Farthest Reach Read online

  The winds kept breaking apart as they encountered more and more foliage. By the time we reached the Phoenix, they were nowhere in sight.

  ***

  “We need to go,” Spin said.

  It was the third time she’d said that since we’d established orbit and I was already a little sick of hearing it.

  “We’re not leaving, Spin. Get that straight,” I said. I was doing my best calm, collected captain voice, but I think it might have had some cracks in it.

  “Why the vacc not? You just told me the wind eats people on that planet. That immediately takes it off my ‘places to visit before I die’ list, Brace.”

  “We’re not leaving. We don’t leave crew behind. That’s an order.”

  “Leave who behind?” Spin said, her voice rising. “Look, I’m truly sorry. I know you traveled with those guys for a long time. I had love for them too, but you said they dissolved. Dissolved, Brace. There’s nothing left to go back for.”

  It was times like that when I really missed my military days. On a Commonwealth Fleet ship, once the captain gave an order, that was the end of it. That order was either followed or the uncooperative party suffered for it. On a civilian ship, though, things weren’t quite as structured.

  “Look, we don’t know that,” I said.

  “You just said that, Brace. ‘They kind of dissolved,’ were your exact words.”

  “All right, yes, but you didn’t let me finish. Then we saw their faces again.”

  “Their dissolved faces?”

  “No,” I said. Then, “Well, sort of. Bliss, help me out here.”

  We both looked at her. She’d been sitting in silence the whole time Spin and I had been arguing and now she looked more torn than I’d ever seen her before. Her eyes met mine and I suddenly felt a little less sure of my position.

  “Bliss,” I said, “come on. I know you saw them.”

  She shook her head. “I saw something in that mess and, yes, they could have been faces. But I’d also just watched Vorz and Cutter die. I’m not sure what you’re hoping to accomplish, Brace. What we saw doesn’t mean they’re alive.”

  “It doesn’t mean they aren’t either. We have to try to find out.”

  “Find out what?” Spin said, exasperated. “They were disintegrated. You said so yourself.”

  I held up a closed fist and raised a finger as I started ticking off my points.

  “One, that whole ESD storm— if that’s really what it was— was a complete anomaly in that atmosphere. Two, the damn thing actually accelerated and changed course to catch Vorz and Cutter. Natural storms don’t do that. Three, I’ve only ever heard of experimental weapons that could so completely discorporate a sentient as what I saw down there, and they all required substantial power packs. Certainly nothing that came in wind form. The more I think about what I saw, the more I’m convinced that there’s much more here than meets the eye.”

  “Okay, fine,” Spin said. “Say you’re right. What the vacc are we supposed to do about it? We’re a cargo ship, not a research vessel.”

  “Oh, come on,” I said. “We’re a cargo ship that’s spent more time in The Black than anyone else. You both have been with this crew long enough to know that chasing rumors and rolling the dice on what we don’t know is what we do on this ship. That’s why we’ve earned the reputation we have. With that in mind, I want to remind you that it’s my ship. I’m the captain and I say we’re going to stay in a locked orbit with those ground coordinates, run every scan that we can, and tear into whatever it was we managed to load on the roller for some clue as to what we’re dealing with. We’re going to do that until we’re so low on supplies that we have no choice but to head back to Deadrock. That is the order.”

  “Every day we spend out here cuts into our profit and we’re already light on the return cargo,” Spin said. “I—”

  “Spin,” Bliss said, her voice calm but hard, “stop it. He’s right. We signed on to this crew with the agreement that we follow Brace’s lead whether we agreed with him or not. We honor the deal, Spin.”

  “But—”

  “No buts, Spin. We honor the deal.”

  I could see the war between pragmatism and the desire to be part of a team warring on Spin’s face. We stayed like that for what seemed like minutes before she shook her head.

  “Fine, but this is a waste of time.”

