False Horizons

by CJ Birch

  Surviving in an unknown galaxy hundreds of light-years from Earth is far from easy. Captain Jordan Kellow is missing, and Lieutenant Alison Ash must take charge of the Persephone and get the crew back to the Posterus in one piece if she has any hope of saving the woman she loves.

  Lost in a dying escape pod, Jordan is rescued by a crew of war hungry aliens bent on revenge. She must find a way off the ship and back to Ash before she’s conscripted for the cause.

  Jordan and Ash struggle with different views on the alien agenda and must find their way back to each other before they’re swallowed up by a centuries-old war.

  False Horizons

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  False Horizons

  © 2019 By CJ Birch. All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN 13: 978-1-63555-520-2

  This Electronic Original Is Published By

  Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  P.O. Box 249

  Valley Falls, NY 12185

  First Edition: September 2019

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Credits

  Editors: Ashley Bartlett and Shelley Thrasher

  Production Design: Stacia Seaman

  Cover Design By W.E. Percival

  By the Author

  An Intimate Deception

  New Horizons Series:

  Unknown Horizons

  Savage Horizons

  False Horizons

  Acknowledgments

  Science fiction is always a lot of fun to write because you’re able to take your imagination on a journey of what-ifs.

  What if humans no longer lived on Earth? That’s the question that started this whole series. This led to so many more questions, some simple: where would we go? And some difficult: how do you make living on the asteroid belt possible? To the inane: what would you snack on late at night?

  I truly believe the human species is resilient. We have the great ability (to our own detriment) to adapt our environment to our needs, and I wanted more than anything to showcase how that could be used for good in this series. What started as one book grew to three and became more than just a journey of what-ifs. It became an optimistic fantasy of what could happen if we worked together as a species instead of against each other as nations.

  As much fun as it’s been to write, this series wouldn’t exist without all the amazing people behind the scenes at Bold Strokes. I couldn’t ask for a more supportive publishing family and I’m honored to work with such talented people.

  And as always, I’d like to thank my readers. It wouldn’t be nearly as much fun without you, and not just because these stories would still be locked in my imagination. Thank you for coming along with me on this adventure.

  Chapter One

  Ash

  There are worse ways to die than an explosion in space. At least it’s quick and painless.

  I have the crew scouring every millimeter of the Persephone looking for Sarka’s bombs. Before he took Jordan and fled the ship in an escape pod, he hinted he’d left bombs around the ship. Everyone’s grumbling that it’s a waste of time. But I know Davis Sarka. He’s crazy enough to do it.

  I may have an entire ship of crew giving me cut eye, but that’s not new. I don’t give a shit what they think. I’d rather waste several hours on the off chance I’m right than assume I’m wrong and get everyone killed.

  It’s a heady thought. My decisions are going to affect life and death.

  I’m in charge.

  That’s a horrible thought. It’s a lie to say that all first officers have ambitions to command their own ship. I’ve never wanted to captain a ship. There’s nothing worse than facing the isolation of being at the top of the command structure. No one wants to play mahjong with someone who has the final say in whether they get promoted or not. And here I am, thrust to the top, not by ambition or choice, but because that prick took Jordan.

  I swear my heart stopped when they disappeared. No trace, nothing. Our sensors are still undergoing repairs after the explosion on the Posterus.

  I’m still not sure how I survived that. I should’ve exploded when Hartley pulled me away before I fell into the core pit. That is according to Dr. Prashad, and I have no reason to doubt him. Thanks to the Burrs I’d become one half of a walking, talking bomb. Ben Hartley, our civilian engineer, was the other half. Touching was supposed to be the trigger.

  And yet, here we are thousands, possibly millions of light-years from the Milky Way, with no real explanation of how we got here. I guess I should be thankful, except I’m not.

  When I was being laced with carcinogens, the Burrs also implanted a mind knot, an old military device used to control soldiers. Meant to control me. I still have that creepy mind knot floating in my head like a dead body drifting in a pool. It can’t do anything to me now because we’re too far from the Burrs and their control. But it’s still off-putting to have this thing inside me, some foreign intruder that was never meant to be there in the first place.

  Yet I haven’t felt anything since the engine core exploded. I’ve even been sleeping better. Well, better for me. I only ever get about four or five hours a night, unless I’m sleeping in caves next to Jordan.

  “Ash.” Hartley barrels down the corridor, his arms outpacing his body by at least half a meter. “We found something.”

  I’m both elated and pissed. “Is it a bomb?”

  “Pretty sure. Come take a look.” He motions where he’s come from.

  “Did you disarm it already?”

  He shakes his head. His shaggy red hair sweeps across his freckled forehead.

  “Oh, please, by all means. Let’s go take a look at the bomb that could blow us to smithereens.”

