by Charles Nall
Edwin White hugged Teresa Day. “Thanks for being there for me.”
“No problem. You’ll do fine. You’ll go far in life.”
Edwin smiled. “You will too.”
“Maybe,” Teresa said. “I just don’t think I’ll ever be the same again.”
“I know it still hurts that Knave is gone,” Edwin said. “But it has to hurt. It was real, so it has to hurt. The worse it feels, the better the memory. Cherish the memory.”
Teresa smiled. “Thank you, I will.”
“What are you going to do now?” Russell Jackman asked.
“I don’t know. I’ll figure something out. I’ve seen enough death. I finally just decided I was done. I sulked around far too long in that corvette. The Mad Cats are in great hands, though,” Teresa said. “I’ll miss all of you.” She glanced at the corvette. “And I’ll miss her too.”
“She’ll miss you too,” Russell said.
Teresa hugged Russell.
She waved goodbye and gathered her luggage. She headed toward the entrance into the space station proper.
The crew of Madcat-2 walked back to their corvette. They attempted to hold back tears.
September 9, 0271 AC – 13:13
Babylon National Cemetery, Babylon City
Blood Dynasty Space
Jacob was in the middle of a vampire cemetery. Gothic statues surrounded the area. Several gnarled, leafless trees rose up into the red sky. Jacob stared at the gravestones in front of him.
Rest in Peace:
Damien David Mabus: 215 – 268 AC
Diana Mira Serpentis-Mabus: 213 – 266 AC
Drake Victor Mabus: 250 – 271 AC
Drake was so young. He was about the same age as Jacob. Drake carried himself in such a manner that Jacob assumed he was much older.
Jacob looked around at all the gravestones. He was surrounded by so much death.
Alaric Dale pat Jacob on the shoulder. “Visiting with the family, I see?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Your brother was misguided, but your father and mother were good people. People do not realize that vampires can still be good people. You are a testament to that.”
“I’m a pseudo-vampire,” Jacob replied.
Alaric laughed. “You still have vampire blood in your veins, even if it was changed up a bit.”
“You said vampires can be good people?”
“But of course. There’s not much that separates us from humans. Humans should not teach their children such a blind hatred of the vampires.”
“You deserve the hate. The vampires started terrible wars.”
“Misguided men started those wars. The normals aren’t any better. You seem to forget the crimes and atrocities they have committed against their fellow man.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“It’s time to step beyond such petty racism. You can unite the galaxy, my friend. You bridge the gap. You are both human and vampire. I expect great things from you.”
“Thanks. I don’t know where to start.”
Alaric placed his hand over Jacob’s heart. “Start there, my friend.”
September 23, 0271 AC – 12:00 Local Time
BDS Tiamat, Cerberus-class Cruiser
Orbit of Yangtze, Former Star Republic Space
“It won’t be long until we are forced out of our stronghold here.”
“I understand, Commander.”
“What shall we do?”
“For now, we continue the King’s will. We were tasked to defend this world against the enemy.”
“Of course... I thought you did not like your nephew and yet you still follow his orders.”
He laughed. “Yes, I wanted to strangle him and take his throne. But I still respected the man.”
“What do you make of this... brother?”
“Carpenter? He’s an opportunity.”
“Sir?”
“I would never have been able to overthrow Mabus while he lived.”
“Now that he is dead...”
“...I will take the throne from this imposter. I may not be the true heir, but pure vampire blood flows through me. I deserve the throne much more than this Carpenter,” he said with disgust. “In fact... I can rally true vampires to my side. Nothing will stand in my way. Not Carpenter, not the Galactic Union, not even the dark ones.”
“The entire galaxy will bow to you, sir.”
“As it should!” Captain Vail Serpentis clenched his fist. “The galaxy is mine.”
September 23, 0271 AC – 21:10 Local Time
Hotshot’s Bar, USS Empyrean
Orbit of Urbania, Galactic Union Space
Marv “Mouse” Cooper and Cane “Skids” Venatici were visiting together at a table in the bar. The bar seemed busier than usual.
“People drinking the pain away,” Skids remarked.
Mouse nodded.
Skids glanced to the side and noticed Arnold “Grizzly” Lawrence sitting at a small table by himself.
Skids leaned back in the chair. “Grizzly is really beating himself up over this.”
Mouse sighed.
Skids continued, “Yeah, I get it. He blames himself. It’s no one’s fault except those damn vampires, though. Ghost died doing what he loved. We still haven’t figured out how he even got here from his time. From his story, he was saved by someone before he died. Where were they this time?”
Mouse shrugged.
Skids glanced at Grizzly again.
“What’s this?”
A beautiful brunette walked up to Grizzly’s table. She was wearing civilian clothes. She pointed at an unclaimed chair. Grizzly nodded. She sat down at Grizzly’s table. They began chatting.
“There ya go, big guy. A woman will take your mind off it.” Skids smiled.
“That’s Ryn, Lieutenant Reynold’s girlfriend,” Mouse pointed out. “Or was, I guess.”
Mouse chuckled. “The rebound.”
