by Joe Vasicek
“Interesting. Where did you pick her up?”
“Delta Oriana,” said Jeremiah, taking another bite. “It’s kind of a long story.”
“Right.” Thomas pocketed the datachip and rose to his feet. “Well, I don’t mean to pry. I’ll leave you to your meal and see to offloading your cargo. When you’re done, come see me in my office and we’ll negotiate the trade.”
“Thanks,” said Jeremiah.
He took a swig from his mug and glanced around the room as Thomas left. A few people eyed him from one of the back tables, though most of them looked away as if to mind their own business. One of them, however, kept staring even after their eyes met. He had short, black hair, beady eyes, and a narrow, boxlike face. He didn’t keep a beard, but from the dark, shadowy scruff on his face, it didn’t look like he’d shaved in a while. Jeremiah smiled and nodded to him, but the man made no acknowledgment of the gesture.
“So you are going to Zarmina?” came a voice to Jeremiah’s left. He blinked and turned in time to see an outstretched hand, belonging to a young man who couldn’t be much older than him.
“The name is Lucca,” said the young man. “May I sit?”
“Of course,” said Jeremiah. They shook hands, and he motioned to the seat next to him.
From the way Lucca dressed, it was obvious he was another star wanderer. He wore a dark gray jumpsuit and a worn leather vest, devoid of any insignia or other marks of rank or status. He had light blond hair and a round, clean-shaven face, with brown eyes and a quirky grin. Jeremiah liked him from the moment he saw him.
Lucca sat down and leaned forward with his hands on the counter top. “You say there will be new colony soon at Zarmina?”
“That’s right,” said Jeremiah. “There’s about two hundred of us, on a private colony mission from Alpha Oriana. If all goes well, we’ll rendezvous there in eight weeks.”
“Where in this system do you plan to build colony?”
“We haven’t decided for sure, but probably somewhere on the fourth planet. It’s just on the edge of the habitable zone and shows some signs of carbon-arsenic based life. Surface gravity is about point eight old-Earth standard, and the rotational period is almost exactly twenty six hours.”
“Sounds like good place.”
“Yeah,” said Jeremiah. “From what I understand, the system is fairly rich in radioactives, too: uranium, radon, the kind of stuff that’s in high demand throughout the Oriana Cluster. Once we’ve arrived, we’ll be willing to trade for just about anything, so it’s a real opportunity. What kind of routes do you usually frequent?”
Lucca glanced away and lifted a hand to his chin. “To be honest, I am new to this sector. My birth world was in Tajjur system, on other side of New Pleiades.”
“So you’re a star wanderer, then?”
“Yes.”
Jeremiah finished his beer and pushed the empty mug toward the bartender. “I’ll take another,” he said. “And one for my friend here, too.”
“Please, it is not—”
“No, I insist. We outworlders need to stick together, after all.”
The bartender took Jeremiah’s mug and pulled another one down from the ceiling. Lucca shifted a little, though he didn’t seem too out of place in the cantina. Certainly, he carried himself with a lot more confidence than Jeremiah had when he’d first started out.
“So you’re from Tajjur, then,” Jeremiah remarked. “That’s a long ways away from here.”
“Yes, it is. But I always say it is better to see stars up close than from far away.”
He chuckled. “That’s the spirit. Zeta Oriana’s a pretty far place, even for the Outworlds.”
“I have strong passion for faraway places,” said Lucca, his eyes lighting up like distant novae. “I tell all my friends I will be at New Rigel in one year. They say New Rigel has most beautiful girls in whole Outworlds.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“I hear there is planet in that system with clear blue skies and giant world-ocean,” he mused. “Of course, I have since become sidetracked, as you may have guessed.”
The bartender came with their drinks, and Jeremiah handed her the comm-chip from his wrist console as an ID for payment. The tab would go to his station account, payable against whatever he negotiated later with Thomas for the Gamman beef. Whatever it came to, it wasn’t going to be a problem—he already had a positive balance from his last run to this system. That would come in handy when they needed raw materials for the colony at Zarmina.
