Starquest: Scourge of the Spaceways, page 1
Contents
STARQUEST:
DEDICATION
Previously…
Prologue: Final Leave
Chapter 1: Pirate Captain Rackstraw
Chapter 2: Savages Against Space Pirates
Chapter 3: Pirate Commodore Rackstraw
Chapter 4: Name Of Fire
Chapter 5: In The Hall Of The Philosopher King
Chapter 6: Lost In The Gardens Of Abundance
Chapter 7: Quest Of Starquest
Chapter 8: The Planet of Dreadful Night
Chapter 9: The Wealth of Worlds
Chapter 10: The Return of Lightfoot
Chapter 11: The Hell of Ice
Chapter 12: The Imperfection of the Incorruptible
Chapter 13: The Malign Tower
What Next?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
EXPLORE THE 4TH AGE OF STARQUEST!
The 25th Century Can Be A Very Dark Place
STARQUEST:
Scourge of the Spaceways
By John C Wright
STARQUEST:
Scourge of the Spaceways
Starquest 12th Age -- Book #5
_________________________________________
JOHN C. WRIGHT
1st Edition: © 2025 John C. Wright/Tuscany Bay Books
All rights reserved. No part of the content of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database retrieval system, or copied by any technology yet to be developed without the prior written permission of the author. You may not circulate this book in any format with author’s permission. This is a work of fiction. All characters in this work are fictitious and not intended to resemble any living person.
PAPERBACK ISBN: 9798266528154
HARDCOVER ISBN: 9798266528475
ASIN: B0FRZNB1BM
Book cover by: Tan Ho Sim
DEDICATION
On Behalf of my Generous Patron
Aaron Van Treeck, this book is dedicated to his
Uncle Mike
To my Uncle Mike who introduced me to A New Hope when I was a kid.
Thank you for opening the world of Science Fiction to me.
Previously…
The Tale is not Ended!
For all True Tales are Part of a Greater
Special Agent Athos Lone, Ace of the Star Patrol, disguised as a pirate chief aboard the Devil's Delight, victorious after a reckless raid on the treasonous planet Rana, must survive and connive and kill his way from captain to commodore to pirate king!
For now, he knows an ancient foe of Andromeda is on the move: the devil-worshipping warlords and warlocks of the Peacock Men of Pavo. Clues point to sunless Noctua, a planet of prodigious peril!
Senator Napoleon Lone, in the halls of power, aided only by his hidden and illegal robotic valet, Robolone, wages a solitary struggle to gather support to send the armed forces of the Commonwealth against ever-growing fleets of bloodthirsty freebooters! If he fails, the dream of democracy will die!
Young Lady Lone, secretly the phantom thief Merry Catburglar, survived an encounter with the Faceless Man. Has he returned from the dead? If so, the underworld crimelords owe him fealty, and our female feline felon is woefully overmatched!
Lyra Centauri continues her lonely quest to find her foster father, her frozen world, and the eons-lost world of Arcadia!
And the clouds of war gather!
Prologue: Final Leave
Galactic Year 12815, Planet Ramus-Pomifer
It had been six years ago when Athos Lone last saw his older brother, Ozymandias, alive.
Athos had leaped from the hammock in his dormitory room, yodeling with joy, for the visit was unannounced, unexpected.
Ozymandias looked splendid in his copper and green uniform of the Star Patrol, twin comets blazing at his collar. Ozymandias laughed a great, deep laugh. "I had some leave time accrued, and thought I had to come save my little brother from his life as a bookish wastrel."
His big brother was as broad across the shoulders as Athos was, and as tall as Father. Neither Athos nor Napoleon could outdo him at fencing or wrestling, and neither could make him lose his temper. Only Mevrian had that art.
"Ozzy! I thought you were visiting the homestead!"
Ozymandias glanced at the wooden floor, the wicker walls, the woven leaves of the ceiling. A winged flying harness was hanging to one side of the balcony door, and a diving suit to the other.
