Scattered Suns (2 page)

Chapter 1 — ADMIRAL LEV STROMO

Though Admiral Stromo was the ranking officer aboard the prowling Manta cruiser, he let acting commander Elly Ramirez make the day-to-day decisions. It generally worked out better that way. Stromo didn’t feel the need to throw his weight around, and he liked to keep someone handy to take the fall if anything went wrong.

For decades in the Earth Defense Forces, he had made a career out of delegating responsibility. He rarely participated in active field operations—he hadn’t joined the EDF just to put his own butt on the line!—but sometimes it was useful to do so. Maybe the unqualified success of crushing the main Roamer complex of Rendezvous would be enough to rehabilitate his image as an obsolete desk commander.

Even so, right now Stromo longed to be back at his desk in a comfortable military base on Earth, or at the very least Mars. He’d never counted on a devastating war with powerful aliens who lived in the cores of gas-giant planets; for that matter, he hadn’t imagined a conflict with a ragtag bunch of space gypsies, either.

As the Roamer hunt continued for its second week, Stromo watched the newer EDF officers cut their teeth on real line duty. The sooner this fresh crop of battle commanders proved themselves out in the field, the sooner Stromo could get back to his much-preferred Grid 0 liaison duties. With his too-obvious potbelly and his occasional digestive problems, he wasn’t cut out for this.

“Do we have any valid tactical data on our next target, Commander Ramirez?” he asked, though he had asked the question before. “What’s the place called again?”

“Hhrenni, sir.”

“Sounds like a horse sneezing.”

“The name comes from old Ildiran starcharts, sir. The EDF has no up-to-date recon, though.”

A frown tugged down his jowly cheeks. “A failure in our intelligence and surveillance, you think?”

“Never any need before, Admiral. It’s a crappy star system, without many resources.” Ramirez called up long-range images and dotted-line diagrams showing their best guess of where the secret base might lie. “Unconfirmed evidence of a cluster of settlement domes in the asteroids. Roamers seem to enjoy living in rubble, sir.”

“If they like rubble so much, then let’s give them more of it.” He smiled. “Just like we did at Rendezvous.”

Ever since the disorderly clans had willfully cut off all trade with the Terran Hanseatic League, Chairman Basil Wenceslas had attempted several legitimate—and thus far ineffective—responses. Though Roamers had been hit as hard as anyone by hydrogue attacks, they refused to cooperate against a shared enemy, refused to provide vital stardrive fuel, refused to follow perfectly reasonable instructions. The Hansa couldn’t tolerate that.

Thus, to demonstrate how serious the matter was, the EDF had destroyed a Roamer fuel-transfer station. Just as an example, a bit of bluster, but enough to make the clans see they didn’t have a chance against the powerful Earth military. Instead of cowing the Roamers, this action had only served to renew their ridiculous defiance. The space gypsies became even more intractable, which forced the Chairman to take the unprecedented step of declaring outright war against them, for the good of humanity.

If the Roamers had been reasonable people, the war should have lasted no longer than an hour. Alas, it hadn’t turned out that way.

A week ago, Stromo had led the punitive attack that destroyed Rendezvous, and the clans had scampered away, making it necessary for all grid admirals to waste more time and effort chasing them down. It was maddening! Stromo and his counterparts had orders to seek out Roamer infestations, confiscate any of their goods that might be useful for the war effort, and somehow bring those people in line. Sooner or later, they would have to sue for peace.

Ramirez looked up at him from her command chair, her full lips showing no smile, her face cool, her regulation-short dark hair perfectly in place. “Would you like to assume operational oversight as we approach, Admiral? Or should I continue?”

“You’re doing just fine, Commander Ramirez.” Although he suspected she didn’t like him very much, she was an excellent pilot and navigator, who had been promoted rapidly, just like many young officers during the devastating hydrogue war. “Can we get better magnification on the screen? I want to have a look at our target.”

“The first wave of Remora scouts have set up relay stations, and imagery is coming through now.”

