Shadow Space Chronicles 1: The Fallen Race (4 page)

“
Yes, sir, it looks like some kind of mutiny, though I’ve never heard of the like among the Ghornath.”

“
It has happened before, but rarely,” Lucius said.  He felt saddened to hear it.  “Most of the time it occurs over incidents of honor.”

“
Well, Captain, that’s actually understandable.” Major Proscia said.  His voice suddenly sounded more confident. 

Lucius restrained a sigh, “Any details?”

“Negative, sir.  We have three of the individuals from the bridge, all of them are badly injured.  We’ve also found six others, all of them restrained and confined to a storage room just off the bridge.  Two of them have senior officer rank.  I’d like to transfer them over to the
War Shrike
, if possible.”  Major Proscia paused for a second, “Prisoner manifest reads Fleet Consul Feydeb and Strike Leader Maygar.  There is also—“

“
Major did you say Strike Leader Maygar?” Lucius asked, his voice tight.

“
Uh, yes, sir.  I don’t read Ghornath well, but that’s his name and rank.”

“
I’d like him brought to the conference room immediately, if possible.” Lucius said.  He felt suddenly much more alert and awake.

“
Perhaps the interrogation room—“

“
No, Major, have him brought to the conference room as soon as your Marines get him aboard.” Lucius said.  “My apologies, Major.  I know that particular Ghornath.  I… I owe him better than to meet him in an interrogation room.”

The Major cocked his head, “Understood, Captain.  I’ll have my men notify you when they’ve got him secured there.”

“Thank you, Major.  Please continue to keep me informed.” Lucius cut the circuit and stared down at his hands for a long moment.  After a moment’s reflection, he turned to the sensors tech, “Brunetti, that ship, its registry is the
Gebneyr
, correct?”

“
Uh, yes sir.” Brunetti’s startled voice came a moment before he looked up from his console, “How’d you know?”

“
I’ve seen her before, a long time ago.”

Lucius stared at the battle-scarred hulk.  Craters and gouges pitted its armor and, here and there, the inner structure of the ship lay open to the cold void of space.  Something in Lucius wanted to weep when he remembered the sleek, predatory vessel he’d encountered twenty years ago.  “I wanted to destroy that ship the first time I saw her.”

Time wrought its changes on everything.

Lucius wasn’t aware he’d spoken until Ensign Tascon answered him with a leer, “Shouldn’t be too hard, now, eh?”  Lucius turned an unblinking gaze on the olive-skinned officer.  Tascon flushed and looked away.

“Captain, Sergeant Alsan here.  We have the prisoner in the conference room as you requested.”

“
Very well, I’m on my way.” Lucius stood, “Tascon, let me know of any developments.”  He stepped off the bridge and closed the heavy hatch behind him.  He didn't see the two Marines snap to attention as he passed.  He walked in a haze to the door of the conference room.  One Marine stood outside and the sergeant himself stood inside.

The heavy alien sat, his hairless skin rough.  He looked like an aged stone statue.  Two silver eyes peered from under a heavy brow.  A heavy muzzle filled with dull, triangular teeth, and absurd, almost comically pointed ears finished the ensemble.  Most Ghornath looked the same to humans, and vice-versa.  Even so, Lucius felt a start of recognition as he stared on the face of this once-enemy.  “Hello Strike Leader Maygar.”

“You have the advantage of me,” the Ghornath’s flawless Terran might have surprised the Marine guards.  It did not surprise Lucius.  “Who are you?”  The alien squatted at the end of the table.  His cuffed hands rested on the table surface.  If he were to stand, he would have to hunch over in the room.  Few human ships were designed for three meter tall aliens.

Lucius narrowed his eyes when he noticed the bandages swathing the alien’s left shoulder, “Did my men wound you?”

Strike Leader Maygar shook his head.  “I repeat my question, who are you?”

