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    Stealing the Sun: Books 7-9: Stealing the Sun
    Stealing the Sun: Books 7-9: Stealing the Sun
    Stealing the Sun: Books 7-9: Stealing the Sun
    Ebook891 pages10 hours

    Stealing the Sun: Books 7-9: Stealing the Sun

    By Ron Collins

    ()

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    About this ebook

    War across the systems.

    A lifelong quest to find intelligent life.

    And—on a harsh, desolate planet—a sentient species, struggling to build a civilization.

     

    Stealing the Sun, a space-based Science Fiction series from frequent Analog contributor and bestselling Amazon Science Fiction author Ron Collins

     

    ---

    STARGAMES

    Intergalactic War Is Chaos

     

    Deidra Francis: Director of the Universe Three rebels.

    Allie Feder: Brilliant wormhole physicist

    Zina Nichols: Ambitious United Government intelligence agent

    Thomas Kitchell: Esteemed scientist, hero of the Everguard mission, friend of Torrance Black

     

    New forces gather. The United Government search for Universe Three's home system narrows, leaving the rebels with slim options. How far is Deidra Francis willing to go to give her people a chance to live free?

     

    The answer: As far as it takes—or farther.

     

    Nothing less than the survival of the human race lies in the balance.

     

    ---

     

    STARDUST

    On a Dying Planet, Hope?

     

    Torrance Black, the lone human on Esgarat, has a plan to save the dying planet, but can he get to Esgarat City fast enough to see it through?

     

    Baraq Waganat returns to Esgarat City, out for blood and hellbent on taking down the most powerful Families.

     

    Tierra Waganat's seething hatred of his brother Baraq drives his need to restore their Family to the upper strata.

     

    The Families jostle for control. The Orange Army remnants fall back. The quadarti struggle to maintain the lives they've always known.

     

    Their stories tangle together to ask the only questions that matter:

     

    How will they survive? And what will be left if they do?

     

    ---

     

    STARBORN

    A black hole.

    A race against time.

    A question of who lives and who dies.

     

    Across distant star systems, forces clash to save the worlds they love.

    • Torrance Black, stranded on a dying planet, gambles on one last hope.
    • Baraq Waganat, the quadar who triggered civil war, yearns to fulfil a legacy.
    • Allie Feder, brilliant physicist, chases the universe's most powerful weapon.
    • Deidra Francis, leader of Universe Three, faces a brutal dilemma.
    • Zina Nichols, ambitious United Government Intelligence Officer, runs a high-stakes op.
    • Thomas Kitchell and Marisa Harthing, long-ago heroes of the Everguard disaster, learn to play a game they never knew existed.

    Who will live? Who will die? And what will be left behind?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSkyfox Publishing
    Release dateMar 30, 2023
    ISBN9798215849293
    Stealing the Sun: Books 7-9: Stealing the Sun
    Author

    Ron Collins

    Ron Collins's work has appeared in Asimov's, Analog, Nature, and several other magazines and anthologies. His writing has received a Writers of the Future prize and a CompuServe HOMer Award. He holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering, and has worked developing avionics systems, electronics, and information technology.

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      Book preview

      Stealing the Sun - Ron Collins

      Stealing the Sun: Books 7-9

      Stealing the Sun: Books 7-9

      STARGAMES - STARDUST - STARBORN

      Ron Collins

      Skybox Publishing

      Contents

      STARGAMES

      Introduction

      NEWS

      NEWS

      NEWS

      INTERVIEW

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      NEWS

      ICARUS DOWN

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      DILEMMA

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      NEWS

      NEWS

      NEWS

      STAR LINK

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      THE MERCURY GAMBIT

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Chapter 16

      MACHINES

      Chapter 17

      Chapter 18

      BATTLE

      Chapter 19

      Chapter 20

      Chapter 21

      Chapter 22

      Chapter 23

      Chapter 24

      Chapter 25

      Chapter 26

      Chapter 27

      Chapter 28

      Chapter 29

      Chapter 30

      Chapter 31

      Chapter 32

      Chapter 33

      Chapter 34

      Chapter 35

      Chapter 36

      Chapter 37

      History

      HOMEFRONT

      Chapter 38

      Chapter 39

      Chapter 40

      Chapter 41

      Chapter 42

      Chapter 43

      END GAME

      News

      Chapter 44

      Chapter 45

      Chapter 46

      Chapter 47

      Chapter 48

      EPILOGUES

      Thomas

      Deidra

      Allie

      Zina

      THANK YOU!

      Acknowledgments

      Reader List Sign-Up

      STARDUST

      Introduction

      PROLOGUE

      FUNERAL

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      BEGINNINGS

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      OF THE FITTEST

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Chapter 16

      Chapter 17

      Chapter 18

      Chapter 19

      Chapter 20

      Chapter 21

      Chapter 22

      Chapter 23

      VIGILANTE

      Chapter 24

      Chapter 25

      Chapter 26

      Chapter 27

      Chapter 28

      Chapter 29

      Chapter 30

      Chapter 31

      Chapter 32

      Chapter 33

      COUNCIL

      Chapter 34

      MOUNTAINS

      Chapter 35

      Chapter 36

      WAR

      Chapter 37

      Chapter 38

      Chapter 39

      Chapter 40

      FALLOUT

      Chapter 41

      Chapter 42

      Chapter 43

      Chapter 44

      Chapter 45

      EPILOGUE

      THANK YOU!

