Multiverse: Stories Across Realms Read online

  MULTIVERSE

  Stories Across Realms

  Steve Rzasa

  ¶

  Copyright © 2017 by Steve Rzasa

  ISBN: 9781537884639

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Rescued (2009)

  Hunting Souls (2010)

  Lost in the Crowd (2011)

  In the Bag (2013)

  Turncoat (2014)

  The Torchbearer (2015)

  Send and Receive (2015)

  Bail Out: A Human Interventions Job (2016)

  The Giftwing (2016)

  Uphill Both Ways (2016)

  Prior Engagement (2017)

  More Books by Steve Rzasa

  RESCUED (2009)

  THIS STORY TAKES PLACE JUST before The Word Reclaimed, my first novel. I wrote it to enter a short story contest hosted by Athanatos Christian Ministries. It won second place, and was featured in their anthology. When Marcher Lord Press published the first two books of my space opera series, The Face of the Deep, I already had an introductory story to the universe in hand.

  Rescued stems from a concept kicking around in my brain for several years, that of a Coast Guard organization in space. Brian Gaudette and his crew had such an impact that I gave them their due in my third novel, Broken Sight, a few years later. Their actions safeguard the lives of innocent travelers, no matter the personal cost. I still harbor a great admiration for them.

  10 August 2602

  Levesque’s Star System

  “Target’s separating quickly, Skipper.”

  “I can see that, thanks.” Lieutenant Brian Gaudette floated free in space, feeling relaxed in body but tense in mind. He was actually moving at seven hundred kilometers per second, the same speed as his ship, HMRC Sennebec. He squinted at the pale gray hull streaming air and metal beneath him. It increased its speed every instant, in the wrong direction.

  Brian tried to ignore the gleaming surface of the icy world looming beyond the short, stubby interplanetary vessel. Gravity conspired against him, reaching hungrily for its prey.

  “Concentrate on keeping clear of debris, RK, and I’ll worry about making my date,” he muttered into his suit comm.

  “You’re the Skipper.”

  On Sennebec’s bridge, Ensign RK Palal kept his hands firmly wrapped on the drive controls. The navigation display flashed a red warning at him. He ignored it.

  “Shouldn’t you attend to that?” Detective Sergeant Eddington Dupre stood well behind him. His pasty face was pinched with irritation.

  “No. Sound’s turned off. I can tell what she’s doing without looking.”

  “Lovely. Perhaps you can tell her to keep us clear of that moon, using soothing words.” Dupre deftly plucked a stray hair from his immaculate maroon coat.

  RK raised his bushy black eyebrows. “Don’t you Kesek guys have anything better to do than bother helmsmen?”

  Dupre scowled and tapped the flat brass badge on his chest. “The purview of the Royal Stability Force is universal.”

  RK didn’t answer. He’d known as soon as he’d seen the name of the target ship why Koninklijke stabiliteitskracht – Kesek – had sent a man tagging along on Sennebec’s last six rescue patrols.

  Brian’s tracking signal on the nav display blinked blue as it merged with the target ship. RK breathed a sigh of relief. “He’s touched down.” He stabbed the intercom switch above his head. “Lucinda! Ready the cradle. Skipper’s aboard and he’s gonna bring back the passengers.”

  “Check. My medics are ready.”

  RK returned his attention to his controls and winced. The target ship’s velocity was now two kilometers per second faster than his own. He gave Sennebec a burst of thrust from its chemical rockets, saving the main drive’s fuel.

  Judging by their distance from the moon’s surface, they’d need it.

  Brian dragged the space-suited man through the corridor, gritting his teeth as his weight shifted and shoved his arm against a bulkhead. “Skipper!” RK’s voice came across the comm in a panic. “We’re running out of minutes up here! You wait too long, we won’t be climbing out of this gravity well.”

  “Thanks, RK, I remembered. Sending out the first.” He unhooked one of four rescue probes from his suit pack. Slipping the limp man’s arms through the probe’s straps, he shoved the activation panel. The probe, a simple thruster operated by a homing device, sputtered to life and tugged the man out the hatch into the void. It dragged him across the distance separating the rescue cutter from the damaged ship to the medics waiting in the Sennebec’s cradle – the cavernous hangar bay and rescue hold at its center.

