Gavin scrunched up his face. Sure, the Earth Empire were their enemies, but why would Empire forces attack a station and planetoid within its own space?
“Note,” Kepple said, “I did not say an attack perpetuated from the Empire itself. Theories abound. What we do not know is the precise identity of the forces responsible. What we do know is what happened next.” He took a deep a breath. “A shipment was trafficked through Geta-4 on its way to a nasty little band of mercs we know only as ‘the Eaters.’ Following the attack on Ceres, that shipment found its way into the heart of the Old Earth Empire, where it was set loose in the middle of a showdown between massive forces of Empire ships and Eaters. The shipment contained none other than our missing drones.” He flipped to another image, this one a blurry magnified picture of an enormous debris field. Gavin looked with interest for the first time. He didn’t think he’d ever seen so many hollowed-out hulls.
“How many ships lost?” he asked.
After a brief silence, Kepple said, “The Empire lost their entire armada. Reports indicate they are scrambling to piece ships together for defense, but they have one or two remaining, at most.”
Gavin let out a low whistle as the gravity of what he had heard set in. “Without any defenses—”
“We could sue for peace,” the young man said. “I mean, a lasting peace. We could force a treaty, make it the end of all war between Empire and Colonies!”
“Or,” Agent Van said, “we could take Earth.”
Everyone in the room looked at her in silence. She shrugged.
“It’s the inevitable conclusion of the Fleet and the Council. Tell me I’m wrong, Kepple. Fleet forces are massing even as we speak, aren’t they?”
Kepple sniffed. “They are not. Though likely they would, yes, if they knew any of this.”
A few eyebrows shot up. Kepple leaned over the table, lowering his voice.
“Understand, you are the members of an elite intelligence force so secretive, everyone believes it to have ceased to exist decades ago. Including him.” He nodded at Gavin, who scoffed. “You are being told this information not because we are planning an Empire invasion, but because we have been tasked with a much more urgent mission: recovering the drones.”
Agent Van frowned again. “Won’t that fall to the invasion force? They’ll find them on the way, yes?”
“No,” Gavin said. “They won’t. The drones have come home.”
“If we do not find, intercept, and stop them,” Kepple said, “There may not be a Council, a Blade, or a Fleet to take on the Empire. There may not be Colonies at all.”
---
Gavin laughed quietly at himself as he stepped out of the shuttle and onto the hangar deck of Merchant Station once more. This time, instead of stopping in to try and evade capture, he was here with Agents Van and Bryan, along as their “senior advisor” for an intelligence gathering mission sponsored by the very force he had been trying to ditch the last time. The enemy of my enemy, he supposed.
They came to a hangar higher on the station this time. Everything was a bit more posh than his previous visit, which suited him just fine. They strolled into a little lobby outside the gate and he took a tiny cup of complimentary cappuccino. It smelled a lot better than it tasted—sim-beans—but it was better than a poke in the butt with sharp stick.
Agent Bryan had a softer face than Gavin was used to seeing in field operatives. A bit on the husky side, too, though he wore it well. How did they train these new kids, he wondered? Back in the day, he’d had to traipse all over barren rocks across the belt, counting on mag boots and harpoons to keep him from sailing out into the void. Now that had been training. He smiled at himself.
Bryan took a cup and swigged it back, then brought it down again, sputtering. Gavin smiled wider. The kid had a few things to learn.
“Not a coffee lover?” Gavin nodded at Agent Van, who waited for the two of them, sans cappuccino.
Bryan coughed a bit. “Who, her? Doesn’t love anything, Van. ‘Cept maybe hand-to-hand combat.”
Van was more difficult to age than Bryan, probably because she lacked the almost innocent youthful stupidity he carried around like a badge. She had a hard face and cold eyes. An old soul, he wondered? Or just a bad childhood?
“You boys done sipping your tea?” She stared them down, her hands held behind her back.
“Cappuccino,” Bryan corrected.
