Ada Nish Pura, First Chapter

To learn about the current status of Ada, please check out the May 22nd post Here.

I thought I would share this first chapter to the novel. It may not stay up for long... but I'm very happy with it!

Part 1 -- Betrayal

1

As his craft headed for the curve of the horizon, Marcus glanced back at the two massive starships holding side-by-side above the world. The smaller Moonwind had unexpectedly dropped in system within an hour of the larger craft's arrival, and had already deployed a shuttle full of partygoers and ranking crew to the Augusta. The long tubular shuttle moved away from the Moonwind, while a dozen single-man fighters -- like the one Marcus flew -- danced around the two ships' perimeter where sunlight occasionally illuminated a fighter in a burst of silver. He could trace their movement, having flown those patterns dozens of times. All routine.

His own fighter traced a path toward the planet's equator en route for the dark side of Kailani. Pretty name: the sea and the sky. Only when the Augusta had come within visual range of the planet had he understood the aptness of the label. The colony gave the term backwater a whole new meaning. It didn't just refer to the world's lack of technology, though if they had a few commsats in orbit, Marcus wouldn't have been taking this recon swing. He had never seen so much water in one place, the blue only broken by the occasional white of drifting clouds and distant specks of land.

As he crossed the twilight into night he could see nothing at all, not even glowing lights to show planet-bound cities. That left Marcus with a long silent orbit and nothing to look at except the red and green indicators on the fighter's boards. The infrared scanner finally picked up a sizeable warm spot but it turned out to only be a huge algae patch in the sea, the natural oxygen builders for this world.

He knew that by the time he completed a five orbit sweep the crews of both ships would have had their party and he'd be lucky to get galley crew to warm up some coffee for him. And it was his own fault. He knew that Captain Harris didn't like him. He had shouldn't have been so cocky and tried to prove himself such a good pilot that...

That Harris would send him off on special missions. He got his wish. He feared it would be a long time before Harris let him fly those set patterns with the others, though.

As he swept the fighter up toward the slate blue horizon he saw the edge of a gigantic storm swirling near the dawn's edge. The sheer magnitude of that weather system, and the readings his scanners gave him on the winds, almost pulled him out of his bad mood. At a better time he would have been tempted to slip down to the edge of the storm and ride it out. Marcus loved atmosphere flying, and that storm looked like a real challenge. He didn't dare not go by the book today and make things work between him and the Captain.

He finally rounded the curve of the planet, his vidcam catching the first rays of sunlight. Islands dotted the world below him, looking like pebbles thrown into a pond, caught for a moment in the vidcam before he swept on toward the ships.

Something wrong.

Something very wrong: fighters out of position, debris, hot spots -- the signs of a battle. His hands automatically keyed up his weapons, a series of familiar beeps and the flash of amber lights on the right side of the screen. He frantically twisted in his seat, searching for the rebel ship that must be somewhere nearby. Tracking came up, overlaying the bubble with a green grid, glowing -- but he still couldn't find the enemy.

His equipment picked up signs of massive damage to the Augusta's starboard bay. With a touch of the controls, the vidcam zoomed in on twisted, melted metal -- already cooled -- and debris hugging close to the larger ship. He tried to track any wreckage from the Moonwind's shuttle that had been heading for the bay, but his computer could only locate with a few pieces, flung far outward from the ship... and the possibility of more pieces imbedded in the damaged bay.

The shuttle had exploded inside the Augusta's bay.

He could find no rebel craft.

His fingers moved by rote, and keying the vidcam's range back -- just as the Moonwind fired weapons straight into the Augusta.

"Oh God, oh God." Was that his voice?

The stream of luminous neutrons punched straight through the Augusta's unprotected shell. In a timeless moment of mind-numbing fear and loss, Marcus watched as a series of brutal explosions ripped through the interior, throwing off pieces of the hull plating and scattering glowing debris out the far side. No one could survive --

"Marcus! Get your ass out of --" O'Dell's voice. His comp automatically tracked her fighter just as two Moonwind craft drew down on her. The fighter exploded under their combined fire, a smaller loss almost lost in the glow of the larger one.

His body obeyed her orders, hands trembling as he reached for the controls and tried to dive back out of range. The Moonwind fighters followed. He maneuvered into a swing against the gravity, proving himself a better pilot, and came up under the belly of the first one and out of it's tracking. He his own weapons so close that he could see the metal burn before the Moonwind's fighter exploded.

