Baldwin's Legacy: The Complete Series

by Hystad, Nathan

  The door opened, and Tom slowly turned to see the familiar face in the entryway. “As I live and breathe, the great Thomas Baldwin has returned to Andron. How does it feel?” Lark asked him.

  Tom fought the urge to cross the room and deck the man. “Little bit of a kick in the can, isn’t it?”

  Lark stepped inside, his face no longer covered in shadows. He was older, but he’d kept in good shape. His face was lined with dark stubble; his hair looked even grayer in the office. “How so?”

  “Bringing me to his old ship. You recall how much I disliked the cranky bastard,” Tom said calmly.

  “I know. That’s why I thought you’d appreciate me using it to disrupt the Concord.” Lark came in front of Tom and set his hands on Tom’s shoulders, staring him in the eyes. “Remember when we used to talk about rising through the ranks together? How we’d be captains and we’d fight side by side?”

  Tom nodded, not wanting to say anything quite yet.

  “Funny how things worked out. You have a ship, and I have one, and we’re both captains.” Lark smiled, his teeth white and straight.

  “Stealing a ship and calling yourself captain isn’t really the same thing,” Tom muttered.

  Lark’s grin faded. “And what about you, Tom? You think you succeeded by merit alone? All those years spent under Shu on Cecilia, fending off space rats on the Border, really gave them good reason to make you captain of Constantine?”

  Tom bristled, feeling the truth behind the statement. “Don’t mention her again.”

  “Who? Shu?” Lark asked.

  “That’s right. Shu.”

  “I heard she died heroically. How did it feel to let her do your dirty work?” Lark asked, stepping closer.

  Tom stood his ground, Keen a couple inches taller, outweighing him by a good ten kilos. “I’m not playing your games here, Keen. What in the Vastness do you want?”

  Lark relaxed, walking behind the desk. He motioned for Tom to take a seat across from him, and Lark sat, kicking his feet up on the tabletop. “The Vastness. You’re still spouting that absurd rhetoric? I thought you might grow out of it. You always were a little too into that Code.”

  “That Code?” Tom spat. “It’s the Concord way…”

  Keen laughed. “The universe isn’t always black and white, sometimes it’s red. Is that one you understand finally?”

  “You’re twisting things to suit your needs, not the Concord’s.”

  “The same Concord that lies and cheats and hides things from the population every chance it gets?” Keen’s feet came down, and he leaned forward, his frown deep. “They’re corrupt, Tom. They send innocent people to their deaths; they steal from poor planets in exchange for entrance into their club. Haven’t you woken up to all of this, or are you blindly following Constantine’s lead?”

  Tom took the offered chair, not trusting himself to stand. “The Concord hasn’t always been perfect, but…”

  “Perfect? They can hardly keep themselves in line these days. You should have kept their secrets, Tom. It’s worse than ever now,” Keen said.

  Tom felt the words like a punch to the stomach. “You’re blaming me for their missteps?”

  “Missteps. There it is again, Baldwin. Sugar-coating everything. They’re terrible. Humans in the Statu armor?”

  “It wasn’t only humans. They were using anyone they captured…” Tom stopped himself. “Why am I explaining this to the ones that spilled the news of Greblok to the Statu?”

  Keen shook his head. “You seriously think we were behind that?”

  Tom stared at the man. He could still see the boy Keen had been, but it was deeply rooted, covered by a thick layer of years and decisions. “Are you saying you didn’t tell the Statu about the ore?”

  “Why would we?”

  “To create chaos,” Tom said.

  “I agree; we might have attempted stopping you from traveling through the wormhole, but that was only a last-minute decision.”

  “Yur Shen, right? If he was there planting explosives on our Star Drive, I doubt any decision was rash,” Tom said. “How many others are on my ship? How many does the Assembly have in the fleet?”

  “More than you’d imagine. Zare did well.”

  Tom nodded. “Had me fooled.”

  “Remember that time during our first year?” Lark asked.

  Tom was startled by the change of pace. “Which time?”

