Starcaster Complete Series Boxed Set

by J. N. Chaney

  Both of the Nyctus’ hearts spiked with panic as it began to accelerate away from the Keels at high speed. A covered tentacle reached for the control pad, but Thorn was there, guiding the alien digits away with a surprisingly gentle intrusion.

  Out, away, and then back, Thorn said to the Nyctus, drawing a mental image of a long arc that would result in terrific velocity at the end. Despite Thorn planning a burn of nearly sixty seconds, there would be over half of the fuel left in both tanks—turning the Nyctus into a flying bomb going more than two hundred meters per second. Between the gear, and the tanks, and the delta-V, wherever the Nytcus hit would be vaporized.

  That meant Thorn had to select the target carefully. So he did, nudging the Nytcus’ control digit to fly directly at the massive engines just installed on the carrier. With thousands of tons of fuel and other incendiaries, the result would be spectacular.

  The Nyctus fought Thorn, to no avail. Images of a watery home with curling ramps that ended above the surface filled Thorn’s mind, followed by a series of flickering, panicked thoughts—the stars above the same home. A collection of carved shells, their surfaces pearlescent and dancing with natural luminescence—then a human spacesuit, the legs torn off. The suit was spread out like a trophy and whatever reservations Thorn had about cold-blooded murder vanished in a puff of exhaust as the second tank ignited fully. In the brainjacked Nyctus vision, the Keels shifted from an orderly series of ships. At the growing velocity, each hull became part of a silvery forest, drawing closer with each second as the relentless chemical burn went on.

  Gonna be going even faster than I thought, Thorn mused.

  The Nyctus began a silent howl of agonized frustration, knowing it—he—had been ’jacked, and by a human, no less. Thorn switched views for a moment, experiencing the last seconds of flight before jumping away, back to the safety of his own sight.

  The engineer struck dead center of the engine assembly, and it was followed by an incandescent white light as the carrier vanished into molten debris. The explosion raced along the Keels like wildfire, smashing each ship into splinters or slag. The last keel shattered into three main parts, each section tumbling away as they crushed Nyctus engineers with their runaway mass. The central anchor point separated as well, and the entire storm of metal and Nyctus corpses continued to deteriorate in a series of small flashes.

  “Thorn?” Mol asked in a small voice.

  “Yes?” he answered, not looking away.

  “Are you…okay?” Mol reached out as if she could reach him, then drew back.

  He focused on her, his gray eyes inscrutable. Then his lips curled, and whatever demon had been inside him took leave. Thorn came back, but Kira and Mol were forever changed.

  “I’ll be alright,” he said. Cracking his back, he then turned his head to and fro, loosening the muscle gone rigid with concentration. “I knew revenge would come with a price. It always does.”

  “Where did you learn that?” Kira asked him, one eye on the cloud of Nyctus debris.

  Thorn’s answer was soft. “Nowhere. I taught myself. Just now.”

  20

  Stellers?

  Um…yes? Ma’am, I mean?

  The voice was unknown to him, but it was human, female, and powerful. A Starcaster at minimum, and not a Joiner.

  I’m relaying your change in orders, per Admiral Maynard. She asks that you consider them carefully, because the target has changed. Instead of destroying something, we want you to seize it.

  Ma’am? Brainjacking? And, no disrespect, but how do I know Admiral Maynard is even involved in this?

  He heard ghostly laughter, then a pause. She told me to be ready for that question, and her answer is this: if you don’t finish this mission, but you somehow survive, she’ll slap you silly with her green notebook. Twice, if necessary.

  Thorn laughed richly, imagining Admiral Maynard reaching up to bop him with the notebook. Copy that, ma’am. What’s my mission?

  Read these coordinates in Lyra, and commit them to memory. There’s a ship underway at low speeds for now. You will intercept, take control, and bring the ship with you by way of a jump. You’ll likely be followed, the woman said.

  Ma’am? Won’t that defeat the purpose of ’jacking the ship?

  Ordinarily, yes. But we’ll be waiting. More specifically, the entire fifth fleet will be waiting to turn the Nyctus chasers into scrap. They won’t have a chance, and for once, we’ll be the hunters. Your job is to keep that ship in one piece, along with the crew.

