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  SF Books by B. V. Larson:

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  Steel World

  Dust World

  Tech World

  Machine World

  Death World

  Home World

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  Swarm

  Extinction

  Rebellion

  Conquest

  Army of One (Novella)

  Battle Station

  Empire

  Annihilation

  Storm Assault

  The Dead Sun

  Outcast

  Exile

  Demon Star

  Lost Colonies Trilogy

  Battle Cruiser

  Dreadnought

  Star Carrier

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  REBEL FLEET

  by

  B. V. Larson

  Copyright © 2016 by the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the author.

  =1=

  The first time I witnessed a stellar flux it was midnight, the moment when Tuesday was about to become Wednesday.

  I was sitting at a bar on the tropical island of Maui at the time. The bar was called TJ’s, and it bordered on being a dive. It was a local hangout, not a fancy tourist place. The crowd was muted most of the time, and there was no pounding music to drown out the crash of the surf that was about two hundred steps to my right. I liked it that way.

  “Whoa!” Jason gasped.

  “What…?” I asked.

  “Leo, do you see that?” he demanded.

  Jason was a bronzed-skin guy who haunted TJ’s as a regular. He was about five years younger than I was, and he’d become my friend over the last month or two.

  Turning to him, I followed his gaze. He wasn’t looking up at the sky, but rather at the waves. Frowning, I stared at a bubbling spot. There was a light source down there, something which made the foaming water glow green and white. The rest of the ocean was inky black all around it.

  “That is weird,” I agreed. “Could one of your Hawaiian lava vents be blowing its nose down there?”

  “We don’t have stuff like that on this side of the island.”

  I took him at his word. Being a drifter from the mainland, I’d spent the last two months here, but I was far from an expert on natural events of this kind.

  When I looked back at Jason, his eyes were wider than before. He was looking up at the sky now.

  “Don’t tell me…” I said, following his gaze again.

  We stared at the sky together. What we saw drove us to leave our drinks behind and walk out onto the open sands.

  The stars could be seen clearly—but there was something unnatural about them. I was a Colorado native from the Rockies, and I’d often been treated to gorgeous starry nights. But this celestial event was definitely out of the ordinary.

  For about a minute, the stars did an odd, wavering dance. Then a nebula appeared between Earth and the Milky Way. I’d learned the term “nebula” only recently from news reports. Apparently, it was what you called clouds of dust and gas that hung between the stars. Usually, they were the result of stars that had blown themselves up in nova explosions—but there weren’t any dying stars in our stellar neighborhood.

  “Don’t take your eyes off it,” Jason said. “It won’t last. I watched vids on the net—it never lasts long. The glowy stuff appears for a while then vanishes again.”

  I didn’t argue with him. I didn’t even tell him the proper name for the glowy stuff. Instead, I just gaped up at the sky alongside him, figuring it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to witness a mysterious natural event.

  “Are we going to die, Leo?” Jason asked me suddenly. “Is that what this means?”

  “Uh… I hope not.”

  “What do you think is out there in the water?” he asked a moment later, looking at the light in the sea again.

  Jason was young, slightly drunk, and impetuous under the best of circumstances. I’d teamed up with him over the last month or two as he seemed to be even better than I was at finding piecemeal jobs and getting laid at bars like this one. It was the kind of life I’d embraced after leaving my Navy career behind me.

  “Hey…” I said. “Kim’s watching us. She’s got a friend with her tonight. Let’s—”

  But I was talking to Jason’s back. He headed right back into the bar, which was open to the sandy beach, and curled an arm around Kim’s friend.

  Kim didn’t like Jason much. She didn’t seem to like me, either. Lord knew we’d given it our best, but we’d both already struck out with her.

  But a young man like me is always on the lookout for new opportunities. After all, “no” and “never” were two entirely different words. Smiling, I joined the three of them.

  “Are you guys going out there?” Kim asked me immediately. The look on her face was a mixture of worry and curiosity.

  “We sure are,” Jason said. “Come on!”

  As a group, we headed out across the sands. How could we not investigate? Over the last three months, there’d been numerous accounts of the stars turning into glowing dust-fields for a time, then smoothing back over and showing our familiar bright pinpoints of light again. As far as I knew, there hadn’t been any reports of splash-downs of debris—but that might have just changed.

  “This could be highly dangerous,” Kim said.

  “You always worry,” Kim’s friend said.

  “What’s your name?” I asked the new girl.

  “This is Gwen,” Jason said giving me a hard look.

  I caught on immediately. He was claiming Gwen. Hell, his arm was still lightly draped around her waist. That was moving pretty damned fast, even for Jason. They’d only met about ninety seconds ago.

  Jason had always been fond of the blonde ones, but I liked Kim’s straight black hair just fine. Taking a tip from my friend, I slipped my hand around Kim’s back when we reached the water.

  Kim gave me a funny look. “Are you drunk?”

