Shards of Eternity (Stars in Shadow Book 2)

by John Triptych

  Books by John Triptych

  Wrath of the Old Gods series (in chronological order)

  The Glooming

  Pagan Apocalypse

  Canticum Tenebris

  The Fomorians

  A World Darkly

  Eye of Balor

  Mortuorum Luctum

  Dying World series

  Lands of Dust

  City of Delusions

  The Maker of Entropy

  Ace of Space series

  The Piranha Solution

  Virago One

  Alien Rebellion series

  Wetworld

  Grotto of Silence

  Blood Horizon

  Stars in Shadow series

  Nepenthe Rising

  Shards of Eternity

  Copyright© 2018 by John Triptych

  All rights reserved.

  J Triptych Publishing

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and events either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, and/or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover by Deranged Doctor Design (http://www.derangeddoctordesign.com/)

  Interior formatting by Polgarus Studios

  This novel is dedicated to you, dear reader.

  Author’s note:

  Dear reader, I would like to thank you for purchasing this book. As a self-published author, I incur all the costs of producing this novel so your feedback means a lot to me. If you wouldn’t mind, could you please take a few minutes and post a review of this online and let others know what you think of it?

  As I’m sure you’re aware, the more reviews I get, the better my future sales would be and therefore my financial incentive to produce more books for your enjoyment increases. I am very happy to read any comments and questions and I am willing to respond to you personally as quickly as I can. My email is jtriptych@gmail.com if you wish to contact me directly. Again, thank you and I hope you enjoy reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it!

  Please join my exclusive mailing list! You will get the latest news on my upcoming works and special discounts. Subscription is FREE and you get lots of FREE books! Just copy and paste this link to your browser: http://eepurl.com/bK-xGn

  I’d like to thank:

  Matter Beam’s Tough SF blog, for giving much needed advice on the possibilities of more realistic space warfare and spacecraft designs.

  Atomic Rockets, for superb articles on real-life science and how to apply them in a speculative fiction setting.

  If you prick us, do we not bleed?

  If you tickle us, do we not laugh?

  If you poison us, do we not die?

  And if you wrong us, do we not revenge?

  -William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

  People should either be caressed or crushed. If you do them minor damage they will get their revenge; but if you cripple them there is nothing they can do. If you need to injure someone, do it in such a way that you do not have to fear their vengeance.

  -Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

  Table of Contents

  Author’s note:

  1 The Discovery

  2 Window Shopping

  3 House of Love

  4 The Aspiration

  5 Judgment

  6 Pirate’s Haven

  7 Intent

  8 Delirium

  9 The Heist

  10 Double Cross

  11 Breach of Honor

  12 Reaching

  13 Epiphany

  14 Repel Boarders!

  15 The Vow

  16 Ploy

  17 Licking Wounds

  18 Patience

  19 The Intrigues

  20 Apprenticeship

  21 Temporary Alliance

  22 Furies

  23 Winter Planet

  24 The Superior

  25 Rebels

  26 Correspondence

  27 The Dig

  28 Combat Archaeology

  29 The Elusive

  30 The Committee

  31 Lady Luck

  32 The Demand

  33 Captives

  34 The Exchange

  35 Choices

  36 The Transcended

  37 The Paths

  38 The Resolve

  Also by J Triptych Publishing

  1 The Discovery

  Jon Percival sighed as he stood beside the nanoglass window and looked out at the airless desert beyond. His wife had just sent him a message through the interstellar courier network, asking whether he would be coming home for his daughter’s upcoming birthday, and he didn’t want to answer her with bad news, since he was always terrible at admitting the truth.

  His contract with Trando Mining had specified an annual two-month downtime, but a clause in the agreement meant the company could delay the pending break for up to two years due to extenuating circumstances. Percival knew about the fine print, but he never thought they’d use it against him, not after his nearly two decades of loyal service to the company.

  “Why did I ever take an assignment out here,” he muttered out loud since no one would hear him. As chief of security, he had his own private office and quarters, but it did little to alleviate the long periods of separation from his family. Percival figured this would be his last tour, for he had seemingly accumulated enough points for a cushy job back at company headquarters on Earth.

  Muntar-1 was a mineral-rich world located in the quiet sector within the Union of Stellar Nations, far away from either the borders of the Bios Concordance or the League of Independent Governments. The planet had a one-gee gravity field but also had no atmosphere, and the crew were confined to base, tasked with overseeing a mostly robotic workforce of automated mining machines with remote control.

  It was a kind of job for loners, because the company didn’t deem it necessary to provide habitats for dependents. Consequently, much of Percival’s work entailed having to confine drunk, drugged, or psychotic employees until they either sobered up or were transferred to another planet. Cabin fever was endemic, and there were even rumors of a sex ring involving the robots, but nothing had ever been proven.

