Fragment of the Universe

By Kate Gray

Maeve is fighting for her very self, for control over her mind and body, while still reeling from a revelation that could tear the world she knows apart. Her friends are scattered far and wide. With one of them hovering on the edge of life and death, the rest are merely struggling to find their way in a future they do not fully understand.
But, as they set off to war for a world they had no hand in creating, they begin to see that some things never change.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kate Gray
• Release date: Sep 13, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311473899

Kate Gray

Born and raised in New England, Kate Gray has a degree in Classical Archaeology from UNC Chapel Hill. Her love of history and sociology are the two biggest influences on her writing, followed shortly by a love of all things magical and fantastic.In fact, it was being given the first few Harry Potter books (from children she was nannying at the time), that reawakened the desire to find the magic in our own world. It may not be as easy to see, or accomplish the same feats as that which comes from the wave of a wand - but it's out there.Kate lives in New England with her Minnesotan husband, and their two wild boys.

Book preview

Prologue

Somewhere, from a distant and unknown source, a klaxon clamored ceaselessly. A shadowed lone figure walked through the maddening noise, pausing now and again to survey the landscape ahead. An island was barely visible, cast adrift in a stormy sea. Dark waters churned and hissed at the shoreline.

She had fought her way out from the rubble of a prison. Crossed a desert to find her way back to where she had first entered this illusive land. Howling winds pushing against every step. Obstacles thrown in her path. Lightning searing and scarring the ground in front of her as she walked.

It didn’t matter. She kept on, even when it meant only being able to move an inch forward at a time. Oh, she had been ready to surrender at one point, ready to fall down, to accept death. There was no question that she could have given in and allowed herself to stay enslaved in that bunker.

At the hour of capitulation, however, she had been given a reason to fight.

A simple tune sung in a plain and clear voice had brought her back to reason. The voice singing it had altered quite a bit since the last time she had heard it. She could not remember when that time must have last been, but it was the same trigger as smelling baking bread and thinking of her grandmother. Or seeing a certain scar and feeling the sting of pain that refused to be forgotten.

Her brother’s voice, singing an old folk tune. He, a last tenuous hold to a life that had been slowly subtracted from four down to two, then one. In a massive rush of emotion and memory, she saw everything, heard everything, felt everything. And then she stood, firm against the forces arrayed to prevent her passage.

"I’m coming back."

Chapter One

You’re not going with us.

Like hell I’m not. Tark crossed his arms in front of his chest, feeling uncomfortably like a kid trying to talk his parents into letting him cross the street alone.

Look mate, it’s not that I don’t want you by my side. I do, truly. Dmitry rubbed his aching forehead. You know as well as I do that we need a strong presence on this bloody base. If you go, I’ve a horrible notion that we’ll lose our hold.

Tark knew his friend was right, infuriatingly enough. Dmitry was usually spot on in his tactical assessments, but it didn’t mean Tark had to like it. It was going to be excruciating; waiting on board the Nimitz while his best friend was off playing cowboy. Ok, that wasn’t exactly fair.

Dmitry was combat trained and tested in ways that he hadn’t been, and was the guy for leading a charge into the fray. Tark had seen him calmly drinking coffee in the midst of utter chaos on more than one occasion. That trait was one of Dmitry’s redeeming qualities.

I just don’t want to see you get your ass killed out there.

And having you by my side will negate that chance, is that it?

I won’t lie, man. Tark gave up his pretense of stubbornness. Knowing that we’re headed into…uncertain times…I’m digging deep right now. He flung his arms outward beseechingly.

Listen to me. Dmitry took Tark by the shoulders, his grave expression lending him an unusually earnest air. "You are a leader. We both know that I’m the disreputable cavalier, the one who will leap before he looks. You’re the one who will take all these thousands of frightened people through to the other side. Only you. Everyone trusts you. Don’t forget that."

The two men stood quietly then, each not trusting himself to say anything for a moment. Dmitry looked over at the nearby terrarium, searching for the damned tree frogs, eyes stinging. Tark swallowed past the unwonted lump in his throat.

