David Kantrowitz's Blog

Spoiler alert: This is the first draft of the ninth book in the Reckless Faith series, now with the working title of The Path of Andromeda. You can start with the prologue here: https://devonai.wordpress.com/2024/10/17/reckless-faith-ix-prologue/

Nap-of-the-earth is what pilots would call flying fast and low to the ground. Under the current circumstances, there was no reason for John to be doing so, other than his own amusement. For everyone else on the bridge of the Reckless Faith, they were either enjoying the spectacle, or battling nausea.

Currently flying over a glittering ocean, the rising sun to their backs, the crew watched as a mountain range to the west grew ever closer. Finding their intended destination had required a volunteer from the group that had been taken from Tartarus and deposited on Ibnal’saffar, so that their brain could be scanned and their memories analyzed.

Vecky, the one who had been paying the most attention to the stars overhead during their ad hoc vacation, seemed like the best choice for that task. Indeed, her recollection of the constellations overhead had allowed them to figure out the exact latitude and longitude of their last encampment. From there, they needed only follow the shoreline to the west, and find the mountain ravine outside the temple, an easy task once the rest of the refugees weighed in with their own memories.

In the ship, racing along the water’s edge, the original crew of the Faith was there, along with Evangeline, Aldebaran, Fuyue, and Faen. Though the rest of the crew of the Antares also wanted to go, they had to stay behind to properly man the ship in case of any trouble. With the departure of the Fox, they were the last line of defense for the ground mission. Malthus had transferred to the Antares, unwilling to yet depart the planet, but also not ready to return there.

It didn’t take long for the Faith to arrive at the foothills of the mountains, and John pulled back on the stick to take them further above the terrain. With Vecky’s departure, Richter was keeping a close eye on what they could see, while at the same time, Ari peered at her monitor to correlate the information the young captain had given them. Soon, they found a ravine that matched their intel, and John slowed down and settled into a leisurely circle above it.

“This should be it,” said Ari. “Topographic scans confirm the data we gleaned from Kitsune’s memories.”

John replied before trailing off. “It does look right, but…”

Ray pointed ahead. “The veranda outside the temple. It should be right there.”

“All of our data agrees with both of you,” said Ari.

“Care to let us in on the problem?” asked Dana.

“That mountainside,” began Kyrie, “that’s where the veranda was.”

Easily visible to everyone on the bridge was the side of a mountain, with no trace of any artificial modification. John pointed the bow of the ship toward the expected spot, and locked it into hover mode. Ari scratched her head.

“Either our data is wrong, or there’s some sort of cloaking device down there that’s deceiving our NDSS. If the latter is true, then it’s a technology we’ve never encountered before.”

Eva looked at Richter. “I think Chance would agree with me on the easiest way to find out for sure.”

John grinned. “Me, too.”

“There’s no need for brute force,” said Dana. “Use the flare function of the cannon.”

“That makes sense.” John’s fingers flew over his console. “Flare ready.”

“Send it,” said Ari.

John tapped the trigger on his flight stick. An incandescent sphere of blue plasma shot ahead, illuminating the sides of the ravine before quickly disappearing into the mountainside.

“It’s an illusion!” exclaimed Eva.

“I’m taking us in,” said John.

Nudging the throttle, John brought the ship forward at a crawl. The bow pierced the rock face without any resistance, and as soon as the bridge itself crossed that point, they could see both the veranda, and the sky above them.

“Those tricky bastards,” said Faen.

There was ample room on the veranda for John to set the ship down, so he did so, then powered down the engines.

“All right,” he said. “We all know what to do. Friday, you’re in charge. Tycho, you’re coming with us.”

“Sweet,” said Tycho.

Everyone but the cat got up and headed for the armory. There, they equipped themselves with their favored weapons and gear. They also grabbed four encased flood lights, ready to be set up. Ray and Dana used their PDAs to power-up and launch two Snoopy drones. Then, they exited to the cargo bay. John hit the switch to lower the ramp, and they walked out onto the veranda. They set the Snoopys down on the stone surface, and put them into standby mode.

The team took a moment to take in their surroundings. It had rained recently, but the sky was clear. Ahead, the edifice of the temple could be seen. John had compared it to Al-Khazneh in Jordan, an apt, if not entirely accurate, description. The squad-strength contingent arranged themselves into two teams, and headed toward the temple. Fuyue, who was in the first team, signaled that he wanted to look at the columns carved into the edifice. He scrutinized the pictograms on them for a few minutes.

“Anything ring a bell?” asked John.

 “They are curious,” he replied, “but nothing I’ve ever seen before. With my quantum brain, I could derive some sort of meaning from them, if I had enough time.”

“Richter took some pictures earlier,” said Ari. “We attempted to analyze them, and came up with nothing.”

“Something for the archaeologists, then.”

The group turned on their hand-held or weapon-mounted flashlights, moved inside, and spread out. Fuyue only had to look at the temple for a few seconds before gasping.

“What is it?” asked John.

“This is a Sortarii temple,” he said softly.

“A Sortarii temple? Are you sure?”

“Quite sure. I’ve been to one, on a planet called Pulchraest back in my neighborhood of the galaxy. It looked identical to this one, albeit not completely empty. Even the fountain at the center is the same, except that one most certainly did not have a statue of a Kira’To. However, there should be several rooms and passageways from here that are not present.”

“Fascinating. Okay, let’s fan out, take a look, and see if we can find something we missed the first time.”

The teams spread out until they had filled the space, then they set up the portable floodlights. Several members began scanning with their PDAs. Eva walked up to Fuyue.

“This place is making me feel very strange,” she said to him. “It’s hard to describe, almost like a combination of nostalgia and longing.”

“Did you look at your staff?” he asked.

It hadn’t occurred to Eva to look at the bokken she inherited from Graffias. She took off her rucksack and removed it from the side.

“Holy shit. There’s a pulse of light traveling down the side, from pommel to tip.”

“I wish I could see it. I have yet to figure out a way to regain all of my prior abilities in this android body.”

“Same here,” said Faen.

“All right, Miss Adeler. What I want you to do is hold out the staff and walk around. Let me know if anything changes.”

Eva raised an eyebrow. “Like a dowsing rod?”

“I don’t know.” Fuyue gestured ahead with his arm. “Like this.”

“All right then.”

Eva held the bokken out in front of her like she was challenging an unseen opponent to a duel. The slight pulses continued, barely brighter than a firefly. She headed toward the nearest wall, then began to walk the perimeter. She passed by Dana a moment later.

“Can no one else see this?” asked Dana.

“I wouldn’t expect any of you to be able to,” replied Fuyue. “Only those that have touched the skein of the universe would.”

John said, “Too bad Vecky and Miriam aren’t here.”

“I can handle this just fine,” said Eva.

“I meant that they’d be enrapt by it, that’s all.”

Eva walked all the way back to the entrance, and proceeded halfway down the opposite side before she slowed down. The pulses had increased in frequency. She moved in a tight circle, further narrowing down where she should go. Soon, a particular archway, directly across from the fountain, drew her in. The pulses flashed like a strobe, and she felt the hair on her arms stand up.

“This is it,” she said quietly.

The others approached, PDAs in hand. John, Ray, and Ari scrutinized the archway first.

“It looks like a solid wall,” said Ray.

Fuyue came over. “Adeler, can you see any patterns in the wall here?”

She shook her head. “It looks like the same bricks as the rest of the place.”

“Place your free hand on it.”

She did so. Immediately obvious to her was that the wall was warm to the touch; not hot, but definitely warmer than the ambient temperature of the rest of the temple. After a few seconds, she could feel a slight vibration under her palm.

“This is something,” she murmured.

“Imagine a door opening. First think of a horizontal aperture, and if that doesn’t work, a vertical one.”

Though Eva followed his instructions, nothing happened.

“Bupkis.”

“Close your eyes. Regulate your breathing. Listen to the sound of the fountain.”

John looked over his shoulder. “Let’s get some quiet for her, okay?”

Everyone else stopped what they were doing. Eva did as Fuyue suggested. An image appeared in her mind; at first it seemed to be a disorganized twisted lump of oblong shapes, then after a moment, the image seemed to zoom out. The twists resolved into long strands, they got progressively more complex, and she realized what she was seeing.

“I see the double-helix of DNA.”

“Damn,” began Fuyue, “a gen-lock. The door is hard-coded to open only for someone with a specific genetic profile. We’re probably screwed.”

“What about brute force?” asked John.

Eva opened her eyes. Richter had come over. He looked at the wall, then pounded his fist on it.

“The amount of explosives it would take to get through here would likely bring down the entire temple,” he said.

Ari said, “We’re within range of the matter transporter. Maybe we can try to beam the wall out.”

John nodded. “It’s worth a try. Friday, are you listening?”

“I’m here,” said Friday’s voice.

“Lock onto that wall and transport it out to the veranda.”

“I’ll try.”

Those near the wall stepped back, and readied their weapons and flashlights. A glittering cascade of green light appeared, then the bricks faded away. The team peered into the area beyond. At first, their flashlights revealed nothing. As they cautiously moved inside, they could make out more details, including the size of the room and any furniture or other obstacles. This was made more difficult by large black panels on each wall that seemed to absorb any light that shined on them. Once they cleared the area, they brought in two spotlights.

The room was a large hexagon, with one side dedicated to a row of what looked like work benches, and the other side with a recessed area in the floor. In the recess, which was two steps down, was a raised dais about three meters across. There were no chairs or obvious sources of light. By then, everyone but Aldebaran and Kyrie were in the room, with those two guarding the door.

“I’m not sure,” began Fuyue, “but I believe this is a Sortarii workshop. I’ve never been to one, but I’ve had one described to me. The benches would have been used to imbue weapons or other artifacts.”

“The walls are beautiful,” said Eva. “Such delicate circuitry and patterns.”

“You can see something there? Like on your staff?”

“Exactly like that. Fine etching, glinting gold as it catches the light.”

He sighed. “I’m sure it is beautiful.”

John asked, “Do you think there’s any chance that Eva or the rest of the crew of the Antares could ever figure out how to use this place?”

Fuyue leaned against one of the benches. “That depends on whether or not any of these runes are gen-locked like the door was, and their own particular aptitudes. Miss Adeler and the others have been able to access the functions of their staffs, but do so only by intuition, not direct intention. True understanding of Sortarii technology can take decades.”

“I thought you said that the crew had imbued their own weapons, though.”

“Yes, but under my instruction.”

“Look at it this way,” said Dana. “We haven’t been able to decipher anything from the staffs, but here, the sample size is much larger. What we could do is have Eva and the crew of the Antares get a long, hard look at each of these panels, then have them interface with an orb. Then, we can see what they see, and have the full computational power of the ship to try to make sense of it.”

“That would take a lot of staring,” replied Eva. “Nobody has a crystal-clear memory, at least, not among us meat-bags.”

Ari said, “Has anybody asked Malthus if he can see Sortarii patterns? He’s got an eidetic memory.”

Everyone looked at each other. No one knew.

Faen shrugged. “He expressed no interest in anything related to being a Sortarius. Lesath did ask him; he rebuffed her.”

“It probably has to do with his experiences during the combat actions on Tartarus,” said Richter. “The rest of us may be used to such high strangeness as the Sortarii, but it’s a lot to ask of a layman.”

“Been reading a thesaurus lately?” said Kyrie from the door.

“Fuck you, Devonai.”

John said, “Friday, open a channel to the Antares.”

“You’re live,” came the reply.

Lesath’s voice could be heard. “How goes the battle, Commander?”

“We’ve found a Sortarii workshop of sorts, according to Master Fuyue. It’s quite interesting and we’ll fill you in later. Right now, we have a question for Mister Brewer.”

“He’s right here, ask away.”

“Malthus, you’ve seen the Sortarii weapons. Do they look like simple wood implements to you, or are there shiny, inlaid patterns on the surface?”

“The latter,” he said.

John grinned. “Excellent. We’d like you down here, if you don’t mind. Your photographic memory could prove very useful to us.”

There was a pause before he replied. “I’d rather not get involved in this shit.”

“I understand. You’ll have to trust us that there’s nothing dangerous down here. Your particular skills could make a huge difference for us.”

“You owe us one, Brewer,” said Ari.

“For what? I’ve been pulled along with everything that’s happened since you’ve arrived like a ragdoll. If you mean I owe you my life; well, I had a life before, and it was a hell of a lot calmer than what you got me into since.”

John looked at Ari sideways. “We can only ask, Malthus.”

“Fine. Captain Lesath, how do you want to do this?”

“We’ll drop you off, then head back into orbit,” she said. “Though I have to say, Commander, that I think we’re being wasted sitting here waiting for trouble.”

“I still think the Antares is better off watching the skies,” said John. “I can only make suggestions, Captain, I can’t tell you what to do.”

“You’ve got a surplus of able hands down there, don’t you? Let’s swap out two or three to man my ship, then myself and the other acolytes can see this alleged Sortarii workshop for ourselves.”

Ari said, “I’ll go. Another Mark Nineteen is no challenge for me.”

“Fine by me,” said John. “Any other volunteers?”

“I can go back,” said Aldebaran. “As much as I’d like to contribute something other than a fast draw, this whole thing is well beyond my ken.”

“Faen?”

“I’m quite happy where I am,” she said.

“There you go, Captain, you’ve got two volunteers. Good enough?”

“I suppose so,” replied Lesath. “Stand by, then, we’ll be down there in five minutes.”

Eva approached one of the work benches, and put her bokken down on its surface.

“What are you doing?” asked Dana.

“Just a hunch,” said Eva.

As soon as the weapon left her grasp, she could see every pattern on its surface light up brighter than she’d ever seen before, and stay that way. She put her hand back on the handle, closed her eyes, and tried to clear her mind.

Fuyue approached her. “Diagnostics?”

“Exactly. Let’s see if this simple act can prompt something useful out of all this rigamarole.”

Eva closed her eyes. A moment later, she could see an image of herself back on Tartarus, surrounded by a vague, grayish sphere, during her fight with the Alnairian Marines. She opened her eyes, and looked at the bokken. A particular path down its length was illustrated by the circuitry, pulsing in short intervals. She picked up the weapon.

“Having fun over there?” asked Richter.

“Take a shot at me.”

“Who, me? What?”

“I mean it. Throw a forty-five slug at my face.”

“You know I’m not going to do that.”

“I think I understand what you’re getting at,” said Ari. “How’bout we start with something a little less lethal, like my Rakhar blade.”

“Send it,” said Eva.

Ari pulled the curved blade from the scabbard on her belt, and chucked it at Eva’s torso. Eva’s fingers moved quickly down the length of the bokken. The knife bounced off of an unseen surface, and clattered to the floor. Fuyue smiled at the scene, and clapped.

“Fantastic,” he said. “You’ve made an important step. That shield function will be a lot easier to call upon now that you know the manual override.”

“Is that what that was?” asked Eva.

“Sure. Like I said before, all of the functions of a Sortarii staff are available to you by intuition, but you can also access them manually. The latter is far more reliable, especially when you’re frightened, wounded, or otherwise unsteady.”

Eva put the bokken back on the bench. “Cool. Let’s see what else we can unlock, Sortarius.”

Spoiler alert: This is the first draft of the ninth book in the Reckless Faith series, now with the working title of The Path of Andromeda. You can start with the prologue here: https://devonai.wordpress.com/2024/10/17/reckless-faith-ix-prologue/

Ten days had gone by since the Reckless Faith and the Antares had said goodbye to the Flying Serpent, and moved themselves to a high orbit around Ibnal’saffar. There, they had waited for the arrival of the Fox and, for the time being, resisted any urge to land on the planet. What they did allow themselves to do was conduct extensive scans of its surface, and while they had hoped the results would give them a better idea of the history of the planet, as well as its ultimate fate, such answers remained elusive. Any further action would have to wait until the arrival of the third member of their small flight.

For the crew of the Faith in particular, this extended downtime was most welcome. For those members who were unwittingly cast into exile, though the amenities aboard the ill-fated Tempest had provided a modicum of comfort, nothing could compare to those offered by their own home. For their newest arrival, trust had been extended in careful measure, until Helena’s overall attitude could be relied upon. As such, she had been gradually awarded more freedom on the Faith, ultimately earning the right to be treated as a full equal.

Unfortunately for her, this meant being moved from John’s quarters to the cargo hold, which had long since been converted into an ad hoc bunkhouse. At some point, she might be transferred to the Antares, which had ample space; but for now, her hosts preferred to keep her somewhere they could keep a close eye on her, a fact of which Helena was keenly aware.

There had also been much discussed with the crew of the Antares, mostly regarding what had happened at Tartarus and Fuyue’s mysterious resurrection. No one, with the possible exception of Fuyue, was happy to learn that Verisimilitude Android Designs had apparently stolen the specs for an Umberian quantum orb. A visit to that business was planned, to have a friendly chat about it, but that would have to wait until later. Also on the back burner were concerns about the rumors of Rakhar involvement in the affairs of Matesia, something that would have to be investigated eventually.

On that day, in the galley, the crew enjoyed a leisurely lunch, while at the same time being excited about the imminent arrival of the Fox. The only other thing that they were waiting for were the results of Helena’s brain scan. Though it had not been easy to convince her to agree to it, her concerns about the vivid dreams of a being that called itself Andromeda eventually won her over. Evangeline and Reveki, in particular, had put forth a compelling argument that such a scan might reveal details that even Helena herself might have overlooked. Whether or not any of that would prove to be useful remained to be seen. And so, twelve hours earlier, Helena had taken a deep breath, and placed her hand on the side of the orb at the center of the ship. Then, Ari had sequestered herself on the bridge to analyze the data.

