A Shifting Alliance (Galaxy Ascendant Book 3) Read online

  About A Shifting Alliance

  Not long ago, a distant galaxy was thrust into war.

  Through great heroism and sacrifice, it was ended, and peace returned.

  But its repercussions are still being felt, and despite the best efforts of many, the galaxy is at war once again.

  The Galactic Alliance, made up of friends old and new, as well as recently reconciled enemies, finds itself facing down the massive, monolithic, and oppressive Revittan Empire.

  High Executor Darkclaw, who not long ago led the invasion of the Alliance, now fights to preserve, to restore peace. Grand Admiral Nayasar Khariah finds herself fighting alongside former foes in the face of a greater threat. An unlikely heroine, the former small-time criminal Ayil Lotyk, finds herself even further enmeshed in conflicts well above her pay grade, nevertheless is risking everything for a cause greater than herself—to her own surprise.

  Even as the Alliance struggles with the Empire, there are those within its borders fighting against it. A lifetime Imperial loyalist, who now questions his place. A survivor, fighting to protect the weak and forge a better future. An observer, who sees something deeper and more sinister afoot, and cannot stand idly by.

  The galaxy is aflame once again, and things will never be the same.

  The Galaxy Ascendant series becomes truly galactic in scope as the story continues to expand, with heroes and villains both new and old making their marks upon the galaxy.

  Dedication

  In honor of and in gratitude to the other 14 members of Tzevet (Team) 12, and our three mefakdot (officers) during my time in the Israel Defense Force’s Hebrew course at Michve Alon. Thanks to Gideon Keyson, Meir Borros, Nethaniel Adda, Mickael Assous, Charles Touitou, Ariel Partouche, and everyone else, for making my first few months in the army a very positive experience, one which I will always look back fondly on.

  A Shifting Alliance

  Yakov Merkin

  Table of Contents

  Galaxy Map

  A SHIFTING ALLIANCE

  Glossary

  Acknowledgements

  About Yakov Merkin

  Other Books by Yakov Merkin

  Copyright

  CHAPTER 1

  Imperial prison cells had turned out to be warmer than Asharra had expected, and the faintly acrid smell of detergent masked any scent of blood, sweat or fear. For reasons that seemed silly and childish now, she’d essentially envisioned the cells as ancient underground dungeons, like those in the fantastic stories she’d loved as a child. Reality, as always, had turned out to be quite different. Not that the warmth made her situation, or those of her fellow captives, any less terrible.

  A strangled scream suddenly cut through the silence of the corridor. Asharra edged herself back into the corner of her tiny cell, and pulled her legs to her chest as she tried to block out the noise. It was definitely one of her fellow Free Peoples’ Alliance officers, being “questioned”. She couldn’t help but shudder at the memory of her first interrogation, which had taken place more than a day before, and forced herself to think about something else, something slightly less awful. How the hell had the Imperial Revittan Security Service known where they were, and when they would be meeting? This wasn’t the work of the rebel-hunter savant, Admiral Sai’var, who was still chasing down other cells near the edge of Imperial space. No, this was probably the work of Director Corras Revval himself, the head of the service.

  Asharra leaned her head back, and her curved horns clanged against the metal wall. There was nothing worse than feeling helpless; powerless to aid her fellow officers, powerless to change her own situation, and powerless to do anything to forward the rebellion’s cause.

  No, that was what the Empire wanted her to feel, it was why they did the interrogations within earshot of the other prisoners. They wanted the screams to demoralize them, to break them before the pain even began. A quote from a close friend, who was probably dead now, came to mind. “The moment you let yourself feel helpless is when you truly become so.” Wallowing in her misery, frustration, and fear was not going to help anything in the slightest.

  Asharra forced herself to stand up, and began to walk around the perimeter of her small cell. What did she have? No weapons, no knowledge of the layout of the prison ship they were on, and she didn’t know exactly where the others were being held. So, not much.

