Stars & Empire 2: 10 More Galactic Tales (Stars & Empire Box Set Collection)

by Jay Allan

  Miriam nodded with measured grace, appearing to acknowledge for the moment, Alex had the upper hand. “Perhaps it was…inconsiderate of me to insist you come here.”

  “To order Richard to deliver your summons and drag me before you, you mean?”

  She raised a hand in mild protest. “Richard wanted the chance to see you. I hope you don’t blame him for any unpleasantness.”

  “Oh, I don’t. I blame you.”

  To her credit, her mother was nearly impossible to provoke. If anything, her expression softened in response to the barb. “I’m not trying to tell you how to live your life. But I worry about you, out there all alone in deep space. That ship of yours is too powerful for one person to handle.”

  Yet even in her attempt at kindness or at least civility, she managed to choose the exact wrong thing to say.

  Deep down, Alex knew it probably wasn’t intentional. But there was too much—too many hateful words and spiteful reactions to them, too much water under a broken bridge—and she had no desire to grasp at a tenuous thread only to have it fray and dissolve like all the others.

  “The past eight years would beg to differ with you. With all due respect, you have no idea just how much I can handle.” She stood abruptly. “Is there anything else?”

  “No. Not when you won’t listen to reason.”

  She didn’t rise to the bait. She simply wanted to be gone. “If you’d like, I will send a graciously worded response to the Minister thanking him for the honor of considering me but regretfully declining due to other obligations.”

  “That won’t be necessary. I’ll inform him.”

  “Suit yourself.” She pivoted and headed for the door.

  “Alexis?”

  She paused mid-stride—an inborn response to a mother’s plea—but didn’t look back.

  “At least be careful out there.”

  A tight nod and she was gone.

  *

  It was well past twenty-three hundred when Alex got home. The bot had found two micro-imperfections in the fiber which had to be rewoven. Then the diagnostics had to be run again, the ware re-modded, and the power system ratios recalibrated again before she closed the ship up for the night. Securing the line to the hull and shielding it would have to wait until the morning.

  She opened a bottle of Swiss cabernet and left it to breathe while she ran through the shower, then combed out her hair and slipped on a silk robe to wear back downstairs.

  A glass of the cabernet in hand, she stepped out onto the balcony. The glittering night lights of the city spread out beneath her, the light reflecting off the full moon mirrored in the Sound beyond.

  She didn’t pour all her profits into her ship. The loft eighty stories above downtown had cost more than a few credits; the custom tech installed in it nearly as much again. Though she was only here maybe three months out of a given year, she wasn’t above enjoying at least a few of the finer things her income now afforded her.

  As the glass touched her lips her thoughts drifted to Malcolm. She hadn’t done so in some time, but after the mention of him today quite a few memories had crept to the forefront of her mind. Most of them were good…she had loved him, after all.

  But according to him she loved her ship more, and that was something he couldn’t accept. And since he was mostly right, she hadn’t fought him when he left.

  She had missed him for a while, missed his warm smile and tender yet expert touch. But she had also welcomed the absence of the invisible leash which had tugged her back to Earth more often than she liked, which had whispered of duties to another and required explanations and justifications for every excursion. And eventually even the good memories had faded into the background, replaced by the thrill of new endeavors.

  Her thoughts continued to linger on the past as she walked inside and her gaze fell to the far wall of the open room that constituted the entirety of the loft, save for the kitchen and the elevated sleeping area overlooking the main floor.

  It was decorated in visuals she had captured in her travels across the galaxy. They included a supernova in bright, perpetual explosion, a comet on a flyby of a crescent moon, the slow pulse of a ghostly blue and lavender nebula and the gamma flare of a neutron star.

  Those and others framed the centerpiece of the wall: a panoramic side-on image of the Milky Way, taken far from the light pollution of any suns or haze of any nebulae. Trillions of stars shone and sparkled to converge on the brilliance of the galactic core.

