The StarMaster's Son

by Gibson Morales

  "Unregistered? Why not register it?"

  "Guess you're less experienced than I thought. Minerva would know. We were transporting something we weren't supposed to. The journey took us almost two solar cycles. We traveled FTL for most of that and sped up the trip with occasional warp-gates.

  "Arteyos didn't want anyone to know. But it was risky enough. We were attacked by rogue ships. A couple of my men lost their living frames and the battle took a turn for the worst. We decided that if we were going to die, we would try to save the refugees. Steeger intervened, though, and destroyed the enemy. Then she destroyed my fleet's living frames and confiscated their cores to ensure no one ever knew what was getting transported. Arteyos only let me live for old times' sake, but I lost my living frames and I had to enter cryo-stasis inside this ship."

  "Killed for trying to help refugees?" Felik asked.

  "We weren't carrying refugees. We were carrying Dancing Sleeda cores."

  Felik's jaw went slack. There was a time when every boy reached adulthood and experienced his first (and only) sex sim—a one-time overlooking of the ban. Then they bragged about it to a friend. And that friend laughed, telling them they hadn't done anything until they'd watched a Dancing Sleeda. It was forbidden for any non-Lumerian to see one. Even the sims banned representations of them to avoid a revolt inside the Union Omega.

  He couldn't begin to imagine the political fallout if the universe learned that Arteyos had extracted cores from the Dancing Sleedas.

  "They were for him?" he asked in revulsion at the StarMaster's willingness to put the Union's stability at risk. "Then the core harvesting rumors about Oberon aren't rumors."

  "Like father, like son," Juliard said quietly. "You're either going to have to keep it a secret or join your family's business."

  "Captain, they're launching probes at high velocity," Ilder reported.

  Felik messaged because Ilder couldn't hear them. The Nassatar had enough energy in its fuel cells to keep this up for a lunar cycle. "No one mentioned this at the StarMaster's funeral."

  "No. Of course not. Oberon wouldn't have let anyone who knew speak about it."

  This was one major step closer to reaching the truth. Felik needed to confirm this before he ran with it, though. He would be a fool to try to confirm it with Xerix or Oberon. There was no guarantee from Megas either. The sapient lied about so much he was practically a reality-warper, like one of the old Engineers.

  Felik dipped his chin. "How certain are you about this? How do you know it isn't some sort of implanted memory?"

  "Well, if it was, I wouldn't know, would I?"

  He knew someone else who could provide clarification. A request to speak with the Guardian Templar landed him once more on a metal platform within the reality of kaleidoscopic geometric patterns cutting through an infinite fog.

  "Felik, much has occurred since we last spoke," the Guardian Templar observed, the tree stump entity extending from the platform's surface. And little of it good.

  Time was not so short given that Felik and the Guardian Templar could theoretically live forever. At least until the universe collapsed. Still, he felt a pressing need to get straight to the point.

  "I've uncovered some new leads," he said. "I think I have a solid theory as to the StarMaster's killers."

  "More than one?"

  He couldn't pinpoint them yet, but he knew the species.

  "The Lumerians," he said. "I believe they terminated the StarMaster in retaliation."

  "Go on."

  Felik nodded, knowing that even with the Guardian Templar he needed to choose his words carefully. Then again, he'd already claimed the Lumerians were the killers. Accusing the late StarMaster couldn't be any more dangerous. "The StarMaster had a crude obsession with Dancing Sleedas."

  "Where are you getting this information?"

  "From his former lover."

  "I see. Your XO? Perhaps you're right. Perhaps it was, in fact, the Lumerians. The question is what are you willing to do about it?"

  "That's up for the starkeepers to decide."

  "Is it? You wish to be the Chief Philosopher. That requires you to make difficult decisions. You have the StarMaster's warship. You know your enemy. He must have given it to you for a reason. Logically, what could that be?"

  "You think he wanted me to take revenge for him?" It sounded absurd.

  "Why else? He stored the one sapient who best knew his secret in that ship. With extremely powerful security measures. And who better to take revenge than a rather unimportant scion? There would be little political fallout if you struck against the Lumerians. Far less than if Oberon or the Watchers were to do so. Your neural virus would be a valid enough explanation for such a reckless action, too. At the same time, it would be Arteyos's own flesh and blood taking vengeance. A worthy legacy for one of his scions."

  Felik felt like he'd fallen in an icy sea. Had he really been some rogue madman in Arteyos's eyes? A scapegoat, of sorts, to task with avenging him.

  "You already knew, didn't you?"

  "I did."

  "Then why make me go through all of this?" Felik growled.

  "Because simply telling you would never have convinced you to do anything."

  "How did Arteyos know he was going to die? He would've had to, if he intended me to avenge him."

  "That's not so hard. He knew he was going to die the same way I know I'm going to die."

  "What?" Shock speared through Felik. "What are you saying?"

  "I have recently contracted a neural virus. One similar, I think, to the virus that must have corrupted Arteyos' core and all his digital backups. I now share a similar fate."

