Ghost Star

by Roger Eschbacher

  Galen rounded the corner and heard the sound of broken glass crunching under his boots. He looked down. A small number of broken bottles of ship’s brew sparkled in the emergency lighting. The brew’s pungent aroma filled his nostrils and set off memory bombs of every celebration he’d attended on the ship. Just ahead was the motionless form of Hex, the Ghost Star’s orb-shaped hover bot, secured to the floor with Imperium magstraps. What happened to you? He knelt and carefully examined Hex’s dull gray shell and the collection of utility appendages and eyestalks that would normally be dangling as it hovered. No rifer holes or scorch marks to be found. Then he noticed the open hatch. “Oh.”

  Galen released the magstraps and found Hex’s power-connect by touch. He reinserted it and pulled out his hand as the bot powered up and shot to its default hover height.

  “Panel, Regor?” continued Hex.

  Hex stopped for a moment. Galen could hear quiet clicking inside the bot and knew it was preparing to run diagnostics. Seconds later, Hex exploded into a frenzy of self-checks. The loud clicks and noises continued for a full thirty seconds, and if Hex hadn’t been a robot, Galen could have been convinced the bot was having an anxiety attack. Finally, the clicking slowed.

  “Hello, Hex. It’s me.”

  “Hello, Galen. Yes, I confirm your identity. Other than yourself, there appears to be no crew onboard the Ghost Star. The ship itself is offline, and I cannot access any of the onboard systems. There is also a thirty-six-hour gap in my consciousness, which was preceded by the ship’s engineer reaching inside my shell. What did I miss?”

  “Regor turned you off and deactivated Bartrice. He also stunned me.”

  “For what purpose?”

  “Betrayal. He allowed the Nell Imperium to capture and board the ship.”

  “I do not detect an Imperium presence onboard the Ghost Star,” said Hex.

  “Do an exterior scan.”

  A few more clicks and whirs filled the air for a second or two. “Ah yes, we are tethered to an Imperium battle cruiser, Moon class. I presume the rest of the crew has been taken aboard their vessel?”

  “Trem has. The rest of the crew is dead. Even the captain.”

  After a long pause, Hex said, “I see. You have my sincerest sympathies, Galen Bray. Nolo Bray was a man of rare qualities. An exceptional bioform.”

  “Thank you, Hex.”

  “Why are you not in custody? Why was Trem spared? Are you cold?”

  “At first I was concealed in Regor’s bunk room, and then I hid in a smuggling vault. I think Regor hid me, but I don’t know why. I also don’t know why Trem was spared, and yes, I am extremely cold,” replied Galen.

  “Follow me, Galen Bray.”

  Moments later, Galen and Hex were in the Ghost Star’s command pod, the part of the ship that Nolo piloted from—used to pilot from. Galen glanced out a side viewplate at one of the most spectacular views anywhere. Having recently finished a lucrative smuggle of medicinal roots to a remote manufacturing colony, Nolo, as was his habit, had parked the Ghost Star near a real-life ghost star or black hole. Named Mael, it radiated a fatal beauty. A blacker-than-black orb of unimaginably dense matter, Mael had more the appearance of a hole than a ball. A hole punched in the fabric of space that greedily sucked in anything, including light itself, that entered its impossible-to-escape gravity field. Most sane people avoided ghost stars the same way they avoided a deadly beast, which was probably why the ship was given its name. Nolo often said this “feature” was what made Mael the perfect hideout. That may be true, thought Galen. But how come I never see other smugglers hiding out here?

  Hex took up a central position in the pod, and the tip of one of his appendages began to glow a dull red. “It is easiest for me to heat this room, as it is one of the smallest on board this vessel,” said Hex. “Plus, it is well shielded and should frustrate any scans for infrared signatures. Although why they would scan at this point . . .”

  “Trem is on that thing,” said Galen, changing his position to look out the pod’s largest viewplate. Floating before them was the massive battle cruiser.

  “Yes, she is,” said Hex.

  “We have to get her.”

  Hex paused before responding. “How will we do it?”

  “Good question. We get closer to their base with every breath. Once we get out of range of Mael and leap into tripspace, it will be pretty much impossible to rescue Trem. We have to go from this ship to that ship and back again without being discovered.”

  “A difficult task at best.”

  “If only we weren’t tethered to this thing. Why aren’t we in one of their docking bays?”

  “It is standard Imperium protocol to tether captured vessels to protect against contagions and sabotage, explosive devices in particular.”

  “That’s pretty smart, I guess. Not sure how we can get around it, though.”

  Hex hummed quietly for a moment. “Even though we are tethered, you could still pilot the Ghost Star to one of the smaller bays—moving slowly, of course, so as to avoid notice. Space hop across with a spare maintenance suit for Trem, then sneak through the cruiser undetected and liberate Trem before returning to the ship, cutting the tether, and making a clean getaway.”

  Galen snorted. “Is that all?”

  “As I said, a difficult task at best. In fact, I’d say this plan is more than likely to fail, as it depends on no one onboard the Imperium vessel noticing us—”

  “Fine. I get it.”

  **

  Onboard the Lingering Death, one of the two Moon-class cruisers, Lord Mohk watched his Terran second-in-command, Dur, enter his quarters and drop to one knee.

  “I beg forgiveness for disturbing your recovery, Lord Mohk,” said Dur without looking up.

  Mohk gingerly scratched his bandaged chin with a razor-sharp foreclaw before turning to look at Dur, wincing as he moved. As were all Terrans, his underling was small and weak, but his loyalty and usefulness made up for this shortcoming.

  “Regor, the traitor who revealed Bray’s location, wishes to speak to you.”

  “Send him in.”

  Dur opened the port and motioned for the disheveled smuggler to enter.

  “Kneel,” said Dur.

  Regor kneeled and waited.

  “You have done well, traitor,” said Mohk.

  “Please don’t call me that. This has been hard enough,” said Regor.

  “I will call you what I choose to call you, traitor,” said Mohk.

  Regor opened his mouth to argue, then caught himself and closed it again. “Of course.”

  “What do you want?”

  A puzzled look momentarily passed over Regor’s face. “My family, Lord Mohk. You promised—”

  “So I did,” said Mohk. “And I do keep my word. Dur, you are dismissed.”

  “Yes, Lord Mohk.” His lieutenant slowly backed out of the chamber, catching a glimpse of Mohk as he approached Regor, a predatory look in his eyes.

  “Your family has been executed, traitor,” said Mohk.

  All color drained from Regor’s face. “What?”

  “They supported a known criminal, and the Nell Imperium takes a dim view of such things,” said Mohk.

  “But you said—”

  “I needed you to reveal the location of Nolo Bray and his crew. You did that, and I am grateful. But now you are under arrest, traitor, and I shall carry out your sentence. You will be reunited with your family as promised.” Mohk moved forward, raising a foreclaw as he did.

  **

  Dur waited outside the chamber and shook his head when a gurgling scream briefly penetrated the door. He knows he’s not supposed to kill in his chambers, but he does it anyway. They’re all bad, but this particular Nell takes arrogance to a new level, he thought before summoning a cleaning bot with his handheld.

  The traitor had been a naïve fool. Any bargain entered into with Lord Mohk almost always ended poorly for everyone except Lord Mohk. The Ruam vessel he’d delivered into Mohk�
��s hands, however, was interesting—very interesting. Not only was its captain able to transform into a beast of legend and almost kill the Nell lord—almost—but they now had the captain’s daughter, and a Ruam daughter, a noble’s daughter, was a prize indeed.

  A few more swipes on the handheld gave him an overhead view of the girl’s holding cell. She looked up, a defiant snarl on her lips, and Dur flinched. He turned off the feed and put the handheld on standby.

  Yes, very interesting.

  **

  On the Ghost Star, Galen sat in the command chair dressed in a maintenance exosuit, a spare exosuit in a case next to him.

  “Are you ready, Hex?”

  Outside, Hex had positioned himself below where the tether claw was latched on to the Ghost Star’s tow bar. “I am in position, Captain Bray.”

  It took Galen a moment to figure out who Hex was talking to until he remembered he was Captain Bray. “Uh, good, Hex. Beginning ascent.”

  Galen sat back in his father’s chair, now his chair, and went over the control surfaces. He had flown the Ghost Star numerous times with Bartrice, the ship’s AI, present to back him up, but this would be the first time he’d done it on manual. Nolo used to do it for fun sometimes, claiming this was how they did it in the old days and that any pilot worth anything should know how to fly this way. Each of his manual runs usually ended with half the crew mad at Nolo and the other half puking their guts out.

  “Let’s see if I’m worth anything.” Using only the docking thrusters, he eased the ship toward the massive Nell cruiser. “This sure is a lot easier when Bartrice is helping out.”

  “Your father preferred this method,” said Hex over the com.

  “I know, I’m just saying.” Galen relaxed a little more, flinching when the comlink crackled, then popped on, filling the command pod with an ear-splitting screech followed by a serious voice.

  “Attention smuggler craft, designation Ghost Star,” said the serious voice. “You are commanded to cease all motion and remain point fixed until secured by our boarding detail.”

  Eyes wide with panic, Galen stopped the Star by throwing the docking thrusters into reverse. “They spotted us!”

  “Yes, Captain Bray, that appears to be the case. As I mentioned, this plan’s chance of success was predicated—”

  “I know!” Galen buried his head in his hands. “What am I going to do?”

  “Might I suggest we run?”

  “I can’t leave Trem on that ship.”

  “I am afraid you must if you wish to survive. Might I also suggest you make up your mind speedily, as a squadron of arcships has been dispatched?”

  Looking out the viewplate, Galen could see arcships pouring out of a large launch port like enraged zipas swarming from their hive. “Cut it!”

  Outside the vessel, Hex lifted his blade appendage and sawed into the tether. The huge cable was composed of countless smaller cables or threads that snapped and straightened like dried bota noodles when cut.

  “Hurry, Hex,” said Galen.

  “I am almost through,” said Hex as the tether split and drifted away from Bartrice. “Tether has been severed.”

  “Okay, get in here and get Bartrice back online so she can take us into tripspace,” said Galen. “I’ll do my best to keep us moving until you do.”

  “Yes, Captain. Good luck.”

  “Thanks. I’m going to need it.”

  **

  Trem sat up on her bunk when the cell door opened and a dour woman dressed in white entered with a cloth-covered tray. A guard stared nervously from the hallway. Trem recognized him as the one she’d kneed in the groin when she first came on the Lingering Death. Trem waved. The guard did not wave back.

  “My Lord Mohk commands that you be fed,” said the woman. “He doesn’t want you dying. Yet.”

  “I don’t care what your stupid Mohk wants. I’m not eating!”

  “I understand,” said the woman, glancing at the splattered stew on the wall opposite Trem’s bunk. “That’s why we’re trying something different.” She reached down and removed the cloth from the tray revealing a fluid-filled bag and some clear tubing.

  Trem’s eyes narrowed. “What’s that?”

  “Dinner.”

  Before Trem could object, she heard a click from the guard’s rifer and felt a stinging sensation spread throughout her body and knock her back onto the bunk. As her consciousness faded, an alarm started blaring in the hallway. Trem smiled. Galen.

  Chapter Three

  Galen powered up the main engines. Here goes everything. He thrust the steerstick full forward and watched as the dazzling stars visible through the viewplate turned into sloppy streaks of light. His vessel had gone from zero to just below light speed in a blink. Fast, for sure, but not fast enough to outrun the pursuing arcships. “How’s it looking, Hex?”

  A deck below, Hex was hovering outside of the node and scanning the inside of the space with a snake cam. “Not well. The traitor, Regor, removed two key components of the ship’s AI. We will not be going into tripspace anytime soon.”

  “Snat!” said Galen. “We’ve got at least forty arcships on our tail. Can’t you do something?”

  “Perhaps. Weapons have been disabled. I shall attempt to cobble together a rudimentary ship’s consciousness that can jump us into tripspace.”

  “Do it!”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  Several bolts of white-hot plasma streaked past the viewplates. Galen had received his first and most likely last warning shot. He punched at the shield trigger, but nothing happened. “Hex! Where are my shields?”

  Hex’s voice crackled over the com. “Apologies. Try them again.”

  Galen flicked the shield trigger and was greatly relieved when a coating of preplasma spread over the surface of the ship. The arcships opened fire, and the Ghost Star shuddered and rocked with the impact of every bolt on her hull. Galen knew his ship could hold up for a while, but it was only a matter of time and distance before the cruisers opened fire with their big guns. A direct hit from one of those would knock the Ghost Star out of commission, if not destroy her outright. Galen glanced at the tripspace vidscreen, which featured Mael’s deadly gravity well on its matrix. Don’t worry, I didn’t forget about you.

  **

  Lord Mohk strode angrily onto the command deck of the Lingering Death, followed by Dur. The Nell colonel from the boarding party turned away.

  “Report,” said Mohk.

  A young midlieutenant snapped to attention. “Lord Mohk! The smuggler vessel has severed the tether and is evading our second squadron. Our boltfire is having little effect on the vessel’s shielding.”

  Mohk watched intently as the small freighter wove in and out of the swarm of arcships with relative ease. At one point two of the arcships collided with each other and produced a fireball that made everyone on the command deck wince.

  “He is gifted, I’ll give him that,” said Mohk. “The question is, Colonel, why is there a ‘he’ on that ship? Did you not tell me you and your men searched it thoroughly?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “And yet, there is a pilotless vessel running circles around my arcships.”

  The colonel had broken out into a full sweat at this point, and those who were standing or working near him when Lord Mohk walked in were now a minimum of ten feet away.

  “Lord Mohk, it is my theory that either the autopilot was somehow activated or someone was able to get on board the vessel after we had departed.”

  Mohk moved deliberately toward the now quivering colonel, stopping within striking distance. “Somehow? Someone? Those are never good words to use when you’re trying to make a convincing argument, Colonel. Your theory is beyond stupid. An autopilot that flies with such skill, the fact that we’re nowhere near civilization—I don’t think you have a leg to stand on.” Mohk stepped forward and, with a swipe of his foreclaw, severed the colonel’s left leg above the knee.

  The colonel cried out, then colla
psed to the ground, clutching his leg. A tech jumped up and, after receiving a nod from Mohk, used his belt as a tourniquet to stop the eruption of blood.

  “Take him to the infirmary,” said Mohk, turning away. “But under no circumstance are the meds to reattach his leg . . . yet.”

  The colonel gasped. “Thank you for your mercy, my lord.”

  “Everyone makes mistakes, colonel, and you are more useful to me with two legs. Still, a little suffering always helps to drive the lesson home.”

  “Y-yes, my lord.”

  Mohk sniffed, then walked to the viewplate. “I’ve had enough of this,” said Mohk. “Is he outside the safe zone?”

  “Just inside it, Lord Mohk,” said the midlieutenant. “He’s still too close for us to use our blast cannon or the smart nukes.

  “Instruct the ships to drive the smuggling vessel into the kill zone.”

  **

  Galen couldn’t help feeling giddy as he flew the Ghost Star in and around the arcships like it was second nature to him. Years of practice in the battle sim were paying off, and he finally understood what Nolo had meant. Any pilot worth anything prefers it this way.

  The arcships broke off their attack and turned back toward the Lingering Death. Something’s not right.

  Galen frowned. “Hex? You got something for me?”

  “Yes.” All the command panels lit up and then went dark again. “No.”

  “Keep working—”

  Galen paused. Out in the distance, a cloud of forty small lights was headed directly for his ship. Odd, he thought. Galen hit the maxmag button on the chair’s vidscreen and enlarged the image. It was the arcships arranged in tight formation, all firing their bolt cannons. The Ghost Star was in for a world of hurt if he didn’t get her out of the way. “Hex! Secure yourself—now!”