Secrets in the Stars (Family Law)

by Mackey Chandler

  "I bet you're not privy to all the tech in your hand pad," Gabriel guessed. "But that doesn't keep you from sending messages with it. We sell a lot of tech totally sealed and encapsulated, with the understanding you don't pop it open to reverse engineer it or it may make a mess and kill you. That means if you own Cricket you still don't get to go down and open the drives."

  Their conversation was interrupted by a gentle push, that held for maybe thirty seconds, and then eased off. It felt like lunar gravity again.

  "Is that enough to orbit? It doesn't even feel like enough to keep us aloft," Lee worried.

  "Heh, slaving your screen to mine. But not the board. We lifted at six G, and cut back to two pretty quickly. We'll coast outbound and let your father catch up with us," Gabriel said.

  "Oh... " Lee said in a small voice.

  After she thought about it a bit, Lee asked. "Don't people ask about weird maneuvers and ships disappearing without a full run to jump?"

  "We try to be somewhat discreet in controlled space. Nothing we did back there is going to raise any eyebrows," Gabriel pointed out. "When we leave Lunar controlled space soon we'll also drop off the scan. Our allies in the Republic control scan. Our own vessels get the true scan including each other. It isn't any big issue because we have more maneuverability, so we easily avoid other traffic. There aren't that many Central ships, a few dozen. The occasional jump radiation burst that a ship may see directly, not off scan, they just ignore. Nobody want to be seen as a crank, and that's what the Earth nations are happy to paint those who see such inconvenient things."

  Lee remembered that Gordon had decided to officially ignore the one he'd seen, but she said nothing.

  Chapter 33

  "Here we go," Gabriel pointed out what was on the display. "Retribution, on our vector, and a few hundred kilometers off in parallel. He's pulling 2.5 G which is nice, I'll cut back and let him pass, intercept and hail him because we're pretty stealthy. He can't see us right now so he's moving along, confident we'll show up as promised. I appreciate that."

  Lee looked the flight cabin over in the lull. It wasn't that much different than her ships. The loops over the acceleration couches. The couches were a little more comfortable, but that was a nit. As far as the controls, a screen was a screen. It wasn't like they had foot pedals and yokes to compare. The viewports were a bit bigger and wrapped back around a little further. But it wasn't some weird futuristic thing to intimidate her. Except the AI voice. That was something.

  "You got a head up here or do I have to go back down the pole?" Lee asked.

  "The center door right behind us. I'll release your seat and maintain constant boost. Be careful getting up, because you'll be heavier. If you take too long and I need to maneuver, I'll call in the head and tell you to stay put. You don't want to do that and miss the show," Gabriel warned.

  Lee felt heavier over the next few seconds and then the framework pivoted up and to the side like it had been when she’d sat down. The couch didn't sit back up again so she had to, and the acceleration was at least eight tenths of a G. She hurried and used the head, and came right back.

  Gabriel moved closer to the Retribution and hailed them, asking them to cut back acceleration and then hold it constant. The ship assumed the seven tenths of a G they often used, and replied they'd hold steady.

  "Coming up within a hundred meters," Gabriel warned. Lee looked out and could actually see the Retribution by bare eyeball. That was unusual. Once they were holding station Gabriel instructed the ship.

  "Dilbert, plot a jump sequence for Derfhome, dragging along the mass of a heavy cruiser. Don't press the envelope. Better to make a few extra jumps at better probabilities. We aren't in that great a rush," Gabriel told the machine. "I'll dim the cabin so you can see better," he told Lee.

  Lee felt like contradicting him, that they were in a rush, but held back.

  "Retribution," Gabriel called on low power com to keep things private. "We will be moving you. Don't alter course or change power. This won't last long."

  "Go ahead, Dilbert."

  Lee was looking at the Retribution and the stars changed pattern behind her. She had no sooner gasped in astonishment than the stars flickered again, and again. She should have been counting. It must have been a dozen or fourteen times they changed with no star straight ahead after each transition as she was used to, and then they stopped changing, and a star hung there, not only ahead but quite close.

