Star Wanderers: The Jeremiah Chronicles (Omnibus I-IV)

by Joe Vasicek

  * * * * *

  “Jeremiah?”

  Mariya’s voice cut through the haze of waking dreams and brought him back to reality. He shifted in the pilot’s chair, the leather sticky from sweat, and opened his tired, groggy eyes. The stars still shone silent and cold out the forward window, no different than they had that first day. He bit his lip until the pain brought him fully awake.

  “Jeremiah?” Mariya asked again, a little timidly. “Jeremiah, are you all right?”

  He groaned and sat up. “Yeah,” he muttered. “Still here.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “That I’m still here?”

  “No—that you’re all right.”

  He looked at her and frowned. She stood in the doorway wringing her hands. Her skin was pale, even more than usual—probably from the blue-white light of the stars.

  “Are you?” he asked.

  Her lips quivered, but she nodded. “Yes, I’m fine. I’ll be fine.”

  Is it the one or the other? Jeremiah wondered. He didn’t have the energy to ask, though—and besides, it didn’t really matter.

  “What are we going to do?” she asked, her knees trembling. Nearly four hours had passed since they’d left Zarmina, and this was her first time crossing the void alone. Well, not technically alone. But without Noemi, Jeremiah felt so alone that it was hard to imagine anyone not feeling the same.

  “I don’t know,” he said. Did it really matter what they did anymore? If Noemi was gone, what did anything matter?

  Mariya’s face fell a little. “Well, where are we going to go then?”

  “I don’t know,” he said again. “Back to Gamma Oriana, I guess. I can drop you off there.”

  “What about the pirates? About raising the Outworlds?”

  He said nothing. She stepped forward and knelt by the side of his chair, her jet-black hair shimmering in the starlight.

  “You’re not giving up, are you? You can’t give up—not with everyone else still out there.”

  “I know,” he said. It wasn’t that he didn’t care about them, just that everything seemed pointless now. He stared out at the infinite starfield and felt more empty and alone than ever.

  Mariya put a hand on his arm. “You’re still devastated about losing her.”

  He nodded, still keeping his eyes on the stars. His eyes burned, but the tears refused to come.

  “She wouldn’t want you to give up,” Mariya said softly. She watched his face for a moment, trying to gauge his reaction.

  “She never did take to the starfaring life,” he said, more to himself than anything else. “Always looking for a place to settle down.”

  Mariya’s grip on his arm tightened. For several moments, neither of them said anything.

  “If it makes you feel any better, Noemi told me to tell you that you’re not alone. She prayed before you left, and feels reassured that the stars will be watching us.”

  Jeremiah scoffed. “The stars—even if they could watch us, what makes you think they’d care?”

  Mariya tensed. “I—”

  “Have you ever even looked at the stars?” he said, a sudden and inexplicable fury overtaking him. “Do you know what it’s like to stare into the unblinking face of the void, day after day, and know that you’re totally alone?”

  “No,” she admitted.

  He gestured at the window with his hand. “Do you know what we amount to in the face of all that? Nothing—absolutely nothing! The stars were shining long before the first man walked the Earth, and they’ll be shining long after we’re all extinct. From their perspective, you and I are as small and insignificant as bacteria. What makes you think that an intelligence on that level would even care about us?”

  Mariya gripped the hem of her skirt and stared at him as if he’d committed an act of blasphemy. He grunted and shook his head.

  “But what does it even matter? Even if the stars are watching over us, what can they do?”

  “The pagans worship the stars,” she said softly.

  “Yeah,” he said. “But you Deltans are Christian—Neo-Orthodox, I think.”

  “That’s right. We’re a branch of the Neo-Orthodox faith, with close ties to the Patriarchate at Akalideda. But do you know what makes us different?”

  “No. What?”

  She took a deep breath and pulled out a cross from beneath her blouse. “Most other Christians reject the pagans as heathens and unbelievers. They claim that Christ is the only God in this universe, and that Earth is the only seat of the divine. But while we worship Christ as our Lord and Savior, we believe that there’s truth in what the pagans teach as well.”

  Jeremiah frowned. “How is that? I thought all Christians were monotheists.”

  “We are—we just don’t worship the other gods as God.”

  “But you believe in them?”

  She nodded. He shook his head.

  “How can you believe in a god that you don’t worship? That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Are you familiar with the Apotheatic Credo?”

  “No.”

  “It goes like this,” she said, taking a deep breath. “As the gods are now, man once was. As man is now, Christ overcame.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that we were gods once—all of us who ever were born, or ever will be. There’s a spark of divinity in all of us, just as there’s a touch of humanity in the rest of the universe. And even though we don’t worship the stars, we do believe that they look out after us—like angels, if that makes sense.”

  “So you believe the stars are angels?”

  “Not exactly—more like unborn spirits. When we look out at the stars, we believe we’re looking at the spirits of those who have yet to be born.”

  Jeremiah paused to consider this. “So let me get this straight,” he said. “You believe that all of us were star-gods once?”

  “Yes.”

