Or who, she thought with a wry twist of her lips as she touched the man’s upper arm.
He turned to reveal a haggard face, grizzled with stubble and lined with age. There were dark circles under his eyes, and the wincing look on his face told her he was in some kind of pain. He was older than she’d expected, and his nose was crooked, but he had a certain animal charm to him.
“What?” he barked at her.
She made her bright violet eyes big and looked him up and down very slowly, so that he could see she was admiring him. “I haven’t seen you around here before,” she said, her voice purring.
“Likewise,” he replied, his expression softening somewhat.
She touched his arm again, this time to squeeze his bulging biceps. “Looks like I’ve been missing out. What’s your name?”
The man’s gaze turned speculative and a dark smile sprang to his face. “Ithicus Adari, or Firestarter if you prefer. What’s your name?”
“Angel.” She smiled. “Would you mind if I joined you for breakfast?”
Ithicus shook his head. “No, I could use some company.”
“Me too, why don’t we—hoi!” Angel felt hands on her shoulders, turning her roughly out of the serving line. She tried to slap those hands away. Then she saw the old couple who’d been sitting with her a moment ago, and her face screwed up in outrage. “What do you want? Leave me alone!”
“Alara!” the woman said. “You’re not well. Let us take you to the med bay.”
“I feel fine!” Angel insisted, and struggled to break free of the old man’s clammy hands.
“Hey, let the girl alone,” Ithicus interrupted, taking a step out of the line toward them.
“I’m sorry,” the old man said with a smile as he held up a shaking hand to stop Ithicus, “but this girl is not in her right mind. She’s been chipped and she isn’t who she thinks she is.”
Ithicus’s dark brown eyes widened, and he hesitated before taking another step. “Really? Who does she think she is?”
“She thinks she’s some sort of playgirl.”
“Hmmm, that’s a pity.” Ithicus gave Angel an up-and-down look like the one she’d given him a moment ago. “A real pity,” he drawled before turning back to the serving line.
Angel felt herself being pushed and dragged toward the exit of the mess hall. The old woman fussed by her side, offering reassurances.
“We’ll get you fixed up, don’t worry. This is just a temporary lapse.”
Alara’s gaze strayed over her shoulder to the rugged lieutenant, and then she turned back to the old man with a scowl. He led her out of the mess hall by her wrists, cutting off her circulation with his bony fingers. “Let me go,” she warned.
“Not yet,” he said.
With a quick twist of her wrists, she wriggled free. “Hoi!” she said. “What is wrong with you two? I had him right where I wanted him—putty in my hands! If you’re not going to do business, then at least let me find someone who is!”
The old man’s reply was soft, and he only said one word—“Reset.”—It was all he needed to say.
As soon as Angel’s ears caught that word and her brain connected it to meaning, she felt a dawning horror, accompanied by a sweaty rush of unreality. The very fabric of her being was stripped away, and suddenly she didn’t know who she was anymore. I’m Angel! She insisted to herself, but now she understood that that was a lie. She was Alara Vastra, and the old man and woman standing before her were . . . they were . . .
Her parents.
A dizzy wash of nausea swept through her. Alara’s knees buckled, and she sunk to the floor. She lay there for a moment, blinking slowly up at the ceiling. The room spun around her head at least a half dozen times before her parents’ faces hove into view. She smiled weakly up at them.
“Hoi . . .” she said, but her mind was already shutting down.
“Stay with us, honey!” her mother said, grabbing her hand.
But sleep felt so warm and peaceful. “I’m just going to close my eyes for a . . .” Alara trailed off as her eyelids fluttered, and she succumbed to sleep.
* * *
The morning after the identity change procedure, Ethan awoke to find himself in the overlord’s quarters—now his quarters. It was going to take some getting used to, but the spacious room, king-size bed, giant holoscreen, and the broad floor-to-ceiling viewport were luxuries that would make the adjustment a whole lot easier.
Being the overlord had its perks.
