Eastern Foray: Karnish River Navigations

By Sean Monaghan

A day learning to fly the giant Alman-Kruder aircraft over the canal lands gives investigator Flis Kupe the chance to unwind after some tough assignments. At least until someone fires a smart missile at her.
Kind of changes her day. A whole lot.
And as Flis and fellow investigator Grae begin unraveling the mystery, missiles might become the least of their concerns.
Another episode in the thrilling Karnish River Navigations science fiction series that asks the question: who can we trust?
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Triple V Publishing
• Release date: Jan 31, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386806202

Sean Monaghan

Award-winning author, Sean Monaghan has published more than one hundred stories in the U.S., the U.K., Australia, and in New Zealand, where he makes his home. A regular contributor to Asimov’s, his story “Crimson Birds of Small Miracles”, set in the art world of Shilinka Switalla, won both the Sir Julius Vogel Award, and the Asimov’s Readers Poll Award, for best short story. He is a past winner of the Jim Baen Memorial Award, and the Amazing Stories Award. Sean writes from a nook in a corner of his 110 year old home, usually listening to eighties music. Award-winning author, Sean Monaghan has published more than one hundred stories in the U.S., the U.K., Australia, and in New Zealand, where he makes his home. A regular contributor to Asimov’s, his story “Crimson Birds of Small Miracles”, set in the art world of Shilinka Switalla, won both the Sir Julius Vogel Award, and the Asimov’s Readers Poll Award, for best short story. He is a past winner of the Jim Baen Memorial Award, and the Amazing Stories Award. Sean writes from a nook in a corner of his 110 year old home, usually listening to eighties music.

Book preview

Eastern Foray

A Karnish River Navigations Novel

Copyright 2018 by Sean Monaghan

All rights reserved

Cover Art: © Philcold | Dreamstime.com

Published by Triple V Publishing

Author web page

www.seanmonaghan.com

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty One

Chapter Twenty Two

Chapter Twenty Three

Chapter Twenty Four

Chapter Twenty Five

Chapter Twenty Six

Chapter Twenty Seven

Chapter Twenty Eight

Chapter Twenty Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty One

Chapter Thirty Two

Chapter Thirty Three

Chapter Thirty Four

Chapter Thirty Five

Chapter Thirty Six

Chapter Thirty Seven

Chapter Thirty Eight

Chapter Thirty Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty One

Chapter Forty Two

Chapter Forty Three

Chapter Forty Four

Chapter Forty Five

Chapter Forty Six

Chapter Forty Seven

Chapter Forty Eight

Chapter Forty Nine

Chapter Fifty

Chapter Fifty One

Chapter Fifty Two

Chapter Fifty Three

Chapter Fifty Four

Chapter Fifty Five

Chapter Fifty Six

Chapter Fifty Seven

Chapter Fifty Eight

Chapter Fifty Nine

Chapter Sixty

Chapter Sixty One

Chapter Sixty Two

Chapter Sixty Three

Chapter Sixty Four

Chapter Sixty Five

Chapter Sixty Six

Chapter Sixty Seven

Chapter Sixty Eight

Chapter Sixty Nine

Chapter Seventy

Chapter Seventy One

Chapter Seventy Two

Chapter Seventy Three

Chapter Seventy Four

Chapter Seventy Five

Chapter Seventy Six

Chapter Seventy Seven

Chapter Seventy Eight

Chapter Seventy Nine

Chapter Eighty

Chapter Eighty One

Chapter Eighty Two

Chapter Eighty Three

Chapter Eighty Four

Chapter Eighty Five

Chapter Eighty Six

Chapter Eighty Seven

Chapter Eighty Eight

Chapter Eighty Nine

Chapter Ninety

Chapter Ninety One

Chapter Ninety Two

Chapter Ninety Three

Chapter Ninety Four

Chapter Ninety Five

Chapter Ninety Six

About the Author

Other Books By Sean Monaghan

Links

Chapter One

Tim Clapperton held his hands under cool crisp water running from the faucet as the newly-repaired pump bleeped. Red lights on its diagnostic display.

