And so weeks passed as we waited for the network to mobilize. I spent my time pacing the corridors of the Arbiter, undertaking any menial task that needed to be done, trying to master patience—and failing. We had no way of knowing when the first Partisan co-conspirators would arrive, and I fretted that Neveni’s crew, if challenged, would reveal that I was no hostage.
“We need to make it convincing,” I told her one day, as we sat in her chamber playing that silly card game she liked. “Beat me.”
Neveni threw down her cards, exhibiting with a flourish her quintuplet of kings. “Trust me,” she said with a grin. “You’re beaten.”
I threw down my pair of fours. “I mean physically beat me. As you would a hostage.”
“I don’t beat hostages,” she said mildly. “If they annoy me, I just kill them.”
I snorted. A fine time to develop morals! “I’ll ask Anguish to do it, then.”
“Nemesis.” Sweeping up the cards, she shot me an exasperated look. “You are literally disfigured. Scarred and burned. Trust me, you already look like I’ve brutalized you.”
A fair point, but I still needed fresh bruises. “Just think of the Resolvent Mist on Lumina.”
Neveni hurled aside her cards and did just as I asked: she delivered punches in earnest at full strength. When she finished, she studied the effect, and said, by way of apology, “You can hit me back once if you want.”
“No,” I said, gingerly feeling my face for bruises.
She bared her teeth in a smile. “Just think of me stranding you in the Sacred City.”
And in a flash, I’d backhanded her. Harder than I’d intended.
Neveni caught her balance and swung around on me. For a moment we glared at each other with mutual, unvarnished hatred. Then… a change. Her lips twitched, and so did mine, and we were both smiling.… Two mad, crazed dissidents with an ugly history and very little to lose.
I realized with some surprise that I had missed her.
* * *
Fresh bruises still littered my face when Galahan, the first of the Partisan subleaders, arrived to verify the truth of Neveni’s story. The leader, a burly man with pockmarked cheeks, looked me over. His gaze lingered on my wrists, which had been bound in cabled steel.
“Yes,” Neveni said, “as you see, the Nemesis. And yes, of course I verified her DNA.”
“Rumor had it she was too smart to catch,” the man said.
“I told you, she trusted me. She fell right into my hands.”
The grizzled subleader’s suspicion was no doubt part of the reason he had survived into middle age. But with the clock rapidly ticking down, Tyrus already hunting me, I found myself resentful of how long this man had taken to arrange a rendezvous with the Arbiter. I returned his close scrutiny with a glare.
“You’ll understand,” Galahan told Neveni, “if I must test her for myself.” He stabbed me in the side with a syringe, then jammed my blood into a DNA analyzer.
But even once my distinctly inhuman results glowed on his handheld screen, he doubted them. “How can this be?” he muttered.
Neveni was not concealing her annoyance now. “How many times must I explain it? Let me make it as simple as I can: the Emperor tried to kill her. He failed. Now she’s ours.”
The man’s lip curled. “A fine story. But there’s a trick here. I can smell it.”
The scar down Neveni’s face flushed a livid red, lending her a threatening air she had never possessed before the loss of Lumina.
“Come on,” she said, “what else must I do to convince you? You have her DNA—”
“She is a Diabolic, yes. A creature,” Galahan said, meeting my glare with his own. “But there were many iterations of that creature back when the Empire produced them—”
“I am Nemesis,” I interrupted. “I’ve been on Devil’s Shade for the last few years—”
“It looks nothing like her,” Galahan said to Neveni, as though I’d never spoken. “It will be difficult showcasing her when you’ve mutilated her.”
“Difficult?” Neveni, touching her own scarred cheek, laughed bitterly. “You’ll find a way to get over it. Besides, who captures a Diabolic without leaving a few marks?”
The man weighed her words a long moment. “You suggest using her to lure the Emperor to us. But why would he care to come for her? You say he tried to kill her. Why wouldn’t he be glad to let her die?”
