Dark Space- The Complete Series

by Jasper T. Scott

  Atton came to an abrupt stop and floated out into another semi-circular room full of transporter tubes. On this level the trim was all glowing white—the color of the Command Deck.

  Atton broke into a run again. This time he saw a few armored Peacekeepers. He wondered about their armor and the answer came unbidden to his mind—they were Assault Troopers. Fleet Officers wore uniforms like his except when going into combat.

  Atton was vaguely surprised to realize that he knew everything there was to know about life aboard an Avilonian Starship. He supposed that went along with the Pilot’s Training he’d selected.

  Before long the green arrow at the top of his ARC display led him to the Operations Center. Two assault troopers guarded the doors. Seeing him running toward them, they moved to block his way, but just as quickly they moved back.

  They’d just used their ARCs to check whether or not he had the clearance to enter the Op Center.

  The doors swished open and Atton breezed in. Strategian Heston was waiting at the head of a long, white table. There were a few others there with him. Most were armored Assault Troopers, but two others were dressed exactly like Atton, with the same silver crescent insignia. He recognized the man as Razor—Guardian Five—and the woman as Captain Caldin. His gaze lingered there a moment. She had always been a pretty woman, with delicate, feminine features and short blond hair, but now she was truly striking and only vaguely recognizable. She smiled at him as he walked in, flashing a perfect set of teeth. He noted that her rank insignia was the same as his—pilot. Atton turned to raise his arm to the Strategian. “Hail Omnius,” he said.

  His mind was bursting with questions that he hadn’t thought to ask before. Hoff had died in Dark Space, and then he’d come back to life here. That had been just a few weeks ago, but his insignia—three platinum crescents—marked him as a Strategian, equivalent to a captain in the ISSF. How had he risen in rank so quickly if Captain Caldin had been reduced to a low-ranking officer?

  Hoff nodded to him. “Sit down, Ortane.”

  Ortane. Maybe it was the Admiral’s tone, or the way Hoff had chosen to address him, but something was off. Hoff was his stepfather. Atton had expected more of a personal greeting. Maybe Ceyla was right—maybe they really weren’t the same people anymore.

  Atton shivered and took a shaky step toward the nearest empty chair. It slid out automatically, swiveling to face him. He sat down, and the chair tucked him under the table.

  “That’s all of us,” the Strategian said.

  “I’m the last one to arrive?” Atton hadn’t thought he’d been that slow. He’d run the entire way.

  “There were some problems with your transfer.”

  “Like what, sir?”

  “You died during transfer.”

  “I what?” Atton’s heart began thudding in his chest and his palms began to sweat. A numb sense of unreality swept over him. He could hear his pulse pounding in his ears.

  “Death is the wrong word for it. Our bodies can die, but our essence lives on, stored in our Lifelinks. Your autonomous functions ceased during transfer, but your mind was preserved and successfully transferred.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “Transfer is hard on the mind. Sometimes your brain overreacts and kills you.”

  “Don’t you use life support or something?”

  “We do, which is why you didn’t experience any brain damage. Your brain activity also ceased, however, plunging you into a coma. That made transfer more delicate, and time-consuming, but as you can see, there were no further complications. Rest assured, now that you’ve done it once, it will be easier in the future. There are fewer variables when transferring from one clone to another.”

  Atton slowly shook his head. Horror wormed through his gut, making him feel ill. “Why didn’t they just . . . jump-start my brain or something?”

  “I’m not qualified to answer that. The bio drones handle transfer. You’d have to ask them. Not that I expect they’ll answer.”

  “What about our medics? I woke up in a room with a medic. I could ask him.”

  The admiral shook his head. “The medics deal with waking you up, checking vitals, and orienting you once you’ve already been transferred. They won’t know anything about the process. If you’re concerned, you should ask Omnius; I’m sure there’s a reason no one tried to get your brain activity going again. Probably because they don’t have to.

  “Now—we don’t have much time, as you can all see from the jump countdown, so I’d like to officially welcome you all aboard the Dauntless, and quickly explain a few things you might still be wondering about.

