Dark Space: Avilon

by Jasper T. Scott

  Crunch.

  The Gor hit the wall and slid down it. This time he didn’t get back up.

  “Frek!” Destra said, pounding the captain’s table with one fist.

  Covani was watching her with a frown. “Still think rescuing the galaxy’s finest felons is a good idea?”

  Before she could reply, they heard a siren come screaming over the bridge speakers. For a minute Destra thought it was coming from their ship, but then she saw the visual feed begin flashing brightly. The light amplification overlay snapped off automatically. Red emergency lights were flashing. That shouldn’t have been possible. The Gors had cut power to the lights!

  “Looks like our prisoner is working for the other side. He tripped the alarms,” Covani said. “We need to abort.”

  “Why would Sythians make a slave of a prisoner and leave him in his cell?”

  “Maybe they knew we were coming.”

  Destra shook her head. “No, he’s just stupid. We must have missed cutting the lines for one of the emergency backups. Torv! Get two of your men in there. One to take over for Echo Nine with the camera, and the other to help him out of the compound. Make sure all the other squads are on the lookout for escaping prisoners. Tell them to keep their distance and get to the extraction point as soon as they can. We’re not going to have time to go back in and rescue anyone else.”

  “I tell them.”

  “Captain—” Destra turned to Covani. “Check our list to see who was in cell 294.”

  “I already have.”

  “And?”

  “It’s not Cavanaugh.”

  “Then who?”

  “Edgar Framon, convicted of multiple murders and at least two counts of rape. He’s serving two consecutive life sentences.”

  “So he lied about his name. Who is Cavanaugh, then?”

  “Does it matter? Focus on the mission, Councilor.”

  Destra looked away with a frown, back to the visual feed. She drummed her fingers on the captain’s table, waiting. As soon as she saw Echo Nine being lifted off the ground by one of his squad mates, she turned to the hulking monster standing behind her. “Torv? What’s our status?”

  Glowing red optics turned her way and the Gor’s glossy black armor shifted, seeming to flow like liquid as he adjusted his footing on the deck. “Fifty one prisoners are being carried out. Twelve more on the way.”

  Destra bit her lip. The Gors were cloaked, but the prisoners they were carrying out weren’t. If the Sythians got close enough to see the movement on their sensors, the Gors would make easy targets.

  “We’ve got incoming!” the gravidar officer interrupted. “Two squadrons of Sythian Shells and three shuttles tearing out of orbit, headed straight for the prison complex!”

  “Not cloaked?” Destra asked.

  “They can’t see us, so they don’t know they’re outnumbered,” Covani replied. “No reason for them to hide.”

  “We need to create a distraction,” Destra said. “What if we send a Nova squadron out there to draw them away from the Gors?”

  Covani looked at her as though she’d just grown horns. “You want me to risk my pilots’ lives so you can rescue the scum of the galaxy?”

  “No, I want you to risk their lives so we can rescue the Gors.”

  Covani turned away with a scowl. “Comms, tell Gorgon Squadron to launch. Their orders are to tease the incoming Shells away from the prison complex. They have fifteen minutes to do that and lose their pursuit so they can jump away with us. Make sure they get the coordinates for our jump.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Torv—you need to relay those same coordinates to your people. Come with me.”

  Destra watched Captain Covani and Torv walk down to the nav officer’s station. Once there, they began translating the jump coordinates from Imperial format to the Gor equivalent.

  Destra looked away, back to the visual feed coming from inside the prison. Everything would have gone perfectly if Echo Nine hadn’t opened the wrong cell and gotten himself knocked out by prisoner 294—whoever he was.

  Cavanaugh. The name sounded familiar to her, but she couldn’t recall why. Somebody famous, perhaps? Infamous?

  Whatever the case, now he could add compromising a naval rescue operation to his rap sheet.

  Chapter 10

  Darron Cavanaugh pounded down the aging metal staircase, rattling it loud enough to simulate thunder. His footsteps were crowded with half a dozen others, making the sound all the more deafening.