“Do you plan on making any more trade runs in the local sector?” Jeremiah asked.
“Possibly,” said Lucca. He took a swig of the station-brewed beer. “I do not know where I will go next, but I hope to be in Oriana cluster for some time.”
“In that case, could you do me a favor and spread the word about our colony? Once we settle down, we’re going to need all the supplies we can get.”
“Of course. I take it this system is listed in Imperial catalog?”
“Yeah. It carries the same name in most Outworld databases as well. Just mention ‘Zarmina,’ and everyone should know what you’re talking about.”
Lucca grunted. “If so, it is surprising that there is not settlement there already.”
Jeremiah shrugged. “I don’t know. These are the Far Outworlds, after all.”
The others in the cantina still eyed him from the shadows, but that didn’t bother him at all. The more people overheard the news about Zarmina, the less isolated they’d be once they arrived. And if there was one thing he feared, it was becoming too isolated.
* * * * *
From space, Rift Station looked like a couple of shacks on a lumpy asteroid. Of course, the complex extended a good distance underground, but none of that was visible from the Ariadne as Jeremiah took off from the surface. The asteroid’s gravity well was so small, only nav-beacons could safely orbit it. Without the complex interplay of ships docking and undocking in orbit, the place felt as empty and lifeless as any other rock in the midst of space.
Jeremiah checked the coordinates on the nav-computer. In just a few minutes, he’d be the better part of a light-year away. As lonely as he felt now, out in deep space, it would be infinitely worse. Even if another starship left at the same time and followed the exact same route, the distances were so vast that they would never even detect each other until they converged on their destination point.
He glanced back at the rock that was Rift Station and contemplated staying for a while. It would only be a couple of weeks before the Hope of Oriana arrived. If he stayed, he’d be able to see Noemi in person. His hands shook a little, and his breath came short just thinking about it. With her by his side, it hardly mattered how deep into the void they ventured.
But then he remembered the misunderstanding that had forced him to leave. Noemi’s best friend Mariya had somehow gotten it into her mind that the only way to secure her happiness was to become his second wife. Such arrangements were not uncommon in the far Outworlds, where a settlement with only fifty inhabitants was large enough to warrant a special entry in the Imperial catalog. But for Jeremiah, the very thought of sharing himself with another woman was repulsive. Every effort to dissuade her had failed, so he’d left on the Ariadne to avoid a confrontation. Later, when Noemi’s pregnancy had come to term and she wasn’t so dependent on her friends, they could work something out. But to wait for her would only risk bringing up so much bad blood, and for what? So that they could spend a few hours together before the Hope of Oriana refueled and took off for Zarmina? No, that would be foolish.
And yet he still found himself trembling as he reached for the switch that would send him into the starry void.
“Station control, this is the Ariadne,” he announced shakily over the comm. “I’m approaching jump point Alpha and preparing to depart.”
“Copy that, Ariadne. You are cleared for departure. May the stars of Earth keep you on your voyage.”
“And you as well,” he
said softly. Without another word, he flicked the switch.
A sinking feeling grew in the pit of his stomach, contracting like a cramp until it spread to his arms and legs. The bulkheads of the Ariadne seemed to close in on him even as his body shrank toward a single point. He took a deep breath and held it, closing his eyes as the pressure reached a breaking point. Then, in a sudden release, the ship passed through jumpspace and the sensation passed like a bad memory.
He opened his eyes and found himself staring into the milky starfield of deep space. It was done—until the rendezvous at Zarmina, he was alone.
Chapter 17
The stars shone cold through the long forward window of the Ariadne, mingling with the soft light of the cockpit view screen. Jeremiah sat unmoving in the pilot’s chair, staring into the void as the hours passed like a never-ending bad dream.
How long had he been a wanderer? Long—far too long. By old-Earth standards, it had only been a few years, but that hardly meant anything here. To the stars, it made no difference. They offered cold company, but at least they were always there.
