The Cruel Stars
The Cruel Stars is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 by John Birmingham
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Del Rey, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
DEL REY and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Names: Birmingham, John, author.
Title: The cruel stars: a novel / John Birmingham.
Description: New York: Del Rey, [2019]
Identifiers: LCCN 2019007451 | ISBN 9780399593314 (hardcover: alk. paper) | ISBN 9780399593321 (ebook)
Subjects: | BISAC: FICTION / Science Fiction / Space Opera. | FICTION / Science Fiction / Adventure. } FICTION / Science Fiction / Military. | GSAFD: Science Fiction.
Classification: LCC PR9619.3.B5136 C74 2019 | DDC 823/.914—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019007451
Ebook ISBN 9780399593321
randomhousebooks.com
Title-page and chapter-opener art: © iStockphoto.com
Book design by Edwin Vazquez, adapted for ebook
Cover design: Arielle Pearl
Cover illustration: © James Paick
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
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
Epilogue
Dedication
Acknowledgments
By John Birmingham
About the Author
The rock turned silently in hard vacuum, and the young woman with it. She pressed her nose to the porthole, which fogged with her breath while she waited for night to sweep over this part of the base. It would come, dark and frozen, within a few minutes, revealing the star field of the local volume, the vast blue-green pearl of the planet far below, and the lights of the nearest Hab, another naval station like this hollowed-out moonlet.
Lucinda waited for the stars. In the right mood, in a rare abstracted moment, she sometimes wondered at the way they wrapped themselves around her, seeming close yet infinitely distant. As she wondered, dusk came pouring over the small mountain range to the east, advancing in a wave of fast shadows and lengthening pools of inky blackness. She could not see the darkness coming for her on this part of the rock, but she imagined it swallowing the local area point defenses and the gaping maw of the docks. The entrance to the port was always illuminated, but the lights soon would burn with a severe brilliance in the accelerated night.
She was not floating, but she felt light and only barely in touch with the deck in the standard one-tenth grav here on the surface as she inspected her reflection in the armor glass.
A young woman frowned back at her. The uniform was not quite right. Tight at the shoulders, a little loose around the waist. The best she could afford. She regarded herself even more critically in the ready-to-wear black and whites. Severely pretty, she had been told by men she did not entirely trust. A little off-putting and perhaps unnecessarily discouraging according to girlfriends she probably could believe.
Nonetheless. It would all have to do.
“Lieutenant Hardy?”
Surprised out of her reverie, she jumped a little, reaching out reflexively to the nearest wall to arrest herself before she could take gentle flight. She was embarrassed at being caught out.
“Yes,” she said, her voice catching just a little as she turned away from the view, reorienting herself to the spare utilitarian lines of the transit lounge. The glowstrips on the carbon armor walls were old enough to need replacing months ago. Rows of hard o-plastic seating looked bleached and brittle under the weak lighting. She was the only other officer in the space. The only other person for the last hour. This part of the facility was restricted, and foot traffic was thin.
“Sorry for the delay, ma’am,” the young man said, saluting. He was a baby lieutenant, a subbie, just out of the Academy she guessed from his age and eagerness, and his eyes went a little wide as he took in the campaign ribbons on her uncomfortably heavy jacket. He wore dark blue general-duty coveralls and carried a sidearm low on his thigh. Lucinda, in her black-and-white dress uniform, felt awkward in spite of her advantage in rank and experience. Her black-and-whites were obviously not tailor-made. She did not have the expense allowance from a family trust that some officers enjoyed.
She returned his salute, painfully aware of the way her dress jacket rode up and the tightness of the sleeves. She tried to ignore the feeling that seemed to steal up on her with every new posting: that she was simply masquerading as an officer and soon would be found out.
“You have the advantage of me, Lieutenant…?”
He stared at her blankly for a second, amplifying her sense of dislocation and fragile pretense. Then he went, “Ah!” and shook his head.
“I’m sorry. You’re not plugged in to shipnet. Bannon, ma’am. Sublieutenant Ian Bannon. I’m officer of the deck today. I’m sorry you’ve been left up here. It should not have happened.”
The young man looked distressed now, and his discomfort made her feel even more awkward.
“I understand, Lieutenant,” she said. “Everything needs to happen at once just before deployment.”
“Even so,” he said, “I apologize.”
They shook hands on her initiative. His eyes flitted briefly to the colored rows of decorations again, but she could forgive that. He wore no decoration beyond the stitched half bar on one collar tab.
