Reality's Veil Read online

  Reality’s Veil

  a novel by

  Damon Alan

  I want to once again give special thanks to my wife. A hospital administrator with an MSN in Nursing, she’s brilliant and thorough. Thanks to her our expenses for creating these books stays low, allowing the budget for advertising outreach to be higher. It is her faith in my efforts that helps me succeed.

  All my faith, love, and respect rests with her.

  © Damon Alan 2019 All rights reserved, including internal content and cover art. This book may not be reproduced without the express written permission of the copyright holder. Cover art may also not be reproduced without written permission, except for usage that pertains to bona fide blogging, review, or other legitimate journalistic purpose associated with the content of this book.

  This is a work of fiction, and any names, places, characters or events are created solely from the mind of Damon Alan, and then revealed via this book to you, the reader. Any resemblance to any human of the estimated 100 billion humans who live or ever have lived is purely coincidental. With technology being what it is today, I should also mention that any AIs in this book are purely speculative and any resemblance to actual AIs is also, you guessed it, purely coincidence.

  1st Edition E-book, distribution solely via Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing.

  1st Edition print book is available on Amazon.com via Createspace as printer.

  Contents

  Chapter 1 - Tears From the Stars

  Chapter 2- A Meeting of Two Minds

  Chapter 3 - An Unpleasant Conversation

  Chapter 4 - Theft of Services

  Chapter 5 - Tears From the Ground

  Chapter 6 - Return to the Fight

  Chapter 7 - Admiral’s Personal Log

  Chapter 8 - Confusion

  Chapter 9 - Sendoff

  Chapter 10 - Better Late than Never

  Chapter 11 - Cothis

  Chapter 12 - Doubts

  Chapter 13 - Contact

  Chapter 14 - Admiral’s Personal Log

  Chapter 15 - A Curious Species

  Chapter 16 - A Call in the Dark

  Chapter 17 - Building a Base

  Chapter 18 - Meeting of the Giants

  Chapter 19 - Khalamanthus

  Chapter 20 - Admiral’s Personal Log

  Chapter 21 - Hyaku

  Chapter 22 - Battle Most Glorious

  Chapter 23 - Reluctance

  Chapter 24 - Arrival and Engagement

  Chapter 25 - Allies

  Chapter 26 - Unfortunate Events

  Chapter 27 - Admiral’s Personal Log

  Chapter 28 - Trip Beyond

  Chapter 29 - The All of Everything

  Chapter 30 - Admiral’s Personal Log

  Chapter 31 - Black and White

  Chapter 32 - Two Branches

  Chapter 33 - Incomprehensible

  Chapter 34 - Change

  Chapter 35 - Tandella

  Chapter 36 - Firing Range

  Chapter 37 - Prelude to Civil War

  Chapter 38 - House Cothis

  Chapter 39 - Weapons Testing

  Chapter 40 - A Threat Verified

  Chapter 41 - A New Mode of War

  Chapter 42 - Acrinn

  Chapter 43 - Admiral’s Personal Log

  Chapter 44 - Alert

  Chapter 45 - Zero is the Largest Number

  Chapter 46 - Unsettled

  Chapter 47 - Suit Up

  Chapter 48 - Far Reach

  Chapter 49 - Betrayal

  Chapter 50 - A Universe Best Served Cold

  Chapter 51 - Acquisition of Resources

  Chapter 52 - Albeus

  Chapter 53 - Gaia Renewed

  Chapter 54 - Missing Pieces

  Chapter 1 - Tears From the Stars

  29 Seppet 15332

  The Sheffaris floated near the rapidly expanding debris cloud of a Komi light cruiser and the vaporized gas cloud of an Oasian grappler, both destroyed by antimatter missiles. One grappler remained intact, as did one cruiser. The nearby cruiser was on borrowed time, missiles were already closing on it.

  The grappler, however, contained vital information that couldn’t be allowed to fall into the wrong hands. Vaporize it, and they could go home.

  The antimatter missiles of the small ship were proving highly effective.

