Renegade Star Origins Box Set

by J. N. Chaney

  “She’s too much of a daddy’s girl,” Allan guffawed when I didn’t answer, then he turned to slap hands with Nero, who just shook his head. Crestfallen, Allan let his hand drop awkwardly.

  Everyone was quiet, waiting for me to say something.

  “Well?” Nero prompted.

  “I’m not a daddy’s girl,” I said, slanting a look at Allan, who smirked. “But I am the Director’s daughter. I know the caves are off limits until the problem is resolved, for everyone’s safety. For all we know, a team is already gearing up to go. You really want to run into them and explain why we’re there?”

  Everyone seemed to consider that for a few minutes.

  “Well, I guess if you’re too scared,” Nero started to say, but I stood up, the legs of my chair scraping loudly on the floor.

  “Fear isn’t the issue,” I told him, gathering my datapad. “I’m just not willing to get kicked out of Selection just to go exploring.”

  4

  As Janus had suggested, I made my way to the engineering lab to work on my prototype. Part of the Selection evaluation centered around our projects working. Josef had been helping me here and there with some of the electrical components, and I’d created the initial design, fabricated the shaft from pieces of scrap found in the caves, and written the code.

  The lab door slid open as I approached, revealing the darkness inside. That meant Jo wasn’t working or had become so absorbed in a task that he hadn’t bothered to reactivate the bright, motion-activated lights.

  It turned out to be the former as the lights blinked on to expose the empty space. I’d half expected to find Josef hunched over one of the workspaces doing calculations, but he wasn’t there. I preferred his company to almost anyone else’s, besides Karin, but I also enjoyed working alone. Sometimes I just thought better with no one else around.

  I walked over to the biometrically locked storage area to retrieve my nearly complete weapon. The storage area consisted of variously sized lockers, with one large portion dedicated to fusion core storage.

  Only the Science and Prime Engineer or his apprentice had access. Everyone else had to send a request to Acquisitions, which was a pain. Supervised students could study the cores in class but couldn’t request them unless Janus signed off.

  My staff looked good, though it couldn’t activate on my touch without a source of power. I carried it hurriedly to the table.

  I’d chosen to build a directed energy staff for a few reasons. Primarily, I didn’t think anyone else would think of the same thing, so I’d get points for creativity. It would be much harder to build than a rifle or spear, but could be more versatile. If it worked as I intended, once a fusion core was integrated to the power housing, it would be capable of firing beams of energy pulses of varying strengths.

  It was nearly ready. I grabbed a test energy cell and brought it to the table. Though not as powerful or long lasting as a fusion core, the cells were still a precious commodity here in the caves.

  When I inserted the cell, the staff reacted by lighting briefly. Then, I laid my hand on it and watched my tattoos light up in tandem with the markings I’d painstakingly etched into the metal shaft. I picked up the staff and held it in my hands. A thrill whispered through me at the sight, only to sputter and die when the power running through the staff pulsed red and faded to nothing.

  This had been an ongoing problem I’d asked Josef to let me solve alone. I needed to know my weapon inside and out. He wouldn’t always be there to help me fix it.

  The staff was tied to my biometrics and designed to react to me alone. I’d used the data from my tattoos to code it, and it worked until I used both hands. It had been a point of frustration for the last week and I had yet to figure it out.

  I opened the schematics and began studying the notes again on my datapad. The bio locks used the unique identifier of my tattoos and I’d taken that directly from a scan of my signal. Everything worked perfectly up until a few seconds after the point of contact from my other hand.

  An inspection of the data showed a discrepancy between the origin signal and something that was identified as a handoff process.

  If I took the bio coding out of the sequence, it worked fine, but not just for me. Anyone with the Eternal skin tech could access most of the equipment because that made sense for day-to-day activities. For my weapon, however, I wanted it to respond to no one else.

  I kept coming back to the handoff process. A deep dive into the subject revealed that when two individuals came into contact with the same piece of tech that was designed for a single user, the coding was written to allow for dual contact as long as one person let go within an allotted time.

  This had to be it. I spent the next few minutes tweaking the algorithms for signal detection then did another test run.

  I held my breath and willed the staff to work as I laid first one hand, then the other, on the shaft. It pulsed red again, this time faster than before. When I checked the fault code, the problem was different. It now read “identical identifier detected.” Still an error, but it was progress.

  After another hour of tweaking, I was ready to try again.

  The staff sat propped up on a stand and I curled one hand around the grip. It glowed to life and my tattoos followed suit. I didn’t move right away and made sure the connection held. The lights went out, since I hadn’t made any big gestures in a while, but the light from the staff was bright enough. With one last deep breath, I laid my other hand on the staff.

  There was a single pulse as the handshake completed its process and the staff continued to glow. I couldn’t stop the grin from spreading over my face and satisfaction flowed through me.

  I was about to wave the lights on again when a voice sounded outside the door and I waited, expecting Josef. My first thought was that it would be funny to startle him. A voice chimed in and I realized if it was Jo, he wasn’t alone.

