“We?” Blue cape echoed, an incredulous note creeping into his voice. “I agreed to let you come with us. I did not agree to let you come armed.”
Ethan’s eyes narrowed swiftly. “Hold it right there you incandescent tin man.”
“Do you wish to join us or not?”
“Ethan . . .” Alara began, shaking her head. “We’ll be safer with them than flying around in the middle of a war zone.”
Ethan hesitated. He thought about taking the Trinity and running as far and as fast as they could until the battle for Avilon was over, but the chances of their being tracked and followed by cloaked Sythian fighters were very high. At this point, nothing was going to blast off from the surface of Avilon without catching the Sythians’ attention—particularly not when the Avilonians’ own outbound ships numbered exactly zero. “All right, let’s go,” Ethan said.
Chapter 27
Atton saw the Zenith Tower rising on the horizon, a glittering mountain of transpiranium and reinforced castcrete, or whatever passed for those materials in Avilon.
“My scopes are clear out to the tower. So far so good,” Guardian Eight said.
“They could be cloaked,” Atton replied. “We have to assume they’re right behind us, or worse—already waiting for us at Epsilon.”
“What’s so important about that building?” Guardian Five put in.
“Need to know, Razor,” Gina replied. “We don’t need, so we don’t know.”
“I’m picking up a big crowd at the base of that building . . .” Ceyla said. “Upwards of ten thousand. That’s a lot of innocents. If we end up dog fighting over their heads, someone’s going to get hurt.”
“Frek it,” Atton muttered. He keyed his comms for the command channel and then said, “Control, this is Guardian Leader; be advised Epsilon is overrun with civilians. The Avilonians would do well to get their people under cover before the Sythians get here.”
“Acknowledged, Guardian Leader; we’ll pass on your message. Orders are to defend Epsilon at all costs. We’re going to lead them away and hold them off as long as we can.”
“Roger that, control.”
Atton passed along the news to his squadron just as they reached the Zenith Tower and began circling the vertiginous spire in a holding pattern. Atton couldn’t help but admire the building; it was massive, over three kilometers high, not counting any foundations hiding below the shield layer. Luminous from within, and glowing gold, it lit up the night for kilometers in all directions, a city within a city.
“Hoi, my scopes just went skriffy . . . is it just me or is there some massive interference around here?” Razor said.
“Likewise,” Gina added. “I’m down to a radius of just 25 klicks. We’re practically blind.”
Atton eyed his sensors with a frown. His gravidar was the same, having auto-limited itself to scanning the immediate area.
“What do you think it is?” Ceyla asked.
“Frekked if I know,” Gina replied. “Where are those blasted Renegades? Did anyone have eyes on them before we reached Epsilon?”
“I did,” Atton replied. “They were right behind us. I sent them our flight path so they could follow us in.”
“They should be here any minute then,” Gina said.
“There’s still a lot of activity on the ground,” Ceyla put in. “Both soldiers and civvies, but I don’t see any kind of conflict.”
Atton pulled up a view from his Nova’s nose cam and magnified the footage for a better look. Ceyla was right. No one was shooting down there; they were just milling around the base of the tower as if there to admire its grandeur. Platoons of armored soldiers were busy trying to clear a path to the entrance. A moment later, Atton saw why. A small hole had opened up in the hexagonal shield layer and a stream of assault mechs were marching out into the square. Clearly the Avilonians were regaining control of at least some of their weaponry. Swiveling his nose cam for a better look, Atton zoomed in again, and then he realized his mistake. Those weren’t assault mechs. They were load lifters and constructors, not built for war at all.
“What are they planning to do with those?” Guardian Eight asked.
Atton watched them heading straight for the base of the Zenith Tower, and he had an idea about their intentions. “I think they’re trying to break into their own building.”
“What, someone locked them out?” Gina asked.
“Guess so,” Eight replied.
“Why don’t they just blow a hole?”
“Maybe they can’t,” Atton replied.
