Constellation (Blood Empire Book 1)

by Robert Scanlon

Then the light fades away, all I can smell is the acrid circuitry, and standing amid the smoke, a lasercutter in one hand and a laserSword in the other is a figure in a spacesuit.

  Mitch is blinking and looking around. He can’t see yet. I lower myself, pushing carefully down the bulkhead, taking advantage of the fact that I am at the rear of the smoke-filled cell. Then I twist until my feet are flat against the rear bulkhead and push off as hard as I can.

  I hit the figure in the knees and we both fly across the passageway. I am trying to grab the laserSword, knowing it is my last hope for freedom. As soon as the Scorpion’s men “rescue” us, as soon as they realize the power Mitch and I have over the drive and the Constellation, our lives are forfeit, enslaved forever. I bury the thought and I wrestle for control of the weapon.

  Finally my opponent wrenches a hand free, throws the lasercutter spinning down the passageway, and rips his helmet off.

  “Indy! I know you love me, but honestly, we can save this for later.”

  It’s Jordi.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

  Mitch flies out of the cell and grabs Jordi around the neck. “You bastard betrayer. You sold us out to Sloper. I’m gonna kill you.”

  Jordi can barely speak. “Sloper is dead.” He chokes. “Let go. Some guy called Pedro told me you were here, but we don’t have time for this.”

  More thumps—now causing the entire structure to reverberate—underline Jordi’s point.

  I pull Mitch away and look at Jordi. “Where to?”

  “My ship. Well technically not mine. Yet.” He points to two objects in the passageway. Personal drivepacks, used in zero-gee for low speed maneuvers. Usually outside of a spacecraft, but I’m not complaining. A simple compressed-air unit, they will speed up our exit. Now I see Jordi also wears one.

  Sounds of battle echo down the passageway, and I feel my heart pounding. Mitch and I strap on the packs. I’m thankful Pedro had his network well primed for news of us, and I’m impressed with his lateral thinking response to my message.

  We fly behind Jordi, twisting and turning down the passageways. We encounter no one, but when we finally emerge into a large hangar, I see why. Hundreds of Jovians are engaged in battle with a stream of Takaons attacking them from the other end of the hangar. A Takaon cutting ship has pierced the closed bulkhead airlock and is lodged in place, sealing the breach with its own hull, and disgorging soldiers.

  We pass close to the bulkheads close to the hangar’s far side, removed from the fighting. We are completely ignored. Jordi halts at a smaller, human sized airlock and punches it open. I see a flexiconnection to another ship beyond. Jordi removes his drivepack and we do the same. He pushes off through the small space, then Mitch. I am about to follow when a shadow passes behind me and I glance back to see an armored figure approaching fast. I yell ahead. “Jordi!” I twist around to defend myself.

  My bare hands are no match for my assailant’s laserdagger, and he plunges it into my side.

  The searing pain cuts deep, strangely ice-cold, and I feel my body crumple into the fetal position, shutting down. I try to speak, but the icy spread of death in my side strikes me dumb. I try to hold myself with one hand, but my arm will not function, and I look at it as if in slow motion, willing it to move.

  The unnamed attacker in front of me is about to strike again, when I see through blurry vision a bright red stream of liquid shoot out from his chest, and he flies back away from us, his arms and legs flailing slowly until they stop. I am unable to move, and I watch him float away, inert.

  My vision shifts abruptly, and I sense I am being pulled along. My head is tight. My body is ice. I cannot move, speak.

  And now I cannot breathe.

  Gone.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

  A face swims into my vision. Indistinct, but familiar. Papa when he was young. I try to reach up to embrace him, but I am stuck somewhere. I cannot move my mouth. I lose him again into the black.

  ***

  It’s Papa again—this time he speaks. “Indy. Don’t go. Stay with us. Be strong.”

  It’s not Papa at all. It’s Mitch.

  “Mitch,” I manage to say weakly.

  He shushes me. “I’ve given you stims. You’re badly hurt, so don’t try to move. Just breathe and stay focused and I’ll get you to a medbay.”