  “We stayed up all night chasing Ghals outside the academy,” Lark said.

  “Sure. You’d never seen them before, and Nanci wanted you to bring her one,” Tom said, not letting himself smile fondly at the memory.

  “I came back empty-handed,” he said.

  “And we were nearly booted from culture class for showing up bedraggled and filthy.” Tom set his hand on his knees and glared at Lark. “You always would do anything for a girl’s attention.” He didn’t want to bring her up, but it felt like the topic was inevitable. An invisible string was dangling her name above his head, and Tom had no choice but to mention her.

  “I was wondering how long it would take you to mention Seda.” Lark’s face was impassive; gone was his smile or his frown. Everything was straight-lined and emotionless.

  Tom waited for him to speak.

  “We could have moved past it, Tom.”

  “What does it matter anymore? What is it you want with me?” Tom asked.

  “She didn’t choose me, Tom. Don’t you see? She chose the life.”

  “You lied to her. It was you who pushed her away,” Tom said. He shook his head, wondering how that short instance in his life could still hold so much power over him. “Never mind. She’s history, and so is our friendship. I take it you didn’t bring me here to rehash the fact you stole a girl from me twenty years ago.”

  “She was the reason I left the Concord. Did anyone tell you that?” Lark asked.

  He’d never learned why. After their falling out, Lark had vanished, and Tom had only been too happy to let him be. It had been a couple of years before Tom let himself search for the man, while he was a JOT on Ganol, a mid-sized cruise ship named after a Kerkon captain from two centuries ago. The search had resulted in nothing. Keen had left no footprint since they’d parted ways.

  It was clear they weren’t finished with the subject of Seda. Tom pictured her: a tall thin Zilph’i girl, wanting to join the Academy, but her overbearing parents wouldn’t allow it. Her black hair had always smelled like fruit, her dark green eyes a stark contrast to her pale skin. She’d been his first love, and seeing Lark holding her hand, running through town that night, had broken his heart.

  “You two ran off together?” Tom asked.

  “Nothing like that. I never told her what happened to me either. You know she was angry her father wouldn’t let her join the Academy, right?” Keen asked.

  “Sure.”

  “He was with the Assembly.”

  Tom’s breath caught in his throat. He didn’t speak.

  “I started meeting with him that month we were at Ulia. Secretly. He had so many tales to offer me about the Concord. Things no one should have known, but he had a way of making me believe him. Seda finally started to buy in, and her father demanded that she couldn’t see you any longer.

  “She was mad at first, but the way he touted your grandfather as an enemy of the Assembly, and the fact that you were an apple off the family tree, had her believing him.” Lark sat with his hands overtop of one another on top of the desk. His gaze held a sympathy that made Tom even angrier.

  Tom spoke slowly. “And you… you bought in to the lies too, I see.”

  “They aren’t lies, Tom. Deep down, you know it yourself,” Lark told him.

  “Either way, what you’re doing isn’t any better. Sneaking around, claiming you earned the things you blatantly stole. I’ve heard of more than one incident involving innocent lives being lost at the Assembly’s doing,” Tom said.

  Lark sighed and lowered his head. “We never intended to kill a
nyone, but things happen in the heat of the moment, don’t they?”

  Tom locked stares with Lark. “The ends justify the means, right?”

  “Something like that.”

  “What do you want with me?” Tom asked.

  “It’s not you I want.”

  Tom glanced to the viewscreen on the man’s office wall, and saw a zoomed image of Constantine out it. “Let me guess…”

  “We need your ship, and you’re going to give it to us.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  Lark grinned as he spoke, his voice deep and gravelly. “Then I’ll have to take it.”

  ____________

  Reeve grunted as she jammed the cutter against the last corner of the Terontiun device. The panel snapped open, floating away. She scanned the components inside, wishing there was some way to return the drained power from Constantine. There wasn’t, not with this particular energy sucker, but she figured they could transfer enough juice with a Star Drive’s help. Only there were none around, at least none on their sides.

