Dark Space: Origin Page 12

  Ethan cleared his throat to say something, but Atton spoke first. “I’ve already met his copilot.”

  “Beautiful, isn’t she?”

  “I barely noticed her, Des—” Ethan said. “—because of you.”

  “I’m not going to argue about that, because I don’t know, but I want you both to understand that I did go looking. I was turned away by what I found.”

  “Hold on,” Ethan said. “There’s a problem with your story. Atton said he faked his death three years ago to take over as the overlord. The war and exodus were ten years ago. Your daughter is already seven. If you’d come looking for us before you fell pregnant—which must have been at least seven years and nine months ago . . . roughly 3 AE—you would have found Atton still alive. And as for me . . . I hadn’t even met Alara yet. You moved on before you found us—before you even came looking.”

  Destra’s face crumpled. “I guess it’s my turn to explain.”

  “Damn right it is,” Ethan said.

  “Let her talk,” Heston snapped. “You don’t know a thing about it, so why don’t you just shut up and listen?”

  Ethan’s face turned a deep shade of red. He looked seconds away from launching out of his chair and strangling the admiral.

  “Hoff,” Destra said. “It’s okay. They have a right to be angry.” Turning to Ethan, she said, “But he’s right. You don’t know what happened.”

  “We’re listening,” Atton said.

  Destra told her own long story then, starting with how she had managed to survive on Roka IV for a few days after the Sythians took control of the planet. She talked about hiding in a stim lab with an outlaw named Digger, and then she explained how she’d found Heston in the rubble of Covena, only to be betrayed by the people she was staying with and forced to flee in a stolen Sythian fighter. She ran out of fuel and landed on Ritan where she and Hoff spent the next three years just barely managing to find enough food, water, and shelter to survive.

  “Apart from the struggle to provide for our physical needs, wild rictans and carnivorous bats hunted us constantly. We were attacked on multiple occasions, but we always fought them off. Once they nearly killed me, but Hoff—”

  Heston shot her a quick look, and she cut herself off.

  Turning back to them with a hesitant smile, Destra explained, “Well, obviously we don’t want to relive such a traumatic experience.”

  “All right,” Ethan replied. “So you survived the rictans—what happened after that?”

  “We . . . we spent the next month on Ritan together before a rescue finally came. It was Hoff’s fleet. They’d heard his distress beacon.”

  Ethan smiled. “That fits. I guess you and the admiral must have got real close on Ritan—snuggling up under the blankets every night.”

  “That’s enough!” Hoff roared.

  Ethan sent him a sarcastic smile. “Enough would have been keeping your hands off my wife, but you didn’t do that, did you, Hoffkins?”

  “I’m going to enjoy watching you have an aneurism as I probe your empty brain,” Hoff replied.

  “Ethan, try to put yourself in my position!” Destra pleaded. “After three years spent waiting for a rescue, we were sure it would never come. We thought we were going to die on Ritan!”

  “So that makes it okay? I didn’t really think you survived. I didn’t think I’d ever see you again, but I still waited for you.”

  “Damn it, Ethan! It’s not the same. Were you stranded alone with your copilot for three years? Did the two of you have to fight every day just to survive, wondering most days whether it would be exposure or starvation that would kill you first?”

  Ethan’s jaw bunched. “It might surprise you to hear that food isn’t all that abundant in Dark Space. Most of us are working just to provide the basics, and a good number of us fail to do even that.”

  “Fine, hold it against me,” Destra said.

  “All right, I will.”

  “What made you come looking for us, then?” Atton asked quietly. “You already had Hoff and Atta, so why go digging up the past?”

  Destra turned to him, her eyes shining. “As soon as we got off Ritan and it became possible to look for you, I wanted to go, but then I discovered I was pregnant. Hoff wouldn’t let me make the trip until Atta was born, and by then . . . well, then I had someone else to worry about. What if I went tearing off into Dark Space and got myself killed? Then two children would grow up without their mother. And what right did I have to intrude on your lives now that I’d already moved on with mine? What could I possibly offer you two if I ever found you? The answer was nothing, so I kept Hoff from making contact with Dark Space for years, and he respected my wishes. We left you alone, so that I could make up as many lies as I wanted to about how good things were in Dark Space. I imagined that you and your father had found each other and were safe. In my mind I had you two living on a hydroponic farm on some lush planet, safe, comfortable, and happy.

