Starcrasher (Shades Space Opera Book 1)

by Rock Forsberg

  Aino nodded and looked up to Tredd with a content smile, holding the cup just like Bells did.

  Bells took a sip and gave a nod of approval to Aino, who mirrored what she did. ‘She’s an amazing girl. I was just explaining the procedure I would like to perform. I’m eager to find out what’s in play here.’

  ‘Is it safe?’ Tredd asked.

  ‘I will be using the same instrument I used to cure Inanna.’

  Curing Berossus’s mother had proven that Bells was no fluke. The apparatus looked weird, but it worked miracles.

  ‘Aino,’ Tredd said, ‘would you mind the doctor running a few tests?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘All right then. I’ll leave you to it.’

  EDDIE LAY on his back on his bed and looked up at the ceiling. He picked up his handheld terminal to check the news from Baleor, but quickly realised that there was no way to reach the network from where they were. He threw the terminal aside.

  He had wanted to find Tommy, and now that he had, it didn’t feel like much of an accomplishment. Since Tommy had woken up, he had only been babbling the same few sentences. Eddie felt he had missed the chance to talk with Tommy, to tell him… Tell him what? Tell him that my father committed suicide because of him? Tell him that he made me an alcoholic?

  Eddie paused.

  He realised his life was quite all right. He would not change a thing, except perhaps the death of his father.

  The military had been hard on him, but then again those experiences had moulded the weak kid into the man he now was. His successes and failures had led him to meet Cassandra, and start a family. Had he started out as a teacher, without the navy experiences – however excruciating they were – he would have been less of a man.

  He felt bad about leaving Cass like that, fighting with her, and wondered what she was thinking now. Perhaps she was worried and wanted him to get back soon. At least, that was what he hoped. He missed Cass and the boys. He wanted to be there for them during this crucial stage, where every day was a new learning and growth experience.

  Unfortunately, any sort of real-time communication was impossible from their location, so far behind the Dawn Alliance frontiers. He could send Cass a video message, to say he was safe and sorry, but that would take days to arrive. Besides, he didn’t have the right words for her now. He had to figure out how to talk to her once they had settled on the journey back home.

  Things had certainly escalated when the stars moved, but now it seemed that they were just floating in space, like a slow-motion video of something that barely moved. Until they were able to pinch, they were in a transitory state, during which nothing happened.

  Nothing… except an alarm.

  An alarm? Eddie thought, rising up in his bed. As he turned on the screens in his room, he felt his pulse quicken. He felt the ship shake around him.

  ‘Computer, what is the reason for the alarm?’

  The computer responded, but the audio fell into the background. The screen showed it: the Craftliner had detached from the Rutger. The docking arm had been broken by a blast. Whoever had done it had gone past the release authorisation requirements by somehow engaging the engines and blasting the Craftliner free.

  Damn. This wagon cannot tolerate those kinds of blasts. ‘Computer, damage assessment!’

  As Eddie scrambled into his black and blue pilot’s outfit, the computer explained the damage to the docking facilities. Not surprisingly, the docking bay was blasted, but the doors had engaged and isolated the destroyed area. No fires remained inside. Lucky, Eddie thought, as he scurried out of his room.

  There was nobody around the corridors, and reaching the cockpit, Eddie found it empty, too. ‘Computer, who is in the Craftliner?’

  ‘The pilot is Doctor Belinda Killock, and the only passenger Aino Dal,’ the computer responded, bringing up their virtual ID cards on the screen. Again, Aino’s card was empty aside from the picture and name that the ship’s computer had amended.

  ‘The damned doc!’ he shouted, and hit the hard surface of the screen with his fist. Guess she won’t help me understand the blackouts then.

  Tredd rushed in, all flustered. ‘She’s off with her.’

  ‘As we can see,’ Eddie said, pointing at the image of the Craftliner moving away from them. ‘What happened?’

  Tredd shook his head and reposed on the back of the Captain’s seat. ‘Left Aino with the doc to run some tests and went down to the engine room to have a chat with Berossus. Then suddenly they’re in the Craftliner. Where’s Evie?’

