Outsystem (Aeon 14) Read online

  OUTSYSTEM

  M. D. Cooper

  Copyright © 2010 M. D. Cooper

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-13: 978-1477651520

  ISBN-10: 1477651527

  DEDICATION

  This book is dedicated to my children, born and unborn who will inhabit the future far longer than I. May your future never be utopian, but always struggling toward perfection. May it never be idealistic, but always founded on ideals.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  There is really only one acknowledgement that matters, and that is to my wife, Jill. Without her this world would remain only imagined and never written.

  But once her inspiration spurred me on it took a host of people to help get Outsystem to where you see it today. Most notably: Greta van der Rol, for being the first person not related to me who thought my writing was a good read; MV Merchant, for reading everything and saying ‘squee!’ (a lot); and Erin Marion for being a tireless editor and giving way more attention to minute detail than I even knew was possible.

  If you have read any amount of science fiction you will see certain authors’ influence in this book. Foremost are: Larry Niven whose Ringworld series changed the way I thought about science fiction; Tanya Huff for writing one of the best damn female military characters in any book anywhere; Elizabeth Moon for showing that a book taking place almost entirely on one ship can be pretty awesome; and Anne McCaffery for writing Dragon Quest and opening the world of science fiction and fantasy to me.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  PROLOUGE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  INTERLUDE

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  INTERLUDE

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  INTERLUDE

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  INTERLUDE

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  EPILOUGE

  APENDIXES

  TERMS & TECHNOLOGY

  PLACES

  PEOPLE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PROLOUGE

  STELLAR DATE: 3226929 / 12.07.4122 (Adjusted Gregorian)

  LOCATION: Edge of the Grey Sea, Pluto

  REGION: Jovian Combine, Sol Space Federation

  A young sapling exploded beside Tanis and she dove for cover, scampering away as splinters flew in every direction. She slipped into a depression, flattening herself as much as possible, hoping it was enough to stay out of sight. Another shot hit a rock nearby and liquid fragments of stone rained down; beading off her armor.

  Tanis sent the question over the Link.

  Both Sorensen and Reynolds signaled negative.

  Angela was covering tactical coordination and placed several pointers on the team member’s HUDs.

  Tanis directed.

 

 

  Several more shots impacted the ground around the team’s position. Reynolds slipped his rifle up over his cover and fired two electron beams before pulling back and rolling to a new location. He continued to draw as much attention as possible while Tanis and Sorensen worked toward their new positions.

  Tanis made it to the streambed without drawing any fire and her retinal HUD indicated Sorensen was in position and had deployed his nanoprobes.

  Tanis asked Angela.

 

  The enemy obliged, returning fire at Reynolds’ previous location.

  Angela highlighted a position on each team member’s HUD and Tanis set a countdown. The soldiers set their rifles to a magnetic proton beam and when the timer hit zero, they all fired on the enemy position.

  There was a moment of silence, the rippling of the water flowing past her body seemed to grow in volume; then the desired explosion flared up and streams of plasma sprayed in every direction. Tanis’s visor darkened to shield her eyes and when the tint faded she saw a hundred-meter swath of young forest on fire.

  Sorensen’s rasp sounded in her mind.

  Angela said. Tanis rose out of the water, unlocked her helmet and tucked it under her arm. Above her the roar of orbital drop craft and the accompanying streams of fire turned the night sky into a spectacular show—arcs of color and plasma painted across the backdrop of Jupiter’s dark bands.

  It had been some time since she had been in a primary assault force, the last five years had been filled with out of the way assignments such as this one.

  Strangely, the familiar yearning to be in on the larger action just wasn’t there. For that matter, the exultation she should have been feeling in securing her target wasn’t there either Angela sounded a bit nervous as well.

  Tanis and Angela had been paired for nearly a decade. In that time the embedded AI had become closer than a sister or a best friend; it was almost as though Angela was simply another side to her. Tanis knew that wasn’t entirely true—the AI residing in her head was a distinct individual, even though at times it didn’t feel that way.

  Tanis slipped a smirk into her mental tone, then felt momentarily guilty.

  Tanis met up with Sorensen and Reynolds several minutes later. Sorensen was covered in mud and Reynolds was grinning like a Cheshire cat.

  “You shoulda seen it, Major. He came striding up, all cocky as shit and then caught his boot on this tiny twig—couldna been bigger than my pinky. Gun goes flyin’, arms are wavin’ and the big man just topples over like a felled tree.”

  Sorensen wasn’t smiling. “God damn planet. Why’d they have to make it rain so much here? Place is an effing mudball.”

