Children of the White Star

by Linda Thackeray

  Garryn did not realise he was crying until he saw the first tear splatter on the paper. It rolled quickly off the edge and was followed by another. Garryn wiped away the tear, angered by his lack of control over his emotions. He was the Prime. He ought to have more restraint than this.

  Not here. You're not the Prime here. You're Justin Alexander and you've come home.

  Garryn bit down on his lip, letting the sharp pain centre him. He tore his gaze away from the picture, but did not discard it. Instead, he replaced it on the mantle piece where it had stood for many years. This house was his now and, someday soon, he would reclaim it. But first, he had business on Brysdyn. Those two dead souls lying in the undergrowth beyond the house demanded justice.

  He had to give them that. He had to do it for them and for the billions who died to save Brysdyn.

  * * *

  By the time they returned to the ship, the sun was well and truly fading from the sky. The temperature had dropped considerably and Garryn was grateful to be indoors again. There were too many ghosts here. Even though they remained unseen, their presence could be felt. Their voices could be imagined in the eerie silence of the deserted cities and the cold wind moving through their exposed bones.

  They were airborne within the hour. Even though it had been years since he had embarked on any kind of space travel, Aaran had no difficulty becoming accustomed to it again. His wife viewed the journey with trepidation, considering she was from a species yet to experience specialised space travel. Hannah, on the other hand, was full of excitement at her first trip off world.

  Garryn remained in the gunnery turret. He needed the solitude. He was coming to grips with much and wanted some time to think about what came next. As much as he wanted to tell the Dreamers what he'd found, he was also afraid of shattering their lives, as his was now in ruin. He was torn between the world below and the life he had left behind on Brysdyn. How could the two ever be reconciled again?

  “Garryn, get up here!” Finn shouted through the communicator.

  As the Wayward Son entered the space above the planet, Garryn jumped out of his chair and hurried to the bridge, fearing why Flinn was calling out so anxiously for him. As he entered the cockpit, he saw what the rest of the Wayward Son's passengers were gaping at. The holographic screen revealed the image, not only of the warship they'd crippled, but also the dreadnought class battleship with it.

  Brysdynian Dreadnoughts were fully armoured, with reinforced tritium shielding, able to withstand multiple detonations from torpedoes. Their fighter complement was larger than a standard warship and they were able to punch a hole through a planet if so inclined. While they lacked the speed of newer class ships, their fuel capacity allowed them to wear the enemy down in pursuit. Since Brysdyn no longer embarked on expansionist campaigns, the dreadnoughts were now obsolete.

  Obsolete perhaps, Garryn thought, but still more than capable of obliterating this ship from the sky.

  “It's the Dragon's Eye,” Garryn explained, recognising this particular battleship. “It's Edwen's ship.”

  “Edwen?” Aaran declared, staring instinctively out of the cockpit window, trying to see the ship, even though it was hidden behind the planet's moon at the moment.

  “I guess he decided this required his personal attention,” Garryn said grimly.

  No sooner than he had uttered those words, he saw a multitude of electronic bleeps appear on the screen. They were so many of them approaching them rapidly, it was impossible to count their numbers. Flinn estimated more than twenty-five of them. Twenty-five to one odds. Garryn was good, but he did not know if he was that good. Taking a deep breath, he tried to think of options. Unfortunately, none seemed to come to mind.

  “Can we outrun them?” Aaran asked first.

  Garryn and Flinn exchanged glances.

  “Not a chance,” Flinn replied grimly. “Not for long, anyway. I can't afford to burn up my fuel before we go to hyperspace.”

  “I'd start anyway,” Garryn retorted, making his way out of the cockpit. “I'll try and hold them off as much as I can. Try and keep ahead of them.”

  “You don't have to tell me twice,” Flinn retorted and glanced at his other passengers. “Strap yourselves in, it's about to get bumpy. Here they come!”

