Shadows Bear No Names (The Blackened Prophecy Book 1) (6 page)

“We will continue our investigation.” Eberhardt shrugged. “And move forward with the initial research plan of the alien artifact.”

“You mean you will keep the thing for yourself.”

“It is a competitive environment, Evans. We need to keep our edge. We may run the Core Systems but the Consortium is not the only corporation or the center of power out there. You know the players and the stakes as well as I do. The space is a big place. Any technological breakthrough we might have could very well be the edge to win this power struggle against our competitors.”

Evans noticed a change in the old man’s voice. Eberhardt clearly saw the gate as a prize worth risking for, if it meant overwhelming others over sector dominance. “But what makes you think the fate of that ship was an isolated incident? What if an event like the Titan discovery is unavoidable?”

“We are taking the necessary precautions,” Vice President Otto answered, “The First Banner is being repositioned near the gate as we speak.”

“Admiral Rebecca Conway?” Evans asked.

“One of our best tacticians,” Vice President Otto nodded.

“Let us see for ourselves,” Eberhardt added and reached for a button on the left-hand side of the table. A holographic screen appeared before him, showing the face of his secretary. “Darling, please be kind and patch me to the First Banner actual.”

“Yes, Mr. Eberhardt.”

A few seconds later, a woman with a graying black hair and a stern look was on display. “Conway.”

“Rebecca, good to hear your voice,” Eberhardt gave a sly smile. “How is everything?”

“Thank you, sir. We will be in position, near the coordinates the
Novosibirsk
broadcasted within five hours. All ships are battle ready. The reserve dreadnoughts have been pulled from Mars. They will be here in five days. We will be watching the artifact.”

“Good. You have full authority to handle things as you see fit. Keep me informed. Eberhardt out.” The chairman of the Consortium leaned back and smiled. “I believe two dozen dreadnoughts and a flagship will be more than enough to handle anything we may bump into, Evans.”

Evans saw everything was already in motion. This discussion was simply to decide whether he would come down peacefully or by force. His shoulders dropped. “I will do as you ask.”

Eberhardt smiled and lit a Henian cigar, puffing the dense, aromatic smoke into the balding man’s face. “Of course you will, Evans. Of course you will.”

Chapter SEVEN

AT THE END OF THE LIGHT

Ray opened his eyes. It took him a moment to focus. He looked around but couldn’t remember the place, wherever
this place
was. He tried to move his body but it didn’t and he gave up the idea. Instead, he observed his surroundings.

He was lying on a camp bed under a blanket, inside a tent. His mind searched for answers but he only remembered flashing images that didn’t make any sense and none of them had anything to do with a tent. He gently removed the blanket and felt the chill on his naked skin. Ray groaned and could only raise himself a few centimeters. He saw his chest had been carefully wrapped in clean bandages

He didn’t remember where he’d gotten injured, or how bad it was, but when his hand touched his groin a sharp pain stopped his search for answers. The moist sense of soaked textile turned into faint red marks on his fingers.

After a few agonizing attempts, he turned his head to the left. There wasn’t much going on. Another small bed stood opposite. A tiny portable table stood beside his bedside with a water flask and a glass, near a pot with a sharp smell, possibly herbal in origin.

He recognized the clothes on the stool by the tent’s exit. His worn-out shirt and pants were covered in brown.
Blood
, Ray guessed but couldn’t remember how it had gotten there.

The effort tired him. Ray felt himself sweating under the sheet and closed his eyes. He saw Rahul, Halle and Alec lying dead on
Canaar’s
bridge. He felt the ashen taste of fire and smoke in his mouth and more flashes came into his mind, of his ship burning.
The Canaar probably crashed.

Perhaps whoever had patched his wounds knew how Ray had ended up
here
but his body wasn’t ready to face the reality yet. Ray was tired. He was
very
tired. His eyes closed and sleep overtook him.

***

Ray opened his eyes slowly, again trying to adjust to the light in the tent. He had no idea how long he’d slept, but he felt a lot better. He turned his head slowly to the table, hoping to find something to eat.

Instead he found a man in a simple brown cloak sitting on the other bed, staring at him. His face was clean-shaven, with a broad nose reddened by sunburn. The man had more white than black in his hair, but his build suggested a healthy body. His look was sharp, judgmental.
Bushy brows,
Ray thought, those gave the man an uncompromising air.

“Where am I?”

“In a tent.” The man’s eyes softened and he gave a faint smile. He reached for a plate sitting on the table and handed it to Ray.

