Dark Galaxy Doubleheader : Drifter Prime and Blood Star: Dark Galaxy

By Brett Fitzpatrick

This book combines the two latest installments in the Dark Galaxy series of sci-fi novels. This book contains Drifter Prime and Blood Star in a double edition. The heroes of the series, a man named Knave and a woman named Altia, face their greatest test yet. After taking a stand against a corrupt empire and battling alien robots, the pair have to face an invasion of creatures so powerful that it endangers not just the Tarazet Star Empire, not just the whole expanse of human space, but the entire galaxy.

Knave and Altia only have any chance of fending off this alien invasion because Altia is the foremost mind of her epoch, and she is backed up by Knave, who was just born lucky. Together they command a spaceship designed by an alien species now long dead, a spaceship only Altia truly understands, that is outfitted with such advanced systems that no human ship can match it.

Only Altia's arcane knowledge and Knave's lateral thinking can save humanity now from a terrifying threat. A threat so implacable, unfeeling, and alien that they are mistaken by most who encounter them for demons.

The monsters invading the galaxy are arriving at an exponential rate, bombarding planets in waves of simple craft that are reminiscent of medieval siege engines in their brutality. The creatures themselves are nightmarish and demonic, towering tens of meters tall, with expressionless expanses of bone for faces. They are utterly alien, and take humans for torture that has no obvious motivation.

The monsters, the Dark Wings, come from the Blood Star, a giant artificial planet that is believed to have been built by the same beings who created the Galaxy Dog, though they are later entities, who have simply learned to pervert the technology of the ancients and use it to spread themselves across the universe like a plague.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brett Fitzpatrick
• Release date: Mar 20, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386635925

Brett Fitzpatrick

I am an author living and working in Venice. I love the flexibility that epublishing gives me to live where I want and get my books to people all over the world.

Book preview

Drifter Prime

Chapter 1

––––––––

Princess Thagora was becoming ever so slightly fatigued from her morning swim, and the fitness tracking capability in the cybernetics implanted beneath the skin agreed. It whispered in her ear to tell her she could take a break for a well earned rest, should she so desire. She started to tread water, and look round for a pleasant spot to wait for her heart rate to come down to a level the fitness system was happy with. Her eyes were drawn to one of her favorite stretches of lakeside, the area below her temple. She was proud of her temple, when she remembered it existed at all, specially because of the costs involved in moving it to its present location from a remote planet at the edge of her territories, simply to make her lake look more attractive.

She smiled and started swimming slowly toward it, gazing appreciatively at it as she approached. It was the kind of folly that, according to the xenoarchaeologist who sold it to her, symbolized unknown alien virtues that could only be guessed at by human minds. The temple was deserted, of course, after all, the whole planet was deserted apart from her and the robot servants who tended to her every whim. The location she had picked out for it was just perfect. It was part of the lake, but also part of the land, a kind of visual bridge between the two. The fragrance of incense from the surrounding trees was heavy on the air and the sound of the chimes woven into their branches added to the calming atmosphere. It was, she suddenly and impulsively decided, perhaps her favorite spot on the entire planet.

She came to a flight of half-submerged steps where she could stop swimming and plant her feet. The stone steps were almost vertical, leading the eye up to a soaring building on a platform of jade and sandstone. It was a pyramid with six levels, with six towers projecting on upwards from the building’s main mass. She got comfortable in a position where she could admire her temple and also look out across the impeccable landscaping of her lake.

As she lay on the steps, the lower half of her body immersed in the cooling waters of the lake while her upper body was warmed by the planet’s blue sky, she felt a bead of sweat appear on her forehead. The sun was a little too warm, she decided, frowning slightly as she called over to a glittering robot servant that was standing at the edge of the lake.

We need a little more cloud cover, don’t you think? she said to the robot.

I agree, Highness, the robot said in reply, and I will see to it immediately. The robot nodded submissively and soon large gravitic barges appeared above her and started seeding long streaks of cloud to shade the lake. Her frown eased as the hot embrace of the sun’s rays was replaced by the planet’s comfortable ambient warmth.

Then the princess suddenly heard a noise, coming from within her folly, from somewhere deep within the temple. It was just the faintest whisper of a noise, hardly audible over the twittering of the small birds in the trees and the humming of bejeweled insects. The princess propped herself up on an elbow and stared at the temple door, suddenly very slightly unsure of whether transferring an alien temple to the world she used for relaxation was such a good idea after all. She dismissed the thought a second later, after all the xenoarchaeologist had certified the structure as entirely safe.

She raised herself to her feet and climbed the steps that led up to the temple entrance. Tiny fish darted out of the way of her feet with every step, until she had emerged from the lake completely. There were still many steps to climb before she would reach the door of the folly, and she paused, unsure if she should carry on. She looked round uncertainly and was pleased to see two robots not far away, both strikingly beautiful creations, a pair of sculptures in jade and gold.

You, she said, pointing at the nearest of them, go in there and tell me what you see.

Certainly, Highness, the robot said. It unhurriedly climbed the steps and went through the door into the temple. The princess watched it ascend, then turned to the second robot.

