Call of Courage: 7 Novels of the Galactic Frontier

Call of Courage

7 Novels of the Galactic Frontier

C. Gockel M. Pax Allen Kuzara Amy J. Murphy Deirdre Gould Zachariah Wahrer Chris Reher

C. Gockel

Contents

About the Books

Archangel Down

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

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Anti Life

I. Novos

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

II. Constance

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

III. Outpost

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

IV. Breakdown

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Allies and Enemies: Fallen

Part I

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Part II

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Traveler in the Dark

Acknowledgments

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

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Breakers of the Dawn

Acknowledgments

Prologue

01 - Felar

02 - Wake

03 - Maxar

04 - Tremmilly

05 - Lothis

06 - The Founder

07 - Cazz-ak-tak

08 - Wake

09 - Felar

10 - Lothis

11 - Maxar

12 - Tremmilly

13 - Crasor

14 - Cazz-ak-tak

15 - Wake

16 - Felar

17 - Lothis

18 - Maxar

19 - Tremmilly

20 - The Founder

21 - Crasor

22 - Cazz-ak-tak

23 - Wake

24 - Felar

25 - Lothis

26 - Maxar

27 - Tremmilly

28 - The Founder

29 - Crasor

30 - Cazz-ak-tak

31 - Wake

32 - Felar

33 - Lothis

34 - Maxar

35 - Tremmilly

36 - Cazz-ak-tak

37 - The Founder

38 - Crasor

The Backworlds

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

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Sky Hunter

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Call of Courage

Copyright © 2019

These novels are works of fiction. Names, characters, and locations are either a product of the authors’ imaginations or used in a fictitious setting. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, organizations, or people, living or dead, is strictly coincidental. No part from this book may be used or reproduced without written consent from the authors.

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to others. If you would like to share this book with another person, please have them download their FREE copy. If you are reading this book and did not download it from a digital retailer, or it was not downloaded for your use only, please return to an online book retailer and download your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of these authors.

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About the Books

Archangel Down by C. Gockel

Commander Noa Sato doesn’t believe in aliens. She’s wrong. In the face of genocide she must hatch a daring plan with a ragtag crew to save the lives of millions—and her own. Every step of the way she is haunted by the final words of a secret transmission: The archangel is down.

Anti Life by Allen Kuzara

The opposite of life isn't death; it's something far worse. Mission colonel John Alvarez must carry out one last mission, a rescue attempt. Unknown to Alvarez, however, is the hidden threat that awaits him, one that—if he cannot stop it—will doom humanity to a fate worse than death.

Allies and Enemies: Fallen by Amy J. Murphy

Born into service of the Regime, Commander Sela Tyron is about as subtle as a hammer. To hammers, any problem can look like a nail. But things aren’t always that easy —especially when Sela is forced to choose between the only life she's ever known and rescuing a trusted comrade.

Traveler in the Dark by Deirdre Gould

Sixteen centuries ago, they fled Earth. They've never walked on soil, felt rain, or breathed unrecycled air. At last, they sent exploratory mission to a new planet. It's ideal... but they are not alone. Struggling for survival, they must make a choice. Sacrifice another species or accept their own extinction.

Breakers of the Dawn by Zachariah Wahrer

Humanity has fallen from its once majestic place amongst the stars. Desperate for resources, they seize every available planet, exterminating their alien inhabitants. Sent to subdue an uprising, a government operative unearths an alien relic. The strange device promises extraordinary power, but can he trust it?

The Backworlds by M. Pax

After the war with the Foreworlds, competition among the Backworlds is fierce. Pickings are scant enough that Craze’s father boots him off the planet. Cut off from everyone he knows with little knowledge of the worlds beyond, Craze must find a way to survive and get his revenge.

Sky Hunter by Chris Reher

Terrorists plot to destroy a space elevator on a remote planet. Nova Whiteside, Air Command pilot, is caught behind enemy lines in a bloody uprising. The treacherous and illicit schemes she uncovers there make her question who, really, is the enemy.

Archangel Down

Archangel Project. Book One.

C. Gockel

In the year 2432, humans think they are alone in the universe. They're wrong.

Commander Noa Sato plans a peaceful leave on her home planet Luddeccea ... but winds up interrogated and imprisoned for her involvement in the Archangel Project. A project she knows nothing about.

Professor James Sinclair wakes in the snow, not remembering the past twenty four hours, or knowing why he is being pursued. The only thing he knows is that he has to find Commander Sato, a woman he's never met.

A military officer from the colonies and a civilian from Old Earth, they couldn't have less in common. But they have to work together to save the lives of millions--and their own.

Every step of the way they are haunted by the final words of a secret transmission: The archangel is down.

To my dad, Jim Evans. Thanks for getting me hooked on sci-fi, fantasy, and comic books. I miss you.