  He gives me a withering look. “It’s lodged under the console of the manual guidance station. If that thing goes, half the ship is gone, including the bridge. It’s not going to matter where you are when it detonates. You’ll still be dead.”

  “Good point. You think we can actually disarm this thing?”

  He shrugs. So like Hartley. Only two things freak him out—not being relevant and being wrong. Hartley’s the engineer who invented the engine for the Posterus. He’s the reason it’s possible for the first ever generational ship to take a small section of what’s left of the human species to go find another planet to fuck up.

  If we hadn’t ended up here, we’d be on our merry way toward a planet in a galaxy far away with forty-five thousand humans who would all be dead by the time we got there.

  The first time I met Hartley he had this cocky bravado, but after getting to know him, I realize it’s an act. He’s worried that if he’s not acting like an ass, he’ll fade into the background. I suspect he’s spent a good chunk of his life in the background and now is determined to be front and center.

  When we reach the manual docking bay, half the engineering crew is crowded around a tiny container the size of my fist. It’s improvised, to say the least, wedged into the space with some rigging tape and good old-fashioned friction.

  “Is that a can of tofuloaf he’s used to encase the innards?”

  “Yeah,” Hartley says as he pushes people out of the way to get us closer.

  �
�And we’re sure it’s a bomb?”

  “If it’s not, I worry about what they’re feeding us on this ship,” someone in the back says. A few of the crew laugh.

  “Why are you all standing around? It doesn’t take,” I do a quick head count, “nine people to defuse a bomb.” The joking subsides and everyone sobers up. The moment becomes awkward, and I remember all of a sudden that no one likes me.

  And now I’m in charge.

  “Keep looking for bombs.”

  “But—”

  “I don’t care what excuse you’re going to give me. Just do it.”

  After everyone leaves, Hartley turns to me from under the console. “Yelling at them like that is not helping matters.”

  “I’m not here to make friends. I’m here to keep this ship in one piece so that when Jordan—the captain—comes back, it’s here for her.”

  Hartley grabs a flashlight and slides over for me to crawl under the console next to him. “You think she’ll be back? I saw it. The pod just blinked out of existence. What if it exploded? What if she’s dead?”

  I yank the flashlight out of Hartley’s hand. “She’s not dead. As soon as we defuse this bomb and secure the rest of the ship, we’re going to find her.”

  “Okay. But what if—”

  “Hartley. Focus.” I direct the light at the tofuloaf can. The circuitry is beyond confusing. It looks like the inside of a computer, which means Sarka programmed it. Without the software to disarm it, we’re shit out of luck. Even if someone could recode it, there’s no way we have that kind of time.

  Hartley looks at me and I see we have the same thought. We’re screwed.

  “Uh, Lieutenant?” a reluctant voice calls out. I almost smack my head on the console. Towering over us is Dan Foer, one of Hartley’s engineers. He has that gangly look teenagers get before they grow into their skin. “We’ve found two more bombs,” he says.

  Three? What are the odds we find more? Sarka was a very busy man. If there are more, it’ll take weeks to search the entire ship. The Persephone isn’t huge, it can only carry a max of a hundred and fifty crew, but it contains millions of tiny spaces, especially considering the size of these bombs. “Hartley? Can we scan these bombs and find a common signature and use that to search the ship?”

  “Sure. If the sensors were working at full capacity, but we haven’t gotten everything up and running yet.”

  “Why not?” My question comes out harsher than it should.

  “Because we’ve been a little busy with other things. Foer and I spent almost a week on the planet. And then we got highjacked by Sarka. Fixing sensors wasn’t a priority.”

  “Well, I’m making it a priority.” I pause and rethink that statement. “After we sort out this bomb issue.” It’s dark under the console, but I swear Hartley rolls his eyes at me. Jesus, I need to get my shit together.

  I push myself out from under the console and sit up. “Where were the other bombs found?”

  “Behind the central computer and another in the aft cargo hold.”

  “So what do all those places have in common?”

  “On their own, they’re all places that will cripple us, almost fatally. If they all go off, we’re toast.”

  “We need to look at places that can cripple us.”

  “That’s stupid. Almost any bulkhead on the exterior corridors of the ship will devastate us if a bomb blows.”

  “The emergency airlocks will prevent that problem.” In fact, that’s exactly what happened when the explosion on the Posterus cut us loose. We lost eight crew members, but the ship survived. And thanks to the way it’s designed, we were able to patch the hole pretty quickly.

  “That’s the first place I’d put a bomb then, the airlock system,” Foer says.

  “Good. Go check there. We need to start thinking strategically.”

  Foer looks relieved as he bolts from the room.

  “And while we’re doing that, a little bomb in a toilet is going to be the end of us,” Hartley says.

