Dark Space: Origin

by Jasper T. Scott

  Tova blinked at him. “You bring Kaon to Dark Space? You are more foolish than I think.”

  “Answer the question, skull face!” Hoff boomed.

  “I do not lie, but you do not believe me. If you can detect us when we speak, then you can also detect them. You do not need me.”

  “That’s what I said! Don’t toy with me, Tova. They’re cloaked, so I cannot detect them. I’m asking you if there is another way I can find their ship.”

  Tova’s slitted yellow eyes narrowed further. “Why do I help you?”

  “Because if you do, we’ll set you free, and we may be able to set an entire fleet of your people free.” Hoff’s patience was fast running out. He didn’t really believe that the Gors were telling the truth. This was a waste of time.

  Tova warbled her reply. “I do not do this for you,” she said.

  Hoff smiled. “Fine.” He nodded to the squad of sentinels guarding the two Gors. “Take them back to the stasis rooms.” With that, he turned away, and two pairs of sentinels stepped forward to take hold of the aliens. Another two pairs of sentinels stayed back, their rifles trained on the Gors’ backs. When they tried to grab Tova, she took a long step away from them. The ones covering her with rifles now raised them to eye level and called out for her to halt. She stopped, and Hoff turned back to see her turn her giant head to look at the glittering mass of Sythian ships already visible through the forward viewports. “I do not do this for you, Woss, but I do it for my people.”

  Hoff was taken aback. “Good . . .” he said slowly, wondering if this was some kind of trick. “How do we find them?”

  “I already tell you. If you can detect us, you can detect Sythians. We are in constant contact with them from our ships. If you cannot detect them from what they say to us, then you can detect them by what we say to them.”

  Hoff’s eyes narrowed. “You said they don’t have telepathy.”

  “I assume they do not, because they do not communicate with us directly, but they do communicate with our ships and our ships with them. This also happens at speeds greater than light. Perhaps you can sense this in the same way you can now sense us?”

  Hoff understood the implications immediately. Just like the Gors’ telepathy and a spaceship’s SLS drives, faster than light communications would produce trace amounts of tachyon radiation, so if the Gors were in constant faster than light comms contact with their command ship, then their newly calibrated sensors would be able to detect the radiation and calculate vectors for those comms. Using multiple vectors they could trace those comms all back to a common point in space, within a five klick radius. That was a significant margin of error when trying to shoot most ships, but not when they were trying to find a 30-kilometer-long Sythian cruiser.

  “Gravidar!” Hoff called out.

  “Sir?”

  “Start tracing every hint of T radiation you can find in this system. I want vectors for all of it!”

  “Tachyon radiation, sir? Are we tracking something?”

  “You could say that. Send the results of that scan to the captain’s table.” Ordinarily deducing vectors from tachyon radiation was how one could track a ship that went to SLS if you hadn’t seen its exit vector when it jumped, but these radiation vectors weren’t showing the paths that some invisible Sythian ships had recently taken into or out of superluminal space, they were tracing faster-than-light comm signals.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You’d better not be lying, Tova.”

  “I tell you already—we do not lie to you.”

  Hoff snorted and turned on his heel to head back to the captain’s table. Once there, he turned on the tachyon overlay and saw a confusing mess of glittering yellow clouds surrounding the Sythian ships like a dense nebula. He couldn’t make any sense of it. A moment later, however, his gravidar officer sent the results of the T radiation scan to the captain’s table and Hoff studied the mess of crisscrossing vectors. There were thousands of them. It was impossible to see anything useful from that.

  “Lieutenant, I need you to filter your results. Exclude any vectors which pass directly through other Sythian ships.”

  “That’s going to take me a minute, sir.”

  “You don’t have a minute,” he said with one eye on the advancing wall of alien warships ahead of them. They’d be within firing range in just twenty seconds. The Tauron’s shields were up to 74%, but that wasn’t very encouraging. Suddenly he wondered why he was looking for a way to strike back at the enemy fleet when they’d be lucky just to escape.