Can you see through the other robot’s eyes? she asked it.

I can, Highness, the robot told her.

Then tell me what it sees, you dolt, she yelled at it.

It sees the inside of a temple, the robot said, hesitantly, as if this were some kind of trick question it hadn’t managed to see through.

Only that? the princess asked, already a little relieved. She’d obviously imagined the noise. It was silly to allow such things to give her the heebie jeebies. It happened sometimes, of course, alone on a pleasure planet with just a few robots for company, a person’s imagination could run riot. It was possible to imagine assassins had somehow penetrated the planet’s space defenses and made it down to the surface, that she was actually at risk of harm. But the royal family would never allow that. She was seventeenth in line to the provincial throne and her life would never knowingly be allowed to be put at risk. It’s just a silly old ruin, isn’t it? she said, with a smile.

Exactly, Highness, the robot graciously agreed.

Well then, the princess said, have your friend come back out and we can decide how I am next to be entertained.

Of course, Highness, the robot said, though there is one thing.

What is it? the princess asked. Well, out with it, what is it you want to say?

The interior of the temple seems to have been redesigned since my colleague was provided with its plans, the robot said, its voice a mixture of confusion and disappointment. This is not the order of things. We surface robots should be given up-to-date plans of all surface structures, both their interior and exter-

What are you blithering about? the princess said, sharply. The whole point of this folly is that it is a long dead lump of alien architecture. Nobody has redesigned the interior.

I beg to differ, Highness, the robot said, humbly, and raising its hands in a gesture of supplication. When schematics of this structure were provided to me, there were four interior spaces joined together by one circular connecting corridor.

Yes, the princess nodded, I remember from when I picked it out, a most pleasing arrangement. Well worth the cost involved in bringing it here to add interest to these gardens.

But now, the robot said, offering no opinion on whether the billions spent in relocating the ancient structure were well spent, there is only a single interior space and a single corridor going deeper into the structure.

***

On patrol in the deserts of yet another backwater planet where the ‘independent’ colonists needed imperial help to pull their fat out of the fire, Vella saw one of the biomechanical creatures. It was half a kilometer away, and it wasn’t alone. There were five of them scuttling among the dunes of the endless sand sea, where they had no business being. She activated her communicator with a sharp jab of her finger.

Coordinator, she growled, I have more buzzer contacts. Five of them, no wait... six. That’s a whole squad of them, and they’re all warriors. Who designated this quadrant as pacified?

Nobody gives information like that to lowly slugs like me, her sector coordinator, Gartan, said. Just deal with them, okay? Sand mining operations are starting any day now.

While she was talking to Gartan, Vella’s view screen was showing her a closeup of the nearest buzzer. It was a gruesome creature, as big as a horse and covered in a chitinous shell that was half metal, half some organic substance. It had four legs underneath its huge, insectile body and four arms near the front. At her command, the view widened to encompass the entire squad of buzzers, revealing that they were carrying various combinations of weapons and equipment. The nearest one to Vella’s position had a huge mass driver in one of its clawed hands and a wicked, laser-sharp blade in another. Atop all this was the head, the vicious, alien head. It was a blank mask of metal with two deep pits where the eyes should have been, but buzzers didn’t have eyes, just two dark sensor pits.

The creatures were an entirely alien life form, and their blank faces made them seem almost impossibly unknowable. One thing was for sure though, they were belligerent and had advanced military technology. A lot of the technology was actually grafted into their bodies, including huge capacitors to power it. This was how they had come by the name buzzers. You could hear an electronic whine or buzz in the air if you were ever unlucky enough to be actually standing near one, generated by all the cybernetic systems implanted into their bodies.

Vella killed the communicator. Talking to Gartan was a waste of energy at the best of times, and with so many buzzers scuttling around it could be a deadly distraction. She needed to concentrate and get her job done. She had ten drones, and theoretically that should be plenty to deal with even six buzzers. Her drones were Scorpion class, not the best drones ever built - the men and women of the scattered Tarazet Colonist Assist Fleet were never given the best equipment - but the Scorpion-class unstable terrain drone wasn’t bad either. They were the most intelligent drones she’d ever controlled, that was for sure.

The leader of the pack was designated scorpion one, S1 in her tactical displays, and it was already suggesting attack patterns. Most of them were rated by her tactical systems as likely to bring victory, and two of them were predicted to bring victory with no loss of her own units. One predicted an encounter lasting four minutes, while the other predicted an encounter of just two minutes before victory.

No-brainer, Vella muttered, as she selected the two minute option, and battle was joined.

Two scorpions, S4 and S9, charged at one of the buzzers, ganging up on it, and she smiled. Her scorpions looked magnificent in her viewer, which was showing a video feed provided by S6. Her drones, as their name suggested, were designed to look like scorpions, one of the most ubiquitous forms of life in the galaxy, after humans and rats. Wherever humans went, scorpions somehow hitched a ride and went with them. Each drone was covered in thick plates of armor, painted in a desert camouflage pattern, and each had a blaster mounted in a flexible tail, along with two claws for physical combat.

