The Dead Sun(Star Force Series #9)

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I’m not quite sure what we’d been expecting, but we were all gritting our teeth and squeezing our eyes almost shut the moment the probe plunged through the ring into the unknown. It vanished off our sensors and…nothing happened.

I heard a few sighs of relief. People’s bodies were relaxing, unwinding their tense muscles. I knew they were thinking it had all been a bust. There was no ultimate ka-boom at the end of this grand experiment. No calamity had struck us. The probe was lost, and we were safe. A happy ending.

But I wasn’t relaxing just yet. Instead, I watched Marvin.

Jasmine dared to catch my eye and give me a small smile. Maybe she was like the rest of them and thought the worst was over. But then, I indicated Marvin with a nod of my head, and she looked at him. Her smile, as small as it had been, faded away to nothing.

“What’s wrong with him?” she asked, leaning forward and frowning.

“He’s locked up. Remember the time we sent instructions to the ring on Yale? He looked like that then—like he was caught in some kind of endless loop.”


Marvin’s pose was an odd one even for him. His tentacles were poised in mid-air, and his cameras were frozen. Not a single lens was zooming in. One tentacle tip that hovered over the command table twitched. Up-down, up-down. It looked like he was tapping a finger to a fast, staccato beat.

“Sir,” Newcome said, approaching me. “There’s nothing coming back from the probe. We had a wire on it, but there’s no input at all.”

I glanced at him. He looked as relieved as the rest of them. I turned back and continued watching Marvin.

“What’s wrong with your robot?” Newcome asked.

“He’s getting something—or trying to. Don’t mess with him. This test cost the crust of an entire world. I’m not planning on running it twice.”

Everyone fell quiet, and we all stared at Marvin curiously. About ninety seconds later, he came to life again.

“Mission accomplished,” he said. His cameras roved, seeing our scrutiny. “You’ve all changed positions. Is something wrong?”

“You were frozen-up,” I told him. “Processing heavy input, I’d guess.”

“Yes…my chronometer is correcting itself. One-hundred and seventy-one seconds have passed. Odd, I didn’t even feel it. I put myself into a hard loop. I don’t usually do that as it’s dangerous.”

“Never mind the details now. What happened? You said the mission was accomplished.”

“Yes, I’ve pinpointed the direction of the ring’s exit point—or, at least, the position where the probe emerged. But I’m not one hundred percent certain as to the distance relative to our location. You see, I wasn’t able to triangulate with only a single receiver. The signal was very brief so there was no time to apply a parallax test. I was only able to get a directional fix, and I’m not certain as to the range.”

“But there is a system in that direction, right? A target?”

“No, and I find that troubling. There are only roving planetoids out there, no stars at all. Not unless the signal comes from quite far off. The uncertainty lies in the distance to the target, you see. Behind a cluster of planetoids, which is admittedly the likely source, there are other possible targets.”

I nodded. “Sounds like the direction leads toward the galactic center. Lots of target systems that way.”

“Incorrect assumption. The path leads out of the Milky Way galaxy entirely.”

I frowned. “Display it, Marvin. I’m not getting what you’re trying to say.”

Marvin moved to the command table and touched a set of virtual controls. The image he summoned appeared on the globular holotank above the table.

A depiction of our entire galaxy stretched across the tank. The galaxy was a spinning disk with three spiral arms. The center was like a hubcab and dense with stars. Far out along the rim of the galaxy a tiny green line shot upward. The line was no thicker than the thinnest of filaments, and it stretched even longer inside the holotank as I watched.

I examined the direction and zoomed in with my fingers. “But you said there were other possible systems behind the one you located. There’s nothing out there.”

“Untrue. There are two entire galaxies in the background that could conceivably be the source of the signal.”

“Other galaxies?” Sarin asked. “At what range? Ten million light years? That’s too far.”

“Within our frame of reference, it would seem to be,” Marvin said stubbornly, “but not theoretically. Just because we’ve only encountered rings that have led to relatively nearby destinations does not prove—”

“Marvin,” I interrupted him. “Why are you arguing about this? Are you trying to cover up a failure? Is this some kind of false lead?”

“Well, there is a sure way to discover the truth of that accusation, Colonel Riggs. In fact, you’ve brought the conversation around to the point I was trying get to. I thank you.”

“Hmm,” I said, eyeing him warily. “What do you want?”

“I propose a second test. We’ll move the receiver this time, allowing triangulation. We’ll know exactly where the signal originated.”

I huffed and almost laughed aloud. “So that’s it? You want to rip up a second world and fire another probe into enemy territory? Well, that isn’t going to happen.”

“Why not, sir?”

“Because your test looks like a colossal failure. You didn’t pinpoint a star system. Instead you got a random beam out into space. In fact, if I read this correctly, that vector goes right past the Solar System. It almost bisects the point in space we know as ‘Earth’.”