In the galley, every available seat was taken, including the stools at the bar. Six of the crew were seated at the table in the center of the room, alternating between forkfuls of food and playing yet another session of Texas Hold ‘Em. Ari came down the stairs from the top deck, and got their attention. Helena, seated at the bar, glanced over at her, but returned her gaze to her plate of spaghetti and glass of beer.

“Got something?” John asked Ari.

Ari gestured back upstairs. “Come with me.”

John got up, grabbed his bottle of seltzer, and went with Ari up the stairs to the lounge area. Friday appeared a moment later, and jumped onto the coffee table.

“You don’t want anyone else here for this?” John asked Ari.

“I didn’t want to freak her out. We can discuss it with everyone else later.”

John sat on the couch. “All right then, whatcha got?”

“Bottom line up front, everything that Helena told us about her past is true. Obviously there’s a lot more to her than she told us, but those details can remain hers to reveal if she chooses. As far as her contact with the Kira’To, she did have memories of talking to Cygnus, and brain wave activity at that time confirms that those conversations were real. That’s where things get tricky.” Ari sat down across from John, and leaned forward. “We did find hundreds of memories of dreams of her talking with a, uh, I guess you could say avatar, of someone she believed was a Kira’To named Andromeda. But brain wave activity shows that they were, in fact, just dreams. If a Kira’To with that name actually exists, the evidence shows that it never actually contacted Helena.”

John sat back, and let out a long breath. “Damn. Wow. I don’t even know how to respond to that.”

“It’s tricky, for sure. Considering how she’s dealing with these dreams, if I was a psychologist, I’d diagnose her with full-blown psychosis. So my recommendation, for now, is to keep this info to ourselves. Trying to convince her that it’s all in her head, no matter how much evidence we have to show her, could result in a complete psychological break.”

“Yeah, but she also believes that there’s something important to be found on Ibnal’saffar. She claimed she got that info from Andromeda. If it was just a dream, then where did she actually get it from?”

“Hold on.” Ari looked at the ceiling for several seconds. “Okay. So when Helena first arrived on Kuisu, she was staying in a place like a hostel. She was having breakfast in a common room, and there was a program on a wall-mounted monitor that she was kind of half paying attention to. Do you remember the show Unsolved Mysteries?”

“Of course.”

“It was sort of like that, except it was talking about mysteries surrounding abandoned planets. There were a bunch mentioned in this part of the galaxy; if we get super bored some day I suppose we can go check them out. But it also mentioned, however briefly, Ibnal’saffar, and the Kira’To. Now, even with full access to someone’s memories, it can be difficult for us to understand exactly how information is processed and stored. Her memories immediately after overhearing that tidbit are of a guidebook to Kuisu that she was reading on her PDA, which strongly suggests that while she heard and remembered that tidbit, she didn’t consciously process it. The next time it comes up is the first dream she has about Andromeda.”

“Woah. Fascinating. The problem, though, is that that program was actually right. If we take Helena to the mountain temple, or find any other evidence of former Kira’To activity down there, then it will only feed into her psychosis. Who knows how she’s going to react?”

“That’s an excellent question. I have no idea. We’ll have to gather our leadership together and talk about it, soon.”

“Very soon. She’s going to insist on coming with us.”

Friday stood up, and jumped off the table. “The Fox is here!”

“Ah, yes,” said Ari. “It is.”

The trio went to the bridge via the conference room, and Friday immediately opened a channel to the Fox. Its bridge appeared on the main screen. They were greeted by Milena Zukova, Ikari, and Jim Penrose.

“It’s good to see everyone again,” began John. “I hope your journey here was uneventful.”

“It’s good to see you too, Commander,” said Milena. It’s been a bit boring. Fortunately, the Fox is a fine ship to spend time on.”

“Glad to hear it,” said Ari. “Did you have a chance to read the report I sent you yesterday?”

“We did. We have a lot to talk about. First, I’m sure Captain Kitsune and Mister Venator are just bursting at the seams to get back to their ship. Are they on the Faith right now?”

“Yes, we’ll let her know. Friday will help you get docked. We’ll see you soon.”

The transmission ended, returning their view to the beautiful blue-green globe of Ibnal’saffar off their port side. John and Ari made their way back to the galley, and shared the news with everyone. Vecky leaped out of her seat and ran upstairs with a joyful shout. Cane stood up and finished his beer.

“All my stuff better still be in my room,” he said.

_____

Penrose stood above a sink in the Fox’s medical bay, washing his hands after a simple, and successful, surgery. When Vecky and Cane had boarded the Fox, Penrose had waited patiently for them to greet their old friends, as well as revisit their quarters, before gently reminding Vecky that he really needed to evaluate her gunshot injury from earlier. Though Vecky had agreed to this, she still made her stalwart surgeon wait for her to walk every inch of the Fox, from stem to stern, before finally meeting him in the medical bay.

There, after removing her bandage, Penrose discovered a wound in desperate need of debriding and stitches. And so, after several shots of lidocaine, fifteen sutures, and a prescribed regimen of amoxicillin, he slapped another bandage on her arm and sent an impatient Vecky on her way. Once he was done cleaning up both himself and the bay, he looked at the clock on the wall. He was just in time for the next briefing, which as he understood was in advance of the next long-awaited part of their mission. So, he headed to the bridge.

At the moment he got there, Vecky had just switched places with Milena in the pilot chair. The younger woman settled into the seat with a smile on her face and a barely-audible sigh. Milena joined Ikari at one of the port-side consoles, herself smiling at seeing the rightful commander of the ship take her place after so much time. The other three Eaglites, two men and one woman, remained at their normal stations.

For that trio, though Penrose had tried to find something in common with them, to at least pass the time together, if not become friends, they proved more interested in sparring in the cargo bay with wooden swords and gradually draining the ship’s supply of beer and spirits. In fact, other than gaining a basic understanding of the Fox’s systems, the youngsters had proved to be barely more than a resource-consuming addition to an otherwise competent crew. Though mostly a passive observer during the Fox’s many combat engagements, Penrose nevertheless understood the importance of a crew that could keep the old girl together. In the face of an unknown future, he sincerely hoped that Vecky would take the time to evaluate them fairly.

On the main screen, the vista of the Reckless Faith and the Antares in orbit above Ibnal’saffar changed to a split-screen of the bridges of said ships. Though the entire crews of each ship were gathered there; John Scherer and Wei Zhu Lesath were front and center in frame. John was the first one to speak.

“All right, everyone,” he began, “I’ve heard that most of you have had a chance to read the report that we prepared about our time apart, and what we’ve learned about Ibnal’saffar. Just so that everyone is on the same page, I’d like to summarize our findings about the planet before we venture back to the surface. Any objections?”

“Go for it,” said Milena.

“Cool. So, after our liberation from the Flying Serpent, the Faith and the Antares conducted extensive scans of the surface of Ibnal’saffar. The findings were that the planet was once home to an advanced civilization, most likely space-faring, with several large city-centers interspersed throughout the globe. At some point, according to radionuclide readings at the rather obvious ruins of said cities, between four hundred and several thousand years ago, someone or something nuked the shit out of them. However, a distinct lack of fission daughter isotopes anywhere else on the planet makes it unclear what type of weapon was used. Certainly not any conventional device that any of us are familiar with.

“This would all be nothing more than a curiosity if not for the Kira’To temple that we found upon our arrival here. So far, we have no idea who created it or why. We would like to study it further and, while that’s a simple enough task, there is also the matter of the extensive underground tunnels and/or facilities our scans have revealed under each of the dead cities. Though answers may be found there, it does beg the question of whether or not such expeditions are worth our time. There are also concerns about recent Rakhar activity in the Vulpecula systems, which would be worth keeping an eye on.”

“That’s an understatement,” said Ikari.

“Indeed. So we have to decide, collectively, what to do next. Let’s start with our captains. Thoughts?”

Lesath said, “Kheiron brought us here for a reason. If the answer to what that is doesn’t lie below, then there may be clues to point us somewhere else. My vote is to stay here for however many days or weeks it takes to investigate that possibility; within reason, of course.”

Vecky stood up, and put her hands together behind her back, as if addressing a room full of diplomats. “With all due respect, Captain Lesath, I disagree. We will inspect the temple further, for sure, but I’ve just about had enough of crawling through ancient dungeons in search of secrets that were buried for good reason. Commander Scherer is right; after speaking with Commander Ikari and Miss Adeler about recent developments in the Primarian system, our attention to that region of space should be our priority. And that’s not just speaking as someone with a personal attachment to it. We have a huge advantage in experience and contacts there versus a newcomer, and it would be foolish to remain absent for long, lest that advantage evaporate.

“There’s also the matter of our dear Master Fuyue and his rather unexpected acquisition of an Umberian brain. While it did result in a convenient receptacle for Kheiron to deposit his mind into, the mere fact that Verisimilitude Android Designs came into possession of the schematics for an orb should be something we’re far more concerned with than… well, than we seem to be. Am I wrong?”

“No, you’re not,” replied John. “I agree with Ferro that the only way they could’ve gotten it, other than traveling to Umber itself, is some sort of spyware, or software exploit, installed into Christie’s android body without our knowledge. While Fuyue escaped, it’s still possible they would share that info with others, including our enemies. I think a visit to them is in order.”

“We’s is gonna break some kneecaps,” said Richter.

Vecky sat down, and said, “It seems like the best plan is for the Fox to return to the Primarian system and pursue our goals there. That’s twelve days’ transit time for the Fox. That should be plenty of time for the Faith and the Antares to explore the planet, then link up with us at home.”

“I’m not thrilled with the idea of splitting up our firepower again,” said John. “But if we encounter something we can’t handle, we can always just get the hell out of here and resolve to come back later.”

“Then it’s decided,” said Lesath.

“It seems so, unless there’s something we missed. Anyone else got anything?”

“It’s evening by the Fox’s time,” said Vecky. “We’ll depart in twelve hours. Anyone who wants to come with us, you’ve got until then to board.”

“We’ll let you know.”

The Faith and the Antares both terminated their transmissions. Vecky turned to look at the others.

“I hope none of you felt reluctant to speak. If you’d rather stay here, that’s perfectly fine with me.”

“You know I’m going,” said Cane. “I’m itching to get back to my old neighborhood and beat some bushes.”

Ikari grunted. “You’re only saying that because you’ve got all of us backing you up. Though I suppose I can’t deny that you know the underbellies of Secundus and Matesia better than any of us.”

“I’m kind of a big deal.”

“Shut up,” said Vecky, smiling. “You were right there with us being useless on Ibnal’saffar for six weeks. If anybody here is a big deal right now, it’s Commander Ikari. He’s got the latest intelligence on the situation back home.”

“Indeed,” began Ikari, “we have a lot to talk about, Captain. You’re right that our attention should be focused on what the Rakhar are doing, or at least, trying to do, back there. In fact, I’m honestly disappointed that Captain Lesath and Commander Scherer would rather spend their time chasing ghosts than immediately support our mission. I would have thought they’d be more concerned about Rakhar incursions after what happened at Eniph.”

“Though I’d like to have them with us sooner, if there are clues about the history of the Kira’To down there, it’s worth checking out. You can’t blame them for that. I do hope Evangeline decides to come with us. I miss her.”

Cane said, “I wouldn’t count on it, with her and Richter having been apart for so long. Maybe both of them will come with us, I don’t know. We could at least extend the offer.”

“Miss Adeler is a formidable ally,” said Ikari. “Her skill with a blade is matched only by her intuition.”

“May I remind you all,” began Penrose, “that I can only operate on one person at a time.”

Spoiler alert: This is the first draft of the ninth book in the Reckless Faith series, now with the working title of The Path of Andromeda. You can start with the prologue here: https://devonai.wordpress.com/2024/10/17/reckless-faith-ix-prologue/

In a dark corridor on the Fortuna, by the port-side airlock, John and his friends waited. They had set up a defensive position using old crates and broken anti-grav skids, which at least provided concealment, if not effective cover. Vecky was doing well, for the most part, but looked exhausted. Though the team was aware of the negotiations that were occurring, the mood was still tense. Richter had taken up a position behind one of the skids, pistol at the ready, and hadn’t budged from there for a solid ten minutes. If Captain Sinfonietta was aboard, she still hadn’t made herself known.

A voice call came in on Ray’s PDA, on a normal encrypted channel. His eyes widened, and he answered it.

“Team, this is the Reckless Faith,” said Ari’s voice. “How do you read, over?”

“Lima Charlie,” replied Ray. “It’s good to hear from you.”

“How is Kitsune?”

“She’s still in the fight for now.”

“Good. I’ll cut to the chase, Bailey. The Serpentites have declared our railgun specs to be an inadequate trade, because the entire contraption has the maneuverability of a turtle, according to them. While we’ve found a way to defeat the dampening field that’s been hindering our communication efforts, we have not been able to spoof their sensors as I previously described. We have another plan, copy?”

“We’re listening.”

“Is it plausible that Helena could have been hit by enemy fire?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have somewhere that Helena can hide?”

Ray looked around. “We can stuff her in a crate, I guess. Why?”

“Our NDSS is producing a perfect view of you and your location. We’re going to do a full-body scan of Helena. Then, we’re going to transport a copy of her to you, with only the brain stem in place. Shoot it, make it look like you tried to treat her, then stand by. We’ll tell the Serpentites that she’s dead, and arrange to hand over the body.”

“That’s horrible!” said Helena, turning pale. “Will it be alive?”

“Yes, but without higher neural functions. It won’t be you, Cygnet. Not in any sense of being an actual person.”

“I had no idea that kind of technology even existed.”

“We’re still trying to perfect it,” said John. “So far, our replicants haven’t survived for very long. This should work for our purposes. Ferro, proceed with the plan.”

Helena turned around. “I can’t watch this.”

“You’ll need to stand still for several seconds,” said Ari. “You won’t feel a thing.”

“I don’t understand how any of this is remotely ethical.”

John said, “Richter, do you want to handle this?”

Richter nodded. “Sure. Bailey, come take my place.”

Ray swapped positions with him. Richter holstered his pistol, dropped his rucksack, retrieved a tourniquet, and passed it to John. Richter drew his pistol again.

A few seconds later, a point of light appeared in the middle of the corridor, grew in intensity, then created a brilliant pale green shaft from the ceiling to the deck. A sound like sand being poured onto a hard surface filled their ears. The shaft expanded in width, glittering with dancing energy, and a form appeared inside. The light abruptly ceased, leaving behind a copy of Helena. The doppleganger immediately dropped to the deck, completely limp.

Richter approached it. Though he couldn’t be sure in the dim light, it appeared to be a perfect facsimile of her, minus her accoutrements.

“Scherer, get ready with that tourniquet. Everyone, cover your ears.”

Richter aimed just to the left of the body’s groin, and fired a single shot. Blood began to seep through the hole in its trousers, and soon a steady, pulsing flow followed.

John grimaced. “It looks like you got the femoral.”

“That was the intention.”

Vecky said, “I’m sorry Helena, this isn’t easy for us, either.”

Helena continued to look away. “Just get it done.”

John gave Richter the tourniquet. Kneeling by the body, Richter put two fingers on its neck. Two minutes later, he applied the tourniquet to her leg. By then, a large pool of blood had formed on the floor, and he did his best to avoid stepping in it. Ray keyed his PDA, and spoke.

“Ferro, the deed is done. Pass it along and let us know what they say.”

“Roger,” she replied. “Do you need any weapons, in case this thing goes south?”

“I think a SAW would be enough discouragement for this situation,” said Richter.

“You got it.”

A moment later, the cascade of green light appeared again, this time leaving a M249 with a 200-round box, and two other boxes in bandoleers. Richter holstered his pistol, donned the extra ammo, and loaded the weapon.

“Heads up, we’ve got company,” said Ray.

Down the corridor, the first furtive flickers of flashlights could be seen. Richter set himself up on a crate on the right side and got ready. Another crate was open at the top, so John tipped it over and gestured at Helena.

“Get in,” he said.

Helena crawled inside, grumbling. Someone peeked around the corner, briefly shining their flashlight down the hallway before withdrawing it.

“That’s far enough,” said Richter.

“Take it easy,” said a voice. “We don’t want a repeat of what happened earlier.”

John and Richter recognized her as the security guard John had shot. John stepped forward and got behind a skid before replying.

“Have you talked to your leadership in the last few minutes?”

“Yes. We understand they’ve agreed to trade your freedom for a corpse. That doesn’t sound like a fair deal to me. How do we know you didn’t kill her out of spite?”

“Does it matter? Cygnet paid for her crimes as far as you’re concerned. But since you asked, your buddy is the one that shot her, with that blind round he sent through the door. He should start thinking about an apology to Lieutenant Ember right about now.”

“Fine. Back off down the corridor so we can inspect the body.”

“No. First we get confirmation that our ship is docked.”

“Agreed, but that door doesn’t open until we see it, otherwise we start shooting.”

“Have it your way. Ray?”

Ray relayed the message to the Faith, and a response came back. “They’re on their way.”

After what seemed like an eternity, they felt a mild thump, and heard the sound of air rushing into the space beyond the airlock. A green light appeared on the control panel, and Ray’s PDA beeped. Ray smiled and gave a thumbs-up, and John yelled down the corridor again.