Chapter One

We know you are a part of the Archangel Project.

Commander Noa Sato of the Galactic Fleet glared across the table. Two men wearing the dark green uniforms of planet Luddeccea’s Local Guard glared back at her. Her arms were shackled behind her back to the cold metal chair she sat on. The room was chilly—she could smell the cold of it, along with the odors of various bodily fluids. Her back ached, her mouth was as dry as lizzar skin, and she thought the bright lights of the interrogation room might leave her permanently blind.

I told you, I don’t know what you’re talking about, she spat.

Then why are you here?

I’m on leave, she explained for the hundredth time. I thought I’d spend my vacation visiting my brother on the planet where I grew up. Is that so difficult to understand? Agitated, she spun her engagement and wedding rings around on her finger. Closing her eyes, she thought of her brother, Kenji, and inwardly begged his forgiveness. When they’d picked her up, she’d assumed this was all a misunderstanding. She hadn’t meant to pull him into this.

I’ve had enough! said one of her inquisitors. A pair of sharp, pointed pliers emerged in his hand, and suddenly he was on Noa’s side of the table. Do you understand what I can do with these?

Noa tried to keep from screaming … and woke up in the darkness, her whole body shaking, her breathing so fast and ragged her ribs hurt, cold air stinging her lungs. The darkness smelled like cold and various bodily fluids, an unhappy constant with the nightmare. She rubbed her eyes. But the rest had been just a dream. They hadn’t used those pliers except to scare her during the interrogation. When she hadn’t told them what they wanted to hear, they’d brought her to this camp.

She blinked. Was it unusually bright in the barracks? Stifling a groan, she sat up. Her vision immediately went black. She tried to access the reason why—and for the millionth time remembered her neural interface had been deactivated since she’d arrived here. Sucking in a sharp breath, she clutched her head, fingers drifting to the smooth, cool surface of the neural interface in her left temple. The guards were fond of parroting, Freedom from information streams is the path to real wisdom, but it was torture, not freedom.

Noa’s body swayed. Why was she dizzy? It couldn’t be Luddeccea’s gravity—the planet’s gravity was the same as Earth’s and standard starship grav. Was it malnutrition, or something more sinister? She bit her lip to stifle a bitter laugh. She was being slowly starved to death. How much more sinister could it get?

The spell finally passed, and she surveyed the barracks. All around her were rough wooden bunks four platforms tall. The beds were narrower than the single bunks on a starship, but each was shared by up to three women packed chest to back beneath thin blankets and without pillows. She could make out their faces—just barely—but it was definitely lighter in the barracks. Noa looked down at her bedmate, Ashley. Noa’s skin was dark as straight Earth coffee. Ashley’s was what Tim’s people would call peaches and cream. It made Ashley’s delicate features easy to see, even in low light. As she slept, clutching her crutch like a pillow, her face looked peaceful and her breathing was gentle. Not wanting to wake her, Noa gently folded her side of the blanket over Ashley’s sleeping form. Slipping down the slats at the end of the bed, she padded to the window.

Peering through the dirty glass, she caught her breath. Sure enough, thick white flakes of snow drifted from the sky, sparkling in the camp’s harsh spotlights. Their barracks was close to the barbed-wire fence that enclosed them, and she could just make out snow catching on the Luddeccean pines in the surrounding forest. Noa pressed a hand to the window. The snow on the dense foliage would throw off heat-seeking scanners, and the thick branches would throw off radar, but it wasn’t bitterly cold—yet. If they were going to escape, now was the time. Her brow furrowed, and she touched her interface. She squinted at the clouds as though she could will herself to see through them. Somewhere above their heads, the satellite that was Time Gate 8 floated just outside the atmosphere above Luddeccea’s equator. The gate allowed instantaneous travel to any other system that had a gate of its own. It also sent and received data. Time Gate 8 and the other satellites that orbited around Luddeccea’s equator acted as relay stations for the vast data traffic of the ethernet. And, she thought more darkly, if her neural interface couldn’t be activated, the satellites would serve as useful landmarks for navigation … if the snow let up.

Dropping her hand to her side, she balled it into a fist and bowed her head. As a pilot of the Galactic Republic Fleet she’d been given POW training. She was taught to stay put, to obey orders, and not to make foolish escape plans. She closed her eyes. But there was no war going on, and she wasn’t the captive of some pirate clan. She was in a concentration camp on her home world, Luddeccea, which hadn’t declared independence from the Republic. Opening her eyes, she looked down at her wrist. A black ‘H’ and a number had been tattooed there, barely visible against her dark skin. She’d been captured, interrogated, and interned without a trial for being, in the guard’s words, a heretic. Not an admissible crime in the Republic. If the Fleet had known she was here, she’d have been rescued by now. Her hands formed fists at her sides. Kenji should have reported her missing. If he hadn’t reported her missing, it had to mean he’d been interned, too … spinning on her heels, she went back to her bunk.

