Roughhewn surfaces surrounded the room, using the same rocklike material that made up the exterior of the dome. Kai assumed it was either something mined directly here on Azelia or a compound created by the Koldax. It was gray and lumpy and appeared as though it had grown in layers, indicating that it might have once started off in a liquid state.
There were no shelves, units, or worktables. No furniture of any kind except an upturned metal crate pushed to the rear of the room. “We’ve got something,” Kai said as he approached cautiously. Bandar stayed close behind.
“What is it?”
Kai reached the items and they became clear. “It’s a Coalition officer’s jacket and a blue crystal wrapped inside.” Kai slung his weapon over his shoulder and carefully moved the jacket aside. There was nothing else hidden and it appeared as if his father had hurriedly wrapped the crystal and stashed it here.
“Is this definitely Dad’s?” Kai asked.
Bandar inspected the stripes on the jacket’s shoulders and nodded. “Yeah, it’s got his numbers and stripes. He was definitely here. Probably got ambushed, or perhaps was forced to hide here.”
“Which means that if he waited out the battle, presumably after losing his weapon in the fight and retreating here, then after it was done, he escaped.”
“But why lock the door?”
“It doesn’t make sense… unless he locked it from the inside.”
“Then where did he go? Our father is many things, but a magician isn’t one of them.”
Kai pulled the crystal free from the jacket and held it in both hands. It was surprisingly light despite its size: half a meter long and half again as thick. An iridescent blue hue pulsated from within. Kai’s hair stood on end and his vision blurred.
“Kai?” Bandar asked. “Are you okay?”
His brother’s voice sounded far away, clouded by fog. The scene of the small room transitioned from opaque to transparent, and in its place, shimmering like a desert-world mirage, the great capital city of Azelia appeared. The great crystal spires reached high up into the sky. Then his vision zoomed further in, too fast to make out any details beyond the blur of color, until it settled on a semitransparent room of ice.
Within that frosty antechamber lay two men on slabs. One was clearly Kai’s father. The other one Kai did not recognize.
“Kai!” Bandar shouted from that same faraway place. The vision shook, the details vibrating. Something gripped his shoulders…
The capital city and the image of his father dissipated as the darkness overcame him. He looked up and saw Bandar’s face, concern written on his tight grimace. “I’m okay,” Kai cracked before slumping to his knees and dropping the crystal to the ground. “I know where our father is… We have to go now… but the force generator…”
Kai’s every muscle felt as if it had been put through an intense workout. His breathing was ragged as he struggled to get enough oxygen into his lungs. Bandar helped him to his feet and made him sit down on the metal crate.
“Slow your breathing; your heart is racing. Focus,” Bandar said.
It took a few minutes of concentration, but Kai managed to get his heart rate down. The lightness in his head ceased, and he felt his normal sense of self return, but a persistent thought remained in the back of his mind; what was his normal self: this corporeal Kai, or the all-seeing, ethereal Kai? Maybe the truth lay somewhere in the middle. But he didn’t have to ponder too much.
“Kai,” Senaya said with excitement, “I’ve managed to gain access to the field generator with the help of Wiggs. It appears the Koldax don’t change encryption models too often. Because Wiggs is offline, there’s no way they can know he’s doing what he’s doing. Anyway, I’ve reversed the transformer couplers. The dome is likely to blow in the next couple of minutes. Basically, you need to run as fast as you can. We’ll come and get you both.”
Kai grabbed his father’s jacket and wrapped it around the crystal, which he then tucked under his arm. Using Bandar for balance, he made his way out of the room. The movement helped him regain his sense. He nodded to Bandar to indicate he was okay and the two men sprinted out of the dome and across the battleground, getting as much distance as they could.
While they were running, the Blackstar and Rapier swept around in an arc until they approached from ahead of them. The two ships were just meters away from each other. They descended to the surface, the frost whipping up in their downdraft. Two zip lines dropped.
