Dark Space- The Complete Series Read online

  “Did you come all this way just to kill me, Brondi?”

  The crime boss spread his hands. “No, I came all this way to acquire a new vessel for my fleet, and to find a man who owes me a great debt, so I can offer him a deal.”

  Ethan’s eyes narrowed. “What kind of deal?”

  “I’ll scratch your debt, and release your pretty little copilot, and I’ll even let you chase your dream of becoming a fleet officer. Sound good so far?” Brondi’s eyes glittered madly in the artificial sunlight.

  “What’s the catch?”

  “Catch? What catch? I just need a small favor. Two small favors, perhaps.”

  “Spill it, Brondi.”

  “Don’t be so hasty. I’ll explain, all in good time, my friend, all in good time, but first let’s go enjoy a nice cool beverage aboard my corvette so we can discuss business with a little more privacy.”

  Chapter 5

  Brondi led the way through the Kavarath, an old ISSF seraphim-class corvette, while Verlin and his cadre of bodyguards kept a tight watch over Ethan. Even though Ethan’s hands were bound with stun cord, Brondi wasn’t taking any chances.

  They came to the living room aboard the corvette, and Verlin pushed Ethan down into an armchair while Brondi went to the bar counter in one corner of the room to fix their drinks. The room was a big open space with clean, opulent white furniture. Ethan spent his time studying the lavish appointments of the corvette and idly adding up the probable prices of the furnishings in his head until he reached some absurd number and stopped, disgusted by the gross excess. Brondi’s corvette was richly adorned with deep blue carpets, soft, recessed gold glow panels, elaborate moldings on the white walls and ceiling, priceless fireglass sculptures—their crystalline depths roiling with rainbow-colored light—and even more priceless paintings from a bygone era when people still had the money for art. It was a painful reminder to Ethan of how the other half lived. Well, the other one or two percent, anyway.

  “You know, Ethan, if you had agreed to work for me all those years ago, you could have shared in this,” Brondi said, gesturing to the walls around them. “I could use a pilot as good as you.”

  “I was a smuggler once, Brondi. I lost everything because of that. I won’t make the same mistake twice.”

  “Yes, yes, we’ve all heard the sad stories. You got caught, went to prison, leaving your wife and son behind. Blah, blah, blah! Wake up, Ethan! You have nothing to lose any more! And Dark Space is no place for an upstanding citizen. You can eat caviar with the sinners, or starve to death with the saints.”

  Ethan watched Brondi crossing the room with two steaming glasses of a luminous red cocktail. If Ethan had to guess, he’d say it was spiked with some or other stim. He resolved not to have more than a few sips. Brondi passed one of the glasses to a blocky bodyguard, who in turn handed it to Ethan.

  “Because I’m such a fair man, I’m going to give you another chance, Ethan. Fly for me, and I’ll solve all of your problems. What do you say?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  Brondi offered another gaping grin. “Not if you like to live.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “Good, well now that that nasty bit of motivation is out in the open—” Brondi raised his glass, and waited for Ethan to do the same. “—to a hopefully long and mutually profitable partnership.” Ethan frowned and they drank together, but Ethan didn’t take more than a tiny sip of the fragrant, red cocktail. It was thick and syrupy sweet, steaming with fragrant vapor from dry ice, and glowing with some kind of phosphorescent powder that was suspended inside. Even with that small sip, Ethan felt his mind clear and his thoughts sharpen. He also relaxed considerably. The drink was definitely laced with stim, though without knowing exactly what kind of stim, Ethan was wary of the effects. He set his glass down on the transpiranium table between himself and Brondi. “I want to see Alara before we negotiate anything.”