  At least his family wasn’t on board. With that thought, Hoff’s eyes scanned the grid for one ship in particular—the Last Chance. He found it trailing safely behind the Tauron, the corvette’s own shields recovering at 65%. Good, Hoff thought. He’d had a bad scare when he’d found the ship flying around with its shields in the red, but the cease fire seemed to have come in the nick of time for them, and at least for now they were safe. Hopefully flying in the Tauron’s shadow would keep them that way.

  Twenty seconds passed in the blink of an eye, and now the enemy was in range. Hundreds of Sythian missiles appeared on the grid, flashing out from the enemy formation in a continuous stream. Most of them arced toward the Valiant and her escorting ships, but a good number spun toward the Tauron. Hoff gritted his teeth, watching as those missiles approached in a deadly wave. They couldn’t be shot down, and a target the size of the Tauron wouldn’t be able to evade them either. “Shields to double front!” Hoff ordered.

  “Vectors isolated!” the gravidar officer announced.

  The vast majority of yellow vectors on his grid disappear, but a few hundred remained. Now, all of the vectors pointed in the same direction. “I want to know where the remaining vectors intersect. Get me coordinates, Lieutenant—as accurate as possible!” Hoff felt a brief surge of hope. If this worked . . .

  “Brace!” the lieutenant called back as the wave of enemy missiles drew near.

  A siren screamed and a few people buckled their seat restraints. Hoff stayed where he was, but kept a hand on his grav gun just in case the IMS failed and he floated free of the deck.

  The Tauron’s sound in space simulator (SISS) began roaring with the distant and not-so-distant booms of enemy missiles impacting along the battleship’s bow. The deck shuddered and rumbled underfoot. Hoff squinted against the blinding glare to see the prow of his ship now wreathed in flames, as if diving nose first into a supernova. Gradually the explosions faded, along with the sound, and there was a brief respite before the next wave hit them.

  “Damage report!” Hoff demanded.

  “Forward shields equalizing at 105%. No major damage. Several minor hull fractures in forward sections along with one electrical fire.”

  “Evacuate and seal off those sections,” Hoff ordered. “Gravidar where are those coordinates I asked for?”

  “Coming now, sir . . . K-34-79-50—within a two klick margin of error. Roughly to our ten o’clock and up twenty six degrees.”

  Hoff eyed the point which had appeared on the grid. It was an empty space all right, and it was just over one hundred klicks away. “Helm, set course for those coordinates! Gravidar, keep track of that intersect as best you can, and let me know each time it moves.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I’ve got you, Hoff thought wonderingly. Maybe the Gors had been telling the truth after all.

  * * *

  Angel heard the explosions rumbling in the distance and felt the subtle vibrations of cannons and beams firing back at whatever was shooting them. She stood gazing out the small viewport in her room at the chaos of blooming explosions and flashing lasers. The only ship she could see clearly was one of Brondi’s baron-class cruisers flying in formation alongside the Valiant. Boxy and rectangular, it looked like a smaller, truncated version of a venture-class. As she watched, that cruiser got hit by a flurry of bright purple projectiles. Explosions roared across its hull, and then it flew apart in a spectacular burst of light.

&nb
sp; She gasped and turned away from the glare, shielding her eyes with her hands. When she opened her eyes once more, they darted around her room—from bed to bathroom and back again. The walls were too close. She imagined what would happen if some jagged piece of debris slammed into her viewport and shattered the transpiranium. Would she be sucked out into space or get stuck halfway in and halfway out? Would the force be enough to crush all of her bones and force her through that tiny hole?

  Angel shuddered with those thoughts. She didn’t want to find out. Brondi had confined her to this room because he thought it would keep her safe, but that wasn’t true anymore.

  She had to get out.

  Angel went straight up to the door and began banging on it with both hands. “Let me out!” she screamed. A moment later the door opened, and a short, pudgy man poked his head in. He wore a leering grin that Angel was all too familiar with.

  “Hoi, there . . . what’s the matter, girlie?”

  “I need to get out,” she said.

  “Just gotta scratch that itch, is it?”

  “It’s not safe in here.”

