Blackstar Command 1: Prominence

by A. C. Hadfield

  Throughout the subspace journey, her half-awareness, such as it was during a jump, contemplated the death of her apprentice. She played the scenario over in her head and knew that she couldn’t have done anything differently.

  One could perhaps argue she shouldn't have let Fo enter the room on her own, but that wouldn't hold up. Fo was coming toward the end of her apprenticeship and was only doing what she was trained to do: take the initiative and act on the data in a given situation.

  Their bio-scanner was scrambled, and any use of a drone camera would have given away their position. At the time, their information did not indicate the informant was deceased and the murderer was waiting in their stead.

  As upsetting as it was to lose Jannis Fo, being murdered was an occupational hazard.

  Brenna was in no doubt her time would come too. Probably sooner than she liked, given the escalating Host situation.

  “Docking procedure underway,” the AI said, the voice coming through the discreet speaker in her cabin. She stepped out of the shower, dried herself and got dressed in a formal Coalition uniform of navy blue and gray that made every part of her itch.

  It wasn’t just the material but also what it stood for: conformity, authority, order.

  She didn’t join the GTU for any of that, but these days, the CDF fully encompassed every department, and for official visits to the headquarters, there was no other option but to toe the line. Checking herself in the mirror to make sure she was presentable, Brenna took a deep breath and stepped out of her cabin. She used the handholds along the ship’s walls to get to the airlock at the aft of the ship.

  The holoscreen next to the airlock showed the video feed of the docking procedure.

  The orbital station was a great ring some five kilometers in diameter, a halo for the cold moon below it. A dozen or more ships of varying sizes flew past her in both directions, some preparing to land, others on a course out of the system.

  As they drew closer, the AI regulated their spin rate and velocity so that to Brenna it appeared that the station remained still and that it was the moon below, with its swirling white clouds, that was spinning, which of course it wasn’t, given its tidal-locked orbit with Capsis Prime.

  The other two moons, Ceassa and Cesta, were visible in the distance, two small marbles captured in the gravity of their parent.

  They were approaching the top level of docking. Hundreds of square landing pads lined the exterior of the circular station. Ships of all sizes and cultures had already landed, taking up most of the landing spots.

  Below that level, a transparent tube containing walkways and railings converged to various elevator shafts leading further into the ring to the central cylindrical column that made up the bulk of the station. Humans populated the majority of traffic on the walkways with a smattering of other species going about their business.

  “Landing procedures under way,” the AI said.

  Brenna’s chest tightened. Her view grew dark as her ship entered the interior of the ring and slowly oriented itself to a landing vector. The AI did a great, if not routine, job of steadying the craft with its multidirectional jets, landing the ship with the smallest of noticeable bumps.

  “Landing complete,” the AI said. “Engines off, access registered with dock authorities. Captain Lopek has appended a message for you to meet him on level fifty-seven, office nine.”

  Brenna knew the address well. It was Lopek’s main center of operations and the room where she had first met her husband, Kendal Locke. And, regrettably, the place she had last seen him before he was assigned to the Blackstar mission and never returned.

  “Thanks,” Brenna said to the AI. “Would you mind opening the airlock?”

  “Affirmative,” the AI replied. “Have a nice day.”

  The door hissed and clunked and swung open. She stepped inside, wondering what was up with the AI. Have a nice day? Was that one of the programmer's routine files? Someone's idea of a joke? She didn't have time to consider it further. The airlock system ran through its procedure and opened the outer door.

  She stared into a white tunnel affixed to the hull of her craft. The smell of rubber and dust assailed her nostrils as she took a deep breath of air. The crisp, dense atmosphere filled her lungs and made her bones shiver.

  Not wanting to be late, she ignored the growing anxiety of being back on official Coalition territory and made her way through the tunnel and down through the elevator to the appropriate level.

  It took her just a few minutes to reach Lopek's office suite. She paused for a moment at the door before entering. The door swung shut behind her. Soft furnishings from curtains and carpets decorated the place, all in natural brown and beige tones. A large holoscreen dominated the east wall. Opposite, on the west side of the room, were three seats, two of which were occupied by a couple of GTU agents.

  In front of her was a large slab desk with a door behind it.

  Agents Miles and Mathieson, both tall, lithe humans, stood and straightened their blue-gray Coalition uniforms. “Locke,” they said in sparse greeting.

  Brenna nodded to them.

  Captain Lopek entered from the far door and took a seat at the desk; its great glossy cream stone surface appeared even larger with Lopek's slight frame as a reference.

  Like the others, he too wore the official Coalition uniform. The only difference was that it suited his thin, austere physique. His dark blue eyes were deep set and shadowed beneath a rear-sloping forehead. He wore his black hair slicked back like a second skin. A sharp chin and pronounced cheekbones led to sunken cheeks, giving him a gaunt, unhealthy appearance.

  “Agent Locke," he said, his tone serious, "welcome. I'm glad you made it back safely. I'm sorry about Fo. We've reviewed the video you captured, and the committee agrees with your assessment. There was nothing you could have done differently, given the data available to you. We'll arrange full Coalition death honors for Fo. We've informed her family, and our people are processing her body as we speak."