  I give him a weak smile and try to breathe as he asks. Pain rips through me and I wince. The black is inviting me again, but a nagging sensation inside me makes me believe I have something important to do, and I push it away.

  I hear Mitch talking to someone. About me and going somewhere quickly.

  The black returns and this time I succumb.

  ***

  I wake with a start and my eyes flick open. I can see a ship’s overhead above me. I am lying down. Strapped in. I try to move, but my body gives me a reminder of the pain of a laserdagger slicing into my side.

  “You’re stronger than I thought.” Jordi looks down at me, grinning. “I think it’s the depth of your love for me. It kept you going.”

  “How bad ...” I cannot finish the croaking sentence.

  Mitch appears into view. “Not good at all. It should have killed you. I can only imagine that the one time you needed the luck of the devil, he showed up and gave it to you. He must have managed to miss all the vital organs.”

  “Didn’t know I had non-vital ones,” I manage to whisper. “But they hurt just the same.”

  “You lost a lot of blood. I reckon a busted rib or two, plenty of muscles sliced up. Maybe a lung problem.”

  That explains the difficulty breathing.

  “Where going?” I croak.

  “Nearest medbay. But the Jovians have declared war on Takao. Your double-crossing boyfriend here tells me that the Scorpion sent a splinter squad to attack the spaceyard. He thinks they already have the drive, but the mayhem underway right now could mean anyone gets hold of it. And this ship is only a tug.”

  A spacetug. No hyperDrive. Minimal facilities and unarmed.

  “Where medbay?” I am fading. I don’t know if I can make it.

  My brother’s face darkens. “We’re requesting help. It’s the best I can do, Indy. Your life is more important to me.”

  What he means is: we can send out an SOS and request a medteam, but we will be prisoners of war.

  If a Jovian medteam gets to us first, our prisoner of war status will mean little.

  What’s the point?

  I slip into unconsciousness.

  ***

  I can’t have been out for long, as Mitch is still hovering over me. He has a stim injector in one hand. “We’ve found a medteam.” But the look on his face tells me there is something else.

  “What?”

  He hesitates. “It’s the Scorpion. She knows you’re injured. She’s proposing a deal.”

  “Don’t take it.”

  He reaches over and pulls a holopad across. “Not that simple. She wants to talk to you directly.” He taps the icon and the holo appears over my bed. The Scorpion’s image springs into view. The woman herself, not some digitized fiction.

  “Ah, Captain Jackson. I am sorry to hear of your wounds.”

  “No you’re not. You want something.” I wonder how the conversation would proceed if she knew which ship I really captain.

  The woman smiles. Showing no emotion in her eyes. “Always to the point. So let me get to it for you. Your brother and his friend tell me you have hours to live, unless you get help.”

  I flick my gaze to Mitch. His face is white and he wipes something from his eye.

  I look back at the holo. Right now all I can move on the bed is my head, my eyes and my mouth. I assume Mitch—or Jordi—have deliberately anesthetized the rest of my body so I am not permitted to feel the truth the Scorpion is revealing: I am facing death.

  “What of it? Are you saying you suddenly care about me?”

  “We can enjoy a mutually beneficial exchange. I give you your life.”

  “And I
give you the Constellation and the drive. How did I guess.”

  The Scorpion smiles again. “There’s more. In return for helping me restore the drive—oh yes, I know that the Jovians discovered you have access to it—I will grant you and your comrades senior positions in my command. If nothing else, you’ve proved to be a highly resourceful asset. One I’d rather have on my side.”

  “I bet you would. But you went back on our deal. You attacked the Jovians, you started a war we don’t need, and even if you give us so-called positions, I know one day I’ll still end up stabbed in the side. An experience I’m keen not to repeat.”

  Her mouth tightens. “I suspected so. A decision you’ll no doubt regret.”

  The holo goes blank and Mitch pushes it away. It floats to the bulkhead and bounces off, slowly.

  He looks at me with sadness on his face. “You just signed your death warrant. No one else is going to come to our rescue. But you had to trade your own life for your principles. Why, Indy?”

