by Richard Fox
Gage broke out of his reverie and found Simpson glaring at him. Competition between Albion noble families was almost a blood sport, one they didn’t want the royals interfering with. Intrigue at court within the naval hierarchy was one such game, one Gage had no chance of winning if the King’s influence was known.
“By your leave, Captain,” Gage said politely.
Simpson shooed him away with a wave of his hand.
Chapter 9
The solitary confinement cell had nothing more than a concrete slab for a bed and recessed lighting that never shut off. The only door was perfectly flush with the wall. A screen flickered with a continuous newsfeed on mute. The only choices allotted to the prisoner were which of several channels to watch and volume controls.
Thorvald sat on the edge of the slab, wearing a sleeveless gray tunic and pants that did nothing to fight the cold air. His rested his hands over his knees, watching as his fingers twitched of their own accord. They’d stripped his gestalt from him, which he knew would happen when he turned himself in. After so many years being joined to that armor, his body hadn’t been able to adjust to the loss.
His gestalt had felt so confused, almost frightened, when Royce separated Thorvald from the armor. He hoped Chiara had reset the AI, let it forget him and prepare for the next bodyguard who would take his place on Albion. But the House lords on Geneva would tear his gestalt apart, looking for signs of Thorvald’s treachery in order to improve the rest of the House’s armor.
Thorvald knew the gestalts were simple AI; they felt nothing beyond base emotions and could be set to complete impartiality if needed. Still, his gestalt would suffer for his choices.
Two knocks echoed through the cell. Thorvald stood up and pressed his nose to the far wall, then interlaced his fingers behind his head. Why were the guards here? His last meal of nutrition yeast and room-temperature water sat untouched on the edge of the bed, delivered less than two hours ago.
He felt a gust of air as the cell door slid open.
“Turn around,” Royce said.
Thorvald kept his hands behind his head and followed the instruction.
The Captain wore his armor beneath his formal Albion uniform, his collar rank pins and a blue and yellow stripe down the side of his trousers setting him apart from any regular Albion officer. A young woman the prisoner didn’t recognize watched Thorvald from behind Royce. She stood with her feet slightly wider than shoulder-width apart, fists at her waist, ready to attack.
“At ease.” Royce crossed his arms over his chest and slowly shook his head. “Why did you do it, Thorvald? Do you know how much damage you’ve caused?”
“I told you why,” the prisoner said. “My reasons haven’t changed. And what damage? I came to you with the breach. I showed you where it was and how to repair it.”
“After you used it to compromise the castle’s systems.” Royce’s lips tugged into a snarl. “You put the royal family’s safety at risk for something so trivial as…Fifteen years, Thorvald. Fifteen years we’ve served side by side on Albion and then you broke your oath to the King, to our House, to your fellows. I can’t comprehend how, or why, you abandoned everything you were.”
“Beneath it all I was only human. No amount of training or conditioning could take that away from me.”
“Which is why you’re going back to Geneva under Constable Guard. The King has decided to let our House figure out exactly why you betrayed us. Had you not saved His Majesty’s life on Firenze all those years back, you’d be due for the gallows. We can only hope the King extends our contract when the terms end. If he doesn’t, our entire House will lose honor in the eyes of the other lords. It will take centuries to recover from that.”
Thorvald felt the icy sheen of fear blossom in his heart. He would have preferred the hangman’s noose than to go back to Geneva and have his failure laid bare to the House.
“You promised…you promised…” Thorvald cleared his throat and regained some composure, “that I could see her if I cooperated fully. I’ve answered every question of yours and the intelligence section. They were just here, asking about—”
“Yes. Their consensus is that you’re either telling the whole and complete truth or you’re a better spy than any of them. I believe the former. You were an excellent bodyguard, a great fighter, but never a liar. I can’t let you see her, Thorvald. She’s dead.”
Thorvald’s lips moved, but no sound came out until he stammered, “What? How?”
