Suns Eclipsed

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  Bellona drew in a breath, striving for calm. “Look into it,” she told Sang. “Work with Fontana and Thecla and whoever and whatever else you need. Do the calculations. I want to know if this is more than theoretically possible.”

  Khalil leaned closer to her. “Perhaps this should be put aside for now,” he said very quietly.

  “Why?” she breathed back.

  “You should be focusing on recruiting the free states. Everything hinges on you winning them over to your side.”

  Next to her, everyone was talking rapidly and loudly, shouting over each other, as they pulled the idea apart.

  Bellona shook her head. “No,” she told Khalil. “It doesn’t all hinge on that at all. Don’t you see? This could be the coup we’ve been looking for.”

  “A man-sized bridge?” Khalil said doubtfully.

  Bellona nodded. “It would change everything.” She was no longer keeping her voice down. She didn’t have to. The conversation right next to her was loud enough to muffle her. “Amilcare said it the other day. The Republic and the Homogeny rely on ship power. The biggest ship, the biggest guns, wins. With the city killers, they can stay in space and still win.”

  “Which is why you need every free state and their combined fire power lined up beside you,” Khalil said patiently.

  “Not if we aren’t on ships,” she shot back.

  Khalil sat back, frowning. “I know you want to think of this place as a station or a city, only it’s just a ship. We can still get shot out of the sky.”

  “Not if we’re not on it.”

  Khalil pushed his hand through his hair, clearly frustrated.

  Bellona rested her hand on his wrist. “Alkeides,” she said. “You heard what Isabelle Lykke said about it. The Karassian troops hung back while Xenia fought off the free staters.”

  Khalil nodded.

  “Why?” she demanded.

  “Because they’re gutless.” He shrugged.

  “Because they don’t know how to fight. They haven’t been trained. They’ve never had to bother.” Bellona gripped his wrist harder. “We know how.”

  Khalil considered her, enlightenment dawning in his eyes.

  Bellona swiveled on her stool. “Sang. If a personal sized forge could work, would it be possible to jump from the surface of a planet to another planet? Or would we have to be in space, first, like the communications satellites are?”

  “The satellites are in space because from orbit it’s easier to send the communications feeds across the face of the globe,” Sang said. “A forge, if it works at all, can work anywhere.”

  Bellona looked back at Khalil. “Think of it,” she urged him. “If we can step across a bridge—”

  “Through a bridge,” Fontana corrected.

  “Through a bridge,” Bellona repeated. “If we could step through a bridge from, say, Circe to Kachmar City, in the very heart of the Homogeny, instantly, then we would have no need for ships of any sort. The Republic and the Karassians could fight each other to a standstill out here. It wouldn’t matter. We would control the planets themselves.”

  “Won’t the Karassians fight you when you step through to Kachmar City?” Hayes asked, frowning as he followed along.

  “They don’t know how to fight. Not as we can,” Bellona said. “Neither do Eriumans.”

  Amilcare’s mouth was open. His eyes were wide once more. He sees it, Bellona thought to herself, with satisfaction.

  “Free staters can still fight. Alkeides proved they can. We can train them to fight even better,” Bellona said. Everyone was listening to her now. “With a personal bridge forge, we could move from world to world instantly, going wherever we are needed. We could step onto Kachmar whenever we want, or Cardenas, for that matter. It would neutralize the threat of the city killers.”

  She got to her feet. “That’s how we’re going to help the free states take back their freedom. That’s how we will win.”

  Chapter Nine

  The former Karassian Homogeny Ship Alyard, Pushyan local space, Ovid System

  Bellona reminded herself how often Sang said “theoretically” when he was talking about a bridge forge, as she stared at the depressing view on the bridge monitors. They were aboard the Alyard with a skeleton crew, while everyone else remained behind on Demosthenes, to work on the long list of things that needed attention, including a badly equipped medical bay that was short of the most basic supplies.

