Dark Space- The Complete Series

by Jasper T. Scott

“Hello, Mr Ortane,” Caldin replied, twisting around to address Ethan. “Atton is more than old enough to make up his mind for himself, which he evidently already did before arriving at this table. But you already know that, so why are you looking for a scapegoat now?”

  “Maybe I just don’t like your face. Good thing you’re going to change it soon.” Atton watched his father’s gaze rove around the table. “So you’ve all decided to go through the meat grinder . . .”

  “The meat grinder?” Caldin asked. “What are you talking about?”

  A nasty smile crawled onto Ethan’s face, and his gaze returned to her. He affected a more nonchalant pose, uncrossing his arms for an eloquent shrug. “What do you think they do with all the bodies? Your old ones. I bet they go through a meat grinder to make tasty little sausages for all those starving Nulls. Waste not want not. Seems to be Omnius’s policy. What you throw away today could be on your plate tomorrow!” Ethan laughed.

  No one else laughed with him. Atton rose to his feet. “That’s enough, Dad.”

  Ethan turned to him with a dark look. “I’m sorry, did I ruin your appetite? Cause you sure the frek ruined mine.”

  “Dad, I’ll still visit you in the Null Zone.”

  “No you won’t.”

  “I promise, I will.”

  “Frek your promises, Atton, you won’t even be you anymore. Anyone else thinking about dying for the cause?” Ethan turned in a slow circle to address the whole room. “Omnius doesn’t need you to fight the Sythians. He can just make another billion Omnies and send them in your place, and they’ll probably do an even better job than you will!”

  “Dad. That’s enough. Let people make up their own minds.”

  Atton reached out to grab his father’s arm, but Ethan shrugged him off and shot him a cold look. “I’ve said what I had to say. The captain’s right, you’re an adult so you can do whatever you want, but know this—” Ethan raised a finger and jabbed him in the chest with it, forcing him back a step. “You join them and you’re dead to me.”

  “Dad . . .”

  “I’m serious, Atton. Dead. I don’t want to see you again unless I can be sure that it’s really you.”

  Atton’s jaw dropped and he watched, speechless as his father returned to where he’d been sitting with Alara. Atton took one hesitant step to follow, but a strong hand grabbed his arm and pulled him back toward the table.

  “Leave him, Atton. He lives for himself, and he’ll die for himself. I don’t think your father has ever fought for something bigger than his own small world, and he never will. Not willingly anyway.”

  Atton was about to sit back down when he noticed Ceyla staring at him. She was close enough that he could see the tears shimmering in her blue eyes. His father’s rejection had hurt, but this was agony. He’d never loved a woman before, never had the chance, but Ceyla already cared enough about him that she was actually crying for him. No sooner had his eyes met hers than she looked away and stood up from the couch where she was sitting.

  She hurried from the room, passing quickly down the dark hallway leading to their quarters.

  “Excuse me, Captain,” Atton said. “I need to go say goodbye.”

  “I understand.”

  Atton hurried after Ceyla. In the hallway he noticed more abstract light paintings like the ones they’d seen in the mansion on the top level of Destiny Tower. Unlike those ones, which he’d seen as a series of smiling, joyous faces, these paintings depicted lurid scenes of naked bodies writhing in ecstasy. Atton eyed them curiously. Destiny Tower had been built with Avilonian children in mind, not adults. It seemed inappropriate to put such paintings here.

  He wondered where Ceyla had gone, and his ARC display obligingly pointed the way by showing which rooms were occupied and which ones were not. Only one of the rooms was occupied, and he could actually see Ceyla through the nearest wall, painted as a bright blue silhouette. She was sitting down, her head in her hands.

  Atton frowned as he stopped before the door. He was about to knock, but the door swished open for him. Ceyla sat on the edge of the nearest bed, her face buried in her hands, sobbing quietly.

  She didn’t even look up as he approached. Maybe she hadn’t heard him come in. “Ceyla?” he asked as he sat down beside her.

