Dark Space: Avilon

by Jasper T. Scott

  “Even better than Karpathia, sweetheart.”

  “I want to see it!”

  “I know, dear, but you can’t yet.”

  “Why not?”

  “We have to go into stasis first. When you wake up you’ll see it.”

  “Okay!” Atta beamed. There was a bounce in her step that hadn’t been there before. The sergeant traded a grim smile with Destra as they reached a bank of lift tubes and waited for one to arrive. As soon as it did, Atta ran into the lift. Destra let go of her hand, giving Atta some time to get her energy out. She wouldn’t be able to bounce around while she was hibernating in a tube the size of a coffin.

  The lift doors slid shut and the sentinel keyed in their destination. Looking out the small windows in the sides of the lift, she could see passing glow panels turning into blurry golden streaks as they raced down through the ship’s 18 decks.

  “Will Daddy be there?” Atta asked suddenly.

  Destra turned to Atta, momentarily shocked by the question. A scene of her husband’s execution flickered into her mind’s eye—him kneeling in the airlock, his battered face and bleeding lips twisted into a broken smile as he saluted the camera recording his death, and then the outer doors opened, and a sudden violent wind ripped him off the deck and he became nothing but a dwindling speck against the starry blackness of space. . . .

  She shook herself out of the memory and fought back the tears that threatened to give her away. “I don’t know, darling,” she said, affecting a smile. “Daddy is on a very important mission. We don’t know when he’ll be back.”

  “I miss him,” Atta said.

  Destra nodded. “So do I.”

  The lift came to a stop and the sergeant gently ushered them out. Ten minutes later they were being whisked through med bay and into the prep room for injections. Atta cried when she saw the needle. Destra had to hold her still for the corpsman. Atta screamed as the needle went in. Then they were ushered into one of the stasis rooms. Theirs was already crowded with at least a dozen others, all of them women. They were stripping naked and folding their clothes into neat piles for the attendants to place in nearby lockers. Then they lined up on both sides of the room in front of the stasis tubes and waited for the medic to finish configuring them.

  Atta was still crying as she folded her clothes. She wasn’t old enough to mind much about stripping naked in front of a bunch of strangers. The sergeant who had escorted them was waiting outside the doors to the stasis room.

  “Mom, w-why do we have to sleep naked?” Atta asked, shivering, as the female corpsman attending them took her pile of clothes. The stasis room was cold. They always were.

  “Shhh. No more questions for a while, okay, sweetheart?”

  The corpsman took Destra’s clothes next, and they were told to stand in line with the others. The medic in charge of configuring the stasis tubes guided the woman at the front of their line to an open tube.

  Atta stepped out of line to watch. “We’re going to sleep in those?” she said, a slight tremor creeping into her voice. “Why don’t we get beds?”

  “Because that’s how stasis works.”

  “I don’t want to go to stasis anymore,” Atta said. “I’m going to sleep in my room.” Atta was already on her way to the exit, so determined to leave that she was going without her clothes.

  Destra took a long step to catch her daughter by the arm. “Atta, you can’t leave, okay?”

  “Let me go!”

  Destra wrestled Atta back into line, and the female corpsman attending them suddenly reappeared, as if out of thin air.

  “Is there a problem here?”

  “Not at all.”

  “I don’t want to go,” Atta said, crossing her arms over her chest.

  “I can give her an additional sedative,” the corpsman suggested, ignoring Atta.

  “No, that’s okay.” Destra knew the risks. Too much sedative made waking up more disorienting and hibernation sickness more likely.

  “Let me know,” the corpsman replied, sending Atta a dubious look as she left.

  As soon as the corpsman’s back was turned, Atta tried to break free again, but Destra held her fast, squeezing Atta’s arms until her hands hurt. “Stop it.”

  Atta settled for whimpering instead. They were almost at the back of the line, so it was a long wait. More people kept entering the room all the time, and soon they were at the front of another long line of women. When it was their turn to go, Destra insisted they take Atta first. She held her daughter’s hand as long as she could, only letting go as the transpiranium cover began to swing shut.

