Flight of the Magnus Read online

  FLIGHT

  OF THE

  MAGNUS

  A Project Waypoint Novel

  L. S. Roebuck

  SHADOWLANDS PRESS

  Tyler, Texas

  Flight of The Magnus

  © 2018 L.S. Roebuck

  Kindle Edition

  ISBN 13: 978-0-9986090-3-4

  1.0

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, website or broadcast.

  Published by Shadowlands Press

  3706 Woods Blvd.

  Tyler, Texas 75707

  www.shadowlandspress.com

  For Cherissa, for everything

  And with gratitude to Mom and Dad for cultivating my love of the great space opera. I nearly wore out Mom’s VHS Star Trek movie collection, and one of my favorite childhood memories is when Dad took me and my brothers in the summer of 1980 to see the Empire Strikes Back at the Razorback Theater in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

  And special thanks to Julie, Merwin, Amy J., Laura, Rebecca, Matt, Paul and Andy whose joyful feedback on Waypoint Magellan inspired this book.

  In memory of Lt. Commander Eric Murray.

  PROLOGUE

  Magnus (Latin) — Literal meaning ‘great.’ Many early kings incorporated the word into their name (see Magnus I, king of Norway and Denmark c. 1050 A.D.)

  Waypoint Cortes, January 13, 2603, Earth date, three months after the battle of Magellan.

  Perspiration rolled from Arvin’s forehead into his eyes. They stung. He wanted to wipe them, but was afraid to loosen his grip on the gun clutched between his unsteady hands. He pointed the firearm down the empty, brightly lit, yellow-walled hall. Just around the corner, some 30 meters from where he stood, was the Waypoint Cortes Commons, a marketplace for foodstuffs and imported goods, with nearly a dozen restaurants providing entrees for a wide variety of ethnic palettes. Usually the Commons was swarming with sizzles and smells, people chatting and eating, enjoying the company of friends. Now it was nearly silent.

  Arvin, straining to listen to what he could not see, heard a child crying, then a man pleading. Next, calm voices explaining how the condemned should not be troubled, their sacrifice was for the “greater good.”

  Arvin had decided that no matter what happened, he would go down fighting. He wasn’t wired like a Marine, but over the past few months, he found he was quick with a gun and could move freely within the waypoint undetected.

  He was now just 10 meters from rounding the corner and exposing himself to the Commons.

  “Delton, please,” a man’s voice said. “Spare my wife and my child. Please. How could killing them be for any good?”

  Arvin knew Delton, a piggish merchant who was quick with an insult, but Arvin couldn’t believe, even with all his flaws, Delton was capable of murder.

  The young child started to cry loudly, and Arvin heard a woman’s voice start to sing an unknown lullaby. The child calmed down.

  An almost robotic, monotone female voice spoke. “Your family is everything that is wrong with humanity. You oppress your spouse with child rearing, a burden that should be carried on all shoulders. You selfishly teach your children to honor your family name over the state, over the common good. That tribalism, that individualism, is evil that must be extinguished.”

  “I am not oppressed, you bitch,” the woman who had been singing shouted. “We should have exiled you Chasm trash when we had the chance.”

  Arvin’s back was to the wall. His gun was raised as he prepared to intervene. Several weeks ago, the thought of taking someone’s life was completely foreign. He’d never even held a stun gun before, much less a lethal bullet weapon. The gun he had now was given to him by a dying Marine, who had sacrificed his life to save Arvin and his older sister, Olana.

  More than a year ago, Olana, a news aggregator, had started reporting her theory that a secret organization code-named Chasm that was planning to take over waypoints Cortes, Marquette and Magellan. All other waypoints were to be destroyed. At first the public dismissed her reports as some fantastic conspiracy theory. But then she uncovered some secret communiques between a shadowy figure called the Chairman on Arara, a planet hosting humanity’s first colony, and Falcon One, the alleged leader of a Chasm cell on Cortes. The waypoint authorities started to wonder if Olana’s theory could be true.

