Dark Space: Origin (9 page)

Hoff felt his impatience rising. “If tachyon radiation is useless for detecting cloaked Gors, then what did you bring me down here for, Commander?”

“Well, it’s not entirely useless. If an uncloaked Gor contacts a cloaked one, we can detect that, and based on the vector, we might be able to find the cloaked one, too.”

Suddenly Hoff understood the significance of the discovery and his eyes lit up. “So when and if one of our Gors calls home, we can tell that he didn’t contact one of his crèche mates on Ritan, because the vector will point off planet, into the middle of empty space.”

“Exactly. Unless Gors can fly, there’s no way that telepathic communications with a space-bound vector should correspond to inter-Gor communications in this system.”

“Unless he’s contacting one of the Gors in orbit aboard Dominic’s ships.”

“But we’ll see the vector cross through them, and we can dismiss it.”

Hoff nodded. “So we have an early warning system.”

“Assuming the Gor who calls for help isn’t cloaked when he does so, yes.”

“But we have no way of controlling that.”

“We just have to hope that we’re lucky, and that the Gors don’t understand the limitations of our sensors.”

Hoff sighed. “That’s better than nothing, I suppose. What do I need to do to my ships so that they can detect these telepathic bursts?”

“Your fleet is already equipped with tachyon scanners to detect and track ships through SLS. All you need to do is calibrate them to detect lower levels of T radiation.”

“Good. I’ll have you oversee that.”

“Yes, sir. Are we going to tell the overlord?”

Hoff frowned, and his thoughts turned to Overlord Dominic, now orbiting on the far side of Ritan in his five-kilometer-long flagship, the
Valiant.
Dominic’s arrival had been unexpected to say the least. “They are the ones who stand to benefit the most from this discovery, aren’t they? But no . . . for now, we’d better keep this quiet, especially from the ISSF. If someone leaks this and the Gors realize we can detect their telepathy, they’ll clam right up. We need to catch them first. Once we have proof that they’re not on our side, then we’ll go to Dominic and warn him.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’ve made great progress, Donali, but keep working on it. If the Gors can communicate with each other while cloaked and telelocate one another like that, then we should be able to do whatever it is they’re doing.”

The commander hesitated. “We may need to vivisect one of them to discover that.”

Hoff shrugged. “We’ll do what we have to do. Let me know if that’s what you need.”

“Yes, sir . . . I’ll be sure to exhaust all the other available options first.” Donali glanced around nervously, as if a cloaked Gor might be in the room, listening to them, but the displacement sensors at the doors would have detected something coming in which couldn’t be found on the room’s holocorders. With the right preparation, cloaked Gors were easy enough to detect in confined spaces. It was wide open vacuum that Hoff was concerned about.

“Don’t go to too many extremes, Commander. There’s only so much Dominic can do to protect his pets. If we need to kill a few to unravel their secrets, I’ll find a way to do it without him or any of the other Gors finding out.”

Donali nodded and then Hoff’s comm piece trilled with an incoming call from his pilot. “Excuse me,” he said, and walked away from the captain’s table to get some privacy. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing to worry about, sir, but I’ve just received a commcast from Fortress Station. The
Interloper
is back in-system. They’re on approach.”

Hoff’s eyes widened.
Finally.
“I’ll be there in a minute. Start warming your engines, Sergeant.”

“I never let them cool, sir.”

“Good. I’ll see you soon. Hoff out.” Turning back to his XO, he called out, “Commander Donali, you’re coming with me. I’ve been called back to orbit, and I need you to start calibrating sensors up there. Bring whoever you need from this team to help you, and don’t tell anyone what you’re doing. I want to limit the number of people who know about this technology.”

“Yes, sir.” Donali turned and snapped his fingers at a pair of his men. All of a minute later the four of them were hurrying back through the winding tunnels of the academy on their way to Hoff’s waiting corvette. As before, they passed countless Gors—hulking monsters with sunken, skull-like faces, bald blue-gray skin, and thick, rippling muscles. When armored, each of them looked as intimidating as a navy sentinel in a zephyr light assault mech. Unarmored, they were even more frightening.
Soon . . .
Hoff thought, eyeing a group of aliens as they passed one another other in a narrow stretch of corridor.
Soon I’ll be dancing on your graves.

Chapter 6

A
lara and those who’d travelled with her aboard the
Rescue
had been confined to their ship after Delayn’s outburst on the bridge. Captain Adram said they were lucky he wasn’t making them spend the trip in the brig. As for the survivors from the
Defiant
, there wasn’t much space for them aboard the 100-meter-long
Interloper,
so they were forced to bunk on cots in the hangar where the
Rescue
had landed
.
They’d left the
Defiant
behind, but that was just as well, since it was now teeming with emancipated Gors. Adram assured them that a salvage team would be sent back for the cruiser and her alien refugees as soon as possible.