A few moments later, she was leaning over her bedmate, gently shaking her shoulder. Ashley, Ashley, wake up, it’s time to leave.

Ashley rolled over onto her back. Her eyes opened—visibly blue in the snow-brightness. She stared at Noa dumbly.

Today is the day, Noa whispered. It’s snowing.

Ashley put a hand to her head and ran it through her sparse hair; they’d all been shaved when they arrived. A tattooed ‘A’ for augment stood out on her wrist like a black scar. Ashley’s fingers went longingly to her neural interface just as Noa’s had. About three centimeters in diameter, the interfaces were made of copper with titanium and polyfiber exteriors. At the center of each was a circular port that could be hardwired directly to external computer systems via cable, but it was more common to use the internal wireless transmitters. Around the central port, tiny drives, the width and breadth of fingernails, were arranged. When functioning, they could be used for app insertion. Normally, Noa thought neural interfaces looked like flowers—the tiny drives surrounding the central ports like petals. But like every prisoner in the camp, Ashley had a large, ugly, black polyfiber screw jammed into her interface port. The screw disrupted the flow of electrons between neurons and nanos and completely jammed their wireless transmitters. It was a primitive but very effective way to keep inmates from accessing their neural interfaces and the wider universe with their minds.

We have to get ready before the others get up, Noa whispered.

Ashley stared at her a beat too long, but then sat up and quietly handed Noa her crutch. Noa slid off the bed and down the ladder, crutch in hand, and waited for Ashley. When Ashley had first arrived at the camp, she had a cybernetic limb, her ‘augment,’ having lost her left leg to an accident as a teenager. The guards had ripped the leg off on Ashley’s arrival—no anesthesia, of course. Noa scowled in the darkness, anger bubbling in her gut on Ashley’s behalf. Noa’s thumb went to the stumps of the fingers on her left hand—her ring finger and pinky had been removed for different reasons than Ashley’s leg, but at least Noa’s surgery had been quick.

Ashley stumbled over the side of the bed, and Noa helped her down the ladder. Instead of giving Ashley her noisy wooden crutch, Noa swung Ashley’s arm over her shoulder. Together they went to the corner of the room. There was a waste bin there reeking of vomit. As they drew close, a few scrawny rats scrambled out over the edge. Ashley gasped, and Noa put a finger to her lip for silence as the filthy creatures darted into the shadows.

Holding back her bile, Noa gave Ashley her crutch, released her, and then rolled the waste bin to the side. Ashley immediately went to her good knee and lifted a small piece of floorboard. She pulled out a sack and carefully unwrapped it.

Inside were a few pieces of bread they’d painstakingly saved over the last two weeks. There were also a few tools in the bundle. Ashley was a cybernetics engineer. Noa wondered if it was her engineering ability, as much as her cybernetic leg, that had gotten her thrown in the camp. Noa’s hand fluttered up to her interface; almost everyone but the most strident fundamentalist Luddecceans were augmented in some way or another in this day and age.

It’s all here, Ashley whispered, snapping Noa back to the present.

Noa’s bunk mate had created the tools in the bundle from bits of glass, scavenged wire, and castaway cybernetic parts. Along with a precious pair of pliers to remove the bolt, there was also, miracles of miracles, a shattered com chip that Ashley had cemented together with nail polish she’d stolen from a guard. The size of a fingernail, the com chip glittered in the low light. Slipping the chip into a neural drive would give Ashley or Noa the ability to listen to the restricted frequencies the Luddecceans were using.

Well done, Ashley, Noa whispered, patting the woman’s shoulder. She couldn’t help but notice that Ashley was trembling. Outside, she heard guards talking to one another, debating who would wake up which barracks. Tie it up, and be ready, Noa said. As soon as people start waking, we offer to take corpse patrol. No one wanted corpse patrol—it meant being last in the breakfast line—among other things.

Visibly shaking, Ashley replaced the board. Noa quickly rolled the waste bin back over it, and helped Ashley up.

Outside, she heard the guards laughing and their footsteps approaching. Any moment they’d come in.

Trembling beside her, Ashley said, Noa, I can’t go with you.

Noa looked at her sharply, uncertain of what she’d just heard. What?

Not meeting her eyes, clutching the tiny bundle to her stomach, Ashley said, I’ll slow you down.

No, Noa lied. You won’t. Noa was taller by at least four inches. Leaning down, she put her hands on Ashley’s shoulders. There was a tear running down Ashley’s cheek. Noa wiped it away without thinking. She felt her gut constrict. Ashley didn’t look well; she was paler than even Tim had been—and he’d been blonde, blue-eyed, and genuine Aryan purist stock.

