The Dead Sun(Star Force Series #9)

The Dead Sun(Star Force Series #9) By B. V. Larson


(Star Force Series #9)



-1-



The space around Earth was quiet. There were no enemy ships in the system and at least three hundred defensive vessels glided around the planet in belt-like loops. The battleships and carriers could be seen from the ground at night. Reflecting the light of the sun, they looked like lost, fast-moving moons and the citizens of my world were comforted to see them patrolling in orbit.

I yearned to be with the fleet but that wasn’t my role anymore. I was trapped in a glass tower in Geneva, Switzerland. Outside my massive office window, the Alps shone white with snow and black with rough stone. The mountains here weren’t like the old, worn-down lumps in my native California. These peaks looked like a predator’s teeth when the sun set behind them.

It was October and in this part of the world the air was already crisp and cold, promising the winter to come would be a harsh one. It was Wednesday, late in the afternoon, and my life as a dictator was weighing heavily on me today.

For all intents and purposes, I, Colonel Kyle Riggs of Star Force, was in charge of running Earth. I hadn’t wanted the job, and I didn’t think I was particularly good at it. I’d never wanted this kind of power, despite what my enemies liked to claim.

Do you want to rule the world? It does sound like a pretty sweet deal from the outside. Imagine how it would go: women would throw themselves at you, and if they didn’t, you could have them executed. Everyone would listen to you, and your schedule would set itself. Enemies would die in quiet cells, and sycophantic loyalists would be rewarded on the basis of how thoroughly they massaged your already monstrous—and growing—ego…

I wanted none of it. Especially after I learned that the job was—for the most part—a giant pain in the ass.

I remembered reading a book about Damocles, who’d been invited to sit upon his king’s throne. He hadn’t enjoyed being king for even a single day while I’d had the job for seven long months. Although he’d lusted for power, he didn’t relish the reality, and I now felt I understood his plight.

As Damocles had learned twenty-five centuries ago, power is a double-edged sword. Yes, I could have had people executed if I so desired. But I didn’t want to kill anyone. I wanted to unite humanity, to lift us up to meet our real enemy: the machines.

You would think that being gifted with a magnanimous leader, a man who was generally friendly and reasonable, people would rejoice and cooperate. That wasn’t how it went. Once they figured out I wasn’t a bloody tyrant like Crow, they decided to push. They wanted to see how far they could manipulate or disobey old Riggs before he pulled the rug out from under them. I guess that’s human nature.

So, instead of taking it easy, I found each day began with a raft of problems. Seven long months ago we’d retaken Earth and “liberated” my home planet. In that time, there’d been less progress in every part of government than I would have liked to see. It had taken four full months just to quell rebellions and riots. Dark memories filled my mind when I thought of those early days. Every morning had been littered with news reports of looting and pillaging in dozens of cities. Set free of the empire, people had gone wild. They’d tried to break apart and return to the past, to become a hundred separate nations again.

I hadn’t allowed it. Fragmentation of the empire at this point would leave us too weak. The Macros might come back any day, and when they did, we had to face them as a united force to destroy them in their thousands.

I wanted freedom as much as the next guy, you have to understand. I commiserated with my people’s yearning to go back to the old days of bickering and border skirmishes, but weakness now could mean the end of the line for our species. We couldn’t self-indulge in the past—at least, not yet.

The world had settled down eventually. They’d adjusted to the new order of things. The first day during which no one was assassinated or left dying in the streets of a burning city, I’d wanted out of my position. In my own mind, I’d imagined I would give the reins of power back to the governments of Earth and let them sort it out. Surely, they could see the logical need for a single world government at this point. Maybe something like the old UN could take over.

But that just wasn’t going to work. I realized that now. They couldn’t agree on who should rule and how they would go about it. Old rivalries hadn’t vanished, they’d just been put aside temporarily. I could tell it would take several generations to change people in that regard. Every time I granted our new world parliament more sovereignty, they immediately became as self-centered, corrupt, bureaucratic and inept as the original UN had been in the past.

I couldn’t afford to wait for them to decide how much money I should have to build up the fleet, or who should get the contracts. Not with unknown alien powers ready to pounce upon us at any time from beyond our known systems. So I didn’t ask—I took what I needed and I ordered people to build what I wanted. Since I had the fleet behind me, they obeyed.

