Starcrasher (Shades Space Opera Book 1)

by Rock Forsberg

  Eddie gaped. The little pink-eyed blonde girl had just scattered ten Eagles, just by thinking, connecting and pushing. ‘You look tired, you OK?’

  ‘I just need some rest.’

  ‘Good work, Aino,’ Tredd said, and tapped Eddie on the shoulder. ‘We must pinch now.’

  ‘Roger that,’ Eddie said, and turned back to the controls. He confirmed the destination and was about to engage the pinch, but where the blue button was supposed to be was only white text on a flat grey background: QE Offline.

  ‘Weird,’ Eddie said, and scratched his neck while reading the error message again. ‘For some reason it’s not enabled.’

  ‘What do you mean, not enabled?’

  Eddie understood Tredd’s concern; the navy would send another flock of Eagles – and perhaps some heavier machinery – to catch up with them. Looking at the screen, he said, ‘The whole quantum engine system is offline.’

  ‘Blast this old piece of rust!’ Tredd hit the side railing with the bottom of his fist. Something fell with a clank to the floor. ‘Why?’

  Eddie was busy fetching and reviewing the data from the ship’s computers. The systems map confirmed the fact that the quantum engines were offline, but there was very little in terms of diagnostics information available. It was as if the whole system was disconnected.

  ‘Berossus,’ he shouted down to the engine room. ‘What’s up with the quantum engines?’

  There was a grunt, then a silence, and the sound of a big fist smashing something. ‘Blasting thrusters… I forgot,’ the big man bellowed.

  ‘What did you forget?’

  The line crackled. ‘When we recharged the ship, they opened the unit and pulled it offline.’

  ‘Switch if back then,’ Eddie said, and glanced at Tredd. Seeing him holding his forehead and tapping the armrest, he added, ‘Quick.’

  Berossus fell silent for a moment, and then he said, ‘I can’t. It’s within a narrow shaft, and I… I can’t fit in to reach it.’ As he spoke, his volume went down to a sigh.

  ‘We have to have it online ASAP!’ Tredd shouted. ‘Another flock will be here in a matter of minutes.’

  Evie stood up with a gleam in her eye. ‘I’ll go!’

  EVIE RAN THROUGH THE CORRIDORS, and climbed down the shaft to the engine room. She was relieved that Tredd had not considered exchanging her for their freedom. Even so, I can’t afford to become credulous. I have to stay alert.

  She could see why everyone wanted Aino. A child who could move stars with her mind was awe-inspiring. When Aino scattered the navy fighters like bugs with a broom, not even breaking a sweat, Evie had realised she was something extraordinary. She had been thinking about how it worked, but in vain. She had researched telekinesis technologies, but all applications seemed to be cumbersome and required a direct line of sight. A girl inside a ship scattering ships with her thoughts was something else.

  Even Bells, who Evie had considered a friend, had turned out to be after Aino. Looking back, she could see Bells did try too hard, and she was too eager to make friends. She could imagine Bells had played Berossus as well. Reaching the engine room, she saw him, flustered.

  ‘You’re a mechanic and you can’t flick on a frigging switch?’

  ‘I’m too big,’ he said, and pointed his finger at an open hatch. ‘It’s there.’

  Evie laughed so hard she nearly fell. Since Berossus did not find it amusing, she gathered herself, still giggling. She knelt down and looked into the shaft. It sure was small. Why in the outer-verse had anyone designed the ship like this?

  ‘Please be quick,’ the big man pleaded.

  Evie pushed her hands forward and slid into the shaft. The switch was just about two metres away. The shaft was tight for her as well, but she could crawl forward on the railings below her. A number of colourful indicator lights lit her way. The walls were covered with wires and connectors, and she moved slowly to ensure she did not get caught and break any of them.

  At the end there was the switch. A red one she had to turn. She grabbed a hold of it and turned it ninety degrees clockwise. As she did, she felt warm air blow on her face, heard a whirring sound of systems engaging, and then a clank just behind her.

  She glanced back from below her arm.

  The hatch was closed.

  She could feel her heart beat faster. Did Berossus close the hatch and lock me in? Was he working with the doctor? Panic started to rise within her. ‘Hey, open the hatch!’ she shouted.

