Five Empires: An Epic Space Opera Read online

  Deep down Jake knew he couldn’t avoid them. So he would need ample time to rest. To prepare. To gather a few ‘friends’.

  Then, and only then, would Jake Le Sondre be ready to pluck the future from the ashes of his past.

  II

  29

  Empire Profile 28

  The Nostroma Meritocracy

  The Nostroma are the most cryptic and enigmatic of the four primary species. Descended from humans, the Nostroma have, over the course of their evolution, been hunted and feared for their unique abilities. Possessed with an unusually active frontal lobe, the Nostroma are able to manipulate the emotions of others. Some races, notably the powerful Cava05, are particularly vulnerable to neural influence. For this reason the Nostroma are rarely successful in their attempts to settle in mixed communities. Indeed, their highly individualist tendencies have resulted in a fractured, dispersed society. The Nostroma have never developed a standing army, nor have they invested in advanced military technology. The Nostroma achieve political and military objectives through the deployment of tandems. Typically comprised of cybomancers and duellists, tandems are widely traveled and can be found in all corners of the galaxy. Cybomancers are highly skilled in the art of neural manipulation, whilst duellists invariably handle more conventional tasks. Widely believed to be the most insidious and lethal of military units, tandems are feared across the galaxy. The Nostroma also possess two of the modern wonders of the world, the Emerald Senate and Knowledge Archive, both of which are housed in the glorious Caravan of Light. The Archive is the most comprehensive repository of information the galaxy has ever known. This seat of Nostromic government is highly mobile and does not require a heavy military defense. As long as the Nostroma maintain their unique physiological advantages over other primary species, their outlook is solid. It is this editor’s opinion that the Cava05 will seek to align with the Nostroma rather than initiate a war with such an unpredictable enemy. From lepers to respected intellectuals, the Nostroma have arguably been the fastest developing race of the past millennium.

  The supply station called Vista had fallen between the cracks of empires. It was ostensibly in Nostroma space but was mostly left alone by the cybomancers. Command and control had never been their way.

  So Jake Le Sondre was able to dock with a minimum of administrative fuss. All the port authority cared about was the size of his credit balance. He could tell there was mild interest in his Aegisi escape pod, but at Vista it was considered offensive to probe too deeply into a man’s affairs.

  Vista was a classic supply hub bursting at the seams with intergalactic driftwood. The kind of place that speckled the galaxy like diseased gnats. Jake would find fuel here, maybe a ship. He had little in the way of money, but he did have reason to believe two of his friends were onstation. He would need support muscle if he was to carry out his mission on Tranda IX.

  The first thing he needed, however, was information. His wrist pad hadn’t been able to update since he left Cerulean. Vista’s port authority had only authorized his data receptor once he’d settled his docking fees.

  The Nostroma looked through the pod window as a docking tube sealed itself to the external door. Vista was like a wart with layers of cancerous growth extending in various directions. The station had been established as a waypoint between the Ancer and Bysp systems.

  Of course, now that the Aegisi Republic had secured Cerulean, the Ginfordia system would also come into play. Desperate for colonization resources, it wouldn’t be long before the Aegisi were trading furiously with Vista. The thought reminded Jake of his precious cargo - the near-dead man strapped to the starboard bench.

  Jake had tried not to think about his profoundly still companion. Michael Danner’s skin had turned a pale shade of grey and become brittle. Jake could see cracks along the base of the poor boy’s neck. He could only assume that dying Aegisi were prone to drying out. A troubling smell had become noticeable in the last twelve hours.

  Jake shook his head sadly, trying to banish the ghost of Michael Danner from his mind. He was raised to adhere to the Nostromic Doctrine. His people believed that the dying were parasites to the living. Cybomancers were trained to relieve them of their final thoughts. Any information gathered in this way was considered priceless.

