Star Road

by Matthew Costello

  Its ore ... theirs for the taking.

  And down below? What would they do on the planet?

  “Captain, they still won’t respond.”

  “Keep trying.”

  Another blast. The ship now bobbing in its low orbit like a cork in a raging river.

  “Keep try—”

  She never finished the sentence. The next blast didn’t echo from thousands of meters away from some distant part of the ship.

  This blast targeted the bridge itself.

  Walls of electronics and computers that girdled the main deck exploded inward. Rioux was in the center as shattered plastic and twisted pieces of metal flew around and into her, slicing deep into her skin.

  For a few seconds, she was still able to remain standing in the chaos despite the battering.

  But then a second blast hit the bridge, and although she didn’t see it, Rioux felt something ram right into her—a piece of metal, a structural section from the room, blown free and turned into a spear.

  She had a moment’s awareness of being hit.

  And then she dropped to her knees and pitched forward.

  ~ * ~

  “Parker!” Hatch said into his radio mouthpiece. “Did you get the data pod sent out?”

  “Yeah, but it—”

  The radio went dead in Hatch’s ear.

  At least the World Council would get the news and a few minutes of video of whatever the hell was happening.

  A Runner’s raid.

  Who would believe it without film?

  They were supposedly over. Finished.

  But they didn’t look too finished now.

  Hopefully, the Runners wouldn’t intercept the message pod before it got to the Star Road. Once there, its mass was so small, it would travel much too fast on the road for anyone to intercept.

  Hatch pulled out his revolver. Old school. Antiques. Real treasures.

  The Runners above had peeled away from the cargo ship, which was now sending off a steady stream of fiery, soundless explosions. Flaming chunks of metal flared, a fireworks display as they entered the atmosphere.

  Hatch didn’t want to think about how this attack was going to negate his chances of leaving soon.

  Guess we’re all gonna be down here for a while longer.

  Then it hit him.

  What an absurd thought.

  We’ll all be goddamned lucky to live much longer.

  He looked at the miners, panicking, helpless as they realized what was happening in the sky above. Some scrambled for cover. Others stood out in the open.

  As if it mattered...

  Everyone knew how brutal Runners were. But why attack here?

  And what would they do once they got here?

  The miners had to be thinking about the possibilities of defending themselves and their chances of surviving an attack.

  Some miners might hide deep in the winding corridors of the mines— especially if they were suited up in their mining rigs. There were caches of emergency rations placed throughout the mine system.

  Maybe the Runners wouldn’t take the time to hunt them down.

  The Runners might blow up the mine entrances, trapping them underground to die unless they could eventually dig their way out once the Runners left.

  They wouldn’t stick around long.

  Anyone on the surface would probably be lucky if the pirates took them as prisoners.

  Force them to join the Runners.

  But the most realistic possibility was that they’d all be killed.

  The miners’ security force—a half-dozen men armed with pulse rifles— had their guns down, looking up and around.

  Waiting.

  They didn’t have to wait long.

  ~ * ~

  The roar of Runner vehicles screaming over the rubble, surrounding the mine area, filled the night air.

  Hatch watched the ATV bounce over the rocky terrain and fly over the pits in the ground with ease, their oversized composite tires handling the torturous terrain.

  Each ATV had a gunner firing a small pulse cannon mounted on the front. Hatch looked around. The vehicles converged on the mining site from every compass point. The Runners started shooting, mowing the miners down. The security guards started firing back while others began running, looking for an illusory safe place.

  Hatch soon understood what was going on here.

  A massacre.

  And maybe... a message.

  He drew his handguns and started firing. They had always been more for show than anything else, to let everyone know he wasn’t only the project manager.

  He ran this place.

  Did the guns have enough range to hit the Runners’ ATVs?

  Was his aim any good?

  He fired at an approaching ATV, taking aim at the driver. A hole bloomed in his head, and the Runner slumped down in his seat, the ATV careening to the side. It went up in an orange ball of flames.

  Hatch wheeled around to see another approaching vehicle. He took aim and fired again.

  The first shot went wide. Deep down inside, he knew this whole effort was wasted ... useless.

  There were too many of them.

  Until two ATVs converged behind Hatch. He spun around and dropped to a crouch, firing both guns as he did.

  The two gunners fired back at him at the same time.

