Embers: The Galaxy On Fire Series, Book 1

by Craig Robertson

  “So, when the Adamant arrived, what happened? Were there great battles between them and frightening monsters? I asked.

  “No. Oh, there were a few skirmishes, but they ended quickly. I guess they moved so quickly and were in such great numbers that we didn’t react.”

  “You said they wouldn’t let you change. In prison, you couldn’t shapeshift, right?”

  She thought a moment then nodded.

  “Have you ever heard of that happening, someone forcing you not to shift?”

  “No, but I am just a child. It wasn’t like we talked around the dinner table about what happened if we couldn’t morph.”

  “Because it probably never happened before.” I popped out of my chair. “Mirraya, come over here.” I took her hand and led her to the Med Station. “Here,” I set her arm down under the scanning microscope. “Morph into something and I’ll have Al analyze what actually happens.” I started to turn to address the console, but spun back. “Just don’t do the fire snake thing, okay?”

  She smiled playfully. Then her arm turned into a bunch of beautiful flowers.

  “So, what do you see, Al?”

  “Ahem,” he responded.

  “What?”

  “Say again, ahem.”

  What? Oh. “Al, what do Stingray and you make of her transformation?”

  There was a brief delay. “Interesting,” said Al.

  “Yes, I wouldn’t have guessed that,” remarked Stingray.

  “What already?” I barked.

  “Oh. Her transformation. Fascinating. Deft have one hundred twenty-eight double pair of DNA helical genes. When they morph, one of the double pairs switches configuration while the other remains unchanged.”

  “The unchanged one is probably the native Deft genetic information. It’s stable so the retuning point is always fixed,” added Stingray.

  “The other double pair is voluntarily transformed into foreign DNA, and then that genetic information is translated.”

  “No, dear, I hate to correct you,” said a cautious Stingray, “the morphed DNA is not foreign. It remains self, so it is not attacked by the immune system.”

  “Either DNA. You’re right. That is more correct,” deferred Al.

  “Guys,” I snapped, “professors, I need answers, not tickets to your mutual admiration society's gala dinner.”

  “Her redundant DNA can be modeled at will. That’s how she transforms,” Al said stiffly.

  “So, could the Adamant theoretically prevent the Deft from,” I wiggled my fingers in the air, “you know, shifting.”

  “No. It’s not theoretical since they already did,” responded a still stiff sounding Al. I’d embarrassed him in front of his new girlfriend, hadn’t I. Better let that barb pass for now.

  “How could one being stop another being from altering their DNA?” I queried.

  “It’s a biomechanical process. Anything that inhibits the mechanism would work. It would not be difficult. They might even use radio waves.”

  “I think microwaves would work better, honey,” said Stingray.

  This kissy-kissy thing was getting on my last nerve.

  “We’ll talk about it later. I think the pilot wishes to assume command of the conversation again.”

  Why did I reactivate that hunk o’ junk? What was I thinking, that life was too calm and peaceful?

  “So, the Adamant can remotely control the bodily functions of others?”

  There was a farting sound that rattled in the next room.

  “Al, grow up, please. We’re in a crisis here,” I said.

  “It wasn’t me. It was … some other guy who did that.”

  “So, the Adamant can alter the cellular function of others. Interesting, but not much of a revelation. We certainly can’t use it against them.”

  “No, but it suggests they rely heavily on this kind of remote. If they are cerebral and not physical, that would be useful,” said Al.

  “True that. It would be nice if they over-relied on technology.”

  “As opposed to the brute force of the Berrillians, to choose an example,” added Al.

  “So, we need to destroy Exeter. That is a relatively simple and quick process. We’ll do that first.”

  “Why destroy a derelict ship?” asked Al.

  “A promise to an old friend,” I replied.

  “Then it’s toast,” responded Al emphatically. He knew the power of promises to old friends. Good vacuum cleaner.

  “Al, you and your … Stingray work up an attack plan. I want to materialize and blow up the ship as fast as possible. Then we need an escape course like the one we used recently.”

  “Consider it done,” said Al.

