Baldwin's Legacy: The Complete Series Read online

  “Captain Baldwin, I received word that our fleet has gathered, and Bartok, Hallivan, and Troo are set to arrive in one day’s time. Shall I relay anything before we depart?” Shu asked him.

  He wasn’t used to her asking him for directions, and he felt uneasy about it. “Please inform them we appreciate their promptness, and we hope to return by the time they arrive.”

  “Consider it done. Baldwin,” she said, staring toward him from the center of the video.

  “Yes, Captain?”

  “You were a good commander. I think you have what it takes to be a great captain,” she told him, and he swelled with pride.

  The communication ended, and they arrived near the wormhole. They were only five hundred kilometers out, and it was huge from this vantage point. Decades. It had taken the Statu decades to create this monstrosity, but to what end? To head to Greblok and steal the conductive ore?

  “Ven, I have it!” he shouted, standing up and startling the two Statu beside him. “They weren’t hitting Greblok because of the fact that we were entering into a bargain with them. It wasn’t some petty vendetta of principle…” Tom ran his hands through his hair as it all came clear.

  Ven turned from his helm position, staring at Tom with interest. “Go on, Captain. What did they do it for?”

  “The ore. What did Hudson say about it?” Tom asked.

  “It was highly conductive. It was going to revolutionize our energy systems…” Ven went silent as he realized what Tom was implying.

  “The wormholes. The Statu wanted the material so they could create more wormholes, and faster. With all that ore, who knows where they’ll be able to appear? They could launch an attack on the Concord unlike anything ever before seen. We couldn’t predict where or when they’d invade our space,” Tom said.

  They not only had to rescue his crew, they had to ensure they returned with the ore from Greblok. The task suddenly felt too difficult, almost impossible. Tom clenched his jaw, using the words from his previous captain as fuel. He was going to be a great captain.

  He might have one of the most celebrated surnames of all time in Baldwin, but he wasn’t here to live in his grandfather’s shadow. He was here to carve out his own spot of history, and it all began with this moment.

  Tom stood in the center of the bridge. The wormhole that had felt so dangerous, so imposing and deadly a minute ago, was now a welcome sight.

  “Junior Officer Zare, lead us in.” Tom remained standing and he glanced to the rear of the room, his grandfather’s AI Constantine watching it all with interest. He smiled at Tom, and even cut him a wink like he’d done when Tom was a kid.

  Tom wondered at that as they entered the center of the wormhole, and everything around them changed.

  ____________

  Yur watched through the console screen as they approached the wormhole. He considered how lucky he’d been to be born a Callalay, and how special a day it had been when the Prime Pha’n had been named into her role.

  His benefactor claimed something was wrong with the bureaucracy in the Concord, that the Constantine was what was wrong with their new era. It was all show and posturing, with no real substance or support of the regular people.

  She’d convinced Yur of so many things, yet he’d never even met her. He held the detonator and the communicator in opposite hands, each of them sweating as he waited.

  Then it hit him. His boss was willing to die for her cause, and he was just a fool for buying in to it all. There was nothing worth killing the Prime and everyone on this ship. People might not see him very often, but in the last week or so, he’d found plenty of kind faces aboard the Constantine. None of them deserved the fate his benefactor wanted to institute in order to prove her point.

  Yur saw them entering the wormhole, and the communicator vibrated.

  The message was simple, clear and concise.

  Now

  He stared at it and shook his head. No. He wasn’t going to do that.

  He heard Olu’s voice coming from the corridor outside the room. “I swear, he wouldn’t have gone in there.”

  “It’s on the footage. Just open the door,” a voice ordered.

  A huge Tekol guard entered, and the moment he saw Yur standing there with two devices in his hands, sweating like an Eganian tourist, he fired his PL-30.

  Yur hardly felt the blast as he fell to the hard grated metal floor. The detonator slipped from his fingers, but the communicator was clenched in his grip.

  “What have you done?” Olu asked, but Yur hardly heard the man. He glanced to his hand, opening his fingers to see the message.

