DAUNTLESS
Invasion: Earth Saga Book Six
Sean Robins
Books by Sean Robins: (Invasion: Earth Saga)
BookOne: Invincible
BookTwo: Indomitable
BookThree: Valiant
BookFour: Victorious
BookFive: Valkyrie
BookSix: Dauntless
BookSeven: Freedom
BookEight: Fortitude
BookNine: Guardian
BookTen: Majestic
BookEleven: Leviathan
(Audiobooks are available on Audible)
Note from the author: This is a dark and gritty reboot of the humorous Crimson Deathbringer series. Please see “Author’s Note I” for more information. If you’ve read and enjoyed the original series, I don’t think you should read this; you’ll probably hate it. On the other hand, if you read The Crimson Deathbringer and liked the story but not the comedy, maybe give this version a chance.
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Copyright (C) 2021 Sean Robins
Edited by Tyler Colins
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author's permission.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
BOOKS BY SEAN ROBINS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
PREVIOUSLY IN INVASION: EARTH SAGA PART ONE
PREVIOUSLY IN INVASION: EARTH SAGA PART TWO: VALKYRIE’S
EPILOGUE (BOOK 5)
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
EPILOGUE
BOOK
7 (FREEDOM) SAMPLE
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
BOOK EIGHT'S (FORTITUDE) SAMPLE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
BOOK NINE'S (GUARDIAN) SAMPLE
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
FREEDOM
FORTITUDE
GUARDIAN
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
AUTHOR’S NOTE I
AUTHOR’S NOTE II
BOOK REVIEW REQUEST
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my deepest gratitude to:
My dear friend Brandon Ellis (author of Project Atlantis) who has played a vital role in the success of this series.
My super-talented narrator, Jade Ferifyre, who has brought these stories to life in such a way that I wouldn’t have thought possible. Even though I know the books by heart (obviously), I must’ve listened to the audiobooks at least five times.
My fantastic editor Tyler Colins. I’m indebted to her for the wonderful job she’s done.
My beta readers, Gwen Collins, Tara Norris, James Harker (author of Rise from the Dark Forest), Jeff Bristow, Jarvis Cherron Kolen, Theresa Kiefer, Marwan Ali, and Nikki Prasertwong, who helped me shape a lot of my ideas.
My dear friends Koorosh and Hooman. Koorosh is a writing buddy, an editor, and a creative consultant all rolled into one, and Hooman is an online marketing specialist whose help and advice has been priceless.
PREVIOUSLY
IN
INVASION: EARTH SAGA PART ONE
An Akaki extremist, Commander Nelzod, has prepared a formula called SAM (Super-Akakie Maker) which turns the Akakies into werewolf-like Apex predators. She distributes SAM among her followers and attacks Earth but is killed by Jim.
Following Maada’s plan, Jim pretends that he’s killed while fighting a crazy AI bent on annihilating all living things in the universe and sent back by God to unite the galaxy against future threats. With Tarq’s help, who has secretly installed invisible MFMs over all the habitable planets in the galaxy, the plan works, and the United Federation of Planets is born, with Jim as its chancellor.
Maada informs Jim that according to recent discoveries by a Xortaag scientist, there are at least three parallel universes, and people can move between them by opening portals.
It’s later revealed that in one of those universes, all the Akakies have used SAM, and being strong, determined warriors now, they have conquered their own galaxy, and now are on the way to invade ours.
The Super-Akakies refer to their government as the White Republic.
PREVIOUSLY IN INVASION: EARTH SAGA PART TWO: VALKYRIE’S EPILOGUE (BOOK 5)
Kanoor, the Super-Akakies’ Home Planet
The White Republic’s Universe
Earth Date 15/11/2086 (Four Years Later)
Commander Tarq scratched his head, unconsciously smoothed the front of his black uniform, and tried to make sense of the data he was receiving on his PDD about the universe the White Republic’s Navy was about to invade.
Kanoor had disappeared, and Tangaar was nowhere to be seen either. It seemed the galaxy was run by some sort of a central government, based on Earth, of all places. The head of the government was a human, a Chancellor Harrison, and the Akakies and the Xortaags were allies. Allies! How had his people ended up collaborating with those filthy barbarians?
