by Chris Ward
‘Shields back up,’ Harlan5 said. ‘But we’ve lost thruster power. Entering the wormhole in five—’
Paul punched a button on the dashboard. ‘Hey Raylan,’ he said into the transmitter. ‘This is Little Buck, captain of the space battleship Matilda. I just wanted to say goodnight, you short bastard.’
The sky blurred. The Bareleon fleet vanished, leaving only a blanket of stars.
‘Where are we?’ Beth said.
‘We’re in orbit around Cable,’ Harlan5 said. ‘I’m afraid we’ve found ourselves in the middle of the war, but we’re damaged. We need to find somewhere to make repairs.’
‘We’re receiving a transmission,’ Beth said. ‘It’s coming from that shuttle.’
‘Let’s hear it.’
Beth clicked the receiver. ‘Hey, this is Caladan, formerly pilot of the Matilda,’ came a crackly voice. ‘I just wanted to know who the hell is flying my ship?’
Beth glanced at Harlan5, whose eyes twinkled. ‘Just an old robot and two crazy kids,’ he said.
‘Well, you did a damn good job. Now, let’s find somewhere safe we can land so we can have a party. I’m desperate for a drink.’
Paul turned in the seat to look at Beth. He smiled, then reached up and lifted a shaking hand. Beth looked at him a moment, thinking briefly of someone else, then put him out of her mind. She reached up and gave Paul a weak high-five. Behind them, Harlan5 nodded.
‘We made it,’ the robot said.
54
Lia
She opened her eyes. Her skull ached as though a troupe of Oufolani dancers had performed on top of it. She twisted around and found her hands tied behind her. She was trapped inside a tiny pod, barely big enough for her to sit up. It was racing through space on an autopilot setting, lines of coordinates running up a dashboard screen in front of her. With some awkwardness she managed to get a knee up to press a translation command, switching the code over to something she could understand.
Jettisoned from the Raging Fire, the escape pod was heading for Abalon 3.
Lump.
On a rear-facing view-screen, she watched a single cruiser dipping down through the planet’s atmosphere, disappearing. Farther behind, the cloudy mess of the Bareleon fleet suddenly bloomed with light. Lia squinted against the brightness, momentarily blinded. When she opened her eyes, the sky seemed clearer than before, as though part of the fleet had vanished in an instant, leaving behind a gaping hole in its center.
Outside, the pod’s view-screens began to show cloud as she entered the planet’s volatile atmosphere. She took one glance back at the night sky before it was gone, then turned her attention to the planet’s desert surface as it came up to meet her.
So many lost, she thought. Too many. But we beat you. The war might not be over, but the battle is won.
* * *
END
Glossary of Races
Barelaon
Originally an antagonistic and feudal species originating from an unknown system, it is also a blanket term given to bands of for-hire mercenaries made up from members of other races either outcast or leaving by choice. Often adapted by their teams for warfare, they are usually at least partially robotic. Pure-blood Barelaons are rarely encountered, because their parasitic nature means they fuse with whatever or whoever they capture to create, at times more powerful warriors, at others hideous monstrosities.
Farsi (subspecies)
A human subspecies that closely resemble their parent species in terms of physiology, with the exception of having overlarge facial features and somewhat greater strength.
Human-Minion (subspecies)
A former human sub-species created long ago in a laboratory by fusing human genetics with those of the common domestic cat. Small and irascible, they tend to be destructive by nature but also devious and prone to sudden bursts of anger.
Karpali
Six-armed, and as a result very popular as manual laborers or bodyguards. Highly skilled Karpali are often employed in shipyards and other industrial sectors because of their working speed.
Rue-Tik-Tan
A lizard-based species, scaly, tall, spine-backed. Originating in Phevius System, they remain feudal, organized into clans governed by an overriding deity. Lacking the empathy of other races, they are infamously known for their love of slavery, despite intergalactic bans on the practice.
Tolgier
A human subspecies with similar features to their parent species, but larger, more muscular, and hairier.
Abaloni (subspecies)
One of the most ancient human subspecies, they are roughly sixty percent machine, an adaption that allows them to fold up into an sealed oval in order to protect themselves from the powerful firestorms that their planet’s atmosphere suffers from. While by their nature they are home-loving and simple people, rarely leaving their home planet, their technology has been made available for adaption by peoples on other fire planets.
Grun
Long-living deep space traders.
