Star Force 10: Outcast Read online

  Once at the Academy, I found an empty room in the dorms and slept until late the next morning.

  The grounds of the Star Force Academy in summertime were sparsely populated. My friends had scattered across the globe after graduation. There was no one to talk to. The only thing that made sense now was to go home, so I called a cab to take me to the airport. With modern repeller-powered suborbital transport, I arrived back in California within two hours.

  Mom greeted me with a sad face and a hug, Dad with a handshake and a backslap. I’d sent them a message so they knew the basics, but I hadn’t felt like talking about it on the way. I appreciated their sympathetic eyes, but I didn’t really want any part of a feelings-dump right now, especially with my mother. Maybe some other time, but not now.

  Dad understood, I think. He’d seen plenty of death, and he knew how to handle it. All he did was jerk his head toward the man-cave in the basement where a fridge full of beer and a cabinet of harder stuff awaited us. Somewhere, long after a dozen, I passed out. He left me sleeping on an old familiar sofa.

  The next day I did it again, and then the next, until I got a message from Adrienne. Staring at my phone through bleary eyes, I realized I hadn’t even said goodbye to her, but it didn’t seem important that day. I’d been stunned. The text of her message told me the time and date of Olivia’s funeral, which was tomorrow. I thought about calling her, but in the end I just sent her a short note saying I’d be there.

  Sobering up after three days sucked, but it had to be done. Getting nanotized guys like me and my dad drunk was harder than normal. On the other hand, I never had much of a hangover. A long hot shower and a ten-mile run fixed me right up. Slowing to a jog at its end, I noticed my father working outside. I walked over to him.

  “What the hell am I going to do now, Dad?” I asked him as he tinkered with one of the farm’s tractors.

  “What do you want to do?”

  My fists balled up and my jaw clenched. “I want to hunt them down—whoever did this.”

  “What’s stopping you?”

  I stared at him. “I’m a Star Force officer now. I can’t just go kicking down doors and making waves.”

  “What else do you think Star Force officers are supposed to do?”

  “It’s not like the old days, Dad. We have rules, and I’m not the supreme commander.”

  He shook his head. “To hell with the rules, boy. If someone had taken a shot at me and it was your mother lying dead, what would you expect me to do?”

  I saw his point. Something hot within me flared up. “I’d expect you to kick down doors and make waves. Like when Sandra…”

  Dad showed his teeth. “Now you’re talking. You’re a Riggs, son. Bend the rules or break them if you have to. I’ll back you up or bail you out. I still have a few favors to call in.”

  Pride in my name and Dad’s confidence in me surged in my heart. He was right. I had to do something. If they court-martialed me, I could always come back and work on the farm after I got out of prison. I drew myself up, taking a ragged breath. “Thanks, Dad. That’s what I’m going to do.”

  I packed a bag and, after hugging Mom one last time, hopped the next suborbital back to the UK. Adrienne picked me up at the sub-orbital spaceport.

  “How’re you holding up?” I said as I tossed my bag into the back seat and climbed into the car.

  “Fine,” Adrienne lied. “Sorry it had to be me picking you up. Father has all the staff working on the…” She swallowed a lump in her throat, “…the funeral.”

  “No problem.”

  I kept glancing at her, and she finally noticed.

  “What is it?” Adrienne asked gently.

  “Just the absurdity of life. Self-pity, maybe, I don’t know. Nothing seems real with her gone and now you...you’re like her ghost, sitting here, alive.”

  “I think I know what you mean. I also wish she were still here.”

  “Adrienne…” I turned to look at her profile, so much like Olivia’s. “Has your father found anything out?”

  “He won’t tell me.” Adrienne slammed a palm against the steering wheel. “He thinks he’s protecting me. I just wish we could do something.” She glanced over at me. “Maybe he’ll talk to you.”

  “He’d better.”

  “Don’t push too hard. You know how he is.”

  I didn’t answer. I’d push him as hard as I saw fit. I needed to know.

