Finally, she saw men coming and going near a central hub of lifts, a spindle at the center of the floor, connecting one level to another.
Perfect.
But first, there was the matter of her disguise.
Her eyes narrowed as she saw her target: a tech in a dark green worksuit, walking with his eyes on the tablet in his hand. He was coming towards her, distracted. She took a deep breath and swung herself into his path.
He crashed into her, the tablet slipping out of his hands. Startled, he looked even more flustered when he finally perceived her presence.
“Excuse me,” she said. “I’m looking for the canteen. Can you tell me how to get there?”
He stared blankly. “Madam, women are supposed to stay within quarters,” he said. “Unless escorted.”
“Then you’ll have to escort me,” she said, hooking her arm with his. “My master’s there waiting for me. Whoever he sent to fetch me never came, and he’ll punish me if I’m late. I’m sure you can be trusted,” she said with a flirtatious smile. She was already steering him firmly towards the lift.
“I’m afraid I—”
“You won’t get into any trouble with him,” she assured him. “Look—we’re out in the open. I’ve got nothing to hide.” She maneuvered him into an open lift and pressed him against the wall as the door closed, before he could contradict her.
Good, she thought, scanning the ceiling. No surveillance in here.
“Now,” she said, kicking off her shoes. “Take off your clothes.”
Of course Jira wasn’t in his quarters. Why did I even bother checking?
He tapped his feet with agitation as he checked the locator packet. He felt a flash of relief when it confirmed that she was in the Citadel still—approximately fifty feet above his current location.
Moving briskly, he let the locator guide him. He kept his gaze looking forward and his pace steady. He couldn’t afford to look suspicious.
The lifts, he observed, as he approached the hub. Who could have seen her? If she had been identified as a hostile target, alarms would have gone off by now, he reminded himself.
He tugged on his collar in agitation as the lift took him up two levels—
The locator made a negative sound. He’d overshot.
He went back down a level—it made another negative sound.
She’s in between the levels, he realized with a jolt. Lords of the Dark! How the devil did the girl manage to get in there?
His mind raced. He stared at the lift controls.
“Taking manual control,” he said, pressing his hand against the panel to provide his bloodprint. The panel blinked, acknowledging his authority. “Prepare to stop movement of the lift on my command.” He didn’t dare breathe.
“Stop.”
The lift overshot, landing him in the upper level.
Emperor’s arse.
“Down again,” he ordered. “Prepare to stop the lift.” He paused, visualizing the structure of the lift’s shaft, counting silently. “Stop.”
It took only the span of a second—the lift lurched to a halt, three-quarters of the way between the upper and the lower level.
“Close enough,” he muttered. “Open doors,” he directed. “Resume normal activity in thirty seconds.”
The doors slid open. There was a crawlspace between the levels. Tarillion groaned.
“I’m too old for this,” he groused as he crawled in, the lift doors sliding closed behind him. Never thought that I’d be crawling around on my hands and knees in the crawl space of this Lords-damned Citadel of all places.
It was dark between the levels, dim lights glowing at the access tunnels’ intersections. He moved forward, the metal grate beneath him biting into his hands and knees. Tarillion squinted at the nearest intersection. It branched off into two tunnels: one that was too short even to crawl in, and another that was almost tall enough for him to stand in.
Almost, but not quite. He grimaced as he hunched over, shuffling forward in the tight space. The locator was pinging against his wrist; he was getting closer.
His shoulders burned as he advanced, his hands brushing the sides of the tunnel to keep him balanced in the darkness.
The locator pinged faster. She was close.
He took a chance. “Amraali?” he called out softly.
No response.
He checked the locator and pushed on, scowling.
His comm chimed softly.
Of all the times ...
He looked down. It was another summons from the office of the admiral—an immediate summons to return. His gut twisted. Perhaps Karsath had found out about Jira.
He had to find her, and fast.
As he took a step forward he heard a muffled gasp and a heavy thump.
Praying that it was someone else and not her who hit the floor, he rounded around the corner—
—And skidded to a stop to find Admiral Karsath’s pet Kazhad, pinning Jira to the ground, a heavy paw pressing down on her chest. Its claws were unsheathed, the sharp tips disappearing into a stolen uniform jacket.
“Tarillion,” she breathed. “Stay back.”
He crouched down further, bracing for an attack. No one in the Citadel except designated guards were permitted to carry weapons; he was unarmed.
The great alien beast twisted its head to regard him, its eyes narrowed into slits.
“Attilio’s favorite captain,” it growled. “How interesting. What are you doing here, Tarillion?”
He blinked. He’d always known that the alien—Skaar, his memory reminded him—was sentient, but it had never spoken directly to him before. Karsath had taken the creature with him to Moruus; everyone in the Citadel understood that the alien was the admiral’s bodyguard.
“Skaar,” he said. “I’ve come for her. My concubine. Thank you for finding her for me.”
The Kazhad lowered its head and sniffed her head. “Yes, yes ... I found her entry in the databases. The bonded concubine of one Lees Tarillion. Strange that this is the only concubine in your record. Stranger still that she should be here.”
