Blackstar Command 1: Prominence

by A. C. Hadfield

  “Then put it out—quickly.”

  Kai brought up the screen in front of him and watched as the tug completed its circuit and flew within striking distance. With a swift, practiced sweep of his hand, he selected the targets and let fly with the experimental rockets Senaya had installed last week.

  Four AI-guided Scalpel missiles flew from the ordnance pod. The first one exploded within seconds due to malfunction, the force smashing against the sphere, knocking Kai out of his seat.

  The second and third missiles destroyed one of the enemy units.

  The fourth failed to make it, the anti-air fire destroying it in midair.

  With no missiles remaining, they were left with but one option: collision course.

  “Hold onto something solid,” Kai yelled. “We’re taking alternative landing procedures.”

  Chapter 2

  Kai’s heart seemed to stop as time stretched out before him in a pause so pregnant with tension he expected to die in that very instance. But paradoxically, as soon as he had thought this, reality rushed in again in a roar of wind and flame and metal on metal.

  The force of the impact threw him upside down and smashing against the pod ceiling.

  He crashed down in a heap. The sounds of the wreckage around him descended into a deep hush he’d only experienced once before.

  His brain checked out, switching everything to autopilot and leaving him alone with the crowding darkness until subconscious started to take over and the sounds of screaming amid the yowling wind made him alert.

  Something within him compelled him to move until he was peering out of a half-meter-wide scar in the outer hull. Black smoke drifted on the wind and into the small space, making him cough and splutter.

  Each cough brought a burst of pain through his right shoulder and chest. Probably a cracked rib, he thought, or perhaps something much worse. The screaming, he realized, wasn’t his own. And neither was it from Senaya.

  The voice was male and oddly familiar.

  “Sen, you copy?” Kai said, his throat constricting around his words as he continued to cough. “Are you okay?”

  No response.

  He reached to his ear. His comm-bud was missing.

  The flames from outside lit up the pod with orange and yellow light, but the shadows were too dark for him to find something as small as the bud. His legs were bent at awkward angles, and he saw splashes of glossy darkness against the steel of the pod’s infrastructure—blood. His blood. His neck was warm with it.

  “Sen, you there?”

  Still no response.

  “Kai?” a strained voice from outside the ship called. “Kai Locke… is that you in there?”

  “Who’s there?” Kai said, realizing that this was the voice that was previously screaming.

  Senaya’s shadow appeared over Kai. She stared down, a bloodied gash across her forehead stapled together and covered with med-mesh. The nanofiber product was already at work, knitting the wound with new flesh cells.

  “You stupid bastard,” Sen said. “I knew you’d pull some stunt like this.”

  Kai looked from her to the hole in the pod, aware someone was out there, then back to Sen. “Hey, it worked, right? We’re still alive.”

  “Just. I could have died back there if it wasn’t for me getting caught in a cargo harness. You could have at least warned me.”

  “I wouldn’t have had to if your Scalpel missiles worked.”

  “Don’t you dare put this on me, Kai Locke, you reckless—”

  “Hey… you two in there,” the familiar voice from outside called. “I could use some help.”

  “Hold on for a minute,” Sen shouted back. She bent down, hooked her arms under Kai’s shoulders, and hefted him up. For someone so short, she was surprisingly strong. It was the Tasarel genes in her. Stocky, strong little people they were.

  Kai was thankful for her half-breeding, even if the movement did make him want to bite through his arm to end the explosion of pain. When she had him up on his feet, he slumped against the pod wall and took a deep breath.

  “Here, take the shot while I go check the survivor out there.” Senaya put a stemmer shot in his hand and made to head out of the pod and toward the exit door.

  Kai pulled her back. “No, I’ll go. It’s my mess.”

  He jabbed the stemmer into his chest and kicked against the wall while it burned through his cells, the powerful opiate-delivering nanoparticles surging through his veins.

  After a few moments, the burning sensation melted into a comfortable numbness.

  “I never get used to that,” Kai said.

