QUANTUM MORTIS Gravity Kills Read online

  Praise for QUANTUM MORTIS

  “What are we going to do when artificial intelligence becomes self-aware, self-willed, and maybe stark raving mad? The question matters because that day is coming…fast. With approximately as many twists and turns as China's Tianmen Mountain Road, Quantum Mortis starts fast and then accelerates, leading to a conclusion both shattering…and more than a little heart warming.”

  —TOM KRATMAN, author of A Desert Called Peace

  QUANTUM MORTIS Gravity Kills by Steve Rzasa and Vox Day

  Published by Castalia House

  Kouvola, Finland

  www.castaliahouse.com

  This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by Finnish copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2013 by Vox Day

  All rights reserved

  Cover Design: JartStar

  Version 002

  International Standard Book Number: 978-952-7065-12-9

  Image courtesy of the Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, NASA Johnson Space Center

  For Carrie, my partner without a badge.

  And for Marc Miller and his Little Black Books.

  QUANTUM MORTIS: Gravity Kills

  0856 Hours, 3401.101

  ATSV Sumner, TT-122977, in orbit 890 kilometers above Rhysalan

  “So I think I’ll skip lunch today.”

  Graven Tower rubbed his palm across his face. He’d seen a fair number of stomach-churning sights in twelve years of service with His Grace's armed forces, a few of which had required self-medication combined with years of professional therapy to forget. But nothing would suffice to erase this horrific scene from his mind’s eye, not if he drowned himself in pure alcohol while his neurons were soothingly electrocuted by a platoon of military neurotherapists.

  The ambassador’s traveling compartment was arranged in a luxurious and observably expensive manner. Ceramic tiling had been laid over brushed silver deckplates. The reinforced bulkheads were concealed by colorful tapestries—real, honest-to-goodness tapestries made with actual threads, not mere holographs—slip-sealed into place. Cracked screens displayed frozen tableaus from a xeno world Tower had never seen before.

  The remnants of two black chairs made from the skin of an alien animal and a couch covered by the same material were scattered across the floor of the compartment, the frames crushed and compressed thinner than the tapestries. Lit by the temporary yellow illuminators that had been installed by the ship's crew, the ambassador’s wealth and good taste were apparent even in the chaos.

  However, the effects of the compartment’s décor were lost on its inhabitant. The ambassador himself was distributed more or less evenly across the starboard wall. Shreds of his tattered clothing were stuck to the congealed remains. Purple and maroon goo, a long slick of maroon blood or other internal body fluid, sections of pale blue intestines, white splinters of bone scattered throughout—those were about the only body parts Tower recognized.

  The stench was overpowering. All in all, the scene reminded Tower a little of the time he’d struck an unfortunate avian that had slammed into the windshield of his armored aerovar at a mutual velocity well in excess of 200 kph.

  “It is at times like this that I feel grateful for the lack of an internal digestive system,” Baby informed him. The augment’s voice was piped directly into his mind but sounded as if it came from a woman standing just behind his shoulder. “I find one’s appetite for electrical power remains consistent regardless of the quality of the sensory input.”

  “Just another limitation of the flesh.” Tower reached into the pocket of his black laser-resistant jacket and fumbled for his scanner.

  “Don’t feel bad about being the penultimate in post-human evolution, Tower.” Baby hummed a tune he was startled to realize that he recognized as “All Hail The Power of Jesus’ Name.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake! I told you to keep that crap out of my head, Baby.”

  “Given that I am in your head, I fail to see how that can be accomplished.”

  Not for the first time, Tower silently cursed the fool responsible for machine sentience.

  “Just turn the volume down, will you?”

  “You got it, boss.” Her humming mercifully faded into mere background noise.

  “Chief Tower?” A tall, lanky mercenary poked his head in the hatch, penetrating the yellow glowing holotext that spanned the entrance and declared “CRIME SCENE—MILITARY CRIME INVESTIGATIVE DIVISON.” The mercenary wore the slate grey and pearly white body armor of Wardogs Incorporated, one of the sector’s largest mercenary corporations, and a corporal’s insignia was painted on his armor. “The Assistant Undersecretary of the Office of Protocol is here to speak with you about the ambassador, sir.”

  Hanging from the mercenary’s utility belt, with its barrel strapped to his left leg, was a Cerberus MPE-40. It was a pulsed particle gun that could knock a man unconscious for a half-kilosec or blow a hole the size of Tower’s head through a pair of standard bulkheads, depending upon the setting. There were also four clips, each of which contained 20 full-power charges, attached to the man’s belt. A holographic display was dripping text in front of the merc’s eyes from a black repeater unit latched to the rim of his helmet.

  The fact that a Wardog, and such a well-armed Wardog at that, was serving as ship’s security sent a little shiver through Tower’s highly sensitive police senses. Dead ambassador plus Protocol bureaucrats plus Wardogs Incorporated almost certainly added up to trouble. Considerable trouble.

  He sighed. “Thanks, Corporal. Send him in.”

  “Yessir.” The merc exchanged subdued words with someone just out of Tower’s sight. A very firm, very female voice snapped back a response to the young man, and Tower heard ceramic armor creak as the youth saluted someone.