  On their way down they grabbed rifles, stun grenades, and sidearms from the lifeless hands of prison guards.

  “Frek me . . . This one’s got bite marks!” Black Seven said.

  “Damned Skull Faces would eat their own grandmothers,” Cavanaugh growled, noticing that the guard he was stealing supplies from had a gruesome wound in his neck.

  “We have to move,” Black Five put in. “When you tripped the lights, the alarms came on, too.”

  “Should have left us in the dark,” Black Three added.

  “Frek it, next time you all can rescue yourselves!” Cavanaugh said, springing up from his haunches and sprinting down the last flight of stairs.

  “Now don’t go gettin’ your feelings hurt,” Three replied. “We’re grateful.”

  Cavanaugh grunted. They ran through the compound at dizzying speed, racing down corridor after corridor. The flashing red lights weren’t accompanied by any alarms, but he knew better than to trust that. Best to assume the worst.

  Black Seven sprinted up next to him. “What about the rescue op you mentioned? Think they might have room for a few more?”

  “Sure, next Skull Face you see, you can ask him. Just try to avoid his fangs.”

  Seven grimaced. “No thanks.”

  They reached the outer doors and found both sets blasted open. They ran out into a bright twilight, illuminated by a full moon. From there they cut across an overgrown field of grass to a small stand of silvering ash trees. Just before they reached the cover of the glossy black leaves and silver bark, they heard a series of thunderclaps split the sky.

  “I missed weather,” Black Five said. “Nothing like a nice refreshing rain after the sun’s gone down and the frost’s starting to glisten on the grass.”

  A suspicion formed in Cavanaugh’s gut and he shook his head. “Quiet! That wasn’t thunder.” They reached the trees, and he risked peeking up at the sky through the edge of the canopy.

  Bright streaks of fire slashed the sky. He pointed. “Look. Thruster trails.” The thunder had been sonic booms. Cavanaugh noticed that the thruster trails were Imperial blue, not Sythian red, and he relaxed. He considered firing a ripper burst into the sky to identify himself on their scanners, but something held him back.

  Just as well. The sky flashed with an explosion and one of the bright blue thruster trails disappeared. Then dozens more appeared—the red trails of Shell Fighters. Streams of purple stars streaked out after the Imperial Novas and they broke into sudden spirals and dives to evade the alien missiles.

  “Hoi . . .” Someone whispered beside his ear. “Look.” A hand appeared in his peripheral vision, pointing to the field of long grass between them and the prison complex. The field was parting in winding lines leading from the pulverized doors of the prison complex. Looking carefully, they could see the garish orange garb of prisoners. He was just about to signal them over when he noticed that they were floating below the level of the grass, face down and unconscious, as if they were being carried by invisible men.

  Or cloaked Gors. Cavanaugh’s eyes narrowed swiftly. “Skull faces,” he whispered. His rifle moved, almost of its own accord, to track the nearest prisoner—or rather, the Gor who was carrying him. They weren’t heading for the trees, but cutting laterally across the field to an area of flattened grass. Cloaked transports. “They have extraction teams on the ground,” he said.

  Another explosion lit up the night, and their eyes were drawn to the sky once more to see the fading orang
e flower of an explosion—another Nova Fighter reduced to a cloud of superheated dust. Cavanaugh spent a moment tracking the Shells across the sky. He noticed that they were taking potshots at the Novas, but not breaking formation to follow them. They were headed straight for the prison complex.

  “We need to go make nice with the Gors,” Cavanaugh said, making a snap decision. He hoped it would be a good one.

  “They’re skullies,” Seven said. The scars lining his face crinkled, and his nose scrunched up.

  “They’re soldiers who were just following orders. Now their orders are to rescue prisoners, and that’s what we are. Come on!”

  They ran, bounding through the tall grass, aiming for the nearest flattened patch. As they ran, Cavanaugh remembered using his prosthetic arm to beat the Gor who’d come to rescue him. He hoped he wouldn’t run into that particular skull face again, but he’d take whatever retribution the Gors meted out. He hadn’t had a choice. It was that or leave the rest of his squad to rot in their cells—or worse, to become slaves for the Sythians.