  “You wouldn’t have to if you stopped being so damned stupid. But I’m glad you’re okay.”

  “For now… I suspect I’m going to be sore tomorrow. But let’s go see who that is out there.”

  “About time,” the voice from outside wheezed between groans. “A sense of urgency… would… be appreciated.”

  With unsteady steps, Kai left the pod and bundled his way down the narrow corridor until he reached his quarters. Without having to look, he reached an arm around the door and grabbed his Petchen & Glaz assault rifle. The weapon felt familiar in his hand, the butt fitting perfectly into the crook of his arm.

  The P&G recognized his bio-signature and activated, the sights buzzing briefly before a green dot appeared on the crumpled inner wall of the tug. Kai ordered the ship's system to open the door. It slid into the hull, revealing a scene of fire and smoke in the desert darkness.

  The white sand was cultured the hue of a yellow dwarf star, tinted by the flames, the light of which picked out a silhouette of a man slumped against the wreckage of the third anti-air vehicle. Twisted and scorched metal rendered the ground weapon almost unrecognizable.

  Kai looked back at the tug, noting with surprise and horror that it had split into two—the cockpit and forward quarters were some way behind the weapons and cargo modules.

  “Help… me,” the voice said.

  Kai raised the rifle and stepped slowly toward the voice, switching on the weapon’s tactical light to illuminate the man.

  “Is… that you, Tallis?”

  “Yeah… for now,” the elder man said. Blood had pooled from a series of wounds in his chest and neck so that his dark desert jerkin was sodden with it.

  Kai stepped closer then stopped.

  Senaya backed him up, a pistol in each hand.

  “I’ll sweep for other hostiles,” she said, pupils fully dilated and giving her a look of a desert crawler. That look told him not to question her intent, so he let her go about her business.

  He kneeled in front of Tallis and inspected the man’s wounds. Pulling the flimsy jerkin to one side, it was clear that the old rogue had no chance. Even stemmer and an acre of med-mesh wouldn’t fix the gaping wounds in his chest, and even if they could, they’d do nothing for the blight that had clearly been gnawing away at his bones and musculature for some time.

  Kai shook his head and sighed.

  The blight seemed to be affecting everyone on Zarunda these days. The Coalition government didn't appear to care, and the other planets of the alliance wouldn't help research a cure because Zarunda, being a piss-poor planet, had nothing of value to trade. Klipi oil, the sap they use for fuel, was wildly inefficient to other planets' higher-yielding resources.

  “Your wounds, Tallis, they’re real bad, I’m afraid.”

  “I… know,” Tallis said, reading Kai’s face. The man’s craggy features twisted into a grimace. His lank, long hair was matted against his cheeks and neck. “I’m… not going to… make it, am I?”

  “I could lie and say you’ve got a chance,” Kai said, “but you know that’s not the case. What do you want me to do?”

  Tallis looked into his eyes, thinking over his options. “I guess… it’s over. The… blight, it…”

  “I know,” Kai said, lowering his gun and gripping him by the shoulder. Although Kai didn’t know him beyond acquaintance level, Tallis was a well-known
figure around Ghanis, mostly for his engineering skills. He used to work for a local racing outfit, but Kai hadn’t seen him for some years.

  The blight had clearly reduced his employment options.

  Tallis shifted himself up against the wreckage and held a shaking hand toward the ship that they had all come for. “There’s something… in there you should see,” he said between shallow breaths. “Your father… he—”

  Kai stood up, a spring releasing its tension. “My father’s in there?”

  “No… but, the ship, I think it… belonged to him. You’ll see.”

  The revelation hit Kai in the face, a solid-fisted punch. He hadn’t heard anything regarding his missing father for over three years. He desperately wanted to run to the ship and see what it was, but he had to do right by Tallis first.

  “Why were you even here?” Kai asked. “And with pirates? You’re better than that.”

  Tallis slumped his chin against his chest and exhaled slowly. “I… wanted the money. To get off the planet. Live my final days on… Jallan IV. We… all did.”

