Starclash (Stealing the Sun Book 4)

by Ron Collins

  Torrance went to the desk and slid the cube into an interface slot. The system gave a purple flare as it read the data.

  “Let me see the file list please, Abke,” he said to the controller. “Please project it to the desk,” he said when he realized his command hadn’t been completed.

  He felt obsolete.

  At least Abke still stood for Autonomic Bioprocessing Knowledge Engine. The central control system had been installed in every Interstellar Command ship since the years when Interstellar Command had been known as Solar Command.

  He wondered if Abke had any idea there was talk of replacing her with a more advanced QE communicator that was still under development. The new system used quantum entanglement, and had the advantage of allowing immediate conversation across interstellar distances. Of course, it came with the disadvantage of being point-to-point rather than broadcast. Two of these new QE comm systems could be linked, but once it was created that link could never be changed. In this way, QE communicators were like those silly “phones” made of paper cups and strings that he made in grade school.

  Torrance was pretty sure QE would never fully replace Abke, but he was also pretty sure that government security officers throughout the system would be wetting their pants to get hold of one.

  Abke delivered the file list.

  Torrance sat at the desk chair, leaned back, and scanned the response.

  It was a collection of nearly a thousand files.

  The first fifty-five held raw data from every sensor Everguard had. Then came the models he and Kitchell had created over the years, and then the scrolling columns of test runs. The names of these records gave him a nostalgic sense of warmth. Each of them represented hours of work. Kitchell had done most of them, too—more than half were date-stamped after Casey had removed Torrance’s access. The idea that the kid was actually more interested in the data than Torrance was tore his heart up.

  Kitchell deserved better than to get shot up like he had.

  As far as Torrance knew, the kid would be going into the Academy when he healed up. That had been the plan, anyway, and Torrance had made it a point to reiterate his recommendation everywhere he went these past three weeks.

  At twenty-two, Kitchell had a helluva lot going for him.

  Torrance hoped he would find a way to stay in touch.

  “Please open and play file Black One,” he said.

  It was one of his own custom files. One he had created in the earliest days.

  Abke played the file.

  The room popped and fuzzed with a strange, chaotic rhythm. To most people it would have sounded like simple white noise, but to Torrance it was music. Not structured like human music, but still it worked for him. Something to it gave him comfort, a rhythm or a flow that struck him someplace deep inside. It had been locals since he had last heard it.

  As it played on, Torrance bent to review another data file.

  Then another.

  The music looped around as he scanned more.

  Looking at the files gave him an awkward sensation that reminded him of attending a college reunion.

  He remembered most of them, but he remembered them differently—he recalled partials here or there, and as he took in each of the files they brought up fragments of ideas that seemed familiar in the same way an old summer vacation spot felt familiar. He recalled that at one time he had considered adjusting the spectral density of the radio wave contact image, but couldn’t recall exactly how he had planned to do it—something about boosting frequency distributions in sequential patterns and then building a new language model around the output. But that wasn’t quite right.

  Somewhere in the mix of his thoughts, an ensign delivered a lunch plate.

  He ate it, but afterward he only knew he had done so because of the plate of crumbs he left behind and because by late afternoon he wasn’t feeling that pit of hunger he would have gotten if he missed a meal.

  He wondered what kind of sandwich it had been.

  It wasn’t until his alarm rang nearly seven hours later that Torrance realized he was going to be late for his meeting with the admiral.

  CHAPTER 2

  Atropos, Eta Cassiopeia System

  Local Date: Studna 23, 9

  Local Time: 0524

  Casmir Francis’s body merged with the thunderhoof’s movements.

  The beast’s hooves pounded against bare rock. Its breathing rasped to the beat of a steam wheel. Its muscles were cords of steel against Casmir’s thighs. He had taken his meds and done his routines. Now he was exercising in what had become his favorite way—riding Thunderbolt, the herd animal he had bonded most closely with.

  He felt healthier here than he had ever felt before.

  Not cured, of course. Cystic fibrosis doesn’t work that way.

  Perhaps it was something inherent in the planet. Maybe the food they were growing, or microbes in the air. Or maybe it was just that for the first time in over a decade he was able to follow a routine that allowed him to exercise and take care of himself like Yvonne and Dr. Iwal wanted him to. Whatever the reason, he was stronger here on Atropos, and as he worked with the thunderhoof to race across the land he felt like he was one with the morning.

  The sky over the horizon was that endless shade of purple that happened just before sunrise, especially this time of year. It was Studna, Atropos’s version of springtime, that time of year when temperatures were rising and the water would come down in sheets. When it came, anyway. Storms on Atropos were sporadic, but could be serious things.

  Studna was an old Czech name for water well, though.

  Fitting, he supposed, though the calendar’s months had not been named for any seasonal aspect. Rather, a set of school kids had mapped and named new constellations as seen from their home. Each month was then named for a constellation but in a different language from Earth. That last made him happy. A calendar should have a sense of wonder to it, and a sense of history. This one did. It was the 23rd of Studna. In three days the month would change to Conejo as Atropos moved through the Rabbit and into the true spring.

