Dryker's Folly: Book 1 in Void Wraith Origins Read online

  Dryker’s Folly

  Void Wraith Origins Book 1

  Chris Fox

  Chris Fox Writes LLC

  Copyright © 2020 by Chris Fox

  All rights reserved.

  Contents

  1. Planetoid Body

  2. Signal of Unknown Origin

  3. Fizgig

  4. High Gs

  5. Mow

  6. Dr. Reid

  7. Damn That Man

  8. The Johnston

  9. Compromise

  10. Not So Full of Shit

  11. Self-Five

  12. Rhodium

  13. Sharena

  14. Off the Grid

  15. A Plan

  16. Void Wraith

  17. Evolving

  18. Lootbag

  19. Director Patel

  20. Relaycom

  21. Acknowledged

  22. Free and Clear

  23. Old Friend

  24. Battle Joined

  25. The Future of Pride Leonis

  26. Dryker's Folly

  27. Einstein. Hawking. Reid

  28. Primo Hospitality

  29. Contaminated

  30. Tigrana

  31. Vanguard

  32. Come With Us, Sir

  33. Attrition

  34. Tested

  35. Mute

  36. Even the Odds

  37. Escape Velocity

  38. Respectability

  39. Izzy Prideless

  Epilogue

  Exiled

  Exiled

  1. Payload

  2. Anomaly

  3. The Admiral

  4. Sparhawk

  5. Coronas 127

  6. Mining Drone

  7. A Piece of the Puzzle

  8. Face to Face

  9. Admiral Chu

  10. Sector 12

  11. Chu

  12. Turned

  13. Decision

  14. Coronas 6

  15. How Many Rounds

  16. Complications

  17. Chaos

  18. On Your Feet

  19. Final Confrontation

  20. Celebration

  21. Hung Out to Dry

  22. Problem Solved

  1

  Planetoid Body

  Dryker feathered the jets on his EVA, ignoring the cloud of rock and debris slowly spinning toward his dilapidated cargo ship. He had a few minutes before it reached the Folly, which should be enough time to secure the cargo and get the hell out of there.

  He hooked himself to the Folly’s third coil, which emitted its welcoming vibration. Even though he couldn’t hear it in space, his mind was so used to the hum inside the ship that it automatically supplied it here, too. Each coil was a massive magnet designed to power the gauss cannon.

  The first magnet pulled cargo down the barrel. When it reached the middle of that section, the magnet turned off and the next one activated. By the time cargo reached the sixth magnet it had been accelerated to 1/18th the speed of light.

  That speed put it a thousand times faster than Voyager 1, which meant it could reach Earth in a week. He’d never seen the lunar cargo yard where they’d catch the rocks he fired, but imagined they must have one hell of a net.

  “Okay, let’s see what we’re working with, girl.” He patted Folly’s hull and inspected the scoring along the third coil. The outer hull had been shredded by a micro-meteor, and the copper was exposed. His heart sank. If a meteor had punctured the coil it could be lodged inside, and he didn’t have the equipment to remove it for repairs. He’d have to limp all the way back to Outlier Station, and between fuel and parts he’d be further behind than when he started.

  Dryker feathered his jets and maneuvered his mask just outside the scoring. He reached into the exposed copper and withdrew a hunk of glittering rock the size of his fist. A dark stone surrounded a core of silvery metal that shone from under the Folly’s running lights. Pure rhodium, or pure enough anyway.

  He slid the rock into his cargo pouch, and inspected the damage again. After removing several more fragments he judged the area clear, and triggered a series of commands on the keyboard set into his suit’s wrist. A diagram of the ship flickered into holographic life, with a green circle over each of the other coils, and a red X over this one.

  “Naomi, can you run another diagnostic?” he asked.

  “Of course, Captain Dryker,” the AI’s digitized cheerfulness flowed through the suit’s internal speakers. “One moment.”

  “Scan complete.” The red X shifted to a yellow question mark. “Removing the contaminant has rectified the problem.”

  “We’d better hope so, kid,” he muttered as he gave the coil one last inspection. “If that coil doesn’t fire, then the payload won’t reach Earth for…well, a long-ass time.”

  “Two-point-six years, Captain Dryker,” Naomi supplied cheerfully.

  He shook his head. The AI was damned useful, but her forced cheerfulness underscored how primitive she was. She’d cheerfully tell him about the destruction of his ship, or his own impending death. There was no real human emotion there. Of course, she was also his only companion. Beggars and choosers and all that.

  Dryker surveyed the oft-repaired cargo nets affixed to the Folly’s aft side. Instead of reaching Earth in weeks, as promised, eighteen hundred pounds of rhodium and platinum would drift through space for years. He was pretty sure his investors weren’t going to wait years.

  “Well, it’s not like I can fix it out here.” Dryker licked his lips. “Either this is going to work, or it’s—”

  A beam of rippling white brilliance split the black, illuminating the sea of rocks forming the Kupier Belt at the edge of the solar system. The beam streaked toward Sol, an impossible distance away. It reminded him of the laser targeting systems he’d used back in the Rangers, but on an epic scale.

