“You can open your eyes, Atta,” the man said.
“It didn’t hurt at all!” she said, smiling up at him.
“You see? I told you it wouldn’t.”
Destra nodded to the man. “Thank you.”
“No, thank you. It’s always a pleasure to meet new recruits. Especially when one of them is so young.”
Destra frowned at that, but decided not to comment. She hadn’t formally decided to join this so called Resistance, but at the moment she supposed there wasn’t much choice. “Do you have any idea how much longer we have before the jump to Noctune?”
“The better part of a day, Ma’am.”
“I guess that means there’s time to get something to eat, then.” Her stomach grumbled loudly in response to that thought.
“Oh, plenty of time,” the medic replied. “If you’d like, I can get someone to show you the way.”
“No, that’s all right,” Destra said, taking her daughter by the hand and helping her down from the chair. “This is a venture-class cruiser. I’m quite familiar with the layout.”
Later on, as she and Atta were standing in line in the mess hall, waiting to be served, Atta’s eyes grew wide with all of the food. “Wow,” she said.
As it came to their turn to be served, the woman behind the counter asked what they would like. Atta pointed to one of the fresh bread rolls. “I’ll have one of those, please,” she said.
“Anything else?” the woman asked.
Atta hesitated, and Destra squeezed her daughter’s shoulders. “Get something else, Atta.” Destra’s own stomach was growling painfully with all the fragrant smells of food wafting through the room.
“I’m allowed?” Atta asked, looking up at her.
Destra remembered the emergency rationing that had been in effect aboard the Baroness. Clearly there wasn’t any rationing aboard this ship. She smiled, unable to help herself. “Yes, Atta. Eat whatever you want!”
* * *
“You’re sure you want to do this, Captain?”
Picara nodded, running a hand through her short, straight black hair as she stepped into the glowing green circle beneath the hovering dome of the quantum junction. “She’s my command, sir. Who better to fetch the Emancipator than I?”
“The Sythians have been toying with her. They may open fire when they realize you’re trying to escape.”
“Maybe, maybe not. They can’t detect quantum drives powering or track a quantum jump. With any luck we’ll finish the refits and jump away before they even realize we’re trying to escape. I bet we’ll be at the rendezvous before you even make it back from the Getties.”
Bretton gave her a grim smile. “Unless the Gors eat me. In which case you’ll be in command.”
Picara’s brow grew lined with worry. “Don’t joke, sir. They’re savages. If I were you I would have dumped them out the nearest airlock long ago.”
“Yes, that might be wiser, but the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and we have precious few friends as it is. In any case, it’s not much out of our way thanks to the Tempest’s recent tech upgrades.”
“Well, be careful, sir.”
“Likewise.” Bretton stepped back, beyond the rim of the glossy black podium that formed the base of the junction. Picara raised her arms, palms up, as if praising Omnius, and the dome began to drop down over her head.
Bretton gave a stiff salute, and Captain Picara just managed to return it before the dome blocked her from view. Then he heard a roaring noise come from within the dome; a bright light shone around the base of it, and then the light vanished and a heavy silence fell.
Bretton turned, walking back to the bridge. The doors swished open, revealing a long, gleaming gangway to the captain’s table. Farah stood there, hands clasped behind her back, watching the grid. Behind her, broad viewports lay draped with a shimmering curtain of stars. Bretton started down the gangway, scanning the crew stations to either side.
He reached the captain’s table and nodded to Farah. “Any new developments?”
“Our engineers have finished looking over the Baroness; she’s clean. No tracking devices or unscheduled commcasts have been detected. It should be safe to wake her crew.”
Bretton breathed a sigh. “That’s a relief, but no, we’re not waking the crew just yet. Any one of them could be a Sythian agent.”
“We can’t just leave her derelict. What if the Sythians come along? The Baroness has guns, we don’t. We should take advantage of that. I’d almost say it would be better to move our operations to the Baroness.”
