CHAPTER ONE
“Motherfucker. You better work.”
Cavalon slammed the access panel shut. Sweat stung his eyes and he wiped away the moisture slicking his overgrown hair to his forehead. Days since he’d started this phase of the project: twenty-three. Times he’d recalculated, reconfigured, or rebuilt this single fucking subsystem: fourteen. Patience: zero.
This had to be it. It had to work this time, or he’d give up and activate it without any stupid “core stabilization,” then stand back and watch the damn thing supernova. Who tried to build a star aboard a fucking spaceship anyway? Bloody void.
He tapped the black nexus band on his wrist, and an orange holographic display slid into the air over his forearm. He found the menu labeled with a hashed half circle, a spiked teardrop, and an inverted triangle—a Viator phrase that unnervingly translated to “anti-explosion box.” He selected the icon, and it produced an infuriating “sync in progress” meter.
He waited for the bar to fill, scratching at the few centimeters of blond growth along his jawline. He’d given up months ago, and just rode the stubble wave right into a beard, which had arrived peppered with more gray than felt reasonable for twenty-eight. But there was no time for shaving when there was a “perpetual jump drive” to build. Well, invent.
Jump drives required solar energy to function, usually amassed by panels on the hull while a vessel went about its business in a solar system. But they weren’t in a solar system—they weren’t even in a galaxy—which meant there wasn’t a single star even remotely close enough. So, naturally, the solution had been to build one. In the damn ship.
For the last six months, every ounce of his effort, day or night, sleeping or waking, had been focused on finishing this ridiculous “perpetual jump drive.” This singular task, the only thing that could get all four thousand rescued Sentinels to Kharon Gate before they all died of thirst or starvation, or the Divide finally drove them all mad and the Typhos became one giant murder party. As usual, no pressure.
With a placid beep, the sync completed. The screen flashed red and his nexus band blurted out a negative tone. He clenched his teeth, suppressing a low growl. Ever the masochist, he tapped the activation again. Again, a docile negative tone, and again, nothing.
He quirked a brow at the display. Strangely, it showed no error code. Maybe the wireless controls were acting up again. It hadn’t been the easiest task of Puck’s career to get the Legion software to interact nicely with the Viator-conceived systems. He’d have to check the primary control terminal to be sure.
Cavalon closed the menu, then headed up the slanted passage and out of the reactor’s shell into the hangar bay. Comparatively cool air chilled his sweat-slicked cheeks as he stepped onto the metal walkway.
A framework of scaffolding ringed the outside of the twenty-meter-diameter orb, allowing access to the dozens of systems required to make the monstrosity work. The reactor’s components weren’t nearly as accessible as they’d been in the versions aboard the dark energy generators, mostly due to the exorbitant amount of improvisation he’d had to do. But hey, he wasn’t an ancient alien species with millennia of research and apparently endless resources at his disposal. He was simply a guy with a degree in astro-mechanical engineering, which somehow meant this was in his wheelhouse. Most days, he just felt like a guy with a few different types of wrenches and way too much responsibility. The whole thing was really absurd.
Cavalon headed around the arc of scaffolding toward the reactor’s anterior, which faced out into the large, empty hangar—bay F9, now pragmatically known as “the reactor bay.” Though at least eighty meters square, it was modest compared to what a behemoth capital ship like the Typhos had to offer, easily the smallest of their dozens of hangars and docking bays, but also the closest in proximity to the ship’s jump drive.
He arrived at the primary control terminal, a two-meter-wide counter covered with jury-rigged holographic interfaces and repurposed viewscreens. He swept open the solenoid controls, and a white holographic menu materialized in the air over the terminal counter.
He grumbled under his breath and tapped the activation switch.
Another negative tone, this one louder, denser, and more judgmental than the one from his nexus band. An error screen taunted him next, along with a brand-new message he’d not seen the other fourteen times he’d taken a stab at this: “Subsystem not found.”
Void, he’d made it worse.
He clenched his fists, knuckles going white as he pressed them into the console top and muttered, “Goddamn piece of flaming void garbage.”
“Maybe if you didn’t call it mean names?”
