Stars & Empire: 10 Galactic Tales

by Jay Allan

  “Of course.”

  “Was there by chance a young woman among the prisoners aboard Brondi’s corvette? A young woman with dark hair and violet eyes?”

  “There was. She rather takes one’s breath away. A friend of yours?”

  Ethan nodded quickly. “She’s my copilot. I thought I’d lost her by now.”

  Atton frowned. “Your copilot? Are you sure?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “It’s just … well, she seems more like the sort of woman to be…”

  Ethan’s eyes narrowed. “To be what?”

  Atton held up a hand. “Don’t take offence, okay, but she tried coming on to me—as the overlord, the old, hairy, wrinkly overlord. When that didn’t work, she tried coming on to my nearest bodyguard. She’s almost a dead ringer for a…” Atton grimaced. “Well, again, pardon my saying so, but she seems to be more suited to being a pleasure palace playgirl than a copilot.”

  The blood drained from Ethan’s face. “Take me to her.”

  Atton nodded. “Put your holoskin back on.”

  -o0o-

  Atton’s features shimmered and back was the wrinkled countenance of the supreme overlord. “She’s still being debriefed, along with her parents.”

  “Parents?” Ethan asked, as his own features shimmered and were replaced by those of the pilot Adan Reese.

  “Yes, the biochemist and his wife. Seems like Brondi was keeping the whole family hostage to leverage the old doctor.” Atton walked up to the doors and keyed them open. He nodded to his guards as he walked out, and Ethan followed him down the corridor to the lift tube at the end.

  Ethan and the overlord—his son—stepped into the lift tube and Atton keyed in a deck number. With a gut-wrenching lurch, the floor abruptly dropped out from under them, and Ethan had to steady himself on the nearest wall of the lift tube.

  “We’re still repairing the inertial management system,” Atton explained.

  Ethan straightened with a grunt. “I can feel that.”

  The lift tube screeched to a halt, and again they felt the jolt, a rapid deceleration that made their knees want to buckle. When the lift tube doors swished open once more, Atton led them through the bowels of the ship, winding through darkened corridors. Every so often the corridor ahead was lit up with a hissing shower of orange sparks and then they would inevitably pass a repairman with a welding laser.

  “These decks took a beating in our retreat,” Atton said, pointing to a ragged patch on the near wall of the corridor where a repairman was still drawing a molten line with his welding laser to seal the patch. “We finished sealing them just a few hours before you arrived. We need to be fully battle-ready before we attempt to cross Sythian Space.”

  Ethan turned to Atton with his eyebrows raised. “Cross it?”

  Atton waved his hand. “I’ll explain later. Here we are.”

  They arrived at a broad set of double doors which read, AS Pod Bay—the aft starboard pod bay. “Where are we?” Ethan asked, though he already knew the answer.

  “Our interrogation room.”

  Ethan frowned. “It looks like an escape pod bay to me.”

  Atton turned to him with a small smile. “That’s exactly what it is.” The imposter overlord passed his wrist over the door scanner and the doors opened for him with a swish and a thunk.

  Inside, at the center of the room, was a fold out table with three chairs, all three of them occupied. A pair of guards stood just beyond the doors, and lining the walls to all sides were dozens of hatches leading to escape pods. They walked into the room, and the people seated at the table looked up to see who it was. Ethan only recognized one of the three seated there, but when her violet gaze met his green, he found that not even she was recognizable. She smiled luridly at him, and gave him a well-practiced come hither look which he had never seen Alara use.

  “Hey, handsome,” she said as he drew near.

  “Frek, what did they do to you, Alara?”

  The young woman’s brow furrowed. “My name’s Angel,” she replied, and then she smiled luridly again. “But that’s all you’re getting out of me until you buy me a drink.”

  Ethan shook his head and turned to the overlord. “She’s been chipped.”

  Atton nodded. “It would seem so.”

  “Can’t you fix her? Take it out?”