I’ve never really thought of myself as that guy. Leaders like me aren’t flashy, I guess.

Unsurprising humility. Dmitry smiled crookedly at him. But you’re also the kind of person who sees the promise, who knows that there is always calm after the storm. I forget that all too easily.

Just feels like I’m hiding while you run out and….

Get myself killed? Dmitry laughed, feeling the old rush of nerves and adrenaline. You’re not hiding. You may well be forced to defend this base, you know.

There’s a comforting thought. He hadn’t thought about that, actually.

You’ve plenty of backup. All you need do is devise a stratagem. Defense is one thing, but I’d rather not have you scrambling to repel an invasion.

Is that an order? Tark raised his eyebrows mockingly.

I’ll remind you that you’re only senior to me because of my stupidity. It’s got nothing to do with whether I know how to do my job.

True.

Which part?

Tark only smiled.

All right. Dmitry shook his head. Only between friends. If you’re done having a go at me, we ought to go make a plan

You’re too easy to pick on. There was a pounding on the hatch outside. Tark sighed. Enter!

The door opened; a steely-faced sergeant from the air wing stood outside.

Sir. She held out a report on a tablet. We are…missing some munitions.

"I’m afraid to ask this, but how do we think they went missing?"

We’ve done a full search. They’re no longer aboard, and we’ve had only the one departure.

Tark and Dmitry looked at each other, frowns creasing their features.

Sergeant, Dmitry shifted into his role as executive officer, apart from the glaring time lapse for this to have been discovered, this is pretty serious. I think you and I ought to take a stroll, while you give me a full briefing.

He left, heading for the security battalion with the sergeant in tow. Tark cursed as the door closed. Another development to be sorted out, or at least as to what its implications were. Where was Sa’andy right then? Main bridge? Science labs? He checked her schedule and found she was teaching.

It was an indescribably weird feeling to walk through the station, touch back down into normalcy, and realize that most people on board were carrying on with their daily lives. No one outside a small number of personnel and a few civilians knew that there was truly anything amiss. Tark, for his part, felt he had been running a days-long marathon.

By the time he had reached the lecture hall, the session was ending, with dozens of teenaged pupils streaming out the door. He waited for them to empty the room, watching their youthful faces. They blithely walked off with friends, chatting and discussing the course material. He suddenly knew that Dmitry had been right. He could not leave.

This was the duty he had signed up for, if not on paper, then certainly in his heart. He had committed himself to ensuring the safety and wellbeing of all who made this base station their home. It was a city in every sense, colored somewhat by the military presence, strong and vibrant…but also vulnerable. The Nimitz was no stronghold castle of old; able to withstand a siege by virtue of impenetrable walls.

At the same time, it was a seafaring vessel. The myriad dangers that lay outside the reinforced hulls of the Nimitz were ever of concern. Many bureaucrats had been opposed to this model of spaceborn life for that very reason. They’d felt that huge stations like the Nimitz and the Boorda were ticking time bombs, and that a better plan would be to inhabit a lunar surface.

Between legislation to preserve pristine those lunar environments and with improvements in gravity generators, the bases had been built. Tark, his civilian mayor, and their counterparts aboard the Boorda had worked tirelessly to ensure safety in times of peace. Now, they would face a true test as peace crumbled under the weight of corruption.

Why, hello there. Sa’andy smiled up at him as she shrugged off her lab coat. You missed a volatile organic compounds course.

I need you to tell me something. He took her hands and looked at her pleadingly, but could say no more. She seemed to understand at once.

"They will come, whether you are here or not, Jorge. She shook her head. I’m sorry. This is a lot to take in. It’s all happening much more quickly than anyone anticipated."

It’s okay. I’ve just been struggling with this stupid idea that if I stay, I’m condemning everyone here….

