Dark Space: The Invisible War (11 page)

So they hadn’t seen him. Roan relaxed his rigid posture and listened to the ensuing exchange with great interest. His translator bead relayed the men’s words to him in his own language with the occasional nonsensical slip up—

“Because I
copulatin’
said so! Now go!” the dark man said.

Roan wasn’t sure what reproduction had to do with this situation, but he put it down to one more thing he didn’t understand about humans. He watched one of the men creeping toward him and he pressed himself against the wall to allow that man past. Roan watched as the human walked all the way down the corridor to the entrance of his crèche and then stepped inside, exclaiming, “You have to see this!”

Roan had to stop a hiss of displeasure from escaping his lips as the remainder of the men outside began filing in to investigate. They were invading his crèche without invitation or permission! They would pay for that insult. Roan waited until the last man—the dark man—had entered the corridor, and then he quietly followed them in.

When the dark man stopped just inside the entrance of the crèche, Roan stepped past him and began shadowing the first one to have entered. He followed just a step behind the human and waited until he had wandered far from the others; then Roan took one long stride toward him and reached out for his head with both hands. One of Roan’s armored hands covered the man’s mouth, muffling his screams, and with a sudden wrenching motion, something popped in the man’s neck, and he crumpled to the snowy floor. Roan stood over him, waiting for him to get up. When he didn’t, Roan hissed quietly. Humans were such frail creatures.

The others came running to see what had happened, while Roan sunk into the shadows, waiting for his next victim.

*  *  *

With his enhanced sight Verlin saw the man fall, but not what had caused him to trip. The others heard his scream, but didn’t see anything, so they were panicking.

“Quiet!” Verlin yelled as they all hurried toward the fallen man. He was not moving. Had he slipped on a patch of ice, hit his head, and been knocked unconscious? Verlin frowned. Brondi’s men were hopelessly incompetent.

As Verlin drew near to the fallen man, however, he began to notice something strange. The pattern of footsteps in the snow was wrong. There were two sets of footprints rather than one, and the second set was closely shadowing the first. The shadowing pair of prints were very large. Verlin bent down for a closer look while the rest of his men rushed on blindly to see what had happened to their comrade. The prints had been made by boots.

“His neck’s been snapped!” one man said. Another shushed him, warning that whatever had killed their squad mate was still in there with them.

Verlin stood up and turned in a quick circle to study the vast chamber, his pistol swinging first one way, and then the other. He ignored his men’s frantic whispering. Verlin’s mind went back to the discarded laser welder and the molten chunk of door.
What type of animal is bipedal, tool-using, and wears boots?
he wondered.
A human?

It would have to be a giant.

Verlin’s gaze swung back to the worried knot of men standing over the body. He was about to order them to fall back again when a gout of blood erupted from one man’s chest. He didn’t even scream, but the men around him did as they were splashed with his blood.

Verlin could see perfectly in the dark, but he still couldn’t see what had killed the second man. Another one made a run for the door. He was the next to die with something unseen grabbing his head from behind and snapping his neck like the first.

Someone fired off a random volley of ripper fire, but it hit the snow with a puff of shattered ice crystals. He was next. His scream went on and on as he was first dragged off his feet and then thrown into the freezing cold water and dragged under.

Verlin was already hurriedly backing out of the chamber to the entrance. He touched his ear to make a comm call. When the bridge answered, he spoke quickly. “We’re under attack on level 12, Med Lab. Three men down. Send reinforcements.”

The comm crackled. “Acknowledged. How many are there?”

There came another splash from the pool, but Verlin didn’t see what had caused it. He squinted into the distance and shook his head. “At least one, but—” There came a rushing
whoosh
of air as something ran toward him at great speed. Verlin turned to flee, but then he felt himself being lifted bodily and thrown high into the air. As he reached the apex of that toss, Verlin twisted around and fired off a shot. It disappeared into thin air, but something hissed loudly. Then Verlin hit the ground face-first with a very solid
thud
. A sharp pain went through his neck and nose, which had hit just before the rest of him, and he felt his awareness diming as his thoughts slipped away. He knew that he had to hold on to consciousness if he were to survive, and he fought the encroaching darkness with everything that he had. That was when he felt something sharp raking down his back, and his eyes shot open with a scream.

He heard a warbling hiss close beside his ear. “Let me go, you frekkin’ . . . !” Verlin twisted onto his ruined back and fired two more shots in random directions, missing with both, before he pressed a hand to his ear to speak once more into his comm.

That was when he realized that his comm piece had fallen out when he’d hit the ground. His eyes found it lying just out of reach to his right. Verlin scrambled to reach it, but something grabbed hold of his hand and crushed it, breaking all of the bones and grinding the pieces together.

Verlin screamed again, and then something very strong crushed his windpipe and he could scream no more.

