The Rising Darkness (Space Empires Book 1)

by Selby, Caleb

  Space Empires

  The Rising Darkness

  By Caleb Selby

  Dedicated to my father

  Table of Contents

  1. Dark Beginnings

  2. The President

  3. Pirates!

  4. The Fate of The Second Fleet

  5. The Sixth Fleet

  6. Commander Drezden

  7. The Sions

  8. Revelations

  9. One Legged Legend

  10. Just a Pawn

  11. Commander Etana

  12. Treachery!

  13. Tarkin has the Bridge

  14. The Larep Crown

  15. General Without an Army

  16. Dancing in the Asteroids

  17. The Lottery

  18. Kumper Graveyard

  19. Sucked Dry

  20. The Invasion!

  21. One Less Hero

  22. Sibid

  23. Battle Over Voigt

  1. Dark Beginnings

  The front left wheel of the cart squeaked as he trudged forward in the long line, but he didn’t hear it. How could he? The squeaking wheel, the ever roaring coolant turbines four levels above, the rumbling flux generators just down the corridor and the unending grumbling of the men seemed to simply scramble in his mind into one monstrous symphony of chaos. Jamien had always cherished the quiet and frankly got quite agitated whenever there were loud or relentless noises about, making for a tough transition when his first child was born.

  Yet, the overpowering and unrelenting noises and foreign sounds of the Navy dock sub-levels didn’t bother him, at least not anymore. They had, of course taken their toll on his sanity when he had first started his monotonous job. But several grueling weeks of hard labor made Jamien realize his true enemy was not the deafening sounds; far from it. Rather, his true nemesis was the stifling, nearly unbearable heat that surrounded and permeated his body every minute of every day.

  The solution to the problem seemed obvious enough to Jamien. Yet the industrial sized thermal reducer units that would be required to adequately cool the many corridors and rooms of the dock’s sub levels were an expense that could not be justified, not that it was ever seriously considered by anyone. So what if a dozen workers passed out each day from thermal exhaustion? Their labor was cheap and replaceable; two very nasty attributes to have for any position.

  Jamien smiled a frustrated smile as he contemplated his own expendability and wondered if things would be better once the war was over. Surely they would have to be, right? How could they be worse?

  “Next!” a voice from behind a counter called out, prompting the long line to inch forward.

  “Hey! Watch it!” a portly man ahead of Jamien snapped as Jamien’s cart accidentally brushed up against him.

  “Sorry,” Jamien quietly apologized and pulled the cart back and held it firmly. The man eyed Jamien sternly and then turned and pushed his own cart up to the counter.

  Jamien rubbed his sleepy eyes with the back of his rough, oil stained hands. He glanced up at a clock fixed on the wall above the counter and then shook his head painfully. He was only halfway done with a solid three day shift and he was already well beyond exhausted. He didn’t know how he was going to make it through another day and a half without rest and the thought was nearly more then he could endure.

  He did his best not to think about the misery of his plight as he undid the strap on his thermos from the handle bar of the cart. He glanced down at the long line of sweaty, tired men behind him, shook his head and sipped some of the cheap lor. He cringed at the bitter taste but took several gulps nevertheless to help combat the fatigue.

  “Next,” the voice rang out again, indicating it was finally Jamien’s turn, although he was in no rush.

  He capped his thermos and tried hard to focus as he pushed his cart filled with worn tools up to the counter and peered through the open window. He was hoping one of the seasoned operators would be manning the counter, as they were usually more reasonable in assignments than the newer recruits. Jamien was disappointed when he spotted a young, preppy kid that had likely spent an hour on his hair that morning staring up at him with a disinterested gaze. Jamien tried to be optimistic as he leaned onto the aged, splintered counter, offering a forced smile.