  “Oh, and Al, start working on reproducing rail guns and rail cannon. We have a lot of glitzy weapons, but I like having good old muzzle-loaders at my disposal too.”

  “Not a problem, Captain.”

  “I thought he was a general, dear?” asked Stingray.

  “He is. But anyone who commands a vessel is a captain.”

  “Isn’t a general of higher rank? Why belittle a general by calling him a captain?”

  “I can only say how it is, not why.”

  “Seems overly complicated and archaic,” Stingray replied.

  “The things that make humans happy are diverse and unpredictable on a good day, my dear,” Al concluded.

  The following afternoon, Stingray blazed into the sky one thousand kilometers above Exeter. I lipped saying goodbye to her and gave the firing order. It was spectacular. The QU quickly blew massive chunks of asteroid free. The two-meter wide gamma ray laser flashed at the large chunks and sprayed the space around us into white hot fireworks. Within a minute, there was nothing but hot dust moving away from us at nearly the speed of light.

  Luck was a fickle mistress. Always would be. But damn if she wasn’t with us that day. She must have known the tribute to Exeter was a good deed that required rewarding. Because, with our return to a known location and with all the hubbub, the Adamant ships popped into existence very quickly, much sooner than I’d have anticipated. But, guess in which direction they arrived? Go on, guess. Yeah. The direction over one-trillion tons of white hot dust moving near the speed of light was headed. I doubt the first eight ships even knew what hit them. They appeared in space and vaporized all in one blink of an eye.

  Multiple warships began coming out of the artificial wormholes they’d created, but they were scattered more widely and farther behind the lead ships. Some were damaged heavily, but none were destroyed outright. By the time they made evasive maneuvers and were ready to attack us, we were long gone. Apparently, the hot cloud screwed up their sensors because they didn’t even follow us to our first jump spot. I wiggled across space for a few days to make certain. Another random piece of intel on the Adamant. Their sensors could be fouled up. Any tactical insights were more than welcome in what looked to be a long, tough struggle ahead.

  As I sat quietly alone in the dark that night after Mirraya had gone to bed. I smiled. I had to. I was thinking how much the Adamant hated one Jonathan Ryan, Esq. It was nice to know. If I’d had whiskey, I’d have toasted to their ill health. I settled for nufe and the heady memories I had of my family on Exeter. Good old Exeter. She was at peace now. So were my kin. I closed my eyes and increased power to my olfactory memory. The smell of Kayla’s skin was intoxicating. I smiled like an idiot, sitting there alone in the dark.

  FIFTEEN

  Though it was an awful risk, I had to see if any Deft remained on Locinar. If there were, I could rescue companions for Mirraya. If it was, beyond all reasonable expectation, safe there, I could leave her with her race. As much as I’d come to love her, I knew that in the long run she’d be better off with some normalcy as opposed to flitting about the galaxy with an old bachelor.

  I hadn’t decided if it was better to make an open approach aboard Stingray or try a covert infiltration. Both were incredibly risky. If the Adamant remained in force, they might just sweep
the both of us up and send us to an extermination ship. Then again, if they had repopulated the planet with a docile, servant race, we might get lucky and blend in. Well, Mirraya would blend in. Me, I’d likely stick out like the proverbial sore thumb, but I was used to that role.

  The more I thought about it, the better the covert option seemed. The main thing I lacked was a local spaceship to land in. I knew Stingray’s picture was on every virtual post office wall in the Adamant empire by then. That meant we needed to go to a nearby world and beg, borrow, or steal a new ship. I had zero experience begging, but borrowing and stealing were in my wheelhouse. I had Stingray pull up charts of the sector. There were a few planets close enough to Locinar to be likely trading partners. Most had humanoid species as the main inhabitants. I suspected that resulted from one race having colonized that region of space in the distant past.

  Ungalaym. That was the name of the world I picked. It was small and far enough from its star to be cold. It suggested the Adamant couldn’t use it for crop production, so maybe they’d left it alone. The less of them the better. I had Stingray put us in a very high orbit around Ungalaym to get the lay of the land. She deployed a full membrane to make us less detectable. A tiny opening permitted our investigations. There were some Adamant transmissions, but not that many. My guess might have been correct. Luck was still with us. Or maybe it was the Force. A movie franchise that popular had to be loaded with truths, right?

