by Jay Allan
“Wait!” Corpsman Goldrim at the gravidar said, drawing everyone’s attention. “I have contact, coming out of the Dark Space gate … It’s a corvette analog.”
Dominic whirled to face the comm officer. “Hail them!”
Grimsby nodded and began hailing the corvette, but before he could even reply, the gravidar officer reported once more, “It doesn’t look good … The corvette is venting atmosphere, and the bridge is open to space.”
Dominic’s heart sank. “So they’re dead.”
“Unless they suited up before the bridge was breached.”
“Comms?”
“They’re not responding to our hails, sir.”
“Are they under power?”
“Yes, sir, but they’re not maneuvering. By now they should have spotted us and begun heading this way if their intent were to rendezvous with us.”
“If they are alive, then they’re cut off from the auxiliary bridge controls.” Dominic turned to Damen Corr at the helm. “Bring us alongside.”
“Yes, sir.”
The overlord turned back to the comm. “Have the hangar operators standing by with the grav guns and bring her aboard as soon as we’re in range. And have a boarding party waiting for me on the hangar deck in five minutes.”
“Yes, sir.”
Dominic nodded and began striding from the bridge. His XO caught up to him a moment later and began speaking to him in hushed tones. “With respect, sir, you shouldn’t take the risk. Let the boarders do their work. You don’t need to go with them.”
As they reached the lift tubes, Dominic turned to her. “I’ll be the judge of what risks I should and shouldn’t take.”
Deck Commander Loba Caldin frowned, but then she nodded curtly. “Sir.”
-o0o-
After just a few minutes of searching the ship, the boarding party found them—locked inside an escape pod on the shattered bridge.
The overlord peered grimly into the pod as his sentinels unsealed the hatch. “Hoi, there are our heroes!”
Ethan lifted his head sleepily from the single bunk inside the pod and turned to see who it was. “We made it…” He noted with a groggy smile.
“Yes, you did.”
Now Gina sat up beside Ethan. “Finally,” she said.
The overlord jerked a thumb to the shattered bridge deck behind them. “What happened here?”
Gina spoke first: “When we realized the enemy was coming through, we set charges to blow the viewports, and then we retreated to the pod. Seems like they got sucked out into space.”
“A risky plan,” the overlord said.
“No riskier than a firefight on the bridge, which would have blown the viewports anyway.”
“Well, come on out, then.”
Ethan and Gina crawled stiffly from the small escape pod, the latter clutching her ribs and wincing. Once they were standing on the other side, they were able to survey the damage firsthand. Several control stations had been shattered by the blast, and all the viewports were blown out. Jagged pieces of transpiranium glittered on the deck and crunched underfoot as they walked around.
“So,” Ethan said, giving the overlord a measuring look. “Were there any surprises waiting on the other end?”
Dominic met that look with a wry smile. “None at all, Lieutenant Adan.”
The way the overlord emphasized his name, Ethan felt a sharp spike of dread, and he was now surer than ever that his cover was blown.
The overlord shook his head and went on, “No, everything went according to plan, and if the detlor mine we dropped did its job, no one will be following us out for a long time.”
Gina snorted. “They’ll have to make a new gate from scratch after that. There won’t be enough constituent dust left to powder my nose.”
“Sir!” Everyone turned as a pair of sentinels came striding through the melted hole in the bridge doors. “What is it, Sergeant?” Dominic asked.
“We’ve found three more survivors on the detention level, sir.”
“Good! Release them, and bring them to my quarters aboard the Defiant for questioning.”
Ethan was looking at the sentinels like he’d seen a ghost. There’d been people still locked up on the detention level …
“Something the matter, Lieutenant?”
“No, nothing, sir,” Ethan said, making an effort to hide the surge of hope he’d felt at the mention of prisoners aboard Brondi’s corvette.
“Good, go get cleaned up and get some rest.” Turning to Gina, the overlord took in the way she was clutching her side, and he said, “As for you—head to the med bay immediately and get yourself examined.”