Tarq looked up Jim Harrison. There was someone with that name in their database. A Major Harrison had fought the invading Super-Akakie fleet during the conquest of Earth. Some insignificant fighter pilot whom everyone had forgotten about. Whatthehellhashappenedinthisuniverse?
He looked at his second-in-command, Sub-Commander Nelzod, and asked, “Do you understand any of this?” Nelzod shook her head wordlessly.
Tarq fidgeted uncomfortably on Monstrous’s way-too-small command chair. The ship was built before they all used the SuperAkakie Maker formula Nelzod had developed, and everything was disproportionately small. Tarq had often thought about ordering a retrofit, but with everything that was going on, there was never enough time for that. The White Republic’s Navy had more important things to do, being busy conquering the galaxy and whatnot.
“Admiral Juntoo,” Tarq called out. “Does this change our plans in any way?”
The admiral, wearing a black uniform identical to Tarq’s but with the Navy’s insignia, looked up from his station and smirked confidently. “Absolutely not. Their combined fleets will not last a day, with our preparations already in place. It will not even be a challenge.”
Tarq nodded in agreement. “Yes. I did not think so.”
He had an incoming message. Prince Mushgaana, also in the Navy’s black uniform, appeared on a screen hovering in front of Tarq. The prince bowed his head slightly and said, “Commander Tarq. You wanted to see me.”
Tarq ignored him and yawned theatrically.
Nelzod, watching this exchange with interest, chuckled.
Mushgaana’s face reddened. He ground his teeth, hesitated for a moment, and bowed all the way to the waist.
“I wanted to hear your report in person.” Tarq smiled darkly. “It is always good to see you squirm.”
“The Xortaag fleet is mobilized, as ordered,” said the prince. “Forty thousand space fighters accompanied by a sufficient number of transport ships and ground forces, waiting for your command.”
“Welcome to the White Republic’s Navy, even though you are only a small part of it. And do yourself a favor and freshen up on your decorum.” Tarq pointedly rubbed the back of his skull. “Do not make me remind you who is holding your leash.”
Mushgaana glared at him. “You do not need to mention there is a bomb under my skull every time we meet.”
Tarq narrowed his eyes. “I feel that I do. Your people seem to have very short memories. You remember, just recently, we had to
activate a few thousand of those bombs, do you not?”
The prince looked like he was about to choke.
“You are dismissed,” Tarq said with a disdainful gesture. He cut the connection, leaned back on his seat, and looked around the bridge. Everyone, including Nelzod and Juntoo, looked back at him.
“Let us go get ourselves a new universe,” he said.
PROLOGUE
The Talgoinian fleet’s sailors were slaughtered to the last man and woman.
Prince Mushgaana, on the bridge of his command ship, Courageous, watched the massacre on the main screen. They outnumbered the defending fleet’s ships ten to one, and the Talgoinians (who Mushgaana was certain had never thought one day they would have to defend against an invasion from an alternate universe) never stood a chance, but those guys were known to be suicidal anyway. In fact, ceremonial mass suicide was a big part of their culture.
And apparently that held true in thisuniverse too.
Well, it doesn't get any more “mass” than this, thought Mushgaana bitterly.
The Talgoinians, with less than two thousand ships, had decided to stand against his twenty-two. Mushgaana would never understand these people, but he was certain Maada would have. His old, dead friend had done the same thing, after all. The general had stood against the might of the White Republic’s Navy with a fraction of their forces under his command and got himself and several thousand other Xortaags killed in the process.
Andwhatgoodhasthatdoneanyone?
The bridge crew cheered and whooped as they watched the battle on the main screen, with smiles and happy faces all around, but Mushgaana felt nothing but a deep sense of melancholy. This was not a military victory; this was an extermination. And they were not the conquerors they once were; they were nothing but SuperAkakies’ slaves. At least Maada had died a free man.
The prince asked his communication officer to put him through to the Talgoinian officials. “We demand your unconditional surrender,” he told the aliens, but the words felt empty, even to him.
He held his breath and waited for an answer, which came shortly after. Unfortunately for the Talgoinians, their answer was exactly what Mushgaana had predicted. “We die before we surrender to the likes of you!”
“Take your demand and shove it where the sun does not shine!” added another voice.
