Blood on the Stars Collection 1

by Jay Allan

  Barron stared down at the floor for a few seconds. What she said made sense. He’d written off the Priority One usage to the war, and to Dauntless’s proximity to the front. But now he was thinking of other transmissions, ones far more sensitive than this last one, sent on the normal channels.

  “Don’t mind me,” Atara said contritely. “I think the last year or more has me a little edgy. I’m seeing enemies everywhere I look.”

  A bit of Barron’s smile came back. “Well, it’s not like there haven’t been enemies and dangers everywhere, so I’d say your senses certainly have reason to be heightened.” He paused. “Still, I don’t know what could be waiting for us at Dannith. It’s pretty far back from the lines, and unlike Archellia, it’s not near any other power. There’s nothing across that border but the Badlands. So, unless the old empire is going to rise from the ashes and dust and attack us, I’d say we’ve got a pretty good shot at a crisis-free refit.”

  “I’m sure you’re right, Ty.” Atara was trying to mask her concern, and she would have managed it with anyone who knew her less well than Barron. He knew she was still concerned, and more to the point, he realized he was as well now. “I’ll go plot a course for Dannith, if that’s all right with you,” she continued. She got up, but then she hesitated, waiting for permission to leave. Another mix of casual and formal.

  “That’s a good idea. We’re already cleared to go, so we can head out anytime.”

  Travis walked toward the door, pausing just before she got there. “It’s been a tough year and a half, Ty,” she said softly, without turning around. “I think it’s got me a little paranoid.” Then she walked the rest of the way, the door opening as she reached it and closing behind her as she stepped out into the corridor.

  Barron sat unmoving, staring at the hatch for a long time.

  Yes, you’re paranoid, Atara…but that doesn’t mean you’re wrong…

  Chapter Three

  Excerpt from Auguste’s Meditations on the Cataclysm

  We speak of the Cataclysm frequently, in academia as well as routine conversation. We typically refer to it as a single occurrence, some war or disaster dating to a specific point in time. This is not only incorrect, it is antithetical to a true understanding of mankind’s fall, and of the subsequent limited rebirth that has created our Confederation and the reality of today.

  The Cataclysm was not one event, not even a lengthy one, as it might appear from the many references that so characterize it. Rather, it was a lengthy sequence of separate disasters exacerbated by the poor decisions of those in power, ultimately resulting in the downfall of most technologically advanced civilizations, and in the complete and utter destruction of thousands of formerly-inhabited worlds.

  Even the date we assign to this shattering event owes more to the somewhat arbitrary creation of the calendar used in the Confederation than it does to a quantifiable historical happening. In truth, what we call the Cataclysm extended over many centuries, perhaps the greater part of a millennium, as humanity’s civilization began to decline from its peak. The point from which we measure our years is but the final low of that terrible sequence of destruction and decay—the moment Megara lost contact with the remnants of the vast civil polity we know today only ephemerally as the empire.

  The empire was vast, of that much we are certain, though we know few details about its history. For centuries before the receipt of the last message that marks the start of our calendar, contact had been sporadic, and actual governance from the imperial capital but a historical footnote well beyond living memory.

  The empire spanned a region of space many times the size of that we inhabit today. Our worlds, those of the Confederation and the Union, and all the other nations in this area of the galaxy, were once but a fringe sector of the empire, though they fell away from its control centuries before the final crescendo of destruction. It is the very remoteness of our worlds that allowed them to avoid the great depths of the fall that occurred elsewhere.

  Humanity’s ancient empire, incalculably more advanced than our Confederation, died a slow and painful death, splintering and crumbling into warring parts, and eventually descending in a final centuries-long orgy of destruction. On world after world, the last survivors succumbed to radiation poisoning and uncontrolled disease. The few machines that had not been utterly destroyed gradually ceased to function, leaving nothing but silent graveyards where once stood titanic testaments to mankind’s achievements.

