The Dead Sun Read online

  “I’m not sure that they could help,” I said. “I’m sure there are some retired astrophysicists about that we could hire, but—”

  “Hear me out, Colonel,” Miklos interrupted. “If we’re considering placement of the facilities on Earth, there are clear advantages to Space City. I’m not just talking about advantages to Star Force. The region has been damaged by war and economic upheaval. The people there have lost their pride and spirit. We could revitalize them.”

  “I see,” I said evenly. “What I’m hearing is this: Jasmine is from India. She wants to help her people out, and you want to help yours.”

  They both frowned.

  “Nepotism, sir?” Miklos said stiffly. “Is that what you’re accusing us of?”

  “Not exactly, Admiral. But I do think the numbers are so huge that your judgment has been compromised. It’s only natural. I’m rejecting both of you, not choosing one over the other. In your case, it’s because I’m not going to make a decision about the defense of Earth on the basis of who is most in need. If I did that, I’d build the factories in the wasteland that was once South America. Those people are living in squalor.”

  I turned to Jasmine while Miklos sulked.

  “Your argument is different, Jasmine, but no less flawed,” I told her. “You talk of India’s aerospace industry as if it’s modern. It isn’t. The technology we’re using is all new. It would be like using a vacuum tube factory to build tablet computers—no help at all.”

  They both seemed deflated and frustrated. To my surprise and delight, they didn’t bitterly argue to the last. They both knew me too well to go up against me when my mind was made up.

  “Where, then?” Jasmine asked. “Where do you plan to build these factories? In the Central Valley of California?”

  I flashed her a look of annoyance. She was suggesting that I was making an arbitrary choice to help out my own hometown, which just wasn’t true. I opened my mouth to refute her suggestion, but Miklos beat me to it.

  “He’s putting the entire thing into space,” he said. “An orbital platform.”

  “But why?” she demanded in surprise. “Such a waste—and one lucky missile could take out the entire facility.”

  I heaved a sigh. “I’ve gone around a few times with Miklos on this already. If you could fill her in, I’ll be taking my leave.”

  They both looked startled as I stood and marched for the door. I’d had enough of bickering about economics in my office. I was bored and irritated with the entire business of running an empire. Sure, it had sounded like fun, but I’d been having far too many days like this one. It wasn’t that nothing got done, but rather that it was a joyless affair.

  Jasmine followed me out and caught up with me at the elevators. She touched my elbow, and I softened.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “Me, too. I understand the stresses you must be under. Running a planet is difficult for anyone.”

  “I’ve run them before, that’s the funny thing. Out in the Eden system it seemed far easier. Everyone was open to new ideas. They went where I wanted them to go and made farms and towns grow.”

  “Maybe it was a natural pioneering spirit,” she suggested.

  “Not just that. They weren’t entrenched in tradition, jealousy and the like. The people of Earth have baggage in everything they do. They aren’t united—not really. The minute the aliens aren’t visible in our skies, we start fighting over scraps like a screaming mass of baboons on top of a heap of bananas.”

  She smiled at my over-the-top analogy.

  “Do baboons even like bananas?” she asked.

  “I have no idea,” I admitted, chuckling.

  We got into the elevator and touched the buttons to send us gliding downward. I would have preferred simple grav-tubes like the ones we had on our larger ships, but the elevators were a tradition on Earth and they made my countless visitors feel more at home.

  On impulse, I grabbed Jasmine and kissed her. She resisted for a second, then melted. I knew she wasn’t fully happy with me yet, but she didn’t seem openly angry, just disappointed.

  We didn’t get to finish our short kiss before things went very wrong.

  We were standing there in the elevator with our lips locked together when the little gold statue shaped like my head imploded, crushed by fantastical gravitational forces. Essentially a tiny black hole—one no bigger than a pinpoint—appeared momentarily inside my office and sucked everything around it inward, compressing matter and rupturing even the atmosphere inside the building itself.

  -2-

  Jasmine and I didn’t know what had hit us. The implosion came first, followed almost instantaneously by an explosion as the gravity effect that had unexpectedly manifested in my office faded from existence. After the initial sucking force released its grip, the compressed matter expanded again with great violence. This was worse than the implosion itself had been. In space, there wouldn’t have been as large an area of effect, but with an atmosphere present to carry a shockwave, the entire building was affected. The personnel in the building could feel rumbling aftershocks for several long seconds after the initial strike registered.

  Jasmine and I didn’t know any of this at the time. We assumed something had hit the building as we rode the elevator to the lobby.

  The lights in the elevator flickered, and we went into free-fall. The cables had been severed by flying metal shards from the explosion in my offices. Fortunately, the elevators weren’t antiquated equipment. They had emergency braking shoes which caught and shrieked as we fell all the way to the lobby. They were smoking hot by the time we reached the lobby, but we were alive.

  The elevator doors were stuck closed, and I tried to force them open. I grunted, denting the thin metal with my hands as I strained to force it open. If I’d had a battle suit on, it would have been easy. But without metal claws the jammed door resisted my efforts.

  “Was it a bomb?” I asked Jasmine over my shoulder.

