“Nine,” reported the resource manager. That’s three they would have to wait for. Another three minutes. They would not survive. The drones were already aligning to one another and turning on them, so were the fighters. Though manned by people, they were loyal to their paychecks, so they would cut down their former allies in a heartbeat.
“Prepare for Wormdrive,” Captain Bistan said. “Fastest desto you can bring up. Order all ships in our fleet to retreat.”
The remaining Navarus vessels turned in several directions, each preparing to withdraw. They were in range of Fleurbis Station, which was firing everything it had at them. It managed to destroy one of the transports; a choice partially remaining loyal to Navarus by keeping its contents out of the hands of Poltox. But then it turned its weapons on Bistan’s ship.
“Evasive!” he shouted. Their wormhole disappeared and the ship rocked one way, then the other. The stars out their large front windows spun mercilessly.
But all the fire was on them. The transports and other frigates were opening their wormholes and heading inside. One of the wormholes was destroyed and another graviton device managed to capture the transport that was trying to get inside. The same device also grabbed an additional transport that was just arriving.
“Send the report by Wormmessenger,” Bistan told the comm officer. “Fleurbis Station lost. Transports captured or scattered.”
* * *
Bela of Navarus received the news in his office. He had gotten word that raids were taking place along several borders; incursions which were turning into all-out assaults. They were coming from three different baronies and two unaffiliated corporations. All claimed outrage at the unwarranted attack on Gerhelm, especially while Princess Rezia Eudosic was hosting an event for dignitaries and CEOs of other baronies and corporations on Akolgar.
Navarus had not planned, nor performed, the attack for which they were blamed; Bela was certain of that. Her Highness, Empress Ceriliseta Navarus did keep her decision-making process close to her chest, but all military matters ran through Bela.
He had considered the possibility of misidentification; but he saw video footage from the incident. Gerhelm was hosting an auction which many top corporations and baronies had attended. Ships landed and armored soldiers attacked. They did not distinguish between military personnel and civilians. In fact, some seemed to target high-level executives. But for what purpose, Bela could not ascertain. This was how he knew it was none of his people. No one under his employ would be so pointless. If they killed, it was done for a profit.
Armor and signets recovered from the site were uniquely Navarus, however. Even some of the strategies used were methods they were specifically trained to perform. The details were so exact that Bela even spotted subtle methods that his soldiers were trained to utilize that were not publically known. The plan was obviously a setup, but by someone who knew their inner workings.
But now they were beyond diplomacy. No one had believed Navarus’ official denials of responsibility. Their own delegation to the event had suspiciously disappeared, and they had even condemned the attack as against the agreed upon code of that Galactic Market.
Whether anyone believed them or not was irrelevant. The Navarus Barony had had a leg up in the race to gather powerful alien relics which improved their technologies. Ceriliseta’s father had collected them as a hobby, and upon overthrowing him, the now self-proclaimed empress had discovered their useful properties. This made Navarus a perceived threat to all other factions, and everyone was looking for a new excuse to overthrow them, or at least peck at their borders.
Bela placed the information in a projection-disk and carried it to his boss. It took him a few minutes to locate her. She was not in her usual locations, which included the Galagamarket center, the operations headquarters, her room, her personal office, or the swimming pool on top of the tower. Today, he learned, she was in the Nebulaic Chamber.
He went to one of the floors that had long observation windows and peeked in. There she was, floating among the thick vapor like there was no gravity. In fact, there was, and the atmospheric pressure was greater inside than it was in the rest of the building. But the luxurious enclosure, typically used for relaxing days off, had a thick brume that was filled with an alien liquid that was both light, and thick enough to slide through; like a cloudy gelatin.
Bela was surprised to find her here. She did not take days off, and was usually working from the moment she woke to when she fell asleep. When she needed to think, she usually took a swim. This was similar to the Nebulaic Chamber, but took less effort on the part of the relaxer, who just floated with the misty currents. He saw that she was wearing an oxygen mask, so he could call her.
Ceriliseta did not need the mask to breathe in the chamber; the air was perfectly fine. She wore it because she did not like the smell, or the taste when some of the gelatin inevitably floated into her mouth. The downside was that she was reachable by those who disturbed her meditative thought process. “Yes, Bela,” she said.
“There's been another attack.”
“To be expected.”
“This one at the hub of Fleurbis Relay Point.”
Ceriliseta stared at Bela through the window saying nothing for a while. She was calculating, picturing the pieces on the board.
Finally Bela said, “Did the pool get boring for you?”
She did not answer, but instead rolled over on her back to look up toward the ceiling. Bela had noticed her eyes moving, like she was looking around in her imagination. He had something that would help. He approached a nearby door and opened it. This led to an airlock which he had to wait inside while the first door closed, then he opened the inner door to the Nebulaic Chamber.
Stepping out onto the ramp, his clothes were immediately dampened. Ceriliseta did not react. She lay there, wrapped in ribbon-like clothing and the faint brume. Bela pulled a disk from his dress jacket pocket, pressed a button and held it aloft. A holographic map of the stars in their area of the galaxy cut through the gelatinous haze. Ceriliseta floated through the middle of her kingdom. This had clearly caught her attention as she turned her head toward several conflict zones.