“Here, eat.”

“How bad is it?”

“Bad?” The man pressed his hand on his chest, shuddering. “My vegetable stew is not bad!” He frowned and sniffed the plate suspiciously. “Is it bad?”

“I meant the crash,” Ray said weakly. “I believe I was in one.”

“Ah.” The old man’s face brightened and he passed the plate to Ray. “Some of the trees are burnt and I found a dead fox, but the forest will recover.” His face saddened.

“I mean the
crash
,” Ray said impatiently, but the man looked confused. The injured captain closed his eyes, calming himself down. He probably owed his life to this man and the small courtesy of allowing him to have his crazy way with their dialogue wouldn’t hurt. He changed the subject. “Are you a hermit?”

“Me? No,” the man replied, He turned to a pot on the floor and poured some stew for himself. “I try to stay away from the city, though,” he admitted.

“Where did you find me?”

His savior raised his head and looked around the tent with his thoughtful brown eyes. After a while he pointed the chair. “There. It was an hour’s walk to the chair.”

Ray raised his eyebrows, smiling. “The
chair?
”

“I mean to that direction,” the man said impatiently. “I put a chair there to remember.” He blew on the hot stew. “Your ship was on fire when I got there. I had to pull you out,” he said between bites. “Its contents were mostly intact, including you.” He laughed at his own joke.

Ray watched the man enjoy his own humor. “Thank you.”

The old man wiped his mouth, then touched his chest. “Cavil. I am Brother Gabriel Cavil, a priest of the Light.”

“What about the crash?” Ray had to ask. “I mean, the ship, how bad is it?” He needed to know how bad the damage was. A fuel ship crashing into a city was a big deal.

“I just told you.”

“No.” Ray frowned. “I mean
the
ship. The thing you pulled me out of was probably the escape pod.”

Brother Cavil shrugged. “I did not see any ship. These trees are tall and dense, hard to see anything in the distance.”

Every now and then the old man eyed Ray over his plate, and Ray felt he was being judged. He didn’t know much about Bunarians but from the reads he’d found on the network, they were a closed community with very little contact with the outside world.

“How do you feel?” Brother Cavil asked, pulling Ray out of his thoughts. He waved at Ray’s wounds.

“Better. How long was I asleep?” Ray asked, eating from his own bowl.

“Six days. You had a fever. That cut of yours, it is quite deep. You lost a lot of blood. You should rest.” He nodded his head in self-confirmation.

“Six days!” Ray’s eyes bulged.

“Six days,” Brother Cavil repeated.

Ray sighed. There was nothing he could do about time already past. “This is really good,” Ray said with a full mouth.

“You should not talk while you eat.” His host looked at Ray disapprovingly.

“Thank you, Brother—” he stopped to take a breath “—I’m Ray, by the way. Raymond Harris.”

“Good to meet you Raymond Harris. You are a blessed soul.” The old man waved his spoon at Ray, splattering soup around. “The Light gave you a second chance.”

“Maybe. Though I’m still not sure why I lost the first one.” His disorientation was almost gone but there were still gaps to fill. “I can’t remember much.”

“It will return in time. Now, finish your stew and rest. I will be back to check on you. Now, I must attend to my students. They are expected to be in the temple ruins within the day.”

Ray decided he liked Brother Cavil. The old man had been kind enough to feed him, cure him and provide him with shelter. He had manners; he hadn’t questioned Ray about the crash, his wounds, or what he was doing on Bunari in the first place. The priest was nothing like the profile people drew about Bunarians.
Religious zealots. Suspicious and hostile toward outsiders. Yeah, believe everything you read on the network.

Most of Ray’s knowledge about the natives was urban legends. He’d read on a discussion board about some so-called merchant’s adventures frequenting these parts. Monks beating people in the streets for their lack of devotion to the Light. Public executions of blasphemers. Foreigners not allowed anywhere outside the starport. All were probably fairy tales. Considering those legends, his “first contact” was going quite smoothly. Especially for someone who’d recently crashed a hundred-and-thirty thousand metric tons of spacecraft on top of this man’s home, whether he had any idea or not.

Chapter EIGHT

THE LAST SUPPER

“Not in the mood to eat?”

“Hmm?” Rebecca raised her stare from her plate. “Sorry, what?”

“You’re playing with those peas for the last twenty minutes.”

