Dark Space: The Invisible War (25 page)

“I . . .”

“Would it have stopped them from ejecting from their fighters when they thought they were about to die?”

“Well, no, but—”

“How long do you think we’d have had to spend here recovering those pilots and their fighters before moving on to the next system? Those delays might have cost us the
Defiant
.”

“I thought that a blind combat simulation was the best way to evaluate the trainees in the shortest time possible.”

The overlord waved his hand dismissively. “How about the mental strain you put on already badly over-stressed officers?” Alara saw him turn and point to her. “Did you know that that pilot over there, who you rated as 5B, and considered the winner of your little sortie, is currently a mental patient aboard the
Defiant
? She doesn’t know who she is, let alone remember how to fly!”

“With respect, sir, I think her results say otherwise. She was the only pilot to make five kills, and she was the last one standing.”

“I don’t care! Get her off the roster. And as for you, you’re relieved of command, Adari. Your XO will take charge of this squadron from here on out.”

“Yes, sir.”

Alara saw the overlord turn once more, and now he pointed to Captain Reese who was still seated on the couch that she’d vacated.

“And you! Show my guards to their new assignments and then get to the bridge. We’re leaving the nebula
now
.”

With that, the overlord strode back to where Alara stood gaping at him from the entrance of the pilot’s lounge. “Come with me,” he said, hauling her roughly by the arm. She stumbled along beside him in a daze. “I’m taking you back to your parents’ quarters.”

“What?” Alara dug in her heels and yanked her arm free of his grasp. “No.” The overlord turned to look at her with blazing blue eyes. His chest rose and fell quickly with the force of his fury. She shook her head, suddenly feeling more sure of herself. The last few hours snapped into focus and now she had a whole new perspective—a new purpose besides agonizing over who she was and who she wasn’t. “I’m not going back to them,” she said, crossing her arms.

“Fine, we’ll find you your own quarters, and you can hide there until we reach Obsidian Station.”

The overlord made another grab for her arm, but she resisted again. Her brow furrowed and she shook her head. “I’m staying with the squadron.”

“What? You’re in no condition to fly, Alara!”

“How would you know? That’s what I thought, too, but in the heat of battle, I completely forgot to wonder who I am anymore, and I became
someone
—someone who’s good at what they do.” She shrugged and smiled lewdly at him. “And something tells me you don’t want me doing the other thing I’m good at aboard your ship.”

The overlord’s eyes flashed. “Alara . . . you’re not okay.”

“And as far as anyone knows I might never be okay! I’m not Alara anymore. I’m not even Angel. I’m someone else, some strange mixture of the two.”

“Kiddie . . . please!”

Alara nodded. “That’s as good a name for me as any.” And with that, Alara turned and strode back into the pilot’s lounge. She passed Adan on the way in, and the young captain shot her a wry grin as he passed her in the doorway. “Nice to meet you, Kiddie,” he said, and gave a sloppy salute. “Glad you decided to finally join us.”

She nodded and continued on toward the bar. Maybe she could use a drink after all.

*  *  *

Atton escorted the pair of guards through the ship. As they entered a nearby lift tube, one of them asked. “What’s this about a new assignment?”

“You’re going to be promoted,” Atton replied, smiling at the two low-ranking corpsmen.

“To what?”

The lift quickly fell to the specified deck and then Atton nodded as the doors opened onto one of the lower levels of the ship. “You’ll see. After you.”

The guards walked out the lift first, their footsteps ringing across the deck as they wound their way through the bowels of the ship.

“Where are we going?” one of them asked, looking over his shoulder.

Atton shook his head. “I’ll explain once we get there.”

As soon as there could be no doubt about where they were headed, the guards’ footsteps began to slow. That was when Atton chose to draw his sidearm and point it at the back of the nearest man’s head.

“Drop your weapons,” he said.

“The frek . . .”

“I said drop them!”

Both guards did as they were told, and their rifles clattered to the deck.

“Now, keep walking.”

“What are you doing, Captain?”

“Keeping you two from shooting off your mouths.”

“About what?” One man asked. “Frek, we don’t know anything, brua, just cool it, okay? Let’s talk about this.”

“I’m sorry,” Atton said as they reached the doors at the end of the corridor. “But talking about this is exactly what I’m trying to avoid.”

With that, Atton pulled the trigger, shooting the first man in the back. He fell to the deck with arms and legs jerking spasmodically. The other man turned, holding out his palms in surrender. “Wait! Don’t shoot! I—”

Atton silenced him with another shot and the second guard collapsed. Frowning, Atton put away his pistol and walked up to the fallen guards. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “It was the only way.”

