Between Home and Ruin (Fall of the Censor Book 2)

by Karl K Gallagher

Coming through the airlock he saw First Mate Landry checking off names on a tablet. As much as he wanted a hug he kept his demeanor professional. His mother matched him, but a nod promised maternal affection as soon as they were both off duty. He tapped his feet, feeling the artificial gravity replace Corwynt’s.

  Consul Ortega was last through the airlock. “That’s everybody,” he declared.

  The first mate slammed the hatch shut and locked it before marking Ortega’s name in her list. “Concur.” She turned to the intercom panel by the airlock. “All passengers on board.”

  There was no response from the intercom. Instead the PA speakers crackled. “Up ship!” said Captain Landry.

  ***

  Wynny left the door of her room open. Most of Clan Parry’s guests did so unless they were asleep or needed privacy. She was tempted to close it so she could have a good private cry.

  She couldn’t find out what had happened. Nobody with the embassy was returning messages. Depending on which rumors you listened to, this was because the Censorate had executed them all, or imprisoned them, or flown them to another city, or sent them off world. When Wynny traced each rumor back to its source it was always a chat with a stranger or, at best, someone who saw the Fierans in a floatbus. She’d been going through the net for hours and hadn’t learned a damn thing.

  Someone knocked on the doorframe. “Visitor for you, ma’am.”

  Wynny turned away from her desk to see one of the older Parry men with a stranger in rough clothes. The Clan Gronol sigil stood over his left shirt pocket, so he worked at supplying the spaceships at Arnvon’s port. Not the sort of man the Parrys would let wander unescorted.

  She walked to the door so she wouldn’t have to invite him in. “Good afternoon,” she said warily.

  The workman ducked his head and held out a note. “Ma’am, if you’re Wynny Goch a man gave me this for you.”

  Whether she was Wynny Goch or Wynny Landry could take several lawyers to resolve at this point. But she took the note.

  The outside bore ‘Wynny Goch, Clan Parry’ in Marcus’ handwriting. The proof he’d been alive and talking to this man relieved so much of her fear it was almost like a moment of joy.

  Unfolding it revealed a brief message. ‘Wynny, Dogs can’t sing. I love you. Marcus.’

  She knew that meant war.

  She asked, “How did you get this? And where did the man go after giving it to you?”

  The stranger twisted a floppy broad-brimmed hat in his hands as he talked. “I was coming back from delivering a load of consumables to a Lompoc ship. A floatbus parked in the lane between landing circles. I had to brake hard to not hit it. People started streaming out of it to that strange ship from the unknown world. One ran over to me instead. He gave me that note.”

  He nodded toward Wynny’s hands.

  “Asked me to give it to you. Someone yelled at him. He ran to the ship. It took off like a tsunami was coming. Then the floatbus lifted so I could be on my way. Had to make two more deliveries before I could come here. Sorry for the wait, ma’am.”

  “No, that’s fine,” Wynny said, her thoughts far away. Loading the embassy onto Azure Tarn meant they were going home. She’d already confirmed they’d left clothing and all at their quarters, thanks to a friendly cleaning lady who’d answered her message.

  Native wives were among the baggage abandoned for a quick escape. But she was sure Marcus had protested. He was just the most junior person in the embassy.

  The delivery driver cleared his throat and twisted his hat the other direction.

  Her attention recalled, “Thank you so much for bringing me this, and letting me know what happened. I’m in your debt.”

  She looked at the Clan Parry man. “Could we, um . . . ?”

  All she could offer was cash, which would bring more Censorial attention down on the poor man. For barter she’d have to depend on Clan Parry and their willingness to pitch in on behalf of their guests.

  The Parry escort said, “You must be hungry. Let me take you to the kitchen.”

  “Oh, I can’t,” protested the driver. “My clan’s expecting me for supper.”

  From farther down the hall she heard, “Then you should bring them some pies to apologize for being late.”

  Wynny stood in the middle of her room. As the sole remaining member of the Fieran Embassy, what were her priorities? Not being arrested by the Censorate. Securing the gear left behind. Especially, oh God, Chaplain Murphy’s books.