“Whatever. Contact is down a ways. Let’s move along. I for one am eager to get out to where the action is.” She turned and led the way to a lift, which took them down to the underbelly of the station. Dolridge sighed. So much for the posh life.
Their contact was, naturally, a familiar shopkeep. She was wiping down her counter when Agents Van and Bryan walked in. At the sight of Gavin behind them, she shrunk down a few inches, her hands sliding away to beneath the counter.
“Gunman, back so soon? And with friends?”
She sounded nervous.
“Relax,” Gavin said. “We’re not here to check your books for backtaxes.”
She did seem to relax a little. “I don’t suppose you’re here to sample the sunglasses either,” she said.
Gavin shook his head.
“M’am,” Bryan said, “we were told to come to this shop and ask the owner how she likes her jeans fitted.”
The shopkeep gave him a look of disdain, and Bryan withered. “Loose,” she growled. “And really? That the best y’all can do? Council will fix up just about anyone with a job these days, won’t they?”
Van led the way around the counter, and they followed the shopkeep into her back room.
“Here it is,” she said, handing Van a datastick. Van looked it, expressionless. “It’s what you came for, isn’t it? Detailed records of any and all tradesman who passed through here on their way outward from the inner system. Ship IDs, timestamps. Receipts. Looking for Empire spies, aren’t ya?”
Gavin’s eyes narrowed. “What spies might that be?”
Van shot him a look. “That isn’t the mission,” she said. Her voice might almost have been pleasant, but for the frigid steeliness in the undertone. She pocketed the datastick. “This will go to the Council. But it isn’t why we’re here.”
“No?” The shopkeep frowned. “Then, ah… what can I do ya for?”
Van pulled out another datastick and handed it to her. “New job for you. You’re to keep your ear to the ground for two things: any news regarding the Empire—any at all—and anything anyone is saying about battle drones.”
“Huh. That first is a bit broad, don’t you think?”
“Trust me,” Van said. “You’ll know.”
Chapter 7
If you had told Lucas twenty-fours prior that all their fates rested on the ability of Ada and Lieutenant Caspar to work together, he would have wagered against any of them surviving the day.
Pleasantly, they seemed to be proving him wrong.
He had taken a nap and a shower, and he reemerged onto the bridge, coffee in one hand, cruller in the other, to find the two of them huddled over a pair of consoles, swiping, typing, and muttering, rather than punching, kicking, or cursing. Compared to his apprehensions, they looked positively collegial. He sank his teeth into his cruller, feeling quite proud of himself. Maybe he was beginning to get the hang of this whole leadership gig after all.
“No, no, NO! You pathetic excuse for a hacker! What is wrong with you?”
Or maybe not.
“What?” Ada stood up, defensive. “What’s wrong with it?”
“Everything!” Caspar spat. “Look. See that? And that? That bit is going to trigger a redundancy loop within nanoseconds, the system admin will smell a rat, and we’ll be booted before we even know we’ve been caught.”
“Are you sure? I thought that if—if…” Ada took the console device from Caspar and turned it sideways. Lucas frowned. Her methods seemed a bit more unorthodox than he had anticipated.
“How’s it going, ladies?” he asked.
>
“Fine!” they both snarled at him, snapping their heads up and then back to the screen again. He raised his coffee and cruller.
“Fine, fine. Ada, mind if I chat with Moses for a bit?” He asked almost as a joke, having every intention of making some wise crack at the AI, like asking him how to make a pirate and a lieutenant get along—but was surprised when Ada removed an earpiece and dropped it absentmindedly in his hand. He stared at it for a moment.
“I want that back when you’re done,” she said. “And clean.”
“Ah, sure.” He wiped it down and placed it gingerly on his right ear. It beeped.
“Hello, Captain Odin.” Moses’ voice was so clear and present, it almost sounded like it was in Lucas’ head.
“Hello?” Lucas said aloud. Ada turned to him, frowning.