Chapter 16

E
than turned to see his son come aboard the bridge. Atton strode in still wearing his flight suit, but there was no time for him to change. The
Defiant
was already cruising through the Taylon system at a considerable 135 km/s. It had taken the last half an hour at the cruiser’s top acceleration of 75 KAPS to reach that speed, but they’d already begun decelerating in preparation to reach the space gate on the far side of Taylon. They would reach the gate in another thirty five minutes, for a total transit time of just over an hour from the nebula to the gate. Forlax would be faster to cross, since they’d be going from one gate to another as opposed to coming from deep space, but in that smaller area of space they’d be much more likely to encounter enemies than they were to encounter them along the fringes of the galaxy.

Looking around the bridge, Ethan’s eyes fell upon Tova’s muscular frame. She stood down by the viewports as she cast her thoughts out into space to make sure no Sythian ships were nearby. Ethan gave an abrupt shiver. He wasn’t sure if that shiver was from the near freezing temperature of the air on the bridge—they’d set the climate controls and the lights down very low in order to keep Tova happy—or because of the alien’s fearsome appearance. Ethan rubbed his frozen hands together and blew into them to warm up. He turned back to the captain’s table and gazed down at it with Commander Caldin.

Atton reached the side of the table a moment later. “What’s it look like?” he asked, sounding out of breath.

Ethan looked up from the star map with a smile. “So far we’re clear to the gate. Let’s hope our luck holds.”

“Yes, let’s. Are you sure you don’t want me on the flight deck with the others? Since you made me squadron leader now, if we need to scramble, I need to be the first one there.”

Ethan frowned. He hadn’t thought of that when he’d decided to have his son take Lieutenant Adari’s place. “You can head back there in a minute. But first, I want to know if my guards made it to their new assignment.”

Adan nodded. “Yes, they did.”

“Good. Hopefully you didn’t have to use a valuable ship to send them back to Stormcloud Transfer.”

“No, just an old, beaten up shuttle.”

“Good.”

Caldin stood eyeing the two men from across the table. “I didn’t see any ships leaving the
Defiant
.”

Atton smiled at her, holding the woman’s steely blue gaze. “Perhaps you looked away from the grid at just the right moment.”

Caldin frowned back. After a long moment of trading glares with Atton, she turned to Ethan and shook her head. “You sent your guards away? At a time when we have too few hands on this ship as it is?”

Ethan waved away her objections. “I had to. They’re conducting a high-priority mission for me aboard the transfer station.”

“What mission?”

“I’m afraid that for now, that information is need to know.”

Caldin’s eyes darted to Atton and she scowled, no doubt resentful that Atton knew about it and she did not—yet one more reminder that he now outranked her—but she said nothing further and her eyes returned to the grid.

Atton nodded. “Well, it seems you have things under control here. I’m going to get back to the flight deck.”

“Right.” Turning to Commander Caldin, Ethan said, “It looks like you’ll be getting more time as the XO than you thought.”

She nodded almost imperceptibly, not looking up from the grid. Ethan frowned, hoping she’d get over her jealousy soon. He turned to watch as Atton left, still frowning. Now he had to worry about his son
and
Alara. If he’d had any say in the matter, he’d have ordered them both to stay on the bridge where he could keep an eye on them and make sure they were safe, but there was no excuse he could think of to order that. He’d already tried with Atton by making him the XO, and as for Alara, she’d decided she
wanted
to be a nova pilot, and that gave him pause. In a time when Alara had no real sense of purpose or identity, being a pilot was filling that need—and it was hard to argue with her pilot rating. She was a better pilot than he’d given her credit for.

Ethan turned away with a smirk. It felt like just yesterday that he’d suggested that he and Alara join the fleet to get away from Alec Brondi’s collection agents. At that suggestion, she’d started a huge fight with him, and they’d dissolved their partnership over it.

But now it’s you who wants to be the nova pilot.
Ethan shook his head.
How quickly things change. . . .

Ethan shivered again and he turned to glare at Tova. He saw Caldin rubbing her hands together to warm up, and then he came to a decision. “Tova!” he called.

“Yess?” she hissed, turning to him from the viewports.

Clearly she didn’t like being yelled at. Ethan didn’t care. She’d caused enough inconvenience to him and his crew. “Go get your armor. We’re turning up the temperature in here. This is ridiculous.”

Tova began stalking down the gangway from the viewports. As she drew near, she gave a toothy grin. “Now humans know how I feel in heat. You freeze in my climate, I burn in yours.”

“Yeah yeah, go get your suit—Delayn! Turn up the climate controllers!”

A collective sigh of relief went up from the crew.

“Yes, sir!” Delayn replied.

*  *  *

Dr. Kurlin sat in the med lab aboard the
Defiant
, testing the 72 different blood samples he’d gathered from the surviving crew members. The tests ran quickly, since they were each conducted in a matter of a minute by the lab’s computer. All Kurlin had to do was input the necessary test parameters and change the samples when the queue was empty.

That left him twiddling his thumbs most of the time, thinking. Mostly his thoughts turned to his daughter, Alara, and with that, an accompanying frown touched his lips. She’d been conscripted to join the
Defiant’s
nova pilots, and he was not happy about it. He had returned from the flight deck just a few moments ago. He’d gone there in the hopes that Alara had failed the training and would not be asked—
ordered
—to join the squadron. Instead, he’d found that she had not only passed, but she’d earned the highest score of any of the trainees.

