Dark Space: Origin (24 page)

“Hello, Roan,” Hoff said. “Are you ready to go home?”

“My home isss Noctune,” Roan hissed.

Hoff smiled thinly at the alien. “Not anymore.”

*  *  *

Ethan climbed awkwardly out of his docking station by suspending himself from the sides and swinging his legs down to the floor—which was actually the ceiling of the transport, since they’d crashed upside down.

“Report!” Sergeant Dorian ordered. “Anyone injured?”

“Negative, sir,” the man who’d been docked beside Ethan said for all of them. Dorian stopped in front of Ethan while the remainder of Aleph Squad swung down out of their docking stations. “Good—go see what’s out there, Laser Bait!”

Ethan didn’t bother to argue. He didn’t have any friends to stick up for him here. He poked his head out the hatch directly above their heads, in the
floor
of the transport, and looked around. Seeing nothing immediately dangerous, he climbed out and stood on the bottom of the shuttle. The hangar bay where they’d crash-landed was entirely empty except for them and a few damaged nova fighters. It was enormous, and Ethan felt like he was standing on the field of a massive grav ball stadium. It was designed to comfortably fit a 280-meter-long venture-class cruiser, meaning it had to be at least 300 meters deep.

Ethan heard the comm system inside his helmet crackle with, “Laser Bait, report!” He ignored Dorian as he looked around. The hangar was cloaked in deep shadows with only a handful of working glow panels flickering intermittently overhead. A blue wash of light spilled from the shields at the entrance and cast everything in cold, monochromatic tones. Ethan turned in a slow circle, noting the ruined concourse wall they’d crashed into. That was familiar. Brondi still hadn’t repaired the damage his troops had made when they’d fought their way past the half a dozen sentinels Atton had left guarding the
Valiant
. Thick carbon-scoring was in evidence on the bulkheads, and in places they were dented and carved with deep furrows. It looked as though a bomb had gone off inside the hangar.

Not a bomb—torpedoes.
Ethan remembered now. When he and Gina had fought their way off the
Valiant
in Brondi’s corvette, they’d blown a hole in the side of the hangar rather than ask nicely for Brondi to lower the shields. Since then, the hole had obviously been repaired, but very little else had been fixed.

“Will someone go shoot Laser Bait for me? He’s not responding to comms. I think he’s gone AWOL already.”

Ethan smirked at the sergeant’s sarcasm. If the order had been serious, he wouldn’t have broadcast it so Ethan could hear. “All clear,” Ethan replied.

“About time!” A moment later the sergeant jumped straight up through the open hatch and landed on the shuttle with a
boom.
“We’ve got to get out of here before they see us on the holocorders.” Another
boom
sounded as a third Aleph jumped up onto the shuttle.

“I don’t think we need to worry about holocorders,” Ethan said.

“Why not?” Dorian demanded as a fourth zephyr jumped up. He turned to them and gestured to the two main entrances of the hangar. “Tracker, Rull’s-eye, set up a perimeter.” They nodded and jumped down to the deck.

Ethan watched them go stomping away. Another pair of zephyrs jumped up and Dorian told them to set up a command center. “That abandoned control tower looks like a good bet,” he said, pointing up to the roof of the hangar where a bank of broken viewports gazed down on them.

The next thing anyone heard was the sound of another hatch hissing open. Ethan and the sergeant turned to see someone in a black flight suit climbing out the side of the cockpit. At that, a new voice joined them on the comms. It was Gina.

“Hoi!” she said, waving an arm out the side of the transport. “I’ve got an injured pilot here!”

Ethan felt cold dread slide into his gut like a wedge of ice.
Alara.

“Mender!” Sergeant Dorian called over the comms. “Get up to the cockpit.”

“Yes, sir.”

A moment later, the last two zephyrs landed on top of the transport. One of them was apparently
Mender
because he jogged over to the opposite side of the cockpit and climbed down the ladder to the hatch opposite the one which Gina was blocking.

Ethan stomped up to her. “Is Alara okay?” he asked.

She glared up at him. “What’s it to you?”

Before Ethan could answer, the sergeant came up behind him and said, “Private Ortane, leave the injured to Mender. Focus on the mission. Why don’t we have to worry about holocorders in here?”

