Rogue Stars

by C Gockel et al.

  Noa blinked. Leaning forward, she said, “I have a better plan. One easier than turning off the defense grid. I’m going to bring the armada here. I just need someone who can get James and me to Time Gate 8, we’ll send off a message and—”

  Ghost started to giggle.

  “What?” Noa said.

  Wiping his eyes, Ghost said, “You’re joking.”

  Noa’s eyes slid to James, and both of them looked at Ghost.

  Ceasing his manic giggles, Ghost’s gaze flitted between them. “You really don’t know?”

  “Know what?” asked Noa.

  “Silly woman,” Ghost said. “There are no more flights to Time Gate 8. There are no flights out of atmosphere, period.” His head bobbed, and he looked away. “Well, except for the contingent of the local armada surrounding the station in a Mexican standoff. They periodically refuel and do supply runs.”

  Noa’s mind reeled. Without Time Gate 8, it would take a Fleet ship nearly ten years to reach Luddeccea at light speed from Time Gate 7 … if they left right away. Her brow constricted. And they wouldn’t leave right away—a mission of that scope would take months of planning. She shook her head. There had to be a way to reclaim Time Gate 8. “Have terrorists taken over the gate?” Noa asked.

  Ghost blinked at Noa. And then he said, “Aliens have control of Time Gate 8.” His eyes went to James, and she had an uneasy feeling in her gut. “That’s Luddeccean lunacy,” Noa said. “None of the Fleet intel has any indication of space-going sentient races—energy beings or not. You’re too smart to believe that, Ghost.”

  Ghost shifted in his seat and dropped his eyes. “I didn’t believe it at first, Noa. But the evidence, it’s indisputable—the energy beings, they’ve taken over the station.” He met her gaze, and his eyes were pleading. “I have access to Luddeccean intel. The station’s personnel, the travelers, hardly any of them escaped during the takeover. If it hadn’t been for a Luddeccean agent who planted a plasma detonator on the station long enough to temporarily damage the gate’s self defense mechanisms, no one would have escaped at all. As it was, well, Time Gate 8’s portal functionality was permanently disabled along with it. The gate’s defenses were temporarily shut down—just long enough for some vessels to escape the station.”

  Noa’s jaw went slack. All the words he said had registered, and yet they weren’t fitting together in her head.

  She was vaguely aware of James asking, “When did this happen?” Ghost gave a reply, and James said, “Be more specific. I need to know when … to the hour, and minute, and second.”

  Noa was dumbstruck. The station was under control of an alien force shooting ships from the sky? How could something like that happen without the Fleet having some inkling beforehand? It was too big, too much. There would have been signs. She had been privy to every suspected first contact, and all had come to nothing.

  “That is impossible,” she dimly heard James say. “The station could not have been under alien control at that time—”

  “The meteor showers,” Noa exclaimed, lifting her head. She hadn’t realized she’d dropped her face into her hands. “They aren’t natural, are they?”

  Ghost turned to her with a sidelong glance at James. “No. Of course not. That is the station knocking ships out of the sky.” He looked at a point on the floor just before her feet. “And the self-defense grid knocking down people trying to escape Luddeccea and head to Libertas, or other in-system colonies.”

  “The self-defense forces are knocking down people trying to get off world?” James asked.

  Ghost cleared his throat. “And anyone trying to re-enter. All off-planet trade has been suspended. You didn’t know?”

  James mutely shook his head.

  Noa dragged her hands down her face, her body feeling heavier and colder by the minute. “We have to let the Fleet know what is going on. We have to bring them here.”

  Ghost sighed. “Even at light speed, without a functional jump gate it will take ten years for the Fleet to get here from Time Gate 7.”

  “There’s another time gate,” Noa whispered.

  “Another what?” James asked.

  Ghost’s eyes went wide. “In this system? Why hasn’t Fleet used it?”

  Noa massaged her temples. “It went offline a few weeks ago.”

  “What gate went offline?” James asked.

