by I. O. Adler
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Epilogue
Copyright © 2021 I.O. Adler
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or recording, or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the publisher. You must not circulate this book in any format.
Published by Lucas Ross Publishing.
Author website: ioadler.com
Edited by Brittany Dory at Blue Minerva Copyediting
Cover Design by Abbyanna.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to similarly named places or to persons living or deceased is unintentional.
Deimos Station
by
I.O. Adler
Broken Stars Book Two
Chapter One
The gray sphere plummeted into Earth’s atmosphere, riding shock waves of superheated air. Despite the intense friction on the sphere’s hull, the three passengers on board barely registered the steady tremors as they reclined on their couches.
Only Carmen Vincent stood.
Her mind commanded the virtual controls of the harvester while it was simultaneously logged into one of the Cordice spindlebots inside the sphere. Perfectly balanced, strong, and nimble, the tall, thin, metallic humanoid machine responded instantly to every command, each action informed by the harvester computer in case of an emergency.
Landing a stolen spaceship wasn’t half as hard as she expected.
Meanwhile, her body slept.
She lay millions of miles away on board the translator She Who Waits’ shuttle.
Without Carmen’s consciousness present, the delay in issuing orders would mean minutes in which anything might happen to the ship. And since the ship wasn’t hers, she thought it would be a good idea not to damage it any more than she already had. She would give it back after she delivered her passengers. The Cordice could retrieve it once she arrived on the Framework and relinquished the encryption. But they would have to be patient for a few more hours.
An illuminated bubble screen on top of the bot displayed her face as she watched her sister sleep.
Jenna Vincent had lost part of her leg and suffered a gunshot wound. The leg had been an accident when evading the malfunctioning Cordice caretaker. The Melded Primary Executive had later shot her, causing a critical injury that now threatened her life. The Melded had been trying to commandeer the harvester. Carmen and Jenna hadn’t given it to them.
The final decision to return home had been Jenna’s, as the options for treatment back on board the Cordice ship were to either upload her to their simulation or allow the Melded to perform surgery.
Since the Melded leader had been responsible for almost murdering Jenna, Carmen didn’t want any of them to touch her sister. And uploading meant life in a computer. No matter how perfect the Cordice simulation seemed, the thought chilled her.
Jenna had a hitch in her breath. A choking cough began. Carmen drew closer, not sure what to do.
“Hang in there, Jen.”
Faster. They needed to go faster. But how much faster could they go?
Carmen surveyed the data screens over and over. Faster meant more g’s, resulting in an equally harsh slowdown. When they had first been abducted by their mom, they had been on board one of the harvester spheres and had barely noticed motion. Not the case now. But the sooner she could get Jenna to the hospital, the sooner doctors—human doctors—could start treating her.
The stray thought resulted in an instant response.
The sphere began accelerating. While Carmen barely felt a thing through the sensory inputs on the bot, her readouts confirmed it.
Agent Barrett was screaming. “Are you still in control of this thing?”
What had she done? She tried to calm herself and realized she was having a hard time keeping focused. She had been awake too long. Her strange ordeal hadn’t afforded her much chance of rest and now her sister was counting on her.
With the touch of a virtual control, the harvester’s trailing spheres slowed theirs down via an electromagnetic beam. Too much deceleration. A jolt rocked the sphere, and the passengers instantly experienced the heightened pressure, forcing them deeper into their couches.
Barrett tried to look at her but could barely raise his head. “What’s happening? Carmen?”
“Everything is going well. I’m slowing us down. We’ll land back at Garden Village General and you’ll get the care you both need.”
“You’re sure you can stop us?”
“Yes. You’re almost home.”
He pressed his eyes closed. His broken hand remained swollen. A slightly overweight man in his thirties, he looked as worn and exhausted as she felt. She had been awake during most of their return trip.
She tried to shake the fuzz from her brain. Even the shadows within the sphere seemed to move with a life of their own. But rest would come later. She couldn’t afford the luxury of relaxing yet.
Through it all Jenna remained unconscious, having slept for most of the two-day-long return trip from Mars. Neither of them had known responding to their mother’s call for help would result in their being abducted and thrust into a situation beyond anything they could ever dream of. Alien refugees. The harvester, which everyone wanted but Jenna and Carmen controlled. And an enemy which threatened to destroy everyone, including Earth.
Carmen found the ship’s previous settings for course and speed. Allowed the computer to once again take over. The shaking eased and stopped altogether.
