Books One to Three Omnibus (Armada Wars)

by R. Curtis Venture

  She smiled. He would be able to sleep soundly tonight.

  “I wish to the worlds we’d got some pay from that creep Castigon before he went and got himself trapped on that damned planet,” he said. “At least then we could have got some of the older systems replaced.”

  He buried his head in his hands.

  “You know, you could have made him pay at least some of it between stops.”

  He looked up again. “Yes, thanks for that sterling advice Prayer. When the nav fails and we’re left drifting in deep space for all eternity, at least you’ll be happy that you told me so.”

  “I didn’t really mean it like that Boss.”

  “I know. Sorry.”

  Almost an hour passed before Sayad returned to them, during which Prayer pored over holos, searching in vain for an error in the pilot’s diagnostic process. When the hatch slid open at last, Sayad looked neither happy nor alarmed; more like bemused.

  “What’s the word?” Asked Borreto.

  “There is no word,” said Sayad. “The nav also checks out fine.”

  “So the shape of the entire galaxy has changed then?” Said Prayer.

  “Not really possible. There must be a system fault that the diagnostics aren’t able to pick up. Kabis, the Leo really needs a deep analysis. We’re going to have to dock at a major facility, and I know what you’re gonna say, but civvie techs don’t really deal with this kind of stuff very often.”

  “How the hell are we going to get the Leo fixed at a military installation without getting made for that broadcast?”

  “We aren’t.”

  “So what are you saying?”

  “We’re going to have to hand ourselves in.”

  “Are you nuts?”

  “I don’t see that we have any choice. All the data indicates that this is just going to get worse and worse, until some time next month when we jump straight into a moon.”

  “Boss, there’s nothing to say anyone even knows it was us yet. If we’re going to do this, we should do it fuckin’ quickly — get the ship fixed up and be outta there before word gets out about a little cargo hauler carrying three dissidents.”

  “She’s right Kabis. And if they do know it was us, maybe we could make some kind of deal.”

  Borreto thought about that for a moment. “The footage has spread all across the empire,” he said. “They’d find it pretty difficult to be too harsh with us. Hell, they might not even care.”

  “But if they do care, what can we offer them?”

  “I guess that’s something I need to think about during the trip.”

  • • •

  Eilentes was waiting for Caden on Fort Sol’s departure ring. He glimpsed her through gaps between the people hurrying this way and that, saw her also catch sight of him, and they each threaded their way towards the other.

  “How was it?” Eilentes asked.

  “About what I expected it to be,” he said.

  “Sorry.”

  “I had to get it done Euryce; he was my friend.”

  “I know.”

  “And you?”

  “Don’t worry about me.”

  He stared at her for a moment and wondered what was going on inside her head. Inside her heart. In the four days since Meccrace Prime had fallen, since she had lifted them both off the surface and carried them away from Throam, Eilentes had barely said a word about the companion they had left behind.

  “You’re okay though?”

  “I said don’t worry.”

  “Okay then.”

  He waited for her to make the next move, not believing for a moment that she had nothing to share on the subject of their absent friend. Hell, she had spent enough time in her rack with Ren; there ought to be something she wanted to say on the subject.

  “Everything we need is aboard Disputer,” she said. “I had the logistics controller give us some resupply.”

  “Already? You’ve been on the fortress for what… half an hour?”

  “Did it en route,” said Eilentes. “I had to do something to kill time; those shuttles are far too slow for my liking.”

  “Without being asked as well.”

  “Someone had to do it.”

  Caden’s brain filled in the second half of the sentence: ‘…now Ren isn’t here’.

  “I guess so,” he said.

  “You realise you really ought to have a counterpart for this mission?”

  “I know. I’m working on it.”

  Eilentes looked sceptical. “How?”

  “I’ve put out feelers. I have a few people in mind. You’ll be the first to know.”

  “Yeah right. That guy looks like he’s trying to get your attention.”

  Eilentes was looking past Caden, and he turned to the side to follow her gaze. Across the wide passageway of the departure ring, there was indeed someone waving frantically through the crowd.

  “Looks like a counterpart,” said Caden.

  “Remarkable timing.”

  “Not really, I’ve already had a couple of prospects contact me today. The word’s out that I’m flying solo.”

  “I’ll see you later then,” said Eilentes. “Make it quick: Disputer leaves in forty minutes, and I’m not really up for going to Herses on my own.”

  Caden nodded, and Eilentes walked away. He watched her as she was cleared at the departure gate for Disputer, then as she disappeared into the passageway which would take her down to the umbilicus. Calm, cool, collected, and still no sign that she was dealing with a loss. Perhaps she is just numb, he thought.

  “Shard Caden?”

  “Yes.” He snapped his attention back to the world at large, and saw the counterpart was now stood right next to him. “And you are?”

  “Rupus Dyne, Sir. I was previously assigned to Kulik Molcomb.”

  “Ahhh. I’m aware of you.”

  “Is that good or bad?”

  “I’ll be honest with you Dyne: it’s not good.”

  If Dyne was disappointed or insulted by the comment, he was careful not to show it.

  “I heard about Throam. I’m sorry.”

  “Yes. I imagine you are.”

