Dark Space- The Complete Series

by Jasper T. Scott

  The Sythians had brought them together, if only for the moment. Hoff suffered a moment of indecision as he realized that he was throwing away their only chance to take back the Valiant, but the Tauron’s shields were already down to 56%, and they’d be lucky to escape the carrier’s beam weapons without serious hull damage, let alone fly on and face Sythians after that. Neither Hoff nor Brondi was going to escape without the other’s help.

  “Helm, reverse thrust and keep us as far away from the Sythians as you can. We need to buy some time.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Comms, get me the med bay. I want Tova and Roan up here now.”

  * * *

  Atton heard the cease-fire announced over the comms and he let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. The squadron of junk fighters chasing them abruptly stopped firing, and Atton’s hand relaxed on the flight stick. Now what? he wondered, his eyes scanning the long list of Sythians ships in system.

  “Atton . . .” Ethan began, his voice hoarse and thready. “I need a break. I’m coming down.”

  “Okay.” Atton frowned and turned to look behind him as Ethan emerged in the corridor behind the cockpit. His father limped up to the cockpit and all but collapsed in one of the two passenger’s seats behind the pilot’s and copilot’s stations.

  Atton snapped on the autopilot and unbuckled his restraints to give his father a hand. “Are you okay?”

  “Water,” he croaked. “Do you have something to drink?”

  Atton nodded. “Give me a second.” He hurried aft to get a bottle of water. A few seconds later he returned and handed it to his father.

  “Thanks,” Ethan whispered. He’d taken his helmet off, and now Atton could see clearly what bad shape his father was in—salt and pepper hair matted with sweat, his face pallid and gray. Atton felt an apprehensive stab of concern, but he went back to the pilot’s chair without comment.

  After taking some water, Ethan’s voice returned somewhat stronger than before. “Now what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “The admiral hasn’t said anything yet?”

  Atton scanned the comm logs and noted that he’d just missed the last transmission. He read the transcript with a deepening frown. “He wants all of his ships to form a protective screen around the Tauron. He and Brondi are going to fly through the Sythian formation in tandem. Orders are to jump to SLS as soon as we get clear. They’ve sent us jump coordinates already . . . we’re jumping away from Dark Space.” Atton shook his head. “He’s abandoning them!”

  “He doesn’t have a choice, Atton.”

  “Doesn’t have a choice . . . this is all his frekking fault!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “He led them here! He attacked Obsidian Station in order to capture High Lord Kaon, and that damn Sythian was implanted with some kind of tracking device. Hoff only found it after we reached the entrance of Dark Space.”

  Ethan snorted. “That’s ironic.”

  “It’s not funny! Do you realize how many people are about to die? There’s only one way in and one way out of Dark Space, and the Sythians are blocking it.”

  “I didn’t say it was funny. But it’s ironic that Hoff accused you of compromising Dark Space when it was ultimately him who did that.”

  “Every time I think about it I want to kill him,” Atton growled. His thoughts turned to Hoff’s clone, lying strapped down in the back of the corvette, and a grim smile sprang to his lips. “Would you take the controls for a moment, Dad?”

  “Why?”

  “I’m going to go see if our passenger is awake.”

  “Passenger?”

  Atton waved a dismissive hand at his father as he walked by. “It’s a long story.”

  “I’m listening. . . .”

  Atton returned less than a minute later, shoving Admiral Hoff Heston ahead of him at gunpoint. Ethan’s jaw dropped when he saw the admiral. “What are you doing here?”

  “He’s not the admiral, but he’s just as good. He’s a clone.”

  “A what?”

  “Like I said, it’s a long story.”

  “What are you doing, Atton?” Hoff demanded. “Where’s Des and Atta?”

  “They’re on the Tauron. They didn’t want to leave your side, although I’m not sure how that makes any sense under the circumstances.” Atton smiled nastily and pointed to the grid, “You’re right to be worried about them, though. Take a look, Hoff, and you’ll see what I mean.”

  “What for?”

