Adram smiled slowly. “Actually they were and apparently they are still. Somehow, even after you killed all of them at Ritan, they’d still rather side with you than fight for us.”
Admiral Heston’s eyes narrowed. “You’re lying. If you’ve been working for the Sythians since you came back from the Getties, then why were you always on the Gors’ side? You argued for us to join the alliance. You wouldn’t do that if it would ultimately help humanity and hurt your people.”
“After all these years, do you really think that I don’t know how to manipulate you, Hoff? I was never on the Gors’ side, but if a man trusts no one, then telling him the truth is the easiest way to make him doubt it. My position and that of the other humans around you only blinded you further to the fact that the Gors really were your allies.”
Horror rose on a tide of acid from Hoff’s stomach as he realized how badly he’d been played. He felt sick. “If the Gors are programmed to fight for you, why not simply reprogram them? Why let them rebel?”
“We don’t know what happened to interfere with their original programming, and we have tried to reprogram them, but it doesn’t work. Perhaps the savagery of war reminds them of their savage past and triggers memories of who and what they really are. And every time they come into contact with emancipated Gors, even the most loyal slave becomes a rebel. It’s like a disease the way it spreads. We can override their ships so they’re stuck with us unless they bail out and you rescue them. We’ve begun locking their airlocks to keep them inside, but that is our problem to deal with, and slaves are easy enough to find. Humans are proving to be much more reliable slaves.”
Suddenly Hoff realized the significance of what he was looking at. He should have realized it by now, after seeing Adram—a once loyal human officer, now a converted Sythian agent.
“I’ve answered your questions, and we’re running out of time. Brondi’s men are boarding this ship as we speak, and there are not enough of us to repel them.”
“Not enough of you? On this enormous ship?”
“I told you during my interrogation, Admiral, this is a carrier. It carries Gors into battle, not Sythians. We supervise them and remotely control their ships from here, but there are fewer than three hundred of us to do all that. Now, as I said, we are running out of time, and we have a deal to make.”
“A deal?”
“Yes.”
Hoff shook his head, putting off that question for now. “One more thing, Kaon.”
“Yess?”
Hoff shivered to hear a human hissing like a Sythian. “Why did you attack us? What is the point if we’re all really the same?”
“You fight your own people all the time, and you’re not separated by millions of years of evolution and genetic engineering.”
“That’s not an answer. I want to know why you had to commit xenocide—why come to our galaxy at all? Was it because you thought we invaded you first?”
“That was just a happy coincidence. We were already planning to come to your galaxy. You opened a jump lane for us when we were almost ready to leave.”
“But why?” Hoff insisted, sounding shrill with exasperation.
“What did you think would happen to a society whose population never dies?”
Hoff’s eyes widened. Suddenly he understood what was wrong with being immortal. We were never meant to live forever.
Adram nodded slowly. “Even the strictest population controls cannot stop that kind of growth. We don’t all live on cold, dark worlds in the Getties. The rich live in luxurious towers on worlds filled with light and warmth, but there aren’t enough worlds like that for all of us. We’re the unlucky ones, engineered and born to live below the surface. Others were born and bred to live underwater. Why do you think my Sythian body has gills? We had to splice our DNA with that of the Gors and a dozen other species in order to adapt to even the harshest environments. There are quintillions of us, Hoff, and our galaxy is far smaller than yours. We came here to expand, to find a home for our children.”
“Then you’re not even a unified species.”
“We are unified by our philosophy of life, not by DNA.”
“If there are so many of you, and you came here to find new worlds to colonize, then where is everyone?” Hoff demanded. “Why aren’t you busy colonizing our worlds?”
“When was the last time you went close enough to look? Perhaps you’re just looking in the wrong places. The worlds your people considered inhospitable are the ones that most of us were bred to call home—ice worlds and desert planets, planets covered with endless, raging seas. It takes a whole generation—almost a thousand years—for us to adapt to something new, to planets which you might consider more hospitable. But by then, perhaps the fires will have stopped burning and we can clear away the rubble of your civilization.