The sphere continued to cut a swathe through the air as it descended towards North America. It would take them home. Carmen had to trust it. She wished she could enjoy the view as the layers of sky peeled back, revealing the greens and browns of the land and the clouds and oceans to the west.
She confirmed her repeating message was still being sent at whoever might hear them.
“This is Carmen Vincent, daughter of Sylvia Vincent. We’re approaching Earth from Mars. I’ll be landing at Garden Village General Hospital with my sister, who will need medical attention.”
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br /> What kind of reception would they have? Were the surgeons ready? Would they be skilled doctors? The mad notion that the sphere might strike a plane on the way down occurred to her, but she forced herself not to think about it. Found herself praying that if they could only land, if Jenna would be okay, that was all that mattered.
Jenna’s warm brown eyes were open and staring at her. “Where are we?”
“Almost home.”
“Is Mom here?”
Carmen hoped her bot’s voice sounded calmer than she felt. “No, Jen, she’s not. Don’t worry about her. Try to relax. In a few minutes you’ll be at a hospital. They’re going to make you better.”
“When will she come back?”
“Soon.”
Her eyes closed again. “You never were a good liar. Worse than Mom.”
Carmen had been purposefully not thinking about what she could do to bring their mom back home. Sylvia Vincent remained with the Melded after they had restored her body. But part of her mind was still inside the Cordice simulation. Her mom had stolen the harvester and had made a deal with the Melded and a Cordice faction within the sim, and now Carmen didn’t know what part of her mother was real.
She would find out once she reached the Framework. But first she had to bring her sister back without getting shot down, hitting a jumbo jet, or slamming into the ground at warp speeds.
Easy.
Chapter Two
Green, gray, and camo military vehicles lined the street leading up to Garden Village General Hospital. Trucks and Humvees mostly, but among them were armored cars and at least one boxy-looking tank. Flashing strobes blinked everywhere, bright in the hazy morning. Wisps of fog clung to the rows of eucalyptus growing along the nearby boulevard.
A helicopter hovered around a mile off, its undercarriage bristling with what appeared to be missiles.
Carmen clenched and unclenched her metal hands as the sphere slowed gradually to a soft downward creep. If she did nothing, they’d touch down on the loop near the hospital’s ER. She plotted a retreat just in case: an upward trajectory that would take them into the air and away from Garden Village, sacrificing comfort for speed.
At least one thing was certain. They had received her message. She zoomed in on the hospital. No one was visible near the buildings. They had cleared the parking lot of civilian vehicles. But then a group of five people wearing the yellow hazard suits emerged from the ER’s entrance. They looked like spacemen in their own right, covered head to toe in shiny plastic.
Barrett was sitting up. “What’s happening?”
“We’re here. And it looks like your people are waiting for us.”
He was a Homeland Security agent. Before her abduction, he and a bunch of soldiers and scientists had occupied the broken-down restaurant where they found the sphere. Carmen tried to remember which other agency had been part of that team. Judging by the hardware, they were military. Air Force? Marines? Men in Black?
At least they hadn’t started shooting.
He unsteadily tried to stand. “Show me. Let me see what’s happening.”
She made the sphere clear as glass. The ground rose from below. The hospital in all its boxy beige stucco glory stood at the center of the swarm of military vehicles. The blinking lights strobed in a frantic explosion of brightness that caused Barrett to squint. More than a few of the Humvees had antenna arrays with dishes aimed at them.
The group of five at the ER entrance all carried bulky equipment but no weapons that she could see.
Carmen stopped the sphere inches from the ground. She made the sphere solid again before opening the door. The door material formed a sloping ramp. Again, a shadow within the sphere shifted at the periphery of her vision. She dismissed it. With so many ship controls and menus distracting her, it was impossible to keep track of it all. And now, with the end of their voyage within reach, she felt a nervous hope blossom.
Barrett moved for the exit.
Carmen stopped him with an open hand. “Jenna first.”
She moved the bot to the doorway and peered down at the approaching hazard suits. Two of the team held small video recorders. One waved a wand device back and forth while another was typing on a tablet strapped to his wrist. A woman led the charge, her face barely visible through the shine of her plastic visor.
She raised a hand in a greeting. “I’m Doctor Greta Leavitt. We received your message. Are you Carmen Vincent? Can you understand me?”
A surge of emotion surprised Carmen. She almost couldn’t speak. “That’s me. Come help my sister. She’s on board. Please hurry, she’s—”
Again the shadow shifted, a blur along a wall of the sphere. But as it moved it took on dimension, a shape, as if an unseen hand had peeled away a sheet of transparent film and was bringing it towards her. A crisp shock rolled through her fingers and feet and up through her spine.