“A simplistic view, Colonel. The point is approximately thirty thousand AU outside the Solar System. That’s more than half a light year.”

“Yeah, yeah. I don’t buy it. The signal goes nowhere, and the test was a dud. Face it, Marvin, the probe didn’t survive long enough to get a clear fix. That’s all. It could have happened to anyone.”

Marvin edged closer to me. His cameras swung wide, getting my profile. “If that is the case, a second probe would prove your theory.”

“No way. I’m beginning to think I was crazy to let you do this test in the first place. Each time we wriggle a ship through that ring, no matter how small, we run the risk of waking up the Macros. They’re well-documented to have defensive software, which triggers on the basis of proximity, overriding their other programming. I’m not going to run the chance a second time—especially if it means wrecking another habitable moon.”

“We’ve sent several probes through before without causing a response.”

“True, but I’m not interested in pushing our luck any further.”

I called a break then, ordering my command staff to stand down. I told them the test had been a bust over Marvin’s protests. An hour later, I was in the canteen downing my first beer of the day.

I had just opened up my second and poured it into an icy mug when my helmet began beeping. I glanced at it and put my headset on reluctantly.

“Riggs here.”

“Sir? You have to get up here. We have contacts.”

I stood up with a grunt, stretched and trotted up the passageway. When I got to the bridge, I saw the command table had lit up. A red warning beacon had appeared, and machines were beeping all around us.

“Is this what I think it is?” I asked, looking at the screens.

“Hold on—yes, sir, confirmed,” Jasmine said. “We have contacts. They’re coming through the ring now.”

We all stared in shock. Even Marvin, who snaked onto the deck a minute or so later, seemed surprised. After absorbing the data, he turned away from the screens and focused his cameras on the rest of us. I knew he was taking an emotional reading—analyzing our faces and body language.

I reached out and smashed down the camera that drifted near my left shoulder. “Did you get that, Marvin? Did you read my emotional state, there? How do you think I’m feeling right now? Take your best shot at analysis!”

“I would surmise that you are in a state of anger, Colonel.”

“Damn straight, I am.”

Enemy ships kept coming through. As Marvin’s test had gone off prematurely, we weren’t in position to meet them with immediate force.

“Why the hell—why are they reacting this time? We’ve sent probes through before, and they’ve destroyed them without moving.”


As we all watched, more red contacts slipped through the ring in front of us. It was hard to believe it was happening. We were still about an hour out from the ring.

“What are we up to?” I asked. “About fifty cruisers?”

“Seventy-eight, sir,” Jasmine reported. “They’re hitting our minefield now. They’ve lost twenty-nine ships, but they’re still coming.”

Marvin stayed quiet for once in his existence. He reeled in his damaged limb. The smashed camera at the end bumped and scraped on the floor over my boots.

“What did you make me do, robot?” I asked him.

“The attack upon my person was unwarranted but predictable. It is my understanding, however, that it is unethical to blame the victim in assault situations.”

I blinked at him for a second before I realized he was upset about his broken camera. “No, you crazy machine. I’m talking about triggering a Macro attack. How did I let you talk me into risking it?”

“There are several psychological theories I’ve been working on in that regard. I would say the most likely cause is straightforward: boredom.”

I pressed my lips together in anger. I hated it most of all when he was right. I had been bored, and I’d come out here to do something cool. As a result, I’d taken risks. I’d poked the stick into the hornets’ nest—and surprise, surprise—we were about to be stung.

They kept pouring in through the ring, and we made emergency preparations for battle. I scrambled my fighters and launched a barrage of missiles—but not all of them. I wanted to see what I was facing before committing us to battle.

They kept flowing out of the ring like a hose on full blast. Over the next half-hour, we planned and war-gamed. We had only a single carrier and about sixty support ships. It wasn’t enough. When the enemy force managed to punch through our minefield, their numbers had reached four hundred cruisers despite their losses. It was too late to stop them. They were already here.

I ordered us to reverse course and run for the ring that led to Eden. Maybe that was the moment they’d been waiting for. As soon as we reversed course, they unloaded.

“Colonel Riggs, we have new contacts…missiles, sir. That’s confirmed. About eight hundred of them.”

I nodded. “The enemy is firing now that they sense we’re trying to break off.”

A cloud of missiles appeared in a broad swath of space. Each enemy ship had fired two.

“All right,” I said. “Change the programming on our missiles. Order them to intercept that cloud and lay down a staggered impact pattern. If we can get to the enemy barrage before they spread out very far, we should halt this wave.”

Newcome looked at me. “Maybe we should try to strike with what we’ve launched. Our missiles are moving faster, they should get through and destroy a lot of ships.”

