Secrets in the Stars (Family Law)

by Mackey Chandler

  Secrets in the Stars

  Third Book in the Family Law Series

  by Mackey Chandler

  Edited by Leo Champion

  Cover by Sarah Hoyt

  Published by Henchman Press

  ISBN 978-1-941620-18-2

  Copyright 2015 Mackey Chandler

  Chapter 1

  It had been a glorious trip, but they were happy to be going home. Lee had that euphoric look of a kid on a rollercoaster as it neared the big drop. Not that there was any sensation when a starship made a jump. The transition was instantaneous, or as near as anybody had been able to measure. That was pretty accurately given their clocks. The measurements in test flights both running to jump and returning corrected for relativistic time dilatation said there was no measurable transition time to fourteen places for standard naval clocks. Special test ships with even more accurate instruments had shown it was instantaneous within .00000000000000001 seconds.

  Nobody now really expected to find any delay no matter how they refined it. One scientist caused his audience at a conference to gasp in horror when he casually mentioned in his report that they had not found any time deviation plus or minus. He'd looked up with a quizzical expression to see what had happened to cause the disturbance. The idea that the time could be off to the plus side had simply never occurred to the rest of them.

  Lee didn't think she could ever see the stars blink out and another set appear without a sense of wonder. It was a simple quantum tunneling event, but a miracle nonetheless. The physical principles had been known for a long time and applied to things like passing electrons through a MOS transistor.

  Slowly, examples had accumulated of how quantum events could be seen and triggered in larger objects. Finally in actual visible objects. It took quite a bit more engineering and refining of knowledge to make a ship of a bit more than a million tons do the same thing an electron could do, and make sure it did so, if not every time, then at least often enough that the number of ships failing to come out where predicted was very, very small. Lee never considered that possibility when they jumped. Her father Gordon had, every single time.

  The devil was in the details, and the probability of making the transition was a balance of several factors. Aim was important. You could just line up optically and jump at where the star appeared to be. But some stars had significant velocity. If you aimed at where they actually were instead of where they appeared to be, it improved your odds. Velocity aided transition, but made you come out closer to the star than going slower. Some stars had unconsolidated discs of rubble around them, which could be hazardous if you chanced to be oriented in that plane. If a system had multiple stars or a seriously massive companion like a brown dwarf it altered your entry too. Many other factors affected the odds to varying degrees.

  Early testing had established the broad parameters. Human crews had thought they understood the limits early on. But a few crews were lost because ships could make the same jump with what appeared to be identical numbers and have it work fifty times – and then the fifty-first time the ship would vanish.

  It had turned out to take longer and be more expensive to perfect than had been expected; at least most of the error-finding was done with drones not manned ships. Of the ships and drones that had failed to transition, not one had ever turned up. They might have rejoined this universe somewhere, but unthinkably distant – possibly even in another galaxy.

  The idea that they had ceased to exist, or had been frozen in transit and might reappear in enough time was a spacers' horror story to scare new recruits that the scientists rejected. Brownie, Gordon's navigator, said he understood the theory, but when he had patiently explained it, Lee just didn't get it. He’d smiled kindly and promised he would tell her another time when her brain had matured and could encompass it. That had really irritated her. Especially if it turned out to be true.

  The big plot screen over the physical viewports showed nine ships. More than when they had started this voyage. Two were Lee's private property, the Heavy Cruiser Retribution and the Deep Space Explorer The Champion William. Both were war captures and past United States of North America flagged vessels. Gordon had seized both while making war on the USNA for his clan of Red Tree. The Mothers of Red Tree had sold both off to Lee as unsuitable to their use.

  For commerce they had retained some merchant vessels. The captured USNA destroyer renamed Sharp Claws they also kept, feeling the smaller war ship cheaper to operate and suitable to a clan with merchant ships. They, however, had sent it along with Lee and Gordon on their voyage of exploration in return for training and shares for six clan members and an extra share to the ship for each of them. So far it was had been an excellent investment. To the plus they'd found a water world and a wealth of metal sources on their outward voyage. Nobody with even the smallest share was going home poor. They'd also found a system-bound race of aliens with whom they had been were unable to trade or come to any agreement. So that discovery was a wash.

  The ship Lee was sitting in was the High Hopes. Another Deep Space Explorer, and the ship she had grown up on. Gordon owned a third of the High Hopes as he had for years while partnering with Lee's parents as an explorer. Lee owned two thirds, unfortunately by inheritance. Her parents had been killed after finding a Class A world, before they could return and register claims to it. Lee was thus heir to their claims’ shares on Providence, as well as her personal claims of land on the planet itself. That alone made Gordon and Lee rich beyond any of the kings of Human history.

  Lee sat at a second-tier couch, plugged into the command circuit, watching everything but saying little. Gordon was in command of not only the High Hopes but the fleet around them. Lee was owner, and under Derfhome law and clan custom she could speak to the use of her property but at just shy of fifteen she was still in a semi-adult status somewhere between a child and an adult as viewed by Earth law. Nobody in their right mind would put her in command of a fleet of starships.