And that if you were to leave, they would be safe. Sa’andy pointed a finger to his chest. "It is a fallacy to think that. The reason you must stay is because this station will be an asset, and someone will wish very badly to obtain it. They will not destroy it. They will force their way in and occupy it, and punish those who resist."

So maybe that’s the case, and the best thing is to defend all possible points of entry, but what if they’re willing to sacrifice even a part of the station? And say they’re willing to kill people in order to get in? We have an air wing, a squadron that can scramble, but we’re not loaded with serious weaponry here. He held up his hands in frustration.

Not yet, we’re not.

Would you mind expanding on that statement?

My people have an interest in the cause, if you will. They do not wish to openly enter into battle and risk violence spreading beyond this system. Equally they do not wish to find other species creating unsavory alliances. Any aid they give will be quiet, but adequate.

Are you telling me that they’ll send arms?

Whatever we might need. I have little doubt that we will begin to see a ban on supply ships from Earth for a time. My people will engage…private captains to assist us.

You mean pirates.

"Pirates? I think they will be slightly better compensated, and not available to a higher bidder." She wore an impish smile that belied the seriousness of the situation.

I guess they’ll have to be well-paid, if we expect any loyalty at all.

I feel obliged to tell you that loyalty is a luxury. All we shall require of them is obligation.

Are you saying we’re expected to turn the screws on people who regularly evade the law?

You’ve answered your own question, my love. What’s one thing that would bring such persons around to a cause? She was quiet, watching his mind work quickly.

We pardon them? Or…turn a blind eye. Is that it? Have your people promised to look the other way? Jeez, what are we getting into, here?

I’ll leave that alone. Now, I imagine you came here to discuss more than your guilty conscience. She winked in the human fashion and nudged him out the door of the classroom.

You’re not half right. I feel like I’m going loony without steady gouge to keep me up to date. Have you had any communication from your sources?

They had turned to walk down into the center of the station. Tark was feeling the paranoia of the moment, and decided to check security on the gravity generators, as well as that of the antimatter reactors. It would only take one tiny act of sabotage to cripple the Nimitz; he was determined to prevent a disaster.

He had given Dmitry the task of hand-selecting a rotating guard for each sensitive area. In addition to the two vulnerabilities he had thought of immediately, it was obvious that they needed to include air filtration, water recycling and reservoirs, as well as rations for the military personnel. In the civilian sector, he’d have to leave private supplies security up to civilian owners.

Seeing to all these needs sucked up a great deal of mental energy. He’d started carrying around several tablets just to keep track of everything. This was only the beginning of the first week on low alert as well. How was he going to cope once the shit really hit the fan? He should keep taking naps maybe.

Are you listening? Jorge?

Huh? Sorry, no. Totally off in…you know.

Deep space? Very funny. She smiled, reaching up to plant a kiss. I was just saying that, as far as I’ve heard, everyone landed where they had intended to land. We’ve been running silent for a while, emergency calls only, except Mrs. Han has been using her methods.

We blocked her! His naïveté was charming.

"She used to be one of those pirate types, Jorge. If you want information, I suggest you pay her a visit."

He rolled his eyes, knowing she would read his unspoken, emphatic, no!

Chapter Two

Antonio was still having a little difficulty adjusting to the idea that he was actually back on Earth. Well, to the reality as well. His body certainly found a noticeable difference between artificial gravity and the kind found on terra firma. It was a bit like stepping off a sailing ship onto dry land.

Peru was gratifyingly forested, full of sounds and smells long forgotten. Granted, he had grown up near the Swiss border, but standing atop the foothills of the Andes was a taste of home. He had longed for the sight of a massive horizon studded with jagged peaks, without even realizing it.

Here, he felt long-denied emotion, buried down below so much weight. Grief, after his mother had died, and his father had taken them to the United States. Duty, while he had taken job after job that never allowed him out of windowless rooms. He had divorced happiness and left behind any memory of what had once given him joy.

Now, he’d been dropped smack into the middle of freedom to remember. There was no escaping it any longer. Except that the faces of the dead were all blurred, and he had no photos by which to sharpen their lines. Mama, Paola, and Papa, everyone…they were dust by now.