  There is something, however, a part of her mind reminded her as she stopped in front of her cell’s smooth, featureless door. It’s been years. It would help, but what if…

  Asharra froze as the screaming stopped. They couldn’t have killed him already, could they? No, they’re probably just going to take him back to his cell to recover, to process the horror, and dread its resumption. It can’t be long now until they take me back there, she thought, still fatigued from the ordeal of her first interrogation session. She backed away from the door and sat on the single, low metal bench that was allegedly a bed, and her thoughts returned to the power she’d set aside, a power that was a death sentence if anyone found out she had it.

  She closed her eyes for a moment, and the power came to her instantly, like a dance move long since committed to muscle memory. Some things you never truly lose, and almost before she was ready, the familiar feeling of the Shifting Force, or The Shift as it was more commonly known, surged through her body, and the first teaching of the Noalii swept back into her mind: Nothing in the universe is truly static, even the most solid object is made of tiny, moving particles. Through opening yourself to it, you can become an active part of that motion which connects everything, and shape the world around you.

  With the closeness of the power came an instinctive calm, though whether because of the teachings or simply the natural allure of power itself she couldn’t say. Whatever its root, she was grateful for the opportunity to clear her mind. Be like the Arasan flitter; let yourself float in the wind, which you cannot control, but shift yourself with it, so that it sends you in the direction you wish to go. There was a very fine line between allowing the Shift to guide you and surrendering yourself completely to it. I will walk that line with care, and not fall like the Noalii Guardians. Was it fate that their folly drove me away before the Emperor struck, or the workings of a higher power? To whom should I be grateful that I was not killed alongside them?

  My purpose is now clear, no more drifting. I chose the path that led me here, to prison, torture, and likely death.

  The urge to open herself to the Shift, to truly touch its power again, grew stronger the longer she sat there, contemplating. Maybe this was the moment to reclaim what she had set aside, to show that the Noalii were not dead. It would be so easy to cut her way out of this cell with a shiftblade, even without her focuser, to toss guards around with invisible force, solidify the air around them to trap them, trick their minds into thinking they were being attacked by pirates, and draw them away from the cell block. But she was still only one person, and this ship was designed to prevent escape; it had no shuttles, and might not even have escape pods. So many what-ifs, so many ways in which the slightest error would lead to disaster.

  They were moving, Asharra could tell innately through the four tendrils that descended from the back of her head, two on each side. They made Svetorans sensitive to external vibrations, and when combined with the heightened awareness granted by her connection to the Shift, Asharra had a much clearer picture of what was going on in the prison ship than her comrades—in both a positive and a negative way.

  Asharra lifted her head toward the door as she heard the guards’ heavy footsteps mixed with what could only be someone being dragged down the hallway. Her comrade’s “session�
� was over. Fortunately for him. There was also no indication that he’d broken. So far, they all seemed to be holding strong, but how long could that last?

  She heard his door open, then close a few seconds later, and then those heavy footsteps began to approach her cell.

  Asharra’s hands balled into fists as memories of her last interrogation session flooded back, and her breathing began to quicken. She couldn’t let that happen again, couldn’t let herself meekly go along with these monsters again. She had been trained to fight, not surrender!

  Asharra moved her long hair completely behind her head and positioned herself just to the side of the cell door, body tense, as the guards stopped just outside. Whatever she decided to do, she had to commit fully.

  The door slid open, and one of the guards stepped inside, looking around the cell for her—and started from the wrong side.

  In a single fluid, practiced motion, Asharra’s swept a leg out from under him and knocked him to the floor, then drove her hand toward his helmeted head, ready to summon her shiftblade and end him then and there. But she hesitated, fear of failure and memories of too many videos of Noalii Guardians being mercilessly cut down while defending themselves flashed through her mind, and instead she merely punched the solid helmet with her bare fist.

