Revolt on Vesta: The Voidstrider Saga, #1

By John A. Underwood

Introducing a thrilling new space opera adventure!

When a Martian politician is kidnapped en route to a summit of leaders from the Asteroid Belt, events are set in motion which will change the face of the Solar System...

Katia Miranova believes in a free Belt. She's lived her entire life on Vesta, and she'll be damned if she lets a bunch of Earthers tell her how to run her station. But when Earth makes its move, Katia begins to suspect there's something more sinister at work behind the scenes...

On the distant edge of the system, Francis Drake is a washed-up hack drowning in a bottle. He's seen the face of the enemy and he ran from it. But Drake is about to be dragged kicking and screaming back into the middle of a war for the very future of humankind!

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Underwood
• Release date: Mar 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393339816

John A. Underwood

John A. Underwood was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He began writing at the age of six and believes that, after more than thirty years, he is almost good at it. He has been a college student, cook, contract laborer, receptionist, grocery store clerk, bookstore clerk, bartender, restaurant manager, and a homeless person at different times in his life. In addition to space opera and short works of speculative fiction, John writes absurdist fantasy and sci-fi under the name Johnson Underwood. John currently lives in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Book preview

REVOLT ON VESTA

the VOIDSTRIDER saga

volume one

John A. Underwood

Copyright © 2016 by John A. Underwood

Excerpt from An Officer of the Fleet copyright © 2017

All rights reserved.

Cover Art by Jon Stubbington

jonstubbington.com

Cover Design by John A. Underwood

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, or else are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Visit the Author’s Website:

http://modayode.com

If you enjoy this novel, please re-visit the sales page to leave feedback in a review. Thank you.

Kathryn Kennard.

I wish you’d lived to read it.

Prologue

Carter Saldana floated against the restraint straps, mentally counting down the seconds until thrust resumed. His personal yacht, Ulysses Paxton, was executing turnover midway through the voyage to Ceres. Carter’s stateroom was at the center of the ship, the sweet spot, in true null-g for the duration of the maneuver.

He squeezed his eyes shut but could not ignore the disorienting sense of weightlessness. Carter hated space travel, and he especially hated this part. Turnover on the Ulysses Paxton required ninety-seven seconds, but it always felt like a nauseous eternity to Carter Saldana.

The impact came just as his mental countdown reached its end. Carter opened his eyes, anticipating a half gee deceleration to restore weight and sanity. He’d be a bit heavier than back home in Bradbury, but at least his stomach wouldn’t float. That half gee never came. Instead, the yacht lurched violently and Carter was thrown sideways against the straps securing him to the gimbaled acceleration couch.

The flat panel of the com terminal by the door flashed red. Collision alarms blared throughout the ship, shrieking in his ears. Fighting his queasy stomach, Carter fumbled at the straps to release himself from the couch. An impossibly calm, synthesized voice advised him to seal his helmet.

Carter wasn’t wearing his helmet. He wasn’t even wearing his shipsuit. He hated space travel, but he had never been afraid of depressurization. It was not as if he were on a military ship, after all. It was only a quick jaunt to Ceres, the asteroid nearing its closest approach to Mars orbit. Inconvenient and uncomfortable, but certainly not dangerous.

The suit was in its locker, set into one of the bulkheads. Carter kicked off from the acceleration couch, trying to reach the locker. He drifted off in the wrong direction, the stateroom corkscrewing around him. Unaccustomed as he was to free fall, he knew that was wrong.

The collision alarm was still blaring. Something had hit the ship. Fear seized Carter in its cold grip as he understood. He bounced against the ceiling, scrabbling for purchase to claw his way to the bulkhead. His suit in its locker was forgotten. He had to reach the com panel.

Carter managed to reach the bulkhead and seized hold of a U-shaped grab bar to pull himself down within reach of the panel. He saw himself reflected in the dull black of the empty terminal screen just before it came online. Sweat plastering his hair, eyes bulged, and jaw clenched, he was the image of panic.

It took several interminable seconds for his call to the flight deck to connect. The image that at last resolved was not that of Captain Leong, but a junior officer Carter did not know by name. The young woman’s uniform tunic was smeared with blood and her eyes were harried. Thick smoke drifted behind her like a storm cloud, flashing as if with hidden lightnings.

What is it? Carter demanded, not waiting for the woman to speak. Are we under attack?

You should be in your shipsuit, sir, she said, frowning.

Damn the suit! What’s happening?

The ship rocked again, and Carter lost his grip on the grab bar. He tumbled from the panel, which had dissolved into a spray of static. Careening across the room, he struck the bulkhead and sprawled against the deck. Carter grabbed at the gimbaled acceleration couch, desperate for a handhold.