  Once we arrived at her family’s estate, she showed me to a room. I hardly unpacked as I had something else on my mind already.

  Olivia’s memorial service proceeded in the stately manner I had expected it to. I’d tossed a red rose onto the casket as it was lowered into the ground, but found I was too angry to shed tears.

  Afterward, everyone sipped tea and nibbled numbly on hors d’oeuvres mumbling kind words that eased their grief but not mine. Later, I slipped away to my room, feeling no connection to these people, save Adrienne. As the sole remaining woman of the family, she stayed busy mingling and accepting endless condolences.

  Eventually the visitors left. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, but it had to start with the yacht and figuring out what had happened. It was probably too soon, but I couldn’t wait, so I hunted down Lord Grantham. A servant showed me to his study where he sat behind a desk reading a report, a pot of tea at his elbow.

  “Yes, Riggs, what is it?” His voice hovered between coldly polite and abrupt.

  “I’d like to know what you’ve uncovered, sir.”

  “The investigation is still ongoing.” He closed the file he was looking at.

  “I’d appreciate something more than that, sir.”

  Lord Grantham’s face hardened. “You’ll be told what you need to know when you need to know it. All I will tell you is that I still suspect sabotage and an attempt on your life.”

  Dealing with powerful men like this was always tricky. If you were of lower status, you were expected to shut up and do as you were told. However, I wasn’t one of his lackeys, and my family name was just as prestigious as his.

  “Sir, I can’t just hang around doing nothing. I’m a Star Force officer just like Olivia was. I need to do something, to be involved. Put me to work on the investigation, or at least give me a general idea of what you’ve found.”

  “Riggs, I have employed two dozen professionals to look into this matter not to mention the security services and the police. There is really nothing you can do. Not to put too fine a point on it, your ties to this family were broken when my daughter died. Now, I will thank you to stay out of the way. Good day.”

  “But—”

  “Good day to you, sir.” His voice was steel.

  Keeping tight control of my temper, I wheeled and marched out of the room. Seething, I wandered the corridors of the mansion, drawing curious glances from the servants. I found several men drinking and smoking in the billiards room, a post-funeral wake, I suppose. Inviting myself to the bar, if not to their company, I swallowed one shot of fine single-malt after another, hardly tasting the liquor.

  I couldn’t see why Lord Grantham was shutting me out. He’d always treated me with courtesy before. Although I'd always suspected he had reservations about my suitability as a husband for Olivia. A thought flitted through my mind: was it within the realm of possibility that he himself had tried to kill me?

  The idea had a certain logic to it, but I eventually dismissed it for three reasons. First, doing it aboard his own yacht would automatically make him a suspect. Dad had told me he’d made a call to a friend in the world government’s security services, so that angle was covered. Second, trying to kill me seemed too extreme for a guy with so much to lose. It wasn’t like I was some gold-digging bum trying to get a piece of the inheritance. Third, too many things could have, and in fact did, go wrong. I couldn’t see him putting Olivia at risk that way.

  That was the last coherent train of thought I had before the numbness of alcohol overcame my frustration and I found my way to my room
to sleep.

  -4-

  I woke in the middle of the night with a clear head and the vague beginnings of a plan. Dressing and packing my bag, I slipped out into the hall and shut my door as quietly as possible. I’d left my shoes off so I padded silently down the corridors counting turns and doors until I came to the one I wanted.

  Raising my hand to knock, I paused and instead tried the handle. The door opened smoothly, and I slipped inside. Moonlight shone in the high windows and fell on Adrienne’s sleeping form.

  Suddenly, she sat up. “Riggs?” she hissed, turning on the bedside lamp and clutching the blanket to her chest.

  “That’s me.”

  “What the bloody hell are you doing in my room?”

  “Coming to see you.” I set my bag down and took a seat in a richly upholstered chair near her bed.

  “This had better not be some twisted romantic fantasy of yours—of me replacing Olivia.”

