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  She scowled in frustration; it marred the perfect features into ugliness. “Why not? What the hell is your type?”

  He took a last sip of his beer and dropped the empty bottle on the table. “Real.”

  He walked away without looking back.

  3

  ERISEN

  Earth Alliance Colony

  * * *

  Twelve screens hovered in a grid pattern above Kennedy Rossi’s desk.

  She regarded them with a critical eye. Her head tilted to the left, then the right, on the off chance the shift in angle might reveal a new perspective. After further consideration she backed up to lean against the window. The distance allowed her to better analyze the overall effect. At least in theory.

  The desk was made of nearly transparent polycrystalline alumina glass. It displayed any information transmitted to it—in her case typically ship architectures and schematics—with micro-scale accuracy and detail. It also happened to act as a rather beautiful complement to the bright, elegant décor of the office.

  This project wasn’t so far along as to require the desk’s particular capabilities, however. Not yet. The presentation contained in the hovering screens focused on the big picture. Its purpose was to weave a story the less technically minded (she was being charitable) directors might understand and, more importantly, believe in enough to invest significant funds in the project.

  She gazed out the window. Large, feathery snowflakes danced in the air yet again. Maybe she should go skiing this weekend….

  Erisen was the closest habitable world to Earth and had been one of the first extra-solar settlements. In a nasty storm she occasionally questioned the ‘habitable’ part, but colonists had put the chilly environs to good use. Due to little orbital tilt there weren’t seasons to speak of and while it did snow often, the low humidity resulted in a dry, champagne powder snow. Those features meant, in addition to creating a skier’s paradise, quantum-scale and other manufacturing that required supercooled conditions could be made cheaply here without the need for orbital facilities.

  The colony had wasted no time in crafting the advantages into an economic boon, building a manufacturing sector which was all too happy to supply materials for the rapid galactic expansion of the late 22nd century. More than a hundred fifty years later, Erisen was among the most prosperous Alliance worlds and a hub for electronics, orbitals and starship design and construction.

  Which was why she was here, despite the reality that the social and cultural offerings still paled in comparison to those of home. But Earth was a mere three hours away, and it was easy enough to hop a transport when something interesting caught her fancy.

  With an almost wistful sigh she turned away from the snowflakes and back to the presentation. A palm came up to rest beneath her chin.

  As onboard CUs grew increasingly powerful and attained greater range, long-distance hacking of ship systems constituted a growing crime. The chart hovering to her left indicated the rate of increase in such attacks threatened to become exponential.

  A heavily cyberized merc ship was able to hide in the shadow of a moon and remotely take control of a corporate, personal or possibly even military ship halfway across a stellar system. Mercs were then free to disable it for boarding and raiding, turn its weapons on its friends or send it crashing into the nearest planet.

  The problem hadn’t yet hit the radar of the general public, but it would do so soon enough. If she had her way, IS Design would be waiting in the wings to offer the finest in EM reverse-shielding to counter the threat—for the right price, obviously.

  She had already drawn up rough schematics for how the shielding would integrate into standard ship infrastructure, determined the estimated power and material requirements and developed a lattice formulation to best improve its performance. Really, all she needed to do now was add some flowery words and a couple of charts projecting outrageous profit percentages, and she’d be ready to present to the board of directors.

  She reached over and flipped the trend statistics and market analysis scr—

  —a flashing light in her eVi signaled an incoming holocomm request. She stashed the screens and allowed the holo to take their place.

  “Kennedy Rossi speaking. I’m seeing the back of a head and a knot of dark red…Alex?”

  “It says so right there on your screen, Ken.”

  “Oh, I never check that. I prefer to be surprised.”

  Alex chuckled and finally looked up. She sat cross-legged in the middle of the engineering well of the Siyane, an open panel exposing the engineering core beside her. She blew a wisp of hair out of her face. “Sorry, final diagnostics check. I have a question.”

  “And I have an answer—or if I don’t, I have an entertaining-yet-relevant anecdote.”

