Into the Dark (Dark Universe Book 1)

by Jason Halstead

  “Report!” Janna shouted. “Now, damn it!”

  Aden felt a knee in his side and then toes that dug into the inside of his thigh high enough to make him jerk up in fear.

  “Sorry,” Twyf muttered as she continued to climb to her feet and back into her chair.

  Aden rolled to his side and started to rise when he saw the silver legs of Seph’s bodysuit in front of him. He looked up her legs to see her towering over him and wondered if she was going to stand there or try to stomp his face in. She chose a different route and extended her hand instead.

  He grunted and accepted her offer. When he rose to his feet, he smiled and opened his mouth to thank her. Before he could utter the words, she drove her knee up between his legs. His breath exploded out of him and he dropped to the floor as fast as a meteor streaking through a planet’s atmosphere.

  “Seph!” Meshelle shouted. “That’s enough!”

  Seph stared down at him, her eyes glittering and her fists clenched. “No, it’s not,” she seethed.

  “Aden!” Twyf cried and leapt out of her chair.

  “Get back to your station!” Janna roared. She pointed at Seph and demanded, “Stand down or I’ll have you confined to your quarters.”

  Aden cupped his bruises with one hand and put the other on the ground. He rose up slowly, panting and trying to push his stomach back down. He stared at Seph and focused on not vomiting.

  “Told you to stay away,” she hissed.

  “That’s enough,” Janna growled. “Meshelle, control your people!”

  “Tosc, Amber,” Meshelle snapped. “Cool her down.”

  The two mercs slipped past Aden and stood on either side of Seph. Seph continued to stare at Aden and said, “I’m good. For now.”

  “Off my bridge!” Janna roared.

  Seph nodded and pushed past Aden, bouncing off him as much as she moved him to slide between him and Amber.

  Amber and Tosc followed her off the bridge, leaving Aden to stand by himself. Meshelle and Kessoc were focused on their stations and Janna was staring at Twyf, waiting. Aden swallowed and turned, adjusting his stance in the process to accommodate the swelling.

  “I have no idea where we are,” Twyf admitted while her eyes devoured the data pouring across her console. “There’s a massive asteroid field ahead and the wormhole is behind us, but it’s just over three hundred forty-two million kilometers away. That’s nineteen light minutes. Were we out that long?”

  “We’ve decelerated to twenty-five percent of light based on gravitational pull,” Kessoc offered. “We’re at sum zero gravitational pull and stabilized.”

  “At present velocity, we will enter the field in ten minutes,” Twyf tossed over her shoulder while she continued to work. “The radiation traces we followed are here too. I can’t get a reading—the asteroids are blocking them.”

  “Those aren’t asteroids,” Aden said.

  “What? Of course they are,” Twyf said.

  He pointed at the scans coming back that were reporting the ratio of the elements, including several that ranked as unknown. “Too much metal. And…other things.”

  “Other things?” Janna asked. “What’s he mean?”

  “Unknown,” Twyf answered. “I mean, the elements are unknown. In varying masses, some of it significant. Nothing organic, though.”

  Janna turned to stare out the window. A lone sun burned in the distance but the debris darkened its glow. “Then what is it? Debris?”

  Aden nodded. “Either there was an immense structure in space or a battle unlike anything I’ve ever heard of.”

  “And whoever beat us here is already in there,” Meshelle pointed out.

  “How’s my ship?” Janna asked.

  Meshelle’s cheeks tightened at her sister’s choice of words but she turned back to her console. “We’re good. No damage from that shaking.”

  “Fuel supply?”

  “Seventy-three percent,” Kessoc answered. “Full controls here.”

  She tapped the comms system on her chair. “Chuck, did you get my one fifty percent yet?”

  “Can’t be done!” he snapped back. “And what in the barren wastes of Taredonia happened?”

  “Wormhole,” Janna said. “We just made history, my friend.”

  “Good,” he grunted without sounding impressed. “Now go easy on the engines. I’ve got a coolant pump I’m nursing along to keep the bow engine from overheating.”

