Fortunes of War (Stellar Main Book 1) Read online

  “Neither did we.”

  “I’ll tell you what happens next. If you fail, then we’re dead. All of us. Fortuna will blast us out of space. If we succeed, then we’re heroes, and heroes don’t get court-martialed, not on the basis of purely circumstantial evidence. Everything gets brushed under the carpet, and they pin medals on our chests and call it a win. From where I’m sitting, those are the only two options on the table, and given that, I might as well do everything I can do to help you make it work.”

  “I suppose that’s logical enough,” she replied with a smile. “Welcome to Pandora, Doctor. Happy to have you along for the ride.”

  “You won’t be in a few hours,” he said. “My first job is to give you all a thorough physical. My second is to inoculate you with everything I can think of. God only knows what sort of killer bugs are running around on that planet.” With an evil grin, he added, “Get ready for sore arms, Captain. And I’m not going to lie and tell you it won’t hurt. It will.”

  “Got to tell you, Doc, you need to work on that bedside manner.”

  “You don’t like my qualifications, go ahead and hire someone else.”

  Chapter 12

  Karadana loomed large in the viewscreen as Pandora dived towards it, shedding the last of its velocity from otherspace as it settled into a low orbit. Despite being lush with life, it was an oddly monochromatic world, a collection of dark greys, blacks and whites, the oceans tinged sepia by a surface sheen of microorganisms. White clouds were scattered across the view, some hundreds of miles across, a constant raging storm that swept around the planet, forced by the arrangements of the continents.

  “Lovely,” Wu said, shaking her head. “Nice vacation spot. I can see why someone would want to colonize the place.” Working the sensor controls, she added, “There’s only one electromagnetic source in the system. Looks like a navigational beacon. Pretty strong, but an old design. I guess they built them to last in the old days, huh.” Throwing a control, she added, “It’s coming from about a quarter-mile south of the old colonial site.”

  “We don’t have any layouts of the place,” Garcia replied. “Though that sounds about right for a spaceport.” He smiled, then added, “I think a nice flat piece of ground is about all we can hope for at the moment. What about the rest of the system?”

  “Nothing to report, nothing interesting. A couple of long-dead probes around the innermost planet, another one heading out of the system the slow-way, heading for the heliopause. No sign that anyone has been here for a very long time.” Looking up at a monitor, she added, “To be fair, a couple of million people could be hiding in that jungle with spears, and there’d be no way for us to detect that from up here. There’s no civilization. That much I can promise.”

  “And the ship?” Carter asked. “Is she ready for landing?”

  “All systems are working normally, landing systems good, hull integrity fine,” Wu reported.

  “Then we’re going in. Rusty, give me a course that allows an overflight of the colony before landing. There’s no way we can do this stealthily, so we might as well get all the information we can before we touch down. Cassie, ride the sensors all the way, and watch out for anything that might leap out and get us. If you detect any threat, anything at all, we bug out back to orbit and buy ourselves time to decide what to do next. Or out of the system, if it gets to that. Doc, prepare for casualties.”

  “I always do,” Schmitt replied. “I’m suited up and ready for immediate egress if necessary.”

  Looking at her controls, Carter said, “Been a while since I’ve done a landing on full manual. Let’s see just how much I remember. Initiating retrofire burn.”

  Pandora’s engines burned for a moment, slowing the ship to bring it out of orbit, cruising down towards the planet on the pre-arranged course. Data streamed through the sensors, fed to the computers, the navigational systems making incremental adjustments as they learned more about the nature of the atmosphere through which they were descending. Carter’s hands were locked on the controls, gently guiding her ship into the right attitude for atmospheric entry. One degree out, and they might end up a thousand miles off course. More than that, and they’d either bounce back out of the atmosphere or burn up on the descent.

  “Entering outer atmosphere, hull temperature rising,” Wu reported.

  “Course is good, we’re nicely on trajectory,” Garcia added.

