04 Dark Space

by Jasper T. Scott

  “I’m not leaving you behind, Ethan, and you’re not going alone.”

  But half an hour later, when Ethan had finished cutting a hole in the nearest derelict vessel’s hull, Alara wasn’t standing beside him in the airlock. She was waiting at the pilot’s station, staying in touch with him via comms.

  “You better come back here in one piece, Ethan Ortane, or I’m going to rip you apart myself.”

  “I love you, too, sweetheart.”

  “Don’t you sweetheart me.”

  Ethan grinned behind the faceplate of his vac suit and began playing with the settings on his grav gun. He set the gun for a heavy load, and then targeted the glowing, red-hot circle he’d cut in the outer hull of the Avilonian ship. Holding down the trigger, he heard a metallic groan, followed by a hiss of molten metal dripping down to the hermetic seal which had extended from the Trinity’s main airlock. Ethan hoped those molten beads of duranium or whatever other alloy the ship’s hull was made of didn’t burn a hole through that seal and into space. He was wearing a vac suit, but that didn’t mean he’d survive sudden depressurization of the airlock.

  “Everything all right down there?” Alara asked.

  “Just fine . . .” Ethan replied as the glowing hot circle of alloy popped free and began drifting toward him. He set it down on the floor. That done, he turned to peer into the shadowy hole he’d cut. Unable to see anything clearly, he drew his sidearm and snapped on the scope light. A regular ship’s deck appeared below. The Avilonian ship was oriented so that its deck lay dead ahead, rather than down as it should have been.

  “I’m going in.”

  “Are you sure? Is it safe?”

  “I’ll find out soon enough.”

  “Ethan!”

  He jumped down into the ship and bounced back off the deck before he could turn on the grav field emitter on his belt. The ship’s artificial gravity was obviously offline along with everything else.

  “I’m going to see if I can find the crew . . .” Ethan said as his feet touched the deck once more. Walking within his own personal bubble of gravity, he made his way slowly through the dark, abandoned corridor where he now found himself.

  “What do you see in there?”

  Ethan panned his scope light over the walls and ceiling. “Nothing unusual so far,” he said, noting shiny white walls, gray ceiling, and the silvery deck under his feet.

  “Does it look like one of our ships?”

  “Hoi, Kiddie, hold on . . . I’m looking.”

  “So you found us at last,” came an unidentified voice.

  Ethan whirled around. Turning on his helmet’s external speakers, he called out, “Who said that?”

  “Ethan?!” Alara interjected in a panicky voice. “What’s going on?”

  “I did.” This time the voice was right beside Ethan’s ear.

  Startled, he spun toward the sound, his finger already twitching on the trigger of his pistol. He glimpsed something bright and glowing which came swelling out of thin air. Then came a whoosh and something heavy hit him in the chest, throwing him backward. Ethan hit the opposite wall of the corridor with a bang and slid to the floor with a groan.

  “Your timing could not have been better,” the voice said. Ethan looked up to see a man in a suit of glowing blue-white armor stepping toward him. The man’s face was hidden by a shiny helmet and glowing visor.

  “Who are you?” Ethan asked.

  “I am an acolyte of Omnius and a templar of His peacekeepers.”

  “Omni-what?”

  “You will help us.”

  Ethan was tempted to laugh, but somehow he held it in. “We came here looking for your help. If you need us to help you, then I’m pretty sure we’re all frekked.”

  “Can your ship fly?”

  “Yes, but it doesn’t have much fuel.”

  “We do not have far to go.”

  “Look . . .” Ethan said, picking himself off the deck and shaking his head. He felt like he’d run into a wall. “I don’t know what all of this is about, or what you think we can do to help you, but you sure do know how to ask. What did you do, hit me with a grav truck?”

  “You were startled and aiming a weapon at my face. I had to ensure that you did not kill yourself before I could talk with you.”

  “Kill myself—” Ethan broke off, chuckling. “I’m not sure you know how weapons work.”

