Shadow Planet: Mission 1: Black Ocean: Astral Prime, #1

By J. S. Morin and M. A. Larkin

A space station at the edge of the galaxy just found a planet that's slipping off the edge entirely.

After losing control of his magic, wizard Cedric The Brown blew up his boss and nearly crashed a space station into a planet. Determined to make amends, he pledges to help the mining station negotiate with the nearby planet's mysterious magical inhabitants.

With nothing but the bankrupt station as severance pay, Director Fujita Hiroko moves to the edge of the galaxy to keep the station afloat as an independent mining operation. When the nearby planet vanishes with her and her survey team still on the surface, hopes of mining are quickly replaced by a more pressing goal: finding a way back to her station.

Shadow Planet is the first book in the Black Ocean: Astral Prime series. It hearkens back to location-based space sci-fi classics like Babylon 5 and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Astral Prime builds on the rich Black Ocean universe, introducing a colorful cast of characters for new and returning readers alike. Come along for the ride as a minor outpost in the middle of nowhere becomes a key point of interstellar conflict.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Magical Scrivener Press
• Release date: Jun 12, 2018
• ISBN: 9781942642831

Book preview

Shadow Planet

SHADOW PLANET

MISSION 1

BLACK OCEAN: ASTRAL PRIME

J.S. MORIN

M.A. LARKIN

MAGICAL SCRIVENER PRESS

Copyright © 2018 J.S. Morin & M.A. Larkin

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed Attention: Permissions Coordinator, at the address below.

Magical Scrivener Press

www.magicalscrivener.com

Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

Ordering Information: Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address above.

J.S. Morin & M.A. Larkin — First Edition

ISBN: 978-1-942642-83-1

Printed in the United States of America

SHADOW PLANET

MISSION 1

The digital nameplate over her office would have read Station Chief Fujita Hiroko had it been working. More than six months since Crash Day and still half of Maho Saigai Mobile Excavating Station YF-77 wasn’t fully operational. Hiroko had ordered Chief Engineer Kane to get the comms up early, considering them a top priority. Had Hiroko considered all the bleak, apologetic progress reports to corporate she’d have to submit weekly, she might have left the comms for last.

You going in there or what? Kendra asked.

Hiroko didn’t look back at her executive assistant. Of course, she was going into her office. Of course, she was going to receive the comm. And, of course, she was going to get another earful from Shinzo about how YF-77’s production shortfalls were bringing down the whole megacorp. Hiroko quirked a wan smile at that. Well, today she’d be able to report some progress, even if the damn astral-drive was still a sputtering wreck.

She strode inside, sunk down into her chair, and waved a connection to Mars onto the terminal in her desk. Astral relays allowed her to communicate from half a galaxy away, but from this distance, there was always a slight lag.

Shinzo flashed up on her screen, eyes sunken like he hadn’t slept in days. Hiroko bit back both her chiding and her sympathy for her brother. She had more than her share of quandaries at the moment.

Hiroko-chan.

Hiroko kept her face expressionless. Shinzo wasn’t usually given to such familiarity and, considering she should have had his job on YF-48, she wasn’t sure she much appreciated it coming from him. Instead, she offered an incline of her head in response, a slight deference due her superior, even if it should have been the other way around. Our surveyors report Karafuto IV has just about been mined dry. The good news is we have a significant shipment of molybdenum to send home. The bad news is we need more time to repair the astral-drive before we can—

Hiroko-chan … I fear there is no need to send the shipment to Mars.

What else was she supposed to do with twenty tons of ore? She opened her mouth, then shut it. No doubt lag was making Shinzo’s hesitation feel longer.

Her brother cleared his throat. Reports are probably already on the omni, but I hoped to tell you before you heard it elsewhere. Tell her what? Maho Saigai Mining Concern has declared bankruptcy.

Hiroko’s jaw had fallen open, but she couldn’t close it for the life of her. Megacorps didn’t just go bankrupt. They had assets worth trillions of terras, assets like … Mobile Excavating Station YF-77. But surely the failings of one mining station couldn’t have …

Shinzo hung his head. Grandfather has taken his own life. Creditors have seized most of our local assets but are writing off anything that would cost more to relocate than the salvage is worth. So … consider the station your severance. They’re already coming for YF-48.

Severance? What am I supposed to do with a derelict station and products I have no buyer for? I can’t even move the station right now!

And then the rest of what he’d said settled on her brain, like a rock crushing her skull. Grandfather had killed himself. Hiroko rubbed a hand over her face. All her life, Grandfather had led the family and the megacorp, steady as a mountain, unshakable. Stern but—every once in a great while—with a hint of a smile for her.

Chikushō!

She looked back up at Shinzo. Her brother was staring at her. She could have continued to protest. No astral-drive meant they couldn’t move the station. Karafuto IV being mined dry meant no further chance of revenue. And without Maho Saigai’s ships coming to retrieve the ore, it didn’t matter anyway. Her severance was an unreliable station in the middle of nowhere. It was a tomb.

Maybe Shinzo knew that. Maybe he considered it karma for her sins.

Ancestors watch over you, Hiroko-chan.

You as well, Shinzo-san.

The line went dead.

As dead as she was.

Hiroko rose from her desk but stumbled from a sudden bout of dizziness and had to steady herself. She shook her head. "Oh, chikushō. Oh, shit." Her breaths were coming in gasps. Part of her knew she was hyperventilating, but she was powerless to stop it.

A fair number of the crew had fled after Crash Day, hitching rides with any ship willing to take them. But still, she had more than twenty-five hundred crewmen left on the station. Thousands of lives counting on her to ensure their livelihoods and survival.

