Shadow Space Chronicles 1: The Fallen Race (21 page)

“And you?” Lucius asked.  “Last I heard you were still at the Academy.”

The boy shrugged, “There was a lot of confusion just after the Chxor landed.  The Chxor didn’t think of the Academy as a real threat, so they… overlooked us at first.  I took the opportunity to escape and to try and get as many out with me as possible.”

Lucius stared.  Part of him wondered if the young man was a well-spoken coward or a quick thinking hero.  The poor kid probably wondered that himself, Lucius decided.  “That’s a noble action, Your Highness.  How may I help you?”

“
You can help me retake Nova Roma, and liberate it from the Chxor!” His voice rose at the end.

“
Ah… Your Highness, the problem is… I’ve only a couple of ships.”  Lucius couldn’t meet the boy’s eyes.  This was the man, by honor, by law, to whom he owed his allegiance.  “I don’t have the forces and I’ve sworn to help some refugees here.  I can offer you refuge--”

“
Baron, I’m not an idiot.” The boy-emperor shook his head, “I’m not asking you to throw your life away, or to forsake your duties.  I didn’t run away with nothing.  I couldn’t do that.  We… stole just about every ship in the yards.  I’m aboard the
Emperor Romulus
now.  We have a small fleet, and I’ve read your message.”

Lucius blinked, “That’s excellent news, Your Highness—”

“Oh let him finish, Lucius!” A familiar voice spoke from out of the view screen and Lucius felt his heart stop and then start beating again.  “You always were so stuffy!”

“
Alanis?” He asked, jaw open in disbelief.  “My God, I thought—“

She opened a second window and from the background she was at the communications station.  His sister spoke with the exasperation that only a younger sister could impart, “I did make it out, Lucius.  Now where is Reese?”

Lucius's face betrayed him, “We thought you were dead.  He stayed behind on Faraday.”

Her face fell, “Oh.”

“I’m sorry.  I—”

The Emperor took charge of the conversation again, his young voice brisk, “Look, Baron, we’ve got a dozen ships, a large number of sailors and Marines.  With you in charge, we can take the Chxor, whatever world they’re on and then we can take the Dreyfus fleet.  With that—”

Lucius nodded slowly, “With that, we could retake Nova Roma.  It won’t be easy, Your Highness.  We’ll need to crew the Dreyfus fleet, we’ll need to repair and refit those ships, without a doubt.  But we could do it.”

“
See?”  The youthful voice was exuberant.  “Now, give me the coordinates for your location and we can link up immediately.”

“
Of course, Your Highness, link me through to your navigation department—“

“
Ah, yes, that’s Cadet Fleming.”

“
Uh, Your Highness, you have a Cadet in charge of navigation?”

“
We’re… a little short on trained personnel here, Baron.”

“
You have someone with experience at the helm, at least?” Lucius asked.

“
Oh, yes, we’ve got Tug-Master Keeting at the helm.”

“
A, um, civilian tug-master?” Lucius asked, his heart fall.

“
Oh, no, he’s a retired master petty officer, eighty years of service.”

Lucius had a sudden mental image of a dozen cadets and a handful of elderly retirees handling the most advanced and expensive Imperial warship ever made and worse yet, with his little sister aboard.  “I see.  Please put me through to Cadet Fleming then, Your Highness.”

***

January 25, 2403 Earth Standard Time

Zeta Tau System

Unclaimed Space

Lieutenant Lauren Kelly stepped into Lucius’s office almost hesitantly, “Baron, you wished to see McGann?”

Lucius looked up from the figures he studied.  “Yes, I did.  Please send him in.”  He paused, “We may be a while, so feel free to take the rest of the afternoon off.”

She smiled, “Thanks, sir.  He’s not much of a hassle to watch, but it’s nice to get some free time.  I haven’t been down to the range in ages.”

Lucius frowned, “He doesn’t practice with his pistol?  I thought that pretty standard for those on the… shadier side of things.”

Lauren shrugged, “I don’t really know, Baron, but I’ve never seen him draw the thing, except once to clean it.”

