by M. D. Cooper
BUILDING VICTORIA
M. D. Cooper
Copyright © 2016 M. D. Cooper
All rights reserved.
ISBN-13: 978-1533367136
ISBN-10: 1533367132
DEDICATION
This one is for the fans. Thanks for the emails, messages, and encouragement.
Table of Contents
DEDICATION
Table of Contents
PROLOGUE: SILENCE BETWEEN THE STARS
RUDE AWAKENING
A HOME WITHIN A HOME
DOG STAR
REVOLUTION
PLANS
ACCEPTABLE LOSS
SPY
CHANGE OF PLANS
HYPERION
GETTING OUT OF DODGE
GROWING OLD TOGETHER
ANDROMEDA
PURSUIT
INTERSTELLAR
PUSHING ICE
NEW FRIENDS
REUNION
CONSENSUS
DECEPTION
OLD TIMES
GAMMA
LANDFALL
NOWHERE
BREACH
THE GAME’S UP
ONLY THE DEAD KNOW THE END OF WAR
A LONG DAY’S END
TRUE COLORS
MOURNING VICTORIA
VICTORIA IN PERIL
BATTLE FOR VICTORIA
RECOMPENSE
RELATIVITY
THANK YOU
FREE CONTENT!
AN UNEXPECTED CARGO
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
THE WORLD OF AEON 14
APENDIXES
TERMS & TECHNOLOGY
PEOPLE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PROLOGUE:
SILENCE BETWEEN THE STARS
STELLAR DATE: 3243433 / 02.13.4168 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: ISS Intrepid
REGION: Interstellar space, near Estrella de la Muerte
It was dark again.
The ship coasted through the void, the relative warmth and light of LHS 1565 long behind it. Ahead, the dim, red disk of Kapteyn’s Star was barely visible.
Bob monitored the thickness of the interstellar medium, keeping watch againt dense pockets of plasma and molecular clouds. With the scoop barely operable, the ship was all but naked as it drifted through space.
Though it was only moving seventeen-thousand kilometers per-second, a cluster of atoms, or stray plasma could do significant damage.
As if to emphasis his thoughts, sensors registered a hit on the dorsal arch, and he detected silicate residue in the meter-wide dent on the hull.
If an AI could worry, Bob worried.
He re-ran fuel consumption simulations, looking for any energy savings he could manage to increase power to the scoop and shields. He decided on which sacrifices to make and shut down more sections of the ship until only the habitation cylinders were lit and warm.
Bots herded animals from the ship’s other parks to the cylinders, where they were introduced to the ecosystem in the least destructive ways Bob could manage.
He knew the humans would appreciate the effort to save their plants and animals—though the sentiment was largely lost on him.
Other parts of his mind continued to focus on the internal component analysis he was performing.
Bob watched the ship through every sensor he possessed; checking and cross-checking every piece of data gathered, testing it for accuracy and corruption every way he knew how.
The humans blamed themselves for the calamity in the LHS 1565 system—or Estrella de la Muerte, as his avatars had named it. However, he found more fault in himself. He was faster, smarter, and more powerful than a million of them; yet he failed to detect the sabotage done to the ship.
It was an event which would not repeat. He and Earnest worked long and hard to discern a method for detecting any sabotage and component corruption. There would be no further modification of his body.
The knowledge didn’t stop the recrimination to which he subjected himself.
It also didn’t stop him from perseverating over new ways the mission could be jeopardized. There was still the issue of Jessica Keller, and how she had made it onto the ship. If she was here, he had to plan for the presence of Myrrdan—or anyone else in known space, for that matter.
Even he could not discern why Myrrdan was so successful—if that word could apply. Analysis of his mass murders, acts of terrorism, and ability to evade all attempts to catch him showed he was highly augmented—easily four times more mentally enhanced than a class 2 human.
That level of augmentation shouldn’t be possible without noticeable physical alterations, but either Myrrdan was the greatest charlatan of all time, or he was as smart as the data suggested.
If Myrrdan was on the Intrepid, it was to acquire picotech, the atomic-size technology which would elevate the New Eden colony to the center of human commerce and power.
Though, if stealing the picotech were his endgame, his methodology was questionable. Why let the ship leave the Sol system at all? More importantly, why point it at a star and sabotage its drive systems?
Bob had far too many questions, for which there were no answers.
