by M. D. Cooper
The Orion soldiers had put their own versions of LockIT kits on the three prisoners, and they’d done their work, but what they hadn’t done was neutralize Jessica’s nano.
Bit by bit her internal systems were repairing the armor. If she could just keep these goons from finishing them off for another minute, they’d be in for a surprise.
“Motherfucker,” Trevor whispered. “I’m going to tear you limb from limb.”
“Oh yeah?” the soldier asked as boot lashed out, catching Trevor in the jaw. “How’s that, big man. You know what they say, the bigger they are the ha—”
Jessica had been looking at Trevor, not the soldier, but when her eyes darted back, she saw that the top of the woman’s head was gone.
The armor locked up, holding the body steady, for a moment, and then all hell broke loose.
The roof exploded, and eight automatons fell through in pairs, each positioned back-to-back, repeaters in one hand, and plasma blades in the other.
In perfect unison, the eight silver robots cut into the Orion soldiers, while shots from some source outside the window flew into the control room, sometimes only missing the automatons by millimeters as they hit targets of opportunity.
The Orion Guard soldiers fired wildly, but in the close quarters, they stood just as much a chance of hitting their own comrades as the enemy. Two automatons went down under concentrated fire, and then another.
But the moment they fell, more dropped from the openings in the overhead above them.
Jessica was mesmerized by the grace the robots possessed. Something in the way they moved together reminded her of…
“It’s the kids…” Trevor whispered.
Ten seconds later, the last of the Orion Guard soldiers had fallen, and one of the automatons walked toward the three prisoners.
“You OK, Moms, Dad?” the automaton asked in Tanis’s voice.
“Yeah,” Trevor said, working his jaw, but beaming with pride. “We’re A OK.”
“You need to be more careful,” Tanis said. “I couldn’t stand the thought of you being hurt.”
“Not much chance of that with you around,” Trevor said with a laugh.
“I’m just glad we didn’t let you down,” Tanis replied.
Jessica laughed. “Oh Tanis, you could never let us down. You’re amazing.”
* * * * *
Twenty minutes later—after the automatons controlled by the kids had helped them out of their defunct armor—Sabrina drifted back down through the access shaft, stopping at the hole in the exterior wall.
Jessica glanced at Finaeus with his missing arm, Trevor with his half-broken jaw, and the mixture of red blood and purple Retyna on her hands.
“Then the day is won,” Jessica said aloud. “I think a celebration is in order.”
EXTENDED STAY
STELLAR DATE: 11.21.8938 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Manhattan, Star City
REGION: Star City System, Perseus Arm
Trevor flipped burgers on the grill while the crew relaxed on the deck. On the back lawn, three of the children wrestled while the others looked on and cheered.
All but Tanis, who sat between Jessica and Iris.
“It was hard seeing you like that,” Tanis said.
“Not so much here,” Jessica chuckled. “It was great seeing you. Thought I was going to have to do all that on my own, and I’m starting to get too old for all that leaping and hitting.”
Tanis laughed. “You’re not old, Moms.”
“Well, I’m not,” Iris said with a wink. “But J-Mom is starting to get up there.”
“I didn’t feel like it ‘til I pushed you squalling rascals out,” Jessica muttered.
“Except you never did that,” Tanis replied. “It was all here, in The Dream.”
Jessica shrugged. “That’s not how it feels, you know. That’s how The Dream works. What happens here, it’s really a part of a person.”
Tanis nodded. “I know what you mean, Mom. You’re a part of me.” She looked around at the crew as they chatted about the wrestling match and what was to be done with the Orion Guard survivors. “You all are now.”
No one spoke for a minute, then Iris said softly. “We’ll meet again, Tanis. When your work here is done, then you must come to New Canaan. You need to meet Bob.”
“So you keep telling me,” Tanis replied. “He does sound fascinating. I suspect there is much we could learn from him—and perhaps he from us.”
