Stars & Empire: 10 Galactic Tales

by Jay Allan

  “Why didn’t they?”

  “They were in a hurry. This project, it all came together very fast. It was quicker to hire people than to customize and order the necessary machinery.”

  She gave him a sly look. “Why the rush? Did they find something here?”

  Sollivan chuckled. “I’m not that easy, Holly.”

  “Then we’re a match. Because neither am I.”

  Not wanting to spook him, she danced back from the subject. An hour later, the PA chimed to indicate it was a half hour until lights out. Rada smiled and said goodnight.

  He invited her back for dinner two nights later. Again, they chatted; as coworkers, talk often turned to work. Rada did her best to pry out more info about the project, but fettered by the facts that a) she didn’t want to look too interested and b) Sollivan got cagey whenever they neared specifics, she garnered little.

  Outside in the works, they finished one dig, then a second. Another team came to pour foundations of plascrete. The day after, they put up the walls; the day after that, the roofs. The buildings were on the small side. Sealable, but lacking proper airlocks. Sheds, probably. Either that or single housing. Rada considered that unlikely, though.

  Unless they were planning to ship in scientists too prestigious to be crammed into the group housing so common to new colonies.

  “I think they’re going to dome the place over,” she told Ferri at breakfast.

  Ferri slurped her coffee. “You say that like it’s a tragedy.”

  “You don’t build domes to hold ships. There’s no way to get a vehicle that big inside without building an airlock a quarter of a mile long.”

  The woman grew suddenly pensive. “Well, you don’t spend tens of millions of dollars just to rush a colony, either. Maybe they’re building the settlement and will add the landing pad later. You snuck any peeks at Sollivan’s device? Bet that would clear up the mystery.”

  Ferri set her palm on the table and withdrew it. A small white button rested on the surface.

  “If you get some time alone with it, stick this to the device. Make sure you’ve got at least an hour. No interruptions.”

  Rada moved her hand over the button. “That’s kind of slow, isn’t it?”

  “Getting in without being noticed takes time. Choose your spot and choose it well—if we screw up, we won’t get a second chance.”

  That night, after dinner, Sollivan had his customary drink. During a pause, he smiled and excused himself to the bathroom. Rada waited for the click of the door and moved around his desk for a look at his device. It was unlocked. The screen showed the day’s pictures from the dig. She flicked around its files. The interface was the same as the IRP-provided device she’d been given. The bathroom whooshed. She returned the device to the pictures and sat down.

  Sollivan came back to the office, smoothing his shirt. “Hey, who’s your friend?”

  “My friend?”

  “Black hair, about yay long.” He held his hand flat against the side of his chin. “Always looks like she’s just thrown her quitting papers in the boss’ face.”

  “Ferri,” Rada laughed. “She came up to me at breakfast one day, asked me what I thought of the food. Total stranger. She’s like that. Enjoys complaining, acting like she knows how to run the entire moon.”

  “What is her job?”

  “Know what? I don’t even know.” She changed the subject.

  As she left, he kissed her goodbye. It wasn’t the first time. But this time he moved into it with the determination of a boxer. For a moment, Rada let herself get lost in it, arms wrapped around him.

  She withdrew and touched her lip. “Night, Sollivan.”

  As she left, he watched her go, a smile painted on his mouth. His eyes were hungry. Rada was tempted—it would make it that much easier to get him to talk, to learn what she wanted. Maybe to find a chance to drop the button on his device. It wouldn’t be flat-out exploiting herself—she knew she would enjoy it, too. She liked him.

  And that was why she couldn’t.

  In the field, a third building went up, followed by a fourth. The teams began to draw a long, deep, circular trench around the outskirts of the entire site. She was right: they were putting up a dome.

  They all got one day off per week, staggered so that work continued without interruption. That Thursday afternoon, however, the officers announced a mandatory meeting for all employees. Rada gathered with the others in the cafeteria. She spotted Ferri, but kept her distance. Sollivan stood with the officers near the front.

