The Caphenon Read online

  The Caphenon

  by Fletcher DeLancey

  Copyright © 2015 by Fletcher DeLancey. All rights reserved.

  First Smashwords Edition: March 2015

  Editor: Nikki Busch

  Cover Design: Streetlight Graphic

  All rights reserved. This eBook is licensed for the personal enjoyment of the original purchaser only. This eBook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this eBook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are a work of fiction or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

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  Table of Contents

  Other Books by Fletcher DeLancey

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1 : Celestial stone falling

  Chapter 2 : Night-three call

  Chapter 3 : Reconnaissance

  Chapter 4 : Alien surprise

  Chapter 5 : Pallea search

  Chapter 6 : Captain Serrado

  Chapter 7 : Connection

  Chapter 8 : Search and rescue

  Chapter 9 : The last one

  Chapter 10 : Pallea search II

  Chapter 11 : Casualties

  Chapter 12 : Seeders and Shippers

  Chapter 13 : Machine on the move

  Chapter 14 : Empaths and sonsales

  Chapter 15 : Emergency statement

  Chapter 16 : Staking claims

  Chapter 17 : Comfortably trapped

  Chapter 18 : Search for the searchers

  Chapter 19 : Cultural exchange

  Chapter 20 : Ground pounder

  Chapter 21 : Combining forces

  Chapter 22 : Return to the Caphenon

  Chapter 23 : Translation

  Chapter 24 : Battle strategy

  Chapter 25 : Battle of the ground pounder

  Chapter 26 : Listening to a leg

  Chapter 27 : A common language

  Chapter 28 : Base space

  Chapter 29 : The Caphenon is melting

  Chapter 30 : Revelations

  Chapter 31 : Fleet orders

  Chapter 32 : Alternative plan

  Chapter 33 : An embarrassing inconvenience

  Chapter 34 : Breaking Fahla’s law

  Chapter 35 : A few things

  Chapter 36 : High Council

  Chapter 37 : Morning after

  Chapter 38 : Flight of the Return

  Chapter 39 : The alien and the templar

  Chapter 40 : It’s done

  Chapter 41 : Dinner and sex education

  Chapter 42 : The right thing

  Chapter 43 : Mission’s end

  Chapter 44 : Last chance

  Chapter 45 : Game of strategy

  Chapter 46 : The challenge

  Chapter 47 : Absolution

  Chapter 48 : To a future

  Chapter 49 : War council

  Chapter 50 : The only way

  Chapter 51 : Apology

  Chapter 52 : Lifting the Caphenon

  Chapter 53 : Captain on the bridge

  Chapter 54 : Night watch

  Chapter 55 : Battle of Alsea: Kylinn

  Chapter 56 : Battle of Alsea: Miron

  Chapter 57 : Battle of Alsea: Lanaril

  Chapter 58 : Battle of Alsea: Ekatya

  Chapter 59 : Battle of Alsea: Tal

  Chapter 60 : Battle of Alsea: Kylinn II

  Chapter 61 : Battle of Alsea: Ekatya II

  Chapter 62 : War heroes

  Chapter 63 : Private celebration

  Chapter 64 : A bridge between sonsales

  Chapter 65 : Dirt-side desk job

  Chapter 66 : Choices

  Chapter 67 : Recalled

  Chapter 68 : Celestial stone rising

  Chapter 69 : The last front

  Epilogue

  Glossary

  Coming Soon by Ylva Publishing

  About Fletcher DeLancey

  Other Books By Fletcher Delancey

  Mac vs. PC

  Chronicles of Alsea

  The Caphenon (Book One)

  Without A Front I

  The Producer’s Challenge

  (Book Two; Coming in October 2015)

  Without A Front II

  The Warrior’s Challenge

  (Book Three; Coming in November 2015)

  For the ones who look up.

  Acknowledgments

  It feels trite to say “this book would not have been possible without my wife,” but it’s true. Maria João Valente encouraged my dreams from the day we met, which is only appropriate since she is one of my dreams—and my tyree. Sweetie, I’m sorry I made you into a writer’s widow, but it’s kind of your own fault.

  I owe great thanks to Karyn Aho, whose detailed analyses of my various drafts helped me hone this story to a much sharper edge. It sure is handy having a professional psychologist on call to make certain my character arcs stay in the realm of reason.

  Behind the curtain is a team of experts and assistants who helped with critiquing, fact checking, editing, and the myriad other concerns that crop up in the production of a novel. I’m grateful for the efforts of Alma Tiwe, who speaks English as a second language but can spot a grammar error at fifty paces; Erin Saluta, beta reader extraordinaire; Rick Taylor, writing instructor and lifelong friend (and was it ever stressful to hand over my manuscript to a person I’ve known since I was six); Saskia Goedhart, whose martial arts expertise made sure the fight scene was realistic; S.N. Johnson-Roehr, my go-to person for astronomy questions; and my editor Nikki Busch, who has a thing about commas.

