Galactic Thunder

by Cameron Cooper

  I glanced at Kristiana. She gave a tiny movement of her shoulders. “We are making history, here,” she said. “Or perhaps we’re merely uncovering history we didn’t know was out here. It’s…interesting.”

  I glanced at Jai and Marlow. “I don’t want to kick the two of you out, but…”

  Marlow grinned. “We can find a couple of bunks to use until the Omia returns. Sauli has better brandy, anyway.”

  Sauli laughed. “He just likes beating me at chess.”

  I looked at Lyth.

  His smile was warm. “If you don’t mind, Danny, I’d like a lift back to Wynchester. Arnold is a lousy administrator and I’ve never heard him sound so giddy as he has lately, with all the implications behind the neo-humans that he’s been learning.”

  “I think we have to stop calling them that,” Jai said.

  Everyone looked at him.

  Jai lifted his chin, to indicate the view beyond the dome, and the thick river of stars running across the sky. “These people are only new to us. We know very little about them, so far, except that we think they come from the other arm, but I think it’s safe to assume that their culture and their worlds are just as old as ours, so calling them new people is incorrect.”

  “Have a better name for them, professor?” Dalton asked, his tone dry. He’d spent a lot of time in Jai’s company lately, and Jai was very good at pontificating when he had everyone’s attention. The problem was, most of what he said was profoundly interesting, so it was hard to just switch off and not listen to him when he was in full flow. Only, Dalton preferred action and doing things to thinking about things and discussions, so I could understand the dry tone.

  “That arm is the Orion arm,” Jai said. He looked around the table.

  Yoan stared at the tabletop. “Orion…ics?”

  Everyone winced.

  “Orionids?” Juliyana said. Calpurnia, who sat beside her, had said very little all night, even though she had responded to my invitation with pleased surprise.

  Everyone groaned at Juliyana’s suggestion, too.

  “What about just calling them Orions, for now?” I suggested.

  “It will do for now,” Jai replied.

  “And to get back to the point,” Lyth said with a patient tone, “I think we’ve learned all we can from the mothership. We’ve scraped it down to the molecular level for anything interesting and we’ve got rooms full of data to analyze. I want to return to the Institute and go on from there. So yes, thank you, Danny, I will go back with you.”

  I couldn’t help but move my gaze to Juliyana, and realized that everyone else had looked at her, too, except for Calpurnia, who looked down at the contents of whatever it was she was drinking.

  Juliyana flushed a deep red. She cleared her throat. “I’m heading back home, too,” she said. “The Penthos is already there, so Cal can take her out when we get back.”

  Calpurnia raised her chin and looked at Juliyana, her mouth open. “Me?”

  Juliyana nodded.

  Lyth, I noticed, was now staring at the tabletop, his face held in a rigid neutral expression. He was too nice a man to look pleased where Calpurnia might see it. And yeah, I was happy for him, so I fought to not look too pleased, too.

  Calpurnia drank the rest of her glass, a smile in place.

  Sauli tapped Yoan’s shoulder. “Going or staying?”

  Yoan looked surprised. He glanced at me.

  “You’re welcome to stay aboard, if you’d like, Yoan.”

  He ran his hand through his hair—a ghostly replica of the way Sauli did when he felt awkward. “Can I think about it?”

  “Of course. You have ten hours.”

  “Oh.” He grimaced. “Okay. I’ll have to talk it out with some people.”

  I turned to look at the last person at the table to state their immediate future intentions. Dalton looked relaxed and comfortable. I suspected the news that, after a few major organ replacements, Mace was out of danger and recovering swiftly had a lot to do with that. His gaze met mine. “I’ve got a job to do here,” he said softly. His gaze shifted to Jai and Marlow and back to me. “I thought it was make-work, until I started doing it. But these two need a nanny like no two generals I’ve ever met. So….” He didn’t finish it. He didn’t have to. And his gaze would not let mine go.

  So I was back to waiting again.

  —38—

  Yoan tapped on my door not long after I returned to my room.

  I let him in and pointed to the chair that everyone used. “You can sit there.” I eyed him. “Or not.” He looked too nervous to sit. “What did your parents say?”

  “You knew I was going to talk to them?”

  “Is there someone else you might have discussed it with?”

  He grimaced. “That’s part of the problem. I grew up with them. I work with them. It’s a pretty small world.”

  “Until the last few days.”

  “Yeah.” He grinned.

  “You’re staying on,” I concluded.

  Yoan rubbed at the back of his neck. That was pure Sauli, too. “Thing is, I grew up hearing about you and this ship and everyone who used to crew on it. Dad would tell all these amazing stories, over and over, ‘til I could recite ‘em myself. Even Momma had a few tales of her own about you guys, from Nijeliya, and that was just…hair-raising.”

  “It was,” I agreed.

  “Thing is,” he repeated heavily. “They were just stories. Until now.”

  “I’ve heard your father tell stories about times I was in, and he likes to embellish like crazy, so they quite likely are still just stories,” I assured him. “Interesting times, when you’re in the middle of them, aren’t nearly as fun as they sound like in retrospect.”

