“You have the humans’ fleet that we capture.”
“I cannot lead us from human ships as well as I can from our own.”
“Then perhaps it is time for you to step aside and let someone else lead.”
Kaon cocked his round, fish-like head. “And who might that be?”
Kala bared her needle-sharp teeth again. “Sssomeone else.”
“Not you?”
“No.”
“Shallah decides who leads us. My victories are too many to be erased by one defeat. You shall yield your vessel and your cluster to me for the coming battle.”
“Yess . . . My Lord.”
There was a twist of sarcasm in Kala’s voice that Kaon didn’t like, but he chose to ignore it. He followed Lady Kala out of the comms center, listening as her claws scratched the deck, extending and retracting restlessly. She was angry, and not bothering to hide her displeasure.
Kaon’s mind turned to the coming battle. He could only hope that Shondar had done enough damage to the Avilonians’ forces while they had been disabled that now they couldn’t project their strength as far as Dark Space. If not, perhaps sufficient reinforcements would arrive before the Avilonians did. Certainly, with twenty-six new clusters even the Avilonians would be outmatched. Kaon smiled, allowing hope to bleed through his despair.
For glory. The battle cry whispered through his thoughts, as if tip-toeing around his fears, but Kaon chose to focus on the positive. Reinforcements would arrive in time to save them.
Any other thought would admit the possibility of defeat, and defeat, as ever, was unacceptable.
* * *
Destra Heston’s face was bathed in a hard blue light, making her look far older than her 45 years. The light came from the holographic grid rising above the captain’s table aboard the Baroness. At the table with her were two others. To her left stood Captain Covani, bald and black with bright tangerine eyes. His usually round face bore few of the marks of age, but stress and worry had drawn semi-permanent lines across his brow. Right now those lines were trenches, his warmly-colored eyes were cold, and his once-rounded cheeks looked gaunt. Destra thought maybe the gaunt cheeks were just a trick of the light, but with the past few weeks of rationing, the effect could easily be from starvation.
“Get them out of there, Torv!” Covani gritted.
“I cannot,” a deep voice said from Destra’s right. She tried not to look at the Gor, but he was all she could see in her peripheral vision. He was wearing his glossy black, chitin-like armor, and the optics in his helmet glowed red, looking like two multi-faceted insect eyes. The overall shape of his helmet and the face behind it, were that of a giant skull. She was thankful Torv was wearing his armor. Without it he would have been even more terrifying.
“What do you mean you can’t?” Covani challenged.
“They do not listen. Their blood lust controls them now.”
“Well tell them to snap out of it!”
“We are starving, Captain,” Torv replied. “Not even I would obey if I had the chance to sink my teeth into something fresh.”
Destra shuddered, and again she tried to ignore the presence of the Gor. She watched, horrified as the team of Gors they’d sent to the surface, represented by green dots on the sterile blue grid, swarmed toward the target warehouse, running straight into a trap. Hundreds of red dots, no doubt human slaves, were waiting for them inside what should have been a deserted warehouse, full of vegetables ready for export off Forliss. Destra chewed her lower lip, watching as the green dots drew nearer to the red.
“Someone get me a visual feed!” Covani snapped to his crew.
“Feed coming in, sir,” the comms officer announced a moment later.
Covani looked up to the main forward viewport, and Destra followed his gaze. She glimpsed a crescent of light and color painted against the black of space—day dawning on the far side of Forliss. Then that view dissolved, replaced by crooked shadows of trees flickering over rippling fields of long grass. Grass rasped and rustled noisily through the bridge speakers as the Gor whose viewpoint they’d stolen ran toward a high, dark shape on the horizon. All around were trails of flattened grass, appearing like magic as cloaked Gors raced toward the warehouse and the Sythian slaves they’d somehow scented on the wind.
Those trails converged on the wooden doors of the gray, castcrete warehouse. The nearest Gor reached the doors and they exploded in a shower of splintered wood. Like that, the Gors squandered the element of surprise their cloaking armor should have afforded.