  “I know that sounds crazy, and that’s probably because it is, but most of the time thinking happy thoughts about you two was enough to ease my conscience. For the times when it wasn’t enough I had Atta to remind me why I was staying away.”

  “That’s a comforting pack of lies. You could have gone looking for us without going yourself,” Ethan said.

  “I know, and that’s why I guess it sounds so hollow now. The truth . . . the truth is it was too hard. In my mind there was no way to mix my old family with my new one without destroying them both.”

  “So what changed?”

  Destra turned to Atton. “Dark Space came to us. They found us at the old transfer station in the Stormcloud Nebula. Hoff had posted a crew there to watch over you, and as soon as the gate was re-opened they met. Word came back to us, and when Hoff told me how bad things were in Dark Space, I was overwhelmed with guilt. By contrast, we had an easy life, and the enclave was flourishing. Hoff encouraged me to look for you two, just to reassure myself that you were both all right. I agreed, and Hoff sent me to Dark Space along with a liaison from his fleet.”

  “I remember receiving them, but not you . . .” Atton said. “That was just a guise to find us?”

  “Not a guise; they had real business with you, and I had my own—it was an excuse for me to make the trip. When I found out that you’d died, Atton . . .” she shook her head and more tears sprang to her eyes. “I should have gone looking long ago. Maybe then I wouldn’t have had to go through so much pain.”

  Atton took a deep breath. “I don’t know what to say.”

  Heston smiled thinly at Ethan. “Now you see how it all happened? I hope your story is as good as that.”

  “You already know my story,” Ethan replied, sounding even more tired than Atton felt.

  “Not quite true. I know how you came to be the overlord, but not how or why you were found impersonating a nova pilot.”

  “I guess I forgot to mention that part,” Ethan said.

  “Yes, do tell.”

  So Ethan did. When he finished his story about how Brondi had used him to spread the virus which had killed nearly everyone aboard the Valiant, the admiral was left shaking his head incredulously. “How am I supposed to pardon you now? With a story like that? At least your son didn’t actually do anything wrong—besides impersonating an officer, that is.”

  “I’m not asking for a pardon,” Ethan said.

  “Good! Because you won’t get one.”

  “Hoff!” Destra said.

  “I can’t,” he said, shaking his head. “When people find out, they’ll want justice. They’ll demand it. Someone’s head will have to roll, and if it isn’t one of theirs, it will be mine. I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do. The trial must go on. I can find a way to excuse your son, but that’s it.”

  With that, Heston’s comm trilled, interrupting them, and he touched his ear to answer it. “Yes? . . . You found what? . . . I see. . . . Send me the transcripts. I’ll be there soon.”

  “What happened?�
� Ethan asked.

  “We’ve picked up an escape pod from the Valiant.”

  “The Valiant is here?” Ethan asked, suddenly alarmed.

  “Oh yes—I guess I forgot to mention that,” Heston said with a wry twist of his lips.

  “Then Brondi is here, too.”

  “Assuming I can trust your stories.”

  “Who was in the pod?” Atton asked.

  “Your friend, Roan. I’m going to review the transcripts from his debriefing now. Apparently his story supports yours. That’s something in your favor at least.”

  “We have to do something!” Atton said.

  “We?” Heston echoed, rising from his chair. “I don’t know what you two have to do with it.”

  “Admiral,” Ethan said. “I have a score to settle with Brondi. I don’t care what you think of me personally, or whether you have to put me on trial for my crimes afterward, but I want to be there when you take the Valiant. Consider it a last request.”

  Heston’s eyes narrowed as he thought about it. “All right. I’ll grant that, but I hope you know how to handle a zephyr.”