  The…the crew? Ma’am? I’ve never ’jacked more than one squid at a time. Not sure I can—

  It’s a tug run, with less than two dozen crew. You don’t have to control them all. You only have to control the bridge. If you must, eliminate any Nyctus who try to scuttle the ship, or redirect outside our cone of control. Understood?

  Yes, ma’am. But, one thing—Thorn twitched as an image came to his mind, free of static or distortion.

  It was a ship unlike anything he’d ever seen. Five rows of thirty gunports, what could only be masers of a power an order beyond human technological ability.

  You understand, then. Those guns—and that maser—will remove all doubt in any battle. We grab this boat, we save years of research. We miss, and we’re back to nipping at their heels. Can you do it, Stellers?

  Thorn paused, but not because he was uncertain. It was quite the opposite. He knew he could.

  Yes, ma’am. I can.

  Good. See you at the debriefing.

  You won’t be there? At the handover? Thorn didn’t even know who she was, but it still seemed worth asking.

  I will, but you won’t notice me. I’m always just under the radar. Godspeed, Stellers. Fleet out.

  “And we’re supposed to steal a whole ship?” Kira asked, voice oozing disbelief.

  “Well, not the whole thing. Just the—well, yes. The whole thing, but it’s a small crew, and they’re on a maintenance run, I think.” Thorn spread his hands in surrender.

  Mol looked at him as if he’d been struck in the head. “You want Trixie to take us to a point in the galaxy where we’re going to lurk, like some ancient train robbers?”

  “I like their style, and yes, that’s exactly what we’re going to do,” Thorn said.

  “Jump is plotted,” Trixie said. “Ready?”

  “Hey, wait a minute,” Mol protested, but the stars vanished in a lurch, replaced by a new view. Lyra, and dead in the middle of it, too.

  “You treacherous little—”

  “Admiral Maynard’s orders, Mol. Sorry,” Trixie interrupted. “Oh, and here comes your ship, by the way. Might want to get ready. There are several escort ships alongside our target, and they don’t look friendly.”

  Kira looked stricken. “What the hell is that?”

  Thorn glanced at the data, then Trixie made the image sharper. “It’s the last ship they’ll ever need, if we don’t grab it.”

  “Are those masers? The size of a corvette?” Kira asked. The maser assembly was eight meters across, at minimum.

  “Yes. And that’s why I need to—shit, Trixie, kill the noise. They’re probing me,” Thorn snapped.

  “Quiet ship now. All yours,” Trixie said. Kira and Mol fell into a tense silence as Thorn shook out his hands and reached across the distance, unsure of what to expect.

  Before the command screen stood a pair of Nyctus, speaking about the engines, the ship, and their general boredom with the entire process. The female was slightly younger, and it was her mind probing around out of a general curiosity. Thorn resisted her intrusion, seized one tentacle, and drew her weapon—a wicked looking curved blade, clearly with some traditional design in mind.

  Under Thorn’s control, she slashed the other Nyctus pilot across his bulbous head, laying the soft tissue open in hideous spray of clear fluid that quickly turned inky black. The Nyctus officer fell with a wet gurgle, then the bridge erupted in chaos.

  Thorn directed the brainjacked pilot to do one thing onl
y: jump her ship to a point just inside the local star’s gravity well. She obeyed and punched the coordinates on her alien screen just before another Nyctus fired its sidearm at her, shearing her hearts into tattered debris.

  “And…jump,” Thorn told Trixie.

  The stars didn’t move so much as they twitched. Trixie only shifted some eight hundred thousand klicks, and when they burst into position, they weren’t alone. The Nyctus ship was alongside, mere kilometers away. In front of them, the might of the fifth fleet spread out, guns at the ready as three Nyctus cruisers gave chase, emerging with their KEW ports open and laser arrays in firing position.

  “We can’t duck, can we?” Kira asked.

  “Be nice if we could,” Mol said. Behind them, the fleet opened up, and she took a second to marvel at how exquisite a space battle could be when you weren’t the one getting shot at. Flickering beams and streaking missiles raced away from the fleet, pouring hatred onto the three Nyctus cruisers, which tried desperately to break formation in order to fight on.

