The Gate at the Grey Wolf Star (Perseus Gate Book 1) Read online

  THE GATE AT THE

  GREY WOLF STAR

  Perseus Gate – Episode 1

  By M. D. Cooper

  Copyright © 2017 M. D. Cooper

  Cover Art by Andrew Dobell

  Editing by Tee Ayer

  All rights reserved.

  FOREWORD

  It has been ten years since I wrote my first short story about Jessica, a scrappy Terran Bureau of Investigations agent who found herself wrapped up in some pretty incredible events.

  She’s always managed to make a name for herself, from an unwilling stowaway on the Intrepid to becoming one of Tanis’s closest friends, Jessica is a key player in the greater Aeon 14 story.

  I did my best to write this tale so that you can pick it up without needing to read the other tales that come before it, and the short synopsis below should give you enough context to do so.

  However, if you first want to read what came before, you can start all the way at the beginning with Outsystem, or you can begin at the mid-point and read Destiny Lost, followed by New Canaan before you dive into The Gate at the Grey Wolf Star.

  No matter where you pick up the story, I am certain you’re going to love this tale. Its full of mystery, some fun hijinks, and a climax unlike any you’ve seen in any other Aeon 14 story.

  M. D. Cooper

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  SABRINA’S MISSION

  SABRINA’S CREW

  PROLOGUE: CARETAKER

  STELLAR APPROACH

  USURPED

  UNDERSTANDING

  UNCERTAINTY

  GISHA STATION

  SABRINA BESIEGED

  COLONEL BES

  A LITTLE OUTING

  HEADACHE

  A NEW OUTFIT

  SPIDER-BOT SAVIOR

  ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

  A WINK AND A NOD

  THE NOT SO BLACK HOLE

  RACE AGAINST GRAVITY

  A FAREWELL

  PERSEUS ARM

  BOOKS BY M. D. COOPER

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  SABRINA’S MISSION

  Sera Tomlinson knew that her father, President of the Transcend Interstellar Alliance, would not treat well with the New Canaan colonists.

  He would allow them to settle in, and get comfortable on their new worlds; then force their hand, by demanding that they turn over their advanced technology to further build up the Transcend’s military. Or else.

  To counter her father, Sera sent Sabrina and her former crew into the Inner Stars to find Finaeus, her exiled uncle.

  No one had expected it to be easy, but after nine long years, Jessica, Cargo and the rest of the crew tracked Finaeus down in the Ikoden System.

  Finaeus agreed to travel with the crew of Sabrina to New Canaan, but they were attacked by unknown agents. Fearing the difficulties the four-year journey to New Canaan would present, Finaeus convinced the crew to travel to a secret Transcend base, deep within the Inner Stars.

  There the Transcend operates a Jump Gate, massive Ford-Svaiter mirror that will facilitate a near-instantaneous voyage to New Canaan.

  Or so they hope.

  SABRINA’S CREW

  Cargo – Ship’s Captain

  Cheeky – Pilot

  Erin – AI embedded in Nance

  Finaeus – Passenger

  Jessica – First Mate

  Hank – AI embedded in Cargo

  Iris – AI embedded in Jessica

  Nance – Bio/Engineer

  Piya – AI embedded in Cheeky

  Sabrina – Ship’s AI

  Trevor – Supercargo and muscle

  NOTE: When Sabrina is italicized, it refers to the ship, but if Sabrina is not italicized, it refers to the AI. Yes, this would be much simpler if the ship and AI did not share the same name, but you try telling that to Sabrina!

  Just so you stay on her good side, never call the ship “the Sabrina”, it really gets on her last synthetic neuron.

  PROLOGUE: CARETAKER

  STELLAR DATE: 04.17.8938 (Adjusted Years)

  LOCATION: Sabrina docked at Kruger Station

  REGION: Ikoden System, Mika Alliance Space

  Meet me.

  The voice crept into Nance’s mind once more. She knew it wasn’t over the Link; she had disconnected herself from the shipnet, fearful of the words she continued to hear over and over again.

  She should be alone in her own head.

  Meet me, the voice insisted again, pushing at the bounds of her consciousness as though it were trying to trigger something beneath.

  Nance forced it away, made herself think about her work, about the faulty backup fuel regulator that needed fixing. She thought about the part number, the supplier, where she would place it while she removed the existing regulator, the color of the box. Anything but the voice.

  Meet me.

  It was louder now, and Nance knew the voice was wrong, but she didn’t know what to do. Who should she talk to? Her AI, Erin, was new to her, and might think she was crazy—surely if Nance was crazy, an AI from the Intrepid would notice. Wouldn’t she?

  The thought crossed Nance’s mind that maybe Erin was the one doing this to her.

  Meet me now.

  No, it didn’t feel like Erin, it didn’t feel like anyone else—it felt like herself.

  Where? she finally replied.

  Onstation. I’ll guide you.

  It’s third shift, Nance thought to herself—and whatever else she was talking to. Someone will notice if I leave.

  Meet me.

