Unconquerable Sun

by Elliott, Kate

  “She was the other KIA,” said Sun, noting the harpoon gun the woman carried using her two lower arms. “She had no pulse, so the medic said.”

  “Anyone can be mistaken. Cadets more so.”

  As the last four Phene soldiers backed up the ramp, the older woman surveyed the clearing and trees. She lifted a hand in the time-honored gesture known throughout beacon-linked space: Fuck you.

  As the ramp began to close she turned her back to the meadow. Within the frame of the helmet, open to both front and back, another face came into view on what should have been the back of her hairless head. This face was distinct in its differing features: wider-set eyes, a flattened nose, a thinner mouth, as if the features hadn’t quite filled out into a full human face. Intelligence dwelled there, piercing in its intensity and yet remote. Unreachable by ordinary people. Unfathomable in its capacity.

  “Rider.” Isis spoke the word, then hissed softly.

  The Rider studied the clearing, the scorched snake grass, the dense leaves of the bush behind which Isis and her forward group crouched. She raised a pistol with an upper hand and, using an arm backward, shot Wing.

  “Fucker!” whispered Isis.

  Sun slapped a hand onto Isis’s shoulder to keep her from leaping up as Wing’s body crashed through the branches and hit the ground.

  The Rider did not smile. Riders felt no joy, no pain, no anger, no fear, no love, so the sages said. Emotions belonged to their host, while they were merely a malign intelligence hopping a ride.

  But Sun wondered as the ramp clanged shut. As thrusters boosted the gunship up. As snake grass curled into ashy heaps beneath the heat and pressure of its lift. The Phene were also the children of the Celestial Empire. All populations had come in the Argosy fleets powered by knnu drive across the great ocean to a new home. That their descendants didn’t all look exactly the same didn’t mean they were different at root.

  The third gunship raced past overhead, now ignoring its trailing flock of gulls. It had succeeded at its task: keeping the gulls distracted from the fourth ship.

  Isis said, “I left a cohort of cadets on guard at the downed ship but pulled them out of the ship and back to a safe perimeter because in my experience—”

  A series of shocks shivered through air and ground alike, coming from the direction of the downed ship.

  “For that reason,” said Isis as the noise of the blasts faded, “the Phene destroy equipment rather than leave it behind. But I couldn’t identify where they’d placed the explosives.”

  “Dammit. They’ll have rigged the lab to blow too, won’t they?”

  “Almost certainly, to erase all trace of the raid and any research they weren’t able to grab.”

  Sun flipped the autopilot controls on the Foxes and sent them ripping through the shrubbery and into the meadow. The vehicles tracked back and forth across the ground between the elevator shaft and the flattened ground left by the gunship. She had to make sure the Phene hadn’t dropped deadly puffer fish antipersonnel charges on the ground, but it seemed they’d been moving too fast to make the effort.

  A flutter disturbed the ground at the edge of the meadow. A flash of a small animal moving. Wing was still alive.

  Isis looked at Sun for permission.

  “Go.”

  Overhead the gulls dropped away as the other surviving gunship pitched steeply heavenward in the wake of the ship carrying the Rider and the lifepods.

  Engines roared, approaching their position. Alika pinged HERE just as the bulky shapes of Wolverines and a Bear loomed up within the shadow of the trees.

  He hopped down from the lead vehicle and ran over to her.

  “Have that Bear do one more crossing through the clearing to make sure they didn’t drop any mines,” Sun said.

  He waved the Bear forward. Everyone backed a safe distance away.

  “I don’t get it.” Alika studied the silvery shapes receding into the hard blue sky. “Gunships are too small to house the energy load for a beacon drive. So how are they intending to get out of the system?”

  “They have a beacon drive on board.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Not impossible if they’ve done it. Good tactics too. I’d guess they disguised themselves as in-system merchant freighters so they could attach to a Remora transit barge. Then when the Remora cleared the Chaonia beacon, traffic control wouldn’t have thought anything of them detaching alongside other small freighters. We can figure out where they came from by tracking which beacon they used to enter Chaonia System. James? James?”