“They’ve been targeting relay centers rather than the star systems. We’ve taken no planetary losses, but supply chains are cut, especially to our… experimental wings.”
“So they have some of the relics we had acquired.”
“Yes ma’am. I have a complete report on what they’ve taken and what they’ve destroyed.”
“Their focus has been on the cellular tech,” Ceriliseta said with confidence.
“Yes,” Bela answered with some surprise that she already had that figured out. “The larger attacks have been where miniaturizing cargo was being transpoed.”
“Because that’s what they’re developing,” Ceriliseta said twisting around to face a star cluster at the edge of her border. “They already purchased the facilities and tools needed for this work. One of the companies got bid right out from under my nose.”
Ceriliseta now swam further up, wafting past star systems and out beyond the border of her empire. Bela could see that her eyes were scanning the stars as her face revealed how deep in thought she was. Bela did not try to guess her mind. The best he had ever done was catch up with two moves behind where she was. He just waited to take his orders from the woman he deemed the most beautiful creature in the galaxy.
She stared at one world circling a tiny star, then another, as though determining their fate. She had already come to the conclusion that Gerhelm had attacked their own auction and framed her barony. Ceriliseta knew this not because she had not ordered an attack; not because there was any evidence to the theory; but because Rezia Eudosic was Ceriliseta’s mother, and this was exactly the sort of devious thing Ceriliseta would do.
To be sure, Rezia had not really raised Ceriliseta; that had been the job of nannies and nursemaids and the occasional robot. But just as they both shared a rare gene which made their hair b
oth a bright blonde, (something that was nearly extinct in all humans,) they also shared other genetic traits, and Ceriliseta was beginning to believe one of them was a cunning intellect.
Most believed her mother to be simple-minded. Ceriliseta had even believed it, and she had assumed her mother would be grateful when she returned her to her homeland after Ceriliseta overthrew her father's barony. But now, with what was happening, Ceriliseta wondered if they had more in common than she had assumed. Whoever had set up the attack clearly had a great deal of inside information about Navarus; the counterfeit had been perfect, even to the smallest details. Who else could possibly pull that off?
She began looking over one star system after another, connecting the dots and seeing what her moves would be in her mind's eye. She settled on the region now known as Gerhelm-Risi; territory recently conquered by her mother's barony, and right on Navarus's doorstep.
“Did you find something, my lady?” Bela asked.
Ceriliseta did not take her eyes off the holographic planets as she said, “Bela, do you credit Leonodero would have had the courage to overthrow my father?”
Of all the times Ceriliseta had surprised Bela, this was the most unexpected. He could not recall a time she had ever spoken about her dead brother. He answered as best he could, “I doubt anyone would have had the fortitude you have had, miss.”
“I sometimes would gladly trade it all to him.” She stalled a moment in contemplation. Then she shook her head. Time for work. “Here's what we're going to do.”
Ceriliseta now swam quickly through the holographic cosmos, pointing at stars and explaining the plan. Bela did his best to keep up and take notes. “Before Risi was taken down, they were developing a new drive system for their ships. It required a special form of fuel that they had just acquired through Scole Corporation. Gerhelm doesn't sav how valuable this all is because they're barely guarding the planets where these are being kept. We're going to raid those systems just enough to destroy their defenses, and at the same time spread the word of these valuable assets that are just sitting there undefended. That will turn their attention from us to them.”
“Are you certain that would work?” Bela asked.
“There's one thing CEOs love more than revenge. Money,” she answered. “Meanwhile we'll reconnect our wormhole routes and set them up to strike wherever we want.” She stopped, floating in front of a small dot that represented the Kalida System, and an even tinier dot representing its planet
Cypran, and said, “Even you, Mommy dearest.”
Chapter
Four
The Menagerie
The flora and fauna had filled out to cover much of the greenhouse rooms in which they were grown. Over the course of three years, they had gone from seedlings in unused chambers to thick woods through which a passerby would have to carefully maneuver. Only the metal floor and ceiling reminded a person that they were inside a station floating kilometers above the surface of an inhospitable molten rock.
It had been an adjustment for Princess Rezia Nogotha Tarua Eudosic, Heiress to House Eudosic of the Gerhelm Barony. She had gotten used to the fresh air and warm colored auroras in the skies of Navarus. Though she had been sold into marriage as part of a trade deal in her youth, her life with her husband and daughter had been a good one. Her duties were minimal, even as a parent, and she had large tracts of land on which to appease her green thumb.
Aside from the occasional grumblings of her husband about his work, she did not have to deal with the politics or worry about staying on top and profitable. But she did listen, and after hearing the same names over and over, she had gained an understanding of who the major players were in the galaxy.
Her daughter and son had taken some of her time; usually when they got away from the nannies and educator bots to go to Rezia for attention. It was an amusing distraction, but luckily one that did not take too much of her time before someone came to pull the crying children away. They were both being groomed for positions of leadership, or to be used in trade deals as their mother had been; depending on the needs of the barony and the children's abilities.