Kai grabbed onto his with a single hand. The robotic base automatically wrapped around his legs, creating a safe cocoon. To his right, Kai watched as Bandar did the same. His older brother held up his thumb as the zip line pulled him up and into the hull of the Rapier.
“I’m good to go,” Kai said over the comms to Senaya.
A second later he too was zipping upward.
Before he could enter the ship fully, a red and amber flash of color reflected in his helmet’s visor. He looked down just in time to see black smoke and more flashes of fire. The dome split into hemispheres and collapsed to the icy ground. A column of smoke and fire rose from the debris.
The auto-dampening speakers had equalized the volume from the explosion, so Kai only heard it as a small pop, but he certainly felt the power push against his body as he was slammed against the opening aperture of the Blackstar. It was all he could do to keep hold of his father’s jacket and crystal.
A hand grabbed his. He looked up to see Senaya smiling down at him. He handed her the jacket and crystal before easing himself over the edge of the entry point. Once inside, he ordered Eesoh to close it and set a course for the capital city, using the landmarks he had seen in his vision as a guide.
“Glad to have you back,” Senaya said. “And nice that you bought me a gift from the gift shop too. What is it?”
“An Azelian crystal. I’m not quite sure exactly what it does yet, but I would advise not touching it with your hands.”
“You’re so kind, Captain.”
“Kai, what happened?” his mother said over the channel.
“I’m okay, just had a little accident getting in. We’re all good. We’re scanning for landmarks. I saw father. He’s alive, I think, and in the capital city. Stay close. We’re not far away. I had a… well, not sure how to explain beyond a vision. Bandar will explain.”
After a little more effort to assuage her concern, Kai regathered his bearings and took his place with Senaya in the bridge. All the screens were on, showing every angle possible of the planet. They were flying low beneath the cloud cover. All scanners were working to match the images he had described.
He sensed they weren’t far away now.
With the force field generator down, the planet took on a different… well, the only way Kai could describe it was vibration. Visually, the planet looked much as it did before, but there was a different sense of it now. He himself felt different. Lighter, more clearheaded, as though his cognition was somehow affected by the Koldax’s diminishing force field.
As he sat on the crash couch, keeping his attention on anything that looked like a spire, he saw deep within in his mind a dark, cosmic force. The word Darkarahn came to him. Kai sensed the bonds that held this great evil were weakened, perhaps in the process of getting weaker still.
The Koldax had failed in their attempt to knock out the Navigators completely, and their protective barrier had held, but only just. Kai sensed the Koldax had other plans, however, dictated by this strange great evil from across dimensions.
“We’ve got a visual,” Kai’s mother said. “We’re patching it across to you guys. Is this what you saw?”
The front screen updated with the image feed from the Rapier and Kai knew that what he was seeing was indeed the tall spires of the capital city.
“That’s it,” he said. “Full speed ahead!”
Chapter 25
HOMINOS, accompanied by Officer Ukjao, took his seat at the table within the secret room far below the ground of Goddenia. The other members
of the security council hadn’t yet arrived, which he didn’t mind; it gave him time to finalize his response to Kamala.
He’d spent the last half day getting some rest and watching the video feed of Host Leader Reyes Kamala’s request on repeat. He considered all options, weighing them against each other, and had decided to accept Kamala’s offer of an alliance.
In truth, it wasn’t the hardest decision he’d ever had to make.
Perhaps the presidents had known that all along and had let him be the one to decide on the off chance it might have gone wrong.
It wouldn’t be the first time a general or other political leader was hung out to dry by the presidency. But in this instance, he was happy they had held him up as a firewall. He could take the heat. He thrived on it, in fact.
So much so, that despite himself, he now felt as though he were the most powerful individual in Coalition and Host space. He had an empire at his feet, and by joining with the Host, he would guarantee peace for his lifetime and more. Not even a president could overrule that much power and influence.
A few minutes later the rest of the council arrived: Gaila Frey, the head analyst; Presidents Lattis and Gatskil; and the head of the GTU, Alisa Mathieson.
