Starcrasher (Shades Space Opera Book 1)

by Rock Forsberg

  Evie shivered with excitement. They were in uncharted territory, about to land on an unknown planet, and she was part of the crew. She had a passing thought that told her to be scared, but she wasn’t. Deep inside she knew that this was what she was supposed to be doing, not running after some skinny entertainers who looked hot but lacked substance. Going to where nobody had gone before, saving the galaxy from evil organisations and their perverse devices – that was something, and not what you’d expect from a Jindalar girl.

  The landing craft was tiny. It had space for only four people in spacesuits. Eddie had told them the sensor indicated a breathable atmosphere, but there might be other hazards against which the suits would protect them. They had pulled the disinfected suits on already in the Rutger, because the landing craft was so tight they couldn’t change in it. Evie sat behind Eddie, who piloted the landing craft. Tredd sat in the front too, leaving the empty seat beside Evie free. Hey great, I’ve extra space here, she thought, but soon realised she couldn’t use it. She was strapped tight in a safety harness as a precaution for bumps in the atmosphere.

  The shuttle detached from the Rutger with a loud bang, followed by a rumble that shook the hull of the shuttle. Evie thought something had gone badly wrong, but was comforted by Eddie, who said it was completely normal in these kinds of little crafts.

  In an instant the Rutger had turned into a small dot, then it disappeared within the starry backdrop as they accelerated towards the planet. The shuttle swayed like a cradle, a comfortable ride. It took only a few moments until they met the atmosphere, and the ride soon lost its grace. The shuttle started trembling and rumbling more and more as it sped through the atmosphere like a burning bullet. Without being locked down in the safety harness, Evie would have been pounded hard against the walls. Even with the harness on, she started to feel very uncomfortable; every muscle in her body was tensed like a loaded spring, even though she knew if something went wrong there was nothing she could do. If the protective layers gave up, the whole tin can would burst open and burn up in a matter of seconds. She had to trust that it wouldn’t.

  Soon the rumble subsided and Evie felt like she could breathe again. The shuttle had decelerated, and then Eddie raised its nose to hover above the planet’s surface at an altitude of around a thousand metres.

  Now that they were below the clouds she could see down to the surface, which was almost completely snowed white on one side, and scarred by tall mountains on the other side as far as the eye could see. Eddie followed the navigations system towards the Craftliner’s landing site.

  ‘There they are, on the left,’ Eddie said as they descended. Evie peered into the outside camera view and saw a small spaceship sitting in the middle of a valley.

  ‘Do you see Tommy or the girl?’ Tredd asked.

  ‘No. For some reason, they’ve disappeared from our scanners. There seems to be a building by the ship though.’

  ‘OK, then,’ Tredd said. ‘Let’s go down and search the ship.’

  As Eddie commenced the landing procedure, Evie thought about what she had just heard. To her it was obvious that the building was the reason for Tommy and the girl being here. The question was what, or who, was inside the building.

  Eddie landed the shuttle by the Craftliner, close to the building, which from the outside looked more like a bunker. Snow flew around as the engines blasted the icy surface. Evie braced for impact, but once they touched down, it was a smooth landing.

  ‘Eddie, you go search the ship first. Evie and I will check out the bunker.’

  They went through the decompression chamber and stepped down to the planet’s icy surface. The snow felt firm under Evie’s boots, and icy particles were whizzing around in the wind. Evie was glad to be wearing a suit, despite the breathable atmosphere. The reading on her head-up display told her it was below minus thirty degrees Celsius, and the wind was blowing at forty kilometres per hour on average. She didn’t want to know what that felt like.

  The gravitational pull of the small planet was only 0.6 g, so she engaged her gravity boots to tackle the wind. Eddie was closing in on the ship, and Tredd had already dashed off towards the bunker. Evie sprinted against the wind to catch up.

  ‘How are you doing, old thief?’ Tredd’s voice sounded in her helmet. Obviously it was targeted at Eddie.

  Evie heard Eddie’s laughter. ‘Too easy to break into this ship. How’s the bunker?’

