“Who the hell is that?” Marella said. “Capsis Prime was told not to interrupt us during our exit.”
“Blackstar,” Kai ordered, “zoom in on that ship and identify the drive signature.” And to Senaya, “Pause wormhole activation for now. Let’s see what this is all about first.”
The video feed showed a beaten-up micro-hauler. Smoke belched from its subspace drive, and the cockpit appeared to be held together by a rough collection of welded plates and transparent polymers. A single individual was sitting at the helm.
“Is that?” Senaya started to say.
Marella leaned forward. “It can’t be…”
“Blackstar, open communication channel.” The ship bleeped once to confirm the connection. “Micro-hauler, identify yourself.”
“Well, well, well,” the voice growled over the comms. “Looks like little Kai got his toy after all. And by the looks of the debris in this system, I’d say you put it to good use. Not bad for a grease monkey.”
“Oh my god, Bandar! Is that you?” Kai said, emotion welling up in his throat and catching him by surprise. “I thought you were dead!”
“Well, I was, but I got better. Are you going to keep chatting or let me dock? I trust I got here in time before the big jump.”
“Yeah,” Senaya said, a big smile on her face. “By about twenty seconds. You know how to come back from the dead with style, I’ll give you that. What the hell is that you’re flying?”
“Yeah, about that; it belonged to a… an old rival of mine. So if you don’t mind, I’d rather we get docked and get out of here before the scumbags find me. They should be arriving just about…”
“Now,” Marella finished off for him, pointing to a large black and red warship the shape of a torus with the central section cut away.
“Bandar, what the hell have you got into now?” Kai said. “Just hurry up and prepare to dock. We’re on our way.”
Senaya piloted the Blackstar to rendezvous with the micro-hauler. They refused to answer the hail from the warship and brought Bandar onboard. He joined them in the cockpit and took a seat on the couch, opposite Kai.
“You’re looking pretty good for a dead man,” Kai said.
“Runs in the family,” Bandar replied, winking with his good eye on the flesh side of his face.
Marella was tracking the destroyer as they talked. She turned to Kai. “I think they’re preparing an attack. We better go.”
“One second,” Kai said, looking back at Bandar. He thought back to the picture of him with Kai’s father and how Bandar was somehow in communication with his mother despite not being a de facto member of the GTU.
“You’re… we’re…” Kai started to say.
“We really need to leave,” Senaya said. “The warship is preparing something that looks very much like a massive nuke.”
“She’s right,” Bandar said, lighting up a jola leaf cigar and puffing out plumes of pungent smoke. “They’re really pissed at me, and they will blow us to hell and back.”
“Initiate immediate wormhole jump,” Kai said to Senaya.
He turned back to Bandar and knew it then. “You’re my brother,” Kai said. “And you’ve known it all along.”
“Stepbrother to be precise,” Bandar said with a grin. “And despite having Navigator blood in your veins, you ain’t the sharpest tool in the box. I figured you would have known while we were back on Zarunda.”
The holocube began its countdown.
Kai sat down on the couch and strapped himself in, motioning for Bandar to do the same. “I’m still not sure I entirely like you,” Kai said as the Blackstar’s engines whined up and that elongated groaning noise started to reverberate around the bridge.
“I’m like Therusian skin mold,” Bandar said, shouting over the din. “I’ll grow on you whether you like it or not.”
Before Kai had time to fire back a witty retort, or perhaps an insult, the wormhole opened ahead of them, and the force pulled them through and beyond the event horizon.
Behind them, the destroyer stretched off into the distance until it disappeared, but not before out of the corner of Kai’s vision he noted the red flash on one of the video walls indicating an incoming missile.
It was too late now.
Everything was turning dark, as it had before.
All Kai could think about as they crossed the singularity and dimensions was that he must find his parents, and not just for his sake now—but also his brother’s.
Bandar Trace, Zarunda’s most notorious criminal, was his stepbrother.
What other revelations were there beyond the veil?
Kai could only imagine, but whether those imaginings were the bizarre effects of trans-dimensional travel or something deep down in his psyche, he wouldn't know.
At least not yet…
Click here to read the next book in the trilogy
Or visit: http://bit.ly/bcbook1
About the Authors
Colin F. Barnes is a publisher and full-time writer. He honed his craft with the London School of Journalism and the Open University (BA, English). Colin has run a number of tech-based businesses, worked in rat-infested workshops, and coded systems for huge corporations—which led him to write science fiction and cyberpunk.
Colin can be found at: http://www.colinfbarnes.com
A.C. Hadfield always wanted to be an astronaut. As a boy he grew up reading science fiction novels and dreaming of the stars. He ended up as an engineer but developed a passion for the world of writing. He lives in the USA in various locations depending on the seasons. He enjoys traveling, stargazing, and dreaming up galactic empires in which to tell his tales.
A.C. can be found at: https://vastfrontiersbooks.com/achadfield/
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