  She flinched and looked up suddenly. Then recognition flashed in her bloodshot eyes. “What do you want?” she asked.

  “I wanted to know if you’re okay.”

  “Of course I’m not okay! Atton, why? Why are you so ready to throw your life away?”

  He shook his head. “We don’t know that’s what I’ll be doing.”

  “I do. We could have been so happy,” she said, shaking her head.

  “We?” He took her hand and held it between both of his. “I didn’t realize you had feelings for me,” he said, swallowing thickly past that lie.

  “Don’t be a skriff, of course I do! You’re not like the others, Atton. You pretend not to care, but you do. Iceman . . .” She snorted, shaking her head as she recalled his call sign. “You saved my life up there. I’ll never forget that.”

  It felt like forever ago. During the battle over Avilon he’d chosen to rescue her instead of his own wingmate, Gina Giord. Gina had subsequently succumbed to enemy fire and died, while Ceyla had punched out and lived. Atton remembered looking into the accusing eyes of Gina’s clone, and he shuddered.

  “Ceyla, I—”

  She didn’t let him finish that sentence. Instead she pulled him close and kissed him. Her tongue forced his lips open and her hands ran quickly through his hair, raking over his shoulders and back. Before he knew what was happening, she’d pulled open his Celestial Robes and pushed him flat against the bed where they were sitting. She crawled on top of him, still kissing him. He reveled in the sweet fragrance of her breath and lost himself in a sea of bliss that had nothing to do with drugs.

  Then something occurred to him, and his eyes opened and flicked sideways to the door where he’d come in. There were at least half a dozen other beds in the room, and someone else could come in at any moment.

  “Ceyla . . .” He began to object.

  But she shook her head and pulled open her own robes. He gaped at her for a moment, suddenly distracted by the sight of her half-naked body.

  Her lips and tongue met with his once more. The heat of her kisses and the salty tang of her tears were electrifying. Before he knew it, he’d rolled her over and he was kissing her. His hands fumbled to remove her underwear beneath her robes. Then their naked bodies met, finding each other with surprising familiarity, as if they used to be one and were only now returning to that state after a long time apart. It wasn’t what he’d expected.

  It was better. Ceyla gasped and her eyes rolled as he went in. For a moment he thought she was in pain, but she silenced his objections with a fierce kiss, biting his lip and running her hands through his hair once more.

  Time ceased to have all meaning and Atton lost himself in her, for the moment forgetting about The Choosing, the Sythians, Omnius, Avilon . . . everything. In that moment he would have given anything just to be with her, like this, forever. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a small voice insisted that he could, and that he already knew what to do in order to have her with him for eternity.

  Atton smiled as her body arched against his and the world exploded in bright streaks of light. Her nails scratched fiery lines down his back, and then they lay together breathless and spent.

  “I love you, Atton,” she whispered in his ear.

  For a moment, he didn’t know what to say. He felt something powerful stirring inside of him, but was that love?

  He wasn’t even sure he knew what love was yet, but he said it anyway, and after that, they made love again. Dinner was forgotten, and the night—or day, Atton wasn’t sure which—stretched out endlessly with the two of them caught up in the novelty of one another until they were too exhausted to do anything but lie in each other’s arms. Ceyla fell asleep with her head on his c
hest, and Atton lay staring up at the ceiling, trying to work out a way that he could convince her to join him in Etheria.

  Maybe she won’t need convincing, he thought. Maybe I’m enough.

  * * *

  That night Ethan went to bed with a heavy heart and an empty stomach. He hadn’t been lying when he’d told Atton that he’d lost his appetite, but it wasn’t just because of Atton’s choice. He was secretly even more worried about Alara’s.

  She hadn’t spoken much since the tour had ended, and they’d eaten dinner in silence. He remembered at some point noticing that Atton and Ceyla didn’t join them, but he was also smart enough to know why. Ceyla was using the one thing she had left to sway Atton’s decision, and Ethan wasn’t about to let anyone interfere with that. He’d noted which door they’d both taken, and hinted to the others that that room should be off limits until Atton and Ceyla worked out their differences.

