Read The Desert of Stars (The Human Reach) Online
Authors: John Lumpkin
The Desert of Stars (The Human Reach)
The Desert of Stars
A Human Reach Novel
By John J. Lumpkin
The Desert of Stars
is copyright 2013 by John J. Lumpkin.
The cover art is copyright 2013 Winchell Chung.
All rights reserved.
The starry background for the cover image is credited
to NASA, the ESA, and the Hubble Heritage-ESA Hubble Collaboration.
The right of John J. Lumpkin to be identified as the
author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission
of the publisher, except as permitted by fair use laws in the United States of
America.
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events
portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.
Kindle Edition, v1
To
Charlotte and Theo
Acknowledgments
I again owe thanks
for the help and encouragement of Winchell Chung, the cover artist and author
of the incomparable Atomic Rockets web site, Claudio Bertinetto, Iyar Binyamin,
Laserman 1
st
Class Luke Campbell, John Christensen, combat editor
Mark Graves, Stephen Gustav, Eileen Lumpkin, Brian Mansur, Gregory Muir, Stephen
Rubin, Shannon Sindorf, Alice Srinivasan and Christopher Weuve. I am also grateful
for the thoughts of Ken Burnside, co-author of the excellent Attack Vector:
Tactical game.
Details on the Human
Reach setting are available at
http://www.thehumanreach.net
.
Novels of the Human
Reach
Through Struggle, the Stars
(2011)
The Desert of Stars
(2013)
The Passage of Stars
(pending)
“
Only in a universe of unlimited resources can
all men be brothers.”
— Robert Zubrin,
The Case for Mars,
1996
“War is death, and a
plague of the lack of small things, and toil.”
—
Stephen Crane,
Wounds in the Rain,
1900
WOLF 359
USS Apache
Commander Roman Hernandez, Commanding
Officer
Lieutenant Commander Nathan Howell,
Executive Officer
Lieutenant Lorna Carruth, Operations
Officer
Lieutenant David Ortega, Weapons Officer
Lieutenant (j.g.) Neil Mercer, Intelligence
Officer
Lieutenant (j.g.) Jessica Barrett,
Directed Energy Officer
Ensign Eve Cohen, Propulsion Officer
Astronaut Dacey Allenby, Sensor Tech
HMS Ajax
Commodore Duncan Metcalf, commander,
Convoy 323
JDF Kiyokaze
Commander Genda Hotaru, Commanding
Officer
Lieutenant Endo Daisuke, Intelligence
Officer
CSS Gan Ying
Captain Qin Bao, Commanding Officer
ENTENTE (BETA COMAE BERENICES IV)
Republic of Tecolote
President Lawson Conrad
General Antonio Vargas, Chairman of
General Staff
Major General Katherine Naima, Secretary
of the Interior
Colonel Samir Lorenzo Garcia y Abdulaziz,
Battalion Commander, District 7
Captain Park Kang-Dae, President Conrad’s
bodyguard
U.S. Consulate, Tecolote
Paul Layton, Chargé d’Affaires
Andy Bonaventura, Consular Affairs
Martina Bandi, Foreign Service Officer
Lindsay Trujillo, Foreign Service Officer
Irene Gomez, Station Chief, National
Security Service
Others in Tecolote
Akita Tadeshi, a Japanese operative
Misaki, his aide
Xavier “Tippy” Griego, a catering company
owner
Das, a forced immigrant
Kao Xun and Kao Tai, siblings
Colonel Tan Pierce, a rebel
Elsewhere on or around Entente
Commander Marc Raleigh, U.S. Space Force
Intelligence, Entente station
Major Amanda Clark, Executive Officer,
2nd Marine Orbital Assault Battalion
2nd Lieutenant Vanessa Salter, Jumper
Pilot, 2nd Marine Orbital Assault Battalion
Gunnery Sergeant Ruth Harkins, 2nd Marine
Orbital Assault Battalion
