Guardsmen of Tomorrow (24 page)

Time blurred as Luis watched, uncertain if a few minutes or several hours had passed. He was breathing shal-lowly, finding it, less hurtful, was concentrating on the scorpionlike piece of equipment that was gathering what he wanted in an effort to not think about the heat. He barely heard the chime in his helmet, and realized it had been sounding for a while, as the miners were all returning to the ship, one motioning for him to do the same. He maneuvered about, saw the blackness again, and waited until one of the miners passed him. Following that man toward the blackness where Reah waited, Luis found the bay doors and was tugged inside.

Several minutes later his helmet was off, and he and the other men were greedily swallowing water to replenish what their bodies had lost to sweat. Tubes were connected to the suits, refilling the cooling systems, drying out the sweat-soaked linings. Drones were inspecting the suits and equipment for heat damage. One miner was shrugging off a suit that had been sun-marred and was searching for another.

Captain Melka was watching Luis. “Congratulations, Mr. DeBeers.”

Luis cocked his head.

“You basked in the sun without crumpling. I had expected to be hauling your unconscious carcass back here and tossing you in the medtent. For a land-bound, you have mettle.” Then Melka was gone, disappeared behind the rest of the equipment that was being hauled in.

Luis had resolved that would be his only trip out of the ship. Once-just to have done it, to see the operation close-up, to have something to tell the family about. To impress Reah. But Melka’s words had challenged him. He decided to see it through for the rest of the week, unless he succumbed before that-and he prayed that wouldn’t happen. He rested his face against a cooled wall and waited. Four hours later they were cleared for another trip.

Time became unimportant, days and nights having no meaning next to the dying core of NGC7078. Luis worried at a sun blister on his cheek as he sat in the hold, inspecting some of the material the scorpion had retrieved for him. A hint of fragrant spice in the air caused him to look over his shoulder. Reah had entered the bay and was studying him.

“I wanted to see,” she said, her voice sounding softer than usual in the cavernous hold.

“The diamonds your father mined for me?”

She nodded.

Luis happily gestured her closer. Spread out in bins in front of him was a collection of smoky crystals, ranging in size from that of a pea to a big man’s fist.

She tugged off a glove and picked up a chunk. “I’ve seen diamonds. In the commons in spaceports.”

“Those would have been cut.”

“They were clear like ice. From Earth mines. I found them…” She poked out her bottom lip as she searched for a word. “Mesmerizing. I almost bought a diamond necklace once.”

“What stopped you?” Luis wanted to say
What stopped you, since you have a
fortune to spend
?

She shrugged her narrow shoulders. “Who would see it under this suit?”

Luis drew his lips into a thin line, decided to change the subject, but only just a bit.

“They’re mined on Earth mostly, but they’re not from Earth. Not originally.

Diamonds are from the stars, though a lot of geologists still argue that point.”

She sat next to him on the cooled tile floor, her leg brushing against his. Reah was still examining the crystal.

“Black diamonds,” Luis continued, “What you’re holding are called carbonados, made of space carbon. Stardust. Dying stars release stars into the solar systems around them. Some of them release carbon that is embedded into meteorites, which strike planets and embed the chips there. It’s the extreme heat and pressure that transforms that carbon into diamonds.”

“The conditions that exist here,” Reah said.

He nodded. “Geologists know that many diamonds on Earth are more than three and a half billion years old. That means the carbon in them predates animal and plant life by nearly three billion years. Proof, really, that diamonds weren’t created on Earth.

They really are Stardust.”

“And you have further proof here.” Reah replaced the crystal and selected another.

“I don’t care about the proof.”

“Just the diamonds,” she stated. “The Stardust.”

“There is nothing more brilliant in the universe than a cut diamond, especially black diamonds like these. Not even the stars come close. Not even the dying ones. The way the light hits their facets, bends and reflects, creating a rainbow. No other jewel has the luster of a polished diamond. So rare and precious.”

“And so valuable.”

He nodded. “Maybe as valuable as any new element your father might be discovering this trip.”