  The kid was half Jamien’s age, perhaps younger, and was sitting down on an old, padded chair casually assigning the hard labor to the haggard maintenance crew. A small thermal reducer sat on his desk blowing fresh, cool air onto his highly pampered face. Jamien wished he could sit on the stool, just for a minute, to rest his weary legs and soak in some of the cool air.

  “ID Card?” the kid asked curtly, waking Jamien out of his wishful daydream.

  Jamien dove into his pocket and fished out his battered card and handed it to the kid, inadvertently reaching through the current of cooled air. As inconspicuously as he could, he left his hand dangling only for a few extra moments, thoroughly relishing even the smallest reprieve from the heat.

  The kid glanced at Jamien’s dirty hand and then looked up at Jamien cynically as he swiped the card through a reader.

  “Ok, Jamien,” he began as he looked at his data pad for job listings, “looks like we have a tertiary fuel pressure gauge malfunction deep in the southwest corridor, in section, oh let me see here, looks like section…D-three. Do you think you can handle that, Pal?” he asked smugly, as if he were a master mechanic that could fix anything and everything.

  “Sure. I guess so,” Jamien answered quietly, realizing that he had just received an assignment near the dock power core, the hottest spot in the sweltering facility.

  “Get going then!” the kid ordered harshly, obviously loving the power he had over Jamien and all the others.

  “Well, I actually was wondering…” Jamien nervously began, “…I was wondering if I could get a new polarity inverter. The one I’ve been using is shot to pieces and…”

  “Jamien, Jamien, Jamien,” the kid said as he sat back in his chair, placing his hands behind his head. “You know that we don’t have brand new tools to hand out every time one of you clumsy idiots breaks one.”

  “Yes, but…” Jamien tried to answer, holding up his broken tool to show the kid.

  “Don’t you know there’s a war going on?” the kid interrupted, nodding upwards. “Try to take better care of the things given to you! Understand?”

  “Yes, I’m sorry,” Jamien quietly said. “It’s just that…”

  “No more excuses!” the kid snapped. “Get a move on. Don’t you see the line behind you? There are other people beside you that need their tasks. Hurry up before this whole facility falls apart under your feet! It’s a wonder it hasn’t already, with people like you fixing things. Next!”

  Without another word for his case, Jamien dropped his polarity inverter back into his cart and obediently turned it around and started on his way toward the southwest corridor on the opposite side of the massive facility. The front left wheel squeaked as loud as ever.

  Five years earlier a much more vivacious version of Jamien would have knocked the punk kid’s head clean off. But that was then and this was now. The tumultuous events of the last several years did much to smother Jamien’s once spirited persona. And besides, he needed this job too badly to be causing trouble with the management, even if a couple of them could use a good kick where it counted. Sure the hours were horrid and the pay was worse, but it was a job. He had a wife and two kids to feed back home and he didn’t have the luxury to be picky. He was actually quite lucky to land one of the menial maintenance jobs at the docks, and he knew it. Out of the sixteen advanced level engineers that had escaped the heavy arms manufacturing
plant disaster two months prior, only he had been able to procure another steady job. His former coworkers were being forced to rely on government welfare, a most unpredictable means (especially these days) for supporting a family.

  Jamien thought on his cruel predicament as he silently trudged toward his destination. He had walked for nearly thirty minutes when he spotted another worker pushing a cart toward him. Jamien was pleased as he identified the man as one of the few friends he had made in his short tenure at the docks. He stopped his cart wearily and waited for the man to do the same but much to Jamien’s dismay, he did not. Instead, he plodded right past Jamien as if he didn’t see him, his dull, listless eyes not even glancing up to see who he was passing. Jamien watched for another moment before shrugging and returning to his clunky, squeaking cart.

  He continued to push his heavy load down muggy, empty hallways and poorly lit corridors, the temperature rising slightly with every step.

  During the two months of his employment he had only traveled this close to the core on one other occasion and he had not been anxious to repeat the long journey through the dirty and poorly maintained sub-levels of the massive facility.