Vera “V” Takahashi slammed two huge mugs of beer down on the two men’s table. It startled them.
“Drink up!” V said. “I promised you two beers!”
“So you did! Woo-wee!” Skids smiled. “Pull up a chair, V. Let’s get super drunk and do something we regret.”
V snickered. “Let’s not.”
Skids smirked. “Worth a shot!”
Skids glanced back at Grizzly’s table. Ryn had left. Grizzly seemed to be pondering something. He rubbed his forehead with his hand.
“I think Grizzly needs this beer more than me,” Mouse said. Mouse excused himself and took the mug over to Grizzly. Mouse sat down at the table. A smile slowly started to form on Grizzly’s face as they chatted.
Skids smiled. “Well, looks like it’s just me and you, V!” He hadn’t noticed, but V had left.
Skids chuckled. “Oh well.”
He raised his mug into the air. “A toast to our fallen comrades,” he said quietly.
He stared at the foamy liquid and sighed. Finally, he took a big gulp.
He looked over at Grizzly and Mouse.
“Ah, what the hell.”
Skids pulled up a chair and joined Grizzly and Mouse at their table.
September 24, 0271 AC – 18:59
Hangar 4, USS Empyrean
Orbit of Urbania, Galactic Union Space
Captain John Devereaux and Lieutenant Commander Jacob Carpenter stood before an assembly of the entire crew of Empyrean, as well as crew members from several other warships. The entire hangar was filled with people.
“We are gathered here today to honor our fallen comrades,” Jacob said. “They paid the ultimate price, they made the ultimate sacrifice for their fellow man. On behalf of Galactic Command and a grateful nation, we offer these plaques to the families for the faithful and dedicated services of these fallen heroes.”
Officers started passing out small, beautiful plaques to the close family members of those members who had perished in the battle. Sharon Rose Turner was among the officers handing ou
t the bronze plaques.
Jacob and Devereaux backed away and allowed a member of the crew with an elegant uniform and a trumpet to walk in front of them. He started playing a sorrowful song.
Sharon walked up to Arnold Lawrence and handed him one of the plaques. The plaque read “In Memory of Elijah Moses Shepherd.”
“I can’t accept this,” Arnold whispered.
Tears flowed down Sharon’s face. “Yes, you can.”
“No... It was my fault.”
“No, it wasn’t. It wasn’t,” Sharon insisted.
“I should be dead, not Elijah.”
Sharon embraced Arnold. “He would have wanted you to have this. None of his family members showed up; I assume because they barely know him. Please, accept this.”
Arnold reluctantly accepted the plaque. “I... Okay...”
“We have to be thankful that he was with us. We have to be thankful that someone out there brought him to us,” Sharon said. “Even if it was for a short time.”
Sharon looked to the side and noticed Aiden Alexander approaching two people. Sharon didn’t know them, but Alexander offered Trevor’s plaque to them. Sharon assumed the older man and woman were Trevor’s parents. They were stricken with grief. Ryn Solovyeva ran up to the grieving parents and gave the mother a hug. The women’s faces were stained with tears.
Arnold was choked up. “I’ll miss Trevor, too.”
“We all will,” Sharon said as she rested her head on Arnold’s chest.
“This isn’t fair.” Arnold couldn’t hold it in any longer. He began to cry.
After the song was complete, Jacob took his spot back and called out to the crowd again, “The bodies of the fallen have been placed into caskets and placed into the torpedo tubes. At my command, we will launch these caskets into Urbania’s star. From the stars we were born. To the stars, we shall return.”
Devereaux stepped up. “We will miss them all. We will honor the sacrifices made by these heroes. We will stand.”
“Fire at will,” Jacob commanded.
Rylan sighed. “What exactly are we doing out here?”
Russell shrugged. “Listening post detected something out here in this nebula.”
“Out in the middle of nowhere,” Edwin said.
Madcat-2 approached a glowing, red nebula on the edge of explored space. Technically, this was considered Orion Confederation space but there were no space stations or colonized worlds nearby.
“It’s an easy contract just for the three of us. Just seeing what’s out here. Probably just confirming that the listening post is on the fritz,” Russell said. “Just keep your eyes open for anything out of the ordinary.”
Rylan checked his readings. “Wait, I’m detecting... something.”
A warship appeared out of the glowing cloud. It drifted toward Madcat-2.
“What is that?” Edwin asked.
The warship was huge. It looked like a Blood Dynasty cruiser, however something was quite off about this ship. It was covered with black growths. Some sort of black substance curled along the plating of the cruiser. Occasional dark tendrils protruded out of the strange ooze. The ship looked like it was infected with some sort of disease.
“It looks almost like a Double-Crescent. This doesn’t make any sense,” Edwin said in horror.
Russell stared at the warship on the holographic viewscreen. “Open a link. Let’s get this information out. This doesn’t feel... right.”
“Alright, opening a... holy—” Rylan’s eyes opened wide.
Another strange infected-looking ship appeared out of the nebula.