  “Tell ya what. You do somethin’ for me and I’ll see what I can do for you.”

  Angel smiled demurely at the man, giving the offer some thought. She couldn’t afford to stay in her quarters any longer. The whole point was to get out. If that was the price she had to pay . . . but he was such an ugly man—with a lumpy face and crooked yellow teeth. An odd light shone in his small, squinty eyes, and she realized that he could be dangerous if she gave him what he wanted.

  She turned to the other guard and noticed that he looked at her with a hesitant, almost apologetic smile. Here was a shy man, inexperienced with women.

  “What would you like me to do for you?” she asked, turning back to the first.

  “You got a perty mouth. Maybe ya can show me what ya do with it.”

  “Tagard, you know what Brondi said. . . .” the other guard warned.

  “Shut the frek up, Dofan. She’s not gonna tell, are ya, girlie?”

  Angel shook her head. “Our little secret,” she said.

  “Besides, you heard what’s goin’ on out there,” squinty eyes said. “We’re all goin’ to the nethers anyway. Question is, how’d ya rather go? Ima go with a smile on my face.”

  “Mmmm, you’re a very bad boy,” Angel purred.

  “You have no idea . . .” he said, stepping inside her quarters.

  Alara didn’t back away, and when he grabbed her roughly by the wrists, she didn’t resist. Brondi had taught his playgirls how to handle the dangerous ones. Alara nodded to the bed. “Why don’t you go lie down, soldier boy,” she said.

  Tagard grinned nastily at her. “Kavaar, you’re a dirty little sclut!” He chuckled softly. “I jus’ knew it.” He did as she asked and she followed him there, already unbuttoning her blouse. She began to dance lithely as she undressed, giving him a proper tease. He watched from the bed, mesmerized as she drew near. When she reached the bed, now dressed only in tight-fitting pants and bra, she climbed on top of him and leaned down close to his face to tantalize him with her cleavage. The scent of her warm breath momentarily lulled him, while her hands strayed down to his waist to fumble with his gun belt. The door swished shut, and they both turned to look. “I guess he didn’t want to join us . . .” she said in a sultry whisper, pretending to be distracted by the noise.

  “That’s his problem,” Tagard said, watching the door with a thoughtful frown. Maybe he was worried that his buddy had gone to report him.

  Whatever the case, Angel turned back to him with a smile, and said, “Now it’s your problem.” Her hand came up from his belt holding his sidearm.

  “The frek! I’m gonna—”

  She shot him in the face before he could say another word. His body convulsed and his limbs jittered. Angel frowned, thinking it was unfortunate that the man had his weapon set to stun. She didn’t mind her job and she didn’t usually hate her clients, but some men brought out another side of her. If they wanted to hurt her, she’d hurt them first. Guess you were just a lucky skriff, hoi? Alara thought.

  Angel climbed off the unconscious guard and hurried back to the door. This time as she banged on it, she affected a tortured wail. “Help me! Ahh! He’s going to kill me!” The other man had already shown his softer side by trying to dissuade his friend from taking advantage of her, so she wasn’t surprised when he came rushing in to save the day. She shot him, too, but this time she was glad the pistol was set to stun. “I’m sorry,” she whispered as she stepped over him. “I might have enjoyed working with you, but there’s no time for that now.”

  She had to get to the bridge and find Brondi. It had to be safer there than where she was now, and if not, at least she wouldn’t die alone. She’d die standing beside the only father she’d ever known.

  * * *

  Brondi stood at the captain’s table, watching the Valiant’s shields drop one percentile at a time. The deck shuddered underfoot. Lights periodically dimmed as the carrier fired her main beam cannons at nearby Sythian ships, cracking them open with just one or two shots. Brondi looked up and out over the mighty top side of the carrier to see literally hundreds of Sythian missiles impacting one after another in tiny flares of light. They weren’t even halfway through the enemy formation and their shields were already down to 69%. They stood a good chance of escaping, but it would be very close. The admiral’s ship, on the other hand, was down below 50% shields. Granted, the Tauron had started out with partially depleted shields in the first place, but their chances of escape were slim to doubtful. Ordinarily Brondi would have been happy about that, but Hoff was the only one who knew where they could go after this. Without the admiral and his enclave, Brondi and his men would be doomed to wander Sythian space until they were found and obliterated by another Sythian armada.