  “Lucinda?”

  “We got him. Nice work, Skipper, the drones couldn’t have done it smoother.”

  “That’s why I don’t trust ‘em.” Brian was on the move, this time reaching for the hand of a woman. Her dark eyes were wide with fear behind her suit’s faceplate. He switched comm frequencies. “Ma’am, don’t worry. Rescue Corps. You’ll be safe in a moment.”

  The woman nodded sharply. She gripped the two tiny boys at her side, both of whom looked faintly comic in their child-sized suits. Brian helped her slide a probe across her back, then showed the boys how to hold on to a second. They rose from the hatch on a flaring plume beside their mother.

  “Right. One more?”

  “Affirmative, Skipper, eight meters aft of your position,” RK said over the comm. “Hurry it up. You got about five minutes.”

  The ship lurched. Brian bounced toward the ceiling. He pushed off with one hand and grimaced at the pain in his wrist. “RK, you are no good for morale aboard my ship. Remind me to put that in your next evaluation.”

  “If you don’t die in a big, hot fireball, you go right ahead, sir.”

  Brian smirked. He twisted through a corridor, spun past a collapsed bulkhead, and spotted the last passenger. The teenager was trapped behind a fallen strut.

  Brian switched back to the citizen’s band on his suit comm. “Stay calm. I’ll cut through in a microsec.” He drew the plasma torch from his utility pack. Its blue-white blade of flame flared as it cut into the metal.

  He had sliced almost through the strut when the ship bucked violently. Brian reached for a nearby stanchion but missed. The movement slammed him against the ceiling and knocked the wind out of him. His vision blurred. Sound went dull.

  When he recovered RK was practically screaming, “... Fifty seconds! Skipper, snap out of it! You got less than fifty until the ship’s at no return!”

  “Quit yelling.” Brian groaned and shook his head. He seized the torch and ripped through the last bit of metal. Then put his shoulder to the strut and heaved. The youth, galvanized by the activity, pulled on the strut from his side of the obstacle. He managed to slither out in seconds.

  “Half a minute!”

  “Shut up, RK, that’s an order!” Brian grabbed the youth roughly. “Hold on!” He thrusted with his suit pack down the corridor to the open hatch.

  The pair spiraled out into space, seemingly free. But Brian knew better – and if he hadn’t, his omnipresent suit sensors told him the facts. They wouldn’t have enough thrust to escape the moon’s gravitational pull, even using Brian’s suit jets combined with the last probe thruster.

  Before he could register fear, Brian saw a silver tube hurtle his way through space dragging a cord. “Short rocket, Skipper!” Lucinda called over the comm. “Light it!”

  “Outstanding.” Brian caught the cord easily, grunting as the projectile yanked on his arm. He affixed it to the magnetic clamps on his suit pack. The rocket was immensely more powerful than the gentler probe thruster. He hesitated before swiftly making the sign of the cross on his faceplate. Then he fired off the r
ocket. The burst of speed kicked him and the youth free of the gravitational pull. Bu the stress of acceleration proved too much for the boy and he fainted in Brian’s grasp. It didn’t do him much good, either – he fought off the dark growing at the edges of his vision until he saw Lucinda’s space-suited figure reaching for him from a blaze of light.

  Then she and the universe spiraled down a drain of stars into blackness.

  “You feeling better, Captain?” RK asked.

  Brian let Lucinda peel off his white thermal shirt, exposing his chest to the cool sickbay air. His helmsman and first officer hovered nearby. Worry etched RK’s face with lines. One look at the bruises across Brian’s back explained his concern and use of the formal rank.

  “Don’t get all serious on me. It’s nothing a week’s worth of leave can’t cure.” Brian winced as Lucinda injected something into his side. “A little warning next time.”

  “Yes, sir, Skipper.” She ran a med scanner over his chest. It brushed past the silver crucifix suspended on a fine chain. Brian grimaced again. “What now?” Lucinda asked.

  “Cold. The scanner’s cold,” Brian said.

