Komi Syndicate (Dark Seas Book 6)

by Damon Alan

  “It helps with the monotony of living in space. And with that monotony being broken up with seemingly random moments of terror.”

  “Battle?” he asked.

  “Exactly.” She floated to her chair and strapped in as well.

  As he sat he looked at the writing device and thin sheets of paper sitting on the table. “Why do these not float away?” he asked, flicking the pin which rolled a short distance and stopped.

  “Magnetism,” she answered. “The casing of the pen is magnetic, the table is metal. The papers you see here,” she picked up a sheet corner and let it go, “are made with pulp that has some magnetic material in it as well.” The corner slowly adhered back to the table. “It makes writing the old fashioned way very convenient. If you’d like some, I’ll have some sent to your quarters.”

  “Well, I have no idea what magnetism is, but I like to write so I’d appreciate that greatly,” he said. “What you call the old fashioned way, I simply call ‘the way’.”

  She laughed out loud, a sound he enjoyed quite a bit. “No offense,” she said. “But you’re very funny.”

  “None taken. I need to learn the new ways.” He picked up the pen and held it as if to write. “So why did you tell me about being crippled?”

  “Because you and I spend nearly all of our time together. When we’re planetside, I’ll be in a powersuit. When we’re in space, you’ll be uncomfortable. Neither of us will be entirely at ease, but we are sacrificing for each other, it seems. I will see to you as I can in space, and when we’re planetside, when that happens, you can help me.”

  “How?”

  “Even with the powersuit, there will be pain. You can help me with that as you did when we got Thea to release me from the hospital.”

  “I’ll do whatever you ask,” Salphan assured her. “I’ve never met anyone willing to sacrifice as you do. It’s sort of inspirational. It makes me want to be the same.”

  She rolled her eyes. “And you have to stop that.”

  “What?”

  “Acting like I’m a saint. I’m a woman. A very flawed and desperate example of a woman who feels very close to her limit. And if you think almost every woman doesn’t have sacrifice in her, you’re a fool.”

  He laughed. “Not on this scale, Sarah. You are burning yourself out for the entirety of humanity. You surely see that.”

  She glared at him. “I said I’m no saint.” Her tone said she really didn’t like the implication that she was.

  Her displeasure made him uncomfortable. Why did she set him off his balance? “But I will do whatever you need, of course. I’m here for you.”

  “Sorry, I shouldn’t be grouchy with you of all people. I owe you much,” she said at the same time the hatch chimed. “Enter.”

  The steward entered and set the table for tea.

  Salphan and Sarah laughed, traded barbs, and slowly grew even more comfortable with each other.

  Friendship blossomed.

  Chapter 14 - First Light

  12 Seppet 15332

  After several transfers, the Sheffaris arrived at his destination, and thanks to maneuvers during Captain Harmeen’s pause between jumps, already speed matched to the system.

  Korvand.

  The star gleamed in the distance, slightly brighter than the other points of light in the sky.

  “Salphan,” Sarah said to her friend, “this was my home growing up, in case you didn’t know that. It’s what our small nation on Refuge is named after. It is Hive occupied, and today I intend that we should fix that.”

  “I can sense the flux in your emotions,” the adept answered. “A lot of volatility resides here for you.”

  “The Sheffaris awaits your command, Admiral,” Harmeen interrupted.

  Seto looked uncomfortable. She knew the violence about to be unleashed on this system, and that sort of thing had always bothered her. That reticence to violence helped make her part of Sarah’s conscience, a voice of morality in a blood soaked universe.

  “We will be hitting four targets. Korvand, Srarach, Alberath, and Zelan. The Korvandi Monarchy. What was taken and soiled, we will purify,” Sarah said.

  “That sounded almost religious,” Harmeen said, grinning.

  “Watch yourself, Captain,” Sarah replied, also grinning. “Shouldn’t you be saying a prayer about now?”

  “What makes you think I’m not?” he shot back.

  Seto rolled her eyes at both of them.

  It felt a bit like old times mixing with the new.