  Caden watched Dyne’s face carefully, and the counterpart appeared to miss the fact that the comment was loaded with implication.

  “I was hoping you’d consider me as his replacement.”

  For a moment Caden was swamped with thoughts which raced around each other, desperate to compete for supremacy. This was the man who let his Shard die, the man who could have stopped Castigon had he just been where he was supposed to be, the man who could have intervened in the chain of events which had stranded Throam and possibly killed him. The man who — it now turned out — thought that he could actually replace Ren.

  He’s not even in the grave yet. His place is still warm.

  Caden struggled to ignore the Emptiness, found it difficult. Somehow he filtered the anger from his voice until it was mere annoyance.

  “You have got to be kidding.”

  Doubt flickered at last into Dyne’s expression. “Excuse me?”

  “Aren’t you on a ban list or something? Don’t you have a court-martial to go to?”

  “No… why would I?”

  This one could have changed Throam’s path.

  “Because your negligence killed Molcomb,” said Caden. “I’ve read the report, Dyne.”

  “You read the report of the incident, sure,” Dyne said. “But you’ve obviously not heard anything about what came after. It’s basically already been dealt with. Molcomb ordered me to wait for him; he wanted to go solo. That’s all on record, and the official verdict says he engineered his own fate.”

  “But he didn’t, did he? He didn’t go off a-wandering and drop down dead. He was assassinated. Castigon was an active, independent, hostile element, and you should have been there to take the bastard down.”

  “I can’t help it if Molcomb told me to stay behind.”

  Abdicating responsibility. Will you let tha
t stand?

  “Yes, you could have done. You could have gone anyway, sneaked around after him if you had to. You were negligent, Dyne. You weren’t acting like a counterpart. You think Throam would have let me go wandering about on Low Cerin on my own? No, he’d have told me to shut the fuck up and kept an even closer eye on me.”

  “I’m not Throam.”

  “You sure aren’t.”

  “He’s never coming back. You do realise that, don’t you?”

  Caden struggled to keep himself from slamming a fist into Dyne’s face.

  “Where there’s a Throam, there’s a way.”

  “Cute, but it doesn’t change the fact that there’s been no word of him from any of the refugees leaving the Meccrace system. Anyway, that’s not really relevant. Who’s to say that if I’d been with Molcomb I could even have stopped Castigon?”

  That is truly doubtful, the craven halfwit.

  “If you doubt yourself over that, then you’re no good to me anyway.”

  Dyne opened his mouth, but stopped himself from replying out of anger. Caden watched his face again and saw a flash of realisation there.

  “You’ve made up your mind already, haven’t you?”

  “You can say that again.”

  “And there’s nothing I can do to change it?”

  “Nothing. I’m sure you think you did nothing wrong, and I’m sure you can find a hundred ways to explain it away, but you have to understand Dyne that that’s exactly why I don’t want you anywhere near me.”

  “Who do you think you are?” Dyne said. “Yeah, you might be a Shard, and I’m just a lowly counterpart, but MAGA have already said it wasn’t my fault—”

  “I don’t need to think about who I am to know that someone who let their Shard die — and failed to stop a man out for Shard blood — is not the person I want watching my back.“

  “You know what they say about you? That you’re an arrogant, aloof jobsworth. I never saw evidence for that in the reports I read from your missions, but I guess the reports aren’t the man, right?”

  You should punch him right in his heedless face.

  “We’re done here,” said Caden. “I don’t expect to hear from you again.”

  “Well then you’re about to be disappointed,” said Dyne. “I was told to give you this if you refused.”

  The counterpart tapped at his holo for a moment, and Caden heard the soft chime of data being received by his own link. Dyne left him with a wordless scowl and walked away in the same direction Eilentes had gone, complaining to himself.

  Caden watched him leave and relaxed slowly. He looked down at his hands, opened his balled fists, and saw small crescents of red where two of his nails had punctured the palms.

  I’m very disappointed with you.

  “Oh shut up.”

  He opened the data which Dyne had sent to his holo, and saw it carried the seal of Her Majesty. Orders: Dyne to associate with Caden, with immediate effect.

  But she had said she would leave it to Caden to decide.

  She had said.

  • • •

  Herik Pammon strolled through the streets of the capital with a smile on his face. His sharp eyes searched left and right as he moved, roving over the fruits of his labour and drinking in their success.

  The principal city of Serrofus Major — that great, industrious conurbation of which the proconsul was so proud — was nothing more than a ghost town.

  Here and there Pammon spied the remains of those houses and shops which had become the mute, charred victims of fiery unrest; unrest which he himself had instigated, with the help of Maber Castigon. His smile widened.

  Someone two junctions ahead from him whipped a hood over their head, and disappeared into a side alley.

  They’re afraid, he thought. They’re afraid, but they are still moving. Still grasping for life. Let them grasp, let them scurry, let them bury their wits in a struggle of the irrational.

  A clap of thunder broke the unlikely silence of the town, and he craned his neck to peer into the bright sky. The clouds were thin and wispy, nowhere near thick enough to provide total cover, and after only a few seconds he saw the silhouette of an Imperial Navy troop carrier carving through the capital’s air space. Its edges glistened in the sun as it made its final descent to the space port, and its engines rumbled heartily.

