The Battle of Castle Nebula (The Cendrillon Cycle Book 1)

by Stephanie Ricker

  “Not sure I agree with him there,” Bruno said. He eyed the ceiling as an unholy screech echoed from some deck above. Was that a hull breach? Elsa pulled her attention back to Bruno as he spoke. “If not for cendrillon, half the inhabited systems in the galaxy wouldn’t have been colonized. But I can understand his reasons. No one who lost a loved one in the Cendrillon War has unmixed feelings about the stuff.” After another pause, he said, “I’m sorry for your losses.”

  The apology sounded oddly contrite, as though he himself were the cause. “Thanks,” Elsa replied, touched and a little puzzled.

  He stopped so suddenly that her momentum carried her past him. “What?” she asked, skidding to a stop. Her lungs applauded the action, and she leaned against the bulkhead for a precious few seconds.

  He brushed a hand over his eyes. Were those tears? Had to be sweat. “We’re here,” he said gruffly.

  Elsa looked around. The corridor looked virtually identical to the featureless maze they had been running through the whole time. She didn’t have a prayer of getting back to the mess hall from here. “And where might that be?”

  “Cargo bays,” Bruno said, slapping the door controls so that the panels slid open. He jumped through, and Elsa followed him into the cavernous space. Emptied of ore, the barges were just vast containers with comparatively tiny sections at the fore for crew and passengers. It felt strangely comfortable by comparison with the narrow corridors. She missed open space.

  “Wanted to make sure it really was empty,” Bruno told her. “It’d be a shame to space all that cendrillon, and the captain could have been lying.”

  “So how do we open the doors?” Elsa asked, craning her neck to look up at the giant hatch above her head.

  “It’s one of these,” Bruno said, stepping back into the hallway. He motioned for Elsa to come back outside and sealed the cargo bay entrance as soon as she was through. He squinted at the panel.

  The ship screamed again. Then the alarms cut off.

  “That’s…that’s not good, is it?” Elsa asked, nerves making her voice higher than usual. “Why doesn’t that captain just surrender? There’s nothing here of value for the pirates to take, as they’ll discover as soon as they come aboard.”

  Bruno shook his head, jabbing at the hatch controls with hectic speed. “No, the captain knows better than to do that, unless he absolutely must. The pirates would commandeer the barge to use for themselves, or sell it on the black market. Those of us on board wouldn’t see Common Union space for a very long time.” He huffed in frustration. “It’s asking for the override code.”

  The barge creaked again. “How much punishment can these things take?” Elsa asked. She heard an odd whistle and wondered if that was atmosphere venting from another deck.

  “Honestly?” he asked her, punching in what looked like random codes. The deck beneath their feet now had an almost imperceptible tilt.

  She winced. “Yeah.”

  “Not much more.” He spared a glance at her, thick brows knit in concern.

  Panic reared up inside her. “Come on!” she said, her voice shrill. “Are we really all going to die because of a stupid code, probably installed as an afterthought in this clunker of a barge?”

  “Nope, got it!” Bruno’s voice rang with triumph.

  Yet another alarm rang quietly in the corridor as the cargo bay hatch ground open with a deep rumble. Atmosphere and cendrillon dust blew out into space in a roar that echoed throughout the barge, shaking the deck beneath them even more.

  Elsa gaped at him. “How did you find the code?”

  Bruno smiled, an action that completely transformed his face. “I tried the same codes from when I worked the ore barges. Thought it couldn’t hurt. They’ve never changed the damn thing.”

  Bruno walked to the nearest wall comm and called the bridge again. “Bet they’ll believe you now when you say you don’t have any ore,” he told the captain in a smug voice.

  The captain swore at him for interfering, but when the pirate brigantine broke off its attack, the stream of vitriol ceased. Someone on the bridge whooped.

  Elsa cocked her head, listening to the sudden quiet. Another voice on the bridge said, “They’re leaving!”

  Elsa and Bruno grinned at each other. Elsa couldn’t recall the last time she had smiled like that, full of pure enjoyment. Then she remembered: she had been with her father. She looked at Bruno’s weathered face, which seemed even more unused to smiling than hers was. She had been in self-imposed isolation for months now, but maybe she didn’t have to be. Perhaps Bruno would be a friend on Rhodophis.

  “What was your wife’s name?” she asked suddenly as they began their long walk back.

  His bushy eyebrows rose, but he still answered the question. “Katrin.”

  “How did you meet her?”

  “It was at the Atthis drydocks. We were both working on a ship there. She was very talented with long-range communications, and she was working on the sensors.” Bruno smiled slightly. “She was spunky and funny, and I found excuses to be near the sensor array all that week. I was working up the nerve to ask her out when she invited me down to Atthis for the hummingbird festival. I couldn’t care less about hummingbirds, but you’d never have known it from my enthusiastic agreement.” He fell silent for a moment. “What was your mother’s name?”

  “Lies,” Elsa answered. “She was very no-nonsense, let’s-get-it-done. But my dad, Helias, he loved to make her laugh. She loved to sail so much.”

  “Was your father in the Fleet too?”

  Elsa shook her head. “No, he loved Anser, never wanted to leave. But the two of them made it work. They loved each other so much.” Her voice broke. “And they loved me.” She swiped a hand across her face.

