Dark Space Universe (Book 3): The Last Stand Read online

Lord Korvas’s features screwed up in confusion and contempt. “Why is this... commoner speaking for you, Lady Tekasi?”

  Lady...? Lucien hesitated, taken aback.

  Addy flicked a scowl at him and made a shooing gesture before turning back to her displays. “My apologies, Lord Korvas. He spoke out of turn and will be punished.”

  Korvas nodded uncertainly. “I will see you aboard the Nexus soon.”

  “I look forward to it,” Addy replied, just before Lord Korvas ended the comms from his end.

  “Lady Tekasi?” Garek asked, arching an eyebrow at Addy.

  Lucien grimaced. “We should leave. We don’t know what we’re getting ourselves into here.”

  “I agree,” Garek replied.

  “They bought it,” Addy objected. “They’re obviously expecting someone, and for whatever reason, they don’t know that I’m not the one they’re waiting for. It’s the perfect cover. Why should we give that up?”

  “Because the counterfeit ID Katawa gave you won’t match this Lady Tekasi that you’re supposed to be,” Garek replied.

  Addy shook her head, smiling. “My ID says that I am Lady Tekasi.”

  “They don’t know who’s coming...” Lucien mumbled. “They must have checked your ID and they just assumed that whoever you are, you’re the one they’re waiting for. Maybe because of your rank—Lady?”

  “How can we check our IDs?” Garek asked, looking puzzled.

  “Via the comms,” Addy explained.

  “Katawa never mentioned that,” Garek said.

  “Probably because the IDs weren’t actually necessary to find the lost fleet,” Addy replied. “We didn’t need to know how they work. Katawa just had to allay our suspicions long enough to get us to Mokar.”

  “So who are we?” Lucien asked.

  “Garek is Lesot Berandol, and you are Rikel Dromas—my concubine.”

  “Your concubine?” Lucien echoed.

  Addy nodded and flashed a wry smile at him. “I guess we’ll have to share a bed after all.”

  Garek’s gaze skipped from Addy to Lucien and back again. “If he’s your concubine, then what am I?” Garek asked.

  “Your ID says that you’re my aide.”

  “Maybe we’d better read the data on our IDs before we get to this Nexus place,” Lucien said.

  “There isn’t much to them. Look, here’s yours,” she said, keying the comms to pull up the info.

  Lucien leaned over her shoulder and found a display with his face on it—Faro-blue, but still recognizable. He read the block of text beside it.

  Name: Rikel Dromas

  Rank/Title: None

  Occupation: Concubine

  ID: A1S-TRQ-P21-LZT

  Birth Date: 1-24789

  Home World: Tosia

  Lucien grimaced. It wasn’t much, but at least it gave him some kind of identity to work with. Addy brought up Garek’s info next. Lucien glossed over the ID code and birth date, which only Garek would need to know, focusing instead on his home world—Aarakett—and his name—Lesot Berandol.

  Garek briefly scanned the info before looking back to his displays. “Here comes our escort,” he said, pointing to a pair of silver specks silhouetted by bright red engine glows. The fighters grew rapidly larger as they approached, taking on aerodynamic wedge shapes that would make them perfect for maneuvering inside planetary atmospheres.

  The fighters sped by them in a blur, but reappeared a few seconds later with the business end of their engines facing the shuttle.

  Those banked to port and accelerated away. Garek pushed the throttle forward and banked after them until they were all headed directly for the hourglass-shaped band of atmosphere connecting Meson I and II.

  “I’m guessing the Nexus is what they call that donut-shaped facility,” Garek said.

  Lucien nodded. “Seems like. Why do you think they’re expecting us?”

  “You mean why are they expecting Lady Tekasi,” Garek replied.

  “Right.”

  “Could be anything, but if my grasp of the Faro word for Lord and Lady is accurate, Addy holds a combined political and military title reserved for the rulers of star systems or groups of star systems.”

  “So what system do you rule?” Lucien asked.

  Addy shrugged. “I have no idea. If we’re lucky no one will ask, or someone will mention the name of the system in passing. We’re going to have to be very careful what we say around the Faros to avoid getting caught.”