  The air was cool and damp, swaddling the day’s first sounds against the outside world.

  His arms pulled against the leather tack, and Thunderbolt leapt a chasm.

  They raced the final fifty meters to the mesa’s flat crest, where Casmir brought the animal to a halt.

  Man and beast stood still, the gray morning mist forming twisted clouds that hung in the stagnant air, the thunderhoof’s exhalations coming as blowing cones of gauzy vapor.

  The animal was more horse than buffalo, muscular, with a coat as gray as slate. The party that had originally encountered them had branded them with the name thunderhoof for the way the herd’s retreat had sounded as it reverberated through the valley. It was an apt name. The animals populated the wide green plains on this planet, and there were some among the U3 community who thought the thunderhoofs had some limited form of intelligence—or at least a keener consciousness than the animals on Earth had expressed. Casmir didn’t really agree with this—though he was happy to have his people study these creatures, as well as others on the planet, more closely.

  The thunderhoofs seemed to communicate their basic desires through a series of movements and sounds made through their mouths and through a blow hole at the back of their skulls. After realizing this, Universe Three’s citizens had come to an oddly capitalistic relationship with the beasts in which the human population provided the animals with food and grooming in return for services that included towing, simple transportation, and in Casmir’s case, recreation.

  Thunderbolt rolled its muscles over one shoulder and vocalized a sputtering sound.

  Casmir looked in the direction the beast suggested, and saw a pair of birds of a species he had never seen before. The colony had been on the planet for nine local years, which translated to more than seven Earth standards, but they still had a lot to learn.

  “Beautiful,” he said out loud as he rubbed the th
underhoof’s shoulder to thank him for bringing the birds to his attention.

  The land spread out below them in greens and browns. Only a few of the buildings of what his people now called Atropos City were lighted at this hour, and of those only a few trailed smoke or heated water vapor from their ceiling ducts and electric generators. Universe Three had considered several names for their capitol, but once it was public knowledge that the earliest UG raiders had used Atropos City as an ironic name for their little dirt bowl of a settlement, the board unanimously agreed to adopt the name.

  Atropos City.

  Casmir liked it for its aspiration.

  The name gave him and his people a target. A goal.

  From its rudimentary beginnings, the people of Universe Three would create a city and then a population and then an entire set of civilizations that the United Government could never understand.

  He smiled at that, then looked to the east where Lake Miyear reflected the first rays of Eta Cass as an orange bolt that creased the water’s surface.

  Casmir drew a breath and looked at the industrial complex that was beginning to sprawl across the northern landscape. Technical people went to work in those buildings—designers, engineers, controllers, assembly techs, and welders. And even better, physicists—including the brilliant Jorge Catazara—the best and brightest mind that money, personal bravery, and the ideals of true personal freedom could acquire.

  A skimmer raced across the land below.

  Rail lines ran into the complex from the south and the west now, connecting up the foundry to the early mines that Kazima Yamada had been building. A half-filled trolley was still being unloaded after its evening delivery of metal-laced ore that would be smelted and used in the manufacture of machines they needed to build even more impressive machines.

  Star Drive spaceships.

  They had been able to build standard space-faring craft for the past two years, but it had taken them longer to get to this point where they could piece together the sophisticated manufacturing tools it took to make a Star Drive engine. They were close—so very close. Maybe even next fall they would be able to build their own fleet modeled after the hand-built prototypes they had already managed.

  The complex was a beautiful sight.

  Casmir was one of the few people of Universe Three who still kept the Solar System standard calendar in his memory, and in a few days he would cross his sixtieth standard birthday. That meant he had been working with the group who had become U3 for just over forty years.

  It was a hard number to swallow.

  Ah, Perigee, he thought. How I wish you could see this.

  The communications pad on his belt rumbled.

  He gritted his teeth at the interruption.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Sorry to disturb you, sir, but Deidra said we should contact you immediately.” It was Martin Scalese, the man who operated the communications center.

  “Perhaps she was wrong,” he snapped.

  “I apologize again, sir.”

  Casmir scoffed at himself then.

  “It’s all right, Martin. It is not your fault that my daughter is so fervent in her views.”

  “No, sir. I guess not.”

  Of his children, Casmir wasn’t surprised Deidra had been the one to take to the organization. She believed in it fully, but at almost twenty-one years old she was going through the early stage of radical exuberance that was always marked by high verbal temperatures and knee-jerk reactions.

  “So, what is it?”

  “We’ve received a communication.”

  “Yes?”

  “From the United Government.”

  He paused. Even though it had been several weeks since Everguard had been destroyed, the UG had not yet directly responded. He had begun to worry, but he hadn’t considered the idea that they might attempt to contact them directly.

  “How did it come in?”

  “Standard radio, sir. We assume they jumped Orion into our system, sent the message, and then jumped back out.”

  “What does it say?”

  “Are you sitting down, sir?”

  Casmir glanced at the thunderhoof’s gray back, then out over the distance.

  “You could say that,” he said.

