Orion's Dawn: A Gritty Space Opera Adventure (Frontier's Reach Book 1)

by Robert C. James

  In front of the cargo, a pair of men stood talking. Both had data tablets in their hands. They were doing a transaction. He had to do a double take, but one was recognizable. It was Conrad Althaus. His uncle. Half uncle, really. Not that he ever called him by the title. He’d never respected the man enough, even when he was a child.

  Althaus hadn’t aged well. His hair had all but disappeared. What was left was grayer than gray. His face had become wrinkled, and he had a hunch in his back that Jason never remembered him having. But he was still built like a war crusher and had a deep furrow in his brow that always made him appear angry.

  Jason sidled between a pair of the cylindrical containers, ensuring Althaus wouldn’t see him. He rushed up the ramp and into the cavernous empty cargo bay of the Argo.

  C Deck. The belly of the beast. At its center was an elevator. He stepped onto it, and the old lift ascended. He stopped at B Deck and peered down the corridor. On each side was a row of closed doors. The Argo’s living quarters. Four rooms on one side and three on the other. At the stern was the communal bathroom facilities.

  He sniffed the air. It was the smell of his childhood. Has it been so long?

  Jason started up the elevator again, and it climbed to A Deck. The galley and infirmary were to port, while the rec room was to starboard. The engine room was astern and toward the bow was the hatchway, which led through to the bridge.

  “I’m not sure about the beard.”

  Jason turned his head. Leaning on the door to the galley was Kevin Rycroft. The man was ten years older, but he still had a youthful glint in his eye, even if he looked a little tired.

  “Kevin Rycroft. You old space dog.” Jason strode from the elevator and shook his hand before Kevin pulled him in and they hugged it out. Jason respected him a lot. He’d been his father’s best friend for most of their life, and Jason felt he was more of an uncle than Althaus had been.

  Kevin tugged at Jason’s beard. “What kind of fashion statement are you trying to make with this?”

  “Is laziness a fashion statement?”

  Kevin chuckled. “When I taught you to steer this old girl,” he said, banging on the Argo’s bulkhead, “you were no taller than a table. It took dedication and a hell of a lot of hard work. Laziness was never a word I associated with you.”

  Jason frowned. “I guess things have changed.”

  “Sometimes the more things change, the more they stay the same.” Kevin leaned his arm on the door. “What brings you back to the Argo?”

  “Yes, why are you back here, Jason?” came a voice from outside the door.

  They both spun around. Standing there, with his arms crossed and a somewhat steely gaze, was his brother.

  “Hello, Tyler.” Jesus, he looks like Dad. There was a confidence about him. A resolve. While two years younger than Jason, Tyler was the more apprehensive of the pair. The one who played it safe. He’d never been a terribly confident kid when they were growing up, but with everything that had happened, it would toughen anyone up.

  “It’s good to see you,” Jason continued, not quite sure what else to say. “Thanks for responding to my message so quickly.”

  “As you could tell downstairs, we were due to take on some cargo here,” Tyler said.

  “I guess I was lucky you were in the neighborhood then.”

  There was an awkward silence before Kevin broke it up. “How about I leave you to it?” He quickly slinked away down the corridor toward the engine room.

  Tyler uncrossed his arms. “Let’s talk.” He led Jason into the rec room where nothing had changed. The ping-pong table was still the main feature. Alongside it was a card table, while in one corner was a small table with a chess set, and in the other a pair of old two-seater sofas.

  Tyler sat on the end of the ping-pong table. They locked eyes with each other. Jason thought he should be the one who broke the ice, but Tyler beat him to it.

  “What do you need, Jason?”

  Right to the point.

  “I’ve come here for a favor.”

  “A favor? From me?”

  “Pretty much, yeah.”

  Tyler chuckled wryly. “You waltz in here, ten years after Dad died, and you come back expecting help?”

  Jason had known from the get-go this would be difficult. He didn’t want to rehash the past. “If you remember correctly, I’d just turned eighteen. They’d accepted me into the academy before Dad had died?” He frowned. “Dad dying was just—”

  “An inconvenience?”

