by Evan Currie
ALSO BY EVAN CURRIE
Odyssey One Series
Into the Black
The Heart of Matter
Homeworld
Out of the Black
Warrior King
Odyssey One: Star Rogue Series
King of Thieves
Warrior’s Wings Series
On Silver Wings
Valkyrie Rising
Valkyrie Burning
The Valhalla Call
By Other Means
De Oppresso Liber
The Scourwind Legacy
Heirs of Empire
An Empire Asunder
Other Works
SEAL Team 13
Steam Legion
Thermals
The Atlantis Wars Series
The Knighthood
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2017 by Cleigh Currie
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by 47North, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and 47North are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781542048477
ISBN-10: 1542048478
Cover design by Adam Hall
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
EPILOGUE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PROLOGUE
Imperial Systems
► Navarch Misrem glowered at the darkness beyond her command, ignoring the specks of light as she focused on the abyss.
Her defeat at the hands of the anomalous species they’d encountered had been . . . galling, and also expensive, both in terms of the weight of metal in the skies and her own personal standing within the Empire. She had survived the resulting inquiry, of course. It would take more than one failed mission to topple her, particularly given the clearly faulty intelligence available to her beforehand.
And that is without mentioning the apparent sabotage we suffered in the very midst of battle.
Imperial Intelligence Services (IIS) had yet to determine how those nuclear weapons had been smuggled on board her vessels, but if anything, they were more infuriated than she was over the incident. There were plenty of potential suspects, of course. The Empire had enemies, both within and beyond its borders.
What was driving IIS mad was that the enemies who might desire to do such a thing, had the capability and opportunity and would use atomic fusion weapons, occupied a rather short list.
A list with no entries, to be precise.
If not for the few of her ships that survived to return with records and damage for IIS to examine, Misrem had no doubt they would have accused her of falsifying a data entry. With the evidence clearly in their face, however, the intelligence services were understandably perturbed and defensive over their apparent lapse.
So, with blame spread more or less evenly around, Misrem was still in her position and more eager than ever to move her forces back into the void and reclaim any lost standing with alacrity.
Thankfully, that opportunity was rapidly approaching.
Ships had been arriving for weeks, replacing her losses at first and then reinforcing and expanding her divisions.
The Oathers had become an unacceptable thorn in the side of the Imperial Council, one that had existed too long and become too painful to leave be. The Drasin probes had failed, not that it would have taken much mental acuity to predict that, Misrem supposed. Letting those beasts out into the galaxy had been a mark of insanity, no matter the supposed safeguards, and she expected the Empire would pay for that act of unmitigated foolishness eventually.
That payment wasn’t due just yet, however, and she was now tasked with extracting a similar payment from the Oathers on behalf of the Empire.
Footsteps behind her gave Misrem cause to half turn until she caught sight of their source.
“Captain Aymes,” she greeted the man cordially.
“Navarch,” he replied with a bow of his head. “The Piar Cohn is fully repaired, all systems certified.”
“Excellent,” she told him, honestly pleased.
The Cohn, her crew, and her captain had been under a deep shadow with the Imperial Command since their first interactions with the anomalous species. They still were, in fact, but not with Misrem.
The ships the Cohn had encountered appeared to match both Imperial and Oather configurations at a glance, but she had seen them in action. They were neither.
Between that revelation and the fact that Aymes had risked his own ship to save her and what few of her crew could be pulled off the doomed wreck of her flagship, Aymes had more than earned his way out from under that shadow—in her eyes, at least.
The Empire was likely to require a great deal more, but the Empire always required more.
“The Cohn’s return to full duties brings our experienced vessels back to full strength,” she said, “and the new vessels assigned to us replace our lost power and more besides. I expect that we will receive orders to break orbit soon.”
“Back to the Oather territory, Navarch?”
“Indeed.” She nodded. “This time, with teeth and will.”
And a guiding mission, she continued in thought. They knew the Oather sector would be a tougher battle than expected, and they now had an idea why. What was needed, then, was to determine just how much tougher it would be.
They needed information, especially whatever they could learn about the new anomalous group that had made themselves heard and felt. With that, the Empire itself could move.
Allied Earth Vessel (AEV) Odysseus, Earth Orbit
► Eric Stanton Weston stood alone on the open observation deck of the Odysseus, looking out at the stars that filled the black around him. A few, very few by relative measure, were moving, and it was those he watched in silence.
They weren’t stars, of course. They were much smaller, much closer, and far more interesting to his mind.
