What Happens on Mira, Stays on Mira: Space Rogue, #9

By Jay Toney

First, a malfunction with the multidimensional drive has us arriving in the Sol System late. Then my ship is swallowed by a giant space fish. What else can go wrong?

An unplanned trip to Hell to rescue Ares gives Hades two more reasons to hate me and Persephone—Amber and Jewel. It is not wise to piss them off.

The Carpacia has been refitted after fifteen-hundred years of neglect. It feels good to have a little breathing space after living in the cramped conditions aboard the Unity. My wife and I can finally enjoy a much-needed vacation on Mira IV, a resort world, or so we thought.

A planet-wide AI, Achilles, has gone mad. He murdered everyone on Mira IV, and now he is trying to kill us. I am going to pull his plug—permanently.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jay Toney
• Release date: Oct 22, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393020004

Jay Toney

I got hooked on reading early in life, reading nearly everything I could get my hands on including the Encyclopedia Britannica. As well as being an avid reader I enjoyed bicycling, skateboarding, fishing, and building models and puzzles. As far back as I can remember, I loved anything to do with aircraft. I joined the USAF as an aircraft mechanic working on the F-4, T-38, F-117. and the F-16. A knee injury stopped me from working on aircraft. My knee couldn't support me on the odd angles and slick surfaces anylonger. While in the USAF I attended college. My second love was tormenting my English teacher. I found out she had a fear of death, then she was at my mercy. Anything she said not to do I did just to show her I could. Every essay or theme I wrote dealt with the topic of death, from a first person perspective of a person under going an autopsy, being buried alive, and rising from the grave. She was glad when I graduated. Some authors who inspired me are Robert Heinlein, Harry Harrison, Alan Dean Foster, Piers Anthony, and much more.

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Acknowledgements

Edited by Ann Attwood, Editing and Proofreading Service

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Introduction

First, a malfunction with the multidimensional drive has us arriving in the Sol System late. Then my ship is swallowed by a giant space fish. What else can go wrong?

An unplanned trip to Hell to rescue Ares gives Hades two more reasons to hate me and Persephone—Amber and Jewel. It is not wise to piss them off.

The Carpacia has been refitted after fifteen-hundred years of neglect. It feels good to have a little breathing space after living in the cramped conditions aboard the Unity. My wife and I can finally enjoy a much-needed vacation on Mira IV, a resort world, or so we thought.

A planet-wide AI, Achilles, has gone mad. He murdered everyone on Mira IV, and now he is trying to kill us. I am going to pull his plug—permanently.

Homeward Bound

T he next time Bob makes an appearance, we need to discuss getting paid for the work we do for him. I'm not particularly speaking to anyone, especially Persephone, just venting my frustration. The subjects of payment and taking gold that doesn't belong to us are two of three subjects that cause us to argue. The other one is her choice of clothing, although she is dressing sexier since our trip to Rekar'ree. As for gaining wealth, all I can do is hope that the Persephone I know exists comes out of her shell soon. She is not the prudish pillar of virtue that she portrays herself as being. She is the former Queen of Hell. There is a dark side to her that I am attracted to. I know, buried deep inside of her is a pirate queen.

I have the information you requested on the Mira star system, the Unity's AI says. You and Persephone are going to hate it there. Merlin projects a hologram of a resort hotel on beachfront property. The sand is pure white sparkling in the sun. The ocean water is aqua blue, almost turquoise in color. The weather is controlled so visitors are ensured perfect weather conditions during their visit. There is little to do other than sunbathing, swimming, and gambling.

It sounds like the perfect place to take our vacation, Persephone says to me. I hope there is karaoke singing. She looks me in the eyes, and says, Did I hear you complaining about not getting paid again? We have more gold and other treasure than we can possibly spend in a lifetime!

Bite your tongue! You shouldn’t be using such foul language in front of our unborn daughter, I say. We need to get paid for the work that we do. Anything we happen to find and pick up while doing the job is a bonus, not a payment.

We have more than enough valuables already. I hope that when Calissa and Lysandra decide to leave, they take a sizable portion of our wealth with them, my wife says.

Why? So, our mothers can benefit from them by taking our gold from them. When they leave, there is nowhere else they can go, but to Demeter and Athena, I say.

Your daughters are not entirely helpless.

You mean your sisters, and yes they are, I argue.

If you two are finished arguing, I am ready to test the multidimensional drive, Merlin interrupts us.

I do not like the idea of using experimental technology that I know nothing about, even with it coming from Bob. Perhaps we should stick to traveling in hyperspace. I'm not in a hurry to get anyplace our benefactor wants us to go. How long will it take to reach Earth?" I say to the AI.

