A Dark Dawn (The Great War Book 5) Page 2

  The emperor turned back to his plants as Koto bent into a bow, already considering all he must do.

  Chapter 2

  Lieutenant Shannon Reeve

  In transit to Azure Anchorage—Aquilla System

  The heavy doors rumbled open before Shannon Reeve.

  Her mother, Olivia Reeve, sat at the imposing desk in an office which was, near as damn it, the size of a Thunderhawk assault bomber’s hangar. The polluted haze visible through the floor-to-ceiling window behind her turned the starscrapers of New Logan into indistinct monoliths looming in the mist. Holos and neon created a murky, multicolored luminescence. Shuttles and air vehicles crisscrossed in a never-ending stream.

  The city was a busy place, full of vibrancy and life, despite the endless pollution of excess. Yet the air in here, the headquarters of Reeve Shipping, was pure and crisp, with the just slightest hint of calming lavender.

  Reeve advanced across the office, her boots clicking on the marbled flooring, conscious that she was wearing the unofficial uniform of a pilot—a brown leather bomber jacket—not the normal suit or formal wear which her mother usually demanded for propriety. Art adorned the walls, paintings and statues from Lost Earth itself tastefully arranged, and set to one side was a holo podium showing a news broadcast set to silent.

  It wasn’t her mother’s actual office, of course. It was far too impractical for that. Her real office was tucked away behind one of the side doors, a more sensible place for running an interstellar shipping company.

  No, this office was for impressing and cowing the minions and competition, designed to be a corporate throne room where she could receive her supplicants. And it was just like her mother to invite her own daughter here, as if she was nothing more than one of her damn lackeys.

  The high-backed leather chair spun around to face Reeve. Her mother’s sharp features didn’t look much older than hers. To the casual glance, they could be close sisters. All thanks to the benefits of the best surgeons and life extending drugs not available to the masses.

  “Shannon.” Olivia’s greeting, and that’s what it was, a mere greeting, was impersonal. There was nothing of the warm welcome with which most parents received their children. Not that she expected anything more from her mother. “I trust you are well?”

  There were no chairs for her to sit on, of course. Shannon didn’t mention it—that was just one of the subtle, and not so subtle, powerplays this office was designed to portray. Instead, she stood with her hands clasped behind her back before her mother’s desk in an ‘at ease’ position.

  You want formal, you got it.

  “Yes, Mother. Thanks for asking.”

  “Your little adventures were not too burdensome,” her mother leaned back in her seat, raising an eyebrow, the faintest hint of disapproval on her smooth face, “or taxing?”

  Her mother knew, of course. She had sources—both her own and in the government—on tap. She knew Shannon had been dragged into the hell of the war raging between the Kingdom and the Neo Hegemony, and that she had flown into Port Rorian with the greatest rescue armada ever put to space. She probably knew her daughter had come a gnat’s dick away from being shot out of space half a dozen times.

  “No, Mother. Nothing beyond mild inconveniences.”

  “Good.” Her mother tilted her head to regard Shannon. Her look was piercing, intense.

  She definitely knows.

  “The traditions of our family require that our children give military service,” Olivia Reeve said sharply. “However, there’s a distinction between that and heading into a warzone on some heap of shit private yacht without so much as a single gun.”

  Reeve shrugged like she was the petulant teenager her mother treated her as. The Reeve dynasty’s idea of military service was in the safest environment possible. Hell, the frowns she got from her mother, aunts, and uncles when she went, and scored, for a naval warfare officer was bad enough. She was supposed to have gotten herself a nice position in logistics, or another post where she could build the contacts which would benefit the company.

  To then leave the service after the minimum term, take her money, and buy a yacht for cruising the Arcadian sector? Undesirable, but there had been far greater indiscretions in the Reeve family history. Her mother treated it as an unwelcome phase her daughter would grow out of.

  But to actually get herself involved in a shooting war? That was unacceptable.

  “A shrug is not an adequate response,” her mother said coldly. “Instead of taking up your rightful position in this company, you’ve stolen from the family, and—”

  “Last time I checked, my trust fund was contingent upon three years’ service and taking a position in the company at some point.” Reeve let a cocky smile reach her lips. “No one said anything about when I had to take that position.”