  * * *

  “We’ve lost another Nova!” gravidar reported.

  “Torv, tell me your people are all aboard!” Destra said.

  “Not yet.”

  “They’re not taking the bait, Captain!” gravidar said.

  “Your teams had better hurry, Torv!” Captain Covani put in.

  “They are encountering more prisoners, running with them toward the shuttles,” Torv replied. “What are your ordersss?”

  “Stun them!” Destra said.

  “They are armed.”

  “Your men are cloaked.”

  “They are carrying prisoners.”

  “All of them?”

  “Not all.”

  “Then take them out! And do it quietly!”

  “I tell them . . .”

  Destra watched on the visual feed as their camera operator turned toward a group of prisoners in bright orange jumpsuits rushing through the grass. Blue stun bolts stuttered out, cutting the prisoners down. A few of them fired bursts of ripper fire that roared into the night as they fell.

  Worried the weapons fire had given the Sythians something to aim for, Destra turned to look at the captain’s table. For a moment nothing happened, but then a squadron of Shell Fighters twitched toward the Gors.

  “Torv warn your people to keep their heads down. They’ve got incoming!” Destra said.

  No sooner had she said that than she saw on the visual feed that a dozen bright purple stars had appeared in the night sky, twinkling and spinning, growing larger and closer to the Gor cameraman with every second that passed.

  Pirakla missiles.

  A group of six Gor shuttles appeared on the ground, de-cloaking to activate their shields.

  “Have Gorgon Squadron turn around and intercept those Shells!” Covani called out. “Torv, those shuttles better have weapons!”

  “Do not worry.”

  The first Pirakla missile hit one of the shuttles with a blinding flash of light and a deafening boom that rattled through the bridge speakers. Then came the shock wave and the grass flattened, revealing dozens of black-armored Gors, crouching in the grass. Another half dozen blasts boomed through the speakers on the heels of the first.

  “Mute that feed!” Covani roared, and the residual roar of the explosions cut off in sudden ringing silence.

  Destra blinked spots from her eyes and forced them to focus on the camera feed. The grassy field was on fire. Flames licked the keels of the Gors’ organically-shaped shuttle craft. Those shuttles fired back with more Pirakla missiles. Then something else appeared on the horizon—a giant version of the Gors’ shuttles, hovering between them and the approaching Shell Fighters—a Gor cruiser. It opened fire with a blinding torrent of lasers and missiles.

  Explosions peppered the horizon, and a cheer went up from the crew pit.

  “Nice work,” Covani breathed. “Comms—call Gorgon Squadron back to orbit. Tell them to get aboard before we jump to the rendezvous.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Covani turned to Destra, his eyes flinty. “We lost two pilots.”

  Destra nodded to the visual feed. The Gor with the camera ran through a burning field of grass with two stunned prisoners, one bobbing from each of his armored fists.

  “We saved almost a hundred prisoners.”

  “That’s not a fair trade in my book.”

  “You agreed to the op.”

  “No, I followed orders. Next time, Councilor, I might not be so obliging.”

  “The Gors are away. Shuttles cloaking . . .” The comm officer interrupted.

  Captain Covani broke his staring contest with her and turned back to watch the visual feed. It now showed the inside of a Gor shuttle. Dark, and crowded with nightmarish faces as the Gors took off their helmets.

  The captain went on, “Now that we’ve consolidated the survivors, I trust we won’t be wasting any more of our precious resources. Our current priority is to find somewhere safe that we can set up a colony. I was thinking the Feraides Sector,” Covani said as he pulled up a star map on the captain’s table.

  Destra shook her head. “There are too many habitable worlds there. The Sythians will be swarming all over them before long.”

  “Perhaps, but we haven’t seen them swarming anything besides us yet. I wonder if they really did come here to colonize our galaxy, or if that was just something they told us.”