Ethan sat up, rubbed tired eyes, and scanned the rest of the room. A large bathroom lay to one side; the sliding doors were open, revealing a broad mirror and gleaming steel cabinetry offset by artfully recessed glow panels and black wall tiles; another desk like the one in the overlord’s office was arranged before the room’s viewport. Separated from the bedroom by a short half wall adorned with indigo-colored ferns, were a couch and some chairs along with a bar and a small kitchenette. Ten years ago this could have been a luxury studio apartment in any city on any planet anywhere in the galaxy. That was before the war. Now most living spaces Ethan had seen were half the size, and they were either in space or they lay underground to better shield them from the high levels of radiation in Dark Space—although the black holes ringing the region didn’t emit much radiation, the dying stars falling into them did.
It had been little more than a day since Ethan had left Dark Space, but he felt like it had been weeks. So much had happened since then. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and grabbed his comm piece from the bedside table before standing up to stretch. As he did so, a flash of light drew his eyes to the viewport and the murky gray swirl of the Stormcloud Nebula beyond. As he watched, it flashed with another bright discharge of static, and Ethan could just see the dark outline of a station cast into stark relief by the burst of light. This was where they were hiding while they made repairs to the Defiant. They’d arrived at the Stormcloud Transfer Station in the middle of the night, and some unthoughtful kakard had promptly awoken him with the news. When his bedside communicator had begun trilling less than an hour after he’d lain down to sleep, Ethan’s first instinct had been to smash it—an impulse which he’d promptly acted upon—but his fist had hit the receive button by mistake and piped the comm officer’s transmission into his room at full volume, overwhelming Ethan’s sleep-clouded brain with noise. It had been all he could do not to give himself away before remembering that he was supposed to be the supreme overlord now and he couldn’t cuss out his crew for providing important updates.
Atton had told him to wear his holoskin at all times, just in case, but at least it was less obtrusive than the holoskin Brondi had made him wear. That one had been a skintight body suit made of rare and expensive shielding and holo-sensitive fibers, while Ethan’s new holoskin projected his appearance from two thin holofield generators around his ankles to two matching bands around his wrists and one around his neck. The new skin was made of even more expensive materials than Brondi’s one—which Ethan supposed made sense. The overlord would be able to afford the best. The new skin would be much harder to detect, even if one were feeling around for it and knew where to look.
Ethan stood up from the bed and walked over to the bathroom. Seeing himself in the mirror was a shock. He looked like he’d aged a hundred years overnight. His face was thinner, with plenty of wrinkles, his cheeks were sunken, and his eyebrows were out of control—a bushy white which needed immediate trimming. His nose and ears were groomed at least, but Ethan could see the hair encroaching there already. The four days worth of white stubble on his face needed shaving. Besides being completely white, the pattern of facial hair Ethan saw was subtly different from what he was used to, and when he ran his hands over his cheeks, he could feel the discrepancies—a holoskin didn’t change tactile qualities. Opening the steel cabinet beneath the sink, Ethan found an expensive depilatory gel which would strip the hair off his face and keep it that way for six to eight months. Yet another luxury afforded to the suprem
e overlord. Ethan applied the gel and let it sit for the required thirty seconds before washing it off, along with all his stubble. After that, Ethan went for a quick vaccucleanse and then got dressed in his new uniform—the flashy white with gold trim of the supreme overlord. Just as Ethan fit his comm piece inside his ear, it began to beep with an incoming transmission, and then he heard a computerized voice say, “Lieutenant Adan Reese calling.”
Ethan touched his ear to receive the comm. “Hello?”
“You’re awake. Good.” It was not his son’s voice that Ethan heard, but rather that of the Lieutenant Adan Reese. Last night after the operation to switch identichips, they’d had to switch vocal synthesizers, too. “We need to meet,” Atton said. “I’ll be at your office in five. You can have breakfast sent up there for us.”