  Brondi nodded agreeably, and then clapped his hands and lifted his head to speak to the ceiling. “Holofield on, level one.” The air around them shimmered, and suddenly Ethan was somewhere else; he was still seated, but everywhere he looked the walls had turned from white to an ugly gray, the soft gold of recessed lighting had been traded for a dark and dreary blue light coming from an unshielded glow strip running around the ceiling. There was a strange, keening sound coming from somewhere nearby, while before him lay an empty bunk with dirty white sheets, a small viewport showing the black of space, and an open toilet in the corner. The scene was intimately familiar to him—he was locked inside a cell. A sudden feeling of claustrophobia swept through him, and he spun around, looking for an exit. That was when he saw that the keening sound was coming from a small, crumpled form lying curled up on the cold floor in front of the bars of the cell. Dark hair was splayed out around the woman’s head, and her cheeks were wet with tears. Ethan felt a blinding rage welling up inside of him. He walked carefully over to Alara and bent down to touch her shoulder, but she couldn’t feel his touch. What he was seeing was real enough, but his presence was an illusion. He turned to get a better look at her face, and that was when he saw the ugly purple bruise which had caused one of her eyes to swell shut.

  Abruptly the holofield cut out and Ethan was staring into Brondi’s loathsome features once more. Ethan’s eyes went wide and bulged with fury. He tried to lunge across the table, but strong hands pulled him back and held him in place. Brondi began smiling again, and he clucked his tongue like a chicken. “Don’t make me lock you up, too, Ethan.”

  “You hurt her!”

  “No, Verlin hurt her, and she was the one who decided to resist. Be thankful that he didn’t hurt her more permanently. Now, listen carefully, because I’m only going to say this once, and I’m growing impatient. I have in my possession a nova pilot’s uniform, his security credentials, his identichip, a holoskin, and a vocal synthesizer implant. I also have his nova fighter.”

  Ethan shook his head, uncomprehending. “And you want me to . . . what? Impersonate a fleet officer?”

  Brondi clapped his hands quietly. “Kavaar! You’re not as dumb as you look. Yes, that’s exactly right. Verlin here went to a lot of trouble to get the novas on his tail so we could acquire all of these items.”

  “What for?”

  “Come, come, Ethan. I thought you were smart. Surely you can imagine the value of my infiltrating the fleet. Imagine the things I could do if I had someone on the inside working for me. Why, I could probably assassinate the Supreme Overlord! That would give me a great deal of personal satisfaction, although I suspect he would be replaced by someone just as annoying. Another possibility would be for me to gather Intel on any fleet operations that might compromise my activities.... But you know what I really want? I want the fleet gone. Poof.” Brondi mimicked an explosion with his hands. “What do you suppose the Imperial fleet would be without their precious Valiant? There would be no one left to stand up to me. The last, feckless remnant of the ISS would be extinguished, and Dark Space would finally and truly be free of its meddling influence.”

  “We’d descend into anarchy,” Ethan said.

  “What makes you think we aren’t already living in anarchy? The only difference would be no more taxation, and no more bloated fleet to drain our precious resources. Have you ever stopped to think that they don’t contribute anything? The fleet doesn’t produce anything, their officers eat our food, burn our fuel, and use our women, but they never give anything back.”

  “They give us security by guarding the gate, and they protect us from ourselves by defending the mines, farms, and factories. Without that little bit of discipline, we’d tear ourselves apart.”

  “They don’t need to guard the gate; in case you hadn’t noticed, the gate is broken down and disabled; no one bothers to maintain it anymore, and that’s to say nothing of the gate on the other side. As for the mines, farms, and factories you speak of, those are already owned by rich companies. They can pay for their own defenses with
the taxes they’ll save. No, I’ll be doing all of us a favor. Did you know that there are over 50,000 crew lounging around aboard the Valiant? They never do anything. The Valiant never moves. They just sit there, having a big party on their five kilometer-long cruise ship, all the while they reassure us that they’re using up our resources to guard a gate which doesn’t even need guarding, and meanwhile we are starving to death for the privilege of being able to sleep soundly at night, for the empty reassurance that they give us, reminding us of what we already know: Don’t worry, the back door is securely shut! We checked for you. Sweet dreams. It’s been shut for a decade! And if some drooling Sythian ever figured out how to open it from the other side, the Valiant wouldn’t even see them coming.”

  Ethan frowned. He had to admit, as much as he might hate Brondi, the man had a point. They might actually be better off without the fleet to suck them dry. He still didn’t like it, but it wasn’t as though he had a choice.

