Keeper of the Sun (Starhold Series Book 3)

by J. Alan Field

  “Like the one your office put out last week condemning the Reformist Party as, what was the term you used…” Sanchez said, pausing for dramatic effect. “Oh yes, ‘defeatists.’ I wasn’t too pleased with that.”

  “Neither was I. You probably saw that statement on the Nets before I did. My handlers from the Ministry of Culture issue most of my press releases. They won’t even let me do a live event these days. The Ministry is afraid I’ll go off script and speak my mind. Let’s face it—as a monarch, I’m nothing more than a figurehead.”

  “The Pantomime Empress,” Sanchez mumbled, looking somewhat embarrassed. “Sorry, but on ONElink the other day someone called you the Pantomime Empress. Your popularity is fading, Rennie.”

  She nodded in agreement. “And with it, any chance I can influence things for the better. That’s why I wanted to reach out to you, old friend. I need your counsel.”

  Sanchez stared into the camera, as if deciding whether he could trust her. It had been three years since they had last spoken and the pair had not parted on the best of terms. The thought flashed through Renata’s mind that reaching out to Leo Sanchez may have been a serious mistake. Yet another in a long list of recent errors in judgement.

  Sanchez cleared his throat and spoke. “Ma’am, one standard month from today, the Reform Party is planning a general strike on each of the Ten Worlds. Will you support us?”

  Not quite the response she had expected, but it was a response. Clearly, the man was sharing something important with her. He was taking a leap of faith.

  “I…” She searched for what to say. “Leo, even if I wanted to support you, the Culture Ministry filters everything coming out of Koenig Manor. Any statements, speeches, or comments I make are run through Ministry censors before they go onto the Nets.”

  “You had to know that was coming when you accepted the position. Honestly, I was surprised you took the job.”

  “I think Channa was too. However, she was in a win-win situation. If I had declined the offer, she might have declared herself Empress. When I accepted, she simply relegated me to the throne where I could be managed. Either way, her goal was to remove me from interfering with her plans, which she has done—for the time being.”

  “Well, if you can’t speak out, that’s a problem,” said Sanchez. “And frankly, I’m not sure how much help you can be to the Reformist Movement if you can’t publicly support our cause.”

  Renata pushed on, treading carefully with her next words. “Leo, I don’t think a general strike would be the right move, at least not yet.”

  “Someone has to do something.”

  “If you stage a general strike now, Channa will have the Reform Party leadership thrown into a detention camp—you, Auric Banks… the whole lot of you. A strike right now would be too confrontational—I need more time.”

  “So you DO have a plan,” said Sanchez, a sudden smile coming to his face. “You were always clever at this game. Me—I’m still learning.” As quickly as his smile appeared, it vanished as his expression turned urgent once again. “You say you need time… Time for what?”

  “To push certain people and pieces into place. I won’t sanction civil war, but we must have support from at least some of the military to force change when the time is right. When I speak out, there needs to be at least a fighting chance that I’m going to be heard AND that it won’t be my last chance to speak in public.”

  Sanchez laughed. “You sound very much like a leader who is planning a rebellion against her own regime.”

  “I know—odd, isn’t it? Nevertheless, I helped get us into this mess, now I’d like to have a chance to get us out.” Renata braced herself and stared into the camera. “Leo, I need six months.”

  “Six months!” yelled Sanchez, throwing his hands high. “No, no—out of the question. How much worse will this war be in six months? How much more entrenched will Channa and her Culture Ministry brutes become during that time? No, I tell you, it’s out of the question.”

  “Six months, maybe seven,” she repeated. “You and I can video link every few weeks or so to keep each other informed. Leo, you were Chief of Space Operations—you know how interstellar war works. It will take Central Command six months just to put together their next offensive. By the way, as you might have guessed from the all too rosy media reports, the war isn’t going that well.”

  “Ma’am, we agreed to keep these talks our secret,” Sanchez said running a hand across the top of his bald head. “This isn’t exactly going to play well with the other Party leaders. What reasons can I give them for postponing the strike? How will I justify it?”

