by Dan Schiro
“Snap out of it, AD,” Orion shouted at her, his voice barely audible over the screams and sizzling spurts of energy. He shook her, grappling with the terrifying realization that he had never seen Aurelia afraid before. “We have to get to Zovaco!”
She balled her fists, hissed a curse in an old tongue and hardened her expression. “I killed them once,” she said, not really to Orion. “I’ll kill the Goddess-damn monsters again.” Green light filled her eyes.
Setting his teeth, Orion conjured a round, silver shield in his right hand. Then he stepped up onto the wide railing of the balcony and leaped over the side. He fell some 40 feet to the floor and landed on his feet, the kinetic bodysuit hidden beneath his silky dress clothes absorbing the brunt of the impact. Aurelia followed him riding a shimmering green cloud, and soon the two of them charged toward the dais and the High Admirals’ table. More and more of the hulking Dark Spacers found their way into the ballroom as they ran, slaughtering screaming fleeters by claw and biochemical bolt. Aurelia stayed close to Orion’s side as they jumped over fallen aristocrats and dodged chunks of synthetic stone falling from the arched ceiling. His shield blocked the smoldering bolts that intersected their path, and after a few frantic seconds, they reached the dais.
Two of the Collective Fleet leaders and an undersecretary lay dead with smoking holes in their chests, and the others had presumably escaped or gotten tangled up in the panic on the ballroom floor. Zovaco Ralli scrambled away on his thin backside, with only Kangor Kash standing between him and two encroaching Dark Spacers.
“That’s all you have?” Kangor bellowed, the capital X of his raised forearms protecting his face. The Dark Spacers stung him again and again with hot shots from their techno-organic weapons, but Kangor’s undifferentiated cell clusters were already adapting. “That’s all the punishment you can muster, you asteroid-sucked demons?!” A rocky second skin spread from each biochemical blast, and as it covered him, Orion could swear he saw the big vycart smile.
As Kangor rushed and tackled one of the Dark Spacers, a creature even larger than the fierce vycart himself, Orion and Aurelia ran at the other. Orion worked his will on his spellblade, and the shield over his forearm swirled into a two-handed battle-axe. He leaped into Crag’s Skywalk Strike attack technique, and with a long swing to build up momentum, planted the curved axe blade square in the Dark Spacer’s wide, flat head.
“You’re kidding me,” Orion spat as the creature snarled toothlessly at him, his eyes undimmed. Orion felt the enormous clawed hands of the dominant arms swoop in and close around his torso. “You’re really not…” he gasped as the crushing grip forced the breath out of him.
Orion’s feet left the ground as the Dark Spacer lifted him in the air and squeezed. A rib cracked, but before the monster from uncharted space could smash him like a rotten fruit, Aurelia ducked in between them and slammed her open hand to the Dark Spacer’s chest. She muttered a phrase in the rolling language secret to the Green, and a beam of emerald fire blasted out the invader’s back.
The clawed hands fell away, and Orion landed with a gasping breath. He looked over just in time to see Kangor take his opponent to the ground. Once the snarling vycart had his weight on top, it was a split second before he had forced the barrel of the techno-organic rifle into the Dark Spacer’s toothless mouth. Kangor found the large trigger and levered it back again and again until yellow fire burst from the creature’s eyes and it fell still.
Orion snatched Zovaco off the floor and put the pale politician on his feet. “We need to get you to safety.”
Though he trembled with fear, Zovaco Ralli shook his head and pointed a finger down at the massacre on the ballroom floor. “You should help them.”
“We will,” crowed Kangor as he leaped up off the fallen Dark Spacer. With his fine clothes torn to shreds, he looked much more at home. “We will dance in the invaders’ corpses like my ancestors did!”
“Kangor, don’t be insane,” cried Aurelia, her eyes still smoldering green. More Dark Spacers burst through the walls by the moment. “The three of us alone would be eviscerated!”
“Shut up and follow me.” Orion pointed his battle-axe at the service doors off to the side of the dais. “We need to get Zo back to the Star Sentry before the admiralty starts venting compartments of the ship.”