“Stay where you are. We’ll bring the body to you.”

John beckoned Ray over, and the two men picked it up. They began shuffling ahead.

“Stay to the left side,” said Richter.

They continued forward until they were about ten feet from the corner, then put it down. From there, they could see that there were multiple people gathered in wait. They backed off slowly, then returned to the airlock. John nodded at Vecky, and she activated the door. The Zero-G room appeared beyond, along with what looked like most of the crew of the Faith. Though they were ecstatic to see each other, everyone remained where they were. At the far end of the corridor, the two guards from earlier took up defensive positions, and two others knelt by the body, examining it with their flashlights. They spoke quietly to each other, then the first guard spoke again.

“Get out of here,” she said, “and never return.”

“Helena, now,” whispered John.

Helena crawled out of the crate and crept forward until she had cleared the threshold of the airlock. Then, the rest of them bounded back one at a time, with Richter the last one through. Ari, who was standing by the interior door, hit the controls, and a moment later they were safe. Also waiting for them were Dana, Eva, Kyrie, Cane, and Tycho.

“Friday, get us out of here,” Ari said.

The next two minutes went by in a blur, as everyone excitedly greeted each other. The joy and relief were overwhelming for everyone but Helena, who stood silently in the corner. After a long series of hugs, and freely-flowing tears, the group began to settle down.

“That was a hell of a distraction you provided for us,” said Ray. “What did you do?”

“We turned the Tempest into Swiss cheese,” replied Ari.

“Shit. That’ll do it.”

“Y’all desperately need a shower,” said Dana.

“C’mon, let’s get to the bridge,” said Eva. “We’ve got to link up with the Antares and withdraw to a safe distance. Then we can have a proper reunion.”

Eva winked at Richter. John extricated himself from Ari’s grasp, and turned to Kyrie.

“Devonai,” he began, “bring our guest to my quarters, and show her how to use the shower, and the console, to replicate some clean clothes. Helena, I’d like you to remain there until we’ve had a chance to figure out our next move. Take whatever you want out of the min-fridge if you need it.”

Helena nodded morosely. “Okay.”

“Ari and I will be right behind you.”

“Don’t get distracted,” said Richter, smirking.

Everyone else headed out. John embraced Ari again, and kissed her.

“I wasn’t sure I’d ever see you again,” he said.

“I wrestled with that, too. It wasn’t easy. But soon after we got to the Eagle, Maoko was sure that Vecky was still alive. I was certain that if she was, you must be, too. I’ve been holding on to that hope for weeks.”

“I want nothing more than to take a shower, then cuddle with you and Friday alone. But I know we have more pressing matters.”

Ari looked down at herself. “Yeah. I’m going to need a shower now, too.”

“Sorry about that. It wasn’t an easy day.”

“Don’t worry. When we get the chance, we’ll do it together.”

__________

On the bridge of the Kestrel, Lieutenant Ember watched from the command chair as her brother guided the ship back to its normal spot along the body of the Serpent. The mood among the crew was somber, as they were still reeling from the death of their captain, and all Ember wanted to do was to make sure the ship was securely docked and crawl back into bed. Unfortunately, there was still much to do first.

“Gantry connection locked,” said Brittele.

Wearily, Ember stood up. “As I said before, not all of you need to come with me.”

“And as I said,” began Ash, “if Yovisha says it’s Helena, it’s Helena.”

“This is something I have to do. I don’t know how else to deal with the rage I’m feeling.”

Ash stood up. “I know. I feel it, too. Jerrod was the beating heart of this ship. You go. The rest of us will prepare his body for a proper burial.”

Ember wiped a tear from her eye. “Burial? Where?”

“I can think of no better place than the void.”

“Wandering, for eternity. I think he’d like that. Thank you, Ash.”

Glancing briefly at the door to Strouth’s quarters, Ember exited to the corridor and headed to the port-side airlock. She passed through the gantry, and stepped out onto the concourse. There, she heard something she’d never heard before in that space: sepulcher-like quiet. While there were people there, they moved around as if they’d be startled by their own shadows. Pausing for a moment at the strangeness of it, she then headed toward the side corridor that would lead her to the Fortuna. On her way, she walked past abandoned belongings, including some valuables. The scene only added to her anger; in all her time on the Serpent, nothing had disturbed it like this.

Just as she reached the spot she wanted, the door slid open. Yovisha and Merlis, who were part of the security team for the Flying Fish, appeared. They were carrying Helena’s body on a stretcher. They were followed by several other citizen volunteers.

“The threat has ended,” Ember said. “The rest of you can go home.”

The volunteers dispersed. Yovisha and Merlis set the stretcher down.

Ember turned to Yovisha. “Are you okay? I heard you took a round.”

She nodded. “I’m fine, my armor stopped the round completely. It hit like a sledgehammer, though.”

“Why don’t you go get checked out? I’ll take over for you.”

“I will soon, thank you.”

Ember kneeled by the body. Helena’s eyes were locked open, dull and lifeless. In Ember’s experience, that was the worst thing any humanoid could ever see, even if they were the eyes of the enemy. Blood and viscera were far easier to deal with compared to gazing into what once was. For Ember’s purposes, it worked. Soon, she moved on to examine Helena’s wound.

“It looks like they tried to save her,” said Merlis.

“I can see that,” Ember replied.

“Do you have any idea why she killed Captain Strouthionum?”

“I’m not sure I can tell you right now. I don’t want rumors spreading.”

“Huh? Without any info, there will be nothing but rumors.”

Ember stood up, sighing. “She wanted to go to Ibnal’saffar. Her reasons died with her. That’s all I can say. Anyway, it’s definitely her. I suppose I should thank you for killing her.”

“I would have preferred to capture her alive. I took no pleasure in that.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that.”

Merlis nodded. “I know.”

Ember’s PDA beeped at her. She answered the call, sending the audio to her earpiece.

“Go ahead, Brittele.”

“We’re being hailed by the Reckless Faith,” said Brittele’s voice. “Do you want me to handle it?”

“No, I’ll take the call. Put it through on standby, I’ll answer it in a minute.” She looked at the others. “Excuse me, please.”

Ember walked across the concourse. As it happened, the Nepenthe was directly across from the corridor to the Fortuna. She tried the handle on the door, and it opened. She walked into the darkened main room and closed the door behind her. The bar was as she remembered from not long ago. She sat down in the nearest booth, and answered the call.

An image appeared on her PDA. Though the screen was small, she could tell she was looking at the bridge of a ship. She could see several people that she recognized, a few she didn’t, and there was a cat sitting on the front console. John Scherer was next to the cat, and he spoke.

“I’m sure you’d rather not be hearing from us again,” he began, “but I was hoping we could leave here in peace, even after everything that happened.”

“We already talked about the peaceful part, Scherer. If you leave and never come back, then we’ll have achieved it. I don’t see why it needs to be more complicated than that.”

“Nobody wanted this outcome, Lieutenant. We feel we owe you one. You have our SRC frequency. If you ever need a favor, call us. Ours is a fast ship, and we might be able to help you out someday.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Where are you headed next?”

“Somewhere safe, for some rest and recovery. Ember, I’m sorry about Jerrod. He was nothing but fair to us, and loyal to the Serpent.”

“I already knew that.”

Ember terminated the call. She got up, and moved to the back of the bar. She grabbed a bottle of whiskey, and was about to take a swig, when she noticed that the door to the back room was open. She walked in and turned on the light. She found a storeroom that also served as Helena’s office. At first glance, there wasn’t anything unexpected there. Ember sat down at the desk, and took a long pull from the bottle. On the desk, she noticed a small silver pendant, so she picked it up. It was a swan, posed with wide pinions, and its head in profile.

She put the pendant in her pocket, and drank from the bottle again. “So long, Cygnet.”

Spoiler alert: This is the first draft of the ninth book in the Reckless Faith series, now with the working title of The Path of Andromeda. You can start with the prologue here: https://devonai.wordpress.com/2024/10/17/reckless-faith-ix-prologue/

“I think that’s our signal.”

Richter nodded in response to John’s statement. In the cramped tunnel next to the hatch, he and his team had just felt a brief but intense series of vibrations throughout the superstructure of the Serpent. Ray returned his attention to his PDA, peering at the screen intently.

“The guards are moving off,” he said. “Yup, they’ve entered the concourse. Time to make our move.”

Earlier, they had managed to remove the cover from the power switch to the hatch, and free up some wiring. Richter, who was kneeling at the switch, twisted two wires together. He drew his hand back sharply, swearing, as a minor current shocked his fingers. The gears and levers slowly came to life, and the hatch slid open with all the grace of a rhinoceros. He poked his head through the hatch.

The causeway connecting the airlock to the concourse was well-lit, and he narrowed his eyes to look in each direction. To the left was a dead-end, and to the right he could see the backs of the guards that had moved off, as they were standing just outside the causeway door. They were thoroughly distracted by whatever was going on beyond there. Richter motioned for the others to follow, and carefully climbed through the hatch. The airlock to the Fortuna was directly across the causeway, so Richter directed Ray and John to follow him, for Vecky to stay by the hatch, and for Helena to stay in the tunnel.

“Play it cool,” said Richter. “Bailey, see if you can get that airlock open. Scherer, let’s talk to the guards. Follow my lead.”

The two men walked up to the guards. Out on the concourse, a chaotic scene was playing out. People were running around in a panic, shopkeepers were shuttering their stores, and vendors were wheeling their carts to parts unknown. A few armed men and women were also running back and forth. The guards were mildly startled by the arrival of Richter and John, but didn’t draw their pistols. They could see that both guards were wearing soft body armor under their jackets.

“What the hell is going on out there?” asked Richter.

“Where did you come from?” asked the first guard, a Caracali man with short-cropped hair.

“We’re boarding on the Fortuna. The commotion woke us up. Are we under attack?”

The second guard, an Eniphite woman, frowned. “We were told only Captain Sinfonietta was on board.”

John shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you. She offered us a good rate.”

“We’re not supposed to let anyone in or out of the Fortuna except her. Who let you in? How long have you been there?”

“Are we under attack, or not?” asked Richter.

“It certainly seems like it,” said the first guard. “Nobody knows anything yet.”

“Then we’re going to grab our belongings and come back here in case there’s an evacuation order.”

Richter glanced back at Ray. He had his PDA out and was holding it next to the airlock controls. Ray gave him a thumbs-down, and returned his attention to the PDA. Richter stepped back into the causeway, and John followed. The second guard looked back at the airlock.

“We can’t let you do that,” she said.” “You and your friends are going to have to… hey, what’s going on back there?”

Richter hit the switch, stepped back behind the wall, and drew his pistol. John did the same on his side. The door began to close. The first guard tried to block it with his body, but thought twice about it when Richter pointed his pistol at his face. The second guard drew her own pistol, and John shot her in the shoulder. Both guards stumbled back, and the door closed.

“Can you lock it?” asked John.

Richter examined the controls. “I don’t think so. There is an emergency release lever, though. Use your belt on the handles!”

There were two long vertical handles on each side of the door. John whipped off his belt, causing both his empty holster and a magazine pouch to fall on the floor. He put the belt around the handles, and tightened it as much as he could. Richter pulled the release lever, then did the same with his own belt. They collected their things from the floor and ran back to the airlock.

“That’s not going to hold them for long,” said John.

“I’ve interfaced with the controls,” began Ray, “and I’m running the hacking program. No luck yet.”

“Anybody got a portable welding torch they haven’t told us about yet?”

Helena crawled out of the tunnel, and stood up. “Did you have to kill someone?”

“I hope not.”

The door to the concourse began to rattle, then it was forced open about an inch. Shouts could be heard from the other side. Richter had a flash of insight.

“Kitsune,” he began, “do you still have those zip-ties I gave you in your ruck?”

Vecky raised her eyebrows. “Oh! Yes, I do.”

“Get over there and secure as many as you have to the door handles.”

“I’m on it.”

Vecky unlimbered her backpack, and retrieved the black nylon straps. She ran over to the door, and set to work wrapping them around the handles. In an instant, someone shoved the muzzle of a rifle through the gap, and fired. The round grazed her left forearm, sailed down the causeway, and caromed off of the back wall. She fell back, landed on her butt, and looked at wound. Richter and John ran forward, making sure to keep themselves clear of the opening, and slammed the door shut again. Working together, they tightened up several zip-ties and retightened the belts before turning their attention to Vecky.

Richter whipped off his backpack, and grabbed his first aid kit. “How’s it going, Bailey?”

“It still says, ‘interfacing with system’,” he shouted.

Richter got out a compression bandage, and applied it to the ragged laceration. He got Vecky to her feet, and moved back to the others.

“How bad is it?” Helena asked Vecky.

“I think it nicked a tendon,” she replied. “It hurts like hell. I feel like I’m going to pass out.”

“Take slow, deep breaths,” said Richter. “Sit back down if you need to.”

Ray pumped his fist into the air. “Got it!”

The outer airlock door, an unusual aperture design, slid open from the center. The team rushed inside, crowding the small space. Ray easily opened the identical interior door with a single press of the controls, then closed the outer door. He then used his PDA to secure it.

“It’s locked,” he began, “but I have no idea if someone with command authority can override it.”

“Then let’s hope Captain Sinfonietta isn’t paying attention,” said Helena.

John said, “Either way, we’d better hurry. Okay, Helena, you said we need to get to the port-side airlock. Lead the way.”

__________

In the area around the Flying Serpent, a chaotic scene was unfolding. From the bridge of the Reckless Faith, they watched as all four working ships from each corner of the Serpent detached and arranged themselves in a staggered diamond formation around the body of the massive complex, with the two ships that had launched from the aft taking care to navigate around the field of fresh debris that had formed.

Kyrie, Cane, and Malthus had joined the rest of the crew; the first man had taken a seat at the weapons console, with the other two occupying the jump seats at the rear of the bridge. Their ears still ringing from the noise of firing both the plasma cannon and the GAU 8 at the same time, they watched as Dana guided the Faith toward the port side of the Fortuna. The large freighter had been painted yellow and blue at some point, though the colors had been almost completely blasted away, presumedly from entering and breaking atmo for years, revealing bare metal.

“Our team is in place,” began Friday, “and all four ships are running their sensors at full blast. No sign that they’ve spotted us so far.”

“The Antares has just arrived!” announced Eva.

“Excellent,” replied Ari. “Tell them to hold fast at a thousand klicks and monitor the situation.”

“Wilco. Oh, we’re also receiving a message from one of the ships, wide band broadcast, audio only.”

“Let’s hear it.”

An unknown voice, translated from Caracali, began speaking. “Unknown vessel, we know you’re here to retrieve your people, and we know exactly which ship they’re on. Normally we would allow you to pick them up, especially to avoid further violence, but within their group, they harbor a fugitive. We cannot allow that person to leave. Instruct your people to turn her over to us, then you may retrieve them in peace. Though we may not be able to see you, we will know if any of the airlocks or emergency hatches on that ship are used. If that happens, and we don’t have our fugitive, then we’ll be forced to destroy the ship.”

“They can’t be serious,” said Cane. “The Fortuna is the largest repository of drinking water for the entire Serpent. They just spent days refilling them after Helena sabotaged them. That’s how they found us on Ibnal’saffar, they were there to…”

“We’ll hear the whole story soon enough,” said Ari, interrupting him. “Suffice it to say that they’re bluffing?”

“Probably, yes.”

“Okay. Eva, relay what we just heard to our team.”

Eva nodded. “On it.”

“Should we reply?” asked Dana.

Ari shook her head. “Not yet. Cane, is this Helena person really a fugitive?”

“Yes,” he said. “She killed the captain of the Kestrel, the ship that just sent that message.”

“And our people are protecting her for a good reason?”

“Yes, she was the only one who could gain access to an SRC device, and send the message that brought you here. In exchange, she wants to go to Ibnal’saffar. She upheld her end of the bargain, and we’re trying to uphold ours.”

“Understood.”

Kyrie said, “Here’s what I think we should do. They don’t know the Antares is here, too. So let’s have them rescue our team while we open a channel and stall for time. If any of their ships actually do make a move against the Fortuna, then we’ll pick a fight.”

“The problem,” began Eva, “is that we’re still outnumbered, and any one of their ships can destroy the Fortuna before we can stop them.”

“Damn it.”

“A stalemate, then?” asked Dana. “Come on, there’s gotta be another option.”

“Maybe we can figure out a way to spoof their sensor readings,” said Cane. “Make it look to them like the airlock is still secured even while we’re using it.”

“Maybe,” began Ari, “but we’ll have to figure out how to defeat the dampening field that’s in place first, and all of that will take time. We have to assume that their people are actively trying to gain access to the Fortuna. Our team can’t hold their position forever. How about a trade? Is there anything that we can give the Serpentites that would be more valuable to them than Helena?”

“All they want to do, as far as we were able to learn, is travel slowly between the stars and be left alone.”

“What about replication technology?” asked Friday.

Kyrie said, “From talking to some of the residents, stopping at various planets in the Andromeda constellation to barter for resources is part of the charm of this place. It’s worth asking, though.”

“We could offer them a railgun design,” said Cane. “Given the length of the main body of the Serpent, a railgun that long could punch a hole in a god damn moon.”

