Books One to Three Omnibus (Armada Wars) Read online

  He sneered at the utter pointlessness of it all. These people knew nothing of the galaxy. Maidre Shalleon was one of the pampered worlds, coddled by the central administration and indulged in every way imaginable. Truly, this planet deserved its class one status.

  Looking across the small sea of chairs and tables arranged in arcs outside the café, he amused himself by imagining stories for the people he saw. The young couple who had never seen each other naked. The older lone woman waiting for someone, anyone, to talk to her. The group of laughing girls who had no idea that there was a madman watching them. They could all die tomorrow and the universe would not notice.

  He saw a man across the plaza, walking out of the cool shade of the tunnel that led away to the transit hub. The man looked around as if lost, then walked straight towards the café. As he approached, he seemed to take pains not to look at Castigon. Yet despite the many empty chairs he sat at the table next to him.

  “The weather here is outstanding, as was promised.” Castigon leaned slightly into the gap between their tables. “I must bring my mother next time.”

  “If you do,” said the man, “see that you take her to the city museum.”

  “I hear the landplant exhibition is virtually complete.”

  “The relics of colonisation have indeed been lovingly restored.”

  Confirmation. This was the person he had arranged to meet.

  “And if I wanted to visit the famous game preserves of Maidre Shalleon?”

  “Ah,” said the man, “then you would of course need to prepare yourself for the hunt.”

  “Quite as I expected. And where might a man such as myself prepare for that activity?”

  The man leaned towards him. “As it so happens, I may well be able to assist you.”

  • • •

  Dozens of empty containers. Hundreds even. Every one of them unlocked, some with their lids and hatches not even closed properly, just resting against the seals. Each container had a metal shell inside, with a hard foam lining shaped to accommodate specific parts. Whatever they had once held was now missing.

  “Cleaned out,” said Caden.

  “These had warheads in them,” said Throam. “I’m sure of it.”

  For a long moment, they looked at each other in silence.

  “Well,” Caden said, “I guess now we know what sort of ‘medical research’ was being conducted on Herros.”

  “That’s just great. Let’s build a shit-tonne of weapons on a virtually defenceless planet at the ass end of nowhere. Then when they get snatched up by who-fucking-ever, we’ll just send in a couple of chumps to sort it all out.”

  “All right, don’t lose your head. We’ve dealt with worse.”

  Caden started to walk along the rows of containers, looking for anything that stood out. A slight difference between them, objects left behind, even a smear of dirt. At this point, with the security logs wiped and the staff missing, he would gladly take any clue he could find.

  Behind him, he could hear Throam muttering to himself, throwing out the occasional curse and thumping the sides of the metal containers. He was quite happy to leave the angry counterpart where he was; a few minutes alone was normally all the time Throam needed to calm down and become useful again.

  He reached the end of the first row. Nothing.

  Rounding the container at the end of the row, he turned back on himself, now between the first and second rows. He could still hear Throam’s blazing monologue.

  Again, nothing.

  He continued with his search, walking up and down the rows, scrutinising every surface and panel to no avail. In the distance, Throam had quietened down considerably; partly due to the distance, but mostly due to running out of uniquely colourful curses. Caden was now approaching the final containers rapidly, and the hope of finding that vital piece of evidence was fading with every step.

  Failed before you even started.

  He stopped immediately.

  “Did you say something?”

  There was a pause, and then Throam shouted back. “No, why?”

  “No reason.”

  He took another step, then stopped again—

  —leaned against the nearest container as the room began to swim, the periphery of his vision becoming a thin yellow ring which danced and wriggled, Pathetic, the floor and walls ahead stretching away into a bright white tunnel that was somehow fallen into darkness, blackness, night, bent over slightly to suppress the wave of nausea rushing suddenly upon him, Give up now and save yourself the embarrassment free hand waving in the air, trying to find something solid to anchor on to, the floor heaving beneath his feet, and there on the rolling floor right under his face was a pair of black boots, with black trousers above them, You can’t even stand trousers that were right in front of his head, combat style, where is that humming coming from, but where is that humming even coming from, and the legs leading up from each shoe to join in the middle, raising his head, legs leading his gaze up and up to where the trousers must end, where the body must begin, You should never have come here, but no, there’s no body above those legs, they just melt into the inky dark of the tunnel vision and become another part of the nausea, the blackness, a sensation of falling—

  “Are you okay?”

  Throam’s voice came from behind him, and the room snapped back into place. Eyes watering, Caden coughed and realised he was almost bent double by the side of a container, still leaning on it for support.

  “Yeah, I just… felt a bit odd.”

  “Odd how?”

  “Queasy. Jump sickness. I’m fine, really; it’s passed.”

  “You don’t look fine to me.”

  Caden stood upright and composed himself. “Seriously, it’s nothing.”

  “You know just because I don’t say anything doesn’t mean I don’t notice,” Throam said quietly. “It would really help if you’d clue me in.”

  “I’m fine, that’s all you need to know.”

  “You’re not though, are you?”

  “Drop it,” Caden said, “that’s an order.”

  After a long pause, Throam’s expression shifted from concern to annoyance, then melted to resignation. He knew better than to press the matter.