  Extra thanks go to proofreader Cheri Fuller, who went above and beyond her task description and is living proof that there is a place in this world for compulsively detail-oriented people.

  Glendon Haddix of Streetlight Graphics gets kudos for putting together a beautiful cover despite my utter inability to describe what I wanted (I’m a wordsmith, not a graphic artist). He also spiffed up the map of Alsea, which was originally produced by my wife. A double dose of kudos goes to Maria for creating that map based only on my drawing—which consisted of two nebulous blobs for continents, a few city dots, and several pathetic mountain ranges that looked like a herd of carets.

  Finally, I’d like to thank my publisher, Astrid Ohletz, for being so persistent in signing me up. It’s been a few years since I was last courted, but Astrid, you’ve got the moves.

  Chapter 1

  Celestial stone falling

  Bilseng Lokon was filling his cup at the shannel dispenser when the alarm went off. It had been so long since his initial training that at first he didn’t recognize the sound, but when it finally registered, he nearly dropped the cup in his haste to get to the desk. Dashing across the room, he threw himself into his chair and peered at the datascreen, his heart pounding with excitement. Celestial stones were a regular occurrence at this time of the cycle, but until now they had fallen on his coworkers’ shifts, never his.

  Every stone that fell on Alsea held clues to the physics, chemistry, and possibly the biology of the universe, and there were scholar programs in five different cities waiting for their turn to examine one fresh from its journey. Any stone that revealed noteworthy findings was a coup, not just for his tracking group, but for the individual who had located it. Maybe
tonight was his night. He grinned to himself. Why think small? Maybe tonight was the night for a stone that carried some proof of other life in the universe. His name would be in the history books.

  Fingers flying, he set the tracking program and waited for the ground and orbital scanners to triangulate and extrapolate a landing site. Columns of data began building at the bottom of his screen, his excitement growing with them. But then his spirits plummeted as the columns separated into two sets.

  That meant that the stone had split on entry, and a broken stone was never as valuable as a whole one. It tended to undergo far more damage as it burned in the atmosphere, if it survived at all.

  He’d barely had the thought before one of the stone’s halves exploded. The first set of data columns flared up, the numbers changing so quickly that he couldn’t read them. Many dropped to zero and winked out, only to be replaced by new numbers that were still shifting. It must have been a big one if this many trackable pieces were still falling even after most of it had vaporized. What a find! There were so many leftovers that the scanners were unable to lock onto them all, causing the automatic prioritization program to kick in as the computer attempted to track only the largest and most likely to survive the descent. As far as he knew, a shower like this had happened just twice in the thirty-cycle history of the study. He was going to be the most popular scholar on the planet tomorrow when he handed out the coordinates of these pieces.

  The data was streaming in so rapidly that the computer still hadn’t sorted out the dimensions of the debris left over from the explosion, so he shifted his attention to the second set of data columns. This half had remained intact, which meant it was probably smaller than the other or else far more solid in structure. The computer was still estimating its size, the data box stubbornly empty as he waited. He should have had a number by now, but with so many pieces falling all at once and every scanner sending a torrent of data, the program was overwhelmed.

  It had managed a velocity estimate, however, and he stared at it in puzzlement. The number was much too low. Since the stone had entered the atmosphere on the opposite side of planetary rotation, its ground speed that high up—before atmospheric braking—should have been at least four times as fast.

  He was just lifting the almost-forgotten cup of shannel to his lips when the estimated size appeared in its box. His involuntary start splashed hot liquid all over the desk, but he didn’t notice the mess even as he set the cup back in the middle of it. A chill ran through his body, leaving a sheen of sweat behind as he stared at the data box.

  It was huge. A cataclysm in motion.

  He could barely comprehend it. Something like this should never have gotten past their long-distance observation program; it should have been mapped long ago and missiles sent to nudge it off its deadly path. But here it was, as if it had just dropped into their orbit. Had it been traveling at a normal velocity, the damage on impact would have been almost unimaginable. It could have destroyed half a continent, or caused a catastrophic megawave if it landed in the ocean. Even at this speed, if it impacted a densely populated area, hundreds of thousands of Alseans would die. Maybe millions.

  He smashed his hand down on the emergency switch and the vidcom popped into life, revealing a bored-looking warrior whose expression changed to alarm upon seeing his face. “What is it?” she demanded.

  “Incoming celestial stone, three-fourths of a length in diameter!”

  “Three-fourths of a—holy Mother!” she swore. “Where is it going?”

  “I don’t know. The numbers are still running.”

  Distantly he heard her making a call, repeating his information to someone else, not that he had any real information yet. The trajectory extrapolation program shifted through its numbers, zeroing in on the impact site as he watched in an agony of suspense. When the final coordinates lit up, he let out a cry of despair.

  “Oh, Fahla! It’s headed for Blacksun!”

