The Dark Between The Stars

ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-THREE
KING PETER

During the Kutuzov’s return to Theroc from the Ildiran Empire, the mood aboard was somber, not like a celebratory homecoming.

King Peter had already been aware that the shadow clouds were immensely destructive—General Keah’s encounters proved that, as did the obliteration of the Golgen skymine. But in Mijistra, he and Estarra had also seen how the darkness infected random Ildirans like a murderous poison. The Shana Rei were a far more insidious enemy than he had imagined.

If the creatures of darkness had declared war on intelligent life itself, human and Ildiran, there could be no reasoning with them, no negotiation. The Shana Rei and the Klikiss robots would have to be fought, defeated, destroyed.

He and Estarra were glad to have their son back, though dismayed to learn of Reyn’s debilitating medical condition, which he had hidden from them. He had revealed his illness to Osira’h—and to Arita, months ago—before telling his parents. Peter was shocked that he hadn’t recognized the signs. The clues seemed so obvious now.

And just when Reyn had finally decided to accept all the help that others could offer, the Spiral Arm might be at war again with an enemy more terrible than they could comprehend. As the Confederation’s King, Peter had to defend all of his worlds, but as a father he couldn’t help worrying about his son…

As the Kutuzov arrived at Theroc, General Keah stood on the bridge, regarding the ferocious verdani battleships and the heavily armed Manta cruisers placed in orbit to protect the planet. She propped her hands on her hips and shook her head. “Under normal circumstances, I’d tell you we’re safe now, Sire, but these aren’t exactly normal circumstances. We have the Solar Navy’s sun bomb designs, and I intend to have our armaments industries at the LOC manufacture them at top speed.”

Peter looked out at the thorny verdani treeships as the Juggernaut glided past. Osira’h and Reyn watched the forward viewscreens together; the two seemed inseparable. The halfbreed girl tilted her head, and her brow furrowed. Her feathery hair twitched just slightly. “Do the treeships always feel so… uneasy?”

“That’s a question for the green priests,” Estarra said. “I’m just glad we’re all home.”

While General Keah remained aboard her flagship, the rest of them returned to the fungus reef. Reyn seemed glad for the opportunity to show Osira’h the wonders of the worldforest, though he was disappointed to learn that his sister was off by herself in the Wild. He wanted Osira’h and Arita to meet.

Anton Colicos joined them, bringing a thick stack of documents with him. Though shaken by the assassination attempt and the death of his assistant, he refused to abandon his work. Even on Theroc, he would continue to study forgotten tales about the Shana Rei, while rememberers on Ildira did further translations.

Inside the throne room of the fungus-reef, Peter picked up on the tension in the air that Osira’h had detected. He whispered to Estarra, “I can feel it. Something’s not right.”

The Queen’s dark eyes were troubled. “I thought it was just my imagination after what happened on Ildira, but… I agree.”

Documents and obligations had piled up while they were away. The business of the Confederation continued as usual. Space traffic and trade to Theroc remained undeterred, and planetary representatives met inside large conference-room chambers.

A delegation of green priests insisted on seeing Mother Estarra and Father Peter; they pushed their way to the front of the schedule, much to the annoyance of a shipping company and an allied planetary cluster that wished to formalize an extended trade agreement.

The four green priests stood close together, two women, two men. A slender female said in a warning voice, “The worldforest is deeply disturbed. The trees sense a terrible force coming here.”

The throne room’s wallscreens activated, their blank dullness replaced by an image of General Keah. “Something’s going on out here, Sire! The tree battleships are shaking.” She glanced up quickly as one of her bridge officers gave her an urgent message, and Keah’s eyes widened. “There’s a disturbance in space, sensors going wild… aww, shit, it’s one of those damn shadow clouds!” She squared her uniformed shoulders, deadly serious. “The CDF will do everything possible to defend Theroc, Sire. You can count on the Kutuzov and all my Mantas.”

Estarra said, “That may not be enough. You saw what they did at Plumas.”

“We’re still going to fight—we don’t have any of those Ildiran sun bombs yet, but we’ll try everything else in our arsenal.”

Everyone in the throne room watched the wallscreens as an inky stain bled out of a rip in the universe into the starry openness of space. Three enormous hexagons emerged from the tear, cylindrical vessels that looked like blunted spears.

Peter felt cold inside, as if the Shana Rei had found some way to leak a shadow into his body.

Estarra turned to the delegation of green priests. “We’ll need the verdani battleships to help defend us.”

The orbiting treeships spread their thorny branches and swelled into a defensive line. Peter had seen them wrap those massive boughs around hydrogue warglobes and crush them. Maybe they could fight back against the Shana Rei hex ships.

When the Mantas attacked, jazers did little more than make a darker scratch on the ebony surface of the hexagon ships. Each time a CDF vessel approached the Shana Rei vessels, their systems were scrambled, and many of the shots missed.

Out of arrogance, or maybe because they simply didn’t care, the Shana Rei ignored the provocation. Instead, the black hex cylinders aligned themselves at the edge of the widening shadow cloud, but did not approach.

Peter ordered General Keah to back off and take a defensive position. “Don’t lose any more ships until we find a better way to fight.”

As a desperate alterative, he and Estarra tried to open communications with the creatures of darkness. “Shana Rei, this is King Peter, leader of the human Confederation. We have no desire for war. What have we done to provoke you?”

At the beginning of the Elemental War, when the hydrogues began to attack human settlements, the Terran Hanseatic League had no idea what they had done to incite the deep-core aliens… and by the time they had learned the answer, it was much too late.

Peter and Estarra sent message after message to the Shana Rei, but received no response. The gigantic black ships just hung there, directing the flat ends of the hexagonal cylinders toward the forested planet. The continuing silence was a void in itself.

Then something changed on the dark battleships. A thin slice of the hexagonal end separated from the main cylinder and twirled away. Identical slices peeled off the ends of the other two cylinders and hexagonal plates spun off into space—toward Theroc.

Slice after slice produced plates that flew together until they took up position high above the verdani battleships. One hexagon linked to a second, edge to edge, and a third nestled in like a piece of a puzzle. Another hex, then another. More slices continued to spin away from the black cylinders, connecting to the other plates.

Piece by piece, they began to construct a wall in space.

On the comm General Keah shouted to her weapons officer, “Full bombardment! Knock that structure apart.”

The CDF ships launched jazers and high-velocity railgun projectiles against the growing barricade. The most concentrated explosions broke some of the hexagonal plates apart, but the hexes drifted back together as if they were magnetically bound.

Hanging motionless above Theroc, nested in their shadow cloud, the Shana Rei cylinders continued to split off plate after plate, piece after piece, by the thousands, which did not even seem to diminish the size of the gigantic ships. The hexagonal components locked together and spread the barricade wider.

Peter was the first to recognize what it was. “It’s an occultation barrier—to create an artificial eclipse over Theroc. Without even coming closer, they can block out the sun.”

Estarra put it more bluntly, “All of the worldtrees will wither and die.”