  “Thank you,” Brenna said, not wanting to say much else for fear of her raking up emotions around Fo’s death.

  Lopek nodded once and smiled a pitying smile. Smile was generous as a description; it was more of a slight stretching and curling of the lips, a respectful formality quickly forgotten.

  Lopek stood and indicated a seat for her in the plush office. “Take a seat. We need to get things under way.”

  Brenna did as she was told and said, “I trust you’ve had a chance to find out more about the Host attack?”

  Miles, a bald-headed, lithe man answered, “We’ve been going over it for the past few hours—it appears the Host aren’t acting alone.”

  Mathieson, a larger woman with long white hair that she had braided up into an intricate tower, added, “We’ve managed to neutralize the threat on the defensive perimeter but not without considerable losses. We’ve lost five of the twenty nodes and two destroyers, but the defenses are alerted and ready for any incoming attack.”

  “Has there been any intel,” Brenna asked, “regarding how their insurgents disabled the early warning systems on Haleedez and the other planets?”

  Lopek shook his head. “Not yet. We’re currently working on a number of leads. The system on Haleedez wasn’t hacked. The administrator is currently missing.”

  “This hints at defection, right?” Mathieson said.

  “It's a possibility," Lopek said before pursing his lips together into a thin line. The idea apparently concerned him, but as far as Brenna was concerned, this wasn't a GTU issue—this was for the higher-ups in the CDF to be concerned with.

  For the next fifteen minutes, Lopek questioned Brenna, Miles, and Mathieson, adding in their observations of the attacks with his other sources. He was building a report for General Amelia of the CDF. She would collate his report with those from the other departments and decide the appropriate response.

  Until then, they were to focus on their GTU responsibilities.

  Lopek excused
Miles and Mathieson, leaving him and Brenna alone. When the other two were gone, and the door was closed, Lopek stood and leaned against his desk informally.

  “What is it?” Brenna said, noticing the tightness in his face.

  “You know we monitor all communications from our agents.”

  “Um… yes, why?” She wondered then if she had said something against protocol. Lopek soon put her at ease.

  “The last conversation you had with your son, Kai. There was talk of something he found on Zarunda. A black tetrahedron and a footlocker with your husband’s number.”

  “Yes,” Brenna said, wondering where this was going.

  “How much of your husband’s last mission are you aware of? I mean, beyond the official communications you received when his status was confirmed as missing?”

  Brenna fidgeted in her chair. The collar of her suit jacket itched maddeningly against her neck. She felt like a bug trapped in a predator’s web and that she was being led somewhere she didn’t want to go, somewhere that would spell danger for her. How much should she reveal?

  “This is off the record," Lopek said, crossing his long legs and leaning forward. "The reason I ask is that it appears to me, regardless of the official position, that the Host is not the fragmented force we once thought. They've received help from someone, and perhaps for some time. We're not going to fare well in the coming days, weeks, or months if we keep pretending that they don't have the resources."

  “Captain Lopek, I wish for you to be clear. Why am I here? What is it that you want from me?”

  He leaned back and took a deep breath. "I've received information that suggests your husband is still alive. He failed his mission, but we found evidence that he was on a remote world just a few weeks ago—we've lost track since then."

  Brenna's heart rate surged, and she stood, the tension in her legs too great not to release. "Why didn't you tell me this before?" Her face flushed with anger and she ripped at the collar around her neck, unable to cope with the itching any longer.

  Lopek raised his palms. “We had to be sure. We weren’t deliberately withholding information from you. It would have been worse if we told you he was still alive and then discovered our intel was wrong. I needed it confirmed, and it turns out that your son has done just that.”

  “Sir, enough with the cryptic stuff. Just tell me, what do you know? And what do you want?”

  “The Blackstar,” he said. “Your husband found it, but like him, it’s now missing. The tetrahedron your son found is an artifact from the Navigators. The fact it was with your husband’s belongings confirms he found the Blackstar device.”

  Brenna took this and thought about the implications.

  The Blackstar was rumored to be one of the few remaining pieces of Navigator technology. The Navigators as a race had died out many millennia ago, leaving more mysteries than answers. Some scholars had suggested that Navigator technology at the center of the galaxy was responsible for barring travel to the two inner rings of planets.

  The Coalition had spent trillions of credits over the years sending scientific instruments and astronauts into the inner ring. Not a single one came back operational, and no data could be gathered as to why subspace travel failed when you got near the inner rings.

  A semi-translated file from the Navigators led them to the discovery of the Blackstar—a mysterious artifact capable of manipulating space-time itself.

  If the coalition could find the Blackstar, they would, like the Navigators before them, have the edge and control over their enemies and the galaxy.

  “You want me to follow up my husband’s search?”

  Lopek shook his head. “No, Agent Locke, we have another job for you. But before we get to that, we want you to do something else first.”

  “Go on…”

  “We want you to persuade your son to follow in your father’s footsteps. With the tetrahedron in his possession, we believe that will lead him to the Blackstar, but here’s the problem: we also have intel that suggests the Host have agents on the trail. Your husband was sloppy, and news of his discovery leaked to the Host via a defector. The race is on, Agent Locke, and your son is the best chance we have. And with a leak in the Coalition, we can’t afford to handle it internally.”