  All that remains of this great empire is that region of the galaxy designated Abandoned Space or the Quarantined Zone, and colloquially known as the Badlands. On world after silent world, the technology and knowledge gained during untold millennia of growth were slowly lost to the ages.

  Outside the Badlands, on the frontier, some planets, worlds like those of our own Confederation, retained enough technology to support a relatively rapid return to space travel and the rediscovery of the transwarp links left behind by the empire. The hundreds of planets known to us, both within the Confederation and in the surrounding nations, are only those accessible through the remaining Schwerin transit lines. Where that ancient system of transwarp portals has failed, worlds once part of a vibrant and prosperous empire are lost to us, trapped by enormous gulfs of space. Occasional radio signals confirm that some few of these planets remain inhabited, but they are removed from our conception of reality, almost as though they occupied an alternate universe.

  We of the Confederation take pride in the wealth and science we have developed, yet here, even on advanced worlds like Megara, the technology we control is but a tithe of that our ancestors possessed. We generally view our growth in optimistic terms, as a rebirth, an upward trajectory from mankind’s near doom. We ask ourselves how long it will be before we have returned to the levels of knowledge possessed by our ancestors, before we exceed the heights they had achieved.

  But the real question I raise in this work is a starker one, concerned not with soaring advancement or glorious futures, but grim prediction. Is our reality truly the early stage of a recovery from humanity’s fall? Or merely a brief upswing on an otherwise relentless descent into a true dark age, one that will last for untold eons?

  Free Trader Pegasus

  System Z-111 (Chrysallis)

  Deep Inside the Quarantined Zone (“The Badlands”)

  309 AC

  “We’re getting strange readings from planet four. Definitely some kind of energy output.” Vig Merrick glanced up from his workstation, a startled look on his face. “It’s not like anything I’ve ever seen, Captain. The pattern doesn’t match anything in the database. I checked it against every known form of fission or fusion generation, even chemical sources. But it’s…different.”

  “Different how?” Captain Andromeda Lafarge sat in the center of Pegasus’s tiny bridge. She was clad in her usual costume, black leather from head to toe. A heavy pistol and a small knife hung from a belt strung over the back of her chair. Pegasus’s crew had an inside joke that their captain took her weapons into the shower with her. It wasn’t true, but it was closer to the mark than she was prepared to admit to any of them. The hook on the wall in her small bathroom was within easy reach of the shower stall, and Lafarge’s reflexes were lightning quick.

  She leaned back in her chair, taking a quiet breath, trying to keep herself calm. Her people had come a long way…and just maybe this was what they were looking for. Her pale blond hair was tied tightly behind her head, and her ice blue eyes focused intently on Pegasus’s small main display, watching as the meager data trickled in from her ship’s scanners.

  “Stronger, for one thing. It’s very intense. Unless I’m missing something, we’re talking about output vastly stronger than even a military reactor.”

  Lafarge felt a flutter of excitement. Could they really have found what they’d been seeking for so long? “Bring us into orbit, Vig.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  Merrick was Lafarge’s first officer, and her oldest friend. T
he two were usually informal, but in tense moments, Merrick reverted to calling her “captain” instead of using her name as most of Pegasus’s crew did. Lafarge’s parents were long dead, and the only legacy she carried from the mother and father so long gone was the name “Andromeda,” a mouthful that was mercifully shortened to “Andi” by those who knew her.

  Merrick was the only other person in the cramped control room. There was a third station off to the side, one that would have been manned in a crisis situation, but she’d sent the other seven occupants of her ship to their bunks to catch some sleep. Pegasus had been on its hunt for a long time, and nothing would be served by having her crew collapse from exhaustion.

  Most of her people had been with her for years, and she knew she had their loyalty. But they’d been chasing shadows for months now, burning through much of the profit they’d earned on earlier expeditions pursuing what she suspected most of those aboard Pegasus had come to view as a phantom, an obsession the captain refused to accept was a mirage. But Lafarge’s gut had never led her astray before, and she wasn’t about to start disregarding it now. She’d been called every synonym for stubborn she could think of—and she saw no reason to shy away from any of those characterizations, not now. Not when she was so close.