  Atton appeared to hesitate, and then he said, “We’re not sure yet. We’re still looking for a cyberneticist.”

  The old man sitting at the other end of the table looked up then with hollow blue eyes. “Even if we find one, we’d need to know the deactivation codes, or we could turn her into a vegetable.”

  Ethan’s gaze skipped from the old man to the old woman seated across from him, but she didn’t appear to notice that they were there. Her eyes were glazed and she stared absently into the distance.

  “There must be something we can do for her,” Ethan insisted.

  “Sure there is, handsome. Get a little closer and I’ll tell you exactly what you can do for me.”

  Ethan winced and his gaze slowly returned to Alara’s face. “I’m sorry, Kiddie.”

  She cocked her head and gave another lurid smile before flicking her tongue around inside her mouth in an erotic dance. Then she crooked her finger at him, indicating that he should come closer, and she blew him a kiss.

  Ethan cringed.

  “We’ll keep working on it,” Atton said. “But for now there’s only one sure way to get her back to the way she used to be, and that’s to beat the codes out of Alec Brondi.”

  Ethan began nodding. “I’d love to.”

  “Good,” Atton nodded, and with that he turned to leave. Ethan reluctantly followed.

  As they were leaving, Alara’s father called out: “What is she to you, pilot?”

  Ethan turned to look back over his shoulder with a small, sad smile. “Everything.”

  The old man held Ethan’s gaze for a long moment, his pale blue eyes glittering, his lips trembling, and then he gave a decisive nod. No further words were needed.

  Ethan turned and followed his son back to the lift tubes. Once there, Atton punched the call button and the life tube nearest them promptly opened.

  “I have one more secret to share with you, Ethan,” Atton said as the doors closed behind them.

  Ethan looked deeply troubled, and it took a while for his ears to register what Atton had said. Once they did, he turned and raised an eyebrow at his son. “Oh?”

  Atton selected the bridge as their destination, and he turned to Ethan, his eyes glittering in the light of passing glow panels as the transpiranium lift tube rose swiftly through the ship on its way to the bridge. “We’re not alone.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that Dark Space is not the only human enclave that survived the war, and humans were not the first race that the Sythians conquered.”

  Ethan shook his head, blinking rapidly. “That’s not possible.”

  The lift tube opened and Atton led the way back to his office. He nodded to his guards before passing through the doors and promptly locking them behind him and Ethan. With a subtle shimmer, the overlord’s wizened features morphed into the young, handsome face of Ethan’s son.

  “Why is it not possible?” Atton finally replied. “Can there be only one sentient race per galaxy? The Getties Cluster was teeming with life. When we sent out ships to explore that galaxy, we encountered another race that was subjugated by the Sythians. They’re still alive, and numerous, but little more than Sythian slaves. They don’t have a lot of technology of their own, but they are fast learners, and they are filling our ships faster than we can salvage them. We are at war again, Ethan. The war never actually ended. We need to get the Valiant back to help fight that war before Brondi declares himself king and warlord of Dark Space, effectively cutting us off from our supply lines.”

  “What…” Ethan’s brow furrowed. “What are they like?”

  “The others?” Atton asked with a smile.
“They’re like nothing you’ve ever seen or imagined, Ethan, and they are the secret to defeating the Sythians.”

  “I don’t understand,” Ethan said. “If they can defeat the Sythians, why haven’t they? You said they’re slaves.”

  “They’re more powerful than they know. Would you like to meet one of them? One of the Gors? They’re going to help us take back the Valiant in ways that you’ve never even imagined possible.”

  Ethan nodded slowly. “Any enemy of Brondi’s is a friend of mine.”

  Atton’s smile broadened, and he turned to the wall of his office. With a swiping gesture, he made a section of the wall collapse against the floor, revealing a shadowy corridor with a lift tube waiting at the end.

  “Come with me,” Atton said, already starting down the corridor. “And prepare to be amazed.”

