Dark Space: Avilon (11 page)

Chapter 10

D
arron Cavanaugh pounded down the aging metal staircase, rattling it loud enough to simulate thunder. His footsteps were crowded with half a dozen others, making the sound all the more deafening.

On their way down they grabbed rifles, stun grenades, and sidearms from the lifeless hands of prison guards.

“Frek me . . . This one’s got bite marks!” Black Seven said.

“Damned Skull Faces would eat their own grandmothers,” Cavanaugh growled, noticing that the guard he was stealing supplies from had a gruesome wound in his neck.

“We have to move,” Black Five put in. “When you tripped the lights, the alarms came on, too.”

“Should have left us in the dark,” Black Three added.

“Frek it, next time you all can rescue yourselves!” Cavanaugh said, springing up from his haunches and sprinting down the last flight of stairs.

“Now don’t go gettin’ your feelings hurt,” Three replied. “We’re grateful.”

Cavanaugh grunted. They ran through the compound at dizzying speed, racing down corridor after corridor. The flashing red lights weren’t accompanied by any alarms, but he knew better than to trust that. Best to assume the worst.

Black Seven sprinted up next to him. “What about the rescue op you mentioned? Think they might have room for a few more?”

“Sure, next Skull Face you see, you can ask him. Just try to avoid his fangs.”

Seven grimaced. “No thanks.”

They reached the outer doors and found both sets blasted open. They ran out into a bright twilight, illuminated by a full moon. From there they cut across an overgrown field of grass to a small stand of silvering ash trees. Just before they reached the cover of the glossy black leaves and silver bark, they heard a series of thunderclaps split the sky.

“I missed weather,” Black Five said. “Nothing like a nice refreshing rain after the sun’s gone down and the frost’s starting to glisten on the grass.”

A suspicion formed in Cavanaugh’s gut and he shook his head. “Quiet! That wasn’t thunder.” They reached the trees, and he risked peeking up at the sky through the edge of the canopy.

Bright streaks of fire slashed the sky. He pointed. “Look. Thruster trails.” The thunder had been sonic booms. Cavanaugh noticed that the thruster trails were Imperial blue, not Sythian red, and he relaxed. He considered firing a ripper burst into the sky to identify himself on their scanners, but something held him back.

Just as well. The sky flashed with an explosion and one of the bright blue thruster trails disappeared. Then dozens more appeared—the red trails of Shell Fighters. Streams of purple stars streaked out after the Imperial Novas and they broke into sudden spirals and dives to evade the alien missiles.

“Hoi . . .” Someone whispered beside his ear. “Look.” A hand appeared in his peripheral vision, pointing to the field of long grass between them and the prison complex. The field was parting in winding lines leading from the pulverized doors of the prison complex. Looking carefully, they could see the garish orange garb of prisoners. He was just about to signal them over when he noticed that they were floating below the level of the grass, face down and unconscious, as if they were being carried by invisible men.

Or cloaked Gors.
Cavanaugh’s eyes narrowed swiftly. “Skull faces,” he whispered. His rifle moved, almost of its own accord, to track the nearest prisoner—or rather, the Gor who was carrying him. They weren’t heading for the trees, but cutting laterally across the field to an area of flattened grass.
Cloaked transports.
“They have extraction teams on the ground,” he said.

Another explosion lit up the night, and their eyes were drawn to the sky once more to see the fading orange flower of an explosion—another Nova Fighter reduced to a cloud of superheated dust. Cavanaugh spent a moment tracking the Shells across the sky. He noticed that they were taking potshots at the Novas, but not breaking formation to follow them. They were headed straight for the prison complex.

“We need to go make nice with the Gors,” Cavanaugh said, making a snap decision. He hoped it would be a good one.

“They’re
skullies,
” Seven said. The scars lining his face crinkled, and his nose scrunched up.

“They’re soldiers who were just following orders. Now their orders are to rescue prisoners, and that’s what we are. Come on!”

They ran, bounding through the tall grass, aiming for the nearest flattened patch. As they ran, Cavanaugh remembered using his prosthetic arm to beat the Gor who’d come to rescue him. He hoped he wouldn’t run into that particular skull face again, but he’d take whatever retribution the Gors meted out. He hadn’t had a choice. It was that or leave the rest of his squad to rot in their cells—or worse, to become slaves for the Sythians.

* * *

“We’ve lost another Nova!” gravidar reported.

“Torv, tell me your people are all aboard!” Destra said.

“Not yet.”

“They’re not taking the bait, Captain!” gravidar said.

“Your teams had better hurry, Torv!” Captain Covani put in.

“They are encountering more prisoners, running with them toward the shuttles,”
Torv replied.
“What are your ordersss?”

“Stun them!” Destra said.

“They are armed.”

“Your men are cloaked.”

“They are carrying prisoners.”

“All of them?”

“Not all.”

“Then take them out! And do it quietly!”

“I tell them . . .”

Destra watched on the visual feed as their camera operator turned toward a group of prisoners in bright orange jumpsuits rushing through the grass. Blue stun bolts stuttered out, cutting the prisoners down. A few of them fired bursts of ripper fire that roared into the night as they fell.