  This is going about as well as I expected. “Bad timing,” Jason countered. “If I didn’t go then, I may never have gone. As it turned out, with the outbreak of the war they needed everyone they could get.”

  Tyler said nothing and let Jason continue his plea. “You and I both know I didn’t want to command this ship.”

  “The Argo wasn’t good enough for you?”

  Jason peered up at the ceiling, seeking some divine intervention. “That’s not what I meant.” He walked over to the chess table and picked up the black king. “I didn’t want to leave the way I did.”

  “Yet you did anyway.”

  “Yet I did anyway.” Jason put that chess piece back down. “To be fair, it looks like you’ve done pretty well for yourself. The old girl still seems to be in one piece.”

  Jason was hoping to get a laugh from his brother out of that. No such luck. Tyler wasn’t in the mood.

  “What do you need, Jason?”

  Jason was surprised he’d got this far. “I need transport.”

  “Where?”

  “Frontier’s Reach.”

  Tyler’s mind seemed to tick over. “Why would you possibly want to go to Frontier’s Reach? There’s nothing out there.”

  “There may be something.”

  Tyler looked at him expectedly. Jason knew he wouldn’t get anywhere without explaining himself.

  “At the end of the war, the Raptor was hunting for a war criminal by the name of Benjamin Tyrell. They attacked our ship, and I ordered my friend to go after him.” Jason paused. “Nash never made it back.”

  “Tyrell killed him?”

  “That’s what’s in the official report. However, the wreckage of his pod was soaked in what has become known as Iota particles.”

  “You think something else was responsible for your friend’s death?”

  Jason frowned. “I don’t know.”

  Tyler was confused. “So, what has this got to do with Frontier’s Reach?”

  “A few days ago, I got a message from an old buddy. Those Iota particles have reared their head again. In the Reach.”

  “And you want to go there? Why?”

  It was a question Jason had asked himself for some time. “I don’t know. Closure, I guess.” He knew he wasn’t producing a strong case. “Look, I have money. It’s not a lot, and it wouldn’t get me transport aboard another ship, but it’s yours if you take me.”

  Tyler bit his bottom lip. “I could very well tell you to just get off this ship and never come back again.”

  Jason nodded. “You could. And I’d understand.”

  Tyler sighed, grabbing at the bridge of his nose. “I’ll need time to think about this.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.” With a nod of understanding, Jason left the Argo to find a bar that would open a line of credit for him while he awaited his fate.

  Chapter 7

  Cargo Ship Argo

  “He wants us to go where?”

  Tyler Cassidy stood in the middle of the cargo bay as Conrad bellowed at him. His uncle’s hands had clenched into fists. Tyler prayed he didn’t use one of the cylindrical tritonium containers as a punching bag.

  After Jason left the Argo, Tyler did some thinking about his brother’s request before asking Conrad and Kevin to join him. He’d filled them in on everything Jason had told him and why he wanted to go to the Reach. Conrad’s reaction had been exactly what Tyler anticipated.

  “It’s out of the question,” Conrad con
tinued. “Do I need to remind you I’ve secured a consignment of forty thousand liters of this stuff?” He banged on the tritonium container beside him.

  “No, you don’t.” Tyler considered the fully stocked cargo bay around him.

  “That’s not to mention the thruster assemblies, the guidance systems, the—”

  “I get the point.”

  “Do you? This is a big payday I’ve got lined up. And we have to get this stuff to the Tau-Zeta System on time if we want to cash in.”

  Tyler couldn’t argue. It’d been one of the better consignments the small cargo crew had secured in a long time. For years the Argo had been scrimping and scraping for work, but occasionally something like this came along that would make them enough money to see them through the next financial year.

  Kevin had been unusually quiet. “What do you think?” Tyler asked him.

