Prisoners of Darkness (Galaxy's Edge Book 6) Read online

  ***

  Owens knew he was inside an armored transport shuttle. He’d been escorted from a very real deep space supply station across an unassuming docking bridge, and through an airlock before reaching what—on every transport shuttle he’d ever been on—should be the cargo hold.

  But this was no cargo hold.

  The room looked more like a House of Reason courtroom, with a massive holoscreen taking up an entire wall. In front of the screen was a tribunal of five legionnaires—all full colonels or above—each one wearing his crisp blue dress uniform.

  Owens scanned the five men for a familiar face. There was no one he knew personally, but at least three of the men he had seen before. They were points. He’d seen puff pieces on them in that awful “Life in the Legion” series that broadcast on the Republic’s military holofeed. Pretty safe bet the other two were points as well. Never a good sign.

  To his left and right were an honor guard of legionnaires, standing erect in their reflective armor. A banner bearing the emblem of the Republic hung from the ceiling of the cargo hold-turned-courtroom. Among the legionnaires, a flag with the Legion crest hung limply from a black graphite pole.

  Owens took a step forward, examining the leejes in their armor. “Probably points, too,” he muttered to himself. He was no longer feeling at ease. There was no comfort of home or familiarity as there had been just minutes prior in the space station. All of that had now been replaced with a gnawing at the pit of his stomach. The ship, the courtroom constructed in the hold of a transport shuttle… Owens had been ushered directly into a well-crafted political production of a trial.

  No matter what happened, the word “guilty” would be involved. Of that, Owens was certain.

  Legion Commander Keller had been told that there would be consequences if the kill team came through. Owens was about to face those consequences, and in a manner that was an affront to Legion protocol.

  “Lieutenant Pratell, presenting the prisoners as ordered, sirs.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant,” said one of the points from behind his tribunal seat. “You and your soldiers are dismissed. Report to the forward crew compartments and prepare for travel.”

  Pratell hesitated. “Travel to where, sir?”

  The point eyed Pratell coldly. “That will be all, Lieutenant.”

  Red-faced, Pratell led her men past the legionnaires and disappeared behind the whoosh of an automated doorway.

  With all traces of the Republic Army gone, the man at the center of the tribunal—a Legion brigadier general—rose to his feet. The man had a well-kept mustache that showed the first autumnal shades of gray, as did the hairs of his temples. He was trim and looked healthy. He did not, however, look hard. Did not look rough. There was no fire in his eyes. He was hard in body, soft in spirit. A point officer if Owens had ever seen one.

  “Major Owens,” the general called, his voice amplified by hoverbots nearby. “Step toward the bar.”

  A spotlight shone down on a podium held rigid by fixed repulsors directly in front of the tribunal. Owens approached it, thankful for his shades in the blinding spotlight that bore down on him from above.

  “So, you got a JAG for me, or am I representing myself here?” Owens asked, eying the tribunal in front of him. His voice echoed throughout the room, amplified by the hoverbots, same as his judge and jury. He waited a beat to let the reverberations die down. “Because if so, let me start by saying, for the record, that this is a bunch of hot garbage.”

  The tribunal sat, stone-faced.

  “Anything else?” the general seated in the middle asked.

  Owens knew that the smart move here was to keep quiet. To minimize whatever damage this laughable tribunal was set on doing, to make however much time he had to wait for Commander Keller to straighten things out bearable. To make whatever grief his wife and children—all of whom he hadn’t seen in so, so long, except for holos—easier to endure. He knew these things, but refused to act upon them.

  “Yes,” Owens said, theatrically turning himself around to view the entirety of the room. “I also want to add that it’s damn lonely being the only real leej in this room. I thought the point conventions were held on Utopion. Hotels still all booked up from Diversity Day?”

  Several of the legionnaires in the room shifted uncomfortably, including at least half of the men at the tribunal table. The thing about points was, they hated being reminded of it. They served close enough to the Legion to know their own deficiency, and this often nurtured a hatred within them for the “true” Legion.

