Starcrasher (Shades Space Opera Book 1)

by Rock Forsberg

  ON TREDD’S nod Eddie swiped up the side of the control panel with three fingers. The quantum engine groaned, and the screen filled with static of red, orange, yellow and white. As the stars disappeared from view, Tredd tucked himself snug against the back of his leather seat. Evie and Bells had gone with Berossus to see the engine during a pinch – a sight not quite as breathtaking as the view outside, but quite remarkable in its own right.

  ‘What if Yedda, the star, moves to our point of arrival?’ Tredd asked, as waves of colour started moving on screen.

  ‘You wouldn’t even notice,’ Eddie said, without lifting his gaze from the screen.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Your atoms would be scattered and merged with the star itself so fast in the instant we’d emerge, you’d have no time to feel anything,’ Eddie said as the view exploded into a slipstream.

  Of course. Tredd swallowed, and found himself clutching the armrest – as if that would help. He eased his grip, leaned his head back against the headrest, and watched the streaks of colours swirl on the screen. Interstellar travel had its risks, and these circumstances multiplied them, but this time Tredd was more than willing to take the risk.

  They waited momentarily in silence for their arrival in the unknown. Then it all started slowing down, the stars settling down in the background, and the colours fading back to black. In a moment the view was back to normal.

  ‘Thank the stars,’ Tredd said with a sigh of relief.

  Ahead of them, at a safe distance of almost half a light hour, shone Yedda. At the outset, the yellow star looked just like its sister Moola, but on a closer observation one could see that it had become just so slightly asymmetrical, with a bulge on its backside as it continued to accelerate.

  ‘Planet Un is still around,’ Eddie said, looking down at the sensor output, ‘but it’s behind us on a twisted orbit, being left in the cold, waiting for the supernova. The other two planets are gone, engulfed by Yedda.’

  As far as Tredd knew, those planets were uninhabited rocks, but even still the loss struck him. Whole planets were gone, and it was only the start. Tredd stared at the points on the screen, contemplating in silence.

  Coming back to the present, he asked, ‘Any ships around?’

  Eddie switched the main screen to show the scan. ‘I see three – no two, one just pinched.’

  Tredd realised they might have been too late. Tommy had probably gone with the device. ‘Either of any interest to us?’

  ‘Both are Goodman-class cargo ships, coming out from Un, probably looking to pinch as soon as they clear the planet.’

  There was still a chance. A cargo ship like a Goodman could easily carry a large device such as the Starcrasher. ‘Let’s move.’

  Eddie turned the ship towards the planet Un and the ships and engaged full propulsion, making the ship shudder. He brought two timers up on the screen: one showing the time until the Goodman cargo ships could pinch, the other indicating the time it took for their Rutger to get close enough for a scan. The numbers on both were almost identical. ‘It’s gonna be tight.’

  Tredd swept his brow. Even if they could scan them in time to find Tommy, there was no way of stopping them from pinching. Or perhaps there was? As the final seconds melted from the counters, Tredd leaned on the controls and flipped open a distress call. It was their only chance.

  The counters hit zero.

  The ships pinched.

  ‘The bastards ignored our distress call,’ Tredd said, and ran his hands through his hair.

  ‘Wouldn’t have mattered anyway,’ Eddie said. ‘We got the scan. There’s no sign of Tommy or the Starcrasher device. The Goodman ships were just two legitimate haulers full of Un-mud.’

  Tredd hit the armrest. Tommy is gone. I’ve lost him. Of course, he could still be down on the planet Un. It was unlikely though, because the stars were about to crash, and if Tommy was the one who had made it happen, he would have made sure he got out of the way in time. ‘Let’s go down,’ he said.

  Eddie turned to Tredd with an incredulous look. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Why not? It’s our only chance.’

  ‘Your call…’ Eddie turned back to the controls and started steering the Rutger towards a trajectory that would settle them in orbit around Un.

  Tredd took a deep breath and leaned back. It was a risky plan, but it was their only chance. Suddenly a new dot appeared on the screen. Tredd tensed. ‘Hey, what’s that there?’