  However, when she spoke as owner about the business side of their voyage they paid attention. Lee was bright for her age, forced to grow up isolated from society and pushed to learn as much as possible quickly. Living on a ship with all its hazards and being useful to her parents and Gordon in their explorations had demanded it.

  Beside the ships Lee and Gordon owned and the Sharp Claws which Gordon's clan Mothers had sent along, they were accompanied by the Fargone Heavy Cruiser Murphy's Law and the Fast Courier Roadrunner. The Roadrunner was far too cramped and lacking in supply volume to make a voyage such as they were on anything but an exercise in torture for the crew. It had been grappled to the Murphy's Law most of the voyage out and now would be on the way back home too. They were present because the planetary government of Fargone, their principal supplier, had been worried about having the entire sphere of Human exploration including the Derf and Hinth races and many cultures represented by one merchant enterprise. They had sent a representative with limited authority in case some new species or civilization wanted to speak to more than a trader. The Mothers of Red Tree had sent their third Mother also in case Derf law should need to be addressed.

  The other four ships hadn't come out from Derfhome and Fargone with them. They were owned by a newfound group of sentient spacefaring races. They were the first aliens that Humans found with their own starships, and they were returning to the Human sphere of influence with Gordon's ships. All the ships under Gordon's command had been called the Little Fleet when they prepared for their journey at Fargone and Derfhome. If they kept adding ships like this the name would be silly pretty soon.

  The Little Fleet had quickly gotten involved with the internal affairs of these new people, the group b
eing in something of a crisis. They had just experienced a long period of mutual exploration and growing commerce. That due to the fact they were more cooperative rather than aggressive. They didn't even arm their ships. That had been spoiled by the discovery of an aggressive race they labeled Biters, who stopped the other's exploration and threatened their commerce by preying on their ships. This new group had been very interested in trade and especially in buying weapons to protect themselves from the Biters.

  The Biters were opportunistic and did have armed vessels. The main thing limiting their encroachment was their deeply divided nature. Their home world was partitioned into hundreds of fiercely competing family territories many of which were not large enough to buy and run a starship. They preyed on each other as readily as others and wouldn't cooperate to field either a large fleet or army sufficient to pose a serious risk to the planetary holdings of the other races.

  The Biters had immediately challenged Gordon's forces as soon as their first ship saw the Little Fleet. When rudely told to stand to and be boarded Gordon had instructed the Retribution to blow away the rear drive portion of the Biter's ship. It was quickly obvious that the visiting fleet was not only armed, but armed far better than the Biters. Only the fast and tiny Roadrunner of their ships carried no weapons. The huge difference was that the Biters appeared not to have invented nuclear explosives.

  Gordon sent a small force with a native escort on a loop through nearby stars to test the truthfulness of the map they had been given by a dominant local race they had dubbed the Badgers. That force found they had been truthful but also encountered Biters who tried both an ambush on a space station and a direct ship to ship attack against the smaller vessel. On the way back this detached force encountered a Biter ship fleeing the largest ship any of them had ever seen. The Biters had come into contact with an entirely new race coming from the opposite direction as the Humans and their allies. Of course given their nature they had immediately provoked them.

  The new race transmitted unintelligible audio that was unlike anything the Human dominion folks or the Badgers had ever heard. They sent no video of themselves and snatched away some of the offending Biter ships. These new people did have nukes and built kilometer long ships that could out accelerate anything seen before. They were nothing to antagonize.

  Not long after their mapping party returned to the fleet three of these gigantic ships followed them to the Badger system and matched orbit with the Little Fleet around a Badger frontier world. Two of the large ships snatched a Biter vessel present and took it off. One remained and while it didn't force one of the Little Fleet vessels to leave with it, it had made it clear that's what it wanted by opening a hanger door and giving them an easy nudge toward it with a sort of tug drone.

  Captain Fenton of The Champion William had bravely volunteered and asked to take his vessel away as the alien desired. Gordon gave permission, impressed by Fenton's nerve, and how not one of his crew raised any objection.

  They entered the ship under their own power and were carried away blind in the hold or hangar to be shown one of the alien's worlds. A star sighting assured them they were close enough to their fleet to return on their own, but reentered the alien ship and trusted them to return their vessel.

  After releasing a sample of their atmosphere in the hold the aliens duplicated it. They laid out trade goods and exchanged some items, both sides displaying divergent tastes and technologies. The biggest thing learned was that they were segmented invertebrates. With multiple eyes and manipulating tentacles around their mouths and face. Very unlike any race encountered before. They made no progress on translating the spoken language however.

  When the William was returned to the Little Fleet and released the big alien didn't leave, staying and observing them. The locals, Badgers and another race they named Bills were sending four ships back with the Little Fleet to Derfhome and beyond. Their other races didn't have the resources to join in. At least not on this frontier and on short notice.

  The Murphy's Law and the fast courier Road Runner were left behind to guard the frontier station against reprisals by the Biters, and secretly to obstruct the bureaucrats from the Badger and Bill home worlds from sending delegations after the fleet who might undo their arrangements.