Now, nine hours after they’d left the
Defiant
, Alara, Gina Giord, and Commander Caldin stood side by side at the forward viewport of the
Rescue
, gazing down on the men and women below. Dim orange lanterns broke up the perpetual darkness inside the
Interloper’s
hangar
,
and Alara saw
that
s
ome of the officers were huddled together on the glassy black deck, playing card games or talking. Others lay alone on their cots or paced endlessly around the hangar. The crew had spent the whole day cooped up inside that hangar, and it was barely large enough to fit the
Rescue,
let alone 55 men and women and their personal effects. Captain Adram seemed equally suspicious of the
Defiant’s
crew as he was of the Gors. They hadn’t been allowed out of the auxiliary hangar bay since they’d arrived. Perhaps it had something to do with the high profile prisoners they’d brought aboard. Adram had whisked them away to whatever passed for the alien cruiser’s brig and they hadn’t seen or heard from him or the prisoners since. Alara hoped that Ethan was all right. With that thought came an opposing flash of bitter anger. Ethan was married.
Let his wife worry about him—wherever she is.

Delayn interrupted her thoughts. “Kavaar . . . Commander, you need to see this.”

“What is it?” Caldin asked, turning from the viewport to walk down to the gravidar station where Delayn was seated in Tova’s oversized chair. As for the black-armored alien, she stood all alone in one corner of the bridge, leaning against the wall and watching them from the shadows. The glowing red eyes of her helmet seemed to look everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

Alara shuddered and tried to ignore the alien as she watched Commander Caldin lean over Delayn’s shoulder. “There—” Delayn pointed to something on the gravidar that Alara couldn’t see.

Caldin leaned closer to the display and the star map cast her features in a blue glow. Alara watched the worry lines on Caldin’s brow grow suddenly more pronounced. “What is
that?
” she asked.

“It looks like the
Valiant,
ma’am.”

“What are
they
doing here?” Caldin asked.

Alara couldn’t stand the suspense. She hurried down to the gravidar station, and Gina followed her.

“You think the admiral knows that Brondi stole the
Valiant
from us?” Delayn asked.

Caldin straightened from leaning over the console and shook her head. “I’m not sure, but if not, it’s time he found out.” She touched the comm piece in her ear and said, “Call Captain Adram.”

A moment later the captain answered, and Caldin hurried to explain the situation. The captain already knew most of their story from the explanation Gina Giord had given when the
Rescue
had been found, but Caldin now re-emphasized the part about the
Valiant
being
stolen
by Alec Brondi.

Alara studied the gravidar intently, eyeing the cigar-shaped green icon of the gladiator-class carrier.

“Frek,” Gina whispered. “Brondi beat us here. . . .”

Delayn looked up and nodded mutely; then Caldin exclaimed, “You what?! Ten to one that’s not a
vaccine
, Captain!” All three of them turned to listen in on Caldin’s comm call. Alara watched the commander begin shaking her head. “So you
knew
they were here?”

Alara frowned, watching as Caldin’s brow grew ever more-lined, and her eyes narrowed by degrees.

“I see,” was all Caldin said. “Well, thank you for being so honest. Goodbye, sir.” Caldin’s jaw muscles clenched as she closed the comm.

“What is it?” Alara asked. “What did he say?”

“He said that the
Valiant
arrived a few days ago. They claimed to have fled Dark Space after an outlaw fleet attacked them with a bioweapon and tried to steal their ship.”

“Motherfrekker . . .” Gina said.

“Yes, he is,” Caldin replied.

Delayn’s jaw dropped. “Brondi’s using our own story against us! How can he get away with that? We have the overlord, not him.”

Caldin snorted. “No, we don’t. Our overlord is an imposter, and apparently when the
Valiant
made contact, the one who contacted them was, to all appearances anyway, Overlord Dominic.”

“Where in the nethers did they find another holoskin of the overlord?” Delayn asked.

Caldin shrugged. “Maybe the same place as the first. Brondi had to have infiltrated the
Valiant
somehow.”

Delayn gaped at her. “By replacing the overlord with a holoskinner?”

“Maybe, but
how
he did it doesn’t matter right now. The fact is, our stories contradict each other, and there’s some reasonable doubt about who is who.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Alara said. “It’s obvious we’re with the fleet!”