  “I’m scared!” Atta cried. They’d used thick restraints to hold her in place, pinning her arms to her sides. Now she was trying desperately to wriggle out of them. “I don’t like stasis!”

  “You’ll wake up soon, okay?”

  Atta shook her head and went on struggling. The cover shut and Destra placed a hand against it as a poor substitute for real human contact. Then the medic pressed a button and cold gas began hissing into the stasis tube, frosting the transpiranium cover. Atta’s eyes rolled up in her head, and her body went limp.

  “How long are we going in for?” Destra asked as the medic led her to the next tube in line and helped her inside. The medic buckled restraints over Destra’s naked legs and torso. The straps were padded, but cold, and she gasped as they touched her skin. When it appeared that the medic wasn’t going to answer her question, Destra repeated it.

  “Indefinitely, Ma’am,” the medic said without looking up.

  Destra gaped at her. “Indefinitely? That’s against fleet regulations!”

  Her stasis tube cover began swinging shut with a slow groan, and Destra’s heart began pounding hard in her chest. Each beat felt labored as adrenaline fought the stasis preparation they’d injected into her bloodstream.

  “Captain’s orders, Ma’am. We don’t know when we’ll arrive, and we can’t risk people waking up too soon. Ma’am . . . please try to relax. Your vitals are spiking dangerously.”

  “Relax! How dare you tell me to . . .” She trailed off as a wave of dizziness and exhaustion swept over her.

  The cover of the stasis tube met the frame with a muffled thud. Destra glared at the medic as she pressed the button. Close beside her ears came a hiss of frigid gas, and she shivered despite the pleasant numbness that was already creeping through her. Destra felt an overpowering urge to shut her eyes and sleep, but she fought against it as long as she could.

  The last thing she saw as the transpiranium began to frost up was a faint flicker of movement along the far wall of the stasis room. A familiar gray, skull-like face appeared, and two slitted yellow eyes peered at her from the gloom. Torv? she wondered, surprised to see him there. She blinked and he was gone, as if he’d suddenly cloaked himself to avoid being seen.

  She realized she was hallucinating. By now the Gors would all be on board a transport waiting to transfer to one of their own ships.

  Her eyes drifted shut and she dreamed of the Gors taking over the ship and using the crew in stasis to augment their dwindling rations. She woke up in her dream, faced with the cadaverous face of a hungry, hissing Gor.

  What she’d told Atta was a lie. There were nightmares in stasis; they were just limited to the first few minutes and the last few minutes.

  The Gor went on hissing at her, and now he bared sharp teeth and prominent canines. She wondered if that meant he was planning to eat her, and if so, why he didn’t just get on with it. . . . She braced herself for the sudden stabbing pain of teeth sinking into her flesh.

  The Gor reached out for her with giant hands. She squeezed her eyes shut. Something groaned and snapped, and then a weight she hadn’t realized was resting on her chest lifted.

  Her eyes popped open and she saw the restraining belt that had been strapped across her chest dangling from the Gor’s hands. Destra used her freshly-freed hands to fend off the monster.

  Rather than tear off one of her arms, the Gor
ignored her feeble efforts and bent down to rip out the belt that was pinning her feet in place.

  That done, he stepped back and waited, hissing at her once more.

  Destra blinked and shivered, her senses coming alive. Pins and needles prickled through her hands and feet. Suddenly she realized that this wasn’t a dream, and the Gor standing before her was none other than Torv—the same one she’d thought she’d seen before succumbing to stasis. There were no medics or corpsmen anywhere to be seen.

  Then she remembered her daughter and panic gripped her. She stumbled out of her stasis tube to the one beside it. Atta was still asleep behind the frosted glass, her cherubic face relaxed in sleep. Destra glanced at the timer. It was counting up, not down, since they’d been placed in an indefinite hibernation. The glowing red digits marked just four hours, fifteen minutes, and twelve seconds.

  Destra turned to Torv and shook her head, for the first time noticing the bloody red emergency lighting in the stasis room. “What’s going on?” Her gaze traveled to the exit and she found a trail of bodies leading there—medics and corpsmen as well as a few sentinels. None of them were moving. Destra turned back to Torv, wide-eyed. “What have you done?”

