Nearspace Trilogy

by Sherry D. Ramsey

  He didn’t have to finish the thought. And it might be even worse than Lanar was admitting; he might be downplaying the dangers for my sake.

  “What’s driving them?” I asked, although we hadn’t had an answer to that in over a century. “Why can they possibly hate us so much?”

  He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “We still don’t know. Too bad you didn’t have a chance to ask your Chron friend. If we knew that—”

  “Maybe we’d know how to stop them.” I stood to cross the office and joined him at the view wall. Space was so damned big. How could it possibly not have enough room for all of us to coexist? “Maybe Cerevare can get some answers for us. We need to set up a comm relay to her. And maybe the data from the Corvids will help.”

  Lanar shrugged. “It’s definitely useful. But even they don’t have the big answers, the reasons that drive the Chron. They told you that themselves, didn’t they? You’re right about Professor Brindlepaw, though. I’m going to work on getting a message to her as soon as possible.”

  Viss asked, “Do you think the Chron will get through? To Nearspace?”

  “Yes.” Lanar’s usually cheery face was pale, his grey eyes shadowed. “If they’re determined enough—and the evidence points to that—they’ll be here, probably before we’re ready for them.”

  “But we’re getting ready.”

  “There are a few in the Protectorate who think we should take the fight to them, but that’s not practical. Regina Holles is pushing for us to mobilize without causing panic throughout Nearspace, even though she’s very candid about our shortfall of firepower and resources. Some of the corporations don’t believe any of it, so they’re not even putting their planetary security forces on notice. The Council wants to be cautious, not cause ‘undue alarm’.”

  “In other words, they’re going to wait until it’s too late.”

  Lanar sighed again. “That’s how it seems to me.”

  It was exactly what I didn’t want to hear.

  WHEN I ARRIVED back at the Tane Ikai, there was more news I didn’t want to hear. Rei met me near the airlock.

  “Maja got a message,” she said in a quiet voice. “I don’t know what it was, but it upset her, I think. She stayed in her cabin, even though we were supposed to do nicardi together.” The Erian martial art is a more intense workout than I care for, but Rei had been teaching Maja, and my daughter loved it. No doubt she still had plenty of pent-up frustration from our years of bickering, and the screaming likely helped with that.

  I suppressed a sigh. “I’ll talk to her.” Maja and I had managed to get past those years of near-estrangement over the past few months, so it wasn’t our relationship that made me hesitate. It was just that I felt mentally exhausted after my talk with Lanar and what I really wanted was a nap. I went to see Maja anyway.

  She was pale but composed when she let me into her cabin. What had been plain and sparse passenger quarters when Maja came on board had been transformed into a cozy living space that now looked larger than it was. Someday I should ask my daughter to redecorate my captain’s quarters. Somehow, even during long stretches of in-system space travel, it was one thing I never managed.

  “Rei thought you might be upset about something,” I explained. “Want to talk?”

  She sat on the bed, which she’d covered with a colourful handmade coverlet from a little market on Kiando, and wriggled back until she leaned against the wall. She pulled her knees up and locked her hands around them with a sigh. “It was a message from Taso,” she said. Taso was her ex-husband, who’d left her for a younger woman some months before she’d joined us on the Tane Ikai to help deal with Hirin’s—at that time—failing health.

  “What did he want?”

  Maja shook her head, the hint of a frown creasing her forehead. “I don’t really know. He sounded—odd. Rambled for a bit, just small talk, even though we haven’t spoken in months.” The message was naturally a one-way affair, since Taso was still back in Sol system—on Earth, I assumed.

  I leaned against the edge of the desk and slipped my hands into my pockets. “That does seem strange. Why call if he had nothing of consequence to say?”

  “It gets stranger. He said he was thinking about coming out to see me, wanted me to send a message and let him know where I was planning to be in the next little while.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Did he mention the divorce?”

  She shook her head again, impatiently this time. “He didn’t mention anything important at all, other than coming to visit. I was just so surprised to hear from him at all—it sort of threw me. I can’t think straight.”

