The Fatal Dark (Final Dawn, Book 9) by T.W.M. Ashford

Author:T.W.M. Ashford [Ashford, T.W.M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-04-04T16:00:00+00:00

11

THE FATAL DARK

Jack rushed to the bathroom twice in the space of twenty minutes. His stomach was a hessian sack of hot coals one moment, a leaky detergent capsule the next. And the last thing he wanted was to die with a full bladder.

“Still not here yet?” he asked, returning to the cockpit. His hands were almost shaking too much to fasten his spacesuit back together.

“Still not here yet,” Tuner replied, casting a pair of LED eyes in Rogan’s direction.

“For bolt’s sake, I’m not psychic.” She shook her head as she consulted Adi’s scans. “This is when the Archimandrite said they would strike, and every projective model I ran confirmed as much. Don’t blame me, blame the data.”

Jack tried chewing the skin around his fingernails but his gloves were in the way. He settled with making a meal of his bottom lip instead.

“And yet…”

The Adeona drifted a kilometre outside of Kapamentis’s atmosphere, her thrusters off. The surrounding star system was noticeably sparse. And this wasn’t just down to the Prymalis’ absence. For all the many hundreds of thousands of species and empires and factions who had surely heard their call for help, very few had actually answered. And even those who did weren’t exactly talking to each other.

Half a dozen Ministry frigates held together by nothing more than duct tape and sheer sense of duty skulked on Adi’s starboard. Jack trusted a few smaller vessels were patrolling the other side of the planet. Whether Grand Minister Zsal had caved and sent them there or the Ministry’s limited local force had taken it upon themselves to defend Kapamentis, he didn’t know. He hadn’t heard from her since leaving Vekemorte.

The majority of ships present were formed of smaller contingencies from some of the least powerful species in the Ministerium. The Collusect – a hive-mind of skinny, long-necked insectoids no greater than three feet in height – had spared a pair of botanical warships. The feathered peoples of Tukka’shi sent some armoured cruisers and, rather generously, a medical barge. Even a handful of Ubekian Cutworm bombers had shown up. Between the lot of them, they could probably fend off a single Prymalis battleship. Probably.

Something that surprised Jack at first was the flotilla of super-destroyers sent by Negoti. Not any warships from the Ghuk themselves, only their largest corporation – almost a political nation in its own right. Then Rogan reminded him that their largest company headquarters outside of the Ghuk homeworld was on Kapamentis, that destruction of a central galactic hub would be disastrous for Negoti’s profits, and suddenly the galaxy made perfect sense again.

“Maybe they heard our broadcast and called off the attack?” Tuner suggested anxiously.

“The Prymalis?” Jack snorted as he settled back into his seat. “They’re much too arrogant for that. I reckon it’s more likely they weren’t ever planning on coming here to begin with.”

“I assure you,” Rogan said, staring up at him from the hologram table, “my models—”

“I’m not saying you were wrong,” Jack said quickly, resisting a groan,

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