  “You’re a good tactician, you’ll think of something.”

  Sanchez was considering the deal—his chin resting on a thumb, his index finger slowly brushing across his graying mustache. He was hesitating. This could all fall apart right now, she thought. He needs more.

  “Tell you what, Leo. When the Channa Maxon situation is resolved, if your party will support the monarchy, I will endorse elections and the return of the Assembly and we’ll see where we go from there.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Discovered that you like being an Empress, have you?”

  “Actually, I have,” she said smiling. “I also believe that sometimes citizens need a nudge in the right direction. As monarch, I can play that role. Think of me as the People’s advocate.”

  “Hmm,” Sanchez said, looking off into space. He was being cautious, as a good leader should. If the elections gambit didn’t win him over, it was going to be tough. She just didn’t have any cards left to play.

  “All right,” he finally said. “Constitutional monarchies have worked in the past, but I want one more thing: the guarantee of a written constitution. After this is all done, we write everything out so there’s no doubt about the powers and duties of both the Assembly and the Crown. Agreed?”

  What could she do? She needed an ally in the most desperate way, and Leonardo Sanchez was more politically powerful than even he understood. If she could just keep him out of jail for the next six months, they might be able to pull this off.

  “All right, agreed.”

  Sanchez raised an index finger to drive home a point. “Just so we understand each other, I still don’t agree with many of your ideas. In public, I’m going to be criticizing you. However, I think you’re right—Channa Maxon is out of control.”

  “We’re all responsible, you know. Me, you, Channa, Brin—we were all part of it, the People’s Rebellion. Each one of us did our part to help Victor Polanco seize power four years ago. Our intentions were good—mostly—but things turned out badly, didn’t they?”

  Leo Sanchez shook his head and grinned. “There’s an ancient saying,” he mused. “‘The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.’”

  “So it is,” agreed the Pantomime Empress. “So it is.”

  6: Connection

  Heavy cruiser Tempest

  Hyperspace

  2572 CE

  “An ancient Earth leader named John Kennedy once said that his people chose to go to space not because it was easy, but because it was hard,” Chaz Pettigrew said lifting a bottle of Hiwassee Stout. “Well, John Kennedy never had to spend a year sealed inside a tin can.”

  The three officers at the table laughed as they raised their drinks to join in the toast.

  “Human beings were not made to be imprisoned in the vacuum of space,” Pettigrew continued. “But here we are, doing the improbable—if not the impossible. To human fortitude.”

  Just as everyone was clinking their bottles together, Pettigrew quickly added, “and to Her Imperial Majesty.”

  “Her Majesty!” repeated the others as they enjoyed their first sips of beer.

  Five months had passed since Tempest’s departure from the Artemis system. A reduced crew of 178 manned the ship, with half of them making the trip to Summit inside hypersleep chambers, ‘coffins’ as the spacers called them, which rested row upon row in the primary shuttlebay. The a
ctive crewmembers on the outbound journey would take their turn ‘in the Chill’ during the return trip home, including Pettigrew. Only Captain Nyondo would remain on duty for the entirety of the mission.

  Starship crews were used to being in space for long stretches of time, but not this long. The average military deployment was four months, so Central Command had decided to accept volunteers for this mission. Some had signed on because of the bonus pay, some because they’d rather take the yearlong trip than return to the war. When they were briefed on the mission several days out of port, just before half of them were placed in hypersleep, the consensus among the crew was that they would prefer to take their chances with the aliens than the Jangsuvians. The aliens might be friendly, the Jangsuvians were definitely not.

  Tempest had now slipped through forty parsecs of space, stopping four times to give her companion ship, the gas miner Vasant, a chance to mine Jovian worlds and refuel both vessels. Trailing them were the destroyer Warlock and her companion miner, Maroth. The pair were periodically dropping out of hyperspace to refuel and deploy FTL communication relays along the long route. When Warlock concluded its journey, Pettigrew would be able to speak in real-time from Summit to his superiors on Sarissa.

