The First Covenant (Dark Universe Series Book 2) Read online

  Trysten had hoped to find the missing Strykers while Lynden resisted the political consequences. But he hadn’t expected the search to take so damn long. A full week had passed. What if Lynden couldn’t hold out any longer?

  Perhaps trying to get a rogue Stryker back was a waste of time. Maybe he had to start thinking of containing the fallout instead before it was too late. Perhaps it was time to cut ties? Maybe he could hush up the evidence that tied him to the Stryker?

  No, not yet.

  Trysten’s fists clenched and his jaw tightened. He couldn’t give up. He had done nothing wrong. The Confederacy had known what he was doing in Sector 22. Not every detail, but they had known he was investigating Locustan tech, yet they had not stopped him. They couldn’t make a scapegoat out of him now that the experiment had hit a snag. He wasn’t going to let them. He was going to find that Stryker and find out what happened in Sector 22.

  But first he had to locate the Endeavor. Wultoph was already on the case, but he needed to do more . . . much more. Trysten angrily paced the room, brows furrowing deeper as he walked back and forth between the desk and the glass wall. On his sixth turn, he stopped abruptly and ran his fingers over a control panel on his desk. The air above the desk momentarily shimmered, and a minute or two later a holographic bust of a man wearing the blue uniform of the GSO appeared.

  Trysten nodded to greet the man. “Lieutenant Gael Arlington.”

  “Lord Paramount Kiroff,” the hologram nodded back.

  “You took your time.”

  “You’d be surprised how slow I can be sometimes.”

  Trysten’s eyes narrowed just a tad at his reply. Cheekiness was not unexpected from Gael Arlington and Trysten had learned to let things like that slip. To be dreadfully honest, he enjoyed the young man’s pluck.

  “Have you heard?” Trysten was purposefully tacit but the lieutenant seemed unfazed.

  “If you mean the Endeavor’s little encounter with the Confederacy fleet, then yes, I have.”

  A smile curled at the corner of Trysten’s mouth. The affection he felt for this young lieutenant was odd. Gael was the son of his staunchest corporate enemy, Tuck Arlington. Not even a day ago, Gael had been beaten soundly by Milos. To top it all off, Gael was looking Trysten in the eye and being quite uninhibited in his responses, which would have sent Trysten into a fury, but for some reason he couldn’t find a shred of anger inside him to hurl at the lieutenant.

  “And what are you going to do about it?” Trysten said simply.

  “Have you heard of Nebeca 21?” Gael asked.

  Trysten relished the slight rush of adrenaline at Gael’s words. Now they were getting somewhere. Just like he had hoped, Gael Arlington had thought of something out of the ordinary.

  The man reminded Trysten so much of himself at that age. Bold and ambitious, Gael had been begging to be put in the spotlight when Trysten had first noticed him. It had taken a few inducements, including some long and unpleasant negotiations with Gael’s stubborn and loud-mouthed father, Tuck, to secure House Arlington’s loyalty, but Trysten had no doubt about the soundness of his decision. Every conversation was Gael was refreshing.

  “Nebeca 21, eh?” Trysten said. “It’s a space station off the Darren-Wu system, the last fueling stop between the inner colonies and the Fringe. What about it?”

  “You said it. It’s the last fueling station before the Fringe. And the one notorious for its lax security,” Gael replied. “If the Confederacy flags the Endeavor a rogue, where do you think they’ll go?”

  Trysten chuckled. No doubt the lieutenant was planning a trap for the Endeavor at Nebeca 21. That was good, but it would have been even better to find the Endeavor before Nebeca 21.

  “Searching every star system around Totori is pointless,” Gael said, perhaps seeing the lack of zeal on Trysten’s face. “A waste of time.”

  “Maybe,” Trysten said. “Where are you now?”

  “Near Totori. I tried to get to the scene of the encounter, but Admiral Kanaa isn’t allowing anyone other than DSI units near. Even the GSO isn’t good enough anymore.”

  Trysten gritted his teeth. The DSI, or the Deep Space Intelligence, was a core investigative unit of the Confederate Space Command. Unfortunately, he didn’t have any surrogates in the DSI; the organization was airtight.

