Shadowrise (Shadows of the Void Space Opera Serial Book 4) Read online

  Shadowrise

  Shadows of the Void Book 4

  J.J. Green

  If you would like to hear more about J.J. Green’s books, new releases, advanced reader opportunities and other interesting stuff, sign up to the mailing list here:

  http://jjgreenauthor.com/?page_id=136

  (We won’t send spam or pass on your details to a third party.)

  Acknowledgements

  I’d like to thank the Taipei Writers Group for their friendship and support during all my writing endeavours. I’d also like to thank my subscribers, who contributed ideas for the animal characters in Generation and subsequent books in the Shadows of the Void series, and who constantly surprise and delight me with the warmth, kindness and wit of their correspondence.

  Special thanks go to my editor, Lacey Lengel, for her painstaking attention to detail and inspired feedback.

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter One

  Lifting his duffle bag onto his shoulder, Carl Lingiari took a final look at his cabin before preparing to disembark the Galathea. He wasn’t usually so sentimental, but the prospecting mission he’d just finished had been eventful. Hostile aliens called Shadows had killed the ship’s officers and appeared as perfect copies of their victims, and Carl had fought alongside Harrington, the chief security officer, to save the ship. The menace of the Shadows had followed them to the colony planet, Dawn, which was supposed to have been free of the hostile aliens. It had turned out to be anything but.

  The original pilot of the Galathea had been among the fatal casualties of the alien attack. For Carl, this meant that he’d gained precious flight hours piloting a starship, though it was the worst way for the opportunity to occur. He intended to put the experience to good use. He would pay his folks at home in Australia a brief visit, then he would apply for a full pilot’s position and go touring the stars again.

  “You all right in there, mate?” He directed the question to his duffle bag. A pair of bright eyes peeked through the half-open zip.

  “Yeah, but get a move on,” Carl’s friend, Flux, replied. “It’s stuffy in here. And your socks smell. Have you washed them?” An alien resembling a cross between a sugar glider and a bat, Flux was hiding, ready for the disembarkation inspection. Pets were banned aboard ship—not that Flux considered himself a pet—and prospecting crews weren’t allowed to bring anything back that they hadn’t taken with them when they departed Earth territory, especially not any alien life forms.

  Strictly speaking, this meant Flux should have been safe from confiscation because Carl had smuggled him aboard when they’d set off, but the higher-ups in Deep Space Customs wouldn’t see it that way. Flux would have to hide, and Carl would employ a special signal an old girlfriend who worked in Customs had taught him. The signal would guarantee that his bag wouldn’t be inspected.

  His door chime sounded. Harrington was waiting outside, looking stormy.

  “What’s up?” asked Carl as he left his cabin and closed the door for the final time.

  “Haven’t you received Haggardy’s message yet?” Harrington replied. “Check your interface.”

  Carl unzipped his bag, lifted a disgruntled Flux off of his screen, and pulled it out. The alert light was flashing, indicating a message had arrived. Flux must have been sitting on the speaker when it beeped.

  Haggardy had taken over as the Galathea’s master when Akabe Loba had died, and had avoided as much responsibility as was possible in his new position. Carl wondered what the man had to say now that was suddenly so important.

  Harrington supplied the answer before he could even open the message.

  “He wants us to lie about what happened,” she said. “He’s sent us a 'report’ to repeat to the investigators so he doesn’t get into trouble for not helping to save the officers from the Shadows. Kratting misborn. I’m damned well not lying for him.”

  “Crew to departure hatch,” came a voice over the comm system. “Prepare to disembark.”

  Carl and Harrington set off, joining the crowds of shipmates heading in the same direction.

  Carl wasn’t surprised that Haggardy wanted to cover up his role in the events of the last few weeks. If Polestar or the Global Government found out the extent of his inaction, he would be dismissed and his pension withdrawn at the very least. At worst, he could be charged with criminal negligence and involuntary manslaughter.

  “Does he really think he can brush everything under the carpet that easily?” Carl asked. “There’s gotta be security vids of it all, and he can’t expect the whole crew to lie for him.”

  “He doesn’t need everyone to lie. The rest of the crew don’t know what actually happened. All they saw was a bunch of officers fighting. They only had our word for it that the officers were alien imposters, and I’m sure some of them didn’t believe us.

  If we told the investigators Haggardy’s side of the story, they’d buy it, I think. But there’s no way in hell I’m lying for him.”

  “We don’t have to lie,” said Carl. He thumbed the interface screen. “If he’s telling us we have to stick to his report, we’ve got the evidence right here.” The screen brightened with the acting master’s message.

  “He isn’t that dumb, Lingiari.”

  Carl scanned the writing for a moment. “Yeah, I see what you mean.” Haggardy’s report on the incident on K. 67092d was addressed to Carl, Harrington, and Sayen Lee. Navigator Lee had been seriously injured when the Galathea had crash-landed. Carl had heard she was at that moment being transferred from the ship’s stasis room to the nearest genetic hospital, where doctors could assess the extent of her brain damage and grow her a clone if necessary.

