Stars Forever Black: Book I of the Star Lion Saga

by A. L. Bruno

  Stars Forever Black

  Book 1 Of The Star Lion Saga

  A. L. Bruno

  "Stars Forever Black Book 1 of the Star Lion Saga" by A.L.Bruno

  Copyright © 2021 by A.L. Bruno

  All rights reserved.

  This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, at “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.

  albruno@anthonybrunoauthor.com

  Cover by Miblart.com

  For Kristi, who never stopped believing.

  Contents

  I. Sons of Iron

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  II. Daughters of Flame

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  III. Kindred of Black

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Preview: “On Quiet Fire”

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Part I

  Sons of Iron

  1

  T.S.S. Hyperion

  Phelspharia

  High Geosynchronous Orbit

  15 December 2356

  “I think they can see us.”

  The words sucked the air from Hyperion’s bridge like a hull breach. One moment the cavernous, dimly lit starship’s command deck was filled with the hum of activity normal to any vessel. The next, there was nothing but the sound of the air handlers and cooling systems rattling throughout the deck.

  “Say again?” Captain Lydia Boothe asked, swiveling her command chair to face her sensors officer. A slender, space-pale woman in her mid-forties, Boothe’s black duty uniform didn’t so much cling to her frame as it bunched in the areas where others carried mass. The blues, reds, and greens of the command deck’s numerous holo displays played across the angles of her face, while the steam from her freshly delivered cup of coffee curled into the air by her side. Though her voice was steady, the stillness in her sharp features warned of a fury no one wanted to endure.

  Lt. Commander Jason Roberts, Hyperion’s sensors intelligence officer, turned from his holographic workstation to address his commanding officer. He didn’t bother to hide his shock.

  “Ma’am,” he said again, this time more firmly, “they can see us.”

  “How?!” Commander Zaid Conrad, the ship’s executive officer spat. He rocketed from his forward watch station and lunged towards Roberts’ sensors board, eyes aflame. A large man in any circumstance, his impressive bulk completely blocked the captain from Roberts’ view.

  “What did you do?”

  “Nothing!” Roberts replied instantly.

  “Then how the hell did they find us?” Conrad retorted.

  Roberts took a deep breath but didn’t break eye contact with his superior. Instead, he counted slowly back from five, carefully tapping down the anger that pulsed from his chest.

  “Well?” Conrad pressed.

  By way of answer, Roberts reached over to his panel and, without looking, transferred his display to the many holotanks scattered throughout the bridge. The light in the darkened command deck instantly shifted from the vibrant colors of the ship’s displays to a blend of tans, oranges, and whites.

  “Holy shit,” Boothe blurted, her voice ringing across the command deck.

  Conrad whirled, surprised at the captain’s exclamation, then turned his gaze to the tridees floating above the crew’s consoles. The exec’s sharp inhale was almost enough to put a smile on Roberts’ face.

  Broadcast from multiple news and entertainment organizations on the planet below, her shape unmistakable, was a grainy photograph of Hyperion. The flow of her hull modules—from the tapered command and control hull, back through the armored cargo spaces, to the bulky barrel of her sensors and communications center—was as familiar to the Terran Star Force bridge officers as their own faces.

  “They can see us.” Boothe repeated, her voice trailing off.

  Hyperion’s form slid back in the tridee image to a framed insert hanging back and to the left of a news desk. A pretty, blonde woman with piercing gray eyes stared agog at her camera, while next to her an older man fell back in his chair, rubbing the top of his balding head. No one had to hear their words to comprehend their shock. Were it not for the language being spoken by the people on screen, the scene transmitting from the planet’s surface could have come from the late twentieth century Terran archives.

  Conrad whirled once again on Roberts. “How did they find us?”

  Roberts turned back to his panel. “Let’s find out.”

  His hands danced across the holographic interface generated by his duty station. Within moments, the mellifluous sounds of the Tenastan language filled the bridge.

  “Dammit,” Conrad snarled. “Translate that crap.”

  If you’d bothered to learn the language over the past eighteen months I wouldn’t have to, Roberts thought, but offered a prompt “aye, aye” instead. His hands danced again, and the translator—of which he was particularly proud—kicked in.

  “Again, breaking news. Researchers at the Gieseran Timms observatory have released these images of what appears to be an artificial object in orbit above us.”

  Roberts moved his hands, and the feed changed to another broadcast. The faces, desks, and graphics surrounding the image changed, but little else did.

  “...far beyond anything we are capable of constructing. Word now is…”

  Roberts moved his hand and the announcers, graphics, and sets shifted again.

  “...incredibly, this could be a vessel from another world…”

  Conrad turned slowly back towards Roberts. “That…” his voice was thin, his plump face waxy. “That doesn’t explain how…”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Boothe’s voice was steady. “They know we’re here.”

