by Amy DuBoff
Still marveling at the technological masterwork with sickening awe, he turned to look behind the ship. There were only more Bakzen vessels and manufacturing yards. How can the TSS ever hope to defeat this? Then another thought came to mind, one that was much more urgent. He turned to General Carzen. “Why are you showing me this?”
“So you can plainly see that any attempt to overthrow the Bakzeni Empire will be in vain. The TSS is no match for us,” the general replied without hesitation. “This is what we have to offer you.”
Wil shrugged. “It’s okay, for a start.” Fok, how do I get away?
General Carzen almost laughed. “Oh, come now! I can see the fear in your eyes, trying to comprehend what it would be like to fight against us. I know you can still be practical, despite your conditioning. If given the chance to join the superior side—why not seize the opportunity?” He hesitated slightly before continuing. “But, all this technology is nothing compared to what we have inside. Your makers never anticipated how strong we would be by now. As strong as you are, your abilities are no match for ours. The Bakzen race has evolved since the plans for the Cadicle were laid. Despite all that planning, you will never be able to overpower us. You needn’t bother trying. Change your allegiance while you have the chance.”
What is he talking about? Wil shook his head. “What do you mean by my ‘makers’? And you called me ‘Dragon’ earlier, and now ‘Cadicle.’ Why?” He met the general’s rust-colored eyes in a level stare.
Carzen looked shocked for a moment before regaining his outer composure. “You mean, they never told you that—”
The helmsman cut him off. “Sir, I’m detecting a spatial distortion. Something is coming through.”
CHAPTER 9
“Are we really going to do this? If so, everyone has to be for it,” Cris said to his senior officers seated around the table in the briefing room. Out the window, the rough wall of a massive freighter obscured his view of the Bakzen planet.
Scott nodded. “I’m with you, and I think I speak for everyone here when I say that I trust your judgment on this.”
It’s insane and he knows it. But what else can we do? “Okay,” Cris whispered half to himself. Then, louder, so the rest of the people in the room could hear, “I know this sounds suicidal, and it probably is, but I see no alternative. We need to go down to the planet’s surface. You’ve all read over the written brief? Good. Does anyone have any input? These plans are by no means final.”
Kari raised her hand. “I’m not sure if I missed something, but I don’t quite understand how you intend to find Wil on the planet… not to mention, we don’t know if he’s even there.”
Cris looked down at the table. “You’re right. And I don’t know how we’re going to find him, only that we must. I hope that we’ll be able to access the Bakzen’s computer network and get some intel that will point to Wil’s whereabouts. It’s a shot in the dark. If anyone has any other ideas about how to approach this, I’d be eager to hear them, because I’d rather avoid running around aimlessly on an enemy planet. We’ve been relying too much on luck and guesswork.” He looked at the faces around the conference table.
Everyone in the room was silent, knowing that Cris’ statements were too true for comfort.
Shite. I don’t deserve their trust in me on this. “Let’s wait just a little bit longer before we take action. But if we don’t have another lead in the next two hours, we need to move.” If it isn’t already too late… He shoved the thought away. “You’re dismissed. Keep near your posts in case something comes up.”
Everyone rose to leave.
“Stay here, Scott,” Cris said as his friend started to stand up.
Scott sat back down. “What is it?”
Cris waited for the others to leave. “You didn’t object to the plan.”
The other Primus Agent looked confused. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t you find it a bit crazy to send a team down to the surface of the planet with no clear plan of action?”
“I trust your judgment.”
“That’s exactly what I don’t want you to do.” Cris slumped back in his chair.
“You don’t want me to trust you?”
No, it’s not that. I’m just afraid I’m getting desperate. “I’m prone to taking this as a parent rather than a TSS officer. I need you to call me on my shite.”
“Are you saying I’m not questioning your authority enough?” Scott raised an eyebrow. “What if I agree with how you’ve been handling things? I would have come to the same conclusion that a manual search of the Bakzen network is necessary, since the planetary shield prevents a remote hack.”
