Magnitude: A Space Opera Adventure (Blackstar Command Book 2)

by A. C. Hadfield

  “You have our confidence,” Lattis said. “You could have spoken with us, and we’d have backed you. There was no need to activate the protocol.”

  “Maybe not, but I couldn’t take that risk. The future of our entire nation is at risk. And you’ll have to excuse me if it seems like I don’t respect your presidency, but I did the very thing you hired me to do: get results and act fast. Now if you don’t mind, we have a job to do. You’re welcome to stay while we deal with Amelia and Kamala, or you can reconvene with the relevant houses and prepare for a post-protocol future, assuming we survive the Koldax.”

  “I never thought a coup would be so… anticlimactic,” Gaila, the old analyst, said.

  The presidents shot him a sharp look. He just shrugged his shoulders. “What?”

  “Just do your job, Gaila,” Gatskil said, standing up from the table and motioning to Lattis to join him. Before they left, the two presidents looked back at Hominos as though he were crap on their shoes. “You better not mess this up,” Gatskil said. “Protocol or not, you will face consequences if your decisions harm the Coalition.”

  With that they left the secret room, the heavy doors closing with the clunk of magnetic locks behind them.

  “Well,” Hominos said, readjusting his uniform and adopting the air of de facto leader of the Coalition, “now that the politics is out of the way, let’s get on with this. Gaila, could you reconnect us to Reyes Kamala. I want to make this quick.”

  “Yes… um, what do we call you now?”

  “General Hominos officially will be fine. Otherwise, Ratic will do. I don’t care about ceremony now that the presidents are out of the picture.”

  “I underestimated you,” Mathieson said from the other side of the table. “I thought you were the presidents’ stooge. I have to admit I have more confidence in the Coalition surviving under protocol fifty-one fifty than I did with Gatskil and Lattis in charge.”

  “I appreciate the confidence,” Hominos replied. “Okay, Gaila, let’s get Kamala back on the feed.”

  A moment later the video wall came to life. The Host leader was finishing a mug of some hot drink when she noticed the camera feed working. She handed the mug to someone offscreen and waited with an open expression on her face. She appeared to have relaxed in the meantime.

  “Empress Kamala, my apologies for the technical difficulty. Shall we continue?”

  “By technical difficulties, you mean a disgruntled presidency?”

  Hominos smiled; he liked this woman. She was sharper than others gave her credit for. “Indeed, but they won’t be a problem; we’ve ironed out the new chain of command. So, the terms. I’ll need your verbal and written consent to accept. Once accepted, I’ll file the documents onto the central law server and announce the alliance to the Coalition public. I’ll expect you to do the same for the Host worlds. The Beaufort’s communications team will help you relay the message.”

  “I realize you won’t negotiate on anything,” Kamala said. “I am in no position to demand anything. It’s quite clear for all to see that we need you more than you need us if it came down to it, but when it comes down to it, we’re all running in second place against the Koldax and shrain forces. Their flagship, the Dominion, is probably still going to vanquish many trillions of our people, but given our intelligence, there’s an outside chance we can ultimately defeat it.”

  “Please, Empress Kamala,” Hominos said, leaning forward, “tell me what it is you want. I’m not Farah Hett. I’m no monster. And despite everything you said being true, if what you want is reasonable, I see no valid argument not to consider it. We are future allies after all, are we not?”

  Kamala nodded. “I want a position with the Coalition government. If we’re to unite our people, it will give the Host systems a great deal of confidence if I were on the executive council.”

  “One moment,” Hominos said, indicating for Gaila to mute the feed.

  Hominos considered it for a few moments. Ukjao leaned over to him, and said, “Sir, I don’t think that’s a great idea security-wise. Even with the alliance, are we sure we can trust them?”

  “I am,” he said. There was no way the Host would risk such a strategy. “Bring Kamala back up, and we’ll conclude this,” Hominos said.

  Gaila gestured to his terminal and the feed was re-established.

  “Empress Kamala,” Hominos said, his arms out wide, “welcome to the Coalition. I’ve ordered the Beaufort to escort you to Capsis. If your intel on the Dominion is correct, the fleet that you’re residing with currently will arrive at the very least a day before the Koldax flagship. That’ll give us enough time to swear you in to the council and bring you up to speed on our basic protocols. For now, however, let’s get the treaty signed and announced so that we can move forward together as fast as possible so that we can face this threat with the greatest strength our two fine nations can muster.”

  “Thank you, General Hominos,” Kamala said, visibly relaxing. “I think we’ll enjoy a good partnership together. I’m looking forward to meeting you in person soon.”

  She spoke with someone offscreen and placed her hand on a terminal scanning device, which also took a reading from her iris, and blood via a tiny fiber needle embedded into the device. It created the unique signature ID. Hominos’s terminal bleeped with confirmation that she had officially signed the law-abiding treaty.

  Gaila brought over a similar device to Hominos. Like Kamala, he placed his hand on it and waited for his unique signature ID to register.

  “That’s it,” he said. “By blood and the law, the Coalition and the Host are one under this new alliance. We can ratify the fine details later. In the meantime, if you could arrange with the technicians on the Beaufort to forward any further intel you have on the Koldax, along with communication channels with your generals, I’ll have my team liaise with yours and organize the defense strategy.”

