The Riven Stars Read online

  Copyright

  Copyright © Stephen Renneberg 2018

  ISBN: 978-0-9941840-4-7

  All Rights Reserved.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

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  This eBook is licensed for your personal use only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should purchase your own copy from a licensed eBook distributor. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Illustration © Tom Edwards

  TomEdwardsDesign.com

  Author’s Website

  http://www.stephenrenneberg.com/

  Also by Stephen Renneberg

  THE MAPPED SPACE UNIVERSE

  The Mothership

  The Mothersea

  The Antaran Codex

  In Earth’s Service

  SF/TECHNOLOGICAL THRILLERS

  The Siren Project

  The Kremlin Phoenix

  DEDICATION

  For Elenor, with love.

  Mapped Space Chronology

  3.4 Million Years Ago to 6000 BC

  Earth’s Stone Age (GCC 0).

  6000 BC to 1750 AD

  Pre-Industrial Civilization (GCC 1).

  1750 - 2130

  The rise of Planetary Industrial Civilization (GCC 2).

  The First Intruder War – unknown to mankind.

  The Mothership

  Start of the Blockade.

  The Mothersea

  2130 - 2643

  The spread of Interplanetary Civilization (GCC 3) throughout the Solar System.

  2629

  Marineris Institute of Mars (MIM) perfects the first stable Spacetime Distortion Field (the superluminal bubble).

  The MIM discovery leads to the dawn of Inceptive Interstellar Civilization (GCC 4).

  2615

  The Solar Constitution ratified, establishing Earth Council (15 June 2615).

  2644

  First human ship reaches Proxima Centauri and is met by a Tau Cetin Observer.

  2645

  Earth Council signs the Access Treaty with the Galactic Forum.

  First Probationary Period begins.

  Tau Cetins provide astrographic data out to 1,200 light years from Earth (Mapped Space) and 100 kilograms of novarium (Nv, Element 147) to power human starships.

  2646 - 3020

  Human Civilization expands rapidly throughout Mapped Space.

  Continual Access Treaty infringements delay mankind’s acceptance into the Galactic Forum.

  3021

  Dr. Anton Krenholtz discovers Spacetime Field Modulation.

  Krenholtz Breakthrough enables transition to Incipient Interstellar Civilization (GCC 5).

  3021 - 3154

  Mass migration dramatically increases human colonial populations.

  3154

  Human religious fanatics, opposed to interstellar expansion, attack the Mataron Homeworld.

  Tau Cetin Observers prevent the Mataron Fleet from destroying Earth.

  3155

  Galactic Forum suspends human interstellar access rights for 1,000 years (the Embargo).

  3155 - 3158

  Tau Cetin ships convert human supplies of novarium held in Earth stockpiles and within ship energy plants to inert matter (as human ships landed at habitable planets).

  3155 - 4155

  Human contact with other interstellar civilizations ends.

  Many human outposts beyond the Solar System collapse.

  4126

  Earth Navy established by the Democratic Union to police mankind when Embargo is lifted.

  Earth Council assumes control of Earth Navy.

  4138

  Earth Intelligence Service (EIS) established by the Earth Council.

  4155

  The Embargo ends.

  The Access Treaty is reactivated, permitting human interstellar travel to resume.

  The second 500 year Probationary Period begins.

  4155 - 4267

  Earth re-establishes contact with its surviving colonies.

  4281

  Earth Council issues Sanctioned Worlds Decree, protecting collapsed human societies.

  4310

  The Beneficial Society of Traders established to manage interstellar trade.

  4498

  Quantum Instability Neutralization discovered (much earlier than galactic powers expected).

  Mankind becomes an Emergent Civilization (GCC 6).

  The golden age of human interstellar trade begins.

  4605

  The Vintari Incident.

  The Antaran Codex

  4606

  The Battle of Tresik Prime.

  End of the Blockade.

  In Earth’s Service

  4607

  The Nan Chen Disaster.

  The Xil Asseveration.

  The Riven Stars

  Notes:

  GCC: Galactic Civilization Classification system.

  Asseveration: A solemn or emphatic declaration.

  Chapter One : Eden

  Chartered Settlement

  Hirato System

  Outer Hercules

  0.9 Earth Normal Gravity

  898 light years from Sol

  62,000 permanent inhabitants plus tourists

  “What’s the matter hot shot, scared of heights?” Marie said, her voice distorted by the transparent air mask covering her face.

  Ignoring her taunt, I leaned over the jump platform’s safety rail and peered past sheer cliffs to the carpet of wispy gray cloud below. The breeze off the frigid plains up here was icy and the atmosphere on the High Surface too thin to breathe unaided, yet the cliff top resorts were full of thrill seeking tourists. It was hard to believe we were on the same planet as the fertile valley fifteen thousand meters below, nestled in a tectonic crack in Eden’s crust.

  “You sure you want to do this?” I asked apprehensively, glancing back at her as I wiped frost from my faceplate.

