She inclined her head. “The Ixa knew that we were here. They hunted us for months. That was why you had such trouble finding me…because my family and I were in hiding, deep beneath the ocean. It is by mere chance that I glimpsed one of your fighters as I ventured to the surface to see how things were.”
“The Vesta won’t leave until we figure out a way to safely transport you and your children,” Husher said. “Ochrim is with us, and he just made a breakthrough that will likely revolutionize—well, everything. If he can do that, he can surely find a way to bring you home with us. I’ll put him on it.”
“I thank you,” Ek said.
That wasn’t all Husher had to say on the subject of Ek and her family joining them, but for now, he held his peace. The truth was, he wanted Ek in his CIC. Her uncanny perception had gotten the Providence out of some incredibly tight jams during the Second Galactic War, and they needed her now more than ever.
“I trust you know what the Ixa’s reappearance means for the galaxy, Captain,” Ek said.
“I think I do. But I’d be interested in hearing your perspective.”
“During the Second Galactic War, you defeated a single AI—the one that created the Ixa. That AI’s project was to dominate this galaxy, just as its counterparts were assigned with dominating the local galactic cluster. I consider it unlikely that very many of the AIs failed. On the contrary: I believe that this galaxy was one of the very few who successfully resisted them.” Ek’s gaze drifted to the sky. “If I am right, then in order to complete their domination of this galaxy cluster, they will need to stamp us out, once and for all.” Slowly, Ek shook her head. “This time, victory will require more than defeating just the Ixa, or even just defeating an AI. This time, victory demands that you find the creators of the AIs themselves, and it demands that you render them unable to perpetrate these actions against any sentient species, ever again.”
“Agreed,” Husher said after a brief pause. “But ‘render them unable’ sounds kind of sanitized. You mean that I’ll need to kill them, or enough of them that they become a pale shadow of what they are now.”
“We do not yet know what form their society takes,” Ek said. “But at the very least, you will have to destroy the parts of that society which enable it to wage war.”
Nodding, Husher turned back toward the shuttle. “I think I’d better go talk to Ochrim about getting you back to the Interstellar Union. There are some bureaucrats I’d very much like to introduce you to.”
Chapter 65
Not the Time
On his way across the desert into Cybele, Husher came across an overweight woman sitting in the sand, her hands covering her face. Sobs racked her body, and she didn’t seem to notice him until he spoke.
“Snyder?”
Her hands jerked away from her face, which was red and puffy. “Husher,” she said, having apparently dropped her frequent use of his title, which she’d always delivered with a note of disdain, to his ears.
“You’re…” He shook his head. He’d been about to remark on how her overlay wasn’t turned on, but she no doubt knew that already. In truth, he had no idea what to say. Snyder had caused him no end of trouble, these past weeks, and she’d been one of the main obstacles between him and doing his job. Even so, he took no satisfaction in seeing her like this.
“What happened?” he said at last.
“I added the wings of a Winger to my overlay. I’ve always had such respect for the Wingers…I’ve always felt like I should have been born as one. I’d been thinking about adding the wings for a long time, going back and forth on them, but finally, I decided they were the truest expression of who I am. So I added them.”
He shook his head. “And?”
“And the narrownet exploded. They said I was appropriating Winger culture, making a mockery of it, by acting like I could understand the oppression they’ve been through. They called for my resignation, and at first I just ignored them, but the pressure kept building and building until there were students outside my door and outside my window, screaming, and cursing, and…”
Snyder trailed off, replacing her head in her hands. She resumed sobbing. “Well?” she said, her voice made scratchy and wet by her crying. “Are you going to gloat about this or not?”
“No,” he said quietly, and Snyder lowered her hands, frowning. Her red-rimmed eyes met his. “I don’t take any pleasure in what’s happened to you, Snyder,” he continued. “It only makes me fear for the future. With crisis on our doorstep, now is not the time for our society to be devouring itself.”
He continued walking, then, toward the city. But he paused, and he spoke again without looking back.
“If you need somewhere to stay, away from Cybele, while you decide what you’ll do next…message me on my com. I’ll find you somewhere in the crew section.”
She cursed him in reply, and Husher nodded, continuing his walk toward the city. His lower lip tightened as he fought the urge to weep as well—not because she’d cursed him, but because of what it signified about humanity: the bitterness and the folly. The readiness to answer failure by tearing one’s self apart, along with anyone within arm’s reach.
It reminded him of his conversation with Ochrim in the Ixan’s living room, and it made him want to weep, in a way that not even being stripped of command had done.
Epilogue
Jake Price
Seaman Jake Price stalked the corridors of Tartarus Station daily, trying to get some good out of the bureaucrats stationed there whenever he glimpsed them out in the open. That was rare, and whenever he did see them, they were usually accompanied by a bodyguard or two, who stared Jake down until the conversation came to an end.