  The subject line of the message simply read FYI. Only the people addressed in Haggardy’s message would understand its true meaning: that was the story, and they were expected to stick to it, or else...what?

  “You aren’t considering covering up for him, are you?” asked Harrington.

  “No, ’course not,” replied Carl, but he wondered what Haggardy would do when they didn’t. The man had decades of service under his belt, and he probably had stacks of influential friends.

  “Do you think they’re going to use the same tests for Shadows that they had on Dawn?” asked Harrington. “Krat, I hope not. I mean, they say the testing’s foolproof, and that a Shadow must have got onto Dawn another way, but I don’t see how they can be so sure. I’d swear we brought one with us.”

  “What I don’t get is, if they could test us here on Earth, why did they send us all the way to Dawn?” Carl said. “Unless the problem’s bigger than we thought and they can’t process everyone who arrives here? Anyway, we’ll have to go along with it. They seem to think they know what they’re doing, and it’s out of our hands now. The only alternatives are to refuse us permission to disembark or to go right ahead and destroy the ship. That’d reduce the risk all right.”

  “Urgh, don’t say that,” said Harrington.

  “Anyway, let’s collect Makey on our way out. We can show him where to go and vouch for him while he claims refugee statu
s.”

  “Good idea,” Harrington replied.

  “By the way, what’s happening with the Paths?”

  “They’ve been transferred to a quarantine ship. None of the xenobiologists seem to have heard of them. It’ll be a while before they’re cleared to go planetside. And Karrev and the others were taken down by police transport this morning. They’ve all been charged with mutiny.”

  When they reached Makey’s cabin, they found the Dawn native cleaning the shower room, which was already spotless.

  “Hey, mate, you don’t need to do that,” said Carl. “They’re gonna go through this ship and sterilize it top to bottom once everyone’s off. Come on, we’ve got to disembark. We’ve got heaps of testing to get through once we’re planetside.”

  The skinny young man straightened up and put down a face cloth he’d been using to wipe the surfaces. “If you’re sure. I don’t want to seem ungrateful for the cabin and free passage to Earth.”

  “No one thinks you’re ungrateful for the chance to come with us,” said Harrington. “I just wish Haggardy had agreed to bring some of Dawn’s inhabitants.”

  “Me too,” said Makey. “I’ll get my stuff.”

  As the kid quickly packed his bag, Carl wondered what he would think of Earth. It was very different from the poor farming community he’d left behind. The kid would see luxuries and lifestyles that he’d probably never dreamed of, and a big gap between those who could and couldn’t afford them.

  The three joined the stragglers leaving the ship to board the shuttle that would take them to a spaceport in London, UK. From there, they could catch shuttles that would take them to the other side of the planet within a few hours, or airplanes that would get them to their destination much slower, but much cheaper.

  At the departure hatch, a ginger-haired woman—the engineer-in-training MacAdam—was waiting for them. She was smiling like all her birthdays had come at once.

  “You haven’t disembarked yet?” asked Harrington.

  “No, not yet,” MacAdam replied. “I wanted to take this last chance to thank you. I might not see you again once we all go our separate ways.”

  “How come? You hanging up your wrench?” Carl asked. Prospecting crews often encountered old shipmates in the course of their work.

  “I might be.” The engineer grinned. “I sent a request to visit my kids, and I just heard that I’ve got an appointment. If I manage to stay clean for another six months, they said I stand a good chance of getting them back.”

  “Great news,” said Carl. He had a feeling that Harrington’s mail to the relevant authorities about MacAdam turning over a new leaf might have had something to do with the favorable response to her request.

  “Yeah, great news,” Harrington said, followed by, “Krat.”

  Haggardy was striding towards them. They’d nearly made it onto the shuttle without meeting the brown-noser.

  “Lingiari, Harrington, just the people I wanted to see. MacAdam, and...” The acting master’s eyebrows rose. “I remember you,” he spluttered as he recognized Makey. “I gave instructions that you were not to board the ship.”

  “Not a lot you can do about it now, is there?” said Carl. “Makey, wait for us when you’re through the testing. We’ll point you to the refugee office.”

  As the kid went away, Haggardy followed him with his gaze, then turned his narrowed eyes to Carl and Harrington. MacAdam made herself scarce, mouthing 'goodbye’.

  Haggardy said, “I gave explicit instructions—”

  “What’s done is done,” said Harrington. “The kid’s here now, and he can claim refugee status. It’s going to be a long afternoon, so we’ll be on our way.”

  “No you don’t,” Haggardy said. “Until you leave the ship, you two are still under my command, and I order you to remain. I have something to tell you.”

  Folding his arms over his chest, Carl waited with the grim-faced Harrington.

  After checking that the rest of the crew were out of hearing range, Haggardy said, “I sent you both a report detailing what happened when we first encountered the Shadows. You are to memorize and repeat the facts as I stated them. There is to be no mention of your versions of the events, no interpretations, twisting, or embellishments of the truth as I have laid it out. Is that clear?”

