Worlds Away (The Interstellar Age Book 3)

by Daniels, Valmore

  When I had climbed the side of the mountain earlier, I had passed a cliff where I had seen a small crevice. I didn’t know how deep the crevice went, but I hoped it would be large enough for us to fit inside.

  At the very least, it would keep the rain off Ekahua, and we would be hidden in case the Q’eqchi’ warriors sent a scouting party this way.

  6

  Unknown Station :

  Sol System :

  To Alex’s complete surprise, he woke up.

  The last memory he had was of the Solan Empire soldiers firing at them. In retrospect, he realized they’d been shot with tranquilizers rather than bullets or ion pulses.

  Opening his eyes, he looked around. He was in an infirmary, along with the other three. They were all hooked up to medical equipment and life support. An oxygen mask pressed against his mouth, and he felt the pinch of an IV needle in his arm feeding him nutrients.

  Michael and Yaxche were still unconscious, but Alex saw that Kenny was coming to. A soft moan escaped the physicist’s lips, muffled by his own mask, and he moved his head in quick, jerky motions.

  Alex recognized the signs of bio stasis. Some people did not come out of it as well as others. NASA had experimented with the technique in the past, inducing a state similar to a medical coma in their astronauts on deep-space missions, but had discontinued the practice after determining the long-term effects were potentially harmful, ranging from muscle atrophy to dementia.

  How long has they been in stasis? It was apparent the Solan Empire soldiers had decided it would be easier to put their prisoners to sleep for the trip, rather than deal with them. Depending on how bad Kenny’s injuries were, he might have actually benefited from the long sleep, giving his bones time to knit.

  Alex had a gnawing feeling deep in his stomach. He hadn’t eaten solid food in who knew how long; he was suddenly ravished. Quelling the hunger for the time being, he closed his eyes and concentrated. Where were they?

  Pushing his sight out, he was shocked to discover that they were no longer on the patrol ship that had attacked them.

  He surveyed their immediate surroundings. They were in a large station, the design of which was not familiar to him. In passing, he sensed there were more than a thousand people on the station. It wasn’t until he looked beyond the edges of the complex that he realized they were nowhere near Pluto.

  From the moment Alex had been exposed to Kinemet on Macklin’s Rock, he’d been able to hear the planets—the Music of the Spheres, as Yaxche called it. Every celestial body had a unique combination of forces—radiation, gravity, spin, mineral composition, and chemical makeup. Over the past several years, Alex had been able to identify the planets by their individual frequencies. With an odd feeling, he realized they were in orbit between the inner asteroid belt and Mars.

  Based on ion pulse engine technology, it would have taken them four months to traverse the distance. That didn’t seem plausible to Alex; he should have suffered far worse aftereffects from the medical stasis in that case. At the very least, he would have had significant weight loss in that time, and though he was acutely hungry, he didn’t feel much slimmer than before.

  Waking up must have triggered a sensor. He pulled his sight back as he heard a door open in the infirmary, and footsteps approaching.

  Turning his head, he saw an unfamiliar man in a white lab coat coming toward him. Middle-aged, with a pronounced aquiline nose and a balding pate, the doctor smiled at Alex.

  “Ah, I see our patients are starting to wake up.”

  Alex tried to rise, but couldn’t even prop himself up on his elbows. Thick restraints around his arms and ankles held him to the bed.

  “Oh, you mustn’t try to move around until we can be sure you haven’t suffered any muscle damage from your trip.” The doctor removed the oxygen mask.

  Alex tried to speak. With his dry throat, the words came out as a croak. He moved his tongue around to moisten his mouth, and tried again. “How long have we been in stasis?”

  The doctor waited patiently for Alex to finish the question before answering. “Two weeks, my boy.”

  “Two…?”

  The doctor smiled wider as he went to the other three patients and removed their masks as well. “Yes. We’ve made a few advances since you were last among us.”