“I am sorry Francis,” Rebecca put her fork down and leaned back, reaching for her wine. “I am preoccupied.”

Commander Francis LeClair smiled. “You always were like this. The great Admiral Conway always
preoccupied
with the mission ahead.”

Rebecca smiled and took a sip of wine. “It is different this time. The Brotherhood, the skirmishes at the mining fields. Pirates. Those are regularities of our job. But this…”

Francis nodded. “We don’t know what to expect. The fear of the unknown.”

Rebecca nodded slowly.

“Well, we have twenty-five dreadnoughts and the
Deviator
herself. What could go wrong?” Francis sliced another piece of steak.

“That is what makes me worried.”

“How so?” he said over his bite with a mouthful of steak. Whenever he spoke while he ate, Francis’ French accent would take over, making him sound funny to Rebecca’s ears.

“When was the last time you had to go for an operation with twenty-five dreadnoughts accompanying you, Francis?”

Francis’ chewing slowed and his face became serious. “None in my service time.”

“And I only had seen it once when The Consortium took over the Dansin territory from Virm Industries.”

“Didn’t that end well?”

“Only two ships went down on Virm’s end, true. But there were no alien gates the size of a big island involved. Only money and mining sites.”

“You were a Lieutenant then, right?”

“A junior grade, yes.”

Francis smiled. “I can’t imagine you being a young lieutenant, following her commanders around.”

Rebecca smiled back, “It was ages ago.”

“Well, the last dreadnoughts will be here within a day at most. I better go and check the fleet status.” Francis wiped his mouth and stood up from his chair. “Admiral, if you’ll excuse me.” He raised his glass and drank the whole thing.

Rebecca toasted him in return with a smirk. “Do not get drunk while on duty, Commander. I may have to send you to brig.”

“Whatever you say, Admiral,” Francis laughed, leaving Rebecca’s quarters.

Rebecca watched the door close and stayed in her seat until she finished her glass. She used her napkin and then stood to look through the observation window near her dining table. The window overlooked the port side of the huge super-dreadnought. The pale orange color of the Lexan cloud, mixed with the rays of Samara’s Star, reflected from the ship’s plating. Several dreadnoughts were visible from her window. She looked at them one by one, feeling an ashen taste in her mouth that wasn’t from the sediment of the red wine. Her stare stopped on the alien structure reaching as far as her eyes can see. Rebecca grimaced.

She left the window and made way for her studying table, taking the wine bottle on her way. The tactical display, a holographic screen shared from the huge one on the bridge, was before her. She watched her fleet hover around her own flagship.

The artifact,
gate,
she corrected herself, was too big to fit into screen and she had to zoom out a few times to see it in full. The hairs on her neck had risen the first time she saw the structure with her own eyes and no matter how much time passed, she wasn’t getting used to the idea of a structure this big.

“I am not worried, Francis,” she mumbled. “I am terrified.”

Chapter NINE

MEMORIES

“How is the memory?” Brother Cavil asked. The old man reached for one of the apple-like fruits, a
kumat
he said, he’d brought earlier.

“I remember making it to the escape pod…” Ray frowned. He was recovering fast but the gaps were
still
there. “…I remember seeing Dr. Sanders, she was dead, a cut to her neck.”

The old man nodded in agreement. “Neck cuts are nasty. I remember the neighbor’s son, Bronn, he—”

Ray stopped the priest before he lost himself in another story, “
We
were coming to Bunari to deliver fuel for the port.” One thing he’d learnt about Brother Cavil—once the man started a tale he never stopped talking. The first time Ray listened to one of his stories was almost an hour long with vivid detail of unrelated things like a nearby building’s architect or why his neighbor named his dog after his wife. In the end, Brother Cavil was so distracted, he forgot what the story was about and flared at Ray when he didn’t get the meaning. All Ray understood was the dog’s name; Lealandre. It was a weird name.

In the last few days, Ray had learned to cope with the old man and his odd state of mind. Listening to the recollections of Brother Cavil’s childhood or how he’d ended up saving the reverend’s dog irritated him. Ray had so many questions in his head and each memory added ten more to the pool. The last thing he needed was stories confusing his already-troubled mind.

“I’m not sure…” Ray tried to keep his voice firm “…but I believe I saw Halle and Alec as well.”

“Were they perished, too, Raymond?” Brother Cavil asked, focusing back on Ray’s problem.

Ray nodded. He was trying to keep it together, but facing the reality of his crew—
his friends
—deaths wasn’t easy to chew. “I can’t remember
how
they died.”