  "How did you get the virus?"

  For a horrifying second, Felik wondered if he'd given it to him. Of course, he knew that wasn't possible.

  "I am not certain, but I suspect it's because of you."

  Fuck me.

  "I thought my virus was non-contagious."

  "It is. However, the virus I was infected with is far deadlier and potent. An upgraded version of yours. I'm not entirely sure how this could occur. Someone would have had to constantly seed your virus with code instructions for tiny alterations for many solar cycles to avoid the changes being detected. That is the likeliest scenario. Is there some source of information you receive constant updates from that might be the cause?"

  Felik's stomach bottomed out. "Yes, there is."

  Chapter 35

  FELIK

  They wouldn't speak again. The Guardian Templar would be entering stasis in order to delay the effects of the neural virus indefinitely. If and when a cure was created, it would be used. A different Templar would take over as the Guardian Templar.

  Their deal was as good as finished.

  Felik couldn't believe it. He was on the cusp of determining the Lumerians' guilt. He even knew who was responsible for infecting the Guardian Templar with the virus.

  Landi. He couldn't say with absolute certainty, but it made sense. He bought a linter sophont service to provide a more objective view. Linters were sophonts that provided a comprehensive analysis in response to some set of ideas. Based on the factors he fed into the linter, in its analysis, it calculated an eighty percent chance that the Telchine was responsible. There was only the matter of who to tell. Because it had to be someone with enough sway to capture Landi. But also someone he could trust.

  He couldn't help but think of his uncle. When I found you in the Darwinists' station, you and your brothers...We found your bodies lying in a pile of bio-synthetic waste. How could I hope to find your cores intact? Then we did. I considered it a miracle. I don't know if it was a fifth dimensional entity, but someone out there decided to keep you alive. Hayland told him that on the sol he'd assumed his role in the Guardian Mind. His uncle had been sentimental, of course. Felik took it to mean that his uncle had always feared he'd never overcome the trauma of the Darwinist abduction, not including the neural virus.

  Thanks to
specialist services to configure one's core and alter memories, he could avoid the major effects of PTSD and reduce the intense trauma from his abduction to a manageable level. Felik had hoped he wouldn't need such a treatment, but he'd eventually accepted it. Hayland had paid for it.

  More pragmatically, presently, he needed as many allies as he could now that the Guardian Templar's offer no longer stood. With it, his dreams of serving as the Chief Philosopher would have to remain as just that, dreams.

  Felik had Juliard run a full diagnostic deep scan to determine whether his neural virus posed any threat to them. As he waited, he watched the missiles explode in the ship's holodisplay, set off by gravitational pressure. He wasn't supposed to use any weapons to destroy them that left traces. That could inadvertently grant the Ofoids knowledge of their technology.

  The StarMaster had a simple philosophy when it came to sensitive information as well as exposing tech to virgin species. The principle of least privilege. Share only as much as necessary to ensure the safety and stability of the Union Omega.

  That's what this whole operation was about. Both the Saganerio and Watchers network had infiltrators among the governments of the Ofoids, influencing the direction of their civilization. The Saganerio wanted them to become a peaceful species. The Watchers a war hawk species.

  After the Ofoids expended their best weapons on what they saw as a rogue spaceship, fear would likely take hold, prompting their politicians to enroll in arms races. In a century or a millennium, the Ofoids would become a military powerhouse in their solar system and a useful tool to be further manipulated.

  "You're clear," Juliard said.

  "Run another scan."

  "Where'd you go that you need so many scans?" Juliard asked.

  He waved her off. He hadn't brought himself to tell her, only Minerva. the latter had said.

  He'd replied,

  Minerva's response to that had unsettled him.

 

 

  That sounded something like what Nuraz had told him on Nebiru. Every interaction between sapients was its own micro-battle. A micro-victory here, a net gain there. The mathematics of the universe, he figured.

  The waving her off part was his own distress. She must've sensed as much because she didn't retort.

  "Just got some bad news is all," he said.

  "Yeah, don't let it ruin your sol."

  "What keeps you going?" he asked, genuinely wishing for advice on that. It went without saying that she'd led a fairly unhappy life. A dead son amid the horrors of the Great Cosmic Wars and imprisonment by a former lover she'd watched grow corrupt.

  "I told you about my son, but I also had a daughter. Born a couple solar cycles before I was placed in cryo-stasis."

  "Was she...his?"

  She shook her head. "Our relationship had already dimmed by then. Anyway, I don't know what happened to her. Arteyos said he'd keep her safe, but he also said I'd be safe. She might be in cryo-stasis, she might be in a living frame, or...who knows?"

  It dawned on him that this was the mission she wanted him to do for her. "You'll know soon enough. These Ofoids won't fight us forever."

  Juliard brushed back her hair. "Thank you."

