Stars & Empire: 10 Galactic Tales

by Jay Allan

  “Who complained?”

  “It was anonymous. I spent an hour arguing my case. After that, I was too mad to come see you.” A man appeared down the hall. Sollivan waited for him to pass. “There’s nothing to be done about it.”

  Rada spread her hands. “Okay.”

  “Okay.” He leaned forward and hugged her awkwardly. “It was fun. I think.”

  Sollivan turned and walked away. Rada stood there, uncertain whether to feel annoyed she’d lost her source, or relieved that she no longer had to pretend. Her eyes stung. She was on the brink of tears? She had gone through too much in too little time. All she wanted was for this to be over.

  A woman clopped down the hall. With nowhere else to go, Rada went to the garage and cleaned down the carts until the feelings passed.

  At dinner, Ferri got in line behind her. They filled their trays and Ferri shepherded her to a peripheral table.

  “Ten days,” the woman said.

  Rada sighed at her food. “Until?”

  “New management arrives.”

  “They mean to take it?”

  “Whole hog. No more messing around.”

  “I’ll mark my calendar.” Rada prodded a chunk of white paste. “You complained, didn’t you? About Sollivan.”

  “Sure,” Ferri said.

  “Why?”

  “Because we’re finished here. Waiting out the clock. We can’t let ourselves get distracted—or become distractions.”

  “Tell me everything you know about Hobart Evans.”

  “He’s a dick,” Ferri said. “There, that’s everything I know.”

  Rada sipped her water. The filtration system was as hasty as everything about the installation and the water tasted like sulfur. “I think he gave the order. The one that started everything.”

  “Like I said. Dick.”

  “You’ve got the copy of the device, don’t you? Maybe he admitted to it somewhere.”

  “Admits to a heinous crime?”

  “He’s a braggart,” Rada said. “He thinks he’s about to take over IRP. Lead it out of debt and into the promised land. Grab a seat among the system’s major players. To do that, he needs to frame his role, claim ownership of the narrative. Somewhere in the memos, he’s admitted what he did. I’d bet my left ass cheek.”

  “That wouldn’t be much of a loss,” Ferri muttered. “Anyway, this is beyond the purview of our duties.”

  “I know how this is going to go down. They’ll come in, get what they came for, and get out. Like a scalpel.” She picked up her knife. “I’m going to stay behind. Finish my job. I won’t interfere with the primary.”

  The woman eyed her. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  -o0o-

  Vacation concluded. They got back to work. For the first time in ages, Rada was glad to be out on the carts. It gave her something to do besides think of Hobart Evans.

  The workers started to lay the foundation of a large central building. Group housing, possibly the main research facility. Rada found it difficult to be interested. In nine days, this place would be obsolete.

  She took an icepick from the garage, carrying it with her wherever she went. Now that she knew who Hobart Evans was, she spotted him everywhere: he liked to mingle, to inject his presence into the progress of his workers. Along with the stripes on his shoulders, his suit had a wide red band down its helmet. When Rada saw him on the dig, she imagined how easy it would be to divert the cart and smash him flat, filling his tailored environmental suit with the spaghetti bolognese of his innards.

  At t-minus seven days, she ran into Sollivan in the halls. He smiled awkwardly and sadly and made to walk past without a word.

  “Hey,” Rada blurted. “This job won’t last forever, will it?”

  “I sure hope not.” He laughed, rubbing his short-clipped hair. “This place is making me claustrophobic. I’ve seen so much yellow I’ll never eat a banana again.”

  “Then when it’s all over, can’t we give it another shot? If we still want to. If we’re both okay.”

  His eyes ticked between hers. “I’ll wait if you will.”

  “That won’t be any problem,” she said. “The only thing I’ve got is time.”

  He smiled, eyes crinkling, and walked down the hall. She didn’t know if she was making the right move—if all went to plan, she would soon kill Evans. If she succeeded in that, she doubted she would ever make it off Io.