“You see?” Jessica said. “This is not the end. Besides, it would be worth it just to see Tanis’s reaction to meeting you. It’ll blow her mind.”
“I hope she’ll be OK with it,” Tanis said.
Jessica smiled. “She’ll be ecstatic.”
Trevor set the final plate of steak tips on the table—which Finaeus, finally accepting of spending time in The Dream, grabbed half of—and leaned back in his chair.
“Have you decided what you’re going to do with the survivors?” he asked Tanis.
“Yes,” she said with a deliberate nod. “We’re going to offer them The Dream. If they do not wish to take it, then we will remove their memories of the offer, and send them back in stasis.”
“Them? In The Dream?” Iris asked. “Are you sure?”
Tanis shrugged. “They won’t have memories, they won’t know it’s The Dream. We’ll watch them. If they cause problems, then we’ll ship them out too.”
“And you’ll just give Orion their soldiers back?”
Tanis smiled. “Well, eventually. They’ll be in stasis and take…let’s just say it’ll be a roundabout route back to some distant Orion world.”
“Better than they deserve,” Trevor said.
“Is it?” Tanis asked. “They are just soldiers. Just following orders.”
“They’re attacking innocent worlds that pose no threat. Anyone with morals can tell that’s wrong,” Trevor replied. “Each and every one of those soldiers we fought knew they were villains.”
“They may not have had much choice,” Iris said.
Even Finaeus nodded. “Praetor Kirkland is not one to brook dissention. Part of why the dickhead decided to go off on his own. Guy can’t compromise for the life of him.”
“Well,” Tanis said. “This decision has fallen to us, and we’ve decided on our course of action.”
Jessica nodded. “And we support you in it.”
“Yes,” Trevor added. “Showing mercy is not something I’ll discourage—though I don’t know I could do it.”
“Then let’s put this behind us for now, and enjoy the evening,” Iris said. “Our time to leave is going to come far too quickly.”
“Do we have to go so soon?” Jessica asked. “Perhaps just a few more years in here…”
“You can’t, Mother,” Tanis said. “We have work to do now. We wouldn’t be able to spend much time here. The usefulness of The Dream has passed for us. And your people need you.”
Jessica looked at Finaeus who was chewing on a piece of steak. Did they need her, or did they just need something in this old man’s head?
She had a feeling that if she left Star City, if she left her children and resumed life on Sabrina, none of this would feel real to her anymore. It really would be just a dream.
“Well then,” she said, forcing a smile on to her lips. “I suppose we’d best enjoy it while we can.”
THE END
* * * * *
Having gained the route through the Stillwater Nebula from Yohan, the crew of Sabrina depart Star City and begin to pass through the winding path.
But before they re
ach the far side, they encounter something they had never expected in The Toll Road Between the Stars.
Pre-order The Toll Road Between the Stars on Amazon for $2.99.
HOW BIG IS THAT CITY, REALLY?
Some folks may be interested in the math behind Star City’s size. The first thing I did was look up the theoretical minimum mass of a neutron star. That mass is about 1/10th that of our Sun (also known as a Solar Mass, represented as M☉, or 1.989 x 1030 kilograms).
So, with my 1/10th mass, I needed to find the distance from the neutron star where humans would experience a nice, comfortable 1g. Of course, 1g is not a force; it is a rate of acceleration equal to 9.81 meters per second per second (meaning each second you go 9.81 meters per second faster than the preceding second). This is commonly represented as 9.81ms2.
With that in mind, I only needed a number called the gravitational constant (6.67408e-11), and I was good to go.
The equation to find the distance from the star is:
r2 = 6.67408e-11 x 1.989e+29/9.81
This yields a rather large number, of which we need the square root: 1,353,185,027,522,935,779.817
Once we have the square root, and divide by 1000 (the result was in meters) we have a radius of: 1,163,264km
It is at this distance, 1.16 million kilometers from the center of the neutron star, that we would experience acceleration (from the star’s gravity) equal to that which we feel on Earth’s surface.