  ‘Don’t know. Want to follow them?’ Eddie asked. There was no real chance of catching them: the Craftliner was moving faster and faster away and would no doubt pinch soon. The Rutger would just burn up fuel and add weeks or months to their journey back home, and Tredd knew this.

  ‘We can’t reach them, can we?’ Tredd said as he scrambled between the seats.

  Eddie shook his head. ‘They’re faster than us on propulsion and they’ll be able to jump in a matter of minutes.’

  The crimson leather seat creaked as Tredd slouched down on the captain’s seat beside Eddie. ‘I should have trusted my gut on the doc…’

  ‘But she did cure Inanna,’ Eddie said, wondering if they had been played. ‘Perhaps we should talk to Berossus.’

  Tredd stared up at the big screen. ‘Staging it all… it just sounds too elaborate. Call them here anyway.’

  Eddie nodded and sent out a call for the crew to report to the cockpit. He realised that he couldn’t return home as soon as he had hoped. His family would need to wait for him for a full year. He felt heavy thinking about his boys; he was already missing them, and Cass… Would she even take him back after all that time? Unlike Cass, his debt was never going to leave him, and would always be waiting for him, with interest. If the debtors turn to Cass… That’ll be a disaster. He needed to contact the moneymen, perhaps after their initial pinch to J-00185AXE, to get the message across quicker. If he pushed the pinch even further, he might even be able to do a real-time conversation, not with his debtors, but with Cass and the boys. Even so, she wasn’t going to be happy. Eddie sighed.

  ‘What’s the matter, pal?’

  ‘Just thinking of home.’

  Tredd squeezed his lips to a line and turned to stare at Eddie. Eddie remembered that face from their childhood. It projected strength and confidence, and must have served him well in the navy, but Eddie knew it was a mask he put over his real self. Tredd said, ‘I get it. I’m sorry. If it’s any consolation, FIST credit allows me to pay top teradollar to you and the rest of the crew.’

  It was. Even the low end of pilot pay for a mission was much higher than what he made teaching. However, even if it helped, it was not going to clear all of his debts, nor would it take him home any faster. ‘Thanks, I appreciate it.’

  Both leaned back on their seats. In a moment the Craftliner would pinch away, rendering it impossible for them to follow. Eddie sighed. ‘So this is it then…’

  Tredd looked up on the screen. ‘They haven’t pinched yet – why haven’t they?’

  ‘Beats me,’ Eddie said. He had been expecting them to pinch as soon as they were far enough, but for some reason they continued running on propulsion. It was as if they were not in a hurry, or they did not even plan to pinch. Were they headed to a destination nearby? Eddie checked the Craftliner’s course on the computer for any potential destinations on their way ‘There’s nothing ahead of them…’

  Tredd looked at the maps on the screen. ‘Perhaps another wormhole, like the one we used when we came?’

  ‘Not on the map,’ Eddie said, ‘but the one we used wasn’t on the map either.’

  ‘Let’s follow them.’

  ‘All right,’ Eddie said, and pushed the worn knob on the metallic lever that engaged the Rutger’s engines. He set them on low-power propulsion to save energy. Any extra movement used up their energy and added time to their return trip.

  Evie stepped into the cockpit with Be
rossus right behind her, filling the doorway. Leaning against the hatch she said, ‘You called for us?’

  ‘Did you feel the tremble a few minutes ago?’ Tredd asked.

  ‘It woke me up,’ Evie said, leaning against the back of Tredd’s seat and yawning. ‘What was it?’

  ‘Made me drop my terminal just as I was finishing up balancing the propulsion core, and now I have to do it all over again,’ Berossus said with a frown. ‘The Craftliner’s gone?’

  Eddie nodded. Using what he had learned from playing Jester, he tried to read the expressions of Evie and Berossus, but found nothing but question marks.

  ‘Was it Tommy?’ Evie asked.

  ‘No,’ Tredd grunted. ‘The doc. She took Aino.’

  ‘What the—’ Evie sprang up. Clearly she hadn’t known this was coming.

  Berossus shook his head. ‘How could she…?’

  ‘That’s what I want to find out’, Tredd said.

