Flare

By sara kelli m

Grumble.

Jennifer died three years ago. Mark Campbell blames himself. Mark is in debt. His brother, Kyle, thinks he is irresponsible. Kyle’s wife, Risa, thinks Mark is crazy. Only Bear believes there is another side to Mark, but Bear is an enigma. Three feet tall…white fur…slightly chubby from too many sodas and chocolates…and very few people can see him.

Kyle and Risa find Mark in the debtor’s prison on Pueblo Station. Mark has a cellmate’s rough prospector map of the mining colony of Flare. In an attempt to save his dilapidated ship, Mark convinces them to try one last prospecting run. But things go wrong. Flare’s records don’t quite fit the planet…the sun is entering its flare cycle…and as Bear is fond of saying, “You don’t get something good for nothing.”

Flare is being mined by the Lom Corporation and they don’t like intruders. There are rumors of exotic weapons research involving artificial intelligence…rumors of what lies among the thousands of abandoned and wrecked starships from years of wars…rumors of things called dragnaughts…

Mark is faced with several problems. He has one chance to run and save himself…but that would mean leaving someone behind. Bear has disappeared, and an annoying little creature has stowed away on his ship, and the little group is running out of time as the deadly flares are about to begin. And Mark has to figure out how you go about learning to forgive yourself…because he has run out on people before.

He ran out on Jennifer.

And there is Taffles who is not having a very good day.

Grumble.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Newman Springs Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Dec 7, 2020
• ISBN: 9781648013461

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Flare

sara kelli m

Copyright © 2020 sara kelli m

All rights reserved

First Edition

NEWMAN SPRINGS PUBLISHING

320 Broad Street

Red Bank, NJ 07701

First originally published by Newman Springs Publishing 2020

ISBN 978-1-64801-345-4 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64801-346-1 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Taffles

What If…

Dreams

Prison…Maps…Kyle and Risa

The Tril Tine

The Cantina

Dreams

Flare

Tolar and Bagby

Sonic Optical Aerial Remotes

Dreams

The Valley

Marines and Other Things

It Always Happens Like This

Bear and Kerin

The Gathering Storm

Jennifer

The Flare

Le Fin

for Lori, Diann, Kevin, Leah, Gwen, Scotty, poet Pam Jessen,

(and in remembrance of Ed Bryant)…

for Bear…who’s always around somewhere…

and for Jack and Oreo Ferret…

1

Taffles

Grumble.

Taffles struggled to open one eye. Both of his eyes burned. He rubbed them with his paws. He sneezed. Allergies, he thought. Some irritant in the ship did not agree with his eyes. That always put him into a foul mood in the morning. He glanced around him. The control panel was immaculate…brightly lit…and smelling of disinfectant. He rose to his feet. His self-anointed owner, Kerin Wentzel, was nowhere to be seen. Typical, he thought. He sniffed the air, but the aroma of fresh food didn’t register. His food bowl was immaculately empty after he had licked it clean last night. Grumble. She didn’t leave breakfast out for him. No water. He dropped down to the floor without a sound. He ambled over to the food locker, but after leaving several long scratches, he couldn’t pry it open using both feet and paws. The lock was too high for him to reach. The locker towered over him. He climbed up the copilot’s chair next to it, claws digging into an oversized blanket Kerin had thrown across it to act as last night’s bed. She could have thrown it over him last night so he could have slept blissfully warm, but she hadn’t. He scrambled up on the control panel. He stared at the picture of himself that Kerin kept by the keyboard. He looked like a moldy beige ferret.

He was not.

Out the forward portal, he could see a ragtag string of bland, steel-colored starships and containers coupled end to end and arcing inward as far as he could see. This was not the usual luxury docking point that he was used to. It looked old and cheap. He glanced back at the main cabin’s airlock. Time to fend for himself. He tapped the sequence of keys Kerin did to open the airlock, cold air hissed into the cabin. This wasn’t the first time he had done this. He didn’t blame Kerin. She meant well. She had a lot on her mind lately. He constantly had to remind her when he was hungry or needed fresh water.

He trotted over to the airlock…poked his nose outside and sneezed. The ship was in some drab dock hangar…obviously, a low-rent district…and no sky. Grumble. That meant the ship had docked with some space station or another. Blue sky would have been nice. The sound of other animals would have been fine with him. He didn’t like other animals, but hearing some wouldn’t be so bad. Looking about, he spied some worn-out starship hulk in the next docking bay. A trickle of rust ran down the side of it by the airlock. Some people have no standards, he mused. Then he noticed a bright yellow cantina on the walkway leading into the main station. Cantina meant food and something fizzy to drink. It also meant that happy festive cantina noise that others called music that he could do without.