  She wore a bright red, skintight jumpsuit with micro impellers on her wrists and ankles that would keep her inside the glide slope. The flexiwings running from her arms to her boots would unfold once she was airborne, allowing her to free glide all the way down to breathable atmosphere. My airsuit was identical to Marie’s, only blue in color and with a larger wingspan. The adventure company we’d hired them from had made us sign fatality waivers and pay an exorbitant equipment bond that made us worth more to them dead than alive.

  “Maybe I should have brought Izin,” Marie teased, knowing tamphs hated heights.

  “You couldn’t get him up here at gunpoint,” I said as she pushed past me, contemptuous of the risk.

  She looked down confidently, saw the vertical rock wall vanish into the clouds and hesitated. “It is high, isn’t it.”

  “Good thing the suit knows how to fly,” I said with more confidence than I felt. Leaping off one of the highest cliffs in all of human inhabited space wasn’t what I had in mind when we’d planned to meet here for a holiday, but it was too late to back out now. Providing we kept our arms and legs straight, the suit would get us down safely, or so our instructor said.

  Ahead of us, a man in a black and white striped airsuit leapt off the narrow jump platform into the abyss. His wings snapped open as he fell and carried him away into the mist. Beside the now vacated platform, the jump master in a full environment suit waved us forward.

  Marie and I exchanged nervous looks, clasped hands and edged toward him, holding the safety rails with our free hands. We were watched by dozens of jumpers lined up behind us and by many more less adventurous tourists in the pressurized bars and restaurants surrounding the jump site. As we walked the plank in silence, we swallowed our nerves and marveled at the grandeur of the vertical cliffs stretching away to the horizon.

  They marked the southern extent of the Valley of Eden, a massive scar two hundred kilometers wide and almost seven thousand long. It had formed when the planet’s interior had cooled, cracking the crust and creating Eden’s most visible feature seen from space. Much of the planet’s thin air had settled into the low lying valley, creating an atmosphere thick enough to trap its sun’s heat in a blanketing greenhouse effect. The resulting temperate microcosm allowed humans to survive unprotected on an otherwise cold and bleak world, subject only to the vagaries of long mountain shadows and cloudy nights.

  When we reached the jump master, he leaned toward us and yelled, “No holding hands. You can go together, but no touching. You’ll confuse your suit’s AI.”

  I glanced at Marie, who had a hint of fear in her eyes as she let my hand go. “We don’t have to do this,” I whispered.

  “Yeah, we do,” she said, glancing behind us. “They’re all watching.”

  The jump master studied the atmospheric readings on his heads-up display, beamed to him from hundreds of sensors spread along the cliffs below. “OK folks, you’re clear to jump. Just follow Black Run Three all the way down. Stay inside the glide slope,
keep your arms and legs straight and no aerobatics. Enjoy the ride.” He stepped back and waved for us to go.

  Marie blew me a flirtatious kiss and yelled, “Last one down pays for dinner!” She leapt off the platform and stretched her arms and legs into a star jump as her flexiwings snapped open, giving her an oval appearance. The impellers immediately angled her face down, sending her diving into the clouds, picking up speed.

  “Damn,” I muttered and jumped after her.

  I felt a shudder as my wings unfolded and sudden pressure on my wrists and ankles as the impellers tilted me down. The heads-up display illuminated inside my facemask, showing the sixty kilometer long, cliff hugging path down into the terraformed valley.

  “Hey! Wait your turn,” I heard the jump master shout at someone behind me, then I was racing alongside damp, bleak cliffs that loomed out of the mist.

  Marie’s bright red airsuit was a barely visible flash of color ahead, weaving through gray cloud, unconcerned by the cliff’s proximity. “Woohoo!” she yelled over the communicator as she banked left and right, testing how much freedom the suit gave her. “It’s easier than zero-g.”

  She was right. It was easy, providing we didn’t fight the suit AI which continually corrected our mistakes. “Zero-g doesn’t have cliffs,” I said, surprised how close the edge of the glide slope was to the rock face.

  “Want to see me barrel roll?”

  “He said no aerobatics,” I warned, pushing my wrists down and steepening my wing angle, searching for speed.

  “Are you going to spank me if I break the rules?” she asked with a laugh.

  I pulled my arms back a little, finding the wings automatically tucked to compensate, then closed the distance to Marie. When I caught her, I nosed up, matching her speed to fly side by side. She looked over at me grinning, then dipped her shoulder slightly and drifted toward me, reaching out with her hand until our fingertips touched. We lightly locked fingers together, flying as one, while my heads-up display flashed an orange proximity warning, trying to spoil the fun.

  “My suit thinks you’re a naughty girl.”

  She laughed. “Mine too,” she said, then we burst out of the clouds into clear air.

  Below us, the long expanse of Eden’s green valley reached away to the horizon, flanked by towering rock walls and pencil thin waterfalls. Beyond the clouds bordering the cliffs, sunlight bathed the valley in light, revealing a patchwork of fields, forests, lakes and villages. Immediately ahead of us, slender streams arced out from the cliffs forming a series of watery arches through which the glide slope wove a snaking path.

