Scorched Earth

Foreword

In 1993, I wrote the first story in what would become the Lords of the Stars universe. That single story spawned many others, all independent yet connected by an overarching narrative and timeline. Over the years, the future history I created became more and more detailed, with each successive tale firmly planting dates and events into the long tapestry of canon. I know what will happen in the Lords of the Stars universe in 2083 AD, in 2140 AD, in 3072 AD, and if you’ve read my other stories, you know those dates as well. And if you haven’t—don’t worry! Scorched Earth is entirely standalone, and you can read it without any knowledge of the wider universe whatsoever, though you may miss out on an easter egg or two.

1993, that was over thirty years ago. For more than three decades, I’ve been writing tales set in an internally consistent timeline. Now, 3072 AD is very far into the future. I could easily afford to predict events that will happen a millennium from now. Even 2083 AD is far enough removed from our time that I felt safe making up the events that will shape the end of this century. After all, by that time, I will most likely be dead, so I won’t be around to take the blame when certain events in Lords of the Stars, for some inexplicable reason, turn out not to actually have happened that exact way in the real world.

But this novel, Scorched Earth, starts in 2029 AD. That’s just three years from now. One could easily be forgiven for thinking that writing a book like that is something of a literary suicide for a science fiction author. After all, by the time the book is published, the history of the real world will already be lurking around the corner, ready to leap ahead of the story and bite me in the rear. And isn’t that a very unnecessary risk for an author to take?

The truth is, that has already happened. The real world overtook Lords of the Stars many years ago. The future worlds I’ve been depicting have, by now, been obsolete for decades. When I wrote my first Lords of the Stars story, not a single exoplanet around a sun-like star had yet been discovered. Out there in the galaxy, I was free to invent my own worlds to fit my stories—within the laws of physics, of course. Today, that is no longer true. Many, perhaps most, of the star systems where my tales are set have by now been studied in great detail, and while we don’t know exactly what the planetary systems around those stars look like, we do know enough to be certain they are nothing like what I’ve depicted in my stories.

Since Lords of the Stars is hard science fiction, that makes my tales obsolete. And yet, I keep writing them, even though they’re now effectively outdated on arrival.

Here’s the thing, though: have you ever heard of a little book called De la Terre à la Lune? Well, maybe you haven’t, but I’m sure you’ve heard of its English translation, From the Earth to the Moon. Written in 1865 by Jules Verne and depicting three astronauts traveling to the moon by means of an oversized cannon, you might not consider the book to be a prime example of hard science fiction, but I do. You see, my personal definition of what is and isn’t science fiction is that it has to be scientifically plausible at the time of writing, and future discoveries do not invalidate the genre. That’s why, in my mind, De la Terre à la Lune is still science fiction today, while, say, Star Wars is not, and never was. I mean no disrespect to Lucas—if you were to look at the Star Wars section of my private library, you’d know I love that universe, but science fiction, it is not.

And there you have the explanation for why I keep writing hard science fiction stories set in a universe that technically is already antiquated (though I must admit that obsoleting thirty years of books because of the orbital characteristics of a planet around a star tens of light-years away might be a bit of nitpicking anyway). A long time ago, I made the decision that the Lords of the Stars universe is distinct from our own, and that I would keep my fictional world intact as an alternate reality of a future that’s already in the past. You could say the divergence point was in—you guessed it—1993. I don’t mean that the timeline of Lords of the Stars split from ours in that year. No, I mean that the two realities were never the same, but the Lords of the Stars universe was, and still is, in many ways like what we thought the universe was back in 1993.