  Lafarge called herself a free trader, even an archeologist of sorts in her more cerebral moments, but other names had been targeted at her as well. Adventurer, rogue, pirate…though she’d always insisted “pirate” was unfair. Perhaps she paid less attention than the authorities liked to rules and laws she felt were ill-conceived or unreasonable, but she’d never fought any ship that hadn’t attacked her first nor taken a cargo by force. She was no thief, no cutthroat. In a weak moment, she might even cop to “rogue,” but never “pirate.”

  The governments might lay claim to the artifacts and relics in the Badlands, but she saw no reason to adhere to such restrictions. Governments were always a bit grabby in her estimation, and as far as she was concerned, none of the relics out in the vastness of ancient, Cataclysmic space belonged to anyone save those with the skill and courage to find them. The Badlands—or Quarantined Zone or Abandoned Zone, as the area was variably designated by international accord—was not part of any nation. By treaty, any artifacts found in the zone were to be shared by all humanity, perhaps the most violated rule in the history of international relations. If the governments were going to ignore their own agreements, she saw no reason to turn over her own hard-won treasures to what she could only see as a glorified tax gatherer.

  Lafarge didn’t object to any ancient tech she found being shared, of course, not as long as she was paid first. She was no collector, and running a ship like Pegasus was expensive. She wasn’t out in the middle of nowhere risking her life for nothing. Andi Lafarge had tasted poverty and deprivation at its bitterest and most soul-killing.

  She remembered the crime-ridden streets of Hephaeseus’s slums, the pain of an empty stomach and the destitution of her orphaned childhood. Never again, she had long ago promised herself, and her career since had been dedicated to ensuring her wealth and comfort. When she retired one day it would be to a planet with crystal clear seas and vibrant blue skies, not the polluted, garbage-filled oceans, dense gray haze, and acid rains of her homeworld. And if the black market was the way she made that happen, so be it. She would let no one interfere. If her wits would serve, that was fine, but she carried that pistol and blade with her everywhere for a reason, and she was ready to use them when necessary.

  She’d spent a lot of time prowling these long-abandoned systems, and that had taken a toll on her psyche, and on what little faith she’d ever had in mankind as a species. The Badlands were a constant reminder of the shadow that stalked mankind, of humanity’s propensity for self-destruction. Lafarge’s outlook was a grim one. She saw corrupt governments everywhere, masses of people willing to believe whatever they were told as they were led to ruin. The wreckage of the ancient empire was a look into the past, of course, but to Lafarge it was also a glimpse of a potential future, one she was far from certain the Confederation and the nations surrounding it would avoid.

  There was nothing she could do about that, however, and she had no intention of wasting her time trying. She looked to her own needs, and those of her crew. That was all that mattered to her. The fools inhabiting the worlds of the Confederation, and the sheep enslaved by the Union…they created their own reality. She would live on the fringes, in the shadows, and when she was done with her explorations, she would enjoy the comfort her efforts had provided her. She wished no harm on those who did not act against her, but neither did she accept responsibility for people’s folly.

  “Entering orbit, Captain.”

  “Very well, bring…”

  “Captain, we’re picking up something in orbit. It’s big…damned big, just coming around into view. And it’s the source of the energy readings.” Merrick spun around and stared at Lafarge. “It’s huge, Andi…bigger than a battleship.”

  Lafarge stared at the screen, unable to look away. She and her people were searching for an extraordinary find…but the thing her scanners were picking up was beyond her wildest expectations.

  Her mind was racing, and she knew she was getting way ahead of herself. How could she even get this thing back to normal space? And what was it? Some kind of weapon? That would be bad. She wasn’t shy about selling trinkets on the black market, even bits and pieces of information tech, but the vast construct looming in front of her ship was something else entirely. Her stomach twisted into a knot, as worries crept in, right on the heels of her excitement.

