Backyard Starship Read online

  “Guys, how about those missiles, huh?”

  “Stand by,” Netty said.

  “For what?”

  A couple more seconds passed, then Netty spoke again.

  “This.”

  One of the missiles abruptly lit up, as though suddenly caught in the beam of a powerful floodlight. I could actually see it, a hard point of light flaring against the stars. An instant later, it vanished into a dazzling shower of sparks. Even as they faded and died, the second missile got the same treatment, obviously hit and destroyed by the Dragonet’s laser.

  The other ship had turned its tail to us and started to run. Perry ran them down, though, taking advantage of the Dragonet’s superior acceleration to relentlessly close in.

  “Free trader Klrgzt, kill your engines and prepare to surrender to lawful Peacemaker custody,” Perry said.

  The response was another missile. This time, it only had about ten seconds of flight time to close. Netty destroyed it uncomfortably close to the Dragonet, which swept through the glittering sparks of its debris.

  I let out a breath. “I guess that’s a no, huh?”

  “In the Peacemakers, we have a specific term to describe refusing to surrender by using force,” Netty said.

  “What’s that?”

  She said it, and I raised my eyebrows. “Huh. I spent a few years in the Army, and even I don’t remember hearing anything quite that, um, colorful.”

  “You can always just condense it down to up yours.”

  “Or translate it into Latin. Everything sounds way more legal and scholarly if you translate it into Latin,” Perry offered.

  I chuckled but it came out short and sharp. I couldn’t pull my eyes off the overlay, which I was starting to understand. Based on it, the flight time of another missile from the other ship would be just over five seconds. My stress level ratcheted up another notch or two, but I was oddly separate from the threat. Watching missiles seemed more like a game than warfare.

  “Close enough,” Perry said, then the Dragonet shuddered. I didn’t see anything fly away from our ship, but the aft end of the other ship erupted with a searing flash and a shower of spinning debris. It immediately stopped accelerating, which meant we overtook it in seconds. As we raced past, Perry fired one of the rail guns again, neatly blasting a cluster of feathery antennae off the top of the other ship’s hull.

  “That leaves them with no engines and no comms,” Perry said.

  I glanced at him. “So now what?”

  “Now, we resume our way to Ross 248.”

  “But what about the other ship? The Kirg—whatever the hell it was. Do we just leave it here?”

  “They’re not going anywhere.”

  “Yeah, but they’re stuck, right? Aren’t they eventually going to run out of air, or food and water?”

  “Eventually.”

  “So—”

  “Their location is marked,” Perry cut in. “When we get to Ross 248, we’ll notify a collection team to come and take them into custody.”

  “Yeah, but only if they’re still alive. They might even be injured or dead now!”

  “They might. Of course, if we hadn’t taken action, then you might be the injured or dead one, right?”

  I drummed my fingers on the armrest. “I suppose.”

  Perry leaned toward me. “Van, what did I tell you about the galaxy?”

  “That it’s a cold and hostile place.”

  “Attaboy, Peacemaker. It’s the one law that trumps all others. Don’t ever forget that.”

  7

  The twist, when it finally happened, was anticlimactic. Netty announced she was about to spool up the twist drive. When she did, it was over after a brief instant of disorientation. Nothing seemed to have changed.

  I glanced at Perry. “I was expecting something more dramatic,” I said and waved a hand at the view beyond the canopy. “It doesn’t look like we’ve moved at all.”

  “Well, when we were leaving Sol, you had the sun to your back. Let’s see what’s back there now.”

  The starfield abruptly pitched and spun, then something massive slid into view.

  “Oh. Holy shit. What is that?”

  “That, my friend, is Ross Starport, aka Crossroads.”

