I wouldn’t want it any other way.
“Yeah, we’re going in,” I said, “Let me finish my scan, dear.”
“Hurry up before I get bored.”
It was as close to acting nervous as she ever got. We both knew, in theory, what awaited us down there on that dead planetoid. But even I didn’t know for sure. All I had was a somewhat fuzzy report made the day the Dendon world died.
There might be a trap.
There might be nothing.
I did another scan. Still finding nothing but broken rock and scattered iron. Nothing left to do now but send the ship down into that monstrous crevice.
I brought the gravity engines back online and set a course. The ship began to gently glide closer to the black hunk of rock.
The only sound in the cabin was the soft hush of the air vents circulating the atmosphere in our little pocket of safety. Colored lights, images, and numbers danced across the screen and the consoles. Mostly uselessly. I was in direct control of the ship. I rode her nerve pathways. I was there with her eyes, and her senses. I felt the buzz of the shields on her skin. I heard the soft hiss of background radiation. I sampled the traces of atoms her sensors gathered.
The giant crevice in the planetoid loomed in the screen. Sensors painted its jagged contours in muted colors. It was a gorge of broken rock. Knife-like shards of black stone stuck out at every angle.
Beside me, Liz closed the armor over her face.
Despite my own powers, I wished I had a nice safe armor shell over me, too.
We dropped down below the horizon of broken, pitted rock. The blackness of space was nothing compared to the crushing presence of the planetoid.
In space, I could feel the emptiness.
But here, descending into this chasm of jagged stone, there was a claustrophobic pressure. Almost a sense of malevolence in the stone itself.
“This is fucking creepy,” Liz said.
“Roger that,” I said.
My hands on the control console were cold and damp with sweat. Chills ran down my spine. I shivered, trying to shake them off.
I tried to tell myself there wasn’t anything to be nervous about.
Whatever was here had to be long dead.
“This bucket have any headlights?” Liz said.
I almost slapped my forehead. Duh.
I accessed the exterior spotlight controls and brought them up.
A dozen lights came to life on the exterior of the ship. They stabbed out into the stifling darkness. The light touched the edges of the nearest rocks. Revealing them to be even more jagged than I’d thought.
It was like someone had dropped dump truck loads of broken knives into a pit.
“Nice place,” Liz said, “Decorated in Gothic Horrorshow. These guys really had a flair for drama.”
“That they did.”
I consulted the sketchy map in my head. We had to be getting close. The planetoid was so top secret that only the barest of records had been kept about it. The Dendon were well aware that written and electronic records were only as secure as the people guarding them. They kept a lot of sensitive information in a small number of heads.
Which worried me more than a little. I had records of a lot of Dendon projects. Things dangerous and not so dangerous.
But what about the really dangerous stuff? The stuff that was only verbally okayed. Stuff that wasn’t written down in some way.
I had a feeling there were some nasty surprises waiting out there for us.
Really, people. Put together a Will and make sure your crap is taken care of before you kick off.
“Is it flattening out?” Liz said.
I really wanted to take my hand off the console and wipe the sweat off my brow. My heart was running like a racehorse.
“Yes,” I said, “I think that may be it.”
I turned up the scan intensity. The area below the ship was painted in shades false color. Reds and oranges and yellows. There were enough jagged rocks to make it look like flames. And at the center of it…
A huge circle.
It wasn’t completely flat. There were small hills and craters. But they didn’t really match the surrounding shards of rock in the gorge.
It didn’t take much imagination to see it as a door.
A really, really, really big door.
It stretched off into the distance. Way beyond the reach of the ship’s puny headlights. I ran more scans on the circle. The sensors told me it was just more rock and iron, thank you very much.
Sure, right. Just a big, circular crater at the bottom of a scary ass chasm. Nothing to see here, move along.
“So how do we open it, boss?” Liz said.
This was where my particular brand of magic was supposed to kick in. I’d just look crossways at it, or whistle a special tune…I don’t know, stick my finger in the keyhole? Assuming there was one.
“Can we blast a hole in it?” Liz asked.
I considered it.
“We could try,” I said, “But I’d hate to wake up some dormant defense system. We might be nearly invulnerable, but the ship isn’t.”
Liz held out her hand. Blue light flickered in her palm.
“How about the sword? Can I use the sword? Using the sword would be pretty cool, right?”
I took one hand off the console and gently closed her hand. Blue-white light pulsed between her fingers.
“It would be cool,” I said, “But not every problem needs fixing with a sword. The Dendons who came here didn’t have swords.”
“How do you know?”
“Swords weren’t standard issue,” I said.
She turned away and crossed her arms over her chest. They clinked softly against the armor.
“You never let me have any fun.”
“Oh come on, you got to stab the Dragon,” I said, “That was fun, right?”
“That was ages ago.”
“Come on, it’s only been a few days.”
She blew raspberries at me.