  Twyf stiffened in her chair. “Captain! I’ve got a path through the debris. It’s a big one; the other ship took it.”

  “Other ship? Let me guess, big enough for the Kesari ship?”

  “Yes,” Twyf agreed.

  Janna sighed. “Meshelle, get the weapons ready. Aden, get your butt to the shuttle and take Amber, Seph, and Garf with you. You’re a resourceful son of a bitch—hopefully that will keep you from getting killed.”

  “What are we supposed to do?” he asked.

  “The shuttle has a decent gun on it now,” she pointed out. “Use it.”

  “I’m going with them,” Meshelle said. “My crew, my responsibility.”

  Janna glanced at her and then nodded. “Leave me Tosc then.”

  Meshelle’s hair showed her anxiety before she nodded. “I’ll send him up.”

  Twyf spun in her chair and looked up at Aden. “Be careful.”

  Aden smiled. “You too.”

  “I’ve got a great pilot,” she said. “You’ve got Seph.”

  “Also a great pilot,” he said.

  “Yes, but she might try to shear your side of the shuttle off on some of the debris.”

  Aden’s eyes widened. “You’re serious?”

  Twyf shrugged.

  “She tries anything and I’ll transfer her last check to her next of kin,” Meshelle growled. “Aden, move! On the zero.”

  Aden nodded and gave Twyf’s shoulder a gentle squeeze before he turned and followed Meshelle off the bridge and down the lift. The door slid shut and it started down before Meshelle started in on him.

  “You can fuck whoever you want,” she said.

  “Thank you.”

  “Shut up, I’m not finished!” She scowled and turned to face him. “Have some tact. You cause friction between my crew and you’re going to find yourself short on allies.”

  “I thought I was part of your crew?”

  Meshelle stared at him. “Other than being a low-class jerk, you haven’t done anything wrong. That’s saying something—low-class is where most of these people came from.”

  “So what’s that mean?”

  “It means you need to figure out how not to make people so eager to kick you between the legs,” she said. “You’re still my crew, but I’ll only tolerate a brilliant jerk for so long.”

  “Noted,” Aden said. He’d always been good at what he did. The best, even. Acting confident came easy for him. Except what he thought was confident others thought was cocky.

  “You’re not that good, you know,” Meshelle said as the lift slowed. “Janna and I knew. Others suspected, I think.”

  Aden grunted. “Ship this small, it doesn’t surprise me. Hard to hide anything.”

  “What are you going to do with her?”

  He turned to face her. “Is that really up to me? She gets a say in what happens too.”

  “Has she kissed you?”

  Aden hesitated and then nodded. “A lot.”

  “Then she’s made up her mind,” Meshelle said. “You screw up one of my two favorite Tassarians and you’re going to have one more person in line to kick your ass all the way back to the station we found you on.”

  Aden’s eyes widened but he was spared any further conversation by the lift gate opening. They walked out and he turned towards the armory. “Full gear, right?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Go get dressed and head down. I’ll bring the others. Move fast—I don’t want Seph accidentally discharging a weapon early.”

  Aden bit back his chuckle and nodded. He started
walking and realized Meshelle had been serious. He broke into a jog to give himself more time.

  Chapter 31

  “We’ll be clearing the thickest part of the debris field in twenty seconds,” Twyf said over the inter-ship comms. She waited a few seconds before speaking again. Rather than counting, she announced, “Kesari ship contact! One hundred fifty thousand kilometers ahead.”

  “We’ll cut you loose on my signal,” Janna announced.

  Aden glanced at Amber and Garf in the crew cabin of the shuttle. The ship was pressurized but they had their suits on and sealed. Amber rolled her eyes and said, “Dumbass. I warned you.”

  Aden’s breath caught in his throat. He checked his comms system and verified the private and secure channel between the two of them. He snorted and remembered that Garf could see inside his helmet even if he couldn’t hear him. “It happened. I didn’t like hiding it, but I did it for Twyf.”

