04 Dark Space

by Jasper T. Scott

  Stevon started toward the broken lift tube shaft. Bits of transpiranium and duranium crunched underfoot. There was a hollow ache in his belly, and he was swaying on his feet as he walked. He reached the shaft and looked up. It looked as daunting as a mountain, but he reminded himself he only had to climb up three floors to get out. After that . . .

  He wasn’t sure what he would do.

  One step at a time, Stevon, he told himself. Immortals help me . . .

  He found his first handhold and almost lost his grip while trying to pull himself up onto a fallen girder. But, step by awkward step, handhold by handhold, somehow he made it. Panting and sweating from the exertion, he reached the doors on the third level up from the ruined lab. He pried them open with shaking hands and slithered out into the corridor. Exhausted, all he could do was lay there on his belly and catch his breath. Thankfully, the corridor was deserted, but he knew better than to rely on that. The Valiant had holocorders everywhere, and someone, somewhere would be watching. His heart pounding, Stevon pushed himself off the cold deck and hurried down the corridor. As he ran, he struggled to remember which way he had to go to get to the nearest hangar. But the ship was too vast, and he barely knew where he was. His best bet would be to get to the nearest rail car tunnel. Once there he could search the ship’s directory for its hangar bays. He hurried on, his booted-feet pounding down the corridor.

  Then something caught his eye.

  Up ahead, gleaming in the low, lavender-hued light, which the Sythians had set the ship’s glow panels to produce, Stevon saw a suspicious-looking black dome hanging down from the ceiling—a holocorder. His legs shaking, he ran faster as he passed beneath the camera, irrationally hoping that if he ran fast enough it wouldn’t see him.

  Come on, Stevon . . . pull yourself together. . . .

  * * *

  “My Lord, there’s a security alert on level 15,” the Valiant’s security officer said.

  Kaon turned away from the Captain’s table with a hiss. “What is it?” he warbled.

  “A man, Doctor Stevon Elder, according to visual analysis. He appears to be in a great hurry to get somewhere. The security system flagged his behavior as suspicious. He is not one of us.”

  Kaon walked up behind the officer in charge of security and studied the hologram projected above his station. It showed footage of the doctor in question, running as fast as he could down one corridor after another. “What is the reason for his haste?”

  “I do not know. Perhaps he is trying to get off the Valiant before we find him and make him join us.”

  “We already find him.”

  “He must be desperate to believe we wouldn’t catch him.”

  “I like to know what he intends to do,” Kaon replied.

  “Should I seal off the section where he is and send in a squad to capture him?”

  Kaon considered that. “No. Seal off sections around him so that he is to take the path we choose.” Kaon turned to find The Pet standing behind him, the man’s gray eyes glued to the hologram. “You—Pet—you are to go meet this doctor. You are to pretend to be escaping, too. Gain his trust; find out what he is doing, and then incapacitate him and bring him to me.”

  The Pet hesitated only slightly before turning away from the screen and bowing his head. “As you will, My Lord.”

  Kaon turned to the pair of guards standing watch over his Pet and then pointed to the former admiral’s bound wrists. “Cut him loose and give him a weapon.”

  “A weapon, My Lord?”

  “He cannot disobey me or betray us. To do that would take more strength than he has left. I have broken him, and he is mine. My Pet. Are you not?” Kaon reached out to stroke the human’s cheek with the back of one armored hand.

  The Pet stared back at him with haunted eyes. Abruptly Kaon hissed and gave him a vicious backhanded slap. The Pet stumbled away, shock written all over his face. Kaon advanced quickly and hit him again, this time breaking his nose with a spray of blood. The human cried out and collapsed to the deck, trying to staunch the blood streaming from his shattered nose. “You tell the doctor you escape, and that you sustain these injuries during that escape.”

  Turning back to his guards, Kaon gave them a deadly look. “Set him free and give him a weapon!”

  This time neither of the guardsmen hesitated to obey.

  * * *

  Doctor Elder reached a junction in the corridor and tried the doors at the end, waving his wrist over the identichip scanner. It beeped and flashed red.

