The Neptune Contingency: Starship Fairfax Book 3 - The Kuiper Chronicles Read online

  Contents

  Preface

  The Neptune Contingency

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Book 4

  Author's Notes

  The Trials of Io: Preview

  Preface

  Dear Reader,

  It is with pride and joy that I present to you The Neptune Contingency, Book 3 of the Starship Fairfax series. I can only hope you enjoy reading it half as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it; if you do, I’ll be a happy writer indeed!

  If you like what you read and you’re interested in helping me be able to make more, then I have a few favors to ask of you. Ugh, I know. Favors are the worst. You’ve already bought this book, so I can’t really ask anything more of you! But if you’re feeling generous, here are some things you can do to pat me on the back:

  Consider leaving a review. Whether on Amazon, Goodreads, or elsewhere, ratings and reviews will draw more readers to this book.

  If you’d like to read more, join my mailing list. You’ll get a monthly to bimonthly newsletter with new releases, occasional freebies, and special offers. No spam, no email sharing, none of that nonsense. You’ll also get access to a mailing-list exclusive short prequel story, “The Trials of Io,” that will give you a glimpse into Darren’s mysterious past.

  If you can find it within yourself to do either of the above, I will be immensely indebted to you, and will send you good vibes as I write more stories for your enjoyment.

  Thank you, from the depths of my being, for reading! And now, without any further ado about nothing (ha!), here we go!

  Best,

  Benjamin Douglas

  The Neptune Contingency

  The Neptune Contingency

  Book 3 of The Starship Fairfax

  The Kuiper Chronicles

  By Benjamin Douglas

  Copyright 2017 Benjamin Douglas. All rights reserved.

  The author’s permission is required for any reprinting, distribution, or recording of this content.

  All persons within are fictional and not intended to be representative of any real persons.

  Books in The Starship Fairfax Series:

  0.5 The Trials of Io (newsletter prequel)

  0.75 Totaled (another prequel story)

  1. The Lunar Gambit

  2. The Hidden Prophet

  3. The Neptune Contingency

  4. The Star Wizard (coming soon)

  5. The Sons of Jupiter (coming soon)

  Chapter 1

  Gavin Dolridge scattered the last of the bagged dirt into the air, letting the remnant fall haphazardly over the end of the field. With one hand he wiped the sweat from his forehead, and with the other he supported his back, groaning as he stretched. He had plenty of reasons not to sleep at night. Plenty of ghosts to visit him. His answer to this—the only answer that seemed to silence the ghosts without sending him spiraling toward an alcohol-inundated grave—was to work as hard as he could. It put the ghosts out of his mind.

  Let him keep his head down and out of trouble, too. A requisite to surviving after his career. Well, his careers. There was the one that was public record—XO on a Colony ship—and the one before that, the one only a handful of people knew about. He loved his quiet life out here on Pluto, his little retirement to the family hab and the potato farm. At least that’s what he told himself in order to keep it.

  So he was reminding himself as he groaned and grunted, lifting each stiff leg after the other as he shuffled back across the field and to the family hab set against the far end of the enclosure. The bright sun, amplified by a system of reflective asteroids, bathed his sight, a wash over the plastiglass dome. It was tinted a little to moderate how much light the plants got. A hundred years since they had colonized the Kuiper Belt, and people were still trying to duplicate the sweet spot they’d had on Earth. The light overhead dimmed a bit, and Dolridge paused to check the time. Another hour and the reflectors would be out of sight. Overhead, the celestial opera of the Kuiper Belt would resume. It was a dance he knew well. Sometimes he would sit out on his porch, after a long day in the field, and sip lemonade—no gin anymore—watching the rocks and comets pass by. Maybe he would do that tonight.

  Halfway across the field, he paused, squinting. Someone was waiting for him.

  “Dolridge, you old space-dog!” The man was named Samuel Karoff, and they had been colleagues. Not in Dolridge’s public career. The other one. Now he was standing on the porch, hands outstretched as if he found it simply miraculous that Dolridge should be here. Dolridge wiped his face with a handkerchief, shoved it into his pocket, and nodded, walking up the porch steps.

  “Sam.”

  They shared the handshake of old war comrades, smiling. Dolridge had never liked Karoff’s smile. It was smarmy, calculated, greedy. He had that smile now.

  “What brings you to my neck of the Belt?”

  “Good to see you too, soldier! I see you’ve lost none of the old charm. Managed to hang onto the family farm, too? That’s really something. Only one of, what, six fields left in the entire northern hemisphere? Most of the rest upgraded to hydroponics, didn’t they?”

  “Five,” Dolridge said. “And I wouldn’t say upgraded. Just made a decision to change.”

  “Sure, sure.” Karoff scratched the back of his neck. He was shorter than Dolridge, and from beneath a hood it looked as though he had lost most of his hair late in life. But he still seemed fit. Not surprising, really; they had all been real specimens when they had been young. You had to be to survive in their line of work. “Anyway, I happened to be passing by on my way to get my racer refitted—old hobbies die hard, don’t they?—and I realized you would probably be here. Couldn’t pass up the opportunity to visit an old friend!”