Not like people. Not like him.
The sound of an alert tone snapped him out of his thoughts. He frowned and leaned forward, toggling the main display. The starmap showed a blinking dot about five light hours away—inside the Zarmina system. His eyes narrowed. It was an energy signal consistent with the emergence of a large starship from jumpspace. The signal was faint, due to the long distance, but strong enough for the instruments to calculate the ship’s mass at about fifteen hundred astral tonnes.
“So they’re finally here,” he said, smiling to himself as he booted up the Ariadne’s astrogational systems. The indicator lights and control panels blinked as they came online, while behind him the engine began to hum and purr through the bulkheads. He cracked his knuckles and stretched out his arms, relieved to have something to do. The jump coordinates were already plugged into the nav-computer, but he double-checked them just in case.
The signal had come from the fifth Lagrange point of Zarmina’s fourth planet. That was the spot designated for the rendezvous. Captain Elijah had deemed it best to survey the world from a distance before settling on any particular site for the colony. No sense jumping into the bottom of a gravity well, after all. If they did decide to settle at the planet, it would take at least ten days of sub-light travel to get there, but that hardly mattered. There was only one face in the universe that Jeremiah wanted to see, and now he knew exactly where to find it.
“I’m coming, Noemi,” he muttered as he fired up the jump drive. “Hang on.”
The purr tuned to a high-pitched whine as the engines calibrated. He closed his eyes as the cockpit began to spin. A sinking feeling rose in his gut, while his skin seemed to shrink around his body. He held his breath, then let it out as the Ariadne passed out of jumpspace.
“Attention unidentified vessel,” came a female voice over the loudspeaker. “State your name and intentions.”
“This is Jeremiah of the Ariadne,” said Jeremiah. “I’m here to rendezvous with …” he frowned. “Captain Elijah? Is that you?”
He glanced down at the scanners and froze. Not one, but two starships sat just eight hundred kilometers off the Ariadne’s bow. One of them must have been waiting at the Lagrange point long before the other had jumped in. But that only made sense if—
“Ariadne, this is Helena of the starship Revenge,” came the voice again. “We have our particle beams fully charged and trained on your position. If you value your life, power down and submit to boarding.”
Jeremiah’s stomach fell. Noemi—is she all right?
“Who are you? What are you doing in this system? What do you—”
“I hardly think you’re in a position to ask questions, Ariadne. You have ten seconds to comply before we sterilize your ship.”
A hundred protests rose to his lips, but an invisible hand held him back, telling him that this was not the best way to help his wife. Whoever these people were, whatever they wanted from him, for her sake he had to keep himself alive.
“Copy,” he said, clenching his fists. “Powering down.”
If they’ve hurt her …
“A wise choice, Ariadne. A wise choice indeed. Helena out.”
The transmission cut, leaving him alone in the blackness.
* * * * *
The shuttle that took him to the Revenge was barely larger than the Ariadne. Breaks along the bulkheads showed where the cabin had been gutted to make it larger. Seats had been welded to the walls, with gun racks retracted into the ceiling. The cockpit wasn’t even set off from the rest of the ship; the pilot’s chair sat in the middle, with the seats leading right up to it.
That’s because this is a boarding craft, Jeremiah thought to himself as the half-dozen or so men around him strapped themselves in. They wore black body armor and carried assault rifles, with long, curved knives sheathed on their belts and chest plates. They talked among themselves in a language that he didn’t understand. One of them made a remark and pointed to him, and the others laughed.
At the head of the cabin, the leader of the squad lit a cigarette and gripped a handhold on the ceiling as the shuttle took off. Jeremiah looked at him and squinted—there was something vaguely familiar about his face, though he couldn’t quite place it. Perhaps it was his dark, beady eyes, or the way his scruffy chin narrowed down to—
The man looked him in the eye, and in that moment it hit him like a meteor. Zeta Oriana, he realized. Rift Station—the cantina …
“Who are you?” he asked.