  “My armor is shielded. It will reflect whatever you shoot at me. We must hurry. There is no time to waste.”

  “Hurry where?”

  “To Avilon.”

  Ethan’s eyes lit up behind his helmet. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Why the frek didn’t you say so earlier? Let’s go.”

  Chapter 24

  It took nearly half an hour to translate the Avilonians’ coordinates to ones which the Intrepid could use. Now they were about to revert to real space and arrive in Avilon—or the Ascendancy, as the Avilonians called it. There was still no sign of Omnius, and the Avilonians on board were growing increasingly restless.

  Caldin watched the reversion timer on the captain’s table, trying not to pay attention to the trio of glowing men impatiently crowding around the table with her.

  “How much longer?” Galan Rovik asked.

  “You asked me the same question five minutes ago,” she said.

  “Because it is hard to believe. How can your ships take so long to travel such a short distance?”

  Caldin accepted that criticism with a thin smile. Avilon—the real location rather than the location of their forward base—was straight through the gravity field and just 1.75 light years away. The Intrepid could make roughly five light years per hour with red dymium fuel and an extended range SLS drive such as they had on board. Thus, their total travel time was just over twenty minutes. Caldin didn’t think much of that, especially not after being forced to consider a four year journey through real space, but the Avilonians were appalled by how slow the Intrepid was, leaving her to marvel yet again at how advanced their technology must be.

  “How do your SLS drives work?” she asked to distract the Avilonians from their growing impatience.

  She wasn’t expecting an answer, but to her surprise, Galan replied, “They transport us directly from one point in space to another. Much the same way we came aboard your ship.”

  Caldin’s eyes flew wide. “You mean you can . . . teleport from one place to another?”

  “It takes time to calculate a jump and time to energize the transporter field. The further the jump, the longer calculations take. Omnius can make such calculations almost instantly, but he rarely has the attention to spare for that.”

  She accepted, nodding absently. It occurred to her that Omnius seemed to have a lot of limitations for a god, but by now she knew better than to offend the Avilonians’ delicate sensibilities by saying that aloud.

  The reversion timer reached ten minutes, and Caldin turned to find the comm officer. “Sound a red alert, and send a message to the ready rooms on the flight deck. Make sure our pilots are ready to launch as soon as we revert to real space.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  “Engineering, is our cloaking shield engaged?”

  “As of five minutes ago, ma’am.”

  “Good. Whatever is happening in Avilon, we don’t want to go blundering into it.”

  “On Avilon,” Galan said quietly.

  “I’m sorry?” Caldin turned to find Galan regarding her silently.

  “Avilon is a planet.”

  “All right, on Avilon. What is it you call the star system, then?”

  “Domus Licus. In your language this would be, Home of Light.”

  “That explains all the glowing motifs. . . .” she said, eyeing Galan’s shining faceplate. “I don’t even know what you look like behind that thing. For all I know you’re really a skull face.”

  “A skull . . . ?”

  “Sythian.”

  “I do not sound like a Sythian.”

  “It was a joke
,” Caldin replied.

  Suddenly the man’s glowing white visor disappeared, and in its place Caldin saw the face of a handsome young man—twenty years old at best. His eyes were bright blue and subtly glowing—of course his eyes glow, Caldin thought with a wry smile. She assumed the effect was cosmetic.

  “Is that better?” Galan asked.

  “You’re just a boy,” Caldin said.

  “I am older than you.”

  “You don’t look it.”

  “What something appears to be is rarely representative of what it actually is. I am over eight thousand years old.”

  “Eight . . . how many times have you been cloned?”

  “Five.”

  Caldin shook her head, marveling at that. “How long since you last . . .”

  “Resurrected? Over six thousand years. At my rank I am rarely sent into dangerous situations anymore. Not all are as fortunate as I.”

  Caldin shook her head. “You don’t look more than twenty! How is that possible?”

  “Our bodies do not age, and they do not die,” Galan replied.