Hispirians
Formed from the organic fusing of thousands of intelligent snakes, they are assassins from the Janfar 9 moon of Jan-Jan-Last.
Gorm
Jellified but highly intelligent creatures with possible mindreading capabilities, they are only able to move by the use of motorised carts, and often the employ of subservient species. Originating from the distant Festar System.
Kalistini
Resemble humans despite not being a subspecies, they are around seven feet tall, spindly and bony.
Lork
Hairy, muscular human-subspecies with big, twitchy ears.
Trill
An “archaic” species known only for their historical terraforming of several planets in the Trill System before vanishing. No trace of their subsequent continued existence has ever been found.
Glossary of Systems and Planets
Areola System
Iris – main inhabited planet. Capital is Louis Town.
Dove – inhabited planet.
Cask System
Event System
Larsisus – marsh world.
Rogue – machine world, home of major Estron Quadrant shipyards.
Frail System
Quaxar System
Bryant – inhabitable planet.
Phevius System
Brentar – Fire planet.
Loam – Fire planet.
Trill System
Feint – main inhabited planet.
Cable – second inhabited planet. Capital city is Seen.
Abalon 3 – fire planet and desert world. Major spaceports of Avar and Boxar.
Glossary of Terminology
Off-Worlder
A blanket term used by most species to describe all species with origins from a different planet or star system. A local on one planet becomes an off-worlder on another.
Human subspecies
As humans explored the galaxy and colonized other star systems, they seemingly had two main goals: annihilation and reproduction, and anything that didn’t adhere to the first usually adhered to the second. Therefore, over millennia, numerous subspecies of human have developed through interbreeding with other races, genetic development and gene manipulation, or biotechnological engineering. Some are nearly identical, others vastly different. According to current galactic law, a subspecies can consider itself a unique species (and therefore be able to create its own rules and regulations) when it is no longer able to breed with pureblood humans. So far, roughly thirty former subspecies have been identified thus.
Expansions
A significant wave of space exploration that occurred some time in the past is known as an Expansion. Each wave is usually identified as a great departure of new deep-space exploration craft or the discovery of two or more previously-unknown inhabited systems within a relatively short space of time. Sometimes, when a series of linked systems are discovered, the period becomes known as a Great Expansion.
Stasis-Ultraspace
Ships travel from galaxy to galaxy (or from one part of a system to another) through artificially created wormholes, the coordinates of which are either stored in a ship’s database or accessible by picking up planetary broadcast transmissions. Stasis-ultraspace is the name given to the condensed space distance travelled during such a wormhole leap. This is the only practical way for spacecraft to move from system to system. Ships with a stasis-ultraspace-capable drive go nowhere in actual distance, but the energy used for each jump is immense, meaning that only bigger craft are able to carry the fuel needed to do repeated jumps without refueling. In addition, while the time taken for the jump is instantaneous, on busy routes a time given for a jump would be the time that ship remained queued behind other craft using the same route. In addition, the location of a wormhole remains static, so that they drift away from planets during orbits, often requiring lengthy inter-system travel to reach a convenient one.
* * *
Routes are fixed, but new routes are constantly being created by deep-space exploration ships—some manned, some not—that travel to distant, unexplored systems using lightspeed-based methods. For this reason, new systems are only added to the known galaxy every fifty or sixty Earth-years, and often access to such systems is severely restricted to prevent clashes with potentially hostile natives.
The Intergalactic Code of Communications
A rough framework of rules governing the conduct of spacecraft and space stations in deep space. Such rules including the non-refusal of docking for repairs of a ship offering a peace flag, or the honourary aiding without rebuttal to marooned ships. Like most sets of rules, it’s exact meaning is disputed in many systems, it is often disputed, and rarely followed in the full. Openly breaking it, however, is a criminal offence, and the crew of any convicted vessel can be punished according to the rules of the capturing system’s government … if they are caught.
Acknowledgments
Big thanks as always to those of you who provided help and encouragement. My magical proofreader Jenny, and the guys at The Cover Collection get a special heads up, as does as always, my muse, Jenny Twist.
In addition, extra thanks goes to my Patreon supporters Alan McDonald, Amaranth Dawe, Charles Urban, James Edward Lee, Janet Hodgson, Juozas Kasiulis, Katherine Crispin, Leigh McEwan, Rebecca El-Kher, Teri L. Ruscak, and Tracy Sherrer.
You guys are awesome.
Thank you for your interest in my work.
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