Unconquerable Sun

by Elliott, Kate

  The gangway dropped them into a passage that overlooked the central cavern of a Remora freighter. The courier was nestled among in-system merchant freighters bearing the various external markers of member systems of the Yele League: Takshashila, Al-Quaraouiyine, Gondishapur, Padua. No non-Yele ships were present. That was unusual because Remoras needed full bellies to clear a profit, and half the slips were vacated. Even more unusual was the complete lack of people in the passage or visible anywhere in the vast hold.

  By the time Baron Voy showed them into a cabin, she’d remembered who he was, which only deepened the mystery. The cabin had a pragmatic Yele look, fitted with a conference table and a sideboard folded down from the wall laden with platters of food. An open hatch offered a view into a spacious berthing with a double-wide rack, a desk, and a cushioned seating nook. A young Yele man wearing the robes of a religious order stood discreetly to one side.

  Apama remained standing beside the Incorruptibles as the Rider, the baron, and the admiral sat. The young man poured coffee, set out a tray of biscuits and samosas, and stepped back. Briefly he covered his nose with a sleeve. His eyes flickered to Apama, and he colored. She offered him a wry smile, hoping he would understand she knew they all had a ripe smell, but he flushed more deeply and fixed his gaze to the bland gray floor.

  The Rider seated himself on an armless stool and turned to address Baron Voy with his riding face. If this disconcerted the baron, he gave no sign. His poise had an admirable polish.

  “I remained behind at great risk to myself in order to rescue one of my Rider colleagues after her ship was disabled. She arranged the matter, she vouched for your trustworthiness, and our associates promised they would deliver her safely to me. Now my colleague has fallen silent. What has happened?”

  “I have unfortunate news, Your Eminence. Your colleague has been captured by Princess Sun.”

  “That’s not possible.”

  Manu picked up his cup and held it like an orator’s baton that gave him the floor. “I know it scarcely seems possible that Choki’s Molossia campaign fell apart when numbers and surprise should have given it a crushing advantage. And yet it did. Because of Princess Sun.”

  “The attack did a great deal of damage,” said the baron. “It will take Chaonia years to rebuild. In that way it was a success.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” replied Manu with a drawl that veered into mockery before he snapped to a brisk, angry tone. “The Chaonians should have been utterly routed and demoralized in Molossia System. Instead, even with all the damage their fleet and emplacements took, they came away with a stunning victory. I spent many of the long hours in the last five days trying to reconstruct how Princess Sun used the splintered Chaonian fleet to create an opening for herself. I must say, I am impressed by her speed, relentlessness, and audacity.” He sipped at the coffee, lowered the cup to stare at the liquid in surprise, and added, “This is quite good.”

  “Sun Shān is a child,” said the Rider. “Barely twenty.”

  “Don’t underestimate her, Your Eminence,” said the baron. “The Yele League underestimated Eirene, back in the day, when her brother died and she became queen-marshal at a mere twenty-four years of age with every strike against her. Sun is Eirene’s heir. It remains to be seen if she has Eirene’s gifts.”

  “I was assured Sun Shān would be eliminated,” said the Rider.

  Baron Voy rocked back in surprise. “Were those attempts arranged by the Phene?”

  “By our associates.”

  “Who are…?” the baron asked.

  “Fishing for information so you can run it back to Eirene?” Manu shook a cream biscuit in the baron’s direction. “That won’t wash with me, Aloysius.”

  “Do you know?” the baron asked Manu. “Were you a part of the assassination plot?”

  “I thought you knew everything. So your speeches have always suggested.” Manu took a bite of the biscuit and took his time relishing its consistency and flavor.

  “This bickering does not amuse us,” said the Rider. “Our associates arranged the attempts on the life of Sun Shān via their own channels in order to upset any smooth transfer of power should Queen-Marshal Eirene meet the same fate in battle as her older brothers did. But the threefold promises of these associates have all proved barren. In this circumstance most of all. Why are you here, Baron? What do you offer me? Or do you mean to capture me and turn me over to Eirene Shān?”

  “Yes,” interposed Manu, “what’s with this change of heart, Aloysius?”