  Harmeen turned back toward the main viewscreen and got to business. “Battlestations. Set condition one throughout the ship. Battlestations. Combat is not expected, but may be imminent.”

  “We have twelve gun emplacements,” Seto said. “Doesn’t really feel like battlestations.”

  “We have enough antimatter missiles to sterilize a planet,” Harmeen countered. “And we blow up stars. This is the most powerful ship in the galaxy, Miss, and I’d like you not to forget it.”

  “Aye, sir,” Seto said and saluted.

  “Children,” Sarah chimed in. “We have Hive to kill. I’m going to savor every moment, and maybe that’s what you’re doing now, but let’s get on with it.”

  Harmeen nodded. “Sorry Admiral, it’s just a bit heady.”

  “Understood,” she replied.

  “Mister Algiss, you have our drop-in point selected?” Harmeen asked.

  “Picked, and Emille Sur’batti is ready, Captain. The observation deck portals are closed.”

  “Then let’s go,” Harmeen ordered, gesturing forward.

  “Transf—” a brilliant sun suddenly appeared in front of them as Algiss completed his sentence. “—erring.”

  The main viewscreen automatically adjusted the incoming light levels of luminance, showing in detail the surface of the star as prominences raged above the sphere of Korvand Prime.

  Sarah felt tears forming at the edge of her eyes. She knew this moment would be emotional, but until now, she couldn’t have known how much. “How long until Emille is ready?”

  “I am ready when Alarin tells me you are prepared,” Emille answered over the comm. “You are surrounded by friends, Sarah, and you are not killing your childhood home. You are freeing the ghosts of all who died here.”

  Gah! The adepts always seemed to know her emotions. “I know,” Sarah almost whispered, her voice tight. “Do what we came here for.”

  The light from Korvand Prime dimmed rapidly, flared for a moment, then the star began to shrink.

  “This star is much larger than Backwater, Admiral. It will take substantially more time for the collapse to occur,” Harmeen advised her.

  “Then we wait until it’s done.”

  Silently they watched as one of the universe’s life giving engines failed under the manipulation of the entire adept population.

  “How long?” Sarah asked.

  “Several minutes. The outward force of the fusion shock wave that is developing just outside the inert core of the star must overcome the inward rushing material of the outer layers,” Captain Harmeen replied.

  “I have contact, a ship launching from orbit around the innermost planet, Captain. Seven million kilometers.”

  “Maintain silent running, Mister Algiss,” Harmeen ordered. “They don’t see us. They’re just alarmed about the star.”

  His coolness impressed Sarah. It helped take her mind off what was happening. After today, this place wouldn’t exist anymore except as a cloud of expanding gas and a shock wave. Nobody on the bridge other than herself had ties to the system, but it was still a somber moment. She could see it in their faces. They were exterminating this place.

  The star continued dimming.

  “The ship has just activated its FTL drive,” Algiss said.

  “Yeah, we know,” Alarin said over the speaker. “Thea’s drugs are working. Mostly.”

  Sarah looked over at Salphan, who was strapped in at an unused console. He was massaging his head.

/>   You okay, she asked him.

  He looked up at her and smiled, although his headache had him squinting. “I don’t think I’d like to be here without that drug.”

  “We are reaching critical at the core,” Harmeen said.

  At that moment the star reached its dimmest point, a cauldron of blacks and reds roiling across a surface now half the size of what it was.

  Then the cameras shut off. Radiation alarms went off across the ship, although nothing lethal yet. The first energy pulse was already past and racing outward toward the planets.

  “Jump us out to the previous point,” Harmeen ordered.

  Seconds passed and Sarah began to worry. A blast wave comprising half the mass of the star they’d just killed was surging out toward them at several kilometers per second. If Emille was out, this was the end.

  “Emille Sur’batti,” Harmeen called to her.

  Nothing.

  “Emille,” Sarah yelled into her microphone.

  Seconds passed again.

  “I’m here,” she finally answered. “Transferring now.”

  Moments later the Sheffaris rested in deep space, adrift a quarter of a light-year from the remnants of Korvand Prime. The engineers dashed through the ship’s systems, checking for problems.