“What are they going to do, beat the doors down?”
“Hoi, incoming!” Guardian Nine interrupted.
Atton’s gaze snapped back to the grid, but the only incoming he saw was the Renegades and a trio of assault transports which they’d escorted down to the surface. The Renegades raced into the square at the base of the Zenith tower and then peeled away and pulled up to join the Guardians in their holding pattern overhead.
Atton watched on his magnified view of the ground as the assault transports settled down in the grassy square below. That was when he noticed that another ship had already landed there. Off to one side of the square sat an old imperial seraphim-class corvette.
“Did the Intrepid send a corvette down here?” Atton asked.
“What?” Gina said. “How would we do that? We didn’t have any corvettes on board.”
“Well, we have one on the ground. Check it out.” Atton swiveled his nose cam to follow the ship and get some close-up footage. It was painted white and blue—ISSF colors, but not in ISSF style. There were too many stripes and blue accents, and that blue was the wrong color—too bright. The ship was almost certainly civilian.
“It’s not one of ours,” Gina confirmed.
“So we’re not the first ones here,” Razor said. “So much for Avilon being a closely-guarded secret, hoi?”
“Right . . .” Atton said, keeping half an eye on that corvette as a growing suspicion formed in his gut. The ship was powered down and not broadcasting any SID codes which would confirm his suspicions, but he was almost sure he knew whose vessel it was. His father owned a corvette like that. It had been a gift from the admiral. It seemed like too much to hope for, but how many other civilians owned old navy corvettes? And how many of those civilians would ever have a chance to find out where Avilon was? Only Ethan might be let in on a secret like that, and only because he already knew that Avilon existed.
Atton let out a long, slow breath, feeling somehow relieved to know that Ethan was here with him. The big question was, what was his father doing in Avilon?
“Hoi! I’ve got Shell Fighters incoming!” Gina called out, and suddenly Atton had bigger problems than idle curiosity. “They’re cloaked, but they’re lighting the atmosphere on fire with their approach.”
“Mark your targets, Guardians!” Atton replied. “I don’t think they know we can see them, so let’s catch ‘em with their shields down. Switch to lasers, set to single fire for rapid cycling. On my mark we break and shoot!”
Click. Click. Click-click, came the affirmative responses from his squadron.
“Roger that!” someone else commed.
“Targets set?”
Atton listened to the handful of affirmative clicks which came over the comms once more, and then he called out, “Mark! Break and fire! Break and fire!” Atton lined up his target, visible only by the crescent of superheated air which preceded it. A dozen matching crescents were flying in formation with that one, revealing the phenomenon for what it was to anyone watching. Atton pulled the trigger and held it down. A brilliant red stream of laser fire stuttered out. Half a dozen matching streams of fire crossed his, drawing dazzling X’s in the sky. The lasers kissed their targets, and three separate fireballs bloomed out of thin air, sounding in quick succession with a muffled b-b-boom!
“Three down!” Ceyla crowed.
“Ruh-kah!” Razor added.
“They’re on to us,” Atton said, watching
on the grid as the enemy disengaged their cloaks and activated their energy shields, already veering off from their flight paths to greet the Guardians head-on. When Atton noticed how much red had suddenly appeared on his scopes, his mouth went dry.
“Oh . . . frek me . . .” Gina said, obviously noticing the same thing. “There’s hundreds of them!”
“Stow that, Tuner!” Atton replied. “Stick to your wingmates, Guardians. We’re faster than they are, and we have better aerodynamics, so we can fly circles around them down here. We don’t have to take them all down; we just have to hold them off until the planetary defenses come back online.”
“What if they don’t come back online?” Ceyla asked in a small voice.
“They will,” Atton insisted. They have to.
* * *
Simulated thunder rumbled through the bridge speakers, and then real thunder boomed below decks and the lights flickered. Captain Caldin saw on the grid that the cruiser they were using to shield their keel had just been eliminated, and part of the next volley had broken through to hit them instead.