Considering that the Sol system is on the opposite side of the galaxy and to get there we will have to circumnavigate the galactic core, it will take between five hundred and seven hundred years, if we don't stop so Persephone can pick flowers along the way, Merlin answers.

I was hoping we could do it in five or six months. Six hundred years, give or take a century, is longer than I want to be stuck inside the Unity. If you are sure it is safe, engage the drive, I say to the AI.

How in the hell do I know whether it is safe or not? The multidimensional drive has never been tested. Before I can stop him, Merlin engages the drive. He and I need to have a serious talk—if we survive.

Persephone and I stare out the cockpit windscreen. The stars vanish. There is nothing to see but emptiness. When traveling in hyperspace, straight ahead is a white disk-like glow that turns to streaks of light, before becoming stars as the ship decelerates.

Look! Persephone points at the chronometer. The seconds, minutes, and hours are a blur of motion. The days, months and years are changing faster than I can read them. This is turning into one of those days when I should have stayed in bed with my wife.

Merlin, how long before we come out of multidimensional space? I say. If we stay here for days, millions of years will pass before we reenter our dimension.

More like billions of years, Persephone says.

The new drive is malfunctioning. It is pre-programmed with our destination, there is nothing that can be done until it reaches the end of the program and we return to normal space, The AI says to us.

Fortunately for us, the programmed course reaches its end in fifteen minutes. We could have been stuck in multidimensional space indefinitely. I fear what the chronometer is going to say and avoid looking at it. My wife doesn't share my fear. She stares at the clock and says, The date is 10,251.04.13.21:27. We've been gone for one thousand five hundred and forty-seven years.

Frak!

Watch your language, Persephone says to me.

I heard the yelling. Is there something I should know about? Ares says, stepping out of the elevator.

We arrived in the Sol System, on course, five light days out from Earth, but we got here a little later than we anticipated, Persephone answers.

How late?

You might be safe going to Earth. By now, it is likely that Zeus has forgotten about you, I say.

How late?

A little over fifteen hundred and forty-seven years, the AI answers.

Trust me, he hasn't forgotten, and he is going to be pissed when we get to Earth, Ares says.

How pissed? I ask.

To start with, I am sure that he has already permanently assigned another god as the new God of War, and I am betting that I'll be a permanent resident in Hades’ pit. After you kicked Hades’ ass, using my sword, he hates me almost as much as he hates you and Persephone. My brother is going to make life real interesting for me in his pit.

I hate to interrupt this conversation. Especially, with it leading up to Ares being roasted alive in Hell. You may want to take a look at the SDU, the AI says.

Persephone cycles through the SDU menu options until it shows the long-range scan display.

Hades doesn't burn people chained to stakes any longer. That is ancient history. Now he prefers using cellular disruption. He has perfected the technique of using combinations of high frequency sound to break the cell walls apart. I hear that it is extremely painful, Ares says.

Merlin is right. The sensors have picked up a large object moving at high speed towards us, but it isn't a ship or any type of celestial object that I have ever seen before, Persephone says to me.

The only thing I can tell from my scans is that it is a lot bigger than we are, it is biological, and purple, the AI informs us.

A space fish? I ask.

No, a leviathan, my wife corrects me.

Whatever it is, it is gone now, Ares says, while looking over his cousin's shoulder at the sensor screen.

Both Persephone and I look at the SDU. It is blank. The object our sensors were tracking is gone. How can that be? It is moving at half the speed of light. Either stopping or moving into hyperspace creates an enormous energy signature that will be visible on our sensors. There is nothing.

Hey! I've lost maneuvering, our drives just shut down, and our sensors aren't working, Merlin informs us.

I don't think we need them, I say. I look out the cockpit windscreen at what looks like an enormous manta ray. Unlike a manta ray, this creature is swimming in space instead of water, and its skin is glowing with violet luminescence. Its jaw slowly opens, and it is coming right at us. I thought these things were peaceful!

"Leviathans are peaceful," Persephone says.

I reach for the weapon controls, select missiles, arm them, and squeeze the trigger on the control stick. Nothing happens. The weapons are offline too.

The open jaw slowly passes over the Unity engulfing us. The leviathan's mouth is filled with several rows of teeth. Compared to the rest of the creature, they are tiny, but from my point of view, they are enormous, over a meter tall.

The ship comes to a rest on a long flat bone that extends as far as we can see with the floodlights. Connected to the central bone the Unity is resting on, are rib like structures—bones. Above us is an identical bone structure. I imagine the jaw closing behind us. I can't see whether it is or not with the ship being sensor blind.

Is it eating us? Ares asks.

I don't think so. We are nowhere near the stomach. If we were in it, I don't think the leviathan would have any problems digesting us, Persephone answers.

It could be holding onto us to snack on later, I say.

I doubt it, Persephone says, but she doesn't sound very convinced.