  Admiral Sarah Dayson felt a profound sense of relief knowing the DNA of the adepts would not fall into the hands of the Komi today. Nor would her enemy get any clues to the nature of the FTL travel by the Seventh Fleet.

  At least this part of her mission was unfolding as she wanted it to.

  Her head jerked toward a loud and unexpected noise. It took her a moment to realize what was going on.

  Something had penetrated the Sheffaris’ hull. Shrapnel rained into the bridge space, Sarah watched as more than one person grabbed an injury. Red hot spalling littered the deck, slowly fading from a glowing orange into matte black cinders.

  If it had been a slug from one of the cruisers, they’d all be dead right now. But this object was small, or explosive decompression would be an issue. What the penetrator was didn’t matter. What effect it had on her ship was the important factor. A slew of destroyed equipment and wiring hung from the port side ceiling, and air whistled through the jagged chaos as it escaped into space.

  “Damage control to the bridge with sealing kits!” she barked into her comm.

  She was stepping on Harmeen’s toes, but she had experience and responded first.

  The crew was in chaos. The adepts were demanding to know what happened. Heinrich, already sick from radiation exposure, was trying to unstrap from her gravcouch and swing into action. She froze when her eyes locked on the ship’s stricken Captain, drawing Sarah’s attention to the same.

  Captain Harmeen was looking blissfully forward, eyes without focus, his arm extended toward the front of the ship. Globules of blood floated around him, expanding out from his station. The stream of body fluids was being pulled toward the hole in the hull by escaping air. As Sarah realized the degree of his injuries, more of the young man’s life drained from his torso.

  His eyes closed, and he relaxed into the grip of his gravcouch.

  “Oh, Navin, no!” she screamed into thinning air as she unstrapped from her station in order to help him.

  Repair crews rushed onto the bridge with a tank of sealing foam. She waved Heinrich toward the repair as she moved toward Navin.

  Whatever had gone through the bridge had gone through part of his chest cavity and his gravcouch as well, before disappearing into the floor and probably out of the bottom of the ship.

  “See to the exit puncture,” Sarah ordered Heinrich as she began unstrapping Navin’s body from his couch.

  She pulled his limp corpse to her, embracing him in death.

  “You were, and are, a son to me,” she said, too shocked to weep.

  Kuo took charge of the ship. “Mister Algiss, snap to! Did we hit the cruiser?”

  Let him run the ship while I deal with this, Sarah thought.

  “Target destroyed, sir,” the young officer answered to the XO. “Weapons are ready to hit the grappler.”

  “Secure weapons lock,” Kuo ordered. “Fire one missile, and as soon as it impacts transfer to Oasis.”

  “Aye, sir. Locked and firing.” A few seconds later he confirmed the grappler’s destruction. “Impact and detonation.”

  “Mission accomplished, Captain,” Sarah whispered to Navin’s corpse, so quietly nobody else could have heard. He died completing my orders. My orders! For the possibility that the Komi might acquire Adept DNA.

  “Then point us to home, Mister,” Kuo ordered Algiss.

  Sarah hated herself at that moment.

  You did nothing
wrong, Alarin thought to her from the Adept’s observation deck. He is with the gods now.

  “Wrong doesn’t matter, what’s done is done,” Sarah said out loud as she stroked Navin’s hair, holding him close. “And he believed as you do.”

  Merik showed you Franklin and your first husband. Navin continues just the same and will wait for Halani with patience and love.

  Panic ripped into her gut as she slowly released Navin’s body from her embrace. “Oh no. Halani. I sent her away on the Stennis,” she said

  You did your duty to our peoples, yours and mine. More than ever I see you for who you are.

  “Transfer complete,” Algiss reported.

  In Sarah’s military mind, she noticed everything going on behind her. Kuo taking charge, Heinrich urging the damage control teams to move faster, Algiss reporting the ship out of danger.

  If she had to step in, she would. But for the moment, the ship was in far better shape than she was.

