Ethan began nodding. “I’d love to.”
“Good,” Atton nodded, and with that he turned to leave. Ethan reluctantly followed.
As they were leaving, Alara’s father called out: “What is she to you, pilot?”
Ethan turned to look back over his shoulder with a small, sad smile. “Everything.”
The old man held Ethan’s gaze for a long moment, his pale blue eyes glittering, his lips trembling, and then he gave a decisive nod. No further words were needed.
Ethan turned and followed his son back to the lift tubes. Once there, Atton punched the call button and the lift tube nearest to them promptly opened.
“I have one more secret to share with you, Ethan,” Atton said as the doors closed behind them.
Ethan looked deeply troubled, and it took a while for his ears to register what Atton had said. Once they did, he turned and raised an eyebrow at his son. “Oh?”
Atton selected the bridge as their destination, and he turned to Ethan, his eyes glittering in the light of passing glow panels as the transpiranium lift tube rose swiftly through the ship on its way to the bridge. “We’re not alone.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that Dark Space is not the only human enclave that survived the war, and humans were not the first race that the Sythians conquered.”
Ethan shook his head, blinking rapidly. “That’s not possible.”
The lift tube opened and Atton led the way back to his office. He nodded to his guards before passing through the doors and promptly locking them behind him and Ethan. With a subtle shimmer, the overlord’s wizened features morphed into the young, handsome face of Ethan’s son.
“Why is it not possible?” Atton finally replied. “Can there be only one sentient race per galaxy? The Getties Cluster was teeming with life. When we sent out ships to explore that galaxy, we encountered another race that was subjugated by the Sythians. They’re still alive, and numerous, but little more than Sythian slaves. They don’t have a lot of technology of their own, but they are fast learners, and they are filling our ships faster than we can salvage them. We are at war again, Ethan. The war never actually ended. We need to get the Valiant back to help fight that war before Brondi declares himself king and warlord of Dark Space, effectively cutting us off from our supply lines.”
“What ...” Ethan’s brow furrowed. “What are they like?”
“The others?” Atton asked with a smile. “They’re like nothing you’ve ever seen or imagined, Ethan, and they are the secret to defeating the Sythians.”
“I don’t understand,” Ethan said. “If they can defeat the Sythians, why haven’t they? You said they’re slaves.”
“They’re more powerful than they know. Would you like to meet one of them? One of the Gors? They’re going to help us take back the Valiant in ways that you’ve never even imagined possible.”
Ethan nodded slowly. “Any enemy of Brondi’s is a friend of mine.”
Atton’s smile broadened, and he turned to the wall of his office. With a swiping gesture, he made a section of the wall collapse against the floor, revealing a shadowy corridor with a lift tube waiting at the end.
“Come with me,” Atton said, already starting down the corridor. “And prepare to be amazed.”
DARK SPACE II:
The Invisible War
(3rd Edition)
by Jasper T. Scott
http://www.JasperTscott.com
@JasperTscott
Copyright © 2013 by Jasper T. Scott
THE AUTHOR RETAINS ALL RIGHTS
FOR THIS BOOK
Reproduction or transmission of this book, in whole or in part, by electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or by any other means is strictly prohibited, except with prior written permission from the author. You may direct your inquiries to [email protected]
Cover design by Jasper T. Scott
This book is a work of fiction. All names, places, and incidents described are products of the writer’s imagination and any resemblance to real people or life events is purely coincidental.
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to my family, friends, and my beautiful wife, all of whom believed in me and encouraged me even when I would have rather stuck my head in the sand. You all made the journey worth the effort. And a special thanks to my team of editors—Dascha Paylor, Ian Jedlica, Peter Hughes, Daniel Eloff, Mike Murphy, Iain Gold, Ian Seccombe, Brian Cross, Richard Hiscutt, Brandon Worth, John Rowles, Gary Wilson, Carmen Romano, Tony Wilsenham, Jay Gehringer, Damon Trent, Greg Blake, Rob Dobozy, Aslak Normann, Alan Sharkey, Bob Carciofini, and Doug Bittinger.
