The defending corvette began weaving an evasive pattern while still firing its lasers. A bright explosion flared against the horizon as the corvette’s lasers struck home, followed by a distant boom. Then the purple stars swarmed the defending corvette, exploding brilliantly and sending nonessential pieces of it flying in all directions. A second later, the corvette flew apart, turning the world to white and numbing her ears with the sound. The shockwave hit them, knocking Destra to the landing platform with a searing blast of heat.
Destra’s ears rang. Her eyes were still dazzled—blind—and her back was wet. She hoped the wetness was a puddle and not a dire injury which she was too adrenaline-pumped to feel. Then strong hands reached for her, tugging her to her feet and lifting a screaming Atton off her chest. She blinked her dazzled eyes to see the hazy outline of her uncle’s face, and then she saw a pair of petty officers rushing off with her son. Atton wailed and reached for her with both hands.
“Mommy!” he screamed.
“I’ll see you soon!” she yelled back.
“Des!” Reichland shook her by her shoulders. “Get to the hover transport! Get out of here!” And then he was gone, tearing up the boarding ramp after her son. The ramp began to rise, and a second later they were out of sight, sealed safely inside the corvette. Destra stood there sniffling and wiping tears from her eyes with flaming chunks of debris still raining down all around her. She watched numbly as the surviving corvette rose quickly into the sky and shot off at full speed. It was a blinding white blur roaring off on a bright orange contrail of engine glow, and then it was gone, taking all that mattered to her in the universe with it.
Behind her a rumbling roar started up, and Destra turned to see the old transport rising slowly. That was when she saw the first purple star hit the converted ore freighter and explode in a blinding flash of light.
AFTERMATH
10 Years Later . . .
Chapter 1
—THE YEAR 10 AE (AFTER EXODUS)—
Alec Brondi appeared hovering over his comm officer’s shoulder as he listened in on the enemy transmissions. They’d just been decrypted using the Valiant’s own encryption codes. Should have wiped the mainframe while you had the chance, Brondi thought, his mouth gaping in a smile.
“Defiant? Please respond!” came an unidentified voice. The commcast was coming from Brondi’s own corvette. His smile faded to see the ship’s ID light up on the comm board. Whoever had stolen the Kavarath was going to pay.
Brondi’s comm officer turned to him. “Looks like we did some serious damage with that last hit. The Defiant’s not responding to their hails.”
“Good!” Brondi replied, rubbing his hands together. “Get our novas to finish the job.”
“They’re almost in range . . .” gravidar replied.
Brondi grinned once more, for the moment able to ignore the fact that someone had stolen his ship. Then, a minute later, gravidar called out: “Our novas just went off the grid!”
“What?” Brondi turned to the man, blinking in annoyance.
In the next instant the Defiant responded to Brondi’s stolen Kavarath, the commcast sounding across the bridge: “You did it, you old frekker!” Brondi recognized the supreme overlord’s voice, and he scowled. Dominic made it out alive! “We’re clear to—” The overlord’s voice dissolved in static and picked up again a minute later. “—mine goes off in five, so be sure you make it in time. See you on the other side, Ethan. Defiant out!”
Ethan! Brondi thought. He was gaping more noticeably now, but definitely not smiling. Ethan had stolen his corvette! It wasn’t enough for the man to have cheated him out of 10,000 sols, but now the ungrateful grub was stealing Brondi’s own ship! “Don’t let them escape!” Brondi screeched. “I want that ship stopped!” He slammed his fist down on the comm board and the screen grew momentarily fuzzy with the impact.
“Which one?” the gunnery officer asked.
“Both of them!”
“We’ve just lost the Defiant!” gravidar exclaimed.
Brondi whirled around once more. “What do you mean lost? How? They made a blind jump?”
“They flew through the gate.”
Brondi blinked. The fact that the Dark Space gate was working was a big surprise. That explained why the overlord had been running toward it, but it didn’t explain the cover-up. The Imperium had assured the people for ten long years that the gate was deactivated.
“Well, follow them!” Brondi snapped.
“With the Valiant?” the nav officer asked.
“No, with a flying squirrel! Of course with the Valiant!”