  Chapter 8

  Nightfall had settled across the outer regions of the Zarundan capital of Ghanis.

  Kai and Senaya shared piloting duties, navigating their small transit shuttle—the only reliable form of transport they had left—over the jungle and eastward in the direction of the steppes, guided by the coordinates discovered via Bandar Trace’s token.

  Kai yawned and reached for another pack of stimulants, fishing around in the storage bin beneath the console of the cramped shuttle. The craft was humid due to a lack of internal climate control.

  Sweat dripped from his forehead.

  “We have to get some cooling in this thing," he said, looking over the console to Senaya who was seated to his left.

  Despite still wearing her many-pocketed outfit, she appeared unruffled, unfazed, and cool.

  “I’ll add it to the list,” she said with a wry smile.

  They traveled the rest of the journey in relative peace. Kai managed to take a half-hour nap in the shuttle's single berth while he waited for the stimulants to kick in.

  An hour later, when they neared their destination, the shuttle's annoying warning buzz alerted Kai of their arrival. He groggily made his way down the cramped passage and into the equally cramped cockpit. With just two seats side by side and an old console sweeping around in an arc with push-button controls, it felt a million years away from even his antiquated G10.

  They had no night vision available and had to rely on a crude approximation of their surroundings. Senaya brought them to a hover a hundred meters above the coordinates and initiated a scan of the area for more detail. They both regarded the screen in front of them with the modeled view showing them a single-story building and three smaller outbuildings to its west side.

  The scan was accompanied by an ID signal, telling them the place was called the Rest & Regroup and was a bar, motel, and general place of entertainment for industrial workers situated at the various mining plants to the north.

  Aside from those few buildings, they were deep in the steppes, and the oddly geometric rocky surface extended as far as the eye, and the scanners, could see.

  There were no trees, mountains, rivers, or any other geological features in sight.

  It would take a twenty-minute flight at full speed just to reach the nearest township.

  This had better go well, Kai thought.

  “Okay, let’s land and go check this place out,” he said. “At the very least we’ll be able to get a drink if nothing else.”

  Senaya expertly landed the shuttle on a designated platform to the rear of the main building. There were just two places left, the rest populated by shuttles and smaller craft bearing the white and red livery of Minovo Corp, the biggest mining company this side of the planet. Given the number of craft, it appeared to be a busy night.

  Kai and Senaya switched off the power and left the shuttle. Senaya handed him one of her discreet pistols while she kept the other. They weren't the greatest of firearms, and certainly no real replacement for his P&G, but they would serve a purpose if things turned bad.

  “It’s humid even out here,” Kai said as he led Senaya down the metal stairs to the dirt path that took them to the main building.

  “It’s not too bad,” Senaya said. “You’re probably just exhausted with worry.”

  “And you’re not?”

  Senaya shrugged. “I’m not as against joining the reserves as you are, so I have options if this doesn’t work out.”

  “If we survive it not working out…”

  The two of them approached the Rest & Regroup and stopped at the door. They pressed a button labeled Enter, and a yellow light flashed over them briefly, scanning them for viruses and contraband, as was the protocol for
private businesses these days. Almost none could afford the lawsuits or the insurance for a blight breakout—or something worse.

  The light flashed green, and the door opened.

  A surge of sound and light hit them and was soon followed by a chilled atmosphere thick with an effluvium of various recreational smoke essences. It clung to the back of Kai’s throat and nostrils.

  It wasn’t entirely unpleasant, the flavor reminding him of boiled and subsequently melted hard candy delicacies of synthetic fruits he used to enjoy as a child.

  And at least it was cooler inside, even if the music was the industrialist's favorite: ElectroSync, with its lush, layered audio spectrum, punctuated with an oddly syncopated beat that the smokers of essence would find some secret rhythm hidden within.

  “Definitely busy,” Senaya said as she diverted away from a large man in grease- and smoke-stained mining overalls, striding across the foyer to get to the bar.

  “Let's get a drink—the bar woman will likely be able to help with Trace," Kai said, following the rude man in front of them, one hand in his leather jacket pocket, where he could quickly reach the pistol in the hip holster. He had removed the pocket liner for such a need.

  The bar itself was a ten-meter-wide crescent arc in the center of the building.

  On both sides, the place was lined with curved cubicles containing tables and chairs. As far as Kai could tell, they were all occupied and full with Minovo staff, women, men, and even some servitors alike. He guessed there must have been at least two hundred people in the place. Beyond the bar, a small dance floor was slowly filling with intoxicated patrons.

  As many of the Minovo lot joined in, Kai started to notice non-staff in dark corners. They looked like traders mostly. Some he recognized as shifters and runners: the underlings to the main smuggling organizations. He caught eye contact with one of them—a scruffy short man in an outdated suit and cap—and shared a nod of recognition.

  This was a good sign, he thought. These were the kind of people he would associate with Bandar Trace—not so much the miners.