“
Twenty years ago, hours after the fall of Ghornath Prime, a dozen Ghornath ships made a break for the edge of the system.  They could have escaped undetected, save they stumbled across a damaged Imperial corvette.”  Lucius seated himself at the near end of the table.  He stared down its length into those mirror-like eyes.  “It was drifting without power, with no communications and little air.  They could have taken revenge on their enemy.  No one--on either side--would have thought anything of it.  Instead, the Strike Leader ordered the ship boarded and its crew was taken prisoner and then dropped off on a neutral world.”

The heavy alien head hung low.  “You recount the past, well, human.  Is there anything else?”

“You spoke to the human commander.  You learned that his ship was in the initial attack on Ghornath Prime.  You learned that his ship helped to destroy the defenses that opened your world to attack.  Even then you didn’t jettison him or his crew into space.  You treated honorably a foe who deserved none.”  Lucius said the last with sadness at the man he had been.  It had taken him years to erase the anger and bitterness about his past and how the Fleet had treated him.
Even now,
Lucius thought,
there's a part of me that is grateful that I have an opportunity to prove my worth.

“
And the wheel has turned, I see.”  The alien stared at him for a long time.  “You are Lucius Giovanni, then?  Has the wheel turned so far that you are now the fleeing refugee?”

Lucius started, jerked out of the past.   “I am Baron Lucius Giovanni, Captain of the Nova Roma Imperial Warship
War Shrike
.”  His response came automatically, an echo of the past.  “I was once your prisoner, and now, you are mine.  I hope you will be a better prisoner than I was.”

“
But a prisoner, nonetheless, correct?”  The alien showed no expression.

“
For now.  My men are trying to find out what happened.  Some of your people on the bridge opened fire on them when they boarded.  They returned fire and they found you confined near the bridge—”

“
Those weren’t my crew... not anymore.”  Strike Leader Maygar growled, anger flushed his face with color.  His skin color fluoresced red as rage flooded him.  “They mutinied, out of false declarations of honor.  They abandoned hope, and they betrayed me and their people.”

“
So it is a mutiny.” Lucius murmured, shaking his head.  “What happened?”

The Ghornath regained control immediately.  “I must know, are we enemies?”

The question had deeper meaning than the immediate situation.  The war with the Ghornath had not ended.  The Imperial Fleet still had shoot-on-sight orders for a number of Ghornath 'terrorists.’  Lucius knew for a fact that Strike Leader Maygar lay near the top of that list.  To disregard that order meant a far more direct mode of treason than his earlier actions.  “The
Gebneyr
acted as a raider for the past twenty years.  You are confirmed in the destruction of over fifty ships of the Empire.”

“
The number lies closer to a hundred.” There was no denying the pride in Magyar’s voice.  As well he should, without a base of operations, with no resupply besides what he took off of Roma Nova merchant ships or military vessels, he had continued to fight a war that others had already written off as lost.

“
Yet… the Nova Roma Empire has… fallen.” Lucius found the words bitter in his mouth.  “A true warrior once taught me that when all else is lost, a warrior has only his honor.”

“
A bit naïve, but true.”

Lucius smiled a bit, “I am not your enemy, Strike Leader.  Not now and hopefully never again.”  He sighed, “I think we are in similar circumstances.  Right now, however, I have the ability to help you.  I have a company of Marines, and the facilities to help repair your ship.”

The silver eyes stared at him for a long moment, and then the Ghornath spoke.  His voice was emotionless, but a blue-tinge of sorrow came to his brown hide, “My ship came to this system seeking a rumor of a refugee ship that had come to this area.  We found this moon, and then an inhabited world.  The humans there call it Faraday.”

Lucius had to interrupt, “There’s an inhabited world here?”

“Yes... unfortunately.”  The Ghornath’s coloring switched to a brilliant crimson, “They told us the ship was damaged, but that they’d sent it away anyway, after allowing them to make some repairs.”  His skin practically glowed with anger, “They fired on us when we insisted they give us more information.”

Lucius waited, watching the Ghornath’s skin darken back to a neutral brown.