Worried the weapons fire had given the Sythians something to aim for, Destra turned to look at the captain’s table. For a moment nothing happened, but then a squadron of Shell Fighters twitched toward the Gors.

“Torv warn your people to keep their heads down. They’ve got incoming!” Destra said.

No sooner had she said that than she saw on the visual feed that a dozen bright purple stars had appeared in the night sky, twinkling and spinning, growing larger and closer to the Gor cameraman with every second that passed.

Pirakla missiles.

A group of six Gor shuttles appeared on the ground, de-cloaking to activate their shields.

“Have Gorgon Squadron turn around and intercept those Shells!” Covani called out. “Torv, those shuttles better have weapons!”

“Do not worry.”

The first Pirakla missile hit one of the shuttles with a blinding flash of light and a deafening
boom
that rattled through the bridge speakers. Then came the shock wave and the grass flattened, revealing dozens of black-armored Gors, crouching in the grass. Another half dozen blasts boomed through the speakers on the heels of the first.

“Mute that feed!” Covani roared, and the residual roar of the explosions cut off in sudden ringing silence.

Destra blinked spots from her eyes and forced them to focus on the camera feed. The grassy field was on fire. Flames licked the keels of the Gors’ organically-shaped shuttle craft. Those shuttles fired back with more Pirakla missiles. Then something else appeared on the horizon—a giant version of the Gors’ shuttles, hovering between them and the approaching Shell Fighters—a Gor cruiser. It opened fire with a blinding torrent of lasers and missiles.

Explosions peppered the horizon, and a cheer went up from the crew pit.

“Nice work,” Covani breathed. “Comms—call Gorgon Squadron back to orbit. Tell them to get aboard before we jump to the rendezvous.”

“Yes, sir.”

Covani turned to Destra, his eyes flinty. “We lost two pilots.”

Destra nodded to the visual feed. The Gor with the camera ran through a burning field of grass with two stunned prisoners, one bobbing from each of his armored fists.

“We saved almost a hundred prisoners.”

“That’s not a fair trade in my book.”

“You agreed to the op.”

“No, I followed orders. Next time, Councilor, I might not be so obliging.”

“The Gors are away. Shuttles cloaking . . .” The comm officer interrupted.

Captain Covani broke his staring contest with her and turned back to watch the visual feed. It now showed the inside of a Gor shuttle. Dark, and crowded with nightmarish faces as the Gors took off their helmets.

The captain went on, “Now that we’ve consolidated the survivors, I trust we won’t be wasting any more of our precious resources. Our current priority is to find somewhere safe that we can set up a colony. I was thinking the Feraides Sector,” Covani said as he pulled up a star map on the captain’s table.

Destra shook her head. “There are too many habitable worlds there. The Sythians will be swarming all over them before long.”

“Perhaps, but we haven’t seen them swarming anything besides us yet. I wonder if they really did come here to colonize our galaxy, or if that was just something they told us.”

“They had no way of knowing that information would get back to us. Besides, if they don’t want our galaxy, then why kill us all? Just because they’ve taken their time to organize doesn’t mean they’re not coming—or that they’re not already here. We don’t have recent recon data for any of those worlds. They might already be colonized.”

“So where do you suggest we go?”

“We need to go somewhere unexpected.”

Torv stepped up to the captain’s table and placed two giant hands on the edge of it.
“If you are looking for an unexpected place that is far from here,”
he began,
“I suggest we go to Noctune.”

“What? That’s in the Getties!” Captain Covani sputtered. “We’re not going to get away from the Sythians by flying right up their noses!”

“You would have to be very small to fly up a Sythian’s nose,”
Torv replied, his voice neutral, oblivious to his own wit.

The captain scowled and went on, “They leveled your home world when you stole their fleet. It was a barren ice world before, but now it’s probably a radioactive barren ice world.”

“There are other worlds in that system,”
Torv replied.
“Some of them are more temperate.”

“Then they’re probably already crowded with Sythians.”

“They are not.”

Covani shot Torv a suspicious look. “How do you know?”

“It was not long ago that my creche lord and my Matriarch live on Noctune. Only a few orbits pass since then. In all their time there, Sythians never once appear. They breed and train us in captivity. We only know this because we are telepaths, and because we remember the first time they visit us, many orbits ago.”

“Sir! Gorgon squadron is aboard!” the comms officer announced.

“Nav, Punch it!” Covani replied. To Destra and Torv he said, “We’ll figure out where to go while we’re in transit. Torv, make sure your people keep those prisoners in line. We’ll transfer them here as soon as we’re out of Dark Space.”

The ship’s computer began an audible countdown to SLS from 10 seconds. Someone cut the visual feed from the Gor’s helmet cam, and the main viewport went back to showing diamond-bright stars and inky black space.

Destra dismissed herself with a sloppy salute. “I’m going below decks to check on my daughter. Let me know as soon as the prisoners are aboard. I’d like to speak to them personally.”

Covani nodded. “Of course.”

The countdown reached zero, and the bridge lit up with an actinic flash of light as they jumped to SLS.

* * *