Lucifer's Nebula

by Phipps, C. T.

The door to my ready room buzzed. “Come in.”

  Fade and Anya Terra walked in, both of them wearing Melampus jumpsuits. The former didn’t quite suit Fade, who I expected was used to being far more fashionable.

  “Is this where you commit your sudden betrayal that everyone should have expected since you’re a Commonwealth spy?” I asked, looking at Fade. “Because, I gotta admit, I am completely expecting it.”

  Fade snorted, looking less than impressed. “In fact, I’m no longer a Commonwealth spy. The Watcher General burned me for taking actions against her plans and being part of the Parliament conspiracy against the peace talks.”

  “Which turned out to be the right attitude,” I said, feeling disgusted about the whole ordeal. “I bet they’re happy.”

  Fade frowned. “In fact, Ida claimed it was all part of a plan to eliminate the Free Systems Alliance from the beginning. Six members of Parliament and two admirals died in a solar yacht explosion after news of their treachery was distributed to the rest of the oligarchy. Ida has moved the majority of the intelligence apparatus under her direct control and increased her influence dramatically.”

  “Well, good for her,” I said, frowning.

  “Good for you,” Fade said. “She’s decided to pay you what you were promised. Though I don’t know how much that will help given you’re also being taxed for it.”

  I snorted. “Of course I am. Are you okay?”

  Fade frowned. “I’ve been a spy my entire life. It’s all I ever wanted to be and now I can’t be that. On the other hand, I actually managed to take part in saving the entire universe from an insane madman, so there is that.”

  “Didja actually do anything?” Anya spoke up for the first time in our conversation. “Because I think you mostly just stood there.”

  “I did stuff!” Fade said, frowning. “Granted, it was mostly Clarice and Cassius, but I was there.”

  I chuckled. “Well, you’re always welcome onboard the Melampus.”

  “Really?” Fade asked.

  “Fuck no!” I snapped, staring at him. “I’m dropping you off at the next port. The only person I’m willing to forgive for trying to kill me is—”

  “Someone with tits?” Fade suggested. “Because I heard how Clarice turned you over to her sister.”

  “Funny,” I said, frowning. “Also, not true. I haven’t slept with all of my crew.”

  “Just the women,” Terra muttered.

  “Not even that!” I said, pausing to note that it was far less an absolute than I wanted to be. “It’s very boring in space! Nobody has to and they all come to me or through someone else. I really only am seeing…two women. Crap.”

  Fade chuckled and covered his face. “Well, I’ll be fine. I have the contacts to get my face and DNA changed as well as a few million credits I skimmed for my retirement.”

  I stared at him. “You dog, you. So much for Commonwealth loyalty.”

  “What’s a dog?” Fade asked. “As for Commonwealth loyalty, I should note no one noticed it going missing in the first place. That tells you how much they value both their employees as well as their pensions.”

  “Lights up,” I said, shaking my head and standing up to stretch. “What about you, Major Terra? I assume you’re not going back to the Commonwealth?”

  “Not a chance,” Anya said. “Don’t call me Major either. The Commonwealth took away my mind and showed they were no different from Zoe and your father’s slaves. I am going to see if I can distribute the cure to the nearest datanode to pass around the infonet. Hopefully, at least someone will run with it and take the Commonwealth to task.”

  “I’m not counting on it but I support you in that endeavor. You’re also welcome to stay onboard,” I said, pausing. “I have a feeling half the crew are going to be retiring and the other half will be starting families soon. I’ll need competent folk here.”

  “You’re not giving up the sailing life?” Fade asked. “I’d have thought you’d be the first one to buy an asteroid mansion now.”

  “And give up this luxury?” I asked, knocking on the scuffed desk. “Never. Besides, I have enough money to keep this ship running indefinitely as well as buy a small fleet of tramp freighters. I figure if I knew someone well acquainted with organized crime, he might be willing to set me up with his contacts to make our own little independent organization. A few million credits doesn’t go as far as it used to.”