  “You mean you are going to have to be very careful,” Garek said. “We’re just commoners, remember? They probably won’t even speak to us.”

  Addy grimaced. “Right. Good luck to me then.”

  * * *

  Aboard the Etherian Ship, Veritus

  “What is that?” Tyra asked, pointing to a fuzzy white speck at the absolute center of the universe.

  Tyra and Admiral Wheeler sat in the Operations Room of the Veritus, the largest of the five ships they’d sent to join the Faros. Both groups of ships were busy calculating the first of three jumps to reach the coordinates that the Faros had chosen to investigate. According to the Veritus’s nav computer, it would be twelve hours before they arrived at those coordinates.

  “Good question,” Admiral Wheeler replied. Her eyes fell from the large holo display in front of them to examine the controls in the armrests of her chair.

  Tyra went on studying the map. She noted that Etheria sat in the grayed-out southern hemisphere of the torus, and so far they’d been unable to find any data about either Etheria itself, or the surrounding star systems and galaxies. All they knew were those coordinates, and that their nav computers refused to calculate a course to reach them.

  Suddenly the map zoomed in on the fuzzy speck that Tyra had identified, and a dazzlingly bright sphere appeared, dominating the holo display. It was labeled: The Gates of Etheria.

  “Aha,” Wheeler said. “There we go.”

  “This is where we’re headed?” Tyra asked, shaking her head.

  “It looks like the white hole that Etherus mentioned,” Wheeler said.

  “White holes are purely theoretical,” Tyra objected.

  “Until now.”

  Tyra frowned. “Assuming that’s what this is, then not even light can cross into it.”

  “Well there sure is a krakton of light pouring out of it. It has to be coming from somewhere.”

  Tyra shook her head. “White holes are the inverse of black holes. Black holes don’t let light or matter out, and white holes don’t let it in. I suppose that would explain why we’ve never seen the universe on the other side even though it’s spatially close to us here in Laniakea. Light can’t take the shortcut through the center of the universe because there’s a white hole blocking the way.”

  “So Etherus was telling the truth?” Wheeler asked. “There’s no way through?”

  “You’d be better off trying to cross the Big Empty, or the Great Divide, as Etherus calls it,” Tyra said. “In fact... if Etherian comms are instantaneous and really do have an unlimited range, then that’s probably exactly how the Etherians left this side of the universe. They must have transmitted their consciousness all the way around to the other side. That’s probably what they do when humans visit Etheria, too.”

  “So why haven’t aliens from the other side tried to contact us?” Wheeler asked.

  “Maybe we don’t have the right technology to listen? Our receivers are limited, and we’re far from the Big Empty. Who knows, but whatever the case, the Faros are leading us into a dead-end.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Wheeler said with a shrug. “This is just to buy time, remember?”

  “That’s what we’re doing,” Tyra said. “But what are they doing? Why travel to the white hole in the center of the universe if everyone knows there’s no way to cross a white hole?”

  Wheeler blew out an exasperated breath. “Maybe they want to snap a few pictures for posterity, or scrawl some space graffiti in Etherus’s neighborhood—d
oes it matter?”

  “It might. Maybe there’s something else at those coordinates that we haven’t noticed yet.”

  Wheeler gestured to the map. “Look for yourself. There’s nothing there. Not even a star system.”

  “Try zooming in some more,” Tyra suggested.

  “All right...” Wheeler trailed off as she did so. The blindingly bright sphere vanished, the outermost edges of its radiance were reduced to a bright, gauzy veil for the stars. A nebula? Tyra wondered.

  In the middle of the display, right beside the coordinates the Faros had chosen, was a gleaming cube, the sides of which were luminous, transparent, and vaguely golden. Through the transparent walls of the cube, Tyra saw a complex maze of structures on countless different levels, with what looked like elaborate gardens growing inside. A label above the cube read: The Holy City.

  “There,” Tyra pointed to it. “That’s where they’re going.”

  Wheeler shook her head. “But what is it? It’s...” she broke of, shaking her head. “That can’t be right.”

