“James? Any response from your brother?”
“Waiting.” He’d crumpled up his cap into his right hand, working his fingers against the fabric like it could squeeze out a faster reply, although there was no guarantee Anas had survived the initial attack.
“Comms, hail anyone in the group retreating toward Yǎnshī, all channels.”
A ping landed, routed by James onto Sun’s ring network.
“Captain the Honorable Anas Samtarras of the Melandria. James, are you on the Boukephalas? Is Chaonia on alert? We need reinforcements.”
“Anas, this is Sun on the Boukephalas.” She continued to track the unfolding battle as they waited for his reply.
“Sun?” The Honorable Anas’s tone had something of the flavor of a person discovering the promised feast is really a broom given to them so they can sweep up after others. James winced. “Captain Tan of the Boukephalas, are you there?”
Tan looked toward Sun, said nothing.
Sun smiled, reverting to formal procedure because she knew it would annoy Anas. “Melandria, this is Boukephalas. What is your situation, and how many ships do you have?”
As they waited she checked on the status of Commander Baber. The ships he’d gathered were beginning to move away from the shattered NCOSP and toward them.
The pause stretched for longer than needed to accommodate distance delay.
“Melandria?” Sun repeated. “Time is of the essence. What is your situation?”
Something clunked in the audio background.
“He’s thrown something, like he does when he gets pissy,” remarked James.
When Anas Samtarras replied, his voice had a thorny prickle to it. “The munitions depot and a number of neighboring shipyards have been hit by a Phene attack of at least 438 ships. Raven Marshal Radomir is confirmed KIA together with the on-duty command staff. The Phene admiral detached about 100 ships to strike targets of opportunity among the shipyards. The rest of the fleet has slingshotted around Èrlǐgǎng and are headed on a trajectory that suggests they are aiming to strike COSY. Senior Captain Black of the Rakhsh is gathering up survivors at the depot and the shipyards. By most recent comm she has 109 viable ships. I have command of 137 ships. We are engaged in a fighting retreat trying to lay down an obstacle between the Phene and Yǎnshī. They have no heavy frigates, no heavily armored ships except ten dreadnoughts, so they’re having trouble breaking through my formation.”
“Very good. In the absence of Bahram and Radomir, I’m in command. When I give the order, I want you and your ships to break formation and retreat in disorder toward Yǎnshī and the Troia beacon.”
“We’re perfectly capable of holding our ground.”
“Of course you are. A feigned retreat. You know what purpose it serves. I’ll signal you when I want you to break the feint. Do you understand?”
A hefty sigh burred into static. “I execute a feigned disorderly retreat toward Yǎnshī. When you give the order, I reverse and attack.”
“Very good, Captain. Await my order.”
Hetty pinged her a hailing frequency to Angharad Black, having anticipated her needs the instant Senior Captain Black’s name was flagged.
“Angharad, what a day to meet! This is Sun. What’s your situation?”
While waiting for the reply she surveyed the grid for other surviving Chaonian ships. “Captain Tan, what happened to the Phene light cruiser that was trying to take on the gunship?”
“Confirmed hits by our javelins. We’ve stripped their shields. It’s returning fire. We have counter shields up. We’ll cripple them with a volley from the forward batteries.”
“Keep tracking the gunship.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
An ensign brought her something to eat. She watched the captain finish the engagement with the light cruiser, a smaller and lighter ship outmatched by the Boukephalas.
“Hail from the Rakhsh,” said the comms officer.
A brassy voice boomed through the comm. “Fuck this shit, Sun. Those fucking Phene came in like fucking locusts and just bombed the fuck out of us.”
“Fewer fucks, more info.” But Sun’s lips quirked up. A swearing Angharad was an Angharad who still had her wits about her, the best tactician and toughest fighter Sun knew besides her mother. “The Phene just conducted a small-scale raid on Chaonia with four gunships outfitted with beacon drives and carrying a Rider. The surviving gunship from that raid is in Molossia System now—”
“Engines of the light cruiser now disabled,” said the captain to his bridge crew. “Hit their weapons systems, and leave it behind.”