However, this story doesn’t take place around distant stars. Scorched Earth is set here, and almost now. But the canon-busting ability of real-world history isn’t just limited to faraway planets. The total environmental collapse on Earth in the 2030s that this book deals with is yet another event that’s been established in Lords of the Stars canon for as long as my literary universe has existed. And the Fall of Old Earth is more than just a well-known event in my future history—it’s one of the core pillars upon which the entire storyline of the universe hinges. Predicting back in 1993 that the greenhouse effect would become uncontrollable and render the planet uninhabitable by the middle of the next century felt, at that time, quite plausible. Not necessarily likely, but still plausible. Now, as we’re closing in on those dates in the real world, conditions on our planet are unfortunately not that far removed from my predictions from three decades ago, but they’re still not quite as severe as I feared back then.

Let me be blunt, though—just because this is an alternate future doesn’t mean the issues depicted here don’t have an impact on our world. The greenhouse effect is, of course, very real and already affects billions of people here and now, and yet I feel we’re still only taking token action to combat it. We happily drive our gas-guzzling cars to the supermarket to buy ecological cucumbers, and we feel very good about ourselves for being so environmentally conscious. The Mad Century is still alive and well, thank you very much, and while it’ll take longer and events will be different, I do still believe something like the Fall is inevitable in our world as well.

To be clear, none of this alternate history business gives me a blank check to ignore real-world science and history whenever I want to. On the contrary, as an author of hard science fiction, I still strive to incorporate both current events and the latest discoveries into my stories, but when there’s no way around facts and events already made permanent in canon, I’m allowing myself to keep them canon.

That’s why I feel safe setting the first chapters of Scorched Earth in 2029 AD. The world depicted here is very similar to the one you’re familiar with outside your window, but when that year comes around, you might find it’s not identical. Chances are that, in three years’ time, the differences will be so small you might not even notice them, but they will be there, and the further we get into the future of the Lords of the Stars timeline, the bigger the differences between the real world and the future history of my fictional universe will be.

You’ll have to live with that, because the alternative would mean I’d have to throw out all my Lords of the Stars stories every time a real-world event or a scientific discovery invalidated something I predicted in them, and start anew, time and time again.

I’ve made peace with that, and I hope you can, too.

Mattias von Schantz, Sweden, December 2025 AD

Part 1: Preamble

2029 AD

Chapter 1: Peace

January 21, 2029 AD, National Aerospace University, Kharkiv, Ukraine, Earth

The wind was unusually warm for the season.

Yaryna slowly unbuttoned the neck of her thick brown coat as she tried to peer around the large spruces that blocked her view of the Aviation Institute. Behind the trees, the tall ornamented double columns of matte white stone that decorated the façade of the building appeared to reach toward her from a different age, from a time before, when the troubles of her nation had not yet reared their ugly head.

A movement to her left caught her eye when a thin, tall man in a puffy blue winter jacket and a pair of thick-framed glasses emerged from behind the small spruce grove and sat down on the wooden bench beside her.

“There you are, Ira,” he said, a faint smile brightening his otherwise plain face. Oleksandr was not exactly a sight to behold, but his keen intellect more than made up for what his appearance might lack.

She nodded. “It’s a beautiful day. I didn’t mind waiting.”

He looked up at the deep blue winter sky, mottled with thin wisps of white cloud. For a moment, his gaze froze, as though he saw something out there, far beyond the heavens. She could not tell what it might be, but she knew the look on his face well. She felt the same longing for the stars whenever she lifted her eyes to the distant sky.

When he lowered his gaze again, the smile had mostly left his young face.

“I’m afraid I have some bad news,” he told her with a pained expression, though his raspy voice held nothing like sadness. Yaryna assumed he was up to his usual shenanigans, but said nothing. She didn’t want to burst whatever bubble he was building for her.

Finally, after keeping her on her toes for just a few seconds too many, he let her have the big reveal.

“I’m moving to Italy.”

She looked at him as his old smile crept back onto his meticulously shaved face.

“That’s great! Congratulations!” she exclaimed. “Vega C?”