  “Not nearly,” I said. “Look out there! It’s still bubbling. What I think is weird is that light. Where’s it coming from?”

  She forgot about my hand and didn’t shrug me off. She stepped closer to me, in fact, as we stared at the water.

  From the bar, the underwater lights had looked like a small patch of ocean that was farting up bubbles. Up close, the strange effect had taken on a different character. Whatever was down there—it was pretty big.

  “It can’t be an animal,” Gwen said. “Not even a whale would make that kind of gas release.”

  “I agree,” I said. “Maybe a small plane went down—or a boat.”

  “How could we have missed that?” she asked.

  Looking at her in surprise, I could tell right away she was a woman of substance. She sounded educated and possibly opinionated. It made sense, as she was Kim’s friend. That didn’t bode well for Jason.

  “I don’t know,” I answered her, “but something has to be down there with its lights on. I don’t think it’s a natural lava vent.”

  “No…” Gwen said. “Not lava. It would be orange and steaming if it was.”

  “There’s only one way to find out,” Jason said, pulling off his shirt and handing it to Gwen.

  “What are you doing?” she cried. “Hold on—you don’t have to go out there! What if it’s boiling hot or something?”

  “If I feel heat, I’ll swim right back.”
r />   He didn’t invite me on his little adventure. He didn’t even bother to look at me. His eyes were all over Gwen, and I knew he was putting on some kind of mating-dance display for her.

  It was all instinctual, and I could tell it was working. She looked both worried and excited. She followed him a few steps until her feet were in the waves.

  My eyes went to Kim. A man will do damned near anything to impress a girl, and I’m no exception, but my reading of Kim was less certain. She looked excited, but also upset. She’d crossed her arms. I guessed she was more of a worrier than a daredevil.

  I took off my shirt and handed it to her, along with my cellphone. She looked at these items in surprise.

  “You’re really going out there too, Leo?” she asked me seriously. “I didn’t figure you for a crazy.”

  I shrugged. “Someone has to pull Jason’s ass out of there if a shark takes a bite out of him, or something.”

  She didn’t argue. She didn’t say anything. She just watched me closely as I splashed out into the surf.

  Jason was already swimming smoothly, arm-over-arm, passing the breakers. I trotted out, soon finding myself wading, then swimming—but I didn’t dive right in. Something told me not to.

  As I got closer to the bright, foaming spot, what surprised me most was that the water wasn’t hot. Quite the opposite. It was cold. Abnormally cold for Hawaii, even at night.

  “Hey! Jason!” I called out.

  He waved back at me over his shoulder. Then he dived directly into the bubbling region.

  That was the last I saw of him. About a minute passed while I watched the sea with growing concern. Jason could swim like a dolphin, but this was the open ocean.

  Getting closer to where he’d vanished, I began treading water. The cold grew worse, and I almost felt like shivering.

  The bubbles and the green light were still churning. But overhead, the nebula that had appeared so mysteriously was fading away, turning back into brilliant individual stars again.

  “JASON!” I shouted.

  Nothing came back. The ocean was empty.

  It occurred to me then that Jason might never come back. I steeled myself for what I had to do. In the military, we’d all sworn not to leave a man behind. I felt that old urge to risk my ass overcoming my better judgment once again.

  Behind me, on the shoreline, I saw and heard the girls. They were thigh-deep now, about fifty yards or so behind me. They were shouting something, but the wind was up, and the waves were crashing all around. Their words were mangled into high-pitched noises.

  It didn’t matter. They were freaking out, that much was clear. They knew Jason had been under for too long.

  After sucking in about seven deep breaths, I plunged into the icy water, heading down toward the source of that green-white light.

  Usually the ocean at night is pitch-black, especially on a moonless night like this one. But I found I could see fairly well due to the gleaming rays coming up from the bottom.

  It was bright down here—even brighter than it’d looked from the beach. I found myself squinting into a glare as I got closer.

  There was an oval region about twenty feet down. Something was lying there on the bottom, bubbling furiously. The bubbles kept me from seeing the source of the activity.

  The light reminded me of the brilliance produced by arc-welding. Could something metallic be burning? I knew from the Navy it was possible to weld underwater, but I could hardly think of a reason why something like that could be happening here.

  Instead of going directly into the bubbles, I swam low and circled around. Maybe Jason had gotten himself fouled on something. If I could see him and drag him out…

  Then I spotted him, and I knew right away he was in trouble. His limp body was being buffeted by the released gases, but it stayed stuck to the bottom. I swam hard toward him and grabbed onto his ankle.

  He was cold. Ice-cold. His right hand was touching the base of the disturbance. He was touching the object that was emitting the bubbles. His hand had to be caught on something.

  I could see the base of the object now, a black surface with holes that emitted bubbles and beams of bright light. I didn’t stare into it for long, sensing it might burn my retinas.

  Grabbing onto Jason as firmly as I could, I dug my heels into the seabed and pulled under his arms. He didn’t budge. I ran my own hand down his trapped arm, and I was shocked to find that his arm was encased in a chunk of ice from the elbow down.