To add to the beauty of the tableau, the planet’s big sun was on the horizon, casting long shadows and rimming the mechanical combatants in outlines of gold, leaving only the small, secondary sun high in the sky to fill in the details of the scene with its milky ocher. When the main star dipped below the horizon, the temperatures would drop to something a human might find tolerable, but right now the atmosphere was still shimmering with unbearable heat. The drones, of course, didn’t really care what temperature it was.

The buzzer being ganged up on opened fire on S4, which was a little closer to it. The rods fired from its mass driver flew at S4 at relativistic speed, accelerated by a magnetic coil before being launched from the muzzle. The scorpion’s shields, generated by compact tangles of machinery in its belly weren’t able to deflect them, just slow them down. So ablative armor was sent fountaining into the air from its back.

It scuttled forward, unperturbed, across the sand, ignoring the fearsome wound that had been opened in its back, eager to bring its claws into contact with the buzzer’s armor. Its tail-mounted blaster fired as it advanced, the gun eerily steady as the drone scuttled and jumped through the dunes. The blaster projected packets of energy at the buzzer that glowed like fireflies, but the monster had shields too, projected by machinery buried somewhere beneath its carapace, and it deflected them.

And then S4 was on the alien biomechanoid, its claws stabbing and clasping at the monster’s armor. The buzzer defended itself, slicing off one of the scorpion-class drone’s legs with its wicked blade, but the scorpions were indomitable, especially in close combat. The other drone, S9 fired off a couple of shots with its blaster, when it was sure it wouldn’t hit S6, and things were starting to look bad for the buzzer.

And then the sand behind S6 moved.

Powers, Vella cursed. Two more buzzers were emerging from the sand, and launching a surprise attack on S6, from behind. Vella checked her tactical display and the likelihood of victory predicted by her tactical computers was dropping quickly. Sneaky, little... Vella’s invective died on her lips as she saw that S1 was already suggesting a new attack formation.

Scorpion one, she noticed was in combat itself. It had one buzzer by the neck, held tight in its claw, while it was forcing another to keep its head down with suppressing fire from its tail blaster. But it still had processing power enough to constantly be suggesting changes that would raise their chance of victory. Vella reluctantly agreed, even more reluctantly because she saw that the new plan required her to get involved in the action. Up until now she had been sitting back, overseeing the drones as they did their work, but now she was going to have to mix it up with the drones and buzzers, like some damn-fool infantry slug.

She slipped her hands into feedback gauntlets and pressed a button to fold away her command chair, as she stood up and took a step. Her body remained in place, held above a circular plate by gravitic forces. But the robot power armor she was inside, Gladiator-class battle armor, moved a step forward. Giant mechanical knee, hip and ankle joints whined and grumbled as her foot was lifted in the air, then came smashing down. Then she took another step and another. Theoretically the robot she was piloting could run, but shifting sands were not the terrain to give that maneuver a try.

She walked steady toward where S1 had requested her to be, and she arrived just in time to make the difference. Her robot armor had four blasters mounted in the chest, that all targeted one location. She designated her first target, a buzzer that was in the process of cutting one of her scorpion drones in half, and started firing. Even suspended above the grav plate, she felt the recoil of the blasters as they summoned huge energies from the armor’s capacitors, formed them into packets of destruction, and hurled them at the buzzer. Gratifyingly, its shields were overloaded and it was blasted apart. The scorpion it had been hacking away at was badly damaged, dragging itself across the sand and leaving a trail of vital fluids, but it was still functioning, for now, and that meant it was still firing. Vella allowed herself a small smile as the likelihood of victory climbed back towards a certainty. Her drones continued blasting and ripping apart the buzzers, one by one.

Then her tactical computer chimed for her attention, momentarily lowering the sound of battle coming through the speakers in the cockpit of the robot armor to make sure she didn’t miss the signal. Her robot armor’s sensors were telling her that a buzzer was emerging from a sand dune. She couldn’t see it because of all the sand hanging in the air, kicked up by the feet and blasts of both her drones and the buzzers, but the detection looked good. It didn’t look like a false positive to her, so she trusted her sensors and started firing. Blaster bolt after blaster bolt pounded the dune, sending even more sand hurtling into the air, accompanied by shards of glass, caused by her blasters heating the sand.

Her tactical computer hadn’t gotten its predictions exactly on the nose, unfortunately, and she saw the buzzer emerge from the sand a few feet to the left of where she had been firing. It raised its mass driver to shoot back at her.

Damn sensors, she cursed, as she glanced at a head-up display, looking for the readout that would tell her the state of her shields. They were still at a hundred percent, so there was no chance of a buzzer with a mass driver being able to take her out, at least very little chance.