  Lucinda grinned, the smile lighting up her warm brown face. “Missed me, did ya?”

  “Not particularly. I prefer the galley to sickbay, Chief.”

  “Now don’t blab that in front of my boys. You’ll hurt their feelings.”

  Brian peeked over her shoulder. Two of the ship’s medics assured the woman Brian had rescued that her husband would heal. They shepherded her and her children from the sickbay. The gangly teenager refused to budge at first. His face was drawn and angry. Only when the mother whispered something did he allow himself to be led out.

  The third medic frowned over the readouts above one of the sickbay beds. Brian was pleased to see almost all the indicators were green or blue, with just a few yellow. None were dangerous red. A med-robot craned its giraffe-like neck over the injured man’s body. Scanners played shimmering light over his serene olive complexion framed by a curly black beard. He was sleeping soundly, courtesy of Lucinda’s sedatives, while microscopic nanosurgeons crawled throughout his body and repaired the damage.

  “He’s mending well,” the medic said. “Should be able to wake him and check reflexes in a half hour or so. Got nerve damage though – not something we can fix.”

  “Thanks, Jimmy,” Lucinda said.

  Brian turned to RK. “Where are we off to now?”

  “The nearest hospital ship, HMMC Relief.” At Brian’s questioning look, RK added, “Not my fault. Leduc has Esperanza laid up at Port Mignery for a main drive overhaul.”

  “Hmm. Relief’ll do. They’re not as skilled as Leduc’s bunch, but close.”

  “Well, I’m not picky. We should rendezvous in ten hours. Stefan has the bridge.”

  “Good.”

  Detective Sergeant Dupre entered sickbay. He stood just inside the hatch, eyes narrowed. Brian didn’t like the look on his face, as if he took note of every detail. “Who let you in?”

  Dupre let the comment pass. “That was quite a risk you took, Lieutenant. Doubtless your drones could have done it just as well, without the unnecessary endangerment of your own life.”

  Brian bristled at the officer’s refusal to call him “Captain” even though Dupre was not a part of the crew and was not required to do so. There were few laws, and fewer traditions, which bound Kesek. “Since our annual operating budget was cut by four percent for two years in a row, I decided to spend what I had on better pay for my people, and on much needed engine maintenance. No fancier drones this year; the ones that broke down stayed broken, and the ones that work can’t do the job better than a person anyway.” Brian shrugged. “Don’t expect your sympathy, though – your local Kesek office budget increased six and a half percent this year, right?”

  “Hardly relevant.” Dupre sniffed. He turned to Lucinda. “Chief Wainwright, is the patient fit for interrogation?”

  RK’s jaw dropped. “Interrogation? Are you nuts?”

  Dupre regarded him coolly.

  “He’ll be talking in a half hour. I figure you already knew that.” Lucinda none too gently applied a patch to a particularly ugly bruise on Brian’s left shoulder blade. “As for questioning, I won’t allow it, not today at least. The man needs a rest.”

  “That is not possible. His information is vital to solving an ongoing case in the Corazon-Levesque region,” Dupre said sternly.

  Brian rose. His crucifix sparkled in the bright sickbay lights. Dupre scowled. “What kind of information, if you don’t mind my asking?” Brian said as he pulled his thermal shirt back on. He tapped the white fabric. “Remember? This means I’m the captain.”

  Lucinda snickered. Dupre shook his head. “It is not your concern, Lieutenant.” He stressed the rank. “Suffice it to say, it is a matter of a text-in-violation.”

  That brought a hush over the sickbay. The young medic looked up from his instrument panel. RK muttered something under his breath and balled his fists at his side. Brian cautioned him with a tiny wave of his little finger. “Why don’t you join me in the corridor, Detective Sergeant,” Brian said. It was not an invitation.

  They ducked through an open hatchway, stepping out into the pale blue-white corridor. RK followed. “Take the bridge, Ensign,” Brian said firmly.

  RK’s jaw muscles worked as he considered Dupre, but he muttered, “Aye, Skipper,” and departed.

  Brian ran a hand through close-cropped red hair and sighed deeply. “You mind telling me how you think we’re going to recover a text-in-violation when that guy’s ship got torn to little pieces over Pembroke’s moon?”

