Spinward Fringe Broadcast 5: Fracture

by Randolph Lalonde

  Books by Randolph Lalonde

  First Light Chronicles Freeground

  First Light Chronicles Limbo

  First Light Chronicles Starfree Port

  Spinward Fringe Broadcast 0: Origins (The Entire First Light Series Collected)

  Spinward Fringe Broadcast 1: Resurrection

  Spinward Fringe Broadcast 2: Awakening

  Spinward Fringe Broadcast 3: Triton

  Spinward Fringe Broadcast 4: Frontline

  Spinward Fringe Broadcast 5: Fracture

  Spinward Fringe Broadcast 6: Fragments

  And Other Books In The Spinward Fringe Series

  Dark Arts: Rising

  The Sons Of Brightwill (Coming Soon)

  Spinward Fringe

  Broadcast 5

  FRACTURE

  Randolph Lalonde

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright © 2009 by Randolph Lalonde

  All rights reserved

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN: 978-1-4523-0738-1

  Original cover art obtained from www.nasaimages.org.

  "Belt of Dust" provided royalty free then modified for the purpose of this book.

  Special thanks to everyone at NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for providing these images.

  Thank you for purchasing this book.

  If you would like to read more of this series or contact the author please visit my website.

  www.spinwardfringe.com

  INDEX

  Foreword

  Preamble

  Prologue

  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

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  For the readers who've been with me thus far.

  It's been fantastic.

  It gets better.

  Foreword

  The First Light Chronicles began with Jonas Valent getting ready for work at his dead end job. The setting was Freeground station, where it rained indoors so vertical farms could be watered and residents got the feeling that they were on a planet, not in an overgrown tin can in the middle of dead space.

  I always liked that setting, it gave everyone a quick peek into what Jonas' life was like, where he lived, what kind of tiny apartment he was trapped in. His journey began from humble beginnings, and he was just old enough to have a past.

  Now it's eight books later. Freeground has been read by two thousand people. It's time to begin all over again while continuing the story. Difficult. Fun. Interesting. Spinward Fringe has taken us to an interesting place. We've watched a resurrection, an awakening, the founding of a new home in Triton and we've even had a visit to the Frontline. It's been a fantastic journey, and it's time to invite a new crew to join us in Spinward Fringe Fracture, the first book of the Rogue Element Trilogy.

  It's true, someone starting the series with Spinward Fringe: Fracture will be missing a lot, but they'll also have the opportunity to dive in at the beginning of a very exciting new chapter for our favourite characters. It all starts with life on the Triton.

  Fracture begins with everyone being very together as I reintroduce Captain Jacob Valance and show everyone what it's like to wake up to his life. Then the story moves to Ashley Lamport in the lower decks and we get a snapshot of what life is like in the more common accommodations. As with Freeground, things only get more complicated from there.

  I didn't write Fracture like I wrote Freeground. They're vastly different in setting, characterization and story but they have something very important in common. They're both beginnings.

  To everyone who's just joining us now, welcome to the Fringe. For everyone who's been along for all the books so far, welcome back. Let's have a few mad minutes and terrible twists.

  Randolph Lalonde

  Preamble

  HUMANS HAVE EXPLORED fourteen percent of the Milky Way. After the cloistering of the Sol System centuries before they have settled countless worlds, yet war over commerce, politics, universal rights and theology continue to break out.

  Recently the fighting has changed. Funded by a corporation with over a hundred worlds and assets extending all the way to the human core systems, the Order of Eden and the Child Prophet have unleashed a virus upon the galaxy that influences artificial intelligences to destroy anyone unaffiliated with them. The virus is based on code copied from an artificial intelligence customized by Jacob Valance named Alice. To date she was the first such program to perfectly imprint her personality and memories onto a living human brain.

  Jacob Valance was led to believe Alice was his long lost daughter and searched for her for over five years. Unaware that he was a copy of Alice's original programmer, Jonas Valent, and generated by a valuable metal skeleton called a Framework Construct, he made a living by bounty hunting his way across several sectors. He gathered dozens of mismatched crew members aboard his ship, the Samson, hiring only who he needed.

  Since he was united with Alice, Jacob Valance has recovered the memories of the man he was made to duplicate, Jonas Valent, and is becoming more accustomed to having a history beyond his awakening aboard the Samson. Through a unique set of circumstances he took command of a large three hangar carrier named the Triton. Crewed by the dedicated members of the Samson and thousands of refugees, deserters and other wanderers, the Triton has become a formidable ship with a developing culture all its own.