Keumph, Taffles said in a raspy nasal tone. Confident, he trotted down the ramp and across the narrow walkway toward the cantina. He was a predator on the prowl…the most dangerous predator in the known galaxy. He licked his toothless gums.

Happy. Grumble.

2

What If…

Bear says what really separates humanity as a species is the ability to envision the results of a simple question: What if.

I don’t suppose I ever saw it that way. The Terran Academy on Boc Tu taught that humans were simply better, but when you’re surrounded by people who think they’re better than everyone else, you have to wonder if they really are. Humans achieved a small measure of success colonizing a rough three hundred light-year sphere of space. The new capital of the Terran Realm is Boc Tu on the world of Becker’s Loon. The city rose under a peach-colored sky. Some spires reached a staggering twenty-eight hundred meters in height. The city had over one hundred million people living in its sprawling metropolis. To the south was a string of what scientists called extinct volcanoes. Their snowcapped peaks in the height of the brief summer provided a stark contrast to the copper foliage of the native trees. The great explorer, Kerin Wentzel, had discovered four pristine worlds ripe for colonization on the far end of the sphere near the dark Outer Rim worlds. The strange world of Willol-Mol19 provided a wealth of ore for the great mining houses of Boc Tu. Colonies sprang up on Ash and Daze. Sithipor was off limits to all but researchers. With the worlds came aliens and others not too alien. Most were friendly in the short run. Some started friendly then turned quite hostile.

The Tril Tine thought Daze was theirs. For some reason, Terrans have a problem dealing with other species. We had settled Daze and the Tril Tine showed up. In typical diplomatic fashion, unable to communicate with them, Terran Naval Command sent a multiple band simple and direct response to the Tril Tine’s incursion: space is a big place…go somewhere else. TNC followed that with a fleet and Terran Marines. It was later that researchers surmised the Tril Tine had no real concept that a sphere of empty space might belong to someone…their lack of a spoken language or response to Terran communicates baffled TNC. So TNC solved that crisis by reinforcing their fleet.

The first Tril Tine War followed. A researcher on one of the Outer Rim worlds had deciphered the Tril Tine’s name, but nothing else. We’re in the third war some ten years now. The Terrible Trils have been labeled the aggressors by the media…if you can trivialize your enemy…make them the evil ones…that’s supposed to make it easier to kill them. They’re less than human after all.

Maybe it’s just me. I don’t see the point of everything. I try to leave well enough alone. It’s hard to scratch a living out of mining…or trade runs or scavenging wrecks. The big corporations drive the independents out to the fringes where profits are low and dwindling while costs rise astronomically. TNC thinks everything falls neatly into right or wrong…good or bad with a thin black line in between. But my perspective is a touch of right…a touch of wrong…and this huge grand abyss of gray separating the two.

Did I mention I lasted two weeks in the TN marines?

I’m told Old Earth was a great place before the global pollution and warming that corrupted everything. Few people live there now, and fewer venture there for the highly touted tourist vista. All the holo books and documentaries agree on that. We lived there. We used the resources up. We spoiled the air. And now we don’t live there any longer. Terrans don’t like to admit that we had something to do with that sad fact. Becker’s Loon was cleaner…new…unspoiled…much better for long-term human occupation.

Bear says that arrogance is too great a price to pay for being right. I think it’s the least of prices you pay for being wrong.

***

Pueblo Station loomed in the forward viewport of Moth like an abandoned derelict adrift in space. The central docking hub was huge and well lighted where Terran Naval Command was housed. The lower hub housed the station crew, luxury shops, and expensive hotels. Surrounding the hub, the main outer ring of the station was comprised of derelict ships joined at odd angles…some abstract sculpture constantly growing…grimy ore tankers converted into makeshift malls that reeked of too many atmospheric acid washes…gaping holes where repairs were incomplete or had failed showed in the outer hulls with the gleam of inner metal seals. The outer ring ran on three-fourths gravity. The outer ring bowed out and had near one gee. There was an abundance of darker sections which meant a cheaper stay…intermittent heat and light in a small room with a cot and thin blanket. Farther in the ring smelled of lubricating oil and too many bodies for the recycling air system to handle. It could be humid and hot. It was much worse in the inner most section of the outer ring that housed the prison section.

