0 1 FORWARD ON TECHNOLOGY Feel free to skip this, though one is encouraged to give it a once-over. Sunlight's Edge and other works set in the Starpiercer universe are written through the perspectives of a variety of characters in a variety of locations. Being hard science fiction, every calculation and piece of technology was thought up in accordance with the scientific understanding of today, with an emphasis on technology currently in development, such as biological quantum computers (Cogitators) coilguns, known as Masers (shorthand for Mass-Accelerated- Slug-Electromagnetic-Rail) and spacecraft, with their speed measured in Gs of acceleration. Note also that, given highly divergent biology, most aliens cannot speak human dialects and humans likewise cannot speak theirs. Thus, the development of Glossic, via language engrams, an interstellar-mandated program of mapping understood linguistic concepts to alien languages. Invariably, some things are lost in translation when alien characters speak. Italics or [] in speech indicate an otherwise incomprehensible language (often a combination of both physical and audible signals) being deciphered through a language engram. Space ships and most other craft, to cross the vast distances that span spacetime in Starpiercer, must have their speed measured in acceleration and time, and so the standard system of charting speed is not at knots, or miles per hour, but at Gs (Gravities) of acceleration, with 1 G being roughly the equivalent of earth gravity. Given she sheer heat put out by fusion engines, they must take time to cool down, bleed off heat and radiation and replace their fuel stores, and so engines generally cannot be kept burning for more than a few hours at a time, and when moving, the crew must be secured, as they would rapidly lose consciousness with the force of acceleration acting on their bodies otherwise. This work is written as part of a two-novella-long prequel series entitled A High Tower, to the first book of the proper Starpeircer story, entitled: A Dark Frontier. Several characters from Sunlight's Edge are mentioned or appear in A Dark Frontier. All Images drawn, sketched or rendered by the author, including paper & photorealistic 3-d format Upcoming installments of the High Tower series Sunlight's Edge Midnight's Reach Short Story: A Pale Horse 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS VOLUME ONE : A CHARIOT PROLOGUE I. LIEM I II. TOMAS I III. CARCOSA I IV. TOMAS II V. LIEM II VI. TOMAS III VII CARCOSA II IIX TOMAS IV IX CARCOSA III X TOMAS V XI: CARCOSA IV XII: TOMAS VI XIII: LIEM III XIV: TOMAS VII XV: INTERLUDE: CRISIS XVI: TOMAS VIII XVII: LIEM IV: XVIII: TOMAS IX XIX: CARCOSA V XX: TOMAS IX 3 4 5 A HIGH TOWER VOLUME I SUNLIGHT’S EDGE 6 PROLOGUE 7 8 PROLOGUE “I’m going to toss that bastard in a pot and eat him alive.” Jaemus ignored Mercator, and stamped his feet together, huffed on his raw, red hands, and wished for probably the eighth time today that he’d brought a damned hotsuit, as he lay here freezing among the long, wind-tousled strands of coarse grass. He blew on his hands again. This grass was the thousandth generation of it’s kind that had been grown locally on the planet. Why they couldn’t grow something more comfortable to hide in was anyone’s guess. Mercator touched his shoulder and he looked up. “He’s here.” Jaemus squinted into the distance. Half a mile away, in a long, much-filled groove cut into the mottled greenish copper-rich substrate half a century ago, the shuttle touched down. It’s glowing hot belly settled into the lichen-choked swampy inlet, steaming in the brackish water like a winded animal against the yellow-blue backdrop of the twisting sky. He grimaced. He’d never really liked the sky near Vikkenhill. It looked sickly, and made him feel like every breath he took was laden with copper particulate. But then again, that’s why people flocked to the place. Copper was half the reason Sundari mattered at all. 9 “I wonder how Parlons taste,” Mercator went on, clearly still indulging in his overblown satire, which, today, seemed to revolve around eating their pilot. Jaemus rubbed his hands together, and thrust them deep into the chest pockets of his coat, glancing both ways and rising to his knees. The shuttle off in the distance flexed its wide, glowing radiator fins, and it’s wings slowly telescoped upwards. It was nearly five minutes before Jaemus figured it was cool enough to approach. He and Mercator rose out of the long grass, and trudged over the loamy, mineral-rich ground, work boots sinking into the thick mud and then squelching when they pulled them up, a lurid sucking