  I crossed the room and sat on the bed beside her, scooting back until I fetched up against the wall, too. With one arm I gave her a quick hug, still slightly amazed that we were both comfortable with that after so long when I wouldn’t even have contemplated it. “Are you going to reply?”

  She leaned into the hug and I felt her sigh. “I suppose I should try to find out what this is really about.”

  “If you want. But you have no obligation to try and make him feel better. He left you, remember?”

  “I know. It’s just—so weird. I’ve hardly even thought about him in weeks.”

  I pulled back and grinned. “Not surprising. Baden hasn’t been giving you much time to think about other men.”

  She grinned back. “No, he hasn’t. And I haven’t wanted to.”

  “So, send Taso a message and then put him out of your mind for now.”

  She nodded. “We probably have more important things to worry about anyway, don’t we?”

  “You mean Yuskeya and the others? Your Uncle Lanar is heading out first thing in the morning to retrieve them. Viss is going along, too. And Lanar feels sure they’ll be back in a few days. The Corvids will be expecting a retrieval mission, so I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

  She crossed her arms and tilted her head at me, her blue eyes considering. “You’re not all that sure. And we don’t know what happened after we left the system.”

  I sighed. “No, we don’t. But we’ll hope for the best, and take some comfort that it’s Lanar going. There’s no-one I’d trust more on that mission.”

  “Did he say anything about the Chron? What’s the Protectorate plan?”

  There was no point in trying to hide it, I supposed. They were going to figure things out for themselves anyway; they’d all been there. Still, I hated to be the one to tell my daughter that another Chron war could be imminent. “The Protectorate thinks we may be in for some trouble,” I said carefully.

  Mercifully, Hirin called me on the comm circuit just then and I was spared any further discussion.

  “Luta, could you come down to the galley for a minute? I’ve got some inquiries about cargo to Cengare, should fit into our schedule for when the repairs are finished.”

  I thumbed my forearm implant. “If you promise to have a double caff waiting for me when I get there.”

  His grin made his voice warm and smooth. “Already poured.”

  Maja grinned at me. “He’s one in a million.”

  “Make that one in several hundred million,” I corrected. “You okay now?”

  She nodded. “I’ll see you later. I think I’ll see if Rei’s still interested in a round of nicardi.”

  I hoped she would be. The Erian martial art seemed to be especially good for venting negative emotions. Rei always said she found the yelling particularly liberating.

  I thought I might give it a try, myself.

  Chapter 5 – Lanar

  Exes Past and Present

  I LEFT THE docking level of FarView after Luta returned to the Tane Ikai. I’d detailed Linna Drake to show Viss to some temporary quarters, and he’d asked if he might have a tour of Engineering and see what the maintenance crews were doing, which I should have expected. I told Linna to see to it, and then took one of the stairwells down to the entertainment level in search of some food. This was always the busiest part of FarView, and it fe
lt good to be part of the bustling, busy crowd just going about their normal day. Shops were open and adboards cycled through brightly-coloured promotions of new merchandise and services. The holotheatre proclaimed the first run of a new production “outside Sol System!” And delicious smells wafted out of every restaurant’s open door, making my mouth water. There wasn’t anything wrong with the meals on the Cheswick, but anyone can appreciate a little variety once in a while. I stopped in to one of my favourite eateries whenever we docked at FarView, a little bistro called Lukoreon’s, with a beautiful starwise view and a chok’to and prosciutto panini I’d literally cross space for.

  I gave my order to the pleasant Vilisian at the counter and sat at a small table near the door to wait. From some hidden source, a bluesy guitar filled the air, adding to the relaxed atmosphere. A man poked his head in at the door, quickly glanced around the room, and crossed to the order counter himself. He hadn’t appeared to notice me, but I stared at his back in surprise. I was sure it was my niece Maja’s ex-husband, Taso. But what would he be doing on FarView? In an area as big as Nearspace, it was extremely rare to “run into” someone you knew unless you worked with them or planned the meeting well in advance. It just didn’t happen. But here was Taso, I was sure of it. I’d had a good look at his face as he scanned the room, and the lean build and longish, light-brown hair were right. Not that I’d spent much time with Maja and Taso, but we’d met enough times for me to feel quite certain. When he turned his head to look over the menu board, I spotted a small tattoo on the side of his neck and I was sure. It was a spiral galaxy, and I remembered it from their wedding. I’d joked to Luta at the time that I should get something similar, only perhaps a wormhole, to signify the countless times I’d made a skip between systems. She’d said dryly that she didn’t think a round black spot made for very interesting ink.