There was a packet of joss sticks tucked in the belt of Athos, which Ozymandias snatched up without asking permission. Ozymandias spoke airily, "I see you rate a private room. A place to bring your chorus girls and barmaids for some private snooker, eh? Maybe I need to save you also from a life of sin."
Athos was not sure whether his blush was anger or embarrassment. He had never been kissed, and he was hardly the same as his brother Napoleon. But Ozymandias merely laughed, and put an arm about his shoulders.
Athos and Ozymandias passed onto the balcony. There was no door, only a semi-opaque force-curtain to deflect the wind and rain of tropic weather. They were wearing dark goggles, for the actinic sun of Ramus-Pomifer was too bright for human eyes, hence far too bright for the nocturnal eyes of half-Nemeans.
"Quite a view!" Ozymandias exclaimed.
The dormitory floated on the water, a barge of carven wood and woven wicker, rising deck on deck above the waves. Athos had a room in the superstructure, high above the main hull, where ornithopters and antigravity sleds were parked. Off the bow and stern, the various hulls holding other campus buildings were hawsered one to the next in a great circle, surrounding a wide space of sea where Ceti professors surfaced to give lectures. Vast sheets were raised as parasols, not sails, and brightly inscribed with the heraldry of the noble family or holy order who had funded the launch of whatever campus hull, lecture barge, or library ship adorned the prestigious flotilla.
Overhead, in the clouds, delicate as lace, were the aeries and dovecotes and aviaries, shrines and spires and carillons of the abbey from which the Ralline brethren descended for tutorial or chapel duty. Underfoot, the sea was clear today, and the lamps of the Ceti libraries and meditation cells could be glimpsed in the deep, half-hidden by fantastic growths of multicolored coral peaks, jagged and cragged as the limbs of a crab.
"I did not ask for a private room." Athos said, a little defensively.
"You didn't refuse it either," said his older brother, fishing a joss stick out of the packet. It was one of the self-lighting kind, igniting at the first puff. "Did the Dean tell you it was bad for morale if some young yeoman from the provinces bunks with a Duke's son, and hears him snore? Can't have the commoners see you in your underthings — was that the point? Some lowborn might hear you talk in your sleep."
"Rank has privileges," Athos said.
"It does? You did not used to say so." Ozymandias tossed the packet of joss sticks over the balcony rail into the sea.
Athos said, "Hey! Those were mine!"
"Bad habit. Stains your teeth."
"You're smoking!"
"I brush. Besides, you are one to talk about what to toss off balconies."
Athos shrugged his brother's hand off his shoulder. So that is why Ozymandias had come to see him on shore leave, rather than visit home. He should have expected this. Athos said, "It was not my fault! He had his flying harness on. He's not dead. And I won the fight!"
"This is the second time."
"Second time for what?"
"Assault and battery. Attempted negligent homicide. Aggravated idiocy in the First Degree. Have you forgotten about little lord Evnissyen?"
"Are you talking Evring? That scuffle with Evring? Evring does not count!"
"He is related to us through Great Grandmama's family. Our fourth cousin. He counts."
"I was a freshman then! He was an upperclassman! He challenged me fair and square to wrestle him. Practically."
"Wrestling him on a high bridge?"
"Have you seen this planet? There is no place to stand that is not a high bridge! Besides, the ocean broke his fall. It was not that high up. That happened a long time ago. It was just a little roughhousing."
"Once is roughhousing. Twice is a criminal career. Besides, this time, with this young man, there was an injury."
"A slap in the mouth is not much."
"You broke his jaw."
"If he had been watching his mouth, I would not have had to! Isn't sedition against the law? Treason? He said the Empire should have killed off more of us. Killed more aristocrats. That the Emperor had the right idea."
"Under the Great Charter, everyone has a right to speak his mind. As long as it is mere talk, it is legal. Besides, who made you judge and jury and jaw-breaker? Do you know his name?"
"Cruddy. They just call him Cruddy."
"His real name?"
Athos shrugged. "He is not in my school. The different schools rarely commingle."
