Galaxyborn: Season 1 Premiere

by Garrett Bettencourt

  The drone ventures closer. It flexes again, but offers no reply.

  Beep-Beep, Beep-Beep.

  Karli looks for the strange beeping sound. She’s never heard it before and it sounds close, but she can’t tell where it’s coming from.

  Beep-Beep, Beep-Beep.

  She looks down at her chest. The Strider badge is vibrating. The wreath and eagle wings are lit up in purple and red. The visor is flashing blue. She raises a trembling hand to the beeping emblem. The moment her hand touches, the beeping stops. It plays a single soft tone.

  “Uh…hello?”

  Mark 06

  Pike City, Lore Lunar Colony

  0100 Hours, KGT

  “Bryson?” Cole says. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  The moment the door of Cole’s apartment swishes open, he finds himself face to face with Bryson “Pulz” Bowers. The kid is an eighteen-year-old pirate radio broadcaster assigned to the Lore Lunar Reform Community for illegal siphoning of hyperlight bandwidth, public property damage, and inciting civil unrest. In the crowded pedways of starships, he’s what they call a “pretty boy.” He dresses in patchwork clothes designed to show off his pampered espresso skin. One pant leg is missing, one side of his overalls leaves his chest bare, his shirt cuts off before the belly button.

  “Ey, Cole, attent!” The youth is nodding with his usual bravado, as if there’s nothing strange about him knocking on Cole’s door at 4am. The beads of sweat on his forehead and the tight cord in his neck tells a different story. “I was hoping you were up. Listen, you know how you always say, if I ever need you, no matter how late, just drop you a comm or—”

  “Do you have any substances?” Cole cinches the single strap of his pack. He rattles off the questions by rote, his eyes already darting down the hall toward the graffiti-painted doors of the elevator.

  “No.”

  “Planning to score smack?”

  “Like, not as such.”

  “Thoughts of self-harm?”

  “No!”

  “Good. Call me tomorrow.” Cole gives him a friendly shoulder tap and brushes past. “We’ll hit up the VRcade. Make it a bro day.”

  Bryson follows him down the hall. “Lo, Cole, I can’t wait that long. My show took a real hit in the nads. Receive?”

  “Ouch. Dial the crisis line.”

  “What kind of sponsor bails on a naut in his time of need? And like, only my parents ever called me Bryson.”

  A pang of guilt hits Cole, and he punches the elevator call panel too hard. He thinks of the Dreamscape he would have already snorted, but for Alexia’s call. “Look, uh—I really don’t have the time to sponsor these days. You should ask for someone else.”

  “No way. Cole. Bro-naut. You’re it. You’re my wing!”

  “Did you just call me ‘bro-naut’?” Cole asks as if he just sucked on a lemon. The elevator pings and the doors slide open. “Pulz, I’m busy. Sponsors are for addiction crisis management. Not whining about your pirate radio ratings.”

  The kid scoffs. “Nobody’s called it ‘radio’ in like a hundred years. It’s a hyperlight Tight Beam Broadcast—aka beamcast—and it’s the most subscribed no-paywall pirate beamcast in the independent—”

  “Pulz!” Cole slaps his hand in the elevator doors to stop them closing.

  “Right. Attent.” Pulz looks over his shoulder, eyeing the empty hall of apartment doors. When he turns back to Cole, he speaks in a sheepish whisper. “The Trueborn source bailed on our interview and my packet-subscribes are in the shit-locker. I got the itch real bad, naut.”

  “Look, I’m sorry, Pulz. I’d like to help. But I’ve got somewhere important to go. I’m really not the best guy for this.”

  Pulz’s eyes narrow. “What’s wrong? This is usually the part where you go all serious concerned father on a bro.” Pulz imitates an exaggerated dad-frown. His eyes narrow. “You ain’t using, are you?”

  “No!” Cole snaps as if nothing were so outrageous. He jabs at the “close” command on the elevator controls.

  “Wait a pip.” Pulz slides in after him, and the doors flit shut. He gives Cole that sideways squint-eyed look that indicates he’s either suspicious or paranoid—or both. His eyes fall to the hardcase poking out of Cole’s rucksack, which contains a military-grade EM signal meter. “What’s with the gear? You goin’ out to the Zhenyi dish?”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  Pulz goes on. “Only use I can think of for a comm meter is to jump the packet queue. Who you chattin’? An old Strider chum? A fine honey?” Pulz gives a sly smile.

