Shadowplay: Book One of the Starcrown Chronicles

by Jon Gerrard

  Chapter Twenty

  “We’re approaching the Gnosis star-system, Captain,” Bobby announced from the helm. “ETA five minutes.”

  On the main screen the doppler shifted stars were sliding past as long needles of light while the navigation system counted down the time until we would drop out of hyperspace, our arrival synchronized with the other ships in our group.

  “Thanks, Bobby. Standard approach when we drop to sublight.”

  “You got it. I mean, yes, sir. Standard approach punched in.” After years of casual camaraderie aboard ship, Bobby was struggling to be more formal toward me even though I kept telling him that he needn’t bother. All the members of our original crew had a special relationship with me and they were allowed liberties that others didn’t have. What we’d been through together had formed a bond between us that went far beyond duty and status. We were more than friends, more than family. In fact, now that I had been returned to the throne I needed people around me who felt free to speak openly with me, without reservation. Off duty they were some of the only people who addressed me by name. With all that had happened since my return to power I needed the support of friends even more than ever and I guarded those relationships jealously.

  Two months had passed since I made my highly publicized return as King. During that time I had made numerous changes in the legislature and yet had barely scratched the surface of what still needed to be done. While the public at large seemed happy with the progress I was making, many of those in positions of power were less than thrilled with what I was doing.

  A number of Senators were up for investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee, Hamilton Fiske chief among them. Each of them had pled innocence, claiming merely to have been following the instructions of then King Sebastian. My own legal advisors told me that we were facing an uphill battle. Unless I was going to step in personally and direct guilty findings, many of those who had been instrumental in carrying out Sebastian’s reign of terror were likely going to be acquitted of any serious wrongdoing. So far the investigations had only turned up irregularities in the use of campaign funds by some of the more cavalier minded of the Duke’s cronies, but these were minor charges against bit players. The big fish, Sebastian’s true lieutenants, had been very careful to stay within the boundaries of the laws at the time. I knew who all the players were and what their roles had been, but according to the law there was little they could be held accountable for. It was infuriating to think that these vultures were going to get off scot free.

  But while I was reluctant to direct the verdicts of the Ethics Committee, I did have the authority to act within the scope of the laws as they existed. Using my veto power I’d had every single one of them removed from the committees they sat on. Not surprisingly, all of them had been on one or another of the Appropriations sub committees. These committees had jurisdiction over the way funds were spent by the Senate, covering such things as Energy and Transportation, National Security and the Armed Services. They were the twelve most powerful and influential committees in the Senate, and absolutely the last places I wanted such people. They could keep their Senate seats for now but their teeth had been pulled. Given the current political climate I wasn’t concerned that my vetoes would be overturned. I was slowly reclaiming control of the legislature.

  I had also restored the fundamental civil rights of the people throughout the nation. My subjects could once again move freely through the streets and relax in the security of their homes without fear of harassment by the police. Even now, months later, a chill went up my spine whenever I thought about what Sebastian had done. In a scant few years my uncle had become the most ruthless of despots. He had given the police complete freedom to do virtually whatever they pleased and had even used the military to back up their actions whenever a segment of the population objected to governmental injustices. File footage I had seen of a few of the ‘police actions’ he had authorized the military to perform still haunted me. On more than one occasion soldiers had actually opened fire on crowds of citizens who were merely demonstrating against harsh and unfair policies. The images of broken and bloodied bodies sprawled in the streets of cities across the nation kept me up at night.

  What my uncle could possibly have been thinking was beyond me. In spite of his many faults, I would never in a thousand years have believed Sebastian capable of such vicious brutality. But whatever demons were driving him would remain a mystery, at least for the present. Less than forty-eight hours after he had been operated on at the Sonnefeld Royal Medical Center, Sebastian had escaped from custody. A highly trained assault team had struck the center and removed him from the intensive care ward in the middle of the night. The group had acted with surgical precision, their plan so well coordinated that some form of inside help was a certainty. Exactly how they had managed the feat was a mystery since Sebastian had been in no condition to contact anyone and had been kept in strict isolation with around the clock guards. As it was, a number of good people had been killed during the assault on the hospital–more blood on Sebastian’s hands. The Duke was now a wanted fugitive. Yet in spite of an ongoing nationwide manhunt, no trace of my uncle could be found. He had vanished like a shadow in the night.