Cris nodded slowly. Why can’t I trust myself anymore? “Just remember that if something seems too insane, call me on it.”
“Sure thing,” Scott agreed. “Now let’s get back to the Command Center. We have a lot to prepare.”
Cris and Scott walked down the hall to the Command Center and took their seats. The freighter that obscured the Vanquish loomed at the front of the dome. Though the Vanquish was a sizeable vessel by most measures, it was dwarfed by the Bakzen vessel. Kari and Alec were busy at their consoles looking at the data coming in from what few scans they could run through the planetary shield. Tracking Wil’s dynastic ID chip is useless through the shield. How are we supposed to find him? “Have you found anything new?” Cris asked purely to break the somber silence in the room.
“More of the same,” Kari replied. “Pretty much all we can see are the ships disengaging from the docks and either heading into space or down to the planet.”
The ships… “What if Wil isn’t on the planet’s surface?”
The two helm officers turned around in their chairs and looked at him. “We did scan all the ships in orbit when we first arrived, but we didn’t find anything,” Alec said. He paused and looked at his console. “Do you want us to search again?”
Scott shrugged. “It’s worth a try.”
“We may as well,” Cris agreed. I just can’t let myself get hopeful.
Kari and Alec redirected their signal sweeps to the ships, focusing on the ID frequency Cris had provided. After a couple minutes, the two officers suddenly looked up at each other.
Alec swiveled around to address Cris, his astonishment audible, “I think we may have found something.”
Really? Cris came to attention. “Where?”
“There’s a cruiser pulling away from the dock right now,” Kari stated while re-tuning the sensors.
“Can you be absolutely sure Wil’s on it?” If we move, we won’t be able to go back into hiding.
“Not one hundred percent,” replied Alec, “but it’s the best lead that we’ve seen so far.”
This might be the one chance that we have to save him. I could never forgive myself if we didn’t try. “Let’s move.”
“Aye.” Alec restored systems to their full power and started up the docking thrusters. Once the Vanquish was clear of the freighter, he switched over the main engines and swung the ship out into the full view of any observing eyes. Alec piloted toward a Bakzen ship a little larger than the Vanquish that was moving away from the dock into open space. As they inched closer, the other ship accelerated.
“Keep up with them, Alec,” Cris commanded. “Charge the weapons system, but don’t fire. I don’t want to risk hurting Wil.” The Vanquish continued to move closer to the Bakzen ship. Just as the Vanquish got dangerously near, the space around the enemy ship began distorting, as though initializing a subspace jump.
Cris leaned forward, about to give the order to charge the Vanquish’s jump drive. Then, the Bakzen ship vanished from both normal and subspace views. “Where did they go?”
Kari sat in stunned silence for a moment before stammering a reply. “They’re gone.”
“Yes, but where did they go?” Cris asked, leaning forward in his chair.
“I don’t know. They’re just gone,” she repeated.
“Well, where could they have gone? There must
be a signal in subspace.” Unless…
“No. There’s absolutely no trace of them. They’re just gone…”
They jumped into the rift. “Alec, bring up the Jotun sequence on the nav system,” Cris ordered as he leaped from his seat. He jogged to Alec’s station.
“The what?” Alec asked.
“Here.” Cris waved the pilot from his seat and pulled up the nav system menu. There was nothing related to Jotun in the pre-programmed destinations. “Bomax, Banks,” Cris muttered.
“What are you doing?” Scott asked.
“Finding my son.” Think. Where would a protocol be hidden?
“Bakzen ships approaching!” Kari warned.
Cris ran through the architecture of the nav system in his head, tapping on menus in the nav system to investigate what only turned out to be false leads. Banks knew I could find it. But where? Nothing seemed to fit. His mind and pulse raced, knowing their time to act had already expired.
“The ships are closing in.” Kari desperately looked to Scott when she got no reaction from Cris. “It looks like they’re building a containment net!”
“We need to move!” Scott exclaimed. Panic was setting in.
