by Jay Allan
* * *
Atton awoke from a pleasant dream to an alarm that was more suited to an air raid siren than a wake up reminder before a reversion to real space.
His heart pounded with adrenaline, his eyes were wide and staring out at stars. Atton blinked. Stars. The alarm should have woken him a few minutes before reversion. Why had he dropped out of SLS early? This wasn’t right. He noticed the SLS countdown on the HUD was frozen at 15 minutes, and then he sat up suddenly and scanned the gravidar—but there were no contacts on the grid.
“What happened?” Gina asked, voicing the question which was on all of their minds.
“We got yanked out of SLS early,” Ithicus replied.
Atton shook his head. “The Sythians don’t have SLS disruptor tech, so unless they have . . .”
“A wormhole ship cloaked somewhere between Forlax and Odaran?” Ithicus finished for him.
“Has anyone else noticed the Defiant is missing?” Guardian Nine, Tenrik Fanton, added.
Atton felt a stab of dread and re-checked the gravidar. The Defiant had been the first one to jump to SLS, but they hadn’t entered SLS on the same trajectory as the Guardians had, so the wormhole ship wouldn’t have yanked them out.
“We have to get to the rendezvous!” Gina said.
“With what fuel!” Ithicus Adari shot back. “I’m down to 5%. That’s barely enough to fire up the SLS for an emergency speed correction. We’re stuck.”
“Ours isn’t much better,” Atton replied, “but it’s enough to get us to the rendezvous. We can send someone back for you. Think you can wait?”
Three snorted. “Not like I have a choice.”
Gina came back on the comm, saying, “Hoi, in case you skriffs haven’t noticed, we were yanked out of SLS by something. We might have enemies tracking us as we speak. We need to hurry.”
An enemy contact siren blared, making Gina’s warning prophetic, and space was suddenly crowded with dozens of red bracket pairs as Sythian fighters began swarming out of nowhere. “Evasive action!” Atton cried.
Even as he stomped on the rudder to line up the nearest enemy fighter, a flurry of missile lock alarms sounded through his cockpit. The numbers of enemy fighters immediately ahead of him were increasing by the second, until one pair of brackets seemed to blur into the next. Atton fired off a quick laser blast, slicing off the bottom half of the nearest shell, but it was just one out of more than a hundred.
“There’s too many of them!” Tenrik Fanton screamed.
Atton felt a crushing weight of despair at the futility of it all, and then the onrushing wave of enemy fighters erupted with a blinding volley of missiles. Atton heard his comm crackling with more exclamations, but he could barely hear them over the screaming of the missile lock alarms as more than a dozen spinning purple stars vectored in on him. The missiles were still too far away for him to go evasive, so Atton targeted the next nearest shell and fired two more blasts from his lasers. He felt his nova shudder with each fire-linked burst, and then watched the enemy fighter fly apart in a bright flash of light. Applying slight pressure to the port rudder pedal, Atton lined up the next target and did the same. Another explosion flared in the enemy formation, followed by three more as other Guardians hit home with their lasers. Atton watched Ithicus Adari and his wingmate go speeding toward the enemy formation, taking advantage of their greater speed to fly into the thick of it. They fired their dual pulse lasers with perfect accuracy, strafing from one enemy to the next and slicing off pieces of them left and right. Bright lavender-hued lasers flashed out in reply from the enemy fighters, tracking the two Mark II’s, but Adari and his wingmate began executing oscillating barrel rolls which were unpredictable enough to keep them safe. Like that they sailed straight through the wave of Sythian missiles without a scratch. Atton followed their lead, boosting and barrel rolling to evade the missiles vectoring in on him. The g-force alternated between pinning him to his seat and pulling him against his restraints, and Atton quickly dialed up the IMS to keep from getting disoriented.
Two explosions blossomed on the star map where green icons had been, and someone yelled over the comm, “Fourteen! Frek! Thirteen, too! Why didn’t they eject?” Atton’s wingmate, Alara, asked.
Atton shook his head. Down to six pilots. If the Defiant doesn’t get here soon . . . but soon couldn’t be soon enough. With the overwhelming odds they were facing, they wouldn’t last long.