  “All the pirates had the blight too?” Kai asked.

  Tallis nodded and then looked up at Kai, focused on his Petchen & Glaz.

  “Please, Kai… end this for me. I can’t go on like this. Please…”

  “Are you absolutely sure? I could make it easier. I’ve got some supplies of—”

  “Just shoot me,” Tallis begged. “It hurts too much. Kai, now…”

  “Tallis, I can’t just—”

  “It hurts too much, boy. Just end me… please?”

  Kai stood there in front of the older man, his rifle shaking in his hands. He’d never killed anyone like this before. Sure, he’d been in the odd ship battle with the pirates before—everyone who flew on Zarunda did at some point in their lives, but this… this was a universe away from that.

  Tallis was a good man, or as close to a good man as one would find on Zarunda. And here was Kai, just a kid compared to him, being asked to end the life of another. Just because he was ill and suffering didn’t make it any easier.

  “You can do this,” Tallis whispered, his energy seeping away as the blood from his chest continued to desert him in miniature tidal waves, the heart now working against him as though it had decided to feed the ground with his blood.

  Or perhaps it was pumping away the blight, to leave Tallis pure as he passed away.

  Tears rolled down Kai’s cheeks. His knuckles were threatening to burst through the surrounding skin his grip was so tight.

  “I’m so sorry,” Kai choked out. “I hope you have a good afterlife, Tallis.”

  “Me too, Kai… Me too. Now, shoot.”

  Closing his eyes, Kai whispered a prayer to Valnesia and squeezed the trigger of his rifle.

  A single bolt fired, the crack splintering the quiet of the desert. The round struck Tallis square in the forehead. The man’s body slumped, lifeless and pitched to one side.

  Kai swallowed a welling of grief, dropped his rifle, and laid Tallis’s body on the sandy ground. He stayed kneeling over the older man for what seemed like forever, Kai’s whole body shaking.

  “What happened?” Senaya said, sprinting around the wreckage and skidding to a stop by Kai. She looked from him to Tallis’s still form. “Oh.”

  “He begged me,” Kai said. “He had the blight—they all did.”

  “I know. I saw them. There’re three more over there. I don’t think they had more than a few days amongst them. There’s nothing anyone could have done. We’ll arrange for them to be collected and processed properly when we get back to the workshop. Their families will probably be relieved. It’s a huge burden.”

  Senaya talked on, regaling him with stories of a friend of a friend whose son had contracted the blight and how difficult it was to care for him with Zarunda’s nonexistent healthcare facilities. Its citizens were forced to deal on the black market for whatever drugs the smugglers managed to bring from other systems.

  None of that made it any easier for Kai, though. He knew Tallis wasn't a bad man; he was just doing what he could to survive. They stood there in silence for a long minute, remembering what they could of Tallis and wishing him a better chance in the next life if there was one.

  Kai was not convinced, but that meant nothing right now.

  “He mentioned something about my father," Kai said eventually. "Suggested there was something of his on the ship."

  “Well, let’s go look. There’s nothing more we can do for Tallis or the others now. We’ll have them looked after when we get back, and given how we’re going to be facing freezing cold temperatures sooner rather than later, we ought to make plans to find a way back home.”

  “You’re right. It just feels wrong now. Let’s hope it’s got something we can use to get home now that the tug is ruined,” Kai said, turning from Tallis’s body and heading away from the fire and destruction of the anti-air vehicles.

  When they reached the ship, Kai couldn't help but be underwhelmed.

  “So much for your source saying it was an amazing find,” Senaya said, the disappointment in her voice as clear as the starry sky above them. “The thing’s an old Host diplomatic courier vessel. Won’t be anything more advanced in there than what we can trade with the smugglers.”

  She was right, of course, but regardless of the lack of tech, he still felt that tinge of curiosity, and he felt like he owed it to Tallis to find out what was inside.