“Sure, see you soon,” Ethan replied, already on his way out. He passed through the doors a moment later and walked past the pair of security guards stationed there. The guards peeled off from the wall and followed him at a distance. They hadn’t actually been trained as sentinels, but rather they were low-ranking corpsmen who couldn’t serve any more useful roles aboard the Defiant.
When Ethan reached his office, Atton was already waiting to get in. The guards stopped outside the doors and Ethan turned to one of them, almost as an afterthought, to suggest that he fetch them breakfast from the mess hall. The guard looked at Ethan strangely, but then saluted and said, “Yes, sir,” before hurrying off. Atton also shot Ethan a strange look as they walked inside the office.
The doors swished shut behind them, and Atton sighed. “You shouldn’t be sending your bodyguards to get you breakfast,” he said.
“All right, who should I send then?” Ethan asked as he rounded his dark-lacquered wooden desk and sat down in the high-backed black chair.
“You can call the mess hall directly and request what you want. They’ll have someone bring it up to you. We’re undermanned, but you’re the overlord, so they’ll make it happen.”
“Right. This takes a bit of getting used to, Atton.”
“I know, which is why I’d like to suggest that you promote me and assign me as your XO aboard the Defiant. That way I’ll be able to help you act the part of the overlord. Once you’re more comfortable with the role you can assign me wherever you feel’s best.”
Ethan nodded. “Consider it done. Who’s the current XO?”
“Caldin.”
Ethan’s eyes lit with recognition. “I know her. She was also my XO in the Rokan Defense sim run. She was the one who recommended me—well, Adan Reese—for command training.”
“I’m sure she’ll be surprised to find that her suggestion was taken so seriously.”
“And perhaps a bit resentful that he’s being given her rank and position aboard the Defiant,” Ethan added.
“There’s not much we can do about that, but you don’t have to demote her. You can assign her as your tactical adviser if you wish. I’ve found she has some good insights.”
“I agree,” Ethan replied.
A few minutes later breakfast arrived with a knock at the doors. Ethan spoke a verbal command to open the doors, and one of his guards walked in balancing a tray loaded with pancakes, juice, and a steaming pot of caf.
Ethan caught a whiff of the caf and pancakes and he felt a strong answering stir in his belly. Suddenly he realized that he couldn’t remember the last time he ate. It had to have been more than 24 hours ago. As for the caf, it had been years since he’d had a cup of caf. Ethan watched the tray approach with eager anticipation, and he dug in before the guard had even poured his coffee. By the time the guard left, Ethan had already finished half his stack of pancakes. The office door slid shut with a swish. Atton cleared his throat. Ethan looked up from cutting another giant wedge out of his stack of pancakes to see Atton smiling at him over the rim of his cup of caf. Ethan took a moment to breathe and wash the pancakes down with a big gulp from his own cup.
“So, what’s your first move, Overlord?” Atton asked.
Ethan swallowed and took another sip of caf while he considered the question. “You said there’s another group of survivors.”
“Yes, Admiral Hoff Heston and the remnants of the Fifth Fleet. They were cut off during our retreat to Dark Space, so they holed up someplace else.”
Ethan’s eyes narrowed. “Someplace? You don’t know where they are?”
“No, they don’t trust us to have that information—since we’re working with the Gors. We coordinate attacks and salvage operations together, but they keep us at a distance.”
“I see. And our forces? How many are they and where?”
“They’re split up into four separate strike groups, each with its own base of operations. There are 13 capital-class vessels in all. Fourteen now if you count the Defiant.”
“Not very many. Will it be enough to take on the Valiant?”
Atton hesitated. “I imagine Brondi is also short-handed right now, so we stand a chance, but we would take very heavy casualties in a straight fight. I would recommend a different course. I doubt Brondi will be able to get Roan’s cooperation to help him detect any cloaked ships in the area, so if we had one, we might be able to sneak aboard with a small boarding party.”
