“Leave the military decisions to me, Ma’am. That’s what I’m here for.”
Destra thought about arguing further, but she had to pick her battles, and this one wasn’t worth fighting. “Very well. Keep me informed.”
“Of course. Speaking of that, you might like to know the prisoners you rescued are almost aboard.”
“They’re what?”
“Coming aboard. You asked to be notified . . .”
“I know that. You should have waited to transfer them. How did you even coordinate that without giving our position away?”
“The Gors are telepaths.”
“And how do they know where our hangar is without some type of comm beacon to guide them in?”
“We’re using a Gor-piloted shuttle to aim for a Gor-occupied hangar. They can telelocate, too, Ma’am . . .”
Destra didn’t appreciate the Captain’s condescending tone. “Very well. Which hangar?”
“Port ventral.”
“I’ll head down there now.”
“See you there. Covani out.”
The comm went dead, and Destra fought the urge to punch the bulkhead. Hopefully the captain’s attitude was provoked by hunger from the emergency rationing rather than by true insubordination.
Destra let her frustration out in a sigh. A sudden draft stirred the air. Turning to see what had caused it, she heard a sibilant hiss. That was when she noticed the dark shadow sitting beside her, yellow eyes glinting in the dark.
Destra cursed and jumped backward, slamming into the bulkhead with a painful thud.
“The captain showss you little ressspect. You should eat him.”
Destra’s heart thudded in her chest. “Torv? What are you doing here?”
“I come to rest my eyes and to be free of my shell for a time.”
“Your shell?”
“That which protects me from the heat and brightness that you humans prefer.”
His armor. She realized then that he wasn’t wearing it. As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she also saw that he was sitting cross-legged on the deck, his back propped up against the cold duranium bulkhead behind him. “How long have you been sitting there, Torv?”
“Long enough to see how much you care for your daughter. She knows nothing of war, even though it is all around her. Does that not inspire you?”
Destra nodded. “It does.”
“Peace is something my people can only dream of, until recently.”
“You mean freedom,” Destra suggested, thinking that peace was still an elusive goal for all of them.
“Are they not the same? Without freedom there can be no peace, and without peace there is no freedom.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“Peace comes at a price,” Torv mused.
“It always does.”
“The Sythians slaughter my people for it. Humans do, too.”
Destra smiled ruefully. “Not anymore,” she clarified, in case she’d missed something in the present-tense-only translation. “We’re allies now. And don’t forget that the Gors slaughtered us, too. It’s a happy little circle of death.”
Torv nodded his big head and he looked away, turning to watch Atta, still sitting patiently on the benches along the gallery viewport. After a moment, he spoke again, “If the Sythians took your crecheling from you, what would you do?”
“I’d go get her back, and then I’d kill the ones who took her.”
“You would do anything for her. Even if it meant risking your own life.”
“Yes.”
“Then humans are not so different from my people. We, too, would do anything to keep our young ones safe.” Slitted yellow eyes found Destra again. “They are alive, you know.”
“Who?”
“Our young ones. The crechelings on Noctune.”
“What? How can you possibly know that? They’re a galaxy away from us.”
“They do not communicate with us, if that is what you wonder.”
That’s exactly what she had been wondering. The ability to communicate between galaxies without SLS comm relays and waiting weeks or months for an answer was a technology that humans had yet to develop, let alone the supposedly savage Gors.
“I know it,” Torv went on, “because my inner voice tells me this.”
“Your inner voice.”
“Yes. The same voice that tells me to trust humans even after they lie and kill my people. Even after they torture the lords of my creche.”
“The lords of your . . . your parents,” Destra decided.
“My creche lord desires to ask you something. He regrets that he is not here to ask you himself.”
Destra recalled that Roan was Torv’s creche lord, as well as the leader of the Gor fleet. “What would he like to ask, Torv?”
“He asks you to convince the captain to go to Noctune, so that we can rescue our young ones. As a Matriarch to your own young one, he thinks you must understand, but after what I hear and see between you and the captain . . .” Torv hissed and went on, “I am not sure your understanding matters.”
Destra frowned. “If the Sythians claim to have killed all of the Gors on Noctune, what makes you think your young ones are alive?”
“The creches are far below the surface of our world. Until crechelings grow older, they are susceptible to the cold, so we raise them deep below the ice, where it is warmer.”
“How deep?”
“As far as this ship is long, and farther still.”
“Three hundred meters? Your people dug that deep into the ice?”
“The creches are below the ice.”
Destra shook her head, shocked by what she was hearing. If the Gors’ homes were dug that far beneath the surface, there actually was a good chance that some of them had survived the Sythians’ bombardment. “Do the Sythians know how far your homes go below the surface?”
“I do not think so. They do not care to know about the Gors. We are too little important to them.”
“If that’s true, then you might be right.”
“Speak with the captain for us. Remind him there are many worlds close to Noctune that humans would find pleasant.”
Destra’s brow furrowed. “I still don’t understand that part. If we’d find them pleasant, the Sythians should be there, too.”
“I do not know why they are not, but I know it to be true.”