  A knee-high platform had been set against the wall for the occasion. While the workers muttered speculation about what was going on, a tall man strode onto the stage, his tailored blue suit clinging to his body. Rada recognized him from the IRP files she’d gone over before shipping out. He was a young admiral, outside the institution’s orthodoxy but growing in popularity.

  “Greetings, new members of the Immortal Republic of Poseidon family!” His voice was amplified by unseen speakers. “When I first envisioned this project, there were those who said it couldn’t be done. They said it was too ambitious. Too reliant on unproven workers with no connection to our proud nation.”

  He paced down the stage, hands folded behind his back. “Privately, I set three time tables for us: Impossible, Ambitious, and Expected. I think they explain themselves. Today, I am enthralled to announce that we have exceeded the Ambitious and are knocking on the door of the Impossible.”

  The man paused, smiling down at them. In the front, the officers applauded and whistled. This was taken up with somewhat less enthusiasm by the rank and file.

  “Leaping ahead of schedule like we are, you’d think now would be the last time for a break. But I want you to know that your work is appreciated. I want you to know that if you strive for your best, it will be noticed. Tonight, I’m here to prove it. As of today, every employee here will receive an 8% bonus to your base pay.”

  This drew real cheers, front to back. The admiral smirked.

  “If we stick on this pace? If we accomplish the Impossible? That bonus will climb to 25%. And that’s not all!” He flung out his arms. “For the next two days, both shifts have the day off. Eat, drink, be merry.” He grinned, widest yet. “Just don’t be so merry that you’re not ready to get back to work.”

  The room erupted in applause. A rumble filled the air: servers were rolling tables of food and drinks in through the doors. The cafeteria filled with the smell of grilled beef, corn on the cob, pepper, and butter. All of it was real. Rada couldn’t look away.

  The tables were swarmed on the spot. With no intention of exchanging elbows with the rabble, Rada hung back. A few minutes later, Sollivan appeared beside her, party cup in hand.

  He saw her staring at the cup and raised his brows. “Should I have gotten you one?”

  “I’m good,” she smiled. “Who was that?”

  “Evans. Hobart Evans. He’s been in charge of this operation from the very start.”

  “As in logistics?”

  Sollivan swung his head side to side. “It was his idea. His vision. Everything that’s coming, it’s coming from him.”

  “And who is he, exactly?”

  “An up-and-comer at IRP. Started off an underling for fleet operations and worked his way up to Rear Admiral, special operations.” Sollivan chuckled. “The way he’s talking, it looks like he’s gunning for office.”

  Miraculously, there was plenty of food left when the crowd dispersed enough for Rada to get to the tables. She ate alongside Sollivan and some of his friends. The cafeteria roared with talk, laughter, and drinking games, most of which Rada recognized. Sollivan’s officer friends were hitting the bottle hard and Rada kept both ears open, prompting them with questions whenever the opening arose. Drunk as they got, they stuck to the script.

  As the evening wound down, Sollivan took her hand and walked her to his quarters. They passed through the office and into his main living room, which featured its own couch, wall s
creen, and fridge. He flipped on a movie, lowered the lights, and sat beside her on the couch.

  Within five minutes, they were kissing. He tasted like bourbon, but it was the real stuff and Rada didn’t mind. He gripped her hips. One hand moved to her breast. She pulled away. So did he. He sighed and shook his head.

  “What?” she said.

  “Don’t ‘what’ me.”

  “I like you. Really. Enough to want to take it slow.”

  He reached for his glass on the table. “There’s slow and there’s glacial. At a certain point, you can’t help but think there’s something wrong.”

  “Sollivan, I’m here, okay? Haven’t I been here?”

  “What’s the point when we don’t want the same thing?” He got up, turned his back. “Why don’t you go home? I think that would be best.”

  “You’re right.” Seated on the couch, Rada clasped her wrists between her knees. “There is something wrong. A few months back, I was dating this guy. We were out on a job. Pounding rock. There was an accident.”