  The general at the center of the tribunal twitched his lips, causing his mustache to bristle. “I feel that I’ve earned my Legion crest,” he said gruffly. He motioned at a naval officer making his way toward Major Owens. “There’s your counsel.”

  A middle-aged major dressed in white approached. The man had slicked-back hair and seemed tired, but also keen. As though wise of the galaxy.

  “Piece of advice,” the naval officer whispered to Owens. “Don’t make a show. Go along with what’s about to happen.”

  Crossing his arms, Owens asked, “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means—”

  A flourish of bright lights swept across the hold, and a hoverbot zoomed down and fixed its camera on Owens’s face. The major swatted at it like a fly, and the bot hummed its way higher, out of reach, but with its camera still trained on Owens.

  “Major Owens,” announced the general sitting at the tribunal’s center, “after hearing the facts of the case, your personal testimony, and the testimony of your peers and the men directly under your command, and after spending the past several hours in deliberation, this tribunal is prepared to give its verdict.”

  “Testimony?” said Owens. “What testimony? No one’s said a damn thing to me. I don’t even know why I’m in here.”

  The general acted as though he hadn’t heard the outburst. “Lieutenant Colonel Freth, would you please read for this tribunal the verdict?”

  A smarmy-looking officer with a double chin and a baby face stood up and waited for a holocam to zip in and focus on him as he looked to read something from a datapad.

  “Verdict?” shouted a bewildered Owens. He looked to his side and saw a holoscreen broadcasting a feed. He couldn’t see himself on screen, but he did see the holocams switch from the tribunal to the House of Reason Security Council on Utopion, as though they were formally gathered to observe. What was happening?

  The thought built mountains of worry in the Dark Ops leej’s gut, followed by questions about his wife… his family. That this was a setup was obvious. But who else was in on it? Had Commander Keller…? No, that wasn’t possible. Owens thoughts went again to his family. What would be done to them?

  The naval attorney grabbed Owens by the tricep, not unkindly, and leaned in to whisper in his ear. “Nothing you say right now will be heard by anyone who is not in this room. This trial is on every holonews channel in the Republic, and all anyone will see or hear is what the House wants them to hear. The best thing you can do right now is to keep quiet. Don’t rattle the tribunal, don’t give the conspiracy nutjobs something to talk about. Take your lumps for the good of the Republic.”

  Owens tensed his arm, ready to grab the lawyer, snap his neck, and stomp a mudhole of fury into every point in the room until someone stopped him or he walked it dry.

  The lawyer must have sensed this, because he hastily added, “You need to think about your family right now, Major.”

  Owens let his muscles slacken. He listened, stoically, as the verdict was read.

  “In the case of the Galactic Republic versus Major Ellek Owens. Major Owens, you stand accused of attempts to destabilize the Galactic Republic, conspiracy to destabilize the Galactic Republic, contempt toward officials, willfully disobeying a superior commissioned officer, failure to obey orders, sedition, noncompliance with procedural rules, aiding the enemy, destruction of military property of the Galactic Republic, murder (fiv
e counts), maiming (two counts), and conduct unbecoming a Legion officer and gentleman.”

  The lieutenant colonel turned to the general at the center of the tribunal’s table. “General Vex, this Legion tribunal finds the defendant guilty on all charges.”

  Owens gritted his teeth. Most of these charges would result in a mandatory expulsion from the Legion, at a minimum. Several charges carried with them the death penalty. He felt the JAG officer squeeze his arm, discreetly, as if to say, Remember your family.

  The mustachioed general at the tribunal’s middle, Vex, rose wearily from his place. He nodded at the lieutenant colonel. “Thank you, Lieutenant Colonel Freth. Major Owens, before I deliver your sentence, do you have anything more to say? I remind you that you remain under the Legion Oath.”

  Opening his mouth to speak—and to say what, he did not know—Owens caught a glimpse of the holoscreen broadcasting the trial. He saw himself standing where he was now, but from an earlier moment. The image of himself on the screen shook his head calmly.

  Then this was all for show. The tribunal had no interest in hearing what he had to say.