sound that accompanied each step. “Oi!” shouted Mercator, cupping his own hands, gloved, like a sensible person, around his mouth and hollering up at the bulk of the shuttle. “Hap, you bleedin’ idiot, lower the ramp! You’re late!” Jaemus glanced around reflexively and fought down the urge to tell Mercator to keep his voice down, even though the shuttle’s roar would have carried much further than any organic hollering. In the distance, the city lights of Vikkenhill, habitation and searchlight both, threaded through the mist and fog of the predawn, playing about the clouds. On instinct, he pulled his hood closer to him. They wouldn’t see them this far from the mine-city. And anyways, they wouldn’t care, probably. Compact business was business not to be disturbed. The hiding was just a precaution. After nearly thirty seconds of Mercator’s irate bellowing, the shuttle hissed, leaking pressurized air in a long, slow blast, while the smooth, white surface at its bow split open. A long ramp thudded anticlimactically into the filthy runoff water. “About time,” grumbled Mercator, sliding down the flooded groove’s edge, and wading up to his knees in the slurry to clamber onto the ramp. Jaemus made a face and followed, with one last look back at Vikkenhill. Good riddance. “Six bloody months of sitting around in the darkest furtive corner of Sundari’s muddy colon,” Mercator was saying loudly, as Jaemus followed him into the shuttle’s dark hold. “For what? A bloody rock.” “Artifact,” corrected Jaemus, as the hatch closed behind them. For a moment, they were plunged into darkness. 10 Then the interior lights came on, and the hold of the Expatriate was bathed in a harsh, white glow, that shone off of the silvery wall plating of it’s cramped, narrow, and empty cargo hold, about the size of a residence’s hallway. Jaemus patted the shining titanium alloy plate nearest him fondly, and looked up at Mercator. The man was taller, as all Sundari natives were, but he looked like hell. Half an hour of belly-crawling through mud flows, swimming through exobio ponds and wading into the flooded pits of copper strip-mines had turned his usually pristine long hair and beard into a wild, matted tangle that made him look like the way people thought of the progenitor of mankind when they had still lived on the Lost Homeworld. They stood there, dripping like sentient mud-men, before Mercator reached up to squeeze a stinking lump of filth from his hair. “Next time,” he complained. “We walk through the front gate and just flash our Compact tats if anyone takes an issue.” “Next time,” Jaemus pointed out, starting for the ramp that led to the upper deck. “We won’t have to be absolutely sure we’re not spotted. So we won’t have to crawl through slime.” “Sure,” the other one grunted. “The Compact better look for its next ancient treasure on Mundran or Cyrene or somewhere warm and nice.” He scowled at his own distorted reflection in the mirrored wall paneling. “I’m going to the steamer, I need to clean off all of this gunk.” “I’ll see you abovedeck,” said Jaemus softly, trudging the rest of the way up the ramp, and into the Expatriate’s cramped little cockpit. She may have been one of the newest and most cutting-edge ships in the Compact of Exiles’ tiny, ragtag naval fleet, but she was a bit... small He glanced at the mirrored titanium, and his own grey eyes looked back at him. His hair, the electric blue streak down the side usually visible, was matted with caked slurry. He frowned. It didn’t feel right letting it be obscured by mud. He’d clean it later. For now, they needed to prep to leave. He slid a hand lightly over the cockpit door panel, and it hissed open soundlessly. “You certainly took your time, Hap,” he greeted the alien at the controls. The Parlon, tucked into the sunken, oval-shaped acceleration pod at the front of the ship, it’s long tendrils caressing the controls as it keyed through the preflight maneuvers, whistled a songbird-like apology. [It was delayed. Security concerns. Curious customs officials. Important to the mission.] “It’s alright,” said Jaemus, easing into the seat just above and behind the Parlon. “Though Mercator did say something about cooking you.” He sighed. It was nice to take the weight off of his feet. 11 [ Yes. It represents the shellfish of your lost homeworld. It has heard this often. It does not worry. Tristaine Mercator will not eat it.] “Right.” Jaemus fished into his pocket, and produced the little cargolith. The hexagonal piece of hardware, that held the artifact they’d spent so long looking for. “This little thing should be worth a lot of money.” [ Indeed. A piece of