“Those who already live on lush worlds like Sythia are in no hurry to leave. For them, the Getties is not an inhospitable place of torment and scarcity—it is home. But the more the rich breed, the more the poor, downtrodden masses are pushed off those worlds and forced to find new homes. It is a cruel system. We are thrown out into the dark by our people to make room for their children, and we throw your people out into the dark to make room for ours.”
“Well, congratulations,” Hoff said. “You have plenty of room. Now leave us alone.”
Adram gave a patient smile. “I’m afraid it’s not that simple. Eventually your population will grow too large and you’ll be forced to expand like us. Then you will try to push us out of your galaxy. We know how humans think. They think like us, and we will do anything to survive—isn’t that why we’re all Immortals in the first place?”
Hoff gritted his teeth. “So what now? You’ll send another fleet to Dark Space and finish us off? What kind of deal is that?”
“No, Dark Space is unique. It is impossible to leave, except by one narrow entrance. It is a small sector, and it has limited resources, so if we can be sure that it’s the only place where humans still reside, then it wouldn’t be hard to keep you bottled up in here, and we’d be willing to allow that in exchange for some information.”
Hoff’s eyes narrowed. “What information?”
“Tell us where the other humans are hiding, and we’ll leave Dark Space alone.”
Hoff flinched. “You’re asking me to kill trillions.”
“Don’t think of it like that. Think about all the lives you’ll save here in Dark Space. And humanity will live on, guaranteed. Otherwise, we won’t rest until we’ve found and killed every last one of you. You can’t hide forever.
“If you need any proof of that, you should know that Captain Cathrall didn’t just carry the survivors from Obsidian Station to the enclave. He also carried a Sythian tracking device. I gave him both when I transferred those so-called supplies from the Interloper.”
“You kakard,” Hoff said, his gray eyes flashing as he reached for the cutting beam he’d brought with him. He drew it and aimed it at Adram’s head.
“They’re already dead, Hoff. It’s too late for you to save them—or your fleet—so before you kill me, think about the people you can save. Dark Space is the only refuge of humanity which we will tolerate.”
Hoff hesitated with his finger on the trigger. His whole body trembled with the urge to shoot, but he stopped and forced himself to think about the trade the Sythians were offering. He thought about the trillions of Immortals in the lost sector of Avilon. The Immortals had all already lived impossibly long lives, while the people here in Dark Space numbered in just the millions, but they had barely begun to live by comparison. The Immortals were civilized, while Dark Space was overrun with criminals. Perhaps the most convincing argument was the true nature of immortality. Now that Hoff had seen its end result, he wasn’t sure he could support it anymore. They’d fought not one but at least two wars with themselves over it, and a lost part of humanity had become so twisted by their desire to live forever that they had eventually turned into the xenocidal Sythians. Adram—Kaon, Ho
ff corrected himself—had already spelled it out clearly: “We will do anything to survive.”
“What do you say, Admiral? Do we have a deal?” Adram asked, his eyes glittering in the dim light of the alien cruiser.
Chapter 35
“I think you can all go to the netherworld,” Hoff said. “They’ve been waiting a long time for you there.”
“Then you’ve chosen death,” Adram said slowly.
“Maybe, maybe not. If we could disable an entire fleet of yours by finding and killing just one ship, what makes you think we won’t do the same thing when you come back?”
Adram’s eyes narrowed.
“Humanity is quite safe,” Hoff went on, “but as for the Sythians, you’re the ones facing an entire army of savage slaves that have suddenly decided they don’t want to serve you anymore—that’s the same army that wiped us out. Something tells me your people are next.”
Adram sneered. “What makes you think that they’ll serve you after you killed all of them at Ritan?”
Hoff shrugged. “We don’t need them to serve us; we just need them to help us fight you, and the fact that they’re not firing on us right now is a good sign that that’s what they want, too.”