  Kevin put his data tablet by his side. “Well, we know we have to get this order to Tau-Zeta. That in itself will be a long journey,” he said with all the reason Tyler expected from him. “If we took a detour to the coordinates Jason has given us, we would add a month onto our trip.” He looked at Conrad. “You could ask if we can get an extension on the delivery.”

  Conrad’s eyes rolled. “How did I know you’d side with him?”

  Kevin ignored him. “How much did you say Jason would pay us?”

  “He claims to have twenty-seven thousand credits,” Tyler said.

  “If we were going transport someone out that far, how much would we normally ask? Thirty-five thousand? We wouldn’t go out there unless we’d make good money out of it. But even with what Jason pays, we’ll still make money.” Kevin shifted his gaze to Conrad. “I need not remind you that every penny counts at the moment.”

  Both had good points. They’d been great mentors since his father had died and years later were still dishing out good advice. But their differing points of view weren’t helping Tyler.

  He glanced over at Conrad. “Rebuttal?”

  His uncle’s face was red. He knew the value of money just like everyone else on the Argo. It didn’t take an FTL professor to realize that he didn’t want Jason back aboard.

  “You do remember what he did ten years ago, right?”

  Tyler didn’t have to be reminded. But he knew he would be told again, regardless.

  “Your father died, and your so-called brother flew off for the academy-”

  “Is it really necessary to go over this again?” Kevin interrupted.

  “It is necessary, because now he comes back. And what does he want? To go to Frontier’s Reach to chase some ghost from the past? It’s ridiculous.”

  Tyler rolled his eyes. He’d already had it out with Jason and didn’t need to go over it again with Conrad. He and Jason were raised in a world without their mother, and their father had taken care of them. Benjamin Cassidy had been a far from perfect dad, but he did the best job he could while being captain of his cargo ship.

  To help was Kevin and Conrad. Both men vastly different to one another. Conrad was an unusual man. Hard but fair. Mostly, Tyler had always got on with him. And Kevin. Well, everyone got on with him.

  If it hadn’t been for those two when Jason had left for the academy, there was no way Tyler would’ve grown up to be the man he was today. The ship would have been sold for scrap, and everyone would be out of a job on some backwater planet somewhere. He respected the hell out of them, and that was why he valued their opinions so much.

  “Ultimately it’s up to you, Tyler,” Kevin said. “This is your ship, and you’re its captain.”

  Tyler weighed up all the pros and cons in his head. They could use the money. But having Jason aboard for so long would be problematic. It’d take around six months to get to the Reach. And then he’d likely stay aboard through to Tau-Zeta until they brought him back to Vesta III.

  “Don’t forget that no matter what’s happened, he is your brother,” came a voice from the elevator chute.

  All three men turned. Stepping from it in her overalls, with her sleeves rolled up, and grease in her blonde hair was Alyssa Rycroft. She put her hands on her hips and stood straight across from Tyler. Kevin’s daughter may have been shorter than him, but she cut an imposing figure.

  “Any reason I wasn’t invited to this little meeting?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “I knew you were working on the climate-control system. I didn’t want to disturb you,” Tyler lied.

  “Uh, huh. Well, now I’m here, you can ask my opinion.”

  “We know what your opinion will be,” Conrad said.

  “That must be why you didn’t ask me then,” Aly said matter-of-factly. She’d got him.

  He didn’t want her up there because she had an even softer spot for Jason than her father.

  Tyler, Jason, and Aly had grown up together, but her and Jason, being the older of the three, had shared a special bond. And Aly always had a knack for getting her way. She’d been the sole female amongst a group of boys and men. Tyler didn’t want her to make his decision any harder than it already was.

  He began to say something, but Aly cut him off. “So, now we’re all here. Where are we at? Two for Jason coming aboard,” she said, looking at her father. “One against.” She glanced at Conrad.

  “This isn’t a democracy, honey,” Kevin told her. “Tyler’s the captain. It’s his decision.”

  “Well, what’s it to be then, Tyler?” Aly stared into his eyes. Most of the time she was the sweet, innocent sister he’d never had, but other times she was the ship’s grease monkey who was like a dog with a bone.