“Some sort of failsafe against capture, done of her own choice before she even heard our demand to surrender. Cooperate with our lords and I’ll see that you get the final report.”
Royce picked up a set of overalls and shoes from behind the wall and tossed them onto the bed slab.
“You’re leaving Albion. My recommendation to the House is that you be stripped of your augmentations, full forfeiture of pay and benefits, your name expunged from the honor rolls, and a burn notice be sent to the other Houses. Get dressed. There’s a civilian liner in orbit and a pair of Constables at the spaceport who’ll deliver you home.”
Thorvald looked at the rumpled clothes, the sum total of his service and self-worth now reduced to that of a common criminal. His gestalt was gone. She was gone—his deepest fear that she was merely using him now an ugly fact. Despite hoping for some manner of salvation by cooperating with the investigation…even his pride was reduced to nothing.
“My gestalt,” Thorvald said, looking at Royce with pleading eyes, “let me take it back. Set a restraining bolt or keep the AI locked away. I won’t be a threat to anyone, but at least let me—”
“No!” Royce’s armor crept up to the base of his neck in response to the man’s anger. “You threw away your dignity. I won’t let you carry a shred of honor back with you. The House will send their own ship for your gestalt. Now. Get. Dressed.”
Thorvald picked up the jumpsuit and nodded slowly. At least Royce would let him walk out on his own two feet.
****
Thorvald shuffled down an access hallway, his wrists cuffed together and shackled to chains that ran from his ankles to his waist. He knew the route Royce and the new bodyguard were taking him down; Thorvald had used it himself several times to transfer prisoners around the palace. He never thought he’d be the one under guard.
A doorway to the castle’s central square lay a few dozen yards ahead. Thorvald eyed a descending stairwell between them and the door.
“Royce,” Thorvald said, motioning to the stairs with his chin, “let’s take tunnel 9C to the subway.”
“The prisoner will not speak.” Salis tapped the butt of her shock stick against his lower back. A warning. The next time would hurt.
Royce stopped and half-turned to Thorvald.
“It’s nearly shift change. The square will be full of loyal and trustworthy men and women going about their duties. Why shouldn’t they see you in chains? Why should I give you that courtesy?” Royce asked.
“You’ve kept…what I’ve done quiet, right? That’s protocol for a breach. Gives you and the intelligence ministry time to fix the issues and arrest anyone else involved before word gets out. The castle still has full confidence in us, our House. If they see me in chains, it begs questions. It seeds doubt.”
“And it is all your doing,” Salis snapped. The snap-hiss of her shock baton activating echoed down the hallway.
“You ask this for the good of the company.” Royce glanced at Salis and she turned off the shock baton. “We’ll take the tunnel, but not for your sake.”
The Captain touched a fingertip to the base of his ear.
“Control. Route deviation. I’ll be out of comms for thirteen minutes while in the maintenance tunnels. Royce, out.”
Royce led them to the stairwell. Wet, musty air wafted up wrought-iron steps from the maintenance tunnels running beneath the castle. He touched the edge of a foot-thick metal door recessed into the walls.
“Electromagnetic shielding,” Royce said to Salis.
“Seismic sensors. Hard lines for communications. Don’t be caught down here during an alert unless you really like the dark. I’ll take you through the entire complex once the King takes your oath.”
Thorvald had to take the steps one at a time. The metal cuffs bit at his ankles as he descended into the half-lit, bare rock tunnel.
Chapter 10
Commander Kellogg of the Albion Orbital Corps ran his hand through a holo plot, double-checking that the ore freighter Cayuga would keep its required standoff from incoming and outgoing passenger traffic through the slip nexus.
“Franks,” Kellogg said to the OC sailor in the first ring of workstations circling Kellogg’s raised platform in the center of the control room.
“Sir.”
“Have Cayuga adjust speed to put another five miles between it and the Yinjing at close passage,” Kellogg said.