  Now you fool now

  As his last breath passed through his lungs, Yur smiled, knowing he’d made the right decision.

  ____________

  Tarlen’s feet wouldn’t move. “You can’t be serious. We’re supposed to help them. You’re with the Concord. I thought you were all heroes.”

  “It’s not always like the stories, Tarlen,” Treena told him.

  “But my parents… my sister. They may be alive.” He was desperate. He hadn’t come all this way to leave them in the hands of the same terrible force that had destroyed his world.

  “He’s not wrong, Commander,” the big Tekol said.

  Penter stood beside Tarlen, placing his arm over Tarlen’s shoulders. “I’ll stay with the boy. We’ll use the underground system and see if there’s any way to help our people.”

  Tarlen filled with joy at the guard’s offer.

  “If you don’t recall, there’s a horde of warships heading in our direction, and they’ll be here in…” Treena counted off hours on her fingers. “About twelve hours.”

  “What? That’s not good. Here’s what I know…” Brax started, but Reeve tugged on his arm, moving them toward the exit.

  “Can we not do this here?” she asked.

  Tarlen glanced at Penter. “We should bring them down to this level. It’ll be safer. Maybe we can rescue them through the corridors.”

  Brax grinned, and Tarlen sensed the big man had an idea. “Penter, that’s a good thought. Gather Abbil and usher them to this spot. Commander, you said there’s a map? Do any of them lead to a…”

  Tarlen didn’t hear the rest as Penter motioned for him to climb the stairs.

  “How did you end up here?” Penter asked him.

  “Long story. Penter, you should see their starship. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen.” Tarlen reached the top of the steps and climbed out after the Greblok guard.

  “I saw the inside of the Statu ship. I hope your ride was better.” Penter peered outside, and Tarlen held his gun at ready, hoping he didn’t need to use it again. Downstairs, the two women had managed their foes with ease, while his shots had gone wide of their targets. He was going to need some practice.

  “It’s clear.” Penter emerged outside, and Tarlen heard the blast before he saw it strike the wall. He shoved Penter as another blast hit the stone, sending rubble over them. Tarlen ran, not away, but toward the incoming gunman. The Statu had done endless damage to his people, killed so many, and he wasn’t going to stand for it any longer. He fired as his legs pumped. He zig-zagged, making himself a difficult target, and shouted uncontrollably as the blasts hit the guard once, then twice. By the time he’d arrived, the guard was on the ground with smoke sizzling from his mask.

  Tarlen had to find out. He shot the guard again and knelt at its side, finding the latch for its helmet. He pried it open and heard a hissing sound as soon as air seeped through. The smell was terrible, and when he set the armored head covering to the side, he saw the ooze leaking from inside the suit.

  “Scramblers,” Penter said from behind him. “Messes them up so you can’t see who they are.”

  “Was it…” Tarlen asked.

  “It was someone trying to kill you,” Penter said, helping Tarlen to his feet. “Come on. They’re inside. Abbil, it’s me.”

  Tarlen saw a group of beaten Bacals inside, and his heart tore in two.
Their clothing was in tatters, their eyes sad and red. Every one of them was covered in bruises and grime from the last week.

  He walked around the room, desperately searching for his parents. “Belna? Are you here?” She wasn’t among the group of disheveled people, and he shouldn’t have been surprised.

  “What are we doing, Penter?” the woman the guard had identified as Abbil asked.

  “Everyone follow us. We’re moving underground,” Penter said.

  “Why listen to them? They’re only going to get you killed,” a man said, and Tarlen glared at the old naysayer.

  “Fine. You stay.” Penter didn’t pay the man any mind, opting to lead the exit instead. Tarlen grinned as the old guy stayed behind, the last one in the room before trudging forward, following the pack without any more commentary.

  Tarlen stayed behind with Penter as the small group slowly moved to the stairs, and when everyone was underground, the pair went after them.

  It may not have been much, but maybe they could keep some of his people safe. That would have to be enough.