Hey, Bear, I called back through the narrow corridor between the flight control room to Moth’s rear cargo holds. Better get those papers ready. We’ll be docking shortly. You know how station security is. It’s getting to where you have to pay a fine before they even find anything wrong.

No reply.

I had the standard Terran identity chip…name…social security number…DOB…criminal convictions and the sort. TNC had a penchant for forms…documents…unpaid tax liabilities. I had filled out all the forms for Bear a few trips prior, but station security never got back to me. Bear laughed about that. No form meant he didn’t exist. At least he had a sense of humor.

Loud metal on metal clangs reverberated through Moth’s hull as the station’s suited space walkers strapped in their floater packs fired magnetic tethers from the docking bay to the starship’s underbelly. They waved while we passed beneath them as the tethers drew us toward the open maw of a docking bay. Some rich luxury starship was docked next to us. Its sleek lines looked out of place. Moth fit right in with the dock. We passed a prominent neon sign with angry red letters as the ship locked in place.

Nothing is free

Debt is a crime. Full daily onstation

Rates apply for any partial day’s stay.

All possessions subject to confiscation

To satisfy station debt. All alien life by

Permit only. 25 credit docking fee upon

Tether. Docking damage is the starship’s

Responsibility.

Have a nice day.

Hasn’t changed one whit, Bear. Pueblo is a real friendly place. Ask anyone who used to own the ships that make up the outer station ring.

Bear banged around in the ship’s half-empty cargo hold. I wondered what he could possibly be moving around. He did things like that at odd hours in the middle of the night. He was a restless sort…the type that always had to keep busy doing something. All we had was a minimal load of low-grade scrap metal that would buy us a few lukewarm meals, a night’s stay in some dim lit hovel, and barely enough left to outfit us for another mining run. God knows where. I leave that up to Bear. He’s better at finding obscure mining opportunities than I am. Come to think of it he’s better at anything requiring a decision. Liaise fare…Kyle always threw that in my face whenever we had one of those brotherly conversations about how I hadn’t done anything with my life…and probably never would…about how I turned my back on a career…about how he was my kid brother having to look after me.

Sometimes it takes people a while to get around to the real point. I talked with Bear about that when I get overly depressed. Why can’t my brother see me for who I am? In his usual calm demeanor Bear says, Sometimes people only see what they expect to see. He doesn’t get more specific, but I take him for what he said and figure there’s a deeper meaning I might figure out one day. Nothing was quite on the surface with Bear. He could be a tad mystical. Most Terrans regarded him as aloof, but I think that’s because they never get to know him that well.

Docking clamps closed along the ship’s narrow runners. I watched the rear remotes until the environmental sheath closed around Moth’s rear airlock. I powered down the ship’s systems and grabbed my ID chip and the ship’s manifest chip. I hear the rear airlock pop which meant that Bear was in a hurry and already gone. I did a last-minute status check…glanced at a picture of Kyle and Risa above the pilot’s console, then headed for the airlock. I slid the door to one side and stepped out into Pueblo Station. The wall of steel gray…slate gray…and weathered gray had the same sense of age as the last time here.

The muggy air hit first…dank…and my lungs ached like I was breathing a liquid. The feeling passed as I closed the airlock behind me. A drab green uniformed security guard stepped up to me.

Thought I’d have to call up TN Security to go in after you, a gruff voice said. Took your time. Any delays are charged back to your account. That’s two credits for the initial disembarking delay.

Station Security lacked personalities. They go by the proverbial book…and it’s a thick one. A security cam hovered above the security agent and gave me a quick focal adjustment, then a once-over. I could see the lights on its underbelly flash green. The cam spit out a few streams of propellant exhaust and began to go over Moth’s hull. The security agent took my chips and placed the first one into a holo reader. He mumbled the readout.

ID: Becker’s Loon National ident card. Credit chip…you aren’t staying long, are you?

Don’t plan to.

Your credit’s low…Mark Campbell. Ship owner…Paid in full taxation status…Terran naval exemption…pilot’s license…Becker’s Loon security status code blue.

Blue meant I wasn’t anyone. The chip had the usual non-tamper security edge and if it showed any scratches, you were in violation of federation law. He compared the ship ID chip to my ID…and both to the chip in Moth’s brain.

