Endless Night (The Guild Wars Book 3) Read online

  Recollections swamped her.

  They weren’t hers.

  Her mind morphed into damp blotting paper onto which Midnight Sun’s past was sketched. The memories weren’t hers, but she carried their pattern.

  The ship was designed to lead swarms of AI-controlled vessels. Its need for a mortal pilot and partner was the failsafe that would prevent the ship from turning against its creators, but they hadn’t accounted for Midnight Sun’s lust for violence. It had driven the ship insane, and that insanity had spread not only to its pilots but to the AI craft it led. Ships that had gone rogue.

  In the end, Midnight Sun was towed out into interstellar space and cast adrift.

  At first, Blue assumed the ship had been built during the Great War that brought down the First Republic, but maybe this had been during an even more ancient conflict.

  The galaxy had been fought over for a very long time.

  Midnight Sun was a living thing. Of that she was certain, but whether it was artificial, or a kind of natural machine intelligence, it neither knew nor cared. But it cared very much that it would be used for the purpose that was etched into its every cable, reaction feed pipe, and missile tube: destruction.

  All this washed through Blue like a flash flood.

  Some of it she’d guessed before, but not in a way that linked together into a complete story. A story that told of a powerful warship that had become a dangerous liability.

  And if Gloriana ever got wind of it being so unstable…

  “Blue, the guilds are at war. Do not be naïve. We make our own rules now. Goltar and Humans together will be the new power in the galaxy. We shall define the rules of what may and may not be done by mercenary companies. And it will be you who will—as you like to put it—seal the deal.”

  “Yeah, and bring in the ultimate contract. Okay, we’ll do it. If you level with me about the Spine Nebula.”

  An impenetrable mask came over the alien as she considered her response. That suited Blue. It gave her time to process the mad words that had spilled out of her mouth.

  Offering her a chance to lead a Keesius charge was like waving the deeds to a busy distillery in front of a functioning drunk. However electrifying the prospect, though, it wasn’t worth a one-way trip. She was stalling the Goltar so she could figure a way out.

  Wasn’t she?

  Gloriana’s eyes surfaced at the tops of her bone sockets, observing Blue carefully. “Have you considered an attack on the Lytoshaan would have low survivability?”

  Blue shrugged. “It would be a suicide mission.”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “But not far off. Yeah, the ship and I got that. She wants to go out with a bang, and she wants those Keesius AI ships as her Valkyries. I’ll tell you what I want, Gloriana. I want trust funds, payments to dependents, and a metric fuck load of credits.”

  “It shall be yours. If we restore our finances from the Infinite Flow.”

  The alien ground her beak together. Spilling the beans wasn’t easy for her. “Do you remember the contract you took on Cap-Soufre? There was a research operation.”

  “Sure I do. It was the job where we took Saisho Branco captive, and he…captivated my sister. At Cap-Soufre they were supposedly researching F11 synthesis, but it was just a facade.”

  “No. The research was real, backed by Goltar money. As are scores of similar F11 research initiatives, together with countless distribution corporations, refining, futures trading, illegal smuggling, and extraction facilities. Don’t bother looking for traces of Goltar involvement, because it’s buried so deep that even I couldn’t prove our involvement. That portfolio of F11-related assets is the true facade. It hides the output of our own secret F11 production facilities that we quietly pump into the galactic economy. I’ve heard that we control about twenty percent of total production, but no one knows for sure.”

  “Of course. Every fusion reactor in the Union runs off F11. Every starship, manufactory, and industrial complex would grind to a halt without it. No wonder the Goltar credit account has so many zeroes in its balance.”

  “And our production facility is inside the Spine Nebula. It must be restored to Goltar control.”

  Blue admonished the Goltar with a wagging finger. “Not so fast. F11 is only produced in the cores of super dense gas giants, and those aren’t easy to hide. I worked the Spine Nebula. If there was a potential F11 mining site, I’d know of it.”

  “Our F11 is synthesized.”