KUAN YIN (11 LEONIS MINORIS A III)
Rand’s guerillas
2nd Lieutenant Rand Castillo, formerly
Leader, 3rd Platoon, Bravo Battery, Fires Battalion, 34th Brigade
Sergeant Hal Aguirre, formerly Commander,
C Gun, 3rd Platoon
Private Rachel Lopez, formerly of the
Targeting Section, 3rd Platoon
Combat Supply Cache Falcon
Colonel Regina Foster, formerly J-3, Joint
Task Force Sequoia
Lieutenant Commander Kyle DiMarco,
formerly Executive Officer of the submarine
Bowfin
Major Isabella Cruz, a quartermaster,
formerly Deputy G-4 for the 129th Brigade
Captain Catherine Gant, Reconnaissance
Forward Support Company Commander, Brigade Support Battalion, 129th Brigade
Staff Sergeant Tim Ruiz, a Green Beret
attached to the 129th Brigade
Sergeant Alicia Patterson, formerly an
intelligence specialist with the 107th Brigade
Sycamore
Major General Xie Quanyou, commander of
the People’s Liberation Army forces on occupied Sequoia
Major Shen Liang, staff intelligence
officer
Major Wong Pengfeng, commander of the
military police forces at the Sycamore civilian internment camp
Territorial Governor Solomon Rivera, a
prisoner
Major General Hyram Chalk, a prisoner
Moira Tobin, a civilian prisoner
Michael Bannerjee, a young civilian
prisoner
CSS Weisheng
Rear Admiral Kong Ruchang, fleet
commander
USS Valley Forge
Captain Grace Mallett, Commanding Officer
Lieutenant (j.g.) Erin Quintana, Kinetics
Warfare Officer
Brigadier General Rev Grogan, U.S. Army
Special Forces
1st Lieutenant Gabriela Silva, U.S. Army
Special Forces
EARTH (SOL III)
United States
Senator Darren Gregory, senior senator
from New Jersey
Trip Bell, Gregory’s chief of staff
James Donovan, Senior Operations Officer,
U.S. National Security Service
Gardiner Fairchild, Senior Operations
Officer, U.S. National Security Service
Sonya Chang-Hilliard, Assistant Deputy
Director for Operations, U.S. National Security Service
Finn Kintsel, Operations Officer, U.S.
National Security Service
Blink Riley, Science and Technology
Officer, U.S. National Security Service
India
Lieutenant General Tyag Bahadar Singh,
Indian Army
Wing Commander Venkata Kurian Ramesh,
Indian Space Force
Russia
Counteradmiral Sergei Pavelovich Komarov,
Russian Space Defense Forces
Europa
Claude Delvaux, Colonization Minister
China
Shi Xiulian, an astronomer
Combined Joint Task Force 21
Vice Admiral Lesley Cooper, U.S. Space
Force
Lieutenant Colonel Cyril Hellastrae, 75th
Ranger Regiment (Spaceborne), U.S. Army
Lieutenant (j.g.) Leon Jackson, Deputy
Engineering Officer,
USS Ramage
ELSEWHERE
Flight Lieutenant Kieran Wu, Intelligence
Officer,
RAS Republic
, Republic of Australia Space Force
Li Xiao, Operative, Second Bureau (China)
Shanghai, China, Earth
Xiulian’s brain desperately wanted to interpret the rainy
nighttime streetscape as a place of anonymity, where not even automated eyes
could see what she was about to do. But she knew it was not so: The omnipresent
police drones cared little for the weather or darkness. And although the new sniffers
State Security were plastering on every streetlamp faced some difficulty in these
conditions, they remained a threat, as they might smell her passage and alert a
nearby patrol that they did not detect a corresponding radio transmission from
her person. But the risk of being seen and fined for an infraction was
preferable to the certainty that her movements would be recorded had she brought
her identification caster with her.
