Lucifer's Nebula

by Phipps, C. T.

  I wasn’t sure how that related. “What did they say?”

  “Xerxes declared its support for the FSA,” William said, his voice low. “The Commonwealth finally pushed them too far and there was a massive riot that ended up with twenty thousand dead. The rest of the planet turned bloody after that.”

  It was an unexpected bit of information that helped clarify what the stakes of our little mission was. Xerxes had waged a century-long insurgency against the Archduchy of Crius after its conquest during the first Archduchy War. While many on Xerxes had allied with the archduchy and fought alongside us against our enemies, William had been part of the resistance to the nobility’s rule. The Commonwealth had “liberated” the planet after destroying Crius, only to institute their own government which had followed that ancient principle of ‘meet the new boss, same as the old boss.’ They’d been better taskmasters than the Crius nobility in some ways but the only thing they wanted from Xerxes was the same orihalcum refined in the factories on the planet the archduchy had wanted. They’d even removed all of the previous local administrators and nobles which had served the archduchy to be replaced by their own imported officials. No wonder the locals had decided to throw their lot in with the FSA.

  I spoke that first question that came to mind. “Is your family okay?”

  William looked confused, guilty, and then resigned in the span of three heartbeats. “Yeah, but they want me to come back home and fight the Blues like I did the Blacks during the Archduchy War.”

  Blue being the traditional Commonwealth soldier compared to archduchy black. “Are you?”

  “No,” William said, his voice firm but troubled. “We’re going to stop the war here today, aren’t we?”

  “Yes,” I said, uncertain about that.

  “Listen,” William said, not meeting my gaze. “I’ve been blaming you for what happened during the war and I’m sorry.”

  “That must have been some chewing out,” I said, still unsure how to react to William apologizing. It was perhaps time to check the stars to see if they were going out and whether rifts had opened up to Hell.

  “I did get your arm cut off,” I said. “I also got you labeled an international fugitive. Plus I’m sleeping with your ex.”

  William wasn’t a Spacer like Munin or Clarice had allowed herself to become. He was mentally a Grounder, like myself, and had a lot more conventional morality about things like religion as well as relationships. Unlike myself, he hadn’t been able to adjust to the revelation that Isla was a free sentient bioroid. He’d been revolted and it had led to Clarice promising to kill him if he ever told anyone. It was an open secret now; the captain keeping the ship’s gynoid doctor as a mistress was peculiar but not even rare, but Clarice had never forgiven him. His anger against me had also exasperated her anger. Weirdly, I suspected William regretted what he’d said but was too proud to ever admit it. It said something about his values he was willing to apologize to a man he’d tried to goad into a death duel before a woman he’d loved.

  Fade raised an eyebrow. “This is a more interesting starship than I thought.”

  “Don’t help,” William said, trying to keep his gaze low. “I’ve had a lot of anger building up inside me.”

  “That’s like saying Mars has an overpopulation problem,” I said, speaking of the only remaining human presence in the Sol system. I’d been there once as part of a humanitarian relief effort and the place had lived up to its reputation as an arcology of crisscrossed tunnels built on human misery.

  “What I’m saying, though, is I’d like to start fresh. To be the officer you know I can be,” William said, offering his hand.

  I didn’t take it. “I’m not giving you your job back. You’re also getting twenty percent knocked off your cut of this operation.”

  “Fuck!” William said, dropping all pretense. “Ten percent.”

  “This isn’t a negotiation,” I said, shaking my head. “We need to pass around some of that money so the crew doesn’t mutiny as well.”

  “Why take it from mine?” William whined. “I didn’t even hit you. Take it from Bullfighter Bob here. He beat the shit out of you.”

  “Excuse me?” Fade said, looking at him sideways.

  “He’s not getting a cut,” I said, smiling. “I’ll consider reducing it to fifteen percent if you’re on your best behavior.”

  “Right,” William said, reluctantly. “You got it.”

  Ah, money, the cause and solution to all of life’s miseries.