Cavalon glanced over his shoulder, down past the walkway railing. On the deck six meters below, Jackin North stood in front of the cluster of workbenches. He stared up at Cavalon expectantly, hands on hips, looking all hygienic and not grease-stained in his unwrinkled, navy-blue Legion uniform. It’d taken Cavalon about two weeks before he’d given up on maintaining a clean uniform, and Jackin about two more before he’d given up giving Cavalon shit about wearing nothing but a T-shirt and duty slacks. Jackin knew how to pick his battles.
Cavalon took a strange amount of comfort in Jackin’s composed appearance. It acted as evidence that life existed somewhere outside bay F9. And, as was probably the point, served as a reminder of how a soldier should look. As their acting commander, Jackin had to set a precedent. Lead by example, or some such nonsense.
Yet even the highest-ranking officer aboard couldn’t hide the impact of months of reduced rations: his face narrower, cheekbones sharper, and a sullen, yellow tinge to the whites of his dark brown eyes.
“How’s it going?” Jackin asked, tone unnervingly even.
Cavalon cast an unnecessary glance at the nexus band on his wrist. “That time again already, boss?”
The scraping assessment in Jackin’s eyes somehow felt equal degrees judgmental and tolerant.
Cavalon sighed. “I know it’s on your regimented daily itinerary, Optio, but I’d work a lot better without you breathing down my neck every morning.”
“Remember, it’s centurion now.”
“Right. What’s with that, anyway? I thought you were going to be CNO?”
“You don’t really need a fleet navigations officer when you don’t have a fleet.”
Cavalon scratched his chin. “True.” They were in fact a fleet of one at the moment—all the other ships that’d survived the Divide’s collapse had proven themselves just as stranded as the Argus had been. No ion drives, no warp drives, no jump drives, and thus no ability to congregate. Which held its own as an exercise in negligence, but after seeing the monumental—and frankly, creative—ways in which the Legion had recklessly abandoned the Sentinels, Cavalon now knew it to be intentional. If you’re going to banish all your criminal soldiers to the edge of the universe, no reason to give them an easy way to escape. Or to mutiny, as the case may be.
Cavalon knelt, letting out a groan as his joints protested. He reached under the console and grabbed a battered multimeter, then tossed it under the railing at Jackin.
Jackin flinched as the device hit him square in the chest. It toppled down into his arms and he awkwardly caught it. He leveled a glower of barely contained frustration at Cavalon. “Void, kid—I’m not a time ripple.”
“That’s what they all say,” Cavalon mumbled. “Just checking. I don’t have time to have this conversation again. And again. And again.”
“Yeah, I get it,” Jackin grumbled, dropping the multimeter onto the nearest workbench. “Why don’t you just give me the report, then me and all future mes can get on with our days and leave you alone.”
Cavalon grimaced as his hands began to cramp. “The report is: How about you worry about getting yourself a fleet, and I’ll worry about creating a star generator from scratch.”
“Because I won’t be able to get inward to even begin to muster a fleet without your star generators. Also, everyone will starve.”
Cavalon dug a thumb deep into the palm of one cramping hand. “Void, I know, okay? I don’t know what you want me to do. I can only work so fast.”
The furrow in Jackin’s brow softened. “I know, kid. Sorry.” His gaze went unfocused as he rubbed a hand through the scarred side of his trimmed black beard. “Just do your best,” he encouraged. “We’ve got the rest in hand, don’t worry about that part.”
Cavalon nodded, unable to ignore the forced evenness in Jackin’s tight expression. He wasn’t a very good liar. And Cavalon was well aware of the primary cause of his worry: Rake and Co. were supposed to have returned from rescuing Sentinels and restarting the other dark energy generators weeks ago. Every passing day they didn’t return seemed to age Jackin by weeks—stony gray salting his black hair at the temples, his light brown skin too weathered for someone in their early forties.
Jackin drew in a deep breath, vanquishing the worry from his face with an ostensible effort. “I’ll leave you to it. Update me when you can. Will I see you at drills tomorrow?”
Cavalon forced a grin. “Yeah. Wouldn’t miss it.”
Jackin nodded, then made his way back to the massive bay doors and left.
Copyright © 2021 by J. S. Dewes