“Let’s do both,” said Dana. “Start a conversation, offer them technology, and in the meantime, Ari and Friday can start researching how to circumvent the dampening field and spoof their sensors. Heck get the entire crew of the Antares to work the problem, too.”

Eva said, “Look, everyone, I know we always look for a win-win for every problem, but we should also consider that the only way we may be able to get our people back without the risk of disaster is to give up Helena.”

Ari nodded. “That’s true. That will be our Plan C. Are there any other objections? No? Then let’s get started. Friday, open a channel to the Kestrel, audio only.”

“You’re live,” said Friday.

“This is the independent vessel Reckless Faith, requesting immediate parley.”

A female voice could be heard in response. “This is Lieutenant Ember, commander of the Kestrel. I think I’ve already made the situation clear enough for you. Direct your people to hand over Helena Cygnet; only then will we allow them to leave.”

Ari rested her chin in her hand, thinking carefully about her next words. “You’ve already seen the power of our ship. We’d like to avoid further violence; however, a deal was struck between our people and Miss Cygnet. We’re obligated to honor it. So, as an alternative, we’d like to offer you advanced technology that could either better the quality of life for your residents, or, enhance your defensive capabilities. Or both.”

“How much have you learned about our society from the people you plucked from the Fortuna?”

“Enough. We understand the seriousness of Cygnet’s crimes. But in our line of work, a deal is a deal. That doesn’t mean we can’t offer you something in exchange.”

There was a pause before Ember replied. “What did you have in mind?”

“We have reliable replication technology that can be used for resources and consumables. The source material need only be waste, scrap, or ideally, element 82. If you’re adept enough, you can even use it to repair machinery or systems without lifting a finger.”

“Our community has subsisted just fine for the last hundred years without it. No thanks. Anything else?”

“We are also offering plans for a railgun device that, when installed on the main body of the Serpent, will be undefeatable by any known spacecraft design, providing the ultimate in self-defense capability. Perhaps, in your travels, you have become aware of the resurgence of the Rakhar Empire not far from here, and the handful of large-scale battles that have resulted from their expansion. Now is the time for everyone in the quadrant to be investing in weaponry, and you’d be foolish to pass on this opportunity.”

“You’d have to allow our technicians to review the schematics first.”

“Of course. We only ask one thing in return. Allow us to communicate freely with our people on the Fortuna. It would be a shame if there was a firefight on board for lack of understanding.”

Ember scoffed. “Don’t push your luck, Reckless Faith. Send the schematics to the data frequency to follow, then wait for our decision. Kestrel out.”

“They sent a frequency, then terminated the call,” said Friday.

“Nice try, Ari,” said Eva. “So? Shall we follow through?”

“I don’t see why not,” replied Dana.

“Fine, then,” said Ari. “Friday, transmit every file we have on railgun systems, including footage of them in action. Then you and I will devote our attention to the other problem at hand.”

“No problem,” she said. “Compiling data now.”

Ari turned to the others. “I’m going to be busy. Please don’t bother me or Friday unless it’s urgent, okay?”

Dana smiled. “Don’t worry, we meat-bags can handle everything else. Do your thing.”

Continue reading: https://devonai.wordpress.com/2025/11/04/the-path-of-andromeda-rfix-chapter-12/

Spoiler alert: This is the first draft of the ninth book in the Reckless Faith series, now with the working title of The Path of Andromeda. You can start with the prologue here: https://devonai.wordpress.com/2024/10/17/reckless-faith-ix-prologue/

In the bowels of the Flying Serpent, a small group of people was moving. Passing slowly through a twisted tunnel of grimy utility conduits, along with Ray, Richter, Vecky, and Helena, John had to wonder why the Serpent, with its huge main concourse, had been designed with such claustrophobic access areas beneath. It was as if the architect had never intended for humanoids to be down there; or at least, not for long.

They were headed to a spot that Helena had decided was her best chance to hide for an extended period. She had explained that after leaving the Order of Andromeda, and before opening her bar, she had explored as much of the Serpent as she could. That included these maintenance areas. She had further told them that since the Serpent relied mostly on the ships attached to it for life support, several of its original systems had been allowed to fall into disrepair. That made their intended destination a good choice for lying low.

So far, John was reasonably confident that she was correct, as the dust on the metal floor lay undisturbed. Still, the group was moving with caution: pistols drawn, exercising light and noise discipline, and keeping their ears open. However, as their journey reached the half-hour mark, he was starting to get anxious. Helena was right in front of him, so he spoke.

“How much further is it?” he asked softly.

“Not far,” she replied.

“The further we go, the more difficult it’s going to be to get back out when the Faith gets here.”

“I know. I’m serious, it’s just beyond this bend. Assuming I chose the right corridor in the first place.”

Richter, who was leading the way, grumbled. “I hope that was an attempt at humor.”

“It was.”

Thankfully, Helena was right, and the tunnel opened up into a room. Here, they found several ancient pieces of equipment, some boxes, and dead rodents. A single fluorescent light bravely held on to life on the far wall. Helena’s charges let out a collective sigh of relief to be free of the tunnel. It was also several degrees cooler in the room, which John appreciated. Richter retrieved a canteen from his belt.

“Water up.”

The others followed his lead, then found places to sit down.

“This looks like a research lab,” said Ray. “Or it was, a long time ago.”

“Seems like an odd place for that,” replied Vecky.

Helena put the cap back on her canteen. “There’s another entrance over there that’s been welded over with plate steel. That must have been the main way in.”

Richter got up and examined the former entrance. “Nothing’s getting in that way.”

“Exactly.”

“Welp, smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.”

Sitting back down, Richter pulled out a pack of cigarettes and fished around in his pocket for his lighter.

“I thought you ran out of cigs weeks ago,” said John.

“Earth cigarettes, yes. I bought these on the concourse a couple of days ago.”

“Some analog of tobacco? Did you even bother to scan them before you tried them?”

Richter lit one. “It smells close enough.”

John stood up. “Come on, Richter. We’ve been scanning consumables ever since we set foot on Residere Beta. Who’s got the scientific PDA?”

“You just want one.”

“Yes, I fucking want one, and I’d rather it doesn’t kill me. Immediately, I mean.”

“I’ve got it,” said Ray, producing the PDA from his bag.

Helena asked, “How comprehensive are the scans on that device?”

“Good enough for field work,” said John.

Ray walked over to Richter and activated the scanning program. A couple of seconds later, his eyes grew wide.

“Holy shit,” he said. “I’m receiving a directed stream of neutrinos from… somewhere.”

Richter looked at the screen. “That might be a broadcast. Boot up the commo program.”

Ray did so. “It says ‘Morse code detected’! Yes! That’s gotta be the Faith! Message reads as follows: ‘Ground team, this is the Reckless Faith, standing by at the Tempest. Unable to contact you via other means. Reply via neutrino stream if able. Out’.”

A cheer erupted from the group, except for Helena, who simply looked immensely relieved. Vecky sat down on a crate heavily, closed her eyes, and smiled.

“Tell them to hold position and wait for further instructions,” said John. “We’re not out of the woods yet. We need to figure out how we’re getting out of here without getting killed.”

Ray typed the message, then sent it. Five seconds later, a reply arrived.

“They said, ‘Wilco. It’s good to hear from you again’.”

“All right, then. Contact our team on the Tempest and let them know the good news.”

“I’m on it.”

“Thanks. Okay, team. Options?”

Richter looked at Helena. “If the body has been discovered, what happens next?”

“I’m not sure,” she replied, glancing at her PDA. “There hasn’t been a mass notification yet, which is odd. Maybe a lockdown? I don’t know how they’d enforce that, though.”

Ray said, “Either way, we need to avoid the main concourse. How about this: ask the Faith to scan the entire structure, and see if they can find us a route to an airlock with the least likelihood of running into anybody.”

“I like it,” said John. “And now that I think about it, if they can dock with the Tempest undetected, they should get the rest of our people out of there. There’s no reason to wait.”

“The Tempest only has the one airlock,” said Richter.

“Damn it, you’re right. But there’s got to be an emergency escape hatch somewhere. Ray, just ask them to see if it can be done.”

Ray nodded. “Sure. This will just take a minute… hey, it doesn’t look like my message to our team here got through. Probably interference from the superstructure. I’ll try again after I contact the Faith.”

He set to work on the messages. Helena found a chair, brushed the dust off, and sat down.

“I feel compelled to remind you that I don’t expect you to use violence to protect me,” she said.

“You’ve said that several times,” replied John. “That’s the last thing we want.”

“Never mind that all of our long arms are still on the Kestrel,” muttered Richter.

“I’m going to miss that shotgun,” said Ray. “It’s been with me from the beginning. Anyway, the Faith has acknowledged our requests. They’re going to send telemetry on the structure as soon as they have it, and assess the feasibility of accessing the Tempest. They said to expect a long time to transfer the data.”

“Excellent,” said John.

Richter found a rectangular table upended in a corner. He flipped it over and dragged it to the center of the room.

“Helena, do you want to learn a card game?” he asked.

“I don’t know how you can think about playing a game at a time like this,” she replied.

“We’ve got time, apparently. What would you rather do?”

“I suppose a distraction might be good.”

Richter moved a crate over to the table, and pulled out a deck of cards. “Cool! Anybody else?”

Everyone else found something to sit on, and joined Richter. Over the next fifteen minutes, he taught Helena the basics of Texas Hold ‘Em, with the others going along with the sample games. She seemed to be as disinterested as someone could possibly be while still participating. Every few minutes, Ray would check his PDA; it wasn’t until Richter declared Helena to be competent that Ray had something to report.

“The results of the scan are complete,” he said. “At first glance, it looks like there was some degradation of the data stream. There are some areas of the Serpent that are just white blobs of nothing, scattered everywhere like snowflakes on a window.”

Ray showed the screen to the others.

“Damn it,” said John, sighing. “Fine, let’s orient ourselves to the Tempest and figure out where we are.”

Though it was a difficult task with the PDA’s seven-inch screen, John and Ray spent the next several minutes working out their location, then possible routes to an alternate airlock.

“Okay,” he said, looking at Helena. “It’s hard to be sure, but it looks like there’s a relatively short route to an access panel, that leads to a side corridor, where there’s a ship docked. It has three other airlocks in addition to the one that connects it to the Serpent. What do you know about the Fortuna?”

“A lot, actually,” she replied. “That’s the ship that I sabotaged.”

“That is indeed fortunate. So you know the layout. How many people are typically on board?”

“At any given time? I don’t know. Usually it’s just the former captain, a woman named Sinfonietta. She’s not a threat.”

Richter asked, “Don’t you think they would’ve posted guards there after you damaged the water tanks?”

Helena nodded. “I guess they probably would have.”

“We’ll deal with that if we have to,” said John, standing. “C’mon, let’s get going. Ray, set the nav program to active scanning.”

Everyone got packed up and ready to move. Richter resumed his position at the front of the line, with Ray right behind him. Then, they went back inside the tunnel. It took about fifteen minutes to reach the access panel they wanted. It was a hatch, with two thick metal halves that moved to each side when opened. An old electric switch was mounted on the bulkhead next to it, rusted almost beyond recognition. However, they could see the mechanism that operated it, and the levers and gears appeared to be in serviceable condition. The team examined it with their flashlights.

“It looks like we’re going to have to hotwire this thing,” said Ray.

“Or spray it with a metric shitload of WD-40,” said John.

Richter said, “Ray, is there anybody in the corridor?”

“Hold on,” he said, tapping at his PDA. “Yes, two life signs at the airlock.”

“Shit. We’ll be at a huge disadvantage once this hatch opens. We’re going to need a diversion first if we don’t want to end up as tunnel sausage.”

“I agree,” said John. “Ray, see how the Faith is doing with accessing the Tempest.”

“Sure thing,” he replied.

Everyone else tried to make themselves comfortable while Ray relayed the message. John holstered his pistol and leaned against the wall. Helena sat on the floor, then looked at Vecky.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” she began, “why you’re lugging that staff around with you this whole time.”

“It’s yet another long story,” Vecky replied. “Let me ask you, do you feel anything when you look at it?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Feel anything? Like what? Nostalgia for my martial arts training?”

Vecky held out the staff. “Okay then. Here, Richter, shine your flashlight on it.”

“Okey dokey,” he said, complying.

“Helena, what do you see?”

Helena looked confused. “What the fuck? Wood. Are you fucking with me right now?”

John said, “Vecky, you could have saved this for another time.”

“Seriously. Nice staff. It’s great for clonking people on the head, I’m sure.”

Vecky returned the staff to her side. “You’re right, John. Sorry.”

“I’ve received a reply,” began Ray, “and things are looking good. Though they still haven’t been able to directly contact our team, they’ve set themselves up next to an emergency egress hatch on the Tempest and are ready to try to open it.”

“Awesome,” replied John.

Helena’s PDA chimed, and she looked at it. “Shit. An alert has been sent to all Serpent residents. It’s a call to apprehend me, with a bounty of the entire Canopus. Oh, my god.”

“What’s the Canopus?”

“It used to be a luxury yacht and it’s the nicest ship on the Serpent; well, that is, the nicest one that can’t fly anymore. It was unoccupied due to an accident that rendered its life support systems inoperable. There were some technicians in my bar recently talking about how they had gotten close to fixing it. I guess they succeeded.”

“I thought that nobody really owned anything here,” said Vecky.

“The ship you donate to the collective is still yours as a private space, if you choose. The owner of the Canopus died in said accident. It’s a huge prize, Captain Kitsune. Everyone here with a functional pistol is going to be looking for me.”

Richter said, “We learned that the population of the Serpent is close to a thousand people. If even a tenth of them go after you, that’s still ten people per docked ship. We have to assume that the Fortuna will be searched soon.”

“Fuck,” said Ray. “We’re going to need that distraction tout suite.”

“Then let’s hope they can get our people of out of there quickly. In the meantime, all we can do is inspect this hatch and get ready to open it. C’mon, we got this.”

__________

In the galley on the Tempest, Kyrie, Cane, and Malthus waited. It had been a little over an hour since the rest of their team had departed with Helena to look for a hiding spot for her, and they hadn’t heard anything from them. At first, they had busied themselves with making breakfast and caffeinated beverages, then meandered through several topics of conversation. As time wore on, they were getting increasingly anxious. They were in the middle of discussing the merits of natural sunlight for vitamin D production when they heard a thump, and felt a vibration.

“What the hell was that?” asked Malthus.

“A ship just made contact with us,” said Kyrie.

Cane stood up. “Yup. Let’s get to the bridge, maybe this old thing can tell us what’s going on.”

The trio exited to the central corridor, and headed toward the bow. As they approached the door, they heard a noise behind them. From the ceiling about halfway down, a shower of sparks appeared, cascading down to the deck and bouncing everywhere.

“Holy shit,” said Kyrie, drawing his pistol. “Someone’s cutting through the hull.”

Cane did the same. “Do you think it could be the Faith?”

“It would make sense. The Tempest only has one airlock. Still, let’s not take any chances. Malthus, get to the bridge.”

“No problem,” he replied, activating the doors and moving ahead.

Cane and Kyrie followed him, then posted up on the other side. Cane hit the mechanism to keep the doors open, and they crouched down. They kept their pistols pointed down the corridor as the cutting continued; at first forming a line, then a square. The sparks ceased and, with a couple of sharp thumps, the hull panel slammed to the floor with an enormous bang.

“This is just like Star Wars,” said Kyrie.

Cane didn’t budge. “I have no idea what you’re taking about.”

Though the corridor had filled with smoke, it quickly dissipated. They heard a whirring sound, then a sleek, four-propeller drone dropped through the opening. Both men stood up, smiling, as it was instantly recognizable to them.

“A snoopy!” shouted Kyrie. “It’s the Faith!”

They waved like idiots at the drone. It withdrew upwards, and a few seconds later, a rope ladder unfurled itself downward.

Cane looked over his shoulder. “Come on, Mister Brewer. Our salvation is here.”

Ari dropped through the opening and landed on the deck in a crouch. She posed dramatically with her Glock before rising up, and grinned at her friends.

“Long time, no see,” she said.

The men were about to run up to her when the doors to the airlock slid open. Three people entered: two men and one woman, all humanoid and all armed with pistols. Ari turned to face them, and at the same time, Evangeline began climbing down the rope ladder. The new arrivals stood there, confused, but keeping an eye on everyone they could see. Eva finished climbing down, and put her hand on her own gun. She didn’t draw, though, equally as confused. The man at the front of the group spoke.

“I’m not sure what the hell is going on here,” he began, “so I’ll keep it simple. We’re looking for Helena, the owner of Nepenthe. If she’s here, it would be better for you to tell us, otherwise we’re going to detain you and turn this ship inside-out.”

“I’ll speak for our group,” said Kyrie. “We don’t know who that is, and it doesn’t concern us. What we do want to do is get off of the Flying Serpent. That’s going to happen now, whether you want it to or not. The five of us are going to climb up that ladder and be gone. After that, you can search this ship as you see fit. If you have a problem with that, there’s going to be a lot of shooting.”

After a moment, the other man spoke. “Looks like she’s not here.”

“A shame, too,” said the woman.

The other group retreated into the airlock, and the door slid shut. Malthus let out a huge sigh of relief.

“You people are taking years off my life,” he said.

A happy reunion ensued, with lots of hugging and tears. As difficult as it was to interrupt it, Ari and Eva knew they had to deal with another problem.

