Solar Storm (Galaxy Mavericks Book 5) Page 12

  Turn the page to read the first two chapters of Rogue Colony, the story of Michiko Lins, a disaster volunteer worker who discovers trouble while responding to the crisis on Refugio.

  PREVIEW OF BOOK 6, ROGUE COLONY

  Chapter 1

  Michiko Lins waited for her next assignment in the canteen of a transport carrier.

  She glanced at a tablet on the table in front of her.

  Blank.

  It had been a long hour, waiting for the assignment from headquarters that would change her life. Again. At least for the next few months. Crazy to think that her life was in the government’s hands.

  She couldn't take the waiting.

  There were so many places the Galaxy Corps could send her.

  Some of them made her nervous. Like the border planets near Argus. Or the colonies deep in the recesses of the galaxy, where no one would hear her communications for hours if something went wrong.

  Yet she kept telling herself that she signed up for this.

  She closed her eyes and listened to the ship’s quiet hum as it cruised through space. The canteen smelled like a global kitchen—on the various stoves, there were skillets with remnants of curry, rice, beans, and other foods the passengers had made for lunch just a little while ago. A plate of half-eaten pork dumplings and rice balls sat on her plate, next to the tablet, along with a cup of yerba mate tea.

  Again her eyes went to the tablet.

  Nothing.

  She sighed, cradling the acoustic guitar on her lap.

  She rolled her finger tips across the strings. Quietly, slowly, she began to play a gentle samba.

  A samba for all the people she'd known. A samba for all the places she'd been. A samba for love, a samba for sadness, a samba for all those feelings in between. She held in her mind’s eye her mother, pale and beautiful in a kimono, her dad, tall and dark in a soccer jersey, the blue ocean shores of her home planet, Asiazil, the sunlight shining on the water, the dancing sands, the echoes of beach laughter among gentle waves, smiling faces, the dancing—so much dancing!—and drums and berimbaus and guitars and singing—men and women singing and crooning! In an instant she was back on Asiazil, sitting on a rock on a windswept shore, watching the sunset through a vermilion torii gate in the distance. She was singing, one leg crossed over the other, picking out chords randomly and seeing where the song went. Major chords and minor chords and jazz chords that only Asiazil could pull off. Her home planet’s name and essence was an idea born from a song lyric written hundreds of years ago, one she hoped the planet would always live up to.

  She sang.

  In Portguese.

  In Japanese.

  In English.

  And the time just passed her by like the ocean waves and the herds of clouds in the blue sky, and smells of the fragrant flowers and the intoxicating bento boxes with eel and crab and smoked Brazilian beef.

  She sang of home. And for a moment she wished she was there, but then she realized that she could not go back.

  Not yet.

  Her fingers told her that the song was almost over.

  She picked a final chord and arpeggiated it, letting the notes linger before she took her fingers off the strings.

  She nodded in satisfaction, looking out the circular window at the stars blinking outside amidst hyperspace.

  “That was some beautiful playing,” a voice said. A chubby twenty-something man leaned in the doorway to the canteen, arms folded. He had red hair and a shaggy beard, and he wore a gray t-shirt with blue G on the left side. His shirt was tucked into cargo pants—the Galaxy Corps uniform. She was so wrapped up in playing that she didn't hear him enter.

  “Hey, thanks,” Michiko said. “I’m not bothering you, am I? Because if I am—”

  “Not at all,” the man said. “The opposite.”

  “Where’d you learn to play guitar like that?” the man asked. “Good god. I didn’t even know music like that was possible.”

  “I learned it back home,” Michiko said, putting her guitar into a black nylon case.

  Michiko grabbed her tea cup—a smooth, shiny gourd with a metal spoon sticking out of a clump of green tea leaves—and she covered it with a napkin.

  “What is that?” he asked.

  “Just a taste from home,” she said. “It’s called chimarrão.”

  “Chima-what?”

  “Never mind.”

  The man walked to the table and extended his hand.

