Rebuilt: A Jake Dani/Mike Shapeck Novel (Jake Dani / Mike Shapeck)

by Victory Crayne

  She nodded. And I grinned.

  Zettto, Vincent, Andy, and Gancha came to see me off. I entered the van on the rear ramp in a wheelchair. The hospital staff wouldn’t let me leave unless I used one. I suspected damn lawyers were behind that rule.

  Zetto drove with Andy in the seat next to him.

  As soon as the back door closed, I got up and sat on a bench.

  “You can park that damned wheelchair wherever you like!”

  Gancha and Alena sat in the back with me. As I looked around, I saw grins.

  Yeah, the boss is back.

  #

  Later that evening, I watched the news on the telly in the planning room at the ops center. Couldn’t do much else while lying down.

  The prime minister spoke from her office in the city building. The copy of the Resolute desk, the caved-in gold-plated globe of Rossa, and the flags duplicated her old office. The camera first showed the bullet holes and then panned to her seated behind the desk.

  “Whatever the consequences, we have to accept representative government. We’re better off obeying the rules of the majority rather than the selfish opinions of one man.

  “Whenever a people choose to live under a dictator, they are really telling everyone else they want to avoid making decisions. That would not be representative government.

  “Usually the dictator gets rich at the expense of bribery, bribery paid by the millions who live under him. People close to him also get rich as the dictator needs their support. The end result is the wealthy rule and get richer.

  “Something similar to this happened on the home planet. The rich made the rules and made lots of money while the poor were exploited. We have to evolve beyond that. Citizens must be more responsible and learn who is a demagogue. Or else fall prey to their speeches and elect a dictator.

  “Your government has survived an attempt by a few to take over the government you trust. They were traitors to your trust. As traitors, they will be punished.

  “We may not like the laws of our land, but at least they fit our culture. The alternative of going back to living under the rule of a dictator means living under laws that can change quickly. We suffer when the inevitable corruption occurs.

  “The problem occurs when the culture looks backwards to its past. The past will never repeat itself so all the lessons from the past are dead. Some folks believe history repeats itself. But they only see patterns, not the details. At the detail level, history never repeats itself. Things are always different, and will always be different in the future.”

  Later on in the broadcast, Sheila Fish displayed the face of Curling on the screen.

  “Stanford Curling was appointed the Director of the York Security Agency, to replace the outgoing traitor Ash Getner. Mary Cullen took his old job as head of the York federal police.”

  Sheila also reported, “Charlotte Samson stood trial on the charge of treason, but when the jury heard her tale of her son’s condition, they found her guilty of the lesser charge of accomplice to murder. She faces ten years in prison. She would be eligible for parole in five.”

  That evening, Sheila broadcast another speech by Nikki Su.

  “The future of our species depends on our voting smarter, not with just our emotions. We must learn how to elect officials who can think through a problem. And not just elect lawmakers and leaders who are like us.

  “This will be hard for most voters. This have to think through the consequences of their votes. Are we electing leaders who can solve problems? Or are we electing lawmakers and leaders who are ‘just like us’ and will try to make laws that please us in order to get elected?

  “The recent attempt at a coup is a good example of someone who wanted to cheat to gain power. We could expect lots of Executive Orders from this kind of dictator. And laws to match, as those who oppose the dictator are killed. We could live in fear of being imprisoned or killed. Is that the way you want to live?

  “The recent attempt by a few leaders to take over your government is a good example of your surrendering your votes and letting someone else decide for you. The fact that they failed was mostly due to the diligence and bravery of a few people. Nothing threatens a demagogue than someone who can think.”

  Su took a break and sipped from a glass of water before continuing.

  “As we live longer, we will see more and more conservative views in our leaders. Their views look back at the past. If we drive our society by looking backwards, we are liable to end up being controlled by those who are smarter than us.”

  She paused to take another sip of water.

  “Living longer also means adjusting more to reality. We really can’t live in the past. Our world is changing. Those who don’t change with it are doomed to find the world changing around them.

  Nikki Su paused.

  “I hope we can put the unfortunate incident of the failed coup behind us. It’s time we return to our normal lives.”

  Chapter 72

  I lay on my bed in the planning room. Gancha and Vincent had moved the upper half of one bunk bed into this room so I could take part in any planning.

  I petted my buddy Monk while I wrote a long report to Acorn. It was time I sent him the details of how the coup came off, or didn’t in this case.

  I petted Monk while I watched Channel One’s report by my favorite reporter, Sheila Fish.

  “A poll of the public’s reaction to the speech by the prime minister was overwhelmingly in her favor. Her approval rating went from 36 to 66 percent.”

  I had to smile at that one.

