“So, you faked your death to throw off the GC and, what, made camp here?” Cruz signed, taking a seat on the arm of the couch next to Jag.
“Pretty much. We were underground for the first few years. Living in tunnels and barely surviving while the GC scoured the system time after time for us. They eventually gave up and left, and we surfaced. Howard fed me secret reports about Dani, and Patrick kept us apprised of GC chatter. We worked on growing our numbers and creating a viable base of operations. When we managed to get a ship, we started some small missions. We did our best to minimize the loss of innocents and focus solely on the GC’s elite team. Everything we did was centered on them and finding out what they were up to and how to stop it.
“In the process, we learned that the GC acquired a massive energy output weapon—”
Jag snickered and mumbled, “M.E.O.W.”
Dani rolled her eyes and quickly looked back at her father, who did the same. “We weren’t sure where they got the technology, but it was advanced. We tried building one ourselves, but after an accident resulting in the deaths of twenty-seven of my people, I just couldn’t let the project continue. Unfortunately, the explosion attracted some attention. We had set up the construction on a different world, so our base was safe. But in the aftermath we didn’t notice the elite forces coming in until it was too late. They were there, and they saw me. They found out I was still alive.
“After that, I waited for the news to break, but it never did. They questioned Patrick, Howard, and others who I had worked with over the years, but they all did a great job covering our tracks. I thought they’d go after Dani, but instead, they promoted her to captain. Rumor was that they were trying to sniff me out, that they expected me to try to recruit her at that point. So naturally, I had to keep my head down.
“Time passed and our fleet grew as more people joined our cause. Missions were scheduled and put into action across GC territory. The corruption ran through the GC like a vein of ore underground. We connected the dots, but as we did, the missions became more dangerous and we drew more attention. I believe that’s what led to the destruction of PS683.”
Dani’s blood chilled at the mention of the obliterated planetary system.
Bob was pacing the room now, slowly, back and forth in front of the fireplace. His voice sounded distraught as he spoke. “We had managed to commandeer a Vaerian battleship before losing it in a battle with the GC. It was that ship that destroyed PS683 using the massive energy output weapon.”
Dani looked up at her father. “The GC blew up their own planetary system? They killed all those people? Why?” She was caught off guard when her father turned to look at her and she saw the tears in his eyes.
“They wanted the leader of the rebels, me. We picked up a GC transmission that said to surrender or they’d exercise their power. We called their bluff, and I’m still not sure that was the best move.”
“Why didn’t you stop them?” Jag asked.
“The Ardent Redux government isn’t the same as the Galactic Conglomerate government. Instead of appointing successors as each member of leadership steps down, we allow the people to vote. Representatives are elected from each of the rebel sectors to come here and walk through the big decisions. This ensures every base has representation in our work. It was widely believed that the GC was bluffing. No one knew at the time they had their own weapon. We figured that ‘exercise their power’ simply meant a show of force on the rebels, not on innocents.
“When I found out your ship was in PS683 when the weapon was used I—” Bob stopped to turn away from the group and sip his water.
“You thought I was dead,” Dani stated quietly.
Bob took a deep breath before he turned to face them once more. “You have no idea how relieved I was when I learned that wasn’t the case. But then those corrupt assholes threw you in prison.”
“Thankfully, Bob already had a man in place in the prison.” Howard took over while Bob gathered his thoughts.
“David?” Dani asked.
“Right. With his help, we were able to put a plan into action to get Dani out of there and somewhere safe. You know the rest.” Howard nodded at Dani and offered a slight smile.
While Dani mulled over the series of events, the door to the small house burst open and Roni charged in.
“Dad,” she said, her voice urgent. A few steps into the room, she stopped and stared at Dani and her crew, eyes widening into a panicked look.
Dani jumped to her feet, her eyes moving from the panicked rebel woman to her father’s face as he took a deep breath. “Dad?”
Chapter 2
“This is not a good time, Roni.” Bob quickly approached her and gently guided her back toward the door by the shoulder.
“Wait, did she call you Dad?” Dani asked, still puzzled.
Bob continued to usher Roni outside and closed the door behind the two of them.
Dani whipped around to glare at Howard. “What is going on? I have a sister? Did he—”
Howard sighed deeply. “Your father met Roni’s mother before he met yours. It was a fling, nothing more. In fact, she wouldn’t even allow him to see Roni until Operation Ardent Redux was underway.”
Dani flopped back in the armchair and cradled her head in her hands. “This is… a lot.”
The situation felt overwhelming to her as she tried to recreate the past in her mind. Almost everything she knew was wrong. Dani tried to take a few calming breaths but was unsuccessful at taming the chaos in her mind. She peeked around the room through her fingers at her crew before standing and bee-lining for the door.
She threw it open, the fresh air hitting her in the face, and stepped outside, swinging it shut behind her. Roni and her father were nowhere in sight. Dani hesitated a moment and, satisfied no one was following her out of the house, folded her arms across her chest and began walking.
Dani passed by other houses similar to her father’s. On their way there she had been too googly-eyed at the sight of her long-lost father that she hadn’t paid much attention to their surroundings. The homes were modestly built and the native foliage was manicured around them. The laughter of young voices wafted down from a nearby tree, and Dani started wondering what it would have been like to grow up with a sister.