The one with the camera attached to his helmet raced through the splintered doors into a dazzlingly bright chaos of flashing red pulse lasers and bright glow lamps. Crates of produce shattered and exploded with colorful sprays of vaporized vegetable matter.
The Gors didn’t bother to fire back; they raced silently and unseen through the enemy ranks breaking necks and shattering sternums with their bare hands. The Sythian soldiers all wore a shrunken parody of the Gors’ glossy black armor, but it was easy to tell that they were human—red blood spurted from the joins in their armor, not Sythian-white, or Gor-clear. Destra watched the bloody massacre unfold with a growing grimace. She began to think the Gors might even be able to overwhelm the enemy soldiers, but then she began to see Gors appearing out of thin air, taking off their helmets and thoughtlessly tossing them aside, disrupting their cloaking shields so that they could rip into the enemy with their jaws and teeth.
Now lasers flashed not randomly but with deadly precision. Destra watched one Gor hit by a stuttering hail of no less than a dozen laser bolts, but he was so intent upon his kill that he kept feeding long seconds after he should have realized that he was dead.
“Switch it off,” Covani growled. He turned to her with a grave expression. “We can’t keep this up, Councilor.”
“Two more weeks.”
Covani shook his head. “It’s already been more than two months. The Gors aren’t going to last much longer like this, and neither will we. We’re cut off from our supply lines, and now the Sythians are locking theirs down.”
Destra hesitated. Over two months ago, her late husband, Admiral Hoff Heston, had sent her son, Atton, to Avilon, looking for reinforcements. He should have returned long ago. Without Captain Covani’s knowledge, she’d appealed to Atton’s father, her ex-husband, Ethan, asking him to go look for Atton at the coordinates Hoff had given their son, but even Ethan should have returned by now. He was more than a week late. Destra felt she had to wait at least another week for him, but by the determined set to Captain Covani’s lips, she knew his mind was already made up. The captain didn’t and couldn’t know about Ethan’s follow-up mission to Avilon, because then he would know that she had the coordinates for the lost sector, and he would try to take all of them there. Hoff had strictly warned her that the Avilonians wouldn’t accept them all as refugees, particularly not the Gors. A lot might have changed since her husband had lived in Avilon, but she suspected he was at least right about the Gors.
“Where would we go?” she asked.
“Anywhere beyond the old Imperium. Somewhere the Sythians won’t have been yet. Ideally somewhere with plenty of wildlife for the Gors to hunt and plenty of arable land for us to start a colony.”
“We have just over 150 men and women on board, Captain. That’s not much to start a colony. We should stop to rescue as many people as we can before we go.”
Covani shook his head. “I’d love to, but there’s no way we can be sure the people we rescue haven’t been turned into Sythian slaves yet. If we take even one of them with us, the Sythians will follow us wherever we go.”
“What about Etaris?”
“What about it? Same problem there.”
“Not if we only rescue people from lock-up. Why make a prisoner a slave and then leave him in his cell? The ones the Sythians have messed with will already be gone or walking around free.”
“You can’t be serious. They’re head cases! Why would we want to rescue th
em? Let them rot.”
Lock-ups on Etaris were only used for the worst offenders, with the majority of the world’s prisoner population allowed to live and work more or less freely—so long as they didn’t try to leave the planet.
Destra shook her head. “Humanity can’t afford to be picky when it’s down to so few. Keep the prisoners in the brig and use them as indentured workers when we get wherever we’re going. They’re already used to that on Etaris. We’ll need all the help we can get if we’re going to start over somewhere new.”
“She is right,” Torv put in, proving that he’d been listening to their entire conversation. “These prisoners may not have much honor left, but every person we take with us is one that we shall not someday face in battle when the Sythians find us again.”
Covani gave a deep sigh. “Helm! Plot a course for Etaris. Torv, tell the Gor fleet where we’re going.”
“I shall tell my creche lord now.”