  For the Nyctus, they had everything but time.

  The lead ship vanished when six missiles hammered into its bow, tearing deep into the ship even as it accelerated into the salvo.

  “Splash one,” Thorn said, keeping a mental tab on the chaos aboard his target ship. Every time a Nyctus approached the controls, he ’jacked another and attacked. Under his tutelage, the Nyctus bridge was an ongoing civil war with no winners.

  “And two,” Kira said, as the second chase ship warped, split, and detonated in a searing light. “Damn fine shooting.”

  “They’ve got a ’caster onboard. She gave the missiles a nudge,” Thorn said.

  “Glad to hear it. Have they—whoa, what the hell—” Kira spat.

  The third ship broke at an impossible speed, making for the Nyctus ship Thorn was fighting to control.

  “Think he’s going to scuttle—”

  Thorn waved Mol off. “Not if I can—I have him.”

  Kira and Mol watched in open-mouthed amazement while Thorn narrowed his eyes, leaned to one side, and waved a hand, as if he was a conductor of a ghostly orchestra. The third Nyctus ship vanished with the telltale flash of a jumpdrive.

  “Where did he go?” Mol asked.

  Thorn cut his eyes toward the star. “Somewhere in the middle of that.”

  “Heluva way to go. Not that they don’t deserve it,” Mol said.

  “They sure do,” Trixie added.

  Thorn gave a terse grin, then refocused on the target ship. “If I can—shit. There’s a—” Thorn’s voice trailed away as he leaned against the console, sweat springing to life on his face.

  “Thorn?” Kira asked.

  “Telepath. Powerful,” he said. His voice was low, skin ashen.

  “Can I help?” Kira asked, unsure if she could even survive contact with a Nyctus like that.

  He reached for her hand. His fingers were slick with sweat, and he swayed with an invisible effort as he and the Nyctus fought a secret war. Thorn’s fingers crushed her hand and then—

  —I have you, Thorn told his enemy.

  You have only death. I will sing my victory to the tides, your blood and mind a prize of—

  Don’t you ever shut up? Or does your arrogance never sleep? Thorn asked, even as he found what he was looking for.

  A memory.

  He pushed forward into the alien mind, seeing a crack where the Nyctus shaman held the one thing he could not admit to anyone else.

  You’re ashamed, Thorn said.

  I feel no shame at killing your kind. You are animals, incapable of swimming even as well as children. You are—

  Not humans, you fool. You killed a…sister. Yes. I can see it. And no one knows. Well, until now. I know.

  Silence, then—I will skin your body and leave the—

  The Nyctus never saw the young ensign approach from behind. She was weak, and easy to control. Thorn made her use two tentacles to drive the—it was called a wingshell, the knife—into the telepath’s hearts, slashing back and forth until the deck was slick with black, inky blood, and then the ship was Thorn’s.

  “Fleet command, sending a ship your way,” Thorn said over Trixie’s open comm.

  “Appreciate it, Starcaster. Leave the engine running. We’ve got plans for this one.”

  Thorn gave a weak grin and collapsed. “Tell the admiral we’re coming home.”

  Epilogue

  All of the officers were there, waiting. Thorn stepped into the room, any sense of awkwardness long gone. He inhabited the Starcaster role now, and it was a part of him. Stitched together from years of fear and a lust for revenge, now that he had power, he found it wasn’t exactly to his liking. It was—a necessity. A tool, albeit something within him. He took no joy in the death of each Nyctus, because tasting their cold, ruthless minds left him ever grateful that he was a human and capable of mercy.

  That didn’t mean he would be merciful.

  “You leave us with an unusual problem, Specialist.” The speaker was Admiral Wynne, a man with watery eyes and a hangdog expression. He sat, unmoving, among other officers who were part of a process that would ultimately answer the great question before them.

  What to do with Thorn?

  And, more specifically, the Starcasters.

  “Sir?” Thorn asked, though he knew what the admiral meant.

