The Crystal Giants of Rendezvous-7

By Christopher Howard Lincoln

Marooned on a remote, desolate world, the surviving crew of the Serpent's Kiss must struggle to find a way back to the known, planetary systems to impart a warning of dire importance, a warning that could save billions of lives. With the fate of entire empires hanging in the balance, the solution may lie in a terrifying new discovery.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christopher Howard Lincoln
• Release date: May 7, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386156857

Book preview

I

The Serpent’s Kiss flashed out of exospace right on schedule and exactly where she was supposed to be. The small, oblong cargo craft had been deposited neatly into orbit around the planet UX7M19-7, a feat of spacefaring the ship’s navigation officer would colorfully call slipping her into the pocket. It was a useful skill if ever there was a blockade to run. However, that was not the case on this occasion; the ship was merely meeting a client in free space to transfer some cargo.

The ship’s captain, a lithe, petite woman with pale skin, bright blue eyes, close-cropped, unruly blonde hair, and who went by the name of Kleopatre, had no idea what that cargo might be. It could be a shipment of goods that was smuggled, stolen, or illegal—or none of these things—it made no difference to her. In the business of small-time cargo hauling, she found it best not to ask too many questions; a person lived longer that way. Whatever it was, tucked securely into the ship’s cargo hold, the client had wanted to take possession of it away from the prying eyes of any of the various interstellar authorities.

Since the handover was to be in secret, Kleopatre had chosen the seventh planet of the charted but as of yet unexplored system of the star officially listed as UX7M19 for the meeting. The unremarkable system lay in a zone of free space just outside the borders of the nearest members of the Confederated Systems. It was a convenient location for Kleopatre to make her more questionable transactions; she had used it before.

The star’s designation was a mouthful, though, and to use it on an unscrambled channel was unwise, so, for the purposes of any open communications, she had given the star a proper name: Rendezvous. Only she and her clients knew what—or where—the appellation referred to. The seventh planet, dubbed Rendezvous-7, was the obvious choice for a meet point; it was the largest in the system, a dull, cloudy world with a long, lazy orbit, and an easy marker to spot for even the most lacking of ship’s navigators.

Kleopatre checked the in-system scanner, looking to see if it had picked up the client’s navigational beacon yet. If everything was running according to schedule, the client should be in orbit already, waiting. But the scanner’s display screen, located on the broad console in front of her, wasn’t showing what she had expected. Instead of a single blip of green light representing the client’s presence, the flat surface was covered with hundreds of glowing, red dots. The red color indicated objects the computer could not identify. There were a lot of them, all around the Serpent’s Kiss, and close too.

She leaned back in the pilot’s seat, its foam anti-gee cushioning molding to her small frame, gently cradling her. What the hell? she muttered, confused.

Directly to her right, sitting in the copilot’s seat and separated from her by a gap of only a few feet, was Na’Deen, officially the ship’s security and weapons officer. She, too, was pale skinned like the captain, but that was where the similarity ended: Na’Deen was tall and willowy, and she moved with a kind of languid, unconscious grace as opposed to the captain’s more pronounced vivacity. The woman fiddled apprehensively with the end of the long tail her dark, auburn hair had been braided into.

Looks like we jumped right into the middle of a debris field of some kind, she said, pale gray eyes shifting back and forth between the scanner’s display and the captain’s concerned face. Doesn’t look random, though. What are they? There are so many of them.

Kleopatre reached over the control column and tapped the display screen, activating a three-dimensional view. The small red dots leapt off the surface and into the space above the flight console, filling a faintly glowing cube of air that hovered in front of the forward viewports. A small, yellow blip in the center of the cube represented the Serpent’s Kiss, and faint X-, Y- and Z-axis lines emanated from it, providing relative distances.

Viewed in such a way, it became obvious that the points of light were, indeed, not random at all; they were laid out in various geometric patterns, like oddly shaped grids stacked, equidistantly, one on top of another. Some of the smaller lights, having broken out of their slowly moving parent formations, were headed directly toward the ship’s yellow indicator.

