Shattered Dawn (The Eternal Frontier Book 3)

by Anthony J Melchiorri

  She’d almost gotten this mission nixed before it had ever begun.

  Tag didn’t consider those things. What he saw when he looked at Lonestar’s face was a crewmember who believed in doing whatever it took to accomplish her mission. A marine who embodied the living stereotype that the people of his home, Old Houston, Texas, had long ago outgrown. There were anachronisms in her manners and accent, but they masked a true and noble heart. He had never met someone quite like her. His crew would never be whole if they left her here.

  “Lonestar is going with us,” Tag said.

  The vines whirled around him and the others like a tornado, twisting and whipping faster than gale-force winds. Some sliced against his suit with enough force to shove him backward until he was pressed against the rest of the crew.

  “She stays or you all stay!” Raktor roared.

  Everything went still. The vines crisscrossed around them like an organic prison cell.

  “Go!” Lonestar cried. “Y’all get out of here, now!”

  Never had Tag seen her so determined, so fierce, even when in battle with the Drone-Mechs.

  “I’ll be fine,” she lied.

  Tag stared at his crewmate. At a life he had been entrusted with.

  “Listen to the human,” Raktor asked. “Go on your little adventure, and bring our seedling back on its own ship. Bring us back a new Raktor, and this human will be yours once again.”

  Above Lonestar a thin, waxy vine formed a noose around her neck.

  “No!” Tag yelled.

  “Human Tag,” Raktor spoke calmly, “you leave now or she dies. Then we will pick another human to keep with us. We will keep repeating this until only you are left.”

  Lonestar locked eyes at him as the vine twisted around her neck and curled under her chin.

  “Go,” she said.

  Tag couldn’t let her down now, but if he didn’t leave, Raktor would make good on its word, ending the Argo’s crew’s lives one by one. Lonestar shook her head, and Tag understood what she meant; she would feel just as guilty, just as responsible for their deaths if he stayed on her account.

  “Fine,” Tag said. “Fine, Raktor. You win. Let us leave.”

  All the vines retracted, dragging Lonestar with them. She disappeared in the nest of mottled greens and browns, along with the beak. When Tag didn’t move immediately, the vines started spilling behind him like an avalanche, ushering them toward the exit.

  “Screw you!” Bull roared.

  Tag couldn’t tell whether the marine was yelling at him or Raktor, but he figured he deserved it just as much as the plant-creature in that moment. Had he really thought that if he lived in Weber’s old quarters, sat in the captain’s station on the bridge, that he could lead these people? As he glimpsed Lonestar one last time, her hand reaching out before disappearing entirely behind the tornado of vines, he realized that he had a long way to go before he deserved the respect and loyalty of his crew. If he didn’t get Lonestar back, they’d never forgive him—and he wouldn’t forgive himself.

  They ran down the passages with Raktor’s vines cascading behind them. And as their boots pounded against the deck, kicking up the slime, Tag vowed that this would not be the last time they saw Lonestar.

  He would track down the Collectors, discover the answers to what had happened on the Hope, and find out where the nanites had come from and how this goddamned station was involved.

  And when he was done riddling the last Collector full of pulsefire rounds, he would return here for her.

  “Lonestar,” he whispered, “we’ll be back.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Three marines. Somehow, they were supposed to take on a hostile and mysterious alien race with just three marines. The Argo had lost its entire contingency of marines once at the hands of the Drone-Mechs. Tag hadn’t been responsible then; it hadn’t been his fault the Drone-Mechs had caught Captain Weber and the crew unaware in the attack that started him down this perilous race into the unknown.

  But this time he was the captain.

  As many times as he vowed he would return for Lonestar, it didn’t assuage the poison of doubt shifting through his mind, spreading its malevolent influence and threatening to send him in a downward spiral that would lead him to the bottom of an empty gutfire bottle.

  He stalked out of the laboratory. As he drew near the mess, the sound of clinking glass and muffled conversation made him pause at the entrance. Bull, Sumo, Gorenado, he thought. The idea of facing them was almost physically painful, but he felt exhausted and desperate for something to ward off the fatigue in his brain after working with Sofia all day. With a long sigh, he pushed open the hatch.

