Entanglement Bound: An Epic Space Opera Series (Entangled Universe Book 1) Read online

  ENTANGLEMENT BOUND

  ©2020 MARY E. LOWD

  This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of the authors.

  Aethon Books supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Aethon Books

  www.aethonbooks.com

  Print and eBook formatting, and cover design by Steve Beaulieu. Artwork provided by Luciano Fleitas

  Published by Aethon Books LLC.

  Aethon Books is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead is coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  Contents

  ALSO IN SERIES

  1. Morning on Crossroads Station

  2. Maradia's Robot Emporium

  3. Two Robot Shops in One Day

  4. A Picnic Lunch at the Grav-Bubble Playground

  5. Assembling the Team

  6. From the Arboretum to The Serendipity

  7. Getting Going

  8. Breakfast for Dinner in Space

  9. From Slow to Very, Very Fast

  10. The Cassiopeia

  11. Changing the Game

  12. Discussions in the Belly of the Beast

  13. Flying Together

  14. Secrets of the Past

  15. Secrets of the Present

  16. Secrets of the Future

  17. Commitment to the Cause

  18. Staring the Universe in the Face

  19. The Depths of Horror

  20. Twisting the Knife

  21. Negotiations and Shuffling of Responsibilities

  22. Arriving in Leionaia System

  23. Improvising Through a New Environment

  24. Emergence

  25. Slicing Away the Past

  26. Alone on Leionaia

  27. To the Devil's Radio

  28. Plans Awry, Battle Plans Drawn

  29. Suicide Mission

  30. Sunshine Spaceship

  31. The End

  32. Out of the Fire, Into the Frying Pan

  33. Full Circle

  ALSO IN SERIES

  FROM THE PUBLISHER

  ALSO IN SERIES

  ENTANGLEMENT BOUND

  THE ENTROPY FOUNTAIN

  STARWHAL IN FLIGHT

  1 Morning on Crossroads Station

  Clarity leaped off her Solar Class III vessel onto the docks of Crossroads Station. Her long hair, gene-modded to grow green, flounced around her shoulders. She leaned in to her traveling companion, Irohann, and whispered up to him, "It's good to be back. Even if only for a little while."

  Irohann's triangular red-furred ear flicked, as if the sound of her words tickled. "It may be longer than a little while," his deep voice growled, filled with a complicated emotion Clarity couldn't quite untangle. They’d traveled together for years, yet she didn’t know what to expect from him. There was a mutable quality to Irohann, but she knew he’d stay beside her.

  "Should I get my job back at The All Alien Cafe?" Clarity asked. She'd tended bar there off and on, before she and Irohann had saved enough to buy The Serendipity. Now, they never stayed in one place long enough to pick up more than quick jobs between cargo hauls.

  Irohann's ears flicked back in a way that definitely meant he wasn't happy. With the red fur and canine features, Irohann blended in like any other Heffen in the crowd. Because of that, Crossroads Station was one of the safest places in the galaxy for him. It also meant he clammed up like nowhere else.

  Clarity put a hand on the back of Irohann's arm. His fur was soft and the feel of it always made her feel safe. She wished she could make him feel safe so easily. "Hey," she said, voice gentle but her touch on his arm growing firm enough to stop him. "What's wrong? I know you get nervous around other Heffen, but this seems like more."

  Irohann turned to look at her. He towered over her, without even measuring all the way to the tips of his pointy ears. His dark amber eyes looked serious, and his gaze kept flitting away to other Heffen as they passed. He looked like them, but he didn't fit with them. His muzzle split, like he was about to say something, but his long cheeks huffed and he looked skyward instead. Of course, there was no sky inside a space station constructed from gyroscopically rotating, interconnected toroids. But the ring they were on had transparent sections in its ceiling, and through them, inhabitants could see the curves of two other rings—shining metal, glittering with windows—cut across the darkness of space.

  "Come on," Clarity said, rubbing him just above the elbow, ruffling the smooth fur. He'd do better once he had a drink in his paw. "Let's get to the All Alien Cafe."

  Clarity grabbed Irohann’s paw and led him through the rest of the docks. She loved the noise and bustle on Crossroads Station—it was technically a human station, a relic from the original Human Expansion, but as she walked through it, Clarity felt like a minority. No matter how many times she returned to Crossroads, there were always surprises. New species developed space travel—or had the technologies brought to them by well meaning S'rellick or human scientists—all the time, and sooner or later, those newly spacefaring species ended up at Crossroads Station. Then they ended up at the cafe where Clarity had met Irohann.

  They took an elevator up one of the spokes to the next ring, passed several other store fronts, and finally came to the comfortably familiar neon blue sign that read All Alien Cafe. The 'e' in Cafe was flickering. Clarity couldn't remember for sure if it had been flickering last time, but she thought it had been.