  “Your units have already been designated. You can check them via your ARCs. Although you might be nervous about performing your duties, your ARC displays will tell you anything you don’t already know, and you’ll find that almost everything comes to you automatically anyway. You’re all starting out as low-ranking officers. All enlisted personnel are drones. You will be their superiors.

  “The drone decks, which make up the majority of Avilonian ships, are off limits unless we need to help make repairs or fight off assaulting enemies. Those decks have no life support, and they act as extra armor on our ships. The Dauntless has 52 decks. That’s 46 drone decks, 23 above your heads, and 23 below the lowest crew deck, Green Deck, or Med Bay.

  “Now that I’m explaining this, you should realize that you already know what I’m talking about, so I’ll stop there. If you ask the right questions, you’ll find the right answers are already waiting for you, implanted in your brains. That said, do any of you have any questions that you can’t answer for yourselves?”

  Atton nodded. “Just one. How come you’re a Strategian and we’ve all been busted back to O-2?”

  “I was about to ask the same thing,” Loba Caldin added.

  “I died many years ago. The Admiral Heston you all knew was a clone. Now that there are no more living clones of me elsewhere, Omnius has allowed me to choose whether or not to combine my memories with those of my subsequent copies. I decided in favor of that option.”

  A flash of insight rippled through Atton’s brain. That was why Hoff was acting colder than usual. He was essentially two people, fused together. His memories of Destra, Atta, and him would be more impersonal, almost as if they belonged to another person—which they had.

  “So . . . you’re a Strategian because you’ve been here in Avilon for years already.”

  “That is correct. I started out with the Peacekeepers as a Pilot, just like you, Atton.”

  Atton took that in with a smile. “For some reason I can’t imagine you flying a starfighter.”

  The Admiral—Strategian, Atton corrected himself—returned that smile and then his gaze moved on, his eyes roving around the table to address all of them. “Any other questions?”

  People shook their heads.

  “Good.” Strategian Heston rose from the table. “Consult your ARCs for your current orders, and follow the green directional indicators at the top of your displays. There’s thirty-five minutes left on the clock, so I suggest you all hurry. Dismissed.”

  Everyone rose from the table and hurried for the exit. The doors swished open, and people jogged back to the transporter tubes. Atton noticed Razor jog up beside him.

  “Couldn’t convince her, huh?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Ceyla. She stayed in the Null Zone, didn’t she?”

  Atton’s chest began to ache again, but he pushed the feeling down. “Yeah.”

  “Don’t worry. I hear a lot of Nulls recant before long.”

  Atton frowned at the religious connotation of that. Recant. Recant what? Their choice? Their beliefs? “I’d rather not talk about it,” he said, hoping to forestall further conversation.

  “Sure, sure. No problem.”

  Silence came. Atton listened to the sound of their footsteps pounding down the deck as they all jogged together. In the distance the bank of transporter tubes appeared. The grou
p slowed to a stop and then shuffled forward, entering the transporter tubes three at a time, all of them heading down to their various destinations, since the Command Deck or White Deck was the topmost of the six.

  Atton looked around, noting the trim colors of their uniforms had changed. His, Caldin’s, and Razor’s were all now sky blue—the color for the flight deck and storage level. The rest of their group were armored Assault Troopers. They didn’t have trim lines, but an ARC overlay limned their armor with a colored outline.

  As they shuffled forward, Razor broke the silence once more. “Hey, do you think Gina’s still mad at you?”

  “What?” Atton turned to the other pilot with a frown.

  “You know, for abandoning her and saving Ceyla instead . . .”

  “What does it matter?”

  Razor’s eyebrows floated up. “You mean you haven’t checked our unit roster yet?”

  Atton shook his head. As he thought about it, the roster appeared in a small window at the top of his ARC display. He focused on that window and it grew large enough to read. Two names on it were familiar. Pilot Gina Giord and Pilot Horace Perkins. They were in his flight group, but thankfully neither one of them was his wingmate.