  “You think so?” I said. “Well, you start digging through whatever those relics in the cargo are and we’ll start scanning. Maybe you’ll find what you need to prove that.”

  She shot me a sullen glare and headed for the main hold. Once she was gone, Bliss looked at me and said, “I really hope you’re right about this, lover.”

  I only nodded. “Me too.”

  Turns out, I was.

  ***

  “It took us nearly a week,” I said, leaning back a little in my chair and polishing off my second drink, “and it was Spin who finally cracked it.”

  It was about two weeks later and we were back at Deadrock Station and Sparrow’s Tavern, sitting across the table from Cassandra Var. Her usual professionally friendly expression had grown angrier as I told her more of the story. Bliss was sitting next to me and matching Var glare for glare.

  “And what, exactly, did she crack?” Var asked, her tone cold and controlled.

  “The anomaly,” I said. “It read like an ESD storm on the roller’s scans, looked like an ESD storm from the ground, and moved like an ESD storm until it acquired a target.”

  “Storms do not ‘acquire targets.’”

  “No, they do not. Which is why, when we ran some deeper scans with the Phoenix, we discovered that the anomaly was actually a really out-of-control cloud of very specifically designed nanobots. Spin was over the moon at the tech, wasn’t she, Bliss?”

  “She was,” Bliss said, smiling sweetly. “Just went on and on about it.”

  “Right,” I said. “I mean, it was remarkable technology. A cloud of nanites that could swarm over sentient, biological matter and perform a partial hyperspace shift. Not completely into hyperspace, mind you, but just enough to put the target into a kind of stasis, frozen in time and completely untouchable by either side of the hyperspace barrier. Powered by a transmission source deep underground, no less. I mean, I’m just a pilot, so a lot of the science goes right over me but still, pretty damned impressive, I think.”

  “Except for that one thing,” Bliss said.

  “Yeah, except for that. I’ll bet you already know what that was, though, don’t you, Ms. Var?”

  “Captain Cordova, where is my cargo?” Var said, looking distinctly uncomfortable.

  “They couldn’t control it,” I said, ignoring her question. “The sentients who created it? You know, the ones that left that pristine city behind? I mean, I get why they created it in the first place. Your story about the sudden storm was a good one. Thanks to some weird gravity anomalies with their moon, those folks had to deal with a nasty season of storms that would last for months back to back. I mean, as solutions for bad weather goes, putting yourself into stasis for a few months seems extreme to me, but who am I to judge another culture, right? Anyway, they lost control and the damned thing just ran rampant across the planet. It spent who knows how long just sucking up every living critter it could find.”

  “Now, lover,” Bliss said, “don’t keep telling her what she already knows.”

  “You’re right,” I said to Bliss. “That’s rude.”

  I leaned across the table and locked eyes with Var. “Here’s something you don’t know yet. Spin figured out a way to tap in to the transmission power signal and use that to gain access to the nano swarm’s operational code.”

  Var’s face paled.

  “It took a couple of days for her to decipher it enough to get a good read on it, but she’s really good at her job and very, very persistent when her curiosity is up. She managed to reverse the swarm’s instructions, order it to shift all the sentients it had taken back into
plainspace in the reverse order it had taken them, right in the same place it had taken them. It might not be done by now, but when we left the system, it had already deposited several thousand back where they belong.”

  “But that’s not the best part,” Bliss said.

  “No, it is not. When Vorz and Cutter were shifted back, three other sentients showed up in roughly the same spot they did. It turns out that they were the three scientists from your original expedition, and they had already figured most of this out. In fact, they were attempting to do exactly what Spin ended up doing when the nanoswarm got them.”

  Var shifted nervously in her seat. I thought I saw a hint of sweat forming in her perfectly plucked eyebrows.

  “Except, that’s not really what happened. Is it, Cassandra?” Bliss said, picking up the story and pronouncing the woman’s name like she didn’t care for the taste. “No, when the captain and crew that your people sent heard about what you’d discovered, they didn’t want the people in stasis released. So your boys just tossed those scientists into the storm, easy as anything. After all, they wanted the swarm to be contained and controlled so they could use it for themselves.”