“We have no way of resealing the hatch we just cut through,” began Ari, “so we need to evacuate the other six people our sensors tell us are on this ship. Do you know where they are?”

Kyrie shrugged. “There’s a guy in room 112, as for the others, I don’t know.”

“All right. I’ll go to the bridge and see if I can issue an abandon ship warning. Meanwhile, you might as well see if you can get that guy to leave. Once everyone has been evacuated, we can board the Faith.”

“On it,” said Cane.

Kyrie and Cane ran down the corridor toward the aft of the ship. Ari and Eva ran to the bridge. It didn’t take long for them to figure out how to activate the abandon ship message. The room lit up with red flashing lights, and a grating klaxon began to blare. A voice in Caracali accompanied it, sounding rather calm in contrast to the wailing alarm. After that, they returned to the rope ladder. Cane and Kyrie had roused an extremely annoyed Tengshein man from his bed, and were all but dragging him to the airlock as he protested.

“Keep him here,” Kyrie said to Ari. “We’re going to grab the rest of our stuff from our quarters. It won’t take long.”

“You’ve got two minutes.”

Over the next few minutes, the other five boarders appeared, haphazardly clutching their belongings. The team ignored their questions, rushed them through the airlock, and closed the door behind them.

“Friday,” began Eva, “can you confirm that we’re the only ones left on the Tempest?”

Friday’s voice came through on her radio. “With complete certainty.”

“Good, let’s get the hell out of here.”

One by one, they climbed the ladder, navigated the disorienting 90° change in gravitational alignment, and gathered on the Faith. Once the airlock doors had closed, Ari spoke.

“I wish we had more time to catch up, but we’ve got to get over to the Fortuna ASAP. I doubt those three we just ran into are going to keep their mouths shut for long, and this place has four functional starships that can cause a lot of problems for us. Let’s get to the bridge.”

Continue reading: https://devonai.wordpress.com/2025/11/01/the-path-of-andromeda-rfix-chapter-11/

Spoiler alert: This is the first draft of the ninth book in the Reckless Faith series, now with the working title of The Path of Andromeda. You can start with the prologue here: https://devonai.wordpress.com/2024/10/17/reckless-faith-ix-prologue/

Vecky was awoken from her slumber by a soft knock at her door. Not normally one to be roused from sleep by such a quiet noise, whoever was there had caught her between REM cycles. A wall-mounted monitor, which she hadn’t figured out how to turn off, provided a slight glow for her to find her way to the door. Upon opening it, she saw Helena walking toward the front of the ship, a large satchel hanging from her shoulder. Slipping into her boots, but not bothering to lace them, Vecky followed. Her quarters, and that of her friends, were on the top deck, toward the aft, on a central corridor that ran to the Tempest’s bridge. Helena got their first, with the younger woman arriving a few seconds later.

Similar to her quarters, the bridge was lit entirely by monitor screens, most of which displayed dire warnings about the ship’s dead or dying systems, information that had long since become irrelevant. Barely acknowledging her presence, Helena sat in the pilot chair. Even in the low light, Vecky could see that her forearms were covered by a dark liquid. At least familiar enough with the ship to know where the light switch was, she activated half of the overhead lights.

“Are you okay?” asked Vecky

“Physically, I’m fine,” came the quiet reply.

She looked at the blood coating Helena’s arms; the woman had done a hasty job of washing her hands, but it was still obvious that something bad had happened. “How alarmed should I be?”

“It’s only a matter of time before someone discovers the body. This time of night, though, and considering I was able to get out of there without anyone noticing, I’d guess we have a few hours.”

Vecky instinctively reached for her hip to check for the pistol she knew wasn’t there. “I take it Captain Strouth had a problem with what you were doing.”

“Briefly.”

She sat in the nearest chair, and began to lace up her boots. “Do you need some time for yourself? I’ll make sure you’re not bothered.”

Helena stared out of the main viewscreen, which offered a wide view of the stars aft of the Serpent. “With all the sneaking around I had to do to get here, I’ve had plenty of time to think about what happened. And to answer your next question, the message got out.”

“So I’m guessing you were discovered. You got out enough information to matter?”

“For our purposes, yes; though I wish I had more time to be more verbose.”

Vecky paused before replying. “I suppose I should say thank you.”

“You can thank me when we’re aboard your ship and headed to Ibnal’saffar.”

“Why don’t you come back to my quarters and get yourself cleaned up?”

“How old are you?”

“I think I mentioned it earlier. I’m nineteen.”

Helena nodded. “Ah, yes. You’ve lived a lifetime more than some people in such a short time. Tell me, have you ever killed anyone who wasn’t threatening your life?”

“Yes. I thought I had a good reason at the time. It helped me to vilify that person, but it seems that won’t work for you. I won’t pretend to know what that’s like.”

“I’m lucky that it was your door that I chose. You might be the only person within five hundred light-years that can understand what it’s like to have a Kira’To stuck in your head.”

“For the most part, I think so. I’m sorry Strouth wasn’t capable of understanding.”

Helena began to cry. “I didn’t even try to make him. Or anyone else, for that matter. Around here, such talk is just the ramblings of a madman, even to people as welcoming as the Order of Andromeda.”

“I’m not a judge or jury. I’m the last person to cast judgement about anything. All I know is that you’ve upheld your end of the bargain, and we will ours. If our ship does show up, we’ll take you to the planet. What happens after that is up to you. Right now, I have to tell my friends what happened. Is that okay?”

“Just Scherer for now. Please.”

Vecky got up, exited to the corridor, and walked down to John’s room. She knocked on the door, and a few seconds later John answered, bleary-eyed.

“Helena’s on the bridge,” she said. “She got the message out, but she had to kill Strouth to do it.”

John lowered his head, and after a moment uttered, “Fuck.”

“Right. Though nobody saw her leave, who knows how long we have until he’s found. She came to me first, and right now she only wants to talk to me and you.”

“Okay. Give me a few minutes to get dressed, and I’ll be right there.”

John went back inside his quarters. Vecky stopped by hers, grabbed a package of wet-wipes, and returned to the bridge. She offered the package to Helena, who accepted.

“Scherer’s on his way.”

Helena set to work cleaning herself up. “You know, I used to come here on my own rather often. The Tempest is the only ship with a clear view of the rear of this contraption. It’s quite peaceful, don’t you think?”

Vecky sat down. “Yes. It’s important to have some alone time once in a while.”

“I thought opening a bar would help distract me from Andromeda. It works, to a point. I almost feel bad having to walk away from it at a moment’s notice. Still, everything I really care about is in this bag.” She patted the satchel. “Even so, if I had to leave this stuff behind, it would be a small loss.”

“It’s humanoid nature to hold onto things. But not having a real home is what bothers me the most. I’m lucky that I have not just a ship, but a home on Primus to return to if I want.”

Helena stared at the stars. “I still own property on the Swan. It seems hollow and meaningless to me now. I’m glad you feel differently.”

Vecky sensed that her attempt at comfort was failing, so she joined her in watching the beauty of space until John arrived. The man was fully dressed, including, she easily assumed, his sidearm.

“Vecky told me what happened,” he said. “How are you holding up?”

“As well as can be expected,” she replied. “Mister Scherer, I sincerely hope your ship gets here soon. I’m sure you’d rather not get into a firefight here in order to uphold your end of the bargain.”

“We’d rather not, yes. How long ago did you send the transmission?”

“Two hours.”

“Then assuming they left immediately, they’ll be here any minute. But if they were delayed for some reason, it could be longer. So, I think it would be best to find somewhere for you to hide.”

“Madet Peschiri knows every inch of this place. I can’t hide forever.”

Vecky said, “Perhaps, but anywhere else is better than the Temp…”

She cut herself off. A familiar feeling had just washed over her.

“We just dropped out of FTL,” said John.

“Yup. Shit. The clock has started.”

__________

“Andrews! Throttle down! Full stop! Damn it, we overshot it.”

On the bridge of the Reckless Faith, they had just detected a spacecraft along their route. What they did not expect was for the vessel to be stationary. Ari had just alerted the others to what her sensors were showing her. Dana deactivated the FTL drive, then throttled back. At their current location, all they could see were distant stars. Eva and Dana also looked at the sensor data.

“It’s definitely a large ship,” said Eva. “Let’s hope it’s the one we’re looking for.”

“We overshot it by about three hundred million kilometers,” said Ari. “Dana, make our speed three c, that’ll get us there in five and a half minutes.”

Dana nodded. “Roger.”

Confirming first that the invisibility shield was still active, Dana locked in the coordinates and fired up the stardrive.

“I gotta tell you, my heart is pounding,” said Eva.

“Same here. I miss our friends so much.”

Ari said, “Me too, but stay frosty. Friday, you good?”

“I’ll keep it together,” replied the cat.

“Let’s get on with it,” said Tycho.

A few minutes later, as planned, Dana dropped out of FTL five thousand meters from their target. This gave them a great view of the vessel, as it took up more than ten degrees of their field of vision. What lay before them was a long, massive gray cylinder, with scores of various ships docked along its length, in a herringbone pattern.

“That’s gotta be it,” said Eva.

The main structure is about a thousand meters long,” began Ari. “I’m reading one hundred ships attached to it. The majority of those are in a powered-up state but, only the four on each corner of the main structure are showing functional stardrives. All four have some variation of a uranium hexafluoride-fueled drive. Though it’s a kinda hard to tell at this distance, there are approximately fifteen hundred life signs on board. I’m reading zero SRC traffic and very little RF activity in general.”

“How the hell can that thing achieve FTL?” asked Dana.

“A wing and a prayer,” said Eva.

“I wonder why they stopped,” said Dana. “There’s nothing around here for hundreds of light-years.”

“Mechanical problems, perhaps. Come on, let’s take a closer look.”

Dana nudged the throttle forward until the Faith was moving at 100 km/h. As they drew closer, the true size of the structure became apparent. The smaller ships attached to their host were of every imaginable design, with only a few immediately recognizable to the crew. Some seemed to be quite old, consisting of flimsy, blocky segments, and branching solar panels, more reminiscent of early Earth efforts than the sleek, streamlined vessels they were used to encountering.

“It looks like most of those things will never fly again,” said Ari.

Friday said, “The ship at the far aft matches the configuration of the Storm-class cruiser that we found on the ‘net.”

“It sure does. Dana, bring us alongside.”

Dana guided the ship around to the aft until they were nose-to-nose with the cruiser. Through the window to its bridge, it was too dark to see anything.

“Switch to infrared,” said Dana.

The infrared overlay appeared on their screen. There was no one on the bridge.

Eva said, “It looks like there’s a sign on the back left wall. See if you can zoom in on that.”

Ari did so, revealing a metal sign written in Caracali. A split-second later, she pounded her fist on the console, and leapt to her feet.

“It’s the Tempest!”

A cheer went up from the crew. The humans hugged each other while Friday and Tycho did laps around their feet. Once the excitement had died down a bit, Eva spoke, wiping tears from her face.

“Let’s see if we can call their PDAs. Shall we start with John’s?”

Ari nodded, and sat down. “Sure.”

Over the next few minutes, Ari attempted to use VLF channels to reach everyone she knew had a PDA, with no success. After running several scans, she spoke again.

“No dice. There seems to be some kind of interference field set up around the Serpent. Our signals are bouncing back, slowed down and distorted. They’re not getting through.”

“What about a scientific PDA?” asked Eva. “Aren’t they set up to detect neutrinos?”

“Yes, but the user would have to be actively scanning for them. It’s worth a shot. I’ll send out a binary code. Hold on.”

Ari tapped the side of her console with growing frustration as her signal went unanswered.

“We’ll keep trying,” said Dana. “Other than that, our only options are to try VHF, UHF, and SRC frequencies, which will no doubt get the attention of their hosts, or pick an airlock and try to board surreptitiously.”

“In either case,” began Eva, “we should get the Antares here first. Scans of the four operational ships indicate powerful plasma weapons and ablative armor. If we announce our presence, and they’re hostile, and they can defeat our invisibility shield, we’re gonna have a bad time. If we board and we’re discovered, we’re going to need the Antares to provide a diversion while we get back to the Faith.”

“Or we wait eleven days for both of our ships to get here,” replied Dana.

Ari said, “We only just got here. Let’s be patient. Maybe someone will open the scanning program on the scientific PDA.”

“We should think about why the Serpent is dead in the water,” said Eva. “Based on how far we overshot them, the vessel just dropped out of FTL within the last few minutes. Something’s going on in there.”

“I’m not detecting any problems with their stardrives. They could have lost whatever synchronization is necessary to stay in FTL. Or another mechanical problem. Or, they could have detected us as we were overtaking them and stopped out of caution.”

“I don’t know, I don’t like it. The last thing we want to see is our friends ejected from an airlock while we’re sitting around.”

“Don’t say things like that!” shouted Friday.

“Sorry, kiddo.”

“If only I still had my stealth ability,” said Ari. “I could easily snoop around in there.”

“Why not send me?” asked Friday.

“You can’t be serious,” replied Eva, “it’s too dangerous.”

“I don’t think so. I scanned for small animals; there are a lot of them. Some of them must be pets or strays. I think I’ll blend right in.”

“No offense, but you’ll be practically defenseless. More importantly, you can’t carry or operate a PDA, and we have no way of knowing if we’ll be able to maintain an orb link with you once you board. If that link is severed, you’ll lose most of your cognitive ability.”

“Plus you won’t be able to unlock doors,” added Dana, “or even open unlocked doors.”

“I can do it,” said Tycho. “Or we can work together to reach the keypad.”

“A lone black cat is one thing, but a dog and a cat moving together would be more conspicuous.”

Ari said, “Here’s my proposal. It will take X amount of time (to be determined, because math is hard) for the Antares to get here. We’ll summon them, then continue to ping the scientific PDA while we wait. Then, if we still haven’t made contact, and nobody has a better idea, we’ll send in Friday and Tycho. They can at least explore the Tempest.”

“It’s still risky,” said Eva. “John and Ray will never forgive us if something happens to Friday and Tycho.”

Friday looked as serious as a cat possibly could. “After everything they’ve done for us, they would understand.”

Ari sighed. “All right, then. We have a plan.”

“There’s just one problem,” said Dana. “If we contact the Antares from too close to the Serpent, they might detect the transmission. So we’ll need to back off some distance; I’d say one light-year would be safe. That won’t take long, so I doubt we’ll lose track of it.”

“She’s right,” said Ari.

Eva stared at the Tempest, and the enormous main body of the Serpent that lay beyond it. “There’s something off about all of this, but I can’t put my finger on it. No matter what happens, I’d advise caution.”

Tycho said, “I’ve felt that way about squirrels, Eva. Those little guys are always up to something. You can’t let your guard down.”

Eva laughed. “Okay, buddy. Next time we encounter a squirrel, we’ll shoot first and ask questions later.”

Spoiler alert: This is the first draft of the ninth book in the Reckless Faith series, now with the working title of The Path of Andromeda. You can start with the prologue here: https://devonai.wordpress.com/2024/10/17/reckless-faith-ix-prologue/

Author note: The last part of Chapter 7 has been edited to include a tidbit of information from the customs officer regarding the Flying Serpent. The crew of the Reckless Faith is now aware of its existence.

In a dark room on the Kestrel, Helena waited.

Strouth’s quarters were right off the bridge, in a room that had originally been meant as a captain’s office. While he still used it for that purpose, it was large enough to add a bed, so he had made it into his quarters as well. Since the Kestrel never strayed too far from the Serpent, he rarely had to worry about a situation on the bridge keeping him awake. Helen had never thought much about that, until it offered her an opportunity.

It hadn’t been difficult to get Strouth to invite her into his bed again, and there hadn’t been much conversation about their prior relationship first. If the man had any reservations about whether or not it was a good idea, he certainly hadn’t expressed them. For Helena, once the deed was done, all she had to do was wait.

After sleeping all day, there was no chance of her nodding off again. Fortunately for her, Strouth had passed out almost immediately. Still, she wanted to wait an hour or two to make sure she wouldn’t disturb him. The task reminded her of her rebellious teenage years on the Swan, when she would wait for her parents to go to bed before she sneaked out to meet friends. Then and now, seconds seemed like hours. As much as she tried to distract herself with inconsequential thoughts, the dangerousness of her mission weighed heavily on her mind.

After ninety minutes, Helena was as confident as she could be that Strouth was fast asleep. She got up, put on a t-shirt, grabbed her PDA, and crept to the exit. Luckily, the door was manually-operated, and she was able to pass through it without making a sound. She blinked at the bright light on the bridge, and immediately wished she had put on her boots, as the metal floor was freezing. The room was empty, as she was expecting at that time of night, and she made her way to the navigation console. There, she made a note of their coordinates, as well as the distance to Ibnal’saffar. Then, she crossed to the communications console.

She was not surprised to find it locked; however, the option to send a mayday was still available. Once on that screen, she had five options: all frequencies, SRC only, high-band only, low-band only, and cancel. She selected the last one and, to her delight, she had full access. She set her PDA on the console and prepared to send a text message to the frequency John had given her. When the program was ready, she composed her message.

Her heart leapt into her chest as Strouth emerged from his room, rubbing his eyes before noticing her.

“Helena? What are you doing out here?”

She threw him a quick smile, then hit the send button. “Am I bothering you? I’m sorry, I couldn’t sleep, so I figured I’d find some entertainment on the ‘net for a while.”

“In your underwear? Aren’t you cold?”