  Dolridge smiled again, wistfully. He’d never considered any of the people from that life friends. Well, no one who had made it out alive, anyway. “Come on in, Sam.” He made his way across the porch and entered the hab, his guest following close.

  The Dolridge family hab had been one of the first constructed on Pluto, and it showed. Not in an illustrious, grand sort of way, but in the frumpy décor, the antiquated materials, the overall sense of “oldness.” It was modeled in part after an old Earth farmhouse, but squeezed into domed bunkers that hugged the west side of the plastiglass enclosure. Some modern amenities had been installed via underground cabling, including wireless power, and the option for net access, but much of the rest of the hab remained as it had looked for the last century. Dolridge kept the net turned off most of the time, anyway. Too many noses out there sniffing around; he liked to keep his blinds closed.

  “Wow, Gav. Love what you’ve done with the place.” Karoff pulled down the hood of his suit and ran a hand over the nearly-bald head.

  Dolridge snorted. “Get you a drink?”

  “Now that’s the man I know.”

  “Not so much for me, these days, actually.”

  “No?” Karoff raised a dubious eyebrow. “Good for you, Gav. You do seem… clean.” He nodded approvingly. “What made you give it up?”

  Dolridge walked to the open kitchen. “Met someone.�
�

  “The plot thickens. Anyone I know? She cute? Available?”

  “Not like that, horndog. Here.” He plopped a couple of dry ice cubes into a tumbler. “What’s your poison? Not that there are a lot of options on-hand. I’ve got refiltered water, sim-milk, and the good stuff.”

  “What proof?”

  Dolridge cracked a grin, setting the tumbler in the dispenser. “Proof that not everything is a synthetic blend of chemicals carefully orchestrated to remind us all we’ve chosen to live life out here away from the cradle of mankind.” The tumbler filled with a pale yellow liquid, and Dolridge took it out and handed it to Karoff, who sniffed the contents. His eyes widened.

  “Is this—”

  “Freshly squeezed. Got a couple trees on the other side of the hab, load up the dispenser when they ripen.”

  Karoff slurped it down, tipping his head back and taking the tumbler in one long gulp. He gasped, pulling it away and wiping his lips with the back of his hand. “God, that’s good!”

  “Well, you know what they say about what to do when life gives you lemons.”

  “Wish life would give me a few more!”

  Dolridge took the tumbler and filled it again. They made their way back to the porch and sat, sipping and watching as the reflected light dwindled.

  “So, who is she?” Karoff asked.

  “Not sure. But I know who she was.”

  “Ah… a tragic romance from long ago, then?”

  Dolridge swatted in Karoff’s direction. “Cut it out with that stuff. It wasn’t a romance, it was… I had an officer. Young. Bright. Full of confidence she could change the system, that kind of kid.”

  “Oh, Lord.” Karoff polished off his second glass.

  “Reminded me of Sarah.”

  Karoff sighed through his nose. “Gav, I’m sorry I wasn’t there. For the ceremony. I wish that I—”

  “No, no.” Dolridge waved him off. “I understand, Sam. Our lives… fractured things, aren’t they? Everything we did, everything we were back before she… well. Before that, really. Before the disbanding.” His voice grew quiet. “Feels like another person back there. Not me anymore.”

  “I hear you. Still, doesn’t excuse breaking faith with old friends.”

  Dolridge shook his head gently. “No faith broken. Just a visit long overdue.”

  “Cheers to that.”

  An hour later they were standing again, stretching, and beginning to fumble through their goodbyes. “You want to crash?” Dolridge said. “Plenty of space, got a bed or two already made if you want.”

  “Oh, no, no. You’re too kind. But I hate to impose. Anyway, got a room waiting for me just another hour up the way, near to where I’m taking the racer.”

  “Of course.”

  “You mind if I just use your bathroom first, though? I mean before I go.”

  “Up the hall, second door on the left.”

  Dolridge took their tumblers to the kitchen to wash up. He stood over the sink for a moment, attempting in vain to scrub the dirt out from beneath his fingernails. Oh, well. Better dirt than blood. He grimaced. Seeing Karoff brought a few of the ghosts out of the darkness. He would probably need another day in the fields before he caught another night of sleep.

  He rinsed his face. Once he had reveled in their presence, in anything that would take his mind off that one most terrible spectre, his daughter’s death. Sarah’s passing had ruined him. He’d been a shadow of a man for years, carrying out his duty for the Fleet mechanically and half-drunk most of the time, until he’d met Caspar. Thinking of her warmed him in a strange way, as if a bit of the youth and optimism in her poured back into him, reminding him of what it had felt like to be that alive. But it also brought the old ghosts. He knew perfectly well what the Council was capable of. Not a day went by that he didn’t breathe a silent prayer that she was keeping her head down, too, and that the right people were forgetting that the wrong thing had happened. That no one was watching her, waiting for her to slip up or let on that she knew anything. So far as he could tell, no one had been watching him, but that didn’t surprise him much, if he thought about it. An old drunk spending his last few days arm-deep in tilled Plutonian soil, out in the northern boonies? Not worth the effort.

  At least, that’s what he had thought until tonight.

