Dark Beyond the Stars Read online

  Still, even though I know it’s pointless to argue with an adjutant, I can’t just leave it. I’m out here alone, so I either bitch to this guy or shout at the walls once the communication ends.

  “Better yet,” I say, struggling to keep my voice level, “why not waive the testing as I suggested? Just this once? The current chronotron readings originate within a single country. We don’t have to pull XE7 in as full Alliance members. We could just approach them and—”

  “The Alliance does not deal with partial members. Ever. If the people of the planet cannot come together, if they cannot be united against this trial attack by us, they will not be useful allies against the Lor.”

  “But we don’t need them as allies. The only thing they have of real importance is that one bit of technology! Could you let me speak with Bayd—with Vosht Baydel, please?”

  “The Voshti have ruled,” he says with a tight-lipped smile. “Please submit an attack plan to the Adjutants’ Office prior to your next sleep cycle.”

  And then the adjutant is gone, too.

  Chapter 2

  Elisi Shuttle Alar

  Date: 9023.20.08

  “I’ll talk to you soon, okay? I love you.”

  I’m maybe twenty seconds away from depleting my remaining personal communications allowance for the entire trip. That means my journey back to our nearest outpost—seven full cycles—will be long and lonely. But I needed to see what’s left of my family. To listen to my youngest talk about his final round of training before entering the sector guard, something I know he’s dreading, even if he won’t admit it. To see my daughter hold her little one up to the comm, as I once held her up to talk to my own mother.

  To remind myself what’s at stake.

  The grubby face of my youngest grandchild disappears and is briefly replaced by my daughter’s. Her expression is solemn. She’s about to tell me—again—that I must be careful, must avoid any unnecessary risks. Before she can launch into her plea, however, the comm flickers again and all I see is the shuttle wall.

  Family visits help. But they’re still no substitute for talking things through with Ryn.

  An orange light flashes just inside my peripheral vision. I’ve ignored this message from the Voshti twice while talking to my family, mostly because I’m almost certain what it will say. Ignoring the signal three times would be pushing my luck.

  When I open the comm, the adjutant—a different one, but then it’s always a different one—says exactly what I expected. “Proctor Alta, the plan you submitted to the Voshti does not meet the criteria for a Level Three test. Please revise based on the figures we’ve provided you.”

  I can’t really protest, because I know it’s an accurate assessment. The plan I submitted was Level Two at best, and was really nothing more than a last-ditch effort to get the Voshti to reassess the full mission specs. I thought if they looked through everything again, maybe one of them would decide that my original idea to simply acquire the technology without the Testing, without offering a full planetary alliance, had merit.

  But no. They simply kicked the plan back, upping the total number of targets to twenty.

  Disgusted, I close the comm, grabbing water and a food packet from the bin under my bunk. I don’t even check to see what packet I’m getting. There are only a few varieties, all equally bland. Most of the full-sized ships still have actual food instead of these little pouches of blah, but there’s not much worth eating these days even when I’m docked. The Lor are blocking the key agricultural routes. Judging from the taste of everything I’ve eaten in the past year, I suspect they’re blocking the spice routes, too.

  In an Elisi shuttle, at least there’d be a small food processing unit. Everything would still taste like mud, but it would be hot. I’d also have room to walk around, stretch my limbs a bit. The Lor, however, apparently eschew such luxuries. This is my first trip in one of the Lor shuttles, captured last year—one of the few recent victories in our column. It’s really little more than a pod, with a living area maybe half the size of my bedroom at home. If I stretch my arms wide, I can almost touch both sides of the cabin.

  A few of the proctors refuse to travel in these Lor shuttles. One said it reminded her of a coffin. It is a bit claustrophobic, and I suspect it would be even worse for a two-person crew. But the team that retrofitted these shuttles for Elisi use claim the Lor chose the simpler, more compact design in order to devote more resources toward speed and cloaking. All things considered, I’ll take that trade, since it cuts down my travel time and keeps me from triggering any planetary defenses.

