Starship Fairfax: Books 1-3 Omnibus - The Kuiper Chronicles: The Lunar Gambit, The Hidden Prophet, The Neptune Contingency

by Benjamin Douglas

  “They’re not going to… you know… take over in there, are they?”

  “Of course they are,” Doctor Saran said. “They don’t just speed along the process; they actively engage in reducing inflammation, shifting anything that’s out of place, and healing tears and fractures.”

  “No, that’s fine. I mean”—she pointed at her skull—“in there.”

  Saran sighed, taking the needle out and letting it fold back into the device. “No. That’s a horror story told by reactionist medical conservatives who also don’t want you to get vaccinated or drink dairy milk.”

  She screwed up her face. Coming from the Kuiper Colonies, she’d never had real dairy. There just weren’t any cows.

  “I mean no offense,” he added quickly. “Only to say that the scientific consensus is that having a small shot of nanobots to heal a broken wrist is perfectly safe. Look.” He swiped a command, and a little holoscreen popped up over the device, depicting an insectoid-looking creature. Ada recoiled, then looked a little closer. It wasn’t a bug. It was a machine. Huh. So that’s what they looked like.

  Doctor Saran smiled, exited the cockpit, and came back with a 3D-printed wrist brace. “There,” he said, once it had sealed. “Feel any better?”

  “Yeah, thanks.”

  He nodded and left the bridge. Ada glanced over her shoulder to watch him go, and caught Joyce winking at her. Ada shook her head. Well, what could she say? Joyce was right. He was pretty.

  —

  “Mars,” Ada said. “You can get off there, it’s as good as anything else.”

  Dianne huffed. “It most certainly is not. You know who lives on Mars?”

  “Educate me.”

  “Workers. That’s it! Do I look like a worker to you?”

  Ada shot Joyce a look that said ‘should I answer that?’ Joyce turned to the side, smirking.

  “Well, unless you have a preference that’s just as close—”

  “I do. I prefer Earth proper. I’m a Lady and a businesswoman, and I don’t see why I should be trafficked anywhere else. I have a wildly urgent job to keep track of, the likes of which would dwarf even your puny concept of your own self-importance, and the best chance I have of picking up the pieces are there.”

  “My own self-importance?” She was only deigning to even have this conversation as a gesture of goodwill to Saran, who seemed utterly loyal to his employer. Or whatever she was to him.

  Dianne sneered and took a step forward. “Oh, you have no idea, little girl. You ever hear of Carmen’s Crews? You ever hear of Prophet? Or Rome? Do you even know the slightest thing about the balance of power in the system you’re so blithely crawling through in this rotten excuse for a ship?”

  “Wait, wait, wait. Back up. I’ve been running with Carmen’s Crews. Got to know the girl a bit myself, tagging along on a special project for her.”

  “Oh, know my sister do you? How’s she doing?”

  “Your sister?” That explained a few things. “Not well, I imagine, seeing as her hab was blown out of the sky the same day as your space station.”

  Dianne shut her mouth and glared.

  “As to Prophet, since it’s gone anyway and I am no longer in Carmen’s employ, I feel no compunction in telling you that the motherload was the target of that project I mentioned. But Rome, never heard of them.”

  Dianne’s mouth fell open.

  “Something I said?”

  Joyce chuckled out loud. Dianne’s face began to redden. She grew tense, and Ada started to worry she’d said something she shouldn’t have.

  “You were in charge of the Prophet? The fortune of Prophet that went missing? Do you have any idea the value, any idea the consequence, any… YOU?”

  Ada wouldn’t have predicted it in a million years. Before she knew what was happening, Dianne had socked her in the eye, and was raining her fists down on her like a cage fighter. Yes, she really was Carmen’s sister. Ada fended her off, arms over her head, and did her best to protect her healing wrist.

  “Baby, don’t do that!” Bone Crusher had squeezed his way into the cockpit and was pulling Dianne off of her. “C’mon, it can’t be that bad. What’s the matter?”

