Finally, she looked up, no longer seeming angry with me.

  “What did we actually learn?” I asked.

  “Not enough,” she said. “There’s a fortress moon with some kind of device stored there that Axion believed was crucial to his plan. We have partial access codes. But I don’t know what the device does, why it’s important, or what we’ll face when we get there.”

  Bill had been watching and asked a few pertinent questions, focusing on the moon and its stellar coordinates.

  “So we go in blind?” Bill asked.

  “No,” I said, “not blind. We know Axion needed this for his greater plan. Maybe that’s all we need for now.”

  I looked at Alina.

  “I agree,” she said.

  “Bill?” I asked.

  “You are the captain,” he said. “You decide.”

  “That’s the spirit.” I programmed the coordinates into the navigation system. The Theron’s AI calculated the route through foldspace.

  “Where is this moon exactly in relation to what else we know?” I asked Alina.

  “It’s 32 light-years from our last position,” she said. “The system doesn’t appear in the Theron’s star charts. I’m thinking that Axion had it hidden behind multiple encryption layers for a reason.”

  “Great, yet another mystery,” I said.

  “I’ll keep working on those files,” Alina said. “There’s so much here, but it’s like trying to read a book where half the pages are missing and the other half was in a language that kept changing. Whatever this device is, Axion went to enormous lengths to keep its nature secret, even in his own private files.”

  I had the Theron engage and leaned back in the pilot’s chair.

  “Kane,” Alina said. “What if we can’t figure out what the secret item is? What if we get there and can’t even recognize what we’re looking for?”

  “Then we grab everything that isn’t nailed down and hope for the best,” I said.

  Alina thought about that and nodded.

  That meant we had a plan. Now, we had to find out if it was any good.

  -43-

  Eighty-four hours later, I was in the tiny ship’s gym working through my frustration on the heavy bag when Alina burst through the hatch. Her face was flushed with excitement, and her eyes were bright.

  “Kane! I figured it out!”

  I stopped mid-punch, sweat dripping down my face. “Figured what out?”

  “The device. What Axion was after at the fortress.” She was practically bouncing. “It’s not a weapon. It’s a T-suit.”

  “A what?” I asked.

  “A teleportation suit,” she said, “like a personal, wearable teleportor.” She grabbed my arm, not caring that I was drenched in sweat. “Don’t you see? That’s how Axion planned to get to the Burnt Polarion!”

  I grabbed a towel and wiped my face, thinking it through. “You’re saying he’d use the suit to teleport directly to the stasis chamber?”

  “Exactly,” she said. “Once we were close enough to the Dreadstar, he could bypass all the ship’s defenses, all the Ick security, everything. Just pop straight into the stasis chamber with the Negator.”

  I paused, considering it. “That’s actually pretty smart.”

  “It’s brilliant,” Alina said. “No fighting through corridors, no dealing with whatever protections the Ick have set up. Just get within range and teleport directly to the target.”

  “So how close is ‘within range’?” I asked.

  “That’s what I’m still trying to figure out. The files are fragmented, but from what I can tell, the suit might work from several thousand kilometers away. Maybe more if the teleporter is as advanced as the other Polarion tech we’ve seen.”

  “Why did the item—the suit—have a danger sign?”

  “Probably because teleportation is so dangerous,” she said.

  I frowned. “It must be more than that.”

  “Why does it have to be? Free-style teleportation sounds risky enough.”

  I wasn’t convinced, but I didn’t want to rain on her parade. So, I dropped my line of inquiry and tossed the towel. “How long until we reach the star system?”

  “We should be dropping out of foldspace within five hours.”

  “Then I have some time to get cleaned up,” I said.

  A little over five hours later, we were all on the bridge as the Theron prepared to exit foldspace. I had my hands on the neural interface plates, ready for anything. We’d had too many surprises while dropping into new star systems lately. This time, I wanted to jump right back into foldspace if we needed to.

  “We should be exiting foldspace in ten seconds,” the AI said. “Three… two… one… now.”

  I made the switch and the familiar sensation of reality reassembling itself washed over me. Then the stars snapped into focus, and we were in normal space once again.

  “I’m scanning,” Alina said from her console.

  I used the ship’s sensors to sweep the system as well. There was no radio chatter, no energy signatures, and no signs of civilization or quarantine ships. I was thankful for the last.

  “I’m not detecting any life signs anywhere,” Alina said. “I don’t detect any ships or stations, either.”

  “You might check for automated defenses,” Bill said.

  We did, spending the next hour creeping into the star system, with our sensors at maximum, checking every asteroid and chunk of debris for threats.

  Finally, Alina said, “I found it,” highlighting the location on the main display.

  It was big; so it was surprising that it had taken this long to find. The gas giant would have dwarfed Jupiter. Bands of orange, red, and brown swirled everywhere across it. There was an even more massive storm at the equator that could have swallowed Earth a dozen times over.

  The moon was another story entirely.

  The gas giant was tearing it apart as the moon had been caught in a decaying orbit, slowly spiraling toward the planet. Huge chunks of the moon’s surface had already been ripped away, creating a trail of debris that spiraled down toward the gas giant’s roiling clouds.

