The Dead Sun(Star Force Series #9)

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Our task force glided through the ring and into friendly space. I called a timeout on the bridge, releasing the staffers who’d been on duty for back-to-back shifts. Everyone sighed in relief. There was still plenty to do, of course. The hull had to be patched, and the wounded had to be tended to, but the immediate danger was over.

I let the sleepless, ticking nanites tend to the small stuff. While they cleaned up the mess the battle had left in its wake, I headed toward my quarters lost in thought.

I eyed the bunk I shared with Jasmine but walked around it and went to the single window instead. The window in my quarters was a real one. This old Imperial ship still had vestiges of the past, and this was one of the ones I liked. Despite the inefficiency in terms of lost heat and imperfect viewing, nothing could fully replace the human eye staring through a pane of glass.

I knew that my engineering people would scoff at that sentiment. Often, a high-resolution screen gave a better idea of what was outside a ship, but a real window provided me with a certain grounded feeling. It was an unplanned, unaltered view of the universe.

I tapped the panel below the small, angular window, and the blast shield outside slid away. The glass was a little frosty with condensation, but I could see space with my own eyes. To the left was Eden, a cheery yellow star. It looked distant and small from our position out near the battle station, but I was still happy to see it. Close at hand was Welter Station in all its bristling glory. In many ways, I still considered the station to be my finest defensive achievement. Even if all four hundred Macro ships had made it through the nearby ring and entered local space here, I felt confident that the station’s guns would have destroyed them all.

Below us, slipping away almost as quickly as the station, was Hel, a cold, unforgiving rock. It was the twenty-first planet in the star system and the farthest from the yellow sun.

As always, I felt better just knowing I was in the Eden System. These days it felt like home to me—maybe even more than Earth itself did.

In my mind, I immediately took that thought back. It wasn’t that I didn’t love Earth, it was that I loved the old Earth, the world I’d grown up on. That Earth seemed like a distant memory now. I missed my farm and the quiet countryside. I ached for blue skies and fresh winds. No voices had been buzzing in my helmet or kissing-up to me in the old days—with the possible exception of a few desperate students who’d missed their final exams.

Today, I was no longer a regular guy living his life. When I was on Earth, I felt weighed down with vast responsibilities.

“What are you thinking about?” Jasmine asked.

I turned and looked down. She had appeared at my side and now stood watching my face. She had entered the room so quietly, I hadn’t even known she was there.

“I’m having a rare philosophical episode,” I said.

She looked worried for a moment, furrowing her brow. “That doesn’t sound like you. Were you hit on the head or something?”

I laughed out loud, and she smiled. I wasn’t even sure whether or not she was serious, but it didn’t matter.

“It looks like this adventure is over,” she said, still watching me.

“What do you mean?”

She shrugged. “We sent in the probe, and it didn’t work. But it did trigger a Macro attack. Everything is pretty much the way it was before we came out here.”

I shook my head. “No, I don’t think so. We have a fix on a point in space. There’s something out there, something hiding in a deep void, less than a light year from Earth. We can’t rest with the machines sitting so close.”

Her face darkened, and she stepped around my body until she was in front of me, between my chest and the frosty window.

“You said Marvin had made a mistake,” she said. “And that they couldn’t be out there.”

I shrugged. “I say a lot of things. I didn’t want people to be distracted. I wanted everyone to focus on the battle.”

“You lied?”

“Sort of. It does seem hard to believe the Macros could be in the middle of nowhere without a star system—but it makes a certain kind of sense, too, doesn’t it? They’ve been quiet for so long. What have they been doing?”

“Building ships and improving their technology so they could beat us the next time.”

I nodded. “Yes, that, and something else, too.”

“What?”

“I think they’ve been watching us, staring at us with their cold, electronic eyes. They’ve been sitting out there in the dark, studying us and trying to figure out how to beat us. That’s why their ships were faster this time. Their assault-missiles were full of countermeasures. Even their marines were different. They’ve upgraded them with much better forward armor. They would have won today if Marvin hadn’t trumped them with his gravity weapon.”

Jasmine seemed not to like any of this talk. She had her head against my chest now. That was unusual for her. She rarely seemed to need comforting of any kind. I touched her hair lightly and rested my hand on her back. I didn’t hug her. Sometimes when I hugged a girl it knocked the wind out of her. I didn’t want to take the chance.

“I thought it was over,” she said, almost accusingly.

“I’m sorry if I misled you, but we can’t let our guard down. Even if Marvin is wrong, we have to act as if the intel is good. We can’t afford to do nothing. What’s the problem, anyway?”

“I don’t want you to do what you’re going to do next,” she said.

“What am I going to do?”

“Go out there. Lead a fleet to destroy them in the dark between the stars.”


I looked down at Jasmine. Her hair was black—so black that the stars outside created a white reflective sheen on the top of her head.

“You know me too well,” I said.

She didn’t answer because we both knew she’d guessed my thoughts. I had been pondering my next move, and she was right: I was going to have to build a fleet and fly out there. If the Macros were sitting in the sky watching us like owls watching mice in the dark, we had to remove them. I had to find their nest and destroy them all.

“Send someone else,” she said suddenly. “Send Miklos, or Newcome. They can spend a year chasing shadows in the void.”

