SHADOW OF A BURNING STAR
BOOK ONE: THE BURNING STAR SERIES
R.B. BANFIELD
Copyright 2014 R.B. Banfield
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ISBN: 9781310418761
www.storiesfrommyhead.com
Contents
Part One: Preps and People
Part Two: Journey and Discovery
Part Three: Two Arrivals
Epilogue: Harax Pras
What lives in shadows
one day must emerge,
some to see glory,
some to see dread.
—Miguel Aggion “The Art of Fear” 1814
PART ONE
PREPS AND PEOPLE
Nestled between a building that housed an overpriced food market targeting the poor, and a struggling factory on the verge of closure, was a small alley. It was the kind of place that went unnoticed, but then, everything on that side of town was old and unnoticed; discards from another era. Even the neighbouring factory still catered to the past, making old-style rubber tires for vehicles that still touched the ground.
Rolondo Rees was a big black man with a shaved head and just a slight dash of moustache that he liked to fuss over. Most people he knew called him Ro, but he preferred Rolondo. He stood taller than most men and yet walked with a slight limp. The cause of his limp went back to his misspent youth, and he had other aches and pains, all over his body. For all his misfortune, he seemed to always have a smile to his lips, but that was just the way they naturally were, not because of his humour. After ten years of marriage his persistent smile had become an annoyance to his wife, as she knew he was a deeply unhappy man.
Rebbi Rees had recently developed a habit of being unable to stop or remain still. She just had to keep moving, and it became worse whenever she was nervous. Her hair was long and curled down around her shoulders in an interesting way, but she always hated the way it looked. She was short, and next to her husband she looked tiny, and yet anyone who saw them together would know that she was in charge.
The two waited in the quiet alley from the time when the last of the day’s sunlight hit, until it was dark. Rolondo spent the time punching his hands and complaining about the increasing chill. Rebbi took to walking several paces either side of him, more concerned about the waiting than the cold. A cluster of stars could be seen through the narrow space between the buildings, the only thing interesting to look at, but neither of them took any solace from them. If anything, they made them feel more nervous. The stars were the reason they were there.
A sound of fast walking boots made them both look to their left. The figure of a young woman came near them. Before they could see her face, she started speaking. The hood on her jacket remained up, and white wool wrapped around the edge. As she got nearer they could see her face a little better, but still not enough. Their first impression was that she was not trying to be sociable, and even that she felt contempt for them.
“Good, you both made it,” she said. Her tone was abrasive and curt. “One positive sign from the start. I like that.”
“You Beggs?” asked Rolondo, trying not to sound stupid.
Her reply was immediate. “I’m TC’s daughter. I’m the one you’re looking for.”
“How do we know you’re who you say?” asked Rebbi, knowing she should not trust her.
Then the woman smiled and they saw a puff of breath from her mouth. “Well, you’ll just have to trust me, won’t you?” She enjoyed her tease.
* * * *
The glamorous female reporter was positioned before a wall-sized screen that displayed the view of an orbiter looking down on the alien planet. The camera moved downward, showing glimpses that caused sheer excitement to every viewer. With casual ease, soft yellow clouds moved away to reveal a hazy topaz surface. Rolling mountains, the odd lake, and a web of rivers could be seen the closer the camera went. The planet’s horizon had almost no curve, such was the immensity of the world, and it did not seem to change as the ship with the camera moved upward again and raced in a low orbit.
“These are the latest, and to date, the best pictures received back from the unmanned explorer craft Mexis, from the star system B-141, and its world Apaea.”
She briefly stopped talking to let the pictures speak for themselves. The craft sank back into the clouds and after a short time of surfing through golden haze, a glorious mountain range could be seen. Beyond it was a large valley covered in glistening rivers and packed jungle.
“No one will officially go on record just yet, but I can tell you the buzz is, everything we know about this new world, is that it is perfect for human habitation. Absolutely perfect, and ready for colonisation right now. Various sources within UDE are jumping up and down, eager to reveal all, but we are still waiting for official confirmation of what must be the worst-kept secret in UDE history.”
* * * *
Standing amongst excited crowds, a younger and more glamorous female reporter addressed her camera. Behind her a space shuttle waited on its launchpad, about to take flight. It was painted bold white, and had the letters ANCT prominently displayed. The All-Nation Colony Trust, was about to transport the first colonists to the new world, together with every kind of automated machine that human science could build. Apaea was a name invented by UDE to represent the major continents of the Earth, to show the world as a new Earth; combining America, Pacific, Asia, Europe and Africa. The general population preferred to call it Ancia, a play on ANC and, “See ya!” and it stuck better with people than Apaea.
“The Ancian crew are right this moment going through final prep for ascent,” the reporter said with awe. She was unable to hide her jealously, which was the same with every other person watching the event unfold on the live broadcast.
“All hopes and dreams go with those brave souls. Good luck, and all earth is with you. To Apaea, the first of many great new worlds in our beautiful galaxy, representing the journey of the first humans out into the universe, finally leaving this world that has restricted us for so long.”