  “Well, I do now. And if you’d taken the time to read the small print in your trust fund’s terms and conditions, you’d see the family does, too.” The matriarch glared at her as she leaned back in her chair. “The time has come.”

  With an angry jab, a document appeared in the air above her bare desk, just offset enough that the two women could still stare daggers at each other. “You’re to come home immediately. Failure to do so will mean you’re cut off.”

  “Who says I’m ready to?” Reeve snapped back. Was she being blackmailed? By her own damn family? Nothing would surprise her.

  “Clause three subsection two says you are.” A relevant segment of the text blinked in a red highlight.

  Reeve gave a snort. Trust her mother to reduce a family discussion to a legal contract. “And that document there is binding?”

  “Yes.”

  “As binding as this one?” Reeve reached into her pocket for her tablet and, with the flick of a finger, activated her own holo. Another document appeared above it, mirroring the one headed by the company logo, only this one had the eagle-and-planet crest of the Navy on it. “Once you’ve seen some shit, Mother—and I have—legal threats, even money, begin to matter less.”

  “What is that?” Her mother cocked her head. She wasn’t going to read it; she was going to make Shannon explain, and she was more than happy to oblige.

  “I’ve reupped. If Reeve shipping wants to argue the toss with the Naval lawyers, that’s your business. But I’m back in.”

  “Why?” Her mother’s voice was ice. “You’ve done what you needed to do. A few holos of yourself in uniform, got to know a few promising officers. That’s all the family needs from the military.”

  “Perhaps the military hasn’t gotten what it needs from the Reeve family.” She deactivated the holo mode and tucked the tablet back into her pocket. “Or perhaps war is coming, and this time I’d rather have the ability to fight back.”

  “What? As a cog in the machine on some warship?” Her mother snorted dismissively. “You’ll rapidly find there’s none of the glory you clearly so wish for there, Daughter. You’ll be back to babysitting kids too stupid to have any other option in life than to swab decks.”

  “Maybe not, Mother.” Reeve gave a shrug. “Lucky for me, I’m not going back onto a warship. I found, after Port Rorian, that I’d much rather have complete control over my fate.”

  The older woman’s eyes narrowed, and she cocked her head questioningly.

  “That’s right, Mother. This time ‘round, I’ve been accepted into flight school.” Reeve couldn’t help but let a smirk cross her face. “My assessment’s complete. They reckon I have the aptitude to be a Thunderhawk jock. Apparently, they think I can keep my cool while there’s folk shooting at me. Anti-aerospace fire all around, enemy fighters trying to shoot me down. It’ll all be in a day’s work for me. I even get to keep my seniority as a lieutenant.”

  “And this is your idea of rebelling, is it?” Her mother gave a disdainful sniff. “Why couldn’t you just get a tattoo like a normal person?”

  “No, it’s me doing my duty for the Federation, for when it goes down. And mark my words,
I’ve seen what it’s like out there. It will go down.”

  “Duty? What do you know of duty?”

  “More than you’ll ever understand, Mother.”

  “The intransigence of youth.” Her mother didn’t shout or scream. She didn’t fight, twist, or turn. She just spoke with the same coldness she’d always used. “Get out. You’ll be back when it’s out of your system.”

  ***

  That had been the better part of 18 months ago. Eighteen months filled with re-joining training. Flight school, first on a Sprite trainer craft, then a Thunderhawk conversion course. Carrier familiarization training, weapons courses, and all the rest of the fun and games that went into earning her wings and beyond.

  The ageing freighter, Astria, creaked and groaned every time her huge spaceframe was subjected to even the slightest acceleration.

  Fortunate, really, they were now in a coast. They were cutting an unpowered tangent through the Aquilla system as the freighter charted its long course through the Great Void, and that made it far less likely the damn thing would fall apart.

  It was a far cry from the comforts of Swift, her pleasure yacht, which she’d flown to Port Rorian, and now given over to her co-pilot, Gus Clay, to make what money he could chartering it out to rich tourists out of Rochelle Harbor.