“It’s subvocal,” she said, then turned back to the screen in Caspar’s hands.
Oh.
“Moses?” Lucas subvocalized.
“Yes, Sir. Nice to hear you. What can I do for you?”
Lucas sat in his chair and sipped his coffee. “Well, for starters, any great ideas for what Ada and the Lieutenant are working on?”
Beep. “They have tasked the main processors of the ship’s computer to run scenarios for them, but they haven’t invited me to partake in the creative planning phase.”
“Consider yourself invited.”
“Very well, Sir.”
“How are you at multitasking?”
“I’m used to running three mining carts at once. So I would say my capabilities have yet to be thoroughly tested.”
Was that a joke? Lucas felt his lips twitch into a half-smile. Who knew a computer could be funny? “Let’s test them a little, shall we? I need advice.”
Beep. “Very well, Sir. I advise you to give up sugar-coated carbohydrate-based confections, a known detriment to long-term health. And your level of coffee consumption is also questionable, if your goal is to maximize—”
“That’s fine, thank you, Moses. I meant on something specific.”
“Oh.”
The smile widened. It fell again when he remembered what he had to deal with, and all of the fallout—including Adams. “I have a deck and a brig full of would-be mutineers who, just days ago, watched as the only home they’d ever known got blown out of the sky in a massive nuclear fireball.”
“That is true, Sir.”
“These people are refugees.”
“That they are, Sir.”
“And some of them are also the dregs of the system—pirates, smugglers, pimps, dealers.”
“I am not familiar with all of that terminology, Sir.”
“Nevermind, I am. Point is, I don’t think I can trust them. And I can’t give them what they want right now. But I don’t feel right about keeping them locked up; to hear them tell it, that’s what put the mutinous feelings in their hearts to begin with.”
Beep. A long moment, then another beep. “I have completed a scan of the cardiorhythmic patterns of all souls on Deck 8 and in the Fairfax brig. I have detected nothing unusual with any of their hearts, Sir.”
Lucas sighed. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“Have I been helpful, Sir?”
“Maybe a little too much, Moses.”
“I only wish to help.”
“Me too. I think.”
---
“He was a Fleet man, through and through,” Lucas said. His voice, amplified over the ship’s comm, rang tinny and compressed in his own ear. They had been through so much in the past few weeks, but he still heard a lot of the old Lucas in that voice. Inadequate. Incompetent. Had he changed?
“Those of you who worked beneath him day in and day out often saw his rougher side, the old stardog Adams, who, for the life of him, probably never understood how he’d drawn the short straw and ended up sailing across the system with a ship full of privates and a handful of junior officers.” That drew some quiet laughter from the ranks. They were gathered on the hangar deck in full uniform and formation, a rare military sight on the Fairfax. Lucas caught Caspar’s eye. She nodded gently at him.
“But I hope you know,” he went on, “that no matter how gruffly he ever treated you, no matter how much he grumbled and yelled about pulling yourselves together to make the engines run, he loved you, Fairfax. Every last one of you.” He cleared his throat. “Those of us who were fortunate enough to work alongside him, we knew that. Adams was all heart. He will be sorely missed.”
He racked his mind for more words. There should be more, shouldn’t there? Adams had lived a longer life, had a longer career than any of the rest of them. His funeral shouldn’t be conducted by someone half his age. There should be old schoolmates, and former commanders, and officers in the prime of their careers who had once been young proteges. But no. None of them were here to say a word. Lucas nodded, realizing he had said all that needed saying for him and his crew.
The outer doors opened, venting the airlock and jettisoning Adam’s ashes out into the void.
You will be missed.
“As you were,” Caspar barked, and the ranks dispersed. Lucas stood a few minutes, gazing through the plexiglass and out through the empty airlock. An odd burial, to be vented into space. On Old Earth men had once been buried at sea, but that made more sense. At least there a body would feed the ecosystem. Out here? Adams’ ashes would disperse, carried on the momentum of the venting, until bit by bit they collided with other ships, asteroids, planets, stars. Adams had become one with the universe. Lucas pursed his lips. Maybe this burial made sense, after all.
