Dark Space: The Invisible War (6 page)

“Not just the
Defiant
. Everyone in Dark Space is blissfully unaware. Bringing them into our sanctuary was not a very popular decision.”

“I can understand that.”

“They know we’re working with the Gors and that we have an alliance. They also know what the Gors look like and that their species is not really to blame for nearly wiping us out—at least not directly to blame—but that still doesn’t mean humans are eager to work with Gors. Just knowing a Gor is aboard is enough to keep most people from sleeping at night—you saw how Tova appeared out of nowhere.”

“Yeah,” Ethan nodded. “You mean that’s not some piece of tech?”

Atton shook his head. “Did you see her wearing one?”

“Point.”

“For that reason, and a few others, I’ve asked Tova and Roan to keep their presence aboard my ships a secret for now, and in exchange for keeping them cooped up, I’ve made a very comfortable home for them, or crèche as they call it—you should see the one I was constructing aboard the
Valiant
.”

“Okay,” Ethan said. “That brings me to my next question. Why bother? Why go to all that trouble to keep a few aliens aboard? I get that you need crewmen for the ships that you’re salvaging, but Tova is obviously not there to fill out your crew.”

Atton smiled. “First of all, she and Roan are our liaison to the Gors. And second, they actually
are
a part of the crew.”

Ethan cocked his head. “Oh?”

“We have a cloak detector aboard all of our ships. It feeds data directly to our gravidar systems, and it tells us both when there are cloaked Sythian ships present, and roughly where they are located.”

Ethan’s eyebrows rose. “That must come in handy.”

“It does. It’s turning the tide of the war for us—that in conjunction with our own cloaking devices. What most people don’t realize, however, is that the detector is not some new piece of tech. It’s built in to every living Gor.”

Ethan blinked. “What?”

“Gors can communicate with members of their species telepathically, and via the same medium they can
sense
their fellows at a distance.”

Ethan was taken aback. “Kavaar . . .”

“The Gors’ telepathy is apparently also how Sythian ships track and communicate with each other while cloaked. To the Gors, it’s second nature.”

“And the Sythians? Do they have this telepathy?”

Atton shook his head. “The Gors say they don’t. That’s why Sythian ships still have comm systems.”

“Okay, so we’re dependent on Tova to be our eyes in space. What about our ships’ cloaking devices? Is that a Gor thing, too?”

“No, those are tech. We reverse-engineered a Sythian cloaking device over five years ago, back when we first met the Gors. Until then it had been impossible for us to capture a Sythian vessel and study it, since the Sythians were always on the winning side of every fight, but the Gors have delivered such vessels to us freely. Most Sythian systems are an enigma to us still, but the Gors showed us how to build cloaking devices with a hybridized version of Sythian tech and ours. Our cloaking devices are not nearly as efficient as Sythian ones, so we don’t have miniature versions, but anything destroyer-sized and up is easy enough for us to cloak as long as we have the right components.”

Ethan shook his head, incredulous. Then he froze as something else occurred to him. “Wait—you said the Gors are helping you fight the Sythians to free their people, but the Sythian ships are crewed with Gors, not Sythians, so they’re helping you fight their own kind. Don’t you find that suspicious?”

“We only
disable
the Sythian ships. After that, we send our Gors aboard to free their fellows. The newly-freed slaves join our ranks, and everyone’s better off. If we were killing them left and right, of course they wouldn’t agree to help us. It’s enough that they’re surrendering to us without a fight and allowing us to capture and even destroy their ships. We don’t need to kill the slave army if we can corrupt it to our side.”

“Hmmm . . .” Ethan sat back with a thoughtful frown.

“What is it?”

“I still feel like there’s something the Gors aren’t telling you. What if they’re just using us to free themselves?”

Atton shrugged. “It’s still a mutually beneficial arrangement.”

“Right up until the slaves become the masters.”

“Hopefully they’ll show some gratitude when that happens.”

Ethan snorted. “Let’s not be naïve.”

“Now you’re starting to sound like Admiral Heston.”

“Who?” Ethan asked.

“The leader of the other human enclave.”

“Yes, you mentioned that there was another group of survivors.”

Atton nodded. “We’ll get back to that later.” Turning to the holo projector he said, “Holofield off.” The holo recording of High Lord Kaon disappeared, and the lights in the room returned to full brightness. “Otherwise, have I answered all of your questions?” he asked.

Ethan nodded slowly. “For now.”

“Good. Are you ready to answer my question yet?”

Ethan took a moment to recall what question his son was referring to, but then he remembered: Atton wanted him to take over as the Supreme Overlord. Ethan took an extra moment to consider his answer before he replied. Was he ready to take on that much responsibility? His son certainly had faith that he could, but that didn’t mean it was true.

Ethan sighed. There was only one way to find out. “When do we make the switch?”

Atton smiled. “Come with me.”