Largely because it was the easiest route available, I’d left Crow’s Imperial governing infrastructure in place. I had to start with something. Not everything was the same, of course. I released all political prisoners no matter how irritating they were. I’d already destroyed the Ministry of Truth and now encouraged a free press. I allowed elections for all local and national leaders in every country. Until you got up to the world government itself, it was all very democratic. But at the top, I appointed my own people and kept the real power tightly in the grip of Star Force. These decisions were alternatively lauded and berated by the press, and there were plenty of negative consequences for everything I did.

“I thought we were pretty good at vicious tactics,” I told Admiral Miklos one cold October afternoon, after a swarm of envoys had been ushered from the buildings and shut outside. “But these businessmen are like warriors in suits.”

“They wield words and bribes like weapons,” he agreed. He picked up a shiny metal bust, which had been left behind by one of the dignitaries. He hefted it speculatively. “I do believe this thing is solid gold.”

Miklos was an Eastern European, and he still had an accent. He wore a beard that was a little fuller than regulations allowed for and had intense eyes. He stared at the golden likeness of me as if he were examining an alien animal.

“Yeah,” I said. “Looks like real gold. Who gave that thing to me?”

“It came from the Turkish delegation, I believe,” Miklos replied. “They probably calculated that anything less than solid gold would be considered an insult. Crow liked this kind of ego-building gift, and they seem to be determined to follow the protocol he began.”

I sighed and reached out my hand for the bauble. Miklos hesitated before handing it to me, still frowning.

“Has this gone through security, sir?” he asked.

I shrugged. “You tell me.”

Miklos found a file in the government archives on his tablet. He shot it to my tablet with a flick of his finger, and I examined it.

“Every test Marvin could put it through,” I said, examining the file. “No toxins, explosives or even nanite viruses showed up. He couldn’t detect anything.”

“Okay then,” Miklos said, putting the statue into my palm.

I examined the workmanship. It was really quite good. The damned thing looked exactly like me.


“The Turks really want this contract badly,” I observed.

“They all do, sir,” Miklos said.

Nations had always been fairly independent in Crow’s empire as far as internal politics went. That part wasn’t the problem. Mostly, my troubles began when I was faced with deciding where to allocate Star Force resources. Should I spend a trillion on rebuilding Earth’s fleet? If so, where would that fleet be built? Where would the priceless alien factories be set up and fed local raw materials?

Everyone wanted in on the action. Lobbyists, celebrities and heads of state had thronged my headquarters in Geneva for weeks, demanding their piece of the pie. Most of the arguments came down to jobs, money and just plain petty bickering. Every nation wanted the big Star Force contracts. They did everything they could to ingratiate themselves and sabotage the others.

“They did a good job on this trinket,” I said, setting the gold statue of my own face aside. “Some sculptor and metalworker put their best effort into this thing. They even have the faint scar here on my face, the one that predates my nanite treatments.”

Miklos cleared his throat. I looked up at him expectantly.

“Have you made your decision, sir?” he asked.

“About what?”

“The location of the ship-building facilities.”

“Oh, yeah…that. Yes, I’ve decided. I’ve decided to screw them all. I’m going to assemble the ships in space.”

Miklos frowned. “Expensive and vulnerable.”

“I know, I know. The advantages of doing it in zero-G probably are outweighed by the negatives. But the construction will be largely automated, with space-crawlers doing most of the work, rather than men in suits. We can move past the manual labor stage now.”

“Like I said…expensive.”

I was frowning now. Anytime a Fleet issue came up, Miklos always had a vested interest, just like every envoy from Brazil to Poland. He wanted to run the show as much as they did, but for different reasons.

I stood up from my seat at the head of a long table of rich mahogany and looked at him.

“Do I really have to sell you on this?” I demanded. “You’ve seen the projections. At first there will be a construction slowdown because we’ll have to build an orbital platform, but once that’s going, the production rates will improve. We’ll be getting most of our raw materials from space from now on, especially from the Bellatrix system. We’ll avoid the effort of having to ferry everything down from orbit to the surface if we build in space.”

“That’s true,” he said, “but the orbital platform will take longer to construct than one would here on Earth. The technologies are new and unknown. May I propose a faster approach?”

“Of course. Propose away.”

“We could build the production facility on Phobos, either on the outer hull or inside the vessel.”

I stared at him for a moment, considering the possibility. I’d heard other proposals concerning Phobos, but this was a new one. Phobos was the largest ship we had. It was named after one of Mars’ moons because it was the size of a hollowed out moon itself, about seven miles across and spherical in shape. Pirated from the Blues, who’d built it originally, it was easily the most powerful weapon Earth had at her disposal.

I shook my head after a few moments of thought. “No. I’m not going to do that. I don’t want our best battlewagon turned into a factory.”