  “Anything you picked up from the distance?”

  “The weapon used to destroy the Drednot was similar to what was used on the GSO fleet in Sector 22. I picked up a piece of debris. It has similar signatures to the ones we have from Sector 22.”

  Trysten held his breath. His suspicion was correct. The Stryker was indeed at the bottom of all this. But how? Did the pilot go rogue? Or had the Stryker?

  “Lord Paramount,” Gael said, halting Trysten’s mind from bounding into woeful conclusions. “We’ll find them. And this time I’ll be prepared for Captain Milos.”

  “Yes, please do. But don’t underestimate that man, Gael,” Trysten said distractedly. “He’s good. He’s a legend for a reason.”

  “I know.”

  “And you be careful.” Trysten winced inwardly as soon as those words left his mouth. It was not like him to care, yet he always saw something in Gael that was more than just a tool to further his designs for House Kiroff. Gael was as capable as Trysten had always been, someone he could trust, a compatriot, and a worthy successor to his legacy. If only the fates had been kinder . . . Sonya could have borne him a son like Gael.

  “Lord Paramount, if I may ask something?” Gael chimed in. “I know it’s not my place, but since I was present at CAWStrat when . . .”

  Gael’s voice trailed off, but he had said enough to steel Trysten’s insides. This was bound to come up sometime. The Stryker mess was taking up most of his time, but the other problem had to be dealt with sooner or later.

  “She’s . . . missing,” Trysten said as offhandedly as he could without saying his daughter’s name.

  Gael simply stared at him, then a frown came over his face. “And?”

  And nothing. He couldn’t announce to the universe that his daughter Ramya, the Kiroff heir, had left CAWStrat without permission to who knew where. That she of House Kiroff had slinked out of the institute like a worthless delinquent. What would that news do to his reputation?

  It was bad enough that Leona, that bitchy administrator at CAWStrat, knew. Trysten could tell she was tittering inside as she broke the news to him. He wanted to drag her to a hearing and hold her accountable, but then everyone would find out. His stupid daughter had even left a note, announcing her displeasure at how her father controlled her life. So instead of throwing a mismanagement charge at Leona, Trysten had to threaten her to keep it quiet. Then he had to tempt her with a deal just to make sure she kept it quiet.

  “Lord Paramount?” Gael called again. Trysten drew a long, jagged breath. Gael had an annoying habit of poking people like that, making them face truths they didn’t want to admit existed.

  “I’m looking for her,” Trysten said. He had sent a team of investigators to CAWStrat, but beyond that he didn’t have a plan.

  “Can I help?”

  “No,” Trysten snapped. Ramya was his responsibility, his failure, his shame to bear alone. Besides, Gael had more important matters to attend. “You go find me my Stryker.”

  “Yes, Lord Paramount.”

  After Gael’s image flickered and disappeared, Trysten lumbered over to the glass wall and the breathtaking scenery it framed. A faraway look had descended on his usually sharp blue-gray eyes, and from the way the corners of his lips drooped it was easy to tell he was not enjoying the view.

  Trysten rubbed his chin, his thoughts swirling. He had done his best to get Ramya trained to be a worthy heir. He’d tried to toughen her, temper her, exposed her to the best upbringing in the galaxy money could buy. Still, somehow, he fell short. The hope he had nurtured of seeing in Ramya the passion to lead House Kiroff had never materialized.

  The cards were stacked against her
from her first breath: his firstborn was a girl. As was tradition, the firstborn was heir apparent, and Trysten had made his disappointment known to her. He acknowledged the near-unsurmountable social hurdles she’d face as leader of a major house, acknowledging the inevitable setback House Kiroff would have to deal with during her times.

  But the more he wanted to forge Ramya into a weapon worth reckoning, the more she turned into a mush of emotions. Trysten often wondered: was this weakling who cried up a storm if he as much raised his voice even his progeny?

  As if all that was not enough, now Ramya had run away. She’d somehow left the CAWStrat undetected and who knew where she was. Perhaps it was time to let her run. But if she wasn’t found in ten years, by the Confederacy’s laws of inheritance, she’d lose the right to lead House Kiroff.