“You look unusually pensive,” Caspar said. He started.
“Didn’t see you there.”
“Yeah. A lot going on lately.”
They stood in silence a moment.
“What do you think happens next?” Caspar gestured at the airlock.
Lucas shrugged. “Beyond his elements? Never been one to say.”
She smiled. “I hope he has plenty to drink, wherever he ends up.”
He snorted. “He’ll see to it.”
A beep sounded in Lucas’ ear. He looked around, forgetting the earpiece. “Captain?” Moses said.
“Moses!” he subvocalized. “What can I do for you?”
“I believe I may have some useful insights into Hive’s programming. Should I share it with you now, or would you prefer I speak to Ada or Lieutenant Caspar?”
“Hold that thought, Moses.” He glanced at Caspar. “Care to join me for a programming class?”
She raised an eyebrow. “You the teacher?”
“Nope.” He turned and headed for the lift to the bridge.
She shrugged and followed. “Well, alright then.”
Chapter 8
“You want to do what now?” Erick tried, and failed, to keep the hysteria from his voice. “Rylea, please, take a moment to think about this some more. Do you hear what you’re saying? This is the man that kidnapped you, goaded you into blowing up those fighters, locked you up on his friends’ ship, and left you there to die as soon as we came under attack. He is absolutely not to be trusted.” He rose to his feet, massaging his temples. The shuttle was small, but comfortable. The thought of Cyclops aboard made it seem considerably smaller, considerably less comfortable.
“I know all that. What do you think I’ve been doing the last two hours while we’ve floated around? I’ve given it plenty of thought, Erick.”
“And what are you doing, letting him into your head?”
She frowned. “He’s not in my head. I’m in his. Consider who has the power in this relationship. It isn’t him anymore.”
Erick sighed. She wasn’t making any sense to him. Wasn’t it obvious that they should leave the man to sort things out for himself, and get away while they could? If they wanted to be on the safe side, maybe they should shoot him out of the sky on their way so he couldn’t follow them.
Rylea’s frown deepened.
“You’re thinking about killing him again.�
�
“And you’re reading my thoughts again. Cut that out, Rylea!”
She shrugged. “I’m sorry. It’s hard right now—there’s just us out here. I’ll try to plug my ears. But you’re not exactly broadcasting your murderous intent quietly.”
“My murderous intent?” He scoffed. “Where have you been the past two weeks? This man… he’s dangerous. And I’ll tell you something. If he gets you under his power again, I’m really not sure if I have what it takes to stop him. You know, man-to-man, I mean.”
Now she scoffed. “Where have you been? I don’t need your protection anymore.”
“I don’t care if that’s what you think; I made a promise.”
“You don’t care what I think, and yet I’m supposed to respect your opinion?”
Erick forced himself to take a breath. Tempers were high, which was never a good thing when you were out in interplanetary space trapped in a shuttle smaller than the average apartment.
“You’re right,” she said, “we should calm down.”
He threw his hands up and groaned, exasperated.
“I’m sorry! I’m trying!” She fell into a chair, huffing.
“I believe you,” he said. “Doesn’t mean I like it, though.”
“I know.”
The worst part wasn’t that she wanted to link up with Cyclops’ shuttle. The worst part was knowing that she was having a telepathic conversation with that creep. Did they really know that Cyclops didn’t also possess “powers?” Who was to say she wasn’t being manipulated into siding with him?
Erick saw the corners of her mouth twitch downward, but she didn’t comment on his thoughts this time.
“Look,” she said. “I’ll tell you right away if I sense anything untoward from him.”
“Untoward?” He raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah, you know. I mean, more than the usual. He’s an odd fellow, that one, as it is.”
“Huh.” He sniffed. “What is that even like, being in his head?”
The Star Wizard Page 4
