Sanctuary's Gambit: The Darkspace Saga Book 2 Read online

  Sanctuary’s Gambit

  The Darkspace Saga Book Two

  B.C. Kellogg

  Blueshift Press

  Copyright © 2017 by B.C. Kellogg/Blueshift Press.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Love space opera?

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Thank you!

  PREVIEW - Lords of the Dark

  About the Author

  Love space opera?

  Join B.C.’s mailing list and receive a free copy of The Admiral’s Cage, a novella set in the Darkspace Saga universe!

  http://bckellogg.com/mailing-list/

  Admiral Attilio Karsath is the Empire’s most dedicated servant. When he comes across a weapon that could change the course of the Empire, he’s forced to violate the sacred Dictates that govern a soldier’s life. As he prepares a covert mission under the cover of a standard annexation, he must dare to destroy the principles of the Empire in order to serve it.

  Chapter 1

  This is the wilderness, Captain Conrad Redeker reminded himself. And in the wilderness, there are predators.

  The distress signal was loud, piercing, and crystal clear. It lit up the comms panel of the PSS Steadfast, and a moment later a General Quarters alarm sounded through the corridors of the old starship.

  The Vehn were coming. And if they arrived before the PSS Steadfast did, they would obliterate the defenseless settlement. The deformed creatures would pour down into the colony by the thousands, gnawing through human flesh and bone until there was nothing left of the colonists but bloodstains.

  Conrad had no intention of letting the Vehn destroy Colony Gambier.

  He gazed through the viewport on the bridge of the Steadfast, the stars glowing a dim white in the inky darkness. Out here on the fringes of territories guarded by the Protectorate Corps, the black nothingness was especially hypnotic. Deep space was empty of satellites and beacons, with only a few small ships following the trade routes between the portals that connected the star systems of the Protectorate of Sanctuary.

  Deep space was where legions of Vehn lurked, their insatiable appetite for human flesh driving them to overtake civilian ships and plunder unguarded colonies. Colony Gambier was so far out that the Steadfast was the only Protectorate ship that had a chance of reaching the planet before the Vehn arrived.

  “This colony should have been evacuated six months ago,” muttered Argus. The Kazhadi first officer stood at Conrad’s shoulder, his paw gripping the back of the captain’s chair. The two of them overlooked the rest of the bridge—helm, weapons, and ops.

  “What happened?” Conrad asked.

  “The usual story,” Argus replied. “They got the orders from the High Council and refused to go. They’ve been there a full generation—”

  “Settlers,” Conrad said. “Always so damn stubborn.”

  Argus growled in agreement.

  “And the High Council lets ‘em have their way.” Conrad swallowed his tongue. He kept his frustration in check—barely. It was bad form for a captain to show blatant disrespect for the political institution that governed Sanctuary.

  Even if the fools deserve it, he brooded.

  They refocused on the planet beginning to come into view. Gambier was a grassy, green planet with large blue oceans flowing across its equator. There was only a faint sprinkling of lights that indicated human settlements. No wonder they don’t want to leave, Conrad mused. It was a planet rich with resources. But dozens of colonies had been evacuated in the past year as Vehn attacks grew increasingly daring and aggressive.

  There’s always something in this universe trying to kill us, eat us, or both, he observed. Sometimes, it’s other humans. At least the Vehn have an excuse—it’s in their nature.

  Conrad could almost feel the energy of the Steadfast’s crew rising as the ship prepared for combat. The Steadfast was one of the oldest ships in the Corps, but it had seen more than its share of battle in its single year under his command. He’d been one of the youngest captains to ever take command of a Corps ship, but he suspected that the powers-that-be were trying to tell him something by giving him one of the worst ones.

  The Council wanted him to stay on Sanctuary. To stay where they could keep an eye on him. Ever since he returned from the opposite side of the galaxy to Sanctuary, he’d come to realize that the Council was fractured by quarrelling and infighting, each councillor maneuvering for the approach that would give them the most political glory.

  The only thing that should have mattered was the safety of the trillions of human and alien souls in the Protectorate.

  Conrad’s lip twisted. The damned fools. All of ‘em, except Rose. She was the only one that he could trust—the Sanctuary High Council’s youngest member.

  And it had taken the combined influence of Rose and Commodore Garrity to get Conrad safely away from Sanctuary proper and onto the bridge of the Steadfast.

  Of course, in deep space, safe was a relative term.

  “There are three major class-ten colony ships,” Argus said, interrupting Conrad’s train of thought. “The entire population of the colony’s onboard those ships. They have a few small fighter squadron escorts, but we’re the only craft in two systems with enough weaponry to face the Vehn.”

