Dark Space: The Invisible War

Kindle Edition (2
^nd
)

by Jasper T. Scott

http://www.JasperTscott.com

@JasperTscott

Copyright © 2013 by Jasper T. Scott

THE AUTHOR RETAINS ALL RIGHTS FOR THIS BOOK

Reproduction or transmission of this book, in whole or in part, by electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or by any other means is strictly prohibited, except with prior written permission from the author. You may direct your inquiries to
[email protected]

Cover design by Jasper T. Scott

 This book is a work of fiction. All names, places, and incidents described are products of the writer’s imagination and any resemblance to real people or life events is purely coincidental.

Acknowledgements

To those who dare,

And to those who dream.

To everyone who’s stronger than they seem.

T
he mountains formed a jagged white and gray line, illuminated against the horizon by the miners’ floodlights. Snow fell in driving sheets to pile on the shiny gray tarmac, where it quickly melted and ran into shallow pools that reflected stolen scraps of the midnight sky. Roka City’s air raid sirens wailed, reminding everyone that there wasn’t much time, but even so, crowds of screaming people were pressing against the sorry line of sentinels and mechs who guarded the simple wire fence behind Destra. She was waiting on the other side of the fence—the safe side—but now she cast a worried glance over her shoulder to the raging crowds, and squeezed Atton’s small hand a little tighter.

“Why are they so angry?” Atton asked, following her gaze to the fence.

Destra smiled down at her seven-year-old son, and he looked up at her with his bright green eyes—her husband, Ethan’s eyes. “Because they don’t get to go for a ride on the spaceship,” she said, and tousled his hair.

As they watched, the twin beams of a military hover transport’s headlights appeared in the distance, illuminating great swaths of the falling snow. Then a megaphone blared, sounding out even above the wailing sirens: “Disperse, and proceed in an orderly fashion to the nearest mine shuttle!”

Everyone should have evacuated to the mines already, but the smart ones knew that wouldn’t save them. It would only buy them time, and maybe not very much of it. The crowd turned to the approaching transport with a collective roar. They were not going to leave peacefully. Destra caught a glimpse of a little boy with blond hair clutching the fence and staring hopelessly at her. The boy’s mother saw Destra staring and pointed at her. “Hoi! Why’s
she
get to go?” the woman screamed.

Destra’s mouth quirked up in a bitter smile. That woman didn’t realize how wrong she was. Destra wasn’t going anywhere. The transport was already overfull. She turned away, sickened, and tugged on Atton’s hand for him to turn away, too.

Atton’s eyes were wide. He was squeezing her hand so tight it felt like an overripe piece of fruit in his grasp. She could feel the blood throbbing at the edges of his grip, trying to escape. It was going to be hard to pry him loose when the time came—and even harder to pry herself loose. Destra turned to study her son with a wan smile. He clutched Tibby, his favorite stuffed animal, to his chest. It was a diger, a furry white feline from the ice-covered oceans and the steaming, snow-dusted magma fields of Ossus. Atton loved that fuzzy caricature of a deadly predator.

Destra looked away. Something wet graced her cheek, but it wasn’t a snowflake—they were standing safely under the eaves of the spaceport control tower. Destra Ortane looked up, holding a hand to her brow to shield her eyes from the spaceport’s landing lights. She searched the swirling darkness for the telltale streak of light which would signify a ship entering Roka’s upper atmosphere. There were supposed to be a pair of seraphim-class corvettes coming to escort the last transport off Roka IV, but so far there was nothing. Either they were late, or . . .

Destra didn’t want to finish that thought. The battle was not going well. The Roka system was defended by more than a dozen capital-class vessels, but it was not nearly enough to repel an invasion which numbered over 100 strong.

The spaceport began roaring with the sound of the transport’s grav lifts, drawing Destra’s attention back to the ground. She turned to study the blocky freighter. Her eyes skipped over the scoured white paint and found the faded and peeling gold symbol of the Imperium—six stars surrounding a clenched fist. It was a symbol of strength and security, but in times like these, the peeling paint and faded colors of that emblem were far more symbolic. These were the Imperium’s last days. Roka IV would be one of the last worlds to fall, but fall it would, and Destra held no illusions about what would happen to her and everyone else who was left behind when it did. The Sythians took no hostages and they never left any survivors.

Destra chewed her lower lip, hoping against hope that the transport would survive. It was just a hastily-converted ore freighter. It had never been meant to fly into the middle of a war. Maybe the Sythians wouldn’t notice it amidst all the chaos. The transport contained all of the remaining evacuees from Roka City—more than six thousand corporate execs, government officials, and fleet officers. Just the important people, mind you. Grubs like her didn’t make the cut, but Atton . . . Atton was another matter. He was easy to miss, easy to smuggle in, and Destra was lucky—her uncle was Captain Riechland, XO aboard the mighty
Valiant
, flagship of the 1
^st
Fleet, and he’d been on Roka when the invasion had begun. Now Captain Reichland was flying back to his command, back to the war. The supreme overlord had ordered an all-systems, fleet-wide strategic regrouping.

Destra snorted. She knew what that really meant. It meant they were being abandoned. Soon the regrouped remnant of the fleet would be all that was left of humanity, and if that remnant kept fighting the inevitable, not even they would survive. Destra wouldn’t have believed her son better off with her uncle aboard the
Valiant
, but for one small piece of privileged information which her uncle had shared: the fleet rendezvous was in Dark Space. No one officially knew where that was, save that it was a place of exile for criminals, and that there was only one way in or out of the sector. Her uncle had explained that decision to her—the overlord had no intention of coming back to fight the war. The war was over. This was a full-scale retreat, and all of the people who were too rich and powerful to accept defeat had decided they’d rather
hide
in a den of criminals than die in their beds.