“Uncharacteristically brave of you, Admiral,” I said. “I approve, but I must overrule your suicidal suggestion.”

“Why is it…?” his question died as Jasmine reconfigured the map, showing the probable outcome of his idea. He nodded. “I see. We can’t stop eight hundred missiles. They’ll get through and damage the task force badly.”

“I’m predicting a thirty-eight percent loss from this initial barrage alone—that’s if they don’t throw everything at our carrier to knock it out.”

“That would be their wisest move,” I said. “Our fighters can dodge missiles, but they can’t fly forever out here without a base. They’d all be out of action before the rest of us reached the Eden ring. Speaking of which, have you alerted Welter Station, Captain Sarin?”

“Naturally, sir. They know what’s coming.”

“Good work,” I said, and turned a musing eye back toward the screens.

Around me, most of the staffers were in a near-panic. They were relaying instructions, organizing formations and gaming out scenarios. Mathematical projections were made for a dozen possible actions we could take, just in case I asked.

But I was in a more contemplative state of mind. As the top commander, it was my job to keep my eye on the bigger picture.

“They seem to have stopped coming through,” I said aloud. “Four hundred ships… Actually, I’m surprised they have so few. I would have thought they’d had enough time to build more. We’ve given them over a year to prepare for this day.”

I turned back to Captain Sarin, who was bringing all our data together. “We’ve projected their acceleration curve based on known Macro flight capabilities. They won’t be able to catch us.”

“Good,” I said. “We’ll withdraw in good order to the Eden ring. With Welter Station at our back, we should be able to—”

“Sir,” interrupted Admiral Newcome. He’d been playing with his tablet and a smaller console to the side. “I think we have a problem.”

I turned to him, frowning. “What problem?”

“The enemy acceleration curves, sir—they don’t match our projections.”

“How so?”

“They’re accelerating more quickly than our estimates allow for—about thirty percent faster.”

I looked at his work and read the numbers. “That’s a lot of power. They must have upgraded their engines. I can’t think of any other explanation.”

“Neither can I, sir,” Newcome said.

“Good work,” I told him, clapping him on the shoulder. “I knew I brought you along for something.”

He winced, probably because I was accidentally crushing his shoulder, but he appeared appreciative of the praise.

“Jasmine, tap in the new estimates.”

“Those numbers aren’t confirmed yet, Colonel,” she said.

“I don’t care. I’m not taking any more chances.”

She did as I asked, and very soon a much grimmer picture developed. Originally, it had looked as if we’d be faced with missile barrages chasing us all the way back to the station. But now, it was clear we weren’t going to make it. The enemy ships would catch up with us before we made it back to the safety of the Eden system.

“We’ll be under their guns within twenty-four hours,” I said. “Are these numbers firming up? I need accurate projections, people.”

I looked sternly over at the table full of nerds in the corner of the room. They were responsible for getting these things right. They worked feverishly for perhaps thirty seconds more, then transmitted their results to my table.

The images shifted on the primary screen. A red arrow representing the Macro ships now intersected our green oval in nineteen hours.

“What the hell…?” I asked. “Why did it change again?”

“The enemy ships are coming on even faster now,” Jasmine said. “Their rate of acceleration is increasing, not staying steady. That’s why I must have missed the estimates in the first place. We can’t beat them, Colonel.”

“New engines,” I said thoughtfully. “Something that allows them to accelerate with an odd curve. Maybe the new engines take time to warm up? They pretty much crawled through the ring. Maybe they start cold and have to be stoked to full power.”

“I hardly think it matters, sir,” Newcome said. “The point is, they will catch us. We’ll have to turn and do battle.”

I glanced at him. “These details do matter. Very much so. Jasmine, what do we have in the way of reinforcements back in the Eden System?”


“Not much, sir. Less than a dozen ships, all small except for a single old carrier that we use to watch the Blues.”

I nodded. “All right. I assume these latest projections are holding up and don’t need further tampering?”

“They are, sir. We have nineteen hours.”

“I want my senior staffers to meet me in the conference room. We’ll discuss our options.”

I left the bridge, and a few minutes later Jasmine and Newcome showed up in my office. Behind them a third individual clattered into view. It was none other than Marvin himself. He was still nursing his broken camera and displaying it prominently as if he imagined someone might offer him sympathy. None of us did. The old ‘abused robot’ routine wasn’t flying with anyone today.

“Your robot appears to have followed us, Colonel,” said Newcome stiffly. “I was under the impression this was for senior officers only.”

I snorted. “He’s right, Marvin. Have you given yourself a new rank?”

“No, Colonel Riggs. But I have interesting opinions to share regarding this command decision.”

“Okay then, pull up a chair—or rather remove one.”

