Ghost Star Read online

  “Understood.”

  Galen pulled back hard on the steerstick and flipped the Star, pointing her in the direction opposite the arcships. Then, punching the stick forward, he fired the engines at full capacity. A lesser ship would have broken apart in this extreme move, but not the Ghost Star. Built on the sturdy bones of a military vessel and customized by Nolo, she not only had it where it counted in the engines, but was structurally reinforced to withstand just such a maneuver. Galen tore off in the opposite direction and, with a flip of the wrist, easily avoided the barrage of boltfire. The arcships peeled off and took up positions a short distance away.

  Galen puzzled over this for a moment until he realized he was now far enough out for the cruiser to use its main guns on him. In an instant, every big gun battery on the cruiser opened fire, and massive bolts of hard plasma raced toward the Ghost Star.

  Leaning on the steerstick, Galen shot the Ghost Star forward, away from the approaching bolts. Besides his ship’s speed, the only thing Galen had working in his favor was space itself—no matter how you looked at it, space was big. If I can just outrun those bolts—

  The tripspace control panel lit up, as did the plotting and guidance console. “You got it working!” said Galen.

  “Yes, I was able to borrow some processing capacity—”

  “I don’t care!”

  The bolts were almost on top of him when Galen went hard to port, narrowly avoiding their deadly impact.

  “Ha!”

  The other battle cruiser popped into normspace right in front of the Star. As it opened fire, Galen used the only move left to him and executed a ninety-degree turn that put him on a collision course with the silent but not-so-hidden presence in these proceedings: Mael. Already the dark monster pulled on the ship, trying to draw her into its crushing embrace. Galen pulled back hard on the steerstick and was about to loop back on his path when one of the huge bolts from the Lingering Death slammed into the Ghost Star, knocking out the shields and the main engines at the same time.

  Galen slapped and poked at the chair’s unresponsive command surfaces. After a moment, he slumped back. “Hex, it’s been nice knowing you.”

  Chapter Four

  Galen took a deep, frustrated breath and let it out slowly. “Great. This is great.” He bumped the steerstick and the Ghost Star rocked to one side. “Docking thrusters still work. At least I can steer us into Mael nose first.”

  Hex whirred and hummed briefly. “Entering gravity well.”

  Galen clamped his eyes shut and prepared, as best he could, to be torn into tiny, subatomic pieces. Several moments passed before Galen noticed he was still alive, and, as far as he could tell, there wasn’t any ripping, shredding, painful stretching, crying out in agony, or even what he had considered the best option: instant nothingness.

  He slowly opened his eyes. Everything inside the command pod looked exactly the same. Nothing was stretched out or otherwise altered by the ghost star’s extreme gravity. The Ghost Star was the same. Hex was the same. Galen was the same. The only difference was the truly astonishing sight visible through the viewplate.

  The ghost star was now in something that resembled the giant tube slides on the water planet Xela. Originally formed from the massive exoskeletons of long-extinct crust worms, the tubes soon benefited from the colonists of Xela’s discovery that, with the addition of running water, they made excellent one-hundred-story-tall waterslides. Nolo had taken the crew there as a reward after a particularly grueling smuggling run, and the memories of the visit had stuck with Galen ever since. What he was looking at now was like that yet so much more. This tube was made out of some sort of energy. It had the glow of a plasma bolt, and its walls seemed to have some sort of internal churning effect that was disorienting if Galen stared at them much. “I can’t tell if I should be happy or start crying. I think there’s still a chance we might get, uh, dead.”

  “Without access to the external sensors, I cannot give you much more than a rudimentary analysis of what we are viewing.”

  “I’ll take it,” said Galen. “My brain needs something to hang on to.”

  “It appears we are in a plasma tube, which is preventing us from being pulled into Mael itself.”

  “You mean a wormhole?”