* * * *
Many details of the surface of the topaz world with yellow cloud could be seen. The camera hovered in the clouds and peered through breaks to show rolling land interrupted by lines of rivers running toward an intriguing dark blue ocean. It was the best view yet seen, and the report that went with the pictures was even better.
“The new data is remarkable in its stats.”
The news anchor was not even trying to control his elation.
“We can confirm, Apaea is exactly 14.849 times the size of Earth. It has some twenty continents, all major by Earth’s standard. There are abundant rivers, lakes, and swamplands. And sadly, as yet there’s not one sign of intelligent life. Of its eight moons, three are roughly half the size of Earth’s moon. The other five are minor, and have distant orbit. All moons are comprised of rich minerals, ripe for mining. Without UDE’s patrols and safeguards over the planet, they estimate many private companies will be trying to claim them. But let me tell you about the weather. The average temperature planet-wide, is twenty-three degrees Celsius. It’s eight degrees at the poles, and thirty-one at the equator. Day length is an average of 30.6 hours. A year is 516 days. At the moment I m
ust remind viewers, these figures are unofficial.”
He added after a slight laugh, “But they ain’t bad, folks.”
* * * *
“Who’s TC?” Rolondo asked the young woman, agitated with her. “We’re after someone going by the name Beggs; that’s what we were told. How many contacts do we have to get through here? You know what, I don’t know about this.”
“Johnny ‘TC’ Beggs,” she replied. “Ex-deep-space pilot, ex-deep-space explorer. Discoverer of Khans Star. Holder of twenty-eight spaceflight records with UDE, and of course, one very famous rescue mission. And ex-husband to my mother.”
“You’re Johnny Beggs’ daughter?” Rebbi asked, more of a statement of disbelief.
“Nothing was said that it was Johnny Beggs,” said Rolondo. “And you’re calling him TC? Why’s he being secretive like this? Everybody knows who he is. What’s the deal?”
“It’s the way we operate. And to me he’s always been TC. Didn’t mean to cause misunderstanding, okay?”
“What kind of business are you running?” asked Rebbi. “We were told it was professional. We don’t want some family thing. Beggs may have been a hero at rescuing people, or whatever, but we’re talking about doing something completely different.”
“Well, this is what you’ve got. Take it or leave it.”
“Maybe we’ll leave it,” said Rebbi.
“Reb, wait a minute,” Rolondo said as he addressed the woman. “You said you were a professional private shipper. No mention of a family business, or famous people being involved. You want to explain? Are you going to be professional about this or not?”
She shrugged her shoulders and made it clear that she didn’t care too much about their approval. “What’s to explain? We are as private as you want, we all know that. So he’s my father? We are a two-person business, and we just happen to be related. You want to do this thing, then I’m the one you need to be talking to. Don’t bother looking over my shoulder, there’s no one else here. You take it or you leave it and I walk away and so do you.”
“What I don’t like,” said Rebbi, “is all this secrecy. Meeting in some dark alley. Finding out now that it’s Johnny Beggs, who wants to be called TC. We don’t even know your name, girl.”
“Dawn-Star.”
“You any good?” asked Rolondo.
“What kind of a question is that?” Rebbi fired at him.
“Just want to know how good she is. She don’t look like much to me.”
“Now why go and say that?” Rebbi asked him with a shake to her head. “Why don’t you just go and say she’s ugly, why you’re at it? Girl don’t have to put up with you and all your nonsense. You know I don’t; why should she?”
“What is with you two?” Dawn-Star asked, hesitating to either walk away or get in their faces and start yelling.
“Tell TC we’ve got the money,” said Rebbi. “We’ve got enough for him. Tell him that. It’s not a problem.”
“Can you pilot?” Rolondo asked her.
“TC will get you there,” said Dawn-Star. “Not me.”
“We’re only paying a fair rate,” said Rolondo. “No more.”
“We don’t expect you to pay any more,” said Dawn-Star, trying not to laugh at them. She saw that they were unsure about it all, and did not even know what sort of questions they should be asking. Dawn-Star certainly wasn’t going to help them. If she had this kind of diffidence in buying a pair of shoes, she would know it was the wrong thing to do. And here these two were, unsure if they should live on another planet.
* * * *
The backdrop showed a modern cityscape. Two chairs sat before it. One had the talk show’s host, and the other a big man in his early forties, with thin hair and a large round nose. He seemed weary, the result of many long-range flights, and jaded from sights that he was incapable of giving adequate description. But he was trying, since that was his mission.
“How much of Apaea did you see?” the eager host asked. “Is it really that beautiful? To walk around, to see it for yourself and not on monitor, to actually be there?”
Commander Baxter Gammond took a deep, satisfying breath before giving his answer. When he talked he remained smiling. “Beautiful … does not really describe it, Donny. Or begin to describe it. There are colours I’ve never imagined. The light blue of the atmosphere, incredible, like a glow that never lets up. The air so fresh, you’d never recreate it on Earth. I wish I could go on, but I keep running out of words for it. Nothing I can tell you can prepare you, or anyone watching, of what it’s actually like.”