More problems ahead. Tim smiled. He liked a challenge.

From the toolbox, he took out one of the microdrivers. A long-bladed tool with a tip that could bend and explore. Figure out what was going on in the pump’s mechanism.

The farm he and Delle ran felt lost in the wilderness. Set among hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of the old canal lands, theirs was one of maybe five hundred farmsteads still operating.

A wayside planet, Paulding lay out of the main routes, and the population continued to decline. The exodus had begun before Tim had been born. When his parents had been teenagers. So many new worlds out there now.

In a way, the Karnth canal lands were a microcosm of the human inhabited worlds. Sparse and underpopulated.

Tim and Delle’s nearest neighbor lay almost twenty kilometers away. Across the vast flat acreages of wild corn and wheat of the abandoned farms. A more peaceful life Tim couldn’t have asked for.

Overhead, thick low cloudbanks trundled east. Out toward the distant ocean. Some breaks in the gray allowed beams of sunlight through. They stood like pillars separating the earth from the sky.

Tim stepped back across the limed path, boots crunching. He shook water from his hands. Rubbed them together to take away most of the moisture. The calluses on his palms felt rough against the backs of his hands and knuckles. Time for another treatment to bring his problem skin back to supple and soft.

Too much time hammering timbers and tugging on ropes. Still, it was the kind of work he liked. Simple and with clear, straightforward results. Raising corn and barley and a whole range of vegetables, from squash and pumpkin to shallots and jalapeños.

Amazing that with the cities exploiting food synthesis on mass scales there was still a market for home-grown fresh produce. Suited Tim and Delle, and it suited their customers.

Still wiping his hands off, Tim turned at the sound of a boat’s engine.

To his right stood a tall group of old pines. A woods less than an acre wide. The woods seemed to expand every year as seedlings worked their way into the changing soil at the margins.

Even though the trees were gradually encroaching on the farm, it was still good. He and Delle had bought a secondhand protein processor a couple of years back. A thing the size of a small truck. They had it moored on a barge on the nearby grass-banked canal.

Dicky though it was, the machine could chew up wood and organic waste. All that stuff went in the hopper at one end, and came out a moldable bluish-gray protein blocks at the other end. The machine even fueled itself.

The protein blocks were never very appetizing, and smelled like slightly burnt rubberized plastic tires. But the blocks sold. Apparently people had recipes that made them quite tasty. Tim had never quite been brave enough to try them out himself.

He saw the tip of the boat, chugging along the canal beyond their three-story, slightly rundown old farmstead home. It looked quaint from a distance, with it’s warped clapboard and peeling paint and dormer windows on the steep-roofed third story. Sometimes tourist boats slowed so offworlders could make image recordings of their time visiting Karnth.

The boat looked like one of the big Dernian 50s. Tall decorative aerials, a high flying bridge, and a slim arm with robotic eyes seeking out views and details. A tourist boat. Slowing.

A flight of herons glided overhead, white feathers ruffling. Some of them called. Quiet peeping sounds.

Tim looked over the pump again. Irrigation was a foundation of their farm. Carefully moving water around the corn and barley fields, and the vegetable plots.

The pump made a grinding sound and the water stopped flowing.

Tim glanced back at the boat. It continued slowing. Heading in for the dock where Tim and Delle’s own boats lay tied up. And the barge with the protein synthesizer.

Maybe the boat’s passengers would stop by and ask for a tour of the farm. It would be nice to have company, and the operators always paid for his time. And they would be polite if Tim or Delle were unavailable because of other things to manage.

A week back he’d had to decline on account of a small fire out in one of the back fields. Enough recent rain that the fire hadn’t raged out of control, but Tim and Delle had been tied up for the day damping down and searching out embers. The stink of burned stalks still sat in Tim’s nostrils. As if lodged there for life.