  His entire right forearm was crusted with it. The bubbling block had somehow frozen him to it, and I figured that if I touched it I’d be stuck down here too.

  I didn’t know if Jason was alive or dead, but I still had some air left in me. I’d been a good diver all my life, and I could swim for three minutes underwater if I had to.

  Bunching up my muscles, I clasped my hands around his chest and heaved. My feet slid on the sandy bottom, and I almost touched the thing that had him.

  I wished for a knife. If I’d had one, I would have hacked the ice, or even his wrist—but I hadn’t brought any gear. I hadn’t planned on any of this.

  There wasn’t time to swim back to the bar to get help. If Jason wasn’t dead already, he’d be a goner for sure by the time I got back down here.

  My body was running out of oxygen, but I got an idea then. Instead of just tugging, I wrenched his body from side to side, trying to get a chunk of that ice to break off.

  I’ve always been a strong, broad-shouldered man. It only took a few seconds. Suddenly, he was free in my hands, floating.

  Lungs burning, my blood pounding in my veins, I kicked hard off the bottom. Desperate for air, I pulled Jason up to the surface.

  I had him with my arm across his chest, swimming with a side-stroke. Gasping and wanting to throw up, I dragged him toward the beach.

  The girls came toward us, splashing and shrieking. They helped me drag him to the shore. People from the bar came out carrying lights.

  “I called 9-1-1 even before you dove down,” Gwen said. “I can’t believe you got him out of there. What happened?”

  “His hand was frozen—stuck to some kind of object on the bottom.”

  “Frozen?” she demanded. “How could that be?”

  I didn’t have any answers. We reached the sand, and I let Jason down. I began working on him, pumping his chest, turning his head to let the water out. I blew air into his lungs but not much went in. I put my hand behind his neck to prop him up and open an airway—

  That was about when Kim started screaming. I didn’t even look at her as I was too focused on getting Jason to breathe again.

  “His hand…” she sobbed. “Where’s his hand?”

  That got my attention. I looked to see what she was talking about.

  Jason’s right hand was missing. It was a clean cut, as if it had been done by an axe.

  But I knew what had happened. His hand had been frozen to that thing down there. When I’d broken him free, his wrist must have been brittle enough to snap.

  What could be so damned cold?

  =2=

  Jason didn’t make it. He’d been a good kid, and he’d taught me as much about the world as I’d taught him. But that was all over with now.

  When the doctor came out and gave us the news, Gwen sobbed and ran out of the sliding glass doors. I couldn’t blame her. She was a tourist who’d just met us. She’d had enough heartache for a Tuesday night in May, especially when she was supposed to be on vacation.

  The doc, a guy named David Chang, shook his head sadly.

  “A very strange case. His hand—you say it was frozen to some kind of underwater object?”

  “That’s right, doc,” I answered. “I pulled him free of it.”

  “And your name is?” he asked.

  “Leo Blake, sir.”

  He nodded vaguely. I could tell something was bothering him. That wasn’t hard to understand. The whole situation was downright weird.

  “You resuscitated him at the
scene—that was well done. But he never regained consciousness, not even in the ambulance.”

  “Well…” Kim said sadly, “at least he didn’t suffer.”

  Doctor Chang glanced at her then turned back to me. “There was an infection of some kind… We detected it in his blood-work. Was Jason sick recently?”

  “No, not at all. He was as healthy as a horse. He raced out into that ocean, determined to find out what was down there.”

  Dr. Chang nodded, obviously troubled. “Well, I’m going to have to report this to the CDC, just to be sure. And I’m going to have to ask you to remain in the area… You still feel fine right now?”

  A chill ran through me. Was this guy suggesting I might be some kind of plague-carrier?

  “I’m fine,” I said firmly.

  “Good! Please come back in the morning. We’ll be running tests all night on Jason, but as the last person to come into close contact with him, I’d like to test you, too.

  “Great,” I said unhappily.

  I walked out of the hospital with Kim, but we realized we were stranded. Gwen had been driving, and she’d taken off.

  “Nothing like a walk to freshen you up,” I told Kim. “I’ll take you back to your hotel.”

  We started down a gentle slope. Cars zoomed past. The night was warm, humid and breezy.

  Kim seemed to be brooding, so I let her take her time. Finally, after we’d gone a few hundred yards, she gave me a funny look.

  “Did you touch that thing?” she asked. “Down there in the water?”

  “No,” I said. “I saw what happened to Jason. I didn’t want any part of it.”

  “I can understand that, but you did touch Jason.”

  “So did you,” I pointed out.

  She looked alarmed.

  “You’re right,” she said. “When I carried him out of the water with you… His hand was already gone by then… He must have been bleeding… We wouldn’t have seen that in the dark and the water. He could have infected—”

  I laughed. “Come on, Kim,” I said. “Stop worrying so much.”

  “I can’t help it,” she admitted.