Ethan stood aside and watched as Corporal Exalian used the gun to lift Alara off the roof of the crashed shuttle. The gun made a soft humming sound as it generated a grav field strong enough to levitate Alara a few feet into the air. Exalian walked with her to the open hatch and lowered her gently to the hangar deck. Turning away, he holstered the grav gun and said, “Let’s go.” He went back to his open Zephyr and sealed it around himself once more.
Ethan walked past him and jumped out the hatch to land beside Alara with a boom. Immediately after that, he felt the vibrations of tactile feedback rippling through his armor as his arms were seized. Ethan turned to see a sentinel on either side of him and Sergeant Dorian approaching from the stern of the transport. “Hoi there, Laser Bait,” Dorian said. One sentinel removed Ethan’s sidearm and another took the rifle from the holster on his back. “Seems you were right about the holocorders. Crack open your shell.”
“You’re making a mistake. There’s just nine of us against a whole ship. You need me.”
“Wrong,” Gina added. Ethan turned to see her jumping down from the transport’s cockpit. “We don’t need a frekking traitor like you to do anything except step out an airlock.”
“I saved your life, Gina.”
“Maybe. Or was that just part of your cover? What were you doing impersonating an officer for Brondi?”
Ethan clamped his jaw shut to keep himself from saying anything which would incriminate him further.
“Laser Bait’s clammin’ up,” Sergeant Dorian said. “Maybe we oughta pry his mouth open.”
“Get out of the mech, Ethan,” Gina said. Another boom sounded as Corporal Exalian jumped down from the shuttle cockpit and walked up to Alara. He gravved her off the deck using the larger grav gun attached to his mech’s equipment belt.
Exalian turned to the sergeant. “Where do you want me to put her?”
The sergeant turned and pointed up to the broken viewports looking down on the hangar near the ceiling of one wall. “We’re setting up shop in the control tower. We’ll join you up there in a minute, Mender.”
“Yes, sir.”
Gina turned back to Ethan as Exalian left, and she shook her head. “Get out of the zephyr. I’m not going to ask again.”
Ethan frowned and then he whispered the command to open his mech. Servos whirred, hydraulics swished, and stale air hissed out as his armor splayed open. “You’re making a mistake,” Ethan said again as he stepped down out of the zephyr.
“Funny you should say that,” Gina replied. “That’s exactly what the real Adan Reese said before I did this.” Ethan saw Gina’s elbow rushing toward his face a second too late to duck.
The blow connected with the side of his head and knocked him to the deck. He lay there stunned with the smell of scorched deck and thruster grease filling his nostrils. His head spun in dizzy circles, smarting from the blow. His gorge began to rise, but he forced it down as he pushed himself off the deck.
“Oh no you don’t, Laser Bait,” Gina said.
Ethan heard the shot fired a split second before it hit him in the back and he lost all control of his muscles. His body jerked and writhed spasmodically on the deck. He tried to fight the spreading numbness, but his mind abruptly fell off a cliff into a dark, fathomless abyss.
* * *
Atton stepped inside Hoff’s quarters aboard the Tauron and looked around with a growing frown. Decorative transpiranium wall sconces glittered with a shallow gold light, dialed low for the ship’s night cycle. To his left the living room lay a few steps down from the entrance, furnished with black couches and chairs arrayed on clean white carpets. An artificial fire flickered with cold blue flames opposite the couch. The burgundy walls with gold wainscoting and crown moldings all but screamed opulence. Between the strips of inlaid gold hung a row of expensive-looking light paintings, followed by a broad, curving viewport with a hot tub below it. At the moment the tub was closed and the viewport polarized to show only the barest glimmer of superluminal space. Atton turned to the right and saw the edge of an open kitchen area with gleaming appliances flanked by a dark blackwood dining room set. Along the far wall was another viewport and a set of doors. That viewport looked out on a lush green garden, walled in with high, square hedges and capped with a simulated night sky, complete with crescent moon. To one side, a big tree soared into the artificial sky, and to the other, a fountain bubbled with holographic water. The entire garden was alive with glow bugs which were probably also holographic, and islands of colorful blossoms which likely weren’t. Atton turned back to the fore and noted the dark hallway which lay ahead of him between the living room and the kitchen, and he wondered how much more of the place there was to see.
