“I was a smuggler,” Bin Halum said as the adults sat around the table after dinner, the children doing homework in their rooms. The green-skinned Senesian was short and stocky, and aside from his hairless green body and yellow eyes, he resembled a muscular human. “In the days following the last war between the Sol corporations and my people, there was lots of money to be had moving wartime goods—weapons, munitions, medical supplies, logistical equipment, even reinforced uniforms—from one side of the galaxy to the other. There was also good money to be made in trafficking refugees.”
The Senesian’s face softened as he held out a hand to his human wife. Ara Halum smiled and squeezed her husband’s hand when he said, “That’s how we met. I was the ‘ruthless space pirate’ and she was the loud-mouthed head of this ragtag group of displaced colonists. They’d contracted my crew to get them off one of the worlds annexed by SuperCorp following the peace accords. When I went soft on her, my first mate mutinied, and we had a fight on our hands…”
Ara cleared her throat. “We lost some good people, but were able to find this rock and stake our claim. That was almost ten years ago, and we’re finally seeing progress. Our crops and livestock are flourishing as the terraforming takes hold. Our existence here is now becoming viable. By the time Jes and Wan are grown, it might even be prosperous.”
The Warden nodded at the story and its apparent happy ending. Placing his coffee cup on the table, he said, “Well, I’m glad things are working out for you. I know it can’t be easy out here on your own, with no one to call if things get bad. It’s a risky situation, for sure, but the more I learn about how things work in this day and age, the more I understand why folks like you take those risks.”
A blinding flare of light flashed through the window.
“What’s that?” The Warden jumped to his feet, thinking of the damaged reactor on the Ranger VII and Quantum.
“A meteorite?” Ara suggested, spotting the smoke trail in the atmosphere.
“No. A ship,” Bin corrected, reaching for his coat. A moment later they heard the thumping boom of an explosion. “A crash landing.”
The Warden and the Halums led a crowd of colonists toward the crash site to the west of the settlement. Crossing a low ridge covered with scrub, they saw the debris field and the small crater where most of the fuselage lay in a crumpled heap of burning metal. The Warden was grateful the pilot had jettisoned the atomic engines before entering the atmosphere. A nuclear incident this close to the settlement would have been fatal to all concerned.
“You recognize the ship type?” Bin asked.
“No. Doesn’t look military though. Or even corporate.”
“Over here!” someone shouted. “Got a survivor over here!”
The Warden and the Halums ran to the semicircle of colonists. In the center of the ring sat a man strapped to an ejection seat. His spacesuit was torn and bloody, his clear GlasSteel helmet cracked. But his pale grey eyes blinked with alertness. He tried to remove his helmet, but both arms were broken.
“Here!” Ara carried her first-aid kit to the pilot’s side. “Stay with us. You’ll be fine.”
The Warden eased the man’s helmet off. “Take it easy. Long, deep breaths, my friend. You’ve made it through the worst of it.”
“No!” The injured pilot winced as Ara gave him an injection. “The Sun Smasher is coming…!”
As the man faded into unconsciousness, the Warden exchanged confused glances with the Halums. “The Sun Smasher?”
Ara turned to the onlookers. “Help me get him back to the farm. We’ll tend to him and maybe he’ll be ready to talk come morning.”
A sonic boom shook the night sky.
“Looks like another one.” Bin Halum watched the glow of a ship entering the upper atmosphere. “And this one’s under control. If I had to guess, these might be the folks responsible for this fellow’s crash.”
The Warden rested his hands on his belted Comets. “Then I’ll ask them about this Sun Smasher… Everyone go back to the settlement and get everything locked down tight. I’ll see if these newcomers mean trouble. If they do, I’ll meet them in kind.”
Bin Halum took the Warden’s arm as he turned to go. “You can’t be serious. By the size of that plume, there could be an entire company of marines on that thing.”
The Warden smiled. “You just keep your family and neighbors safe. If I’m not the next person to enter the settlement after lockdown, you know what to do.”