Skaar scraped a wet tongue over her forehead. Jira hissed in disgust.
Tarillion licked his lips. “She’s practically a child. She knows nothing about rules or protocol. She went off exploring without my permission, and I’ve come to retrieve her.”
Skaar’s tail flicked from side to side. “There’s more that you’re not telling me,” he rumbled. “Now is not the time to play coy, Captain.”
Tarillion exhaled slowly, never taking his eyes off them. “What do you want to know?”
“I’ve always respected you, Captain,” Skaar said. “Not many would treat a sentient alien like me with anything more than fear and loathing. You were always polite to me. You should hear what plans Attilio has for you. What a pity, for him to find out that he has a traitor for a lieutenant.”
Tarillion drew closer. There was no chance that he would be able to take on the alien in such a constrained space. The muscles along Skaar’s back rippled as he pressed down on Jira’s prone body.
“I live to serve the subjects of the Empire,” he said carefully.
“I know the difference,” said Skaar. “Between serving the subjects of the Empire and serving the Empire, Captain.” He lowered his massive head and inhaled. “This girl has the scent of a Kazhad on her. She’s been around one of my people for some time. She’s not of the Empire. I smelled it on her the minute she arrived in the Citadel. It didn’t take long to track her down to here, where no one would notice us.”
“Get off me,” Jira snarled. “You—animal.”
The tips of Skaar’s claws merely dug in further. He showed her the sharp points of his canines. “I’ll let her go, and I’ll keep your secret—but on one condition.”
“What do you want?” Tarillion asked.
“You will kill the boy,” Skaar growled. “The boy in the cage.”
Chapter 28
“Hold your center,” Kazu said, his
voice rasping. “Hold it, Southwark!”
He closed his eyes, his body and mind drained. A hundred small drone ships fanned out around the Satori, invisibly linked to the colony ship by a web of weak tractor beams. The drones were programmed to enter the portal immediately behind the Satori.
It was his duty to bring them through the portal together, completely intact.
So far, it had been a very bad day. Forty drones had already disintegrated.
His body was damp with sweat under the dull brown clothes. He clutched the blades and shook them in frustration. The cage didn’t move an inch—everything he did seemed to be an exercise in futility. The holographic projection of the drones cut through his midsection, floating at the core of the cage. He couldn’t manipulate them in normal space; he wasn’t ready. He couldn’t even bring them all through together, yet.
“Can’t,” he said to Kazu. “I can’t bring them all through.”
“You can and you will. Hold your center.”
He lay his burning hot forehead against the cage and held his breath as the Satori advanced towards the portal. It gaped before them, wide and black, but after hundreds of passages he could sense its proximity now without even seeing it.
“Open your eyes,” Kazu said. “Prepare—”
He refused. He squeezed his lids shut as the Satori flew into the portal—
—And reality faltered.
Here I am again ...
The black and white world of darkspace coalesced. His first task was to hold the Satori in place until all the drones entered the portal.
In darkspace he could sense the drones like he could sense the portal in real space, their presence there foreign, like a splinter piercing his flesh.
His time was limited, as it always was within the portal. He could feel it stretching like a piece of rubber pulled taut to its limits. Inevitably he was forced to return to normal space, but he was able to expand the time he spent within, like learning to hold his breath underwater.
There. He could sense the drones in darkspace as if they were insects caught in syrupy amber, waiting. The pressure on his consciousness increased. His fingers flexed slowly, raising them up to touch the holographic projection of the drone fleet. It felt as if centuries had passed since he’d entered.
The hologram gave him some physical control but he knew by now that his mind held the drones there. They were at his mercy until he dropped out of darkspace.
Hold your center, he repeated to himself. I’m at the center of this—it all depends on—
The pressure grew unbearable. He clenched his fists around the blades of the cage. “No,” he heard himself say. “Not ready ...”
Fury surged through him—fury at Kazu, fury with his own failures.
The moment spiraled out of his control. He felt rage and exhaustion overtake him, the pressure of darkspace squeezing the last vestiges of conscious thought out of his mind.
The Satori snapped into real space.
As he slumped to his knees inside the cage, he wondered how many drones had made it this time.
When he awoke, there was a trickle of dried blood in his left nostril.
Less blood this time, he thought blankly. That’s ... good?
He sat up. He was in his bed on the Satori, a single metal slab in a room full of bunks. He scratched the crusted blood away as he reached for a tablet, his only connection to the universe outside Arkona and the Satori.
Another thirty drones had been lost in the last passage. He fell back on his bunk, a dull pain throbbing through his skull. At this rate, he’d be at Arkona forever, under Kazu’s ruthless tutelage.
Listlessly, he skimmed the data from the previous day’s passages. Twenty-five attempts. Different configurations of drones, approach velocities, and endless hounding from Kazu. All with the same result: drones that disintegrated between portals.
He held the tablet to his chest as he pondered his failures. There was no doubt in his mind that Kazu would hold him here until he had achieved what he was able to do—or went mad in the process.
Maybe it’s impossible. I’m not my father.