  I stared. When Perry mentioned a station, I’d expected something like one of those big rings once portrayed in sci-fi books and movies, or maybe something like the ISS. What I hadn’t expected was a haphazard sprawl of spheres, cubes, prisms, struts, girders, and myriad other components. Some of them looked brand new, still gleaming, while others had a haggard, worn character to them. At least a dozen other ships clustered around it, some underway, others motionless, apparently parked. The whole thing had to be as big as a dozen city blocks. Beyond, the red dwarf star called Ross 248 shone with a dull, ruddy gleam that lit everything orange-brown.

  I sat and took it all in. And for that moment, Perry and Netty just let me.

  Eventually, I took a breath and shook my head. “Okay. Well. That really brings it home, doesn’t it?”

  “Brings what home?” Perry asked.

  “That we are not alone.”

  “Who? Humans?” Perry actually laughed. “Ah, sorry, Van, we never get tired of hearing that. You humans are all so ponderous and philosophical about your place in the universe and all that—as though you’re actually going to have this much stuff, filling this much space, and the only living things that would ever occur in it are you guys.”

  “We especially like the UFO stuff,” Netty put in. “You’ve built a whole popular culture around the damned things.”

  “So what are they?” I asked, my gaze still locked on the jumbled spectacle of the station apparently called Crossroads. “UFOs? Are they real?”

  “Half the time, no, they’re not. They really are just natural phenomena.”

  “What about the other half?”

  “Scientists, cultural anthropologists, those sorts, studying you and your planet. Early spaceflight cultures are always interesting to watch—especially the will they or won’t they nuke themselves part,” Perry said. “And some are just assholes out to—what’s the human term? Troll? They’re trolling you?”

  “Trolling us? By flying around in spaceships and deliberately letting themselves be seen?”

  “You think humans have a monopoly on being tools?”

  “We’re being called by Crossroads traffic control,” Netty cut in. “We’ve been cleared to dock at port two alpha, in the Peacemaker zone. I’m taking us in.”

  That slight thrum rippled through the Dragonet, and Crossroads began to loom larger and larger, filling the view ahead.

  The Peacemaker zone turned out to be one of the newer, sleeker modules making up Crossroads. I stepped out of the airlock, into the station, clad in my form-fitting armor, then stopped and began taking stock of just what the hell I’d gotten myself into.

  The airlock opened into an atrium three floors high. Or maybe decks was a better term. I’d expected something utilitarian, more like the images from the inside of the ISS—consoles, conduits, pipes, equipment, tie-downs, storage lockers, that sort of thing. What I hadn’t expected was what amounted to a tidy greenspace, lined with hydroponic troughs laden with drooping foliage. The air was breathable, but only just, which necessitated me wearing a rebreather that resembled the nasal tubes used by hospitals to administer oxygen. Perry had explained that most species needed oxygen, just varying amounts of it, and it was easier to supplement a low-level than to reduce a higher one. It didn’t stop me from inhaling a green, wholesome smell that reminded me of fresh-cut grass on a warm summer day.

  “Uh, Van? You’re blocking the airlock,” Perry said from behind me.

  I stepped aside. “Sorry. Just a little overwhelmed here.”

  “Understood.” Perry hopped past me and flung himself into the air, soared up to a few meters height, then dropped back to perch on a nearby railing. As he did his little aerobatic display, I noticed a woman—a human woman—garbed much like me, approaching. I had to admit that the form-fitting aspect of the uniform did more for her than it did for me. But she strode up amid a cloud of brusque purpose, making it clear that this was business about to unfold.

  “Initiate Tudor?” Her voice was, like her manner, all clipped efficiency.

  “Please, it’s Van,” I said, sticking out my hand.

  She looked at it as though I were offering her some dead thing I’d found on the way here. “No, it’s Initiate Tudor. I’m Adept Santorelli. My first name is Gabriella.”

  “But, let me guess—it’s Adept Santorelli.”

  She gave a thin smile that flicked on, then off. “You learn fast. That’s good because we don’t have a lot of time.”

  “For what?”

  “For you to prove that you can be a Peacemaker.”

  I glanced at Perry, who just lifted and lowered his wings in what I took to be a shrug.

