Crossroads of Fate (Cadicle #5): An Epic Space Opera Series Read online

  CROSSROADS OF FATE

  by

  Amy DuBoff

  CROSSROADS OF FATE

  Copyright © 2016 by Amy DuBoff

  All rights reserved. This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. No part of this eBook may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles, reviews or promotions.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  www.amyduboff.com

  Editor: Nicholas Bubb

  Cover Illustration: Copyright © 2016 Tom Edwards (www.TomEdwardsDesign.com)

  Publisher: BDL Press

  ASIN: B01L60T22E

  First eBook Edition: 2nd September 2016

  Kindle Edition

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  Table of Content

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  Next in the Cadicle series

  Acknowledgements

  Glossary

  About the Author

  CHAPTER 1

  A warning siren blared, echoing through the hangar on the lower level of H2. Unfortunately for Deena Laecy, such occurrences were all too common in the TSS headquarters within the rift. “Shite, what now?” she muttered to the three members of her crew presently working in the engineering lab.

  “Fok! This manifest can’t be right,” Nolan, the lead bioelectric engineer, exclaimed as he scrolled through the holographic projection on the lab’s display console.

  Laecy dashed over to review the list of incoming TSS ships. This is a fifth of our entire fleet! “We don’t have enough docking capacity.”

  Becca gasped. “These damage reports… We can’t address all of this!”

  “Why the sudden influx?” Aram asked, crossing his arms.

  Laecy breathed out a slow breath to calm her racing heart. “We don’t have a choice. Becca, go to fleet control to get damage assessment triage set up. Nolan—” She cut off when she saw High Commander Taelis approaching. What’s he doing here?

  “I trust you received the manifest,” Taelis stated, his face drawn.

  “Yes, sir,” Laecy replied. “I was just delegating—”

  “We’ll take care of triage in fleet command. Finishing the Conquest is your priority,” the High Commander cut in.

  “But—”

  “The fleet repairs can wait,” he told her. “We need that ship finished.”

  Orders are orders. Laecy nodded. “Nolan, go with Aram to finish up the wiring in the podiums. Becca, run through the Mainframe connections again; we need to solve the lag issue. I’ll continue the propulsion tests here.”

  The three engineers inclined their heads to Taelis and then jogged out of the lab toward the central elevator.

  “Sir, what’s going on?” Laecy asked the High Commander once they were alone.

  “We lost Kaldern.”

  “Stars!” Laecy breathed. She was used to losing TSS ships on a regular basis, but whenever the Bakzen attacked a planet with a civilian population, it was way more personal. “That explains the arrival list.”

  “Most of the ships were able to jump out before the port was destroyed.” Taelis shook his head. “That was the staging ground for the reserve fleet. If we’d lost them…”

  “It’ll be okay, sir,” Laecy assured him. “We’ll find a way to make the repairs.”

  “We can’t wait for Wil any longer,” Taelis murmured.

  “I’m sure he’d come now if you asked.”

  “He hasn’t yet mastered simultaneous observation,” the High Commander replied. “If he doesn’t soon, we might not have another choice but to bring him in, anyway.”

  * * *

  The rift beckoned to Wil at the edge of his consciousness. For three weeks he had denied its call, ever since meeting with the Aesir. His new knowledge about the true nature of the rift—a fray created in the fabric of space by the Bakzen, marring the natural structure—had driven him from the one location where he had once felt free.

  Around him, Wil’s Primus Elite trainees sulked with a mixture of weariness and annoyance in the center of the zero-G spatial awareness practice chamber. Even his wife, Saera, was floating to his right side with her arms crossed and lips pursed with frustration.

  These last few weeks have been a total waste and they know it. Simple spatial dislocation isn’t enough. Yet, Wil couldn’t bring himself to even reach out toward the rift to attempt simultaneous observation. The extra strength the rift gave him in any telekinetic feat wasn’t worth the reminder of how it was formed by the Bakzen in an attempt to find a haven from their Taran creators. However, without accessing the rift, he would never be able to achieve simultaneous observation—a critical component of his role in the Bakzen war, where he would perceive events in normal space, the rift, and subspace at the same time so the TSS could finally outmaneuver the enemy.

  Ian groaned, tousling his light brown hair. “Oh, come on! You’re not even trying.”

  There was no sense in Wil denying the truth. “It might not be necessary. Now that we have the independent jump drive—”

  “Everything we’ve practiced requires a telepathic link,” Michael interrupted. “You need the amplification from the rift if it’s going to cover the distance we need, simultaneous observation or not.”

  Wil searched for a suitable rebuttal, but his friend was right. I do need the rift. Running away from what it represents won’t win the war.