  Malcolm hadn’t been exactly right. Yes, she loved her ship more than she had loved him. But what she loved even more was what it gave her: freedom, and the key to the marvels of space. It gave her the stars, and she doubted she could ever love anything or anyone more than she loved the stars.

  Speaking of…she refilled her glass and settled onto the couch. She sent a passcode to the control interface and the opposite wall dissolved into a three-dimensional holo of the nearest quadrant of the galaxy. A slight wave of her hand and it zoomed into the Metis Nebula and its environs.

  Near to but definitively outside Federation-controlled territory and on the outer edge of explored space, it would take her five days to reach the periphery—far less time than most, but still a trek. It was an allegedly uninteresting, ordinary plerion wrapped in an ancient, gas-heavy supernova remnant which had stubbornly refused to dissipate into the interstellar medium.

  But she had made a small fortune by seeing what others did not. The ‘experts’ had said the Lacertae asteroid ring was nothing but dead rocks until she had found the ultra-rare heavy metals in the cores of the largest ones. Now Astral Materials was using it to develop frames for space stations they claimed would be strong enough to withstand a Type Ia supernova shockwave.

  The golden-blue glow of Metis had caught her attention several excursions ago and had danced and thrummed at the edge of her consciousness ever since. Now flush with the considerable proceeds of the Lacertae find and the resultant ship upgrades, she figured she could afford to indulge a hunch for a month or so.

  Her eyes widened deliberately, pupils dilated and ocular implant flashing as she simultaneously reviewed the data she had pulled in her library query of the scientific archives—which was appallingly sparse—scrolling up her eVi, the rotating full-spectrum image of the Nebula, and her own data flowing alongside it.

  “Well, you lovely, mysterious Metis…what secrets do you have to show me?”

  CHAPTER 2: Seneca

  Cavare: Capital of the Senecan Federation

  The kinetic blade slid into the man’s throat like a knife through butter. Caleb held him securely from behind as the blood began to flow and the man jerked and spasmed.

  He generally preferred clean, painless deaths. But he wanted to watch this man die, and die slowly.

  When the man had lost all motor function, Caleb dumped him onto the desk and flipped him over. Eyes wide with fear, confusion and outrage met his. The man’s lips contorted in a caricature of speech, though no words came out.

  He had a good idea of the intended utterance. Why. It was a question easily answered. Vengeance.

  “Justice.”

  As the pool of blood spread across the desk and formed waterfalls to the floor below, the eyes belonging to the leader of the Humans Against Artificials terrorist organization glazed over. The last spark of life within them dimmed, then went out.

  One down.

  *

  Caleb Marano stepped out of the spaceport into the cyan-tinged glow of a late afternoon sun reflecting off the polished marble tiles of the plaza. The chill breeze caressing his skin felt like a welcome home. Cavare was always cool and often cold; Krysk had been a veritable oven by comparison.

  He descended the first set of stairs and angled toward the corner to get clear of the bustling thoroughfare, then relaxed beside the ledge to wait for his companions.

  Isabela exited the spaceport a moment later. She held a bag in one arm and a fidgeting bundle of arms, legs and long, dark curls in
the other. She looked disturbingly ‘momish’ as she struggled to brush out Marlee’s tangled hair—but he could remember when she had been that little girl with long, dark curls…and it wasn’t so long ago.

  With a groan she gave up the futile endeavor and allowed her daughter to escape her grasp and make a beeline for Caleb.

  He crouched to meet Marlee at eye level. She plowed into him with almost enough force to knock him over backwards. He would’ve laughed but for the forlorn look in her pale turquoise eyes.

  “Do you have to go away now, Uncle Caleb?”

  He tousled her curls into further disarray. “Yeah, I’m afraid I have to go back to work. But it sure was great spending my vacation with you. I learned a lot.”

  She wore her best serious face as she nodded sagely. “You had a lot to learn.”

  He grinned and leaned in to whisper to his co-conspirator. “You remember what all we talked about, right?”

  Her eyes were wide and honest. “Uh-huh.”

