Empire Reborn (Taran Empire Saga Book 1): A Cadicle Space Opera A.K. DuBoff (guided reading books TXT) 📖

Her thoughts were interrupted by a chime on her desktop. It was her father calling from TSS Headquarters.

Given the sequence of events following her father’s last unexpected call, she debated whether she might be better off leaving it unanswered. Of course, that wasn’t a viable option.

“Hi,” she greeted when the image of Wil materialized on the wall viewscreen. “How’s it going?”

“It’s been better.” He looked down before returning his focus to the camera. “I’m sorry, Raena. I don’t mean to only call you with bad news.”

Her stomach dropped. “What happened, Dad?”

“I’ve sent off the official briefing to the High Council, but I thought you should hear it from me rather than secondhand.”

She steeled herself for whatever was about to be said.

“There’s been another attack. The TSS Alkeer Station was destroyed. One hundred percent casualties.”

“Stars! What?” The energy sapped from Raena. For a few seconds, she forgot to breathe, everything too tense to think or react.

“We still have no idea what they look like or how they move. I wish I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, but there was nothing we could do. One second the station was there; the next it was gone. There’s nothing left, and all crew were killed. It also pains me to report that your former Trainee friend, Tiffani Farrow, was on assignment there.”

“Oh, my stars…” Time seemed to stand still as a flood of memories flashed through Raena’s mind. Her first days in the TSS, with Tiff adopting her as a friend and teaching her about the Taran Empire. Training together. Late nights talking in their shared quarters about their dreams and aspirations. They’d been good friends, and Tiff had had such a promising future as an Agent that it was devastating to think of her life being cut short. But Raena’s loss of an old friend was nothing compared to what her brother must be going through right now. He’d never openly talked about the relationship, but she knew. “How’s Jason holding up?”

“As well as can be expected.”

“You know they were… close.”

Her father nodded. “Yeah, their relationship wasn’t as secret as they pretended. I was always fond of her. She was good for him.”

“Terrible about picking up after herself, but such a good heart… Gah!” Raena shook her head, her shoulders slumped. “I hate to think of how many good people like her were on the station.”

“One-thousand-three-hundred-twenty-seven.”

Raena closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The TSS hadn’t suffered a loss on that scale since the end of the Bakzen War—not even in the violence surrounding the Priesthood’s fall. It would be horrific enough on principle, but the personal connection made it even worse.

“I’m really trying not to freak out here.” Even as she voiced the words, her chest swelled with anxiety and her pulse quickened. The tension about the issues facing the Taran Empire flooded into her mind. It could all fall apart. We were so close to bringing everyone together, and now they’re more divided than ever.

“This is a challenge, but one we will overcome.”

How can he say that so calmly? The answer was clear, though. He needs to say that because we have no choice but to fight for our lives.

Breaking down wouldn’t save her, and it certainly wouldn’t help her people. She suppressed her anxiety and returned her attention to her father. “What are you planning to do?”

“Since we have been unable to open a line of communication with the perpetrators at this point we have no option but to declare them an enemy force and take any necessary military action to ensure the security of the Taran worlds.”

“I understand.” Raena barely felt herself say the words. Everything in her mind was fuzzy.

Still in the fog, it took her a moment to realize there had been a knock on the door.

“It’s me,” Ryan said in her mind, grounding her somewhat.

“Come in.”

Ryan took one look at her father’s image on the viewscreen and nodded gravely. “I saw your report about Alkeer. My condolences.”

“Thank you,” Wil said. “But I’m afraid the memorial for the fallen will need to wait. There’s another story that’s about to hit the media streams, and I wanted to give you advanced warning, though it’s not much.”

“That explosion at the Duronis spaceport?” Ryan asked.

Raena’s eyes widened. “What?”

“It’s been a bad day.” He added telepathically, “It looks like sabotage, or possibly a terrorism demonstration related to the protests going on planetside.”

“Was anyone hurt?”

“Two dead. Half a dozen injured. It could have been a lot worse.”

“Like the Alkeer Station…” Raena was glad it was said in her mind for fear of her voice cracking.

“I saw the TSS briefing come through while I was reading the report from the Duronis Stationmaster. Despite proximity, they aren’t connected. What happened on Alkeer was something else entirely.”

“I know. This is shaping up to be everything we feared.”

Ryan moved to stand behind her desk chair. “What’s the news?” he asked Wil.

“The TSS concurs with the Stationmaster’s findings that the explosion was due to an incendiary device on a pressure regulator. However, a leaked draft from the Colonial Herald media outlet is saying that the ‘accident’ was due to poor maintenance practices at the port. Those operations were regulated by DGE following the operations manual inherited from SiNavTech when the ship manufacturing arm branched off.”

Ryan paled. “Huh?”

“It’s not true, right? This wasn’t an accident!” Raena exclaimed. “They planted a freaking bomb.”

“That doesn’t matter,” her father replied. “It’s being presented as fact that this all happened due to shoddy maintenance protocols, and a good number of people are going to believe it.”

“The Herald is hardly the most reputable publication. They’re known to have a fair amount of slant,” Ryan said.

“But they are well known throughout the Outer Colonies, and even