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

say for now is that their form of ‘life’ is beyond what we experience here in spacetime. What that means in a practical sense, in terms of their perception and abilities, isn’t something we can begin to explain with the information we currently have.”

“I’ve forwarded the readings to the research team and have them working on a more comprehensive analysis,” Saera said. “From what I can tell, we have enough to maybe offer the breakthrough Engineering needs for an imaging solution.”

“That is my hope.”

Saera squeezed his hand. “They clearly don’t want to be seen. But no beings are powerful enough to stop us.”

“This isn’t like anything we’ve faced. It was worse than the Bakzen homeworld,” he murmured, reliving the scene of the station dissolving. Until then, the final standoff of the Bakzen War, when he’d destroyed the planet with the Conquest, had been the worst moment in his life. For something to top it underscored the dire nature of their situation.

She took a steadying breath. “It’s awful to feel helpless when something we care about is destroyed.”

He shook his head, realizing that she’d misinterpreted his point with the comparison. “No, ‘destruction’ is something we can comprehend. However terrible it is to perpetrate, it’s a part of the natural order as we understand it. What I witnessed today was something being… ‘un-made’.”

“The data doesn’t track,” Saera admitted.

“I don’t understand it, either, and that’s what scares me. This wasn’t a weapon blast or anything like that. It was as if the target,” he held out his hands, fingers wide, “never existed.”

“And that’s what the scan data shows. But how?”

He shrugged, genuinely mystified. “They’re controlling matter—our reality—on a scale that we can barely even perceive despite all of our advanced tech, let alone manipulate. To destroy or create at the subatomic level…”

“It’s like they’re tapped into… primal energy.”

“Sort of. We literally don’t have a term for what they can do or what they are. The very fundamental stuff that makes up the universe.” He drew still. “Aesen.”

“What does that mean?”

“Old Taran for ‘origin’ or ‘essence’. It’s the root word the Aesir drew on for their name when they split from the Priesthood, denoting themselves the seekers of truth in accordance with the organization’s founding. Aesen is the source, the thing out of which everything else comes. It’s the only term that fits.”

“You’re talking about these beings like they’re gods.”

“They may as well be. They manipulate aesen the way we breathe air. If that isn’t a god, what is?”

CHAPTER 13

The lounge was abuzz with frenzied conversation when Lexi walked in after breakfast.

“Stars! Can you believe what happened to that station? Obliterated,” Josh said to Shena.

She shrugged. “I don’t know how much stock we can put in the scan data. Lidaer is a long way off from the station. Lots of interference from the nebula. The official news reports are still just saying there was an ‘incident’.”

“The station was there on the scan one minute and gone the next. Sounds pretty definitive to me,” Josh insisted.

“But what caused it?” Shena asked.

Josh held up his hands. “Whatever it is, I hope it doesn’t come our way.”

Oren began to laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Lexi asked, horrified by what little she’d heard. There was no humor in the destruction of a large facility like that.

He regained his composure. “I’m sorry, it’s too perfect.”

“It is!” Josh exclaimed. “Even a foking station! They’ll think it’s connected.”

Lexi looked around the faces, knowing she had once again been left out of a critical decision. This wasn’t a good-natured inside joke. Something bad was going down. “What am I missing?”

Oren smiled. “Our plan that we’ve already set in motion couldn’t dovetail more beautifully with this turn of events.”

Lexi’s heart dropped. “What are you going to do?”

“Oh, it’s just a little push to speed things along.”

She couldn’t let that slide. Despite the risk, she dove into Oren’s mind to see what he was thinking about.

The thought wasn’t immediately on the surface, but it wasn’t deep. There was a package. A bomb. And it was on its way to the main Duronis shipping port.

Lexi had to resist the urge to yell at Oren then and there, to condemn his actions. A bomb will kill people. Maybe a lot of people! She schooled her face as she’d conditioned herself to do. An outburst citing this information would reveal her Gifts. She couldn’t afford to do that. But, she also couldn’t sit on this knowledge knowing what it meant for the people on the station. She had to do something.

“I’m sick of the news,” she declared. “I’ll see you later.”

The others didn’t pay her any heed as she dismissed herself and headed toward the dorm. But rather than flop onto her bunk, she continued through the space to the back access point for the office. The door opened to an alley that didn’t tend to get much traffic, so it was her best chance to slip out without drawing unwanted attention.

As soon as she was free from the building, she broke into a dead sprint. People on the street gasped with surprise as she sped by, but she didn’t care that she stood out. For all they knew, she was late for her train.

She ran as quickly as she could to the port. There was only one contact who might listen to her.

No, no, no. This isn’t what I signed up for!

Sure, she wanted to see change in Taran politics, and especially in the quality of life for those in the Outer Colonies, but she never intended for innocents to get hurt. Planting bombs in orbital stations wasn’t part of the deal. There were workers there who had nothing to do with the controlling corporation aside from getting a paycheck to feed their families.