Still, she gave the streetlamps a wide berth. This was not a
part of the city she knew, but her contact had said it was a good place to
meet. Shi Xiulian, astronomer, diplomatic adviser, interstellar traveler,
mother of two fine boys, and traitor, would have preferred to pass this material
to the Americans at an upcoming academic conference in Hawaii, but her
co-conspirators had said it was too urgent to wait that long.
The datachip she carried held two things of note. The first was
a report she had contributed to, and, more importantly, she was authorized to
have. It detailed China’s knowledge of a great barren region of stars beyond
those already colonized by the Americans, Japanese, Russians and Indians. China
had reflexively concealed this knowledge, but Second Bureau was certain the
Japanese had learned of the phenomenon, as well. The Americans, meanwhile, had
yet to grasp their future would be confined to a long decline on their paltry
three-and-a-quarter habitable worlds, but they would learn soon enough.
How
they learn it, and who they learn it from, may greatly influence their
response,
she believed.
Her second document was far more dangerous to possess: It
was a list of senior members of the Chinese government, including her, who
favored reaching out to the United States to negotiate the sale of some Chinese
stars to them, so the Americans would continue to be able to search for new
habitable worlds.
And feel no need to take them by force.
Xiulian and her co-conspirators feared that the prospect of finding
no more colony planets would be too much for the Americans to bear, and the
Japanese could manipulate them into an alliance in the coming war. A coalition
between the technological masters of Japan and the still-dangerous Americans
was not one everyone was certain China could overcome, particularly if they
could rally other nations jealous of China’s good fortune.
Xiulian’s walk through this unfamiliar part of the city,
then, was the first step into opening a backchannel to the Americans, one she
hoped would blossom into diplomacy and a bargain that would forestall the
coming violence.
And keep my boys from dying.
Her elder son was a
lieutenant in the submarine forces; her younger, wanting to emulate his
brother, had enlisted in the Army and was stationed on Huashan. The thought of
war tightened her stomach, even now.
Xiulian reached the appointed intersection and looked
around. She saw no traffic. The rain grew harder, angrier.
Why did they
suddenly insist I meet with them in person? Why not just a dead drop of the
datachip? The Americans are running too many risks.
There.
A parked car, across the street, with three,
no, four people inside. The driver, a woman, looked Chinese; the others, two
men and another woman, did not.
Why so many?
One of the men, the fair-skinned one, got out and walked
over to her.
“Miz Shi?” he said.
She nodded.
“I’m Gardiner Fairchild. I’m sorry about all the
rearrangements, but we have word that you may be under threat. Would you
consider coming with us?”
He expects violence, or wants me to believe that. The
other agents are for security.
“No, I will not leave my family,” she said. “Are you
certain?”
“Someone knows what you are doing. We don’t know who.
Please, then, pass me the datachip, and we’ll be on our way. Quickly, now.”
Xiulian reached into her coat pocket, felt the small plastic
chip resting in the fabric.
A red-and-blue police flasher cut through the darkness.
“Stay where you are,” a female voice said in Mandarin.
Xiulian and Fairchild both looked to its source – a small monitor drone rising
shakily from a low rooftop. Its spotlight pointed at them.
Fairchild put a hand to his face and hunched over, striding
quickly back to his car. Xiulian fled in another direction, running, running,
running. She heard the Americans’ car hum away.
The drone did not follow her. But she was sure she had been
tagged, and the security net would track her every movement.
She didn’t know what to do, but she thought her sons might
be saved if she simply went home to await arrest. She threw the datachip into a
gutter on the way.
She waited. She called in sick to work the next day – why
create a spectacle at her office?
But State Security never came. She went to back to work a
week later, wondering if they were watching her to see who she was working
with. And as 2138 became 2139, she reflected on the event, over and over, during
the rising tensions with Japan, during the initiation of the war she tried to
prevent, and she realized she had never heard a Shanghai police drone broadcasting
a female voice before.