  “But—but that’s impossible. How many billions of people have been born since the days of Earth?”

  She smiled. “How many hundreds of billions of stars are there in the universe?”

  “Good point,” he said with a grunt. “But if all of us were gods before we were born, why would we want to give that up? What’s so great about being human?”

  “Because there are some things that we couldn’t have experienced otherwise.”

  “Like what?”

  She paused. “Well, like families.”

  “Families?”

  “Yes. You remember that saying we have? How a strong family shines brighter than all the stars? Well, now you know what we mean by it.”

  Jeremiah sat back to think about it for a moment. To believe that the stars were gods, and that he himself had once been one—the concept was truly staggering. If it were true, then somewhere up there were all his future children. To think that they were watching him—that he had once watched his own father when he was a wanderer—it was enough to give him pause.

  “You believe all this?”

  Mariya bit her lip and nodded. Her arms were still tense, and she gripped her skirt so tightly that her knuckles were white.

  “And Noemi believed it too?”

  “Yes.”

  Thinking about her brought a lump back to his throat. He drew in a sharp breath through his teeth and sighed.

  “She wanted me to covert, didn’t she? And for her, I would have.”

  “But would you really believe it?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t know what to believe. My mother taught me to look to Earth, but it’s hard to do that when you’re a wanderer. I think my father believed a little differently, but we never talked much about religion.”

  Mariya nodded. She looked like she wanted to say something, but lacked the confidence to come out and say it.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” she said quickly. “I was just—I mean, it sounds like you’re lost.”

  He chuckled. “
Yeah, that sounds about right.”

  “Well, what do you want to believe?”

  The question caught him off guard. He’d never thought about it that way before.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve been staring into the void for so long, I don’t know what’s true anymore. But if I had to choose, I guess I’d choose whatever made me happy.”

  “Did your mother’s religion make you happy?”

  “No,” he admitted. “All it ever did was fill me with guilt.”

  “I feel that way sometimes too,” said Mariya. “But there’s also a lot to hope for. And whenever I look out at the stars, I can see the evidence of that.”

  “Because a strong family shines brighter than all the stars.”

  “Exactly.”

  Jeremiah paused. “So is that why you wanted to marry me? Even if it meant being a second wife, that was better than never having a family?”

  Her cheeks turned bright red. “I, ah—”

  “And Noemi was willing to share me because she wanted you to have that too?”

  Mariya took a deep breath and nodded. “More or less. I never meant to come between you—I only wanted to make your family stronger.”

  He hesitated, not sure what to say. She looked up at him with eyes that plead for forgiveness, but his heart felt empty and hollow.

  “I believe you,” he finally managed. Even though it felt like a lie, the moment the words left his mouth, it was as if an unseen wall broke down between them. Mariya sighed in relief, and he realized that it was true—that he did believe her.

  “I don’t want to push you into anything,” she said quickly. “I know it must be hard, losing Noemi and all.”

  “Don’t you believe that God will provide a way? Not the star gods, I mean—the God that you worship.”

  “I suppose,” she said, “though it’s hard to believe, when you can’t see how things are going to turn out in the end.”

  He nodded. That much was true.

  At that moment, an alert tone sounded in front of him. Jeremiah turned and peered at the main screen. What he saw made him frown.

  “What is it?” Mariya asked.

  “It’s a transmission from the Revenge. Hang on—this could get ugly.”

  He glanced down at the sensors and readied the engines. If enough time had passed for a radio transmission to reach their position, then the pirates were almost certainly able to pinpoint their location from the signal emitted by their last jump. The reserves hadn’t fully charged yet, but with luck they’d still be able to get out fast—if they moved quickly. At any moment, the pirates could show up and blast them out of the sky.

  “What does it say?” Mariya asked. She stood up and leaned over his shoulder to get a better look.

  “Just a moment,” said Jeremiah. “Just a moment.” He brought up the starmap and set the coordinates for a position about a thousand light hours away—far enough to make a clean escape without pushing the drives beyond their limits. As the hum of the engines reverberated through the bulkheads, he put his finger on the switch and took a deep breath. Only then did he bring up the transmission, making sure to keep an eye on the sensors.

  Helena’s sharp, imposing face appeared on the main screen, her lips pursed and her eyes narrowed. A chill shot down Jeremiah’s back, running down to the tips of his fingers.

  “Greetings, Jeremiah,” the transmission began. “You already know who I am. Before you panic and make a jump, hear me out. I have something that you want, and if you’ll take the time to listen, I believe that we can reach a mutually acceptable agreement.”

  An agreement? What was this—an attempt to distract him while a strike team moved to attack? He glanced down at the sensors, but they were blank—nothing but empty space all around them.

  “By the time you receive this message, several hours will have passed since your escape. At the same time, my men will be pinpointing your position, preparing to make an attack. Of course, such a move would prove futile; you’ve no doubt charged your jump drives enough to escape again the moment we arrive. However, if you place any value on your wife’s life, that would be a great mistake.”

  Behind him, Mariya gasped. Jeremiah stared at the screen, hardly daring to breathe.