  * * *

  30 Minutes Earlier . . .

  Sergeant Cavanaugh kept his ripper rifle trained on the Gors’ backs as they crossed the hangar deck to their waiting transports. There were a few dozen skull faces in all. Captain Covani was adamant that they be confined to their transports while the Baroness’s crew went into stasis, just in case.

  They reached the nearest of three Gor transports, and stopped there, waiting as one of the Gors went to trigger the loading ramp.

  “Get me a head count,” Cavanaugh said.

  Rictan Five replied a moment later. “Twenty-six skullies, sir.”

  “Twenty-six?” Cavanaugh asked. “There were meant to be twenty-seven.”

  Five nodded. “The Gor’s liason, Torv, is still coming, sir.”

  “Without an escort?”

  “Another squad is bringing him.”

  “Why am I only hearing about this now?”

  “I thought you knew.”

  Cavanaugh grunted and put a call through to the bridge. “The Gors have reached their transports, sir.”

  The captain’s reply crackled close beside Cavanaugh’s ears. “Are all of them accounted for?”

  “All except for Torv.”

  “What? I just received confirmation that he’s with you.”

  Alarm bells rang in Cavanaugh’s head. “From who?”

  “His escort!”

  “His escort never arrived,” Cavanaugh replied, looking around quickly. His skin prickled, and hairs rose on the back of his neck. “That confirmation must have come under duress. There’s no one else here.”

  “Stun them, Sergeant!”

  Suddenly the air shimmered and the Gors were gone.

  “Frek!” Cavanaugh said.

  Ripper fired roared out from Cavanaugh’s squad, tearing through the empty air where the Gors had been and plinking harmlessly off their transport.

  Cavanaugh’s pulse pounded in his ears. “Fall back!” He turned and ran for the hangar bay doors. They had to get there before the Gors did. Their only chance was to trap the skull faces inside the hangar.

  Moments later, Cavanaugh heard a human scream. He turned to see Rictan Five dangling by one foot, help up by an invisible force. Cavanaugh aimed just above Five’s foot and fired. Something screeched and hissed. Five fell on his head, but he was wearing a helmet, so he still got up and ran.

  Cavanaugh laid down covering fire. “Come on!”

  Another hiss sounded right beside his ear. He whirled toward it, spraying bullets in a wide arc. Something knocked the rifle out of his hands. He reacted instantly, drawing his sidearm and firing off four shots into thin air. Sparks flew as those rounds hit an invisible plate of armor. Then something grabbed his sidearm and wrenched it out of his hand. Cavanaugh saw the weapon floating in the air, the barrel turning to face him, and he knew he was in trouble.

  He lashed out with his prosthetic arm, hammering his invisible opponent. His arm hit something solid and unyielding. Then he was lifted bodily and thrown across the deck. Cavanaugh skidded to a stop and scrambled to his feet. He saw the rest of his squad spread out and locked in their own struggles with invisible opponents. A steady stream of blue stun bolts came racing in from one side, hitting Rictan Seven, then Five, then Two. They crumpled to the deck, armor and weapons clattering as they fell. One of the Gors had stolen a sidearm and he knew how to shoot.

  But why stun bolts? Cavanaugh wondered.

  He didn’t have time to come up with an answer.

  The gunman fired on him next. Cavanaugh ducked and rolled. He came out of that roll sprinting for the nearest again for the hangar bay doors. One of his squad mates caught up beside him. Rictan Four.

  They reached the doors. Cavanaugh passed his wrist over the control panel, and the doors swished open. “Go, go, go!”

  They raced through and Cavanaugh sealed the doors from the other side. The doors slid shut, but didn’t close. Something invisible was wedged in between, forcing them open again.

  Rictan Four raised his ripper rifle and fired a burst into the gap. Sparks flew from invisible armor, provoking a hiss from the Gor who was forcing the doors apart. That alien retreated, nursing whatever injuries they’d inflicted, and the doors shut the rest of the way.

