Starlight Brigade: Starlight Century Episode One Read online

Starlight Brigade

  Starlight Century Episode One

  Brett P. S.

  Copyright © 2016 Brett P. S.

  All rights reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  EPILOGUE

  Part One

  Botched Drop Off

  Chapter 1

  In the Lion’s Den

  Maiiar Station, Gemini Sector

  “When OTO first made contact with the I’malarians, some small skirmishes did take place, but these quieted quickly. The species possessed powerfully advanced technology, despite the fact that their home world was nearly completely covered in water.” – Old Terrace Order (OTO) Archives

  Elijah Adamson, age 27, strode through the bustling crowds of tourists and marginally annoyed commuters that comprised Maiiar station. Maiiar floated noisily above the fourth planet in the Maiiar System, a somewhat habitable world in Gemini Sector. Violent crimes seldom took place in Gemini, but when they did, authorities managed them well enough. Maiiar was a towering titan of titanium, looming overhead in more than a handful of stories, each level of curved architecture containing its own economy. Transit and traffic flew below. Merchants and local sellers set up shop on the bottom stories. The embassies and GU government offices occupied the highest tiers of the station. He watched carefully and noted the expressions on faces he passed. If a disturbance occurred, he’d be the first to know and his head would be the first to roll.

  How would one go about looking inconspicuous? He’d have asked the crew earlier if the thought hadn’t sounded ridiculous. Elijah did the best he could in an unfamiliar situation. He held his head high and walked with a sense of urgency but not too urgent. He needed to appear annoyed but not distraught. Damn the GU and its clogged transit routes. There weren’t enough Phantom Drives in Gemini to handle the constant influx of busy merchants, business executives and other commuters in transit. He ran his fingers over his head and slicked back his dirty blonde hair while shortening his stride. Elijah carried himself in a black business suit fitted to his specific dimensions, though he doubted he received anything more than a handed down article. The seams ran too tight, especially in the shoulders. The restrictive fabrics hardly breathed, and they allowed for minimal flexibility. He’d have to deal with it for now, but he’d have a talk with Miss Dubois before long.

  “Nothing so far,” he said.

  His concealed earpiece noticed his personal voice pattern and switched on communication. The discreet mechanics were virtually undetectable, and anyone who might have noticed would assume him hard of hearing. Many GU citizens donned implants, some detachable, like his earpiece, but Elijah was a Full Blood. He lacked a fundamental quality of connectedness to the networks and web feeds. He couldn’t shoot fast or hack terminals, but being a Full Blood held advantages in this crew, especially for those who specialized in his line of work. Elijah was virtually untraceable in this new technological age, leaving behind little more than his own biology. With the gaps between sectors and the fractured flow of information, incriminating him would require more resources than most divisions of the Galactic Union cared to muster. As a point man, he served his purpose with healthy anonymity. Even more, however, was the fact that his faculties were completely non-hackable, harmoniously functioning pieces of machinery, which made him far more valuable than a cyborg in the right situation.

  “Keep your eyes open,” Miss Dubois said. “Your target will set down his briefcase near the south-east rest station. You remember the protocol?”

  “You know I do. Rest easy.”

  “Don’t get cocky,” she replied sternly. “This isn’t about you or our crew. This is bigger than all of us.”

  Elijah gritted his teeth and kept his forward heading. Easy for her to say. She had to deal with the repercussions directly if things ever flew south. Concern for the greater good wasn’t exactly in his job description, despite attempts to encourage the mindset from Miss Dubois and the vast majority of the crew. The rest area loomed a short distance away, but unwanted traffic obstructed his view. A thought poked in the rear of his brain. Someone might up and walk away with the man’s discarded luggage, and that would earn him more than a ringing feeling in his ears for the next week. Elijah made a judgment call and pushed through the crowd. It wouldn’t make much of a difference at this point, or at least he told himself as much.

  “Elijah, your heart rate is increasing. What’s going on?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “I’m just picking up the pace.”

