Five Empires: An Epic Space Opera

by Steven J Shelley

“Twelve paces on my count,” she called. “Agreed?”

  “Agreed,” said Jake.

  “Fine,” Fashon sighed.

  “Twelve.”

  Jake took his first step, then another. Mandie’s voice faded into the background. He put one foot in front of the other, enjoying the precise, measured activity. It always ordered the mind before the killing was done. He grew mindful of the sticky mud, the brackish stench of the terrain.

  A colorful dragonfly hovered in his vision before darting away. It’s dynamic, whip-like movement inspired him. He became aware of his body, drum-tight and itching for release. Fingers like high tension wires on the smooth ivory pistol butts.

  Should he shoot low or high? Play the percentages or go for the money shot? What would Fashon do? The strategic questions slid through his clear, detached mind and didn’t really require answers. He realized he was immune to Fashon’s neural attacks, which hadn’t abated. He could feel them on the edge of his pristine perception of time and space. A storm on the outside. A storm he would tame. Because he was more powerful than the cybomancer.

  He was a duellist with a purpose. A duellist doing something right for a change.

  “Zero.”

  Money shot. If he was going to be right, he may as well make it emphatic. So he stood tall, knowing that Fashon was probably expecting the low ride. One pistol only - Love, in his left hand, his weaker hand. His brother wouldn’t be expecting that either. Guile was normally his domain.

  Jake squeezed off his shot and left the rest for the Seven Gods to work out. He’d done all he could. There was no point in moving - he’d seen plenty of poor schmucks move straight into a bullet.

  Fashon had chosen to stand and deliver also. Stretched to his full height, he’d gone for percentages. Maybe Jake had scared him some. Maybe the man had found a little humility. Jake knew he would be hit a split second before the impact came. Pain flowered in his chest, left pectoral. Heart? It was going to be damn close. Lung? Maybe. He wasn’t aware of falling but all of a sudden he was eating dirt. Someone was lifting him to his feet. He was still conscious, which was probably a good thing.

  “Give me that booster,” said Mandie from somewhere nearby. “Don’t waste it on the dead.”

  A sharp pain in his forearm. Drugs. He was vaguely aware of a cold, flushing sensation in his chest. It was like half his torso had been put into deep freeze. He was propped up against something hard and rough - a stunted tree. Fusar and Mandie were crouched in front of him. He waved them away impatiently. He wanted to see.

  His view cleared and he saw Fashon. His body was lying at an unnatural angle in the mud. Half his head was missing, the fleshy, grey brain exposed to the sun and wind. It had been such an active, intelligent organ. There was a sadness in the air that gripped Jake’s imagination. Fashon was evil, but he was blood. An immutable link was gone forever.

  A rhythmic sound broke Jake’s reverie - Van was clapping.

  “The mind is a flower,” he said warmly. “Death is fertile ground.”

  Clutching at his side, Jake forced himself to his feet. Mandie had been quick with the shock booster, sealing and cauterizing the wound. Since he was able to breathe and move, he guessed he’d been unimaginably lucky and avoided organ damage.

  He hobbled over to Van, motioning for Fusar to follow. Sweet Jean was consoling Verity in the shade of the vessel. There was nothing they could do. Jake had been entitled to kill his brother. That was that.

  Jake placed the still-hot Love in Fusar’s hand. She gripped it tightly, knowing what she needed to do. Jake knew next to nothing about the Jaj, but he knew full well the politics of revenge. It was pretty much the same the galaxy over. Fusar positioned herself by Van’s head.

  “The mind is a flower,” the monk repeated, louder this time, looking Jake straight in the eye. “The Nostroma have lost their way.”

  Fusar pulled the trigger and Van’s brain was splattered across the dark, stinking dirt.

  The job done, Fusar’s shoulders sagged a little and she let the gun fall to the ground. Jake knew better than to console her - this moment was for Fusar alone. Instead he watched the emerald fighters as they wheeled in urgently from the west.

  “It’s over,” Sweet Jean called. “We need to embark now.”

  47

  Jake collected his gun and let Fusar know he was near.

  “He was right, you know,” he said. “That monastery is proof that Nostromic culture is dying.”

