Relic of Sorrows: Fallen Empire, Book 4 Read online

  “I heard. At least the android treasure hunters won’t have a reason to attack us now, right?”

  His expression grim, Leonidas did not answer.

  “Are all the soldiers off my ship?” Alisa wished she had gotten that chance to punch Tomich.

  “Yes. They were gone and the warship had already moved away by the time I was able to move and get up.”

  He ducked through the hatchway leading into NavCom and guided her inside, sitting her in the pilot’s seat. He pointed at the view screen, to the space station visible in the center of the Alliance armada. Tomich’s warship had moved closer, to join the others, though she noticed that it and the other large warship were staying farther back than the medical and research vessels. Maybe they had less shielding against radiation than the other ships? Or maybe the space station was emitting more than radiation? Yumi had mentioned energy.

  Alisa turned and shifted through the various displays at the sensor station, trying to find what she had been looking at. There was a lot of data, and she did not know how to interpret all of it. She could tell that the station’s wheel was spinning and that it was maintaining a stationary position. Some of the more modern stations had repositioning thrusters and the capability of travel. This one did not. If it had possessed something like that, it might have explained how it could have moved into the area, but it was old and basic. And inexplicably there.

  “You don’t look surprised,” Leonidas remarked.

  “No, I had a glimpse of it earlier. Albeit, I was dangling over someone’s shoulder at the time. I’m beginning to wonder why men always carry me like that when they’re capturing me.”

  He smiled faintly. “You’re a good height for it. And they can grab you around the waist to anchor you down.”

  “Waist, please. You mean they can grab my ass and enjoy themselves while they’re squishing me.”

  His gaze drifted toward her backside. It was more skeptical than intrigued.

  “It’s enjoyable. Trust me.” Alisa flipped to another display. “There are odd readings coming from the space around the station, aren’t there? Will you get Yumi, please? See if she’s up?”

  “Yes.” He ducked back into the corridor and disappeared.

  Alisa sneered at the jargon scrolling down the display, then turned toward the comm. There were answers aplenty on those Alliance ships. Could she convince someone to give them to her?

  It occurred to her that she could simply steer the Nomad out of the quarantined area and turn her back on this mystery. Especially if Abelardus was still unconscious and Alejandro was indisposed by his depression. Who would stop her? Leonidas? She’d done what he had asked of her when he made his bargain, offering to work for her. Surely, the men could not expect her to stay now? With the orb—the key—gone, what could they do here?

  Despite the thoughts, she tapped the comm to hail Tomich’s warship. After tricking her, didn’t he owe her an explanation?

  “Yes?” came a cautious response.

  Huh, Tomich himself had answered. She had expected a low-ranking comm officer. Or to be ignored altogether.

  “What’s the orb going to do for you?” she asked.

  He did not answer, though she could hear the murmur of voices and beeping of equipment in the background. He must be on the bridge.

  “Come on,” Alisa said. “You might as well tell me. What am I going to do now? Besides, don’t you feel guilty for coming over and enjoying our food and then ambushing us?”

  “Moderately, but you’re the one strolling around arm-in-arm with a cyborg. I’m only protecting the interests of the Alliance.”

  “Arm-in-arm? He’s my employee, just like Beck. He’s retired. He’s no threat to you, or wouldn’t have been if you’d left us alone and simply eaten your beans and sausage. By the way, Beck will want to know if you all enjoyed his sauces.”

  “Look, Alisa. I’m sorry. You’re the one who got involved with something that’s way over your head. And you said you don’t care about it. Why bother asking now?”

  “Well, there’s a big old space station on my view screen that wasn’t there an hour ago, so I’m curious.”

  “Curiosity gets pilots killed.”

  “Also, we saw one of the ships that came out of this quarantined area, Tomich. It flew right by those coordinates, and it had some radioactive junk inside, junk that was killing its people. We boarded it and saw the dead crew.”

