Sightless: The Survivors Series #2 Read online

  Smiling as he tried to put on an attentive face for the visitors, Loris found his stamina wearing thin by the time they were ready to leave the docking bay. Painstaking analysis of their shoes and gloves just couldn’t get his adrenaline pumping in the way that Detonan fighters could. Loris felt like he was crashing from fatigue after the fight, but because they were his saviors, he had to soldier on.

  That was before they toured the kitchens, conference rooms, library, engineering offices, the concourse, the observatory, and several bedrooms. By the time they’d gone halfway through the gym equipment, the gathered crowd had dwindled to just a few officers and Riki Lala. That made it harder to hide. Even though they’d spent the better part of a day perusing the station, and Loris was at his breaking point, he was afraid that leaving would be an insulting gesture. Of course, passing out might be seen as insulting, too.

  But it would all be worth it if he could only get them to finish what they started.

  Loris leaned over to whisper to Panic.

  “I’m not sure how much more of this I can take,” he said, hoping to find someone to commiserate with. Panic was indefatigable.

  “Write to them and tell them you have to sleep. They’ll probably ask some questions about it, but by the end of it you’ll be able to go.”

  The thought had crossed his mind, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

  “I’m afraid I’ll miss noticing something we could use to convince them to keep fighting for us. The Detonans could be ancient history by now.”

  Panic pursed her lips.

  “Based on the pace we’ve had, all you’ll miss is how to work your triceps and abs. You could use some help in those departments, by the way.”

  “Very funny.”

  “We’ll get you up if anything happens,” she said. It didn’t take much to persuade him, and he was already looking toward the exit.

  “What about the repairs? What about the damaged cruiser?” he asked.

  “We’re already patching up the hull, and a team is out at the Detonan cruiser looking for weapons to salvage. Everything is taken care of,” she said.

  “What about you?” he asked her. The question seemed to catch them both off guard. Somehow Loris had been able to process that she’d been working around the clock as well and was as responsible for their continued survival as he was.

  “I just don’t want you to think I’ve been giving anything less than all I’ve got as Chief of Defense.”

  Loris reached out and touched her shoulder.

  “You’ve been brilliant, Carrie. No one could ask for anything more. It’s been an honor to serve with you, even under such dire circumstances.”

  The comment seemed to affect her, leaving her without anything to say.

  Loris decided to take her up on her advice. Reaching for the tablet, he typed another message.

  “I must beg your forgiveness, but after the fight, I need to get rest. I’ll rejoin the tour as soon as I’m able.”

  Instead of responding with another message, the dark matter beings instead turned to him and placed their hands on his head. A strange sensation followed, and for a second Loris thought they might be attempting to alleviate his tiredness, but when they let go nothing about that had changed. More likely, it was a kind of farewell.

  When he returned to his quarters, he was surprised to find Brina there. She was looking more pregnant every day and seemed as tired as he was. More than that, she had tears in her eyes that spurred her forward to wrap her arms around him.

  “I thought I was going to lose you out there,” she said.

  He looked her straight in her beautiful brown eyes.

  “I’ll never stop fighting to protect you both, even if it costs me my life,” he said.

  She nodded and looked down.

  “I know you would. I’m just still afraid that it will.”

  “What made you come back?” he asked, hoping to change the topic to something lighter. “Did you have enough of the air?”

  “No, I mean, yes, but that wasn’t why I came back. I was getting ready in case you were lost. We’ll be taken care of now and you won’t have to worry about us if something happens to you. You’ll always be with us.”

  She seemed to be talking nonsense, and Loris was convinced that the exhaustion was getting to her. He nudged her over onto the bed in the hopes that some sleep would make a world of difference to them both.

  When they woke up, Loris had a sensation deep in his gut that this was going to be a momentous day. He believed that he would find a way to convince Zero Cadence to keep fighting and that they would defeat the remaining Detonan force, clearing the way for the justice he’d coveted and the peace they deserved.

  He could feel it pushing at his back like a gust of wind.

  Letting Brina continue to sleep, he left his quarters to find out what he’d missed.

  Before he could catch up with the station-wide tour, which was now working its way through the barracks, Loris received a request from Sonia Firth to head to the bridge. She had something to report that he needed to see for himself.

  Changing course, he took the lift and soon reached the station’s command center, where Firth, Reid, and other officers were looking closely at the sensor readouts and some imaging docs. It didn’t take Loris more than a glance to see what had been concerning them.

  “What’s coming up behind the Detonans?” he asked, though he already had a sneaking suspicion about the answer. And it was not good.

  “More Detonans. It turns out they hadn’t brought their entire armada all at once, and now the rest of it is catching up. But that’s not all,” Firth said.

  “What else?”

  “There are some anomalies in the scans we’re getting. These aren’t all Detonan ships. Quite a few are the new Silica fighters that we encountered on the way to Nova. “

  Loris took a prolonged look at the white oval shapes with rings around them running neck and neck with Detonan cruisers. Their old enemies and their new enemies had shed any pretense of being independent, and now they were working hand in hand to finish off the human race.

