Queen

by Timothy Zahn

  She thumbed the mute back on, holding her breath. If there’d been a flaw in Tomas’s plan—if the teleport couldn’t handle ship-to-ship transport, for instance—then the next sound she heard would be Djit-vis-ees laughing in her face.

  But no one was laughing. And on the screens—

  “They’re pulling back,” Levi said disbelievingly. “They’re actually pulling back.”

  “And they’re jinking,” Iosif added, pointing. “Breaking up their vectors and curves.” He looked over his shoulder at Nicole. “Trying to make it harder for you to hit them with the teleport.”

  “And making it harder for them to hit us, too?” Nicole asked.

  “Looks like it,” Iosif confirmed. “At least they’ve stopped firing.”

  “Great,” Nicole said, exhaling a sigh of relief. The bluff had actually worked.

  At least, for now. “Let’s see if we can keep them at it.” She activated the mic. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said, putting as much scorn into her voice as she could. “The Fyrantha’s teleport can hit a planet a gazillion miles away. You really think backing off a couple of miles is going to be a problem?”

  Djit-vis-ees didn’t answer. The Koffren ships were still retreating, Nicole saw, but now the jittery movements Iosif had pointed out were increasing.

  “So do we really have bombs to send across to them?” Levi asked quietly.

  Nicole muted the mic. “Not that I know of,” she said. “That was Tomas’s idea, by the way.”

  “So he was planning on delivering instead of picking up,” Levi said. “Yeah, that sounds like him.”

  “Let’s just hope we can keep them off balance until we can get the rest of the shield gaps fixed,” Iosif warned. “If they call our bluff, we might have to actually throw together some kind of bomb.”

  And sacrifice a Wisp to deliver it? Nicole’s throat ached at the thought. But it might well come to that.

  She touched the Wisp beside her. I wish to access to a memory, she said. What Jeff said to me about choices and generals after the Shipmasters killed four Wisps.

  There was a moment’s pause …

  I know you’re hurting about the Wisps. So am I. But we’re in a war, and war requires choices. No general worth an honest salute likes making the decisions that will cost people their lives. But they keep making the choices, and the sacrifices that go with them, because if they don’t a lot more people will die.

  Nicole didn’t want to be a general. She’d told Jeff that. All she’d ever wanted out of life was to be safe and not afraid and to have enough to eat.

  But the Fyrantha had chosen her as its Protector, and the people and Ghorfs aboard had accepted her in that role, and she no longer had a choice.

  And if it came to sacrificing a few Wisps to save everyone else, she knew she would indeed do it.

  “Uh-oh,” Iosif muttered.

  “What?” Nicole asked, looking back at the displays.

  “New strategy,” Iosif said. “Nineteen of the ships are still doing their jump-and-twitch dance, but the last one is coming straight at us. Big, slow, and fat.”

  “Calling our bluff,” Levi said tightly. “Offering us a clear shot if we actually have one.”

  “Only we don’t,” Nicole said, looking at the schematic. There were still thirteen gaping holes in the Fyrantha’s shield. “I guess we’ve just got one option left.”

  She thumbed on the mic. “I see you’re sending in a transport,” she said. “Good, because I was just about to ask for one. I think it’s time we had a face-to-face.”

  Levi threw her a shocked look. “Nicole?”

  She motioned him to silence. “I assume there’s a way to dock a smaller ship with the Fyrantha, but I don’t know how to do it,” she continued. “So I suggest you just wait outside the shield—hover or float or whatever it is ships do out there—while I get a spacesuit and come across. Then we can talk this out together.”

  “Once again, you speak nonsense,” Djit-vis-ees said. “We have nothing to talk about.”

  “I think we do,” Nicole said. “Are you going to just throw away the chance to maybe get the Fyrantha without any more damage to it or yourselves?”

  There was a short silence. Levi and Iosif were looking at her with widened eyes, Nicole saw, and she again gestured a warning to them to keep silent.

  “Very well,” Djit-vis-ees said. “I accept. My ship will await your arrival. You have ten minutes.”