  Garryn saw the flotilla of ships emerging from behind the thin crescent shape moon, heading towards them. There were so many, Garryn thought. There numbers filled up the space between the planet and the moon. Despite themselves, neither man could deny the shudder of fear felt as they saw those ships approaching them at top speed.

  “They're breaking formation!” Garryn declared as he clung to Hannah's seat to keep from falling over.

  The tight pattern of ships began to break apart, splitting into groups of three as they fell into pursuit from all directions. A small group was heading towards the planet and both Garryn and Flinn recognised the tactic for what it was. “They're cutting us off. They're not going to let us back into the atmosphere!”

  “Get to the turret! I'll take care of the flying!”

  Garryn needed no further prompting, running out of the room.

  Suddenly the hull shuddered with the first blast of enemy fire. The ship heaved in protest and the two women cried out in fright. Recovering in an instant, Flinn increased thruster power to the main engines. They had to stay ahead of this group because it would take time for him to plot the course to hyperspace and they were still too close to a planetary body to make the attempt.

  “There are no warships behind the moon,” Aaran stated as he stared into the scanner. It had been a long time, for certain, and while he was nowhere near as adept with technology as he once was, Aaran knew how to interpret a scanner readout.

  “What do you mean? They're right there!” Flinn retorted and turned back to the screen. However, as he turned to look, he realised that Aaran was right. Both ships were gone. This meant…

  He looked ahead just in time to see the Dragon's Eye emerge from behind the planet to cut them off. The sheer immensity of the ship nearly blocked out the sky from the canopy window. The Wayward Son, borne on the force of its own speed, was quickly heading straight for the large ship and the docking would be anything but smooth.

  “Pull up!” he heard Aaran scream in the background. “Pull up!”

  XXVIII

  Dreadnought

  Garryn slammed into the side of his seat. His shoulder stung in pain despite the cushioned seats. Below him, he felt the Wayward Son veer sharply to starboard. Steadying himself, his chair pivoted with the motion of his body as he placed his hands on the firing controls and sought out his target. There were more than enough ships in pursuit to make the selection easy.

  Garryn fired into the thickest part of the air wing group, trying to send their formation into disarray. The sky flared up when one of his energy bolts met its mark. Yet for every one he destroyed, there seemed to be another getting closer and closer. Realistically, he knew they would eventually overrun Flinn's beloved ship, unless they could make the jump to hyperspace.

  When the ship banked abruptly, Garryn was able to see what caused Flinn to change direction so drastically. The Dragon's Eye glided into view of his window. Flinn took the ship into a tight loop, trying to put some distance between the Wayward Son and the dreadnought. In the process, the ship flew head on into a fighter contingent. The freighter scattered the formation more effectively than Garryn's earlier effort.

  Garryn used the momentary disruption Flinn had given him to fire at the enemy ships in rapid succession. The sky lit up with ship after ship exploding until his eyes began to blur from all the brilliant flares. The space surrounding them filled with debris and flaming pieces of metal quickly extinguished by the vacuum.

  Suddenly the Wayward Son made a sharp turn upwards and began climbing in a steep ascent. Garryn was thrown back against his chair, his fingers snatched away from the controls.

  “What the hel…” he started to shout in this headset when he glanced throu
gh the window and saw the Warhammer.

  Despite the damage to its bridge, it was still firing its main guns and direct hits would have vaporised the small freighter. With a sinking feeling, he began to understand what Flinn must have already deduced.

  They'd fallen into a trap.

  The dreadnought and the warship had outflanked them. They were caught in the middle, unable to reach enough velocity to make the jump into hyperspace, not with fighters dogging their every move. The fighters matched Flinn's speed because they were able to refuel and knew he would not. Soon, they were all around the Wayward Son and it was a credit to Flinn that they were still alive. But they wouldn't be able to hold out for long.

  “Flinn,” he said quietly into his headset.

  “I'm kind of busy right now, Gar.”

  “Send a distress signal,” Garryn replied.

  He heard a sudden pause.

  “We're not done yet!” the Jyne insisted, refusing to give up.

  “I know. Do it anyway.”

