The Sacred Stars (The Shadow Space Chronicles Book 4) Read online

  The Sacred Stars

  By Kal Spriggs

  Copyright 2016 Sutek Press

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Author’s Webpage

  Kal’s Books

  Books by Kal Spriggs

  The Shadow Space Chronicles

  The Fallen Race

  The Shattered Empire

  The Prodigal Emperor

  The Sacred Stars

  The Temple of Light*

  The Renegades

  Renegades: Origins

  Renegades: Out of the Cold

  Renegades: Out of Time*

  The Star Portal Universe

  Fenris Unchained

  Odin’s Eye

  The Eoriel Saga

  Echo of the High Kings

  Wrath of the Usurper

  Fate of the Tyrant

  Heir to the Fallen Duke*

  *Forthcoming

  Prologue

  Faraday System

  United Colonies

  June 15, 2407

  The Aurorae's defense screens flared as multiple beams struck. The impacts rocked the destroyer and threw Alannis Giovanni against her seat restraints. “Increase power to front defense screens!” She snapped. At the same time, she keyed up a new set of targets, “I need target data on the enemy gunboats!”

  “Working on it,” her sensors officer said. “Half my target sensors are down, I can't get a good read on them.”

  The enemy gunboats were a design based on Admiral Collae's Hellbores. Each of those frigates mounted a heavy spinal beam, far larger than any ship but a cruiser could effectively mount as a standard weapon.

  They made up for that by being fragile and slow, they simply didn't have enough power to operate their heavy weapon as well as other high-power systems at full capacity. They were also obvious targets under normal conditions, their reactors, capacitor banks, and the discharge of their weapons made them beacons on sensors.

  But they and the other ships in the attacking force had already damaged Aurorae. Half her systems were out and the other half were barely functional. She had no telemetry data for her missiles at all, which hardly mattered since only two of the destroyer's eight missile tubes remained intact.

  Missiles, she thought. “Set missiles to internal guidance and fire on my mark!” Alannis snapped. They only had Mark III's left, which had external telemetry and a secondary electromagnetic guidance package.

  Alannis brought the Aurorae around. Without telemetry, the missiles would travel in a straight line until they acquired their targets. This was the equivalent of blind firing and hoping she'd hit something... but it was better than nothing. “Fire!”

  The Aurorae's two missile tubes spat their remaining seven missiles, all aimed at the formation of enemy ships. Alannis rolled the Aurorae away just as the enemy opened fire again.

  This time, at least two of the beams struck under the leading edge of the defense screens and the bridge lurched and smoke and sparks billowed through the compartment.

  “Forward projectors are down!” the engineer shouted. “Missile tubes three and seven are destroyed and our remaining defense batteries are offline.”

  Alannis grimaced as the Aurorae limped away from her pursuers. Their sensors were so blind now they couldn't even watch their missiles, she wouldn't know if they were on target or wildly off-target until they detonated.

  “Fighter's coming in!” her sensor officer called.

  A moment later, Alannis saw the faint signatures. Her lips drew back in a snarl as she saw their vector, the fighters were almost on top of them and lining up for a close-range attack run. “Roll ship, twenty degrees and engage with final protective fires!”

  She saw out of the corner of her eye that several of the missiles she'd launched had detonated, but her gaze was fixed upon the incoming fighters. The surviving defense turrets opened up, but they were firing blind as a deterrent to the enemy fighters' accuracy more than anything else.

  Those fighters fired their missiles at less than a thousand kilometers, just far enough out for the missile acquisition systems to engage and for the warheads to safely activate. Thirteen of the fifteen fission warheads detonated around the Aurorae and the ship vanished in a ball of nuclear fire.

  Alannis's screen went black and red letters flashed: Simulation Terminated.

  ***

  The tactical display froze with the damaged Aurorae frozen, angled as she fired her missiles.

  “So,” Captain Penwaithe asked in a dry voice, “Just what the hell did you think you were doing at fifteen forty-eight?” The tall, black officer was in charge of the Academy's Final Simulation Exercise, the very last evaluation that every cadet had to complete.

  Alannis sat perfectly straight and addressed him in as professional a manner as she could manage. “Sir, with my telemetry damaged, I couldn't control my remaining missile loadout externally, so I fired them on internal systems only.”

  “A desperation ploy,” Captain Penwaithe said, his voice gruff. “Sometimes that pays off and sometimes it doesn't.” His tone of voice suggested that most often it was the latter. He activated a switch and the tactical display resumed play.

  On the display, the seven missiles fired out, a rough cone as they fired across the arc of the Aurorae's relative motion. She could see right away that only four of the missiles would go anywhere near their targets. Three of those picked up the enemy gunboats and homed in. Two detonated on target, killing the enemy frigates and the third detonated near enough that the frigate showed heavy damage.

  Yes, Alannis thought with satisfaction, I got three of them. As far as she knew, none of the other cadets in her class had managed to damage more than two of the ships, even her friend Ashtar Shan had only killed one and damaged a second.