  "And... Derfhome," Gabriel said, pleased with himself.

  "Holy shit... "

  "The memory fades, but it is quite impressive the first time, isn't it? Excuse me a moment. Retribution, that's Derfhome off your bow. I see we have system scan so I assume you do too. You have about fifteen minutes before your wave front announces your arrival to set a course and compose your hellos. I wish you much luck resolving your issues."

  "Are you coming in with us?" Gordon asked.

  "I was hoping to take Lady Lee for a late night snack, and join you later, but I hadn't asked her yet. With her new metabolism you're going to have to get used to feeding her more often," he warned. "Just a moment while I ask. Would you like to go somewhere with me for drinks and snacks before rejoining your friends?" Gabriel asked.

  "I was sort of wanting to see how they resolved things with the USNA cruiser and the alien big wigs," Lee said.

  "Of course. But we'll be back before they can assume Derfhome orbit, and while they are still talking. I'm sure they will log the initial conversation for your amusement."

  "Where do you want to go?" Lee asked.

  "Anywhere in the human sphere," Gabriel said shrugging. "It's hard to find good service in the Beyond, you know."

  "Give me a mic and channel to Gordon," Lee said.

  "Gordon, I'll catch up with you in a couple hours, maybe at Derfhome station. Love ya, bye."

  "I assume you know all the good places," Lee said. "Surprise me."

  – The End –

  And now check out Fenris Unchained, also from Henchman Press:

  The Wolf is Loose.

  Ten years ago, after her parents were killed in a terrorist attack, Melanie Armstrong walked away from a military officer’s career to raise her orphaned brother.

  Since then she's been captaining a tramp freighter – shuffling from world to world, scraping to barely get by, but content that she's made the right decision.

  But when her ship crashes, authorities make her an offer: take a fifteen-year sentence on a prison world where the average lifespan is a third of that.

  Or take part in a mission to stop an ancient, and until-now forgotten, robotic warship, the Fenris, from completing its hundred-year-old task of destroying a planet, killing millions.

  CHAPTER I

  Time: 0815 Local, 01 June 291 G.D.

  Location: Dakota, Dakota System

  A yellow light began to flash on the control board.

  That was nothing new, not aboard the Kip Thorne. Warning lights lit up half the panel. It was a Christmas display of yellow caution lights, flashing priority lights, and red danger lights that gave the board an aspect of impending doom.

  The pilot didn’t look over to the panel to see what was wrong. One of the red lights indicated a malfunction in the auto-pilot system. That meant that the tall, blond woman had to bring the Kip Thorne down by hand.

  Not a difficult a task for an experienced pilot. She enjoyed flying, enjoyed it more than anything else, really. She didn't enjoy thirty six hours of flight time spent awake on stimulants while flying a ship that needed far too many repairs.

  She shot a glance at the panel, and then flipped on the intercom. “Rawn, take a look at the starboard thruster.” She shook her head. Tried to push thoughts through a mind that seemed turned to mud.

  The intercom crackled and hissed, his voice difficult to make out. “Uh, Mel, we might have a problem.”

  The light ceased flashing. She sighed in relief, “No, it cleared up here, good job whatever you did.”


  The ship bucked. The alarm light flashed red. A moment later, so did six or seven other warning lights. “What the hell did you just do, Rawn?!”

  Mel fought the control yoke, eyes wide, as she swore to herself:

  “Rawn, was that the starboard pod going out?”

  The ship yawed over as she overcompensated and she fought it back under control.

  “Rawn, you’d better get that thruster back online.”

  She heard a squeal from the hatch as it opened. It had always reminded her of a ground vehicle's brakes screeching just before an accident.

  She tried not to apply that metaphor as some sort of warning to her current flight. Her brother spoke from behind her: "I’m going to pack the escape pod. Anything you want me to throw in?” he asked.

  “What?” Mel craned her neck to look at him.

  The ship spun sharply and threw her against her straps and tossed her brother into the wall hard. She bit off a curse and struggled with the controls for a moment. It seemed to take an eternity to fight the ship back under control.