“If you won’t tell us where the Immortals are, then we’ll tear it from your lips. You’re badly mistaken if you think that humans are the only ones who can dig around inside a being’s brain. I’m going to enjoy interrogating and torturing you the way you and your people did with me.”
“Good luck with that.” Hoff said as he turned his cutting beam on himself.
“No!” Adram roared.
Hoff pulled the trigger and everything that he was vanished with a searing light and a puff of greasy smoke.
A split second later, Hoff opened his eyes from the inside of a stasis tube and looked out at his cloning chamber. It looked like a warzone in there, but he was alive, so that was a good sign.
When the stasis tube didn’t automatically swing open, Hoff frowned and pounded on it with his hands, but the cover wouldn’t budge. Panic seized his chest and his eyes bulged. He was trapped. Peering through the transpiranium at his feet, he noted that there were no debris obstructing the cover of the stasis tube, but he had a feeling he knew exactly what had gone wrong.
In the event of depressurization, a stasis tube wouldn’t open. Tubes like this one could be recovered from cold, hard vacuum and their occupants still be found alive and well—and asleep. But Hoff’s revival system had woken him up before atmosphere had been restored to the ship. Hoff had never planned for the possibility that his cloning chamber might survive but be so badly damaged that all the atmosphere got sucked out into space.
And now . . . now he was going to suffocate to death in a space which was just the right size and shape to be a coffin.
* * *
The Last Chance slipped inside the Valiant’s aft hangar bay, unnoticed amidst the frenzied rush of other transports slipping out. Moments later, as they settled down on the deck, they came under small arms fire as a pair of guards noticed that they didn’t belong.
Atton vaporized them with the transport’s turrets.
Ethan stood ready and waiting inside the rear airlock, armed and armored like a sentinel. He’d blend right in with Brondi’s men, who’d all stolen matching gunmetal gray armor from the Valiant’s supply rooms. Looking like them would give him the element of surprise, but Ethan didn’t expect to encounter much resistance after seeing how many loaded assault transports had launched from the carrier.
“You’re sure you don’t want me to come with you?” Atton asked over the intercom.
“Someone needs to stay here and keep the engines warm—all clear out there?” Ethan asked, his hand hovering over the outer door controls.
“For now,” Atton replied.
Ethan activated the airlock and it cycled open with a hiss. He didn’t bother to lower the boarding ramp, and rather jumped the five feet to the deck. He landed with a boom. The hydraulic supports in the knee joints of his armor cushioned his fall.
“Be careful,” Atton said, his voice now coming through Ethan’s helmet. “And make it quick.”
“Don’t worry,” Ethan said as he started across the hangar deck at a jog. He winced as his injuries made themselves known once more. Hefting his plasma rifle, he set the fire mode to AP-RF—anti-personnel, rapid-fire—and flicked off the safety. “I’ll be in and out before you even notice I’m gone.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
Ethan reached the hangar bay exit and stepped up to the control panel to open the oversized doors. They parted with a noisy bang. Ethan ran to the end of that broad corridor and then opened another wide set of doors to reveal yet more of the same corridor. It stretched endlessly into the distance until it reached a short set of stairs.
So far so good—the ship was deserted. Looking around, Ethan found that this particular corridor housed a rail car station. Broad transpiranium viewports lined the walls, revealing a set of gravlev tracks on either side and two waiting rail cars. Ethan headed for the nearest one and opened the doors to step inside. The rail car was as empty as the station. He turned to the control panel inside the rail car and scrolled through the ship’s directory until he found the section closest to the crew quarters where Alara was staying. He remembered that her room was on deck 144, just a few decks below the bridge.
The temptation to head up there first and pay Brondi a visit was almost overwhelming, but there was no way he’d be able to get off the Valiant after that. It would be a one-way trip.