The mountains alone remained as a wary sentinel against the ravages of time. Perhaps they had altered in the course of a few hundred years, but he did not doubt that the Alps stood nearly as tall as ever. He wondered whether the glaciers had fully disappeared from their heights. Or perhaps they were growing back.

He breathed in the thin air, tasting the sharpness of it, remembering. Mountain goats grazed in white clumps here and there, while llamas bleated and bellowed at one another. Thoughts of Leif and Josh bubbled into his head then, along with Maeve and Wallace. He frowned.

Was he a coward for not having wanted to go with them? This question had kept him up for the past several nights, though he knew that he was actually proving useful here. He wasn’t a grunt, and never had been. What he had to offer was practical computer and engineering expertise; his skills were still relevant after all this time.

How old was he, minus the two hundred years of sleep? He had to think. Twenty-four? Had he passed his birthday before they’d been shoved in the freezer? At any rate, he was younger than most of the others, and had realized that he had plenty of time to relearn. There was nothing but time. He could go back to school someday soon, unless people started blowing them up.

If civilization withstood the coming challenges. If he and the others lived through this foray into madness. The if’s kept knocking politely at his consciousness, one after another. Then a muted percussive sound resonated through the valley below; the ground rumbling under his feet a moment or two later. IF Grace wasn’t the one to blow them all up while she was practicing added itself to the list.

Hey, Antonio. Jules came up from behind him to stand at the edge of a cliff face. Heights did not bother her at all. He shook his head at her. Even though he’d always loved bombing down a long run on his snowboard, Antonio was not one of those who wanted to jump from the dizzying pinnacle of a peak.

What’s up? He could see that there was something on her mind.

Nothing from the Med yet. She scowled and chucked a pebble out into the open air. But there’s word from the Nimitz.

Anything we need to worry about?

They think that the Alliance will try to go and stage, I dunno, a coup or something. So there’s that. Then there’s something about missing munitions.

Uh, what? Somebody stole bombs?

That’s the part we worry about.

"Che cazzo. He spat on the ground in the old way, ignoring Julieta trying to rough out a mental translation. Who took them?"

They think that our friendly pilot may have been loaded for bear, man. Jules squinted off at the midday sun, her jaw working overtime.

"Why the hell do they need to tell us? Don’t they know she turned right around after she dropped us? Way the hell away from their actual final position? Maybe they made a mistake."

That’s the problem. She was given orders to go back and crap, but I guess she disregarded. There’s no trail to follow, so they were asking if any of us had picked up on her intentions for post-drop.

No…because she said about two words the whole trip.

That’s what I told them.

Where do they think she’ll have gone?

I don’t know…but she seems to have borrowed enough fireworks to level a city.

A city? The wheels turned rapidly in his head. Or…an island?

I know. Shit. But why would she go there?

I know that the colonel picked her to fly us, but maybe she’s got loyalties that lie elsewhere.

Jules wrinkled her nose, letting fly with her own colorful stream of invective.

One more thing to worry about. If Maeve doesn’t get them killed, some trigger-happy female pilot might. Maybe this loon is going to go shoot the hell out of some other target. Yeah, I’m going to think that happy thought for now.

It wasn’t a comforting thought, that there might be people amongst them playing both sides, or working as double agents. Times of war came with smaller conflicts and sabotage. It had been a lucky break that the doctor on board the Nimitz had only harmed herself. It seemed that Captain Nandra had other intentions, apparently.

What do we do? He led the way back into their camp, where he found himself watching everyone with new eyes.

Try to get out a message to the Med, somehow. I don’t know what else we can do from here.

Another subterranean thud and rattle shook under their feet.

Hmm. Maybe we ought to figure something else out. Antonio pointed to the ground. "Preferably before she disintegrates the whole mountainside."

"She’s fine-tuning."

Grace is bored, Jules, and you know it. Go tell her she needs to pack her trash and move out, see what she says.