The scattered rubble around Hhrenni looked like a handful of oversized gravel that someone had tossed against the blackness of space. From a distance, the drifting rocks looked unremarkable, but the distribution of metals and the albedo profile of some geometrical objects were a dead giveaway: An uncharted human settlement was hidden there.
Roamers.

“There they are, just as we thought.” He rubbed his chin. “All right, let’s head forward and have a look at this rats’ nest. Power up fore and aft jazer banks and load primary projectile launchers. Tell our Remoras to intercept any ships that try to escape.” He gestured toward the screen. “Onward, in the name of the King, and so on...”

As the EDF ships swooped in, the audacity of the clans became more obvious. A secret base indeed! Transparent domes dotted the asteroids like pus-filled blisters. Hanging suspended above them at gravitationally stable points, thin arrays of solar mirrors directed sunlight through the shadows to illuminate and provide energy to the dome settlements. Artificial stations orbited at various distances like gnats. Inflatable storage chambers, perhaps?

“Look at all that! Those Roachers are certainly ambitious.”

“They have a lot of energy and ingenuity,” Ramirez said, not sounding overly eager. “Commander Tamblyn proved that often enough.”

Stromo frowned. Not long ago this very Manta had been commanded by Tasia Tamblyn, who, because of her Roamer connections, was reassigned to less critical duties before the strike against Rendezvous. Was Ramirez demonstrating loyalty to her former commander? He’d have thought she’d be pleased with her own promotion.

“The clans should channel that creative enthusiasm to help all mankind, not just themselves.” Surveying the asteroid complex, with its light-filled domes and expansive mirrors, he shook his head. “Why can’t they just live on planets like everyone else?”

Though every operation had gone against them so far, the gypsies showed no signs of bowing to authority. They had scattered like wildly fired shotgun pellets, which the Hansa considered a victory, of course. Divide and conquer. With the Roamers leaderless and broken, it should have been easy to bring them back into the fold...but they were as hard to catch and tame as angry, wet house cats. Since Stromo had spent his life in military service, such anarchy made his stomach queasy. “Hooligans.”

When they were unified under Speaker Peroni, he supposed the clans had felt obligated to show some kind of stubborn backbone. Now, though, with their government center destroyed, who would speak for them? Who had the authority to negotiate on their behalf?
Somebody
had to sign a surrender order and call for the others to turn themselves in and get back to work. It would take a hell of a long time to root out all the squalid little settlements like this one.

“We’ve detected four ships, Admiral. Nothing large enough to threaten us. None of the facilities here look like they’ll cause any problems.”

“Didn’t expect any.” Stromo cracked his knuckles.

Detailed projections of asteroid paths and accurate representations of the domed settlements appeared on the screen. Ramirez stared at the tactical projections and tucked a strand of dark hair behind her right ear. Something was clearly bothering the young commander. “Admiral...permission to speak freely?”

Stromo steeled himself. That was always a bad preface to a conversation. But since Ramirez had spoken her question aloud in front of the rest of the bridge crew, he had no choice but to respond. “Be quick about it, Commander. We have an operation to run.”

“If I might ask, what do we really expect to get out of this? Earlier, when we hit Hurricane Depot and Rendezvous, our objective was to scare the Roamers into lifting their ekti embargo. But if we keep increasing their hatred toward us, they’ll never cooperate. If we wreck them, how will they ever be in a position to be viable trading partners again?”

“That’s not the point anymore. The Hansa will bypass the Roamers, and they’ll be left out alone in cold space. We’ve already got one full-fledged cloud harvester producing ekti for us on Qronha 3, and you can bet there’ll be others.” When Ramirez still looked skeptical, he decided it was best to distract the bridge crew. “You’ll see what I mean in a few moments, Commander.”

He leaned back in his padded observation chair, eager for the engagement now that he saw it would be a cakewalk. “I’m ready for the show to begin. Let’s make a lasting impression.”

Chapter 2—NIKKO CHAN TYLAR

On his random route across the Spiral Arm, Nikko found himself close to the hidden Roamer base where his parents tended orbiting greenhouses that provided fresh food and supplies to many of the clans. Unlike his parents, Nikko was a true Roamer who preferred wandering from system to system, seeing what there was to see. Still, this was home. How could he not stop for a visit, even if he couldn’t stay long?

