by Scott Rhine
Glory Point
1. Fools Rush In
2. Changes
3. The Need for Speed
4. Old Enemies, Fresh Wounds
5. The Goat Lottery
6. Unnatural Selection
7. The Ghost System
8. The Palace of Versailles
9. The Study
10. Rude Awakening
11. Ambush Practice
12. Crucible
13. Breadcrumbs
14. Dry Run
15. Escape from the Planet of the Goats
16. A Dizzy Blonde
17. The Deep
18. The Magi Frontier
19. Sowing Seeds
20. Deconstruction
21. Know Your Enemy
22. Heresy
23. Proof
24. Deep 7
25. The Race
26. Last Minute Snag
27. Tellers
28. Old Time Religion
29. Intercept Alpha
30. Chokepoint Charlie
31. Now You See Me
32. Darkest before the Dawn
33. Where Angels Fear to Tread
34. Up Close and Personal
35. In Memory
36. Oz Hands Out Medals
Glory Point
Book Four of Gigaparsec
by Scott Rhine
Amazon Edition
Copyright 2017 Scott Rhine
Thanks to my wife, Tammy, my first reader and encouragement.
Cover art by http://www.thecovercounts.com
1. Fools Rush In
A dozen Saurians in parade uniforms shoved the disheveled Goat into his space yacht’s airlock and stood guard outside to make sure he didn’t return. Kesh opened the hatch from the inside, twitching his brown tail in anger. He resembled a cross between a frilled lizard and a velociraptor. “I can’t believe you touched the judge!”
To violate a member of the Turtle patron race was unthinkable. The Yellow Slash Saurian Clan served them the way the Swiss Guard did the pope.
Reuben’s ascot was loose, and his slotted eyes were bloodshot, making him look like a vaudeville drunk. “It wasn’t like that. I was helping her with a personal journey of discovery.”
Kesh wanted to grab the Goat politician by his sideburns as he shouted, “If the commander of her daughter’s guard hadn’t vouched for me, you’d still be in the brig. As it is, we’re forced to leave the planet early.”
“Is there a med-kit around? My brain is full of hot gravel.” The Goat staggered into his yacht’s opulent lounge. No evidence from the last party remained except for a crooked chandelier and a personal link address scrawled on the wall.
Kesh extended his claws to adjust the corsage on his white pinstriped suit. He was the oldest surviving member of his clan, though due to space travel, he barely looked retirement age. “Tell me you didn’t boost the judge.” A normal Black Ram could touch a ewe and tap the collective brainpower of an entire planet to solve problems. Reuben had an even rarer talent—he could pump up a female’s IQ through skin-to-skin contact. Afterward, their heat signatures looked like they’d had sex.
“What can I say? The older ones are more grateful.” Reuben filled a drinking bulb with hot water from a silver-plated samovar.
“If you weren’t a partner in my trading company, I’d challenge you to a duel. You have two minutes to explain yourself.”
Reuben snapped his fingers, and the media sphere at his hip hovered to life. The device could project a potent force field. “You wouldn’t hurt me. I’m a racial treasure.”
“That field only lasts a minute. No one could rescue you before it ran out of juice.”
“I did it to help Roz.”
“Do tell,” the woman in question said, entering the vessel. Even cold-bloods, who had trouble telling Humans apart, recognized Mrs. Ellison by the scar above her eyebrow. Everyone in the Union was supposed to sense the presence of fellow sentients. However, the injury had turned Roz into a null, someone with no link to the Collective Unconscious. She wore a rectangular green gem strapped to her forehead, pale Magi robes, and knee-high boots. For her math contributions to a new starship engine, the Magi race had honored her with the title Enlightened. Humans would compare this to revered thinkers like Gandhi or Einstein. Saurians would equate the rank to master strategists like Kesh’s father, General Keshmandar. “How does being asked to rid this planet of you benefit me?”