"He is actually called Artelo Credi, son of Bosko, of planet Dorado in the Anacalard Sector. Bosko Credi is a commoner, but he is an important figure in the Contraption Menders Guild."
"How do you know that?"
"How do you not know it? You do not gather basic intel on enemies?"
"Cruddy is not an enemy."
"He is now. He is also the first man-jack of his home planet who was ever admitted to Fluvial University. You, on the other hand, are the son of a Galactic War Hero, whose name is on every lip from Alphard to Zozma. Now, what do you think the newsfeeds of his homeworld are going to report about the hometown darling of Dorado when he gets back home? What is the one story that will be repeated throughout the whole Anacalard sector? It is not going to be Crummy's score on last week's prehistoric language quiz. He is going to be famous for one thing only. When he is a grandpappy, strangers will still be buying him stout at the local pub to hear the tale of how the son of Raphean Lone cracked his teeth and tossed him off a brink. That is — if we don't smooth things over, and hush them up."
"Smooth over? You mean bribe."
"Don't be cynical. I was going to invite his family to a gala at the homestead, let him meet Mom and Uncle Jaywind and the other heroes all the bards praise. That is, if Jaywind turns up again. He just vanished from Mira one day. No one is sure where he is."
"You are inviting Crummy to our house?"
"Maybe for Candlemas. He can sleep in your bed while visiting; you can bunk with Hawkswift. I think that hay-burner is getting to like you. Or maybe just like the taste of you. He bites you enough."
"It may not be money, but it sounds like a bribe."
Ozymandias shook his head woefully. "More like military courtesy, tribute offered a foe to restore his honor. This way, when he is an old gaffer, strangers will be buying him drinks to hear about the time he spent a holiday with Sir Jaywind on the Duke's ranch, and met Buckles and Buttons, the first free robots in history."
Ozymandias sighed, and his cheerful face grew somber, which was not a usual expression for him.
"Listen to me, little brother. People are honestly grateful to Father for killing a Dark Overlord and toppling the Empire. If that was not enough, Mother killed another. The Dark Overlords are all dead and gone, and everyone rejoices. There is a huge reserve of public goodwill. The common people want to be forgiving. If you let them. That reserve is not inexhaustible. Neither is my patience. Besides, Crummy's Dad is a Guild Master in the Contraptioneers. No point in a bribe. He is richer than us."
"It is treason to want the Empire back. I will not crawl to him."
"You will crawl like a paper carpet on a neutron star, and lick his footprints, if need be."
Athos looked stubborn. "Father was a fighter. He did not forgive evil."
"If that were true, we would never have been born. A pirate hunter who marries a pirate queen has to have at least a little forgiveness in his heart. Besides, you are the one in the wrong here."
"Crummy is not the only boy who talks that way. Talks treason."
"Listen. Commoners resent nobles. They have reason to. If that kid had broken your jaw, he would have been expelled, maybe brought up on charges. Bad idea to run afoul of the law on a Ceti planet! Their laws are very old, and very strict. The Whales think incarceration is too cruel for any soul to suffer, but they approve of dismemberment and penal brain surgery. But the son of a Duke is in no danger of the law. Thanks to your birth, you are above the law."
"I did not ask to be born."
"It is the one gift you cannot give back." Ozymandias frowned. "Well, one of two. If you give your hand in marriage, you cannot take that back."
"By the way, I heard about Lady Rilda. Congratulations."
A dreamy look came into the eyes of Ozymandias. He smiled. "Great Aunt Bast was not pleased with an alliance with House Shadrach — any family younger than a thousand years, she thinks an upstart. But I am happy. I will even invite you to the wedding, if you undo this family disgrace."
"But — Crummy said —"
"Who?'
"I mean Artelo, he said —"
"He had a right to say it. Has your time beneath this damnable sun-dazzle burnt out your eyes, little brother? Education makes you stupid, or so Mom says. Come here. You need a drink. So do I."
Ozymandias took Athos by the arm and pulled him back into the dorm room. The force-curtain curtailed the light to tolerable levels. They doffed their goggles.
