He pushed harder on the twelve-inch-long bar controlling the massive drill press, forcing the hefty chainsaw bit to gnaw faster into the dirty ice, disregarding safety protocols. The bit fought back, sending tremors back up the main shaft to warned against pushing the limits of coring into a fifty-meter layer of ice on the frozen surface of the moon, Europa. Small tools hanging on the thin walls of the miner's shack trembled and rattled. A heavy ball pean hammer fell to the cold surface. Just a few more meters and the old record for the deepest core would be obliterated. It didn't matter who currently held the record, though Ulley's name peppered the top ten.
The alarm flashed in his right eye again.
"I got it. I got it. Just a few more seconds," Ulley said. Slight but muscular, he pressed all his meager weight down on the handle. Low gravity be damned.
The muffs protecting his ears inside his EV helmet crackled with static interference. His rapid breaths fogged the glass faceplate. Red warning lights commanded an exit from the ice mining site. The extraction would supply a year's supply of ice and water for his orbiting habitat. Ulley clenched his teeth as he pushed harder. The vibrations on the grinding metal drill sputtered and roared, each meter deeper felt like playing a game of violent hopscotch.
The muffs crackled. "Halcyon tug ready for liftoff. Cmon, Ulley, let's go. The prospect of meeting another like you intrigues even me," Timbre said. The old pilot was unflappable and rarely exhibited any emotions without the inducement of a liter of stout Miner's ale.
Ulley checked the depth gauge of the core. The numbers slowed. The bit was losing too many teeth. Bedrock. Maybe a layer of petrified volcanic dust. Just two more meters and he would have it. Another alarm flashed on his neural screens. The drill's internal temperature was climbing too fast. Abrasion and lousy teeth. A miner's nightmare. He eased back the pressure on the control arm. The alarms continued. The cacophony of intense vibrations joined with the alarms, and he couldn't concentrate. "Shut down all home alarms."
The strobe of the drill alarm continued to increase. Distant voices shouted in his helmet. Shut down. Shut down. Go home. Go home. The drill handle throbbed in his hand. Carbonite teeth grinding against a hard substance transmitted jolts of electricity through his hands and into his chest. He eased the downward pressure on the handle. The lightning bolts subsided then inexplicably increased to a level Ulley had never experienced in his twenty years of ice mining. He pulled back on the drill press. Maybe the friction of the teeth ignited a methane pocket?
"Let's go, boss," Timbe said.
"I haven't severed the core yet. Hook on and be ready. No deviations or the core will snap."
"Oh please. This isn't my first rodeo," Timbre said.
Ulley checked the core depth. Two lousy meters from a record. He poised an ocular pointer on the drills control screen. He paused, then blinked the command to constrict the chain of drill teeth and chew inward to sever the hundred-thirty-two-meter cylinder cored from the frozen moon.
"Big bucks for us, my Capitan," Timbre said.
"Careful on the x/y axis retraction," Ulley said as he observed the extraction of a trillion-ton chunk of ice rising into the vacuum of space.
Timbre scoffed, "Please."
The mining shack fell apart as his crew appeared out of the darkness of space to grab each of his arms and jabber about his disregard of the alarms. His lieutenants pulled him away from the drilling station. Ulley shrugged them off to watch the cylinder of ice rise out of the bowels of Europa like a stiff worm.
"Where to, boss?" Timbre said.
Ulley had pondered an endless number of options and should have made the decision weeks ago, before the operation started. Other habitats floating in the sea of Jupiter's gravity would pay dearly for the water and oxygen. Maybe send the tube to Mars to settle the water futures contract he ignorantly signed. Most lunar colonies would outbid any competitor. Earth's hegemony with its habitats and satellites starving for water might pay even more. His own bioengineered habitat, *Ithaca,* stationed above Jupiter's satellite Europa thrived, but an insurance policy of additional water was enticing. The alarms sounded and flashed again. His wife Pennae's vehement insistence he return as quickly as possible made him pause, then smile with the obvious answer.
"Home, Timbre," Ulley said. "We have a birthday present to deliver."
