Chapter 1

A Lords of the Stars Novelette

Mattias von Schantz

March 4, 2202, Albur-tar district, Kerrma-non, Jerr

“Are you comfortable?”

The question was asked with heartfelt concern, yet, it made him feel old.

Mikhail Johnson shifted in the rattan chair he was sitting in. In the process, a slight feeling of pain shot upwards from his hip. Along with the upper portion of his femur, it had been replaced with synthetic bone made from titanium and ceramics more than three decades ago, after it had been shattered in a bad fall during his pursuit of a terrorist through the slippery streets of the city, one rainy night. The mission had not gone well—after the fall, the revolutionary had escaped and gone on to kill innocent families in the process, before regular Sunguard forces had managed to take her into custody.

He’d been meaning to have it replaced with a new biotic prosthetic for years now, but somehow always found a reason to postpone the procedure. Maybe it was really time to go through with it now.

The invention of artificial life more than a decade ago had led to perhaps the most revolutionary upheaval of the Terran Federation since the first field generator was constructed. The biotic cells—micrometer-sized self replicating computer chips—were easier to shape than their biological counterparts, given that their genetic code was stored as software programs in flash memory rather than chemically in deoxyribonucleic acid. More than that, they were resilient—impervious to disease and poison, their metabolic processes independent of oxygen, and capable of entering dormancy instead of perishing when deprived of sustenance. Their lifespans were, for all practical purposes, infinite. They were also stronger—a biotic muscle cell could pull a hundred times the weight of a biological cell without breaking, and a biotic bone was capable of sustaining a hundred times the force that would shatter a biological bone.

“Yes,” he replied to the middle aged Jerrassian woman in front of him, trying to hide the grimace he realized he had started to make. It was indeed time to do something about that hip now. “Thank you, Kal. It’s really wonderful here.”

They were sitting at a small wooden table on her balcony, overlooking the busy street below. The summer breeze carried with it the metallic fragrance of the blue-green leaves of the trees lining the boulevard, and the salty smell of the nearby ocean. It was a peaceful scene, with families from the four races walking leisurely along its well kept pavements, some of their children enjoying ice cream in the warm orange sun. As he watched, one of the younglings down below—a Jerrassian cub no older than five—lost the grip of her large red balloon. It slowly began to drift down the street, out of reach of the young girl, but before she even had the chance to realize what had happened and start to cry, a tall Etarian man in blue pants and suspenders caught it and returned it to her.

Mikhail smiled. It was all so different now. Had he been sitting here twenty years ago, he would have canvassed the street with suspicion in his eyes, intent on finding anyone acting out of the ordinary. But the reign of terror the Jerrassian Liberation Front had waged on the Terran Federation for half a century was now over. The Sunguard had played an important role in rooting out the terrorists, but so too had the Jerrassian people themselves. While the JLF initially had enjoyed some popular support during Integration, that had quickly waned, and eventually the Jerrassian people had turned on them. No surprise there, Johnson thought—more than half of the JLF’s victims had been Jerrassians themselves. With no safe place left to hide, the people had turned over the leadership of the Liberation Front to the Sunguard, and with them gone, the terrorist organization had faded away.

“I see you’re no longer wearing your stripes,” Olem Kal said, indicating the brown leather jacket Mikhail had hung over the backrest of his chair. For more than 40 years, he had worn only his plain gray uniform, with the red stripes along its sides signifying his status as a Sunguard Special Agent.

“We’ve been decommissioned for 15 years now,” he replied, attempting to sound confident, but his voice betrayed his emotions. He had kept wearing his striped jacket for a decade past its expiration date, but he had always made sure never to wear the trousers, so as not to give anyone the impression he was still an active Special Agent.

“How do you feel about having been replaced?” Kal asked with an expression of curiosity, knowing her old friend would not be offended by her blunt question.

“Honestly?” he asked, though it was a rhetorical question. “I’m happy about it. It was the right choice. It doesn’t matter how good we were, or what training we went through. We were still human. If a criminal or a terrorist really wanted to, they could get the same kind of training we had. And Kelar and Jerrassians are both inherently stronger and faster than Terrans, so we were always at a disadvantage. More than once, that cost us innocent lives.”

“No hard feelings towards the new biotic Special Agents, then?” she asked with a laugh.

Mikhail shook his head emphatically. “None at all,” he confirmed. “That’s not to say I don’t miss the job. But they’re faster and stronger than we were. They can do things we could never do. And more important than that, they’re inherently incorruptible—they don’t care about race or gender or money or status. They’re in a better position to protect the people and ideals of the Terran Federation than we ever were. They’re saving lives. I could never resent them for that.”

“And besides,” he continued with a twinkle in his eye, “it does give me more time to go fishing.”

They continued their small talk for a while, both sipping their respective drinks. Being Jerrassian, Kal, of course, could not drink coffee—certain Terran enzymes were toxic to Jerrassian biology and would cause her to vomit violently if she did—but she always kept beans in her freezer for him in case he came by. Mikhail was no fan of the hot, sweet korta-ben wine she always drank.

“Speaking of hard feelings,” Mikhail suddenly said, as they watched the orange globe of Tau Ceti starting to set behind the blue-green hills beyond the city, “why don’t you resent us?”