“I just might do that,” I said.

She looked up at me, studying my face. Then she frowned. “You’re lying. I know why Sandra kicked you so often. You’re a good liar, but eventually people catch on.”

This sort of talk wasn’t like Jasmine. I frowned and tried to focus on her. She wasn’t usually this emotional and possessive.

“What’s wrong?” I asked her. “You don’t seem like yourself.”

She turned away, facing the stars. She looked out the window while I watched her.

“I didn’t want to tell you this way, but I guess I have to.”

“Tell me what?”

“I’m going to have a baby—your baby.”

I was taking in a breath when she said this, and my lungs froze-up. I couldn’t suck in any more air, nor could I release what I had. I wanted to cough—or maybe gag—but I didn’t. I just froze.

Jasmine turned around slowly to face me. I tried to change the shocked look on my face, I swear I did. I tried to rip my cheek muscles upward, forcing a smile. But it wasn’t working fast enough.

She studied me, her eyes flicking over my features.

She put her hand to her face and spun quickly back to the window. I knew I’d blown it.

“Hey, what’s wrong?”

“You’re clearly not pleased by this news.”

I put a hand on her shoulder, but she squirmed away.

“Don’t touch me.”

“Listen,” I said as gently as I could, “you just took me by surprise. It’s not like we’re married and trying to get you pregnant.”

“You try all the time.”

I allowed myself a quick eye-roll behind her back.

“Yeah, yeah…I know I’m involved here. But there is such a thing as contraceptives. Were they not working, or…?”

“That’s all you want to ask about? I say I’m pregnant, and you want to talk about birth control?”

“Whoa! Let’s not even go there. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. I’m just surprised.”

“We were living together on Earth,” she said. “The war seemed like it was over. I stopped taking the pill a while ago, and I—I shouldn’t have done that. Not without asking.”

I knew I had every right to be mad. I knew Jasmine had pulled a fast one. But, as I was getting over the initial shock, I could see how this might not be so bad. It wasn’t like I was poor or anything. Technically, I was Earth’s ruling party of one. I could have all the kids I wanted. What the hell difference did it make?

“You’re angry with me,” she said. “And I’m sorry. I made a mistake.”

“You know what?” I said suddenly. “I’m finally getting my head around this. I think this is going to work out. I had kids once, you know. I loved them, but they didn’t survive the first day the machines came to Earth. Hell, if I’m ever going to rebuild a family, I might as well get started.”

She turned around and looked at me, with tears on her cheeks. “Really?”

“Yeah…sure, why not?”

“You aren’t just saying that? You aren’t going to have me shot or spaced or something?”

For the first time, I felt angry. “I’m not Crow. Why do people worry about things like that around me?”

“Because you have the power to do them if you want to. Not even the police could save me. No courts can convict you of anything. You’re like some kind of pharaoh.”

I laughed. “Hardly. I’m Colonel Kyle Riggs, and I don’t intend to change.

Jasmine’s eyes were studying me again. She wiped away her tears and uncrossed her arms. “I’m really sorry for springing this on you. It was—it’s not like me. I don’t know why I did it.”

“How old are you?” I asked innocently.

“Thirty-three,” she said. “Why?”

“No reason,” I said, giving her a reassuring smile. I managed to do it right this time without even a hint of worry in my eyes. She’d never had children, and her body knew her time was running out, even if she didn’t. I forced myself into my most understanding mood.

We hugged and kissed and eventually made love. For some reason, being pregnant seemed to light a fire in Jasmine. It was good, and afterward we talked quietly in the dark, making plans.

I didn’t ask her to marry me. Should I have? I’m not sure. I’d been with her for months. We were a good thing together. But marriage…? Yeah, maybe someday. It could go that way. But I wasn’t about to just jump into that in an emotional moment. I had to think it over. It had to be my idea.

I knew in my heart she wouldn’t hesitate to say yes. Not for a second. But she didn’t even bring it up. Maybe she didn’t want to push her luck after getting a pass on the whole pregnancy thing.

As we cruised through space toward Earth, ships passed us going the other way. I’d ordered the fleet to come out here to the border systems in case the Macros had a few more surprises coming. Fleet wasn’t going to be caught with their collective pants down again. We’d wait for them at the ring, and if they poked out a nose we’d cut it off. If they came through in force, the fleet had orders to withdraw to the next ring, the one that led to Eden.

There, with Welter Station at their backs, they’d make their stand. It was the best position we had. We would stop them there or die out as a species. It was that simple, really.

It occurred to me that I should have set up for this before performing Marvin’s experiment, but we’d all been lulled. Nothing had come from the Macros for so long, we’d become complacent about the danger.

I’d heard that monkeys, if left in the vicinity with a stuffed tiger or crocodile, would at first scream and run. But soon, when it did nothing, they’d come back and taunt it. Getting braver with each passing hour, they would eventually attack it, urinate on it and even make it into a favorite bench to sit upon.

That was how I’d handled the Macros. They’d lain still for so long, they’d become a joke. But just as in the case of the monkeys, I knew that if life suddenly came back to those eyes and those jaws snapped shut on my tail, I was dead meat.

Why do we love to taunt deadly predators when they appear to be helpless? I don’t know. It’s just in us, I guess.