  The pair spoke in low tones, obviously not wanting to be heard, but I could make out some of it.

  “We can talk here; the apprentice is with Elias and the prospus are in class with Janus. What did you hear?”

  So it wasn’t Josef. I remained still and kept listening.

  “The hunters didn’t make it back. Only Mario, and he said that they were attacked by a Boneclaw in the caves,” said the second man.

  “This is the third attack and yet Cyril does nothing. This cannot continue,” replied the first.

  “It won’t. If things go according to plan, he won’t stay in charge for much longer.”

  I didn’t recognize who the voices belonged to and leaned forward trying to catch more.

  “There’s a meeting later. Tell the others. Go to—”

  The lights turned on from my movements and cut off the speaker.

  “What was that? Never mind, let’s go talk somewhere else.”

  Damn, I thought, as two sets of feet shuffled away from the door. That hadn’t sounded good at all. My earlier elation from the staff’s success had faded and been replaced by worry. I put my tools away and placed the weapon in a storage locker before heading out of the lab. I had to tell my father what I’d just heard.

  I found him with Janus and my mother in one of the conference rooms. The conversation looked grave and I wondered if he already knew about the plot forming against him.

  “Lucia dear, come in,” he said, waving me inside. “This concerns you as well.”

  I entered the room and made my way around the battered table to stand with them. Janus inclined his head in greeting and offered me one of his kind smiles. I returned it, then kissed my mother on the cheek before turning my attention to Cyril.

  “Father, I’ve just heard something disturbing.”

  He sighed and nodded. “The missing hunting parties?”

  “Yes—” I started to say, intending to tell him about the rest of the conversation I’d witnessed, but he cut me off.

  “The colony is getting anxious, but I don’t want to make a move until we unders
tand fully what is going on.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Mario believes that the monsters are waging a war on us.”

  “Aren’t they just doing what they’ve always done? Killing when we get too close?”

  “That’s the problem. We don’t know that they’re killing the hunters. At least not all of them. There’s little blood where they are going missing.”

  “I’ve never heard of them doing that,” I said incredulously.

  “It’s never before been recorded,” confirmed Janus. “Nor have they ever exhibited a desire to enter the caves. Certainly, tunneling has not been used as a method.”

  “Mario thinks they’re testing out our defenses. Response time and all that,” finished my father.

  I looked at my mother for confirmation, and she shrugged. She was just as involved in the colony as my father. A tall woman who commanded respect from her actions as much as her imposing stature. Worry now marred her features just as it had with Josef. I began to feel uneasy.

  “We know the Boneclaws are smart,” she said. “That’s how they escaped in the first place. If they’re entering the caves, there has to be a reason.”

  “What is Mario proposing?” I asked, already fearing the answer.

  “He wants to exterminate the Boneclaws.”

  “Father… there’s something else you need to know.”

  I told him about the conversation outside the lab, but he only frowned.

  “I think you misunderstood. There is a meeting tonight to discuss all this. The Boneclaw incursions. That must have been what they meant.”

  “What if it wasn’t?” asked my mother.

  At least she was taking it seriously.

  My father just shook his head. “You’re talking about Mario going behind my back. He may not always like my decisions, but he would never do that.”

  My mother didn’t argue, but I could tell that she didn’t share the same belief. I didn’t either.

  “For the time being, the caves are off limits to anyone not scavenging or hunting,” my father said.

  “What?!” I protested.

  He held up a hand. “You and the other prospus will continue your training. But no more hunts until after the ceremony.”

  I relaxed a little at that. It wasn’t ideal, but I’d take it over nothing.

  “I have to go prepare for this meeting,” he said, walking to the door with my mother following behind. “Lucia,” he said, pausing before they exited.

  “Yes?”

  “How’s your weapon coming along?”

  I grinned. “It’s only waiting for a fusion core.”

  “Excellent. I knew you would figure it out,” he said, then they were gone.

  “Is everything all right, Miss Visaro?”

  I’d forgotten Janus was still in the room and nearly jumped when he spoke, but I managed to contain it.

  “Yes, I’m fine. Just worried about the Boneclaw situation.”

  “Ah, of course.” The Cognitive nodded sagely. “It is troublesome to be sure. I noticed you accessed the old records last night. Did you have a question I could answer?”

  I looked up, expecting to find some kind of accusation in his eyes, but of course there wasn’t. Janus was the only Cognitive I’d ever met, but all the Eternal’s data explicitly said the AIs would only ever be of service. He didn’t have the capability of getting angry or trying to deceive us.

  Janus had been around from the very beginning, created for the sole purpose of helping the Eternal scientists figure out their gene degradation problems. He’d fulfilled that purpose until the Boneclaws escaped and wreaked havoc on the facilities.

  After that, his objective changed to aiding the remaining survivors. Two millennia later, he was still here, doing just that. He’d helped the people come up with a governing system based on old Earth. From that, the Primes had come into power.

  Primes were chosen by their aptitude and expertise in five different fields: computing and information sciences, physics, chemistry, geological and environmental sciences, and biology. Together, they chose the leader of the colony from a pool of prospus who had expressed an interest in leadership or demonstrated natural ability.

