The Stars Like Gods Read online

  THE

  STARS

  LIKE

  GODS

  ASTERION NOIR: BOOK 3

  G. S. JENNSEN

  2019

  THE STARS LIKE GODS

  Copyright © 2018 by G. S. Jennsen

  Cover design by Josef Bartoň, Obsidian Dawn and G. S. Jennsen.

  Cover typography by G. S. Jennsen

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.

  Hypernova Publishing

  P.O. Box 2214

  Parker, Colorado 80134

  www.hypernovapublishing.com

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  The Hypernova Publishing name, colophon and logo are trademarks of Hypernova Publishing.

  Ordering Information:

  Hypernova Publishing books may be purchased for educational, business or sales promotional use. For details, contact the “Special Markets Department” at the address above.

  The Stars Like Gods / G. S. Jennsen.—1st ed.

  LCCN 2019905474

  ISBN 978-1-7323977-4-3

  BOOKS BY G. S. JENNSEN

  ASTERION NOIR

  EXIN EX MACHINA

  OF A DARKER VOID

  THE STARS LIKE GODS

  AURORA RHAPSODY

  AURORA RISING

  STARSHINE

  VERTIGO

  TRANSCENDENCE

  AURORA RENEGADES

  SIDESPACE

  DISSONANCE

  ABYSM

  AURORA RESONANT

  RELATIVITY

  RUBICON

  REQUIEM

  SHORT STORIES

  Restless Vol. I • Restless Vol. II • Apogee

  Solatium • Venatoris • Re/Genesis • Meridian

  *

  LEARN MORE AT GSJENNSEN.COM/BOOKS

  For New Shepard and Blue Moon, for Starship, for Artemis.

  May you all return us to the moon, then to Mars and the stars beyond.

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  * * *

  Nika Tescarav

  NOIR Leader; Former External Relations Division Advisor

  Dashiel Ridani

  Industry Division Advisor; Owner, Ridani Enterprises

  Perrin Benvenit Joaquim Lacese

  NOIR Personnel Director NOIR Operations Director

  Adlai Weiss Maris Debray

  Justice Division Advisor Culture Division Advisor

  Grant Mesahle Parc Eshett

  Owner, Mesahle Flight NOIR slicing specialist

  Blake Satair Lance Palmer

  Justice Division Advisor Commander, Armed Forces

  Katherine Colson Spencer Nimoet

  Administration Div. Advisor Justice Division officer

  * * *

  Ryan Theroit Magnus Forchelle

  NOIR robotics specialist Scientist

  Cameron Breckel Francis Wallman

  External Relations Div. Advisor Justice Division officer

  Selene Panetier Ava Zobel

  Justice Divison Advisor NOIR weapons specialist

  Julien Grayson Maggie Zobel

  Justice Divison Advisor NOIR member

  Harris Rosenthal Simon Granger

  Justice Division Advisor CEO, Briscanti Materials

  Gemina Kail Zhanre'khavet

  Administration Div. Advisor Taiyok Elder

  GUIDES

  Delacrai (Kiyora)

  Anavosa (Mirai) Selyshok (Ebisu)

  Luciene (Synra) Iovimer (Namino)

  View the Galaxy Map online at gsjennsen.com/map-tslg

  THE STORY SO FAR

  * * *

  EXIN EX MACHINA

  A woman wakes up in a rain-soaked alley with no memory of who she is or how she got there. Two strangers, Perrin and Joaquim, find her and offer to take her in. When asked, she tells them her name is Nika.

  Fast forward to five years later. Nika leads an armed team, including Perrin and Joaquim, in an infiltration of a transportation headquarters on Mirai. They break into the data vault and corrupt the passenger records so they can travel without being tracked. A discussion back at their base, The Chalet, reveals the larger purpose of the group, which calls itself ‘NOIR’: fighting an increasingly repressive government and searching for people who have vanished in the last several years.

  Dashiel Ridani, an elite Industry Advisor, discovers that shipments of his company’s new product, a virtual limb augment, have been stolen while in transit to retailers. At a meeting between Advisors and the Guides—the leaders of the Dominion government—the Guides brush off the theft in favor of pressuring a Justice Advisor, Adlai Weiss, to apprehend the members of NOIR and bring an end to their disruptive activities. Afterwards, the Guides meet in secret, debating how they can shut NOIR down and hinting at some greater threat to the Dominion.

  At The Chalet, one of NOIR’s top hackers, Parc Eshett, shows off a new virtual limb augment he’s installed.

  Nika heads to another Dominion world, Namino, to purchase new equipment from a Taiyok merchant named Xyche. The Taiyoks are a winged alien species known for their cloaking capabilities. While on Namino, she spends an afternoon with her occasional lover, Grant.

  Joaquim attends the criminal trial of a former friend. During the trial, he recalls the last time he’d seen his friend, when Joaquim’s lover Cassidy was murdered during a police raid on their apartment. After the raid, Joaquim turned his back on that life to start a new one on Mirai.

