Ruins of the Galaxy Box Set: Books 1-6

by Chaney, J. N.

  “Superpositions,” TO-96 added.

  “Superstitions is more like it,” Ezo said.

  “That’s the technical term, yes. Superpositions, that is.” Awen glared at Ezo. “For us, however, it is more like layers of reality rippling outward from a single point of action. Each wave represents an alternative state that extends itself into new ways of being. Think of it like a tree that grows limbs, then branches, then twigs, then leaves and seeds. In autumn, seeds make their way into the ground, some of which become new trees over time. One tree can produce an entire forest if the conditions are right.”

  “Can someone tell Ezo how we suddenly moved from cosmology to botany?” Ezo asked.

  “It is a quaint analogy,” TO-96 said.

  “I don’t care about quaint!” Ezo exclaimed. “I care about a star system hovering over my table that no one’s ever mapped in another universe!”

  “Well, sir—”

  “No, ’Six! Don’t answer. That was rhetorical.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  Awen squinted at the new object in the holo-projection. “So, is that a wormhole?”

  “No, though I believe it may behave much the same way as a wormhole.”

  “I’m confused,” Awen replied.

  “So is Ezo,” the smuggler said.

  “Without making it too complicated for you,” TO-96 said, taking on the air of a professor, “wormholes are essentially gateways that connect two points in the same space-time. Unlike a black hole, however, they contain no event horizon. A black hole’s event horizon is known as a singularity.”

  “Where all things become one,” Awen offered.

  “Precisely,” TO-96 said, jabbing a finger at her. “The problem with a singularity is that it’s fairly problematic for anything that needs to stay atomically stable in order to survive.”

  “You mean, like people,” Awen said.

  “Like people, yes. Or planets. Anything as you know it will not retain its present form as it is drawn into the gravity well of a black hole.”

  “But you’re saying it’s not like either a wormhole or a black hole?” Awen asked.

  “As far as I can tell, yes. This cosmic feature has the singularity of a black hole but the portal properties of a wormhole. It appears to make use of something called quantum tunneling.”

  “So it’s like a black hole and a wormhole, but it’s not either of them,” Ezo summarized.

  “Correct, especially since neither term is used by the Novia Minoosh.”

  “The Novia who?” Awen moved toward the bot, her eyes alight with wonder.

  “The Novia Minoosh. They are the race who formed the gate and whose star system we observed.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Ezo exclaimed. “They formed that quantum-gate thingy?”

  “As I said, the Novia Minoosh don’t call it—”

  “You actually know their name?” Awen asked, leaning over toward TO-96.

  “Why, yes. That is what they listed in the data provided to me in the—”

  “It’s a new civilization!” Awen yelled, completely abandoning decorum. “In the multiverse! I can’t believe this!” She started pacing back and forth, her hands fluttering beside her cheeks. Ezo and TO-96 stared. Ezo was surprised by her sudden outburst. This version of Awen wasn’t anything like the well-mannered emissary they’d known up to this point. “The implications are…” Awen paused, searching for the words. “Oh, mystics—this is groundbreaking! This is extraordinary! I mean, the academy always postulated that quantum displacement would populate latticed anomalies, but this! It’s…”

  Awen was out of breath, glancing back and forth between them. Then she suddenly remembered herself. She stopped pacing, straightened her back, and cleared her throat. “Forgive me,” she said, having regained her composure. “This is a—an important breakthrough, which—”

  “It’s okay, Star Queen. You can freak out.”

  Awen threw her hands in the air. “Right? It’s unbelievable!”

  “I do share Awen’s enthusiasm,” TO-96 said, “though in slightly less demonstrative expressions. It would appear that this quantum tunnel, as I think we should take to calling it, is positioned in the outer reaches of the Troja quadrant.” TO-96, now apparently connected to the stardrive, caused it to zoom out without using his hands until the quantum tunnel appeared as a small blip in a larger collection of star systems. “There.”

  “I’ve never been that far,” Awen said.

  “I don’t think anyone’s been that far,” Ezo added. “We’d have to, have to…” He trailed off as though lost in calculations.

