Dark Star Rising

by Bennett R. Coles

  “We must go with you,” Bella said. “We will be killed if we stay.”

  Amelia shot a glance up at Liam, who stared intently at the Theropods.

  “We’re not returning to Windfall,” he said quickly. “We could never get you back here.”

  “We have all we need,” Bella replied, holding up the two metal strongboxes in her hands.

  “We can always start again somewhere else,” Sam added.

  Shouts down the jetty indicated that their pursuers were regrouping, and that there were more of them.

  “You know she’s right,” Amelia said to Liam. “They’re dead if they stay.”

  “But we”—Liam pursed his lips—“have secrets on board.”

  “And this is a big galaxy!” Amelia retorted. “They can be kept.”

  Liam glanced toward the growing ruckus, then at the two Theropods standing in front of him. Finally, his lips curled into a smile.

  “Lady Sophia is going to hate me.” He grabbed Song’s arm and practically threw him toward the brow. “Get on board, emergency sailing!”

  Song ran up the tunnel toward Daring’s hull.

  “Once we’re aboard, you stay at the brow,” Liam said to Bella and Sam. “You don’t go any further into the ship, for now.”

  “Yes,” Sam agreed.

  Liam gestured for Amelia to lead them on board. Amelia ran into the tunnel, hearing a couple of shots ring out before the pressure of the airlock shifted behind Liam closing the station door. Seconds later she was on board, Bella and Sam close behind her. Able Rating Song was in the middle of announcing an emergency sailing over the ship’s broadcast, but his eyes went wide as the space was filled with reptilian forms.

  Liam appeared, slamming the hatch shut and decoupling the ship from the station. As Song’s emergency orders faded, Liam grabbed the intercom.

  “This is the executive officer, sitrep: our landing party was attacked on the station, and further attacks are likely. Daring will retreat with all speed from Windfall and disappear into the blackness. We are now signal silent. Rig masts and sails for a full-speed run. Arm all gun positions, but do not fire unless fired upon.”

  He paused, taking in the sight of Theropods on his ship.

  “We have two unexpected guests on board, who will remain at the brow under Petty Officer Virtue’s supervision. Chief Sky, report to the brow, fully armed.”

  He paused again, and Amelia could see his mind swirling. A smile was again playing at his lips.

  “Captain,” he said finally, his voice still echoing on all decks, “I’ll brief you on the bridge.”

  Chapter 9

  The sound of his own breathing was a steady, calming rhythm. Liam didn’t particularly enjoy venturing out into zero gravity, but he wasn’t about to hesitate in front of his crew. The field of vision through his faceplate was wide enough to see his close surroundings, but the sides of his helmet thankfully masked the endless depths of the Abyss all around him. Two weeks out from their sudden withdrawal at Windfall Station, Liam didn’t want to think about just how far away the nearest hospitable planet was. Pulling himself along the splintered remains of the pirate ship’s after framework, he focused on what he could see at arm’s reach, and on his breathing.

  “Nothing salvageable from midships,” Chief Sky reported over the suit comms. “Just dust and shrapnel.”

  At least he had something to grab onto, Liam thought, shifting from one broken stem of the pirate ship frame and reaching out for the next. Sky was free-floating in the dissipating cloud behind him, with nothing but a tether stretching back to Daring to anchor her. The debris cloud was all that remained of the central section of this wreck once known as the pirate ship Red Sun, and it was proving as worthless as the last two vessels destroyed by Silverhawk’s missiles.

  “Understood,” he replied. “Come to the after section; start checking starboard side.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Liam came across a door, hidden in the shadows but still intact. Frost hinted at the air that had once filled the cabin beyond that door. The bulkhead around it looked solid—there might actually be a complete cabin beyond. He checked his own tether, turning in his suit just enough to look back over his shoulder. The line was thick, corded rope and it weaved back through the vacuum to the dusty bulk of Daring’s hull. The ship was close enough that a few quick tugs on the line would get him safely back, and she was holding her position perfectly. Reassured, he turned back to the wreckage and reached for the door handle.