  Aboard Tempest, the crew had endured their off-duty time with exercise, reading, games, listening to music—the usual spacer routine, only more of it. Commander Mullenhoff quipped before going into hibernation that she hoped there was enough beer and porn aboard for the crew to handle a year without shore leave. For his part, Pettigrew had the extra diversion of considering how he was going to break the ice with alien beings once they reached Summit.

  Not knowing what might happen when they reached their destination weighed heavily on Pettigrew. The Commodore and his people could be on the verge of ushering in an era of peaceful relations with a non-human species, or they could accidentally cause a confrontation that doomed humanity to interstellar war. It might also turn out that communication will be so difficult that neither side could comprehend the other, with both sides eventually going their separate ways. There was also one other possibility that Pettigrew had considered: finding nothing when they arrived at Summit. Tempest and Vasant would reach an empty star system, and this journey will have been a waste of a year. In a way, it was the most disturbing prospect of all.

  For tonight however, Pettigrew pushed it all to the back of his mind. It was Arimaa Night, and he was joined in his stateroom by Sunny Nyondo, Olivia Kuypers, and a familiar face in a new position—Tempest’s new executive officer, Rico Paruzzi. Captain Nyondo and Commander Paruzzi were in their service uniforms, but Kuypers wore a football shirt and a pair of sweat pants. Even Pettigrew donned casual civilian attire this evening. Since the crew couldn’t take shore leave for over a year, the dress code for off-duty personnel had been relaxed during transit to Summit. The once a week beer nights were another concession to the unorthodox length and nature of the journey.

  Arimaa was a strategy board game. Traditionally played by two single players, fourhanded Arimaa was Pettigrew’s way of promoting teamwork. Being forced to play with a partner encouraged communication and coordination. There was only one catch—players could not consult with their teammate on specific moves. Strategic discussion was allowed, but no consultations on specific tactics. Instead, participants were forced to work intuitively with their partner, playing off their teammate’s moves, both good choices and bad.

  “Your turn, sir,” said Nyondo after pushing along one of her gold rabbits. “Rico, who is Officer of the Deck right now?”

  “Ensign Hayes has the honor of dog watch this evening, ma’am,” Paruzzi said, watching Pettigrew play his steps, as the game moves were called.

  “Being the OOD with only a couple of people on the bridge is weird,” commented Kuypers as Paruzzi took his turn.

  It was only a board game, but Pettigrew felt these matches were good training for the command team. In combat, teamwork between the senior officers could make the difference between life and death.

  As for himself, Chaz Pettigrew felt his own past relationships with executive officers had been a mixed bag. Certainly, he never achieved anything near the desired results with Parker Knox, but that may have had more to do with Knox’s own personal demons than Pettigrew’s supervision. When Taylin Adams was promoted, he discovered a professional soul mate—until she was killed during the Second Battle of Earth. David Swoboda? He was so introverted it was always hard to tell with him. Swoboda actually turned out to be a better captain than XO, and in a way, Pettigrew felt his own career had followed a similar path.

  As the evening moved along, so did the beers and the conversation. Nyondo and Paruzzi fought well, but lost the first match. Pettigrew and Kuypers were a formidable team on the Arimaa board. To be honest, only one person aboard offered any true opposition to Pettigrew, and Uschi Mullenhoff was in hibernation four decks below. The Arimaa duels between the Commodore and Chief Engineer were the stuff of legend aboard Tempest.

  “Not sure about that move,” Nyondo said to her XO as the second match developed. “You should have pushed that horse on d4 to d5.”

  “I think this will work out,” said Paruzzi confidently.

  Chaz Pettigrew’s mind drifted away from the game to the music playing in the background. He had always had an obsession for all things twentieth century: its art, literature, and in particular, its music. Pettigrew lovingly put together the playlist for each Arimaa Night and always loaded it heavily with songs that he referred to as classics. As a band called ‘The Beatles’ was playing, Olivia Kuypers nearly caused an incident when she blurted out “Any chance we could change the music? These guys are terrible.” Nyondo nearly choked on her beer. Paruzzi covered his mouth with one hand to hide his amusement.