  There was ancient technology to be found out in the Badlands—she’d known that a long time, even before she’d been one of the treasure hunters herself—and fortunes to be gained by those willing to take the risks to discover it, but most of the artifacts retrieved had been small items, or bits and pieces of larger systems.

  Until now…

  “Bring us in closer, Vig. Slow.” She couldn’t imagine the thing was fully operational, but the energy readings made her nervous. She’d equipped Pegasus well for an adventurer’s ship, but if the monstrous thing on her scanners was operational and armed, she didn’t doubt it could vaporize her little craft with a single shot.

  She tapped the small comm unit next to her chair. “Ross…”

  “Yes?” Ross Tarren’s voice was soft, his voice still hoarse from sleep.

  “Time to get up. Rouse the whole crew. I think we’ve just found something…well, you’ll have to decide for yourself what it is. But I think we need everybody up and alert right now.”

  “On the way, Andi.”

  She turned and flashed a glance toward Merrick. “I want the scanners on full power, Vig. Don’t take your eyes off the screen, not for a second. If there’s any kind of energy spike, any signs at all that this thing is active—and maybe preparing to fire—get us the hell out of here.”

  “Will do, Captain.” Merrick’s voice suggested he was as doubtful as Lafarge that Pegasus could escape if the artifact turned out to be hostile. “We’ve got the energy readings—more power than I’ve ever seen any physical construct generate—but no changes, no increases. It’s still just sitting there.”

  “What the hell is that?” Ross Tarren had just stepped onto the bridge…and frozen in place. He stared at the screen in something that looked like pure shock.

  “Well, for one thing, it’s proof we weren’t chasing shadows. This is by far the greatest discovery made in the Badlands.” Lafarge tried to hide her conflicting emotions. She was thrilled to find something so extraordinary, but she was already beginning to realize it would be a difficult thing to monetize. There was no way to sell something like this in a clandestine manner, even assuming she could get it back to Confederation space somehow. And, while she had less respect than the authorities liked for overreaching rules and restrictions, she wasn’t about to sell out the Confederation by allowing something of this importance to fall into foreign hands.
>
  “What the…” Dolph Messer stopped at the hatch and stared onto the bridge.

  “What’s the problem, you big oaf?” Rina Strand’s voice was terse, her annoyance clear in her tone.

  Messer moved forward as Strand pushed Pegasus’s resident giant onto the bridge. The small woman squeezed between Messer and the wall…and then she too stopped. “Shit,” she muttered softly.

  “Alright, enough gawking.” Lafarge turned and glared at her crew members. “We’ve found something…something big. I need you at your stations, not cramming onto the bridge, taking up space.” She gestured toward the single vacant seat on the bridge. “Ross, at your station. Rina, down in engineering…now.” She slapped her hand down on the comm controls, activating the shipwide PA. “Everybody, get to your stations. I don’t think we’ve got a fight on our hands, but we’re definitely venturing into the unknown, and we’re damned well going to be ready for whatever happens.”

  She leaned back, her gaze returning to the display. She liked to consider herself a pure mercenary, and she’d often said she would haul loads of grain if it paid as well as ancient artifacts. But that was all show. Lafarge was fascinated by old tech, and now she could feel the rumblings in her mind, the curiosity that, upon occasion, earned her that informal archeologist’s designation.

  What is this thing?

  “Still no change, Captain.” Merrick’s voice was edgy, but it was clear he was as intrigued by the ancient device as Lafarge. “It’s just orbiting.”

  “Then bring us alongside, Vig.” Lafarge didn’t move, didn’t let an eye wander from the incredible image in front of her. “And see if you can find a place to dock. If this thing lets us get close enough, we’re going aboard to have a look around.”

  Chapter Four

  Inside Abandoned Spacecraft