  “It's impossible. They're jamming us! We'd never get a message to Erebo Station. Not in time to help us! Wait a minute…” Flinn's voice drifted offline for a moment. There were seconds of undecipherable whispering in the headset before Flinn spoke again.

  “All right, Gar, I'm going to send a message to Erebo because the old guy's got a good suggestion. I'm going to do it through carrier wave signal.”

  It was a stroke of genius. There were so many orbiting satellites around the Earth the signal could come from any one of them. Even then, he was sure no one would think to look for a transmission coming from such a frequency. They had to send a message distinctly Brysdynian, capable of sparking Erebo's interest enough to decipher it.

  “Do it,” he answered. “Do it before it's too late.”

  It did not take long for Flinn to send the message. The dispatch went smoothly, being undetected by the dreadnought or the warship. In either case, the pursuit was coming to a close and they all knew it. The Wayward Son manoeuvred through the sea of smaller ships in its attempt to escape, only to come face to face with the two larger warships keeping them penned in.

  As Flinn banked the Wayward Son to sweep past the dreadnought, the freighter suddenly jerked violently and began losing speed. Anything not bolted down in the ship went flying through the air. Garryn was jostled violently in his seat as the ship shuddered around him. According to his sensors, the ship was still at maximum thrust but, as he looked outside the canopy window, it was evident the Wayward Son was no longer moving forward.

  It was moving backwards, towards the Dragon's Eye.

  Unfastening himself from his seat, Garryn ran out of the cubicle. The ship was shaking hard and Garryn wondered how much longer Flinn would try to break free. The tractor beam ensnaring them had far more power than the Wayward Son. Flinn could not keep firing the thrusters like this, or else the ship would tear itself apart. He could feel the ship groaning as the stress mounted in its superstructure.

  “Flinn, shut it down!” he shouted, entering into the cockpit.

  “They'll kill us!”

  “You'll kill us if you don't shut the engine down. You know as well as I do, the ship can't take this kind of stress for long. She'll break up!”

  Garryn saw the defiance in Flinn's eyes evaporate to resignation. No matter how much he hated to admit defeat, he could not deny Garryn's words. If he kept trying to break free, the only thing that would come undone was his beloved ship. He could hear the incessant rattling throughout the structure indicating how close it was to the breaking point. The hull would begin to buckle in places if he did not act now.

  “Listen to him!” Aaran shouted.

  “All right! I'm powering down.” Reluctantly, he began shutting down the engines, easing the stress on the ship as it decelerated down with a low whine. Inside the cockpit, the lights dimmed to near darkness. The mood within the room was grim and no one spoke as the ship continued its journey towards the Dragon's Eye. Very soon, the space around them was replaced with the hangar doors of the dreadnought.

  “Why don't they destroy us? Rachel demanded. Her composure was shattered and she buried her head in her husband's shoulder, weeping. Garryn wished he'd never coaxed them from their safe and anonymous existence on Earth.

  “They want us alive,” Garryn answered, although the truth might be closer to them wanting him alive.

  “Are you sure?”

  Garryn took a deep breath and met Flinn's gaze. “I don't know. I just don't know.”

  * * *

  It was hard not feel overwhelmed by the sheer size of the Dragon's Eye as it swallowed them whole.

  At present, the only thing that Garryn was able to take comfort in was the fact Edwen wanted them alive for a reason. If Edwen wanted them dead, he could have blown them out of the sky easily.

  The freighter was pulled in through the main doors of the Dragon's Eye's docking station. Once the ship had passed through the opening, the doors slid to a close behind them with a loud thud reverberating throughout the Wayward Son. Rachel and Aaran were huddled close, while Hannah's arm had somehow found its way around Garryn's waist. Flinn stared stonily ahead, still in denial at being taken by the enemy.

  Not for the first time, Garryn wished he had never allowed any of them to become involved in this. Was the truth really worth paying the price of all these lives?