  “Slow down. There’s no rush. Don’t screw this up!”

  “There’s no point,” Elijah said. “I’m almost …”

  Elijah froze in mid step at the sight of a misty form rolling past him. He felt the accelerated particles of a once physical body brush up against his shoulders. The figure strode past him faster than he could blink, but it was definitely one of them. Elijah paused and kept walking. He didn’t dare turn to see where the figure now loomed. Keep it together, Elijah. He picked up his head and slowed his pace, but even he knew it would do little to fool a Ghost.

  “What the hell, Elijah?” Miss Dubois shouted.

  “I’m sorry. Got a little flustered.”

  “What was it?”

  “What do you think?”

  “God no …” Miss Dubois said, trailing off.

  “I have you in my sights,” Abigail chimed in. “If anything happens, I’ll send a few surprises his way.”

  “Bullets don’t work on Ghosts,” Elijah said.

  “No, they’re just largely ineffective,” Abigail replied. “Got to hit him when in between Phase Shifts.”

  Miss Dubois took back control of the conversation. “We’re not doing something so stupid.”

  “Come on. I always wanted to kill a Ghost,” Abigail said.

  “Out of the question,” Miss Dubois said. “Elijah, do you have a visual on the drop off?”

  His senses perked up. A gentleman in a burgundy suit strode over to the one of the benches and glanced down at the smart wear strapped to his wrist, presumably checking the time. He carried a sizable briefcase in his left hand, which he proceeded to gently lower on the floor, though even then it made a clank as the metal hit the smooth surface.

  “I found him.”

  Elijah waited for the man to move on, which he did and without his briefcase. Excellent. Casually, he walked toward the leftover package. From this point, he only needed to grab it and calmly walk the three hundred meter distance back to his departure craft, a privately sanctioned vessel in docking bay 12. Elijah smiled as he grabbed hold of the handle and picked up a surprisingly light container. From what little information he managed to gleam during his briefing, Miss Dubois made the contents sound much heavier than they currently appeared. Could he have mistaken his mark? No, the man matched the physical description. This was good enough. Elijah turned and walked away with the package in tow. He didn’t get more than a handful of steps away from the rest area when a hand solidified an
d gripped down hard on his wrist. Augmented strength crushed down, cutting off circulation and a misty figure jerked him back with a forceful pull.

  “Thief, you will surrender your possession.”

  Elijah’s face flushed red and millions of synapses fired in his brain to find the best course of action, but against a Ghost, no plan was completely solid.

  “Crap.”

  Chapter 2

  To the Temple

  Maiiar Station, Gemini Sector

  “Phantom Drives don’t make interstellar travel possible. They make it efficient. While OTO ships were capable of travel between star systems, the process equated to years between worlds. Phantom technology allowed for nearly instantaneous travel between star systems, and it wasn’t long before OTO opted to upgrade their interstellar vessels with Phantom Drives, curtesy of I’malar.” – Old Terrace Order (OTO) Archives

  Ghosts, wielders of miniature Phantom Drives. The same devices to proper scale enabled faster than light travel between star systems, but somehow the I’malarians managed to pint-size the sucker. Elijah turned slowly toward his captor, ignoring the pain and pressure cramping down on his right hand, the one with which he grabbed the briefcase. This one was no squid, a bit of a rare occurrence for a Ghost but not unheard of. They allowed humans to drink the nectar of gods from time to time. The Ghost stood high, at least seven feet tall as he hovered about two inches off the ground with a half ethereal body, but the hand felt solid enough.

  “I’m sorry,” Elijah said. “I was going to give it to the man who misplaced it.”

  A half thought out response if he ever heard one. He focused on tuning out the curses ringing through his earpiece, instead focusing on how he might evade capture. He couldn’t run. Ghosts practically moved supersonic compare to his poultry 30 kilometers per hour. On the other hand, he might lose him in a crowd. No, that wouldn’t work. His foe would go incorporeal to slip between spaces or fly above them altogether. Damn.