“Almost,” Bretton agreed, “Except the quantum jump drives and comms aboard the Tempest are our golden ticket, and our only line back to Avilon. But you’re right. We can’t leave the Baroness defenseless. I was thinking of sending Captain Hale along with a skeleton crew to command our new ship.”
“Captain Hale, sir? So now you’re referring to yourself in third person?”
Bretton turned to Farah with a faint smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. His eyes sparkled. “I’m not the only Hale here, am I?”
“You want me to command her?” Farah’s eyes grew wide, and she shook her head.
“Why not? You’re more than qualified. How about it, Captain?”
Farah grinned. She took a quick step toward him, looking like she wanted to give him a hug, but then she recovered and settled for a brisk salute, instead. “It would be an honor, sir. But don’t you have to clear that kind of thing with the Resistance first?”
Bretton shrugged. “They made me an Admiral. That should come with some autonomy. Besides, who else would they rather have commanding an old venture-class? Some textbook captain or a real venture-class veteran?”
Farah’s grin remained fixed on her lips. “I’ll leave the explanations to you.”
“Good.” Raising his voice, Bretton said, “Gunnery, calculate a quantum jump to the bridge of the Baroness! Comms, contact the bridge crew we found aboard the Baroness when we jumped over. Have them meet us at the junction.”
Both the comms and weapons operators acknowledged their orders and Bretton took Farah gently by the arm, leading her toward the entrance of the bridge. As they walked together, her grin faded to a more subdued glow. By the time they reached the junction, the golden dome was already hovering on four shining pillars of light.
Bretton stood with his niece at the threshold, waiting for her crew to arrive. “I’m afraid this is goodbye for a while, Fay,” he said, breaking military protocol for the moment.
She nodded, matching his serious tone with a slight frown. “You’re still planning to take the Gors to Noctune,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
“Yes. It’s not a big deal to us. It’s a big deal to them. Maybe some day they’ll repay the favor. Either way, we know what its like to be pushed to the brink of extinction. That’s not a fitting end for any sentient species.”
“Don’t go,” Farah said.
“We’ll pre-calculate the jump home, just in case. There’s no risk that way. First hint of Sythians we see and we’ll jump straight back.”
“I’m serious, Bret. Anything could happen, and I can’t bail you out this time. I’m going to be a galaxy away, at least six-months’ journey from coming to the rescue.”
“So don’t. If I don’t show up at the rendezvous, don’t wait for me, and don’t you dare go to Noctune. Take your crew and the survivors in stasis and go start a colony somewhere new. Get away from Avilon, and don’t ever look back. It’s a fresh start, just like you always wanted.”
Farah bit her lower lip, considering it. “Not exactly like I always wanted . . .” she said.
In that moment, the door on the other side of the junction opened, and in walked the five officers they’d found on the bridge of the Baroness—not including Councilor Heston.
Bretton nodded to them and smiled. He turned Farah by her shoulders to face the waiting junction and her crew. “Nothing ever is,” he said. “Now go.”
Farah walked u
nder the dome, meeting her crew in the center of the glowing green circle on the glossy black podium that formed the base of the junction. She turned to wave goodbye just before the golden dome dropped and whisked her away to her ship.
Bretton returned to the bridge. Back at the captain’s table he studied the star map for a moment, waiting.
“Commander Hale reports she is safely aboard the Baroness,” the comms operator announced.
Bretton nodded. “That’s Captain Hale, now. Tell her to form up, and—”
“Sir! Picara is reporting from Dark Space. She says its urgent.”
Bretton turned to address his comms operator. “Put her through.”
The main viewport shimmered, and Captain Picara’s face appeared in a larger-than-life holo projection.
She looked somewhat paler than before. “Sir!” she said, sounding out of breath.
“What’s wrong, Captain?”
She shook her head. “The crew just finished a sensors test to verify that the upgrades are working. We detected something new. There’s a cloaked fleet out there, sir.”
“That sector is teeming with Sythians. I’m surprised only one of their fleets is cloaked. Ignore it. Just make sure they don’t get too close to you.”
Picara shook her head. “No, sir . . . that’s not it. The fleet is Avilonian. They’re Peacekeepers.”
