04 Dark Space (28 page)

“Right behind you, ma’am,” Terl replied.

When they were all standing outside the access corridor, Caldin turned to Delayn with a scowl and planted her hands on her hips. “If the fail-safes are working fine, then why didn’t they pull us out of SLS?”

Delayn shook his head. “I don’t know. Perhaps some type of interference prevented them from detecting the gravity field until it was too late?”

“Or?”

“Or . . . the gravity field wasn’t there until we’d already landed in it.”

“That makes no sense, Delayn.”

He shook his head. “None of this makes any sense. I’ll stay here to run some more tests, just in case there’s something I missed.”

“You do that. Let me know if you find anything.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

*   *   *

Admiral Hoff Heston sat in his cell, his mouth throbbing and aching, his nose itching from all the dried blood. He was barely conscious, and he knew there was no way out. The Sythians had made him a slave without making him a slave. They’d made him a tormented wretch. He tried to say one thing, but ended up saying another. He tried to hide his thoughts from the Sythians, but whenever he was around them he couldn’t help but say everything that was on his mind. At least right now he couldn’t speak—not clearly anyway. Kaon had knocked out his teeth and broken his jaw, leaving him a blubbering mess.

Hoff couldn’t tell how long he had been sitting in his cell. He suspected quite a while, but he wasn’t certain that he had been conscious the entire time, and the guards had confiscated his holo pad when he’d arrived, so he had no idea what time it was. Adding to his disorientation, he kept nodding off to sleep.

After another indeterminate period of time passed, Hoff felt his stomach grumbling, and then a plate of food came sliding under the door. He eyed it bitterly. He wasn’t sure how he could eat it in his condition. They would have to fix his jaw first, and something told him the Sythians weren’t that good to their prisoners.

Hoff’s head lolled to one side and he subsided into a troubled sleep. Some time later he was roughly awoken to find himself face to face with the glowing red optics of a Gor’s helmet. For a moment he was confused—hadn’t the Sythians stopped using Gor slaves?

Then he heard a human voice tell him to get up, following by someone lifting him to his feet, and he remembered that the Sythians had recycled Gor armor for their human slaves.

“Warr ooo aking ee?”
Where are you taking me.

Somehow the slave soldier understood his slurred speech and replied, “To see your ancestors.”

As they passed through the cell door, and the soldiers carried him off the brig, Hoff tried to remember who his ancestors were. If he still had any, they would be in Avilon, and he hadn’t seen them for many thousands of years. Perhaps the Sythians were taking him to Avilon?

Then a far more likely thought occurred to him, and Hoff began to struggle against the guards carrying him. Weak from pain and hunger, his efforts were wasted. His suspicions were confirmed when they reached the nearest airlock and Hoff saw Kaon waiting with a squad of armored soldiers and a civilian holonews crew. The crew looked nervous, and when the reporter’s eyes found Hoff, he thought she was going to cry. The guards carrying him stopped in front of Kaon.

“Hello, Pet,” the Sythian said. “Have you any final words before you die?”

“Go fwek youswef,” Hoff replied as he was forced to his knees. The implants the Sythians had injected into his brain still allowed him some degree of autonomy, enough to speak his mind, but not enough to actively resist.

Kaon gave a rubbery smile. “You and I are not so different, human. We are both immortal, and we are both warriors. I wonder where you are to be resurrected now? Are you to come back to life in Avilon, or aboard this very ship? Be certain of this, human, wherever you return, I will find you and kill you—
again
.”

Hoff realized that Kaon didn’t know he had deactivated his Lifelink implant, and before he could stop himself, he told the Sythian all about it.

“Then this will be a real death. Good.” Kaon turned to the news crew who were recording the entire scene with wide eyes. The reporter hadn’t said a word yet. She was speechless. Hoff realized she didn’t even know what they were talking about. Avilon and the Immortals were a well-kept secret. Kaon inclined his head to the reporter, “Humans are beasts to be tamed, nothing more. This one has proven too difficult to tame, and he must be put down. Perhaps this will teach you humans the cost of resistance.” With that, he turned to the guards who held Hoff between them and said, “Open the airlock and leave him inside.”

