The Prodigal Emperor (The Shadow Space Chronicles Book 3)

by Kal Spriggs

  Mannetti's air car showed up after only a few minutes. This time there were a pair of armed guards that opened the door and the pilot took them out of the city almost immediately. Mason glanced over at Lauren who had a concentrated look on her face. She's trying to fix landmarks so that she can pilot back, he thought. The rugged terrain of Halcyon's only continent all looked the same to him: mountains and more mountains.

  That perspective changed, though, as they rose over a pass. A colossal series of peaks rose over the valley below, a sharp, jagged up thrust ridge of black rock that rose around an almost tabletop flat plain. The ridge looked very much like the jagged lower jaw of some massive, primeval beast. The emptiness of the broad valley was broken up by only a few slight rises and clusters of scrub trees.

  The air car settled quickly towards an industrial installation of some kind on the shoulder of the ridge. No sooner had the vehicle landed than the guards had the doors open.

  Mason swaggered out, “Where's the Admiral?” he asked as he looked around. The location had many similar features to mining sites. Heavy machinery trundled back and forth, some of it heavily loaded with black rock and others crushing it into gravel or digging at the sparse soil and the rock beneath.

  “Admiral Mannetti is inside the facility,” one of the guards said. “She will meet you there. Follow me, please.”

  Mason didn't miss how the other one moved to the rear or how the external guards monitored their movement. It wasn't just remote cameras, he saw foot patrols around the perimeter and at least one team in a vehicle that watched them as they moved towards the central building.

  A very well armed and alert group for any kind of mine site, he thought, at last we get to the point of all of this. For months he had worked his way into Mannetti's confidences. Now that he finally had an opportunity to find out why she and Admiral Collae valued Halcyon so much, he almost felt trepidation. Secrets like this were dangerous enough that just knowing them changed someone's life. He knew that well enough from his experience with the Dreyfus Fleet... and his own past for that matter.

  The guard led them through the outer area of the building and down to an elevator. It was a simple platform, but the control had a biometric lock. An added layer of security on a place already blanketed with it.

  The guard unlocked the control panel and then set the elevator to descend. It began to drop fast enough that Mason's ears popped at the pressure change and then again as they continued downward. As the naked rock flashed past, Mason began to feel anxious. What if this were some kind of trap, he wondered, and Mannetti just planned to use some random mine as the ambush point?

  His hands dropped to the butts of his pistols. Mason felt some of his fears ease at the comforting feel of the twin grips. If worse came to worse, he could fight his way out, especially with Lauren at his side.

  The lift finally came to a halt and Mason frowned at the hatch in front of them. It was big and made from some kind of bronze-like alloy. It seemed oddly familiar for some reason.

  The hatch slid open and they followed the corridor beyond. Mason's curiosity grew as the long corridor continued straight for over a hundred meters. Just how big was this installation?

  The corridor ended in another hatch. This one slid open soon enough and Mason stepped into the large room beyond.

  The first thing he noticed was how busy it was. Dozens of people hurried about, many of them carrying equipment or engaged in hooking it up. While a handful wore Admiral Mannetti's black uniforms, most were civilians. They were working in and around alien-looking consoles, some of which were live while others showed signs of damage or and still others sat dormant and dark. The floor and ceiling were the same bronze-like alloy as the hatch, with heavy reinforcing.

  The next thing he noticed was that despite their long descent, the room seemed to be perched up high, with balconies that looked down into open space. Each balcony had an armored bulwark or railing that hid what lay below, but the ceilings of those massive spaces looked even more heavily reinforced than the one in this room. Mason counted twenty four balconies in all, each at an angle with this room as the central hub. He started towards the nearest, but then heard a voice to his side.

  “Stavros, darling, so glad you could make it,” Admiral Mannetti said as she sashayed over. She held up her hands, “What do you think of the place?”

  Mason looked around, “I was thinking we would meet someplace a bit more private, personally.”