  “Good. Want one more ride before I go?”

  Her head bobbed up and down with gusto, instantly that of a carefree child again.

  “Okay.” He scooped her up in his arms and stood, made certain he had a solid grasp of her tiny waist, and began to spin around with accelerating speed. Her arms and legs dangled free to swing through the air while she cackled in delight.

  After another few spins he slowed—he had learned her limits during the last few weeks—letting her limbs fall against him before he came to a stop. He gave her a final squeeze and gently set her to the ground as her mother reached them.

  Isabela wore a half-amused, half-exhausted expression as Marlee started running in dizzy circles around her legs. “Sorry about the hold up. They let us back on the transport and we found Mr. Freckles under the seat.” She patted her bag in confirmation of the stuffed animal’s now secure location. “Are you sure you don’t want to have a quick dinner with us?”

  He responded with a dubious smirk. “You can be polite if you like, but the truth is you are sick to death of me and counting the minutes until you are at last rid of me.”

  “Well, yes. But I never know when I’ll get to see you again….” The twinkle faded from her eyes, replaced by something darker and heavier.

  She knew he didn’t work for a shuttle manufacturing company, and he knew that she knew. But they never, ever, talked about it. Partly for her safety and his, but partly because he preferred to continue being in her mind the strong, stalwart older brother with the easygoing demeanor and wicked sense of humor, without introducing any moral grayness to the relationship dynamic.

  Because he never wanted her to look at him with caution, disillusionment…or worst of all, fear.

  He merely nodded in response. “I’ll come visit again soon. Promise.”

  She reached down to pause the cyclone at her legs. “I’ll hold you to it. I’m going to take Marlee to see Mom, then we’ll head back home.”

  He leaned over the struggling cyclone to embrace her. “Thank you for the extended hospitality. I’m glad I was able to spend so much time with you.”

  “Anytime, I mean it,” she whispered in his ear. “Stay safe.”

  He kept his shrug mild as he stepped away. “Of course.” Not likely.

  Two insistent and tearful hugs from Marlee later, they parted ways. He watched them disappear into the throng of travelers, then headed in the direction of the parking complex.

  *

  Caleb stepped in the adjoining lavatory and washed the blood off his hands and forearms. Then he returned to the office, reached under the corner of the desk and triggered the ‘Alert’ panic signal—the one he had never allowed the dead man to reach. There was a surveillance cam hidden in the ceiling, and he looked up at it and smiled. He had a number of smiles in his repertoire; this was not one of the more pleasant ones.

  The commotion began as he exited the building. He quickened his stride to his bike, jumped on and fired the engine. Three men bolted out the door, two Daemons and a TSG swinging in his direction.

  It wouldn’t do to get shot. A flick of his thumb and the bike burst out of the parking slot. He laid it down as laser fire sliced barely a meter overhead, his leg hovering centimeters above the ground while he slid around the corner and onto the cross-street.

  He heard them giving chase almost immediately. So late in the night the street and air traffic was sparse, which was one reason he had begun the op when he did. It reduced the chances of his pursuers taking out innocent bystanders—and gave them a clearer line of sight to him. He wanted to make certain they knew where he was going before he left them behind.

  Their surface vehicles didn’t stand a chance of matching his speed and it would look suspicious if he slowed…but as anticipated, they had grabbed a skycar. He kept an eye on it via the rearcam, making sure it succeeded in following him through two major direction shifts.

  Satisfied, he kicked the bike into its actual highest gear and accelerated right then left, fishtailing around two street corners in rapid succession. He activated the concealment shield. It didn’t render him or the bike invisible, but it did make them blend into the surroundings and virtually impossible to track from the air at night.

  Then he sped toward the Bahia Mar spaceport. After all, he did need to get there ahead of them.

  *

  Tiny flecks of light sparkled in the night-darkened waters of the Fuori River as Caleb pulled in the small surface lot. It was nearly empty, as most people took the levtrams to the entertainment district and had no need of parking.