  Ethan pursed his lips, hesitating just long enough to assure himself that he had no other options. “So what’s your plan?”

  “Good!” Brondi rubbed his hands together and grinned. “See, this is why I wanted you to work for me. I don’t have to explain things twice with you. The plan is simple. You infiltrate the overlord’s precious carrier and sabotage it.”

  “You want me to kill 50,000 people.”

  “Don’t think of it as killing 50,000 people, think of it as killing 50,000 leeches on society, and saving the hungry mouths that they are taking food from everyday.”

  Ethan grimaced. “After that, you’ll release Alara and clear my debt?”

  Brondi nodded. “I’ll even give you your ship back.”

  Ethan hesitated. He was signing a deal with the devlin himself. In exchange for his soul, and a weight his conscience could never bear, he’d rescue Alara and himself, too. Were their two lives worth more than 50,000? But Brondi was right about one thing—50,000 fewer mouths to feed would result in 50,000 fewer people starving from the perpetual scarcity of food.

  “One last question.”

  Brondi’s forehead wrinkled up to his slicked back black hair. “Yes?”

  “Why me?”

  “You owe me, you’re resourceful, and you’re the only pilot good enough to impersonate a nova jock without additional training.”

  “Hmmm. Before I go, I’d like a chance to say goodbye to Alara. Just in case. And your assurances that you’ll let her go if I die in the attempt.”

  Brondi’s eyes became cautious. “Now, Ethan, you know I’ll only release her if you succeed.”

  “I may succeed, but not survive.”

  “Oh, well in that case of course I’ll honor my end of the bargain.”

  Ethan frowned and pursed his lips, wondering if the crime boss would actually honor the deal under any circumstances, but he wasn’t in a position to make further negotiations, and he didn’t have a choice. “Fine, it’s a deal, Brondi.”

  Brondi’s wild eyes lit up, and he raised his glass once more. “Excellent! Drink up, Ethan. Don’t waste it. That brandy costs more than 100 sols per glass.”

  Ethan reluctantly raised the noxious concoction to his lips once more, eyeing it all the way there. How much damage could a few doses of stim do to him anyway?

  “To a brighter, freer future for Dark Space,” Brondi intoned.

  Ethan nodded. “To the future.” And with that, they drained their glasses together.

  Chapter 6

  Ethan walked down the narrow corridor of the detention level aboard Alec Brondi’s corvette. The detention deck was the lowermost of the ship’s four levels, and it struck a noticeable contrast with the rest of the corvette’s lavish appointments. Here, every expense had been spared; the glow panels were flickering, the walls were peeling, and bare conduits and pipes were visible both beneath the floor grating and running along the ceiling. The detention level was noisy and hot from the ship’s reactors on level two. Ethan shuddered to think of Alara spending any amount of time down here.

  They reached her cell after just a few moments, and Ethan found her just as he had seen her in the holo recording, curled up in a fetal position on the floor in front of the cell door, her hair splayed out around her head, and her face purpling with a nasty bruise around one eye. Again, Ethan felt rage welling up inside of him, but he had to force it down. While he was surrounded by Brondi’s bodyguards, there was nothing he could do to avenge himself on Verlin.

  Ethan went down on his haunches in front of the cell, getting to eye level with Alara. Her eyes were shut, and her previously loud sobbing had quieted to a soft sniffling.

  “Alara,” he said in a gentle tone. “It’s me, Ethan.”

  She looked up at him with grease-smeared, tear-stained cheeks. Only one of her violet eyes opened, but her gaze quickly found him and settled on his face. “Efan ... they got you, too. I’m sawy.” Her lip was split and swollen, causing her to lisp. Ethan vowed to tear Verlin apart for what he did to her. Had he known when he’d first run into the bounty hunter aboard Chorlis Orbital that the man would do this to Alara and ultimately deliver them both to Brondi, he would have drawn his sidearm and shot the dark man dead rather than saying, “I mind my own business.”

  “Hey, beautiful. How are you doing?” Ethan asked.