The alien biomechanoid was a good shot, and the armored glass across the front of her robot’s head was cracked and pockmarked by its rapid-fire shots, while one of her shield generators overheated and went offline with the effort of keeping the robot’s head from being blown off completely. She glanced at the tactical computer’s prediction of her victory chances. They were still hovering in the high seventies, but her chances of winning without losing a drone had dropped to zero. By the end of the combat, she had lost three drones and her armor suit was badly damaged. The buzzers had been very cunning with their ambush, and had very nearly taken her and her drones out. She switched on her communicator again, mentally formulating some salty language to use on Gartan.

***

Vella was sent back out on patrol the very next day, despite regulations mandating a day off after an encounter with buzzers. She hadn’t been expecting it, Gartan wasn’t one for rules, not ones that made his duty rosters harder to draw up, anyway. As her giant robot armor took step after step, she realized she was starting to hate the planet she was currently stationed on. It was a mud ball, but that wasn’t the problem. Something else was eating at her, something she couldn’t put into words. The planet was mostly a hellscape of dunes and heat, but interspersed here and there was marshland and open water. Her towering robot armor was equally at home in the shallow waters of the marshes as it was in the dunes, but her scorpion drones didn’t perform well in an aquatic environment. Instead she was wrangling a small flotilla of submersible drones, each armed with a mass driver turret. They were called Wave Slicers, and Vella hated them with a passion. They were so much stupider than the Scorpions she was given for desert patrols that she had to work hard just to stop them shooting at each other. The Wave Slicers were a pain in the neck, but that wasn’t it either. There was some other reason she was starting to hate this planet.

She was now where the water of the marshes was deepest. It came up to just below the chest of the giant robot she was piloting. The reeds projected two to three meters higher still, and so only the head of her robot was visible as she strode through the water. She glanced at the reeds, registering their beauty on an intellectual level, but not feeling it viscerally any longer, after spending too damn long on the planet. Unlike the planet of her birth, where the reeds were a monochrome blue, the reeds on this planet had evolved - for some reason only a biologist would be able to explain - with a beautiful pattern of alternating stripes of green and yellow traveling up their shafts. It made the view through the transparent armor in front of her a shimmering vista. The armor was still cracked, from where that buzzer had hit her with mass driver fire the day before, but the damage was cosmetic and didn’t impede her view of the beauty of the marshes.

There was danger here too, obviously, or she wouldn’t be stationed here pacifying the place for the mining company that had bought it. The buzzers, the few that remained on planet, were just as at home among the reeds of the marshland as they were among the dunes of the deserts. But it wasn’t the buzzers that were getting to her, at least not exactly. They were part of it, their strange, alien presence palpable on the planet’s air, but it was more than that. She had a feeling of impending doom.

She saw the surface of the water break up ahead of her as a particularly impressive example of the planet’s megafauna broke the surface and stared at Vella. The air was suddenly full of the warning cries of animals hidden in the reeds, alarmed at the appearance of the monster. And it was quite a sight. She could only see its head, basically a large mouth on the end of a stubby but flexible neck. Its face was covered in a red and black pattern of interlocking and elongated scales that made it look evil and intelligent. The armor’s computer identified it with a little arrow and text window in her head-up display, including a fanciful scientific name, and assigned it a threat level of low. Among the text accompanying the identification she noticed an extract from the planet’s development plan that said the creature was earmarked to be hunted to extinction within the first two years of the planet coming online for full resources production.

The beast lost interest in her and descended below the surface again. She felt sorry for the alien thing. It had absolutely no idea of the fate awaiting it. It had been earmarked for extermination by the Tarazet Star Empire, and there wasn’t a damn thing the dumb beast could do to avoid this fate, even if it had been capable of understanding it. Its doom had been sealed. 

***

Vella slumped down in her quarters, in the only chair, fixed to the floor alongside her small window. The window was about the size of a food tray and it looked out onto the newly terraformed world. She hadn’t bothered to switch on the illumination in her quartets, so the bright light of the planet’s suns lanced into the room like the beam of an ion cannon. Vella was watching motes of dust dance in the suns’ beams, little points of light that reminded her of numerous star maps she had seen in numerous tactical hologram projectors. She was roused from meditating on the beauty of the dust slowly whirling in the shaft of sun by her door chiming.

Who is it? she asked her room computer.

It is Romeena, the device told her.

Vella raised an eyebrow and looked at the door, wondering why one of the unit’s lone wolves was coming to pay a visit.

Let her in, Vella said.

Vella’s room was so small that Romeena was invading her personal space just by entering it. Romeena went and stood on the other side of the window from Vella.

Help yourself to a drink, Vella offered, pointing at a food and drink fabricator recessed into the wall next to her elbow. Romeena punched a couple of buttons and a beaker of some oily looking liquid was excreted from one of the unit’s nozzles.

What is that? Vella asked.

It’s a little recipe I picked up someplace or other, Romeena said, her voice a tortured and digitized rasp, thanks to some neck injury she had picked up somewhere. I seem to remember it’s called a slammer.

Sounds interesting, Vella said. Could you dial one of those up for me?

Sure, Romeena said. She punched the buttons for another slammer and handed the beaker to Vella once it had been extruded by the small economy-model food fabricator. As Romeena passed the drink across the short distance between them, it was caught for a moment by the beam of intense light coming through the room’s little window. It shone a warm amber, with swirling clouds of some darker substance within.