  Ethan hoped it worked, but now he had to worry about a more immediate concern. Neither he nor Alara had spoken about what was coming, and they were out of time to make up their minds. Rovik had come in at the end of dinner to remind them all that they would be making their choices early tomorrow morning.

  Now Ethan was desperate to know what Alara’s choice would be. He watched her go to bathroom and take a shower. Once again, because they were married they’d been assigned a private room. When Alara returned from the bathroom, he was sitting up on the bed, waiting for her.

  “Hey there beautiful,” he said.

  She shot him a wry grin. “Not tonight.”

  “What, just because a guy compliments you, you automatically assume he’s after something?”

  “I just know my husband. A brick could fall on your head and you’d still be trying your luck.”

  Ethan grinned. “Only with you, darling.”

  “Better be, otherwise I’ll be the one dropping that brick.”

  Ethan chuckled and smiled as she climbed into bed next to him. “You’re the best wife a man could ever have.”

  “Really? I’m your second.”

  “Exactly, so I should know what I’m talking about.”

  “You always have the right answers.”

  “Yeah . . . I do. Mostly. I hate to spoil the mood—especially when I’m about to get lucky for being so damned charming—but there is one answer I don’t have that I could really use right now.”

  “What’s that?”

  “What are you going to do tomorrow?”

  Alara arched an eyebrow at him. “You’re not seriously asking me that.”

  “I am.”

  “What are you going to choose?” she countered.

  “I asked first.”

  “Fine. I already know what you’re going to do, and you’re right. I know you’re right, but I’m scared. I want what’s best for our daughter, and I want that so badly that I can’t really think about myself, or even us, but when she turns eight she’ll have to decide for herself anyway.”

  “So . . .”

  “So, I’m not leaving you, Ethan. Not now, not ever. We made promises to each other, remember? I can’t leave you for a better life in Etheria any more than I could leave my own skin.”

  “Actually, you can leave your—”

  She stopped him with an upraised hand. “I know, not the best analogy.”

  He smiled tightly, touched by her commitment to him. “You and me, Kiddie,” he said, grabbing her hand.

  “You, me, and Trinity,” she replied, placing his hand on her belly.

  Ethan lay back with a sigh, his hand still on her belly. “We’re going to be okay, Kiddie. I promise. I’ll do whatever it takes.”

  “I know,” she said, and turned out the lights with a verbal command. She rolled over and he wrapped his arm around her, molding his body to hers.

  As they fell asleep, Ethan wondered whether she was agreeing that everything would be okay, or that he would do whatever it took to make things okay. Then he began wondering whether he would be able to keep that promise . . .

  His thoughts floated away in a dreamy haze, and he saw Alara in his mind’s eye, naked and beckoning. Some part of him absently noted that it was a dream, but for once it wasn’t one of Omnius’s instructional nightmares, so he decided to go with it. Besides, the way things were going, he wasn’t about to find another time to be with his wife.

  Alara straddled him on the bed, and he found her breasts in his hands. She kissed his lips passionately and he kissed back, but by the time she withdrew, he saw that it wasn’t Alara straddling him, but some other woman. She was unusually stunning, with hair like black silk and bright turquoise eyes, the color of a tropical sea, but she wasn’t his wife.

  Ethan’s eyes grew wide with horror at that realization. He shook his head quickly. “Get off,” he managed.

  The other woman’s lips curved wryly. “Why? Don’t pretend you don’t like it.” She kissed him again. A part of him surrendered to it, but then he found the strength to resist once more, and pushed her off.

  She began laughing. “It’s too late to push me away now. Alara will never forgive you.”

  Ethan had to restrain himself from slapping the grin off that woman’s face. He’d never hit a woman before, but in that moment, he was sorely tempted.

  Suddenly she was back on top of him as if she’d teleported there. She pressed her body against his in all the right places, and he tried once more to resist, but this time he found that his body wouldn’t obey his commands.

  Instead, he focused on waking up, using his outrage and indignation to do so, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t open his eyes.