The transport shuttle employed a fusion drive and pressed him inside an acceleration couch morphing like viscous jelly to form a cocoon around his body. He hated leaving Timbre alone to extract and escort the cylinder back home. A sudden tectonic tremor might shear off the cylinder during the delicate extraction. Or the pilot might face an attempt by pirates to hijack the cylinder and resell to one of many habitats orbiting Jupiter or Saturn, but those were rare. They had completed hundreds of similar extractions with little deviation from the prescribed parameters. Ice and air were plentiful, only if one knew where to look. Timbre could handle the delivery on his own.
Pennae's pings on his ocular screen became more frantic.
"On my way. Start without me if you have to." Ulley responded.
*"You fucking pig. You promised to be here."* Pennae shouted through the Brainlinq.
The message caused Ulley's head to sink further into the couch as if her anger held the equivalent of a dangerous eight gees of acceleration. Maybe their decision was misguided. Maybe Pennae had morphed into one of those horrible hormonal monsters he had read about. "Docking now. Five minutes," he said.
An agonizing scream sounded deep into his ear canal.
"Breathe, Pennae. Breathe."
"Fuck you. You breathe," she said between gasps.
"As soon as the airlock opens, I'm there."
Ulley cursed as the shuttle navigated into the docking bay with slow precise burns of maneuvering thrusters. He unstrapped the belts and rushed to the air lock. Alarms for violating security protocols flashed stop signs in his ocular vision. He tapped the keypad with a frantic finger. Denied. Denied. Finally, the docking doors spiraled shut behind him and he sucked in a great lungful of warm Ithaca atmosphere. This was home. The air never lied. The door iris spiraled open and Ulley ran.
He waved off greetings and gestures from citizens as he sprinted down the hallway to the main concourse, turning left into the medical section then a few zigzags, racing around a long radius corner with practiced precision. He slid on the slick floor of the final turn. A narrow, white corridor dead ended in a single door leading to a series of maintenance access tubes and emergency escape pods. A child's tiny wail precipitated his dirty boots sliding to a full stop against a wall of clear poly-glass. He sucked in a big breath. His heart pounded in his chest. His rapid breathing paused; his heartbeat faded as he looked into the birthing nursery.
Reclining in a luxurious foam couch, Pennae looked up, a naked red-faced baby cradled in her arms. Her brow knotted in displeasure softened. Ulley raised his hand and pressed it against the glass. His eyes darted between the child and Pennae's goddess-like features. Her puffy cheeks flushed beneath long auburn hair troubled by the act of childbirth; her blue-gray eyes penetrated his soul. He swallowed with no saliva.
Pennae unlatched the baby from her breast to its chagrin and raised the naked child like an offering. Ulley's legs buckled. A girl. A daughter. The decision to forgo the typical gender reveal, skip a safer exo-womb incubation, deny a painless birthing process assisted by Brainlinq, waited as a beautiful angel just beyond the glass.
Pennae frowned. She was mad that he had missed the birth. She had every right. He followed her eyes, but her brow deepened as her eyes followed something behind him.
"I'm coming in. Just hold on till I decontaminate."
Pennae opened her mouth to say something then shuttered her eyes as if...
"Congratulations my friend. A momentous occasion."
Ulley turned his head. He stiffened.
Peleus Swale, the chief enforcer for Chancellor Helmut Mintaur and his Consortium's hegemony of inner worlds, stood beaming a false smile into the nursery. At Pennae, at his daughter. Ulley eyed the killer eyeing his family and slid his hand down the glass to find his work belt empty of tools to be used as a weapon.
Formal in his attire, a silver suit with a thin red tie hanging on a thick barrel chest, Swale coughed. A spray of spittle dotted the glass. "So many ways the little ones can expire. Bacteria, viruses, even exposure to the endless spectrum of micro-radiation so prevalent out here."
Ulley stood erect and stepped closer to a geneered man outweighing him by fifty kilos. Swale smirked at Ulley's pitiful posturing then he stepped back from the window.
"The Chancellor requests you join the crusade against Troia. Or should I say, requires it," Swale said.