  Reynolds slapped him on the back. “That’s progress, lad. Besides, you know the Jovians, once they got a few worlds orbit’n Jupiter they just had to try’n collect the whole set!”

  “What does that have to do with how much it rains?” Sorensen grunted and Reynolds merely shrugged his response.

  Tanis smiled at the two men and drew some comfort from their camaraderie as the team walked back to the pickup point. It was bittersweet though, after the massacre on Toro she never felt like the enlisted troops looked at her quite the same way. It sapped some of the satisfaction from moments like this.

  Later after her team had arrived at the TSF’s northern continent HQ, she passed her electronic authentication tokens
to the TSS Midway orbiting above and checked her personal messages over the Link.

  There it was; the message from the GSS. She stared at the glowing icon for several minutes before finally mustering the courage to open it. She could feel Angela in the back of her mind, as intent on the contents as Tanis.

  Major Tanis Richards

  References and qualifications accepted. Final, in-person interview scheduled for 3227134.75000 (local time) Enfield Building, Jerhattan, Earth.

  GSS Colony Operations

  “This is it, Angela.” Tanis kept her voice soft, afraid that the emotion in it would be picked up by some officers nearby. “We finally made it.”

  CHAPTER 1

  STELLAR DATE: 3227162 / 07.28.4123 (Adjusted Gregorian)

  LOCATION: Steel Dawn III, En-Route to Mars REGION: InnerSol Stellar Space, Sol Space Federation

  Tanis entered the forward observation lounge on the Steel Dawn III. The windows were crowded with passengers, weary after the two-week voyage from Earth, catching their first glimpses of Mars.

  Her HUD identified the passengers and she saw that most were fellow colonists, destined for the Intrepid and ultimately the world of New Eden. Near one of the windows on the starboard side stood Patty and Eric, who she had spent some time with during the voyage.

  Threading the crowd, Tanis walked to the window and stood beside the pair. Eric looked up at her and smiled a greeting. Patty nodded and pointed toward the planet.

  “You can just make out the ring now.”

  Tanis peered out the window and cycled her vision to a higher magnification.

  “So you can.”

  The Mars 1 ring was a large orbital habitat which wrapped around the world like a glistening silver halo. It was over one hundred and eighty thousand kilometers in circumference, and sixteen hundred kilometers wide. It rotated at over twenty-two thousand kilometers per hour above the blue-green planet. On the world below, the Borealis Ocean filled the viewport, and the large Mariner Valley lakes slowly slipped past the day/night terminator.

  Built in the twenty-fifth century the ring was a marvel of human engineering and provided the energy management to terraform and power Mars. The Mars 1 ring was the gateway to the stars. Without it, modern terraforming techniques would never have been invented.

  “Home sweet home,” Eric said.

  “Not exactly.” Patty pointed to her left. “You can see the Mars Outer Shipyard coming around the ring over there. That’s where the Intrepid is being completed. We’ll be staying on the station or the ship, I imagine.”

  The Mars Outer Shipyard was a thousand-kilometer arc which was tethered to Mars’s second artificial ring, the Mars Central Elevator Exchange, known by the locals as the MCEE. That outer ring linked to Mars 1, and from there massive elevators provided access to the planet below.

  Though it was not the largest planetary superstructure, Tanis always found it to be one of the most beautiful. The Marsians had opted to build it with materials that glistened in the sunlight. With all of the orbital stations and outlying habitats tethered to the MCEE it sometimes appeared as though the planet had been caught in a celestial cobweb.

  “I can’t make it out,” Eric said after peering out the window for a minute. “You two keep forgetting I have these organic eyes. Not special hopped-up mod jobs like yours.”

  Patty laughed. “Well, I don’t know how hopped up mine are; the major has the super eyes.”

  “Your tax dollars hard at work,” Tanis smiled.

  “So how long till we arrive?” Eric asked.

  Eric had only a rudimentary Link to the shipnet. While he could look it up himself, Patty and Tanis already had the information overlaid on their retinal HUDs.

  “Just over an hour,” Tanis said.

  “Doesn’t look like it should take that long.” Eric leaned forward, still trying to make out the shipyards.

  Their discussion was interrupted by an announcement over both the shipnet and audible systems.

  “All passengers, this is your captain speaking. We are beginning our final descent into the Mars Outer Shipyards, which the locals call the MOS.” The captain pronounced the word ‘moss’. “In thirty minutes there will be two 0g maneuvers separated by a hard 15g burn. We apologize for that hard burn, but Marsian traffic control has busy inbound lanes today and we need to clear the space as quickly as possible.