He crouched and checked the diagnostics on the pump again. The display suggested ordering a part. Tim tapped and pinched to send the details to the fabricator in the house’s small basement.

Not too urgent, but better to get it underway now.

He removed the microdriver and dropped it into the toolbox.

Tim stepped away from the pump and over to the beat-up old four-wheeler they used to drive around the farm. The vehicle had chunky tires, two comfy seats and a wide tray at the rear for transporting equipment. Tim climbed aboard. The motor whined as he drove toward the farmhouse.

He left the toolbox where it was. The part wouldn’t take long to fabricate and he could fit it right after their visitors were done.

From the distance he heard the sound of an aircraft. He looked around and saw it to the south west. A big, lumbering thing. One of the old transports. Coming in low.

The air around it shimmered with the effects of some kind of anti-gravity generators.

Tim smiled to himself. So often nothing disturbed their peace, yet now someone was flying low over the farm, and a boat had arrived.

He continued on, wondering what the people on the boat wanted. As he drew close to the house, Delle stepped out onto the veranda. They’d put the veranda on themselves, constructing it from materials produced by the fabricator. The veranda ran around three sides of the house and added to the rustic charm.

Hi there, Delle said with a wave. Like him, she was tall and slim. She wore work overalls and heavy boots. I was trying to kick the generator through its cycle again when the house told me we had company. She glanced toward the now-stopped boat.

The generator’s on the fritz?

Just trying to get ahead of it.

Great. Like we need another thing breaking down.

Delle smiled, warm and radiant. One of the first things that had attracted him to her. That and her relentless upbeat approach to life. And her willingness to knuckle down and get things done.

Come on, she said, climbing aboard the four-wheeler with him. Let’s get down to the dock and see what our new arrivals want.

Chapter Two

From the air the landscape looked remarkable. A bright patch of sunlight stood out in the dark field of old corn. A break in the heavy clouds letting through the single strand of light.

In the aircraft’s cockpit, Flis Kupe held the yoke as they turned. The aircraft was a Alman-Cruder 615. A hefty beast.

The large cargo space, designed for hauling barge parts across oceans and continents, had felt like a vast cavern when she’d come aboard. On the ground the aircraft stood over five stories high. Without the V of the twin tail assembly.

The yoke felt firm in her hands. As if every part of the aircraft’s systems worked to be reassuring. All systems good.

The aircraft’s Voith spinner engines whined. Six of them, mounted deep in the hull. Working a kind of anti-gravity magic, keeping them aloft.

The stubby wings boasted four Royce jets. Standard propulsion. Capacity to push the aircraft along at just below the speed of sound.

You got it there? Kayden Misk said from the co-pilot’s seat. Kayden couldn’t have been more than twenty years old, standard. An instructor already. Training Flis on the nuances of the aircraft.

Kayden’s lank hair hung below his shoulders. He had thick eyebrows and a straight, pointy nose. Instead of flight overalls he wore paint-on sneakers, ancient, almost tatty leggings and an old green jacket. Not the kind of thing to inspire confidence in a potential student.

Yes, Flis said. I think I’ve got it just fine.

She’d signed up for Kayden’s flight classes mostly to keep her skills sharp. She had an old military arlchip implant that fritzed out too often. Her own doing–when she’d resigned her commission she’d attempted to get the arlchip removed. In a back-street surgery.

Not a good idea.

Any chance she had to keep maintain her own skills was worth it. And Kayden was surprisingly good company. Relaxed and offbeat.

You know what you’re doing, Kayden said. You seem real comfortable at the controls. I thought you said you were an investigator?

The investigations business Flis ran with Grae Sinder had reached a quiet spell. Fewer missing pets and errant spouses. No big cases on the horizon. Grae spent some of his time scanning the police bulletins to see if things were getting away on them. That happened too often. Police forces everywhere struggled with squeezed resources.

