The Smuggler's Ascension: Dark Tide Rising Read online

  The

  Smuggler’s

  Ascension:

  Dark Tide Rising

  The Smuggler’s Ascension: Dark Tide Rising is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2016 Christopher Ingersoll. All Rights Reserved.

  Cover art furnished by: https://www.bigstockphoto.com/

  ~1~

  The sound of boot heels echoed off of the dark tiles of the Grand Entrance Hall as a Captain of the Clovani Imperial Navy made his way through the Emperor’s Palace. His uniform was in stark contrast to the dark stylings of the Emperor’s fortress home on Clovani Prime. The uniform was a pristine white, its creases sharp, and its rank insignia gleaming in the light. The Captain’s uniform hat was carried at his side as he walked, his gaze fixed straight ahead on his destination.

  It had been many years since Korvan had been to the Emperor’s palace, the Captain reflected as he walked. The last time he had been here, he knew, had been for his father’s marriage to the Emperor’s sister. It had been a proud day for the family, and Korvan had stood by watching with pride next to his own sister as their father and his new bride had knelt before the Emperor and the High Priestess of Gau’dran’Seti, the religious sect of the Clovani people.

  From that day forward Korvan had enjoyed a long string of promotions, mostly earned but also influenced by the politics of the Emperor’s court, until he had reached the rank of Captain and been given the command of his own ship. The Tiger’s Fist, a heavy cruiser of the Third Fleet, was currently docked at the orbital shipyards high above the planet while Korvan had taken a shuttle planetside to answer the Emperor’s summons.

  Korvan had his suspicions about this meeting. Rumors had been running rampant through the fleet over the past few weeks, with no official announcement coming from Clovani Prime. Korvan had refused to listen to them, as people had suggested that the invasion of the Purannis Protectorate had been turned back and the entire Second Fleet destroyed. The thought was ludicrous, and he had quashed the rumors aboard his own ship. The Puranni did not have the military strength to repel an attack that included two dreadnaughts, the thought was laughable.

  And yet, here he was now, having been summoned back to Clovani Prime to stand before the Emperor. As Korvan traveled through the Emperor’s enormous palace, doubts began to creep into his mind. His summons had been very abrupt and lacking in details. The messenger pointedly had reminded him that the Emperor was not required to explain his orders to anyone, especially a lowly Captain of the fleet. He’d ordered the Tiger’s Fist to proceed to Clovani Prime with all haste, and so Korvan had done just that.

  As he approached the private, personal sections of the palace, Korvan came upon a guard station manned by two officers and a half dozen heavily armed combat androids. One of the lieutenants stepped forward with a pair of the androids to bar his passage, his arms folded behind his back and an arrogant look upon his face.

  “State your business,” the lieutenant demanded, clearly overlooking the fact that Korvan was a superior officer.

  Korvan paused and gave the offensive junior officer a cold stare while remaining silent, waiting for the offensive little worm to remember his place. It appeared, Korvan thought to himself, that palace functionaries were accustomed to a certain amount of arrogance, an arrogance he himself did not intend to allow to replace proper protocol.

  The lieutenant, after a moment of enduring Korvan’s icy glare, suddenly seemed to remember his training and saluted smartly.

  “Please, state your business, Captain,” the lieutenant finally asked. Korvan allowed the officer to squirm under his stare a moment longer before he reached into a pouch at his belt and withdrew a communications cylinder and handed it to the lieutenant.

  “I have been summoned to appear before the Emperor at once,” Korvan informed the lieutenant coldly.

  The lieutenant took a data pad from his belt and inserted the cylinder from Korvan into its open port. Korvan couldn’t see the series of information that flashed across the screen, nor did he care to. The lieutenant’s lack of proper decorum had raised his ire, and he was eager to be about his business.

  “Everything seems to be in order,” the lieutenant said after a moment. “If you will just remove you weapons and place them in the secured case at the station here, an escort will arrive to take you to the Emperor at once.”

