The Depths of War (Dark Seas Book 5)

by Damon Alan

  Because the Hive know we’re in this area. And if they come now, we’re done. They will contaminate or incinerate this world, ending the only hope humanity has of surviving.

  We need the adepts even more than they need us. I’m not certain I want to admit that to them, they see us as benefactors. I think. But the reality is that we’re giving them the trinkets of comfort, and they’re giving us a future.

  I know which is the better deal.

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

  The Alliance is going to listen to me. Or I’m going to have to take ships by means I don’t want to resort to. Maybe I’ll find systems off the front lines with the Hive, a place where taking vessels won’t hurt the immediate war effort.

  [A forced exhalation]

  That would be so wrong in so many ways, to ambush a sovereign navy and steal their ships. But isn’t it even more wrong to do nothing and let the Hive explode into the universe? I have to choose the lesser of evils.

  People are going to die. But not all people are going to die.

  That is the bigger picture.

  Someday, when someone is listening to my logs, they need to know that is what I remind myself every day. The big picture. It’s all I have as I face the reality that I’m going to be a thief not long from now, and potentially a traitor in the eyes of some.

  [A forced exhalation]

  End the log, Lucy.

  Chapter 7 - Emille’s Consent

  33 Noder 15331

  Alarin and Emille waited in a meeting room at the embassy Sarah’s people had built in Asdahar. Unlike the last embassy, which was just a house the newcomers had traded goods for, they’d built this one from the ground up.

  Way up.

  Finally they heard noise in the hallway, indicating their wait was coming to an end.

  Alarin stared at Sarah as she walked into the room, then started laughing.

  “Bite me,” she said. “I like my jacket.” She sat a couple of cloth bags on the floor next to the door and glared at him.

  Realizing he’d touched a nerve, he made peace. “No, no, it’s beautiful. I’ve just never seen you in anything like that before.”

  “She looks fantastic, Alarin, you meat head, shut up,” Emille snapped. She stood up and walked around the table to ogle Sarah’s coat.

  Meat head? Alarin thought at his mate.

  Sarah has spent years suppressing her womanly side, you’ll not laugh at any step she takes back toward it.

  Oops. He blushed when he realized how careless he’d been of his friends feelings. “You do look wonderful, Sarah. I’m sorry for implying anything different,” Alarin said in apology.

  She told them about the trip to the market, and how warmly the merchants there had treated her. Especially the coat merchant, who she was certain had practically given her the coat.

  “By the way, I need you to pay the man,” Sarah said.

  “Me?” Alarin laughed. “It’s not my coat.”

  “I don’t have any coins,” his friend protested. “I’m sure my people will return to cash at some point, but right now we just let the quartermasters distribute to those in need.”

  “I’ll pay for it,” Emille said. “He made you happy, I’ll double his price.”

  “I’m sure he’ll like that,” Sarah responded, smiling. “Thank you, Emille.”

  They sat down at the table.

  Sarah looked at her attending guard. “Thank you, corporal. That will be all.”

  Dismissed, the two guards left the room. Sarah turned back toward Alarin and Emille. Her face was ominously serious.

  “How often can you blow up a star like you did at Backwater?” she asked, looking at Emille and turning straight to business.

  That took his spouse by surprise. Sarah must feel some urgency, getting that quickly to her point.

  “I don’t know, but why would I do such a thing?” Emille asked.

  “Because we have to destroy the Hive. If we don’t, inside of a thousand years they’ll be colonizing our descendants here,” Sarah answered.

  “How can that be?” Alarin asked.

  “Because of the way the Hive behave. They’re systematic. They conquer a star system, develop it, and then it sends out fleets to all enemy stars inside twenty light-years. Even when a system is far enough behind the lines to no longer send out colonies, it is our belief they manufacture starships to send forward to help the expansion,” Sarah said. “It’s a brutally efficient way to do it, and it will mean that in five hundred years they’ll own every star in the Tapestry.”