  Eddie selected the dot, launching a small pop-up screen with information on the ship it signified. ‘It looks like a Craftliner, a hugely popular small escort ship. No space for cargo on it I’m afraid.’

  The ship flew straight towards them, and passed relatively close on its way away from Un.

  ‘Did you get a scan?’ Tredd asked.

  ‘I did…’ Eddie said, and pointed at the screen with a solemn expression. ‘It’s him. The registered pilot is our Tommy.’

  ‘After him!’ Tredd clenched his fists.

  ‘Roger that.’

  Eddie spun the Rutger around and accelerated after the Craftliner. It didn’t take long for them to match its slow speed, and soon they were catching up. As they moved in, Tredd pondered the situation. Tommy Huckey was really here, in Yedda of all places. It had been over twenty years, and now he was almost within Tredd’s reach. The man he had hated for so long, the man who once was his friend.

  ‘I don’t believe they have the device though,’ Eddie said as he adjusted the propulsion with his left hand and browsed the information screen with his right. ‘I can’t see anything on the small ship that would have the power to create an interference big enough to move stars.’

  ‘Blast it!’ Tredd hit his thigh with his fist, and thought about the options. They couldn’t have left the device on Yedda… unless it was something that had been consumed by the process, but that made no sense. Perhaps the device used some kind of new technology and was invisible to their sensors. ‘Wait a minute, you said “they” – who’s he with?’

  ‘Let me bring up the visuals.’

  Tredd looked at the screen, and with disbelief, said, ‘A girl?’

  The screen showed two identity cards that the Rutger’s computers had synced from the Dawn Network. The first card showed a picture of a heavily built bald man, and the summary data read ‘Tommy Huckey, 38 years old, entrepreneur’. If one was not jailed, entrepreneur was a standard codename for an enterprising criminal; everyone else used the proper moniker of their vocation. The other card on the screen had a low-quality picture of an innocent-looking, round-faced blonde girl, but there was no data about her, not even a name.

  Tredd thought the girl resembled Jill as a child, but shook the thought away. ‘Why is there a girl with him, and why is there no data about her?’

  Eddie shrugged. ‘Beats me. Everyone should be in the system. Well, kids sometimes go without a Dawn Network ID if they’re born on a planet and don’t do interstellar travel.’

  ‘But she is travelling.’

  ‘I know. Perhaps it’s an android?’

  ‘Would the system pick up an android as a person?’

  ‘No, it wouldn’t,’ Eddie said, and scratched his neck. ‘Well, it wouldn’t be the first time something’s out of whack in the big cheese. I’ll look into it.’

  ‘Where are they headed?’ Tredd asked.

  Eddie flipped through a few screens and made some projections. He tapped the panel and breathed in through his teeth. ‘Can’t find anything that would fit their current course, nor any indication of them preparing to pinch.’

  ‘Let’s get closer.’

  Eddie nodded and set the Rutger to match the direction of the Craftliner, like slipstreaming behind with higher velocity so that they would catch up. Numbers on the screen indicated the distance. They came down fast, and both Eddie and Tredd followed them as if in a trance.

  ‘By now they should see that we’re following them,’ Eddie said, breaking the silence.

&
nbsp; ‘But they’re still on the same course.’

  ‘They are.’

  ‘Do they have any firepower?’

  ‘No, it’s the base model – no upgrades.’

  ‘Good. We should have an edge then.’ Tredd looked up at the weapons control board and thanked himself for getting those missile launchers. ‘Open the communications channel. I want to talk to him.’

  ‘Rog—’ Eddie started, but did not finish what he was going to say. Instead he gasped. ‘They disappeared.’

  Tredd looked up to the radar.

  The Craftliner was gone.

  The cards on the screen folded away.

  ‘Did they pinch?’ Tredd asked, confused.

  ‘It looks like they did, but it’s weird…’ Eddie said, looking down to the dashboard, feverishly flipping screens, settings and controls about.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘They weren’t in the proper funnel yet, nor did we detect the energy wave from their quantum engines. Perhaps—’

  Eddie was cut off again, this time by the colourful sensation of travelling through the pinched layers of space-time. They both leaned back against their seats by reflex. Waves of colour exploded into a slipstream, then slowed down, and turned back to black.

