Tyche's Chosen

by Richard Parry

  Fergelic, Dominic Dominic was Emperor Prirene IV, and the last Emperor. He was assassinated Thursday, 9 November, 3122, during the brief war between his Empire’s forces and the Republic.

  Free Trader A starship that operates under legal Guild charter for commerce or transport.

  FTL see Faster than Light Travel.

  G Slang for gravity or gravities. A unit of measurement based on Earth’s 1 standard gravity.

  Grav see Artificial Gravity.

  Guild Bridge The Guild maintain a set of Einstein-Rosen bridges throughout human space. These allow instantaneous travel without violating the concept of space time, as they create wormholes through space. Einstein-Rosen Bridges require endpoints (the Guild Bridge) which are operated on a strict schedule between star systems. They are used for transferring everything from whole starships right down to small messenger probes.

  Guild The Guild is the dominant technology provider in the Republic. They have a rigid code of conduct that governs all members awarded and maintaining a Shingle. The primary source of Guild revenue is via the Bridges (see: Guild Bridge) they maintain for safe, instant FTL. Many merchant vessels prefer the use of Guild Bridges over the use of Endless Drives due to safety concerns. The Guild is best known for their Engineers who breathe life into starships, but they also provide Shingles for other practices such as medicine.

  Hard Black Slang for outer space, especially as it relates to the vast expanse of vacuum between solar systems.

  Heads Up Display Any display type that overlays instrumentation across a user’s field of view, removing the need to check auxiliary readouts. The most common types utilize augmented reality to highlight items of interest in the user’s field of view. Normally they are projected light onto visors within helmets or on starship windscreens, but holo designs are not uncommon.

  Heavy Lifter A freight starship capable of atmospheric drops. They derive their name from “lifting heavy” loads from crusts into orbit. They can be used to ferry items to orbiting craft such as freighters or destroyers that are not atmosphere-capable. They can also be used for direct runs to other systems, although their small cargo bay (as compared to freighters) makes them less efficient. Captains using them for this purpose would prefer the term, “boutique.”

  Holo Slang for items such as shows and movies displayed on holo stages.

  Holo Stage A 3D projection stage. These are common across the known universe as they provide a more natural method of content consumption than older 2D display styles. 2D displays are still prevalent especially in HUDs.

  HUD See Heads Up Display.

  Hypo Slang for a jet injector, a type of medical injecting syringe that uses high pressure instead of a hypodermic needle.

  KG Kilogram.

  Kilo Abbreviation for kilogram.

  Kinetic A type of weapon that fires physical rounds. Many PDCs use kinetic rounds as opposed to lasers, masers, or particle beams, due to their efficacy against most types of object.

  Klick Slang for kilometer.

  Laser A type of directed energy weapon using coherent light. Ship-mounted lasers tend to be used for carving through ablative shielding or surgical strikes against critical systems. Hand-held laser weapons are designed to superheat the liquid inside humans into steam very quickly, causing an explosion of the remaining tissue.

  LIDAR Acronym for LIght Detection And Ranging. LIDAR uses coherent light to make digital 3D representations of objects.

  Maser A type of directed energy weapon using microwave radiation. Ship-mounted masers are most effective at disrupting enemy comm arrays and personnel in equal measure. They are out of favor as hand-held weapons due to a longer time to death as compared to blasters.

  Mercury Accords The Mercury Accords, or simply the Accords, are a set of agreements set out by the Guild relating to research, design, and implementation of AI. The short version is that the Accords prohibit the research, design, and implementation of AI in any form, due to AI’s potential to destroy human civilization. They were signed into affect in the 25th century on the site of the last war between humans and AI: the planet Mercury, in the Sol system. Mercury was where AI made their last stand.

  Navy A space fleet force. The Republic operates one, as did the Empire before it. The Navy patrol human space to protect against threats like pirates.

  Nuke A thermonuclear weapon of mass destruction. Very old but reliable technology, used in configurable payloads for ship-to-ship combat, city assaults, and the destruction of entire worlds (ref: crustbuster).

  Old Empire see Empire.

  Particle Beam A type of directed energy weapon that fires particles with minuscule mass.