  “This street-kid almost got us all killed! Probably did kill my sister! And has made a pauper out of me. Worse, a target!” She lurched for Ada again. Again, Bone Crusher pulled her off.

  Ada paled. “What do you mean, I almost got us all killed?”

  “A motherload of Prophet, you little fool? Don’t you have any idea what that’s worth?”

  She swallowed against a dry throat. “Our lives?”

  Dianne laughed maniacally. “It’s worth the whole system. The entire system. Ceres was a drop in the bucket, sweetheart. And the people that blew it up? The man that blew it up? He’s not going to rest until either he has his fortune, or he sees everyone dead who made it disappear. Probably both.” She spit on the floor, glared at Ada, and left the cockpit.

  Ada cursed.

  Chapter 17

  Lucas rubbed his eyes again. He was sitting at the head of the small conference table in his ready-room. Caspar, Adams, Randall, and Tompkins were with him.

  “You get any sleep yet, Sir?” Caspar asked.

  “After this. This can’t wait. Caspar, Adams, Randall, you’re my most senior crew onboard, so I trust you implicitly.”

  Tompkins raised a hand.

  “Kid, you’re here because I needed an odd number. Don’t let it go to your head.”

  The hand went down.

  “I’d like to have Mulligan as well, but because of her close association with Darren, and the fact that I don’t trust him, I’m telling you all to please keep what’s about to be said in this room, even from her.”

  Nods.

  “I don’t think Taurius was working for the Empire. Or for a crew. I think he was just trying to get out alive.” He paused to let that sink in and to gather his thoughts.

  “And you have, Sir, some new evidence leading you to think this?” Adams picked at the cuticles on his left hand. Engineers. Always fiddling with something.

  “Strictly deductive, but yes, I think so. The pirates we first encountered—the ones who killed Captain Harris and took all our missiles, which we later learned were stuffed full of Prophet. Anyone remember what the ship looked like?”

  Blank stares all around.

  Lucas swiped a command on the console in the center of the table, and an image was projected onto the wall. It showed one of the ships from Battleworld Zeta, a souped-up freighter loaded with guns, and sporting an insignia like a circling raven on its side.

  “That’s it,” Caspar said. “That’s the ship.”

  Lucas nodded. “Or at least, that’s certainly the outfit’s logo.” He zoomed in on the raven. It may have been a crow. “This is the emblem of a big outfit called Carmen’s Crews. They operate throughout the inner system, based out of the belt. They run all kinds of contraband, mostly drugs, and they specialize in high-value cargo.”

  “Like Prophet,” Caspar said.

  Tompkins let out a low whistle.

  “That same raid,” Lucas said, “was when Taurius went missing. I don’t think they abducted him. I think he went willingly. Well.” He held a hand up. “There may have been coercion, if he thought going with them was the only way to save his life, or the life of his family, or escape some other threat. At any rate, he definitely left the Fairfax with the Prophet and boarded Carmen’s ship.”

  “I’m missing the part where that inner-world shite isn’t in league with the bloody pirates,” Adam growled.

  “Jeffrey,” Lucas called. “Four coffees, please. Black.” The dispenser beside the ready-room door pinged, and a few seconds later the room filled with the aroma of synthetic coffee beans. Lucas stood, stretching, and took one of the mugs, setting it down in front of Adams unceremoniously. “Drink,” he commanded, and resumed his seat. The others took their mugs and sipped.

  “The problem isn’t Carmen’s Crews. In the
end, it’s almost of no consequence whether they leaned on him or he was completely complicit. The problem is Rome.”

  He pulled up another screen, a data-map showing all the outfits in the game. “Notice anything?” He let the others scan the interconnected web of names for a few minutes.

  “No Rome,” Caspar muttered.

  “That’s right. Not one mention.”

  Tompkins raised his hand again.

  “Yes, Tompkins?”

  “Sorry, Sir, it’s just, uhm, didn’t we already know that? I mean, isn’t that pretty much what Jan told us?”