  “Just do it.” Atton gestured with his pistol, which was actually Hoff’s sidearm. Atton had taken it from the clone before bringing him aboard.

  Hoff stepped up beside Ethan to peer down at the star map. They heard a strangled noise escape his lips. “That’s impossible!”

  “No, it’s not. You led them here, remember?”

  Hoff just shook his head; his age-lined face was pale, his gray eyes wide and staring.

  “You’re a real dumb krakhead, Hoff. Your bumbling other half has just ordered a full retreat. We’re leaving Dark Space to be overrun. Assuming we make it, we’ll be the last human survivors this side of the galaxy. How do you feel about that? Millions of innocent people dead, all thanks to you.”

  “I . . .”

  “If we do make it out of this alive, I can promise you that Ethan and I won’t be the only ones on trial. You’re going to have to answer for what you’ve done, too. Oh, and don’t worry, I’m going to see to it that everyone knows what you’ve been hiding so that when you’re executed for your crimes, this time you’re really going to die.”

  * * *

  Captain Caldin saw the Sythian armada appear, heard the cease-fire declared, and received her new orders all with the same numb sense of defeat. Their orders were to follow the Tauron and the Valiant through the enemy formation, and since no one could see the Interloper unless they did something to give themselves away, they were to trail a safe distance behind the two larger ships and not engage the enemy, essentially just mind your own business and get out of here ASAP. With over two thousand sentinels on board, they were an extremely valuable asset packed into a small, vulnerable cruiser, so any contribution they could make wasn’t worth the risk of their ship being destroyed.

  Caldin grimaced. They would be helpless spectators in the coming battle, just as they had been in the last one—brief though it had been. She eyed the grid as the Interloper followed in the Tauron’s wake. Battleship and carrier flew side by side toward the advancing wall of Sythians, shielding each other’s flanks, and racing out together, but that was where the cooperation ended. Brondi’s fighters and supporting cruisers had fanned out in an abbreviated shield to protect just his carrier, while Hoff was left to defend his battleship with just nine novas and a few assault transports. That wasn’t even an effective screen for one side of his flag ship, let alone all sides of it. Making matters worse, the Tauron’s shields were damaged from her fight with Brondi’s fighter screen, and there was no way they would be fully charged by the time the Sythians opened fire on them. Hoff would be lucky to get out alive. Brondi, on the other hand, stood a much better chance.

  “Well, Captain,” Adram began. “It would seem we have finally reached the end of the war. The Sythians have won.”

  “What about Hoff’s enclave?” Caldin demanded. “We can retreat there.”

  Adram shrugged. “If we escape. But there might be a better place . . . if the rumors are true.”

  “What rumors?”

  “Supply ships come and go in the enclave, but no one knows where they come from, or where they go when they leave. The rumor is that there’s some part of the Imperium that survived, but only the admiral knows where it is.”

  Caldin shook her head. “Wait—there are two groups of human survivors besides the ones in Dark Space?”

  “Yes. Besides the enclave, there’s another faction of humanity that has been isolated since before the war—a whole sector patrolled by mighty fleets and
teeming with overpopulated worlds. A lost sector.” Adram’s eyes glittered darkly. “Admiral Heston is their first line of defense and the leader of the fledgling colonies in the enclave.”

  “If that’s true, and this lost sector is so strong and their resources are so abundant, why haven’t they tried to help us in Dark Space?”

  “I think because the admiral doesn’t trust you. Perhaps with a different leader humanity would have been more united. Perhaps Dark Space would have had the strength to repel this invasion.”

  Caldin’s eyes hardened. “Perhaps. What am I supposed to do with all that useless hindsight now?”

  “Sentinels have holo displays built into their helmets. If the men on board were to get a streaming feed of the Obsidian Station incident . . . it might be enough to convince them of our cause. Then, when we’re safely away from all of this, we’ll have the army we need to capture Admiral Heston and his ship.” Adram shrugged. “After that, we can subject the admiral to a mind probe in order to find this lost sector of his. At least then we’ll have somewhere to run.”