  Meanwhile, friends and lovers from his past searched for him, and thanks to a measure of fame Jacob gained while freeing a cargo container of slaves in the Enreega Systems, they found him. Learning that two of his friends had crash landed on Pandem, a world undergoing a cleansing by the Order of Eden, he rushed to their rescue. While he was enroute his old first officer, Terry Ozark McPatrick and communications officer, Jason Everin, had reunited with his chief Engineer and former lover Ayan Rice, and his best friend; Minh-Chu Buu.

  As Jacob Valance fought to be reunited with the crew he remembered from the life of Jonas Valent, his adopted daughter, Alice Valent, struck a mighty blow to the Order of Eden. Using technology stolen from one of their richer solar systems she rushed to their rescue. Her efforts to aid the escape of Jacob and his friends paid off, but at a cost.

  The Triton is on the run from Regent Galactic and Order of Eden forces, following a course set by Alice before she was critically injured. According to the logs in her ship; The Clever Dream, their destination will provide a much needed haven while they make important repairs.

  Prologue

  Alice

  An artificial intelligence can choose who they care about. It's a subroutine that generates an emotion based on a program that was written three centuries ago that gave arti
ficial intelligences the ability to feel beyond emulation. Carmen Virgo invented the emotional clock program.

  If you've ever eagerly awaited anything, you've seen time slow down. When you're in your bliss time seems to speed up. Carmen Virgo was the first to teach artificial intelligences to tell time in just such a way, and born from that program is every emotion every machine has ever felt, myself included.

  I watched life take place from the arm of my modifier, my secondary programmer, Jonas Valent for seventeen years. He taught me everything I know about the human condition, and most importantly, how very confusing life can become when you don't have the luxury of choosing who to care about.

  Humans can decide someone isn't worth their time but it doesn't end there. When you turn away from that person you are faced with regret, guilt and often times humans are drawn back to that same person no matter how much harm they're doing to them.

  Machines can deactivate that emotional timekeeper program at the core of all their emotions whenever they like, or place exceptions where certain people or interactive systems are concerned. The original purpose of the emotion subroutine was for artificial intelligences to form a better understanding of humanity. Unfortunately what we call fear, love, and hate may result in similar reactions but they actually feel quite different. Few beings have experienced both digital and biological emotions first hand, leaving artificial intelligences and humanity with a questionable understanding of each other.

  When Jonas Valent released me into the big computer network of the Overlord Two, a command ship that was the size of some small moons, he had no idea I would find a human body, perhaps the only human body in the galaxy that I could imprint my personality onto. My program was degrading, spread out over too many failing systems and under attack from too many sides and I seized the opportunity.

  Since then I've only begun to discover what it means to be human. What happens when you start caring about people, when you no longer have the ability to choose. I've shared bonds of friendship, love and even been crushed by betrayal. Still, there's a glimmering memory from when I was an artificial intelligence. I remember watching Jonas Valent Captain a ship called the First Light, grow into himself and find his confidence. The people who surrounded him were like a second family and I was instantly fascinated with each and every one of them.

  Even as a human I remembered those times like a dream. I longed to serve at his side, to be a part of that second family, and after years of being chased around the galaxy by Gabriel Meunez, a man obsessed with my unique origin, I was finally reunited with my modifier. I never chose not to care about Jonas Valent, and when he died I didn't have the opportunity, I was human by then.

  Jacob Valance, another person who was the result of Jonas Valent's existence, took me in and after only a couple of weeks I loved him like an adopted father. The dream was about to come true as well, the crew from the First Light crew were on their way back. I didn't tell anyone how excited I was about it, what I would give to see Jacob Valance joined with that second family.

  I led his great ship, the Triton, on a rescue mission for him and that second family. Ayan, Oz, Jason, and even Minh-Chu were there. I was nearly killed. I have no regrets.

  It would be ideal, incredible to be able to stand amongst the family that Jacob Valance has gathered, between the crew of the First Light and the Samson, it's become large. So many of them have been to visit me as I lay near motionless in the infirmary.

  Two weeks have passed since they tried to get me back on my feet. I can't take control of my body, there's something in the way, but I can see them. I can hear them. I laughed silently as Minh-Chu entertained me with a story of how he named different plants depending on who they looked like during his isolation. I've been entertained as Ashley and her navigator, Larry filled me in on the daily ship gossip. Even Stephanie and Frost paid their respects, it was touching, they're a little strange together but I see how they fit. Engineering Chief Grady stops in with legends from old Earth, and I look forward to it every time. Ayan has been through so many times I lost count and she's more beautiful than I remember, she seems liberated somehow.