  “What? How? Really?” Blue began to suspect she was being trapped in a web of deceit. “The best scientists have been working on that problem for tens of thousands of years and never solved it. You’re telling me you have?”

  “The inaccuracy of your statement pleases me. It is part of how we have kept this secret for so long. The truth is that many successful methods of F11 synthesis have been invented, logged into a dusty Science Guild server and forgotten. The problem is that none of them are remotely viable. In our synthesis plant, the amount of energy input required is fifty times greater than the energy value of F11 produced. Our unique advantage is that we have discovered a source of power so vast that it is effectively infinite.”

  Gloriana tensed, but Blue guessed enough beans had been spilled out of her red beak that there was no point holding back on the last few.

  “It’s why we call it the Infinite Flow. So long as we’re not discovered—so long as no one reveals our secret—the flow of energy never ceases and so neither does our lucrative flow of F11.”

  The story sounded incredible. But there had been so many weird phenomena in the Spine Nebula that it was actually something of a relief to hear that maybe there was an explanation behind some of it. Like the nebula having only one hyperspace entry route via Beta-Caerelis. As far as Blue knew, that was unique. And the stars in the nebula that were all unstable in similar ways. It sure was a weird-as-hell place.

  “Your Captain Jenkins played a part,” said Gloriana. “Like a good smuggler, he didn’t ask questions. Never knew he was one of the captains shipping synthetic F11 for us, and didn’t want to know. Then he delivered me something even more precious; he brought me you.”

  “I brought myself.”

  “Did you? Who taught you how to pilot a ship?”

  “Captain Jenkins.”

  “And who brought you here to Station 5, soon after I had disposed of the failed candidate pilot who preceded you?”

  “But I…” She growled. “Jenkins.”

  “Do not think of him badly. We Goltar remain deeply hidden in the Spine Nebula, as elsewhere in the galaxy. We work through others who in turn work through others. To this day, I doubt Captain Jenkins even suspects the existence of the Goltar race, and yet he brought me you.”

  “You damned squid bitch. I hate being played.”

  “So, it seems, do the Veetanho. They have finally gotten wise to the operations of the Infinite Flow, and they must be destroyed. I offer a ten million credit bonus to you and your sister, whether she is present for this campaign or not. Fifty thousand credits to every non-Goltar member of the Midnight Sun Free Company. Payable if we restore the operation of the Infinite Flow. Once successful, if you are ever called upon to make the Keesius strike, I will pay double that if you make it back alive. But if you died following a successful attack on Lytoshaan, the death benefit would be five hundred million credits. Your sister has sacrificed much to look after you—”

  “And now it’s my turn? Yeah, I get that. I don’t need my crew.” It was a secret she’d been hiding. They gave her options and they gave her purpose, but she didn’t need them to fly in battle. She wouldn’t risk their lives on a suicide run.

  “I know. Before the last jump they would be evacuated. It will be you and the ship and the Keesius. Think about it. When Captain Jenkins took you on, you and your sister were vagrants, running far away from Earth under false identities. If we call upon you to make a strike, you will wield the most power ever unleashed by a Human. Does that not t
hrill you?”

  Blue purred. She was probably supposed to feel guilty, but the excitement was too intense. “You know damned well it does.”

  “And your death benefit would make your sister, or whoever you nominate, by far the richest person in the history of your species. She wishes to find a cure for her lover and that would require a lot of money.”

  Five hundred million credits. The incredible thing was, she hadn’t doubted for a moment that Gloriana was good for the money and would honor the payment. You could buy planets for that much. Buy a whole bunch of them. Literally. She felt a shudder of excitement run through the ship, but then realized it was only echoing her own.

  “Richest Human ever. Richer by far than any man. Yes, I like that. Let’s go restart your Infinite Flow, my Goltar friend. Sun’s in the Nebula somewhere having her own adventures. I have a feeling we’ll bump into her along the way.”