“Peacekeepers? What are they doing in Dark Space?”
“I don’t know, sir, but they’re advancing on the Sythian armada. What are your orders? Should we warn them?”
Suddenly Bretton understood Picara’s dilemma. The Avilonians were cloaked, and they obviously thought that the Sythians couldn’t detect them. Bretton and the rest of his crew had just proven otherwise during their engagement with the enemy, and that meant the Peacekeepers were flying straight into a deadly trap.
Bretton considered that. The Resistance had just been given a once in a lifetime chance to strike a killing blow against Omnius’s Peacekeepers, and the best part of it was, all they had to do was sit back and watch. The Sythians would do all of the work.
There was just one problem.
Who was the bigger threat—Omnius or the Sythians?
“Do you have a way to contact Admiral Vee?” Bretton asked.
Picara shook her head. “I’ve already tried. She won’t answer.”
“Bad time to be away from the comms . . .”
In his mind’s eye Bretton saw his eight-year-old son, Ciam, his expression tranquil, his eyes closed, just as they had been when Bretton had seen him in the casket. Omnius had forced Ciam to choose, just like everyone else. Ciam had chosen to become a Null of all things. Less than a month later, he’d been walking down the street with his friends on his way back to his boarding school when he’d been caught in the middle of a shootout between two gangs warring over territory.
Bretton tried to compare that tragedy to all the trillions of people that the Sythians had killed during the invasion.
There was no comparison. The choosing was bad, and Omnius’s rigidly controlled-society was worse, but at least he wasn’t trying to wipe out the human race.
“Sir, we don’t have much time. . . .”
“Warn them, Captain, and then get the frek out of there. We’ll wait for you to arrive at the rendezvous before we go to Noctune.”
“Our jump drives aren’t finished being upgraded, sir.”
“Then use conventional SLS! Right now, while the Sythians are distracted, is your best chance to escape. Make sure you use it.”
“Yes, sir.”
Part Two: To The Bitter End
Chapter 26
Atton raced across the flight deck, otherwise known as Sky Deck for the glowing sky-blue trim lining all the walls. Caldin and Razor raced ahead of him, all of them following the green arrows projected mere millimeters from their retinas by their ARCs. Atton found his new body didn’t just look fit; it was fit. He ran as easily as he remembered walking in his former life.
Up ahead a bank of transporter tubes appeared, but rather than jump into them, both Razor and Caldin disappeared down a corridor branching off to the right. Atton’s arrow turned the same way, and he followed.
More officers streamed into the corridor from the other side, all of them dressed in the same glossy, skin tight blue uniforms with matching sky blue trim. On either side of the corridor were broad, star-dappled viewports with portal-shaped doors staggered in between. Remembering the layout of the ship, with drone decks running all the way around the crew decks in a protective cocoon, Atton knew that those viewports were simulated. The portal-shaped doors, however, were real.
A glowing, gold-colored numeral appeared to hover in the air in front of each door. Atton read twelve numerals in all. Each of the doors led to one of the ship’s X-1 launchers.
Atton found his place beside Caldin at launcher number eight. Hers was number seven. He turned to her. “Looks like we’re going to be wingmates,” he said.
Caldin nodded. “Nervous?”
“Not at all. This time we can’t die, and the Sythians can’t even get to Avilon for reprisals. It’s time for some real payback, Captain.”
“It’s just Pilot now, Ortane.”
“Consider it a call sign then.”
She smirked at that. “Very well, Iceman.”
Atton grimaced and took a quick look around to make sure no one else had recognized his former call sign. Gina was around here somewhere. . . .
He found her standing down the ranks to his right, in front of launcher number ten. She hadn’t noticed him.
Someone clapped their hands and called for attention. Atton turned to look down the rows of waiting pilots once more.
“Listen up!” a man at the other end of the corridor said, stepping away from his launcher so that all of them could see him. Atton supposed this must be the squadron leader, Chevalier Davellin. “In just a few minutes, we’re going to jump into Dark Space. Intel suggests we’re badly outnumbered, so we’re going to use every advantage we’ve got.