“Our children will be standing on the shoulders of thieves and murderers. . . .” the captain muttered. Destra noticed that his gaze lingered on Torv as he said that. Despite the fact that the Gors had ultimately sided with humanity against their Sythian masters, no one had forgotten the savagery of the original invasion.
With images of Gors ripping into human flesh during the warehouse raid still fresh in her mind, Destra couldn’t help feeling uneasy about the future. She looked away, out to the growing slice of daylight where the sun was now peeking out behind the far side of Forliss. “Our children will have to stand on something, Captain,” she said.
Covani snorted at that and joined her in stargazing. Together they watched as the helm turned them on a new course, heading for a particularly bright star that was actually a neighboring planet. Etaris, the world where Ethan had been sent before the war had even begun. Back then she’d wondered how she would live with the pain of losing him. His absence had ripped a hole in her heart that had never fully healed. Now her second husband, Hoff, was dead, rather than merely exiled, leaving their daughter, Atta, without a father, and her, once again alone. This time she didn’t feel like she’d been ripped open. She just felt like there was nothing there anymore, her chest an empty cavity where something vital used to be. After losing so much, she was surprised she hadn’t stepped out an airlock already. In fact, she was surprised no one else had. Everyone on board had just lost everything that mattered to them for the second time in recent history. What was the point in rebuilding for a third?
“Madam councilor . . . ? Ma’am?”
Destra realized then that someone had been talking to her. She turned toward the voice to see the Baroness’s comm officer looking up at her. “Your daughter is on the line. . . .”
“And?”
The comm officer’s eyes flicked briefly to the captain, and then a warm color suffused his cheeks. “She said . . .” The officer trailed off and continued in a noticeably softer voice. “She said she can’t sleep without someone there to chase the monsters away.”
Destra’s eyes crinkled and her lips twitched upward in a smile. “Tell her I’ll be down in a minute.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
Destra turned to Covani for dismissal, but he was already waving her away. “Go get some sleep, Councilor. I can handle things from here. I’ll wake you before the mission gets underway.”
She nodded and turned to leave, her boots striking a brisk, echoing cadence on the polished duranium gangway. There was a new purpose in her stride. She had her answer, both for herself and for humanity. It was the same reason humanity had always pressed on through adversity—
Children.
They were humanity’s hope for the future. Destra’s hope was that her children would have a future.
Chapter 7
Ethan and Alara walked down the hallway from their room. They’d found a pair of white robes hanging in the closet—just like the ones they’d seen their loved ones wearing when they’d all been reunited in the clouds. That had been just last night, but it seemed like a few short hours ago.
Ethan turned to watch the abstract light paintings of human faces in the hallway as they walked by. They watched him back, but today all the faces were happy and smiling. Somehow that unnerved him more than seeing the few anguished ones mixed in.
They reached the stairs they’d climbed the night before and went down to the echoing foyer. The shiny marble floors and crystal chandelier looked even more luxurious in the light of day than they had at night. Now the mansion’s many windows were bright and showing off panoramic views of blue sky and vast green parkland.
They heard muffled voices coming from beyond the far side of the foyer.
“I guess breakfast must be this way?” Alara said, heading toward the sound.
They walked down the side of the palace, past a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out on a shimmering, sapphire-blue lake, fed by the river they’d crossed the night before. It was hard to imagine all of this was somehow built on the rooftop of what the Avilonians called Destiny Tower.
They emerged in a massive dining hall. The air was alive with the smell of fresh-baked bread and caf. Everyone was already busy drinking the latter and buttering the former on their plates with golden knives. Another crystal chandelier hung above an extra-long glossy black table with pristine white chairs. Everyone was already seated there, wearing matching white robes, and speaking in a nonsensical babble of simultaneous conversations.
The dining room was surrounded by windows. Outside, an inviting pool ran the length of the hall. An artificial waterfall cascaded into that pool, shining like liquid crystal in the morning sun.