  ____________

  Brax’s idea was insane. Impossible. Improbable, at the very least, but Treena still couldn’t help but smile as she imagined it working.

  “Fine, I’m on board. It’s going to be tough finding a Tuber, isn’t it?” she asked him.

  Brax looked different, and not only because his usually shaven head was growing in, his short hair thick and black. He seemed wiser, calmer than he even had before, and considering what he’d just gone through, she was surprised at how assertive he was being.

  “If this map lines up with what I saw from above, it won’t be so difficult.” He pointed at the diagram. “These are each of the slave locations. They separated us, and each of our sites is building a subsection of the warships. If I was to guess, they’re trying to construct four or five of them here with the new slaves.”

  “There are a dozen of the warships heading for us now. Once they arrive, we’re never going to be able to sneak out of here. It was one thing doing it with no ships in orbit, but it won’t be so simple with so many eyes on us. We need to be quick and quiet. Can you do that?” Treena asked him.

  “I think so.”

  “I’m going with him,” Reeve said, and Treena could see that was the end of the discussion.

  “Reeve…” Brax started.

  “Don’t you ‘Reeve’ me, brother. You let them grab you in a Mover, and made me worry about you for the last week. I didn’t know if you were alive or dead. I’m not letting you out of my sight,” she said.

  “Fine, but be quick. I haven’t figured out how you’re going to fly any of these things,” Treena told him.

  “Have faith. We may not have had access to many Statu artifacts, but we did have Tubers, and I was part of the lucky few in my class to fly one,” Brax said. Reeve cleared her throat and nudged him with an elbow. “Fine,” he added. “I didn’t fly it, but I sat beside my instructor and watched her. Pretty much the same thing.”

  “Right.” Treena said. “Be careful. If we have any hope of extracting these people off planet, we’re going to need to be stealthy.”

  “In the absence of numbers, we must have a multitude of ambition.” Brax quoted the Code, making Treena smile.

  “Until we meet in the Vastness,” Treena told them, and the two siblings raced through the corridor, heading in another direction.

  Treena spotted the Greblok slaves arriving, and she waved them toward her. “Do any of you have experience with guns?”

  Three of them raised their hands, and she nodded to the one Brax had at his side.

  “What’s the plan?” Penter asked her.

  “We’re moving to the next site. From there, we’ll attack them in their sleep, steal one of the hover platforms, and hit the next camp until we have a decent army. It doesn’t appear that these Statu have much in the way of communicators, so we may be able to do this in stealth,” Treena told him.

  Tarlen was long-faced beside the Greblok guard. “The odds aren’t good,” the boy said.

  Inspired by Brax’s quoting the Code, Treena smiled at the kid. “When faced with impossible odds, choose to play a different game.” She nodded to the half-dozen Statu suits lying on the floor. “Who wants to suit up?”

  Twenty-One

  The shaking ceased, but to Tom, it felt like he was being thrown around as their ship plunged into the new space, the wormhole exit behind Constantine.

  He closed his eyes, but all he could see was the rush of light in the tunnel they’d traveled through for the last ten minutes or so. The Statu were clutching one another to his side, and one of his crew threw up from the rear of the bridge.

  “Executive Lieutenant Ven, is my ship in order?” Tom asked.

  “The initial scans show everything in order, sir,” Ven said. “We seem to be having difficulty locating our position.”

  Yephion began clicking his mandibles, and Constantine’s AI translated. “He says that Plepha can input the details into your ship if you allow her a console. She is his mate.”

  “I don’t think that’s necessary at this moment,” Tom said, not fully trusting the Statu beside him. He wasn’t ready to let them gain access to their computer system. That would be foolish.

  “Probes have been released, sir,” Zare told him, and he watched as the data arrived on the viewer.

  “This is home,” Yephion said, Constantine echoing in Standard.

  “Which one?” Tom asked. There were two worlds highlighted by the computer’s scans as habitable.

  “The fifth.”

  “Does that make the fourth planet where the other Statu came from?” Tom asked.