  And the only thing holding them back was the threat of the dark matter fighters.

  “What’s this?” Loris asked, cringing as if he’d just bitten into something sour. On the next scan was a huge triangular apparatus with something suspended in the middle. It appeared to be dragged along with one of the carriers.

  “I was hoping you could tell us. We’ve never seen anything like it, not from the Detonans or anyone,” she said.

  Another long look instilled Loris with deep apprehension.

  “The boy had said they were working on some incredible weapon, and I can only guess that that’s it. But what it does is a mystery to me, unless he’s found out more. I’ll go talk to him now,” he said, turning for the doorway and starting off.

  “But what are we supposed to do!” Firth called to him. The sense of dread in her voice was unmistakable. Loris didn’t mince words.

  “Get ready for another fight.”

  The growing enemy force and the threat of a new weapon with unknown capabilities unnerved Loris as he stalked through the hallways. Even without the new threat, all of the Detonan and Silica ships could be more than Zero Cadence could handle at once. They were at risk of being overrun.

  Before he could reach the boy within the medical wing, Loris wondered what his father would’ve done in a situation like this. Was it still a good idea to charge headfirst and fight even when victory seemed beyond hope?

  The boy appeared to be expecting Loris and had even poured him a cup of tea. Loris sat down next to him and stared him down.

  “I saved you from your family and from your planet. We carted you all over the galaxy. We endured your deceptive and vague utterances. At your insistence, we embarked on a foolish journey into the heart of enemy territory that almost cost us our lives. But it’ll all be worth it if you can get us through this next fight. Is there anything more you
can tell us about the Detonans’ new weapon? Because it’s on its way here now and time is running out to prepare for it.”

  A slight grin appeared on the boy’s face as he listened, as if he appreciated the attention or enjoyed the sound of Loris’s voice. It only infuriated Loris more that he found something to take pleasure in over their predicament. The lengthy response time didn’t help either.

  “Yes, I will tell you about the Detonan weapon,” he said in his scratchy voice, but only silence ensued. Loris’s eyes widened as the pause continued. Finally, he couldn’t take any more and banged his fist on the table.

  “So tell me. What are you waiting for? Withholding information like this serves no purpose,” he said. The boy was unmoved by his display of emotion.

  “The problem with your kind is that you have no objective conception of time. When you are young it seems to move very slowly and when you are old it seems to move very quickly. That alone should tell you that in any given moment your sense of time is undoubtedly incorrect. So please do not presume to tell me when it is or isn’t appropriate to do something.”

  This troublemaker, as his people called him, had a marvelous ability of putting Loris in a boiling rage.

  “Did you wait to tell me about this weapon until I asked you again? If telling us before would’ve allowed us to properly prepare before we’re in imminent danger of facing it, I’d say that’s a good objective measure that hearing about it now is later than it should be,” Loris said.

  “Telling you earlier only would’ve served to torture you, since there’s nothing you could’ve done to prepare and you have no available path that would’ve led you to any other point.”

  Loris leaned against the chair and threw his head back, taking a deep breath. Arguing with him was no use.

  “Fine. Should I leave then? When do you deem it proper to pass your wisdom on to me, taking into account that failing to do so will result in your premature death?”

  The boy cracked an even larger grin.

  “I told you, Loris. You and I are linked and the things we know will live on after we die. The weapon that the Detonans are preparing to wield against you is a star.”

  Loris looked hard at him, once again forced to try to parse his language. How a star could be used as a weapon was beyond his comprehension, not to mention that it didn’t add up to what he’d seen in the scans.

  “A star, you mean like the sun? Are they planning to unleash some kind of heat wave at us?”

  His guess was quickly brushed aside.

  “No, this is something they’ve been working at for a very long time. You may have mistaken it for a nearby planet, but they’ve actually been steadily condensing a red dwarf using a method of nuclear fusion. The effect is to create an extremely strong gravitational field they can move at will, disrupting anything in the area.”

  Loris looked hard at the boy, trying to see if there were more games and deceptions hidden in his words. From what he could tell, it was a fairly straightforward answer. If what he said was accurate, this new Detonan weapon could prevent them from escaping.

  “How do we destroy it or disable it?” Loris asked.

  The boy looked straight into Loris’s eyes.

  “Damaging one of the three containers will disrupt the fusion process, adding an element of instability to the reaction that will cut the theoretical chains binding the star so tight. You can be sure that they will do anything they can to prevent you from getting close, because if the fusion system fails, the red dwarf will undergo a dramatic reaction.”

  “What does that mean?” asked Loris, hungry for more information. “It would create a black hole?”

  “I don’t know, and neither do they. Anyone in the vicinity is unlikely to live to find out.”

  The boy grew increasingly distant as he stared off at a wall. This latest trance seemed different than the others, and for a second Loris wondered if the boy had ceased breathing. He shook his shoulder, which seemed to help spur some respiration, but the alien creature didn’t become any more responsive.