Now that Atton thought about it, these quarters were much like the ones where he had met his mother aboard Fortress Station, but he’d barely noticed the opulence at the time. Come a long way, haven’t you, Mom? No one should live like this when people are starving to death.
“You’ll have to make yourself comfortable here, Atton. I’m afraid I can’t allow you to leave these quarters without either myself or Destra to accompany you.”
“Comfortable . . . ?” Atton shook his head. “I think I’ll be more than comfortable. Even the supreme overlord’s quarters were never this luxurious. It looks like you’ve been helping yourself to the fleet’s discretionary funds.”
“You may be surprised to know that I paid for these furnishings myself.”
Atton snorted. “So what? You probably also set your own wage. These are the darkest times humanity has ever seen, and you’re living like an old colonial despot!”
Hoff shook his head. “I paid for it before the war, and afterward . . . there was no point trying to sell anything.”
“So how do you explain your quarters on Fortress Station?” Atton asked.
“Fortress Station is my property. It has been in my family for more generations than I can count. I brought it to Ritan so I could keep an eye on the Gors.”
“Your family owned a mobile fortress. . . . Who are you people?”
“Is it so strange to find an independently-wealthy man serving in the fleet?”
“Yes.”
Hoff shrugged. “That was not my experience.”
A noise drew their attention to the hallway, and Atton saw that it was now dimly lit. Just emerging from it was his mother. She had on a modest, shimmery blue night gown and a pair of matching slippers.
“Atton!” Destra said, beaming brightly at him as she approached.
“Hello, Mom.”
“Did Hoff tell you? You’re going to stay with us.” Destra stopped in front of him and gestured to their surroundings. “How do you like your new home?”
“My home is back on Roka, buried under a mountain of rubble—unless the Sythians have seen fit to clear it away by now.”
Destra took his hand in hers. “Come and sit with me, Atton.”
He allowed her to lead him down into the living room.
Hoff stayed by the door. “I’d better get back to the bridge. I’ll return in a few hours. Get HTX to serve the boy some food if he’s hungry.”
Atton cast the admiral a backward glance in time to see the old man clap his hands. “HTX!” A moment later a gleaming white server bot appeared from the kitchen.
“See you soon, dear,” Destra replied.
Atton watched the bot approach and his lips curled with contempt—yet another display of the admiral’s wealth. Destra took a seat on the couch and patted the cushions beside her. Atton sat down just as the server bot reached them.
“Welcome to the Hestons’ quarters,” it said brightly. “I am HTX Four. May I get you something to drink?”
Atton glared at the bot and waved his hand as if to shoo away a fly. “A beer.”
“Are you certain, sir? We also have a broad selection of wines—cerulean, gold leaf, Shirali—”
“You don’t say?” Atton blurted. He wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. “Bring me a bottle
of gold leaf—why not!”
“Yes, sir. And to eat?”
“Surprise me with something else that’s lavishly expensive!”
“The red caviar would make an excellent complement to your choice of wine, sir.”
“Good! Bring me a bucket of that.”
“We don’t have any buckets, sir, but I shall endeavor to bring you the largest serving that I can. And for the madam?”
Destra shook her head. “I’m all right, HTX.”
“Very well, madam.”
Destra reached for Atton’s hand once more, but he pulled it away. She stared uncertainly at him, her blue eyes searching his green. “What have I done to you to make you so cold?”
“Cold?” Atton echoed. “You’re one to talk, but to answer the question—you sent me away and left me to be raised on a warship in a sector filled with outlaws and bureaucrats. What did you expect would happen?”
“I don’t know. I just imagined that if I ever saw you again, it would be different—that you would remember me . . . and be happy to see me.”
“I was happy, right up until I realized how well you’ve been getting on without me—without us.”