Sigh. It was a good thing she loved me. That sword would have probably come out and removed my head from my neck otherwise.
But it still left me with the question of the door. And the opening of it.
Assuming it was a door and not just a big, stupid crater in a giant crack on a giant ball of rock. I closed my eyes and concentrated on remembering the planetoid. There had to be some information in my vast archives of alien memory.
It would have been easy to whine why me? In another time I might have. I’d have complained about how I hadn’t asked for any of this. That it had all been dumped on me without my consent.
Which was kinda true. But totally irrelevant. Life seldom turned out to be fair. We grow up and assume the duties of adulthood. Whether we like them or not. Jobs…homes…kids…everything comes with increasing, and sometimes crushing, levels of responsibility. So what? Everyone had to deal with it. Get over it. Buck up, sissypants, and get the job done.
I wasn’t any more special than anyone else when it came to being responsible for stuff. I was like everyone else. I either took what was on my plate with reasonably good humor (and maybe an eye roll here and there), or I curled up in a ball and pretended that none of it was my problem.
Complaining wasn’t going to get the job done any sooner. Might make it take longer, in fact.
I had to come face to face with the fact that I was now that thing I’d always dreaded becoming.
A grownup.
On my own, without parents or elders to guide me any longer.
I couldn’t turn to anyone and give them my puppy dog look to beg them to take this responsibility off my hands, please.
Nope.
All the decisions were mine. As were the consequences.
And that was fine. That’s what grownups did. Day in. Day out. Often without even consciously thinking about it.
It was only when the decisions got big…got heavy…did the grownup have to stop and ponder the paths. Ponder all those forks in the
road and speculate where they might take them.
The answer was usually: Who the hell knows? Just pick something and get moving.
Pick your feet up and get going.
Before someone drops an anvil on your head.
“Well?” Liz said, “We gonna sit here? Or we gonna do something?”
“I’m thinking,” I said, “That’s doing something.”
“Only if it’s followed by some kind of action,” she said, “Other than scratching your butt.”
“Oh, get technical on me.”
I kept searching the vast archives in my head. There had to be something. They wouldn’t just send someone out here and have them knock on the door. There had to be some kind of code transmitted. And I…
Oh.
I had the code that opened all the doors.
I had the King code.
This time I actually did take my hand off the console and slap my forehead with it.
Liz patted my arm. “Awww, did you do something stupid sweetie?” She said.
“Possibly,” I said, “But it’s a small stupid, so I think it’ll be okay.”
“Does this lead to getting that door to open?”
"It better. Otherwise, you might as well start hacking at it with the sword."
Liz straightened up. If the armor wasn’t over her face, I probably would have seen a wicked grin there. She clapped her armored hands together. They rang like bells.
“Yay! I hope your whatever doesn’t work!” She said.
“Cool your jets there, woman,” I said, “Let me at least try it first.”
“You have to the count of ten.”
“Hey!”
“Ten…Nine…”
Stop it!”
“Better hurry, babe,” she said, “Eight…”
I opened up the secure Dendon military channel and transmitted the King code.
“Five…Four…”
“Will you knock it off already?”
“Nope. Three…”
I tried again.
Nothing.
“Two…”
Frantically, I scoured my brain for what I might have done wrong. Then it hit me. The King wouldn’t transmit on the military channel.
The King had his own channel. Because, well, he was the King, that’s why.
I changed the frequency and sent the King code again.
“One…times up, Bub,” Liz said.
She started to get up from the flight couch.
“Wait just a damn minute,” I said.
“Nope, you had your chance,” She said, “Now it’s…awwwwww, damnit.”
Something was happening out in the crater. Liz lowered herself back down onto the flight couch. And I let out a breath I hadn’t known I was holding.
The false-color image on the screen was sinking. The entire floor of the crater was sinking and rotating. An opening appeared. A slice of night against the rocky floor and sides of the jagged gorge.
I turned the sensors on it. At first, they told me there was nothing there. Literally.
Then the sensors went off. An image came up on screen.
Welcome to Port Sorrow, Your Majesty. Standby for docking instructions.
I swallowed hard and stole a look at Liz.
We’d arrived.
Eighty-Four
Chris
The opening at the bottom of the jagged gorge continued to widen. The crater floor slowly, smoothly sliding aside. I glanced at Liz, sitting beside me on the flight couch of the Dendon ship. There was a still a bare vanilla and sandalwood scent of her outside the golden armor that covered her.
I tried not to think about the fact that we were sitting at the bottom of a giant crack in a small, dead planetoid just outside the galaxy.
It was the farthest I’d ever been from that little blue-white pearl that I’d been born on.
But probably not the farthest I’d ever be.
Liz reached over and clasped my hand in her golden armored hand. Gently, thankfully.
“It’s okay, Chris,” she said.
Was it?
The view screen still held the unsettling message…Welcome to Port Sorrow…
Nice name. Very…
Yeah. I didn’t have words.