  “Rudy Rundgren,” he said. “Nice to see another Galaxy Corps member here. I was starting to think I was all alone.”

  “Michiko Lins,” she said. “Nice to meet you, too, Rudy.”

  “So help me understand,” Rudy said, hesitating.

  A question was coming. The kind she always got whenever someone met her for the first time. After all, she didn’t look like most people. Olive-skinned with slanted eyes, long curly black hair, and very short height. She looked like a little girl even though she was already out of college. Sometimes it was the looks; other times it was her slight accent that no one could ever place, a kind of lilting Portguese but not quite.

  “My mom has Japanese blood and my dad has Brazilian blood,” she said.

  Rudy stammered.

  “That was your question, wasn’t it?” Michiko asked.

  Rudy rubbed his head. “Yeah, sorry if I offended. I figured with the guitar and the tea that you were from Asiazil, but I always hate to ask, you know?”

  “No, I get it all the time,” she said, smiling. “I guess you could call me east by south.”

  “Huh?”

  “You know, back on Earth. Long time ago. Japan was east. Brazil was south. It's a song reference, like our entire planet. Too obscure, I guess.”

  She laughed at her own joke.

  “Well, whatever you want to call yourself,” Rudy said, “you can play guitar like that all day and night and you won’t hear a complaint from me.”

  “Good!”

  Rudy paused and then laughed. “I bet you wish you were back home right about now.”

  Michiko simply smiled.

  “Where do you think we’re headed?” Rudy asked. “Seems like they plucked us off our current assignments pretty quick. Something must be urgent enough that they couldn’t keep us where we were. Heck, I had another month left on my current assignment.”

  “Where were you?” she asked.

  “Provenance,” he said. “Boooo. I definitely drew the ‘familiar’ straw. Totally not exotic. But then again, I don’t do that well with the whole survive-alone-in-space thing. But hey, I got to build a school, so that was cool. You?”

  “Coppice.”

  “Whoa,” Rudy said. “That's the rainforest planet, right? You see any of that crazy stuff that just happened there?”

  “Umm,” she said, looking away. “I was in it.”

  “In it, like…”

  “I was one of the people the killer was shooting at,” she said. She didn't want to think about the long run through the forest, the dangerous river rafting tour, and the gunshots that nearly killed her.

  “Jesus,” Rudy said. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I was on a conservation assignment. We were studying the flowers there. I had a part-time job as a river tour guide. It happened while I was leading a tour. It was pretty scary.”

  “You’re in pretty good spirits,” Rudy said. “If I were you, I’d be on the first carrier ship home. Screw the one-year commitment.”

  Michiko simply laughed again. If this guy only knew what was waiting back home for her. A big pile of nothing.

  “No wonder they pulled you off Coppice,” Rudy said. “I’m glad you’re safe. It’s a good thing that Smoke guy is behind bars. Doubt he’ll ever taste freedom again.”

  “Yeah.”

  An awkward silence set in between them. He seemed nice enough, if a little strange. And then it dawned on her that she hadn’t even asked him where she was from.

  She started to ask him when her tablet bee
ped.

  A woman with graying black hair appeared. She had wrinkles under her eyes and wore a gray polo with a blue G on the left.

  Her supervisor. The woman who held Michiko’s fate in her hands. She normally had a bubbly personality like Michiko, but today she looked stressed.

  “Hey, Barb,” Michiko said.

  “Michiko,” Barb said. “And Rudy. Since you're both here it'll save me a phone call. Who else is present on the ship?”

  “I haven't seen anyone else,” Michiko said.

  “I have,” Rudy said. “I think there were two more. An Ashley and a Hassan, I think.”

  “Good,” Barb said. She looked at Michiko. “How are you?”

  “I'm better since the last time we talked,” Michiko said.

  The last time they spoke, Michiko was a nervous wreck. She'd begged to be reassigned off Coppice. Barb couldn't make any promises but told her she'd see what she could do. And here Michiko was, on her way to somewhere.

  “I'm glad you're better,” Barb said. “And glad you can join this next assignment.”