  “You can let go of me, I’m …”

  The Ghost cut him off. “You were headed in the opposite direction. Surrender it now, and I will forget I saw you. I have much to do.”

  What was he doing right now? In any other situation, he’d take the offer in a heartbeat. Ghosts practically had free reign across the Core Systems, but this one saw himself too inconvenienced to deal with Elijah? The blackest pits of I’malar had frozen over.

  Abigail blasted through his earpiece. “I can do this, Elijah. Duck when I say the word.”

  “Dammit,” Miss Dubois cursed. “We can’t lose this drop off. Abigail, this one’s all yours. Elijah, you’re going to have to book it.”

  Elijah swallowed the lump in his throat and attempted a serious expression of defiance. He maintained eye contact with a brute. The Ghost refused to let go, gradually losing patience with a common thief.

  “You caught me,” he said with a smile. “Might as well hand it over. God knows what could be inside. I’m probably not losing much more than some pressed shirts and fifty odd credits.”

  “Drop it,” the Ghost replied, insistently.

  “One thing if I might ask, sir,” Elijah said. “What name do you go by? I ask because I’d like to express my deepest apologies to the I’malarian Consulate for inconveniencing one of their own.”

  The man cracked a grin, all but unheard of for someone of his standing. Ghosts didn’t smile. They killed for practically no reason, but this one seemed unusually obliging, so he figured he might as well take his chances. If the fight took to his crew, they’d need as much dirt on him as possible, something they could use against him.

  “Jaeger Jung,” he said. “Fifth seat in the Ethereal Cauldron.”

  Elijah froze as the realization of who he was dealing with washed over him. Jaeger. He didn’t need a network connection to know holding a seat on the I’malarian special task force meant this man was a special human, possibly the most special. Squids all around and somehow, a human managed to barge in there. Elijah found himself both awed and terrified by his current predicament, so much so that he hated the next words that flew past his lips.

  “Well, Jaeger, it was nice meeting you, but you should really look both ways before you cross me.”

  He nodded at the sound of Abigail’s whistle through his earpiece and took a dive as a sharp bullet whisked through the air and planted a piece of metal deep inside the man’s skull. Jaeger’s grip dissolved as he Phase Shifted, and Elijah took the chance. He hoisted the briefcase over his shoulder and bolted.

  Chapter 3

  Ghost of a Chance

  Maiiar Station, Gemini Sector

  “Phantom Drives affect molecules directly, via acceleration on an unprecedented scale prior to contact with I’malar. Applying a strong electrical current to Xarconium creates a reaction in nearby materials, speeding up the molecules. The process gives off an extraordinary amount of energy, similar to a miniature fusion reaction. Combined with a few kilograms of Xarconium, a piece of firewood could power the leap between planets.” – Old Terrace Order (OTO) Archives

  Elijah huffed through his mouth and nose as he raced through the crowds, knocking pedestrians flat on their faces, pushing the rest aside. If he didn’t put every ounce of his being into crossing the distance, he’d fail. Hell, the Ghost would catch up regardless of his efforts, but Elijah knew better than to look back. He ran in cold silence, waiting for the being to materialize before him. He spotted some of the Maiiar station patrols taking notice of his hurried pace. Hurried was an understatement, even pushing past lumbering bodies. No time to worry about them. Focus. 250 meters remaining. Even Ghosts couldn’t Phase Shift through physical objects, especially the hull of a spacecraft.

  “Good show Elijah,” James said.

  “Not … now … James!” Elijah replied, gasping for air.

  “Don’t bother speaking. You keep up that bloody good legwork of yours. You might actually survive this encounter at your current pace.”

  “Where …?”

  “Oh, he’s a grouch, but Abigail is showing him some tough love. You have about ten seconds. Care to beat your old record by two?”