With European Union membership, new job opportunities had opened for a Ukrainian population that had suffered far too long under the threat of war. In a twist of irony, they had—in a sense—Putin to thank for that. Not that she would ever phrase it that way, of course. Putting the word “thanks” beside the name of the Russian dictator would be an abomination, but the objective fact remained that if Russia had not invaded, EU membership would probably still be years away for her country. It was just one more way in which Putin had actually lost the war, even if the maps insisted otherwise, she thought. Despite the lives that had been lost, it was still a delicious irony, and one she hoped kept that murderous thug awake at night in his little fortress in the Kremlin.

Their expertise had been put to good use during the war, hers and Oleksandr’s. But designing missiles of destruction had not been what she had envisioned on the day she applied to the university, now so long ago that it felt as if it belonged to another life. She had always known she had a far grander purpose. Still, she did not in any way regret her contributions to the war effort. Her work had saved Ukrainian lives, and she was proud of what she had done to fight the madness rising to devour her people from the east.

“Yeah,” he said, nodding. “I’m going to Colleferro next month. I found a small apartment on the outskirts of the city. Imagine spring in Italy! It’s going to be gorgeous.”

“Well, who better to oversee the integration of Stage 4 than a Ukrainian?” Yaryna asked with a laugh. “You can’t trust those RD-843s to anyone else, right? Where would they be without us?”

It was all in jest, of course. The Italians had been buying Ukrainian rocket engines for nearly two decades now, with great success. No one made hypergolic engines like her motherland. Still, she felt good knowing that Oleksandr would be over there, keeping an eye on them.

“Where would anyone be without us?” he replied. “We built Sputnik. We put Yuri up there. The Russians love taking credit for all that, but without Ukraine they would still be stuck on the ground. You know that, Ira.”

It was true, she thought—quite literally. Korolov had been Ukrainian, born and raised in Zhytomyr. Granted, Gagarin himself had been Russian, but the rocket that had lifted him into orbit had indeed been designed by a Ukrainian. Still, she had to take the opportunity to tease Oleksandr a little.

“I don’t think you’re giving Yuri enough credit there, Sasha. Anyone who’s willing to strap himself on top of a rocket and be launched into space by a country that places no value on human life must be a brave man indeed.”

He laughed lightly at her dark joke. “Brave. Or a fool. Or he didn’t have a choice. Again, Russia. I’m just saying.”

“Anyway, I’m glad you’re going,” she continued. “The ESA needs all the help they can get. The Americans are wiping the floor with the European launch providers these days.”

Oleksandr spat on the ground. Yaryna had no trouble understanding why.

“SpaceX,” he said with contempt. It was, of course, impossible to know how many lives had been lost because Musk had turned off Starlink for Ukraine during key battles of the war, or whether doing so had even been intentional, but lives had been lost, and his actions had hardly endeared him or his companies to the people working in the Ukrainian rocket industry. Everyone she knew had lost someone in the war.

“Well, if anyone can beat them, it’s you, Sasha. You always know what you’re doing.”

He smiled at her again.

“Thank you. You should really consider coming to Italy, too, when you’re done with your degree. I’d love to work with you there.”

“Sure,” she said, lifting her shoulders in a small shrug. “Or France, or Germany, or Poland, or… There are so many opportunities now. We have our whole lives ahead of us.”

It was easy to feel a sense of euphoria these days. Hope had become abundant wherever she looked. She had only been thirteen when Putin invaded Ukraine the first time. For her entire adult life, she had lived in fear of their murderous neighbor in the east. Air raid sirens and underground shelters had been part of daily life for her and her sisters for longer than she cared to remember, as Russia had bombed hospitals, supermarkets, and playgrounds alike.

And now, that fear was finally gone.

“Unless the Russian bear awakens again,” Oleksandr said, puncturing her happy thoughts.

“You really think they’ll try to take on the EU?” she asked, her earlier certainty of a bright future trembling under the weight of his comment.

“Who knows? It’s Russia we’re talking about, after all. Invading their neighbors is the national pastime over there. Finland. Hungary. Czechoslovakia. Afghanistan. Chechnya. Georgia. Us, and us again. There’s hardly a single country on their western border they haven’t tried to conquer. If you live next to Putin, you have to be ready for anything.”