To the powers, Romeena said, raising her glass.

Sure, those bastards, Vella said, raising hers and bashing the plastic edge against Romeena’s with a dull clunk. They both took a sip, and Vella was pleasantly surprised. It was potent, burning a fiery trail across her tongue, but the taste was smooth without being sweet. She smiled approvingly and made a mental note to save the drink’s settings. What do you want, Romeena? Vella asked, pretty sure the woman wasn’t going to open her mouth unless invited to.

I need a teammate, she said.

Vella was vaguely aware that some of the other slugs had an informal gravball game going, and the base’s single grav dome was the scene of constant training, practice and games. But Romeena had never struck her as the type to be particularly interested in team sports.

I don’t play gravball, Vella said, with a dismissive gesture of the hand. Hunting buzzers is enough sport for me.

Romeena laughed, a short electronic snorting noise that was even more unsettling than her synthesized voice. She took another sip of her drink. How much surveillance crap is left in your room computer’s systems, she asked.

One of the first things Vella did whenever she moved into new quarters for anything more than a day or two was thoroughly strip the bloat out of any room computer present. The trick was to purge all the stuff used by the government to spy on you, but leave some crap so the system didn’t look too clean. It was a balancing act, but Vella thought she was at least as good at it as anyone else.

We can talk, she assured Romeena.

Okay, Romeena nodded, taking her word for it. I have an offer of employment.

How much does it pay?

Right now, you’re a slug, Romeena reminded her. Infantry. The lowest of the low, so whatever it pays, it’s going to be better than what you get now.

Infantry pay isn’t bad, Vella countered, compared to what I was getting back on Yabarith for climbing yen vines and cutting the fruit, nine times out of ten on a branch too twisted to use a harness, so it was as dangerous as the infantry, too.

It’s more, Romeena assured her, a lot more.

Exactly how much more?

Seven times more, Romeena told her, in an electronic whisper.

Vella spat out the sip of slammer that had been in her mouth, spraying it across the grubby floor of her room. Powers, she cursed, but I thought I just heard you say it was seven times more.

You heard right, Romeena said.

What the hell kind of job are you offering me? Vella asked. Are you promoting me to admiral?

Admirals get a shit load more than just seven times what a slug gets, Romeena said, with a smile. No it’s pretty standard for mercenary work. You’re tour is nearly up, and I need a partner for a job I have lined up. You can sign on for another year in the infantry, you can go home and cut yen nuts, or you can sign on with me.

They aren’t nuts, Vella said. It’s more a kind of squash... Romeena just narrowed her eyes. What would I need to do? Vella asked.

The exact same thing you do here, wrangle drones, do patrols, and shoot anything that the boss says needs shooting. Simple as that.

What kind of drones will we have?

I can’t tell you that unless you sign on, Rosa shrugged, but I can tell you they’re a lot better than the crap we have here.

Vella nodded, considering her options, but she already knew which way she was going to decide.

***

Romeena and Vella left the planet on Romeena’s spaceship, a sleek delta wing that looked too expensive for a soldier to own. Romeena sat at the controls while they climbed to escape velocity and reached open space, but then left the ship’s AI to look after the rest of the flight duties. She then went to Vella in the spaceship’s little ready room.

Now I can start to give you a little more information about what we’re going to be doing, Romeena said, starting with the equipment we’ll be using.

Okay, Vella said, butterflies in her belly at the turn her life was taking. Stay home to climb the vines, or go off to be cannon fodder for whoever happened to be besmirching the title of emperor or empress at that particular moment, that was the question most young people on her home planet had to decide on. Now life was taking her down a very different path, she could feel that, and that was what she had wanted, but she still had no idea yet about whether her decision was taking her toward a bright future, or just a different grim death than the one ordained for her by the navy.

We will be using a type of drone you have probably never seen before, or even heard of, Romeena said. We’ll be using Wender 560s. As Romeena said this a hologram sprang into life in the middle of the ready room table, projected from a hologram pit recessed in the ceiling above. Oh, I’m sorry, Romeena said, reading the caption floating alongside the drone depicted in the hologram. It actually looks like we’ll be getting Wender 575s.

Vella nodded, but her attention was on the hologram, which showed a bipedal drone which the scale said was about seven feet tall. It had just two arms and a head that looked like a mixture of armor, sensors, and communications gear. It was a very elegant design, to Vella’s eyes. There was something about the way the sensors were mounted deep in the head armor that made it look capable, menacing almost. They looked like the beady eyes of a spider, though the design only had four of them, not eight. It wasn’t heavily armored but she could see attachment areas for extra armor, should it be required.

There’s no fixed weapon? Vella noticed, reading through panels of text that were floating beside the depiction of the drone.

No, Romeena said, they’re for the birds. We need to adjust our armament to the situation. That’s why I chose a versatile design like the Wender. It’s got two gripping hands, and numerous attachment points. We can hang just about anything we want on it, short of an ion cannon.