Sun nodded to acknowledge the action and went back to Angharad. “We must stop the hostiles from dropping through the Troia beacon. Anas is using a feigned retreat to draw the Phene after him. I’m pulling in as many ships as can fight to form up with me. We will harass the rear of the Phene fleet with hit-and-fade attacks. They’re a raiding fleet, mostly lightly armored ships. So I need you to make directly for Yǎnshī on a trajectory that avoids the Phene but which will get you there before they do. Burn as hot as you can.”
While waiting for Angharad’s answer Sun tracked the trajectory of the battle.
The NCOS in orbit around Pánlóngchéng had vented fully, the first victim of the bold assault. Commander Baber’s ships collected from that region headed for the meet point she’d indicated.
Repair and rescue boats were lifting from the surface of Èrlǐgǎng en route to the orbital shipyards. Wreckage from the munitions depot drifted past mute sensors untouched by the attack. A breached lifeboat winked red as it began to fall into the planet’s gravity.
Angharad’s ragtag fleet accelerated at hard burn for Yǎnshī, while the ships under the command of Anas Samtarras had broken into a disorderly retreat in front of the advancing Phene fleet.
Closer at hand, the light cruiser drifted, its engines drafted. It fired one last volley in a final act of defiance, which the Boukephalas’s active defense systems easily swatted out of the heavens. Then it fell behind them, its heat fading as internal systems failed and shut down.
The Phene gunship was still closing with the light cruiser, but the gunship would soon realize it was stranded and outmaneuvered. Its commander would have to make a decision about which way to run. Their options were limited.
At some point a medical officer cycled back through, handing out more stimulants as the hours flashed past and the minutes dragged on.
Hetty updated the list of available ships and weaponry as stragglers sent in hopeful messages, waiting for orders in the increasingly chaotic situation. Senior Captain Tan capably fielded all the queries Sun didn’t need to hear.
The Chaonia beacon, now far behind them, flashed. One by one a quick reaction force of seven fast frigates, two courier ships, and a single heavy cruiser slid in-system from Chaonia. Comms lit up as the beacon’s control node sent out its distress call to the new arrivals. One of the fast courier ships pitched on its axis after it took on the most current information and made ready to drop back to Chaonia to deliver the news to the queen-marshal and her military.
“This will not go unanswered,” said Sun, looking at Alika.
He was recording everything, creating a narrative, making sure she got the credit she deserved for being the first to understand the scope of the enemy’s audacious offensive. Together they’d make sure no one in the republic would ever listen to Moira Lee’s slurs about her and her father’s ancestry ever again.
If they survived this battle.
34
The Wily Persephone’s Face Is Going to Burn Off— In Fact, It Would Be Better If It Did
“No,” says Tiana. “You absolutely will not return to Lee House wearing blood- and smoke-stained clothing that makes you look like you just came off shift from a black market slaughterhouse in Camp Nine on Tjeker.”
We’re on the royal aircar, hiding in a lavatory with our duffels. How Tiana has managed to keep the duffels with her this entire time I don
’t know, but it’s an impressive display of efficiency under fire.
“I want them to see what the cadets at CeDCA sacrificed.” I keep flashing on the train cars ripped off the tracks, the smoking wing, the shattered gull. It’s somebody’s fault, and I want them to pay.
“Solomon can represent the heroism of the citizen cadets in his blood- and dirt-stained uniform.” She touches her elbow to my arm like a nudge of conscience. “He’s a better representative of CeDCA anyway, don’t you think, Your Honorableness?”
“Ouch. That stung.”
“I’m not lying.”
Clothing appropriate to a scion of Lee House sits neatly folded on top of my duffel, a skin I have to put on. “I liked being Persephone Lǐ.”
“But you never really were her, were you?”
I glance around the lavatory with its tunable wall, a cushioned bench, side-by-side sinks, a shower stall, and a partitioned-off toilet. The tiny chamber isn’t visually fancy or loaded with extravagant extras, but no one would mistake it for anything but what it is. It’s astounding to think we are flying on the royal aircar with the queen-marshal herself. Or it would be, if I had actually started life as a dirt-poor orphan in possession of nothing but her bundle of grit.