  For a moment it was silent. Her elbows pressed against the wiring on both sides and her head was jammed against a box on the ceiling, making her feel as if the walls were closing in on her. Something pushed up against her hip, and she tried turning, but failed miserably. She was stuck. She could feel her heart beat faster as she drew quick and shallow breaths. She tried moving backwards, but something held her in place. What did he do? She could not see what it was. She pushed harder, but it would not budge. Her pulse raced. Sweat broke from her brow. She whimpered. This can’t be happening!

  Then she heard another clank.

  She looked back. Berossus lifted the hatch and peered in. ‘The hatch fell shut. You all right in there?’

  Evie let out a sigh of relief. In the light from the engine room she could see a stub of a tube stuck in a crease of her pants. She pulled the fabric free and started crawling backwards. It was more difficult not to hit any of the wiring, but eventually she made it, and pulled herself out.

  Berossus stood beside the communications terminal, and said, ‘She’s good, Captain.’ As Evie met his eyes, he blushed.

  ‘And not a second too late,’ came Tredd’s reply.

  Evie closed the hatch, and as she did, they felt the familiar pull of a pinch. They had escaped.

  Berossus let out a heavy breath and stared at her. ‘You look a bit pale.’

  ‘Unlike some folks…’ she said, but as Berossus showed no visible reaction to her tease about him blushing, she brushed her hair to the side and leaned against the wall. ‘Yeah, I guess I’m not as good with tight places as I thought I was.’

  ‘But you fixed it,’ he said. ‘I did nothing but screw it all up, brought the doc on board…’

  ‘She did save your mother though,’ Evie said, and rapped the metal casing on the wall to the beat of a love song. Realising it was by the Bombers, she stopped and pushed herself from the wall. ‘Tell me, how did you ever come across Bells in the first place?’

  Berossus grunted. ‘I was struggling to find help for my mother. Time was running out, but then I got a reply to my request, from a neurologist, right at Gemma Central and ready to go… Dr Belinda Killock. At the time her appearance was like a divine miracle, and I never thought she might—’ He stopped and stared at Evie through narrow eyes. ‘You don’t believe me?’

  ‘No, no,’ she said, and shook her head. ‘I do believe you.’ However, she was not convinced.

  Berossus stretched his neck with hands behind his head, and looked up, frowning. ‘But she did save my mother, as she promised. Why?’

  ‘I know, it’s so weird…’ Evie couldn’t figure out the deal with Bells, and it bugged her.

  Berossus grunted and turned back to monitoring the performance of the engine. From what Evie could gather, there was not much to monitor. They had made the pinch and everything was humming like it should. Perhaps he just wanted to make sure everything was tip-top this time.

  ‘I guess we’re somewhere around Spit City now,’ Evie said.

  Berossus did not respond, but stood silent, his wide back towards Evie. He wasn’t much of a conversationalist, but Evie was sure he had something behind that tough shell. She wanted to get inside, but it was not easy.

  She stepped closer. ‘Hey…’

  Berossus turned, and said, ‘I hope I can get to visit my mother in Mallawoolloo soon.’

  Evie smiled first, but then realised what he wanted was not going to be as easy as he might have thought. ‘You do understand that Mallawoolloo is controlled by
the Dawn Alliance Navy, and we’re not necessarily on the best terms with them. Visiting your mother now would get you detained on arrival.’

  ‘What do I do then? I can’t run forever,’ Berossus said, his big body drooping, the man curling up inside.

  Evie tapped his huge shoulder. ‘Don’t worry about it. We’ll figure something out. We’re in this together, and the captain knows how to play the navy,’ she said, hoping Tredd had some kind of a plan.

  Then she hugged Berossus. He was so big that she couldn’t even reach around him, but he hugged her back. They stood there for a while, holding each other without a word. A Jindalar girl holding a giant Andron man – like an antelope comforting a big brown bear – unlikely, but heart-warming.

  Evie let go and took an awkward step back. She felt sweaty and in need of a shower. Had he noticed? She looked up at Berossus, and he looked away.

