Dark Space: The Invisible War (2 page)

Atton began to squirm, threatening to break free, and Destra tightened her grip. Suddenly he began crying again.

“Quiet!”

“Tibby!” he cried.

Suddenly, Destra understood, and she shot a quick glance over her shoulder to see the furry diger lying in a dirty puddle of snow behind them. “Krak!” Destra said.

“Des!” the captain roared at her above the sound of the waiting corvette’s grav lifts. “We have to go now!”

Destra heard a loud, pulsating screech start up, and she turned to see a blinding stream of red light shooting out from the other corvette. It was hovering in the near distance to head off the incoming enemy ships. Destra turned and ran for the waiting corvette.

“Tibby!” Atton wailed again.

“Forget Tibby!” Destra snapped. “He’s not important!”

“Yes, he is! No . . . Tibby! We can’t leave him!”

Destra reached the waiting corvette just as a stream of dancing purple stars began swarming toward them from the enemy ships. The enemy blended perfectly into the night. These ships weren’t flying in with their landing lights on.

The defending corvette began weaving an evasive pattern while still firing its lasers. A bright explosion flared against the horizon as the corvette’s lasers struck home, followed by a distant
boom
. Then the purple stars swarmed the defending corvette, exploding brilliantly and sending nonessential pieces of it flying in all directions. A second later, the corvette flew apart, turning the world to white and numbing her ears with the sound. The shockwave hit them, knocking Destra to the landing platform with a searing blast of heat.

Destra’s ears rang. Her eyes were still dazzled—blind—and her back was wet. She hoped the wetness was a puddle and not a dire injury which she was too adrenaline-pumped to feel. Then strong hands reached for her, tugging her to her feet and lifting a screaming Atton off her chest. She blinked her dazzled eyes to see the hazy outline of her uncle’s face, and then she saw a pair of petty officers rushing off with her son. Atton wailed and reached for her with both hands.

“Mommy!” he screamed.

“I’ll see you soon!” she yelled back.

“Des!” Reichland shook her by her shoulders. “Get to the hover transport! Get out of here!” And then he was gone, tearing up the boarding ramp after her son. The ramp began to rise, and a second later they were out of sight, sealed safely inside the corvette. Destra stood there sniffling and wiping tears from her eyes with flaming chunks of debris still raining down all around her. She watched numbly as the surviving corvette rose quickly into the sky and shot off at full speed. It was a blinding white blur roaring off on a bright orange contrail of engine glow, and then it was gone, taking all that mattered to her in the universe with it.

Behind her a rumbling roar started up, and Destra turned to see the old transport rising slowly. That was when she saw the first purple star hit the converted ore freighter and explode in a blinding flash of light.

10 Years Later

—THE YEAR 10 AE (AFTER EXODUS)—

A
lec Brondi appeared hovering over his comm officer’s shoulder as he listened in on the enemy transmissions. They’d just been decrypted using the
Valiant’s
own encryption codes.
Should have wiped the mainframe while you had the chance,
Brondi thought, his mouth gaping in a smile.

“
Defiant?
Please respond!” came an unidentified voice. The commcast was coming from Brondi’s own corvette. His smile faded to see the ship’s ID light up on the comm board. Whoever had stolen the
Kavarath
was going to pay.

Brondi’s comm officer turned to him. “Looks like we did some serious damage with that last hit. The
Defiant’s
not responding to their hails.”

“Good!” Brondi replied, rubbing his hands together. “Get our novas to finish the job.”

“They’re almost in range . . .” gravidar replied.

Brondi grinned once more, for the moment able to ignore the fact that someone had stolen his ship. Then, a minute later, gravidar called out: “Our novas just went off the grid!”

“What?” Brondi turned to the man, blinking in annoyance.

In the next instant the
Defiant
responded to Brondi’s stolen
Kavarath
, the commcast sounding across the bridge: “You did it, you old frekker!” Brondi recognized the supreme overlord’s voice, and he scowled.
Dominic made it out alive!
“We’re clear to—” The overlord’s voice dissolved in static and picked up again a minute later. “—mine goes off in five, so be sure you make it in time. See you on the other side, Ethan.
Defiant
out!”

Ethan!
Brondi thought. He was gaping more noticeably now, but definitely not smiling.
Ethan
had stolen his corvette! It wasn’t enough for the man to have cheated him out of 10,000 sols, but now the ungrateful grub was stealing Brondi’s own ship! “Don’t let them escape!” Brondi screeched. “I want that ship stopped!” He slammed his fist down on the comm board and the screen grew momentarily fuzzy with the impact.

“Which one?” the gunnery officer asked.

“Both of them!”

“We’ve just lost the
Defiant!
” gravidar exclaimed.

Brondi whirled around once more. “What do you mean lost?
How?
They made a blind jump?”

“They flew through the gate.”

Brondi blinked. The fact that the Dark Space gate was working was a big surprise. That explained why the overlord had been running toward it, but it didn’t explain the cover-up. The Imperium had assured the people for ten long years that the gate was deactivated.

“Well, follow them!” Brondi snapped.

“With the
Valiant?
” the nav officer asked.

“No, with a flying squirrel! Of course with the
Valiant!
”

“What about the Sythians?” someone asked. “I don’t think it’s wise to—”

“Verlin, remove that man from his post!” Brondi said, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the dissenter’s voice.

Verlin stalked up to the officer even as the man began rising out of his chair and waving his hands frantically. “Hoi, call off your pet rictan, Brainy!” the nav officer screeched. Verlin didn’t back off, and Brondi just looked on as the officer backed away from Verlin and fetched up against the bridge viewports. “Hoi, this isn’t funny, Brondi! I’ve learned my lesson. . . .”