“It was… unexpected.  They didn’t have much of a defense force.  They claimed to be an Imperial world, but they did not show any of the known ship classes, just older warships, crudely made and armed.  Even so, they caused much damage to my ship.  We did not have weapons armed or defense screens raised.  My crew was not even in suits.”  The Ghornath’s skin turned a deep blue of sorrow.  “It was an act of treachery.  One that many of my crew believed deserved retribution.  I believed differently, I thought it was more important we discovered the refugee ship before its systems succumbed and more of our people were lost.”

“
So they mutinied?” Lucius asked, shock in his voice.

“
It was merely an excuse for some.” The dark blue skin lingered, as the alien remembered the past.  “We have done some damage to our enemies.  We have even had our victories,” the Ghornath mirrored a human smile, his shark-like triangular teeth glinting in the light, “But for some, the loss of our world struck too deep a blow.  There are a handful of refugee colonies, but their defenses lay in their own pitiful squalor.  They are not worth eradication.  Even the Chxor often ignore our enclaves in their expansion.  We pick at the scraps of other races and we barely survive.”

“
They wanted to return and destroy the cities from orbit.  Nearly a quarter of the ship mutinied.  They seized the armory and the bridge before I knew what was happening.  I had only seconds, so I ordered our engineers to destroy the reactors.”

Lucius winced, “You had to know that was a death sentence for all on-board.”

The alien nodded, “We had already taken orbit over this moon.  I had hoped that many would abandon the ship, and survive below.  The loyal crew did descend.  Some stayed to fight the mutineers.”

“
And the two groups have turned the
Gebneyr
into a charnel house.” Lucius shook his head, “I hope many took refuge on the planet below.  We’re finding less than thirty life signs remaining on the ship.”

The alien hung his head again, “Then my crew are dead and I have failed them.”

“You have not failed them, Maygar.” Lucius said, his voice firm.  “You helped me once.  I will help you now.  I need your help now,” Lucius stood, hands clasped behind him, “Tell my men how to identify your loyal crew, so we don’t shoot them.  Tell your people not to fight mine.”

“
And then what?” Maygar stared at Lucius for a moment in silence, his stiff face and brown skin showing no sign of emotion, “Then we will be allies?”

“
Maybe.  Maybe we’ll fix these two ships and fight out a last battle, finally finish our empires’ collapse.” Lucius sighed, “I hope that we could be friends.”

Lucius held out his hand.

“What do you say?”

***

Lucius and Maygar rode the lone operational shuttle to the
Gebneyr
several hours later.  Lucius finally took the time to catch some sleep, though his mind had buzzed with partially formed ideas.

The hatch cycled open, with a hiss of escaping air.  The rank fumes of stagnant air and the heavy metallic odor of the Ghornath filled the shuttle.

There were several Ghornath on the far side, not quite armed to the teeth, but close enough to make no difference.  Lucius stepped forward, arms raised in the nearly universal sign of peace.  “I am Baron Lucius Giovanni, Captain of the
War Shrike
—“

“
Strike Leader!” The leader of the group barked, “You’ve been injured!”  A number of the holstered weapons suddenly became aimed weapons.

“
Not by the humans, Burbeg,” The Ghornath Strike Leader answered.  His calm voice cut through the sudden tension as much as the words he used.  “I was, indeed saved by them.”

“
Oh.” There was the slightest disappointment in the Ghornath’s coloring.  “In that case, welcome!  As you can see, we have triumphed against the mutiny.  The few remaining mutineers are prisoners.  We have also contacted the loyalists who abandoned ship and we can recover them soon!”  Burbeg’s rough voice shouted.  Lucius had the sinking feeling that Burbeg shouted everything.

“
Yes, so I understand, the humans have been most helpful.” Maygar’s hide might have shown the slightest green tint of humor.  “Are you ready to hear my orders?”

“
Yes, Strike Leader!” Burbeg braced to attention, still holding a pistol clenched in each massive hand.