Okay, Vella nodded. She didn’t know the mission yet, so she couldn’t comment on whether Romeena was right about them not needing a fixed weapon.

You find so many fixed weapons on navy drones, Romeena carried on, because the navy gets a better deal if they buy drone and weapon system from the same manufacturer.

By the powers, Vella said, pointing at the hologram, is that specification a typo?

No, Romeena said, grinning for possibly the first time since the night she had rung Vella’s bell to recruit her, those numbers are right.

I’ve never seen processing capacity like that in a drone before.

I bet you haven’t, Romeena smirked, not as a slug fighting for the Tarazet Deep Space Navy.

Chapter 2

Shivia stood on the bridge of the Raven, her right-hand woman, Fallu, at her side. Both were gazing at the spaceport, as the ship descended gracefully toward it, the starcraft’s computer doing the work of actually bringing it in for a touchdown. They were coming down on one of the numerous landing pads scattered around the upper slopes of a huge complex of almost perfectly circular buildings, each one the size of a city block.

I’ve always enjoyed visiting this planet, seeing this ancient style of architecture, Shivia said.

A little too old-fashioned for my taste, Fallu said.

Oh, yes, Shivia nodded, of course, from the viewpoint of aesthetics it is hideous, but that’s not what I was talking about.

No? Fallu could tell her boss wanted to talk, to explain something, so she patiently waited for the lecture to begin.

This ancient architecture symbolizes something, Shivia continued. At the heart of each of these structures is a shielded chamber, where hologram communication is not only forbidden, it is impossible. If you want to be included in the deliberations that take place here, you have to come in person. Without these structures, this would be just another backwater planet, a place without any strategic or economic value, but this complex puts it at the very heart of the government of the Tarazet Star Empire.

Communication shielding is commonplace, Fallu said. A similar complex could be built just about anywhere.

Exactly, Shivia said, with a grin, her voice almost triumphant, so why does almost the entire upper echelon of the imperial nobility up sticks and travel here every few years? Fallu simply looked at her boss, she knew the question was rhetorical. Tradition, Shivia said, answering her own question, that’s why. Momentous decisions have been made within the halls of these hideous buildings for thousands of years, and that will continue to happen here for thousands of years to come. Inertia is a terribly powerful force, Fallu. Whatever shape the empire takes, its heart is always located here.

And the current crisis is to resolve the imperial succession, Fallu said, distractedly, her eye momentarily caught by a particularly extravagant shuttle design that was coming down on a nearby pad.

The new emperor has been crowned and announced here for thousands of years, Shivia said, some indefinable emotion in her voice, Fallu suspected it might be something akin to pride in imperial tradition.

Announced, yes, Fallu said with a smile, but not enthroned. Some of them haven’t actually made it to the crowning, what with one thing and another, bad health, assassination, that sort of thing.

In the bad old days, Shivia said, nothing so distasteful has happened in modern times.

So which one of these idiots is going to be given the nod? Fallu asked, gesturing at the luxury shuttles coming in to land all around.

Shivia waved a hand and seven hologram figures appeared, all standing as still as statues. Each was dressed in the fine clothes of nobility, and each had a percentage chance of winning hovering around their chest area, constantly updating with increases and decreases of a few fractions of a percent.

Lady Tanmay, Fallu said, pointing at the figure in the center, fifty-five percent, she’s out in front by a comfortable margin, and she’d make a wonderful empress.

Are you crazy? Shivia gasped in shock and disgust. She is the last person we want on the throne. Too intelligent, too independent, too ruthless. Life with her as empress would become considerably more complicated. We need a dolt, a freaking moron, somebody who can be easily shown how important the ministry of science is, and how vital it is that we keep receiving at least the same cut of the tax pie we always have.

I see, Fallu said, aware that Shivia was still giving her hostile side eye, as if considering the possibility she might be an agent of Lady Tanmay’s. Who would you prefer to see as our leader?

Shivia walked all the way to the end of her holographic mannequins and stopped at Lord Bellar, given a four percent chance according to the computer that Shivia had tasked with calculating the odds.

Look at this beautiful fool, she said. Not an idea in his head, no strength of character, not much in the way of leadership skills, or even ordinary people skills. He would be ideal.

Is that realistic? Fallu asked. Can you really put an ignoramus like Lord Bellar on the throne?

Probably not, Shivia said, with a wistful smile and a sigh that almost sounded like she was imagining the prospect, and reluctantly letting it go, but a girl can dream, can’t she?

***

Fallu didn’t see Shivia again for days. Shivia was whisked away into a world of overstuffed divans, tiny portions of food, bejeweled androids, and complex music being played on complex instruments by masters of their craft, the backdrop against which she attempted to use her influence to get her preferred candidate enthroned as emperor, while Fallu stayed aboard the Raven, dealing with day-to-day business of running the ministry of science in her absence. It was Fallu, therefore, who took the call from Brax, an emergency call on the highest priority connection.

Fallu, the android said, nodding his head politely, I must speak with Shivia.