  I held up my hands. “No, no, Adrienne. I just want to find out what’s going on, but your father is freezing me out.”

  “You could have come talk to me a bit earlier, instead of the middle of the night, before you decided to go get drunk. Yes, I saw you in the parlor, sucking on that bottle.”

  “Well, I’m sober now, I’m here, and I need you.”

  “Riggs—”

  “Not that way. Just listen, will you? Tell me what you know. I mean, you must have heard something.”

  “I’m not supposed to talk about it. Besides, it’s little enough.”

  “Tell me,” I said, insisting.

  “There is one thing I overheard. An investigator said the bomb had been perfectly calculated to kill whoever was in your stateroom but not endanger the rest of the ship.”

  I nodded. “Then it was an assassination attempt for sure.”

  “I believe so.”

  Leaning forward, I stared into her face. “In the car, you said you wanted to do something. Did you mean it?”

  “Bloody well right I did.”

  “Then get dressed. You have to help me get aboard the yacht.”

  “Why? You think you’ll find something the others missed?”

  “No. I want to steal it and fly to where Olivia wanted to go. It’s my only lead.”

  That stopped her. She stared at me, open-mouthed.

  “Are you having me on?”

  “I’m serious.”

  Her face grew thoughtful then she said, “If you want my help, I’m going too.”

  “Hell no. I already got Olivia killed, and I’m not risking you.”

  “That’s not up to you, Cody Riggs. It’s my father’s yacht, my biometrics that will activate it, and you don’t even know where she was taking you.”

  My eyes narrowed. “And you do?”

  “She was my sister. Of course I knew. We talked every day, nearly.”

  “So where are we headed?”

  Adrienne shook her head. “I’ll tell you only once we’re on our way. I’ve heard about you. You’ll drop me in a ditch and steal my ship otherwise.”

  “People often make up stories about me. Being named Riggs is a curse sometimes. Just get me aboard and let me go.”

  She shook her head and crossed her arms under her breasts stubbornly. We glared at each other for a moment, and I did not get the impression she was going to give in.

  “Hell, I don’t have time for this,” I said. “Okay, you win. Pack a bag and let’s go.”

  To Adrienne’s credit, she packed quickly. Soon she was dressed in traveling clothes with a backpack over one shoulder. We slipped through the mansion unnoticed and out the back door. Adrienne stopped us for a moment on the patio. We watched as a security guard strolled by. Then we hurried quietly across the wet lawn into a nearby copse of trees. Nobody ever looks for people trying to leave a guarded place.

  On the other side, I led her down the path to the yacht’s cradle next to the small lake. Adrienne placed her hand against the recognition plate near the main hatch, and it opened.

  Once inside, I insisted Adrienne give me command authority right away. Not being able to give instructions to this ship had cost me valuable time in an emergency. That was one mistake I wasn’t going to make again. I also checked the new autodoc to make sure it was fully stocked with medical supplies.

  “You sure you don’t want to be nanotized before we go?” I asked her.

  She rubbed her arms and shivered though it was not cold. “No. I never liked the idea of things running around inside me no matter how beneficial.”

  I didn’t argue with her as I needed her cooperation and we had to get away before we got caught. I ran through the standard preflight checklist as fast as I could. I was cursing the delay but wasn’t willing to take unwarranted chances. I confirmed all damage had been repaired by a combination of replacement parts, constructive nanites and smart metal reprogramming. Lastly, I turned off the transponder so we couldn’t be tracked.

  Then we lifted as quietly as possible. We rose straight up smoothly, the porpoise-bodied yacht shoving the atmosphere aside easily as its powerful repellers accelerated us to just under Mach One. We could have pushed through the sound barrier using the engines, but I didn’t want to cause a sonic boom. We might as well try to get as far away as possible before Lord Grantham found out what we’d done.

  “I assume we’re heading for the orbital refueling station?” she said as I nudged the controls.

  “Yes,” I said. “The bomb had to have been placed there.”

