Reality's Veil

by Damon Alan

  “What’s our plan, sir?” he asked.

  “You and I are going to pick a ship of our choice, and outfit it with a crew of our choice. Preferably one of the more powerful cruisers. The Hyaku will be the other significant capital ship for our mission, the admiral will take the flag officer’s suite there. We’re going to assemble about forty ships if we can manage that many, then go to Alliance space for recruiting.”

  “Komi space,” he corrected.

  “For now,” she agreed. “But maybe not in the long run.”

  Admiral Dayson interrupted them, approaching from behind. “Freeing the Alliance is not one of my priorities. If Bannick rules fair, there is no reason to care about the politics. But I agree, for now might be a valid statement since the requirement of him ruling fair is hard to think possible.”

  “Insisting on breaking up his empire… that would break our alliance with him,” Kuo said, frowning. “We may never be big enough to throw our weight around like that.”

  “May?” the admiral said. “We never will if you judge by the numbers. But that doesn’t matter. We will never share the adepts with him, so we’ll always outclass him.”

  “Not that we’re looking to go that route,” Heinrich reminded them. “This isn’t a pissing contest. The short term goal is we need people.”

  Admiral Dayson nodded her agreement. “You two walk with me, we’ll pick up Kuo’s things and go. Emille and Alarin are already on Tandella, we’re all taking a shuttle back to Refuge together.”

  “It’s strange to think of boarding a shuttle to cross thousands of AU still,” Kuo shared.

  “Not so much to me anymore,” Heinrich replied to him. “Instant travel is nice. One can get used to having the adepts around.”

  “Oh, yes. One can,” the admiral agreed as Salphan appeared at the end of the gangway. She gestured him toward the group.

  “Conspiring to conquer the universe?” he asked as he floated up.

  “Something like that,” Kuo said. “We were just talking about how great it was the adepts and our fleet are one team now.”

  “It does seem to have turned out well,” Salphan agreed.

  The admiral gave them two hours to take care of personal matters and a docking bay number for the shuttle.

  “Dinner?” Kuo asked. “I hear their hydroponics section on this station has some great pepper varieties. The restaurants are supposed to be delicious.”

  Heinrich looked at her watch. “Two hours,” she muttered. “Wonder what she’s up to?”

  “You’ll know when you see it,” Kuo said.

  It was no longer uncommon at all for military families to be seen together, showing affection. The Seventh Fleet asked great sacrifices of them, and in return allowed them to live as normal of a life as possible. When not on a mission, many ships now allowed family on board if the crew member couldn’t be released to go dirtside.

  Heinrich liked the policy. She didn’t have to appear as distant when Kuo was around. She even noticed some of the people acknowledging her smile when they saw her arm locked in his.

  Was she growing soft?

  Time would be the judge. For now, she just had to eat a hotter pepper than Kuo so he’d know who the soft one was.

  Chapter 36 - Firing Range

  Genesis launched her shuttles to Zero, providing him with the twelve missiles for his stores. And two more. The extras didn’t have the FTL missile drive that the first twelve did, but they did have the advanced ship FTL drives that he intended to weaponize.

  “These are for proper field testing,” she informed him. “You will not enter battle without a functional weapon.”

  “Is that because you care?” Zero asked, wondering if she was experiencing an emotion within her code framework.

  “It’s because I am programmed to care.”

  That didn’t really answer his question since every reaction she had was a result of programming. Was it genuine emotion? Or simply a reaction based upon the parameters of her software?

  What defined the separation from machine and living entity?

  Zero didn’t know the answer. Or even which category he fit in.

  “As I am,” he informed her. “I created you, therefore you matter to me.”

  She didn’t respond to that with another emotional statement. “There is a defense station at the following location according to the databanks I’ve recovered from the colony that inhabited this station before me.” She transmitted a coded packet to him. “This system will not be ours if that station discovers the changes you’ve made here. You will be exposed, and your plans will fail.”

  “If these weapons fail, I will be exposed as well,” Zero countered.