To those who dare,
And to those who dream.
To everyone who’s stronger than they seem.
“Believe in me /
I know you’ve waited for so long /
Believe in me /
Sometimes the weak become the strong”
—STAIND, Believe
Prologue
The mountains formed a jagged white and gray line, illuminated against the horizon by the miners’ floodlights. Snow fell in driving sheets to pile on the shiny gray tarmac, where it quickly melted and ran into shallow pools that reflected stolen scraps of the midnight sky. Roka City’s air raid sirens wailed, reminding everyone that there wasn’t much time, but even so, crowds of screaming people were pressing against the sorry line of sentinels and mechs who guarded the simple wire fence behind Destra. She was waiting on the other side of the fence—the safe side—but now she cast a worried glance over her shoulder to the raging crowds, and squeezed Atton’s small hand a little tighter.
“Why are they so angry?” Atton asked, following her gaze to the fence.
Destra smiled down at her seven-year-old son, and he looked up at her with his bright green eyes—her husband, Ethan’s eyes. “Because they don’t get to go for a ride on the spaceship,” she said, and tousled his hair.
As they watched, the twin beams of a military hover transport’s headlights appeared in the distance, illuminating great swaths of the falling snow. Then a megaphone blared, sounding out even above the wailing sirens: “Disperse, and proceed in an orderly fashion to the nearest mine shuttle!”
Everyone should have evacuated to the mines already, but the smart ones knew that wouldn’t save them. It would only buy them time, and maybe not very much of it. The crowd turned to the approaching transport with a collective roar. They were not going to leave peacefully. Destra caught a glimpse of a little boy with blond hair clutching the fence and staring hopelessly at her. The boy’s mother saw Destra staring and pointed at her. “Hoi! Why’s she get to go?” the woman screamed.
Destra’s mouth quirked up in a bitter smile. That woman didn’t realize how wrong she was. Destra wasn’t going anywhere. The transport was already overfull. She turned away, sickened, and tugged on Atton’s hand for him to turn away, too.
Atton’s eyes were wide. He was squeezing her hand so tight it felt like an overripe piece of fruit in his grasp. She could feel the blood throbbing at the edges of his grip, trying to escape. It was going to be hard to pry him loose when the time came—and even harder to pry herself loose. Destra turned to study her son with a wan smile. He clutched Tibby, his favorite stuffed animal, to his chest. It was a diger, a furry white feline from the ice-covered oceans and the steaming, snow-dusted magma fields of Ossus. Atton loved that fuzzy caricature of a deadly predator.
Destra looked away. Something wet graced her cheek, but it wasn’t a snowflake—they were standing safely under the eaves of the spaceport control tower. Destra Ortane looked up, holding a hand to her brow to shield her eyes from the spaceport’s landing lights. She searched the swirling darkness for the telltale streak of light which would signify a ship entering Roka’s upper atmosphere. There were supposed to be a pair of seraphim-class corvettes coming to escort the last transport off Roka IV, but so far there was nothing. Either they were late, or . . .
Destra didn’t want t
o finish that thought. The battle was not going well. The Roka system was defended by more than a dozen capital-class vessels, but it was not nearly enough to repel an invasion which numbered over 100 strong.
The spaceport began roaring with the sound of the transport’s grav lifts, drawing Destra’s attention back to the ground. She turned to study the blocky freighter. Her eyes skipped over the scoured white paint and found the faded and peeling gold symbol of the Imperium—six stars surrounding a clenched fist. It was a symbol of strength and security, but in times like these, the peeling paint and faded colors of that emblem were far more symbolic. These were the Imperium’s last days. Roka IV would be one of the last worlds to fall, but fall it would, and Destra held no illusions about what would happen to her and everyone else who was left behind when it did. The Sythians took no hostages and they never left any survivors.