  “I have had no change of heart. I have always acted with Yele’s interest foremost in my mind. A treaty with Chaonia benefited Yele at first. It buffered us from the Phene Empire, if you’ll excuse my saying so, Your Eminence.”

  “Stop calling me that,” said the Rider. “We don’t use titles among the Phene. It smacks of aristocracy, the vilest of systems which so many fled the Celestial Empire to escape.”

  “I don’t know your name.”

  “No, you don’t, nor will you ever. You need not bother with niceties or formalities. We are not friends. We associate for mutual benefit due to the exigencies of these desperate circumstances. Why are you here?”

  “The more powerful Chaonia becomes, the more they intend to grasp.”

  “You know their plans?”

  “That Eirene is intending an assault on Karnos System?”

  “This we already comprehend according to her conquests of Troia, Kanesh, and the Hatti territories as well as intelligence we’ve collected. Tell me something new.”

  “More and more she scorns outsiders in favor of Chaonian nativism.”

  “Oh, I see,” Manu broke in as he snagged another cream biscuit. “You’re jealous she’s taken a new consort and you’ve lost your preeminent position in the palace.”

  “The marriage to that young woman is entirely unnecessary, it’s true. Lust and its pastel of romantic love is never a good reason for an alliance. But the marriage is also dangerous to the cause of Yele. What has transpired before this—economically, militarily—has benefited both Yele and Chaonia. But now the injuries to Yele will increase. Chaonia will drain our treasury for their benefit.”

  “I am quite heartened by your change of heart,” said Manu with a laugh. He plucked up a third cream biscuit, paused, looked over at Apama, and held it out to her. She shook her head, not liking the way the Rider studied her with his riding face, so shallow in its lineaments and yet never fathomable.

  The Rider turned back to Baron Voy. “Is my colleague dead?”

  “I believe she was captured alive, possibly injured, and is in a stasis pod of some kind. She was captured in a basilica.”

  The Rider nodded. “That explains it, then.”

  “Explains what?” Manu asked.

  “By what means they were able to capture her. Very well. What assurances can you give me, Baron Voy?”

  “I can see you delivered safely back to Phene space. Eirene’s fast counterattack forced the Tanarctus Fleet and remnants of the Styraconyx Fleet to retreat from Aspera to Karnos.”

  “I already know this.”

  “Of course you do. Here’s something you don’t know. I can offer you information about Nona Lee.”

  The riding eyes opened wide, as with an enraged shout. “What news?” he hissed.

  Apama pressed back against the wall, feeling stabbed by this unexpected display of anger.

  “She’s alive,” said the baron.

  “We know that.”

  “But I know where she was last seen.”

  The eyes of the riding face closed, lips pressed tight. When the eyes flickered open again, the mouth spoke with a kind of layered hoarseness as of many voices combined to make one. “Where?”

  “She must have been working in the outer reaches of Hellion Terminus recently because a young Gatoi soldier was captured there when his squad attacked a ship that she captained. He was brought to Chaonia Prime.”

  “Yes, we know of the soldier. Where is
he now?”

  “Also in the custody of Princess Sun. Did you know she cloned herself?”

  “Princess Sun?” Manu asked with a guffaw. “Eirene’s self-regard is far too rigid to allow herself to be used for any such illegal and unethical experiment. She gave ample proof that Sun was born from her womb, not any other organic or artificial.”

  “Nona Lee,” said the baron impatiently. He turned his attention back to the Rider. “All the daughters of Lee House born after her disappearance may be clones of her. If that matters to you.”

  Manu whistled. “Does that include Eirene’s new consort?”

  “What is it you want?” asked the Rider.

  “In exchange for working together to bring about Chaonia’s downfall? The independence of the Yele League, once Chaonia falls. No tithing, no taxation, no Phene garrisons in Yele territory, boundaries fixed by treaty, and full trade rights for Yele merchants throughout the Phene Empire.”

  The Rider stood, so the two Yele men stood. “Deliver me safely to the Rider Council, as you have promised, and I will bring the matter up at council. That is all I can offer for now.”

  “Agreed,” said Baron Voy.

