04 Dark Space (12 page)

Applause followed that statement, followed by a question from someone off screen. “And what if you do fail? Humanity has been defeated before.”

The camera shifted to cover an assembled group of reporters, their features flickering and glitching ever so slightly, indicating that they were not actually there with the admiral, but rather pre-recorded holograms for the benefit of the viewers. Even with comm signals travelling at superluminal speeds, time delays from one solar system to another meant that it could take as much as an hour for a signal to get to a neighboring solar system.

The man who’d asked the question had his hand raised and appeared to be waiting for an answer. Hoff’s voice returned and the camera angle shifted back to the podium where he stood.

“We were defeated because we were not prepared. We didn’t even see them coming. This time, we know where they are, and not even their cloaking shields can hide them from us. We also have an entire fleet of theirs now fighting for us, complete with the Gor crews. The ease with which we captured and turned the Sythians’ own fleet against them must now give them pause. They don’t attack us because they are afraid we will turn another fleet to our side.”

“If they’re not here to attack us, then what
are
they doing here?” another reporter asked.

The admiral spread his hands. “Our best guess is that they are watching us, waiting for us to panic and do exactly what we are doing now—weaken ourselves with infighting.”

“How can you be certain that they’re not waiting for reinforcements?” a third reporter asked.

“If their intention was to overwhelm us, they could have waited until their entire fleet was assembled before moving into Dark Space. Instead, it is apparent from their attempt to hide in the Stormcloud Nebula that they are not seeking a direct confrontation.”

“Admiral, where is the
Intrepid?
”

The Admiral smiled thinly at the camera. “The whereabouts of fleet vessels is classified. Rest assured, all available forces are being rallied on the frontlines to respond to whatever the Sythians throw our way.”

“What do you have to say about recent reports of violence between Gors and humans?”

“Gors are an official part of the Imperium, and they serve in the same capacity as regular sentinels. I have not heard any reports of undue violence initiated by Gors, so they will remain in effect as a peacekeeping army on human-colonized worlds. It is time for us to set the prejudices of the past aside in the interests of moving forward. Thank you, no further questions.” With that, the admiral stepped down from the podium and a local news reporter appeared on the screen.

“So far riots on Karpathia alone have taken over 37 lives, with more than 300 injured. Now two hours after the press conference first aired, there is no sign of the riots abating, and no sign of the Overlord softening his response. There are now more than 5,000 Gors and 2,000 human sentinels documented to be on the planet’s surface, and those numbers are expected to double before nightfall with the arrival of another garrison.”

Ethan shook his head and turned from the screen to look at Alara. “So much for our honeymoon,” he said.

Alara turned to him with wide, terrified eyes. “What are we going to do?”

“For now? Nothing. We’re going to wait and see what happens.”

“What about the Gors? They’re all over Karpathia!”

“They’re all over Dark Space. If they meant to betray us, they could have done so a month ago when we took out the Sythians’ command ship and our forces were in disarray. You saw what that Gor did in the newscast—he was surrounded and being attacked by an angry mob, but rather than fire back, he simply cloaked to get away.”

Alara reached out to hug Ethan. “What if the Sythians really are just waiting for reinforcements?”

Ethan’s brow furrowed. “It’s possible. Still think it’s a good idea to sell the
Trinity
?”

“No,” Alara admitted.

“For now we’re going to do exactly what Admiral Heston suggested. We’re going to pretend everything is fine—and keep a close eye on the news channels,” he added, turning back to the holoscreen above the bar.

He was just in time to see the breaking news. “This just in from an anonymous source . . .” a pretty young reporter said, putting a hand to her ear-mounted comm piece to listen as someone else communicated the news to her. “The Sythians have made contact with our fleet,” she said, her celadon-green eyes widening. “And they have . . . requested an audience with our leaders.” The reporter shook her head and looked up at the camera. “This is unprecedented news . . .”

Ethan tuned her out and turned back to his wife. She asked the question that was already on the tip of his tongue. “What do they want?”