  As soon as I turned off the telly, I got a tag from my old friend Deek Tanny.

  He asked, “I saw your face on the telly. You’re a hero to me, for more than one reason. Thanks, Mike, for everything.”

  We disconnected as I looked up to see Alena as she took off her blindfold.

  “How’d you get in here?” I asked.

  She grinned.

  “Gancha brought me. Is this where you do your spy stuff?”

  I almost answered yes when Gancha came into the room.

  She walked up to my daughter and gave her a hug.

  My turn was next. Gancha’s hugs were not as nice as something else but it was nice to see her.

  Alena asked me, “Are you ready now to be a father?”

  When they stepped back from each other, I looked in my daughter’s eyes and then glanced over to Gancha.

  I pondered telling Alena about my heart attack but decided against it. She would only worry.

  The imp in me wanted to drag out the suspense.

  “I’m not sure.”

  Alena jumped up and down while shaking her fists.

  “Dad!”

  Gancha came up, grabbed my head in both her hands, and planted a nice long kiss on my lips.

  Kinda nice!

  When she stood back, she stared into my eyes and I sported my best smile.

  She said, “Now that you’ve prevented the coup, Deek is back on the job, and I’m cleared of charges, and you face your own mortality, are you ready to bring a new child into the world?”

  She paused and added, “While you still can?”

  She had a point.

  After a pause, I pursed my lips and nodded.

  The End

  Jump to Magellan

  A Rit Thurman Novel

  By

  Victory Crayne

  Chapter 1

  “Incoming!” At ten million miles from the star’s surface, asteroids or other debris were all too common.

  Rit Thurman sat in the captain’s chair on bridge of the Blue Bridget. Expecting to find the object coming at them to be just another comet, he jerked upright when he saw it was accelerating.

  Right at them.

  Son of a bitch!

  Why hadn’t the robot scouts sent ahead reported this?

  There were only two main answers: Either the object was over the horizon of the huge star or the robots missed it.

  Or the object had been
silent until it was triggered by someone.

  Or something.

  Either way, he had to act fast. Every scout ship captain’s worst nightmare had come true.

  “Give me an ETA.”

  “Two minutes, plus or minus twenty seconds.”

  “Plus or minus?”

  Lieutenant Charles Duvan, his XO, looked up at him. “It’s accelerating.”

  What the hell are we facing?

  Against that kind of technology, he had only one logical step. Retreat.

  Rit stared at his monitor. Maybe he could jinx.

  “Ship. Dump decoys. Then fire the forward and right engines at maximum, avoiding any solar flares.”

  The decoys spread out in all directions and emitted a radiation signature designed to match his ship as closely as possible. Rit prayed the missile would waste itself on one of them.

  The forward engine kicked in, shoving him to the right side of his chair. He looked at his defensive missile armament, what now seemed a paltry sixteen missiles. “Ship. Launch Batteries Two and Three for interception.”

  Having just completed his basic, as well as officer training, under Captain Wallington of the Gray Fish, Rit knew the protocol in case of alien encounter.

  First, deal with any space object coming directly at the ship.

  Second, send a drone back.

  Third, get your ass back to the fleet.

  So far, the only aliens humans had encountered were back in the Milky Way, some one hundred and twenty thousand light-years away. But those aliens had better war technology. It was all humanity could do to fight a rear-guard action, sort of an orderly retreat. Hence the giant multi-generational Foster Ship being sent to the Large Magellanic Cloud on jumps from star to star. Humanity needed another planet to call home.

  Live to fight another day was the operational clause.

  The words of his trainer, Commander Rob Wallington, echoed in his mind

  “Beware of aliens! Get your ass back here as fast as possible. That’s why we don’t allow much armament on the scout ships. We want you to be afraid and get back here. Leave the fighting to the professionals.”

  Hours in the simulations triggered his memory. First rule: send a message drone. Wallington needed to know what was happening. Rit pressed the key to translate his voice to a text message.

  “We’ve encounter signs of intelligence. Something is coming at us real fast. I’m moving the ship to avoid it.”

  Then he sent it.

  “Ship. Send log back to the Gray Fish.”

  Three seconds later a flash on the panel told him the drone had successfully jumped.

  The second step was “Avoid initiating threatening action if at all possible.”

  Threatening action? Hell! He was the one being threatened!

  Three was “Take defensive maneuvers before offensive ones.”

  Five seconds after that move, the incoming object changed course to his new position.

  A seeker!

  When it was only one second away, Rit fired all three aft engines to accelerate his ship.

  To no avail, as the incoming missile launched a smaller one directly as his ship.

  Son of a bitch!