  The conversation shared by the marines silenced.

  Tag gave them a perfunctory nod. Before he could see the inevitable judgment in their eyes, he turned to the food and drink autoserv bay. A quick knuckle tap against one of the terminals spit out a cup with hot, black coffee. He moved toward the exit.

  “Captain!” a gruff voice called. “Join us.”

  Tag glanced at Gorenado and hesitated. Three experiments were running on the sims characterizing the biochemical and genetic samples Sofia and he had obtained from the seedling. None of them would be done for another twenty minutes.

  Tag sat with the marines.

  “We want you to know,” Sumo said without preamble, “we don’t blame you.”

  Gorenado nodded. Maybe those two didn’t blame him, but Tag could feel the heat radiating off of Bull. He doubted the sergeant felt the same.

  “We had to go back to Raktor,” Sumo continued. “We had to get the IDs from its computer room, or we would’ve wasted too much time. Time that might’ve meant the difference between the destruction or survival of the Montenegro—or some other SRE ship.”

  “We will stop the Collectors, and we’ll get Lonestar back,” Gorenado said. He took a swig of whatever he was drinking. Judging by his grimace, it was gutfire.

  Bull simply stared into his cup, and Tag didn’t prod him to say anything. He wondered if the other two marines were trying to reassure him or themselves.

  “We’ll absolutely get Lonestar back,” Tag said. Now he wasn’t sure whom he was trying to reassure either, but he continued, “We’re so close, so damn close, to finding those Collectors.”

  Sumo and Gorenado nodded. Bull’s fingers tightened into a fist that turned his knuckles white. For a second Tag imagined the marine slamming his fist on the table and yelling in anger. Maybe it would be cathartic. Maybe Tag wanted to see someone express some anger around here, and Bull was the gods-damned man to do it.

  That moment never came.

  Tag took a sip of the coffee. The heat slid down his throat, waking him up as it did. Despite their loss to Raktor, the ID codes were still theirs. They would find the Collectors and sneak in through their defenses. “We’ll have those bastards begging for forgiveness.”

  “Damn right, Captain,” Sumo said, raising her glass, brown eyes gleaming with an inebriated sheen. “Damn right.”

  “How much of that gutfire did you all sneak aboard?” Tag asked.

  “Why?” Sumo shot back. “You want some?”

  He did. He desperately did. “No, not now. But I’m going to owe Lonestar a drink or two when we get her back.”

  Sumo and Gorenado gave an obligatory laugh.

  “Sure you don’t want some?” Sumo asked as she refilled her own glass.

  Tag checked his wrist terminal. Still had several minutes before he needed to head back to the laboratory. “Fine. Just a little.” He offered her his cup of coffee, and she poured what seemed to Tag like a liberal shot. “Why is she called Lonestar, anyway? I’m guessing that as a native Texan, Lonestar got her call sign from acting like one of our old cowboys.”

  “Not fair to talk about the marine like that,” Gorenado said. “She isn’t even here to defend herself.”

  “I’m just curious, that’s all. I’ve never known how marines chose their call signs.” Tag held
up his hands defensively when the trio stared at him skeptically. “I figured hers had to be a simple explanation.”

  “It’s not that simple,” Sumo said. “And the whole Texas thing is just a small part of it.”

  Gorenado raised an eyebrow.

  “Ok,” Sumo corrected herself. “It’s a big part. But it’s not the whole story. Let’s just say it has something to do with a military space station bar, a few drinks, and a lasso.”

  “Now I’m intrigued,” Tag said, leaning forward and taking another chug of his coffee.

  Sumo shook her head and wagged a finger. “Not my story to tell. We’ll wait until she gets back.”

  “Fine,” Tag said. He took another sip of the coffee. The combined warmth of the alcohol and the coffee cleared some of the fog of anxiety from his mind. Too much more of the drink would cast an entirely different fog over his mind. He would be of no use to Sofia, much less their mission, if he let the drink inhibit his scientific work. “I won’t have to wait long then.”

