenant. Let us just hope they’ve only brought one Array…”

  * * *

  The shock saber’s energy blade passed through the deck where Ping An had stood like it was going through water, filling the air with the smell of burnt metal and plastics as it vaporized everything it touched.

  If that had been an outer wall, we’d be in hard vacuum right now! She thought as she landed some distance back on the upper observation decks from the lunatic in the Battle Array.

  The air was heavy with the smell of death and the cries of the hundreds who moments before had been trying to board ships to leave the colony and had been caught up in the attack. At first, she and her people had thought a bomb had gone off, but after finding the remains of Camus and his people the hulking bald man wearing the battle Array had appeared.

  He’d come flying through open space of the multi-level promenade like a shimmering red god of death come down to inspect his handiwork, and when he’d found his work undone he’d made right for them.

  Ping An had sent her people running for the shuttle or whatever they could find, then stayed to try her hand at holding the attacker off.

  It wasn’t working out quite as planned.

  That barely missed me! She thought. With that Battle Array on he’s almost untouchable and he hits with the force of a power loader. I’m just lucky he hasn’t thought I was worth a gravitic wave yet, or I’d be a stain on the wall.

  But she didn’t have time to worry, he was floating up to the level she’d landed on. She grabbed a piece of nearby metal railing and with little effort twisted it free to use as a club. When he drew up to the edge of the landing, she leapt off it at him, bringing that metal pipe down into that smiling face of his.

  She might as well have tried to do that to the side of an asteroid for all the good it did her- the pipe bounced right off the defense field. He brought his energy blade around at her, and she was forced to kick off from his chest to avoid being cut in half.

  Somersaulting backwards through the air, she dropped back down to the main deck three stories below, feeling something give a little in her left leg as she hit the floor. She ignored it.

  “It’s no use, child.” He called down to her. “My barriers make that club as effective as a baby’s touch. Come, stop struggling and join The Black. The others in this docking ring did, and soon the whole station will join them.”

  “Like hell!” She yelled, and then turned and began to run.

  She needed to buy more time, Justin still hadn’t called in yet, and that meant she had nowhere else to go- she was trapped on the docki
ng ring.

  “You’re too fast to be a standard human,” he was flying after her and quickly catching up thanks to her damaged leg. “What are you?”

  “None of your business,” she called back as she dodged around an overturned loader.

  Think Ping An, think! Her mind raced. There had to be a way. There had to be a way to deal with his field- but she had nothing to break it with.

  Then, as she passed a docking port it occurred to her.

  There was a way.

  "We all come from The Black, child.” He said in his beatific voice. “Let me help you return to it.”

  “Ha!” She called back to him. “The only black around here is in your head!”

  That earned her a shower of sparks as an energy burst tore into the deck just in front of her. He really wasn’t a good shot, but with that level of power he really didn’t need to be.

  Yes, that’s it! She encouraged. Let’s play- follow the person pissing you off!

  Finally, Ping An saw what she was looking for, and made a sharp right turn into a boarding tunnel and raced to the end.

  There was no ship docked to it, and the tunnel ended in a small two-door airlock zone with a window that looked out on the swirling green and gold planet below.

  “You have nowhere to run, child.” His feet made a buzzing sound as he landed in the boarding tunnel behind her. “You have found your own door to salvation. How appropriate.”

  She turned to face him, backing slowly into the airlock chamber as he advanced on her.

  “Care to throw me out personally?” She goaded.

  He paused, clearly sensing something not quite right, and their eyes met. For a moment, she thought he wasn’t going to do it, but then he smiled again.

  “Why not? I am not afraid of The Black, it is mother to me. With this Battle Array, it cannot harm me and you cannot get past me.”

  He advanced forward, and Ping An continued to retreat, letting him draw nearer and nearer until…

  Just as his foot crossed the threshold and into the airlock, she hit the button. Born on a space mining colony, Ping An had been around these systems her whole life. Knowing them inside and out, and knowing what interacted with what, was a matter of life or death in space.