Dark Angels Rising Read online

  “I was about to ask you the same thing. That’s some cloaking mechanism you have there.”

  This was followed by a pause, beyond anything attributable to comms lag. Drake could imagine the debate, internal or otherwise, that must be taking place on the other vessel. So far, this confusing Comet class ship hadn’t shown any aggression towards them, but it had shown itself to be dangerous. Could the old ‘enemy of my enemy’ adage be relied on here? Did it justify a leap of faith?

  Evidently, someone decided it might.

  “I am Commander Deepak Thapa of the stealth ship Sabre 1, out of New Sparta, and if you’re the Blue Angel then I’m a trainee gen pet groomer.”

  “New Sparta?” That couldn’t be a coincidence. “Who sent you here, Commander?”

  “That, I’m not at liberty to discuss. Besides, shouldn’t it be your turn to share?”

  “New Sparta,” Drake repeated, refusing to be deflected. “It wouldn’t be one of the banks by any chance, would it, Commander?”

  There had been rumours: black ops units operating at the highest levels of secrecy, on call as a last resort to ensure the banks’ interests were protected should anything go spectacularly wrong. He had always dismissed the notion as fanciful, a way for banking agents to pander to their egos, deluding themselves that their job was more glamorous and dangerous than it generally proved to be, but a part of him had always wondered: might there be a grain of truth somewhere in the tales?

  “First Solar, perhaps?” Drake continued out loud.

  “Who are you?” the commander asked again, more sharply this time.

  “I will tell you,” he promised, “but first I need your assurance that you’re not intending to take any pot-shots at Darkness Mourning now she’s vulnerable. We’ve settled that score for you. I’m about to send an away team across there and I want to make sure my people won’t be at risk.”

  The shock in Thapa’s voice was obvious. “You’re sending an away team to a Night Hammer ship?”

  “That’s what I said. We have our reasons.”

  “I’m sure you do. You took some damage, then, when you were caught in the crossfire.” Not stupid, this one.

  “A little. Nothing major, but we’d rather sort it out here and now.”

  “If you say so. Very well, you have my word that we won’t open fire on Darkness Mourning while your people are exposed.”

  “Until they’re safely back with us,” Drake said, to avoid any possible ambiguity.

  “Agreed.”

  Could he trust this Commander Thapa? The concession had come too easily for his liking, which suggested either Thapa had never intended to renew hostilities in the first place or he was lying. Drake only had his gut to go on, and made a decision. “Thank you.” He turned his head to the right, a signal for Raider to hold communications. “Give the away team the green light, and when you put me back in touch with Thapa, transmit visual as well as audio, keeping the focus tight; show him only me.” He didn’t want anyone to see Saavi, a child, hovering at the margins of the image, nor the zombie-like Mosi for that matter – no point in raising questions that didn’t need to be asked.

  “Okay, Commander Thapa, here I am: Corbin Thadeus Drake, registered agent for First Solar Bank, New Sparta, at your service.”

  After the briefest of hesitations a reciprocal image appeared in front of Drake, showing what had to be ops of Sabre 1. He noted with approval that the commander remained cautious, the image was as tightly focussed as Drake’s own must appear to him, showing little beyond the man’s face and shoulders and offering only limited opportunity to pore over the recordings later to glean information about this unconventional ship. As for Thapa himself, he looked to be a little younger than Drake – perhaps early thirties – and a little darker skinned, with strong features and eyes that held a steely quality suggesting an abundance of self-belief.

  “A banking agent captaining a trading vessel, that’s a new one on me,” Thapa said.

  “Needs must,” Drake replied. “As I’m sure you’re aware, we’re granted a considerable degree of discretion in pursuit of our assignments.”

  “That much I do know.” Thapa studied him for a moment then said: “Tell me something, Mr Drake. A short while ago we were stationed off Enduril II…” Were they now? That was interesting. “…when a Comet class trader dropped out of Rz close to our position and then dived straight back in again, much faster than any ship ought to. Before she disappeared, we managed to ping her ident, which registered as the Ion Raider. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

  Drake did his best to keep his expression neutral, and slowly shook his head. “Sorry, not got a clue.”

  “Of course you haven’t.”

  Thapa seemed to reach a decision of his own. “Mr Drake, we were sent to the Enduril system in response to concerns for both your safety and the legitimacy of your assignment.”

  “I’m flattered.”

  “There were credible grounds to believe that you may have been sent into a situation you were ill prepared for.” They’d got that much right.

  “You have failed to maintain the regular contact stipulated at the outset of the mission and that’s made your superiors anxious,” Thapa continued. “Now that we’ve located you, I must insist that you accompany us back to New Sparta for debriefing.”

  Seriously? The narrow focus of priorities this demonstrated almost made Drake laugh. He had to remind himself that Thapa and the higher-ups back on New Sparta were oblivious to what was going on here; they had no idea of the threat that Mudball and Saflik represented. Perhaps it was time to change that.