  Fusar began heading toward the ship as an eagle strike force screamed overhead. Jake took one last look at Fashon’s corpse before climbing in.

  Now that the dust had settled, he felt a mild sorrow, nothing more. Tomorrow, he suspected he would feel the same, maybe a little better. With the shadow of his brother gone, it felt like a clear path had opened before him. Instead of bumbling along as a wayward rogue with ripped wires under his face, Jake was now a man unto himself. A complete entity.

  Jean closed the hatch behind him as he dropped down into the galley. Mandie and Fusar were already strapped in at the back of the cabin.

  Verity watched him from the entrance to the cockpit. Her eyes were puffy from crying. Jake found he was wholly uninterested in her grief.

  “Just fuck off,” he said. “We’ll know when we’ve landed.”

  Verity’s eyes flashed but Jean had pulled her away. Within a minute the prop bulb was firing and the craft rose into the air. Jake regretted that Fusar wouldn’t be able to see the Caravan of Light from her position. Her first taste would be from the inside.

  The eagle broke orbit with a minimum of turbulence - Sweet Jean was a capable pilot.

  “Whatever happens, stick with me,” Jake cautioned the wide-eyed Fusar. “They might try and take you away.”

  He exchanged a glance with Mandie. There was no way of knowing what Ajon’s response to her would be.

  “You too,” Jake added. “You guys are my inner sanctum.”

  The duellist was rewarded with smiles of such intensity he couldn’t help but respond in kind. Mandie, in particular, had obviously been waiting to hear something along those lines.

  The craft had settled into a steady rhythm. Verity was speaking to someone over the com, probably seeking clearance to dock at the Caravan.

  Jake unstrapped himself and raided the galley for supplies. Mandie and Fusar were ravenous and didn’t need a second invitation. Jake wolfed down a pre-packaged chicken and rice meal. It lacked flavor but right then it was the most delicious feast he’d ever had.

  He motioned to Mandie that he needed the head for a while. He relieved himself gratefully, realizing he hadn’t been for two days. As a seasoned traveler with no fixed address, he relished small moments like this one.

  Life in a tandem with Fashon had been tough - constantly on the move, threatening folks, killing others, manipulating everyone. It was a punishing life and Jake was glad it had come to a close. If Fusar could find sanctuary for him in Jaj space he was tempted to live off the grid for a few years. First he had to get her there. Far, far easier said than done.

  By the time Jake got back to his seat Verity was waiting in the galley.

  “We dock in three minutes,” she said. “I’ll take you straight to Ajon. I’ve already briefed him on Fidelis Prime.”

  Jake wondered if that “briefing” included the duel with Fashon or the slaying of Van. It was true that a golden scientific opportunity had gone begging, but Jake found it extremely difficult to care.

  He nodded to Verity without looking at her. She’d shown her true colors before the duel. She sided with Fashon. Her twin brother was the one lying dead in that swamp, but for Jake she may as well have been dead too.

  “Look sharp,” he muttered to Mandie as the vessel slowed and descended.

  At length Jean appeared and engaged the top hatch. Mandie went first, then Fusar. Jake followed last, blinking in the harsh lights of a state-of-the-art hangar.

  It was truly enormous, running the entire length of t
he central dodecahedron’s “waist”. The space was invariably filled with exotic craft from the four corners of the galaxy. Dignitaries, scholars, travelers and traders all rubbed shoulders in the main hangar bay.

  There was an air of urgency about the place. Accompanied by a strident siren, emerald security staff were herding civilians into tight groups and marching them into side corridors. Verity took off into one such corridor and the others followed. A granite-faced Sweet Jean took the rear.

  “Not the traveler’s tour,,” Jake muttered as they rushed down an untidy engineers’ passage. By his calculation the Emerald Senate was located above them. Considering the general air of emergency, there was every chance it was in session. Normally reserved and sanguine, even when pulling the strings of war, the Nostromic Meritocracy had been spooked. Jake had a feeling Ajon Prime had botched the strategic alliance with the Cava05.

  The party entered a drop shaft and were whisked upward through the guts of the Mother. The ride afforded a glimpse of the Senate, a massive amphitheater with spine-tingling artwork etched into the very walls.