      Acknowledgments

      Reader List Sign-Up

      STARBORN

      Introduction

      Prologue

      War

      SUN DRAIN

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      DISCOVERY

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      NEWS

      NEWS

      NEWS

      NEWS

      NEWS

      SUN BLIND

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Chapter 16

      Chapter 17

      Chapter 18

      Chapter 19

      Refugee

      Chapter 20

      Chapter 21

      Chapter 22

      Chapter 23

      Chapter 24

      Chapter 25

      Chapter 26

      Chapter 27

      Chapter 28

      Chapter 29

      Chapter 30

      Chapter 31

      THE MESSAGE

      Message

      RESPONSE

      Chapter 32

      Chapter 33

      Chapter 34

      Chapter 35

      Chapter 36

      Chapter 37

      Chapter 38

      THE MEETING

      Chapter 39

      Chapter 40

      Chapter 41

      Chapter 42

      THE JUMP

      Chapter 43

      Chapter 44

      Chapter 45

      Chapter 46

      NEWS

      NEWS

      ZINA RESPONDS

      Chapter 47

      Chapter 48

      Chapter 49

      REUNION

      Chapter 50

      Chapter 51

      Chapter 52

      Chapter 53

      Chapter 54

      Chapter 55

      APOGEE

      Chapter 56

      Chapter 57

      Chapter 58

      Chapter 59

      Chapter 60

      END GAME

      Chapter 61

      Chapter 62

      Chapter 63

      Chapter 64

      EPILOGUES

      Torrance/Deidra

      Kitchell/Allie

      Torrance/Marisa

      Baraq/Crissandr

      Pella/Anko

      CODA

      Torrance/Baraq

      THANK YOU!

      Reader List Sign-Up

      IF YOU LIKED

      Also by Ron Collins

      About Ron Collins

      Acknowledgments

      STARGAMES

      STARGAMES

      Copyright © 2022 Ron Collins

      All rights reserved

      Cover Design: © Ron Collins

      All rights reserved

      Cover Image

      © Philcold Dreamstime.com

      This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All incidents, dialog, and characters are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

      Skyfox Publishing

      ISBN-10: 1-946176-35-4

      ISBN-13: 978-1-946176-35-6

      For Mom

      I miss you

      It’s unbelievable how much you don’t know about the game you’ve been playing all your life.

      Mickey Mantle

      Introduction

      I should just simplify everything and paste my introduction to STARCRASH here. That would be cleaner, anyway — though I suppose I’d have to adjust a little here and there to update book numbers. Such is life. There is no easy way out.

      So, let’s see — just where is that Copy and Paste function when you need it?

      The last time I sat down to write one of these introductions, I laid out a story of woe about how I had been tricked by my own work, and how I first thought this story was six books but had finally given in to the fact of the matter that, no, it was seven books.

      Joke’s on me.

      Turns out Stealing the Sun will be not seven books, nor even eight. It will be nine.

      I’m pretty sure of that, anyway.

      I know how it ends, so that’s a point in my favor.

      I suppose it’s only fair that this storyline sprawled out from under my thumb. That’s the nature of life after all, the nature of people and our communities to be unpredictable. It seems only natural that things have taken paths different from what I first expected.

      That’s my excuse anyway, and it sounds good on paper. So, I’m going with it.

      I suppose I should also talk about the gap here.

      If you’ve been reading this series for any time, you know what I mean. It’s been a while since STARCRASH was published, and that was, of course, not the plan.

      Life has interrupted, though, in a plethora of ways that I’ll not completely bore you with here but that wandered through a myriad of health problems in the family, the pandemic, and a few other sundry items. You each had your own set of problems over the past few years, however, so let’s not dwell on these things.

      Instead let’s look to the future.

      Or at least the now.

      As I was finally writing this book a few things became clear.

      It was going to be messy in the way that complex things are messy. There’s a war of sorts going on, after all, and if there’s anything you learn when you look at the way wars play out, it’s that so much of war’s result comes about through random luck, or because of things done by those invisible people on the front or in the trenches, or someone just trying to get on with their lives. This book has a lot of that going on.

      I wanted to capture that.

      I think there’s a lot of that going on in the real world today, a lot of everyone’s everyday life influencing things around them, and each of those things seeming more and more likely to change someone else’s world.

      I also realized the book was going to be intricate to put together, delicate in a sense, because it had moving parts and all those parts had to play together in the end. This is something I’m enjoying about writing this series though. Interleaving stories across an entire galaxy of existence is complicated, but intriguing and satisfying in the same way putting together a jigsaw puzzle is. I didn’t want to lose anybody in the process. The characters had to be real. I was going to have to spend serious time in each of their points of view.

      Which of course is part of the fun of being a writer.

      Oh, woe is me.

      Did I succeed?

      Will the story touch you? Will it deliver you to the following book ready to dig in even further? Did what I accomplished matter?

      Everyone who reads this may answer those questions differently.

      But for me this book has made a difference. This is my transition book. The book I wrote as I was coming out of the morass of the past couple of years, and looking into a hopefully brighter future.

      With luck that future will include finishing a NINE book series.

      Fingers crossed.

      Ron Collins

      April 2022

      NEWS

      SOURCE: INFOWAVE — NEWS for the 23rd century

      TRANSMITTED: June 20, 2252, Earth Standard

      HEADLINE: Top Scientist Pentabill Dead, Ambassador Black Missing

      Florecer — Emil Oscar Pentabill, one of the system’s premier wormhole scientists and a key contributor to work that led to Star Drive technology, died today under uncertain circumstances. The scientist fell from the balcony of his high-rise hotel room after attending programming at the Galactic Council on Wormhole Physics, a gathering of the system’s biggest scientific names.

      One of those names was United Government Science Ambassador Torrance Black, an acclaimed hero of the Everguard attack, who is now being reported as missing.

      Authorities have made no official statements about the death or the disappearance except to say that every effort is being made to learn the whereabouts of the science ambassador. People inside the investigation, however, have suggested that the case is being pursued as a homicide, and that Black could be considered a person of interest.

      Pentabill, who was eighty-eight standards old at the time of his death, leaves behind a wife and three children.

      SOURCE: INFOWAVE — NEWS for the 23rd century

      TRANSMITTED: June 21, 2252, Earth Standard

      HEADLINE: Pentabill Linked to Universe Three

      Reports are circulating that Emil Oscar Pentabill, recently found dead on Florecer after falling from a hotel room balcony, was directly connected to the terrorist group Universe Three.

      Longtime friends of Pentabill have said that the scientist was a collaborator with Jorge Catazara, a professor of wormhole physics who defected to U3 years ago, but until now Pentabill had not been connected to the defector in any official way. Inside sources are now saying that United Government intelligence agencies have known Pentabill was sharing highly classified scientific data with U3 operatives for some time.