Mushgaana sighed heavily and waited for his orders, which he knew would come soon. He was certain what the order would be. He did not want to do it—there was no honor in massacring defenseless civilians— but he unconsciously touched the back of his skull where the Super-Akakies had inserted a tiny bomb under his skin and told himself he was not going to forfeit his life and the lives of everyone under his command in a vain attempt to spare the Talgoinians.
Commander Tarq’s image, dressed in his simple black uniform, appeared on a VR screen in front of the prince. “Kill them all,” said the huge, scary insect merrily, “or at least as many as you possibly can within the next few hours, then report back to me.”
Sobeit.
Mushgaana opened a channel to the Xortaag fleet. “Finish the job,” he ordered; then he turned off his tactical display, leaned back onto the command chair, and closed his tired eyes.
The general would have been so disappointed in me. Ashamed,even.
It was probably better that Maada had been killed and was not around to see what was going on these days. Who would have thought the Xortaags, a race of proud warriors, would end up being the Super-Akakies’ puppets? Damn the insects, especially Nelzod, who had come up with AZX-7 (aka SAM, standing for Super-Akakie Maker), and Tarq, who had approved its mass administration, turning a bunch of spineless clowns into fierce, strong, capable killing machines.
He opened his eyes and looked upward. Sorry, General.Iwish Icouldhavedonebetter .
Mushgaana contacted Tarq a few hours later, forcing himself to bow as soon as the insect’s image appeared in front of him, “Mission accomplished, as you ordered.”
Tarq grinned, showing rows of sharp teeth. “Well done, Prince. Tell me, do you know how many alternate universes there are?”
Mushgaana shook his head. He had not been aware of this one’s existence until a few weeks ago, when Tarq had informed him he was planning to invade an alternate universe. And even then Mushgaana had thought the insect was joking.
“Four,” said Tarq, “but one of them seems untouchable, so really three, and we have just conquered the second one. Cheer up. We are already two-thirds of the way to total multiverse domination.”
Tarq cut the connection.
Enjoyyourvictory, insect, thought Mushgaana. Mymemory is long, and my lifespan longer . I will have vengeance, for my planet, mypeople,myfamily,andmyonlyrealfriend,whomyoukilled.
CHAPTER ONE
Five enemy space fighters came straight at Maada and me, laser cannons blazing.
“Just to be clear,” I asked Maada while following them on my tactical display, “this ain’t the universe-ending catastrophe you keep warning me about, right?”
“Seriously?” growled the general. “Five ships? Which part of ‘something more dangerous than anything we have dealt with in the past is coming our way’ do you notunderstand?”
I grinned at his image. “Just checking.”
“Can I respectfully recommend Mr. Chancellor focus on the job at hand?” he said testily. “It will be a galactic embarrassment if the famous Golden Viper is incinerated in her first encounter with the Jadacit fleet. And let me remind you Cordelia and Tarq say these space fighters are nearly as good as ours.”
Which was a surprise because no one in our galaxy could match the Akakies’ technological superiority.
“OK baby,” I told my Viper, loud enough for Maada to hear. “Let’s go kick some alien ass. Again.”
Maada mumbled under his breath. He often complained working with me had aged him. I thought he looked really good for a hundred-year-old man.
Adrenaline coursing through my veins, I pushed the stick and opened fire with my laser cannons as soon as my HUD highlighted one of the enemy ships, showing me it was within range. This was the first time I was engaged in a dogfight since we blew up Father (a crazy AI bent on exterminating all life forms in the universe) almost four years ago, and by God, I’d missed this. A peaceful universe was a boring universe.
The Jadacit space fighters looked like spheres, with two engines jutting out of them, and a laser cannon front and center under the cockpit. The one I’d targeted exploded under my continuous fire, and the other four scattered in every direction. I chose another gomer and went after it. This one went down with a Sparrow missile up its ass.
Stillgotit!
“Easy peasy, lemon squeezy,” said Cordi.
“This is better than sex!” I exclaimed.
“How would you know?” asked Cordi wryly. “You haven’t been intimate with anyone for years now.”
“Since Ella was killed. Thanks for reminding me.”
All of a sudden, red-hot laser bolts shot from behind were all over my Viper.
“There is an enemy ship on your six,” said the general conversationally.
“I know,” I answered equally conversationally. Nothing to worry about. Just another day at the office.
