The Rising Darkness (Space Empires Book 1)

by Selby, Caleb

  Realizing that he still wasn’t dressed for the day, Fedrin got up and walked to his closet where he selected a freshly pressed uniform jacket. He slung the jacket on the doorknob of his washroom and rolled up his shirtsleeves. After splashing cold water on his face, he looked up into the mirror to see heavy eyes with dark circles beneath them. He splashed more water on his face, hoping to wash away his weary look. With his face still hung over the sink he reached for a small towel on a nearby hook. Having dried his face, he glanced up once more to see if there was any improvement. But as his eyes met the mirror, he instantly felt a familiar and overwhelming pain in his head. He stumbled back into the wall and struggled to look up but was horrified to see a faceless, red hooded figure in the mirror looking back at him.

  “What...what do you want?” stammered Fedrin as he slid down the wall to the floor, grabbing at his throbbing head. “Who are you?”

  “Open your mind,” replied the ominous figure.

  “What?” asked Fedrin.

  “Open your mind,” the figure said again.

  “Go away!” moaned Fedrin in agony as his head felt like it was going to explode.

  The figure began to dissipate but continued to speak. “There is much we need you for Fedrin. Open your mind,” the figure said one last time and then disappeared.

  Fedrin sat on his washroom floor catching his breath, all the while holding his aching head. He was trying to decide if what he had just seen was real or some sort of delusion when he finally heard a light knock at his door. He struggled to his feet and wearily made his way toward the chair behind his desk. He needed to sit down before he passed out. He sat there with his eyes closed tightly for over a minute when another knock sounded on the door.

  “Enter,” Fedrin called out feebly as he struggled to open his eyes.

  The door slowly opened and Ensign Gallo entered the room, holding a data card carefully in his hand.

  Ensign Gallo was an average man as far as fleet officers were concerned. He was short, slightly bald and looked like he was in his late thirties but was actually only twenty-six. He had served as the Chief Special Communications and Intelligence officer on the Iovara since the day she was commissioned. Most officers would use their tenure in such a visible post to position themselves into a First Lieutenant promotion or perhaps a commander candidacy, but not Gallo. He was perfectly content to stay in his position for the rest of his career. Listening to radio waves and starring into scanner screens was what he loved and no promises of promotion could lure him away.

  “So what’s going on?” Fedrin asked as he pushed the subsiding pain out of his mind and motioned for Gallo to sit.

  “I think it’ll be clearer if you simply played this,” replied Gallo as he awkwardly held out the data card.

  Fedrin’s hand shook as he reached for the unlabeled data card and with some difficulty inserted it into a thin slot on the desk terminal. The screen came to life, flickering for a moment until the words ‘Emergency Jettison Beacon Mark-478 NPF Tribulation’ appeared. Fedrin’s heart dropped. This was an emergency message sent from the Tribulation, Admiral Caton’s flagship.

  Fedrin looked at Gallo for a reassuring expression or nod. Gallo offered no such look. Fedrin shook his head and looked back up at the screen.

  The first thing that Fedrin recognized in the recording was the burnt out hull of the NPF Driam, a heavy cruiser commissioned only eight months prior. All the running lights were off and half of the upper command decks were missing. A pair of hull breaches could be seen on her starboard side. Immediately above the Driam, was the wrecked frame of the NPF Lewison, a veteran destroyer escort. It too had several gaping holes along her hull and the main energy modulator platforms fixed on the fuselage were noticeably absent. The camera view from the beacon suddenly jolted and the screen went black.

  “The beacon was hit by something,” Gallo quietly explained. “Advance the transmission thirty minutes forward.”

  Fedrin advanced the transmission and looked on helplessly as the view now faced away from the Driam and Lewison derelicts. The new angle caused Fedrin to bring his hand up to cover his open mouth, for there on the screen was the rest of the Second Fleet, utterly destroyed! All twenty-one ships of the mighty Second Fleet were gone!