“Anyway,” Ti goes on, “if you show up looking like that, Vogue Academy will strip me of my license.”
She tunes the wall to mirror mode. Even in the workaday clothing we borrowed from Solomon’s family she stands tall and elegant, having given the bland khaki trousers and loose work tunic a stylish look with a midnight-blue silk scarf wrapped as a cummerbund around her waist, and a second scarf, in a contrasting lighter shade of heaven blue, tied as a tignon over her hair. Practical and yet striking. Beside her, I look short, rumpled, and dull.
She shakes out the military trousers and long jacket and runs a de-wrinkler over them as I strip and shower. It takes her far more time to get me dressed properly and my hair into a topknot than it does for her to change into a simple floor-length tunic, slit up each side and worn over silk trousers, and touch up her makeup.
I stare at my face. It’s a good face, with a good bone structure. I wonder if I like it because it reminds me so much of my dead sister.
“Do you think I’m a clone?” I ask in a low voice.
“A clone?” She pauses, hands in her hair where she’s fastening three silk flowers in a curved vertical line placed to emphasize the pleasing shape of her face. “Oh, that’s right. Princess Sun said so, didn’t she? She didn’t like you at first. She has the personality to say such a thing just to get you riled.”
“She didn’t know me, and didn’t expect me to be assigned to her like that, much less when she is still mourning Percy. But why that accusation? It’s so random. She meant it, Ti. I have to wonder, how much did my family keep from me when I was growing up?”
“You do look a lot like the eight-times-worthy Ereshkigal Lee. Maybe like the Honorable Manea too, though she’s taller and heavier, so it’s harder to tell since the only images released of her have been in full wedding garb with her face painted with bridal flowers. What if you are a clone?”
“Clones are illegal in the Republic of Chaonia. That would make me illegal.”
“Then your cousin Manea would be illegal too. That being the case, Sun’s accusation isn’t going to fly with the queen-marshal. It would look as if Sun is doing to Manea what Lee House did to her: challenging her legitimacy.”
“The clone issue is yet another question that needs an answer. And I have a lot of questions. Who suborned Solomon to spy on me, and why did they bother? Was Perseus’s death an accident, or was it murder? If murder, who did it and why, and were Percy and Duke the targets?”
“Perse, slow down. Take a deep breath.”
I go on breathlessly, too well launched to stop now. Because as urgent as these questions are, I keep looping back to Zizou, programmed to attack me even though he doesn’t want to. “Where was Prince João getting those Gatoi prisoners from? Everyone knows banner soldiers would rather die than be taken prisoner. Whether it’s compulsion or honor it still means they die. So who was supplying him with experimental subjects? And how did Lee House find out about the lab? And why take it over like that? No, wait, that one’s easy. Factional infighting to discredit Prince João so Manea’s child can get the fast track to the heirship.”
She rests a hand on my forearm. Her fingers are warm. “I call that pretty ruthless factional infighting. People were killed. That’s even before the Phene raided.”
“Of course it’s ruthless. Didn’t you study Chaonia’s history? Or do they censor that part in citizen schools in favor of our glorious heritage? But even so, even so, that still leaves the biggest question of all.”
The hum of the engine changes key as we begin our descent. I nervously reach back to tug on the complicated topknot, but she slaps my hand away before I can do any lasting damage. She gives herself a last once-over in the mirror before she tunes it back to its opaque setting.
Then she turns to face me. “What’s the biggest question?”
“Who betrayed the lab’s existence to the Phene? And why?”
“Hey.” Solomon raps on the closed door. “We’re about to land.”
I rest a hand on her forearm. She meets my gaze with a calm assurance I envy.
“Whatever is going on, there’s a good chance I’ll end up in combat again,” I say to her. “You can terminate your contract, no hard feelings.”
“I get combat pay, remember?”