  “I’m going, too,” Atton said.

  “No, you’re not. Your mother would never forgive me if you got yourself killed. I’m granting your father’s request because I’m hoping he will get himself killed.”

  “What?” Destra asked.

  Ethan gave the admiral a sardonic smile. “Don’t hold your breath,” he said.

  “I won’t need to,” Heston replied. “But you might—if you live long enough for me to throw you out an airlock.”

  “Hoff Heston!” Destra said.

  He turned to meet her flashing eyes with a bitter smile. “We have to go. I need to get to my ship and plan this operation before Brondi restores power to the Valiant. If he sees us coming, it’s going to make things much more difficult for us.” As they watched, Heston activated his comm and began snapping orders. A moment later he ended the call and said, “We’ll leave as soon as my guards arrive.”

  Chapter 12

  “Are you skriffy? I’m not opening the core!”

  Brondi glared at Sergeant Gibbs. “If you don’t, the reactor is going to overheat and explode.”

  Gibbs shook his head, and servos whirred in his zephyr’s neck. “This mech doesn’t have enough shielding. If I open the core while the reactor is on, it’ll kill me.”

  Brondi drew a bulky plasma pistol from his Zephyr’s thigh and put it to the sergeant’s head. “Better you than me. You’ve got three seconds before I pull the trigger.”

  Sergeant Gibbs stood there for two of those three seconds before he turned and snapped at one of his subordinates. “You heard him, open the core!”

  “Frek you!”

  Gibbs drew his own pistol and took aim on the man’s vulnerable faceplate. “Open the core, Fentin.”

  “Yes, sir,” that man replied and reluctantly started off.

  Brondi shifted his aim to the man they’d singled out. “We’ll take cover on the other side of the core,” he said. “If you can force the control rods into the fuel element quickly enough, you shouldn’t be burned. If you are, don’t worry, we’ll take you to the med bay first thing.”

  Fentin didn’t reply.

  Brondi, Gibbs, and the other three soldiers trapped in the reactor room with them hurried to the far side of the core and waited while their sacrificial lamb walked steadily toward his fate. By now the dymium core was glowing a hot, molten orange. Without either working power conduits or shields there was no way for the core to dissipate any of the energy being produced, and the reactor was melting itself to slag.

  “Krak, I can feel the heat through my armor!” Fentin said.

  “Don’t think about it!” Brondi shouted to be heard above the loud whirring of the core. “You’ll be just fine!”

  They watched over the top of the core as Fentin took a hesitant step into the orange light cast by the glowing dymium dome. Fentin’s zephyr appeared to shimmer in the waves of heat pouring off the core.

  “You’ve gotta move faster than that!” Gibbs called out.

  Fentin covered the rest of the way in one quick stride, and then he reached out toward the core. Brondi braced himself to hear the man scream, but nothing happened. Fentin turned the lever to unlock the hatch and then swung it open.

  Suddenly the light pouring from the reactor multiplied and the room was brightly lit. Now Fentin screamed. Still screaming, he reached in and forced the control rods into their guide tubes. A second later, the loud whirring of the reactor died, as did most of the light, but the dull orange glow of superheated dymium remained. Fentin stumbled away from the core, his screams louder now that the whirring of the reactor had been silenced. He held up one of his Zephyr’s arms, the one which had reached into the reactor. That arm was glowing bright orange like the core, and to a lesser extent, so was his entire mech. Fentin spun in a dizzy circle, screaming and staring at his glowing arm, as if simultaneously horrified and mesmerized by the sight of it. Abruptly he tripped and fell over, and his screams grew ominously quiet.

  “Get the man some help!” Gibbs snapped.

  “Don’t waste your time,” Brondi said. “He’s dead. Go get the doors open so our greasers can fix this mess.”

  Gibbs turned to look at him.

  “Well?” Brondi demanded.

  “Yes, sir.”

  And with that, Sergeant Gibbs and the remaining three men headed for the doors. Brondi glanced back at Fentin’s steaming zephyr where it lay cooling on the deck. Better you than me, he thought.