  Bruno wore a panic-stricken expression, but he put a hand on her shoulder and patted it awkwardly. Elsa glanced at him and laughed through her tears at his uncomfortable demeanor. “Thanks,” she said, grateful for much more than just the gesture.

  Elsa shouldered her pack and tucked her helmet under her arm, taking one last look around her bunk to make sure she wasn’t leaving anything behind. She closed the door behind her with a satisfying thud.

  She wasn’t sorry to see the last of the ore barge. The battered vessel had limped into Rhodophis four days late, and just getting there in that amount of time had been an accomplishment. The barge would need extensive repair before it would be ready to haul cendrillon again. Lights still sputtered in some corridors as Elsa walked to the shuttle dock. She and the other cinder replacements were being transported to the station in orbit around Rhodophis, where they would be living when not in the mining coaches, harvesting the planet. The planet’s surface was unlivable, so all off-duty time would be spent aboard the station.

  Elsa kept a tight rein on her nervousness as she boarded the shuttle. Now that the time had finally arrived, her stomach was a mess. She hadn’t even been able to enjoy the fruit at breakfast this morning, a sure sign of distress.

  The shuttle was stark and utilitarian, much like the ore barge: same drab coloring and bare bulkheads. Probably the same odor of cendrillon, but Elsa had become immune to the smell over the course of the journey. She told herself she would get used to the bleak, industrial setting in time as well. She didn’t imagine it would be much homier on the station below.

  Elsa chose a seat next to a window on the shuttle and strapped herself in. The harness, meant to be adjustable for all sizes, was still far too large for her. She struggled to pull the straps tight enough to hold her in the seat in case of a loss of anti-gravity.

  A few other cinders trickled in, and she looked up to see Bruno stride through the door with Anastasia in his wake. The sense of relief she felt astonished her with its intensity. The other two cinders might not quite be friends yet, but they were at least allies in this foreign environment.

  Bruno took the seat next to her, and Anastasia sat across. Elsa nodded in greeting. The shuttle undocked from the ore barge and began
its short trip to the personnel area of Rhodophis’ orbiting station. Elsa clasped her hands in her lap so they wouldn’t shake.

  The shuttle rounded the end of the ore barge, and Rhodophis itself hove into sight. Elsa caught her breath. What was she getting herself into?

  The small planet glowed red like an ember, even from space. Magma flowed over its surface, occasionally erupting in gouts of flame over particularly hot spots. Tectonic activity kept the surface in a nearly constant state of upheaval, as blistering heat melted rock and uncovered the coveted cendrillon. It looked like a piece of hell, held captive in the blackness of space.

  “A little different from the simulations, huh?” murmured Anastasia. “You never forget your first sight of a mining world.”

  Elsa nodded mutely. The simulations had not prepared her for this. A tiny voice whispered that it wasn’t too late; she could still leave and try to find work elsewhere. She ignored it.

  “Getting nervous, girl?” asked Bruno, the gentleness of his tone almost undoing her resolve.

  She mustered a tight smile. “This is what I signed up for. I’m ready.”

  The shuttle docked at the orbiting station with a clang, and the cinders unbuckled their harnesses and stood, gathering their belongings. Elsa slung her pack over her shoulder, brushing her fingers over her initials written into the back of her helmet.

  Bruno bumped Elsa’s shoulder with his, making her look up. “Hey. Don’t worry,” he told her. “You’re not alone.”

  Elsa nodded, taking a deep breath and exhaling shakily. She squared her shoulders, lifted her chin. He was right. She could do this. She was a cinder.

  STEPHANIE RICKER is a writer, editor, and tree-climber. She adores the cold and the snow but lives in North Carolina anyway, where she enjoys archery, hiking, and exploring with friends.

  Stephanie’s first novella set in the Cendrillon universe, A Cinder’s Tale, was published in Five Glass Slippers, an anthology of Cinderella-themed stories. Stephanie’s fiction has also been published in Bull-Spec, a magazine of speculative fiction, and in four consecutive editions of The Lyricist, Campbell University’s annual literary magazine.

  Connect with Stephanie online:

  Blog: QuothTheGirl.WordPress.com

  Goodreads: Stephanie Ricker, Author

  Facebook: Stephanie Ricker, Author

  Twitter: @QuothTheGirl

  Eager to learn about Elsa’s adventures as a cinder?

  Pick up Five Glass Slippers today and read A Cinder’s Tale, Volume II in The Cendrillon Cycle.

  Life as a cendrillon miner at Tremaine Station is full of soot and peril, but Elsa and the surrogate family she discovered amongst her crewmates keep each other sane during the long days of work on the seething surface of planet Aschen.

  Nevertheless, when a legendary fleet captain and his son dock their frigate at the space station, Elsa allows herself to rekindle dreams of voyaging far from Aschen’s blistering heat. There is no time for dreaming, however, when danger threatens the station, and Elsa and her fellow miners will need every ounce of their skill and courage to survive.

  Don’t miss The Star Bell, the exciting third installment of The Cendrillon Cycle!

  Elsa Vogel has left her cinder’s life behind to sail with her companions aboard the Sovereign as it embarks on an exploratory mission. The crew’s destination is past the star bell, the last marker of civilization, into uncharted territory.

  Elsa is determined to find out what lies beyond the star bell or perish in the attempt. But life aboard a Fleet frigate isn't at all how she dreamed, and old ties to the Tremaine Mining Company—and to her past on Anser—are not so easily severed.