Verlin suddenly leapt forward, his speed augmented by the armor he was wearing. While he was in the air, he brought up his forearm gauntlet to smash the officer’s nose. The man’s scream was cut short as his head bounced off the transpiranium viewport with a
bang!
and he crumpled to the deck. A deadly calm fell over the bridge.

“Now follow that ship!” Brondi pointed out the viewports to the distant speck which was the Dark Space gate.

“We’re about to lose the
Kavarath,
” gravidar added quietly.

“Shoot them!”

A bright red beam shot out from the bow of the
Valiant.
The carrier’s main beam cannon—a corona XL. Brondi waited a second, then asked. “Well?”

“We missed . . .” a small voice replied.

Brondi shook his head, disbelieving, and he watched as the distant speck which was his corvette flew through the Dark Space gate with a flash of light, leaving a fading blue ripple shimmering across the surface of the gate.

Alec Brondi let out a roar. “Have you all gone skriffy? I’m surrounded by imbeciles! How could you
miss
them?”

Brondi stared out the broad forward viewports of his newly-captured gladiator-class carrier, his chest rising and falling quickly with barely-contained fury. No one dared to answer, afraid to be the next target for his ire. Then came a brilliant flash of light, and everyone on the bridge flinched away from the blinding glare. The viewports darkened almost instantly, but not fast enough to keep their eyes from being dazzled by the light. When Brondi looked once more, blinking to see through the dancing white spots, he saw that the distant speck of the Dark Space gate was no more, and in its place was a large, expanding fireball, quickly dissipating into the void.

Brondi couldn’t believe it. Everything had been going so well! His plan to steal the
Valiant
had worked, and the largest surviving ship in the Imperial Star Systems Fleet was his to do with as he pleased! But now his victory tasted bittersweet. He’d just watched first the Supreme Overlord and then Ethan—piloting none other than Brondi’s own corvette—escape through a space gate which wasn’t even supposed to function anymore!

And with his corvette, Brondi had even lost the latest addition to his bevy of pleasure palace play girls—Alara, Ethan’s copilot. He’d been planning to have a bit of fun with her himself before passing her off to the wolves. That would have been the perfect revenge on Ethan, but now . . . now he’d be lucky to catch up with his ship before it was destroyed by the Sythians!

If there even were Sythians out there. Maybe there had never been any invasion. How was he to know? How were any of them to know? They’d been locked up in Dark Space when the invasion had begun and fed all the details via the dubious information channels of corporate media.

Brondi’s eyes narrowed. He was beginning to suspect some sort of overarching conspiracy. The Imperium had lied about the gate being disabled, so what else had they lied about?

“Sir?” the nav officer turned to him. “The gate is destroyed. We can’t follow them. What are your orders?”

Brondi scowled. “Well reposition the in-system gate!
Then
follow them.”

The nav officer hesitated, looking like he wanted to object, but his eyes darted to the body of the last man who’d voiced his dissent, and he just said, “Yes, sir.”

Brondi whirled around and began stalking between the control stations on his way up to the gangway. “I’m going for a walk. Someone put that man in the brig—” Brondi pointed to the officer who’d contradicted his orders earlier, who was now lying unconscious in a pool of blood from his broken nose. “—and notify me when we’re ready to leave!”

“Yes, sir.”

“Verlin, come with me.”

The bounty hunter appeared beside him a moment later, and Brondi caught his eye as they climbed the short set of stairs to the gangway. “I want you to gather a team to search the ship. The overlord was hiding something. Maybe a lot of somethings. I want to know what they are.”

“What makes you think that?” Verlin answered.

“That gate wasn’t even supposed to be operational. There’s a reason the Imperium has been lying about that. See if you can find any survivors aboard the ship. They might have answers for us.”

“As you wish,” Verlin replied.

*  *  *

Ethan Ortane watched the lights of the
Defiant’s
decks flashing by the lift tube like a golden rain as they descended through the cruiser. He turned his head to study the other occupant of the lift in the intermittent light—tall, broad-shouldered, dark hair, and piercing green eyes—with his rugged good looks, that man was all but the mirror image of Ethan in his youth. He was Atton, Ethan’s lost son—a ghost from ten years past—and apparently also a holoskinner and pretender to the throne of the supreme overlord. Granted, the supreme overlord had been Atton’s adoptive father after his Great Uncle Reichland had been killed. And while the supreme overlord had lain dying, he had revealed his secret: he was himself a holoskinner. He’d then asked Atton to assume the role after he died—at least until a more suitable candidate could be found. Atton had accepted the burden with great reluctance, and now he was passing on the legacy once more—should Ethan choose to accept it.

The lift tube whirred to a stop, decelerating so fast that Ethan’s legs threatened to buckle. Atton braced himself on the nearest wall.

“I hope they fix the IMS soon,” Atton said, referring to the inertial management system which had been damaged in their escape from Dark Space. Ethan nodded absently. He still had trouble accepting that his son was
alive
and standing there next to him. He turned his gaze to the lift tube doors, but they remained shut. Atton turned to him and withdrew a pair of aural translators from his breast pocket. He fitted one to his right ear and handed the other to Ethan. “Put this in your ear. It’ll help you understand the Gors when they speak.”

Ethan accepted the small silver device. He placed it in his ear.

“Put your holoskin back on,” Atton said.

Ethan saw his son’s features flicker and morph into those of the wizened overlord. Then he put his own holoskin back on and watched as the black and gray hairs on his arms turned to blond.

“We don’t want the Gors to think we’re impersonating someone else,” Atton explained.

Once they were both back in disguise, Atton reached out and punched a key on the lift’s control panel. The doors swished open and Ethan was immediately hit with a gust of frigid air that stole the breath from his lungs. The corridor beyond was long and dark.