  She distinctly recalled the AI touring the boiler room with her during the first couple of days on the ship, and he mentioned something about a secondary power source. It was a revolutionary instrument, never before seen or studied, and she hadn’t heard of it.

  Reeve used powerful clips and cut the Terontiun lines, happy to see it shutting down. At least that was done, and only twenty minutes too late. She’d really hoped to do it in time, but that would have been next to impossible.

  She rose, her knees protesting inside the space-walking suit, and she peered over to the lingering ships, zooming on her HUD. She’d seen the shuttle coming and going, and that could only mean Captain Baldwin had been transferred into their arms. She needed to do something.

  Reeve bounded across the ship, keeping her steps long but low. Each time her boot hit the hull of the ship, it locked on, making the process lengthier than she wanted, but she returned to the maintenance hatch in a few minutes, her body exhausted.

  She needed to find a way to talk with Constantine’s AI, even though they’d lost power. Reeve jumped through, landing inside the workers’ room, and a small CleanBot beeped and raced away as she disturbed its efforts.

  Reeve removed her suit, letting it fall to the floor, and ran through the halls, heading for the belly of the ship. She tried the elevators, but they were dark. Dead.

  She pressed through the stairwell, racing down the steps. Reeve was out of breath by the time she landed on Deck One, and her engineering team was huddled together, taking instructions from Harry in the middle of the main room.

  “Reeve, you’re here,” Harry said, as if this was a big surprise.

  “I removed the Terontiun device, but there’s a lot of work to do. We need to…”

  The look in Harry’s eyes said it all. “We only have an hour left on the life support.” It was dark in the room; the soft gentle glow of the last emergency lights was the only ambience. She glanced to the Bentom ball, seeing it continue to float, with no blue energy crackling around it. It was like watching a lifeless being lying on the ground, their heart no longer beating.

  “There has to be something, Harry.” Reeve found a seat at the side of the room and plopped into it.

  “There isn’t.”

  “Con told me something about a backup…”

  “If there was a backup, wouldn’t we know about it?” Harry asked.

  “It was new. Not on the books. He only mentioned it in passing, like there was no reason we’d even need it,” she said.

  “Well, we can’t access anything, let alone Constantine’s AI at this point,” he told her.

  Reeve sat there, wondering how in the Vastness she could bring enough power into their ship with the tools on hand.

  They couldn’t. There was no way.

  “Constantine!” she shouted.

  “We’ve been through this…”

  “No. Cleo has his Link. If we can access Cleo, we can contact Con…”

  Harry was picking it up. “And he can tell you about this secret power source that might be fictional.”

  “He wouldn’t have mentioned it if it wasn’t real,” she told him, standing on weary legs.

  “That’s true, but we have no way to reach Cleo. It’s hopeless,” Harry said.

  Reeve shook her head, refusing to believe that. Since no one else was left on the ship from their executive crew, she wondered if Treena might have been filled in on some pertinent Constantine details. It was worth a try. She dreaded heading up the dark stairwell again, but found it was necessary.

  “Harry, keep working here. Be ready,” Reeve said.

  “For what?” he called after her.

  “Anything.”

  Seventeen

  Brax opened his eyes, fearing they might have jumped into an asteroid. Maybe this was death. Perhaps he was floating toward the Vastness. For the first time in his life, he guessed it might not be so terrible.

  “We did it,” Ven said stoically beside him.

  “Gather the images!” Brax commanded. He craned his neck forward, trying to get the lay of the space around them. “Are those…”

  “They appear to be Concord. There are four of them, and one here,” Kaino said from the pilot’s seat.

  Oquid perked up. “You’d better set your course, because we have about five seconds before they lock on to us.”

  “Course set.”

  And as quickly as they’d left, they returned to the region above the planetoid with the mining facility on its surface. Surprisingly, the jumps didn’t leave Brax feeling much different.

  “What did the snapshots show?” Ven asked.

  Kaino threw them onto the main viewer as the Nek drive ship descended toward the mining colony once again. “As we said, four Concord vessels, and one on the opposite side, as if they’re facing off.”