  The warrior stared openmouthed for half a piptick before turning away and snapping out orders. Bilseng looked back at the coordinates, his heart clenched in his chest. Blacksun, the largest city on the planet. The seat of their government, their cultural heritage, their greatest temple…and his home. All of his family lived there. They were dead and didn’t know it.

  He felt half dead himself, his emotions suddenly subdued. He could not think about the two million inhabitants of Blacksun now. He couldn’t think about his family. He needed to be a scholar—a trained scientist learning from the historical event now in motion. There was still work to be done, data to be gathered. And he could start by trying to understand why this celestial stone was moving so slowly.

  With a swipe of his fingers, he moved the glaring impact coordinates off to one side and pulled up the physical outline box. The shape inside it was blurred as the program continued to compile data from the scanners, but even the blurred outline was strangely geometrical. He expanded the box, making the odd shape larger. It looked like a rounded leaf, broader at one end and slightly tapering toward the other, with an indent at the broad end where he imagined the leaf’s stem would go.

  The image rotated on the screen, giving him a view from the next quadrant. Now he could see dome shapes both above and below the lateral plane of the stone, higher and broader on one side but reflecting the same general symmetry as the other. The higher dome wasn’t entirely round, remaining much thicker at one end than the other. When the image rotated into a third quadrant, that thick end resolved itself into what appeared to be three partial cylinders, perfectly aligned and touching on their long axes.

  Never in all his studies had he seen a celestial stone like this.

  The image sharpened, revealing perfectly smooth lines and edges. Too perfect. The domes, the arcs of the edges—they were all geometrically ideal. When the box finally lit up to indicate a full data compilation, he stopped breathing. It was impossible.

  But it was undeniable. There was no way in Fahla’s universe that this could be natural.

  He looked up at the vidcom, where the warrior was still speaking on her other call. Probably organizing an evacuation of Blacksun, as if it would do any good. She didn’t see him, so he still had time before making the decision that would guarantee his place in history. If he called this, he would either be hailed as the Alsean who first saw the dawn of a new era, or marked forever as the biggest grainbird his caste had ever produced.

  “What else do you have?” the warrior’s voice interrupted. “Speed, impact strength—how big an evacuation zone are we talking about?”

  “Less than it should be,” he said, still delaying. “If this were a normal stone, it would destroy half the Argolis continent. But it’s traveling at a fraction of the normal speed…” He trailed off, then made his choice. “Because it’s not a celestial stone. It’s a ship.”

  The warrior stared. “A what?”

  “A ship. An alien ship.”

  Silence.

  “Are you really telling me this?”

  “Yes. Here, look.” He tapped the button to send the image from his datascreen to the vidcom. “Look at that outline. It’s perfect. Too perfect. Celestial stones don’t come in shapes like this. Not to mention that it appeared out of nowhere and it’s going too slow. It’s as if it just dropped into our atmosphere.”

  When he reverted to their call, she’d lost some of her attitude.

  “You’re saying that not only is there life in the universe, but it’s about to land right on top of Blacksun?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying.” But his training demanded that he double-check, so he swiped the impact coordinates back on and gasped.

  They had changed.

  But the only way they could change was if…

  “They’re flying it,” he whispered.

  “What? Speak up, scholar!”

  “The aliens. Whoever is on that ship. They’re flying it. It’s not headed toward Blacksun anymore. It’s going…about thirty-five lengths northwest of
it. No, wait. Forty.”

  “Does that mean we don’t need to evacuate Blacksun? Are you certain?”

  As if he could be certain of anything right now. “If they’re flying it, it could land anywhere. I can only tell you what the data says at any given moment. Right now it says they’re landing forty lengths away from Blacksun. I think they’re trying to land in an unpopulated area.” Something inside him cracked, easing an unbearable tension. His family would not be annihilated after all.

  “Perhaps they think we can’t detect them.” The warrior looked thoughtful. “If I were going to attack an unsuspecting population, I’d want to keep the element of surprise. Land where I could coordinate my ground force before advancing.” She pointed at him. “Keep your eyes on that landing data.” Before he could respond, she had already initiated another call. When she next spoke, it was with far more deference.

  “Chief Counselor Aldirk. I apologize for waking you, but we have a global emergency.”

  Chapter 2

  Night-three call

  Half a lifetime of training had Andira Tal on her feet and mostly awake before the vidcom could chime a second time. She yanked a robe over her sleepwear and strode toward the dining area, where the large vidcom hung over the table. A call at night-three could only be bad news, and the ID confirmed it. Chief Counselor Sunsa Aldirk would not wake her unless it was something he couldn’t handle on his own for a few hanticks, and there was very little that Aldirk couldn’t either handle or delegate.

  “Yes, Aldirk,” she said as soon as the screen went active.

  “Lancer Tal, we have both a state and military emergency. I’ve just received a call from Whitemoon Base, which patched me through to the Astrophysics Laboratory.” He paused, giving her time to wonder what sort of mess could possibly involve government, military, and astrophysics simultaneously.