Guided by Starlight

by Matt Levin

  Russ tried tapping his fingers on the screen, and was surprised to see it light up. “Looks like something actually works in here,” he said.

  “We could use that to get in contact with the Syndicate,” Riley said breathlessly. Of course, Russ thought: the ID chip he had taken from the dead enforcer.

  He wiped a stream of sweat from his brow. Despite providing needed shelter from the glare of the sun, the base was still almost unbearably stuffy. Their survival depended on a Syndicate rescue. Which was all the more complicated, since it could easily look like they had killed all three enforcers aboard the crashed gunship.

  But there was no other option. Russ inputted the dead enforcer’s ID chip into the machine and put in a communication request to the Syndicate hideout.

  CHAPTER 21

  * * *

  Even on the best of days, Tricia didn’t enjoy meeting with the other parliament members in her party.

  All the best political scientists in the system wouldn’t shut up about how superior a parliamentary democracy was to a presidential democracy, citing archaic statistics from a history hardly relevant to the Natonus System about how the majority of presidential systems devolved into dictatorships. Or how they produced intractable gridlock. Which then also devolved into dictatorships.

  Tricia wanted to challenge those scholars to sit and listen to the other members of her caucus prattle on and on during her party meeting and strategy days. Theoretically, she had a whip who was supposed to keep the rest of them in line, but he was a career politician who had checked out about five years ago, and was just collecting a paycheck thanks to the safety of his constituency district.

  Hence her having to schedule caucus meetings personally.

  A younger Tricia had enjoyed them in her halcyon days of holding the prime ministership. There was something satisfying about convincing some careerist politician to actually, for once, see the damn bigger picture instead of spending every waking moment fretting about reelection. But then the electorate had returned the Workers’ Party to power in two elections back-to-back, and so the hand-wringing from her caucus had mostly stopped.

  Unfortunately, it had been replaced by a mix of two kinds of parliament members. First, there were those who had gotten lazy and content with her party’s successes. They looked like tired soldiers who had already won many battles and had declared victory without winning the war. And second, there were those who didn’t seem to care about anything beyond the needs of their individual districts. They at least had passion, but lacked vision.

  Today, Tricia had mostly been in meetings with the latter. And they all had one thing on their minds.

  “Look, I’m not saying I don’t sympathize with the new arrivals,” the representative in front of her said. It was the same caveat all of them led with—look, I’m personally on the refugees’ side, but... or in an ideal world... or if I had unlimited political power, I would—and Tricia found it hard not to yawn theatrically.

  “But the people in my district are worried about their jobs,” the man continued. He was fresh-faced, clean-shaven, and wore his suit a little too well-pressed. Tricia thought he probably would have been boring as a teenager.

  “These are the people we’re trying to represent,” the man continued, “the people most at risk to lose their jobs if we see mass migration to our cities.”

  You absolute dolt, Tricia might have said, the referenda barred the new arrivals from settling on our worlds. It literally won’t affect your constituents one way or another if the refugees settle on a planet halfway across the system.

  “Can you be more specific about their concerns?” Tricia said instead.

  “Well, they’re concerned that our corporate sector will outsource to the outer rim once the refugees get set up. AI and robotics advancements have already made jobs scarce in my district. Now add competition from 40 million refugees on top of that…”

  Tricia had never understood why people were scared of losing their jobs. Thanks to her reforms, they would enjoy a basic stipend, unemployment insurance, and guaranteed health care. Technically, people didn’t even need to work to enjoy a comfortable life, per se, but somehow there was still this ingrained fear that came with losing one’s job.

  The sociologists she talked to explained that Union citizens had been conditioned to work long and hard ever since the earliest days of the colonial era, almost a century ago. So even if people didn’t necessarily need jobs, the idea of permanent unemployment was stigmatized. It didn’t make sense to Tricia, but she couldn’t deny the reality of the phenomenon.

  “And don’t even get me started about this alliance between the refugees and the Horde,” the representative continued, his eyes darkening. “I just talked to an older couple yesterday who lost both of their children in the war. They feel like their sacrifices will be in vain if the Horde expands again.”

  That was harder to write off. Even Tricia found Isadora Satoro’s cooperation with the Horde to be the most troubling development in the refugee saga so far. “I can see where they’re coming from,” she acknowledged. “I can assure you that we’re monitoring the situation closely.”

  Tricia’s words felt almost as empty as she was sure they sounded, but it was the truth. Her last meeting of the day was with the joint chiefs, specifically to discuss the Union’s outer rim surveillance capabilities.

  “I’m sure you are. But my constituents are expecting action. We can’t just let ourselves get run over,” the representative said.

  Tricia narrowed her eyes slightly. It was jarring to hear someone from her own caucus echo the rhetoric of the same groups that were currently challenging her in the courts for, somehow, being too lenient with the refugees.

  But when she was being honest with herself, she couldn’t dispel her own concerns about the new arrivals. Of course, she still liked Isadora, but she had become increasingly concerned that various forces—the Horde, or even her own advisers—were leading Isadora down a dangerous path.

  Tricia checked the time. “I appreciate you stopping by,” she said, standing up, “but I have a security briefing to get to.”