  Sumo smiled, understanding the promise behind his words, and Tag left the marines with half his gutfire-spiked coffee undrunk. Beyond the hatch to the mess, Lucky waited for him with her tails sweeping the floor in long arcs. She pranced behind him as he returned to the med bay, and he was forced to shoo her away from the hatch when he entered.

  “Sorry, Lucky,” Tag said. “Can’t have you messing with the experiments.”

  She scratched at the door when it closed.

  From her spot behind a terminal, Sofia said, “That creature will not leave you alone.”

  “For better or worse,” Tag said. “Not sure why. I’ve never been a huge animal person.”

  “Apparently, you are now.”

  Tag walked over to Sofia’s workstation. On it, the seedling sat within a polyglass beaker. Its beak opened and closed as it emitted a series of high-pitched sounds that were nothing like the Raktor’s baritone voice. Curling green vines sprouted from the top of the acorn-sized creature and draped over the rim of the beaker.

  “How’s it coming?” Tag asked. Sofia had been charged with rigging up a translation apparatus for the seedling so they could better communicate with it.

  “Let’s find out.” She placed a ring-shaped transponder half as big as the seedling’s main body into the beaker, and the seedling wrapped one of its vines around it. Sofia had added a small hole in the transponder which the vine promptly found and went inside. In theory, this would allow the creature to interface with the electronic device just as Raktor had done with the terminals aboard the station.

  A rush of static burst over the terminal near the beaker, and Tag recoiled from the sound. Sofia gestured over the terminal to lower the volume. The static faded slowly, replaced by a low murmuring in Sol Standard.

  Sofia turned up the volume cautiously, keeping her hand near the terminal.

  “—Raktor! We will not be contained!” the words drifted, tinny and light, from the Terminal.

  The seedling rolled slightly in its beaker with its vines dancing about like blades of grass in a gentle breeze.

  “Raktor?” Sofia spoke as if talking to a child. “We’re not here to contain you. We’re here to help you.”

  “Raktor has told us all,” it said. Tag assumed it was referring to the Hope’s Raktor now. “We know what you want from us.”

  “Short of letting you take over our ship,” Sofia said, “is there anything we can do to make your stay a bit more comfortable?”

  “More water!” the voice cried. “More food! I must grow!”

  Sofia looked to Tag for approval.

  The bio-simulation experiments on the tiny sample of vine they had trimmed from the seedling had finished shortly before Sofia turned on the translation software and device. Blue and green letters scrolled across the screen, representing the nucleotides comprising the Raktor’s genetic makeup. Tag’s interest was more than purely academic; he wanted to know how a little thing like this became the monstrosity they saw on the Hope.

  And how they might use that data for their own benefit. “Let’s hold off on feeding and watering it for now,” he said quietly, pulling Sofia aside. “As much as I dislike the idea of treating the seedling as a prisoner, I don’t want our ship to end up like the Hope.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Tag paced in front of the lab’s main holoscreen. The scent of sterile air wafted around him. Machines chirped in concert with ongoing experiments, and the bulkheads groaned in that way that let Tag know the fusion reactors were still thrumming along in the Argo’s belly, keeping everything alive and healthy.

  Every system aboard his ship was functioning as normal, but that might all change with his next order.

  They would be jumping into hyperspace soon in pursuit of the Collectors. For now, he had science to distract him and his crew. Alpha stood straight and still in one corner. She looked just like the M3 droid used to when it was powered down and waiting to carry out some medical procedure. The only indication she now possessed synth-bio sentience was through the way her beady black eyes scanned the room.

  Near her sat Sofia, picking at one of her nails. The anthropologist had dark bags under eyes, and her normally ruddy complexion seemed paler than usual. Tag attributed it to her tireless work on the translator and trying to reason with the little Raktor now living in a cubic polyglass container. The constant clink of metal against polyglass sounded as Raktor swung its transponder around, exploring its environment. Sofia had assured Tag that the species was quite all right with living in a confined space. They were damn adaptable creatures, able to live in spaces barely larger than a drinking straw, but there was one thing that drove their choice of living arrangements: ready access to electronics and other digital equipment.