  I waited until he’d finished his order and then went up and put a hand on his shoulder. “Taso?”

  He jumped violently and swung around to face me.

  “Whoa, sorry,” I said, holding my hands away. “Didn’t mean to startle you. It’s Lanar, Maja’s uncle, remember?”

  He relaxed so visibly I thought he might actually collapse onto the floor. “Lanar, of course,” he gasped. “Sorry, I just wasn’t expecting there to be anyone here who’d know—anyone I’d know,” he said. He chuckled, but it sounded forced. “I guess with the Protectorate, you could turn up anywhere, anytime, huh?”

  I smiled and nodded. “Pretty rare to just bump into someone I know, though. What brings you to FarView?”

  “Oh, just doing some travelling,” he said lightly. “Heard there might be some opportunities for teachers here on the station, thought it might make a nice change.”

  “I was sorry to hear about you and Maja,” I said, although I knew full well it had been Taso who left her. It seemed more awkward not to mention that I knew about the breakup, though.

  “Uh, yeah.” He looked uncomfortable and jerked his shoulders up in a shrug. “These things happen.”

  “Coincidentally, the Tane Ikai is docked here now, too, if you can believe it,” I said. “Maja’s still with her mother, if you wanted to say hello.”

  “No! I mean, that might not be the best idea,” he said. “It’s a little awkward. You know. If I happen to run into her, that’s one thing, but I don’t think I’d go looking.”

  I nodded, and the waitress called my order. “Sure, sure,” I said.

  “I mean,” he hurried on, following me over to the pickup station, “you might not even want to mention that you saw me, really. If you’re talking to her. Because then she might think it was weird that I didn’t try to see her.”

  I took my panini and double caff. “No problem,” I reassured him. “I’m off on a mission shortly anyway. Nice to see you, and good luck with the job hunting. FarView’s an interesting place to spend some time.”

  “Thanks, Lanar. Good to see you, too,” he said. He didn’t offer to shake hands since mine were full.

  I took my order to my table and gave most of my attention to the sandwich. I did notice, though, that Taso got his food and left the bistro quickly, without glancing in my direction. The whole encounter had been . . . strange. Definitely something I’d mention to Luta, no matter what I’d told Taso. Family sticks together, and I didn’t really consider Taso in that category anymore.

  I mulled over Taso’s odd behaviour as I left the bistro and headed for the stairwell since the elevator was crowded. It was only three levels up to the docking arms, anyway. I’d gained the first landing, the station’s mercantile level, when the lower door opened and shut and footsteps sounded on the stairs below me. Someone was in a hurry, and I moved to one side so they could run past me. But a rough command made me turn to face the person coming up.

  “Mahane! We need to talk.”

  I forgot all about Taso as I watched Mauronet approach, and suppressed a sigh. He was red-faced, probably not used to taking the stairs. I had to conclude that he’d been following me, waiting for a moment to catch me alone. To talk, or to continue what we’d started outside the meeting room? I stepped back to give him lots of room on the landing and balanced myself in case he rushed me.

  “How can I help you, Admiral?” I kept my voice calm, and afforded him more courtesy than he’d shown me.

  He drew level with me, but he didn’t look primed for a physical fight. The fading bruise on his jaw was livid again on his suffused face. “Where are you headed?” he demanded.

  “Back to my ship, at the moment.”

  Mauronet glowered at me and shook an accusatory finger. “Not what I mean and you know it. Where’s the Cheswick headed? Into Chron space? Are you taking a force?”

  Now I understood. He thought Regina was sending me on the mission he wanted—to attack the Chron.