  “You boarded it? You weren’t… exposed to that radiation, were you?” He truly sounded worried. Funny how many of her old comrades cared about her and yet betrayed her all the same. “Alisa, three suns, why can’t you just run freight like a normal civilian freighter captain?”

  “I’m special.”

  “Oh, I know that.”

  “Tomich, the station? Please. I’d like to know why those people died.”

  Leonidas and Yumi entered NavCom, Leonidas supporting her much as he had Alisa. Yumi’s face was pale, but her eyes widened and then intensified with sharp interest as she gazed upon the station.

  “It’s the station,” Tomich said. “The entire thing is emitting intense radiation.”

  “How? Why?”

  “I was studying the rift earlier,” Yumi said when Tomich did not respond immediately.

  “Rift?” Alisa kept the comm open, still hoping Tomich would enlighten them further, but she turned toward Yumi.

  “A dimensional rift, I believe. I wasn’t sure what to expect when the massive energy surge was building, but this isn’t surprising.”

  “It is to me,” Alisa said.

  “Dimensional rifts are not without precedent, but this is, from what I’ve read, the first time it’s happened in our system. The mining corporations have been experimenting and trying to create such rifts, or doorways into other dimensions, so they could exploit the nearby resources that might exist in dimensions similar to this one. That could potentially be more feasible than interstellar travel, since humans have yet to figure out how to travel between stars, aside from our trio of closely linked ones, in a timely manner. The original colonists for our system spent centuries in cryogenic sleep to arrive here.”

  “I know that. Tell me about these dimensions.”

  “If you’re unaware of the multiverse theory, which has all but been proven now, it’s the notion that multiple universes exist in addition to the one in which we live. We call them parallel universes or dimensional planes. They rarely interpenetrate of their own accord, but astronomers looking into distant parts of the galaxy have discovered rifts that may represent possible doorways.”

  “You’re saying that’s a doorway?” Alisa pointed at the space station.

  “The space around it could be, yes.”

  “What made the station pop through that doorway, right now? And did that doorway exist a month ago? A year ago? It couldn’t have. When Leonidas gave me these coordinates, I looked them up. Sys-net had absolutely nothing to say about them. No mention of rifts or doorways to interesting new dimensions.”

  Yumi spread her arms. “I have no way of knowing why it’s there now and wasn’t before.”

  “We believe the Starseers made the rift,” Tomich said, startling Alisa. She had forgotten he was still on the channel. “And when I say we, I mean my scientists informed me of their hypothesis.”

  “I assumed that,” Alisa said. “As I recall, your hobbies are drinking, women, and gambling, not astronomy.”

  “I also enjoy needlepoint, to calm my nerves after a battle.”

  “Ha ha. What do you mean the Starseers made the rift?” Alisa pointed toward the hatchway, about to ask Leonidas to get Abelardus, but he was already walking up the corridor toward them, steadying himself by leaning on his staff.

  “It’s their station,” Tomich said. “Or it was. After centuries of floating in unclaimed space, it’s arguably open for salvage operations to anyone who can get to it.”

  “So we could fly over there and take a look for ourselves, and the Alliance w
ouldn’t stop us?”

  Abelardus stopped in the hatchway and looked toward the view screen. It should have been his first time seeing the station, but he did not appear surprised by its presence.

  “We would stop you,” Tomich said. “For your own safety, as we’ve been stopping every ship that comes close.”

  “Our own safety, huh? And so you can keep whatever’s in the station for yourself?”

  “Alisa, your ship isn’t shielded enough to withstand the radiation coming from it. We would stop you for your own good. You said you already saw what happens to people who get close.”

  “To people who get close and take glowing plaques out of it, yes.”

  “Those likely came from the hull or were debris floating around outside of the station, being pulled into and out of the rift with it. Nobody’s gotten in yet.”

  “Because a key is required, by chance?”

  “Our people have been working on the hull, trying to cut a way in,” Tomich said, “but it’s surprisingly sturdy, and they have limited time in which to work. The station comes in and out of our dimension. Our first group of people disappeared with it, and when they came back… they were dead.”