  No way they’d miss him.

  And then ... Hatch’s last thought, again ...

  Why?

  ~ * ~

  3

  RELEASE

  The doors to the World Council Court flew open.

  Outside, total chaos.

  Ivan Delgato, flanked by guards, with double-lock handcuffs holding his wrists together and leg cuffs around his ankles, knees, and thighs that made it all but impossible for him to walk, took in the scene.

  Everyone here, all to see me, he thought.

  Reporters filled the granite steps of the World Council Court leading down to a waiting line of armored vans. Behind the wall of cameras, curious onlookers jockeyed for a good view.

  The trial of the decade, his trial, was over.

  Delgato knew he didn’t stand a chance, not when he’d admitted to being the leader of the Runners.

  Loud cheers and catcalls battled as the guards held his arms, standing between two massive stone pillars of the court building.

  Got my fans, Delgato thought.

  He looked behind him. More heavily armed security guards and police poured out from the building to either side of Delgato.

  A goddamned army.

  What the hell do they think I’m going to do?

  The crowd kept up its yelling. He looked at some of the signs they carried, the scrawled messages ...

  FREE DELGATO!

  OPEN THE ROADS!

  Off to one side, a few steps down, a young, attractive reporter faced the holocam, reading from a prompter. She barely glanced at the main attraction as she read her live report.

  “In Washington today, the World Council Court handed down a sentence of guilty on all counts in the treason case against Ivan Delgato, the leader of the terrorist faction known as the Road Runners.”

  A few meters away from her, another reporter ... doing the same thing.

  Yeah. I’ll be all over the vids tonight.

  The reporter looked at Delgato, even seemed to raise his voice so he could hear....

  “... Ivan Delgato has been sentenced to life without the possibility of parole at the Cyrus Penal Colony in the Movasi Sector. This may be the last you will see of the leader of the Road Runners.”

  His guards let him stay on display for the cameras and the crowd, speaking into their headsets, nodding.

  Cyrus Penal Colony.

  Now doesn’t that sound like fun?

  The guards began guiding him slowly down the steps. Reporters tried to thrust microphones into his face.

  “Do you plan to a
ppeal?”

  “Who leads the Runners now that you’re gone?”

  But the other security guards fanned out to either side, pushing the reporters back.

  They didn’t want any Road Runners making speeches.

  The cheers and jeers rose in volume.

  Delgato looked up. The clear blue sky, the sun already hot. Beads of sweat formed on his brow.

  He might have been strolling on a beach in the Caribbean.

  Wouldn’t that be nice?

  “Free the Road ... Free the Road” a large group off to one side began to chant. Before long, others joined in, but then they were quickly countered by another chant: “Death to terrorists!”

  Can’t please everyone.

  Then: a marble pillar less than six inches from Delgato’s head exploded. Chips of stone and stone dust flew into the air.

  The report of a gunshot echoed from the giant stone walls of the courthouse.

  The police escorts raised their shields and tightened the line around Delgato. He watched several security officers below wrestling a man to the ground.

  If the guy had been a better shot, this show would have had a completely different ending.

  The police hurried the guy away, the shooter’s feet kicking at the air as they moved him down to the street to one of the waiting armored vans.

  They expected trouble, and they got it.

  Questions continued to fly as Delgato’s guards led him down, pushing through the sea of reporters, his steps small, constricted by the cuffs.

  Once at the van, the side door slid open and his guards lifted him off the ground and threw him into the back. Before the van door slammed shut, one of the policemen remaining on the street turned and spit into Delgato’s face.

  Pretty brave, Delgato thought.

  But without cuffs?

  Now, Officer... wouldn’t that be interesting?

  He smiled and wiped his cheek on the shoulder of his prison jumpsuit.

  What they don’t know, he thought.

  The secret that no one—not here at least—knows about.

  The shooter wasn’t the only surprise today. Not by a long shot.

  Still, as the van pulled away from the curb, Delgato felt... isolated.

  As alone as he had ever been.

  Whatever his life had been up until now, today it had been altered fundamentally and forever.

  There was no going back, even if he wanted to.

  The van started, and Delgato felt it quickly pull away, the sirens of the escorts wailing as the caravan left the courthouse.