  “Make it thirty,” Nicole said. “It’s a big ship, and getting into a spacesuit is a pain.”

  “You have twenty.”

  “Twenty minutes,” Nicole agreed.

  She thumbed off the mic and gestured for Levi to cut the connection. “Figured he’d take me up on it,” she said, handing Iosif the mic. “He was already willing to sacrifice that ship. Might as well let it hang around and see if he could get a good hostage out of the deal.”

  “You’re not seriously thinking about going over there, are you?” Levi asked.

  “That depends on whether we can get the rest of the shield fixed in the next twenty minutes,” Nicole said.

  “And if we can’t?”

  Nicole took a deep breath. “Then I go to see them. And buy you as much extra time as I can.”

  “And if we say no?” Iosif asked.

  “I’m the Protector,” Nicole said. “No one says no to me.”

  “No!”

  Nicole jumped violently as the sudden voice echoed through the control center. Through the control center … and inside her mind.

  What the hell?

  “No!” the voice said again, deep and rumbling and powerful.

  And suddenly, between the dark outer console ring and the display screens on the wall the holograms of Ushkai and R’taas appeared. “You will not leave me alone, Protector,” they said, speaking in unison, their voices somehow blending into this new voice. “You will not.”

  With an effort, Nicole found her own voice. “Who are you?” she asked. The two holograms drew themselves up, again in unison.

  Then, to her amazement, the images flowed into each other, swirling and twisting and sparkling together, until they’d formed a new image, an image utterly unlike either of them, an image like one of the golden Greek gods from Nicole’s old mythology reader.

  And suddenly she knew. “You’re the Fyrantha,” she breathed.

  “I am Leviathan,” the new figure said in the same sonorous voice. “I am training ground. I am ark of refuge. I am peacekeeper. I am war-bringer. I am scourge of the Arm. I am strength and resolve and purpose.

  “I am death.”

  And suddenly, the consoles in the two outer rings came to life, flicking on with lights and controls and images. On the big ship schematic, the gaps abruptly filled in, and the light blue haze of the shield deepened and thickened. Beneath the blue shell, a hundred orange spots appeared at points scattered all across the hull.

  “Protector!”

  Nicole took a deep breath. “I’m here,” she called.

  “I rise against this attack,” the voice said. “Guide me.”

  Nicole looked helplessly at Levi and Iosif. Guide me? “I don’t understan—”

  Without warning, a flood of images filled the room and her mind. Faces, thoughts, fears, hopes. Images of women, mostly young, all of them surrounded by other people and consoles with glowing lights and controls. All of them feeling helpless, all of them abruptly aware of Nicole and of each other.

  It was the Sibyls. All of them, their minds linked to Nicole and to the ship.

  And the last piece of the puzzle that was the Fyrantha finally fell into place. The ship’s builders, the ones who’d first brought in humans as partners in their work, had never intended them to need the slow poison of the inhalers to hear the ship. That had only become necessary when the Fyrantha’s mind and soul were fragmented. Tomas had finished the work Jeff had started in the Core, and the ship was once again whole.

  And now, for the first
time in perhaps centuries, the Fyrantha was at its full capabilities.

  No. Not the Fyrantha.

  Leviathan.

  Maybe the Koffren commander guessed what had happened. Maybe he was just reacting to the ship’s newly strengthened shields. But suddenly the distant ships stopped their defensive jinking and swung back to their attack, their lasers and missiles filling the sky.

  “Guide me.”

  Nicole took a deep breath. Sibyls, this is the Protector, she spoke to the images in her mind. The weapons control consoles are in front of you. Find them, and each of you stand in front of one.

  There was a brief moment of doubt and fear as the Sibyls reacted to the flood of thoughts within their minds. But they’d spent years listening to the Fyrantha, and the confusion surrounding the new voices quickly disappeared. The mental images shifted as each of them obediently moved in front of the proper console, and on the schematic nearly half of the orange spots brightened to show which weapons clusters were now active and ready.