  Korvan felt his ire mount to full rage at the lieutenant’s suggestion that he surrender his blaster and the sword at his side that was a sign of his rank. A blistering tirade was on the verge of crossing his lips when another voice called out from behind.

  “That will not be necessary,” came a woman’s voice, and Korvan’s heated rage turned suddenly to cold hatred. He turned slowly as he watched her approach, her heels making sharp cracks of sound with each footfall on the tiled floor.

  The woman was dressed in a black leather uniform that identified her as Imperial Intelligence. The silver rank insignia trimmed in gold upon her shoulders spoke of the rank of Colonel, which irritated Korvan as it always had that she was a step ahead of him. Her short red hair stood in stark contrast to her dark uniform, and her pale green eyes were like daggers as she returned Korvan’s gaze.

  “I will vouch for the Captain and take him from here,” the woman informed the lieutenant that had accosted Korvan, her voice saying ‘Captain’ with just a hint of disdain. She could have just as easily said fish in that tone of voice, for all the respect she inflected into her tone.

  “As you wish, Colonel,” the lieutenant replied, just a bit too fearfully as he stepped aside for her. It would seem her reputation had preceded her throughout the Palace, Korvan thought to himself.

  “This way, Captain,” the woman said, again with that hint of disdain creeping into her voice. Korvan fell into step beside her as they passed through the checkpoint and continued deeper into the palace together. Korvan’s tension spiked at seeing her here, but he shouldn’t have been surprised.

  “I see you have done well for yourself, Karina,” Korvan said as they walked together, though he offered no congratulations. Theirs had always been a tense relationship.

  “I have been given exactly what I have earned, and nothing more,” Karina responded spitefully. “Unlike some,” she added with a bite.

  “I have earned my place as well,” Korvan objected to his older sister, hating how she always made him feel inferior. He hated her smug superiority as he always had growing up, as well as her desire to inflict pain any way she could. It was a wonder she hadn’t struck him physically with her contemptuous comments.

  “Perhaps,” Karina said, and then fell silent as they continued, most likely knowing her silence irritated him more than anything else she could have added. Korvan knew she would do whatever it took to keep him off balance.

  After a few minutes, Korvan could not stand the unknown any longer, and he posed the question that he had so sternly stamped out aboard his own ship.

  “Are the rumors true,” Korvan asked in a low voice. “Has father failed in the invasion of Purannis? Is the Second Fleet gone?”

  Karina remained silent and kept up the pace through the palace. Soon, they entered a labyrinth of passages and checkpoints until they at last came to a pair of black doors trimmed in gold guarded by two towering guards in gleaming black armor that covered them from head to toe. Each guard held a long handled, laser bladed battle axe that rested upon the floor, as well as pair of holstered blaste
rs, all as black as the guards’ armor. From a small desk to one side of the door, a white uniformed officer rushed to them with a small cart with a locked storage compartment built into it.

  Beside him, Karina began removing her weapons, which told Korvan that he would now have to surrender his as well, despite his earlier objections. Only the Royal Guards went before the Emperor armed. He removed his blaster and sword and placed them in one of the drawers that had opened in the cabinet, along with his uniform cap. Karina surprised him by surrendering a number of knives that Korvan had not seen on her earlier, and he wondered idly where she had hidden them.

  The black doors between the two towering guards opened on their own as Korvan and Karina approached, and closed again on their own once they had passed within. Korvan looked around and whistled to himself as he realized they were now in the Emperor’s personal offices. The furniture was lavish, and the cases along the walls held rare and expensive books and artifacts from around the galaxy. His eyes fell at last upon the man sitting behind an enormous desk opposite the room’s fireplace.