  The radio crackled, “Freighter Kip Thorne, this is Dakota Landing Control, you broke out of your landing queue, return immediately, over.”

  “We’re going to lose the other thruster. The port thruster is in worse shape. What do you want me to put in the pod?” her brother asked.

  His calm voice made her clench her teeth.

  “We’re not abandoning ship,” she told him sharply. “I can land this thing.” It would be hard, though, with just one thruster. They couldn't engage their warp drive in atmosphere, not without disengaging safeties that were there to prevent that. Even if we had time, she thought, it would be a stupid thing to do. The warp drive field would tear the atmosphere around them and if they hit anything in warp, the difference in relative velocity would not only kill them but quite possibly wipe out Dakota's biosphere.

  She forced her mind to focus. When she spoke, her voice had the calm tone that she emulated from her father: “Dakota Landing Control this is Freighter Kip Thorne, we just lost our starboard thruster and are requesting immediate assistance, over.”

  “Freighter Kip Thorne, is this some kind of joke?” The speaker’s nasal, officious tone suggested she wasn't amused.

  Rawn snorted. “I know the safe combo, I’ll grab our cash and some keepsakes. I’ll clear out your desk too.” He pushed his way back off the bridge.

  “Get back here—” Mel clamped her jaws shut. One thing at a time. “Negative Dakota Landing, this is no joke, our starboard thruster— ”

  Her voice broke off as another yellow light began to flash, the warning light for load limit on the other thruster. “Our starboard thruster is out and we’re about to lose our port thruster, requesting assistance, over.”

  “Negative, Kip Thorne, you’ll have to break off your descent and return to orbit,” the nasal voice answered. “A repair craft can be sent to you there.”

  “Dakota Landing, this is an emergency. We lose our port thruster, there won’t be anything keeping us up here.” Mel snapped. “We don’t have enough thrust to get back into orbit, and you don’t have time to—”

  “Kip Thorne, break off your descent or you will be intercepted by our customs cutter. Over.”

  “Dakota, I hope they got a tractor,” answered. “Because—” The ship shuddered and the other thruster went dead. “We just lost our other thruster. Kip Thorne, out.”

  She turned off the radio and sat in the chair for a long moment as the small freighter bounced. Soon it would begin to tumble, she knew, without the guidance from the thrusters.

  “Six years, six years I kept her goin’. Dad, I did my best.”

  She wiped her eyes; now was not the time to cry.

  The ship fell now, without anything to slow its descent besides atmospheric friction. Superheated air flashed across the hull and cast glowing flames across the cockpit glass.

  Mel sighed. She kissed her fingertips and touched the control yoke one last time, then unbuckled and left the bridge. She didn’t look back.

  Time: 1720 Local, 1 June 291 G.D.

  Location: Dakota City Detention Center, Dakota System

  Marcus looked over at his companions.

  “Don’t be so gloomy. They’re not nearly so angry with us as they are with whoever crashed that freighter.” He ran a hand through his brown hair and gave them a shaky smile.

  Brian didn’t lift his head out of his hands. “You were carrying ten kilos of rex. Do you know how illegal that is? We’ll be lucky if they only confiscate our ship and give us a few years in jail.”

  Strak spoke from where he sat, cross-legged on the floor. “That’s overly optimistic really; rex dealers don’t get good treatment in jail. Most of the inmates know someone who’s OD’d on it.”

  Marcus winced, looked away.

  “Look, I’m sure I can get us out of this.”

  Rex was a performance drug, and it was the most illegal and the most common illegal drug in known space. Rex’s addiction was both chemical and psychological because it gave a person something that was priceless.

  A rex junkie didn’t act like any other druggie, because rex didn’t distort your senses or give you a euphoric feeling. People on rex were confident, their thoughts were clear, they were able to make quick, well thought-out decisions. The most shy, nervous youth could become the self-assured center of activity with a single dose of rex.

  Tertius was the third level, the cheapest. It only affected brain activity. Secundus and Primus Rex chemically modified the body.