  “Great,” Atton said.

  “Yep. Just like old times. Except this time the Captain’s in the thick of it with us. Just don’t ditch her like you did Gina.”

  Now that Razor mentioned it, Atton saw that Loba Caldin, his former captain, was now his wingmate. The squadron leader was someone Atton didn’t recognize—Chevalier Davellin.

  “See you on the Flight Deck,” Razor said. There came a whoosh of air and Atton looked up just in time to see Razor speeding down one of the tubes.

  Atton was next in line. He hesitated just a second before jumping in. The force field grabbed him, accelerating him downward even faster than the ship’s standard gravity. The ship’s inertial management system took care of any sensation of falling, but not the feeling of being trapped in a narrow space. Feeling claustrophobic, Atton crossed his arms over his chest and closed his eyes.

  Bright rings of light from other decks flashed through his eyelids like strobe lights. In between flashes, he saw Gina’s face come swirling out of the darkness. Her amber eyes were bloodshot, her face skeletal. “You killed me,” she whispered in a thready voice.

  Atton’s eyes sprang open just in time to see himself floating out onto a deck with sky blue trim lights. Caldin and Razor were already running down the corridor up ahead. Atton hesitated a moment before running after them.

  It was time to face the skeletons in his closet.

  Chapter 25

  Ethan turned to glare at the medic attending him and his wife. “I thought Omnius was going to get out of my head if we chose to become Nulls.”

  The man blinked and began shaking his head. “What do you mean?”

  “My wife and I just had the same dream. I’m assuming that was Omnius’s doing. . . .”

  “Don’t worry; you won’t have any more of those. No doubt Omnius wanted to warn you both one last time.”

  Ethan was about to give a scathing reply when he felt Alara grab his arm. He turned to see her sitting up slowly on her hover gurney. She clutched her pregnant belly as she did so, and Ethan felt a stab of alarm go shooting through him.

  “Are you okay?” He remembered the medics talking about administering sedatives, and making a mistake with his—giving him too much. He turned to glare at them again.

  “She and the baby are both fine.”

  “No thanks to you.” Ethan turned and helped his wife down from the hover gurney. As he did so, the door swished open and an armored Peacekeeper breezed into the room. In his hands he carried a neat stack of clothing.

  The Peacekeeper walked up to them and handed each of them part of the stack. “These are your clothes.”

  Unlike the shimmering white robes they’d worn until now, these clothes were drab and made from more conventional materials. Ethan eyed the Peacekeeper for a moment, waiting for further instructions. When none came, he said, “You expect us to strip down in front of you?”

  “Modesty. Of course. Forgive me, I’m used to dealing with Etherians. There’s a restroom down the hall,” he pointed over his shoulder to the door. “You can change there. As soon as you’re done, you’ll go to choose your new living quarters.”

  Alara nodded and took Ethan by the hand. He let her guide him out and down the hallway to the restroom the Peacekeeper had indicated. Once inside, Ethan locked the door behind them and leaned against it for good measure.

  “I’m so glad to see you, Kiddie!” he breathed. “Omnius almost had me convinced that you were going to choose Etheria.”

  “I made a promise, remember?” she said as she stripped out of her patient’s gown and got dressed in her new clothes.

  “Yeah, I remember. No regrets?” Ethan asked.

  She shot him a worried look. “We owe a lot of money, Ethan . . .”

  “He told you about that.”

  “Yes . . . what are we going to do? We have to choose a place to live; we’re not going to be able to afford much.”

  “We’ll figure it out.”

  “What if it’s dangerous? You saw the Null Zone. Below level ten it’s a war zone, and the criminals are in charge.”

  Ethan snorted and shook his head. “Sounds like Dark Space to me.”

  “I’m serious, Ethan.”

  He took a step toward her and lifted her chin with one hand. “Hey, we’ll be okay, Kiddie. We’ve been through worse together.”

  “Not with a baby we haven’t.”

