by Jay Allan
“Frek you, Adan! If I suffocate all alone in the middle of deep space I’m going to find you in the netherworld and choke you to death!”
“Cut the chatter, Five. You have your orders. As for Three and Four, just try to keep clear of the enemy, and we’ll send a shuttle back for you.”
“Roger that,” Ithicus said.
Alara watched her SLS start spooling up and the countdown appear on her HUD. As soon as that happened, her flight controls were automatically disabled, but she told Ethan to re-enable them.
“Alara, you will not jump to the coordinates you specified unless you maintain your current heading.”
“Just do it, Ethan! I don’t have time to argue. I’ll get back on that heading before we jump.”
“If you’re off by even half a degree, you’ll still end up jumping millions of kilometers away from the rendezvous.”
“I’ll handle it! Just paint the jump vector on my HUD so I can find it again.”
“As you wish.”
A green line appeared before her, stretching out to infinity, and Alara’s flight controls came alive in her hands. She kept a steady eye on the heading indicator at the top of her HUD, trying not to let the green desired heading get too far from the red actual heading. As her jump timer ticked down to two and a half minutes, she began decelerating for the jump. A quick look at the star map showed the enemy fighters gaining on them almost instantly. The pursuing shells would close to firing range before they could make the jump.
“Frek . . . we’re going to have company!” Guardian Nine said, noticing the same thing.
Even as he said it, Alara saw both of the Mark II’s on the star map break off the Guardians’ flight path and head back toward the pursuing fighters.
“Ithicus, what are you doing?” Captain Reese demanded. “Get back here now!”
“Negative, Lead. We’re going to cover your retreat.”
“Firestarter!” Reese growled.
“Ruh-kah!” Ithicus roared as he and his wingmate fired off a string of Hailfires at the wave of approaching shells. Because the enemy fighters were larger, the novas’ targeting computers gave them firing solutions long before the Sythians came into range. Alara watched on the grid as more than a dozen Hailfires streaked out toward the enemy formation. The shells opened up on the approaching warheads with lasers, but the Hailfires split apart early, spiraling off in all different directions before even one of them could be shot down. Now there were dozens of warheads streaking toward the enemy fighters. The shells tagged four, and the rest hit them with fiery bursts of light. Twelve enemy fighters winked off the grid.
It didn’t even make a dent in the enemy formation.
Alara shook her head, watching on the grid as the Mark II’s switched to pulse lasers and began strafing the shells at extreme range. Then the Sythians were in firing range, and hundreds of purple stars shot out from their formation. Alara held her breath, watching as those missiles swarmed toward Ithicus and his wingmate.
“Eject, Three, eject!” Captain Reese yelled.
Guardian Four, quiet on the comms until now took that moment to reply for the both of them. “So we can be captured by Sythians? I’d rather die.”
And then the wave of missiles reached the Mark II’s, and Alara looked away as the grid flashed brightly with their deaths.
“Thirty seconds to jump,” Alara’s AI said. “You should return to your original heading now. It will take time to correct your momentum.”
Alara heard the enemy fighters begin locking on to her, and she grimaced. It was a bad time to stop maneuvering, but there was no helping that now. She brought her nova back in line with the green jump vector painted on her HUD. The heading indicator said it would take 20 seconds to correct her heading to that vector, and then the countdown to SLS reached 25 seconds, and missile lock alarms sounded out in a flurry. Alara listened to the slightly different tone of beeps which indicated the enemy missiles were locked on and tracking her.
“Ten seconds,” the AI said, counting down to her jump. “Nine, eight, seven . . .”
Alara’s eyes dipped to the grid to watch the enemy missiles closing in on her fighter.
“One . . .” The nearest missile reached her, and then space dissolved in a blinding light.
For a moment she thought the missile had reached her before she’d jumped, but then Alara saw the bright star lines and streaks of SLS, and she sat back with a sigh. She half expected to feel her fighter rocked by an explosion even now after she’d gone to SLS, but of course missiles couldn’t follow her at superluminal speeds.