“This might be a good time to use my teleporting device,” he advised.
Maada had installed a teleportation device in his space fighter a device he’d used twice to defeat me. After I borrowed it to pretend that I’d come back from the dead (with a message from God himself, no less), I refused to give it back to him. I was the chancellor of the United Federation of the Planets, after all, and what I said went.
“Nah,” I said. “Watch this.”
I pulled the throttle slightly, reducing my Viper’s speed and allowing the enemy fighter to get closer while jinking my bird to avoid the incoming laser bolts; then I punched a red button next to the stick. This was Tarq and his R&D team’s brainchild—the same weapon I’d used to kill the Black Fleet’s leader. Hundreds of tiny missiles were shot at the pursuing enemy ship. To his credit, the pilot threw their fighter up and down, left and right, and avoided most of the missiles, and the few that did impact didn't seem to cause serious damage. I was in the middle of a sharp turn to get
him in my gunsight and finish the job when the enemy space fighter exploded and the Crimson Deathbringer flew right through its expanding debris.
“Hey!” I objected. “Now you’re just showing off. And that still counts as my kill!”
“It does not,” answered Maada. “What was that you once told me? You snooze, you lose. You have become slow, my friend.”
“I blame it on all the time that I have to spend behind a desk. Being the chancellor of the galaxy is a big responsibility, you know.”
“And you’re doing a fine job of that,” Cordi drawled.
I waited a couple of minutes for my heartbeat to calm down (it was my first dogfight in nearly four years, after all), then contacted the Jadacit High Command. “Did you get them all?”
“One perished before we could pull him out,” was their answer. “You won fair and square. Tell your negotiating team to get in touch with ours.”
I wasn’t happy about the dead pilot. Hopefully, he was killed by Maada, who probably didn’t much care. “OK. But let’s not do this again.”
Equipped with Benedita’s space-folding device, we could now travel between our galaxy and Andromeda in a matter of weeks, so we'd decided to establish relationships with alien nations in that galaxy, starting with the Unzoids, who were more than happy to accommodate us on account of the fact that we’d saved their planet. However, the Jadacits, a roughly humanoid species with four long slender arms and short fat bodies, had seen that as an expansionist move and challenged us to a duel. They asked five of our best fighter pilots to come and fight five of their best (I thought this was a joke the first time I heard that), probably thinking having four arms gave them an advantage in a dogfight. I guess they were surprised when Maada and I—the chancellor and the commander of the fleet—showed up, flying the Golden Viper and the Crimson Deathbringer, declaring we didn’t need five. Those poor bastards had no idea who they were dealing with.
I looked at Maada’s space fighter, flying next to mine. Despite my insistence, he’d doggedly refused to change both its ridiculous
color and its even more ridiculous name. I wondered if at some point I would have to order him to do it. Technically, he was working for me.
I contacted the general. “I'm famished. Want to have lunch?
“I'm not hungry, but I can have a cup of coffee with you.”
At this time of the day, Valiant’s mess hall was packed, but I had my own table in the officers’ corner. I exchanged a dozen smiles and a dozen more salutes with other pilots and sailors before I sat down and ordered my food.
I’d just bitten into my steak when Maada entered the mess, wearing the Xortaags’ dark gray uniform with a gold-trimmed patch on the shoulder, as usual. All the conversations were hushed as soon as he walked in. He ignored everyone else, walked straight to where I was sitting, pulled up a chair, and sat opposite me, fidgeting uncomfortably, lips pressed together. I knew him well enough to guess something was troubling him.
“Why the long face?” I asked.
Maada snapped his fingers at one of the small robots serving food in the mess. “Coffee, black.” Then he told me, “Molzaarg just uttered his first words, and I wasn’t there to see it.”
This never gets old, I couldn’t he;p thinking. What kind of parentsnametheirchildMolzaarg?
Maada and Alitaa had their first child around an Earth year ago. With not a single strand of white in his thick, straight black hair or his bushy, forked beard, and very few wrinkles on his smooth, olive skin, the general looked to be in his forties (and looked even younger since he’d removed his scars, apparently because his guilty conscience had stopped bothering him after he helped save the galaxy twice), but I knew he was more than a hundred years old, and I was astonished when I heard Alitaa was expecting. Apparently the Xortaags’ genetic enhancements, which made them much faster and stronger than average human beings and gave them a longer lifespan, included things like fertility.