Ethan raised an eyebrow. “I think you’d need a large boarding party to overwhelm the troops Brondi has aboard that carrier.”
“Not if he can’t see us. How many men do you think one invisible soldier could kill?”
“The Gors,” Ethan said as his eyes lit with understanding.
“Even a few dozen of them would be enough to clear the Valiant.”
“Well, what are we waiting for, then?”
“The Defiant isn’t cloaked, and we only have Tova with us, so we can’t launch the attack ourselves.”
“I know,” Ethan replied. “I meant we need to call the Gors and put together an op.”
Atton shook his head. “We can’t call them. The commnet doesn’t exist out here. The gate relays are all down.”
“All of them?”
Atton nodded. “They were mostly destroyed by Sythians, but some have just fallen into disrepair. We’ll have to travel to the nearest strike group to contact them.”
Ethan frowned. “We’re not cloaked.”
“We’re not that far away. The nearest task force is at Obsidian Station. A few jumps and we’ll be there.”
Ethan’s eyes narrowed. “How many is a few?”
“About five.”
Ethan winced and took another sip of caf. “We need to get Tova’s help for this. If she doesn’t help us detect cloaked Sythians, we’ll be taken out before we even know what hit us.”
“She may not be willing to work with us if she finds out the truth about what happened to Roan.”
“Well, the truth is, we’re going to rescue her mate. If she’s got any brain at all she’ll work with us to achieve that end.”
Atton conceded that with a shrug. “They don’t reason like us, Ethan, but it’s worth a try.”
“Right. While we’re at it, is there anything we can do to bolster our nova complement? We just have six fighters. That’s half a squadron.”
“There’s another squadron aboard the transfer station,” Atton said. “But no pilots.”
“That’s funny,” Ethan said.
“What?” Atton replied.
“When I wanted to join the fleet as a civilian, I was told that they had more applicants than ships, but now that I’ve been . . . conscripted . . . I’m finding that it’s just the opposite.”
“Well, in Dark Space we do have more applicants than ships, and even outside, we’re training more Gors than we have ships to fill. All the Gors we free now are going to form our very first invasion army.”
Ethan sat back and steepled his hands before his chin. “I suppose we’ll have more than enough troops to take back the Valiant then. Brondi’s in for a surprise.”
Atton nodded. “We’ll have her back soon. The tougher part will be fin
ding a new crew for her.”
“Yes . . .” Ethan trailed off and his eyes drifted out of focus. He had been responsible for killing the original crew by unwittingly carrying Brondi’s super virus aboard the ship.
“It’s not your fault, Ethan,” Atton said.
“We can agree to disagree on that.”
“If anything Kurlin Vastra shoulders more of the blame than you.”
Ethan’s eyes came back into focus at the mention of Alara’s father. “Are you going to level any charges against him?”
Atton just looked at him. “Well, that’s up to you now. I’m not the overlord anymore.”
“I’m not going to do anything. I’d be a hypocrite if I had him tried and not myself. Besides, we were both Brondi’s pawns, even if Kurlin knew exactly what he was doing and I didn’t. For now, I think it’s best for us to keep all of that as quiet as possible. What about the guards who interrogated Kurlin? Have they been sworn to secrecy?”
“They have, but I’m not sure we can trust them to keep quiet for long. Everyone lost people close to them on the Valiant. It’s only a matter of time before the guards talk to someone, or maybe even plot to kill Kurlin themselves.”
“And what do they know about me? You said that Kurlin revealed my part as the carrier for his virus. He met me you know, so if he ever sees me without my holoskin . . .”
Atton raised an eyebrow at that. “When would he have a chance to see you without your holoskin? Besides do you really think he’ll try to pin blame on you when he’s just as guilty? He did mention there was a live carrier for the virus who infiltrated the Valiant, but you weren’t named. Kurlin seems to have assumed that you died aboard the Valiant with everyone else, so you’re safe. The greater problem is what will happen to old Kurlin if the crew finds out what he did.”
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