  Pettigrew glared at the redhead. “Lieutenant, you have a lot to learn about fine music,” he said with irritation.

  “Oh, oh!” said Nyondo excitedly. “Play some of that Frank guy.” The captain had become a borderline follower of Pettigrew’s musical inclinations.

  “Frank? You mean Sinatra?” Pettigrew thought for a moment. “No, I know what we need. Ship,” he called out to Tempest’s AI, “skip ahead to track thirty.”

  As the computer played “Cry Me a River” by a singer named Diana Krall, order was restored. “So much better,” said Kuypers as she reached to move the silver elephant.

  “Odd, I wouldn’t have figured you for a Diana Krall kind of girl, Lieutenant,” said Pettigrew cracking open a fresh bottle of Hiwassee.

  “Not really sure what that means, sir,” she said in a suspicious tone. “You sound like Mr. Swoboda—he could never figure me out.”

  The mention of the former captain prompted Nyondo to laugh. “Oh, Gods, Livvy—how you constantly taunted that poor man.”

  “Speaking of taunting,” said Pettigrew to Kuypers as he pointed to the captain’s last move. “She wants to turn this into a game of rabbit pulls.”

  “I see what she’s trying to do,” said Kuypers surveying the tactical situation. “Sorry, Skipper—that’s not gonna happen. Actually, I do miss Mr. Swoboda. This ship is so empty right now that I’d even welcome seeing him walking down one of these deserted passageways.” She took a swig of beer and then broke into an impression of her former captain. “Ms. Kuypers, I’ve warned you about your attitude, young lady!”

  The others burst out laughing as the lieutenant continued to mimic Swoboda. “As long as I am captain of this ship, proper decorum will be maintained at all times…”

  “Well, soon we roust the rest of the crew from the Chill, and things will be a little livelier on board,” Paruzzi said as he and the others collected themselves after Kuypers’ antics. “I’ve been thinking. Depending on what we find at Summit, this type of deployment could become the new norm—you know, in space for years instead of months.”

  “Alexander the Great once went on a campaign for ten years,” said Pettigrew.

  “And died before he returned home,�
� added Kuypers.

  Pettigrew grimaced at the lieutenant’s bluntness.

  “I didn’t realize you were a student of history, Ms. Kuypers,” said Paruzzi trying to move the conversation past her morbid comment.

  “I dabble. Before I joined—”

  Kuypers never got a chance to finish her thought. The voice of Tempest’s computer broke in over the stateroom speakers.

  “Captain Nyondo?”

  “Yes, Ship.”

  “Captain, you have an incoming communication from the Vasant. It’s Captain Washam, ma’am.”

  “Direct it to my stateroom, I’ll be right there.” Nyondo stood to leave. “I’ll guarantee he wants to talk about day after tomorrow and the last fueling stop before Summit. Commodore, thank you for hosting Arimaa Night once again. I’d love to stay and get my ass kicked a few more times by you and Livvy, but duty calls. See you all tomorrow.”

  As soon as Nyondo left, Paruzzi stretched his arms and stood. “Time for me to head home too. The Old Lady—err, I mean Captain Nyondo will have my butt in a bag if I don’t finish those BHD reports by tomorrow morning. Commodore, Lieutenant.”

  Only the Chief Tactical Officer remained. Pettigrew thought she would quickly excuse herself as well, but was surprised—and a bit ill at ease—when she did not.

  “Mind if I finish my beer, sir?”

  “Go right ahead, Lieutenant.” As talkative as Olivia Kuypers usually was, she now sat quietly drinking her Hiwassee Stout. Pettigrew felt he needed to generate some sort of conversation to avoid an awkward silence.

  “The Harlee Hammers,” he said suddenly.

  “What about them?”

  “Your jersey,” he said, pointing at the maroon football shirt she wore. “Are you actually a Harlee fan?”

  “Oh—yeah, absolutely. You?” Many people were—the Hammers were the winningest football team in Sarissan history.

  “Not really. I guess I’m what you might call a casual football fan. I’ll watch a match now and then, but I don’t cheer for any particular team.”