Rebel (Rebel Stars Book 0)

  REBEL STARS: BOOK 0

  Edward W. Robertson

  © 2014

  THE REBEL STARS SERIES

  REBEL

  OUTLAW

  Cover illustration by Andrzej "Dugi" Rutkowiak. Typography by Stephanie Mooney.

  SHIP'S LOG: 1

  We were not told we would be left behind until three days before the invasion. When Captain Ffel announced this to the bridge, the crew threw up their forelimbs in dismay, and I joined them.

  "How can this be?" Tton asked, tentacles bent in anguish. "For years, we travel here, the doorway to our new world, only to be left on the threshold?"

  "We will join the others in time," Ffel said. "This is prudence. This is our duty."

  "It is an insult! We will be permitted to arrive only after all the glory has been taken by others."

  He spoke boldly, but our vessel was in times of calm, when the captain's voice was of the same weight as each of the crew. We made orbit around the great planet of swirling blue gas and waited while the others advanced upon the ravaged homeworld of the humans. I was the tender of the ship's mind, and as the pictures came in, I was the first to see them. The few surviving humans resisted with their jets and tanks and rockets, but our army swept them away like shells in the tide.

  Soon, all I saw was the silent cities, the husks of their machines, the useless strips of roads. Except survivors remained. Far too many.

  "So what?" Tton said. "We knew some lived."

  "The virus was supposed to take them all. That was the promise. If they live and struggle, I wonder if we still follow the Way."

  "Your doubt profanes us. When we stand alone, you will see."

  I wished I shared his confidence. Despite my doubts, I too was shocked to my hearts when the final pictures came in. The ones that showed our great ship in ruins in the bay.

  The invasion was over. We had lost.

  1

  It wasn't easy to see the landscape as anything less than beautiful, but Rada did her best. The blue patches of deep ice didn't look like placid pools, but crushing, cold blocks, barren of life. The green streaks of shallow ice weren't electric veins, but lines of frozen snot. The white-dusted rocks were just that: boring old rocks. No different than the ones you'd use to landscape your yard.

  Isolating each section of the terrain was the only trick that worked. Because when you looked at the moon of Nereid as a whole, it looked like the blueprint for a new world. Perfect. Pristine. Gorgeous.

  And she couldn't accept that it was her job to destroy it.

  Downhill, the mole dug into the slope, spraying a brown-black line of pulverized rock across the glistening ice. There was no atmosphere to carry its rumble, but she could feel it in the soles of her boots. Inside her suit, she was barely cold.

  The other way to look at it was that the scar the mole was leaving was only permanent on a human scale. It might take thousands of years, but eventually, melted sludge would belch from below, jostled by the tidal pressure exerted by Neptune, and flow across the scar, healing it with a fresh skin of white and blue and green. In time, there would be no evidence that humans had ever disfigured the place.

  That was comforting, provided she didn't think about it too long. Because by the time Rada was dead and buried in a gouge of her own, the evidence of what she'd done would still be here for all to see.

  Behind the mole, the cart scooped up loose rock, sifting it for ore, feeding the promising bits into its hopper. Once it filled, the cart withdrew from the torn-up earth, halted on level ground, and beeped in Rada's comm. She padded across the crust, flung open the door, and climbed inside.

  The microgravity meant the rocks and ice jumbled the surface in absurd spikes and piles. The nearest flat and stable landing site for the Box Turtle had been seven miles away. The ship's computer had already plotted a preferred course for the cart's return. Rada double-checked it and punched in her approval. The cart started off, jouncing lightly over the scoured ridges of ice.

  Now and then, Rada swerved to a stretch that looked better than the planned course, but for the most part, the ship's scans had done their job. Leaving her with nothing to do but babysit as the cart navigated itself home. The most frustrating of her duties. She'd asked Parson if she could drive the cart freehand, but he'd cited the safety figures and that had been the end of that.

  The vehicle began a long climb. At the peak, she tried to ignore the black wounds in the vistas of white and green.