  Elijah squinted his eyes. 100 meters left maybe. He struggled to push forward, weighed down by the briefcase. Light as it was, it still weighed a couple kilos, which made the relatively short gap of two seconds off his best sprint appear as an incredibly deep divide. There was no way, not for a Full Blood. He’d need some serious cybernetic implants to beat a peak human time, but there really wasn’t any other choice. Elijah stared down the causeway of Maiiar station with blurred tunnel vision and kicked his body into high gear. He’d trained his mind for this sort of thing, focused on dulling the pain surging through his muscles. His insides were ready to burst, but he kept pushing forward. The docking bay carried lighter traffic, as most ships in bay 12 had released their passengers and crew, but not Elijah’s crew. He hoped so at any rate.

  “Four seconds boy,” James rattled through his earpiece. “I’m opening the docking hatch now.”

  Elijah eyed the ship a dozen or so meters ahead. James had delivered him the courtesy of numbing the station alert systems. The patrols were probably wondering why they couldn’t sound a station wide alarm by pressing a shiny button. James had created a disconnect between the mechanical interface and the subroutines necessary to achieve that end, but even robust hackers like James Chandler couldn’t keep up the divide for long. Maiiar station had similarly skilled hackers working round the clock. At best, James bought him a handful of seconds, though more than enough.

  Elijah leapt over a raised garden and bulleted through lush greenery before he planted both feet on the solid flooring adjacent to the Gallant’s Docking Bay Hatch. The path led upward via a set of cycling stairs. Instead of using them in the proper manner, he hoisted himself over the railing and vaulted off through the bay doors. Elijah landed square on his rear against the titanium g
rated surface of the Gallant’s decontamination chamber. Mists flared around him, gasses set off by his entrance, but they lacked the lustrous glow of particles given off by a Ghost utilizing a Phantom Drive. Elijah glanced upward as the bay hatch closed in front of him and the engines ignited. A sliver of incandescent light peeked through the nearly closed hatch, and he briefly spotted a wisp of silver smoke breach the chamber before the hatch closed completely. He made it. Curses echoed from the outside as GU forces moved to cut off their departure, but he’d done it.

  “Nice job, boy,” James said through his earpiece.

  “What …” Elijah said, trailing off before he propped himself up against the inner wall of the chamber. “What about Abigail?”

  “We’ll pick her up at extraction site B,” Miss Dubois said. “Good work, Elijah. You don’t know the gravity of what you’ve accomplished.”

  “The hell I don’t!” Elijah stammered. “I outran a freaking Ghost.”

  An awkward silence met his ears as he waited for a smart reply from either Miss Dubois or James, but he found himself waiting longer than he felt comfortable. Elijah knocked on the mechanical door behind him, a gesture to let him out of the tightly boxed prison. He received no such reply, however. The doors remained shut.

  “Elijah,” Miss Dubois started. “What your little briefcase holds could render Ghosts obsolete.”

  Chapter 4

  Change of Plans

  SBG Gallant, Gemini Sector

  “One of the defining movements of this Century was OTO’s decision to abandon their current FTL technology in exchange for the Phantom Drives generously provided by the I’malarians. I’malar holds a monopoly on Xarconium, the element that makes Phantom Drives possible in the first place. Xarconium manifests only in the deepest oceans of I’malar and the kindly species refuses to allow OTO mining privileges.” – Old Terrace Order (OTO) Archives

  Elijah hastily hobbled past a set of sliding doors originally barring the way through to the inner levels of the Gallant. Of the three major compartments, the Bridge loomed overhead through layers of titanium. Below, he caught a whiff of the stench, food supplies and minerals for the trips between sectors. The Gallant wasn’t a particularly large ship and housed a crew of about fifty, but Miss Dubois and her contacts saw fit to arm it well. Comparable to a miniature battle group in terms of firepower and shields, Elijah surmised the Gallant might even survive an encounter with an OTO flotilla, though he hoped it wouldn’t come to that.