One for O'Dell. It didn't help the cold, icy feel of shock that had taken him, even though his hands kept moving. Well-trained. How many more could he take? Not enough -- not enough revenge for everyone gone --

Hands moved, eyes focused, but his mind skittered between rage and emptiness at loss he could not fully accept or comprehend. Movement honed by training became instinctive, but rage fueled his actions. He caught the second fighter, sweeping past and firing, the bubble top bursting and the pilot dead in vacuum before the craft broke up. On to another, fighting his way to the ship -- to do something.

Someone else shouted his name, dragging him back to the reality of his impossible situation. Whomever had called him hadn't survived: the comp no longer tracked any Augusta craft in his range. He fired at another fighter, took it out -- but the Moonwind's crew didn't have anyone else to worry about now. Two came on him from the side, clipped his engine and sent him tumbling so quickly that he banged his arm against the side of the craft with enough force that he heard the snap of bone before he felt the pain.

Lights flashed a red warning across the board; power surged as the computer failed to shunt the overload away from dead boards. He could taste the bitter flavor of burnt electronics mixing with the bile of rage and loss. Marcus tried to jab at the weapon controls, but pain shot up through his right shoulder. Too breathless to even curse, he worked the board with his left hand gliding over the indentations, powering down what he could of the fighter's controls, slowing the tumble, changing the trajectory -- but he took another, though lesser hit, fouling the system again. In the last moment he sent out a cover of electronic chaff that cost him most of the power left in his block, but would make it look as though he'd taken more damage than he had.

With his board shut down, he continued to tumble, slowly pulled downward toward the world by the relentless gravity well. Leaning back, he watched the last of this disaster unfold beyond anything he could do to help, like a vid show he could in no way affect. Most of the battle had already been fought in the time he'd spent below the horizon from the Augusta and out of communications. Now the Moonwind and her predatory fighters did their best to make certain no one from the Augusta survived.

He wanted to pray. Or cry. Or throw himself at the Moonwind.

He watched.

#

Calm had come, not as an end of rage, but rather of a numbness, and then an overriding calculation -- what now? What could he do? He took short breaths, trying to ignore the stench of sweat and burnt circuits, and trying not to feel the agony in his right arm. He sipped at the water from his collar straw, but even that nearly made him ill.

His fighter slowly turned presenting him with four choices, and none of them good: stars, ship, planet...death.

Stars? The pinpoints of distant light swept up into his sight, but even at full power and undamaged, his fighter couldn't have reached any sanctuary beyond this planetary system. There might have been a single domed outpost elsewhere in-system, but he couldn't remember what world or satellite harbored it. Besides, under the circumstances, the post likely hadn't survived either.

His fighter slowly turned, and he focused on the wreckage of the Augusta as it came back into view. Marcus felt the same sickening jolt of anger and fear, knowing he could never go back to the ship that had been his home for seven years. The hole, blown from the bay side of the huge cruiser straight through the interior, still occasionally brightened in the otherwise dark ship, like a star trapped inside. The oxygen-fed flames died quickly in the vacuum of space.

No one could have survived aboard her. He tried not to think of those people; of crew he had known, hated... and loved. All of them gone now. Why had he never asked O'Dell to spend the night with him? But if he had, that wouldn't have made this moment any easier. He already regretted enough of what he had lost without thinking about what might have been besides. Marsie gone, and Bethlyn as well....

Another of the Augusta's fighters drifted close to the larger ship, impacting the outer shell and disintegrating in a sudden burst of light. That made the fifth he had seen go that way, as though the smaller craft were drawn back by a magnet of disaster. Some of the fighters had plainly turned to help the larger ship and momentum kept them heading in her direction even after they had been defeated. He whispered the names of the pilots -- his friends with whom he had flown so many missions.

The third of his four choices rolled into view. The planet -- blue and white everywhere it was not in shadow -- didn't give him much hope of survival. The storm he had passed in his recon flight began to spread below him, spiraling arms of frantic nature reaching over the ocean.

He knew that islands existed down there in that mass of blue and white, but he couldn't see them. His scanners, if they worked at all after the attack, would have trouble reading anything through that mass of electrical discharges that lighted even the tops of the clouds. He watched it move like something alive, tentacles stretching out to engulf the world.

Death, the final choice, rolled back into view in the guise of the Moonwind. The ship, haloed by the sun, cast a malevolent shadow over his fighter. Even if one of the little fighters didn't come for him in the next few minutes, the larger ship's sensors would pick up his life signs.

Damn. Marcus glanced at the control board and the one light flashing a warning of low power. He couldn't wait, hoping his engine pack hadn't lost the link to the power pod and would eventual recharge. He finally moved his left hand, slowly reaching until it rested on the control board, fingers brushing -- but not yet pressing, the indentations.