  The iron latch was stiff, but with a tug it came loose. Liam braced himself to pull against the frozen hinges and slowly the door opened. Activating his headlamp, he floated through into the cabin. His cone of light scanned carefully left to right, at first seeing an unmade bunk, an open chest, a desk . . .

  And a man, flash-frozen in place.

  Liam gasped, his gloved hand reaching for a sword that wasn’t there. His light danced crazily around the room for a moment, then settled again as he calmed his breathing. He continued his scan and revealed the rest of the otherwise unremarkable cabin. Then he turned back to the frozen figure.

  The man was standing behind the desk, seemingly in the motion of grabbing papers. His body, the desk, and the papers upon it were covered in a thin sheen of crystallized ice, a frantic moment in time forever captured by the sudden decompression and chill when Silverhawk’s missiles had destroyed the ship.

  “So,” Liam said quietly, “what were you so desperate to collect?”

  He floated over, looking down at the jumble of parchments. Pushing over to the chest he peered in, noting a couple of strongboxes but also some data storage units. Frozen to the deck were an emergency space suit and a sack of rations. This man wasn’t expecting to fight—he was trying to escape. And if he was willing to abandon his crew to protect whatever he was gathering up here . . .

  Liam smiled.

  “Chief Sky,” he called over the circuit, “bring the recovery team to this cabin I found, port side aft.”

  The warmth of the ship was a welcome relief. Liam knew his spacesuit was fully powered and designed to maintain a comfortable environment, but this far out in the Halo the cold of the Abyss was never far away. He shivered as he rose from his chair in the senior mess, eager to get another coffee. Habit made him approach the decanter, but movement in his vision suddenly reminded him of the new reality.

  The female Theropod, Bella, swung her head around at his approach. She was wearing the same black outfit that had been her serving uniform at the Cup of Plenty, and it looked to be recently washed. A faint waft of perfume hung around her, and Liam was sure he recognized the scent as Amelia’s favorite.

  “Can I get you something, my lord?” Bella asked through her translator.

  Liam paused, strangely comfortable with this particular brute serving food and drinks, even as his instincts recoiled at the idea of an alien moving so freely in one of His Majesty’s sailing ships.

  “I was just going to get a coffee, Bella,” he responded.

  Small, clawed hands moved with practiced efficiency to produce a cup of the hot, steaming liquid. No milk or sugar, just as Liam preferred. She rose to her resting stance and handed the cup to him, her nose lowered slightly. The brutes moving “freely” might not be the best description, he thought, watching as she kept her powerful tail tucked in close to her body. Human physique was essentially vertical, and the tight confines of this Human ship were no doubt a challenge to the horizontal body form of a Theropod. But Bella moved with a quick grace and nary a growl of complaint.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “You’re welcome, my lord.”

  He returned to his seat, suddenly noticing that all eyes were on him. Brown, Butcher, and Templegrey didn’t even try to hide their interest as he sat down.

  “Can we keep them?” Brown whispered, her face alight.

  “The food’s never been so good,” Butcher echoed, hefting his own mug. “And the coffee . . .”

&nb
sp; Liam took a sip. It was divine. Even though they’d been drinking Cup of Plenty beans since their previous visit to Windfall, no Human apparently had the skill to mix it just so.

  “And the desserts,” Templegrey added, popping the last bite of her pastry into her mouth with a contented sigh. “I’m going to have to get all my gowns let out.”

  Liam allowed himself a chuckle. The crew seemed to have accepted their two passengers with remarkable indifference initially, which over the past two weeks had grown into enthusiastic support once Sam and Bella had asked to be useful and had started working in the galley. Sam was training the ship’s cooks on the perfect blends of spices, and Bella had filled the gap in senior mess stewards with quiet efficiency.

  “The thing is,” Butcher added, “I’ve eaten brute food before. It’s usually raw. And disgusting.”