  Kenny had come fully awake, and seemed to have overcome his reaction to the stasis. “Who are you?” the physicist asked.

  “Pardon my manners. I am Doctor Naysmith.” He went over to the diagnostic computer beside Kenny and looked over the readout. “Ah, good. It looks as if you are making a full recovery. Your ribs will still feel tender for a while, but give it another week or two, and you’ll be right as rain.”

  “I think he meant, who are all of you?” came the question from Michael. “Who are you people? Where are we?”

  “As I said,” the doctor replied, a cheery note to his voice, “quite a bit has changed in the past four years, and my job is not to bring you up to speed. I’m just here to make sure you will be fit for an audience.”

  “An audience?” Alex asked. “With who?”

  “With the Emperor, of course.”

  “Emperor?” Alex realized he was simply repeating everything as a question, and felt completely in the dark.

  “Rest assured,” Doctor Naysmith said, “all your questions will be answered in time. For now, if you’ll permit me, I will go over your diagnostics and ensure you are all healthy. Do not stress about things which are beyond your control.”

  As if by unspoken consensus, the four of them pressed the doctor no further, and let him go about his business, reading scans and interpreting the output from the diagnostic computers. When he was finished, the doctor offered a bright smile to all of them, as if he’d accomplished a great feat.

  “I will inform His Majesty of your full recovery. Have a pleasant day.”

  With that, the doctor left the four of them alone in the room. The overhead lights dimmed, leaving them in semi-darkness.

  “What the hell is going on?” Kenny asked.

  Michael said, “We’ve obviously stumbled into the middle of something big. We need more information. Alex, do you know where we are?”

  Alex nodded, then realized that the others might not be able to see him. “Yes. We’re on an asteroid mining and processing station. I’m not sure which station, though—it could be Chinese; I don’t know their characters. It’s in a solar orbit inside the inner belt.”

  Michael asked, “In line with Mars’ orbit?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s the Qin Station, named after the first Emperor of China, the one who initiated construction of the Great Wall.”

  Kenny said, “Emperors! Do you think there’s been a civil war in China? Did they overthrow the communist party and resurrect the imperial dynasties?”

  “It’s a possibility,” Michael said. “What concerns me is that they’ve apparently managed to supplant USA, Inc.’s presence on Pluto. I know, when we left, things were dicey back home, but how bad could it have gotten?”

  “So what’s the plan?”

  “For the moment,” Michael said, “it looks as if we have to take the doctor’s advice. It’s out of our hands. Once we’ve met this Emperor, whoever he is, then we’ll know more.” He added in a lower voice, “I would suggest that we all continue to be extremely discreet. When we meet this Emperor, let me do the talking.”

  Alex said, “Fine by me.”

  “Me, too,” Kenny said. He turned his head to the other bed. “Yaxche. You haven’t said much. Are you all right?”

  “Ahyah,” the old man said. “My stomach is upset. I’m a little dizzy.”

  “That’s probably because of the bio stasis,” Michael said. “It will most likely pass in a few hours. It looks like we all have to play the waiting game, anyway.”

  Alex couldn’t just lie there and do nothing. He still had enough Kinemetic radiation flowing through him to continue to use his sight, so he began to search Qin
Station.

  For the most part, the station was much like any other mining station, populated with engineers, miners, pilots, administrators, supervisors, and technicians of all the disciplines required to keep the operation going. Expecting a mostly Chinese population, Alex was a little surprised to find an even representation from all Earth cultures.

  The question remained: whoever this Emperor was, would he be in a position to defend Sol against the Kulsat? However much power he’d accumulated, it wouldn’t matter if the Kulsat wiped them all out.

  While he searched, Alex became aware of an area of the station where his senses could not penetrate. The moment he got close, it was as if he hit a wall.

  A Kinemetic damper surrounded the large area, which could have been rooms, offices, or labs, for all Alex knew.

  After all his effort, Alex didn’t have much more information than when he started. It looked as if they would have to follow the doctor’s advice after all, and wait.