a LUMAR. It recently conferred with command. To the right buyer, this artifact will capture for our organization a sum enough for at least two more ships, and their crew.] Jaemus looked back down at it. “And it was just lying there in the bottom of that drillshaft?” [ Thus so.] He looked back up, and pocketed the cargolith again as Mercator entered the room, shaking his head like a damp hound and sliding into his own seat. He threw a look at Jaemus’s mud-spattered coat and waders, and then sighed and strapped in. Jaemus followed his example. The Expatriate was a Parlon design, and reflected their long, segmented bodies, ten-spectral vision, and aquatic building style, with long, narrow corridors, shiny metal walls, and much more resistant to onboard humidity than most human ships. The cockpit was built like the front of a submersible, a slung bubble, jutting from the fore of the ship. He’d noticed a while ago, how human shuttles mimicked birds, or Yovian vessels were all suited to three-dimensional movement and efficacy of space. The Expatriate, an Ondaprapar class shuttle mimicked a Parlon, replete with a sensor mast jutting right out of the cockpit, like their own fluted proboscis. Slowly, with methodical precision, Hap took them through preflight, and then keyed on the engines with a flex of one claw. Within minutes, the shuttle rose, it’s belly dripping, out of the the lichen-clogged mud-river, wobbling on belching VTOL thrusters like a drunk in the early hours of the morning, and lurching upwards into the sky. “Watch your flying,” grunted Mercator, without really paying attention to the Parlon as they slowly rose up, following the progress of the big craggy hills, all shot with visible veins of dull green and mottled brown copper “So, what is it?” asked Mercator, nodding to Jaemus’s pocket, as they rose into an obscuring fog of clouds, blackened by the soot produced by the smelting towers. 12 Jaemus smiled and pulled it out of his pocket again. “Maker tech.” He held it up and rattled it around. “Probably around half a million to a million years old. It’s amazing it hasn’t deteriorated.” Hap turned one eyestalk around from his command pod to regard Jaemus. [ The Most Eminent Mathemeticians could understand equations it is impossible for a being that lives and dies to contemplate. It would be no great feat for them to construct something that would last this long. Do you recall the topless towers that fix the very plates of Steelfall, or the great sunken cities of Destro, the red sands of Morning’s Bell, that life quivers to behold?] Jaemus shifted uneasily in his seat. It was true that, of the things the Makers had created, not a single one of them was without a corresponding sense of awe as well as practical application. But the reverence some peoples showed them flew in the face of the recorded histories. “You talk like they were gods.” [ The Parlons have no gods. But the humanist concept is adequate to describe the Tripartite of the Elder Scientists. The Eminent Mathematicians, the Venerable Sociologists, and the Engineers of Life.] Jaemus blinked and shielded his eyes as the rising Expatriate burst through the cloud layer in a spray of white, and skimmed above the moist blanket, riding under the brilliant daylight of Sunduset, which burned far above. Jaemus reached up to flick on the temperature control, and cool, slightly damp air washed across his face. He couldn’t do anything about the damp. Parlons always built their ships to be damp. He stood. “Well, whatever it is, it’ll fund the war effort.” He jerked a thumb back belowdecks. “I’m going to the steam closet to wash all of this mess off.” By the time he had finished washing off and returned to the cockpit, he knew that they were above much more pleasant landscapes. The cloud cover had broken, revealing below them the empty and mostly-untouched wilderness of Sundari. Down below, it’s ecosystem, still relatively fragile after three hundred years of terraforming, was thriving. Every homeworld animal that could be engineered to survive the purified atmosphere and thrive in the bare, craggy sunlit peaks, and stark shadowed gorges of the world was doing its best to populate the planet to its fullest extent. And by the reports he’d seen coming in, the world’s terraforming initiative was well on schedule. Sundari was experiencing an explosion of life, imported from right before the Lost Homeworld had become lost, and stored from the Lost Homeworld’s prehistory as well. He 13 shuddered for a moment, remembering how he’d had to rappel down into the trilobite-filled waters below the drillshaft to get at the artifact. Jaemus