Alara’s eyes turned to watch the countdown on the SLS icon which had appeared on her HUD. It counted down from fifteen minutes. She would reach the rendezvous soon. Alara could only hope the Defiant was there already waiting for them. If not . . .
She refused to finish that thought. Alara passed the time fidgeting nervously and trying to ignore the maddening itch of sweat trickling between her shoulder blades.
By the time the reversion timer reached ten seconds, and Ethan began an audible countdown, her nerves were frayed, stretched taut like rubber bands, just waiting to snap. Her hands began to shake and she felt cold all over.
Then the star lines narrowed to pinpricks of light, and Alara’s gaze shot to the star map. She saw the remaining three Guardians appear around her fighter, meaning all of them had managed to return to the jump heading in time, but that was all she saw.
“Where’s the Defiant?” Gina asked.
“Frek . . .” Tenrik muttered. “She didn’t make it.”
Alara checked her coordinates just to make sure, but they’d jumped in right on top of the rendezvous. They were in the right place. Despite all the odds, they’d made it. And now . . .
“What’s your fuel look like, Guardians?” Captain Reese asked.
“Down to 17%,” Gina said.
“Same here,” Tenrik replied.
“Likewise,” Alara added. “Where’s the nearest habitable planet?”
“Odaran. We won’t make it there on 17% fuel unless we accelerate up to some skriff-krakkin’ speed and drift in real space—then the problem would be our air supply, not fuel. And even if by some miracle we did make it, we’d still have to get past the Sythian ships in the system.”
“So . . . what the frek now?” Gina asked.
The captain took a deep breath and let it out over the comm, sounding to Alara’s ears as a burst of static. “We wait.”
* * *
Commander Caldin watched the reversion to real space on the captain’s table, waiting eagerly for Guardian Squadron to appear on the grid. As soon as the theater of space where they’d set the rendezvous snapped into focus, she saw a handful of green specks appear on the grid—just four of them. That’s it? she thought. We had fourteen!
“I have contact with the Guardians!” the comm officer announced. “They’re asking what took us so long.”
“Bring them in! We need to set out immediately in case the Sythians decrypted our comms. Helm, report! What’s our fuel?”
“We’re down to 35%,” Damen Corr replied.
Caldin frowned. “We’d better save what’s left, then. All right—as soon as our novas are aboard, set course a few million klicks from here, any direction, but use the real space drives. If the Sythians decrypted our comms and somehow figured out the coordinates of the rendezvous, I want to have a good head start. Meanwhile, I’ll go debrief our pilots myself. Don’t bother informing them of the change of command. I’d like to see their reactions. Petty Sergeant Corr—” Caldin turned to get the helmsman’s attention.
He looked up at her and ran a hand back through his short red hair, looking weary and stretched.
She nodded to him. “You’re now Deck Sergeant Corr, and the XO of this ship.”
“Thank you, Ma’am,” he said, his blue eyes widening.
“You’re in command while I’m gone. Keep me posted. I’ll be on the comm if you need me.” With that, Caldin st
arted down the gangway to leave the bridge.
“Ma’am!” The comm officer called after her. “Captain Reese is asking to speak with the overlord! What should I say?”
Caldin scowled as she strode down the gleaming gangway. “Tell him the overlord is busy!”
Captain Adan Reese had a lot of explaining to do.
* * *
As soon as he popped open his cockpit and climbed down onto the wing, Atton noticed Commander Caldin already waiting for him on the deck. She was flanked by none other than the two guards he’d stunned and put in stasis tubes. “Good morning, Captain Reese,” Caldin said.
“Good morning,” Atton replied as he started down the ladder to the deck. He watched the guards out of the corner of his eye as he descended. Both held their rifles trained on him.
“You might be surprised to hear that there’s been a change of command while you were gone.”
“Oh?” Atton reached the deck and turned to face Caldin. His eyebrows were raised curiously, as though he had no idea what she was talking about.