  “In a way, yes, but more than that. This tube is being generated . . . by an unknown source. It also appears we are picking up speed. I would advise using the control you have over the docking thrusters to keep the Ghost Star from colliding into the tube walls.”

  “Right.” Galen grabbed the steerstick and guided the Ghost Star away from the swirling walls and into the center of the tube, keeping an eye on the jagged peaks. On top of that, the tube itself was getting narrower as they went along. Okay, this is not good, thought Galen as a portion of the ship’s belly came in contact with the tube wall and the whole craft filled with a high-pitched metallic screech.

  Hex disappeared into the passageway. “I will go back to the node and see if I can restore main engine control.”

  “Hurry! These thrusters suck for steering.”

  A moment later, Hex uttered the three most beautiful words Galen had heard in his young life. “Engaging main engines.”

  The vessel’s engines fired up, and the ship screamed forward, changing Galen’s problem from not having enough power to having way too much power in the blink of an eye. “Hold on, Hex!”

  Then it happened.

  Chapter Five

  A small chime went off in his head, and for the next few moments, Galen’s perception of reality shifted to a state he’d never experienced before. Everything but Galen slowed down. Way down. As in barely moving. He glanced around the command pod and could see the control panels blinking lazily instead of at their usual frantic pace. Turning his attention back to the viewplate, Galen found he now had total control over where the ship was headed. He plotted out his course and made adjustments in direction as easily as if he were taking his time walking down a long, straight passageway. To anyone watching from outside, the ship would appear to be narrowly missing each of the countless peaks and valley floors of the plasma tube by less than a hair’s width.

  For Galen, the whole experience was calm, crystal clear, and intensely satisfying. Then, seemingly as soon as he’d entered this bizarre state, the walls of the tunnel grew smooth and wide again, and with another chime everything sped up to everyday normal speed. Galen snapped out of the dream and pulled back on the steerstick to avoid crashing head-on into a massive object—a planet—that now filled the viewplate. Green and brown with large patches of open water and even a snow-capped mountain range, it was nothing less than stunningly beautiful.

  “Uh, Hex, there’s something you should see.”

  Moments later, with Hex by his side, Galen eased the Ghost Star into orbit around the newfound planet. “Just so I’m clear, none of this makes any sense, right? And by ‘this’ I mean a beautiful planet at the end of a plasma tube in the gravity well of a ghost star.”

  “That is correct, Captain Bray.”

  “Is there any way you can get the scanners back online? I’d sure like to know what’s down there before I land.”

  Hex extended an eyestalk and focused on the planet’s surface.

  “It appears there are, or were at one time, intelligent life forms on this planet.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “I observe roads, small towns, villages spread out over the major land masses below us.”

  Galen pressed his nose against the viewplate. “I can’t see anything.”

  “My optics are vastly superior to that of Terrans and Ruam.”

  “Stop showing off.”

  The Ghost Star completed one full orbit around the planet’s equator before Hex made his report. “Equatorial scan indicates there are several hundred small villages and one large town on the planet.”

  “Let’s head for the town.”

  Hex paused. “I do not recall your ever doing a landing maneuver be
fore, even in practice.”

  “First time for everything, I guess.”

  With Hex’s help, Galen guided the Ghost Star on a slow descent through the planet’s upper atmosphere and down to the surface.

  As they drew near the ground, Hex crossed to a heavy-duty gear box and engaged the hand crank. “I am manually lowering the landing gear,” said the bot. After a few moments of cranking, a loud clunking noise reverberated through the ship’s hull. “Landing gear has been lowered and locked into place, Captain Bray.”

  “Thanks. Point your eyeball out the viewplate and tell me when I’m getting—” Thud! The ship hit the ground with bone-jarring suddenness. “Close.”

