Empire Reborn (Taran Empire Saga Book 1): A Cadicle Space Opera by A.K. DuBoff (jenna bush book club TXT) 📕

scan appeared onscreen, showing not just the spatial distortions from the regular sensor data but something stirring within them. The initial image resembled shadow art, as if a figure was standing behind an opaque screen. Only, the figure in question was ten times the size of the Conquest itself.

Everyone stared with dismay at the image.

“How big are these things?” Raena asked.

“Remains to be seen,” Wil replied, not looking forward to the answer. “Let’s see what else we can learn.”

He took the text from the message CACI had translated and modified the next scan to be focused beams in the shape of the message characters. No idea if this will work, but worth a shot.

Saera looked over at him with surprise when she realized what he’d done. “Good thinking.”

“It’s a longshot, but you never know.”

Wil let the same modified burst cycle two more times, and then he switched back to the full protocol. The distortions were continuing to grow. If anything, the movement was accelerating.

On the next flash, the forms finally began to emerge. Unfolding in stop-motion in the transdimensional images, he watched inky tendrils unfurl from the micro-rifts, invisible to the naked eye. One of the tendrils was heading directly for the Conquest.

“Orders, sir?” Rianne asked from the tactical station, visibly inching back in her seat.

“Hold steady,” he instructed, hoping it was the right call. Not that they could do anything else but run. And that wasn’t an option.

The tendril made contact. As it did, the visualization system in the Command Center shuddered. Text in the alien language appeared on the screen.

“Oh, my stars!” Raena breathed.

“CACI, can you translate?” Wil requested.

“Negative.”

Saera scowled. “What is it?”

He smiled. “An answer. The name of their race—of course it wouldn’t have a direct translation.” Now we’re making progress.

They stared at the string of nonsensical characters displayed on the screen.

“Uh... I don’t think I can pronounce that,” Jason said.

“Yeah, that’s not going to work,” Wil agreed. “We need another name.”

Raena thought for a moment. “What about ‘Erebus’, the Greek god of darkness.”

“I’m impressed you could pull that off the top of your head,” Saera commented.

“I went through a mythology phase.” She shrugged. “What do you think?”

“I can say it, so that one hundred percent gets my vote over,” Jason frowned at the screen, “whatever that is.”

Wil nodded. “Erebus, then.”

Saera smiled. “We have contact. That’s a good sign.”

“CACI, translate and send the following message: ‘We want to negotiate peace. Stop your invasion.”

“Isn’t that wording a little harsh?” Raena asked.

“Any other word than ‘invasion’ could have too many meanings. ‘Advance’, ‘approach’. Need to keep it simple,” he replied.

“Good point.”

This time, no response came from the Erebus. The dark tendrils continued to spread from the micro-rifts in the image snapshots, crackling with ethereal energy.

“Okay, we need to let them know we’re serious,” Wil suggested.

Saera nodded her agreement.

“Charge weapons. Hold,” Wil instructed the fleet over the comm. Stars, I hope they don’t take this as cause for an immediate assault.

The status indicators next to ships on the vicinity map switched to ‘offensive’, ready to take action.

“CACI, translate another message. ‘Withdraw, or we will attack’. Overlay on next image burst.”

The computer complied. Several seconds later, a reply came. A single character this time.

Wil frowned. “CACI, translate.”

The result on the screen chilled Wil to his core: ‘No’.

Raena paled. “What do they mean, ‘no’?”

“They’ve already decided our fate. They won’t back down.”

Everyone in the Command Center watched as Conquest kept taking snapshots of the Erebus as the being continued to emerge through the spatial rift. Each image was more horrifying than the last. What began as small tears had widened to kilometers-wide chasms through which tendrils were extending. The tendrils branched and thickened as they reached out toward everything in the vicinity. The sickening freeze-frame of the imaging chronicled their advance, enveloping ships and then the planet itself.

We can’t win. Everything across Wil’s TSS career had tuned his senses to approach every engagement as a potential life-and-death battle. Weighing the different engagement strategies, the probable injuries and loss of life, the enemy casualties. He ran through every possible scenario with the information at his disposal, and there was no conceivable way for the TSS to end a combative engagement intact. At best, a fifth of the fleet might escape. The loss was unacceptable.

He gave the only order he could. “Stand down!”

The command was met with expressions of confusion and shock from the crew, but they complied without hesitation.

“Why?” Jason asked in his mind.

“This is an unwinnable fight. Diplomacy is the only option. We must find a way.”

He saw Jason doing his own mental exercise of how things could play out. Having not been through a war himself, the process was slower, but his determination turned to somber stoicism as he reached the same conclusion.

Raena stood, unwavering, at the middle of the Command Center. “We need to reason with them.”

“No. Surrender.” The statement didn’t feel real, even as Wil said it. Everything they’d been through—the Bakzen War, the overthrow of the Priesthood, facing the Gatekeepers—it was all prelude to this moment. At this critical junction, he found himself helpless.

No, not helpless. We have power beyond physical might. He and his children had the most formidable Gifts of anyone in the Taran Empire, living or dead. They represented both the political and military strength of the Empire, condensed into three individuals at the center of their civilization. They were the first, and last, line of defense.

“We need to go to them on their terms,” he told his children.

They instantly understood his meaning. They needed to approach the Erebus without their physical forms, in the same essence that the alien beings existed.

There was no need for Wil to spell out the danger