  Evie covered her face with her palms and took a deep breath. Berossus crossed his arms and looked down, still shaking his head. It was clear they had nothing to do with it, unless they were award-winning actors.

  Eddie stared at the dots on the main radar screen, thinking of home. He was like the Rutger, unsophisticated and blunt, and Cass was like the Craftliner, fine and streamlined. She was moving away from him, gaining distance. Eddie could only wait for the moment she would be gone from his radar. They would pinch any time now. Then he saw his three boys appear around Cass.

  He blinked. On the screen, around the Craftliner, three actual dots had appeared.

  ‘What is it?’ Tredd asked.

  Eddie pointed to the screen.

  ‘Oh my,’ Tredd said.

  The dots represented a giant twenty-one-kilometre Dawn Alliance Navy battle cruiser and two escorts. Just when Eddie thought things could not get worse, a battle cruiser had pinched in from somewhere, and it did not take long for them to consume the Craftliner.

  Tredd grimaced. ‘Somehow I’m not surprised, but I am… Damned Alliance!’ The leather armrest let out a muffled thump as his hit it with his fist.

  Eddie understood what he meant. This was no chance encounter: Bells had worked with the navy from the start. ‘What do you want to do?’

  ‘Wait,’ Tredd said, his finger pointing to the screen, ‘are they moving towards us?’

  The data on the screen confirmed that the navy ships were moving on propulsion towards them. There was no way to escape, so Eddie pulled the lever to disengage the engines, and let the Rutger float free. In a few moments the battleship had matched their vector and loomed over them.

  ‘It’s huge! I’ve never seen anything like this in real life!’ Evie cried out in excitement and jumped in between the seats to marvel at it. At this distance, the half-cone shaped battle cruiser grew huge, like an artificial planetary surface made out of matt metal and chrystallium. Up close it was the opposite of sleek; with its turrets, sensors, docks, fighters and engines, it possessed a structure almost like something organic. The battle cruiser was a grand sight, for sure, but Eddie had seen them up close too many times for it to get him excited.

  Eddie glanced at the gauges. It was just as he had thought. They had the data from his brain scan, and soon they’d have him too. ‘They’re pulling us in.’

  A tiny opening appeared in the bottom of the battle cruiser, right in front of them. They moved towards it with impending certainty.

  Evie, who was leaning on to the armrests between Eddie and Tredd, turned to Eddie with an incredulous expression. ‘Why don’t you pull back?’

  Before Eddie could say anything, Berossus grunted from behind them, ‘There’s nothing we can do.’

  ‘He’s right,’ Eddie said with a sigh. ‘A battle cruiser can draw in almost any vessel that is not too big or equipped with a highly regulated anti-pull system. For us, fighting the pull would be futile waste of energy.’

  ‘Oh yeah, I had almost forgotten,’ Evie said, and tapped her forehead with her palm. ‘In Momentum 6 I’ve had the anti-pull as a standard since level sixty.’

  ‘This is no game,’ Tredd said from behind her.

  Evie snorted and stood up. She darted out from the cockpit, Berossus on her tail.

  As they neared the battle cruiser, what had looked like a tiny opening became a small opening, and then larger and larger, until it was so huge it could take in ten Rutgers at a time.

  In they went.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  IT WAS A COLD WELCOME. The expansive hangar was filled with obsidian fighter planes and armed soldiers in blue and grey, armed with heavy assault rifles and ready to shoot down anyone who made a wrong move.

  Tredd led his crew down the platform through the Rutger’s cargo bay. An officer waited for them down below.

  He could feel how tense everyone was, not even Evie said a word. Being taken in by the navy was no walk in the park – except of course for Eddie, who had endured more than his fair share of interrogations and disciplinary action. Tredd himself had played this game many times while policing the galaxy as a captain of the Dawn Alliance Navy. He even remembered visiting this particular ship, the Excalibur.

  The Excalibur was one of the largest mobile navy units, a Dubnium-class battleship shaped like a half-cone with a cut in the middle and a distinctive sickle-shaped bridge that set it apart from the newer Seaborgium-class ships. With a five-kilometre chrystallium hull housing a crew of ten thousand, thousands of cannons, fifty missile bays, and more than two hundred EG-L fighters, it was considered an unbeatable behemoth. Virilis had been but a quarter of the Excalibur.