Not a hard decision, really. Only one choice out of those four offered even the slightest hope for the future. He waited until the world again crawled into view. If -- If he still had power -- he could make a quick dive into the gravity well, skim along the top of the clouds and down into the night side beyond the storm, and try to reach some settlement on Kailani.

No. Hell, that wouldn't work. The majority of the original population had been lab-adapted to live and work in the mineral rich expanse of blue oceans. A few generations later they had thrown out the company, turned their back on the technology that had created them, and cut almost all contact with outside worlds. No commsats, not much in technology at all. Going to them would not help. He had to reach the Inner Worlds Council's single Kailani outpost. It sat in the far southern hemisphere, nearly to the pole, and on one of the few large landmasses.

He had to find it. They would have the equipment to punch a message out to others. His vidcam held proof of treachery that would get the Moonwind hunted through every quarter of the Inner Worlds and the Fringe, if need be.

Another fighter became a small, bright star against the side of the dead Augusta.

His own survival required him to take action. If he didn't get down to the planet and the safety of the IWC building, he didn't have a chance -- even though he knew reaching the outpost would provide no long term safety.

In the next roll he marked his trajectory by dead reckoning, afraid to key on the navcomp and draw attention. He moved his hand, prepared to fire the engine as the Moonwind swept past his bubble and the stars came into view. Marcus felt his breath catch at the sight of stark white pinpricks against the dark sky. He knew reaching the IWC outpost was no real safety, and it was unlikely that he'd ever travel the stars again.

His sight blurred

Mourning for the loss of the stars...how strange when he had lost everything else.

The Augusta came back into view. He lifted his left hand in a final salute, even to that bastard Captain Harris, who had unwittingly saved his life by being so damned prissy and sent Marcus on the recon out of spite.

The planet -- Kailani -- rolled into view once more. He put his hand on the board and tried to lift the right -- and quickly changed his mind as pain lanced through his arm and shoulder. Black spots filled his sight. He sat still, taking deep breaths, his eyes closed through another roll. He'd already made his farewell to the stars and the Augusta, and he damned well didn't want to see the Moonwind again.

He opened his eyes as the planet slipped into view. He could see the slight friction as his fighter traced along the upper edge of the thermosphere. No time left. He keyed on the power, firing the right thruster, and aiming poleward. The damaged fighter bucked and tried to roll out of his control. He fired the thruster again. The rebels would come swarming in as he lunged downward toward the landmass sitting uncomfortably near the southern ice cap. He didn't want to crash in that uninviting wilderness of white -- although that location might prove better than the nearly endless expanse of blue ocean that covered the rest of the world.

Circumpolar was the shorter route to the IWC outpost, half a world away. Even as he thought it and his good hand began to manipulate the sluggish controls, three Moonwind fighters swept around to cut him off. He turned back to the longer route cutting across the equator and a mass of outriders -- huge clouds with bubbling cotton-top features --that spread out not far to his starboard side.

The craft jumped and squealed with a sudden impact; he could hear a hiss of air behind his seat. He tried to slip back toward the south, but they cut him off, herding north into the wide expanse of ocean. He had no choice, except to just let them shoot him down.

Damn Kailani technophobes with no easy communications system! He tried his own comm equipment, but nothing lighted on the screens. Had the outpost caught anything of the battle? Probably not, since they'd been below the horizon. The Moonwind could claim a rebel ship did the damage as long as no one -- like a single surviving pilot with a vidcam -- could dispute them.

A fighter swept down toward him, but Marcus skipped out of range with a quick thruster burst. The mostly dead craft still answered to his hands. If this had been a one-on-one fight, he would have had a chance, even now.

He knew he couldn't win a battle at these odds, with every free Moonwind fighter after him. He didn't try to count the number. Two more sweeps by the group and they hit the port thruster. The fighter spun, his injured arm sending shards of pain though his body. He could hear metal tear --

And his fighter slipped into the clouds.

Hope.

He held his breath, fighting the sluggish ship controls and firing his remaining thruster. He turned into the very heart of the storm, seeking a place to hide. The winds, chaotic and powerful, drew the fighter northward in a maelstrom of rain. Lighting flashed so near that he could feel the tingle; more of the board went dead. He couldn't see through the clouds, and thunder shook the ship, deafening him. Hope, hopelessness...they teetered on a single sputtering thruster engine fighting to keep the him in the air.

One of the fighters tore through the clouds above, firing at random. They must have lost him in the flash of lightning -- natural electronic chaff to upset the sensors. The shots missed. Marcus breathed again.

Another craft fired. He had thought it more lightning at first. He tried to maneuver out of range.