  I manage a small smile. “You think she really wants me dead?”

  His face brightens. “Good point.” Then his expression drops again. “The result’s still the same: she captures us, you get fixed up, we have to submit to her threats.”

  I try to shrug, but my shoulders don’t listen. “But it’s our move. Not hers.”

  He stares at me. “And that’s important? I don’t see how.”

  I smile weakly. “Nor me. But I’ll think of something.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

  I don’t think for long, as the small spacetug is swamped by sirens and red warning lights. I sense movement—slight disturbances in gravity, or more accurately, shifting mass—as Jordi takes evasive action. We are under attack. Jordi is one of the best pilots I know, but a spacetug with a great pilot can be trumped by the freshest of recruits behind a starfighter’s sophisticated weapon’s system.

  An explosion rocks the rear of our ship, and debris streams through the cabin. The tug really has only one main area, I am located aft on a pull-down bunk, intended for sleep. Not medical treatment.

  Mitch pushes over to me, his face haggard. He carries a medisuit and helmet and proceeds to unstrap me and manhandle me into the suit.

  “Don’t bother, Mitch. I’m dead anyway. At least the Scorpion won’t realize her main prize was taken out by some idiot fighter. One of her own.” I try to fight him, but my body is paralyzed, and anyway, it’s getting harder to breathe.

  Mitch ignores me and dons his own suit. I cannot see Jordi at the helm upfront. Instead I imagine him frantically tapping away at the helmpad. My head still senses movement, and though Jordi or Mitch have silenced the sirens, the red warnings continue to flash.

  In seconds we’ll be spacedust, blown to pieces by superior weaponry.

  The Jovians and the Scorpion can go to hell.

  I’m going to Papa.

  Mitch heads over to somewhere out of my sight. I am moving—fast now—and I see the cabin flying past me, then it’s gone as I shoot out into space.

  My last vision from the inside was of Jordi, strapped into his seat, wrestling at the controls of the laboring tug, trying to make it respond like a lightCruiser.

  He is fighting a losing battle.

  The tug is gone in an instant, and as I float out into space, I realize Jordi wasn’t wearing a suit.

  Mitch floats up beside me. He has used a drivepack to navigate to my side. I am confused. Dying in space; dying on the ship; dying in some medbay—what’s the difference?

  We cannot communicate. We just float. The spacetug has long gone. Mitch presses his faceplate to mine. His eyes search mine, anxious. I blink back at him.

  I am still alive.

  Mitch’s head jerks up from mine. I see a reflection in his faceplate. Lights, then gleaming alloy. I feel myself grabbed and pulled.

  Into a familiar airlock.

  My airlock.

  My lightCruiser. Slingshot.

  I sense the airlock close, and someone peers down at me. It's the Rykkan Chief. He grins first, then speaks. I can hear him through my helmet. “You not die yet. Still have debt.” Then he pushes me to the ship’s medbay—far more sophisticated than the tug’s.

  The tug. I look around for Mitch. He is at my other side, taking off his helmet and reaching down for mine. I wait until mine is off.

  “Jordi?”

  Mitch knows what I’m asking and shakes his head with a glum expression. “He didn’t make it. He used the tug as a decoy to save us. Told me he wanted to make things right.”

  I feel numb. No matter how big the scale, war is always personal.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

  We emerge from hyperspace. I don’t know where we are, but I do know I feel a whole lot better. I can actually feel my body, so I try to sit up.

  Big mistake.

  After the lancing pain in my side subsides, I lie back on the bunk in the medbay. I realize it was probably the exit from hyperspace that woke me—that odd internal sensation in your organs that never quite stops being disconcerting.

  After a short while, I discover I can move my right arm without too much disturbance to my left side. I reach for the holo and tap the comms open.

  “Mitch? Anyone?”

  A gruff voice responds. “He sleep. Captain feeling better now.” It’s not a question, and I smile inside at the idea of being around Rykkans again.

  “Yes. Still pain, but I’m not dead. Thanks to you. How did you know where to find us?”