  The Emperor of the Clovani Empire, who struck fear throughout the galaxy at the mention of his name, had not been what Korvan had expected the first time he had been in the man’s presence. Emperor Viktor Clovan the IX was a small man, wiry of frame and dressed simply all in white. The Emperor’s hair, once as black as the depths of space, now showed signs of white throughout, with wide streaks of white at his temples. The Emperor’s eyes, however, were as black as jet, making the whites of his eyes seem luminescent.

  Emperor Clovan looked up as Korvan and Karina knelt at the doorway and awaited his permission to rise. Korvan knew the Emperor liked to have people stay bowed or knelt for long periods as he assessed them all in his peculiar way. They stayed bowed and knelt for several minutes before the Emperor’s deep voice commanded them to rise. Korvan reflected that the man’s voice, a deep resonant baritone, was totally out of proportion with his size and stature.

  Karina led the way before the desk and clasped her hands behind her back as they stood before their Emperor. Korvan followed her lead, not wishing to appear as nervous as he now felt. While he rarely flinched in the face of authority, being before the Emperor like this had made him extremely nervous and uncomfortable as rumors of their father’s failure came back to him once again. The Emperor did not suffer failure well, and was known to hold whole families to account for one member’s mishaps.

  “Sit,” the Emperor said as he motioned to the chairs behind them.

  Both he and Karina sank into the black leather chairs opposite the Emperor and awaited his pleasure. Korvan found himself again under the stare of the most powerful man in the Empire, and the Emperor’s eyes seemed hard and angry.

  “As I am sure you are both aware, by now,” the Emperor began at last, “Your father has failed me in his bid to bring the Protectorate under our fist.”

  The anger in the Emperor’s emphasis on the word failed made Korvan flinch, though his sister beside him remained stone faced. Korvan hated her lack of emotion, remembering countless memories of her icy personality as they had grown up together. He often wondered if she were even human and not an elaborate android.

  “Rumors abound, my Lord,” Karina said in an even tone, “But little factual evidence has been made available, even to me in Intelligence. If I may ask, what has happened and how has my father failed you, my Lord?” Korvan’s omission from Karina’s statement served to anger him further. She rarely acknowledged him as family to others.

  Rather than answer himself, the Emperor rang a bell and a door opened at one end of the room to admit a fleet officer decked out in an Admiral’s uniform and insignia. The Admiral brought with him a data pad which he took to a large monitor that dominated a wall near the Emperor’s desk.

  “Two months ago,” the Admiral began as the monitor came to life, “Lord Admiral Anders entered into an alliance with one of the noble families on Purannis on the pretext of helping them overthrow the Puranni Royal family and seize the throne. The Lord Admiral allowed his allies to believe he was there to assist them in return for a future alliance with the Clovani Empire at a later date.”

  “This was not my father’s plan at all, I assume,” Karina added before Korvan had the chance, and Korvan silently cursed his sister. “My father hated the Puranni.”

  “Indeed,” the Admiral answered with a nod. “Lord Admiral Anders’ intention was to completely destabilize the Protectorate in advance of a full invasion. The Puranni Queen was assassinated by agents of the House of Duranis, and the Lord Admiral set a number of blockades along all of the major and minor hyperspace routes leading into the Protectorate in an attempt to capture the Puranni’s new Queen, who had been isolated since age thirteen off world in a secret retreat somewhere outside of the Protectorate.”

  “Yet somehow she got through,” Korvan said quickly. “I have seen the reports from Purannis about this new Queen’s coronation.”

  “Yes,” the Admiral agreed. “The Lord Admiral’s Puranni allies were tasked with covering a number of highly improbable routes around the blockade. It would seem that they failed in this task, as there were no reported breeches of the Lord Admiral’s blockade. We do not have the details of that failure, however.”

  “Once the new Queen was crowned and she assumed control of the Protectorate, the Lord Admiral paused to reassess the situation,” the Admiral continued. “The new Queen, who is reported to be quite young still, managed to regain control of her forces much quicker than the Lord Admiral had anticipated and established a thorough defensive line, despite the defection of the House of Duranis and its military forces.”