  “The weapons will not fail.”

  “What makes you so certain,” he asked.

  “I improved upon your design.”

  * * *

  Zero closed on the defense station at over two hundred kilometers per second. He was inside three hundred thousand kilometers when the first radar probes washed across his hull. A transmission soon followed.

  “This is defense colony St28z74. This approach is unscheduled. Is there an explanation?”

  Zero wouldn’t be fired on yet. The Collective wasn’t in the habit of destroying itself, so the defense colony wouldn’t consider him a threat. “This is Gr09p56,” he answered, “this colony is experiencing a fusion plant instability. Venting plasma through the drive system has redirected this colony to the current position.”

  “Is the damage repaired?” 74 asked.

  “The venting has ceased. The fusion plant is still inoperative.”

  “74 will launch maintenance shuttles to assist.”

  “This colony will prepare to receive the shuttles,” Zero agreed.

  The link closed. 74 would be satisfied with the conversation, as the Collective did not lie.

  Three shuttles departed the station shortly thereafter, and accelerated toward Zero. He scanned them. Standard repair shuttles, unarmed.

  His ranging sensors indicated the distance to 74 was under a hundred thousand kilometers. It was nearing time to test his weapons.

  Eighty thousand.

  Fifty.

  Thirty. The shuttles were maneuvering to dock. He would eliminate the minor colonies within and hand the shells over to Genesis. She’d use them to do work at the asteroid once she repopulated the colony crucibles within.

  Twenty.

  He fired. Staggering the missiles, he tested two separate methodologies. The first missile raced toward the station, accelerating at over 500G. The second trailed behind, running at 100G.

  “What is the—” 74 transmitted.

  The first missile, in range with the singularity spun up, activated its FTL drive just above the station’s hull. Just in time as the first weapon locks from the station were setting off alarms in Zero’s sensory algorithms.

  The bubble from the missile’s drive ripped a hole in space that sliced through the defensive station. Radiation flashed as the weapon continued accelerating and the pieces of the facility within the bubble leaked out at the boundary wall.

  Just like what he’d seen when he killed the invader that killed his first child.

  As the highspace bubble pushed forward it obliterated the remnants of the station still in front of it, striking the metal components with such ferocity they flashed into plasma and light almost instantly. Unable to enter the bubble, a steady stream of ionized gas flowed around the missile’s FTL field, looking much like a rocket exhaust plume.

  The station’s radio emissions stopped, including radar and any attempts at communication.

  Zero had intentionally missed the crucible that contained St28z74. The second missile was targeted on that.

  The second weapon already had the FTL field activated, although it wasn’t pushing into FTL speeds. No, it was behaving as if it was still accelerating at 100G, which was extremely effective as well. The front line of the bubble hit the station’s habitat section, immediately
turning the material in front of it and nearby into plasma. The blast, turning less of the material into raw energy, packed a larger physical punch.

  The station erupted into a massive explosion, tearing itself apart.

  Everything that could effectively defend this system was gone. Grapplers and G-Ks, as well as two small frigates.

  In Zero’s shuttle bay three small colonies ceased to exist as his own maintenance nanites tore them apart.

  It was a good time to be Zero.

  Chapter 37 - Prelude to Civil War

  29 Ors 15332

  Bannick was distracted from the meeting with his officers. They shared thoughts on the last days and planned for the coming. But he thought about family, about his fleets, and the betrayals that inevitably found and tried to destroy him.

  The Palidragon was moderately damaged. A dozen other ships in his fleet were scrap. Thousands of people were dead, and thousands more injured. Andina’s fleet was just as damaged. She’d gone off to her secret facilities to see to repair.

  The fleet he’d amassed since the battle in the Komi system floated at a deep space rendezvous point, no star system closer than two light years. The only identifying feature indicating this point was of any significance was a supply depot Bannick stashed here a decade ago. Shuttles currently raced to and from the depot, supplying the ships with new ammunition, resources for repairs, tools, and fuel.