  “Uh-huh. Is it safe to tune the power outflow to the dampener field down fifteen percent or so, then run it through an mHEMT amp on the way? I don’t want to blow up my ship.”

  “Hmm…give me a second and let me check the field test data.” She flicked her index finger against the edge of the desk to display the product files and scrolled down a series of tables and charts, pausing a few times to study one. “Not quite, but you can—do you keep a silica-sapphire matrix filter on board?”

  “Yep.”

  “Okay, if you run the conduit through it after the amp you should be fine. The dampener doesn’t like power spikes.” She picked up a diagram out of the files. “Here, I’ll send you the schem flow. I’m sure the CEO won’t mind if I toss around a bit of proprietary information.”

  “Terrific, thanks.” Alex relaxed back on her hands while the file transmitted and loaded. “How’s life on Erisen? Have the dinner parties lowered your IQ precipitously yet—or would it be the boardrooms? I can never tell which is worse.”

  She rolled her eyes with dramatic flair and flopped down in her chair. “Dreadfully boring. Yesterday I had to politely educate three visiting investors on how we would not be switching to the trendy new tungsten metamat for our starship hulls due to the fact it melts in warmer planetary atmospheres. They kept getting distracted ogling my legs and—well, I won’t put you to sleep with the tiresome details of what followed.

  “Although, I did meet a delicious eco-dev executive at a cocktail party later in the evening, so the day wasn’t a complete loss. We’re having dinner tomorrow night. I have high hopes.” Her eyes sparkled with deliberate playfulness. “Speaking of tall, dark and handsome, have you listened to Ethan’s newest music?”

  “I have. It was surprisingly mellow. He’s getting complacent in his wealth and fame.”

  “Angst and rage is for the young and poor, right? You know, you should totally stop by and see him for a quick lay before you hit space again.”

  Coaxing Alex to stop working for five minutes and, heaven forbid, engage in fun had been an ongoing project of hers since university, where inventing the most clever and efficient engineering designs had competed for attention with frat parties and beach bonfires.

  Of course Alex had never wanted to go to the frat parties, preferring her men brooding and intellectual; the bonfires she had been only a little more amenable to. But Kennedy was nothing if not persistent, and she had on occasion relented, even if she had usually ended up fucking with the boys rather than actually fucking any of them.

  Alex worried at her lower lip while she gave a stellar impression of scrupulously studying the incoming schem flow. “Ken, it’s been eleven years. I am not going to ‘stop by for a quick lay.’”

  “You’re forgetting that time you did stop by for a not-so-quick lay after Malcolm broke up with you. When was it, two years ago?”

  “Two and a half years ago and I haven’t forgotten. It doesn’t count, because I was wasted…among other things.”

  She twirled a long lock of hair around a finger. “All weekend?”

  Alex’s eyes narrowed; it magnified the effect of the arched eyebrows above them. “Soglasen—past’ zakroi.”

 
Kennedy laughed but raised her hands in mock surrender. “Okay, okay, I’ll let it go—but my point still stands. I’m sure he’d be thrilled to indulge you again. He’s always had a soft spot for you.” She definitely saw a brief flash of amusement cross Alex’s expression before she tamped it down.

  “And you’ve always been entirely too nosy when it comes to my sex life. Now about the field’s power requirements. You said it doesn’t like spikes. Just how much fluctuation can it tolerate, really?”

  SIYANE

  Earth, Seattle

  * * *

  Alex took a few steps back and let her gaze run over the length of the ship.

  She had spent more than three hours the previous evening working the silica-sapphire matrix into the control grid and recalibrating the power outflow, then testing and retesting the entire system—but the results were worth it. While even extensive testing couldn’t replicate real-space conditions, the sims averaged a 39.2% decrease in emission leakage with the new dampener field engaged.

  Already an extremely quiet ship, presenting a sleek, subtle profile that shrugged off seeker pings like water down a sloped roof, her stealth level might now be unmatched. She wasn’t invisible to sensors, not altogether. But she would be damn close.