  A beeping noise on his console shook him out of his lethargy, and Percival walked back to his desk and activated the accept button. “Chief of security, can I help you?”

  The man’s voice on the other line was dour and by the book. “It’s me, can you come up to my office, please?”

  “On my way,” Percival said as he headed for the door and stepped out.

  Moving along a deserted corridor, Percival made it to the elevator and poked the button for the top floor of the complex. When he got to the right level, he walked around a loader bot moving crates along the passageway and headed towards the planetary director’s office.

  Another beeping sound, this time in his earpiece, made him activate the com-link circuit on his wrist device. “Percival here.”

  The other voice belonged to Sergeant Tsagaanbaatar, the officer currently in charge of space traffic control. “Chief, I got a confirmed contact and a hail. Looks like we were right, it’s our transport ship, and she’s moving into low orbit to begin the supply run as of right now.”

  “I figured as much,” Percival said. “Kinda weird though.”

  “What’s weird, Chief?”

  “They’re four days early,” Percival said. “In the three years I’ve been here, this is the first time our weekly supply run has ever gone ahead of schedule.”

  The sergeant’s laughter was heard on the other line. “Maybe all those complaints we’ve sent over are finally having an effect, yeah
?”

  “Probably,” Percival said. “I’m about to head into the director’s office; update me when they start unloading the stuff.”

  “You got it, Chief,” the sergeant said. “Good luck on getting your annual leave.”

  “Thanks,” Percival said while standing in front of the door to the director’s office. After hanging up the com-link, he made three knocks and waited.

  The entryway slid open and he stepped inside. Director Gyasi Beyene had the largest office in the entire base, and he had imported a number of tall terrestrial plants that he arranged along the walls, sealed behind transparent aramid. Even the room’s furnishings were made of hand-carved natural wood, a testament to his expensive tastes.

  The director was sitting behind his desk and motioned him to come closer. “Percy, I wanted to ask you about this latest memo you sent to HQ.”

  Hearing the door closing behind him, Percival got closer until he stood in front of the director’s desk. “I was just asking if they could finally approve my leave. You see, sir, my daughter’s twelfth birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks, and it would mean a lot to me if I could—”

  Beyene cut him off with a wave of his hand. “I’m the one who decides who gets to go on leave here. You went over my head and appealed directly to corporate. It makes me look bad, Chief.”

  Percival swallowed before answering. His career was now on the line. “That wasn’t my intention, sir. I’m sorry. I guess I-I must have lost my sense of reasoning.”

  Beyene sighed as he leaned back on his high leather-backed chair. “Perhaps I should have told you why I canceled everybody’s leave until further notice. The reason is that one of our mining teams uncovered something on Pit Eighty-one.”

  Percival’s eyebrows shot up. “What? Why wasn’t I informed?”

  “Calm down, Chief,” Beyene said. “It wasn’t dangerous.”

  “What did you find, sir?”

  Beyene reached down, opened a drawer in his desk and brought out a carbon plastic container. He placed it on the countertop. “It’s more like an object. I had Dr. Chow run a quarantine test on it, and he says it’s safe to handle.”

  A look of awe came over Percival’s face as the director opened the top of the box and the scintillating, multicolored glow from the object reflected into his eyes. “It’s an artifact of some sort!”

  Beyene replaced the top of the lid and put the box back into his drawer before engaging the lock. “This is the reason why I canceled leave. I requested a science team from HQ to head over here and take a look at it, but corporate said there’s been a delay. They’re still locating some artifact research specialist and trying to keep it all under wraps, so it’ll take a little while longer.”

  “How valuable do you think it is?”

  “I don’t know,” the director said. “The shift supervisor who found it immediately sent a message to his wife before he even told me, and it went out to all the courier networks unencrypted. I’ve had to confine him to his quarters with no com-link access for the past two weeks now.”

  “So that’s why you ordered my team to seal him in,” Percival said. “I thought it was because our psychologist deemed him a danger to his crew.”

  “I told our doc to give that very reason if anyone asks, but it wasn’t the real one,” Beyene said. “I got a scathing message from HQ ordering me to keep everything quiet until their team arrives. All I’m asking from you is that you hold on until they get here. Once they take this out of my hands, everything goes back to normal and I’ll start granting leave once more. Do we have a deal?”

  Percival nodded. “I understand now. I’m very, very sorry for going over your head, sir. This will never happen again. You had a very good reason for cancelling leave.”

  “Apology accepted,” Beyene said. “Now all we have to do is—”

  An alarm reverberated across the entire complex, startling them both. The howling sirens were deafening, and the flashing red lights filled their hearts with an eerie dread. Beyene quickly adjusted the volume control in order to keep his mind clear as he stared back at Percival in shocked disbelief.

  The security chief reactivated his com-link. “This is Percival; I’m at the director’s office. What in blue blazes is going on?”