The suit. He had to get into his suit. A single collision might have been space debris, a micrometeor or something. With the second impact there could no longer be any doubt. Ulysses Paxton was under attack.

No matter how he struggled, Carter could not seem to reach the locker in the bulkhead. The yacht’s asymmetric tumble foiled his every effort. Painful collisions with the deck left him bruised and disoriented. When had the collision alarm stopped blaring? How long since the first missile struck?

The hatch swung open. A figure stepped into the stateroom, accompanied by a billow of acrid smoke from the passageway outside. The intruder was garbed in an armored vacsuit of dull gray. There were no insignia or other markings to identify the suited figure. The intruder carried an electrolaser rifle.

Carter Saldana activated the panic-beacon implant in his second molar with pressure from his tongue. The intruder lifted his rifle and fired.

1.

Drake signaled the bartender for another bourbon, and the robot moved to fill his order. Halfway there the articulating arm sprouting from the back bar wall froze up. With a sound of grinding gears, the robot stuck in place.

The battered, gunmetal gray servitor strained against the blockage for a moment before giving up. One of the three skeletal, triple-jointed arms attached to its vaguely humanoid torso reached out toward Drake as if in supplication. A red error light flashed on the robot’s head.

Cassini Lounge, up closer to where the observers and other science wonks worked, was much nicer. The servitors worked properly and there was carpet instead of bare metal grating. They even had potted ferns in the Cassini, and false color images of Titan and some of the other moons plastered on the walls.

Drake felt more at home by the docks. There was something more honest about the bare steel and the smell of grease. It helped that the drinks were cheaper. He was drinking real bourbon, flown out from Earth and about fifty times as expensive as the weird shit they made out here. Worth it, though, and besides that there really wasn’t much difference between flat broke next week and flat broke tomorrow.

He got up and moved down the bar to get his drink. The robot placed the glass down on the bar in front of him and filled it with ice. Plenty of ice out here. It was half the reason the station had been built, to give the ice haulers somewhere to put in for repairs or a day’s leave before the long burn back down to the Belt.

That ice in Drake’s glass came from the rings, four and a half billion years old. It was free. The robot bartender splashed forty-five milliliters of bourbon over the ice. The liquor was less than ten years old. It cost as much as a ticket home.

Bourbon seemed like the better investment.

Drake was about to authorize payment on his handset when he glanced up and noticed the redhead at the corner of the bar. Her hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail, a few errant copper strands falling around her face. She was engrossed in something on her handset screen, an empty glass resting on the bar beside her hand. It was the jacket that caught his eye. Tan, looked like real leather.

Better get her a refill, Drake said, indicating the redhead with a tilt of his head. The bartender swiveled its head round to point an optic lens toward the woman. Put it on me.

Whatever the glitch was in the armature, it didn’t prevent the servitor from moving in the other direction. With a tiny mechanical shudder, the bot swung away toward the end of the bar. Drake accepted the charge on his handset and blanked the screen, trying not to notice his credit balance before he slipped the device into his pocket.

Her eyes rose from the screen as he approached, a startling, bright green like the eyes of a cat. They passed briefly over the renewed cocktail on the bar before fixing on Drake with a challenging intensity. He felt like he’d been struck by a laser, raked head to toe and mapped in unimpeachable detail.

Drake wanted to ask if her eyes would glow in the dark. The line had worked for him before, and he’d found it equally successful with girls who had paid for the trait and those who hadn’t. He sidled up behind the stool next to the redhead and rested his arms on the edge of the bar.

Hi.

I’m really not interested, said the redhead, smiling to soften the blow. Her accent was subdued but still said Mars. Her tone expressed sympathy without apology. Firm without being harsh, she was telling him to go away without being a bitch about it. Drake could appreciate that. Sorry, but you’re not my type.

Oh. It was all he could think to say for a moment. He cleared his throat and smiled to let her know he wasn’t going to be an ass. Right. Sorry to bother you. Enjoy the drink.

"Gan bei, she said. Cheers."

There are worse things than being rejected, he told himself as he turned to go back for a seat near the middle of the bar. I could be stranded broke and alone at the bleeding edge of human space…

At that thought, Drake decided it was time to leave. He drained the rest of his bourbon and left the glass on the bar. It wasn’t the girl. At least, it wasn’t just the girl. Truth be told, the last thing he needed in his life right now was another lover. He could use a friend, but all the friends he’d ever had were … a billion kilometers behind him, anyway.

Yeah. Definitely time to leave, before he got maudlin in public. Drake made for the exit, ignoring the scattering of spacers sitting around the unadorned steel tables. His flop was paid up to the end of the week, and there should be some beers left in the cooler. He’d finish this drunk in private, then tomorrow maybe look for work.