Destra chewed her lower lip, hoping against hope that the transport would survive. It was just a hastily-converted ore freighter. It had never been meant to fly into the middle of a war. Maybe the Sythians wouldn’t notice it amidst all the chaos. The transport contained all of the remaining evacuees from Roka City—more than six thousand corporate execs, government officials, and fleet officers. Just the important people, mind you. Grubs like her didn’t make the cut, but Atton . . . Atton was another matter. He was easy to miss, easy to smuggle in, and Destra was lucky—her uncle was Captain Riechland, XO aboard the mighty Valiant, flagship of the First Fleet, and he’d been on Roka when the invasion had begun. Now Captain Reichland was flying back to his command, back to the war. The supreme overlord had ordered an all-systems, fleet-wide strategic regrouping.
Destra snorted. She knew what that really meant. It meant they were being abandoned. Soon the regrouped remnant of the fleet would be all that was left of humanity, and if that remnant kept fighting the inevitable, not even they would survive. Destra wouldn’t have believed her son better off with her uncle aboard the Valiant, but for one small piece of privileged information which her uncle had shared: the fleet rendezvous was in Dark Space. No one officially knew where that was, save that it was a place of exile for criminals, and that there was only one way in or out of the sector. Her uncle had explained that decision to her—the overlord had no intention of coming back to fight the war. The war was over. This was a full-scale retreat, and all of the people who were too rich and powerful to accept defeat had decided they’d rather hide in a den of criminals than die in their beds.
Destra would have chosen the same had she qualified to join them, especially since she’d been planning to go to Dark Space anyway—though hers were more personal reasons. Unlike everyone else, she already knew where Dark Space was. All she needed was a transport to get there, but it didn’t look like the Sythians were going to leave enough scattered pieces in the entire galaxy to assemble a single working ship. That meant she’d never see Ethan again, but at least Atton would survive. He would make it to Dark Space, and Immortals willing, some day he might even find his father there.
Destra’s thoughts were interrupted as the hover transport flew over the fence, rattling the chain links with its passing before sailing over their heads to settle down a few dozen meters to their right. She gave her son’s arm a tug, and he followed her out from under the eaves without complaint, sticking to her like glue. The driving snow began landing in their hair and on their clothes, soaking them in seconds. A frigid wind blew, sending shivers through them, and Atton began to cry.
“I’m cold!”
“Atton!”
“I want to go home!”
Destra stopped walking and bent down to give him a fierce hug. “Atton, listen to me! You can’t go home. You’re going with your uncle on the spaceship, remember?”
She withdrew far enough to see little Atton bob his head, his eyes downcast as he picked snowflakes out of Tibby’s white fur. “I remember,” he sniffed. “You’re coming with us, right?”
Destra winced and smiled. Tears sparkled in her eyes. “Yes, darling, but not yet. You’ll have to wait for me, okay?”
Atton’s lips twisted into a deep frown, and he shook his head. “Tibby needs you to come now!”
Destra’s smile broadened and tears began trembling on her eyelashes. She blinked them away and shook her head. “You tell Tibby I need him, too, okay? But we don’t have a choice. I’ll catch up with you later,” Destra said, standing. She almost choked on the lie, but somehow she managed to smile and tousle the snowflakes out of Atton’s dark hair like nothing was amiss. They crossed the landing platform to the waiting hover transport. Atton was hugging his stuffed diger tighter now.
Just as they reached the transport, the doors swung open, and Captain Reichland stepped out in his gleaming black and white uniform. He crossed to Destra grimly and gave her a fierce hug.
“I wish it didn’t have to be this way,” he whispered in Destra’s ear.
“Me, too,” Destra whispered back, her tears falling to soak the captain’s snow-dusted shoulder.
“I’ll take good care of him.”
“You’d better,” she warned as they broke apart. She shot him a broken smile and shook a finger in his face. “Or I’ll hunt you down and feed you to the Sythians myself.”
“I don’t doubt it for a second,” he said, holding her gaze.
“Hi, uncle,” Atton said softly.