      These same reports suggest that investigators are trying to find out if the terrorist group was involved in Pentabill’s death.

      Pentabill was planning to reveal where U3 had embedded key agents inside the Solar System, an anonymous contact said. It’s likely they killed him to keep their assets safe.

      In related news, authorities have issued rewards for information that would lead to finding United Government Science Ambassador Torrance Black, who has not been seen since the attack that killed Pentabill. Evan Abade, a spokesperson for the investigation, declined to make any direct accusation of Black, but did suggest that their team is looking forward to an opportunity to speak with him.

      The more time that passes, the more concerned we are that something nefarious has occurred, Abade said.

      The spokesperson refused to speculate on what that nefarious event could be, responding only that it would be a poor investigation that ruled anything out. We’re exploring every idea at this point.

      Any person who has information that might help the investigation is encouraged to come forward.

      INTERVIEW

      Chapter 1

      Location: Arlington, Virginia

      Local Date: June 30, 2252

      Local Time: 1643

      "F eel free to have a seat and get comfortable, the towering assistant said as he gave Zina Nichols access into the office. Director Pinot will be here shortly."

      The door closed behind her, and Zina, already sensing the taste of power in the room, paused to nervously adjust her vest, gently shaking her arms to relax before entering farther. The sleeves of her dress jacket came comfortably to her wrists, covering her body art. The director wouldn’t care about the patterns there — just the opposite, in fact. But she wanted Pinot focused on things beyond her body art, so she had chosen the outfit to keep him from admiring them.

      Zina had gotten this rare slot on Pinot’s calendar by being sharp with her work, and by doing a series of favors for his assistant. It was only fifteen minutes, and it was late in the day, but she was prepared. She could get a lot done in fifteen minutes.

      The setting had been the director’s choice.

      She assumed he had chosen it for his own comfort rather than any other purpose, but she was happy to be here rather than in the conference room next door — which was an elite place that hosted the director’s more social gatherings. She thought he might have chosen that location simply to flex his muscles, to show off its view — which given its reputation would be quite intimidating, a tenth-floor scan of the Potomac displayed through floor-to-ceiling glass panels.

      That room would reek of power.

      Elite brokers would make their elite decisions in a room like that.

      She could already feel the separation from reality inherent in that room, though, a sense of certainty that comes from being so far removed from the consequences of those decisions.

      This office was better.

      There was strength here, too, but a different kind of strength. A strength that came from precision and an intense attention to detail.

      The air here was intimate.

      It made her more confident.

      Willim Pinot, director of the United Government Intelligence Office, and her boss’s boss several times removed, was a man who thought hard about things no one else even knew existed.

      The office was longer than it was wide, sparely decorated, but comfortable. Its sense of perspective made walking the path to take one of the two guest chairs — both angled perfectly to focus on the director’s throne — feel like she was traversing a tunnel.

      The desk, positioned at the exact center of the wall, was made of carbon composite, polished to a dark shine.

      The flag of the agency draped from a stand behind and to the left of the desk — real fabric rather than the simple wall displays so many other officers chose to fly.

      She was certainly being observed, so she fought the urge to examine the collection of photo plates mounted at fashionable places along the wall. The photos called to her, though. She had studied Pinot for years — starting with a paper she’d written in high school. She admired that the director had come from the lowest ranks of analysts to make his way — or cut his way — to a position where the world’s most connected people could consider him the most powerful man in the universe.

      The pictures made her flash to a memory of a late-night study session with a handful of classmates. They had all had too much fruity gin to drink, but she recalled debating a remarkably assholey classmate over whether Pinot was the United Government Intelligence Office.

      She gave an involuntary chuff at the memory.

      He wasn’t the first to underrate her and wouldn’t be the last.

      Being dismissed, or overlooked and ignored, came with being dainty, as her mother had called her, or a skinny runt as her brother had. And she was small — a hundred fifty-five centimeters, or just over five feet tall. And thin — she would top a hundred pounds only after a big meal. Her study of martial arts gave her a different perspective, though. Zina Nichols had long ago learned that her petite stature — and her sometimes awkward need to think through things before she spoke — could be put to her advantage, that she could leverage her opponent’s momentum to dislodge them.

      Whatever happened to that idiot, she thought.

      Not that it mattered.

      She was the one sitting in Willim Pinot’s office today, not whatshisname.

      Arriving at one of those two less comfortable chairs, Zina Nichols sat down and, breathing in the sheer power that permeated the area, curled her fingers around a pair of genuine leather armrests.

      Exhaling, she settled in.

      Yes, she thought. I could get used to this.

      A check of her dataclip — the tiny device attached to one ear and feeding signals through her ear canal and into her brain — said it was 1645.

      Patience, she thought.

      The door slid open.

      Chapter 2

      Location: Arlington, Virginia

      Local Date: June 30, 2252

      Local Time: 1645

      "G ood afternoon, Ms. Nichols," Pinot said as he entered.

      Zina craned her neck to watch him.

      He was a big man in both height and girth. He wheezed as he made his way around his desk, moving at a pace that gave him the appearance of being busy. An aroma of stale coffee followed him. I’m sorry to have kept you waiting.

      It’s not a problem, sir.

      The director, a man in his middle seventies, settled into the large chair behind the desk. His hair wisped over his ears, his cheeks were jowly, and the overall tone of his skin was closer to paste than peach. But his gaze was sharp, and his posture said it was time to get to business.

      I enjoy mentoring young talent, Pinot said, adjusting belly girth and sitting up. But they’re usually further along in their careers than you are. Why don’t we start with you telling me something about yourself?

      I appreciate that, Director, Zina said. And it would be an honor to be a protégé of yours, but I’m not here to ask for mentorship. I’m here to offer my service.

      Pinot’s expression was a frown.

      All right, he said. And what service might that be?

      Storyteller.

      Storyteller?

      Exactly.

      I’m afraid you’re going to have to be more specific with your plot, Pinot said with a smile that was somewhere between amused and condescending. Why would I be in need of a storyteller?