  I shook my head. “It’s a retrieval detail,” I told him, “and just the one ship. No force.”

  He looked like he might spit on the floor, then thought better of it. “As if you’d tell me,” he said. “Holles won’t listen to reason—at least to my face. But she can’t be that complacent about the Chron threat. As soon as I heard you were shipping out, I knew where you must be going.”

  “You’ve got it wrong, Mauronet,” I told him. I didn’t care to keep this argument going, but I wasn’t about to turn my back on him and continue up the stairs. “You can watch us leave if you want. The Cheswick is heading out on her own.”

  “Sure, that will prove it, because there aren’t any Protectorate ships you could rendezvous with after you leave FarView.” His voice was rough with sarcasm. A face glanced into the stairwell through the window, saw us, and hurried away.

  “You’re playing a dangerous game,” I said. “It’s not your place, nor mine, to second-guess the Fleet Commander.”

  He ignored that. “You met with Southwind. Is he going with you?”

  Bastardo. He must have been following me, or having me followed, ever since the meeting. All the way to Kiando and back? Was he really that paranoid? I fought down the urge to punch him again and crossed my arms to make restraining myself easier. “Stop imagining enemies inside the Protectorate, Mauronet,” I said. “We have enough to worry about from the outside.”

  Then I pushed open the door and stepped out onto the busy mercantile concourse. If he wanted to follow me and make a public scene—maybe even start another physical altercation, I’d have plenty of witnesses to call at his court-martial.

  I walked about ten feet and looked back when I heard the stairwell door swing shut. Mauronet hadn’t followed, but stood glaring at me through the door’s window. He made an obscene gesture, and I answered it with a Protectorate salute, then turned and walked toward the next stairwell leading up. I’d have to tell Regina about the encounter, although I hated to add fuel to their already inflammatory relationship. But Mauronet was starting to feel more like a threat than an annoyance, not just to me, but to the Protectorate and the larger safety of Nearspace. His ideas
about the Chron were straying towards irrational.

  I didn’t like to think he’d disobey orders. But I hadn’t liked the anger raging in his eyes through that window, either.

  I WAS ON the Engineering deck of the Cheswick later, checking up on the maintenance progress, when I got a text-only message from Regina. I’d messaged her briefly about Mauronet when I’d returned to the ship, but left the details for when we could talk in person. Now she asked if we could meet, and when I replied in the affirmative, she sent me a suite number on the upper habitat level. She must not be willing to risk another confrontation with Mauronet or anyone else in the Protectorate offices just now—or perhaps she wanted this to be unofficial. I considered that as I walked down the docking arm and rode the elevator up a level. There could be others who shared Mauronet’s opinion of what we should be doing about the Chron. Those at the meeting when I’d volunteered Luta to go to the Corvid system hadn’t voiced agreement—but they might have simply been keeping quiet in the face of Regina’s obvious opposition to his ideas. I’d have to ask Regina how she thought the other Fleet Commanders felt. I knew the other four, and thought they were level-headed and reasonable, but I didn’t know any of them as well as I knew Regina.

  Well, I thought with a wry smile, there were few people I knew as well as Regina.

  Mulling over the possible things Regina might ask me to do while on my rescue mission to the Corvid system, I found the suite number and knocked on the door.

  “Come in,” she called, and I swiped my ID implant close to the door’s keypad. She’d given me access and the door slid out of the way. I stepped inside.

  Living suites on the upper docking level of FarView station were not exactly luxury accommodations, but they were spacious and well-appointed, several levels of improvement over my quarters on the S. Cheswick, and I found those comfortable enough. Regina’s suite offered a view out the starwise side, a portion of the view wall now covered by long, creamy drapes. It wasn’t this view she was enjoying, however, but a faux fireplace with burning logs projected on the room’s hubside wall. Regina sat on a curving, dove-grey sofa, nursing a glass of what I guessed was her favourite jarlees wine. Her hair was down, the way she’d worn it at the academy, and she’d changed out of her Protectorate navy blues into a flowing tunic of transform fabric. It cycled slowly through a soft palette of blues and greens.