  James didn’t answer on her ring network, nor did his location show. Persephone had dropped off too. But Zizou was exactly where she hoped he would be.

  “Hetty?” she said.

  HERE

  “Get the academy shuttle running. We’re chasing the Phene.”

  ROGER. QUICK REACTION FORCE INCOMING.

  It was odd Hetty wasn’t talking to her by comm when it was unlikely she was in a situation where she couldn’t speak out loud, but Sun kept her focus on what lay directly ahead of her.

  Isis trotted back over. Wing was cradled in her arm, blood spattered along its right side but demonstrably alive and making clicks of distress. “That hells-cursed Rider only clipped her wing. Damned if I don’t wonder if she left her alive on purpose.”

  “Like a taunt?” Alika asked.

  Isis said, “More like a warning. She could have killed it.”

  “Or she missed,” said Sun.

  “Riders don’t miss, Your Highness.”

  Alika whistled with a jolt of surprise. “There was a Rider here? Why would they risk a Rider on an operation like this?”

  The shaft doors slid closed.

  Sun whistled everyone to alert. “All weapons trained on the elevator. Use the trees for cover. Shoot at my command.”

  A clunk sounded from the shaft. The doors opened onto a freight space that Sun’s network measured as five by five meters. Every weapon focused on the interior where, under the glare of an overhead, a short person stood blindfolded and with her hands tied behind her back. Persephone’s pomegranate icon popped back into view.

  “What in the hells are you doing in there?” Sun called.

  “Your royal father doesn’t trust me, Princess.” Persephone’s voice was rough, like she’d been coughing. “Sent me up first as a fail-safe. He said to tell you Lady Chaos will not be calmed by false words.”

  It took Sun a few more breaths for her racing heart to settle so she could reply. “All right. What’s the routine? There’s always a routine with him.”

  “What the fuck did he shoot me with? I’m going to be sick.” Persephone Lee stumbled out of the elevator, veered to one side, dropped to her knees, and vomited.

  With a prim grimace of disgust, Alika covered his nose, but Sun strode across the crushed snake grass.

  Persephone flinched when Sun set a hand on her shoulder. “Fuck. Don’t come up on me like that.”

  “Thoughtful of you to vomit off the main path so we don’t have to step in it.” Sun undid the blindfold. “What are the instructions?”

  Persephone staggered to her feet. “He said you’d know what to say. There’s a comms unit that bypasses the lab’s shielding.”

  Sun scanned the interior for signs of a heat trap or puffer fish mine, but there was nothing. The comms unit had a keypad and a simple on/off voice switch. Flipping it on, she said, “Lady Chaos gave her child the Tablet of Destinies and fastened it to their breast.”

  A voice replied. “Sun?”

  She swallowed several unseemly remarks and a sob of relief, and managed a calm tone. “Yes, it’s me, Father.”

  “We’re coming up.”

  She scrambled out. The doors shut, forcing her to wait as she impatiently tapped her foot.

  “Your Highness, you should move back in case it’s an ambush,” called Isis. “You can’t trust Lee House.”

  Sun glanced at vomit-stained Persephone. The Lee girl had
braced herself against the side of the shaft, breathing raggedly. “It’s not an ambush, Isis. I stake my life on it.”

  “It’s still awfully convenient Perseus’s twin came into your orbit right after his death.” Isis stroked Wing’s head as she gave Persephone an up-and-down measure finished off with a shake of the head.

  “After his murder? Do you think Lee House killed their own son? I’m not so sure.”

  “Lee House had access to this lab. The banner soldier’s appearance at the wedding banquet is evidence of that. Prudence dictates a more cautious stance in regard to this elevator and the testimony of Persephone Lee.”

  Sun gave her a look. “Maybe prudence does dictate that, but I’m not prudence.”

  The elevator clicked into place. Sun tidied her rumpled clothing as best she could, squared her shoulders, lifted her chin.

  The doors opened. James emerged, holding his cap in front of him. The fabric was weighted with two small devices.