“What about the Sythians?” someone asked. “I don’t think it’s wise to—”
“Verlin, remove that man from his post!” Brondi said, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the dissenter’s voice.
Verlin stalked up to the officer even as the man began rising out of his chair and waving his hands frantically. “Hoi, call off your pet rictan, Brainy!” the nav officer screeched. Verlin didn’t back off, and Brondi just looked on as the officer backed away from Verlin and fetched up against the bridge viewports. “Hoi, this isn’t funny, Brondi! I’ve learned my lesson. . . .”
Verlin suddenly leapt forward, his speed augmented by the armor he was wearing. While he was in the air, he brought up his forearm gauntlet to smash the officer’s nose. The man’s scream was cut short as his head bounced off the transpiranium viewport with a bang! and he crumpled to the deck. A deadly calm fell over the bridge.
“Now follow that ship!” Brondi pointed out the viewports to the distant speck which was the Dark Space gate.
“We’re about to lose the Kavarath,” gravidar added quietly.
“Shoot them!”
A bright red beam shot out from the bow of the Valiant. The carrier’s main beam cannon—a corona XL. Brondi waited a second, then asked. “Well?”
“We missed . . .” a small voice replied.
Brondi shook his head, disbelieving, and he watched as the distant speck which was his corvette flew through the Dark Space gate with a flash of light, leaving a fading blue ripple shimmering across the surface of the gate.
Alec Brondi let out a roar. “Have you all gone skriffy? I’m surrounded by imbeciles! How could you miss them?”
Brondi stared out the broad forward viewports of his newly-captured gladiator-class carrier, his chest rising and falling quickly with barely-contained fury. No one dared to answer, afraid to be the next target for his ire. Then came a brilliant flash of light, and everyone on the bridge flinched away from the blinding glare. The viewports darkened almost instantly, but not fast enough to keep their eyes from being dazzled by the light. When Brondi looked once more, blinking to see through the dancing white spots, he saw that the distant speck of the Dark Space gate was no more, and in its place was a large, expanding fireball, quickly dissipating into the void.
Brondi couldn’t believe it. Everything had been going so well! His plan to steal the Valiant had worked, and the largest surviving ship in the Imperial Star Systems Fleet was his to do with as he pleased! But now his victory tasted bittersweet. He’d just watched first the Supreme Overlord and then Ethan—piloting none other than Brondi’s own corvette—escape through a space gate which wasn’t even supposed to function anymore!
And with his corvette, Brondi had even lost the latest addition to his bevy of pleasure palace play girls—Alara, Ethan’s copilot. He’d been planning to have a bit of fun with her himself before passing her off to the wolves. That would have been the perfect revenge on Ethan, but now . . . now he’d be lucky to catch up with his ship before it was destroyed by the Sythians!
If there even were Sythians out there. Maybe there had never been any invasion. How was he to know? How were any of them to know? They’d been locked up in Dark Space when the invasion had begun and they’d been fed all the details via the dubious information channels of corporate media.
Brondi’s eyes narrowed. He was beginning to suspect some so
rt of overarching conspiracy. The Imperium had lied about the gate being disabled, so what else had they lied about?
“Sir?” the nav officer turned to him. “The gate is destroyed. We can’t follow them. What are your orders?”
Brondi scowled. “Well reposition the in-system gate! Then follow them.”
The nav officer hesitated, looking like he wanted to object, but his eyes darted to the body of the last man who’d voiced his dissent, and he just said, “Yes, sir.”
Brondi whirled around and began stalking between the control stations on his way up to the gangway. “I’m going for a walk. Someone put that man in the brig—” Brondi pointed to the officer who’d contradicted his orders earlier, who was now lying unconscious in a pool of blood from his broken nose. “—and notify me when we’re ready to leave!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Verlin, come with me.”
The bounty hunter appeared beside him a moment later, and Brondi caught his eye as they climbed the short set of stairs to the gangway. “I want you to gather a team to search the ship. The overlord was hiding something. Maybe a lot of somethings. I want to know what they are.”
“What makes you think that?” Verlin answered.
