Ah, pilot, he thought. Listen to me. See me.
He thought of the Steadfast. Hideous old thing, he thought. But it’s safe for now. So’s that hairy Kazhadi friend of yours, too. They’re all alive.
The boy’s rage ebbed slightly. It wasn’t enough.
Finally, he called up his memory of Jira Tai. It was hazy, but he seemed to remember her gold-specked eyes. Brown hair. Loud, obnoxious mouth. He recalled her persistence; her refusal to accept his death.
To the very end, he tried to tell Conrad. She did everything she could to save you. Don’t waste her sacrifice. She wanted to take you home.
As if in response, he saw the boy’s memories—all of them. They flashed through his mind in an instant. He struggled to digest them, and failed, however, there were scraps that he was able to grasp—an old woman’s face, her eyes bright and mischievous. A younger woman. Beautiful. A small Kazhadi pup. The sheer joy of spaceflight. Running in the dark, in the rain, sliding through long grasses as a child. The darkness of a freighter. Someone holding his hand—the father who abandoned him.
And finally, visions of an unfamiliar planet—a green and blue jewel, draped with white clouds.
Tarillion felt himself dissolving as Conrad’s consciousness exploded outwards. This time the burning rage had lessened. The boy was thinking of that planet. His home.
Suddenly, Tarillion saw every portal, stretching through the galaxy like a web, making bridges in reality. He knew he wouldn’t remember the position of a single one, but he could see that they all reached towards that one planet.
Connected together, every portal stretched towards the boy’s home.
Why? He wondered. Why this planet in particular?
It was the last thought he was able to form before he dissolved with everything else.
A moment and an eternity later, he realized that he was back in his body. His legs gave out from under him. He looked up. Beyond the cage, and beyond Conrad’s slumped-over body, through the bridge viewport, was that very same planet.
Tarillion searched the rapidly-fading memories he’d seen in Conrad’s mind.
The planet’s name. What was it?
“Sanctuary,” Tarillion murmured at last.
Something like relief spread through his body.
Chapter 35
Conrad walked across the cold, damp field, feeling the chill deep in his bones. It was the middle of the night. It was hard to see his path through the darkness, but he'd traveled along this route hundreds of times as a child. That was one of the memories that he had slowly reclaimed since the annexation at Ioxis.
I know the way, he told himself. I've gone this way before.
Some memories flooded back faster than others. Some spiked up violently; some trickled back quietly. But now that he was back on Sanctuary, everything he saw sparked an old feeling or recollection. The only thing that was different now were the artificial memories from the Empire that he carried, and the near constant ache of his deaf, mangled left ear.
The bite of the cold was almost welcome. It reminded him of being a child again, escaping from the Corps creche to run wild in the dark. He shivered. Here it seemed to be freezing and misting at the same time.
Only Ireland’s like this, he thought. No place in the galaxy like Ireland. Or Sanctuary. Or Sol.
He saw the old, broken house in the distance and slowed down. Garrity and Rose were waiting there for him. It was intended to be a secret meeting between the three of them, one that was long overdue.
It had made headlines, the sudden appearance of a new portal above Sanctuary, and the black warship that emerged from it seconds later. Not that he’d been conscious much longer after that. He’d woken up in a Corps hospital in Dublin with Garrity peering down at him.
There had been two debriefings. An official one, and an unofficial one. Garrity had attended both. He had, of course, told her more at the second briefing. He wondered what Tarillion had told the interrogators. He was reluctant to go over what had happened on the other side of the galaxy yet again. He paused.
She wouldn’t want you to be such a coward. The thought forced him to straighten up. He walked to the house, one steady step at a time.
Rose was holding a candle to her chest. It was an old-fashioned candle, made out of beeswax. It lit up her face. She was lovely, he recognized, but he was numb to her beauty now.
“No comms?” she asked him. “No trackers or bots or any tech, right?”