  But she did know how tenuous intentions could be. How easy it was for the tightest plan to unravel into a nest of broken threads. How simple it was for life to slip past you, leaking away like atmosphere though a pinprick hole, and you didn’t know anything was missing until you started gasping.

  No one knew how much air was in the cab or when it might be torn apart by a sudden fall. All you could do was breathe deep and drive ahead.

  Maybe all that time babysitting carts had taught her something after all.

  She hauled rocks from the site to the dump. The frame of the big building went up, climbing sixty feet above the canary-spotted soil. Men and machines pasted on walls. As she drove past, Rada saw the suit with the red-striped helmet, its inhabitant watching from the sidelines, hands on hips.

  Ferri ate with her a few times, enough to sustain the illusion of their friendship, but had no news. Not until a week later, with three days before the arrival of the Hive’s fleet.

  “We’re still on schedule.” Ferri tipped back a glass of something orange and chugged. “When the time comes, rendezvous in the bathroom by the second entrance to the officers’ side. That’s where they’ll pick us up.”

  “I’m not going, remember?”

  “Thought you would have changed your mind. In that case, you were right about Evans. It was him.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I had less to work with than you’d think,” Ferri said. “Sollivan’s device is need-to-read only. Only has access to a slice of the network. But it was all over Evans’ memos. One place, he’s talking about how a frontier doesn’t belong to the first person to put their footprints on it, but the first person to put their name on it—and that IRP is ‘on the brink of carving its name on the stars.’ In another, he’s talking about how it’s imperative they annex Nereid. ‘As the soil from which the seed of the new IRP sprung.’”

  Rada glanced across the cafeteria. “Hard to get much more definitive than that.”

  “Not unless you beat the confession out of him. Anyway, been nice working with you.”

  Rada finished her breakfast. By the time she dumped her tray, she had decided that she would kill him.

  Rada prepared the trunk beneath her bed. A spare suit, taken from the garage for “cleaning.” Extra O2 she’d ferreted away days before. Packaged food and water they were able to buy from the vending machines between meals using company credit. She had been watching Evans close enough to have a loose idea of his schedule, but she doubted he’d be adhering to it after the invasion.

  The day before the Hive was slated to arrive, Rada headed to the garage, suited up, hopped in her cart, and took it down to the latest dig, another hole alongside the growing central building. At lunch, she took her break, then returned to work. Evans’ little holiday had done its job, inspiring the grunts to tear up dirt and throw down walls like their lives depended on it. Or their next taste of booze, anyway.

  Late that afternoon, she waited for the workers to load up the cart, then peeled out to make another deposit. Halfway there, her device pinged.

  “Holly?” It was Sollivan, voice-only. “Holly, are you there?”

  She turned up the volume to better hear over the rattling of the cart. “What’s up?”

  “Turn around. Come back to the garage.”

  “I’m on my way to the dump. I’ll be back in ten, okay?”

  “Get back here right now!”

  “Now? Sollivan, what’s going on?”

  “Can’t talk,” he said. “Get to the garage. Don’t stop for anything.”


  She killed the autopilot and swung the vehicle around, plumes of yellow dust gushing from her tires. Ahead, the construction teams continued to pound away on the buildings. She pushed the accelerator forward and the cart bounced over the frozen ground. Outside the garage, she rolled into the airlock and requested entry. It offered no response. She tried again and the doors rolled open.

  Past the airlock, scores of plain-clothed workers crowded the garage, clustering around harried-looking officers.

  “Incoming warships, that’s what!” one of the red-suited women barked at a construction worker. “This isn’t a drill. This is legitimate, act-now emergency. Right now, I need everyone to line up in front of the airlocks! We’re going to load you up and get you to a secure location.”

  Rada wandered toward the crowds. An officer broke from the group and intercepted her.

  “Ma’am, I’m going to need your suit,” he said. “This is an emergency.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Right now, our security team needs every available suit. Okay? Their lives are depending on it.”