“What about the others?”

“I don’t know about Sarah. And, Rahul…” He knit his eyebrows, trying to recall what had happened to the young engineer.

“Yes?” Brother Cavil said with a mouth full of kumat.

Ray raised his stare and looked at the old man eating his round fruit. “I thought it was disrespectful to talk while you eat.”

Brother Cavil waved that idea aside. “It is overruled by showing respect to your elders.”

Ray smiled weakly, focusing back on his crew. “I remember Rahul coming to the bridge. He was…”

“He was what, Raymond?”

Ray’s eyes focused on the fruit Brother Cavil was eating and he couldn’t move his stare away. “The eye….” It was something to do with an eye. “The eye…The scalpel…” His eyes bulged with realization. “W—we were attacked!” In his excitement he managed to say. He didn’t realize he’d stood up. It wasn’t elation he felt; he squeezed his eyes shut and his breath rasped. Ray realized his lips were trembling.

“Easy, son.” The old man was near him in a flash, putting his hand on Ray’s shoulder, “Pirates, perhaps?”

“No!” Ray looked at Brother Cavil with unbelieving eyes. “Who’d come here to pirate?”

Ray’s comment earned a disapproving look from the old man. “Here? What do you mean ‘here’? This is a beautiful little planet with lots of touristic opportunities.”

“
Here
as in out of nowhere. You really believe in that?”

Brother Cavil shrugged. “I guess not, but it is nice to say a few good words about your savior’s home planet. It is not that bad. Not much nightlife as you people are used to in the core worlds but there is this beautiful restaurant that Master Emil runs. Now, see, he cooks this delicious rice with—”

Ray stopped him short. “Religious to the core. Theocratic government.”

“You are from the core worlds. Is it not the money your religion there?”

Ray stuttered with the sudden cleverness of a priest mostly keeping it to himself in the forest. “Well…you probably behead people who disregard the teachings of Light.”

Brother Cavil’s eyes grew wide. “No! That is barbaric! People just live normal lives here.” Then he narrowed his eyes and seemed distant for a second. “I guess it is hanging or exile. Mostly. Not that I saw many who were hanged.”

“But you saw some.”

“Well, yes, they do that publicly. But no beheading!”

Ray winced. “You
are
crazy. Anyway, it was…a thing, something, a monster. It came out of the elevator and killed Alec!”

“What elevator? What monster? Our laws have nothing—”

“
The elevator
that
the monster
came to kill us on
my
ship before
my
crash.”

“Oh, that. Why?”

“I really wish I knew.”

Ray really, really wished he did
.
He couldn’t put aside the image of his first officer’s broken body. His cheeks were wet with tears. Ray told Brother Cavil everything, from the video feed problem to his frantic dash for the escape pod. By the time he’d finished, Ray was pacing the tent in anger. He was furious about his friends’ deaths, but what really pissed him off was being left in the dark
.

Ray picked up the fruit bowl and smashed it to the ground, kicking the table and scattering the kumat around the tent. The old man watched and patiently waited for the captain’s rage to end.

The canvas suddenly felt like tons of rock pressuring him to drown, and Ray rushed out, sobbing and cursing. The fresh air of the forest welcomed him; wind gently blowing in his face as if to wake him up and pull him back to
here and now.

He stopped to watch the forest. An animal jumped in the distance, chasing something in the bushes. It resembled a red fox but it moved too fast for Ray to catch the distinctive details. Then he saw a bevy of birds, lazily flying toward the horizon. Two of the flock dove into the tree line
.

Ray followed the birds disappearing within the dense leaves. “Two of the birds dived…” Another flash hurt his head, a sharp pain all the way from his neck to his eyes. He held his head, shutting his eyes. “Two of the birds dived!” He opened his eyes again in haste and ran back into the tent. “Two birds dived!”

“Is that so?” Brother Cavil was still taking small bites of the fruit.

“Two birds dived!”

“And he calls
me
crazy.”

Ray shook his head, rushing every word out of his mouth. “Not birds! I think one of the other tubes was open when I made it to Engineering.”

“And two of the birds dived…”

“To hell with the birds! I didn’t have time to think about it then; there were two pods on
Canaar
! I believe Sarah used the other pod! You have to take me to the pod. The flight recorder should have logs about the other one!”

“I will take you to your pod, son,” the old man assented, licking the kumat stalk. “But first, tidy this mess you made of my tent!”