  The disembodied voice replies from the holo’s speaker. “Use Rykkan senses. Jovian hospitality not good, then Scorpion come and I sense you hurt. Maybe very bad. So I kill some Jovians and take your cruiser. Look for you with sense and track you in tug. But dangerous with other fighter.”

  I nod, even though he cannot see me. “What happened?”

  There is a pause. “I make communication with tug pilot. He say pick up two spacewalkers. He say he draw fighter away.” The Rykkan stops talking. I feel a strange sense. As if a tiny spider is crawling inside my head. Not unpleasant. “He was friend.”

  “In the end, yes. Where do we head now?”

  “NewSwiss12. I find journey in your navigation panel.”

  Of course. From Aktip’s injury, which seems long ago now. I wonder what has become of Aktip. Our original plan had her remain on Takao. At least she is safe there. For now. A wave of shock floods over me—no doubt a delayed reaction to my own serious injury—and I feel a tear escape at the thought of so many lives depending on me. Lives lost because of me.

  Papa, did you bring this on?

  He does not answer, of course.

  So many things wrong: my father’s killer dead, but not at my hands as I imagined; the Sector plunging into civil war, and what remains of my family and friends risking their lives for me.

  Yet I feel powerless to act.

  I try to distract myself. “When do we land on NewSwiss12?” There is no answer.

  “Chief?”

  No response. I look around for help, but there is no way I can move. It’s too painful. I try again.

  “Chief? Captain to the bridge, is anyone there?”

  “Sorry, Indy,” Mitch replies. “The Chief had to get me to the helmroom.” He sounds bleary from sleep. “Incoming signal. Encrypted. The Chief didn’t know how to answer.”

  “Encrypted? Do we know who and where from yet?”

  “No. I’ve just requested that. I’ll buzz you as soon as I know.”

  Surely we could not have been followed from Ganymede? I make the mistake of taking a deep breath, and wince and scream simultaneously.

  “Indy? Are you okay?”

  “Yes. No. Wondering when this will all stop.”

  Silence. I imagine Mitch is dealing with the comms.

  I hear the helm chatter as Mitch opens up the channel to me. The icon flashes orange to show “private” and his face appears on the holo. He looks surprised and confused at the same time.

  “Who is it?�
� I ask.

  Mitch hesitates a moment. “Admiral Simpson. At the helm of a stealthfighter.”

  I suck in a breath and flinch at the pain. I can’t seem to cut myself—or my friends—a break. “Oh crap. Can we run?”

  Mitch shakes his head. “That’s the thing. He said we can if we want. Then he said if the Constellation’s Captain Jackson is willing to meet with General Garnek, our Papa would be proud.”

  I stare at Mitch in the holo. “Bring me to the helmroom.”

  The Constellation’s Captain Jackson.

  He knew all along.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY

  Mitch and the Rykkan Chief detach my bunk into a makeshift gurney, and bring me and my bed to the helmroom. Mitch flattens two of the passenger seats with a tap of a button, and they arrange me so I can see the holoscreen.

  On which is Simpson. Garnek. He inclines his head to me. He has a serious look on his face. “I understand you are injured.”

  “What is it to you? Why should I trust anything you say?”

  He says nothing, but reaches forward out of my view and adjusts the zoom. The field of view pulls back and I see sitting next to Garnek ... Aktip. I start to sit up—then remember my wound and manage to stop myself. “Aktip! Are you okay? Has Simpson hurt you?”

  Simpson—or Garnek—interrupts. “Please call me General Garnek. Admiral Simpson is no more. Your friend is quite unhurt and is here of her own free will.”

  I am a little lost. “Then I am the one missing all the information.”

  “He speaks true,” Aktip says. “But you should not be speaking at all. You need medical help. Self-repair.”

  I smile. “Humans don’t self-repair in the same way as Rykkans, Aktip. I thought you knew that. But I’m glad to see you are unhurt. Will someone tell me what is going on?”

  Garnek speaks. “I will share everything in person. Let me give you enough to let you know I can be trusted, but we will need to go to Takao as soon as practicable. There I can assure you of the best treatment.”