  She unsealed her helmet. The officer helped strip off her suit. Once he had it in hand, he smiled and pointed to the line gathering at the airlock. “Right over there, ma’am. They’ll take you to evac.”

  When she hesitated, he took her elbow and guided her toward the line of frightened faces. The airlock doors grumbled open and the workers filed inside, heading toward a boxy vehicle parked in the lock. As she and the officer neared, Sollivan stepped in front of them.

  “Just who I’ve been looking for.” He nodded at Holly. “I’ll take it from here, Squires.”

  The other officer glanced between them, saluted, and jogged off.

  “Evac?” Rada said. “Someone said something about warships?”

  “Walk with me.” Sollivan started to the exit.

  The airlock cycled closed. Sollivan broke into a jog. Ahead, officers beckoned running workers into the garage. The officers all wore suits. A few carried rifles. Behind Rada, screams pierced the echoing space.

  “The doors are open!” At the airlock, a woman was pointing at the screens above it. “They’re dying!”

  “Sollivan!” Rada hissed.

  He shook his head hard. More screams filled the vast chamber. Rada glanced back. The workers at the lock surged forward, running from the doors. The red-suited security dropped to their knees, leveled their guns, and opened fire with a flurry of soft pops. The front line of workers flopped and sprawled, bleeding and thrashing. The others shrieked and scattered.

  Sollivan grabbed her hand and pulled her through the exit. They dashed through a clot of confused workers being beckoned toward the chaos by the officers minding them. The officers saw Sollivan’s red bars and let them pass. He took the next right, brought her to the door to the officers’ side, and keyed through.

  The door closed behind them, sealing out the screams. Sollivan raced to his quarters. Inside, he moved to his desk and punched buttons on his device.

  “There’s a spare suit in my closet,” he said. “If you want to live, put it on.”

  She brushed past him to his living room. The air smelled like his skin, his clothes; she’d missed it.

  She grabbed the suit and took it back to the office. “Were they throwing people out the airlock? What the fuck?”

  “It’s Plan Red.” Sollivan glanced up at the ceiling, then back to his device. “They’re cleaning house.”

  “Of what?”

  “Everyone they don’t control. Holly, the work we’ve been doing, it’s just the tip of the iceberg.”

  She pulled the suit up past her hips. “What’s the real project?”

  He laughed. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. But you saw what happened in the garage. This isn’t the first time they’ve killed for it.” He brought his device to her and swiped it over her forearm. “There. You’re an officer now. If anyone asks, I deputized you—but try not to make anyone ask.”

  Rada got the suit over her shoulders. He helped seal her hood and checked her device.

  “We’re going downstairs.” He jogged to the door. “And we’re getting you on a ship.”

  The hallway was silent. “What about you?”

  “I may be able to save some of them. I have to try.” Sollivan flashed a grin. “Don’t worry, there’s more than one ride out of here.”

  The elevator arrived with a soft chime. They descended. In the caverns below, people in red suits hurried down the tunnels. Sollivan brought her down a ramp to one of the other chambers she’d seen on the map days earlier. Three ships sat in the yawning space, two hefty frigates and a sleek clipper. A line of officers waited to board each one. Sollivan started toward the clipper, then diverted toward the nearer frigate.

  “Stay here and you’ll be fine,” he said. “Don’t worry. I won’t let them leave without me.”

  She squeezed his hand. “Thank you, Sollivan.”

  He winked and ran back toward the elevator. As soon as he was gone, Rada turned to scan the others waiting to be allowed inside the ships. They all wore suits, faces obscured by their helmets and hoods. Most glanced continuously at the devices on their arms. Rada’s scrolled with updates, but the words were heavy with acronyms and phrases that meant nothing to her.

  A security officer walked down the line, scanning their devices. Rada held up her arm and met his eyes. He checked her and moved on. The door of the ship opened. The first passengers climbed the collapsible stairs and filed inside. Rada shuffled forward.

  Back at the entrance to the underground bay, a suited figure strode inside, surrounded by four security members in bulkier combat suits. The man in the middle had a red stripe down his helmet.