  Cole groans at the holo-monitor on the doors. A graphic in cool colors shows the elevator car zipping down, left, right, and down again as it travels through a wireframe model of the arcology. He wills it to go faster.

  “I knew it.” Pulz flicks his wrist. “No secret can hide from the Pulz. How much FTL LiveLink do you need? Bring me with you. I can hook you up.”

  Fwip! The elevator doors slide open on a bank of stalls leading to the tram station, and Cole steps out. At this time of night, there are only a few drunks and graveyard workers waiting for the next bullet train. A group of teenagers stand near the empty monorail tube, skimming through messages on their Bangls and Bracers “Go to bed, Bryson.”

  “Awe, c’mon naut. Who else you know with burnt pirate-casting skills? You won’t even know I’m there. I need a distraction.”

  “Which is what I don’t need.” Cole’s boots click on the gray lunar-mined tile. “Call the crisis line. I can handle it on my own.”

  The kid’s footsteps follow close behind. “Really? So you can bypass a re-skinned firewall? Or locate hyperlight veep-nodes? Or parkour like a beast?”

  It’s too dangerous, Cole thinks. If he runs into the Trueborn seditionists, he’ll have a civvie to worry about. He beeps through the stall, leaving his broke follower stuck on the other side of the turnstile. “Nice try.”

  There’s an electronic hum as the gravity track lights up. A message ticks above the tram tube warning of the approaching tram. The stops read, Agri District, Industrial Zone, EVA Rover Garage…

  “Fine!” Pulz yells from the turnstile. “Ditch your bro-naut in his time of need. Maybe I score a bottle on the way home, maybe not. Hope my will power holds up.”

  The traincar arrives and the doors slide open. Cole rolls his eyes. He groans. He looks back at Pulz.

  The kid grins.

  ***

  Zhenyi Telescopic Relay Station, Lore Lunar Colony

  0257 Hours, KGT

  “Can’t you just snipe them or something?” says Pulz. “I mean, you were a Strider, right?”

  Cole and his faithful companion are both laying on their stomachs in the mustard-yellow dirt. They’re at the lip of a crater, looking over the edge of a steep slope, down to the valley floor below. A grid of cubical transformers are interconnected by metal pipes with a mirror shine. At their center, a massive signal dish a quarter kilometer across and half again as tall points upward. There’s a collection of lunar rovers nearby, patched with salvaged components and mounted with military-grade turrets—the sure sign of outlaws or paramilitary. The cratered ridges and valleys of the barren moon “Lore” stretch away in all directions, every inch of the airless planes covered in the same yellow chalk. The reflected light of the moon’s mother planet gives everything a fiery glow.

  “Three bad guys won’t be no trouble for you,” says Pulz.

  The only thing worse for a hangover than a glowing, pulsating gas giant: a whining teenager.

  Or so Cole thinks as he squints through the binocular display in his visor. Even in the midst of a five-week lunar night, there is no darkness. The vertical profile of Planet Thoth takes up half the horizon with bands of orange sherbet clouds. A Jovian storm twice the size of an Earth-like planet floats above the peak of a distant mountain. As tendrils of pain snake behind Cole’s eyes, he wishes he hadn’t traded 3 years of sobriety for s
ake and Dreamscape.

  In the narrow strip of magnification, he sees one of three figures attaching a power cable to a transformer. It’s clear he’s filling up a battery in their rover truck. The other two are scanning the control consoles at the base of the dish, cones of blue light projecting from their palms.

  “How long we gonna sit up here like whussies, lo? Those are pirates down there.”

  The comm in Cole’s helmet feeds the sound of his own sigh back to him. An itch nags at his upper lip. He would give anything to scratch it, but he can’t with a half-centimeter of diamonide covering his face.

  “They’re scanning the relay hub,” says Pulz. “Maybe hacking into Pike City comms. Why not switch to sniper and bolt ’em?”

