Empire Reborn (Taran Empire Saga Book 1): A Cadicle Space Opera

by A. K. DuBoff

  “Well put,” Curtis said softly.

  Everyone fell silent. There was nothing else to say.

  — — —

  None of it seemed real. Jason was still floating outside himself, watching the events unfold. He remembered leaving the Command Center and then being comforted by his father, but it felt like it was happening to another person.

  What was she about to say? That we could… ‘what’? He’d never know. They’d left things on good terms, but it was never meant to be ‘goodbye’.

  He slumped into one of the chairs around the conference table. Having the support against his back helped ground him a small measure. He was safe. His family was okay.

  But she’s gone, and she’s never coming back.

  This time, though, no new tears wet his cheeks. Crying about her death wouldn’t solve anything. She wouldn’t want that.

  Instead, he tried to think about their happy moments together. Even though everything still seemed unfocused, he was warmed by Tiff’s presence in his thoughts. She would always be with him.

  He formed his arm into a pillow and laid his head on the tabletop while he stared at the swirling blue-green light of subspace. He had no idea how much time had passed until the light transitioned into a starscape and the TSS spacedock came into view.

  Jason looked up when he heard the hiss of the door opening. His eyes still itched, but a bit of the tightness in his chest had eased.

  His father stepped inside and waited for the door to close. “I’ll walk down with you.”

  Jason stood up slowly, finding his legs unsteady after being slumped for so long. “Thanks for letting me have some space.”

  “I know more about this kind of thing than I care to.”

  The knife twisted in Jason’s gut. “I still can’t believe it.”

  “Sudden loss is the worst kind. I’ve found it helps to think about the good times you shared.”

  Jason gave a weak nod. “I am, and it does. Stars, I didn’t think I’d be needing to follow the advice I gave Darin just a few days ago.”

  “This turn caught me by surprise. I’m sorry.”

  His breath caught in his throat. “I knew it in my gut, and I let her go anyway.”

  Wil stepped closer, his brows drawn with concern. “You can’t think that way, Jason. You have absolutely no guilt to bear for being a good friend and letting her go live her own life.”

  “Still, if I’d asked her to delay—”

  “No.” Wil gripped Jason gently by his shoulders. “You did everything right, and this isn’t on you. It’s a terrible situation. It sucks! But please, believe me when I say there is nothing you could have done. We act based on the information we have at the present moment, and you have shown exemplary care in your thoughts and actions. I am very proud of the man and leader you have become. And I’m going to need you now, more than ever, for whatever happens next.”

  Jason dropped his gaze and nodded. I need to honor her memory.

  Wil gave him a hug. “Take a couple of days off. Rest. Process. Keep perspective. Being fueled by guilt or vengeance isn’t the answer.”

  While a nice offer, there was no way Jason was going to stay on the sidelines. We can’t afford any down time. We need to bring the fight to them.

  — — —

  As he took the transport shuttle down to TSS Headquarters with his son, Wil relayed telepathic instructions to several friends to make sure the pathway to the Primus Agent wing was clear. The last thing Jason needed right now was to be bombarded with well-meaning questions from his friends.

  Once Jason was safely inside his quarters, Wil walked down the hall to the suite he shared with Saera.

  The moment the door closed, Saera embraced Wil and held him in silence, waiting for him to speak. He considered sharing his impressions telepathically but decided against it. Over their many years together, they’d found a balance between spoken and telepathic exchanges. Even though it was slower and less intimate, there was something about talking through things out loud that helped them work through issues and get new perspectives. This was one of those times where he needed any burst of inspiration he could get.

  In time, he released her from the hug. “It’s bad.”

  She nodded, likely having watched the video recording of the incident a dozen times by now. “That was a good message you sent out.”

  “You know I’m one for transparency. I’d rather our people hear we’re at war directly from me than through the rumor mill.”

  “Has it come to war already?”

  Wil shook his head. “I don’t know for sure. If we can’t open a dialogue, fighting might be our only option.”

  “Who—or what—are they?” Saera asked.

  “Proof that there’s so much more out there than we understand.”

  “That’s not really an answer.”

  “I’d tell you if I knew, but I don’t. All I can say for now is that their form of ‘life’ is beyond what we experience here in spacetime. What that means in a practical sense, in terms of their perception and abilities, isn’t something we can begin to explain with the information we currently have.”

  “I’ve forwarded the readings to the research team and have them working on a more comprehensive analysis,” Saera said. “From what I can tell, we have enough to maybe offer the breakthrough Engineering needs for an imaging solution.”

  “That is my hope.”

  Saera squeezed his hand. “They clearly don’t want to be seen. But no beings are powerful enough to stop us.”

  “This isn’t like anything we’ve faced. It was worse than the Bakzen homeworld,” he murmured, reliving the scene of the station dissolving. Until then, the final standoff of the Bakzen War, when he’d destroyed the planet with the Conquest, had been the worst moment in his life. For something to top it underscored the dire nature of their situation.

  She took a steadying breath. “It’s awful to feel helpless when something we care about is destroyed.”

