“So you’re saying it’s a fact? Show me the proof then.”
“It’s not a fact either. It’s not something you can prove or disprove, and my certainty comes from my heart, not from my head.”
Atton gave up. “Okay, well, I’m sure the Avilonians will let you die if you really want to.” He couldn’t keep the sarcasm from his voice as he said that; Ceyla accepted his remark with narrowed eyes and a frown. Before she could respond, however, Atton’s comm piece buzzed—Incoming call from Captain Loba Caldin. He excused himself and took a few steps away from Ceyla to answer the call.
“Captain, I was just about to—”
“Commander, I need to see you in the operations center right now. There have been some important developments while you’ve been in stasis.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll be there in two minutes.”
“Make that one minute, Ortane.”
Before Atton could reply, the captain ended the comm, leaving him feeling bewildered once more. He’d just spent the last four years in stasis and now all of a sudden the captain was in a rush to see him?
“I have to go,” Atton said, turning to find Ceyla.
But she was already gone.
He looked the other way to find her walking down the corridor ahead of him, obviously too annoyed with him to stick around any longer. Atton hurried after her with a frown. You dumb skriff, Atton. The first girl in forever who shows any real interest in you, and you drive her off by making fun of her beliefs. Nice work.
Chapter 21
The first thing Atton noticed when the doors of the operations center opened was that the room was already full. The second thing he noticed was how serious everyone looked.
“Take a seat, Commander,” the captain said.
Atton nodded and moved to take the only available seat on the near side of the table. He had in mind a million questions to ask the captain, but he waited for her to speak first.
“I’ve called you all here for one reason,” Caldin began, while Atton looked around the table to see who else was seated there with him. There was Lieutenant Esayla Carvon, Deck Commander Cobrale Delayn, Corpsman Markom Terl, and Captain Loba Caldin. “We need to discuss the arrival of the Avilonians.”
“The arrival of the who?” Delayn asked.
Caldin turned to him. “We’ll get to that in a moment.”
Atton fixed the captain with a wide-eyed gaze. “They’re here? Where is here—anyway? I’m guessing we’ve made it out of the gravity field or I wouldn’t be awake.”
“You’d be guessing wrong, Commander. The rest of the crew is probably finding out now as they check their holo pads. You’ve only been asleep for three weeks, not four years.”
Atton blinked, shock coursing through him as that revelation sunk in. “Then Dark Space is . . .”
“We don’t know,” Caldin replied. “The fact is, we are still stuck here, but the Avilonians clearly are not, or else they wouldn’t have been stupid enough to follow us.”
“Begging your pardon, ma’am,” Delayn said, “but I think we’re all lost. Who are these Avilonians? You know who’s chasing us?”
“I think I know, yes,” Caldin replied. “Commander Ortane, would you please explain to everyone here who the Avilonians are, and the real reason for the Intrepid’s mission?”
Taking a moment to recover from his shock, Atton explained everything for what felt like the umpteenth time. When he was done, the silence was ringing. Everyone was speechless.
The first one to recover from his shock was the XO and chief engineer, Cobrale Delayn. “So, humanity isn’t really defeated after all. There’s still trillions of us out there somewhere.”
“It would seem we’ve been saving our best for last,” the captain replied. “Commander Ortane tells me the Avilonians’ technology is far more advanced than our own, and after our brief encounter with them, I’m forced to agree with that assessment. They took us down before we could even fire a shot.”
“If they’re so numerous and their technology is so advanced then why didn’t they intervene during the invasion?” Esayla asked.
“I think everyone wants to know the same thing, but we’re not going to know the answer to that until we ask them ourselves. For now, we need to study the battle data from our brief engagement, and based on that data, form some likely hypotheses about our visitors. Commander Ortane, if you’ve been holding out on me, now’s the time to tell me what else you know about these people.”
Atton shook his head. “I’ve already told you everything that the admiral told me.”
“Very well—play back the battle for us, Lieutenant Carvon,” Caldin said.
