GALCOM Books 1-3: GALCOM Universe

By Linda Maye Adams

An exciting boxed set of three novellas from the GALCOM Universe series!

Crying Planet

Recruited for her ability to see ghosts, Hope Delgado's first mission into space may also be her last. Alien ghosts infest a planet, threatening destruction.

But can Hope communicate with alien ghosts?

She faces distrust from the S.C. Kangjun's skipper and his crew. Her only friend? The ghost of the dead first skipper.

With the odds stacked against Hope, if she fails, a planet dies.

A riveting space adventure that takes you on a rollercoaster ride.

Ghost Ship

A spaceship appears out of nowhere…then disappears. Like it never existed.

Hope Delgado, GALCOM's only ghost expert, confronts the impossible. Can a spaceship be a ghost?

Cryptic clues lead to the planet below. And a deadly secret in space threatens the lives of everyone on the S.C. Kangjun.

Hope must solve the mystery before time runs out.

A page-turning story in the GALCOM Universe series.

Cursed Planet

Who knew ghosts could exist in heavy gravity? Hope Delgado, the galaxy's only alien ghost expert, confronts her toughest challenge on S.C. Kangjun's latest mission.

The local aliens, 49ers, blame the humans for a ghost. And they hide a deadly secret, one to kill for.

Hope must make a desperate last stand against the aliens and the ghosts. If she fails, her friends die.

A science fiction story of deep space thrills and adventures.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bad Gnome Press
• Release date: Apr 26, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393086260

Linda Maye Adams

Linda Maye Adams is published in Kevin J. Anderson’s anthology Monsters, Movies, & Mayhem.  She is the author of the military-based GALCOM Universe series, including the novel Crying Planet, featured in the 2018 Military Science Fiction StoryBundle, and is working on a superhero novel. 

Book preview

Chapter 2

The S.C. Kangjun was one of GALCOM’s older space cruisers, having been built twenty years ago and undergone an extensive refit in the last three. Graul was the first Army officer to command a battle cruiser. Everyone else had been Navy or Air Force. The new GALCOM commander was shaking everything up with fresh policies.

The ship was designed, so the lore went, to look like a hand holding a spear. Most of the crew described the ship as giving the finger.

Graul agreed. Though he’d never admit it aloud.

He stepped onto the bridge of the ship, pausing as he always did to survey his crew. He’d never thought he’d have a command like this, and he liked watching the crew do their jobs. Their voices were a comforting murmur, blending with the sounds of the computer systems.

Captain on the bridge! called a woman’s voice.

Graul paused, trying to recall the name. Rendon. It was still hard attaching the faces to the names. It didn’t help that everyone looked alike in uniform.

At ease, he said.

The watch officer glanced up from the navigation section, where he’d been checking on their course. Graul waved him off and approached the plot table in the center of the room. This was his brain, in here. He could access information from any of the systems from the tabletop and see it live, or communicate with another spaceship or planet.

He still remembered having to look up at a screen mounted on the bulkhead.

Chief Master Sergeant Marotta was at the table. She was the senior enlisted on board and chief of the spaceship. Her brown hair was cropped close to her head, and her face had too many hard edges. She was tall, with a lean body from running the circuit of the ship every day. Could outrun most of the men, Graul included. She’d been trying to get him to race her, but he always refused; it would be like a trophy to her, not harmless fun.

They hadn’t gotten along well since he assumed command.

No one liked that an Army officer was in command of a battle cruiser. Graul understood that in principle. The Army mission was quite different, or at least it had been. But the more Galactic Command traveled in space, the more things changed. GALCOM wasn’t keeping up anymore.

Fifteen years ago, Army leadership realized that GALCOM was shutting them out of promotions. The promotion boards were only picking the sexy qualification of battle spaceship command, which no Army officer had. The Army saw danger in that, so they studied the training by the Navy and Air Force, gave their soldiers the same training and more. A lot of them, like Graul, had gone to smaller, less high-profile ships, because those were always short-handed. They could get experience that way, but it was still a tough slog. There were plenty of officers who sneered at Graul because he stepped out of his place as a grunt.

Good afternoon, Chief, Graul said. He glanced at the image on the plot table. Marotta was rearranging the bridge duty schedule.