“I-I promised you a new mission to bring us all together again and keep Echo alive for another few years.” Echo was the Magi neutral member of her marriage triad. After her original mates had died in the maiden voyage of the prototype, she had bonded to the Ellisons in order to survive.
Roz chewed her lip. “Once we deliver Deep 6 to the Magi shipyard at Bright Frontier, Echo wants to join her ancestors.”
“The judge authorized me to borrow Echo and your ship for an urgent mission.”
“I suppose we could drop you off at Mnamnabo on the way,” Roz offered.
“We need to stop there first, but the mission is further than that.”
“Where?” asked Kesh, growing impatient.
“Glory Point.”
“Which is?” Kesh gestured for him to elaborate.
“Somewhere in Banker space. I’m hoping I’ll find clues from the Library of Xerxes, where new Rams like me receive their briefings. My people have gathered everything they know about Xerxes into this storehouse.” Reuben mixed a dark powder into the drinking bulb together with a small medicinal packet.
Kesh could smell the rich aroma of coffee with herbal undertones. “I refuse to chase wild waterfowl”
“We’ll need your expertise in starship warfare.”
Kesh had reviewed the Saurian tactical training program and offered several improvements. He’d added resource management to the combat models because fuel and water shortages harmed ships far more often than enemy action. His paper on the importance of supply-chain had been canonized by the war college. “My people wish me to teach at their military school.”
“Judge Jeeconus has offered a special dispensation in exchange for your participation,” Reuben said.
“Go on.”
“Jeeconus will ease an ancient military regulation. Once a Yellow Slash Saurian reproduces and serves the uplifters with distinction, same-sex relationships are allowed.”
Kesh lowered the inner membranes over his eyelids in surprise. “You told the judge I’m gay?”
“No, Vrilkesh. Your brother, Zrilkesh the accountant, was.” Everyone on the team knew the embezzler had swapped identities with the dead captain to hide from the mob. “As the head of your family, you want to reclaim your honor.”
He pondered living in the open, without fear of discovery or ridicule. “It’s a nice gesture, but I’m not a Yellow Slash. I still couldn’t be with Commander Krannek.”
Reuben handed him a scroll. “Since your offspring and recent ‘mate’ are Yellow Slash, if you take this mission, you’ll be accepted into their clan.”
Numbly, Kesh took the decree. “You did this for me?”
“For all of us. The trip will take years, but I guarantee our adventure will be the stuff of legends.”
A brown-skinned man with close-cropped hair appeared inside the hatch. No one had heard Max Ellison approach. Each of them jumped when he said, “That’s a special-forces euphemism for a suicide mission.”
Just as well. Kesh might accept being a social outcast, but his lover wouldn’t. However, if Kesh made his own death spectacular enough, he could pave the way for future same-sex Saurians. “Now that we have four members present, I call a board meeting of Far Traveler Unlimited.”
Max s
trapped his medical bag into the closet. He kept the emergency kit nearby but stowed other luggage in the yacht’s cargo hold. He was so polite that one could easily forget his lethal history. “Where’s Daisy?”
“Making apologies for Reuben’s abrupt departure.”
“Should we be meeting without her? She did buy into our company.”
Reuben shook his head. “Nah. She works for Llewellyn Terraforming.” The vast company had an agenda of its own. “This stays between us.”
Max asked, “Shouldn’t we wait for Echo?”
“Let her rest. The ethics of this mission are delicate.” Reuben took a swig of his headache remedy. “I guarantee she’ll be interested enough to remain alive for a few more years.”
“And Menelaus?” The angry young Bat had been exiled to the ship earlier to avoid duels with the royals who had imprisoned his family.
“He’ll agree for the chance to fight Saurians.”
“What the hell have you volunteered us for?” Max demanded, raising his voice.
The Goat winced and put a finger to his lips in a Human shushing motion. “Max, I wanted to start by apologizing to you. You’ve always been there for me, but I haven’t been completely honest in return. Remember when I questioned that old Phib a few years ago? Then your old girlfriend from Lunar Intelligence tortured him to death?”