To reduce variables, he’d insisted that all humans go into stasis. It made his primary task of physically inspecting, and reprogramming every piece of hardware on the ship much simpler.
There was one human he would permit to wake, in fact, he required her to wake.
Tanis Richards was nearly as large an enigma as the possible presence of Myrrdan on the ship. Granted, an enigma that mostly worked in his favor.
She nearly made Bob believe in the luck experiments.
From time to time strange notions came about in the human sphere. One of them was breeding for luck. Initially proposed several thousand years earlier, the premise was that certain humans had exceptionally lucky events happen in their lives: events such as winning the lottery twice, or evading death multiple times. These humans were bred together in an attempt to produce offspring more prone to luck.
No measurable results were ever observed.
Tanis seemed to defy reality with her luck. Bob had checked her lineage, to see if she was the result of any luck experiments, but had been unable to find a link. Still, she survived when she should not, and had done things that she should not have been able to do—things like Linking with the fighters in battle, as the Intrepid exited the Sol system.
Bob knew others had run the math, and had all come to the same conclusion he had—the outcome of her actions had been impossible.
Whether or not she did have luck, things often went better with her around—she had saved his life more than once. Bob intended to have Tanis out of stasis as much as possible, to make use of whatever special rift in space-time and probability her presence created.
He decided that this was as good a time as any to wake her. Maybe he would be able to gather more insight into what made her tick.
RUDE AWAKENING
STELLAR DATE: 3243433 / 02.13.4168 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: ISS Intrepid
REGION: Interstellar space, near Estrella de la Muerte
“So you’re just going to wake me randomly?” Tanis asked, unable to hide the annoyance in her voice. “How often do you intend to do this?”
Bob replied.
Tanis let out a long sigh. “You know that’s not an answer. You must have some idea how often it will be, and how long you expect me to stay
up. I do intend to actually see New Eden you know…preferably before I’m falling apart from too many re-juvs.”
“A month! Alone on the ship!” Tanis surprised herself with the strength of her own outburst. “I’ll go insane! I need some sort of companionship.”
Angela’s droll tone joined the conversation.
Tanis rubbed her eyes and sat on the edge of the stasis pod. “I’m sorry Ang…I don’t mean to be rude, but I think you know what I mean—I’m no social butterfly, but even I need some human interaction.”
Tanis rose up from the edge of the stasis pod. “You’re damn right I desire it. Let’s go get him up.” She was in the passageway before the words left her mouth.
“Why is it so cold?” Tanis asked through clenched teeth.
The chamber where Joe lay in stasis wasn’t far. Critical personnel couldn’t occupy the same chamber, but Tanis made certain he was close as possible.
The door slid open, and she raced through, arms wrapped tight around herself.
“Stars! How cold was it out there?”
Joe was exactly where she had left him, first pod on the right. She signaled the unit over the Link, and after a moment the stasis field snapped off and the pod’s cover slid open.
“Wha…what’s the emergency?” Joe mumbled as he struggled out of his pod, “are we disintegrating?”
“Nothing so serious,” Tanis’s lips twisted in a wry smile. “We’re babysitting a nervous AI.”
Bob said.
“I just call it like I see it,” Tanis replied
Joe stood, and Tanis wrapped him in an embrace. “It’s nice to wake and see you…without some emergency.”
The embrace lasted only a second before Joe pulled back.
“Holy crap!” Joe exclaimed. “Why are you so cold?”
“You could have taken the time to get some clothes. They are stasis pods, after all…I wasn’t going anywhere.”
Tanis felt herself flush. “Sorry, I just got caught up in the moment.”
Joe smiled and leaned in for a kiss. “This is about all of ice-cold Tanis I can handle right now.”
Tanis laughed softly. “I’m starved, let’s get some food. I think a BLT would really hit the spot right now.”
Joe pulled a pair of shipsuits from storage. “I could use a bite too, but let’s get dressed first. I don’t want to lose any bits on the way to the officer’s lounge.”
“Is that really what’s up, Bob?” Joe asked as they walked through the slowly warming passageways. “You a bit worried about being alone?”
Joe laughed and nudged Tanis. “You’re his lucky charm.”
“I think I resent that.”
Half an hour later, the pair sat at a small table in the officer’s lounge, working their way through a light lunch.