  Even so, the repercussions of his time in power were still being felt. Like any deep wound, the healing process was slow. In spite of a massive good will campaign, relationships between the police and the general public were severely strained. For their own protection police officers across the kingdom had to go about their patrols in groups. Although there had been some incidents of assaults on police officers, and even one instance in which an entire community had actually charged a precinct en masse, for the most part there was little overt violence. But it was going to take a long time before the public regained trust in their police. Yet one more problem on the pile of things I needed to address.

  On a positive note was the overhaul of the Prometheus. For sentimental reasons I had decided to keep the ship as my own, personal vessel, and had ordered it not only repaired but had all of its systems updated as well. From the outside it looked the same as it always had. Apart from repairing any structural damage, I had left the outer hull unchanged. It was my plan to keep it as something I could use for occasional, private jaunts away from the pressures of the capitol. The ship’s comfortably used appearance would not make it stand out as anything special, allowing me to come and go without attracting attention.

  Since I was taking personal possession of the ship, I had divided its assessed value among the crew, gifting each of them with a handsome payment. Most of them had accepted the money gladly and had gone off to retire in comfort, grateful to ‘Captain Pell’ for his final, generous gift. Since King Jason had dismissed their convictions, most of the crew had chosen to return to their families and former lives. None of them knew my true identity and I had felt it was safer all around to keep them out of the loop. I still corresponded with many of them from time to time, but always as Cordass Pell from an e-mail address that I maintained for my alter ego.

  A few of the crew had opted to stay with the ship however. With no strong family connections to hold them, those who decided to remain simply wanted to put out to space again and continue to lead the bohemian lifestyle we had created for ourselves as independent traders. I had a strong sympathy for their wishes since a part of me also shared their desire. After giving the matter a lot of thought I had decided to let those who wanted to stay with me know the truth. Most of them accepted my true identity readily enough after the initial shock had worn off. After the time we had spent together it made no difference to them if I were the King of Gilead or an outlaw smuggler. I was their captain, the person who had guided their lives for several years, and they were content to continue under my command. Each had been sworn to secrecy under the National Security Act and they formed the nucleus of the crew that now manned the ship. The balance of the crew were volunteers from all br
anches of the military and a variety of government agencies who had been recommended to me by Admiral Magnus. And each was also a member of the Diadem Order.

  After several weeks in a repair dock, the ship was finally space worthy. Although I had been tied up with things at the capitol, the crew had taken the Prometheus out on several short, shake down runs since then. They reported that the ship was operating better than ever and, like me, they had been itching to take it out on a long distance cruise when this opportunity presented itself.

  At my direction, Admiral Magnus had continued looking into the disappearance of Fleet ships. No longer hampered by having to conduct his investigations covertly, Magnus had put together a group of the most talented analysts he could find. His hand-picked staff had been searching through mountains of records for any irregularities ever since. They eventually came across a puzzling series of orders which had been issued over the past several weeks. A large number of recently decommissioned ships had suddenly been transferred to the remote Gnosis scrap yard. What first made the series of orders send up red flags for the Admiral and his staff was that each of these ships were ones whose service records gave no reason for them to have been decommissioned in the first place. Just like the ships which had already gone missing, the service logs of these ships showed that they should still be in active use. When they investigated further it was revealed that in every case the transfer orders for these ships had been forged. Someone wanted these ships assembled at the Gnosis facility for a reason, someone who had the ability to access secure military databases and generate false orders. I sensed Sebastian’s hand at work and was worried about what his end game might be.

  As soon as the Admiral informed me of his discovery I ordered ships sent out to the area to investigate. I also used it as an excuse to get away from the pressures of the crown for a while and insisted on traveling to the Gnosis system personally. When he saw that he was not going to persuade me away from this course of action, Magnus increased the size of the force he was sending from a reconnaissance task force composed of one cruiser with a pair of destroyer escorts to a full battle group.