  “We’d have to take on a second drive core,” TO-96 said.

  “A second drive core?” Awen repeated. “You can do that?”

  “Quite easily, yes,” the bot replied. “Or a drive-core modulator if we want to get there more quickly.”

  “A modulator for higher levels of subspace travel,” Awen said. “They increase speed over time, depending on what levels a ship is outfitted to achieve.”

  “Precisely, Awen.”

  “A few Luma ships have them, but I thought they were expensive. As in, sell-the-ship-to-buy-the-modulator type of expensive.”

  “Once again, you are very perceptive,” the bot said. “In fact, both a second drive core or a modulator currently exceed the balance of Captain Ezo’s credit account, which presently rests at—”

  “Hey, hey,” Ezo said. “Don’t you know it’s not polite to share our financial status with guests?”

  “I was merely trying—”

  “You were trying to lessen the Star Queen’s hopes of making it to the quantum tunnel,” Ezo said, moving around the bot to place a hand on Awen. “And that is no way to treat such a lovely—and respectable—guest.” He looked at TO-96. “Don’t you see how badly she wants to meet these Novia Nims, Mini, Moosh—”

  “Minoosh, sir.”

  “Nooshes? Awen, I promise you”—Ezo looked her straight in the eyes—“we are going to get you there, or my name isn’t Idris Ezo.”

  “But, sir, your real name is—”

  “Shut it, ’Six!”

  23

  The little girl let go of her mother’s hand and approached Magnus. He wasn’t sure what to make of the child’s identification of him, as he was quite sure he’d never met her before. He would have remembered her or her parents—well, at least her mother.

  “Calm down,” she said, motioning him with her little fingers.

  “Piper, don’t be rude, darling,” Valerie said.

  “It’s not a problem,” Magnus replied, though inwardly, he always got a little nervous around kids. He’d only had one sibling—a younger brother—and no cousins.

  Magnus knelt and placed his helmet on the floor. “I’m Adonis,” he said, guessing they should start on a first-name basis. He didn’t want to be “Mr. Magnus” to her—that was his father.

  “I know.”

  “Piper!” Valerie scolded. “Mind your manners.”

  “I’m Piper,” she said, holding out her hand.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Piper.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” she replied, shaking one of Magnus’s fingers. Then, in one quick motion, she let go of his hand, dropped her stuffed animal to the floor, and placed both her palms against Magnus’s cheeks. Magnus almost recoiled; the gesture was so intimate, and he was a stranger after all. But her face held curiosity and delight, and he felt that pulling away might disappoint her. She smiled at him, her hands pressing harder against the sides of his face as his lips smushed together. Magnus looked up to see that Valerie was aghast.

  “I was right,” Piper said. “It is you.”

  “It’s me?” Magnus asked, looking back at Piper.

  “Yes. Of course. You remember, right?” Piper stepped back.

  “Remember? I’m sorry, Piper, I don’t—”

  “After the explosion. You walked up to me. You looked very scary at first. I thought you were a bad guy. I thought
you were going to hurt me. But then you told me everything was going to be okay and took off your helmet.”

  “I’m so sorry, Piper. I don’t think I know what you’re talking about.” Magnus was disturbed by her use of the word explosion and even more disturbed by how utterly convinced she was that whatever she was describing had really happened. She spoke as if she believed it—as if she knew it.

  “Of course you do,” she replied, withdrawing her hands. “You and I were just there together. You’re so silly.”

  “You’ll have to forgive her,” Valerie said, kneeling next to the girl and holding her shoulders. “She’s been having very intense dreams.”

  “It wasn’t a dream, Mama. I keep telling you, but you don’t believe me.”

  “Sure I do, darling.”

  “No,” Piper said wrestling from her mother’s grip and moving beside Magnus. “You don’t believe me. But Adonis does.” She looked into his face, wispy strands of blond hair falling over her blue eyes and freckled nose. “Don’t you, Adonis?”