  “That’s correct,” Yephion replied.

  Tom had the urge to blast it to nothing, using his ship’s advanced weapon system. It was against his own honor and the Code of the Concord, but after all the damage they’d done to his people and allies, he didn’t think it would be too difficult to make the order. He bit his tongue and watched as the rest of the data streamed in.

  “Captain, this is not good,” Ven said, and the lights began flashing red along the walls of the bridge. A gentle but insistent alert chimed throughout the bridge.

  Tom saw the clump of vessels moving through the radar image, and he swallowed hard. “How many are there, Ven?”

  “Thirteen, sir. We have confirmation. These are Statu warships,” Ven said, and Tom glanced at Yephion. He wasn’t speaking, but his mandibles moved rapidly, perhaps a nervous tic.

  “How long until they arrive?” Tom asked.

  “Seven hours, sir,” Ven said.

  “Then we’d better move quickly. Where’s Brax?” Tom stood, moving over to Zare’s helm console.

  “On Yephion’s world, sir. So are the others.”

  Constantine flickered and appeared beside Tom. “Captain, I’ve regained connection with my other projection from Cleo. I’m there awaiting the return of Commander Starling. They found Brax but haven’t returned yet.”

  Tom leaned over Zare and tapped Starling’s comm-channel. “Commander Starling, this is Captain Baldwin. Advise situation.”

  No reply came.

  “Sir, we’re too far out. I suspect we won’t have communication with the surface for another hour,” Zare said.

  “Bring us in, full impulse,” Tom said.

  “What about the Statu?” she asked.

  Tom clenched his fists and watched the incoming group of warships. His ship was powerful, but he didn’t think he’d stand a chance in a fight against so many. “Where’s the ship they brought to Greblok?” he asked.

  “I imagine it’s within the atmosphere of the fifth planet, sir,” Ven said.

  Tom smiled. All he had to do was fly to the world, destroy the warship so no one could use the ore from Greblok, and rescue his people. And he had a whopping seven hours to accomplish the mission.

  He wiped his palms on his pants and moved for the exit. “If anything important happens, alert me.”


  “Where are you going, sir?” Ven asked.

  “To the brig. I have a few questions that need to be answered,” he said, stepping off the bridge.

  The trip was quick, and Tom didn’t have long before they were within communication distance of his crew on the planet’s surface. This was going to be tight.

  He was let through without comment by the guards, and was directed to the end of the otherwise empty brig. It was bright, and he squinted against the glow of the lights.

  “Can you turn these down, please?” Tom shouted through the hall. A second later, they dimmed, and Tom saw Adam Hudson sitting there, looking ten years older than he had earlier. He was pushing ninety and looked every year of it as he sat on the bench.

  “I used to have high hopes for you, son,” Hudson said, not looking up.

  “Don’t call me that,” Tom said softly.

  “Did you know that your grandfather hated the fact that he had to raise you?” Hudson asked, finally glancing up. His eyes were red.

  Tom bristled. His relationship with Constantine Baldwin had been contentious at best, especially in the later years. He didn’t remember the man as his AI appeared, his demeanor soothing and pleasing. No, his grandfather was rough around the edges, disgruntled, and far from idealistic. The Concord was a house of cards, one gust of wind from being cast to the ground.

  “I don’t care,” Tom told him.

  “Sure you do. Everyone longs for the approval from the people who raised them,” Hudson said. “I used to argue with him. I saw the bright young mind, the passion you had for the Concord, and I only wished Constantine had pushed you harder.”

  “I worked plenty hard,” Tom said, not sure why he was even playing along with the old man’s games.

  “Sure. You were a great pilot. A good leader. But I guess I didn’t give you enough credit,” Hudson said. It seemed like the bluster was gone from him; maybe he’d given up.

  “Adam.” Tom used his first name to throw him off. “Tell me the truth here. We’ll be returning to Concord space eventually, and you’re going to have to answer for your crimes, but things will go a lot easier on you if you’re transparent.”