  The ship is under attack, Nicole said. We’re going to help it defend itself. Consoles—

  She’d already seen there were no numbers on the orange spots. Yet somehow she knew which cluster was which.

  —fourteen, thirty, twenty-seven: target the nearest Koffren ships and fire lasers.

  How? someone asked.

  But even as the question formed in Nicole’s mind it vanished into understanding. Leviathan was guiding the Sibyls just as it was guiding Nicole, and just as she knew which cluster was which so they knew how to aim and fire the weapons as Nicole had ordered.

  The sky was filled with blazing light as the Koffren continued their attack, their weapons not even denting Leviathan’s shields. They got five more seconds before the Sibyls got their own weapons lined up.

  And Leviathan returned fire.

  Nicole caught her breath. She’d thought the sky was as brightly lit up as it could be. She was wrong. Leviathan’s weapons were sheets of blazing green, the Shipmasters’ greenfire weapons scaled up a million times, slicing through the Koffren ships like they were cardboard. The targeted ships disintegrated, a few of them bursting with secondary explosions as their remaining missiles blew up.

  Consoles eleven, eighteen, fifty-six, seventy: target and fire.

  Four more blasts of greenfire weapons. Four more Koffren ships destroyed.

  Consoles fifteen, twenty-two, ninety-one, forty: target and fire.

  Four more blasts. Four more disintegrated Koffren ships.

  Nicole gazed at the screens, awe and disbelief mixed together with horror. In the space of a dozen seconds, half the enemy force had been utterly destroyed. A dozen more seconds, a couple more salvos, and the rest would be turned to dust.

  And the Koffren commander knew it. The remaining ships abruptly broke off their attack and turned to flee, flying desperately away from the unexpected disaster.

  Finish them, Leviathan ordered.

  Nicole watched the Koffren ships another moment. No.

  I am Leviathan. I am scourge of the Arm. You will guide me in destroying them.

  No, Nicole repeated. At least, not yet.

  “Levi, let me talk to them,” she said aloud, reaching to the console and picking up the mic.

  She focused on Levi. He was gazing at the screens, his eyes wide. “Levi?” she prompted.

  He seemed to shake himself. “Right,” he said, reaching to the controls. “You’re on.”

  “This is the Protector,” Nicole called. “I have a message for the leaders of the Koffren. Promise to deliver it, and I’ll let the rest of your ships leave. Otherwise, we’ll just have to find another way to deliver it. Probably directly to your home world. Personally.”

  There was a short pause. “Speak your message,” Djit-vis-ees said, his voice tense.

  “You’ve been using the Shipmasters’ data to steal war slaves from other worlds,” Nicole said. “That stops now. Any beings you’re still using are to be removed from whatever battlefields they’re on and returned directly home.”

  “Many of the recruits now serve others,” Djit-vis-ees said. “We cannot simply demand them back.”

  “Oh, I think you probably can,” Nicole said. “If not, we’ll just have to go to them directly, get their attention like we just did with you, and deliver the message. Of course, if we have to do that we’ll also make it clear that the Koffren knew what was coming after them and didn’t bother to tell them what they needed to do to avoid it.”

  “I’ll deliver the message,” Djit-vis-ees said. “The Koffren leaders will do all they can.”

  “I hope so,” Nicole said. “Because we’ve got all the Shipmasters’ records here, including the names and locations of every world they sold to you or others. We’ll be checking all of them, so the faster and wider you can spread the word, the better. Understood?”

  “Understood,” Djit-vis-ees said. He was still angry, Nicole could tell, and refusing to acknowledge his defeat. But he did understand.

  “Good,” Nicole said. “And just in case you forget anything, we’ll be sending Vjiu-fusi-suut and the other survivors home with the same message. Probably without any bombs attached, but you never know. Now get out of here, before we decide that Vjiu-fusi-suut can handle the message without you.”

  She muted the mic and signaled Levi. “You think they’ve had enough?” Iosif asked.

  “I don’t know,” Nicole said. “Let’s find out.”