  Nodding, Carter kept her eyes focused on the sensor plot, watching as the ship slowly settled into the atmosphere, a thin dotted line diving into the clouds below. Visibility was going to be a problem when they got closer to the surface, and no matter how efficient, how reliable a ship’s sensor package was, no pilot trusted anything more than she did her own eyes.

  “Hundred thousand feet, descending,” she said. The ship was stiff, struggling to hold altitude. This atmosphere was thicker than anything Carter had ever flown through before, the gravity stronger, both slightly above Earth-normal. On paper, the ship could take it, even accounting for the conservative estimates of the designers, but that had been when it was new. Thirty years ago.

  The wingtips glowed red as the ship dived deeper into the atmosphere, racing across an endless ocean as they sped towards their goal, the tips of waves barely visible as they cut through the clouds. The altimeter rolled down, the engine roaring as it guided them towards their goal, Carter keeping a wary eye on the power feed. Any systems failure now would be catastrophic, but the reliable systems continued to guide them over the planet.

  Land. Out on the horizon, a thin black line that grew thicker as they approached. Pandora was leaving a hundred-mile trail of smoke behind it, visible across most of the hemisphere, and anyone on the surface would easily be able to spot their approach. Carter’s imagination filled in the gaps, conjured images of surface-to-air missiles or interceptor fighters waiting to pounce, but as they crossed the shore, there was nothing to disturb them, and the hull temperature steadily cooled as the ship slowed.

  Now holding altitude was the problem, and winds began to buffet the ship, twisting its course to starboard, forcing a gentle roll to keep her stable, keep her heading for her distant target. Carter smoothly eased the ship into position, keeping a steady descent as they slid over the treetops, now only a thousand feet from the surface. The gentle hum of the sensors filled the cockpit, Wu’s careful hands sweeping as far as the horizon in a bid to find their goal.

  “Thirty miles, on course,” Garcia said. “I’ve got some of the landmarks from the old charts. Everything checks out. And the beacon’s signal hasn’t changed, either. No attempt to handshake with our systems, no attempt to send any sort of a message. I’d say we’re in good shape.”

  “We’re clear for landing,” Wu added. “Nothing on sensors.”

  “Life signs?”

  “Too many to count,” the engineer replied. “Nothing mechanical, though. Just the beacon.”

  “Ten miles,” Garcia said. Pointing at the viewscreen, he added, “There it is, right there.”

  Carter followed his finger, spotting a cluster of ruined buildings in a clearing, scattered seemingly at random around a flagpole, a piece of battered cloth still fluttering in the breeze. There was no sign of activity down there, no colonists rushing out of their homes to see who was paying them a visit. Just the empty wilderness. A flock of birds swept across the sky, dark shapes against the white clouds.

  It had been a long, long time since she’d set foot on a world even this hospitable. Her father had rarely visited the terrestrial planets, preferring the more certain, less popular runs to the myriad outposts of human space. It was a strange feeling to know that she wasn’t going to need a spacesuit to leave the airlock. Strange for a spaceman, used to complete control of her environment.

  “There’s the beacon,” Wu said. “Second clearing, slightly to port.” She paused, then said, “Wait one. There’s something down there.” She played with the viewscreen controls, highlighting the surface, and added, “Bu
rn marks. They can’t be more than a few weeks old. Someone’s been here, and recently.”

  “The Patrol?” Carter asked.

  Shaking his head, Garcia replied, “I’d know if they had. This must be someone else.” Looking across at Carter, he asked, “Do you want an abort to orbit?”

  “Cassie, sensors. Anything?”

  “Not a thing, Vicky. Everything’s just as it was a minute ago. No sign of technological activity on the surface except for the beacon and the burn marks. If anyone is hiding out down there, they’re doing a damned good job of it.”

  “Then we’re going for landing, but keep sensors full-active for the moment. If someone sneezes, I want to know about it before they’ve reached for a tissue.”

  “On it,” Wu said. “One hundred feet, good for descent, surface clear.”