  But Jake wasn’t a cybomancer. He was a duellist. It was his lot in life. As such, he had resisted every impulse to harvest Michael’s fading mind. It just didn’t feel right, not after everything they’d endured together. Jake couldn’t quite pin his feelings down. As the boy teetered on the great abyss, Jake had been consumed by a grief he’d never felt before.

  The Nostroma were widely considered to be cold, callous sociopaths, but that was a lazy prejudice. The Nostroma were capable of suppressing their emotive functions, sure, but that didn’t mean they were absent entirely. Michael Danner’s critical condition had haunted Jake - there was no doubt about it.

  A chime at the door indicated that it was safe for Jake to enter the facility. But he couldn’t go just yet.

  came a voice over the pod com. Jake waited patiently for the recovery team. Putting the Aegisi boy in a long term bile tank had been horrendously expensive, but in the end Jake knew he had no choice. A clutch of medics in pale blue arrived to collect the body. Two Nostroma and a human. They hesitated for a split second when they saw Michael. The Brawler had really done a number on his body.

  “See you on the flip side, kid,” he murmured as Michael was taken away. He’d just spent weeks alone with his ailing friend, drip-feeding him saline through a plastic tube. Now that he was finally being taken away to a proper facility, it all seemed so rushed, so brutal. He wondered if he’d ever see Michael again. He hoped so, with every fiber of his being. Normally in such circumstances his cold, logical mind would refuse to expend hope on an unlikely recovery. But something told him their paths would align again.

  Jake took a deep breath. Bile tanks had a fast-growing reputation for being extremely effective when it came to rapid healing. The viscous liquid was drawn from the bactus beetles of Verdano VI. Jake had nominated himself as Michael’s ‘next of kin’, and would receive regular updates. He had a feeling Michael’s recovery, if it occurred at all, was a matter of months rather than days.

  Jake shook his head free of the guilt and remorse that competed for attention. He had his own life to sort out. A mission to accomplish.

  The duellist consulted his wrist pad as the pod’s hatch slid open. He didn’t have as much money as he’d like, especially now that he would need to convert currency through the local credit union. Basko and Nobblar had to be here somewhere.

  If Jake couldn’t find them he’d need to squeeze the station for a job or two. Dirty work, but there was usually something for a Nostromic duellist. Something that involved the dark arts of extortion or straight up assassination. There were no better bounty hunters in the galaxy. And yet Jake hoped it wouldn’t come to that. He had a feeling in his bones that intergalactic politics were about to become a little shaky.

  First thing first. The primitives. Jake’s stomach growled as he plodded through the docking tube. He was dressed in his usual attire - emerald green battle suit underneath forest green leather trench coat. A number of colored cannisters lined his utility belt. Each contained a different kind of explosive pellet. Smoke, EMP, gas, incendiary, flash - a pellet for every occasion. Over the course of his rough life he’d used them all several times over.

  At Jake’s hips rested his children - his twin plasma pistols Love and Lust. Crafted by a depraved, ghosted Nostroma, the pistols had a knack of finding themselves in Jake’s hands a split second before anybody else could fire. They were contoured to the duellist’s hands and were his most valuable possessions.

  In a galaxy creeping closer to all-out war, however, Jake feared that the era of the duellist was coming to an end. Soon he would be yesterday’s man. But none of that mattered as long as he could see his vision made real.

  The layout o
f the supply station was quite common throughout the galaxy. The lower decks held cavernous hangars for larger vessels and the transfer of goods and livestock. The mid decks supported dock functionality for smaller visitors and also housed the propulsion bulb that kept the station in geostationary orbit.

  The upper decks were a sprawling mess of habs, hotels, bars and all manner of trade kiosks. There were several obs decks that afforded a prime view of Sarrer, a rapidly disintegrating planetoid. At any given time a huge chunk of rock could break free and leave a trail of vivid methane. It was the kind of view that lent Vista its name.