  Primus was the highest level, the most addictive. Secundus heightened the senses and stimulated the central nervous system, giving a person greater control over their body. Primus did all that and also lent strength, streamlined metabolism, and heightened reaction speeds.

  Of course, if Rex’s benefits were heaven, its side effects were hell.

  They sat in silence for a while and Marcus studied his two companions. He’d signed on as crew aboard their ship, the Varqua, six months ago. A crew of five, including these two. The Varqua was a tramp freighter, a Stout-class, one of thousands that plied the edges of Guard Space, serving the smaller colonies.

  Brian Liu was the owner of the ship. Apparently he had a good head for business or good contacts. The Varqua had been a profitable ship, unlike most that plied their runs. A short, stocky man, clearly of Asiatic origins, Brian was a decent enough boss, if overly picky about the law most of the time. Marcus couldn’t fault him that, though the man’s arrogance grated at times.

  Strak was something of an enigma. Calm and collected where Brian was loud and arrogant, overweight and slow where Brian was muscular and bird-quick. He had held a sort of general maintenance job aboard the Varqua. In reality, he served as an adviser for Brian, and a watchdog over the rest of the crew. Getting anything past the old man was more than difficult, it was damn near impossible. He seemed remarkably loyal to Brian, and Marcus got the feeling that they shared some kind of history.

  Marcus hadn’t ever felt unwelcome... just the outsider.

  “Everything would have been fine except for those damned pirates,” he muttered.

  The door at the end of the cell block clanged and then groaned open. Two prisoners led the way, followed by two guards. The first prisoner was in his late teens and he wore a ragged set of coveralls. An unruly mop of blond hair hung above a face covered in dirt and oil.

  The other prisoner was a tall, statuesque blonde, with dark brown eyes. She wore an equally ragged cut of clothing. As they came past, Marcus blinked in surprise. “Mel?” He asked as he moved close to the bars.

  She turned, hearing his voice. Her eyes went wide in recognition.

  Then her fist snapped out, slipping between the bars to strike him full in the face.

  Marcus dropped like a stone. She kicked through the bars, hitting what she could, punctuating each word with a kick, “You owe me ten thousand dollars, you free-booting piece of—”

  One of the guar
ds cuffed her to the ground and then drew her to her feet and pushed her into the cell opposite the other three prisoners.

  Both the guards and the other prisoners laughed.

  Marcus sat up, touching his nose and wincing, “You bwoke my mose!”

  Mel shook her head, jaw clenched in rage, “Too bad I didn’t break your neck.”

  Strak laughed, “Sounds like she knows you fairly well, Marcus.”

  Marcus sat on his bunk, holding his nose with one hand. “Well, mow that ‘ou’ve gob ib’ ou’ of yo’, you want to talk?” he asked in a calm tone. He felt hot blood run down his face and the salty copper of it in the back of his throat. Well, he’d tasted worse things before.

  Mel shook her hand, flexing it a bit. “Sure. You still owe me ten thousand dollars. You’re still a piece of shit.” She took a seat on one of the bunks in her cell. “So what more do we have to talk about?”

  Marcus stared at her for a long moment. There was something more here besides his theft. Granted, Mel had a tendency to overreact at times. “Five years ain’t been enough to cool your anger?” He asked. She didn’t answer.

  Brian looked up, “This bastard screwed you lot over as well?”

  The boy spoke, his voice was calm, but his eyes were cold. “Marcus Keller is not a man to be trusted.”

  “A little late to tell us that.” Brian’s voice filled with bitterness. “He had ten kilos of rex stashed in his room.”

  “Wow, I knew you were a bastard,” Mel said, “but dealing rex? That’s sick, that’s really sick.” She smiled sweetly. “I hate to think what they’ll do to you in a prison.”

  Marcus held his nose, feeling the blood run down his face. He didn’t say anything. There wasn’t anything he could say. He looked away from her angry dark eyes and met those of her brother Rawn. She has every reason to hate me, Marcus thought grimly, and her brother, too.

  * * *

  “Hey, boss, got a couple possible recruits.”