At this thought, he opened his eyes. Tadao Southwark. According to Kazu, the man had been the key to every major victory of the young Empire, shepherding fleets through portals and coordinating their attacks.
He lifted the tablet and stared at the blank white screen. He pressed his hand against its bloodprint reader. It unlocked for him. The tablet accessed the basic databases that all fleet ships possessed, and supposedly no more.
But one of the skills that he’d been gifted during his conditioning was a deep and thorough knowledge of all major Imperial databases—and the ability to infiltrate them.
What if I could find out what Tadao’s secret was?
He rested his fingertips on the tablet. It’s not disobedience if it gets Kazu what he wants, he reasoned. And more than anything, Kazu wanted him to follow in his father’s footsteps.
He pushed through the generally available information about Tadao Southwark. A Founder. A soldier. A navigator. A conqueror.
Hours later, he reflected that it was strange how there were no records about the man’s actual life—birthdate, parents, wife, children, death. Tadao was a legend and a mystery all at once; a cornerstone of the Empire’s martial history, and yet a secret at the same time.
There must be more. He pressed deeper into the records, chasing hints and shadows.
Hours later, his eyes burning, he clung to a single promising clue: the journals of Tadao Southwark.
At first glance the journals were sparsely written. They only spanned a few years in the Empire’s early history, recording dates of annexations, ships, and officers under his command.
The notes were terse, accounting for changes in the direction of his ships, supply problems, and descriptions of the people that they conquered.
Orre—sixteen habitable planets/moons. Human population 83%. Aliens 17%—resettlement to proceed under I. Karsath. 13 destroyers lost. Need to improve.
His mouth went dry. His father had been responsible for the removal of aliens from hundreds of worlds. But at least resettlement didn’t mean death.
Not that aliens matter to me, he reminded himself. However he had come into being, he existed for the Empire. Of that he was sure. He lived to serve. It was his duty as a soldier of the Satori.
The names of conquered worlds and systems began to multiply. The number of major ships lost in battles began to decrease. Then there were a series of zeroes.
No lives lost.
He wondered if that meant no Imperial lives lost—or if his father had been so powerful that no blood was shed at all during an annexation.
Impossible. He continued to thumb through the journal, his eyes blurring from hours of reading. There was nothing else about his father. Certainly nothing about him. Just endless entries about war and conquest.
He came to the end of the journals, drained and disappointed. There was nothing to be gleaned from them except that Tadao Southwark had been an able commander.
Is that all there is to know about him? He wondered, running his fingertips over the tablet. He absently traced an index finger along its borders.
He was so lost in his thoughts that when the bloodprint reader pierced his finger, he yanked it away thoughtlessly. It tore into his flesh. With a sharp hiss, he sucked his finger into his mouth and tasted copper.
A red streak of blood smeared the bloodprint reader and the tablet.
The page blinked suddenly from white to black.
A single sentence appeared.
Escape Kazu at all costs.
He stared, the taste of blood in his mouth forgotten. The sentence lingered for a moment and then disappeared. A new one took its place.
For the good of the Empire—escape Kazu.
And then a name, simply scrawled: Southwark. It remained for a single moment before it blinked out of existence.
He sat there, stunned. He’d received a mes
sage.
A message from his father.
In the hours that followed, a deadly calm descended over him.
There was only one way to escape Kazu: do exactly what Kazu wanted.
Enclosed in the cage, he was perfectly calm for the first time in weeks. Months? he wondered. Since he began to darkspace regularly his sense of time had been deteriorating.
He hadn’t slept even a single hour during the ship’s artificial night, but he felt strangely serene. Balanced. He felt light-headed when he should have been suffering a heavy headache. He could still feel the pain gnawing at the edges of his consciousness.
It didn’t trouble him now.
Through centuries, even beyond death, his father had left him a message. Hidden in his journals, the message only appeared for him. Coded to his blood.
He’d known about me. Somehow, he knew.
The thought gave him more than a glimmer of hope. And now, he was going to do exactly what his father had told him to do.
“You’re quiet today, Southwark,” Kazu growled.
He didn’t look at the old man, his eyes fixed instead on the portal ahead. “The drones?”
“Deployed,” Kazu answered, his tone bordering on curious.
“I’m ready,” he said, his voice calm and neutral. “Give me full control of the drones. All of them.”
He could sense Kazu’s unwavering gaze on his back as the old man considered his request. “Very well,” he said. “Control of the fleet is yours, Southwark.”
He stood at the very center of the cage, his hands at his sides. He didn’t need to brace himself against the bars today. Today, he decided, will be different.
The hologram of the fleet blinked and appeared around him, a scattering of tiny dots. He raised his hands and gathered them slowly to him, arranging them behind him as if the Satori was the tip of the spear and the drones composed the rest of the barb.
He faced the portal and squelched the vestiges of fear in his gut. Fear wouldn’t help him now.
They raced towards the portal. He closed his eyes, as he always did. He counted the drones silently. As many went in the portal would come out.
Sanctuary's Gambit: The Darkspace Saga Book 2 Page 18