  Noa let out a breath. “The gate is for Fleet only.” It wasn’t something civilians were generally privy to—or even all Fleet personnel. The Fleet had hidden gates in every inhabited system that was part of the Republic … and in some systems that technically weren’t part of the Republic, or even inhabited.

  Ghost shook his head, very fast, causing the loose skin near his chin to jiggle. “We can’t use it, Noa. What if it was taken over by the same aliens who—”

  “There are no aliens!” Noa said. “The weapon systems on Time Gate 8 are malfunctioning, or there are terrorists, or it’s all a ruse that the Luddeccean government is using as an excuse to seize control.”

  “Noa … ” James said, his voice a whisper.

  “Then how do you explain—” Ghost said.

  Noa closed her eyes. “Even if this Time Gate 8 is … ” She waved a hand. “Possessed, the military time gate is a possibility. It is at the edge of the Kanakah Cloud. It was struck by a large asteroid according to its video feeds.”

  “They could have been faked,” James said, his voice hushed.

  “It wasn’t faked,” Noa said. Nebulas, was he suggesting the military gate was possessed by aliens—or whatever—too? “We have confirmation from more than one source. A repair mission was in the planning stages.”

  “If it’s not functional—” Ghost sputtered.

  “You can fix it, Ghost!” Noa exclaimed. “And escaping this system would be better than holing up on Libertas until their food runs out.” She leaned closer. “And you know it will. The colony may be self-sufficient, but it won’t be sufficient to feed all the miners in the asteroid belts in this system.”

  Ghost’s mouth snapped shut. She saw his Adam’s apple bob. And then he nodded and his voice became confident. “Yes, of course I could fix it, if it is at all fixable.” His beady eyes narrowed. “I still want to be paid.”

  James interjected, “Do we even have a ship?” and Noa resisted the urge to wince.

  Ghost looked at James and then back at Noa.

  “I’ve got a ship,” she said.

  “You do?” said James.

  Ghost sniffed and sat back in his chair. “I can tell this is going to cost you,” he said.

  “I have a ship in mind,” said Noa.

  “In mind?” said Ghost.

  “One that we will have to steal,” James said, rolling his eyes.

  Noa’s lips pursed. She really shouldn’t be surprised that James had put that together … still …

  Ghost looked at James sharply. One of Ghost’s eyebrows rose, and then he looked back to Noa. “Is that true?”

  “Steal is a harsh word,” said Noa. “We’d actually be appropriating a ship and utilizing it for its intended mission … keeping the people of Luddeccea safe.”

  Ghost squinted at her and frowned. James’s eyes widened. She knew that look. He understood what she was getting at, and moreover …

  Rolling up his sleeves, exposing tattoo-stained skin, he stepped toward her. “No, no, no … ”

  “It’s the best option,” Noa countered.

  James raised an arm in the direction they just came. “When you do something … ” His hand made a fist. “ … ridiculous, and you somehow manage to not die, do you think to yourself, ‘I made a mistake, how can I possibly get myself killed next time?’”

  Noa sniffed. Typical professor, using too many words when one or two would do. Death wish, she wanted to say, the words you’re looking for are death wish.

  James took another step closer. “You can barely—”

  Noa thought of barely making it down the steps, of struggling to ke
ep up with him. She waited for James to say any of that, but his eyes shot to Ghost, and back to Noa, and his jaw snapped shut, his blue eyes boring into hers. She exhaled in relief. He didn’t want to reveal how weak she was.

  “Noa ...” He tilted his head. “You can’t do this.”

  A moment ago, she’d thought he understood her. Something inside her shattered, but she straightened her spine. “I have to do this … I have to try.”

  Clearing his throat, Ghost looked hesitantly between James and Noa. “Have to do what?”

  Noa’s jaw tightened. Telling Ghost her plan would mean that if he was captured by the authorities, there would be no way to pull it off. On the other hand … malignant narcissist though he might be, Ghost was very clever, and he had built the Luddecceans’ new main computer. If anyone could shut off the defense grid and help her pull off what she wanted to do now, it would have to be Ghost. He’d need to start preparing as soon as possible.

  Before she’d made up her mind how much to reveal, James gave it away. “She plans to steal the Ark.”