  ∞

  It was nearly twelve hours later when a squad of armed soldiers entered the infirmary, accompanying the doctor.

  “Good news,” Doctor Naysmith said, “the Emperor will see you now. First, however, we need to get you all cleaned up. Once I remove the stasis equipment, you’ll have one hour to acclimate yourselves. We’ve kept gravity at two-thirds on the station, so it should be easier for you to get your feet. No doubt, you all are feeling hunger pains. It’s been a while since you’ve had solid food, so we’ll provide you with a nutrient paste for today. Your stomachs should be back to normal by tomorrow. Now, I hope you will all give me your complete cooperation.”

  Alex frowned. Having spent two weeks lying on a bed, he wasn’t sure he could offer any resistance if he wanted to. Though the bio stasis kept muscle tone up with electrotherapy, all four of them would have the physical responsiveness of newborns for at least a while.

  Without waiting for a reply, the doctor began to shut down the remaining bio machines. He unhooked Yaxche from his IV first, and unlatched his restraints. With the help of one of the soldiers, he assisted him into a sitting position.

  “How are you feeling?” the doctor asked.

  Yaxche nodded. “Like an old man.”

  With a short, polite laugh, Doctor Naysmith said, “Private Lund will help you to do some stretching exercises.”

  The doctor signaled one of the other soldiers to assist him with Kenny, following the same procedures. He got Michael up next, and Alex last.

  When all four of them could walk around unassisted, the doctor motioned toward a door on the other side of the infirmary. They followed him into the next room.

  “There are showers here,” the doctor said, “as well as toiletries and clothing. I will return in half an hour to check on your progress. If you require assistance, any of the guards will be more than happy to help.” The soldiers entered the room behind them. It looked like they weren’t going to have any privacy.

  Turning on his heel, the doctor hurried out of the infirmary, and left the four prisoners to put themselves together.

  In silence, Alex and the others cleaned up, showering, shaving and getting dressed. The clothes were simple jumpsuits with black leather boots. The epaulets had the sigil of the Solan Empire on them.

  When the doctor finally returned, he gave them all a conciliatory nod of approval.

  “Gentlemen, my purpose has been served. Thank you for your time. Please follow these soldiers; they will take you to your audience. Have a nice day.”

  Alex automatically said, “Thank you.” Kenny looked at him and lifted an eyebrow as if asking why he was being polite to their captor.

  They all exited the infirmary. The doctor went down the hall in one direction, and the rest of them headed in the other.

  As they went, several of the station’s residents looked at them curiously, but no one spoke.

  Reaching the end of the hall, they stopped at an elevator, and got in once the doors opened. One soldier tapped a button for the top floor, and Alex remembered that the area surrounded by the Kinemetic damper was there.

  He felt the growing anticipation as they approached the barrier his senses could not penetrate.

  The moment the elevator went past the damping field, Alex’s senses were overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of Kinemet stored on that level. There was enough to power hundreds of quantum ships. It was more Kinemet than USA, Inc. and Canada Corp. had mined in ten years.

  The overwhelming radiation made him reel. He was so distracted by the sensation that he hadn’t thought to use his senses to see if there were any people there.

  It was only when the elevator doors opened that he realized there was a large welcoming party waiting for them.

  He hung his mouth open in shock when the Emperor of Sol System, surrounded by a dozen armed soldiers, spoke to him.

  “It’s been a long time, Alex.”

  7

  PRC Penal Station :

  Earth-Sun Lagrange Three :

  During the latter third of the last century, several observational stations had been put into orbit in the Lagrange Three point, on the opposite side of the Sun from the Earth. These stations were designed to forecast sunspots, flares and coronal ejections, giving advance warning of solar disturbances.

  At one time, quite a few of the stations had been populated, but as it turned out, it was such an unpopular assignment—there was a psychological effect of never being in a direct line of communication with Earth, since the Sun interfered with most radio signals—that the world’s governments had abandoned their efforts there, and only maintained the unmanned stations. All except one.