  He shook his head, realizing that she’d misinterpreted his point with the comparison. “No, ‘destruction’ is something we can comprehend. However terrible it is to perpetrate, it’s a part of the natural order as we understand it. What I witnessed today was something being… ‘un-made’.”

  “The data doesn’t track,” Saera admitted.

  “I don’t understand it, either, and that’s what scares me. This wasn’t a weapon blast or anything like that. It was as if the target,” he held out his hands, fingers wide, “never existed.”

  “And that’s what the scan data shows. But how?”

  He shrugged, genuinely mystified. “They’re controlling matter—our reality—on a scale that we can barely even perceive despite all of our advanced tech, let alone manipulate. To destroy or create at the subatomic level…”

  “It’s like they’re tapped into… primal energy.”

  “Sort of. We literally don’t have a term for what they can do or what they are. The very fundamental stuff that makes up the universe.” He drew still. “Aesen.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Old Taran for ‘origin’ or ‘essence’. It’s the root word the Aesir drew on for their name when they split from the Priesthood, denoting themselves the seekers of truth in accordance with the organization’s founding. Aesen is the source, the thing out of which everything else comes. It’s the only term that fits.”

  “You’re talking about these beings like they’re gods.”

  “They may as well be. They manipulate aesen the way we breathe air. If that isn’t a god, what is?”

  CHAPTER 13

  The lounge was abuzz with frenzied conversation when Lexi walked in after breakfast.

  “Stars! Can you believe what happened to that station? Obliterated,” Josh said to Shena.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know how much stock we can put in the scan data. Lidaer is a long way off from the station. Lots of interference from the nebula. The official news reports are still
just saying there was an ‘incident’.”

  “The station was there on the scan one minute and gone the next. Sounds pretty definitive to me,” Josh insisted.

  “But what caused it?” Shena asked.

  Josh held up his hands. “Whatever it is, I hope it doesn’t come our way.”

  Oren began to laugh.

  “What’s so funny?” Lexi asked, horrified by what little she’d heard. There was no humor in the destruction of a large facility like that.

  He regained his composure. “I’m sorry, it’s too perfect.”

  “It is!” Josh exclaimed. “Even a foking station! They’ll think it’s connected.”

  Lexi looked around the faces, knowing she had once again been left out of a critical decision. This wasn’t a good-natured inside joke. Something bad was going down. “What am I missing?”

  Oren smiled. “Our plan that we’ve already set in motion couldn’t dovetail more beautifully with this turn of events.”

  Lexi’s heart dropped. “What are you going to do?”

  “Oh, it’s just a little push to speed things along.”

  She couldn’t let that slide. Despite the risk, she dove into Oren’s mind to see what he was thinking about.

  The thought wasn’t immediately on the surface, but it wasn’t deep. There was a package. A bomb. And it was on its way to the main Duronis shipping port.

  Lexi had to resist the urge to yell at Oren then and there, to condemn his actions. A bomb will kill people. Maybe a lot of people! She schooled her face as she’d conditioned herself to do. An outburst citing this information would reveal her Gifts. She couldn’t afford to do that. But, she also couldn’t sit on this knowledge knowing what it meant for the people on the station. She had to do something.

  “I’m sick of the news,” she declared. “I’ll see you later.”

  The others didn’t pay her any heed as she dismissed herself and headed toward the dorm. But rather than flop onto her bunk, she continued through the space to the back access point for the office. The door opened to an alley that didn’t tend to get much traffic, so it was her best chance to slip out without drawing unwanted attention.

  As soon as she was free from the building, she broke into a dead sprint. People on the street gasped with surprise as she sped by, but she didn’t care that she stood out. For all they knew, she was late for her train.

  She ran as quickly as she could to the port. There was only one contact who might listen to her.

  No, no, no. This isn’t what I signed up for!

  Sure, she wanted to see change in Taran politics, and especially in the quality of life for those in the Outer Colonies, but she never intended for innocents to get hurt. Planting bombs in orbital stations wasn’t part of the deal. There were workers there who had nothing to do with the controlling corporation aside from getting a paycheck to feed their families. It didn’t make them complicit to the perpetuation of power structure. And it certainly didn’t mean they should get hurt or die.

  Even those who were willingly playing a part in the system didn’t deserve to be bombed. That kind of violence wasn’t ever the answer.

  But it was a spectacle. And Lexi was coming to the dark realization that Oren and whoever he reported to wanted as much attention as they could orchestrate. Big, splashy events got media coverage, and media coverage provided a platform for spreading their message. As soon as people could see, you could make them listen. And once they listened, they could be turned into allies. Grow the movement. Fight for freedom. Then, with that freedom, seize power.

  I helped make this happen. She hadn’t known where it would lead. There were probably signs of this very act that she’d chosen to ignore, but she hadn’t made a conscious choice to be a part of it. It had been like sitting in a pot slowly being brought to a boil. Only now that she was already burning did she realize the heat was on.