“They jumped into a subspace rift,” Cris said without stopping his work. “I’m trying to find the nav protocol. I need more time.” Come on! Where is it?
“A what?” Scott asked, incredulous.
“Shite,” Alec breathed.
Kari turned back to her console. “I’ll try to hold them off.” She took aim at the Bakzen vessels.
The rift is between normal space and subspace in our present location. It’s not a distinct other place… Of course! It wouldn’t be the destination settings, but the underlying jump parameters. Cris accessed the very foundation of the nav system. Sure enough, there was a switch buried in the controls to flip from “Beacon Nav” to “Jotun.” There! Cris made the change. “Found it!”
Alec stared at the console. “How do we make the jump?”
Cris returned the pilot’s chair to Alec. “I think we just activate the jump drive while it’s in this mode,” Cris guessed.
“Are you sure?” Alec questioned, taking his seat.
I have no idea. “What else?”
A shot fired from one of the Bakzen ships rocked the Vanquish. “We have to do something,” Kari urged.
“Make the jump!” Cris commanded, taking his Captain’s chair.
“Aye.” Alec began charging the jump drive.
Cris leaned over to the console between the two central chairs. “Matt?” He waited for a response.
“Yes?”
“We’re about to make a rift jump. Let’s hope your patch job holds,” Cris announced.
“A what?” Matt fell silent for a moment, followed by a low curse. “Yes, sir.” There was a waver to his voice. The comm link ended.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” asked Scott.
Cris smiled weakly. “It’s a little late to be questioning me now.”
“Everything’s ready,” informed Alec. And much quieter, “I think.”
Cris glanced one last time at Scott. “Let’s go.”
The vibration of the jump drive rattled the Vanquish. As the shaking crescendoed, the space surrounding the Vanquish began to distort—masked by the ethereal blue-green of subspace. For a moment, the ship was enveloped by swirling light, floating in perfect stillness. With a shudder, the Vanquish dropped into the world beyond the dimensional veil.
Cris stood up and stared out the front viewscreen, his mouth partially open. A massive spaceport and an armada of warships met his gaze. The Bakzen aren’t just a threat, they can completely annihilate us.
Scott stood to join him. “Where the fok are we?”
“I’ll explain later.” Cris could have continued to stare out at the seemingly impossible engineering feats, but he caught sight of the ship that was carrying his son. “Don’t let them get away.”
* * *
“Curse them!” spat General Carzen as the Vanquish emerged from the spatial distortion. “We should have had them.”
Wil’s heart leaped. How did they follow us? He concealed his smile as Carzen flashed an angry glance in his direction. There was still a chance to get away.
Wil turned around and looked out the back wall of the room. The Vanquish was hovering just behind the starboard side of the Bakzen vessel. He stared at the ship, hoping for some sign of what to do next.
General Carzen noticed Wil’s intent gaze. “Deactivate the panoramic viewing,” he commanded. The room returned to its original appearance with another shimmering wave washing over the walls. “Head toward the station.” His eyes narrowed. “As I was saying, you don’t know how you came into being?”
“Why would there be anything to know?” How could the Bakzen know anything about me?
Carzen smirked. “You were genetically engineered to be superior to your fellow Tarans. Generations of careful pairing to select the best traits Tarans had to offer. It’s all come down to you, a union of the bloodlines symbolized by Serpent and Falcon crests—when combined, a Dragon. They designed you to have superior physical and cognitive abilities paired with telekinetic strengths unlike any Taran before you. Through those means, you were meant to be even stronger than the Bakzen—though we have become more powerful than the Tararian scientists ever anticipated. Wil, you have such tremendous potential, more than the TSS is prepared to handle. You know that as well as I do.”
Wil tensed, unsure what to make of the general’s statement. He couldn’t take the Bakzen’s word at face value. Was I really “engineered” to be this way? It was unnerving to think of being created for such a distinct purpose, but he cast the feeling aside. Carzen would say anything to keep him interested. I need to get away from here. “Yes, General, I have always known that I was superior to other Tarans, I just never knew to what extent.”