  “How is this possible?” I asked.

  “My guess is that something yanked or blew the moon from its original orbit,” Alina said. “Look at these gravitational distortions. There was a catastrophic event, maybe within the last few years, and the moon’s orbit was destabilized.”

  Through the sensors, I could see more details. The fortress was on the far side of the moon, still intact but tilted at a crazy angle. Parts of it were exposed where the moon’s surface had been torn away. It looked like a giant had taken a bite out of the moon, revealing the vast mechanical structures beneath.

  “How long will it take until the moon’s destroyed?” I asked.

  Alina ran some calculations. “At the current rate of decay, I’d guess maybe six more months. It could be less. The moon was passing through the gas giant’s Roche limit—”

  “Say what?” I asked, interrupting.

  “The Roche limit is the point where the planet’s gravity overwhelmed the moon’s gravity. The gas giant is literally pulling the moon apart.”

  “Can we even land on moon?” Gorrax asked.

  We all stared at the main display. The moon was rotating slowly, but not in a normal way. It was tumbling, and Bill said its axis shifted because of the gravitational stress. Every few hours, different parts would face the gas giant and experience massive tidal forces. The surface was constantly shifting, cracking, and reforming.

  “Look at these seismic readings,” Alina said. “The entire moon is experiencing constant earthquakes. Some of them are magnitude eight or higher.”

  “But the fortress might still have the T-suit, right?” I said.

  “If the suit hasn’t been destroyed or crushed,” Alina said. “Or if we can even get to it. Landing on the moon would be like trying to land on a building during an earthquake while someone was demolishing it.”

  I watched the moon tumble in its death spiral, with streams of debris falling from its surface, glowing as they hit the gas giant’s upper atmosphere. It was beautiful and terrifying at the same time.

  “There,” Gorrax said, pointing at the display. “Look at fortress.”

  I enhanced the image. The fortress was massive, built into and through the moon on a colossal scale. Parts of it were exposed where the surface had been torn away, revealing corridors and chambers open to space. But deeper sections appeared intact, possibly protected by the moon’s remaining mass.

  I leaned back, staring at the spectacle. How in the world were we going to get the T-suit now?

  -44-

  Colonel Pendance

  Colonel Pendance stood on the bridge of the starship watching the Talon System’s gas giant fill the screen. A swirling mass of amber and crimson storms filled it. A moon hung in a death spiral, chunks of debris already streaming away like tears.

  “The Negator is on that ship,” the Collector said, studying sensor readings of the distant Theron. “Perhaps we should intercept the ship and seize it?”

  “No,” the android said. She stood with her back to them, staring at the moon with what seemed like hunger. “There’s something I need to do first.”

  Pendance felt that familiar ache in his brain. Something about her tone made the void there throb.

  “What could be more important than the Negator?” the Collector asked in genuine surprise.

  The android turned, her optical sensors reflecting the gas giant’s glow. “The moon’s core contains more than just a High Polarion fortress. There are possibilities here that I need to exploit.”

  “What kind of possibilities?” Pendance asked.

  “Who are you to ask me?” she said.

  “Here now,” the Collector said. “It’s a proper question. I would like to know as well. We did journey here, after all, to acquire the Negator.”

  The android studied them.

  Pendance got the feeling she was weighing options. She seemed tenser than ever, as if she wanted something here even more than the Negator.

  “I require access to the core structure,” she finally said. “I must go there before the Earthling lands on the moon. Once I’m finished with my task, the moon will be far less hospitable to the treasure hunters. In truth, it should make our acquisition much easier.”

  “You speak in riddles,” the Collector said.

  “I speak in necessities,” she said. “You have a transporter. You will use it to send me down to the coordinates I give you. What I accomplish will solve several problems at once for us.”

  “Are you attempting to set a trap for Kane?” Pendance asked.

  “Must your pet enforcer keep questioning me?” the android said. “I find it tedious and insulting.”

  “If you could indulge him just this once,” the Collector said in a soothing tone, “I would appreciate it. Perhaps it will help to set both of us at ease. Your sudden request seems odd at this point in the affair.”

  “Oh, very well,” the android said. “I’m adjusting the playing field here. In these matters, it often helps to use deception. In this way, we surprise the enemy as he focuses on the wrong target.”

  “That all seems rather vague,” the Collector said.

  Her lips curved in a sneer. “Sometimes the best weapon is the environment.”

  “You’re speaking about the moon?” Pendance asked.

  “Yes, yes, of course,” she said.

  “The Negator is the prize,” the Collector said. “We mustn’t lose sight of that.”

  “Oh, I know all that,” she said. “My project is subsidiary to the goal. But it will aid us in the end.”

  “Can’t you be more explicit?” the Collector said.

  “You’ll understand when I return,” she said.

  Pendance was getting a bad feeling about this. He watched the little Collector. He knew him to be cagey and seldom blunt about anything, but going at problems sideways.