  “If it was on the ship, then it is destroyed,” Dupre said. “The fact still remains that he willingly and knowingly transported that text. He also acquired it from someone. I want to know from whom.”

  “How do you know he knew?”

  “We intercepted his transmissions when he entered this system from Corazon.” Dupre smiled. “He thought they were coded, but with Kesek having access to all Marktel communications networks and MarkIntech-manufactured computers, it was a futile hope at best. His message indicated he had the text in hand and was to meet with someone at the sundoor to Giachetto later this week, to hand it off.”

  Brian frowned. “So, you didn’t want to hang around the sundoors and wait for him to make the tract shift, afraid he’d spot your own patrol ships.”

  “Exactly.”

  Another thought, more sinister, blew coldly across Brian’s mind. “Why’d you pick a Rescue Corps cutter?”

  Dupre smiled thinly. “We perceived that he might need assistance.”

  Brian shoved the officer up against the bulkhead. His heart pounded with anger. “You wrecked his ship?”

  “Did I say that?” Dupre grabbed Brian’s wrists in his own iron grip, and slowly but surely forced the other’s hands loose. “I would not go making such accusations of Kesek personnel, Lieutenant, if I were you.”

  Brian stepped back. He put his hands on his hips and glared at Dupre. “I won’t help you in your witch hunt.”

  “You are bound to follow the Charter of Religious Tolerance, and the guidelines of the Convocation on Spiritual Unity, as administered by Kesek,” Dupre snapped. “This man’s possession of the Koran …”

  “Oh, so now we get particulars!”

  “ … Is a blatant and direct violation of that law, which is meant to preserve the stability of the Realm of Five from religious strife,” Dupre finished. His voice rose a notch in volume. “Islam is particularly annoying to Kesek, especially the brand practiced by this man and his ilk, with their insistence on a sole prophet’s exclusive revelation from God.”

  “Maybe your intelligence was wrong.”

  Dupre shook his head. “The name of his ship is Abdun Nur.”

  “So?”

  “It is an Arabic term. It translates roughly as ‘follower of the light.’”

  “Still not following you.”

  “I
n the Muslim tradition, the Koran gives ninety-nine names for God. An-Nur, or ‘the light,’ is one of them.”

  Brian shrugged. “Even so, that Koran must be burned to crispy atoms by now, if it were a book. They’re all illegal, and no one around here’s even seen a printer, so what’s the problem?”

  “The problem, Lieutenant, is that I am not convinced it was a physical copy, but a hidden electronic one, which means that man could still have it.”

  “And what makes you think you have any right to dictate his beliefs?” Brian jabbed a finger down the corridor toward sickbay.

  “Do not think I am blind to your sympathies, Lieutenant.” Dupre poked Brian in the chest. “You wear them plainly enough.”

  “I and my family are members of the Union Synoptic Church,” Brian said evenly. “We all have been for years. Monitored and approved by Kesek, isn’t it?”

  “But your allegiance lies elsewhere, though you hide it well,” Dupre hissed. “One would think you are ashamed of your true faith.”

  Brian clenched his teeth. “I have nothing to be ashamed of. As God is my witness.”

  Dupre waggled a finger at him. “Be careful, Lieutenant. Be very careful indeed.”

  Lucinda was alone in sickbay with the patient when Brian sought them out later. She looked puzzled as she read the data from her nanosurgeon control system on her delver. Everyone in the Realm owned one of the handheld devices. They used delvers to access newsgrids on the Reach network, write notes, contact loved ones, file reports, store data, display holograms, play music, and do anything else required. Their society was totally paperless – with the exception of money – thanks to the King’s monopoly over information technology.

  “Problem, Doctor?”

  “Oh, hey, Skipper.” Lucinda scratched her chin. “Sort of. The nanosurgeons turned up an implant in this guy, so tiny our initial scans missed it. I didn’t remove it – some of those prescription implants release medicine directly into the patient’s bloodstream and can pose health hazards if taken out without proper surgical facilities, you know.”

  “Yeah. So what’s the problem?”