He took Zovaco by his thin elbow, and to Orion’s surprise, the politician had quick feet. Orion hustled Zovaco off the stage with Aurelia and Kangor guarding their backs and took him through the service doors into the ballroom’s industrial-production kitchen. The servant class that had been slaving away just an hour before had deserted in full, and wisely so. Orion and his team sprinted to the service lift that he had commandeered earlier, and the four of them piled in breathlessly. Within moments, Orion’s floating datacube had hijacked the control terminal again.
“Take us to hangar 42-B,” Orion commanded, hoping to take them back to the port he knew. “And block any other summons for this gravity lift.”
“Hangar 42-B is c-currently out of s-service,” stuttered the glitchy gravity lift interface. “Please s-select another d-destination.”
“Search directory and cross reference,” he said, still clutching his battle-axe with both hands. “Nearest active hangar with any in-port, space-worthy vessel.”
“Search reports that hangar 108-YY is—”
“Take us there,” Orion spat, “now, now, now!”
As the mirror-polished doors closed and the gravity lift hummed with inertia-dampened movement, they could all relax for the first moment since their collective nightmare had begun. Orion called the battle-axe back into his gauntlet, the silver bright with red veins after just a small taste of the Dark Spacer’s immense life force. Then, finally noticing the sharp pains that came with each wheezing breath, Orion clawed into the compartmentalized belt beneath his dress clothes and retrieved a compact pneumatic syringe. He placed its flat head flush against his ribs and hammered his thumb down on the red button on the other end. Consulin hissed through his skin, and Orion exhaled with deep relief.
Zovaco spoke up while the others shook out tense muscles and flexed sore joints. “Dark Spacers,” he said slowly, as if he couldn’t quite believe the words. “Dark Spacers were sent to kill… me?”
“That seems to be the case.” Orion shook his head for a long moment. “Dark Spacers. That certainly escalates things.”
“Dawnstar is a bunch of pissant terrorists,” Zovaco said, his normally restrained voice taking on an angry edge. “How did they conjure up Dark Spacers after — what is it — seven and a half centuries?” He glanced at Aurelia, who nodded, her eyes far away.
“I don’t know.” With a sigh, Orion’s gaze fell to the floor. “But may the universe forgive us for leaving those fleeters behind.”
Kangor nodded, his body still covered with rocky patches of exoskeleton. “We ran… while the blood of the innocent was shed.” Hot breath whistled out of his dilated nostrils. “Once the politician is safe,” he said with a wave of his clawed hand at Zovaco, “we should return, exterminate those vermin.”
“I would like to, buddy.” Orion flexed his living gauntlet, eager to spend the blood magic trapped in its glowing veins. “I really would...”
“For starters,” Aurelia scoffed as she snapped out of her reverie and glared at Orion, “you’re an idiot.” Her eyes faded from bright green back to their normal, dull-brass shade. “It’s not your fault. Humans never fought the Dark Spacers, so you don’t know. You haven’t stood in the ashes of cities.” She leveled her glare at Kangor. “But you. Is it possible you’re stupider than you look?”
Kangor bristled, his lip rising to display his fangs. “Comrade or not, no one—”
“Your grandfathers fought beside me,” she bellowed, her voice trembling with fury and fear. “Your people know the Dark Spacers. Some 700 years ago, I stood shoulder to shoulder with vycarts as
we fought the horrors that came from beyond the galactic rim. And your ancestors’ ghosts laugh at you now, Kangor Kash, if you think the three of us can stand against a platoon of invaders!”
“The Lady of the Jade Way is right, of course,” said Zovaco quietly. “We can only do good while we draw breath. But… the Dark Spacers were defeated, driven from the galaxy.” He turned his three eyes to Aurelia again. “Weren’t they?”
“No time to speculate now.” Orion felt the hum of the high-speed gravity lift slow and the inertial dampeners disengage. “Everybody stay close to me, and we’ll figure it out when we get back to the Star Sentry.”
They waited a moment with their muscles coiled, and when the doors opened, they bounded out into an empty hangar. Luckily, the Dark Spacers had not penetrated to this side of the vast ship yet, and it seemed that even the lowliest Kasia Tal officer had been called away to deal with the crisis. Orion approached the nearest shuttle and deployed his datacube’s hijacking program again. Soon he was behind the rudimentary controls of the boxy spacecraft, piloting them out into the Collective Fleet’s swarm of ships under the smooth thrumming of a small ion engine.
