Dark Space: The Invisible War (34 page)

Caldin frowned. “We’d better save what’s left, then. All right—as soon as our novas are aboard, set course a few million klicks from here, any direction, but use the real space drives. If the Sythians decrypted our comms and somehow figured out the coordinates of the rendezvous, I want to have a good head start. Meanwhile, I’m going to go debrief our pilots myself. Don’t bother informing them of the change of command. I’d like to see their reactions for myself. Petty Sergeant Corr—” Caldin turned to get the helmsman’s attention.

He looked up at her and ran a hand back through his short red hair, looking weary and stretched.

She nodded to him. “You’re now Deck Sergeant Corr, and the XO of this ship.”

“Thank you, Ma’am,” he said, his blue eyes widening.

“You’re in command while I’m gone. Keep me posted. I’ll be on the comm if you need me.” With that, Caldin started down the gangway to leave the bridge.

“Ma’am!” The comm officer called after her. “Captain Reese is asking to speak with the overlord! What should I say?”

Caldin scowled as she strode down the gleaming gangway. “Tell him the overlord is busy!”

Captain Adan Reese had a lot of explaining to do.

*  *  *

As soon as he popped open his cockpit and climbed down onto the wing, Atton noticed Commander Caldin already waiting for him on the deck. She was flanked by none other than the two guards he’d stunned and put in stasis tubes. “Good morning, Captain Reese,” Caldin said.

“Good morning,” Atton replied as he started down the ladder to the deck. He watched the guards out of the corner of his eye as he descended. Both held their rifles trained on him.

“You might be surprised to hear that there’s been a change of command while you were gone.”

“Oh?” Atton reached the deck and turned to face Caldin. His eyebrows were raised curiously, as though he had no idea what she was talking about.

Caldin smiled and nodded. “It would appear that the overlord was a holoskinner.”

Atton feigned shock. “A what?”

“Yes, and I’ve heard some unfortunate things about you, too.”

Atton’s eyes flicked to the nearest guard and he found the man grinning nastily at him. “What kinds of things?” Atton asked, his gaze on Commander Caldin again.

“Corpsman Terl and Corpsman Donaas tell me you stunned them and stuffed them into stasis tubes in order to ‘shut them up’—is that true, Captain?”

Atton gulped, but said nothing to that accusation.

“At the very least that’s a crime against your fellow officers, but I’m curious as to why you’d want to shut them up unless you had something to do with what they might have revealed. Something to do with Doctor Kurlin’s virus, perhaps?”

Atton’s cheeks bulged with a retort, but he decided it would be better to say nothing, so he just stood there with his nostrils flaring and his eyes narrowing in on the two guards who had gotten him into this mess.

Caldin snorted. “Don’t worry—if you’re innocent, we’ll find out. We’re going to conduct a mind probe on the man who’s been impersonating Overlord Dominic, so we may as well conduct one on you, too.”

Atton’s eyes flew wide. “That’s illegal! It’s too dangerous. You’d need authorization from the overlord himself for that.”

Caldin shook her head. “In the event that the overlord is unavailable, such an order may be issued by a Captain or an Admiral of the fleet. There’s a Captain on Obsidian Station, and an Admiral at Ritan. Take your pick.”

Atton frowned, and Caldin nodded to the guards. “Arrest that man, Corpsman Donaas.”

“With pleasure!” he replied.

*  *  *

Ethan sat on the bunk in his cell aboard the
Defiant,
staring at his hands. His
real
hands—no longer the wrinkled, age-spotted hands of the overlord. Now that he’d been revealed for who he really was, and the holoskin had been stripped away, Ethan was struggling to decide what to do next. As the overlord he’d had a purpose, a mission, a reason to struggle on, but now . . . now he was Ethan Ortane again, ex-con and lowly outlaw. Back in jail.

Déjà vu.

His thoughts took him back over ten years ago to when he’d been caught for smuggling stims and sentenced to exile in Dark Space. This was just history repeating itself, but this time there’d be no leniency for his crimes—no reason to let him out to support a struggling economy. Criminals as bad as him were executed, not punished and then rehabilitated.

The mind probe would discover everything. There’d be no way for him to hide. They would sift roughly through his memories with an AI, sorting them according to patterns associated with guilt. Like that they’d discover every crime he’d ever committed in his entire life.

Ethan was pulled out of his thoughts by the sound of approaching footsteps. He looked up to see a very familiar face. It was the face of Adan Reese, but Ethan knew that under that holoskin lay his son, Atton.

Atton turned to him with a grim smile. “Hoi there cell mate.”

One of the guards cuffed Atton across the back of his head. “Shut up!” They opened the cell opposite Ethan’s and shoved Atton roughly inside. Somehow, the guards hadn’t discovered that Atton was a skinner, too—and why would they? They had no reason to suspect he was someone else, but they obviously
had
leveled charges against him for having stunned them and stuffed them into stasis tubes.