“Atton, you and your father were my whole world—everything I had in the galaxy. I lost you both, and I thought I’d never get you back. After spending years on Ritan, waiting for a rescue that never came, I no longer cared what happened to me. Hoff pulled me through that, and he saved my life.” She shook her head. “Whatever else you can say about the man, he has a good heart, Atton. He’s a good leader, and he treats me well.”
Atton scowled and let out his frustration with a hiss. “Any man who lives in this kind of luxury while people are starving to death all around him can’t be all that good.”
“Atton . . . we’re not starving. The enclave is nothing like Dark Space. People are comfortable there—even happy—and we have help. There are worlds that were never touched by the Sythians. Lost worlds that the Imperium knew nothing about.”
“What?” Atton’s eyebrows shot up and he shook his head.
Destra looked uncertain once more, and she brushed a long strand of dark hair out of her face. “I thought you knew.”
“No, no one knows about that. Where is this paradise that the admiral’s been hiding?”
Destra shook her head. “I don’t know—only Hoff does. I’m sorry. I think I’ve said too much already. The point is, things are not what they seem.”
“No?” Atton jumped up from the couch. “I suppose you’re going to tell me next that you and Hoff aren’t really married, that Atta and her beloved Tibbins were just an elaborate hologram.”
Destra frowned. “Atton . . .”
“Right, I forgot, that’s all too real, isn’t it?”
The server bot returned in that moment and held out a glass of rich gold wine. “Here you are, sir.”
Atton spun on his heel and took the drink. “Thank you!” He downed it in one gulp and wiped his mouth. “I see what you mean, Destra.” He watched his mother’s face flash with hurt when he didn’t call her Mom, but he ignored that and went on, “Hoff treats you very well. This is the good stuff—pre-war vintage, and worth a damned fortune!” Atton threw the glass down and it bounced. A few drops of wine dribbled out and beaded on the stain-resistant white carpet. HTX4 bent to vacuum them up and retrieve the glass, while balancing a tray full of red caviar and crackers in his other arm.
“Tell me,” Atton said. “Did you even cry when you heard that Ethan didn’t come back from the Valiant?”
Destra frowned. “I was very worried, but your father knows how to look after himself, and he’s with a squad of vanguard sentinels, so I have faith that he’ll be all right.”
“Wait—they made it on board?”
“You thought he died. . . .” Destra said slowly.
Atton gave an exasperated sigh and rubbed his tired eyes. “It’s been a long day. I think I need to lie down.”
Destra rose from the couch just as HTX4 set the platter of caviar and crackers on the black chrome coffee table.
“Come on, I’ll show you to your room,” she said. “Put the food away, HTX.”
“Is it unsatisfactory?” The bot sounded crestfallen. “The caviar is synthesized, but I assure you it tastes almost the same as real.”
Atton felt abashed. Synthesized caviar wasn’t expensive at all. Was he also mistaken about the wine? “I’ll have some for breakfast,” he said, feeling bad for the bot—which was absurd, since it had no feelings.
“Very well, sir,” HTX replied, sounding disappointed.
The bot could only pretend to feel, but his mother on the other hand . . . Atton thought he heard her sniffling as she led him down the hallway between the kitchen and the living room. They turned a corner and stopped at the first door on the right.
Destra waved her wrist over the scanner. “You’ll sleep here,” she said as the door swished open to reveal a neat room with a large, comfortable-looking bed. The room had its own viewport, and a light sculpture stood beside the closet at the foot of the bed, throwing off elaborate patterns of colored light which were likely meant to induce sleep.
“Thank you . . . Mom,” he said as he stepped inside. He turned back to see her wiping away a tear.
“You’re welcome. Good night, Atton.”