Francis Drake.

The sharp, electronically modulated voice drew him up short. The speaker, dressed in full vacuum kit, stood blocking his exit. The armored vac suit was top of the line, real expensive gear.

The helmet was a faceless mask with an elongated, flat rectangle of polarized polycarbonate shielding the eyes. A small cylinder of rebreather apparatus bulged beneath the visor to one side. Next to it was the small speaker/transmitter assembly. The gray-white cowl of a hooded cape was drawn up over the top of the helmet.

Form-fitting, slick elastic polymer clung to the wearer’s body. The sleek counterpressure suit was augmented with removable armor plates on the chest and back. Smaller, flexible segments were attached to the thighs, shoulders, and forearms. It was lightweight, military grade stuff, but bore none of the familiar markings or insignia. No marking at all save the stylized, white snowflake on one breast.

Bounty hunter. Drake’s whiskey-fueled melancholy evaporated in an instant. So, Mick had tracked him down after all.

It’s just Drake, if you don’t mind.

Feigning calm, Drake sized up his chances. It didn’t look good. The bounty hunter wore an ADS emitter on one shoulder. The shortwave heater wouldn’t kill him, but it could blister his skin good and leave him screaming in agony. Plus, there was the electrolaser pistol holstered at the hunter’s hip. Useless in vacuum, but that didn’t make much difference here.

You’re coming with me, said the bounty hunter, resting one hand on the pistol butt. The mechanical voice, processed by the suit’s transmitter, was harsh and merciless. Call yourself Queen Bess for all I care, so long as you don’t make trouble.

Drake nodded, raising his hands out away from his body. He didn’t bother looking around for support. The space jockeys in this joint wouldn’t lift a finger to help him. They would watch what happened, pretending disinterest. Each of them secretly hoping Drake would try to fight his way out, give them all a show.

No, no trouble. Drake kept his hands up and tried an easy smile. Thing is, I know you haven’t got a warrant on me. There’s not one. Couldn’t be. Way I heard it, Francis Drake is dead. Can’t arrest a dead man.

The bounty hunter shrugged and unholstered the pistol. Think that matters?

It didn’t. Not like there had been any warrant the first time. Drake sighed. Damn Mick, and God damn his own arrogance. He should have left it alone. Except he couldn’t do that, could he? Not even if he’d known the cost. No. But he could have been smarter about it.

All right, Drake said aloud. It was the only play he had right now. Long way back to Darkside. Plenty of time. He’d go along with this bounty hunter and wait for some chance, some opening.

And if one never presented itself? Drake sighed again. He couldn’t think about that. He was drunk and tired. Tired of running, tired of hiding, and so very tired of not having any other choice. It was a long burn down the well. He’d think about it tomorrow.

Let’s go, he said, hating the defeated sound of his own voice.

2.

In the wake of the bounty hunter’s departure, a muted buzz of disparate conversations sprang up at the tables scattered through the dockside bar. The spacers leaned close together and whispered, as though every man present felt relief that he had not been the hunter’s quarry. Perhaps they did.

Aurora Dane studied the untouched cocktail before her with a twinge of guilt. She had watched the brief drama unfold without lifting a finger. And why should that trouble her conscience? The Earthman was no one to her, only a stranger in a bar who’d clearly found her attractive. She owed him nothing for the drink.

Still, he had seemed like a decent man. He accepted her rejection graciously. Well, that was no more than she had a right to expect. If she were being honest, reflected Rora with a glance round the bar, few of the other men present would have behaved as civilized. Even so, he’d earned no special consideration merely by not being a creep.

That did not mean he deserved to be dragged off by some mercenary manhunter. She wondered what he had done, if indeed he had done anything. There really was no telling when it came to Earth…

Her handset chimed softly, tugging Rora back from her contemplation of the tall, dark-haired Earther. It was Marty, of course, calling from Eos. Rora tapped the screen to answer.

He’s here, reported her shipmate. Martine Antoinette scowled in the transmitted image, brushing a lock of sable hair back from her grease-smudged cheek. The engineer had been busy tracking down a fault in the environmental systems and looking forward to an uninterrupted day amongst her beloved machines.

At the dock? Rora was surprised at first. Kittrick was supposed to meet her here, and she’d been waiting nearly an hour. Then she remembered the bounty hunter and realized why he must have gone to the docks and Eos instead. I’m on my way.

Kittrick was waiting for her outside the airlock. The diminutive scientist’s agitation was plain. He stood shifting his weight from one foot to the other, eyes darting, hands clutched in front of his stomach. He was alone in the spartan embarkation lounge, but seemed dwarfed even by that cramped space.