“You don’t get combat pay when you’re dead.”
“My family gets my combat pay and a death bonus if I die.”
“Are things that desperate for your family?” I realize I don’t really know her and can’t fathom what drives her.
She examines her left hand, as if expecting to see an answer there, then says pensively, “Yes, things are. I’ll tell you sometime. Are we going?”
When I unseal the door Solomon gives me a startled look that shifts to a gape-mouthed stare of utter bedazzlement as he takes in Tiana.
She offers him a heavenly smile. “Might I ask you to be so kind as to carry the two duffels?”
“Uh. Sure.”
“Shut your trap or catch wasps, squarehead,” I say.
He closes his mouth.
Every head turns as we reenter the main cabin. I pretend not to notice as I seat myself and strap in. They’re not looking at me, of course. I’m just a disobedient child being dragged home in disgrace. Their distraction gives me a chance to study Eirene’s Companions and their cee-cees and her staff without their noticing. Three of her Companions are seated in the main cabin to guard her physical person and because she likes their company. People want things from the ruler, and her Companions have always had the most precious commodity: access. That’s why she trusts them more than anyone else, more even than any of her four consorts.
Sun has offered me that trust.
Sun, who raced away in pursuit of the Phene raiders. Who might be anywhere by now, dead or alive, broken or triumphant. Yet I cannot imagine her broken. My mind can’t shape that image or that outcome.
The Companion nearest me is a familiar face, the Honorable Marduk Lee, a cousin down a branch line of Lee House. He leans toward me and murmurs, “Where did you find her?”
“Vogue Academy.” I fix him with my steeliest glare, which makes a man of his age and experience raise his eyebrows with amusement. “Isn’t your cee-cee a graduate of Vogue Academy, Elder Brother?”
“My cee-cee is a military asset,” he says congenially, indicating a person about his age who is dozing, mouth slightly open. They’re both wearing flight suits without any badge. Companions don’t need badges, though I can’t help but notice that none of them wear the rings Sun gives to her own people.
His gaze slides back to Tiana. She has folded her hands in her lap and is gazing into the middle distance with the serenity of an awakened one whose presence lights the path for the stumbling masses.
<
br /> Then he adds, “So you’re Moira’s other child?”
The question startles me since, as far as I was ever told, my aunt Moira has only the one daughter, Manea. “I’m Perseus’s twin.”
He pats my forearm without really getting into my personal space. “Ah. Of course you are. That’s right. It happened too suddenly.”
I realize I haven’t thought about Perseus since first getting hit with the news. My brother’s passing slotted him into the fog of old memories, when we were children hanging over the railing of a moon bridge to watch the bright koi swim past below. Out of sight into the water of eternity.
The old knot of shame tightens. Did I do enough to protect him, as Resh told me I must before she shipped out to the fleet? Mother always went on and on about how Percy was the weak one. Now I wonder if that’s why he was sent to Sun, because it was Mother’s way of discarding something unwanted while intending it as an insult to the heir she disliked. Sun cultivated his good qualities and helped him thrive. She did better than I did. She took care of her own.
With a burst of thrust the aircar pulls up and we land. The ramp peels down. Everyone gets up to disembark with the haste of people who have tasks to accomplish in short order. I gesture at Ti and Solomon to stay seated, thinking we’ll be conveyed separately to Lee House.
Marduk pauses at the ramp and beckons. “We’re all getting off here.”
He doesn’t wait for my response. The queen-marshal’s Companions have better things to do than to usher around hapless honorables who have set foot in the royal palace only twice in their very short lives. Once when Perseus and I turned eleven and he was presented to the heir to become her Companion, and a second time when the entire population of Lee House stood in our white mourning ranks as Channel Idol broadcast the state funeral for Resh.
The palace’s architecture is a mystery to me so I hustle after the queen-marshal’s entourage. We cross through a garden lush with manicured beds of black peonies, scarlet poppies, and gold chrysanthemums. The entrance into the queen-marshal’s inner courtyard is a gate made of two facing tulpars whose wings curve over their heads to form an arch.
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