  “You good to move on?” He asked.

  “Yes, there’s nothing here. Nothing we can assess without forensics, anyway.”

  “Next section then?”

  “Next section.”

  “‘That’s an order’,” Throam mimicked. “Sometimes it’s really hard for me not to punch you.”

  The counterpart turned and walked away, towards the same cargo doors which had allowed them access to the storage area.

  Caden paused for a second, looked around slowly, and followed after him. The episode was already fading fast, his body and mind forgetting the strangely disconnected feeling of it all. He had just one question on his mind.

  Why now?

  • • •

  On lush grass, dappled with spots of dancing gold light, Elm played with his starships beneath the great old oak. Shipped in from Earth at tremendous expense, the massive gnarled tree had been a mere twig of a sapling when its roots first touched the soil of another planet. Long, long before the boy was born. Damastion money was old money.

  “Damastion is always most beautiful in the spring, dear,” said Mother. “I simply could not imagine living anywhere else.”

  “Oh my, but there really is nowhere else,” said the ornately coiffured lady sat beside her.

  They laughed together, and Mother fanned herself lazily. As mild as the weather was, the warm morning had drawn from the ground and vegetation a moisture which now lay thick in the still air. The humidity could be oppressive, if one allowed it. The lady twirled her parasol absently.

  “I have it on good authority,” said Mother, “that the proconsul himself will be leading the proceedings next week.”

  Hoisting her skirts slightly, she adjusted her position in the garden swing, turning to face her com
panion so she could more easily appreciate the response. The lady was accommodating, and marvelled obsequiously at the honour that was to be bestowed upon the family Caden.

  “Oh, how wonderful,” said the lady. “You simply must have the entire ceremony recorded.”

  “Recorded, dear?”

  “How many people can say the Imperial Proconsul has waved them off to work?”

  “Well you know my dear, they now say the war might be all over by the end of the month.”

  “You don’t say?”

  “Can you imagine?” Mother said, folding her fan and tapping it against her empty palm. “At the tribute ceremony the proconsul will honour those fighting out of Damastion, and my Modim might never even have to join the campaign.”

  “It still counts, of course,” said the lady.

  “Oh, but of course!”

  They both laughed.

  Two destroyers soared through space, spattered with the golden light of multiple explosions. They collided with a disappointing clack. As accurately as they were decorated, Elm was tiring of these painted ships. He wanted more intricate toys, like the ones he had seen through shop windows in the bustling city of Galloi. Wooden toys were for children, and he was already nine Solars old. Old enough to wash and dress himself.

  “Mother, can I play with Brehim?”

  “‘May I’, dear. ‘May I’ play with Brehim.” Mother corrected.

  “May I?”

  “Brehim isn’t here, dear.”

  Mother and the lady continued their conversation, which with Elm’s prompting now turned towards the educational prowess of the ornate lady’s youngest son. Just two Solars older than Elm, and Brehim already had an electronic toy battleship, one which even fired little orange missiles.

  Elm was so very bored with the wooden toys.

  He clambered to his feet and rubbed his legs where the pale imprint of grass blades marred his skin. Mother always made him wear shorts and a mock naval tunic when she was entertaining company of status.

  Dropping the wooden ships on the grass, he wandered out from the shade of the great old oak, and into the bright sunlight which washed through the grounds of the estate.

  Father would be somewhere nearby. It amused Father greatly to covertly observe the pretensions of Mother’s social encounters. It was a secret to nobody on the Caden estate, other than his own wife. Father liked to don the hat he wore when hunting flightless birds on the estuary, and he would hide in the gardens with a pair of antique field glasses. Father called this naturalism. Elm did not know the word, but Father said that it was best to catch Mother in her natural habitat. He had once said she was a predator.

  Perhaps Father would agree that the wooden toys had stopped being suitable. He knew what it was to enjoy himself.

  Elm tottered across the lawn in the direction of the nearest shrubbery, and disappeared amongst the curling branches and wide, rubbery leaves.

  Inside the giant native bush, the air was cool and damp. Fist-sized beetles hopped from branch to branch, buzzing in annoyance at the intrusion into their quiet domain. Elm reached out inquisitively to touch the purple, oil-sheen carapace of the one nearest to him. The furry beetle reared on its four hind legs, unfolded a set of opalescent wings from beneath its exquisite shell, and with a thick, leathery buzzing sound it launched itself into the air.

  He watched it circle and weave as it gradually created distance between them amongst the twisted loops of the branches. On any day, beetles were better than wooden toys.

  The distraction ended when the fleeing insect was no longer in sight. He began to work his way deeper into the shrubbery, his small frame navigating the lattice of branches with ease. It did not occur to him that an adult would find such passage much more troublesome than he. The air was very still now, icy cold.

  Elm was almost at the centre of the sprawling mass of limbs and leaves before he decided that Father was almost certainly not hiding there. Having made the effort to arrive, he sat cross-legged in the dirt for a few minutes, quietly appreciating the secret heart of the place. He played with twigs and pieces of dead leaf, extracting entertainment from the detritus as only a child can. The hidden world was totally silent, and after several minutes had passed he began to feel how alone he was.