“The big boys are going to sit behind their cloaking shields and fire quantum-launched ordinance at the enemy. If you’re wondering where we fit into that picture, the answer is we don’t. If that sounds boring to you, then you can go hit the rack for some extra sleep.” The Chevalier waited a beat, but no one moved. He began to chuckle, his broad shoulders shaking in appreciation of his own joke. “No one? Good. This battle will probably be a moonwalk, but if war always went as planned, we could all jump home now and let the drones handle it by themselves.
“Orders are we stay in our cockpits and sit tight. Chances are we’ll only be called out after the battle’s already over to help mop up stragglers. Are there any questions?”
Before Atton could stop himself, he raised his hand.
“Yes, Ortane?”
Everyone looked his way—including Gina. He could have sworn her eyes narrowed when she saw him.
He winced and cleared his throat. “Isn’t this a rescue operation? How are we going to rescue the slaves if we stay cloaked and fire bombs at the enemy ships?” His thoughts were on his mother as he asked that. She had been in Dark Space when the Sythians invaded. By now she had probably been captured and turned into a Sythian slave with everyone else. Supposedly Omnius’s reason for attacking Dark Space was a mission of mercy to liberate the slaves and give them a chance to choose a life for themselves on Avilon.
“There’s always one of you, isn’t there? You new recruits do ask the stupidest questions! Aren’t you supposed to be on red deck?”
Atton’s brow furrowed in confusion. Red deck was the battle deck, where the gunners remotely controlled the Dauntless’s weapon systems, but he hadn’t selected gunnery training.
“Well? What are you still doing here?”
“I selected pilot’s training, sir. I’m an X-1 pilot.”
“Oh! It’s just that with you asking stupid questions about which type of ordinance the gunners should fire at the enemy, I though
t maybe you’d been assigned to my squadron by mistake. Are there any other questions?”
Gina flashed Atton a broad grin, and he scowled back. No one else raised a hand to ask a question.
“Good! Time to go boys and girls!” The Chevalier stepped back in front of his launcher. A split second later, all twelve portal-shaped doors swished open at the same time. Atton peered into his and found himself looking into a small capsule with a soft, padded black floor. Beyond that lay a thousand different flight controls and readouts that he’d never used before in his life. Despite that, he recognized every status light, switch, and dial. Just another part of Omnius’s instant training, he supposed.
Atton realized he was staring into the cockpit capsule of an Avilonian X-1 Interceptor. The portal-shaped opening was the rear-access to the cockpit, which would form the backrest of the flight chair when closed. The cockpit capsule was detachable from the rest of the fighter, and it doubled as an escape pod for emergencies.
Atton crawled through the portal and into his cockpit. The rear-access cycled shut behind him and he turned to see the access door padded with the same black cushions as the seat he knelt on. Suspending himself by the armrests of the chair, he swung his legs out and into the bottom of the capsule. He settled back against the rear hatch. The cockpit was roomy enough, even for his recently enlarged frame.
Before Atton could wonder about flight restraints, a pair of them whipped across his chest, writhing over him like snakes. He fought against them for a moment before he realized what they were. Feeling stupid, he muttered to himself about the overly automated systems aboard Avilonian starships.
Pop out displays and tool tips crowded Atton’s ARC display. His ARCs interacted with the various controls and readouts in his cockpit, highlighting some and providing extra settings for others. He found that he could select those just by thinking about them.
Atton began going through a preflight check while his cockpit capsule rocketed down into the frame of its fighter. Seeing the wings and nose take up a fair portion of his view, he flicked a switch for enhanced visibility and the shiny, bluish frame of the fighter abruptly shimmered and vanished. Even the frame of the cockpit disappeared, giving him the disconcerting notion that he was hovering in the air, surrounded by floating flight controls. Only a vague outline of the interceptor’s frame remained, giving him a nearly unobstructed view of his surroundings.
Dark Space: Avilon Page 33