  ‘But hey, we made it through,’ she said with a clumsy smile. ‘Want to go and see where we are?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Evie started climbing up towards the upper deck, but at the first step she stopped and turned around. ‘By the way… When you said, “She’s good, Captain,” you weren’t talking about the ship, were you?’

  The big man blushed again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  SPIT CITY WAS the same obsidian spiked ball it had always been – beautiful like a back-alley bombsite, and dirty like the dreams of its dwellers. Now, for Tredd and his crew, it was the only safe haven within the Dawn Alliance-controlled space. The navy or the interstellar police had a non-existent presence there – it was all outsourced to FIST.

  FIST ruled over Spit City and Tredd knew he could not go anywhere without FIST knowing it. Before he could do anything else, Tredd had to finish his business with them.

  Tredd brought the Rutger down to the Spit City spaceport, in between shadowy buildings, and landed in the same bay he had left almost exactly six civil days ago. Still, after spending time on Gemma Central, Five Ways, and the Navy battle cruiser, he had almost forgotten how dark and dirty the port was. Leaving the craft, he was greeted with the familiar dank odour, like someone boiling dirty underwear in the atmosphere generator. People bustled around without the glitz and glam of the modern space stations; smut was the colour of their clothes and thoughts.

  Some of the things wrong with the place worked for Tredd. Spit City’s liberal customs and immigration agency was so loose that they could smuggle Aino in without anyone noticing. No one cared enough to perform a physical examination within the ship, so hiding her from the ship’s computers – Evie had hacked the Rut’s logs to erase all data pertaining to Aino or her abilities – and keeping her below the radar was enough.

  While Tredd went to seek out his employer, he asked his crew to stay back until further instructions. Soon he was sitting in front of the three stiff men again. His small chair was as uncomfortable as it had been the last time, and the brown-and-black-patterned wall behind the men still made him feel nauseous.

  He told them his story. He told them about the crew he hired, the crash of Yedda and Moola, the unexpected jump to the uncharted space, and the encounter with Tommy Huckey. He spared a few details, but mostly his story was an accurate and true description of the events. The men listened, and asked only a few questions until it came to Tommy and the alleged device.

  ‘Let me get this straight,’ the old soldier started. Tredd remembered he was the head of Interstellar Operations. ‘You found Mr Huckey on that god-forsaken planet and took him with you – but you were not able to find the device?’

  ‘Tommy didn’t have the device on him, so we confiscated and scanned his little ship. You’ve seen the data. There was no sign of a device. Perhaps there never was one.’

  The men looked at each other. Hugo, the bearded fellow, whispered something to the leader, who nodded back.

  ‘Tell us then, what happened with the DAN?’ Hugo asked.

  Tredd explained about how they were taken in for questioning on the battleship Excalibur, and brought back to the Dawn Alliance-controlled space, and that they had managed to escape, but lost Tommy and the Craftliner to the navy, and potentially the device – if it ever was with Tommy.

  ‘Mr Bounty, you just said that perhaps there was no device.’

  ‘I’m only telling you what I saw.’

  ‘If there was no device, why were you captured? You do realise you are wanted across the universe now?’

  ‘Perhaps they too thought there would be a device. They charged us for interfering with their mission and ended up taking Tommy and his ship.’

  The leader’s narrow eyes peered through Tredd’s words. ‘Does this mean that the Dawn Alliance has the device?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he responded, perhaps too quickly.

  ‘Doing what you did, earning a wanted status not only for yourself but your crew, was idiotic, unless…’ The leader paused. ‘How can we be certain that you didn’t find the device, and thought it might be best not to tell anyone about it?’

  ‘Certain? I guess that’s never quite possible,’ Tredd said, and shrugged. ‘However, the data doesn’t lie—’

  ‘It doesn’t, if it exists,’ the pencil-neck snapped.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Tredd asked.

  The pencil-neck blew air through his teeth and glowered. Before he could respond, Hugo said, ‘The Rutger’s data management process had bugged out, resulting in lost data, garbled database… We were able to salvage only bits.’

  Tredd grinned. Evie had done a perfect job hacking the system. ‘Blame yourself, mate. You should’ve given me a proper ship to begin with.’

  Hugo shrugged, but the pencil-neck’s cheeks lit up red, and he opened his mouth to speak.