  * * * * *

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Over Point Clear, Thananya

  After the jungle slime of Rakbutu-Tereus and the endless chill of the black, Thananya was a revelation. As they shuttled down to the coastal region of the Slaughshall Peninsula, pristine blue skies gave Sun a clear view of lush plains sweeping down to shallow coastal waters sheltered by white-crowned reefs. The shuttle from the Unlikely Regret landed at the rudimentary starport just outside Point Clear, the peninsula’s main port that served the Bazenn Sea as well as space traffic.

  Point Clear Starport looked like a typical frontier world facility, comprised of a dozen pads connected by service roads that fed stores and maintenance buildings, and a combined passenger and freight terminal that resembled an oversized cattle shed with an armored roof.

  That was the one thing that marked Point Clear Starport as distinctive: most of the buildings had a heavily shielded roof to protect them from the violence of the planet’s tortured star.

  Having toured the Spine Nebula previously on Unlikely Regret, Sun knew the stars of the region were afflicted by a mysterious instability that led to intense convulsions of coronal mass ejections, throwing streams of star matter at the surrounding planets like a bombardment by ultra-high energy particle cannons that overwhelmed the natural shields of the planetary magnetic fields. The results were bursts of massive meteorological disruption and deadly levels of radiation. True it might be, but Sun found it difficult to imagine the world as anything but a natural paradise, every bit as idyllic as the pleasure worlds of Halcyon and Awaltonia. Better, in fact, because Thananya lacked the corporate credit grabbing of those lucrative tourist destinations.

  “The people here hold tight to their hope,” said Branco as they left the startown—the narrow strip bordering the starport in which local laws did not apply. While the loading teams were busy with the shuttle, Jenkins was taking Sun and Branco into Point Clear.

  It was the first time Branco had spoken since they’d boarded the shuttle. He’d secured a new supply of pain meds while aboard Unlikely Regret. He wouldn’t say what he was taking, but whatever it was made him alternate between sullen silence and something like his old self. Sun watched him like a hawk, trying to see how he was medicating himself, but he was far too good at covering his tracks, and she didn’t know how to raise the topic without driving him away.

  Sun threw away her thoughts of his medical treatment. That was for another time. “I agree, Branco. I’ve seen worlds of the Spine Nebula filled with hunched-over people who are reluctant to look you in the eye. Beaten people. Here, though, the locals look as if they have a purpose. They’re headed somewhere, and they won’t give up their ambitions lightly.” Branco nodded approvingly. “They glance about nervously, though, as if they expect someone to take their dreams away. That someone, I presume, being the Scythe, Skipper. Are you going to explain who they are?”

  “In good time.” The captain looked out to sea. “There’s something I want to show you first.”

  The shields? Sun wondered. A shuttered metal canopy stood on poles over the land side of Point Clear’s lagoon. It was like living under an enormous bus shelter, though the open shutters bathed the port in bands of light alternated with deep shadow.

  Branco must have been thinking along the same lines because he said, “Do the people here realize they’re living on a giant barcode?”

  “Oh, they know that, all right,” replied Jenkins. When the driver made a gurgling in his throat, he added, “Though it’s only on land that people won’t stray far from the roof shields. Under the sea, the water protects against the ionizing radiation.”

  Their truck took a circuit around a lagoon that dominated the center of the small city. At several of the road intersections, ramps led toward the water.

  “Most of Point Clear is inside the lagoon,” Jenkins explained when he caught Sun boggling at a line of sealed vehicles driving into the water as they waited at the lights.

  “What proportion of Thananya’s population lives underwater?” Branco asked.

  “Dunno.” Captain Jenkins tapped the driver on the shoulder. “Skuilher-Dour?”

  “We’re sixty-forty, water breathers to air suckers,” replied the truck driver. “Most of your sort work in the water but crawl out onto the land to sleep every night, as if their lungs were some kind of godsdamned evolutionary advance. That’s knuckleheaded wherever you are in the galaxy, of course, but it’s doubly wrong on Thananya.

  The driver was himself a Selroth, wearing a rebreather to allow him to breathe out of water. A tube ran from his mask to a detachable water tank under his seat.