  Forewarned by her voice, Tower was unsurprised by the sight of the official who strode through the hatch. She wore the dark blue uniform of the Duke’s administration, her shoulders bedecked with the silver comets of a lieutenant colonel. Tower stood at attention and crisply proffered a sharp salute. She wasn’t military, but in space, even the Duke’s civilian officials were given formal military rank for diplomatic reasons Tower had never understood.

  He was not surprised when she failed to return the salute.

  “Graven Tower, MCID.”

  “Mr. Tower.” She nodded, her face distracted and grim. Her hair was mahogany, streaked with silver at her temples, and cut nearly as short as Tower’s, albeit in a slightly less flattering mode. Grey eyes as hard as the bulkheads surrounding them locked on to his presence. Modestly attractive, but in a very cold, harsh kind of way. Not his type. Not at all his type.

  “Jannara Kail. I’m with the State Department.” She was holding a device tucked under her left arm. “I appreciate being provided access to the scene of the accident, Mr. Tower.”

  “She’s not happy, Tower,” Baby informed him silently. “I detect a mildly elevated blood pressure, potentially indicating some level of irritation with the fact that you got here before she did.”

  Why? We only got here half a kaysec ago.

  “Point three six five, to be precise. Either way, she didn’t make the shuttle from Gamma. And we did.”

  Tower nodded to the diplomat. “Ma’am, with all due respect, we don’t know if it was an accident. My orders are to investigate this incident as quickly as possible.”

  “Yes. So I understand. Major Zeuthen’s communiqué indicated as much. Though not much more, I am afraid.”

  “His messages can be pithy,” Tower agreed.

  “Is ‘pithy’ some sort of euphemism for ‘profane’ with which I am unfamiliar?”

  Zip it, Baby.

  “I informed him that the professional shipboard security would be more than adequate to handle the investigation of the unfortunate accident,” Kail declared haughtily. “However, your presence here indicates that the major did not grasp that this is a diplomatic matter, and not a criminal one.”

  “You keep calling it an accident, ma’am.” Tower snorted. “The complete failure of a ship’s inertial compensator system might be an accident. Such an untimely failure in a single compartment when acceleration is underway looks rather more like murder.”

  “An accident nonetheless.” The diplomat handed him her device. “This is all the data downloaded from the internal sensor logs concerning the incident that took place on Section Four, Subsection B, Deck Thirteen. The ship’s captain has already reviewed it and concurs with the Office of Protocol’s preference to leave the matter with the ship’s security team.”

  “Have the mercs investigate?” Baby sounded as dubious as Tower felt. “I have the distinct impression the Office of Protocol wants to kick this one under the carpet.”

  Tower brushed his fingers across the surface of the device. Streams of data sprang up in holographic form. “Thanks, Undersecretary. My augment will appreciate the prep work.”

  The expression on her face did not indicate that he was welcome.

  Dig through this junk, will you, Baby?

 
“On it, boss.”

  Tower turned his attention toward the remains of the ambassador. The initial readouts were interesting. “Sanssari?”

  “Yes. As was noted in the logs.” The disdain in Undersecretary Kail’s voice was hard to miss. “Ambassador Ir Volo was the representative plenipotentiary from the Grand Republic of Sanssatta Prime. He was returning to Sanssatta Prime following an important series of meetings with the Duke’s Minister of Xenoplanetary Relations.”

  Tower frowned. “On a military transport? A supply ship stuffed with Wardogs?”

  Kail nodded. “In the opinion of the High Admiral and the intelligence community, the Grand Republic is going to lose the war. The ambassador was negotiating the terms of a Sanctuary contract establishing its government-in-exile here on Rhysalan. The mercenaries are being provided and weapons are being sold to them to ensure the government is provided sufficient time to safely exit the planet.”

  “Another one?” Tower shook his head. Sufficient time to safely exit the planet, my fourth point of contact! Buying time for the government-in-exile-to-be to strip the Grand Republic of its financial assets was more like it.

  His branch of MCID, Xenocriminology and Alien Relations, was already responsible for investigating all crimes involving the hundreds of governments-in-exile given Sanctuary by the Duke. Thousands, actually.

  As the only neutral and independent planet in the subsector, not beholden to the imperialist Greater Terran Ascendancy, the expansionist Unity, or the increasingly authoritarian League of Independent Planets, Rhysalan profited greatly from providing refuge to failed democrats, deposed monarchs, and revolutionaries whose personal services had proven surplus to post-revolutionary requirements. There were hundreds of thousands of xenos presently resident on Rhysalan, among them were humans, quasi-humans, post-humans, and any number of wholly alien species.

  Unsurprisingly, a considerable amount of crime and violence accompanied these governments into exile, both as perpetrators and as victims. If they weren’t plotting a violent return to their homeworlds, they were being tracked down by assassins and vengeful accountants. As a result, Tower and the other members of MCID-XAR seldom lacked for occupation.