A star map appeared hovering above the center of the table with a three dimensional representation of each ship, as well as vector lines to indicate their headings, speeds, and accelerations. Then a translucent blue bubble swelled around the Intrepid, showing her shields at 100% on all sides. Finally, a recording of what was obviously a commcast from the Avilonians’ captain crackled through the room. Atton listened carefully, fascinated by the speaker’s strange accent.
When the Intrepid didn’t reply within the 30 seconds which the Avilonians gave for them to surrender, Atton watched mysterious explosions begin appearing in front of the cruiser as it flew through the nebula. After just a few minutes, the explosions stopped, and the Intrepid’s forward shields were left glowing in the red at just 14%. Then the Avilonian captain spoke once more, and this time the Intrepid stopped her futile attempts to flee and put her engines in full reverse. It was then that Atton noticed the enemy cruiser’s acceleration was well outside the usual norms for a ship of its size. The battle had lasted only a few minutes before it was over, which told Atton that the enemy ship was much more powerful than the Intrepid, even though it was a similar size. So far the Avilonians had demonstrated superior weaponry and superior drive systems. Atton had a feeling that was just the beginning.
“Discuss,” Caldin said.
“I have something to say,” Atton replied. “Has anyone considered the implications of this?”
Caldin regarded him quietly. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, they’re here, so either they followed us from Ikara or they somehow detected us here, and if they detected us . . . then I’m not sure anyone knows just how advanced the Avilonians really are.”
Delayn began nodding. “Gravidar with that kind of range . . . it’s hard to imagine. A venture-class cruiser like ours has a sensor range of just over half a trillion klicks, or point oh five light years. That’s one tenth of the range someone would need to see us from beyond the SLS-safe threshold of the gravity field where we are now. And of course, our sensor range is much, much more limited in a dense nebular cloud like this one, so the real comparison becomes something like 10,000 times the sensor range we have.”
Caldin shook her head. “I think we can all agree that the computing power it would take to scan such a massive volume of space with conventional gravidar is beyond anything we can imagine. Either they’ve spent the last three weeks sweeping the gravity field with sensors because they somehow knew that we were here, or else they followed us from Ikara. That said, we can’t rule anything out, and how they found us isn’t the only mystery we’re looking at. There’s also the question of how they got here. In order to jump this far into a strong gravity field they must have superluminal drives which are far more advanced than ours or which work on a different principle.”
“Or else they disabled their SLS safeties to follow us in,” Delayn said.
“Which means they’re stranded here, too,” Caldin pointed out.
“There’s another question we need to ask,” Atton added. “Why attack us? Why not simply talk with us, or just leave us in here? We’re no threat to anyone as long as we’re stranded in real space for the next four years.”
“Right,” Delayn replied.
Atton looked around the table to see if anyone had an answer to that, but no one ventured a theory, so
he took a stab at answering his own question: “Their weapons are invisible, long-ranged, and obviously very deadly. If they’d wanted to kill us they clearly could have. The fact that they gave us not one but two chances to surrender means they don’t want us dead. They want something we have. Whether that’s our ship, us, or some type of information they think we have, I don’t know, but they definitely want something and they think we can give it to them.”
“That would be my analysis as well, Commander,” Caldin replied, “and without knowing exactly what it is they’re looking for, we need to take some precautions. There’s a team of eight Gors on board. I put them into stasis with everyone else, but I haven’t given the order for them to be woken up yet. I think now it’s time to do that. The Gors are our insurance policy. Sensors can’t see through a cloaking shield, and when the Avilonians come aboard, they’ll be expecting to deal with a vanquished human foe. They won’t be expecting cloaked Gors to pop out and rip their heads off.”
“There’s just eight of them,” Atton said.
