Rebecca M. Meluch - The Myriad

Table of Contents

Raves for The Myriad:

Most military SF emphasizes the military, but while Meluch depicts combat and warrior culture as well as any writer in the subgenre, the true joy of this outstanding effort lies in its inspired use of current speculation on the origins of the universe, quantum singularities and even the old chestnut of time travel. Meluch shows particular skill in creating memorable characters while exhibiting a refreshing ruthlessness in subordinating them to the logical ramifications of the plot.

Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

After a 10-years hiatus, a distinguished military SF writer returns to print with a zany adventure that might be considered a PG-13-rated Star Trek. The whole adventure promising a good deal for the future of the series, Tour of the Merrimack, that it inaugurates. Those who make of military SF a religious observance may find it amusingly difficult to take; the more sensible will quite enjoy.

Booklist

R. M. Meluchs first novel in more than a decade, The Myriad, begins a series that is an amalgam of subgenres: military science fiction, space opera, time paradox, and alternate history. Vaguely reminiscent of Robert A. Heinleins Starship Troopers (specifically, the relentless alien antagonists and the over-the-top, gung-ho characters), The Myriad is lighthearted, fast-paced fun. This novel will prove thoroughly enjoyable to fans of military science fiction authors like David Weber and David Drake.

The Barnes & Noble Review

An action-packed space opera. For readers who like romps through outer space, lots of battles with gooey horrific insects, and character sexplotation, The Myriad delivers. The novel is full of action, tough military talk, and space-opera war.

SciFi.com

Copyright 2004 by R. M. Meluch

All rights reserved.

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To Jim

PART ONE

Uncertainty Principle

Anno Domini 2443

A NIGHTMARE RUNS over again and again in a loop. As if rerunning it could make it come out differently. It ends the same every time. Cowboy was dead.

Cowboy had been a split-second stupid and a full-second dead. And dead all the seconds after that. The nightmare reruns. Dead again.

Dead still.

He should have known better. But shouldve, mightve, couldve, all mean didnt . It was done now. Finished. Fixed. Written and could not be rewritten.

Cowboy was dead.

It reruns:

Nothing ever lived inside a globular cluster. Everyone knew that. Globulars were made up of thousandssometimes millionsof stars, but all them old, population II types, formed back when the galaxy was nothing but primordial hydrogen. All those millions of stars were too metal poor to spawn a single planet. So the crew and the Marine detachment of the battleship Merrimack were surprised to trip a signal beacon upon breaching the perimeter of globular cluster IC9870986.

Merrimack was passing near a clutter of anomalous space debris, when something lurking among the asteroids shrieked an electromagnetic alarm.

Hive! the watch called.

Prox alarms blared on board in answer, with an all-stop order and call to battle stations.

The big ship spat out Marine Swifts in a torrent.

Slung clear of the launch bay, Flight Sergeant Kerry Blue glanced back at Merrimack , saw the battleships gunports wink open. Merrimack made as grand a gun platform as you could ask to take you into action. Kerry would never admit that to a spaceman; the navvies were already way too smug proud of themselves. Guns bristledmissile launchers, beam cannon, projectile barrels, the whole shop for an unknown enemy. Beam weapons were useless at FTL, but the ships stopping brought those into play, too.

The Swifts deployed wide, targeting systems on, everything working at one hundred percent, with no sign of Hive interference in the electrics. No sign of Hive at all.

In a moment a voice in Kerrys headset spoke her very thought: Uh, somethings missing here.

Then Alpha Leader: Hello, Merrimack . Wheres the gorgons?

The only thing Kerry saw out here was a company of Marine Swifts streaking the vacuum.

Next she heard Cowboy, in that taunting voice he used to call you an idiot without saying the word: Hello, Tracking. I dont got a burr under my saddle. Why is that?

Merrimack s tracking officer responded, ever calm: Keep your zipper up, Cowboy. Do not fire until target acquired.

What frogging target!

The sweat began in pinpricks on Kerrys clammy skin within her pressure suit as she sat in the tiny cockpit. Tense. Eyes scanning every direction. Instruments showed her nothing. No gorgons. She hated gorgons. Always sick before she saw em. Rather be in the thick of it, snarled in a giant burr ball, severed legs flapping everywhere. Actually having a can opener chewing on her hull was easier to take than this searching.

She craned her neck around. Weird, actually, to be able to see. Normally, she depended wholly on the sensor display to show her plots of things in the perfect blackness. But here the combined light of the clusters millions of stars shed a weird glow over the interstellar gases. Outside was light.

She could actually see the other Swifts flitting like mothsvery fast mothsamong the glinting asteroids at the clusters perimeter. Her squadron in flight looked like what she used to imagine it would before she actually got out here and discovered that space was really dark.

The stars themselves showed as a bright wall, a solid, luminous backdrop against which she imagined legslots of serrated, thrashing, biting legs.

But really there was only one very primitive space buoy tucked amid the asteroids, screaming its alien signal. A contraption that looked like a dragonfly equipped with flimsy antenna arrays and foil solar collectors. The colonels voice sounded: Merrimack. This is Wing Leader. Request confirmation of that Hive sign.

Wing Leader. Merrimack . We are checking that.

Great. Kerry groaned. They dont know.

Its a Roman trap, someone declared.

Romes our ally now, someone else countered.

Oh, yeah, and we all believe that. Cowboy, in that sarcastic voice again.

Kerry had just let her muscles relax when a spike of laughter in her headset made her flinch.

Joy, joy! Lookee whats shooting at us! Nine by nine by five on the grid!

Kerry didnt see it. Fumbled for a lock on the coordinates on her sensor display. Located it.

A missile. That silly junk sculpture of a space buoy had launched a missile. At sublight speed.

Kerry heard a nervous yelp of a laugh. Hers.

Others laughed louder. Claimed to be real scared.