      Despite her nerves, she gave him a practiced smile that was mostly eyes.

      Because Oscar Pentabill is dead, and because you sent Ambassador Black to remove him.

      Pinot sat back into his seat as if to find a better position from which to survey her. His fingers slowly rose to his chin, elbows resting on the chair’s arm.

      Zina took satisfaction from the almost imperceptible cock of Pinot’s head that confirmed she had surprised him.

      That’s quite the large leap you’ve just made.

      Maybe it is, she said. But maybe it isn’t.

      Sitting precisely upright, Zina let an essence of Pinot’s bemusement touch her own expression and watched as calculations flowed behind his passive glaze.

      Relax, she told herself.

      Control was everything now.

      Control said confidence, and she was confident she was right.

      Ambassador Torrance Black was one of several science ambassadors, a group of mostly academia-steeped political officers, that the UG used ostensibly to help leverage resources into the most useful projects. But it was also a role that allowed that same government to keep track of those same ambassadors. Torrance Black was a unique case. He was a public hero, having long ago played a pivotal role in thwarting Universe Three’s attack on Everguard. But his propensity to push debunked theories about life in the Alpha Centauri system meant that much of the scientific community also considered him to be an academic quack of sorts.

      He had been harmless enough, but still a figure worth tracking.

      Let’s just say it’s an interesting leap for a Grade E analyst to make, Pinot finally said.

      Did paygrade make a difference when you were my age?

      Maybe it did, Pinot said. And maybe it didn’t.

      Touché.

      Pinot’s gaze grew colder then.

      Zina’s heart rate spiked, and her eyes locked with the director’s.

      It was time — put up or shut up.

      Grade E or not, I know how to sort things that matter from things that don’t. I know how to pay attention, and I’ve seen enough information that, from my position, makes it not too much of a leap to say that you assigned the science ambassador the task of removing Oscar Pentabill.

      "So. Just to be clear here. You are actually sitting in my office and accusing me of assassinating Oscar Pentabill?"

      I wouldn’t call it assassination, sir.

      "And what would you call it?"

      I’d call it … maybe … protecting the Solar System.

      Hmm. Tell me more.

      Politicians are assassinated, she said. Threats are neutralized.

      When the corner of one lip edged upward and he leaned forward in his seat, Zina knew she had him.

      Pinot regarded her silently.

      You’re interviewing for a job, aren’t you?

      That depends on whether there’s a job available.

      All right, then, young storyteller, Pinot said. Lay it out for me. Show me what things matter.

      If she hadn’t envisioned this conversation a hundred times in the quiet of her own headspace, the weight to his gaze would have smothered her. Instead, she let go of the armrests and knitted her fingers together.

      It matters, she started, that you met with Torrance Black in the days before the conference. Pinot’s expression revealed no shock that she had found record of that meeting, which she found comforting because that meant he was taking her seriously.

      And it matters that, later that day, Black’s itinerary was adjusted to attend the conference at which Pentabill met his demise.

      Why is it problematic that a science ambassador went to a convention of top physicists?

      Because the courier who arrived at Black’s compartment at the Jovian Science Center on Europa Station the night before his departure matters too.

      She paused to ensure Pinot would keep up.

      It matters that the delivery was a triple blind op. So clean that the guy delivering what he thought was takeout that night couldn’t possibly have a clue that what was in the package he dropped off would be able to kill a person outright.

      And what would it be in that package?

      Virus-delivered bionite concentrate. Built and stored in a lab on Europa under register OC9, Lot Code 1505.

      Impressive, Pinot said.

      I know I don’t really need to tell you, but I can also confirm the storage registers in that production facility no longer show one vial unaccounted for. I also know I don’t need to tell you that the concentrate was a set of RNA-activated sequences that would pump a person’s heart until it blew, then would dissolve into tissue without a trace.

      A shift came in the room’s tenor.

      Pinot breathed in a raspy breath, tsked, and shook his head in a motion informed by sarcasm.

      Until it blew? he said.

      His tone confirmed her assumption. She had won. Willim Pinot knew the work and intuition it had taken to piece together every step she had just laid out, and so he knew she could go further.

      She made a dismissive motion with one of her thin hands.

      I don’t pretend to be a doctor. Would myocardial infarction, leading to heart attack sound better?

      Much.

      No question it had to be done, though, Zina said. Oscar Pentabill was confirmed as funneling advanced work to Universe Three, and you can’t have that going on. Time was short — and I’d guess resources were even shorter. You did what you had to do.

      Which was?

      Extort the ambassador. I wouldn’t presume to guess precisely what you had on him but working backward it all adds up. Torrance Black was available, he had obvious access. He was also easy to burn if things went hot, which they clearly did — though I’m not sure exactly why yet. I’d storyboard it to say the ambassador was supposed to inject the bioweapon then get out of the picture, but something went haywire, and Pentabill went over the rail instead. She paused. It’s an unanticipated twist that Black is missing.

      Pinot’s gaze relaxed a notch. He scratched at thin stubble growing on his chin. Spy work is a shitty game.

      Black was supposed to simply go back to his life — fade into the woodwork. But now the ambassador is a high-profile person who’s gone missing, so there’s going to be a scandal. The press doesn’t have the resources they need to tie things into a real bow, but they’re already questioning things no one wants questioned. If they keep rummaging around, they’re likely to cause more than a bit of a disturbance.

      She paused again, then continued when Pinot simply gestured her to.

      You’re already working to drive the narrative. I see that, too. You’re dropping parts of the story we’ll need to make Black out as a co-conspirator with Pentabill. It’s a good thread, too. It’s got legs. I mean, it’s going to take a little work, but it can be done.

      Hence your service?

      "I particularly like the bits revisiting the facts around Everguard. That, while history blamed the attack on Everguard on a Universe Three turncoat, that same turncoat just happened to be Science Ambassador Black’s best friend throughout the entire fifteen-year flight. That’s quite an elegant trail."

      Thank you, Pinot said.

      I’d expect the last shoe to drop soon — Black, a U3 agent, killed Pentabill because he was getting ready to go double and expose other agents.

      "You are sharp."