“Yes, sir,” they said.
-o0o-
Maybe I imagined it, Ethan thought. It was just the stress of battle, or maybe some comm interference … Maybe he didn’t call me Ethan. But the overlord had just summoned him for a personal debriefing—alone in his office—and that made Ethan a whole lot less sure that he’d imagined it.
That wasn’t the only strange thing. They’d found three more people aboard Brondi’s corvette—on the detention level. Alara immediately came to mind. Could one of them be her? He didn’t allow himself to hope for it, but just maybe, if he were lucky—and if she were lucky—then she would be among those three. Or maybe she wouldn’t be all that lucky. There was the small matter that now they were stranded in Sythian Space, in a damaged cruiser, and with barely any fighter escort left to defend them.
Now, five hours after being brought aboard the Defiant, Ethan was all cleaned up, rested, and waiting to meet the firing squad which was surely awaiting him for his crimes. He reached the double doors to the overlord’s quarters and checked in with the pair of sentinels stationed there before being cleared for admittance. The doors parted with a swish, and Ethan stepped inside.
Unlike the rest of the cruiser, which was strictly utilitarian, this room was luxuriously appointed, and for a moment it reminded Ethan of Brondi’s corvette. At the far end of the room was a broad, wooden desk set before a floor-to-ceiling viewport. Behind that desk was a big, high-backed black chair, which was currently turned away from Ethan to face the viewport.
Ethan stopped just inside the doors. They swished shut, and he turned to look behind him only to find that he was alone in the overlord’s office. Suddenly, Ethan felt incredibly nervous and acutely aware of his skin, which was now crawling with dread. “Sir?” Ethan tried.
“Do you know why I summoned you here alone?”
Ethan felt his dread blossom into a sweaty, almost nauseating terror, but he clamped down on it. Whatever his fate, he surely deserved it after the disaster he’d wrought aboard the Valiant. “No, sir,” he lied.
The chair slowly swiveled to face him. The overlord steepled his hands before his lips. “I think you do. I think you know exactly why. But you don’t know the half of it.” Ethan watched a slow smile spread across the overlord’s lips. “What I’m about to share with you can never leave this room. Do you understand that, Lieutenant?”
Ethan blinked slowly—confused. “If you’re asking whether or not I can keep a confidence, sir, I assure you that I can.”
“Good, because I have kept yours … Ethan.”
Ethan’s eyes bulged. “Then you do know … How did you find out?”
“My first clue was the Atton.”
“The Atton, sir?”
The overlord nodded. “Your ship.”
“I see…”
“I’m quite sure you don’t, but let me continue. My second clue was more subtle. Few people would recognize the tells of a holoskinner—such as the way your wrist still hurts for weeks and even months after the procedure while it is accommodating a new identichip, one which you were not implanted with at birth. Few would notice that, except for another skinner.”
Ethan did a double take and then shook his head. “Another…”
“You’re not the only one who can wear a holoskin, Ethan.” And with that, the overlord’s hoary features
shimmered and abruptly morphed into those of a much younger man—a man in his early twenties at most.
Ethan took a quick step back. “Who are you?”
The young man laughed. “That’s a fine question to ask. Don’t you recognize your own son?”
Ethan felt like someone had just thrown a glass of ice water in his face. “Atton?” Ethan shook his head, and his jaw dropped open. It couldn’t be. This was a dream. “Is that you?”
The erstwhile overlord smiled. “Sometimes I have to look in the mirror and ask myself the very same question, but yes, it’s me.”
CHAPTER 23
Ethan struggled to understand what he was seeing and hearing. His son was alive and sitting there before him, but just a few seconds ago he’d been looking and sounding exactly like Supreme Overlord Dominic.
“How do I know you’re my son? You could just be claiming to be him.”