  Her device beeped on the back of her left arm. She tapped it to life, certain it would be Captain Parson babysitting her as she babysat the cart, but the ID made her heart skip. JJO, LLC. She'd applied weeks ago—long-range hauling, full crew position. Lateral move, salary-wise, but it was the other move she was much more interested in: the one that would take her off these rocks and into space.

  The joy was fleeting, replaced by the dread of what the message likely contained. She considered waiting to open it until shift was over and she'd had a fortifying dose of Plain Grain. With this thought, she made a fist, ready to punch herself. If she hadn't been afraid of damaging the suit, she would have. She opened the message.

  Form letter. Thanks for your interest, but alas and alack, many qualified applicants, blah blah blah. She deleted it and stared out the windshield at the unyielding stars.

  Three years ago, when she'd first seen a documercial about it on the net, it had sounded romantic, life with an independent mining crew. Hopping from rock to moon and back again, yo-yoing around the Solar System in search of the big score. On the clock, you work hard, and when you're on leave at a station or a city somewhere, you drink even harder. Good money, too. Put most of it away and you'd be close to retirement within ten years.

  The reality of it, though, was…reality. The show's timeline had been condensed to make good drama. What the cameras didn't show was how long you spent flying between jobs and stations. How leave wasn't a never-ending string of parties, drinking songs, and beautiful strings-free partners, but a repetitive procession of booze, hangovers, and men who'd be anywhere else if they were worth half a damn.

  Time was the killer. You started to drink just to make it go away. At first she'd been concerned for her health, but a few months in, seeing the others, she understood it was a lifestyle you could maintain for decades. From a remove, this was obviously not a sound game plan. Anyone in straight society would see her as scum, a sad waste, willingly pouring herself down the drain.

  They didn't understand, though. It wasn't a decision you made all at once. It came piece by piece, night by night, until your old life was gone.

  Three years in the digs, and all she had to show for it was a few grand and a habit she was no longer certain that she didn't want.

  The cart jolted. Its computer warbled. The vehicle lurched again, seemed to tip down—but it wasn't the cart, it was a shelf of ice breaking away, collapsing before her. Then the cart did tip. Red lights came on across the dash screens. The warble pitched up. Rada swore, pulling the sticks hard right, trying to veer away from the sliding, cracking ice. The autopilot ceded control.

  The cart's studs and spikes clutched at the ice. Gravity claimed she was hardly off center, but her eyes told her she was canted dangerously. In another moment, the cart would give way and tumble into the blue-black abyss opening ahead.

  She swiveled the port-side thrusters down and fired them to full burn. Superheated vapor billowed into the air, swirling over the cab and refreezing to the windshield. The cab began to drift back and left. She tilted the cargo hold to the left and punched the release. Ore tumbled to the ice. Freed of most of its weight, the sliding cart banged into the disgorged rocks, momentarily arrested.

  She engaged
the wheels. They churned through the slush and found a spur of rock. The cart leapt to the right. To her left, ice tumbled into the gap. She re-engaged the autoskid just before she hit solid ice. The cart slowed, searching for traction, then began a steady crawl away from the crevasse.

  Smoke and steam dervished behind her. Ice crunched beneath the wheels. There was no sound of wind or avalanche. Just her heart thundering within her ribs. The autopilot was back in control, but she couldn't allow herself to close her eyes. Her gloved hands shook like the morning after a long night out.

  "Pence?" Parson's voice crackled over the comm. "Rada, is everything okay?"

  "Fine," she said. "It's fine."

  "Do you need me to send someone?"

  "Negative. Home in a few."

  The comm staticked, as if he meant to say more, then went silent. She sat back in the chair and forced her muscles to unclench.