“Why do you need us to go? If you want to go back to Noctune and look for your young ones, you are free to go, Torv. We are not your masters.”
“If we go, we do not return. Our ships do not have the fuel for it.”
“I understand. We will miss you.”
“A Matriarch and the lord of her creche are both strong and can defend themselves, but if one of them dies while their crechelings are still young, then there is either no lord to hunt for the creche or no Matriarch to defend it. The crechelings are eaten by predators or die of hunger.”
“What are you saying, Torv?”
“Humans are like the Matriarch. Gors are like the creche lord. We are the hunters, and you stay home to defend the creche.”
Suddenly Destra understood. “You’re saying we have a better chance of survival if we stick together.”
“You speak truth.”
Destra nodded. “I will do everything I can to convince the captain we should go. If you’re right about there being empty worlds in your sector, it’s probably the last place the Sythians would think to look for us. If not, at least we’ll be cloaked, and we’ll be able to stay hidden long enough to explore and find another suitable place to start a colony.”
“May it be so, my Matriarch.”
Destra accepted that honorific with a nod. “I’d better go, Torv. I have to see the prisoners we rescued.”
“May the Mighty Zarn and Kar go with you.”
“You’re going to stay here? Doesn’t the captain need you on the bridge?”
“The captain has ears but he does not use them, and I do not trust m
yself not to eat him for his disrespect.”
Destra gave a shadowy smile. “I know the feeling.”
* * *
Bretton Hale watched on the captain’s table as a group of several hundred vessels ran through the Sythian fleet. Most of those warships were identical to the Sythian ships, except for the fact that they appeared on the gravidar as shadowy outlines rather than solid icons. That meant they were cloaked. Thanks to Avilonian upgrades to the Tempest, they could see through those cloaking shields. For a moment Bretton didn’t understand what he was looking at. It seemed like the cloaked fleet was just another part of the Sythian one. There was a human cruiser with it, but that didn’t mean anything, since there were dozens of other human ships in formation with the enemy. From what he’d learned walking through the traitor’s mind, he knew that Dark Space had surrendered to the Sythians and the humans living there had been enslaved. So why was part of the fleet cloaked and making a dash for the edge of the system?
“They’re Gors,” Admiral Vee supplied, as if she’d read his mind.
“Gors?”
The admiral explained about the distinction between the Sythians and their slave soldiers, and about the recent Gor rebellion that had resulted in the Gors stealing an entire fleet of ships.
“That’s impossible!” Farah said.
“It’s not common knowledge that the Gors are actually slaves of a race we’ve never seen,” Admiral Vee explained. “Omnius probably knows, but he hasn’t seen fit to tell Nulls like us.”
Bretton was equally shocked. “Forget Omnius, we should have known about them. We fought the Sythians for almost a year before the retreat and exodus to Dark Space. How could we miss noticing that we were fighting two different species?”
“Actually more like eight. The Sythians are made up of seven interrelated sub-species. As for how they hid themselves during the war, that’s easy. You only ever fought the Gors. The Sythians stayed cloaked behind the lines and let their slaves fight. Now they’re using human slaves from Dark Space because the Gors rebelled. Our most recent news from the Uppers suggests that Omnius is planning a counter attack here in Dark Space, and he’s going to try to free the slaves so he can bring them to Avilon.”
Bretton shook his head slowly, still reeling with shock. “They’d be better off fighting for the Sythians.”
“So that fleet there is a rebel fleet,” Farah said, pointing to the cloaked ships racing toward the out-system jump gate.
“Yes,” the admiral replied.
“So what about the second fleet?”
“What second fleet?” Admiral Vee asked, searching the grid.
Captain Marla Picara was the first to point it out. “There!”
They all watched as another, larger group of cloaked ships broke formation with the rest of the Sythians.
“That’s curious . . .” the admiral said, watching both fleets for a moment. “They’re both cloaked, but the second fleet is matching trajectories with the first.”
“They’re following them,” Bretton said.
“Yes, but how?”
“I thought Sythians don’t have cloak detectors,” Farah said.
“Not that we know of,” the admiral replied.
“Then?”
“Either that’s changed, or our rebels have a Sythian agent on board. Either way, the rebels are in trouble.”
“We have to warn them!” Farah said.
“They haven’t noticed us,” Bretton added, noting that their position on the grid wasn’t attracting any groups of cloaked Sythians.
“No . . . which makes the traitor theory a lot more likely. All the same, we should make sure we don’t get too close to the enemy.”
“The rebels are going to jump out . . .” Farah interrupted. “Aren’t we going to do something?”
Admiral Vee turned to her with a smile. “Yes, that’s a good question.” Turning to Bretton she said, “What do you think? Are you ready to assume command of the Tempest?”
“You want me to command her? It’s been a long time, Admiral.”
“I’m sure it’s just like riding a hover cycle. Besides, who better for the job than a real venture-class captain?” With that, she turned to Farah. “The same goes for you, Commander. We need you both.”
Bretton turned to look at Farah, and he was surprised to find a hesitant grin tugging at the corners of her mouth.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“I was late with my rent payments anyway.” Her grin popped out of hiding, and he matched it with one of his own.