Even as Atton thought that, he saw the massive bulk of a Sythian carrier de-cloaking in front of them. The scale of it was immense and it was pouring hundreds more shells after them as they watched.
* * *
The stasis room was freezing cold. Doctor Kurlin held his wife’s hand as they crossed the room in the dim emergency light to reach the nearest pair of empty stasis tubes. They’d tried to find Alara, but it had quickly become apparent that she was out on a mission with the other nova pilots.
“W-what if the ship is destroyed while we’re asleep?” Darla asked.
Kurlin turned to her from the control panel of the nearest stasis tube. “Wouldn’t you rather die in your sleep, darling?”
“I don’t want to die at all.”
Kurlin shook his head. “We won’t. Not yet. And we’ll find some way to escape this dead man’s quest as soon as we get Alara back.”
“Do you think she’s all right? I heard the fighting on the comms. They were dying out there, Kurlin!”
Kurlin turned to her with a frown. “She scored well in the training. If anyone survived, then she did.”
“What if we’ve lost her and we don’t even know it?”
Kurlin just shook his head as he turned back to the control panel. We’ve already lost her, Darla, he thought but didn’t say. The slave chip made sure of that.
“There, this one’s ready. Would you like to go first, my darling?” he asked, gesturing to the open stasis tube. He was putting them in stasis for a day, long enough for the imposter overlord to be arrested.
Darla hugged herself and shivered, her gaze locked on the coffin-sized chamber. She shook her head vigorously. “You go first.”
“No one’s going anywhere!”
Kurlin whirled around to see who’d said that. He came face to ripper rifle with a brawny corpsman. “Who are you?” Kurlin demanded.
The man snorted. “Funny, I was about to ask you the same. Aren’t you that doctor we rescued from the corvette?”
Kurlin’s eyes widened and suddenly he recognized the man in front of him. Another burly corpsman stepped out of the shadows, his ripper rifle also leveled at them.
“Yes,” Kurlin replied, trying to sound nonchalant.
The man who’d spoken gestured with his rifle to the doors of the stasis room. “What’s going on out there?”
Kurlin shook his head. “I’m not sure.”
“Why would you want to put yourself in stasis?” the other corpsman asked, nodding to the open tubes.
Kurlin frowned, wondering how much he could trust these two men—the very same two who had interrogated him and knew that he had created the virus which had decimated the Valiant. He had to tread carefully with them. “It seemed the safest place to hide.”
The first corpsman snorted. “Hide, huh? The rest of the crew figured out what you did, then?”
Kurlin felt a cold lump of ice settle in his gut. “No . . .” he shook his head. “Worse than that.”
“Oh yea? Spill it, brua.”
“The overlord is an imposter.”
“He’s a what?” both men were taken aback.
“A holoskinner.”
“What makes you say that? You see him take off his skin?”
“No, I tested his blood. He has the blood of a 46-year-old, and there’s only one way that’s possible.”
Both corpsmen just stared at him for a long moment, looking uncertain. Finally one of them said, “Is that true or are you just blowin’ smoke?”
“It’s true. I can prove it. I sent a message over the ship�
��s commnet to all the crew. I would suggest you arrest the imposter before he finds a way to escape.”
“Hold on a sec,” one of the corpsmen said as he pulled a holo pad out of his pocket and began fiddling with it. A moment later he looked up with wide eyes, shaking his head. “Doc’s right . . .” he said, passing the pad to his buddy.
“Holy frek!” the other one exclaimed. “That’s it. Forget hiding, Doc,” he said, starting toward Kurlin and grabbing him by the arm. “We need a witness. You’re coming with us.”
* * *
Ethan couldn’t resist the urge to tap his foot as he stood behind Petty Officer Damen Corr at the nav, waiting for the system to reboot. They’d just finished fixing the damaged reactor core after more than an hour of work. Emergency power had been restored within just a few minutes of going out, but main power had only been restored fifteen minutes ago.
Come on! Ethan thought, gritting his teeth as the nav officer hurried through system diagnostics and calibrations.