  Owens closed his mouth and waited for the reading of the sentence. The tragic, unjust, surreal sentence. A black culmination of a career of service to the Legion, for the Republic.

  “As chief tribunal, I do hereby order that your commission be revoked, and that you be executed by nanite injection.”

  Executed.

  His fate struck Owens like a blaster bolt to the solar plexus.

  His attorney again squeezed his arm. Whatever complicity the man had in this farcical trial apparently was not enough to wipe away all of his compassion.

  “A moment, General Vex.”

  The request intruded loudly through the speaker array in the hold-turned-studio. Owens searched for the speaker, whose voice was familiar, and noticed that the tribunals were staring at a screen in front of them. Looking once more at the holoscreen broadcasting his “trial,” Owens widened his eyes at the sight of House of Reason delegate Orrin Kaar.

  “Though I understand the reasoning of the tribunal’s decision,” Kaar said, “I would suggest that the sentence handed down is too extreme.”

  Owens felt some tension in his shoulders release, but he remained guarded. “Too extreme” might mean they’d let him keep his rank and then execute him. Still, Kaar’s intervention was all he had going for him in this room full of points. Unless Commander Keller sent some real leejes in for him. But that would be akin to declaring emergency constitutional powers—and Owens had no illusions about his own importance. No one was going to break up the Galactic Republic’s government solely for him.

  “I had the opportunity to read over Major Owens’s service files,” Kaar continued, speaking evenly and with confidence. “It would seem that up until this colossal betrayal, the major served the Republic with distinction, though much of what he accomplished remains classified. His seditious acts in destroying the Kesselverks Shipyards should, in my view, be balanced against the good he once did for our great Republic. I daresay the major thought he was helping the Republic in so flagrantly disobeying orders? A reminder of the need for tighter discipline in the Legion.”

  “What would you suggest, Delegate Kaar?” asked General Vex.

  Owens pressed his thumb into the knuckle of his index finger. He ground his teeth. The House of Reason wasn’t supposed to have any oversight over the Legion’s internal disciplinary processes. But with a room full of points—whose loyalty to the House and Senate was never questioned—it was really no surprise. The House and Senate had been growing in influence over the Legion for years. And, if you asked Owens, with a purpose of control. This looked to be the big play. This was the moment when the House would go on record as being the ultimate source of authority over the Legion.

  Something that was never meant to be.

  Something the House had always desired.

  “I would recommend, General,” Kaar said with a coolness that Owens found somehow… comforting, “that Major Owens not be executed. That he be instead given a life sentence of manual labor on the synth mines of Herbeer.”

  The synth mines. That was a one-way ticket. The gigantic planet Herbeer was uninhabitable on its surface, but some driven prospector content to live in a vacuum suit had discovered synth during a one-man mining operation. Synth could be turned into just about anything. Just press it hard enough against any another material, and it would take on the precise properties of that material, at the molecular level. It literally became that other material. That was what made it so valuable. And it had only been found on Herbeer.

  On Herbeer, in the prison mines, from which no prisoner ever re-emerged.

  Owens swallowed hard. He would never see his wife or his daughters again. He would never see the sun again.

  02

  Republic Naval Base

  Bantaar Reef

  Admiral Landoo slammed her fist down on the table and swore. She’d just received the report of the loss of the Deseram at Cordinal. The Republic was now down to three super-destroyers, spread out across the galaxy.

  She was pushing a plan to retake Tarrago. No one knew if the orbital defense gun was even working. If it wasn’t, a major raid could end this conflict now. But so far, the House of Reason had refused. They wouldn’t even allow her to reposition any of the super-destroyer battle groups.

  “Gathering a fleet of that size will leave much of the galaxy undefended,” had been the official response. “We are still pursing diplomatic options as well a guaranteed conflict resolution option that is not in play yet.”

  The unofficial, and unspoken, part of the response had been: What makes you think we would listen to you? You lost the Battle of Tarrago, Admiral Landoo.