Baby Maada (I really didn’t want to refer to him as Molzaarg) was super cute—blond, fair-skinned, and blue-eyed like his mother— and the few times that he’d met Kurt’s daughter Sofia, they hit it off
famously, much to their fathers’ chagrin, who still didn’t like each other despite both Xornaa and my best efforts. The fact that Tarq kept suggesting the two kids should be betrothed to consolidate the alliance between the humans and the Xortaags (I was fifty percent sure he was kidding, just to annoy Kurt and Maada) didn’t help the matter either.
Maada took out his personal digital device and showed me a video of his son looking into the camera and uttering two words in the Xortaag language.
I stared at him in astonishment. “Did he just say space fighter?”
Maada nodded, beaming with pride.
“No freaking way,” offered Cordi, who was listening in, as usual.
“Don’t you have something better to do?” I told the AI, then narrowed my eyes at Maada. “But she’s right. This ain’t possible. What did you do?”
“Me? Nothing,” Maada answered innocently. “But his mother has been playing a list of words in his room. Very simple things like space fighter, laser cannons, tactical display, and dogfight, plus a few subliminal messages telling Molzaarg he will grow up to be the greatest fighter pilot in the galaxy.”
I was speechless.
“We might have shown him a few hundred hours of dogfight footage too, mostly featuring the Crimson Deathbringer,” Maada added with a shrug. There was the faintest hint of a smile on his face.
“That’s what you get when both your parents are fighter pilots, I guess,” I commented.
“General, I respectfully suggest you shouldn’t brainwash your child from such an early age,” said Cordi. “Maybe he wants to grow up to be something other than a military man, like an artist, for example.”
“Or a writer,” I added, “Like me.”
The look of horror on Maada’s face was hilarious.
“Just let him make up his own mind when he grows up,” I said.
The general stroked his beard thoughtfully. “He is my son. What the hell else is he going to want to be?”
I’d have never treated Byron this way, I told myself. I would’ve let him choose what he wanted to do with his life and would’ve loved him regardless. Still, I had to admit I would’ve been extremely proud if he’d turned out to become an ace fighter pilot like his old man.
Maada picked up his coffee from the tray the robot brought him. “We have three weeks to kill before we reach Earth. What are you planning to do?”
“I have about a zillion virtual meetings to attend,” I grumbled. “Running the Federation is boring. Here is a thought: let’s invade a few planets while we’re here.”
In truth, I didn’t really do much as the chancellor of the Federation. I was mostly a figurehead, leaving the day-to-day running of the galaxy to Tarq, Kurt, and the representatives from various alien nations, who got along with one another so well that it would’ve been unbelievable if we didn’t know Tarq had installed his mind-control system on every single space-faring planet’s orbit.
Kurt and I felt extremely uneasy about the fact that the entire galaxy was now in Tarq’s back pocket. One single individual having so much power couldn’t possibly be a good thing, especially if it were someone like Tarq, who wouldn’t hesitate to use it for a number of horrifying things if he thought it would serve a greater purpose.
Maada, on the other hand, kept reminding us he felt something deadly was coming our way, and if we wanted to survive, our only chance was to stand united, and if it meant we had to watch Tarq play God, so be it.
We’d done a lot in the last few years. After the battle with the Volts, most of our fleets were all but destroyed, so we orchestrated a huge rebuilding project, overseen by Maada. Now, the Earth fleet had fifteen thousand brand new Vipers, two dozen transport vessels, and a new starship called Indefatigable, which was Valiant’s twin
sister. We had named her after an Akakie dreadnought whose crew had sacrificed themselves to save Maada during the Black Fleet invasion of Tangaar.
Our recent achievements weren’t only military. Kurt, now in his second term as president, had used the Akakie technology at his disposal to remedy many issues that had plagued humanity for ages. Pollution was a thing of the past, and so were hunger, poverty, and now that we had our own first terraformed colony (called Eden), overpopulation.
