Starhold

by J. Alan Field

  “Doc, a piece of pie ain’t enough thanks for what ya just did, but will ya join us just the same?”

  Devi sat down at the table. “I can’t stay much longer, but I do have some important information to share. And Vesna’s apple pie—how can I resist?”

  * * * *

  As predicted, the pie was delicious. Dr. Devi’s news, however, was disturbing.

  “That’s just incredible,” murmured Korab after hearing her out. “Understand that I’m glad the Threshold’s gone. I never wanted to be a part of the Empire again, but to make that decision for the whole colony…”

  “Not to mention all the people that died in the explosion,” put in Sandu. “Doctor Devi, you’re sure about this, that Sheel ordered the Threshold’s destruction?”

  “Very sure, and unless I miss my guess, Naar was involved in it right up to her neck as well.”

  Mumphrey swallowed her last bite of pie. “Korab, it looks to me like you’re just trading one empire for another.”

  “She’s right,” said Carr. “Sheel admitted as much to me when we spoke in his office. He intends on using your people’s tech advantages to start a new empire, one that he controls. And he’s going to start by destroying my government’s fleet when it arrives.”

  Korab made a fist and started to pound it down on the table, but a quick look from his wife slowed his arm, so that his fist just tapped the table. “Dammit! I thought when Cheprin died that maybe Sheel would be different.”

  “And that’s another thing,” said Dr. Devi. “I did an autopsy on Cheprin. It was supposed to look like he died of a stroke, but I’m pretty sure he was poisoned.”

  “Sheel needed to move himself up,” guessed Sandu. “It appears the Underground still has a job to do.”

  “And so do I,” said Devi. “I should be getting back now. If I’m gone too long, it could look suspicious.”

  Carr gestured for her to hold on for a moment. “Before you go, Doctor, I want to ask you something. Right before that phony interrogation you did on me, you said there was one surviving crewmember of the Theodora. Was that just to set up this pretend Paul Schwall business, or was that the truth?”

  Suddenly, there were several anxious looking people in the room. Dr. Devi looked around at all the Bakkoans, as if to reassure them.

  “It was the truth. There is one survivor of the Theodora,” Devi said, and Carr nodded back. “Now, I have to be going.”

  Vesna stood up. “Dezrin and I will see you out, Doctor. Dez honey, come along.”

  As the three women left the kitchen, Sanchez and Mumphrey glanced at each other. “All right,” said Sanchez, “it seems like Mumphrey and I are the only ones in the dark. What is it?”

  “Yes, tell us, Carr,” said the older woman earnestly. “If there’s a survivor, who is it? Where are they?”

  He looked at Korab for approval to proceed and the Underground leader gave him a nod of the head. “Remember,” said Carr, “people sometimes change their appearance, especially if they’re trying to hide, or be hidden by someone else.”

  “Dezrin,” guessed Mumphrey. “It’s always struck me that her hair was just, I don’t know—an odd shade of black. Plus, she just turned up months ago.”

  Carr looked at Sanchez, who still seemed to be catching up. “Imagine her with flaming red hair.”

  “Oh, Gods,” said Sanchez, “Dezrin is the pilot, Dandi—what’s her name—Quinn, Dandi Quinn.”

  “We don’t have a lot of people in Bakkoa with hair that red,” offered Sandu. “Vesna whipped up some homemade hair dye. It does the job.”

  Korab got up for a drink of water. “Doctor Devi brought her to Vesna and me, begged us to take her in. The others on that crew died, or were murdered by the greenshirts. Dezrin had been, um, abused, by some of the guards.”

  “The bastards raped her,” Sandu spit out bitterly. “Let’s not dress it up in phony words.”

  Korab continued. “The Doc said it messed her up in the head. She’s kinda like a little child now, but she seems happy enough with us. I’m glad we took her in. I mean, what else could we do?”

  “You could have said no,” observed Mumphrey.

  “No, Vesna and I couldn’t turn away someone who was that much in need. Little brother Sandu here is adopted, and my boy Marton is too. It don’t matter to me—they’re flesh and blood now, and so is Dezrin.”