  Karina looked at the Emperor and nodded towards a small bar along the far wall, and the Emperor nodded in return. As Karina poured herself a drink at the bar, Korvan reviewed all he knew of this new Puranni Queen in his mind. She was indeed young, he remembered, having barely come of age when she took her throne. It would take an extremely strong person to achieve what she did in such a short amount of time, he reflected.

  “Two weeks ago,” the Admiral went on, “The Lord Admiral received a request from Purannis for a meeting between himself and the Queen’s Consort to discuss terms for ending hostilities, and the Lord Admiral accepted. His last communique stated he planned to use the Queen’s Consort as a means to force this young Queen’s submission, and failing that he would destroy Purannis entirely and overrun the remaining worlds of the Protectorate.”

  “What happened that leads you to believe my father actually failed and was not somehow betrayed?” Korvan asked, though he did not truly wish to hear the answer. The thought of his father’s failure and disgrace was a cold ball in the pit of his stomach that caused bile to rise in his throat. The Emperor’s wrath to those who failed him, as well as their families, was legendary throughout the Empire he kept reminding himself.

  “For starters, your father waited several weeks and allowed the young Queen to consolidate her power base,” the Admiral said darkly. “We also know that the Queen’s Consort did in fact arrive aboard the Wrath of Clovani as planned. What followed next has baffled all attempts of explanation, however. Somehow a small supernova-like eruption occurred amidst the fleet, though there was no star anywhere near their position. This miniature supernova consumed the Wrath as well as several ships in the immediate vicinity. Soon after, another seemingly impossible occurrence happened as a small black hole opened up and began swallowing the remainder of the fleet. All ships of the Second Fleet, including the dreadnaught God’s Hammer that was with your father, were destroyed by this supernova black hole combination, after which this dual phenomenon completely disappeared.”

  “Was this some new super weapon that the Puranni somehow unleashed?” Korvan asked, the shock of the Admiral’s report evident in his voice. Never had he heard of a weapon such as this.

  “No,” came a chilling voice from a dark corner of the room.

  Korvan and Karina both looked quickly to the so
urce of the voice, and watched as a dark robed figure materialized from the shadows of the corner of the room near the dead fireplace. Korvan was positive that this figure had not been there when they had entered the room, as it was easily visible from the door and he would surely have noticed her. The woman’s face was hooded and veiled, and she seemed to float across the floor rather than walk. Korvan also thought her voice seemed familiar.

  “The Puranni had unleashed an ancient power,” the dark robed figure said, the voice again seeming familiar, and yet Korvan could not quite place it. “Among the Su’Tani, the order of the Puranni’s ancient protectors, can be found the legend of the ak’Sun Su’Tani, which translates as the Lord Protector of Light in Old Puranni.”

  “You are saying that this Lord Protector was somehow able to create a supernova and a black hole amidst our fleet?” Karina asked incredulously. “Are we to believe in fairy tales now, mother?”

  “Yes,” the robed woman said simply.

  Suddenly, Korvan placed the woman’s voice as that of his father’s bride, the Emperor’s sister. Korvan had only to glance at the Emperor sitting quietly by to know that the man believed the woman’s pronouncement without question. The implications of such power frightened Korvan in a way he had never felt before, but he was also enraged at the knowledge of his father’s death that was now confirmed.

  “My Lord, please allow me to seek out this Puranni fairy tale and stamp it out of existence, if it truly does exist,” Korvan suddenly demanded, his anger getting the better of him for the moment.

  “Patience, Captain,” the Emperor responded with some irritation. “All in good time. There is more to hear.”

  “My Lord,” Karina interjected even as she smiled at Korvan’s rebuke. “There are rumors among the intelligence community regarding the identity of the Queen’s Consort. Can you verify this man’s identity?”

  The Emperor gave Karina a cold smile that made Korvan’s blood run cold and which made Karina flinch as well, something Korvan had never seen happen before.