T
ova did not look happy. Ethan wasn’t sure if he was imagining it, but she hadn’t moved a muscle since he’d explained to her that Roan was trapped aboard an enemy ship. Beside him, Atton looked nervous. That was another clue that Tova was just a step away from tearing them into bite-sized chunks.

The guards flanking them with their ripper rifles casually at the ready gave Ethan only a small amount of comfort. If Tova wanted to, she could simply disappear, and it would be impossible to track an invisible target. Ethan reflected that he should have thought about that in advance and prepared something to defend against an invisible enemy.

“I’m sorry,” Ethan said again. “I wish we had been able to rescue him during the evacuation, but I’m sure he’s still alive.”

At last Tova moved, but it was just a muscle twitching in her neck—then her eyes blinked and her lips parted. Ethan heard her warbling language followed promptly by the translation. “He is living,” she said.

Ethan cocked his head. “Really? You’ve spoken with him?”

“He is hurt, not bad. Humans on ship think he is dead. He thinks they are you.”

Ethan allowed his relief to show, his shoulders sagging. “Thank the immortals. Can you contact him now?”

Tova’s yellow eyes narrowed. “Are they you? The ones who try to kill Roan?”

“No!” Ethan answered quickly.

“They are humans.”

Ethan frowned. “They
are
humans, but they are not with us.”

“Your species is foolish to fight itself.”

Ethan snorted. “You can say that again.”

“Why? Do you not hear well?”

Ethan shook his head. “No, never mind. The point is, we are not with them or they with us. You have to make Roan understand that the men on board will try to kill him or hurt him if they find him, and he needs to hide until we can return.”

“He understands this already. What else you desire to communicate?”

“Tell him we will be there soon, and that if possible, we could use his help.”

“What type of help?”

Ethan hesitated, thinking quickly. “If he can find and shut down the main reactor or the shields just before we arrive, it would give us time and the opportunity we need to get aboard.”

“When we arrive?”

“Yes.”

“When we
arrive?
” Tova repeated, looming closer.

Ethan frowned, wondering why she’d repeated the question, but then he realized that she was asking when they would arrive to take back the
Valiant
and rescue Roan.
Good question,
he thought.
“Tell him it will be about a week.”

“I tell him.”

“Meanwhile, we’ll need you to sit down with our chief engineer and discuss ways that the
Valiant
could be sabotaged, so that you can tell Roan. Would you be willing to talk with our engineer, Tova?”

She hissed. “You think we are ignorant.”

“You are—” Tova’s eyes flashed and Ethan hastened to add, “—ignorant of our technology, anyway. It will be easier for Roan to sabotage the
Valiant
if we tell him what to do.”

“I do this but take care that you do not offend me again. Your words are arrogant and foolish.”

“Sure thing,” Ethan said, waving his hand dismissively. “One more thing, Tova . . .” Ethan regretted what he had to say next. “We need to cross Sythian Space to gather reinforcements before we can rescue Roan.”

Tova’s eyes narrowed again. “You can make ship invisible?”

Ethan shook his head and Tova hissed. “This is not dangerous—is impossible,” she said.

“We have to try. For Roan’s sake and for ours. And we need your help, Tova. If we can’t make ourselves invisible we have to at least be able to detect the Sythians who are.”

Tova hissed again and this time she bared her fangs. “I help you, crazy human, but not from here. No longer from the shadows. I stay by your side so that you live to rescue the lord of my crèche.”

Ethan smiled to cover the grimace which was tugging at the corners of his mouth. “I wouldn’t have it any other way. First let me formally introduce you to the crew, and then I’ll bring you onto the bridge. You’ll have to wear a uniform of course, but we’ll have one made.”

“No uniform,” Tova said. “I wear armor.”

Ethan’s smile broadened, but inwardly he scowled. “Tova, in our society people wear clothes not armor. To live among us you must make some compromises.” Out of the corner of his eye Ethan noticed Atton shaking his head.

“I make compromise already. I don’t eat you for letting your crèche mates to capture Roan.”

“Tova, you’ll make my crew uneasy if you’re wearing your armor.”

Tova hissed again. “Then I wear nothing, but then you are to make your ship dark and cold like night.”

Ethan frowned. “Don’t push me, Tova.”

“I do not push you. Do your eyes hurt in dark as mine do in light? Does your skin burn in heat?” Tova loomed closer still.

“We’ll turn down the climate controllers and the lights, but you’ll have to adapt to a slightly warmer and brighter environment.”

Tova’s eyes flared wide and she bared her fangs, hissing loudly. “You adapt to me!”

“You need us to help you as much as we need you, Tova. Think about it. Roan needs you. It’ll only be for a few days.”

Tova hissed one last time and looked away from them. “I wait to be brought to bridge,” she said.