  No! Trysten shook his head and shoved the dark thought down into the depths it had come from. Incapable or not, Ramya was his daughter. She had his blood in her veins, she bore his name. He couldn’t let her disappear into oblivion.

  Striding back to his desk, Trysten grabbed the red folder on his desk. On the cover it read “Confidential,” and inside was a dossier of five bounty hunters, supposedly the best in the galaxy. He was going to send one, or five, to get Ramya back to Somenvaar. And this time, once they got the idiot girl back, he would send her straight to her nuptials.

  But before that, he had a few more things to do about the Stryker mess. First, he needed to call on his brother, Lynden, again. The incident at Sector 22 had been contained, but the one at Totori was much more public. And with the DSI being called, Trysten was sure the shit would go flying soon. He had to get Lynden ready for that. War was coming.

  “Don’t forget your enemies, they won’t forget you.”

  -Mwandan proverb

  1

  IT’S one hell of a view at least, Ramya Kiroff mused as she tried to find a more comfortable position in the pilot seat of the Stryker. The sixth planet of the Kashiyap system—an ice giant with thick blue striations—hung next to them. Beyond it was the inner planetary region of the Kashiyap, where they were headed.

  Ramya glanced one more time at the mesmerizing blue striations of the ice giant before hastily tearing her eyes away from its looming form. You only needed to look at a planet as massive as that once to understand how insignificant one human was in the galactic scale of things. Ramya shuddered. Being insignificant . . . that was the story of her life.

  Fists curled into balls so tight that nails dug painfully into her palms, Ramya breathed in long and deep. Now was not the time for a pity party. She wasn’t about to let those dreadful flutters at the pit of her stomach grow any bigger, or let those nervous tingles spread beyond her fingertips. Not when she had a ship to find and friends to rescue.

  Ramya forced her thoughts on the most pressing issue: finding Endeavor and its crew. Only a few hours ago, with help from Ross and the Stryker’s AI, Dakrhaeth, she had fought off four Drednots of the Confederate fleet, barely escaping their vicious attack. Ramya checked the rear scopes for signs of any Confederacy ship following them but found none. Unfortunately, she couldn’t find any signs of the Endeavor either.

  They were lost without the Endeavor. The Stryker was an excellent craft, but it was built for battle and not for traveling long distances. Besides, there was no chance of giving anyone the slip in the Stryker. The craft’s unusual looks would attract the Confederacy’s attention in no time.

  “We better find them on Morris II,” Ramya muttered to herself. With no means to contact the Endeavor, their only hope rested on correctly guessing where Captain Milos would likely land the ship. Ross had suggested Morris II, and that was where they’d headed.

  Ramya blinked to clear her vision so she could pinpoint their destination and assess travel time. The Stryker had just exited the Super Luminal Highway, the SLH, and was heading steadily toward a distant red dot in the darkness that was the system’s lone star, the Kashiyap. Next to them was the Kashiyap’s sixth planet, and the planet beyond was a much smaller red one, which Ramya guessed was a tad bigger than Nikoor, her home world. Barely visible beyond the red planet’s orbit was their destination, the dark orb of Morris II.

  Just like she had done a zillion times since escaping the Drednots, Ramya scanned the instrument panel spread out in front of her and took stock of the readings. All seemed well. Ross sat in the co-pilot’s seat next to her and stared out the window. He had been unusually quiet since their encounter with the Confederacy and its four Drednots.

  After the Stryker had fled into the SLH, Dakrhaeth, the craft’s AI and the self-proclaimed soul of the Stryker, kept watch. Dakrhaeth had even suggested that Ross and Ramya take a nap, but as enticing as that sounded, neither had chosen to rest. Instead, they sat, staring outside and scanning the Stryker’s instruments over and over as they streaked though the SLH.

  They had come a long way. The Super Luminal Highways made travel faster, and the Stryker had made it from Totori to Morris II, located in adjacent star systems, in a little less than an hour thanks to faster-than-light mode of travel. If they had to use sub-luminal speeds, the same journey would have taken weeks. But now that they were out of the SLH, the distance between the AP or the Access Point of the SLH to the final destination would have to be completed in regular sub-luminal mode. And even though the Stryker was fast, it was going to take some time to reach Morris II, two planets away from the AP.