  He approached the vessel, a thirty-meter-long wedge cultured in the Host livery of dark green and gold. Its cannons were already missing, crudely ripped from the hull. The doors were gone too, along with most of its shielding material.

  “The pirates must have got here hours before we did and sent the loot back on another ship,” Senaya said. “It’s stripped clean. This whole journey was a waste of time, and it’s going to cost a fortune to replace the tug. This is a disaster.”

  Kai ignored her and stepped into the ship, moving his way through stripped-bare corridors until he found the captain’s cabin.

  Tallis was true to his word.

  At the end of a turned-over bed was a Coalition military-issue footlocker. Using the tactical light on his rifle, Kai shined it on the box. Deep gouges told the story of someone trying to get into it—and failing. Probably the Host force who owned the ship.

  “Wow, the old rogue was right," Senaya said, slipping into the room and standing in the doorway. "Might be tricky to open, given the state of it."

  “We’ll take it back to the shop with us. I’m sure we can burn our way through it.”

  Kai placed the rifle under his arm and reached down to pick up the footlocker. His hands gripped the sides, but before he could lift it up, a mechanism whirred inside and the lid popped open.

  “That’s unusual,” Senaya said, stepping closer. “What did you do that the pirates didn’t?”

  “Nothing, I just touched it.”

  “Huh, biotech… clever.”

  Kai placed the footlocker on the upturned bed and lifted the lid completely. Shining the light inside revealed a single object encased in foam.

  “What is that?” Senaya said, leaning over to peer inside. “It looks like a miniature pyramid or something.”

  That was exactly what it was. Kai eased it from the foam and held it aloft. The object was approximately half the size of his palm and made from a type of metal he couldn’t identify.

  It was extremely light, no more than a few grams, yet it had a metaphysical presence about it. The tetrahedron’s surface was matte black and seemed to suck in the surrounding light. Kai spun it around, inspecting every surface, but found no blemish or surface detail. He pressed at each of the four sides, but nothing happened.

  “What do you think it is?” Senaya said. “And is this what Tallis said belonged to your father?”

  “It must be, given that the box opened for me,” Kai said, his mind whirling for an answer of what it was. Nothing came to him other than perhaps a piece of ar
twork, but why would it be inside a military lockbox? Perhaps it was some kind of advanced weapon. He had no idea how such a thing might work. The artifact was completely bare of any signs of usage.

  “Here, you have a look,” Kai said, handing it to Senaya while he shone his light back into the lockbox and around it. While Senaya inspected the object, Kai looked all over and in the container, hoping to find some kind of clue.

  An instruction scroll would be useful, he thought.

  There was only one thing of interest, on the underside of the box.

  A series of numbers: 189-0484-9301-112

  Kai almost sang the numbers in his head, as he had done a million times before.

  The numbers belonged to his father—his official Coalition armed forces identification number from when he was in the Guerrilla Tactics Unit.

  Tallis was right: this was Kendal Locke’s, but what was it, and what did it mean? Was his father really still alive? Kai had little time to ponder the question as heavy footsteps thudded in the corridor outside.

  Chapter 3

  Spymaster Brenna Locke and her apprentice, Jannis Fo, kept pace with the stream of alien citizens of Haleedez. They were just two more individuals on their way to work in the great economic capital city of Somos.

  Jannis stuck close by, her short-cropped dark hair cut in the local style, so it appeared like a thin flight helmet around her head and down to her chin. Even the beige flared trouser suit she was wearing was spot-on for the fashion of the time.

  They chatted about nothing important and greeted workers who came the other way on the three-hundred-foot-high translucent walkway that connected the vast matrix of crystallite towers. Brenna noticed Jannis staring at her feet—as most newcomers did.

  It took a while to get over the feeling that you were about to fall.

  “Eyes up,” Brenna whispered, then smiled as though they had just shared a joke.

  “Right, sorry,” Jannis said. “It’s just so…”

  “You’ll get used to it. We’re nearly there, anyway. Did you read the report from the financial team last night?” This was code for: “Did you read my latest report on our informant?”