Nearspace Trilogy

by Sherry D. Ramsey

  Hirin pursed his lips. “Sounds tricky—probably even dangerous. Why did he come to you with this?”

  I’d been wondering the same thing, and I thought maybe I had an answer. I nibbled at my pano. “He obviously needs us to get whatever he’s after. If it was easy he’d do it himself. And no-one at PrimeCorp is going to suspect me or the Tane Ikai of helping him.” I shrugged. “Maybe all those years I spent avoiding him has given him a rather inflated notion of what we’re capable of.”

  “Whatever his notion is, I’m sure it’s not inflated,” Hirin said with a half-smile. “You’ve run circles around PrimeCorp more than once, and we’ve got the crew for backup. Look how they pulled you and Maja out of that warehouse on Rhea. That’s probably exactly the kind of thing he’s thinking about.”

  “Well, I hope we’ll be able to pull it off. The Protectorate needs all the information they can get on the Chron.”

  Hirin seemed to remember his tea and took a long drink, then followed it with a bite of bread. He chewed reflectively. “The Protectorate could probably squeeze it out of Sedmamin anyway,” he mused. “Turn Sedmamin over to them, and we wouldn’t have to do anything beyond that. If it’s important militarily—”

  “I know, but he says he actually doesn’t have the information, and I believe him. It’s all in the files, still on Earth. And they’d have a stronger case with the files as evidence, anyway.”

  “Sedmamin’s cagey. You say you believe him, but can you trust him?”

  I smiled. “I don’t trust him, not entirely. But I wouldn’t feel right just turning him over to the Protectorate. He did come to me for help. It would be like I’d sunk to his level.”

  Hirin chewed his lip a moment, obviously thinking it over. “I don’t like this if it’s going to put you—or any of us—in danger. You know PrimeCorp has lost whatever scruples it might once have had.”

  “None better, and I don’t think they had any to start with—at least, not at the executive level. But we’ll be careful. And it would be so nice to be able to hand this to Lanar when he gets back with Yuskeya and the others.”

  “You won’t wait and discuss it with him?”

  I sighed. “I don’t mind making Sedmamin sweat a bit, but we don’t know when Lanar will be back. And if PrimeCorp really is after him, time could be short.” I didn’t want to tell Hirin the other reason I didn’t want to wait for Lanar’s blessing—he might think it was too dangerous, and say no.

  Hirin nodded, then leaned back in the armchair and sighed. “Well, I don’t love the idea, but whatever you wanted from me, permission or advice, I guess you’ve got it. When did you tell him you’d have an answer?”

  “I didn’t. He’s gone to FarView—at least that’s what he said; it could have been a cover for all I know. He said he’d get back in touch with me. With luck, it could be done by the time Lanar gets back from Otherspace.”

  Hirin grinned and snapped off a brisk salute, Protectorate-style. “Very well, Captain. I guess you’re back in the Protectorate’s service again. Are you sure you wouldn’t like a commission? I’m sure your brother could arrange it.”

  I grimaced. “Merde, don’t put it that way. You know better than anyone that I was never cut out for the military, and I’m far too set in my ways to change now. Let’s just say I’m doing my civic duty and leave it at that.”

  “That’ll do. I learned long ago not to argue with my better half.”

  “If only that were true.”

  His face went suddenly solemn, worry lines tightening at the corners of his eyes. “Luta—we do have to be careful, though. I don’t trust Sedmamin. This could be part of something bigger. He could be playing us.”

  I got up and went around to sit on my husband’s lap, putting my arms around his shoulders. “If you’d seen him, I don’t think you’d say that. If he’s acting, it’s the most convincing performance I’ve ever seen.” I kissed his cheek. “But we’ll be careful, yes. And Nearspace isn’t big enough for Sedmamin to hide if he’s playing me for a fool.”

  Then I steeled myself and went to tell the crew what I’d gotten us into this time.