  Dashiel visits Chosek, the homeworld of the Chizeru, a diminutive, pre-industrial alien species. Chosek is rich in kyoseil, a rare mineral Asterions use to enhance their bio-synthetic bodies and many of their technologies, and the Chizeru mine the kyoseil for Asterion businesses.

  Later, Dashiel replays a memory from five years earlier. In it, he and a woman make love; their pillow talk involves a series of outpost disappearances on Dominion exploratory worlds. She is worried the Guides are involved and plans to hack into government files in search of evidence. The next night, she disappears; Dashiel has searched for her ever since, to no avail.

  On a distant exploratory world, Advisor Gemina Kail oversees the destruction of a lab outpost. The employees living there are gassed, loaded into stasis chambers and shipped to a secret space station.

  Nika returns to The Chalet to learn that Parc has been arrested for burglary. She reaches out to a NOIR contact in Justice, Spencer Nimoet, who sneaks her inside the jail to see Parc. He acts very unlike himself—passive and unconcerned about his plight.

  Nika, Perrin and Joaquim try to figure out what might have happened to Parc to explain his behavior. Nika and Perrin go see the merchant he purchased the new limb augment from, who tells them the manufacturer is Ridani Enterprises and gives them one of the augments so they can test it.

  Another NOIR hacker, Cair, finds a hidden virutox in the augment software. It attaches itself to a user’s OS then alters their programming, decreasing impulse control and emotion expression.

  Nika, Joaquim and a NOIR robotics specialist, Ryan, infiltrate Ridani Enterprises in a bid to uncover more about the augment and po
ssibly the virutox. Nika is hacking into the server in the CEO’s office when Dashiel returns to work and discovers her there. During a tense standoff, her disguise fails, and he recognizes her as the woman from his memory, his lost love who vanished. He asks her to meet him the next day, then urges her to leave before security arrives.

  At the meeting, amidst lots of angst on both sides, Dashiel tells Nika she used to be a diplomatic Advisor. He reveals she is a descendant of the fabled First Generation, who led the Asterions across galaxies in search of a new home when their rebellion against the Anaden Empire failed. After recounting the events leading up to her disappearance and his search for answers, he tells her about a psyche backup she kept.

  Nika visits the bank where the backup was stored, but her account was emptied out the same day she woke up in an alley with her memory erased. She confronts Dashiel in his home, accusing him of being involved in her psyche-wipe. Devastated at the realization he will never get back the woman he loved and desperate to prove his sincerity, he asks her to experience (‘simex’) one of his memories from their time together. Secretly wanting to glimpse the woman she supposedly used to be, she agrees.

  The memory is of a party at Maris Debray’s loft nine years ago. Nika, Dashiel, Maris and Adlai are all clearly friends, and they banter for several minutes before Nika and Dashiel retire to the balcony together. They snuggle, kiss and drink champagne while they chat about an upcoming interstellar mission by the starship Shorai.

  The memory leaves Nika disoriented and drowning in unfamiliar emotions. She tells Dashiel that woman is gone forever, then starts to leave. But the lingering memory overwhelms her, and she embraces him instead. In a torrent of passion and turbulent emotions, they make love.

  In the dead of night, Parc is convicted and transported to the Zaidam Bastille prison. There, he and other convicts are herded into stasis chambers and knocked unconscious.

  The next morning, Nika and Dashiel share moments both tender and troubled before going their separate ways. Dashiel tells Adlai about the virutox implanted in his stolen augments and implores him to investigate. He then goes to check on Parc as a favor to Nika, only to find Parc has already been sent to Zaidam.

  Dashiel tells Nika the bad news, and they meet with Joaquim and Perrin. He and Joaquim instantly clash, arguing over the best course of action. Dashiel confides to Nika that his Advisor status will allow him entry to Zaidam, but to break Parc out will mean the end of Dashiel’s career and turn him into a fugitive.

  They are fighting about what to do when an explosion rocks The Chalet. They find the main floor on fire, with a crater at its center. Joaquim accuses Dashiel of causing the explosion, and Nika forces Dashiel to leave.

  In the aftermath, it’s determined that Cair became infected with the virutox when he studied the augment software; he caused a scene on the main floor before tampering with equipment until it exploded. Three people were killed in the explosion, including Cair. Using psyche backups they can theoretically be brought back, but NOIR lacks the resources to do it.

  Adlai confirms the existence of the virutox in the limb augments. He informs the Guides, and is shocked when they order him to let the virutox propagate. They question how he discovered it, and when he repeats what Dashiel told him—that a contact alerted him to it—they order Dashiel and the contact to appear before them.

  Advisor Iona Rowan participates in an illegal, underground competition where the participants temporarily switch consciousnesses to complete challenges. Unbeknownst to her, she switches with a man who had installed the limb augment and was infected with the virutox.

  Nika reluctantly agrees to meet the Guides with Dashiel, but only if they use the opportunity to search the Guides’ data vault for more information on her psyche-wipe. When they arrive at Mirai Tower, however, the Guides have moved the meeting time up, leaving them no time to conduct the search. Nika abandons Dashiel and sneaks into the data vault herself. She uncovers numerous files about her investigation into the outpost disappearances, including references to a ‘Rasu Protocol.’ She also finds proof that the Guides ordered her psyche-wipe, which was executed by Gemina Kail.