  The chaplain had described his collection over lunch one day. Several copies of the Bible (Third Millennium Translation) intended as gifts for local congregations. More Bibles in different languages and translations. Theological theory and analysis books. And for rest, five historical novels, “each not quite as thick as the Bible.” Murphy had laughed as he said that.

  Keeping those under control was most important. The Censorate would hold the Fierans responsible for any chaos from those books falling into the wrong hands. Or any hands. Wynny needed to keep them secure until the Fierans returned.

  Heilyn Alevan answered her call at once. “Cousin! Are you well? Have you heard anything yet?”

  “Yes, fine. He’s alive and traveling home with the rest. I have an urgent business task for you.”

  He didn’t show any surprise. “Broker or storage?”

  “Storage. I’ll need two vans, a packing crew, and the usual boxes and such. When I get to your ardal I’ll show you where to go.”

  “Paying cash?”

  “Yes.” Her poor father had joked that he’d taken a history book as her wed-price. This marriage might be more expensive than he feared.

  ***

  “There.” Wynny pointed at the door to the embassy’s quarters.

  The Clan Alevan driver maneuvered the liftvan up to the sidewalk surrounding the sixth-level ardal. A few taps on his dashboard made the railing fold down and extend to the liftvan’s doors.

  Wynny walked up to the Censorial sentry at the door. “Moving crew. We’re getting all this junk into storage.”

  She held up her tablet showing the certificate appointing her as the locality agent for the Fieran Embassy. It even had Ambassador Trygg’s signature. With luck the sentry wouldn’t catch the weasel words denying her the power to sign contracts.

  “Um, yes, ma’am,” said the soldier. “I’ll have to call this in.”

  “Your superior may call me with any questions.” Wynny strode past him, waving for Heilyn and his cousins to follow with their armloads of boxes.

  The foyer was spare, just a few chairs and couches for people waiting. Wynny gathered the crew together. “The furniture and decorations came with the rooms. We’re just packing up personal effects. Don’t mix stuff from different rooms. Label boxes from the same room. Ask me about anything odd.”

  They nodded and set to work. Wynny searched for Murphy’s room. She went through a third of the suites before finding it.

  The odd-collared black shirts were thrown on the bed. All the dresser drawers were open. The closet was empty. The desk was cluttered with papers except for a stretch against the wall large enough for a row of books.

  Who took them? Not Censorials. They would have made a neater pile of the clothes they rooted through. None of the other rooms showed signs of looting. It must be one of the cleaning staff. In it for money, or a worshipper of the Sacrificed God?

  “Flood.” That wasn’t enough to relieve her feelings. Now she’d have to track them down before more riots broke out. Wynny would have quite the expense report for the Embassy when they returned.

  She peeked in the other rooms of the suite to check for contraband she should secure. Nothing. The chaplain had said his insistence on paper was unusual for a Fieran.

  Wynny stopped in the door of the suite as she exited. A dark middle-aged woman in a Security uniform leaned against the far wall of the central corridor. No nametag, of course.

  “Lose something, Miss Goch?”

  “It’s Mrs. Landry
,” corrected Wynny.

  “Yet your husband is nowhere in sight.”

  “He’ll be back.”

  “Spacers always say that.”

  “I’m not the only woman with a husband who travels for work,” Wynny snarled. Then she took a deep breath. If this Censorial was angering her it was for a reason. Probably to provoke her into blurting out something best unsaid. “There’s illegal books missing. Shouldn’t you be looking for them?”

  The security officer didn’t change posture or expression. “Subversive material makes its presence felt.”

  “I thought your job was to keep people from feeling that.”

  Now the Censorial smiled. “My job is to preserve order. Sometimes that’s best served by letting subversives and undesirables act against each other.”

  So they were fine with Christians murdering each other over possession or interpretation of the holy books. Wynny went into the next suite to inspect it.