He nodded. She handed him the candle. “We can’t risk being overheard. Things are worse than ever.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Your little excursion, Conrad,” said Garrity. “This time you’ve brought back more souvenirs. Very considerate of you. It’s one thing to ignore the ramblings of two lunatics. It’s quite another to bring back a warship we’ve never seen before filled with soldiers swearing allegiance to an Empire on the opposite side of the galaxy. Not to mention the brand-new portal that seems to have formed a few hundred kilometers away from the moon. You’ve made it impossible for the High Council to ignore you.”
“That’s a good thing,” he said. “They can’t ignore the facts. War’s coming. The Empire’s coming.”
“Yes,” she said. “And will it come through that portal?”
A muscle flexed in his jaw. “I don’t know,” he admitted.
She leaned back against the ancient stone wall. “There’s more, of course. Those soldiers—they’re all human. And more than that, there are genetic markers which indicate that some of them are all descended from the same group.”
“Let me guess. The Satori colony ship.”
“Indeed. The captain, for one; and some of his officers.”
That’s not surprising. Conrad had a crystal clear understanding of the Imperial elite’s breeding program. Satori descent was a requirement for advancement.
Conrad smiled humorlessly. “So. Tarillion and I might be distant cousins.”
“Seems that way.” Garrity studied him. “Seems that the Satori left their descendants in another quadrant two thousand years ago, and they’ve been quite busy since.”
“So,” he said. “What is the Council going to do?”
Rose sighed. “Politics is a long game,” she said.
“You can’t tell me that after everything that’s happened they’re still going to sit with their hands up their—”
She held up a hand. “Of course not. First thing is—they’re planning to close and fortify the portal. Then, they’re going to discipline me for sending you on this mission in the first place. Then—” she shrugged. “They’ll see what the public reaction is.”
“Is that all?” He stared at her, aghast. “They’re not going to start building up the fleet? Nothing? They’re going to punish you?”
“I chose to take the blame,” she said. “We need you to be as free as possible, Con.”
“Are you sending me back there?”
She glanced at Garrity. “No,” she said. “The Council is still trying to digest it all. They certainly won’t authorize any more of your escapades.”
“There’s no time to wait,” he insisted. “The war is here already.”
She folded her arms. “I’ll play the devil’s advocate. From everything you’ve told us, I don’t think we stand a chance if they did show up on our doorstep. What’s the point of causing mass hysteria if they’re going to crush us?”
“We’ve got allies out there. We just need to find them.”
“You told us that this Empire destroyed them all,” said Garrity.
“The galaxy’s a big place. There’s got to be more.”
Her knowing gaze swept over him. “Conrad—are you asking me to send you back out there?”
He smiled, and didn’t answer.
It was over, and yet it wasn’t over.
Tarillion took a sip of the hot, black liquid. Coffee wasn’t shiroppu, but it had a few of the same stimulant effects. He savored the bitterness on his t
ongue as he gazed through the viewport of the Lusus at the beautiful planet that they were orbiting.
He was marveling at it all. The planet, of course. The fact that he wasn’t dead or imprisoned. The fact that he was still sitting onboard the Lusus. The fact that the Lusus was still intact.
He contemplated the dark, perfect black shape of the portal on the other side of the planet’s moon. A new portal. Was such a thing even possible?
It obviously was. As were many other things that he once imagined were impossible.
“The Lords of the Dark hate a contented man,” he murmured aloud to himself. Perhaps that was the problem. He’d spent too many years being satisfied and peaceful, trying to escape the notice of the Empire and the universe at large. For a long time, he’d hoped for nothing so much as to be ignored.
That had backfired, spectacularly.
“Did you say something?” asked Conrad. The boy stood next to the cage, running his hand over the silver ribs.
“Nothing important,” Tarillion replied. “I was just thinking—why haven’t your people taken my ship apart yet?”
A faint smile played on Conrad’s lips. “We’ve got some respect for good engineering. We’re not barbarians.”