Suddenly, I feel like my body is being pulled inside out, then outside back in. From the look on Persephone's and Ares’ faces, it looks like they are experiencing the same feeling. Amber, Jewel, and my two daughters come out of the elevator. What in the seven hells did you do this time! Jewel says to me.

I didn't do anything. Why does it always have to be my fault?

You are not seriously saying Persephone did it. Look at her. She is too... big, Jewel says.

"I. Am. Not. Fat!"

What Jewel means to say is that Persephone is in a delicate condition, being in her later stages of pregnancy. She couldn't possibly have done whatever it is that you did, Amber says.

Speaking of bulging bellies, you may want to consider wearing something loose and stretchy to cover your belly—a maternity dress, Ares says to his cousin.

I am not wearing a Mumu!

Ahem, so what is it that you didn't do? Jewel asks me.

It isn't his fault. We were swallowed by a giant space fish, Ares says.

Leviathan! Persephone corrects Ares.

The Unity is suddenly jolted and spat out of the mouth of the leviathan, tumbling in space. Jewel, Amber, Calissa, and Lysandra stumble and fall to the deck. Ares, Persephone, and I watch the creature slowly recede. When we are a short distance from each other, it turns, moves a little further away from us, then it vanishes.

Power is restored to the ship's subsystems. Navigation and helm control are functioning again. Merlin stabilizes and brings the Unity to a stop. Persephone scans the area, and says. It is impossible!

What is? I ask.

The leviathan spat us out five light seconds from Earth, my wife says.

What in the seven hells is going on? What is wrong with the inertia dampers? Amber says.

I don't know whether to be shocked or surprised by my ex-wife’s cursing. She rarely says curse words. In the rare instances she uses them, she does it quietly, almost in a whisper, so it isn't heard by others. With Jewel, when she gets mad, she shouts them so everyone can hear her. I once heard her flay the skin off an unfortunate crewman for helping her out of a crashed Marauder.

This better not be another one of your jokes! Jewel says to the AI.

It isn't, we lost power to several subsystems when the space fish swallowed us, Persephone says.

Jewel, Amber, Calissa, and Lysandra fasten themselves into acceleration couches in case there is another unexpected power loss. It won't be the first time that the AI has been involved in isolated malfunctions. They are not deadly to us, but they hurt like hell. My daughters can attest to that.

Merlin sets the Unity's course for Earth and does a gentle acceleration of twelve gravities towards the planet. Six blips appear on the SDU. The largest one, Persephone quickly identifies as a space station. That is good, I don't particularly want to go down to the surface. The one closest to the space station is the Carpacia. The last four symbols are labeled as unknown. There are no transponder signals from any spacecraft in the area, only a warning beacon signal alerting approaching spaceships to the presence of spacecraft anchored at moorings.

The AI stops accelerating when we reach point zero five light speed. The ship coasts for a few hours before he uses the forward thrusters to slow the Unity. I take over the helm controls as we near the moorings and the spacecraft anchored to them. The first ship, a carrier, is easily identified as the Prometheus. Its hull looks relatively undamaged, but it is stripped of its weapons, riders, and engines. I am sure that other valuable parts have been taken from it too.

The next two ships are hardly recognizable. I slow the Unity and move us closer to get a better look at them. The largest ship's hull is blackened with several hull breaches. Twisted and torn metal surrounds the openings. The only way I can tell that it is the Vengeance is its size and the first three letters of its name, which are still visible on its bow. The Valkyrie is moored next to the battleship. It is as badly damaged. I'm guessing that Red and Beverly came here sometime after we left and started something they couldn't finish. From the looks of their ships, it was Jazz who took care of them.

The last spaceship tied to the moorings is the Sequoia. Its engines and biodomes are gone. It is unlikely that the plants, in the biodomes, were transferred to Earth after its surface and atmosphere were regenerated. They must have been taken elsewhere, another planet or a moon.

The next spaceship we approach is the Carpacia. Its hull is dark with no light visible through its viewports. The starliner looks intact, but severely neglected. It looks aged beyond its years of use. The hull plating is covered with patches of corrosion similar in appearance to rust. It appears to be caused by a yellow substance that is covering most of the hull. I don't see how it will be possible to navigate the ship across the solar system much less to Beta Draconis.

Jewel, contact the space station for docking clearance, I order.

Jewel unfastens her harness and comes forward to the cockpit. She takes a seat next to Ares. He isn't wearing his seat harness, so Jewel takes a chance and doesn't fasten her straps. She puts a headset on and uses the comm to contact the space station's traffic controller. After about a minute, she removes the headset and looks at me and Persephone with a perplexed look on her face. We have docking clearance in docking bay forty-seven, but they don't believe we are who I say we are. The controller says that we were pronounced dead fourteen hundred years ago. We have only been gone for six months.