  Now, surrounded by the protective firepower of that battle group, the Prometheus was rapidly approaching the Gnosis star-system on its first long distance cruise since its refit. Throughout the entire six plus hour, high-velocity cruise the ship had performed flawlessly.

  Pulling my thoughts back to the present I glanced at my command board and saw that we were coming up on the one minute mark.

  “Signal yellow alert,” I said, turning to the tactical station. “Charge all weapon systems and defense grids.”

  “Yellow alert, aye, Captain,” Mark answered as he reached for a bank of switches on his console. Amber alert status lights began flashing on bulkheads throughout the ship.

  I swiveled back the other way toward the security officer’s station.

  “Long range scan,” I ordered.

  “Scan initiated,” Morgana said as she studied her screens. “Nothing in sensor range other than the scrap yard ahead. The system appears to be quiet.”

  Gnosis was an uninhabited system. Its star was a variable O class blue dwarf which gave off a high amount of ultraviolet radiation and too little heat to support life on its terrestrial planets. It was also far from the normal transport routes, with its only inherent value being the rich mineral deposits on its inner planets. But with an unstable star that gave off intense bursts of dangerous, ionized radiation, no companies were interested in investing the capital necessary to properly shield a mining operation here. Remote and uninhabited, it seemed like the perfect location to base a facility to warehouse ships that had come to the end of their usefulness. Placed in orbit around the system’s largest gas giant, whose magnetic field helped to protect it from the star’s radiation bursts, the Fleet scrap yard was the only thing located in this forlorn system.

  “Second scan also negative,” Morgana said as she refocused the ship’s sensors. “I’m still getting no readings from the scrap yard.”

  I allowed myself a few stolen moments to study her profile as she worked. With the revelation of her true identity my worst fear had not been realized. I had not lost the one person who had become the most important thing in my universe. But I wasn’t sure what the future held for us either. Over the past couple of months I had been so involved with trying to get a handle on the mess Sebastian had made of things that I’d had little time for anything else. We did manage to steal a few hours together here and there, knew that our feelings for each other had not changed, but hadn’t been able to come to a decision about where our relationship was headed.

  Morgana was still reluctant to formalize our relationship. She seemed to feel that she had somehow tricked me into developing feelings for her since I had been handicapped at the time by my memory block. No matter how strongly I tried to convince her she was wrong she continued to insist that we take things slowly. In the back of my mind I suspected that what was actually bothering her were the social implications of the King having a relationship with a commoner—as if that would make any difference to me. Unfortunately, with everything else that was going on right now I didn’t have the time to focus on trying to change her mind. I put it down as yet one more thing on my long to do list.

  At that moment the navigation warning chime beeped.

  “Dropping to sublight in four seconds,” Bobby announced. “Three, two, one, now.”

  The main screen gave a flash and the stars returned to their fixed positions. An indistinct mass appeared in the distance ahead of us on the main screen. The Gnosis scrap yard was laid out in the shape of a spoked wheel. The administration center was at the hub of the wheel with the decommissioned ships arranged in concentric rings around it.

  I glanced over at the communications officer. “Are you getting anything, Tom?”

  Tom Joiner slid the headphones down to his neck and shook his head. “No, Sire. All frequencies have been silent since we lost contact with them.”

  Damn.

  An hour before our arrival all communication with the facility had been cut. We were in the middle of informing the administrator of our pending arrival when her transmitter went dead. The signal had just stopped abruptly in mid sentence. Tom hadn’t been able to even find a carrier wave to show that the transmitter was still operating. Nothing. It was as if the station were suddenly no longer there.

  That was when I ordered the fleet to increase speed. We’d been red-lining it for the past hour, finally arriving just over half an hour earlier than originally planned. That whole time my gut was twisted in knots as a voice whispered to me that we were too late.