She exited the comm program. “Nah, it’s fine in here. I’ve always had thicker blood than you anyway.”

“You’d be more comfortable in the lounge. Why don’t you go put your pants on and head down there?”

“I suppose you’re right. Care to join me for a cup of tea or something?”

“Sure. I’ll meet you back inside in a minute.”

Helena’s adrenaline began to flow. She returned to his quarters, picked her pants up off the floor, put them on, then donned her socks and boots. Though her eyes hadn’t adjusted to the darkness yet, she knew Strouth had a solid bronze statue of a kestrel on a shelf near the bathroom. She found her way there, and waited, her heart pounding. Strouth came back, and turned on the lights. He wore a dour expression.

“Back in my fleet days, treason was punishable by death.”

“I’ve taken no oaths to you, Jerrod.”

“I suppose not. Honestly, I’m more disappointed in you than I am angry. I thought I could trust you more than this.”

She sighed. “It seems it’s time I leveled with you. I’m determined to get to Ibnal’saffar by any means necessary. Since convincing you to bring me there has proved impossible, I decided to enlist some help. There’s a ship on the way to pick me up. If you ever had any real feelings for me, you’ll let me go.”

“Why? What do you expect to find down there?”

“It’s a long story; I won’t bore you with it.”

“Even if I had agreed to take you there, I wouldn’t have just left you there. The planet’s a wasteland.”

“That’s my problem to deal with. Now, are you going to stand aside?”

Strouth growled, “Or what? You’ll brain me with that statue? You can…”

The color drained out of Strouth’s face, and his jaw dropped. Helena picked up the kestrel.

“Don’t try me, Jerrod, you know how strong I am.”

“You’re the saboteur,” he said calmly.

“So what if I am? Let my ship pick me up, and you can make up whatever story you think will best calm the population. Hell, tell them you blew my head off, I don’t care.”

“It may come to that. You know I can’t let you leave. If you refuse to surrender, we might as well settle this now.”

Helena considered the man. Though she was indeed stronger than him, not by virtue of exercise but by genetics, Strouth doubtlessly had a lot more combat training than she. She felt bad; she admired his commitment to his ideals, but could never understand why a place as boring as the Serpent appealed to him. Perhaps some trauma that he never told her about lurked in his past, keeping him from the more adventurous life a ship like the Kestrel could offer. Strouth rarely talked about his time in the fleet. It was a shame what had to be done.

“Fine!”

She lunged at him, brandishing the statue above her head. He easily side-stepped the blow, and threw a punch. She blocked it with the statue, causing him to roar in pain. He stepped back, cradling his hand.

“Why?”

“This is about a higher power, higher than you, higher than the Order of Andromeda, and higher than me. I wish you could understand… I have no choice.”

Strouth stumbled back until his heels met the edge of the bed, sprawling him backwards onto the mattress. Helena moved quickly until she was straddling him, again raising the bronze kestrel above her head.

__________

On the cold surface of Caracal, Ari, Eva, and Dana were moving quickly. They’d just exited the main building at the port, and were jogging along the access road for the landing pads. They found an opportunity to sprint across, dodging a truck and a couple of forklifts as they ran. Arriving at the Reckless Faith, the cargo ramp began to lower, and the trio paused to wait. Then, they made their way through the ship and up to the top deck. When they burst onto the bridge, Friday, sitting in the pilot chair, was waiting for them. She meowed at them loudly as they caught their breath.

“I’m so excited I can barely contain myself!” she began. “Just wait until you read this message!”

A text message appeared on the main screen. It began with an encryption confirmation, the sender’s frequency, then read in block letters, IMMEDIATE ASSISTANCE REQUIRED. DO NOT COME IN HOT. JS. Then, there were a set of coordinates.

“JS,” said Dana. “John Scherer?”

Ari said, “That encryption key is one of ours. It corresponds to the one we reserved for emergency broadcasts or messages.”

Eva sat down at one of the consoles. “Those coordinates are one hundred and seventy light-years from here, about halfway to Tengshe.”

“We found them!” said Friday, elated.

“Maybe,” said Ari. “Friday, was that message sent in English or another language?”

“The text portion was sent in Cygnian. There’s also some metadata embedded in the transmission, including the name of the vessel that sent it. The ‘Kestrel.’ I don’t like it, kestrels are annoying.”

“Interesting. So either the person who sent it is Cygnian, or the ship itself uses that language for the GUI.”

“It could be either,” said Dana. “So we can’t be sure whether or not the message was sent directly from John himself.”

“John would have signed it ‘Temerity’.”

“Probably, yes.”

Friday jumped from the chair onto the front console. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go!”

Eva said, “We need to be careful, Friday. It could be a trap. Which is why I don’t think we should try to hail the Kestrel. Let’s drop out of FTL a few thousand klicks away, and do some recon.”

“I agree,” said Ari.

Dana nodded. “Same. I’ll contact the Antares and the Fox and let them know where we’re going, but tell them to stay on course to Ibnal’saffar for now.”

“Fine. Unfortunately, if we realize we’re outmatched, we’re going to be stuck waiting twelve days for them to get here.”

“Ideally there won’t be a fight,” said Eva. “The universe owes us an easy one.”

Dana sat in the pilot chair. Ari sat at the console across from Eva. Friday headed for the door.

“I’m going to go get Tycho,” she said.

“Fine, but you two behave yourselves.”

The door opened for the cat, and she exited to the corridor. Dana rolled her chair forward, and grasped the flight controls.

“All systems are in the green,” said Ari.

Dana brought the ship into the air, earning an angry admonition from ground control. It didn’t take long to break atmo, and she guided the ship away from the planet and the mess of ships and satellites that were in orbit. Friday returned with Tycho, and the two of them talked to each other excitedly until Eva told them to keep it down. When Dana was sure they were clear of other traffic, she active the FTL drive.

“All right,” said Dana, locking down the autopilot, “It’ll take us 59 minutes to get to those coordinates. We’ll plan on dropping out five klicks from the target.”

“Aw, man,” said Friday. “We have to wait an hour?”

“You know what our top speed is, Friday.”

“Yeah, but I hadn’t done the math yet. Oh, well. I guess another hour is okay.”

“In the meantime, Ari, if you can take over for me, I wouldn’t mind grabbing some lunch.”

“I want lunch,” said Tycho.

“I’m sure you do,” replied Eva. “C’mon, then.”

“I’ll stay here with Ari,” said Friday.

Eva, Dana, and Tycho exited to the hallway, then descended the stairs to the galley. They moved to the fridge and looked inside.

“Tycho, what do you want?” asked Eva.

“Ground beef!” came the reply.

Eva peered further into the fridge. “That’s it? Just a bowl of ground beef? I’m not sure we have that.”

“You can’t just give him whatever he wants,” said Dana. “Not unless you want to clean it up off the floor later. Tycho, you can have either kibble or boiled chicken.”

“Both!” he said.

She retrieved a container of chicken, then grabbed a bag of dry food from a nearby cabinet. Once she’d put it together and offered it to Tycho, she and Eva made their own selections. They sat down at the table in the center of the room.

“He always asks for different things, but then accepts one or both of what I gave him.”

Eva smiled. “It’s always been difficult trying to figure out what cats and dogs are actually thinking, even with the ability to talk to them. Friday and Esmee are exceptional, though, comparatively speaking.”

“Are they still doing research on dogs?”

“As far as I know. If we ever figure out how to get them to operate autonomously, then there are some obvious applications for thinking dogs in the field.”

Tycho devoured his food, then ran back upstairs. Dana and Eva smiled.

“As long as they can think about something other than food.”

Eva poked at her container of pasta marinara with her fork. “I hate to sound gloomy, but have you thought about how Friday and Tycho will deal with it if John or Ray has been killed?”

Dana shook her head. “I’d rather not think about that at all. But it is something to worry about. Tycho has expressed sadness over Christie being gone. Though he takes some solace in knowing she’s still alive, I didn’t try to explain the nuance of her current form. He doesn’t understand why she won’t rejoin the crew. It kinda breaks my heart.”

“I know. The other factor to consider is that we can bring back to life anyone who has had direct contact with an orb, minus any memories since that time. Do you know what instructions, if any, our friends have given us about that?”

Dana pushed her food aside. “Do you mean like a Last Will and Testament? Yes, everyone on the Reckless Faith has documented what we want to happen in the event of our deaths. Though I don’t know what anyone else has ultimately decided, it has been an occasional topic of conversation on board ever since we discovered the possibility of reincarnation via an android body. I can tell you for sure that Ari doesn’t regret it; as far as Faen and Fuyue, I haven’t talked to them about it. I’ve decided to go for it, but the possibility that my original soul will simply cease to exist is still terrifying.”

“I hear you on that. I’m in the same boat. That shit will keep you up at night if you don’t push it to the back of your mind.”

“Hopefully neither of us will have to worry about it for a few more decades. As for Friday, I don’t think it would be productive to talk to her about it until the time comes. God forbid.”

Eva mumbled around her food. “I wonder if she ever wishes she was back to being a normal cat.”

“That, you can ask her about. C’mon, let’s finish up and get back to the bridge.”

Spoiler alert: This is the first draft of the ninth book in the Reckless Faith series, now with the working title of The Path of Andromeda. You can start with the prologue here: https://devonai.wordpress.com/2024/10/17/reckless-faith-ix-prologue/

Three hours had passed since John launched into a summary of all of the Reckless Faith’s adventures up until that day. After an hour, the rest of their team, except for Malthus, had been summoned to Helena’s bar and, with the others helping out John after his voice became hoarse, Helena had listened to their story. After everyone had gathered, she brought out several bowls of snacks, and brewed a pot of yellowish liquid that allegedly contained something like caffeine. She had listened intently, mostly in shock, but also with heavy tears anytime the Kira’To were mentioned. Kyrie, who was currently speaking, continued the narrative.

“After our reunion with Malthus,” he was saying, “we explored the temple. It was almost completely empty, save for a working fountain at its center, topped by a statue of a Kira’To.”

Helena jerked forward in her chair, and pounded the table with her fist. “I knew it! God damn it, I knew it. We have to go there, Mister Devonai. All of us.”

“I know,” said Vecky. “In addition to the temple, we found evidence of a nuclear strike on the surface. Something very bad happened there, a long time ago, and we intend to try to find out what.”

“I guess I can sum it up from there,” began John. “When we came down from the mountain, we explored as much of the surrounding area as possible, living off the land and our meager supplies. After six weeks, the Kestrel found us, and brought us here. You already know the rest.”

Helena leaned back in her chair, and let out a long breath. “It’s no coincidence you were brought here. Whatever secrets are hiding on that planet, all of us were meant to find them. Now that you know that Strouth has a working transceiver, what do you intend to do about it?”

John shrugged. “Nothing? We’re guests here, and we’ve been extended a lot of trust by Strouth and the other captains. They let us keep our sidearms, for example, and we’re not restricted from roaming around.”

“It is frustrating,” said Ray. “We don’t want to wait weeks just to be able to make a radio call, especially when our ship could be here in a matter of hours. But we need to play by their rules.”

Helena crossed her arms. “So that’s it, then? You’re just going to wait it out?”

“It’s the path of least resistance,” said Kyrie.

“I’ll tell you what. Give me the transponder code for the Reckless Faith. I’ll see if I can sweet-talk my way onto the Kestrel. Maybe, if I can get a minute alone on the bridge, I can contact your ship for you.”

Cane said, “Do you think Strouth would be open to resuming your relationship?”

“I know he is.”

“Then I think your best bet is to…”

Helena cut him off. “That’s exactly what I intend to do.”

“Can you give as a few minutes to talk about it?” asked John.

“Of course.”

 Helena took a swig from her mug, stood up, and went into her office. Richter scanned the room with his PDA.

“No cameras, no microphones,” he said.

“Good,” said John. “Okay, gang, what do you think?”

Vecky said, “I don’t trust her. There was something off about the way she talked about her alleged encounters with Andromeda. But I can’t put my finger on it.”

“Trust is going to be impossible, knowing she was the saboteur,” replied Kyrie.

“I agree,” said Richter. “She’s not stable. Even if her plan succeeds, I’m not sure it’s a good idea to take her with us.”

“You mean back to Ibnal’saffar?” asked Ray.

“Yes.”

“I think it’s the compassionate thing to do. If she does summon the Faith, and we leave without her, she’s going to completely lose her mind. We can easily keep her monitored while she’s on board.”

“Compassionate for who, Helena, or the residents of the Serpent?”

“Both. She already tried to scuttle this entire place once, who knows what she’d try next?”

John said, “Ray is right. Sneaking around is impossible on the Faith, and considering that she’s doing just fine running this bar, I think she’s of sound enough mind not to stab any of us in the back at the same time that we’re giving her exactly what she’s wanted for months.”

“What about giving her the transponder code?” asked Cane. “I don’t have any objections to that, because I can’t think of anything misleading she could say.”

“I agree,” replied Vecky. “Our friends aren’t fools. Even if what she says is bullshit or gibberish, they should still be able to use MLAT to determine the origin point, depending on how many SRC transponders are in this region of space.”

“Use what now?”

“If you were a ship captain, you’d know.”

Cane smiled. “You’ve been a useful taxicab driver for sure, Captain Kitsune.”

“Vecky is right,” said John. “Regardless of what she says in the message, it may prove useful to them. If there are no other objections, we’ll agree to her plan.”

There were none, so John got up and knocked on the office door. Helena emerged, holding yet another box of tissues. She followed John back to the table.

“We agree to your plan,” he began, “but only if you can do it without any undue risk to yourself. If that means it takes you a few days to find the right opportunity, then so be it.”

“That sounds reasonable,” replied Helena.

“Here.”

John pulled out his PDA, and pressed a few buttons. He showed the screen to her, and she copied the information onto her own device. Her exhaustion apparently catching up to her, Helena spoke with an unsteady voice.

“As you can probably guess, I’m not opening Nepenthe today. After I’ve had several hours of sleep, I’ll tidy myself up and go talk to Strouth. If I’m successful, then other than our coordinates, is there anything else you want me to tell your ship?”

“Just that we’re all okay, and eager to reunite.”

“Then we have a plan.” She gestured toward the door. “I’ll see you all out.”

The group got up, and headed out onto the concourse. John turned back toward Helena.

“Remember, don’t take any chances.”

“For the first time in months, I have hope. I’ll hold on to that feeling. Thank you.”

__________

The Reckless Faith had arrived at the heliopause of the Gamma Andromedae system, or Almach, the name of its star, also known as Caracal, the Desert Fox, in the language of the Ancients. The crew was eager to proceed to the planet they knew awaited them, but first, standard operating procedure required them to scan the system. For the results, they looked to Friday.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” she was saying. “Almach is a K2 spectral type, almost but not quite a supergiant, and the primary star of an interesting one-and-three quadruple system. Bottom line up front, scans indicate that there are no habitable planets here. We’ve got nothing but gas giants and barren rocks and moons. There’s zilch for radio signals, either traditionally broadcast or the SRC network.”

Ari peered at her screen. “I can confirm that info. It’s possible one of the other three stars is the one we really want. I suggest we do a quick sweep of the system anyway, with a focus on the Goldilocks zone. After that, we move onto the triple system that orbits Almach. Caracal’s gotta be around one of them.”

Dana nodded. “Thankfully, we’re in the right sort of ship for this kind of recon. Let’s get it done.”

Over the next half-hour, the Faith visited each of the planets in the system in turn. Though the gas giants offered spectacular vistas, there was nothing else to find. It wasn’t until they reached the first terrestrial planet, the third from the star at a distance of 5 AU, that something interesting presented itself. From a high equatorial orbit, they scanned its mottled gray surface.

“I’m reading a large complex down there,” began Ari. “There are at least a dozen buildings, some larger, scaffolding-like structures, and underground areas. There are no life signs, and the only energy signatures are from an off-site deposit of strontium-90, cesium-137, samarium-151, and rubidium-85.

Dana said, “That combination corresponds to the type of radioactive waste one would expect from a fission reactor. The presence of rubidium-85 suggests that another expected decay product, krypton-85, was also there. That indicates that the last fission activity was at least thirty years ago.”

“The scaffolding strongly resembles the shipyard we saw at Anachronia VI,” said Friday.

“Good catch,” said Eva. “It seems we’ve found the Alpha Shipyard mentioned on the Tempest’s commissioning plaque.”

“With a mass of zero-point-three ME, this planet would be a great place from which to launch ships.”

“Your deductive reasoning continues to improve. Good job, Friday.”

Friday purred, which was translated verbally as “Prideful satisfaction.”

Ari said, “So this place was abandoned some decades ago, for reasons unknown. That only proves we’re on the right track.”

“What’s the next best candidate?” asked Eva.

“Gamma Andromedae C, a young, blue, A-type main sequence star. Transit time at top speed is several minutes.”

“All right, let’s head out, unless anyone wants to explore the facility here.”

“There might be something valuable down there, but it’s not a priority. Let’s move on.”

A few minutes later, at 100 AU from the next star, they again scanned the system.

“Now we’re talking,” said Dana. “This system is rife with activity. I’m getting a nice, strong signal from an SRC transponder at 5 AU with a public channel. The main population center is the fourth planet, at one-point-five AU, and is indeed called Caracal.”

“Hopefully someone there knows the Tempest’s last location,” said Ari. “Let’s head in.”

“Hold on,” said Eva. “Dana, check to see if there’s a bounty board.”