  The guard she’d knocked down cried out and cursed, but the others stayed silent as one clubbed her over the back of the head with a baton, and a second jabbed the crackling tip of another into her ribs. Blinding light filled her vision and pain flooded her body as her muscles seized up, sending her to the floor in a heap. She remained conscious, somehow, whether due to natural fortitude or the Shift she couldn’t say, but as more blows rained down and the fight quickly became one she clearly could not win, Asharra held back the urge to embrace the Shift and resist. Now was not the time, she determined as she felt her extremities going numb. She would endure, both this and the pain that was still to come, and bide her time. When there was a surer chance for a successful escape with her comrades, she would seize the moment, use the universe around her to prove she was not helpless, and that her order was not completely dead.

  CHAPTER 2

  With practiced ease, TR-14D adjusted his audio receptors as he entered his simple, unadorned workspace, so as to lessen the volume of his employer’s voice as he engaged in a boisterous conversation with a government official, likely in the military affairs committee. They weren’t talking about the war itself, which was unfortunate, as TR-14D found that topic to be particularly interesting, but rather about a new military spending proposal that was being debated in the Imperial Legislature. Minister Donath Turon, TR-14D’s employer, who was a newcomer to the political scene, was not one to hide his displeasure with the process and the people involved in these key decisions.

  But eavesdropping on his boss’s conversations was not why TR-14D was here, so he further adjusted his settings to filter it out, though he did set his audio receptors to focus in on any mention of the war itself. The topic itself was shrouded in mystery, despite it having technically begun a few weeks ago, and, for reasons he could not explain, TR-14D could not stop questioning the official narrative.

  He extended a thin cable from his wrist, and plugged his interactive unit—the Gurshen term for the physical form through which they interacted with other beings—into the computer console on the desk, and let one of his subprograms begin the data analysis he had been assigned to perform while simultaneously searching the public InfoNet for anything related to the way in which the war had started, as well as poring through any official but unreleased reports about the incident his government clearance level granted.

  Unfortunately, it was not a very high clearance level, and he had access to only slightly more than the average citizen, which amounted to no new information. Regardless, TR-14D went through the official release again, and attempted to glean what he could from the specific wording. According to official sources, a military strike force from this “Galactic Alliance,” a coalition of aliens from the Beta Quadrant of the galaxy, had landed on a world in Imperial territory, and then a fleet of theirs had destroyed the Imperial response force sent to repel the initial violation of Imperial space.

  War had been officially declared immediately afterward.

  TR-14D believed it was that detail which had sparked his initial curiosity, and suspicion. There had been no gradual lead-up, no discussion at all in the legislature; one day all was normal, and the next they were in a full-on war with what was apparently a powerful enemy. True, the emperor was under no obligation to consult the legislature on anything, but when it came to major decisions, there was always a discussion in the legislature, which the emperor usually attended. This time, nothing. Naturally, there had been an official explanation, namely that intelligence reports had made it so clear that the Alliance planned a full-scale invasion that war had to be declared immediately so that the military could start preparing for war without delay. And, of course, the legislature had quickly given its official approval as well. But something still didn’t sit right with TR-14D.

  Of course, that in itself was odd. While the Gurshen had full awareness, possessed desires, were referred to as male by organics due to how they looked and sounded, and were capable of forming relationships, they did not have “feelings” in the same way that organic beings did. Gurshen did their jobs, minded their own business, and communed with the Collective. They did not get involved in the emotional game of politics any more than absolutely necessary. That the circumstances surrounding the outbreak of war bothered TR-14D so much was thus unusual, and potentially problematic.

  While he had never delved deeply into political matters before, TR-14D understood it well enough to be certain that there was significant information being withheld from not just the general public, but even from most of those involved in the administration of the Empire. He really should leave well enough alone, and focus solely on his work, but he couldn’t. There was something wrong, and someone had to be the one to look into it.