  Cavanaugh’s comms crackled. It was Captain Covani. “What’s going on, Sergeant?”

  “The Gors attacked! Four men down. We’re on our way to the bridge!” Cavanaugh spun away from the doors. Rictan Four tossed him a sidearm, and Cavanaugh caught it in the air.

  Then came another hiss.

  Cavanaugh jumped with fright and spun toward the sound. He went flying into the doors, hit by an invisible enemy. Rictan Four fired blindly back. Then he got hit by the same thing and slammed into the ceiling. His ripper rifle clattered to the ground a split second before he fell on top of it. Cavanaugh recovered just in time to be slammed into the doors for a second time.

  His ears rang with the impact. The sidearm was pried from his fingers and turned on him. Then came a stun bolt, fired straight into his chest. Cavanaugh collapsed, his muscles turning to jelly as he fell. Before his eyelids fluttered shut, and his eyes rolled up in his head, he saw the air shimmer, and a face appear—

  A skull face.

  It was Torv.

  Chapter 21

  “We’ve got a lock on the Baroness. She’s just dropped out of SLS!” the Tempest’s sensor operator called out.

  Bretton turned and nodded down to the crew deck. “Helm, sequence our jump.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And get me an ETA as soon as you can.”

  “Approximately . . . ten minutes, sir.”

  Bretton grimaced. Ten minutes! By then the Baroness could jump somewhere else.

  Bretton drummed his fingers on the captain’s table while he waited. He was peripherally aware of Captain Picara and his niece, Farah, crowding him to either side.

  A countdown hovered up before Bretton’s eyes, projected mere millimeters from his retinas by his newly-acquired ARCs. At first he’d balked at the reminder of being a Peacekeeper, but these contacts were only networked to the ship, and he’d already been de-linked from Omnius, so the AI-god couldn’t use the ARCs to read his mind.

  After what felt like an eternity, the timer reached zero, and then—

  The world exploded with a blinding radiance. An instant later the light was gone, and everything was back exactly as it had been before, but now the star map on the captain’s table was showing a different star system, and the pattern of stars beyond the forward viewport had been replaced with a dark, intermittently flashing gray nebula—the Stormcloud Nebula.

  “Report!” Bretton called out.

  “Jump successful, all systems green . . .” the ship’s engineer replied.

  “The Bar
oness is dead ahead, sir! Twenty klicks,” sensors announced.

  “Good let’s—”

  “Sir! I’m detecting multiple contacts! Sythian hull types. They’re moving to surround the Baroness.”

  Bretton scowled. “That was fast. Aren’t they supposed to have slower jump drives than the ISSF? How did they get here at the same time as the Baroness?”

  “Maybe they’ve been improving their jump tech,” Farah suggested.

  “Maybe,” Bretton conceded. “Comms—please tell me you still have the old systems working.”

  “Old systems, sir?”

  Bretton turned to regard the comms officer. “You expect to contact an Imperial vessel with quantum tech? There’s a reason we never heard from the Sythians during the war. Quantum signals won’t even register on their comms.”

  “I believe they are working, sir, but I’ll check. Give me a minute.”

  “You’ve got thirty seconds. Gunnery—I assume we have some kind of ordinance on board . . . ?”

  “We have a few thousand dymium grenades, sir.”

  “Grenades? What are you going to do, throw them out the nearest airlock? What about torpedoes, missiles . . . ? You must have ripper cannon rounds at the very least.”

  “The Tempest wasn’t in good condition when we found her, sir, the original armaments were all non-operational.”

  “Okay, back to my original question—what are we going to do against the enemy with grenades?”

  “We’ll launch them with the quantum junction,” Captain Picara put in.

  Bretton gaped at her. “Assuming that works, we’ll have just one launcher.”

  “Yes, but one that’s capable of teleporting a lethal payload instantly to the target,” Picara replied. “Sythians don’t have quantum disruptors. They barely have quantum comms. They’ll be defenseless.”

  “So what do we do about enemy fighters?”

  “Keep our distance and stay cloaked.”