  Yoan nodded. “That’s what Dad said, too, just now. But that’s not why I want to stay on. Well it is, just a bit. I’ve never been away from Darius for long, or gone so far, and I figure that crewing for you, I would get to see some of the rest of the known worlds.”

  “I’m sure of that,” I told him. “What’s the major reason, then?”

  His gaze skittered away from me. Then he looked back, making himself look me in the eye. “I didn’t get it until after all this was over. But now I think I know how you and everyone really did manage to overcome the array and all that shit that went down on Nijeliya, and I’d like…I want to find out what it’s like.”

  I was genuinely lost. I couldn’t even guess what he meant. “I’m a bit older than you, Yoan, but that just means I know how stupid I can be sometimes.”

  He frowned.

  “I don’t understand,” I said flatly. “Spell it out for me.”

  He blushed. “Oh. Well. It’s just…all of you…you have issues. You argue. There’s all sorts of personal shit going on most of the time. But when it comes right down to it, you get on with it and work together. Man, you work together well, too.”

  I stared at him.

  Yoan looked even more uncomfortable. “So, I thought, well, I’d like to be part of something like that. And I’m not going to find a group like that on Darius because my dad runs machine shops and Momma is a politician and likes being in charge, and neither of them can stop thinking I’m still ten years old…” He trailed off. “Anyway, I’d like to stay on,” he finished awkwardly.

  “And your parents are okay with that?” I asked cautiously, because he was still a newt. But Sauli had been a newt, once.

  “They said I should make up my own mind.”

  The politician and the practical engineer. Typical.

  “I think we should find out what stuff you’re made of, Yoan. Have Lyssa give you a permanent room.”

  “You mean, one I can make look like this?” He looked around at my garden.

  “You can make it look like anything you want,” I assured him.

  *

  Once Yoan was gone, I headed for the diner. I wanted a drink, but I wanted company more. I did my best thinking when someone else was talking.

  Juliyan
a sat at the big table, watching the people on the street through the windows. A glass of something white sat in front of her.

  “What the hell is that?” I demanded, sitting opposite her. I waved at the waitress, who nodded.

  “It’s milk,” Juliyana said, and grimaced. “It’s disgusting.”

  “Then why are you drinking it?”

  “The medical concierge said it would help me sleep.”

  I opened my mouth to say that a sleepy-shot would do a better job, then shut it with a snap. She didn’t want the sleepy-shot because it could impact the baby.

  And dammit, I got all happy and gooey inside. She was keeping the baby. I tried to hide my smile as the waitress put my scotch in front of me.

  “Your mouth is all twisted up,” Juliyana pointed out.

  I gave up. “That’s because I was trying to hide how pleased I am.”

  Juliyana sighed. “Okay. I guess that’s fair. I’ve been fucking my life up for a good few years now.”

  “A mild understatement.” I made myself stop right there and drink, instead.

  Juliyana sipped the milk and pushed it away from her, making a gagging sound.

  “What I don’t get,” I said, “was what you were thinking. Weren’t you keeping track of your sterile shots?”

  Juliyana frowned and I realized I was speaking, anyway. I’d started, so I might as well finish. “It’s like you meant to do it,” I added.

  Juliyana drew in a slow breath. Let it out. “Perhaps,” she admitted softly. “Maybe,” she added, her voice even softer.

  “Okay. Why?”

  She wasn’t arguing. She wasn’t fighting me. She stared at the tabletop, pushed a blonde lock behind her ear and said slowly, “I think…I finally got over feeling claustrophobic.”

  I blinked. “You’re talking about Nijeliya, aren’t you?”

  Juliyana nodded. “I didn’t think it had bothered me so much, but those last days, when we couldn’t walk without bellowing and couldn’t take a deep breath…and wondering if we were all going to die right there because we couldn’t figure out how to make crescent ships work and we couldn’t get off the planet…” She shook her head. “I was born among the stars, like you. I’m not made for dirtside. Not like Dalton.”

  I sighed. “No, I’m not a baller, either,” I agreed softly.

  We sat in silence for a while, and it was devoid of tension, which was nice. I finished my drink and got to my feet. “You’re going to have to do something very, very nice to make up for everything you’ve put Lyth through.”

  “Or a lot of somethings,” Juliyana said, her tone one of agreement. “But I found out today that I’ve already started on that.”

  “Oh?”

  She smiled. “I’m having twins.”

  —39—

  Two months later.

  When the door announced a visitor, I said over my shoulder, “Come in, Yoan!” and went back to sorting through messages. There was always a shit ton of them and any of them might be more paying work, so I couldn’t just ignore them.

  The joys of being a freight captain.

  I didn’t hear the door open.

  “It’s not Yoan.”

  I spun in the chair, my heart leaping. Dalton stood a pace inside the door, and Darb sat just outside it, his tongue lolling. Dalton was holding a bunch of roses.

  My mouth opened. Nothing came out.

  Dalton cleared his throat. “The roses are wrong, yes?”

  “I…no, you know I love roses.” It was our little secret.

  “I hedged my bet, anyway,” Dalton said. He put the roses in his other hand. Carefully, because he was also holding a bottle of scotch.