  The drop shaft stopped at the entrance to an expansive office. Jake and his charges approached a desk surrounded by light screens. A bearded man pushed and pulled items of data as if he were attempting to solve a complex puzzle. Jake had never seen Ajon Prime move with so much nervous energy. The Nostroma leader frowned when he saw his visitors - sorrow or anger, Jake would never know.

  “Thank you Verity, Sweet Jean,” he said quietly, his head rising above the sea of data. He approached Fusar, coolly appraising her.

  “That’s a real person,” Jake said. “Even talks, too.”

  “Oh, I’m sure she does, Jake,” Ajon returned. “I’m just a little frustrated that all my efforts have culminated in a Prophecy no really really believes in.”

  Jake put a protective arm around the Jaj girl, who simply looked confused.

  “Try not to scare my friends, Prime.”

  Ajon looked at Jake for the first time, amusement brightening his dour, sleep-deprived face.

  “I’m sorry, Fusar,” he said. “We Nostroma are not known for our social niceties.”

  “Tell us what you want or let me complete my mission,” Jake growled. He had abandoned any pretense at dry wit. All he had left was simmering anger. Ever since he’d set out to rescue Fusar he’d been attacked by his own people.

  Ajon seemed to acknowledge Jake’s state of mind and nodded. He activated a glittering holographic display of the galaxy, disappearing into it. Jake was familiar with the political theme - green for Nostroma space, violet for Cava05, red for Jaj and blue for Aegisi. Needless to say, there was an aggressively grasping violet blob through the center of the galaxy. It had grown since Jake had last checked - now it encompassed the Sindal, Yorvar and Quavar systems. He blinked. But that meant -

  “Solitude,” Verity said in awe. “Have the Aegisi fallen?”

  Ajon Prime looked wretched as everyone peered at the violet planet perched on the shoulder of a supermassive black hole. That wasn’t anger or fear. It was guilt.

  “That’s on us,” Jake said. “We provided the Cava05 with the intel they needed for invasion.”

  The Nostroma leader stood stock still, as if forcing himself to confront Jake’s harsh truth. There was no light in eyes that once brimmed with ferocious intelligence.

  “Do you know how the Cava05 like to negotiate?” he asked tiredly. “They insist on ‘power’ sessions. Thrashing things out for as long as it takes. They rotate teams every four hours to hammer their objectives home. They maintain energy, discipline, focus. They wear even the best minds down through sheer tenacity and organization. They’re relentless.”

  Jake didn’t respond, letting Ajon release his pent-up frustrations. It was a confession, after all.

  “It was they who suggested a total recall of Nostroma operatives,” Ajon continued. “Of course they would. Why would I sanction that? Our greatest strength is our stealth, our guile. The fact we’ve embedded tandems in every city, every outpost, every facility. Why would I tear all that down?”

  And then Jake knew. “The Knowledge Archive,” he said.

  Ajon looked sharply at him, only confirming Jake’s suspicions.

  “The simians have developed their drift-cloaking technology,” Jake said. “That’s how they followed you here. They can predict the Caravan’s course. Take it down whenever they choose. Everything we built. The Senate. The Archive. All could be destroyed at any moment.”

  “Now you see,” Ajon said softly. “I had no choice.”

  Whilst the Nostroma valued individual freedom, they feted knowledge as the most sublime of assets. Long ago, when the Nostroma were merely a despised adjunct of the human race, the alien Yeneri torched system after system, determined to eradicate humans once and for all.

  Verdano Six, a harvest moon of strategic interest to humans, was all but obliterated. Years later a Nostromic scout surveyed the planet for possible colonization and found the wreckage of a very large ship. It was believed to have once belonged to a cryptic organization known as the Farseers.

  Much of the vessel was beyond recognition, but fragments of a vast data archive were recovered. Those fragments formed the basis of Nostromic knowledge and inquiry. They set the course of Nostromic development and allowed the species to come into its own on the galactic stage. Those first fragments formed the basis of the Knowledge Archive that now sat serenely in the Caravan of Light. The greatest library any species had known.