Ashley and Noa had bonded over their skin coloring when they first met. They were both throwbacks to an era people considered less enlightened, when humans had been many races instead of one. People like Noa and Ashley were reminders of that time; it made people nervous and, ironically, prejudiced. It had been a superficial reason to bond, and it could have backfired spectacularly when Noa had first voiced her escape ideas. But Noa had sensed bravery and mettle in Ashley and knew she wouldn’t betray her. I need you, Ashley, she whispered. She didn’t want to carry out their escape plans alone.

Hunching her shoulders, Ashley looked at the floor.

Trying to ease her fears with a laugh, Noa said, If you don’t come, who will listen to all my crazy schemes and tell me they won’t work? Who will tell me to shut up when I’m whining? Who will kick me when I snore?

Ashley’s eyes lifted.

Noa tilted her head and gave Ashley what Tim used to call her best cornball grin. Although Noa had some acquaintance with corn, she wasn’t sure what a cornball was—probably some Aryan-Europa purist isolationist thing Tim’s people did—some sort of weird ball sport? Whatever it was, the grin had always worked on Tim and usually worked with her friend.

Instead, Ashley whimpered, Don’t make this worse! You don’t need me, Noa. I showed you how to remove the bolt and turn your neural interface back on. You can move more quickly without me.

Noa squeezed her shoulder. Ashley, Starmen do not leave Starmen behind.

I’m not a Starman, Ashley protested, wiping her eyes.

I can’t leave you here, Noa whispered back. There was a part of her that wanted to, that was afraid of having to half-carry Ashley through the snow and wilderness. Starmen didn’t give into fear.

Ashley closed her eyes. Yes, you can, and you have to. You have to tell people about this place—if you tell them, they’ll come for us and the nightmare will end.

You could be dead before that happens, Noa whispered, the reek of the vomit in the bin creeping into her consciousness. People died here all the time—of illness, injuries, and starvation.

I won’t die, Ashley whispered.

Every muscle in Noa’s body tensed. Ashley was too smart to believe that.

Putting her hand on Noa’s arm, Ashley whispered, And you have to go rescue your brother. From what you told me, he’s in much worse danger than I am.

Noa swallowed. Most of her family had left Luddeccea—complaining that it was becoming more fundamentalist. But Noa’s brother Kenji had left and then come back. Considering what Kenji was, that was especially crazy. Oh, nebulas, what would they do to Kenji? If they permanently deactivated his neural interface and deep neural implants—

The door to the barracks opened, and one of the guard women strode in. The guard was new and wore fresh Luddeccean Green—layers and layers of it. She looked so warm, Noa hugged herself instinctively. The guard had the amalgamation of East Asian-East Indian features that were most common: East Asian eyes, straight nose, full lips, tan skin, and black hair. She was very tall, and Noa noted enviously, well-fed. The woman bellowed, Up, all of you!

Around them, women cried and rose from their bunks.

Leaning to Ashley’s ear, Noa whispered, Do you want to wait until another day? Her fingers twitched at her sides. The longer they stayed here, the weaker they became. But maybe Ashley’s pallor was due to illness? Sometimes people here recovered from minor illnesses. Sometimes.

Ashley pushed the bundle at Noa’s chest. Noa quickly tucked it in the waistband of the secondhand rags that served as pants. Her own clothes had been confiscated.

Ashley whispered, If you don’t go, I’ll tell them you are planning to escape.

Rocking back on her feet, Noa’s eyes went wide. The women in the barracks began stumbling into the line that went to the mess hall. Grabbing her crutch, Ashley hobbled quickly toward them. Noa chased her, feeling anger and dismay welling in her chest. Ashley, wait …

Ashley turned back. Wavering on her crutch, she hissed, I’ll scream, I swear it.

Noa stopped in her tracks.

Why aren’t you getting in line? the guard bellowed at Ashley.

I don’t want to sleep with this woman anymore, Ashley said, shaking her crutch in Noa’s direction. She curled up her lip and stammered, Filthy African!

Noa’s jaw fell. It was the language of the European purists—a group to which Ashley didn’t belong. She was like Noa—a random winner of a genetic lottery who looked like one of the old races. There were sharp chuckles from the women in line, maybe enjoying the irony of one perceived purist insulting another.

If the guard hadn’t been new, she would have smelled the lie. Ashley and Noa had been friends since their arrival. But the guard was fooled. Huffing, she said, Stupid Europa, get in line. And you— She pointed at Noa.

Noa threw up her hands and moved to the line, but then her eyes slid to Ashley. The other woman was mouthing the words, Go, Go, Go.

Noa’s lip curled in despair and fury. Her eyes blurred—stupid, selfless, brave, Ashley. Noa was going to curse her name for years, she already knew it. Sucking in a sharp breath, she said to the guard, I’m on corpse duty.

Noa watched the other women go to the mess, their shapes blurred by the snow and the dawn twilight. She could just make out Ashley hobbling on her crutch.