"Fuck you. I've told him a dozen times we wouldn't join in that idiotic crusade. Troia means nothing to me."
117 light years away, the planet Troia remained a spectacular discovery, free from the influence of the Consortium. A home to billions emigrating from Earth.
Swale nodded. "But appearances matter. You as the spokesperson for the Jupiter Moon Alliance (JMA) refusing to join the fight? Oh, we know how that will play out."
"Tell him no. Fuck no!" Ulley said. He looked for Pennae, but she was gone, with his child.
"The *Argo* sails past in a few hours. She's loaded with kinetic harpoons. Hate to see one escape."
Ulley rushed the bigger man and shoved him against the opposite wall. The man smelled like a flowering rose garden, a perfume to mask the distinct aroma of a Martian sand shower. The enforcers' arms pinned to his sides, Ulley pushed his face up to the killers. "Speak plainly. Threats are nothing but words. Deceit is nothing but manipulation. Is the Chancellor prepared to bomb Ithaca if I don't join his armada of fools?"
Swale blinked twice in slow easy repetition. The Chancellor undoubtedly watched and listened through the enforcers neural interface.
Swale smirked. "The *Argo* carries new prototype harpoons, and an accidental launch could be ruled out. Or Captain Jason might hang for ineptitude, or a traitorous spy for Troia might be found. In response, the JMA will obviously mobilize their warships and combat shuttles." He let the words hang. "Your kingdom ruined. Your command ship *Homer* will be found inexplicably unscathed. Awarded to a new captain amicable to the Chancellors wishes. The Consortium will direct the JMA to slip into the wake of the dreadnought *Agamemnon*. To seek revenge."
Ulley clenched his teeth as his fists tightened against the enforcer's hard knotted wrists, but his Brainlinq confirmed the location of the battleship *Argo* approaching Jupiter, its current vector unsuited for an interstellar launch.
With lightning quick reflexes, Swale twisted his wrists free, and slapped Ulley's hands away then stepped into the middle of the corridor, his steel gray eyes narrowing like a predator stalking its prey. Tiny clicks signaled weapons embedded in his arms coming online. "I'll give you one pass for a birthday present, Ulley. Touch me again and I'll personally murder everyone in this habitat." He chuckled mirthlessly. "I'll let the Chancellor sort through the blood."
Ulley knew the enforcers' words were not a threat. Hundreds of rumored encounters with Swale circulated throughout the solar system like fodder, or fable, depending on the point of observation.
Ulley chuckled. A bluff. "You won't get out of this corridor. Kill me and the fire suppression system will suck the oxygen out of this section before you can get to the next door."
Swale blinked twice, three times. His body turned rigid as he swiveled his head to reappraise the surroundings. An opportunity. Ulley lunged for the man's throat as if it were a drill bar grinding against bedrock. Swale smiled as he swatted Ulley aside, slamming Ulley's face against the glass partition.
"And kill our precious new heir?" Swale chuckled. "You and the JMA will rendezvous with the fleet in three weeks' time. And make sure that lunatic, Patro, and the *Achilles* are with you." He patted Ulley's cheek and squinted toward something down the quiet hallway. Ulley turned as Swale brushed past him. A scent of fresh air. A scent of Pennae followed, infused with innocence and baby breath. Ulley's legs weakened with the familiar divine aroma.
The beautiful Pennae shuffled towards him, her tight floral kimono requiring tiny little steps, the bundle of cloth held close to her breast requiring additional caution. Her eyes aimed lasers at Ulley, darted to the enforcers, then back to his.
Swale paused aside Pennae to leer down at the bundle then at her. "So precious. So fragile. Congratulations."
He disappeared before Ulley could swallow.
Chapter One
(Five years later)
Using a combination of sensor data, advanced AI generated reproductions, near-functioning voice communications, Ulley watched the skirmish unfold on a holographic three-dimensional screen. The ill-conceived attack quickly collapsed beneath the onslaught of plasma beams erupting from Troia's planetary defense spheres. Bile rose from his knotted stomach into his throat.