  He was nearly to his destination and getting hotter by the minute when out of the corner of his eye he spotted an open doorway down one of the restricted passages. The security door leading down the passageway was conspicuously opened, yet nobody was in sight. Jamien promptly turned his cart down the darkened hallway to investigate the matter and close the door, if needed. He parked his ever-squeaking cart right outside the opened door and approached.

  “Hello? Is anyone over here?” he called out. There was no reply.

  He timidly walked up to the room and peered in. The room was a standard monitoring station filled with pressure gages, monitors and scanners. Three large pipes ran along the ceiling bringing fuel from the depots buried far beneath the docks to the navy capital ships moored up on the surface.

  Jamien took a step into the room and glanced quickly at a few of the gauges. Everything appeared to be in order. Jamien shrugged off the oddity and was just about to turn off the lights and close the door when he noticed it. A silver device, a little bigger then his polarity inverter, was tucked neatly just above one of the fuel lines. Jamien had been in enough of the monitoring rooms to know that this was not right. He curiously approached the device, wondering what it could be. The room was deathly quiet and he was just reaching for it when he heard the wheel of his tool cart squeak ever so softly, yet distinctly. Jamien jumped and quickly turned around and found himself looking straight into the eyes of a face that he recognized, but could not immediately place.

  “What are you doing?” the man asked in a challenging tone.

  Jamien stepped back awkwardly, unsure of who this person was but assuming he had some position of authority. “I was...I was just about to check on something,” stammered Jamien.

  The man glanced at the device and then back at Jamien and smiled...a wicked carnivorous smile. Before Jamien could react, the man transfigured into a hideous, blackened form resonating with evil in every inch of its being. An imposing monstrous visage with a large fang filled mouth and two menacing eyes materialized and looked at Jamien with insatiable appetite. The head was fixed by a stocky neck to a gaunt, shriveled torso that rested upon a cluster of writhing tentacles, seemingly having a life of their own, squirming this way and that, sensing their surroundings and preparing to strike if needed. The creature seemed part serpentine, part arachnid and nothing less than pure demonic. It was obvious from just a fleeting glance that the beast was primal evil and knew no good within its heart.

  “What...what are you?” Jamien gasped in horror as he slowly backed away from the ghastly sight.

  Jamien’s words had barely escaped his lips when the creature lunged at him, enveloping him with the many powerful tentacles and holding him fast. Jamien tried in vain to free himself but it was no use. He was powerless in the creature’s hold. The creature’s mighty mouth opened. Jamien cowered away, trying to escape from the unhinged jaw as it slowly neared. It was useless. The heinous mouth formed a tight seal around Jamien’s face and began the horrific act of sucking Jamien dry through his eyes, nose and mouth. Jamien died instantly but the beast continued do draw out what it could from the lifeless body. As it continued, Jamien’s skin began to wither like aged leather and began to shrink around the fast drying bones as if his skeleton were being vacuumed sealed by his own skin. When at last there was nothing left to draw out, the creature dropped the dehydrated body unceremoniously to the ground.

  The serpentine monster then slowly reassumed the countenance of a man. A slight trickle of Jamien’s blood clung to his cheek, which he wiped off with a finger and licked clean. With a contented sigh, the creature posing as a man then made his way to the small device neatly tucked behind the fuel lines. It reached up and quickly pressed several buttons on the device’s interface until a small screen came to life and began to blink red figures on the screen in synchrony. The countdown had begun. The creature then ran out of the room, down the hallway and toward the nearest emergency exit.

  ***

  Fifteen minutes later, the preppy kid behind the counter was napping lightly with the cool breeze from the thermal reducer caressing his face when a rumble from the southwest corridor awoke him. His sleepy eyes barely had a chance to ascertain what was happening before he was engulfed in the ravenous flames of a powerful explosion.