  “How long?”

  “Long enough.”

  “Before we had our last talk?”

  Aden met her gaze but didn’t answer.

  “You rat-bastard,” she said and chuckled. “Well, I’ll give you one thing, you can keep a secret.”

  “That’s not what Meshelle says.”

  She laughed. “They’ve got cameras and sensors hidden all over this ship. They don’t trust the crew or the occasional guests. They claim they were there when the Uma was a pleasure yacht. I don’t know if I believe them.”

  Aden frowned. “They don’t trust us?”

  She shrugged. “More these days than they used to. We had some real characters for a while. People I wouldn’t trust my enemies with.”

  Twyf’s voice interrupted their private conversation. “One hundred twelve thousand klicks to contact. They’re coming about to face us.”

  “ETA to separation?” Meshelle asked.

  “Captain,” Twyf interrupted. “I’ve found residual radiation to the planet. And a trail through the atmosphere. They launched a shuttle of their own.”

  “Where did it go?” Janna asked.

  “An island. No, a mountain. Except it’s an island too, sort of. Unusual geography.”

  “Twyf, spit it out!” Meshelle snapped.

  Amber chuckled and muttered over the private comms channel, “She’s Tassarian—I bet she doesn’t even know how.”

  Aden choked off a gasp.

  Twyf continued, unaware of her lover’s distress. “It’s a perfect geometric shape. Eight-sided and rising a kilometer above the ocean surface. It’s large, just shy of a kilometer across. And it’s floating.”

  “Floating? In the water?” Janna asked.

  “No, above. I’m not picking up any energy sources at all, but it’s floating above the ocean in the air and staying in a fixed position while the world rotates.”

  “And they went there?” Meshelle asked, passing over the impossible nature of the island.

  “Yes,” Twyf said.

  The comms lines went silent. Aden looked around and leaned forward to check out the front of the shuttle. He saw Seph and Meshelle looking out the cockpit windows. He turned back to see Amber watching him. “What?”

  “Just trying to figure out when you’re going to die.”

  “What?” he repeated, this time in shocked outrage.

  “We’re starting up a pool,” she said. “I was going to go with an accident in the shuttle, but now I’m thinking an accident on the ground. But then again, that would be too obvious.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  She shrugged. “I bet you survive. You’re lucky enough. It’ll be later. Maybe just a disappearance when we get back somewhere safe.”

  “We’re headed to the surface,” Meshelle interrupted. “We’ll use the Uma as cover. We’re going to pass by close and take a few shots before breaking off and heading down. Grab your weapons now and hold on tight—we’ll be dropping in hot.”

  Amber popped her restraints first and made her way to the weapons bins near the back of the cabin. Garf followed and took the weapons she handed him. As soon as he’d secured his gear, he backed away for Aden to step in line and accept the gear she gave him.

  “Should I be double-checking this?” he asked her as he connected the weapons to his armor.

  She turned and glared at him. “Really?”

  Aden’s face burned. “Sorry, that was stupid.”

  “Yeah, it was.”

  He secured the Betari Suppressor to the clips on his back and shook his head. Seph was the only one pissed at him. The others knew that strength came in numbers. They’d trained and talked about unit tactics enough that they had a feel for each other. Everyone had a role to fill and each role was needed for what they’d worked out.

  “Amber!” Meshelle snapped. “Grab my gear and Seph’s.”

  Amber shot a last glare at Aden before saying, “On the way, boss.”

  Aden backed away and took up a position beside the Devikian. Garf glanced at him and offered a flash of a smile. Aden returned it and reached up to clamp his grip around one of the handholds in the ceiling.

  Two trips later, Amber returned and took up a position beside Aden. She stared at the rear door long enough to make him think he’d alienated the only other Terran on the crew. “You need to check yourself,” she said after he’d resigned himself to a lonely trip into an unknown and dangerous place. “Think before you speak. And act. Definitely that.”

  Aden nodded. “Yeah, Meshelle already gave me that speech.”

