Dark Space: Origin (39 page)

*  *  *

Caldin stood on the bridge, her eyes locked on the reversion timer as it reached sixty seconds. It was the middle of the night cycle, but everyone was ready at their stations now. Caldin had ordered her crew to rotate out for a few hours’ sleep, but she doubted anyone had actually managed to sleep in the alien environment. Caldin shuddered to think about what passed for sleeping quarters aboard the Gor cruiser. She hadn’t even gone to look. Even if she’d been back aboard the
Defiant
, sleep would have kept its distance from her tonight. There was too much on her mind. Instead she’d stayed up, watching superluminal space whirl brightly around the simulated-transparent bridge dome, her thoughts whirling with it. Every now and then, her gaze would flick up to see the mighty keel and prow of the
Tauron
, stretching out almost endlessly above them with bristling cannons and glowing viewports. It was an intimidating view, and it made her wonder about what was coming. She imagined that mighty battleship floating through her mind’s eye—blackened and broken, shot through with holes, a forgotten derelict from an old and senseless power struggle.

Was she making the right choice? What if the admiral really had destroyed Obsidian Station for the common good? She had no way of knowing whether or not capturing Kaon had been worth the sacrifice. Would she have made the same choice in his position? Would Admiral Heston agree to a peaceful resolution and allow a new leader to be appointed in Dark Space, or would he insist on taking command of the sector himself?

Would it even come to a fight?

Caldin’s gaze turned to Adram, standing beside her at the captain’s table, hands clasped behind his back, head up and eyes staring out at space. He’d stayed up, too, keeping her company while the others had come and gone, taking their shifts to watch over the bridge. She wondered about him, about his motives. Was he looking out for the Imperium’s interests and those of humanity, or for his own? Could she trust the log recording she’d seen, or was it a fake?

The timer reached zero, and whirling streaks of light turned to static stars and pale wisps of nebular clouds. Here the Stormcloud Nebula was thin and did nothing to blot out the stars. After so long spent staring at the dizzying swirl of SLS, Caldin had trouble focusing on the static backdrop.

“Jump successful,” Delayn said. “All systems green.”

Caldin nodded. Comms reported another message from the
Tauron
, but it was little more than a repetition of what the admiral had said before. They were now a quarter of a light year from Brondi’s position—assuming the crime lord hadn’t moved since they’d received a signal from the imposter overlord’s tracking device. Now they were to jump the rest of the way and perform a recon of the area. With the
Interloper
’s cloaking device, recon wouldn’t be a difficult mission for them.

“Undock us,” Caldin ordered.

The temporary docking rings which held them to the
Tauron
let go, and they drifted away at a modest 45 KAPS—roughly equivalent to meters per second, per second. The nav officer brought them onto their pre-assigned jump trajectory and accelerated up to 999 m/s, the safe-entry speed limit for SLS. Cloaking was engaged, shields were deactivated, and then their real space drives were shut down. The nav officer began an audible countdown to SLS. When it reached zero, space flashed brightly and began to swirl once more.

A timer appeared on the captain’s table, giving their ETA. It counted down from an hour and a half. Caldin spent that time the same way that she’d spent the last six hours—lost in thought, observing an acute, ear-ringing silence. Her men were also unusually quiet, focused on the mission, or perhaps apprehensive about what they would find. Then space was back, and Caldin’s gaze dropped to the captain’s table to see what Brondi had prepared for them.

She gaped and blinked at the grid, suddenly no longer worried about what Hoff’s reaction would be to their coup d’état, and instead worried whether or not they’d live long enough to assert their independence.

“Gravidar! Report! How many ships are we looking at? What class are they and what are their relative strengths—I want a tally!”

“Yes, ma’am,” the gravidar officer replied.

A moment later, the report she’d requested flashed up above the captain’s table. As she scanned the shimmering, holographic list of ships in the area, her worst fears were quickly realized. “The admiral will have to abort this mission,” she said.

“If you think he’s going to run, you don’t know him,” Adram replied.

“He doesn’t have a choice.” Caldin pointed to the tally of 46 SLS interrupter buoys which their scanners had detected. When her finger graced that line of the report, the buoys were highlighted on the grid, and a geodesic sphere made up of scattered red points appeared around the
Valiant.
The radius of the sphere meant those buoys would pull them out of SLS more than 250 klicks from the carrier, far out of maximum beam range. As if that weren’t bad enough, Brondi had laid minefields in front of the interrupter buoys, and set everything up just before the exit gate along the jump lane leading from the entrance of Dark Space. If the admiral had been naïve enough to use the jump lane, they would have been yanked out of SLS straight into the middle of those mines. And just in case they survived that, Brondi had more than 500 fighters to swarm all over them and finish the job.