He could hardly believe the way he and his companions were being treated. They’d been required to relinquish their ships and military hardware, which they’d done, as a gesture of goodwill. Then, they’d been shuttled here to “wait on word” to come down from the Interstellar Union, the new governing body for the Milky Way.
But word never came, and the bureaucrats brushed him off with weasel words. Their skill in saying empty things that amounted to artful dodges of every question he asked…it was unlike anything he was used to, after growing up in the Steele System. He’d heard all about the liberals who’d taken over the Milky Way government just before Darkstream’s exile from the galaxy, but he’d always taken those stories with some skepticism. People tended to descend into caricature when describing those they viewed as their political opponents, so Jake had never quite believed that the Milky Way politicians could be anywhere near as controlling, wishy-washy, or pretentious as the old-timers said.
But whether their stories had been caricatures or not, the people on this station exceeded them. The number of times he’d been condescended to or smarmed in the phoniest ways…it made him want to vomit. He’d never been much for politics, but these people were almost forcing him to cement his position on things, to become just like those old-timers had been.
The civilians Jake and his teammates had saved from the Progenitors’ onslaught had been transported and housed at Imbros, a planetary colony nearby. God only knew how they were faring.
Worst of all, the bureaucrats had Jake’s mech, and the longing he felt for it contributed in no small part to his constant irritation. He dreamed about it every night, but never about piloting it, strangely. In his worst nightmares, the mech walked away from him, to turn on those he considered friends.
He took lunch every day with Ash Sweeney, his best friend and fellow mech pilot. She’d been one of the original members of Oneiri Team, the eight Darkstream soldiers who’d piloted the first MIMAS mechs. Half of the original Oneiri Team were dead or missing after the war they’d fought back in the Steele System, but the members who remained were closer than ever.
“You remember how Roach used to talk about Vin Husher all the time?” Ash had asked him at lunch earlier that day. Roach had been the original commander of Oneiri Team, before he’d gone insa
ne and murdered one of the pilots under his command. They’d abandoned Roach in the Steele System, which had been in the process of getting torn apart by the Progenitors at the time.
“Yeah,” Jake said, chuckling. “Liberal pansy, he usually called him.”
“Well, I heard some guards talking, and apparently he’s bogeyman number one for the government, these days.”
“Are you telling me Roach’s ‘pansy liberal’ is not liberal enough for this government?’” Jake shook his head. “Roach has to be rolling in his grave.”
“Assuming Roach is dead.”
Jake’s mirth died down, then. “Yeah.”
Now, Jake was back to marching through the station. His favorite question was to ask whether he and the other former Darkstream soldiers were being officially detained—and, in turn, it was the question the bureaucrats were getting the best at avoiding answering. He also liked to ask them whether they considered he and his fellow soldiers guilty of any particular crime.
At an intersection of corridors up ahead, a four-legged alien strode into view. Her presence, as well as that of her brethren, probably played a big part in the bureaucrats’ reluctance to let the arrivals from the Steele System join the rest of galactic society, but Jake didn’t hold that against her. He was finally starting to trust Rug, which was the human word the alien had chosen to name herself. Rug was a Quatro, and Quatro didn’t have names.
She glimpsed Jake, then she made for him at once, at a speed that made him think something was probably up. Rug was larger than the largest horse, with a royal purple coat and midnight eyes. She roughly resembled a bear in shape, though her broad head and powerful tail put Jake more in mind of a panther. Not that he’d ever seen a panther in real life, or a horse, for that matter. But when someone had told him that was what Quatro resembled, he’d looked them up, and he basically agreed.
“Jake Price,” Rug said once she reached him. “Something has happened.”
“Yeah? What’s going on?”
“There has been an arrival. Another wormhole has opened.”
“Another wormhole? The pencil pushers can’t be happy about that.” Wormholes were now illegal under galactic law, though Jake could kind of understand that, since their use compromised the fabric of the universe. “Did another warship manage to escape the Steele System?”
“Many warships have emerged,” Rug said. “An entire fleet of them. But these are no human warships.”
“Who, then?”
“They are of Quatro make, Jake Price. These ships were sent by the Assembly of Elders—by the government whose tyranny I and my comrades risked our lives to escape.”
Jake nodded, remembering everything Rug had told him about the Quatro government and their promise of equal prosperity for all, which had ended up translating into starvation and slavery when the rubber hit the road. “Are they attacking?”
“No. Your species has already sent a vessel to speak with them, and to ascertain the reason for their arrival.”
“Oh,” Jake said, nodding. “Well, that doesn’t surprise me. I’m pretty sure your Assembly of Elders is going to get along with the Interstellar Union just fine.”
Thank you for reading!
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Dedication
To those willing to speak to each other.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to Rex Bain, Bruce A. Brandt, and Jeff Rudolph for offering insightful editorial input and helping to make this book as strong as it could be.
Thank you to Tom Edwards for creating such stunning cover art.
Thank you to my family - your support means everything.
Thank you to Cecily, my heart.
Thank you to the people who read my stories, write reviews, and help spread the word. I couldn’t do this without you.
