Dark Space: Avilon (13 page)

Chapter 11

T
he
Ventress
shook with a mighty explosion. Damage alarms screamed, and something deep in the belly of the ship groaned as if some primordial monster had just been awoken from long years of slumber.

The lights flickered and turned red. Acrid smoke billowed in the crimson gloom, and a nauseating weightlessness set in.

Silence rang.

Strategian Rovik grabbed the armrests of his command chair and gritted his teeth. “Engineering! What was that?”

“That last volley hit the power core! We’ve lost the back third of the ship, and we’re drifting on emergency backups!”

Galan’s mouth opened to give the order to evacuate, but there wasn’t enough time, and what would be the point? So they could be captured by whatever aliens were attacking them? Then a terrible thought occurred to him—what if the quantum comms array had been damaged? Their Lifelinks would have no way to transfer them home. He watched out the bridge viewports, wide-eyed and frozen with horror as another sparkling wall of purple alien missiles rushed to greet them.

“Comms! Status report!” he roared, working some moisture into his suddenly dry mouth.

“Online, sir . . .”

Relief flooded through him. “Time to go home, people! Cut your cords! I’ll see you on the other side.”

Galan followed his own order, silently telling his Lifelink to transfer him home before the next volley could hit.

He went rushing down a dark tunnel toward a bright light. The light grew large and terrifying, taking on the familiar shape of a dazzling eye.

“Welcome home, Galan,” it said in a resonant voice.

He opened his eyes and they burned and blurred with tears, unaccustomed to the light. He couldn’t see! Strong hands held him up, leaving just enough weight resting on his legs to make him realize they wouldn’t hold him. They were too weak or too clumsy; he couldn’t tell which. He felt bewildered, cold, terrified, gripped with panic. He wanted to cry, but that seemed absurd. He was a grown man! A decorated Strategian.

Be still, my child,
a quiet voice whispered. Galan couldn’t tell if the voice had been audible or just inside his head, but either way, it served to calm him down. His mind felt light and airy, but soon it began seizing familiar bits and pieces of things, and the panic subsided. His legs stiffened beneath him and the hands holding him let go. He wiped away his tears, trying to see where he was. He was standing naked in a big, airy room—a hangar. Standing with him were hundreds of others, naked like him, all of them being held up by drones—
Omnies
with silicon padding on their spindly metal fingers. In front of them stalked a man in a bulky, shimmering white robe with dazzling white armor and a gold-glowing version of the Avilonian crest etched into his breastplate. That man was Grand Overseer Thardris.

He stopped in front of Galan and turned to face them, his glowing silver eyes flicking up and down the ranks of men and women.

“As you’ll soon recall, your ship, the
Ventress
was attacked and destroyed by an unknown enemy. Your mission was to explore the neighboring Getties Cluster. That mission has failed. Your Lifelink data is being analyzed to determine the nature of the enemy that destroyed your ship, and to determine whether or not any of you are to blame for starting an intergalactic war. Strategian—why didn’t you cloak your vessel as soon as you realized you had encountered hostile forces?”

Galan belatedly realized the Grand Overseer was speaking to him. “Flay . . .” His tongue flopped uselessly in his mouth for a moment before he remembered how to use it. “They surprised us, sir. The enemy was cloaked and they had surrounded us before we even realized they were there.”

“Cloaked?” That seemed to surprise the Grand Overseer. “Even so, your sensors can pierce a cloaking shield.”

“They can, Overseer, but we were not expecting to find alien warships at the jump point, let alone cloaked alien warships. We weren’t looking for them.”

“Very well. You will have to explain yourself to Omnius, not me.”

“Yes, sir.”

The scene faded to black, and Ethan’s identity had a moment to rise to the surface and wonder about everything he’d just seen and experienced.

Then he was Galan Rovik again, standing before the Avilonian high council, this time fully dressed in his Peacekeeper’s uniform and armor. He was surrounded by the twelve overseers of Avilon, all of them seated on floating chairs and basking in a blinding white light. That light was cast by the eye of Omnius shining down through a transparent dome ceiling. From that, and the panoramic view of the city, Galan realized that he’d been summoned to the top of Omnius’s temple, the Zenith Tower.

A booming voice rumbled through the council chamber. “I have sent a drone fleet to the Getties to assess the extent of the threat that the
Ventress
discovered. It has since found no less than eight different species of sentient aliens living there. It is hard to find a world they have not yet settled. Even worlds that should never have supported life are crowded with towering alien cities. Their fleet is thousands of times the size of ours.”

Urgent whispers filled the room, and Galan turned in a slow circle to see the Overseers reacting to the news in varying states of shock.

“Are they at war with themselves?”

“No.”

“But Master, then what are those warships for?” Galan heard the Grand Overseer ask.

“Since they greeted us with hostility as soon as we appeared, I can only assume that they’ve known about us for some time. It is likely that they are preparing for war with us.”

More urgent whispering. Another overseer spoke, “How can we hope to face such a vast enemy?”

“Our technology is more advanced than theirs,” Omnius replied. “But their numbers are sufficient to wipe out both us and the mortal Imperium without even deploying one percent of their fleet.”