  “Incoming message from the Tauron!” Brondi heard his comms officer say.

  “Patch it through,” Brondi replied. Speak of the skriff, he thought.

  A holo of Hoff’s age-lined face appeared overlaid on the main viewport. He looked grim, but his gray eyes burned with fire. “Brondi.”

  “Admiral, make it quick please. Your head is blocking my view.”

  “Shut up and listen, Brondi. I’ve just discovered something critical about the enemy formation.”

  “Oh? Do tell.”

  “I can’t be sure the Sythians aren’t listening to this channel right now, so I need you to trust me.”

  “With what?”

  “Follow us, and stand by for further orders.”

  Brondi couldn’t help the laughter which bubbled from his lips. “You want me to follow you and take your orders without asking any questions? You really are an old skriff. Forget it. We’re almost clear. See you at the rendezvous . . . if you make it, that is.”

  “Brondi! We have a chance of winning this fight!”

  “Yea, like you thought you were going to beat me? You seem prone to delusional thinking, admiral.”

  Brondi watched with a gaping smile as Hoff’s face turned a bright shade of red.

  “I had a cloaked ship bursting with sentinels, just waiting to slip on board the Valiant. You would have lost, Brondi!”

  “That does sound like a potent weapon. Of course, it’s convenient that your story is impossible to prove. Well, if you do have a cloaked ship around here somewhere, maybe you should ask them to follow you blindly into battle. I’m sure they won’t mind. Best of luck, skriffo.” Brondi gave a mocking salute and killed the comm feed. A moment later he saw the admiral’s battleship change course, peeling away from the Valiant.

  Good riddance, he thought. “Comms! Have our ships spread out to fill the gap along our port side. We’re parting ways with the admiral. If he wants to go off on his own and get himself killed, then he’s welcome to do so, but we’re not following him to the netherworld just yet.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Brondi turned back to the grid and watched as Hoff’s battl
eship now came under fire from all sides. Its shields began dropping fast. That’s what you get, he thought.

  “Sir!” Brondi looked up to see who had addressed him. The voice was familiar. He turned to see Sergeant Gibbs from his security detail come striding down the gangway. “We have a visitor outside the bridge,” Gibbs said. “It’s Angel. She wants to see you.”

  “She got out?”

  Gibbs nodded. “Do you want me to take her back to her quarters, sir?”

  There was an eager gleam in the sergeant’s eyes which told Brondi exactly what would happen if he sent Gibbs and Alara back alone. “No,” he decided. “Bring her in.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  If we do manage to escape, Brondi thought. I could use the distraction of some female companionship myself. He’d never been very good at sharing.

  * * *

  Ethan watched as his son followed the Tauron on a new heading, breaking off from Brondi’s fleet. “What’s going on?” he asked.

  Atton shook his head. “They’re splitting up.”

  “Why would they do that?” Hoff asked, leaning forward against his seat restraints to peer at the star map over Atton’s shoulder.

  Ethan gestured warningly with the sidearm Atton had given him, but the admiral didn’t appear interested in taking control of the ship—he’d been remarkably subdued ever since he’d realized that his actions had exposed Dark Space to the coming slaughter.

  The comms beeped with an incoming message, but Atton ignored it.

  “Aren’t you going to answer that?” Hoff asked.

  “It’s from the Tauron. I don’t want your illegitimate twin to realize I’m the one flying this ship.”

  “At least play the message. You don’t have to respond.”

  Atton sighed and stabbed the transmit button. The admiral’s voice hissed through the comm speakers in an angry whisper. “Last Chance, stay with Brondi! His formation will protect you better than ours. The Tauron has a new mission.” The next part of the message was so soft that they had to strain hard to hear it over the distant sounds of battle echoing through the corvette’s speakers. “It’s a one way trip. Make sure my family is safe, and say goodbye to them for me. Admiral Heston out.”