  WE COULDN’T MAKE any money hanging around on Cengare waiting to hear from Sedmamin again, so I decided to take a couple of cargo jobs for FarView. If I didn’t hear from Sedmamin there, I could always bring a quick cargo back to the Mu Cassiopeia system—it was only one skip and the in-system times were reasonably short—and drop in on my mother on Kiando. The crew could have a bit of downtime and then we’d head back to the station to wait for word from Sedmamin. It would all be a good distraction to keep me from worrying about Lanar, Viss, and Yuskeya, and we shipped out a day later with two cargo pods full.

  We’d just made it through the wormhole into Delta Pavonis when the pirates hit us.

  I’ve said before that piracy isn’t unheard of in Nearspace, but it isn’t all that common, either. Uncommon enough that for years I hadn’t carried a single weapon outfitted on the Tane Ikai. We kept a well-stocked weapons locker, it was true, but that was only prudent, and most of the time what started out in the locker was still in it at the end of the run. Times had changed. I certainly hadn’t expected trouble this close to a busy wormhole, where ship traffic was frequent and regular.

  Rei and Baden were on the bridge when it happened, and the rest of us were having supper.

  “Captain,” Rei said over the comm circuit, her voice crisp and businesslike, “You might want to have a look at this. Incoming ship, possibly not friendly.”

  “Please tell me it isn’t Chron,” I said as I got up from the table, before I could help myself. Maja gave me a worried look, and I tried to laugh it off as a bad joke, but I could tell from her eyes that she wasn’t buying it.

  “No, it’s definitely a Nearspace ship,” Rei said. “But they’re—merde!”

  “What is it?” I ran down the corridor to the bridge, speaking into my implant. The others were right behind me.

  “They fired a warning shot across our bow, Captain,” Rei said, the anger in her voice humming like a room full of bees.

  I didn’t bother responding, since everyone knew what they needed to be doing as we arrived at the bridge. Baden was already at the communications console, his fingers flying over the screen, looking for chatter. If the raiders signaled us at all, he’d find it. Hirin went straight to the empty console we’d converted into a “weapons station” and began tapping things on the screen. Maja slid into the navigation station, looking pale. I wished Viss were here to run drive checks, but since he wasn’t, I did that.

  “You’ve got full maneuvering, burst drive ready to go when you need it, Rei,” I said. “Baden, anything on the comm?”

  He shook his head. “They seem to be content with body language,” he said, as another torp skimmed past the nose of the Tane Ikai.

  “I’m getting annoyed with these people. Hirin, let’s send our own message, shall we?”

  “No problem, Captain,” he said, and I felt the deep bass thump from the bottom of the ship as the torpedo launched. It didn’t hit, wasn’t intended to, but skimmed close enough that I saw the shields on the vessel flash.

  “Nice shooting. Baden, send a keep-away message, would you? Let’s make it perfectly clear that we’re not putting up with their shenanigans.”

  “I have the drive signature,” Maja said. “Running it through the database now.”

  “Message coming through. I’ll put it on the ship’s comm.”

  “—to see you again, Captain Paixon,” a voice said. “Don’t worry, the torps were just my little joke.”

  That voice I recognized only too well, as did everyone else on the bridge. Hirin met my gaze and rolled his eyes. Rei threw her hands up in the air and sat back in her skimchair. The smaller ship maneuvered to drift alongside the Tane Ikai, matching our trajectory.

  I sat back in my chair, worry evaporating as annoyance took its place. “I didn’t catch all of that, but I’m not sure it’s a pleasure to encounter you, Jahel
ia Sord. I’m still miffed that you left without saying goodbye. And with more in your pockets than I’d expected.”

  She chuckled, her voice coming over the speaker low and throaty. “I did leave you everything, too, Captain. Well, almost. I couldn’t bring myself to make a copy of Pita. She’s one of a kind.”

  “Did you know that the data from the Corvid datachip was corrupted when you copied it?” I asked icily. “Or did you do that on purpose to the copy you left me?”

  There was a brief silence on her end, and then she said, all trace of humour gone, “No, I didn’t know that. To be honest, I haven’t looked at the one I . . . have. Please believe me, Captain. I left you that copy in good faith.”

  The damnable part of it was, I did believe her. “All right, so what brings you into my path today?”

  This time the pause went on for so long I wondered if she was still there.