Most of the faces at the table were familiar—Ethan’s son, Atton; Ceyla and Razor, pilots in Atton’s squadron; Captain Caldin; Delayn, her XO; another one of her crew that Ethan didn’t recognize, and a group of navy sentinels. Six Peacekeepers were seated with the refugees.
“Good morning,” Ethan said.
Conversations ended abruptly as heads turned and people noticed them standing there.
“Good morning,” Atton replied, and Ethan noted that his son was also speaking in Avilonian rather than Versal.
“Nice of you to finally join us,” Rovik said, twisting around in his chair to face them. “Why don’t you take a seat and we can get started.”
Captain Caldin called down from the foot of the table, “You can start with the fact that we all had the same dream last night. What the frek is going on around here?”
Ethan and Alara moved to take their seats at the table, leaving four empty places between them and the line of Peacekeepers.
“The dream you all experienced was a walk through history, a shared experience of someone else’s memories or mind walk. The mind you were walking through was mine.”
“So it was real . . . you found the Sythians before anyone else did,” Atton said.
“Dreams in Avilon are not random or nonsensical. Here Omnius speaks to us through our dreams.”
“So what’s the point of showing us what you found in the Getties Cluster? We already know the Sythians came from there,” Atton replied.
“The point of Omnius’s nightly revelations will come clear by the end of The Choosing. Now—we have a busy day ahead of us, so if there are no more pressing questions, it’s time for us to eat.”
“Just one more question.” One of the sentinels at the table raised his hand. “I had family back in Dark Space . . . last night we heard from the . . . Admiral, if that was really him, that there are plans to rescue everyone there and bring them to Avilon.”
“The man you saw was indeed Admiral Hoff Heston, and that is correct,” Rovik replied. “When I am done guiding you through The Choosing, I will join the offensive with my ship.”
“Any chance I can get in on the fight?” the sentinel said. His voice was subdued, but there was an eagerness to the way he leaned over the table, hands twitching and fidgeting, his dark eyes glinting sharp as any daggers. “I’ve got a score to settle wit
h the skull faces.”
“You are more than welcome to join the Peacekeepers if you decide to live in Etheria. If you join the Nulls, however, you will not have the honor of serving anyone but yourself.”
The sentinel sat back in his chair, looking satisfied with that. “Well, I already know what I’m choosing. You can skip the tour for me.”
“The Choosing is not optional, but you will have more than enough time to join the Peacekeepers when it’s over.” Galan’s glowing blue eyes roved around the table addressing each of them in turn. “Something you should all know, a week on Avilon is not the seven days it was in the old Etherian calendar. Our first day, as you might have guessed, will be spent exploring Celesta, the uppermost of the three cities on Avilon. Tomorrow, we’ll tour Etheria. On the third day, we’ll descend into the Null Zone. Then you will have a day to revisit whichever city you please and to reflect on the choice you will make. On the fifth day you will make your choice and prepare for your new life on Avilon.” Rovik nodded to one of the other Peacekeepers. “Before we begin eating, Omnius has something for each of you.”
The Peacekeeper Rovik had nodded to rose from the table and began distributing palm-sized white capsules to each of the refugees.
“Please don’t open them yet,” Rovik said. The capsules looked like the pocket-sized mirror case that Alara sometimes used to put on makeup. “They are your ARCs—Augmented Reality Contacts. Via these you will be in constant contact with the Omninet. ARCs give you a heads-up display for your daily lives. They are thought-activated, so you will be able to decide what information to display just by thinking about it. Of course, Omnius may choose to provide additional information as he deems necessary.”
“So it’s another way of keeping tabs on us,” Ethan said, feeling his skin crawl.
“No, Omnius can already watch us perfectly well via our Lifelinks. ARCs are for our benefit, to help us live in a world that is too vast and complicated for us to keep track of everything.
“Among other things, you will be able to see each other’s names, citizenry ranks, real and apparent age, relationship status, and even a tag line, which you may or may not choose to display below your name. Go ahead, open the cases and put on your contacts. ARCs need never be removed, and you will not notice you are wearing them.”
Dark Space: Avilon Page 8