On the other screen, the dark chasm continued to grow as the floor of the crater slowly swung away. The opening was huge.
But, it would have to be.
More instructions popped up on the screen.
Proceed to Dock One. The Koba awaits, your Majesty.
The Koba.
“Let’s go already,” Liz said.
I held my hands on the control console. Part of my consciousness was already in the ship. I directed the ship down into the opening. We were just a speck, falling into infinity.
The view screen showed nothing but darkness. I started to bring the sensors online, then thought better of it. I already knew what was in here. At least I thought I did.
As we passed the lip of the huge door, a small jolt rippled through the ship. I felt something trying to take control of it.
A new message appeared on screen.
Dock control engaged. Estimated time to Dock One, four minutes.
I took my hands off the control console. For now, I’d let whatever was going to happen proceed.
On the screen, I saw us sink below the doorway.
As we passed, the doorway stopped. Then reversed itself. Cold fear gripped my chest. We could be trapped in this place.
“Not giving me warm fuzzies here,” Liz said.
At least I wasn’t the only one.
We continued to glide through absolute darkness. I pulled up a window on screen with the view of the giant door closing behind us. Tension rippled through my shoulders and chest. There was still time. I could grab the controls. Tear the ship away from whatever was controlling it.
Get us the heck out of here.
Port Sorrow.
Whatever wit gave it that name needed to be slapped.
Though, most likely, that unknown Dendon had paid the ultimate price long, long ago.
I could have asked my memory vaults about the name. But that was a distraction I didn’t need.
The giant door was almost closed.
I watched the great arc of it silently slide toward the lip of the opening.
Going…going…gone…
The gap disappeared. I have expected a giant CLANG or maybe a THUD like the drumbeat of doom.
But…nothing.
A sharp intake of breath from Liz.
“Chris!” She cried, “Look!”
I shook my head and turned my attention to the main screen.
And sucked in a sharp breath of my own.
Lights were coming on.
Long, arcing lines of warm light. Slowly increasing in intensity. Brightening, filling the tremendous space with a dim glow.
The space inside was so huge, the lights couldn’t do more than take the edge off the darkness. But it was enough.
The lights gave the space shape and contours. It was a mind-boggling, enormous sphere. Most of the dead planetoid had to be hollow. Carved out by fiendishly clever Dendon engineers. Just the scale of it was enough to make me feel insignificant.
But it was was inside this sphere that truly inspired awe.
“Oh god, there’s so many,” Liz said.
There were. Thousands upon thousands.
Starships.
As far as the eye could see…sleek, white Dendon starships of every shape and size. My eyes went from graceful, flowing shape, to magnificent, stately craft.
The ships were arrayed in neat rows along structures running inside the sphere. There were smaller craft like the one we'd found on Dendon. And increasingly larger craft. Ships that could only be battlecruisers and carriers.
“The Dendon fleet,” I said in a hushed voice.
My brain started cataloging the ships I saw. Putting names and designations to each. Specifications popped up. Number of crew. Type and qua
ntity of weapons. Range and speed capabilities.
There were so many of them, I blocked out the information. It was just noise at this point.
“There’s enough here to conquer the galaxy,” Liz said.
“Several times over.”
“They could have vaporized the Don any time they wanted.”
But they didn’t.
They chose not to.
“Look!” Liz pointed toward the center of the sphere, “Is that where we’re heading?”
There wasn’t any doubt. The ship was moving to the center of the sphere.
And the huge ship that sat there.
It was bigger than anything else in the sphere. It had the same graceful curves as the other ships. But it was more muscular. Its curves and sleek lines seemed to shout strength and fierceness.
I didn’t need to ask my memory banks which ship this was.
The flagship of the Dendon fleet.
The Koba.
The King’s ship.
Eighty-Five
Chris
Our ship silently glided toward the center of the huge sphere. An incredible, gigantic dock hidden inside a dead planetoid at the far fringes of the galaxy.
A dock filled with thousands of Dendon starships. Ships of every size and shape.
And of various levels of lethality.
Liz and I, in the command chairs on the control deck of our little Dendon craft, could only sit in stunned silence at the immensity of what was before us on the screen.
Well, I sat in stunned silence.
Liz found her voice.
“Holy crap, Chris,” she said, “Is all this yours now?”
“Uh…”
Technically, the answer was yes. Somehow I had become King of Dendon. And, according to Dendon law, the King, as head of the Dendon state, was the owner of all vehicles of war.
And from the inventory scrolling through my mind, it appeared every single craft in this humongous dock was a vehicle of war in one way or another.
“So we can pick out the biggest, most badass one for ourselves, right?” Liz said, “Like that one.”
She pointed to the huge ship we were rapidly approaching.
The Port Sorrow dock control was taking us to the ship. Which indeed was the biggest, most badass ship in the entire dock. And that was saying a lot. There were a lot of really big, really dangerous ships hidden inside the planetoid.
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