Vontaura

by James C. Dunn

  The remaining three of the haphazard crew had squashed into one room, no doubt plotting a mutiny at the injustice of it. Justus laughed to himself, half awake, as he imagined them attempting to cope in the back. He finally dropped off to sleep, satisfied that he’d done well.

  Two hours passed in silence, after which Adra Dimal woke with a jolt and a yelp.

  ‘Sleep well?’ Justus grinned.

  ‘As good as can be expected.’ She cleared her throat. ‘We’re not dead then?’

  ‘Smells like it, I reckon. Leap’s all but finished.’

  ‘Where are we?’ Dimal asked, gazing at the grey-brown planet ahead.

  ‘I may be wrong,’ he said, ‘but this looks like Ineri.’

  FIVE

  AMID THE LIGHT of the star Accentaurib, the planetoid Ineri looked a real replica-of-a-planet. It was bronze in colour, and from this distance small enough to sit neatly on a lord’s desk, unnoticed. A sphere covered in a thousand craters. No life on the exterior. Very little below.

  ‘What does the scanner say?’ Dimal asked Justus as she stared the planetoid down.

  Full name Devi Ineriate, it had long acted as the mining world of the Fourth System. As small as a moon but as dense as, well, there was nothing Justus could think of quite as dense as the planetoid before him.

  ‘Yep. It’s Ineri alright.’

  ‘Great,’ Dimal muttered. ‘From one shit-hole to the next.’

  The Enusti exodus was arranged in formation between the Crimson Flux and the orb ahead. Many shining masses of metal moved swiftly towards their closest hope for safety. As Dimal locked them in to the configuration, Justus, along with his medic Noah, checked on Empress Abacco. Noah had only been with the Flux about a year, but he had found his place among them. Short, tubby, and balding, he didn’t look like an adventurer, but he’d proven he could hold his own if pushed.

  When they reached her, Empress Abacco was awake and calm, if a little shaken and dishevelled. She hardly spoke, but smiled to Justus and accepted food and water without question.

  ‘She’ll be fine,’ Noah told Justus as they left her quarters.

  ‘Good,’ he replied. ‘Cause we’ve just been summoned onto the Enusti flagship.’

  ‘Wait, we?’

  ‘Put something nice on, Noah. The Achakachula calls.’

  The Flux entered the holding bay of the great Enusti ship. Once inside, Enusti soldiers entered the small crimson craft, seized Abacco, and placed Justus and his five crewmates under arrest. The Captain made no struggle. As the exodus descended into Ineri’s deepest mines, taking refuge far beneath the surface, the six were taken through the large ship and into a huge dining room by several high soldiers dressed in dark blue and silver.

  ‘The Great Empress herself has given orders,’ the guard at the door explained. His Enusti accent was strong, his tongue almost fixed to the roof of his mouth. ‘You are to be, quote, released from custody, fed well, and thanked greatly.’

  Inside the majestic dining room the six enjoyed an amazing meal, nothing like the portions they were forced to ration themselves. The latest addition to the team, Aíron Veryan, looked as if she could throw up with worry at any moment. The dangerous realities of life in space were a shock at first. For the rest of the crew, however, it had become a way of life.

  ‘You know,’ Justus told Aíron as they enjoyed a third course of genetically- cultivated salmon and potatoes, ‘we’ll always be okay.’

  ‘You promise?’

  Her hair shone dark red, bright green eyes wide with youth. So far she had been reserved, spending most of her time with Raj, the Flux’s main engineer. She was sixteen, and Raj was only a little older.

  ‘I promise,’ he said with a wink.

  She smiled, taking another mouthful. Justus caught Dimal’s eye across the table and suppressed a sigh. He lifted his silver spoon, glimpsing his own reflection in the smooth surface. He was twenty-six now, almost twenty-seven, but he felt so much older. The last eight years really had taken their toll.

  Put it out of your mind, he thought. You’re a captain. Passivity is a luxury you simply cannot have.

  Before dinner had finished, Justus was called to meet with the Empress. Four armed guards escorted him to her private quarters, a section set near the centre of the Achakachula which was about as large as the entire Crimson Flux. A chair was set for him, placed half a dozen paces from the Empress, who sat motionless upon her own seat. Her poise, despite the thigh wound she had suffered, was stately, regal, customary.