  “Leave the food. Admiral Manu, I will consult with you later about the Styraconyx fiasco. Lieutenant At Sabao, you will remain.”

  A glance passed from Baron Voy to Admiral Manu, their antipathy forgotten as Voy arched an eyebrow in a question and the admiral shook his head in negation and gave a puzzled shrug. Then they cleared out. The young religious cleared out. The Incorruptibles set blast charges and sonic disrupters at intervals around the two chambers and cleared out.

  The Rider sat back down and indicated a chair. Apama sat. It was very awkward, the legs being too short for her height and it having only two armrests instead of four. She did not want to rudely set her upper arms on the table or, worse, atop her lowers like some kind of crude sewer dweller.

  “You are hungry,” said the Rider. “Eat. Afterward you may wash off the stink of that unpleasant interlude. I will arrange for clean clothing if there is anything on this vessel that can be tailored to our purposes.”

  “My thanks,” she said cautiously, not going to the sideboard.

  He rose, and his other face, his ordinary face, went to the sideboard just as any person would and carefully selected food in prudent portions. Returning to the table he sat to her right, shoved the plate farther right, and angled his body so he could eat. The riding face now looked directly at her, a mere arm’s length away.

  She focused on her breathing: in five counts, held five counts, out five counts, empty five counts, and repeat.

  “Do you know why you are here?” his riding face said in that whisper voice.

  Horrible thoughts crowded her head. She was ashamed of thinking them, and yet repulsed by what possibilities swarmed to the front of her mind. She could not look him in those eyes, knowing that what he saw other Riders could see, or so rumor had it. Only Riders knew for sure.

  Duty was strength. Among the Phene, children were raised to learn a skill that would aid society and to tell the truth. So she told truth as a bare scaffolding of events, one fact strung to the next to create a path linking her from there to here.

  “Colonel Ir Charpentier asked me to ferry you to the flagship. Then I was brought to the courier ship. Then we came here. That’s all I know.”

  “She didn’t tell you?”

  “That’s right. The colonel did not tell me why she chose me to undertake the evacuation.”

  “I mean the woman who birthed you. She did not tell you?”

  The Phene concerned themselves with adaptation and selection. Every child had people who raised them, hopefully with love and careful attention. Every child also inherited genetic traits and information from two or in a few cases three genetic parents. The identity of those progenitors was always logged. It was shameful not to know and especially disgraceful not to reveal.

  She knew her mother, of course. Her close kin of the At Sabao line had all died in the terrible accident at Tranquility Harbor. As for whomever else had brought her forth, there was nothing in her birth log, only the stigma of a blank.

  “Yes,” said the Rider, with something resembling a smile stretching thin lips like a pencil extending the half-finished sketch of a mouth. “It was not possible before for me to claim my part in it. But after the debacle at Na Iri the current ruling faction on the council have lost their majority. We are going to vote in a change of rule. And once we do, I need hide you no longer. I sired you, Apama At Sabao.”

  In every life there may come a moment when the throat is bared to the knife and there is no means to fight back. She sat for a long interval, too afraid to speak. The Rider’s ordinary face kept eating in a tidy, deliberate manner, while the riding face, who never ate and didn’t breathe, watched her with the patience of a creature who is used to waiting and who sees all with a thousand thousand eyes.

  The silence finally emboldened her. “Did my mother know?”

  “That is for you to discuss with her.”

  “What will happen now?”

  “I am taking you to Axiom so you can be formally recognized as my daughter.”

  “What if I don’t want that?” she blurted out.

  The Rider stopped eating. Everything tensed, caught in the stillness between the pin being drawn from a grenade and the explosion that will come.

  “You’ll change your mind once you see how your new status benefits you. It will benefit your mother too, Apama. She’s worked hard to keep you clothed, fed, and in school, hasn’t she? Don’t you want to make life easier for her? I can make that happen. In case you haven’t understood me, I’m not offering you a choice.”