This says you’re on the outer leg of an industrial cargo run from Becker’s Loon to Pueblo Station for resupply…then on to Ash. His eyes narrowed into that you’re one of those expressions. I stood expressionless. Bear must have logged all that into the official manifest. Manifest says miscellaneous goods. What I see on remote is low-grade ore. That’s a thirty-credit discrepancy fee. He deducted that from my credit chip, and the edge of it went orange. You need a standard ration of supplies?

That would be the gray chip.

He glanced at the chip’s readout and whistled, What the hell you need all this for? Oxygen, auto medic refill, hull patches, anticorrosive reagent hull bath. Hell…you don’t need all of that for a simple run to Ash. This is very suspicious if you asked me. Twenty credit fee for suspicious behavior. And where is this other crew member…this other owner…Bear? Where’s he from?

Outer Rim worlds. He already left. You had to see him. About yea high, I gestured at my waist.

No one walked past me. I was here all the time. I see everything. What’s he sneaking around for? Five credits suspicious activity.

I played dumb…shrugged. I felt uncomfortable. The humidity made me perspire. The security agent punched more keys, and the cost of the supplies was deducted from my chip. The outer edges went red.

You look like something ran over you and back for good measure, the security agent said.

Running without much sleep lately. Don’t know why, I said…which was the truth. I hadn’t slept much in the last forty hours. Sometimes, I don’t sleep too well…and there is the matter of those dreams…

Too much of that will drive a fella nuts, the security agent said. He looked at the ID chip as if trying to place a detail he might have missed. Here it comes, I thought. What are you two up to? Nothing good. Hey, what’s this…says you are a code eight TN marine. Never seen a code eight before.

It means they don’t want me back, I said. Truth.

You been stimming? That’s illegal on this station.

Never touch the stuff. Truth…sort of.

You got bloodshot eyes. He leaned in closer with his prominent square jaw in my face and eyes peering into mine. Stimmers get too much in their system and their tolerance lags…can’t sleep…get real hyper and nervous. They aren’t worth a damn when they get like that. You got that look.

I look therefore I am.

He seemed genuinely puzzled by my remark as if trying to decide if I was being sarcastic enough to warrant another code violation…and fine…but something seemed to register behind his dull face…that damned expression of recognition I knew too well. I’d seen it a thousand times.

Mark Campbell…say…you are the fella on the holo news from back in Becker’s Loon…three years ago…right?

No, I lie.

The one who saved all of those people. The hero.

That’s not me.

Got the same name as him.

There are thousands of Marks in the world.

Maybe you’re not him. I never forget a face, he said. As I recall, he was taller than you. The moment’s recognition drained from his face. How many days on Pueblo?

One.

One hundred twenty-five percent docking fine if it runs to two.

I’ll be off in one.

No refunds on the fines…some folks file a complaint…but complaints are filed for months before they go to an arbitrator. Very few get the notice to appear in time…besides, the station always wins.

Capitalism at its height.

He punched in notations, and my chip popped out into his hand. He gave the chip to me…holding it tight long enough so our wills locked for an instant.

You are that guy. It’s an honor. Look…it’s none of my business, but you’re down to nothing on your credit chip. Maybe a meal…a bath…and if you sleep on your ship tonight, you’ve got enough credits to get out of here tomorrow. This station eats people alive who are down on their credit. Don’t wind up one of those nobodies. The prison’s full of them.

So’s the world, I muttered.

Did you know your ship’s missing a lander leg?

Lost it back a ways. Long story. It lands okay on the other three.

Got a friend in the biz. I can make you a good deal on one.

Thanks. No.

***

What’ll it be there, Ted. The waiter didn’t smile. His eyes seemed vacant. One of those who truly disliked their job but persevered by sheer rote role performance. That counts for something. He stared at Bear with the seasoned expression of someone who dealt with aliens all the time. They were so common nowadays that Terrans barely raised an eyebrow at someone who looked different. New ones came into the Terran Empire all the time. The outer rim had a lot of them. Bear figured he blended in with the lot of them. He was wearing a Boc Tu Dragons hockey knockoff jersey he had bought at a bazaar, but he couldn’t remember where.

Bear skewered his nose and glared at the waiter. Sometimes, people are condescending even when they don’t mean to be. Your best amber ale…a roast beef sandwich smothered in brown gravy…crispy fries…chips…and a couple of mint chocolates.

That there’s from the expensive menu. Gonna cost extra. And you have to pay up front. We don’t extend credit.

