By Sorrow Increased

By Maddie Broome

Knowledge is power. The kind of power that can either hold the universe together – or blast it apart.

That truth is one of the few things in life pilot Nick Pike believes in. A hero in a whole other life, he has since made it on to all the wrong lists – with his name right at the top of God’s To Stomp list. He’s found, however, his own Garden of Eden in the form of an intergalactic cargo-hauling business he runs with his friend and former teammate, Darby. But, like any Eden, this one comes complete with a snake.

When his sorely-in-need-of-repairs ship, the Pike’s Pique, makes an emergency landing on a planet straight out of the Ming Dynasty, that snake appears in the guise of a former – and definitely to be avoided – business partner. And the apple he holds out is a fast and easy job of transporting an accused killer to a local warlord. The bounty offered for his capture and delivery, he promises, will be more than enough to get the Pique up and flying again.

With creditors hounding them and with no other prospects in sight, Nick gives reluctantly in to temptation and takes a bite out of that apple. All, however, is not quite as it seems. In fact, nothing is at it seems. Nick and Darby must then band together with an unlikely crew as they attempt to hold the universe together.

(Science Fiction / Action Adventure – 95,000 words)
 

~ ~ Contains Christian themes ~ ~

• Language: English
• Publisher: Maddie Broome
• Release date: Aug 24, 2014
• ISBN: 9781502261359

Book preview

Chapter One

God hates me. 

Not just with your run of the mill Got to Get Around to Sending Him to Hell One of These Days kinds of hate, but with a Sodom and Gomorrah Burn That Sucker to the Ground kind of hate that doesn’t stop until the last little bit of ash has crumbled into dust and been scattered to the farthest reaches of the universe – and maybe not even then.

Darby would say I was being my usual paranoid self.  Darby would say I needed to lighten up and not take things so personally.  Darby would say it was entirely coincidental that so many things went so wrong so fast.

Then again, it was starting to look like God wasn’t too keen on Darby either.  Or so I assumed, seeing as my bones weren’t the only ones about to be reduced to a pile of ashes.

It wasn’t exactly the way I’d planned on spending my forty-second birthday.  And okay, so I hadn’t planned to celebrate it at all.  The previous forty-one years of my life, after all, had long since assumed the number one spot on my list of Things I’d Really Rather Forget.  But was it too much to ask that my life not end on the same day it had begun those forty-two years ago?  Although maybe there was a certain poetic justice in that, my life thus far having proved somewhat less than noteworthy.  Or maybe it was simply a cosmic joke God found particularly amusing.

Yeah, well, as a comedian, God leaves something to be desired.

So, anyway, there I was on my forty-second birthday hurtling towards my death in a rust bucket twenty-five years past its prime.  With me was my partner, friend, and the guy I would some days most like to beat to a pulp – Darby.  Not Darby Something.  Not Something Darby.  Just Darby.  One name.  His only name.  One name, you see, was apparently enough for him.  I, on the other hand, got saddled with three: Nicodemus Theophilus Pike.  As if Nicodemus in and of itself wasn’t bad enough, my parents had to throw in the Theophilus too?  Makes me wonder, really, if God is the only one who hates me.

Anyway, back to that bit about Darby and me hurtling towards our deaths.  Not that the day actually started out that bad.  No indeed.  In fact, it started out rather nicely.  The kind of nice you don’t want to tell your mother about.  The kind that men only dream about.  Well, that I only dream about, given how much luck I’ve had in that particular department for way longer than I care to think about. 

So there I was, blissfully asleep and not inclined to wake up anytime soon.  And just as things began to get really interesting, my day went from sweet dreams to the kind of nightmare you wish you could wake up from instead of to. 

I thought at first some kind of animal had managed to find its way on board the Pike’s Pique and that it had then gotten caught in a piece of machinery that was slowly squeezing it to death.  That was the only reasonable explanation I could come up with at first for the horrid shrieking that invaded my dreams and that had me jerking awake and alone in my bed.  Even as I grabbed my gun in its holster hanging at the head of my bed, fully intent on using it to put the mystery creature out of its misery, those yowls of pain took on the more recognizable – if no less hideous – sound of Darby singing.

No, that’s not where the hurtling-to-our-deaths part comes in.  Although at the time I did give serious consideration to hurtling Darby to a satisfyingly gruesome death for having awakened me at that moment and in that fashion.  The guy, however, was singing Happy Birthday and wiggling and gyrating his way into my bunk room proudly brandishing a lump of... something.  I guessed from the lone flare stuck in it that it was supposed to be a birthday cake.  One, from the looks of it, that Darby had maybe scraped off the side of the road somewhere.  Still, it was the thought that counted.  Or so my mother had always insisted.  So it didn’t seem quite kosher to show my gratitude by splatting him all over the universe.  Not to mention all over my cake.  Such as it was.