With the exception of increasing animosity within the Consortium fleet, Chancellor Helmut Mintaur's strategists and battle-schooled AIs gained nothing from the total decimation of three small frigates, and their crews. The modifications to their protective ablation shields were a complete failure. He ignored an order from the *Agamemnon* for the return of the *Home*r*,* back to the swarm of Consortium ships stationed in orbit above the massive gas giant, Zeus.
Ulley winced and ordered his Brainlinq to dispense additional suppressants from a neural pharmaceutical package stuck to his neck and stem the sickening storm wracking his insides. The *Homer* needed to return to the fleets quartermaster stations to refuel, reequip, and listen to the incessant grumbling every sailor or soldier would be muttering beneath their breath. Possibly rioting if alcohol was involved.
"Nothing new on the attack, Captain." Executive officer Blaylock said over the ship-wide communication channel open to all crew members via Brainlinq.
*Of course not. Why would there be?*
The Consortium buffoons continued to probe the network of defense spheres with the goal of locating a single malfunctioning unit out of thousand, possibly replicating the pinhole breach Patro and the *Achilles* had discovered on its victory lap upon dismantling Troia's flagship *Hector* in an epic battle employing alien technology. Patro had followed up his victory with the destruction of the dreadnought *Priam*. Patro's exuberant celebration silenced by the diminutive frigate, *Paris,* matching the Achilles speed and trajectory and firing a kinetic harpoon into the heel of the Achilles antigravity nodes. A ton of composite stone traveling at a velocity the *Achilles* could neither deflect nor escape.
Ulley double clicked an affirmative response but remained quiet. The fifth anniversary of the siege deserved remembrance, along with prayers for the dead sailors of the frigates. Useless deaths caused by idiocy.
His second in command, Blaylock, tapped him on the shoulder, reviving Ulley from his morbid thoughts. "Get some sleep, Ulley."
The humanoid Blaylock loomed above Ulley prone in his command couch. Rigid as a tree trunk, hairless as a newborn baby, a product of genetic engineering and experimental biotech, the man...or construct, had been a godsend. Tireless, maybe, ageless, almost, but with a mind that mastered spatial constructs, gravitational vectors, velocity, mathematical equations, Ulley found tedious with the advent of Brainlinq. Blaylock's understanding of alternate universes, parallel dimensions, abstract realities, unsolvable concepts waiting to be manipulated like food requiring salt.
"Yeah. Yeah. Patro had the key. Patro lost the key." Ulley unhooked his belt then wobbled as he stood. He waved off Blaylock's assistance but looked forward to some serious bunk time.
The dream of Pennae was the first in months, years, maybe. The passing of time had become distorted in the dark void of space, lost, and incalculable. Sleep and the dreams it brought were incongruous with Ulley's unresolved awe of an infinite universe, the boundless void, a cold vacuum of death just inches away. But Pennae soothed his worries, stroked his wrinkled forehead, kissed a hawklike nose handed down from fathers and grandfathers dating back five hundred years.
He blinked fully awake, Pennae's ethereal presence remained within the curl of his fetal body commanding his hand to reach down to the wood of his erection. He stroked himself, reliving a fantasy of Pennae striding through their bedroom door to open the window shades, the bright light penetrating her silky nightgown, cloaking only her tempting finer points. Turning to him with an impish grin. The repetitive pulse of the Brainlinq signaled his fantasy was terminated.
*My wife, lost as I am, waits for me.*
Ulley rolled out of the narrow bunk and groaned. He shook the greasy mop of hair on his head and inhaled stale air.
"Status, XO?" He needed neither the XO's voice nor the status of his ship. His Brainlinq hoarded engine function parameters, communications, orbital velocity, the vital functions of his own body, the coming and goings of his crew, who was screwing who, and maybe why. An omnipotent overview of the destroyer, *Homer*.
He scratched his lengthy beard as he submitted to listening to Blaylock's lengthy dissertation of everything he already knew. Francois Blaylock had stepped into the role of executive officer with admirable quickness and efficiency after the initial assault on Troia.