  It was clear that the voice could not be rationalized with. She would have to venture onto the station to find out what was going on.

  What about Erin? Won’t she wonder where I’m going?

  Erin is asleep. She won’t know about this, the voice replied in her mind.

  Asleep? Nance asked. She didn’t even know that AI could sleep.

  Meet me.

  Nance rose from her bed and glanced around the room at her collection of dolls ringing the room on their shelves. Her gaze shifted to the row of hazmat suits hanging neatly in their racks. She resisted the urge to don one, before walking to her closet.

  Within hung several shipsuits, pants, shirts and jackets—plus a few dresses that Cheeky had purchased for her, though Nance didn’t think those fit the occasion.

  She pulled on a pair of dark blue pants, a tight tank-top shirt, and a soft jacket. It looked just right for wandering around the station late in its night cycle and not attracting any specific attention. She pulled her hair on top of her head and twisted it in a tight bun before slipping her feet into a pair of low boots.

  A laugh and a pair of footfalls echoed down the corridor and she froze. Jessica and Trevor were still up—engaged in their usual shenanigans, no doubt. Then, she heard Jessica’s cabin door close and she released the breath she had been holding.

  Meet me.

  The voice sounded the same, but somehow still managed to seem more insistent. Maybe it was the repetition that was making her think that.

  Nance palmed her door open and peered into the hall. It was empty.

  She crept down its length to the ladder that lead to the ship’s cargo deck. Her boots sounded loud to her ears, but she knew that a set of soft footfalls in the crew corridor would not raise any questions—even late at night.

  Once down the ladder and on the ship’s cargo deck, she picked up the pace, moving toward the smaller aft port hatch. She was reaching for the controls to open it when Sabrina spoke into her mind.

 

  She hadn’t re-enabled her Link access…had the voice? Frozen, Nance tried to think of what to s
ay, but no plausible lie coming to mind.

  You just need a walk, can’t sleep, clearing your head, the voice suggested.

 

  Sabrina replied.

  Nance gave a mental smile in response.

 

  The airlock’s outer door slid open, and Nance stepped out onto the station’s J12 cargo dock.

  Few people were present, though she could see at least a dozen or so before the dock curved away to the left and the right. The lights were dim, everything cast in the green and red glow from the indicators hovering over the docking portals, showing where ships were docked, and which berths were empty.

  She was just wondering which way to go when the voice in her head said, Left.

  For the next thirty minutes, Nance followed the voice’s directions, moving deeper into Senzee Station, beyond the commercial districts surrounding the docks, through several residential areas, and finally to an area filled with low-rent housing.

  Despite Sabrina’s assurances of relative safety, Nance was starting to wish that she had brought a weapon. Then the voice spoke again. In here.

  The portal it directed her toward lay open, looming ominously with only darkness beyond. It looked exactly like the sort of place she had no desire to enter. She tried to turn back, but her legs wouldn’t move.

  “What?” she whispered hoarsely.

  Enter.

  Nance couldn’t believe this was happening. It was like a nightmare—stars, she hoped it was a nightmare. For a full minute she wrestled with her body, trying to move it away from the dark entrance, only to find that she could move forward, but not back.

  Nance screamed inside her mind, but her AI didn’t respond; it was almost as though Erin wasn’t there. She tried to raise the ship instead.

  Then, her right leg took a step forward on its own, followed by her left. She began to scream as her body refused to obey her commands and carried her over the threshold toward a strange, glowing figure which appeared out of thin air.

  Welcome back, Myrrdan.

  Nance tried to speak, to ask the figure what it wanted, but no words came out. She was just a passenger in her own body.

  “Surely you know that this is not me, this is just a shadow, an impression I placed within this woman.” Nance heard the words come from her mouth—something else was in control now.

  “Of course I do,” the glowing figure said.

  Nance watched it approach her, feeling as though she should be trembling with fear, but her body stood rock still. She found herself becoming detached from the situation, and wondered how the figure had materialized. It didn’t look like a holoprojection; it seemed to be solid, yet it also appeared to be made of light.

  Its form was vaguely humanoid, but taller and thinner. Its hands reached almost to its knees and it lifted them to her face to stroke her cheek.

  “I had wondered if I would ever see you again—if Tanis Richards had found you out.”

  Nance a ripple of laughter in her throat. “She thinks she has. I staged a little death scene with Jessica. It cost me one of my favorite shells, but it was worth it.”

  “The TBI agent,” the figure said. “That was a risk…bringing her aboard.”

  Nance realized she knew this story. Tanis had related it to them one night, when she’d told them the true story of the Battle for Victoria. How a fiend from Sol had taken the form of one of their crew, and killed Jessica’s wife—though Tanis had said that Myrrdan did not survive the engagement.

  Apparently Tanis could be wrong.

  Am I Myrrdan now? Nance thought to herself.

  No. The voice replied.

  “I’ve done what you asked,” Nance’s voice said aloud. “I made sure that the Intrepid came to Kapteyn’s star, and I made sure they used their picotech.”