  The bunker was shaped like a square frustum, perhaps eight metres wide and three metres high. It was dark grey, and while it was partly covered by snow, it was quite well camouflaged to anyone looking at it from far and above, but not to anyone standing right beside it. There were no windows, but there was a doorway – easy to find, because two pairs of footprints went right into it.

  ‘Well, there’s a door here. Tommy and the girl must be inside,’ Tredd said as Evie came about. He looked around for a handle, but couldn’t find one.

  ‘See that panel over there?’ Evie pointed at a panel at the side of the door.

  The panel was like a frame without a painting. Its surface was worn, as if it had been out in the wind for thousands of years. It was unbranded, and could be anything. Inside the frame was a black square roughly the size of Evie’s palm. It was a touch pad or camera, with dozens of potential ways it could be used.

  ‘Looks like it’s locked,’ Tredd said, and wiped snow from atop the panel. ‘Might have to wait for Eddie, see if he can hack it open.’

  Evie stepped up to the panel. Peering at its surface, she could notice a trace, perhaps of a finger, in a form similar to a sigma. If Tommy and the girl had just arrived, they would have opened the lock and left the mark. Evie raised her gloved index finger to the panel. The gloves relayed a cool and smooth feeling to her fingertip – a simulation of what it would have felt like without a glove.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Tredd asked and jumped on her hand. ‘You’ll trigger an alarm!’

  It was too late. She had just completed drawing the sigma on the panel.

  The black panel flashed in red.

  Evie swallowed.

  The door stayed shut.

  ‘You should have waited for Eddie,’ Tredd said, and stood in front of her, his face furious behind the helmet. ‘Never touch a panel at random!’

  ‘It wasn’t—’ She wanted to explain about the trace, and that there was a high likelihood of it being just that, but Tredd cut her off.

  ‘Now they are sure to know we’re here,’ Tredd said, and rifled around the door. He called out on the intercom, ‘Eddie, we need to hack a door here.’

  There was a crack in the intercom, then Eddie’s voice, ‘I’ve just gone in, can you wait for five minutes?’

  Evie was not going to wait for Eddie to rescue them. She was better than that. With her handheld terminal she was sure to hack open a simple old lock. The only problem was that it was strapped on her back inside the suit.

  Minus thirty degrees, huh? It won’t kill me, she thought, and without a second thought, started peeling away her suit.

  She saw Tredd shouting, but heard nothing without the helmet. Flying particles of ice stung her skin like icy needles and the cold wind took her breath away. Breathing in felt like inhaling ice water. It will not kill me, she assured herself. It will not.

  Tredd scrambled up to her, but she stepped back and raised her hand. Tredd stopped and stood back.

  Her suit down, she could now pull the terminal from her back. The screen lit up in an instant and she launched her customised software. She established a connection with the lock-box and ran a silent identify routine on it. Let’s see what you got, she thought as she got the results. The lock had a simple touchscreen interface, but in addition to the form, it required certain pressure to be applied. Apparently the sigma was the right sign, but the pressure had been wrong. Should have known better. Luckily, the lock was a standalone – it would not trigger an alarm in a central system. Now that she knew what the lock was, the rest was easy. She to
ok control of the lock on her terminal and in a moment the door slid open. Phew. My fingers are frozen stiff.

  It was difficult to pull her suit back on, with her fingers numb from the cold, but somehow she did it. In an instant it sealed around her and started warming up. She felt her cheeks redden, not sure if it was from the sudden warmth or from Tredd’s stare.

  ‘That was stupid.’ He turned his back on Evie and entered through the door. ‘But it was also well done…’

  ‘Thanks, Cap.’ Now she was blushing. She followed him in.

  Eddie’s voice sounded through the intercom. ‘I’m just about to head out.’

  ‘Never mind, we got it,’ Tredd said.

  ‘Excellent. I will search the Craftliner and catch up with you then.’

  ‘The door’s open,’ Evie added.

  The little space within the bunker was lit up with small white lights. There was no one inside, only a door that resembled an elevator. Some puddles of water, likely from melted snow, stained the scruffy concrete floor.

  ‘Where does it go to?’ Evie thought out aloud.

  ‘Down,’ Tredd said.