  “I agree, because Father has had the estate security video gone over with a fine-toothed comb and there’s nothing. The brainbox readout showed a small mass gain discrepancy upon Greyhound’s departure from the station. Just a few pounds, not enough mass to trigger an alarm.”

  “Maybe that’s why the bomb was small. Anything larger and it would have been detected.”

  “That’s what I believe.”

  I looked at her in delayed surprise. “So you do know some things about the investigation?”

  Adrienne shrugged. “Well, now that we’ve nicked Father’s yacht anyway…I’ll admit I eavesdropped as much as I could.”

  “Good.” I smiled at her as the yacht climbed upward like an old-style rocket minus the blast, slowly accelerating as the air thinned. In two minutes we gained the edge of space, and in twenty minutes more we would be at the orbital truck stop where ships topped off before heading out into the black.

  Adrienne asked, “So what are we going to do at the station? Father’s people have already interviewed the crew and sequestered the records.” She turned from the nano-glass windshield to stare directly at me.

  “We’re not going to the station to investigate. Whoever planted the bomb is long gone, and like you said, the pros have been all over it. No, we just need to top off our fuel, like anyone else would when heading out on a long trip. I don’t want to have to stop later on and get impounded.”

  It wasn’t long before we reached the refueling station. This time I told the brainbox to be especially vigilant and report any anomalies. Everything went smoothly, without the bumps and thumps I remembered from last time. Snapping my fingers, I said, “Did they interview the pilot who flew us up to this point last time?”

  “Yes, he’s clean. Worked for us for years.”

  I twisted my lips into a grimace. That would have been too easy. Still, the look he had given me as he left had seemed suspicious in retrospect.

  With refueling completed, I eased Greyhound away and along the same flight path we had taken before, but this time I went at a normal acceleration so as not to draw attention. I aimed at the Tyche ring that led to Alpha Centauri.

  Adrienne turned her copilot’s chair toward me once more. “So, hotshot, how are we going to get through the ring without Star Force intercepting us?”

  “I thought we’d just blast through at high speed. I’ll broadcast that you and I are aboard so they won’t fire on us even if they could catch us. There’s just no way to stop a ship in
space without violence, and I’m betting they won’t be willing to do that.”

  “But they could follow and apprehend us when we get to where we’re going.”

  “Yeah,” I sighed. “I’m not sure how I’m going to handle that, but I’ll think of something. By the way, where are we going?”

  “The Thor system. But actually, you don’t have to think of anything.” Adrienne smiled impishly at me.

  I raised one eyebrow. “I don’t?”

  “I left Father a note telling him what we did, and not to report us if he ever wants to talk to me again. As far as everyone else is concerned, we’re just rich space tourists.”

  Spontaneously I grinned at her. “You got balls, girl, just like…” Horrified, I bit my tongue.

  Adrienne coughed. “Just like Olivia, you were saying?”

  “God, I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s all right. She was brilliant. I loved her, and you did too. Why would it bother me to be compared to her?”

  I tried to detect any edge of bitterness in her voice, but found none, only the tinge of grief. Even so, I resolved to be more careful about what I said.

  We passed through the ring without slowing, after getting clearance from the control station there. This allowed us to maintain our speed, and even accelerate once we’d reached Alpha Centauri. In this way, we transited the distance through several rings all the way to Thor. Adrienne and I spent the days talking in circles endlessly discussing every aspect of what had happened and who might be behind it. But we really didn’t have enough facts.

  I kept trying to get her to tell me exactly where we were going, but she always declined with a smile. I guess she liked the air of mystery, though it was driving me nuts. I again raised the issue of her taking the nanite treatments, pointing out that if Olivia had been nanotized, she might have survived. Adrienne still refused.

  At last we came to the end of the line of linked star systems. We reached the Thor ring and passed through it. A binary star system, Thor had been home to the Crustaceans before the vicious battles that had rendered their three water moons uninhabitable.