  He sat.

  Empress Abacco clasped both hands. She was clothed in a light emerald dress, with a dark green silk scarf and three strings of pearls. Face painted a ghostly white, she appeared more than an Empress. More than a woman.

  ‘Why were you on Enustine?’ She spoke in an intense yet refined manner. Her accent was cold. Her lips hardly moved.

  ‘To help, Your Imperial Majesty. Only to help.’ He knew his forms of address, and hoped by using them he’d secure what he wanted from her.

  ‘And help you did, sir.’ She sounded surprisingly grateful.

  He nodded, bowed again.

  To her guards’ dismay, she stood from her seat and limped towards him. ‘My officers tell me you have been on Enustine before. You aided our efforts to quell a ghastly uprising. You were rewarded for capturing one of our most infamous warlords.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s true.’

  ‘I recall you received your craft as compensation for your efforts.’

  ‘I couldn’t think of a better payment, ma’am.’

  ‘And what would you ask for this time?’

  He breathed in. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Nothing at all?’

  ‘Well, except permission to leave. At once, really. I have to go.’

  ‘Have to go? And where do you plan to go to next, Captain? Who else must you save? A man of your bravery could be of much use to our people at this time.’

  ‘I do plan to help,’ he said. ‘But I already have a duty to fulfil.’

  ‘Ah, a man of duty. I understand that. I am a woman of duty. To my people. To my family.’ She paused briefly, looked away longingly, before composing herself. ‘I thank you for your bravery, Captain. I will see to it that you are given authorization to depart. And if ever our paths cross a second time, I hope that I may return your errand.’

  She held out her hand. He took it and kissed it, her long silver sleeves draping down past her knees. ‘The honour was mine.’

  The two walked down to the Achakachula’s docking bay together, once again under a copiously collected escort. The Empress was due to speak to her citizens and armed forces, and the Crimson Flux was all ready to start out. The sooner the better. There was no way to conceal a craft in open space, so the Enusti survivors were allowing him to leave before Crilshar could gather a pursuit force large enough to reach each small world and moon.

  The scene in the dock was one of anxiety and anger. Hundreds of the surviving Enusti citizens had gathered. Around them stretched a line, three bodies thick, of the remaining Enusti legions. All were loud. All were panicked. A sense of urgency lay among them; the threat of Crilshar’s legions fell heavy over the surviving vessels. It seemed the sudden loss of their world and people was already hitting home.

  Adelaide Abacco strode up to a raised area a couple of hundred yards from the Flux. Justus left her side and trudged around the crowd. Silence as he walked.

  ‘A message!’ said the Empress. ‘A message to all who are here, and all who are out there.’ She turned to her people. ‘The darkness ascends. Hope would seem lost. While our people bleed, our hearts continue to beat. And our people have bled. I beg for life as it used to be. Life. Simple. When war was kept between moons and mayors. Not High Lords and Emperors.

  ‘But the Emperor is dead.’ She paused, sniffed, and wiped her puffy eyes on a green and gold handkerchief, smearing white makeup across the expensive item, before looking back to the attentive crowd. ‘I am Adelaide A
bacco. I am Empress of Enustine and Countess of Zade. And though contact between our empire and almost all worlds has now ceased, we are not alone. We are a strong and proud people. No one will take that away, should we stand alone without weapon or fancy. Crilshar and her armies are strong. But we all fight on . . . in hope.’

  Justus nodded his head. You tell ‘em, old girl.

  Adra Dimal was waiting at the bottom of the Flux’s rear access ramp. She stood biting her nails, facing away from the crowd but listening intently to the woman’s words.

  He cleared his throat. ‘The others inside?’

  She looked to him, nodded.

  ‘So . . .’

  She raised her eyebrows. ‘So?’

  ‘What next?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  ‘You seem to be the one with all the answers these days.’

  ‘Oh no, darling,’ she said, leaning across and twice tapping his cheek, ‘I’m the one with all the questions.’