The new ship came down on a heading about a kilometer to the north of the crash site, and the Warden headed that way. If Bin was right and there was a full company aboard, they could split up, sending one platoon to the settlement and another to the downed ship. The best way to prevent that was to catch them as soon as they disembarked.
Despite his recent injuries, the Warden was still a fast runner.
He arrived at the edge of the clearing as the transport ship’s rocket wash faded and the whining sub-orbital engines cycled down. The Warden walked into the landing zone, hands at his sides and waited for the ship’s gangplank to descend. Eight men in faceless, jet-black heavy armor and carrying blaster carbines hurried out to face him. Though the troopers did not raise their weapons, they kept them at the ready.
Noting the SuperCorp logo on the side of the transport and emblazoned on the armored breastplates, the Warden relaxed. A fire team and not a company. Not even real marines, just corporate security. Mercenaries.
“You’re not military,” the Warden said. “What’s a corporation doing this far into the Frontier? Have you got authorization from the Unified Planetary Council?”
The squad leader’s trigger finger tapped the frame of his carbine. “Who the hell are you?”
“Just a concerned citizen. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that crash back there, would you?”
The troopers remained silent. But they bristled. They were fighting men, anticipating the promise of violence.
“Okay, what can you tell me about something called a Sun Smasher?”
The mercenary leader raised his helmed chin. “You ask a lot of questions, stranger. I’ll tell you right now, the answer to all of them is, it’s none of your damn business.”
The Warden smiled. “And if I make it my business?”
“Then you are in for one very bad day.”
The Warden shook his head. “No need for threats. We can be civilized about this, can’t we? I mean, it’s not like SuperCorp is running some kind of illegal operation out here in the uncharted worlds, is it? They aren’t violating the Frontier Preservation Acts, are they?”
The troopers glanced at one another and raised their rifles. The leader’s finger went for the trigger.
He was dead before he hit the ground.
The Warden drew his Comets and opened fire as soon as the troopers signaled their intent. They were here to mop up, to tie up loose ends for their paymasters. That now included the pilot of the crashed ship and every colonist in the settlement. The Warden had seen enough of corporate mercenaries in this modern age to know that these troopers would not differentiate between men, women, and children. All were just obstacles to the next bonus check.
When the dust settled, the eight SuperCorp grunts lay scattered around the rocky clearing, bleeding into the dirt. The Warden hadn’t moved from where he stood. He holstered his pistols and noted the red line across his left side where a blaster bolt had grazed him.
“One more for the collection,” he muttered. He checked the bodies before boarding the transport.
“You missed one.”
The Warden turned on the gangplank to see Quantum crossing the clearing, his long particle-beam rifle in his hands.
“No, I didn’t.”
“The one on the far left.” The alien tsk’ed at the Warden’s new wound. “You know you are not as good a shot with your left hand as you seem to think. It is a good thing I decided to come and have a look when this one came down. Otherwise you would probably be eco
system-enhancing fertilizer like these fellows.”
The Warden shrugged. “Well, maybe I missed him and maybe I didn’t. Either way, I’m glad you came just the same. Now, want to help me check this ship’s logs? I’ve got a bad feeling that whoever sent these guys is up to no good, and a heap of it.”
“What about that piece of serratus anterior you are missing?”
“It’ll keep. Something tells me that whatever a Sun Smasher is, it trumps a flesh wound.”
It didn’t take Quantum long to crack the ship’s security system and gain access to not only the ship’s logs but also the network to which its computer was attached. It took the Mechtechan genius even less time to access and fully understand the severity of the threat now facing them.
“This is not good.” Quantum pulled up the diagnostics on the main screen. “SuperCorp has developed solar siphoning technology on a truly monumental scale. They have an actionable prototype that can completely drain the energy of a star and process it into storable, marketable energy units. They plan to kill stars in the Frontier to sell their energy in the Civilized Systems.”