His ship,
Aquarius
, was configured for delivering samples of wental water to uninhabited worlds on which the elemental entities could grow powerful enough to fight the hydrogues. Unfortunately, it was hard to concentrate on that mission when the Big Goose—the Roamers’ deprecating name for the Hansa—kept stabbing the clans in the back with malicious raids like the ones at Hurricane Depot and Rendezvous.

Nikko stepped into the largest greenhouse blister, enjoying the feel of solid ground under his feet, and gazed up at the transparent panes. The blackness outside, spattered with stars and orbiting asteroids, was dominated by a dazzling mirrorfilm reflector that bounced a splash of warm solar light through the armored glass. Up near the top of the main dome, cottony masses of aerogel foam drifted about like clouds.

Smaller satellite domes on other rocks were maintained at various temperatures and humidities: a hothouse dome held palm trees and succulents; another encompassed fruit orchards. In each one, the plants thrived in artificial soil created by mixing sterile asteroid dirt with fertilizer chemicals and recycled human waste. As good as any farmland back on Earth, his mother always said.

Marla Chan and Crim Tylar, delighted by their son’s unexpected visit, inspected their vegetable fields while Nikko chatted with them. He showed them the canisters of vibrant wental water in his ship and explained that these strange beings could be the key to ending the terrible war against the hydrogues. They were both awed and a little surprised to hear what he was doing to help the fight.

“To be honest, I always thought you’d just help us with the greenhouses, or the skymining at Ptoro,” his mother said, smiling at him. As she talked, Marla kept an electronic datapad inventory of their crops and output. “I never knew you had such big things in store for you.”

He blushed. “Well, who would have thought Dad might like being a farmer? Working with dirt on his hands, sowing seeds, tending plants?”

Crim Tylar’s brow furrowed. “Shizz, this sure beats skymining. Give me dirt any day. I always hated Ptoro—cold, windy, bleak.” He made a face.

“You saw the images after the Eddies used their Klikiss Torch, right?” Nikko said. “Ptoro’s nothing more than one big ball of fire.”

“Then at least it’s warm there now,” Crim grumbled.

His parents couldn’t cover their pride as they led him through a lush vegetable sector. “You’ve got a grand galactic mission, Nikko, but take a few seconds to enjoy the little things,” Marla suggested.

“When all the big words are stripped away, that’s what we’re really fighting for, you know.” Crim bent down to pluck a soft, red tomato. “Eat this. You’ve never tasted anything like it.”

“I’ve had a tomato before.”

“Not one of
my
tomatoes. This is as good as it gets.”

Actually, Nikko had eaten one of his father’s tomatoes, but he humored the older man. He popped the small tomato into his mouth and bit down to release a gush of moist flavor. “Yes, as good as it gets.”

A huge shadow crossed the fields like the black shape of a vulture passing overhead. The three of them looked up and Crim squinted to get a better look. “What the hell is that?”

Nikko recognized the profile of an enormous warship drifting in front of the solar mirror array, blocking the reflected sun. “It’s an Eddy battleship! I saw them hit Hurricane Depot—”

As if to reinforce his claim, the silhouetted vessel launched a volley of explosive projectiles into the gossamer mirror array. The artillery punched bright blossoms of fire through the reflective film, which sent dazzling ricochets of light in all directions. The tether cable snapped, and the mangled reflectors drifted, twirling like tissue blown in a high wind. The greenhouse dome was plunged into shadow, illuminated only by starlight and uncertain glints from the tattered mirror.

Alarms sounded throughout the dome, and relay messages came from the artificial storage stations and satellite asteroids. Marla shouted, “Get an oxygen mask. Tell everyone to suit up if they have time—”

Her instructions were cut off by an announcement from the EDF battleships over the dome’s intercom systems. “This is Admiral Lev Stromo of the Earth Defense Forces. By order of King Peter, this facility has been seized by the Terran Hanseatic League. All assets are forfeit to the war effort for the protection of humanity.”