That’s a sentence you don’t hear often, Kesh thought with surprise. Phibs were the Human term for the only amphibious race. Not cute frogs, but something from a horror movie scripted by organized criminals.
“Yeah. That’s the main reason I dumped her.” Since then, Lisa Troutwine had unexpectedly given birth to Max’s son, which had caused friction in Max’s marriage.
“The old Phib was on a mission of peace. He wanted to warn the Turtles about a secret fleet of Phib and Saurian vessels.”
“Why would Lisa kill him to keep that secret?”
Reuben examined the deck for his reply. “Because the fleet intends to capture the Fortress of Nivaar.”
“Impossible,” said Max.
“His thermal patterns and aura indicate sincerity,” Kesh said.
Max shook his head. “The Bankers are the most paranoid race in the galaxy. They won’t allow an inbound jump within fifty light-years of their homeworld.”
Assembling clues together from the past few years, Kesh replied, “That’s close enough if the cold-blooded crew is in stasis for a hundred years and shielded from sensors with black-market tellurium.”
Warming to the idea, Max said, “Possible. Pirates hijacked Deep 6 to haul tellurium-rich iron from asteroids.”
Unconvinced, Roz said, “You’d also need an arrival vector, some transient gravity alignment that happens once in a blue moon. Perhaps one that only shows up on Magi charts.”
Max slapped his forehead. “That’s what those high-level Phibs were gloating about when we captured them. You’d need a billionaire genius to plan all this and keep it hidden from the Union monitors.”
“A hundred fifty years ago,” Reuben confessed, “my ancestor Black Ram Xerxes decided his people wouldn’t be able to pay off their loans. The only way to avoid default would be the conquest of the Banker homeworld by sympathetic forces.”
“A moral quandary,” mused Kesh. “Bankers deserve a good comeuppance. Why shouldn’t we let the destruction happen?”
“We know things Xerxes didn’t. We can’t just take over their ansible network like a stolen car. Ansibles communicate faster-than-light the way Daisy links to her other triplets.”
Meekly, Roz whispered, “I see each ansible as a box of tentacles, a living extension of the Bankers on the homeworld.” She shuddered at the memory.
“Bankers are an integrated into a mental network,” Reuben said. “If the invaders kill any Bankers, every communications and banking system in the Union could be disrupted.”
“Squeeze me till eggs pop out my nose,” Kesh blurted. Most Saurian curses were sexual in nature, but didn’t translate well to English. “We should tell the Convocation. That fleet has to be stopped. Whole worlds could suffer in the economic chaos that follows.”
“Two problems.” Reuben slurped more coffee. “Everyone but the Magi have already heard. Most governments are deciding the best way to carve up the Banker worlds in the next treaty.”
“Important people will make us disappear if we broadcast the truth,” Max translated. “The second reason?”
“If the Bankers find out my people were responsible, they might stop the invasion in time, but they’ll definitely decommission every space station and ansible in Goat space. Billions of my people will starve. We’ll lose our starships and slide back to the Stone Age.”
The men reacted with curses, but nobody told Reuben he was exaggerating. Bankers showed no mercy.
“However,” Reuben concluded, “if we stop the invasion for them as a gesture of goodwill, we’re heroes. The assault happens in twenty-four months, shortly before our loan comes due. At ten times normal jump speed, our ship is the only one fast enough to intercept the fleet in time.”
Max complained, “Adding in the time the academy will spend grilling Roz and our return to Human space by slow ship, that’s a good six years. I’d miss half my son’s childhood. I just spent weeks haggling for visiting rights.”
His wife turned away.
“Did I stutter?” Reuben asked. “I said billions of lives.”
“We founded this company to escape special-forces missions.” Max raised his hands in frustration.
“No,” Reuben said. “We founded it as a thin excuse to save Echo and salve your conscience. This mission will keep her alive for another four years. What do you care if it clears my family’s karma along the way?”