  And even though these rations are cold and tasteless, at least they contain a stimulant. Hopefully, it’ll be strong enough to prevent me from nodding off before I come up with something that works for the Voshti without weighing too heavily on my conscience.

  According to the Voshti requirements, I have to select twenty targets on XE7: six within the United States, four within China, four in the European Union, three in South Asia, and two in the African Union. The final target is left to my personal discretion, like it’s a bonus for good behavior.

  Once they approve my attack plan and I carry it out, my main task will be to sit back and observe the reactions. If the governments can reach a consensus that the attack came from outside their planet, if they can actually wrap their heads around that possibility and unite to address the threat, then my job is done. The Elisi diplomats will sweep in at that point, blame the attack on the Lor, and offer membership in the Alliance and all the protection that brings. Which, to be honest, isn’t much these days.

  On the other hand, if the governments fail to reach a consensus that the attack is extraterrestrial, the planet will be added to the list of requisition targets. The Elisi military will sweep in and take what we need. There will be no offer of protection, and little concern about limiting casualties.

  The Voshti-provided dossier on XE7 is comprehensive, with detailed background information on just over fifty potential locations in various countries. But it was compiled before the war began. I know this for certain, because Ryn was on that team. And since I think recent data is more likely to result in fewer casualties, I move the shuttle into range of their communication signals before dropping into orbit.

  Once my files are reasonably current, I steal another glance over at the comm console, trying to resist the temptation. Running the simulation is a crutch. I promised myself I wouldn’t do it more than once per mission, and this will be the third time.

  Maybe I should have let them assign me a new partner. Solitude is kind of nice on a short hop, but this is three times longer than the other solo trip I took, and Ryn was worried I might go a little stir-crazy on that one. Thus, the sim-scan. He joked about bottling himself so I’d have someone to yell at when I was half a sector away.

  The scan doesn’t even run very well out here on this ancient Lor-built simsystem that someone had to hack before it would run our files at all. The Ryn I’m considering pulling up will be fuzzy, blurred around the edges. The image will break up when he moves and his responses will be delayed. Sometimes he’ll say things that make me wonder if the system is tapping into his personality profile at all.

  The voice is his, though. And that’s what I need right now.

  Talking aloud to the simulation is a risky, but I’m past the point of worrying about whether I move up in rank. The worst that’s likely to happen is that someone bitches me out for wasting resources, but I seriously doubt I’m the only offender in that regard. Ryn said one of the other proctors boasted last year about the sexual simulations he brings along to keep him company on longer missions. I’m positive those gobble energy much faster than my bad habit.

  Screw it. I can sit here all night debating the pros and cons, but the end result will be the same. I need company. I need his company, even if it isn’t real.

  “Alta 493.” I pause until I hear a faint beep indicating that my id is accepted. “Load revised data on XE7 into sim Ryn002, a
nd then run.”

  It takes several seconds to load, and I close my eyes while I wait. It always feels more real that way, like I’m just napping and he’s there when I wake up.

  I open my eyes to see Ryn leaning against the shuttle wall, wearing the smile I could never say no to, the smile that is almost entirely responsible for our three children.

  His brow creases. “Sorry I woke you. You look like you need the rest. Are you having trouble sleeping?”

  “I’d be sleeping a lot better if the Voshti would pay attention to my recommendations. They have plenty of adjutants who could determine the locations and pick the attack order. Why send me out here if they’re going to ignore everything I say?”

  Ryn laughs. That part of the simulation is correct. He would have laughed. It’s just that the sim version laughs a bit too long.

  “You know the bureaucrats are just covering their asses, babe. The testing manual says locations and blast order will be determined in the field by a trained proctor, so they’ll make you keep running numbers until you spit out something they like. Have you picked the targets yet?”