  “I see it didn’t do any good,” she pointed out. “These people aren’t going to hold your hand, Aden. I like you, but I’ll only put up with so much before I’m the next one to introduce my knee to your junk.”

  Aden grimaced and swallowed down the painful memory. “Sorry. I’ll try harder. I didn’t think when Twyf showed up in my cabin. I just—”

  “You didn’t think before then,” Amber corrected. “You started not thinking a lot sooner. You should have taken it easy when you met her. Tosc and Garf can make their jokes; they’ve been around awhile. They know it’s safe…that there’s never going to be anything there. You made presumptions you shouldn’t have and upset the balance.”

  “I’m not being cocky, I swear, but you sound like you might be jealous.”

  She snorted. “Hardly. Or not of that, at least.”

  “Wait—what?”

  She sighed. “We’ve got our places on this ship, but it’s all of us doing what we do and knowing what our roles are. After your predecessor got himself killed, it changed things. We all pulled back and things were starting to feel awkward. We kept to ourselves more and more. You showed up and had a lot of promise. You said and did things that started to draw us together again into a team. I didn’t think that was going to happen. Ever.”

  “And then I fucked things up by getting too close to Twyf?”

  “No, by making Meshelle and Janna doubt you. Well yeah, Twyf, too, I guess. Not that you two can’t be together—it was the sneaking around. Your business is your business, not ours, but hiding it? That’s what pisses people off. Causing tension and making people doubt you. That spreads faster than the speed of light.”

  Aden grunted and considered her words while the Uma drew closer to the Kesari ship. A minute passed and then two. He turned and glanced at the front of the ship, where he could see Meshelle and Seph monitoring the data being fed to them from the shuttle’s limited sensor suite.

  “Separation in two minutes,” Meshelle announced. “Hold on tight. Things could get rough.”

  Aden’s breath caught in his throat. It wasn’t fear or excitement that gripped him, at least not for his life. It was concern for what was coming if they were a fractured team. Two minutes. A very busy and short two minutes. He could do it.

  “Hey, sorry to do this,” Aden said after limiting his conversation to the people in the shuttle with him. “And I’m sorry about sneaking around with Twyf behind everyone. Bad move, I know. But we’re learning. I’m learning. I just want
everyone to know I’m here to do a job and I won’t let you down when it matters. I may be stupid or make mistakes otherwise, but right here, right now—when it matters—I’ve got your back and I’d take a plasma shot to the head for any one of you.”

  “Anyone got a plasma rifle I can borrow?” Seph quipped.

  “Seph!” Meshelle snapped. “Knock it off!”

  “Tell you what,” Aden said. “We finish this and I’ll let you kick my ass across the training room mat again. Just don’t hurt me too bad. Your sister and I have something special and I don’t want to be the reason the two of you end up fighting.”

  Amber chuckled over the private line they still shared. “Clever.”

  “Truce, until we get back, at least?” he asked.

  Seph grunted.

  “Good enough,” Meshelle said. “Now get off the comms unless it’s important. We separate in twenty.”

  “Did you think about that one, at least?” Amber asked him.

  Aden wiped the grin off his face. “For at least a minute.”

  “Good start. Now start thinking about what we’re going to find down there,” she advised. “If we make it down there.”

  “We’ll make it,” Aden said. “No way Seph’s going to let anything happen to us. Not until she has a chance to kick my ass.”

  Amber snorted but fell silent when a resounding clunk traveled through the shuttle. They’d separated from the Uma.

  “Maneuvering for attack run,” Seph announced. “Commencing attack in three, two, one, initiated.”

  Aden turned and peered out the small windows in the shuttle. They’d been reinforced and shielded with overhanging armor, but enough visibility remained to allow an obstructed view. He wasn’t able to see anything out of them given the angles to the Kesari ship and the planet below, but he did hear when the rhythmic charging and discharging of the pulsed particle cannon began cycling.

  “Incoming,” Meshelle growled. “Evade!”

  “It’s guided and resisting countermeasure,” Seph replied.