It was a valid question, and one Kal had been struggling with for years.

“I can’t anymore,” she said, after thinking about it for close to half a minute. “I did hate you, you know that.” Being accused of a crime she hadn’t intentionally committed and sentenced to hard labor under the watchful eyes of the Sunguard was surely justification enough to resent the Terran Federation—and, by extension, the Terrans themselves.

“But hating my neighbors is a sin,” she continued, fingering the small silver cross hanging from a chain around her thick, furry neck. “It corrupts the soul. It leads to violence and division. Only by forgiving you, like I myself have been forgiven, could I find a path forward.”

Despite not sharing her faith, Mikhail agreed with her sentiment. He’d seen far too many times the darkness into which hatred had led otherwise good people.

“And speaking of neighbors,” Kal continued, “how come you never returned to Mars?”

That was an easier question to answer. For the last 61 years, Jerr had been his home, ever since that first Sunguard mission to the planet.

“I love the Jerrassian people. Even during the hardest years of the uprising, everything I did was for the people of Jerr. Not for the People’s Council, mind you, but for the women, men, and children of your world. My world.”

Amanda had felt the same. The year after First Contact, she had followed him to Jerr, and they had married on top of the white chalk cliffs of the Tober Coast. Together, they had spent the rest of her life on the alien planet.

From the avenue below them, the rich fragrance of tovlar-tam and shish kebab was starting to emerge from the nightly street vendors setting up their shops along the alley. As the mouth-watering smells started to drift upward towards the balcony where they were sitting, Mikhail was just about to offer to go down and buy some street food for them, when the bell on Kal’s door suddenly rang.

He turned to Kal, who quickly rose from her chair to open the door, and for a moment, he thought he caught a mischievous grin on her face.

“Anyone home?” an old, dear voice from the doorway asked. Old, but full of life.

A few seconds later, High Admiral Jenny O’Sullivan, Supreme Commander of the Sunguard, appeared on the balcony, dressed in jeans and a thick, knitted grey sweater. Mikhail Johnson shot up from his chair as if his pants had caught fire, almost tipping it over in the process. He started to raise his hand in a salute, but caught himself—he was a civilian now, retired for more than a decade. And besides, for most of his life, he had been a Special Agent. If anything, she should be the one saluting him, not the other way around. But old habits die hard, and he still remembered serving under her as a lieutenant during their first mission to Jerr all those years ago.

Jenny saw his discomfort and quickly stepped forward to ease it by pulling him into a tight hug. Clearly, she had had more than a few organs replaced with biotic versions, Mikhail thought, knowing she was now close to a hundred years old.

“How are you, my friend?” she asked as she stepped away. “Kal heard I was in the neighborhood and told me you were coming for a visit. I thought I’d stop by.”

By neighborhood, Mikhail knew she didn’t mean the block, but rather the star system. The High Admiral was usually stationed with the rest of the Solar Command in the Sunguard headquarters on Europa.

While the two former colleagues reacquainted themselves with each other, Kal brought out a third chair, and a cup of hot Jerrassian tea for Jenny, as well as a couple of thick blankets. Though the night was warm, the evening breeze might be uncomfortable for the two older Terrans. She didn’t want them to freeze, and knowing they both were too polite and too stoic to ask her for anything, she took preemptive action instead.

“I’m afraid I have to be the bearer of bad news,” Jenny said softly. “If you haven’t heard already, Alistair passed away right before Christmas. He went peacefully, with his family by his side.”

Remembering the former Special Agent, Mikhail grieved. The man had been his mentor for close to a decade following their first contact mission to Jerr, before Mikhail himself had been promoted to the same rank. After that, they had not had much contact with each other. Mikhail had stayed on Jerr, first overseeing regional operations in the Kerrma-non sector before eventually taking on wider responsibilities for the entire planet, while Alistair had moved on to police the new colony worlds. Now, he was gone.

“I never met him,” Kal said after a brief pause to contemplate the sad news. “I know he was important to you both. What was he like?”

“Funny!” the two Terrans replied, almost at the same time. The moment of jinx was followed by a second of silence, after which they both burst out laughing. It was all very appropriate.

“Yeah,” Jenny continued. “He could say the weirdest things with a perfectly straight face, just slipping them into any serious conversation he happened to take part in.”

“And then he’d break out that mischievous smile of his to make sure no one misunderstood him,” Mikhail continued. “It’s a good thing he was a Special Agent, with no accountability to anyone but the Solar Council. Otherwise, he would have gotten himself into so much trouble.”

“You do realize he wasn’t a biot, right? He wasn’t born a Special Agent,” Jenny reminded him in jest. “I suspect he did get into trouble more than once before attaining the rank.”

“And now we know just why he pursued that career path!”, Mikhail exclaimed with a laugh.

The two women joined him in the joke, chuckling lightly together. Together, they watched the sun set and the night closing in on them. The darkness would come soon enough.

Author's Note

The story you're reading is one of many set in the Lords of the Stars universe I've been creating over the past 30 years, where familiar characters and places reappear, and new favorites await discovery. Check out my profile to explore more stories from this universe.

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