“Your family…”

“… has been involved with precious gemstones for centuries,” he finished with a considerable amount of pride. “My great-grandfather is the one who suggested that diamonds came from space. He theorized that chondrites, that’s a…”

“I know what a chondrite is. A class of meteorite.” She set down the crystal and studied Luis’ face instead. She saw excitement there, his breath coming faster as he explained his passion and heritage.

“A chondrite is filled with an incredible concentration of tiny diamonds. They’re seeds, essentially. When they crashed into Earth in ancient times, the chondrites planted these seeds, and larger diamonds grew around them. The volcanoes thrust them close to the surface, where people discovered them. They discovered diamonds on Mars, too, though the deposits were mined out quickly.”

“And now you’ve a new source and a new way to mine them.”

“Exactly.”

“And you’ll be richer.”

Luis’ shoulders sagged. “Money’s not what it’s all about, even though it sounds that way. If it was just about money, my family would make synthetics. We did it late in the twentieth century. A machine, small-only thirty-five cubic meters. It squeezed a diamond shard, nearly a million pounds of pressure, and cooked it at about fifteen hundred degrees centigrade. Add a bit of graphite and some other catalysts to stimulate carbon grown around the shard. A couple of days later, you’ve got a diamond approaching two karats. You could tell the difference, of course, but not with your eyes. It takes a good jeweler’s scope. People bought them, paid about as much as for a natural stone. So it’s not money.”

“What, then?” She had moved even closer, raised her small hand and wiped at the sweat on his forehead.

“Pursuit,” he said after a moment. “Of the purest diamonds. The largest.”

She drew her hand back and stood, attempted to smooth away the folds of her suit.

“We’re a bit alike, you and me. You into diamonds because of your family, just like I’m into sun-mining. Rich, and getting richer. And all in pursuit of the next, glorious find.”

“Its not about the money.” He didn’t hear her leave, she was as quiet as a cat.

However, he heard the chime echo through the bay telling him the cool-down period was over and it was time to venture into the oven again.

They’d mined NGC7078 for five days before the pirates came.

Reah was shining, displaying crack piloting skills as she guided the huge and bulky
Mire
away from the dying sun and the three fighter ships laying a line of laser-fire behind it. There was a big mining ship behind them, moving into the position vacated by Melka’s ship.

“Damnation!” the captain hollered, as he paced back and forth in the tail cargo hold.

His eyes were maniacally wild. “They weren’t shadowing us!” One of the crewmen had suggested that, believing that one of the fighter ships had been in their last spaceport and followed them, radioing for support and the pirate mining ship.

“If they were shadowing us, they would’ve chased us off earlier. Wouldn’t‘ve let us get the choicest elements. They weren’t shadowing us. Someone radioed out and notified them where we were going. It took them five days to reach our position.”

He stormed from the bay, face red from NGC7078 and his anger. He found Luis sorting through his uncut stones. Melka surprised him, dragged the smaller man up by the collar of his suit, holding him so only his toes touched the floor.

“So you paid me to mine for you. And the pirates paid you to reveal my stars. I ought to kill you. Toss you out the air lock and watch you explode.” Spittle flew from Melka’s lips, and his eyes held Luis‘, freezing the smaller man.

Luis couldn’t speak, overcome by the madness and fury in Sean Melka’s eyes. He tried to swallow, but found he couldn’t manage that either. All he could do was sweat and listen to the pounding of his heart, the sound thunderous in his ears.

“Dad!” It was Reah’s voice, and it was followed by a high-pitched whine.

The captain crumpled, stunned. Grateful and flabbergasted, Luis picked himself up off the floor and staggered back a few steps, thanking her. Captain Melka’s chest rose and fell regularly, but his eyes were closed. He was unconscious.

“You stunned him good,” Luis managed. The words were hoarse, and he worked to get some saliva in his mouth. “I owe you my life.”

A generous smile was splayed across Reah’s porcelain face. Her eyes were locked onto Luis‘. Unblinking, they reminded him of her father’s.

“I didn’t notify any pirates,” he began, wanting to explain his innocence to someone.

“I don’t know any pirates. He thought I did. He told me where we were going just before we left the port. And thought I… But I didn’t. I wouldn’t.”

“I did.”

