There was a hiss as the oxygen inside escaped. The top half of the pod opened like the lid to a coffin. Le Croix stood up and saw Prince Godfred curled in a fetal position on the reclining seat inside the pod. He was unconscious. Le Croix reached out and shook the crown prince.
“What? Oh, thank God,” Godfred said. “I can’t believe I survived.”
“You haven’t survived yet,” Le Croix said.
“Who are you?” Godfred said, pulling away from the major in his battle armor.
“Major Luc Le Croix, Royal Imperium Special Forces. But we’ve been captured.”
“We?”
“You and I, sir.”
“Just the two of us?”
“That’s right. My team got the rest of the survivors off the transport, but we didn’t make the rendezvous.”
“Why not?”
“It’s a long story, sir. Can you get up?”
Le Croix reached a hand toward Godfred, who took it. The major pulled the crown prince up and out of the pod.
“Where are we? I can’t see anything,” Godfred complained.
Le Croix activated his armor’s exterior lights. The prince covered his eyes for a moment.
“We’re in one of the alien ships,” Le Croix explained.
“Aliens? What the devil is going on?”
“A wormhole opened and destroyed most of the fleet,” Le Croix explained. “We believe it’s a portal to another galaxy.”
“How in God’s name did that happen?”
The crown prince was accustomed to making accusations and having his political hacks bowing and scraping before him. Le Croix didn’t have the time or the inclination to be intimidated.
“Keep your voice down, sir. We’re in a hostile situation.”
“Don’t tell me to keep my voice down. I’m the crown prince of the Royal Imperium. I demand answers.”
“You’ll get them,” Le Croix said. “But we don’t know much right now. Aliens came through the wormhole. They attacked your transport and several other vessels in the system.”
“Bastards,” Godfred cursed.
“We don’t know who they are or what they are yet. But I’m armed. I won’t let them take us without a fight.”
“A fight? Really, Major?” Godfred was whispering in a furious voice. “We’re on their ship and you’re one man. I think they have the advantage.”
“Maybe so,” Le Croix said.
“I order you to stand down.”
“I can’t do that, sir.”
“Yes, you can, Major. I won’t be killed in the crossfire just to prove your masculinity.”
“Sir, if they take us alive, they’ll probably torture us for information,” Le Croix said. “It’s better to go out fighting.”
“I prefer not to go out at all. I’m the heir to the Imperium, Major. I have a responsibility to survive.”
Le Croix wanted to hit the pompous prince. He had no idea what he was saying. The aliens wouldn’t recognize him as anything other than a way to get what they wanted. The prince, royal heir or not, wasn’t worth the galaxy in Le Croix’s mind. He was just about to say as much when a light came on in the hanger. Le Croix pushed Prince Godfred down and thumbed off the safety on his assault rifle.
“Stop,” Godfred hissed. “That’s an order.”
The door slid open and Le Croix started to raise his weapon, but the prince grabbed the barrel and held it down. Six figures entered the room. They were upright bipeds, almost human in what Le Croix guessed was their natural physiology. But all six of the aliens had implants and prosthetics in place of arms and legs. They carried the same strange-looking axes that were carried by the aliens who Le Croix had killed in the transport. And they all wore headdresses with writhing tentacles that made them look like figures from a horror movie.
“We surrender,” Prince Godfred said, standing up. “Don’t shoot.”
One of the aliens said something that sounded like a growling bark. The others moved forward. Le Croix’s hands were shaking as they took his weapons.
“We are cooperating,” Prince Godfred said, only to be bashed in the side of the head by one of the aliens.
The crown prince of the Royal Imperium dropped to the deck, and Le Croix reacted instinctively. His left elbow came up in a lightning-fast strike that smashed into the face of the nearest alien. The heavily built figure fell back into one of his companions. Le Croix heard a trilling squeal as he drew his combat knife and spun around, slashing the blade toward the face of the alien who had hit the prince. The alien dodged back but lost several tendrils from his headpiece.
From Le Croix’s other side, an alien struck with his ax. He didn’t chop into Le Croix but thrust the weapon straight at him in a strong, but nonlethal blow. Le Croix’s armor protected his body, but he was knocked off balance and staggered into the emergency pod from the transport. Another alien tried to hit the major, who ducked under the blow and slashed his knife across the alien’s midriff. Dark-blue blood poured from the wound, and the alien roared in pain.
Before Le Croix could do more damage, one alien grabbed his arm high enough to avoid the knife and with a grip strong enough that he couldn’t break free. Another of the strange beings grabbed his free arm. The aliens pulled his arms hard away from his body. Le Croix felt the tendons in his shoulders stretch. If he hadn’t lost his legs, he might have kicked out, but with his prosthetics, he wasn’t stable enough.
The alien with severed tendrils raised his ax and slammed the flat part of the blade into the side of Le Croix’s battle helmet. The armor absorbed most of the kinetic energy, and Le Croix didn’t lose consciousness, but his face shield cracked and oxygen hissed. The HUD flickered out, and Le Croix saw sparks of light floating in his vision.