  Sergeant Tsagaanbaatar answered him. The space traffic control officer spoke in a terrified voice. “Chief, we’re under attack!”

  Percival scowled with incredulity. “What? By whom?”

  “That transport ship—she’s not really ours! One of our orbital satellites got a close look at her when she began sending shuttles down, and our orbital sensors identified her as something else before they got destroyed!”

  Beyene stood up in shock as he overheard the conversation. “We’re in the middle of nowhere. Why would someone even try to attack us here?”

  Percival began to recover from the initial shock. “What did your computers identify the ship as?”

  The orbital control sergeant’s voice over the com-link became a pained whisper. “Chief, she’s the Tiburon.”

  Percival’s mouth hung open in dismay. The Tiburon was a ship belonging to a notorious pirate outfit, and her crew had a particular reputation for being ruthless towards civilians.

  Beyene staggered around in a daze of denial as parts of his office shook. “Impossible. Why would these buccaneers attack us? We’re a mining outpost. There’s nothing valuable out here.”

  Percival grimaced as the truth shattered his once idyllic hopes. He pointed towards the drawer behind the director’s desk. “That’s the reason why they’re here. We have to surrender.”

  Beyene gave him a defiant look. His superiors back at HQ had told him to hold on to the artifact at all costs. “What? You can’t be serious.”

  “Look around you, sir,” Percival said. “We’re a civilian installation. We don’t have any defenses except for a small contingent of security officers. You know the rules pirates live by. These raiders will consider any form of resistance as hostility. If we fight them then we all die.”

  “I can’t let them take the artifact,” Beyene said tersely. “My superiors told me I’ll be in line for top advancement if I get it to them.”

  Percival answered him in a slow, deliberate manner so the director understood how big the stakes were. “Your job won’t matter if we’re all dead.”

  Beyene remained unconvinced. “Will you follow my orders or not?”

  “Sir, we don’t stand a chance,” Percival said. “Please, just give it to them.”

  “You’re relieved, Chief,” Beyene said as he punched up a general com-link frequency to the security room. “This is the director. I have relieved Chief Percival of his duties. Who is the officer in charge there?”

  Another man’s voice answered hesitatingly. “T-this is Officer Joseph Reeves, sir. H-how can I help you?”

  Percival shook his head and walked towards the door.

  Beyene pointed at the dismissed chief. “You stay right here.” He turned his attention back to the com-link. “Reeves, I want you to close the emergency bulkheads. Deploy all security teams at the transfer module—fully armed. Shoot anyone who attempts to breach the complex. Do you understand what I just told you?”

  “Y-yes, sir.”

  “Good. Get to it,” Beyene said before switching the com-link circuit over to the robotics department. “Jenny, you there?”

  “Right here, Director,” Jenny Sepulveda said. “I’ve confined all unnecessary crew to quarters. What do you need?”

  “Can you place all the robots inside the complex on defense mode?”

  “I’ll try, sir. They’re just mining and general purpose bots though.”

  “Get to it right away,” Beyene said. “Good luck.”

  Percival crossed his arms while standing by the door. “Sir, request permission to return to my quarters.”

  “Denied,” Beyene said. “I may have relieved you of your position, but you remain as an employee. You will stay here and defend me.
”

  “What? This is insane! We’ll both die!”

  Beyene ignored him as he took out a compact laser pistol from the wall safe behind his desk and placed it on the counter. Looking around the office, he spotted a crystal trinket on a nearby coffee table. Grabbing the near worthless knickknack, he shoved it into the safe’s interior before closing it and engaging the lock.

  The entire complex shook again. The sounds of fighting could be heard coming from the lower floors. Moving away from the door, Percival walked over to the sofa and sat down on it. Taking the laser pistol out from his hip holster, he placed it on top of the low table, alongside numerous magazines and old-fashioned art books.

  Beyene placed his executive chair on its side and prepared to use his desk as cover. Glancing up at Percival, he gave the former security chief a sneer. “You coward. I’ll see you lose your job and pension over this!”

  Percival was tempted to give him a snarky reply, but he just sighed while shaking his head slowly from side to side.

  Using his desk console, Beyene cycled through the numerous corridor video feeds to see if he could get a bearing on the events unfolding around him. His heart nearly jumped out of his chest as the frightened director saw a number of warbots smashing through walls and doors, followed by pirates wearing powered battle armor killing the security officers who tried to resist them. Two wounded mining engineers raised their hands in surrender, only to be shot down execution style by a woman wearing a black, form-fitting jumpsuit and wielding a gauss carbine.

  Another loud crash was felt, this time at the top level, indicating the pirates had finally reached the executive offices. Percival looked on warily as Beyene drew out his pistol and aimed it at the door, only to have the weapon slip from his trembling hand and fall to the carpeted floor with a heavy thud.