  “Good hedge,” I told him, getting to my feet. “You’re back from Proya.” Someone had finally got around to naming the red dwarf where we’d found Mace.

  “They finally decided that they’d learned as much as they could out there,” Dalton said. “I think they got sick of ship food, myself.”

  “Even Jai and Marlow? Sauli’s ship has the good files.”

  “They want to strategize, now we’ve learned what we can. And Fiori announced that they’re going to wake up the first of the Orions in a week or so. They think they’ve figured out how to do it. They’ll be our next source of information.”

  “Our?”

  “Humans. Us.” Dalton came over to the desk and put the bottle and the roses on it, then turned back to me. “I’m going to keep working for Jai and Marlow, Danny. They’re right in the middle of all this…whatever this is. Only…” He halted, his gaze roaming over my face. “I need a ship to do it. Turns out there are people who specialize in being chiefs of staff, and I’m…not.”

  “You’re a get-things-done guy,” I agreed.

  “Jai has things he wants me to do. Actually, he said he’d rather have you do it—”

  “Of course.” I hid my sigh. I was still a hammer, just not an imperial one anymore.

  “But he wants me to help you,” Dalton finished in a rush. “He practically ordered me to.”

  I held still.

  “But that’s not why I’m here,” Dalton added.

  My heart jumped.

  “Fact is, I quit,” Dalton said. “Then he started talking about if I was going to quit just to be with you then he could use a team like us, yaddah yaddah…” He let out his breath. “I can’t believe you waited for me, Danny. Nearly thirty years… “ He shook his head. “Am I too late?” he whispered.

  “Thirty years late.”

  “I fucked up,” he admitted.

  “But you got Mace out of it.”

  “And then I got him back, thanks to you.” Dalton took a breath. “Life has always been interesting, with you in it. I didn’t know until now that life just…works out, when you’re in it.”

  “Using me as a metaphor for a curse is a shitty apology, Dalton.”

  “I’ll get better at it,” Dalton promised, his mouth close to mine.

  —40—

  New Phoenicia, two weeks later.

  I slipped into the darkened observation room of the medical suite and saw I was one of the last to arrive. The room was full of people I knew, all staring through the observation window at the therapy room on the other side and the man lying beneath a thermal cover.

  One of the taller men in the room came over to me. “Late as usual, Danny,” Jai said softly.

  “You and I have something to discuss when this is done,” I shot back. “You make a shitty cupid, by the way.”

  He smiled. “Someone had to. You two have been circling around each other for way too long. Did it work?”

  “Yes, damn your hide. Now shut up.”

  The therapist in the room with the unconscious Orion worked the control panel next to the bed. “Raising core temperature, metabolism and cellular activity…” she murmured, for she knew of the great collection of observers crowded into the little room.

  More medical aides hovered near the bed, ready to leap to assist as needed. No one knew what to expect, for this was the first Orion we had dared to resuscitate. We were braced for anything.

  “Consciousness building,” the medic added.

  The man very undramatically gave a sigh and opened his eyes. He lay blinking up at the ceiling, then turned his head to look at the medic and the aides. His eyes grew wider.

  One of the aides stepped forward and spoke in the rasping language of the Orions and a translation appeared on the display over the observation window.

  You are safe and well. You are no longer a prisoner of the others and no one will hurt you here.

  The man tried to sit up, and the aides rushed to help him, while the bed sat itself up behind him. He studied everyone carefully, then spoke.

  You are not muradar <?> The interpretation software flagged the odd word.

  The aide replied. We are humans, from the Carina section of the galaxy. We think you are from the Orion section. Can you confirm that?

  The man frowned, puzzled.

&n
bsp; The aide tried again. Where are you from?

  The man spoke, but this time, the software didn’t have to interpret it.

  “Earth,” he croaked.

  _____

  The Next book in the Iron Hammer series is Stellar Storm

  Danny and her crew expose a new enemy

  Danny and her crew on the Supreme Lythion, and her friends and allies in the Carina worlds learn more about the Slavers and their appetite for war.

  When slavers raid a Carina star station and snatch more of their people, Jai Van Veen directs Danny to return the favour—steal into Slaver territory and take their people back. Only the quasi-military venture reveals more about the threatening nature of their new enemy than anyone is braced for…

  Stellar Storm is the second book in the Iron Hammer space opera science fiction series by award-winning SF author Cameron Cooper. The Iron Hammer series is a spin off from the acclaimed Imperial Hammer series, and features many of the characters and situations from that series.

  Get your copy of Stellar Storm now!

  Special Offer – Free Science Fiction

  Space cities have been locked in war for centuries over the resources of an asteroid belt.

  Humans pilot swarms of pod fighters to protect their city’s mining operations from other cities, risking everything and suffering multiple deaths and regenerations. Then Landry goes through a regeneration which introduces an error that will destroy the delicate balance of the war.

  Resilience is a space opera short story by award-winning SF author Cameron Cooper.

  __

  Epic science fiction at its finest. Realistic far future worlds. Incredible characters and scenarios. – Amazon reader.

  This short story has not been commercially released for sale. It is only available as a gift to readers who subscribe to Cam’s email list.

  Click here to get your copy: