Starcaster

by J. N. Chaney

  “A Spindle?” Levitt asked, his voice mellow, calm.

  “That’s what it’s called, sir. Holds a high value for the Nyctus, judging by how hot things got when we broke for the clear,” Kira said.

  Levitt merely grunted at that, watching as ship traffic poured in and around the Nyctus base. “Stop right there. Back up five seconds, freeze, isolate,” he told the AI. “Captain? Are you seeing what I am?”

  Captain Samuel peered at the screen and nodded, slowly. “I’m no expert in Nyctus command structure—”

  Levitt snorted at that. Nobody understood the Nyctus forces beyond a bare minimum. Their secrecy was a strength.

  “—but a ship accompanied by six fighters and what looks to be a troop carrier? I’d say that’s a jump command post, up close and personal. There’s an admiral on board that Spindle, or whatever passes for one in the Nyctus Navy.”

  “Concur,” Levitt said, and his voice took on an oddly formal tone. “Do you agree?” He fixed Kira with his dark eyes, waiting.

  “I—well, I do, sir. At a bare minimum, it’s something high-value, and it confirms my suspicions about this Spindle. It’s not a simple relay, or a hot cot. I’d say we have a regional command,” Kira concluded.

  “Agreed. Kick it upstairs, then. Take Stellers with you to Fleet Command,” Samuel said.

  “Sir, um—” Kira began. Her hesitance was born of training. You didn’t walk into Fleet every day, and certainly not with intel that could change local history.

  “You’ll be fine. They’re smart people who want to win. Tell them the truth, and answer everything they ask. And let Stellers run free with his thoughts—I know, it’s against every instinct you have, but do it. They need to know ’casters are useful, and that any victory is going to come by using magic as a hammer against the Nyctus.” He looked at the display again, where a Nyctus ship was imploding, courtesy of Thorn’s stunning power. “Leave within the hour. Dismissed.”

  “Sir,” Kira said, saluting.

  “One more item, Wixcombe.” Commander Levitt held up a hand, stopping her. “Did you feel like the Nyctus knew you were coming?”

  She considered it, then shook her head. “No, sir. Not at all.”

  Levitt smiled at Captain Samuel, who dipped his head in agreement. “Told you. That’s our second break, and believe me, we’re going to drive a fleet through that crack if they’ll let us.”

  “Should I report on this, ah, break, sir? Or breaks, though I don’t know what the first one is,” Kira admitted.

  “No need. I’ll send this along immediately via fleetnet. And as to the first break, that happened the moment Thorn Stellers was able to…to do what he does,” Commander Levitt said cryptically.

  Kira knew not to go fishing for information, so she followed her instincts, saluted again, and spun on her heel. She needed her go-bag, Thorn, and time to think. The war wasn’t just around them. It was waiting in the future, and she knew her role would be right in the thick of it all.

  Their transfer pilot was a dour ginger rockhopper named Argyle; his spacer’s tan ended just above his pale, red eyebrows, making him appear to be in a constant state of squinting. Raised on the big asteroids around Tau Ceti, he had long fingers and hands, and when he spoke, it was in the clipped accent of his home system.

  Thorn said little, watching Argyle work the panel with near robotic efficiency, but then they launched, and the silence stretched, grew fat, and then grew odd.

  Argyle began to hum, and it was so tuneless, it was an affront to their ears.

  “You okay?” Thorn asked.

  Argyle gave them a sly grin, then flicked his eyes at the screen. “Two minutes, nine seconds. A near record.”

  “A record? For being out of tune?” Kira asked.

  Argyle snorted. “Close. For tolerating me being incapable of being, um...melodious. At all. It’s a bet I make with myself, sort of as a way to make passengers feel comfortable.”

  “You mean your singing is worse than the chair?” Thorn asked, looking pointedly at the hard seat he was in. “I slept in an oil reclamation field. This is worse.”

  Argyle laughed, and Kira joined. “Older model shuttle, but don’t let her interior fool you. The seats might be utter shit, but the engines are flawless.”

  Thorn’s face twitched as they finished their jump, and the stars shifted. “Good, because we’ve got company.”

  “How did you—shit, two contacts—no, I make one, just a weird signal,” Argyle said, fingers flying over keys as he sent FleetNet a sitrep. The shuttle was ninety thousand klicks out from a hab wheel that dwarfed anything Thorn had ever seen; around it, silver points of light indicated a fighter defense that looked serious.

  But they were too far away to help.

  “One is better than two,” Thorn said, feeling a calm sweep through him, welcome and—it gave him courage. No, confidence. That was the term. “Confidence,” he said.

  “What?” Kira asked. “Bad time for affirmations, Thorn. Gotta fight.”

  “I am,” Thorn said.

  Argyle looked askance at them both, wrestling the stick to no avail. “I need time to launch missiles on a longer arc. Can’t get at that ship from directly behind us; it’ll sidestep and we’re screwed.”

  The shuttle was fast, but it maneuvered like a brick. The Nyctus ship was closing at a stunning velocity. Whoever the pilot was, they’d picked the right vector. They would have a firing solution on the shuttle in less than ten seconds, far too distant to use the ON ships as active partners in the small shootout.

  “Thorn?” Kira asked him, but her voice was miles away. He was falling inward, letting the howl of stars fill his mind as he looked, touched, and sensed everything about the Nyctus pilot—

  —and there she was.

  Scared. Angry. Seasoned.

  She was a veteran, and her quiet rage at being sent on the hunt alone percolated through her thoughts, poisonous and ripe to use. Thorn felt—then saw—a long series of shells—no, combat medals. She was decorated.

  He reached in and bent her will to him. So many kills. So long an ink trail, dark with your success. How bright your lights flash in the waves, striking fear in the hearts of the landwalkers. This is beneath you.

  Yes! It i—the Nyctus pilot began to agree, then clipped her thoughts with a blast of willpower so hard it felt like Thorn had struck steel, face first.

  All that space. Open. Like the waves, where you belong, Thorn said.

  Psychic laughter, then a wave of hate. Clever. Not clever enough. My—a word, not translated, but an image of a flaming rock—seeks you even now. The beauty of my math is beyond your understanding.

  Try me, waverider. You may be surprised at what I know.

  There is no place for your kind among the stars, human. You are as children, without purpose of path. Beaching yourselves on the reality of galactic power. I will—what is this?

  Thorn turned an eye to Argyle, who grinned. “Birds away. Glad you kept it talking.”

  Those are called missiles. Harlequins, to be exact. Heluva pop. Goodbye. You will never taste the waves again, Thorn said, as the missiles stuck home, and the Nyctus ship was reduced to cooling gases in a cloud.

  And then the cloud was gone, too.

  “Shuttle, nice shooting. Didn’t see the squiddies in this close. They follow you?” came a voice on the comm.

  “One did. Not for long. I’ve got the ’casters aboard. Permission to approach?” Argyle asked.

  “Granted, and we’ll fly you in. Welcome to Fleet, Starcasters.”

  “Glad to be here,” Kira said. “Even more glad Stellers is here.”

  “I’ll bet. Follow along, kids. We land in two minutes,” the pilot said. “I’m Torval, by the way. That’s Kuprinov over there, flying like she’s on vacation.”

  Kuprinov told Torval where he could stick her foot, but nicely.

  “Thanks for the company. Shuttle out,” Argyle said, smiling. “Fun group.”

  “Let’s see how
fun they are after we dump our reports,” Kira muttered, but then Fleet got closer, Argyle got busy, and Thorn looked like he wanted to sleep, the lucky bastard.

  Sometimes, Kira hated being senior to him. Like now.

  “Stellers, I can’t help but notice that you’re a bit confused as to what’s happening,” Admiral Maynard said in a slow, matronly drawl. She fit her voice. Whatever Thorn had been expecting, she wasn’t it. Short, slightly plump, and with the air of a grandmother, her bright green eyes and silver hair were offset with freckles, a warm smile, and a calm demeanor. She wore little insignia on her uniform, and carried nothing but a battered green notebook with an actual ink pen clipped to the cover.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Thorn answered.

  They were walking along the second ring, alone, and Thorn got the feeling that was by design. Every other area at Fleet had been a hive of activity. Here, there was nothing except the stunning view—the entire wall was clear and looked out over the streams of naval traffic. Every few meters, a small fruit tree or flowering bush grew, mounted to the wall in a bulbous pot. The air smelled more alive than anything Thorn had experienced onboard a ship, and after a moment of walking, Thorn felt himself relax.

  “Yes, it’s designed to make you comfortable. I’m an admiral, not an interrogator, though some of my colleagues are both. I prefer more archaic methods of planning,” Maynard said. If she was faking the whole grandma persona, it was damned good. An air of calm surrounded her, even when she lifted the green notebook and showed it to Thorn. “I’m told you have one of these.”

  Thorn was confused, but only for an instant. “Ah, yes, ma’am.” He pulled his talisman and handed it to her. “I didn’t realize you were—”

  “An officer cursed with some magical ability? Yes, I am—have been since well before such things were accepted as real. I’m more than twice your age, and I remember a time when magicians were regarded as hustlers. Or worse.”

  She took the talisman, feeling its heft. “A lot of power here. And in you,” she said. “Where did it come from?” She held the book out to him.

  Thorn took it and tucked it away, then he followed as the admiral began walking again. Outside, a small warship flashed three coded lights and burned away at maximum acceleration, only to be replaced by two more identical craft. Fleet was busy.

  “Cotswolds. My home. Or, it was, ma’am.”

  “And the book came from?”

  “The crater of my home, ma’am. It was the…the only thing I could save. Ma’am,” Thorn said.

  A long pause ensued, then the admiral stopped and waved at a larger ship out in the black, its running lights blinking blue. “Fueling. But what they don’t know is, there’s not enough fuel in the universe to do what we need.”

  “I respectfully disagree, ma’am,” Thorn offered.

  She lifted a brow, but her face remained—amused. “Please, explain.”

  Thorn said nothing but turned and faced the ship, now a klick away, stationary. It was a missile frigate of newer design, some two hundred meters in length. Thorn stared hard at the trio of fueling lights, their constant blue glare pointed slightly away, toward the star.

  The lights turned green, then red. Then one turned blue, and two remained green. Then they all went dark for a short interval, before returning to their calm, steady blue.

  Admiral Maynard stood utterly still, watching Thorn.

  “Ma’am, if you’ll watch the ship?” he said, sounding distracted.

  “I will.”

  Thorn leaned toward the clear wall until his forehead touched, hands limp at his sides. His face was devoid of any expression, save a small furrowing of his brow, but that faded as something began to tickle at Admiral Maynard’s awareness.

  The ship moved. One meter toward them.

  Then it moved back.

  Thorn broke his concentration with an apologetic grin. “We don’t need fuel, ma’am. We need people like me. And we need a lot of things to throw at the Nyctus.”

  Maynard let a breath hiss from her nose, eyes bright with a pastiche of fugitive emotions. “Sweet merciful—I wish he could be here to see this.”

  “Who, ma’am?”

  “Einstein. Albert. An old scientist. He would have loved this, I think,” she said, grinning broadly. “He knew the universe was wild and unknown, and this would—well, it confirms that no one knows everything. Or even anything, really. When did you learn that you could manipulate large objects?”

  “When I was getting Kira—excuse me, Lieutenant Commander Kira Wixcombe—her ship was being chased and brainjacked, and I sort of, ah, ended that operation by the Nyctus,” Thorn said.

  Admiral Maynard regarded her right hand, where a thick white scar crossed the entire back and thumb. “My own present from the Nyctus. Shrapnel from a magtrain engine. We were hit bringing in ore from the Lookout Mountains on Antioch. I was one of three survivors.”

  “On the train, ma’am?”

  She gave a small, sad shake of her head. “Antioch. My children died there, frozen in an icy crater. We never went back to mine there again. Too many ghosts. And bones.” She sighed, then squared on Thorn, her jaw set. “Until now, we’ve been thinking in big terms. Huge fleets. Massive set battles over systems with dozens of worlds. An entire press, front to front, and we’ve been losing. We’ve given up nearly two hundred light years’ worth of breathing room, and all it’s gotten us is more empty hulls and a lot of death notices to sailors who aren’t coming back.”