A second blow from the alien was to Le Croix’s stomach. It knocked the breath from his lungs. His legs buckled and the aliens let him fall to the deck, gasping for air. One snatched his knife, and another looped a flat strap around him. They cinched the strap tight and began to drag him away.
Chapter 27
“Can you fix it?” General Pershing asked.
“Yeah, I think so,” Ben replied. He was looking at the broken fragments of the wave generator.
The chip board was broken, but the microcomponents were intact. Moving them wouldn’t be easy. And he would have to replicate the chip exactly to ensure it worked the same way, but it was possible.
“Get started on it,” the general ordered. “We’ll be back in the Celeste system soon.”
“Forty-seven minutes,” Nance said without looking up from her console.
“And what good will going back do?” Duke Simeon asked. “The pod will have used its entire oxygen supply.”
“You aren’t counting the residual air inside,” Queen Ultane said. “Whoever is in that last pod might still survive.”
“Wishful thinking,” Duke Simeon snapped.
Kim got up from her pilot’s seat. “I’ll be back. I just need to stretch my legs.”
Ben hesitated at the stairs that led down to the cargo hold. Kim gave him a short nod.
“Have you no shame?” the queen demanded. “You are talking about your sovereign king.”
“You’re talking about impossibilities,” Simeon replied. “Face it. You’re grasping at the final threads of power, but your reign is over.”
“How dare you?” the queen replied. If looks could kill, the duke would have been vaporized on the spot.
“Enough,” General Pershing said in a soothing voice. “The die is cast. Now we must prepare for whatever we can find in the Celeste system.”
“Easy for her to say,” Kim whispered to Ben as they started down the stairs. “All she does is sit back and give orders.”
“I don’t think the general is the type to shy away from danger,” Ben said. “But going back now is insane.”
They walked into the engineering bay, and Ben carefully placed the broken parts of the wave generator on his workbench. Then he glanced
at the power reading on the auxiliary battery power bank.
“Is it recharging?” Kim asked.
“Yeah, but it won’t be fully charged for hours.”
“So, no lasers?”
“No lasers and probably no shield,” Ben said.
“That’s okay, I’ll keep us alive to fight another day.”
“How did we get dragged into a war?”
“We kind of started it,” Kim said as she wrapped her arms around Ben. He held her close, and she closed her eyes.
“At least it’s not a shooting war,” she continued.
“For now,” Ben said. “What are the odds it stays that way?”
“It’s scary,” Kim said. “I mean, when we fought the Imperium, we knew who we were up against. They had better tech, but we knew it and knew what to expect.”
“I know,” Ben said.
“But now we don’t know. I just wish we could run away from it all.”
“You can’t outrun your problems,” Ben said.
“We don’t have to fly right in the face of them either,” Kim said. “I wish we had another gravity rocket that would destroy the aliens and close the wormhole.”
“I wish it were that easy too,” Ben said. “Want to stick around while I start working on fixing the wave generator?”
“No,” Kim said. “I need to be back on the bridge. I just needed a break from the stress of it all, you know? I love flying, but dogfighting with capital ships isn’t my cup of tea.”
“You’re good at it, though,” Ben said. “We’d have been captured or killed long ago if not for you. I doubt anyone else could have gotten us off Torrent Four the way you did.”
“We came so close to buying it when the Security Forces fired those missiles at us,” Kim said, thinking of their first encounter with the rebels of the Confederacy of Free Planets. “Seems like we’ve been one step ahead of death ever since.”
“Well, let’s keep it that way. Or maybe gain a little ground.”
“Things won’t ever be the same, though,” Kim said, leaning against the workbench while Ben settled on his padded stool and turned on the work lights.
“I guess not,” he replied.
“It’s like we’ve opened Pandora’s box,” Kim said. “Everything we do to survive only seems to make things worse.”
“We don’t know that,” Ben said. “And don’t forget we didn’t invite the aliens to come here and start a war. That was their decision.”
“But we opened the door,” Kim said. “And how many people will die because we did. God, how many have died already?”
“True, but what should we have done?” Ben replied. “If we had surrendered, or even fought a little less frantically in an attempt to survive, that doesn’t mean that things would be better. Things were pretty bad to begin with.”
“It’s just hard to imagine it,” Kim said. “We lived it on Torrent Four, but now that we’re up here, it seems impossible that things could be that bad all over.”
“We’ve seen terrible things,” Ben said. “Even in good places, like Mersa Prime, the Imperium was doing things that were evil. I don’t think the situation is worse, just different.”
“Really?” Kim said. “You believe that.”
“Yes, I do,” Ben said. “The rebellion was never going to defeat the Imperium. And the atrocities were only going to get worse. Maybe this new threat will wake everyone up and stop the terrible things we were doing to each other.”
“I hope you’re right,” Kim said.
She leaned in and kissed his cheek, sending chills down his spine. He wanted to stop what he was doing and take Kim in his arms. He wanted to kiss her long and hard, to forget their troubles and just be together, but he couldn’t. He had made a bargain and they were headed into a dangerous system.
“That’s nice,” he said.
“You like that?” Kim replied. “There’s more where that came from.”
“Once we get a break, I’m picking up right there and seeing where things go,” he promised.