  “Oh, yeah. The admission trials. Did I forget to mention those?”

  Santorelli, it turned out, was one of four human Peacemakers, but the only one currently aboard Crossroads. The other Peacemakers were aliens, which brought me smack into a head-on collision with yet another stunning reality.

  There were actual aliens.

  It had been implicit, of course, in the whole spaceships, space battles, and space stations thing. Perry had even mentioned some alien races by name. But, until I finally came face to face with one, aliens had remained an abstract concept, just something kind of out there somewhere.

  But then Santorelli took me to a quiet office and introduced me to a creature that seemed a combination of something vaguely octopus-like, with a lower body shaped like the back end of a massive slug. It wore its own version of the close-fitting, blue-black armor. I notic
ed a series of three concentric circles emblazoned on the uniform in gold. It represented rank, apparently, as Santorelli introduced him—or her—anyway, it, as the Chapter Master of the Galactic Knights Uniformed for the region of space that included Earth. Its name translated to something long and descriptive in English, but the alien made it simple.

  “You can call me Gus.”

  “Gus.”

  “Yes. It’s what your twice-spawn called me.”

  “My twice-spawn?”

  Santorelli leaned in. “Your grandfather.”

  “Gramps called you Gus.”

  The alien actually nodded, or I assumed that’s what the sudden wobble of the top end of its body meant. “He said I reminded him of someone he knew back on Earth.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I am not.”

  “You’re not.”

  “I wasn’t aware your species was given to mimicry.”

  I blinked. “I—what?”

  “So far, this conversation has consisted mainly of me making statements and you echoing them back to me.”

  I shook my head. “Yeah, sorry. It’s just that—well, you’re the first alien I’ve ever seen in the, er, flesh.”

  “I’m not the alien. You are,” Gus said.

  I just stared, then the creature began to vibrate, making an audible hum. A look of alarm must have flashed over my face because Santorelli leaned in again. “He’s laughing.”

  “And this is why we pair Initiates with Adepts of their own species,” Gus said. “It reduces the natural friction resulting from cross-species culture shock.”

  I nodded at that. “Probably a good idea, yeah.”

  “Now, what’s going to happen is that Adept Santorelli is going to give you an orientation session to acquaint you with the amenities and restrictions of the Peacemaker module. You’ll then have a rest period, and following that, the first battery of tests will begin.”

  “Okay. Can I look around the rest of this—Crossroads, right? That’s what this place is called?”

  “Yes, it is, and no, you cannot. You aren’t ready for that.”

  “As an Initiate Peacemaker, you’d be the perfect target for any number of criminal sorts,” Santorelli said.

  “Criminal sorts? What do you mean?”

  Santorelli flashed that on-off smile again. “Criminal sorts like the Unbound. They’re similar to the mafia back on Earth. Let’s call it very organized crime. In any case, in order to advance past a certain level in the Unbound, you have to kill a Peacemaker.”

  “And it doesn’t matter if it’s a grizzled Adept or a brand-new Initiate,” Gus put in.

  “What they’re saying is that if you step foot outside this module, you’re probably going to be very quickly dead, Van,” Perry added from the back of the room.

  Now, I might have a stubborn streak in me, but I’m not stupid. Two Peacemakers and an AI were telling me just how bad an idea it would be for me to treat the rest of the station like a shopping mall in some new city. I got the message and turned to Santorelli.

  “Well, then, let’s orientate away, shall we?”

  She gave me a bemused look. “Yes. Let’s.”

  It turned out that the Peacemakers had a nifty trick for teaching you what you needed to know. They injected it into you.

  I stared at what amounted to an elaborate hypodermic, mounted on the end of an AI-controlled arm and filled with a murky fluid. “So you’re telling me that you can give me all the skills I need just by sticking that into me?”

  “It’s a little more complicated than that,” Santorelli said. “First, we need to establish your achievement level in whatever area we’re working on. The system will then tailor the nanobots to deliver the appropriate biochemicals, memory RNA, that sort of thing to enhance that area, to bring it up to a minimum standard.”