  “Naomi, what in the hell was that?” Dryker demanded. He guided the EVA back toward the airlock, but his attention was on the retreating light. “Some sort of tight-beamed communication burst?”

  “Initial scans suggest that is exactly what it is, Captain Dryker,” Naomi supplied cheerfully, as always. “The light has a nonlinear modulation, and appears to contain an immense amount of data.”

  The light had already passed them, and continued unerringly toward the glittering star on the horizon. Why would you fire a communication into a star? And who had fired it in the first place?

  “Warm up the cannon and launch the cargo.” Dryker pulled up to the panel outside the airlock and cycled it open. He kicked off the rung, then cycled the door behind him. Re-pressurization took an eternity, and he resisted the urge to ask more questions until he could finally remove his suit.

  Dryker popped off the helmet with a hiss, then removed the gauntlets. He had enough practice that removing the entire suit took less than sixty seconds.

  He left the cargo bag affixed to the suit. The nugget was too small to justify going back out to add it to the shipment.

  “Naomi, have you pinpointed the origin of that transmission?” Dryker demanded as he ducked under the bulkhead into the ship’s combination mess, cockpit, and quarters. The 250-square-foot interior was even smaller than his studio apartment back in San Francisco.

  He paused to kiss two fingers, then pressed them over the quote on the wall. Rangers Lead the Way!

  Naomi’s voice now came from the speakers set into the captain’s chair. “The transmission originated from a large planetoid body, designated colloquially as Pluto, Captain Dryker. That should be impossible. There is no record of any outpost on that planetoid. No manned expedition has ever passed closer than we are at this precise mo
ment.”

  “Even if there were some sort of outpost, they’d have to have phenomenal tech to generate that signal.” Dryker slid into the command chair, which doubled as his bed. And toilet. Other than the tiny treadmill affixed to the ceiling, it was the ship’s only real feature, unless you counted consoles. “Fire up the Quantum and see if you can get Sheng on the line.”

  Naomi chimed softly. “Reminder: Commander Sheng has repeatedly requested that you refer to her by her rank. She prefers it if you do not use her name.”

  “That’s why I do it, kid.” Dryker tapped the ignition sequence and held his breath as the cannon warmed up. The hum built in the first coil, and the entire ship bucked as it fired. To the human ear the hums overlapped, and he couldn’t distinguish them as the rest of the coils fired.

  Dryker relaxed back into the chair and reached down to the pouch attached to the base. He removed a sealed flask and squeezed a bit of whiskey into his mouth.

  Naomi chimed again. “Reminder: Drinking during service hours is prohibited. The infraction has been logged.”

  “I’m celebrating.” Dryker replaced the flask, and settled comfortably into his chair. He tapped the hologram and dragged the reports cube into the foreground. “Predicted arrival is fifteen days, seven hours. Well within tolerance.” He gave a broad smile to no one in particular. “Okay, get Sheng on the line.”

  The view screen opposite the command chair flared to life with a light blue Q emblazoned on the bottom corner, and the word ‘connecting’ emblazoned across the center. A moment later the screen resolved into the view of a familiar ship’s bridge. The UA Johnston, one of the more famous destroyers from the war with the Indo-Russian coalition. She was a battle-tested killer, the kind no vessel wanted to tangle with.

  A severe asian woman in her late twenties sat ramrod straight in the captain’s chair, a datapad on one knee. The corners of her mouth were turned down, already prepared to become the inevitable frown.

  “Thanks for taking my call, Sheng. Does this mean that we’re—”

  “Cut the crap, Dryker,” the commander snapped. Yup, there was that frown. “I’ve heard all your lines, and you aren’t creative enough to have come up with any new ones. What do you want?”

  He was used to that kind of reaction from UA forces, and from her in particular. They considered him a deserter. Anyone who’d mustered out of the UA after the armistice was a single step from traitor. He didn’t let it derail him.

  “I’m transmitting some video footage.” Dryker keyed in the transfer and watched as the bar slowly filled to 100%. “I realize you can’t tell me much, but your super secret installation on Pluto just fired off some sort of burst transmission. On the off chance you’re not high enough to have clearance I thought you might be interested.”

  Sheng blinked down at her tablet, silent for long moments. She cocked her head, and finally looked up. “Dryker, I can assure you, we don’t have an outpost on Pluto. No one does. I don’t know what this is, but we didn’t build it.”

  2

  Signal of Unknown Origin

  The rest of the call with Sheng had been unremarkable. He’d pressed for information, and she’d claimed she had none. Maybe she was even telling the truth. It was very possible the UA brass hadn’t told Sheng about the installation, and it was remotely possible that the installation belonged to someone else.