  “How long have they got to get from the planet to the portal?”

  “At top speed, thirty-seven minutes.”

  Conrad grimaced. Colony ships were massive and slow.

  The enemy ships, unfortunately, were not.

  “What about the Vehn?”

  “Unclear. We’re the only Corps ship out here. Without any others, the sensors can’t triangulate their position accurately.”

  “Best guess?”

  “Twenty minutes.”

  That meant a minimum of seventeen minutes of carnage.

  Conrad leaned forward, his eyes gleaming. “Then let’s not waste any more time.”

  The Steadfast had been patched up so many times that there was practically nothing left of the original ship. The Independence-class starship was originally built to be streamlined and deadly, but repairs over the last century transformed the ship into Frankenstein’s monster.

  A monster with bite, Conrad thought with some satisfaction. If nothing else, the ship’s weapons systems were top-of-the-line, even if it was pieced together and too small to carry a fighter squadron.

  The floor of the bridge vibrated as the ship picked up speed.

  “Open a comm line to the colo
ny ships,” Conrad ordered.

  The comms officer obeyed quickly. There was a crackle as the comm line opened.

  “This is the PSS Steadfast,” he said. “Captain Conrad Redeker speaking. We received your distress call, and we’re ten minutes away from your position.”

  “Dieu merci,” a tired voice replied. “Thank God. They’re almost here ...”

  “We’re aware of that,” he said. “Do your ships have any defensive capacity?”

  “Very little,” the captain said. “You can see the colony’s patrol craft flying with us. It’s not much of a navy, but it’s all we’ve got.”

  Argus rumbled softly in his chest. Conrad knew what he was thinking—colonies often threw all their resources at their settlements, spending almost nothing on planetary defense. It was a foolish strategy, but common enough in far-flung colonies that had spent all their money on getting to their destination.

  “Keep ‘em close,” he said. “We’ll engage the Vehn.”

  “Captain,” the voice said. “If the worst should happen ... get the middle ship through. It’s got all our children. The rest of us are—”

  “Understood,” Conrad interrupted, eyeing the trajectory of the three enormous ships. “Listen, Gambier ... this fight hasn’t even started. It’s not time for doom and gloom. Not yet.”

  Argus grunted grimly behind Conrad. The tactical display lit up before them.

  The Vehn had arrived.

  Dread settled into the pit of Conrad’s stomach. The Vehn usually attacked in groups of two or three.

  This was practically a fleet.

  “There’s gotta be more than four ships out there,” Conrad murmured in disbelief. “Argus—what the hell is going on?”

  The Kazhad gurgled, unsure. “There have been more Vehn incursions in the past year in the outer colonies,” he said.

  “Yeah, but that was still three ships max. Not five or six or seven.”

  Argus moved to the weapons console, his customary station. “This is new,” he observed with the clinical detachment of a scientist.

  “Understatement of the century,” Conrad muttered, studying the horizon. The Vehn were just black specks, barely visible to the naked eye. “Helm,” he said. “Put us between the colony ships and the Vehn.”

  At this stage, there was no guessing which path the Vehn would take—if they even had a plan of attack. When they attacked in twos and threes, it was a simple orgy of violence, the mutated creatures hellbent on breaking through a ship’s hulls. There was no finesse or complexity to their invasions.

  “Six ships,” Argus reported.

  Conrad cursed. The bridge crew exchanged worried looks. When the captain cursed, something bad was guaranteed to happen.

  “All right,” he said. “This is going to be interesting. What’s the status of our shields and weapons?”

  “Shields fully functional. Weapons charged to max capacity, and missiles are on standby,” came Argus’s response.

  The Vehn ships were traveling towards them at top speed, each ship moving unevenly. They’re not coordinated, Conrad thought. Or if they were, it didn’t count for much. Their flying was erratic and desperate.

  They’re hungry, he guessed. A muscle twitched in his jaw. Desperate and hungry meant that they would fight long and hard—but it also meant that they were more likely to make a mistake.

  The two lead ships peeled away from the rest of the pack. The Steadfast’s sensors followed them.

  They were headed for the portal. The very same portal that the colony ships had to enter in order to escape the system.

  Conrad reopened the comms line to the colony ships. “Gambier One,” he said. “How many patrol craft have you got?”

  There was a slight pause. “Forty-three,” was the reply. “They’re small. Three to four men onboard each one. They’ve got short-rangeclose-range neutron guns, but that’s it.”

  Damn. “Send them to the portal,” he said. “Tell them to do whatever it is they have to do to keep the Vehn away from it. At all costs, do you understand?”