Instead, I sat with my gun in hand as he gyrated my way with a goofy grin on that dark face of his, the short braids of his hair bouncing in rhythm to what I assumed was supposed to be a dance performed for my birthday benefit.  In truth, he looked like a man in the advanced throes of a Nebulan Web Worm attack frantically attempting to dislodge the creepy little crawlers. 

You know, they have a cure for that now, I said as the lump of a cake threatened to slide off its platter to an inglorious – and welcome – end. 

Darby spun with the lump upraised as if in an offering to a god.  He then blessedly gave up singing to instead say, "Too bad they don’t have a cure for what ails you.  But the good news is that old age takes a while to actually kill a body.  So you have a few good years left.  Probably."

I twirled my gun around my trigger finger and fixed a considering gaze on it.  You know, my Great Granddaddy Finkelstein used to say there was one sure cure for old age.  And – oh, look! – he left me his own particular cure right here.  So if you’re afraid of ending up as decrepit as me, just say the word. 

I performed a fancy twirl and flip with the gun, then grinned at Darby.  I did mention, didn’t I, that this gun once belonged to Wyatt Earp?

Darby rolled his eyes.  Yeah, Nick.  You told me.  About a thousand times.  But what you keep forgetting to mention was that your Great Granddaddy Finkelstein used to wear antennas on his head to keep away the moon maidens who wanted to have his baby.  So I think his story about that gun being Wyatt Earp’s is a wee bit suspect.

I snorted.  This from a man whose grandmother sticks pins in cloth dolls?

Yeah, well.  Had any back pains lately?

Hey!  I told her it wasn’t me who dyed your hair pink.

"But it was you."

"But I didn’t tell her that."

"No.  But I did."

With that, Darby performed one last spin.  He then shoved the lump of a cake under my nose and said, Happy birthday, old man.

I studied the brown goo pretending to be a birthday cake and made an early wish.  I don’t suppose you bought this in port, and it got a little melted?

Melted?  Darby sounded indignant.  What are you talking about?  I just made this.

I was really hoping he wasn’t going to say that.  After all, Darby hadn’t been banned from the ship’s galley because I like to cook.  But he looked so proud of himself.  And I was barely awake.  So when he handed me a fork and shoved that ... something... at me, I scooped up a bite of it as expected and gave it a try. 

Another item for that Things I’d Really Rather Forget list.

I might have tasted something worse in my life, but never when sober.  My first and only reaction was to get out of my mouth what I had so foolishly put into it, and that as quickly as possible.  Unfortunately, Darby thought all that choking and gagging was a symptom of something worse than fully functioning taste buds.  In his haste to perform whatever lifesaving procedure he had in mind, he forgot that lump of whatever in his hands.  Not to mention the flare of a candle stuck in the middle of it. 

Down onto my bunk they went.  Up in flames my bed sheets went. 

That was the high point of my day.  From there, things only got worse.

No sooner had we doused the fire and tossed what remained of my bed sheets and mattress down the garbage chute than the computer alerted us to an incoming message.

Now, in a kinder universe – one in which I made God’s To Shower With Riches and All Kinds of Really Neat Things list – that message would have been from some cute young thing calling to wish me a happy birthday.  But me being on God’s other list, the call was from a client wishing to terminate our cargo hauling services.  Not that he’d actually purchased said services.  It had, however, been arranged that he would do so.  And Darby and I were on our way to cement the deal.  In fact, we’d traveled quite a way to do just that.  And we’d spent money we didn’t have to get as far as we had when that message came in.

Did I mention we’d been counting on the money from that job to fix a few things in sore need of fixing on the ship?  I only mention that because this is where the hurtling-to-our-deaths part comes in.  Now, don’t ask me what went wrong.  That’s Darby’s department, and I really try not to know just how very many ways a ship can go wrong enough to kill me.  I prefer to fly under the illusion that I can actually keep from going splat against big hard objects like planets and other ships.  So when an alarm sounded not long after that You’re Fired message came through on the Pique’s comm unit, I closed my eyes and waited for it to shut off. 

When it didn’t, I cracked one eye open, angled my gaze towards Darby busy at the control board, and said, Tell me that’s another birthday surprise.  Something really nice.  Something that doesn’t mean we’re about to go splat.  Or maybe boom.

It’s nothing, Darby said, his gaze never leaving the control board.  Nothing much.  Nothing I can’t fix.  With the proper parts.  And a few days in port.