  Commander Schrader, still nursing wounds from the attack on Code Nebula, leaned forward on the gleaming table, his face conflicted. “Imagine finding a sword—a sword so sharp that nothing can stand before it. Now imagine fighting your way through the enemy, only to find that no matter how many times you swing this weapon, you’ll never be able to cut them all down. That’s where we stand right now, Stellers. You are—lethal. Beyond belief, and for now, you seem to have no delusions of grandeur. Your motivations are as pure as we could hope—”

  Thorn bristled at that, but Schrader patted the air in a conciliatory gesture.

  “My apologies to the memory of your family. And your world. I speak only to your…to the purity of your motivation, and the problems it causes,” Schrader said.

  “Your trauma might have made you, Thorn, but we won’t cause other people to endure what you had just to win this putrid war,” Admiral Maynard said with unusual ferocity. “You have my personal guarantee.”

  “Thank you, ma’am. I believe you,” Thorn said.

  Kira cleared her throat, bending every eye to her. “If I may?”

  “Please,” Admiral Wynne said, waving her to speak.

  “Thorn has more ability than anyone can imagine, because we’ve never seen his talent before. That means he’s not only a—well, his power spans all of the styles, or schools, or whatever we choose to declare these destructive abilities. But I think he has something else to give. It’s not exactly hidden, but we haven’t considered it yet because we’re too busy pointing him at the enemy like a missile and then counting the dead,” Kira said.

  “If you’re suggesting he teach, I must stop you right there, Wixcombe. He’s far too valuable on the front. Sorry, Stellers,” Commander Schrader said with a hint of actual apology.

  “No sir—I mean, yes, he can teach, but not in the way of our instructors, and not in any style you would recognize. I think that…well—” Kira hesitated, looking to Thorn, who gave a small nod. “I’ve known Thorn since we were kids, so I have an advantage of sorts.”

  “You mean you understand him?” Admiral Wynne asked.

  “No, sir. I mean, I know him, as a…as a presence. As a mind. And he knows me. He can communicate with me over incredible distances, like any telepath, but it’s more than that. He can see me while we’re speaking, and I think it goes well beyond that. I’m only a Joiner, but I think he can train me by—what term do we want to use, Thorn?”

  “Gift. I think it’s a gift, or gifting. It’s like permission to come aboard, but when I leave, I’ve drawn you a map to a place in your ship you’ve never been, and you never knew it existed. I
think I can make our Navy stronger, but only if you keep the Starcasters together and let us fight as we will. I understand why we do things a certain way, but why should we keep doing that if so many people are dead?” Thorn asked everyone.

  The silence stretched, gravid with unspoken admissions that Thorn just might be right.

  “And you think these…gifts…can be inserted into other minds? Like a memory?” Maynard asked. Her eyes were bright with hope.

  “I do, ma’am,” Thorn answered.

  Silent until that moment, a pale woman with dark eyes, high cheekbones, and an air of near religious intensity floated away from the wall, where she’d been leaning in an unobtrusive pose of feigned indifference. She wore overalls and no rank, but something about her set Thorn’s teeth on edge. He caught an image from her thoughts.

  Spy.

  “Specialist Stellers, we’ve not met in person. For the purposes of this meeting, you may call me Captain Densmore.” Her smile was perfunctory, but her eyes were alive, drinking in his details. Thorn gave her a level look, then sensed the probe at a distant edge of his mind. He slammed the opening shut, seeing Densmore twitch—then cover it up almost instantly.

  “If you visit my mind without invitation again, I’ll turn you into a walking corpse,” Thorn said in a conversational tone. Then realization dawned on him. He knew her.

  Schrader and Maynard laughed, but Kira gasped in alarm.

  “Told you he was strong,” Schrader said. “You’d do well to tread lightly, Alys.”

  Alys—Densmore—looked satisfied with her fishing expedition. “I had to know for certain. I don’t take anything on faith since we’ve been on the losing end of this war.”

  Thorn felt his anger rise, then put it away with an effort. “I meant what I said. Ma’am. And it’s good to see you in person, despite the tone. My apologies. You’re a strong telepath, and it’s my pleasure not to disappoint Admiral Maynard and her green notebook.”