The StarMaster’s Son: (Formerly The Master War) Read online




  The StarMaster’s Son

  (Formerly The Master War)

  Gibson Morales

  Contents

  About the Series

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Epilogue

  Reviewers Wanted

  What’s Next in the Series?

  Glossary

  About Gibson Morales

  About the InterBleeding Series

  The InterBleeding Saga is an ongoing epic about a universe suffering from an interstellar bleeding by way of war, intergalactic strife, political corruption, shrinking resources, ancient threats, and more. Because the series features a massive universe, stories will include multiple perspective characters—some you may love, some you may loathe, and some you may laugh at—but the primary stories will usually revolve around Felik or Kai (assuming no tragic accidents). Currently, at least seven books are planned, but the series could easily go to ten books. Maybe fifteen or twenty. Who knows?

  * * *

  Stay Updated and Receive an InterBleeding Series Guide + Two Sci-Fi Novellas (The Red Queen and The Harvest Uprising) by Joining My Free Email Newsletter at www.gibsonmorales.com

  “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”

  * * *

  —Aristotle

  * * *

  “True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.”

  * * *

  —Socrates

  Prologue

  "Fuck my life." From his terrace, the StarMaster gazed out across the flowing copper clouds, then up at the ice rings of a faraway planet he'd never even bothered to name and sighed. A breeze flecked beads of moisture over a face that had seen far too much.

  Chief Navigator Xerix smiled at him. "That's not very StarMasterly of you."

  The StarMaster massaged his knuckles. "Neither is dying. But we all knew this was an experiment. And sometimes experiments don't end the way you want."

  "It's not too late. You're right that this was an experiment. But there are others we could carry out. Experiments that might find a cure."

  The StarMaster fixated on a cloud that vaguely resembled an old friend of his. He'd seen the greatest sights the universe had to offer. Supernovas, a flotilla of billions of ships, kaiju-sized human pyramids of fully naked women. Yet sometimes it was nice to look at the simpler beauties. "I've ruled for fifty solar cycles. That would be a pretty good reign for any man before the Ascendancy."

  "It still is," Xerix beamed, tucking his hands behind his back. "You are, after all, the only StarMaster we've ever had. There's no one to compare you against yet."

  "We'll see what Oberon says when fifty solar cycles have passed under his reign." The StarMaster inhaled deeply. Artificial bodies had rendered such a behavior unnecessary to sustain life, but old instincts died hard. Harder than he did anyway. "You still haven't confirmed that everything's been arranged."

  Xerix frowned, though it was hard to notice on his face, as worn as an old sponge. "We can assume the protocols will choose Oberon as your successor."

  "Assumptions. We've amassed all the power in the known universe and the best you can do is give me assumptions, huh?" His tone was more disbelieving than angry.

  "If I'm not mistaken, you won the Great Cosmic Wars with assumptions."

  There was a distant look in the StarMaster's eyes. "We probably should've learned from the Anunnaki on that one."

  "Rest assured that Oberon has learned plenty from them."

  "I wish I could merge my mind with his. Let him assimilate all my wisdom."

  "And you could, if your core wasn't corrupted."

  The StarMaster grimaced. "Do me one favor, Xerix. I don't want to be remembered as the ironic StarMaster."

  "Please elaborate."

  "I don't want people to joke about how despite humanity finally unlocking the keys to immortality and taking the stars, I missed out on it because we hadn't worked out the kinks yet. That would really be an annoying legacy."

  "There is an easy solution."

  "Oh good."

  "You won't like it."

  "I rescind my praise."

  "You haven't heard what it is."

  "You said I wouldn't like it."

  "I assume you won't."

  "You're not psionic, though, so you can't say for sure."

  Xerix clapped his hands together. "The answer is simple. We inform the universe about all your secret little vices. No one will joke about you then."

  The StarMaster laughed. "When I first met you, you were so dull I thought you might've been a first-gen Glenbot. Now look at you. Making the most powerful man in the universe laugh. One who's on the verge of death, no less. You have developed a sense of humor, my friend."

  "I appreciate that. And what about yourself? What have you developed since you became StarMaster?"

  "You're sure this isn't being live-streamed to the universe?"

  "The ansible costs would be staggering."

  "And here I thought the Phaetonians were the cheapskates. I've developed the same thing all great rulers do before they knowingly give up their power. Regrets. A lot of them."

  "Should I cancel the rest of my meetings?"

  "No need for that," the StarMaster said tiredly. "I can't mind meld with anyone. And that's the only real way to get other sapients to adopt your mindset. There's no point in me wasting my remaining sols dictating."

  Xerix gave a curt nod. "We'll have to await your ghost's thoughts then to hear any of your wisdom."

  The StarMaster smiled grimly. "What wisdom? We've got the keys to immortality and somehow I still managed to sentence myselves to death."

  Chapter 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  The virtual scholar realms that Felik knew and loved. The conversation got more heated, and he figured it best not to get involved. But he enjoyed lurking and reading the thought bubb
les. He didn't know if the sim about the StarMaster dying was real or fake. Probably fake. But it was fun to imagine it being real. Well, not fun, but intriguing. Enthralling in a sadistic, chaotic-loving sort of way.

  As usual, countless sim remixes had come out, in which a single variable was tweaked for comical purposes. In one, the StarMaster and his Chief Navigator's voices were extremely high-pitched and squirrelly. Another played silly, light-hearted music in the background. One featured the physically ape-like G'hajupan crawling around the StarMaster and Chief Navigator and smearing feces over them.