As they rounded the miles-wide, bulb-shaped Kasia Tal, they could see that the dark husk of an old ship had crashed directly into the hull. Decompression from the ancient generation ship’s outer layers provided just enough oxygen for the crashed ship to glow with patches of fire, a strange sight in open space. The boxy beige salvage barge that had been towing the dark husk listed nearby, emergency lights flashing, its grappling limb shredded by explosives. A few dozen Collective Fleet vessels seemed to be just pulling up to the scene. Some were mid-sized cruisers marked with the galactically recognized symbol for rescue workers, a simple blue leaf. Other ships were broad as bulldogs, covered in missile ports and the glittering tips of charged pulse cannons.
“I see,” Aurelia breathed as she peered at the shuttle’s forward viewscreen.
“Care to illuminate me?” Orion asked without taking his eyes off the controls. “Because I’m more confused than ever.”
“The Dark Spacers, during the war. They had many of these… what were they called?” Aurelia put her green fingertips to her temple. “Cold ships,” she said with a cluck of her tongue. “Simple vessels carrying thousands of hibernating soldiers, and they rained these ships on cities like bombs.” She shook her head, her eyes closed tight against what must have been a bitter memory. “When the soldiers awoke, they were the ultimate shock troops.”
While Orion and Kangor waited for more with rapt attention, Zovaco cleared his throat. “So instead of death from above with bombs and pulse bolts, the Dark Spacers put boots on the ground to wipe out resistance while leaving infrastructure intact?”
“Exactly,” Aurelia said with a curt nod.
Thinking out loud, Orion tried to make sense of it all. “These cold ships… I wonder if some of them were left floating around after the war?”
“It’s certainly possible.” Aurelia shrugged. “After the Battle for the Maker Rings, the Dark Spacers made a fairly reckless retreat to the edge of the ether route network.”
“Back into dark space,” Kangor added, shuddering. His rocky hide was breaking down, flaking off of him with every movement. “There’s madness in that endless night.”
“Dawnstar must have found one of the cold ships.” Orion stroked his jutting chin. “Or purchased it off the black market. And if they’ve infiltrated the Fleet, it’d be easy enough to arrange this little charade with the salvage barge.”
“The galling fact remains,” sighed Zovaco. “Dawnstar used a rare, powerful weapon — not on the Hub, or on a Union military outpost, or on any other facet of the civilization they hate — but on me.” He worried at his thick fingers and shook his head. “Why?”
“I don’t know — yet.” Orion turned the shuttle away from the Kasia Tal and ramped up the engine, aiming for the Star Sentry’s illuminated call sign on the viewscreen. “But I’m going to find out, Zo. I promise.”
“It is a great honor, you know,” Kangor said to Zovaco after a moment of silence. “To have someone who wants to kill you with such passion, it flatters your character.” He smiled wolfishly.
“Perhaps, from a certain point of view,” Zovaco said, stifling a grim chuckle. “Thank you, Kangor.”
A few minutes later, Orion transmitted their passcode and guided their commandeered shuttlecraft into the Star Sentry’s main hangar. As they disembarked from the small ship, Orion saw the Star Sentry’s meager staff of pilots running to the fighter dropships in the large, well-stocked bay, ready to race off to the Kasia Tal to render assistance. None of the SpaceCorps officers seemed to have time to spare a dirty look in their direction this time.
“Head to the med bay,” Orion said, gripping Zovaco by the arm. “I know you said you were okay, but get a quick scan just to make sure. I’ll send a squad of Briarhearts along too, just in case.”
Zovaco nodded. “But what about you? You’re not considering going back to the Kasia Tal, are you?”
“We’ve got to get aboard Ray Runner 12,” Orion said, shaking his head. “We have reason to believe the Kalifa of Light is hiding in the Collective Fleet. If we act now, while he thinks everyone is still confused, we just may be able to take him out.”
“The Kalifa of…” Zovaco trailed off, a stunned look on his face. “I see. What shall I tell Commander Vanlith?”