  She mourned her loss. Maybe it was for nothing, maybe making sure two grapplers didn’t fall into Komi hands was an important mission. But then maybe not. Nobody else had thought so. But she’d done what she thought to be right. She would mourn and let others decide blame. In her moment of sorrow, she felt Salphan with her, silently giving her strength from his own reserves.

  What mattered to her was her failure to keep this man alive. It mattered with every dead crewman, and it never got easier. Sometimes it seemed the odds always rolled out against her, and often her subordinates paid the price.

  It is a mercy Halani was not here. He died too fast to say goodbye. And she would have seen him like this, and be where you are now, Alarin thought to her.

  “How can I tell her that he’s dead? That she’ll spend her life alone, never seeing him again?”

  You tell her he is not. If you wish, I will do it, Alarin replied. As you said, Navin Harmeen thought of the universe much as I do, and I know I will see him again.

  “We’ll do it together,” Sarah whispered. “I have no spiritualism in me, you will do better than I can, since you have belief on your side. I will give her his personal items.”

  I will always stand with you as friend, Alarin thought. You will never be alone. And neither was Navin. He wanted you to be proud, to think of him as a man who stood for the fight you want us all to win.

  “I am proud of him. I’m proud of them all,” Sarah said, as tears welled up in her eyes, too large to see through. She wiped them away.

  “Leaks sealed, Admiral,” Heinrich said behind her. “The patches are holding, but it’ll need real repairs before this ship can head out for another mission.”

  “Status?” Sarah asked.

  “All systems green except the front port sensor arrays and the bridge-weapons interface. Other than one data conduit, the hit was entirely hull plates,” Heinrich said. Seeming to realize the insensitivity of the statement as soon as she said it, she stammered out a few more words. “I mean—”

  “I know what you mean, Inez,” Sarah said. “The ship is not battle ready but will get us home. Thank you.”

  “I’m sorry,” Heinrich rasped out, a rare display of emotion from Sarah’s protege.

  Sarah needed to get herself back in control. She was an admiral. She simply nodded as Heinrich knelt down beside her.

  “Admiral,” Heinrich said, ever practical. “We need to get him into cold storage. You’re a bloody mess.”

  “I know,” she sighed. The urge to sob pushed to break free. Not now! “I know. In a minute,” she said to Heinrich, her voice quivering.

  Heinrich touched her shoulder and moved off.

  Sarah didn’t know what to do, so she did what she thought he would want.

  She grabbed the console microphone on Harmeen’s command station, and keyed the ship wide PA. “This is Admiral Dayson. At the current timestamp I am assuming command of this vessel.” She paused for an uncomfortable length of time without unkeying the mic. “I don’t believe in higher beings,” she finally continued. “I don’t believe there are gods that care about our daily lives. But my friend, a member of my family did. He believed that gods are all around us, looking after us, and seeing that we prevail over evil. Because of my respect for him, I offer this to his gods.

  “Harmeen’s gods, I’ve sworn by you many times in jest. Lately maybe not as much in mockery, because I’ve seen too much to be confident in my disbelief. None of that matters now, because I’m holding one of your best. Navin Harmeen. Captain, friend, loyal to his beliefs, unshakable. Husband, fighter, brilliant engineer. Welcome him, embrace him, take care of him.”

  She dropped the mic to the floor and cried openly on Harmeen’s shoulder. So much for control.

  A hand touched her again. Salphan. “Sarah, it’s time. Let them take him.” She looked past her lover, her confidant, more sharply aware that Halani no longer had a mate to comfort her in times of need.

  Two medics waited patiently, refusing to interrupt her pain.

  She reluctantly let Navin go, her son among the stars. They took him through the bridge hatch, and she felt as if all she wanted was him back in the gravcouch in front of her.

  She turned toward Salphan, who opened his arms.

  “You don’t know what he meant to me,” she said.

  “Trust me, I may be the only one that knows what he specifically meant to you. We all have lost today,” Salphan replied. He pulled back a bit to caress her hair and look into her eyes. “I would like you to consciously share with me now and let me know everything you’re feeling.”