That is not possible Brax, Fallu told him. Shivia has a series of meetings within the chambers of the Jade Forest Palace. The chambers are screened to prevent communication.

By the powers, Brax cursed. Why? What can there be of any interest there?

The election, Fallu told him. The empire needs a new head to lead it.

Ah, yes, of course, of course, Brax said. Is there no way to get a message to her?

I can take it to her by hand, Fallu said, but for me to do that, it would have to be a matter of the utmost urgency. What could be more important than the election of a new emperor?

Drifter Prime, Brax said. There’s been a change.

Oh, Fallu said, paused a second, glanced at the day-to-day business of the science ministry, arrayed around her on floating holographic screens, then back at Brax. I’ll go get her.

I would appreciate that, Brax said, his hologram already fading. Call me when you’ve found her.

***

Finding Shivia proved more difficult than Fallu had thought it was going to be. She had imagined there would be some sort of big negotiating room, where all the power players, of whom Shivia was definitely one, would be hammering out some kind of compromise. That proved not to be the case. Instead there was a maze of small chambers where there was an endless succession of banquets, music recitals, theater plays, poetry slams, and other elite entertainments. Fallu could only suppose the deals were being done there, but the problem was there was only a narrow window of time between one event ending and another starting, when it was possible to gain entrance. Once a meal, or a dance, had started, the doors were locked and Fallu was not allowed in. This wouldn’t have been so bad, if it had been possible to find out who was inside each event without waiting till the end to see who actually emerged. It was a huge waste of time, introducing enormous uncertainty and delay into choosing a new emperor. It could only be by design, Fallu supposed, but she had no idea why.

At last Fallu spotted Shivia coming out of a music performance where a tall, slim man had been playing some device that look half like a bass drum and half like a trumpet, with controls built into the lapels of his jacket.

Fallu, Shivia yelled in surprise.

Lady Shivia, the young assistant said. Urgent news.

By the powers, it better be, Shivia muttered, as she came over. Tell me what it is that is so important. A buzzer invasion of the Tarazet home world, perhaps?

I can’t say, Fallu whispered. I’m to take you to the Raven, so you can take the call there.

Argh, Fallu, Shivia said, her eyes drawn to a group of people moving into a small, intimate dining room, or the closest thing to one to be found in the complex at any rate. It was still built on a scale that was huge by normal standards. This is not the time. I have a lot of irons in the fire.

I’m sorry, Fallu said. Shall I tell the... erm... caller that you will... erm... call back later?

Who is the caller? Shivia asked.

I hesitate to say, Fallu replied. Even that is sensitive information.

Okay, Fallu, damn you, Shivia said, but if this turns out to be nothing, I’ll have you shot.

***

The hologram of Brax was brightening into existence in front of Fallu and Shivia. Fallu respectfully at a distance, sitting in one of the plush seats of the Raven bridge. Shivia was pacing in little circles, but she stopped when Brax had completely coalesced. 

What is it, Brax, Shivia hissed, and I warn you, this had better be good.

Her eyes kept darting from the hologram, to the bridge window, and to the palace complex beyond that she had just been called away from.

***

Brax, an AI encased in a humanoid body, was standing at the intersection of two corridors, looking at a hologram of Shivia as it gradually faded. The last glimmerings of light faded from the hologram projector mounted in his chest and Shivia was gone. She had not been happy to be taken away from her machinations at the gathering to elect a new emperor, but she hadn’t fired him or ordered his execution, so he was pretty sure contacting her had been the right thing to do. He had absolute privacy, of course, far below the surface of the artificial alien planet. Nobody would know he had called the boss.

He was standing in a cavernous space with a hexagonal floor plan and hexagonal arches supporting the ceiling above. The enormous space could be reached from two directions, through towering corridors with a hexagonal cross section. Brax raised his head and looked from left to right. His android face was less expressive than a human’s, he had selected a body to house his intelligence that had a face with fewer face muscles than a human had, but even so it wasn’t difficult to see that he was uneasy. There was nothing to do now but wait. Shivia had given him instructions on how to deal with his current situation, and it would be foolish not to follow her orders to the letter.

Many hours later, a taxing amount of time to stay in one place without doing anything useful, even for an android, he heard the whining of a transport grav motor approaching. It was very soft, a long distance away. Brax folded his arms behind his back and waited for it. The utility vehicle came floating through one of the corridors and slowed to a halt just a few yards away from him. Two human forms emerged and crossed the short distance from the utility vehicle to Brax. Neither of the new arrivals said a word, and Brax didn’t bother to say hello to them. Just like Brax, they too seemed to lack the normal vitality of a human, both standing just as still as the android, a feat even the most disciplined of human would ordinarily find difficult to copy. They were both wearing gray uniforms with no markings of rank or status. They both also wore distinctive black headgear, half helmet, half hat.

This corridor is new, Brax said, feeling uncomfortable with the silence.