I cracked my other eye open as well, the better to glare my displeasure right smack at Darby.  No, see, that’s not what you were supposed to tell me.  So let’s try it again, shall we?

The ship shuddered.  Which, really, I don’t think it’s supposed to do. 

I closed my eyes again and squeezed them more tightly shut, saying, Darby, tell me this ship isn’t about to go boom.

Nick, this ship isn’t about to go boom.

I opened my eyes.  Really?

Really.  Darby worked at the controls a while longer.  He then said, We can put in to port.  Fix what’s wrong.  No problem.

Well, maybe a little one, I pointed out.  Not the putting in to port part.  That I have no problem with.  It’s the getting things fixed part that might be a problem.  A bit of a problem.  Just a little one.  I mean, seeing as we have just about enough credits between us to afford a tune-up.  On a flitter bike.

Darby paused, his hands on the controls.  Then, without so much as a glance in my direction, he returned to work, saying, We can deal with that.  We always do.  So we’ll land on the nice nearby planet the computer’s picked out for us.  The nice nearby planet with a port.  And we’ll think of something.

I blinked.  Yeah.  Think of something.  We can do that.  Just as soon as we land.  On a nice soft planet.  Because, after all, we’re not going to go boom.  Right?

Right.

I left it at that, left Darby to keep the ship from going boom while I plugged in the navigation coordinates the ship’s computer fed me.  Then I sat back and composed a Why I Am Never Having Another Birthday as Long as I Live – Which Will Be a Long Long Time Because We’re Not About to Go Boom list.  I figured I’d get it printed up all nice and legal and have Darby sign it in front of witnesses.  Just to make sure I’d never have another day like that one.  Well, at least not another birthday like that one.

I’d almost finished polishing the list as we reached our destination – a little hole-in-the-wall planet straight out of the Ming Dynasty.  From what I could tell, the port was the only part of the planet that had progressed beyond the horse and buggy.  Not a member of any of the various galactic federations, it apparently had nothing anyone wanted.  Beyond that port.  Which Darby and I really wanted.  Really.

No sooner did we hit the atmosphere than the ship shuddered again.  If you can call a bone rattling, teeth-coming-loose shaking a shudder.  Then another alarm sounded, and Darby turned his attention to another part of the control board.  There was, however, apparently no joy to be had, as he grew still and his dark face turned a shade lighter.

I considered making a new list then.  A Why I’d Really Really Love to Have Another Birthday or Fifty list.  No boom, right? I said, making sure, even though I figured I didn’t really want to know.

Darby shifted his gaze to me.  No boom, Nick.  We’re definitely not going to go boom.  That’s not to say though that the ship won’t go splat.

And going splat is better than going boom exactly how?

That was something else I didn’t really want to know. 

I guess Darby understood that, as he didn’t answer me.  Instead, he pushed out of his copilot’s seat and rushed off – presumably to the engine room – leaving me to stare out the view screen at the rapidly approaching planet.  The big hard planet.  The big hard planet with lots and lots of gravity.

I started a new list then, of people – and beings –

I wanted to have a word with.  Sir Isaac Newton I placed square in the number two slot.  While the guy who came up with the idea of gravity to start with nabbed the top spot, as befitted His position as Supreme Being.

Now mind you, I’m a big fan of gravity.  Really.  I love what it does to keep me from flying off into space whenever I’m planetside.  I would maybe prefer that it let up a bit when Loney Cobb tries for a long shot when the Ursa Majors are behind two points and the clock is running out, but most other times I have no complaints.  Most other times.  Those times being when I’m not being pulled towards a very large planet to a very messy death.

And okay, so maybe I’m not exactly as big a fan of the top name on that list.  But then, God wasn’t exactly my biggest fan either, as events were proving.  So I figured things kind of evened out in that department.  Or at least I always had.  Up to the point where I found myself hurtling towards my death.  That sort of thing tends to give one a different perspective, after all. 

What’s that they say about there being no atheists in a foxhole?  Well, believe you me, there are no atheists in a ship hurtling towards a great big splat either.  Although, no matter what Darby might say – and has – I did not get down on my knees and promise God I’d lead a life of celibacy forevermore if only He would see fit to insure I made it to my forty-third birthday.  I swear – I was sitting at the time.

Darby having returned to the control room in time to hear my bargain with God, he buckled himself into his seat and offered his own unique brand of encouragement, saying, You’d best land this thing in one piece or my grandma is going to use up a whole big box of pins on that doll she made of you.  And if you’re lucky, it’ll be your back she sticks them in.