      She shrugged. Terrorists eating their own is a good story. It’s the right play.

      And the chapter you think you can add?

      Thomas Kitchell’s, she replied.

      I see.

      Pinot sank into his chair and folded his fingers to make a steeple that he rested his chin on.

      She had not flattered Pinot. The story the UGIO was concocting was good.

      But people liked Torrance Black, bumbling or not. The director had to know, as Nichols did, exactly how thin the ice he was skating on was. The world wasn’t likely to believe Black was double agent — at least not without some help.

      Thomas Kitchell, one of Black’s closest associates since as far back as the Everguard fiasco — the kid Torrance Black had infamously taken under his wing, who had played a heroic part of his own during the Universe Three attack, and who had gone on to make a career of his own — could provide that help.

      Or not.

      Zina wanted to lay on Kitchell a little. Wanted to make that help happen. She trusted Willim Pinot to put those pieces together here in his office and make the same assessments she had.

      The director held a deep breath, then let it out in a shallow stream.

      All right, Pinot said. Let’s talk about that job opening.

      NEWS

      SOURCE: INFOWAVE — NEWS for the 23rd century

      TRANSMITTED: June 22, 2252, Earth Standard

      HEADLINE: Recent Skirmish Raises Questions

      United Government Interstellar Command officials today released declassified data describing methods their scientists were using to triangulate the possible whereabouts of the terrorist group Universe Three’s primary location.

      This action comes after recent U3 strikes against populated stations on or around Venus, Mars, Uranus, and the asteroid mining belt. Reports also note that UG scientists confirmed the reception of indecipherable but cohesive radio signals from the Alpha Centauri tri-star system. They declined, however, to connect the two.

      Given the time we’ve been involved in these skirmishes, it would not be surprising if the renegades have split into multiple outposts, said Sector Admiral Omir Lassiter. As such we’re deploying listening telescopes and other ground-based processing personnel to keep our feelers out. There is no reason to think recent signals received from Alpha Centauri are related to any increase in U3 activity.

      The UG statement was accompanied by a press kit that included technical reports and data cubes encoded with chronal frequency shift information from every science-oriented UGIS Star Drive jump over the past standard year — as well as a historical archive of signal processing algorithms analysts have been using to piece together tracking projections in the past. In hopes of increasing the fidelity of calculations, the package includes a toolkit that analysts have used to map a wide array of extrasolar radio emissions.

      We’re learning more about how Star Drive propulsion systems interact with the universe as time goes by, Admiral Lassiter said. It’s likely we can find chronal images left behind when these machines work. If that turns out to be correct, and if we can find a collection of these profiles related to U3 Star Drive missions, then we will know where to look. We encourage anyone interested in helping to dig through this data to report any interesting findings per instructions included in the kit.

      Critics argue that the UGIS approach is too lackadaisical, but Lassiter disagreed.

      "Our approach is systematic, not lackadaisical. It places certainty at the top of the priority chain rather than speed, but the citizens of the Solar System deserve safety and expect results. Space is very big, but there are still only so many places a renegade group as big as Universe Three can hide.

      The steady hand will prevail, Lassiter added. "We have professionals working on this, and the last thing we need to do is to expend Star Drive missions on frivolous exploration of what are probably random space noise.

      Time is on our side.

      ICARUS DOWN

      Chapter 3

      Apogee: 37 Gem System

      Local Date: C12/D10

      Local Time: 1/9:15

      "D on’t worry after me," Katriana Martinez had said. I’ll do whatever it takes to save my people.

      Deidra Francis rubbed fatigue from her temples as she tried not to think about those words, the last uttered by Katriana in the moments after they had said their last goodbyes.

      She’d understood.

      After everything that had happened in both their lives, Deidra understood the undying sense of loss and the deep edge of anger that could drive a person to do whatever they felt needed to be done to right a wrong. Deidra was willing to do that same thing — whatever it takes — to keep the people of Universe Three safe.

      Still, waiting was hard.

      She remembered the determined expression on Katriana’s face as Deidra had left her on the bridge of Icarus.

      Deidra was alone in her office on Apogee now, late in the morning. Wired and jittery from too much tea. Lacking sleep and feeling the stress that came from the unrelenting pressure of waiting for news she knew would come only on its own timeline.

      Professor Catazara’s team had already placed one end of a wormhole gate into a black hole, and the Icarus mission’s goal was to embed the business end of that same wormhole into Alpha Centauri A — thereby feeding the star to the ravenous singularity at the other end.

      It was a suicide mission but one that would also strip the fuel source from every Star Drive spaceship attached to the star — both their own and those of the United Government. The decision to sacrifice their own ability to make interstellar jumps to keep the UG from doing the same had been a difficult series of conversations, but the council had come down on the side of protection.

      They were losing ground to the Uglies’ production capacity.

      And, while looking for Apogee may well be like trying to find a needle in a galaxy-sized haystack, a haystack — no matter the size — was finite.

      It was only a matter of time before the Uglies found U3’s base.

      Deidra wallowed in the idea.

      They had already lost too much to UG battle cruisers. Another such attack would spell the end.

      Better no Star Drive jumps — even their own — than leave UG able to explore.

      Hence the mission.

      Which should be complete by now.

      Deidra understood they would never hear from Icarus again, but she and the rest of her staff were waiting on other metrics.

      Some noted that simply jumping their own craft would answer the question, but she felt the pragmatism of timing and coordination called for caution on that front. Without absolute certainty, U3 might time such jumps poorly. If they jumped Defender to another system, for example, and then the gate was set, they could strand even more people and another vital resource.

      So, instead, the metric was more complex, and took more time to gather through the network of intelligence operatives they had spread throughout the Solar System.

      Were the Uglies jumping?

      If that was true … if the Uglies were jumping … then the mission had failed and the loss of Katriana Martinez and the rest was for naught.

      That was the thought, anyway. Catazara’s math said the gate should work quickly.

      Her eyes felt dry now, her mind fought to focus.

      A shower would be nice, she thought as she chugged more tea.

      It didn’t help.

      A backrub would be nice, too. If there were anyone to give her one.