  “I’ll do that right away,” Kamala said. “I’ll speak with you again soon, General Hominos. It’s been an honor.”

  “The honor is all mine,” Hominos said as the Host leader left the room.

  One of the Beaufort technicians appeared in the frame. “Former general Amelia is ready, General. We’re awaiting your orders.”

  “Bring her into the cell. I want to see her.”

  AN OFFICER DRAGGED Amelia into the frame. Her hair was matted and caked in dust. Her face and bare upper arms showed bruises and cuts.

  According to the information forwarded by Kamala, Amelia and her hired goons had fought hard before her arrest. She had personally killed two Host men and a woman in her fight for survival after she had realized that the very people she had sold out to had revoked that sale.

  “You’re the unlucky bastard that replaced me, eh?” she said. “You won’t last long. No one ever does.”

  “I think protocol fifty-one fifty says otherwise,” Hominos added.

  Amelia looked aghast, her bright blue eyes narrowing, and then her lips twisted into a grimace. “You think you can get away with that? No one’s activated that for centuries.”

  “A millennium, actually,” Hominos said. “And perhaps if you had, you wouldn’t have needed to run to the Host—well, the shrain and Koldax, really. You never really understood what you were letting yourself in for. You only thought of yourself. Thought that the people you commanded were going to lose. But you never considered the Blackstar, did you? You never read the report on Kai Locke that I had prepared, and what an asset he would be. You thought the Blackstar and the Navigators were myths. But then you didn’t even think the shrain were a real threat, did you? You were always too shortsighted.”

  She spat on the floor. “I did what I needed to survive.”

  “You sold out to the losers and were the cause of many thousands of CDF soldiers’ deaths.”

  “The courts will decide that,” she said. “I have a good defense attorney and enough extenuating circumstances to make my defection look like I was pushed from above. Gatskil and Latt
is wanted their own way. They mistakenly thought you were going to be their puppet.”

  Hominos stood up and straightened his uniform. “That was unfortunate of them. And it is unfortunate that you believe you’re going to have a court hearing. Under protocol fifty-one fifty, I, the general of the Coalition and Host alliance, find you guilty of treason in the highest degree, and I sentence you to death with no right to appeal.”

  He gestured a command across his terminal, and a few seconds later a CDF officer appeared in frame with an injector gun in his hand.

  Amelia snarled at him and tried to back away, but another two officers grabbed her and held her in place.

  “Goodbye, Amelia,” Hominos said as the officer pressed the gun against her arm and injected her with the lethal cocktail.

  He watched as her body went into spasm until she fell to the floor.

  Gaila, Ukjao and Mathieson looked away, but Hominos stared at Amelia’s dead form and took it all in, every last little detail. Although an officer gave her the drug, it was on his order, and he would make sure he owned it like he owned all of his decisions.

  When the officer confirmed she was dead, Hominos ordered her body to be sent to her family. He would make sure they were given sufficient funds to bury her. There was no need to punish the family for her crimes.

  “What now?” Ukjao said.

  “Now we prepare for war.”

  Hominos left the conference room, satisfied with this morning’s work. He had sent instructions to the rest of the fleet to communicate with Kamala.

  With all that dealt with and the presidents out of his way, he was free to strategize their defense, using the intel provided by the Host.

  His team of scientists and strategists were already busy running computer simulations and had come up with what they thought could be a sound plan or at the very least a way of slowing down the Dominion’s terrible weapon long enough to allow the CDF and Host fleets to mount a strong offensive.

  A part of him regretted having to activate the protocol, but if he didn’t take charge now at the most crucial time, he feared that red tape, inter-house arguments, and politics would get in the way of survival.

  He refused to see the Coalition, and now the Host, be so brutally defeated by an alien insurgent.

  No, not on his watch.

  Not in his life.

  Not while he still had breath in his body would he allow his galaxy to be ruled by damned machines and genetic monstrosities.

  Chapter 26

  IT TOOK A FEW HOURS, but between Kai’s vision and the notes from Kendal’s journals, Eesoh had zeroed in on the capital city.

  The journey was thankfully without incident.

  Kai had inspected the crystal and discovered that it acted as a portal of some kind, a connection to the room in which he saw his father and the other man. Although, as they were readying to land outside the spires, near an atrium Kai had seen in an earlier vision, he noticed that the other man had disappeared.

  “Wow, would you look at this place,” Senaya said, glaring up at the video feed of the scene outside. “It’s incredible. I wonder if those spires were built or whether they grew like that.”

  Kai didn’t know or have any inclination as to the answer. Despite his obvious connection to the place and the people, details like that eluded him. As the Blackstar descended to what appeared to be a docking bay made of smooth rock, he took in his surroundings.

  The light here was filtered through a thinning layer of cloud. The atmosphere shifted the light to a pale blue tint, making the sky almost impossible to distinguish from the planet’s frosty surface.