  “What's going on?” Michiko asked.

  “Have you seen the news about Refugio?” Barb asked.

  Michiko never watched the news. She was busy with other things, like socializing and playing guitar. Besides, the news was just too depressing and she hated being depressed. She'd been through enough already.

  Michiko and Rudy shook their heads.

  “Refugio is gone,” Barb said.

  “Gone?” Michiko asked. “Was it bombed?” She remembered photos she'd seen of the small moon. It looked like a speck of dust next to Reader IV, one of the largest gas giants in the galaxy.

  “We don't know very much,” Barb said. “From the early radio communications, it sounds like a first contact situation.”

  Michiko gulped. “Like with an alien race?”

  “First, how can a moon just disappear?” Rudy asked. “Second, is it even safe for us to visit?”

  “The area is safe,” Barb said. “There are more Galactic Guard and Navy ships than you've seen in your entire life, trust me.”

  “Somehow that doesn't make me feel better,” Michiko said. “We know nothing about these aliens?”

  Barb shook her head. “Our job isn't to learn about the aliens.”

  “Then why do they need us?” Michiko asked. “It sounds like the military has this covered.”

  “This has been declared a galactic emergency,” Barb said. “We are pulling Galaxy Corps members from across the galaxy to provide disaster assistance.”

  “Disaster assistance,” Michiko whispered.

  “There are many that managed to get off the moon just before it disappeared. We need you to gather them, provide food and water, and conduct interviews. We’re sending a disaster response ship. It should be there when you arrive. Do the best you can with what you have.”

  Barb smiled. “Michiko, I know this isn't exactly a calm assignment compared to Coppice, but—”

  “It's okay,” Michiko said. “It'll take my mind off things.”

  “Find the others and prepare for landing in a little while,” Barb said. “Good luck and keep us posted.”

  Barb disconnected.

  “Sounds like we’re in for an interesting mission,” Rudy said.

  Michiko dumped her tea in the sink, rinsed out her gourd and metal straw, then wiped them down with a paper towel.

  “Are you as nervous as I am?” she asked.

  “Nah,” Rudy said. “I've done disaster recovery plenty of times before. It's fast-paced, but not too dangerous.”

  “Oh. Good. I guess that makes me feel better, then.”

  The ship shook. The lights shut off. Michiko’s heart skipped a beat.

  Then the lights flickered back on.

  “What was that?” Michiko asked.

  Rudy shrugged.

  “Let's find the others,” he said.

  Michiko Lins waited for her next assignment in the canteen of a transport carrier.

  She glanced at a tablet on the table in front of her.

  Blank.

  It had been a long hour, waiting for the assignment from headquarters that would change her life. Again. At least for the next few months. Crazy to think that her life was in the government’s hands.

  She couldn't take the waiting.

  There were so many places the Galaxy Corps could send her.

  Some of them made her nervous. Like the border planets near Argus. Or the colonies deep in the recesses of the galaxy, where no one would hear her communications for hours if something went wrong.

  Yet she kept telling herself that she signed up for this.

  She closed her eyes and listened to the ship’s quiet hum as it cruised through space. The canteen smelled like a global kitchen—on the various stoves, there were skillets with remnants of curry, rice, beans, and other foods the passengers had made for lunch just a little while ago. A plate of half-eaten pork dumplings and rice balls sat on her plate, next to the tablet, along with a cup of yerba mate tea.

  Again her eyes went to the tablet.

  Nothing.

  She sighed, cradling the acoustic guitar on her lap.

  She rolled her finger tips across the strings. Quietly, slowly, she began to play a gentle samba.