  Back turned, Sollivan went still. “He—? Holly, I’m so sorry.”

  “It happened like that. One second he’s fine—so tough, telling jokes—and the next, he’s gone.”

  “Were you together long?”

  “Six months. Something like that. Honestly, I don’t think we would have lasted much longer. But that doesn’t change how it feels.”

  “I would ask why you didn’t tell me.” Sollivan turned, meeting her eyes. “But I understand why you didn’t.”

  The air system whispered, sucking away the spent air and replacing it with fresh oxygen. Rada stared at the bottle on the table. She hadn’t touched a drink since the destruction of the Turtle. Stopping had been her pledge to them; if she hadn’t let herself slide down the hole of Stem’s death, maybe she could have prevented theirs. Right now, though, breaking that pledge might be what it took to get them justice.

  She hoped that was why she was doing what she was about to do.

  “Oh, fuck it. Pour me a drink.”

  He rubbed his mouth. “We can just be here. It’s okay.”

  “It’s time I cut loose for once. Gave myself a break. You want to do this?” She grinned fiercely. “Then we’re gonna do it right. Locker rules.”

  “Locker rules?” He laughed in disbelief, taking a step toward the table. “When did you spend time at the Locker?”

  “No need to call the cops. I wasn’t a pirate. I just had some rude friends.” She got up and exhaled shakily. “Bring me your shot glasses.”

  He produced them. She poured them full and lined them up on the table. He got out cups and dice. Every station in the system had a dice-based bluffing game, but Locker rules meant that more often than not, both parties drank. Within thirty minutes, Sollivan was seated on the floor, slumped against the couch. Thirty minutes after that, he was sprawling on the rug, forearm draped over his eyes. Rada brought him to the bathroom to vomit. Once he finished, she helped him to bed, his arm slung around her shoulder.

  “You’re too nice to me,” he said. “Pretty, too.”

  “I might be pretty.” She pulled the sheets up to his shoulders. “But I’m not as nice as you think.”

  She watched him snore for ten minutes, then went to his office and sat at the desk. As usual, he’d left his device unlocked. She set the white button on top of it. It snugged fast. A red light appeared in its center. As she waited for it to hoover up the contents of the device, she paged around his files. Maybe not the world’s best idea, but she was drunk enough that she didn’t give a shit.

  Most of the files were text. Memos. Boring crap. She pulled up the images, paging through thumbnails. Floor plans flashed by. She scrolled back up. The plans were larger than the current complex. At first, she thought she was looking at the scheme for the finished installation.

  She leaned closer. She was wrong. The design only looked larger because there was a second level—underground.

  Its main chamber was enormous. Hundreds of feet to a side. That was why the officer had blown his stack when the diggers had sunk too deep. He hadn’t wanted them to scrape the top of what was hidden beneath.

  Rada pored over the maps. There were three entrances to the sub-level, all of which were behind the hallway separating the officers from the crew. There in Sollivan’s quarters, she was already past the dividing line.

  She poured herself a drink and continued to study the plans. As soon as the button’s red light turned green, she removed it from the device and returned to his bedroom. He kept his suit in his closet. She took it out and put it on, tinting the mask so her face was a mere suggestion.

  The hallways were dead silent; everyone was passed out drunk or retired to private parties. She walked swiftly to the elevator nearest Sollivan’s rooms. The doors were locked electronically, but she’d seen him pass through such doors on dozens of occasions. She waved her arm-mounted device and the doors parted.

  Inside, she punched the button for the lower level. The elevator clunked and descended.

  Fifteen seconds later, the doors opened to a high tunnel. Emboldened by the booze, she walked forward and took a right down the first hallway she saw, following the path she’d memorized from the map. Another couple of turns, and she found herself on a catwalk overlooking a massive cavern. Down its middle, the segmented cylinder of the alien ship lay at rest.

  CHAPTER 12

  Rada gaped drunkenly at the alien vessel. It hadn’t been long since she’d seen it. Since she’d been inside it. Watched Stem die to its long-dormant defenses. Seeing it now, she wanted nothing more than to run to it, plant a bomb on it, and destroy it.