  Plasma Cannon see Blaster.

  Point Defense Cannon (PDC) PDCs are installed on almost every starship to protect hulls from impacts from things like meteoroids. They are also useful defense against torpedoes, although generally ineffective against railguns due to the high velocity of railgun rounds. PDCs can be kinetic or directed energy weapons.

  Power Armor Armor that is motor-assisted, often used for deployments on high-G worlds. Configuration often includes vehicle weapon mounts, allowing a higher degree of flexibility for infantry deployment.

  Prirene Dynasty The Prirene Dynasty has stretched back over two hundred years. It was the last family to hold the ruling seat of the Empire.

  RADAR Acronym for RAdio Detection And Ranging. RADAR uses radio waves to determine the range, angle, and velocity of objects.

  Radiation Sickness A constant hazard of space. Many crews take daily medication to ward off radiation sickness. It’s as much a part of shipboard life as making sure your O2 is topped up. This means that a mild dose of radiation is unlikely to kill you if treated in time, but massive doses are still dangerous.

  Railgun A kinetic weapon that fires high velocity rounds by way of a pair of conductive rails. They are often mounted on larger ships and make a dramatic statement when fired against enemy vessels.

  Reactor Starships use fusion reactors. The most common design is the ICF (Internal Confinement Fusion) style of reactor. These have a variety of safety functions that make them suitable for spacefaring needs, including containment fields in case of malfunction. Larger starships can eject faulty reactors into the hard black.

  Republic The ruling government of human civilization. The Republic is made up of a Senate, headquartered on Earth. Initially founded by dissenters against the Empire, it has risen to be the driving force of human innovation, commerce, and expansion. The final fight between the Empire and the Republic was quick, due to the small number of ships deployed by the Empire (the Republic Navy had reliable intelligence that the Empire’s forces were much larger). Quick didn’t mean bloodless, although the Republic offered amnesty for any serving Empire crew who wished to take it.

  Rig Slang for maintenance equipment commonly worn by Guild Engineers about starships. These double as space suits for zero atmosphere maintenance on the exterior of a starship’s hull. The design incorporates a visor with configurable HUD for instrumentation and telemetry, and a set of programmable servitor arms for complex manipulation of equipment.

  Shingle A guild badge of practice, allowing the holder to a) claim they are Guild certified and b) ply their trade as a Guild craftsperson. They are notoriously hard to get, requiring years of study and excellence in your field.

  Ship Suit Slang for spacesuit. Generally denotes a space suit for a specific ship carrying crew logograms and/or color themes.

  Space Suit Clothing worn to keep humans alive in the hard black. They provide protection against vacuum, temperature extremes, and radiation. Military models are often fitted with armor to protect against blasters, lasers, masers, and kinetic rounds. They often provide additional protection against high-G maneuvers.

  Spacer Slang for those who crew on a starship, civilian or military.

  Tonne Metric ton, equivalent to 1,000 kilograms.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  FIRST UP, THANKS to all y’all who
read these books. Without readers, there would be no stories, and the world would be a darker place. You are legendary.

  Thanks to everyone who helped with this series, but in particular Scott and Pat. Your help and encouragement is humbling.

  My last thanks is reserved for my Rae. You are my true north charting a sea made of stars and possibility.

  — R. P.

  February 2018, Wellington

  EXCERPT: TYCHE'S HOPE

  THE JOB OF A LIFETIME

  TRITON STATION. THE ad said Job of a Lifetime! without the usual specifics an Engineer might care for. That usually meant the job was better than you could imagine. This one might be, one day. But Hope would have to get the Number Four booster fixed first, or they’d tumble down Triton’s gravity well.

  Gravity was one thing you couldn’t bargain with. Shake your fist, like Hope’s Engineers were doing, and gravity would shrug — meh, planets, what can you do? — and just do what gravity did.

  Hope’s Engineers were fighting about who would fix the booster, and who would make up for the lost time. Hope suspected they also argued about who would break the bad news to the boss.