  “You shouldn’t be tinkering with what you don’t understand, Commander,” Abelardus said.

  Alisa frowned at him and made a shushing motion. “I’m sorry for your loss, Tomich.” Even though she was irritated with him, she didn’t want him to close the channel and stop talking to her. Nor did she want to make light of lost soldiers, men and women who may have been directly under his command.

  Tomich did not respond to either of their comments.

  “Yumi,” Alisa said, lowering her voice, “any idea as to why it’s radioactive?”

  “Presumably, the dimension it’s coming from has a radioactive phenomenon nearby, or it’s possible that the entire dimension has a much higher level of background radiation than our own.”

  “That’s what our scientists believe,” Tomich said. “We’ve watched the station shift into and out of our dimension five times now.”

  “How long does it stay each time?” Alisa asked. “Is it regular?”

  “You’ll forgive me if I don’t tell you,” Tomich said. “I’ve already shared too much. I know you, Marchenko. You might be planning to go take a look at it right now.”

  “Not if we’ll get irradiated if we get close. I’m fine looking at it from here.”

  “Good,” Tomich said. “Stay safe.”

  He cut the comm.

  “Seven hours, thirty-seven minutes,” Abelardus said. “It’s as regular as clockwork.”

  “The station told you that?” Alisa asked.

  “I saw it in Commander Tomich’s mind.”

  “Ah.” She considered him, the calmness with which he gazed at the station, the lack of surprise on his face when he first walked in. “Did you expect this to be here, Abelardus?”

  “Since we saw the plaque, yes. The presence of a station explains some of our history in regard to Alcyone and her staff.”

  “Such as?”

  “When she knew she was dying, she and her most trusted aides found a way to hide the staff,” Leonidas said, speaking for the first time in several minutes. He had been standing and listening, absorbing everything.

  Abelardus glanced at him in surprise.

  “It was in the nursery rhyme,” Leonidas said. “The same one that gave us the coordinates. It spoke of the fall of Kir and of the famous villain-traitor Alcyone, along with her final resting place.”

  “Hundreds of years ago, the Starseers had power enough to make an inter-dimensional rift?” Alisa asked.

  “It likely took many of them to do so, but I’m not surprised,” Abelardus said.

  “I doubt they could do it now,” Yumi said.

  For a moment, Abelardus looked like he wanted to sniff in derision at this slight toward his skills, but he finally shrugged and said, “That’s probably true. Our blood has been diluted through the generations, as we’ve mixed with mundane humans.”

  He looked at Alisa, an odd speculation in his eyes.

  She did her best to ignore it. Beck and Alejandro had come up the corridor and were peering past shoulders and toward the view screen. Alejandro looked like the survivor of an all-night drinking session, but his mouth opened in something akin to awe as he gazed at the station.

  “Is that the resting place of the saint?” he whispered, not questioning the station’s presence. Maybe he believed the gods had brought it back.

  “None of this explains why that place started popping in and out of space, just as we decided to come to visit,” Alisa said, jerking her thumb at the station. “And are all these ships here because someone blabbed Leonidas’s coordinates? Or did they find it independently of us? Was someone simply flying by when the station happened to be there?”

  “You’d have to ask Commander Tomich,” Leonidas said.

  “I’d be happy to if he hadn’t closed the comm on us.”

  “He doesn’t know,” Abelardus said, his eyes distant. Whatever Tomich had taken to thwart Starseers from seeing into his thoughts must have faded. “He simply received orders from his superiors to come out here.”

  “Does anyone else on his ship know?” Leonidas asked. “The admiral in command?”

  “I don’t know. There are limits to my range.” Abelardus touched his temple. “It’s easier for me to link with people I’m familiar with and when I know where to look for them.”

  “Since we are in a remote part of the system, it’s possible that the station could have been coming in and out of space for a long time before anyone discovered it,” Leonidas said.