Noa looked heavenward. The snow-bearing clouds seemed to go on forever. There was no hope that she’d be able to navigate by Time Gate 8. She touched her interface, and her fingers slipped to the bolt blocking her data port. As soon as the bolt was removed and her neural interface was activated, she’d be able to find her way. She stroked the edges of the port, and her hand shook with hunger and weariness—or perhaps just yearning for connection. She’d be able to contact the Fleet, her family, everyone … she shook her head. Maybe not right away, not until she put some distance between herself and this place. Otherwise her signal might be targeted, and she’d be dust. But she’d be able to receive signals. Her heart clenched, thinking of her mother’s voice. Her mother would have left a message as soon as Noa missed her weekly call. It had to be up there, suspended in the ether; Noa could receive it if she could just access the ethernet. The cold polyfiber of her interface burned her fingers, and Noa realized she’d been standing there, staring blankly at the clouds for much too long.

Exhaling and dropping her hand, she looked down the row of barracks. The snow was falling so thickly she couldn’t see to the end. There was a large, open wagon two barracks away. The wagon looked like a thing out of the twenty-first century. It was made of rusty metal, with actual wheels. The source of locomotion, by contrast, looked prehistoric. The wagon was attached to a lizzar, a herbivorous animal native to Luddeccea that was lizard-like in appearance. It was as large as a cow. Instead of scales, fur, or feathers, it was covered by thick gray hide plates, as wide as a hand. It stood on four squat legs, had a short heavy tail, and a beak-like snout for ripping bark from trees. Noa had grown up in Luddeccean farm country surrounded by imported Earth livestock; lizzar made cows and even chickens look like geniuses. She watched as women from other barracks on corpse patrol threw bodies into the wagon. The smell of death didn’t bother the lizzar a bit. It stood licking at the falling snowflakes. The smell of death didn’t seem to bother the driver either. He sat unmoving at the front of the wagon, a barbed whip in his hand. Noa let out a breath in trepidation. There were no dead in her barracks. She had no corpse and no excuse to be near the vehicle. It was a sickening thing not to be relieved by the absence of death. What was she becoming?

Her skin heated despite the cold and her thumb found its way to the stumps of her fingers. Her fingers had been swollen when she first arrived; to steal her rings, the guards had cut off the last two digits. The memory of the pain didn’t compare to the loss of those simple bands. After years as a widow, they were the only reminders of Timothy she kept on her person, and these people—animals—had stolen them. For a moment, she was so angry her vision went white as the snow. As her vision cleared, she spotted a barrel with a fire burning in it near the wagon. Two female guards were standing beside it warming their hands. Yelling for the driver’s attention, the guards motioned for the man to get off the wagon. He perked up, hopped off, and followed them into a guard house. Noa’s lip curled. For her husband’s memory alone, she should take the barrel into one of the barracks, tip it over, and set this whole camp on fire.

Her feet started moving as though they had a will of their own. She pictured the flames rising up above the roof of the barracks, and it made welcome heat flare in her chest. And then she remembered Ashley’s plea, Tell people about this place, and swore. She heard her husband Tim’s voice in her head, Revenge isn’t rational if it is suicidal, and it doesn’t help anyone. She shook her head. Timothy was always so damned logical. Damn you to Hell for being in my head all this time, she muttered. Her face crumpled, and she held back tears.

She drew to a stop and stood between the flaming barrel and the wagon. It was the first time she’d ever seen a corpse wagon unguarded and without a driver. In the guard house, she heard the guards and the driver; it sounded as though the guards were flirting with him. She snarled in frustration; how dare they laugh? She imagined picking up the barrel and hurling it through the building’s window. Her hands balled helplessly at her sides. Or maybe she'd just burn herself. She looked at the wagon loaded with bodies, heard one of the female guards say, We get so lonely sometimes, and bit her lip to keep from screaming. They deserved to die in flames. She heard the crunch of boots in snow, and looked frantically between the wagon and the fire.

I should have set the whole damn place on fire, Noa projected the thought into her mental log as the wagon hit an exceptionally large pothole. She was shivering, colder than she’d ever been, and sick of it.

Ehh … Lizzy, did you hear that? the driver asked. Her neural interface was dead, and she had spoken aloud instead. Quietly sucking in a breath, she said a prayer—silently this time—but her mind still reached for her neural interface, though it had been disabled for weeks.

Must be going crazy, said the driver. Noa could barely hear him over the sound of Lizzy the lizzar’s feet and the creak of the wagon wheels.

Noa’s lips curled, even as her heart rate picked up in fear. She longed to get up and shout, You despicable blob of blue-green algae! You have been to the camp. You are a monster to allow such horror. But then she’d have to kill him before he killed her, and he wouldn’t show up to his destination on time. She needed to get out just before he reached his destination—whatever that was—and quietly escape without anyone being the wiser.