Supercarrier is Book 1 of the Ixan Prophecies Trilogy. It tells the story of the battles Captain Keyes and Lieutenant Husher participated in during the Second Galactic War.
Two sample chapters from Supercarrier follow.
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Chapter 1
Providence
“Providence, this is Gadfly. Requesting permission for landing. I have Captain Vin Husher aboard.”
“It’s First Lieutenant, now,” Husher said, but the freighter captain had already taken his thumb away from the transponder. The man reddened at his mistake, but to correct it would prove even more embarrassing, for everyone.
“Gadfly, this is Providence. You are cleared for landing on Flight Deck E.”
They watched as the supercarrier grew bigger on the viewscreen—even larger and more beat-up than it looked in the news vids. Still, the sight made his skin tingle. No one could deny the ship’s majesty, or its quiet dignity, with massive primary flight decks spread out like wings. Or its menace. The Providence bristled with artillery.
Command kept the old juggernaut out of sight as much as possible, but the public demanded to be kept updated on Captain Keyes’s doings. Just knowing he was out there, completing missions without reliance on dark tech, made people feel safer.
Having recovered somewhat from his cringeworthy flub, the freighter captain attempted to make amends. “It’s been an honor having you aboard, First Lieutenant Husher.”
Husher suppressed a bitter chuckle. The freighter captain had barely spoken during the journey into the Bastion Sector, and only once since they’d entered the Larkspur System, to tell his passenger they’d arrived. But silence was better than other types of treatment Husher’s name had earned him in the past.
“It’s been a pleasure traveling aboard the Gadfly,” he said. “I’m sorry you were commandeered for the purpose of transporting me. I hope the Fleet’s compensating you for your time.”
“They compensated me,” the freighter captain said. “Some.”
Not nearly enough to make up for lost profits, I’m sure, Husher thought to himself.
Flight Deck E sat empty, and no one came out to direct their landing, apparently confident that it would be pretty hard to screw up. A strip of dim lights offered a half-hearted suggestion of where to touch down, and the freighter captain took it, executing a much gentler landing than Husher would have expected.
By that time, Husher had already donned a pressurized suit and was waiting near the airlock, where he’d clipped himself to the bulkhead in case the freighter’s landing had been closer to his expectations. The captain reappeared just as Husher finished entering the temporary security code he’d been given to open the airlock.
“I wanted you to know…I was a boy when your father took the fight to the Ixa. He was my hero, back then. I-I don’t believe what they say about him. I don’t think he was a traitor.”
“I do,” Husher said, punching the button to open the airlock. He stepped inside and turned to lock eyes with the captain as the bulkhead came back together. The hiss of departing atmosphere began.
A row of inactive Condor fighters caught his eye as he walked through the void of Flight Deck E. The Ocharium nanites in his suit and his cells attracted the captured Majorana fermions in the deck, keeping him firmly anchored and simulating one G. For a moment, he wondered whether floating away might not be a better fate than getting consigned to this ship. According to research he’d conducted aboard the Gadfly, only two of the Providence’s eight flight decks saw very much action. I’ve been consigned to a museum, not a battleship, Husher thought.
He stepped out of the flight deck’s airlock to find a woman dressed in full fatigues waiting for him on the other side. He chuckled. “Expecting a battle, Serge
ant?”
“Actually, yes.” She was having trouble hiding her disdain for him, and her eyes narrowed as they lingered on his facial hair. “In the Bastion Sector, there’s always a battle on the horizon. You’ll learn that soon enough. In the meantime, I’m here to take you to the captain.”
“Lead on, then, Sergeant Caine,” he said, reading from her nametag.
For all the ship’s size, the corridors that networked the Providence were incredibly cramped. Atmosphere was expensive, after all, mainly due to the cost of hauling it up from a livable planet’s gravity well. Dark tech had enabled many things, but it hadn’t been much of a boon to life support systems. So the parts of the ship where the crew lived and worked were kept as small as possible.
“First Lieutenant Husher reporting for duty,” he said once he was inside the Captain’s office. The room was sparsely decorated—a photo here, a certificate there. Husher snapped off a salute.
“At ease. And close the hatch.”
Husher did so, turning to stand with his feet spread apart and his hands folded behind him. He was not invited to sit. Instead, Keyes took a moment to study him.
“A beard,” the captain said.
“Yes, sir. I grew it during my voyage on the Gadfly. Do you like it?”
“It looks fine. It’s also against Fleet regulations. I want it shaved.”
“But you’re no stranger to skirting Fleet regs, sir. At least, if your reputation is any indication.”
Keyes fixed him with his famous impassive stare—the one he always wore in the news vids. It was bracketed by bushy eyebrows. “I’m also no stranger to having my orders carried out efficiently and without question. That goes for battle ops and it goes for how my crew present themselves—to each other, to their allies, and to the enemy. Shave the beard.”
Capital Starship (Ixan Legacy Book 1) Page 26