When Marvin came to a conference table, it was generally necessary to remove a chair to make a place for him to crouch around it with the rest of us.

“I’ve brought you here because we have some unpleasant choices to make,” I said to the three of them.

“Unpleasant?” asked Marvin.

He had a lot of cameras on me. Whenever the topic of discussion involved his existence, Marvin became very focused indeed.

“That’s right. One option is to turn and fight right now. The advantage to such a move is that, if more reinforcements are coming up behind this wave of Macros, we can destroy these ships before they’re reinforced.”

“That doesn’t seem realistic, Colonel,” Jasmine said. “We can’t kill all their ships. How does it help us if they outnumber us twenty to one or only ten to one?”

“I’m getting a negative vibe from you, Captain,” I said, giving her a slight frown. “Anyone else?”

Marvin’s foreclaw rose up.

“Sir, I have a suggestion or two.”

“Go ahead.”

“The enemy fleet is going to destroy us. That’s unquestionable. But many of our personnel might escape this fate and reach Welter Station if we act quickly.”

I leaned back in my chair. “I’m all ears, Marvin.”

“We could abandon most of the ships. By transferring every engine to a single large vessel—the carrier would be the most natural choice—we could load up our personnel and accelerate at a greater pace than the enemy.”

“Intriguing…” I said, “But you mentioned that ‘many’ of us would get away. Who would not make it?”

“I’ve done the calculations. We have a group of transports traveling with us carrying Centaurs, am I correct?”

I was beginning to frown. “Yes, new recruits from their homeworld.”

“Fortunately, they’ve had basic training and have undergone my treatment to make them functional in space. I’m proposing that—”

“Hold on, Marvin!” I said, lifting a hand. “Are you saying we should leave them behind? That we should let the Macros destroy them in their ships while they lag behind us? That we steal their engines and leave them adrift?”

“No, sir, that would be a terrible waste.”

“I’m glad to hear we agree on that point.”

“No, Colonel,” he continued. “I’m not proposing to squander a vital resource. What I suggest is that we deploy the Centaur troops, all of them. They can ride their personal conveyances into the hulls of the enemy ships and do terrific damage by detonating nuclear charges—”

I was out of my chair.

“Shut up right there, robot!” I shouted. “You’ve got a lot of guts to suggest these fresh recruits commit mass suicide in order to salvage your brainbox. Let’s not forget that you were the one to fire off this experiment prematurely.”

“That was an accident, sir.”

“So you say. If you’d held back until we reached the ring, we’d have been in position to stop the enemy as they entered. Instead, we’re faced with this grim situation.”

“I fail to see how I’m to blame. The entire process was experimental. In these situations, unexpected phenomena very typically—”

“Well, get the idea of leaving the Centaurs behind to screen our retreat out of your neural chains. I’m not going to order the Centaurs to make a suicidal charge at the enemy ships while we run for cover. That’s final.”

“In that case, I’m out of ideas.”

“I’ve got one,” Newcome said. “What about the gravity device Marvin’s been working on—could it be weaponized?”

We all looked at Marvin. He seemed surprised.

“An intriguing proposal. The system is essentially a gravitational force manipulator on the order of the one built inside Phobos. In fact, I first got the idea for the system from the Phobos unit. Unfortunately, the site has been abandoned, and there is no one there to make the necessary changes to the systems.”

“Hmm,” I said, tapping on the screen in front of me. “We’re not that far from the probe’s launch point. We could be there in a few hours.”

“We can’t divert our course or slow down,” Newcome pointed out. “They’ll catch us even faster if we do.”

“No,” I said, tapping my chin. “But Marvin has given me an idea. We could launch a small ship with extra engines very quickly. With enough power, it could reach the device within a matter of hours.”

“But Colonel,” Marvin said, “who could possibly be convinced to go on such a dangerous, highly technical mission?”

All of us turned and stared at him in unison.

“Oh,” he said in surprise. “I should have expected this response after your earlier tirade.”

“Well?” I asked gruffly. “Will you do it, Marvin?”

Jasmine reached out a hand and put it on his nearest tentacle. He studied the hand with a single camera, rather than her face.

“Marvin? Please?” she asked. “We’d all appreciate it. You would be a hero again.”

“I’ve found that the title of ‘hero’ is a fleeting honor amongst humans. But I will do it. Just thinking about the challenge is stimulating my circuitry.”

I’d been pretty sure that Marvin would take the job. That’s why I’d asked him instead of ordering him to do it. In some ways, he was a coward, but in other instances he was insanely brave. The key was to put some kind of technical challenge into the mix to intrigue him. If you did that, you could get him to do almost anything.

Marvin and I had a very long history of manipulating one another and involving one another in our schemes. This time, I seemed to have had the last laugh.

Or at least, I hoped so.