  Locked.

  Stevon whirled in a quick circle to see another two sets of doors to either side of him. He tried the pair on his left. They swished open and he ran through.

  That was the second set of doors he had encountered which refused to open when he tried them. It wasn’t unusual for certain sections of a ship to be restricted access, but it was unusual to find whole corridors blocked off. That only ever happened when they were exposed to space, and the Valiant hadn’t seen any action recently, so what were the Sythians doing?

  Stevon hoped he could still make it to one of the hangars. Up ahead he saw a glowing sign hanging down from the roof which read Rail System with an arrow pointing to the right. Hope swelled in his chest. He might actually make it!

  So far he hadn’t run into any Sythians or their slaves, but that wasn’t surprising. The Valiant had been running on a skeleton crew when the Sythians took it, and during the night cycle, there’d be even fewer people to walk the ship’s 150 plus decks. The ship’s size was working in Stevon’s favor now.

  He came to another set of doors and raised a trembling hand to the scanner, hoping the doors would open for him.

  Swish.

  Stevon ran through into a much broader corridor. Along one side lay a set of rail car tracks, separated from him by a wall of transpiranium doors. Right now there wasn’t a rail car waiting in the station, so Stevon stepped up to a nearby directory and brought up a map of the ship. He found the nearest hangar bay—port ventral—and punched that in as his destination. While he waited, he shot a quick look over his shoulder to make sure no one was watching.

  Then he spotted the roving black eye of another holocorder hanging down from the ceiling, and he looked away before the eye could turn to see his face. The fact that squads of armored troops hadn’t descended on him yet was encouraging, but Stevon didn’t want to push his luck.

  A rising whistle heralded the approach of a rail car; it screeched to a halt in front of the station, and eight sets of transpiranium doors swished open in perfect synchrony. Just as Stevon started through the pair of doors in front of him, a thought occurred to him: what if there was someone waiting on the rail car?

  Stevon’s right hand fumbled past his lab coat to find the butt of the sidearm strapped to his waist. He drew the plasma pistol and clicked off the safety before peering around the corner of the rail car doors.

  To the left—no one. To the right—

  A man slumped against the far wall, wearing a tattered and blood-stained white uniform. For a second Stevon didn’t recognize that uniform, but then he caught a glimpse of the insignia. Six golden stars surrounding a clenched fist. The symbol of the Imperium and the Supreme Overlord.

  “Admiral?” Stevon asked, unable to believe his eyes.

  The admiral raised his head to offer a weak smile. “If you think I’m going to surrender peacefully, you’re wrong,” he said.

  Stevon heard a subtle click followed by a screech of energy being released. The shot went wide and hit the wall behind him. “Hoi!” Stevon said, raising his hands. “Admiral! It’s me! Doctor Elder.”

  “You’re not . . . one of them?”

  “Not yet. How did you escape?” Stevon’s gaze flicked over the admiral from head to toe, taking in his disheveled, unshaven appearance. Between his facial hair, the accumulated grime, and the layer of dried blood caked over his nose and upper lip, it was obvious he hadn’t been treated well.

  The rail car began moving again,
and Stevon walked slowly toward the admiral. The man’s breathing was slow and labored, his eyes narrowed to slits, as if he barely had the energy to keep them open. “It’s a . . . long story,” Admiral Heston managed. “We don’t have time for it right now. We have to get out of here.”

  “Yes . . . in hindsight, surrender was not our best option.”

  “Perhaps not, but at least we are alive.”

  “For now,” Stevon replied, taking a seat beside the admiral.

  “Tell me you have an escape plan.”

  “I was going to ask you the same thing.”

  “I’m just surprised I managed to escape. Haven’t had time to figure out the rest.”

  Stevon frowned. “Well, I did. I’m going to steal a ship and head for Avilon.”

  The admiral turned to regard him with one eyebrow raised. “Even if you escape, and even if the Avilonians accept you, the Sythians already know where Avilon is.” The admiral’s expression twisted miserably and his voice filled with self-loathing as he explained, “I told them.”