  Galen sat still, grateful he hadn’t slammed the ship into a mountain or plunged it into a lake. After a moment, he unbuckled and climbed out of the command chair before taking a look out the viewplate. There was nothing particularly odd or alien. Plants resembling plants he’d seen in other parts of the Rex Cloud dotted the landscape—the usual grasses, small shrubs, and, off in the near distance, a stand of ordinary-looking trees. Galen had learned in his travels with Nolo that, although life wasn’t too terribly common in the Rex, it did have a similar appearance from one place to the next—both plants and animals alike. All the inhabitable planets had things that looked like flighters, stalkers, and shellers. They may have different spot or stripe patterns and have fur or be furless, but in general they all, more or less, looked the same. That included any sentient beings a planet might have. They tended to be bipedal and descended from tree-dwelling creatures. It was like a universal lifeform template had been handed out by the cosmos.

  Galen unbuckled his seat restraints. “At least we found a good place to bury everyone.”

  “I would be honored if you would allow me to assist with the burial.”

  Galen rubbed his temple. “Sure, I’ll look around for a good spot.”

  “We would best be served by my staying here and working on the ship’s systems in need of repair and reactivation. The Ghost Star took quite a beating during our descent. One moment.” Hex extended an appendage to the viewplate and held it there. “External environment is within acceptable limits.”

  “Good. Open the door, please.”

  Hex connected to the command pod access door and manually cranked it open. A blast of fresh air rushed in as the pressure equalized.

  Galen breathed deeply. “The air smells good—like living things, I guess.” He stepped out of the pod and did a few stretches. The sky was bright blue, with a few scattered clouds. It was bright enough to make Galen squint and wish he had eyeshades. Then, remembering, he walked back into the pod.

  “Back so soon?” said Hex, tinkering with one of the consoles.

  “It’s bright out there. Where’s all that light coming from?”

  Hex paused. “The light is pulled in by Mael from nearby stars. In other words, the entire planet is bathed in the stolen light of the ghost star’s neighbors.”

  “So there’s no night and day?”

  “That is correct.”

  “Wow.” Galen crossed to the command chair and popped open one of the side compartments, pulling out his dad’s eyeshades, the ones Nolo had always worn whenever he went planetside. Galen cradled them briefly, then slipped them on. “That’s what I call impressive.”

  **

  Trem glared at the dour woman in white who watched her eat. They’d gone through six cycles of Trem refusing food, getting stunned by the guard, and being fed through a tube before she finally gave up and agreed to eat solid food.

  “See? It’s not that hard to cooperate, is it?” said the dour woman.

  Trem said nothing and continued to chew on what was most likely meat.

  “Not much of a talker anymore, are you?” said the guard who smirked and leaned against the doorway.

  Trem turned toward him and stared for a moment before faking a jump. The move worked perfectly as the startled guard fell backward and fired a stun dart into the back wall of the cell. The dour woman shook her head and sighed.

  Trem remembered something her father used to say and smiled. You don’t always have to use your mouth to do your talking.

  Chapter Six

  Galen stepped out of the Ghost Star and paused. Which way? He glanced at the digital compass built into his wrist chronometer and saw it uselessly jumping around. If the planet had a true north, its magnetic pull was completely overwhelmed by outside forces. Probably something to do with the tube or Mael, he thought.

  Working his way to the crest of a small hill, he paused again to take in the surrounding area. The hill he was on might make a nice burial site. A pleasant breeze blew, and there was a small stand of trees to one side. A broad plain lay out before him, leading down to a distant river barely visible through the haze. Yeah, this will do. Father will like it here. He walked toward the town, activating his comlink as he went. “I found a good place to bury my father and the crew. Real pretty view.”

  “Have you chosen a time?”

  “Maybe after I get some rest. I’m not sure I’m up for it right now,” said Galen.

  “I understand.”

  “In the meantime, I’m going to take a quick walk toward the town.”

  “I strongly advise against that, Captain Bray. Until I get the Ghost Star’s sensors back online, we have no idea what sort of threats are out there.”

  “Will you stop being such a worrier?” said Galen. “I think if there was anything dangerous on this planet, it would have paid us a visit by now.”