Ozymandias had stowed his trunk in the corner. He whistled for his manservant, which was a half-sized robot folded into the base of the trunk, but coated in lightweight armor and armed with a shock-pistol. The dwarf robot fetched a frosted bottle from the refrigerated section of the traveling trunk. Athos had no proper drinking glasses among his student gear, so he had to scrounge up an empty pen-case and an ashtray to use as drinking bowls. The ashtray was pristine, one rinsed clean: Athos had not taken up a smoking habit long enough ago to have stained it.
Fortified, they sat. There was only one wicker chair. Ozymandias pushed Athos onto the hammock, and took the wicker chair, which uttered a creaky whine under his weight.
They talked until sunset. The wall of the dorm room was thin enough that the blazing light was visible while the day lasted. Then at last the day dimmed, and the whistling and chirruping of night-fishes passed over the waves outside.
At one point, as it often did when young men spoke, the conversation turned to theories and high ideals of politics, society, life.
Ozymandias told Athos the hominids and the arachnids and certain other races — not many — had found ways to live on worlds where everyone is equal. But there is a price to be paid for such liberty: the free man must be eternally vigilant.
"The free man must be self-reliant," said Ozymandias, "He must be open-handed to the poor. Otherwise, the temptation to loot the public coffers will invite the Empire back."
Athos said, "You've changed, brother. I thought I was the only one worried about a return of the Empire. Me and Mom."
"The Empire is dead enough, to be sure, but seeds of tyranny are in every man, every heart. It is our business to starve and uproot them. It is our duty as highborn."
"Our duty to tell commoners how to act? A lot more worlds are run by demagogues than by dukes. Foxes sell their offices to the highest bidder; Equines appoint philosopher-kings to rule them; Ducks appoint stand-up comedians and mud wrestlers. What have we to do with them?"
"Only the survival of the Commonwealth. Do you think this idea of running a galaxy-wide polity by means of a written charter will make itself happen, by itself? Our task is monumental. Failure is likely, but that does not excuse our duty."
"Our? Whose? The noble families?"
"Yours and mine. Athos and Ozzy. We were born with legal privileges, position, and wealth. The Lone family atop that has fame beyond legend: souls will remember father's name as long as the Spirit of Andromeda remains free. That comes with a price. A heavy price."
"I understand that." Athos scowled. He had heard such speeches since childhood. "Nobles must act nobly."
"The obligation of nobility includes the obligation to show the commoners how to act nobly. Being haughty or proud just brings hate. You see? Nobles must be seen shouldering their burden — shouldering it humbly — so that any other man seeing us, high or low, will perhaps be more willing to shoulder his own."
"You think that will preserve the Commonwealth?"
"Better than punching out those who badmouth it. The Empire was an aberration. The ruled became so unruly, and the nobles so ignoble, that they both dropped their burdens."
"Dropped them?"
"Dropped them into hell." Ozymandias took a long draught from his pencase. A haunted look came into his eyes. He put his hand on his chest, as if feeling for something under his tunic. With his hand resting there, he spoke in a darker tone. "We dropped our duties down into a pit, where demons from the dark stars found them. They found the dropped duties and founded an Imperial system based on falsehoods, brute force, and corruption. A government so bad, that everyone called the rulers after a name from an ancient children's tale: The Dark Overlords."
Ozymandias threw back his head, and swallowed the rest of his drink at one go. His cheeks turned pink, and he blinked his eyes, and heaved a great sigh.
"Athos, you and I, little brother! It falls to us!"
Athos, seeing his brother's face, decided to drink no further. He carefully tried to swing the hammock enough to extend an arm toward his bookshelf, where his bookpins rested, to put the drink down, somehow without spilling it. The dwarfish robot scuttled over to take the drink from his hand.
Athos said, "Sorry. I did not hear that last part."
"I said we have to prevent a recurrence. The gates of hell have to be kept shut. You and me. Napoleon, too, if he would get serious about his training."