  Magnus hesitated. For some reason, he felt himself wishing Awen was with them. She would know what to say. He looked from Valerie to Darin and back to Piper. “I, uh—”

  “But, Adonis,” Piper pleaded, “we were just there. You—you rescued me.”

  “I’m sorry, Piper, but I don’t—”

  “No one believes me.” Piper reached down for her stuffed animal, spun away from Magnus, and ran around the couches.

  “Piper! Come back!” Her mother moved to follow her, but the senator caught her arm. The girl ran down the corridor, her soft footfalls fading away to nothing.

  “I’m very sorry for that, Magnus,” the senator said, inviting him to sit back down.

  “Yes, she’s been having very vivid dreams as of late,” Valerie added. “We’re not sure why or what they mean. All scans show normal brain activity, but there seems to be…”

  Magnus watched as the senator reached for Valerie’s forearm. Not the most loving point of connection when trying to comfort someone. Are they hiding something? Because that sure looks like a reminder not to say too much.

  “Seems to be what?” Magnus asked.

  “Nothing,” Valerie said, waving him off and placing her hand over her husband’s. “It’s nothing.”

  Magnus looked between them. Clearly, she’d been about to share more—wanted to share more. But her husband was stopping her. “If there’s something else going on, you need to tell us. Maybe we can help.”

  The senator took a deep breath and looked at his wife then back at Magnus. “Her dreams are… there have been some… manifestations.”

  “Manifestations?” Magnus asked, furrowing his brow. “Can you explain?”

  “It seems that when she dreams, things happen,” Valerie said. “I woke her up from a dream where she said she was falling into a mountain, reaching for the sides of a bottomless pit. When I woke her up, her fingers were… were…”

  “Her fingers were bloody, Lieutenant,” the senator finished. “As if she had just run them across rough granite.”

  “And the dream of the explosion she just told you about…” Valerie’s eyes filled with tears. “That was last night.”

  “You don’t think it had something to do with your drive-core failure, do you?” Magnus asked, suddenly concerned that maybe these people had lost their minds. Maybe the air was going stale, or there was a containment leak. He knew crazy things could happen in the void.

  “We’re not sure, of course,” the senator said. “This is far too speculative to be conclusive. However, our engineer hasn’t been able to assign a cause for the sudden failure.”

  Just then, Gilder called over the handheld comm.

  “Go ahead, Private,” Magnus said.

  “She’s dead, Lieutenant.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “She’s dead, sir. The drive core, I mean. I know I’m new to my job and all, but even I can tell you that this core is down for the count. Sucked dry.”

  “That’s what our engineer said, too, Lieutenant,” the senator said. “I can confirm his findings.”

  Magnus spoke back into the radio. “You absolutely sure about that, Private?”

  “Sure that it’s never gonna push an electron again, sir,” replied Gilder. “Whatever hit this thing, it isn’t like anything I’ve ever seen. I don’t think I ever even saw a completely depleted core at school. Yet the life support and systems generators are completely intact.”

  “Copy that. Come on back.” Magnus looked at the senator. “Looks like you’ve got yourself a floating house without a motor.”

  “So it seems.”

  “Listen, Senator. I can’t say I know anything about your daughter. That’s above my pay grade. But I do know we can get you to the closest substation, and you’re on your own from there. Is that acceptable with you?”

  “Quite so, Lieutenant.” The senator stood and extended his hand. “Thank you.”

  “Our pleasure, sir,” Magnus said, shaking it.

  “Lieutenant?” came a voice over the handheld comm’s secondary channel. It was the warrant officer.

  “Go ahead, Nolan.”

  “A ship just jumped out of subspace. Bull Wraith. And it’s got a lock on our position.”

  “Republic?” Magnus asked.

  “Sir, I—”

  “Is it a Republic vessel?”

  “I can’t tell, sir.”

  “What do you mean, you can’t tell?”

  “It’s not broadcasting any designation classifiers and won’t reply to hails. Closing quickly. AI puts it at ninety-eight seconds.”

