Eyes of Tomorrow (Duchy of Terra Book 9), Glynn Stewart [reading well .TXT] 📗

his eyes. In the dream, he was a distorted goblin, every aspect of his features twisted and torn to make him into the monster of Henry’s own subconscious.

“Confirmed,” Van Agteren told him. “That’s the evacuation ship for the Kenmorad. The queen and her consorts will be aboard.”

The ship was the size of one of the dreadnoughts pounding the Vesheron ships behind Panther but lacked their devastating main guns. The evacuation ship had one purpose and one purpose only: to evacuate the Kenmorad population of Set-Sixteen if they felt the planet was threatened.

A Kenmorad breeding sect could repopulate an entire planet of Kenmiri drones in a few years. They could create more breeding sects, more drones…more Kenmiri.

The Kenmiri couldn’t reproduce without the Kenmorad.

“Ser, that’s the last one. We can’t kill her!”

Lieutenant Colonel Emil Tyson had been Panther’s executive officer, Henry’s right-hand man and lubricant who kept a battlecruiser working in the face of the enemy. The redheaded Irishman hadn’t raised any complaints on the day. They hadn’t known.

“Stand by all missiles and prep the main gun,” Henry’s avatar ordered, as if Tyson hadn’t spoken. “Vela, get us in hard and fast.”

Panther lunged across the void in a quarter of the time she had in real life. Suddenly, it was the moment of truth, the evacuation ship’s escorts making a suicide charge at the battlecruiser as Panther dove toward her prey.

“She’s the last one, ser,” Tyson repeated, the avatar of Henry’s subconscious. The one that knew what he’d done, even if he hadn’t then. “If we kill that ship, we commit genocide. We end a species.”

Henry hadn’t known the full scope of Golden Lancelot. He wasn’t sure if anyone aboard Panther had—he knew that Van Agteren hadn’t known when they fired. He suspected the Intel officer had guessed…but hadn’t realized that the breeding sect they were firing on was the last one left.

“Ignore the escorts,” dream-Henry barked. “Target the evac ship with everything. Fire!”

It had taken dozens of missiles and multiple hits from the main gun to take out the evacuation ship. In his dreams, however, there was only the single gravity-driver round that had finished her off. It flashed across space and detonated, turning itself into a shotgun blast of superheated plasma.

The Kenmorad evacuation ship vanished inside that blast, and Henry released a chunk of unconscious hope. Even separated from the dream as he’d been taught, he still hoped that it would end differently.

“That’s it, then,” Van Agteren said, the goblin-like appearance of the dream version of the man growing more grotesque by the moment. “The Kenmorad are no more. The Kenmiri will die. We are victorious!”

Henry didn’t need to look. He already knew that both the version of him in the dream and the version of him watching the dream had hands covered in blood.

Henry started awake as the dream ended. He always did. Time and familiarity had eased much of the horror of the dream, along with copious amounts of therapy, but…well. He poked at the metal band wrapped around his left arm.

MedSuite detected nightmares. At this stage in your treatment, MedSuite recommends meditation.

He sighed. The band was linked into his internal network and talking to the implants in his head and elsewhere. He had enough authority over the device now to override it and tell it to give him drugs. If he did that, though, it would probably add days to his medical leave.

Rolling out of bed, Colonel Henry Wong settled himself onto the floor of his bedroom. The apartment wasn’t much, but it at least gave him privacy. It was better than the orbital hospital he’d spent the first six weeks of his twelve-week medical leave inside.

“One more appointment,” he said aloud. The walls were bare. This wasn’t his apartment—it belonged to the United Planets Space Force Medical Division. The entire building on Sandoval did.

The ground floor of the building was shops and restaurants, like most of the not-quite-downtown area of New Detroit, Sandoval’s capital city. Above that was a floor of UPSF security, then two floors of medical clinics, then fifteen floors of apartments.

If his appointment went well, he’d finally be out of there today. Command only knew where he’d go from there—psychological casualties were notorious for being unpredictable in how long it took to return to duty, so Panther had a new Captain now.

He focused on the meditation, letting his anger, grief, horror…all of his emotions flow through him. He might have given the order for the final critical shot, but no one had told him what Operation Golden Lancelot entailed.

Henry was honest enough to admit that after seventeen years of war, he’d have signed off on Golden Lancelot. He was also honest enough to admit that he understood why the full scale of Lancelot’s objectives had been kept under wraps.

It had worked, after all. Henry had gone into psych treatment in a Space Force still on a war footing. He’d be coming out of it into a Space Force on a peacetime footing.

Seventeen years of war.

Henry Wong had started the conflict with a fiancé and a starfighter. He’d ended it a divorcé with a battlecruiser.

He barely remembered the all-too-excited younger pilot who’d greeted the news of first contact with joy.

But the world turned and people adapted. He’d adapted to a decades-long, seemingly unwinnable war.

He was pretty sure he could handle peace.

Raven’s Peace by Glynn Stewart

Interested in reading more? Raven’s Peace is available now.

About the Author

Glynn Stewart is the author of Starship’s Mage, a bestselling science fiction and fantasy series where faster-than-light travel is possible–but only because of magic. His other works include science fiction series Duchy of Terra, Castle Federation and Exile, as well as the urban fantasy series ONSET and Changeling Blood.

Writing managed to liberate Glynn from a bleak future as an accountant. With his personality and hope for a high-tech future intact, he lives in Kitchener, Ontario with his partner, their cats, and an unstoppable writing habit.

VISIT GLYNNSTEWART.COM FOR NEW RELEASE UPDATES

CREDITS

The following people were involved in making this book:

Copyeditor: Richard Shealy

Proofreader: M Parker Editing

Cover art: Tom