From behind Kleopatre came the raspy voice of Jessop, who was seated at the navigation console. He was a former asteroid miner, a scruffy, bearded rapscallion much younger than he looked. His flesh was lined and deeply tanned, like old leather, from his years spent combing the various rock belts of the Confederated Systems; most of that kind of work was done in nothing but a pressure suit, and the constant exposure to each system’s sun was unhealthy, changing a person physically, the absorption of various radiations prematurely aging the human body. A few years back, he decided that he’d had enough of the demanding work and signed on with the Serpent’s Kiss as ship’s navigator, which suited Kleopatre just fine: the skills he had gained from plotting intricate courses through asteroid fields made him the best navigation officer she had ever crewed with. He said, Cap’n, those things, whatever they be, are too close. I don’ like the look of ‘em. We should move away, quickly. Besides, some of ‘em are headin’ this way real fast, and that makes me nervous; brings to mind some of my experiences with claim jumpers.

Na’Deen chimed in, They must be ships; their sizes are displaying as mostly uniform. She keyed in a brief query on the portion of the flight console that wrapped around in front of her. Frowning at the response, she continued, The computer still hasn’t identified them yet. She looked up and peered out the front viewports. They’re close enough that we should be able to see them with the naked eye.

Kleopatre cleared the three-dimensional computer display and looked too. Sure enough, above the gentle curve of Rendezvous-7 and its hazy envelope of atmosphere, she could make out hundreds of tiny specks of reflected light moving against the otherwise static star field. As she watched, two of the nearer objects seemed to flicker momentarily, each producing a short series of bright flashes.

Hell and damnation! she shouted. In an instant, she had wrapped her fingers around the contoured handgrips of the control column, engaging the ship’s thrusters, and was pulling hard to starboard—accelerating as fast as the engines would allow.

Over the strain of the rapidly increasing gee forces that pressed the crew snugly into their soft seats, Na’Deen managed to squeak out in a worried tone, "Cap’n, are they firing on us?"

As soon as the words had left her mouth, the proximity alarm went off, its siren blaring loudly over the com system. The computer’s mechanical voice began repeating what was all too obvious to Kleopatre.

Get the shields up now! she ordered, too busy taking evasive action to do it herself.

But it was too late. Something slammed into the aft section of the ship, detonating. The cabin bucked wildly and was suddenly bathed in deep crimson as the emergency lights kicked in. Warning lights began to appear across the smooth curve of the flight console, but Kleopatre ignored them, trusting her crew to sort out any problems the lights represented as she fought with the increasingly sluggish controls.

Shields not responding, said Na’Deen. I can’t—

Another detonation. Sparks showered the red gloom of the shaking cabin, briefly lighting it up as small panels blew apart on Kleopatre’s right. Sections of the flight console went completely dark; acrid smoke drifted around her head, making it hard to breathe. Even so, she refused to panic: she wasn’t the type.

The control column was still responding, albeit erratically, to her commands. Kleopatre’s zigzagging course took the Serpent’s Kiss ever closer to the upper edges of Rendezvous-7’s cloud-filled covering.

To the crew, she said, Brace yourselves! I’m going to have to take her down, and the ride’s going to get even rougher.

The wildly maneuvering ship bored quickly through the planet’s upper atmosphere, the increasing air friction giving a rich cherry-red glow to the vessel’s underbelly as she plunged deeper and deeper. Abruptly, the ship was swallowed up, disappearing in the thick, cottony depths of the cloud layer.

The vessel rattled and shook, becoming ever more difficult to control as winds buffeted her and turbulence took its toll. Air, thick with moisture, screamed across the outside shell of the ship; the noise was terrible.

Shouting to be heard over the cacophony, Kleopatre said, Dump the cargo!

But... Cap’n... the client... maybe we— Na’Deen began to reply. Her voice was thin and strained.

Forget the blasted client. He’s either not coming or dead. Now, jettison that cargo, quickly! Do it!

Aye, Cap’n. The voice was weaker, almost a whisper.

Kleopatre was fighting like mad to keep the ship from tumbling and couldn’t spare even a fraction of a second to look over and see what was the matter with her copilot. All she knew was that the cargo was still onboard; her order had not been