He slowly shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Chapter 8

A
dmiral Hoff Heston stood on the bridge of the
Valiant,
gazing out at an impressive array of Sythian warships, their gleaming lavender hulls glinting in the distance against the hazy gray clouds of the Stormcloud Nebula. The 30-kilometer-long Sythian command ship stood in the middle of the enemy formation, surrounded by half a dozen one and two-kilometer-long battleships. They’d come just far enough out of the nebula to communicate without interference, and there they’d stopped to send the first comm signal humanity had ever received from the Sythian invaders. When translated, the message had simply said,
we must speak with your leaders.

That had been two and a half hours ago.

Admiral Heston had sent a reply almost immediately via his current XO, saying that they would need time to get their leaders together. After that, they had waited through several tense hours, watching the Sythians and waiting for them to snap. They hadn’t so much as twitched. Making the Sythians wait was a risky gamble on Hoff’s part, but it sent an important message—the message that humanity was not running scared, they were not desperate, and they were not defeated.

The Sythians had waited patiently, and now Hoff, Tova, and Captain Ocheron were assembled on the bridge of the
Valiant,
standing in front of the captain’s table and waiting to hear what the Sythians had to say. Hoff nodded to his comm officer. “Make contact again, Lieutenant, and get us a visual if you can.”

“Yes, sir. Should
we
transmit a visual?”

“If they can receive it.”

The comm officer nodded and turned back to his control station. A moment later he gave a thumbs-up sign and said, “Connection established. Transmitting in three . . . two . . . one.”

The main holoscreen faded from stars and space to a view of a dark, circular room with a glossy black floor. All around was a dome-shaped canopy showing an unobstructed view of space. Beneath that dome, control stations were arrayed in concentric circles, glowing with lavender, yellow, and red lights. In the weak glow from those consoles, Hoff could just make out the blurry faces of aliens hunched over their controls, but it was impossible to tell whether they were Gors or Sythians. Standing in the center of the holo feed, however, was a creature unlike any Hoff had ever seen before. He had to stop and remind himself that the Sythians were all subtly different from one another, having been genetically-engineered to live in the diverse environments of the worlds which they came from in the Getties Cluster.

The creature standing before them wore a suit of glossy black armor, much like a Gor’s. His breastplate was festooned with colored bars of light and a few glowing symbols, which Hoff assumed to be some type of rank insignia. The creature was humanoid, but his face was a nightmare of jagged black teeth, and sharp, bony ridges protruding along his prominent brow and nose. His eyes appeared to glow white in the gloom of his bridge, but whether his eyes were naturally phosphorescent or the effect was a product of some technology, Hoff couldn’t tell. The Sythian’s pallid gray skin reminded him of a Gor’s, but while Gors were hairless, this Sythian had a mane of pure white hair which fell from a topknot on his head down to his shoulders. As they watched, the Sythian opened his mouth in a grimace that was probably meant to imitate a smile—or perhaps a snarl.

The creature began warbling at them in its native language and Hoff held his breath. None of them were wearing translators, but one had been wired into the comm station so everyone could hear what the Sythians said. All of a moment later, the translation came booming across the bridge speakers.

“You make us to wait. Now you listen, and do not speak. You have the honor of hearing from Shondar, High Lord of the Sythian Fourth Fleet, and commander of the
Gasha
. You may bow to offer your respect, humanz . . . and
Gor
.”

Hoff smiled. “No thank you, Shondar. What is it your people want?”

Tova hissed and warbled her own reply. “This Gor does not bow to Sythians.”

“We ignore your disrespect, but soon you see our supremacy and know that we are your masters.”

Hoff squared his shoulders and crossed his arms. “If you could have conquered us, you would have done so by now. Instead, what happened? We turned your fleet against you, and we will do the same with the next one that attacks us.”

“You speak far too much for one who knows so little. Observe.”

The visual abruptly disappeared, and the main viewscreen went back to showing stars and space. Hoff turned to his comm officer with a frown, but Lt. Hanz shook his head. “We’re still connected, but they’ve cut the visual feed from their end.”