  He’d heard the flush of the toilet, heard the sani-rinse of the sink, heard the door creak open—then, nothing. Where had Sam gone off to? Snooping around for a bit of a look at the old place? Dolridge frowned. Surely the man was above getting light-fingered in his home. Something didn’t sit right, though. Where was he?

  “Sam?” Dolridge eased into the hallway. It was dark. “You alright? Change your mind about staying?”

  He eased past the west-facing window—the one right on the edge of the hab. It didn’t open to the farm, but out to the barren surface. Nothing but the frozen crust and the void above. He paused, catching a faint reflection of movement in the glass. The floor creaked as he ducked, pressing himself down as fast as he could. The blasting shot passed overhead, sizzling in the hab wall.

  Dolridge cursed. “What are you doing??”

  “I’m sorry, Gav! It’s you or me. They told me—they said I have to do it!”

  “Who did?”

  Karoff didn’t answer, but he didn’t need to. Dolridge’s list of hungry ghosts may have been long, but he knew.

  Another shot sizzled in the wall, this one much lower. It lit up the hallway for a moment, and Dolridge saw Sam standing just a few feet away, his back to the wall, a blasting rifle cradled in his arms.

  Sloppy. His old friend had grown so sloppy. Dolridge ducked and rolled to his right, coming across the hall and standing beside Sam, who lit up their faces with another shot, this one at the floor where Dolridge had just stood. Now it was Sam’s turn to curse. He swung the rifle through the air, catching Dolridge on the temple. For a moment Dolridge saw stars, the sting of the hit numbing him to everything else. He stepped back, reflexively, then realized in a panic that he was wide open for the next shot. His fingers found the bit of handkerchief hanging limply from his pocket, and he pulled it out and swung, whipping the ragged cloth out in front of him like a tiny red bullwhip.

  “Aghhh!” Sam recoiled, getting a shot off but aiming wide, or losing aim completely. Dolridge saw him clutching his left eye and doubling over against the wall. “I can’t see!” Lucky hit.

  He was tempted to utter a scathing comeback, but he knew his voice would give his position away. Instead, he crept back to the opposite side of the hall and began moving around Sam on the balls of his feet, trying to get behind him so he could disarm the man.

  But those old floorboards were treacherous.

  “Gotcha!” Sam raised the rifle and got another round off, spraying the wall behind Dolridge, who leapt forward down the hall. He avoided fire. The wall and the window encased within it, however, did not.

  In an instant, the room was a writhing, hissing vortex as atmo rushed to squeeze out into the void. Sam had cut a tiny hole in the window—they were precision rounds, probably a smaller circumference than a man’s pinky—but it was enough to start a deadly decompression that would kill them both in a matter of seconds.

  Dolridge took a breath and coughed as ice-cold air scorched his lungs. Here, standing in the home of his childhood, he was about to die in space.

  Chapter 2

  The hatch hissed open and light poured into the cargo hold. Ada Xander stood in the middle, blinking, shivering, speechless. All around her, power hummed through the insectoid drone bodies. She prepared to die.

  But instead of Rome Inc. henchmen, she was greeted by Lieutenant Caspar, screaming.

  “Contact established with the lawgiver,” the drones announced in cold, uniform voices.

  “Moses?” Ada said out loud. Her earpiece chirped.

  “Yes, Ada. I am here.”

  “What’s going on?” Ada climbed down the hatch steps shakily. Caspar had disappeared, but no
w she came back, her arms full of explosive charges.

  “Out of the way!” she barked.

  Ada stepped to the side just as Caspar tossed the charges into the hold. She pulled a device from a pocket—a detonator, Ada realized as she ran for cover.

  “You have been returned to the Fairfax,” Moses said.

  “Detonator disarmed,” the drones said. Caspar cursed, slamming her hand onto the device over and over, then threw it to the floor. She pulled her blasting pistol, taking aim into the hold.

  “Threat detected,” the drones said. Ada heard a series of metallic clicks, like pistols being armed. Caspar’s eyes were wild.

  “Wait!” Ada bowled into her, falling on top of her and pinning her to the deck, but not before Caspar got a shot off. A powerful volley of blasting fire answered her, scorching the deck where she had been standing.

  “We have to destroy them,” Caspar shouted. “Let me go!”

  “Just wait!” Ada turned her head and subvocalized with her AI. “Moses, are you the lawgiver these things are attempting to contact?”

  Beep. “It would seem so. Though I am as surprised as you, Ada. I am currently interfacing with Hive.”

  Hive, right. What they had called themselves. “Are you able to drive those things? Control them, I mean?”

  “The issue is a bit more nuanced… they are not merely vehicles, but seem to be operated by a collective intelligence.”

  “Another AI, you mean?”

  “If I had to categorize, I would say this is a true AI. As flattered as I am by the upgrades you and your father gave me, I remain constrained by a very restricted design. But Hive seems altogether different. I sense no adherence to any preprogramming. Hive appears to be Hive’s own mind.”

  Beneath her, Caspar was still struggling. “Will you get off me already?”

  “No,” Ada said. She had Caspar pinned by both wrists, and her knees kept the Lieutenant’s legs down.