“That gate wasn’t even supposed to be operational. There’s a reason the Imperium has been lying about that. See if you can find any survivors aboard the ship. They might have answers for us.”
“As you wish,” Verlin replied.
* * *
Ethan Ortane watched the lights of the Defiant’s decks flashing by the lift tube like a golden rain as they descended through the cruiser. He turned his head to study the other occupant of the lift in the intermittent light—tall, broad-shouldered, dark hair, and piercing green eyes—with his rugged good looks, that man was all but the mirror image of Ethan in his youth. He was Atton, Ethan’s lost son—a ghost from ten years past—and apparently also a holoskinner and pretender to the throne of the supreme overlord. Granted, the supreme overlord had been Atton’s adoptive father after his Great Uncle Reichland had been killed. And while the supreme overlord had lain dying, he had revealed his secret: he was himself a holoskinner. He’d then asked Atton to assume the role after he died—at least until a more suitable candidate could be found. Atton had accepted the burden with great reluctance, and now he was passing on the legacy once more—should Ethan choose to accept it.
The lift tube whirred to a stop, decelerating so fast that Ethan’s legs threatened to buckle. Atton braced himself on the nearest wall.
“I hope they fix the IMS soon,” Atton said, referring to the inertial management system which had been damaged in their escape from Dark Space. Ethan nodded absently. He still had trouble accepting that his son was alive and standing there next to him. He turned his gaze to the lift tube doors, but they remained shut. Atton turned to him and withdrew a pair of aural translators from his breast pocket. He fitted one to his right ear and handed the other to Ethan. “Put this in your ear. It’ll help you understand the Gors when they speak.”
Ethan accepted the small silver device, and he placed it in his ear.
“Put your holoskin back on,” Atton said.
Ethan saw his son’s features flicker and morph into those of the wizened overlord. Then he put his own holoskin back on and watched as the black and gray hairs on his arms turned to blond.
“We don’t want the Gors to think we’re impersonating someone else,” Atton explained.
Once they were both back in disguise, Atton reached out and punched a key on the lift’s control panel. The doors swished open and Ethan was immediately hit with a gust of frigid air that stole the breath from his lungs. The corridor beyond was long and dark.
“Trying to save on the heating bill?” Ethan gasped.
“Not quite,” Atton said as he started out of the lift tube. Ethan followed him into the shadows.
They were on their way to see the Gors—the mysterious aliens who were enslaved to the Sythians. Atton said they were the key to defeating the Sythians, but Ethan was still having a hard time imagining any of it. He’d never even met a Sythian, let alone a Gor, and he couldn’t fathom how a race of alien slaves was going to overthrow their masters all of a sudden, just because a few thousand human rebels were helping them.
The lift tube doors swished shut behind them, plunging the corridor into utter darkness. Ethan almost stopped, afraid to trip over his own feet, but he could hear his son walking on up ahead, so he continued on.
“Something wrong with the glow panels on this level?” Ethan asked.
“No, the Gors prefer to live in dimly lit spaces.”
“Dimly lit?” Ethan echoed. “There are more lumens in the center of black hole!” As he said that, he ran into a wall and bounced off with a resounding thud. “Frek!” Ethan muttered, reaching up to rub his injured nose.
“Sorry,” Atton replied. “It’s this way.”
“Yeah . . .” Ethan followed the sound of his son’s voice. “Thanks.”
They turned the corner and began walking down an equally dark section of the corridor.
“Don’t worry, your eyes will adjust soon.”
Ethan began to hear the sound of rushing water. “Is that a plumbing leak?”
Atton laughed lightly. “Relax old man! It’s a little something to make the Gors feel more at home. They spend a lot of time down here, so we’ve tried to mimic their natural environment as much as possible.”
“I’m not sure if I would like to visit their home world, then.”
“That’s just as well. I suspect if you did, they would eat you.”
“Hoi—eat me?” The corridor was beginning to lighten, or else Ethan’s eyes were finally adjusting to whatever luminescence there was. At least now he could see the walls. Between the bulkheads, they were made of transpiranium panels, but it was too dark to see through them.
“It’s eat or be eaten on Noctune. Nothing personal, Ethan, that’s just their culture.”