  A self-satisfied smile grew on her lips. Part of her mind ticked through the list in her head to ensure all was as it should be, any issues had been addressed and she was prepped to fly. The other part giggled silently in pleasure at the beautiful creature which hung before her. The new f-graphene alloy muted the reflective characteristics of the hull, giving the Siyane a dangerous, sinister appearance. That suited her just fine.

  Her reverie was interrupted by Charlie coming around the rear of the hull to stand beside her.

  “Everything checks out. I believe you knew it would, but thanks for letting me pretend to do a little work.”

  She grinned and elbowed him lightly in the side. He was right of course. She understood the intimate details of every subsystem far better than he did. But his job was making sure starships operated correctly; he had checklists for each subsystem and methodical processes to confirm their proper functioning. It was simply good practice for the ship to regularly undergo a thorough operational review—particularly after installing substantive upgrades, which she had most certainly done.

  “A pleasure doing business with you, as always. No idea when I’ll be back, but I’ll let you know when I know.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Safe travels.”

  As soon as he had left she jogged up the extended ramp to the open airlock hatch and headed straight for the cockpit. She had earlier confirmed the food supply delivery and stored her clothes and personals below. Nothing left to do but leave.

  She settled into the supple leather cockpit chair, and with a thought the HUD came to life. The Evanec screen displayed the formal communication with the spaceport’s VI interface.

  EACV-7A492X to Olympic Regional Spaceport Control: Departure sequence initiation requested Bay L-19

  ORSC to EACV-7A492X: Departure sequence initiated Bay L-19

  The docking platform whose clamps held the ship slid toward the interior of the spaceport. It then became a lift and rose to the roof along with dozens of other lifts in the stacked rings of the facility. All departures occurred above the ceiling of the skycar airlanes, for obvious reasons.

  The platform locked into position on the rooftop deck. She idled the engine and waited for the clamps to disengage.

  ORSC to EACV-7A492X: Departure clearance window 12 seconds bearing N 346.48° W

  EACV-7A492X to ORSC: Departure clearance window accepted

  The platform rotated to the indicated bearing and the clamps retracted. The Siyane hovered for 1.4 seconds before the pulse detonation engine engaged and she was flying over Whidbey Island. Eighteen seconds later she passed into the Strait of Georgia and beyond the purview of ORS Control.

  Outside a spaceport’s airspace and above two kilometers altitude, air traffic was managed by a CU under the guise of the Earth Low Atmosphere Traffic Control System. Its job in the main consisted of ensuring starships and planetary transports didn’t crash into one another. It was a task uniquely suited for the raw processing power of a centralized synthetic construct, and the CU performed it flawlessly.

  She veered west. The coast receded then disappeared from the stern visual screen and the Pacific Ocean stretched out beneath her. She far outpaced the sun, and like a clock winding in reverse dawn soon turned to night.

  “Alex, would you like to fly her?”

  The smile breaking across her face morphed to a frown at the midway point. The viewport revealed only the stars above and moonlight reflecting in the water below. They had left the San Pacifica Regional Spaceport after breakfast, but this far out over the Pacific the sun had not yet risen. “But Dad, I can’t see anything. It’s too dark.”

  “You will, moya milaya. Come sit in my lap and I’ll show you.”

  She scrambled out of the passenger seat and onto his thigh in a flash, fidgeting a bit to get situated. Though she was tall for her age, her feet didn’t quite reach the floor; instead they danced an excited rhythm in the air.

  “Are you ready?”

  She absently tucked minimally brushed hair behind her ear and nodded. “I’m ready.”

  “Okay. I’m going to send you the access code for the ship’s HUD. You won’t be able to control it right away though. I want to walk you through what each of the screens mean first.”

  A tiny light in the corner of her vision signaled a new message. She zoomed it, and a question floated in the virtual space in front of her. ‘Access ship flight displays?’

  She both thought and exclaimed “Yes!” Her father chuckled softly at her ear.