  William turned around and headed to the door. He stopped before departing, though. “By the way, is it just me or does the crazy cyborg ninja now sounding like she comes from Xerxes Northern Hemisphere?”

  “Nope,” I said, contradicting him. “Clearly, you’re crazy.”

  “Good, because those people are lunatics,” William said, his voice low. “Temperamental, violent, unforgiving bastards.”

  I smirked. “Completely unlike you.”

  “Oh hell yeah,” William said. “I’m a Southerner. We’re the polite ones.”

  With that, he departed out the door.

  I looked over at Fade. “So is your experience aboard the Melampus everything you imagined? Our brochure mentioned casinos, swimming, and a fine line of prostitutes but those are to-come services of our luxury liner. There are no refunds. Please recommend us to your friends.”

  Fade’s gaze remained even. “I want to know everything. I especially want to know about the evil A.I. thing.”

  I stared at him. “Your grandmother didn’t tell me everything. Why should I tell you?”

  “Because we’re paying you and if you don’t tell me, I’m cancelling this deal.”

  “Then I’ll throw you out an air lock.”

  Fade frowned and I was worried we’d get another fight started. “That might lead to war with the Commonwealth. The Watcher General’s patience is not unlimited.”

  “That’s a stupid title,” I said, not missing a beat. “As for war with the Commonwealth, I’m a betting man and I’m fairly sure it won’t exist in a year’s time unless we get this treaty signed.”

  The scary part was I wasn’t sure I was exaggerating. For all the efforts of the Commonwealth during the “Reclamation” and attempting to rebuild the Sol Federation, they’d successfully managed to piss off virtually the entirety of humanity’s scattered tribes and kingdoms. Almost half of humanity called the Commonwealth home and yet I doubted more than a quarter really would mourn its fall.

  Fade surprised me by considering my words. “You know, Cassius, you remind me of my older brother. He was every bit the asshole you are.”

  “Thank you. I think.”

  I ended up explaining the entirety of the business with Judith, the Elder Races, and everything else to him. I half expected him to disbelieve my conclusion Judith wasn’t a Cognition A.I. made in my wife’s image but an Elder Race impersonator. After all, I had nothing to go on but my gut. However, Fade just nodded when I explained—it was refreshing to have someone believe me for once.

  I mean, it wasn’t like I was a traumatized barely functional drunken asshole or anything. Why wouldn’t people believe me when I started talking about A.I., Elder Races, ancient conspiracies, and the digital ghost of my late wife?

  Fade sighed. “If the Elder Races are involved, then they represent a clear threat to the security of the Commonwealth.”

  “In the context that an asteroid represents a threat to a Stone Age civilization, yes,” I said, sighing. “There’s nothing we can do to them. Their technology is so advanced it might as well be magic. We’re at the mercy of their whims.”

  “How much do you know?” Fade said.

  “A lot,” I said. “But it all comes from them.”

  “I thought you were hurting Anya,” Fade said, looking to one side.

  “What is your relationship to her? Is she your lover?”

  “Nothing now,” Fade said, his voice low. “The woman who you woke up in here is nothing like the
one I cared for. I think if she and I ever spoke, she’d accuse me of taking advantage of her situation, which I might have. I thought the stories about the Shin being mentally reprogrammed were just that—stories. If the Commonwealth is actually able to reprogram people then perhaps the FSA have a point.”

  “Re-socializing is nothing new as a technology,” I said, not sure Fade was wrong. “The Rin-O’Harra Cartel did it to traffic human slaves as fake bioroids for decades. I suspect my sister used her time there to perfect the process.”

  “You’re not making me feel better.”

  “I wasn’t trying to,” I said, frowning. “If the Commonwealth feels the need to manufacture and brainwash an army to fight the FSA then they’ve lost any moral high ground over their enemies.”

  “We lost that when we destroyed Crius,” Fade said, looking back at me. “You don’t know how that’s affected the Commonwealth. How it changed us as a nation.”

