Oblivious, he thought, shaking his head. Alara’s attitude was infuriating, but in some ways she was right. He’d just finished watching what happened to people like him—people who refused to give up. Those people got sent straight to the netherworld.
Ethan got up from the bed and walked over to the wall of windows on the far side of the suite. He stopped there and stood beside the suite’s whirlpool tub to peer down through the breaks in the clouds to the town of Ostin far below. The city lights were dim and bleached of color by the thick blanket of smoke which hung over the town. Here and there, bright patches of orange peeked through the smoke. Ostin was on fire. Ethan knew from watching the news that most of the damage was from looters and rioters rather than crashed starships. The Sythians had a zero tolerance for disorderly conduct, but that didn’t stop people from panicking and running away with whatever supplies they could find or steal.
People kept running, and the Sythians kept chasing. Planet- and space-bound runaways alike were all greeted with the same ruthless efficiency, and the same inevitable result.
A cold weight of despair settled in Ethan’s gut, and suddenly he felt far older than his 46 years. He watched the fires of Ostin burn between dark puffs of cloud. From where he stood, high above the town at the top of White Cap Mountain, those fires looked like candles, flickering feebly against the night. As he watched, a new candle flared to life, marking some other patch of resistance. Ethan shook his head, thinking about all the trillions of lives lost in the original invasion. He thought about the last few million humans in Dark Space, now throwing their lives away again in a stubborn bid for independence that they could never win. From up here it all seemed so pointless, and so futile. His thoughts turned to his son, Atton, and Ethan hoped that he’d had the sense to stand down when the order to surrender had come. He hoped that Atton was somewhere safe, biding his time until the resistance died down and everyone accepted the new status quo. And with those thoughts, Ethan realized that even he had given up. There was nothing any of them could do. Even if a lucky few made it as far as the entrance of Dark Space, they would just encounter more Sythians there and be intercepted before they could jump out.
Alara’s right, Ethan thought, his eyes widening with the realization. His wife wasn’t deluding herself the way he thought. She wasn’t in denial, and she hadn’t lost her mind. He was the one who’d been in denial—denying that the war was over, denying that the Sythians had won. Alara’s not happy about any of this; she’s just smart enough not to fight a battle that can’t be won . . . smart enough to make the best of a bad situation. It wasn’t as though the Sythians were promising death to everyone. They wanted loyal, trained soldiers and crews for their fleets. Humanity was going to give them that, just like the Gors once had. The Sythians would have their endless supply of officers. Humanity would give them their children until the end of time, because anyone who refused to serve them would be killed, and when faced with death, a life of servitude didn’t look so bad.
Except that it was.
What’s life without freedom? Ethan wondered. Is that what we’ve come to? Living life for the sake of living it just one more day? Better to die fighting to be free than to live life in a cage. Ethan had learned all about cages during his stay on the prison world of Etaris. The planet had no prison cells. It was run by criminals and populated by criminals. Certain trade restrictions applied, and no one was allowed to leave, but otherwise the prisoners there were free. During his sentence there, Ethan had learned that sometimes the strongest cages are the ones people build for themselves.
The strongest of those was despair.
Ethan began nodding slowly, his eyes narrowing on the smoke-clouded pinpricks of firelight raging through the town of Ostin below. You want to clip my wings? You’ll have to cut them off. His jaw muscles bunched as he ground his teeth together. Come and get me, Skull Faces.
Chapter 16
Atton blinked his eyes open and stared up at a shiny white ceiling. Med bay. He tried to sit up, but his head began pounding mercilessly, like someone was practicing on a battery of drums inside his head. What was he doing in med bay? Then he remembered the fight with Gina. That explains the drums.
A minute later, the ship’s doctor came striding in and greeted him with a tight smile. “You’re awake,” he said, stopping beside Atton’s bed with a holo pad and stylus at the ready. “How do you feel?”
Atton frowned, trying to remember the man’s name. Belerus. Fontane. Bell for short. “Feel like I’m still asleep . . .” Atton replied slowly. “How long have I been out?”
“A day and a half.”
“What?” Atton sat up suddenly, and immediately regretted it as the pounding in his head found a faster tempo.
“Relax,” Doctor Bell soothed. “You took some hard hits to the head. You’re lucky you woke up so soon. Besides, if you’ve heard the news, you know there’s no rush. Now that you’re awake it won’t be long before you’re cycled off into stasis for a different type of sleep.”
Atton’s brow furrowed as he tried to remember what the doctor was talking about. Then he recalled—the Intrepid was on a four to five year journey through real space to escape the gravity well which had plucked it out of SLS. Frek, Atton thought as the bad news hit him for the second time. “Right. Well, thanks, Doc,” he said, swinging his legs over the side of the bed.
“Hold on—” Doctor Bell laid a hand on Atton’s shoulder to stop him. “—I still have to run a few tests before I discharge you. Lie down please.”