  The biggest question was how, or at least, how to do it legally. TR-14D certainly did not intend to be the first Gurshen in centuries to be jailed for criminal activity, something which would not only have a negative impact on him, but also on the Collective as a whole.

  Perhaps there were some government files that could shed some light on this that were open to departments with lax security, which could be penetrated quietly and quickly.

  Before he could make a final decision, however, Minister Turon’s voice boomed from within his office.

  “Triad, come here for a minute.”

  “Just one moment, Minister,” TR-14D replied. The minister had started calling TR-14D Triad after noting that his designation bore a similarity to the spelling of the word in an old Revittan script. It was silly, even more so because TR-14D was, in fact, only two central programs that melded together to form his identity, not three, but it was harmless, and in fact quite common for Gurshen to take on such nicknames, whether self-chosen or created by others, so that organics could more easily relate to them.

  TR-14D disconnected himself from the console, then had his remote unit detach itself from its perch on his shoulder and wind its way down his arm, onto the desk, where a visor over its viewport, which was, in essence a smaller version of TR-14D’s own, slid open, its activity light coming to life. After spending a fraction of a second transmitting the instructions relating to his data analysis to it, the remote module approached the connector port, the end of its tail reshaping to match it, and plugged itself in, the light in its viewport flickering as it began to work.

  TR-14D then rose, and, while keeping track of the work in progress, walked into Minister Turon’s office. The minister, seated behind his desk, could almost have been mistaken for a cybernetic being himself; he was completely encased in an armored suit that doubled as a life support system, due to a terrible accident many years earlier that had nearly taken his life. However, he managed to make his energetic pe
rsonality known despite this, with the helmet designed in the shape of an ancient Revittan armored helm, and in its colors; red and white, the colors of the Revittan Empire, mixed with the deep blue from the logo of his first company—now all of his company logos and emblems featured all three colors, and were impossible to miss, by design. Between that and the elaborately decorated environment around him—expensive artwork, and gold-inlaid windows, wall chronometer, and desk top—the minister’s well known opulence was on full display, by design.

  “Triad, there you are, just who I wanted to talk to,” the minister said as he sat up straight.

  TR-14D inclined his head slightly, in an imitation of a nod. “The analysis you requested will be completed in just a few minutes, Minister.” As the results from the analysis sped through TR-14D’s processors, he also instructed his remote unit to continue searching for any information about the war.

  “Good, good,” Turon relied. “Of course, I already know that the most recent opinion polls are fantastic, in every region, but we need these analyses to make sure we know just how much our opponents are messing with results. They say the most horrible things about me, those harridans, but people see through that, and understand that I’m uniquely qualified for this position, if not something higher. I mean, when was the last time we had a finance minister who was actually successful in the private sector?”

  “Not since just before the Restructuring,” Tr-14D replied after running a quick search of the historical record.

  “I—hm, that could come in handy,” Minister Turon replied, his verbal momentum temporarily slowed by TR-14D’s interjection. “That’s where the problems started, when success became a product of who you knew rather than what you were capable of. It became all about the agenda of the Restructionist elites, and not about what was best for the trillions of loyal Imperial citizens. And look where it’s gotten us. The economy is in free fall, Kavalan squatters are everywhere these days, and the Rossar from Dullok space are treating our border like it’s their backdoor, coming in, taking jobs that those in the outer periphery desperately need, and causing all sorts of other problems—mark my words, those Dullok crime lords are facilitating this, and only they will benefit. And that’s all without factoring in this disastrous war. Now don’t get me wrong, Triad, I’m not some wimp who’s terrified of war. I’d go so far as to say that I’m more militaristic than anyone in the ruling class of the Empire, and I’m a fan of war, in a way—but only when we win. And we’re not doing a whole lot of that these days; we can’t even put down a rag-tag group of terrorists! All I’d need are a few weeks and this thing could be turned around. I’d find an admiral who’s so good, so mean—but not just mean, mean and brilliant, and we would show the people what winning means.”