Ethan nodded. “We’ll be back soon.” He turned on his heel and began descending the stairs with Atton. Their bodyguards kept a careful watch on Tova as they left the icy darkness of her crèche.

“You shouldn’t have been so demanding with her,” Atton said.

“Relax, it went well. She agreed to our conditions, didn’t she?” Ethan replied.

“She didn’t agree to anything. Did you see the way she looked away from us?” The door to Tova’s crèche swished shut behind them.

Ethan frowned. “Yes, wasn’t that a sign of her giving in?”

Atton laughed. “It’s an expression of extreme displeasure. We are unworthy of her sight. In Gor society, only those who have fallen out of favor are treated that way. She does not like us at all.”

Ethan snorted. “Well, I’m not too fond of her myself.”

“It may be hard to get her cooperation.”

“She’ll come around. Her life and Roan’s are at stake, too. Meanwhile, I’d better think of how I’m going to break the news to our crew.”

“They’re not going to like her either.”

“Well, we’re all just going to have to get along.”

They entered the lift tube at the end of the long, dark corridor which they’d taken to reach Tova’s crèche. The guards entered behind them, and Ethan watched as they turned to cover the entrance of the lift, presenting their backs to him. They were the same guards that knew Dr. Kurlin had created the virus which had killed almost everyone aboard the
Valiant
. Ethan spent a moment eyeing them before turning to Atton. “We have some reassignments to make, don’t we?” he said, nodding sideways to the guards in the lift.

Atton caught his meaning and nodded. “I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry.”

Ethan smiled. “Good. We need everything to go smoothly over the next week.”

The lift arrived with an almost imperceptible jolt that spoke of a better-functioning inertial management system, and then the doors swished open, and a welcome blast of warm air entered the lift. Ethan realized from the way his face started tingling that his exposed skin had begun to go numb in Tova’s crèche.

They exited the lift behind the guards, and one fell in behind him and one in front. As they walked, Ethan wondered about the time, and the hour flashed up as fading green digits before his eyes—18:33—fed to him by the holo card reader implanted behind his ear. It was getting late. “Why don’t you go speak to the doctor about testing the crew,” Ethan said, speaking to his son. “You can make crew reassignments just before we leave. I’d like things to remain the way they are when Tova officially comes aboard the bridge,” Ethan explained, thinking that it would be nice to have a few bodyguards around, even if only for another day.

“All right,” Atton replied.

“I’ll meet you at the operations center at twenty hundred hours. We’re going to draw up a plan of action and introduce Tova to the rest of our bridge crew. Maybe you can help me come up with a way to break the news that we have a Gor aboard?”

Atton shook his head. “Doesn’t matter how you decorate krak, no one is going to be happy you’re bringing it aboard.”

Ethan snorted. Now that Atton had given up his role as the supreme overlord, much of his genteel bearing and manners had fallen away, and Ethan realized what a good actor his son had to be to have kept up such an elaborate façade for so long. He shot Atton a speculative look as they walked, and for just the briefest moment he wondered what other façades his son might be keeping up.

*  *  *

Ethan watched D
eck Commander Loba Caldin pull up a chair to the captain’s table inside the
Defiant’s
operations center
and sit down. Already sitting at the table were Atton, in the guise of nova pilot Adan Reese; First Lieutenant Ithicus Adari, the ranking nova pilot among the survivors who’d escaped Dark Space; Petty Officer Delayn, chief engineer aboard the
Defiant
; Corpsman Goldrim, the gravidar officer; Petty Sergeant Damen Corr from the helm; Deck Officer Gorvan, the weapons chief; and finally . . . Ethan struggled to remember the comm officer’s rank and name. It flashed up before his eyes a second later.
Petty Officer Grimsby.
Atton had given him a list of names and their associated holos so he could get to know his crew. Ethan had promptly loaded it into the holo card reader behind his ear to help him transition into his role as overlord. The implant had a significant degree of artificial intelligence, so it was able to read his thoughts and even see what he was seeing in order to provide a two-way interface between his brain and whatever information he had loaded into it. If he’d had the necessary dictionaries and heuristics on a holo card, he could have even used his implant to provide a simultaneous translation of Tova’s language.

Ethan noticed the assembled officers hugging themselves or rubbing their hands together to keep warm. A few were even starting to shiver. It was freezing inside the operations center.

“Why’s it so cold in here?” Commander Caldin asked.

Ethan turned to her with a smile. “I’ll explain that in a moment.” Turning to address the entire room, Ethan folded his hands on the gleaming transpiranium-topped holo table and nodded to the assembled officers. “I’ve called you all here to help formulate a plan of action going forward and to brief you on what’s to come. First off, I’d like to establish our command structure. I’ve decided to promote Lieutenant Ithicus Adari to Lieutenant Commander and permanently assign him as Guardian One.”