  A veritable sea of debris floated aimlessly in and out of view of the beacon’s camera. Mighty weapon turrets, armor plating, surface instruments, furniture, storage crates, and dead ship personnel all added to the horrific scene before Fedrin’s eyes.

  “They...they never fired a shot,” murmured Fedrin, shaking his head in anguish as he studied the line of mangled destroyer and cruiser hulls. “Not one shot!”

  “I thought as much,” remarked Gallo quietly. “Looks like they ran into a minefield or something,” he added as he nodded to the large distinct holes in many of the ships.

  Fedrin rested his head against the back of his chair, his eyes closed. “How long ago did this come in?”

  “About twenty-five minutes ago,” answered Gallo. “But it was transmitting a good two to three hours before that. The signal was weak and the second-shift wave hunter didn’t pick it up. Even I didn’t notice it at first.”

  Fedrin shook his head slowly. “Half an hour after Admiral Caton contacted me.”

  “What was that, Sir?”

  “Nothing,” answered Fedrin. “Do you know if the rest of the fleet has received this?”

  “I don’t believe so,” Gallo answered.

  Fedrin nodded slowly. “Keep searching the sub waves for any possible enemy ships that could have caused this. If it was a minefield, something must have laid them. We need to find out where it is.”

  “Aye, Sir!” answered Gallo and saluted before promptly making his exit.

  Fedrin exhaled deeply and then looked out his window as another wave of helplessness and defeat came over him like waves billowing through a collapsed dam. Two entire fleets had been destroyed under his watch without so much as a shot fired at the enemy; surely this was the beginning of the end for the Federation.

  His listless gaze out his window fell upon the Defiant and he found himself examining her hull in detail. The sleek rows of decks, daunting cannons mounts and glowing relay grids resonated with power and authority. His wandering eyes drifted to the command deck two thirds up from the stern. Most of the lights were on throughout the decks and Fedrin wondered if Commander Drezden was sleeping or hard at work. He guessed the latter. As he sat there studying the Destroyer, Fedrin found himself wishing he were once again a ship’s Commander waiting for someone else to make all the hard decisions for him. This Chief Admiral stuff was not for him.

  ***

  “And that switch activates the main ship to ship relay transmitter,” Kesler said, pointing to a small green switch buried in the sea of knobs, levers and buttons on the console.

  Tarkin nodded. “And how do you differentiate the coded transmissions sent over homogenous frequencies by ships in the same grouping versus others?”

  Kesler looked at Tarkin curiously, momentarily dumbfounded.

  “He doesn’t know what you said!” Jonas called down to Tarkin followed by a hearty laugh. “You’re smarter than him!”

  Kesler rolled his eyes, shook his head and then turned back to Tarkin. “The Navcom computer sorts out the transmissions automatically.”

  “How?” Tarkin pressed.

  Kesler shrugged. “Unlike the civilian operated ships that you’ve served on in the past with individual networking, all commissioned fleet vessels are linked with the Navcom making communication and ship to ship monitoring and communication essentially effortless.”

  Tarkin scratched at his burly beard as he listened intently to every word Kesler said. He nodded occasionally and asked an insightful question now and then. He remembered every word imparted by Kesler and mastered the location of every switch, lever and button on the primary workstations without needing Kesler to repeat himself, even once. The only exception to this was one instance when
Kesler made a mistake, inadvertently mixing up aft and bow stabilizer thruster switches. Tarkin caught the mistake himself and, in a humble tone, corrected Kesler at the first available moment away from the other officers.

  “Hey, have you guys seen Gallo?” Jonas asked from his perch. “He’s been gone for like twenty minutes. It’s not like him to be gone this long when it’s his shift. He starts to twitch after five minutes if he isn’t starring into his signal screens.”

  “I think he went down to the Admiral’s quarters to show him something he found during a wave hunt,” Kesler answered.

  Jonas looked down at Kesler and raised an eyebrow.

  “My thoughts exactly,” Kesler said and shook his head.

  “What’s that?” Tarkin asked, noticing the exchanged glances.

  Kesler nodded to the empty communication station. “Gallo isn’t much of a talker and he isn’t very comfortable around people in general, especially the Admiral.”