  Maintaining a telepathic link in close proximity was easy after years of training together. Communications were instantaneous and effortless, even across the span of the massive Headquarters structure deep within Earth’s moon, but the connection wavered beyond that distance. The entire purpose of honing their telepathic communications was to bypass the need for traditional subspace comm relays, which were comparatively slow and unsecured. Except, the Primus Elites and TSS fleet would be spread out across the rift, and possibly even in more distant star systems. To maintain any level of efficiency, the telepathic link would need to cover that whole spectrum. Only the unique environment of the rift could supply enough energy for Wil to maintain a telepathic network that extensive without degradation.

  Wil sighed inwardly. “All right, let’s go again.”

  “For real this time?” Michael asked, an eyebrow raised with skepticism.

  “You can’t let the truth about the rift and the Bakzen hold you back. We need you,” Saera added telepathically in private.

  “Yes,
for real,” Wil replied aloud. She’s right; I have to. He began to clear his mind in preparation for the simultaneous observation attempt. “Form up.”

  Saera and the Primus Elites drifted through the dim room into their standard circular formation around him, gripping the tablets used for practicing manual control inputs while within the trance-like telepathic link.

  Wil took slow, even breaths—losing himself in the simulated starscape. Next to him, he telepathically reached out to Saera as his anchor. Her presence steadied him as he began to drift outward, giving him a solid tether so he would always be able to find a way back to his physical self from the depths of subspace. “Fleet?” Wil asked telepathically.

  “Fleet check,” replied Michael first, as Wil’s second-in-command.

  “Tactical?”

  “Tactical check,” replied Ian, lead for special tactical assaults.

  “Pilots?”

  “Primus team check,” replied Ethan, the Primus Squad pilot team lead.

  “Pilot command check,” replied Curtis, the communications hub for relaying precision strike orders to the larger TSS fleet.

  The verbal exchange with its conditioned responses served as a cue for the team to initiate their telepathic link, branching from Wil through Saera and his four officers, then on to the members of each specialty unit. His skin tingled as the network materialized around him. The energy of the telepathic bonds formed an invisible web connecting each individual, with the strongest corridors between Wil and his officers and through Saera as his anchor to the physical world. Wil habitually tested all the connections before proceeding, viewing the bonds as silver threads in his mind.

  Satisfied that the links were secure, he reached out toward the rift.

  Pure energy within the rift beckoned him, drawing him into a full state of spatial dislocation. He pierced the dimensional veil, fueled by the rift’s power to push himself further. I saw the pattern when I looked into the void with the Aesir. Simultaneous observation is no different. I can do this.

  Energy within subspace swelled to meet him, but all he could sense was the overwhelming force of the rift in the distance. He tried to extend himself further, but the tie to his physical self held him back. Fear welled in the inner recesses of his consciousness. I could lose myself here. He shoved the thought aside, determined to succeed. No, I’m not alone. Before he could hesitate again, he let go—placing full trust in his wife and friends.

  For a moment, he floated freely. Subspace was boundless. He could finally test his limits. Exhilaration surged through his unrestrained consciousness. There was so much to explore—

  Then, tethers reformed around him. He fought against the restraints, still thirsting for freedom.

  “We have you.” It was Saera’s voice in his mind.

  Wil relaxed, remembering what he had set out to do. He probed the new ties around him, finding that they were only a gentle net to keep him from drifting too far while still allowing him to move without constriction. Nothing was holding him back.

  The vastness of subspace spanned before Wil, but that was only one layer. Rather than outward, he reached through—grasping for the physical plane of his reality. As he pierced the dimensional divide, subspace appeared to shatter around him. He started to fall, thrown against the boundary of the tethering net. Gripped with sudden apprehension, he withdrew into the safety of the net, desperate to remain connected. The dizzying sense of freefall ceased, replaced by the call of a power source just beyond his sight.

  As Wil tried to get his bearings, he realized that he hadn’t actually fallen, but had instead zoomed outward. The fabric of space unfolded before him—layers of energy, of planes—woven together in an intricate pattern.

  He brushed against the layers, calling each one into perfect focus as he seamlessly passed from one plane to the next.

  There were too many layers to take in at once, so he turned his attention to the familiar. His home physical plane stood out most brightly in the cross-section, framed by a subspace band to either side. In the great distance, sandwiched between the upper subspace band and the physical plane, was the scarring rift amid tatters of the underlying spatial fabric. Wil positioned himself at the horizon between physical reality and subspace—searching for the balance that had always eluded him.

  Everything came into focus. Wil saw his friends floating around him, overlaid by the energy flowing through subspace. He let his consciousness drift, pulling out from the room, passing through Headquarters, beyond the moon, and viewing Earth from afar. As he had glimpsed before, in the great distance, he sensed the border of the rift—but touching it was farther than he wanted to venture. Yet, he was sure that if he was closer, he would be able to see everything within the rift, too. In the state of simultaneous observation, his consciousness was free to roam, to pick up details within the physical realm, rift, and subspace planes all at once.