“It couldn’t be because you’ve got friends in high places, could it?”
“I’m not that important.”
Tarillion raised a skeptical eyebrow at this. “That lovely lass with the white hair and the twinkle in her eye?”
Conrad made a face. “Commodore Garrity? She’s a million years old.”
“A bit younger than my Qloe, then.”
“Has Garrity asked you to do something for her?”
Tarillion leaned back in his captain’s chair and surveyed the empty bridge. “I’m going to do what your High Council has failed to do,” he said. “Prepare your fleet to do battle against the Empire.”
Conrad remembered the brief moment when their minds had intersected in darkspace. “I suppose you’re the best one for the job.”
Tarillion nodded, putting aside the thought that it was an utterly impossible task, especially considering the primitive state of Sanctuary technology.
Well—if they’ve got a few more soldiers like this boy, perhaps they’ve got a chance.
“And you?” Tarillion asked.
Conrad turned to the viewport, resting his hands on his hips.
“I’m going to do what needs to be done here,” he said mysteriously. “And then—I’m going back.”
Tarillion raised his eyebrow again. “Are you sure?” he said.
“The Steadfast is there. So is Argus. I owe it to them to find them and bring them back safely.”
There was more, of course. Tarillion waited.
“And Jira. I have this feeling about her. She’s alive,” Conrad said, his eyes shining bright. “And I’m going to rescue her.”
Thank you!
I hope you enjoyed Sanctuary’s Gambit! Would you please consider leaving a review? I can’t thank you enough.
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Yours,
B.C.
PREVIEW - Lords of the Dark
They said that there were two reasons a fleet captain ended out on the frontier. One reason was ambition, and the other reason was a total lack of ambition.
Captain Lees Tarillion took a sip of Tynish whiskey, savoring its smoky burn as it went down his throat, thinking about that old maxim.
When he was a cadet at the Imperial Academy on Albion Secundus eighteen years ago, no one ever accused him of lacking in ambition. He graduated first in his class, and landed a position as first officer on a ship leading the annexation of the Bespiuhiri system. He’d been promoted quickly after that, becoming captain of the Lusus immediately after Bespiuhiri.
Things were different now. He swallowed another sip of whiskey. Ten years later, he was still the captain of the Lusus, and still patrolling the same conquered planetary systems on the frontier. His old mentors at the Academy had given up on him a long time ago.
Not that here was anything wrong with the Lusus. It was a fine ship, and its four hundred crewmen were fanatically loyal to him. More than a few had been offered transfers to bigger, better ships and they’d all turned them down. Tarillion prided himself on that. He was a good captain, and his men would die for him. And he would die for them. He’d refused advantageous matches with young, beautiful noblewomen arranged by his family to stay on board the Lusus. There were women among the crew of the Lusus, but Tarillion was not the kind of man to abuse his position. Although he knew that other captains did.
Women aside, he would have been very happy to spend his the rest of his life making the same boring circuit between the Seo, Neo, and Ultaxe systems.
Of course, fate had to intervene. The Lords of the Dark hate a contented man, the saying went. Tarillion wasn’t especially religious, but he had to admit that anytime things seemed to be going well for the Lusus, that was when something would explode on a subject world or the Vehn would threaten to eat an entire human colony or a bigger Imperial ship would come along and he would have to pretend to be extremely impressed by its captain. He usually failed on that count, which was probably why no one bothered to push for his advancement.
Reluctantly, he put down the empty glass down next to the commreader, eyeing it with distaste. Unfortunately, the order from Admiral Attilio Karsath was crystal clear. The Lusus was to leave his familiar orbit around Seo Tyne and rendezvous with the Secace at an Imperial starbase three portal jumps away.
Just the thought of the Secace’s captain set his teeth on edge. Captain Adon Heik was eleven years younger than he was and climbing the ranks of the navy with a speed that was almost obscene. Rumor had it that Heik would be a rear admiral before thirty. He’d met Heik before, out on the frontier. The man was eager to conquer and annex, and took to violence with an eagerness that made Tarillion deeply uncomfortable.