  “How do I wook?” Alara asked. She propped herself up on one elbow and tried to smile, but it came out looking sad and crooked.

  Ethan smiled back for her sake, but all he really wanted to do was cry and scream and kill. Most of all he wanted to kill. He felt like someone had just beaten his daughter to a pulp, and now he was just a few feet away from the man, and he couldn’t do a thing about it. “You don’t wook too bad,” he said, trying to make fun of her lisp to lighten the mood.

  “You should see the other guy,” she replied, still trying that crooked smile.

  “You mean me?” Verlin asked, and Alara’s gaze wandered behind Ethan to the group of men standing there.

  “Speak of the devwin,” Alara said, and her gaze slid back to Ethan’s face.

  By a great force of will Ethan managed to keep from turning around and lunging at the bounty hunter. He went on smiling, but his eyes had grown cold with murder. “Look, Alara, I’m going to get you out of here. I’ve cut a deal with Brondi. He’s going to let us go, erase our debt, give us our ship back ... Everything is going to be just fine. You and me again, kiddie. Like always.”

  “Wike always ...” Alara repeated dreamily. Then abruptly she snapped out of it. “Efan, what are you talking about?”

  “I cut a deal. We’re going to get out of this, you’ll see.”

  “What kind of deal?” Alara asked, already suspicious.

  Ethan hesitated. “Don’t worry about it.” He rose to his feet, and Alara’s good eye followed him, big and scared and suspicious.

  “Efan ...”

  “It’s all been taken care of.”

  “Listen to the man, Sweet Thing,” Brondi interrupted. “He’s prepared to do a lot for you.”

  Alara began shaking her head. She rose shakily to her feet and reached through the bars of her cell to grab hold of Ethan’s hand. She managed to press on the bandage on his wrist and he winced. Realizing that something was wrong, she turned his hand over and saw the bandage. “What did you woo to him?” she asked, her gaze turning accusingly on Brondi.

  The crime boss shook his head. “It’s a long story.”

  “They removed my identichip, Alara. I’m going to impersonate a fleet officer in order to ...” Ethan trailed off there, unable to completely say what his mission would be for fear of what Alara would think of him. “In order to get some information for Big Brainy here.”

  Alara shook her head. “Don’t woo it.”

  Ethan grimaced, and pulled his hand free of hers. “I’ll be back soon, kiddie.” With that, he turned and began to leave.

  “I love you!” she called after him.

  Ethan stopped and slowly turned; his gaze met hers, and he w
atched the tears shimmering in her good eye, making it shine bright like lavender blossoms in the sun. He held her gaze for a long moment before quietly saying, “I love you, too, Alara.” He took a step forward, but Ethan felt hands on his shoulders turning him roughly away.

  “Touching,” Brondi said, “But I’m afraid it’s time for Ethan to go. Say b-bye, Sweet Thing.”

  Ethan growled as they dragged him away. “Let me go, Brondi!”

  “Oh, come,” Brondi said. “I’ve been more than patient and understanding with you, but your mission can’t wait any longer. You’ll have plenty of time to frek your girlfriend when you get back.”

  Ethan shot Brondi a deadly look. “It’s not like that.”

  Brondi raised his eyebrows and shook his head. “Well, I don’t really care what it’s like, now do I? Move along. You have a lot of prep work left to do.”

  UNDERCOVER

  Chapter 7

  Ethan watched the translucent blue swirl of the Forliss-Etaris space gate rapidly growing larger in the distance. He could hear his nova’s engines roaring, and feel them thrumming through the light duranium and berlium alloy frame of the needle-nosed fighter. The joystick vibrated in his hand as he rocketed toward the Forliss-Etaris gate. Piloting a nova was vastly different from piloting a transport. There was a constant feeling of too much power for too small a ship, of acceleration that bled through the inertial management system—light G-forces the nova purposefully didn’t block in order to help orient a pilot in space. There was also the fact that he had enough firepower under his trigger finger to blow up a small station. It was a wonder that the fleet didn’t abuse that power more—few had the strength to stand up to them.