  “So?” said Tarkin.

  “So...if something came up that was important enough for him to walk down to Fedrin’s quarters and talk with him face to face, it can’t be good news,” Kesler replied.

  “Ah, I see,” said Tarkin. “Well, we can always hope different.”

  “You’ll be hoping for quite a while there buddy,” Jonas shouted down. “Some things just don’t change around here. Actually come to think of it, most things don’t change around here.”

  “Like your loud mouth!” Kesler shouted up to Jonas.

  Jonas was about to offer a comeback when a beep sounding at Kesler’s station cut him off.

  Kesler and Tarkin quickly turned and looked at the screen. “Looks like we’ve reached the Hornell,” Kesler said pointing to a batch of blinking signals on a small screen. “Care to send salutations and offer the Commanders docking instructions?” he asked facing Tarkin.

  Tarkin nodded and quickly tapped a series of keys and buttons, his extra sets of hands making short work of the task. When he had finished, he looked up at Kesler for approval, prior to sending the transmissions.

  “Wow! That was fast,” exclaimed Kesler, peering down at the commands to ensure their accuracy. “Very fast...and perfect. Well done!”

  “I’m a fast learner,” Tarkin said with a slight smile.

  “I guess so,” Kesler said as he nodded in approval.

  “It also helps that I have these,” Tarkin said, flaunting his extra arms and prompting a smile from Kesler.

  “Gallo! Where have you been old buddy?” Jonas suddenly called out when he saw the stocky ensign slip back onto the bridge.

  “Don’t want to talk about it,” Gallo said as he walked straightway to his station where he promptly placed his set of signal searchers over his ears and began once more staring into a computer screen.

  Kesler glanced up at Jonas. They both shook their heads. It was bad. Real bad.

  5. The Sixth Fleet

  The stately man walked confidently into the President’s office without knocking. Sitting behind his desk, President Defuria looked up in surprise and then smiled. “Why Senator Trivis, how nice to see you,” he said in a pleasant tone that didn’t impress Trivis.

  “Skip the pleasantries,” the Senator snapped. “I’m three days late on my Grimsin share. It’s usually in my delivery box by now. What’s the big idea?”

  Defuria shook his head. “Things have been busy Senator, or haven’t you noticed?”

  “Things are always busy,” Trivis retorted. “Including me! And I can’t stay busy and do my work without the Grimsin. You know this better than anyone!”

  Defuria looked momentarily enraged by Trivis’ aggressive mannerisms but he quickly regained his composure and nodded. “Of course Senator,” he said and opened a drawer in his desk and retrieved a small metal box. “Your services are worth every drop.”

  “Now just to clarify, is this my Grimsin or are they going to have to take me out of here in a dustpan like Minister Boide?” Trivis asked, looking at the box suspiciously.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know what you are talking about,” Defuria replied. “Boide died in a fire at his apartment. Tragic, tragic accident.”

  “Right...” Trivis said skeptically. “And I can fly. So can I have it?”

  Defuria smiled as he opened the metal box and retrieved the contents within. “Your payment,” he said as he handed the Senator a small vial filled with a crimson elixir.

  Trivis relaxed his stance and took the vial from Defuria and slipped it into his breast pocket. “Is that the last of it?” he asked.

  Defuria nodded. “I distributed final rations to everyone else yesterday and this morning. There will be no more until we complete our mission.”

  Trivis patted the pocket containing the vial. “Then we had all better get to work.”

  “Most assuredly,” commented Defuria. “Time is not a luxury we have to work with.”

  Trivis nodded, turned sharply and walked out of the room.

  Defuria watched until he had left before shaking his head. The upcoming events were going to have to be handled very delicately.

  ***

  Commander Colby’s shuttle had barely locked with the Iovara docking clamps before he lunged onto the landing; nearly slipping in the process and cracking his head open on the steel balustrade. He then skipped down the graded stairs until he reached the bottom of the platform and then bounded across the hangar floor in the direction of the main airlock.