  Yet the missile tracks didn't end. The four other missiles continued outward, long after the Aurorae succumbed to the fighter's close range salvo. Three of them winked out as the simulator counted them inconsequential and erased them... but the last one blinked to show it had acquired a target on its internal passive sensors.

  Alannis saw where it was headed a moment later and she bit back a curse. The simulated missile homed in on the damaged civilian freighter that the raiders had used as bait... and then detonated.

  “Congratulations,” Captain Penwaithe said. “You took out a quarter of the raider fleet along with thirty-three simulated innocent civilians.”

  Alannis flinched at that. In reality, those civilians would be dead or worse anyway, with the raiders free to kill or enslave them. But in the simulation, the objective had been to save them.

  Not that anyone had, b
ut the Aurorae simulation wasn't about winning, it was about fighting it out until the end. After over two hours in the simulator, she felt completely wrung out. Her ship suit stank of sweat and her body felt like it was made of rubber. She knew that they kept the heat turned up in the simulator to make it all the rougher, just as they deliberately put traces of chemicals to irritate the eyes, nose, and throat of those in the exercise.

  It was also part of why they'd had her up for the past twenty four hours prior to the exam's start. They wanted this to be as grueling a test as possible.

  “Sorry, sir,” Alannis said.

  “You need to remember, cadet, that your actions have consequences,” Captain Penwaithe said. “Now, other than your final write-up, you've completed the Aurorae simulation.”

  “Wait... I passed?” Alannis asked in surprise. She had thought that by killing the freighter, it would be an automatic failure.

  “You passed,” Captain Penwaithe said. He hesitated and then gave a slight shrug, as if what he was about to say wasn't strictly speaking within the realm of an instructor, but that it was good mentorship. “The Aurorae is meant to test your ability to perform under a highly stressful combat environment. You managed it well enough. While we do run scores based off survival time and how well you acquit yourself, the primary measurement is your ability to function and make decisions. Sometimes making any decision in time is better than making the right decision too late.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Alannis said.

  “As a note... those cadets who participated in putting down the Dreyfus Mutiny typically test well in that regard compared to those who have not,” Captain Penwaithe gave a grim smile. “It's the element of having been in combat that makes the difference, I think.”

  Alannis felt her face go wooden. She'd known Admiral Dreyfus, her brother had considered him a friend... and the reminder of his betrayal still hurt three years later. It seemed that most of the people she had respected had eventually betrayed her in one way or another. Like Reese, she thought, letting people get close never seems to work out.

  “Well,” Captain Penwaithe seemed to realize that he'd hit a nerve, “that concludes the oral evaluation. You're dismissed, Cadet Giovanni.”

  ***

  Chapter I

  Faraday Colony, Faraday System

  United Colonies

  June 19, 2407

  “Woohoo!” Princess Kaylee Giovanni shouted, waving the ball triumphantly over her head, “I win! You guys can't get me!”

  Alannis grinned as the Crown Princess gave out an undignified squawk as her adopted sister tackled her. A moment later, Alannis's son Anthony William rushed over to thump down on top of his cousins. “Get off me!” Kaylee shouted.

  “Going to miss this?” Emperor Lucius Giovanni asked of his sister.

  Alannis looked over at him and grinned, “Yeah, a bit.”

  She looked back at the three children at play and her grin faded as her son looked up. At only three years old, Anthony William was of equal height to his cousins and had blonde hair and blue eyes much like his father. He'd grabbed the ball and he ran up to her, “Mommy, I got the ball!” he squealed.

  Alannis nodded, “Good work. Now give it back, play nice.” She hated how neutral her voice sounded and she saw her son's shoulders slump. I'm a terrible mother, she thought, but then again, it wasn't like I planned on being one. Reese had been the one with the plan.

  As her son ran back to the game, Alannis grabbed for her glass of wine and took a rather larger sip than was really necessary. “It'll be good to finally get out there and do my job, you know?”

  She didn't miss how her brother watched her with concerned eyes. For a moment, she feared he would actually say something about her relationship with her son. Young Anthony had spent most of his childhood in Lucius's care. Alannis had used her duties as a cadet at the Faraday Military Academy as an excuse for why she didn't spend time with him. In truth, she didn't have much free time, but she knew she could have spent more of it than she had with her son. Yet the moment passed and Alannis let out a slight sigh of relief. “So,” she said cheerfully, “how much did you have to do with my assignment?”

  Lucius snorted, “You think I pulled strings to get you assigned to the Constellation?” He shook his head, “Tell me, has being my sister made things easier or harder for you at the Academy?”

  Alannis winced in reply. Her instructors had gone out of their way to show no favors to her. Oftentimes she had felt as if they graded her every assignment with greater stringency. “Much harder,” she said.