“Why not, sir?” Miklos asked. “Think of the long-range possibilities. We would fly her out to a trouble spot and begin building a new fleet when we got there.”

“I do like that aspect. Possibly I’ll build our second dry-dock aboard her, but not our first. I’m not going to put all my eggs in a single basket. If Phobos went down in a battle, we’d lose our fleet and the capacity to build a new one all at once.”

“But if we put up an orbital platform,” he said, beginning to raise his voice, “it will become a giant target when the Solar System is invaded. Can you not see that, sir?”

I began to raise my voice in response. I felt my eyebrows squeezing closer together, forming a frown.

“Yeah, I can see that, but I’m telling you that if an enemy—any enemy—gets so far through our defenses that they’re able to blast something out of Earth’s orbit…well, we’ve lost anyway. They would have to have gone through several systems and our battle station at the border.”

He pursed his lips tightly and nodded, lowering his gaze. These days, when I became angry, people stopped arguing. In a way, that was nice. But it was kind of weird, too. Did they really fear for their lives?

“As you wish, Colonel,” he said.

I’d kept the title of Colonel because I didn’t like the other options. What was I supposed to call myself? Overlord? Emperor? King? Or maybe “His Highness”, as Crow had done? I decided that, for now, I’d stick with plain old Colonel Kyle Riggs.

A chime sounded, breaking me out of my thoughts. I put the statuette down again, finding that I’d been toying with it absentmindedly. It really was a startling likeness.

Miklos checked his tablet. “It’s Captain Sarin,” he said. “I’ll be taking my leave, sir.”

“Hold on,” I said, putting up my hand. “Why is it that every time she shows up, you run off? There isn’t a thing going on between you two, is there?”

“A thing, sir?” he asked with an odd twist to his lips. He seemed amused. “I don’t believe I’m the one with the special relationship.”

I nodded. I’d been suggesting there was a rivalry between my top officers, but his meaning was something else entirely. I didn’t like it, but I understood.

Jasmine and I were romantically involved. It had been a long time coming, and I was enjoying it as much as she was—possibly more. I told myself not to let Miklos’ smirk piss me off. It was only natural for underlings to make light of their superiors’ dalliances.

I smiled back at him, instead of shouting.

“Funny guy,” I said. “It’s not like I’m playing grab-ass with an intern, you know. She’s a mature woman and a peer.”

“Oh, I agree, sir.”

Another leer. I was ready for him to leave.

“Right,” I said. “Well, there’s the chime again. Do I let her in, or do I kick you out first to make you feel better?”

His ghostly smile faded. “Not necessary, Colonel.”

I stabbed a raised stud on the arm of my chair and the smart metal door melted away. Jasmine came in, and I was glad to see she was wearing her uniform. It would have been embarrassing to have her surprise me in a silky robe or something like that. Fortunately, Jasmine didn’t do that type of thing. She wasn’t flashy and daring the way Sandra had been.

“Admiral,” she said, nodding to Miklos.

“Captain,” he replied. “I was just about finished.”

“Hold on,” I said. “Jasmine, what did you want to talk about?”

“The construction contracts, sir.”

I nodded, looking at both of them suspiciously. “I see. Where do you think we should put the new facilities?”

“That’s hardly my place to judge, Colonel.”

“I’m asking for opinions.”

Jasmine slid her eyes over to Miklos, then back again to me. She seemed to be assessing the situation, and I was doing the same. She’d come here to lobby me privately about these contracts just as he had. I tried not to be annoyed by this behavior among two of my most trusted officers. They’d been convinced by skillful manipulators. They were using their influence on me, not for gain, but because they believed they were doing the right thing.


“Did you know, sir, that the fastest growing aerospace industry on our planet is located in Bangalore?”

I blinked at her. Honestly, she’d caught me by surprise. So direct, so blatant. I snorted quietly. This made her frown, but I recovered quickly.

“No, I didn’t know that.”

“It was happening even before the initial invasion years ago,” she said. “The two countries experiencing the greatest industrial growth in this area were India and China. Unfortunately, China was destroyed for the most part during the Macro assault of—”

Miklos jumped in then, growling. He sounded as if he couldn’t stand to hear any more of her pitch. “That’s not where you place a contract like this!” he shouted.

We both looked at him in surprise. Like a traffic cop, I gestured toward both of them. I shushed Jasmine with one hand and encouraged Miklos to talk with the other.