  Yet there were differences since her last encounter with it. A giant set of engines had been grafted or attached to its stern. Smaller maneuvering jets speckled its sides. A shuttle was perched high on its prow. Besides these additions, the outside looked untouched, pristine. She thought she had the gist: hide it here, rush in a crew to construct facilities and housing, then get the schlubs off site before shipping in the engineers, scientists, and mechanics who’d go to work on the ship.

  Below her, footsteps rang across the vastness of the cavern. A silhouetted figure walked along the side of the ship, dwarfed by it. Rada backed down the tunnel and returned to the elevator.

  She hustled back to Sollivan’s. He was still asleep. She made sure he was on his side and breathing evenly. She stripped out of her suit, ran its auto-cleaning routine, and hung it back in his closet. She walked through the office and moved to the front door. Her hand hesitated on the handle. She turned and went to the bed and curled in beside Sollivan. He smelled like liquor and fresh sweat, but it was nice to lie in the darkness and listen to him breathe.

  She woke to a hangover that reminded her why she’d quit doing that. She didn’t feel like making breakfast, but he had artificial coffee that was almost not quite indistinguishable from the real thing. While she was on her second cup, he wandered into the kitchenette, eyes puffy, hair askew.

  “Hey.” She pointed to the machine. “Coffee.”

  He went for it, blinking, then sat across from her with a weary thud. “You stayed?”

  Rada laughed. “Wanted to make sure you were okay. Then I sort of drifted off.”

  “I don’t remember much, but I think you beat me. Let’s never play Locker rules again.” He sipped his coffee, then glanced at her. “So, did we..?”

  “Don’t worry. You were far too busy aiming your face at the toilet to get any ideas.”

  “May have to correct that later. Assuming the sight of me with my face in a toilet hasn’t turned you off me forever.”

  “Somehow it hasn’t. Not sure if that says more about me, you, or the quality of the other guys around here.” She finished her coffee and stood. “I need to get home. Was fun.”

  She gave him a peck and walked out. She ducked into the cafeteria on her way back to her bunk. Seeing no sign of Ferri, she went home to shower and clean up. When she went back for break
fast, she spotted Ferri and sat beside her.

  “You look like scraped shit,” Ferri said.

  “I was celebrating.” Rada palmed the white button and set it on the table between their trays. “Don’t think you’ll need it. The package—it’s in the basement.”

  Ferri’s brows shot up. With her eyes, she gestured to the floor. Rada nodded.

  Ferri pocketed the button. “How do you know?”

  “Saw it. It’s been there since before we got here.”

  “I suppose I’ve got a job to do.” Ferri gouged her spoon into some corn paste. “Right after I’m done eating.”

  -o0o—

  Rada spent the rest of the day napping, reading, and telling herself that it was better to let the aches and fuzziness go away than to try to fight them with a second round. As afternoon shifted toward evening, and the revelry began anew, she went to the cafeteria to find Sollivan, but he was nowhere to be seen. She hung around the periphery until she couldn’t stand the partying crewmen any longer, then went home and slept.

  He wasn’t at breakfast, either. It was the last day of the site’s mini holiday and she was annoyed enough to use her work device to ping him. On her way to lunch, he came up behind her in the hall.

  “Where have you been?” she said. “Still recovering?”

  He tried to smile, but his expression was too brittle. He glanced down the hall. “I wanted to see you. But I didn’t have a choice. Holly, we have to quit doing this.”

  “Doing what? Seeing each other? If this is about the other night, I told you, nothing happened.”

  “I got called in by my superior. I have been ordered to immediately cease my romantic relationship with you or face termination.”

  Rada blinked at him. “I didn’t even know we were doing anything wrong.”

  “There’s nothing in the regulations.” He smiled bitterly. “Probably because they never had time to write up the regulations. But there was a complaint. The powers that be decided it’s inappropriate.”