“Gors are particularly deadly when they are cloaked and have the element of surprise. Using that advantage to its fullest it only took a few million of them to mop up on the ground after the Sythians’ fleets were done with us. So, no matter how many Avilonians come aboard, or how advanced their technology is, I’m confident we still stand a chance with the Gors on our side. If nothing else, should things go bad, we’ll take the Avilonians down with us. As a secondary precaution, I want every pilot we have ready to scramble on a moment’s notice. If the Avilonians try anything, at least we’ll be ready for it.”
Heads bobbed around the table—all except for Atton’s.
“Avilonians are immortals,” he said. “If they die, they’ll just be reborn someplace else. I’m assuming from that and the fact that they’re willing to come aboard a potentially hostile warship that they don’t fear death. If that’s true, then we can kill them and threaten to kill them as much as we like—it won’t change our circumstances. Any attempt to answer their force with our force is a waste of time. If this goes badly, it could be a blood bath, and with their superior technology, I’m not sure there’ll even be very much Avilonian blood in the mix.”
“What would you rather we do, Commander?” Captain Caldin asked.
“We need their help. If we’re going to have any chance of getting the Avilonians to send reinforcements to Dark Space, then we need to be willing to give them whatever they ask. We need to beg and wait on bended knee if that’s what it takes. We need to cooperate as much as possible—not hide Gors behind our backs so they can pop out and kill the Avilonians when they’re not looking.”
“I’m sorry, Commander,” Caldin replied, shaking her head. “But right now these Avilonians of yours are acting like common space pirates. For all we know that’s exactly what they are, and we don’t bow and wait on bended knee for pirates. No amount of help is worth selling our souls to get it.”
Atton accepted that with a shallow nod. “Yes, ma’am.”
“You all understand the plan,” Caldin went on, her gaze finding each of them in turn. “I’m going to issue a statement to the crew as soon as we’re done here so that everyone is up to date. It’s time we all knew what’s at stake and what’s going on. I do agree with you, Commander Ortane,” Caldin said as her gaze settled on him. “We need to do everything we can to win the Avilonians’ sympathy and their support, but we also need to prepare for the eventuality that they are either unwilling or unable to help us. Keep in mind that they have already shown significant hostility toward us. Add that to the fact that they didn’t send so much as a single ship to help us fight off the Sythians when they first came to our galaxy, and you’ll understand my caution.”
Caldin looked up and her gaze passed over each of the officers present before she continued. “If you are honest with yourselves you’ll come to the same conclusion that I have—things are going to go to the netherworld when the Avilonians come aboard. The only question is, what are we going to do about it? Are we going to roll over and play dead, or are we going to fight back?” A murmur of agreement swept through the room, and Caldin gave a decisive nod. “Then fight! Ruh-kah!”
Death and Glory, Atton translated silently as the others sitting around him repeated the old Rokan battle cry.
Officers began rising from the table, and Atton stood up with them. There was so much more he wanted to say, but it was clear that no one was going to listen. Hopefully the captain has the sense to keep the Gors as a last resort. If not . . . perhaps the Avilonians will accept my surrender.
* * *
On the second stage of its journey, the Trinity departed the Gor cruiser which had carried it out of Dark Space right under the Sythians’ noses. From there, Ethan and Alara spent the subsequent week travelling through SLS in order to reach the Avilonians’ forward base. In that time Ethan had grown thoroughly bored, while his wife had grown increasingly anxious about what was to come. Now almost three months pregnant, she spent her days worrying about the future. Where would their child grow up? Would the kid get a good education? Would there be food on the table? A roof over their heads? Would they be safe?
When Alara finally tired of asking those questions, she withdrew from the real world and its problems, adopting a vacant, glassy-eyed stare. Whenever Ethan saw her like that he tried to snap her out of it, but he rarely succeeded. Yesterday, her morning sickness had begun, arriving later than usual, and Ethan realized that they didn’t have any medication on board to treat it. At that, Alara had adopted another vacant look, saying in a quiet voice that it was just a sign of things to come. Ethan tried to reassure her that the Avilonians probably had even better medical care than what they were used to, but she’d countered that by asking how they were going to pay for it. . . .