They yanked him to his feet and carried him to the doors. The airlock opened with a groaning and grinding of gears. The guards carried him to the middle of the chamber and then they dropped him and withdrew. Hoff sat on the cold deck, hunched over and barely able to lift his head. Somehow he managed to look up just as the doors began to close. He found himself staring directly into the black lens of the news crew’s holocorder. He tried to rearrange his face in a smile for the sake of all the millions of people across Dark Space who would be forced to watch the recording later.

He knew he was going to die. If he hadn’t let his wife convince him to give up his immortal life, not long from now he would have been resurrected in a cloning tank somewhere aboard the
Valiant,
the state of his brain saved and transferred to a new body just before he died. As it was, however, he was finally about to see whether or not he still had a soul, and whether or not such a thing even existed.

The airlock doors shut with an ominous
boom
, and the news crew went on recording through the transpiranium panels in the tops of the doors. Red emergency lights began to flash, and a warning siren wailed, indicating that the airlock was about to be opened without depressurizing it first. Hoff knew he had only seconds left. In that time, he managed one last gesture for the camera and the citizens of Dark Space who would soon be looking on in horror.

He gave a salute.

With that, the doors behind him burst open and he was sucked out into space.

*   *   *

Hundreds of klicks from Karpathia City, Destra Ortane stood on the bridge of the
Baroness,
studying a map of the city with Captain Covani and a hulking Gor—Roan’s son, Torv. This would be the most daring raid they had planned yet. Until now they had just been sending out teams of cloaked Gors to cause mayhem and hunt the Sythians’ new slave soldiers, but the Sythians had merely responded by increasing the rate at which they were taking civilians and turning them into slaves for their fleet. As soon as they had realized that, both Destra and Covani had been forced to admit their strategy was counter-productive. They were killing the very people they sought to protect.

A week had passed since the occupation began, and it was beginning to look like the best form of resistance would be to do nothing. They needed to keep the Gor fleet hiding in Dark Space supplied and ready for when Atton returned with reinforcements from Avilon.

If he comes back,
Destra thought grimly. Hoff had told her at the last possible minute that there was a chance the Avilonians wouldn’t let him leave Avilon once he arrived. If that happened, Destra would go find Atton herself. Hoff had left her with the coordinates to get there, and she had every intention of using them if it came to that.

“We’ll have to make a low pass over the warehouse after our teams on the ground open it up with detlor charges,” Captain Covani said, interrupting her thoughts. “Soon as those supplies are exposed, we can get a lock on them with our grav guns and haul them in.”

“What type of supplies are we looking at?” Destra asked.

“Foodstuffs, but that’s what we need most anyway. A fleet flies on its stomach—especially a Gor fleet,” Covani added, sending Torv a wry look.

Torv missed the remark. He was staring out the forward viewports. With his helmet on, it was impossible to see the alien’s expression, but Destra imagined a faraway look in the Gor’s eyes. “Torv,” she said quietly. “Do you think you could have your people on the ground get to that warehouse and set the charges for us?”

Torv’s giant head slowly turned, and he stared at her with the big, glowing red optics in his helmet. “They are leaving.”

“What? Who is?”

“The Sythianss,” Torv hissed. “My créche lord tells me that they leave the entrance of Dark Space.”

Captain Covani turned to stare at Torv. “All of them?”

Destra blinked. “If that’s true, then we need to make our move now.”

“Wait . . .” Torv replied. A moment later, he went on, “Not all of them leave . . . a cluster—one fleet.”

“How many fleets do they have?”

“Your human fleet, which is now in their hands, and half of another cluster with no command ship.”

Covani frowned. “Can they fight without a command ship?”

“That depends,” Torv replied.

“On what?”

“Whether their masters let them.”

“So, if they trust their crews to fight, then they will, and we’ll still be outnumbered.” Covani shook his head.

“But they’ll be vulnerable,” Destra said. “Perhaps more vulnerable than they ever will be again.”

