Stars Forever Black: Book I of the Star Lion Saga

by A. L. Bruno

  “We have a lot to digest here,” Siva’s voice floated out over the increasingly loud canteen. The practiced poise had returned to her voice as if nothing unusual had happened that day. “But even in the midst of this world-changing event there was some levity to be found.”

  The screen cut to the moment where reporters crowded the scarred stranger in the black uniform. Gishkim groaned. He didn’t like that the aliens wore uniforms. He knew firsthand what the military could do to people, and he’d hoped that any visitors from the stars would have been beyond all that. Seeing that idea proven wrong was almost as disappointing as their familiar appearance.

  The camera shook as questions pelted the alien, until one question floated above the others.

  “Are you the Aditali?” Chatura the Troublemaker asked.

  The crowd of reporters burst out laughing, and even the crowd in the canteen guffawed with delight.

  Dasa squeezed his arm hard, and Gishkim turned to face her. Dasa’s eyes widened, and she mouthed the words “told you” directly at him.

  A piercing screech filled the air, and the crowd in the canteen flinched. The chipped green speaker mounted near the bar hissed and Gishkim’s stomach sank. There was only one person who had access to it, and he was the last person anyone wanted to deal with right now.

  “Associates!” Administrator Kawin grunted; his H’Tanzian-accented words nearly incomprehensible. “This is not a holiday! We have cargo to unload! Food, clothes, medicine! None of these waits for news from the other side of the world!”

  “Can we send him to the other side of the world?” Obet, an older dockworker with a ragged salt-and-pepper beard quipped. The canteen erupted into laughter. No one cared for Kawin. He’d been promoted to administrator barely two weeks before Gishkim had arrived. The previous man had succumbed to a sudden heart attack—a not-so-surprising turn of events, given his reported size—and Kawin had swept in behind him, promising big changes. In that, at least, Kawin didn’t lie; their workload doubled, and his punishments had been severe. As bad as the previous guy may have been, Gishkim doubted it could get much worse than Kawin.

  “Get back to work,” Kawin spat, “or I will be forced to contact the Central Authority about your insubordination!” Those words brought the laughter to an abrupt halt. Almost instantly, the dockworkers gathered their things and headed towards the door. “Let us not waste this glorious day, Associates, for this is a day for us all!”

  The speaker squealed again, then fell silent.

  Dasa stood and smiled down at him. “Thanks for sitting with me,” she said, then quickly rubbed his shoulder. She was gone a moment later, slipping between the larger workers like a stream through a cracked boulder.

  Dasa’s touch brightened Gishkim’s entire day. The workload may have been heavy—the westbound military supply load was higher than he’d ever seen it—and his shift was extended into mandatory “power time” to meet the dock’s Central Authority-dictated production goals. Like always, the floor foremen promised increased rations, higher stipends for clothing, and even extended holidays, but to date Gishkim had never seen a single one of those offers honored. It irked him, of course. How could it not? But he endured it as always. Eventually the post-extension work whistle fired and his shift came to an end. It had been a long day, certainly, but one that had started out very well indeed.

  Gishkim shuffled into line with the other workers, the sweat of the day soaking through his shirt. He made his way to the cavernous locker room in the Shipping Ministry’s main warehouse, following the same painted red line on the concrete floors as he had done every day since his transfer to Prayad two months earlier. He went through the post-shift process without conscious thought, raising his hands for the magnetic wand check, answering the same battery of questions as he had every day for three years. “Have you taken material that belongs to the state?” “Did you perform your duties as the Authority would expect?” He didn’t care for it. Who liked being treated like a thief every day of their lives? But he withstood it without contempt. The state gave him a roof over his head and food in his belly. He knew too well what it was like to be without either. The routine may have been dehumanizing, but Gishkim was sincerely thankful for it.

  Eventually he reached his locker. He stripped off his work garments and dumped them in the communal hamper on the way to the shower. Next to food and shelter, the rush of warm running water across his skin was a joy he looked forward to every day. It was often his only chance to bathe—the wait list for his communal apartment’s bathroom regularly ran into hours—and he savored every moment of it.