  Reeve sighed as she zipped up her flight suit and drew her hands through her hair, attempting, in vain, to straighten it back out. Damn, she missed Swift. The Astria was even a far cry from the usual Navy conveyances. At the edge of Federation Space, it was more usual to travel using a military docket on a civilian freighter than it was to wait for the weeks between the Navy deciding to put on a dedicated transport.

  Winston Grant lay spread-eagled on the hastily assembled nest of bedding supplies in the storeroom they’d snuck into. The sweat glistened on his tattooed naked body. With a groan, he rolled over and pulled a deck of nicosticks from the pocket of his discarded pants. “Wow, Shannon. You were really taking out some frustration there.”

  “Yes. Yes, I was.” She gave him a thin smile as she looked down and admired the muscular civilian’s body. For someone who must have been in his mid, even late 30s, he either took care of himself, or a life of hard labor meant his muscles had grown to compensate. Still, Mother definitely wouldn’t approve. Reeve didn’t know much about him. Frankly, it hadn’t mattered. He was some kind of construction engineer. Probably the most ambitious thing he’d ever done was decide he was pulling a ten-hour day rather than eight. Not that she’d let small talk get in the way of what she needed. Or wanted.

  Maybe she should send a comm back to New Logan and introduce him to the family as her new boyfriend? That would really get the hag’s goat. Hell, she could practically see her mother’s face scowling now.

  It was so damn tempting.

  Problem was, the frantic coupling of the last few days had just been a whim. As far as she’d bothered to ask, she’d established that the contractor was on his way to some far away base somewhere in the Void, another destination the freighter was voyaging past. Rise, she vaguely recalled him mentioning, wherever that was.

  Her fate lay elsewhere.

  “So, am I ever gonna see you again?” Grant flicked his lighter open and applied the flame to the end of his stick. Smoke billowed in the tight confines of the cabin, the ventilation inadequate to suck it all away.

  Reeve leaned down and plucked the nicostick out of his hand before giving him a lingering kiss on the lips. “Don’t.”

  With a low, almost subsonic grumbling noise, Grant pulled another stick out and lit it for himself. “A guy can hope.”

  Giving a chuckle, Reeve took a long inhalation on her stick, then waved the wisps of smoke away. She flashed a glance down to the disheveled sheets. “Some poor bastard’s going to be sleeping on those.”

  “Probably me. I’m going to keep them forever.” Grant winked. Theatrically, he leaned down, sniffed the sheets, and gave an exaggerated sigh of contentment. A second later, the levity was gone. “Look, I’m being serious. I’ve got, what? Six months on Rise, then the job will be up. Maybe I can call back through Azure. We can get a drink. See how things go.”

  “I said, ‘Don’t’,” she tried again. Lost Earth, if she’d known he was such a sap, she would have picked someone else to scratch her itch. The look on his face was more like that of a desperate teenager, not the man she’d needed. “Don’t ruin things. Let’s just call this what it is. Sports sex and happy memories.”

  Happy memories that helped block out the horrible ones that had filled her head after Port Rorian. Ships and people, lives, hopes, and dreams extinguished in seconds with an almost casual disdain. The helplessness of flying her tiny, unarmed yacht into that hell. Being vulnerable. She shook her head, discarding the darkness that threatened to crawl out of the depths of her mind. It wouldn’t happen again. Next time, she’d have teeth.

  “You okay, Shannon?” Concern was etched onto Grant’s face. “You’ve got that look again.”

  “Yeah, fine.” Edging the nicostick between her lips briefly, she pulled on her boots. “And the answer’s ‘no’. You ain’t seeing me again.”

  Grant slumped back down into the sheets, his jaw tight. “Am I not good enough for a flygirl like you?”

  With a sigh, Reeve looked down at him. All through her life, her family had introduced her to...suitable partners, the goal clear. The family would only give their blessing to someone with the connections to enrich the Reeve dynasty. And for the most part, vice versa. Those suitors might have been polite and well-mannered, but their eyes were actually on the family’s billions.

  It was nice to have an honest man interested in her for once, for real. For herself.