  “We could try blasting off again,” Flinn suggested as the ship descended onto the landing bay. Outside, pressurisation had begun to take place. It would not be long before life support systems would allow troops to enter the area.

  “We'd never get far enough to escape. The tractor beam will just catch up,” Garryn replied wearily. “Right now, we'll just have to play it by ear. Edwen has something up his sleeve.”

  “For you, maybe,” Flinn answered, meeting his gaze. “The rest of us are expendable.”

  Garryn was aware of that too. “Let's hope not.”

  Aaran was holding Rachel close, but he looked up and added. “Surely the rest of the crew would not stand by and watch him kill the Prime. Things on Brysdyn could not have changed that much to allow it to happen.”

  Garryn had to admit it was an interesting point. Edwen might be the master of Security Elite, but in the absence of the Imperator even Garryn superseded him in authority, even in Security Elite. Those in Elite were a fanatical bunch, but they were also wildly patriotic. It was difficult to believe they would stand by and watch him commit treason.

  “Maybe they don't know,” Flinn suggested, voicing Garryn's unspoken thoughts.

  “Can't you just tell them?” Hannah asked.

  “I don't know that'd do any good,” Garryn said sceptically. “Most of them have no idea what I look like. I'm afraid my public career only began recently at my Ascension. Besides, who would believe it? The Prime travelling on a freighter firing on Brysdynian ships? If I weren't living it, I wouldn't believe it myself.”

  “True,” Flinn nodded in agreement.

  “There is a way I could confirm my identity,” Garryn considered his options, wanting to give Aaran and his family some hope. “But to do it, I need to get to the bridge, and I doubt Edwen will allow that.”

  “We may get lucky,” Flinn replied.

  The way things were going, Garryn didn't think luck was on their side at all.

  * * *

  “Passengers of the freighter Wayward Son, Registration No. 33432, you are in violation of the Imperial Code S152-A relating to planetary travel. You have failed to lodge a correct flight plan and have also violated the restriction placed on the planet Theran 3. You have also been charged with the death of Imperial citizens. Please disembark your vessel immediately or be prepared to be removed by force.”

  “They're trying to justify all this because I don't have a damn travel permit!” Flinn exclaimed in a mixture of surprise and disgust.

  “Why not? As far as they're concerned, it's true. We did violate restricted space by going to Cathomira and then he
re. We did resist their attempts to stop us and we did fire on them. What else is Edwen going to tell them?”

  “This guy is oilier than a Sekerun slug,” Flinn retorted.

  “You'll never know how much,” Aaran whispered softly.

  After a short discussion, they came to the decision that it was probably better if they emerged from the ship of their own volition. Security Elite troops were not known for their good manners and, at this point, Garryn did not want to give them a reason to hurt anyone. To some extent, he could be assured of his own safety, but he could not say the same for Flinn or Aaran and his family. Flinn was a commercial pilot who barely operated within the law. In Edwen's eyes, he would never be missed. The same could be said for Aaran and his family, whose existence was even more tenuous.

  Garryn emerged first. He walked down the extended ramp of the Wayward Son's main hatch with his hands up, showing he was disarmed. Even though he wanted badly to carry a weapon, he knew it could be interpreted as a hostile gesture and Garryn did not want to provoke the troops into doing anything rash. Convincing Flinn took a great deal of effort, but eventually the pilot had to concede to the sensibility of the act.

  Once they were on the floor of the deck, the officer in charge motioned the troops to take them into custody. As the Elite troops swarmed around them, the officer approaching Garryn recognising him as the leader. The officer looked into Garryn's face. His brow knitted in momentary confusion as he saw something he might have seen before but was unable to place it. Shaking the thought from his mind, he waited patiently as binders were placed around all their hands.

  “Take the others to the brig,” he said to one of the troops. “The General wants to see this one personally.” His eyes met Garryn.

  “I trust that my companions will remain alive while I am in audience with the General?”

  “You may trust nothing,” the man said derisively. “You are not in the position to demand anything.” He turned sharply on his heels and began moving. “Bring him.”