  As quickly as I could determine where to land, I had Stingray put us down. In orbit, we were more easily detected. Our enemy was too capable to underestimate. I chose a rough, hilly area near a small town. I’d confirmed there was some space traffic coming and going from there. Mirraya and I hoofed the few kilometers to the town. Once a truck had passed us, she transformed into a blend-in-ready local teen. I had a heavy cape with a hood. I loved that outfit ever since I saw Obi-Wan Kenobi wear it. He looked cool in it. I looked cooler, naturally.

  We entered the town near dusk. Weaker light aided my disguise. I also kept my head down so my face was almost completely obscured. I probably looked like some mangy prophet. Since the Adamant were present, everyone would speak Standard. To do otherwise was a capital offense. They were the most rigid, orderly species I’d ever come across. It gave them strength, but it must have been a boring society to live in. I’d certainly have been a square peg in their world of round holes.

  I’d learned early on in my travels that when I was new in town and wanted the scoop, the best place to get information was in a bar. The more disreputable, the better. Hard drinkers had looser lips and were typically disenfranchised. Bitter drunks were fountainheads of local information and all too happy to betray their oppressors. Shutting them up was usually the hardest part of the interaction.

  I found a certifiable dive, and we stepped in. The trick was to look like you belonged, not too timid but not overly assertive either. Hey, some dull schmuck just arrived, everybody stay seated and put your face back in your glass.

  “We’re going to need some local currency if we want blend in,” I remarked to Mirraya while still scanning the large, open bar room.

  “Leave that to me,” she said as she walked quickly to the bar. She looked at the coins next to a glass, rocking her head back and forth to gauge their size and weight.

  “Can I help ya, little girl?” asked the appropriately burly and greasy looking pig of a barkeep.

  A couple nearby patrons guffawed into their drinks. Funny comedy team. I bet they did a matinee on Sundays too.

  “Yes, kind sir,” she said. “Can I get some change?” She slipped her hand across the counter and three of the larger coins appeared in its wake. Where the hell did those come from? Did Deft do sleight of hand too?

  “Hah, dis ain’t no bank, sweetie. Picks up yur clunk, or E’ll picks it up meself.”

  She turned and looked to me with pain in her eyes. Was she calling for backup? Nothing had happened to bail her out of, at least not yet.

  She lowered her head and spoke softly. “Please, kind man. If you won’t give me change, my Pa won’t give me no money for dinner food. He’s a drinkin’ man, sir, shy on patience.”

  The barkeep surveyed me while spit cleaning a glass. “Is he now? We’ll just haves to see ’bout dat, won we?”

  He picked up the coins and gave her ten or twelve in exchange.

  “Now off wid ya, child. The drinkin’ men needs dare spaces.”

  Mirraya bobbed her head and backed away.

  When she arrived to me she winked, then handed me all the coins.

  “Don’t you need some for dinner food?” I teased.

  “There’s more where that came from,” she said with another wink. As she spoke, the three coins she’d exchanged walked—yes I said walked—over to her foot and jumped into it. She curtsied. “Old Deft trick. We call it paying with flesh. Works every time.” With that announcement, she pushed past me and left. She was heading across the street to what passed for a restaurant.

  I sidled up to the bar. I was in my happy place now. Cheap whiskey, or facsimile therein, and cheaper company. In no time at all, a toothless working girl would have me staked out. And a fun time was had by all.

  “A shot and a beer,” I said. No alien world ever had that combination or anything remotely similar, but the concept was universal.

  The bartender spit to one side. “I’d asks to sees yur coin by habit, but as yur’en if recently familiar, E’ll skips da usialities.”

  His choir of idiots laughed loudly at that pearl.

  He poured me something in a small glass and something in a large glass. A shot and a beer. Then he slid them over carelessly with the back of his hand. I half expected the wood of the bar to hiss as the fluids splashed on to them.

  “Muncha and plow,” he said, tilting his he’d toward the taste delights.