  It wasn’t actually my plan but something Clarice had come up with as part of a scheme to keep us from getting shoved out an airlock by the crew when they found out we couldn’t pay them. Honestly, we had a better chance of making a fortune as our own smugglers than we ever did working for the Consortium. Mind you, our actions at the Ring meant the organization had several vacancies in its management.

  Before that I was going to have to change my name and identity, again, due to the fact that my father had finally “killed” the Fire Count. His death had been broadcast across the Spiral and it was probably going to cause the Commonwealth no end of trouble. Alive, my father had been an insane military commander out for himself and sullying our name for generations to come, but dead he was a martyr to the cause of galactic freedom. Well, that was their problem and I was already looking through old early Crius colonist media for a new surname. Cassius Arthur? Cassius Holmes? Cassius Kirk? It was a tough choice.

  Fade smirked and rubbed his goatee. “That sounds suspiciously like a display of trust, Captain.”

  “Not at all,” I said, crossing my arms. “I know I can’t trust you and that means I know at what length to keep you.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Fade said, furrowing his brow. “You might have a chance to get in on the ground floor of some big business about to boom. The Commonwealth is going to be releasing a good half of its properties. Crius included.”

  Anya turned to Fade. “You’re blowing smoke up my ass.”

  “Why the hell would they do that?” I asked, thinking about all the effort they’d expended trying to keep them. “They just won the war.”

  “Well, actually, you won—” Fade started to say.

  “Please don’t remind me,” I said, cutting him off.

  Fade sighed. “The Commonwealth was on the verge of economic collapse before the war. Quintillions of credits spent every year keeping worlds garrisoned, provisioned, and administered. Far more than they ever took from the planets themselves. The British Empire made more money not being an empire than it ever did ruling half of Old Earth.”

  “I have no idea what that is,” I said, blinking. “I’ll take your word for it, though.”

  “Why not release our worlds earlier then?” Anya said, angry. “Hell, why go to all the trouble of conquering so many planets to begin with?”

  “When they were conquering during the Reunification, the transtellars were making a fortune. All of the money was being borrowed from future speculation. That all came crashing down when the conquests stopped,” Fade said. “As for why not surrendering the worlds earlier, they couldn’t do that as long as the Free Systems Alliance existed. It took so long to get the surrender agreement going because they were afraid they’d look weak.”

  “Are you sure your grandmother can’t blow the entirety of Parliament up?” I asked, shaking my head.

  “I’ll see if she has any Guy Fawkes masks,” Fade said. “Guy Fawkes was—”

  “I don’t care,” I said, raising a hand. “The fact is the galaxy continues to spin and we’re all still alive. So I’m going to step out of this room and go find the people I love. I’m then going to get drunk in public and do my best to never remember any of this week’s events ever again.”

  “Any chance of that?” Anya asked.

  “Not a bit,” I said, knowing the events would haunt me until the end of my days. I was a patricide and witnessed the end of a species. I’d been party to the deaths of two gods and helped see my sister shuffle her mortal coil for the second time. I’d also left my brother behind on the deserts of a dea
d world. If I ever thought of that damned space cloud or its inhabitants again it would be too soon. Yet, every other thought I had seemed to be of it. “I’m glad to have you as part of the crew, Anya.”

  “Thanke,” Anya said.

  I walked over to the pair and prepared to put my arms around each but they both looked away, forcing me to put my arms down. “Fine, but the first round is on you then.”

  “The alcohol is free,” Fade said, wrinkling his nose. “Munin makes it in the plumbing.”

  “I could have gone my entire life without knowing that,” I said, blinking. “I’m also worried I will still drink it.”

  “The pipe sanitizer is a key ingredient,” Anya said, smiling.

  I was about to congratulate them for (hopefully) having a go with me when Jun Masterson ran into the room, panting, with a terrified look on her face. “We’re in big trouble, sir.”

  I blinked at her. “We’re in jumpspace. How bad could the trouble be?”