  With Olana’s latest revelations, a group of well-respected Cortes citizens — including Marines, teachers and government officials — revealed themselves to be members of the Chasm organization. They suggested Olana’s theories of Chasm conquest were just sensationalistic drivel to improve ratings, and in reality, Chasm was a society that quietly studied theories on how to improve humanity. Claiming they were being made scapegoats of traditionalist intolerance, the Chasm group announced an open meeting to explain their work and show how this shadowy organization was really working for the common good.

  More than 1000 people, including most of Cortes’ leading citizens, showed up for the presentation at the historic Barack Obama Auditorium, located in the heart of the waypoint. The meeting was a ruse; Chasm operatives detonated a bomb that incinerated the auditorium, its occupants, and started chain reaction fires spreading across the waypoint. That was more than a dozen 28-hour-long days ago. Chasm operatives, which numbered nearly 10 times the original group that came forward, moved to seize control of Cortes’ command center. A motley group of traditionalists and progressives who opposed the totalitarian control launched an armed resistance to Chasm, including Arvin and his sister.

  Waypoint Cortes was one of 18 space stations distributed evenly in the 8.5 lightyear gap between Earth and Arara, each an interstellar oasis where ships making the decades-long trip would make port and resupply. The waypoints were like floating cities, with permanent populations between five and fifteen thousand. Known collectively as Project Waypoint, the greatest engineering achievement of mankind enabled humanity to live among the stars indefinitely. For the adventurous souls leaving Earth for the Arara colony, the waypoints made the 20-year journey a little less lonely.

  Chasm had spent the last 60 years plotting to take over or destroy the waypoints, to end the connection between Earth and Arara, so that Arara could build a utopian society, unhampered by a traditionalist Earth. That plan was coming to fruition before Arvin’s eyes.

  Arvin breathed heavily. He wasn’t a coward, but he was finding it hard to resist his instinct to flee the scene and avoid a confrontation with Dalton and his mysterious female counterpart.

  “Jonathan, you must understand that the old things must pass away to make way for the new. I’m pretty sure that’s in your scriptures somewhere,” Delton’s familiar voice spoke evenly. “But I am not without mercy. I will spare you the pain of seeing your wife and child eliminated, and you will die first.”

  “No!” shouted the mother’s voice.

  As he rounded the corner, a gunshot rang in Arvin’s ears.

  Arvin recoiled at what he saw. The wife jumped in front of Dalton’s outstretched weapon to save her husband, and the bullet lodged in her head.

  “Shawna!” Jonathan knelt by his wife, who was dead before she hit the floor. The child, Arvin guessed was just over one Earth year old, started to cry again, drawing the attention of its father, Delton and the highly armored woman, a Chasm shock trooper, who accompanied Delton.

  Arvin took advantage of the distraction to aim and let loose a volley of bullets a
t the shock trooper. “For Cortes!” he shouted as he advanced, emptying the small clip in his gun. The force of the bullets pushed the trooper to the floor, causing her to drop her assault rifle, but her armor held fast. Delton turned from the crying child to the rapidly approaching Arvin, and aimed his sidearm at Arvin’s chest, but before he could shoot, Delton was suddenly thrown to the ground.

  Jonathan was a small man, but he was still able to knock Delton to the floor as he reached to take the Chasm operative’s gun. Delton and Jonathan both had two hands on the gun as they wrestled on cold steel.

  “You killed my wife, you murderer,” Jonathan fought with rage. “I am going castrate you and make you eat it! Then I’m going to throw you out the airlock.”

  Delton, struggling for the gun, just laughed. “My death doesn’t matter. I will be honored in the new Araran order, remembered forever by a perfect people.”

  Arvin, shaking, struggled to reload his gun. The shock trooper had regained her footing and her assault rifle, squatted behind a dining table for cover, peered over and very carefully targeted Arvin’s head. “One bullet is all I need. No need to waste ammo,” the trooper said to no one in particular.