The observation deck and glass dome of her office gave a wonderful view of the barren world below them. Hiroko leaned against the glass on the deck and imagined herself falling through it. In such times, one could indulge in self-doubt, even self-pity.

For a moment.

But only for a moment.

When the moment passed, she’d have a station to fix.

Clearly, Kendra said, you need to relax.

Hiroko massaged her temples while looking up at her assistant, who leaned over Hiroko’s desk staring at her. Since Kendra was more or less her only real friend on the station, Hiroko allowed her significant leeway.

I’m trying.

Kendra snorted and snatched up Hiroko’s datapad. "Comparative Anthropology of Non-ARGO Earth-likes in the Pre-Space Era by some boring-ass professor. Yeah, very relaxing sounding. When you’re done with this, maybe try bridging the divide between magic and tech."

Hiroko frowned. "Sometimes I need something to take my mind off the immediate situation so I can come back at it with a fresh perspective. I like anthropology. And it is by a professor. Professor Petrauskas from the University of—"

Boring. The University of Boring. Most people who need a fresh perspective get it with, I don’t know, wine maybe.

Hiroko snickered. I’m not opposed to imbibing, once in a while.

Kendra spread her arms like it was the best idea ever. Perfect. You remember that laaku who helped us during Crash Day? Well, she manages a band, so I helped her get a gig playing at the Dancing Cricket. Let’s go check them out, buy a bottle of wine. I promise everything will still be broken in the morning.

No kidding. "Fine, fine. We’ll order some dinner. But after that, I do have to get back to work. When I break it to the crew what’s happened, I want to have some good news about all this. Which means I need to find something good out of all this."

"Pshaw. You own the station completely now, right? That’s good news. Not Station Chief anymore. More like … Director Fujita."

Hiroko frowned. That’s unlikely to offer the crew much consolation.

Come on, just—

Hiroko’s door chimed. Hiroko shrugged and motioned for Kendra to do something about it. Frowning, Kendra leaned over the desk and pressed the door release.

Calvin Black strode in, face smeared with grease and eyes looking almost as tired as Hiroko’s probably did. The astral-drive tech had shown up some months after Crash Day, willing to work cheap. Anyone who could manage even a trickle of magic generally charged enough even megacorps were stingy about hiring them. Black working cheap meant he’d thoroughly displeased someone in power—which he’d never denied. And Hiroko was just desperate enough not to pry. She needed the damn drive fixed.

The astral-drive merged science and technology, allowing them to enter the astral plane and bridge the gap between solar systems. Most stations were—obviously—stationary, but YF-77 was theoretically a mobile mining platform. They had to relocate when asteroids, moons, or planets were mined dry. Thanks to an unknown wizard doing ancestors-knew-what, every technological system on the station had blown out, and YF-77 had nearly crashed into Karafuto IV.

Cal! Kendra beamed at him, always seeming a little too starstruck by someone who barely deserved the title wizard.

It’s Calvin.

Kendra shrugged. I like Cal. Sounds like Kal-El.

Who? He raised an eyebrow and looked to Hiroko, but she had no idea either.

Kendra threw up her hands. Hey. My parents loved early-data era superheroes, all right. People with special powers, protecting the world.

Oh! Black said. Right, you mean wizards, back before we went public. Sure. Not familiar with that one, though.

Hiroko’s assistant sighed and shook her head, though Hiroko couldn’t have guessed why. Listen, Cal. We’re going to the Dancing Cricket. You should join us. All of us could use the chance to relax a little.

That place is a little … posh.

Hiroko rose and pushed off her desk. It’s all right. I’m buying. If Black had good news, he deserved it. If he didn’t, maybe a free dinner at one of the nicest establishments on the station would guilt him into putting in the overtime to get the drive ready.

I don’t know, Black said.

Kendra rolled her eyes. Maybe we should give Calvin the heads-up about the … state of things.

Hiroko wanted to snap that he’d hear it at the next staff meeting, same as all the other department chiefs. She wanted to, but maybe knowing the truth would inspire him to come up with some idea to save them all. Wizards were supposed to do that, right?

She glanced around to make sure no one was within earshot. Mr. Black, the Maho Saigai Mining Concern has gone under. People are going to hear about it soon. We may face panic, riots, crew deserting their posts and abandoning us. We’re on our own. And that means we have to pull together and find a way to make this place work.

Black took all that in stoically. Hiroko studiously stared at his chin so as not to meet his eyes when he spoke. His lips cracked a smile that seemed forced. I’m going to find a way to fix all this. It’s going to be OK.

When he said it like that, she believed him.

The station’s state of disrepair might not have been Black’s fault, but it was hard not to blame all magic. Kendra had to constantly remind her they needed a wizard to fix the astral-drive.

It wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t his fault.

Since showing up, Black had put in incredibly long hours trying to fix … well, everything. If Kane worked half so hard in the engineering department, maybe the station would be running at more than 50 percent capacity by now. As it was, they’d gotten thrusters online only a few weeks before they’d have crashed into a moon.

Great, Kendra said. So, let’s all grab dinner. There’s this new live band I was telling Hiroko about.

Really? Black asked.

Uh … Squadron 33 or something like that.

Black stiffened, though Hiroko couldn’t guess why. Actually, with the news, I should get to work on the drive …

Hiroko nodded in acquiescence and joined the two of them in the glass-cased lift beyond Kendra’s desk.

Hiroko’s office lay in the station’s pinnacle, while most of the restaurants, shops, and other businesses were located in the Upper Circus, a ring around the station large enough they had to use moving walkways to