  Yet more troops for the proconsul, he thought to himself. Kalistine will have his order and his discipline. He will have it no matter how many boots he must put on the ground.

  His smile became a sneer of satisfied delight.

  Pammon hurried silently through a crossroads and stopped at the far side. He glanced around the corner, into the road which had lain across his path.

  Two blocks farther down, the way was barred by a squad of MAGA soldiers. A Kodiak troop vehicle waited just behind them, angled into the road to create a narrow passage which they could more easily control. He saw that the troops held their weapons in front of them, pointed towards the ground but ready to bring to bear on any threat.

  He leaned back, safely out of view.

  Kalistine’s reaction to the unrest had been even more aggressive than Pammon had hoped for. It was true that the proconsul had already harboured a distaste for the native population — a distaste which bordered on the xenophobic — but his treatment of them now went far beyond ignoring their status as citizens of the Imperial Combine. Now, he viewed them as an enemy on his own streets.

  Pammon almost giggled to himself. Almost.

  The Serrofites who had once been the masters of this world had all but handed it over to humankind when they agreed for their planet to be annexed as a protectorate. Thanks to their role as his unwitting scapegoats, they were about to repeat their error, this time on behalf of humanity.

  Perhaps the great Proconsul Kalistine unconsciously felt that coming. Perhaps that was why he now refused to hide the fact that he viewed the Serrofites as vermin.

  And humans too! Pammon knew of at least two who had been shot since the proconsul’s new civic security measures had been put in place; people who had — for whatever reason — defied the will of their governor. It was difficult not to admire a man who had such a stern approach to his own kind, but Pammon managed to despise the proconsul nonetheless.

  Not that he really felt that.

  He set off to continue his journey, and hurried on towards the edge of the town. It would be dark soon, and he would need to be in exactly the right place at exactly the right time if he was to leave this doomed world behind.

  “Hold it,” came a voice from his right.

  He snapped his head towards the sound and stopped moving. A fire team of MAGA troops was emerging from the next junction along, barely twenty metres away from him. The soldier on point already had Pammon in his sights, and was side-stepping out of the junction’s mouth. His comrades moved cautiously into the main road and formed a loose arc across the way.

  “Identify yourself,” said the one aiming his rifle at Pammon’s heart. “Curfew started an hour ago.”

  Pammon appraised his situation swiftly. There was no point in running; he would be gunned down within seconds. Being killed now would not be the end of the world — at least, not for him — but it would be something of a setback.

  He tuned his voice carefully: plaintive, respectful, slightly distressed. “I’m just trying to get home, Sir.”

  “I said identify yourself.”

  “My name is Aubrin Bel-Lattain,” he said. “I have credentials.”

  “Bel-Lattain?” The soldier pointing his gun looked him up and down, and the muzzle of his weapon dropped slightly.

  “That’s me, Sir.”

  “You don’t look like a Bel-anything to me, dressed like that. And I don’t remember the last time anyone with noble pretensions called me ‘Sir’.”

  Pammon sighed inwardly. Perhaps the alias was a touch pretentious, considering his surroundings.

  “As I said; I have credentials. May I?” He
gestured towards his holo.

  “Slowly.”

  Pammon unclipped the wearable holo from his wrist, thumbed it on, and swiped a few times. He offered it to the soldier at arm’s length. One of the others came forward to take the holo, moved back again, and scrutinised the display.

  “Where is home?” The first one asked.

  “On the outskirts,” said Pammon. “Juduan District.”

  “You really expect me to believe a Bel would stay in the Judu quarter?”

  “Times are hard,” said Pammon. He was beginning to regret his choice of persona.

  “Aren’t they just. Any word on that ident, Private?”

  “Running it through the network now.”

  Pammon controlled his breathing. He had hoped to avoid any unnecessary drama; unless the network was being particularly slow today, it looked as though drama was on its way.

  “Uplink shows a different image, Sarge. This ain’t Bel-Lattain.”

  The rifle jerked up again, forwards, now aimed at his head.

  “I’ll ask again: who are you?”

  Pammon sensed a stirring behind him, around him. He heard the quiet scratching sounds which the soldiers’ narrow focus made them miss.

  His smile returned. “Yes, I hear you, yes.”

  “What? Tell me your name, citizen.”

  “Kill them.”

  When it was all over, he plucked his holo from the ground and went on his way.

  — 03 —

  With Eyes Open

  The security protocols at Fort Herses made Caden’s experience on Fort Sol seem as though he had been allowed to wander freely onto the station. A full hour after he had disembarked from Disputer he had only just received clearance to move outside the docking ring, and he was ushered swiftly and unceremoniously to a holographic conference chamber.

  Now it was Quisten Leksis, safe and snug in her office on Fort Cerina, who was the first of the gathered holograms to speak to him.

  “Why don’t you start by telling us what you know of the Rasas?”

  Caden nodded slowly, gathering his thoughts. He had spent some time putting together all of the various bits and pieces he had learned, organising them into a kind of story. He found it made everything easier to remember, and in some ways it all made a bit more sense.