  “It’s basically the Peacemaker version of boot-camp,” Perry said, from across the spartan, rather sterile room. “By the time you’re done, you’ll be good enough in each of the ten basic skill sets to perform the basic duties of a Peacemaker.”

  “And what are these ten basic skill sets?” I asked.

  “Spaceflight; atmospheric ship combat; extra-atmospheric ship combat; ranged personal weapons; melee combat; zero-g combat; stealth and subterfuge; information systems; laws, policies, and procedures; and diplomacy,” Santorelli replied.

  “Okay, well, I know information systems,” I said, giving her a sheepish smile. “I guess it’s a start.”

  She nodded. “Actually, it is. According to your dossier, you’re especially skilled in the use of information systems, including intrusion and counter-intrusion.”

  “You guys know about that?”

  Santorelli flicked that smile at me. “We know a great deal about you, Initiate Tudor.”

  “Well, that sounds ominous.”

  “Not at all,” she replied in a tone that was entirely ominous. “But… we’re going to start with your obvious strength.” She gestured at the hypodermic contraption. “We’ve already established that you’re at the maximum untrained baseline, so this will just be an enhancement. Basically, once it’s done, you’ll have a good understanding of extraterrestrial computers and info systems.”

  “Huh. And what are the risks?”

  “There’s a one-half percent chance you’ll have an adverse reaction to the enhancement.”

  “And what, exactly, constitutes an adverse reaction?”

  “Death or various things that aren’t death.”

  I forced a smile. “You’ve got one hell of a bedside manner.”

  She picked up something that looked like a clipboard but was apparently a fully functional portable computer called a slate. “I need you to authorize what we’re about to do to you. All you have to do is state your concurrence.”

  “I’m curious—what happens if I don’t?”

  “Then you’ll be returned to Earth with your memories suitably altered to make all of this seem unreal, like a dream or hallucination.”

  “I wonder how many supposed UFO abductees are really washed-out Peacemaker candidates,” I said. I’d meant it as a joke, but this time Santorelli didn’t smile.

  “Wait. How many of them are failed Peacemakers?”

  Now she smiled. “Are you going to authorize this or not?”

  I looked at the slate. At the hypodermic. Back at the slate.

  “I guess this is my last chance to back out, huh?”

  “It’s your last chance to voluntarily leave the Peacemakers. You could still prove to be unsuitable and simply be rejected as a candidate.”

  “And go back to Earth with a memory gap or worse?”

  She said nothing and held the slate toward me. I briefly considered just calling it quits right here. This was, after all, a—big step didn’t even begin to describe it.

  But who was I kidding? I stood with my toes on the brink of a whole universe of things and stuff I’d never even imagined existed. Was I really going to turn away from it?

  Moreover, the orientation session—assuming it hadn’t all been lies, but I had no reason to believe it had—made it pretty clear that the Peacemakers were an agency of, if not good, then at least law and order. Gramps and my father had both described their jobs to me in a similar way when I was making that transition from insular child to more outward-looking teenager. I actually remembered Gramps’ words about it.

  “I work with people who try to stop bad guys from doing bad things.”

  “So you’re a good guy?”

  “Most of the time, yeah, I am.”

  I hadn’t really appreciated that most of the time part until the moral grey of the world started seeping into my own life.

  And now I could be a good guy most of the time and stop bad guys from doing bad things.

  I touched the slate where she indicated, leaving my thumb print, and read aloud the passage glowing above it.

  “I, Clive VanAbel Tudor III, do hereby concur with the provisions of, and accept the risks associated with…”

  The text went on at some length. It was somehow surprising, comforting, and discouraging all at once that lawyers seemed to be as fundamental a part of the universe as the Higgs Boson.

  When I was done, Santorelli instructed me to stick out my arm. The robotic hypodermic hissed as it injected the cloudy fluid into my arm and then—