  Which was her. Hope Baedeker, Engineer First Class. Boss of Project Redemption. Chief Engineer of Triton Station. Who’d have thought? She was surprised to land that Job of a Lifetime!, but Reiko had pressed soft lips to Hope’s forehead and said, Baby, of course they chose you.

  “Um,” said Hope.

  Bobbi Harford, short and stocky to Hope’s waifish frame, ignored her. Bobbi was mid-tirade, her voice rising several octaves — difficult when your voice was like a gruff version of the Ghost of Christmas Past to start with — as she shouted at Cory Batham. “Batham, you suck. How the hell did you get your Shingle? Was it one of those special deals where you sent in four Core Lager proofs of purchase and got it on the next merchant bridgeliner to drop in-system?” The arms of the rig Bobbi wore gesticulated and clacked as she shouted.

  Hope winced. Cory Batham was a renowned alcoholic, and Core Lager — apparently from the core worlds, a fact Hope had never tracked down on account of the beer tasting like a degreaser she’d got in her mouth that one time — was his favorite abusive pastime. To be fair to Bobbi — and Hope wanted to be fair, this being her first boss job and all — Cory smelled more of Core Lager than grease and ozone and the other usual smells Engineers wore like a cologne. He didn’t have a rig on, just a rumpled shirt over his pot belly. Not even a ship suit. “Um,” she said again. “If I could—”

  “Goddamn your attitude!” said Cory, a fist up in Bobbi’s face like he wanted to start something, before running out of steam like he couldn’t remember how things were started. Hope had noticed the man didn’t run like all his drives were hot when he’d had a few. She had talked to him before about it — Cory, you know you might get everyone killed, right? — and he’d agreed to do better. In this instance, he might have been trying: he wasn’t supposed to be on-shift. Which meant he was supposed to have fixed Number Four before grabbing another Core Lager to chase down his dreams of death by cirrhosis. Hope thought this might have been a good time to step into the conversation again, but Cory rallied. “If you’d only done what you were supposed to—”

  “This isn’t about me, Batham, and you know it. It’s about you, and that Number Four booster. Now my crew’s gotta fix it, or this whole station will crash and burn on Triton’s surface. We’ll be behind production, and it’ll be your fault. But you’ve logged the booster as fixed, so you’re sitting pretty, ain’t that right?” Bobbi paused, wiping spittle from her chin.

  Hope frowned. Logged the booster as fixed. She’d known Cory for about as long as any of them. He was as average as an Engineer with a Shingle could get, but still better than anyone outside the Guild. He hit Core Lager pretty hard, but she’d never found him to be a liar and a cheat. If he said he’d fixed the booster, the booster was fixed. She stepped off to the side, brushing a strand of pink hair out of her face. They would shout at each other for a while, which would give Hope some time to check the booster out.

  She approached the controls and ducting station of Number Four. The big ornery booster was a couple klicks below Hope, hanging out in space under Triton Station along with all its friends. The ducting station supplied reactants, coolants, and any other ants useful to the operation of a fusion booster. In turn, diagnostics were ferried up to this console. Number Four had been shipped here from Titan. Titan was the Republic’s shiny new shipyard, all gleaming spans of metal, ready to deliver a new Navy for a war already over. Rumor had it they would be cranking out bridgeliners like candy on Halloween. But before they got on to minting new ships that never broke, and were thus a boring place for an Engineer, they’d rushed out this new booster for Triton Station.

  It broke often, mostly on days ending in Y.

  Red lights littered the diagnostic console. Pretty much everything reported as a fractured mess. Hope sighed. It was super unlikely that many things would go wrong on a booster at the same time. Just look at it. Power couplings, blown. The phase inverters were shot. The main feed from the reactor was — and this was ridiculous — plain ol’ missing. Hope pulled her visor down, her rig’s diagnostics clicking on. Wireframes of conduit overlaid the ducting on her HUD. She frowned for a few seconds, then walked to a panel. Her rig’s arms reached out, opened the panel, and then pulled out the breaker for the diagnostics hub. ‘Breaker’ was a generous term for it. This one was mostly slag, and what wasn’t slag was pure corrosion. Hope sighed, dropping the breaker, and grabbing a new one from a nearby rack. She slotted it, the console’s lights flicking for a second before shining a promising green across the board.