“Tell us how you chose your landing place. You had to be careful, right?”
“We found the perfect spot almost right away. That was no problem. There were endless landing sites we could have used, and all perfect.”
“You were the first one out of your landing craft. How did the ground feel when you first walked on it? Was it like Earth’s, or did it feel noticeably alien?”
Gammond did a quick and unsettling facial twitch, but the host ignored it. “Yes and no, Donny. Yes, it was exactly like walking on earth, gravity-wise. But then, you could tell, you could sense, you just knew this was an alien world, you get me? Nothing was familiar. It was all new to us, everything. One moment you’d think you were on Earth, and then you’d catch yourself and realise you were so far away from everything you’ve ever known. A lot of people would find that difficult to come to terms with. Some of my crew had problems like that.”
He almost cried at the thought, but stopped himself and remembered to stick with the script.
“That must have been a magnificent moment, your first experience of that. The first human to step onto an alien world. A real world, not Mars or some moon or asteroid.”
“Nothing like Mars.”
“Not even like Mars. This was Earth II, was it not?”
“Exactly,” Gammond chuckled. “And it was so exhilarating. I will never forget it. For the rest of my life, I shall never forget it.”
“And your other crew? How did they react?”
“All of us, we will never forget it,” he said as he gave the host a quick glare.
* * * *
“When do we get to see this TC Beggs?” asked Rolondo.
“For now, you don’t,” Dawn-Star answered abruptly, growing impatient with his dumb questions. “Everything will be through me. I’m handling all passenger organising. Once you’re all signed up, and we’ve got you checked and cleared, then we’ll all get to meet. Nothing until then.”
“Well,” Rebbi said with defiance, “you can go ahead and tell this TC: I don’t see him, don’t lay my tender eyes on him, the whole thing is off. You go and tell him that, girl.”
“Okay,” Dawn-Star announced to them with her voice raised, “you two want to cause trouble, then do that, and we’ll part company, here and now. I’ll forget all about you before I get home. Forget everything: your names, faces, all the dumb questions. You don’t want to go flying out into space, that’s your problem. I really don’t care. At all. But if you actually do want to employ us to ship you, then there is one rule you need to follow: We are in charge. Nothing less. No negotiation on that point. You just have to trust us. How else do you expect to get there if you can’t trust us? I mean, really: what do you think you’re signing up to? You go there, you’re not coming back.”
“This ain’t right,” Rebbi said as she started to walk away, but stopped when Rolondo kept talking.
“What’s his ship?” he asked.
“Your typical voyager,” said Dawn-Star. “About an e-quarter the time of the best UDE ships. But that’s what you get when you don’t fly UDE.”
“E-quarter?”
“We’re four times slower than the UDE’s colony ships, is what that means. But I’m talking about the very best ships available right now, and only the UDE have those.”
“How old is it? How many deep-space trips has it done?”
“Ro,” Rebbi chided him. “I don’t want to
do this anymore. Are you listening to me?”
“Hey, let me ask some more questions, okay?” he asked dismissively. “Can I do that?”
“Go by yourself, is what you’ll do,” she said.
Rolondo sighed and with a tired smile asked Dawn-Star, “Any chance of us two hooking up?”
Dawn-Star laughed and realised that she wasn’t going to get much more sense out of them.
“You two?” Rebbi chided him. “Ro, you’ve got more chance in piloting yourself there.”
“It’s okay, Mrs Rees,” said Dawn-Star. “I’m not at all interested in taking your husband off you.”
“And why not?” she said back, insulted. “He not good enough for you?”
“See?” Rolondo said to Rebbi. “You are on my side.”
Dawn-Star couldn’t keep up her indignation with them and decided to just be nice. “Okay, we seem to have gotten off to an awkward start. You want passage not involving UDE, we can provide it. We may not be classy like the big passenger-liners, but we are the main thing you want: stealthy. We can slip you two in there, no problem. That is what you want, isn’t it?”
Rebbi walked back to her. “You want us to trust you? Then you can drop your hood, girl. Let me see your eyes. Before we discuss any more, I’ve got to look into your eyes.”
Dawn-Star pulled back her hood, and flicked her blond hair around, concerned that the hood had made it untidy. Rebbi saw, as best she could in the bad light, that she had green eyes, and she seemed genuine.
“You get on okay with your dad?” asked Rebbi.
“Sure.”
“Then okay, we’ll do what you ask. Just one thing, though.”
“And that is?”
“You just ain’t having my man.”
Dawn-Star saw that Rebbi was serious, and she gave her a polite nod. When she agreed to help TC round up passengers for the voyage, she had no idea what she was going to have to deal with. While everyone agreed that seeking an illegal flight to where only UDE ships were allowed was a little dangerous, they had underestimated the type of people who would actually want to try it. Dawn-Star could not imagine being trapped on a ship for sixteen months with such people, and she was more than pleased that she would never need to be.