For your listening pleasure, I’ve decided to start recording an audio version of my reader magnet The Tombs of Elysium. Once I’ve finished all the chapters, I’m planning to provide all the audio links in a single post. Hopefully, this can expand accessibility for those of you whose schedule makes listening more feasible than a sit-down read. Enjoy!
Hyperspace did not exist. It was a myth, a leftover metaphor from the days before gravitic propulsion had rendered Einstein’s theories obsolete. There was only the blinding blackness beyond the light barrier. A nothingness that played with men’s minds and invaded their dreams. Most prospective spacers faced it and failed. The successful few endured the psychological terror. Captain Barak had. But the nightmares lingered. Nameless things, crawling and feeding in the dark…
“System transit in 3…2…1…Mark! Drives disengaged.”
The helmsman’s voice brought him out of the memory. Barak watched the view screen shift to a field of violet that resolved itself into the glow of stars. A ringed gas giant lay beneath them: Calypsa 4.
The bridge crew confirmed the coordinates within seconds, hull integrity shortly thereafter, ship-wide system function within a minute. ERS Arnon had come through another gravity jump unscathed.
Barak looked towards one of several smaller holo-screens around his command chair. “Weapons, report.”
“All systems operational. Scanning perimeter now…” Lieutenant Galen’s visage narrowed intensely for several seconds, took on an expression of partial uncertainty, and looked his captain in the eye. “No active threats or life signs, Sir, but we’re picking up multiple ships. They appear to be derelicts.”
“Onscreen.”
The bridge screen abruptly filled with a collage of clustered images. Ships in orbit. Dozens of them, separated by distances too far for a unified visual. Silence filled the bridge. Solemn, eerie. Barak suppressed a curse. There were markings here from every major star nation. The Orion League. The Capella Union. The Rigel Alliance. Taurians, Cetians, Pegasians. All of them dead and dark, scattered pieces of a fractured humanity. Some were from their own Eridani Republic. These were civilian vessels only, but some of the foreign ships were military. One was a starcruiser…
Barak stiffened. He reached out and maximized one of the images on his holo-screen. These markings were one among many, but they changed everything. “Galen, get me a deep scan on that ship—now.”
“Aye, Sir.” A stream of data began pouring over the image. “She’s a warbird, all right. Long-range starcruiser, Procurator-class. Centauri. Nine main battery phase turrets, five forward, four aft. Ten secondary particle turrets, fifteen anti-lightcraft. All inactive. No shields or engine power. She’s as dead as the rest of them, Sir.”
Barak heard the bridge crew release their collective breath. The cold war with the Centauri Dominion would remain such for at least another day. He looked to another of his screens.
“Colonel Rosh, get your men ready for boarding. I want a full squad of Marines on that ship within 3 hours.”
Rosh’s image nodded.“Aye, sir.”
“Galen. Do any of those other ships match our target?”
“Scanning now, sir…. wait. We found something.” Galen’s face turned away. He exchanged some words with someone beyond the screen and turned back. “Standby for visual, sir.”
A fresh display appeared on the holo-screen. One of the other derelicts. A freighter. This one lacked all markings but visibly bristled with armaments that were no part of the original design. A program buffered beneath the image before producing MATCH CONFIRMED in bright, flaring letters.
“Rosh, get me two more squads of Marines on that ship ASAP. Commander,” he turned to his XO. “Level 2 alert.”
“Aye, Sir.” Commander Leoben acknowledged the order with a nod and punched a button beneath his own holo-screens. “All hands report to battle stations. Level 2 alert.” Blue lights flashed along the bridge. Others would be doing the same across the ship. Leoben turned back to Barak. “Do you think we really have them this time?”
Barak studied the image in front of him. That same ship had almost single handedly decimated several merchant fleets while evading capture for upwards of five standard years. Its crew carried bounties on their heads from a dozen interstellar governments. Arnon herself had chased it to the very edge of charted space. Now their quarry lay before them dead and silent, lifeless among a graveyard of ships from every corner of the human worlds. There was wrongness to it.
“We’ll see.”