rubbed his scalp with a quick-absorb quick-dry towel, and looked down through the cockpit floor. A mile beneath, the coppery crags raced below them. He glanced over at Mercator, whose head was lolling. The man was dozing in his seat already. “Hey,” he woke him up with a soft word, doing his best not to disturb Hap’s concentration. Parlons, it turned out, loved to fly, for such naturally aquatic creatures. “What?” groaned Mercador, straightening upright. Jaemus’s rig beeped loudly. “I need a detox. I feel like all that copper near Vikkenhill got in my aerix or something.” The man nodded and blearily passed him a tiny translucent capsulet. In a long-practiced motion, he pushed the capsule into the little metal ring embedded just underneath his collarbone. It took just a moment for the toxin filters to cycle. A small price to pay for twice the piss. “Now,” said Mercador. “It’s a three hour flight all the way around the planet, so please don’t wake me up unless you have to.” Jaemus frowned. “You can sleep at the base. We’ve got our next assignment.” He indicated the rectangular metallic device strapped to his wrist. “Check your rig.” “God, why is freedom fighting such exhausting fucking work,” grumbled Mercador, straightening up and checking his instruments. “Oh, great, meet with some colonial ass-sucker on Tylo, huh? The hell on Tylo is useful at all?” Jaemus checked the rig too. It was a simple -and rather odd and succinct message. “Do we even have a Tylo branch?” asked Mercator. “I mean why? there’s nothing there but a bunch of sand and dune bumpkins.” Jaemus shrugged. “Maybe the Tralfarians are operating clandestines in the system, and the Colonies want us to check it out.” Mercador grimaced. “The Colonies have a whole military for that, not to mention way better intelligence. We’re what, a hundred thousand pissed off refugees with century-old freighters?” He looked up at Mercator. “What happened to Azure Dawn can’t happen to Tylo too. It’s just one system over from us at any rate, it shouldn’t take too long to swing by.” “Buddy,” said Mercator, straightening up further. “Tylo’s already worse off than Azure Dawn, and they didn’t even have an extinction-level shipping accident pop off in orbit.” 14 Jaemus felt his brow furrow angrily, and he tried to calm it down. “It wasn’t an accident. The Tralfarians-” “Look, I know you’re Azurene, it’s hard to forget, what with the blue hair and constant fervor” groaned Mercator. “But I didn’t join up with the Compact for Azure Dawn, and I sure as hell didn’t sign on for Tylo.” He leaned back. “They threatened Sundari. This is the system I signed on to protect.” Jaemus sighed. “Merca-...Tristaine. You can’t just pick and choose your battles based on what benefits you personally. We have to fight for the good of everyone the Tralfarians menace, or Azure Dawn’s destruction, Ravest’s blockade, Sundari’s disarmament...or some other atrocity will go down on Tylo. And it’s our duty to stop it.” “What, two humans, a Parlon, this ship and a couple of off-brand masers? Stop the whole Tralfarian kingdom and the Royal Navy? Want to throw in the Junior Guards too, for that matter?” Jaemus could tell that Mercator’s heart wasn’t really in the bitching though. “Come off it, I didn’t say that. Just that we do our job.” “Hey,” grumbled Mercator. “I hate the Tralfarians as much as the next guy in the Compact, but I seriously think we’re getting rolled into some weird shadow war branch of the Colonial military, with how much we’ve been cozying up to them lately.” He gestured at his rig. “Tylo isn’t even in the Sundari Gulf DMZ. It’s in the Colonies. This is a job for the Colonial Defence Fleet, not us.” “What if there were Compact partisans in the system that need saving?” He frowned. “Maybe that’s what’s going on.” “That would be a different story,” grunted Mercator, turning back to his instruments. “Compact stays together. But I’m not exactly excited about the idea of setting up a permanent base in Colonial territory. Sounds too much like we’re being turned into their unofficial attack dog.” Hap whistled something, and Jaemus blinked. “What?” Hap whistled again, more urgent this time. [ It registers a ship approaching from orbit. One thousand kilometers out.] Jaemus leaned back into his acceleration chair and pulled his scopes into place. “Yeah. Pullo type cargo shuttle. It’s in combat configuration.” He frowned. “The Colonial Entente mostly uses Pullo types, right? We should be in the clear. Transmit our Compact codes at them, 15 they’ll give us a pass.” Hap whistled an affirmative, and his tendrils snaked over several other knobs and dials, and the one