“So let me get this straight,” Joe said after taking a gulp of his coffee. “You plan to wake Tanis every so often—randomly—to have her check things over and make you feel better, and, because she can’t live without me now, I get woken in the deal too?”
“Are we going to be the only humans up this entire time?” Tanis asked. “The captain won’t be woken at all?”
“Awww…he’s like a city-sized puppy,” Joe chuckled.
“You seem to think this is amusing,” Tanis gave him a sour look. “You’re forgetting that this essentially works out to years and years of extra work.”
“You’re looking at it glass-half-empty,” Joe replied.
Joe paused for a moment. “Damn… never thought of that. There goes logic—ruining another perfectly good figure of speech.”
“You were saying?” Tanis asked.
“Right. Anyway, we’re going to have long walks in the park, and by the beach—if we wanted to, we could have decades to spend with just one another. Maybe I could even teach you to fly.”
“Yeah. And maybe. I could teach you to tell a joke.” Tanis stuck her tongue out at Joe, then paused. “So Bob, you really just want us to do whatever we think we need to do? Just check the ship over, hang out for a few days or a week and then go back under?”
“How often do you want us to do this?”
Tanis nearly choked on her BLT while Joe dissolved into hysterical laughter.
“We should walk the ship—the whole ship,” Joe said later as he and Tanis relaxed in the officer’s common area. “It’s just the sort of thing that could give us a fresh perspective. and something to do.”
“It may take more than a day or two,” Tanis mused.
“I’ll bring a snack, and I bet there are lots of quarters along the way we could crash in.”
“What the hell,” Tanis sat up. “But first, let’s get armored and armed, at least lightly.”
“No argument here. I imagine I’m going to hear rogue bots around every corner, for the first day at least. Not to mention, armor has built-in heaters.”
An hour later, they sat aboard a maglev train, riding to the bow of the Intrepid in silence. Both Joe and Tanis sported light armor, several sidearms and multi-function rifles. Packs rested on the floor beside them, containing food and supplies.
Bob’s voice came over the Link.
“Sorry Bob,” Joe said, “Memories of dark corridors with no power and no comm are still too fresh. To us that was just a couple months ago.”
Tanis turned to look out the window. She watched as the train entered a vast, dark chamber. Emergency lighting in the distance showed the space to be hundreds of meters wide, and many more long.
A light slid into view far below the train, and Tanis saw a bank of superconductor batteries in its dim green glow. Several other similar lights winked on and off in the distance, as the train raced on.
She looked up the cavern on the ship’s schematics, and saw that it was the power storage and regulation chamber for the particle accelerator. The sparcity of green lights revealed that most of the batteries still were offline; a result of the damage to the primary ramscoop.
“I can’t believe I’ve never been here before,” she said to Joe.
He nodded. “Me either. Though it’s not that surprising, I guess. I just checked, and apparently I’ve only set foot in about five percent of the ship.”
Tanis checked the places she had been. “I’ve got you beat. I’ve been in six percent of the ship.”
“Always have to be one-upping,” Joe laughed.
“I don’t see how stating a fact is one-upping.”
“Um, Tanis, you even said, I’ve got you beat.”
Tanis grinned. “I have no recollection of the events to which you are referring.”
A minute later the maglev slowed and stopped at a small station; the end of the line, or the beginning, depending on how you looked at it.
Joe led the way to their destination, a small observation deck above the main scoop emitter, and the furthest forward they could get on the bow, without crawling into maintenance tunnels.
They stepped through the entrance, and both stopped, looking at one another in surprise. The observation deck was dimly lit, soft music played over a physical sound system and a servitor stood beside a bar with a selection of food and wine.
Joe pulled off his helmet and let out a low whistle. “One heck of a posh lounge, I was expecting a maintenance viewport, or something.”
“These couches feel like real leather,” Tanis sat and leaned back, clasping her hands behind her head.
“Quite the view,” Tanis said as she gazed out the large bay window that wrapped over half way around the lounge.
“Can almost see behind us,” Joe laughed, as he handed Tanis a glass of wine.
“I can’t quite make out The Kap.”
“I can’t either, but there’s Canopus to the right,” Joe pointed at the white-blue star.
“And Sirius up there to the left. Just a bit further around and we’d be able to see Sol over there,” Tanis pointed at the rear wall of the observation deck.
“Huh…I just checked, and we’re actually farther from Sirius now than we were back home at Sol—thought it looked brighter.”