  “I was told that you live forever because you transfer yourselves to clones before you die.”

  “That was the original idea, yes, but it has been a long time since we’ve had to do that. Now we only clone ourselves in the event that we should suffer an accidental death.”

  Caldin’s mind balked at the possibilities once more. Galan’s words echoed softly inside her head. Our bodies do not age, and they do not die . . . That made the business of cloning oneself and transferring to clones seem like a cheap imitation of eternal life. What Galan was describing went far beyond that. “Then your people are truly immortal.”

  “Most of us, yes. Not everyone wants to live forever.”

  “Why wouldn’t they?”

  “You ask many questions, martalis.”

  “Martalis?”

  “A child. A mortal. These words are synonymous to us.”

  Caldin felt her ire rise at being called a child by a man who looked to be many years her junior, but she kept herself in check and changed the topic. “If you don’t age, why risk your life by coming aboard my ship?”

  “It was not a great risk. It would be hard to kill me. But regardless, I am a Peacekeeper, and it is my job to risk my life so that others don’t have to.”

  “But why? Why not do something else?”

  “To serve one’s god and fellow man is the highest calling there is.”

  Caldin turned back to the captain’s table with a frown. Reversion to real space would occur in just two and a half minutes. She was about to drop the conversation when something else occurred to her. “How did you die? Avilon has been hidden for millennia, and you didn’t fight the Sythians with us, so who are you fighting?”

  “The real fight is the same one which has been going on since the dawn of time,” Galan replied. “It is within us. Good and evil war daily for control of our actions and our thoughts.”

  Caldin tried hard to understand what she was hearing. “So you died fighting yourself . . . ?”

  “No, I died trying to save others from themselves. Omnius is our first and best defense against the evil in our hearts, but there are some who have rejected him. They are a danger to themselves and others. They are the Nulls.”

  “Nulls, huh. Let’s cut through the krak, Galan. You’re saying that this Omnius of yours controls everyone else. That’s why they’re not dangerous.”

  “No. He guides us.”

  “I see . . .” Caldin replied, but she really didn’t see. She couldn’t understand what Galan was talking about. Clearly he was some type of law enforcement officer, but if life were so perfect in Avilon, why would these Nulls want to stir up trouble? And if Omnius were such a benevolent god then why would anyone reject him? Clearly Avilonian society wasn’t perfect for everyone.

  “Reversion to real space in 30 seconds!” the officer at the helm called out.

  An audible countdown began at ten, and Caldin looked up from the captain’s table to watch out the forward viewports as the Intrepid reverted to real space. The streaks and swirls of light which accompanied SLS vanished in a flash of light, and then there were stars everywhere. Dead ahead lay a dark planet whorled with radiating, geometric patterns of light. Those patterns stretched from the north pole to the south, spanning the entire visible hemisphere of Avilon. Caldin understood from those lights that she was looking at some type of world-spanning city—an ecumenopolis.

  “What are these?” Galan asked, pointing to a cluster of gravidar contacts on the star map which rose above the captain’s table.

  Caldin turned to look and saw a dense knot of contacts which were only now appearing in front of the Intrepid. They looked like starships. Based on the scale markings beside those contacts, some of them were truly massive—many times the size of the Valiant.

  “My guess is that’s your fleet,” she said. “Do you know how to make contact with them?”

  “I already have,” Galan replied. Caldin wondered how she’d missed that. “They do not know what is going on or what happened to Omnius. They are busy working to override the protocols which disabled their ships, but without Omnius to help them, it will take some time.”

  “Why would you give Omnius control over everything in the first place?” Caldin asked.

  “Because our human natures cannot be trusted,” Galan replied.

  “And Omnius can? Look, he shut you all down! Isn’t that the last thing he should do when there’s a threat to your security?”

  “Threats to our security come from within. The best way to prevent a rebellion is to disarm it.”