  Gishkim stayed in the shower until all the others left, and even after the timer-controlled lights clicked off one-by-one. He didn’t do it often—people would talk, of that he was certain—but when he did it was always a gift to himself. When he finally turned off the water with pruned fingertips, he took a moment just to embrace the quiet. In a crowded world of bustle and noise, a little bit of silence made for an escape all by itself.

  It was only after Gishkim had dried off and put on his personal clothes—a simple cotton shirt, worn-to-gray canvas pants, and the steel-toed combat boots he retained from his time in the H’Tanzian military—that he heard the wet smack of fists pounding into flesh somewhere in the darkness of the locker room. He knew the sound too well; he’d been on both ends of it too many times to count.

  Gishkim grabbed his vacuum flask and headed towards the door. He had no intention of finding out what was happening. His first few days after arriving on Kalinteli shores had taught him to avoid other people’s problems. He ignored the grunts of a stranger’s pain and instead wondered whether he would get any time on the vid schedule after he got back to his flat. Maybe he could even get his roommates to watch some of his bootleg Kionel Aetna videos with him.

  Then Gishkim heard a woman’s whimper in the darkness, and everything changed.

  Gishkim stopped in his tracks and cocked his head. Another moan, this one more restrained and unmistakably female tightened his stomach into a knot. The sound of fists on flesh suddenly became a grotesque picture of Dasa being beaten bloody, and he knew he had to do something.

  Gishkim turned and walked slowly back, stepping lightly and keeping himself low against the nearest bank of lockers. He eased towards the sound, the noise becoming louder with each step. Soon the groans were so close that he half expected to see flying blood. Eventually he reached the end of a bank of lockers and spotted a dance of shadows on the concrete floor as the beating continued.

  Gishkim swallowed. If it were Dasa, what could he do? He could probably overpower whoever was doing this, but then what? How long until they found out what he’d done? How much longer until he’d be starving on the street again, begging for scraps? He leaned back against the lockers and looked down, ashamed.

  “No!”

  The word pierced the locker room, echoing across the chamber. It was Dasa, of that Gishkim was certain. He lowered himself as far as he could, then craned his view around the bank of lockers.

  Dasa was not being beaten. The man strapped to a work chair, coughing up blood and twitching, was barely recognizable. Only the salt-and-pepper beard identified him as Obet, the man who had joked in the canteen hours earlier.

  Gishkim was embarrassed that he had to bite back a relieved sigh. Standing over Obet was a black uniformed Central Authority Agent, his leather gloves moist with blood. He struck the worker again, blood spattering to the floor, but he barely reacted.

  “Enough,” Administrator Kawin said. He stepped out from behind the CAA officer and raised the worker’s chin with one finger.

  Gishkim didn’t need to know Kawin to know Kawin. Everything about him—his perfectly-trimmed brown goatee, polished head over a fringe of well-cut hair, bespoke clothing, and single, tree-inspired tattoo arcing up the side of his face—spoke of someone who had come from money. He’d heard rumors from of his fellow H’Tanzians that Kawin had been an officer during the Battle of Ni
rneta and had barely escaped being killed by his own men. No one knew why, and Gishkim wasn’t about to ask, but he didn’t doubt it. Kawin had always struck him as the kind of man who was only interested in himself. Anybody who lived liked that was not to be trusted.

  “Perhaps now you’ll watch that mouth?” Kawin said. He smiled, genuinely happy to see his worker reduced to a bloody mass.

  Obet moaned, delirious, and Kawin turned to the CAA officer with a sigh.

  “I don’t think he’s learned his lesson,” Kawin said. “Keep it up until he’s contrite.”

  Gishkim almost wished that the CAA officer would have smiled, or laughed, or done anything to paint himself as a pure villain. Instead, he shrugged as if asked to load a few more crates onto a container ship, adjusted his gloves, and pummeled the man again.

  Kawin raised a hand and snapped a finger into the darkness. Dasa stepped forward moments later, her eyes rimmed red from tears.

  “You’ll have the paperwork ready if this should go badly, yes?” Kawin demanded.

  Dasa nodded. “Yes, Administrator,” she said, her throat tight.