But right now Flis had a lull. A good opportunity to take flying lessons. She liked to fly. And she’d never flown anything as big as the 615. Thrilling.

And it never hurt to reconnoiter. There were always pirates out and about in the canal lands. Could make for interesting times.

Four hundred thousand square kilometers of low ground, divided up by a few rivers and the somewhat jumbled grid of canals.

I would have suggested that you’re too low, Kayden said. He didn’t seem concerned. He had a sandwich he’d gotten from the dispenser at the back of the cockpit. Ham and cheese on white bread. Not especially appetizing, but it made Flis hungry. The cheese smelled sweet and rich.

The displays in the cockpit showed all the aircraft’s statistics. Fuel, speed, fatigue, load, distance traveled. Height. Myriad other minutiae.

Right now the height read as five hundred feet. Strange how hundreds of years after the burial of the imperial system of measurements, atmospheric aircraft still measured their altitude in feet.

The aircraft won’t let me crash her, Flis said. I could take my hand off the yoke right now. She’d level off. Fly straight. Manage her fuel and land with a good buffer.

She would. But that’s not the point.

The canal lands laid out around them looked so open and wild. Despite all the displays, the cockpit still boasted a good array of glass windows. Flis could see almost straight through below her feet, right to the ground.

One of the wider canals lay to the right, on the inside of their turn. Some trees stood in clusters. Hardy eucalypts and pines. The lands out this way still had soil treatment to favor crops. Hard for anything but corn and wheat to get a toehold. The tree copses and small woods indicated areas where the treatment was failing.

Once farmsteads had been the way of life out here. New food synthesis techniques had rendered a lot of that obsolete. In Flis’s lifetime.

You grew up here? Kayden said.

How did you know? The yoke shivered under Flis’s hand. She tightened her grip.

All right? Kayden said.

Little shift there. Turbulence, maybe? Flis tugged the yoke back, pulling the aircraft’s nose up.

Kayden set his sandwich down on the central console. He peered forward. Looked around the area ahead.

Flis saw a flash. A glint of sunlight off the canal?

My aircraft, Kayden said.

Standard phrase for an emergency. The captain taking control.

He grabbed the yoke.

Pulled hard to the left.

What’s happening? Flis said

Kayden said nothing. Flis’s yoke trembled. Kayden reached one-handed for the throttle display. Whipped his fingers up.

The wing jets screamed. Throttle pushed to the maximum.

Flis saw it then. A missile’s exhaust flare.

We’re too heavy, Kayden said.

The missile couldn’t have been more than a few kilometers off.

They had just seconds.

Kayden swore.

Pod, Flis said. Flis had read up on the 615 before getting aboard. Sectional fuselage. Flexible cargo spaces. Variable geometry external hull.

And the whole cockpit and cabin section was ejectable. A bit redundant really. The reliability of the aircraft meant a crash was unlikely.

This is an expensive aircraft, Kayden said. He grimaced. He strained with the yoke.

The scream of the engines grew. Like a dying animal.

Launch the pod. Flis said.

Have to... Kayden grunted. Have to save the... aircraft.

The missile loomed.

Chapter Three

The canal that bordered Tim and Delle’s property was over fifty meters wide. The water rippled, dark with the overcast.

Along the dockside, the canal had a steep wall, with water deep enough for mooring. Either side, the banks sloped more like a natural watercourse, with grassy banks slipping to the water. A wading bird strode along the far side, just in the water, head darting as it searched for small fish.

The big boat slowed, right at the end of the wooden dock. Tim and Delle’s two boats–a little white Dernian 1 speedster, and a slower, more practical Borsheld tug–lay tied up to the dock’s bollards.

Just upstream, the barge with the protein synthesizer sat, tied into the wall. A pile of cut wood and leafy corn stalks lay on the bank. In the next day or so Tim and Delle would load the pile through the synthesizer’s hopper.