  Hope turned back to Bobbi and Cory, who still yelled at each other, but now at the same time. Hope cleared her throat, and when that didn’t have an effect, she shouted, “Hey!”

  Neither of them took notice. Hope thought about the Shingle in her cabin, the words DO GREAT THINGS etched on the surface, and thought, This is not a great thing. She turned back to the ducting station, slapping the console’s START control. There was a pause, then a mighty noise like the roar of a lion the size of a planet shook the room as the booster fired. If they’d been anywhere near Number Four itself, they’d have been atomized, and what wasn’t atomized would be deaf forever. Noise still vibrated its way up the booster’s support struts, shaking the floor, rattling everything that shouldn’t rattle, and sounding like the end of the world. Hope was ready for this, her rig’s visor protecting her hearing just fine.

  After a couple of seconds, she turned the booster off. “Hi,” she said to the stunned Bobbi and Cory. “Look, I know your argument is very important to both of you, but what’s important to me is that we work well together.” They blinked at her. Hope wasn’t sure if they’d been temporarily deafened by the booster’s firing, so she kept going hoping something would make it through. “Cory, I’m glad you fixed the booster, but you missed the corroded breaker.”

  Bobbi’s frame straightened. “I knew it—”

  “And Bobbi,” said Hope, “the thing is, an infant — a literal infant, like a human baby, with stubby legs—”

  “I know what an infant is.”

  “An infant could have found the blown breaker. I took a little less than fifteen seconds. It’s not an Engineering problem. It’s a maintenance issue.” Hope watched as Bobbi sucked air in, preparing herself for a tirade. Hope held up a hand, one of her rig’s articulators mirroring the motion. “If you weren’t so angry at each other, you’d have found it. And then we’d be making more money. Don’t you like money?” Money wasn’t Hope’s prime motivator, but she’d worked out early on it’s why most of her crew were here.

  “I like money enough, I guess,” said Cory.

  “Money’s fine,” said Bobbi.

  “I know you don’t like working for someone who’s young,” said Hope. “I can’t help being young. But I want to do great things. Don’t you?”

  Both of them looked down.
Cory sighed, speaking first. “It was my bad,” he said. “I should have found the breaker. I just … I hate fixing that damn booster.”

  “No, no, no,” said Bobbi. “Hope’s right. It was me, Cory. I should have taken five damn seconds to look it over.”

  “Fifteen,” said Hope. “It took me fifteen seconds.”

  “Yeah, but you’re half my age,” said Bobbi, a ghost of a grin hiding there somewhere. “Wouldn’t take me anywhere near that time. I shouldn’t have gone off half-cocked.”

  “Okay,” said Hope. “I’m glad we’re all good.”

  “I don’t mind working for someone young,” said Cory. “I just wish you’d make a mistake or two.”

  “I’m with him,” said Bobbi. “It’d be nice if you could break something accidentally-on-purpose. Just once.”

  “Okay,” said Hope again. She pushed pink hair out of her eyes. “I’ll go see about the fire in Landing Bay Twelve.” Hope turned, leaving Bobbi and Cory staring after her. She wasn’t great at people, but fires? She could deal with fires just fine.

  • • •

  Triton Station wasn’t new. It was old, which meant it was perfect. So many things went wrong, Hope was never wanting for something to do.

  But a fire in a landing bay? That was new.

  Triton Station was constructed using an older style than Titan’s. It was a big cylinder of metal floating in space — come on Hope, it’s not ‘floating,’ it’s ‘orbiting’ — above Triton. The booster array, sixty-four in total, pointed at Triton’s surface below them. Around the ring that made up Triton Station, great spans of metal stretched out skeletal fingers. Those fingers had birthed mighty Empire warships, before the Empire stopped empiring and was replaced with a new Republic. Hope was fine with all that in general principle, because the Republic wanted Engineers to fix all the things that broke during the war. Like Triton Station.

  Prior to the war ending, supposedly this place had pretty much up and died. Folk were surprised that the Empire had so few ships when push came to shove. The assumption being, what with Triton being the Empire’s major shipyard, everything here had to be broken.