  Lucius nodded, “If you'd said anything differently, I would have pulled General Proscia as superintendent.” He took a sip of his own wine and his gaze went distant, “We're founding a new nation, which means setting precedents. If I made certain that General Proscia and his instructors wouldn't show you any preference, just how likely is it that I pulled strings to get you assigned to our newest, most powerful cruiser?”

  Alannis gave a wry grin, “Not very. Which means I did earn my posting. That's nice to know, anyway.”

  “You earned it,” her brother nodded. “Which means you get to go gallivanting around human space while I'm stuck here doing statesman stuff.” He frowned, “Sorry. That came across as more bitter than I'd intended.”

  Alannis's eyebrows went up, “Things exciting in politics?”

  “More than I'd like,” Lucius grumbled. He sighed, “You've no doubt heard some of the grandstanding by Senator Penwaithe?” When Alannis nodded, he continued, “He's doing his best to drag his feet over new worlds joining, and when they do, he tries to extend their probationary period as long as possible.”

  On the one hand, she suspected that Senator Harris Penwaithe did so out of political ambition. Probationary members of the United Colonies didn't get a full vote, and newer members had fewer proportionate votes dependent upon the date they had joined the United Colonies. That gave his voters more power... and it gave him more clout. On the other hand, the system was designed to prevent dilution of the founding principles of the United Colonies.

  Since Captain Garret Penwaithe and Commander Abigail Penwaithe both taught at the Academy, she was a bit more likely to think better of Senator Harris Penwaithe's intent. All the same, she'd seen enough politics from inside and outside to know that the Senator from Halcyon wasn't as pure of heart as he made out.

  “Anything I can help with?” Alannis asked with a sunny smile. After all, she was about to leave on a nice, long, show the flag cruise. Rumor had it that the Constellation would be far from United Colonies space. In all probability, there was nothing she could do.

  “Actually,” Lucius said, “there is something I want to talk to you about.” He gave a look over at Staff Sergeant Timorsky. The Marine gave him a nod in return, a clear sign that the security perimeter, to include a variety of anti-signal jamming equipment, was still intact.

  “While I didn't pull strings for you to be assigned to the Constellation,” Lucius said, “I did decide to capitalize on the situation and adjust the mission since I knew you'd be aboard.”

  “Oh,” Alannis said and her smile faded.

  “Yes,” Lucius nodded, “the Constellation's mission has shifted from a standard patrol to an escort mission. The first turn-key upgrades for our Shogunate allies are available and we're sending the Constellation as the escort for the convoy, along with the destroyers Regent and Crossbow. Since we'll have some of our civilian engineers aboard the Constellation for a final set of diagnostics, they can also assist with any issues that the Shogunate encounters getting things set up.”

  Alannis sighed, “I'll assume I'm there as Princess Alannis Giovanni rather than newly minted Ensign Alannis Giovanni?”

  “No,” Lucius shook his head, “You get to wear both hats. Congratulations. Captain Beeson will be our official representative and Mitchel Kondas is our diplomatic envoy. But the way things work there is they like to take the measure of the dynasty they're dealing with. They're very
much traditionalists.” That was an understatement from what Alannis knew. The Shogunate contained several colonies founded by Earth's Japan. All three of the central, founding colonies harkened back to a more feudal style of governance, each of them paying notional obedience to their Emperor, who had mostly symbolic authority. They also strongly valued military tradition, which meant her presence as an officer and the Emperor's sister should carry some weight.

  “Okay, do I have any talking points?” Alannis asked with resignation.

  “Nothing so pushy,” Lucius grinned. “Just set a good example, tell some war stories, and generally make friends. Let Ambassador Kondas handle the rest.”

  “Great,” Alannis sighed. “Anything else I can help you with?”

  “That's plenty for now,” Lucius said. He nodded over at where Anthony had taken the ball and started running. “Maybe you should spend some time with your son? It'll be a long time before you see him again.”

  It was as blunt as he could be without crossing a line and it set Alannis's back up. She forced herself to give him a smile. “He's having fun, I don't want to interrupt.”

  “You've only got so much time before he grows up,” Lucius said, “you don't want to miss out on this part.”

  Alannis closed her eyes. It wasn't that she didn't love her son... it was just that he looked so much like her ex-husband that she felt physically ill when she thought about it. Bad enough that the bastard had hacked her implant to get her pregnant, he'd also signed on with the pirate Lucretta Mannetti. After Lucius had captured the renegade Admiral, they'd turned up more information that showed Reese had done some extremely questionable work, often involving human test subjects and alien equipment.

  At best, Reese was a criminal who had betrayed her trust. At worst... well, he had betrayed everything Alannis believed in. “It's not easy for me, okay?” Alannis said. “It's different for you. You love Kandergain,” Alannis waved a hand at Kaylee as the girl tackled her son. Kandergain was some kind of super-psychic and was Kaylee's mother. She'd left because she didn't want to endanger Lucius or her daughter by drawing her enemies down upon them. “Me... I hate Reese.”