  Once the engine had purred into silence he swung a leg off the bike and glanced up. A smile ghosted across his face at the dozens of meteors streaking against the silhouette of the giant moon which dominated Seneca’s sky.

  He noted the time. He had a few minutes to enjoy a little stargazing, though the conditions were far from ideal here in the heart of downtown. An exanet query confirmed the meteor shower continued for eleven days. Maybe he’d have a chance to get up to the mountains before it ended.

  Committed to this plan, he secured the bike in its slot. A last glance at the sky and he crossed the street and took the wide steps to the riverwalk park.

  The atmosphere on the broad promenade hovered at the optimal balance between deserted and overrun by masses of people. As it was a weekend night the balance wouldn’t hold for long, but for the moment it pulsed with energy while still allowing plenty of room to move about and claim your own personal space. He noted with interest the outdoor bar to the right, complete with live synth band and raised danced platform. Not yet. Business first.

  He slipped among the milling patrons until he reached a section of railing at the edge of the promenade to the southeast of the bar. Here the crowd had thinned to a few meandering couples and the music thrummed softly in the background.

  The light from the skyscrapers now drowned out the light from the meteors, but he couldn’t argue with the view.

  A thoroughly modern city to the core, humans having initially set foot on its soil less than a century ago, Cavare glittered and shone like a sculpture newly unveiled. The reflected halo of the moon shimmered in the tranquil water as the river rippled along the wall beneath him, winding itself through the heart of the city on its way to Lake Fuori. Far to his left he could see the gleam of the first arch which marked the dramatic entrance to the lake and the luxuries it held.

  It was an inspiring yet comforting view, and one he had spent close to forty years watching develop, mature and grow increasingly more lustrous. He contented himself with enjoying it while he waited for his appointment to arrive.

  The message had come in the middle of dinner at his favorite Chinasian restaurant. He hadn’t even had the chance to go home yet; the entirety of the belongings he had traveled with were stowed in the rear compartment of his bike. But in truth there wasn’t much of consequence waiting for him at the apartment, for it was home in only the most technical sense of the word.

  Never h
ave anything you can’t walk away from. A gem of advice imparted by a friend and mentor early on in his career, and something he had found remarkably easy to adopt.

  *

  He stowed the bike in a nearby stall he had rented in yet another assumed name and hurried to Bay F-18. He made a brief pass through the ship to make sure the contact points on the charges were solid, then sat in the pilot’s chair, kicked his feet up on the dash and crossed his hands behind his head to wait.

  They were hackers as much as terrorists. It wouldn’t take them long to break the encryption to the bay. The encryption on the ship’s airlock was stronger—for they would expect it to be—but not so difficult they couldn’t crack it.

  Planting enough charges at the headquarters to take it out would have involved significant risk of discovery and ultimate failure. But here, he controlled every step and every action.

  The hangar bay door burst open. Three…six…eight initially. He sincerely hoped more showed up before they got into the ship.

  His wish was granted when three minutes later seven additional members of the group rushed in. The surface pursuit, he imagined. The initial arrivals were still hacking the ship lock. He gave them another two minutes.

  With a last gaze around he pulled his feet off the dash and stood. He headed through the primary compartment and below to the mid-level, opened the hatch to the engineering well, and positioned himself in the shadowy corner near the stairs.

  They wouldn’t all come in at once, lest they end up shooting each other in the confusion. Three, maybe four to start, plus two to guard the airlock. They would fan out to run him to ground quickly.

  The first man descended the stairs. As his left foot hit the deck Caleb grabbed him from behind and with a fierce wrench snapped his neck. He made a point to throw the body against the stairwell so the loud clang echoed throughout the ship.

  Two down.

  *

  Caleb looked over his shoulder to see Michael Volosk striding down the steps toward him. Right on time. Everything about the man’s outward demeanor projected an image of consummate professionalism, from the simple but perfectly tailored suit to the close-cropped hair to the purposeful stride.