      As was much of the governing center, Deidra Frances’s personal office was open to the elements — or, better said, its walls were retractable and were now pulled open to reveal the settlement below. Opening those walls was something she made a practice of doing whenever the weather allowed, a form of commonsense communication she had inherited from her father, Casmir Francis, who had been the leader of Universe Three before the Uglies had killed him.

      Open doors say trust, her father had said. And trust is stronger than position.

      Deidra had grown to accept his truths even if sometimes those truths made progress difficult. She would never be as good at navigating conflicts as he had been. She was sometimes still too quick to react, and sometimes quick to anger. So, showing herself to the public could, on occasion, cause problems. But in the end, she had to agree her father had been right.

      It was good to show the people doing the hardest of the work that their leadership was accessible. Things like open walls helped people see her heart was in the right place, and that mattered.

      Besides, she liked how it felt when the walls were retracted.

      She’d been thinking of her father often the past few days, but his aura was particularly strong this morning.

      He would be proud of her.

      At least she hoped he would be.

      Under her leadership this Universe Three colony had first come to Apogee. And they had been here for long enough now to think of themselves as fully established.

      After a long and hard struggle, the colony’s agriculture was beginning to yield steady results, and sturdy shelter for the entire population was nearing completion. Life was still a battle, but resources were plentiful, and things were getting better — and so expanding the colony had become a main concern of the staff.

      She stretched, pressing her feet to the floor and leaning into the stiff back of her chair.

      A light breeze through the office brought earthy aromas of baking bread and early spring growth.

      Plantains, she thought. The aroma reminded her of plantains.

      Deidra looked to her comm system for an update that still refused to come, then gazed out to where the dome of blue sky grew purple at its edges. Though she couldn’t see it this time of day, the U3 Star Drive spacecraft Vengeance — the command Katriana Martinez had resigned to lead the Icarus mission — was in orbit over that horizon.

      Rocky ledges covered with green foliage rose to that bowl of blue-purple sky. Dark birds similar to hawks glided above the treetops searching for food.

      The clattering of tools came from below. Muted voices called out. The damped chuffing of Thunderhoofs, brought here from Atropos, came to her as they pulled material into the lots of land the community had allocated for building. The soft whine of hover carts, too, as they moved material from one building site to the next.

      The moment lifted her spirits.

      She stood and went close to the rail built to protect from a fall.

      Her office was on the fourth floor, high enough that she couldn’t make out specific words but close enough she could hear the tones of voices, which were low and muted enough to avoid being distractions but steady enough to keep her grounded.

      Kazima Yamada, Universe Three’s chief engineer, and the rest of her design team had presented this location as the prime choice specifically because of its water and fertile land, but Deidra had approved it for the same reason she had approved the construction plans for the governing center — she liked the way it made her feel.

      It’s all for a purpose, she thought as she returned to her desk.

      She had been studying another set of plans Yamada had sent her earlier this morning. She needed to get through them before this afternoon’s briefing.

      The door to her office opened.

      A woman stood in the doorway.

      We have a report, Director.

      A sudden weight came to the pit of her stomach. And?

      "Orion has jumped to Galicia."

      Deidra sat unmoving.

      Orion. The United Government’s flagship Star Drive. If Orion was still jumping, the wormhole gate embedded in Alpha Centauri A was still operational.

      Icarus? she asked.

      No word.

      I see, Deidra replied. Thank you.

      The woman left and the door whisked softly shut behind.

      Deidra sat back.

      That no word combined with Orion’s jump meant something had gone wrong.

      The black hole gate had not been engaged.

      She closed her eyes, and for an instant let images flash behind her lids. Hours spent as a young girl listening to Katriana Martinez explain both the science and the art of navigation — listening as Katriana tried to explain what it felt like to become one with her spacecraft. She recalled a night sitting on a dark riverbed, drinking wine together, and talking about her lovers Kel Melody and Jamal.

      A photocube of Katriana and her two girls, Rosa and Talia, came to her thoughts.

      Kel Melody and Jamal, too, both lost in the United Government surprise raid that had been the first domino that convinced them all that the sacrifice of Icarus was one they had to make.

      Gone.

      All of them were gone now.

      As was her father.

      As was Perigee — Ellyn Parker — a woman Deidra had never met, but who was at the heart of Deidra’s core. A person’s lifework is built on its connections to other lives, and Deidra’s traced a direct line to Ellyn Parker.

      As were countless others.

      But the strongest memory of all of them was still that of Kel Melody.

      Deidra could still recall how she smelled. The way she traced her fingertips over Deidra’s forehead and cheekbones, drawing with the lightest touch down her jawline to finish at her lips.

      The sound of voices from below broke through the grayness of her thoughts.

      People working in the village area.

      Hammer blows falling.

      The raw grate of saw on wood.

      Feeling invisible weight settle over her, Deidra glanced back to the documents on her desk, then took in as much air as her lungs would allow.

      The agenda to this afternoon’s staff session was supposed to be about her leadership group coming to consensus on the future direction of the colony’s expansion, but this news meant that agenda would have to change.

      Giving a final sigh, she toggled her intercom system.

      Yes, Director? came the reply.

      Please let the staff know I still want a session this afternoon. Ask them to check their comm queue and come prepared.

      I will.

      Thank you, Deidra said. She picked up her datapad and began to form her arguments, already feeling momentum gaining behind her.

      There would be time to mourn properly later.

      She had work to do now.

      Chapter 4

      Apogee: 37 Gem System

      Local Date: C12/D10

      Local Time: 2/1:00

      Apall hung over the group as Universe Three’s leadership gathered in the central meeting area, their mood dark and infused with something that may have been battle fatigue or might simply have been grief born of lost opportunity.

      The loss of Icarus had been expected, but the failure of the mission brought on a sense of desperation none of them had been willing to face until now.

      They had been so close.

      So near to being able to live in a world where the ominous presence of the United Government could have been lifted. Now their conversations were hushed by news that they had lost Icarus, Captain Martinez, and her skeleton crew for nothing in return.

