Destra began to fear that Cavanaugh had been injured in the fall. His mech would be air-tight, but it was heavy enough to sink him to the bottom—and there was no telling how deep the pool went. He might have sunk to a watery grave.
“Cavanaugh!” Destra yelled. Of course he couldn’t hear her.
Then she saw something—bubbles. Lots of them.
“Frek!” Destra turned to Torv. “You have to do something! He’s going to drown.”
Torv hissed. “He does not drown.”
“How do you know?” she demanded.
Torv merely pointed to the water where the bubbles were rising. Now Destra saw something—a blurry gray shape, swimming up out of the deep. It was hauling a black shadow behind it. A Gor burst through the surface a moment later, hissing and gasping for air. Cavanaugh was next, not wearing his armor, but rather a plain black jumpsuit. He was also gasping for air. Cavanaugh began treading water, looking dazed in the light of Destra’s glow lamp. “Hello, Councilor,” he said, flashing a grin that she hadn’t seen from him since they’d set foot on Noctune.
“You’re a lucky man,” Destra said.
“Thank the skull face for me, would you?” he said, nodding sideways to indicate his rescuer. The Gor turned to him and hissed.
“Do not dive to the bottom if you cannot swim back up,” Destra’s translator said.
“He says you’re welcome,” she replied, paraphrasing generously.
Cavanaugh went on treading water, and turned to the others. “How did you all beat me down here?”
“We took the shortcut,” one of the Rictans replied.
Destra noted that Cavanaugh had remained in the pool. Then she realized why. He was wet. He’d freeze to death in the open air.
“How warm is it?” Destra asked, nodding to the water.
“A lot warmer than the air. Could be sixty above. Tough to say. The air feels like ice on my face. The water’s real warm by comparison. Don’t worry about me, Councilor. I’ll be fine. I’ve got some good news.”
“What?”
“I found the heat source. It’s at the bottom. A giant radiator.”
“A what?”
Cavanaugh flashed his grin at her again. “That’s right. There’s a working power source down here somewhere.”
Chapter 38
“My Lord!” Donali kneeled and bowed his head when Shallah walked into his quarters—alone. The fact that there were no guards accompanying the Supreme One struck Donali as a sign of great trust.
“It is a relief that you do not doubt me,” he said.
“Yesss,” Shallah hissed. “I suppose it must be. Arise.”
Shallah didn’t wait for Donali’s brain to send impulse to his nerves and from there to his legs. He crooked a finger, and Donali’s synapses fired without him. He’d realized during his interrogation that somehow the Supreme One could control his mind and body via the Sythian implant in his brain. Shallah could even reach into his thoughts, directly probing his brain for any hint of deception.
Donali rose, his legs moving of their own accord. “What is our next move?” he asked.
Shallah turned to him, blue eyes wide and rubbery lips stretched into a vague parody of a smile. “I shall need time to think. Follow me, human. I do not trust you enough to leave you alone yet.”
They walked through the fortress, down long corridors, past food storage banks, and hydroponic cellars where new food was busy being grown. Donali began to wonder about Shallah’s fortress. Where was it? Were they aboard a starship, or on a planet somewhere?
Shallah was expecting reprisals from Avilon; he’d said as much during the interrogation. He wouldn’t hide somewhere obvious.
The air inside the fortress was damp and cool, but that didn’t mean anything. Shallah’s command ship had been the same. Climate controls could be adjusted to the Quarn’s preferences.
Donali noted that the fortress, wherever it was, had thick bulkheads and beams, much like a starship would have. It was heavily reinforced. Perhaps it was another starship.
“Master . . . where are we?”
Shallah gave a burble of laughter. “I do not trust you to know where we are, either.”
“I cannot communicate from here. My mental link has vanished. The risk of me knowing is slight,” Donali said.
“True, we are generating enough interference to reduce the risk.”
They reached a nerve center of some kind, a room full of glowing consoles and seated Sythians—more Quarn like Shallah. He took his seat on the throne on the raised dais in the center of the room. Shallah looked at Donali, and his muscles forced him to kneel beside Shallah’s throne and bow his head—more psychic intrusions.