The scientists and soldiers, the sphere, Agent Barrett, and Jenna all vanished in a flash.
Chapter Three
Coming fully awake felt like pancake syrup was chugging through Carmen’s veins. She wiped the eye crusties away. Her saliva had turned to book paste and her throat was dry. When she sat up, the world spun, forcing her to cling to the edge of the flight bed.
Still on board She Who Waits’ shuttle, she confirmed. But the shuttle was no longer in flight, the artificial gravity provided by forward motion replaced with a looping spin that was nausea-inducing now that Carmen had elevated her head.
They had completed their voyage to the Framework. Carmen had known it would be faster than her journey to Earth. She tottered to the sink the Dragoman had created in the rear hold of her ship, washed out her mouth, and drank deeply.
What happened?
She had piloted the sphere to the hospital, was facing the waiting soldiers and scientists, and…blank.
She returned to the bunk and accessed the com node. Waited the infuriating several minutes as the node tried to reconnect her to the harvester. An untranslated message popped up in her mind. She blinked it away and tried again. Counted the seconds. At the six hundred mark the message repeated.
From what she could learn from the com node, the harvester was gone.
“Are you there?” she called.
Her voice went unanswered inside the shuttle interior. She rose again and searched the parts of the small craft she could access. The rear bay had two rows of columns and a pedestal near the door to the front compartment. She Who Waits had never let her see the front of the ship. Carmen had guessed it was a space where the translator might leave her shell or protective suit and enjoy the thick atmosphere, which might be toxic to a human.
A tiny bathroom stood empty. A receptacle tucked into the foot of the crash couch had several of the food bars along with a few packets of liquid that smelled like orange soda. All edible, as Carmen had discovered, if not particularly appealing.
But the thought of food was far from her mind as her apprehension built. She needed to know what was happening with her sister. She Who Waits could send a message to Earth, couldn’t she? And what had interrupted the com signal and cut her off?
The Melded. Somehow it was them, she guessed, either blocking the signal or finding some way to hack the harvester controls remotely. Answers would be hard to come by while stuck on the shuttle.
A hatch near the rear led to the airlock. She wobbled as she looked inside. A floating blimp bot waited for her. The football-sized machine floated closer.
“Can you call her? Hello? She Who Waits, are you there?”
The bot didn’t respond.
“Well, what can you tell me?”
The bot’s voice sounded like three or more voices, male and female, layered together. “She Who Waits is attending the Framework council.”
“Let me talk to her.”
“Her relayed message is that designate Carmen Vincent is to wait aboard the shuttle.”
“I’ve seen her translate between three different people, four if we include her
. She can’t put me in the loop?”
The bot hovered without a reply.
“Then can you connect me again to the harvester? Or send a signal to Earth? I have to find out what’s happening.”
Carmen waited for a frustrating moment for the bot to say anything. If it had relayed the request to She Who Waits, the Dragoman translator wasn’t answering. She touched the hatch and tried to find a button that might open it.
The bot moved up to eye level. “If you wish to leave the shuttle, you will need to wear the suit.” It shined a light on a cream-colored garment and helmet hanging in a recessed compartment. It looked small.
“Is that for me? I’m supposed to put it on?”
Considering She Who Waits constantly wore a clear crystal shell that looked like a transparent support beam, Carmen realized that the air on the Framework might be anything but compatible to humans. Her question was silly.
“The suit was printed with your measurements. It will protect you from any undesirable effects within the Framework common areas. But the council requested you wait.”
She grabbed the suit. “Good to know.”
It was lighter than she expected, a full-body one-piece with a helmet. The material felt like soft leather. It clung to her and sealed tight after she stepped into it and pulled it up. The helmet, once stretched over her head, likewise molded around her neck. But before she could feel too constrained or claustrophobic, the material around her face went clear. She could see perfectly. She felt herself over and confirmed the suit covered her entire body. Snug, a perfect fit. But there was no display of any sort to show how much air she had.
“This thing will warn me before I suffocate, right?”
The bot’s light winked out. “The suit will continuously convert the atmosphere inside the common areas of the Framework to one you’ll find comfortable.”
“I guess that’ll have to do. Take me to her.”
The bot led the way into the airlock, and she followed. She found herself holding her breath as one door closed and the air pulsed around her as if fans in the ceiling were being turned on and off. When the second door opened, there was no dramatic shift in the air. But the corridor beyond almost caused her to fall as she stepped into it. She leaned on one wall and waited as the bot scooted ahead.