  While descending down the platform, he could see the Craftliner parked right in front of the Rutger. There were no soldiers around it; everyone had moved on already. Dr Killock had been hard to understand, but letting her slip through like that had been a big mistake. It remained unclear whether she was abducted against her will or if she played for the navy. What do they want now that they have the girl?

  ‘You have been brought here for investigation under suspicion of treason,’ the officer responded to Tredd’s unvoiced question. He stood straight, chin up, and showed no emotion. The only things moving were his eyes.

  No surprise. ‘Been there, done that,’ Tredd said, slouching to show he didn’t care about their antics.

  The officer remained solemn, unaffected by Tredd’s sarcasm. ‘We will conduct individual questioning to understand your participation in the matter.’

  A group of soldiers ran past them and up to the Rutger, while another gathered around them. First they took hold of Berossus’s arms, and started leading him to the hangar exit. This was the usual drill, as Tredd knew all too well: separate the captives individually to small cells, have them wait, and then subject them to individual questioning, cross-checking stories using predictive semantic algorithms. They would break Berossus in minutes.

  When Tredd’s turn came, he was escorted to a spacious room, which smelled of mint and had an open view to the infinite night of space through the transparent back wall. A fancy foodalator and a few glass bottles rested on a ledge that protruded from the wall on the left-hand side. Opposite them lay a firm-looking grey couch and two chairs of similar style. This was an officer’s room. In the middle of the room rested a desk made from what looked like real wood with two small black chairs in front of it. She sat behind the desk in a uniform, her blonde hair back in a tight bun.

  Seeing Jill again, Tredd was not sure whether or not to be surprised, or what to feel.

  ‘Mr Bounty,’ she greeted him. It sounded rather awkward – her calling him Mr Bounty – and she continued the same way. ‘I’m here to question you regarding these recent events. Every individual in your crew is being questioned at the same time to confirm your story. Providing a false testimony is a federal felony with severe penalties, including imprisonment for life, and beyond. Do you understand?’

  ‘I do,’ he said, staring at her intently, thinking there was a flicker of feeling re
flected in her blue eyes. He leaned against one of the black chairs. ‘Jill… tell me, what do you want from me?’

  ‘It is I who will ask the questions, Mr Bounty,’ she said, flickering her eyes from Tredd to the little black spots in the ceiling – cameras. ‘Please sit down.’

  Tredd took a seat in the hard black chair he had just leaned against. He noticed that this time there were no guards, just the two of them… and the cameras.

  Jill leaned on her elbows and confirmed something on the screen ‘We took you in because we had a reason to suspect that you have been involved in an attempt to transport an illegal weapon – according to Dawn Alliance weapons legislation, clause X092282A – capable of destroying stars.’

  This was no Jill Faith; it was Commander Conrad, sleek and mean. Why does she torment me like this? From her questions, he realised that the nature of the Starcrasher was unknown to them. ‘There is no device.’

  ‘But there is a girl,’ she said, and seeing through Tredd’s attempt to appear confused, continued, ‘Do not play dumb, Mr Bounty. Dr Killock has told us everything.’

  ‘She’s one of yours?’ Tredd pulled his right leg on top of his left knee and leaned back.

  ‘She is a Special Forces counterintelligence agent.’

  He groaned at the fact that Bells had been playing with them all along. I should have seen it. ‘Fine. You have the girl. You got what you wanted, what do you need from the rest of us?’

  ‘I would like to remind you that I am asking the questions today,’ she said, and glanced around. ‘Remember the last time you were taken in? You said you were going to find the device – i.e. the girl – and destroy it, because, let me quote you, “as long as it exists, it can be used to cause harm.” Is this still your intent?’

  Tredd shook his head. Now that he knew Aino, the answer was clear. ‘No.’

  ‘What is it that you want with her?’

  ‘Honestly?’ Tredd tilted his head to the left. ‘I just want to take her home.’