  She was already talking rapidly into her com-link with the operations people. If anyone knew what the hell had hit us, she would find them.

  Jasmine shook her head at me, frowning. “We don’t know yet. I’ve confirmed it was some kind of explosion—possibly a device went off inside the building.”

  “Great,” I said. “I thought my assassination worries were over when we killed Crow. Maybe I’ve got a new enemy.”

  She was back on the com-link. I continued trying to force the doors open. I had them about two inches apart, and I could see the lobby now. There were people streaming out of the doors. They weren’t panicked, but they were moving quickly. Star Force people, government officials and reporters were all getting their exercise today.

  “Well, I don’t see any flames out there, and the street outside looks normal. It must have been a small, localized strike.”

  Jasmine put her hand on my bicep. “You’re just cutting up your palms on that metal.”

  “They’ll heal,” I said, forcing the doors apart another inch or so.

  “Kyle, I’ve called in an extraction team. Let’s wait here until they arrive.”

  I finally looked at her. “You did what? I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Someone is trying to kill you. We need to pull you out.”

  I frowned at her. “What else do you know?”

  She licked her lips quickly, looked down, then back into my face. “The effect—whatever it was—the effect was centered on your offices.”

  “Ah,” I said, getting it now. “They did try to hit me—whoever ‘they’ are this time. Well, I’m not sitting in this box any longer.”

  “Kyle, we have to get out of the region. We should leave Earth entirely.”

  “There are people upstairs, probably injured and in trouble. I don’t feel like running out on them because some loser failed to blow me up.”

  “Kyle, please be reasonable.”

  I wasn’t in a reasonable mood, I’d be the first to admit that. I was angry, surprised,
and I realized as well that I was enjoying myself. It had been so long since I’d been allowed to do anything personally—anything that I could solve with my hands rather than giving orders.

  As the elevator car was seriously jammed, I figured I had only two options: I could hammer the doors down with my fists, or I could exit through the access panel on the roof. I chose the roof, figuring it would be easier.

  I jumped up, punching out the square panel. It crumpled and flew away into the dark shaft above. A black square appeared, showing a smoking gloom beyond. I jumped again, and shot out through the opening.

  Any Star Force Marine could have done the same. We’re nanotized, meaning our bodies are enhanced with muscular and regenerative improvements. We move quickly, we’re extremely strong, and we heal unnaturally fast. We’re akin to men walking on the Moon when under Earth’s gravitational forces. We could take flying leaps if we felt like it.

  Right now, I was in the mood to use my body to its fullest. I climbed up the elevator shaft walls. They were ribbed with girders and a steel framework. I climbed these as fast as an ape could zoom up a tree. Behind me, Jasmine stood on the elevator car roof, calling upward. I think she was demanding I come back down, but as the ruler of Earth, I figured I had privileges in situations like this. To be exact: I didn’t always have to listen to my girlfriend.

  I heard her lower her voice as I reached the eighth floor. She was talking, but more quietly. I knew she would be telling the extraction team where I was and how to intercept me.

  For some reason, this ticked me off. I entertained the thought of stripping off my com-link and tossing it down the shaft, but didn’t. Mostly, because it was a stupid idea. I might even hit Jasmine, and even if I didn’t, it would be reckless to disconnect myself from Star Force. I kept the com-link on, and I kept climbing.

  There was an emergency panel on the fourteenth floor. That was about five or six floors below my offices, but it would have to do. I kicked it out and entered the hallway beyond.

  The fourteenth floor was smoky and empty. There was heat in the air, and I had to clear my throat repeatedly as I was breathing in the hot particles we call smoke. I could take an unusual amount of this sort of thing as I’d been specifically rebuilt for alien atmospheres. I didn’t enjoy choking clouds of vapor, but they couldn’t suffocate me.

  I headed toward the stairway, where I met up with the first group of survivors. They were rushing down the steps, their eyes wide and their lungs spasming with deep coughs. I went against the press, heading upward while everyone else was going down.

  A few of them recognized me, I think. They looked shocked to begin with, but their mouths hung open in disbelief when they saw my face. I had to wonder what I looked like. I took a moment to feel my cheeks and see if there were any open wounds. Sometimes, being nanotized made you look like an alien to normal people. There might be gaping injuries you hardly noticed and gleaming metal moving inside the wounds as if you’d slathered your cuts with bubbling hot mercury. Just seeing one of us in such a state could freak out the uninitiated.

  But I didn’t find any hideous wounds. I had a few scrapes, and my hands were dribbling blood, but otherwise I felt fine. My nanocloth clothing wasn’t in bad shape either, having reknit itself together along the way.

  I shrugged and pressed my way past the gawking crowd. I guess they were just surprised to see their ruler running around on the stairway.

  I made my way to the top floors where my offices were. I wanted to see what had happened firsthand. There were a lot of good people up there, and I wanted to do a headcount personally.

  After a minute or so of springing up the steps, I came out near my office suite. Here, the trouble wasn’t just smoke. There was open flame, too. I found my first body huddled under a desk in the front office. She was dead. A civilian who couldn’t take the smoke inhalation.