“Sorry,” he said when he realized she’d caught him checking out the fruit salad, but he smiled as he apologized. He had a boyish grin that Lucinda imagined had been getting him out of trouble his whole life. He looked practiced in its use. “They told me you fought in the Javan War,” he said, catching sight of her duffel bag under the front row of seats and reaching for it before she could. Lucinda almost told him not to. She preferred to look out for herself. But Bannon held the lesser rank, and it would have been a slight to her if he had not offered. He lifted it carefully in the low grav, testing its mass. Nodding when he had the measure of the load.
“I heard you were promoted in the field,” he said, leading her toward the exit. “From ensign to lieutenant. I missed it all. Signed up to fight but didn’t graduate until it was all over.”
Not looking where he was going, he banged his knee into a chair and cussed, then apologized for cussing. The bag floated up slowly like an improbable novelty balloon.
“Whoa there,” he said, adjusting his grip and stance and nearly tumbling over while he wrestled the duffel bag and his own mass back under control.
“Damn.” He grinned. “Been under ship grav too long.”
He shrugged off the moment in which she would have blushed fiercely. Lucinda found she could not help liking him. But also, she could not let him go on.
“Thank you,” she said, nodding at the bag. “But I went into the war as a baby louie, just like you. And I came out a fully grown LT simply because it went on long enough for my turn to come around.”
Bannon, unconvinced, gave her decorations a theatrically dubious side eye as they exited the bare surroundings of the transit lounge.
“Chief Higo told me you were promoted in the field. And the chief is never wrong. He told me that, too.”
She essayed a small, uncertain smile.
“I would never want to correct a chief petty officer,” she said—and she was not lying—“but my first promotion, from ensign, that wasn’t in the war. It was nothing, really. Just a small engagement on a counterpiracy patrol.”
“Okay.” He grinned as though he knew she was hiding some greater truth. “If you say so.”
They walked down a long, wide corridor. The passageway curved into the body of the rock and twisted like an elongated strand of DNA. She could feel their descent in the deck’s slope under her feet and the increasing pull of spin grav. There were no more portholes to the surface, only screens carrying g-data feeds and imagery from around the base. At first they passed no other personnel, but the traffic in automats and bot trains was moderate to busy, and once a Flotilla-class Combat Intellect floated past. They saluted the black ovoid lozenge. It pulsed in acknowledgment, turning briefly purple, before a female voice said, “Lieutenant Hardy, Lieutenant Bannon, good day to you both.”
The Intellect drifted on serenely.
They watched it disappear around the twisting curvilinear passage.
“Those guys,” said Bannon, shaking his head. “So chill.”
The corridor spiraled down for another five minutes. Lucinda’s duffel bag grew visibly heavy in her colleague’s hand. She did not so much make conversation as ride it downslope. Bannon, unlike her, wasn’t shy about talking about himself. By the time they stood in a secure reception bay, enjoying the one Earth-standard grav provided by the spin and the base’s mass generator, she knew all about Bannon’s family (wealthy but not ennobled), his service (just beginning), and the ship’s command group (pretty chill except for…).
“Except for this guy,” he muttered out the corner of his mouth.
“Bannon! Where in the Dark have you been?”
Hardy startled at the barking voice, as much at the accent as at the volume and sharpness. The rich, stentorian tones of someone who grew up at court on the Armadalen homeworld were unmistakable, especially when the speaker made an extra-special effort to cover everything in gold leaf.
The reception bay was a small area, not much larger than the transit lounge where she’d spent so many hours. The walls and ceiling were bare rock except for a thin but obvious coating of sealant shining under the glowstrips. Three of the four security checkpoints were closed. The fourth stood open to admit new arrivals to the afterbrow of the ship. There was no sign of the destroyer. Instead two sentinel droids, their glacis plates stenciled with the name DEFIANT, stood mutely in front of the displacement portal, flanking a young man in day uniform. He wore the insignia of a first lieutenant, and Bannon snapped to attention. Hardy did not. The man did not outrank her. Not in any military sense.
“I told you I wanted those stores double-checked,” the lieutenant said loudly. “You’re the officer of the deck. Not a bloody hotel greeter.”
“Sir, my apologies, sir, but Lieutenant Hardy was hours—”
“Lieutenant Hardy isn’t on deck until 1800 hours,” he said. “She is not a priority.”