  She gave a chuckle as she continued forward, right into his personal space. “Oh,” she said in a soft tone, “that is for later.” She circled around him, “Your assistance has made all of this possible, so I wanted to share it with you.”

  “What is it?” Mason asked.

  Admiral Mannetti smirked “It is a precursor installation... over a million years old. The locals found part of the exterior, but they didn't have the resources or expertise to even get inside. Better yet, they had no idea the value of what they had found.” She started to walk towards the nearest balcony and her hips swayed suggestively.

  “Oh?” Mason asked as he followed her.

  “Did you ever think it odd, Stavros, how quickly they jumped at hiring you?”

  The odd question startled him and he paused, a few meters away from the balcony. “What do you mean by that?” Mason asked in an aggressive tone, more to buy time than anything else.

  Admiral Mannetti leaned back against the railing of the balcony and she chuckled. “Oh, please, Stavros, I wasn't trying to be insulting. I merely acknowledge the fact that you are a wolf. The sheep of this planet could not have felt easy at hiring a man like you, am I right?”

  Mason gave a shrug, “I hadn't really thought about it.” In truth, he had assumed that the possibility of using him as a disposable asset had appealed to them as much as anything else.

  “Your ship, your marvelous ship, of course,” Admiral Mannetti said. “Advanced jamming and electronic warfare, automated systems, and incredible firepower.” She shook her head, “The Kraken is so amazing, so unique, don't you think?”

  Mason stepped forward, eyes narrowed at her gloating tone. “My ship is excellent, yes.”

  As he came up beside Admiral Mannetti and looked down, he felt his jaw drop in surprise.

  Admiral Mannetti continued, “Tell me, Stavros, what do you think I could accomplish with an entire fleet of Krakens?”

  ***

  Reese swore a bit as he realized that he was late. He still didn't understand the importance of this meeting or why Mannetti had pulled him away from his work. Yes, I can admit that winning over the only experienced captain of a Zar ship is important, he thought, but it's not as if Stavros uses anything near the full capabilities.

  Besides that, what he had heard of “Commodore” Stavros Heraklion turned his stomach. Not only was he an unrepentant pirate, but he was also a womanizing drunk. From what Admiral Mannetti said, he was a clever but self-absorbed man. She didn't need the pirate’s help, not really, especially not when she already had people in place who could seize his ship.

  Still, she had said she wanted Reese to go over some of their plans for the ships in the Brokenjaw Mountain facility. Some part of Reese wondered if she just wanted to embarrass him by forcing him to admit that they still didn't have even one of their ships operational, while a man like Stavros had managed to somehow do that without their resources.

  I still think the ships were trapped, Reese thought, but she refuses to listen. They had lost another pilot just a day earlier and Reese wondered how long before Admiral Mannetti would stop asking for volunteers and start shoving conscripts inside.

  While that might be wrong, Reese could admit that it would streamline the procedure a bit.

  On that thought Reese finally came into the control room. As usual, the place was a mad house, with technicians scrambling about trying to get the alien base's secondary systems operational. Reese ignored most of them, many were natives and quite a few others were conscripted by Admir
al Mannetti. They did the scut work as far as wiring in human systems and repairing what they could of the alien systems, other than that they were inconsequential. Luckily, the Zarakassakaraz technology was very similar to human tech, only more refined and advanced, so the technicians could make some inroads to repairing it. While some xenothropologists might refer to the Zarakassakaraz, most of the research that Reese had seen abandoned the lengthy name and shortened it to Zar.

  A glance around showed that Admiral Mannetti stood at the Hangar Twelve Overlook. That was her favorite, with the largest of the Zar ships being there. Reese knew well enough that once they did have neural interface systems operational, Admiral Mannetti planned to make that ship her own, a Zar battlecruiser to lead her armada.

  More power to her, Reese thought dismissively. He had no desire to interface with the ships himself, even discounting the dangers they had seen thus far. Captaining a ship had never been something that appealed to him. The power of a warship like that gave him no rush. It was nothing, after all, compared to the power of being close to the people who controlled the use of those warships.