Under other circumstances he might have been proud, but this was war, and worse, it was a war where the enemy was invisible, making them unusually deadly. The
Defiant
would likely go down with all hands while trying to cross Sythian Space, but as a nova pilot Alara would be among the first to die.

Kurlin had been racking his brain for hours to come up with a way that he could force Alara’s commanding officers to remove her from the roster. He’d even tried refusing to work if the overlord didn’t have her grounded; right after his trip to the flight deck, he’d gone to the bridge to make that threat in person, but the overlord had simply said,
“She wants to be there, Kurlin. And if you don’t work, I’ll have you chipped and you can be my personal boot-licker.”

That had been enough to stop him cold. Something in the overlord’s tone had told him there would be no further argument, but that didn’t mean Kurlin had given up.

Suddenly the computer beeped with an error, and Kurlin sat up to study the screen and see what had gone wrong.

Test access restricted. Sample #59 not tested.

Kurlin frowned and checked his holo pad to see whose sample #59 was. When he saw the name he smirked.
Speak of the devlin,
he thought. The sample belonged to Supreme Overlord Altarian Dominic.

“Computer, give me details about the restricted test access,” he asked.

“An age test on sample number 59 is not permitted.”

“What? Why not?”

“Answer not available.”

Kurlin frowned. Could the overlord be that vain?
No,
he shook his head.
Dominic already looks like he’s twice his real age.
Kurlin didn’t technically need to know the age of each person from their blood, because their age was clearly listed in their files, but the age test involved studying the DNA characteristics of the host’s T cells and how those characteristics changed over time, which coincidentally, his virus would mimic, causing the host to appear older than his apparent age. The further along the virus was, the greater the disparity would become, seeming to age the infected person’s blood. Thus, the easiest way to determine if anyone was still contagious, was to identify unusual disparities in tested age versus real.

Whatever the reason for the restricted test access, he had to know the results. He would just have to test the overlord’s blood sample by hand. Kurlin sighed.

“Eject current sample and test the next one in the queque.”

As soon as the lab computer ejected the overlord’s sample, Kurlin set to work. It was a laborious process using the lab microscope to identify and then count the circular DNA molecules which were a by-product of age. By the time Kurlin had finished, the lab computer was also finished testing the rest of the crew, but Kurlin barely heard it announce, “Testing complete.”

That can’t be right,
he thought, staring at the result of his calculations. He ran the numbers he’d tallied on his holopad through a calculator program in case he’d made a mistake in his head, but it spat out the same number.
It can’t be . . .
He shook his head and went back to the microscope to count the circular molecules again—only to receive the same result thirty minutes later.

Kurlin sat back from the microscope, his brow furrowed and a frown on his lips. The Overlord’s blood showed he was only 46 years old, but his file said he was 98.
Could it be the virus?
he wondered. But the virus would have produced the opposite effect, making his blood look older than he actually was. This was something else.
Maybe the overlord just has unusually young blood . . .
but
Kurlin knew better than to second-guess the test. It was accurate to within a year, and he’d already counted the age markers twice. That left only one possibility—the Overlord was a very old-looking 46 and his file was wrong about him being 98.

Kurlin shook his head.
Nobody looks that old at 46.
And he could remember the overlord was already in power 46 years ago. Dominic had looked middle-aged at the time. Kurlin had been 20, and still living with his parents on Jopara while he’d studied for his doctorate at the academy.

Maybe it’s my mistake, he thought. Maybe he’d forgotten how to test a person’s age by hand. Just to make sure, Kurlin took a sample of his own blood and ran the same test by hand. Another half an hour later his calculations returned his exact age—66.

Kurlin shook his head and sat back in his chair, shocked.
Could the overlord really be 46? How is that possible?

There was only one way it was possible. The overlord in the Imperial records, and the overlord whose sample Kurlin had taken were not the same person. But if that were the case, the overlord’s DNA should not have matched what was in the records.
Unless the files have been tampered with . . .

Kurlin remembered that when Brondi had been planning to introduce his virus to the
Valiant
by infiltrating the ship with a live incubator, they had briefly discussed the what-if’s of their infiltrator being discovered too soon due to discrepancies between what was on file and what they’d actually see if they took a sample of the infiltrator’s blood. They’d discounted that possibility as irrelevant. The chances that someone would take a sample of the infiltrator’s blood before the virus had spread throughout the ship were slim to none.

The virus had worked, but now someone was making Brondi’s identity switch look like an amateurish prank, going so far as to even alter the Imperial records, but the one thing tampered records couldn’t fake was age—that had to at least match the apparent age of the person—
and the apparent age of a person can be altered with a holoskin,
Kurlin mused.
No wonder the overlord’s test access was restricted.