Ethan turned to Dorian with a frustrated hiss. “We don’t have to worry because when Gina and I shot out of here like a rictan on fire, we didn’t leave enough working pieces of a holocorder to spot a supernova, let alone a few insignificant zephyrs. This is probably the only part of the ship where they won’t be able to see us.”

“Wait a second—” Gina said. “
When
we
shot out of here?
I was with Captain Reese. I don’t even
know
you—except that apparently you were caught impersonating the overlord.”

“It’s a long story. What’s wrong with Alara?”

“She’s got a headache—answer the damn question!”

“Look, this is going to be hard for you to understand, but I
was
Adan Reese, and I was also the overlord.”

Gina shook her head. “You can’t be in two places at once, krakhead. Try again.”

“First I was a holoskinner impersonating Adan Reese for Brondi. Then I found out my son was a holoskinner impersonating the overlord, and he and I switched places while we were aboard the
Defiant
.”

Gina shook her head. “You were working for
Brondi?
”

Ethan felt a cold sweat break out under his armor, and he hurried to add, “Hoi, I’m not on his side. He forced me to do it.”

There came a soft click of a weapon’s safety sliding off. “Yea? Forced you to do what exactly, Laser Bait?” Ethan turned to see Sergeant Dorian aiming a plasma rifle at him.

“He’s telling the truth,” a weak female voice said over the comm.

Ethan recognized that voice immediately. “Alara!” he said. “Are you all right?”

“I’m . . . alive.”

“You don’t sound too good. I’m coming to get you—get out of the way Gina.”

“Hoi!” Sergeant Dorian bellowed as Ethan started down the ladder to the cockpit. “I didn’t say you could move!”

“Let him go,” Gina said as she withdrew from the hatch. “He should say goodbye. Alara deserves that much.”

Goodbye?
Ethan’s feeling of dread intensified. He hurried the rest of the way down to the hatch and swung into the cockpit. He found Alara inside, splayed out on the roof of the shuttle. One of her eyes had swollen shut and she held a bloody wad of gauze to her forehead. The squad medic crouched beside her, tending to her injuries with a medkit. His zephyr stood open like a butterfly in the far corner of the cockpit.

“Kiddie . . .” Ethan whispered.

Alara lifted her head and smiled. Her open eye sparkled a warm shade of lavender. “Hoi, Ethan,” she said.

He walked up to her and knelt awkwardly beside her in his bulky armor. “What happened?” he reached out as if to caress her face, but stopped himself, afraid to hurt her more.

“Don’t worry. It’s just a bump on the head,” Alara said.

“How?” he spotted her helmet lying beside the copilot’s station. There was a big dent in the side of the helmet, and the faceplate was smashed. “Frek . . . we didn’t crash that hard, did we?”

Gina appeared crouching beside them. “A spare tank of oxygen exploded,” she explained. “It must have been damaged in the crash. It blew the cover plate into her head.”

The medic looked up and asked Gina. “Has she been conscious since the crash?”

Gina shook her head. “She lost consciousness for a few minutes. I found her that way, but she came to before I could administer first aid, and threw up all over the copilot’s station,” Gina pointed to the mess.

The medic grimaced and turned to Alara. “Are you experiencing any confusion or dizziness?” She shook her head. “Weakness in one side of your body? Raise your arms, please.” Alara lifted both arms from her sides, but one arm rose slower than the other, and the medic frowned. “You can lay your arms back down.” He turned to his medkit to withdraw a syringe and an ampoule of medication.

Alara lowered her arms. She placed one small hand over Ethan’s armored gauntlet, and his zephyr’s tactile sensors relayed that touch as a light vibration through his armor. Tears trickled from her good eye.

“Hoi, don’t cry, Kiddie,” he said. “What’s wrong? Are you in pain?”

“I remember everything, Ethan. I know who I am! Is it true you found your wife?”

For just a second Ethan wanted to whoop for joy, but then he realized that it was a bad sign if her slave chip had somehow been interrupted. He nodded. “Yes, I found her, but that just made me realize what a fool I’ve been.”

“Shhh . . .” Alara shook her head slowly. “It’s okay.”

Ethan watched the medic take hold of the gauze she was holding to her head. “I need to see the injury now, ma’am.”