  “How do I fit in, ma’am? I’ll do anything you ask. I’m not scared of dying. I was more or less dead for a long time.”

  “We’ve all felt like that. I’ll tell you a secret, Thorn, although admirals aren’t supposed to have feelings. I ache for my children. For my husband. My home. I have since the day it happened, and I know you understand. That’s why we’re here, discussing this. Because you’re going to fight a kind of war—for now—that goes against everything we’ve tried to this point. Where we went big, and failed, we will now go small in hopes of two things,” she said.

  “I’ll do my best, ma’am.”

  “I know you will, because I asked you, and because you want the same thing we do. The two things that I want to see are a victory and fear.” The Admiral angled her head to look up at Thorn. “Do you understand?”

  “I do, ma’am, because I felt it. Victory makes sense because, well, we want to win. But fear—that, I get. You want the Nyctus to lay awake, looking at the skies and wondering if this is the night the fire comes down.”

  “Exactly. Let them die inside every time something streaks across the sky. Let them stew in their fear until it gnaws them to a husk and their officers start making mistakes. Weaken the root, and the tree falls. That’s what we’re going to do, and you’re the axe. You leave with Wyant and Wixcombe in four hours, and you’re not going to attack the Nyctus command post.”

  “I’m not? Uh, ma’am?” Thorn said. He was in new territory, but a thrill began seeping through his bones at the prospect of a real fight. And real victory.

  “No.” Maynard pointed lazily toward a red star that was pulsing with fiery light. “There. No planets, no main bases, but something a lot more…personal.”

  Thorn stared, trying to recall the star’s name, but failing. He grunted, a wicked grin creeping onto his face. In that moment, he was far gone from the uncertain officer who’d stepped into the long corridor with a friendly admiral. “Family.”

  “Yes. In a manner of speaking. The Nyctus are highly structured in their family groups, and fiercely dependent on their own history. There’s a…repository, of memories, tended by young Nyctus officers who are being trained to remember.”

  “Indoctrinated, ma’am. That’s the word I would use,” Thorn said, with respect.

  “A far better word. We think some three dozen elite Nyctus families have their best and brightest there, sort of a finishing school for a race who are convinced that killing thirty billion humans is their birthright. I want you
to crack the station open, spill them into hard vacuum, and film it. Can you do that for me, Lieutenant Stellers? Can you do it as a first step?”

  Thorn turned and saluted. “I can, and I will, ma’am.”

  Admiral Maynard stared up at him and smiled. “What are your thoughts right now, in one word, Lieutenant?”

  Thorn didn’t hesitate. “Finally.”

  19

  “Three jumps, three attacks, and hopefully, making the squiddies ink in their pants,” Mol said.

  “If they wear pants,” Kira added.

  “Just get me in front of them,” Thorn said.

  He was a different man than he’d been days earlier. After seeing the hope—real, open hope—in Admiral Maynard’s eyes, Thorn understood that he wasn’t just an expensive tool to be thrown into the Nyctus war plans.

  In reality, Thorn was the best, last chance humanity had to push back, and the weight of it sat easily on his shoulders. If they could succeed, then the war moved on. If he failed, Thorn likely wouldn’t be around to see it all come apart.

  “We’re an hour out from the…I think it translates as End Lesson, but that might be a bit shaky,” Mol said, reading a datastream Trixie was scrolling up for them as final prep.

  “The translation is solid to nine of ten, Mol,” Trixie said.

  “Why not just say ninety percent? Or ninetieth percentile?” Thorn asked.

  “She’s going through this dialect thing. Caught her playing old earth videos from something called the Victorian Era, and she’s been insufferable ever since,” Mol said, rolling her eyes.

  “M’lady,” Trixie intoned, “my reactor is optimal. Ready for turndown in three—two—one—we’re silent and cold. Per your instructions, I’m cutting all radiation.”

  Kira snorted, then tipped an imaginary cap. She’d seen the vids as well.