She quickly shook her head to dismiss the thought and turned down a path to a park-like area. A small pond sat amid a field. The gentle breeze rippled across the surface, disrupting the mirrored sky as Dani sat on the ground.
“You shouldn’t be walking around out here without an escort,” David said as he sat beside her.
Dani twitched, startled at his sudden appearance, but continued to stare at the water’s surface. “Why, what are they going to do?”
She saw him shrug out of the corner of her eye.
“They won’t do anything to you,” he said. “They know you’re the boss’s daughter. We’ve all followed your story. But you could get lost and there are a few dangerous animals around here when night falls.”
“My story…” Dani sighed after she trailed off. “My story is just a mess of lies.”
“Not all of it.”
Dani lifted her eyes to study his face. He was handsome with his dark, soulful eyes. He was also younger than she expected, his voice carrying experience beyond his years.
He continued, “You’re still one hell of a pilot.”
“I wouldn’t mind flying away from all of this right now,” she mumbled in response.
David surprised her by taking her hand. “Come on then.” He smiled as he pulled her to her feet.
Dani allowed him to lead her down an adjacent path and into the nearby woods. She found comfort in his warm, strong hand wrapped around hers and barely noticed when the trees fell away. “Where are we going?”
“There.” David pointed with his free hand. Ahead lay a hangar surrounded by small spacecraft. Leading away from the hangar was a long runway.
“Is this okay? I don’t want to cause problems.”
>
“Don’t you worry about that,” David said with a wink.
The spacecraft were unlike anything Dani had ever seen, certainly different than the GC or Vaerian fighters she was accustomed to.
David led her to the closest one. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
Dani was too enamored with the small ship to acknowledge his departure. The exterior was a shiny black, like polished obsidian, and just as smooth. There were no markings of any kind to differentiate between the ships. She slid her hand over the polished surface and smiled when David’s reflection reappeared next to hers.
“They’re beautiful,” she said.
David almost seemed proud of the compliment—his chest and shoulders seemed to swell in size as he patted the sleek curvature of the wings. “They are. This one’s mine. I call her Diane.”
Dani laughed. “Diane?”
His smile disappeared for a mere flash of time. “My mother’s name.”
Dani nodded and cleared her throat, not wanting to linger on what was clearly an unhappy topic. “Does she handle pretty well?”
“How badly do you want to find out?”
Dani turned to face David and his playful grin. “If you have to ask, you don’t know me at all.”
David laughed and expertly climbed into the cockpit, using a step that Dani hadn’t noticed until that moment. She followed him, sliding on the sleek exterior of the ship until David caught her by the wrist.
“Easy there.” He smiled and pulled her up.
Dani settled into the copilot’s seat and slipped the attached headset on while David ran through the pre-flight checks. “Are you sure this is okay?”
David’s laugh was loud through the earpiece. “An extra patrol never hurt anything. What’s the worst that could happen?”
“Why’d you have to say that?” Dani asked through gritted teeth as she peered up and out of the enclosure overhead. What looked like solid obsidian from the outside was actually easy to see through from within. She gazed at the sky, watching dark, rolling clouds as they began to obscure the hopeful blue above.
An uneasy feeling grew in the pit of Dani’s stomach as David maneuvered the ship toward the runway. A thousand reasons why taking off was a bad idea ran through her mind as she thought about Cassia, her father, and the crew.
“Ready?” David asked as they slowly rolled forward.
Dani shoved her worries aside and tried to focus on the runway ahead. The quiet of space calmed her. “Yes, I’m thinking a quick jaunt into space is exactly what I need right now.”
“You got it.” David’s cheery answer brought a smile to her lips.
With amazing speed, David’s ship, Diane, accelerated down the runway. The trees on either side quickly morphed from independent plants into a sea of green. A moment later, David banked Diane into a steep climb.
“These inertial dampeners are incredible,” Dani said as she watched the curvature of the horizon quickly drop away behind them.
“Oh yeah, best I’ve ever had.” David rolled Diane into a corkscrew as they left the atmosphere and entered into the darkness beyond.
As soon as the planet was the size of a ball that Dani could fit in the palm of her hand, David disengaged the engines. “I’m just doing a few quick scans while we’re up here.”
“Take your time,” Dani answered, already enamored by the planetary system. Now that she knew this was no longer a place of death, she was able to appreciate the beauty of the surrounding planets. Aside from the rebel planet, she doubted any were inhabitable judging by the red, purple, and orange gases swirling on their surfaces.
The closest planet to the rebel planet hosted a large storm on its surface. The gas and clouds churned over a significant portion of the planet, flashes echoing through the cloud cover. It was beautifully destructive.
“Hmm.”
“What is it?” Dani asked, her eyes still on the storm.
“It’s probably nothing… but I need to get closer to know for sure.”
“What kind of defenses does this thing have?” Dani asked as she looked over the co-pilot control panel.
“Standard cloaking and shields, though the shardstone exterior naturally makes it harder to see and more resistant to most energy weapons.”
“Shardstone?”