  They parked at city hall, which was in a plaza on the seaward side of the lagoon, just before a broad pier that ran over the reefs to the marine docks. No grand municipal building, this; it looked the same as the dockside warehouses in the distance, though it was bedecked with the flag of the Spine Patriots.

  Branco shook his head in wonder, and Sun guessed why. The architecture of Point Clear resembled a newly settled frontier world peopled by refugees, not a regional capital that had stood for over a thousand years.

  Sun started following Jenkins out the truck, but the old man shook his head. “No, Sun. You and Branco get the scenic tour from Skuilher-Dour. You need to understand what we’re fighting for.”

  After another five minutes of driving through backstreets and then onto the pier, Skuilher-Dour brought them to a diving shack. Like many of the buildings facing the sea, it proudly flew the Spine Patriot flag: a circle of fifteen white stars—one for each system in the Spine Nebula—set against the background of red, blue, and green clouds that was visible in every nighttime sky in the nebula.

  “The owner dreams of this being a tourist destination one day,” said Skuilher-Dour as he helped Sun retrieve Branco’s chair out of the trunk.

  “Will it?” asked Branco.

  “That depends on whether we ever free ourselves of the Scythe,” replied the Selroth.

  “Do you think you can?” said Sun.

  Skuilher-Dour scratched at his ears, looking from Sun to Branco and back. “If Captain Jenkins is to be believed, that depends on you two. Come on, let’s dive.”

  * * * * *

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  “For the Devil! It’s like the Bahamas.” Branco twisted the motor float he held in front of him and enjoyed his body corkscrewing through the mob of colorful fish darting through the waving coral. The fish parted effortlessly for the Human diver.

  “Ah, the Bahamas,” echoed Skuilher-Dour knowingly. Underwater, the gurgles and hoots that passed for speech from the Selroth driver-turned-tour guide sounded completely different. Yet the voice in Branco’s translator pendant sounded just the same.

  “You know the Bahamas?” Sun queried. She was floating over the coral, marveling at the varied shapes and lurid colors of the living rock.

  “Sure. Skipper’s mentioned the Bahamas. The Bazenn Sea is far superior.”

  “Because of this coral?” Branco suggested. “It’s so vibrant here. So healthy. Unlike Earth.”

&n
bsp; “No. In case you haven’t recognized the habitats of your own world, ours is transplanted Earth coral, and it is indeed far superior. Many of the fish and other creatures who shelter on the reef are native to my own home world, or that of Thananya itself. The coral was not, however, what the skipper had in mind when he said Thananya was superior.”

  “Taxes.” Sun looked back at Branco from inside the school of yellow tang fish brushing past her. Her voice chimed with amusement.

  “Yes, of course, taxes,” the Selroth agreed. “Thananya has a flat tax of two percent of estimated wealth per annum, or five percent of income. Whichever is the lower. We find it’s an incentive to succeed when too many in the nebula have given up. When the skipper told me of the overbearing interference of Earth authorities and their tax rates, at first I thought he was joking.” With a lazy flick of his naturally webbed feet, Skuilher-Dour speared through the water and came to rest on the coral looking straight up into Sun’s face. “Frankly, I’m still not sure whether he’s joking.”

  Skuilher-Dour flicked a webbed hand against a blank section of coral that was devoid of polyps. The rock, the water, and even a grazing shrimp suddenly vanished, revealing themselves to be falsehoods, moving camouflage pictures drawn by the skin of the creature Skuilher-Dour had spotted.

  “It’s an arno-khu,” said the Selroth, “an ambush predator from my home world.” The creature was a stack of toroids, its camouflage so effective that it made the animal almost invisible to the Human eye and—more importantly, Sun supposed—to the fish sheltering and feeding on the reef.

  The arno-khu repaired its camouflage and once more became indistinguishable from the surrounding coral. An unfortunate clownfish bumped into the outside of the ring stack. They watched as the arno-khu phased back into visibility, launched off its rocky base in a plume of air bubbles, and landed on the fish.