The Burning Dark (3 page)

The static from the
radio cracked sharply, and Ida jerked awake, dream forgotten.

“Mmm?”

“Ida?”

“Mmm?”

“Can you tell me the story again?”

Ida shifted. His bed was soft and the dark was pleasant on his eyes. He lay on his back and looked up into nothing. His knee seemed to have sorted itself out and didn’t hurt anymore. He had a vague recollection of a red barn and a heavy book, but he shrugged the thought away.

“You mean Tau Retore?”

“Yes. Tell me again.”

Ida chuckled and turned over. The still, blue light of the space radio was now the only light in the room. Ida stared into it, imagining Ludmila, wherever she was, watching her own light in the dark.

“Well,” said Ida. “This is how the shit went down. Lemme tell you about it.…”

SOME KIND OF HERO

>> … please wait …

>> FLEET_WIKIA_REVISION_889

>> ~cleveland_AI_835401

>> … please wait …

>> last login: Sun Jan 12 06:18:53

>> WELCOME BACK, CAPTAIN

>> /rpos_intro_CC-SECURE.rtz

>> password: ********************

Union-Class, Fleet Starship; Research Platform and Observation Station (RPOS) configuration. Catalog reference: Psi Upsilon Psi. Nameplate: COAST CITY.

Summary:

The U-Star COAST CITY was one of only two RPOS-configured stationary orbital platforms put into service by the Fleet. Although twenty-four such space stations were ordered, production problems with kitset modules for both the COAST CITY and its sister COLLINSPORT resulted in curtailing of the RPOS program by then–Fleet Admiral LAUREN AVALON. After a lead-in time of seven years, the Fleet station program was retooled, resulting in the now ubiquitous Multipurpose Orbital Platforms (MOPs), the STAR CITY, the METROPOLIS, and the [REDACTED] being the first science platform and command center stations put into operation.

After the COAST CITY and COLLINSPORT were commissioned, a series of [REDACTED] structural failures and robotic system malfunctions during assembly at each site resulted in [REDACTED]. While both stations were completed and activated to schedule, their history made them unpopular tours for Fleet personnel and both facilities were plagued with morale problems and petty crime. Following an [REDACTED]

The COLLINSPORT was decommissioned after twelve years of service, its demise hastened by a failure of the main power pack and [REDACTED]. Originally designed as a monitoring station and launch point in the Oort cloud for Fleet craft entering and exiting the Home System, the unpowered U-Star was towed to Jovian orbit, where it was disassembled. Components of the station were recycled and reused as part of the helium-3 robotic mining systems in orbit around that planet. For more information, please see /JMC_27s_intro_CC-SECURE.rtz, “History of the Jovian Corporation.”

The COAST CITY was assembled in a stationary orbit at a distance of 1.2 AU around SHADOW, an asymptotic giant branch technetium star in the constellation of Upsilon. The COAST CITY served a dual role as science base for the study of the star and the properties of its radiated energy and also as a forward warning post against SPIDER aggression in the SHADOW system, as it was believed at one point that the sentient machine race would attempt to harness the unusual properties of the star as part of an attack on Fleet space. This concern proved to be unwarranted and no SPIDER activity was ever recorded in the system. For more information, please see /antag_SPIDER_techspec_high_CC-SECURE.rtz, “Spider high-energy experimentation and special weapons development.”

The COAST CITY was placed under the command of Commandant PRICE ELBRIDGE, seconded from the PSI-MARINE CORPS on the personal orders of [REDACTED]

Specifications:

Station hub

Diameter: 1,627 meters

Circumference: 5,112 meters; housing 23 levels of habitable space plus robotic service levels

Spire

Length: 2,063 meters (including communication antenna and sensor probe packs)

Diameter: 200 meters (widest point, housing bridge and command centers [habitable space] plus robotic service levels and computer bays) tapering to 13 meters

Power pack

Three Rolls-Royce Dreadnought cold fusion reactors, output 3.9 GW per unit

Crew complement

2,200; consisting of crew, executive and scientific personnel, one Marine battalion, and one Psi-Marine company

“Long way out, sir.”