  “We understand.” The comm line switched off. A moment later, the compact, triangular patrol ships began to shift away from the flanks of the colony ships, aiming at the portal.

  “They won’t last,” Argus said, his tone dark. “Not for long.”

  “I know,” Conrad said. “But those colony ships have got to get through.”

  The remaining four Vehn ships spread out, preparing to attack the Steadfast to get to the enormous Gambier vessels.

  “Four against one,” he observed. “Let’s show ‘em what we’ve got.”

  It was the fifth Vehn assault that the Steadfast had faced in the past four months. Conrad was beginning to understand the wretched creatures and their ships, and the Steadfast had made it out alive alive with only minor damage from the last two engagements.

  “Scan each ship,” he ordered. “Find the umbilical airlocks.”

  Vehn ships had mediocre weapons systems, but they were thickly plated with armor. However, they had one major weakness: there were soft spots in that armor where the umbilicals emerged. When the Vehn caught a ship, the umbilical would pierce through the victim’s hulls, penetrating all of a ship’s defenses. The connection secured, they could crawl onboard, and the bloodbath would begin.

  The tactical display blinked once before reappearing with the airlocks highlighted in red.

  “I’m feeding the data into the automatic targeting system,” Argus said. “When they get close enough, our guns will fire.”

  Conrad scratched his chin. “I don’t trust those systems,” he said. “They’re no replacement for manual control and a good weapons officer.”

  “Luddite,” Argus replied. “I can override the controls anytime.”

  “If you say so,” Conrad said. “If I had my way—”

  “The Vehn ships have reached the portal,” Argus interrupted.

  “What about the patrol ships?”

  The tactical display honed in on the portal. The patrol ships were almost there. The Vehn ships turned and waited.

  “Let’s hope they can clear a path,” Conrad said aloud, despite his internal misgivings. The patrol ships were too small to keep the Vehn interested for long. The predators knew what their real prey was: the thousands of lives aboard the heavy colony ships.

  Argus switched the tactical display back to the remaining four ships, moving towards them at a fast clip. One of them edged out ahead of the others, its gunports open.

  “Full speed,” Conrad said. “Helm—fly ahead, then slip us under that ship as soon as we’re within firing range. Argus—take out those guns.”

  The Steadfast blazed towards the Vehn.

  Almost there, Conrad thought, his hands gripping his chair. Vehn ships couldn’t usually match the maneuverability of Protectorate ships—that was one of the few advantages the Steadfast possessed.

  The Vehn ship fired. But this time, it wasn’t their standard weaponized laser beam—it was a white-hot streak of light. It cut across the Steadfast’s prow.

  “What the hell was that?” Conrad demanded.

  “That—that was a Kazhadi weapon,” Argus said, shock in his voice. “That was a Urzhai trans-matter blast. How did the Vehn—”

  “We’ll worry about that later,” Conrad cut in. “We’re not backing off. Do some fancy flying, helmsman. Get us under that ship!”

  The Steadfast spun as it dodged another blast from the Vehn ship, then dove beneath the Vehn ship.

  Argus was as good as his word. The combined fire of the Steadfast’s automatic and manual control weapons focused on the Vehn airlocks, cutting through its armor.

  “We did some damage,” Argus reported. “But we’ll have to wait to see if it will blow.”

  “Get us back to the colony ships,” he ordered. “Argus—that Urzhai blast—”

  “It’s meant for long distance targets,” he explained. “If they get within five hundred kilometers of the colony ships, they’ll be
able to disable them.”

  A blast from a Vehn ship shook the Steadfast, knocking it slightly off course before the helmsman righted the ship.

  “We can’t take more than a few more of those,” Argus warned. “Urzhai blasts break down the structural integrity of the hulls faster than regular neutron guns.”

  “Right,” Conrad said. “What about shields?”

  “At full strength, they can dampen the blast. But that will compromise speed.”

  “Full shields for now,” he said. “And send a message to the Gambier ships to do the same.”

  “Captain,” said Argus, “look!”

  The Vehn ship that they had attacked was lagging behind. Slowly, it rolled onto its side, paralyzed. The risk they’d taken had paid off.

  Conrad swallowed. It was a small victory—but there were still five ships left.

  The battle raged on at the portal. A faint cloud of debris floated in front of the dark circle that was the portal’s entrance—the remnants of the small Gambier patrol ships that had attacked the larger Vehn ships.

  But a surprise awaited them. There was only one Vehn ship remaining at the portal.

  “They got one,” Argus said, surprised.

  Conrad smiled fiercely. “Never underestimate what a person’s capable of in a situation like this,” he said. “Even if it is a pie-in-the-sky colonist.”

  Still, there were less than ten patrol ships remaining.