Atton was still smiling. “Then how would I know your name? You can tell me it’s a big coincidence that your ship’s name is the Atton, and that my father’s name is Ethan, but I think you and I both know that’s not very likely. Besides which, there’s the fact that my mother’s name was Destra.”
Ethan’s eyes widened and Atton nodded slowly. “Yes, I can see by the look on your face that I am not mistaken. My mother found the entrance to Dark Space a few months after you were exiled there. She was going to break you out, but before she could, the Sythians invaded, and she convinced her uncle, Captain Riechland, XO of the Valiant at the time, to take me with him when the heads of state retreated there. Riechland died in a delaying action which was to cover the Valiant’s retreat, and I was left alone. Dark Space was no place for a young kid without adult supervision, and neither was the Valiant. Long story short, the Supreme Overlord took pity on me.
Later on, when the overlord was about to die, he shared his secret with me. He wasn’t really the overlord. He was a holoskinner just like you and me, and so he passed the mantle of command as well as his holoskin and identichip to me.”
Ethan shook his head. “You mean you’re the second generation of pretenders to the throne?”
“The face of the ISS couldn’t afford to die. My adoptive father’s predecessor, the real Dominic, actually died very young. He passed his burden to his most trusted advisor, and his most trusted advisor—my adoptive father—passed it on to me. I was never intended to last long in the role. It was my job to find someone more suitable—someone who has all the right instincts for command, someone with the age and experience to command respect from those serving under him. That someone could never be me, but I feel fairly confident, between your actions in our retreat, and your scores in the Rokan Defense, that now I’ve finally found the one I was looking for … Should you choose to accept the responsibility.”
Ethan’s eyes widened. “Kavaar … you…”
Atton held up a hand. “Please, don’t give me an answer now. Think about it. We’ll need some time to repair and regroup with the others out here in Sythian Space before we head back to retake the Valiant.
“Atton.” Ethan’s mouth felt dry. In fact, he felt dizzy and unsteady on his feet. He still didn’t fully trust what he was seeing and hearing, but the young man seated before him was certainly young enough to be his son. “This is all a lot to take in, but you should know something before you go on.” Ethan swallowed visibly and then said, “Your old man hasn’t done much to improve himself since you knew him…” Ethan wasn’t sure how to continue. Or if he even should. He’d just been given his son back from the grave, and he was sure to lose the boy again with what he was about to say next.
Atton cocked his head. “Yes?”
Ethan smiled tightly. “I suppose I can deactivate my holoskin for a while.” With that, he sent a mental command to the control system which was attached to his stolen identichip. He felt a tingle of static brush across his skin, raising the hair on his arms and legs, and then he watched.
Atton’s eyes widened and he began nodding approvingly. “There’s the old man I knew. My memories aren’t that clear, but I can recognize you from my mom’s old holos well enough.”
Ethan took a few steps forward, until he was close enough to lean on the desk where his son was seated. Abruptly Atton rose to his feet and walked around the desk to stand face to face with his father. Ethan found that he was staring at a younger version of himself. The similarities between them were striking. They both had the same tall, broad-shouldered frame—the same green eyes, the same dark hair. Abruptly Ethan took another step forward and gave his son a big, bone-crushing hug. After that, they withdrew to an arm’s length, and Ethan found himself grinning uncontrollably. “I missed you, kid.”
“Me, too … Dad.”
Ethan let his arms fall back to his sides. “Well, now I can die a happy man.”
“Die? I hope you’re not planning to die. We have a lot of work to do.”
“You might not think so when you hear what I have to say next,” Ethan said with a grimace.
Atton’s eyes narrowed fractionally. “Go on.”
“What do you think is the reason I was impersonating an ISSF officer?”
Atton raised his eyebrows and a slow smile began spreading across his lips. “The food. Our breakfast scones are to die for.”