“Almost there . . .” Damen reassured. “Got it!”
“Start spooling the SLS, and head to the rendezvous!”
“Yes, sir,” Petty Sergeant Damen Corr replied.
With a sigh, Ethan straightened from leaning over the nav station, and then he turned around.
That was when he noticed that everyone had stopped what they were doing to stare at him. The uncertain looks on the crew’s faces were puzzling. “What is it?” Ethan asked of no one in particular. Then he saw Caldin stalking toward him, weaving between control stations. At her side were the pair of guards Atton claimed to have sent back to the transfer station.
Ethan’s brow furrowed as he saw them approach. Then he noticed Kurlin standing tall and smug by the entrance of the bridge, his skeletal arms folded over his chest as he leaned against the open doors.
Why wasn’t he in stasis? No one should have been able to enter the overlord’s quarters to find Kurlin and let him out . . . unless. . . .The power failure. Without even emergency power to keep it running, the stasis tube would have opened by itself. Kurlin had merely had to let himself out. From the look on his face—and on Commander Loba Caldin’s as she approached—Ethan didn’t have to wonder if the doctor had revealed the test results which proved he wasn’t the overlord.
“Hello,” Ethan greeted Caldin as she drew near, and then he turned to the guards and nodded to them. “I thought Captain Reese sent you—”
“He sent us into stasis!” one of them snapped.
Commander Caldin and both guards stopped a half a dozen feet away from Ethan. The guards had their rifles trained on him as Caldin spoke, “In the name of the Imperium and the true overlord, Altarian Dominic—may his soul rest wherever it now lie—you are under arrest for suspicion of murder and high treason.”
“Excuse me?” Ethan didn’t think feigning innocence would work, but he had to try.
“You needn’t play dumb with me, whoever you are. Doctor Kurlin sent the proof to everyone on this ship. There is no way you could possibly be the overlord. You are wearing a holoskin, and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll remove it before we have to strip you naked to do so.”
Ethan shook his head. “You’re making a mistake.”
“Guards! Search him!”
Ethan backed away from them, but he quickly fetched up against the back wall of the bridge and stopped. Tova had turned from the viewports to watch, her glowing red eyes trained on them as the confrontation unfolded before her. Ethan glanced at the alien, wondering what she was thinking.
Turning back to the advancing guards, he held up his hands in a shrug. “Fine, go ahead,” he said. “But you’d better arrest that man, too!” Ethan pointed up to Kurlin, and the old man straightened, his brow furrowing uncertainly.
“W-what for?” Kurlin stammered.
“Mass murder, and conspiracy.”
“I . . .”
The guards advancing on Ethan hesitated now, and one of them turned back to Caldin. “He’s right, ma’am. The doctor confessed to creating the virus which killed the crew of the Valiant.”
Caldin rounded on Kurlin, her face livid. “Is that true, Doctor?”
“You can’t prove anything!” he screeched in a reedy voice.
Now Kurlin was the one backing away, and Ethan grinned. “You miscalculated, Doctor. I’m not the only one with secrets to keep.”
Caldin hesitated for just a moment, watching as Kurlin retreated through the open doors of the bridge, but then in one smooth motion she drew her sidearm and shot Kurlin in the face. He collapsed, his body convulsing on the floor before he lay still, and then all eyes turned back to Ethan and Caldin nodded to him, her pistol now aimed at his face. “Do you confess to your crimes?”
“You’re going to trust a mass-murderer?” Ethan asked.
Caldin shook her head. “No.” She gestured to the guards. “Strip him!”
The two corpsmen reached for Ethan and began tearing off his white uniform, their hands groping all over him in their haste to find the holofield projectors he was wearing. One of the guards grazed the thin strip around Ethan’s neck and yanked on the fragile projector, momentarily interrupting the projection and allowing Ethan’s real features to shine through. The guards jumped suddenly back from him, as though he’d burned them and then every man and woman on the bridge bolted to their feet and drew their sidearms.