They all greeted each other and before long looked to Ratic Hominos. He had seated himself at the center of the semicircular table. The presidents were to his left, and the others to his right. A video wall directly opposite showed a live feed to a secure cell on the CDF Beaufort.
“Glad to see you all looking fresh,” Hominos said. “I trust you all received my preliminary report of today’s proceedings. If you have any objections, now’s the time to discuss them.”
They all shook their heads.
Gatskil spoke, as he always seemed to feel the need. “I just wanted to say that I appreciate the swift action on this matter, Ratic…”
It bugged him that Gatskil used his first name. As far as he was concerned, he ought to be addressed as General Hominos, and at any other time, he would remind the president of that, but now was about moving things along. So he just sat there, nodding politely until the old gas bag ran out of words.
When Gatskil finally stopped, Hominos diverted everyone’s attention to Gaila Frey. The analyst had prepared a report based on the section of intel regarding the Koldax flagship, the Dominion, that Kamala had secretly sent them.
“Please, Gaila, tell the others here what you and my team of analysts make of the intel and the defense strategy outlined,” Hominos said.
Gaila nodded and then spoke about the strategy. “It’s quite simple when it comes down to it,” he said. “The Dominion uses a similar system of gravity manipulation as we saw briefly from the Blackstar when it created that giant wormhole. But instead of creating intersectional tunnels through space and time, the Koldax ship harnesses its manipulation of gravity to focus the force outward, almost like a reverse black hole. The effect is temporary but devastating, as we have seen. That kind of power can tear planets apart, but to create the initial effect also requires a lot of energy, hence why we’ve seen the ship charge itself by destroying the suns of various Host systems.”
“How does it use the energy that it collects?” Gatskil asked.
“That’s the part of the intel that has led us to a potential defense strategy,” Gaila replied. He scratched his eyebrows as though trying to find the kind of language someone simple like Gatskil would understand. “Imagine a battery, and imagine gravity is electricity. In this instance, the Dominion is a giant battery, and by destroying suns, it saves that energy and converts it to a force that we’ve not seen before; it’s a force that can alter gravity’s nature, reversing it and focusing it, creating a cascading outward explosion.”
“I think I understand,” Gatskil said, nodding as though that would somehow make his brain work more efficiently. “So how do we combat this?”
“Supercooled, semiconductor shield array,” Gaila said, an excitement reaching his eyes but then quickly disappearing as it was clear that neither Gatskil or Lattis understood a word. Ukjao and Mathieson, however, were both leaning forward with interest. “Let me put it another way. Think of them as gigantic magnets that run at very cold temperatures. When they do that, the magnetic field behaves differently. The Host’s intel suggests that a wide array of these—think of a network of ships interconnected around the Capsis system, each one a node in a grid—would create a field that would interfere with the Dominion’s deployment of its energy. It would disrupt their aim, essentially making it harder for them to focus their energy and disrupt gravity.”
“Is there a risk to this?” Lattis asked.
Gaila and Hominos shared a look, and the others instantly picked up on the tension.
“There is, isn’t there?” Gatskil said, puffing himself up. “There’s a problem with this strategy. What is it? Cost, resources?”
“We have all those,” Gaila promised. “Between us and what the Host have already developed, we should be able to put this network together over the coming days. The risk, however, is that if we attune the network array incorrectly, there’s a small chance that the Dominion’s weapon would be… amplified.”
A quiet fell over the room. Ukjao smoothed her robe and did her best to control her body language, but Hominos could tell she was nervous. Mathieson too appeared to be anxious; she fiddled with her tall blond tower of hair and avoided eye contact with the presidents, who muttered quietly together.
“And do we have an alternative plan?” Lattis asked.