  “Yeah, ten of them. But they’ve declared the planet Level Three, so I’m supposed to double it.”

  Ryn is as familiar as I am with the long, convoluted process for selecting the specific targets for these tests. Several dozen factors must be assigned a numerical weight, but really, it comes down to just three things, in descending order of importance.

  The first factor is whether it will pack a gut punch. We pick iconic locations, places that evoke an emotional response, with bonus points if the destruction will stir up existing national or religious rivalries.

  The second factor, which a lot of people have been damned near ignoring of late, is whether the target is “clean”—outside major population centers, in locations mostly uninhabited for at least part of the day, or simply small enough that there’s little chance that a carefully targeted laser will result in heavy casualties.

  The third and final factor is the age of the target. Things that are either modern or simply constructed are much easier for us to help them repair or rebuild if they join the Alliance.

  “You told them about the chronotron readings,” Ryn says. “Why are you surprised that they’d want a rigorous test? Wirth must have been salivating at the very idea that we could change the damage this war has caused. Our losses have grown throughout the sector. We’re bleeding out, Mila. If that device can stanch our losses a bit, or even better, prevent the Lor from starting the war in the first place, then—”

  “I know, okay? I know!” I don’t add that the losses are even greater today than two years ago when the sim-scan was collected. I don’t add that he’d be alive, and I wouldn’t be reduced to yelling at this Ryn-who-isn’t-really-Ryn. Who laughs a little too long and a little too loud. A Ryn I can’t touch.

  I take a deep breath. “I know all that. But, Ryn, between us, we’ve handled—” I stop just short of saying twenty-eight missions, because that would confuse him. Four of my missions are recent, after his shuttle was reported missing. “We’ve handled twenty-four missions, right? How many resulted in a new alliance?”

  “All but three.”

  “Maybe a thousand separate governments between them, right?” When he nods, I continue. “Of all those governments, how many valued their monuments and buildings above the lives of their own people?”

  “No more than five percent, I’d say. But Mila, that’s not the point—”

  “Yes. It’s exactly the point. We both know the likelihood of trouble increases pretty much in direct proportion to the body count we rack up during these tests. When we first started, there were no lies. The diplomats admitted everything when the planet joined the Alliance. But now that we have these shuttles, now that we have a way to conveniently blame everything on the Lor, no one seems to care if the body count goes up a bit. After all, you wouldn’t want it to be too low, otherwise they won’t be as scared. They won’t be willing to give up the resources we need.”

  Ryn closes his eyes briefly, then gives me a rueful smile that makes him look achingly real, at least until he moves his hand and the image flickers. “Let’s work through the locations you’ve got,” he says. “Find a compromise.”

  I spend the rest of the evening bouncing ideas off my partner, just as I’ve done for the better part of my life. If I don’t look at him too often, if I just listen, I can almost forget that he’s missing-presumed-dead. I can almost believe that the Voshti already have this time travel device in hand and they’ve altered our reality to one where there’s a future I actually look forward to.

  “This cluster of pyramids in the northern part of the African continent…” Ryn pauses to check the name. “North African Union. They’re considered ancient wonders, but some are already damaged.”

  He nods toward an image of an odd creature. It has a quadrupedal body with a humanoid head, except it’s missing a nose.

  “Mark it as a maybe,” I say. “But why don’t we add some more walls instead? Those are easy to repair. The one in China has been patched up many times.” I pull the targeting pad toward me and enter in a string of numbers. The view shifts to a mountainous area where a reddish-brown wall is the only break in the tree cover. “This is the Mutianyu section. It’s remote, so we can take out a good-sized chunk, probably without any casualties—”

  “Or you could strike closer to an urban center, end up with a few casualties, and maybe still keep your job?”

  I ignore him and leave the coordinates in place. Would Ryn have made that comment? I don’t know. To an extent he’s right, and the next proctor they hire might be the type who’d blast craters in major cities, taking out hundreds. And he or she might not leave hints like I do, clues that will help them put the pieces together, to realize that they’re being tested.