  “Bryson.” Cole looks toward his companion. The magnifier in his HUD minimizes and returns the microwave receiver to a toy-model size. “Number one, I am not an active duty Strider; I am an ex-drunk working freelance find-and-grab jobs on a trash heap colony. I do not have a ‘sniper’ to ‘switch to.’ Number two—and I can’t stress this enough—we do not murder three travelers in the dead of vacuum because they’re ‘bad guys.’”

  “I’m only tryin’ to help, lo. You don’t gotta jump my shit.”

  “What are the two rules we agreed to when I let you on the train?”

  The face of Pulz’s helmet drops to the dirt. He mumbles, “Shut up and do what you say.”

  “And?”

  “No questions.”

  Cole resumes his magnified view. “And you say you have an attention deficit…”

  “Naut, I’m telling you, they’re either stealing data or uploading malware. I did a whole beamcast on this. The Rakoi pay ’em to crash the grid, then send raiders to enslave the whole colony. The Rakoi eat Humans, lo!”

  “This is not a Rakoi plot. I can’t tell you how I know, but I know.” Cole grimaces. “And the Rakoi do not ‘eat Humans.’ A few Rakoi kinships ritually consume a small amount of a defeated enemy’s flesh.”

  “That ain’t eating?!”

  “It’s more like…a kind of…” Cole shrugs and pinches his thumb and forefinger. “…taste?”

  “Space that shit! Whoever they are, we gotta stop ’em.”

  “I’m working on it.” Cole zooms in on a small manhole-sized cap amidst the transformers. It’s a few meters away from the massive column of the dish and leads down into a service tunnel, which means it must have another exit nearby. “Hey, you said you’re good at parkour, right?”

  The kid flashes a row of crooked teeth, chin bobbing with teenage bravado. “Baby, no one parkours like The Pulz.” Then the kid’s smile drops away. “Wait—why?”

  It’s Cole’s turn to grin.

  Mark 07

  Zhenyi Telescopic Relay Station, Lore Lunar Colony

  0324 Hours, KGT

  Cole’s heart hammers in his chest during the drive across the caldera. His rover speeds through the open, lifeless lunar valley toward the relay station. His four-wheeled truck, with two seats in the cab and an enclosed bed for hauling gear, will have already been spotted by the seditionists. If they open fire, the hydrogen rounds from a pistol will melt through the unarmored hull like butter. One lucky shot, and the fusion battery explodes. Fortunately, the three armed figures hold fire, the gold faces of their helmets watching Cole’s approach.

  The rover slows to a stop ten meters from the three starnauts. They fan out with military discipline, and Cole notes the tactical grade of their space suits. Metallic armor plates cover the large areas—chest, arms, legs, feet—and leave the joints exposed. The layer under the plates is a black carbon-nano weave that conforms to every muscle. Their armored boots sink deep into the mustard-yellow earth. The leader and his large companion are wearing the standard gun metal gray coloring. The third is a woman, judging by the femine contours of her breastplate, her black armor embellished with red highlights.

  Cole steps out of the vehicle. He approaches nonchalantly, hoping to give the impression of a maintenance tech who thinks they’re just private security. The two on either side rest their hands on their pistols, which are magnetically holstered to their hips. The leader in the middle has a relaxed posture, hands at his sides. It appears they’ve bought Cole’s deception. If they are pirates or seditionists, their next move will be to take him prisoner and dispose of him at a second location.

  “You nauts must need a recharge if you’re hooking up to the station.” Cole’s suit computer relays his friendly greeting on the common channel. “Name’s Cole. Having a little battery trouble?”

  “Something like that,” says the youthful male voice of the leader. With the solar visor down, his face is hidden, but his chipper tone suggests a smile. “Call me Lunger. This is Siren.” he nods toward the woman in the black-and-red suit on the left. “That’s Burnout.” He nods toward the stout man on the right, a full head taller than Cole.

  “I could lend you a fusion cell,” Cole says. “Or a rad-dump if your sink is hot.”

  “That’s a kind offer, friend. I think we got it handled. Say…” Lunger’s tone brightens. “…This is a long way out for a single maintenance tech. You got a partner about?”

  “Should have,” Cole scoffs. They want to know if there are potential witnesses. With his eyes safely hidden behind his own visor, he glances past the three armed mutineers. Twenty meters behind them, a circular chrome cap slides open with a puff of oxygen crystals. In the vacuum, the opening of the service tunnel makes no sound. Pulz pops his head out behind the strangers and, seeing their backs turned, scrambles out. The kid dashes toward the bundles of pipes and tubes connecting the transformers.