  That orbital, built by the People’s Republic of China, had been converted to a penal station for those criminals the government decided could not be rehabilitated: serial killers, traitors, drug lords, terrorists, human traffickers, and war criminals. Since the Chinese government had abolished capital punishment, they decided this was the next-best thing.

  There were no guards, and the inmates themselves were charged with the maintenance and operation of the station as part of their sentence. Should the convicts fail to organize, it would be their own undoing.

  The only contact the penal station had with Earth was the monthly transport—a military PRC warship—which brought supplies, equipment, and new prisoners. Sensors all over the outside of the station would broadcast an EPS alert to the government of China via relay satellites should any unauthorized vessel approach the station.

  This station was where Chow Yin, convicted of nearly every capital crime in the Chinese justice system, was sentenced to spend the rest of his days.

  Chow Yin wasted no time, and began to plot his escape from the moment he embarked on the military transport to the penal colony. On Luna Station, he’d built a criminal empire in a very simple, but effective manner, and now applied the technique in his current situation.

  The first day on the military transport, he sized up the four other prisoners. There was Tza, a heavily muscled opium smuggler; Huan, convicted of espionage; Sang, who—if the newsvids could be believed—was a serial killer who had murdered more than forty women over the past twelve years; and Sian, a frail young man who had somehow managed to hack into China’s largest bank, where he’d worked, and embezzle close to a half-billion yuans.

  The cargo bay of the transport was magnetically sealed, and that’s where the five of them would spend the fourteen-day journey to the penal station. There was no need for guards, since there was no possible way any of the prisoners could breach the hold’s security system.

  Four long tables made from molded plastic were set up along one wall of the bay, on the opposite side from the six sleeping cots, which were little more than sheets of canvas wrapped around a plastic frame. Those were the only furnishings in the area, except for the one lavatory set into the farthest corner of the hold.

  At mealtimes, a dumbwaiter opened in one wall to reveal trays of food on paper plates. They were not provided with utensil
s, so the prisoners were only able to use their fingers to feed themselves.

  Even in the low gravity, Chow Yin’s legs were all but useless. Having spent months on Earth during the trial, his condition had worsened until the point when he required the constant use of a molded plastic wheelchair.

  He expected to become the first and obvious target of one of the other prisoners, but to his surprise, Sian was the focus of Tza’s first attempt at extortion.

  At the first meal, Chow Yin held back and observed. Sian got up before anyone else and headed over to the dumbwaiter. Without hesitation, he grabbed a plate and made his way to the tables.

  Tza, instead of going to the dumbwaiter to get his meal, approached Sian.

  “You’re the runt of the litter,” he said. “You don’t need as much as the rest of us.”

  With that, he backhanded Sian, knocking the smaller man to the ground, and picked up the plate.

  “You can have my scraps, if there are any left,” he said in a snarl, heading to the dumbwaiter and grabbing another plate.

  The big drug lord paused a moment, glancing at Chow Yin. “You got something to say, cripple?”

  Shaking his head slowly, Chow Yin remained where he was, still waiting. Moments later, Sang and Huan decided to split Chow Yin’s plate before he even approached to get it. Both smirked at him as they divided their spoils.

  Only after Tza, Sang, and Huan had eaten did Chow Yin approach Sian.

  Shaking and looking miserable, the young computer hacker glanced up at Chow Yin. His eye was already swelling up. “He would have killed me if I fought back.”

  “Of course he would have,” Chow Yin said.

  “Next time I’ll be smart like you, and let them go first.”

  Shaking his head, Chow Yin said, “No, next time you will go first again, except you will get a plate for me as well.”

  With a look of horror at the thought, Sian said, “That’s suicide.”

  “Trust me,” Chow Yin said, and wheeled himself away to the farthest table, positioning himself at it as if waiting to be served.