But she was so hungry … and so alone. She longed to open up her bundle, not just for the food, but to activate her neural interface and have the collective consciousness of humanity piped blissfully into her brain.

No, Noa, don’t go down that road, she thought. You’ll get out of this.

She bit her lip. She’d been in plenty of dire straits in the Galactic Fleet, but she’d never been in a situation this bad. Even the Asteroid War in System 6 … she took a breath. At least, in that hell she’d had her crew mates.

Her one small relief now was that her fellows lay still and silent in the wagon. She had heard horror stories of barely-alive prisoners being thrown out with the dead.

She scrunched her eyes shut and took another breath, counting to ten as she did. Shutting her eyes was a mistake. Unable to see the meager light filtering through the blanket draped over her like a shroud, she focused on the feeling of the bodies around her. Where they should have been warm and soft, they were frozen and hard. She pictured their cold, graying eyes. She opened her mouth, about to say, Get a grip, Noa, Captain Kim escaped a hostage situation with this same ploy … Catching herself, she restrained a shudder. After his cadaver-escaping-hostage experience, Kim had become a haunted man.

Her hand drifted to the bundle. The rational part of her brain warned her that extracting the bolt was bound to be a noisy business … but the emotional part of her brain was screaming that if she went insane with loneliness, survival wouldn’t be worth it. Her hands tightened around the bundle. She almost pulled it out, but then jerked her hand away. Closing her eyes, she tried to focus on happy thoughts, the kittens on her starship, her last lover—not Tim—she could never think of Timothy. He wasn’t a happy thought. But, of course, telling herself not to think of her husband made her think of him, and made her thumb seek the stump of her ring finger. She could picture his dark blonde hair, slightly sunburnt cheeks, pale skin and ice-blue eyes. What would he say right now? Don’t think of me, woman, think of something happy. She bit back a smile and the hard edge of old grief. Think of something happy. She closed her eyes, and thought of her little brother Kenji …

The sunlight sliding through the window onto Kenji’s bed seemed to have physical shape. It put his sleeping ten-year-old form in a natural spotlight. The spotlight effect was amplified by the midnight black walls of Kenji’s room. Over the black paint he had put a map of the universe as it would appear from the core of Luddeccea. He longed to leave Luddeccea and explore the greater universe as much as Noa did, but for different reasons. Noa wanted excitement, adventure, and freedom. In Noa’s mother’s words, Kenji’s fascination was much more scientific. He’d agonized for months over how to make a cuboid-shaped room simulate a 360-degree spherical view. In the end, he’d made his bed the core and painted the constellations on the walls in a way that created an optical illusion of a sphere. Without an active neural interface, he’d tediously calculated the exact distortion he’d need to make the constellations appear realistic by entering formulas verbally into a computational device. Perhaps it hadn’t been tedious; to Kenji, math was never tedious.

Kenji’s eyelashes fluttered. Noa’s fourteen-year-old self sat down beside him on the bed.

Noa? he whispered, rubbing the bandages over his data port.

Leaning forward, Noa took his other hand. His skin was tan, unlike hers, and instead of her fine tight coils, his hair hung in smooth black ringlets.

I’m here, Kenny, she said. How do you feel? Are you in pain? Everyone received a neural interface in the soft spot at the left side of their skulls when they were just infants. The interfaces weren’t activated until they were ten, when nanoparticles were injected into the central port. The nanos spread out over the surface of the brain in a net and could receive and send electrical pulses. Through the electrical pulses, sights, sounds, words, and even shadows of emotions could be received and sent. Secondary applications made arithmetic and memory tasks easier, too. Noa’s awakening hadn’t been a painful process; joining with the greater collective conscious had been, and still was, wonderful. As her neural interface had been gradually activated, she had been able to explore larger and larger parts of the universe with only her thoughts. But Kenji’s awakening was different. Among other peculiarities, Kenji lacked the ability to read facial expressions. So doctors had sent some of the nanoparticles into deep structures of his brain to stimulate the regions that were at work when humans saw a smile, a frown, or a flinch.

Kenji’s eyelids ceased their fluttering, and his hazel eyes finally opened; in the bright sunlight they looked almost gold.

No, I don’t hurt, said Kenji, his voice and expression flat.

Noa smiled, not sure if the extra nanos had helped, but glad that he didn’t hurt. A lot of the Satos’ neighbors had disapproved of the family’s decision to add the extra nanos, and she’d been worried about it herself. Her mom said it was the Luddeccean influence affecting Noa’s reasoning. Her family was part of the fourth wave of settlers to Luddeccea, the fourth families. They weren’t part of the hard-core Luddeccean first families and second families that had migrated here to escape the coming Cyber Apocalypse and Alien Wars. It had been over four centuries since the first, primitive neural interfaces were designed and humans had begun exploring deep space. Neither of those conflicts had come to pass. Now, only the most fundamentalist Luddecceans didn’t receive the neural interface—interfaces might be forbidden by Luddeccean gospel, but then, so was birth control. Most Luddecceans practiced birth control, and neural interfaces were even more popular than that. Still, many of the Satos’ neighbors were against more drastic augmentation, like what had been done to Kenji. It would strip him of his soul, they argued.