What in all the portals of the universe could be so important—or so unimportant—that Admiral Karsath would summon the Imperial frontier’s most ambitious and least ambitious captains to meet in utmost secrecy?
The instructions were simple, so simple that Tarillion knew they came directly from Admiral Karsath himself. Karsath never wasted words, and never wasted time, men, or anything else. He was elegant in his precision when he decided on annexation strategies. Whole worlds crumbled before Karsath’s flawless plans.
Tarillion tugged at the collar of his form-fitting gray uniform as he walked through the starbase on his way to the meeting. It was an old habit from his Academy days that showed up whenever he had to use his brain. Which he didn’t care to do unless death or destruction was imminent.
In this case, death and destruction were most definitely imminent.
All I have to do is make it through this meeting, and then I’ll be back to Seo Tyne in less than a day, he told himself. Whatever Karsath’s got planned, Heik will be the one to execute it. All I have to do is keep my mouth shut.
He entered the admiral’s room with his hands clasped behind his back. He saw the admiral sitting in a chair, holographic images of ships and scrolling text floating around him. Tarillion immediately bowed his head in respect. When he lifted his head, the holograms had disappeared, and he was looking directly at Fleet Admiral Attilio Karsath.
His features were refined and aquiline, proof of his noble breeding. It took more than family connections to rise to his position, however, and Tarillion knew that Karsath was a master tactician.
“Captain Tarillion,” Karsath intoned. He gestured to Tarillion’s right. “Captain Heik.”
Tarillion bowed his head slightly to his right, acknowledging Adon Heik without seeming too interested. He could feel Heik’s keen gaze on him, and chose to ignore it.
“I have a mission for you both.”
“A joint mission?” Tarillion asked. Heik looked at him askance. How dare he interrupt Admiral Karsath?
Karsath folded his hands. “Not quite,” he said. “The same mission, for both of you.”
Tarillion bowed his head in apology. “Apologies,” he said.
Karsath waved it off. “Unnecessary,” he said. “Gentlemen—this mission is of the utmost secrecy. Do you understand? Even your crews are not to be informed about the object of this mission. Brief only the officers that are absolutely essential. If word of this mission escapes from either one of you, I will have both your heads.”
Tarillion knew that he meant that literally. The custom of mounting traitors’ heads on pikes in front of the Imperial palace had faded into legend hundreds of years ago, but beheading was still considered a reasonable punishment for high crimes.
“Of course, sir,” Heik said briskly, his eyes glinting as he looked at his counterpart. No doubt he assumed that Tarillion was the weak one.
Karsath called up a hologram. It was a scrolling text that Tarillion didn’t recognize. The characters were worn away, suggesting that whatever it was, it was extremely old.
“Gentlemen,” he said. “What do you know about the Lords of the Dark?”
The two captains glanced at each other furtively at this. “Not very much, sir,” Tarillion admitted. “I’m not religious, so no more than the average citizen.”
His first officer had known him to swear to the Lords of the Dark when something broke on board the Lusus, but beyond that Tarillion never referenced the Imperial religion that was as ancient as the Empire itself.
“Guardians of the portals,” Heik offered up. “And, uh, eaters of souls.”
Karsath smiled. “Yes. We’ve all heard the old stories from our childhoods. Shapeless gods, they’re supposed to be. That will come and eat bad children who don’t obey their parents.”
Tarillion thought back to the festivals he’d attended as a child. Ships would leave offerings of food and books at the portals, which linked planetary systems across the galaxy. It was said that the Lords of the Dark were perpetually hungry, and that their appetites had to be sated for ships to safely pass through portals. Without the portals humans would be unable to travel instantaneously between the stars.
Sanctuary's Gambit: The Darkspace Saga Book 2 Page 24