  “Confirms it, yes. Take another sip of your coffee, though, kid. Your brain is still waking up. The last time we talked about Rome Inc., we were as yet unaware that the ‘perfectly legitimate’ trading operation for which we had pledged to run freight from Ceres to Mars was planning a massive attack on Ceres space. Which makes them not just a mystery player. It makes them the player. The hand pulling the strings.”

  He rose to his feet and began pacing around the table.

  “Now, why would the hand pulling the strings reign down death and fire on one of the most profitable crime syndicate and pirate bases in the entire system?”

  Caspar rubbed her temples.

  “Simple,” Adams said. “They were putting everyone else in their place. Getting a foot on the dog’s neck.”

  “That’s what Darren thought,” Caspar added.

  “That’s what he said he thought,” Lucas said. “I’m reserving judgment on most of what comes out of his mouth, for now. Until I know more about who he works for.”

  “Who he works for, Sir?” Tompkins scrunched up his face. “Hasn’t he saved the lives of everyone in this room, like, a bunch of times?”

  “He has, and I’m not ungrateful. I’m just not sure to whom I owe thanks. Remember the coup in Rust, and the unexplained presence of such a large force from the Empire?”

  “The Arms of the Sons,” Caspar muttered.

  “Bingo.” Lucas snapped his fingers and pointed at her.

  “You think he’s a True Son. You think he’s a Son of Jupiter.”

  Lucas shrugged. “I can only speculate at the moment. But if he is affiliated, in any way, with elite Empire forces, then consider this.” He leaned forward with his hands on the table. “The Empire had forces there, at Ceres. Top brass. A full-fledged Battleship. And they did nothing while Rome blew everyone sky-high.”

  “Captain, you’re starting to give me the willies.” Tompkins sipped his coffee, grimacing.

  “Don’t ever tell me what that means. Back to the Ceres bombing. If you’re the one pulling the strings, it sort of follows that you already have your foot on everyone’s neck, don’t you think? But there was something special about Ceres, something to which we in this room are perhaps uniquely privy, until about a day before Rome blew it up.”

  “The hidden Prophet,” Caspar said, her eyes wide.

  “And Lieutenant Caspar wins the game.” Lucas resumed his seat.

  “So, let me get this straight.” Adams set his mug down. “You’re saying you think all this fuss, all this blowing up of space stations and nuking civilians and flooding out pods just to shoot them out of the sky, all of this was for some measly drug?”

  Lucas scoffed. “You have any idea the market value of an ounce—an ounce—of viable Prophet?”

  Adams shrugged, making a face.

  “Almost enough to buy our ship, Adams. A couple of kilos and you’ve got yourself a fleet. A couple more, maybe a whole planet. But have you had a look in the logs since we got robbed? You have any idea how many missiles we offloaded for them, and how much Prophet they would have been holding, assuming they were full of the stuff?”

  Adams looked around the table. Caspar’s face had drained of color. “Two-hundred missiles,” she whispered. “Or casings for two-hundred. Couple of kilos each, on a good day.”

  Lucas bent his brow at them. “Now you begin to understand. We weren’t just unwitting drug mules for some mid-level cartel. We were holding an illegal fortune worth all the real estate in the system. A few times over. Our lives? Not even a drop in the bucket. Ceres? A necessary sacrifice. The orbiting station? Hardly an afterthought. Rome owns the world. They’ve misplaced the deed. And they’re burning down the house trying to find it.”

  After a minute of silence, Tompkins scratched his ear and sighed. “So what do we do, Captain?”

  Lucas smiled mirthlessly. “We go get it back.”

  —

  Traffic increased, predictably, as they entered Martian space. Mars was the Vice World, the second home of humanity, and the first extraterrestrial territory to have been settled by humans (discounting the moon, which had almost always been little more than a glorified amusement park for the super-wealthy). On Mars people had dug tunnels, not unlike those on Ceres, deep beneath the surface, and had mined invaluable minerals for the construction of tech, ships, stations, and habs. The surface itself was pockmarked with a vast web of interconnected shielded bubbles, most of them terraformed, and more than a dozen stations of importance flew in orbit. Industry and commerce thrived, including black market operations. So it was no great surprise that Taurius and the Prophet would head here, especially given Taurius’ diplomatic station on the planet.

