Dark Space: Origin (43 page)

Atton dialed up the inertial management system to 100%, so that his father wouldn’t roll around in the back, but the IMS only reached 98% due to recent damage. It would have to do. Atton pushed the transport’s throttle up past the stops into full overdrive. The acceleration pressed him against his seat with just a quarter of a G as the
Last Chance
shot away at her maximum overdrive speed of 120 KAPS.

The enemy fighters were still gaining on them—now ten klicks away. Atton armed the transport’s scatter bomb mines, hoping to take the enemy fighters by surprise, but when they came to within five klicks, Atton heard the warning tones of multiple missile locks, and he grimaced. He’d been hoping they’d expended all of their missiles already. At this range, the enemy would easily dodge his mines. Atton set the corvette’s turrets to auto AMS in order to tag any missiles which got too close. A moment later he heard the
swish
of a door opening behind him and then a familiar voice. “Hoi—think you can give your old man a break? I must have bumped my head a dozen times.”

Atton turned to see his father standing behind him, leaning heavily on the door jamb.

“Dad! Krak it’s good to see you! Think you can man one of the turrets? We’ve got incoming enemy fighters and I’m not sure that the autos will be able to catch all of their missiles.

“I’m on it,” Ethan said.

There was a worrying catch in his voice, and now Atton looked at his father more closely. This time he noticed the sheen of sealant which had been sprayed on Ethan’s flight suit in at least three different places. He’d had to reseal his own suit, which could only mean one thing—he hadn’t been far enough from the blast.

“Krak—you’re hurt. Are you okay?”

“It’s just a little shrapnel. I’ll be all right. You saved my life, Atton. Thanks.”

They were interrupted by the solid tone of a missile lock alarm and Atton grimaced. “You’d better hurry up with that turret.”

“Right.” Ethan set off at a run, limping as he went, and Atton looked away, his attention back on piloting the ship. Three missiles had appeared on the grid, streaking out toward them. A few seconds later Atton heard the
screech
of red dymium lasers firing as his father snapped off a few shots at extreme range. He was about to tell Ethan not to waste energy, but then one of the missiles winked off the grid and he grinned.
So much for maximum effective range,
he thought. He watched the other two missiles chasing them vanish from the grid as Ethan nailed them with a few more long-range shots.

“Nice work!” he said over the intercom.

“Thanks, I . . .” Ethan trailed off suddenly. “What the
frek
?”

Atton gaped at the star map. The minefield began exploding all around them in a raging inferno. The explosions raced around the minefield in a brief, shining sphere of light that momentarily blotted out both the
Tauron
and the
Valiant
.

“What in the nethers was that?” Atton asked as the fire receded. The last few mines went on exploding, but the majority of them had already been cleared. Either Brondi had been stupid enough to put his mines too close together, and someone had accidentally set off a chain reaction which had wiped out the entire field, or else Brondi had triggered the minefield remotely.

“Maybe Brondi’s going to make a run for it?” Ethan asked

“Why would he run away from a fight that he’s about to win?” The
Interloper
stood poised to turn the tide for the admiral’s forces, but Brondi didn’t know that. From his point of view, this should have looked liked a complete rout.

“I don’t like the look of this,” Ethan said.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Atton insisted, keeping half an eye on the approaching enemy fighters. They were almost within laser range.

Space shimmered all around them, and in the blink of an eye Atton understood. His eyes were drawn away from the handful of red enemy contacts chasing them to the
thousands o
f red icons which suddenly appeared on the grid. A hollow sphere of red enemy contacts appeared around the
Tauron
and the
Valiant,
taking the place of the minefield which had been there a moment ago.
A cold shiver ran down Atton’s spine, and he felt a crushing weight of despair. Suddenly recapturing the
Valiant
and bringing Brondi to justice seemed like a pointless squabble between two children.

“Atton . . .”

“I see it,” he said.