  “Benefits of running a café that serves exclusively Humans,” Liam observed. “They figured out what our tastes are like, and with those fantastic noses of theirs they can refine it down to a science.”

  “What are we feeding them?” Brown asked.

  “Prisoners,” Butcher quipped almost under his breath, to a ripple of nervous laughter and glances at Bella.

  “Meat, eggs, and root vegetables,” Liam said firmly. “Usually raw.”

  “Wonderful,” Templegrey said. “Just wonderful.”

  “What did you recover from the wrecked pirate ship, sir?” Brown asked.

  “The captain and I are reviewing it now,” he replied, giving Brown a stern look as he nodded toward Bella. “I’ll be asking for your input shortly, in a more discrete setting.”

  “Yes, sir. I’m looking forward to putting some more pieces together.”

  “Perhaps after dinner, then,” he said, draining his cup and rising.

  “Yes, dinner,” Butcher said in anticipation, rubbing his belly. “We won’t want to rush that, sir.”

  Liam stepped out into the main passageway, almost bumping into Amelia and the other Theropod, Sam, as they carried a tea serving and a meal for one, respectively.

  “Hello, sir,” she said, eyes dancing. “Back from your adventures?”

  “Wreckage picked clean,” he said, falling in beside them as they continued aft. “And I’m just starting to get warm again. Where are you two headed?”

  “The captain requested an early dinner,” she said with a smile. “I think she approves of our new head chef.”

  “I merely assist,” Sam offered, in a soft collection of growls. “Your real chefs work very hard.”

  “I doubt they could prepare meals that would be so loved by a Theropod crew.”

  “Perhaps not, but no Theropod crew would ever be this big. I’ve never understood how Humans can stay together in cohesive groups like this. Or how you can feed them so efficiently.”

  Amelia led the way up the ladders, Sam balancing his long form carefully as he ascended the narrow steps. Liam followed at a respectful distance, wary of that tail. He’d seen too many similar tails, usually with swords strapped to them, to want to stay within reach.

  Two decks up, Amelia knocked on the captain’s door and, after a moment, entered. Sam followed in silence, but as he waited in the passageway Liam heard Riverton’s voice and the brute’s reply. Moments later, Sam padded back out through the door, bobbing his head politely to Liam. In the rush of air, Liam thought he detected something, and as Amelia emerged he turned questioning eyes to her.

  “Is that my cologne?”

  “I borrowed some,” she said sheepishly.

  “I noticed your perfume on Bella, too. Do our guests not bathe as often as us?”

  “Oh, they do,” Amelia said quickly. “But the simple fact is, they’re aliens, and they smell different from us. When we’re all this close together, it starts to get noticeable.”

  “So you prettied them up for the sake of our noses?”

  “Actually,” she replied with a smirk, “it’s more to hide our smells from them. Bella admitted to me that it was getting a bit revolting for them.”

  Liam couldn’t suppress his laughter. “Your kindness knows no bounds.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  With a quick squeeze of his arm she hurried to catch up with Sam, who was slowly backing himself down the awkward Human ladder.

  Liam knocked at the open door and peered in.

  “Good afternoon, ma’am,” he greeted, noting Riverton at her dining table. She was just starting to eat, but her tray was surrounded by the papers Liam had recovered from the wreckage of Red Sun. “I was going to discuss our latest, but I can come back.”

  “Now is fine,” she said, gesturing for him to enter. “As long as you don’t mind me eating while you talk.”

  “Not at all, ma’am. But the smell is certainly enticing.”

  She placed a couple of biscuits on a side plate and handed it to him, pouring a second cup of tea as he sat down.

  “Apparently the Emperor himself employs Theropods in his kitchens,” she said, before taking a delicate bite.

  “Really?”

  “If properly trained, they are unmatched in culinary skill.”

  “I’m glad we found some trained ones, then.”

  “I wouldn’t say ‘found’ is quite the right word, Mr. Blackwood.”

  “No. ‘Were rescued by’ might be more appropriate, ma’am.”

  “True.”