  The representative smiled graciously, shook her hand, and headed out. Tricia waited a few minutes, walking laps around her room and stretching her tired joints, and then made her way to the situation room. The sound of her footsteps echoed in the mostly empty halls. Most of her staff had left for the day. Just one more meeting, and she could retire to her own private residence.

  She walked down the large staircase leading into the underground bunker, input her keycard, and entered the situation room. The blue lighting somehow made her feel even sleepier.

  She received a round of salutes, which she returned. “At ease,” she mumbled. She pulled a cigarette out of her jacket’s pocket, and Admiral Philip Eswan lit it.

  “So,” she said. “What’s new?”

  General Owen Yorteb turned to face her. “I have concluded my investigation into this group calling itself the Natonus Offspring.”

  Tricia leaned forward, one elbow on the table while the other hand fidgeted with her cigarette. She had asked her intelligence team to gather what info they could on the Offspring ever since some random disgruntled office worker who proclaimed loyalty to the group set himself on fire to protest the refugees’ Calimor expedition.

  Her security services had been aware of the Offspring’s existence for months, but had mostly written them off as some kind of splinter group from one of the other major nativist associations. Still, no one from any of the other organizations had set themselves on fire yet.

  “Learn anything?” Tricia asked.

  The general just shook his head. “Our initial guess was correct. They appear to have splintered off of the Natonus People’s Alliance a little over four months ago, and even then, the NPA was only formed once we made the public aware of the newar vessel’s existence. My staff and I estimate their membership at no more than a dozen. Optimistically.”

  Having spent ple
nty of time in radical political organizations herself when she was younger, Tricia knew they were prone to constant infighting, purity testing, and moral gatekeeping. If there was a radical nativist underground movement, it’d make sense that the craziest of the crazies would splinter off. And that they’d be the most prone to something as dramatic as self-immolation.

  That was her intuition the entire time, but she had figured it’d be better to make sure. It was a relief that her first assumption had been correct.

  She exhaled a mouthful of smoke. “Anything else, before I get to say my piece?”

  Philip leaned forward. “As a result of the refugee settlement efforts on Calimor, all Junta vessels in the vicinity have retreated to the other side of the asteroid belt. The entire Junta navy now appears to be holding orbit above Enther.”

  “And the Horde?” she asked.

  “No military movements of any kind. They appear to be letting the refugees settle as they please.”

  They’re playing some kind of game, she thought.

  A woman on the other end of the table cleared her throat. Karen Pitera: Tricia’s director of the Intelligence and Security Bureau, having held the position for the last eleven years. The job had taken a toll on the color of Karen’s hair, but she was still in reasonably good shape otherwise. Small, short, and trim, the woman had risen from the ranks of the Obrigan City police force to the apex of the Union ISB.

  “We picked up one of the refugee vessels making its way toward Ikkren,” she said. “It appears to be the Exemplar. The same ship that first touched down on Calimor.”

  Tricia rubbed her chin with her free hand. “So Isadora Satoro’s settlement team, presumably?”

  “That’s our best guess,” Karen said.

  “Any information on who, exactly, that is?”

  “Nadia Jibor still appears to be in charge,” Karen said, “based on our initial contact with the refugee leadership. But my agents have discovered that at least one Natonese native is with her.”

  Tricia arched her eyebrow.

  “It’s not as exciting as it sounds,” Karen added. “We have identified him as Boyd Makrum. He had a reasonably successful career as an architect on Obrigan, although he was born on Calimor. Apparently he left aboard a shuttle to rendezvous with the Preserver shortly before the Exemplar’s first launch.”

  “What do we know about this Boyd character?” Owen interjected.

  “Nothing much out of the ordinary,” Karen said. “It seems reasonable that the refugees may have wanted a native guide for their expedition. Boyd appears to have no criminal records or any evidence of anti-Union activities. Although we have tracked down a handful of ex-boyfriends. We could bring them in for questioning, if we want to get a better sense of who he is.”

  Tricia waved two of her fingers in a go-ahead motion. “Might as well. It’s probably nothing, but we should check up on it.”

  “Will do,” Karen said.

  After a short silence, Philip spoke up. “You wanted to discuss our surveillance capabilities?”

  “Specifically in the outer rim, yes,” Tricia said. “I got the sense that we were playing catch-up when it came to the refugees’ settlement agenda. And I don’t like getting caught with our pants down.”

  To her right, Philip grinned and then nodded. “I have conducted a review of our satellite network on the far side of the asteroid belt.” He pressed a button on his input terminal, and the holographic projection of the Natonus System zoomed in on the three farthest planets from the sun: Ikkren, Bitanu, and Calimor. Small holographic specks flashed, indicating Union satellites in orbit of all three worlds.

  “Only our satellites around Bitanu are still functioning nominally,” Philip continued. “Otherwise, it’s been at least seven years since we’ve conducted normal maintenance on our surveillance devices. And some enterprising folks on Ikkren have shot down a handful of our satellites, even after the war with the Horde ended. I’d suggest sending repair crews to both Ikkren and Calimor.”