  Irohann followed the L-shaped bar all the way to the back and took a seat by the wall. Clarity sat beside him, ordered marzicran sherries for each of them, and flirted a little with the avian bartender, who fanned his blue and green feathers out with a flourish as he served their drinks. Clarity gave the bartender a wide grin and wrapped her hand around the cool glass of the sherry.

  The first sip was sweet while the bright red syrup mixed with the honey-gold sherry. Then the taste mellowed out into a flavor deeper and more complex as the red and gold swirled together, settling into the color of a waning sunset. Hints of almond and sage played across her tongue. She had missed that flavor. Nowhere else got it quite right. Quite the same. Honestly, some places were probably better, but there was nothing like the flavor of home. At some level, she still thought of Crossroads Station as home. It was where they always came back to.

  After Clarity had savored half of her drink and Irohann had drained his, she said, "Let's try again. What's up? 'Cause this bartender is perfectly
good"—she gestured at the avian with her drink—"and I don't need a job if we're going to be flying off to heaven-knows-where in a matter of days."

  "We've been losing money," Irohann said. The more serious he got, the more canine his features looked. "I think we should sell The Serendipity, or at least trade it for a smaller ship. A starhopper instead of a full ship. We don't need the space. We don't use it."

  "We live in it." Clarity drained the rest of her drink, pushed the empty cup to the inner edge of the bar, and tapped a few times to let the bartender know she needed another. "Two more. One for me, and one for the big dumb lump who just threatened to sell my home." Clarity bristled, remembering only moments earlier she'd been thinking about how Crossroads Station was her true home. She hadn't mentioned the thought to Irohann, but she didn't like feeling like a hypocrite, even if he didn't know.

  Clarity was normally in charge of cargo and contracts, leaving the finances to Irohann, but she would never have guessed that they were losing money. The jobs had been steady, even if the manifests had been growing shorter and the distances longer. Clarity pulled out her pocket computer and connected to the inter-stellar authentication network, which verified her identity and set up a cryptographically secure link to the various financial institutions where their money was stored. Irohann didn't trust any one entity with complete control of their wealth, so it was distributed across different solar systems and currencies. When the account balances finally showed up on the screen, they confirmed the situation: Irohann was right. They'd been losing money. Slowly but surely. Now she felt like a hypocrite and an idiot.

  Clarity didn't like the idea of going back to renting quarters, moving from one room to the next, depending on what was available when they docked. You can't live on a starhopper—they're only good for short trips.

  She liked her room on The Serendipity. It was filled with keepsakes she'd picked up on the various planets and stations they'd visited. She liked collecting children's toys, especially dolls from alien races. They reminded her of the different species she'd met and showed her a little bit about how they saw themselves. At least, that was the excuse she made when Irohann ribbed her for buying them. Mostly, she liked living in a tiny menagerie—all those glassy alien eyes staring at her from each of the shelves in her room. It was friendly and made her feel safe. If they sold The Serendipity, she'd need to pack her tiny menagerie into a storage crate. Or just get rid of them. Go back to traveling light.

  But Clarity had spent years traveling light, basically backpacking across space for two decades. She liked having her own room. The Serendipity was a big enough spaceship for Irohann and her to each have their own rooms, with an extra, and that was in addition to the tiny kitchen, the cockpit, and the cargo bay.

  Of course, that was the real problem—Irohann was right. They didn't use all of the space. There was enough room on their ship to take on a couple passengers in addition to hauling cargo on any given trip. That would mean a lot more money. It would also mean inviting strangers into her space.

  Clarity would trade privacy for money if it meant keeping The Serendipity. She scrolled through the list on her pocket computer of cargo assignments they'd been considering, then keyed in a new parameter: willingness to ferry paying customers as passengers. The list grew longer. Clarity continued scrolling, skimming the options as they passed across the glossy screen.

  "Look," she said, pointing to one of the listings. "This one pays 9,000 credits for taking two passengers and a single cargo crate, marked live material, to a triple-star-system about twenty light-years away."

  Irohann leaned over, and the shaggy fur of his mane-like ruff brushed against Clarity's shoulder. He stared at the listing for a long time, then said, "That would barely cover our travel expenses."

  Clarity frowned and then glared at her friend. Was he playing dumb? Or did he just not want to take on passengers? "Of course not," she said. "We'd find another listing that takes us in that direction and fill up the cargo hold as well."

  "It says two passengers." Irohann pointed at the listing on her pocket computer with a blunt claw, as if to imply she hadn't read it carefully enough and needed to read it again. "We only have one extra room."

  Clarity rolled her eyes. "Maybe they'll share. Maybe we can share for a couple of days." That would be better than selling her room entirely. Besides, Clarity and Irohann were forced to share a bed a few times before when things got tight, and sleeping next to a bulky mass of fur was as comfortable as it sounds. When he slept, his body became like a giant, warm field of drowsiness that made her own eyes grow heavy.