  The scholar realms construct appeared as thousands of white motes linked together set inside an expansive black chamber. The larger the mote, the more popular the idea contained within. In this area, each mote cluster focused on a different piece of news. Thousands upon thousands of transparent forms of other scholars wisped around in streams, appearing as nondescript humanoids.

  He scanned each mote in turn until he found another that interested him.

  Apparently, the realms had banned a niche network known as the Extinct. The Extinct network was a collection of self-defeatist debtors who griped that they were incapable of ever escaping the Karma Nebula Pact. According to the Pact, you earned karma (and karma bits) for deeds judged positively by other sapients. You traded portions of your karma to others in exchange for services and goods.

  The Extinct were trapped in that system, as they could only gain karma by renting out their minds to others. The karma bits they accrued from that were extracted from them to pay off their debts. That left them with no bits to pay for basic living items, putting them into more debt. Getting banned from the realms had earned them negative karma, which also put them into more debt.

  Felik pitied the Extinct. Their ugly reality was but one of many that had persisted despite everything humanity had achieved since the Great Cosmic Wars.

  Next to him, a scholar avatar lost its transparency. Someone was messaging him directly. His nexus recognized the user and tagged him as .

  The avatar transformed from a generic humanoid shape to Landi's actual form, a Telchine. The hermaphroditic creature resembled a giant starfish with an array of tiny tentacles across its body and randomly opening and closing gills.

  Landi messaged him.

  Felik replied.

 

 

 

 

  In addition to words, messages could also carry tones, bursts of emotion, and physical motions. Landi's often expressed a contrarian, almost condescending mood.

 

 

  Felik threw up his hands.

  His attention drifted. He didn't see why the realms would ban the Extinct network. Their ideas were depressing but not dangerous. Less an ideology than a narrative. More of a support group than a cult.

  Curious, Felik launched directly through the ghost-forms of other realm users to the mote at the center of the cluster. A quick parsing and he understood. Allegedly, the Extinct network's discussions had verged on aggressive actions. Some of them had suggested they band the computing powers of their collective cores together and psi.hack their way to freedom.

  He juggled his satisfaction of the Extinct receiving attention with disappointment over the general response. The other realm users had a lot of opinions, of course. The ones that dominated were disgust and disregard.

  He chimed in and offered his opinion under a fake user ID.

  Unlike the Extinct, he'd been trapped because of his nobility, not for a lack of it.

  The responses came quick,

 

 

  If only he could let them see things from his perspective, from the Extinct network's perspective, and foster an understanding. But he couldn't do that as some random user. Or even as a scion of the StarMaster.

  Landi dragged him back into their debate.

  Felik's chin fell. He was trapped here, too.

 

  Of course, deceiving Landi would be an accomplishment in itself. Occasionally a hacker, the Telchine specialized in decrypting secure data nodes and mining data block-chains. And he also had ways of detecting a sapient's usage of a module. But Felik's neural virus prevented him from using any mods.

  Felik shrugged as the other realm users swarmed from mote to mote, completely oblivious to their conversation.

 

  Felik grumbled.

 

 

 

  Felik weighed that against the risk of losing. Because Landi always asked for the same thing. Not money. Just that Felik share his discoveries with other members of his governmental division, his mind. He'd learned the hard way that most sapients didn't want to hear "the truth." Not from a guy with a neural virus.

  How to put it diplomatically?

 

  Felik narrowed his eyes. The Free Minds was an autonomous digital virus built of a collective of much smaller, specialized viruses, ever-changing and adapting to avoid deletion or counter-viruses. Each had evolved to hack into Union Omega government minds and release important messages and financial data. The catch was that it released them on the InfiNet as encrypted data blocks. That's where teams like Landi's came in to comb through them and cipher out their data—just making it encrypted created a frenzy to unlock them, which in turn attracted even more curiosity.

  Landi said.

  Landi's team had a funny habit of cracking data blocks right after Megas said something crazy. Megas, another of the StarMaster's scions and technically one of Felik's many brothers, had never been one to shy away from the InfiNet. Over the last solar cycle, he'd claimed that the StarMaster, Oberon, and members of the Watchers network were part of a universal conspiracy to integrate everyone into one big hive mind. And that Oberon was a key player in the illegal sapient core trade.

 

  Felik sent with a tinge of regret. He used to hang out on the scholar realms for reviews of the latest gambling sims, updates on feasible cures for his chronic but non-contagious neural virus, and occasional philosophical and political debates. Lately, the latter dominated the scholar realms, oozing even into seemingly neutral topics, like comparisons of ship classes.

  A data node appeared in his feed, and he parsed it. It was, to be sure, hardly flattering, but not the smoking gun he'd assumed. The messages, intended only for Oberon or his allies, were mostly a collection of undermining instances.

  In one, Xerix admitted to another ally t
hat Oberon had "terrible instincts." In another, Oberon scolded the G'hajupan for allowing their intergalactic neighbors, the Fluk-Scoyfol, to construct a series of wormhole research facilities, hinting that the Union Omega would have to send in a small fleet of warships as a precaution.

  Landi asked.

 

 

  Felik asked.

 

  Landi's team and many others had released batches of these types of revelations. Each time, Oberon's karma took a hit, but nothing crippling to his status as a starkeeper—one of the thousands of political representatives of the universe's sapients.

 

  The mention of the position Felik coveted took him aback.