“You can’t be this thick,” she said flatly. “People across the Empire are rallying to her name. ‘Nemesis lives,’ they cry. He can’t afford to leave her fate in our hands.”
Galahan sucked on his teeth, then shook his head. “We would expose ourselves. Our only advantage is that we’re scattered, hard to find. Uniting in one place, for one battle, might destroy us. In a single day, you would hand the Domitrian his victory over our entire network.”
“Or this works, and we will kill him,” Neveni said, her eyes flashing. “There is no scepter. There is no heir. The Domitrians will die with Tyrus. Think what possibilities that will open!”
He was silent.
“At least listen to the rest of my plan,” Neveni said. “I know a way to nullify any advantage he has over us.”
“Not likely,” Galahan scoffed. “He commands all the machines of this Empire. He’d dispatch drones in the thousands, seize control of our ships from us—”
“I got this information out of Nemesis,” Neveni said. “His powers have limits. He can command ships within the same system, yes—”
“And you propose putting all our forces in reach of him—”
“But not if we face him under the right conditions.” With a jab of her finger, she called up a map of the galaxy. “Here,” she said, pointing at the spot I’d suggested. “We meet him where there will be subspace disruption. He won’t be able to sense our ships and command them with his mind. Not only that, but any automated machines he sends after us won’t be able to function. He’ll need to rely on manpower—human direction, human skills, human errors. We take the hostage to the chaotic gale, and we face him there.”
The chaotic gale was where I’d captured Gladdic. The subleader knew of it. I could tell by the spark of possibility that suddenly kindled in his eyes. He understood that the gale would neutralize Tyrus’s technological advantages.
When Galahan’s gaze found me again, I made sure to slouch like a beaten captive, though my heart was soaring.
“Your plan,” he said to Neveni, “has potential.”
* * *
With Galahan to vouch for her, Neveni began to gather forces. We convened near the asteroid belt that ringed the chaotic gale. Day by day, I looked out the window to discover new ships, new fighters and supplies, sent from all across the galaxy. There were repurposed freighters, some civilian transports, and ancient battle vessels that had fallen into disrepair before being salvaged and patched up by the Partisans. Most were armed with stolen weapons, converted piecemeal to an attack force.
It was more than I had expected. It was far less than I might have hoped. I found myself mentally comparing this paltry lot to the vast armada that constituted the Chrysanthemum—thousands of interlinked vessels designed to the most lethal specifications. In ordinary conditions, I would not wager this ramshackle armada—large as it was, and growing by the day—against a single great ship like the Hera, or Tyrus’s Alexandria.
But the chaotic gale changed the odds. I just prayed it was as devastating to Tyrus’s machinery as it had been to Gladdic’s.
As for Gladdic himself, news of his apprehension finally reached us from Partisan spies in the Chrysanthemum. A follow-up transmission spoke of the Emperor’s sudden departure into hyperspace, followed by the bulk of his ships. Rumors flew across the galaxy that he was building up his forces for an assault on some target—but which, the rumor mill could not say. Embedded imperial spies could be counted upon to do the rest, and point Tyrus to the chaotic gale.
One by one, the Partisan vessels departed the asteroid
belt. Each ship’s lights brightened, its engines powering to maximum—then, having launched itself into the chaotic gale, it dimmed and disappeared into the thickly massed clouds.
Soon the Arbiter was alone, stationed here until the Emperor’s fleet arrived. We would not depart until Tyrus’s forces had detected us. We needed him to know exactly where we’d gone, exactly where he should follow. Once we joined the other Partisans in the chaotic gale, they would know the battle was upon us.
Happily, we did not have to wait long. I was in the heliosphere, staring into that opaque tangle of clouds, when Neveni’s footsteps whispered behind me. “We’ve detected imperial signatures at the edge of the system. They’re emerging from hyperspace now.”
A shiver passed through me. It had come.