“Aye aye.” Franks touched the Cayuga’s plot on his holo screen and tapped out a message. “Cayuga’s captain will certainly reply back that minimum safe distance is assured. Why are you trying to slow me down when I have this cargo of etcetera, etcetera?”
“Yinjing is full of tourists ogling the view. The Cayuga is three kilometers from stem to stern, built like a brick shithouse and moving at high velocity. If they see her barreling right toward them, even at minimum safe distance, they’ll about lose their minds in terror. Then we’ll get bitchy messages from the Tourism Bureau and the Yinjing’s captain, followed by very stern looks from Admiral Bancroft.”
“Cayuga decelerating,” Franks said as a text message popped up in the holo screen. “Want me to read what her captain thinks about the request?”
“Nope.” Kellogg took a sip of tea. “Orbital Corps requires swift and complete compliance with all instructions, not anyone’s happiness.”
“Commander Kellogg?” A technician on the second ring of workstations stood up and waved to Kellogg. The watch commander set his tea down on a railing, debating if he should let his Master Chief loose on the sailor for breaching protocol or go see exactly what the pressing issue was. He scanned around the command center and didn’t see the Chief.
Kellogg sighed and left his tea behind as he took the few steps to the lower level and went to the astrogation section of the control room.
“It’s Plyman, correct?” Kellogg looked over the holos around the junior sailor’s workstation.
“Yes, sir.” Plyman touched a holo and expanded a screen showing the entire Albion system. Three bright points of data floated near Albion and its two moons. “These are the slip nexus points around the planet.”
“As watch officer aboard the throne world’s orbital command platform, I’m familiar with them.” Kellogg tapped a finger against the back of Plyman’s chair.
“The Ashtekar particle feed defaults to the three nexus points connecting to out-system nexus, which you know.” Plyman shifted in his seat and ran his fingers over a menu. “But I accidently triggered a wide sweep during my calibration check…and found this.”
An amorphous point popped over the northern pole, between the aurora playing across the upper atmosphere and the star fort high above New Exeter.
“That can’t be right,” Kellogg said, straightening up and frowning. “No slip nexus can form that deep inside a gravity well…what’s the particle count?”
“Over thirty-seven thousand. Which would mean a mass load on the slip greater than the Home Fleet and—”
“Where’s the other terminus?”
“Some system way beyond wild space, even beyond the Veil.”
“Now I know there’s something wrong with the sensors. No slip can stretch that far and nothing goes through the Veil.” Kellogg put his hands on his hips. “Reset the primary system and go to backups.”
“That’s the thing, sir,” Plyman said. “I already did that. This is the backup feed.”
“Admiral Bancroft is going to lose his mind,” Kellogg mumbled as he hurried back to his platform. “Comms, get me Fort Coronado on the line and someone find the Master Chief.”
“Commodore Travis on screen three,” a sailor called out.
“That was fast,” Kellogg said.
“Fort Coronado called us.”
Kellogg touched a blinking icon and it flipped over to reveal a rather pale-looking Commodore Travis.
“OC, you picked up this anomaly over the North Pole?” Travis asked.
“I was just about to ask you about it.” Kellogg felt his stomach clench. “I’ll kick this up to Bancroft.”
“I’m raising my fort’s combat status,” Travis said and cut his feed.
Kellogg felt eyes on him as the bridge crew’s attention drew toward him. The watch commander ran his hand through his hair and composed himself with a shake of his head. He tapped in a code to connect to the Admiral’s direct line. An icon turned over and over as he waited for Bancroft to answer. Kellogg glanced at a clock and did the math to adjust for the Admiral’s time zone. He winced as Bancroft picked up, his face puffy and eyes red. Bancroft squeezed one eye shut and rubbed a knuckle against his nose.
“Kellogg?”
“Sir, we’ve picked up an anomaly of some sort. It seems there’s a massive slip nexus over the North Pole. Fort Coronado confirms the readings,” Kellogg said firmly.