“We could sell the Trinity,” he suggested, even though it felt like he was suggesting they sell his right arm.
She smiled bitterly and shook her head. “If the Avilonians are so technologically advanced, then what use will they have for our ship? You’ll have to sell it for scrap, and something tells me that won’t give us enough to buy a mansion on a lake, or a spacious habitat on some space station. We’re frekked, Ethan! We should have stayed!”
“You agreed we should go!”
“You convinced me!”
“Well it’s too late now.”
“What do you mean?”
“We don’t have enough fuel for a return trip.”
“What?!”
“We’re not going back, anyway. We can’t. There’s nothing to go back to.”
“What if Avilon sends reinforcements to Dark Space?”
“Even then. Where would you rather raise our child, Kiddie—in a warzone with the scarcity, the criminals, and the Gors, or in Avilon, where all of that will be just a distant memory?”
“They’ll have their own problems.”
“Yea, like whether to eat seafood or steak for dinner. They’ll probably also have a lot of trouble picking which vintage of wine to drink. From what I’ve heard the place is a paradise, but even if it isn’t—it has to be better than where we’re coming from. So no, we’re not going back. Besides, remember what Destra told us. They probably won’t even let us leave.”
“Exactly! Doesn’t that sound like a trap to you?”
“You think they want a bunch of skriffs like us to go looking for them? If that’s the case, then they wouldn’t have been hiding all this time. No, Avilon is a well-kept secret, because if everyone knew about it, then they’d all want to live there, and my bet is they have enough people living there already.
“Make people immortal and what’s the next thing that happens? The next thing that happens, Kiddie, is their population growth explodes. If no one ever dies and everyone keeps having kids, that growth curve becomes exponential and pretty soon the entire galaxy is overrun with people. That’s exactly what happened with the Sythians, and it’s why they’re here now.”
“So w
hy don’t we see Avilonians everywhere?” Alara asked. “Why didn’t they take over our galaxy instead of the Sythians?”
“Maybe they have a way of keeping their population under control. Maybe they don’t even have kids anymore.”
“And I’m pregnant,” Alara snorted. “You still think it’ll be a good place to raise a child?”
“Alara, we don’t have a choice, so just try to be positive, okay?”
She was quiet for a long while, contemplating that. Then he felt a soft tug on his arm as she pulled one of his hands away from the controls. He turned to see her wide violet eyes full of unshed tears. “Just promise me we’re going to be okay, Ethan. That’s all I ask.”
Ethan shot her an unconvincing smile. “We’re going to be okay, Kiddie.” With that, he leaned across the space between the pilot’s and copilot’s chairs and gave her a kiss.
“Are you sure?” she asked, withdrawing slowly to look him in the eye.
He’d nodded and squeezed her hand. “I’m positive.”
Ethan snapped out of his reverie and shook his head. He wasn’t positive at all, but he couldn’t afford to sit around paralyzed with fear. He had to focus on the solution, and right now that solution was for them to find Avilon.
Ethan glanced at the Trinity’s SLS timer. They were just five minutes from reversion to real space, and this time, they wouldn’t be reverting at some intermediary nav point along the way. They were about to reach the actual coordinates which Destra had given them. Ethan’s heart began to pound and his palms grew slick with sweat. He tried but failed to contain his excitement. He considered calling Alara to come up to the cockpit, but she was resting in their quarters, and the last time he’d checked in on her she wasn’t in the best of moods, so he decided to let her sleep.
Ethan watched the timer slowly tick down to zero. He didn’t even bother to look up as the streaking swirls of superluminal space disappeared with a flash of light. His eyes remained glued to the grid, searching for any blips on gravidar. After a few seconds, when the grid was still devoid of contacts, Ethan frowned and shook his head. He tried expanding the Trinity’s sensor range from the default one hundredth of a light year to a full one tenth of a light year. At that range it would take over 15 minutes rather than one second for his ship’s computer to completely scan the accompanying volume of space and update his gravidar with any new contacts, but when it did, he was sure to find something.
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