  Splick. This isn’t good. No Republic ship was that hard to get ahold of. The whole thing felt off to him, which meant it was time to leave. And fast.

  “Prepare to depart, Nolan. We’ll be there in sixty.”

  “What’s happening?” Valerie asked.

  “Grab your daughter, and leave everything else,” Magnus ordered. Then he broadcast on the primary channel, “Time to jump, team. Exfil on the double.”

  * * *

  “All souls accounted for,” Dutch yelled to the bridge.

  “Detach,” Nolan ordered Rawlson.

  “Detaching.” There was a momentary pause, and the ship shuddered. “Ship away, ship away,” Rawlson said.

  “Well, would you look at that,” the senator said, peeking his head inside the bridge. Out the starboard window loomed one of the most foreboding heavy armored transports in the galaxy. Bull Wraiths, while not destroyers, still packed a serious punch for any ship unlucky enough to tangle with one. The black hulk looked more like a battering ram than a starship and boasted two mega-gauss cannons on either side of its nose-forward bridge. Several Titan missile-defense batteries were clustered above and below the hull, while T300 blaster turrets covered the sides.

  Beyond weapons capabilities, the ship also had an advanced cargo and rapid delivery system, or ACARD. It was able to stow and deploy everything from munitions and troops to armament and small cruisers faster than most ships could run a startup sequence. It deployed its cargo from four cavities, including one under the bridge, which Magnus always thought looked like a giant maw ready to chomp down on prey. It was commonly said that if the Bull Wraith didn’t scare you, whatever was in it should.

  “You gotta give us something, Nolan,” Magnus said.

  “Almost ready, sir.”

  “That’s not good enough.” He watched the warrant officer finish the start-up sequence, port the two main engine ventricles, and slide his fingers up the dashboard for full engine burn.

  “There she is,” Nolan said. “Everyone hold on! Engines ahead, full!”

  Magnus and the senator grabbed seat backs as the ship lurched forward. The cockpit rattled, and a loud roar filled the air. While the Sparrow didn’t meet anyone’s definition of comfortable, it was fast, and that was all that mattered at the moment.

  “How soon until we can jump?” Magnus asked, yelling above the engines.
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br />   “Coordinates almost calculated!” Rawlson replied.

  “Jump core standing by!” Gilder added.

  “Lock in those coordinates,” Nolan ordered. “We need to be gone yesterday!”

  The roar would have been deafening had it lasted any longer. Magnus glanced at Rawlson’s displays and saw that they were pulling away from the Bull Wraith. A small wave of relief filled his chest. But he’d seen far too much action to know that nothing was over until you’d had at least one good meal to commemorate your survival.

  “Locked!” Rawlson yelled.

  “Jumping!” Nolan exclaimed and slid the secondary throttle fields to full. But nothing happened. No space-time bend, no light stretch—nothing. To make things worse, the engines suddenly started to wind down.

  “I need to know what’s going on here, Nolan,” Magnus ordered.

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “That’s unacceptable!”

  “Jump core off-line,” Rawlson yelled. “Propulsion off-line. Navigation off-line!”

  Nolan spun around. “How’s this happening?”

  “It’s the other ship, isn’t it, Lieutenant?” the senator said.

  Magnus was afraid of this. While the Republic placed certain limitations on its weapons capabilities, particularly hostile long-range ship-to-ship interfacing, non-Republic fleets did not feel the need to be so ethical. No doubt a Luma stipulation or some political jockey who wanted to make everyone feel better about having the deadliest navy in the galaxy. But they weren’t the deadliest navy, at least not anymore. That was the irony of it all. To make the public feel like you were less of a monster, you had to reduce your battle readiness, which always made you more of a target. It was a brutal cycle.

  “Well, I think it’s safe to say she ain’t Repub,” Magnus said.

  “Sir,” Rawlson said, “we’re being towed in.”

  “Can’t throw it off?” Nolan asked.

  “Negative, sir.”

  “She’s got us right where she wants us.” Magnus turned to the senator. “Sir, I want you and your family in the captain’s quarters. It will be the safest place for you until we have a plan.”