  “Seems like this Omnius has everything figured out; there’s just one problem. He opened the sector up to an attack. Didn’t you say that Sythians were stranded in the gravity field with us? That field was disabled right along with your ships, so where do you think the Sythians are now?”

  Galan’s glowing eyes grew big and frightened. “Scan for them!” he ordered.

  “We can’t detect cloaked ships,” Caldin replied.

  Galan did a double take, and then his upper lip curled in disgust. “Spackt!” he spat. “Head for the planet. We must get to the Zenith Tower as quickly as possible.”

  “Helm, you heard the man. Full speed ahead!” To Galan, she said, “What is the Zenith Tower?”

  “It is where Omnius resides. His temple. It is the tallest tower on the planet. You cannot miss it.” He pointed out the forward viewport to a particularly bright and dense pattern of lights shining into space from the dark side of Avilon. “There. How long will it take for us to reach it?” Galan asked.

  Caldin selected the planet on the star map and then queried the ship’s computer. “Half an hour before we hit the upper atmosphere. I’ll launch our fighters while we wait. They’ll reach the planet ahead of us.”

  “Is there no way you can get us there faster?”

  Caldin turned to him with a speculative look. “I suppose I could send you and some of your men aboard an assault transport.”

  “Do so.”

  “Comms—tell the Guardians and Renegades to launch. Guardians will go ahead of us to recon the planet and report the situation on the ground. Have the Renegades hang back to escort our transports to the surface—and get our sentinels on those transports! I want three squads of Zephyr assault mechs to support the Avilonians when they get dirt side.”

  “I did not give your people permission to set foot on Avilon,” Galan said quietly.

  “Do you want our help or not?”

  He held her gaze for a long moment before looking away, back out the forward viewports. “They will not fire their weapons unless ordered by one of us to do so, and they will obey us at all times, or they will die. The use of weapons above the Celestial Wall is strictly prohibited.”

  “Of course . . .” Caldin replied, wondering what Galan was talking about. “I’m sure Omnius will make an exception to save himself.”

  Gala
n shot her a dark look. “Your scornful attitude will not serve you well here. I suggest you adjust it.”

  Caldin gave no reply. If the Avilonians were so strict and so utterly subservient to an artificial intelligence, she wasn’t sure that Avilon would be such a paradise after all. It all depended on just how benevolent their AI really was, and Caldin wasn’t sure she liked the idea of trusting an intelligence which was so vast as to be incomprehensible. The smarter you are, the easier it is to take advantage of others. So the question is, how are you taking advantage, Omnius? And if you’re so good, why would anyone want to shut you down?

  The obvious answer was that some people in Avilon weren’t happy with the way Omnius was running things. So were they the problem, or was Omnius?

  That question was infinitely harder to answer.

  * * *

  “All right, Guardians! It’s go time! We have no idea what’s waiting for us out there. It’s our job to find out. Do not engage anything until mission control gives us clearance. This is strictly a recon mission. Is that understood?” Atton scanned the myriad faces in the briefing room with him. There were just seven of them, including Atton himself. They were down a few pilots from the last engagement. So was Renegade Squadron. Right now the Renegades would be sitting in a matching briefing room on the other side of the hangar bay, receiving a different briefing with a different set of mission parameters. “Are there any questions?”

  Gina Giord’s hand shot up. “We’re nine pilots. That leaves one of us flying solo.”

  “Seven will be joining Five and Six as a trio.”

  Gina frowned. “Or you could pair Seven with you and I could fly solo.”

  Atton scowled at her. “Are you, or are you not the XO of this squadron, Lieutenant?”

  “You tell me, sir,” she said.

  With a frown, Atton recalled her insubordinate behavior and her challenge for him to meet her in the ring, which had ultimately landed him in med bay, but he decided not to hold any of that against her. “We all have our personal differences, Lieutenant, but as soon as we climb into those cockpits it’s not personal anymore. We’re fighting for the survival of the human race, so all those petty differences mean krak—and they’re the krak that will get you killed. We don’t need any more ghosts in this squadron. Is that understood?”