He saw something else in her eyes at that moment, a wildness, a madness. He opened his mouth to say something else, but stopped himself and tried to put everything together. What could he say? Why was she doing this? What next?

“Its all about money, really.” She answered his unspoken questions. Her voice was ice. “The raiders pay me well, money I don’t have to share with my father. Still, I don’t call for them until he’s mined plenty-the cream from the dying sun. Money from them. Money from Dad’s mining.” She shrugged. “Besides, it makes his old age more interesting, running from pirates, looking over his shoulder. I’m helping him in a way, giving him a thrill, keeping him from getting complacent in his last years.”

“Agitated like a dying star,” Luis mused. “But he thinks I…”

“Of course he thinks you called them. And I’ll tell him he was right. Tell him you were pulling a laser on him.” She did that then, replaced the stungun and tugged a small laser pistol from her pocket, aimed it at her father and lanced him in the leg.

His body quivered in response, but he remained unconscious. “I rushed in here trying to warn him, but you shot him before I could do anything. And so I retaliated.” She turned the weapon on Luis, and he looked about for something to hide behind.

“Y-y-you’re mad!” he stammered, backing up toward a tall crate.

“The stars do that to you.” Her voice was still cold. She thumbed the trigger and a small white beam shot forward and stabbed at Luis’ chest, burning through the suit and the skin beneath, finding his heart. She fired again and again, though he was dead before he hit the floor.

She turned to regard her father. “I’ll get the men to carry you to the medtent,” she said, knowing he couldn’t hear her. “Tomorrow we’ll find another dying star. One, I think, that has diamonds.”

THE END

by Michael A. Stackpole

Michael A. Stackpole is an award-winning game and computer game designer who was born in 1957 and grew up in Burlington, Vermont. In 1979 he graduated from the University of Vermont with a B.A. in History. In his career as a game designer he has done work for Flying Buffalo, Inc., Interplay Productions, TSR, Inc., Hero Games, Wizards of the Coast, FASA Corp., and Steve Jackson Games. In recognition of his work in and for the game industry, he was inducted into the Academy of Gaming Arts and Design Hall of Fame in 1994. He’s the author of
The
New York Times
best-selling series of
Star Wars™
X-wing novels, and the fantasy novels
Once a Hero
and
Talion: Revenant
, and
The Dark Glory War
.

The ambush seared scarlet light through the mauve jungle. Sara had felt it coming a heartbeat before beams flicked out-things had gotten too quiet for a second. The enemy fire manifested as full shafts of light instantly linking shooter and target, then snapping off, since light traveled far too fast for even the most augmented eyes to see it as tiny bolts. Ruby spears stabbed down from high branches, or slanted in from around the boles of trees, here and there, as the Zsytzü warriors shifted impossibly fast through the jungle.

Sara cut left and spun, slamming her back against the trunk of a tree. Her body armor absorbed most of the impact, and she continued to spin, then dropped to a knee on the far side of the tree and brought up her LNT-87 carbine. The green crosshairs on her combat glasses tracked along with the weapon’s muzzle, showing her where it was pointed. The top barrel stabbed red back at the ambushers, burning little holes through broad leaves and striping trunks with carbonized scars. Fire gouted from the lower barrel as chemical explosives launched clouds of little flechettes at the unseen attackers.

Next to her, Captain Patrick Kelloch, the fire-team’s leader, laid down a pattern of raking fire that covered their right flank while she concentrated on the left. Flechettes shredded leaves and vaporized plump, purple
lotla
fruit. She thought she saw a black shadow splashed with green, and hoped one fewer laser was targeted back at her, but the Zsytzü were harder to hit than she’d ever found in virtsims.

Bragb Bissik, the team’s heavy-weapons specialist, stepped into the gap between the two human warriors. Un-derslung on his massive right forearm were the eight spinning rotary barrels of the gatling-style Bouganshi laser cannon. Into each barrel was fed a small lasing cell, consisting of a chemical reagent that released a lot of energy really fast. The cell converted that energy into coherent light of great power and intensity that blazed for almost a second once the reaction had been started. The cannon whined as the barrels spun. The red beams slashed in an arc, nipping branches from trees and burning fire into the jungle’s upper reaches.