  Either way, he found it mind-boggling. The Kupier Belt around Earth’s solar system was far, far too distant to be practical for installations. Only the new Photon drive allowed ships like the Folly to even make it out here, and the trips were expensive. Building an installation on Pluto would be astronomically expensive. And what purpose would it serve?

  “Captain Dryker.” Naomi’s sudden voice made him jump. “We have an incoming Quantum request.”

  “Put it up,” Dryker ordered. He loved saying that. It made him feel like a real captain, instead of a glorified tech keeping a ship he owned just over 10% of flying long enough to make other men rich and himself moderately comfortable.

  The screen resolved into the bridge of the Johnston again. Sheng’s frown was back. “I need a favor.”

  “And I need a retirement plan and knee surgery.” He tried a smile, but Sheng was immune. Her eyes grew, if possible, even more frosty. “Okay, okay. What do you want, Sheng?”

  “The UA is officially commandeering your vessel,” she explained uncomfortably. “They want you to follow the Johnston to Pluto.”

  Dryker blinked at her for several incomprehensible seconds. Then he began to laugh. “You and I both know that will never fly with the company. They’re not going to authorize the fuel use, and they certainly aren’t going to let me risk the Folly. Not happening, Sheng.”

  “Dryker, listen. The brass don’t want me telling you anything, but they aren’t out here. They don’t understand how little authority we actually have this far from Earth.” She folded her hands in her lap, and leaned toward the screen. “Between you and me, we’ve never seen anything like that signal burst. It was moving significantly faster than light, and it was aimed directly at Sol.”

  Dryker let the words settle over him, and didn’t like the way they felt. “Faster than light? How is that even possible? Like, physics and stuff, right?” He shook his head slowly. He didn’t understand everything about relativity, but Einstein had seemed pretty certain. “You really have no idea who sent that signal? The Indos don’t have anything like that kind of tech, or they’d have used it when they had the chance.”

  “It’s too early to know, but this is way beyond us. The UA has their best teams on it, and so does everyone else.”

  “Ah, so that’s the reason.” Dryker snorted. “Broadcasting that signal takes valuable equipment. The UA, the IR, and every other little faction are going to be all over that planet stripping everything they can find.”

  Sheng closed her eyes. “Pluto isn’t a planet.”

  “Okay, planetoid body,” Dryker corrected himself. “My point stands. Everyone is going to want a piece of this, and you’re hoping the UA can send me in so you can fire anything you find back to Earth. That’s what’s happening here, right? You get there first and claim salvage. That gives you the moral high ground.” He was quite proud of himself for figuring it out, basic as it was.

  “I don’t have the luxury of asking questions,” Sheng said, infusing the words with the kind of practiced patience perfected by parents everywhere. Her expression confirmed his suspicions. “All I know is that you’re ordered to take the Folly to Pluto. It will take us almost fourteen hours to get there. My people tell me that you can be there in seventeen.”

  Dryker pretended to consider it for a long moment. “I’ll have to check in with the company—you know that. If I do this without authorization, my career is over, and I’ll probably end up in cryo-prison for endangering company property. No thanks.”

  He knew that Sheng valued the law above everything. It was what made her such a great officer, and at least part of the reason she always said no to a date. She wouldn’t date him because she considered him a scoundrel. Well, that’s what he told himself anyway. In her head it was probably loser.

  “Fine. But be quick about it, and let me know the second you have an answer. Sheng out.” The screen went dark, leaving Dryker alone with his thoughts.

  He wasn’t planning on calling the company. It would be a waste of time. Not only would they tell him no about meeting with the UA, but they’d also demand he fly out there immediately, with vague assurances of a percentage of whatever he found. Best case scenario, he’d find something valuable that everyone in the belt wanted to get their hands on.

  Then he had to somehow fire it safely back to Earth, and hope the company didn’t just take it. Which they 100% would. So Dryker turned the Quantum back on, cracked the tab on what passed for zero-G beer, and started watching Galaxy’s Edge, his favorite war holo series. It was the only one he’d seen that managed to capture what it was really like to be a soldier o
n the line.

  He knew it was a coping mechanism. The existence of aliens could be confirmed, by him, in the next twenty-four hours. That was a lot to take in. The simplest way of dealing with it was not to, and right now that was the best he could manage. He’d let his subconscious chew on things for a bit, and then make a decision.

  A tiny red notification flashed on the corner of the screen letting him know that his news-sniffer app had a story it thought he might be interested in.

  He tapped the icon and the pair of starships duking it out was replaced by a reporter floating in a bright white EVA suit. Behind her, several glittering shapes filled the rest of the screen. They were grainy, but the long, bronze arrowheads were obviously vessels. He wasn’t familiar with the class. The bastards were big though.

  “We’ve got our first look at the new arrivals. It remains unclear how the vessels were able to emerge from our sun,” the reporter explained. Colorful animated metrics about the sun and how much energy it would take to escape its gravitational pull flowed across the bottom of the screen. “We don’t yet know who they are, or what their intentions might be.”