Atton subsided with a frown. The tests were routine—brain scan, memory test, coordination test. He passed them all without a hitch. Less than an hour later he was riding the nearest lift tube down to the flight deck. Once there, he made his way down a deserted corridor and around the corner to the pilots’ quarters. He waved his wrist over the door scanner and walked down another deserted corridor, this one lined with doors on both sides. He walked past those doors with a frown. Was everyone in stasis already?
He passed Ceyla’s room and then Gina’s. Finally he came to his quarters and hurried inside. As the Squadron Commander, his room wasn’t shared with anyone else, and it had some extra space along the far wall. There, beneath a simulated viewport sat his desk, comm suite, and a holo projector. Atton headed there, his gaze fixed upon the starless void beyond the viewport. Four years of this . . . he thought, wondering how he was going to keep sane.
There were stories, from the old colonial days of the Imperium, of explorers travelling for years to chart the galaxy, and then getting lost between the stars and going mad. Many years later, those ships were found, drifting and full of holes, as if some unknown enemy had found them. Then the ship’s logbox would be read to find out what had happened. The story was always the same; the crewmen ended up killing each other in a fight for limited supplies. The last man standing usually ended up killing himself.
Would that be the Intrepid’s fate?
Atton took a seat behind his desk and waved the holo projector to life. Using his command control implant he mentally called up a star map to see where the Intrepid was in relation to the rest of the known galaxy. Zooming out, he found they were little more than a light year from the Enclave and Ikara, where a Sythian fleet had recently ambushed them.
Zooming out again, this time by several orders of magnitude, Atton found that in relation to the rest of the Adventa Galaxy they were near the end of the spiral arm closest to the Sythians and the neighboring Getties Cluster. That put the Intrepid nearly a thousand light years from Dark Space, and more than two thousand light years from the heart of the old Imperium. The civilized galaxy had once spanned over 25,000 light years, but most of that hadn’t been colonized, with the farthest-flung settlements being little more than outposts for research. Now the human race was down to just two sectors—Dark Space, which was blockaded by Sythians, and Avilon, made up of immortal humans who were as insular as they were numerous.
Atton swallowed thickly. He knew th
at even if the Intrepid returned with reinforcements, they would be too late to save anyone in Dark Space. Trying not to think about what that meant for his family he switched his focus to the problem at hand. If they couldn’t go back to Dark Space, then the Intrepid would have to go to Avilon.
But how would the Avilonians react to the intrusion of over a hundred refugees? The admiral had said they wouldn’t kill him when he arrived, and he remembered that the Avilonians had been sending aid to the Enclave before the Sythians had found it and enslaved everyone there. Based on those facts, Atton hoped the Avilonians would be sympathetic enough to take them in.
On a whim, he decided to check how far they were from Avilon. Thinking about the coordinates he’d been given brought them out of memory in his command control implant, and a sequence of numbers and letters flashed into his mind’s eye.
Calling up a holographic control panel, he began typing in the coordinates. As soon as he’d finished, a green diamond appeared hovering inside the star map. Atton was shocked to find it right on top of the glowing blue icon which represented the Intrepid’s current location. It can’t be . . .
Hope soared in his chest, and he zoomed in until the scale of the map was just a few light years across.
His hopes died there. The Intrepid and the green diamond which represented Avilon’s forward base were now sitting at opposite sides of the map, over two and a half light years apart—close on a galactic scale, but still very far away as long as they were stuck travelling through real space at one tenth the speed of light.
Atton slumped back in his chair and stared into the glowing blue star map until the grid lines became blurry and his eyes burned with the need to blink. A few minutes later his comm piece trilled, interrupting his despondent stupor—incoming call from Captain Caldin. Atton touched his ear to answer the call.
“I hear you’re awake.”
“I suppose I am.”
“Good. You’re just in time to go to sleep with the rest of the crew.”
“The rest of the crew? How many of us are you putting in stasis?”
“All but six.”
Atton shook his head. “That seems . . .”
“Extreme? It’s not. I don’t think we want to find out what happens when 116 officers are forced to compete for food, space, and other supplies over the course of the next four years.”
“Standard stasis rotation for long journeys leaves a skeleton crew, ma’am. In this case we should have at least 25 officers awake at all times.
“We should, but these aren’t standard circumstances. We have no hope for rescue and nowhere to go even after we get free of this gravity trap. Whatever happens in the next four to five years, whether the citizens in Dark Space evacuate or get slaughtered by Sythians, there’s no point in us going back there. Our homes are gone forever, Commander. That puts added mental and emotional stress on our crew which makes them a threat to themselves and the well-being of my ship. Besides, if we are ever going to find a planet far enough from the Sythians and habitable enough for humanity to start over, we’re going to need all the supplies we can possibly save.”
“And what about you? How are you going to deal with the stress?”