  “I set that in motion,” the figure said.

  “Well, yes, from your end in Sirius,” Nance’s voice said. “By the way, I never learned your name when last we met.”

  “That is correct,” the figure replied. “I go by many names, but you may call me The Caretaker.”

  “OK, Caretaker.” Nance’s possessor nodded. “I got the Intrepid here, in the future, and they used their picotech—which is what I suspect you wanted.”

  “It is.” The Caretaker inclined its head in agreement. “Though the ship’s disappearance into the dark layer afterward was unexpected. Sera Tomlinson is to credit for that, from what the evidence shows.”

  “Yes,” the Myrrdan shadow replied. “That is her name. She has also set up a rendezvous with the Intrepid and the Transcend’s diplomats soon to secure a colony world.”

  The glowing figure inclined its head, as though it were deep in thought, or perhaps communicating with someone else.

  “That can work,” it said finally. “It’s all too soon—they came out of the streamer five-hundred-years before we’d intended.”

  “What do you need me to do now?” the Myrrdan shadow asked.

  The figure lifted its head and looked up. Nance could almost make out a smile on its strange features.

  “You? We have no more use for you. You’re one of our most distasteful tools—effective, but distasteful. We will expunge you from this woman—though we will use her for our purposes now. She will eventually return to the Intrepid where we will clean up the loose end that you represent.

  STELLAR APPROACH

  STELLAR DATE: 07.22.8938 (Adjusted Years)

  LOCATION: Sabrina, Near Gisha Station

  REGION: DSM Ring, Grey Wolf System

  Jessica stood in the center of Sabrina’s bridge, arms akimbo as she stared at the forward holodisplay of the Grey Wolf Star wrapped in its massive mining ring.

  The thing still boggled her mind. Sure, several Terran mining operations back in Sol had begun starlifting mass off Sol before the Intrepid had left—something that had upset the ecoterrorists to no end—but this was an entirely different matter.

  “Still quite the sight, isn’t it?” Finaeus asked as he approached Jessica.

  She turned her head and threw the ancient terraformer a glance. The man was stealthy for being millennia old. She hadn’t heard him enter the bridge—and her ears were far above standard fare.

  Iris, the AI with whom Jessica shared her mind, said.

  Jessica said.

 

  “I’ve been staring at that damn thing for nine days now, and I still can’t believe that it exists,” Jessica replied audibly to Finaeus.

  “You should see Airtha some day,” Finaeus said, a wistful tone in his voice. “The star is bigger than the Grey Wolf, we pulled a lot of mass off it—making it oh…about Saturn-sized. But we made good use of all that carbon when we made the ring.”

  “Oh yeah?” Cheeky asked from the pilot’s seat.

  Jessica had almost forgotten that Cheeky was down there; neither of the two women had spoken in the hour before Finaeus arrived and broke the silence.

  “Yeah,” Finaeus chuckled. “We built a ring out of carbon, massive, makes the old stuff in Sol look like kid’s toys. Way out—much further than Saturn’s outer rings were from Saturn itself. Just a gleaming diamond ring around the star. Threw a few terrestrial worlds in orbit too…high inclination so they only get short eclipses from the ring. It was my greatest work….”

  “Was?” Jessica asked.

  “Oh, well, it’s still there, but my core-damned brother gave it to her—now I don’t think of it as much as my work as her den.”
/>
  “Who?” Jessica asked.

  Finaeus pulled a tired smile across his face. “Another time, perhaps, dear.”

  Jessica frowned. Finaeus certainly liked his enigmas. She hoped that he would be of use to Sera. What was this man capable of—especially after being exiled—that could grant Sera whatever leverage she thought she needed?

  Cheeky snorted. “Well, this star mining operation may be magnificent, but it’s a nightmare to fly into. Those black holes they’re spinning around the star create killer EM and gravitational fields.”

  “And just think,” Finaeus said. “Krissy is taking us in the easy way. Even with graviton field dampeners, your ship would be ripped to shreds from the shearing forces on other approaches.”

  “Yeah, I can see that shit on scan. Not even sure our stasis shields could deal with that. Gravity can still reach through them—we’d probably have to go solid bubble.”

  “Solid bubble falling toward a star,” Jessica said. “Not my idea of a good time.”

  “There must be a doldrums ahead, otherwise they wouldn’t have a station that far in,” Cheeky said. “Any idea how long ‘til we hit it?”

  Finaeus shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. They’ve added more black holes…upped the rotation since I last looked it over. Can’t be too much further though. We can see Gisha Station and it’s not that big.”

  “Not big?” Cheeky asked. “Thing’s at least a hundred-and-fifty-kilometers in diameter.”

  “Yeah, but it’s next to a ring wrapped around a star.” Jessica frowned. “Just about anything looks small next to that.”

  “Good point,” Cheeky replied.

  Sabrina said.

  “Great. Interior berth.” Cheeky shook her head as she rose and stretched. “Jess, do a girl a favor and take the helm for a bit? I want to get dressed and eat before taking her in.”