  “That’s our ship,” Brax said, pointing toward the image of Constantine. The exterior lights were all off, making the huge cruise ship appear ominous. He was itching to return. “Some chief of security I am,” he mumbled. Every time something momentous was at play, he wasn’t around.

  “You had no choice, Brax,” Ven told him.

  “Thanks, Ven, but that’s not going to help anyone. What are these ships?” Brax asked.

  “They’re Concord, that’s for sure. I think I recognize the first one,” Ven said, and Brax squinted.

  “Can you zoom on it?” he asked Kaino, the Vralon pilot.

  “Zooming.” The image remained quite clear.

  “It is Andron. I’ll be,” Brax said.

  “We told you we saw a Concord ship attacking our mining transport,” Oquid said, his head turned toward Brax in the rear bench.

  “That must mean those are other retired cruise ships. What does this mean?” Brax asked.

  Ven stared at the screen a moment, then spoke his theory. “They’ve disabled our ship somehow. I didn’t see the Ugna vessel in the region, so either they escaped…”

  Kaino shook his head and zoomed on another sector. “This looks to be debris. Not from the Belt either.”

  Brax’s jaw dropped. “They destroyed Faithful.”

  Ven was silent, his eyes downcast. Brax heard his quiet prayer: “Until we meet in the Vastness.”

  Brax repeated the phrase. “I’m going to return to Cleo. See if I can reach the ship. It’s the only option. We need to find a way to assist our crew.”

  Ven didn’t disagree, and Brax took that as an understanding. Kaino settled the compact jump vessel inside their warehouse and pressed the exit open. “At least we know what we’re up against.”

  “Sure. We’ve discovered it’s the Assembly and they’re in old Concord ships, but how did they disarm Constantine and destroy Faithful?” Brax asked.

  Ven met his gaze, his eyes red and bright through his helmet’s mask. “We’ll find out, and we will make them pay.”

  ____________

  Tarlen rolled away as the woman reached out
for him with a bare hand. She lunged again, hissing as she stumbled and fell into the hallway. He heard Treena’s voice in his ear, trying to help him, but it was more of a distraction than anything. Tarlen knew the touch of a Kwant was enough to kill him, so his only goal was to avoid that at all costs.

  “Stop! I’m on your side!” he shouted to her as she came at him again. She wasn’t young, but she was fit and strong. Tarlen saw her glance at his clothing and to his glasses, stopping herself short.

  “If you’re with us, why are you wearing the clothing of the traitors?” she asked.

  “I wish I was there. I’d slap her so hard…” Treena’s words in his ears weren’t helping.

  Tarlen ignored her, lifting his hands. “I’m on the task force. We’re dressing like this to fool the traitors on Constantine.”

  Her expression remained untrusting. “I don’t think…”

  “Look.” He pointed to a stack of laundry across the room. “Those are the other uniforms. I’m supposed to bring them up. And we’re almost out of time.”

  She turned to follow his finger, and he shot her. Her mouth opened wide, and she fell to the ground with a thump.

  “Good work, Tarlen,” Treena said. “Now don’t make it for nothing. Change into a uniform.”

  Tarlen stared at the unmoving body, hardly able to believe he’d killed the Kwant woman. He paused, not trusting his stomach. It suddenly felt like he’d eaten bricks for breakfast.

  “Tarlen, I know this is difficult, but you need to listen to me. Take off your clothes, hide her body, and get into a gray uniform,” she told him.

  His lips were stuck together, his throat dry, but he nodded. “Okay. I can do that.” He leaned over the woman, careful not to touch her skin, and pulled her across the white floor, draping a few linens over her. There was a little blood streaked on the ground, and he saw an old CleanBot in the corner, deactivated. He pressed it on, and the metallic robot rolled over to the mess, sanitizing it.

  “Good work,” Treena said into his ear.

  He methodically stripped and found a uniform his size, or as close as he could find. It was still loose at the waist and wide at the shoulders, but it would have to do. “Now what?” he asked.