  “During these maneuvers we require you to be in your cabin, and strapped down to your bunk, for your safety.

  “Mars Outer Shipyard is a class 1A environmental space with 0.8g centripetal gravity and a standard temperature of nineteen degrees Celsius. Be sure to have your customs forms filled out and debark only after the announcement is given to do so.

  “Thank you for flying Dawn Transport. To all of you colonists, good luck, and to everyone else, we hope to see you again.”

  “Well, I guess I’ll see you ladies after we finish docking,” Eric said.

  “You will indeed,” Patty said. “We’ll meet tonight for drinks at that restaurant I mentioned.”

  “You going to come, Tanis?” Eric asked.

  “I’ll see. I have to report in and get my assignment by 0800 station time, but if I’m not busy, I’ll be there.” The military life brought her comfort, but the last few weeks on the Dawn had given her a taste of what a more relaxed life could be like. It made the offer tempting.

  With final farewells the three left the lounge with the other passengers and proceeded to their cabins.

  One of the privileges of rank was that Tanis had a room to herself. She made certain all of her belongings were secure, and lay down on her bunk. She didn’t bother to strap down, but did hold on to the rails along its sides. The ship shuddered several times as it shed all of its velocity relative to Mars. The process took several minutes, following which the vessel rotated and the engines fired again.

  The cabin systems displayed a holo countdown and also flashed a warning that the air would jell to help ease the discomfort of the upcoming maneuver. The cabin systems knew her body could hold up the strain, so the nano-injectors didn’t deliver the frame firming nano bots into her body, but it was quite likely Eric was undergoing the rather uncomfortable procedure at the moment.

  The captain wasn’t lying; the 15g burn was hard. Tanis’ body weight increased to over a ton and she was pressed deep into the acceleration cushioning of her bunk as the ship matched the twenty-two kilometers per second orbit of the Mars Outer Shipyards. Once that velocity was reached, the fusion engines powered down, eliminating the gravity their thrust had created. In the resulting 0g Tanis let go of the rails and allowed herself to slowly rise above her bunk as the air thinned out once more.

  She could feel the telltale vibrations of thrusters firing as they eased the Dawn into its external berth on the planet side of the MOS. Once the ship was in place and latched onto the station, the thrusters slowly phased out until the physical coupling supplied the ship’s angular momentum. During that process the ship gradually fell under the centripetal force of the shipyard and achieved the station-standard 0.8g.

  Tanis let the increasing gravity pull her back down to the bunk. It was an experience she always enjoyed; a ritual that had persisted since her first stellar flight with her father some sixty years earlier.

  An announcement came over the shipnet indicating a successful docking. The passengers were reminded to remain in their cabins until the debarkation signal was given.

  Shortly afterward, the low thud of the passenger and cargo umbilicals linking the Dawn to the station could be felt through the ship. Fresh air from the MOS filtered through the vents. Tanis could practically taste the difference after the stale stuff the Dawn had been recycling over the last few days.

  The debarkation signal came over the shipnet and a glowing green icon flashed on the door’s holo display indicating that passengers could leave their cabins. Tanis took her time giving the sparse space a final check, making certain nothing was left behind. It would give the co
rridors a chance to clear out. No point in rushing into a crowd of people.

  The sounds of other passengers outside her cabin had ceased and Tanis had just stepped into the corridor when another tremor shook the ship. It was followed by the roar of an explosion flooding the hall, forcing Tanis to grasp the doorframe to maintain her footing. A moment of stillness followed and then alarms began to blare. Tanis set her auditory systems to filter them out, only to have the telltale whack of pulse rifles and the chip of beam weapons fill the silence.

  In a single swift motion she dropped her duffle and pulled her pulse pistol from its holster. She couldn’t imagine who the hell would use beam weapons on a ship. One shot in the wrong place and it would disrupt the electrostatic shields and cause explosive decompression.

  The sound of high-pitched whines and supersonic booms joined the other weapons fire. Even better, Tanis thought, some idiot was using a railgun!

  Angela commented.

  Tanis replied as she bent to a knee and pulled her lightwand from the duffle.

  Angela was attempting to query the shipnet to determine what was going on. Tanis asked.

 

  Angela’s reply was smug.

 

 

  Angela responded.

  Tanis took a deep breath and altered her thinking patterns for combat. Any concern and worry left her as the calm born from being in more firefights than she could remember took over. Controlled and cool, no emotion. Feelings got you killed.