  Ghost choked on his own spit.

  8

  “The Ark,” Ghost sputtered, “No … no … no … that is just as illogical as … ” He waved at James with a finger. “ … suggests.”

  Ghost didn’t use James’s name, or even say “your friend.” It sent ripples of static beneath James’s skin. Ghost suspected James was … something else. He felt a cold settling in the pit of his stomach. The time table for his escape from Time Gate 8 was wrong. He’d left a full day after the explosion that had briefly incapacitated Gate 8’s defenses, and the shuttle he’d been in was not the type that could hover in orbit for extended periods.

  “His name is James Sinclair,” Noa snapped. “Professor Sinclair if you must.”

  James looked up and found her glaring at Ghost, arms crossed. The sharp angles of the gesture highlighted how emaciated she was. He couldn’t let her die …

  Ghost snorted. “Professor?”

  James blinked at him. “I’m a history professor.” The words felt hollow, wrong, abstract, and a jumble.

  “Really?” said Ghost.

  “Ask him about his time capsules,” Noa said, her voice dry.

  Ghost leaned forward in his seat. “Time capsules?”

  James lifted his chin. He had a speech for that. “Time capsules were popular on old Earth. I discovered a town along the San Andreas rift that had been— ”

  “Stop!” said Noa. She spun to Ghost. “We don’t have time to talk about time capsules.” She waved a hand. “Or hero arcs from the mov-ees within the time capsules.”

  James’s mouth fell open and then snapped shut. It was true, the speech he had in his mind lasted for nearly fifty-five minutes. Every word was memorized, but none felt real. The passion behind them was gone—stolen by the need to stay alive, maybe?

  Massaging her temple, Noa groaned. “Focus, D—Ghost. The Ark is perfect.” She sat up straighter in her chair, and as her body unwound, it made her look frailer instead of stronger. She was still painfully thin.

  “It has light speed capabilities,” Noa continued, her form becoming animated, her face glowing in her excitement and giving her an illusion of health. “Its hull is robust enough to withstand deep space travel and time surfing once we get to the Kanakah Gate. It is kept stocked with decades’ worth of S-rations, it can lift out of orbit without any planet-side assistance; and, even if its offensive weapons are worth their weight in meezle guano, the aft cannon was designed to crack large asteroids and should be enough to temporarily disable any ships from the armada in our path.”

  James took a step back, closer to the soothing warmth of the geothermal generator. He wondered if anyone could be as logically unreasonable as Noa; she almost had him convinced. He had rolled up his sleeves, almost unconsciously, and now he ran his fingers over the dark stains. Was she being unreasonable? If the Fleet couldn’t come by Time Gate 8, it would take them ten years to get to Luddeccea from the nearest other portal, Time Gate 7 … if they didn’t get the military gate open, that was? Ten years was a long time to survive on the run planet side, but was taking the Ark to a hidden gate really a viable option?

  Even as a non-native of Luddeccea, James knew about the Ark. It was the vessel that had brought the first colonists to Luddeccea. It was over 300 years old, but it was kept in working order by Republic law. In the event of an emergency, it could, theoretically, be used to help evacuate civilians. It would be more than adequate for a ride to the edge of the Kanakah Cloud. Even if they couldn’t make the military gate operational, the Ark was stocked with enough provisions to get them to Time Gate 7. But …

  Ghost thumped his chest as though trying to clear something from his lungs. “No, no, no. Stealing the Ark would be ludicrous!” He shook his head. “You’re wasting my time.”

  Standing, Noa stepped toward the small man. “Ghost, it’s our best hope … and think about it. No one would expect anyone to steal the Ark.”

  James had been to the museum that housed the Ark as a child. It was located in a courtyard between the museum and the spaceport spokes of the Tri-Center building. While waiting for their flight, his family had passed the time exploring the Ark’s cramped living quarters and the museum’s exhibits. At one point James had even peered down the long hallway that led past the massive security that kept tourists and travelers out of the Central Authority wing. No one uninvited went there; it was where all local civilian and military operations were coordinated.