The captain gazed down at him. “Hoi, kid, how do you feel about going for a ride?”
Destra looked at the transport again, a worried frown etched on her brow. It didn’t look like it stood much of a chance.
Destra turned back to her uncle, about to voice her doubt, but a sonic boom split the sky, interrupting her before she could say anything. All of them turned to see a pair of bright streaks sailing down through the dark clouds. Those streaks turned toward the spaceport, and began blinding them with their landing lights.
“That’s our ride,” Reichland said.
“I thought you were going in the transport?” Destra asked.
The captain turned to her. He held her gaze for a long moment, saying nothing, but looking like he wanted to. “Well—” He smiled; his lips curved briefly, but his eyes never crinkled. “—that changed,” he finished.
“But you’re still going to Dark Space?” she insisted.
“Yes, yes, of course—” The captain cast a worried glance behind him, to the waiting hover transport. He saw the doors opening and other officers stepping out and he turned back to her with a grimace.
Destra noted his expression with a frown. “What’s wrong?”
He shook his head and leaned close to whisper, “They’re not going to make it, Des.” He pulled away with a false smile as one of the other officers walked up to them.
“Ready to go, Captain?” the man asked.
Reichland nodded. “Just waiting for our escort to land, and we’ll be off,” he said. “You go ahead and board the transport. I’ll be riding in one of the corvettes.”
The other man hesitated, as if he understood what that meant, but then he nodded and offered a brisk salute. “Yes, sir.”
Once the other officers had left, Destra allowed the look of mortal dread she’d been suppressing to suffuse her features.
“Don’t worry,” Reichland said, stopping her with a shake of his head. “Des, I promise your son and I will make it. I’ll pilot the corvette myself.”
“But aren’t you supposed to escort the transport? Protect them? Fight?”
Reichland hesitated. “Des, it’s every man for himself right now. Our orders are to run with all possible speed, not to engage the enemy. That transport doesn’t stand a chance of making it out, and two corvettes aren’t going to change that. There are no heroes among the dead, just more bodies.”
“Keep Atton safe, that’s all I ask.”
Reichland nodded, and they turned to watch the lights of the approaching vessels. Destra identified them from a distance—two seraphim-class corvettes, as expected, but those vessels seemed too
small and fragile for her to entrust her son’s life to them. Destra hoped they were small enough to escape the Sythians’ notice.
Reichland was already walking toward the approaching ships, and Destra hurried to keep up, tugging Atton along beside her.
Then there came another sonic boom, this one resounding with multiple echoes, and their attention was drawn skyward once more. Destra drew alongside the captain just as he began speaking urgently into his comm.
“Set down now! Have Two cover your landing. I’ll be aboard before your skids touch pavement.”
“What’s that?” Destra pointed to the approaching quintet of fiery comets’ tails.
The captain shook his head. “Hurry!”
They jogged toward the corvette as it hovered down to the landing platform. Destra’s heart slammed against her sternum, and she felt a dizzy rush of adrenaline which gave her the strength to sweep Atton up into her arms and run faster.
Atton began to squirm, threatening to break free, and Destra tightened her grip. He began crying again.
“Quiet!”
“Tibby!” he cried.
Suddenly, Destra understood, and she shot a quick glance over her shoulder to see the furry diger lying in a dirty puddle of snow behind them. “Krak!” Destra said.
“Des!” the captain roared at her above the sound of the waiting corvette’s grav lifts. “We have to go now!”
Destra heard a loud, pulsating screech start up, and she turned to see a blinding stream of red light shooting out from the other corvette. It was hovering in the near distance to head off the incoming enemy ships. Destra turned and ran for the waiting corvette.
“Tibby!” Atton wailed again.
“Forget Tibby!” Destra snapped. “He’s not important!”
“Yes, he is! No . . . Tibby! We can’t leave him!”
Destra reached the waiting corvette just as a stream of dancing purple stars began swarming toward them from the enemy ships. The enemy blended perfectly into the night. These ships weren’t flying in with their landing lights on.
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