  He bit his bottom lip, knowing he would be the bad guy with whatever decision he made. Maybe I should have sold this ship for scrap after all.

  Chapter 8

  UECS Vanguard

  There were a lot of new names on the Vanguard’s updated personnel files. A near fifty percent turnover of the crew. The most Nicolas had seen since the end of the war.

  He frowned. The Vanguard had been a storied vessel during the Earth-Centauri War, full of hardened veterans who fought many campaigns. Now it was a ship of peace with a crew that had barely ever seen a sin fired in anger. While Nicolas would never want to return to the dark days of the war, he worried about how things had changed.

  Even though he was only reaching his late forties, he was concerned that something someone had told him years earlier was coming true. Space is for the young.

  There was a knock at his door. “Come in.”

  The door opened, and the Vanguard’s executive officer walked into the captain’s office. Commander Perera looked exhausted. Nicolas couldn’t blame him. He felt like hell himself. The last forty-eight hours had been grueling for everyone.

  “What have you got for me, Commander?”

  Perera handed him a data tablet, which Nicolas scanned over. “The last of the refit crews left an hour ago.”

  “Good. What about the crew recall?”

  “All personnel are accounted for. Our new Chief-of-the-Boat did his inspection of the enlisted crew two hours ago.”

  In all the commotion of the last few days, Nicolas had forgotten about Chief Keene. He felt ashamed but knew the old codger would understand.

  “So, I guess that means—”

  “Doctor Tai and the team of Marines arrived thirty minutes ago with their package.” Perera smiled. While the commander had only been Nicolas’s XO for a year, they’d gotten to know each other well, and he knew about the captain’s past with Susan Tai. He was clearly finding it most amusing.

  Nicolas glared at him. “How have you gone with the little project I assigned you?”

  Perera’s smile faded. “Nothing concrete, but I found out some interesting tidbits.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Well, for starters, every nine months there’s supposed to be a crew rotation at the Orion V mining facility. The last one was scheduled for three months ago.”

  “Let me guess, there wasn’t one?”
>
  “Right.” Perera nodded. “It gets better. Normally the decium ore they dig up gets loaded onto specialized landing vessels on the surface of the planet. Due to an apparent issue with the landing pad at the mining facility, all ore is being transported to the ore haulers in orbit.”

  “And their landing pad hasn’t been repaired?”

  “Apparently not.”

  “So no one in and no one out.” Nicolas pursed his lips. “What about communications from the facility?”

  “There’s been no blackout if that’s what you’re asking?”

  “Which means nothing. They could be screening communications.” Nicolas looked up at his XO. “What do you make of it?”

  Perera shrugged. “A medical quarantine perhaps. Makes sense if they’re sending a doctor out there. If there is something going on, they’ve hidden it well.”

  Nicolas nodded as a knock sounded at the door. “Come in.”

  The door pushed open, and she walked in. Tall. Dark-haired. Deep-blue eyes. She hadn’t changed a bit. Nicolas stood out of courtesy.

  “Hello, Susan,” he said, doing his best to be nonchalant about it.

  Susan stepped toward his desk. “Captain Marquez.”

  Nicolas frowned. She never called him by his title. Somehow being called Captain by someone who was once his wife just didn’t sound right.

  Perera stepped backward toward the door. “I’ll be on the command deck making preparations for launch.” He took one last knowing look at his captain and closed the office door behind him.

  Nicolas motioned to the chair in front of his desk. “Please.”

  They both sat.

  A brief silence ensued before Nicolas broke the ice. “You didn’t have to come up here.”

  “I may not be in the service anymore, but I know protocol. Even civilians need to report to the commanding officer of the ship they’re traveling on.” She stopped and regarded his office. There was a wry smile. “And anyway, I was curious to see the ship. It’s been a long time since I was aboard. There are a lot of new faces.” Her smile faded. “I’m sorry to hear about Keene.”