  Only Sang and Fontana, Thecla and Amilcare and five of his men were aboard. Bellona had asked Khalil to remain behind, to run Demosthenes while she was gone. She didn’t let herself think too long about how empty the bed felt in the cramped captain’s cabin of the Alyard.

  The view showed the asteroid belt that had formed around Pushyan. None of the rocks were more than human sized. “The moon was pulverized,” she murmured, her heart sinking. “The force needed to do something like that…”

  A century ago, Pushyan had been a thriving free state colony, with three cities and numerous towns and villages spread out across the four major continents. The night side of Pushyan faced them now. The lights from those cities and villages should have been sparkling on the face of the world. All of it was deepest black, though—the whole world sterilized by the fallout from the moon’s destruction and the collapse of the bridge generator.

  “Still think this is a good idea?” Bellona asked Fontana.

  He glanced at Aideen, who stood just as she had for the twelve hour jump to Pushyan, in the corner made by the medical bay door, working equations on a hand screen, her lips moving silently.

  Aideen was watching the viewscreen now. “Whatever survived the destruction of the moon will be strong. We have to find it.”

  Fontana shrugged. “You heard the lady.”

  “You’re on point, then,” Bellona told him. “Metallurgic survey first. Then, whatever Aideen thinks might be suitable, after that.”

  “Yes, boss,” Fontana said and started working the dashboard in front of him. “Sang, Connie, can we move to a hundred meters above the belt borders? We can scan from there—”

  Bellona tuned Fontana’s voice out. She had come along only because the development of a personal bridge forge was her project. She didn’t hold much hope that visiting Pushyan would further the project. Aideen had been very nearly manic in her insistence they go there, though.

  Sang had developed a list of hurdles to be overcome even to build a theoretical model of a personal bridge forge. The list grew longer the more he and everyone on the ship with any sort of contributing expertise discussed it. Bellona had agreed to the trip to Pushyan simply to give herself something else to think about than the obstacles they were facing.

  Now she was here, though, she wondered if it had been wise to come at all. She could have put Sang in the captain’s chair and been confident the outing would be successfully completed. No one on the ship could afford to be fussy about an android leading them, when they had as mixed and unsavory pasts themselves. No one had ever shown a moment of hesitation about dealing with Sang as a fully fledged human, anyway. Not even the Karassian-born Ledanians cared.

  With Sang leading the expedition, she could have remained on Demosthenes and fully occupied with her work. Instead, she had hours to spend in the Captain’s cabin, to brood and keep herself as occupied as possible, while the survey was conducted. She could not contribute to it. She did not have the science background.

  On the third day, Thecla called her to the bridge, waking Bellona from a superficial sleep.

  Bellona went out to the all-white area, blinking at the harsh light there. “What’s happened?” she asked.

  “Maybe nothing,” Thecla said. “We finished scanning the belt a few hours ago, then moved onto the surface for a fast look.”

  “No carbyne, huh?”

  “Oh, we found carbyne almost immediately we started scanning,” Fontana said. “It’s everywhere throughout the belt, in traces and lumps. No big pieces, though. It’s all as fragmented as
the moon.”

  “We brought some aboard for assay,” Thecla said.

  “With all suitable bio hazard protections,” Sang added quickly.

  Bellona relaxed. “What did the assay find?”

  “It’s not finished yet,” Sang said. “Some of the tests take twenty-four hours to produce results.”

  “It’s what we found on the surface,” Thecla added. She tapped the dash in front of her and pointed to the viewscreen as it shifted to show a bland band of gray earth. She zoomed it in. More gray. Rocks. Dirt. Nothing green grew anywhere.

  “What did you find?” Bellona asked patiently.

  “Human remains, we think,” Thecla said.

  Bellona considered the screen. “From when the moon blew up?”

  “Those bodies would have long turned to dust,” Thecla said dismissively, of the two million people who had once lived on Pushyan. “This is far more recent.”

  “How recent?”

  “Three years max,” Thecla said. “Can we take Connie down and have a look? Pick up some DNA? It might be worth knowing who would want to come to this graveyard to die.”