  “Sord? Did you fall asleep on me?”

  “I’m still here. This might seem like an odd question, but have you heard from Alin Sedmamin lately?”

  Well, that was a surprise. I crossed my arms reflexively. “Not working for PrimeCorp again, are you, Sord?”

  “No, definitely not. But Sedmamin has left me a rather odd message—just a static deliverable-in-proximity. I haven’t talked to him. I wondered if he might have contacted you, too.”

  I met Hirin’s gaze and raised my eyebrows. He shrugged.

  “In fact, I have heard from him. What does he want from you?”

  She sighed loudly enough that I heard it over the comm. “He wants his ship back, for one thing. However, he’s going to be disappointed there. I seem to have lost the Hunter’s Hope, but I picked this one up for a song on Vele.”

  I looked a question at Maja. She whispered, “This one is registered as Shadow’s Eclipse. Drive sig is slightly different from her other ship, but it’s probably the same one.”

  “Looks like a different ship to me,” I said, because when it came down to it, I still liked Jahelia Sord better than I did Alin Sedmamin. “Although of course I couldn’t swear to it.”

  “Of course,” she agreed, and I sensed the grin behind her words.

  “So, what else does Sedmamin want?” I asked Jahelia Sord, because she hadn’t really answered that. I wasn’t quite ready to tell her about my own conversation with Sedmamin.

  “Good question. He wants to talk, said if I could meet him on FarView Station, he could make it worth my while.”

  “But you didn’t want to meet him without checking in with me first? I appreciate that, Sord.”

  I thought she was grinning again. “He did say he’d broken ties with PrimeCorp, if that made any difference to me, and he asked if I had any idea where you are or how to get in touch with you. Says it’s a matter of life and death.”

  “Sedmamin always liked to lay it on thick,” I said. “Did he mention whose life?”

  “No.” She hesitated. “But he didn’t sound like himself. You know that arrogance you could always practically smell coming off him? Gone. He sounded—well, just a little bit desperate. Maybe even scared.”

  “What do you plan to do?”

  There was a pause again. “I’ll admit I’m curious about the whole thing. You’re about the last person I’d expect Sedmamin to turn to if he really needs help. I messaged back that his best bet was to leave you a DIP same as he did for me.”

  I really did appreciate Jahelia Sord’s decision to track me down before contacting Sedmamin. I’d asked her not to deal with PrimeCorp, and she seemed to be taking her promise not to do so seriously.

  “We’re headed for FarView, if you want to tag along,” I told her. “It might be interesting to see what Sedmamin has in mind. Get in touch with me there once you’re settled.”

  “See you on the station, then,” Sord said. “Say hi to Gramps for me.”

  I caught Hirin’s eye roll at Jahelia’s “pet name” for him, as the little ship broke off from formation and pulled ahead of us. I had no doubt she was headed for FarView. But Jahelia Sord was not one to “tag along.”

  Chapter 7 – Lanar

  Into Otherspace

  ALTHOUGH LUTA AND others had described it to me, I’d never skipped through the wormhole into Woodroct’s Star. The system, discovered by the Protectorate, connected Nearspace to the Corvid system Luta and her crew had been the first to report back from. Although Luta and her crew had devised a naming protocol for the systems they’d passed through on their roundabout way back to Nearspace, the common name was already in circulation in the Protectorate. It would eventually be formalized, in honour of the Admiral who’d lost his life, his crew, and his vessel in the first known Chron attack in a century and a half. I sombrely noted as much in the logs, as we passed through.

  I also noted the unchanged state of the original wormhole from Delta Pavonis into this system, the one that had been severely damaged by a Corvid particle weapon. It glowed a deep crimson as if a fire burned in its depths, occasionally spitting sparks. Brief, lightning-like flashes arced between the sides like pale bridges for superheated plasma to slither across. No-one with any sense would consider it traversable, or want to get close enough to try.

  “Let’s give that a nice, wide berth, Commander,” I told Linna Drake.

  “Aye, Admiralo,” she confirmed, not taking her eyes from the viewscreen. Her nimble fingers guided the S. Cheswick along our course as casually as if she were strumming a guitar.

