Sol (The Silver Ships Book 5)

Sol
is the fifth book in
The Silver Ships
series. I wish to extend a special thanks to my independent editor, Joni Wilson, whose efforts enabled the finished product. To my proofreaders, Abiola Streete, Dr. Jan Hamilton, David Melvin, and Ron Critchfield, I offer my sincere thanks for their kind support.

Despite the assistance I’ve received from others, all errors are mine.

A glossary is located at the end of the book.

Jodlyne crawled on her hands and knees through the air shaft, the cool rush of air chilling her thin body, making her shiver despite the exertion. The circular, one-meter diameter, metal ventilation shaft nested inside the walls of the enormous spoke, extending a hundred meters from the space station’s core through the inner wheel to the outer wheel. A fine layer of dust coated the inside of the shaft, making it easier for Jodlyne’s wrapped hands and knees to slide along.

Two years ago, at the age of eleven, Jodlyne became an orphan. The United Earth (UE) militia caught her parents running supplies for the station’s rebels. Judged guilty, they received life sentences to work the ore borers in the asteroid fields. Word reached Jodlyne that her parents weren’t even granted the small favor of working at the same outpost.

Rather than be taken into the militia’s custody and shipped via freighter to an inner-world, UE-run orphanage, Jodlyne ran away. While the militia searched for her, she discovered an air vent in a utility corridor’s bulkhead that was detached at the bottom. The vent swung up to accommodate her small frame and she crawled into the dark, sliding down the passages, until she lost her way.

In the pitch black, with the air cooling her body, Jodlyne sat absolutely still, knees drawn to her chest for warmth, trying not to cry and listening to the militia call back and forth as they searched for her. Hours passed and she sipped water and chewed on meal bars, fighting the urge to pee.

After what seemed like an eternity to Jodlyne, a voice hissed at her from the darkness. “You gonna sit there all day or you wanna come with me?”

Jodlyne hadn’t seen anyone, but she heard scuffling and then saw a small glow light shining on a scrawny butt, which began fading away. Stuffing her water jug and a half-eaten meal bar into her pack, Jodlyne had scurried after the fading light.

Today, Jodlyne was still following the slender flanks of Edmas, the boy who had found her that day. The fliklight pinned in her hair fluoresced the bands of reflective cloth affixed to Edmas’s coveralls and the dashes smeared on the walls, which the young rebels used to guide them through the station’s extensive ventilation system.

Jodlyne’s heart was thumping in her chest. Edmas had picked her for the raid, and it was to be her first. Her teenage mind spun fantasies of being with Edmas, who was two years her senior and the leader of the tunnel rats. She touched the gun strapped to her thigh for the hundredth time.

The tunnel rats lived to harass the UE militia, crawling through the ventilation system from the inner ring to the outer ring to pop out and ambush militia patrols. They tagged the troopers’ visors with their pellet guns, blinding them, and then swiped their stunstiks and anything else that could be grabbed before dashing back into the air tunnels. Jodlyne had practiced incessantly with her pistol in every stance and from every position she could imagine until she was considered one of the best shots among the rats.

At the end of their air vent, Edmas eased opened the cover whose bottom was unattached. The vent ended in a utility corridor rather than the station’s main passenger corridor. Edmas motioned Jodlyne up beside him, and they lay together for warmth in the air vent’s mouth, listening for the footfalls of militia boots.

Sometime later, a nudge in Jodlyne’s ribs woke her, and a dusty hand covered her mouth. She flushed with embarrassment that she had fallen asleep, but Edmas’s body had been a warm blanket after the seemingly interminable crawl through the incessant stream of cool air.

Edmas held a finger to his lips, which Jodlyne could barely discern in the dim light that penetrated the vent’s slats, and he signaled her to crawl deeper into the vent. Jodlyne wriggled backward as quickly and silently as she could, hearing the muffled sounds of Edmas following her. He had no sooner spread an old piece of dirty cloth over their heads to conceal them, than a powerful light played off the tunnel’s walls as the militia patrol sought to catch any tunnel rats off-guard.