  * * *

  Destra strode down the hall, flanked on either side by her husband and daughter. A pair of armored sentinels went ahead of them, pushing Ethan and Atton along, their hands bound by stun cords once again.

  “Where are we going?” Atta asked.

  Her question went ignored by her parents. The situation was too serious and time was too short to stop and deal with her innocent curiosity. They were leaving Fortress Station for Hoff’s flagship, the Tauron, just in case the Valiant went from mysteriously derelict to guns blazing. If that carrier turned its guns on the station, they’d make short work of it, and the admiral didn’t want his family aboard if that happened.

  They reached the end of the hall and Admiral Heston passed his wrist over the door controls of his private airlock. The inner doors swished open, followed a second later by the outer ones. Ethan and Atton were shoved through first, to which Ethan grunted and said, “What’s the point in keeping us prisoner if you’re planning to release us again when we get to your ship?”

  “I’m releasing you, but only because you’ll be surrounded by your own personal firing squad if you step out of line. Atton is going to stay in the brig until the trial. As for why I’m not letting you two run around loose aboard this ship—I don’t have time to babysit.”

  Atton snorted, but said nothing. He was wearing his holoskin again. Hoff had told him to put it back on before the sentinels had arrived to escort them off the station.

  Destra eyed the corridor on the other side of the airlock. It was dark and full of exposed conduits. The rough, gunmetal gray bulkheads were unpainted and unadorned. It was Hoff’s private corvette, the Last Chance. The ship still served its original purpose as a heavily-armed and armored transport, and unlike the Admiral’s quarters aboard the station, there were none of the homely touches which might have made it more comfortable.

  They strode through the station’s airlock and then through a matching one inside the waiting corvette. Atton and Ethan waited on the other side with Heston’s guards, and as soon as everyone was through, the doors automatically shut with an echoing boom.

  Heston pointed to the nearest guard and said, “Corporal, take them below and lock them in the cargo hold until we arrive.”

  “Yes, sir.” That man nodded, and then both sentinels turned and marched the two prisoners away.

  “Hoff,” Destra began, watching Ethan and Atton as they left, “you didn�
�t mean what you said about hoping Ethan will get himself killed, did you?”

  He rounded on her. “Why? Do you still care about him?”

  “He’s not a bad man.”

  “Then explain his criminal history. Even if we can trust everything he told us, he still admits to participating with Brondi’s plot and planning to sabotage the Valiant.”

  “He didn’t have a choice. What would you have done if Brondi had taken me and the only way to get me back was to cooperate with him? Any jury will understand that Ethan didn’t have a choice.”

  “He could have gone to the authorities.”

  “Brondi would have killed Alara.”

  Hoff sighed and squeezed the bridge of his nose as if he had a headache. “Destra . . . Ethan wants me to send him. It’s up to him whether or not he lives through the assault, but it doesn’t really matter. If he returns, he’ll be subjected to a probe and if that doesn’t kill him, the sentence for his crimes will. He’s going to die either way. I suspect he knows that, and that’s the reason he wants to go.”

  “You already heard his story—why do you need to probe him?”

  “Because there’s no other way to corroborate what he’s saying! How do we know what his motives really were, or what he was actually planning to do? We can’t even ask his copilot, because she’s been slave-chipped and she can’t remember anything.”

  “She was chipped by Brondi—that’s proof enough.”

  “Or was she chipped by Ethan to shut her up? Maybe Ethan was working for Brondi as a willing mercenary and she didn’t like the idea.”

  “That’s a cold thought.”

  “Yes, but it is just as plausible as his story. The only way we can corroborate what Ethan told us without using a probe is if we get Alec Brondi to sit in that probe chair instead of him, and that’s if Brondi survives the assault.”

  “Then make sure he does,” Destra said.

  Hoff’s eyes narrowed. “You care a lot about your ex-husband, don’t you?”

  “That’s not fair. I chose you, Hoff.”

  “You chose me because he wasn’t there.”