  “Right,” I said. “I mean, how great would it be to have a nanoswarm that you could just release into a population and have it suck up all the inhabitants in record time with next to no effort on your part?”

  “Not to mention it coming preloaded with thousands of sentients to get you started,” Bliss said.

  “Bonus,” I said, giving Var my best fake grin. It only lasted a second before I let my very real disgusted and angry expression take over. “Well, it’s only really a bonus if you happen to be a slaver like Ms. Var and her employers.”

  “That’s true,” Bliss said, adding her glare to my own.

  Var was very still and very quiet for a few seconds. Her eyes darted about the room as though she were being hunted.

  “That cargo was nothing but technology and control components that your bosses thought would give them a means to gather slave labor at a sickening rate. By hiring the Phoenix, you effectively tried to make me and my crew part of that atrocity. That, Ms. Var, puts you firmly and permanently on my bad side.”

  She swallowed hard. “I have made assurances to my employers, Captain. I desperately need that cargo.”

  “That cargo,” I said, feeling my teeth tighten together, “is with the sentients who created it, where it belongs. So are the scientists you hired. But that’s okay. Since they’re commonwealth citizens, there’s already a fleet security cruiser on its way to pick them up. I’m sure they’ll have plenty to talk about on the trip back.”

  Var’s lip quivered, and for second, I thought she might cry. Instead, she drew in a nervous breath and rose quickly, bumping the table and sloshing our drinks.

  “You’re making a mistake, Cordova,” she said. “My employers are not prone to forgiveness and their memories are long.”

  I waved a dismissive hand. “Hunt me to the ends of the galaxy, make me suffer, kill me dead, blah-blah-blah. It’s far from the first time I’ve heard that. Now get out of my sight before I decide to let Bliss shoot you.”

  “Oh, in that case, stay and have another drink,” Bliss said, the sweet smile back on her face.

  Var spared her a moment’s glance and then hurried from Sparrow’s as fast as she could without running.

  When she was gone, Bliss leaned against me. “You realize that was a whole lot of trouble for next to no profit, right? And that’s assuming we even get to collect the reward for outing a bunch of slavers.”

  “I know,” I said, glancing over at the bar. Spin, Cutter, and Vorz all sat there, laughing over something one of them had said. Vorz caught my eye, grinned, and gestured for us to join them.

  “The thing is, m’love,” I said, “I’d much rather have a ship with no fuel than a ship with no soul.”

  THE END

  © Copyright 2019 by C.Steven Manley

  About the Author

  C.Steven Manley

  C.Steven Manley lives in the wilds of Huntsville, Alabama where he writes, tries in vain to keep up with his kids, and probably drinks too much. He is the author of The Paragons Trilogy, The Pickman Files dark urban fantasy series, and The Brace Cordova space opera series. You can find out more at www.cstevenmanley.net

  Windham Rex

  Kevin G Summers

  2992. The distress call arrived three days ago, when the starship Gilead was all the way on the other side of her barony. She was orbiting Oriza, and the crew was enjoying a bit of shore leave, when Governor Morrison’s message reached the great old ship.

  “Avalon has been attacked by reavers. It’s... it’s bad. A lot of men are dead, but the worst part... they took our children. Please, I know things haven’t been good between us since your father passed away, since... I’m begging you, Captain Manthus, please help us.”

  Passed away.

  Was that what you called it when a bunch of religious fanatics blew themselves up and took your father along with them? Windham Manthus had been dealing with the emptiness of his father’s sudden death ever since, trying to fill up that hole with work, but the void was infinite and the work felt meaningless even in the best of times. Restock the ship... broker a settlement between two disparate worlds... monitor the Affiliation just in case they decide to invade the outer baronies... he had been trained for this life, but something about it left Windham feeling unsettled—unsatisfied.