  At this point, she’s interrupted by security. Adlai and Dashiel reach the vault at almost the same time, and on seeing Nika breaking into the data vault, Adlai reluctantly tries to arrest her. Seeing no other option, Dashiel feigns ignorance and turns on Nika.

  Nika escapes through a window, but she’s shot by a drone as she does and is badly injured. Joaquim and Perrin mount a rescue effort; they are able to reach her before security forces and evacuate her to The Chalet.

  She awakens hours later in a treatment tank, her wounds healed. Hurt by Dashiel’s apparent betrayal and angry about all she’s learned, she thanks Perrin and Joaquim for saving her then tells them she has to leave, to protect them and to find answers.

  A Taiyok assassin ambushes Nika while she’s on her way to Namino; she kills him and quickly leaves the scene. She asks Grant for a ship, but rebuffs him when he tries to kiss her. After an awkward exchange, they agree to remain friends, and he gives her a ship he’s built.

  Nika is about to leave in her new ship when Dashiel shows up at the hangar, bags in hand. She holds him at gunpoint while he explains that he hadn’t betrayed her, but rather bought her time to get away and him time to withdraw funds from his accounts and transfer control of his company, all so he could come with her. Eventually he convinces her, and when they embrace she experiences a memory of the day she met him.

  At the embassy on Chosek, Iona falls victim to the virutox and goes on a shooting spree, shooting multiple Chizeru, Asterion business executives and herself. Adlai is called in to investigate the massacre; he discovers she was infected with the virutox without the limb augment being installed, suggesting it is communicable.

  Troubled, Adlai reaches out to Dashiel, but he’s vanished. Adlai puts the pieces together and deduces Dashiel has joined Nika on the run. Faced with mounting evidence, he’s forced to accept that the Guides are behind recent events and decides to take action.

  Nika and Dashiel infiltrate Zaidam Bastille to break Parc out, only to be told Parc has been transferred to a vessel named the Tabiji, destination unknown. Nika hacks the Zaidam server, where she learns every convict has been transferred under the Rasu Protocol, and the prison is empty. Security forces arrive, and Nika is spaced while trying to reach their ship. Dashiel rescues her, and they escape the prison.

  Later that night, Nika experiences another memory, this time of the final hours of the Asterions’ rebellion against the Anaden Empire. She’s a diplomat for the rebels named Nicolette Hinotori, who is bonded to an AI named KIR. Facing annihilation, the rebels flee the Milky Way on generation ships in search of a new home.

  Gemina Kail pilots the Tabiji to an alien stronghold across the galaxy, where she delivers thousands of Asterions in stasis chambers to a mysterious alien species called the Rasu.

  * * *

  OF A DARKER VOID

  Nika and Dashiel visit Ebisu, where Nika baits a Taiyok assassin who is tailing her into a trap then gives the alien a message to deliver to the Guides: that she will kill every assassin sent after her, but if instead they want to talk, she is willing to listen.

  On Mirai, Adlai and Spencer confiscate limb augments from merchants in an attempt to prevent more people from being infected with the virutox. Later, Maris confronts Adlai and demands he tell her where Dashiel and Nika have gone and why, and he agrees.

  The next morning, Adlai interrogates Iona to determine how she caught the virutox. She admits she interacted with a man named Tristan McLeros at a Disuta game. That night, Tristan breaks into the Mirai One transit hub, intending to fiddle with the transportation system as a prank. Instead, he accidentally overloads the power distribution system, causing the building to explode.

  Adlai reviews surveillance footage and identifies Tristan as the perpetrator. He confronts the Guides with evidence that the virutox is responsible for the explosion a
nd demands to know why they continue to allow it to spread. They refuse to tell him, and he in turn refuses to stop confiscating the limb augments, daring them to come after him.

  The Guides confer on what to do about the deteriorating situation and the increasing number of rebelling Advisors; they elect to continue guarding the Rasu Protocol secrets. One of the Guides, Delacrai, privately believes this course will result in the destruction of the Dominion and decides to take action.

  Later that night, Nika receives an anonymous message containing the location of the next outpost to be raided. She and Dashiel visit the Taiyok homeworld to purchase a stealth module for their ship, which they’ve named Wayfarer, so they can track whoever attacks the outpost. To prepare, Nika accesses an encrypted memory of the first Asterion meeting with the Taiyok leader 12,000 years ago. Afterwards, she confides in Dashiel about the memories she’s been recovering and tells him she believes her former self deliberately encrypted the memories, then made him the decryption key.

  Nika contacts Grant for help in installing the stealth module. While he talks Dashiel through updating the ship’s systems to accept the module, Dashiel lets slip that Nika had been psyche-wiped 5 years earlier, which Grant did not know.

  Adlai’s people are able to create a vaccine against the virutox. He and Spencer debate how best to distribute the vaccine, given that the public no longer trusts Justice. Spencer confesses that he has contacts in NOIR and suggests asking them for help.