  Cole continues, “Lazy kid called out with the Monday morning flu. But I got a few drones with me. The boss likes to watch from the video feed on occasion. Speaking of, she’s a real shred-shrap when it comes to efficiency. If you guys don’t need a jump, I should really repair this relay. Spotty reception on gravball makes the bar flies grumpy.”

  Siren shifts from foot to foot, fluttering her fingers over the grip of her pistol.

  Burnout gives an askance look to his leader. “Come on, Lunger. We’re on the clock here. We gonna do this—”

  “Ah, ah, ah,” Lunger clucks. His upbeat tone doesn’t waver. “Yes, we’re gonna do Cole’s work for him. Orders are orders. We were in the area, we got the call, we do the work.”

  “You’re kidding!” Cole snorts. “Colony Dispatch sent a 3rd-party contract crew and didn’t tell me?” In the corner of his vision, he sees the flashes of movement as Pulz scrambles up the catwalks and scaffolds encircling the dish’s central column. The youth moves like a gymnast, hands whirling around pipe fittings, feet hooking onto railings, body sliding through gaps. The low gravity really lets him fly. He’s already twenty meters up, employing all his parkour skills.

  “Ain’t that typical shit?” Lunger shrugs. “Sorry you wasted the trip. But you can recall your drones and get to the next job. We’ve got this.”

  Pulz leaps off the spiral of platforms and stairwells. He sails an impressive five meters and catches the rungs of a ladder on a diagonal support strut. He dangles sixty meters up like an acrobat, then resumes his ascent to a small technician’s box nestled on the underside of the dish. He’s making fast progress as he scrambles up the strut, but he needs more time.

  “Hey, saves me the headache, right?” says Cole. “Still—seems like a lot of firepower to repair a relay dish.”

  For the briefest moment, Lunger doesn’t reply. Even with the deathly silence of vacuum separating Cole from the three armed criminals, he can feel the mood shift like a scent on the air. Maybe it’s the subtle movement in their stance. The motionless golden mirrors hiding their faces. The mutter of static on the comm. Whatever the imperceptible cue, a deep animal instinct, as old as the Human species, raises the hairs on the back of Cole’s neck. His brief time as a Strider taught him to recognize this moment—the moment when a man decides to kill.

/>   A false note creeps into Lunger’s pleasant voice. “There have been reports of seditionists in the area. The scorchers are only a precaution. I wouldn’t worry. Probably best you move along.”

  “Works for me.” Cole hears the same false note in his chuckle. He guesses they all know the score. But no one has drawn a gun—yet. “Say, you wouldn’t mind tagging my work order, would you? A patrol signature would save me a lot of paperwork.”

  Lunger doesn’t move a muscle. For the first time, his voice is hard. Menacing. “Your paperwork—it’s not really our problem.” Lunger’s hand settles on the grip of his scorcher. “Get my point?”

  “As in ‘get lost,’ fuckwad,” says Siren in a hard voice. She sounds young and itching for action.

  Cole glances up at Pulz. The kid is still fiddling with the controls in the technical box under the dish. Then he looks at Siren and finds he can’t resist a little sarcasm. “‘Fuckwad?’ That’s a little harsh.”

  “I’m done.” Siren jerks the pistol off her hip. The heat vents in the smooth black curves light up red. The barrel is pointed at Cole’s helmet. The lens in the muzzle glows with the light of the fusion pack. At the press of a trigger, a bullet of liquid metallic hydrogen will burn through him with the heat of a star. “This tool had his chance. Time to waste him.”

  Burnout draws his pistol next. He rocks on his heels with nervous energy, looking from Cole, to Lunger, to Cole again. Perhaps the fact that Cole hasn’t moved—hasn’t even reacted—puts a small doubt in him. “Say the word boss.”

  Lunger sighs and shrugs his shoulders. “Sorry, bud. I try to cut a working naut a break, but what can I do if he doesn’t take the hint?”

  Pulz’s voice crackles in Cole’s ear. It’s on an encrypted channel the others can’t hear. “I need another minute, lo! Shit-shit-shit…”