She nodded. “But still? I know we’re not NATO members, but most of the other EU countries are. I can’t imagine he’d risk provoking one of them like that. One false step and he’d have the entire defense organization at his throat. We might not be part of it, but we do have some guarantees.”

For a few seconds, Oleksandr said nothing.

Then, finally, his reply came, short and to the point. “Not the entire NATO.”

Now it was her turn to spit.

“Trump,” she growled. She didn’t have to say more. Every Ukrainian knew all too well the man’s love for the Russian dictator, and what that affection had cost her precious motherland in the peace treaty. Not to mention that yesterday’s American president had offended and alienated every Western ally the United States had, on two continents.

It should really be MAAA—“Make America Alone Again”—Yaryna thought with a sad smile, but she said nothing. Today was a new day. She could always hope that the new man in the White House would make decisions in the coming years that better benefited mankind than those his predecessor had made in the past.

Suddenly, a look of regret tainted Oleksandr’s face.

“I’m sorry, Ira. I shouldn’t have said that. You looked so happy.”

She had been.

“It’s all right. Nothing I didn’t already know. It’s the reality we’re living in. There’s no use burying our heads in the sand. There are more than enough people in the world who do that already.”

“Still, I like it when you smile.”

She patted his hand affectionately. Many years ago, when they had first arrived at the university for their bachelor’s degrees, they had dated a few times. It had lasted only a couple of weeks and had not worked out, but they had remained good friends, and she was still entirely comfortable in his presence.

“I’ll do better,” he promised, his eyes fixed on hers. “We don’t need the United States.”

We, of course, meaning Ukraine and the other countries of the European Union.

“I’m not so sure you’re right about that,” she replied, contradicting her friend. “We all need each other. We need the Americans just as much as they need us. They just don’t see it. We’re better together than apart.”

“Yeah, well, remember, I told you I can do better than that,” Oleksandr said, his eyes sparkling with mischief. “So what would be better than the United States?”

She stared at him in stumped silence.

Eventually, he answered his own question with a wink. “Canada! The civilized end of the Americas!”

“You think Canada will join the EU? For real?”

“I do. Why do you think they keep talking about reinterpreting the Copenhagen Criteria for membership? Europeanness isn’t a geographic concept anymore. We can’t afford to look only inward anymore. Like you said, we all need each other. Europeanness is about believing in cooperation, in human rights, in democracy, in the rule of law. All that good stuff we’ve been fighting for for the past decade. Can you think of any country outside Europe that fits that description better than Canada? We’re perfect for each other.”

Well, maybe he was right, Yaryna thought. Or maybe he wasn’t. She loved talking politics with him, but only because he could make any subject interesting. She herself had little to no interest in such things.

“Trust me,” he continued. “You’ll see. It’s just a matter of time before they join us.”

“I hope you’re right. I’d love to work in Canada. There are so many interesting space companies over there.”

“They’d be happy to have you,” he reassured her. “Before long, you’ll make your mark on the world. I’m sure of it.”

She looked up at the small white clouds that drifted slowly across the deep blue sky. Her future was out there, she thought, in one way or another. She might not be another Korolov or Kondratyuk, but she was good at her job and knew she had much to contribute. The real question was whether the world was ready for Yaryna Kravchenko.

The young Ukrainian girl smiled to herself.

In front of a distant building, two yellow and blue flags fluttered in the wind, hanging from tall white poles flanking the entrance. There they were, visible for the entire world to see, her past and her present joined together in beautiful harmony, Ukraine and the European Union. She couldn’t help but wonder what flag the future would fly.

The winter wind rippled through the blue-tinted branches of the spruces and made the tall trees sway slowly back and forth. Without thinking, she reached for her neck to tighten her scarf before realizing she wasn’t wearing one.

The weather really was unusually warm this winter.