When the medic lifted away the gauze, Ethan went cold. There was an angry purple bruise with a deep gash running through it. The whole area was badly swollen, and as soon as the gauze came away, the gash began bubbling with blood once more. The sentinel pressed the gauze back to her head and told her to hold it firmly.

“How do I look?” Alara asked the medic, sounding like a little girl asking for her father’s opinion on a dress.

The sentinel hesitated, and Ethan felt another spark of dread. A vanguard medic had to be inured to seeing all kinds of battle wounds, and he’d have the experience to know a mortal wound when he saw one, so when he looked up at Ethan and slowly shook his head, Ethan didn’t have to ask—he
knew . . .

Alara wasn’t going to make it.

Chapter 16

C
aptain Loba Caldin strode onto the bridge of the
Interloper
with her bridge crew and Tova close on her heels. Her gaze skipped from the glossy black deck to the transparent dome which ran from floor to ceiling. She hadn’t seen anything on the outside of the ship to correspond to that dome, so she assumed it was simulated. Human control stations looked out of place on the deck, sprouting naked wires and cables which ran in colorful lines across the obsidian floor.

Captain Adram stood by the foremost edge of the dome, looking out at space, with his own bridge crew flanking him.
An expression of solidarity?
Caldin wondered as she approached. Just before she reached Adram, he turned around and smiled. Belatedly the rest of his crew did the same. “Welcome to the
Interloper,
Captain Caldin.” He inclined his head to her and then gestured to the control stations. “My men will assist you with anything which might be unfamiliar, but we’ve already adapted the Sythian controls with our own technology, so for the most part everything should be intuitive.”

Caldin stopped in front of Adram and nodded. He hadn’t bothered to salute, but she wasn’t going to press the point with him. She’d been given his ship and his rank; there was no point rubbing his nose in it. Adram looked to be seventy-something, with thin, wispy white hair that looked almost neon in the dim light of the alien ship. His angular face and hooked nose made his features vulturine, while his eyes seemed to glitter and glow in the dark.

“Why don’t you dial up the illumination?” she asked.

Adram shook his head. “Sythian ships weren’t built for bright lights; the décor starts to throw off distracting reflections.”

Caldin frowned. “What about the heat? It’s freezing in here.”

“Isss nice,” Tova hissed.

“For you,” Caldin replied.

Adram turned to look up at the alien, and he smiled. She was still naked, but she looked comfortable, much more so than she had been aboard the admiral’s ship. “Welcome aboard, Tova,” Adram said. “Do you like what we’ve done to the place?”

Tova looked around. “Is different?”

Adram laughed. “Come.” He started toward the nearest bridge control station. “We’ll show you all what’s changed.”

Caldin and her crew followed a few paces behind him, and she wondered if he had been talking to them or to Tova. So far Captain Adram and his crew were taking it very well that they’d been summarily supplanted on their own ship. If it had been her command, she would have been furious.

Not everyone is as ambitious as I am,
she decided.

*  *  *

Junior Captain Crossid Adram stood leaning over Captain Caldin’s shoulder, pointing to the glowing blue holographic displays one at a time as Caldin scrolled through them from the captain’s table.

“All of the systems have been laboriously translated and replaced with our own. The original Sythian control systems were thought-controlled, while ours are touch and voice activated.”

Caldin nodded; Adram caught her eye and smiled. “You shouldn’t have any trouble figuring things out, but we’re here just in case.”

“Thank you, Adram.”

“Please, call me Crossid,” he said. “We’re not so formal on my ship—well, your ship now.”

“I see. All the same, I prefer to stick with convention.”

“Suit yourself, Captain. Once you’re all familiarized with the controls, my crew will go to their new assignments, and only I’ll stay here.”

Caldin nodded, and Adram straightened. His gaze wandered down to Tova who stood at the edge of the transparent dome, looking out at space. “She’s a mysterious creature, isn’t she?” Adram said.

“It’s a pity we couldn’t leave her in the brig. Having her running around loose isn’t going to make it any easier to sleep in this crypt.”

“The admiral thinks they are our real enemy.”

“He’s right to be suspicious.”

“Perhaps, but he’s even suspicious of you, Caldin.”

Caldin looked up from the captain’s table with a frown. “He said that?”

“He told me to keep an eye on you and your crew, in case you had something to do with Brondi’s coup.”

“So why are you telling me?”