  What had her name been? Beatrice, I think? Something like that. I recalled she was a Swiss girl.

  I cursed and moved on. The next one was male, a big guy who was face down in the middle of the hallway with a chunk of metal sticking out of his back. He’d been hit by flying debris.

  The temperature was pretty high by the time I reached the room where I’d been arguing with Miklos and Jasmine not fifteen minutes ago. I shielded my face with my arm and felt the heat of the flames cooking my flesh through the nanocloth of my uniform. Even I couldn’t withstand temperatures over two hundred degrees for any length of time. I walked in, took video of the place with my com-link and picked up a few odds and ends to salvage. Then I retreated. I searched the rest of the floor, but found no more survivors. It was depressing.

  As I came out of the oven-like central offices, the marines showed up. These weren’t the color-guard types we had down in the lobby. They were assault troops, the kind that jumped out of spaceships on purpose.

  “Sir?” the leader greeted me. “I’m here to escort you out of here.”

  I looked at him. He was wearing light armor—they all were. His faceplate obscured his features, but I knew that voice.

  “Gaines?” I asked. “Is that you in there, Major?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Major Bjorn Gaines was a good friend of mine. I was glad to see he’d responded to the call personally, and I wasn’t surprised. He was stocky black guy who often headed up Star Force’s ground troops.

  I looked around at the destruction. “Some mess, isn’t it? A shame that good people had to die here.”

  “Sir, if we could get moving…I have airlift ready on the roof.”

  “Yeah. All right. I’d hoped I could save someone. I can’t even find that gold statue the Turks gave me today.”

  “Excuse me, Colonel?”

  “Forget it,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  I made it halfway up the stairs when I realized that I’d pretty much left Jasmine alone in the elevator car. I winced at the thought. Leaving your girl in danger wasn’t the best way to cement a relationship. I halted, and Gaines halted with me.

  “Hold on,” I said. “I’ve got to go back to the lobby.”

  “What for, sir?” Gaines asked. He looked exasperated but he wasn’t rolling his eyes at me yet.

  “I have to get Jasmine out of the elevator.”

  He stared at me for a second. “You just left her back there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We can go get her, sir. I’ll send a team right away. The airlift is—”

  “No,” I said. “I’m not going to fly out. You know women as well as I do, Bjorn. I’m going back.”

  He sighed and followed me. He didn’t bother arguing further. Gaines knew me pretty well. Once I had an idea in my head, I didn’t let go of it easily.

  As we jogged down the stairs, I planned my speech to Jasmine. I had to have an angle to play on. It’d been too long to get away with something like: “It just took longer than I thought to get through the shaft.”

  When we got there, I was sort of hoping someone had already rescued Jasmine, but I wasn’t so lucky. The lobby had emptied out, and the rescue teams were either engaged with the injured outside, or they were worried about me.

  I eyed Gaines’ men—or more specifically, their equipment. I found a nice prying bar on one of them, pulled it off his pack without asking and opened up the elevator door like a tin can. The metal peeled back with loud groaning noises.

  I put my face up to the aperture and peered inside. Jasmine was gone.

  “Damn,” I said. “She must have gone up the shaft after me. Help me get this open wide enough to squeeze through.”

  Gaines put a hand on my shoulder. “We can do it, sir. You should really let us evac you out of here and let the rescue team do their jobs.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I know I should. But if this is a rescue, I want her to see my face first when we find her.”

  “Okay, you’re the boss.”

  We tore the elevator apart, and I called up out of the hole in the top. It was dark and quiet up there, and she
didn’t answer. I tried her com link, but still, there was nothing.

  I frowned, getting worried. I shot up through the hole, alarming the evac team. They scrambled to follow me.

  When I found her at last, she was breaking into an office through a ventilation shaft. She was nanotized and strong, but stuck in a small space. She’d had a hard time getting enough leverage to bang her way through the metal shaft and the ceiling. I pulled her out by the feet.

  “Hi, hon!” I said in a cheery tone.

  She looked stunned. “I didn’t know what had happened to you!”

  “I came back for you,” I said, “but you were gone.”

  She was coughing, but gave me a flickering smile. “Well, did you expect me to sit in there forever?”

  “Not glad to see me?”

  She looked over my shoulder at the evac people. Gaines waved impatiently for us to follow him.

  “I was hoping no one would find me in this shaft,” she whispered. “I got stuck.”

  I laughed. “That’s why you weren’t answering your com-link?”

  She shrugged.

  “Pride goeth before a fall. Let’s get out of here.”

  She grabbed onto me before we left the dark shaft and gave me a quick kiss. “I’m glad it was you who came back and pulled me out, Kyle.”

  I beamed. Bingo. I’d pulled it off.

  “Of course it was me! I’m sorry, too, that it took so long. I found a few casualties on the way.”

  “Any survivors?”

  I shook my head. “Not on my floor. None of my staffers made it.”

  “The roof, sir?” Gaines asked urgently.

  We were standing in the lobby by this time, and I saw the streets outside were filling up with news people. Their camera drones hovered behind them like buzzing wasps.

  I shook my head. “Bring the airlift down from the roof five minutes from now.”