  “Try the laser,” I instructed Tom. We were close enough now to attempt to reach them with a communication laser. It was old technology, like flashing Morse code with a search light from the deck of an antique sailing ship, but it was the last option available to us. The technology was simple enough, only requiring that we have a clear line of sight to the receiver in order to make contact, but if there was anyone at the station they should hear us.

  Tom made a few adjustments on his board to switch to the laser system.

  “Gnosis ship yard, this is Space Fleet One on final approach. Come in please.” The entire bridge crew held their breath as we waited for a response. “This is Space Fleet One calling Gnosis ship yard. Please acknowledge.”

  It was still strange to me to hear Tom’s rich baritone coming from the comm station. Patty had been among those who had decided to leave the ship. After the death of her son she’d been an emotional wreck. She said she needed to be far away from everything that reminded her of what had happened. I didn’t blame her.

  I worried about her in the weeks following our return to Gilead until an idea came to me. I had some of my people comb through the foster care system and find Momma Mary’s grandchildren. Then, in the guise of Cordass Pell, I contacted Patty and asked her to help me with a small prob
lem. I told her that I had been contacted by the foster care system in an effort to reunite Mary’s grandchildren with a family member. With their grandmother now dead, the system was looking for any other known relatives to place the children with or they would be made wards of the state and put up for adoption. Since I knew that she and Momma had been close, I asked her if Mary had ever mentioned any other relative whose name I could give to the system.

  As I had hoped, Patty’s maternal instincts kicked in and she immediately volunteered to adopt the children. I pulled a few strings behind the scenes and within a few days the kids were placed with her on a trial basis. The last time she e-mailed her former captain, she was excited about how well things were going between her and the boys. It seemed that these two damaged families were going to be able to help each other heal.

  “No response, Sire,” Tom said, calling me back to the present. He had been trying for over a minute with no success.

  “Signal the rest of the group,” I said. “Tell them to set up a defensive perimeter. I’m taking us in to have a look. Slow ahead, Bobby. Take us to the administration center.”

  The administration center was essentially a series of joined habitat modules perched atop a power plant. Records showed that there was a regular staff of seven assigned to the station. Someone should have responded to our hails.

  Bobby started us forward and brought the ship up over the ‘top’ of the yard. Although there was no true up or down in space, the yard was laid out along the plane of galactic ecliptic with up being to the galactic north. Soon we were passing over the outer rings of the yard, cruising above the dull, synthesteel husks of ships sent here to their final port.

  Ahead, the small habitat station that served as the administrative center of the yard came into view. Something about the station struck me as odd as we approached, but it was several moments before I realized what was bothering me. There were no strobing marker lights, no illuminated port holes, no signs of life whatsoever.

  “Are you scanning anything?” I asked Morgana.

  She probed the station with several focused sensor sweeps and frowned.

  “I’m not picking up any energy signals. Power is down in the entire station. Negative life readings as well. I’m not even getting an ambient thermal signature. The entire station is ... dead.”

  Everyone looked up at the main screen as we drew close enough to see surface features. The bridge suddenly felt several degrees colder when I got a good look at the hull. I balled my hands into fists and pounded the armrests of my seat. The station had been breached by laser fire. Although this was a Fleet installation, the station itself had been unarmed. The people posted here never had a chance. Explosive decompression from the numerous cuts in the hull would have evacuated the atmosphere from the station in moments. As far as I could tell whoever had done this had methodically pierced each individual habitat module, including the power plant, to ensure that no one would be left to report what had happened here.

  “Where were those ships put,” I asked when I finally found my voice.

  Morgana pulled the information up on her board. “According to yard records, all of the ships were assigned to the same section of D ring. That would be … eighteen hundred meters off our starboard bow, bearing oh-eight-six, relative.”

  Moments later Bobby was firing the reverse thrusters to bring us to a stop.

  “Captain...” Bobby said as he goggled at the screen.

  Where there should have been nearly twenty ships there was only an empty space. In my mind I went over the list of ships Admiral Magnus’s analysts had tracked here: twelve aurora class attack subs, two long range missile cruisers and four destroyers. Every one of them was gone.