  “The Phene left these to blow up the lab. They didn’t expect our group to come in so fast. Points to us.” He grinned.

  A haggard-looking Colonel Evans herded out a squad of cadets, four being carried on improvised stretchers. The cadets seemed to trust the colonel even though she was Gatoi.

  Last of all the prince appeared, flamboyant in his usual dress, decisive as he strode out into the sunlight, smothering in the way he studied her to make sure she was unharmed.

  “Sun, why is this Lee girl among your Companions? Moira Lee sent in her thugs to take over the lab. They disrupted our work and murdered six of my soldiers. That Lee bitch would have killed me if she’d been able to find the entrance to the under-level.”

  “Ikenna was right about there being an under-level,” muttered Persephone, earning herself a scorching glance from Prince João. She winced and glanced toward his left hand, but he’d holstered his weapon.

  “Hand the Lee girl over to me, Sun. You can’t keep her beside you.”

  “Persephone is mine now. It’s for me to judge her fitness to be one of my Companions. With all respect.”

  “Lee House betrayed the lab to the Phene,” he said furiously.

  “If Lee House was working with the Phene there’d have been no need for a raid that would throw the entire republic into alert. They’d just have smuggled them out.”

  “Then what was the point of Moira Lee taking over the lab in secret?”

  “To discredit you by suggesting you’re a traitor trying to train banner soldiers to take over Chaonia. That would discredit me, and it would leave the path open for Manea’s child to become queen-marshal after Eirene.”

  “Ah, I see what you’re saying. A simple power play.” He often annoyed her, and when he grasped hold of a grudge he never wanted to let it go. But he understood the deadly currents of court intrigue better than anyone. “Hmm. Well, then, we’ll revisit the issue of Lee House later. Getting back the lifepods and the consoles must be our primary goal.”

  As always, the fraught reunion with her father had left her with a sense that she hadn’t managed to greet him with the correct etiquette, as if etiquette mattered in the middle of a hells-cursed battle with the hostiles getting away. But it would, to him. He wanted her obedience, and he was right about the lifepods and the consoles, but it would be disrespectful to tell him his concerns had all occurred to her already.

  Fortunately, a ping from Hetty popped up in her network just as the chutter of a Hummingbird caught at the edge of her hearing.

  INCOMING. THEY WANT A FLARE AT YOUR LOCATION.

  Sun strode over to one of the stretchers and set a hand on the brow of a cadet with staring, empty eyes. “Alika, record this.”

  As the focus of all their gazes she seemed to grow in stature, to fill more space, to shine with a greater light.

  “I am Sun, daughter of Eirene, the queen-marshal of the republic, as you are sworn to serve. We have just witnessed a craven attack by Phene raiders on a peaceful town. Who among us would stand aside and allow the Phene invaders to shoot down our brave pilots and trample our buildings and lands? Not the cadets of CeDCA. The cadets did not hide in the shelters. They took the attack to the Phene and pursued the raiders, even at the cost of their lives.”

  She stepped to one side to give Alika a better angle on the dead youth’s slack face and the academy badge prominently displayed on the bloody uniform. Alika scanned the other wounded cadets and the ranks of the ragged squadrons who had gathered in the clearing now that the fighting was over.

  “Two Phene ships these brave recruits took down. Two remain at large. The Phene have stolen what belongs to us: territory, people, knowledge. We won’t let them brag of how they slapped us in the face and escaped unharmed. We won’t rest until we get back what is rightfully ours. Because we honor Chaonia and our ancestors. I make an oath on the sacrifice made by these noble cadets that their deaths will be avenged. Who is with me? Who is with me?”

  With a shout, the cadets called out her name, eager now that they had survived the shocking assault. Determined to get payback and to prove themselves.

  She nodded at Alika, and Alika nodded back at her.

  As the sound of the incoming Hummingbird grew louder it became clear there were at least three vessels about to arrive, filled with senior officers who would do nothing but get in Sun’s way.