He waved his hands at her in the international ‘move along’ sign. Jules shook her head but acquiesced. It probably was high time to gently detach Grace from her explosives orgy, but it seemed crazy to simply pack up and move out. Antonio couldn’t know what he was getting them into.

The mountainous hideout was supposed to be a rallying point, one of several dozen locations where women and men could quietly disappear to while waiting for an offensive. She had thought of it that way, anyway. Probably there were those who sought only to hide, to stay safe, to protect their families or belongings.

Master Kun was adamant that this was acceptable; those who did not wish to fight could be just as valuable acting as doctors, nurses, or simple laborers. He believed that everyone must find his or her place. They all quietly saw that Jemila would have been happy to remain here. Violence had not been in Jemi’s lexicon, though teaching and caretaking had.

For his own part, Antonio had no true intention of wanting to leave either. He knew that what he needed to do was to get a handle on the new parameters of what had once been his life’s work. He wanted to light a fire under Grace and Julieta, though for their own sakes as well. Their fields had always required them to be out in real time. Why should now be any different?

Himself, he was content to do the work that he had long known was his calling,, whilst buried ensconced deep in the heart of a technological stronghold. Virtual warfare, in his opinion, provided a means to protecdefenset. It could construct a buffer that might very well keep soldiers out of harm’s way. Assure that supply was uninterrupted. Locate missing or dead personnel….

That thought gave him pause. He knew that the network here was not as advanced as what he’d seen on the Nimitz. And there was no telling how far ahead the systems were elsewhere on the planet. Say, those of the Alliance. If there was one thing he’d always been was good at, though, it was the ability to find his way into any virtual space, no matter how well it was protected.

It was now time to test those skills, as well as everything new he’d picked up while on the Nimitz. Time to find their friends in the Med, and see what this Captain Nandra was up to. Purpose in mind, Antonio strode quickly to the cave opening that led down into where all the computers and electronics were kept. Another muffled thud and following rumble only served to increase his pace.

Chapter Three

They were creeping toward dawn.

Josh looked down at Leif for perhaps the fiftieth time in the past ten minutes. Still breathing. Hope was a scrap of ash fluttering in the wind right then, as Josh kept a steady hand pressing down on his friend’s midsection. All other emotion had burned away.

He had felt it.

The shifting of the ground underfoot.

Was that what it was like? The earth burning away from sight?

Don’t you dare die on me.

Not like it’s my preference, man. The reply came weakly, but with typical humor. Leif hadn’t said anything since.

He’d pulled Leif out of the house, over the dusty sandy yard, down onto the rocky beach. The boat had more medical supplies. Josh had initially left it all behind, feeling that taking the kit along would have put some kind of hex on them. Ten minutes later, with still no sign of Wallace or Maeve, some kind ofan aircraft had come in low.

It had paused for a moment in front of the two of them. Josh raised a hand to see if he could distinguish its shape, but the pilot had flicked on all the forward lighting, effectively blinding him. It was fStrange; he’d thought for sure that it had been about to land.

Not so.

Like an eagle with a fish in its talons, iIt reared itself back into the air like an eagle with a fish in its talons, then advanced over to the house behind himthem. A long pause, a tangible breath or heartbeat. It took its time, as if it were a living thing caught in contemplation. Josh had still been trying to decide whether it was on a rescue mission or an enemyof hostile intent when it had unleashed missile firea barrage of missile fire lit up the gathering darkness.

He had imagined reasoned missiles were what the ordnance had been, for little remained of the house. The heat of the explosions had washed over them, so intense that his face felt as if it had been sunburnt. All around where the house had stood, trees, plant life, and outlying structures writhed and fell under the flames.

No warning. Nothing. Fiery claws reached out; panicked, he’d dragged Leif into the shallows. Ojii-san, did you feel this fear? Dawn was not rosy-fingered this morning; no, she had blood on her hands instead. Grandfather, I finally understand. Josh found himself praying for the first time that he could ever remember.

Leif