Four Tomorrows: A Space Opera Box Set

by James Palmer

  The ship looked finished, which meant a scheduled for departure. First thing in the morning, he planned to get the lowdown on the ship. Since he was a little boy, Dr. Silver had been fascinated by watching ships launch and he leapt at any opportunity to view a launch in person.

  Watching ships launch from the ground was far more exciting, but there was also something to be said about watching a brand-new ship glide from its perch and head for the open sea of stars. It was… romantic.

  As he turned his attention toward whom to invite to view the launch as his guest, his door chime sounded. At first, he did not register the sound, then seconds later the chime rang again. This time he knew it mean that someone was at the door. Kendra? Maybe she cancelled her other plans, he hoped. He’d felt a real spark with her. She was certainly his type; easy on the eyes with a tight body and playful smile. The moment he saw her he knew that he would eventually get her in his cabin. Of course, he hadn’t expected it to happen so soon. He was good, but even he had to work for it.

  Suddenly excited at the prospect that his infatuation of the moment had come calling, Silverfox swaggered over and tapped the lock release on the door pad. With a hydraulic hiss, the steel door slid open to reveal a very beautiful woman of the doctor’s acquaintance. Just not the one he was expecting.

  “Cynthia?”

  The outburst had happened by instinct and was finished before he had barely realized he had shouted her name. He looked at her apologetically. “Sorry. Please, come in.”

  “Thank you, Doctor” she said coolly.

  He gestured with his right hand for her to enter. She did so. “Welcome to my humble abode, Dr. Morgan. To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?” He watched as she walked over to the window in silence. She stared at the exquisite scenery he had just observed himself only moments earlier.

  So much for avoiding this particular problem. He had known they would inevitably run into one another. The station wasn’t that large, after all, but he had been hoping for this reunion to happen later rather than sooner.

  “Breathtaking view,” she commented.

  “Thanks,” he said. “I like it. Better view than any apartment I’ve ever had.”

  “I don’t doubt it. We work hard here so it’s important that when we’re off duty we have every comfort to help us relax. The last thing I need is a space station full of stressed out scientists handling volatile chemicals. Wouldn’t you agree, Doctor?”

  “Very much so.”

  “Yes,” she relented, her voice like ice. “Finding ways to relieve stress was never a problem for you, was it?”

  He did not know exactly how to respond to that without digging a rather large hole for himself to fall into so he kept quiet.

  “So,” he said nervously, drawing out the word. “Business or pleasure?” he asked after a few seconds of awkward silence hung between them.

  “Would you care for a drink, Doctor?” he asked when she did not answer.

  Again he received the silent treatment. Without waiting for her permission, he poured a drink for them both and walked over to her. She accepted the offered drink before turning her full attention on him.

  “What’s on your mind, Cynthia?” he asked, all pretense of a normal conversion evaporated. “I assume you actually want to talk to me about something. What is it?”

  Her stern gaze burned deep into his brain. He saw the rage in her eyes, but did not know how she could still be mad at him all these years later.

  “How long were you going to wait before you stopped by my office to check in, Doctor Silver?” she finally asked, all business.

  Not missing the formal use of his name, even though he had addressed her in much the same way when she had arrived, Dr. Silver tilted his head toward the chairs near the windows and their picturesque view.

  He sat on the sofa while Dr. Morgan took the chair across from him.

  “Well?” she asked.

  Contemplating the best possible best response, neither of which seemed sufficient to put him on her good side, he downed a large gulp of his drink. “I wasn’t sure if you wanted to see me,” he finally answered, deciding on honesty for a change, yet knowing it was probably the wrong answer to give.

  “I see.” Her tone grew colder than he had ever heard it before. “Did you think that I wasn’t aware that you were here? How stupid are you?”

  “Is that a rhetorical question?”

  She let out a breath. “Look, I am the chief Administrator of Space Lab for Christ’s sake. I had to sign your transfer orders, dummy. If I didn’t want you here then you wouldn’t be here. Is that clear?”

  Once again, he realized he had underestimated her. He opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off.

  “You haven’t changed one bit.” She got to her feet, walking back toward the window.

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing,” he said, now feeling less nervous than before. Fighting with Cynthia was something he knew how to do. It was familiar. Too familiar.

  “You think that every woman in the galaxy wants you,” she said, turning back to face him. “Well, I had you, remember?”

  “I do,” he said softly.

  “Yeah. Well, that was then and this is now. If you want to remain on this station, if you want to keep the position you worked so hard to get, then you better get it through that thick skull of yours that we will have to see each other eventually,” she said, her voice stern. “And maybe, just maybe, we’ll even have to speak to one another on occasion.”

  “Cynthia. I…”

  “I’m not finished.”

  “Sorry. Please continue.”

  She gulped her beverage, polishing it off in one quick motion. “Now, if you can’t handle working for me,” she said, pausing dramatically before continuing. “Tough! Get over it or pack your bags. There are plenty of other people who want to be here. Replacing you will not be very difficult. I trust I’ve made my point?”