  Sarah rushed down to check on her friends, Salphan right behind her.

  As Sarah rushed into the observation deck, Emille was already trying to explain what happened to Alarin.

  “— then that wave of pain hit us. I could feel Salphan flinch, you flinch, and I know I did,” she was saying to her husband when she noticed Sarah.

  “She’s explaining what happened,” Alarin said.

  “I see that,” Sarah responded. “Please continue.”

  “After the pain, there was a brief time when I couldn’t reach the rest of the adepts. Just you two, and I’m sorry, but that’s not enough to do what I needed to do,” Emille continued. “Jumping would have killed you both. Remember Backwater?”

  “You couldn’t reach the rest of the adepts?” Alarin asked. “As in…”

  She looked traumatized in Sarah’s opinion. “As if they didn’t exist.”

  Emille had spent her entire life with the murmur of a group mind in the back of her awareness. Being without it must never have occurred to her before.

  “Do you feel this is safe to try again?” Sarah asked.

  Emille’s cockiness returned in the form of a smirk. “It’s not like we have a choice. If we don’t do this now, we know what the eventual result will be.”

  Sarah nodded and gripped Emille’s arm. “Whatever you need, you will have. We will locate the ship where you need it. We will be more careful, I promise you that.”

  Alarin looked pleased by Sarah’s support.

  “I’ll be fine,” Emille assured her. “The only question is will that happen again.”

  “If that Hive ship hadn’t jumped, the operation would have gone entirely as we planned,” Sarah said. “The gravity wave affected you since the origin was so close.”

  That was pure speculation on her part, but Emille nodded her agreement.

  Seto appeared through the doorway.

  “Everyone okay?” she asked.

  Alarin nodded at her, then spoke to Sarah. “How do we stop ships from jumping near us? When our enemy sees what is happening to their star, they’re going to want to flee.”

  “I’m a bit surprised that Hive cruiser was operational,” Sarah said. It must have been in the shadow of the planet when the radiation pulse hit. This ship is hardened against that sort of thing, and we still have minor damage. That cruiser should have had cascading failures.”

  “We were hit by an EMP pretty bad at Hamor,” Seto reminded her. “We didn’t lose our drive.”

  “A miracle,” Sarah said.

  “Navin will be pleased you think so,” Seto teased her.

  “What do we do?” Alarin asked again.

  “I’ll have a plan for our next target,” Sarah promised. “We move a few light-weeks from this nova for a few days, rest, everyone eat well and exercise. You can get fat, but don’t get lazy. And take the anti-rads.”

  The assembly broke up and Sarah went to her quarters to think of her options.

  A plan slowly started to form.

  Chapter 15 - Admiral’s Personal Log

  AI Lucy82A recording, Admiral's personal log, personal archive: Galactic Standard Date 21:19:28 12 SEPPET 15332

  Personal log entry #1946, Admiral Sarah Dayson, origin Korvand, Pallus Sector.

  Current Location: Korvand Nebula

  That was almost disastrous. I’m not sure what affected Emille and the other adepts, but it was… well, almost the end.

  I have to make the determination as to the cause. The Hive ship had activated its FTL drive moments before, but the star was also going critical.

  It could be either one. There was also the incident at Backwater, where all the adepts we had on that trip were impacted by the Hive fleet there. It killed one of them.

  Hmmm.

  Lucy, do you think there is a correlation between the new drive systems the Hive are obviously developing and the increased impact of FTL jumps on the adepts?

  “Probability of a correlation is eighty-two percent, Admiral Dayson.”

  Thanks.

  Those are high odds, so we’ll be changing the plans. The impact seems to increase as we are closer to the jumping ship, or so it has been in the past. The Stennis in orbit over Refuge, back when it had a singularity drive, proved that when an FTL drive is close enough the ship doesn’t have to even be jumping. Just the core alone would harm the adepts, so maybe these new drives warp space more…

  Bah, this is all just speculation. I need Peter Corriea.