Lucius nodded, digesting the fact.  “Thank you, Lauren, go ahead and send him in.”

Mason McGann stepped into the room with his normal arrogant strut and seated himself in the most comfortable chair before Lucius could offer.  “What’s up?”

Lucius cocked a head, staring at the smuggler.  “You still strike me as somewhat familiar.  Are you certain we haven’t met before?”

The smuggler’s eyes darted about the room, “No.  Pretty sure.  I’ve got a thing for faces.”

“
Ah, very well then.”  Lucius stroked his chin, “Actually, I’m slightly surprised you’re still here.  I’m sure someone as… resourceful as yourself has found at least a couple ways to escape from our little refuge.”

Mason shrugged, “Found a few.  Your security is so focused outwards and on those prisoners of yours, really, you leave some pretty big gaps.”  He shrugged, “I’m good for my word, though, so long as you keep yours.  Just keeping my options open.”

Lucius nodded, “I understand.”

“
So what’s with the prisoners you’ve got anyway?” Mason asked, “Most warlord types I’ve met would have spaced the lot of them, without much thought.  I mean, especially the pirates.  As for those Chxor… well, I’m sure it can’t be a popular decision to keep them alive.”

“
Popular or not, I believe it’s the right thing to do.  The Chxor, actually, have taken my offer to join us.  They’ll soon be productive, though I consider them more of an investment in the future.  The pirates in question… well they provided useful information, and for that I spared them.  The ones not guilty of a dozen other capital crimes, anyway.”  Lucius shrugged, “Mercy is something I believe strongly in, McGann, but so is justice.  Some of those men and women showed pride in the crimes they committed.  One of the ships claimed to be the
Revenge
, and that the captain was none other than Tommy King.”

The smuggler’s eyebrows shot up, “I take it he wasn’t?”

“No.  I encountered Tommy King once.”  Lucius shook his head, “Chased him around a system for several days.  I’ve seen the
Revenge
, seen her weapons close up.  The pirates of this ship were… not so fearsome.  They had their own list of heinous crimes, however.  Those pirates received a fair trial and a quick execution.”

“
I see.”  Mason McGann looked away, “I’d heard of Tommy King being bested only a couple of times.  What star system was it you faced him in?”

“
Trinity.” Lucius said, thinking back, “Though who bested who is debatable.  I will say he lives up to his legend, he’s tactically brilliant and he kept total control over his core force, even after we broke the majority of his allies.”

“
Trinity was a rough one, so I hear.”  Mason McGann shrugged, “What exactly did you want to see me about, besides reminiscing on dead pirates?”

“
Oh, I’m very certain that Tommy King’s not dead, not yet anyway.” Lucius smiled slightly, “But what I wanted to speak to you about was a job offer.”

Mason raised his eyebrows, “Talk, I’m getting stir crazy here.”

Lucius’s smile widened, “We need a cargo delivered quietly to a Chxor planet, no witnesses, no flashy exits.  The cargo needs time to hide itself before the Chxor ever realize it was placed.  Probably we’ll need multiple deliveries.”

Mason stared at him for a long moment, “You’re going to drop infiltration teams on Faraday?”  He shook his head, “That’s nuts!  Chxor will pick up outsiders in a day, maybe two!”

“That’s why we’re inserting people who know how to behave in Chxor controlled areas.” Lucius said, “And this is not open for discussion.  All personnel are volunteers and all of them know exactly what they’ll be going into.”

“
You-- you’re going to send Lauren in there aren’t you!” Mason shook his head, “Go stuff yourself.”

Lucius sighed, “McGann, we have to do this.  Either you and your ship will help us, or we try to use one of our captured pirate craft.  It’ll be a lot harder to get a corvette—“

“Try impossible.  The first thing the Chxor do is heavily seed the planet with scanners.  They’ll pick up the corvette as it enters the atmosphere.”  He shook his head, “There's a reason that you pretty much can't get any smugglers to take jobs in the Chxor Empire, you know.  Once they get their sensor network established, it's damned near impossible.”