  That was, after all, the reason that working for Marius Giovanni appealed to him. The fact that he controlled Admiral Mannetti as only one of his tactics suggested layers of plans and a network of influence far more powerful than anyone could suspect, even if they knew he still lived. And since no one knows he is still alive, Reese thought, that is truly impressive.

  Reese closed the last few meters to where Mannetti stood and for a moment, as he watched her flirt shamelessly with her guest, he felt a spike of rage. She looked enough like Alanis that they could have been sisters or cousins and the reminder of how his wife had rejected him burned like acid. I will have her back, Reese thought, and she will come to realize that everything I've done was for us.

  He turned his gaze and attention to Admiral Mannetti's guest. Stavros stood with his back to the room, his gaze fixed over the balcony. Reese couldn't help a grimace as he took in the man's skin-tight black leather pants, garish red vest, and white shirt with billowing sleeves. If anything it seemed that people had understated his terrible taste in clothing.

  Nearby, Reese saw Stavros's aide, her attention similarly fixed on the contents of Hangar Twelve. “Ah, Stavros, this is Reese, he's taken over as the base manager here,” Admiral Mannetti said. “Thanks to his diligent work we have many of the base primary systems operational and more and more secondary systems coming online.”

  Stavros turned and Reese finally saw his face and missed a step. Reese's gaze went to his companion and he nearly choked. How did they know I would be here, Reese thought, even as he immediately realized that Lucius had sent them. They had acted as his agents before and it only followed that they were here on his orders again.

  Recognition flashed across both their faces, but so did surprise. Reese saw that Admiral Mannetti's gaze still lingered on her ship, so she clearly hadn't noticed. They're not here for me... Reese thought, they're here because of her.

  His instant thought was to denounce them, yet he had seen them both in combat. When they had stormed the Chxor Planetary Defense Base, the pair of them had slaughtered their way through an entire company of Chxor. They were sent there by Lucius, as he had no doubt sent them here. They could only be here to sabotage the mission, yet “Stavros” had been on the planet longer than Reese... which told him that they might not know how it was he had come to be here.

  They won't know for certain why I'm here, he thought, and if we can get them someplace secure Admiral Mannetti can deal with them quietly. Reese gave them both friendly nods and tried to act as naturally as he could. “Good to meet you both. As you can see, the facility is quite large. We have yet to fully explore some of the lower levels.”

  “How is it that it came to be here?” Lauren asked. There was an edge to her voice, almost as if she suspected him.

  “We think that the Zar built this base as a hidden facility in their war against he Illuari,” Reese said, resorting to technical details in order to distract her. Once Mannetti knew who they were, they would both be dead anyway, so it wasn't as if giving them information would really matter. He felt a bit bad for them, but if they realized he worked for Admiral Mannetti now, they wouldn't hesitate to kill him, he imagined. “We think that they evacuated after the volcano erupted overhead. The Zar all but abandoned the base, but they couldn't pull out their ships. The hangar bays had already been buried.”

  “Sometime after that the Illuari took the system. They overran the base and killed the caretaker force,” Admiral Mannetti said. “Not that it matters much, their war was over before we even learned how to make bronze. The important thing is that they left behind twenty-four vessels, ready for us to take charge of them.”

  “Are they fully operational?” Stavros asked. Reese wondered what the man's real name was. He had pretended to be a smuggler before, but his military training and killer instinct had shone through that cover when they fought the Chxor.

  “Not yet,” Reese said. He didn't miss how Admiral Mannetti's face clouded. She felt embarrassed about that, which no doubt would build into one of her tirades if he didn't head it off. “Unlike your vessel, these ships were never designed with a manual crew interface. We think that these ships were their newest models, just judging from subtle design changes we've noticed.”

  “Oh?” Stavros asked.