Ida looked up from the screen. Sitting in front of him in the shuttle, the pilot didn’t turn around but nodded at the viewscreen that occupied the entire forward wall of the cockpit, wrapping around each side a little to simulate an actual window. Ida let the computer pad rest on his leg and adjusted himself in the narrow seat, the leather beneath him creaking.

“It sure is,” said Ida. Background reading on his destination forgotten for the moment, he took in the spectacular view.

The U-Star
Coast City
was a giant doughnut floating on its side against a starry background bruised purple with the expanded gas cloud that enveloped the Shadow system. The pilot rotated the shuttle, and the
Coast City
flipped to the horizontal. At this angle, a more natural one that followed the station’s design, Ida could make out the windows of the bridge and other structures familiar from a hundred other platforms. Everything in the Fleet was constructed from the same prefabricated sections, after all; everything from tiny one-man hotseats, used on extended EVAs, to cruisers to the largest star bases. The entire Fleet was modular, allowing for an infinite number of combinations and functions, limited only by the imagination of the Marine-Engineer Corps—which meant that, actually, the vehicles of the Fleet only came in about five different forms. Efficiency was a higher priority than imagination, so really there was no need to mess with tried and tested configurations. And every war machine produced by the Fleet was given the Union-Class Fleet Starship designation, which no doubt made the accountancy and logistics departments of the Earth government happy, but it meant you couldn’t tell what a ship was from just the name. Including the U-Star
Coast City,
which, in this case, was a space station.

As familiar as Ida was with Fleet “vehicles,” the
Coast City
was an older boat, and, as he’d just learned, one of only two of this type assembled, so while the shape was more or less what he expected, the torus was a little fatter, perhaps, and the spire that punched through the center of the hub had antenna extensions that were far longer than standard.

Ida hadn’t quite seen one like this before, and he’d never seen one being taken apart either. As the curved outer ring of the station moved around in the viewscreen, the shiny solidity of the hub changed to a ragged, torn framework. The superstructure was all still there, leaving the torus and spire shape perfectly intact. But as the shuttle orbited the station, its skeletal innards were revealed. Lights flickered here and there, betraying the progress of construction drones carefully separating plates, girders, bolts, and rivets, making sure not a single stray particle was left floating in space as they repackaged the kitset form of the station back into a series of long, cuboid boxes that stuck like limpets at irregular intervals on the strongest parts of the exposed frame.

A minute later and the shuttle had returned to the intact half of
Coast City,
all solid metal and lights and Fleet insignia. Ida saw another shuttle, similar to the one he was currently in, heading away from the docking bay. Even during demolition, Fleet routine held sway; the Shadow system was clearly still being patrolled for Spider activity, the secondary function of any platform.

The
Coast City
had primarily been pushed into orbit around Shadow to research the peculiar properties of the star. Ida leaned in toward the shuttle’s curved viewscreen; glancing to the left, he could just see the very edge of the star’s violet corona. He let out a low, long whistle. The light from the star was described as “toxic” in his briefing and the Fleet wikia reported it as “unusual,” but that was all he knew. Now, seeing it even via the viewscreen, which processed the light as much as possible, he thought he might agree. When he looked back toward the station, his vision flashed purple and he felt a little dizzy and sick, like he’d been standing on the top of something very tall and someone had come by and given him a shove in the small of his back. He blinked for a few seconds and the feeling dissipated.

“You here on leave, sir?” The pilot’s hands moved over the controls, lining the shuttle up for docking.

The question surprised Ida. He was in uniform, so he supposed there was no reason why anyone wouldn’t think he was still on active duty if they didn’t know. But this pilot was positively chatty. Ida considered reprimanding him, telling him to focus on his job, which was 90 percent automated. One last little flex of power, perhaps. Then Ida laughed.

“Sir?” Now the pilot turned his huge fly-eye goggles to his passenger. Ida saw a dozen tiny reflections of himself, then turned back to the screen.