Marotta pointed to a name. Last drill for her. Commander Jian wants to do it.

Every crew member new to space had to serve for a year on the ship and perform a series of job-specific drills to an officer’s satisfaction. Once the year of service and drills were complete, they got their space wings. Graul touched his own, over his right breast pocket. The image was of an eagle’s outstretched wings with a shield in the center, done in black, in a subdued style for his CTU. On the shield, a stylized star took off like a rocket launch. He’d gotten his wings as a second lieutenant.

Marotta closed the schedule with a curtness that told Graul he wouldn’t like what was coming next. The chief recounted the day’s business so far. All routine, except for the fact that the Kangjun had a passenger who could see ghosts.

I have my hands full keeping morale up, she said. Everyone thinks that ghost woman will call spirits down on them.

Graul was very much aware that even though no one on the bridge was paying attention to them, they were all listening. The crew heard everything. Even things they couldn’t possibly hear.

He said, That ‘ghost woman’ is named Hope Delgado. She’s from Lower California State.

Marotta was already brushing that aside like it was unimportant. She talks to ghosts.

Graul was starting to feel pity for Hope. If she got this all the time, she was a warrior.

Chapter 3

The line for the mess deck already stretched through the passageway, down a set of stairs, and into the next passageway. Hope stood behind a very tall man with a broad back, staring at it as she inched forward.

As she entered the mess, the din of voices fractured into pieces that fell away one by one, until only the sound of pots and pans banging in the back remained.

Hope slowed but didn’t stop. The smell of the food pulled her into its current. With only one ghost on board, she could enjoy a meal.

Dozens of pairs of eyes followed her, some burrowing holes in her back, others exuding wariness and caution. She ignored it all, except for a murmured phrase that came from somewhere near the end of the room: Ghost woman.

Live person here! she called out.

Mutters, and then metal utensils banging against trays.

Hope navigated the serving line, accumulating food in her compartmented tray from the robotic servers. She found a spot at the end of a table. The chair molded around her backside as she sat.

Two soldiers got up stiffly and took their uneaten trays of food with them.

This treatment was no worse than back home, she told herself, trying to believe it. That same family litany echoed in her thoughts. She didn’t like it.

As the two soldiers rose from the table, she glared at them the way her mama used to when Hope was bad. Didn’t your parents teach you that you shouldn’t waste food?

The two men, who looked like billiard balls with their clean-shaven heads, shifted uncomfortably. Looked at each other, like the other one was supposed to do something first. After a moment, they sat down again.

Across from Hope, Kangjun’s only ghost appeared, arms folded across his chest. Felix Lopez had the air of a spitfire Chihuahua ready to go to war against a Doberman. He was Mexican, like Hope, though he came from across the border.

Learn some manners! he bellowed. Of course, since he was a ghost, no one heard him but Hope.

She hid a smile behind her napkin. I’ll bet you were a formidable officer.

People had no problem hearing me. Understanding...different story.

Hope sniffed the chili macaroni on her tray, then sampled it. Not as bad as it looked. Still, it needed some spice. She squirted sriracha over it. Better.

A woman after my heart, Felix said. They can’t season for anything. They were still working out how to cook in space on my watch.

Was it that hard? It’s cooking.

The artificial gravity affects how people taste. We didn’t realize until we got out here and nothing tasted as it should. Even the smells were off.

The billiard ball men stared at Hope.

Yes, she’s talking to a ghost, Felix bellowed.

The men flinched, busying themselves with their food.

They can pick up on my energy if I’m annoyed enough, Felix said.

The ghost couldn’t sit down in the chair across from Hope, so he stood where the chair was. Hope tried to keep her eyes up, since it looked like he was being impaled.

Felix said, You watch them yellow things. You watch them real close. They’re up to no good.

Yellow? What yellow?

Chapter 4

After Felix’s warning, Hope delved into research on the Corellians and the Eridana space port. Kangjun had a library on deck three.

The size of it was disappointing. Not exactly a place where she could get lost amid the shelves. But it was still old-fashioned enough to have paper books side by side with the computers. Better still, it had the wonderful smell of books.

For whatever reason, ghosts hated books, so they stayed away from libraries. Hope had spent hours at the library at home, immersing herself in the books and dreading closing time, when she’d have to leave and head back into the insanity.