solitary touchpad in his pilot’s pod. Mercator kept glowering into his scopes. “They got our codes, but that shuttle’s still on an approach run. It’s pulling one G.” “That’s pretty leisurely, yeah?” asked Jaemus. He didn’t know a ton about spaceflight. They were a recon team, not a combat group. Mercator nodded, and then looked again. “They’ve picked up to two Gs. they’ll be on us in five minutes.” Hap whistled again. [ It is receiving a tightband transmission. Direct from the shuttle.] “Where the hell did it come from?” demanded Mercator, shifting his scopes wildly. “There’s no launch ship I can see.” Hap honked a deep, bass reply in the Parlon speech. [ The Shuttle must have came from around the penumbra.] Then it repeated it’s whistling wheedle [ They are still hailing us. They are jamming long range communications as well] . Jaemus blinked. This was utterly baffling. Was the shuttle pursuing them? He nodded at Hap, who had one of his compound eyes swung all the way around to regard him. The alien stroked a bump on the rim of his pilot pod, and a no- nonsense, harsh voice filled the cockpit. “Shuttle Expatriate . This is Colonial Guard Demilitarization Enforcement Shuttle Six- Four-Zed. You will land your craft immediately, or you will be fired upon. Repeat. You will land your craft immediately, or you will be fired upon .” There was a long silence in the cockpit. A pair of brown eyes, a pair of grey eyes, and a trio of iridescent compound eyes locked with each other in turn, before Mercatore nodded. “Put her down. It was all the Parlon needed to hear, apparently. Jaemus opened the tightband again. “Alright, Shuttle six-four-zed. We’re putting down. Transmitting landing coordinates now. But be advised, we’re a Compact shuttle. We have an agreement with the Colonial Secretariat-” “We are aware. You will put down, shuttle Expatriate. Now.” The tone brooked no further dialogue. Jaemus sank back into his seat, the first twinges of fear clenching his gut. Fifteen minutes later, Hap brought them into a low bank over a flat section of crag. Jaemus checked the long-range scopes. No habitation or signs of population for three hundred 16 klicks. The closest dwellings were at a tiny little macroplankton-tending farming community perhaps four hundred klicks away. [ It is not familiar with landing on solid ground,” protested Hap. “ Parlon ships are meant to land in water-] “We know,” said Mercator. “Just set her down wherever you can. These guys sound pissed. It shouldn’t take too long. Probably just a routine search.” He exchanged a look with Jaemus. Colonial troops weren’t supposed to search Compact ships though. They had an agreement. The Expatriate thudded it’s way over a grassy sward on a highland crag, well lit by sunlight. Jaemus saw a few lizard breeds, seeded on this world two centuries ago, scuttle out of the way of her VTOL jets as she touched down, and the landing struts, only meant to be used in emergencies, clattered against the bare rock and thin grassy soil of the cliff. The three of them gathered at the base of the ramp, Jaemus, taller Mercator, and Hap, nearly the size of a horse next to them both, crouched on his many legs. The Colonial shuttle settled into a pristine, military-style landing not half a hundred meters away, the two big maser cannons swiveling to track them. Jaemus stared them down, trying to feel brave. And then, still hovering, it’s belly hatch opened, and three CEDF guardsmen hopped out, their bulky, rounded armor obscuring their gender and form, and tinted faceplates covering their faces. All that he could tell was that all three of them were human. “On your knees,” called the lead man. Behind his faceplate, Jaemus could just make out a strong chiseled jaw, and a bristly moustache. Absurdly, as he sank to his knees, Jaemus wondered how Hap, with his many joints had interpreted it. The Parlon’s segmented legs buckled nonetheless, and he sank onto his lower carapace. “Konrad,” called the lead man, to another. “Pull a dump from their main cogitator.” “On it, sir.” One of the three sidestepped them, and vanished up the ramp, boots clanking on the metal. The other two looked them over for a long moment. “You were just now ordered to Tylo,” said the lead man. It was a statement, not a question. Jaemus felt one of Hap’s eyes on him. How could they have known? Unless they’d been eavesdropping. This didn’t feel like such a routine search anymore. The rocky earth dug into Jaemus’s knees awkwardly. He looked up at the two soldiers, confused. 