  ----o0o----

  THE SERIES CONTINUES WITH

  Dark Space: The Invisible War

  THEIR SHIP IS DAMAGED …

  Ethan Ortane has just met his long lost son, Atton, but the circumstances could have been better. After a devastating bio-attack and the ensuing battle, they’ve fled Dark Space aboard the Defiant to get away from the crime lord, Alec Brondi, who’s just stolen the most powerful vessel left in the fleet, a five-kilometer-long gladiator-class carrier called the Valiant.

  THEY ARE LOW ON FUEL …

  They need reinforcements to face Brondi, but beyond Dark Space, the comm relays are down, and they are low on fuel.

  AND THERE’S NO WAY OUT

  With Brondi behind them, they can’t go back, but Sythian Space is fraught with entire fleets of cloaked alien ships. They can’t leave the last human sector in the galaxy to the crime lords, so they must cross Sythian Space in a damaged, undermanned cruiser with no cloaking device. Making matter worse, trouble is brewing aboard the Defiant, dropping their chances of survival from slim … to none.

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  About the Author

  Jasper T. Scott is the author of more than ten novels, written across various genres. He has been writing for more than eight years, but his abiding passion has always been to write science fiction and fantasy. As an avid fan of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, Jasper Scott aspires to create his own worlds to someday capture the hearts and minds of his readers as thoroughly as these franchises have.

  Jasper writes his books from Central America and offers his sincerest apologies and regrets for his long absence from the rat race, but to all the noble warriors who venture out daily into the wintry cold on their way to work or school, he sends his regards—you are braver than he.

  -o0o-

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  ----o0o----

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  BONUS!

  “DARK SPACE:

  A CHANCE ENCOUNTER”

  A DARK SPACE SHORT STORY

  CHAPTER 1

  —THE YEAR 6 AE (AFTER EXODUS)—

  Ethan stared out the forward viewports of the Atton, his gaze fixed upon his destination. That destination was Losk, a mottled brown and green orb silhouetted against a much larger orange and yellow one. Losk was an overgrown swamp filled with every creeping and crawling thing imaginable (as well as some that weren’t), while the larger backdrop was Favin, the gas giant that it orbited.

  Losk was the primary source of natural stims in Dark Space. A pilot could make a good living in Dark Space running contraband from place to place, but Ethan refused to resort to smuggling—even in the economically bankrupt situation in which he currently found himself.

  Smuggling was what had landed him in Dark Space to begin with, separated from his wife and son for that last precious year of normalcy leading up to the invasion.

  Ethan grimaced and his grizzled features were cast into sharp relief by the blue glow from the holographic displays rising above the pilot’s station. He momentarily diverted his attention from the view to input the coordinates for his destination on Losk. A green diamond appeared on the HUD to represent those coordinates; then he activated the autopilot, and the Atton’s approach vector shifted ever so slightly toward the diamond.

  His gaze disappeared into space once more. If only he’d been there when the Sythians had come. Maybe he could have taken his family and run—hidden somewhere the Sythians would never find them. What if his life as a smuggler had cost his family their lives? Questions like that kept him up late into the night, staring at the ceiling and cursing his stupidity.

  What’s the point in making a good living for your family if that living costs them their lives?

  A few narrow-minded officials had originally passed the contraband laws to protect society from the ill-effects of stims. Then they’d catch the runners like him who delivered those goods to their desks. Punish the supply, not the demand—that was their policy—so smugglers, dealers, and kingpins alike all got sent to penal worlds like Etaris, while the stim-baked politicians walked free.

  Now, with what was left of humanity hiding in Dark Space after losing the war with the Sythians, stims were still illegal, but Ethan wasn’t sure why. There wasn’t much society left to protect.

  The problem was the same as it had always been: stims, although addictive and laced with undesirable side effects, could make a man temporarily better than his neighbor, and that made people in positions of power nervous. Double your IQ for a few hours and you just might come up with the idea for the next big thing—or find a way to undermine your competition before they could.