Well that’s pretty darn big. Let’s get our circumference, and area of the sphere.
Circumference is 2 x radius x π
Which yields: 7,309,008km
Surface area is 4 x π x radius squared
Which yields 17,004,600,767,124km (17 billion km2)
For comparison, Earth’s surface area is: 510 million km2.
What we now know is that the surface of Star City is 33,334 times greater than Earth’s surface area. This gives it the ability to comfortably support over half a trillion people.
So…it’s pretty big.
THANK YOU
If you’ve enjoyed reading The Last Bastion of Star City, a review on Amazon.com and/or goodreads.com would be greatly appreciated.
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M. D. Cooper
THE BOOKS OF AEON 14
Keep up to date with what is releasing in Aeon 14 with the free Aeon 14 Reading Guide.
The Intrepid Saga
- Book 1: Outsystem
- Book 2: A Path in the Darkness
- Book 3: Building Victoria
- The Intrepid Saga Omnibus – Also contains Destiny Lost, book 1 of the Orion War series
- Destiny Rising – Special Author’s Extended Edition comprised of both Outsystem and A Path in the Darkness with over 100 pages of new content.
The Orion War
- Book 1: Destiny Lost
- Tales of the Orion War: Set the Galaxy on Fire
- Book 2: New Canaan
- Book 3: Orion Rising
- Tales of the Orion War: Ignite the Stars Within (Fall 2017)
- Tales of the Orion War: Burn the Galaxy to Ash (Winter 2018)
- Book 4: The Scipio Alliance (Nov 2017)
- Many more following
Perilous Alliance (Expanded Orion War - with Chris J. Pike)
- Book 1: Close Proximity
- Book 2: Strike Vector
- Book 3: Collision Course (October 2017)
Rika’s Marauders (Age of the Orion War)
- Prequel: Rika Mechanized
- Book 1: Rika Outcast
- Book 2: Rika Redeemed (Nov 2017)
- Book 3: Rika Triumphant (2018)
Perseus Gate (Age of the Orion War)
- Episode 1: The Gate at the Grey Wolf Star
- Episode 2: The World at the Edge of Space
- Episode 3: The Dance on the Moons of Serenity
- Episode 4: The Last Bastion of Star City
- Episode 5: The Toll Road Between the Stars (Nov 2017)
- Episode 6: The Final Stroll on Perseus’s Arm (Dec 2017)
The Warlord (Before the Age of the Orion War)
- Book 1: The Woman Without a Country
- Book 2: The Woman Who Seized an Empire (Dec 2017)
- Book 3: The Woman Who Lost Everything (2018)
The Sentience Wars: Origins (With James S. Aaron)
- Book 1: Lyssa’s Dream
- Book 2: Lyssa’s Run (Oct 2017)
- Book 3: Lyssa’s Flame (Jan 2018)
Tanis Richards: Origins
- Prequel: Storming the Norse Wind (In At the Helm Volume 3)
- Book 1: Shore Leave (June 2018)
The Sol Dissolution
- The 242 - Venusian Uprising (In The Expanding Universe 2 anthology)
- The 242 - Assault on Tarja (In The Expanding Universe 3 anthology – coming Dec 2017)
The Delta Team Chronicles (Expanded Orion War)
- A "Simple" Kidnapping (Pew! Pew! Volume 1)
- The Disknee World (Pew! Pew! Volume 2)
- A Fool’s Guide to Fangs and Food (Pew! Pew! Volume 3)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michael Cooper likes to think of himself as a jack-of-all-trades (and hopes to become master of a few). When not writing, he can be found writing software, working in his shop at his latest carpentry project, or likely reading a book.
He shares his home with a precocious young girl, his wonderful wife (who also writes), two cats, a never-ending list of things he would like to build, and ideas…
Find out what’s coming next at http://www.aeon14.com