He was watching the lights of the Construction Swarm, a new development from Earth’s Technical Research Division. Self-replicating robots, built with some human technology, some Priminae tech, and just a hint of Drasin capabilities.
That last bit worried a lot of people, him included, but Eric had long recognized that technology was a tool. Even the tech that created the Drasin. One didn’t get angry at a tool. One did not fear a tool. Emotions were reserved for the person handling the tool. Since the people handling this particular tool were Terrans and not some ethereal Empire, he would reserve judgment on the technology.
For the moment, Eric was more concerned with what they were doing than how they were doing it.
The Swarm was part of the Solar Reconstruction Effort and had started ou
t as a relatively small piece of the whole, soon growing to unbelievable scales. Using the material left in the former orbit of Mars—that being trillions of dead Drasin along with a pair of now-aimless moons—the Swarm, at first simply self-replicating, was now in the process of building the beginnings of Earth’s first Kardashev-scale construction.
It was a small thing, by such scales, but no less impressive for all that. The first of the new Kardashev satellites were already in solar orbit, downwell near the orbit of Mercury. They were purely power collectors, capturing solar radiation and storing it for use by other SRE projects. Mostly, for now, they were being used to power the Swarm, but that percentage was dropping off rapidly as more and more power stations were brought online.
Eric had seen the plans for the future of the system, and despite his misgivings concerning the source of some of the technological advancements, he couldn’t fault either the vision or the sheer ambition of the designers.
Those plans, however, were for the future. In the present, he still had a job to do.
Eric took one last look at the lights moving through the black, remembering those lost on Mars, and said a silent prayer before he turned on his heel and strode off the observation deck.
Ranquil
► Admiral Rael Tanner found himself staring at the night sky as it loomed over the planet Ranquil. The flickering light of the stars as seen through the thick atmosphere of the planet had once calmed him in his deliberations, back when his work had been merely ceremonial and of no particular import.
He had been promoted to his position largely because no one of higher importance wanted the job, and many considered it a pointless and thankless task that would end any hope of advancement within the merchant fleet. Taking his position among the admiralty had been a day of mixed feelings for him. Pride and honest satisfaction, because Tanner had never disdained those who desired to defend his people, but there had been a melancholy as well. Every man and woman who joined the fleet wanted a ship and the freedom to fly her as they wanted, and Tanner was no exception to that rule.
In his position, he would have neither.
In those early days, the stars had been a source of wonder and joy to him. That had been replaced by the foreboding terror the Drasin brought with them and left behind when they were destroyed. Wonder was for children, perhaps. But Tanner missed it terribly and wished deeply for its return.
A wish, it seems, I will be denied.
Since the initial Drasin attack on the Colonies of the Priminae, the universe had grown darker. The lights of those distant stars no longer housed the wonder of the unknown but instead its terror. Exploration had never been a primary interest of the people, yet in any society, there were those who longed for the frontier. In his youth, Tanner had been one of those folk, but he had grown out of his yearning with time, much as his family assured him he would.
He valued the secure and quiet culture of Ranquil in ways his young self would never have understood, but Tanner was well aware that many, even in Priminae culture, wanted something . . . different.
In prior years, those people had often been seen as hindrances by the society that birthed them. They were never happy with the way things were, always wanting something new, different. For those satisfied with the traditional life of a citizen of the Colonies, that mindset was more than merely baffling; it could even be considered insulting.
Now, those same people who had been considered nuisances by the Colonies were forming the backbone of the new fleet.
For Tanner, who had long straddled the middle line between the two camps, the changing winds of the stars were pushing him into the younger contingent. The Priminae had enjoyed a long peace. That was at an end.
It was time to raise the blood and look to the uncertain future with both a wary eye and a heart full of hope. War was coming, of that Tanner was certain. The reports from Captain—now Commodore—Weston, his friend, made that eminently clear.
Whether the conservative adherents of the traditional ways liked it or not, the times were changing.
CHAPTER 1
Station Unity One
► “Enter.”
Commodore Weston stepped into the office calmly, trying to mask the shiver that passed down his spine. It was a different office, a different place entirely, but somehow he knew that wouldn’t matter. Every conversation he had in this spiritual place seemingly ended with him and his crew fighting for their lives.
“Admiral.” He nodded politely as Amanda Gracen gestured for him to take a seat.
“Welcome, Commodore,” Gracen said as he sat down, taking a moment to look out the observation bubble behind her desk before she too took a seat. “Are your crew all back from leave?”
“For the most part,” Weston confirmed. “Still a few unaccounted for, but they have a couple more hours. There’s always someone who’s late on a ship the size of the Odysseus, as I’m sure you’re aware.”