The door swished shut and Atton sighed as he turned to look around the room. “Well, it beats a cell.” He shrugged out of his uniform jacket and dropped it on the floor; then he called out a command for the viewport to polarize, and it turned as black as night, blocking out the distracting brightness of superluminal space. Now the room was lit only by the dim glow of the light sculpture. Atton covered a yawn and stripped down to his underclothes, leaving his uniform on the floor. He was about to climb into the clean white bed when he realized how unclean he was. Looking around, he noticed an attached bathroom just to the right of the entrance. He picked up his clothes and padded across the spongy white carpet to take a quick vaccucleanse. He put his clothes in the steamcleaner behind the bathroom door, and then stepped inside the vaccucleanser. All of five minutes later, he was clean and feeling better. He crawled in naked between the sheets and immediately sank into the soft mattress. The pillows smelled like lavender and vanilla. He stared up at the ceiling and watched the soporific patterns of light rippling across it. Breathing deeply, he inhaled the gentle fragrance wafting from the pillows, and allowed his eyelids to grow heavy and drift shut. He felt a spark of guilt that he was basking in such luxury while his father was probably hiding in some crawl space aboard the Valiant, but his mother was right; Ethan could take care of himself.
Atton drifted into a deep, dreamless sleep. An indeterminate amount of time passed, and then he heard raised voices, and his eyes cracked open to see the shifting patterns of light rippling across the ceiling once more.
“Hidden passages leading to lift tubes locked with access codes that I’m not allowed to know. . . . What am I supposed to think? You have a whole other life that I don’t know a thing about!”
“It’s just a meditation room, Destra. It’s where I go to clear my head and plan my next move. I’m sorry you had to find out about it.”
“I’m not! If it’s just a meditation room, why can’t I know about it?”
“That’s classified. Leave it alone, Des. It has nothing to do with us, and it’s not safe for you to know more.”
“What can’t you tell your wife? I already know your big secret. I’ve kept that for all these years. Why don’t you just admit it—you don’t trust me. That’s why you keep secrets.”
The voices drifted away, leaving Atton’s mind running in confused, fractured circles over the last part of that conversation as the light sculpture and the fragrant pillows lulled him back to sleep—not safe to know . . . don’t trust . . . Hoff. . . . secrets. Not safe. Don’t trust Hoff. Secrets. . . .
Atton’s eyes snapped open. Suddenly he was suspicious of the light sculpture and the scented pillows. Maybe t
here was a reason they were making him sleepy. He sat up and shook his head vigorously to rid himself of their hypnotic effects. If Hoff was hiding something—even from his wife—Atton had a bad feeling it wasn’t an innocent little secret.
This was something big.
PART TWO
REVELATIONS
Chapter 18
The lift tube opened on deck six of the Tauron to reveal Commander Donali already waiting. Admiral Hoff held the doors open and nodded to his XO. The commander walked in, pushing a hover gurney. Lying on the gurney, stunned and draped with a white sheet, was High Lord Kaon. He looked like an ordinary cadaver going to the morgue, but Kaon’s destination wasn’t the morgue—at least not yet. Deck six was the deck the med center was on, so having Kaon disguised as a cadaver was a good cover. Adding to that cover was the fact that Donali was a part of the senior medical staff aboard the Tauron—although he rarely practiced medicine since being promoted out of the restricted-line officers’ ranks.
“Good evening, Admiral,” Donali said.
“Did you have any trouble with nosy subordinates?” Hoff asked.
“None. The few who asked where I was taking the body, or who it was, were told that it was classified, and they seemed satisfied with that.”
Hoff nodded. “Good.”
Now that they’d jumped to SLS to follow Brondi, there was little left for them to do but wait until they reached Dark Space. Hoff wasn’t very good at waiting, but fortunately he had Kaon and the mystery of the Sythians to keep him busy.
As the lift doors slid shut, Hoff keyed in deck twenty-four. The very existence of the lift tube was a closely-guarded secret, and besides Hoff and Commander Donali, the only one who even knew it existed was Hoff’s wife, Destra. That lift tube was the only way in or out of the facility which lay in the heart of the battleship. The only two access ways to the lift were from the maze in Hoff’s garden and the disused storage room on deck six.
When the lift arrived on deck 24, the doors opened into a dark, airy room. “Lights,” Hoff commanded, and a wan yellow light filled the space. The air was almost zero degrees and drew condensing white clouds of moisture from their lungs. That was a happy coincidence for Kaon, who liked frigid temperatures just as much as the Gors.
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