“Oh, piss off,” Crim grumbled.

“Roamers have been declared hostiles. Therefore, all inhabitants of this facility will be taken away and processed. Our ships will accept your surrender. Any resistance will be considered grounds for immediate and decisive retaliation.”

Jumpsuited agricultural workers scrambled to their meeting points, as they had been drilled to do, but an overwhelming force of Earth military vessels already loomed above the greenhouse complex. They were bottled up here.

The emergency lights cast strange shadows among the growing plants, and flickering alarms added to the nightmarish quality. Without the sun mirror, the temperature inside the dome was already dropping. Because they had no official military branch, Roamer security depended on secrecy and rapid dispersal of their ships.

In direct defiance of the admiral’s order, one small cargo ship accelerated like a bullet down from a food storage satellite. The greenhouse intercom picked up the pilot’s transmission over a private Roamer channel. “I’ll keep them busy while the rest of you get away! Everybody better evacuate immediately.”

“It’s Shelby. That idiot—what the hell does he think he’s doing?”

The cargo ship flew in like a matador provoking a bull. Shelby launched one tiny potshot directly at the lead Manta cruiser.

Nikko and his parents made their way to the nearest emergency station and grabbed masks, tugging the straps to secure them firmly over mouth and nose. Hands on his hips, Crim grumbled through the mask, “Even if he did manage to distract them for more than a nanosecond, none of our evacuation ships could outrun those EDF vessels.”

True to his word, Admiral Stromo responded with deadly force. Two jazer beams lanced out from the Manta, played across the small ship’s hull, and ripped it open.

“Shelby,” Crim mumbled in disgust as his wife moaned. “The man wasn’t fit for recycling. Now he’s made it worse for all of us.”

Nikko grabbed his mother’s arm. “I’ve got the
Aquarius
. It won’t take many people, but we can still—”

Marla turned an intense, determined look on her son. “You’ve got the wentals aboard, Nikko. You
have
to get away. Think what the Big Goose might do if they got their hands on something like that.”

“Probably pour them down the drain,” Crim said with a snort.

Incensed by Shelby’s ineffective harassment, the EDF invaders fired a single jazer pulse at the main greenhouse dome. It was probably meant to be a warning shot, but the beam ruptured the armored glass.

The wave of explosive decompression sent a thump through the dome. A hurricane of escaping atmosphere ripped plant trays and hydroponics tanks off their racks. Nikko’s ears popped. The wave of cold struck him like a sledgehammer. The air grew thinner with stomach-lurching rapidity.

Air geysered into space with the force of a rocket engine, sufficient to nudge the greenhouse asteroid off its rotational axis. Thrown to their hands and knees, agricultural workers cried out in dismay.

Caught in the vortex of escaping atmosphere, the aerogel clouds spun, clumped together, and then covered the blasted opening. The polymers and resins that made up the ultralight material broke down upon exposure to vacuum; like gauze packed into a wound, the artificial clouds filled the rupture, providing enough protection for the people to survive. The seal was imperfect, though, and leaking air shrieked through gaps in the aerogel plug.

Crim saw many of his plants already withering, the pots tumbled about as if a giant hand had scattered them. His angry curses were drowned out by loud alarms in the thinning air.

Marla pushed Nikko urgently away. “Run to your ship. Don’t wait for anybody. Just fly out of here and take the wentals. Take the wentals!”

“I can’t just leave you here! Come with me—”

“We need to stay with our people.” Marla gestured to the Roamers around them. “But you’re too important.”

“Then let me gather a group. I can fit maybe a dozen or so aboard—”

“You’ve got a responsibility.” His father cut him off as shadows of more EDF ships closed in overhead. “Seems to me that if you lose even a minute, you’ll never get out of here.”

Marla met her son’s flustered expression. “Don’t worry, the Eddies have to take us somewhere. At least we’ll find out what happened to all the POWs from Rendezvous and Hurricane Depot.”

When Nikko still hesitated, his father bellowed, “Go now, Nikko—and don’t let us down.”

In the low gravity, flashing lights, and shrieking wind, Nikko ran.