The
Coast City
now filled nearly the whole view. On a small display inset into the console that showed the rear, the U-Star
Athansor
was just a hulking silhouette with a few rows of lights that might have been nothing but far-distant stars. Only the ship’s nameplate, lit in neon red, was any indication that the black mass was an artificial construct.

Ida clapped a hand on the back of the pilot’s seat, and then quickly removed it, realizing that while the docking procedure was nearly automatic, the pilot probably needed to keep concentrating as they made the final approach. Ida slid the computer pad on top of the console beside him and adjusted his straps.

“I’m retired,” Ida said. “But I’ve one last duty for the Fleet, signing the final decommission order for this old crate. That and getting some TLC for this thing.” He knocked on his right knee, and the sound came back hard and dead. The pilot nodded, although he wasn’t looking.

The window was now showing an expanse of metal, tinged purple by the evil light from Shadow. In the center of the metallic wall, an octagonal patch of light allowed them to see into the station’s shuttle hangar.

“Early retirement,” said the pilot. “Sounds nice.” Then he activated the main comms and began swapping technical chatter with the hangar controller on board the station.

Ida sat back with his hands linked behind his head. He smiled and closed his eyes. The purple spots had gone, at least.

Yes, sounds nice.

*   *   *

“Groups four and five,
embark.”

Finally, things were moving again. Serra swallowed, her throat dry, as she glanced to her left. Half her row turned smartly, fell out, then grabbed their bags and kit and jogged over to the ramp leading up into the gaping loading bay of the transport.

“Taking them long enough. Jesus Christ.”

Serra nodded. Beside her, Carter was chewing his lip as he watched the marines get herded into the back of the ship.

He was right. It was taking fucking forever. This was the last-but-one transport ship off the
Coast City,
and it was supposed to take nearly everyone that was left aboard, leaving just essential support crew. Having nearly a whole battalion of marines stuck at the ass-end of the galaxy was not much use to the Fleet, not when the Spiders were making moves all over the damn show. The sooner the station was disassembled and the sooner the combat troops and other Fleet personnel were off it and doing something useful somewhere else, the better.

They’d been standing around in the
Coast City
’s hangar for a couple of hours now. The operation was supposed to be efficient, the whole production running practically on automatic. But there was something up with the computer on board the U-Star
Sunken Treasure
. Something about the manifest system getting stuck, refusing to update the catalog of personnel sitting patiently on the transport. Apparently it had been rebooted several times already, but until it was working, they couldn’t load any more. But, finally, things seemed to be happening.

The
Coast City
had four berths available in its hangar: two small bays for shuttles, two for larger ships, including troop carriers like the
Sunken Treasure.
The carrier itself belonged to a larger U-Star,
Athansor,
which sat out in space a few hundred klicks away. As well as picking up the bulk of the remaining station crew, it was here to drop someone off. Why anyone new would come to the station at the end of its life, with half its structure nothing more than a delicate framework of girders and open space, Serra didn’t know. She didn’t care either. All she cared about was getting off the damn thing. She didn’t like it here. She never had, not really, but over the last few weeks there was something else bothering her.

On the other side of the hangar, away from the huge featureless box that was the
Sunken Treasure,
the first small bay was empty, the station’s own shuttle out on routine patrol. In the other bay sat another shuttle, the one from the
Athansor
. It looked newer than their own craft.

As the marines began to be loaded into the transport again, Carter and Serra stood, kit at their feet, waiting for their group to be called. As they idled, they both watched the new shuttle as a single passenger disembarked. He was middle-aged and uniformed—an officer, although it was impossible to see his rank from this distance.

Carter tilted his head as though that would give him a better look. “Any idea who that is?”

Serra shrugged, but from the row of marines behind her came a deep voice as DeJohn leaned forward, his breath hot on the back of her neck.

“Heard he was some kind of hero. Supposed to have saved a whole planet, or some shit. But fucked if I’ve heard of him.”

Serra felt Carter stiffen as he stood next to her. He craned his neck around to DeJohn.