“The six I’ve picked to stay awake are those who have the best psych evaluations and a proven track record for dealing with this type of situation—all survivors of the original invasion.”
“Even the most stable person in the world will go skriffy after spending a few years in isolation, Captain.”
“We won’t be isolated. We’ll each have our partners for support. Three couples. And we have another three to relieve us when we need a break.”
“Sounds like you have everything figured out,” Atton said. In a way he was relieved not to have to spend any part of the journey awake and slowly succumbing to madness, but there was something he had to tell the captain before she put him to sleep with the rest of the crew. “There is one thing you haven’t factored in, however, ma’am.”
“What’s that?”
“We do have somewhere to go.”
“Oh? And where is that?”
“It would be easier to discuss this in person.”
“Very well. Meet me in the Operations Center as soon as you can get there. Don’t keep me waiting.”
Atton heard a click which was the captain ending the call from her end. He waved the holo projector on his desk off and then headed for the door to his quarters.
Five minutes later he was sitting in the operations center for a private audience with the captain. She regarded him quietly, her indigo eyes boring into his green. “Well?” she demanded. “If this is some trick to avoid stasis, it’s not going to buy you much time.”
“It’s no trick. Let me explain.” And so he did. He explained all about his mission, about Avilon, and about the immortal humans who had been hiding out there for eons.
“That’s quite a story,” Caldin said.
“It is. I’m afraid I don’t have much proof except for the fact that the admiral sent us out here for a reason. He thought we might be able to save Dark Space if we could get reinforcements from the Avilonians. With their superior technology, we might be able to wipe out the Sythians for good.”
“If that’s the case, why didn’t they help us sooner?”
Atton shook his head. “Most likely because they didn’t know what was going on, or they didn’t think it was their fight.”
“You’re assuming that’s the case. They might also be on the run from the Sythians, staying hidden because they know they would lose if it came to a straight fight.”
“Maybe,” Atton conceded.
“And there’s something else about all of this that doesn’t make sense.” Caldin turned to gaze into the star map which Atton had pulled up from the holo table where they sat. He’d highlighted the coordinates the admiral had given him. Now the captain jabbed a finger at the green diamond which represented those coordinates. “These Avilonians, as you call them, are not far from what used to be civilized space. At least, their forward base isn’t. You don’t have the coordinates for their actual location?”
Atton shook his head. “The admiral felt it best to reveal as few of the Avilonians’ secrets as he could. He thought my knowing their actual location could anger them and make them unwilling to cooperate with us.”
“All right. Let’s assume their actual location is close to their forward base. But even if it isn’t, their forward base is in the middle of known and charted space . . . why, in all the millennia that the Imperium flourished in this quadrant of the galaxy, did no one ever find these Avilonians and document their civilization? Why has no one ever heard of them?”
“But we have. The Immortals are—”
“Stories we tell to children, Commander. I’m talking about a real documented case of an encounter with Avilonians, not myths and legends about the lost world where humanity evolved.”
Atton shrugged. “According to the Sythians, that world isn’t in our galaxy at all. They call it Sythia, and it’s located in the Getties Cluster. Sythians were humans once. They were the mortals who won the war for Origin that ultimately drove us to the Adventa Galaxy long before the Imperium was even founded.”
The captain regarded him for a long moment with her eyebrows skeptically raised. “Really? Explain to me why they’re aliens, then.”
“Apparently, many years after the war, they began manipulating their genes, selecting them for longevity. Eventually they became something that wasn’t even human anymore. When that wasn’t good enough, they went back to cloning themselves and transferring their consciousness to those clones before they died, making their system for immortality an improvement on the old human method.”
“And how exactly do you know about all of this?”
“The admiral told me. He was once an Avilonian—before he was exiled here.”
“So he knew about our mutual history with the Sythians, about our past, and he didn’t think to warn anyone that there wa
s a serious threat lurking beyond our galaxy? He was an admiral of the fleet.”
“Apparently he didn’t know. That knowledge was lost over the eons. The admiral rediscovered the truth about our past when he went aboard the Sythians’ command ship.”
“And I suppose he heard that convoluted story from the Sythians themselves.”
“Yes.”
“What if they lied?”
“What would they have to gain by lying to us?”
The captain spread her hands. “That story of theirs literally humanizes them. From there they can build a foundation of trust which might earn them some level of cooperation from us.”
“But to what end? Why would they need us to cooperate?”
Captain Caldin shook her head. “I don’t know, and I’m not sure that they were lying, but we shouldn’t just take their word for it. Until we find Origin or Sythia, as you call it, we shouldn’t believe a word they’ve said. As for the rest of what you’ve told me . . . it’s a very unlikely story, Commander—you do know that?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“The only reason I haven’t thrown you out of here for lying to my face is that we have the technology to do what these Avilonians are supposedly doing. We could clone ourselves and transfer the contents of our minds to those clones, but to what end? Why bother?”
04 Dark Space Page 19