  They had. On the displays the remaining Koffren ships continued to fly away, accelerating as they went. As Nicole watched they did a little flickering sort of jump, like something out of a movie, and vanished.

  Why did you not let me destroy them?

  Nicole took a deep breath. The Sibyls, she noted, had disappeared from her eyes and mind. Apparently, this new conversation was between just her and the ship. Because that’s not who you are anymore.

  I am scourge of the Arm.

  That’s what you were once, Nicole said. That was when your job was to punish. But that changed. Someone else took over, and you weren’t there anymore to punish people who deserved it. You were just a warship.

  I was the most powerful warship.

  Maybe, Nicole conceded. But you didn’t care about why you were doing what you were doing. You were fighting whoever your masters told you to fight. You didn’t care whether they deserved it or not.

  Leviathan seemed to think about that. No, it said. I always cared. It was the masters who did not.

  I know, Nicole said, her throat aching. How many times had she done something just because Trake had told her to? Did any of the people she’d helped rob or hurt really deserve it?

  She didn’t know. She would never know.

  Because she’d never wanted to.

  But then things changed again, she went on. You were damaged in battle, or maybe your masters broke your Core into pieces on purpose, and you weren’t a warship anymore. Someone else took over and made you into a zoo.

  Not a zoo, Leviathan said, its voice thoughtful. I was an ark of refuge. A sanctuary. Animals were brought aboard to live until their home worlds could be rebuilt and reinvigorated.

  Really? Nicole asked, frowning. The Caretaker had told her the Fyrantha was a zoo. Had Ushkai been wrong then, or was Leviathan wrong now?

  Maybe it wasn’t either of them. Maybe the ship had been made into a sanctuary, and also a viewing place so people wouldn’t forget why it was important that the animals’ habitats be put back together.

  For that matter, maybe Leviathan had been the cause of that destruction in the first place. Maybe the Fyrantha’s job as sanctuary had been an effort to help atone for Leviathan’s wars.

  And that was good, she said. But then the Shipmasters came—Nevvis and Fievj and the others. They took out the animals and turned you into a place where people fight each other.

  So that once again I was a warship?

  Yeah, I suppose, kind of, Nicole said. But here’s the thing. You rattled off a
list of things you’d been when you first woke up. But between being a warship and an animal sanctuary, you said you’d been a peacekeeper. Tell me about that.

  It was the Plimkatae, the ship said slowly. The beings who created me, the people of the Oracle who names herself R’taas. They won me back, and made me once again their instrument of justice. But instead of a scourge against evil I was made a vessel of peace. I stood between aggressor and victim, forcing those who sought destruction or conquest to stand down or flee.

  Nicole nodded to herself. So R’taas’s people had built the ship, lost it to someone, gotten it back, then lost it to the Lillilli. The first group of Lillilli had then lost it to Nevvis and his group. Like a bunch of gangs fighting over the same couple of blocks of territory. So you know what it’s like to stop fights, she said. How about we go back to that?

  We? Does that mean you’re staying with me?

  I don’t know, Nicole said, frowning. Somehow, she hadn’t thought that far ahead. Do you want me to?

  I don’t want. I need.

  Nicole swallowed hard. Was she about to trade one imprisonment for another?

  But really, why not? Trake was dead, and even if he were still around she had no interest in going back to her previous life in his gang. Here, she could do things that mattered, maybe even live up to the name Protector the ship had given her. Was there anything else she needed or even wanted back on Earth?

  Actually, now that she thought about it, there was.

  I’ll need to go back for a day or two, she told Leviathan. I have to see my grandmother and tell her I’m all right. She winced. And tell her how sorry I am for the way I behaved to her. She was right—she was always right—but I was too sure of myself to understand. Can you do without me that long?

  I can, Leviathan said. You will return quickly?

  I will, Nicole promised. Don’t worry, I have plans for us.

  She smiled tightly. Yes, she had plans, all right.

  Big plans.

  twenty-eight

  “I have to say,” Nicole said, “that I’m really getting tired of visiting you in medical centers.”