  After spending several minutes convincing the posted guards of who he was, a task made more difficult than necessary due to his lost ID card, he entered the ship proper where he proceeded to jog down the corridors toward his destination. In his left hand, he clutched a well-worn uniform jacket and in his right, a badly scratched data pad with instructions for getting to the meeting room. He had been aboard the Iovara for fleet meetings a hundred times over the years but he always managed to get lost in the massive vessel, her ever winding bowels and imposing levels; a test for even the most tenured Iovara personnel. Finally, with the help of an amiable lieutenant, he found the meeting room and burst through the doors.

  He was momentarily relieved that most of the other Commanders were late too, but then the sickening realization hit him that they weren’t there because they had perished. Colby, of course, knew what had happened but to come to a fleet commander conference, as they had all done so many times before, and notice over a dozen empty chairs, was something he hadn’t prepared himself to see. He had just assumed they would always be there. Their absence was sobering and filled the air with a heavy emotional charge.

  He walked past two empty chairs and took his usual place near the end of the long polished table. He sat back and stared at the empty places, still picturing their former occupants and hearing their voices in his mind. How could they be dead?

  “Don’t worry,” Commander Kendrick said reassuringly, patting Colby’s arm. “They’re all in a better place now.”

  “He’s right,” Drezden added with a smile. “They’re probably all looking down here feeling sorry for us poor chaps still stumbling around in this rat race.”

  Colby nodded and then looked up at Drezden with a forced smile. He then slowly scanned the faces of the other seated commanders, seeing each of them in a new, more thoughtful light in the wake of yesterday’s events.

  “So what do you all think about this business back home?” Commander Searle, the only female commander in the group, asked as she casually broke the awkward silence. “Pretty crazy right?”

  “Still can’t believe it,” Kendrick said shaking his head in sadness. “Simply awful. And to think they are trying to blame Fedrin for this...this monstrous act. What is wrong with Larep anyhow?”

  “What’s right with Larep?” added Drezden followed by several agreeing nods.

  “Still though, there is that recording of Fedrin in the docks,” Commander Mick of the cruiser Corinthia and outspoken critic of Fedrin voiced up.

  “Fake!” Drezden answered
. “It’s all fake!”

  “Looked real enough to me,” muttered Mick as he reached for his mug and sipped the hot lor.

  “Did you guys hear the Hornell’s Star Chaser fighters were replaced with the new Comet class?” Searle asked in an effort to lighten the conversation.

  “No kidding?” exclaimed Sanders looking to Kendrick, Commander of the Hornell, for more info. “I didn’t even know they were shipping the Comets already.”

  Kendrick nodded casually although all could tell he was very excited about his ship’s new prize. “We received the first shipment of them last week. The Third Fleet should be getting the next batch in a couple of months and the Second Fleet should be receiving theirs by the end of the year!”

  “Hope the Third Fleet is around long enough to get theirs,” said Colby solemnly.

  “Aye,” muttered Kendrick with a weary shake of his head as he pondered the plight of the Third Fleet and their multitude of pressing problems.

  Mick suddenly cleared his throat and looked intently at the seated Commanders. “So am I the only one who has misgivings about this whole thing?”

  Kendrick turned sharply. “Thing?”

  “Disregarding Larep and the Defense Council and going rogue,” Mick retorted.

  “Disregarding orders to sit in a burning dock is hardly what I would classify as going rogue,” Drezden replied coolly.

  “Better to be alive rebels then dead loyalists,” Colby added.

  Mick tossed his arms in the air. “So a few wires got crossed at the docks. That’s to be expected right? I mean, they were on fire after all. Obviously no one intended for the ships to sit there and burn. But ignoring orders to return and set things right? That is what I don’t like.”

  “There weren’t wires crossed!” Sanders rebuked Mick harshly. “I was there on the ground yesterday, you weren’t. Someone wanted our ships to burn. And when we wouldn’t let them, they tried to shoot us down. It’s pretty hard to misinterpret laser rounds smashing your hull, although I’m sure you could find a way.”