Ah, Miss Dane. There you are!

Aurora stepped through the hatch from the terminal corridor, and her eyes went immediately past Kittrick to the thick polycarbonate window beside the airlock. Eos hung in the open bay beyond, only the smallest fraction of her hull visible through the window. Rora felt the familiar thrill at even that abbreviated glimpse.

The sloop wasn’t pretty to look at. Thirty years of spaceflight had scarred the hull with microstrikes and hard radiation. Blunt-nosed and blocky, it was too small for a proper freighter and too ugly to be some rich socialite’s private yacht. But it was hers. More importantly, the sloop had been her father’s, and that made Eos beautiful.

Miss Dane?

She had almost forgotten Kittrick, but now she fixed him with a cool stare. Her little ship didn’t make much profit, but it did make her a space captain. She and Marty got by with the odd passenger run or small cargo delivery, but that was beside the point. It was the freedom that mattered, and the feel of the ship’s drive answering her command.

It’s Captain Dane, she told Kittrick in a tone which suggested he not forget again.

Captain, yes. Kittrick swallowed, but whether his nervousness stemmed from the rebuke or some other factor Rora couldn’t say. Of course, yes. Captain Dane. Thank you for diverting to meet me.

The fault in enviro-control had already caught Martine’s eye when the tight-beam comm laser caught up to them. Eos could have probably finished the trip down to Ceres without incident, but they were only half a day out from Titan station at the time. Not that Kittrick needed to know any of that. Rora had an idea to make him cover the docking fee.

I was surprised to get your message, Doctor Kittrick, she said. Even the narrowest laser could not guarantee a transmission was secure. Rora was dying to know why Kittrick had taken the risk. It couldn’t be the news out from the Belt, could it?

No, Rora didn’t think so. She had read the flash bulletin in the bar, and it had just come in. There was no way word could have made it to Kittrick and the rest of his team before reaching Titan. So what was it?

I trust there was no trouble with our delivery?

No, no, Kittrick assured her, waving his hands. Nothing like that, no. I’m sure everything is fine.

Aurora Dane had been making the occasional covert deliveries to Kittrick’s team, working in self-imposed exile beyond Saturn’s orbit, for the past three years. She had never taken Eos further than the gas giant’s far side, always jettisoning her cargo into the empty dark to follow a ballistic trajectory outward to a set of precise coordinates.

It was a strange way to do business. The careful procedure ensured no one tracking Eos would discover the ongoing Voidstrider project. Considering the fate of the original facility, the precaution was well justified in Rora’s books. It was tricky, but it had worked so far and she was glad to hear there was no problem with the latest delivery.

But then, why the urgent and reckless message diverting her here?

There’s been a development, Kittrick explained. A major breakthrough. I must get to Ceres at once.

What sort of breakthrough? Rora asked, not really expecting an answer. Obsessive secrecy had been the watchword for over six years, ever since the disaster. Kittrick surprised her.

"We’ve finally determined what went wrong. And we know - we think we know, he amended, how to prevent it happening again. We’ve done it, Miss Dane. We’ve solved the lightspeed barrier!"

He’s cracked, said Martine. They’ve all gone space happy out there, if you ask me. There’s just no way around relativity.

Maybe. Rora wasn’t in the mood for another debate on the subject. Her father had believed. He’d given his life to the project. She held his faith, but she didn’t want to argue with Marty. Looking up from the navcomp, she switched to a topic more appealing to the mechanic’s heart. He’s willing to pay double passage.

See? Space happy. But Marty grinned as she said it this time. Rora could see her partner already planning how to spend the excess credits. Eos was sure to acquire some expensive new upgrades at her next port.

They were alone on the flight deck, Doctor Kittrick having been settled away in one of the spare cabins below. He’d be spending a large portion of this trip strapped down in a gel-filled acceleration bunk, drugged to unconsciousness.

Rora meant to make Ceres in under two weeks, and that meant a hard burn leaving Titan. They’d push six gees for the first eight hours, then hold steady at one gravity for the next ten days. She had calculated a late turnover and even more crushing decel burn for the final approach.

Six gees was too much for the good doctor to handle, even in the bunk. Thus the narcotic injections to keep him sedated. She and Marty would forgo such niceties. They could handle it. A couple years back, Rora had splurged on high-g traits for both of them.

It was one of the most expensive DNA augments on the market, but worth every credit. Reinforced skeletal density and artificially robust internal organs and circulation meant they could withstand acceleration well beyond the tolerance of baseline humans. If not for the un-augmented Kittrick,