  “I don’t care,” I said, my voice heating up. “I’ve made my peace with losing my homeworld. How the people who destroyed it feel about it doesn’t concern me. If you want to know about the Elder Races then I need to know something in return.”

  Fade seemed surprised by my offer. “What do you want to know?”

  I stared into his eyes, doing my best to look for any untruths. “Are you here to make peace or assassinate my doppelganger?”

  Fade took a step back. “What, why would you say that?”

  “Because Ida sent you and a professional assassin with me rather than a diplomatic corps.”

  Fade blinked. “No.”

  He was lying, which didn’t bode well. That made me wonder if I was on his list of targets to eliminate. “Well, we’re on our way to Kolahn IV no matter what. Anything I tell you isn’t going to affect my plans to fulfill our bargain. I’ve already promised the crew a share of the profits and they’ll skin me alive if I don’t deliver.”

  “You want me to check if your Elder God patron actually included a planet-destroying bomb with Anya’s equipment?”

  “Please,” I said. “Now I just have to figure out whether galactic peace is worth sacrificing to serve a race capable of exterminating us all.”

  After all, if I blew up the FSA’s headquarters, then there was very little chance they’d agree to the Commonwealth’s terms.

  “No pressure,” Fade said.

  I actually laughed at that.

  Chapter Seventeen

  An hour from arrival ended up stretching to another twelve hours despite all of us having been up for most of the past three days of travel. If you wondered why traveling through a nebula was taking so long, even traveling at sublight speed outside of jumpspace, the reason was checkpoints. The FSA had littered the safe routes with battle platforms, patrol boats, gravity mines, sensor probes, and destroyers I was surprised they could spare for guard duty.

  Still, it was an ideal strategy for keeping the Commonwealth’s fleets out of their home system. The safe routes were small enough to force an attacking fleet to move slowly through and calculate short jumps that left invaders vulnerable to assault. These hypothetical attackers could risk a trip through the clouds, themselves, but in doing so would probably do more damage than enemy action. If the Commonwealth did attack with overwhelming force, the FSA forces could fall back to their home base and evacuate.

  Lucifer’s Nebula was a perfect location for carrying out a war against the Commonwealth and explained a lot about how they’d been able to keep them under assault. Their defenses were also very much as I would have planned them. That disturbed me for a variety of reasons. I just wish it wasn’t so damned boring waiting to pass on through.

  “They’re asking us to transmit our credentials again,” Lara said, sighing and looking as exhausted as the rest of the crew. While I’d had them working in shifts, none of them had been doing very well at getting rest given our encounter with the Elder Race probe and the fact the fate of human-controlled space rested on our barely functional shoulders. The lights were also busted on the bridge due to a power surge, making it as dark as during Brick’s too literal attempt to divert all power.

  I leaned back in my chair and looked at my cup of coffeeine. After the excitement of before, I’d somehow expected things to get more dramatic before they’d dropped down to dead boring. “All right, transmit this for the fifteenth time. ‘This is Captain Cassius Mass of the star galleon Melampus. Identification code THX-1138-999. Yes, that one. I am requesting to meet with Supreme Commander Cassius Mass of the Free Systems Alliance. I am operating under a diplomatic signal from the Commonwealth to discuss terms of surrender.’”

  Fade had provided the identification codes that could be accessed through the infonet and feeds to determine we were telling the truth. Except, of course, we’d done this fourteen times before to the exact same response every time.

  “Transmitted,” Lara said.

  “Wait for it,” I said, sighing.

  Five minutes passed as I finished another mug of coffeeine.

  Lara closed her eyes. “We’re approved to move ahead. Do not deviate from your present course. Do not—”

  “Attempt to power your weapons or shields,” I said, sighing. “Yeah, I know.”

  “Did you notice they all sound identical?” Jun asked.

  I nodded. “Maybe it’s automated or they’re all reading from the same script.”