“And what happens when the rest of them come here? They could be here tomorrow, or in just a few hours. They have to be on their way. If you think the Sythians are vulnerable, just think how vulnerable
we’ll
be after we’ve exhausted ourselves fighting their rear guard. If we try to face them head-on now, the resistance will be over before it has even begun. We need to wait for reinforcements. When they arrive we’ll be in a much better position to take back the sector.”

“Fine, but we should at least send a team of Gors to get the admiral out. You saw what they’re doing to him.”

Covani shook his head. “We’ve already discussed this, Madam Councilor. If we use Gors to get the admiral, the Sythians will know the surrender was a ruse and that the Gors are still on our side. I can’t risk that the Sythians will take that out on the people of Dark Space. Besides, if the rescue fails, which it almost certainly will, then the Sythians will do more than just torture the Admiral. They’ll
kill
him.”

“What if they kill him anyway? He’s your commanding officer!”

“And he’s your husband. I can appreciate that you’re having difficulty putting your personal feelings aside, ma’am, but my
commanding officer
wouldn’t want me to rescue him at the expense of the very people he’s trying to protect. The admiral planned for it to be this way. We have to have faith that his plan will buy enough time for reinforcements to arrive. If it doesn’t, then we’ll try to arrange a rescue for the Admiral before we abandon Dark Space. Until then, I have my orders, and you have your husband’s wishes to respect.”

“I’ll be sure to tell the admiral you said that when he gets back,” Destra replied with a thin smile. Turning to Torv, she asked, “Where are the Sythians going?”

“I do not know this,” he replied.

“Begging your pardons, Mrs. Heston and Captain Covani—” Destra turned to see the comms officer staring up at them with wide eyes and a pale face.

“What is it, Lieutenant?” Covani snapped.

“The Sythians just released another one of their . . . motivational holocasts.”

“Put it on the main holoscreen.”

“Yes, sir. . . sorry, ma’am,” he said, glancing at Destra before punching a key on his control station. She had only a moment to wonder about that apology before she understood. The main viewport turned opaque and then a scene appeared and she found herself staring at a familiar man—or at least she thought he was familiar. It was hard to tell if it was him through the mess of dirt, blood, and stubble which had turned his face a ruddy brown. The blood-stained white uniform gave him away, but the look of abject horror on his face made him look like an entirely different person. Destra gasped and shook her head. She remembered the first time she’d seen her husband after the Sythians had gotten hold of him. They’d pointed to him as a symbol of humanity’s defeat. And now . . . Hoff looked worse than ever. What possible point could they be trying to prove?

Kaon began to speak, and subtitles appeared at the bottom of the projection. Destra shook her head, horrified by what she was seeing and hearing. They were going to kill him. Then she heard Hoff explain that his Lifelink implant was deactivated and her eyes blurred with tears. If she hadn’t made him do that, then he might still have lived through this. As it was, however, he was about to meet a very definite end.

Kaon turned away from the camera to look at the guards who held Hoff between them, the subtitles on the screen ordering them to
open the airlock and leave him inside.

“No!” Destra cried.

But by now Hoff was already dead. With the time it took for data to travel from one end of Dark Space to the other, this newscast was at least several hours old. Destra saw her husband look up and smile at the camera revealing a row of bloody, crooked teeth. Red emergency lights began flashing all around him, and an alarm began to sound. He raised his arm slowly, deliberately, and gave a sloppy salute to the camera.

Then the airlock doors opened behind him and he was ripped off the deck and sucked out into space.

Destra watched, horrified, as the dwindling speck that was her husband vanished against the stars, and then the outer airlock slid shut and he was gone. The transmission ended there, but for Destra it would never end. It was already playing on an endless loop inside her head. She felt strong hands on her shoulders.

“I’m sorry you had to see that,” Captain Covani said quietly.

Destra turned and collapsed into his arms, sobbing.

“I hate them!” she screamed with a sudden, explosive force which surprised even her. Destra pushed away from the captain and shook her head, sending tears pinwheeling from her eyelashes to the deck. “Frekking skull faces! They’ve taken everything from me! They took everything from all of us!” she said, turning in a slow circle to address the bridge crew. “When will enough be enough? When will we finally get our revenge for what they’ve done?” Crew looked up from their stations, their expressions blank and full of horror.