Hoff turned to look at the ceiling where the bridge speakers were hidden. “Shondar? Why are you hiding from us?”

Shondar gave no reply.

Hoff turned his frown upon the viewports, and suddenly he understood. Space was shimmering all around the alien warships which had come to make contact with his fleet. More Sythian warships were de-cloaking by the dozens. They were everywhere. Hoff heard a few of his bridge crew gasp. In seconds several fleets had de-cloaked in front of them in a terrifying wall of gleaming lavender hulls. Hoff’s jaw dropped open and he turned to Tova with an accusing look. “Why didn’t you warn us they were there?” he demanded.

Tova turned to regard him quietly, the glowing red eyes of her helmet drilling into his.

High Lord Shondar replied before she could, “She did not warn you because she could not sense them. These ships are not crewed by Gorz; they are crewed by humanz.”

More gasps rose from the crew. They were hearing for the first time what Hoff had already known—the Sythians were making slaves of humans now. What he hadn’t known, however, was the extent of it.
Where did they all come from?
he wondered. An instant later, he had the answer.
The Enclave.
Hoff had assumed the Sythians killed the over 100,000 refugees in the Enclave, but the reality was they’d suffered a fate worse than death. “So now you have us fighting your battles for you. Shall I take that to mean you’d be willing to release the rest of the Gors to us?”

The visual returned and back was a life-sized view of the
Gasha’s
bridge. Shondar’s mouth hung open in a very human-looking expression of dismay. “Oh, yes . . . we could free them and send them to you . . . but they are not alive. Do you want the bodies?”

Tova hissed loudly and warbled at the screen. “I rip the intestines from your belly and hang you with them! Then I eat you while you suffocate on your own krak!”

“And that is why you no longer serve us,” Shondar replied. “You should know your people on Noctune are also dead, Tova. The Gorz in Dark Space are now the only Gorz anywhere.”

Tova hissed so loudly that Hoff felt like his ears were about to explode. Her hissing turned to a keening wail and she sunk to the deck with a heavy
thunk
of armor meeting duranium.

Hoff scowled as Shondar gave another fierce display of jagged black teeth. “I’m running out of patience, Sythian. Tell me why you contacted us, or I’ll end this transmission before you get the chance.”

“Yesss . . . we contacted you to make a deal.”

“We don’t make deals with Sythians.”

“This deal isss special,” Shondar hissed. “It is in your best interestsss. You can see the fleets arrayed before you are far stronger than yours, yes?”

“I don’t agree, but go on.”

“We want but one thing. Release the Gorz to us so that we may punish them for their rebellion, and then join the Sythian Coalition. Then we agree to leave your people in peace, and you have our permission to exist in Dark Space as long as you please.”

“Join you? Why would we do that, Shondar?”

“Because that way you do not die.”

“I see.”

“The decision is yours.”

“You are asking us to surrender,” Hoff clarified.

“Yesss, we are giving you that opportunity. It is generous of us.”

“Very generous,” Hoff replied. He shot Tova a sidelong glance, but she hadn’t reacted to Shondar’s demands; she was still slumped on the deck, apparently in shock. Her people had been summarily wiped out. It was ironic that after the Sythians had used them to exterminate humanity, they had then turned around and done the same thing to the Gors.

Captain Ocheron chose that moment to add his two cents. “My fleet would happily agree to your terms, Shondar.”

Hoff sent him a scathing look. “You do not have a fleet, Captain!
I
control the fleet, and you are subordinate to
me.
You would do well to remember that before I have you court-martialed for insubordination.”

Ocheron glared back at Hoff, his thick black mustache twitching as his pale head began to turn an angry shade of red. “We did not join your fleet willingly, Admiral. We joined it because we had no other choice, and you need us just as much as we need you.”

Hoff turned back to the main holoscreen with a dark look. “Your proposal will need to be discussed, Shondar. I will meet with my commanders and inform you of our decision as soon as possible.”

“Of course,” Shondar hissed. “Do not make us to wait too long. Your time is running out.”