  The Collector hesitated, then rose to his feet. “Naturally, I will do as you suggest. Subterfuge is a wise policy. They defeated Axion, after all. We must take care to do this right.”

  The three of them went to the transporter chamber. The android stepped onto a dais as the Collector stood behind the controls.

  She gave him the coordinates.

  The Collector entered them and studied them. “That’s at the very center of the moon.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  The Collector hesitated once more and seemed on the verge of asking a question. Finally, he shrugged and activated the mechanism.

  The transporter hummed, and golden lights shimmered around her. In moments, she vanished.

  Pendance stared at the empty transporter pad and then at the Collector. “She’s playing games with us.”

  The Collector grunted an affirmative.

  “What is she really planning?”

  “We’ll discover soon enough,” the Collector said.

  “Will you transport her back here when she calls?” Pendance asked.

  The Collector stared at Pendance. “I will take precautions of course,” he finally said. “On no account will I teleport others back with her.”

  Pendance nodded.

  “Now, however, we need to fetch the T-suit before this Kane reaches it,” the Collector said. “Clearly, there can be no other reason they came to this star system.”

  “This suit is on the moon,” Pendance said.

  “Precisely,” the Collector said. “I am sending you to get it.”

  “Do you have any idea where it might be?”

  “Indeed,” the Collector said. “However, I am loath to teleport it here.”

  “Why?” Pendance asked.

  “Native caution for one,” the Collector said.

  The little alien was lying. There was another reason, but Pendance knew the Collector would never tell him. The alien must know more than he let on.

  Twenty minutes later, Pendance was suited up in environmental gear and dropping toward the moon’s surface in a one-man pod.

  They did this on the opposite side of the moon from the approaching Theron. The Collector had made it clear that he, Pendance, had to remain hidden from the others for now.

  The descent in the pod was rougher than expected: gravitational eddies from the gas giant made the approach unpredictable, and twice he had to fire emergency thrusters to avoid chunks of debris.

  The landing jarred Pendance’s teeth despite the pod’s shock absorbers. He emerged onto a moonscape that belonged in nightmares: twisted metal spires jutting from cracked stone, debris floating in lazy arcs through the low gravity, and always the gas giant overhead, so close he could see individual storm cells rotating in its atmosphere.

  He activated his suit’s navigation system. The readings were horrible: electromagnetic interference from the gas giant, gravitational anomalies from the moon’s unstable core, and energy signatures that made no sense to him.

  “Collector,” Pendance said into his comm. “I’m getting garbage from the nav system. Can you guide me to the location?”

  “Negative. The interference is too severe from here. You’ll need to navigate by the landmarks I gave you.”

  Pendance started walking across the surface, using his military training to memorize his route so he could get back to the pod. The reduced gravity was treacherous, and every step launched him higher than intended. He had to learn to control his movement or risk bouncing into jagged debris.

  A tremor ran through the ground, nearly knocking him over. In the distance, one of the floating chunks changed course, as if yanked by invisible hands.

  “What was that?” he asked.

  “The seismic activity is increasing across the moon’s surface,” the Collector said.

  Ten minutes later, Pendance found what might have been a command center with banks of dark consoles surrounding a raised platform.

  He recalled what the android had said and started down. He made good time, but the tremors were getting worse. Twice he had to take cover as sections of wall collapsed, sending up clouds of floating debris.

  Then the moon shuddered, a deep, fundamental vibration that seemed to come from the core.

  “Collector,” he said into his comm. “Something’s happening. The whole moon is—”

  Static answered him. He was on his own.

  After a moment, Pendance pressed on, but the path down was becoming increasingly dangerous. Twice he had to change course when passages collapsed before him.

  In the deepest section, he found a storage unit. This had to be it, as it bore a silver disc.

  Pendance tried every control he could find down here, but the unit remained sealed with its magnetic lock.

  “Collector,” he said into his comm, but got only static in response.

  A massive quake knocked him to his knees. Through the floor, he could feel something vast moving in the moon’s depths.

  Pendance climbed to his feet and spent another ten minutes trying to crack the storage unit, but it was hopeless. If the T-suit was in there, it was tantalizingly close but impossibly protected. And with each passing moment, the moon became more unstable.

  It was time to go.

  The journey back was a nightmare of collapsing corridors and terrain that shifted beneath his boots. Several times, he had to use his suit’s thrusters to avoid falling into newly opened chasms.

  He finally reached his pod, climbing into and firing the engines, heading up.

  The docking with the Collector’s ship was rough, as gravitational distortions made the approach difficult.

  When the airlock cycled, he stumbled out of his environmental suit and made his way to the bridge, ready to report. But when he stepped onto the bridge, his words died in his throat.

  The woman was there, but to Pendance’s shock, she wasn’t an android anymore. How was this possible?

  She stood beside the main console in a flowing gown that seemed to be made of starlight. Gone was the artificial construct. In its place was flesh and blood—pale skin with an almost luminous quality, snow-white hair and blue eyes that held depths no optical sensor could match.

  She was stunningly, heart-wrenchingly beautiful. But there was something in those eyes that made Pendance’s scarred soul recognize a kindred predator.

 

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