  Sometimes Ethan wondered if he should start using. The recreational stims might numb the pain and guilt from losing his family, while the performance enhancers might be just what he needed to think his way out of poverty. Ethan considered it for just a moment before shaking his head. If that were possible, everyone would be using. Stims were too hard to come by and too expensive to make them a good investment, and once you started using, it was almost impossible to stop, making the prospect an economic death spiral.

  No, Ethan’s business on Losk wasn’t stims. He was going to deliver a cargo of empty stasis tubes to a medical research facility. It wasn’t a particularly high-paid mission, but it would pay some outstanding docking fees and lease payments on his ship.

  Now Losk almost completely filled the main forward viewport. A blinking red light appeared on the shield display, indicating that the Atton had just hit the upper atmosphere of the swamp moon. Ethan disengaged the autopilot. It could take him all the way in to the landing site without a hitch, but Ethan preferred a hands-on approach—just in case.

  The Atton began to shudder and shake from friction with the air. Something began rattling around in the galley behind him. Ethan ignored it and reversed thrust to reduce speed and drag. He set his comms to broadcast in a tight beam to the coordinates he’d been given, and then announced his presence.

  “This is Ethan Ortane of the Atton, to landing site Alpha Seven, please acknowledge.”

  A crackle of static replied while wisps of yellowy orange cloud began racing past the cockpit. The ship’s shuddering and rattling grew more frantic. His gaze skipped to the comm board—blank—and his green eyes narrowed. “Landing site Alpha Seven, I have your cargo. Registered trade run 48-C. Please acknowledge.”

  Ethan left the comms open and static hissed while he guided the Atton down. Land came swirling out of the yellow-orange clouds, and he saw vegetation that was a deep, dusty purple, mingled with electric blues and fiery reds. At 500 meters he fired the grav lifts to slow the transport’s descent.

  The green diamond on the HUD led him to a cl
earing in the middle of a stalky forest of red-leafed, black-trunked trees. The clearing looked brown and muddy, like it might be a bog that would swallow his ship whole, but that was the landing site, and Ethan had to trust that these people wanted their stasis tubes in one piece. He guided his ship down to the clearing, lowering it very slowly. Broad red leaves seemed to wave at him as the Atton disturbed the nearest trees with the repulsive force of its grav lifts.

  The freighter settled down, but absent was the subtle jolt of landing struts meeting hard ground. An uneasy feeling wormed through his gut. He revved the grav lifts to lift off again, but the Atton wouldn’t budge.

  Frek me, he thought, now noticing the subtle sheen of moisture on the top of the muddy brown flats where he’d settled down. So much for mission planning. He jacked up the grav lifts to full power. A loud whine filled the cockpit, and the Atton rose a few feet into the air, but that was where it stopped.

  “Come on girl, you can do it…” Ethan gritted out. The grav lifts were redlining and the Atton still refused to break free of the muck that had snared it. It’s going to take a detlor mine to blast me away from this Immortals-forsaken world.

  “Warning, heat levels critical,” came an automated voice from the ship’s computer.

  “All right!” Ethan shut down the grav lifts and the Atton sank bank into the mire.

  He sat back with a sigh and shook his head. His eyes dipped to the comm board. Still blank. Not a peep from the researchers who had ordered the stasis tubes in his hold. He was beginning to get suspicious.

  Why would a bunch of supposedly smart scientists hire him to bring a cargo of expensive medical equipment here, to the middle of a festering swamp, if they had no intention of even pitching up to greet their cargo when it arrived?

  He keyed the comm once more. “This is Ethan Ortane of the Atton. I’ve set down at Alpha Seven, does anyone copy?”

  Finally, a reply: “We’re on our way, Captain Ortane.”

  “Great! Maybe you could bring a grav crane while you’re at it? You ordered me to set down in a quagmire!”