“Find me another derelict to cover our flanks!” she roared.
Another muffled boom rumbled underfoot and Delayn called out, “Hull breach on deck one! Ventral shields are critical.”
“Equalize! Helm get us out of here! Head for the planet.”
“Yes ma’am!”
“Comms update our transports on the situation up here. Make sure the Avilonians know the battle is over. We’re going to try to draw the Sythians away from the Zenith, but whatever they’re trying to do down there, tell them they’d better hurry it up!”
“Understood, Captain.”
Caldin looked up from the captain’s table to watch with her own eyes as the remainder of the Avilonian fleet was torn apart. Sythian missiles spiraled out in bright purple streaks, exploding against their targets with brief, intense bursts of light. Vast clouds of debris now floated wraithlike in the dark void between them and the glowing night side of the planet.
“How many of us are you going to kill?” she whispered. “When will it finally be enough? You already have the galaxy to yourselves, you kakards!” she roared. “Leave us the frek alone!”
Crew looked up from their stations to check on their captain. Then the deck shuddered as another stream of enemy fire found them, exploding against their shields and provoking a steady roar from the SISS. The Intrepid’s beams, lasers, and ripper cannons flashed out in response, plowing glowing orange furrows in the nearest enemy cruiser’s hull.
“Port shields critical,” her XO reported from engineering as the deck shook once more.
Caldin was tempted to tell him to switch to cloaking shields and hide, but the enemy had more than enough ships to sound them out along their last known trajectory—see where their missiles detonated and then fire again at the same point in space. The only way they were going to escape this was to head for the planet and buy themselves some time while the Sythians mopped up what remained of the Avilonian fleet.
“This Omnius has a lot to answer for!” Caldin said. “He’s abandoned his people in their hour of need.”
“I don’t think he’s aware of what’s going on,” Delayn replied. “If he is, then he’s suicidal, because he’s compromising defenses that he’ll need to ward off attacks on himself.”
“Sythians are breaking off to follow us!” Lieutenant Esayla Carvon reported from gravidar.
“Good! Let them come. We’ve got to buy the Avilonians more time.”
* * *
Ethan and Alara followed the Avilonians down the Trinity’s boarding ramp and into the square. It was milling with people, but they were all remarkably calm. The civilians all wore the same matching white robes which seemed to shimmer softly with their own internal light. Those pedestrians were scanning the sky, looking up at the impossibly high Zenith Tower, walking this way and that as if they were all just tourists come to see the tallest building in the galaxy. No one was running around screaming. Ethan frowned. He overheard people talking to one another in measured tones in a language he couldn’t understand. Some turned to point and whisper at Ethan and Alara as they walked by, but no one seemed particularly alarmed.
“Aren’t they scared?” Alara asked as they walked by an elaborate fountain, the water lit up in all the colors of the rainbow.
Ethan shook his head. “I don’t know. If they are, it must be part of their culture not to show it.”
“Either that or they don’t know what’s happening in orbit.”
A noise like thunder rent the air, and everyone turned skyward to see fireworks exploding high above the city. Except these weren’t fireworks. Then hundreds of glowing orange points of light emerged from the clouds, raining down like a meteor shower, but it wasn’t a meteor shower; it was the Sythians. Dark specks raced up to greet the meteors and bloody red streaks of light raced across the sky.
Still, nobody screamed, but now a booming voice cut through the square. Ethan didn’t understand a word of what was said, but the tone was urgent, and he assumed it was telling the crowds to disperse and take shelter. Suddenly white-robed people began crowding them from all sides.
Alara was the first to notice the way people were looking at them—with narrowed eyes and urgent whispers. Estum martales, estum martales! they said.
Ethan pulled Alara deeper into the knot of armored soldiers they’d brought with them from GK-465. Blue cape led the way across the square toward a group of familiar-looking starships which Ethan somehow hadn’t noticed sitting there before. As they approached, he saw the emblem of a clenched fist surrounded by six stars emblazoned on the side of those transports—the emblem of the Imperium. Those starships were ISSF.