  He was not a sheltered child, by any means. He had been to Low Cerin with Mother and Father only months before. He had witnessed with innocent eyes the widespread poverty of that under-privileged planet, the street people staring back at him blankly as Mother virtually dragged him past. Their eyes had looked through him, as if those people had somehow become stuck behind an impenetrable wall and long since accepted that they would never return to the world. They made him feel guilty just for being loved.

  No, he was not sheltered. But never before had he experienced for himself the deep pang of true isolation. There had always been someone there with him, save for when he slept. Even then, Mother and Father were only separated from him by a wall. But here, amongst the spiralling loops of the rubbery-leafed shrub, there was only the silence and the cold. Even the beetles had fled from him.

  The feeling twisted into a tight, hard coil, grew long spines that sought out and pierced any emotion that might threaten to dispel it. It gnawed at his heart and clawed at his mind. It watched him through unblinking eyes that peered from every dark corner of inky shadow beneath the bushes. It saw. It knew his name. It rasped formless words. It mocked him.

  By the time Elm found the way back out to the lawn, and ran on wobbly legs back towards the great old oak, vast and pendulous mountains of cloud had started to block out the sun.

  The warmth of that day had vanished.

  • • •

  “Who in the many worlds is this?” Throam said.

  They entered the lab cautiously, sweeping each side of the fatal funnel that the relatively narrow doorway formed, covering each other as they cleared the room visually of any potential threats. Any other than the one they could already see.

  She stood motionless, thin arms by her sides, hands resting lightly against her thighs. Her gaze was locked on the featureless wall before her, lank brown hair partly covering her face, lips moving ever so slightly in silent recitation.

  “Turn around,” Caden said.

  The woman did not move, or indeed show any sign that she had heard.

  “Turn around, now!”

  No response.

  Caden began to approach her, slowly, and in the corner of his eye he saw Throam move out to the side. If she attacked suddenly, the counterpart would need a clear shot.

  The woman remained rooted to the spot, mouthing wordlessly at the wall, her lips barely moving.

  Caden mag-tagged his rifle to his back plate and drew his pistol. Holding it in his right hand, pointed straight at the woman’s head, he reached out with his left hand and prodded her shoulder. The one nearest to him, so that if she whirled around he could push her away and create space between them.

  No response.

  “You’ve still got it,” Throam said.

  “Hey.” Caden ignored the counterpart’s jibe. “Snap out of it.”

  He pushed the woman’s shoulder again, harder this time, and she tilted forward slightly before returning to the same position. Again, there was no response.

  Caden backed off. “Catatonic?”

  “Sure seems that way. Who do you think she is?”

  “No idea,” said Caden. “But I don’t think she’s meant to be here.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Because everyone is gone. If she’s staff, why is she here alone when the others are missing?”

  “If she’s not staff, why is she here alone?”

  Caden glared at Throam, then turned his attention back to the woman. He took her by the elbow, gently but firmly, and pulled her towards him. As if remembering the movement, she took a single faltering step. Her eyes remained fixed, her lips continued to move feebly, but she stepped forward all the same.

  “
So we can walk,” he said. “Well that certainly makes things easier.”

  He moved her gradually towards the doorway.

  “Stay behind. If she makes a move, drop her.”

  “You’re the boss,” Throam said.

  — 06 —

  The Blank Woman

  Fort Kosling was truly vast, and dwarfed the eleven-hundred metre Hammer. Next to the massive bulk of the Imperial fortress the heavy battleship was a mere splinter. She had slunk quietly into one of the many apertures which dotted the equatorial prominence, before being directed to a docking pier. The internal space in which Hammer arrived had been immense, a giant geometric cavern criss-crossed with guide beams. Dozens of starships rested there, decorating every pier.

  As they docked, Santani had announced on the ship’s comm that no crew member was to leave the ship. Caden, Throam, and Eilentes however had been allowed to disembark. It came as no surprise to any of them to see four men waiting at the end of the umbilicus, all dressed in dark grey with purple piping: the public uniform of Eyes and Ears. The men had waited for Throam, Caden, and then Eilentes to clear the umbilicus, then one had nodded in curt acknowledgement before they entered the narrow passage in single file, heading towards the passenger lock of the Hammer.

  “I wonder what that was all about?” Eilentes said.

  “Probably just rumour control,” said Throam. “They’ll want to check what the ship’s holos have stored about Herros before they let anybody leave.”

  “Paranoid much?”

  “It’s normal for them.”

  “It’s not like we landed in the middle of the Rodori Grand Bazaar,” she said. “This is a military installation.”

  “Yes, the very best place to be if you want to lose control of a rumour.”

  Caden looked around and saw that the umbilicus had brought them to a fairly standard arrival lounge, the kind which was supposed to offer some measure of recuperation if a long wait were likely. Nobody had come to meet them, suggesting a wait was indeed in the cards.

  “Welcome to Fort Kosling.” A recorded voice sounded over the comm system. “This facility is a controlled environment. Please wait while we assess contamination threats. For your own safety, follow all directives given to you by our debarkation staff after leaving the arrival lounge.”