Carzen nodded. “There is one more thing that I’m not sure you know. An ability that will one day emerge. No one at the TSS could ever teach you to use it—they will barely comprehend its wonders. Though it is a skill that you will ultimately have to master on your own, we can guide you. With practice, you will be able to—”
The general suddenly cut off as a violent jolt rocked the ship. Wil was caught off guard, but he quickly regained his composure. The jolt was undoubtedly caused by a weapons blast of some sort, but he didn’t know where it had originated. Surely not from the Vanquish.
“They dare to attack us?” Carzen shot a seething glare toward the Vanquish.
“Weapons on the TSS ship are still charged,” one of the officers replied.
Such an aggressive tactic was unlike his father. Do they know something I don’t?
“It would seem the TSS cares more for killing Bakzen than protecting one of their own,” Carzen said to Wil. “Would you like to do the honors?”
What honors? Wil stayed put in his chair as another shot from the Vanquish rocked the Bakzen ship.
“Bring him here,” Carzen instructed.
One of the escorts standing along the back wall roughly pulled Wil to his feet and shoved him toward the front control consoles.
“It’s only fitting you should be the one to end them,” Carzen sneered.
Stars, no! Wil shook his head. “I’m not ready for that.”
“You don’t have a choice.” Carzen grabbed Wil by the upper arms and directed him to one of the consoles. “All you have to do is press the button. Then all that the Bakzen have to offer will be yours.”
“I won’t do it!” Wil tried to resist the general, but he was at an impossible physical disadvantage.
“Just one button,” Carzen whispered in Wil’s ear. “Don’t you see? You’re their ‘savior’ but they’re so willing to kill you now that you’re in the way. Collateral damage.” He grabbed Wil’s hand and forced it toward the touchscreen. “Do it!”
“No!” Wil struck back with a powerful telekinetic wave.
Carzen staggered back
ward. “Stupid boy! You could have had it all.”
“I already do,” Wil spat back. An entire crew risking their lives to save me. The Bakzen will never understand that kind of devotion.
“Change of plan. Throw him out an airlock,” Carzen told the escorts. “Return fire!”
Another escort came to assist the first. Each took one of Wil’s arms and dragged him across the room.
“The Bakzen will never win, General,” Wil called to Carzen.
“If not, then at least in death we will find peace,” Carzen replied, glancing at Wil one last time. “Know that your own death served a great purpose.”
I’m not dead yet. Wil let the guards take him out the doors from the Command Center, not wanting to waste his strength on futile resistance. I need to find a way to get off this ship.
The hallway was plain and empty, with stark lighting making it seem like a desolate tunnel. The guards held onto Wil’s arms with a firm grip, their expressions stoic. After a few meters, another blast rocked the ship.
Wil’s mind raced. Maybe this is the diversion I need. But how do I get away?
Up ahead, there was a door panel with interlocking components. Wil recognized the section of passage as the place he had entered the Bakzen vessel at the port.
Stars! So Carzen did mean a literal airlock. I had hoped it was a figure of speech. “You don’t need to do this, you know,” Wil said, beginning to resist the forward motion.
“You had chance,” one of the guards said in broken New Taran. “Now you die.”
“But what will that accomplish, really?” Wil countered.
“You tear rift,” the guard replied. “Then we win.”
So they’re all crazy. “I don’t think so.”
Another blast wracked the Bakzen ship. Simultaneously, Wil lashed out with the strongest telekinetic attack he could muster, piercing the minds and bodies of his captors with whips of electromagnetic energy. They released Wil, gripping their heads. Their cries of agony were masked by the concussive force echoing along the ship’s hull. Just as the blast subsided, the guards collapsed on the ground unconscious.
They were only five meters from the airlock. Wil jogged ahead and pressed the release button to open the inner door. In one motion, he levitated the guards into the chamber and sealed them inside.