The Ides of Matt 2017

Chapter 1

Chapter OneBrody Jones worked his way around the Mod18 ship, checking her over in case there was a rescue mission today. Fifty meters of spacecraft that had seen too many flights but, like a beater truck in the old vids, was always game for another round. He liked its tenacity even if he felt sorry for it sitting in this particular hangar.

His ship was parked in a narrow space at the end of the Number Four hangar—thankfully inside Brit Habitat One rather than out on an umbilical space-dock on the outer hull. It let him do inspection and service without a spacesuit which was a major plus. However, it also meant that his old Mod18 was parked alongside five sleek, military Stinger-60s that belonged to the Night Stalkers. They were beautiful, lethal craft.

The white finish on his Mod18 was tinged from a partial reentry burn which she’d never been designed for. The massive NAS logo—Non-Aligned Ship—was nearly obliterated with solar bleaching. In space, paint cheap enough to afford didn’t last long. He and a few likemindeds had scraped together enough to run the one ship and keep her maintained. “Pretty” was outside their budget.

Non-Aligned Ship, as if his old Mod18 was somehow crooked. Lifter Rescue wasn’t associated with any government. In fact, if they hadn’t been given hangar space at Brit Habitat One—parked out at the Lagrange 2 point beyond Luna—there wouldn’t be any Lifter Rescue operation at all. However, with the Brits’ stamp of approval, the other remaining governments of deep space were forced to cooperate as well.

The thruster nozzles showed no signs of cracking. The primary and secondary cooling fins weren’t so fortunate, but they were still serviceable—for a few more flights at least. He came around the nose cone and spotted a woman leaning against the closed airlock.

It wasn’t Felice, his Number Two. She never hauled herself out of her rack this early unless there was a rescue alarm.

When he saw who waited for him, with her arms crossed and her glorious dark hair flowing to her shoulders, he was torn between irritation and being seriously pleased.

“Hey there, Karina.” Night Stalker Captain of Stinger-60 Number One-Four-Alpha—the toughest b***h in space, by her own proclamation. That was the irritating part about her.

“Hi, asshole,” but over the years her standard greeting had almost become affectionate…or at least kind of friendly.

“Well, at least some things never change.” She was also one of the best pilots in the entire system; only the very top ones made the Night Stalkers. A challenge that he’d never even wanted to try. Still, he had liked piloting beside Karina in flight school and still missed that, five years later.

“Some things never do,” she sounded particularly grumpy. “Like you going out again in this flying hazard.” The seriously pleased part was that she actually spoke to him, listened to him, occasionally drank with him—though they’d hardly gone past that. There’d only ever been one night between them. Not a night actually, really just a moment, but he’d never forgotten it. No matter who he’d bedded over the years, and there’d been some incredible women, it wasn’t enough to erase that memory.

He also appreciated the contact because almost everyone else socially plas-walled the people who flew for Lifter Rescue, as if what he did was worthy of contempt. She was perhaps his sole champion among the most powerful military in space—even if there wasn’t much she could do for him there. At least she didn’t revile his chosen career in public, only to his face.

Brody shrugged. It was an old argument. They’d agreed to disagree long ago and even that hadn’t stopped it entirely. He leaned back against her Stinger-60, garaged by some weird fate next to his Mod18. There were twenty of these ships stationed at Brit Habitat One all the time, in addition to an equal number on upsystem patrols. The likelihood of his ending up beside her craft seemed beyond chance. For whatever reason it had happened and he liked the opportunity to see her more often—even when they exchanged little more than friendly snarls.

Lift Rescue had been a point of contention between them, ever since graduation day from flight school. She hadn’t spoken to him for at least a year after that. There were fewer missions every year, but he didn’t care.

Earth still had the occasional Lifters, people so desperate to leave that they built their own ships to climb the gravity well. And almost every one needed some help to make it out. That’s where he and his Mod18 came in—a role that hadn’t even existed in the first three phases of humankind’s climb to space.

First had come The Exploration—brave lunatics atop chemical-filled bombs.

The Expansion had been far safer—mag-lev rail launches that had delivered settlements from the Senegalese on Mercury to the Swiss out on Pluto. There were rumors of some settlements all of the way out in the deep Kuiper Belt, but if they survived, they weren’t talking. No surprise really as it would take a serious dose of paranoia to climb so far.

Even during The Exodus, most of the craft had been purpose-built or were salvaged from Expansion-era craft.

But toward the end of the Exodus, they began running out of ships and Lifters had gotten creative. They’d even salvaged the ancient chemical rockets from The Exploration. Nobody had the power or the skills to climb out to Luna anymore—most didn’t make it into orbit. Lifter Rescue tried to help those who didn’t disintegrate at launch or punch a brief hole into the ocean after a failed lift.

“One of these days, I’m not going to come down and save your a*s,” Karina didn’t move from where she leaned against his closed airlock in her space-black jumpsuit. She’d looked incredible in flight school. She looked even better now. His brain went there, even though experience had taught him not to bother hoping.

“Never asked you to.” Besides, there’d only been the two times. One, when he got in beyond his ship’s abilities—the reason he’d replaced his first copilot with Felice. And the other when he’d faked an emergency because, in a rare, massive lift, there were more people to rescue than his one ship could handle.

No one could agree on what to call this latest phase. The official term was The Aftermath. Felice’s vote had been The Exhaustion—as the last of free Earth tried to climb the gravity well. His personal favorite was The Expectoration, the last of humankind being spit out of the planet with nowhere to go except up.

Brody sighed.

Everything seemed to be a battle with Karina. A challenge to be faced down or a tally to be accounted for. Other than their ships being berthed side by side, he wasn’t even sure why she kept talking to him.

“So, your new plan is to block my airlock for the rest of your life?” Yet he wasn’t sure he’d mind. His life would be far less if she wasn’t a part of it—no matter how small a part that was. Over the years he’d tried for a bigger part, but the answer had consistently been an evasive no—as if she hadn’t even heard him.

“Maybe it is, at least until I figure out what to do about you.” Karina Rostov was a tough-as-plas pilot and had a dark-eyed beauty that he could never ignore.

She was also a fifth-generation Expansionist. Her people had spaced long before the Russo-German-Turk War had erased all three countries in one b****y week, along with most of Europe. Back when humanity’s entire future hung beyond the sky.

His family hadn’t been so fortunate. When he was a kid, they’d spaced aboard an old Minuteman VI missile they’d found in a Montana silo and converted for The Lift. Three families, four years of work, and he’d never forget the raw terror—or the man who had plucked the few survivors out of the sky before the missile ballistically reentered Earth’s atmo. He was retired now from his cargo hauling business, but still one of Lift Rescue’s main benefactors.

With Karina’s pre-Exodus heritage and his family being just…Aftermathers (Expectorants sounded a little vile even for him), there were even higher barriers between them.

“What are you doing here, Karina?” He couldn’t enter his ship until she moved away from his airlock and she didn’t appear to be in any mood to do so. While he’d be glad to look at her all day, she always had an agenda. It wasn’t like her not to state it and move on.

“I don’t even know why I’d care if you died rescuing the useless,” like he was an i***t for doing so.

“You mean the hopeful?”

She shrugged uncomfortably.

Maybe he finally needed to let go of his Karina Rostov fantasies. How could she think about people that way? It was hope that drove them aloft despite the horrific odds.