  49

  The Cost of Victory

  The wide white path led to the sea and the nightly pyres at Autumn West. People flooded out of Orange Line Station, walking in orderly silence toward the flickering red flames along the shore. Some conveyed their deceased on a stretcher, some in a hover-bag, and some on a wheeled death-wagon. Many more came to honor the dead. They stepped back to make way for those carrying a sheet-wrapped corpse, and held aloft lit candles like so many bright ancestor souls come to witness.

  Sun walked in silence with her Companions and their cee-cees around her, still limping from the injury to her thigh, although by her expression she gave no hint the wound pained her. She wore the clothes she had fought in. They had been carefully laundered to leave in a few stubborn bloodstains.

  The crowd parted before her to create a path to the sea.

  Opposite the plaza a large pyre had been built on a stubby peninsula of polished granite. On it lay the wrapped corpses of the thirty-five cadets and two chiefs who had died defending the industrial park. Gentle waves washed the revetment with unceasing sighs.

  Sun greeted the families first, taking her time about it. Some of the wounded cadets had also made the journey to pay their respects to their lost comrades. These she also spoke to, asking about their injuries and their deeds. At length the families sprinkled incense over the pyre, speaking the names of the dead. Last of all Sun mounted a platform to address the crowd and of course all of Chaonia.

  “Behold the cost of victory. These brave cadets stood up when they might have ducked their heads down and run to shelter. Because of them we have driven off the worst Phene attack on the very soil of the republic since the days of my great-great-grandfather Queen-Marshal Yǔ. Because of these brave cadets and because of the enlisted and officers of the fleet and the citizens working tirelessly in the depots and shipyards, we have sustained hard damage and yet we have triumphed. There is no limit to our courage and our strength. Let me tell you of Cadet Arabesque Chén Alsanfotsi, who was armed with only a raptor gun and yet advanced fearlessly down an open boulevard toward an entrenched position of Phene raiders. Let me tell you of Chief Alejandro Bu Alargos, who led his unarmed gulls against the merciless weaponry of a Phene gunship. Let me tell you of Ensign Imani Yún Alyorvik. She went
outside her trapped ship in a vac suit to manually release the docking clamps so the Asphodel Crane could escape the destruction of the Naval Command Orbital Station Pánlóngchéng. Let me tell you of Deck Apprentice Skybright Lê Alkabah, who held a light to enable crewmates to escape a collapsing section of Elm Shipyards. Let us fulfill our vow to give them an honorable rite of passage.”

  She paused as a distant movement from the direction of the Orange Line stirred the crowd like the sweep of a sword. Hetty, standing at the base of the platform, looked questioningly up at her, but Sun merely smiled. A large procession made its slow way through the packed assembly and into the plaza.

  Queen-Marshal Eirene had come straight from battle, having chased the Phene into Aspera and left Crane Marshal Qìngzhī there to restore Chaonian control over the system and its crucial habitats and beacons. Yet the queen-marshal had taken care to change into a dress uniform. When she climbed onto the platform she greeted her daughter with her most ironic arch of eyebrow. A red gleam flashed in her obsidian eye.

  “So, Sun, I see you are number one in the rankings on Idol Faire.”

  “Of course.”

  “Zàofù tells me the stasis pod with the Rider has been delivered to the palace.”

  “Of course.”

  “And your father?”

  “The arrangement you two made had nothing to do with me, so you’ll have to take up any new circumstances with him.” Sun paused before adding, “You’re not intimidated by him, are you?”

  “Really, Sun, don’t try that with me since I have sparred with far more experienced opponents. By the way, Moira wants Persephone back. She means to appoint her as governor-in-training of Lee House. She needs an heir too.”

  “Moira Lee can’t have Persephone. I have the right not to release her.”

  The queen-marshal glanced down to where Alika, James, Hetty, and Isis stood at the bottom of the steps. “It’s ultimately up to Persephone Lee, is it not? I see she is not here with you.” She examined Candace, with her fans clipped to her belt and her lower body encased in a wheeled bracing frame to support her broken legs and hip, then caught sight of Jade Kim waiting at parade rest a step behind the others. “Effulgent Heaven! Who is that gorgeous young person? I don’t think I’ve seen them before. Have you finally discovered your libido, Sun? It’s about time.”