“We accept,” he said.
“Good. Just in time, too.” The admiral pointed to the grid, where the rebel fleet had been only a second ago.
“Where’d they go?” Farah asked.
“Jumped out,” Captain Picara replied.
“Did someone record their jump heading?” Bretton asked, raising his voice to ask the entire crew.
Picara shook her head. “We don’t have to.” She gestured to the star map rising from the captain’s table and it zoomed out until all the contacts on the grid became just one big red dot. Further out, seen speeding away at several times the speed of light, was another dot, a green one. “There they are,” Picara said.
Bretton smiled. “Quantum tech. Got to love that.” Range on quantum scanners was rated in the light years rather than klicks. “I’m assuming we have quantum drives, too?”
“And comms,” Picara replied.
Bretton tried to imagine a venture-class equipped with quantum technology. It would be more or less equivalent to an Avilonian judgment-class cruiser, but slightly larger, with a slower sub-light drive and weaker shields.
“What kind of range do we have on these scanners?” he asked.
“They’ll drop off the grid at about a thousand light years out,” Captain Picara replied. “Tracking them won’t be hard, but we’ll have to wait until they drop out of SLS before we know where to jump to follow them, and depending how far away they are . . . jump calculations could take a while, since we don’t have Omnius to do them for us.”
Bretton ran a hand along his jaw, stubble rasping audibly against his fingers. “Hopefully they drop out of SLS soon, then.”
As they watched, the second cloaked fleet jumped after the first. That gave a lag time of just a few minutes between the rebel fleet and the pursuing Sythian one, which meant they’d have to be quick if they were going to warn the rebels before the Sythians found them and attacked.
“I suppose you’d better take this time to get me acquainted with my command,” Bretton said, speaking to Captain Picara, whose ship the Tempest had been previously. “No hard feelings I hope?”
“Not at all. Once you’re done training me, I’ll head back here to command the Emancipator. By then the refits should be finished.”
“Training you?”
“You’re the one who knows about Imperial warships, sir. I can brief you on the refits and the crew, but that’s about it.”
“Right.”
“Well, I’m going to leave you all to handle this situation,” Admiral Vee said. “Admiral Hale, I expect to find my ship in one piece when I return. Your orders are to engage the enemy only if necessary, and only with extreme caution. Don’t go playing the hero on the Resistance’s tab.”
Bretton turned to salute her. “Yes, Ma’am.”
“Good. Carry on then.”
They watched Admiral Vee turn and start back down the gangway at a brisk pace. Bretton found himself admiring her figure as she left. “She’s a Null?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“She doesn’t look like one.”
“Looks can be deceiving,” Picara replied. “I don’t look like a Null, and neither do either of you.”
Bretton turned to her with an appraising look. “So she came from the Uppers at some point. Like us.”
“Could be.”
“What do you mean could be? It’s obvious she wasn’t born below the Styx.”
Pic
ara smiled a pretty smile. “We’re not allowed to know much about her, for our safety and hers. Suffice to say, the Admiral could even be a he under that bio-synthetic suit.”
“Bio-synthetic . . .” Farah trailed off.
“She’s wearing a disguise,” Bretton clarified.
“The best money can buy. She’ll even pass biometric scans and surface level DNA analysis.”
Bretton turned back to watch the admiral as she left, thinking to himself that there was no way she was a he. Wide hips and narrow shoulders would be hard to fake without holographics, and that was something any sophisticated scanner would easily pick out. As for her perfect skin and teeth, her long blond hair and blue eyes . . . all of that could easily be fake. “What’s she really look like?”
Marla shook her head. “No one knows.”
“So she could be anyone,” Farah said.
“That’s the idea,” Picara replied.
Bretton nodded, his brow furrowing all the way up to his wavy brown hair. He knew that the rebel leader hiding her identity made sense, but he couldn’t help feeling suspicious. If he didn’t know who Admiral Vee was, then he couldn’t be sure he could trust her.
The doors at the entrance of the bridge swished open and then shut behind the admiral, punctuating his thoughts.
“How far up the command chain is she?” Bretton asked, turning back to Captain Picara.
She raised her hand up as high as it would go above her head. “All the way, sir.”
Bretton nodded. “Interesting.”
* * *
Lord Kaon studied the star map. Friendly and enemy contacts were highlighted red and purple respectively. The purple enemy ones winked off the grid as he watched, and he hissed, pounding the armrests of his command chair with his fists.
“They escape! Why does Queen Tavia let them escape?”
“She does not let them,” Lady Kala replied. “She follows them with one cluster.”
“Yess, but by now they should be dust in the cosmic wind!”
Lady Kala turned to him, her red eyes glittering. “You dare to second-guess your queen?”
Kaon thought to remind her that Tavia wasn’t his queen. She was the ruler of the Kylians, not all seven sub-species of Sythians, but he decided against that. Queen Tavia was still far above him in rank, and he didn’t want her or Shallah to hear his thoughts about whose queen she was and wasn’t.
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