The bookshelves in the Kangjun’s library were pressed against the walls, tucked behind rails that would keep them secured if the artificial gravity stopped working. In the middle of the room were tables, with computer access on the tabletops. An Asian man with his back hunched into a C sat at one of the tables, his fingers dancing the tabletop as he accessed what looked like a physics course.

Hope selected a table closer to the wall, hoping no one would notice her. The tabletop computer displayed a command prompt, asking her what she would like to do. Voice commands were not allowed in the library, so a touchscreen keyboard appeared on the tabletop. She found the angle awkward to use and kept hitting two keys at the same time.

The first person she looked up was Colonel Graul. According to an official biography, his first name was Eric. She tried that out in a whisper, deciding he looked more like a Graul than an Eric. Before commanding the Kangjun, he’d been skipper of supply freighters and transports. Born in Indiana, three sisters, a wife back on Earth, no children.

She didn’t want to do too much looking, since they might monitor her activity, and she didn’t want to have to explain why she was checking up on Graul. After another minute, she switched to searching for information on the Corellians. On the table, an image showed the strangest creature she had ever seen.

It was yellow. Not a washed-out pastel, but a sunny color with brown ringed spots all over it. She could only describe the thing as a slug, though no slug she knew had ever grown to seven feet tall or had penguin feet. The Corellian’s eyes were black buttons pressed onto its yellow skin, and the arms were stick-like. A fin on its back fluttered.

She typed in a question: How do you tell the male Corellians from the females?

Unknown flashed across the screen.

No one had bothered to figure out the genders? How did they talk to the Corellians without offending them? She’d sure be upset if someone called her sir.

An Admiral Wixx was listed as an expert on the Corellians, but the information provided was thin. The computer informed her that Corellians complained easily, and were very particular about how they wanted things. Nothing about what food or drink they liked—that seemed essential for negotiations.

A stream showed her the first formal human encounter with Corellians. She checked the date. Seven years ago. The meeting had taken place in a conference room similar to Graul’s. Three military officers with stars on their collars sat at a table, looking venerable. Then the four Corellians waddled in with short steps. One took the lead. It had no distinguishing marks, though Hope got the impression it was old. The other three wore expensive hats, but no other clothing.

They gazed around the room with their button eyes, stopping on the table—who had decided to use a table when the aliens couldn’t sit down?—then on the three military officers. Hope replayed this section multiple times. Something shifted here; she couldn’t tell how or why, but the Corellians had gone from tense to confident.

She rubbed her eyes. Eridana next. The computer displayed a three-dimensional image of the planet rotating on the table. Where was she supposed to start?

Someone cleared their throat.

Hope glanced up, wincing at the crick in her neck. How long had she been reading?

A tall, thin woman stood near Hope’s table, but far enough away to be impolite. The tag on her uniform said Marotta. The rank on her collar wasn’t silver or gold, but black, with a lot of rows.

Hello, Hope said uncertainly.

This was the first person on the entire ship to approach her without being ordered. Except for Graul.

I’m Chief Master Sergeant Marotta. Marotta moved closer and held out her hand. It was bony and cool, and limp in Hope’s. The chief snatched it back.

Hope thought about asking Marotta her first name. Decided she’d look it up later, like she’d done with Graul’s.

What are you doing? Marotta blurted out.

Hope was careful not to misinterpret the question. A lot of people were awkward around her, because of the ghosts. But she had the feeling this wasn’t about ghosts. Graul had told her not to answer questions about their mission. She was a rotten liar, but ghosts had made her good at steering conversations.

Just checking out Eridana, she said. I don’t want to go there without knowing anything. I was trying to figure out where to start.

You’ll be landing at the space terminal. Start there. Towns grow out around the military bases. Usually a lot of businesses you don’t want to be seen at if you’re female, and in some cases, if you’re human. You know, it would probably be a good idea to learn how to use our weapons.

I doubt Colonel Graul will let me near a gun.

She wasn’t sure she wanted to be near one, either.

No, probably not. The men always think they’ll take care of the women. But when the trouble hits the fan, it doesn’t check first to see what you’ve got going on down there.

Chapter 5

In the privacy of his at-space stateroom, Graul sipped coffee and reread the logs he’d made on his tour of the Pacific Horizon. The fifth anniversary was coming up in three weeks.