  Conrad shot an angry look at Roberts, then turned back to the captain.

  Boothe stood up from her chair and moved towards the large bank of plasteel panes marking the fore section of Hyperion’s bridge. Below them, the planet Phelspharia hung in space like a sapphire, vibrant and untouched. A world of brilliant blues, whites, and greens, its surface glowed with an intensity that Terran spacefarers hadn’t seen since their first faltering steps into the deep dark centuries earlier. While Phelspharia’s hues shone like a torch in the night, Terra’s own colors had faded, desaturated by the inexorable spread of civilization. Though historians had lamented the change, most had accepted the slow graying of humanity’s cradle. It was regrettable, of course, but what could be done?

  “T
hey know we’re here,” Boothe repeated. She turned to face her watch crew. The stillness had left her, and instead her eyes were alight with possibilities. “We know what comes next. It might not be when or how we wanted it, but we’ve been readying for this day since we arrived.” A half smile pulled at her lips. “We’re about to make history.”

  The words hit Roberts like a punch to the chest. Boothe answered his reaction with a raised eyebrow. “You feeling okay there, Mr. Roberts?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Roberts managed. It’s happening, he thought. It’s finally happening!

  Boothe nodded. “Good.” Her expression hardened. “We’ve got work to do, people. Let’s get ready to meet the neighbors.”

  Phelspharia

  Low Orbit

  16 December 2356

  “Did we have to wear our dress blacks?” Conrad fumbled with the buckle on his mesh seat aboard Hyperion’s ship’s boat so vigorously that beads of sweat appeared on his ample forehead.

  Nearly twenty-four hours had passed since Hyperion had been detected on orbit. Not a moment had been wasted. The ship’s boat had been sterilized in preparation for launch. The team received their mandatory planetary cultural orientation and inoculation boosters. A dozen checklists from even more ship’s departments were initiated and cleared. Finally—after a restless night’s sleep and the final “go/no-go” call—the crew designated to make first contact with the Phelspharian people boarded Hyperion’s boat and waited for their drop.

  “Dammit!” Conrad exclaimed, dropping his five-point buckle. He bent over, his copious stomach making him wheeze with the effort.

  Roberts watched the heavyset XO struggle with the fabric and metal and tried his best not to smile. He knew Conrad’s weight and temper were no fault of his own. The exec had pulled a neglectful engineer away from a spin injector test seven weeks earlier and soaked up a dangerous dose of radiation in the process. While the meds Doc Nesheim gave him were effective, they had the unfortunate side effects of weight gain and irritability. Roberts had done his best to remain patient with the second-in-command as he recovered, but Conrad’s temper had been hell to endure. At this point, anything that took Conrad down a notch was welcomed.

  Conrad gathered the errant buckles, snapped them into place with a loud click, and flopped back into his seat, spent by the effort. He spotted Roberts smirking at him across the cramped, thermal-padded interior of the ship’s boat and glowered.

  “The uniforms were your idea, weren’t they?” Conrad grumbled.

  “Yes,” Captain Boothe answered. She sat next to Roberts; her face sapphire-lit by the reports floating up from her wristcom holoreader. “And I liked it.” She tapped the holoscreen closed and fixed Conrad with a bemused stare. “Do you have an issue with that, Exec?”

  “Damned jacket is too small,” Conrad muttered by way of an answer.

  “Ship’s gym is open to anyone,” Boothe replied, her eyes sparkling.

  Conrad tensed, his cheeks flushing.

  “You know the weight is because of the treatments, ma’am.” Conrad struggled to keep his voice even. “As soon as I’m through this I’ll...”

  Boothe reached across the aisle and placed her hand on his. “It was a joke, Zaid,” she said, as gently as she could in the noise of the boat. “Sorry.”

  Conrad nodded and his shoulders dropped with relief.

  “Captain,” the boat’s pilot called back. “We’re coming up on our drop point.”

  Boothe straightened, and Roberts thought he saw the tiniest bit of tension cross her features. Whatever it was vanished like smoke in a breeze, and Boothe nodded.

  “At your discretion, Lieutenant,” Boothe ordered.

  “Aye, ma’am,” the pilot called back. A flurry of movement from the cockpit followed, then the hiss of the comms channel in the ship’s intercom kicked to life. “Hyperion departure, Hyperion actual ready to depart, bay one.”

  “Hyperion actual, Hyperion departure, clear for launch bay one. Maintain vector until ten kilometers, then proceed own navigation.” The controller’s voice was crisp and professional, but Roberts heard a sliver of excitement. He couldn’t blame her; he shared it too.