  “Good,” Kawin replied. He turned and smiled at Kawin. “Don’t make me turn you into an example, too.”

  Dasa nodded, then looked down, terrified. Gishkim swallowed, his chest filling with heat.

  Kawin suddenly grabbed Dasa’s face in one hand, squeezing her cheeks so hard that she screamed.

  Gishkim’s hands curled into fists, and he quickly counted the steps from the edge of the lockers to Kawin, readying himself to strike.

  “It’s always good to remember your place,” Kawin said. He yanked down hard and Dasa dropped to her knees, sobbing. With that Kawin turned and strode away, his boot heels echoing in the darkness.

  Gishkim coiled, ready to spring.

  Dasa looked up and found his gaze. Her eyes widened, and then, barely perceptibly, she shook her head.

  Gishkim tilted his head, horrified, but all Dasa did was repeat the motion. Finally, she silently mouthed the word “please.”

  He didn’t want to turn around, but Gishkim knew he had no other choice. Kawin had the power here, not him. Acting would hurt Dasa more than it would help. The best thing he could do for them both was to walk away.

  Gishkim reminded himself of the food he’d eat, and the warm bed waiting for him at his apartment, but neither sounded appealing. Instead, all he could focus on was the wet sound of a fellow worker being beaten to a pulp for making a joke.

  10

  T.S.S. Hyperion

  Command and Control Module

  Briefing Bay One

  Phelspharia

  17 December 2356

  “Is it the Motinai?” Roberts asked, his voice hollow. “A shooting war.” Captain Boothe’s words boiled like lava in his gut.

  Captain Boothe straightened in her seat, determined to show strength to her gutted command staff.

  “We’re not sure,” Boothe answered. She turned to her exec. “Mr. Conrad?”

  Conrad stood, shoulders slumped, wiped away beads of sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, then tapped at the holo keyboard hanging in space before him.

  Images of a night sky over an arid landscape popped into being above the table. The first three shots were harmless enough, showing the transparent domes of a mining colony in the foreground, while a series of lights passed in the distance, high over the terrain. The remaining images, however, were studies in violence. Violet columns of directed energy weapons shattered the domes farthest from the lens, while flames rolled upwards in sickening, low-gravity arcs before being snuffed out by the hostile atmosphere of the planet. The lights drew closer with each image, birthing a series of explosions before them. Almost mercifully, the final image of white-hot flames near the camera brought the sequence to an end.

  “This was repeated at every one of our coreward paxanite mining facilities,” Conrad said. He gestured again, and a new series of images appeared. The terrain changed, as did the time of day, but the sequence was identical: approaching lights, fire, then nothing.

  “The attacks were coordinated,” Conrad spoke slowly, carefully articulating each point. “Given the distance between systems, the difficulty of communication, and the precision…” Conrad’s voice trailed off, but he squared his shoulders to continue. “This has to be state-sponsored.”

  “Casualties?” Fitzpatrick asked. Even his normally laconic voice sounded small.

  Conrad balled a fist and lightly punched the table.

  “All colonists are considered lost.” The words fell across the room like a lead weight. “Approximately fifty-five thousand souls.” Conrad’s voice cracked, and he looked away, embarrassed.

  Roberts turned to face Boothe. “What about the core signatures on those ships? Weapon energy? Any—”

  “We’ve got nothing, Mr. Roberts,” Conrad snapped. The exec leaned in; his head arced towards Roberts like a striking snake. “All we’ve got is this!” He flung his hand upwards, scattering the images.

  “We know they wanted to hit our paxanite production,” Roberts replied, struggling to keep his voice calm. “That tells us a lot.”

  “No paxanite, no faster-than-light,” Fitzpatrick added, echoing the oft-repeated phrase from the academy’s tachyonic space courses.

  Roberts turned away from the exec and faced Captain Boothe, doing his best to keep his hands from trembling. “Have there been any reports of paxanite shortages in the Motinai Empire, ma’am?”

  Boothe gave the barest of shrugs. “Normally I’d ask you that question, Mr. Roberts. But we’re here, and quite decidedly out of the loop.”