  What Lucas didn’t tell his privy council was his one lingering doubt; that his source may have simply been wrong. She did seem ill-informed, after all. She had insisted that Taurius had been a passenger rather than a prisoner, and that, if he and the cargo were both missing, he must have taken it back to Mars for distribution. In light of recent events, Lucas wasn’t so sure distribution made sense. More likely Taurius took the drug and fled in order to have a bargaining chip to levy against some threat Lucas did not yet understand. But Mars made sense, so that’s where they would begin their search.

  Besides, they technically had a job now. He curled his lip, thinking of the blue tubs of pirate cargo onboard. More than once he’d been been tempted to sneak down and have a peek at their contents, but he had convinced himself he was better off not knowing. The fact that there had hardly been a moment’s rest since it had been loaded helped.

  Lucas sat up in his bunk and narrowly avoided banging his head on the bulkhead. He slithered down and did his best to stretch in the recently confined space. He was too tall for life on a spaceship. He chuckled at the thought, wondering if he would ever get used to that.

  On the bridge he nodded to Mulligan and Randall. Caspar turned and caught his eye.

  “Morning, Sir.”

  “Morning.” His voice was thick and groggy. “You folks get any rest?”

  “Aye, Sir. Ready for duty.”

  “That’s what I like to hear.” He sat in the chair. “Jeffrey? Coffee.”

  Beep. “No, thank you.”

  Lucas raised an eyebrow. “For me, Jeffrey.”

  “Oh, I suppose so. Since you insist.”

  The dispenser dinged, and the aroma of slightly burnt coffee wafted out. Lucas grimaced, took the mug, and began sipping. “I take it you’re feeling back to your old self, now that we’ve safely escaped certain death and have made our way back into civilized territory.”

  “Bingo.”

  Lucas sighed. “I miss the scared, polite, obliging Jeffrey.”

  “Sir?” Mulligan turned, her red hair bobbing behind her. “You have a request from the Ceres survivors for an audience before we reach Mars.”

  “An audience?” He sipped more coffee. “Care to join me, Private?”

  “Sir.”

  Together they left the bridge and traveled down to the bunkhouses beneath the hangar deck. Down here in the belly of the ship, it felt ghostly, there was so much empty space, so much silence. Lucas wondered idly if they would ever make it back to the Kuiper Fleet and get staffed with a full, proper, fighting crew.

  “Private,” he said as they stood together in a lift. “I know there are no words that can help right now. But I want to tell you how sorry I am for w
hat happened on Ceres.” Mulligan had grown up in Rust, and had a lot of old friends there.

  Used to have.

  “Thank you, Sir,” she said quietly. The lift dinged, and the doors opened to a couple of familiar faces—Max and Sharky, two of her contacts they had met while in Rust.

  “Thanks Angie.” Max pulled her in with one beefy arm and squeezed her around the shoulders. She patted his chest.

  “Captain.” Sharky held out a hand. Lucas looked at it for a moment. The last time they had seen him, Sharky hadn’t been too happy to have them all in his establishment, asking after Darren. But Lucas supposed the situation had changed now. No one was worried about the warring mob families of Rust. Rust was gone.

  “Sharky.” They shook hands.

  “Please, call me Tom. Sharky was my street-name, from when we were kids.” He smiled sadly.

  “Tom.” Lucas inclined his head. “I understand I’ve been summoned for an audience.”

  “Thanks for coming. This way, please.” Tom led them through a series of empty bunk rooms, the enormity of the vacant space weighing again on Lucas’ mind. Finally, they came to the room inhabited by the survivors. Two civilian escape pods—for all Lucas knew, all the souls that remained after Rome had bombed their home—and they all fit comfortably in just one of the Fairfax bunk rooms.

  They came to a mess table at the far end of the room, and sat.

  “We understand we’re nearly to Mars,” Tom began.