  It was her last thought, as a bullet from another gun penetrated the trooper’s brain.

  “I couldn’t have said it better myself,” said a woman who looked to be in her early twenties who had appeared on the far side of the Commons. She regarded Arvin. “Are you okay, brother?”

  “Olana!” Arvin looked at his sister, who was standing with a smoking sniper rifle. She wore a black vinyl jumpsuit, and her short, dark hair was pulled into a ponytail. She stood confidently tall.

  Had Chasm never existed, Olana would not have discovered that her best element was war. This was a war that Olana, writer-turned-warrior, was determined to win.

  From the struggle on the floor, three shots rang out. Jonathan’s body now slumped on top of Delton, who managed to get the close-quarter shots off into the recent widower. Jonathan looked at Arvin, with eternal sadness in his eyes. “Save my girl. Save Nora.” Then he died.

  Olana ran up to Delton as he was pushing Jonathan’s carcass off of his own body, in a vain attempt to escape. She gently touched the heel of her boot to Delton’s cheek, and then gave a mighty thrust from her muscular leg.

  Delton’s muscles relaxed and his eyes went glassy as life left him.

  The baby girl, along on the floor, continued to wail.

  Olana reached over and picked up Nora, clutched the baby, tears flowing from her eyes. “Shhhhhhhh, little one. Everything is going to be alright. Arvin and I will take care of you.”

  “Another orphan,” Arvin said, feeling compassion. “Come on, let’s get back to the Mexican Quarter and see if there is anyone in the resistance who can take care of Nora.”

  “No,” Olana said firmly, handing the baby over to Arvin. Arvin awkwardly took the girl in his arms, not sure how to hold her and ultimately deciding to face her into himself with her head leaning on his shoulder.

  “No?” Arvin said, as Olana recovered her handmade sniper rifle.

  “It’s now a suicide mission, something Chasm is calling ... ‘scorched earth.’ They are going to destroy the whole waypoint. We have to get off.”

  Arvin couldn’t wrap his head around what his sister just said. How could they get off Cortes? Where would they go? In what? There were no deep space ships within at least a light year. The smaller vessels didn’t have anywhere near the operational range to travel the half a light year distance to Magellan or Marquette, the nearest waypoints.

  “You mean we are going to steal a ship?” Arvin protested. “That’s certain death.”

  “No,” Olana said with a little too much game in her voice. “That’s almost certain death. Staying on this waypoint is certain death. Now let’s get moving. There is a storage unit on the far side of the Tube station that we need to break into and grab as many rations as we can haul. Then get onto the hanger.”

  “Wait! I don’t know how to pilot a runabout. You don’t know how to pilot a runabout,” Arvin stated. “Do you?”

  “No, no.”

  “Well then who is going to run the ship?”

  “Tomas.”

  Ugh, Tomas, thought Arvin. He didn’t approve of his sister’s flyboy boyfriend. But he could pilot the ship.

  “What about her parents?” Arvin said, indicating the deceased. “Shouldn’t we at least bury them at space?”

  “No time. Their souls are in a better place,” Olana. “Now let’s move.”

  Arvin followed Olana in the direction of the tube, with Nora peering over Arvin’s shoulder at her mother, motionless on the floor.

  “Momma,” Nora cried the only word she knew how to say.

  On the command center platform stood Falcon One, leader of the Chasm Triumvirate on Cortes. Chasm had taken operational control of the waypoint nine days ago. The command center was a large oval room lined with double balconies in full circumference. On each balcony was all manner of operational stations and control terminals, each with its own magnetic resonance screen, and a loyal Chasm operative inputting a litany of commands at the direction of Falcon One. From the center station, Falcon One had a line of sight and could issue direct commands to any of these stations.

  Falcon One was a code name for Franco Romero, a 42-year-old futures trader, who joined the Chasm movement only five years ago. Romero was born on Cortes and had never been off the waypoint. He was an average height, and sported a muscular build. His light brown skin was flawless, and his dark eyes were energetic. He ran his delicate fingers through his thick, black hair, a tell that he was frustrated.