  So there would be no rescue of Misaki Genda and the others. If Sheel and his people prevailed, the Theodora’s crew wouldn’t be the last ones to suffer—the entire Renaissance Sector was at risk. It fatigued Carr to think about it, and he was already tired from their early morning exploits. “Korab, we haven’t had much sleep in a while. Is there a place Sanchez and I could catch a few hours rest?”

  “Sure, Sandu will show you.”

  “And this evening,” Carr continued, “would you or some of your people be willing to help the three of us get back to our ship?”

  Korab didn’t answer immediately. He looked like he was studying—not the question, but studying Carr, the man. “I understand your people have a war fleet coming. Tell me true, are your people a danger to mine? Should I help you?”

  “I don’t know what’s in the heart of my leaders, Korab, but I think we both know what’s in Governor Sheel’s heart. If he isn’t stopped here, you’ll be right back to fighting an empire—his empire. It seems to me we have common ground.”

  Korab glanced around at Sandu, Voss, and Vesna, who had returned with Dezrin. There was a long silence as his gaze drifted to Dezrin and fixed on her. The men saw their leader’s expression and seemed to understand. Anyone who could do what was done to this young woman, any leader who could sanction the torture and death that befell her crewmates… Sheel had to be stopped. For the good of Bakkoa, Sheel and his brutes had to be shut down.

  “You rest up,” said Korab. “We’ll be ready to go when it gets dark.”

  Sandu led Carr and Sanchez to an extra room that had two cots. Much to their pleasure, there was also a bathroom across the hall with a shower. After cleaning up, the two got about five hours sleep, eventually awakened by a gentle knock on the door. It was Inspector Mumphrey.

  As Sanchez opened the door, Mumphrey stood there with her index finger over her lips in a ‘shush’ gesture. “I need both of you to come with me right now and we need to be quiet about it.”

  24: Fiction

  Sol System

  Near Planet Mars

  Task Force 19 took form at their designated translation coordinates about thirty thousand klicks from Mars, closer to one of the Red Planet’s two moons, Phobos. There were fifteen vessels wearing the gold and blue ‘Sarissan Sun’ roundels of the Union painted upon their hulls. As the spacers and their machines shook free from the daze of translation to realspace, a picture of the Sol system formed.

  “Report.”

  On the flag bridge of the Vespera, Commander Mohr shook the last of the cobwebs out of her head, trying to comply with the admiral’s order.

  “CIC updating now, sir. The entire fleet has made translation with all ships reporting green. Amista and Kanno are getting under way for Jupiter.” The two lumbering tankers were off to the gas giant to harvest more fuel for the fleet, and to stay out of harm’s way.

  “Admiral, are you seeing what I’m seeing?” asked Julius Kingwell. Projected onto the flag bridge as a hologram, the captain ‘sat’ just to the right of Admiral Getchell. In turn, a holographic Getchell sat next to Kingwell, one deck above on the Vespera’s bridge.

  “I see it,” grumbled Getchell.

  “What are the Gerrhans doing all the way out there?” asked Commander Mohr. “They’re nearly to Saturn.”

  Another staffer spoke up. “Admiral, we have a bandit force on an intercept vector to the Gerrhan fleet. Estimate seventeen hostiles, speed at—sir, speed at one-hundred forty percent of I-drive.”

  Captain Kingwell gave out a low whistle of admiration while Mohr made some quick calculations. “At that rate,
it will take the hostiles approximately three standard hours to reach the Gerrhans.”

  “And how long before our arrival is seen by that enemy force?” asked the Admiral.

  “Forty-five minutes, sir.”

  Getchell nodded. “What do we have in the vicinity of Earth?”

  A large display appeared giving the disposition of enemy forces near the Blue Planet. “Three enemy vessels are standing guard on this orbital, which CIC has ID’d as a shipyard. Our problem however, is right here,” Mohr said, and highlighted a portion of the graphic.

  “Why would you build two space stations that close to each other?” asked Kingwell.

  “Julius, I’m afraid the Commander is going to tell us that one of those isn’t a space station.”

  “Correct, Admiral. The highlighted icon is a vessel, well over four times larger than Vespera. It seems to be getting under way, putting some distance between itself and the station.”