Destra would have chosen the same had she qualified to join them, especially since she’d been planning to go to Dark Space anyway—though hers were more personal reasons. Unlike everyone else, she already knew where Dark Space was. All she needed was a transport to get there, but it didn’t look like the Sythians were going to leave enough scattered pieces in all the galaxy to assemble a single working ship. That meant she’d never see Ethan again, but at least Atton would survive. He would make it to Dark Space, and Immortals willing, some day he might even find his father there.

Destra’s thoughts were interrupted as the hover transport flew over the fence, rattling the chain links with its passing before sailing over their heads to settle down a few dozen meters to their right. She gave her son’s arm a tug, and he followed her out from under the eaves without complaint, sticking to her like glue. The driving snow began landing in their hair and on their clothes, soaking them in seconds. A frigid wind blew, sending shivers through them, and Atton began to cry.

“I’m cold!”

“Atton!”

“I want to go home!”

Destra stopped walking and bent down to give him a fierce hug. “Atton, listen to me! You can’t go home. You’re going with your uncle on the spaceship, remember?”

She withdrew far enough to see little Atton bob his head, his eyes downcast as he picked snowflakes out of Tibby’s white fur. “I remember,” he sniffed. “You’re coming with us, right?”

Destra winced and smiled. Tears sparkled in her eyes. “Yes, darling, but not yet. You’ll have to wait for me, okay?”

Atton’s lips twisted into a deep frown, and he shook his head. “Tibby needs you to come
now!
”

Destra’s smile broadened and tears began trembling on her eyelashes. She blinked them away and shook her head. “You tell Tibby I need him, too, okay? But we don’t have a choice. I’ll catch up with you later,” Destra said, standing. She almost choked on the lie, but somehow she managed to smile and tousle the snowflakes out of Atton’s dark hair like nothing was amiss. They crossed the landing platform to the waiting hover transport. Atton was hugging his stuffed diger tighter now.

Just as they reached the transport, the doors swung open, and Captain Reichland stepped out in his gleaming black and white uniform. He crossed to Destra grimly and gave her a fierce hug.

“I wish it didn’t have to be this way,” he whispered in Destra’s ear.

“Me, too,” Destra whispered back, her tears falling to soak the captain’s snow-dusted shoulder.

“I’ll take good care of him.”

“You’d better,” she warned as they broke apart. She shot him a broken smile and shook a finger in his face. “Or I’ll hunt you down and feed you to the Sythians myself.”

“I don’t doubt it for a second,” he said, holding her gaze.

“Hi, uncle,” Atton said softly.

The captain gazed down at him. “Hoi, kid, how do you feel about going for a ride?”

Destra looked at the transport again, a worried frown etched on her brow. It didn’t look like it stood much of a chance.

Destra turned back to her uncle, about to voice her doubt, but a sonic boom split the sky, interrupting her before she could say anything. All of them turned to see a pair of bright streaks sailing down through the dark clouds. Those streaks turned toward the spaceport, and began blinding them with their landing lights.

“That’s our ride,” Reichland said.

“I thought you were going in the transport?” Destra asked.

The captain turned to her. He held her gaze for a long moment, saying nothing, but looking like he wanted to. “Well—” He smiled; his lips curved briefly, but his eyes never crinkled. “—that changed,” he finished.

“But you’re still going to Dark Space?” she insisted.

“Yes, yes, of course—” The captain cast a worried glance behind him, to the waiting hover transport. He saw the doors opening and other officers stepping out and he turned back to her with a grimace.

Destra noted his expression with a frown. “What’s wrong?”

He shook his head and leaned close to whisper, “They’re not going to make it, Des.” He pulled away with a false smile as one of the other officers walked up to them.

“Ready to go, Captain?” the man asked.

Reichland nodded. “Just waiting for our escort to land, and we’ll be off,” he said. “You go ahead and board the transport. I’ll be riding in one of the corvettes.”

The other man hesitated, as if he understood what that meant, but then he nodded and offered a brisk salute. “Yes, sir.”

Once the other officers had left, Destra allowed the look of mortal dread she’d been suppressing to suffuse her features.

“Don’t worry,” Reichland said, stopping her with a shake of his head. “Des, I promise your son and I
will
make it. I’ll pilot the corvette myself.”

“But aren’t you supposed to
escort
the transport? Protect them?
Fight?
”

Reichland hesitated. “Des, it’s every man for himself right now. Our orders are to run with all possible speed, not to engage the enemy. That transport doesn’t stand a chance of making it out, and two corvettes aren’t going to change that. There are no heroes among the dead, just more bodies.”

“Keep Atton safe, that’s all I ask.”

Reichland nodded, and they turned to watch the lights of the approaching vessels. Destra identified them from a distance—two seraphim-class corvettes, as expected, but those vessels seemed too small and fragile for her to entrust her son’s life to them. Destra hoped they were small enough to escape the Sythians’ notice.

Reichland was already walking toward the approaching ships, and Destra hurried to keep up, tugging Atton along beside her.

Then there came another sonic boom, this one resounding with multiple echoes, and their attention was drawn skyward once more. Destra drew alongside the captain just as he began speaking urgently into his comm.

“Set down
now!
Have Two cover your landing. I’ll be aboard before your skids touch pavement.”

“What’s that?” Destra pointed to the approaching quintet of fiery comets’ tails.

The captain shook his head. “Hurry!”

They jogged toward the corvette as it hovered down to the landing platform. Destra’s heart slammed against her sternum, and she felt a dizzy rush of adrenaline which gave her the strength to sweep Atton up into her arms and run faster.