Quantum pulled up another display, showing an expanding rift in space. “It would appear this Sun Smasher—actually the Star Sequencer 1—has already been successfully tested in a nearby system, designated Janglu. I suggest that the pilot of the crashed ship was a survivor. I would have to backtrack the drive trail to the connecting Einstein-Rosen bridge to verify this hypothesis, but…”
“No need. My gut tells me you’re right.”
The Warden stared at the massive ship displayed on the screen. Such a thing would have been impossible to conceive, much less build in his own time. He looked at the dying star system, where six worlds and their moons faced annihilation in the depths of the newborn black hole. How many undocumented settlers had already perished in that system?
“When we first flew to the stars, we came hoping to build something new and beautiful…”
Quantum brought up another display, a schedule. “It appears the Sun Smasher is on its way to this system for its next test operation. Based on current trajectory and system rotations, it should be here within three solar days.”
---
She stood on the bridge as the behemoth Star Sequencer 1 inexorably moved toward the next designated target. Just a short jump through the nearby Einstein-Rosen bridge was a small Undoc star system not unlike Sol, the origin point of all Earthmen, including Karen Reeves.
The ship was not terribly fast by modern standards, but it was massive with huge banks of energy-storage cells hidden within its armored flanks. This broad surface area allowed for the positioning of multiple gun emplacements, making the SS1 as formidable as any U.P.C. Star Cav ship of the line. And for good reason: once fully-laden with the energy of three stars in its hold, the ship would be a prime target for Frontier outlaws and pirates.
Karen thrilled at the raw power enveloping her, a power manifested from her own will and vision. Once the Star Sequencer 1 returned to Earth with a full payload, SuperCorp would hold a veritable monopoly on clean, affordable energy. The Unified Planetary Council would undoubtedly turn to SuperCorp for all its energy needs, and so her employer would gain preeminence in temporal and political power throughout the Civilized Systems. Karen would be a shoo-in to become the next CEO, where she would sit at the center of that expansive web of galactic power. The Master, or rather Mistress, of the Universe.
“Miss Reeves.” The ship’s captain, an older man named Kirby, stepped to her side, breaking Karen’s reverie. “Forgive me, but we’ve just received an automated hail from the transport we dispatched to chase the Undoc ship escaping the Janglu test.”
Karen frowned at the light-complexioned, middle-aged man. He was a carbon copy of so many of those who had opposed her on her climb up the corporate ladder. She wondered if, hidden behind that veneer of professional courtesy, Kirby did not secretly resent answering to her—a woman over a decade his junior. The thought gave her no small amount of joy.
“So? What is the problem?”
“The message is automated, as I said. The crew does not respond to our hails, claiming some technical problem with the communications equipment. This despite our network diagnostics showing no such problem.”
Karen looked to the forward screen. “Backtrack the drive signature. Find out if and where it landed, then focus the long-range scanners on that location.”
The captain relayed the order to an officer at the sensor terminal. After a few minutes, the report came back. “It appears to have landed on an inner world of our next target, the Kleppin system. Scans indicate a fairly sizeable Undoc settlement there. We’ve also picked up the presence of wreckage near the settlement. The signature matches the ship that escaped Janglu.”
Karen rubbed her chin. “Have a company of troopers dispatched to the hangar bay with blast shielding, just in case it isn’t our people aboard that transport. I want to be ready for anything.”
Captain Kirby raised an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t it be more prudent to destroy the ship before it lands if you suspect a possible threat to the project? If there’s explosives aboard—”
Karen smiled. “There can’t be enough to do more than cosmetic damage. And if there are Undocs and they put up a fight, then by all means, kill them. But transports and death benefits cost money, Captain. If something has happened to our crew, whatever is on that ship can provide the data I’ll need for the quarter’s profits and loss report.”
---
The Sun Smasher was easily the largest manufactured thing the Warden had ever seen in space. Even the interdimensional battle cruisers of Quantum’s people, the Mechtechan, were dwarfed by the massive block of shining metal thrusting through the cosmos. Long and flat, and bristling with weapons batteries and sensor arrays, the SuperCorp monstrosity looked as if an insane god from some unimaginable afterlife had tossed a silver brick into reality.