Orion smirked. “Tell her not to get in my way, and she’ll have the galaxy’s most-wanted terrorist in her brig.”
Chapter 15
Orion’s stomach felt uneasy as he strapped into the captain’s chair of his ExAstra Mark III, but that was to be expected in the moments before a mission like this. If they could take down the Kalifa of Light — here and now — they would end the threat to Zovaco, sail to an Election Day bonus and redefine AlphaOmega with the lucrative government contracts that would follow. They would also be heroes. Orion knew that was a word no one ever truly lived up to, but he planned to take advantage of the PR opportunities all the same.
“Hit your strap-in station,” he said over his shoulder to Kangor and Aurelia. “We’re out of here. And you,” he added to Bully with a snap of his fingers, “down.”
The giant black hound hunkered down beside him, and Orion fired the steely spacecraft’s takeoff thrusters. As he piloted the dropship through one of the hangar bay’s semipermeable force fields, he saw a light blink on his dash and pushed a button to cancel an urgent call from Commander Vanlith. They had only stopped at the Star Sentry long enough to pick up Bully and change into their combat gear, but apparently their quick dash through the halls had been enough to alert the icy commander to their presence. He had a feeling she would not be pleased that he had gone around her — a SpaceCorps commander with a broad mandate to fight terrorism — to make the collar himself. But he knew that time was of the essence if he was to capture the Kalifa of Light, and he didn’t want Union bureaucracy mucking up his chance. Hopefully she would soften when he came through.
They cruised out of the Star Sentry’s shadow, out into the sea of ships that made up the Collective Fleet. “Now to scan for the call-sign,” Orion muttered, flipping the navigation into automatic mode and tapping at the curved control dash. After a few seconds, the main viewscreen lit with scores of faint call-sign tags superimposed over the images of other ships. One blinking phrase deep in the Fleet read “Ray Runner 12.”
“Found you,” Orion said with a musical note of satisfaction.
“I hope you are sure,” Kangor grunted from his crash couch. “Information obtained under duress can be suspect.”
“Rahjal wasn’t under duress,” Aurelia corrected him. “The spellblade had charmed his mind. He spoke the truth, or at least what he perceived to be the truth.”
“There’s definitely a Dawnstar presence in the Fleet.” Orion flipped navigation back to manual and
accelerated toward the distant cargo ship. “And if there’s a chance that we can take down the Kalifa himself, well, I’ll push my chips to the middle and play the cards dealt to me.”
“I’m sure there will be no card game, little friend,” said Kangor.
“Vycarts,” Aurelia groaned. “What part of ‘metaphor’ don’t you understand?”
They dipped past the mismatched landscape of the Collective Fleet silently for a few minutes. They passed warships, new-model cruisers, pleasure yachts and a few more tremendous generation ships before the scene on the main viewscreen took on a distinctly industrial air. Now their field of view held more factory barges than bubble gardens, more fume-puffing refinery scows than blocky, bright city-ships. Before long, Orion saw the vessel that went with the flashing call sign. Ray Runner 12 was a rust-red, triangular cargo freighter as unremarkable as any other in the Fleet.
“Going dark.” Orion touched a finger to the top of his control dash and opened a small hidden compartment. When he pushed the black button within, his control dash went dark, the cabin lights dimmed, and his ship shut down everything but the most basic life-support systems and the forward view. Though Orion couldn’t afford a stealth package with costly liquid-pixel shift-skin, heat sinks and a spectrum reflector, he could at least make his approach harder to spot by eliminating the heat signature of his engine and pulling back the tendrils of his scanners. Without any maneuvering thrusters, it was a bit like throwing a dart a few thousand miles in the dark, but Orion’s aim proved true. He waited until his nimble stingray had hurtled within a few thousand feet of the triangular cargo freighter, and he hammered the black button to bring his ExAstra back to life. The control dash lit up, the cabin lights came back to life, and the automatic maneuvering thrusters burned hard to cancel their momentum before they could collide with Ray Runner 12. The data on the forward viewscreen said that the two ships’ artificial gravity fields just barely overlapped — crucial for what came next.