  She fell silent for a few moments as she enjoyed her dinner, then gestured subtly at the papers between them.

  “It’s going to take a while to assimilate everything, ma’am, but I’m sure you see as well as I do that this is high-level communications.”

  “On parchment, no less,” Riverton agreed, “with no electronic version to easily copy or transmit.”

  “And,” he said, holding up one paper with a black, stylized cross at the bottom, “we have a personal mark from Dark Star.”

  “An elegant hand,” she noted. “Clearly educated.”

  “Too bad the order was so brutish.”

  “I found another order with Dark Star’s mark,” Riverton said, reaching to a pile on her right. “It’s curious, because it looks like a routine broadcast to all pirate captains—and was even stored with other administrative letters—yet it carries Dark Star’s personal signature . . . and it’s about you.”

  “Me?” Liam took the letter and scanned it. It was an open message to all captains, telling them to be on the lookout for Julian Stonebridge and providing a known area of his operations. But then, at the bottom, a new handwriting had added a specific instruction that Stonebridge was not to be harmed but was to be captured and brought to somewhere called “the boathouse.”

  “This ties in with the attack at Windfall,” he said. Despite his many years of subterfuge and of laying traps for his enemies, Liam was shaken at the direct, personal attention he had earned from Dark Star.

  “I think,” Riverton stated, “that Sophia’s Fancy will be lying low for a while.”

  “Agreed, ma’am. That last encounter was too close, and clearly our fake identity is compromised.”

  “But with this amount of intelligence,” she said, indicating the covered table, “we should be able to zero in on our target. Hopefully the next time we face the pirates it will be Dark Star in person, and we will be flying our true colors.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “What did you make of that woman who was in charge—the Piper?”

  “Hard to say. I was still dazed at that point. I remember her speaking to me, and that she had very dark eyes.” Liam shook his head, frowning. “There was something familiar about her.”

  “From a previous pirate battle? Perhaps at the comet base, where some of them may have escaped?”

  “Perhaps.” He dared to smile. “With her eyes and her educated accent, maybe she just reminded me of you, ma’am.”

  “Her accent was like mine?”

  “No, she was a commoner . . . but there was something.”

  “Think on i
t further, XO. It could lead us somewhere important.”

  “So long as Silverhawk stays out of our way.”

  She continued to eat in silence. Liam took a bite of his biscuit and washed it down with tea.

  “Yes,” she said finally. “There is something not right about all that.”

  “Silverhawk is aggressive and cunning,” Liam said, “but he really is rather stupid.”

  Riverton sipped at her tea for a long moment, and Liam suspected she was hiding her smile. When she set down the cup her face was set in its usual stoic mask.

  “I think Lord Silverhawk has grasped the idea of prize money rather well,” she concurred, “but his intelligence gathering skills are somewhat primitive.”

  “His team didn’t even check the wreckage,” Liam added, shaking his head as he recalled the drama from the day before.

  Daring had been trailing Red Sun out toward the Iron Swarm, the latest target identified from Liam and his senior team sifting through mountains of data. Still nearly a day out from intercept, Daring had spotted Arrow, once again approaching with the winds at her back at speeds the old frigate could never hope to achieve. In a lightning strike, Silverhawk had closed to within missile range, lobbed a volley of destruction into the lumbering pirate ship, then turned to retreat with barely a passing taunt to Riverton. No attempt to board or capture the vessel, just simple destruction.

  “Something is very wrong here,” Riverton said, with sudden insistence.

  “Is there anything about Silverhawk that isn’t wrong?”

  “But even more. About this incident in particular.”

  Liam frowned, not quite following.

  “What was different about Red Sun?” Riverton asked, sitting back and folding her arms thoughtfully. “Why would Silverhawk make no effort to capture her?”

  He thought back over what they knew about this ship.

  “She’s three weeks out from Windfall, where she dropped off a shipment of Labyrinthian gold hidden among unrefined ore. We know that this is a standard method of pirate smuggling, so not particularly special. She was headed for the Iron Swarm.”