  “Oh my,” Marie said in wonder, surprised at the beauty of the scene.

  With our fingertips locked, we flew under one waterfall, glided out around another and slid back in under a third. For two people who spent so much of their lives in zero gravity and thruster suits, it was like dancing in the air.

  “I told you this would be fun,” she said as we drifted out around the next waterfall.

  “It’s amazing.”

  We glided beneath another flowing arch, through misty rain, then Marie let my fingers go and floated away toward the cliff face. To my surprise, the proximity warning in my HUD continued flashing as the distance between us grew. It turned from orange to red, then the words Collision Alert flashed across my screen, even though Marie was now pulling ahead, looking for speed to beat me home.

  I wondered if the suit AI was confused, then my implanted bionetics kicked in. My DNA sniffer flashed a warning into my mind that someone was coming up behind me fast, but with the airsuit’s wings extended and the impellers holding me in the glide slope, I couldn’t see who it was.

  I banked away from the cliff, losing speed and lifting my shoulder to glimpse a black shadow diving toward me. When he realized I’d seen him, he dipped one wing, aiming his arm at me, then an electric blue muzzle flash erupted from his hand followed by a blast of air as a projectile passed close to my head.

  The black shadow straightened, letting me see his face through his air mask. He had finely sculpted, symmetrical features and piercing green eyes that never left me. It was a face I’d never seen before, which meant this wasn’t personal, it was professional.

  I nosed down for speed while my bionetics searched its catalogue of murderers and misfits for a facial match, but got no hits. Whoever he was, he wasn’t famous, but my DNA sniffer had got enough of a read on him to flash a warning into my mind.

  REFLEX SEQUENCING DETECTED.

  Reflex gene mods gave him speed, balance and agility, while his athletic build indicated he was no mere enforcer. My own ultra-reflex mod was classified, but money could buy a lot on the black splicer market if you ignored the risks. It was why he’d almost taken me with his first shot, even at range with the flexiwings restricting his aim.

  His steep dive wasn’t following the glide slope, indicating his suit safeties were off, giving him a tactical advantage. If his gene mods were as good as mine, he’d be able to make the hard shots once he got closer, even at speed. While I moved to stay out of his line of fire, my sniffer flashed another message into my mind.

  COSMETIC GENE MODS DETECTED.

  Cosmetic? That accounted for his good looks, but why would a shooter want to black slice pretty on top of deadly? As usual, my bionetics were way ahead of me.

  CONTACT IS A DARK ANGEL.

  Angels were genetically engineered sex toys and bodyguards, not assassins, although they certainly had the skills for wet work. They were talented and hellishly expensive, and I only had one enemy who could afford to use them like ammunition: a bloated parasite named Manning Thurlow Ransford III. He was Chairman of the Consortium, a sinister corporate empire that had its claws in every human world and bankrolled a Separatist Movement intent on reducing Earth’s colonies to criminal fiefdoms. I’d narrowly missed killing him once and had regretted it every day since. Ransford knew if he didn’t get rid of me soon, I’d make good on my promise to retire him permanently.

  “Hey Sirius, you fall asleep back there?” Marie’s voice sounded in my ears. She was a red blur in the sky, banking close to the curving cliff face. Now that I was directly behind her, she couldn’t see me or the dark angel.

  “You’re the one that’s asleep. I passed you already and I’m working up an appetite,” I said in as gloating a tone as I could muster, rolling again to keep my eye on the black airsuited assassin diving toward me.

  “Don’t spend my credits just yet,” Marie said competitively, angling for speed.

  Her red form disappeared behind a rocky promontory as my suit’s impellers pushed hard against my wrists and ankles, forcing me to level off before I dropped below the glide slope. The airsuit’s safety conscious AI made me a sitting duck, so I banked away from the assassin’s gun hand toward the cliff. For a moment I flew level, giving the glide slope time to drop beneath me, then the dark angel rolled onto his back, flying inverted to aim his gun at me. It was a maneuver my hand-holding tourist suit would never have allowed.

  I jerked my arms back, taking the airsuit AI by surprise, momentarily leaping into a vertical climb as the assassin fired. The shot passed under my chest and struck the cliff beside me, showering stone fragments into the air, then my suit’s impellers threw me forward and away from the cliff, regaining speed as the dark angel rolled back to face-down flying. He crossed above me, maneuvering elegantly for another shot while I lurched forward like a stumbling drunk. My best hope was to kill my airsuit’s safeties so I could match him in the air even though I had no gun.

  Activate Universal Interface, I thought. Disable airsuit AI.

  The molecular implants threaded throughout my body searched my nervous system for a touch point, but I was clad in skin hugging aeroinsulon. With no exposed skin contacting the airsuit’s control system, my bionetic’s response was emphatic.