Shadow Space Chronicles 1: The Fallen Race Read Online Free PDF Page B

break for the edge of the system.  They could have escaped undetected, save they stumbled across a damaged Imperial corvette.”  Lucius seated himself at the near end of the table.  He stared down its length into those mirror-like eyes.  “It was drifting without power, with no communications and little air.  They could have taken revenge on their enemy.  No one--on either side--would have thought anything of it.  Instead, the Strike Leader ordered the ship boarded and its crew was taken prisoner and then dropped off on a neutral world.”
    The heavy alien head hung low.  “You recount the past, well, human.  Is there anything else?”
    “You spoke to the human commander.  You learned that his ship was in the initial attack on Ghornath Prime.  You learned that his ship helped to destroy the defenses that opened your world to attack.  Even then you didn’t jettison him or his crew into space.  You treated honorably a foe who deserved none.”  Lucius said the last with sadness at the man he had been.  It had taken him years to erase the anger and bitterness about his past and how the Fleet had treated him. Even now, Lucius thought, there's a part of me that is grateful that I have an opportunity to prove my worth.
    “ And the wheel has turned, I see.”  The alien stared at him for a long time.  “You are Lucius Giovanni, then?  Has the wheel turned so far that you are now the fleeing refugee?”
    Lucius started, jerked out of the past.   “I am Baron Lucius Giovanni, Captain of the Nova Roma Imperial Warship War Shrike .”  His response came automatically, an echo of the past.  “I was once your prisoner, and now, you are mine.  I hope you will be a better prisoner than I was.”
    “ But a prisoner, nonetheless, correct?”  The alien showed no expression.
    “ For now.  My men are trying to find out what happened.  Some of your people on the bridge opened fire on them when they boarded.  They returned fire and they found you confined near the bridge—”
    “ Those weren’t my crew... not anymore.”  Strike Leader Maygar growled, anger flushed his face with color.  His skin color fluoresced red as rage flooded him.  “They mutinied, out of false declarations of honor.  They abandoned hope, and they betrayed me and their people.”
    “ So it is a mutiny.” Lucius murmured, shaking his head.  “What happened?”
    The Ghornath regained control immediately.  “I must know, are we enemies?”
    The question had deeper meaning than the immediate situation.  The war with the Ghornath had not ended.  The Imperial Fleet still had shoot-on-sight orders for a number of Ghornath 'terrorists.’  Lucius knew for a fact that Strike Leader Maygar lay near the top of that list.  To disregard that order meant a far more direct mode of treason than his earlier actions.  “The Gebneyr acted as a raider for the past twenty years.  You are confirmed in the destruction of over fifty ships of the Empire.”
    “ The number lies closer to a hundred.” There was no denying the pride in Magyar’s voice.  As well he should, without a base of operations, with no resupply besides what he took off of Roma Nova merchant ships or military vessels, he had continued to fight a war that others had already written off as lost.
    “ Yet… the Nova Roma Empire has… fallen.” Lucius found the words bitter in his mouth.  “A true warrior once taught me that when all else is lost, a warrior has only his honor.”
    “ A bit naïve, but true.”
    Lucius smiled a bit, “I am not your enemy, Strike Leader.  Not now and hopefully never again.”  He sighed, “I think we are in similar circumstances.  Right now, however, I have the ability to help you.  I have a company of Marines, and the facilities to help repair your ship.”
    The silver eyes stared at him for a long moment, and then the Ghornath spoke.  His voice was emotionless, but a blue-tinge of sorrow came to his brown hide, “My ship