  A reassuring chime from Jake’s wrist pad told him he had full functionality. He keyed in Vista’s service directory and selected one of the cheaper hab rentals. In his experience there was no point whatsoever wasting credit on a plush room. All he needed was a data jack and a lightscreen. He was sick of craning his neck over his wrist pad.

  The way to Apex Habs glowed on the weathered corridor wall and he found them with a minimum of fuss. He accessed his tiny room and checked the cot. No blood, no bugs, no smells. So far, so good. He secured the door behind him and sat on the edge of the only piece of furniture in the room - a thin steel bench.

  A deep yawn almost sent Jake over to the cot - he was utterly exhausted. His troubled sleep in the Aegisi escape pod had not been enough to restore the energy he’d used in that battle on Cerulean.

  He thought of Michael, probably being hauled into a bile tank at that moment. Not for the first time, he cursed himself for allowing the Aegisi boy to be attacked. Logic suggested he had no chance of standing up to The Brawler, but surely he could’ve done something to protect the boy. It was just so wasteful.

  The Aegisi boy was the First Catalyst - Jake was certain of that. He was also fairly sure that the boy had fulfilled his destiny on Cerulean. The implications of the Cavan defeat at Cerulean were massive. What mattered was that the Aegisi had a place where they could thrive. Sure, they already had their homeworld Solitude, but Cerulean was much easier for an amphibious species to defend.

  Michael Danner had served his purpose and served it well. Jake would’ve preferred to see the boy to a safe haven where he could live out his days in peace. He deserved that much, especially after losing his sister Emilia. Perhaps that was the source of Jake’s guilt. Jake had used and abused Michael. Even though Cerulean had been secured and the Cava05 defeated, there had been nothing noble about his treatment of the boy. Like so many of his relationships, this one had been cold and callous.

  Jake kneaded the bridge of his nose tiredly. He needed at least another hour of concentration before he could allow himself to sleep. He spent the time trawling through the various news casts on his wall-length lightscreen. His mood hardly improved as he discovered what had happened during his long flight in the escape pod.

  Smarting from their defeat at Cerulean, the Cava05 had consolidated their fleet and moved aggressively through the center of the galaxy. Several neutral systems had been ruthlessly conquered. The Cirrus system was an important gain for the expansionist simian species. Cirrus One, formerly an industrial heartland for the human Terran Republic, had been retro-fitted to Cavan needs. Nex was awash with propaganda footage of Cavan engineers bringing huge generators and mineral refineries back to life.

  The system had been a ruin for several centuries, but the Cava05 were masters of rapid re-development of xeno-technologies. Jake could only admire their technical excellence and savvy use of resources. Cirrus Two offered less in the way of industrial infrastructure but the former megalopolis was still a wonderful source of scrap metal for those enterprising enough to extract it.

  Judging from the news footage, that was exactly what the Cava05 intended to do. The simians had effectively built a major staging post for military offensives in any direction. The Cirrus system provided a key tactical advantage. For starters, it allowed the Cava05 flanking opportunities against the Jaj Patriarchy. Jaj-controlled systems were vulnerable for the first time in centuries.

  The implications were clear. Instead of wasting their time going after the Aegisi and the Nostroma, the Cava05 intended to amass an invasion force against the Jaj, their biggest military rival.

  Jake found his mind drifting to the Jaj girl held in captivity on Tranda IX. The girl Michael Danner mentioned before he fell into a coma. The girl sponsored by Emilia Danner and fostered in an incubator for many years. It was anyone’s guess how the Fidelis Prime monks had treated her. Nostromic monasteries tended to be obsessed with secrecy. He wasn’t even sure if the girl was still alive.

  The one thing he did know was that he needed to save her. There was a better than even money chance that she was the Second Catalyst. When Michael first mentioned her, his mind responded in a peculiar way. It was a strange feeling, as if he had always known about the Jaj girl at Fidelis Prime. The Nostroma were probably the most intellectually advanced species in the galaxy, and had evolved to harness certain mental instincts that the body usually tried to smother.