Suddenly, Ethan remembered his son, Atton, and he began pushing his way through the group of Avilonians.
“What are you doing?” Alara asked, struggling to follow him through a sea of armored elbows and shoulders. When he reached the front of the group he tapped blue cape on the shoulder.
“What is it, martalis?” the Avilonian leader asked, not bothering to turn and see who it was. Ethan wondered how blue cape knew it was him, but he supposed the man’s own men likely wouldn’t tap him on the shoulder to get his attention.
“What are those ships doing here?” he asked.
“They brought Strategian Rovik to the Zenith, as well as—I am told—some of your soldiers.”
“I need to speak with the pilots of those ships.”
“We cannot wait for you.”
“That’s fine. I’ll only be a moment.” Ethan took Alara’s hand in his and ran ahead of the Avilonians to the nearest transport. Once there, he jogged past the back of the transport where a squad of Zephyr light assault mechs were busy disembarking, and ran up to the cockpit. Climbing up the short ladder to the side of the cockpit, Ethan rapped his knuckles on the transpiranium window. Two helmeted heads turned. Pilot and copilot stared wordlessly at him before the copilot got up to open the side hatch.
“What is it?”
“I’m an Imperial,” Ethan said.
“Why aren’t you in uniform?”
“I’m not ISSF, but I’m here for the same reason as you—to get help. I’m also here to find my son—the late admiral’s stepson.”
“The late admiral?”
Ethan realized the copilot didn’t know about any of what had happened in Dark Space since he’d left. “The Sythians executed Admiral Heston. They’re occupying Dark Space and enslaving our people as we speak.”
“What?”
“It’s a long story, but right now I need a favor from you. Commander Ortane—Guardian Leader—is he alive?”
The copilot began shaking his head and Ethan felt something heavy and cold settle in his chest, but then the officer pointed up and said, “He’s flying right over your head. They’re holding off the Sythians while we get things sorted out down here.”
As if to corroborate that, Ethan heard the not-so-distant boom of an explosion and c
aught a flash of light in his peripheral vision. Then came the sound of people screaming. Ethan nodded his thanks before jumping down from the ladder and turning to see what had caused all the commotion.
He saw Alara standing stock still, staring out over a rushing river of white-robed civilians running away from the Zenith Tower. They were finally scared enough to panic. Ethan followed his wife’s gaze to see a pillar of flames rising from the ground not far from where they stood. “What was that?”
A scream of engines answered before she could and Ethan looked up to see a Sythian Shell Fighter go streaking by low overhead. Hot on its tail was an Imperial Nova, its ternary blue thrusters roaring. Red lasers screeched out from the Nova in a steady stream. They hit home, provoking a plume of black smoke and then a jet of white hot flames from the Shell Fighter’s glowing orange thruster pods. Then the Shell exploded with a wicked ka-boom! and a hot rush of air slapped them in the face. Flaming debris roared out of the sky and landed in the square with explosive force. The crowd screamed again, and the river of white robes flowed in a new direction, arcing away from the debris.
“We need to get inside the tower, and fast!” Ethan said, spinning in a quick circle to find blue cape and his cadre of identical crewmen. Two men in matching blue capes were conferring with one another near the boarding ramp at the back of a neighboring assault transport. One of them held a plasma rifle, courtesy of Ethan’s armory, while the other was empty-handed. Three full squads of Zephyr assault mechs stood clustered there with them, forearm mounted ripper cannons tracking warily across the sky.
Ethan and Alara ran up to the two caped Avilonians, pressing as close to them as they could get. They were speaking in their language, so Ethan couldn’t understand what they were saying, but abruptly they seemed to come to a decision and they turned to the sentinels standing beside them. Ethan heard one of them call out in a deep, gravelly voice. “You will accompany us to the gates of the Zenith. The building is in a state of emergency lockdown, and we cannot get in. You will make a hole for us to enter by.”
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