  “The only way to crew these ships is to do a direct neural link,” Admiral Mannetti said. “Which is why they're still in their hangars. I have my best people working on that even as we speak. I'm certain they're making progress.” Her tone suggested that if they weren't, she would be putting one of them in the pod to motivate them. Not necessarily a bad idea, Reese thought, as long as she doesn't mean me.

  “Well,” Stavros said, “That's very intriguing and I suddenly understand some of your interest in my own vessel. Clearly you'll want some of my own experience to help train any potential crew.” He said the last with such arrogance that Reese gritted his teeth in response, even knowing that it was an act.

  “Yes,” Admiral Mannetti said. “Now, I think you and I should have that moment alone to discuss strategy–”

  “Ma'am,” Reese interrupted, “I think I need to review those personnel files with you, as soon as possible.”

  Lucretta Mannetti's eyes narrowed in anger at the interruption, but her natural intelligence took over a moment later. She knew he wouldn't have interrupted her without reason. Furthermore, he had no responsibilities with personnel. She slowly nodded her head, “Very well. Stavros, I'll have one of my people lead you to my conference room while I review those files.”

  “Thank you,” Stavros bent over her hand and kissed it, but there was something in his dark eyes, almost as if he already suspected that it was a trap.

  Suspect all you want, Reese thought, you'll be dead within a few hours, unless Mannetti wants to keep you alive for questioning. He would recommend against it, assuming she asked him.

  They headed away and Admiral Mannetti stepped close, “What was that about, Reese? I've been waiting months to get that man alone.”

  “Better for you then, ma'am,” Reese said. He gave a nod in their direction, “The woman there is one of Lucius Giovanni's intelligence agents and 'Stavros' is another. I encountered them both back on Faraday. The woman's name is Lauren Kelly, I don't remember the man's name. I fought the Chxor with them, Lucius Giovanni sent them in to smuggle weapons to the rebels and to organize and lead the attack on the planetary defense centers.”

  To give her credit, she didn't take long to assimilate the information. “You are certain?”

  “I fought side by side with them,” Reese said. “Lauren doesn't look a bit different and the only thing different about 'Stavros' is his clothing and slicked back hair.”

  “Comrades in arms and you betray them so easily?” Lucretta Mannetti chuckled, “Reese, I think you were born for this life.”

  Reese just shrugged. It was him
or them, and the last thing he wanted Lucius to know was that he now worked for his enemies.

  “Very well...” she nodded, “I'll have a team sent down there.” She pouted, “I just had the conference room remodeled… it will be a shame to ruin the new carpets. Ah, well.”

  ***

  As they came into an empty corridor, Lauren slipped up behind the officer, cupped her hand over his mouth and then tagged him with her stunner. He jerked once and went limp and Mason helped her to catch him.

  “So, you think we're blown too?” he asked as he frisked the officer for anything that might help. Unfortunately the man was too short for Mason to take his uniform and Lauren would be a poor fit as well.

  “I don't know why he's here, but Reese was pretty senior in Baron Giovanni's ranks. There would be no reason to send him here.” Lauren shook her head, “And while I shouldn't be talking about this here, I helped with the investigation on Mannetti's escape, I know that there was someone senior who had to have been involved.”

  Mason nodded at a shadowed alcove and they stuffed the officer away. “Likely, enough, I suppose. Reese helped her escape and then when they came close to pinning it on him, he slipped away himself.” Mason pursed his lips, “What bothered me was that he recognized us, but that he didn't try to make contact.” In his early life he had operated undercover for a number of operations. There was a feel for a situation, more instinct than anything else, and Mason had felt in his gut that this mission was blown as soon as Reese arrived.

  “Yeah,” Lauren said. She looked around, “Where to?”

  Mason held up the datapad he had pulled off the officer. He pointed down the hallway and they walked briskly as he brought up a schematic of the base. He shook his head, “This place is huge. I don't know how many people they have here, but if we can get into some of the lower corridors, it will take them a while to search for us.”