Abukoff House Books

(Author’s Note: this takes place between the events detailed in “Star Empires: The Entropy Machine” and “Star Empires: Empire Enslaved” see below for links to purchase both novels on Amazon)

Admiral Helen Nogulich stopped outside the doorway. There was music coming through, and singing. Light and scratchy and tired, as if someone had been singing too long and needed a drink. Or smoking too much, as they still did on the outlaw worlds of the Iron Triangle. But this wasn’t the Iron Triangle, nor was there an outlaw behind the door. She tapped the chime and waited.

The music stopped immediately, along with the singing. There was a moment of complete silence. A long moment. A very long moment. Finally she knocked on the door. “Yuriko? It’s Helen.”

After a pause, the door opened to reveal the striking, tall figure of Admiral Yuriko Tairyoku in a long black silk sleep shirt, standing in complete darkness and holding a tall glass of clear liquid that Helen guessed could have been either water or vodka. Not that it mattered. “I heard,” Yuriko said flatly as she led Nogulich into the room. “Lights,” she said to the computer’s audio pick-up.

As the lights came up from hidden sources, Helen Nogulich studied Tairyoku’s face. From the dark expressionless eyes to cheekbones that could cut glass. There was none of the usual mirth and wit. Her stark and striking Asian face was a mask of numbness and mystery. “I thought we should talk,” Nogulich said quietly.

“Fine.” Yuriko’s voice was tired and scratchy. Like the singing that had stopped so abruptly a moment ago. “Drink?” Nogulich looked at the glass and raised an eyebrow. “Antarean water,” Yuriko explained. “It’s a little early for vodka.”

“Don’t think I haven’t thought about it,” Nogulich said as she looked around the small, almost painfully bare apartment. It looked like a luxury prison cell. “So let’s talk.”

“I don’t know what to say. He’s dead. Another win for the Ministry of Defense.” She emptied the glass and set it down. Then she put her brushed steel desk between her and Nogulich. She fixed her dead stare on Nogulich’s thin Nordic face and icy blue eyes. “Who did it? The clone? Zyphis 1138? That’s what I’m hearing.”

“Probably,” Nogulich answered. “She’s their best assassin and if it’s a high-level takedown it’s probably her. But it doesn’t really matter. His name was Harry Est. Contact of Brigitte and Marty Levinson. He was a criminal we’d been looking for for a long time.”

“Who should have had a trial, no matter what he did.”

“The evidence was all there. That’s how they got the warrant to hit him,” Nogulich said. “You know how careful they are, especially since the-.”

“Nobody to defend him. Nobody to corroborate any alibi he might have come up with. No character witnesses.” Tairyoku walked to the refrigerator and put her glass under a tap built into the door. “Right to counsel. Right to competent defense. Right to confront his accuser.”

“He endangered your friends! He was dirty. A thief and a seditionist.”

“The law was created to protect him as much as to protect us. And because I rewrote history, he was denied that protection. His friends were no longer his friends. Had nothing to do with him. Obtained no illegal warp sled from him. They weren’t able to speak on his behalf.” She tapped the selection button on the dispenser and waited as a hot liquid poured into the glass.

As the glass filled, Nogulich’s nose twitched at a sharp scent of strong, pure alcohol. “Yuriko-.”

“Listen to this,” she muttered. Walking back to the desk with her drink in hand, Yuriko kept her eyes locked on Nogulich. Finally, with the desk between them, she tapped the computer interface. “Computer, play ‘Entropy Machine’ extracted audio log from ESE Starship Monitor.”

A second later, it was her voice, from the Monitor’s internal security recording, speaking to Marty and Brigitte Levinson less than a month ago. “…when I say ‘retroactive crew status’, what I mean is that our records will show that you were drafted and agreed to serve, a year before you first left Earth for the Oort Cloud”

“‘Discretionary powers’ means that I can legally alter time stamps and rewrite logs if it’s that important. Do you get what I’m saying? Marty, I know that for all the legalisms and technobabble, what I’m doing is cheating, and in a sane world it should cost me my career and more.” She gave Nogulich a hard look, and put her drink down on the desk, spilling some of it and not caring. “Computer, play second extract.”

A moment later, her voice continued. “The technicalities of law and travel restrictions just don’t measure up to that because those restrictions are in place in order to safeguard that civilization. If they start to get in the way then we need to be prepared to go around them.”

In the sudden silence after the playback ended, Nogulich suddenly wanted that drink but couldn’t bring herself to ask for one. “All legal. On my orders. All justified. The destruction of Canopus proves that.”

“We’re breaking the law with the support of law. Burning down our house in order to save it.”

“What are you saying?” Nogulich asked. “Are you quitting? Resigning? Emigrating?”

“I just feel like I’ve shot myself in the stomach and we’re celebrating that.”

“He’s not worth it,” Nogulich gently protested. “Harry Est was a criminal. A seditionist. There isn’t even any question about that. And quite frankly, nothing anyone could have said would have saved him. He did this to himself!”

“No, he had my help. I lied him to death.”Tairyoku finished her drink in a painful gulp. “And you’re right. There was no saving him from that.”

The shroud of anger and melancholy in the room somehow got darker. “What do you want to do?” Nogulich asked. “How do we get past this? How can I help?”

“You can’t,” Tairyoku answered. “I’ll just live with it.” Then she wandered, empty glass in hand, to a small table that had remained in the shadows throughout their conversation. A hidden switch built into a side of the table turned on an overhead light, revealing an ancient turntable.

“Ever seen one of these?” She asked Nogulich.

“No.”

“It’s called a record player. Predates digital. Still somehow unregulated.”

“Why would they need to-?”

Tairyoku flipped a switch, setting the record spinning, and lowering an arm that had been hovering over it at about the midway point. A voice suddenly came through. Light and scratchy and tired. As if from too little to drink and too many cigarettes. “…no, it’s a cold and it’s a very broken Hallelujah…”