Ethan followed him to the door, and both of them turned their holoskins back on before leaving the office. From there they proceeded to the lift tubes and down through the ship until they reached the overlord’s quarters. Inside, there was already a med bot waiting with a syringe full of anesthetic.

Ethan noted that with a snort of laughter. “Seems like you were one step ahead of me.”

“I knew you’d accept,” Atton said, already undoing the gold buttons of his white uniform.

“How’d you know that?”

“
I
accepted, and a son’s zeal doesn’t stray far from his father’s ideals.”

“An old Rokan proverb. I wasn’t sure I had any ideals, Atton.”

“Come now,
Dad
. We both know Destra Ortane wasn’t a stupid woman. She wouldn’t have agreed to marry just
any
outlaw.”

“I suppose not,” Ethan replied, stripping out of his uniform and then rolling up the sleeve of his undershirt to present his wrist to the med bot. He winced as the needle went in and then he shook his head. “And my wrist was just starting to feel better . . .”

Atton laughed. “Maybe you’ll want to have the blood sample taken from your other arm.”

“More needles?”

“I need to alter the Imperial records so that what’s on file for the overlord matches your actual DNA, blood type, and other markers. We’ll need to update the database over the net as soon as we get back to Dark Space, and out here in Sythian Space we’ll have to send the updates to each of our ships individually, since there is no commnet.”

“Sounds like you have everything covered.”

“The only thing we can’t fake with altered records is your approximate age, which can be determined from a sample of your blood. I’ll restrict access to those tests, but if someone gets suspicious they can always conduct the tests by hand.”

Ethan nodded. “Well, hopefully no one gets suspicious.” He winced again as another needle went into his arm to take a blood sample. Ethan eyed the hovering med bot. “You like poking me, you blood-sucking little kakard, don’t you?”

The bot gave no reply, but whirred away on its grav lifts to deposit the sample and pick up a scalpel. The bot returned to his side, apparently waiting for something.

Atton nodded to him and then pointed to a nearby chair. “You’d better sit down over there. If your arm isn’t steady while he works, he might cut the wrong thing.”

Ethan headed to the indicated armchair. “Wouldn’t want that, would we, Pokey?”

The bot elicited an indecipherable beep, and Ethan grinned up at it as he sat down in the chair. “So you do speak.”

Another beep.

“His vocals are damaged,” Atton explained. “I like bots better that way.”

Ethan frowned and looked away, and the bot set to work, tying a tourniquet around his arm, disinfecting his skin, and laying down surgical sheets before bringing the scalpel into line. Ethan turned back to watch the bot cut a bloody line across his wrist. Seeing the med bot expose bloody muscle and bone white tendons, Ethan’s head swam dizzily. He grimaced and lay his head back against the chair, silently counting backward from 100 to distract himself until it was over.

100 . . . 99 . . . 98 . . .

*  *  *

—THE YEAR 0 AE—

Destra walked through the forest. Leaves, needles, and snow crunched underfoot. Here the snow was a thin patina on the colorful autumn leaves and old brown needles. The forest arced out over their heads in splashes of color, leaving shady patterns on the floor. It was as though winter hadn’t fully come here yet. Up ahead, Digger led the way, while Lessie and Dean kept pace beside her.

“What are we doing here?” Dean asked in a small, whiny voice. “I want to go home.” He was tired from all the walking, and Destra was willing to bet he hadn’t had enough sleep.

She turned to him with a smile. He couldn’t have been much older than her own son, Atton. “We’re going to play hide and seek.”

Dean shot her a suspicious look. “My mom says I can’t talk to strangers.”

Lessie shushed him with a tousle of his blond hair. “She’s not a stranger, Dean. She’s a friend. She and Digger are going to keep us safe.”

“Safe?” Dean asked, looking up at his mom with squinty eyes. “Safe from what?”

Destra smiled. “Safe from the people looking for us. We can’t let them find us, because then we’ll lose.”

“I don’t care!” Dean said. “I want to go home.”

“You can’t go home,” Lessie replied, her voice cracking on that last word.

“Why not?” Dean insisted.

Lessie abruptly stopped walking. “Because home is gone! It’s blown up! That’s why!” She stood there panting and staring at her son while he stared back at her with wide eyes and a trembling lip.

Destra frowned. She turned and bent to one knee in front of the boy. “Look, I can see there’s no fooling you, Dean. You’re a smart kid, so I’m going to be honest with you. It’s time for you to grow up now; it’s time for you to be a man. Do you understand?”

Dean hesitated before nodding his head.

“Good. Then here’s the truth: everyone’s homes are gone, Dean. There’s nothing left. Everyone who hasn’t already left Roka in a spaceship is being hunted by very bad things, and they’ll kill us unless we hide from them.”

Dean’s face paled again, and back was the shell-shocked look Destra had seen in the hover, but all things considered, he seemed to be holding it together better than his mother. “What things?” the boy asked.

“Hoi! You three coming? We’re here!”

Destra turned to see Digger waiting for them at the top of a short hill; the sun shone down through the trees to silhouette him in an angelic gold light.