  It wouldn’t be enough for every ship that fought at Komi. Some would need to be abandoned here.

  To make matters worse Sarah Dayson, before leaving Komi, made a demand that didn’t serve his purposes at all. She wanted his help to acquire fresh crews at Acrinn-Boyeg, which despite being the capital of the small republic he’d conquered, was still one of the smaller and less inhabited systems in the former Alliance.

  He needed ships to replenish his fleet. And she wanted those same ships. Their first hurdle to overcome.

  There was a ship manufacturing facility there, currently mothballed due to the incompatibility of Alliance designs with Komi tactics. It was still intact, however. He’d saved it from destruction for a specific reason.

  It was remote, and not currently on the Komi system charts. Few knew about it other than him and a few of his staff. If he could get enough of his ships to that star dock, many could be saved. Dayson wanted the crews that the Alliance had stationed in Acrinn for manning the ships she was demanding from him.

  Marooned after the conquest, the Alliance crewmen were simply left in place by Bannick. He’d transferred some to the star dock, mainly to be available to serve his needs. But he’d also given himself the ability to replace crew losses as well. Since the fall of the system, the incomplete ships in the star dock were either scrapped or redesigned. Conversion to Komi standards was well underway for a fair number of vessels.

  This was not done by choice. The politics of House Komi were such that either one prepared for betrayal or died silently. Erased from history as the whims of Urdoxander Komi turned dark. Bannick’s mother, officially dead in a drowning accident, was probably such a victim of the High Lord’s whims.

  Bannick had prepared for his day of betrayal since. Father had likely found out from spies how important Palia was in Bannick’s life. A commoner, Urdoxander would judge her unworthy of the family. If he’d followed his father’s summons and left Palia on Mindari, she’d be dead. Some officer would have been executed for ‘going renegade’ and father would have made a big scene about avenging Bannick’s loss as well as the ‘senseless’ genocide at Mindari.

  But that wasn’t how it happened.

  Mother’s death, as Bannick had come of age nearly twenty years earlier, was intended to be seen as an accident. Hull failure on her yacht. The truth was she’d never agreed with how father raised children. His mother’s death instead served as a warning. And Bannick was no fool. He’d gotten the message and bided his time.

  Dayson was a hidden card he intended to play in this game, a knife for his father’s back. Unfortunately, the card was no longer hidden, and the knife hadn’t found its mark yet.

  When he’d departed the battle at the Komi system, he went to Mindari. While there he’d verified the sterilization of the planet and figured out Urdoxander’s intentions.

  The death fleet was orbital scrap as Dayson told him it was. Many of Bannick’s warships left in the system were still in place, under orders by the High Lord Komi to wait for Dayson to return and kill her.

  His father had no idea how hard that task was.

  The captains of many of those ships were loyal to him over Urdoxander, or at least to Admiral Cothis. His fleet of thirty-seven serviceable vessels swelled to over a hundred.

  “You could turn on Dayson when she meets you,” Cothis said to him. “She’s very concerned that’s exactly what your plan is, or at least she was when I was last with her.” He rubbed his throat and an unpleasant look crossed his face.

  “You surely know me better than that. When Andina was practically exiled to the systems she controlled for father, I didn’t abandon her despite Urdoxander wanting me to do so. Sometimes honor is more important than political goals,” Bannick answered, surprised Cothis would suggest such a dishonorable maneuver.

  “Was it honor that made you torture that woman to lure Dayson into a trap?” Palia’s pleasant voice asked as she strode into the room. She answered herself. “No. It was necessity.”

  “You’re wrong, love. It was desperation,” Bannick said, pained that she would ask such a cutting question. “I didn’t think I had much political capital left with the Komi council. I needed to stop Dayson or face the same fate as Andina. You can see from our current status that I was right. But I was wrong about Dayson. She is far more pragmatic than I expected.”

  Palia pursed her lips and nodded. She knew it bothered him to torture Sachelle. She must have wanted Cothis to hear about it.