17 “Answer the question,” barked the second soldier, hefting the lethal rectangle of a maser carbine. Jaemus felt the worry increase. These guys weren’t acting like Guards. They were acting like something else. They had a looser chain of command. “Yeah,” said Mercator, slowly. “We were.” Jaemus’s mouth felt dry. “Yeah, these are the guys,” said the second soldier. “Compact agents. They confirmed it over the comms too. And one of them always has encrypt codes. Memorized, probably. I doubt they just gave them a datalith.” A datalith...was this about the cargolith? Jaemus reached into his pocket, and instantly regretted it. Both of the soldiers snapped their masers up to point directly at his head. “This is the cargolith we found. If you’re looking for it.” He held it up like a peace offering. They must have been dispatched to retrieve it. It must be more valuable than they had thought. The lead soldier reached down to snatch the cargolith, and then opened it, dropping a tiny oblong of dark stonelike material into his hand. The size was deceptive. Jaemus saw his hand drop just a little bit with the weight of it. “The hell is this?” He pocketed it anyways, stowing the cargolith somewhere in one of the many pouches strapped to his matte-beige armor. “No, we want the encrypt data.” Jaemus frowned. “What?” “Encrypt codes. Encryption codes for secure Compact transmissions. Now.” Mercator and Hap both looked at him. He nodded. “I know the encrypt codes. If I tell you, will you let us go?” The man locked his faceplate with Jaemus’s. “Spill ‘em.” Jaemus said nothing. Why did they want them? he looked at the other two. Mercator shook his head slowly. Jaemus kept his mouth shut. He hoped they didn’t realize that they kept encryption codes in the main cogitator. The lead soldier raised his rifle and fired point blank. Mercator never even had the chance to widen his eyes. In a snap-clack of magnetic rails and a flash of blue-green fire, the top of his head vanished in a shower of goo, scorched chunks of skull, the hair still clinging to it, hitting the nearby rocks and the white shuttle armor, sticking there. Some of it sprayed onto Hap’s exoskeleton. The Parlon honked in distress. Jaemus stared, and Mercator’s body pitched 18 forwards, the truncated, empty head hitting the earth with a sickening crunch. Blood and some half-cooked soup of liquified brain oozed out to run freely in the brittle grass and stain the rocks. The lead soldier peered down at Mercator’s truncated head and shattered braincase. “Well look at that, the codes aren’t in there,” he said, his voice smirking. Then he turned to Jaemus. “The encryption codes. Now. Or the Parlon gets it next.” Jaemus stared, mouth working soundlessly. Just like that . Just like that, Mercator was gone. Just like that. [ It does not wish you to give up the encrypt codes-] Jaemus snapped out of it at the Parlon’s whistle. “Don’t be an idiot, they’ll just pull them out of the cog-” he caught himself. [ These are not Colonial Guards. They are masquerading as-] Five more shots turned the brightly lit mountaintop into double the charnel house it already was. Jaemus stared. The Parlon lay on the ground, segmented legs twitching weakly, most of its upper body blasted into chunks of iridescent carapace and wet meat. One of it’s compound eyes had been detonated by a maser-slug. The second soldier put one foot on the Parlon’s thorax, and fired another trio of shots into the still-writhing body. But...Parlons are peaceful by nature, he thought. Why would they do that? Some other part of him knew he should be having a greater reaction at it, but it was like he was viewing this whole scene from a great distance. “Aimes?” called a voice from inside the shuttle. “I’ve pulled the dump. The encrypts were in the main cogitator.” The lead soldier nodded brusquely. They didn’t even need to do it. They could have just gotten them all along. He stared hollowly. “You never planned on letting us live, did you?” It wasn’t much, and it certainly didn’t feel like triumphant last words. If anything, it felt almost misplaced. Anticlimactic, even. The lead trooper looked down at him. “Smart kid.” Jaemus wondered just what in Solace these mockingbird killers would do with the encrypts now. He certainly wouldn’t be alive to find out. He looked up. “You’re going to Tylo,” he said, dully. He was looking into the barrel of a maser rifle. 19 The death squad said nothing. Their tinted helmets impassive, shadowed by the sunlight behind them. Somewhere, he heard grass rustle, and a distant insect chirp. A bird called it’s high, plaintive wail far above, in the bright and sunny sky. He focused on the maser, and the armored hand that held it. He saw a finger twitch on the trigger, squeezing, tightening-