  I wasn’t speaking facetiously. Jumpspace, despite its horrifying reputation as a place full of all manner of unspeakable weirdness, was probably the safest place in the cosmos to be. Other ships couldn’t attack you and the computer theoretically could avoid any of the strange matter dangers which early ships collapsed into.

  Jun’s eyes widened as she spoke her next words with something approaching sheer panic. “It’s the probe, sir! It’s back!”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  I could not have moved faster to the bridge even as I found myself face to face with a blank screen, but sensor readings indicating the probe was one hundred meters in front of us, moving at an identical rate of speed. I called up a holographic display of the Elder Race vessel and stared into what I could only take to be our doom.

  The featureless sphere was impossible to identify as the same one which had attacked us in the nebula, but I had no doubt it was. I’d initially assumed the mysterious vessel to be the servant of the Kathax Prime, but I knew that wasn’t the case now. If he’d had access to a vessel then he would have secured the Kolahn and Free Systems Alliance personnel’s…souls? A.I. Presences? Whatever you wanted to call them. Hell, he probably would have killed Zoe and Cassius the Elder the moment he gained the ability.

  The other option would be it belonged to the mainline faction of the Elder Races which the Kathax Beta had represented. Perhaps to transfer her once we’ve come close enough to the planet to smuggle her in but without being sensed by Judith, the Kathax Prime, or Cassius the Elder. But what did they want now? If they wanted her then they were bound to be disappointed.

  And we were doomed.

  “Should I call up an alert, sir?” Jun said, standing next to a Tina and U’Chuck. Princess Servilia, Vi, was also on the bridge wearing a science officer uniform. They were the only bridge crew left, having drawn the unlucky lots to not attend tonight’s party. I was stunned Vi wanted to stay with us despite our poor accommodations, but glad.

  “There’s no point,” I said, taking a deep breath. “The only thing that would do is make sure everyone died scared.”

  “Now I really wish I hadn’t skipped the party,” Jun said, sighing. “Hey, Fade, you want to have sex?”

  Fade did a double-take. “With you? Absolutely.”

  Jun nodded. “Permission to take a break, sir?”

  “Denied!” I snapped at her.

  “Dammit,” Jun muttered.

  Fade shrugged noncommittally. “You win some, you lose some.”

  “We are perhaps the only vessel in human history to encounter a Elder Race transport twice,” Tina said, working the sensors rapidly. “And in jumpspace as well. This moment needs to be recorded for posterity.”

  “Does it?” I asked.

  The Kathax Prime’s words terrified me. The statement I needed to die along with my father, sister, and all others touched by their technology. That every bit of technology which could be used against the Elder Races be expunged. It was something I’d dismissed, for selfish reasons I admitted, but now threatened to destroy my ship. My crew. The people I loved.

  “What are you going to do?” Fade said, coming up beside my chair. “Can we attack it?”

  “That did nothing last time,” I said, taking a deep breath. “Opening a communications channel.”

  “What, sir?” Jun asked, glancing up. “You want to try to talk to it? After what it did last time?”

  “We’re still here, aren’t we?” I said, wondering if I’d guaranteed our deaths by trying to be the only human in history to destroy an Elder Race vessel. What was it here for now? To clean up loose ends? To upload a now-dead Kathax Beta into its system? It could destroy us at any moment so why wasn’t it attacking?

  “You can’t be serious,” Anya said. “Run away.”

  “We’d only die tired,” I said, closing my eyes.

  Jun, reluctantly, went to the controls and opened a frequency. “It’s done, sir. We’ve got a channel open for you on all frequencies.”

  “If we have time before we die,” U’Chuck said. “You’ll have to tell me what you saw on that planet.”

  “Ghosts,” I said, looking at her. “Though perhaps hope. Your race wasn’t responsible for what happened to it.”

  “I knew that,” U’Chuck said. “But, perhaps others didn’t. I’ll tell them if we survive.”

  If.