Shallah raised his voice. “What news from our clusters? Do our warships return from Dark Space?”
“They are on their way, Supreme One,” someone answered.
“Good. And the battle in orbit?”
So we are on a planet, Donali thought.
“An Avilonian fleet, My Lord. They are no longer here.”
“Any sign that they detect us?”
“No, My Lord.”
“If they do not notice us when we are so close, they will never find us here.”
“Pressure sensors on the surface are giving feedback!”
“A ground quake?”
“No, Supreme One, we have visitors.”
“Indeed? This is unexpected.” Shallah rose from his throne. “Come, let us greet them.”
“Is that wise? What if they are Avilonians?”
“How many are they?”
“Less than ten.”
“Then we need not fear. We are thousands. Besides, if they kill us, we resurrect aboard our ship, and we know not to stay here any longer.”
“Yes, Master.”
Donali rose next, again without thinking about it. The rest of the Sythians in the control center rose, too, and Donali both saw and heard the clatter of weapons being gathered from wall-mounted lockers. Seeing that, he felt naked, and vulnerable. Would he be resurrected, too, if he died? Had the Sythians linked him to one of their databases? Ear-marked a clone for him?
He hoped so.
* * *
Cavanaugh was right about the heat source, but he was wrong about the temperature of the water. By the time they got him transferred to one of his squad-mates’ Zephyrs, he was shivering violently, and incoherent from the cold. The unit medic took one look at him and shook his head. The squad said their goodbyes. Destra and Atta did, too. Cavanaugh made his last request, and that involved Destra taking a walk with Atta. From a distance the screech of the ripper rifle wasn’t as recognizable, just a soft echo to their ears, and Atta didn’t ask about it.
The remaining four Rictans found them a minute later, hugging each other and rocking back and forth on the ground. One of the Rictans stepped forward.
“We need to find where the power is coming from,” he said.
Destra looked up at the man and nodded.
They tracked the interference they’d detected earlier, following it into another tunnel that led away from the echoing chasm where the Gors had set up their new creche.
Torv followed them, curious to see what they were looking for, and what they might find. His people had been primitives, but the Sythians had trained them and educated them to make more useful slaves. Torv’s parents had passed that education on to him. Seeing his home world for the first time, with the eyes of an educated adult, Torv understood what his people who had lived here all their lives had not. He knew what power was, what civilization looked like, and he knew what that could mean.
“There may be Ssythians down here,” he said.
“Maybe,” Destra said. “But why hide? They don’t need to.”
They walked on in silence for a while. The tunnel became cramped and hard for Torv and the Rictans to negotiate. Atta didn’t seem to notice.
“Where are the rest of your people, Torv? The ones you found dead? I haven’t seen any of the b
odies yet.”
“We seal them in one of the tunnels. A few of my creche mates were afraid that if we left the bodies in the open, they might attract the Pale Ones.”
“The Pale Ones?” Destra asked.
“Stories the Matriarchs tell to the crechelings to keep them close. They steal our crechelings. They steal us, too. I do not believe this.”
Destra frowned. “What are they?”
“They are beasts. Monsters. I have never seen one.”
The nearest Black Rictan grunted. “Let’s not start jumping at shadows.”
Destra felt a tug on her arm. It was Atta. “What if one of the Pale Ones gets me?” she asked.
“They won’t.”
“How do you know?”
“You heard Torv. They aren’t real. Just stories.”
Atta didn’t look convinced. Destra wasn’t sure what to think, but one thing was for sure: something was alive down here. Where else was the power coming from? Surely not a million-year-old power plant, still running by itself.
“The interference is getting stronger,” the Black Rictan at the head of their group said.
“Good!” one of the others replied. “My core is almost depleted.”
Ten minutes later, the tunnel came to an abrupt end. That end was a solid wall of duranium. At first it just looked like more ruins, but then Destra noticed that the duranium wasn’t crusted with ice as it should have been.