Space stations the size of the one we are approaching take decades to build, probably closer to a hundred Terran years. Jewel and Amber have been in space on and off for maybe a dozen years. Everyone else, excluding me, for a lot less time. I am the only one aboard who is ship born. I keep forgetting that what I take for granted as common knowledge is still new to them.

We've been gone a little longer than six months, I say to Jewel.

How much longer? she asks.

About one thousand five hundred and forty-seven years, Persephone answers.

Our children! Jewel and Amber say.

I am sure that they have lived good lives. After all, my father, his wife Miranda, and two of Persephone's naiad friends have helped to raise them. It is unlikely that any of their descendants know or care who we are. I'm not going to be the one to break the news to Jewel and Amber. I have confidence that they will figure it out on their own soon enough. If not, they are Ares’ problem now.

I maneuver the ship around the space station until we come to the shuttle bay door with our docking number. Then, I briefly fire the thrusters to bring the Unity to a relative stop. It takes a few minutes for the doors to open and the lights to turn on. Then I give the aft thrusters a quick burst, lower the landing skids, and enter the hangar.

When the ship is over the parking spot, I fire the forward thrusters and then the attitude thrusters. The ship gently touches down and the magnetic skids lock it to the hangar floor. I shut down the engines and wait for the doors to close and the hangar to pressurize.

I get out of the pilot seat and make my way aft to the cabinet and open it. I remove my gun belt, blaster, and energy sword, then fasten the belt around my waist and clip the sword to it. I reach in to get Persephone her gun belt. I have second thoughts about it, and close the cabinet door. It isn't that my wife is incapable of defending herself, I leave her gun belt inside the cabinet because there is no way it is going to fit around her waist. Handing the gun belt to her would start another argument between her and the AI about his shrinking her clothes. He isn't. The swelling of her belly is large enough to question whether she is carrying twins or triplets. I know it is only one, but it is a huge bulge and it is still growing.

We're here. Everyone out, I announce. It is obvious that we are at our destination. The announcement is for my daughters. If I don't say anything, they will most likely go to their room to watch holovids. That is what they typically do, given the chance.

I open the hatch. Persephone and I are the first two out of the Unity. We lead our small group across the hangar floor, and open the entry door. There are hundreds of people waiting to greet us. Most look human, but a few are obviously Keshian.

The Keshians are changelings, they can take on any human or humanoid form they choose, and they can choose their sex, male, female, or neutral. The ones I can pick out of the crowd are in their neutral form—ugly. Their faces look like wrinkled potatoes with eyes and mouths. One of the Keshians, dressed in a black and silver flight suit, approaches me with a young man and woman.

The dimwit and his whore are back. Look she has a bun in the oven. I wonder who the father is? It surely isn't him. And accompanying the loser is the fallen one and a group of floozies, the man says.

The Keshian doesn't say anything. I reach for my sword, but Persephone puts a restraining hand on my arm. She stops me from disemboweling the person who insulted us long enough for my brain to realize the person in front of me is a Vorg. First greetings are always done by exchanging insults, the more insulting the greeting is the more sincere it is. If you don't insult them, or need to be told to do so, they won't trust or respect you.

The apple has certainly fallen far from the tree. For a second or two, I thought you might be related to Nord or Beck, but that cannot be. There are no women in your arms. As I remember they always had two or three at their sides and in their beds, It is the best insult I can think of without time to prepare.

The Vorg turns beet red and the Keshian laughs, he says, Dante lost his lady love to another man a week go! I am Jax, Commander of the Screaming Eagles. The Keshian wearing the flight suit extends his hand to me.

I shake his hand and say, We've been gone a little longer than we expected.

You think? It has been two thousand years since you were last seen. Everyone thinks all of you are long dead, he says.

It has not been that long. It has only been one thousand five hundred and forty-seven years, give or take a few months, Persephone corrects Jax.

For us, it has only been a little over six months. Our experimental drive malfunctioned, I explain.

A beautiful woman steps forward to introduce herself. I take her hand in mine and kiss the back of her hand, then say, I am Nathaniel, and you are?

Single and available. I am your chief engineer, Stella, she says.

He's married and taken, and I don't share! Persephone says to the girl.

The good ones always are. We are your crew. What are your orders? Stella says.

Prismatic light fills the corridor and a portal opens. Iris steps through the portal pushing a cart with four large chests on it. Four other demigods follow her to our side of the portal, each with a cartload of chests.

Iris says to Persephone, I'm sorry for the delay in your deliveries, but you and Nathaniel couldn't be found until now.

Ares takes Iris in his arms and pulls her to him, and says, Yo, babe, long time no see. How about we go someplace where I can get a little sugar?

Iris pulls herself from