  I tapped the communications key on the arm rest of my chair. “This is Captain Cassius Mass of the independent trader Melampus. The Kathax Prime is no more along with the Kathax Beta. Both were killed in a struggle with my father and sister over Marker-based technology. All of it has been destroyed and they remain dead. I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “You told them the truth?” Anya said, appalled. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  I took my finger off the communications key, hoping that hadn’t gone through. “It was the only thing I could think of!”

  Fade took a deep breath. “Well, they haven’t blown us up yet.”

  Jun said. “Sir, I’m getting some power readings from the Elder Race probe.”

  I glared at Fade along with everyone else on the bridge.

  “Dammit,” Fade muttered.

  Moments later, there was yet another scan of our ship which was identical to the one they’d given us earlier. Well, almost identical. As I felt the strange energies permeate our vessel, I felt them stop on me. Maybe it was just a trick of the mind or maybe it was really taking time to look at me specifically but the scan felt like it took a lifetime rather than seconds.

  We didn’t die, though.

  “It’s just maintaining its position in front of our vessel, sir,” Jun said, her voice still wracked with fear. I’d come to like Jun as a kid sister during my years on the Melampus and it made me sick thinking she was only here because of me.

  I pushed the communications key again. “Listen, we’ve seen and experienced things in the past thousand years which have opened our race up to new ideas as well as new concepts. I’ve born witness to the horrors your race endured and I sympathize. My species is still too young and too immature to bring peace to itself but we’re getting there. This vessel carries within it nothing which could threaten your race but might help my people know we’re better off learning to get along rather than challenge you. The Kathax Prime was wrong. If he’d raised us up to your level, we would have just destroyed ourselves as well as the rest of the galaxy, but he wasn’t completely wrong. We have potential and a right to reach it just like the Kolahn did.”

  “Do,” U’Chuck said. “My race isn’t extinct yet. Just endangered.”

  “Shut up, Ensign,” I said.

  “Sorry, sir,” U’Chuck said.

  “Let us reach it!” I said, pleading.

  “Oh, poor Cassius, you still don’t know what’s going on. Maybe you will when you join us.” The voice on the other end mimicked Zoe’s.

  “What the fuck?” Fade said, doing a double-take between me and the screen.

  With that, the
probe vanished from our sensors as if it had never been.

  “Did you know that was going to happen?” Anya asked.

  “Do you think I would have cribbed a speech from Star Voyages if I’d known about that?” I asked. “I don’t even know what that was. It could have been an upload of Zoe’s consciousness or just another Elder Race member taking her voice.”

  “What do you think?” Fade asked.

  I paused. “I think…I think there’s some mysteries we’re never going to find out the answer to in this life.”

  “That’s a cop out,” Jun said.

  I stared at her. “Don’t you have someone to be with?”

  Jun looked over at Fade. “You up for it?”

  Fade smiled. “I’ve got nothing else better to do on this ship.”

  Jun smiled and offered her arm, the two of them walking off the bridge of the ship. No sooner did they part then Tina spoke up from the controls. “Captain, we’re receiving another message.”

  “From the probe?” I asked, not sure if I could make up another speech on the spot.

  “No sir, from Watcher General Claire.”

  I blinked a couple of times. “Can we even receive transmissions in jumpspace?”

  “It shouldn’t be possible, but we’re encountering a lot of strange things lately,” Tina paused. “By the way, my sisters and I want to buy our own ship with our share of the reward.”

  “That can wait, Tina,” I said, sighing.

  “Can it?” Tina paused. “Tina II is already deep in debt to Bruce on C-Deck. She’s been gambling the proceeds she expects.”

  “Ugh,” I said, sighing. “I thought Clarice was there to keep the crew from making book.”

  “Clarice is running half the games,” Tina paused. “She’s doing a good job of fleecing everyone. Lara and Brick may actually wind up poorer than when he started.”

  “Captain, is it a good idea to make the Watcher General wait?” Anya asked.

  “No,” I said, pausing. “Listen, I’m not going to have any gambling away of our reward now that we’re actually getting it. You get me a list of everyone who was betting and have it delivered to my office immediately. Everyone gets a share and no one is bartering it until they’re off this ship.”