  “What?” Tyra asked, leaning over to check her displays.

  “It’s 2250 kilometers long on every side.”

  Tyra blinked in shock. The wedge-shaped facets of New Earth were each only two hundred kilometers on a side, and just twenty kilometers thick. This Holy City would be able to hold at least a few thousand of them inside its walls.

  “It must be some kind of space station,” Tyra suggested. “I wonder what makes it holy?”

  “Maybe that’s where Etherus lives,” Wheeler suggested.

  “So he lives on our side of the universe—not in Etheria with his people?” Tyra asked.

  “He might have another holy city on the other side,” Wheeler said.

  “Maybe we should search the ship’s databanks for more information,” Tyra replied. “There’s a reason the Faros are headed there. They must already know what it is. It might have some kind of strategic significance.”

  Tyra summoned a holographic interface from her chair to query the ship for information about The Holy City. It didn’t take her long to find what she was looking for. Reams of text appeared, and she began scrolling through the data, scanning it for pertinent details. Thankfully Etherian interfaces were all self-translating, but there was still a lot of information to get through.

  Dwelling place of Etherus... focal point of power... capable of generating extra-dimensional barriers in quantum space...

  Tyra’s blood ran cold. That sounded familiar. “I think that city might be what’s generating the interdiction field around the Red Line....”

  Wheeler leaned over to read the information off Tyra’s displays. “Frek. You’re right. If that’s true, and the Faros find a way to deactivate the interdiction field, we’ll be overrun in minutes. We need to kick them out now, while we still have the rest of the fleet here to support us.”

  “They’re already behind our lines,” Tyra said. “If they realize we’re onto them, they’ll jump away, and we’ll have to chase them all the way to The Holy City.”

  “You stay here and search the databanks for more information. See if you can confirm our suspicions. Meanwhile, I’m going to get back up to the bridge and see if I can maneuver us close enough to the Faros that we can stop their ships from jumping away.”

  “They might not like us getting that close,” Tyra pointed out.

  “I’ll try to allay their suspicions,” Admiral Wheeler said as she stood up from her chair and ran for the exit.

  Chapter 18

  Aboard the Etherian Ship, Veritus

  “If you come any closer we will open fire.”

  Admiral Wheeler glared at the blue-skinned Faro on the other end of the comms—one of the Abaddon clones. “You’re still in range of our fleet. We have you outnumbered.”

  “Then perhaps we should even the odds,” Abaddon replied.

  “We let you in so that you could investigate the truth of our claims that you cannot reach Etheria.”

  “And that is exactly what we are doing,” Abaddon said.

  “By going to The Holy City? How does that help you find a way to Etheria?”

  “When a gate is shut, you go to the gatekeeper for the key,” Abaddon replied. “Etherus is the gatekeeper, and he is in The Holy City. He could save us the trip if he would reply to our hails, but he is not responding.”

  “A white hole isn’t a gate that can be opened or shut,” Wheeler said, remembering what Tyra had said about them.

  “Then why did the Etherians call it the Gates of Etheria? You can see where my confusion arises.”

  Wheeler frowned. “Etherus won’t allow you into his city, and he might attack you himself if you try to force your way in.”

  Abaddon grinned. “He is a pacifist. What makes you think he has any means to attack us? Weapons would defile his home.”

  “We’re not going to allow you to reach The Holy City,” Wheeler replied.

  “Why?” Abaddon asked. “Are you afraid we’ll find a way to deactivate the interdiction field at the Red Line and go around the wormhole?”

  Admiral Wheeler tried not to react to that. The Faros had obviously spent plenty of time reading through the Etherian databanks themselves. They knew what she knew and then some. There was only one course of action left.

  “Abaddon, I’m warning you. Turn around now.”

  “No.”

  “Then you leave me no choice—gunnery! Weapons free!”

  “Aye, Admiral!”

  The screeching reports of laser fire came shivering through the deck, and Abaddon’s smile grew broader than ever. His glowing blue eyes glittered. “Last one to The Holy City gets to watch it burn.”