  She still had command of the carrier Freedom, which was being re-armed at Bantaar Reef, the Republic’s premier naval station. And in lieu of the super-destroyers and their escorts, she’d been requisitioning every corvette, frigate, and support ship she could get her hands on. Her ad hoc fleet was now at seventy-five ships, and over the last seventy-two hours they’d won three computer-simulated engagements against the mysterious battleships everyone was now calling “the Imperial Fleet.”

  Landoo did not snort derisively at this name, as so many of the senior Bantaar Reef admiralty, and their lackeys, had. She’d seen that fleet in action. They’d chewed through her front-line ships with minimal effort and overwhelmed the system defenses of Fortress Omicron just as easily.

  But now, with her seventy-five ships, including her carrier and two auxiliary carriers, along with her knowledge of the Imperial Fleet’s capabilities and tactics, she was confident she would prevail. Especially if the orbital defense gun was inactive. And hitting Tarrago now would restore the House of Reason’s unquestioned power over the galaxy.

  So why were they waiting?

  Since Tarrago, the Empire and the Republic had faced off only in small raids and limited engagements. The Empire never committed to full-scale battle, instead appearing content to damage the Republic and run for the cover of Tarrago and an orbital defense gun that might or might not be working. It was attrition-style warfare, and she knew it.

  Her command staff turned away from her frustration and rage as she pounded the tactical map. Losing that super-destroyer had been stupid and avoidable. The House of Reason had insisted the ship, and its battle group, be moved into position around Aegeia, within striking distance of Tarrago. As though its mere presence would check the enemy. Instead, one of the Imperial battleships had leapt out with a fighter strike force, complemented by the corvettes captured at the Tarrago shipyard, and attacked.

  One super-destroyer. Two destroyers. Five corvettes and a support frigate. All destroyed. And enemy losses? Just a handful of fighters and a corvette used as a suicide ship. The corvette had hit the Deseram amidships and exploded—and the Imperial battleship, subsequently identified as the Terror, then plowed unchecked through the Republic support ships like a lio
n among sheep.

  It had been a stupid move by the House of Reason, and it had resulted in the stupid deaths of many service members.

  Of course, one of the crazy right-wing news networks was reporting that Aegeia was a major off-planet banking haven for many House of Reason dignitaries—and that the House of Reason’s real motivation for positioning the super-destroyer there was to protect their own financial interests. Stacking the decks, shaving the cards, and loading the dice so that the odds were ever in their favor. As they always had.

  But who knew what was true anymore.

  Admiral Landoo had bought herself some time against the House of Reason by playing their own gender-diversity argument against them. In her first press conference after the Battle of Tarrago, she’d indicated that she hoped the House of Reason’s view of her as a career naval officer, and her position of leadership in responding to this new threat known as the Empire, would in no way, shape, or form be impacted by her gender. She’s subtly hinted that they might fire her not because she had failed, but because she was a woman who had failed.

  She smiled grimly. Live by the sword, die by the sword.

  Turning away from the darkness of the strategic overlays, she stared out at the wonder that was Bantaar Reef. A super-giant star had once burned here, before collapsing and reigniting as a powerful gas giant. The reef was what remained of the star’s dead outer shell: a crescent-shaped debris ring that remained in low orbit about the swollen gas giant. Even though much of the ring was in outer space, the gas giant had formed a cloud, more like some nebulae, that provided an oxygen-rich atmosphere to the floating debris ring. The navy had quickly realized the value of having a zero-gee naval shipyard encased in oxygen. Repairs, refits, and construction could all be vastly increased without crews having to suit up for no-oxygen environments.

  Shimmering cities now littered the reef, and Admiral Landoo saw her gathering fleet coming alongside the stores and munitions depots to rearm and refit. Frigates and corvettes gathered like schools of fish around the few destroyers she’d managed to acquire. And at the center of it all, encircled by her escort group, sat the Freedom. Though she’d been soundly beaten in two fighter engagements, the Freedom was still a deadly platform if she could hit with just the right amount of surprise. Admiral Landoo envisioned that surprise. She’d hit the orbital defense gun in the same manner in which the Empire had first attacked Tarrago.