  ~ * ~

  ONE

  FELLOW TRAVELERS

  ~ * ~

  4

  STAR ROAD ACCESS TERMINAL—PLUTO

  Dr. Dario Rodriguez tried to take it all in and understand what he was seeing as the small transport shuttle skimmed over the surface of the planet.

  His first thought: No matter how many times you see it, it’s always impressive.

  Whatever the thing was down below, it was massive—a giant abstract art construction made by a lunatic, consisting of jumbled chunks of red and gray stone, and steel girders jutting out at random angles.

  The sky was as black as ebony. The planet had no atmosphere to diffuse the light from the infinite array of stars. Earth’s sun was just a white pinprick of light against the eternal void of space.

  Outside, on what long ago had been known as the planet Pluto but was now an insignificant planetoid, there remained ... the ruins.

  Vast remnants of a past civilization whose beings used to live here or come here—-for what?—had been left on this dead planet out on the frozen rim of Earth’s solar system.

  But that had been eons ago for all anyone knew.

  Then something happened, and they vanished, leaving behind only these ruins and questions.

  And the Star Road Station.

  The transport banked hard to the left as if trying to impress the passengers, giving them a different perspective on what may have been an ancient city. Bright lights dotted the shadowed work areas of the site as teams—all carefully controlled by the World Council—carried out methodical excavations to determine the origin and purpose of this place.

  People on Earth knew nearly nothing about it except that it existed ... and that it may have been destroyed well before the dinosaurs went extinct.

  Yet the Star Road had been untouched.

  Is that because whoever or whatever had caused the destruction below depended on the Star Road as well?

  Or perhaps the Star Road was invulnerable.

  So far, it had defied Earth’s best physicists. All anyone really knew was that the Road was still here.

  And it linked humanity to the stars.

  So many questions, and Rodriguez knew that a lot of people were busy here and on Earth searching for those answers.

  There were almost as many answers as there were questioners.

  Whatever the case, the Road worked, and humanity used it. With the Star Road, Earth and its solar system suddenly seemed much too small—a coral reef in an infinite ocean of stars.

  Travel through the galaxy, theoretically an impossibility, suddenly became possible. Systems hundreds, even thousands of light-years apart could be easily accessed by traveling on the Star Road.

  An amazingly complicated highway system had opened up, and no one knew how far it went, where it ended, if it ended, or—the big question—who the hell had created it.

  People on Earth referred to them simply as “The Builders,” but that answered nothing.

  The transport banked again, straightening out as it lost altitude, following the sharp curve of the tiny planet. The horizon looked impossibly close.

  Rodriguez took a moment and glanced around at the shadowy confines of the shuttle, at the dark figures of the dozen or so other passengers.

  Are they all getting onto the Road?

  Or are some cycling back for another stint on the terminal base on Pluto? Most sat quietly in their seats, some dozing, some lost in their own thoughts as they gazed at the amazing scene outside.

  Everyone, except for the young woman sitting across the aisle from Rodriguez.

  In the scant light, he caught her fiddling with the chip recorder implanted in the side of her head above her left ear. As the woman literally squirmed in her seat, her head moving all around the oval porthole, Rodriguez knew that the woman—almost a kid, really—was more than a “Chippie,” more than a user.

  She was in “record” mode, creating a new chip even now, capturing this moment for others on Earth to experience as if they were here.

  All the experience, none of the risk, none of the stress ... none of the expense or danger.

  None of the excitement, either.

  If this Chippie wanted to make an amazing chip, she probably couldn’t do better than a Road trip ... unless she went in for the kinky stuff.

  Scanning her face, her body ... Rodriguez imagined that she just might. She turned and caught Rodriguez staring at her. A bit of a smile. Then a taunt:

  “Some view, hmm?”

  Rodriguez nodded, still staring.

  “See anything you like?”

  “Sure,” Rodriguez replied.

  Then, he turned away. No doubt he wasn’t the only one on the shuttle who had secrets. Everyone has their secrets. But he was getting on the Road for a reason that no one—especially not a Chippie—could know about.

  On that point, his instructions were clear.

  And Rodriguez was nothing if not good at following instructions.

  He turned back to his porthole and stared blankly as the shuttle approached the terminal.

  ~ * ~

  The shuttle glided silently over the icy rocks that looked like the aged teeth of a mouth frozen in the act of arcing up to snap at the shuttle.