“Yeah, it was actually discovered on the Houston. But we couldn’t risk the GC getting their hands on it so we make it a few systems away.”
“What is it exactly?” Dani eyed the surrounding space in an effort to catch a glimpse of whatever David picked up on the scans.
“I’m not completely sure, but I do know it’s a combination of glowshard and a super strong alloy.”
Dani furrowed her forehead. “It doesn’t look like glowshard at all.”
“Not after you’ve seen Osirion up close.” David laughed. “It doesn’t have the regenerative properties that glowshard does. So it’s quite different from Osirion’s hull. But the unification of the alloy and the glowshard makes for an incredibly dense, yet lightweight material.”
“I see…” Dani trailed off, trying to wrap her mind around it.
“There you are,” David growled through a clenched jaw.
Dani saw it too, a Vaerian scout ship. Scout ships were significantly smaller than destroyers but larger than individual fighters. “How’d it get out here? Surely it couldn’t have made it all this way unseen. We’re well within GC territory.”
“You’d be surprised,” scoffed David. “But honestly, it was probably part of a jump and drop. A transport ship makes a series of hyperspace jumps and drops off a scout after each one. Do you want to blow it up or should I?”
“I don’t know that either of us should,” Dani answered, narrowing her eyes at the ship.
“Wait, what? Why?”
“Then they’ll know we’re here and they might send more.”
“You have a point, still… it’s hard to see them and not want to blast them to kingdom come.”
“I get that, I really do. But I still think it’d be a mistake. Besides, at their current trajectory they won’t pass close enough to the rebel planet to detect anything.”
Dani could sense David’s hesitation even though she couldn’t see his face.
“We have to follow it,” he said. “I couldn’t live with myself if it did any damage after we just let it go.”
Dani couldn’t argue with his point. “Okay, let’s do it. But keep a safe distance. We don’t want to get picked up by their scans.”
“That won’t be a problem,” David laughed as he replied. “With the shardstone and our cloak, we’re invisible.”
“I hope you’re right,” Dani muttered under her breath as Diane began the pursuit of the Vaerian scout.
* * *
Chasing an enemy scout ship through GC territory in a rebel spacecraft was far less exciting than Dani imagined. She drummed her fingers on the armrest of her seat. Even David seemed less than enthused about the situation.
“Okay, maybe this was a mistake,” he confessed with a sigh. “We really shouldn’t be this far away from base.”
Dani squinted ahead, then looked down at the copilot terminal. “There’s something ahead. I’m going to run a scan.”
The rebel controls didn’t vary much from GC systems, and she had fiddled with them a bit on their long journey after the Vaerian ship. Her scan blipped as it picked up a GC signal.
“The scout is heading right for a GC ship, a big one. But it’s odd that they’d have a warship this deep into their own territory. I figured they’d all be in the systems under attack.”
“That’s… not a warship.”
“What do you mean ‘that’s not a warship,’ the only ships that size are…” Dani’s words slipped away as her stomach turned. “It’s an academy ship.”
“Scans are picking up the GC ID code of the Seattle.”
“Shit,” Dani said, clenching her jaw. “David, we can’t—”
“I know, I’ll get us withi
n firing range.”
Dani’s neck tightened and she bit her lip as she watched the Vaerian scout fire the initial volley on the Seattle. She held her breath until the shields safely absorbed the attack. “Oh good, they were prepared. They probably picked it up on their scans.”
The Seattle’s weapons turned toward the Vaerian scout and returned fire. Academy ships were well armed to protect the cadets and staff inside. The powerful energy blasts quickly overpowered the shields on the small Vaerian scout before a missile fired, reducing the enemy ship into space dust.
“Well,” David started, obviously impressed. “I guess that’s that then.”
Dani narrowed her eyes at the Seattle. “They’re not powering down shields or weapons. You’re sure they can’t see us?”
“They shouldn’t be able to; we’re still cloaked.”
“Then I wonder what—” Before Dani could finish her thought, a Vaerian destroyer dropped out of hyperspace alongside the Seattle and immediately opened fire. “We need to call for backup!”
“They won’t come,” David answered. “Here, you fly, I’ll shoot.”
“You’re crazy!” Dani shouted back, but she had already seized the controls and was maneuvering toward the two massive ships.
The Diane was miniscule compared to the gargantuan vessels ahead. She was a gnat compared to an elephant, but Dani wasn’t going to let that stop her from making a difference. She mumbled to herself, “There’s always something you can do.”
“What?” David asked.
“Aim for the fighter bay doors,” she answered, gunning toward the Vaerian destroyer.
“Our weapons won’t do anything through their shields,” David alerted.
“That’s why I’m flying inside their shield,” she answered, drawing ever closer to the Vaerian ship. The only other time she had been this close to one was when they’d mounted the rescue for Sylvine. Only this time, she wasn’t docking.
“You’re going to kill us!” David shouted as Dani headed straight for the fighter bay. Luckily the fighters hadn’t been released yet. The Vaerians preferred not to let them loose unless they knew they needed the help, and so far they were pretty evenly matched with the Seattle.
The Complete First Season - Episodes 1-5 Page 39