  Stevon gave a wry smile. “No, you didn’t. Avilon is still safe. Before you surrendered, you had me alter the coordinates in your memory. That’s why you were suffering amnesia when you woke up in med bay a week ago.”

  The admiral’s eyes widened. “Is that why I can’t remember where my wife and daughter are?”

  “They’re with the Gors, stirring up krak for the Sythians.”

  “And Atton?”

  “You sent him to Avilon to get reinforcements.”

  Relief shone in the admiral’s eyes, but then something dark and ugly rose up to steal that light away. Abruptly all the muscles in his neck began standing out. His jaw muscles bunched and his eyelids began fluttering. “I . . . I need to tell you . . .” He began in a strained voice. His expression became a rictus and veins began standing out on his forehead.

  “What’s wrong?” Stevon asked quickly. “Admiral? Are you okay?”

  “I . . .”

  “Admiral!” Stevon began to worry that the admiral was suffering a stroke. His face did appear to be drooping, and he was definitely having difficulty speaking. Then, abruptly, the symptoms passed, and his features smoothed into a more orderly smile.

  “I’m fine,” he said. “Sorry. It’s just a bad headache. Came out of nowhere.”

  “I see . . . and what is it you needed to tell me?”

  “I need to tell you that if it comes to it, we can’t let them take us alive.”

  Stevon accepted that with a frown. “Yes, I know. You’re the one who gave me a suicide pill, but let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. As soon as this car arrives we need to make a run for it. Do you think you’ll be able to make it, or should I grav you to the nearest ship?”

  “No, you’ll need my help if we run into trouble. I’ll be fine. Just tell me you have the real coordinates for Avilon.”

  “It’s on a micro dot in a fake tooth right alongside the suicide pill. . . . You really don’t remember any of that, do you? I did a better job erasing your memory than I thought.”

  “You must have,” the admiral replied.

  The rail car began slowing down, and Stevon looked up. “We’re almost there.” He watched out the nearest window as they pulled into the rail car station next to the ventral hangar bays. Light flickered through the rail car from passing glow panels. He scanned the station platform, looking for any waiting Sythians or human slaves, but it was deserted. “Looks like we’re clear. You ready?” Stevon asked, turning back to the admiral.

  “Are you?” he countered.

  That was when Stevon noticed the sidearm Admiral Heston was aiming at his belly. “Frek!” He fell out of his seat in his hurry to get away, but he wasn’t fast enough. Hoff pulled the trigger with a screech, and this time he didn’t miss. A powerful jolt went through Stevon’s body, leaving him twitching on the floor. His eyes drifted shut, and then the darkness took him and he knew no more.

  Chapter 18

  Kaon listened to The Pet explain what the human doctor had been doing. The Pet explained all about his clever ruse to keep Avilon hidden by altering his own memories. Kaon tried to contain his building rage as The Pet handed him the fake human tooth which supposedly contained the real coordinates for the lost human sector.

  “If this is the real location of Avilon, then where is it that you make me send Lord Quaris?” Kaon asked, tucking the tooth into a compartment on his belt for later study.

  “I don’t know,” The Pet replied. “Perhaps into a black hole.”

  Kaon hissed and lunged at the human, knocking him to the deck. He pinned his Pet there and delivered a wicked blow to his already broken nose. Blood spurted once more, and the human screamed. Kaon aimed his second blow for The Pet’s mouth, knocking out the man’s front teeth and silencing his screams. “You think me to be a fool, Pet? You delay us, but you do not stopped usss,” he hissed.

  The Pet tried to say something, but all he could do was gurgle on his own blood. “Guards!” Kaon warbled, leaping off the admiral before he completely lost his temper and killed the fragile human. “Lock him away until I decide what to do with him!”

  “Yes, My Lord,” one of the guards said, stepping forward to haul the human to his feet and bind his hands with stun cords once more.

  “And take the doctor to the Mind Web. I want to know what else he is hiding,” Kaon said, pointing to the unconscious form of Doctor Stevon Elder, still lying motionless on the deck where the admiral had deposited him.