That was something else I really didn’t want explained.  Not that I had time for explanations, seeing as I was a bit busy trying to defy the laws of God and gravity.  The ship was barely responding to the controls, and the planet was looming larger and larger in the view screen.  And for a little background music, the voice of some port somebody or other was chattering instructions in my ear.  So my bargain with God kept getting addenda added as quickly as I could think them up. 

Who knows?  Maybe something of that last bit even did the trick, seeing as the expected crash never came.  Muscles tensed, my hands at the controls white-knuckled, Darby so pale his ethnicity was seriously in question, and a Why I Really Don’t Want to Go Splat list quickly composed, the ship settled nicely and quite neatly onto the ground.  Well, okay, maybe not so nicely and not neatly enough, seeing as a couple of my fillings were rattled loose by the jarring thump of a landing.  But we – and the ship – made it in one piece.  Well, except for those loose fillings.  So, by my reckoning, the landing was a thing of beauty and a joy forever.

A minute went by in silence, neither Darby nor I saying a word.  Then into that silence Darby said, I’m thinking you won’t be needing that little black data pad of yours anymore.  So, can I have it?

Suddenly it wasn’t so great to be alive.  Although perhaps there was a way around that bargain I’d made.  I’m pretty sure that didn’t count, I said.  I mean, I was under duress.  And any bargain made under duress is not legally binding.  At least that’s what some guy claiming to have almost passed the Bar told me once.  And okay, so he wasn’t entirely sober at the time, him never one to pass a bar.  Get it?  But I figure he probably knew what he was talking about.  So, sorry.

God I could apparently bargain with.  Darby was a harder sell.

You sorry as you’re going to be, he said, messing with someone who can do a better job with a lightning bolt than my grandma could ever hope to with those pins of hers?  But hey, it’s your –

Okay, already!  You can have the pad.  Sheesh.  Some guys just could not take a joke.  But I’m deleting the G’s.  And the M’s.  And you go through the W’s at your own risk.

So, the hurtling-to-our-deaths portion of our day over and a life of Only In My Dreams ahead of me, we got down to figuring out how soon we’d be able to go merrily on our way again.  Or maybe not so merrily considering the number of soon-to-be-irate creditors we’d be needing to avoid for a while.

It turned out, once Darby made a thorough exam, we’d need to be avoiding more than just creditors.  We’d need to avoid such minor conveniences as eating as well.

Happy Birthday to me.

Still, it wasn’t the worst birthday I’d ever had.  And it’s amazing, really, what a few – okay, more than a few – hours spent glued to a stool in the nearest port bar can do to improve one’s outlook on life.  If it does nothing to improve one’s physical well-being – or even give it a passing bit of notice – I think certain people should refrain from making snide comments on the exact shade of one’s complexion.  And they should definitely not attempt to place bets on whether or not one will make it to the head before the exact shade of one’s complexion is the least of one’s worries.  Too, I consider it bad form for this person who shall go nameless – but you know who you are, Darby – to refuse a little thing like a mercy killing when his best friend in all the universe is so clearly on his deathbed and suffering more than any mortal should and possibly could.

At least by that point the Birthday from Hell was over and there were only another 365 days to go to my next one.

With any luck, God would have found someone else to hate by then.

Chapter Two

Three days later, Darby had done all he could to get the engines online again.  Barely online.  Barely, however, wasn’t going to get us anywhere but debtors’ prison.  We needed parts, and none of our usual contacts were willing to float us the credit to buy them.  I’d spent most of those three days trying to scare up some local work, with considerably less luck than Darby had had on his end of the partnership.  For reasons never made clear, the locals were locked in a long-ago past at mind-boggling odds with the port itself.  On one side of the port fence was the modern day and age.  On the other, horse-drawn wagons were the order of the day.  With no industry producing exports or in need of imports, the port wasn’t exactly clogged with offworlders.  Offworld work was therefore just as hard to come by.

I was beginning to seriously reconsider that bargain I’d made.  Apparently, God still had me on His To Stomp list.  No doubt He’d saved me from certain death only so as not to put a premature end to His fun. 

Then, just as I began to wonder how much the Pike’s Pique would go for as scrap, opportunity came knocking on our door.  Or rather on our comm unit.  Not that Darby saw it as an opportunity for anything but more trouble.

No, he said as soon as he recognized the voice hailing us. 

No what? I asked, one hand hovering over the comm switch.

Just no.  Whatever it is he wants, the answer is no.  You even think about saying yes, I’ll have a little talk with my grandma about where to stick those pins of hers.  I might even stick a few myself.

What are you talking about?  It’s just Vasily.

I know who it is.  If I live to be a hundred – which I probably won’t if you say yes to that man – I’ll never be able to get his voice out of my head.  Or out of my nightmares.