  A samba for all the people she'd known. A samba for all the places she'd been. A samba for love, a samba for sadness, a samba for all those feelings in between. She held in her mind’s eye her mother, pale and beautiful in a kimono, her dad, tall and dark in a soccer jersey, the blue ocean shores of her home planet, Asiazil, the sunlight shining on the water, the dancing sands, the echoes of beach laughter among gentle waves, smiling faces, the dancing—so much dancing!—and drums and berimbaus and guitars and singing—men and women singing and crooning! In an instant she was back on Asiazil, sitting on a rock on a windswept shore, watching the sunset through a vermilion torii gate in the distance. She was singing, one leg crossed over the other, picking out chords randomly and seeing where the song went. Major chords and minor chords and jazz chords that only Asiazil could pull off. Her home planet’s name and essence was an idea born from a song lyric written hundreds of years ago, one she hoped the planet would always live up to.

  She sang.

  In Portguese.

  In Japanese.

  In English.

  And the time just passed her by like the ocean waves and the herds of clouds in the blue sky, and smells of the fragrant flowers and the intoxicating bento boxes with eel and crab and smoked Brazilian beef.

  She sang of home. And for a moment she wished she was there, but then she realized that she could not go back.

  Not yet.

  Her fingers told her that the song was almost over.

  She picked a final chord and arpeggiated it, letting the notes linger before she took her fingers off the strings.

  She nodded in satisfaction, looking out the circular window at the stars blinking outside amidst hyperspace.

  “That was some beautiful playing,” a voice said. A chubby twenty-something man leaned in the doorway to the canteen, arms folded. He had red hair and a shaggy beard, and he wore a gray t-shirt with blue G on the left side. His shirt was tucked into cargo pants—the Galaxy Corps uniform. She was so wrapped up in playing that she didn't hear him enter.

  “Hey, thanks,” Michiko said. “I’m not bothering you, am I? Because if I am—”

  “Not at all,” the man said. “The opposite.”

  “Where’d you learn to play guitar like that?” the man asked. “Good god. I didn’t even know music like that was possible.”

  “I learned it back home,” Michiko said, putting her guitar into a black nylon case.

  Michiko grabbed her tea cup—a smooth, shiny gourd with a metal spoon sticking out of a clump of green tea leaves—and she covered it with a napkin.

  “What is that?” he asked.

  “Just a taste from home,” she said. “It’s called chimarrão.”

&
nbsp; “Chima-what?”

  “Never mind.”

  The man walked to the table and extended his hand.

  “Rudy Rundgren,” he said. “Nice to see another Galaxy Corps member here. I was starting to think I was all alone.”

  “Michiko Lins,” she said. “Nice to meet you, too, Rudy.”

  “So help me understand,” Rudy said, hesitating.

  A question was coming. The kind she always got whenever someone met her for the first time. After all, she didn’t look like most people. Olive-skinned with slanted eyes, long curly black hair, and very short height. She looked like a little girl even though she was already out of college. Sometimes it was the looks; other times it was her slight accent that no one could ever place, a kind of lilting Portguese but not quite.

  “My mom has Japanese blood and my dad has Brazilian blood,” she said.

  Rudy stammered.

  “That was your question, wasn’t it?” Michiko asked.

  Rudy rubbed his head. “Yeah, sorry if I offended. I figured with the guitar and the tea that you were from Asiazil, but I always hate to ask, you know?”

  “No, I get it all the time,” she said, smiling. “I guess you could call me east by south.”

  “Huh?”

  “You know, back on Earth. Long time ago. Japan was east. Brazil was south. It's a song reference, like our entire planet. Too obscure, I guess.”

  She laughed at her own joke.

  “Well, whatever you want to call yourself,” Rudy said, “you can play guitar like that all day and night and you won’t hear a complaint from me.”

  “Good!”

  Rudy paused and then laughed. “I bet you wish you were back home right about now.”

  Michiko simply smiled.

  “Where do you think we’re headed?” Rudy asked. “Seems like they plucked us off our current assignments pretty quick. Something must be urgent enough that they couldn’t keep us where we were. Heck, I had another month left on my current assignment.”

  “Where were you?” she asked.

  “Provenance,” he said. “Boooo. I definitely drew the ‘familiar’ straw. Totally not exotic. But then again, I don’t do that well with the whole survive-alone-in-space thing. But hey, I got to build a school, so that was cool. You?”