  ***

  Commodore Meckler stood at the end of the conference table. “The Fieran transport has jumped to hyperspace. Three of my destroyers will be following at a discreet distance, in overwatch.”

  Governor Yeager nodded.

  “I’m sorry, I’m not familiar with that last term,” said Minister Yokat.

  “The warships will be in a line, separated at the maximum distance allowing them to see the one in front.” Meckler’s tone was smug as he explained his jargon. “If something happens to a ship the survivors will return to report to us.”

  Instead of having to infer the story from scattered bits of wreckage, as with the Implacable and her crew.

  “Thank you, Commodore,” said the governor. “Please join us.”

  Meckler took the indicated seat. The half-dozen men only took up a third of the table. It was wide enough to give Yeager a comfortable expanse of hardwood at the head.

  “The Fieran ambassador was very polite in accepting my proposal,” said the governor.

  “I have doubts as to her sincerity,” said Yokat.

  Meckler snorted. “There’s no sincerity to doubt. She must’ve been leaving in such a hurry to keep her people from saying what they really thought.”

  “You needn’t assume the worst,” snapped the protocol chief.

  “In this case I agree with the Commodore,” said Governor Yeager. “If the Fierans meant to comply they would have argued terms. Right of appeal from the Advisor’s dictates. Copyright exemptions for religious texts. Longer timelines. I would have granted them.”

  That startled the men at the table. “Wouldn’t exempting a book be a dangerous precedent?” asked Yokat.

  “If a work was produced by a deity, then the author is in a sense still alive.”

  Even Meckler laughed at that.

  “More seriously,” continued Yeager, “I am prepared to take risks to avoid depopulating a planet. Among those risks is attacking with a minimal force. Commodore, would you be able to take control of Fiera with your current forces?”

  The naval officer shook his head. “Sir, I’d love to try. But we haven’t received a replacement for Implacable yet. Unless you believe the Fierans’ story of a storm, it would have taken five to ten cruisers to take down Implacable with no chance to escape. Add in the usual number of light units and that’s more than I can beat with the Corwynt squadron.”

  “As I feared. I’ll have to apply to the District Monitor for more ships.”

  That provoked a stir. “In person?” asked Yokat.

  “Monitors don’t give away fleets based on letters,” said Yeager drily.

  “Sir, a full Censorial fleet would take time to assemble,” said Meckler. “If two or three of the neighboring governors contributed their squadrons we’d have enough force and wouldn’t give the Fierans time to prepare.”

  The governor stifled a laugh. “Governors organizing fleet maneuvers without Censorial authority annoys the Censor more than single rebel worlds.”

  Meckler flushed. “Of course, sir.”

  There were no histories of past rebellions by provincial governors. But late at night senior officers would share the oral traditions of times the Censorial Navy had fought itself. Meckler realized he’d brushed against the rules to prevent such things happening again.

  “Do we have any navigators who know the way to Mamoa?” The Monitor’s palace was well beyond the usual range of Navy operations, but if someone had transferred from there . . .

  Meckler shook his head. “I’ll check, sir, but I expect we’ll have to borrow pilots from local units on the way.”

  “We?”

  “Yes, sir. The Monitor will need to know the logistical support available when making fleet allocations.”

  “Very well. Prepare my transport. We leave in the morning.”

  ***

  Marcus was on the helm. It was easy duty while crossing the void. They hadn’t hit any strong aether currents. The void was free of storms. On the outbound leg they’d wasted two days going around a storm. This time they were flying in a straight line.

  The bridge windows gave a clear view of the massive shoal Fiera was embedded in. It bounded the void like a wall in space. Stripes of yellow and purple and orange marked the shifting bands of the shoals. Stripes meeting at an angle marked shoals moving against each other like tectonic plates.

  Studying the stripes let Marcus pick out the signs of the sliding shoals which moved apart to open access to the Fieran Bubble. He could now spot the opening with the bridge telescope, though the edges were blurred by the aether between.

  “We’ve been pinged,” said Welly.

  Captain Landry asked, “Someone chasing us?”

  “No, it’s in front. Looks like standard Concord radar.”