Neveni joined me, her gaze also drawn toward the gale that awaited us. For a moment, she looked fragile and very young. The breath that slipped from her sounded shaky. “God, I hope this works.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in God anymore,” I murmured.
“After Lumina? No. It’s just an expression, Nemesis.”
Together we watched Tyrus’s armada enter the other end of the vast field of asteroids. From such a distance, it should not have been visible to the naked eye. But such was its size—a vast gleaming retinue of metal, catching and reflecting the light of the nearby star.
“Or maybe it’s just today,” Neveni whispered. “Maybe today, I have to believe in something more.”
In the window’s reflection, I met her eyes. She looked as tense as I was, alert and prepared for imminent victory—or disaster.
A strange, tremulous feeling opened within me, a mix of emotions that it took me a moment to recognize: gratitude and hope, affection and fear. We’d shared some of the greatest moments of our lives, and many of the worst as well. We’d inflicted so much pain upon each other. Perhaps there would always be too much mistrust to ever again call each other friends.
Despite that, I could have asked for no greater comfort than her presence beside me as we once again faced our fates—even if she later despised me for what would happen next. This was the eye in the storm of our friendship, a precarious calm before the winds swept us up again.
I reached out and clasped her hand, hard. Her fingers went limp in surprise, then tightened around mine. Her pulse was racing. Our eyes met, and it seemed that a current flowed between us, each drawing strength from the other.
I smiled at her. After a moment, she flashed me a fierce, jubilant grin.
I laughed and let go of her hand. She raised her transmitter glove to her lips to speak to her distant helmsman. “It’s time,” she said. “Take us in.”
30
THE ARBITER shot straight into the clouds, an arrow flying along a course planned days in advance. Soon the haze began to thin, revealing the other Partisan vessels.
We’d chosen a lifeless planetoid as our rendezvous point. Its gravity caught the Arbiter and disrupted our darting momentum, first arcing us toward the rocky hulk and then looping us pendulously around it. Out the windows, I caught sight of the other orbiting vessels as we swerved past. The Partisans were already in formation, ready for the incoming onslaught.
Our force had advantages that the imperial armada would not anticipate. Because the Partisans relied upon whatever they could loot, steal, and extort, they had grown skilled at improvisation. Many of their weapons were crude mass projectiles constructed in the style of ancient human weapons. Their missiles often lacked internal guidance and navigation, or any sort of independent targeting system. They had to be packed into tubes and powered by shipboard combustibles that thrust them forward in a straight line. Their own internal explosives would detonate only upon impact.
In other words, they were powerful enough to blast apart an asteroid, or put craters in soil. They were haphazard enough that poor aim or rebound blasts could damage allies as easily as enemies. And they were utterly useless against any form of energy shielding. The Partisans stood no chance in open combat.
But all changed inside the chaotic gale.
Within the destructive electromagnetic influence of the gale, functional energy shielding was not possible. Sophisticated weaponry would be rendered useless. This was as close as the Partisans would ever come to a fair fight against imperial forces.
Thus when the first of Tyrus’s vessels breached the sector ringing the Partisan defensive perimeter, Neveni flashed a grin of anticipation and ordered, “Hold fire.”
This hesitation was critical. The Partisans relayed the command from one vessel to the next by a series of coded flashes through their windows. Meanwhile, more Grandiloquy vessels emerged through the layers of clouds. Among the half dozen, I recognized the Apogee, the Ouranos, and Credenza von Fordyce’s Eternity. These behemoths filled our windows and view screens, blocking out the clouds.
Anxiety electrified the command nexus. Neveni stood braced against her console, her grip white-knuckled. “Hold,” she murmured. Tremors visibly racked her frame. “Hold…”
It was critical that we wait until the bulk of Grandiloquy vessels were in range before we commenced to fire. We’d have only one chance to surprise them with our advantage. We needed to use that chance to destroy the majority of Tyrus’s fleet.
But the commander of another Partisan vessel lacked Neveni’s self-discipline.