  Twelve spires dominated the view. The Blackstar’s docking area was located just outside an atrium but within the circle of spires. It was clear now that they were fully inside that there were other ships docked here. Eleven others to be exact, their designs were unlike anything Kai had seen before. Arranged in a dodecagon around the atrium, it was obvious that the Blackstar was the twelfth such craft.

  Some of the others were covered in thick layers of ice and frost.

  They must have been here for centuries, or longer, Kai thought.

  While he witnessed their surroundings, Senaya and the others on the Rapier were busy chatting like excited children.

  Even Bandar, whose nonchalant demeanor had so far dominated his personality, softened to that of surprise and wonder.

  Ignoring them, Kai continued to analyze the video feeds of the surroundings.

  The central, circular atrium caught his attention. It was the same as the one he’d seen in his vision and the later one via the experience with the crystal. The circular area was probably no more than thirty meters in diameter and surrounded by an ornately carved crystal border that rose approximately two meters.

  An open section, a gateway of sorts, led into a pathway that cut through the middle. Either side of the path lay six coffins, making twelve in total. They weren’t really coffins as such, Kai thought, zooming in, but crystal capsules. And much like his vision, eleven of them featured a sliver of silvery-blue light. One by one, he turned his attention to each of the capsule-like structures and received a deep sense of recognition and belonging.

  The experience was so deep he didn’t see Senaya’s palm until too late.

  A quick slap to the side of his face knocked him out of his concentration.

  “What the…? Why’d you do that?” he said.

  Senaya shrugged. “You weren’t answering anyone. And your eyes went black. Seriously, dude, it was weird even for you. What happened?”

  His right cheek burned with the slap and he pressed his own hand against it. “I was just looking at those structures in the atrium.”

  “Coffins,” Senaya said. “They’re clearly coffins, Kai. And those lights inside—they’ve got to be the spirits of the Navigators, right? Seriously, this is like something from a holonovel.”

  “Would that be so surprising? Legends and myths often have a grain of truth. Perhaps all this inspired those stories? Either way, we ought to go check them out and see if we can find a way inside. I saw my father in a chamber that I’m certain is within one of those spires.”

  Kai turned his attention to his mother. “Have you guys landed the Rapier okay?”

  “Yes, Kai, we’re not far from your position. We’re approaching on foot. We can see the Blackstar on its docking… rock? I take it you can see the other ships. This place is incredible.”

  “It sure is. And yeah, we saw the other ships. The designs are so different. I’m assuming each one belonged to a corresponding Navigator if the numbers aren’t a coincidence.”

  “I doubt there’s any coincidence here, Kai,” Bandar said. “I can see what looks like an archway at the base of the main spire. Do you think that’s a door inside?”

  “Hold your position,” Kai said. “We’re coming out. We’ll meet you and investigate further.”

  KAI AND SENAYA, wearing full protective suits, joined the others, who were also in environment gear. Marella had joined them. At first, Kai wondered if it was wise leaving the ships unattended, but so far, they had not detected any movement on the planet. And given this was the capital, Kai assumed it would have its own defenses. If it didn’t, then there was no reason why the Koldax would have gone to the trouble to install a force field generator; they would have just stormed the city directly.

  Kai joined his mother at the front of the group. Senaya and Marella were behind them. Bandar covered their rear. All were armed with rifles. Senaya had a belt of various other gadgets that Kai could only guess to their function.

  Although Kai wanted to inspect the crystal capsules closer, he felt a pull toward the archway and suspected he would have time aplenty to know more about the curious spirits within.

  “Well, are we going on or just going to stand out here like a bunch of tourists?” Bandar said.

  “Okay,“ Kai responded. “We’re going. Just don’t do anything rash. We know so little about this place or what t
o expect. Things might not be as they seem.”

  “In other words,” Marella said, “don’t shoot anything until you know what it is.”

  “Got it,” Bandar said with a mock salute. “Let’s get moving, then.”

  With that, the group approached the archway and found that it surrounded an opening into the spire. Darkness lay ahead, and their helmet lights soon cut a swatch of illumination through the blackness.

  All around them the place sparkled with infinite facets of the crystalline surface.

  According to the helmet’s HUD, the temperature inside was mild and suitable to their various species: a comfortable nineteen degrees. Even oxygen levels appeared breathable, but Kai didn’t want to take any risks and kept his helmet on.

  They walked for a few more minutes, going deeper through a tunnel until, finally, they exited into a larger area. Their lights could only illuminate so far, and they couldn’t pick out any other architectural features.

  Kai was about to ask them to formulate a plan when a voice echoed throughout the cavernous space.

  “Welcome to the citadel. Please continue on your current path. You’ll find a door that leads to my chamber. My name is Cenoc, and I am the overseer of the Navigators. You are all safe here, but hurry, there is much we need to discuss.”

  As soon as his voice echoed away, a pale light shone from beyond, almost directly ahead.

  “I guess we ought to do as he suggests,” Senaya said. “He sounds like an individual one would not like to mess with.”

  “This is all so fascinating,” Marella said. “I can’t believe we’re actually here. It’s surreal.”

  “Isn’t this what you wanted?” Bandar asked from behind the rest of the group as they continued on toward the light. “You’re right at the source here.”