“Let’s hear it, Miklos. Give me your honest opinion. You’ve been hinting around all day. Tell me where you want to put the fleet construction facilities. If not on Phobos if not in orbit—where?”

“Back before India—or the smoking ruin formerly known as China—had built their first toy rockets, Space City in Russia was building more launch vehicles than any other country on Earth.”

I nodded slowly and I didn’t contradict him—or her. In truth, I thought Star Force on Andros Island had been the greatest producer of ships in recent times. They were both talking about old-fashioned chemical rocket delivery systems. We’d moved past all that, and I wasn’t sure that the existing facilities or personnel could help us much to build a modern facility using Nano and Macro technology. Sure, they might have some good technical people knocking around, but the existing factories and the like would be all but worthless.

“I’m not sure that they could help,” I said. “I’m sure there are some retired astrophysicists about that we could hire, but—”

“Hear me out, Colonel,” Miklos interrupted. “If we’re considering placement of the facilities on Earth, there are clear advantages to Space City. I’m not just talking about advantages to Star Force. The region has been damaged by war and economic upheaval. The people there have lost their pride and spirit. We could revitalize them.”

“I see,” I said evenly. “What I’m hearing is this: Jasmine is from India. She wants to help her people out, and you want to help yours.”

They both frowned.

“Nepotism, sir?” Miklos said stiffly. “Is that what you’re accusing us of?”

“Not exactly, Admiral. But I do think the numbers are so huge that your judgment has been compromised. It’s only natural. I’m rejecting both of you, not choosing one over the other. In your case, it’s because I’m not going to make a decision about the defense of Earth on the basis of who is most in need. If I did that, I’d build the factories in the wasteland that was once South America. Those people are living in squalor.”

I turned to Jasmine while Miklos sulked.

“Your argument is different, Jasmine, but no less flawed,” I told her. “You talk of India’s aerospace industry as if it’s modern. It isn’t. The technology we’re using is all new. It would be like using a vacuum tube factory to build tablet computers—no help at all.”

They both seemed deflated and frustrated. To my surprise and delight, they didn’t bitterly argue to the last. They both knew me too well to go up against me when my mind was made up.

“Where, then?” Jasmine asked. “Where do you plan to build these factories? In the Central Valley of California?”

I flashed her a look of annoyance. She was suggesting that I was making an arbitrary choice to help out my own hometown, which just wasn’t true. I opened my mouth to refute her suggestion, but Miklos beat me to it.

“He’s putting the entire thing into space,” he said. “An orbital platform.”

“But why?” she demanded in surprise. “Such a waste—and one lucky missile could take out the entire facility.”

I heaved a sigh. “I’ve gone around a few times with Miklos on this already. If you could fill her in, I’ll be taking my leave.”

They both looked startled as I stood and marched for the door. I’d had enough of bickering about economics in my office. I was bored and irritated with the entire business of running an empire. Sure, it had sounded like fun, but I’d been having far too many days like this one. It wasn’t that nothing got done, but rather that it was a joyless affair.

Jasmine followed me out and caught up with me at the elevators. She touched my elbow, and I softened.

“Sorry,” I said.

“Me, too. I understand the stresses you must be under. Running a planet is difficult for anyone.”

“I’ve run them before, that’s the funny thing. Out in the Eden system it seemed far easier. Everyone was open to new ideas. They went where I wanted them to go and made farms and towns grow.”

“Maybe it was a natural pioneering spirit,” she suggested.

“Not just that. They weren’t entrenched in tradition, jealousy and the like. The people of Earth have baggage in everything they do. They aren’t united—not really. The minute the aliens aren’t visible in our skies, we start fighting over scraps like a screaming mass of baboons on top of a heap of bananas.”

She smiled at my over-the-top analogy.

“Do baboons even like bananas?” she asked.

“I have no idea,” I admitted, chuckling.

We got into the elevator and touched the buttons to send us gliding downward. I would have preferred simple grav-tubes like the ones we had on our larger ships, but the elevators were a tradition on Earth and they made my countless visitors feel more at home.

On impulse, I grabbed Jasmine and kissed her. She resisted for a second, then melted. I knew she wasn’t fully happy with me yet, but she didn’t seem openly angry, just disappointed.

We didn’t get to finish our short kiss before things went very wrong.

We were standing there in the elevator with our lips locked together when the little gold statue shaped like my head imploded, crushed by fantastical gravitational forces. Essentially a tiny black hole—one no bigger than a pinpoint—appeared momentarily inside my office and sucked everything around it inward, compressing matter and rupturing even the atmosphere inside the building itself.