“No,” Hominos said bluntly, already bored with the discussion. “We’re lucky to even have this much. That there’s a risk is immaterial. Without at least trying it, we’re already highly unlikely to survive an attack by the Dominion. The best we can do is hope the intel is good and that we can get the array set up in time. Until an alternative idea presents itself, I’ve decided that this is our best approach. I’ve prepared a full report that you’ll find in your inboxes after this meeting, explaining the rationale and the logistics.”
“Put that way, I guess we have little option,” Gatskil said, doubt lacing his words. “But I want our scientists and analysts working around the clock to find a better alternative.”
“You have my word we’re working on it,” Gaia replied.
When they had finally covered the intel topic, Hominos drew their attention to dealing with the signing of the treaty. The quicker they could get that out of the way, the quicker he could get on with his job, but he had a couple more surprises yet to reveal.
Hominos sent word to the officer on the Beaufort to bring Host Empress Reyes Kamala to the secure cell. Barely a minute later she was staring down the camera lens, concern twisting her face with tension.
“Empress Kamala, I’m General Hominos, and I’ve read your intelligence report. Firstly, let me thank you for your brave actions. I’m sure it wasn’t easy to come to us like this, knowing what a weak position you’ve put yourself in.”
“I had no choice,” she said, her lips curling at the corners, betraying her feelings. She didn’t want the alliance deep down, she just had no other way to ensure her or her people’s survival. After a long pause to let the words sink in, she sighed and relaxed, her shoulders dropping. Someone out of frame brought in a chair for her and adjusted the camera when she sat down and crossed her legs.
“You had many options open to you,” President Lattis said, “which makes your choice all the more respectful. Our respective people are different in many ways, but we’re also alike in many others. That the threat we’re facing is a danger to both only highlights the similarities that we have, and it’s on that foundation that we must build.”
Hominos did his best not to groan at this pointless diplomacy. From where he was sitting, there was no need for it.
The Coalition had the Host exactly where they wanted them.
Eager to move on with things, Hominos spoke as soon as there was a gap in the dialogue between the two factions’ leaders.
&n
bsp; “Empress Kamala, on behalf of the Coalition, under security protocol fifty-one fifty, I am officially accepting your surrender and proposed alliance. I have drawn up the regulations of such an alliance, and I’m assuming you’ve had the chance to read them and accept the onetime offer.”
President Gatskil glared at Hominos and then readdressed Kamala. “If you would give us just a couple of moments; we’re having a technical difficulty on our end. We’ll reconnect with you shortly. Stand by, Empress Kamala.” He then motioned to Gaila to cut off the feed before turning to Hominos. “Protocol fifty-one fifty? You didn’t speak with us about that; that’s not been enacted in over a thousand years. How dare you!”
Lattis’s chin wobbled as she nodded her head in agreed outrage.
Mathieson and Ukjao were much better at holding their emotion and simply waited for an explanation from Hominos in using a clause open to generals in extreme war settings but hardly ever activated. This was the first time in a millennium and only the second time in the Coalition’s long history.
Gaila Frey looked on, confused. “I don’t even know what this protocol is. Someone care to explain?”
Gatskil jumped in before Hominos had a chance to speak, but that was fine by him. The president often had a problem keeping his mouth shut, and it would soon get him into trouble. “The protocol diverts executive power to the CDF general, superseding all other branches of power within the Coalition. Only I’d suggest we’re not at the stage where that’s necessary. It was designed to prevent an outside agent from taking over the presidency, the view being the generals were elected and above reproach. But after former general Amelia’s traitorous acts, I don’t see how this protocol should still be respected.”
“Unless you have the power to rewrite Coalition law right at this moment, it’s too late to worry about that,” Hominos said. Then, to Gaila, he added, “I took this approach to speed up proceedings. Given what was included in the intelligence package sent to us by Kamala, I knew we didn’t have time to discuss strategy amongst the council. I was elected as general of the CDF for this exact reason: The Coalition government wanted swift, concise action. I can’t do that if I have to navigate all the red tape.”
Magnitude: A Space Opera Adventure (Blackstar Command Book 2) Page 19