  “Your naïve sense of confidence is both annoying and potentially hazardous. I ask that you wait for me to accompany you. If you were not my captain, I would demand it.”

  “Nah, I’m in the mood to do some exploring and—” No sooner had he taken another step than he was surrounded by six bipedal figures and an equal number of security bots who rose out of the tall grass. The bipeds were dressed in battle armor Galen had never seen before and armed with projectile and bladed weapons. The bots resembled Hex but appeared more advanced and menacing.

  “Snat!” said Galen, coming to an abrupt stop and wishing he hadn’t left his knife back on the Star.

  One of the figures gestured forcefully at him and shouted a command in a language completely alien to Galen’s ears.

  “What is wrong?” said Hex over the com.

  “A bunch of people with guns and bots appeared out of nowhere and surrounded me,” whispered Galen.

  “Understood.”

  The armored figure who had yelled at him before did so again, and more forcefully this time. It appeared he wanted Galen to get down on the ground, so that’s what Galen did, sinking to his knees and putting his hands above his head for that extra touch of “Relax, I’m not going to try anything.”

  The leader stepped forward and undid the latch on his battle helmet, which hissed when the seal was broken. Upon removing it, the he was revealed to be a she, a serious-looking woman in her forties.

  “You speak trade tongue,” said the woman in lightly accented Standard.

  “Okay,” said Galen. “If you say so.”

  “Do you also speak Ruam?”

  “Uh, no. No one speaks Ruam anymore. It’s kind of forbidden.”

  The leader exchanged more glances with the others, who, by now, had also taken off their helmets. Their body language said they’d relaxed, but Galen also noticed every gun was still pointed at him.

  “I mean my dad knew a few Ruam words, but he didn’t speak it. At least I don’t think he did.”

  “How did you get here?” said the leader.

  “I flew my ship in. She’s called the Ghost Star and—”

  “I mean, by what method were you able to bring your ship to the surface of Dob? Only a pilot of a particular skill set could steer a craft through the tube,” said the woman.

  “No one’s supposed to know where the entrance is either. At least, not anymore,” said another of the soldiers, a young man not much older than Gale
n, with kind eyes and a shaved head. The leader glared at him, and he lowered his gaze. “Sorry.”

  “I found the tube by accident. An Imperium cruiser knocked out our main thrusters, and we thought we were getting sucked into the ghost star. We call it Mael.”

  “As do we,” said the leader.

  “The next thing I knew, we were in the tube. I used the docking thrusters to steer until Hex, my bot, fixed the mains. Then we were going too fast but some kind of bell went off in my head and everything slowed down, and then we were orbiting this planet.”

  A battle cry filled the air. It was Hex speeding toward them. The soldiers stared calmly while the bots trained their weapons on Hex. “Don’t kill him!” shouted Galen.

  All but one of the bots lowered their guns, and that one shot a focused electromagnetic pulse that dropped Hex to the ground. The soldiers turned toward Galen, shocked looks on their faces. “He has the command tone,” said one soldier to another. The leader shouted an order in their strange language, and the six bots raced off in the direction of the town while the locals, now tense again, pointed their weapons at Galen.

  “Again, I’ll have to take your word,” said Galen. “Whatever ‘command tone’ is.”

  “The bots obeyed your order not to kill,” said the leader.

  “So . . . ?”

  “They shouldn’t have.”

  “Oh.”

  The leader stared at him for a long moment. “Who are you?”

  Galen looked each of the soldiers in the eye and got the distinct feeling his life depended on how he answered this seemingly simple question. The soldiers stepped back as he stood and removed his eyeshades. Taking a deep breath, Galen stiffened his spine and looked the leader right in the eye. “I am Galen Bray, son of Nolo and Bartrice Bray.”

  As shocked as the soldiers were by his command of their bots, they were even more astounded by this new piece of information. “He lies!” said one of them.