  James took a step away from the geothermal unit’s heat. “Because there is no more heavily guarded location on the planet than the Tri-Center.”

  Noa put her hands behind her back and took a deep breath. “Technically, it’s only close to the most secure location on the planet.”

  James crossed his arms.

  Tilting her head, Noa said, “However, the Ark’s not in the secure wing.”

  Clearing his throat, Ghost said, “Commander, the spaceport is swarming with troops right now. They don’t want anyone leaving.”

  “Are there any more troops than usual in the museum wing?” Noa asked. Ghost’s eyes widened. “No.”

  Noa rolled her hands, as though urging Ghost to say more. “And if there is any sort of disturbance in the area, where is the Central Authority most likely to concentrate their forces?”

  Ghost’s eyes went wider still. “The spaceport and Central Authority.”

  “Exactly,” said Noa.

  Ghost rubbed his chin. “Huh.”

  “There are guards at the museum,” James protested.

  Noa’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve been to it?”

  “My father took me there when I was a little boy,” James said, the memory hazy and dull in his mind. “I remember one of those guards talking to me—”

  Noa sighed. “If he was any spacer officer worth his salt, he wouldn’t be chatting with little kids while he was on duty.”

  “But—” James started to protest.

  Noa’s voice was soft. “Unless they were hired on more as tour guides.” She looked away. “They are practically civilians.”

  “This might just work,” Ghost murmured.

  Noa nodded. “The men posted around the Ark are for the most part semi-retired members of the Luddeccea Local Guard. If I’m right, it’s the least guarded deep space vessel on the whole planet.” Her eyes slid to Ghost.

  The little man was nodding, his beady eyes wide. “Yes, yes, you’re right.” His pupils seemed to lose focus for a moment, and then began moving rapidly back and forth. Ghost was mentally accessing some data, obviously. James met Noa’s eyes. Her chin was lowered, as though daring him to say something. He didn’t look away, but he didn’t know what to say, either. Her plan could get them killed—but so would staying on Luddeccea. His mind tumbled over all the odds and obstacles. He searched his data banks for a Prime street map—and miraculously found one. He began plotting distances in his mind, eyes still on Noa’s.

  Ghost
giggled, interrupting their stare down and James’s thoughts. “During a local emergency the museum guards’ primary job is to help evacuate civilians.” Ghost smiled. “They most likely won’t even be there if we manage to trip an alarm.”

  James’s head jerked, another obstacle coming to his mind. “The Ark is over 300 years old. It doesn’t operate by even local ethernet … Who will fly it?”

  Putting a hand over her chest, Noa said, “Me, of course. I’ve flown the Andromeda; it’s the same model as the Ark.”

  James searched his data banks. The Andromeda was the same class of ship. He tilted his head. They’d still need to get into the museum complex. Which seemed doubtful …

  Ghost frowned. “How did you get to fly the Andromeda?”

  Waving a hand, Noa smiled. “Admiral Sung took me aboard when it was docked off Venus.”

  “Sung,” Ghost muttered. His eyes narrowed at Noa. James found himself stepping toward Ghost, his hands curling into fists. Ghost’s eyes darted to James, and he flinched and looked away. “She blocked my promotion,” he said in a tremulous voice.

  James realized he was on a trajectory toward the little man without even thinking on it. He stopped mid-stride.

  “I had nothing to do with it,” Noa said. “You know that.”

  Ghost shook his head and sniffed. “The Ark’s a big ship. You would need a crew.”

  James wondered if flying 300-year-old ships was one of his undiscovered abilities. He blinked … and couldn’t even draw up schematics for the bridge.

  Noa cocked her head. “Give me access to the population records. I’ll find members of the Fleet who are desperate to get off this rock.”

  “That will cost you,” Ghost said, straightening in his seat. “I do have other options, other people who need to get off this planet, who can pay me much better.”

  Noa leaned forward. “What good is money going to do you in this system? Libertas is going to be hopping with food riots within months as asteroid miners flood in. That planet is so poor their Local Guard is made up of barely-trained, part-time volunteers. They won’t be able to protect you, Ghost.”