  ‘But if you want my honest opinion,’ Tredd continued, ‘I’m starting to think there never was a device.’

  ‘Oh, this is interesting,’ the leader said, taking over the conversation from his lackeys. ‘How do you then explain the movement of stars, and the catastrophic consequences in the Yedda and Moola systems?’

  ‘Well, I see two options. One is that there was a device, but it was consumed in the process of crashing Moola and Yedda. The other is that Tommy made it happen; he talked like he possessed some sort of supernatural powers.’

  ‘Supernatural powers… are you serious?’ the leader asked and leaned forward.

  Tredd paused. It felt like the leader’s grey eyes pinched right through him. ‘Sounds wacky, I know, but right before Tommy pulled a gun on me, he said he was “made” by the Shades – the group he worked for – but I didn’t have a chance to explore the topic further. As I told you, after I stunned him, he went completely gaga.’

  There was a moment of silence. The pencil-neck and Hugo leaned towards the leader, and whispered something Tredd could not hear.

  The leader leaned back, and said, ‘Shades, the mythical deities? Are you suggesting he thought he was one of the Shades?’

  ‘Listen, all I know is he was not the man I used to know. He was talking like a priest, like someone strong in faith, expecting the end of world, when the chosen ones would be saved.’

  ‘You’ve told us that Dr Belinda Killock diagnosed Tommy Huckey to be clinically out of his mind – completely gaga, as you said – and then she was the one who took him to the Dawn Alliance… perhaps she knew something?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Tredd said. He was happy to leave FIST speculating about Tommy’s supernatural powers, as it pushed them further away from Aino.

  The pencil-neck said, ‘Was it not obvious to you that Dr Killock worked for them?’

  Tredd grinned. Of course, looking back at it, he should have seen it.

  The pencil-neck snorted and slowly shook his head. Tredd started to feel annoyed, especially at the pencil-neck.

  The leader gave meaningful nods to both Hugo and the pencil-neck, and then said, ‘That is very interesting. We are most certain that Tommy Huckey was not an ordinary man. It’s a shame you lost him, and
Jill Conrad too.’

  Tredd’s lips tightened together and he inhaled deep through his nose. He knew it was going to be annoying, but this reference to Jill made him burst. ‘You knew all along, you blasted puppets of the Dawn Alliance! Why didn’t you tell me about her when I asked?’

  ‘If we told you about her, especially that she was highly likely to be involved, would you have taken the mission?’

  They were right. Tredd shook his head.

  ‘You would have sought her out, met her, and realised there was nothing there anymore. We considered it moderately likely that you would eventually find out.’

  With this though, Tredd disagreed. ‘I’m more than moderately likely to tell you all to piss off. You have my report. Are we done here?’

  ‘Mr Bounty, it is we who are dismissing you,’ the pencil-neck said. ‘You have not been able to deliver us the device, nor a conclusive description about its nature. The Dawn Alliance has Tommy Huckey. This mission will be declared as a failure. No fee will be paid, and you must release control of the ship immediately.’

  Tredd clenched his jaw and took a slow breath while running his gaze over the distasteful pattern behind the men. ‘I took on your mission’, he said, ‘travelled through a crazy pinch to a star about to collide, found the man you were looking for, and was harassed by the blasting Dawn Alliance Navy. I demand compensation. It’s not my fault your device was make-believe.’

  ‘Which part of the contract’s text – “compensation for delivering the device in a functional condition” – did you not understand?’ the pencil-neck asked with a condescending nod of his head. ‘You did not complete the mission, so you will not be paid.’

  Tredd let his head down. The smut-suckers had done it again. He pressed his knuckles hard against each other and took a sharp breath. As he exhaled, he felt unusually indifferent about the money. He no longer wanted to relocate to a distant planet and sit back on a sun lounger by the beach, sipping cocktails from glasses with umbrellas in them. He realised it wasn’t even what he had wanted in the first place. He sought significance and meaning that, rather than a dream, made an endless beach holiday feel like a nightmare, like a slow descent to meaningless death. Instead, he wanted to take Aino home, and he wanted Jill back. He had no idea how he was going to do it, but he knew he would find a way. He needed a ship, and a crew.