Noa had worried about that, and that it might hurt. But it didn’t. Her smile broadened.

Kenji gasped. You’re happy.

Noa’s eyes widened. He’d read her expression! Yes. She hadn’t sent that feeling to him through the net—his nanos were too new, and it would be a while before he was sending and receiving feelings or data.

Kenji’s brow furrowed. And you’re surprised … His eyes drifted down to her mouth. And happy.

Yes! Noa cried, squeezing his hand. Are you?

Yes, he whispered. And then he smiled. A little awkwardly, to be sure, but genuine. Kenji’s smiles were always genuine.

I feel … he murmured. His hand tightened around hers. Not alone.

The wagon jerked to a stop, and Noa’s eyes bolted open. She heard shouts, and the roar of large engines, but not the distinctive whir of antigrav. She was at the destination; she’d fallen asleep and missed her proverbial stop.

Outside of the wagon someone shouted, Detach that dumb lizzar and get that loaded up onto the dumper! Let’s toss those corpses and bury them so we can get inside and get warm!

Noa’s heart stopped. So that was what they did with the dead. She heard the driver step down from the wagon, heard engines approaching, heard four loud squeals, and then the wagon was hoisted into the air. Creeping out from under her blanket to the side of the wagon, Noa peered down and gulped. She was thirty feet above a deep pit in the dark, rich earth. She lifted her gaze. Beyond the pit was a field of low hillocks covered in snow. Her heart sank as she realized the hillocks were graves. Focus on the positive, Noa, she reminded herself, and then realized there weren’t many positives to focus on. You’re out of the camp … and being a first officer was boring you half to death. Stupid blue-green algae reports.

Did you hear that? someone said. I swear this place is infested with spirits.

Her eyes went wide. Damn it, she’d spoken aloud. But then someone else said, You’re starting to hear things. These are augments, they don’t have souls to be trapped in the afterlife. Human up!

Noa’s fists clenched at that, but she focused on the terrain beyond the graves. Through the falling snow she made out low, forested mountains—the perfect hideout if she didn’t freeze to death.

She heard engines to her right; she looked and saw enormous bulldozers. The platform the wagon was on started to incline and the frozen bodies started to slip. Scrambling forward, Noa grabbed the front edge of the wagon. She had to stay on top of the bodies. Clinging to the cold metal, part of her brain screamed that this was it, that the dirt from the bulldozers was going to be on top of her before she made it out of the pit. Shut up, brain, she whispered. This time no one heard. The whirring of the engines and screeching of the dumper drowned her out. The wagon inclined more steeply and the back opened up. Her frozen companions started to slide into the open earth. Noa could hear shouts of surprise and alarm over the engine roars. Had they seen her? Tightening her grip, she waited for bullets … but none came … and the wagon stopped its incline. She looked down. The wagon was tilted at a steep angle, but there were still a few bodies at the bottom. Once she could have clung here like a xinbat for hours, but she was so weak. Her arms shook with cold and weariness. She heard more shouts, and then her fingers slipped. Noa crashed onto the bodies below her, sending a few more toppling into the pit, but didn’t topple in herself. She blinked, and found herself staring at a body of a woman whose mouth was frozen open in horror. Noa looked up fast, knowing that strange woman’s face would be embedded in her consciousness as long as she lived. Granted, her lifespan felt like it was getting shorter by the second. She heard shouting. Above her head she heard the whir of antigrav.

There were more shouts, and the sound of engines turning off. One of the graveyard workers shouted, The alien invasion is here! Quick, to your stations.

Noa’s brow furrowed. What the solar core? She was ranked high enough in the Galactic Fleet to be privy to the intel the public didn’t ordinarily hear: terrorist attacks that were thwarted and not thwarted, plagues that didn’t respond to standard antivirals, antibiotics, or radiation treatments; the latest in quantum drives, hidden jump stations, and all intel on extraterrestrial life. There were no aliens—well, not the kind that were sentient space-going beings or that would be anytime soon. There was plenty of blue-green algae, though. She’d had to fill out many a report on blue-green algae in her time in the fleet. The Galactic Republic was so concerned with not disrupting the natural habitat of any potentially sentient being that it went to great lengths to prove that even the bloody-universal-blue-green algae they found all over the galaxy didn’t represent a hive mind. In all the cases Noa had reviewed as first officer, it hadn’t. She felt the muscles in her neck tense and her skin heat in memory of the maze of bureaucracy she’d had to go through each time they came to a semi-habitable world and she, as Acting First Officer, had gotten the joy of compiling the reports from the scientists.