  “Yes, My Lord,” his other guard said.

  Kaon watched as The Pet and Doctor Elder were carried off the auxiliary bridge deck. His thoughts raced in angry circles. The humans would pay for this treachery. Kaon had just sent over 50 warships into the middle of who knew where. Lord Quaris and the Second Fleet may never be heard from again!

  Kaon retrieved the fake tooth from his utility belt and studied it in his hand, wondering how to access the data supposedly stored there. He supposed one of his slaves would know—assuming the data were really there. There was no way to be sure that Doctor Elder had told the admiral the truth, but soon the Mind Web would reveal all.

  Meanwhile, Kaon had to find a new fleet to send to Avilon. He turned to his communications officer and called down to the human. “Contact High Lord Shondar of the Fourth Fleet. I must speak with him.”

  “Yes, My Lord.”

  Now, Shondar would have to go to Avilon, leaving Kaon alone to deal with the Gors’ petty disturbances and humanity’s feeble attempts to resist their fate. Perhaps that temporary vulnerability would drive the Gors out of hiding just in time to be crushed when the other lords arrived with their fleets. If not, then eventually starvation would force them to reveal themselves.

  Yesss . . . revenge is mine, Kaon thought.

  * * *

  Captain Loba Caldin and her partner, Corpsman Terl, stood side by side, up to their elbows in wires in a claustrophobic access corridor on the port side of the Intrepid’s SLS drives. Standing further down the corridor with a diagnostic tool was her chief engineer and XO, Deck Commander Cobrale Delayn. Although he didn’t have a romantic partner, she had paired him with her gravidar officer, Lieutenant Esayla Carvon, based on their mutual consent and the fact that they had a good working relationship. Neither one of them seemed interested in the other, but that could easily change over the next four to five years while the Intrepid snailed along at one tenth light.

  As for herself and Terl, they were busy investigating the equipment malfunction which had landed them in their present mess. Delayn had them sifting through bunches of colored fiber optic cables to find the ones marked F-S while he ran various tests on the fail-safes which should have pulled them out of SLS at the edge of the gravity field where they were stranded, rather than the middle of it where they were now.

  “I don’t get it,” Delayn said, shaking his head.

  “What?” Caldin asked, rubbing the sweat out of her eyes with her sleeve.

  “The
y’re working perfectly.”

  “What do you mean they’re working perfectly? Did someone fix them before we put the crew in stasis?”

  “No, I had that work slated for last. Our engineering teams were too busy making repairs after the last engagement. I thought we could do the low-priority repairs ourselves, but . . . in the case of the fail-safes, there’s nothing to fix.”

  “Double check that, Commander.”

  “I’ve already triple checked,” Delayn replied. “The only thing wrong with this equipment is it’s a little dusty.”

  Caldin made an irritated noise in the back of her throat as she stuffed the bundles of wiring back into their compartments. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Right behind you, ma’am,” Terl replied.

  When they were all standing outside the access corridor, Caldin turned to Delayn with a scowl and planted her hands on her hips. “If the fail-safes are working fine, then why didn’t they pull us out of SLS?”

  Delayn shook his head. “I don’t know. Perhaps some type of interference prevented them from detecting the gravity field until it was too late?”

  “Or?”

  “Or . . . the gravity field wasn’t there until we’d already landed in it.”

  “That makes no sense, Delayn.”

  He shook his head. “None of this makes any sense. I’ll stay here to run some more tests, just in case there’s something I missed.”

  “You do that. Let me know if you find anything.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  * * *

  Admiral Hoff Heston sat in his cell, his mouth throbbing and aching, his nose itching from all the dried blood. He was barely conscious, and he knew there was no way out. The Sythians had made him a slave without making him a slave. They’d made him a tormented wretch. He tried to say one thing, but ended up saying another. He tried to hide his thoughts from the Sythians, but whenever he was around them he couldn’t help but say everything that was on his mind. At least right now he couldn’t speak—not clearly anyway. Kaon had knocked out his teeth and broken his jaw, leaving him a blubbering mess.