  She was not on her own. ‘The old man,’ he said. ‘The old man from Mars. We did as he told you. You came for me. You found Erebus. He knew where I was – exactly where I was. And then we saved Empress Abacco. Again, exactly when and where he told you. But what he was lacking was answers. Like why?’

  ‘How am I supposed to know?’

  ‘You’re not. Did he say anything else? Anything at all?’

  ‘Other than you’re to fight a war?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m thinking about skipping that bit.’

  Adra looked across to the Empress’ gathering, and then back to Justus. ‘Now we need to go to Earth. That’s what he said. He’ll meet us there.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Justus said. ‘Earth. I know. I’ve known it for eight years.’ He couldn’t forget Peter’s words: The moon is our ally. Seek the answers on Earth.

  ‘To Earth it is then,’ she said. ‘Woo, been a while since I’ve been there.’

  ‘You and me both, Dim.’

  ‘Then let’s not waste another second.’ She ascended the cargo ramp. Justus moved to follow, but turned as he walked up. He listened to the powerful voice of Adelaide Abacco:

  ‘War has come,’ she said. ‘All must prepare. Crilshar must not win.’

  SIX

  WIVARTHA DISHAN STOOD still upon the ruins of Enustine. A sly smile slithered across his mouth. He gazed down at a brown and blood-red river, percolating through an embankment of timber and stone. An entire city, reduced to rubble. It pleased him.

  A line of captured Imperial combatants knelt at the bottom of the black mound. His personal guard held them where they were. These soldiers had had no choice but to surrender. Numerical superiority, combined with the Crilshan fleet’s element of surprise, meant the prospect of defeat had been one in a thousand – at least by his calculation.

  Thirty-thousand impure soldiers – man, woman, and child – had been captured. Lord Malizar had sent word that all enemy survivors were to live; that he, Wivartha Dishan, were to do whatever it took to make them fight for him instead. The Commander estimated that only half would be influenced by modern conditioning. Even less by bribery or coercion.

  No, no. Lord Malizar was impure. He had no authority here, upon a world controlled by the Dishan. In a Star System ruled by Crilshar. This was the time of the Proximans. Pure. Powerful. Unrivalled.

  Wivartha signalled and then stood to watch his enemies’ throats cut.

  All in all, thirty-thousand enemy soldiers captured, tortured, then cut.

  Tens of thousands more were to come. Upon Enustine and Chiro. Samos and Proveria. Bravoral and Rotavar. Accentauria and Accentaurib. And their bodies stained the land blood-red for years to come.

  Wivartha cared not. He had what he wanted.

  He had conquest.

  He had Titan.

  He had vengeance.

  SEVEN

  THE CONTROL CENTRE of the vessel Stellarstream was a dark sphere at the end of a dark corridor in the middle of a dark ship. Shadows could be seen darting this way and that. Voices echoed along the twenty-mile-long passageway stretching through the vessel’s grave viscera.

  Anna and Callista stepped cautiously into the control room, a rounded space, two levels tall. The voices belonged to their captain, Diego Ferranti, and the Crilshan Gordian, who had been assisting with the journey back. Both were rushing around the room in a frenzy.

  On the projection screen above them, the planet Enustine, now much closer, continued to burn.

  Captain Ferranti hurried down the steps. ‘Anna, Callista,’ he said. ‘Good, you’re here.’

  Callista hobbled around the system panels to reach him. ‘You called? What’s our situation?’

  ‘We’re out of the leap,’ he replied.

  ‘What? Why? How?’

  ‘Crilshar. They’ve done something to the ultimatt path. It’s reset our engine. We need to make the leap again. Fast.’

  Anna continued to watch the screen above. ‘These are Crilshan vessels?’

  Ferranti looked up. ‘They’ve never gone this far. Burning a planet. It’s genocide. That’s an act of open war! If they take these ultimatt paths, they control the System!’

  ‘Get us out of here then!’ Callista said.

  ‘I’m trying.’

  ‘What can we do?’

  ‘Callista, I need you to stay here with Gordian.’

  ‘Are you asking or telling?’

  ‘Both.’

  ‘Fine. Where are you going?’

  ‘I need to reboot the energy within the ultimatt hub at the back of the ship. Anna, will you come?’

  ‘Is it safe?’ she asked.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Okay then.’