“At least we know the layout of Brondi’s defenses now, so we can avoid the mines and find a way through,” Adram said.

Caldin shook her head. “There
is
no way through. We have to drop out of SLS far out of range and slow down to clear the mines or find a safe path through. Even if we get through unscathed, the admiral’s hit and fade won’t work. He’ll be trapped by the minefields on the other side of the
Valiant
and swarmed to death by enemy fighters.”

“I guess we’d better leave Dark Space to Brondi, and deal with Hoff ourselves at some later date.”

“We can’t do that either.”

Adram gave her a small smile. “Leave it to the admiral, Captain. He might not be morally equipped to lead, but his grasp of strategy leaves nothing to be desired. I’ve never seen him come out on the losing side of a battle yet, but after this one, he’ll be in no shape to deal with us.”

Caldin held Adram’s gaze for a long moment. His dark eyes shone with an unsettling light, and that small, predatory smile of his was enough to make her shiver. Caldin wasn’t sure what Adram’s real agenda was, but she knew one thing for certain—

He was not to be trusted.

*  *  *

Atton awoke to the sound of raised voices and a little girl crying. He blinked the sleep out of his eyes and stared up at the shifting pattern of light on the ceiling. “I don’t want to go!” she cried.

“You don’t have a choice, Atta. It’s too dangerous for you to stay,” a familiar male voice said.

“No! I don’t want to go!”

“Shh, Atta, listen to your father.”

Atton sat up, wondering what was going on. A moment later his door swished open.

“Lights!”

Abruptly the room was brightly lit. Atton winced against the glare.

“Get dressed,” Hoff ordered as he strode in.

“What’s going on?”

“We’re about to jump into battle. Brondi is much better prepared than I had hoped, and it’s too dangerous for any of you to stay. I’m sending you three to the enclave.”

Atton climbed out of bed and went to pick his clothes off the deck where he’d left them in a messy pile the night before. “If you’re that worried about what we’re up against, then you need my help,” he said as he pulled on his pants.

“
Your
help?” Hoff echoed.

“I’m a good pilot, and a decent commander. Put me in a cockpit. Let me fly a shuttle at the very least.”

Hoff frowned. “I’m short of ships—not pilots.”

“You must have an extra ship of some kind that could use a pilot.”

“It’s too dangerous, Atton,” Destra insisted.

He looked up from buttoning his shirt to see his mother standing in the open doorway. Atta was hugging her mother’s legs and peeking out warily between them.

“I’m not going to run and hide when I could make a difference in this fight,” Atton said.

Destra set her jaw and crossed her arms as she looked to Hoff for support. “I’m not leaving him again. Either he goes with us, or we’re staying, too.”

Hoff turned back to Atton and shook his head. “Under those conditions I’m afraid you don’t have a choice, and your mother’s right. It is too dangerous.”

“Chip me then.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Make me like you, and then even death can’t touch me, right?”

Hoff held his gaze for a quiet moment.

“You’re going to have to chip all of us, Hoff, and then send the backups to the enclave,” Destra said, “because I’m not leaving without him.”

Hoff turned back to her. “No one can be sure that we don’t still die when we transfer, so I’m not taking the risk if I don’t have to. You’re all going, and that’s final.”

Atton took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. “Fine. Who’s going to pilot the ship that’s taking us to the enclave? Don’t tell me you’re sparing someone you’re about to need against Brondi.”

Hoff smiled. “Not exactly, no. I’m going to take you.”

Destra’s brow furrowed. “You’re abandoning your command?”

Atton gave a slow smile. “Couldn’t resist it, could you? The chance to be in two places at once.”

“I don’t have a choice.”

“What’s he talking about, Hoff?” Destra asked, sounding suddenly frightened.

Atton turned to his mother just in time to see a familiar man appear beside her in the open doorway. “We need to go, Des,” he said.

Destra recoiled from the voice, and Atta ran away screaming. “Hoff!” Destra’s gaze skipped between the two identical men, and her face stretched into a rictus of horror. “What is this?”