  Alarin and Emille looked at Sarah in silence for a moment. The magnitude of what she was saying was overwhelming. Every star? That was a huge number if Peter’s teachings were correct. Alarin was sure they were.

  “How will blowing up stars help?” Emille asked. “It seems drastic.”

  “It is,” Sarah replied. “Right now the Hive have under two thousand star systems. If we can destroy them faster than they are expanding their empire, we can win. If not, then we lose.”

  “That’s a simple formula,” Alarin observed.

  “It really is,” Sarah agreed. “It’s easy math. Either we destroy more than they colonize, or they stay ahead of us and win the galaxy.”

  “It was easier than jumping the ship, actually,” Emille said. “Although that’s mainly because I jump the ship joining minds and power with just the adepts I have with me. When I destroyed Backwater I joined with every adept.”

  “All of them?” Sarah asked. “That’s—”

  “About two million of them,” Alarin finished her sentence.

  “Harmeen’s gods…” Sarah whispered. “You’re serious that you can do that? And that amplifies your power? Do you even know the limits of what you can do?”

  “All the gods,” Emille said, smiling. “How much I touch on the minds of my peers depends on how much I need from them. To destroy Backwater they didn’t even know I was there, I needed so little from each one.”

  Sarah’s mouth dropped open. “You sent a star nova using a small part of the adept consciousness…”

  “Well, the ones near me know. It took everything they had. They barely survived it.”

  “I remember,” Sarah said. “Could the effort be fatal to others?”

  “Maybe,” Emille answered. “But that doesn’t matter. There are few among us who won’t sacrifice to save the future.”

  “I just said almost this same thing when I spoke to Thea not long ago. Our values are not all that different at times.”

  Emille smiled. “Most times.”

  “How often can you use this ability?” Sarah asked.

  “Potentially as quickly as you can show stars to me,” Emille said. “Although I will need to be reasonably close as we were at Backwater. The noise and violent movement of the material I need to work with makes the process more difficult in the sense that I need to grasp the immensity of it, and that’s hard to do with the shifting fires. Closeness is imperative.”

  A smile lifted one corner of Sarah’s mouth. “We can get close. The only question is if we can survive close.”

  “What do you mean survive?” Emille asked.

  “We’re just one ship. If we pop in near an enemy fleet, which is almost inevitable, then we’ll have to take the heat while you get your job done. And immediately jump away. It could be tricky.”

  “We will work out a system,” Emille assured Sarah. “It sounds like you have the hard part. Fighting this evil while I simply turn off the fire.”

  Sarah took such revelations in stride, but Alarin’s eyes widened as he comprehended what his mate just said. She could destroy other entities like Faroo as casually as swatting a chancho bug. “Why haven’t you explained this to me?”

  Emille stared blankly for a moment, making him wonder what she was thinking, then she frowned. “Do you not think I’m aware of how afraid people are of me?”

  “I’m not afraid of you,” he said, “but I need to k
now what your power is.”

  “I don’t know what the limits are,” she replied. “The other adepts, I see their faces, how they’ve changed over the last few years. They are afraid of me, as they were afraid of Merik. They see the concentration of such abilities in one person as a threat.”

  At that moment Alarin learned something else about his wife. How alone she felt. He touched her mind, soothing her, opening up his essence to her so she could feel his love.

  The rest of her face emotionless, her eyes teared up with sadness and Alarin’s desire to protect her kicked in even harder. If Emille was going to suffer because of Sarah’s plan, the reward had best be worth it.

  He drew her closer, and she reached up to stroke his face. “I stand alone, most of the time, but for you,” Emille said as he embraced her. “Even the newcomers, who have no idea what the gift is, stand awed and afraid.”

  Is that true? Alarin thought to Sarah. You seem to accept her abilities very casually.

  What else am I supposed to do? Sarah asked. I need her. She did blow up a star. It’s hard to not have a healthy respect for that sort of power. And a desire not to get burned by it. She’s so young, it’s easy to forget that she might need emotional guidance from time to time.