Caldin nodded to Ethan and smiled. “I thought you were acting odd lately. The way you seemed to have suddenly forgotten everything about Sythian tech made me wonder if you were going senile. But now I see the true reason for your ignorance.”
“What have you done with the overlord?” the comm officer interrupted, his expression twisted in fury.
Ethan shook his head. “This is not what you think.”
Caldin snorted. “Then what is it? Answer the man’s question. What have you done with the overlord?”
Ethan shrugged. “The overlord you all knew was an imposter, too. I’m just the stand-in who agreed to take over from him.”
Caldin began laughing. “You expect us to believe that? Yes, good one, deflect attention from yourself as a skinner by claiming that the real overlord was a skinner, too! So I suppose that makes your actions perfectly acceptable? How stupid do you think we are?”
“It’s the truth.”
“We’ll decide what’s true or not. You can’t hide from a mind probe.”
Ethan’s eyes widened at that. If they submitted him to a mind probe they’d find out everything, including his own role in the taking of the Valiant. If they weren’t planning to kill him for impersonating the overlord, they’d surely kill him for his part in spreading the virus which had killed more than 50,000 officers. He was as guilty as Kurlin.
Caldin went on, “Put him in stun cords, and lock him in the brig. We don’t have time to stand around listening to this man’s lies anymore—oh and disable that holoskin! I want to see his face.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Ethan watched the stun cords being tightened around his wrists, and then he saw one of the guards reach up and break the holofield emitter around his neck. Suddenly Ethan’s real appearance was revealed. More gasps rose up from the crew, but that was just the reality of it sinking in. No one actually recognized him. And why would they? He was just a lowly freelancer and ex-con. The one man who might have recognized him was the same one who’d betrayed him a moment ago—the man who now lay stunned on the deck just outside the bridge.
And as irony would have it, they were about to become cellmates.
Chapter 23
Alara stared at the grid, her eyes wide and blinking while her hands and feet moved mechanically to evade the swarms of incoming missiles. She’d had to ask Ethan to turn down the volume on the missile lock warnings, because they’d fast become deafening. Her afterburners were pushed up to the max and running out of fuel.
“Form up!” Captain Reese said over the comms. She could barely hear him over the steady roar of the thr
usters. It felt like her head was actually inside the exhausts. “We’re getting out of here, Guardians!” the captain went on.
“We’ll cover your retreat,” Ithicus said, and Alara felt a stab of regret. Neither of the Mark II’s would make another jump. Outnumbered several hundred to one, there was no way either Ithicus or his wingmate would survive.
One of the missile lock alarms beeping in Alara’s cockpit became a solid tone, and Alara stomped on her right rudder, only to see a missile go flashing by her cockpit in a blinding blur, passing so close that she could feel the heat of it radiating through her canopy.
A waypoint appeared on the star map, behind her current position, and Alara pulled up hard to loop back the way they’d come.
“Head to that waypoint, Guardians! We’ll make the jump as soon as we’re clear.”
Alara roared by a pair of Sythian shell fighters that had been on her tail, and then glanced at the star map to see the rest of the guardians forming up and roaring away from the enemy at top speed. What was it her AI had said?
Even the fastest bird must eventually land to rest its wings.
Where were they supposed to land? Alara pulled every evasive maneuver she could think of to shake the remaining missiles off her six. She was flying on sheer instinct alone. Lasers and missiles spun away to all sides, never touching her fighter. And then, abruptly, Alara noticed that the alarms had quieted, and all that was left was the roaring of her engines. A quick look at the grid revealed that they were now out of range of the enemy fighters. She breathed a deep sigh and shook her head.
“Start spooling for SLS!” Captain Reese called into the comm. “They’re going to try to jump that wormhole ship, wherever it is, into our flight path as soon as they see what we’re doing, so we need to keep maneuvering. I want you all to pick a slightly different heading. Keep ‘em guessing.”
“Skidmark, you’re crazy!” Gina said. “We’re all going to end up jumping in separate directions, and we’ll be stranded in the middle of nowhere!”
“Not if you make sure your actual heading matches the one plotted to reach the rendezvous just before the jump. It’s the only way we’re getting out of here.”