  When they left the Badger's frontier world, Far Away, to return home the giant ship of the strange caterpillar-like aliens followed and soon passed them. Jumping out ahead on the same bearing they were all following. Lee immediately predicted they would escort them all the way back. Others weren't so sure. Thor, however, had been so sure he had proposed a bet against it happening with Lee. In any case they had no way to ask and little say in the matter.

  The journey out had been profitable and successful, only taking six months although they had been prepared to go much further. They intended to go back by a slightly different route. Starting back along the outer edge of the sixty degree cone opening toward home the aliens were likely ceding the Humans and their associated races. At some point along the approximate thirty degree divergence from their outbound course, they would angle back toward home. That might add another month or two to the trip by going home the roundabout route. It would be worth it if they found claims as rich as they had on the outbound trip.

  Chapter 2

  When the stars blinked and made a new pattern with the brighter target star straight ahead, Lee made a little hum of delight. Gordon let out a sigh of relief.

  Brownie their navigator said, "Clear sky. No artificial noise. Our new friends seem to have synchronized with our clocks acceptably. None of them are out of position." He was all business and too busy with it to have any relief or wonder that they'd made it again safely.

  "Any sign of our escort?" Gordon asked of the big ship.

  "Not a thing. No drive signature straight ahead. Nothing on radar at the frequencies we've seen them use," Brownie said.

  "Use the Retribution radar to ping the system hard. We'll transit the system slowly and give the ping time to come back to us before choosing a star on the other side. Take us on a bearing that will let us look behind this star too," Gordon instructed. The Retribution carried military grade radar with many more units in the array on its bigger hull. It could throw a lot more power than the smaller ships.

  Nobody had anything to say for a bit, all of them watching the screen. Brownie quietly issued instructions to the other ships how they would move and sent the data set to them. The star out the front viewports was unremarkable. The ports darkened just enough to keep it from offending the eye but not enough you wanted to stare straight at it for long.

  Unless the High Hopes was in orbit around a planet or much closer to other ships, the viewports were pretty useless. But they had yet to find a sentient building starships who wanted to sit in a sealed box depending on a screen which might fail for all their information about the outside universe. They had even identified viewports on the front of the Caterpillar's ship. They were unfortunately too dark to peer inside. Not for lack of trying.

  To Lee's left Ha-bob-bob-brie sat looking even more alert than his usual hyper active self. The bridge was new to him still and he was keen to observe what everyone did and how they interacted. Lee felt good about him being there because she had suggested he be promoted to bridge crew. It was one of the few suggestions that touched on command she'd made to Gordon and probably the riskiest. She'd been relieved when he didn't reject it. She felt each such opinion or suggestion was still added to his mental files on whether Lee would ever qualify for command – at any age.

  Ha-bob-bob-brie was a singleton. Their other three Hinth in the Little fleet were a family threesome. That was a breeding group and normal to their species. A male, a female and a nest sitter. They were uncomfortable discussing their biology, even more so than humans. The nest sitter did not stand watches. They regarded Ha-bob-bob-brie as insane to be able to live alone and were very uncomfortable around him. It seemed to amuse him. They were just as happy not to be on the same ship,
serving over on the Retribution.

  Lee had thought not assigning the sitter watch duty might be cultural bias more than biology, until she finally met them while orbiting Far Away, the Badger world. She didn't think that anymore. The nest sitter was a different color, much more drab and patterned, and the best Lee could describe it was scatterbrained. It was smart, but in a human it would be regarded as obsessive compulsive and manic compared to merely hyperactive. Yet the other two needed it to stay what they considered sane and would never have left it home to undertake a long voyage.

  Lee had met Ha-bob-bob-brie long before she conceived the idea of the Little Fleet. They had stopped at Derfhome on the way back to Earth to register their claim on Providence. Before going down to visit Gordon's family and clan they’d docked at Derfhome station. Gordon took Lee to a spacer bar to fulfill the custom of a service to lost crew. Ha-bob-bob-brie was sitting in the bar drowning his own troubles in cheap vodka. He was the first Hinth Lee or Gordon had ever seen. They fact it was her mother and father lost touched him deeply when Lee made her toast. He shared his name and granted her to look at him directly, an uncommon honor.

  Ha-bob-bob-brie walked the corridors now barefaced, indifferent to stranger's stares. An adaption the threesome still hadn't made fully. They still wore the traditional Hinth mask hanging on their chest, its inscriptions explaining who they were and how they occupied themselves – if you could read it. Lee had never seen Ha-bob-bob-brie with a mask. But then he was insane.

  "The ping from the Retribution shows a very light asteroid belt out unusually far from the star," Brownie said. "We've seen a large enough arc of it to assume it goes all the way around. This whole system is light on planetary material. There is one small planet in close to the star we've found in the optical survey. A tentative small gas giant on the other side of the star that barely shows a disc from here. No artificial returns from fabricated reflectors."