  ‘Oh really?’ There was a button on the side, but before she pressed it, she wanted to make sure Tredd agreed. ‘Well, are we going to press the button or not?’

  ‘Why not?’ he said.

  That was easy. The button lit up as Evie pressed it, but nothing happened. ‘You know, if they’re down there, they might see the elevator rise up and expect us.’

  ‘That’s true,’ he said, staring down at the button, ‘but you could also dig a hole through the ice and the rock to get there.’

  That was it. Was he sarcastic like this with everyone, or only because I’m a young Jindalar woman? ‘What’s wrong with you?’

  No response. She heard a hum, and then the elevator door opened. Tredd stepped in and Evie followed. The controls were simple: two buttons with arrows up and down. The sturdy handlebars on both sides looked too heavy to be decorative. Evie wondered what whoever had designed this basket had been drinking. The door closed automatically. Tredd pressed the button pointing down, and the elevator started to descend. The sides of the basket had transparent windows, through which they could see the rock passing them by at an increasing speed.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Tredd asked.

  Then suddenly the basket shook, and Evie had to grab hold of the bar on the side. Tredd stumbled against her, but regained his balance.

  Before either could say anything, they both understood why they had been thrown to the side. From the window, they could see a long tunnel in front of them. They were traversing horizontally.

  ‘So that’s the elevator going down,’ Evie said, and grabbed hold of a handlebar. ‘Are you always like this or just with me?’

  They were speeding through the tunnel as it started to descend even lower into the ground, taking a tight turn to the left. Evie tightened her grip on the handlebar. No question about what they were for.

  ‘Like what?’ Tredd asked, also holding on tight.

  ‘Sarcastic, and whiny.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘See.’ Evie still squeezed hard on the handlebar, barely noticing that the elevator had stopped.

  ‘You’re the one who’s always acting so smart.’

  ‘That’s a completely different thing.’

  ‘No, it’s not.’

  ‘It sure is.’

  While they argued, the elevator door opened. It took Evie a while to realise that a man was pointing an assault rifle at them. She gasped.

  Seeing the man, Tredd asked, ‘Is this how you greet an old friend?’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  THE SECOND PHASE of the airlock process complete, the door opened, and Eddie stepped in. Hacking into a stock-standard Craftliner had been a cruise, something that made Eddie feel nostalgia for the old times, which with sane consideration were better gone. Now he had to focus on finding the device, or anything that might reveal more about it and its whereabouts. Eddie saw three options: they had left it on planet Un, in which case it would be gone; they had taken it with them into the bunker, though he doubted they could have carried such a powerful device on foot; or they had left it in the ship, an unlikely option, but the one he was most hopeful about. At least by searching the ship, he might find a clue about the device.

  The Craftliner was a small ship, basically a minimalist interstellar cruiser for two. Through the airlock Eddie had entered into a tight corridor with a cargo boot on one side and a small cabin on the other, the cockpit right in front of him.

  He used his handheld terminal to connect with the ship’s computers, and performed a scan for any surprises, such as traps or hidden alerts, but found none. He made sure the ship responded to his commands while he was in, and that it removed any trace of him ever having visited once he was out.

  It was awesome to hack into a ship’s computers – even if it was a simple Craftliner. It had been so long since the last time.

  ‘Computer, open the cargo boot,’ he said, and the hatch opened. He prowled through the insides of the cargo boot, the cabin, and finally the cockpit. He found nothing out of the ordinary – Tommy had a range of clothes scattered around the cabin, with foodstuffs and personal care items all over the place. It looked like he had been living in the ship for a while. The only item Eddie could attribute to the girl was an ancient storybook with static pages made out of trees. Perhaps she had been a passenger only for a trip or so.

  Eddie sat down in the pilot’s seat and performed a system diagnostic, but nothing out of the ordinary caught his eye. He brought up the ship’s log.

  Tommy had been registered as the legal holder of the ship a few years back, almost immediately after the ship had been acquired by an interstellar removal and forwarding consortium. It seemed legitimate, but Eddie could not see the connection between Tommy and the firm. A deeper look into the travel logs revealed no earlier visits to this barren place. Were they here by accident? He doubted it.