Caldin smiled and nodded. “It would appear that the overlord was a holoskinner.”
Atton feigned shock. “A what?”
“Yes, and I’ve heard some unfortunate things about you, too.”
Atton’s eyes flicked to the nearest guard and he found the man grinning nastily at him. “What kinds of things?” Atton asked, his gaze on Commander Caldin again.
“Corpsman Terl and Corpsman Donaas tell me you stunned them and stuffed them into stasis tubes in order to ‘shut them up’—is that true, Captain?”
Atton gulped, but said nothing to that accusation.
“At the very least that’s a crime against your fellow officers, but I’m curious as to why you’d want to shut them up unless you had something to do with what they might have revealed. Something to do with Doctor Kurlin’s virus, perhaps?”
Atton’s cheeks bulged with a retort, but he decided it would be better to say nothing, so he just stood there with his nostrils flaring and his eyes narrowing in on the two guards who had gotten him into this mess.
Caldin snorted. “Don’t worry—if you’re innocent, we’ll find out. We’re going to conduct a mind probe on the man who’s been impersonating Overlord Dominic, so we may as well conduct one on you, too.”
Atton’s eyes flew wide. “That’s illegal! It’s too dangerous. You’d need authorization from the overlord himself for that.”
Caldin shook her head. “In the event that the overlord is unavailable, such an order may be issued by a Captain or an Admiral of the fleet. There’s a Captain on Obsidian Station, and an Admiral at Ritan. Take your pick.”
Atton frowned, and Caldin nodded to the guards. “Arrest that man, Corpsman Donaas.”
“With pleasure!” he replied.
* * *
Ethan sat on the bunk in his cell aboard the Defiant, staring at his hands. His real hands—no longer the wrinkled, age-spotted hands of the overlord. Now that he’d been revealed for who he really was, and the holoskin had been stripped away, Ethan was trying to decide what to do next. As the overlord he’d had a purpose, a mission, a reason to struggle on, but now . . . now he was Ethan Ortane again, ex-con and lowly outlaw. Back in jail.
Déjà vu.
His thoughts took him back over ten years ago to when he’d been caught for smuggling stims and sentenced to exile in Dark Space. History had repeated itself, but this time there’d be no leniency for his crimes—no reason to let him out to support a struggling economy. Criminals as bad as him were executed, not punished and then rehabilitated.
The mind probe would discover everything. There’d be no way for him to hide. They would sift roughly through his memories with an AI, sorting them according to patterns associated with guilt. In that way they’d discover every crime he’d ever committed in his entire life.
Ethan was pulled out of his thoughts by the sound of approaching footsteps. He looked up to see a very familiar face. It was the face of Adan Reese, but Ethan knew that under that holoskin lay his son, Atton.
Atton turned to him with a grim smile. “Hoi there, cellmate.”
One of the guards cuffed Atton across the back of his head. “Shut up!” They opened the cell opposite Ethan’s and shoved Atton roughly inside. Somehow, the guards hadn’t discovered that Atton was a skinner, too—and why would they? They had no reason to suspect he was someone else, but they obviously had leveled charges against him for having stunned them and stuffed them into stasis tubes.
As soon as the door to Atton’s cell slid shut and the guards had stalked away, Ethan stood and walked up to the bars of his cell. He waited until the guards walked out of sight, and then he whispered, “What are you in for?”
Atton shook his head and sat down on his bunk with a sigh. “Stupidity.”
“I notice those two guards are still on board. Why didn’t you just send them away like I asked?”
“It wouldn’t have shut them up for long. They knew about Kurlin. They would have unraveled the whole plot, and if someone had started looking for a holoskinning infiltrator among the survivors, you can bet they would have discovered both of us.”
“So you decided the best way to deal with that was to stuff them into stasis tubes until someone found them and let them out. You just delayed the inevitable and made yourself look guilty!” Ethan shook his head. “You were going to get caught either way.”
Atton looked up with a smile. “No, that wasn’t the plan. I was going to find a nice habitable planet somewhere along the way and jettison them both in an escape pod.”