  Alarin stroked Emille’s hair. “You’re not alone. Many of the adepts see you as our future. You know that is true.”

  “It is,” Emille agreed, wiping her eyes. “But they think me young, foolish, and unworthy of the power I’ve been gifted.”

  “Emille,” Sarah said. “Your people were afraid of us when we first came. Many of mine are still afraid of what you can do, they don’t understand the strict code of action the adepts live by. Alarin has taught me a little of it, and I don’t see you as a threat.”

  “You have seen me as a potential threat,” Emille replied. She continued when Sarah sighed at her spoken truth. “But I don’t blame you for that.”

  “It’s just hard to imagine so much power in the hands of one person,” Sarah added. “Look at what happened when Orson got even a fraction of your power.”

  “But it’s not one person. Every adept I touch, if they’re not willing to do the thing I ask of them, consciously knowing of it or not, they simply do not share their power with me.”

  That stopped Sarah cold for a moment. “So you’re saying all the adepts you joined with at least subconsciously approved of destroying Backwater?”

  “They didn’t know what was going to happen any more than Emille did,” Alarin said. “It was simply a desperate moment and the shared adept mind decided to do something that might help.”

  “Wow…” Sarah cupped her hand over her mouth in contemplation. “Well, it did work. And it will make a pretty light in the night sky about the time the Hive take over the Tapestry if we don’t do it again.”

  Alarin sensed something more troubled his friend. “What are you not telling us?”

  Sarah looked at him like he was an annoyance, which was probably true.

  “Do you remember the firestorm of energy that erupted from Backwater?”

  “I don’t know how anyone could forget that,” Alarin replied.

  “As we blow up stars in the Hive controlled areas, those storm fronts of energy will combine into more lethal waves that will sweep over nearby human space. Millions of star systems will be impacted by it.”

  Emille sat back down and whispered, “You want me to kill all of those people?”

  “We don’t know how many will die,” Sarah countered. “The wavefront will take years to reach even the nearest worlds, and we can evacuate them as fast as possible. Many will be saved.”

  “But not all?” Emille pressed.

  “No,” Sarah replied, sadness in her voice. “Probably not all.”

  “There has to be another way,” Alarin said.

  Sarah shook her head, forcefully, almost as if trying to repel any competing ideas. “There is none. If we don’t stop the Hive as soon as possible, my species will die. And soon after, yours. Each day we wait reduces our chance of success. In a thousand years, the Hive will be at Andromeda and killing Eislen’s descendants.”

  “This is how it will be done then,” Emille said, quietly. “We will erase them in fire.”

  “With you in agreement, then yes. We will erase them in fire,” Sarah echoed.

  Alarin stood, looking at his wife and friend.

  The power these two women possessed, if one thought about it too hard, was terrifying.

  Chapter 8 - Swarm

  02 Jand 15332

  Emille stood within the new flight combat control center of the Stennis. It was a sensation beyond anything she’d ever dreamed possible just a few years ago.

  She was married to the second greatest living adept. And she was the first. Together they had taken steps toward forging their people into a weapon capable of defending humanity against the nightmare she’d sensed and they’d fought at Backwater.

  Back then she’d panicked and made the star blow up. She still didn’t understand the exact process of that, but when she’d detected the dead intelligence of the Hive, the relentlessness of their desire to end organic sentience, and the thing’s emotionless state… she’d panicked. She was pretty certain anyone would have.

  Too bad about the star, but it had done what she’d wanted even if it was mostly luck on her part. At least the world at Backwater had been a dead one. Few died because of her that didn’t deserve it. She regretted the innocents that died on Orson’s ship, but there wasn’t time to save them.

  She was learning how to make those hard choices.

  Two years had passed. She was adapting to newcomer culture. She was living as a technological being. Peter had told her that if she didn’t understand something, that was fine. Their technology was so complex that almost everyone alive just took it for granted and understood nothing about how it worked. Only how to use it.