  After they came out through the pinch, the radar showed a different solar system. On the screen just ahead of them a star glowed, emitting visible light in a rather peculiar greenish tint of yellow. Two planets orbited around it, one on the outer rim of the Goldilocks zone, and the other one a cold little rock far from the star. The radar did not supply any names for the planets or the star.

  Tredd was baffled. ‘Did you pinch it?’

  Eddie shook his head. ‘It wasn’t me…’ He checked the gauges, pulled up the location data, and said, ‘It was a pinch for sure, but we didn’t initiate it.’

  Tredd saw the Craftliner on the screen. It was headed towards the closest planet. Scanners detected no other ships.

  ‘There he goes. Wait, where are we?’ Tredd asked, looking at the visual map on the screen.

  ‘Looks like we pinched to uncharted territory – far outside the Dawn Alliance-controlled space.’

  Tredd took a deep breath. ‘How is that even possible?’

  ‘We couldn’t have done it ourselves, but I don’t think they did either. There’s no way a Craftliner can hold enough energy to pinch this big.’ Eddie peered at the screens in front of him; his eyebrows pointed down like a living chevron.

  ‘So,’ Tredd said, wondering about the options. ‘Was it a wormhole?’

  ‘I doubt it was – it wasn’t charted. The likelihood of the existence of a natural pinch like this, an uncharted wormhole, is almost zero. It is a possibility though. The other, I think, more likely option, is some force outside the two ships pinching for us or holding it in place. The energy required to keep something like that up for two ships to run through though… I don’t know.’ Eddie shook his head.

  The Craftliner was heading towards the closest planet. ‘Looks like Tommy didn’t travel through the pinch by accident. Let’s follow him.’

  ‘Roger that,’ Eddie said. ‘Remember, we only have one short pinch left.’

  Tredd realised that in order for them to get back, even to a space station on the outskirts of the Dawn Alliance-controlled space, they would need to run on propulsion for weeks, perhaps months. The movement was not a problem, but he was concerned whether they had enough energy to sustain life on the ship.

  ‘Computer, please calculate the optimal time to the nearest space station using all of our energy reserves.’ Tredd looked up at the red and black wires running above them, as if they were part of the omniscient computer – perhaps they were.

  In a second, the computer responded in its usual low and masculine voice with the ever-weird accent, ‘Pinching to J-00185AXE first, then using maximum amount of fuel for acceleration and deceleration, excluding any contingency, would result in a travel time of 256 days. The recommended contingency would add fifteen days and two hours.’

  ‘Oh my,’ Eddie said.

  More than two hundred days to get back – even with a pinch – that’s how far they had stumbled. Tredd faced a decision. He wanted to get Tommy, but following him would mean that they would use up more of their energy, making the return trip even slower.

  ‘What do you want to do?’ Eddie asked, like he was hearing his thoughts.

  For Tredd, there was only one option. He pointed at the screen. ‘We’ll follow him.’

  Eddie scratched his neck. ‘Who’s going to tell that to the crew?’

  ‘I guess it’s my job. If we don’t get to the device, no one will, and you know what that means.’

  Eddie moved the visualisations around and brought up a map that showed the Craftliner entering the orbit of the planet. ‘I would guess they are about to land.’

  ‘Follow them. I will ask Berossus to prepare the landing vessel.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  EVIE SAT by the table in the galley, a cup of Berdunamian tea warming her palms, trying to digest what she had just heard. Berossus was clicking his knuckles as Bells asked the captain, ‘It takes how long to get back?’

  Tredd had just explained to the crew his hypothesis of what had happened, and where they were. He also told them about the ship that had travelled through the pinch just before them, and was heading down to the unnamed planet below.

  He pushed his arms straight against the tabletop, and said, ‘At least 260 days – or more, depending on how much energy we use.’

  ‘Stuck in the Rut, right?’ Evie said, looking around with a smile, but no one laughed. She receded and took a sip of her tea.