  A new message popped up on the pocket computer's screen. It was a personal request to hire The Serendipity—450,000 credits to travel eight light-years with unspecified cargo.

  "That sounds sketchy," Irohann said.

  "Right, sketchy," Clarity agreed. Before Irohann had spoken, she was going to say it sounded promising. It was a lot of money. "It couldn't hurt to look into it though. I mean, that's a lot of credits." She typed in a quick response—More info required. She was about to slip the computer back in her pocket when it chimed with a response.

  "Already?" Irohann said. His ears perked up with interest.

  Clarity blinked a few times before she could believe what she was reading.

  "What's it say?" In spite of himself, Irohann's long fluff of a tail swished slightly behind him on the barstool.

  Clarity tilted the screen away from his line of sight and said, "It's an offer to meet up at a robotics storefront in the Merchant Quarter." Except, it was more than that. It was a no-strings-attached down payment of 1,000 credits, along with the promise of another 16,000 appearing in her account as soon as she crossed the threshold of Maradia's Robot Emporium—1,000 for her to keep, and 15,000 to purchase a particular robot, no questions asked, signed Wisper.

  Clarity didn't want Irohann to see the message, because she figured he'd have questions. Reasonable questions like, "Why would this anonymous person offer you so much money just to buy a robot? Why not buy the robot themselves? Is it illegal? How illegal?" They'd been known to dabble in the gray market, but Irohann had reasons to keep himself off any official radar, and he drew a firm line between shadowy gray and deep-space black.

  Irohann would definitely ask all of those questions, and Clarity knew she should probably ask them too. But she was intrigued, and how shady could a deal be that went down at a place called Maradia's Robot Emporium? Drug dealers weren't exactly known for working out of robot shops, and neither roboticists nor robots were usually the biggest drug users, as far as Clarity knew.

  "I'm going to check it out," Clarity said. Part of her felt like she should bring her big guard dog of a friend along. The rest of her figured he was only a quick call away, and it would be less embarrassing when this turned into a disaster if she didn't bring him.

  Irohann drained his second drink, wiped a paw across his muzzle, and said, "Want me to come?"

  "Nah, I'll be fine," Clarity said. She slipped off her barstool, settled the tab for their sherries electronically, then slid the computer back into her pocket. On the way out, she blew a kiss to the bartender. He clacked his beak and waved a wing with dramatically long pinion feathers. She beckoned for him to come closer, and he leaned over the bar. She whispered, "Take care of my friend, okay? He's feeling kind of down."

  The bartender bobbed his feathered head and squawked, "I'll see if I can hook him up with the group of Heffen playing astro-darts."

  Clarity shook her head. "Not Heffen."

  "Doesn't get along with his own kind?" the bartender squawked, lowering his voice sympathetically.

  "Something like that," Clarity said, although it was nothing like that.

  The bartender pointed a pinion feather toward a table in the far corner. A blue alien gesticulated wildly with its six arms, speaking to a group of waist-high, long-eared, mammalian aliens surrounding him. The little lapines twitched their noses attentively. They looked like bunnies listeni
ng raptly to the stories of an ancient Earth god. Some kind of bizarre meeting of Hindu mythology and an Aesop's fable.

  "How's your friend for listening to stories?" the bartender squawked. "The blue guy over there is a robotic storyteller, designed to preserve the culture of an alien species who died out before developing space travel. Spins the best yarns."

  "Perfect," Clarity said. "See if you can nudge Irohann over that way."

  Clarity didn't think the bartender would have much success, but at least this way, Irohann would have to deal with the bartender's attentions for a while.

  2 Maradia's Robot Emporium

  The doors to Maradia's Robot Emporium slid open with the kind of satisfying kathunk-woosh that was completely unnecessary but reminded the listener they were on a space station. In space. In the 24th century. With robots. It was not a bad noise to hear on the way into a robot emporium.

  Inside the storefront, there was a computer on a desk and several simple but comfortable-looking chairs. A diploma with honors from Wespirtech hung on the wall behind the desk, displayed proudly. Clarity was impressed. If she'd attended the premier science and technical institute in the western spiral arm of the galaxy, she'd display the diploma too.

  Screens covered most of the rest of the walls, showing the roboticist's work in looping videos. Words streamed across the bottom of the videos, explaining all the features of Maradia's robots. She'd certainly made a lot of them. They ranged all the way from maintenance robots that looked more like flying trash cans with tool belts soldered to them—designed to roam through the station's crawlspaces and ducts, or sometimes fly around outside the station, fixing broken electrical connections—all the way to fully humanoid androids, nearly indistinguishable from whichever alien species they were designed to mimic.