Her son Leonodero's abilities lay in command and combat, and he was sent away as a teenager to learn how to lead their great warriors. Unfortunately, he learned to lead from the front, and he died in the next corporate conflict.
Ceriliseta had been blessed with beauty, and the golden hair she had inherited from her mother made her stand out among princesses. Her greatest asset was going to be in connecting with another barony through a relationship. As such, she would be leaving soon.
And so there was no point in Rezia becoming close with her children. She had more of a chance of having a solid relationship with members of the court than she did with either of her offspring.
Then Ceriliseta surprised everyone by taking over the barony, labeling it her empire, sending her father to prison, and banishing her mother. That's gratitude for you.
It had been a period of adjustment; a time of anger and deep resentment. It was not so much the rejection that hurt; her family was more outraged by this, revealed when they had killed the soldiers and pilot who had delivered Rezia. It was the wasted life of more than 20 years. She had played the role of the passive royal wife attending to her social duties and keeping quiet about her opinions and her points of view. Even when she heard all the bad ideas coming out of Galek’s mouth when he spoke about his political dealings, she let him walk into his own steel walls, or she had manipulated him into the right direction with her words, always giving him the impression that it had been his idea. And despite being the source of many great decisions for the Navarus barony, Rezia stepped aside and let her husband bathe in the credit.
She had spent days wandering the balconies outside the floating city of Arod Upon Cypran, glaring over the pale yellow gasses upon which the kilometers-long station seemed to drift. It was a putrid sight and a nagging sulfuric smell, one that did not follow her inside; but Rezia was punishing herself by facing it. Though her family had come from a different system altogether, they had made this planet their capitol because of the grand increase in mining profits.
Learning about her hobby while on Navarus, her brother had ordered several unused chambers to be transformed into botanical rooms, complete with the necessary environmental controls and shelves of soil.
Inspired by the olfactory nature of their various home planets and wanting to fight back the residual stink from outside, Rezia determined to organize the plants by their smells. Walking through the area, one might not be met by matching colors or an orderly assortment of vines and flowers; but their nostrils would take a journey of delicious sensations, fading from one recipe of smells to the next. Rezia trimmed the plants regularly to keep the sensations from becoming too overwhelming, though many of those odors clung to her.
The care for these gardens gave Rezia a renewed confidence to face the world, and she did so with their help. Since the smell of the plants were clinging to her, she chose those with the more pleasant aroma to turn into perfumes. With botanical choices from a wide swath of planets, she was able to find many with nearly hypnotic properties. Her popularity grew among the executive royalty, and she began hosting parties.
With the popularity of ancient artifacts on the rise, and since Rezia had taken many of her husband's relics with her when she was banished, these parties became auctions, and soon they were the most sought after tickets in the known galaxy. The latest one, however, had ended in chaos when Navarus invaders landed and attacked the palace where the proceedings were being held. Civilians from many different factions were killed. It had sparked a war with the majority of corporate baronies either attacking Navarus, or sanctioning them. Gerhelm had taken the high road, allowing others to fight for them.
In her private time, Rezia retreated into her gardens, disappearing behind the curtains of vines and leaves. This was where Daragor found her. He was the brother who had had this wing built, and he knew how much it meant to her.
“Greetings and salutations, dear Daragor!” Rezia almost sang in their family's native tongue as she fluttered among the greenery, spraying the correct amount of water on each plant, which she had memorized. The family language had passed down as a combination of several languages from Earth in an area that had been called Eastern Europe.
Daragor looked over the plants as he followed his sister. “I see your project is doing well,” he said, also using their native words.
“Robare has some gristle in it, and Marten is struggling to keep up its leaves. But Mariana is…”
“You’ve named the plants now.”
“Oh, they’ve had names since they were seedlings. It encourages me to be all the more vigilant.”
“Did you have to give them human names?”
“What names would you have me use?” Rezia was not stopping to chat; she maneuvered through the maze of greenery.
“Scientific? Their plant names? Person names makes it confusing.”
“They are the discarded names I never got to use for my children,” she said, pausing for a moment before continuing again.
Daragor knew he should say he was sorry; if not for his bluntness than for her inability to have more than two children, one of whom died bravely, the other of whom stabbed her in the back. Instead, after a short time of silence, he asked which one was Ceriliseta. Rezia unraveled a long vine and held it out to Daragor. The smell was rank, and he recoiled in surrender. She smiled and moved on.
They came to another plant. “This one here is Malachi. He would be 19 now… had he not come out early as a premature mess. Had I not drunk him into that state and then ruined my womb.”
“You can be glad you didn’t leave Navarus with any more heirs to turn on you.”
“Yes,” Rezia said, stopping.
“More heirs to attack your auctions.”
“Yes.”
“Or one to even do it in the first place.”
Rezia now looked at Daragor quizzically. He did not have such an expression; his was of certainty. “I saw the analysis of the enemy attack craft wreckage… What little I could get access to. Funny how much of that became classified, even from family members…”
Relic Worlds - Lancaster James & the Salient Seed of the Galaxy, Part 1 Page 3