  “Could sending vessels to Ikkren provoke a military response from the Horde?” Tricia asked. “I don’t want them shooting down any of our repair crews, especially if they’re gunning for the satellites.” The last of the Horde’s warships had been destroyed during the war, although they apparently still possessed legions of spacefaring gunships. Not enough to present a real threat to a Union fleet, but Tricia preferred situations where plasma bolts weren’t flying in the first place.

  “Satellite maintenance isn’t an act of war,” Owen interjected. “But we can’t trust them to be reasonable. We should send a detachment of warships along with our maintenance teams for protection.”

  Philip frowned behind his mustache. “If we’re worried that the Horde would react to a fleet of repair ships, they would absolutely turn hostile if we sent military vessels to their planet.”

  “There could be another way,” Karen spoke up from across the table. “The ISB still commands a fleet of mostly unused surveillance drones. We could set up a drone base in the asteroid field and dispatch them on recon patrols to the various outer rim planets. Unlike crewed ships, drones wouldn’t register on anyone’s scanning system.”

  A good suggestion, Tricia thought. The reason the Union, or anyone else with a half-decent scanner, could track all space traffic in the system was mostly due to the massive energy expenditures of life support systems. An unmanned drone, using inertia from only a single engine burn to cross the vacuum of space, would effectively turn into a stealth ship. And it would bypass the problem of satellite maintenance.

  “I like it,” Tricia said. “And I figure we have more than enough discretionary funds in the military budget to pay for the construction of a new drone base.” A lot of extra cash on hand was just one of the perks of the Union having not been at war for almost a decade.

  “We could also make use of a fleet of drones to repair our satellite network,” Philip said. “Adding an order of maintenance drones to our budget is perfectly feasible.”

  “That also makes sense. See to it,” Tricia said.

  “Is there anything else, ma’am?” Owen asked.

  “That’s all I have. Dismissed.” Tricia returned several salutes, stood up, and headed back upstairs. She still hadn’t been feeling particularly at ease about the developments in the outer rim, and recent intel reports suggested that hundreds of refugees had already made camp on Calimor. And even though she hardly sympathized with her caucus’ hand-wringing, she still wanted to make sure the Union was aware of everything going on.

  It was probably just satisfying some paranoia, she figured as she entered her private residence. But keeping the government’s eyes open in the outer rim would still help her sleep better at night. And she’d know exactly what the refugees were up to.

  CHAPTER 22

  * * *

  It took nine days to fly from Calimor to Ikkren, and Boyd and Derek had stayed frosty toward each other for most of them. Nadia had come up with a maintenance schedule that minimized their overlap, but the two men still found ways to run into each other and, inevitably, get into some kind of argument.

  Nadia wondered if this was how Isadora had felt around her and Russ. She resolved to give Isadora a hug the next time she saw her.

  The two men also kept very different regimens. Boyd was indefatigable during the day, flitting about from workstation to workstation to make sure the Exemplar was running at peak capacity. Nadia hadn’t ever bothered to come up with a duty checklist for Boyd. He just did everything without question. Boyd had a tendency to stay up late, but when he crashed, he crashed. No after-hours noises ever came from his cabin.

  Derek wasn’t lazy exactly, but he was far from the self-motivated worker that Boyd was. Actually, it had taken Boyd to point this out to Nadia—because of course it had—when he encouraged her to come up with an official checklist to keep the other man on track. Unlike Boyd, Derek seemed to enjoy staying up after retiring to his quarters. Often, Nadia had passed Derek’s ca
bin on the way to her own room, just to see him huddled up on his cot, reading a book of Ikkren poetry he had brought with him under the dim lighting of a bedside lamp unit.

  Today was one of the rare times all three had assembled together, eating a quick breakfast before their initial descent into Ikkren. “Do either of you know anything about your ancestors? Back from when they lived on Earth, I mean,” she asked, filling her coffee tumbler and sitting down at the central canteen table. She had long since learned that quickly defining the parameters of the conversation could keep things from getting heated.

  “A little,” Boyd said. “I know one set of my great-grandparents were originally from some place called Johannesburg,” he said, pronouncing it with a hard-j, which elicited a small chuckle from Nadia. “But that’s it. I figure my ancestors were from all over, really.”

  Derek took longer to respond, pondering his answer as he played with the textured egg protein in his bowl. “That’s the same for me,” he said in his deep voice. “I only know where a few of my ancestors came from. It was something called a Navajo reservation in some place called Arizona,” he said, also pronouncing it with a hard-j.

  It was remarkable to Nadia how incurious her Natonese crewmates were about where they had come from. Despite the enthralling landscapes she had seen on Calimor, she still missed Earth’s natural beauty. Even though Boyd and Derek had spent their whole lives across the galaxy from Earth, she’d at least figured they might be interested. And she’d been wrong.

  Maybe they didn’t even know how to identify the majority of their ancestors on Earth. Ever since humanity first sent colony ships to the stars, it had been common practice for colonists to craft new surnames for themselves: a symbol of severing their links with Earth. However, even those who stayed on Earth had picked up the practice—Nadia’s paternal grandparents had only invented the surname Jibor after immigrating to the United States—meaning that contrived surnames were the new normal across human space.