“Quantum was right,” the Warden growled. The plan—his plan—had already gone off the rails in a spectacular way. All because he wasn’t yet up to speed on modern technology. Not that tech from his own time had ever been his strong suit.
The plan had entailed slipping aboard the Sun Smasher in the guise of the last surviving crewmember of the transport. He would feign injury, be escorted to sickbay, then sneak out and find a way to sabotage the massive star-devouring vessel from within. The Warden hadn’t expected the SuperCorp communication network to require DNA identification to verify the user. As soon as he was forced to make use of the automated signal to respond to hails, he knew he was in trouble.
He realized just how much trouble when the titanic craft’s tractor beam guided his stolen transport into one of the Sun Smasher’s hangar bays. Via the ship’s external cameras, he watched a full company of armored troopers take up firing positions behind mobile blast plates. With a sigh, he looked at the black corporate armor lying over the command chair beside him.
He briefly contemplated trying to pull on the gear and make a go of the original plan, but shook his head. “Quantum was right. I’m just glad he isn’t here to know it.”
The Warden’s alien friend had wanted to accompany him despite his now validated criticisms of the plan. But in the end, they had decided it would be best for Quantum to remain with the Ranger VII and get it up and running, just in case the Warden needed a rescue from the approaching Sun Smasher.
What the Warden hadn’t mentioned to Quantum was that he would never call for that rescue. With no ships of their own and no Star Cav ships nearby to signal for evacuation, the settlers had only one chance for survival: the Sun Smasher’s destruction. And that chance, that responsibility, now rested squarely on the Warden’s shoulders. He would succeed or die trying.
So, he surrendered.
---
Karen blinked at the trooper’s announcement over the com. “Miss Reeves, we’ve captured the only person aboard the transport. We believe he’s the man known on the Frontier as the Last Star Ward
en.”
“Bring him to my office.”
Karen sat back from her desk and laughed. The Last Star Warden? Ever since she’d come to the Frontier for the final phase of the project two months ago, she’d heard wild tales of the “Phantom Lawman,” the “Ghost of the Frontier,” and—most eloquent of the bunch—“The Specter of Sinister Space.” She’d thought it was just so much folklore spun around card tables and barrooms by the down-and-out Undocs, bored spacers, and disgruntled wage slaves.
Shaking her head, Karen prepared to meet the preposterous prisoner. “I suppose it only feasible that such nonsense might inspire some idealistic fool to take up the mantle in an attempt at fame. He’s probably just a glory-seeking moron, or simply insane.”
A few moments later, four armored troopers escorted the idealistic fool into her ornately decorated office. Karen had to admit, if only to herself, that the man in the gravity shackles certainly looked the part. Taller than the average corporate desk-warrior, but not by much, his broad shoulders and athletic build were displayed by the blue and silver antique spacesuit he wore. The visored cowl of this form-fitting garment hid his features, save for his straight nose, high cheekbones, grim mouth, and square jaw.
One of the troopers handed Karen the prisoner’s gun belt. She took note of the two elegant if primitive blaster pistols as well as the obscure logo on the silver buckle. Drawing one of the weapons, she tossed the rig onto the leather sofa beside the door.
“Who are you, and what have you done with my men?” She leveled the blaster’s muzzle at the man. If she thought he’d show some response, she was disappointed.
“My name is not important.” His voice was deep with a faint, familiar accent. “What matters is that I convince you to stop what you’re doing aboard this ship. A great many lives are at stake, and so is the future.”
Karen raised her chin. “The future of what? The Frontier? The handful of Undocs who have illegally claimed a miserable rock in an out-of-the-way system as their own? And you still haven’t answered my question about my men.”
The Last Star Warden - Tales of Adventure and Mystery from Frontier Space - Volume 1 Page 2