Gracen tipped her head with a hint of a smile. She hadn’t ever commanded a starship, aside from her own incredibly brief stint on the Odysseus, but she had come up through the Canadian Navy and, later, the Confederate Blue Navy. A ship with the crew numbers the Odysseus boasted could normally be counted on to leave port light one or two sailors in wartime.
Such lapses were rarer in peacetime, of course, partially because the departure times could often be pushed a bit and few of the AWOL sailors were ever intentionally missing. Most often it turned out someone had partied a little too hard the night before and either passed out or, just as likely, got arrested, tossed in a drunk tank, and was forgotten about by the local police.
The need for warm hands was such that punishments were generally light, unless the sailor in question was an officer.
“Well, you shouldn’t have to leave light this time,” she said after a moment. “The Odysseus and your squadron have been slated for a patrol mission, but the exact schedule is largely left to you. We have a list of sectors we want checked into, however.”
She pulled a data plaque from the pile on her desk and held it out to Weston.
“More take from Prometheus?” he asked as he accepted the screen and looked it over.
“Some,” she admitted. “Passer has whipped the Rogues into a frenzy, and they’ve been tearing through every WTF-class star we have in our records. Most of them have natural explanations, of course, but there are enough traces of a previous high-technology race—or more than one—that we’ve been considering forming an official archeological division.”
“We likely need one,” Weston said, glancing down the list.
“No question there. The big problem is that we don’t have ships to spare right now,” Gracen said before scowling slightly. “Which hasn’t stopped some people from going for it anyway.”
That made Weston pause his skimming to look up in shock. “How?”
In order to do what she was suggesting, people would need access to an FTL-capable vessel, and he had no ever-loving clue how that was possible. There was no chance in hell that the Confederacy had released transition technology, so only . . . He groaned, cringing.
“The Block?” he asked, knowing the answer.
“They’re selling drive tech to fund their own buildup,” she confirmed with a curt dip of her head.
“Jesus. I hope they’re locking down the safeties on those things.” Weston winced.
The Block FTL drive was based on the mathematical calculations that had originally been the source for the Alcubierre Warp Drive. It was a perfectly functional faster-than-light drive, infinitely more comfortable than the transition drive, though nearly infinitely slower as well. The problem was that it relied on creating a gravity well for the ship to constantly “fall” into. The well trapped all manner of things besides the ship, including high-energy radiation. So if the ship’s safeties were to fail, those particles would be released at multiples of the speed of light when the ship decelerated. The resulting burst of gamma, Hawking, and Cerenkov radiation was e
nough to irradiate a planet beyond the capability of sustaining life, and it would be aimed right at whatever the ship was traveling toward.
During the invasion of the Drasin, the Block’s premier captain, Sun Ang Wen of the PLA star cruiser Wei Fang, had used that very design flaw as a weapon of mass destruction. The Chinese captain’s actions had likely saved the Earth by utterly decimating the invasion fleet before it could even approach the planet, but the idea of that technology flitting around the galaxy in the hands of civilians whose maintenance schedules would likely be hit or miss at best frankly terrified him.
“If I might make a suggestion, ma’am,” Weston said after a moment.
“Please,” Gracen said, gesturing airily. “Anything that puts a shine on this turd is welcome.”
He laughed a little, unable to hold back, but went on. “Get the Priminae to help with the drive designs. Maybe they have ways to foolproof it. They’ve had similar drives for centuries, remember.”
“I’ll do that.”
Actually, now that it had been brought up, Gracen was surprised no one had suggested that option already. She supposed few people had really wrapped their heads around the notion that the world was about to enter an era of true faster-than-light travel for the masses, and those few that had were too caught up with their heads in the stars to think about the consequences.
“Well, if that works out,” she said, “then possibly we’ll be able to safely leave exo-archeology to archeologists while we focus on defense.”
“That would be the ideal,” Weston said, chuckling, “though I honestly have to say that the idea of commanding a Federation starship is one of the things that caused me to put my name into the Odyssey project for consideration.”
“You would hardly be the only one, Commodore,” Gracen assured him with a hint of a smile.
“We should be exploring and discovering,” Weston said seriously, “rather than planning to fight another war that will kill hundreds of thousands—if we’re lucky.”
Gracen shrugged. It wasn’t that she disagreed with the commodore; she’d just given up on her utopian dreams a long time earlier. Three wars, an alien invasion, and countless lives lost had burned those dreams from her brain. If such a future ever came about, she would happily retire to live out her remaining years with the satisfaction that she’d done her job well.