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that, Commander,” he said, his voice firm. “My assignment is still ongoing, though the parameters have expanded considerably. I was prevented from reporting by circumstances beyond my control.” Which was true enough initially, at any rate. “It’s imperative that I now remain in the field to see the mission through. You recall that discretion we spoke about earlier? Well, I’m exercising it right now. Unless I’m much mistaken, we work for the same employer, and there’s a reason they’ve always granted me such extensive autonomy. It’s because they know that situations can develop rapidly in unexpected ways, often requiring swift and decisive action, unconventional action from the person on the spot, and they trust me to make the right call when it matters.”

  Thapa went to say something but Drake spoke over him. “Believe me, Commander Thapa, it has never mattered more than now.”

  “So you’re maintaining that you continue to act in your employers’ best interests.”

  “Absolutely, yes I do.” Not a lie; after all, he was acting for the benefit of all humanity.

  The commander stared back, lips pursed, doubtless debating whether to challenge him on this. Drake didn’t point out that Sabre 1 was outgunned if push came to shove, he didn’t need to. Thapa wasn’t to know that the Dead Leg was a one shot wonder which would need extensive recharging before it could be deployed again. All he had to go on was the fact that this unassuming little vessel had just disabled a Night Hammer warship, and Drake saw no reason to disabuse him.

  “At this juncture, I do need to report back to First Solar, and thanks to your intervention, I’m finally in a position to do so. I’m relying on you to bring a recording of our conversation to the highest authorities you can reach, Commander Thapa.” Drake had been rehearsing what he was about to say in his head while they spoke. He didn’t wait for the commander to acknowledge but ploughed straight on.

  “This is Corbin Thadeus Drake, reporting to Terry Reese and the senior officers of First Solar Bank. As we suspected, the situation at Enduril II has proved to be far more complex than it appeared. The petition that led to my assignment there was false, and is in fact just one small element in a far wider plot. Matters have escalated rapidly and continue to do so, developments that represent a state of utmost peril.” A trigger phrase, specific wording that Re
ese would recognise. “One of the key players here is a well-established far-reaching criminal organisation that styles itself ‘Saflik’. They are making a power play, attempting to undermine the current structure of our entire civilisation and reshape it to their will.”

  What he’d said so far was enough to test anybody’s credibility, but what came next sounded close to ridiculous, even to him. “Saflik are fanatics, motivated by a twisted faith in the sanctity of the Elders and the conviction that we have systematically desecrated their legacy by misusing the artefacts they left behind.”

  He paused, determined to get this final part right. “By drawing on and combining the essence of a number of guardian entities collected from several Elder caches, Saflik have succeeded in resurrecting a composite being that approximates to a member of the long dead Elder race. They now follow this being zealously. Unfortunately, the entity in question seems quite insane by our standards. The threat this poses cannot be overstated, especially as the entity in question possesses knowledge relating to the whereabouts of Lenbya, the fabled ‘Ultimate Cache of the Elders’.

  “More than a decade ago, Lenbya’s tech gave birth to the group of freebooters known as the Dark Angels and equipped their ship, the Ion Raider, but in doing so the Dark Angels barely scratched the surface of what is held there. Under the entity’s guidance, Saflik have determined to breach Lenbya and utilise its vast resources of exotic technology to their own ends, starting with the subjugation of human space.

  “It is vital that this threat should be met and countered at the earliest opportunity, contained before it can gather momentum. To that end, I urge First Solar to mobilise whatever resources it can muster and to use every scrap of influence it can bring to bear. We need to assemble a fleet, the like of which hasn’t been seen since the final stages of the Auganics Wars, and send it to the co-ordinates I’ll provide at the end of this message. There is no time to lose in endless debate on the matter. First Solar itself has been compromised, and I regret to report that one of my fellow agents, Representative Cillian Archer, has been working for Saflik. I have no idea how long this association has been established or if it’s an isolated case. I do know, however, that any delay in responding, any indecision regarding whether or not to take this report seriously, could prove disastrous. Decisive action is our only recourse. I am currently occupied in gathering resources of my own, and will head for those same co-ordinates as soon as I’ve finished doing so. I hope to meet you there. End of message.”

  Thapa stared at him in evident shock. “Are you for real?”

  Drake met his gaze without flinching. “Totally.”

  The Night Hammer ship was damaged, that much was obvious. Grav and life support still functioned but Naj had arrived in pitch darkness. Even so, it took little more than a heartbeat for her to orientate herself.

  “Ops ought to be this way.” What Mosi knew, she knew, including all that he had learned from studying the ship’s schematics.

  Naj moved with preternatural speed, seeming to flow along the darkened corridor far more swiftly than his physical form could ever have managed.

  They encountered the first signs of life almost immediately: bobbing torch beams coming towards them. The light proved to emanate from helmets worn by two men. The Night Hammers didn’t see them coming; literally.

  Raider had explained it this way: Naj’s aspect, which Mosi now resided in as a passenger, existed in a different quantum state, fractionally out of phase with the rest of reality, only able to move fully into it for brief moments. Until she did so, people were unable to see her, to sense her.

  The two men ghosted past.

  “I could take them from behind!” she said, turning to prowl after the oblivious pair.

  “No! These are Night Hammers, trained soldiers, and we’re unarmed. You might catch one of them by surprise but then the other one…”

  “I’d phase out before he could touch me.”

