Dark Space: Origin (51 page)

*  *  *

Ten minutes earlier . . .

The rail car doors swished open and Ethan launched himself out and through. He raced down the corridor, and all of a few minutes later, he stood panting in the open door of Alara’s quarters, his gaze flicking between the guard lying just inside the entrance at his feet and the other one lying on the bed. Both of them were either dead or stunned, and Ethan didn’t care which. All he cared about was the fact that Alara wasn’t there. Somehow, she’d broken out on her own, and there was no way for him to know where she was now.

Ethan slammed the nearest wall with an armored fist. “Frek!”

The noise caused the man on the bed to stir. Ethan took one look at his loosened belt and blew a smoking hole in his chest. He didn’t want to know how that man had come to be lying on Alara’s bed with his belt half off, but he was willing to bet it wasn’t because he’d felt like taking a nap.

Ethan’s gaze found the guard lying at his feet, and he considered sending another soul to the netherworld, but that man wasn’t moving. Just in case, Ethan kicked him with his boot, but still nothing. With that, he turned and ran, heading back the way he’d come. When he reached the rail car tunnel, he hesitated to choose his destination from the ship’s directory. He could head up to the bridge to get revenge on Brondi, or back to the hangar.

The hangar won. Atton was waiting for him, and Brondi would be a one-way trip.

The rail car whistled; lights blurred. Ethan’s heart pounded, and his head swam dizzily as he watched a golden stream of light race by the windows in the opposite side of the rail car. He’d been running on adrenaline since leaving the
Last Chance
to rescue Alara, and now it was fast seeping away, leaving his body a cold and shivery mess. By the time he reached the hangar bay where they’d landed, he was bathed in a cold sweat. His injuries had pushed him to the brink. He’d lost a lot of blood before Atton had attended to his injuries, and now as he ran toward the
Last Chance,
his feet faltered and his eyes grew dim. The corvette became nothing but a blurry shadow against the distant, fuzzy blue shields of the hangar.

The next thing he knew, Ethan lay blinking up at the ceiling of the
Last Chance
with his son hovering over him. He turned his head to see that he was lying on a bed in the corvette’s sleeping quarters
.
“What happened?” he asked.

“You passed out,” Atton said, grinning broadly.

“Why’s that got you grinning like a rictan?” Ethan asked.

“Good news—that’s why.”

“Yea? What’s that?”

“Caldin’s on board with a whole army of sentinels. I just caught her on the comms asking Brondi’s men to stand down—or else.”

Ethan sat up, blinking furiously. “No joke?”

“No joke.”

“How long have I been out?”

“Just a few minutes.”

Suddenly, Ethan began to hope that maybe everything was going to work out fine after all. His shoulders sagged, and he sighed. “Thank the Immortals—or . . . well, I guess we should thank Caldin. Frek—that’s going to take some getting used to. Now what?” Ethan asked, looking around.

“I guess you didn’t find Alara.”

“No, but she must be on board somewhere.”

“Don’t worry. They’ll find her.”

A flurry of footfalls reached their ears, and both of them turned to see a man and a woman go racing by—followed by second man, bearing a rifle and wearing the matte gray armor of a sentinel. “Hoi!” that man said, skidding to a stop in the hall and turning toward them. The three bronze chevrons insignia on his shoulder plate marked him as a sergeant. “Is either one of you the pilot of this transport?” he asked.

Atton stood up and saluted the sentinel. “I am.”

“Good. Come on, we’re blasting out of here.”

Atton shook his head, startled. “What—why?” he asked.

“You haven’t heard? The Imperials are here.”

Atton reached for his sidearm, but he wasn’t fast enough.

The sergeant brought his rifle into line, and said, “Halt! You’re one of
them!
Hoi—Brondi! I’ve got a pair of Imperials over here.”

“A pair of what?”

Ethan felt a stab of shock, and his limbs began to shake with fury.
Brondi is
here,
and he’s trying to escape on
our
ship!
Ethan cast about for his rifle, but it wasn’t anywhere in sight. His eyes flicked to the sidearm holstered at Atton’s hip, but the sergeant covering them caught Ethan’s eye and shook his head.

“Draw it real slow and kick it over to me.”

Atton did as he was told, and the sidearm skittered across the deck.

“Gibbs? Gibbs! What are you muttering about?” Brondi called. They heard footsteps and a moment later the diminutive crime lord appeared standing in the doorway. His mouth gaped open in a grin. “Ethan? Is that you?” Brondi asked. “Well, well, it’s a small galaxy, after all, isn’t it?”

Ethan smiled. “Too small for you. You’re done, Brondi. The
Valiant
is overrun with sentinels.”

“Yea? Hoi, why do you think I’m leavin’?” Brondi turned to the man covering them with a ripper rifle. “I’ve changed my mind, Gibbs. Let’s save these two for later. I want to take my time killing them.”

“What’s going on?” a familiar voice asked.

Ethan’s blood ran cold.
No!