  Carter pulled a lever, locking the landing gear in position, half a dozen claws reaching for the surface, then fired the lateral thrusters to guide their descent. There was no room for a runway landing. Barely room enough for a vertical landing. Her jets hammered the ground, scorching the vegetation that had encroached on the pad over the decades, and finally, with smoke rising into the air, the ship settled into position on the surface.

  “Engine stop,” she said. “We’re down. Begin post-flight checks.”

  “Everything looks good here,” Wu reported.

  “All readings of the outside environment match our records,” Schmitt added. “As far as I’m concerned, you can go out just as soon as you are ready.”

  Climbing out of her couch, she said, “Rusty, you and I will walk the perimeter. We stick together, and we stick close to the ship. Cassie, track us on sensors the whole time. If anything…”

  “I’ll be heading out in a hurry,” Wu said.

  Shaking her head, Carter replied, “You’ll begin preparations for immediate launch. Punch out of here and don’t look back. Consider that an order.”

  “Anything you say,” the engineer replied with a smile. Carter walked towards the airlock, grabbing a laser pistol from the wall locker, belting the power pack in place. She drew the sidearm, looked at Garcia, then stepped over the threshold, engaging the override to open the outer door. As soon as the seal cracked, the deep, rich smell of the world outside seeped in, the noise of a million scurrying creatures breaking the silence. Everything was alive, vibrant, even if the colors were strange, wrong.

  She took the first step outside, her foot squelching into the soil, then looked at Garcia with a smile before continuing away from the ship. The remnants of a path cut their way through the undergrowth, but Garcia instead headed for the beacon, a small metal box with a flashing red light and a rotating antenna atop it.

  “That’s not been here for decades,” he said, shaking his head. “I might buy months at most.”

  “See if you can pull any records from it,” she replied.

  “Way ahead of you.” Pulling out a datapad, he added, “Cover me.”

  “Vicky,” Wu’s voice said. “We’re picking up something heading your way. A large figure. Could be an animal, but it’s big enough to be a human. No sign of power readings, though.”

  “Distance?”

  “Hundred meters. Are you coming back?”

  “Wait!” an unfamiliar voice screamed. “Wait!”

  Carter turned to see a figure pushing through the undergrowth, heading towards them, hands outstretched, wearing the battered remnants of a flight suit. His hair was bedraggled, his face covered with a castaway’s beard, and he looked at Pandora as though all his prayers had been answered in a single, glorious moment.

  “Halt,” Carter said, aiming her pistol at him

  “Don’t go!” the man yelled. “Don’t go!”

  “I won’t,” she replied. “But I’ll shoot if you get any closer. Who are you?”

  He gulped, nodded, then replied, “My name is Jack Kruger. I’ve been stranded here for eight weeks. Thought I’d be here forever. Don’t leave me behind. I won’t last another week down here.”

  “The beacon is about nine weeks old,” Garcia said, turning to face Kruger. “You look familiar.”

  “Are you the Patrol?” he asked. “I don’t care. Not now. Go ahead and arrest me. At least the cell will be nice and warm, and nothing will be trying to eat me.” He took a deep breath, and said, “If you’re not going to take me with you, then go ahead and shoot me. It’ll be a faster death than I’ll get otherwise.”

  “I’m not going to kill you,” Carter said, warily. “I just want the answers to a few questions. What are you doing here?”

  “I’m an archaeologist,” Kruger said. “There are ruins on this planet, and Fortuna’s commander…”

  “What did you say?” Carter asked, stepping forward, raising his pistol again.

  “Fortuna’s commander. That bastard Smith. He’s the one who marooned me.”

  Holstering her pistol, Carter said, “Come on. I think we’ve got a lot to talk about.”

  Chapter 13

  “Tell me what happened,” Carter said, as the five of them crammed around the table in the crew room, Kruger ravenously wolfing down a plate of food. “All of it. How did you run across Fortuna?”

  “Smith hired me.” He looked at Garcia, and asked, “Patrol?”