  “And then he’d alert everyone aboard to our presence. No, it’s too risky.”

  “Killjoy.”

  She must have known he was right, though, or she would have done it anyway. For a brief moment Naj lingered, torn between the urge to commit violence and the dictates of common sense. They watched as the two torch-limned figures disappeared along the corridor, and the moment was gone. Naj shrugged and then they carried on towards ops.

  “That’s the longest I’ve ever heard you speak in one go.”

  Drake grunted, momentarily turning his attention away from the monitor fields to regard Saavi, who had spoken. “I’ve had to learn new skills in the decade since we mothballed the Raider.”

  “So I noticed. I think I even caught you smiling at one point.”

  Drake couldn’t help but grin.

  “Make that twice.”

  He nodded in acknowledgement before resuming his study of the monitors. Drake was keenly aware that his message to Terry Reese had been economical with the truth in certain aspects. He had avoided, for example, any mention of Mudball, or of his own unwitting role in helping the diminutive alien gather so many cache guardian aspects over the years. Nor had he mentioned that the whereabouts of Lenbya had been dredged from his own memory by the treacherous alien. He felt embarrassed enough by his unintended complicity in all this without broadcasting it.

  “Do you really think New Sparta will respond?” Saavi asked.

  “Honestly? I’ve no idea, but at least now we’ve given them the opportunity to do so.” And he liked to think that Terry Reese for one would give credence to his warning. Whether she carried enough weight to make others listen was a different matter entirely. “Besides, every financial institution on New Sparta has been obsessed with finding Lenbya since they were founded, even while they persist in denying the possibility of its existence, and we’ve just told them precisely where Lenbya is.”

  That, if nothing else, ought to stir things up and guarantee some sort of a response from the banks. He just hoped it would prove both swift enough and forceful enough.

  He watched as Jen and Leesa, anonymous in their suits, floated away from Raider and towards the stricken Night Hammer ship, the flare of their manoeuvring rockets blinking on and off sporadically. This time his staying behind wasn’t so hard to accept. He had a purpose beyond simply waiting around and fretting. Sabre 1 seemed to be preparing to leave the system as agreed, and Drake could see no reason for them to do otherwise, but he’d still breathe a sigh of relief when they were gone and no longer posed a threat to the Night Hammer ship that had come close to destroying them.

  The two women appeared to move in slow motion, the weightlessness of the environment lending their actions a deceptive sense of languid grace. Despite this, they covered the distance in surprisingly short order, almost catching Drake by surprise as they reached the hull of Darkness Mourning and declared, “Okay, we’re at the airlock. About to go in.”

  At almost the same moment, Mosi spoke, the voice emanating eerily from the still-slack face, his mouth working in isolation from the rest of his features. Apart from that, his frame remained frozen in place; this wasn’t Mosi returning, it was Naj communicating through his physical anchor. Drake had seen this a couple of times before and it never failed to unsettle him. The voice emerged in a flat monotone, devoid of inflection, which only made the words it uttered all the more chilling.

  “Captain, help. We’re trapped.”

  Six

  Captain, help! We’re trapped. Mosi had no way of telling whether the message got through. He thought it did, but by then things were starting to fall apart.

  Matters seemed to go well enough to start with. They found ops where it ought to be according to the ship’s blueprints – maybe Night Hammers lacked the imagination to make modifications, or, more likely, they weren’t permitted to.

  One thing that did come as a surprise was how few people there seemed to be on board. True, the crew might have been confined to quarters during what was clea
rly an emergency, but apart from the two torchbearers in the corridor they had encountered no one until they arrived at ops, and here they found just the captain and three other officers. Unlike the Ion Raider, where ops was an afterthought appended to the cramped cockpit/bridge, this was a warship with a custom built ops room that could have accommodated three times this number with ease. Besides, when the ship came under attack, shouldn’t all personnel have hurried to their stations, including those assigned to ops?

  It was clear immediately that the Raider’s attack had been more effective than they could possibly have hoped. Almost none of the systems were up and the room was bathed in a wan light that could only be fuelled by emergency power.

  The captain wasn’t backward in venting his frustration. “For gods’ sake get me some information!” he stormed. “Visuals, readings, some-bloody-thing. That tin crate could be up to anything out there.”

  “Yes, sir!” The sharp reply came from a broad-shouldered woman occupying the command chair while the captain paced behind her.

  “Taken out by a puny little trader without us even firing a shot!” the captain continued. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but we are supposed to be a warship, aren’t we? A Night Hammer ship.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Then how about we show them that, Number One? How about we retaliate!” He visibly took a grip of himself and said, far more calmly, “How long before we have eyes, any sort of eyes?”

  “I’m working on it, sir. Whatever they hit us with… I’ve never seen anything like it, sir. It wreaked havoc with systems I didn’t even know we had – external comms, sensors, weapons, they’re all down. I’m trying to rig…”

  “Number One, what is the one thing I detest most in this whole gods-forsaken universe?”

  “Excuses, sir.”

  “Excuses. So stop giving them to me and deliver results.”

  “Sir!”