  “Here goes nothing,” Conrad grumbled from across the aisle.

  “Let’s hope not,” Boothe retorted, smiling.

  The smell of ozone filled the air and the ship’s boat lurched. Roberts’ stomach lunged towards his feet as the boat’s gravity and inertial compensators came to life. Instinctively, he turned to look towards the exposed cockpit and saw Hyperion’s bay door slide out of place revealing the gleaming blue-green world below. With a thud of firing thrusters through the spaceframe and a flash of the receding bay, the ship’s boat cleared Hyperion, stretching her legs in the deep dark.

  “Here we go,” Roberts said, despite himself.

  Boothe turned towards him and smiled. “You ready for this, Mr. Roberts?”

  Can anyone be? Roberts thought, but what he said was, “Yes, ma’am.”

  Boothe nodded, her grin reduced to a smirk, and tapped her holoscreen open again.

  “What’s that you’re looking at?” Conrad asked Boothe. He looked pasty, beads of sweat erupting across his forehead.

  “My “Welcome to the Union” speech,” Boothe replied, her eyes not moving from the text. “I’ve been writing it for eighteen months. You’d think I’d know it by heart, but…”

  “That’s optimistic,” Conrad said. Boothe shot him a look and he hastily added, “ma’am.”

  Boothe turned her gaze towards Roberts. “Do you agree with that assessment, Commander?”

  Roberts wanted to say no, but he couldn’t. The conflict must have played out across his face because Conrad snorted in delight. “See? Even the kid’s worried.”

  “Not worried,” Roberts blurted, more forcefully than he intended. Off Conrad’s suddenly withering stare, he offered a hurried, “sir.”

  Boothe, however, just pursed her lips and asked, “If not worried, then what?”

  Roberts stiffened. What could he say? That there were too many variables? That this was unlike any other first contact that the Terran Star Force had conducted in the dozen years since the Motinai War had ended? That the planet around which they had orbited for eighteen months—to say nothing of its inhabitants—was not only a wonder, but was by all logic impossible? None of it seemed adequate.

  “Commander?” Boothe pressed.

  “I…” Roberts cleared his throat. “The last time I was part of a plan with this many unknowns, ma’am, things turned out badly.” A wave of anxiety washed over him, but he swallowed it back with practiced ease. “We should... we should be careful.”

  Boothe nodded. “Quite right,” she said, her voice even.

  Conrad, however, favored him with a hard stare.

  “Don’t let that scar on your face do your thinking for you,” the XO said. There was no malice in his voice. “You’ve gone above and beyond studying these people. We trust your assessment. As for what we don’t know, well, we’ll figure that out as we go.”

  Roberts met the Exec’s eyes, surprised. He nodded and offered up a quiet, “Thank you, sir.”

  Conrad didn’t get a chance to answer. The comm channel hissed and the departure controller’s voice filled the cabin. “Hyperion actual, one-zero kilometers from bullseye, resume own navigation, and good luck.”

  “Own navigation, good day,” the pilot replied crisply.

  Roberts looked forward again. The starfield spun, and moments later the ship’s boat stabilized on a retrograde heading, its nose pointed opposite its direction of travel.

  Readying for a deorbit burn, Roberts thought. His chest tightened. This is it.

  “De-orbit in five, four...” No hint of emotion touched the pilot’s voice.

  Roberts looked at his captain. Boothe had closed her speech and sat tall, posture ramrod straight, her eyes staring into nothing.

  “... three, two…”

  He glanced at Conrad. The exec’s hand
s gripped the metal bars of his seat, his eyes squeezed shut.

  Fuel lines tapped and rattled as propellant fed into the boat’s thrusters, and the entire hull vibrated as the boat readied for its deorbit burn.

  “... one.”

  The main engines coughed, then exploded into life. The spaceframe groaned as if it were about to fly apart, and for a moment Roberts imagined that he felt a pressure towards the aft bulkhead.

  “That’s loud,” Conrad said, to whom Roberts was not sure. “Damn, that’s loud.” Out of the corner of his eye, he spied a brief smile cross Boothe’s features, vanishing almost before it was there.

  As the main engines fired, their velocity placed them on a ballistic path towards the planet’s surface. Roberts looked out of the cockpit windows, his heart pounding in his ears. High above, moving away from the boat's bow, he spotted Hyperion. Its silver and gray tritan hull gleamed in the deep dark as it continued its orbit, rapidly shrinking to a brilliant star far ahead.

  The boat’s fuel lines rattled, and, just as suddenly as it had started, the thrust stopped. All that was left was the creaking of the spaceframe in microgravity and the wheezing of Conrad’s breath.

  “Burn complete,” the pilot announced over the speaker. “We’re on our way.”