“This is a door,” Rictan Three said, studying it. “And someone’s been using it—recently.”
“Think we should knock?” one of the others asked.
Torv hissed. “We must leave.”
“What did he say?” Three asked.
“He said we have to go,” Destra replied.
“What? Why?” Three turned to Torv. “Never mind, pass me the cutting beam!” One of the other Rictans passed it forward. The one at the door dialed up the power and set to work. A bright red beam crackled out, bathing the tunnel in a crimson hue. Destra shied away from the blinding glare. Torv hissed and covered his eyes, turning away with her.
“It is not safe here,” he said.
“Why not, Torv?”
The Gor’s eyes were darting and wider than usual. He looked scared. “I smell death. The Matriarchs are right. They tell the crechelings the truth. The Pale Ones shall eat us.”
“Eat you?” Destra frowned, her skin prickling with goosebumps beneath her vac suit. “Torv—your people are the ones who eat everything that moves. If these Pale Ones of yours do exist, and if they’re the ones who live behind that door, I don’t think their idea of a tasty meal is a bony Gor.”
“Do you know this?”
“You’re ascribing savagery to what could be a relatively advanced race of . . .” Destra stopped herself there. What would these so-called Pale Ones be? Another race of Gors? Ancient survivors from the ruined cities of Noctune? Or some other sub-species of Sythians?
Maybe all three. They were all ultimately related anyway.
“Almost there . . .” Rictan Three said.
Destra turned to look. The next thing she saw was the solid wall of duranium slide open, but not because Three had finished his work.
The open door revealed a dimly-lit space, free of ice, and orderly as the inside of any starship. It looked like a bunker of some kind. Then came a sharp hiss and out walked a bipedal creature.
“What the frek!” Three exclaimed, stumbling back a step and bringing his cutting beam into line.
The sentinel couldn’t have recognized this creature, but Destra did. It looked almost the same as High Lord Kaon. Pale, translucent skin, a bald head, and a spider’s web of blue veins crisscrossing its face were hallmarks of this sub species. A thin tail lashed the ground restlessly behind its back, and wide, glowing blue eyes regarded them unblinkingly. This Sythian wore a glossy black uniform.
“Do not presume to shoot me,” it said, gills flaring in the sides of its neck. The words echoed strangely inside Destra’s head. Then she realized that its lips hadn’t moved.
Atta shrank behind Destra’s legs. “Is that one of the Pale Ones?” she whispered.
“I suppose Omnius sent you to kill us.”
Destra shook her head. “We are not from Avilon.”
At that, she felt her brain begin to tingle, as if slender wires were snaking around inside her skull.
“What are you doing? Cut that out!” Rictan Three roared, sounding horrified.
Destra realized that all of them were feeling the same thing. The other Rictans reacted with similar cries of outrage. Atta was the only one who remained silent.
The sensation of wires snaking through Destra’s brain abruptly abated, and the Sythian inclined its head. “You tell the truth.”
“Who are you?” Destra asked.
Torv hissed and lunged toward the Sythian. He only made it halfway there before he collapsed, screaming and gripping the sides of his head, as if trying to stop it from exploding.
Destra watched Torv writhing around for just a second before she realized what was happening. The snaking wires she’d felt in her brain were from some kind of psychic intrusion. The alien they’d encountered had used that same ability to bring Torv to his knees.
“Leave Bones alone! You’re hurting him!” Atta shrieked, racing out at the Sythian before Destra could stop her.
“Atta! No!”
The alien merely looked at Atta, allowing her to run up to him and beat him with her fists.
“You wish to save this beast?” the Sythian asked. “Very well.”
Torv flinched, and then opened his slitted yellow eyes. He shimmied up against the nearest wall, pulling his knees up to his chest, looking small and frightened. He was gasping for air and watching the Sythian in horror.
“Ironic that even the most fearsome warrior can be reduced to a quivering mess when he meets a monster more frightening than he.”
“You’re a Sythian, right?” Destra insisted. There seemed to be no doubt about it, but she had to be sure. What would a Sythian be doing hiding in the depths of Noctune?