  The world lit up around her. A wall of semitransparent screens overlay the viewport. They painted a canvas of aeronautical splendor in radiant white light.

  Airspeed. Altitude. Bearing. Pitch angle. Air temperature. Atmosphere pressure and air density. Radar. Engine load. Other readings whose purpose were a mystery. The screens’ relative focus and opacity responded to every shift in her gaze, then to her intentional thoughts. Secure in her father’s lap, she grinned in delight.

  Her life would never be the same again.

  At seven kilometers altitude she began maneuvering toward the Northeast 1 Pacific Atmosphere Corridor. Technically two corridors—one for arrivals and one for departures to avoid nasty collisions—it was one of twenty-two such passages located on the planet, spaced 4–5,000 thousand kilometers apart at 55° N, 0° and 55° S latitudes.

  Nearly all starships possessed the drive energy, hull strength and shields necessary to pass through any planetary atmosphere having an escape velocity value within fifty percent greater or lesser than the habitable zone. The exceptions were dreadnoughts and capital ships, which were built and forever remained in space. But that didn’t mean it was an especially fun or comfortable experience, and the wear and tear from frequent atmosphere traversals wreaked havoc on a ship’s structure and mechanics.

  The solution was the corridors: reverse shields which held back the majority of atmospheric phenomena from a cylindrical area. A series of rings made of a nickel alloy metamaterial absorber generated a plasma field between each ring to create the corridors.

  On Earth the rings measured half a kilometer in diameter and stretched from an altitude of ten to two hundred sixty kilometers, well into the thermosphere. The details varied on other worlds, but every planet with a population in excess of about twenty thousand had at least one paired corridor.

  It was midmorning back on the coast and traffic was brisk. She slowed and eased into the queue of vessels departing Earth.

  For basic security or record-keeping purposes or perhaps merely to give a few bureaucrats something to do, a monitoring device recorded the serial number designation of every vessel to enter the corridor. If one was flagged for any of a variety of reasons—but most often due to a criminal warrant—a con
tainment field captured it at the second ring, immobilizing it until the authorities arrived.

  She’d seen it happen once or twice and found it an absurd annoyance. The system was ridiculously porous; if someone wanted to avoid capture, he or she simply wouldn’t take the corridor (except for the brainless idiots who evidently did). But thankfully there appeared to be no brainless idiots in the vicinity this morning, and in minutes she was accelerating into the rings.

  Without the buffeting forces of the atmosphere fighting against her, it was a brief four minute trip. A swipe of her hand brought up the engineering controls and she initiated the transition to the WM impulse engine. Then she curled her legs underneath her and surveyed the view.

  Earth’s outer atmosphere constituted a barely organized chaos of commercial and residential space stations, zero-g manufacturing facilities, satellites and military defense platforms. The cornucopia of structures sped along a dozen progressively larger concentric orbits. Up close, it made for an extraordinarily beautiful vista: sunbeams reflecting off gleaming, smooth metals streaked in the luminous glow of the lights within. A testament to the triumph of human ingenuity.

  As her distance from Earth grew, however, it began to more closely resemble a swarm of ants feeding upon the discarded remnants of a meal, a dichotomy which had always amused her. The ship’s acceleration increased as the engine reached full power, and the ants soon faded into the halo cast by the sun.

  She stood up and stretched. It would be four hours before she reached the Mars-Jupiter Main Asteroid Belt and was ‘allowed’ to engage the sLume drive.

  Originally named the Alcubierre Oscillating Bubble Superluminal Propulsion Drive when the first working prototype had been developed nearly two hundred years earlier, a clever marketing executive had quickly coined the far more consumer-friendly term ‘sLume Drive.’

  The mechanism which propelled her ship across the stars bore little similarity to the initial prototype. The ring which held open the warp bubble was now dynamically generated and consisted of exotic particles too small even en masse to be visible. The energy requirements were met in full by the He3 LEN fusion reactor thanks to the boost in negative mass provided as a byproduct of the impulse engine.