The logs were written in military green notebooks. Real ink, real paper. Everyone thought he was old-fashioned for keeping paper logs, but these were the only records that had survived being sanitized.

A rap on the door interrupted his thoughts. He closed the book and laid it in his coffee table

Come in.

It was Marotta. Do you have a moment, sir?

He could hear the bridge crew as she stepped inside. The at-space stateroom was generous with a living room that he could turn into an impromptu conference room. He’d furnished it in the same colors as his conference room.

Of course. Graul nodded at his coffee maker on the counter of the small kitchenette. You want some coffee?

You still have one of those old-fashioned things?

Real coffee needs to be brewed properly.

Marotta poured herself a cup, sniffed it, then took a sip. It had a hint of almond. My. That is better. My taste buds may go on strike.

One of the luxuries I give myself. There’s too much the military expects us to put up with. Suck it up and drive on. What can I do you for?

Sir, I think it would be a good idea for your ghost—Ms. Delgado to take weapon lessons.

Graul leaned back on the sofa, sipping his coffee. To Marotta, he was expressionless, but inside, he experienced a moment of panic. Had Hope told Marotta anything? He’d given her instructions, but she was a civilian. She didn’t have any military training.

She’s only been with us a little while, and she’s not going down alone, he said.

You haven’t been to Eridana, have you, sir?

No.

"A ship I was on five years ago stopped there. We were picking up a mission for the Pacific Horizon, and we gave the crew liberty while we were there."

Graul’s stomach hardened into a knot. He’d been a passenger on the Pacific Horizon. Eridana would have been their next stop, had they not been delayed.

I thought making sure the women went down in pairs or more would be enough. A couple of Hwaddi attacked three of them.

Graul didn’t answer. The coffee had soured in his mouth.

Did any of them survive? he finally asked.

One. She needed a lot of surgery, and last I heard, she still wasn’t right.

Ms. Delgado can take lessons. I don’t know if there’s enough time for her to get up to speed before we arrive. Even officer training on weapons takes four weeks.

It would help to know what she’s supposed to do, sir.

Yup. Marotta had been waiting to drop that in.

Sorry, Chief, that’s need-to-know. And frankly, I don’t even want to know myself.

Chapter 6

Sergeant Brooks, the man who met with Hope in the weapons training room, would also visit Eridana with her. He worked in the Weapons Department as a trainer to help maintain the crew’s proficiency. Hope had to ask to get his first name, which turned out to be Daniel; she still found it odd that everyone was on a last-name basis. Brooks told her to use his rank because if she didn’t, everyone would think they were having an affair.

They probably still will, he added, but I don’t want to give them any extra ammunition.

Brooks’s height made Hope feel short, but it was a well-used height. Layers of muscles made his folded sleeves too tight around his biceps. He was of Jamaican ancestry, though his eyes made Hope think there was a bit of Asian rolled up in there. He had hair long enough to test the regulations. And he didn’t seem scared of Hope at all.

Ghosts don’t bother you? Hope asked as they entered the weapons training room.

She was wearing gray sweats borrowed from one of the women. Extra small, and the sleeves still swallowed her hands. MARINES was stamped across the front of the jacket.

Brooks shook his head. Naw. My great-grandmarm was known for seeing ghosts. No one ever believed it. They all thought she was crazy. But when I visited, she told me stories about them. Like the old man she’d find on the porch, rocking as he smoked a pipe. Sometimes I could smell the pipe smoke.

Were you afraid?

No. I guess I was too little to be afraid, and besides, my grandmarm was there. She wasn’t going to let anything happen to me. And I won’t let anything happen to you. My grandmarm would not be happy, and I want her to be happy.

Hope had expected the weapons training room to look like the pictures of firing ranges she had seen on television: divided lanes and paper targets hanging from the ceiling. Instead, it was a cavernous room, metal gray, with exposed beams and rivets. Lines were painted at various intervals on the floor. Didn’t look like anyone could do much of anything in here except store boxes. The only color was a painted rectangle on the wall near the door.

Brooks grinned at her. Don’t let appearances fool you. The computer can change this compartment to meet any training requirements. It’s the only compartment on the ship where we can adjust the gravity.