  “What makes you think the admiral’s men will turn?”

  “No officer was more loyal to the admiral than I, ma’am. When you witness your commander turn on his own people, you realize that you could be next. It makes you question your orders in future.” Adram smiled. “Besides, it is the only way, Captain. For humanity’s sake. Children of the Adventa Galaxy should not fight one another.”

  Caldin’s eyes narrowed as she contemplated that, but at last she sighed and nodded. “You’re right. I’ll go instruct the comm officer to relay the log recording. You’d better stay here to watch the grid.”

  “Of course,” Adram nodded.

  Caldin turned and walked down from the gangway to her comm officer. She felt her skin prickle as she turned her back to Adram, but so far she’d been nothing but cooperative with him. She knew he was trying to manipulate her. Why, and for what purpose, she didn’t know. She also had no way to verify that the log recording in question was real. The circumstantial evidence was significant—the station was gone and the Interloper had been found cruising through the debris, but Caldin feared that even if it were all true, helping Junior Captain Crossid Adram to overthrow the admiral would be tantamount to instating an even more dangerous leader, and she refused to be responsible for that. It was time to take emergency measures.

  She reached Comm Officer Grimsby and hurried to explain to him what she actually wanted relayed to the sentinels’ holo displays. They needed to know about Adram’s plot, if not the reasons for it, and they had to be ready when she gave the word. Caldin had a bad feeling that as soon as Adram realized she wasn’t really on his side, he would betray her. So she would strike first.

  Chapter 30

  “What do you mean we are dead?” Hoff demanded. His face turned an angry shade of red, and his gray eyes flashed.

  Tova and Roan stood side by side, their hands bound with stun cords. An entire squad of armored sentinels surrounded them, and to keep them from cloaking they had been wrapped in swaddling white robes, which unlike their armor, wouldn’t cloak when they did. Both of the hulking aliens stood with their shoulders hunched and their heads bowed, making them look unusually small and frail despite their two meter height.

  Hoff kept his distance from them, his hand hovering near his sidearm just in case their defeated appearance was an act.

  “You do not survive thisss,” Tova hissed, rephrasing her prior warning.

  “Then neither will you. Tell your people to stand down, and you’ll live. I’ll set you both free.”

  “I do not trust you, Woss.”

  “I don’t trust you either, skull face, but we don’t have a choice. If you don’t do something, you’re going to die, too.”

  “It does not matter. Gors cannot let you escape. Sythians kill us if we do not obey.”

  “Tell them to abandon their ships!” Hoff roared.

  “Who rescues them when they do? Do you rescue them, Woss? No. They die in space. You leave them.”

  Hoff frowned. “I will do what I can. If they all bail out, we can stay as long as we need to and rescue them all.”

  “I can smell your liess,” Tova hissed. “Besides, does not work anyway. Not all Gors agree with alliance. Now, fewer than ever. They know you kill us and betray us. They know what you do, and now the ones who oppose the alliance kill us if we join you.”

  Hoff glared back at her. “We’re going to be within firing range of the Sythian fleet in one minute. This is your last chance, Tova.”

  “No, it is yours. Humans are a strange race. They betray their allies and expect to keep them. They kill each other and expect to live. You deserve to die,” she said. Now Roan looked up, too, and both aliens stared defiantly at him.

  Hoff growled. “If you Gors have been telling the truth, then there should be a Sythian command ship here. Show me where it is, and we’ll destroy them. Then you can all go free. Take your ships and leave, and we’ll escape. Win-win.”

  “Leave where? Where do we go? Sooner or later Sythians find us or we run out of fuel and die in space. Besides, we cannot sense Sythians.”

  “That’s strange, because I can. We detected High Lord Kaon sending the message which brought this fleet here. It was the same as if you had spoken to one of your people. In my experience if something looks the same and sounds the same, it usually is, so why are you lying to me? Unless you really are on their side . . .”

  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.