Neither of his companions answered. He hadn’t phrased his remark as a question nor invited them to comment. Neither of them felt the slightest inclination to engage in small talk with the android. Brax pulled out a communicator and contacted Posia, one of the senior scientists on his team. His communicator was glitching and refused to automatically send his coordinates for them to come find him, he had made sure to sabotage it to achieve this effect before coming to this place, so he had to just tell her where he was.

That’s impossible, Posia, said. There isn’t a corridor intersection at those coordinates. You must have them wrong.

Just get into a vehicle and come out here.

It took Posia twenty minutes to get there, though Brax heard the whine of her vehicle’s engine approaching long before that. The little grav car came barreling up at last, much faster than regulations allowed, and stopped alongside Brax, and the two figures in gray. A gull-wing door hissed open and Posia climbed out, and she frowned when she saw the two figures in gray. What are those tow mutants doing here? she muttered.

Procedure, Brax said.

Posia was about to say something else, then thought better of it. It was a very minor detail in comparison to what Brax had claimed over the communicator about changes to the architecture of Drifter Prime. So, you’re telling me this is a whole new corridor, are you?

It is undeniably here, Brax said, as the gull-wing door on the other side of the little car opened, and it absolutely should not be.

This is gigantic, the woman getting out the other side of the car said, as her face appeared above the car’s ceiling, enormous, unprecedented.

It is certainly unprecedented, Yettena, Brax said. As far as we know, this artificial planet has not done anything on this scale for hundreds of years. More likely thousands, or even millions. But now it is undeniably starting to perform operations. This is the largest of them, so far, but not the most significant.

Perform operations? Posia said. That’s quite a vague way to describe the building of an entirely new corridor.

We’re going to have to be vague for now, Brax warned them. Whatever this is, there is no indication that the planet is actually coming alive or waking up, or any romantic notion like that. These are simple housekeeping operations, designed to make logistics easier, nothing more than that.

But even that is huge, Yettena said, just the biggest of the big.

Posia smiled at her colleague’s enthusiasm. I guest it’s my job to ask the stupid questions, so, why now?

It isn’t exactly now, Brax said. This process has been underway for some time.

And you didn’t think to tell us, Yettena growled.

This is a very special development, and me must proceed circumspectly and with caution, Brax explained.

How long has this been going on? Posia asked. How long has it been since you noticed the start of this-

Operation, Brax said, finishing her sentence for her.

Yes, exactly, Posia said, and took a step toward the android. How long?

It started only a short time ago, relatively, Brax said, and I think I can safely say that the process, whatever it is, is very slowly accelerating.

I’ll contact Shivia, Posia said.

No, Brax said.

No? Posia said.

No? Yettena repeated, incredulous.

All communication with Shivia must go through me, Brax said, for now. It’s better for everyone. Shivia is distracted, what with maneuvering for favor with whatever new emperor or empress ascends the throne. At the gathering of electors is where she can do the most good for now, ensuring the Science Ministry continues to enjoy the status it had under the old emperor. I will make sure she is kept up to date with whatever information she needs to know.

She’s playing politics? Posia was incredulous. But we need her. She is the leading expert on Drifter technology in the empire.

There is another, Brax said.

Who? Posia snorted derisively.

Altia, Yettena whispered.

Posia’s face gradually fell as second after second went by and Brax didn’t deny it.

You can’t be serious, Posia said. She is an outlaw. If Shivia even suspects you have shared information like this with Altia, she’ll... she’ll... she’ll have you melted down.

Chapter 3

The flagship’s planning room was much bigger than the bridge, with large hologram pits constantly showing the tactical computers’ best guesses about the battlefield they were jumping into, along with holograms generated by the ship’s strategic cores, showing the various ways the battle interacted with the rebellion’s greater objectives. In the middle of everything, dominating the room, was a timeline. It was like series of columns, each one showing time passing, sweeping from the top of each column downwards in a wave of red. The wave of red constantly ate away at the remaining green, which represented time to come. There were five columns, like the five fingers of a human hand, and each one showed time passing at a different rate. The one on the extreme right showed just ten seconds, so the red wave came sweeping down six times a minute. The next column showed one minute, so the red wave moved downward more slowly. The next column showed ten minutes, meaning you had to look at it a while to notice it was moving at all. The next column showed one hour, so the red wave looked essentially stationary. The last column showed an entire standard day, and Zenya knew it was moving, intellectually, but it looked as static as an immovable object.

At that precise moment, the red wave was half way down the slowest column. Looking closer, Zenya could see that half way between the shore of the red inundation and the base of the column, in the middle of the green area of future time, an event was marked. The event was labeled arrival in system, and it would be the beginning of a lot of hasty maneuvering and the start of fighting in earnest for control of the eleventh planet. They were only five hours out from what would undoubtedly be the biggest battle the rebels had thus far been involved in. If the empire hoped to nip their rebellion in the bud, they would have to do it now, and they knew that.

Zenya looked away from the giant hologram of the chronograph and noticed that the captain was in a huddle with two robots and a crew member with extensive cybernetic augmentation, who was attached to a huge data bus by cables as thick as forest vines. The cables were bundled together in collars, like dreads, and held up of the floor by little grav motors,