  Governor Morrison wasn’t one of those born politicians—soft and fanatical without ever having done an honest day’s work in their lives. He was well muscled under a sensible suit, and his skin was perpetually tanned from years of working in the sun. Morrison had suspended a decades-old agreement with Gilead when Windham’s father was killed and began negotiations with the starship Jericho, which operated in an adjacent barony. It was treachery, plain and simple, and the two starships had nearly come to blows over the situation a number of times since Windham had taken over his father’s command. Apparently Jericho wasn’t doing such a good job of protecting the colony on Cheron-4 if reavers were landing on the planet and kidnapping children.

  Windham had half a mind to let Governor Morrison and the people of Avalon lie in the bed they had made, but the thought of those poor children in the hands of space pirates was just too much for the young captain. Whatever their parents and democratically elected officials had done, those children were innocent and didn’t deserve the lives of slavery and prostitution that lay before them if their present situation wasn’t corrected immediately. Windham had been coming to Cheron-4 since he was a child himself, and even though the governor had broken off the old treaty, Manthus still felt a measure of responsibility for these people who had once been under his protection. He couldn’t just stand by and let this happen. And so he gave the order to recall the crew and head toward Cheron-4 at top speed.

  The governor’s palace in Avalon wasn’t much to look at. It was adequate, functional, perhaps even extravagant compared to the other buildings in town, but it was just brick and wood, with a copper roof slowly turning green in the elements. Windham had been to Elden-2, the jewel of the outer baronies, and Avalon paled in comparison. Still, there was something about this agrarian outpost that spoke to him. If fate had dealt him a different set of cards, he could see himself living out his life on a world like this. Milking cows and slaughtering hogs and never worrying about interstellar politics or if his crew was going to mutiny and put a knife in his back. There was a certain appeal to simplicity, but things hadn’t worked out like that, and so he entered the governor’s palace as the captain of the starship Gilead, and the guards stood at attention as he passed through the doors.

  Charles Morrison was in his office when Windham arrived. His face was a mask of desperation as he stood and extended a hand over his desk. Windham took the governor’s hand and they shook heartily. Could the damage that had been done between Avalon and Gilead be repaired? The captain hoped that the answer was
yes.

  Once the formalities were out of the way, they got down to business.

  “What happened here?” Windham asked. “In your distress call you mentioned reavers...”

  Morrison’s eyes went dark. “I made the mistake of believing that Captain Gaines would have Jericho here in a heartbeat at the first sign of trouble, but when the shit hit the fan they were nowhere to be found.”

  Windham tried not to look too smug at this acknowledgement. After the collapse of the Planetary Union, most of the colonized systems were broken up into baronies under the protection of various starships or small fleets. The inner baronies, those closest to Earth, were endlessly trying to reestablish the republic they had lost, but the universe had seemingly moved on. In the outer baronies, however, human civilization was practically medieval. Gilead was ruled by a monarch whose pedigree stretched back nearly five hundred years. Things were much the same on the starship Jericho, and the two huge city ships had been both allies and enemies over the centuries. Right now, things weren’t good between them, and while Windham would never rejoice over a bunch of kids being kidnapped and sold into slavery, he couldn’t help but recognize this opportunity to restore Cheron-4 to Gilead’s barony.

  “Space is vast,” said the young captain. “It took Gilead three days to get here once we received your call, and Jericho is even farther away.”

  The governor nodded somberly. “Our children have been gone now for almost a week, and I fear...” His voice cracked, and Windham sensed that Morrison was not simply expressing the worries of a politician whose job was on the line.

  “My own daughter, Eowyn, was also taken during the raid. She...” he paused for a long moment, his mind no doubt going to the dark places where fear and hopelessness feed on a man’s soul. “They’re out there somewhere, and who knows what those reaver bastards are doing to them. It’s my fault, Captain Manthus. I never should have renounced our treaty.”