  Jake was certain he needed to liberate the Jaj girl. Everything depended on it. But his resolve wavered when he considered the logistics of such an operation. Was the girl still alive? Was she still at the Fidelis Prime monastery? If so, how was she being treated? Jake could only guess at her mental and physical condition.

  Perhaps the most pressing question was whether he should contact her. There were clear pros and cons to the idea. First, there was the matter of technology. The Nostromic monks would be hard to reach using long range coms. There was also the matter of the young woman’s safety. Would it help or hinder her prospects if the monks knew he was coming?

  It all depended on why she was there. The monastery might be glad to see the back of her, but something told Jake that was unlikely. He would probably need some kind of collateral if he was to take the girl with him.

  On the other hand, communicating with the girl might yield her exact location and other intelligence. If Jake was to mount a rescue mission it would pay to know how many monks were in the vicinity. He’d heard that they were far from peaceful, easy-going types.

  In the end Jake chose to contact the Jajan simply to see if she was still alive. It would be soul-destroying to travel to the far side of Nostroma space on a fool’s errand. Especially as the Cava05 advanced menacingly through the corridor of the galaxy.

  Forming various words and phrases in his mind, Jake activated a costly long-range connection to the Tranda system. He was held up by various traffic before his signal finally hit a coms drone deep in the system. A second interminable wait ended in a gentle click and all of a sudden there was a scratchy voice at the other end of the long-range beam.

  came a remote female voice.

  30

  “Fusar,” Jake repeated, his mind in disarray. It was strange how nervous he felt. “Is that your name?”

 

  “My name is Jake Le Sondre,” he said thickly. “I’m a Nostromic duellist and a friend of the Danner family.”

  There was a pause, as if Fusar was deep in thought.

  “I did,” Jake said grimly. “She’s dead.”

  Another pause. He could only guess what the Jajan girl was feeling.

  she said.

  “She tried,” Jake said, his mind racing. “We think your sponsorship was corrupted.”

  Fusar said.

  Jake swallowed. “I’d like to rebuild the connection if that’s okay with you.”

  Fusar asked quickly.

  “I was friends with her brother,” Jake replied, figuring that something approaching the truth was by far the best policy. And yet his next statement was a well-rehearsed lie.

  “It was Emilia’s last wish, you know,” he said in a controlled voice. “To get you out of there.”

  Silence. Jake felt like a
creep.

  came Fusar’s melancholy voice.

  Jake blinked. He had no idea why that might be so. He knew that Emilia Danner had been a thoughtful person and probably had her reasons. Perhaps she didn’t want to see Fusar’s living conditions.

  “If you don’t mind, Fusar, I’d like to pay you a visit,” Jake said, sensing it was the right moment to lay things on the table. “I have something to tell you and I can only do it in person.”

  The duellist’s proposition was carefully worded. He still didn’t know if Fusar was being held against her will or if her com was bugged.

  Fusar said doubtfully.

  Jake smiled at the humor but was worried about Fusar’s flat tone. It was as if her words weren’t entirely her own. Only a Nostroma could pick up on such a tiny detail, and it was definitely there.

  “You have my com link,” Jake said finally. “I’d like to stay in touch as I travel.”

  Fusar said cryptically.

  Jake ended the com, troubled. There was something about Fusar’s voice that triggered alarm bells. He resolved to extract more details during their next com link. On the positive side, he’d established that Fusar was alive and still at Fidelis Prime monastery. Better still, the prospect of a visit didn’t seem to worry her too much.

  Yawning uncontrollably, Jake lowered himself into the cot. Rented habs across the galaxy had no concept of an average Nostroma’s height - he was in for an uncomfortable sleep. Nonetheless he was glad to be free of that dreadful escape pod. He let himself drift, picturing the hazy, dusty mountains of Tranda IX.

  A pre-programmed chime on Jake’s wrist pad drew him from sleep. As usual his neck throbbed from the unnatural angle forced upon it.