Alara appeared in the doorway behind Brondi, looking confused. Brondi turned to her with his gaping smile and said, “Look who we’ve found, Sweet Thing! Do you know who this is?”

Alara’s big violet eyes hardened in a scowl as they found Ethan. “That annoying nova pilot you kept letting in to see me?”

“Yes, that’s right,” Brondi said, turning back to Ethan with a smug grin. “He’s just some annoying pilot. You don’t mind if we kill him, do you, Alara?”

Alara shook her head. “Not at all.”

Ethan was so shocked that he almost missed seeing Alara steal Brondi’s sidearm. In the next instant, she turned it on the sergeant and shot him in the face. He collapsed to the deck in a pile of jittering limbs, stunned, and Brondi turned with sudden horror to see Alara aiming the gun at
his
face next.

“What are you
doing,
Sweet Thing?!” Brondi sputtered.

“You’ve been calling me
Alara
for the past half an hour,” she said. And with that, she pulled the trigger.

Chapter 36

B
y the time Caldin stormed the bridge with admiral Hoff’s sentinels, everyone had already laid down their guns. What was left of Caldin’s bridge crew from the
Interloper
took charge of the crew stations while dozens of sentinels fanned out, binding Brondi’s men’s hands with lengths of stun cord. Not one of them resisted, and Caldin would grant them leniency as promised. Whether or not the bulk of Brondi’s men would have surrendered if they had been given the chance, Caldin didn’t know, but she suspected it had been so easy to take the
Valiant
precisely
because
they had left.

Now as she turned to look around the bridge, she realized that Brondi wasn’t among the men they’d captured, and that brought a fresh scowl to her face. “Comms, ask if anyone has encountered Alec Brondi.” She walked up to the nearest of his men and grabbed him by an elaborate earring which dangled from one ear. “Where is he?”

“Oww, ouuwww!” the man yelped. “Lemme go!”

“All right. Talk.”

“He left just before you asked us to surrender. I think he knew what was coming.”

“Power up the hangar shields!” Caldin said, whirling around. “And get me teams in all our hangar bays. I want them cleared and secured immediately. Gravidar! If so much as a speck of dust flies in or out of this ship, I want to know about it.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Caldin walked up to the captain’s table and stared down at it, eyeing the drifting halves of the Sythian command ship. She noted that their residual momentum had carried them more than twenty kilometers away from the
Tauron,
while
the battleship’s momentum had been entirely negated by the collision, and it had more or less stayed in the same place.

“Comms, hail what’s left of the admiral’s forces and tell them the good news. Have them start looking for survivors. Weapons—open fire on the remains of the Sythian command ship. Let’s not give them a chance to recover or escape.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

One of Brondi’s men spoke up suddenly, “Hoi! We’ve got people on board that ship!”

Caldin turned and held the man’s gaze for a long moment before she spoke. “Then that makes us even.
I
had people on this one.” With that, she turned to her weapons chief and nodded. “Open fire, Deck Officer Gorvan.”

With that, the deck began booming and rumbling underfoot and Caldin looked out the forward viewports, out over the topside of the mighty
Valiant
to see hundreds of dazzling red beams and lasers go shooting out toward the remains of the Sythian command ship. Streaking waves of missiles and torpedoes followed that first volley as the energy weapons took a break to recharge. Brondi’s remaining fighters and cruisers didn’t seem to realize what was happening, and they didn’t even react. They probably assumed the alien cruiser had been evacuated already. Caldin looked back to the captain’s table to see enormous flaming chunks of the enemy cruiser break free and float away like slow-moving meteors. Then their main beam shot out, aimed for the dead engines of the behemoth. The explosion which followed ruptured the back half of the ship and tore the front into flaming pieces. A cheer went up from her bridge crew, and Caldin smiled, watching as the flames died in cold vacuum. “Now, we can talk. Open a channel to Brondi’s remaining forces. Tell them to stand down or we’ll have the Gors finish what they started.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Caldin eyed the buzzing clouds of enemy fighters and the odd half a dozen remaining capital-class warships. A moment later comms put through a message from a Captain Ocheron, and Caldin received it with a smile. “Hello, Captain,” she said. “The
Valiant
is now back under Imperial command. Would you like to discuss the terms of your surrender?”

Captain Ocheron was big and burly with a thick black mustache and a shiny, bald head. He looked furious. “If you’re planning to send us back to Etaris, the answer is we’d rather die.”

“If you and the remaining ships surrender, Captain, then we can talk about a more amicable arrangement. If not, then we’ll disable your ships and have the Gors board you.” She shrugged. “They can decide your fate; I don’t care if they eat you all alive.”

It was a bluff. Caldin didn’t know if the Gors were even interested in working with humans anymore, or if they were just trying to figure out where to go with their ships now that the Sythians didn’t have a control ship to stop them from running away.

Bluff or not, it worked. “All right, you win,” Ocheron said, “but on one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“If we go back to Etaris, Brondi comes with us.”

