The Dead Sun (Star Force Series) Read Free Page A

softened.
    “Sorry,” I said.
    “Me, too. I understand the stresses you must be under. Running a planet is difficult for anyone.”
    “I’ve run them before, that’s the funny thing. Out in the Eden system it seemed far easier. Everyone was open to new ideas. They went where I wanted them to go and made farms and towns grow.”
    “Maybe it was a natural pioneering spirit,” she suggested.
    “Not just that. They weren’t entrenched in tradition, jealousy and the like. The people of Earth have baggage in everything they do. They aren’t united—not really. The minute the aliens aren’t visible in our skies, we start fighting over scraps like a screaming mass of baboons on top of a heap of bananas.”
    She smiled at my over-the-top analogy.
    “Do baboons even like bananas?” she asked.
    “I have no idea,” I admitted, chuckling.
    We got into the elevator and touched the buttons to send us gliding downward. I would have preferred simple grav-tubes like the ones we had on our larger ships, but the elevators were a tradition on Earth and they made my countless visitors feel more at home.
    On impulse, I grabbed Jasmine and kissed her. She resisted for a second, then melted. I knew she wasn’t fully happy with me yet, but she didn’t seem openly angry, just disappointed.
    We didn’t get to finish our short kiss before things went very wrong.
    We were standing there in the elevator with our lips locked together when the little gold statue shaped like my head imploded, crushed by fantastical gravitational forces. Essentially a tiny black hole—one no bigger than a pinpoint—appeared momentarily inside my office and sucked everything around it inward, compressing matter and rupturing even the atmosphere inside the building itself.

-2-
     
    Jasmine and I didn’t know what had hit us. The implosion came first, followed almost instantaneously by an explosion as the gravity effect that had unexpectedly manifested in my office faded from existence. After the initial sucking force released its grip, the compressed matter expanded again with great violence. This was worse than the implosion itself had been. In space, there wouldn’t have been as large an area of effect, but with an atmosphere present to carry a shockwave, the entire building was affected. The personnel in the building could feel rumbling aftershocks for several long seconds after the initial strike registered.
    Jasmin e and I didn’t know any of this at the time. We assumed something had hit the building as we rode the elevator to the lobby.
    The lights in the elevator flickered, and we went into free-fall. The cables had been severed by flying metal shards from the explosion in my offices. Fortunately, the elevators weren’t antiquated equipment. They had emergency braking shoes which caught and shrieked as we fell all the way to the lobby. They were smoking hot by the time we reached the lobby, but we were alive.
    The elevator doors were stuck closed, and I tried to force them open. I grunted, denting the thin metal with my hands as I strained to force it open. If I’d had a battle suit on, it would have been easy. But without metal claws the jammed door resisted my efforts.
    “Was it a bomb?” I asked Jasmine over my shoulder.
    She was already talking rapidly into her com-link with the operations people. If anyone knew what the hell had hit us, she would find them.
    Jasmine shook her head at me, frowning. “We don’t know yet. I’ve confirmed it was some kind of explosion—possibly a device went off inside the building.”
    “Great,” I said. “I thought my assassination worries were over when we killed Crow. Maybe I’ve got a new enemy.”
    She was back on the com-link. I continued trying to force the doors open. I had them about two inches apart, and I could see the lobby now. There were people streaming out of the doors. They weren’t panicked, but they were moving quickly. Star Force people, government officials and reporters were