Light slipped along the right side of his craft and the permaglass bubble cracked, but held. He heard the engine explode behind him. The board went irrevocably dead, all lights gone. Marcus leaned back, drawing his hand away from the controls. The wind bounced the fighter again, tilting the craft at an uncomfortable angle and sending a shock of pain up through his broken arm. He watched as the right foil tore off and fell....

That couldn't be right. He should have felt the thrust die and gone straight down with the foil. He stripped off the harness so he could turn, fighting away the sharp pain that swept through him from right arm though his shoulder, neck and head.

Worth it. The single starboard thruster still fired. It had been the other that had been hit, exploded and fell.

Hope again? Dare he?

Lightning flashed and he felt the prickling once more, but oddly it felt like the touch of life returned. He turned and tried the controls again. The board didn't light, but the craft slowly responded to a turn. He grinned a little, unexpectedly remembering Lt. Lisle's last words to him as he climbed into the craft, heading off for the useless recon work.

"The Captain's a fool to take you out of the fighter wing. You could fly a dead ship through a black hole, Marcus."

Well, this was as close as he would ever get to finding out if Lisle had been right. Careful! A little bit more finesse. He wanted to head south but he'd lost his sense of direction and wasn't certain he could get the fighter to turn anyway. Marcus closed his eyes and tried to envision the clouds from above. The system had been moving south to north, over the equator and across the open ocean -- but then ninety-six percent of the world consisted of ocean, though some of a shallow covering over submerged landmasses. Shallow might be a relative term, though. He had no doubt he could drown in any part of it.

The fighter squealed and shuddered at every attempt to turn. He wouldn't reach the IWC outpost in this craft, but if he survived he could find other transport. He pointed the nose downward and hoped for land.

The closer he got to the surface, the harder the winds buffeted him. He gave up trying to turn and left the craft with the wind at its tail. Getting out of the storm cell seemed like the best way to survive, though he wondered where the Moonwind fighters had gone.

He let the nose dip downward, hoping still to see land, and then had a hell of a time pulling back and leveling off before he went straight into the ocean! He could only see the rush of water around him, and it became increasingly difficult to tell the sea from the storm.

The permaglass bubble began crack in a spider web design and made seeing even more difficult. Marcus reached out and pushed his hand over the indentations and fired the thruster -- fired hard and long praying that he reached the storm's edge.

The engine shrieked in protest the moment before it exploded. Even that propelled him forward for a few heartbeats longer. For a moment he saw the edge of clouds through the fractures in the bubble, a low dark line against brighter sky beyond, a rolling expanse of turbulent ocean --but no land, anywhere.

The fighter went down into the sea.

Oh hell!

His neck snapped backward, leaving his sight blurred and his head pounding again. In the last moment the permaglass bubble shattered, sending shards everywhere. He felt a sting against his face.

Then he felt the slap of cold wind and icy water.

He had found hell. He hadn't reached the edge and the storm still raged overhead. Waves rushed up over his fighter's still upright frame and into the interior. Water quickly reached above his knees, and then up to his waist. He grabbed the harness, knowing the little craft would not stay afloat long, but unwilling to let go. Cold. God, it was cold, even with his flight suit kicking up to compensate. Thunder roared over him and the wind shrieked and yowled through the sky.

He wouldn't survive like this. He should have thrown himself at the Augusta and gone like a little star with the rest of the pilots, rather than die alone in some alien sea. He should have died with the rest of his people.

Remember, your flight suit will float if you go down on this damned wet world. Find the inflation valve at the lower right side of your belt. The suit will seal off damaged areas. Unless it's totally in shreds, it will keep you buoyant until help arrives.

Had that been Spraug or Lisle giving the lecture as they came in system? He wanted to remember which one as he reached awkwardly for the valve. Why hadn't he been paying better attention? Why couldn't he remember, and how they had looked standing there in the crew lounge, preparing everyone --

All dead.

The next wave filled the interior with water up to the boards. He started to release the harness and only at the last moment remembered to grab the vid chit from the box on the control board. He shoved the chit into his jacket pocket and sealed that closed, giving himself a reason to survive as he threw himself out into the sea.

Water everywhere, the storm and waves crashing over him. Panic sent him moving as the suit ballooned. Was it enough to save him from drowning in this storm? He turned to his stomach and tried to swim, despite the pain of his arm -- was that south? He didn't care. Just move, move -- get away from the water... but the panic couldn't drive him on for far.

As soon as he stopped, the gravity in the suit shifted and flipped him to his back. It must have been made so that an unconscious man didn't drown, face down in the water. He stared up into the gray-on-gray sky while the rain and the waves washed over him, but that was hardly better than being faced down after all. He hadn't gone far, but when he looked back he saw the fighter's wing rise, dip, and disappear.

Alone.