  She struggled to learn what she could, as did her students at the academy in Asdahar. She’d spent the two years perfecting her knowledge of their language, Galactic Standard. She’d learned their ways and learned their machines.

  She’d also learned that the newcomers were a very complex people, but sadly a spiritless one. They’d lost touch with the complexity of creation, and didn’t see the underlying math and order that allowed everything to exist. That didn’t come from chaos, at least not in her opinion.

  The adepts and everyone else on Nula Armana, as a direct opposite to the newcomers, were fairly simple people. But spirituality, morality, and ethics were strong in them, especially now that Merik had enlightened the minds she’d touched during her last minutes.

  A strict code of behavior was the only way adepts could survive the existence of the gift.

  She was not the same woman who’d married Alarin Sur’batti after the return from killing Orson. Friendship with the people she used to think of as outsiders had changed her. But she still had her beliefs, and the teachings of her father.

  More and more clearly she was seeing what had to be. Her people and Sarah Dayson’s people had to be one. Alarin had the ability to make that happen, but it would take years without Emille’s talent for unifying the adept minds.

  Each time she touched the totality of the gifted, she left a thought.

  Only in unity can we overcome the evil that threatens everything.

  In time the adepts, even self-centered excrement like Fasdamar would think of the thought as their own.

  “You must be pondering something important.”

  The voice startled her back to the moment. Sarah. Or Admiral. That’s what the woman wanted Emille to call her.

  She clasped Sarah’s shoulder to cancel any drift between the two of them. At least Emille no longer laughed at the halo of hair the lack of gravity created around their heads. The newcomer women kept their hair short for a reason. It made them look like men, but it was functional in their world.

  “You made me jump. Yeah, I was thinking. But nothing important. We�
�re ready to begin the test,” Emille said.

  “Your students are up to this?”

  “I wouldn’t risk them to prove a point. We have trained enough. It’s time to fly.”

  “That sounds confident. Good. I better get back to the bridge then,” Sarah replied. “Once I’m there, we’ll begin.”

  Several minutes later the Admiral’s voice echoed in her ear, and she could tell by the reaction of those around her, their ears as well.

  Alarin smiled, and gave her a thumbs up as the newcomers did. “You’re amazing,” he said. “This is the start of something big for us.”

  “Flight control is ready,” Emille said, nodding to Alarin as she spoke into her microphone.

  “Launch at your discretion,” Admiral Dayson said.

  Emille took a moment, sometimes she still had to think about how to put her thoughts to words in Galactic Standard. “Hangar six, this is flight control. Launch the test vehicles.”

  Magnetic boots allowed her to walk, so she tapped the button on her wrist comm that turned them on. Unlike most of the newcomers, she wasn’t as comfortable floating, oriented in all manner of ways due to the lack of gravity. When she was walking, the universe around her had an up and a down. Which was very important to the process at hand.

  She walked to a massive screen that functioned as a window looking out on the cold emptiness beyond. A dozen flecks of white rushed past her, orange tails on fire, against the backdrop of the Tapestry.

  Emille closed her eyes as Alarin pushed up behind her. His arms snaked around her belly, now growing ever so slightly with new life inside. Their first child, a boy, rested at the Adept Academy in Asdahar. Emille touched his mind gently, and the dreams of a toddler filled her for a moment. She sensed his joy at her presence, and for a moment that’s the only place she wanted to be.

  Alarin brought her back to the present.

  His mind merged with hers in a rush of familiarity and love. The opposite of the Hive as she’d sensed them, to be honest. Her thoughts of her firstborn disappeared as they pooled their abilities.

  Emille-Alarin reached into the void outside the Stennis, and touched twelve points of consciousness much like their own. The students in the cockpits of the small ships released a flood of emotions into the joined mind of their commanders. Elation. Disbelief. Nervousness. Fear.