Lucius nodded, “Unless we time it with entry of some cometary debris.  Faraday gets a lot of those, and the additional thermal mess might hide its entry.”

Mason frowned, “It might.”  His eyes narrowed, “Getting out would still be impossible.”

Lucius nodded, “It’s a one way trip for the crew.  They’re all volunteers too.”  He leaned back, “As I said, it’s not the best option... just our only other one.”

Mason grimaced, “You sure know how to talk.”  He rubbed one hand across the stubble on his chin, he seemed to find comfort in the soft rasp.  “Okay, here’s how it’s gotta be.”  His brown eyes met Lucius’s.  “I’ll take them in.  One trip, to minimize chances of detection.  The Chxor will look for rebels anyway, from what Lauren... that is, Lieutenant Kelly, said.  They’ll stir up like ants if they think someone snuck in.”  He paused in thought, “I don’t normally run human cargo, but I can fit… maybe a hundred.”

“
We have fifty volunteers and two hundred fifty metric tons of equipment.”

“
That’s… you’re arming an insurrection though…” the smuggler muttered to himself for a moment, “Okay, I can do it.  They’ll be crammed in the passenger quarters.  I hope they’re friendly.”

“
Friendly or not, they’ll do it.  Most of them leapt at the opportunity.”

Mason grimaced again, “Yeah, like me?”

“No, McGann, not like you.  Some of them have family on Faraday, some of them lost their entire families on worlds controlled by the Chxor.”  Lucius shook his head, “They’d exterminate us if they could.  Methodically wipe out every sign of our existence.  Doesn’t that make you want to stop them?”

The smuggler shrugged, rubbing at his pistol grip with is right hand.  His left hand massaged a necklace of wooden beads that hung from his belt.  “Sometimes I gotta wonder what we did for this universe that deserves us sticking around.”

Lucius smiled sadly, “Sometimes I’d agree with you.”  He shrugged, “On the other hand, one thing I don’t doubt is my duty to my people.  I will not fail in that.  I will not let the Chxor exterminate the human race without a fight.”

“
Duty,” the smuggler said, “is a funny thing.  It can make you do the worst things of all, you know?”

Lucius nodded and his thoughts went to Ghornath Prime.  “Yes, yes it can.”

Mason cleared his throat, “If you’re taking Admiral Collae’s help, do you have any psychics to counter Mistress Blanc?”

Lucius shook his head, “Unfortunately not, I’d want someone like that for the help in navigation if nothing else.”  Nova Roma had few psychics in general, but he'd been along on a raid where the commander had a psychic navigator once.  They had cut days off their shadow space jumps and arrived with far greater precision than a computer could calculate.

“I know someone who could help.” Mason cleared his throat, “I’m surprised she hasn’t contacted you yet.”

Lucius leaned back in his chair, “And who would that be?”

Mason shrugged, “Her name’s Kandergain.  I dunno if that’s her first name, last name, or even her real name, but that’s what she gave me.”  He paused for a moment, “She’s powerful, and she avoided the Plagues.”  He made casual reference to the Plagues that had wiped out well over ninety percent of human psychics.  Lucius had lost his own grandmother to them.

“
How do I know I can trust her?” Lucius said, disturbed by how uneasy the smuggler looked.  “From the way you’re talking, I’m not sure I
want
her help.”

“
Oh, you want her help.” Mason nodded, “Sometimes the price is a bit high, but you want her help.”  He shrugged uncomfortably, “She doesn’t deal in currency, only in favors.  She’ll offer you what seems like a bargain, but is in the end a lot more effort and more involvement than you ever suspected.”

“
Really?” Lucius frowned.  “That’s vague enough.”

Mason smiled, “As an example, last time she helped me, she gave me some information, and told me I couldn’t use it unless I sold it to buy my ship back.”

“You got the location of the Dreyfus Fleet from her?” Lucius stared.  He felt his stomach clench, “So you haven’t—“

The smuggler raised his hand, “Oh I checked, I definitely checked.  The ships are there, I didn’t believe it myself, but they
are
there.”