It’s a curse to have expensive tastes, Bear snickered. The waiter ran his credit chip and handed it back to him. Bear sat in a tiny bistro, a fan blowing cool air across the table and a vanilla candle trying to mask the foul station air that assaulted his sense of smell everywhere. The drab gray on gray walls assaulted his vision. At least the shops and stalls had a jumble of colorful draperies…some flapping back and forth. He scratched the back of his paw…three fingers and an opposable thumb…delicate white fur…the air was dry and bad for his skin. He needed to buy some lotion and take a long hot bath. Across the way, he noticed Mark headed for another small restaurant…Sushi Toshi’s…the name alone suggested it was a lower tier place. To each his own, Bear thought. No matter how he tried to educate him, Mark had no culinary tongue. Sad. Bear glanced at the manifest copy of the locker he had purchased. Mark wasn’t going to like it, but without someone to push him he’d never set foot out his front door. Enough of the standard mining runs. Mark needed to try something more…something bigger. Mark was good at what he did…as long as it was familiar, but the economics of things seemed beyond his grasp. Lucky to have me, Bear mused. Hey, waiter…can you add black truffles to the sandwich? Adds a nice chocolatey flavor to a bland culinary experience.

He wondered what Mark’s response would be when he learned they were not going to Ash as planned. Bear had decided they would go to Flare instead. Going to a Lom Corporation-controlled world gave Bear some concern. He didn’t like to deal with Lom. They were not the friendly sort and there would be some risk involved…but risk is part of life or you aren’t doing very much living, Bear reasoned. The holo vid on the wall scrolled what passed as breaking news this far out from Becker’s Loon below a picture of a stark reddish-brown planet: Another ship vanished this week on Flare. That makes three in the last quarter. Lom Corporation officials confirm they have no records of the missing vessel ever landing or attempting a landing on the planet. Airspace around Flare is restricted. Flare is the main dumping ground for old starships and combat ships of the line from the three Tril Tine wars. Lom steadfastly rebuffs any claims of liability.

Lom Corporation was good at that.

Two Terran Marines stopped a woman with short blue hair with a slash of pink down the middle, advertising her antigovernment bent, just outside the bistro door. Bear sighed. It wasn’t much politically. It wouldn’t change anything. While her friends would encourage her, it was an open invitation for the marines on station security to hassle her. The neo dissidents always seemed to choose battles they could never win. The woman pleaded with the marines to no avail. One marine pulled out a fine log. Bear went to the door.

Is there a problem here? Bear asked the nearest marine. The marine glanced around and saw no one until he glanced down at Bear.

Hey! Be about your business if you know what’s good for you, the Marine said. He had that attitude of a muscle-bound zealot in total control of any situation and never wrong about anything. You don’t want to get involved with someone else’s problem.

Five credits for interference with official business, the second marine spat the words as if they were meant to be a heavy blow. Bear handed over his credit chip.

And forty credits for you, lady. Disturbing the peace with offensive hair coloration during day hours. You know the law.

I got called to an early shift. But I didn’t have time to change it. And I lost my scarf. If I don’t get there on time, I’ll lose my job.

Not my problem, lady. Should’ve thought about that before. And that will add a vagrancy fine to you.

Will this do? Bear said, pointing to his credit chip.

The second marine looked at his credit chip again then "What’s a Moth supposed to be?"

She’s a class four starship. Mind you, not a luxury class, but it gets me from here to there.

Lots of charges against whatever it is. We don’t hold for lack of proper credit here. That will get you into a mess.

Here. For your trouble, Bear said as he offered two gold coins to the second marine. He keyed some numbers against the credit chip, smiled then handed one coin to the other marine.

Additional five credits for offering a bribe. Your chip’s already at the red line. You need to correct that. You Mark Campbell or Bear?

Really? With all this fur how could I possibly be Mark Campbell? He’s a Terran. I’m from way out on the Rim…the Outer Rim worlds. You ever been there? They aren’t much for tourism…unless you enjoy cold and stagnant terrain. There’s lots of dense forest, but no one goes there. And the food is really bland. They don’t import much. Reason enough for me to leave.

One credit fine for sarcasm. All right. Off with the both of you. And have a nice day.

Smiling, the woman turned to Bear and said, Thank you so much. I’ll pay you back. I will. She meant well, but Bear knew she wouldn’t.

Ah…not necessary, Bear