He was shouting at Bannon, but Lucinda knew the whole charade was intended for her. She struggled to maintain a neutral face.
His expression turned dark as he took in her lack of deference or even reaction.
“And you would be the famous Hardy, I presume,” he said, giving her the impression that it was an onerous and unwelcome duty even to say her name.
“I am Lieutenant Hardy, Lieutenant…?”
She left the question open. For the merest second he had almost elicited a “Yes, sir!” from her, his long experience of assumed privilege conspiring with her trained obedience to the chain of command to force a submission to which he was not due. Not while he served in uniform.
“You took your time, Lieutenant,” the officer said.
He did not offer his name. Perhaps she was supposed to know him or know of him.
“I was waiting at surface level transit as per my travel orders…Lieutenant,” she said, annoyed by how much his tone of voice seemed to compel her to address him as a superior. Bannon, she sensed, was remaining at attention beside her.
Lucinda guessed that she was in the presence of some minor scion of the Royal House who was serving his three years before taking up a directorship on one of the Habs or dirtside, possibly even down on the planet below them. He was very obviously a first lifer, like her. Like all of them. Junior officers were almost always first lifers. After all, who would go back for a second bite of that cherry?
The anonymous princeling, or count, or whatever he was, lost focus while he consulted his neural net. A lieutenant, she reminded herself; he was just a lieutenant, like her, possibly with even less time in service. He stared through her and Bannon, who was still standing rigidly at attention and saying nothing. It was the first time Ian had shut up since she’d met him. Lucinda was tempted to grab an image cap of the nameless officer and run a personnel search while he made them wait. See if she could track down his legend, the public record of his naval service. But maybe also see if he’d been the sort of second- or third-tier wastrel who kept the scandal servers and gossip bots busy before he had to sign on.
Instead, she kept her interface down and her expression neutral. She would not give him the satisfaction.
His eyes came back from searching the middle distance, and he smirked.
“A charity case, eh?”
She felt her cheeks beginning to burn, and knowing that she was blushing only made it worse. Beside her, Bannon remained as silent and still as the hard vacuum outside.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” the officer said. “Did Naval Records get it wrong?”
He made a show of checking his neural net again, although she doubted he even bothered pulling it up. He simply enjoyed the performative cruelty.
“It says you were recommended for officer training school by Coriolis Habitat Welfare because…” Again the play of actively consulting records. “Because, oh, dear, your father was transported to a defaulter colony. Oh, my.”
The sentinels, bipedal combat drones, remained utterly still. With horror, she realized that this close to deployment they might be inhabited by human minds, not the ship’s Intellect.
God, this would be all over the other ranks’ mess before the end of watch.
The still anonymous lieutenant sucked air in through his teeth. “I wouldn’t go lending money to this one, Bannon,” he snorted. “Would you?”
Sublieutenant Bannon took just half a second too long to answer.
“Well?” asked the other man, sensing there was more fun to be had in that moment of hesitation. “Would you?”
Still at parade ground attention, Bannon seemed to be struggling to lift a great weight, as though Lucinda’s bag, which he still carried, somehow had increased its mass tenfold.
“If Lieutenant Hardy was in need of any assistance, Lieutenant Chase,” he said at last, “I would be happy to help her. As, I’m sure, she would do for me.” He sounded as though he were cutting off his own toes. “Any officer of the Fleet would.”
Lucinda smiled. She knew who this baby martinet was now. Or who his family was at any rate. And that was the same thing really. The Chase dynasty.
“Of course I would, Ian,” she said.
Chase did not smile. He stepped forward, deep into Bannon’s personal space, speaking softly, as though to a lover. “You forget your place,” he said. Chase paused before putting a sharper edge on his voice, on the blade of that finely honed aristocratic accent. “And your family’s,” he added.
It was all Lucinda could do to maintain an air of bemused nonchalance. She could feel Bannon’s collapse at the implied threat to his family.
“And you…Lieutenant,” Chase went on, smirking at her as though amused by some private joke. “You don’t even have a place. You’re not one of us. You will never belong.”
Vertigo and sudden untethered fury threatened to unbalance her, and Chase could sense it. His smirk turned genuinely nasty.
“By coming aboard, you understand you give full consent to a search of your person and baggage. Open the bag and strip to your skivvies. You’d be better off out of that hobo’s ragbag of a uniform, anyway. I imagine Habitat Welfare organized that for you, too.”