  “Will a surface trip slow down the survey?” Bellona asked.

  Sang shook his head. “It might be a good trial run for Aideen’s earwigs. There are odd surges of radiation that will test the communications between Connie and the wearer.”

  Bellona nodded. Then a thought struck her. “The earworms…they don’t use wormholes, do they?” The idea of a volatile wormhole reaching into her ear was not a pleasant one.

  Fontana laughed. “Aideen murmured something about high frequency rotating squirt bands. I think you’re safe.”

  “Then I’ll go down with Thecla to check the remains,” she decided.

  It would be something to do.

  * * * * *

  Aideen broke off from her assay trials long enough to shove a small device each into Thecla’s and Bellona’s hands, before impatiently returning to her test tubes.

  Fontana shepherded them away from the tiny lab. “I think I remember most of what she said about them when she designed them. Put them into your ear and they’ll adapt to fit. No one can hear what Connie says to you. The upper end of the frequency spectrum is never used anymore, so the chances that someone will accidentally trip over the transmissions is extremely low. The rotating frequencies minimizes that chance even further.”

  Bellona pushed the little object into her ear and froze as it wriggled and adjusted. Then it grew still. “My hearing is muffled on that side, now,” she said, as Thecla slapped her hand against her own ear, wincing. Given her enhanced strength, the slaps had to hurt all on their own.

  “Wait for it to finish adjusting,” Fontana said.

  Abruptly, as if a switch had been thrown, her hearing cleared in her left ear. She could hear as clearly as ever. She put her hand to her ear. “It compensates?”

  “Channels, really. Although if you had poor hearing in that ear, it might enhance it.”

  “How do we get it out after?” Thecla demanded.

  Fontana looked startled.

  “We don’t, I’m guessing,” Bellona said.

  Thecla’s jaw rippled. “You mean this thing is stuck in me?”

  Bellona put her hand on Thecla’s arm. “We can find a way to extract it later if we need to.”

  “You asked for something covert and untraceable,” Fontana reminded them.

  “I did,” Bellona agreed. “How do I talk to Connie now?”

  “I think she’s probably waiting for you to say hello,” Fontana said.

  Bellona cleared her throat. “Um. Connie?”

  “Bellona! Hi! It’s so nice to talk to you like this!” Connie’s little girl voice squeaked in her ear, making Bellona wince again.

  “Can you speak softly?” Bellona asked. “You’re blowing out my ear drum.”

  “Mine, too,” Thecla growled.

  “Is this better?” Connie asked. The volume was more comfortable.

  “That’s good,” Bellona told her.

  “Although you’ll have to monitor the environmental noise wherever we are,” Thecla said, “and adjust your volume to match.” Thecla grinned at Bellona. “If there are grenades going off around us, you might have to shout a bit.”

  “Of course,” Connie said stiffly, her dignity wounded.

  “Okay, let’s get this done,” Bellona said. “Connie, fire up the engines. We’re going on a trip.”

  “I’ve been waiting with engines humming for fifteen minutes already,” Connie replied. “Sang told me you’d be here ages ago.”

  * * * * *

  Pushyan, Ovid II

  Down on the surface, the wind blew a mournful, high note, pushing around dust swirls. After a hundred years, the rough edges of the ruined city had been worn smooth, while buildings had collapsed from neglect, violent storms and severe radiation.

  Thecla used the portable scanner to check on Connie’s prognosis that it was safe on the surface.

  “Beta is high,” Thecla said. “Gamma is within tolerances if we don’t plan on staying longer than a week.”

  “Told you it was safe,” Connie said with a sniff. “The body you found is west-south-west of your position, about a kilometer. I can guide you once you get closer.”

  “How much body would there be after three years?” Bellona asked as they started walking in a west-south-westerly direction.

  “Not much,” Thecla said.

  “DNA traces from the bones,” Connie said. “Although with all this radiation, the bones have probably disintegrated, too.”

  “We’re looking for dust?” Bellona clarified.