Ethan gaped at his son. “You mean condemn them to die on a world that’s probably swarming with Sythians.”
Atton shrugged. “They would have at least had a chance. It was the best I could afford to offer them under the circumstances.”
Ethan shook his head and turned away with a scowl. “I can’t believe you’d even consider that. You may as well have killed them. It’s just as bad.”
“Said the mass-murderer to his son.” Ethan spun on his heel, his eyes flashing. “What did you say the reason was that you infiltrated the Valiant again? Something about being blackmailed to do it, or else Brondi would kill you and your copilot. I don’t see how plotting to kill a whole ship full of men and women to save your own skin is any different from me plotting to leave two men to the elements in order to do the same.”
Ethan grimaced. It was hard to argue with that logic, but he wasn’t appreciating the irony.
They were interrupted by a groan, and both turned toward the sound. Atton couldn’t see who was there because Kurlin’s cell was right next to his, but Ethan watched the doctor rise from the bed with a grimace. This was about to become much more complicated for him.
“What’s going on?” Kurlin asked, and then he turned to see Ethan staring at him from the cell opposite his, and his jaw dropped. “You! Who . . .” The doctor trailed off, shaking his head. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m the imposter, Kurlin.” The doctor just gaped at him. “That’s right,” Ethan nodded. “Shocking.”
“How . . . ?”
“It’s a long story—one which the mind probe will soon discover.”
“They’re going to probe us?” Kurlin asked, his eyes going wide.
“Why, are you afraid they might turn you into a vegetable? Vegetables can’t be tried for their crimes. You’d be better off.”
“He’s right, Kurlin,” Atton said.
Kurlin shut his mouth with a scowl and turned to look at the wall between him and Atton. “Who are you?”
“The one who saved your bony ass.”
“I don’t understand,” Kurlin said, shaking his head.
“Who do you think put those guards in stasis? They were the only ones who knew about you besides us.”
“Why . . . why would you do that?” Kurlin asked.
“Frekked if I know. Seems like I should have let them kill you.”
Kurlin looked away,
back to Ethan. “Who is he?”
Ethan smiled, now finally freed of the need for subterfuge. “He’s my son.”
* * *
—THE YEAR 0 AE—
When Destra Ortane went back to check on the fleet officer she’d rescued, she found his gurney wedged at an angle between the walls of the corridor. He was moaning in his sleep, and he felt hot to the touch, but at least he was firmly wedged, so she didn’t need to find a more secure place for him to lie. Destra dug through the netting under the gurney to find that most of the food had fallen out and rolled to the back of the ship, but the medkit was still securely tied. She opened it and injected the man with one of the last shots of antibiotics. That done, she patted his hand and said, “You’ll be okay.” He didn’t reply. He was still knocked out from the sedatives she’d administered hours ago, which was probably just as well. If he died, at least he’d die in his sleep. She headed back to the cockpit with a frown, thinking that the man would be lucky to live. His injuries had been very serious and there was almost certainly internal bleeding.
When Destra got back to the cockpit, she found herself blinking out at an unbroken vista of stars, and now she realized that the man’s injuries were moot. Neither of them were going to live.
Somehow, without her noticing, the Sythian fighter had dropped out of SLS far short of the next gate, and now she was stranded in the middle of who-knew-where. The most likely reason for that was that her fighter had run out of fuel.
Destra slumped down in the flight chair and took a quick look at what passed for the Sythians’ gravidar to see where she was. There appeared to be a planet not too far from her current location. The map couldn’t tell her what the planet was called in any name that she’d recognize, and it couldn’t tell her if the world were habitable either, but when she looked up into the starry void of space above her head, she saw it, and she didn’t have to wonder—she knew that it wasn’t habitable. The planet was so dark that it barely stood out from surrounding space. It was far from any visible sun, and appeared not to have any moons. It was also the only planet visible on the grid, which likely meant it was the only planet around for hundreds of millions of klicks. An exoplanet, she thought.