“He’s right,” Roz decreed. As the moral compass in the relationship, her decision would stand. “This ship has a chance of stopping a massive number of sentient deaths. We have an obligation to try.”
“Be realistic. Is there any prayer we can we make it in time?” Max asked.
“The Fortress of Nivaar is on the hubward rim of the Orion Arm, beside the gap between spiral arms. The rim is roughly 700 parsecs away.” Roz scrunched up her face while calculating. “That’s 420 days at our current speeds, although we should travel faster as we get closer to the gravity cluster at the center of the Milky Way. With a limit of fifteen parsecs per hop, we’ll need at least forty-seven hops plus a few for the Mnamnabo detour. If we need to refill each time, add another 150 days for fueling. That’s still under two years. It’s possible if the Magi can be our pit crew and keep us moving at peak speed.”
Kesh stated the obvious problem. “While we’re in Goat space, we’ll need to hide our true abilities by taking the slow route to each nexus.” The traditional method of interstellar travel followed a subspace gravity lane between a nearby star and a heavier one in the destination system. No one apart from this group and a few Magi scientists knew Deep 6 could travel from anywhere to anywhere. As far as everyone else was concerned, the experimental drive traded a little extra speed at the cost of doubling the fuel consumption. “Once we leave Magi space or the Bankers learn the truth, all their resources will be focused on obliterating our prototype.”
“The academy wouldn’t risk its destruction,” Roz said. “We’re only being permitted to fly Deep 6 to the academy so their science team can observe and gather data.”
Max said, “Then between here and Bright Frontier, we need find a way to convince the academy we’re the best hope of avoiding a second war. Echo can give us a better ETA for the Nivaar region.” He considered for a moment. “Before you tell her the news, we can have her plot the hop to the Goat world Filangis. That’s our next stop, regardless of the final destination.”
“Why do I have to tell her the plan?” asked Roz.
Reuben made clucking sounds like a chicken.
“You’re making me hungry,” said Kesh. He decided to have fast food that night. He’d release some quail in the jungle biozone for
a hunt. Given his inevitable demise, he spared no expense stocking the game pens for this journey.
2. Changes
Roz smoothly docked the yacht against the Deep 6’s spherical hull and coupled to the cargo airlock. Kesh exited as quickly as possible to use the ship’s radio in private. Through the cargo bay’s windows, he noted a sleek Magi shuttle that fit perfectly into ship’s new docking cradle. All pirate jerry-rigging had been stripped away, and Magi couplings reinstalled. The shuttle’s iridescent hull reminded him of mother of pearl, except the material was probably ten thousand years old. The Magi definitely knew how to build a ship.
Kesh passed through a second lock into the outer hallway ring. Though the lights were dim, he knew this vessel like the scales on his hand. He floated past the pie wedges reserved for cargo. Those had been left empty and unheated during their rush to reach the Convocation before closing ceremonies. He entered the silver-maple forest biozone and followed the glass-alloy sidewalk over the artificial stream. Humans enjoyed swimming in the pond, but Kesh shuddered at the idea of immersion.
The modular crew quarters and mess hall clung to the ship’s inner ring like warts on the otherwise elegant design. He waddled through the security checkpoint to the elevator shaft at the core. He pressed the Up button. Instead of lighting up, the button buzzed. Kesh tried again.
A mechanical voice explained in Banker, “Passenger not authorized.”
When Kesh contacted Reuben with the problem, the Goat was busy “inspecting his yacht for signs of meteor damage” during their long absence.
Coward. He’s hiding from the rest of the crew. If I want something done right, I have to do it myself.
Kesh was attempting to work around the access problem when Roz wandered in. He growled when he was denied computer clearance to run his bypass script.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“What have your scientist friends done?”
The pilot made a small “o” with her lips and read the security log printing in Magi. “I was afraid of that. The scientist triad took over the officers’ level while we were gone. It’s been sterilized and sealed against lower lifeforms.”