  “Feeling well, Mihaal?” The sudden question almost made Ramya jump. She had expected Dakrhaeth to be alert and awake, yet his voice—always smug and now somewhat chirpy—rattled her a bit.

  Receiving no reply from Ramya, Dakrhaeth went on. “We’re on course. By my calculations, we’ll arrive on Morris II in fifteen minutes.”

  And then what? From what she knew, Morris II was quite large. How would they know where the Endeavor had landed? Who knew if it had come to Morris II at all?

  Stop worrying, Rami! Focus. Think.

  “Tell me about Morris II again, Dakrhaeth,” she said. She had studied the basic information on Morris II a few times already, but she kept stumbling at the enormity of the task ahead of them.

  “Certainly, Mihaal. Morris II is a terrestrial planet, orbiting the Kashiyap, a red dwarf. It has thirteen thickly forested continents, which make up sixty-five percent of the planet's surface. It has no moon.”

  “Thirteen continents,” Ramya muttered to herself. How in the stars were they going to find a spacecraft on a planet that was sixty-five percent land?

  “Morris II is approximately 1.2 Terras in size.”

  That was fairly large, about three times the size of Nikoor, where she had been born and raised.

  “That will take a long time to scan?” Ramya asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, at least no one is chasing us.”

  “Per our current knowledge, yes.”

  Dakrhaeth was as optimistic a personality as anyone else she’d met on the Endeavor. Ramya stifled a chuckle before scanning the rear scopes once again to make sure no one was behind them. They had disabled all of the Drednots at Totori before escaping into the SLH and Ramya was sure none of those had followed. But who knew what the Confederacy had done since? For all they knew, a whole fleet could be tracking them now.

  “We have to find an efficient way to locate the Endeavor, Dakrhaeth,” Ramya said. “We can’t just keep flying around the planet.”

  “Yes, I agree.”

  A thought niggling at the back of Ramya’s mind suddenly rammed to the forefront and made her recheck the power gauges. There were no alarms yet, but Ramya still worried. The Stryker was a space fighter, not designed to fly long distances, and hence couldn’t be equipped with a massive reactor-based engine like the Endeavor. Whatever fuel supplies it had was sure to be depleted fairly quickly. And they had already been flying for a long time.

  “Dakrhaeth, how does the Stryker’s fuel supplies look?”

  Silence. Dakrhaeth’s silence always raised Ra
mya’s hackles.

  “Dakrhaeth?”

  “Not too bad, Mihaal. But not optimal either.”

  Perfect, Ramya thought caustically. That was the one worry missing.

  “I’d be able to regenerate the supplies fairly quickly.” But there had to be a catch somewhere. “If we could land.”

  Ramya released the breath she’d been holding. Land? In a Mwandan sanctuary? To be honest, there was no avoiding landing. Ramya had only hoped they could keep it to the minimum, and only after they’d spotted the Endeavor. But now it seemed like they’d have to do it far sooner.

  “You need to consider your own needs also, Mihaal.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked, tapping the handle of her seat distractedly.

  “I mean food, of course,” Dakrhaeth replied. “I do not see any supplies on board. Although the Stryker has a storage unit that can hold enough food for two persons to last seven days, it’s empty at the moment, unfortunately. I’ve noticed your species prefers food with high fat content, as well as exotic beverages. Before our next flight, I suggest you—”

  “Has anyone ever told you that you talk too much?” Ross interrupted sullenly. He looked around with bleary eyes.

  Ramya couldn’t help a smile. Dakrhaeth was a test of patience. He was, to quote the very best of her father, Trysten Kiroff, “a vat of jabber.” But she also had to acknowledge that Dakrhaeth was invaluable. Without his help, they would’ve been fried alive by the Confederacy. His jabber was an obligatory and indispensable torture.

  “I’m sorry if you’re offended by my intention to impart knowledge,” Dakrhaeth said. He was not one to take one on the cheek lying down either. “I was taught your species says information is a source of power.”

  Ross sighed noisily. “Yes, you’ve heard right. But there’s also a saying about too much information being bad. I’m guessing you didn’t hear that one?”