  There was still a chance to prevent loss of life. To undo her part in what was about to transpire. Her lungs and legs burned from the sprint, but she couldn’t delay for even a moment. If she got to the port quickly enough, she could pass on the message that—

  Fok! What can I say? Admitting there was a bomb would implicate her.

  With a further sinking feeling, Lexi realized that she had no way to get in touch with Niko. She just showed up at the back door at the pre-arranged time; Oren handled the details. And even if she could talk to him, she didn’t know if he’d help her. Maybe he was in on it. Or…

  There were too many possibilities. Debating with herself wouldn’t get her anywhere. She needed to try.

  She briefly considered whether it was better to go in through the front door or if she should go to the back door and hope for the best. In the end, she decided that tried and true was the safer bet.

  Lexi dashed through the dank alley and began pounding on the door where she usually retrieved her pickups. Come on, Niko! Please be here.

  An agonizing minute passed with no reply. “Niko!” she finally shouted, unsure if her voice would penetrate the thick metal door. “It’s urgent, please.”

  Still no reply.

  She was about to abandon the tactic and try barging in through the front door, instead, when there was the sound of the internal lock clanging open.

  The door swung outward and Niko peeked out. He rolled his eyes when he saw her. “Shite, Lexi! We try to keep a low profile around—”

  “Listen,” she interrupted, “there’s a package that was—”

  An alarm suddenly blared, and a red light sprang to life.

  Lexi’s chest constricted. No…

  Niko swore. He looked back through the door as workers inside stopped what they were doing.

  Her heart pounded in her ears. “What’s that?” The words were spoken at a whisper. She already knew the answer.

  “Lockdown order.” He checked a readout on his handheld. “Shite! There was an explosion at the port.”

  I’m too late. Lexi dropped her hands to her sides and stepped back.

  Niko looked her over. “Why did you say you were here?”

  “Nothing. Never mind.” She started to walk away.

  “Lexi, wait! Do you know something?”

  She fought back tears that threatened to sting her eyes. “No. I don’t know anything at all.”

  — — —

  Raena checked the time on her desktop, surprised to see it was still morning. She’d gone into the zone and had addressed most of her inbox to-do items already. Hey, today might not be so bad!

  Recently, the little things had been piling up to one massive headache, but perhaps they were through the worst of it. Even so, news reports had continued to circulate in the Outer Colonies about organized rallies calling into question the validity of the High Council’s rule and the worth of their corporations. While she considered the views shortsighted, people were entitled to their opinions. Her job was to turn those perceptions around.

  Her most immediate concerns were SiNavTech and DGE.

  She could see an argument in the case of DGE that starships could be manufactured by any number of companies. Having baseline safety standards would be important, but the construction beyond that wasn’t critical to have centralized. What the general public didn’t seem to realize is that DGE was that regulatory authority first and foremost. Yes, they had their own shipyards, but the corporation’s biggest function was quality control oversight for ship manufacturing and maintenance; they were in the business of keeping people safe and preventing vendors from excessive price-gouging. The same thing went for VComm with telecommunication regulations and Makaris with food quality standards. Did anyone truly believe things would be better without them?

  The case of SiNavTech’s value was even clearer. Commerce and travel would be impossible without the SiNavTech navigation beacon network. Sure, a handful of people were in possession of ships with independent jump drives, but eliminating SiNavTech would mean concentrating the power in that small number of hands. It would be a disa
ster. Moreover, all of SiNavTech’s recent initiatives had been to reduce costs for everyday citizens and put the onus of infrastructure maintenance costs on wealthy businesses and dynasties. They’d worked hard to make it as equitable as possible.

  Until a week ago, she hadn’t heard about anyone being dissatisfied with the system. If anything, approval ratings had been climbing over the past five years. It didn’t add up.

  Unless those behind this movement want that small handful of people to have control… because they are in on it. That was a terrifying thought. Are they trying to take down the High Council to install their own regime that will control who has access to resources?

  Her thoughts were interrupted by a chime on her desktop. It was her father calling from TSS Headquarters.

  Given the sequence of events following her father’s last unexpected call, she debated whether she might be better off leaving it unanswered. Of course, that wasn’t a viable option.

  “Hi,” she greeted when the image of Wil materialized on the wall viewscreen. “How’s it going?”

  “It’s been better.” He looked down before returning his focus to the camera. “I’m sorry, Raena. I don’t mean to only call you with bad news.”

  Her stomach dropped. “What happened, Dad?”

  “I’ve sent off the official briefing to the High Council, but I thought you should hear it from me rather than secondhand.”

  She steeled herself for whatever was about to be said.

  “There’s been another attack. The TSS Alkeer Station was destroyed. One hundred percent casualties.”

  “Stars! What?” The energy sapped from Raena. For a few seconds, she forgot to breathe, everything too tense to think or react.

  “We still have no idea what they look like or how they move. I wish I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, but there was nothing we could do. One second the station was there; the next it was gone. There’s nothing left, and all crew were killed. It also pains me to report that your former Trainee friend, Tiffani Farrow, was on assignment there.”