  “I was,” Garcia said. “It’s a long story.” He paused, then said, “Wait a minute, I do know you. Didn’t you get busted for art theft, a few months back? Something about a break-in at the Museum of Earth on Thalassa.” Turning to Carter, he said, “It was a four-man gang, and…”

  Raising his hands, Kruger replied, “Fine, yes, I did it. Look, do you know just how crappy the pay is for an art historian, especially one that usually specializes in primitive alien art? I kinda knew that going in, but it doesn’t help. Not when you’ve got bills to pay.” Looking ruefully at Carter, he said, “What I tried to do wouldn’t have hurt anyone. Just meant that a lot of schoolkids would have been a little less bored going through the museum. That’s all.”

  “You were the planner, as I recall.”

  “That’s what the prosecution said, anyway,” Kruger said. “I told them what to take, and I sat in the getaway car at the end. The morons got caught before they’d even made it to the right gallery. Triggered every alarm in the place. From how I heard it, the security guards must have thought they were being invaded.” Shaking his head, he said, “I called the cops right there and then.”

  Raising an eyebrow, Wu asked, “You gave up on your friends that quickly?”

  “They weren’t my friends. They approached me, sold themselves as some hot-shot criminal syndicate, said that there was no chance they’d get caught. That turned out to be a steaming pile of crap, so of course I sold them out. Got me a plea bargain that meant I didn’t do any jail time, but it did get me fired.” Shoveling down a chunk of pasta, he added, “It wasn’t much of a job, anyway. They had my class down as one of the easy ones, and the Dean made it quite clear that I didn’t need to put anything too taxing on the syllabus. Anything to make sure the little darlings don’t disappoint the fee-paying parents.”

  “Academic life doesn’t seem to have suited you,” Carter said, barely suppressing a smile.

  “Not what I got into the job for. I got sold a load of lies when I was a kid. Adventure among the stars, that sort of thing. With a side order of ‘get rich quick’ by making the discovery of a lifetime. When I finally worked out the truth, it was a little too late for me to change.” Taking a deep swig of juice, he added, “Though to be fair, I kinda like being an art archaeologist. Has a certain mystique.”

  “Fortuna,” Carter said, sliding across another ration pack.

  “Thanks,” he said, ripping it open, digging into the chocolate mousse inside. “Guess it shows that I ran out of rations last week.”

  “A little,” Garcia said. “I take it you didn’t want to brave the local food.”

  “I didn’t want to brave the local forest,” he replied. “I watched two people get killed.
Acid spurt from a Satan’s Cauldron. Not for Momma Kruger’s boy, thank you very much. I’ll stay nice and safe.”

  “Fortuna,” Carter pressed.

  With a sigh, Kruger continued, “Once the trial was over, and I got cast out by pretty much everyone, I figured that I had to do something, so I tried to set up as an independent consultant, maybe do a little tutoring. I had a few potential clients lined up, and then their commander, a guy named Sebastian Smith turned up at my apartment one night, a couple of guys with him. My first instincts were to close the door and go back to bed, but he offered me ten thousand credits for a consultation, and my bank account was getting kinda empty at the time, so I went along with it.”

  “Ten thousand credits for a consultation?” Carter asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “Yeah. Anyway, he’s got some artifacts, some pieces that he’s dug up, and I identified them for him. Gravidic.” At the blank expressions of the others, he added, “You don’t think we’re the first ones to go flying through the cosmos, do you? They were sailing the stars a hundred thousand years before our ancestors decided that it was time to climb down from the trees.”

  “And they settled here?” Carter asked.

  “Among a few other places. I’ve got some notes on my datapad, but the power ran out weeks ago. I can give you more details once the damn thing’s recharged.” Wiping his forehead, he said, “There are a couple of dozen places where they settled in this sector, and the artifacts are worth a lot of money in good condition. All we found down here were shards. Bits and pieces.”

  “Fortuna was here, then?”

  Nodding, he said, “About ten weeks ago. Though I don’t think that they were that interested in the artifacts themselves. That was the strangest part of it.” Frowning, he said, “When he turned up at my apartment, he showed me a lot of pieces, broken stuff, mostly. The Gravidics were really into ceramics, really nice decorated stuff, and had some interesting technological takes on it.”