  “Even now, my men are taking her into custody,” Helena continued. “By the time you receive this message, I will have her in an airlock, gagged and bound. If you don’t do exactly as I tell you, I will order my men to vent the airlock and release her into space.”

  So she’s alive. The thought struck him like a bolt of pure electricity. His breath caught in his throat, and his heart skipped a beat.

  “Now, I am not an unreasonable person,” said Helena, looking squarely into the camera. “It makes no difference to me whether your wife lives or dies. What does make a difference—and what I very much want to prevent—is the knowledge of our presence at Zarmina escaping the system. If you return and surrender yourself to my men stationed at the fourth planet, I will spare your wife’s life. However, if you fail to turn yourself in within the hour, I will order my men to space her. The choice is yours—her fate is entirely within your hands. Helena out.”

  The transmission cut, leaving a faint after-image on the darkened display. The hum of the engines replaced the sound of her voice.

  “Wow,” said Mariya. “So, what do you think we should—”

  “We’re going back,” said Jeremiah, his fingers racing across the keyboard. The nav-computer zoomed in on Zarmina and ran through the calculations to put them in orbit around the fourth planet.

  “Going back? Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

  “You heard the woman. Noemi’s alive—and we have only an hour before they space her.”

  “But what if she’s lying? What if it’s just a ploy to get you to come back?”

  He paused for a heart-stopping second to consider the implications. If Helena was lying and Noemi was already dead, then they were the only hope the colonists had left. Going back would mean losing everything. But if Noemi was still alive, then this was the only way to save her. And if Helena was telling the truth, he would never find out unless they went back. If they didn’t, he would spend the rest of his life wondering if Noemi had died because of him.

  “I can’t do that,” he decided aloud. “We’ve got to go back.”

  “But—but what about the others?”

  “If she’s still alive, then Captain Elijah can go ahead with the first plan and use her to hack into the network.” He clenched his teeth—it might still kill her, but that was the only way to give her a fighting chance. And at this point, that was the most he could do.

  Mariya took a deep breath. “I hope you’re right about this.”

  “Yeah,” said Jeremiah. So am I.

  Chapter 20

  The cloud-covered world of Zarmina IV shone like a pearl on a shimmering velvet cloth. Here and there, breaks in the clouds showed large swaths of the turquoise-blue sea. It wasn’t exactly an Earth-like world, but like B’tum and Edenia II before the failed terraforming project, it had the potential to become one. Situated well within the habitable zone of its parent star, with a thick atmosphere and a water-rich surface, it was a wonder it hadn’t been settled already.

  Then again, with all the pirates in the system, perhaps that wasn’t so surprising after all.

  The alert tone sounded almost as soon as they exited jumpspace. It was a transmission from a station orbiting about 150 kilometers above the planet’s surface.

  “Attention unidentified vessel,” came a gruff voice with a thick Pleiadian accent. “We have particle beams trained on your position. Identify yourself.”

  “I copy,” said Jeremiah. “This is the Ariadne, returning to Zarmina IV as requested by Captain Helena.”

  Pause. Behind him, Mariya shifted nervously.

  “Acknowledged, Ariadne. Power down systems and submit to boarding.”

  “Copy. But first, I need to speak with her.”

 
“Negative, Ariadne. Power down at—”

  “Now look,” said Jeremiah, blood rushing to his cheeks. “Captain Helena gave me certain assurances, and I’m not going to submit until I’m satisfied that they’ve been met. I’m going to contact her directly, and if you try to interfere, I’m pulling out.”

  With that, he switched off the transceiver and began powering the jump drives.

  Mariya frowned. “Uh, Jeremiah? Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

  “Of course,” he said, keeping an eye on the ship’s sensor displays. Two red dots began to approach their position. The alert tone sounded again, but he shut off the transmission before it could play.

  “But—but what about those particle cannons?”

  “We’re too far out of range for them to do any serious damage.” Probably. “Besides, I’m not going to surrender until I know for certain that Noemi is alive.”

  He identified the convoy returning from the Lagrange point and directed the transmitter in that direction. The distance was a little over a thousand kilometers, so they could expect a fair amount of lag. Better to restrict it to audio, then.

  “Attention Revenge,” he said. “This is Jeremiah of the Ariadne. We have arrived at Zarmina IV as per your request. Do you copy?”

  Silence. He took a deep breath and counted to five.

  “Copy, Jeremiah,” came Helena’s tinny voice over the loudspeaker. “I see you are a man of reason. Submit to my men, and I’ll see that you’re reunited with your wife when we arrive.”

  “Not so fast. First, I need some assurance that you’ve kept your end of the deal. Where’s my wife?”

  The line died as the message transmitted to the Revenge. Mariya put a hand on the back of the pilot’s chair.

  “Don’t worry,” said Helena. “Your wife is alive and safe. My men are escorting her from the airlock even as we speak.”

  “How do I know you aren’t lying? Let me talk to her!”

  Another silence, this one longer and more excruciating than the first. Jeremiah began to tap his foot nervously against the floor, while on the sensor displays, the red dots crept closer.