“Friendly culture. Have they tried to eat you yet?”
“Of course not. I keep them well fed.”
“That’s encouraging. I hope you don’t run out of food.” Ethan saw a pair of doors gleaming at the end of the corridor, and the sound of rushing water grew louder. He braced himself for whatever he was about to see. He’d never met an alien before—not even one of the so-called “skull faces” who had destroyed everything Ethan had ever known.
They walked up to the doors and stopped. Ethan waited for Atton to pass his wrist over the blinking door scanner, but the boy did nothing. “What are you waiting for?” Ethan asked.
“It’s not polite to barge in on your neighbors.”
“Well, shouldn’t you knock or something?”
Atton shook his head. “They know we’re here.”
“They know—”
“They’ve been watching us.”
Ethan felt a shiver crawl down his spine, and he turned to look behind him, but all he saw was the corridor disappearing into fuzzy darkness. He wrapped his arms around himself in a vain attempt to preserve his body heat, and then he turned to his son.
Atton was already looking at him. “Don’t make any sudden moves, and let me do the talking. Got it?”
Ethan was about to reply to that when he felt a gust of wind on the back of his neck. He whirled around, but saw nothing. His hand went instinctively to his sidearm, but it had been taken from him when he’d been brought aboard the Defiant. “I don’t like this. . . .”
“Shhh.” Atton placed a finger to his lips.
Ethan thought he heard a strange warbling followed by an indistinct whispering just beside his ear—the ear with the translator in it—and he whirled around again, searching the darkness, but still there was nothing.
Suddenly the warbling sound grew louder, and Ethan heard the whispers grow to full volume. “Who are you?” the speaker in Ethan’s ear asked in a gender neutral voice. Ethan turned in a frantic circle, trying to find where the sound was co
ming from, but he still couldn’t see the source.
Atton turned and spoke into the darkness. “He is a friend. What are you doing out here, Tova?”
Ethan heard another warble beside his ear, followed by, “I hear sounds of battle and feel ship move. You do not tell me we go into battle.”
Suddenly the air shimmered in Ethan’s peripheral vision, and he turned to see what it was. A monstrous shadow swam out of the gloom mere inches from Ethan’s nose. He saw the yellow gleam of its slitted eyes, and he stumbled back into his son. “What the frek!”
“Relax,” Atton said, sidestepping his father to face the creature which had just appeared out of nowhere. “Tova, you know you’re not allowed to be seen by the rest of the crew. That wasn’t part of our deal.”
“I am never seen by your kind unless I wish to be.”
“I believe it,” Ethan muttered.
The shadow turned its slitted yellow eyes on him and hissed. Ethan caught a glimpse of a very jagged row of white teeth. Those yellow eyes turned away, back to Atton, and Ethan frowned.
“From now on this friend—” Atton gestured to Ethan. “—will hold the same authority as I do, Tova. Do you understand?”
The shadow hissed. “I do not.”
“He is my crèchling.”
Ethan saw the yellow eyes turn on him once more.
“Your . . . crèchling.”
“I had thought he was dead,” Atton went on.
Those eyes remained fixed on Ethan, and he held the alien’s gaze, determined not to back down despite the fact that this shadowy monster was easily two meters tall and clearly capable of ripping him apart with its bare hands—assuming the alien had hands. It wasn’t easy to tell in the dark.
Tova hissed, but said nothing further.
“Let’s make ourselves more comfortable,” Atton went on, finally reaching up to pass his wrist over the door scanner. The doors swished open and a wan blue light spilled out. Beyond the doors lay a broad staircase, dusted with snow. Atton walked through the doors, followed by the shadowy beast. There was a subtle shimmer as they crossed the threshold, and Ethan both heard and felt the sizzle of static shields. As Tova stepped into the slightly brighter dimness, Ethan caught his first real glimpse of the alien—two arms and two legs; its skin was a sallow blue-gray and as smooth and hairless as a newborn’s, but its back rippled with the over-developed muscles of a bigorexic sentinel. Tova could have passed for a very large, very pale, bald and naked human except for the bony ridge running down its back. The alien’s forearms and legs were striped a darker blue and lined with sharp-looking spines.
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