“A Sythian? No, I am not a Sythian.”
Relief washed over her.
It was short-lived.
“I am The Sythian. They call me Shallah. The Supreme One, and these—” The alien turned, and dozens more just like him appeared, seeming to melt out of the shadows. “—are my creche mates.”
One of those who appeared was not an alien. The glowing red optic he wore over his missing eye identified him long before he walked into the light of the Rictans’ glow lamps. Destra recognized him instantly. She gasped. It was impossible! He’d been aboard the Tempest, with Admiral Hale.
“Donali?”
The human traitor smiled. “Hello, Destra.”
* * *
Captain Farah Hale stood on the bridge of the Baroness, looking out at space, her chest rising and falling slowly, a painful lump wedged in her throat.
She was at a crossroads. She and her crew had waited a month at the rendezvous for Bretton to come back. They hadn’t bothered to bring the rest of the Baroness’s crew out of stasis, because they didn’t know how long they’d have to wait, and supplies were already running low.
With just her and her five bridge crew to support, they could wait many more months for Bretton without starving to death, but what would be the point? If Bretton hadn’t returned by now, it was because he wasn’t going to. He’d run into trouble in the Getties, just as Farah had predicted.
Frek you, Uncle Bret! she thought, her eyes burning with unshed tears. He was always getting himself into trouble. Why couldn’t he just stay safe? Maybe he didn’t care if he lived or died, but she did.
She’d followed him from Etheria to look after him. Since then, Farah had denied her feelings and made excuses for herself. She followed him to the Null Zone and joined his freelance enforcer business. He let her get close enough to work with him, but that was it. She could feel the walls he’d raised after his son, Ciam, was kill
ed, and those walls weren’t coming down anytime soon.
There was that, and the fact that what she felt for him wasn’t right. But Farah struggled to identify why it wasn’t right. How do you tell yourself that your feelings are wrong? Feelings are feelings and they can’t be changed—only suppressed—and she was already an expert at that.
Farah looked away from the glittering field of stars beyond the forward viewports and turned to her crew. Half of them were asleep at their control stations. She couldn’t blame them for that. There wasn’t much point staying alert after spending an entire month staring at blank screens.
“It’s time to go,” Farah said.
A few people sat up straighter, turning to stare up at her. The sleeping ones remained asleep at their stations. Farah cleared her throat and clapped her hands.
“Wake up!” They did. Once she had everyone’s attention, she nodded and said, “We’ve waited long enough. Admiral Hale should have arrived by now. The fact that he hasn’t means he’s run into trouble in the Getties.” Farah let her statement of the obvious sink in before she went on. “We’re going to go find him.”
The highest ranking officer on deck, Deck Commander Tython, raised his voice at that, “We’re six months’ journey from Noctune, Ma’am.”
“Your point?”
“My point is that that’s a long way. We only have enough fuel for a one way trip.”
“And when we find the Tempest, we’ll have a working quantum junction and a quantum drive system, so how much fuel we have or don’t have won’t be an issue anymore.”
“If we find them the Tempest, Ma’am.”
“When,” Farah insisted. “I wasn’t making a suggestion, Commander. The Resistance can’t afford to lose the Tempest. We’re going to Noctune, and that’s the end of the discussion.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” Tython said carefully.
“Helm, set course and begin spooling for a jump.”
“Yes, Ma’am!”
Farah turned back to the viewports and nodded to herself, watching her reflection in the transpiranium. Her normally golden hair was a tangled, unwashed mess. Her cheeks looked gaunt. Her eyes haunted. She didn’t look well. She didn’t feel well either. The last month hadn’t been an easy one, but she felt better with the prospect of doing something. Going after Bretton and the Tempest obviously wasn’t a popular decision, but what was the worst that could happen? Mutiny? She’d have to make some preparations for the possibility. Six months was a long time to spend couped up on a ship, even under ideal circumstances, and with the crew questioning her orders already, circumstances were far from ideal.
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