  “Isis, assign someone to track down Candace. She’s out there dead or wounded. And immediately retrieve the pilot who parachuted out, the one whose gull hit the Phene ship in the plaza. Perse, were the sacks of pepper your idea?”

  “No, it was Solomon’s idea.”

  “Bring him.” She tapped through her ring. “Hetty, get every gull pilot who survived onto the shuttle.”

  She beckoned to a squad of cadets. “Send up a location flare. Lead the QRF to the other entrance. Father, it’s best if they don’t find you here. Come with me.”

  She clambered up on one of the Wolverines and took control of the steering stick. Prince João leaped up beside her, holding on to the railing as the Wolverines rumbled into gear and headed into the forest.

  “Where are we going?” he demanded, voice pitched to carry above the engine’s grind.

  “You’ll run interference with the queen-marshal while I and my Companions take the academy’s shuttle into orbit and commandeer the Boukephalas.”

  He was watching her with that irritating look that mixed pride and admonishment. “Sun, the enemy certainly has a plan to shield themselves from pursuit. And they have a head start. How do you intend to follow them?”

  “I’m way out ahead of the race. I baited a hook. I’m already tracking them.”

  31

  Everything Gets Torn Away

  To Zizou, the sky is disorienting. Its blue color seems painted on even though he knows blue waves of visual light are shorter and thus get scattered more. Everything seems to scatter planet-side: wind, moisture, light, sound.

  But he likes the trees because their trunks are stationary. Like bulkheads, they provide a measure of order and dimension. Branches and leaves cut the sun’s glare from reaching the ground in full force, leaving dappling and streaks of light.

  He runs through the forest for exactly ten minutes and stops, stock-still, beneath the branches of a tree his network takes three minutes to identify as a deodar cedar. Its rich scent reminds him of the wood used in the temple of Lady Chaos.

  The spin of an engine catches his ear, building in volume. One of the invading ships appears over the treetops, skimming so low it clips off the top of a tree. He’s shocked when the ship halts overhead, hovering above the trees. A hatch opens. A small chariot, an oblong base with railings for sides, lowers out on its hover base. It drops straight down, snapping branches with abandon as it descends. He jumps back to avoid getting hit by debris.

  The chariot spins a half circle, and its driver maneuvers dexterously through the trees right to him. Every banner soldier hired to the Phene is chipped in the hope that at the very least something
of them can be returned to their home wheelship if they die. Only now does it occur to him how much the chip benefits the Phene officers. No banner soldier would run from a fight; that would be dishonorable. But if one did, the Phene could track that person down and collect them. As they have just done to him.

  He closes his right hand over his left, hiding the ring the Royal gave him. He can’t hide from the Phene. Princess Sun must have known. Yet she left the ring with him.

  A Phene officer stands braced on the chariot, flanked by two soldiers sweeping for enemy combatants. The only things moving in the forest are the wind in the trees and a wasp that’s been shadowing him since he left the others. It’s buzzing down by his ankle, half-concealed by his leg.

  The chariot halts a body’s length from him. The officer holds a wand, a sigil of rank. The pulse of light within the wand’s length echoes in the neural threads woven into Zizou’s body.

  “Soldier, state your rank, your banner, and your purpose here.”

  “Recruit. Wrathful Snakes Banner. I was captured by Chaonians and brought to a laboratory where they are carrying out experiments.”

  “What happened to your uniform?”

  “They took our uniforms.” That’s true enough.

  “How did you get out here if you were captured?”

  He considers his options, measures the words he’s said and what would be unexceptional for him to know. “I escaped when there was a power drain. I ran.”

  He’s wagering they’ve not seen any footage from the wedding banquet. Princess Sun and Persephone Lee said it was being censored.

  The officer frowns.

  “Long way to run that fast that far, if the power drain came at the initial attack,” remarks one of the soldiers.

  “Not for the likes of his kind,” says the other soldier. “They’re beasts. You know what they say about them. Heh.”

  “None of that,” says the officer sharply to the soldier before turning to face Zizou. She holsters the wand at her belt. “We’re going to put you in restraints, just as a precaution. You understand.”