I kept my hand hovering over the comm switch.  "Oh, come on, Darby.  You know what they say about beggars not getting to be choosers.  And really, the problems we had on that last run we did for him weren’t his fault.  How could he have known Orwellian grass monkeys were accomplished lock picks?  And how could anyone have known monkey pellets and ships’ engines don’t mix?  Besides, it’s not like you didn’t get the engines fixed before they blew up.  Or before they went completely haywire.  And you weren’t the one who spent the next two weeks crawling through the ventilation shafts chasing the sneaky little monsters down."

No.  I’m just the one who’s spent the past two years unable to be in the same room as a banana.  And I still haven’t completely gotten rid of that eye tic.  See?  Darby pointed to his left eye, which was definitely jumping, as it tended to do in times of stress.  So no more Androv and his nice easy milk runs.  No more Androv period.

No more ship either if he doesn’t have a job for us.

A job I can live without.  My sanity I can’t.

Androv gave up on getting an answer.  Instead he left a message with a place and a time for a meeting.  He then signed off.

I recognized the proposed meeting place as a port dive with a waitress Darby had been working his charms on for the past three days.  I assumed then my most innocent and casual air and said, Look, Dar, this might be our only ticket out of here.  So let’s at least hear the man out.  If you don’t like what he has to say, the night won’t be a total loss.  You can spend the rest of it trying to convince Flower Petal to give you the time of day.  Or night.

Lotus Blossom.

What?

Her name.  It isn’t Flower Petal.  It’s Lotus Blossom.

Whatever.  I tried working a few charms of my own, putting on my most endearing smile.  What do you say, Dar?  A couple of drinks.  Flower Blossom.  It’ll be fun.

Fun.  With Androv on the same planet?  Not possible.

I upped the charm quotient of my smile and tried again.  All I’m asking is that you listen to what he has to say.  Two minutes tops.  Then you can concentrate all your attention on Lotus Flower and those luscious curves of hers.  I batted my eyes at him – always a deal clincher. 

And as always, Darby caved.  Fine.  Okay.  If it will stop you making those fool faces at me, I’ll listen to what the man has to say before I tell him no.  Two minutes.  Then it’s just me and Lotus Petal.

Lotus Blossom.

Whatever.

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An hour later we were on our way to the meeting with Androv, Darby muttering under his breath the whole way to the bar and pausing to utter various threats and dire warnings every third or fourth mutter.  Not even the thought of seeing Flower Girl was enough to make him look forward to the evening.

As we entered the bar, Darby huffed out a breath that was half disgusted snort and half a martyr’s sigh.  I don’t know why I let you talk me into this, he said.  The man’s name spells trouble in at least thirty-eight different languages.  Just being in the same room with him is dangerous.  And anyone who hadn’t been dropped on his head regularly as a baby by a Balmorian dwarf would know that.

I turned to glare at Darby.  "Once.  He dropped me once.  And like I keep telling you – I didn’t land on my head."

"Then you must have landed wherever with enough force to rattle what few brain cells you had floating around in the ether, ‘cause there’s just no other explanation for you even thinking about getting mixed up with Androv’s kind of trouble again."

I huffed out a breath that matched the one Darby had expelled and turned away from him to search out Androv.  Peering through the gloom and smoke haze, I easily picked out his white-blond buzz cut from among a sea of darker heads.  He hadn’t seen us, so I tried Darby again.  I told you – I’m just going to listen to what he has to say.

Darby fixed me with that look that always said he was adding up my IQ points and not having to work too hard at it.  He then said, It’s not the listening I’m worried about.  It’s the opening your mouth and saying ‘It’s a deal’ part.  I know as well as you that’s what you’re wanting to say.

"Only if the Pique is ever going to get off the ground again with my name still attached."

It was that simple.  I didn’t have to spell it out.  Darby knew as well as I did how much red ink we were drowning in.  But he considered it part of his job to sound a warning each and every time I climbed into a hand basket with a To Hell or Bust sign hand-lettered on the side of it – right before he climbed in beside me.

I promise you – two minutes.  If you say no, that’s it.

The breath Darby let out that time was all snort.  When he offered no other comment, I led the way to Androv’s table in a far corner of the room, twisting my way among tables sparsely populated by quaintly dressed locals and a few bored-looking offworlders.

Androv looked up as we drew near, and his wide face broadened further into a grin.  Nicky!  I’m glad you could make it.  He shifted his gaze to Darby, and his grin widened with an amusement that had Darby stiffening beside me.  I see you brought Derby with you.

Darby, I corrected as I slid into a chair across from the grinning Androv.  "And if I’ve never before mentioned that incident back