  The Undersecretary sniffed disapprovingly. “Sanctuary revenues are an important contributor to Rhysalan’s Gross Planetary Product, Mr. Tower. And it is undesirable that our exoplanetary guests should feel unsafe when seeking safety within the borders of our solar system.”

  “Translation:Figure out a way to say it’s an accident, dummy!”

  Yeah, I get it. Just give me what you’ve got on this ambassador, will you?

  Baby displayed an image on his right contact lens, superimposing a portrait of the ambassador on the compartment and creating the impression that he was standing in the room with them. The ambassador wasn’t a bad-looking guy, by xeno standards. Two meters tall, pale purple skin, glowing blue eyes, and an aristocratic bearing of a body apparently carved from pseudo-granite. Even wearing the white and black robes of his ambassadorial office, the muscles of his arms and chest stood out. The massive build and the thick bones indicated a high-G world. His hair was dark purple, close to the iridescent black of a tri-winged beetle’s shell.

  Kail cleared her throat. “Mr. Tower, I must reiterate the State Department’s desire for this to remain a shipboard matter handled by the appropriate personnel assigned by my office. It was the Office of Protocol’s duty to transport the ambassador safely between Rhysalan and Sanssatta Prime, and therefore all responsibilities for the investigation remains with our department and its contractors.”

  Tower ground his teeth but did his best to keep his temper. Even though MCID had a considerable amount of leeway when it came to collateral damage, he was fairly certain it didn’t extend to killing one of the Duke’s diplomats, no matter how annoying she was.

  That didn’t mean he had to play along, though, even if she outranked him. He couldn’t believe she was seriously suggesting farming out the investigation to the mercenaries on board. What a farce!

  “I'm sure you know the jurisdictional priority, ma’am. Every crime involving either the Subsector Armed Forces or exoplanetary citizens within a thousand klix of Rhysalan’s surface falls under MCID jurisdiction. And we have a particular obligation where Sanctuary contracts are concerned. And the fact is that in this section of the ship, and this compartment only, the anti-gravity system severely overcompensated when the ship accelerated to leave orbit. In my considered professional opinion that stinks of something other than an accidental malfunction.”

  “I have records of twenty-seven anti-gravity overloads and inertial compensator failures on file with the Office for Transportation Safety within the past year, Tower. In none of them was the failure this localized.”

  “Furthermore, my information indicates this type of malfunction is extremely rare,” he continued. “Perhaps that’s not enough to make you suspicious, but that doesn’t matter, because this investigation is under MCID jurisdiction until I say it isn’t!”

  “Or until the administration informs you otherwise.” Kail stood her ground. “Potential—potential, mind you—criminal concerns are not the only ones involved here, Mr. Tower. This ship contains a full battalion’s worth of battle armor, hovertanks, and combat droids for which the delivery date is guaranteed. Even your Colonel Tafe would not dare to risk the financial penalty that would be incurred by failure to meet the delivery date.”

  How much would something like that cost? he asked Baby. Roughly.

  She told him. His mind boggled. It seemed the undersecretary had a point. An excellent point. For that many civars, Colonel Tafe would have cheerfully ordered him to strangle the ambassador himself.

  Tower backed down. “I understand, Undersecretary. When does the ship need to clear the system to ensure on-time delivery?”

  For the first time she smiled, correctly grasping that he was willing to play along. “We can reasonably delay launch for 72 kilosecs without fear of jeopardizing the contract, Mr. Tower.”

  “Very well, ma’am. If you will be so kind as to give me fifty to investigate the ambassador’s death, I will agree to terminate MCID’s investigation at that time and withdraw our block on the launch.”

  “Will fifty kilosecs suffice?”

  “My thought is that we’ll figure this out fast or not at all, Undersecretary.”

  “Very good. I appreciate your flexibility, Mr. Tower. I will instruct the ship’s captain to order his crew to make themselves available for whatever interviews you have in mind. And I will inform both Major Zeuthen and Gamma Station Control that the trans-system launch will be permitted at zero eight one five hours.” Kail nodded briskly. “I wish you good hunting, Mr. Tower.”

  She stalked out of the compartment. Tower watched her departure with moderately more interest than he would have previously imagined. Say what you might about her personality and her lack of femininity, but the woman did keep herself in shape.

  “She’s not your type,” Baby commented. “The last I noticed, you didn’t harbor any desire to be mothered. Or ordered about.”

  “People put in the hard work, they deserve to have it noticed. You’re just jealous that you don’t have a body.”

  “Anymore. Besides, my ass was considerably prettier than hers.”

  “Granted,” Tower allowed. “Now, can you tell me exactly what happened here?”

  “At 0400 this morning, the captain of the Sumner ordered an all ahead quarter-burn. The ship activated its mains and accelerated on course to the jump point at 200 gravities. One point six six decasecs into the acceleration, the artificial gravity in the ambassador's compartment accelerated. Catastrophically. It was set to 1.7 g, but boosted to a sustained 198.3 g. The ship’s augment noticed the anomaly and immediately decelerated and shut down the artificial gravity system. Upon being informed that the ambassador was dead, Captain Kehler ordered an immediate return to Rhysalan orbit.”