  [A forty-one second pause, a sound AI estimates 96% likely to be Sarah Dayson consuming anti-rad medications]

  I think it’s the improved drives. My gut says it’s the improved drives. That’s what I’m going with. So we need to remove the drives from the inner systems of the stars we attack.

  [A seventeen second pause]

  Decoys. Alliance ships would pull the Hive from their positions to wherever I need them. A decoy. That is how we’ll do it.

  [Twelve seconds of silence, followed by a deep breath]

  I have two choices. Either take the adepts home and let the human race die, or risk the adepts in another attempt. That is not really a choice. We head to Zelan next, and I’ll put the decoy plan into action. With Captain Harmeen’s help.

  [A snort]

  He needs to grow his command legs, after all. I would like to have him come up with this idea, but I don’t have time for that. So I’ll do what I can to push him harder into authority.

  End the log, Lucy.

  Chapter 16 - Overwhelmed

  13 Seppet 15332

  The influx of people into Jerna City had the place booming. The Fyurigan engineers were overloaded with demands for housing, infrastructure, and work facilities to keep production rolling. Despite the number of people, Thea couldn’t find enough qualified personnel to employ during the surge of economic activity. Many were warriors, not builders.

  The spaceport roared constantly with incoming and outgoing flights, both atmospheric and orbital, and the spaceport manager was pressing Thea to expand. That would involve building a platform out over the ocean, land was already at a premium on the island.

  Her spaceport problem was made worse by Peter’s demand that flights be canceled or diverted in order to provide transport for adepts from around the giant moon volunteering for his latest project. Commerce and resources were sidelined by his efforts to fly adepts into Jerna, and without ever leaving the spaceport, on to space.

  It was an outrageous demand, and at a time when a surplus of outrageous demands stressed everything and everyone.

  But Thea did everything in her power to make it happen. Because it was Peter, and she knew he wouldn’t undertake something impractical even if it looked like a boondoggle
to outsiders. So every day for the last week adept volunteers shot into space and didn’t return.

  As Mayor of the small bustling community, Thea was learning to not ask too many questions, other than those that helped get things accomplished.

  Still, she couldn’t help herself in some cases. What was Peter doing anyway? Was it a military operation to assist Sarah in her campaign against the Hive? Was it something Peter was working on to better understand the almost supernatural control the adepts had over the universe around them?

  She laughed. She didn’t know, part of her didn’t want to know, and to be honest, it didn’t matter. She was only marginally in control, and she knew it. The military was still the biggest pull, and for good reason. The Oasis system needed defended, as much as she hated to admit that.

  Heinrich had just radioed in from her latest arrival, with another seven ships to add to the growing fleet. That made eleven Komi systems attacked now, and as a continuing threat to their space the Komi were destined to develop some sort of counter to the Stennis. Every time she got the message that the battlecruiser was going on another raid, she worried it would be the one they didn’t come home from.

  She looked at the latest list of additions. Not one, but three heavy battlecruisers, and four escort frigates. With their crews, their munitions, and their needs to add onto an already burdened civilian system, Thea was wondering where the breaking point was. The new arrivals couldn’t even contribute to their own upkeep, at least not until they were interviewed to determine their loyalties.

  Until then they were isolated away from the rest of society.

  Edolhirr had helped set up an inquisition of a sort in New Korvand, using adepts from his personal guard. Those adepts were trained, and some were still being trained, by Alarin to detect the truth in the minds of the non-adepts. Even as he traveled the galaxy with Sarah, Alarin was helping out at home. His training would help the adepts determine if the captured Komi crews would be loyal to the societies at Oasis or not.

  The trend was about fifty-fifty. The fleet was now several tens of thousands short for crew rosters on the acquired ships that were otherwise functional, and several thousand behind in interrogating the incoming Komi. Housing them was a problem, two siege destroyers that were otherwise beyond repair had been gutted by the Fyurigan and reborn as orbiting hotels for the people who weren’t allocated to stay or leave yet. Already short on shuttles, four of her precious cargo carriers went to and from the destroyers several times a day just to deliver supplies and fill water tanks.