As gravity carried us around the curve of the dead planetoid, we saw a Partisan vessel unleashing its weapons on an approaching Grandiloquy vessel.
“Damn it!” roared Neveni. “I told them to wait!” Now she had no choice but to attack. “Tell the rest to open fire!”
The message was flashed. In a matter of moments, every Partisan ship unleashed their crude projectiles on the incoming Grandiloquy vessels.
Too soon. I counted no more than a dozen of Tyrus’s vessels in firing range. But these were vast imperial starships, undefeated in their lifetimes. Knowing no cause for fear, they sailed straight into our onslaught, likely planning to grapple us with their tethers and simply haul us, helpless, out of the gale.
Our missiles scorched through the clouds of gas and rammed straight into the oncoming vessels. Explosions swelled across their metallic surfaces. Hulls bubbled like burning skin.
For a moment, everyone around me was silent, maybe stunned. The Partisans were accustomed to covert attacks and sabotage in the shadows. These vessels, which had never been scraped by so much as an asteroid, represented the might of the most powerful man in the galaxy, who had killed countless thousands and had the temerity to declare himself a god.
And we’d fired on them openly.
“Come on,” Neveni yelled at the view screen—and as though in reply, the Grandiloquy commanders panicked and committed their fatal mistake. These were not battle-hardened commanders, but rather spoiled aristocrats who’d just discovered their vulnerability to us.
Almost in unison, they directed power to their sophisticated lasers and attempted to return fire—and instead sent prongs of bright energy spidering over their own hulls, as the energy of the gale shorted out their weaponry.
The Partisans around me whooped as the deadly energy currents built on themselves, gaining force, mauling the ships’ structural integrity. Fires bloomed, then died as they met the vacuum of space. The vessels began to shed fragments as trees shed rotting fruit.
Their lights went out. They floated, dark and dead, defenseless.
“Fire,” Neveni said grimly, and the order was flashed out through the windows.
Adrift and helpless, the imperial vessels endured multiple blasts of firepower, until one by one they ruptured into bright fragments, the detritus rattling past our hull.
“Eight down,” someone crowed.
“I counted eleven!” someone else shot back.
Neveni spun toward me, her face jubilant. “It worked! What’s wrong? Didn’t you see? Your plan worked!”
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. Neveni was pulled away into the jubilant e
mbrace of a fellow Partisan, while I found myself staring at the view screen, empty now but for the spinning ruins of the ships that had briefly confronted us.
As the celebration continued, some strange cone of silence enveloped me, as empty and cold as space itself.
Eight ships? Or eleven? I had not seen more than six, had identified only three. What if the Alexandria been among those eight or eleven? He might be dead. Dead. He was dead.
“Nemesis.” Neveni grabbed my chin. “What is it? Are you all right?”
I yanked free. “Fine,” I bit out. What a lie. I was a fool. I should pray that the Alexandria had been destroyed. Killing him was the whole point of this madness! If he was dead, then we had just won, and it was as bloodless a victory as I could have hoped for.
But he wasn’t dead. Not yet.
My agitation faded. I knew Tyrus too well. He never would have accompanied his first wave into an unscouted battlefield. He was not that brand of rash. He’d likely chosen those first ships from a bevy of Grandiloquy eagerly vying for the honor of eradicating Partisans. Even now, he would be digesting news of the defeat and preparing his next tactic.
The soundness of my own reasoning should have made me despair. I should not have felt calmed by it.
“Here comes the next wave,” Neveni yelled, and the revelry died instantly as the Partisans returned to their mission.
Stars. If Neveni could divine my feelings, she would be right to kill me where I stood. I stepped up beside her, fists clenched so tightly that my knuckles throbbed. Given privacy, I would have smashed them against something unbreakable, the better to punish myself for my idiocy.
Feel what you like, I told myself. It makes no difference. You will do what you must, regardless of what you feel.
The Nemesis Page 19