“Then there is nothing we can do. If their intention is to kill us, they will, and quickly.”

“I will not suffer that to pass,” Omnius replied. “We are already hidden here on Avilon, concealed with a wall of gravity fields and sensor distorting nebulae. My reconnaissance shows that these aliens do not have the technology they would need to reach Avilon through those obstacles. For the time being we are safe. The more imminent threat is to the Imperium of Star Systems. Their technology is comparable to that of these aliens, but their population and their fleet are far smaller.”

“They are not our concern, Master,” Jurom replied.

“Heartlessness is not becoming of a Celestial, let alone one who is an overseer of my kingdom.”

“Forgive me, My Lord. I meant that they are mortals, therefore, they are not your children, and they are not your responsibility.”

“Not yet. I have decided to begin implanting these mortals with cloaked Lifelinks. When war comes to them, and they lose, I will resurrect them on Avilon. The aliens will think they have won, and we will have the time we need to formulate a plan to fight them.”

Another overseer spoke up, “Master! You cannot seriously expect to add the entire population of the galaxy to ours! There are trillions in the Imperium! Where would we put such a multitude? The three cities of Avilon already span the globe.”

“Indeed? Then we will build our cities higher.”

“It would take a thousand years for us to complete such an undertaking, and we don’t know how much time we have.”

Omnius replied, “No, we don’t know how much time we have, and our workforce is not up to the task. We will need the drones to do the work, and I will have to increase their numbers exponentially.”

The Grand Overseer spoke once more, “The law states that there must be 100 people for every drone.”

Galan began to wonder what he was doing in the room. No one had asked him what he thought, and no one had spoken to him yet. Whatever the reason, he had a feeling that this session of council would go down in history.

“Human insecurity and faithlessness was the reason for that law,” Omnius replied. “The drones are not independent.
I
control them. The only reason to limit their number is to limit my power, but I have long since stopped depending on humanity to survive, so you needn’t fear that more drones will make me more independent. If I had wanted to destroy your species, I would have done so already, and the fact that humans outnumber my drones a hundred to one would not be enough to stop me.”

A long silence followed that speech. During that time Galan decided to remind them all that he was there.

“Omnius is right,” he said. All eyes turned to him, and he felt suddenly very small. “We have trusted him with our lives for thousands of years, and our trust has never been misplaced.”

Galan felt a warm glow beaming down on his head, as if the sun were out and shining brightly above the Zenith Tower. That sun was Omnius.

“Listen to this Strategian. He was an overseer once—before he began to doubt and chose to become a Null. Years later he begged my forgiveness and returned to me. Now he is the most decorated Strategian in the fleet and, I am proud to say, a good friend.”

Galan watched the Grand Overseer bow his head. “Master, forgive us, perhaps the real issue is not that we are upset at the idea of you building trillions of drones, but rather that we are feeling put aside. We, your children, have lived with strict population controls for generations, and now all of a sudden, you are suggesting that we turn Avilon upside down in order to accommodate trillions of mortals who would sooner spurn you than accept your rule.”

“Would they? Would they indeed, Thardris? That remains to be seen. The only difference between them and you is that they have yet to meet their god. As for feeling left out, it is because of laws you created that I have not been able to expand the Ascendancy faster. I am proposing now that we rewrite those laws, not just to save your mortal brethren, but to give you all greater freedom. I envision a future where Celestials will be able to own more than one home, and where breeding licenses will cost as little as a loaf of bread.”

“That would be a welcome change, Master.”

“I will build a New Avilon, with ten times as much space as we currently inhabit.”

Even Galan found himself smiling at that thought. “Great is Omnius,” he whispered.

“What of these aliens? What will we do when they discover us?” the Grand Overseer asked.

“They still need to find a way to traverse the gravity fields that separate us from the greater galaxy, and by that time, we will be so numerous and so powerful, that nothing will threaten us!”

At that, all the overseers chanted, “Great is Omnius!”

* * *

Ethan awoke bathed in a cold sweat, with the echoes of the overseers’ chants still reverberating in his ears.

He stared up at the ceiling, breathing heavily, his eyes blurry with sleep and his head pounding with an awful headache, as if someone had been screaming in his ear while he slept.

He sat up and Alara’s hand slid off his chest. She moaned and stirred, but didn’t wake. Ethan wondered what time it was, and the digital clock he’d been watching before he fell asleep appeared on the ARC display at the edge of his field of view.

04:01.

Ethan frowned. Just one minute after Sync had ended. The timing was convenient, like maybe he’d been trying desperately to wake himself up ever since he’d fallen asleep, but Omnius had kept him under, forcing him to experience Strategian Rovik’s final moments, the horrors of resurrection, and his meeting with the Avilonian High Council.

Of course, all of that was exactly what Omnius wanted him to see, so Ethan didn’t trust it one bit. He shivered involuntarily and turned to look over his shoulder at Alara. She was sound asleep, but her normally smooth forehead was vaguely furrowed, as if she were troubled by something. Ethan didn’t have to wonder what. Omnius was showing them all the same things while they slept. He considered waking her, but if he did, he suspected she couldn’t or wouldn’t want to go back to sleep, and just four hours’ sleep wasn’t going to be enough for her or their baby.