  Before entering the Yedda system, Tommy had visited a dozens of planets. The last planet had been Eura, their home planet. Thinking about home felt like scratching infected wounds, but still Eddie opened up the details.

  According to the ship’s log, Tommy had visited a rural area almost in the middle of Racia, not more than a few thousands of kilometres from their childhood home in Initia. Tommy had visited a wildlife park by the Guardian Nature Reserve, and then left Eura in a matter of hours. What was he doing in a wildlife park in Eura? Had he felt nostalgic about the homeland flora and fauna?

  Eddie made a local copy of the ship’s log on his terminal, just in case. Perhaps by taking the time he might find something interesting.

  Thinking about his pal made Eddie realise it had been a while since he had heard from Tredd or Evie. He opened the comms channel, only to realise they were out of range. Perhaps the building had a blocker, or they had gone too deep inside the rock. This worried Eddie and, as there was nothing more he could do inside the Craftliner, he decided to go after them. Outside the window, the sky had turned to cool, dark purple.

  He opened communications to the Rutger. ‘This is Eddie Parkes, everything good up there?’

  After a couple of seconds of silence, the line clicked open, and Berossus said, ‘She’s all right. You find your doomsday machine?’

  ‘No, it’s not on their ship,’ Eddie said. ‘Now I can’t reach Tredd. Can you see them?’

  ‘Negative. A few minutes ago they disappeared fast inside the planet – falling deep. Too deep.’

  Falling deep inside an unnamed planet behind the frontier… Eddie knew Tredd could take care of himself, but still he felt the claws of cold anxiety creep up on him.

  ‘All right. Thanks for letting me know.’ He stood up from the pilot’s seat and started heading out.

  ‘Eddie?’ Berossus called him.

  He closed the cockpit door and replied, ‘Yes?’

  ‘What are you planning to do?’


  Eddie stepped into the airlock and said, ‘Go after them of course.’

  Going alone was risky approach, prohibited under the navy protocol, but those rules bound Eddie no more. He had to help Tredd, and he wanted to see Tommy. In time he had realised that what they had done as teens was stupid, and he had only himself to blame for what had happened. It wasn’t revenge but curiosity that drove him to seek his old friend.

  ‘TRISTRAM BOXLEY,’ the man with the gun said, ‘I’m surprised to see you here. It’s been such a long time. Come on in.’

  As they stepped in from the elevator, their hands behind their heads, Evie found it difficult to take her eyes off the gun, a matt black piece of metal with a blue stripe on the barrel. She had never – in real life, that is – been faced with a gunpoint. The man held the grip with meaty fingers, like he’d been strong and lean at some point, but had gotten fat. This was proven by the tightness of his black jumpsuit around his belly. Evie dared a look up at his face, and found a double-chinned, bald, middle-aged man whose nose resembled a disfigured potato. Poor potato, whatever happened to it? Evie thought. When she met his glaring eyes, she dropped her gaze back to the gun. She could not decide whether the eyes or the gun felt more oppressive.

  ‘Please, Tommy,’ Tredd said as they walked forward. ‘Put the gun away.’

  Tommy smirked. ‘Unfortunately, that is not going to happen.’

  They stopped under a tiny light that acted like a spotlight on a stage, casting short shadows by their feet; the shadow of the gun like a hand of a clock. The stage was lit, but the walls and the audience were left in the dark. The air felt heavy with a scent of electronics mixed with raw soil. Evie held her breath.

  At first Tredd stood rigid with his hands behind his head, but relaxed his pose by shifting his weight to his right foot. ‘What made you do it?’

  Evie wondered what he was referring to, and for a moment it seemed that Tommy did too.

  ‘It’s so long ago… I have to say I was a different person back then. A stupid young boy, just like the rest of you. Looking back at it now, so was Naido, but they paid well for him. I didn’t mean to get you involved, but when it came to the choice, it was either you two or me. And it wasn’t going to be me, you must understand.’ Tommy grinned and took a small side step, pointing the gun between Tredd and her. ‘I could say I’m sorry, but it wouldn’t change a thing.’