“Oooh, now I have something to live for.”
The smile she gave him was so dazzling, he felt a pang of longing deep inside him. He wanted to make her so happy that she smiled that way all the time.
“I’ll see you back on the bridge,” Kim said.
“Okay,” Ben replied.
She left the engineering bay and Ben looked around. The old ship seemed a bit darker and colder without Kim at his side. Still, the Kestrel class vessel had been reliable. It had taken them across the galaxy, into a new one, and back again. It had carried them through black holes and across enemy lines. His affection for the old ship seemed to grow with each mission.
In the rec room, he could hear the commandos talking as the cables stretched and the power rods bent on the exercise equipment. Ben wondered if they had even known how close to being captured the Echo had come? Did they care? There was nothing they could do to help fly the ship, so maybe it was better not knowing.
Ben thought of all the people who didn’t know about the aliens. There were humans on a thousand worlds, and most had no idea what was happening in the Celeste system, or that the doorway that had been opened to a new galaxy might destroy everything they knew. He envied their ignorance just a little and wished he had just one more day of leisure with Kim without the weight of the galaxy on their shoulders.
He had meant what he said to her, but he felt guilt and shame over their actions. There was a bit of separation from the deaths on the Imperium ships and the Fleet HQ. They were caused by his actions and decisions, but he’d seen them on a screen as ships were destroyed. There were no faces to haunt his dreams, but the knowledge of what had happened weighed on his mind.
Looking down at the broken device in his hands, Ben realized he couldn’t change the past. The blame could be laid at his feet, and perhaps if he could go back and do things over, he might do them differently. But Ben wasn’t the type of person to get stuck focusing on things he couldn’t control, especially when there were things he could make better right at his fingertips. He pulled a magnifier on an articulating arm over and positioned it above the broken pieces of the wave generator. Using a small knife, he broke open the housing to the component, then carefully laid the pieces of the microchip together like a puzzle.
There was a beauty in the logic of the wave generator. Like most mechanical things Ben worked on, it seemed to speak to him. He took a quick photo of the chip, then began the tedious process of removing the microcomponents from the silicon wafer board.
“Ben, we’re ten minutes out from the Celeste system,” Nance said over the com-link.
He tapped the button on his collar. “Thanks, Nance.”
“What’s the status on that shielding?” General Pershing asked.
“It’s fixable,” Ben said. “But not before we reach the system.”
“Very well. I want you on the bridge when we drop out of hyperspace.”
“Okay, General. I’ll be up in a minute,” Ben said.
He looked over at the doors that led to the recreation area. The commandos sounded as if they didn’t have a care in the world. He wanted to tell them that they might be dead or prisoners in the next ten minutes, but he decided not to. If they only had ten more minutes, better to spend it having fun than worrying. The truth was, Ben had no idea what was waiting for them in the Celeste system or beyond the wormhole. And maybe, he thought to himself, it was better not knowing.
Chapter 28
The landing craft settled in a clearing on the planet Gershwin. Grubat had no idea it was the home world of the Royal Imperium leadership, or that the pristine planet had been carefully tended over the last century to be the perfect playground for the royal family.
There was only one city on the planet, and he had intentionally ordered his landing craft to land far away from the metropolis. Instead, they landed in what appeared to be raw wilderness. Grubat had watched from behind the pilot’s seat. His landing craft’s windows
took in the beauty of the world.
“Give me the results of the scan,” Grubat ordered.
“Atmosphere is safe, if a little heavy with oxygen. Perfectly breathable,” the Yarl who had flown the landing craft said. “Gravity is .95 Krah standard. Temperature is seventy-two degrees on the Struhabin scale.”
Grubat grunted in reply. The truth was he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. A young, ripe world laid at his feet. It was undefended and unspoiled. The city, which was on the opposite side of the planet, could be easily overthrown and repurposed. His people could thrive here, Grubat thought.
“What of the star’s solar radiation?” Grubat inquired.
“Some UV light, but most is reflected by the rich atmosphere, Chieftain,” the pilot said.
“Open the hatch,” Grubat ordered.
He turned toward the door on the side of the landing craft. It opened with a hiss of compressed air and the hum of electric servos. Grubat let his headdress tendrils spread wide, sampling the strange air of the planet. He could feel the humidity and smell the wide variety of flora. It was a heady sensation. Nearly every star in his own galaxy had planetary bodies, but most were barren rock or gas giants. The few that could sustain life-forms had poor conditions for the Krah. They had become an empire of outposts, space stations, and garrisons among the slaves of a thousand worlds, with no place to call their own. As Grubat walked down the ramp from the landing craft and onto the soft soil of Gershwin, he realized he had found their new home.
He bent low and ran his hand through the wild grass. It was soft and green, rising up from rich, dark soil. A flock of birds flew by overhead, chirping happily as they went. Grubat rose back up and walked across the open field, his prosthetic legs whirring with each step. He came to a tree, tall and sturdy. He touched the bark of the tree and felt the strength it contained. The tendrils stood out around his head from his headdress like the rays of a brilliant star, drinking in the rich and wonderful atmosphere of the verdant world.
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