Ethan scowled. “I’m being serious, Atton. Look, I’m just going to say it. Brondi put me up to it, but that’s no excuse. My copilot and I owed him a fair whack of sols. We skipped payments so he hunted us down to hold our feet to the afterburners. He kept my copilot as a ransom and said if I didn’t do what he asked, he was going to kill us, so I agreed. I didn’t know what I was really getting into, but…” Ethan looked away, out the viewport, and his eyes caught a bright flash of static discharging inside the gray ice clouds of the nebula.
“What did he ask you to do?”
Ethan slowly turned back to meet his son’s gaze. “He asked me to sabotage the Valiant. To destroy it. I was planning to find a way to doom the ship without killing everyone on board, but long before I could do that, I realized Brondi’s real goal. He’d infected me with some kind of plague and set me loose aboard the ship. I don’t know why I survived, but as far as I can tell, I was the first one to get sick. I went to med bay and they put me in stasis to get better. Twelve hours later I woke up and I was fine, but everyone aboard was dead. You were the first survivor I encountered.”
Atton took all of that in without blinking. He was stolid and silent, as if waiting to hear the rest of the story. When he realized his father was done talking, he quietly said, “I know, Ethan. Among the prisoners aboard Brondi’s corvette was the biochemist who engineered the virus. He explained everything to me already.”
“Then…”
“I’m not going to pardon you for your sins, but since you didn’t actually do anything, the worst we could charge you with would be impersonating a fleet officer, and possibly conspiracy against the ISS. Between the two you’d get life on Etaris, but as it happens I’m the only one who knows about your secret, and now you know mine, so we’re obliged to keep each other’s secrets safe.”
Ethan’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Then there are no hard feelings?”
“I wouldn’t say that. I had a lot of friends aboard the Valiant. Even acting in my capacity as overlord I was able to get close enough to a few people that I’ll certainly miss them, but I just got you back from Etaris, and I’m not going to send you there again—no matter what you’ve done.”
Ethan nodded slowly. “I went looking for you, you know. Both you and your mother. I went flat broke to do it, and I never found anything. Eventually I had to concede that the odds were low either of you had made it.”
“The odds were low. They would have been infinitesimal if it weren’t for the fact that Mom had already found the gate and was planning to bust you out. She was still trying to scrape together enough to rent a ship for the prison break when the invasion separated us. I’ve been looking for her ever since I’ve had the po
wer to order missions into Sythian Space. That was the real reason we reopened the gate.”
Ethan’s eyes brightened. “Then you think she might still be alive?”
“She was when she said goodbye to me. Whether or not she survived is another matter.”
Ethan grimaced and his gaze dropped to the floor. “Immortals willing…” A long moment later Ethan looked up. “Atton.”
“Yes?”
“You really want me to take command? I’m sure I’m not the most experienced commander you have, not by a long shot.”
Atton shook his head. “After they all died I don’t have many to choose from.” Ethan grimaced and Atton went on, “But besides that, I can’t imagine someone else who would be safe to share my secret with, and even if I could find someone else, that person probably wouldn’t be willing to take the job, or to give me their identity in exchange.”
“You’d like to trade, then.”
“It wouldn’t be a good idea to reveal myself as me; I faked my death years ago to take this role, and old Dominic’s ruse is a dangerous secret to reveal. Even our most loyal crew members would mutiny if they were to discover that.”
Ethan shook his head. “But I can’t pretend to be the overlord forever. He already looks like he’s more than 100 years old.”
“You won’t have to do it forever. You and I are both going to shed our holoskins before long. We’ll switch to our real skins as soon as we can fake up some new identichips and a cover story for those identities. Our names will still be different, but that can’t be helped. Until then, and until the overlord can formally hand over his title to you with your new identity, we’re going to switch places. The Defiant needs a good commander if we’re going to make it through Sythian Space alive, and I’m not the man for that job.”
“Are you so sure I am? I probably got lucky on the Rokan Defense.”
“No, that wasn’t luck.”
“Let me think about it.”
“Take all the time you need as long as it’s less than a day.”
Ethan nodded and gripped his son’s shoulder. “Meanwhile, I have to ask one more thing—”