  Twenty minutes later, she climbed a low rise. Below, a shelf of bare, cleared rock housed the Box Turtle. There was no getting around it: it was an ugly ship. Like a dented cardboard box. Antennae and smaller boxes projected from its sides and top. It was painted a flat gray, yellow warning stripes accenting its engine nacelles and sensitive arrays. It was built to do its job—haul stuff across the system—and looked it. Technically, it was sixty years old, but everything in it had been replaced at least once, including most of the hull.

  The cart delivered itself to the ramp extended from the ship's belly. The ramp lifted, sealing the cart inside the cargo lock. Rada threw open the door and exited, yanking off her helmet.

  Yed stood in the cramped hold, hands held out as if he were waiting to accept her helmet. "Are you okay, Rada? What happened?"

  "Moon decided it had had enough of us defacing it. Tried to swallow me."

  He stood in the aisle between the ore bins, blocking her. "What'd you do?"

  "Reacted." She squinted past him. "I appreciate the concern, but Parson's waiting on my report."

  "Oh. Sure. Excuse me." He pressed himself against the bins. As she walked past, his eyes skipped over her suited body. He fell in behind her, boots clanking.

  She jogged upstairs. Parson was in the bridge. Stem was there too, feet propped up on a chair, inhaling vapor from a dented little pipe.

  He grinned at her and winked. "Almost ate it, did you?"

  Rada lifted her brows. "Is that funny to you?"

  He swung his head side to side, lower lip jutting in innocence. "I say it was?"

  "I almost died, Stem."

  "So has everybody here. You'll be laughing about this tonight. By next week, you'll be telling it like a badge of honor."

  She clenched her jaw. "And right now, I'm freaked out. So how about you act like you care?"

  "Hey." Parson had been lingering at his station. He strode forward. "Rada. What happened out there?"

  She thunked down in a chair, propped her elbows on the counter, and shook her head. "Can I have one second here?"

  "Tell you what she needs." Stem popped to his feet. "A tall glass of pig."

  Parson scowled as Stem began to fill a glass with clear liquid from the AllBev. "Can you at least wait until I'm done before you use the illegally hacked dispenser?"

  Stem goggled at him. "She almost died, Cap. You going to make her wait until the end of the day to calm her nerves?"

  Parson shook his head and averted his eyes. Stem added a long pour of something brown and fizzy, then brought the glass to Rada. The Plain Grain tasted as good as the sugar water. She drank a third of it and set down the glass. Within moments, she felt the prickly legs of her anxiety smooth out.

  "Whenever you're ready," Parson said. "I'll be recording. Okay?"

  "Not much to tell," she said. "I was on my way back. Ice gave way. Felt like the whole moon was imploding. Only way out was to lose the cargo."

  "You dumped the ore?" Parson said.

  "Would you rather you lost the cart? Oh, and by the way, me too?"

  He watched her levelly. "What I'm asking is if you dumped the ore."

  "I dumped the cargo. The ore. The ice was falling under me. Without the ore, I was light enough to claw my way out. Had to melt the ice with my thrusters. Soon as I got down to the rock, I hightailed it for solid ground."

  "Some of the ice sheets are hundreds of feet thick. How did you know you'd hit rock so soon?"

  "I didn't," she said. "I was hoping. Or that it would refreeze and stabilize. I don't know." She gazed across the bridge, not looking at any one thing. "All I knew was that I had to do something. No matter how dumb it felt. If I didn't, I was headed down that hole."

  Parson folded his arms, digesting. "You had no warning?"

  Rada picked up the glass. "Not until after it started. Bet I would have if we had some real scanners."

  "You know we're too low-margin for that," he said quietly. "Besides, that would put you out of a job, wouldn't you?"

  "So it's my job to keep the machines safe. Because it costs too much to buy the machines that could keep watch on them."

  "I like to have human eyes out there." He set his hand on her shoulder. "Do you think that cart could have done what you did? Now imagine if it had had a passenger in back." He drew away. "Take the rest of the day off, okay?"

  She ran her finger down the side of her glass. "There's an idea."

  "I'm not about to tempt fate twice in one day." He smiled in mock exasperation. "Especially not after you just slugged down six ounces of pig."