  He looked at her, a dumbfounded expression on his face. This is not the same mousy girl he had dated back in college. The years had hardened her, made her more aggressive, more alert, and more feral. He winced inwardly at the visual he was concocting. In truth, he had missed her. He was also afraid that she would be unable to handle his coming aboard. But now, face to face, it was clear that Dr. Cynthia Morgan did not need him. He wondered if she ever had. That thought disturbed him more than he would ever care to admit.

  “Do we have an understanding, Dr. Silver?” she asked when he didn’t answer.

  He tried to speak, but the words were buried in his throat, unable to find voice. He nodded before stammering out a stunned “Uh, huh.”

  “Good.”

  He nodded again for confirmation.

  . “Thanks for the drink,” Dr. Morgan said as she placed her empty glass on the table by the door. “It’s good to see you again, Jimmy.”

  And with that she was gone.

  For a long moment he stood there, unmoving, staring blankly into nothingness. “Wow!” He said once he finally found his voice.

  “Good to see you too, Cynthia.”

  Dr. Cynthia Morgan took a deep breath.

  Leaning against the bulkhead outside his door, she paused to collect herself. She had rehearsed the speech five times on her way to James Silver’s quarters. And yet, despite every hint of common sense she possessed, she once again found herself being drawn in by the old Silverfox charm. She would have to watch that in the future. Jimmy was persistent, but she knew she could handle him.

  After leaving his apartment, she felt all her strength drain away with the closing of the door behind her. Slumped against the bulkhead, she took several deep breaths, calming her ragged nerves. She could not believe that after all these years, James Silver could still have that much of an effect on her.

  The fact that he did worried her. Silver was, by nature, a button pusher. In college she had thought it was cute when he rebelled against authority. But that was then.

  Now, she was th
e authority and she would be damned if she would tolerate those shenanigans on her station. She had hoped he had grown up since college. After their conversation in his quarters she could see that he had not. He was still the same little boy trapped in a grown man’s body he had been the last time she had seen him. Something things apparently never changed.

  Get moving before someone sees you, she chided herself. It would not do for anyone to see the chief administrator leaning against the bulkhead outside of one of her subordinate’s quarters like some lovesick teenager.

  Pushing off, her composure firmly in place, Dr. Morgan headed down the corridor to the nearest lift. She needed to get back to her office where a mountain of paperwork waited.

  “At least the hard parts over.” She muttered as the lift doors closed once she was inside. “Now things can get back to normal around here.”

  Famous last words.

  11

  Alliance Starship Ulysis

  “This just doesn’t add up,” Captain William Andrews said.

  It had taken the better part of an hour for Andrews and Admiral McKeen to go over the basic elements of the attack on the supply shuttle. They needed the time to separate the hard facts from the investigation team’s speculation of the events. From the reports, the two men concluded that there had been absolutely no warning.

  “Was this a scavenger raid?” Andrews asked. “I can’t help but keep coming back to that question.”

  “There were no telling clues at the scene that specifically pointed to a specific group,” McKeen said, reading the file for the fifth time. “Despite a full on investigation, the attacker’s identities remain unknown.”

  Neither man cared much for not knowing their enemies.

  “But, if the attack was not carried out by scavengers, then who?”

  “I don’t know,” McKeen admitted.

  “And more importantly,” Andrews added. “Why?”

  “The enemy, whoever they are, made sure there was no evidence that could point to their identities. All of the supplies had been destroyed along with the rest of the ship instead of being confiscated, which is a giant red flag when it comes to Scavenger raids. There’s no way they would pass up the supplies on that ship.”

  “Agreed,” Andrews said. This was the one sticky point of the report. It ran contrary to everything both officers knew about scavenger attacks. Theft of supplies was generally foremost on their agenda. “These are people without food, without clothes, and without much hope. They scavenge for what they need. It’s not like them to kill indiscriminately and then leave the cargo behind.”

  There was not any revealing news in the reports. Most of the information was available through the Ulysis’ log entries. Captain Andrews had written the bulk of the report himself. His officers had given their accounts also and the captain had rightfully included them in the mission report to Alliance headquarters on Mars. Somehow the news about the supplies had not been relayed to the captain and that worried him. Either his people were not as observant as he had originally thought or else someone on his staff was hiding useful information from him.

  Neither option was very palatable, but he was determined to find out what was going on.

  The part about the supplies had gotten the biggest reaction out of Captain Andrews when he originally heard it. He was as puzzled by the news then as he was now. He had fought against the scavengers on several different occasions during his tour of duty. He was only one of a small handful of individuals that could make such a claim. The rest were dead. The scavengers were known for their ferocity. In battle they were savagely brutal. To have survived multiple encounters with any of their groups was no small feat.