  “The next one,” I say. “The wall in Jerusalem. It’s a densely populated area, where political and religious tensions have run high for much of this world’s recorded history. Maybe I could double up. Hit a section of the Walls of Jerusalem and also that gold-domed structure behind it. Two different religions there, and they’ve rarely been friendly. That way, we’ll tap into those animosities. Stir things up a little. Make Vosht Baydel and his friends happy.”

  I enter the coordinates, and we continue down the list, targeting two ceremonial gates and three bridges. When I suggest a fourth, Ryn rolls his eyes.

  “What? I like bridges. Any debris tumbles into the water, and I can usually plan the attack for a time when traffic is light.”

  “I think three is enough,” he says. “More than that and you’ll have the adjutant who looks over this mission questioning your motives.”

  “Fine. Let’s move on to tall, pointy things.” I show him the first one—a tall, white obelisk in the United States capital. “See the park area beside it? If I aim carefully, the top section will fall straight into it, or maybe into the pond on the other side. And the next one on the list is a row of pillars in South Africa. If I topple the first one in the chain, the rest should crash into each other.”

  I add both of those locations to the collection of walls, bridges, minarets, and towers on various continents. There are a lot of statues on my list, too. The good thing with those is that you don’t have to destroy the entire thing to evoke anger. You can just clip off the head or whack an appendage.

  Once we’ve pinpointed twenty that should stir up maximum animosity with minimal loss of life, I’m then left with justifying my choices to the Voshti. Ryn is worried they’ll consider the death toll too low for some sites, so I end up doubling the forecast on most of them, tripling it on a few others. Hopefully they’ll just scan the numbers.

  As usual, the work goes quicker with Ryn, even if it’s Sim-Ryn, and I want to leave the simulation running once the report is submitted. Have him crawl into the bunk with me now that our work is done. Sleep with my head on his shoulder, the way we used to do before our bodies grew older and less
inclined to cope gracefully with awkward sleep positions.

  He wouldn’t smell like Ryn, though. And my head would go straight through his non-corporeal body. The simulation only interacts with things built into the shuttle. His fingers even look like they’re working the comm controls. But I’m not part of the ship’s system. He can’t touch me.

  “Alta 493. End simulation.”

  I’ve barely settled into my lonely bunk when the comm unit pings and the adjutant on duty, who wears the same pinched expression as most of her colleagues, gives me the message, direct and to the point.

  “Plan approved, Proctor Alta. Proceed at once.”

  I sink back down into the bed even though I’m too annoyed to sleep. There’s no way that adjutant had time to read the plan, let alone submit it to the Voshti, so they must have given her authority to approve anything that fell into a permitted range.

  I want her job.

  One where you don’t have to make the tough decisions and you don’t have to carry them out. Will this adjutant give even a single thought to the blood that will be spilled tomorrow, based on the seven words she just relayed?

  No. I’m sure she sleeps the moment her head hits the pillow.

  Chapter 3

  Elisi Outpost Five

  Date: 9023.22.14

  When I wake up, I designate an attack order for the coordinates Ryn and I entered last night, along with the time for each hit. Then the shuttle takes over. The viewscreen divides into four images, and about ten minutes later, I watch as the first drone vaporizes the middle section of a bridge in Australia, where the local time is just after three a.m. Shortly thereafter, the other three squares flash briefly as sections of the Great Wall, the Jade Bridge, and the Tiananmen Gate are obliterated in a matter of seconds.

  The sky is nearly dark over the Volga River, but there are still witnesses along the cobblestone walkway when the tiny drone swoops in and neatly clips the raised sword from The Motherland Calls. Another drone decapitates a tower in Paris at nearly the same moment a clock face is obliterated on a second tower, this one in London. A few seconds later, a laser blasts something called the Berlin Quadriga from the top of the Brandenburg Gate.