  Rada laughed hoarsely. "Thanks, Captain."

  "You earned it." He stood there a moment, then returned to his station.

  She swirled the glass. Already, it felt like something that had happened to her days or weeks ago. Yed was leaned against the far wall, watching her with that look in his eye—one part bitterness, three parts yearning—but for the moment, even that didn't bother her.

  Stem got up and fixed himself a drink. If Parson noticed, he pretended he didn't.

  "So." Stem threw himself into a chair. "I ever tell you about the first time I almost ate it?" He took a drink, smacked his lips. "Was on an ice freighter. The Absolution. We were coming in to dock at Darmor Station and the autopilot went nuts. Thought we were still three thousand miles out. We came in so hot I figured 'Well, if I'm about to die, at least I won't have to pay to be cremated.'"

  She looked up. "Maybe the autopilot finally had enough of you."

  Stem laughed and tossed an ice cube at her. "If ships knew how to take out obnoxious crew, the entire mining industry would cease to exist."

  ~

  The next day, she thought she'd have some jitters, but she was fine. There were no accidents, no mishaps. The mole churned out rock. The cart sorted out the ore. Rada "drove" the cart. The ship filled up.

  She made her last delivery. Yed stacked and organized the hold, assisted by Karry. Stem was off doing some light maintenance on the mole and its collection team. Parson was on the bridge, tallying their haul and composing messages to potential buyers.

  Rada leaned her forearms on the back of a chair. "Got any leads?"

  "Always," he said without looking up. "Unless someone comes out of the void with a new offer, it looks like we'll be on our way to Beagle."

  He spoke the name as if it should mean something to her, but she couldn't remember if she'd been there before. It would have been easy enough to call up the details on her device, but it didn't matter. Knowing what Beagle was would have no impact on whether they were going to go there. Besides, after a while, most stations started to look the same.

  "Looks like we're going to do all right," Parson said. "Picked up some interesting isotopes."

  "That's an interesting definition of 'interesting.'"

  He eyed her. "It's interesting to the client. What interests the client interests me."

  She mocked, but she was envious of his interest, of his business, his ability to determine his own future. Because she felt she could be him, and the fact she wasn't meant she might be wrong. Maybe she was n
o more than what she was now: an adequate crewman on a vessel where everyone but the captain was expendable. Outfits like JJO didn't seem to think she was anything more. After so many of them had reached the same conclusion, it was harder and harder to believe they were wrong.

  Parson continued to tap out messages. After a while, she got up to go to her bunk and compose a few more applications.

  Over the next two days, they wrapped up operations, stashed the mole in a hole in the rock for their return visit, and tied down the ship. Parson began the countdown to launch. Rada's duties were complete and Stem tried to convince her to strap down in their bunk—launches always made him eager for her—but she headed to the bridge to observe them make their final preparations. If she couldn't get a gig elsewhere, maybe she could settle for a promotion here, to the helm or quartermaster. Anything besides babysitting the machines.

  The engines spooled up, grumbling through the ship like steady thunder. Steam swirled across the screens. Genner, the copilot, checked off the readings and confirmed all were green. The Box Turtle lifted. Rada's stomach lurched. It was frightening, lifting a ship of this size from the ground rather than a station port, but it was thrilling, too.

  They lumbered into the black sky, thrust to safe distance, and engaged the main engines. They were heading sunward toward the Belt, estimated duration of nine days. With nothing more to see, Rada began to undo her straps.

  "Contact," Genner said. "Coming in fast."

  A bright purple dot appeared on tactical. Its course was projected to intersect their own.

  Parson flipped on his outgoing comm. "This is Captain Parson of the Box Turtle." His voice carried the easy command of his station. "Please identify."

  The bridge was silent except for the clicks and taps of Genner pulling up more detailed readouts.

  "Be advised," Parson said, a new edge to his tone. "If unaltered, your current course will bring you in unsafe proximity to our own."