  “Dust that still has viable DNA in its marrow,” Thecla said.

  What they did find, inside a fully enclosed room that had once been a part of a building that was now otherwise gone, was complete skeleton, with a story to tell. The enclosed room had protected it from the elements.

  Bellona looked down at the posture of the bones as Thecla scanned it. “A woman,” she guessed. “Not a big one, either.”

  “A girl,” Thecla said, looking at the scanner screen. “Maybe fifteen. And look.” She pointed to the skull. “See that long shard of glass in the eye socket?”

  “From a window?”

  Thecla shook her head. “There are no windows here. And look at the nick on the thumb and forefinger of the hand up by the head.”

  Bellona bent her head to study the twin scrapes. She put it together and drew in a hard breath. “She pushed the glass into her own eye?”

  “Looks that way.” Thecla bent and cautiously picked up the top bone from the little finger and scanned it. “DNA is present. We’ll have to dig to get it out.”

  Bellona unbuckled the pack she had been carrying. “We take all of her back. When we find the family, we return her to them. I get the feeling they might be still wondering if she is alive.” She pulled out the biggest sample bag in the pack and unfolded it.

  Thecla held out the little bone. “Right,” she said softly, all traces of her usual sarcasm missing.

  “Take images of this room, too,” Bellona said. “I have no idea why we would need to. My gut says do it now. We might not have a chance, later.”

  It took them an hour to process the room and the body, then they returned to Connie, for the jump up to the Alyard. Connie chatted constantly as they hiked back to her and on the fifty-minute leap to the upper atmosphere, while Thecla and Bellona were both quiet and thoughtful.

  “You figure she was forced to it?” Thecla said as Connie floated into the interior of the Alyard and settled down with a soft bump.

  Bellona didn’t bother asking who Thecla was talking about. “We might never find out,” she admitted.

  “At least we can give her back to her family, whoever she ends up being,” Thecla said. “Maybe that will have to do.”

  Sang was waiting for them as they walked down the ramp to the cargo hold floor. His expression was neutral.

  “What has hap
pened?” Bellona asked.

  “Aideen finished her assay.”

  “And?”

  Sang drew in a breath and let it out. “The carbyne structure is unique. There is no record of it anywhere.”

  “It’s not carbyne?”

  “No, it is carbyne. The correct elements are there, in the correct sequence. It’s just…” Sang frowned. “It has no electrical charge. It is completely inert.”

  “Is that good or bad?” Bellona asked.

  “It’s…different,” Sang said cautiously. “Metals always have a charge. This does not.”

  “It’s still a metal, still carbyne?” Thecla said. “That is different.”

  Sang fell into step alongside them. “It gets stranger,” he warned them. “The carbyne is inert and completely pure. No contaminants or trace minerals. Nothing.”

  Thecla stopped walking and Bellona turned back to look at her. Sang, too.

  “What is it?” Bellona said.

  “Completely pure and inert,” Thecla said. “The original incident, with the generator—the conditions must have…I don’t know, strained it somehow.”

  “Wouldn’t it be weaker if it had been stressed?”

  “Strained, as in, purified,” Sang said. He looked at Thecla. “You see it, then.”

  “It’s stronger,” Thecla said, sounding awed.

  Sang nodded.

  “How much stronger?” Bellona asked. “Enough for what we want?”

  Sang drew in a slow, controlling breath. “There’s only one way to find out.”

  Bellona nodded. “Collect how much you think you’ll need for a prototype.”

  “I was hoping you’d say that,” Sang said. “Coordinates and the scoop are ready. I was just waiting for you to get back.”

  Bellona nodded. “Do it. Then, back to Demosthenes.” She was itchy to return, suddenly. It might have been the unsettling find on the surface. It might be the empty bed she was using. It could be that everyone was back there except for the few on the Alyard right now.

  Whatever the reason, she wanted to go back.

  As she headed toward to the bridge, Bellona wrestled with the feeling, reluctant to name it for what it really was, because it was too soon. Then, just in her own mind, she let herself say it.