The Akakies’ and the Xortaags’ achievements were arguably even more impressive, given that they’d lost their respective homeworlds. They both chose one of their newly terraformed colonies as their new home planet and the center of their governments. The Akakies called theirs New Kanoor. The Xortaags chose Stronoe, even though its first colonists were slaughtered by Nelzod and her band of evil, murderous Akakies. That bitch was on the verge of doing the same to Earth when I blew up her invisible ship (yay, me) and sent her to meet her maker.
The Akakies held an election and chose a new president, but everyone in the galaxy knew she was under Tarq’s proverbial thumb (weren’t we all?). The Xortaags’ situation was more complicated because all the members of the royal family had perished on Tangaar. Some Xortaags had suggested Maada be chosen as a new emperor, but the general had nipped that initiative in the bud, saying he wasn’t a politician, and he was happier as the commander of the Federation fleet. He managed to convince his people to hold their own election, and now, for the first time in their history, the Xortaags had a democratically elected government.
There was a discussion about providing the not-space-travelcapable civilizations in our galaxy with SFDs, which would increase our numbers and resources. I, however, stuck with the Prime Directive (which banned interfering in the normal development of any society) and vetoed that idea. Maybe those people weren’t ready for this technology yet, but as soon as they invented their own SFD, or any kind of faster-than-light capability, we’d happily accept them into our Federation.
“What are you planning to do?” I asked Maada. He shrugged. “Plenty of books to read.”
“We still have a few Star Trek and Star Wars movies left to watch,” I reminded him. I’d finally managed to interest him in movies (only after I told him I’d come up with the plans to defeat both the Black Fleet and Father based on what I’d seen in StarTrek), and his favorite genre was, unsurprisingly, space opera.
“There is that,” he agreed.
“Speaking of having some extra time,” said Cordi, “there’s a cute Marine on board who’s dying to meet you.”
I ignored her. Cordi (and Pat, and strangely enough, even Alitaa) kept trying to set me up with blind dates. I had gone on a few dates, but they never worked out. It seemed I’d lost the ability to make an emotional connection with the opposite sex, and who could blame me? I still had several gaping holes in my heart. So, most evenings, I ended up writing or watching a classic, still imagining what Liz would’ve said if she were watching it with me (Ella didn’t like movies). No complaints though. Things could’ve been a lot worse.
Maada entered his quarters, stood in front of the single round window in the room, and absentmindedly stared at the black blanket cradling thousands of distant stars.
Things could not have possibly gone any better in the last few years. The Federation fleet, which was under his command, had more than one hundred sixty thousand space fighters, all built based on Akakie technology, accompanied by a large number of starships and support vessels. The Xortaags had five new colonies, and their government was playing a leading role in the galaxy. On top of all that, now they were even making allies in Andromeda.
Since Maada was a young man, he had always dreamt of a united galaxy under the Xortaags’ rule. Given how significantly they were involved in running the Federation, he had been mostly successful. And somewhere along the way, his motivation had changed from “protecting my people” to “protecting everyone in the galaxy”. He was not certain how exactly that had happened. It could have been the result of spending so much time with Jim. That man had a pathological need to protect others.
SowhythehellamIsonervous?
His warrior instinct had been cautioning him about an eminent danger for years, and its warnings had become a whole lot more urgent recently. The problem was he had no idea where the threat would be coming from. Tarq’s agents were keeping an eye out too but had come up with nothing. The universe was unimaginably vast, and danger could lie in places they had not yet explored. Or it could come from the future again, just as the Black Fleet had, or even from a parallel universe.
A few years ago, a Xortaag scientist on his deathbed revealed he had been visited by not one, but twodoppelgangers of himself from two separate alternate universes! No one had taken him seriously even though he had documented those visits (he had recorded videos in which he was talking to two other men who looked like his identical twins), and at any rate, the knowledge that alternate universes existed offered no practical value, but Maada could not shake off the feeling that if two individuals could travel between these universes, then so could a fleet.
And now that he was a father, protecting the galaxy had become a lot more ... personal.
He ran a hand over his smooth face. Goodthing Ihadthose scarsremoved.Iwouldhavescaredmyownchild.
Maada decided worrying about something that was completely out of his control had no use. The fleet was at maximum readiness, and that was all he could do. He asked Valiant’s command center to place a call to Alitaa. After talking to his wife, who was holding up Molzaarg to see his father, he picked up The Art of War and went to bed.