“That’s impossible.” Bancroft sat up and squinted at data feeds as Kellogg dragged and dropped more information onto his screen. “We’ve done nearly four hundred years of slip line cartography in and around the system. A new nexus doesn’t just pop out of nowhere…especially where it’s theoretically…the other terminus is where?”
The Admiral swiped across his screen and glared at Kellogg.
“Wake up one of the professors from Cotgrave and see what they think. Ready a Pharos buoy and a tender in case they want to do something more academic than shoot a monkey into this anomaly of yours.” Bancroft looked over his shoulder to the first rays of dawn breaking through his window.
“Yes, Admiral. Right away. My apologies for waking you with this—”
“Unscheduled slip translation!” Franks shouted as his workstation went berserk with warnings and a swarm of new holo screens. Kellogg swept Bancroft’s panel aside and pulled up a mirror of Franks’ station.
A starship larger than the Home Fleet’s flagship Excelsior coasted away from the slip nexus over the North Pole. The ship was a flattened dome with silver lines extending from a small ring at the top to the edges, like lines of longitude. The surface was polished obsidian, reflecting the stars and the distant swirl of the Veil. A single point of light flickered within a crystal the size of a building at the apex, set into a metal base within the silver ring.
“What the hell is that?” A chill of fear spread through Kellogg’s chest as he fumbled to press his palm to a reader on his station. A panel popped open with three red switches. Kellogg held a trembling hand over the system-wide alarm, a trigger that hadn’t been touched since the First Reach War over two centuries ago.
More ships came through the nexus, obsidian cubes linked from point to point with energy cannons or open docks on each face, massive engine cones glowing star bright as dozens of ships overtook the dome. He heard Bancroft yelling at him, panicked yells from his crew…and Kellogg stayed frozen in shock.
“The dome ship is launching drop pods…on track for New Exeter!” Franks yelled.
The crystal over the dome ship flared to life and an azure beam launched toward Fort Coronado. The weapon slammed against the ventral armor with enough force to kick the entire station out of its anchorage. Two of the docking arms cracked open, spilling air and flame into the void. The beam bored through the fort and erupted through the command superstructure. Fort Coronado canted to the side, exposing the burning wound running through the entire station.
Someone grabbed Kellogg by the wrist and pressed his fingers to the alert switches. Green lights blinked as the system read his biometrics. Kellogg snapped out of his shock and clicked each trigger. Plyman let go of the w
atch commander and backed away from the screens, his face pale.
“What the hell is going on up there?” Bancroft screamed through his screen.
“Missile track!” came from the floor.
Icons traced away from the dome ship, dashed lines connecting the missiles to their projected targets. One was seconds away from the city of Kingston and Admiral Bancroft.
“Sir,” Kellogg looked the Admiral in the eye, “you need to get to your—”
A bright flash of light overwhelmed Bancroft and his feed cut out.
Kellogg opened a system-wide emergency channel.
“All Albion forces, this is Orbital Command. We are under attack from an unknown hostile force. They’re coming through a nexus over the North—”
“Energy weapon from the dome ship aiming toward us!”
“This is not a drill! God save the King!”
The beam annihilated Kellogg and the entire bridge an instant later.
****
Ensign Nick “Freak Show” Wyman considered alert sortie duty as nothing more than another haze junior Albion pilots had to endure. While every combat-rated pilot was eligible for the six-hour stint in a cockpit—in vac suit with no bathroom breaks—that only the junior-most pilots got assigned to the rotating duty during the holiday weekend didn’t escape his attention. Rank had its privileges, and as a rookie pilot with fewer than a hundred hours of rated time, he knew he’d be stuck with the worst alert sortie duty shifts until he got promoted or more junior pilots arrived.
Wyman shifted in his cockpit and felt a trickle of sweat run down his back. His tall, solid frame was better suited for the rugby pitch, not a Typhoon fighter. Not for the first time, he wished he’d put in for bomber training instead of the air supremacy pilot track.