  But still, she had to shut this down. She had a career to consider, and a goal. To get back to the war. She didn’t want to hurt him more than she had to. That would just be cruel.

  “I’m sorry, Winston.” She inhaled on her nicostick, then ground the lit end into the bulkhead, extinguishing it. “Take care of yourself out there.”

  She slapped the hatch door. It juddered open, and she stepped through it.

  ***

  Grant watched her leave the cabin, then rolled onto his back on the disheveled sheets, staring up at the low pipe strewn deckhead.

  Asshole. He scolded himself. How to make a total idiot of yourself.

  It was too much to hope that some Navy flygirl from the good end of New Logan would be interested in someone like him. Hell, he should just chalk it up as an ego boost that a girl at least 10 years younger than him, and such a looker, was interested. But damn, there was something about her. That look in her eyes, like she was looking into the far distance...and the fierce intensity to their coupling like it might be her last night in the Galaxy.

  Not that he knew a damn thing about her. Hell, he was probably just a way of getting back at her family.

  He wanted to shrug, to cast it off, like he had with a dozen girls back in the accommodation ‘Drums of New Logan. But this time, it was him on the receiving end.

  It didn’t quite sit right with him. With another sigh, he picked himself up and pulled on his clothes. It was going to be a busy few months, that was for sure. Maybe he could lose himself in that, rather than pining for a woman who’d used his body for the three days they’d known each other.

  Even if it had been a damn good three days.

  A few hours later, he stood by a porthole the size of a dinner plate in the corridor. The four nacelles of a shuttle’s engines burned bright as it speared away from the freighter’s small hangar. Beyond, in the distance, was the tiny blue speck of the world that was its—her—destination.

  Shaking his head, he turned away from the porthole, trying to put her out of his mind.

  There was going to be lots to do. Lots to keep his mind occupied.

  And that was for the best.

  Chapter 3

  Lieutenant Reeve

  Azure Anchorage—Aquila System

  Sha
nnon Reeve looked through the shuttle’s window as she took in her new home. The frown she on her face wasn’t at the view. That was beautiful. It was because she was further and further away from anywhere that would make a difference every damn day.

  Being posted to a Thunderhawk squadron was, by any measure, a badge of honor. It required nerves of steel, or so they said. An ability to keep focus. Flying ability. And, not least, a stomach that could take the inertial compensator straining maneuvers that kind of warbird relied on to do its job. Being an assault bomber jockey wasn’t for the faint of heart, that’s for damn sure.

  Still, the Hegemony and their Coalition simply didn’t have many of the types of ships a Thunderhawk could be used against. And until the Federation got its head out of its ass, did the inevitable, and joined the war, it wasn’t as if ‘Hawks could be used to slip past the enemy’s fortifications and strike planet-side or fixed installations.

  So, here she was. On the opposite side of the Federation from that war.

  Across the Void.

  The vast, intricate disc shape of Azure Anchorage hung in low orbit over the sapphire surface of an ocean world. Nestled amid and on its superstructure were vessels, large and small. Massive battleships squatted in docks which formed a circle around the core of the station. A huge dome sat atop the central section, visible within a crystal blue lagoon, and surrounding that was just where the big ships were. Elsewhere, scattered all over the place, cruisers, destroyers, support ships, and cutters nuzzled into slips.

  It was one hell of an impressive fleet. An impressive fleet that should damn well be on the other side of the Federation, turning its guns on the Neo Hegemony, not locked here waiting for a war that would probably never come against the Dawn Empire, or against the People.

  Her shuttle soared over the outer circumference, dancing around the structures and ships. A massive vessel crossed her nose as she banked around.

  The imposing battle steel hull of a ship appeared—Juno, the flagship of Battleship Division One. Even her huge form was reduced to toy size against the backdrop of the massive base. Yet in reality, she was a 1,200-meter-long titan. Yeah, the Kingdom had a couple of bigger beasts that she’d seen while at Victory, and she knew the Federation Navy had an even larger class of ships just about ready to come out of the construction yards...but man, Reeve gave a low whistle under her breath, she was one impressive ship.