“Good call.”

Dana worked at her console for a couple of minutes. “Yes, but it requires a registration number from one of several bounty hunter organizations. Eva, you wouldn’t happen to know Talyn’s, would you?”

Eva nodded, and pulled out her PDA. ‘I do. Cane gave it to me recently for just such a time. Here, I’ll transmit it to the Faith.”

“He wouldn’t give you his own info?” asked Ari.

“After what happened on Matesia, he may have a bounty of his own to worry about. As far as both of us knew, Talyn wasn’t in trouble with anybody.”

“The registration worked,” said Dana. “I don’t think it would be a good idea to enter any search terms, so I suggest Ari or Friday review these postings.”

“I got it,” said Friday. “Out of one hundred and fifty-two jobs, there’s no mention of the Reckless Faith, Umber, or Terra.”

“Search for all of our allies, too.”

“There’s an Eniphite with a price on his head. The Black Crest is looking for him. There’s also a persona non grata warning about the Rastaban and its crew. No explanation why. That’s it.”

“Okay, so we don’t mention either of those to anybody while we’re here, along with our normal level of discretion.”

Ari said, “Got it. All right, let’s head in.”

Dana pushed the throttle forward, and within seconds the Faith arrived at a point a few thousand kilometers from Caracal. The planet was typical blue-green world, with a thick network of satellites ringing it at all latitudes. As they drew closer, they could easily see one or two megacities on each continent. Ship traffic was heavy, both inbound and outbound, and Dana followed a series of small transponders until they were in a holding pattern just above the Kármán line. Seconds after they fell in line behind several other ships, a freighter of unknown design settled in behind them. Their consoles beeped, indicating an incoming transmission, text only.

“Orbital control is asking us for a ship registration or origin point,” began Dana, “the nature of our visit, our destination, and duration of visit. I’m going to say that we’re Perditian traders of precious metals, headed to the appropriate marketplace, for five days.”

“Sounds good,” said Ari.

“We’re being directed to Oasis City, the largest development on the southeast continent. Altitude is twenty-five hundred meters. I hope you’ve all been working on your cardio.”

Fifteen minutes later, the Faith was cleared to push down to the surface. Dana headed directly to the coordinates that had been provided, except to mostly bypass a hurricane off the nearest coast, and drew within five thousand feet of the city. The city was at the center of a high desert plain, surrounded on three sides by rugged mountains. Sprawling itself across fifteen thousand square kilometers, the city was a sight to see, even after all of their adventures. The landing pad was at the edge of a rather dystopian industrial area; what looked like oil refineries belched black smoke into the air, and hundreds of large, blocky freighters waited along its periphery to pick up whatever cargo had been forced from the planet’s subterranean deposits. If there was a center of commerce somewhere within that concrete and metal mess, it wasn’t obvious from the air.

After setting the Faith down gently on the tarmac, and locking down the flight controls, Dana stood up and stretched out her arms. Ari and Eva looked out at what they could see through the windows.

“Where the hell are we supposed to go from here?” asked Ari. “There’s nothing out there but forklifts and yard goats.”

“I guess we’ll just have to disembark and try to make contact with a dock foreman,” said Eva. “Was there anything about permissible weapons?”

“Nothing that was in anything we’ve received so far,” replied Dana.

“Let’s play it safe, then. Projectile pistols only. Friday, first sign of trouble, you đi đi mạo, break atmo, and wait for further instructions.”

“Understood,” said Friday. “Ambient temperature is two degrees C. Dress warmly.”

Evangeline already had her Beretta PX4, and Ari her Glock 17, but they had to stop by the armory on the way out so that Dana could retrieve a Beretta 92 and a couple of spare magazines. Then, they grabbed their favorite cold weather clothing.

“It’s been a while since I was in the field,” said Dana, holstering her pistol.

Eva donned a shoulder bag containing a full medical kit. “You’ll be fine. Follow our lead. Ferro, I’ve got two kilograms of gold, how about you?”

Ari said, “Five hundred grams, plus the same in palladium.”

“That should be enough to grease some palms.”

After distributing portable radios, and doing a comm check, the three women were ready to go. Descending to the cargo bay, Eva hit the controls to open the ramp. Fresh, frigid air rushed in to greet them, and they walked out onto the tarmac. The sun had just set behind the western ridgeline, casting hues of purple overhead. Though there was no shortage of local humanoids, they all ignored them, instead concentrating on dealing with several freighters that had arrived ahead of the Faith.

“Over there,” said Dana, pointing ahead. “That looks like an information kiosk.”

At the edge of the pad, next to a busy road, was a squat box with a console on top. The team approached it, steeling themselves against the cold. Ari poked at the console for a few moments.

“Okay,” she began, “this is the same language that I downloaded earlier. We’re definitely in the right place. Where do you want to start?”

“Look for something like customs declarations,” replied Eva.

“Got it. The customs office for this port is in the next building over. Follow me.”

The group walked down the side of the road, pausing as needed to allow trucks to cross in front of them, then arrived at an elevated walkway. On the other side, they made their way into a massive five-story building of concrete and steel. A security checkpoint lay ahead, which included what looked like archway magnetometers. The guards, both with bronze skin and golden eyes, beckoned them ahead.

“I guess we’re about to find out what their weapons policy is,” said Dana.

“I’ll go first,” said Ari, stepping forward.

The first guard read off what he could see at his station. “Permissible projectile weapon, electronics, precious metals, no pathogens, full android composition. Wow, I never would have guessed.”

“You should see me with my clothes off. Are we good?”

“Certainly. Next?”

Eva walked through the scanner. “My clothes are definitely staying on.”

“She’s clean. Unknown genetic makeup. Your initial registration listed you as from Perditia; where is that exactly?”

“It’s in the Greater Luminous Sea, some 160,000 light-years from here. We’ve been in the core galaxy for quite some time.”

“You must have a fast ship, unless you’re far older than you appear.”

“Aww, aren’t you sweet? I’m keeping my clothes on, though.”

Dana went next, with the same results. Once cleared, Ari asked for directions to the customs office, which was given. The trio continued on their way. They passed by a flurry of activity, including a collection of crates containing noisy, feathery livestock that was being cleared for entry. Down a long, nondescript corridor, they found two offices, one for inbound cargo, and one for outbound. Ari led them into the latter. Another bronze-skinned humanoid male awaited them in the cramped space, wearing a blue jumpsuit and a nametag in Caracali. A wall-mounted screen was displaying a program that seemed to be related to finance. He looked at them with an exhausted expression.

“Vessel name?”

Ari said, “Actually, we’ve just arrived. What we would really like to know is the location of a freighter called the Tempest, commissioned out of Alpha Shipyards.”

The man managed to make his eyes look even more tired than before. “Why would I tell you that?”

“Miss Spencer?”

Eva withdrew a handful of gold ingots, and placed them on the counter. The man scanned them with a hand-held device.

“Someone on the Tempest must owe you a lot of money.”

“Can you help us?”

“Put your coin back in your pocket.” He accessed the console on his desk. “According to our database, the Tempest was a regular visitor here until ten years ago, at which time it was sold for scrap. Odd for a ship that was only thirty years old; they must have beat the shit out of it.”

Eva retrieved the gold. “Can you tell us who bought it?”

“An auction house. You’ll have to ask them where it ended up.”

Dana sighed. “And the name of the auction house?”

“To submit a title transfer request is one hundred credits, and takes two to four weeks for processing.”

“Can you at least provide us with a list of auction houses on Caracal?” asked Ari.

“On the whole planet? Probably hundreds. Anyway, any public terminal could give you that information.”

“Great. Okay, thanks. Dana, Eva, shall we go?”

“Don’t forget to dispose of your trash before you go. Please.”

Eva noticed a wastebasket by the door, and dropped three bars of gold into it before she and the others returned to the corridor.

“Shit,” she spat. “That was a waste of time and money.”

Dana said, “We could find a public terminal, like the guy suggested, and see if Ari, or Friday remotely, can hack it.”

“That’s a tall order, even for us,” replied Ari. “I mean, we could try, but I’d have to stand in front of a terminal for an hour or two. I guess if an internet café, or something like it, even exists on this world, then it wouldn’t seem suspicious. I dunno. Thoughts?”

“Fine with me,” replied Eva. “It looks like there’s a food court or something further down.”

“Let’s check it out,” said Dana. “It’s about our lunchtime, anyway.”

Spoiler alert: This is the first draft of the ninth book in the Reckless Faith series, now with the working title of The Path of Andromeda. You can start with the prologue here: https://devonai.wordpress.com/2024/10/17/reckless-faith-ix-prologue/

“I think you could’ve worded that better, Vecky.”

Richter coolly assessed the situation at the table in the bar. Helena had a firm grasp on her pistol, some sort of projectile weapon, but had it cocked to her side, the barrel just above the surface of the table. Though her demeanor was stern, she clearly wanted to keep talking. John’s hands were on his enormous mug of beer, and Vecky’s were by her side. His own right hand was on the grip of his 1911, out of Helena’s line of sight, but she had to know what he was doing. Though he could draw and take a shot under the table, there was no way he could beat Helena. However, there was also no way she could take out all three of them. It was clearly a stalemate.

Vecky responded to John’s statement, keeping her eyes on the older woman. “There’s no way to mince word about this part, John. Yes, Helena, I fell in with the Cygnian Liberation Front. But I assure you, that was by chance, as the ship I was on was experiencing mechanical problems and had no choice but to land on Leda rather than Dellal. If not for that, I might have never heard of the CLF. Before we could move on from there, I began to receive messages from Aquila, in the form of powerful visions. Aquila wanted revenge on Cygnus, for reasons that were never made clear to me. But after my experiences on the Eagle, I couldn’t ignore him. His goals aligned with those of the CLF, so I took up their cause.”

Helena took a deep breath, but her aim remained steady. “Okay. What exactly did you do for them?”

“Mostly logistics support. Though I wanted to visit the Swan, I didn’t get a chance to do so until after combat operations had ceased. Come on, look at me. Do I really look like someone suited for the back of a dropship, ready to come out blasting?”

Helena stared at her for a long time. “Fine. Except I find it hard to believe that Aquila would bother making a personal connection with you in order to get you to fly around in a cargo ship. Especially not someone born on the Eagle. Doubly so after the formation of an entire cult dedicated to Aquila.”

“Oh, he wanted me to be more directly involved. Before I found out about the Adherents of Aquila, he made it out like I was going to be some kind of epic savior. That might have worked on me, except that my father had just become leader of the entire Eagle asteroid. If destiny is real, wouldn’t I be meant to be there with him? I decided to compromise: I’d help the CLF battle the SCC in space, but I refused to set foot on the Swan. This seemed to mollify Aquila and, after Cygnus was killed, I never heard from him again.”

Helena began to cry. “They play games with us. You and me both. They’re monsters.”

“I take it you had a bad experience, too?” asked John.

She put her pistol down on the table. “Cygnus pretended to be my friend. I thought I was special. Only the Chief Acolyte was supposed to talk to him. Though his death was ultimately welcome to me, the way it happened was tragic. The civilization of the Swan deserved better, and the CLF and their cultist friends had no right to interfere in our way of life.”

Vecky nodded. “I’m sorry, too. I’ll be happy if I life the rest of my life and never hear another whisper across the ether from a Kira’To.”

Helena produced a handkerchief, and wiped her face. “I wish I could say the same.”

John said, “Wait, you mean…”

“Are you sure you want to tell us this?” asked Vecky. “You hardly know us.”

“Do you trust these men?” asked Helena.

“John and Chance? With my life.”

Helena stood up, holstered her pistol, and crossed to the nearest window. “Not long after I arrived on Kuisu, I was contacted by a Kira’To who calls himself Andromeda. At first his messages were very cryptic, same as Cygnus at the beginning. As my visions, or whatever you want to call them, became more frequent, I learned how to better communicate with him. The messages were always the same, though. As a child of the Swan, as he called me, he said it was my fate to go to Ibnal’saffar.”

“The cursed planet?” asked John. “Why?”

“I’m not sure. Something about the secrets of the Kira’To. He was never very clear about that. Still, he was so persistent, I came to believe that the only way I could ever get him to leave me alone was to do as he said. The problem was just as you said: Ibnal’saffar is supposedly cursed. I couldn’t find any ships for hire on Kuisu that would take me there. I was running out of money and couldn’t afford to travel back to Dellal or even a closer planet. That’s when I discovered that the Flying Serpent was in orbit, and that its loop around this constellation brought it quite near Ibnal’saffar. I joined the Order of Andromeda, and off we went.”

“How long ago was that?” asked Richter.

“About a year. And I know you’re going to ask, but no, the Order of Andromeda doesn’t have anything to do with the Kira’To that I’m in contact with. I was a little disappointed to find that out. Anyway, I earned a stipend with the Order, and after I quit, I decided to gamble it all away. Instead, I won enough money to buy this bar. Funny how that works.”

John shrugged. “What the heck were you going to do if you lost all your money?”

“That would have been the end of the line for me. It became clear over time that none of the captains of the four working ships would bring me to Ibnal’saffar, even after I started dating Captain Strouthionum. I couldn’t convince him. I had to do something…”

Richter said, “Again, are you sure you want to tell us this?”

Helena returned to the table and leaned over, putting her hands flat on the surface. Her eyes flashed with anger, and she began to cry again.

“Andromeda won’t leave me alone! Every night, without fail, he shows up in my dreams, even if I scream at him to leave me in peace! Hell, even a catnap isn’t safe for me. I had to get down to that planet! By any means necessary.”

“What then,” began John. “Strouth wouldn’t take you with him on those water resupply runs? Why did you think this time would be any different?”

Helena sank into her chair, defeated. “You don’t understand. The charges that damaged the water tanks were only the ones that successfully detonated. There were more, though I’ve since removed them. My plan was to permanently disable the Serpent, and force an evacuation to Ibnal’saffar. Curse or no curse.”

“You’re taking a huge risk telling us all of this,” said Vecky. “Why shouldn’t we turn you in?”

“When I was dating Strouth, I had plenty of unrestricted access to the Kestrel. Stealing it would have been my first plan, but I couldn’t do it alone. You’re the only one on this entire contraption that I know will help me. With you and your team, we might actually have a chance.”

“Why would we help you do that?” asked John.

“Because I know you’ve been trying to gain access to a SRC transceiver. There’s nothing wrong with the one on the Kestrel. Strouth has been lying to you to protect the integrity of the Serpent.”

“We suspected as much,” said Richter.

“The only question left, then, is why you’ve been pushing so hard to get to one. You wanted to be here, right? You knew how long it would take to get to Tengshe. You must have agreed to the rules before you boarded.”

Richter looked at John and Vecky. They nodded to each other. John spoke next.

“I think it’s time you knew the whole truth, Helena.”

__________

In a busy restaurant in the City of the Eagle, a joyful reunion was occurring between the crews of the Faith, the Fox, and the Antares, the last of which had recently arrived. By now used to diverse visitors, the locals paid the spacefarers little heed as they ate, drank, and got caught up. Only Evangeline caught any extra attention being, of course, a bona fide hero on the Eagle. Each of them were able to enjoy themselves for the moment, though both the events on Tartarus and the upcoming mission were never far from anyone’s mind.

Though the crew of the Antares treated Fuyue no differently than before, Eva knew it must have been difficult for them to accept their Sortarii mentor in his new form, just as it must have been difficult for him to pretend that everything would proceed as normal. The reality of the situation could certainly wait until they’d returned to their ship, as the trip to Ibnal’saffar would take twelve days.

Also present in the group were three Eaglites who had been recruited to help man the Fox, including Ikari, a man Eva considered a good friend. She was grateful he’d been tasked with the trip and, since Milena was going to be in command of the Fox, she wouldn’t have to worry about micromanaging her new subordinates.

That left the crew of the Faith a little light, but Ari, Dana, Eva, and Friday were more than capable of managing it, as long as they didn’t get into a nasty, protracted brawl. For now, with the three ships due to leave first thing in the morning, everyone could relax.

After a couple of hours, Eva felt compelled to look at the door, and was surprised to see Maoko standing there. Eva excused herself from the table and weaved her way through the restaurant until she got there.

“It’s good to see you,” she said. “Did you decide to join us?”

“No,” replied Maoko. “I have another drawing for you. I’m afraid it isn’t of much use to me, but I thought you’d like to see it.”

The older woman handed Eva a large sheet of paper. On it was rendered a metallic plaque, with block letters written in a language unknown to her.

“Curious. I’m guessing you don’t know what it says, either.”

“I do not.”

Eva pulled out her PDA. “Fortunately, I have just the feline to help. If you don’t mind…”

“Of course, please.”

Maoko held up the drawing, and Eva took a picture. She opened a channel to the Faith.

“Friday, it’s Eva. I’m going to send you a file, I was hoping you could translate the writing on it for me.”

Friday’s voice could be heard. “Ready to receive.”

Eva sent the file. Maoko rolled up the sheet and tucked it under her arm.

“Are you leaving soon?” she asked.

“First thing in the morning. We’re all very eager to get going, but the crew of the Antares hasn’t slept in sixteen hours.”

“It’s okay. I know you’ll find her.”

“I have some results for you,” said Friday.

“We’re listening,” said Eva.

“The language is Caracali, from a planet in orbit around Alnach, a star not far from Ibnal’saffar. It’s a commissioning plaque, for a ship named the Tempest, launched from Caracal in a year number that probably corresponds to that planet’s calendar. I don’t know how long ago it was. Then the name of the shipyard. That’s it.”