Hold on, Kiddie— Ethan thought as he punched in his selection. The rail car began whistling down the tracks. He sat down and watched out the windows on the opposite side of the car as the lights of passing glow panels and viewports blurred into a solid golden stream of light. —I’m coming.
* * *
Alara stood listening to Brondi bark out orders as he checked on the status of the assault teams which he’d sent out to the alien cruiser. Thousands of men were already on board the ruined halves of that ship, looking for the Sythians, but so far they hadn’t found anything. Alara wasn’t sure what Brondi was after—maybe he planned to threaten the Sythians in exchange for peace, or maybe he just wanted answers.
Everyone wanted that.
Then, just moments after the last team confirmed that they were aboard the alien ship, something unexpected happened. One of Brondi’s men came marching up to him and took him aside. Alara didn’t hear what that man said, but she heard Brondi’s side of the conversation clearly.
“What? Where are they? . . . What do you mean you just noticed, Gibbs? . . . I know we abandoned the watch stations, but someone should have noticed something before they got that far! Frek!”
Alara watched Brondi spin in a dizzy circle, as if looking for a way out. A few of his crew looked up with wide, questioning eyes, but he ignored them. Brondi’s gaze found her, and abruptly he nodded as if he’d just decided something. “Come on, Sweet Thing,” he said, walking over to her. “You and I have a date.”
Alara shook her head as he approached, and tried to affect an innocent look. “Where are we going?” she asked.
He took her by the arm and dragged her along, heading swiftly for the back of the bridge. The man who had delivered the bad news kept pace beside them, and now Alara recognized him as the sergeant who’d let her in to see Brondi. Again, the crew looked up from their stations with questioning eyes, and this time Brondi answered their unspoken questions. “Good work everyone! We’re doing well! Soon we’ll be the uncontested lords of Dark Space!” He sounded nervous. A mumble of dissent rose from the crew, but no one directly challenged Brondi to ask what he was doing.
Alara felt him suddenly pick up the pace, tugging on her arm more insistently now. He reached the doors and triggered them to open. They strode off the bridge, and the doors swished shut behind them with an ominous boom.
Brondi led them to a nearby bank of lift tubes and pressed the down arrow. The
n the ship’s intercom blared to life and they heard a commanding voice say, “This is Captain Loba Caldin of the Imperial Star Systems Fleet to any and all fugitives who are still manning the Valiant. There are over two thousand navy sentinels now on board this ship. Surrender now, without a fight, and you will be granted lenience for your crimes. Fight us, and we will kill you without hesitation.”
Brondi turned to the man standing beside him. “You can help me escape, or be sentenced to the mines of Etaris with the rest. It’s up to you.”
Alara prayed that he would choose Etaris.
“Lead the way,” the sergeant said, dashing her hopes. He gestured to a nearby lift tube as the doors parted, and they all squeezed inside. Brondi selected one of the lower decks. Alara pressed herself into the furthest corner of the lift, wondering if she looked as scared as she felt. Brondi caught her eye and smiled. “Don’t worry, Sweet Thing. We’ll be okay.”
She nodded, but she wasn’t worried about running into Caldin’s forces; she was worried that they wouldn’t and that Brondi would manage to escape—with her. She couldn’t let that happen. She had to make a move soon. Her eyes darted to Sergeant Gibbs’ ripper rifle and his matching sidearm, but Gibbs was overly alert, and he noticed her looking at him immediately. He shot her a lascivious grin, and she forced herself to smile back before looking away. It might not be possible for her to resist without getting herself killed, but death would be preferable to letting these two run away with her.
* * *
Ten minutes earlier . . .
The rail car doors swished open and Ethan launched himself out and through. He raced down the corridor, and all of a few minutes later, he stood panting in the open door of Alara’s quarters, his gaze flicking between the guard lying just inside the entrance at his feet and the other one lying on the bed. Both of them were either dead or stunned, and Ethan didn’t care which. All he cared about was the fact that Alara wasn’t there. Somehow, she’d broken out on her own, and there was no way for him to know where she was now.
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