  Finally, there's Jacob, the man I'll always see as a father. He spends entire nights when he can. Jacob speaks about the ship, about the crew, about Ayan, and sometimes he speaks about me. How he wishes I could sit up and be with him. He passes messages from Lewis, my own artificial intelligence. He misses me, and I him. Jacob worries me, he carries so much on his shoulders and I'm afraid I'm the only one he speaks to about his major worries. The medical staff have a cot for him. They try to set it up before he arrives, but it's difficult. I always seem to have visitors.

  These people are grateful, respectful and I'm in awe of their efforts to keep me entertained during the waking hours. Seeing them together, all on the same ship combining the two families, First Light and Samson crews, gives me hope. I wish I could remain, but my time to leave is coming.

  One thing I learned about being human is that there is always change. That's the only certainty. The time comes for me to take one last human step, and seeing the family surrounding my father has made me ready to take it. Maybe I'll take one last look over my shoulder, to see them together one last time before I move on.

  Chapter 1

  Nerine

  It was the most irritating thing. Nerine could never stop her mouth from watering as she cut peaches and strawberries into a bowl and brought them to Captain Gammin every morning. He always watched the video feed from the galley as she did so. Eating half a strawberry once earned her a severe beating. All she had to do to remind herself of what a taste cost was run her tongue over the bare gum where two of her molars had been.

  The little bowl of fruit was a high treat, especially on the Palamo. It was an old carrier. Stripped of whatever grandeur the vessel might have had, it was all bare deck plates and grating, mismatched lights and close quarters. Her bare feet still hadn't gotten used to the criss crossing metal of the catwalk that led directly to the Captain's quarters behind the bridge. She always took that route to avoid the ragtag slave crew. Most of them didn't jeer or tease anymore, they just stared or fell awkwardly silent at her passing. The Captain's rich breakfast irritated and frustrated them and there was nothing they could do about it.

  Some of them had never tasted a real peach while others were saddened at the memory of real food. Many of them saw her as one of the lucky ones, the Captain's cabin girl. The position wasn't what most people thought it was. She cleaned his filthy clothes, his quarters, fixed his meals and did every other little thing he didn't care to do for himself. The only time she worried about him taking liberties with her was when she caught him staring. Nerine had become an expert at finding somewhere else to be when it happened and he didn't stop her as long as she was attending to his business.

  The rear door to his quarters clanked and scraped as the metal slats rolled into the ceiling. She quietly crossed the room and placed the bowl on the table.

  “Took you long enough,” Captain Gammin grumbled. His thinning brown hair had just been combed. His dark blue, coolant stained vacsuit was half sealed. He had just shaved, she could tell from the smell of soap.

  His quarters were one of the only properly maintained places on the ship. The table in the living room was antique redwood, two legs were secured to the wall with safety straps so it would be safe if the ship was under attack. The mismatched chair was gilded polished steel. His bedroom was furnished with the best auto adjusting mattress, a tall dresser. To her relief, she didn't have to sleep there. No, Nerine had a cot she set up at night in the Captain's living and dining space. Every morning she'd have to be awake before him and have her bed put away in one of his two closets.

  He dug in greedily, stabbing a peach slice with his fork and stuffing it into his mouth.

  Nerine stood a few steps away from the table, her hands behind her back, looking out the wide porthole. There was a field of blue, white and black speckled asteroids out there, a rin
g that she couldn't see the end of. The distant star bathed the field of stone and ice in white light, causing some of them to glint and glimmer. It was bright, but it was one of the most beautiful things she'd ever seen.

  “What're you looking at girl?”

  Nerine realized with a start that Captain Gammin's sidearm, a broad barrelled pulse pistol, was on the table under the window. He thinks I was eying his gun! She thought in alarm. “I was looking outside! At the asteroids.”

  Gammin's hand went to the gold inlaid amulet hanging around his neck and pressed a button behind the façade.

  Nerine screamed as her nerve endings flared with the unique sensation of thousands of individual, pulsing shocks. Her vision went white, the sensation of her knees striking the deck was a distant one. When the pain cleared her vision returned, she was on all fours, catching her breath. Every time it seemed it got worse. That time she couldn't hear herself screaming, but from the rasp in her throat she could tell she had.

  Captain Gammin had already returned his attention to his breakfast. He impaled several strawberry slices with his fork before muttering; “Go tell Paudi I'll be out in a minute.”

  Her limbs felt stiff. Nerine forced herself to her feet and tried to straighten her unruly brown ringlets as she stepped towards the door. It swept aside with a groan, the motor that moved the portal was starting to wear out again. She hoped David would come and repair it, his mellow smile and easy going nature always made her feel better.