  Once the sanctity of that knowledge was threatened, Jake wasn’t surprised that Ajon chose the Archive over his people.

  “They offered security, didn’t they?” Jake asked his leader. “They told you they wouldn’t destroy that which has taken over a thousand years to build.”

  “In the end there was only one decision,” Ajon said. “And now I am to rewire each and every one of you. To obey and accept Cavan superiority.”

  “And if you don’t?”

  Ajon gestured at all the tiny blinking lights surrounding the golden orb that represented the Caravan.

  “They have us surrounded,” he said. “They’ll either convert us into malleable slaves or destroy us. Check mate.”

  These last words were uttered so bitterly that Jake knew he was witnessing Ajon’s final admission of defeat. Ajon Prime, fearless cybomancer, peerless strategist, master manipulator, had finally been beaten by sheer weight of numbers. Power in its purest form.

  In a way, he’d done well to keep the Nostroma out of harm’s way for so long. Now that the Norgaardi were watching from the edge of the galaxy, the Cava05 were simply irresistible.

  Still, it was a shock to see the ring of Cavan warships closing in like hungry dogs. Tranda IX was indeed surrounded. There would be no escape for the Caravan. Jake doubted that anyone would leave Tranda a free individual.

  “Blockade?” he murmured.

  “They don’t need to,” Ajon said. “All their Mach 7 fighter patrols are out there too. Even if someone got through and entered drift space they’d be chased down and destroyed at the other end. It’s over.”

  Jake nodded.

  A man wearing the green cross of a medic emerged from a small ante-chamber.

  “We don’t have much time,” Ajon said. “Allow us to at least see to your wounds.”

  A female medic was standing by Fusar with all manner of instruments.

  “Nothing invasive, I trust?” Jake asked, making his threat crystal clear.

  “Standard diagnostics,” the medic promised.

  Jake submitted to the skilled and rapid treatment offered by the medics. Within two minutes his facial wounds were all but healed by high quality salve. Mandie’s cuts and bruises were also treated.

  “Accumulative trauma but nothing irreversible,” announced Fusar’s medic. “Almost all physical indicators within normal Jaj parameters.”

  The Jaj was handed a standard utility suit. The medic whispered something in Ajon’s ear - the bear
ded man frowned. The medics were dismissed as abruptly as they had arrived. Jake looked at Ajon expectantly but all he got in return was a vague, troubled look.

  He took a moment to collect his thoughts. There were so many questions, such little time. In the end, the most obvious took precedence over the rest.

  “Why are you here, Ajon? I might’ve gotten away if it wasn’t for you.”

  “I don’t think so,” Ajon said with a sad smile, as if coming to Tranda was the last good decision he’d ever made.

  “I owe you an apology,” he said. “Instead of venting my spleen I should’ve attended to the bad news I’ve been carrying all day.”

  His eyes darted to Verity.

  “We held your father for a short time,” Ajon said. “He’d been taking fission on Bita VI. We failed to rehabilitate his mind, I’m afraid. He’d done too much damage to it.”

  Jake felt his chest constrict. He pictured his father in some dingy back room, injecting himself from a dirty booster pack. No one paying him any heed, no one listening to his startling tale.

  “The only recognizable sentiment he could offer was in relation to you, Jake,” Ajon said. “He said you were the only one that believed him. The only one who could see this galaxy through the coming storm.”

  Jake resisted the emotion welling within him. He glanced at Fusar, who watched on with intense interest.

  “Is he here?” he found himself asking.

  Ajon’s face clouded over and Jake felt the truth rip out his insides.

  “Our holding facility was penetrated by a Cavan ghost squad,” he said. “They took your father back to one of their warships.”

  “So they know about the Catalyst Prophecy,” Jake said, not particularly troubled by that. As long as they could get his father back.

  “They sent us a transmission six hours ago,” Ajon said. “Yashom15, to be exact. I believe you’ve met him.”

  Jake nodded. He was that slippery simian negotiator from the Cerulean garrison. A dangerous operator indeed.

  “Yashom15 killed your father during the transmission,” Ajon said. “I’m sorry, Jake. Verity. A dark day for the Le Sondre family.”