  During the ceremony, the prospus would answer questions to display their knowledge on whatever their specialization happened to be. Afterward, each would enter the caves in search of items that might be useful to the colony. Those who were successful were scored against each other, with the person on top becoming the next leader. Years ago, most people had returned with whatever they could find, never wanting to venture too far from home or risk exposure or death. Sometimes a prospus would come back with something truly extraordinary, but that sort of thing was rare. In recent years, due to the growing energy crisis, and for as long as I could remember now, the search had evolved into a hunt for fusion cores.

  Their term of service lasted for 50 years or until death. Whichever came first. Fifteen years before they were set to vacate the position, the successor was chosen and began training. If anything happened to the leader before their term was over, the next in line would take their place until the original term was complete.

  It was a good system and Janus was rarely involved anymore since it ran smoothly. Now he acted as educator, from the very young all the way to the elders who simply wished to fill their days.

  It was easy to forget that Janus wasn’t made of flesh and bone because he’d always been around. I also thought it had something to do with his natural movement and speech, even temperament, and guileless eyes. You couldn’t help but feel comfortable around him.

  Still, I didn’t know if I wanted to share my thoughts on the Boneclaws with anyone just yet.

  “No, thanks,” I said. “Just doing some research.”

  “A prudent use of your time with the ceremony just around the corner. As always, I am here if you need assistance.”

  “Thanks, Janus.”

  He bowed his head slightly, then disappeared.

  Alone in the room, I thought of the conversation I overheard. Despite my father’s explanation and dismissal of the men, I felt deep down that something was very wrong. Janus had been quiet through most of the exchange.

  A thought came to mind that chilled me. If Mario was plotting to take over the leadership, he could challenge my father. Then it would be up to the Primes to decide what to do. For all we knew, they were already aware of Mario's plans.

  In that case, would Janus be forced to follow their directive, or would he be able to side with my father? I supposed that depended on who he felt would be the best leader for the colony.

  I left the room feeling grim and went in search of Josef.

  The hangar buzzed with the overlapping voices of over two hundred people. The entire community had gathered for the meeting and used the time before it to socialize.

  It was hard to blame them. Daily life in the facility could get tedious. Besides meetings, the only time we got together like this was during weddings, funerals, and Selection ceremonies.

  My father and mother waited for the meeting to start with the Primes on a slightly raised stage made out of material from the tear down area.

  I couldn’t really make out their faces, but the tone looked serious.

  “Hey, Lucia!” a voice called out behind me.

  I turned to see Karin threading through the crowd and waving at me. I lifted a hand and waited for her to reach me so I didn’t have to yell.

  “What are you doing all the way back here?” she asked, slightly out of breath.

  I didn’t want to say that I was keeping an eye on the crowd and shrugged noncommittally. “It’s not as packed back here. Why do you look like you ran here?”

  She blushed a little and wiped at a bead of sweat.

  “Don’t tell me you had your head in a book again,” I teased, narrowing my eyes in mock suspicion.

  “Not this time. I was finishing my project. It’s—”

  “Shh…” I s
aid, lifting my hands to quiet her. “We’re not supposed to talk about them to each other, remember?”

  Karin rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on. Who’s going to say anything? It’s not like Elder Bara can even hear us.” She gestured at the old man who looked like he had fallen asleep standing up. “It’s not like it matters. I’m not going to win. Everyone knows it will come down to you and Nero.”

  I stared at her open mouthed for a few beats. My friend grinned at me playfully and I didn’t see any anger from her, but the words surprised me.

  “What do you mean everyone knows?”

  “Like you don’t know.”

  She laughed at my blank look and opened her mouth to say more when the hangar’s single working speaker crackled on.

  “I’ll tell you later,” Karin whispered as the crowd went silent.

  I nodded and turned my attention back to the stage, focusing on my father.

  “As you all know, there have been some recent developments in the cave system. Mario Costas has also brought word of a missing hunting party. The third this month.”

  Murmurs broke out from the crowd, prompting him to raise a quieting hand. Janus sometimes did the same thing when class got too rowdy. Apparently, it worked on bigger groups too, as the noise level dropped again.

  “I know some of you have loved ones among the missing. In order to find them, I will assign two groups of senior hunters to the task of discovering what happened. There is hope that they are alive.”

  A movement to the left of the crowd caught my eye and I saw that it was Mario. He strode to the stage with an arrogant expression that I immediately disliked. Nero trailed behind him but stopped short of climbing the steps.

  If this irritated Cyril, he didn’t show it and instead swept an arm, motioning for Mario to join him.

  “Mario will lead one of the groups while I take the other and track down our missing people.”

  Mario nodded and addressed the crowd. “The attacks from the Boneclaws are not usual. They have become coordinated and systematic.”

  His words caused another outburst of chatter from the crowd, but from the grim satisfaction on his face that was his intention. Mario didn’t use the amicable gestures to quiet them that my father had. Instead, he let the crowd talk amongst themselves until the din became a roar.