      The muted rumble of their conversations was a steady hum in the assembly room, which was round in shape and placed at the center of the building complex. Its ceilings were tall, the room spanning two floors of the building’s four. In keeping with the core aesthetic of the facility, the roof had been retracted, leaving sunlight to pour in and create a sharp, slanted shadow that scored the wall as 37 Geminorum traced its path toward the horizon.

      It was late afternoon, growing toward evening.

      Peak heat had receded, and the air was turning crisp.

      Eyes turned toward Deidra as she entered.

      Our original agenda called for us to discuss Chief Engineer Yamada’s proposal to split the settlement, Deidra said as she took her place at the table. And we will continue to discuss those proposals when the time is better. But we’ve all seen the reports. We know what they mean. So now we need to come to a working consensus on how to react.

      Expressions around the room said everyone understood.

      Gregor Anderson cleared his throat to draw attention. His dark eyes were sunken into deep sockets, and the skin over his cheeks was loose and folded down into jowls. His bony knuckles clutched the head of a carved walking stick that let him maneuver when he wasn’t on the hover chair he used for his basic transportation. He was the first to reply, his voice old and gruff.

      "Before we come to any conclusions, we should jump Vengeance or Defender to Alpha Centauri A to confirm Icarus’s status."

      The fact that it was Gregor Anderson helped Deidra refrain from responding immediately.

      Anderson had been her father’s closest confidant. He had lost a son to the effort against the Uglies, so had a gravitas built of sacrifice. But he was also out-of-date now and he could sometimes be slow to come off his positions even when they were lost. He had earned the respect he was due, but he was no longer a person whose opinion was always well-crafted.

      Deidra had known the elder would push for such an action, though — Anderson was conservative by demeanor, and to be fair, the idea had merit.

      She glanced toward the wall where Professor Catazara sat so demurely.

      His gaze was downcast, and his dark skin seemed even darker in the shaded section of the room. The sleeves of his rumpled shirt were rolled up over his elbows. Though Catazara said the physics that defined wormhole gates suggested the transfer of matter from the star to the black hole he had tied to should be rapid, he also hedged his bet by saying he wouldn’t rule anything out.

      Given Catazara’s hedge, it was still technically possible that the Icarus mission had been a success — that the wormhole was working, but that the matter transfer from the star to the black hole could take time.

      So, on its own, Gregor’s proposal was not outlandish.

      It would be good to know exactly what had happened to Icarus.

      But there were counterarguments to consider, and Deidra knew those other angles would come up on their own if she didn’t spout them too soon. She also knew those arguments would play better coming from someone else.

      It turned out that someone else was Timmon Keyes, the man Deidra had assigned to command Vengeance after Katriana had volunteered for Icarus.

      Keyes wore simple clothes today, dark pants and a sharply cut shirt, off-white with sleeves that came to his wrists. A trim row of buttons made of polished wood closed the cuffs. The outfit spoke to his position without being a uniform in itself. He sat at the table with the clear-eyed, rigid bearing of someone who had been commanding star jumps for years — which he had. Keyes had been involved in many of Universe Three’s most dangerous raids on UG outposts.

      Timing would seem critical now, Keyes said. Running a recognizance mission in the Alpha Centauri system might well cost us initiative.

      Initiative for what? Anderson snapped back.

      Wary to avoid disrespecting the elder, Keyes picked his reply carefully.

      "I agree that a search mission to Alpha Centauri would help us understand what went wrong. But we need to consider the idea that, rather than simply failing its mission, Icarus could have met resistance. The mission could have been derailed through direct action from the United Government themselves. If that is the case, it only stands to reason that they anticipated our effort."

      And, Yamada jumped in, that would mean they could know a lot more about our situation than we think. They could be lying in wait if we return. To lose another Star Drive would cripple us.

      Anderson scowled.

      With the loss of Icarus, the Universe Three fleet consisted of only two craft capable of star jump: Defender and Vengeance. Production lines would begin working to build new craft soon, but the entire staff understood they had lost their momentum, and that the United Government’s capacity for building new machines would now always dwarf their own.

      Keyes continued Yamada’s train of thought.

      If the UG gaze is diverted toward the Alpha Centauri system, we have a moment to retaliate. If we want to seize it.

      Silence ensued.

      While the gathering fidgeted, Keyes and Yamada exchanged glances that made Deidra wonder how deeply their relationship had gone. The two had similar personalities, both contemplative and thorough. They had worked together before, too. If they had become a couple, they could make an imposing pair — or a dangerous one, depending.

      She didn’t want the session to break down into arguments yet, so she nudged the conversation.

      Those are all prudent points, Deidra said. But there are others we might want to discuss, so I suggest we move on.

      Are you asking us if we think the UG will be able to find us now? It was Deego Larsi, the group’s logistics director.

      "That’s certainly one question. Or if not now, when. But we have discussed that before — no one thinks they’ll find us now, so those are longer-term issues. There are things more relevant in the short term."

      Larsi shrugged. What else should we care about?

      Deidra turned to Dr. Catazara. Jorge?

      The aging professor pressed back into his hard-backed seat, then cocked his head like he often did when asked about obscure theories. Deidra hoped he had read her summary from earlier in the day.

      You’re worried about the other end of the gate, he said. The one we’ve already attached to the black hole. You want to know if it is going to implode on itself.

      Yes. It’s a real situation now. Not a hypothetical. We’ve still got an active remote connection to a black hole to think about, and it seems prudent to ask how long that connection can last without being paired up.

      He shrugged. The construct we cast into the black hole is stable.

      But for how long, Yamada said. And what happens when it fails?

      Catazara turned to the slim woman standing beside him.

      What do you think, Allie?

      Allie Feder curled her hands into balls for a moment, then wrapped her long fingers over her biceps. She was tall and, for her late twenties, still gangly. Her face was smooth, and she wore her bronzy red hair pushed to one side. While Catazara was the genius who first developed the ideas that led to remote gate technology, Allie Feder had done the heavy lifting when it came to both the development of the equations and their implementation. The young woman was brilliant. Still, her nerves were obvious.

      The throat tensors don’t show any singularities, she said.

      For us non-physicists, Deidra said, what does that mean?