  “Maybe,” Clarice said, sitting in a chair nearby the tactical readout station and looking like she was barely able to keep her eyes open. Nobody had been sleeping well since the Elder Race Probe encounter. How could they? We were moving through enemy territory and could die at any second.

  “Something is different,” Clarice said, checking the coordinates fed to her by Lara.

  “Which is?” I asked weakly. I was on my ninth cup of coffeeine and even it was starting to wear thin. I’d used to be able to stay up working three days in a row but that had been a long time ago and I was still suffering from my decision to give up alcohol. I’d gotten through the worst of it with the medical equipment here on the ship on our way here but the craving was still there. Now had been a very poor time to go cold turkey.

  “We’re being sent coordinates to the main part of the system,” Clarice said, straightening up. “Right above the planet. We’ve received permission to meet with the supreme commander.”

  “Holy shit,” I said, joining her in shaking away the cobwebs. “Really?”

  “They haven’t exactly said much else,” Clarice said. “Say what you will about the FSA, but they’re efficient.”

  “Well, set our course,” I said, glad for the first good news of this trip. “Let’s go see my brother from a different test tube.”

  Clarice looked at me sideways.

  “Sorry,” I said, rubbing my temples as another headache came on. “Set our course for Kolahn IV’s orbit. Finally.”

  Our navigator didn’t appear particularly happy about it. U’Chuck turned her head and said, “Once the Kolahn were a peaceful race. We developed space travel on our world only when we received a signal to another world several systems over. Once we arrived there, we found our god who taught us many secrets that advanced our technology by millennia. We used them to build an empire that uplifted other races. No species could stand against us—except through sheer numbers. The Community wiped out all of our colonies and destroyed our fleets to repay us for our refusal to join their ranks. When it was clear we’d been driven back to our new home world, our god commanded us to kill ourselves out of punishment. Which almost all of us did.”

  “It’s too late to turn back now,” I said.

  “Is it?” U’Chuck asked.

  I looked at U’Chuck. “Set the course.”

  U’Chuck growled and did so. She couldn’t help it. In much the same way Anya Terra had been brainwashed by her government, the surviving Kolahn had done the same to her. They didn’t have the numbers to execute their kind. Apparently, she’d been some sort of cult leader who ha
d tried to revive the ancient ways. This had to be like revisiting an old wound.

  “Do you think they’ll blow us up when we arrive?” Clarice asked, showing just how badly lack of sleep had affected her.

  “They would have done that at the start,” I said. “No, they want to speak with us. They just want to force us to wait first.”

  “Oh, good,” Clarice said.

  The next and hopefully finally jump of this trip took us to a system-sized hole in Lucifer’s Nebula. The view screens scanned our surroundings and brought countless fascinating facts and sights to my vision. We were right above a ringed planet about three times the size of the Old Earth but somehow had close-to-standard to colonial norm gravity. The planet had three small moons made of ice and rock circling above it, two of which had been converted into star ports.

  Only a small portion of the planet’s dark side was lit up, all centered around one singular city, but the space around Kolahn IV was full of shipping traffic. The centuries-old Kolahn shipyards, the size of a moon itself, had been retrofitted despite years of disuse to being home to tens of thousands of ships as well as modified for human use. I saw the ten-kilometer-long Revengeance, the Crius flagship that had refused to surrender to Commonwealth forces, looming over the FSA forces like a rectangular god.

  As impressed by the sight as I was, I was stunned more by the sheer number of ships present. I checked the sensors twice to make sure they were working functionally and downloaded several hundred files to cycle through in order to process just what was really going in this system. There were over a million ships present with space transports, fighters, corvettes, destroyers, super dreadnoughts, and even a few floating battle cathedrals from the Union of Faith.

  The majority of traffic wasn’t going to the planet, but the ten-thousand-kilometer shipyards that had its own city built up on the sides but the fact they were able to maintain the kind of infrastructure to even service this many vessels was stunning. The Free Systems Alliance wasn’t a rebellion but a star nation fully capable of fighting the Commonwealth better than the archduchy had.