  “But for centuries?” Alisa asked.

  “Perhaps not, but for weeks or months, certainly. Of course, once one ship discovered it, the word would have gotten out.”

  “Until even pilgrims were making stops?” Alisa frowned, wondering if the people on that ship had truly been seeking some kind of enlightening experience. Had they heard that this station had possibly been the resting place for Alcyone? Had they simply wanted to come and look for themselves? Perhaps, they had gathered the artifacts out of religious fervor rather than from any desire to cash in on the loot. If so, she found their deaths even more lamentable.

  “It would be interesting to study,” Yumi said, “but it might be best if someone found a way to send it back to where it came from and close the rift, to keep any more people from being hurt, or killed.”

  “I’m still waiting for an explanation as to why this rift opened up now,” Alisa said.

  Yumi could only shrug.

  “My guess would be the orb,” Abelardus said.

  “That seems like a stretch,” Alisa said. “I know it can raise the hairs on my arms, but are you suggesting it’s also raising space stations from other dimensions?”

  “I have no idea where the orb has been for the last three hundred years—none of my people knew—but it seems likely that it was squirreled away in someone’s private collection somewhere. Or maybe the imperial heirs had it all along, kept safe in some vault on the other side of the system. As long as the key was buried, there was no reason for the door and the lock to be present.” Abelardus nodded toward the station. “But when the key came out of that vault and started roaming the system, maybe the station woke up.”

  “How would it know what was going on in another dimension?”

  “My ancestors could create powerful artifacts, artifacts few of us alive today understand and that none could replicate.”

  Leonidas stirred. “If what he suggests is true, we may have been the ones to… rouse the station. I feel silly saying things like that.”

  “Because colonels are only supposed to use their command voices to say stolid and staid things?” Alisa asked.

  He narrowed his eyes at her. “Because treating a space station as if it has sentience and can be awakened seems ludicrous.”

  “Why? We have all manner of artificial intelligences
in the system.”

  “This sounds more like a hibernating bear than an A.I.”

  “It may be neither,” Abelardus said, “simply a tool programmed to react when certain stimuli are applied.”

  “But if it’s feeling stimuli from all the way across the system…” Alisa said.

  “We weren’t actually that far from here when we visited the Trajean Asteroid Belt,” Leonidas said.

  Alisa did the rough calculations in her head as to how far they would have to travel if they flew straight there. “More than three days.”

  “Relatively close. Much closer than the orb would have been if it was being held on one of the core worlds.”

  The comm beeped, and Alisa reached for it without looking, thinking Tomich might want to talk to them again.

  Instead, it was Mica. “Did you see this, Captain?”

  “The station?” Alisa asked, assuming Mica had found a porthole.

  “The what?”

  Or not.

  “Never mind,” Alisa said. “What do you have?”

  “A huge pile of ahridium ingots, spare parts, and raw materials for making less temporary patches. It’s all sitting stacked in the cargo hold. I might even be able to make a new set of stairs if I can get some help.”

  “The Alliance soldiers left all that?” Alisa asked, puzzled.

  “I doubt it was the spare-parts fairy. Maybe your Commander Tomich is hoping you won’t hold a grudge. Or maybe he considers this fair trade for the orb.”

  “The orb wasn’t mine to trade.”

  “Is this a new laser welder?” A clunk came over the comm followed by a delighted laugh. “It is!”

  “Mica isn’t concerned about the morality of my quandary, I see.”

  Leonidas raised an eyebrow, and Alisa thought he would point out the times she herself had failed to worry about morality.

  All he said was, “I’ve never heard your engineer laugh.”

  “No, I don’t think I have, either. She’s even dourer than you most of the time.”

  “I’m not dour,” Leonidas said.

  “I’m not dour, either,” Mica said. “I’m practical. Give me twenty-four hours and some of Beck’s sausage, and I can have this box functioning as efficiently as possible outside of a complete overhaul and an extended stay in a repair dock.”