Green energy pulsed up the tentacle-like structures of the first ship. When the energy reached the tip of the structures, the energy focused into one point on the center of the bow. Energy arced all around the front of the strange warship.
“What the hell?” Russell said. “Shit! It’s—”
A beam erupted out of the center of the warship. The beam shattered Madcat-2 to pieces, killing everyone onboard.
Another ship appeared out of the nebula. And then yet another. The warships drifted slowly past the corvette debris as more and more ships appeared out of the nebula.
The war was far from over.
FROM THE AUTHOR
Here we are again. Hopefully you enjoyed the second installment of Shatterspace. There will be two to three more books in the main series. Please give it a review if you enjoyed it. Even if you didn’t. Tell your friends, tell your family, tell your cat about my novel, please! A review helps me substantially!
In all honesty, I am my biggest critic. I love the first book but I could have written it far better. This book I am much more pleased with. I know that some science problems, typos, and grammar issues probably crept in. That’s the nature of the beast and I apologize if any of them are glaring.
It gets a lot darker than the last book and I tried to handle the sensitive topics with care.
Thanks for giving my novel a chance, reader. The world and the characters have grown on me. This is a living, breathing place. Hopefully you feel the same way.
Special thanks to the good people in the Space Opera: Writers group on Facebook.
The following pages have additional information about the Shatterspace universe.
Feel free to email me at [email protected].
Thanks again!
Charles Nall
Appendix
STARSHIP TECHNICAL DATABASE DOWNLOAD
Excerpts from the Urbanian Information Vault
Military Technical Specifications on Warships
Hacked from the database by Switch Austrinus on April 16, 271 AC.
HyperNEP Message Link Established.
Uploaded to HyperNEP Access Node: Titan 13, Sol.
Free Route Transfer [y]
Entangled Particles Initiated. Waiting... Waiting... Destination Found... Waiting... Handshake Accepted. Accessing... Waiting... Access Accepted.
Link Route Ends at Destination: Silver Cove Gateway
Neutral Zone, Sector 24a
Link To: Madcat-2 Main Access [MMC2]; Captain Teresa Day
Message Sent Successfully
To: Teresa
From: Switch
These are ships that are interesting to me or we flew beside at one time or another, I know some have been lost. I think having this data may come in handy one day for you guys. Who knows. Maybe you guys could find something useful in these files. Some of this stuff hasn’t been updated. I even found Vampire and Confederation ships. Neat, huh?
And don’t worry, I covered my tracks. ;)
Hope the mercenary life is still treating you guys well! Link with me soon, xoxo.
~S~
ATTACHED FILE:
TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS BEGIN OF SELECTED WARSHIPS:
POSSIBLE ERRORS PRESENT
Notes:
Standard Hard Point Load-outs
All ships have kinetic stabilizers unless otherwise noted.
Ships larger than destroyers typically have a refinery system for deuterium and tritium.
Most ships operate on deuterium-deuterium fuel in their fusion reactors. Larger ships sometimes use a deuterium-tritium mix instead to produce a higher yield of energy. This, however, is much more costly to maintain.
Newcastle-class Freedom
Destroyer
Galactic Union Warship
[USS: Union Star Ship]
Designation: SDY-127 USS Freedom
Length
(stern to bow): 294 meters
Width (fore): 86 meters
Height (fore): 72 meters
Width (mid): 78 meters
Height (mid): 60 meters
Width (stern): 92 meters
Height (stern): 92 meters
Mass: 1,500,000 metric tons
FTL: Yes
FTL Drives: 1
Jump System: 1 Caelifera II Hyper-drive
with Spacial Warping Coil Assembly
Jump Point
Distance
: 425 meters from FTL Drive
Wake Rating: 4 Sagans
Sail System: 4 Main Collectors (Stern)
Hyper-particle
Storage: 4 Capacitors
Reactor System: Sakharov V Advanced Fusion Reactor
System with Energy Channel
Manifold
Backup System: Energium Batteries
Energium
Storage: 8 Batteries
Main
Propulsion: 4 Stern Main Ion Thrusters
Savery Main Ion Engines
Auxiliary
Propulsion: Stern Section: 9 Maneuvering
Thrusters (3 groups of 3)
Mid Section: 4 Maneuvering
Thrusters (2 groups of 2)
Fore Section: 4 Maneuvering
Thrusters: (2 groups of 2)
Fore Thrusters: 6 Maneuvering
Thrusters (3 groups of 2)
Sensors: 16 Advanced Sensor Pallets
Energy Shielding:64 shield generators
Anti-G Systems: 1 Graviton Displacer per Section
HyperNEP
Systems: 2 Quantum Entanglement Devices
HyperNEP
throughput: 1.25 TB/s
Recycling
Systems: 2 Water Reclamation and Recycling
Modules and Support Stations
Medical Bays: 5 Sickbays
2 in Stern, 2 in Midsection,
1 in Fore Section (Main Sickbay)
Technology
Laboratories: 1 in Stern Section
Fuel Storage: 4 Deuterium Tanks
Estimated Time
Without Refit: 4 years
Fighters and