  Kingwell crossed his arms and leaned back in his command chair. “So, now we know why the Gerrhans entered the system so far out. They’re leaving the dirty work to us. What do you think, Admiral?”

  “I think we can make this work. The bulk of the enemy force is committed to engaging the Gerrhan fleet and those other three ships are tied down defending their shipyard. Clearly, their flag will be aboard that big ship. Comm, I want to send a message to that ship.”

  “Actually sir, we’re receiving a message from them.”

  “Let me see it.”

  A severe looking man appeared on screen. “This is Fleetmaster Haldryn of the…” The man stopped for a moment, unsure of what to say next. “…of the New Rhuzari Empire. I speak to you from my flagship, the Imperial Wrath. Your advanced scouts have been captured. We know who you are, and why you are here. I am not interested in diplomacy, unless it is to surrender your ships, planets, and peoples to our rule. In time, all of you will submit to our authority. You and your crews will have the privilege of being the first to do so. There are no terms—surrender will be unconditional and immediate. Haldryn out.”

  Getchell and Kingwell looked at each other. “My, my,” said the captain, “what an unpleasant man.”

  Admiral Getchell grunted in agreement. “So much for the diplomatic card. Captain Kingwell, move the fleet into battle formation Sierra One and take us straight for that pompous windbag.”

  * * * *

  Bakkoa, Earth

  Near sundown, Korab, Sandu, and Voss had gathered in the garage of the meat processing plant. They had readied two vehicles to take Carr, Sanchez, and Mumphrey out of the settlement under the cover of darkness to their ship. The only thing missing were the Sarissans themselves.

  As the three outsiders finally entered the garage, Carr walked straight to Korab.

  “Carr, I have a squad of people meeting us at Denlora’s home. We’ll stop and pick them up on the way out of town.”

  “We have a problem,” said Carr, wearing a troubled expression.

  “What is it?”

  Carr nodded to Mumphrey, who stepped forward. “A few days ago, I noticed Dezrin holding this in her hand,” began the Inspector. She held out a small, oval shaped piece of silver. “It took a bit of doing to get her to talk, but eventually she told me she’d found it on the floor. She said she liked it because it was shiny and pretty.”

  Korab took the object from Mumphrey’s hand. “It’s called a nephka. It’s money—we used them back on Rhuzar. She must have found a stray one somewheres. Nobody uses ‘em much here in the colony.”

  “We use colonial credit chits—they’re paper,” Sandu added, as Korab passed the coin to him.

  Voss scrunched his face. “Here now, what’s this all about?”

  “I asked Dezrin to take me to where she found that coin,” continued Mumphrey. “I looked around for several days, discreetly of course. Well, this afternoon, I finally found what I was looking for. In the small tool room, there’s a secret compartment in the wall, behind one of the workbenches. It contains an entire bag of these coins—I’m sure it’s quite a lot of money.”

  Voss was becoming more upset. “What gives you the right to snoop around? We take you in, help you out, and this is how you behave?”

  “Wait, wait,” interrupted Korab. “You tellin’ me you found a stash of nephkas in the wall of the tool room? That’s just plain weird.”

  Carr spoke up. “Korab, it gets weirder. There’s a large compartment behind that wall, it runs into the back of a storage room next door. We found more than just the coins—we found a bomb.”

  “Someone here’s not on your team, Korab,” said Sanchez. “They’re probably working for Governor Sheel.”

  “No one here’s working for Governor Sheel,” said Sandu, stepping back from the group, “but it’s like you said a few minutes ago, Carr—you do have a problem.” Korab’s brother produced a pistol from his pocket and pointed it at the group. “We’re not working for Sheel. The money and the bomb came from Fleetmaster Haldryn. You see, the military, they’re real sharp, especially that Captain Balasi. They learned more about the Underground in a few days than Sheel’s goons found out in a year.”

  “You just said ‘we,’ didn’t you?” asked Mumphrey. “You have an ally here?”

  “Lornec,” spat out Voss.

  Sandu nodded to confirm Voss’s guess. “Lornec and I are going to use that bomb to blow up the Government Compound. Haldryn gets rid of the colonial government and the blame goes on the Underground, which will give the military plenty of reason to get rid of you lot. Two birds with one stone. The military takes control and I come out rich and with a position in the new regime.”