  If Oberon lets us. Somehow, the idea of his older brother actually being a part of the core harvesting trade still felt foreign to him. Deep down, he'd hoped that his faith in rumors was misplaced and silly. Then again, maybe Juliard's story wasn't accurate. Maybe it had been a false memory or misunderstanding. His shoulders slumped, and he cleared his throat.

  "Were you going to say something?" Juliard asked.

  "No, just trying to find my reason to keep going." It sounded more depressing than he felt. A sense of overwhelming stress eclipsed any pure depression in him. Even with the breaker he was linked to, he had figured once he fulfilled the Templar's task, things in his life would work out. Never mind the remote possibility that Oberon had murdered his father. Maybe tried to kill him at that MARINE base. Now, he wasn't sure what to do.

  The message came from Cherv Smyslov, a Saganerio network starkeeper. A fairly important one.

  "Minerva?" This was where things got legally gray. Well, they'd already been gray. As an Envoy, the Guardian Templar had given him a lot of leeway—whatever it took to investigate Arteyos's death. That meant accepting tasks from Oberon and outsourcing them to his own shell mercenary network. The one Minerva had created for him.

  she said.

  So Felik complied and abandoned Ofoid space. Ilder warped him to his console in his Guardian Mind private workspace, where he got the update.

  The compilers and various scientists had confirmed the will of the karma pylons. Megas was the new StarMaster.

  He reviewed the news in disbelief as if the universe itself had a mood shift. Like it was a new universe. A better or worse one he couldn't say.

  Kridmar sent. For a second, Felik wasn’t sure if he’d imagined that or not.

  He didn't know how to respond and sat there replaying Kridmar's thought bubble in his head until his subordinate messaged him again.

  Only minutes ago, they might have said that with meaning. But now their defiance was pointless.

  Felik thought. He considered the device Megas had given him. It would initiate a transfer of the breaker link from Oberon to himself over a one-sol duration.

  "Now I'm good and truly fucked," he breathed.

  "No, I wouldn't say that's the case."

  Felik whipped around to discover Oberon standing in his work capsule.

  "How did you...?"

  Oberon smirked. "You already made your choice, so why are you taking orders from a Saganerio starkeeper?"

  In other words, all his bases belonged to Oberon, too. Felik got the sense he was only half-joking. Your words are lies more often than not, he thought. It was odd enough seeing the loser of a competition for the most powerful position in the universe taking it so lightly.

  There were a million things to talk about, and Felik didn't know where to begin with him.

  Oberon laughed a shrewd, callous laugh. "Invite me to a construct."

  His Envoy protocol didn't object. Felik sent the invite. A few seconds later, he and Oberon stood over the pond of the Nassatar's peaceful command sphere, their minds connected psionically and exclusively inside of a subatomic pathon particle. "I was ordered to stop my actions at the Ofoid's home world."

  "Too many xenobiologists in the forest," Oberon said. "Let me fix that. Here."

  Felik parsed the data node. Yet the meaning, the real impact of the data, didn't hit him for several seconds. A wave of disbelief swept through him, and he pursed his lips. "Selek used to say that all politicians are inherently insane to believe one sapient should be able to hold power over the lives of billions. And then my XO told me about our father, and I realized you are crazy. But, even for you, this plan is audacious."

  Oberon shrugged. "Everyone has been calling Megas crazy. Now he's the StarMaster."

  "Let me get this straight. You want to develop a second Union Omega? Like a clone of it."

  "A refactoring of the current one. And I don't want to. I am. Combined, the Watchers and all the other networks and species linked
to me have more than enough power to create our own galactic empire. I see no reason to remain in one ruled by Megas."

  "You don't want him to lead, so you're going to secede." It sickened him to think that Oberon was apparently unwilling to self-reflect over why the karma pylons chose Megas over him. "Is it even possible, though? Physically...."

  "Physically, little will change besides the location of fleets and certain resources. But the Union Omega will lose access to different infrastructure, management, and governmental systems. Layer by layer, control of these will pass to my new empire. We will establish other systems in due time. The Wenysh and Phaetonians have even agreed to grant us cerebral hubs on the karma pylons."

  "I'm with you on this because of the breaker. But how can you be sure everyone else will be? Your data node doesn't say that. And you can't have everyone linked to you via a breaker."

  He was aware that a big chunk of Union Omega citizens, both New Terran and alien, various military units, and governmental components had effectively sworn allegiance to Oberon. Either directly as members of the Watchers, or indirectly through secondary networks linked to the Watchers. And with them came a sizable portion of the Union Omega's power. Would they all stay loyal?

  "I learned long ago that too many breaker links can create more enemies than allies," Oberon said. "There are other incentives, though."

  Those words instilled unease in him. There were too many rumors, too many suggestions from the Free Minds about how Oberon kept networks linked to him. He couldn't help but compare it to what Juliard told him.

  As everything fell into place, a rage erupted in him. "More core trading?" he snapped. They said Oberon had downloaded countless mods on commanding and politicking. This was what they taught? Selling out the minds of those beneath you in order to maintain power and secure allies. "What's Hayland saying about all this?"