  Coren glanced at the Raktor suspiciously but never let his golden eye stray from Tag for too long. The six fingers of his right hand tapped in rhythm along the armrest of his crash couch. Bull stood off to the Mechanic’s side with his arms crossed and his forehead wrinkled as though he was angry about something. For all Tag knew, he probably was. The marine seemed to harness anger like it was a damn horse he rode everywhere.

  “Thanks to the data you all have uncovered, I think we can make our jump tonight,” Tag began. “But I want to make sure we’re all on the same page. If anybody thinks we’re missing something, now is the time to figure out what that is.”

  “Before we talk to Bracken and Jaroon?” Coren asked.

  “Yes,” Tag said. “I want any objections or concerns brought up here and now. Let’s get to the easy stuff.” Tag snapped his fingers, and an image of the Raktor seedling appeared. “Sofia?”

  Sofia gestured at the holoscreen. The image of the seedling morphed, showing a series of currents traveling up and down the length of its vines like marching ants. “We went ahead and added some simulations Tag and I ran to the data we pulled from the Collectors on the Hope. I feel ninety-nine percent confident that the Raktor’s vines can interact with any computer system in the galaxy. In fact, Raktor are capable of drawing energy from these systems.”

  Her voice pitched higher in excitement as she continued, “These creatures have adapted to deep space travel and diverse environments so well, it’s frightening. The plants we’re used to seeing on Earth use photosynthesis to harness solar energy and create complex organic molecules from water and carbon dioxide. This process occurs in a specially designed organelle within a plant’s cells called the chloroplast. Raktor possess very similar organelles within their cells.”

  “Photosynthesis would be inefficient or even impossible to achieve when a Raktor is living aboard a space station like the Hope without proper access to full spectrum lights,” Alpha said.

  “Correct!” Sofia said like a proud teacher. “I’ve decided to call the organelles I discovered in Raktor’s cells voltaplasts. Remember that name because I’m copyrighting it now. When they write xenobiology books on the Raktor, you can proudly say you know—”

  Tag gestured f
or her to move on with a slight wave.

  “Anyway, these voltaplasts contain organic, magnetic particles that react to the current flowing through a power source, whether it’s a wired or even wireless power transfer.”

  “So Raktor needs to keep the fusion reactors alive aboard the Hope to keep eating, more or less,” Coren said.

  “Yeah,” Sofia said. “But again, I’m getting off the point here. Besides allowing the Raktor to leech power, these organelles also allow it to send signals through data connections. That’s how Raktor maintained some control over the station and how our little Raktor can control its transponder.”

  “Okay, great,” Bull said, his face screwed up in a scowl. “Thanks for the biology lesson. What’s the point of this?”

  The corners of Coren’s mouth quivered as if he was tempted to smile. “The point, I believe, is that this thing could be an even better hacker than Alpha. Or me.”

  “I am surprised you would so quickly admit to this creature’s superiority over your technical prowess,” Alpha said, cocking her head as she looked at Coren.

  “You’re getting sharp, Alpha.” Sofia grinned. “Most importantly, there’s one more feature about these things that Tag and I found. It’s a direct biochemical process—I won’t bore you with the details.”

  “Thank you,” Bull said.

  Sofia rolled her eyes. “This process links the data and computational control skills Raktor learn each time they encounter a new cyber environment. Each encounter rewrites segments of their genetic code so they can expedite the adaptation of their voltaplasts when faced with a similar computer architecture.”

  “In Sol Standard?” Bull asked.

  “Big Raktor has been sitting aboard a space station run by the Collectors and cobbled together from the technology of a huge number of other species,” Tag said. “It already knows how to control all those race’s computers—even the ones we don’t know how to access. The only reason we could get all those ID codes before was because the Collectors had created an umbrella computer architecture that hooked all those other ships up to the Hope.”