  “You’ve earned your keep this time,” Loris said, getting up and preparing to go. He cogitated over whether or not the shrunken red dwarf was already close enough to prevent them from moving away. They had little time to waste if they were going to find a way to strike back at the approaching fleet of ships.

  Leaving the medical wing, Loris went in search of Riki Lala and their invisible aliens. The time had come for a more direct request for aid, and all they had to bank on was that the Khoriams found something on the station interesting enough to want to save.

  “Where are you now?” Loris asked over the com.

  “We’re at the docking bay,” Riki responded, perplexing him.

  “But we’ve already been over that with a fine tooth comb.”

  “They didn’t return to perform more of an inspection. They’re leaving.”

  Her words were like a starting pistol, forcing him into a run for the nearest lift. He needed to get to the docking bay as fast as he could.

  “Stall them. Do whatever you can to prevent them from leaving,” Loris said as the lift doors closed in front of him. Although the lift moved faster than he could’ve on foot, running at full speed would’ve made him feel like he was doing more to get there than standing still.

  When he finally careened into the docking bay, it was just in time to watch the airlock doors close. Riki Lala was sitting on the floor nearby. The sinking feeling in Loris’s stomach forced him to break stride. By the time he reached her, his pace was barely a walk.

  “I did everything I could to keep them,” she said.

  “I know. Did they say anything?”

  She handed him the tablet, allowing him to read through the messages that had gone back and forth. She’d attempted to hold their attention with some of the special gadgets on the Cortes, which would’ve enraptured them for hours after they arrived, but all they responded with was that they had seen everything they needed to see.

  One of the portal screens showed the fighters disembarking and heading back toward the dark matter planet. He hastily typed another message.

  “Another enemy fleet is closing in. They’re getting help from another species. We have no defense. I beg you to stay and help us!”

  He glared at the screen in hope of getting a favorable response. Everything seemed to hinge on the assistance of their invisible allies.

  “We have been called home. The time we spent has been too much already.”

  His arm holding the tablet went limp and the words on the screen put a bad taste in his mouth. Beings far away that he’d never seen or heard of were holding his fate in their hands. The sense of despondency that took hold made him want to sit on the floor as well. Dropping next to Riki, together they watched the fuzzy green shapes gather in formation and begin to arc around the station.

  When they got clear, he expected them to increase velocity and leave the area. But instead they remained still for a while. A message finally registered on the tablet.

  “We’ve noticed a disturbing anomaly that is affecting our ships. Do you know the cause of this force?”

  Loris knew an opening when he saw one. The question was how far he should go with it.

  “The Detonans have developed a weaponized form of gravity. Their goal is to control all life in the galaxy, dictating what lives and what dies. This is why we’ve been standing against them.”

  “The Khoriams cannot abide by a threat from the lightwalkers that could infringe on our own existence. Gravity is the one inescapable force in the galaxy, and its neutrality must be respected.”

  The response was quick and satisfying, as was seeing the fighters turn around to face the direction of the enemy fleet. Could a handful of invisible dark matter fighters stand against the Detonan and Silica fleets? Loris had to hope they could.

  CHAPTER 13

  Loris suited up and prepared to board the Cortes, but before he could get anywhere near the ship he ran into
Panic, who had other ideas about what he should be doing.

  “Are you crazy? Our ships are in danger of falling apart and you want to take them out again! For once in your life, let someone else take care of things for you. The enemy cruisers are far enough away that we’ll be able to come out from behind the Incubator to watch,” she said.

  Even if she was right that being the only visible, trackable vessel on their side in the fight was a bad idea, the way it was playing out didn’t sit right with him.

  “When our lives are on the line, I don’t want the story to be that I sat back while others fought our battles for us.”

  But Panic wouldn’t relent.

  “We’ll help in what ways we can, but getting blown up doesn’t do anyone any good. For all we know, our visitors could chew up their entire armada in no time flat. Now, let’s get to the bridge and give them a chance to do it.”

  Loris reluctantly agreed and headed to the station’s control room with his Chief of Defense, who seemed to have an uncanny ability to influence him. The lesson of being in command for him was that promoting friends makes it hard not to listen to them. As much as he wanted the imminent fight to be so easy that it required no help, he knew that he could never be so lucky.

  At the bridge, they watched as the station emerged from behind the Incubator’s gray exterior, speckled with lights to survey the sitting Detonan fleet in the distance. Some of the panels had been brought up to give them a good perspective on the Zero Cadence fighters crossing over to the other side.

  During the entire tour, Loris had never managed to ask any of the questions he had about what their ships were made of or how their weapons worked. The term dark matter didn’t scratch the surface of their existence or their relationship with the elements of the universe. Even if they’d told him what he wanted to know point blank, the answers may have been rooted in knowledge so far from his that understanding would be impossible.

  These were the things Loris found himself thinking about as the squadron’s leader flew right up to the lead cruiser and looped around it several times to determine the best point of attack. It appeared he decided on the main cannon battery. Rather than standing by to help, the rest of the squadron fanned out to take similar positions along other cruisers and carriers.