She took a deep breath. It didn’t matter what the crazy Luddecceans believed about aliens. She scrambled to the edge of the wagon and peered over. Not a human in sight. Hauling herself over the edge, she slid down to the dumper platform, and jumped to the ground. Overhead she heard cannon fire and more antigrav engines. Instead of an alien vessel, she saw a single civilian flight vehicle—the kind that could just get far enough out of atmosphere to traverse the globe rapidly or rendezvous with Time Gate 8. It was being rapidly pursued by one of the Luddeccean Guard’s ships.

Noa didn’t have time to wonder who it was. Ducking her head, she ran. She heard more cannon fire in the sky—so close the ground reverberated beneath her feet and her ears rang. But no one fired at her. She couldn’t have planned a more brilliant decoy strategy. Legs pumping as fast as they would go, breathing so hard it felt like her lungs were filled with shards of glass, she threaded her way between hillocks, and didn’t stop until her heart felt like it would beat out of her chest and she was well into the trees. Panting, legs shaking, she stooped and took out the bundle. She didn’t reach for food; she reached for the pliers.

Moments later, the bolt in her neural interface was discarded in the snow at her feet. With trembling fingers, she reached into the data port and found the damaged circuits. She snapped a few tiny levers back into place. And felt … nothing. She shook her head violently side to side, and her interface was reignited by the kinetic energy of the action. She felt the familiar buzz in her neurons, and she threw up her arms in joy. She had an urge to call her mother, the Fleet, anyone, but stifled it, remembering her signal might be detected. Instead, she set about searching the ethernet for proper escape music, or maybe what she needed was a direct link to the mind of a footballer on Mars sprinting in low gravity; that would lift her heart. She settled on a channel for Mars’s premier stadium. Instead of a direct link to a footballer’s brain, she heard an announcement: The Republic has failed to heed the Luddeccean warnings of alien invasion. We will be alone in our struggle, but as Luddecceans we will prevail! Noa blinked. Madness, obviously. She searched for a channel on Venus she liked for its dance music and got the same announcer, this time warning, Disconnect your neural interfaces lest they be compromised by alien influence. Noa felt her heart tumble as she skittered through the stations. All were broadcasting the same announcer—all the off-world and planet-side channels had been compromised.

Swearing, and almost crying, she plucked the chip from the open bundle, put it into a spare slot, and tuned into the Luddeccean secure channel—as she should have done immediately, she scolded herself. She heard a different man’s voice, low and sonorous. Team four has joined the pursuit, target will soon be down.

Belatedly, Noa realized the chase above her head was still going on.

Another voice crackled in her brain. Should we give up the search for the lost prisoner?

Noa held her breath.

Negative, do not abort the search. Commander Noa Sato is considered a high security risk and extremely dangerous.

Noa’s hackles rose. Curse of bloody competency, she grumbled.

We don’t have her individual port reading, one of the voices said. She must not have a locator.

Noa did have a locator—a Fleet supplied one. If there were any Fleet close by, they would have detected her. But, of course, the Galactic Fleet had devices that scrambled signals and even location. They didn’t want shot-down personnel being trailed by terrorists. Unless they had a Fleet decoder—or until she tried to call for help—she would be as invisible as a phantom.

Another voice chimed in, The screw jammed into her port should have a short-range locator. Try homing in on that.

Noa’s eyes widened. She looked at the piece of polymer and metal at her feet. It was big enough to contain a locator chip. Picking it up, she hurled it through the air. And then, after stuffing some bread and snow in her mouth and letting it warm, she accessed some data her parents had made her download when she was just a girl. For an instant she worried that the ethernet bands used by her GPS would also have been hijacked—but a map seemingly etched in light appeared in the air before her—an illusion created by data as it interacted with her visual cortex. She saw her location as a single, red blinking light in a three-dimensional landscape. She concentrated—saved the data locally in case the GPS was hijacked, and then focused on finding the closest human habitation. There was a winter retreat town exactly twenty clicks away. She could make it … if she didn’t freeze to death.

Curling her hands against her stomach for warmth, she set off through the pines. Just a few minutes later, Noa heard a howl so loud, it made every hair on the back of her neck stand on end. She heard a crack, snow fell all around her, and she ducked. A branch as thick as her leg landed not six steps away. The howling continued. Noa looked up. Where she stood there was only a breeze, but beyond the shelter of the pines’ great trunks, the wind was whipping the tree tops like mad banners. She curled her hands more tightly against herself and kept going.

Over the Luddeccean channel, someone said, Sato’s data bolt has been found. Fan out!

Another voice cracked, We can’t send a jump team from the cruisers. It’s too windy.