  Roberts sat back and blew out an exasperated sigh. They’re trying to cripple our starflight ability, he thought. No shielding for the tachyon drives means no ability to fly. No flying means no way to respond. No way to respond means… He closed his eyes, not wanting to imagine the inevitable consequence.

  “They hit us where it hurts the most,” Fitzpatrick said, echoing Roberts’ thoughts.

  So much for Phelspharia, Roberts thought, his stomach sinking. Real discovery ruined by the Motinai. Again. He opened his eyes, cleared his throat and turned back to Captain Boothe.

  “When will we be heading back, ma’am?” Roberts asked.

  Boothe laughed without humor. “We’re not.”

  Roberts blanched. “Excuse me?”

  “Fleet wants us here,” Conrad said. The exec’s ample cheeks were crimson hemispheres.

  “That’s ridiculous,” Fitzpatrick replied.

  “Hyperion is a survey ship now, Mr. Fitzpatrick,” Boothe said, her tone iron. “To refit her for combat would take months, and that’s not counting the trip back to Union space.”

  Roberts’ stomach tightened. “Then what are our orders, ma’am?”

  Boothe raised her chin. “Fleet wants us to establish a base here, on Phelspharia,” she replied. “And they want it ASAP.”

  “They can’t be serious!” The words escaped Roberts’ lips before he could stop them. He saw Boothe’s mouth fall open, and Conrad’s shocked look, but he pressed on regardless. “These people just found out that they’re not alone, and now Fleet wants us to pull them into a war?”

  “Fleet wants the Union to survive, Mr. Roberts,” Boothe replied, her voice a warning of fury to come. “If that means we inconvenience these people to keep them alive, then so be it.” Her angular features hardened to stone. “I believe you have a briefing for me?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Roberts managed. His voice shook, and his jaw ached as he bit back expletives. “Petty Officer Okoro should be waiting for us outside.”

  Boothe tilted her head the tiniest degree, and Roberts got the message. He stood, took the handful of steps to the hatch, and opened it.

  Okoro leaned against the knee knocker frame, a finger-smudged reference pad in hand. The width of his eyes and the height of his eyebrows made it clear that he’d heard everything.

  “I…” Okoro said, pointing over hi
s shoulder, “I can come back later.”

  “Not a chance,” Roberts muttered, and he gestured into the briefing room.

  Okoro swallowed nervously. Don’t let him be afraid of this, Roberts thought. He’s capable. He just needs to be reminded of that.

  “Don’t worry,” Roberts whispered. “I’ve got your back.”

  Okoro nodded once, composed himself, then stepped into the briefing area.

  “What do you have for us, Chief?” Boothe asked. Like Roberts, any contentiousness had left her voice, replaced with the studied indifference of commanding officers everywhere.

  “Everything you asked for, ma’am,” Okoro replied. He tapped his pad and threw a new series of images above the table. Orbital holoshots of the major cities on each continent appeared, as well as iconography for the dominant media companies, and even the planet’s transportation infrastructure. Finally, images of the first contact were added, with many focused on the hulking presence of Avindair standing over Roberts. “Their geopolitics, their governments, their squabbles, all of it.” Okoro smiled, pleased with himself. “What would you like to know?”

  Roberts felt a smile threaten his lips. Good man, he thought.

  Boothe didn’t share Roberts’ enthusiasm. Instead, she pulled up her own holo interface from her wristcom, swiped through some files, then flipped them towards the emitter like a gambler tossing worthless cards. “How about this?” she asked, the barest hint of anger in her voice.

  A series of videos appeared, each from the major news networks on the planet. Tenastan, Kalinteli, and H’Tanzian voices spilled over each other, creating a melodious cacophony in the briefing room. While each presentation differed in style, in hosts, and even in pacing, they all shared one thing in common: a close-up image of Roberts’ scarred face, his hands held up in a calming gesture, hung over each presenter’s right shoulder. Below each were the same words: Koneali Shishisha Nal?

  Roberts’ eyes went wide even before the translators kicked in. A moment later the words dissolved to Standard: “Kionel’s New Apprentice?” Finally, the vocal translators came to life and the words rained down across the room.