  I’d invited Viss to join us on the bridge, and he’d found a seat at the secondary communications console, redundant and empty most of the time. He’d been generally quiet, sipping from a steaming mug he’d brought with him from the galley, but now he whistled low. “Doesn’t look anymore inviting than the last time I saw it,” he said. “But the Corvids did say the effects could last for years.”

  “I don’t suppose you have any theories about why the Corvid weapon would have that effect on it?” I asked him.

  He pursed his lips but shook his head. “I can tell you how a Ford-Roman field works and what it does,” he said, “but beyond that, my understanding of wormhole physics is just about enough to fill this.” He held aloft the mug he’d been drinking from. “And that’s with the caff inside.”

  “We’ll leave it for better minds than ours, then,” I said. I was just as pleased not to keep looking at the malevolent-looking, angry red eye of the wormhole.

  Once I’d torn my eyes from that, there was plenty else to look at. The star in this system was a faraway, blue-white glow, casting the near side of an adobe-coloured planet into shadow. Closer, a particle cloud hung against the deep velvet backdrop of space, shading though oranges and auburns but flashing a pop of bright purple specularity in the centre. The planet caught several moons in its orbit, one of which I knew was the Chron artifact moon, identifiable by its tiny size. I searched the viewscreen but couldn’t spot it. It must be circling the other side of the planet.

  “You have the coordinates for the wormhole into Corvid space?” I asked Commander Drake. It should be only twenty minutes away at our cruising speed.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Take us in to about a thousand klicks, then send the preliminary message through,” I said. Our message would be brief. It would let them know we were coming, ask for the coordinates to navigate the protective asteroid field we knew tumbled at the other end of the wormhole, and give my identification both as a Protectorate Admiral and, probably more importantly, as Luta’s brother. With luck they’d respond quickly, because if they didn’t, we might have to risk the passage without their help. We couldn’t sit on this side of the wormhole forever, waiting for a welcome message that might never come.

  The asteroid field presented a considerable concern. Although the Cheswick’s shields were ten times the strength of the Tane Ikai’s, we were also a much larger vessel. It would be tricky to navigate safely through the field without the “key” from the Corvids. I was prepared to try shooting our way through with the particle
beam, but I wasn’t sure how effective it would be, or how much we might get banged up in the process. I told my sensors officer to log everything he could about the system as we passed through it—there’s no such thing as too much data—and watched for the next wormhole to become discernible on the screen. It remained hidden until we were almost at the thousand-klick limit. At least it had not been turned into a hellmouth like the other one, for which I was fervently grateful. I’d been worried that the Chron could have damaged this one to cut off connections to the Corvid system.

  We fetched up at the designated coordinates and Lieutenant Medenez, the comms officer on duty, said, “Permission to send the message through the wormhole, Admiral?”

  “Go ahead,” I told him. “All channels open for a reply.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  And we waited. A minute, then two, with no answer from the Corvids. Linna Drake turned from the pilot’s board to look at me, concern clouding her face. There were any number of reasons the Corvids might not reply, but there were a couple in particular I didn’t want to think about.

  “Re-send, in case the asteroids are causing a problem,” I said. “Viss, the station was actually fairly close to that end of the wormhole?”

  He nodded. His voice was tight when he answered. “It’ll be visible as soon as we’re through the wormhole and clear the asteroids. Should get a quick response.”

  “Send a tracer scan, as well,” I directed. That would normally be a precaution to make sure no other ship was in transit through a wormhole, but in this case, it might tell us if the way beyond was clear or not.

  Medenez complied, and we waited only about thirty seconds before he said, “Tracer scan is back. Looks like the wormhole itself is clear, but there’s definitely something on the other side of it.”

  “That,” Viss drawled, “would probably be an asteroid. Or several.”

  Damne. Just what I didn’t want to hear.

  “Thank you, Mr. Medenez.”

  We waited in silence for a full ten minutes more without any answer to the comm message. Finally, Linna Drake said, “Admiral, if we’re going through without the asteroid field key, we should divert everything we can to the shields as soon as we clear the wormhole.”