  “They had no way of knowing that information would get back to us. Besides, if they don’t want our galaxy, then why kill us all? Just because they’ve taken their time to organize doesn’t mean they’re not coming—or that they’re not already here. We don’t have recent recon data for any of those worlds. They might already be colonized.”

  “So where do you suggest we go?”

  “We need to go somewhere unexpected.”

  Torv stepped up to the captain’s table and placed two giant hands on the edge of it. “If you are looking for an unexpected place that is far from here,” he began, “I suggest we go to Noctune.”

  “What? That’s in the Getties!” Captain Covani sputtered. “We’re not going to get away from the Sythians by flying right up their noses!”

  “You would have to be very small to fly up a Sythian’s nose,” Torv replied, his voice neutral, oblivious to his own wit.

  The captain scowled and went on, “They leveled your home world when you stole their fleet. It was a barren ice world before, but now it’s probably a radioactive barren ice world.”

  “There are other worlds in that system,” Torv replied. “Some of them are more temperate.”

  “Then they’re probably already crowded with Sythians.”

  “They are not.”

  Covani shot Torv a suspicious look. “How do you know?”

  “It was not long ago that my creche lord and my Matriarch live on Noctune. Only a few orbits pass since then. In all their time there, Sythians never once appear. They breed and train us in captivity. We only know this because we are telepaths, and because we remember the first time they visit us, many orbits ago.”

  “Sir! Gorgon squadron is aboard!” the comms officer announced.

  “Nav, Punch it!” Covani replied. To Destra and Torv he said, “We’ll figure out where to go while we’re in transit. Torv, make sure your people keep those prisoners in line. We’ll transfer them here as soon as we’re out of Dark Space.”

  The ship’s computer began an audible countdown to SLS from 10 seconds. Someone cut the visual feed from the Gor’s helmet cam, and the main viewport went back to showing diamond-bright stars and inky black space.

  Destra dismissed herself with a sloppy salute. “I’m going below decks to check on my daughter. Let me know as soon as the prisoners are aboard. I’d like to speak to them personally.”

  Covani nodded. “Of course.”

  The countdown reached zero, and the bridge lit up with an actinic flash of light as they jumped to SLS.

  * * *
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br />   “It’s hard to believe,” Alara said.

  Ethan turned to look at her as they walked the grounds of the mansion where they were staying at the top of Destiny Tower in Celesta. On the horizon the sun was busy setting behind a majestic row of dark green trees, their jagged branches limned in a red-gold light that made them look as if they were on fire.

  “They already cloned us,” he replied, his lip curling with the thought. He felt violated just thinking about it.

  “Did they?” Alara asked. “The more I think about it, the stranger it seems. The woman in that tank looked like me, but she wasn’t me. She’s too perfect.”

  “It doesn’t make sense to me either, but I can’t explain why it won’t work without getting religious.”

  They heard a twig snap behind them and Ethan turned to scowl at the Peacekeeper who was shadowing them on their afternoon walk.

  “You mind?”

  “I’m just doing my job, Mr. Ortane.”

  Ethan turned away, shaking his head. “You were saying?”

  “I’m not religious either,” Alara replied, “but seeing all of this is enough to make me wonder.”

  “Well, we have another three days to make our decision.”

  “I don’t need them,” Alara said. “We can’t stay up here.”

  “Why not?” Ethan tried but failed to hide the hope that bled into his voice.

  “Because we’ll be making our daughter’s choice for her before she’s even born. If they resurrect me with an unborn clone of our baby in my womb, then she’ll already have her Immortal body.”

  They heard someone clear his throat, and Ethan turned to scowl at the Peacekeeper once more. “You can’t do your job from a respectable distance?”

  “I apologize for listening in, but your wife is wrong. The Choosing is just as important to Omnius as it is to you. If you choose life, your fetus will be an identical copy, not yet immortal, and she will still have to go through The Choosing.”

  Alara looked skeptical. “But she’ll still be a clone. How will I know she’s the same baby?”