  CHAPTER 3

  Aldrin Station

  Local Date: January 19, 2215

  Local Time: 1940

  Lieutenant Commander Torrance Black walked into the admiral’s office.

  It was mid second shift. His brain was mushy from seven hours lost in deep thought, but the mere act of doing that work had brought a new sense of purpose to his step. He would crash later, but for the moment he felt oddly energized.

  The admiral’s desk was a translucent block of smoky black glass inlaid with an ornate design of cherry wood. The wall behind her was a display panel in dark blue marked with the flags of Interstellar Command and the United Government. Soft ceiling lighting reflected off a floor of white tiles. Two men, visitors, sat on hard chairs beside the desk, one in admiral’s whites, the other in a green jumper with mission patches stitched along his arm. Flair at his collar marked him as a captain.

  The admiral came from behind the desk to greet Torrance.

  Naomi Umaro’s frame was tall and trim—a form accentuated by her crisp white uniform. Her heritage was hard to pick out, part Mediterranean, part Scandinavian, maybe some Malay. She wore her black hair pulled back from her face. It was going gray along one temple. Her skin was smooth over her cheekbones, but a slight crinkle of crow’s feet gathered at the corners of her eyes to suggest that she was maybe ten standards older than Torrance.

  The decoration swath set at her collarbone was meshed with the shimmering icons that marked her service history, a history built of short stints in multiple spaceports—a trajectory that said Umaro was an officer with both a plan and enough backing within the command to make that plan happen.

  She had been groomed for this role, and seemed more than comfortable in her own skin. Rumors said she had larger political roles in her future, and Torrance saw nothing in this first impression to argue otherwise.

  “Thank you for coming,” she said as they shook hands. “How’s the wrist?”

  “You’re welcome,” he replied, holding up the soft wrap. He had broken it during the Everguard sabotage. “Doctor says I’ll be out of this in a day or two, so I guess I’m doing fine.”

  “Can I get you anything? Coffee? Sandwich?”

  “No thank you. I grabbed a sandwich on the way over.”

  “Then please have a seat.” The admiral motioned him to a soft-backed chair, then sat on the edge of her desk as he settled in.

  “Let me introduce Rear Admiral Ihiri Montague and Captain Wallace Douglas.”

  “Good afternoon,” Torrance said.

  “It is an honor to meet you,” the rear admiral replied.

  Douglas gave a toothless smile and nodded politely.

  Rear Admiral Montague was short in his chair, and a little too rounded in the middle, probably from a few too many state dinners. But he was crisply dressed, and carried his power in the casual way of an elder statesman.

  Douglas was altogether different.

  His eyes were brown lasers. The curve of his nose lent him an aura of hawkishness, and his jawline was square and chiseled enough to cut glass. His light brown skin was scarred to nearly nonexistent pebble along his right cheek. Torrance wondered if he had been burned.

  “Do you have any idea why I asked you here, Commander?” Umaro asked.

  “I couldn’t say.”

  Her grin was warm but did nothing to make him feel better. Then he realized what she had just said.

  “Commander?”

  “I signed your orders this morning. That is, if you want them. I understand you were planning to decommission.”

  Torrance glanced at the men, then back to Umaro.

  “I’m not sure what to say.”

  She crossed her arms and leaned back with an exp
ression that was a mixture of smugness and charm. “We pulled four hundred and fifty-three people off Everguard because of you, Commander.”

  “I had help from my team.”

  “You were the leader.”

  Torrance nodded. That was the gig. If the team did well, the leader was brilliant, if not, the leader was crap.

  “Your record is otherwise solid, but not particularly noteworthy. A single reprimand, never repeated, and an ill-fated attempt to save an indeterminate life-form.”

  Since Captain Romanov suggested he was keeping that detail off Torrance’s record, he was surprised Umaro knew of this. But rather than fear repercussions, Torrance was now torn between being gutted by Umaro’s matter-of-fact tone as she said the words not particularly noteworthy and feeling something that approached giddiness when he imagined how Government Security Officer Casey would be gagging if he were here to see Torrance offered a promotion.

  Umaro continued. “But the fact is that you were the Officer of Record who solved a critical technical problem and launched the wormhole pods that changed the world. That makes you important. And what you did on Everguard makes you a hero. Every kid in the Solar System knows the name Torrance Black now.”

  “For better or for worse?” Torrance asked.

  Umaro ignored the comment.

  “You deserve the promotion for that alone.”

  Torrance moved his fingers to feel the residual pain in his hand.

  Umaro continued.

  “But the fact you’re a hero is not what made your papers easy to sign, Torrance. To be totally honest, every person in the service is a potential hero if the situation lines up just so. And, while the media is focusing on your efforts to take down Lieutenant Malloy, we both know that bravery in the line of fire doesn’t have a lot to say about whether a person makes a great leader or not.” She paused. “I’ve processed paperwork for a lot of heroes whose promotions I didn’t think were particularly wise. But what made your orders easy to sign is that every crew member in System Command that day said that your leadership under pressure is what saved lives aboard that ship.”