  ‘Excellent. Callista?’

  She looked up at Gordian. ‘I’ll be just fine here.’

  Captain Ferranti led Anna to the nearest elevator. She could just about differentiate between his worry for their situation and the physical pain he was feeling right now. His right arm was strung up securely, both bones broken, a simple fracture. Anna knew there was nothing simple about the pain he was in.

  Once inside the elevator, they shot back to the ultimatt hub. Anna wondered how it would look: ultimatt energy . . . the ultimate form of matter, said to be everlasting, living, and reactive.

  They disembarked the sideways elevator and ran down the central stairway. At the bottom lay the hub room. A vast space, some two-hundred metres, empty all the way across, but bordered by intricate machinery. It was the glass floor which caught Anna’s attention, however. On first glance as she stopped before it, it could have been mistaken for a giant chess board, with golden edgings dividing each metre-square glass plate. And beneath the glass, glistening blue, lay a pool of pure, motionless water.

  Anna breathed in and out. Meanwhile, Captain Ferranti dashed down the steps and across the room to the other end. With only one hand he quickly adjusted and readjusted several levers. ‘Anna, come here. Fast!’

  She stepped from the bottom step onto the first glass plate.

  ‘Anna!’

  ‘Coming.’

  She shuffled across, not looking down. ‘What do I do?’

  ‘Here, hold this down.’ He motioned toward a thick lever. She rested her elbows at the edges and pushed with both hands in the middle. It fell beneath the pressure.

  ‘Good. Hold it there.’ He disappeared through a door nearby.

  ‘Ferranti?’ The lever was too heavy. ‘Ferranti?’ Her arms couldn’t hold much longer. Her right arm prickled and itched. ‘Ouch. Ferranti!’

  She thought she could feel a slight tremor upon the glass beneath. Her wrist burned. It was the bracelet. It was shaking. She lifted her hand up. The lever came with it, throwing her back and onto the glass.

  Anna looked down at her hand. She was right. The bracelet was shaking. She was shaking. But it was worse than that. She looked at the deep pool beneath her, and it was then she realised that it was not a pool at all. It was not even water. It was light.

  Her hand pr
essed upon the glass, and the glistening blue beneath it burned black. Spreading around her. Shooting throughout the room. Vein-like fibres infecting everything it touched.

  ‘What have I done?’

  ‘Anna, what did you do?’ Ferranti charged back in and picked her up, dragged her away from the smouldering black patch. ‘What the hell is that?!’

  Anna stared at the floor, then down to her hand. ‘It’s me. It’s this.’ She charged at once across the room.

  ‘Anna!’

  She fled from the light and back up the steps. At the top she turned around. The dark veins had spread, but now seemed to be dissipating. ‘It’s going back!’

  ‘I need you here! I can’t do it with only one arm. Can’t you take that thing off?’

  ‘I can’t! It won’t!’ She clawed at it again, but it was like clawing off her own skin. ‘I can come back!’

  ‘It’s too risky. We don’t know what that was!’

  At that moment, Callista’s voice echoed through the room from the comm speaker. ‘Not to cause alarm, but we’ve been spotted. Crilshan vessels are approaching. We’re all ready at this end.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Ferranti. ‘Anna, when I say, run back down and depress this lever. I have to do the same with one in the other room.’

  ‘And that will put us into the leap?’

  ‘Yes. Are you ready?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Now!’

  She vaulted down the steps, three at a time, and dashed across the room. Around her, the blue ultimatt energy groaned black, her banded wrist shuddering and burning. She reached the lever as Ferranti made for the other room. The glass floor shook. She jumped, placed all her weight on the lever, and forced it down. It dropped. The lights in the room went out.

  From her hands and knees Anna pushed herself up. As she found her feet and felt around for the wall, a bright light burst on and a wondrous projection filled the room. A million gleaming lights, pure white and wonderful, with four great stars, some brighter than others. She recognised them from the maps of the Four Systems she had seen so many times. Here they were in the Fourth System, Accentaurib, a blinking dot surrounded by a trillion more sporadic particles.

  Ferranti moved up behind her. ‘Here we go,’ he said. ‘It worked.’