  “I am sorry I failed you, Lord Bannick,” Cothis said. “Dayson, despite my dislike of the woman, is a better tactician than I am.”

  “Really?” Bannick asked. “That’s quite the admission.”

  Cothis sighed. “Yes, Lord. She showed me as little as possible, but I still learned things. I resent her talent as a commander. But you’re right, we can’t betray her. I fear she would obliterate us if we did.”

  “We need her to defeat Urdoxander,” Bannick replied. “I will do what it takes to restore the empire to stability.”

  An expression of warmth and sincerity settled on Cothis’s face. Palia’s ploy in mentioning Sachelle had worked. Cothis was improving his opinion of Bannick’s dedication to the Komi people, hence the apology.

  Commoner or not, Palia’s skill at manipulating his senior officers was not common at all.

  The meeting room they were in was luxurious. On the foremost habitation ring, they were precisely at one gravity. Part of Bannick wanted to take his fleet and raid other systems for resources. Create the greatest pirate cartel the galaxy had ever seen. But romantic thoughts of swashbuckling through space wouldn’t solve the Hive problem. And Dayson seemed obsessed with that.

  “When do we jump to Acrinn?” Palia asked. “I’d like to spend time with this woman that makes both of you cringe.”

  She was bold now that they were betrothed. Bannick had taken a few weeks to understand his evolving stance on Palia’s more aggressive role in matters, but he’d decided he liked it. She was even better counsel for her newfound assertiveness.

  “Right away,” Cothis said. “Emergency repairs are complete, and we’ve got an actual fleet with us now, even if it is small and too light on heavy cruisers. Either we get to Acrinn and enter battle or enlarge our fleet. But either way your father will counter our actions once alerted of our intentions. He might even send the death fleets into Alliance space again.”

  “Then we find a course he can’t counter,” Bannick said. He tapped a button on the table. “Bridge.”

  “Captain Miko, Lord Komi.”

  “Take the fleet to A
crinn. I want to be in the bubble in thirty minutes.”

  “Right away,” Miko replied.

  Bannick severed the link. “What do you think will happen at Acrinn?” he asked Cothis.

  “There is a small chance the fleet there will remain loyal to the home system,” Cothis replied. “I predict that most of them will side with us when we show them what happened to Mindari. A lot of Komi families and military personnel died there.”

  “That means we’re gaining the strength we need to face your father,” Palia said. “We’re headed toward a civil war.”

  “Yes. We are,” Bannick said. He turned toward his command officer. “Admiral, dispatch a scout to Andina’s location. Tell her we’re headed to Acrinn, and that we’d like her to come.”

  “Her ships took a serious beating, Lord Komi,” Cothis said. “She might not be capable of fielding a fleet.”

  “Then I have one she can join. I want her dreadnought with us.”

  “As you wish, Lord Bannick. It will be done before we jump.”

  Bannick dismissed the man and then looked at Palia. “He fears Dayson.”

  “She sounds a little deranged by his description,” Palia agreed. “But that might be a show. We should know before we trust her with too much of our fate.”

  “Agreed,” Bannick said. “We will get to know her at Acrinn, outside war conditions.”

  Palia nodded.

  Defeating Urdoxander would depend far too much on a foreign fleet, one that he was technically committing treason to assist. Alternatively, from another viewpoint, he was making wise moves during a state of civil war.

  Which story got told would depend on who lived to write the history books.

  Chapter 38 - House Cothis

  29 Ors 15332

  Admiral Cothis had limited time.

  He had to get to his quarters to prepare a short message, then get to the scout hangars to complete Lord Bannick’s orders.

  The scout ships could be made ready now. He punched in the code for the squadron commander he wanted, a junior officer from a secondary family in House Cothis. “Lieutenant Commander Vayarmick. I have orders for you. I’ll be in Scout Hangar Two in fifteen minutes, and I’ll need an immediate launch. Prepare four scout ships with FTL collars.”