  Romero was a man of ambition, and he wanted to be the absolute master of Cortes. When he barely lost the election to become Cortes’ governor to an establishment candidate from a wealthy trading family, a Chasm Hawk named Igland, a harsh, solid man, saw an opportunity to recruit Romero to the utopian cause.

  The Chasm Hawks were a deeply secretive sect of an already secretive movement. They swore allegiance in a blood ceremony to execute the will of the Chairman, Chasm’s leader on Arara, and made sure that other operatives did the same. These were the truest believers in Chasm’s dream of a utopian society built on Arara, completely split from Earth, where the common good triumphed over crass individualism and family tribalism.

  Romero’s ambitions and attractive charisma helped him quickly rise among the shadowy ranks of Chasm, and now he was master of Chasm on Cortes, and soon Chasm would have complete control of the waypoint.

  Romero ran both hands through his hair and sat back in his chair, sighing loudly. He knew his life quest was about to come to an explosive end, and he couldn’t figure out any way to stop it. Or even save his own life.

  His communication officer, Sari, a portly woman with curly blonde hair, stepped into the center ring of the command center.

  “The communication packets for today have arrived,” Sari said with an air of hopelessness in her voice. “I’ve decrypted it. There was no rescinding the order. Scorched Earth is still on.”

  “I can’t do it,” Falcon One said aloud to himself. “I can’t kill everyone on board Cortes.”

  Suddenly the command center grew quiet, as the half dozen Chasm officers and nearly dozen operatives turned and focused on their leader.

  “It’s what you are all thinking,” Romero shouted, as the pondered the reality of impending death. “Are we really going to commit suicide for Arara?”

  A nervous silence hung over the Cortes command center. Sari slid two fingers under her collar and pulled outward. Even though the room was climate controlled at 22 degrees, sweat started to bead in a line above her blonde eyebrows.

  Ryder, a member of the Chasm Triumvirate charged with running the clandestine organization’s intelligence apparatus, finished sending a message using her infopad, set the device down and stood, clearing her throat to draw everyone’s attention.

  “Franco, my friend, our fearless leader,
where is your courage now?” the spymaster said with a sultry cadence that had an attractive melody, but a menacing harmony. Like always, she was dressed dramatically, wearing a tight red dress that matched her blood-colored lipstick.

  “No, Ryder, listen to me now,” Romero attempted to take emotional command of the room, but instead he sounded desperate and seemed to shrink. “We have all worked so hard to liberate Cortes from the shackles of Earth. Why should we have to destroy this waypoint? That wasn’t the plan.”

  Ryder sauntered toward the center platform where Falcon One stood, pushing her flowing dark hair back as her dark eyes flirted with several nervous male troops positioned near the command center’s primary access portal.

  “Apparently plans change,” Ryder said, as she absentmindedly ran her fingernails across a platform safety rail, letting her long, red fingernails gently scrape against the rutted carbon polymer. “Are you questioning the wisdom of the Chairman? Did she err when she made you Chasm’s leader of this waypoint? I don’t blame her. You don’t look the coward’s part.”

  “Why should the Chairman be deciding our fate? Look, I’ve never even met her,” Romero said, glancing frantically around at the rest of the bridge crew. “Listen everyone. We, the citizens of Waypoint Cortes we can figure out a way to survive without Arara or Earth.”

  “So, this is how it is,” Ryder was now standing face to face with Romero. “You care more about yourself than you do about perfecting humanity. You used Chasm to further your own selfish goals. Tsk, tsk. How selfish, letting your own petty ambition convince you to thwart the common good. Perhaps it’s time to step down and let someone else lead this glorious revolution. If Cortes could be saved, you know the Chairman would have saved it. But we’ve known Scorched Earth protocol was a possibility for six months. Something has gone wrong on Marquette.”