Who do you think they are? Delle said, pointing to the boat that had just arrived. I haven’t see it around before.

It’s a Dernian, Tim said. Might be a fifty or a sixty. They’ve been changing their designs a whole lot over the last year or two. Hard to keep up.

Delle laughed. You and boats. The real question is, how many aboard, and what do they want?

Their canal was one of the few with operational locks and clear flow all the way to the River Haxley. Over four hundred kilometers away. More like five hundred kilometers of canals. Their stretch ran for around a hundred and twenty kilometers. Almost dead straight all the way from it’s intersection with Deluge Creek far beyond their little dock. The quaint little town of Corling about halfway along.

Tim looked up after the aircraft. The engine sound changed. He’d almost forgotten about the aircraft with the arrival of the boat.

As he looked now, he saw the aircraft had gone by. Four or five kilometers beyond the farm. But the aircraft’s angle was changing, engines ramping up.

Another aircraft heading for it.

They’re getting off now, Delle said.

See that? Tim said, pointing.

See what? Think it’s going to rain?

I think it’s a missile.

I don’t see anything. Come on, we’ve got customers.

Tim looked away. Probably his imagination. The pair of aircraft were a long ways off.

The first of the visitors stepped from the boat’s gangway. A tall man wearing dark slacks with a tan jacket. On his head he had a kind of straw fedora. The type of thing wealthy people wore when they wanted to relax.

The man lifted his hand to wave. Behind him came a woman in a floral summer dress and a bomber jacket. An incongruous mix, really. Not summery enough for the dress, but not cool enough for the jacket.

Behind them came children. A gangly teen of indeterminate gender, and two under ten who might have been twins.

Looks like they might even want a meal, Delle said. Home-cooked.

Tim smiled. Always happy to oblige.

He waved back and headed along the dock.

Chapter Four

Flis stared through the cockpit’s forward windows. The missile came in fast.

Smoke trailed behind it.

Probably launched from twenty miles away. Why?

Actually, the why could wait.

Eject the pod, she said. Eject us now.

She reached for the control.

Kayden slapped her hand away. We can fly this out.

Fly it out? she said. How could that... all right. Tell me what to do.

Hold the yoke.

Flis reached.

The missile couldn’t have been more than a kilometer off now.

Mere seconds until impact.

Flis kept pulling them around. They weren’t too heavy really. Big, but unladen.

If they’d had a full cargo of barges and other parts, they would have been much slower to turn.

The aircraft was responding. But it was gradual.

Not fast enough to outmaneuver a missile.

Flis’s console display flickered. Onboard defense systems coming online.

Give it to me, she said.

She let go of the yoke. Pulled the display closer.

Her heart thumped hard against her sternum. Adrenalin.

Fear.

Stay on the yoke! Kayden yelled.

Flis ignored him. Arlchip? she said. Could use a moment’s targeting here.

Alman-Cruder 615, the arlchip said in her head. Missile inbound. Recommend launching half your countermeasures now.

The display showed the aircraft’s weaponry. Nothing too serious. After all, it was a civilian vessel. But even aircraft could be boarded by pirates.

Full countermeasures. Holographic chip and inflatables.

Flis released half the load. Cracking sounds came from around the hull. The countermeasure tubes blasting their contents into the sky.

Transponders too. Fake. Good for homing.

Flis launched them all. Surrounding the 615 with confusing radio signals.

Hopefully enough to confuse the missile.

Guns too. Shredders. Simple tube cannons that aimed with the aircraft. Fired shredding shrapnel.

She turned to face the missile. The 615 lumbered around. Flis fired anyway.

The shrapnel flickered. Making long lines ahead of the aircraft.

Nowhere near the missile.

The missile’s nose grew exponentially.

I want a refund, Flis said.

No refunds, Kayden said. But I’ll give you a free–

The missile missed.

Sped away overhead.

Missed.

Flis’s breath came in gasps.

Yeah, Kayden said.