“Is it?” Caldin turned to her. “If two Imperial vessels came to you, each of them with the same story—claiming to have been attacked by outlaws and then chased out of Dark Space—would you believe the ones who admitted to having an imposter overlord aboard, or the ones who knew nothing about the imposter, the ones who actually appear to have the real overlord. Add to that the fact that the
Valiant
is Overlord Dominic’s flagship, and he’s right where you’d expect to find him, and our position gets even weaker. It’s hard to believe that a ragtag fleet of outlaws could steal the biggest, strongest ship in the fleet.”

Delayn winced. “We grew complacent. That never should have happened.”

“No, it shouldn’t have, but we weren’t expecting our own race to turn on us when the galaxy is seething with aliens bent on human extinction.”

“So where does that leave us?” Delayn asked, gesturing out the forward viewport to the huddled masses below.

“Until our prisoners can be probed, we’re under as much suspicion as they are,” Caldin replied.

Alara shook her head. “I can’t believe it.”

“It gets worse,” Caldin went on. “Apparently Brondi gave them the vaccine for his virus.”

“Why would he do that?” Alara asked.

“He wouldn’t. I’m sure the vaccine is contaminated. He must be trying to spread his virus to the admiral’s ships, too.”

“That will never work,” Delayn said.

“Not now that there’s a reason to doubt his story and double check that vaccine, but before . . .” Caldin shook her head. “It all depends how cautious Admiral Heston is.”

Gina nodded out the viewport. “I’d say he’s too cautious for his own good. He’s imprisoning his friends and letting his enemies run free.”

“Wait a minute—” Delayn put in. “What about the Gors?”

“What about them? The admiral doesn’t trust them, either,” Caldin said.

“No, I mean, Tova and Roan—
our
Gors.” Delayn glanced over at Tova, but she didn’t react to the mention of her name. “I spoke with Tova before we left for Obsidian Station, and I had her tell her mate aboard the
Valiant
how to disable the carrier’s reactor and gravity for us. If they haven’t caught him yet, we could get him to sabotage the ship.”

Caldin’s eyes lit up. “You’re a genius, Delayn—Tova!” she waited for the alien to respond. Tova’s helmet turned almost imperceptibly toward them. “Try to contact your mate. Tell him we’re here, and we need his help.”

“I already contact him,” she said.

“What? Why didn’t you say something?”

“You are busy, so I listen and wait.”

Caldin gritted her teeth. “What’s Roan’s status?”

“He is well.”

“Good. Great. Ask him if he remembers how to sabotage the carrier like we told him to.”

They waited for a tense minute before Tova spoke again. “He is there. He says he already does what you ask.”

Alara frowned, trying to understand the Gors’ strange grammar. They had a habit of speaking in the present tense for everything. “You mean he has already sabotaged the ship?” she asked.

“The ship is damaged.”

“Do they have power?” Caldin asked.

“They do not.”

“Good! Thank you, Tova. Well—” Caldin sighed, turning back to Alara and Delayn. “Hopefully we’ve at least bought some time for the admiral to find out the truth.”

*  *  *

Admiral Heston stood waiting inside the arrival lounge of Fortress Station’s main hangar. The station was operated by the Fifth Fleet Remnant (FFR), not the ISSF, so it was a safe place to receive the
Interloper
with its precious cargo.

The station was their staging point and rendezvous to coordinate joint operations with the ISSF. It lay on the far side of Ritan to hide it from any Sythian passersby on the space lane between Roka and Advistine, but Heston was less concerned that they’d be detected by passing Sythian ships than he was that the Imperium’s telepathic Gor “allies” on the surface of Ritan would start broadcasting their location to any Sythians close enough to hear.

The question of whether or not the Gors could be trusted was an even greater concern for Dark Space. That isolated sector was home to a large human remnant, and the overlord was relying on the Gors to be an early warning system in case the Sythians ever found them and came boiling into Dark Space with a fleet of cloaked ships. That early warning system wouldn’t have been necessary if they’d had the sense to stay hidden. Now they could detect cloaked Sythian warships, but only
if
the Gors deigned to tell them the enemy was coming. That placed far too much power in the Gors’ hands for Heston’s liking. The overlord had left all of Dark Space at their mercy, and there was something badly off about them. They didn’t act like slaves—absent were the obeisant attitude and broken will that he would have expected from a race of slaves. For all anyone really knew, the Gors were their own masters and the Sythians didn’t exist. Where was any proof to the contrary? One would think a slave ship full of Gors would have at least one Sythian taskmaster to keep them in line, but no, the Sythians were supposedly all hiding on gigantic command ships which stayed cloaked behind the lines, directing battles from a distance.