Seconds later, the light switched off, but Edmas cocked an ear, listening intently to ensure the patrol had walked on. He tugged on her jacket, crawling quickly back to the vent cover, and Jodlyne hurried to keep up with him. Edmas was already in the corridor, holding up the cover, when Jodlyne reached the opening and slid silently to the deck.

Creeping down the corridor, their wrapped boots served to muffle their approach as they followed the sound of the patrol’s fading footsteps. At the corridor’s tee, Edmas peeked around the corner to find a militiaman waiting for him. The patrol had set a trap with one man noisily walking on and the other lying in wait.

Jodlyne watched Edmas throw himself across the corridor to land on his back as sleeper darts from a stunstik struck the wall above his head. Her training took over, and as the ambusher rounded the corner into full view, Jodlyne snapped out her pistol, dropped to one knee, and peppered the trooper’s visor, blinding him.

Edmas frantically waved her back to the vent, but the footfalls of the second patroller were fast approaching as he raced to the rescue of his comrade. The man Jodlyne blinded was stumbling around, shouting and cursing the rebel rats. His visor was covered in a matrix of paint and bonding material that glued his visor shut. He was alternating between swiping at the visor trying to clear it and yanking on his helmet to pull it off, but for safety’s sake militia helmets were attached to the upper torso armor via a mounting ring

Jodlyne shook her head at Edmas, who was still waving her off. She backed up a couple of meters and laid down her pellet gun. Swiping the cover off her head, Jodlyne shook out her fine, blonde hair around her shoulders and held her hands up in surrender. She glanced at Edmas, who nodded his agreement and quickly crawled backward to wedge himself into a doorway set back from the corridor.

The second militiaman came sliding around the corner on his knees, but he hesitated when he spotted a young, blonde teenager with her hands in the air. Puffs from Edmas’s pellet gun sounded in the momentary quiet, and a second visor was effectively covered and sealed.

Edmas rushed forward and kicked the legs out from under Jodlyne’s target. While the trooper was down and disoriented, Edmas unsnapped his utility belt and grabbed his stunstik. He hurried to Jodlyne and snatched at her shoulder, but she jerked free to scrabble forward and grab her head cover and beloved pistol before she sprinted after him.

Edmas was waiting at the vent cover and boosted Jodlyne into the tunnel’s mouth. She scurried down its length as fast as she could, the coded dashes on the walls guiding her, until Edmas called a halt. They sat side by side, laughing at their successful raid against the UE militia, who held sway over the outer ring of Idona Station.

“Patrol attacks are rising, Captain Yun,” Lieutenant Patrice Morris reported. “We had five attacks around the wheel yesterday. None of our people were seriously injured, more embarrassed. They were robbed of stunstiks, web belts, and other gear. It’s all kids.”

“Kids grow up to be rebels, Lieutenant. Don’t forget that. Implement four-man patrols immediately. Let’s see how the little rats handle those odds.”

“Yes, sir,” the lieutenant replied.

UE militia was housed in the administration section of Idona Station’s outer ring, but their numbers were such that they didn’t have adequate forces to effectively patrol day and night even a quarter of the huge ring. The rebel stronghold was the inner ring and the core, which gave them control of the station’s critical systems, including its giant fusion reactors, and the enormous size of the station allowed the rebels, mostly tunnel rats, to surreptitiously visit much of the outer ring with impunity.

This had been the status quo for several generations, but lately moods were shifting, and the rats were becoming brazen. And the mood was echoed by the citizens of the station, who no longer ducked their heads as they passed militia patrols, but more often stared back.

“Anything else?” Captain Yun asked quietly.

“Nothing, Captain,” Lieutenant Morris replied.

This was a frequent daily exchange, and not just between the captain and the lieutenant, but between senior militia and naval officers and their direct reports throughout Sol’s outer rim. The entire system had witnessed the historical return of the
Reunion
, and everyone waited restlessly for the much-anticipated announcement from the Supreme Tribunal of the explorer ship’s exciting discovery, but nothing was heard. To add to the general unease created by the lack of information, Speaker Garcia, the leader of the expedition, was not seen or quoted in the media after the
Reunion
made Earth’s orbit.