As soon as the door to Atton’s cell slid shut and the guards had stalked away, Ethan stood and walked up to the bars of his cell. He waited until the guards walked out of sight, and then he whispered. “What are you in for?”

Atton shook his head and sat down on his bunk with a sigh. “Stupidity.”

“Why didn’t you just send them away like I asked?”

“It wouldn’t have shut them up for long. They knew about Kurlin. They would have unraveled the whole plot, and if someone had started looking for a holoskinning infiltrator among the survivors
,
you can bet they would have discovered both of us.”

“So you decided the best way to deal with that was to stuff them into stasis tubes until someone found them and let them out. You just delayed the inevitable and made yourself look guilty!” Ethan shook his head. “You were going to get caught either way.”

Atton looked up with a smile. “No, that wasn’t the plan. I was going to find a nice habitable planet somewhere along the way and jettison them both in an escape pod.”

Ethan gaped at his son. “You mean condemn them to die on a world that’s probably swarming with Sythians.”

Atton shrugged. “They would have at least had a chance. It was the best I could afford to offer them under the circumstances.”

Ethan shook his head and turned away with a scowl. “I can’t believe you’d even consider that. You may as well have killed them. It’s just as bad.”

“Said the mass-murderer to his son.”

Ethan spun on his heel, his eyes flashing.

“What did you say the reason was that you infiltrated the
Valiant
again? Something about being blackmailed to do it, or else Brondi would kill you and your copilot. I don’t see how plotting to kill a whole ship full of men and women to save your own skin is any different from me plotting to leave two men to the elements in order to do the same.”

Ethan grimaced. It was hard to argue with that logic, but he wasn’t appreciating the irony.

They were interrupted by a groan, and both turned toward the sound. Atton couldn’t see who was there because Kurlin’s cell was right next to his, but Ethan watched the doctor rise from the bed with a grimace. This was about to become much more complicated for him.

“What’s going on?” Kurlin asked, and then he turned to see Ethan staring at him from the cell opposite his, and his jaw dropped. “You! Who . . .” The doctor trailed off, shaking his head. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m the imposter, Kurlin.” The doctor just gaped at him. “That’s right,” Ethan nodded. “Shocking.”

“How . . . ?”

“It’s a long story—one which the mind probe will soon discover.”

“They’re going to probe us?” Kurlin asked, his eyes going wide.

“Why, are you afraid they might turn you into a vegetable? Vegetables can’t be tried for their crimes. You’d be better off.”

“He’s right, Kurlin,” Atton said.

Kurlin shut his mouth with a scowl and turned to look at the wall between him and Atton. “Who are you?”

“The one who saved your bony ass.”

“I don’t understand,” Kurlin said, shaking his head.

“Who do you think put those guards in stasis? They were the only ones who knew about you besides us.”

“Why . . . why would you do that?” Kurlin asked.

“Frekked if I know. Seems like I should have let them lynch you.”

Kurlin looked away, back to Ethan. “Who is he?”

Ethan smiled, now finally freed of the need for subterfuge. “He’s my son.”

*  *  *

— THE YEAR 0 AE—

When Destra Ortane went back to check on the fleet officer she’d rescued, she found his gurney wedged at an angle between the walls of the corridor. He was moaning in his sleep, and he felt hot to the touch, but at least he was firmly wedged, so she didn’t need to find a more secure place for him to lie. Destra dug through the netting under the gurney to find that most of the food had fallen out and rolled to the back of the ship, but the medkit was still securely tied. She opened it and injected the man with one of the last shots of antibiotics. That done, she patted his hand and said, “You’ll be okay.” He didn’t reply. He was still knocked out from the sedatives she’d administered hours ago, which was probably just as well. If he died, at least he’d die in his sleep. She headed back to the cockpit with a frown, thinking that the man would be lucky to live. His injuries had been very serious and there was almost certainly internal bleeding.

When Destra got back to the cockpit, she found herself blinking out at an unbroken vista of stars, and now she realized that the man’s injuries were moot.
Neither
of them were going to live.

Somehow, without her noticing, the Sythian fighter had dropped out of SLS far short of the next gate, and now she was stranded in the middle of who-knew-where. The most likely reason for that was that her fighter had run out of fuel.

Destra slumped down in the flight chair and took a quick look at what passed for the Sythians’ gravidar to see where she was. There appeared to be a planet not too far from her current location. The map couldn’t tell her what the planet was called in any name that she’d recognize, and it couldn’t tell her if the world were habitable either, but when she looked up into the starry void of space above her head, she saw it, and she didn’t have to wonder—she
knew
that it wasn’t habitable. The planet was so dark that it barely stood out from surrounding space. It was far from any visible sun, and appeared not to have any moons. It was also the only planet visible on the grid, which likely meant it was the only planet around for hundreds of millions of klicks.
An exoplanet,
she thought.