  Landry leaned back. “Thanks.”

  A minute later Welly put a channel on speaker. “— calling Azure Tarn. This is CNS Leyte calling Azure Tarn. Do you read?”

  Welly glanced at the captain. He nodded. She transmitted, “Azure Tarn to Leyte. We read you loud and clear. Returning home with all souls.”

  “Welcome home, Azure Tarn. Verification please: muskrat. Repeat, muskrat.”

  Welly turned to the captain. He lifted his microphone. “Slithy toves. Slithy toves.”

  “Acknowledged. Please proceed on course to Fiera at best speed.”

  Marcus wondered how the warship would have reacted if the captain gave a different response. Did the Concord have a contingency plan for the Censorate hijacking Azure Tarn? They certainly should. Though it wouldn’t be good for hostages such as Marcus.

  The word ‘hostage’ made Marcus think of Wynny. Had the Censorate noticed their relationship? Almost certainly. Would they threaten her to influence Fiera’s decisions?

  As worried as he was for her, Marcus couldn’t see that as a danger. The Concord didn’t care about Wynny. If they did, she would be on the ship with the rest of them.

  Though if she’d tried to board, the Censorate might have grabbed her to keep her from leaving. Which would make them look at Wynny as a valuable hostage rather than a discard.

  Hmph.

  Marcus didn’t want to be thankful to Trygg for keeping Wynny out of danger.

  Besides, the real safety in being left behind was that she wouldn’t be on Fiera when the Censorate bombarded it into a lifeless rock.

  The Leyte was visible now, dead ahead. Marcus recognized it as a destroyer, one of the fast warships built to shut down any space combat between the Concord’s member nations. She was as pointed as a dagger and just as sharp.

  The speaker crackled again. “Azure Tarn, what’s that vessel following you?”

  Welly responded, “We’ve never seen it. We picked up a few radar blips but nothing solid enough to confirm a ship was really out there.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  Leyte swelled in the front window as she accelerated, then filled the port ones for an instant as she flashed past.

  The warship’s aether wake slammed into Azure Tarn, rocking the shi
p. Marcus twisted the controls to bring them back to their proper course.

  “She’s pinging up a storm,” reported Welly. “Multiple frequencies, high power. And . . . yep, a Censorial’s pinging back.”

  Betty asked, “Want me to fire up the radar and see where they are?”

  Captain Landry shook his head. “No. We’re safest as an innocent bystander. Don’t do anything to make us look like a participant.”

  “Aye-aye.” She sounded disappointed.

  Marcus shared her curiosity. He did agree with his father that satisfying curiosity wasn’t worth attracting missiles. Movement ahead caught his eye. “There’s two more Concord destroyers coming up.”

  They passed by far enough away their wakes didn’t disturb the ship. Marcus did feel a quiver in his controls.

  Welly said, “Pinging is dying down.”

  “Even with two more ships?” asked Marcus.

  “The two new ones are running silent. Leyte is sending out encrypted comms but the others aren’t answering.”

  The bridge crew speculated on the tactics implied by that. They were cut short by Welly’s announcement that all the ships, even the Censorial, had gone quiet.

  The ship-to-ship speaker said, “Leyte to Azure Tarn. Notify System Command that two Censorial destroyers were detected but fled before coming into weapon range.”

  “Will do, Leyte,” said Welly.

  They were close enough to the hole in the wall for everyone to see it with bare eyes. Chatter died down as they watched it grow. It symbolized home. Once through they’d be free of Censorial threats and hyperspace void storms.

  As Azure Tarn moved into the tunnel Marcus used the forward thrusters to cut their speed. “Betty, fire up the docking radar, please.”

  “Here? We can see the walls fine,” grumbled the tech. “Oh, hey, that’s a lot of debris. Was there a battle and they didn’t tell us?”

  Wherever the objects came from they were staying close to the tunnel walls. Marcus piloted the ship down the empty center.

  Captain Landry used the exterior cameras to study them as they went by. “They’re not debris. They’re mines.”