  “No way, Haggardy,” Harrington said through her teeth. “No way am I lying for you. Forget it.”

  “Yeah,” said Carl, “that’s not happening, mate. You didn’t do your job. That’s the truth, and that’s what I’m telling anyone who asks. Let’s go,” he added to Harrington.

  The two walked away, and Haggardy shouted after them, “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll tell my truth. Or I’ll make things very difficult for you. Very difficult indeed.”

  As they went through the exit hatch and boarded the shuttle, Carl wondered what Haggardy meant.

  Chapter Two

  By the time Carl had passed through the Shadow testing and then Customs, it was late evening. He stepped out of the spaceport and into the heat, humidity, noise, and bright lights of London. Flux had long ago fallen asleep in his bag. When Carl checked on him, the animal’s closed eyes and half-open mouth with its double row of needle-sharp teeth showed through the transparent wings he’d wrapped over his face.

  Carl yawned. He had an appointment the next day with Polestar’s investigators. He needed to find somewhere to stay the night.

  Even at that hour, the multi-lane road that skirted the spaceport was busy with traffic, both at street level and just above as cars passed slower-moving vehicles by flying briefly over them. Carl wondered how long it would be before constant hover-driving was legal, and the traffic would split into road- and just-above-road level, and after that, maybe a third level? He didn’t spend enough time on Earth to bother with buying a hovercar of his own, and driving had becomes all computer-automated, which took the fun out of it. He would have liked to drive/fly, dodging up and down and around the other cars.

  He felt a tug on his sleeve. A dero had appeared beside him, unnoticed while Carl was watching the traffic. The man was barefoot, and from his overgrown toenails to his matted hair, he was grimy. A nauseating smell infiltrated Carl’s nostrils.

  “Just off a prospector, ain’t ya?” the dero said. “You must be rolling in creds. I used to work the prospectors, too, till I caught thermatic plague. They cured me, but I’ll never work again. Not like you. You look like a healthy bloke. Got years in you. Spare us some cred, eh?” The man was cradling a reader. The machine was old and cracked, but the display still glowed.

  Carl didn’t believe the man’s story. No one survived thermatic plague. The dero probably lived from one run to the next. Carl didn’t like the idea of supplying the man’s habit, but for some, that was as much as their lives would ever hold.

  “All right, give it to me,” he said, taking the ancient reader from the man. He pressed the credchip embedded in his wrist to the scanner before typing in a nominal amount. When it registered the deduction from his account, he returned the reader.

  The dero squinted at the display. “That’s all you’re giving me?” he said.

  “Hey, if you don’t want it...” Carl held out his hand to take the reader back, but the man clutched it to his chest and shuffled off without looking back.

  “Thanks,” Carl called out after him. He was beginning to remember why he spent so much of his time in deep space. The realization arrived quicker each time he touched down.

  He yawned again. He needed to find a bed before he fell asleep on his feet. After checking on Flux a second time, he zipped up his bag and headed toward the autocab station. He wished he had someone to carry him around in a bag while he slept.

  At the station, no autocabs were available and, according to the screen, none were due to return for another half an hour. Krat. He sat on the bench and pulled out his personal interface. He’d handed over his ship’s one to the investigators of the incidents on K. 67092d. He hoped they would let
him leave in enough time to catch the shuttle to Sydney the next day. He didn’t want to wake his folks up with his surprise arrival in the early hours of the morning.

  He tried to contact another autocab service, but they were all busy. He would just have to wait for a spaceport autocab to return. He started to look up local hotels on his interface to book a room. He found a place that didn’t look like too much of dive but wasn’t too pricey either. He was about to pay for it when the bright lights of an autocab caught his attention. One had returned earlier than the system had predicted. It drew up in front of him.

  As he got up, the door opened. Harrington was inside. She leaned over the seat and smiled at him.

  “Can I give you a lift?”

  Carl laughed, put his bag on the back seat carefully to avoid disturbing Flux, and got in.

  “I thought I’d return your favor,” Harrington said as the door closed and the vehicle moved away. “Though I’m not exactly saving your life.”

  She’d been referring to the time he’d picked her up in a shuttle when she was under attack in Dawn. He said, “Thanks, but you would’ve got yourself out of that scrape if I hadn’t happened along.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “I appreciate it anyway. How’d you know I was waiting?”

  “I was hanging about, just in case. I saw all the autocabs got taken fast. Thought you might need a ride.”

  “Thanks a lot. I’m going here.” He showed her the hotel he’d picked.

  “Hmmm...well...” Harrington gave him a sidelong look. “My place isn’t far. How about you save some creds and stay with me tonight?”

  “That’d be great.” The evening was getting better and better.

  After Carl’s agreement, a slight awkwardness invaded the atmosphere in the autocab. Carl wasn’t sure what Harrington’s intentions were. Maybe she was only offering him a place to sleep, or maybe she had more in mind. He was confused about how she felt toward him, and his feelings about her weren’t yet clear to him.