  Wil grinned with giddy excitement. This is it! We have all the tools we need to win.

  As much as he wanted to continue exploring the world around him with a new perspective unlike any other, he withdrew back to his physical self. With a gasp, he opened his eyes—seeing reality again through his corporeal eyes. It seemed so dull and narrow by comparison.

  He disconnected from his friends, breaking the telepathic network.

  The Primus Elites hovered perfectly still, stunned.

  “Well, that was different,” Saera broke the silence.

  “Did you…?” Michael began.

  “Simultaneous observation,” Wil confirmed.

  “Stars! You actually did it,” exclaimed Ethan.

  Wil ran a hand through his chestnut hair. “Yeah… that was weird.”

  “What did you see?” Saera asked.

  “I can’t quite describe it. At first, it was like seeing a cross-section of the different planes, and then some sort of composite image between the physical world and subspace.”

  Everyone’s eyes widened.

  “So, an actual overlay of the two planes at once?” Curtis clarified.

  “With the ability to focus on each independently to get better detail,” Wil responded. “But yes, I could hold the perception of both planes simultaneously.”

  Michael tilted his head. “How far could you see?”

  “As far as I wanted,” Wil replied. “It was like using a jump drive, but with consciousness. Traveling through subspace doesn’t have the same physical limitations.”

  Ian lit up, his amber eyes wide. “We really will be able to maintain the telepathic link across whole sectors!”

  “Yes, I believe so,” Wil affirmed.

  Saera let out a long breath. “That’s a relief.”

  “However, we do have a slight problem,” Wil continued. “There’s no rift here at Headquarters, so we can’t really practice properly.”

  “What are we supposed to do now, then?” questioned Michael.

  “We work on relaying commands while I’m that far extended. I’ve always been ‘here’, more or less, when we’ve tried before.”

  His men nodded, and Saera gave him a supportive smile.

  “That’s for another time, though,” Wil said, knowing they shouldn’t push too far in one day.

  “Quit while we’re ahead, right?” Ethan grinned.

  Wil rolled his cerulean eyes. “We never quit, but taking well-deserved breaks is always a good policy.”

  “I’ll support that,” Ian said. “Dibs on the main viewscreen!”

  “Not fair!” Tom, one of Ian’s best pilots, interjected with a slight flush showing through his dark complexion. “You’ve been monopolizing it with that stupid game of yours for the last two weeks.” He folded his lean arms across his chest.

  “Hey, I happen to have an incredibly high score and can’t stop until I crush that tough guy from Urulan VIII at the end of the tournament tomorrow,” Ian shot back.

  Ethan laughed. “We all know that ‘tough guy’ is actually a thirteen-year-old girl, so…”


  Ian’s face reddened. “That’s beside the point—”

  Wil threw up his hands, suppressing an amused grin. “Rights to the entertainment system are beyond my purview. Enjoy your afternoon.” He began to draw himself telekinetically toward the door.

  Before he’d gone a meter, most of his men dove for the door, brushing past Wil and Saera in one dark blue mass. Only Michael hung back, always the most composed of the group.

  “Can’t have the viewscreen if I get there first!” Tom declared as he hurled himself through the doorway into the gravity lock.

  “But I called dibs!” Ian protested, vaulting in after him.

  The rest of the men quickly slipped inside before the door sealed shut, leaving their three senior leaders still floating in the center of the training chamber.

  Saera giggled. “All right, then.”

  Wil shook his head, resuming his slow pull toward the door. It would take two minutes for the lock to be prepared for them to exit; no need to rush. “Maybe I didn’t instill enough ‘no one left behind’ message in the training.”

  “They’re aware of others when it matters,” Michael said in his comrades’ defense.

  Wil touched down on the wall, grabbing a handhold. “I know. They should enjoy this relaxation time while they can.”

  Michael’s brow furrowed as he gripped the wall next to Wil. “Simultaneous observation was the last step, wasn’t it? We can’t really train anymore away from the rift, despite what you said.”

  “No,” Wil confessed. “It won’t be long now before we go.”

  “Why the hesitation? We’re ready,” Michael said.

  “Yes, you are, but…”

  “Ever since you got back from the Aesir, you’ve been different. Today is the first time you’ve actually attempted simultaneous observation since then. Now, I don’t want to say it seemed easy for you—since it’s not something I can do, so it’s not my place to pass judgment—but it certainly didn’t seem like you were straining. It was almost like you’d done it before.” Michael searched Wil’s face. “What happened with the Aesir? Why have you been avoiding the rift?”