  Rada drifted from the line and walked toward the frigate at the other end of the bay. She skirted the edge of the officers there, vaguely paralleling the security team. Evans entered a side passage. Rada followed, lingering well behind the heavy tread of his soldiers. After fifty feet, the tunnel bent to the right and continued on. It was dim, but wide enough to permit a cart, and she had to wait for Evans to emerge into the space beyond before she was able to move forward.

  The tunnel spat her into an even larger cavern. To her right, the alien ship claimed the center of the space. The human engines grafted to its aft vibrated lowly. At the ship’s open airlock, more security emerged to meet Hobart Evans. Rada moved along the cavern wall and ducked behind a hulking green cylinder. At the ship, someone spoke too gently for her to hear.

  “I don’t care,” Evans said. “This ship is the only thing that matters. We mobilized it for a reason. Is it any more dangerous than a seat on the clipper?”

  The soft-voiced man said something more.

  “This ship is mine,” Evans barked. “I will not leave it.” He lowered his tone. “Besides, Taylor, think this through. If they’re here, they’re here for this. They’ll want to keep it safe just as much as we do. It will be the least dangerous place in the fleet.”

  The security officer drew his feet together and saluted. He gestured to his people. Three of them detached and ran back toward the tunnel entrance. Rada shrank behind the cover of the cylinder. The three officers entered the tunnel, footsteps fading. When Rada risked a look out, the last of the others was climbing the ramp into the ship.

  She glanced up at the catwalks. Empty. She got from behind the cylinder and walked toward the segmented ship. The airlock’s outer doors clunked and began to close. She broke into a sprint and squeezed inside.

  She knew the way ahead: it was the same way she and Simm and Yed had taken when they’d first stepped aboard. The passage was clear. She reached the intersection where the laser had cut Simm down, then turned down its right branch, moving deeper into the ship. Footsteps rasped ahead. She ducked into the exercise room and hid herself behind a wide, alien-sized treadmill. The room was dark, the light of the hall casting spindly shadows from the bars of the equipment.

  Her device beeped. She muted it and
killed the display. A silhouette appeared in the doorway, glanced across the room, and withdrew.

  Rada still had her icepick strapped to her calf. She unsealed her suit from her boot and withdrew the blade. It felt good in her hand, but the security detail had guns. She cast about the room, looking for anything more substantial. She wished she’d thought to have Sollivan find Ferri—Rada had a strong feeling the other woman would have an idea or three about dealing with security—but everything had happened so fast. She didn’t even know if Ferri was still alive.

  While she was trying to pry a metal bar from one of the machines, the whole ship began to rumble. Rada got in a corner and pressed herself into it. With a lurch, the ship tore free of the ground and took to the sky.

  SHIP’S LOG: 4

  A blue beam sliced into the captain’s skull. He died on his feet.

  The room erupted in violence. Perhaps the plumbs of my mind suspected this was coming. Perhaps it was luck. Perhaps it was the Way. Whatever had caused it, I was beside the door. Unarmed, I fled into the tunnels.

  Within seconds, the captain’s loyalists were slain. Tton’s mutineers chased me into the halls. But I was the tender of the ship, in contact with its mind. I asked it to assemble its defenses. The weapons inside its body meant to repel foreign invaders.

  Blue beams lashed from the ceilings, cutting down my pursuit. One by one, they fell to their graves in the halls that had once been their home. Yet Tton was crafty; he hid himself from the hellfire and vanished. The ship could not recognize me from the others. To avoid its wrath, I took the side ways to the second command center in the aft.

  And found that Tton had arrived there first.

  “You are all that stands before me,” he said. “Now we will see who the Way favors.”

  He raised his laser. By instinct, I whipped it from his grasp. He fell upon me, hammerpods lashing me, battering my limbs. He was trained and I was not. He beat me to the ground. I felt my blood pool around me. A final blow cracked my skull against the floor.