  The comms connection ended there and Abaddon’s face vanished from the holo dome.

  “They’ve jumped away!” the ship’s sensor operator announced. “And I’m detecting an unidentified vessel de-cloaking at the entrance of the wormhole. They’re flying through to the other side.”

  “With updated orders for the rest of their fleet...” Wheeler mused. “They’re coming.” She scanned the holo dome around the bridge, looking for the glassy sphere of the wormhole. She found it between the nine and ten o’clock position. She imagined the glinting specks of enemy ships streaming through the wormhole, explosions flashing around them like firecrackers.

  “Your orders, ma’am?” the officer at the helm asked.

  Wheeler shook her head. “Comms, contact Chief Councilor Ortane, tell her she has command of the Veritus, and she is to pursue the Faros to the Holy City and stop them if she can. I have to get back to the Gideon to command the rest of the fleet. The Faros are coming.”

  “Aye, ma’am...” the sensor operator announced.

  “You’re leaving the Chief Councilor in command?” the helmsman asked. “Are you certain that’s—”

  Admiral Wheeler’s gaze swept to him. “She was captain of the Inquisitor before she was the chief councilor, and give her the same respect you would me, is that understood, Lieutenant?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Good. You have the conn until Captain Ortane arrives.”

  “Aye, Admiral.”

  Wheeler stood from her station an strode for the recessed entrance of the bridge. New Earth and its fleets were still a week away. That meant all they had to hold the wormhole was the refugee-crowded Etherian fleet, and all of its ships were staffed with tired, badly inexperienced, and ration-starved crews.

  Admiral Wheeler had a bad feeling it was going to be impossible to hold back the flood of Faros until reinforcements arrived.

  * * *

  Aboard the Captured Faro Shuttle

  “Here we go...” Garek said as the hourglass-shaped band of atmosphere connecting Meson I and II loomed large before them. The fighters escorting them in slowed down, and Garek hauled back on the throttle to match their speed.

  The edges of the cockpit canopy began glowing orange, and the shuttle shuddered around them as they hit atmosphere. G
auzy white clouds swept by the viewports, and condensation beaded on them as friction with the air slowed their momentum to a crawl. Within minutes the Nexus itself emerged from the clouds, a gleaming silver torus with parallel bands of viewports stacked hundreds deep. A shimmering column of water raced through the hole in the center, falling toward the rocky desert planet below, while the water planet sprawled above, its surface a vast and rippled blue canvas peeking through scattered clouds.

  “Which is Meson One and which is Meson Two?” Addy asked.

  Garek pointed up to the water world—“Meson One”—then down to the desert planet—“Meson Two.”

  Lucien stared into the shimmering column of water. Glowing bands of light rimmed the inner-side of the Nexus, no doubt something to do with whatever was driving the water and holding the planets in such a close orbit. “That’s got to be the longest waterfall in the universe,” Lucien said.

  Garek nodded slowly. “Incredible.”

  The Nexus swelled in their canopy until it was all they could see, and the shuttle began shivering again as the atmosphere grew thicker. Garek was forced to throttle down some more, but this time it didn’t help. Violent winds buffeted them from all sides, swirling like a vortex around the station, and soon their cockpit was streaming with rivulets of water.

  “It’s raining,” Addy said.

  “But are the rain drops falling, or are we just running into them?” Lucien asked.

  “We’re at the point where the gravity between the two planets cancels out, so I’d say running into them,” Garek replied.

  The Faro fighters escorting them headed straight for a small rectangular bar of light in the side of the station. From a distance it looked like a viewport, but as they drew near, it resolved into the shielded opening of a hangar bay, and the glowing rectangles of light around it proved to be big rectangular blocks of viewports.

  Lucien counted thirty-two viewports stacked beside the hangar, making it at least that many stories high, and he estimated it was about two kilometers wide.

  As they passed through the shielded opening, tiny specks appeared on the deck below, waving them down to three small circular landing pads along one side of the hangar. Only a handful of other ships were landed inside the hangar, all of them small fighter-class vessels, leaving the bigger berths in the center of the deck empty.