  ***

  Kesler tapped his data pad screen with an edger and then slowly looked back up at the massive, six-armed alien sitting across the table from him. The alien looked down at Kesler, two pairs of arms causally folded across his broad chest while he rested the other pair on the table. The alien’s posture was poised, although he was obviously nervous.

  Kesler had never liked the Branci race, and likely never would. Although humanoid in nearly every way, the differences between the Namuh and Branci were far more pronounced than the extra pairs of arms possessed by the Branci, at least in the minds of many Namuh. As a general rule, the Branci smelled bad, had poor manners, were physically repulsive and, in Kesler’s humble opinion, were all dimwitted, devolved fools! Yet, what Kesler (and many others) hated most about the Branci were the entitlement programs created by his own government to set up the Branci with a worry-free existence at the expense of the Namuh. Housing, food, clothing and just about anything else that the Branci wanted, the Branci seemed to get, regardless of the cost. The few Branci that did work for a living, were handed positions and responsibilities through affirmative action and racial equality plans that should have gone to more qualified Namuh, or at least many thought. So the fact that Kesler was being forced to interview these creatures for an officer’s post aboard a fleet warship was nearly unbearable for him. Kesler had spent five years of vigorous study and sacrifice to get such a post, and the fact that an inferior was going to walk right in with some flight time records and recommendation letters and try to land a comparably respected commission, made him sick.

  “So, is everything ok there?” the Branci reluctantly asked after several minutes without a spoken word between them.

  Kesler didn’t answer. He tapped the data pad screen several more times, seemingly with no direction or intent. He had survived three such interviews already today and had managed to cause each candidate to withdraw his application after a half-hour of painstaking awkward silence and outlandish bureaucratic red tape that none of the Branci knew how to handle. This was the last Branci that Kesler had to see before his week and a half shore leave began. He could hardly wait. And the sooner he made this Branci leave, the sooner he could immerse himself in the infamous and oh so decadent Larep city nightlife. It was going to be great!

  “Hey, listen. You don’t have to like me or my kind, if you don’t want to,” the Branci suddenly declared after another minute passed, startling Kesler out of his daydream. “It’s fine by me. Really. I just want to get my assignment and get settled on whatev
er vessel you want. If you want to put me on the most rundown frigate in the fleet because you hate me, that’s your call. I just want to know sometime today!”

  Kesler looked up from his data pad in a momentary loss for words. He had never before encountered a Branci that was assertive and wasn’t quite sure how to respond.

  “Well...you see...Mister,” Kesler glanced back at the name on his notes.

  “My name’s Tarkin!” the Branci said with a hint of disgust in his voice.

  “Yes, well, Mr. Tarkin, the thing is, I usually get a notice from the Branci embassy if they are planning on sending someone over for an interview. However, I don’t have anything from them for your name and registration number today.” Kesler finished and then nodded toward his opened data pad and shrugged. “So if you want to get in contact with your local delegate to get a sponsored interview, we’d be happy to take another look at your application. But I’m afraid without that official sponsorship, the Namuh Protective Federation Navy cannot consider you for candidacy at this time.”

  The immense alien rested all pairs of arms on the desk and looked Kesler square in the eyes. “Don’t mess around with me! You know full well that under Article 16 subsections D and G of the Namuh Protective Federation Pact, all Branci can seek transfer of rank and position into the Namuh Navy if they have logged at least three thousand hours in interstellar travel. Sponsorship is only required for those without star travel hours!”

  Kesler sat back in his chair, intimidated somewhat by the Branci’s forward approach and uncharacteristic knowledge of the treaty bylaws. “Oh, did you have three thousand logged hours?” he finally said looking back down at the pad, already well aware that he did.

  Tarkin nodded as he relaxed his stance slightly. “Two years with the Asar merchant fleet and seven months with Zelin Communications Satellite Drop Division. I’m an excellent pilot for smaller craft and a first rate executive officer for the big rigs. Both captains that I have served under have written letters on my behalf recommending me for a post in the fleet with an officer’s commission.”