The man raised an eyebrow and blew a puff of smoke out the side of his mouth. Though he made no response, Jeremiah could see understanding in his eyes.
“You were at Rift Station two months ago, weren’t you? You overheard everything I said about Zarmina and the colony mission—didn’t you?”
Again, no response. The man turned to his comrades with some snide remark, and they all burst out laughing.
“Who are you people?” Jeremiah asked, the hair on the back of his neck standing on end. “What do you want with us? Why have you followed me—”
A large, bearded soldier to his right tapped him on the shoulder and made a cutting motion with his hand. Jeremiah fell silent, and an awful sinking feeling swept over him. It was his fault that these pirates had captured them—his words that had allowed them to set up this ambush. And now, because of him, Noemi was in danger, and the whole colony mission was bound to fall apart.
The squad leader finished his cigarette and dumped it in a retractable ashtray, while the scrubbers in the ventilation system whirred noisily. The men sat mostly in silence, their hardened faces chilling Jeremiah to the bone. The only thing keeping him from despair was the hope that he’d soon see his wife. Like a child in a fit of passion, that was the only thing that still seemed real to him. He clung to it like a lifeline.
At length, the sound of the engines rumbled through the bulkheads, followed by the grind of the docking clamps. Moments later, the men were on their feet. The squad leader walked out first, motioning for Jeremiah to follow. The others marched behind him with their guns held at ready.
They walked quickly through a well-lit corridor. Metal pipes and conduit ran along the ceiling, while the floor tiles were worn and cracked in places. Up ahead, a door hissed open, and the squad leader ushered Jeremiah through. The others stayed outside.
“Captain Jeremiah of the Ariadne,” came a female voice just ahead—the same voice from the transmission.
Jeremiah blinked and found himself looking up at a tall, muscular woman with dark red hair and a cybernetic arm. She wore oversized pants and a black sleeveless top, with a synthleather vest and two gun holsters at her waist. An armband on her good arm bore an insignia that he didn’t recognize: a black cross set inside a blazing red star.
The woman chuckled and folded her arms. “What’s the matter?” she asked. “Left your tongue on your ship?”
“N-no,” Jeremiah
stuttered, glancing around the room. It appeared to be an office of some sort, though the only indications of that were a retractable desk on the far wall and a computer terminal. Except for an aging yellow photograph tacked onto the wall, the decor was totally spartan. It wasn’t empty, though: two guards stood on either side of a portly old man with a thick white beard.
Jeremiah’s eyes lit up at once. “Captain Elijah!” he cried. “What’s going on? Where is—”
“I’ll ask the questions here,” said the woman. She nodded to the squad leader, who palmed the door shut with a hiss.
“Now,” she said, looking Jeremiah in the eye. “As you may have already guessed, I’m Captain Helena of the Revenge. The Zarmina system is what you might call our port-of-call, though from what I understand, you both claim to be part of a mission to colonize this star. Am I right?”
Jeremiah looked to Elijah, who nodded. “I assure you, ma’am, our intentions are peaceful. We had no idea that this system was already occupied.”
“And for everyone else in this sector, that’s the way we want to keep it.”
“As I told you before,” said Elijah, “we’re on a peaceful civilian mission and mean you no harm. If you permit us to leave in peace, we’ll—”
“Leave in peace?” snorted the squad leader. “And let you report back to your Imperial masters? What do you take us for—inbred station junkies?”
He speaks Gaian?
“My thoughts exactly, Salazar,” said Captain Helena. She turned to Elijah. “And why wouldn’t you report us to the Imperials? From what I hear, your home port of Alpha Oriana is already part of the Gaian Empire.”
Elijah’s face went red, and sweat began to form on his forehead. “I assure you, we are outworlders with no ties whatsoever to the empire. We left Alpha Oriana just before it was annexed—many of us were actually driven out by the takeover. We mean you no harm and simply wish to be left to ourselves, just like you.”