  Rit felt a jarring motion, back and forth, up and down. The lights on the command bridge went out. Then emergency lights came on.

  Rit pressed a button on his console to see the rear view. The aft ring was gone.

  His scout ship had two rings, connected by a tube. Sort of like a pencil shoved through the middle of two thin donuts. The forward ring held the bridge, a few weapons, the med center, and the crew and passenger quarters. It rotated to give the humans on board a sense of gravity via centrifugal force. The aft ring held the mess hall and storage. The three passengers used half of the space in the storage bins. The rest was reserved for food stocks, drones, and spare parts.

  The three passengers included Dr. Carola Simson, an astrophysicist, Ku Chin, a reporter for the Overt News, and Dr. Amanda Doss, a biochemist. Correction, a nanobiochemist.

  Dr. Simson’s equipment took up much of the storage with her large quark scope. She would do part of her thesis work on this mission, studying the effects of quark stellar storms on jump dynamics. She stayed in the aft ring to run her equipment during the jump.

  Mr. Chin needed no extra equipment save for his portable camera and his small computer, which he kept in his room.

  Dr. Doss’s equipment consisted on an electron microscope the size of a suitcase and two dozen containers for any plants or animals they might meet in their exploration of planets in this stellar system. Which didn’t look likely now.

  Rit studied the image of his crippled ship. The aft ring was missing, probably damaged in the explosion with the smaller missile. That meant Dr. Carola Simson was gone.

  He bowed his head, then looked to his left at Duvan. His face was still.

  Probably in shock.

  If you liked this story “Rebuilt,” how about hopping over to Amazon.com or Goodreads.com and write a short review of it with your comments? If you want me to write more of these adventures, please reward me with your review. It takes only a minute.

  Others may enjoy this book as much as you do. If you don’t refer them to it, they will not learn of it. Instead, spread the word. Tell others you enjoyed this story so they get a chance to enjoy it too.

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  Copyright © 2016 by Victory Crayne

  All rights reserved. No part of this novel may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of Victory Crayne. Your support of the author's rights is appreciated.

  Names, characters, institutions, organizations, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover design by Greg Banks.

  Publisher: Victory Crayne

  Laguna Woods, California

  Visit my website at www.crayne.com.

  ISBN: 978-0-9886905-9-2

  Novels by Victory Crayne

  Freedom

  Humans Only

  Rebuilt

  Previous novels

  Freedom

  Jake Dani gets a call from his girlfriend Mimi after her arrest for protesting slavery on the newly colonized planet of Rossa. Mimi disappears and Jake leads his spy team on operations to find her. But they are up against clever and resourceful crime lords and landowners who will do anything to protect their investments in slavery. Including going after Jake himself.

  Humans Only

  Jake Dani is alarmed when his daughter Alena comes to the planet Rossa. When Jake and her mother go to the airport to pick up Alena, an explosion protests Bingers and robots. Later, Alena discovers a link between mercon, human, Binger, and native nape DNA, alarming a supremacist group called “Humans Only.” Jake figures he can still ignore them. Then Alena turns up missing.

  This novel

  Rebuilt

  Jake Dani woke on Earth to find that everything he knew had changed. Gone were his clothes and his comm. Everyone he knew had attended his funeral. His girlfriend, Gancha, was wanted for murder. His friend Deek, a captain in the Zor Metro Police Department, was suspended while under investigation for tampering with evidence that Jake had provided. The Binger colony being setup in Telmot was in danger from the bigotry of anti-Bingers. His best buddy Ron had been killed. And a coup was being planned to take over the government of his adopted hometown. To top it all off, his nemesis wanted him dead—and was powerful enough to do it.

  All while Jake was a prisoner on Earth.

  Future novels

  Jump to Magellan

  Rit Thurman is the proud new captain of a scout ship as he explores likely
jump paths for the five huge multi-generation spaceships on their way to the Large Magellanic Cloud. Then disaster struck. He met aliens coming the other way. And they weren’t friendly.

  What’s a spy to do but run?

  Mailing list

  For free short stories, sign up for a free mailing list. This mailing list won’t clutter your inbox since I’ll use it primarily to announce new books. See www.crayne.com for details.

  Acknowledgments

  I cannot give enough thanks to Scott Barnes for his critiques and content editing and for buying two of my short stories for his great ezine, “NewMyths.com.” Thanks to Greg Banks for his cover art and interior design work. I thank Myra Posert enough for her line editing or to John Bowers for his uber-keen eye. All four are simply amazing. I’m lucky to have their skills.

  This story took many cooks and I'm grateful for the aid of these professionals. I wrote the basic story and learned from them how to make it shine. Any errors that remain are entirely my responsibility.