He took a large ray gun out of a holster. Black, elegant lines, and made big to be intimidating.

This is called a devil blaster, he said. Because it can ‘blow the devil out of his shoes.’ Not that anyone has tried. This is a training model, for use in this room. Rule one: You only point it at another person if you intend to kill them. This will blow a hole right through them. No waving it around or playing with it like it’s a toy. This one’s a training version, not a live weapon, but you will always act like it is a live weapon.

Hope listened carefully, trying to memorize every detail.

Rule two, Brooks said. Assume it’s always loaded. The worst accidents we have are when an idiot thinks it’s empty and violates rule one.

He opened it up to show her it wasn’t loaded. Then he placed the weapon in Hope’s hands, folding her fingers over the butt end. It was heavy, and the long front end looked like it should drop on her, but it didn’t.

She swallowed, trying to remember to breathe and forgetting, anyway. The gun felt as deadly as it looked. Her stomach announced its displeasure.

I know it’s kind of scary, Brooks said. Especially the first time. We get a lot of training with it. Target training, firing in different gravities.

The... Hope struggled to remember the term he’d used. The rounds behave differently, like how food tastes different?

He smiled, pleased she’d made the connection. When we first traveled out in space, we had a lot of ugly surprises, he said. No one thought heavyweight or lightweight environments would have such a big impact on weapons.

And violating rule one and rule two made things worse.

I figure we won’t have problems with rule one with you. It’s mostly the young guys fresh out of training. They get all hot and excited to be in combat and do stupid things. The women tend to think more carefully about what they’re doing, and anyone over twenty-five is a lot smarter. Now for rule three.

I’m never remembering all this.

Sure you will. Brooks walked to the wall with the blue rectangle and tapped it. A computer screen appeared.

Cool, Hope said.

Brooks selected a training program from a menu. At the far end of the room, a silhouette of a green man’s upper body appeared. He was three-dimensional and wore a green helmet.

An alien? She followed Brooks over to the green guy. The image was sharp and clear, as if it were real.

I know you see on streaming where the detective shoots the running bad guy in the leg or the head. Worst place to shoot. Can you guess why?

Because he’s moving?

That’s one reason. It is hard to hit a moving target. The other reason is that they’re very small targets. If you’re shooting at someone, you want to hit the biggest part of them. Brooks gestured at the chest area. This is called center mass. Rule three is to always aim at center mass. You’re more likely to hit it, especially if you’re scared to death. In a conspiratorial tone, he added, That happens to guys, too. We only pretend it doesn’t.

Hope laughed.

Brooks returned to the table. He picked up the devil blaster and slapped a magazine into it. He pointed it at the silhouette and pulled the trigger. The air buzzed as though charged with electricity, and a green light flashed.

After you get more comfortable firing it, we can do the watermelon simulation.

Hope looked at him.

Brooks smiled. It’s a guy thing.

Chapter 7

Hope practiced every day on the devil blaster with Brooks until Kangjun got to Eridana, but she did not pass Graul’s standards to carry one dirtside.

I think he doesn’t want to explain why he armed a civilian with a military weapon, Brooks told Hope as they headed for the departure room.

He’d given her one of the camo tech uniforms so she’d look like one of the spacers. Hope thought that was impossible, even in uniform. Wearing the smallest size, she still could have fit another person inside the shirt, and the pants were pooling in the boots. But it was fun watching the uniform change color in the arboretum, and at the big windows on the walkabout deck.

Brooks also gave her a translator stone and a comm-link. Both were mounted on bands to fit around the wrist. The translator stone fit her, so she put it on, but the comm-link was way too big. She slipped the comm-link into her bottom shirt pocket. Everyone on Earth who could afford it had them embedded. They could be placed in the hand or the arm, or behind the ear.

How come you don’t use embedded links? she asked.

We used to, Brooks said. But we never know what we’re going to run into with a first contact. There’s a story we’re all told about a party that arrived dirtside. Aliens scanned them for communication devices and immediately cut off body parts.

Hope shuddered and fingered her ghost bracelet. Was this worth it?

What about Eridana? she asked. Chief Marotta mentioned that some women had been attacked.

"I looked it up. The women were young and had too much to drink. Then they went to a place they shouldn’t have. If