      Feder blushed. There’s no reason to think the gate will close anytime, really.

      Never? Deidra said.

      In theory.

      And in practice? Yamada snipped from across the room.

      Ever the pragmatic engineer, Yamada had sparred with Catazara in the past, clearly finding the man as eccentric as his conceptual approach was frustrating to work with, but she had to respect his background and the reputation that comes with being right about a fundamentally world-changing theory.

      Feder was another situation all together.

      The two often had disagreements in which the gloves seemed to come off.

      There could be losses, I’d guess, Feder said.

      You’d guess?

      The young woman pressed her lips together. "I don’t know. No one has ever been inside a black hole, so any instabilities there would, by definition, be hard to predict through anything but empirical methods. The math we understand says the construct should be stable, though."

      So, can we still use it? Martin Scalese piped up for the first time.

      The black hole? Catazara said.

      Right.

      You mean can we attempt to connect it to another gate?

      Yes, Scalese said. That’s what I mean. Could we send another follow-on mission to complete the job?

      And lose a second ship? Anderson quipped, his voice gruff and gravelly.

      Scalese scowled.

      He had come through the ranks, starting in communications, then moving through engineering, construction, and security before Deidra asked him to lead that same communications team which — in Universe Three’s organizational structure — was a tough job, half tech, half spy, requiring a deep understanding of information processing and signal transfer across interstellar space as well as being able to sense the nuances of people who operated in different worlds. The role was focused on maintaining contact not only with members here on Apogee, but also with a vast network of secret agents and underground resistance fighters in the Solar System.

      Scalese had taken to it perfectly.

      His jack-of-all-trades background gave him a holistic sense of intuition that he used to bring disparate bits of information together in ways that suddenly made sense. He had a natural inclination for knowing where the team would need information from and getting contacts into those places. If U3 had anything resembling a secret intelligence service, Scalese’s group would be it.

      As they grappled with the situation, Deidra watched her staff work.

      It was a trick her father had used often — if one could call patience and confidence a trick. She was going to win. She was the director. She had been fiery when she was younger, and the staff had followed her well enough simply because she was Casmir Francis’s choice. But that could only last so long. The leadership of Universe Three was solid now. Deep and experienced. They followed her today because she had proven she would listen to them. With time and a little bending of elbows, she could get her way.

      But she understood that what she had to propose now was large enough that she needed to gauge the room before getting to it. Sitting silently, watching while the gathering absorbed the situation let her make assessments.

      We still need more information, Anderson said, unmoved. "We don’t know what happened on Icarus, and as a result we don’t know what the United Government is doing — or even if they’re doing anything."

      "Oh, they are doing something, all right," Scalese piped up.

      "And what would that something be?" Yamada said.

      I don’t know, he replied, They’re running patterns in their Star Drive flights that gives it a systemic feeling, though — they’ve been doing similar things for some time, but there’s something bigger going on now.

      How so? Deidra asked.

      They’re still stepping through systems with habitable planets, ostensibly looking to find mineable resources, but they aren’t leaving colonies behind anymore.

      No colonies? the logistics-minded Larsi asked.

      Scalese shook his head. They’ve always doubled up their missions in the past, looking to leverage anything they find. But no colonies. Even if they report rich resources. No settlements. No production facilities. Nothing. So, I have to think they have to have something else in mind.

      Something like finding us, Keyes said.

      Scalise spread both hands over the tabletop. That makes more sense than any other idea we’ve batted around. I see no other reason UG forces would be paging through habitable systems and not taking immediate advantage of them. To make matters worse, though, they’ve changed the pattern.

      A new pattern? Deidra said, quizzically. I haven’t heard anything about a new pattern.

      It’s fresh information, Scalese said, sheepishly. Whereas they were once jumping to every habitable place in a system before moving on, they’ve started picking only one or two locations.

      What does it mean?

      We’re working on it, but it takes time to get agents into the right places.

      A new voice interrupted — agricultural director, Kyleen Lian. I’d guess they’ve accelerated their search by focusing only on the most likely biological targets. That’s what I would do if I were them, anyway. Focus on places that could support large settlements rather than dig deeply into every nook and cranny. It’s how we make our decisions, after all, or at least it’s a key factor.

      Deidra took in a breath and nodded. If they don’t find us at the top one or two locations in a system, move on.

      That would make sense, Scalese replied. Especially if they can determine that with reasonable precision before getting there.

      How much could that speed their search? Anderson asked.

      We’ve always thought that it could take them years to find us with their original approach, years as in decades. But it would eventually work. Maybe this cuts it in half?

      It was an estimate no one wanted to hear, but Scalese wasn’t finished.

      Reports also say they’re still accelerating the rate at which they are building Space Drive craft, too. So… He shrugged. More spacecraft available would also serve to speed things up more.

      Deidra gazed at Catazara, then Feder.

      Could they be doing anything else?

      What do you mean? Catazara responded, his eyes becoming hooded.

      I mean, Deidra said, "what if Gregor is right to worry? What if the Uglies were lying in wait for Icarus, and the mission was interrupted? What are the chances, then, that they’ve captured the ship and that their physicists can now reverse-engineer your concept of remote gate placement?"

      Reverse engineer our device?

      Deidra nodded, growing impatient with Catazara’s trait of restating every question she asked. And if they do, could they use one of the wormhole pods we developed in such a way as to find us now?

      Catazara shrugged.

      Allie Feder wrung her hands.

      Reverse engineering is difficult, Catazara said. I doubt they could track anything back to us quickly. But I could see them working out the process of setting remote gates — and that alone would change the game.

      Feder added. Science isn’t proprietary, though. So, even if they don’t have one of our pods, someone will find that technology sometime no matter what.

      Captain Keyes cleared his throat. It all adds up to say we need to set that black hole gate now, he said. "Maybe we can find a way to automate more aspects of the process so loss of additional spacecraft can be minimized. Or maybe Dr. Catazara’s team can invent a new way to set the gate without sacrificing any more ships? I admit I don’t know what I’m talking about in that area. But we need to shut down the UG Star Drives, even if that means

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