  “Trust me.” He dropped a quick kiss on Alara’s lips and enfolded her in a hug. “We’re going to be just fine. So long as we stick together, Kiddie. You, me, and Trinity.”

  She pulled out of his embrace, forcing him to hold her at an arm’s length. “What if we don’t stick together? Omnius kept trying to warn me that I’m going to leave you and go to Etheria. I didn’t believe it, but after that dream . . . I’m starting to wonder.”

  Ethan shook his head. “Don’t let him mess with your head. He can’t predict the future. Not for Nulls. The Peacekeepers said so, remember? Omnius is just trying to manipulate us.”

  “But why? What does he have to gain if we go to Etheria?”

  “Maybe he’s bored and his only fun in life is messing with us. I don’t know, but it’s not our problem anymore.” Ethan pulled her close for another hug and whispered beside her ear, “Everything is going to be fine, okay? I promise.”

  Later that day, after they’d been forced by a tight budget to choose their living quarters on level nine of Sutterfold East—affectionately known as East Grunge—Ethan became less certain that everything was going to be fine.

  They had to be escorted to the surface by an armed guard of Peacekeepers. Ethan stood shivering on the surface of Avilon, his eyes darting furtively, trying to pierce the thick, garbage-smelling mist.

  “This is the place,” the Peacekeepers’ squad leader said, gesturing to a rust-colored door in front of them. Above the door a bar of neon green text read Fort Carlson.

  “The doorman already knows to expect you, and the security system will recognize you both, so you can go on in. Take the lift up to level nine. Apartment 9G.”

  Ethan eyed the rusty door dubiously. The roving black eye of a security camera was mounted high above the door. He imagined a doorman sitting somewhere inside the building, watching the security feed.

  “One last thing.” Ethan turned, and the Peacekeeper handed him a gun belt with a sidearm already holstered. “You’ll need this. It’s not lethal, but it’ll be enough to fend off a few Psychos and give you time to get away.”

  Taking the gun belt and strapping it around his waist, Ethan nodded his thanks to the Peacekeeper and started toward the door. Alara held tightly to his arm as they went. The rust-colored door groaned as it slid open and lights flickered on for them in a small vestibule. A second security door lay beyond t
hat, with a glowing control panel. Ethan studied the control panel and realized that he was supposed to place his palm on it. He did so and saw a bright bar of light pass through the scanner. Then a fan of blue light flickered out from a small black iris above the door, scanning them both from head to toe.

  “Why are there two doors?” Alara asked.

  The front door groaned shut behind them, and then the second door slid open with a more fluid swish.

  “I’m not sure,” he lied, and his hand dropped to the butt of the sidearm strapped to his hip.

  He knew exactly why there were two doors. The entrance was designed like an airlock. The outer door would have to close before the inner one would open, making it almost impossible to sneak inside without properly clearing the security checks.

  Ethan was beginning to understand why they called this building a fort. He guided Alara through a small, dingy lobby to a pair of lift tubes.

  “Looks homey,” he said as he waited for the lift. The walls inside the lobby were cracked and peeling with old wallpaper. The floors were dusty. Glow lamps flickered. Something skittered noisily across the floor.

  Alara said nothing.

  After a short ride up the lift, they stepped out onto level nine. The hallway was dim and crowded with doors. They came to 9G, and faced another palm scanner like the one for the front door of the building. Ethan placed his palm there and again it scanned him. A split second later, the door slid open.

  Lights flickered on for them, revealing their new home, and Ethan’s spirits took an abrupt nosedive. Their apartment was cramped. Very cramped. It was one room—a bed, a closet, a door that led to a bathroom, an open kitchen with a few basic appliances, a window with bars over it above the bed, and a ceiling that radiated a bright, sky blue light that Ethan assumed was meant to simulate daylight.

  Ethan tried to look on the bright side. The space was clean. The walls were painted and not peeling like the outer walls of the building had been. . . .

  Nevertheless, he stood frozen in the doorway looking and feeling defeated.