  A drunk seated next to me cut in. “Weez calls it plow ons acount’a what it does tos yur head aftertimes.”

  Oh, did the chorus of simians howl at that one. I was somehow able to keep a straight face.

  In my travels across the stars, I’d been to more than my share of dives and belted back rivers of undrinkable firewater. That said, plow was intensely revolting and muncha was muncha worse. The distilled plow intertwined the flavors of boiled piss and melted plastic. I decided not to test them to see if those were actual components. Muncha was slightly fermented, but all similarities to beer ended there with a loud crash. It looked like dog vomit and tasted like rotten bread. Oh my, it was bad. I dialed my taste array all the way down to zero.

  “Ah,” I said after the glasses were drained, “that hit the spot. The spot, however, is asking for more.” I slapped the bar for emphasis.

  “Luckys fur ya, stranger, it zo happins we can scratch thats which itches ya,” returned the barkeep.

  I don’t need to add that the audience had trouble containing themselves.

  “So, I’m looking for work,” I said apropos of nothing. “Any prospects around these parts?”

  The patrons looked at one another briefly before bursting out in their loudest cacophony yet. Was work funny, or that it might be available? Or was it that all sentences were hilarious when the boys were past a certain point of drunk? I favored the latter hypothesis.

  “Ifs ya ain’t gots yur own to work, mi tall man,” replied the bartender, “den da Amadents ain’t likesly to ’low ya to be doings much a anyting.”

  Maybe he meant that if you weren’t assigned work, you dare not do it? Or you could only work your land. Oh well, I didn’t really care. I wanted information and a ship, not menial labor with this rabble.

  “As well, doesn’t hurt to pretend to seek honest labor?” I said wrapping my knuckles on the bar to hurry my next vessels of misery.

  He refilled my glasses and slammed the bottle of plow down beside them.

  “Ya kin pours yur’n. But don’t tink I’z ani’t got de eyes of a youngin’. Iz’ll knows when yur clunck runs out an’ll be yankin’ dat botl back
as quickz I cans say piss ons yur hand.”

  What a revolting local saying. I had to advertise this planet as a bucket list entry for all masochists who loved deep space travel. I belted back a few more rounds before trying to extract some useful information. The quickest way to shut mouths was to seem suspiciously over-interested.

  “I was thinking if my girl and I couldn’t find work, maybe we’d head off world. Anyone know an honest shuttler?”

  It was like I suddenly filled the room with liquid nitrogen. Everybody froze solid. I copped a glance at chronometer to make sure time itself hadn’t stopped.

  “I have gold. I can pay our way fairly.”

  Interesting reactions. Two patrons dove to the floor, possibly trying to jam themselves into the legs of their barstools. One drunk vaulted over the bar and landed headfirst at the tender’s feet. Two others a bit farther away gasped like they’d been poisoned. The barkeep himself gave me a look that was very challenging to describe. Possible it was one following my requesting to have an intimate relationship with his elbow. He was clearly stunned and not pleased.

  “Don’a you go sayin’ da word geld in the public’s airs, ya daft looner. Da Amadents gots ears ebrywhar, don’a believes? Day hears da word geld and dey stays’a peeling skin off’a bodies to findz it. What barn ya raised’a in?”

  The fellow at the bartender’s feet was not, to my surprise, dead. I heard a muffled voice speak. “Ya wantz to git us all’a killed to death?”

  “I just asked about transport off this rock. What’s so upsetting about that?”

  “Iz bad e’nuf as’isa talken’ ’bout spacer flights, but no’z. Ya gatz to shout da word geld,” replied the proprietor. He did, I must point out, yell the word geld, the big doodoo. I hadn’t.

  “Why would the Adamant want gold?” I asked. “You can’t eat it, use it in weapons, or talk real nice to it and have it gratify your desires.”

  “It don’a matters why. It matt’a dat dey do. Das alls ya needs to know, fool,” responded the keeper. “No drop’a yer clunk and getz outta hers afore I comes around’a and trows ya true da wall.” He pointed with the intensity of the Archangel Jophiel at the gate of Eden directing me to leave.