“I think we can arrange that. Power down your shields and prepare for boarding.”

Ocheron nodded. “Very well.”

The comm officer cut the transmission, and Caldin turned to her crew. “The surrender is official,” she said.

Another cheer rose up from the men on the bridge. Amidst their cheering, Petty Officer Goldrim at the gravidar suddenly called out, “Ma’am! I’ve got a few dozen escape pods on my scopes. . . . Looks like they’re from the
Tauron.
”

“Well? What are you waiting for? Send out a recovery team!”

“Yes, ma’am. They’re heading for Firea.”

Caldin shivered. They’d be hard pressed to find a more inhospitable planet than that ball of ice. “Comms—hail those pods.”

A second later the comm officer replied, “No response.”

Caldin frowned. “Let me try, Corporal,” she said, striding down from the gangway to the comms station. Once there, she waited for the sentinel corporal who she’d pressed into service as her temporary comms officer to put her on speaker. He gave her a thumbs-up sign and she said, “Unknown escape pods, this is Captain Loba Caldin of the
Interloper.
The
Valiant
is back under Imperial command now, and the battle is over. You have nothing to fear. Please respond.”

A moment later, the comms crackled, and a familiar voice replied, “Caldin? I can’t believe you actually did it! Have Brondi’s forces surrendered?”

Caldin blinked at the comm board, taken aback. “Admiral Heston? Is that you? We thought you’d gone down with your ship!” She heard a little girl crying in the background and she smiled. “It sounds as though your family is with you, too.”

“Yes,” Hoff replied. “We’re all fine—and I would have gone down with my ship, but an old friend changed my mind at the last minute. Think you can send someone out here to pick us up? It’s a bit cramped in here.”

Caldin smiled. “It would be our pleasure, sir. Stand by for rescue.”

*  *  *

When Brondi awoke, he awoke in darkness. A bright light snapped on overhead and he winced away from the glare.

“Hoi!”

He tried to move, but found that his hands and feet were locked securely into cold, unyielding manacles. He sat in an uncomfortable chair with life support systems beeping and buzzing around him. Brondi turned his head, looking first one way and then the other, but he couldn’t see anything through the blinding light which shone in his face.

“What is this? Where am I?”

Abruptly someone familiar stepped into the light, and Brondi’s eyes flew wide. “You again!”

Ethan gave a slow smile. “That’s right. Did you miss me?”

“What do you want?” Brondi spat.

“I want to probe your petty, twisted brain until I find the code to deactivate Alara’s slave chip.”

“Fine, you win. You don’t have to probe me for that. I’ll give it to you! Look for my holopad in the overlord’s quarters and unlock it with the password. In there you’ll find a list of the encryption codes I used for all my slave chips.”

Ethan’s eyes narrowed. “All right, what’s the password?”

Brondi recited a sequence of twenty numbers and letters. Ethan nodded, using holo card reader implant behind his ear to file away the code for later. “Thank you for cooperating, but I still need to probe you to know whether you’re telling the truth.”

“What? But you said—”

“I lied.”

Brondi bucked in the probe chair and screamed. “Help!”

“Don’t bother. No one’s going to help
you
,” Ethan said. He turned to someone that Brondi couldn’t see and nodded. “Go ahead, Admiral, start up the probe. Let’s get this over with.”

Brondi felt a thousand needles stab his brain all at once, and then his mind slipped into a hazy, dream-like state. The dark room and its bright, glaring light disappeared, and now he found himself standing in a small, filthy room, gazing up at a man he hadn’t seen in decades.

His father.

Brondi bit his lip and shook his head, willing the scene to disappear, willing himself to wake up. There was a mad gleam in his father’s eyes. He was drunk again. “I told ya, Al, if I still found you here when I got home, I was gonna kill you, and waddaya know? Yer still here. You must get bein’ so smart from yer mother. Immortals bless her sclutty soul.” The first blow hit him like a hammer and he went flying into the far corner of the room. “Tell me, Al,” his father said, finding him in his corner with another blow. “Why’d ya stay?”

“I . . . got . . . no place to go,” he said, trying to speak despite having the wind knocked out of him.

“Ah, no place to go. Well stayin’ here wasn’t so smart, hoi? But I bet ya think yer a real
big
brainy, don’t ya? A Big Brainy Brondi, first one in a long line of skriffs. Smart don’t run in our family, boy. Yer livin’ proof o’ that.”

Another blow landed, followed by another, and another as his father asked, “Why’d ya do it, son? Why?”

The questions which followed that one didn’t sound like anything his father would have asked, but Brondi answered them anyway, desperate to make it all go away.

He told them everything they wanted to know. When at last he woke up from that nightmare, he woke up screaming. The blinding light was back, stabbing him through his eyes and slicing through his brain. His head pounded so hard he thought it was about to explode. He turned away from the light, blinking tears of rage and shame. They’d seen him at his weakest. They’d seen . . .