  “Let’s not worry about what we can’t fix. Right now we have to figure out how to prevent them from going off. Any chance they’re dormant? Maybe Sarka didn’t arm them before he left.”

  Hartley gives me another withering look.

  I duck back under the console and examine the device. “What if we just remove them and blow them out a hatch into space?”

  Hartley takes the flashlight and checks around the rigging tape. “I’m guessing he’s got a trip wire for that.”

  “A what?”

  “Something that’ll set the bomb off if you remove it. It could even have a gyrometer. If it’s moved at all, the thing will go off. Hell, that might even be the trigger.”

  “I’m going to hope that’s not the trigger, because that gives me an idea of how to get them off the ship. What if we remove the part of the console it’s attached to and send that out a hatch?”

  “Well?” Hartley runs his hand along the underside of the console. It’s like a caress. I can see his brain turning through all the possibilities. “That could work in here. This system is a fail-safe. If something happens to the bridge, we can still dock if we need to. Right now that’s not a priority. The one in the cargo hold isn’t attached to anything important, but the central computer is a problem. Without looking at it I can’t say for sure.”

  “Then let’s go take a look.”

  By the time we make it to engineering, we have received reports of two more bombs, which brings our total to five. At least we’re running out of places they can be.

  We enter through a side corridor, which is much less impressive than coming through the main entrance. From there you’re immediately intimidated by the towering computers and servers flanking much of the room. It’s the only room on the ship where you could have an all-out game of basketball and not worry about the ball hitting the ceiling.

  The main computer is surprisingly small compared to the rest of the equipment in the department. Most of that is for storage. Each server represents a system and holds about a hundred zettabytes. The last thing you want to do is run out of storage when you’re in deep space. A lot of this was upgraded for our mission with the Posterus.

  But the main computer isn’t for storage. It’s a quantum computer that controls all the tasks for each system so it can afford to be smaller. I’m unprepared for how small. I enter the room and my heart sinks. It won’t be like removing a section of console in the manual guidance station. The bomb is so tiny it’s almost the same size as the main computer.

  Hartley examines it. In this case, Sarka’s used a tin of lentils to encase the bomb, attached to one whole side of the computer. He makes a noise like hmm, and I’m struck by how calm he is. I’m about to freak the fuck out, and he’s standing there like he’s examining what’s for dinner. This is why Jordan should be here. She’d have this problem solved in an instant.

  I focus on calming myself while Hartley pivots around the main computer. The panic I thought I’d gotten under control is back in a big way. It’s only when Hartley looks up at me that I realize he has no idea what to do either and that everyone is counting on me to come up with a brilliant idea.

  I take a deep breath and turn away. Hartley’s puppy-dog eyes aren’t helping me think. But this is it. I have no choice but to pull my shit together and figure something out, or everyone’s dead.

  “What happens if we lift this component and jettison it out a hatch?”

  Hartley’s eyes widen like I’ve suggested the galaxy is just a big bowl of pudding. “It’s the main computer, Ash.”

  I give him a so-what look.

  “It controls every system on board. That includes life support.”

  “We don’t have backup for that?”

  He rubs his hand through his hair. The sweat makes it stay up for a few seconds before it flops back down. “We do. But that’s not the only system affected.”

  “And we don’t have a spare on board?”

  “A spare main compu
ter? Are you fucking nuts? It’s a quantum computer. Do you know the resources that go into making one of these? Holy Christ, Ash. That’s like asking me if we have a spare Persephone in the hold. It’s worse. This thing is probably worth three of this ship put together.”

  “A simple no would’ve done it.”

  “No. No, we don’t have a spare main computer.”

  I roll my eyes. “Calm down. I’m only asking questions. We need to get this off the ship. We may not have a main computer, but if we let this bomb blow up, it won’t matter because we won’t have a ship for it to be a main computer of. Can we function without it?”

  He huffs and kicks his boot into the floor. I can almost see his brain working. “Geez, Ash. I don’t know. I think so. But we’d lose the ability to do everything.”

  “Let’s talk this out. What do we need to function? Realistically. Life support.” I hold up one finger and motion for Hartley to keep the ball going.

  “Artificial gravity. It’s not essential, but it’d be a bitch without it. It’d take us twice as long to get everything done.”

  “Speed is essential, so that makes artificial gravity essential.” I hold up another finger and count two. “Power. At least emergency power.” He nods and I hold up another finger. “That’s three things. Is anything else essential to survival?”

  “In space? Yes. Everything is essential.”

  “Breathe, eat, sleep, shit. Those are the only requirements at their base form. Life support, power, gravity. The only thing missing is the toilets. Are they on backup systems?”

  “Of course. Could you imagine a day without them?”

  “Okay. Do we absolutely need the main computer for any of these systems?”