  “I’m feeling that I’m a bloody mess,” Sarah said.

  Salphan broke from the hug, then grabbed her hand. “For good reason. Let me see you to your quarters. You can clean up. Then together we’ll explore your pain. It’s best to understand, so that as the living you can move on.”

  He was right. She wasn’t a civilian who could grieve in time. She didn’t have that luxury. She needed to come to grips with it now, and if Salphan could help, she’d let him.

  She looked at her station holopanels. Air pressure was stabilized and rising. Port sensors down, as well as the jury-rigged interface between the weapons station and the missile launchers.

  There wasn’t anything more to do. And Heinrich would perform better than she would right now.

  “Fleet Captain Heinrich, you have the con,” Sarah said. “Use my gravcouch.”

  “I have the con,” Heinrich said, her voice surprisingly shaky. “We’re making straight to Refuge.”

  Sarah looked quickly away from the tears on Inez’s face. Those were almost as surprising as Harmeen’s death.

  She had to get her act together to see Seto when they arrived home. That couldn’t wait.

  In her quarters her demeanor sank into despair as Salphan let her feelings drop to their natural state, and she wept on his shoulder. He’d held her together on the bridge, just enough to operate effectively. She could feel him, gently touching her mind, reminding her of how much sacrifice she had made for humanity, and that everyone on the ship was prepared to die for her, and their, cause.

  He reminded her of the sacrifice she was willing to make if it meant victory for humanity. Trillions of lives. Whatever else was going on, they were in a time of tragedy and final hope for the survival of humanity. No price was too high to pay for that.

  “Admiral?” Lucy said. “I sense you are in distress. Should I call a medic?”

  Sarah shook her head. “No. There is no medicine for this, Lucy. No cure.”

  After she’d emptied her grief onto his shoulders, Salphan left promising to return in short order. She showered and dressed, preparing herself for what lay ahead.

  A shuttle to the surface of Refuge when they returned home and another flood of emotion with the only person that loved Navin more than she did. One she was both honor-bound and compelled to do. Explaining to a wife that her husband would hold her no more was something she’d done before, but not to someone who was practically family.
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  A wave of hatred surged through her, and she slammed her fist into her dresser. The burst of emotion surprised her in some recess of her mind, but she didn’t care.

  “I hate the Komi,” she growled, her fist still clenched and her voice full of venom. “You will pay for his death and for the genocide at Mindari, Urdoxander.”

  She sensed Salphan and Alarin’s alarm and readied herself for their arrival. She noticed she didn’t sense the same thing from Emille. Maybe her touch was lighter. Or maybe Emille understood.

  Mindari was proof that the Komi valued nothing that made life matter.

  Harmeen’s life had to mean something, she needed him to have died for a cause, a reason to gain something for humanity.

  She would take from the Komi what they valued most: Their existence.

  She would burn their capital to get Urdoxander if she must, then she’d find out about these houses the idiots kept going on about, and she’d burn those too. She’d take the Komi Syndicate to the ground. Once the snake was headless, she’d add their warships to her fleet, and use the civilian ships to migrate the innocent population of the Komi worlds to a place away from the coming radiation front.

  She strapped her sidearm onto her leg and opened the hatch just as Alarin and Salphan were about to ring the chime to her quarters.

  “We’re going to interrogate Cothis on our approach to Refuge. I have some things I need to know,” she told them. “Follow me.”

  They fell in behind her, radiating worry like a dark cloak.

  Let them worry. When Cothis detected their fear of her, he would believe what she needed him to believe.

  This is not what Navin—

  She whirled on Alarin. “Do not speak to me of what Navin would want. Do not ever presume to speak to me for my dead. He came to me an eager ensign, and I watched him become a talented officer. He is a core part of who I am, and they took him,” she growled and jabbed a pointed finger toward him. “I will not stand by.”

  She stared at Alarin a moment, then turned agilely around in zero G to move once more toward the room that served as Cothis’s brig.

  The adepts were silent behind her.