  The woman smiled, as if she knew she’d won. “You like it, don’t you?” she asked. “I told you.”

  Ethan was unable to deny that, but he hated himself for it, and he hated her even more. At last, just before he might have enjoyed himself too much, he woke up and lay staring up at the ceiling, feeling enraged and violated, bathed in a cold sweat, and painfully aroused.

  As he lay there, a quiet voice ran through his head, I told you you would cheat.

  Chapter 20

  Destra arrived at the captain’s office with Atta in tow. The guards standing there moved to block her way as she approached—yet another sign of Covani’s defiance.

  “I’d like to see the captain, please,” she said.

  The guard looked uncomfortable, and his eyes briefly flicked to Atta, perhaps noting the presence of a child as something out of place. Destra in turn noted that he was a high-ranking sentinel, a master sergeant.

  “I’m sorry, Ma’am,” he said. “The captain asked not to be disturbed. And you should be on your way to the . . .” He trailed off and glanced at Atta again. “Well, I’m sure you know the way,” he finished. Destra realized he was sparing her daughter the knowledge that they were going into hibernation, and maybe never coming out.

  Destra loomed closer to the pair of guards. The master sergeant held his ground. “You realize I’m your superior, not to mention the captain’s. I give the orders here.”

  “With respect, Ma’am, you are a civilian and have no rank.”

  “You and I both know that civilian branches of authority command the fleet. At least they did until recently.”

  “Yes, Ma’am. Times change.”

  “One person should not be solely responsible for commanding the last remnant of humanity,” she insisted.

  The sergeant took a breath and shook his head. “The command structure is clear, and my duty is clear.”

  “At least let me in to speak with him. If the captain doesn’t change his mind, what’s the worst that could happen? You can’t be court-martialed. We’re short enough on active personnel as it is.”

  “I could be sent . . . with you, Ma’am.”

  “So that’s it? You’re afraid? I can see this military dictatorship is already working nicely.”

  The sergeant pressed his lips into a firm line and hesitated. His eyes darted to Atta and back again. “Make it
quick. He orders me to take you out, and I will. But I’d rather not make a scene in front of your daughter, Ma’am.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “I have to search you first.”

  She nodded and submitted to a pat down search as well as a thorough scan with a wand. After that, both sentinels stepped aside, and the sergeant keyed the doors open by waving his wrist across the scanner.

  The doors swished open, revealing Captain Covani sitting in the dark behind a big, glossy black table. A holomap was rising from that table, bathing him and the room in a cold blue light.

  “Covani,” she said.

  He looked up with a scowl. “What is she doing in here? I told you no interruptions! Take her to the stasis rooms!” Belatedly he seemed to notice Atta standing there, looking scared, and he frowned. “Mrs Ortane, please take your daughter and head below decks to the med bay.”

  “I’m not going anywhere until you’ve heard me.”

  “Then talk fast,” Covani growled.

  “You’re treading on dangerous territory. Maybe you think you’re best suited to leading us to safety, and maybe you’re right, but what about the man or woman who takes your place? And the one after that? You’re dismantling representative government, and with it, our foundation for the future.”

  “I’m not the power-hungry dictator you seem to think I am. As soon as we’ve found a place to settle, we will establish a proper government to take my place.”

  “Power is addictive. You would be better off making provisions for that government now.”

  The captain shook his head. “I won’t cloud all of our decisions by subjecting them to debate. Just one wrong move could be the end of us. Emergency war measures exist for a reason, Councilor. You will be reinstated to help set up the new government as soon as there is room for one.”

  “You need your advisers now more than ever, Captain.”

  “Really? You want us to go to Noctune and save the Gors! I can’t think of a more foolish way to squander our resources and our chances of survival! Yes, let’s use humanity’s dying breath to help the species that drove us to extinction.”

  “The Gors are as much the victims of this war as we are. But I think we can agree to a compromise. Let’s set up a colony and then send the Baroness. We’ll go as soon as we can afford to spare her.”