“All right, thank you, Friday. We’ll see you soon.” Eva put her PDA away. “Interesting. So Vecky is on, or recently had access to, a ship. I’ll let the others know.”

Maoko asked, “So will you be heading to Alnach instead of Ibnal’saffar?”

“Well, that ship could be anywhere. We shouldn’t second-guess our first plan.”

“That makes sense. Whatever you decide to do, my heart will be with you.”

“I know. Thank you, Maoko. We will bring your daughter back to you.”

The women hugged, and Maoko exited back to the street. Eva returned to her group, and got the attention of Ari, Dana, Milena, and Lesath. They got up and joined Eva on the street. As usual, the City of the Eagle was resplendent at night; calm, quiet, and beautiful. There was nobody standing or walking nearby, so conversation was easy. Eva told the others what she had just learned.

“So now we have two locations to investigate,” said Dana.

“Do you want to split up?” asked Lesath.

“That ship could be anywhere,” said Eva.

Ari’s eyes seemed to lose focus, then she looked at the others. “The Reckless Faith or the Antares could get to Caracal in less than three hours. If our people aren’t on Inbnal’saffar anymore, and someone on Caracal knows where the Tempest is, then we’ll already have our next plan. Then we rendezvous and carry on.”

“That makes sense,” said Milena. “Still, one of you is stuck tagging along with the slowpoke of the group.”

“So do you want to flip a coin, or what?” asked Lesath.

Eva said, “The Antares has better medical facilities than the Faith. It would make more sense for you to go to Ibnal’saffar. The Faith will go to Caracal; we’ll just keep a low profile. Unless anybody has any objections.”

“Great,” began Ari, “we’ll go first thing in the morning. Let’s get back inside and let everybody else know.”

_____

Ten hours later, after two more hours at the restaurant and a full night’s sleep, the crews and their three ships were in orbit around the Eagle. That morning had been busier than usual for everyone, but especially for the crew of the Reckless Faith. Up until then, the Faith had spent most of its time in the Eagle’s main hangar; though the crew had been offered lodging elsewhere on the asteroid, they chose to remain on the ship. Despite that, they hadn’t done shakedowns on their weapons systems or activated their FTL drive in over six weeks. While Friday or Ari could easily confirm that the systems were configured correctly, and ready to rock, the only way to know for sure was with hands-on functions checks, live-fire testing, and a quick trip somewhere in FTL. So, after breakfast, they got their hands greasy, then travelled to the system’s asteroid belt to beat up on some defenseless rocks. Next, they went balls-to-the-wall to the heliopause of the solar system and back. Throughout it all, the Faith had purred like a kitten.

On the bridge, Eva and Ari were at their stations, Dana sat in the pilot chair, and Friday sat on a console next to Ari. Tycho napped next to Eva. They were waiting for final confirmations from the Fox and the Antares, and then they would be on their way. The mood on board was upbeat, and everyone but Eva was openly excited about finally having a plan of action after so much sitting around. With a few minutes to spare, Ari decided to ask her about it.

“You seem a little off today,” she began. “Is everything okay?”

Eva sighed, and smiled. “I’m fine. I just find myself overly worried about what, if anything, we’re going to find. After all, we only have confirmation that Vecky is still alive. I can’t help but mull over worst-case scenarios.”

“I know how you feel. Kheiron could have saved just her, for example, or scattered our friends across the galaxy for some reason. I think the worst part is that everyone else could have been killed on Tartarus, and we’ll never know. This uncertainty would keep me up at night, if I still needed to sleep.”

Friday said, “I know John is alive, I can just feel it.”

A beeping sound alerted Eva to her console. “Heads up, a ship is approaching. It looks like an… Umberian Mark Fourteen?”

“Like the one Thel Maktar used to go to Earth?” asked Dana.

“It’s transmitting an IFF code. It is the one Maktar used. They’re hailing us.”

Ari said, “Open a channel, and tie in the other ships.”

“Got it,” replied Friday.

A familiar face appeared on the screen. An Umberian man with gray hair, a goatee, and a faded green military jacket could be seen in the cockpit of the fighter craft. Friday leapt onto the deck, jumped on the port side consoles, ran along their length, then did the same on the starboard side, maniacally shouting as she did.

“It’s Seth! It’s Seth! It’s Seth!”

The man laughed. “It’s good to see you, too Friday.”

“Aldebaran,” began Ari. “Never in a thousand years would I have expected to see you out here.”

“Especially not in that old thing,” said Eva. “How did you get here so fast?”

“I thought you retired from spacefaring,” said Dana.

Aldebaran nodded. “I had, but I continued to receive care for my injuries over the years. Eventually I felt healthy enough to start thinking about returning to the stars. As for this ship, I simply asked NASA if I could work on it myself and restore it to its former glory. They said yes. When Christie told me about your current situation, I asked her to help me get it out of the hangar unnoticed so I could come help. She did. As for the FTL drive, it was fully functional the whole time. I told NASA it had been exhausted of fuel in case I ever needed it. So here I am.”

Dana laughed. “So you lied to them. That’s incredible. Are you sure you’re up to the rigors of space combat, though?”

“You bet I am.”

“What’s her name?” asked Ari. “What’s she got for armaments?”

“Neither of the plasma cannons were working, so NASA cannibalized their neptunium. They’ve been replaced with twin GAU-12 twenty-five-millimeter rotary cannons, with eighteen-hundred rounds each, sort of a scaled-down version of your own GAU-8. For defense, it’s got the same energy-dissipation hull as the Reckless Faith, though the powerplant can’t handle overloads as effectively, so it can’t take the same kind of beating. I christened her the Sagitta.”

“That seems fitting,” said Dana. “Well, it’s good to see you again, and I’m glad we have one more ship to help us search for our friends. Captain Lesath, are you listening?”

“I’m here,” said Lesath’s voice.

“Since I assume Aldebaran doesn’t want to spend this whole trip confined to the cockpit of the Sagitta, and the Antares is the only ship that can fit it in its cargo bay, would you be okay with Aldebaran joining your crew?”

“I don’t see why not. It’s always good to meet new people. I’ve read a little bit about your history, Mister Aldebaran. I’m sure we’ll have a lot to talk about.”

“I agree,” replied Aldebaran. “And yes, I’d rather have a berth on a ship. Thank you for offering. I look forward to meeting you and your crew.”

“Good,” said Ari. “We’ll get you situated and caught up on our missions. After that, we’ll be on our way.”

Friday returned to her original spot, and said, “Wait, we’re not having a reunion first? Surely we have time for that.”

“You need to focus,” said Eva. “Let’s get our asses to Caracal.”

Spoiler alert: This is the first draft of the ninth book in the Reckless Faith series. You can start with the prologue here: https://devonai.wordpress.com/2024/10/17/reckless-faith-ix-prologue/

The conference room on the Kestrel was crammed to capacity with people. Captain Strouth was there, along with Madet, and a few others from his crew. Also present were John, Ray, Richter, and Vecky. Lastly, Malthus sat at the conference table, nursing a glass of brown liquor and holding a cold pack to his face. Strouth and his crew had barely separated him from the mob before they tore him to pieces, but other than a black eye and a few abrasions, he was unharmed. The captains of the other three functional ships had been summoned, as well as the rest of John’s contingent, but they hadn’t arrived yet. Once Malthus had stopped trembling, Strouth spoke to him.

“How did this happen?” he asked.

“I have no idea,” replied Malthus, shaking his head. “I was just sitting in a sandwich shop having some dinner. Some guys were in there, giving me some serious side-eye, and talking to each other in low tones. The next thing I knew, they’d grabbed me and hauled me out to the concourse, screaming about how they’d found the saboteur and threatening to toss me out of an airlock. Thankfully, as people gathered to see what was happening, a few with cooler heads were able to convince the instigators to have me brought here instead.”

“And you didn’t do anything to set them off?” asked John.

“I hadn’t uttered a word the entire time.”

Captains Shijiu, Alrisha, and Riel entered, along with Cane and Kyrie, further cramping the room. Strouth brought them up to speed on the situation.

“The rumor mill is out of control,” began Madet. “Every day I hear crazier and crazier shit on the concourse.”

Strouth nodded. “I don’t need to tell everyone that this situation threatens to destroy one hundred years of peace on the Serpent. We’re going to have to get more aggressive with our investigation.”

Alrisha said, “How? Our power has limits.”

“I’m confused,” began John. “The four of you are in charge here, right?”

“We’ve an advisory council,” replied Strouth. “We help make decisions that are for the greater good of the Serpent. We don’t act as a law enforcement entity.”

“Then how were you planning on arresting the actual saboteur, once they’d been found?”

Strouth seemed irritated by the question. “That would be an obvious exception, Mister Scherer. Also, our evidence of their guilt would have to be incontrovertible. That’s the challenge here. I just don’t see how we can maintain the mission statement of our community while also finding the guilty party.”

“Are you suggesting that we assert ourselves as despots?” asked Shijiu. “That will make the situation worse.”

“There has to be a middle ground,” said Riel.

“I’m sure you’ll figure out what’s best for your people,” said John. “For now, everyone in this room knows that it’s impossible that Malthus is guilty. You need to make an announcement, and ensure his safety until we get to Tengshe.”

“I will,” said Strouth. “Mister Brewer, you’re welcome to stay on the Kestrel until then.”

“I emphatically accept,” replied Malthus.

“As for the rest of you, I suggest you limit your interactions with the public for now.”

“That won’t be a problem,” said John. “Malthus, we’ll bring your stuff to you later today. Captain Strouth, is there another way off this ship? It’s not exactly a secret that the rest of us are associated with Malthus. I’m not sure we’re going to make it back to the Tempest tonight without shooting our way there.”

“There isn’t another way out. Come with me to the concourse, you’ll be safe. I’ll make that announcement. That should mollify the populace for now. Meet me on the causeway in a few minutes, all right? I’d like to talk to the other captains for a moment first.”

John and his team exited to the corridor.

“I was sorely tempted to use this opportunity to ask Strouth to take us to Caracal or Tengshe,” he said. “Now that we’re causing problems for them, perhaps he’d be more willing to consider it.”

“That won’t solve their saboteur problem,” said Vecky. “Unless they blame one of us after the fact. But then they’d need to explain why we weren’t punished.”

Cane said, “I think blaming us is actually a pretty good idea. Our punishment could be banishment. If one of their SRC transceivers could be miraculously fixed, then they could plop us back on Ibnal’saffar and call the Reckless Faith to come get us.”

“I don’t think we should discuss it further here,” said John. “These walls have ears.”

The team made their way to the airlock causeway and waited. Soon, Strouth arrived, carrying a small speaker attached to a hand-held microphone. Entering the main concourse, they discovered that the majority of the mob that had gathered was still there, though considerably calmer than before. Strouth set up the speaker and tested the volume.

“Y’all good in the back?” he began. “Citizens of the Serpent, I’m disappointed in what has happened here tonight. For a hundred years, we have maintained a peaceful society, able to solve our differences amicably, or serve the interests of justice when necessary, without a formal police force. I can see now that recent events have escalated to our first real existential crisis, so I’m here to clear the air. Yes, the water storage tanks on the Fortuna were indeed damaged by an act of sabotage. I have my best people working the case to uncover the person or persons responsible for it and, I assure you, they will be dealt with. For now, I want to assure you that the people standing beside me were in medical quarantine at the time of the incident, and could not be the culprits.

“Malthus Brewer, the man who was unjustly attacked, and his friends, John Scherer, Ray Bailey, Chance Richter, Kyrie Devonai, Reveki Kitsune, and Cane Venator, are innocent. Any further attempt to blame them, or any action taken against them, will result in immediate reprisal by me, personally. And none of you will like what that means. Until our arrival at Tengshe, where they will disembark, they will have the same privileges on the Serpent as any other citizen. If anyone objects, speak your mind now.”

No one said anything, and the crowd began to disperse.

“I like your style,” said Cane.

“Come on, I’ll escort you back to the Tempest. If things stay calm for a few days, I’ll bring Mister Brewer back to you, if he’s willing.”

“We’ll keep our head down, too,” said John.

_____

Helena Cygnet sat at her bar, deep in thought. Her two employees had just left, having finished their usual closing and cleanup routine, and she was alone. Normally, she would take a quick shower and go to bed, but on this night, she was waiting for company. She was having second thoughts about her invitation, and had poured herself a glass of whiskey to help calm her anxiety. Though she wanted to get more information out of the Terrans, doing so might reopen old wounds. Adding to that, meeting the girl, Kitsune, had invoked an uncanny feeling, something Helena recognized.

At some point, Kitsune had communicated directly with a Kira’To. It was an experience they shared, she was sure of that. In Helena’s case, what had happened to her was strange and terrifying. On the Swan, only Acolyte Dann was supposed to have that privilege. Of course, there were rumors of others, but those were dismissed as fits of insanity or outright lies. After the death of Cygnus, and the collapse of the SCC, her world was further shattered to learn of the existence of the Eagle asteroid, what happened there, and how common psychic contact with that Kira’To seemed to be. Perhaps not all of the souls on the Swan who claimed such contact were crazy after all. The thought had first chilled her blood, then hardened her heart. As for Kitsune, it was a name she’d heard before, and she was intensely curious to know the girl’s lineage.

Helena’s train of thought was interrupted by a knock. She got up, and crossed to the heavy hardwood door. Peering through the warped, amber glass set in the top half, she saw Scherer, Kitsune and Richter. She unlocked the door, and let them in. Both men nodded at her as they entered, and doffed the hoods they were wearing. Helena gestured at a table, and grabbed her glass from the bar.

“Can I get you anything?” she asked, setting her drink down.

Scherer took off the jacket he was wearing, and draped it over a chair. “I wouldn’t mind more of that dark lager.”

“I don’t think alcohol would be a good idea for me at this hour,” said Kitsune.

Richter sat down. “I’m good for now.”

After filling a comically-large mug with the requested beer, Helena brought it over and sat down. “Your other friend couldn’t make it?”

John said, “After today’s incident, we thought it best to keep a low profile out there.”

“I suppose that’s wise. So, thanks for agreeing to meet me again. I’m interested in hearing more about each of your stories, but I must confess, I’m most interested in talking with Miss Kitsune.”

“You can call me Vecky,” she said.

“Okay. Here’s the thing. I know you’re not Terran. Were you really abducted by Cygnus?”

John said, “I didn’t mean to imply earlier that all of us were. Ray Bailey, who you met yesterday, and Kyrie Devonai, another with us, are Terran. Vecky, Cane Venator, and Malthus Brewer are not. They all fell into our group at different times before we ended up together on Caracal.”

“I see. Vecky, would you mind sharing your story?”

Vecky glanced at her companions, then nodded. “All right, I’ll try to give you the short version. I was a farm girl on Primus, about to graduate from school. My uncle Miya, captain of a freelance ship called the Fox, came to visit me and my dad, Aoba. During a tour of his ship, Aoba was killed in a horrific accident. Of course, we were in shock, but Miya was compelled to tell me that Aoba was actually another uncle who raised me as his own child after my mother died, and that my real father, Tomoyaso, abandoned me as a baby. Are you following me so far?”

“I think so.”

“Okay. So, of course this was a lot of information to take in at once. After some time on the Fox, it was revealed that me, my mother, and all three Kitsune brothers were born on the Eagle asteroid, which had been slowly passing by the Primus system for a few decades. I wanted to learn more, so I traveled to the Eagle, met their leader at the time, Daimyo Yurishi, and demanded answers. On top of all of that…”

“Wait,” Helena blurted. “I’m sorry, but you were born on the Eagle? That means you and I have a very special bond.”

“In many ways, yes. So, on top of all of that, Yurishi revealed that my mother was in fact alive, and confined to the Eagle’s sanitarium for an apparent mental illness. Her condition was so severe that I was taken from her shortly after being born, and since my real father wanted nothing to do with me, Aoba adopted me. He moved from the Eagle to Primus, started a farm, did a stint in the Camphustian military reserves, and raised me. At first I was angry that I had been lied to my whole life, but after learned of the circumstances, it was easy to understand that he had done so to protect me.”

“I can certainly understand that, too. How resilient you must be to have your entire life turned upside-down so quickly. I’ve had to find an inner reserve of strength myself after what happened on the Swan.”

“I had to grow up fast, to be sure. Anyway, I wanted to stay on the Eagle, at least for a little while, and try to communicate with my mother. Though Yurishi allowed me to stay, he forbid me from seeing her. I might have left never knowing any more, except that’s when the mercenaries attacked. I believe you know what happened next.”

Helena felt the blood drain from her face. “Aquila was freed from his prison.”

“Yup, I was there for that; the attack, the coup, the destruction of the reactor, everything. Shit sucked. After all of that, I decided to seek my fortune elsewhere in the galaxy. It was all too much.”

“I know exactly how you feel. I apologize but, I’ve been dying to ask you: are you related to Daiymo Kitsune?”

“He’s my real father. He took advantage of the mercenary attack to stage the coup. He tried to befriend me, but I don’t want anything to do with him. I left, and haven’t spoken to him since. After a long journey, I made my way to Leda and… you’re not going to like what happened next.”

Helena considered Reveki’s words for several moments, then drew her pistol and pointed it at her. She and the others froze.

“No,” she replied. “I imagine I won’t like it at all.”