“Because I want you to understand what I mean when I say that the admiral is suspicious without reason. He suspects everyone of everything, and trusts no one—no matter how compelling the reasons that he should.”

Caldin shook her head. “Let’s get on with the mission, Adram. The admiral can test our loyalty as much as he wants; he won’t be disappointed.”

“I’m sure that’s so,” Adram said. He returned to staring at Tova’s back in idle contemplation. After a minute, he turned to the engineering station and nodded down to his engineering chief. “Are we securely docked to the
Tauron
yet, Lieutenant?”

Adram’s man, a ranking engineer, stood leaning over the shoulder of Captain Caldin’s own engineering chief, a mere petty officer, as he pointed out differences between the modified control station and standard. Adram frowned. Some distant part of him still cared that he and his crew had been snubbed in favor of Caldin and her crew, even if it was only for show. Ultimately, however, it didn’t matter, and he was long past caring about the admiral’s orders.

Adram’s engineer looked up and said, “The spacebees are just leaving now, sir.”

“Good. Captain . . .” Adram began, “we’d better tell the admiral that we’re ready. It’s time to go.”

*  *  *

Atton was back in a cell, this time aboard the
Tauron
. He found there was little difference between one cell and another—they all had the same duranium bars and stark gray walls, the same dim unshielded glow panels and hard bunks. Atton lay on his bunk now, staring up at the ceiling and wondering how the battle for the
Valiant
was going. Had his father found Brondi yet? Was the carrier back under Imperial control? He hadn’t heard any news, but there was no one else in the brig except for Doctor Kurlin Vastra, and the guards rarely checked in on them, so both he and Kurlin were equally cut off. Kurlin was so quiet that Atton thought he must have fallen asleep, but then he heard a soft, reedy voice say, “So you are Ethan
Ortane’s
son?”

Atton sat up and turned to see Kurlin staring at him from the cell across the aisle. “Yes.”

“I thought your last name was Reese.”

Atton saw where the doctor was going with that, but he knew better than to fall for it. “I was adopted,” he explained.

“Oh, I see. Yes, that makes sense.”

They were interrupted by the sound of a door swishing open followed by approaching footsteps. Moments later a quartet of sentinels strode into view. Atton rose from his bunk. “What’s going on?”

“We’re putting you two in stasis until you can be tried for your crimes.”

“What? Why? Is the trial going to be that long from now?” Atton asked.

“It could be weeks.”

“Weeks!” Atton echoed. “Why so long?”

“Your friend Brondi made a run for it. We’re chasing him back to Dark Space.”

“Frek . . .” Atton muttered. Then something occurred to him. “What about the other prisoner? Is he going to be placed in stasis, too?”

“What other prisoner?” the sentinel who opened Atton’s cell asked.

“Ethan, the imposter overlord.”

“I haven’t seen him. Maybe he got spaced.”

Atton’s brow furrowed and the two men facing him walked in and bound his hands with stun cord. The other two sentinels did the same with Kurlin, and then both of them were shoved roughly out of their cells. “Move along. It’s time to go beddy byes.”

The guards led them down corridor after corridor. Atton walked along in a daze. They started down a corridor with real viewports. Atton noticed the bright star lines and streaks of SLS, and his heart sank further. The guards weren’t lying. Admiral Heston had gone to SLS to follow Brondi, and if Ethan wasn’t being placed in stasis with them, then that meant he hadn’t made it back from the
Valiant
.

By the time they reached the med bay, a team of medics was already waiting for them. They were led straight to the stasis room, and then forced to sit while the medics injected them with stasis preparations. Then they were stripped naked and led to a pair of blue transpiranium tubes with blinking red status lights. Atton shivered in the cold air of the stasis room as he watched one of the medics step forward to open and configure the tubes. When he was done, he turned and nodded to the sentinels, and they shoved Atton and Kurlin toward the open tubes. Neither of them tried to resist as they were forced to stand inside, but Kurlin turned and gave Atton a grim look before the tubes were sealed. He shook his head and said. “Goodbye, Mr. Reese.”

“We’ll see each other again at the trial.”

“If there is one.”

Atton was about to reply to that when he heard his tube begin whirring shut. He watched the blue transpiranium cover swing shut and seal with a hiss. An intense feeling of claustrophobia overwhelmed him, but then he felt his body growing numb and warm. His eyes drifted shut. . . .