  Evie’s joy was sincere, because for her a long trip like this was a welcome relief – to be away from it all for more than half a year. She didn’t mind staying in the close quarters of a small ship. Her handheld comms terminal catered to her intellectual needs, though it was unlikely to have any sort of a real-time network connection this far from civilisation. What the ship didn’t have – a lot of people – was the best thing she could ever hope for. She was away from her pursuers, from her past, from everything.

  ‘So we can’t just pinch back?’ Bells asked, leaning against the counter.

  Eddie, who sat on the table opposite Evie, turned around to Bells behind him and said, ‘We can pinch safely a certain distance, for example to a star called J-00185AXE, but that is already included in the estimate. There’s no way to recharge out here, and trying to pinch the whole distance with what we’ve got would be a certain suicide. We’re just so damn far… My assumption is that it was a one-way wormhole, an uncharted one, something that perhaps our target knew.’

  As Eddie turned back to the table, Bells picked up a glass of water and leaned against the counter in silence.

  ‘I wanted to let you know that we have decided to go after the Craftliner,’ Tredd said. ‘We suspect it holds the device we’re looking for. We have made it this far and are the only ones who can stop it. If we don’t get it, no one will.’

  ‘Stop what?’ Berossus asked, wiping his mouth with a tissue.

  ‘Potential destruction of the universe,’ Tredd said without a flinch.

  Everyone stopped. They had seen it happen with Yedda and Moola. Evie remembered Inanna’s question about what would happen if all stars came crashing together and Tredd’s unconvincing response to calm her down. This was why they were after the device, to save the universe from ending.

  Bells sat the glass on the counter with a clank. ‘How are you going to do it?’

  ‘We’ll go down, identify the device, and disable it,’ Tredd said, emphasising each step with his hand. Squinting his eyes, he continued, ‘If needed, we disable the enemy too.’

  Evie remembered telling Tredd that the past was gone and the only thing real was the present moment. She realised that most of all it applied to herself. What she needed to do now was to take the charge of making her future, and this was her chance. In Momentum 6 yo
u could pick roles and missions from an abundant list. In real life, at least for someone outside the military establishment, it didn’t happen like that. She had the experience in the game – now she could do it for real.

  ‘Everyone in?’ Tredd asked.

  For a moment everyone was quiet. Evie looked around for support, and saw it in Berossus’s eyes. ‘I’m in!’ she said.

  Berossus nodded in agreement. Eddie nodded too.

  ‘Sounds great,’ Bells said, pushing herself away from the counter and towards the door, ‘as long as I’m not needed down there.’

  ‘You will stay in the Rutger with Berossus,’ Tredd said. Everyone seemed to be in agreement. ‘That’s it then. Prepare the landing shuttle, we are going terrestrial.’

  THE RUTGER ORBITED the grey planet where the Craftliner had landed. Even though the planet was in the zone where life could exist, it showed none of it. Most of its surface was covered under thick snow and ice, overcast by a ragged sheet of clouds. According to the ship’s sensors, the current ground temperatures ranged from minus eighty to plus five degrees Celsius. From afar the planet had looked like a snowball made from dirty, sand-filled snow, but you could see that the patches of dirt were in fact mountains, some of them dozens of kilometres tall, and between them lay vast, smooth white valleys.

  The Craftliner was designed to land on planets, something the Rutger couldn’t do. Moving in and out of planets was energy intensive, and most ships designed for the vacuum of space had too much mass on them. As a nimble two-seater, the Craftliner was an exception. The Rutger, however, was equipped with a small landing craft.

  Eddie had pinpointed the Craftliner’s landing spot near the equator, on the edge of a vast valley beside a tall mountainous area, where the unnamed star would still cast its light for an estimated one and a half hours before a night of almost twenty-one hours.

  Tredd, Eddie and Evie boarded the landing craft, while Berossus and Bells stayed back on the Rutger. Berossus did not want to go down on a planet, and as someone with experience in running a ship like this, Tredd had appointed him to make decisions while he was away. Bells said she needed to do some studies and darted off to the infirmary before Evie had a chance to say anything.