Both Admiral Hoff and Brondi were now surrounded by a vastly superior force—a Sythian Armada the likes of which hadn’t been seen since the exodus. Sythian shell fighters, cruisers, and destroyers all whirled around like a deadly hurricane with the
Tauron
and the
Valiant
trapped in the eye. As Atton watched, the encircling walls of the enemy ships began to close in, but like two children who were determined to keep fighting even after their parents arrived to break it up, Hoff and Brondi were
still
shooting at each other.

Even standing together they’d be lucky to escape, but like this—fighting each other right up to the end—humanity was doomed. Atton felt a lump rise in his throat and he silently cursed Hoff for bringing them to this. It was all
his
fault.
He’d
led them here, and now the day everyone was afraid of had finally come.

The Sythians had found them.

Chapter 29

H
off saw the overwhelming number of Sythian contacts suddenly appear on the grid, but he didn’t freeze with indecision; he snapped into action. “Gravidar! Give me a tally!”

A moment later, a report flashed up from the captain’s table and Hoff saw just how badly they were outnumbered. There were 257 Sythian capital-class vessels. The number of shell fighters deployed was already over 1,000, and rising by the second.

Even if all the human forces stood together, their fighters would be outnumbered more than six to one, while their capital ships would face even longer odds. Their only hope was to get clear of the encircling enemy ships and jump to SLS. They would have to leave Dark Space to its fate.

“Comms! Hail the
Valiant
on an open channel and put us on speaker. I want all of Brondi’s men to hear this.”

“Yes, sir . . .” Hoff waited for a few tense moments while the
Tauron
continued to shudder and shake with the distant booms of exploding
human
missiles and the
thud-thud-thud
of their answering laser cannons.

“They’re responding!”

“Put it on screen.”

The
Valiant’s
bridge appeared, projected in a hovering holo over the main viewport. Brondi’s round face dominated the hologram, his skin waxy and pale, his eyes wide with shock. He was not smiling.

“Brondi,” Hoff said, nodding to the diminutive man.

“Admiral,” Brondi replied. “Surrender your ship to us. You’re losing, and we can’t keep fighting with skull faces all around us.”

Hoff smiled thinly. “You can’t hope to command my men better than I can. You surrender
your
ship, and I’ll get us out of this mess.”

Brondi’s cheeks bulged and a booming laugh escaped his lips. “Forget it. I’d sooner die.”

“Fine. Neither of us is willing to surrender, so let’s at least agree not to shoot each other. We have a greater concern right now. Will you agree to a cease fire?”

Brondi hesitated, but after a moment’s contemplation, he nodded. “Yes.”

“Good. We’re going to have to work together to escape.”

“You’re abandoning Dark Space,” Brondi said.

“We don’t have a choice. We’ll be lucky to get out alive ourselves, let alone rescue anybody else.”

Now Brondi did smile, and his mouth gaped in a broad grin. “You and I are more alike than I thought. I’ll inform my men of the cease fire.”

“Likewise.”

“See you in the netherworld, Admiral,” Brondi said, and his laughter echoed across the bridge before he killed the connection. Brondi’s face faded and back was the
Valiant
, her impressive bulk dominating their view out the forward viewports.

“Gravidar! Update our friend foe designations. Comms, let everyone know about the cease fire.”

“Yes, sir,” both officers replied in unison.

Hoff held his breath, reluctant to order the helmsman to set a new course until they came into range of the
Valiant’s
main beam. If Brondi had been lying about the cease fire, then they were about to find out. Their range to the
Valiant
dropped below 50 klicks, bringing them into range of the carrier’s corona XL, but no hull-splitting beam shot out to slice off their bow. Hoff let his breath out in a sigh. All the flashing lasers and blooming explosions ceased, and there came a moment of utter tranquility with no one shooting at each other. Brondi’s forces turned yellow on the grid, and now former enemies cruised past each other without so much as a single shot fired.

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 medbay. 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.”

*  *  *