  Andrews did not understand how the scavengers could pass up such a large supply of food and equipment, which was the rationale they used to for raiding ships and colonies. The Scavengers’ claims of being abandoned by the United Planetary Alliance were well publicized. They felt that stealing from those who they saw as not having been abandoned was within their rights.

  The various scavenger groups, no one really knew how many different sects were operating at any given time, were always on the move. They lived in seclusion, making their camps in abandoned outposts or on barren worlds.

  Supplies were the most precious of things to scavengers. There was no way they would destroy much needed cargo if they could prevent it.

  Unless their goals had changed. It was a possibility that Andrews did not relish. The one thing that he would have taken as a given was that the group calling themselves Scavengers were just that, scavengers. If they’ve changed their ways...all bets are off.

  “This doesn’t add up,” he repeated after a moment’s silence. “What is the reason for the attack? I just don’t see any motivating factor. There certainly wasn’t anything about the transport that would label it a political target. Destroying it certainly wouldn’t make a loud statement.”

  “Not like blowing up a building or kidnapping,” the admiral added without elaboration. It was not needed. Andrews knew full well the details of that particular situation, which had occurred several years before.

  Andrews looked at the admiral, concern etched on his face. “Could they have actually been after Thorne?”

  “You mean specifically targeting him?”

  “Sure, why not? It makes as much sense as anything else we’ve thought of.”

  “It’s possible, I guess, but I doubt it. Where’s the motive?” McKeen drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair. “When Thorne received his orders, he grabbed a ride on the next available ship heading Earthward and it wasn’t announced ahead of time that a UPA officer was on board.”

  “So, unless they had him under surveillance, there is no way anyone outside the placement office that recalled him to active duty would know he was on that ship.”

  “If only an Alliance shuttle could have been dispatched to pick him up,” he said as he drummed his fingers a little faster, an annoying trait he picked up from the cook at the old marshal’s complex. Unfortunately, neither the complex nor the cook was still around.

  “It could have been an attack on that particular vessel,” McKeen continued. “Thorne could have simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time.” He looked at the captain to gauge his response.

  Andrews shrugged.

  “It has been known to happen,” the admiral replied.

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “You said a shuttle couldn’t pick him up?”

  “Hmmm? Oh. With all of the increased activity in the quadrant, there were no ships available for a short period. According to a report filed by the flight officer at UPA Mars Dome, Thorne volunteered to take the transport instead of waiting. The flight office booked him on the next available ship.”

  “Talk about your bad timing.”

  “Tell me about it.” McKeen let out a breath between pursed lips. “Send the captain of the Pegasus any relevant details you might think she needs to know, Bill, but leave the conjecture out of it. Just tell her the facts and nothing more.”

  “Of course.”

  “I know you feel bad about holding back and you’d rather bite your own hand off than not help this woman,” the admiral paused for effect then turned to stare at the bookcase, glancing at the antiques stored there before continuing. “But, I don’t need any information leaks right now.”

  “Understood.”

  “So far, the Alliance Council has been able to keep this out of the news, but all it takes is one misplaced comment and everything hits the fan.”

  The captain said nothing.

  Sensing his friend’s reservations, the admiral turned back to face him. “Remember?”

  “Oh yes, sir. I know as well as you do how a leak can be disastrous.” He lowered his head to look at the desk’s polished surface. The two old friends sat in silence for a moment, each reliving a moment out of the past.

  The same moment.

  A moment both men wish they could forget. Unfortunately
, the prosthesis Admiral McKeen was forced to wear on his face served as a constant reminder to the pain and horror they and the other marshal’s forces faced those many years past.

  It felt like an eternity ago.

  “I’ll contact Captain Harmon,” Andrews said as he stood, quietly signaling that the meeting was at an end for now. “Join me for dinner tonight, sir?”

  “You bet.”

  “I’ll have someone from my office call you with a time and place. There are some nice restaurants on the promenade level I think you’ll enjoy, sir.”

  McKeen opened the door. “Sounds like a plan. Good afternoon, Captain.” And then the admiral was gone.

  Captain William Andrews sat alone in his office with his thoughts and a sad duty. He had to lie to a fellow starship captain. Not only would he have to lie, but he would also withhold important information that he knew he would want if their situations were reversed.

  Staring out the window at the stars as they speed by, he reflected on them. Watching the stars, even stars simulated as the ones on the viewscreen that was his window, always made him feel calm. The streaks of light made him feel safe.

  So beautiful.

  So peaceful.

  And somewhere out there in that vast ocean of stars was an enemy so vile that they could kill without remorse. The captain had seen more than his share of death in his career. “The killing has to stop,” he told the empty room.

  Emerging from his reverie long moments later, Andrews touched a certain button on his desk. Seconds later, the first officer’s voice filled the expansive office.

  “Maddox here. What can I do for you, sir?”

  “Change of plans,” the captain said before he cleared his throat. “Set a course for the Sol System, Commander. Best possible speed.”