  Korab was dumbfounded. He just stood there, searching for words as he stared at the gun in Sandu’s hand. “What are you talking about? You can’t kill all those people, that’s not what we’re all about.”

  “Correction, big brother—that’s not what you’re about. We’ve pissed around for years because you won’t do what needs to be done. Sheel and his gang deserve it, every last one of them, even Devi.”

  Korab looked into Sandu’s eyes and for the first time saw them for what they really were: dark and cold. “I just can’t believe it—it’s like some bad nightmare. You mean to say that you’d sell us all out. You’d sell out your own family, your own brother?”

  “You’re not my brother!” shouted Sandu, showing the first real sign of emotion. “I was adopted, remember? Sure you do, you’re always so keen to point it out to everyone. ‘My adopted brother, but I love him like he was my own flesh and blood.’ I’m sick to death of being reminded that I’m only part of the family because your parents decided to take in a stray, and I’m sick of living in your shadow and walking one-step behind. I do this job and Haldryn will make me wealthy and powerful. That bag of money is just a down payment.”

  “You start firing that gun and the noise is going to attract attention,” pointed out Carr.

  “Plasma pistols aren’t that noisy, and besides, the workers are gone for the day.”

  “Carr’s right, Sandu,” pleaded Mumphrey. “Nobody’s been hurt yet. It’s not too late to change direction.”

  “Of course it’s too late, you meddling old cow. This would have gone off without a hitch if you hadn’t been snooping around.” Sandu fired his gun and a plasma charge ripped through Mumphrey’s shoulder. As she dropped to the floor, the three men rushed Sandu, who got off another shot. Voss tumbled, reaching for his right thigh.

  Sandu pulled the trigger again, but this blast went wide as Korab and Carr were on him. The pair drove him down and the butcher used his leg to pin his brother’s right arm to the floor. As Carr restrained the traitor against the ground, Korab wrestled the gun away from him. The two men flipped Sandu over, face down on the floor, and Korab took off his belt, using it to tie his brother’s hands behind his back. Sandu cursed his brother and struggled, to no avail.

  Carr turned back to Voss, who was on the floor but sitting upright. “It’s not bad,” groan
ed the big man. “Go help Mumphrey.”

  Sanchez cradled the Inspector in her arms. A pool of blood formed on the garage floor as Carr rushed to their side. “C’mon old girl, hang in there,” he said. “That was some pretty fancy detective work, flushing out the culprit like that.”

  Mumphrey looked up at him and forced a smile.

  25: Discord

  Wohlford House

  Esterkeep

  The office and residence of the Prime Minister was bigger on the inside than it seemed from the outside. Wohlford House was attached to two houses on either side of it. When the position of Prime Minister was created after the People’s Rebellion, all three buildings were appropriated by the government and joined together as one large structure for the PM’s office and residence. The focus of public attention was always on Koenig Manor, but the lifeblood of the government flowed through Wohlford.

  As she worked in her office, Renata Darracott drifted in thought, thinking of this place, her home. She had worked hard to make the upstairs living quarters her own and not some glorified version of a hotel suite. Her office was more like a study than a place of work. It was an inviting room for visitors and, most importantly, a comfortable place for her.

  That would all be changing soon. The Directorate would meet within the week to select a new First Consul. Even retaining her position as Prime Minister was doubtful. New bosses liked to bring in their own people, just as Victor had done with her. Chances were her days at Wohlford House were numbered, most probably in single digits.

  Three days had passed since the failed coup. The government was safe, for the moment. There was still no sign of the traitor Brin Choi, but there were no indications of further intrigue. The plot had failed and that seemed to be that. If a few things had happened differently here and there, the Union might have been mired in a full-scale civil war. All in all, they got off lucky.

  Still, so much harm had been done. The final death count was thirty-seven, both on the ground and in space. Gone were Stormy Weathers, Lieutenant Nash, Commodore Epstein, Marines, spacers, even two civilians who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time up on Presidio Station. And of course, the most important person in her life was gone as well. Her leader, her patron, her lover, and her friend, Victor Polanco was dead. Checking over the plans for Esterkeep’s first state funeral in over two decades, she found it impossible to concentrate.