Lee, Sharon & Miller, Steve - Liaden Books 1-9

by Liaden 1-9 (lit)

  THE FRUIT OF THIS NONSURVIVALIST WAY OF LIFE IS NOW CLEAR: TERRA SEEKS TO OVERPOWER AND ANNIHILATE US. WORKING FOR THEIR OWN PETTY INTERESTS, SEVERAL CLANS HAVE ALLOWED LIADEN BLOOD TO BECOME DILUTED AND HAVE GRANTED THESE HALF-BREEDS FULL RIGHTS. IT IS WELL-KNOWN THAT TERRA PROMOTES THOSE MATCHES, WHILE IT SEEKS TO BEST LIAD ON ALL OTHER FRONTS, AS WELL. IN VIEW OF THIS THREAT, IT IS THE PART OF THE INTELLIGENT PERSON TO FORSWEAR ALLEGIANCE TO CLAN AND, INSTEAD, TO ALLY HIMSELF WITH LIAD, THROUGH THIS DEPARTMENT.

  IT IS THE PRIME OBJECTIVE OF THIS DEPARTMENT TO ESTABLISH THE SUPREMACY OF LIAD AND TRUE LIADENS. TO ACCOMPLISH THIS -

  The image on the screen shivered, broke apart, and went blank.

  "What!" Nova cried around the pain in her heart. She reached for the keys, noting the channel still wide open.

  REPORT FOR DEBRIEFING.

  "Yes, certainly," she muttered, and ran quick fingers over the board: RETURN FILE.

  REPORT FOR DEBRIEFING, her correspondent insisted, and added an explanation: COMMANDER'S ORDERS.

  RETURN FILE, Nova reiterated. "Jeeves! Disengage."

  "Disengaged, Miss."

  FILE WILL BE RETURNED AFTER DEBRIEFING. YOU WILL REPORT IMMEDIATELY. ACKNOWLEDGE.

  MESSAGE ACKNOWLEDGED, Nova typed rapidly. REGRET CANNOT REPORT. APOLOGIES TO COMMANDER. FILE NOT REQUIRED THAT URGENTLY.

  There was hesitation then, as if her correspondent perhaps knew Val Con well enough to recognize the authenticity of that reply. Nova glanced down, saw the open-channel light still glowing, and folded her hands in her lap.

  REMAIN AT CURRENT LOCATION, the message came then. ESCORT WILL BE PROVIDED.

  The channel light went dark.

  NEV'LORN HEADQUARTERS

  "Come now, Shadia," she muttered to herself in Vimdiac. "What can be hunting you in Auxiliary Headquarters?" The hairs at her nape refused to settle properly down, and she added jocularly, "Besides Clonak ter'Meulen, I mean."

  No good. The part of her concerned with keeping her alive in conditions where she might well be hunted kept her hackles up, and against all sense she found herself scanning the dock as she crossed the strip and turned toward the duty desk.

  Half a dozen steps was all it took to convince her. Too many techs in sight, or too few; eyes turned toward her that had no need to note her passage. Her mouth tasted of adrenaline, and she began to scan the strip in earnest, looking for a face that she recognized. Looking for a friend.

  She saw him coming toward her, his lined face bemused and slightly simian, his light brown eyes bland; beneath his snub of a nose he wore a most unLiaden mustache.

  She almost shouted to him, but the unease and the training stilled the urge. Whatever was wrong, it was to be survived. Survival hinged on ignoring them, on allowing them to think she thought nothing amiss - whoever, she added to herself wryly, they were.

  She increased her pace then, as the plan took shape, and nearly ran the last little distance between them, hurtling straight into his arms. Raising her hands to his startled face, she sang out in the mode used between those most intimate, "Clonak, I am all joy to see you!"

  Surprise flickered in the taffy eyes, then his arms tightened convincingly about her and he bent his head for her kiss. "Well, now, Night's Delight; and of course I am all joy to see you!"

  He had caught the look in her eyes and knew that she had understood already that something was amiss. Quick, oh, very quick, Shadia! He released her on the thought, the warmth of the embrace fading instantly as his eyes caught the pattern he had been hoping against.

  "And now, my dear, I'm afraid we must return momentarily to your ship." He placed a light hand on her back and felt the resistance melt immediately. Bright girl!

  "And what a trip you've had, eh, Shadia? A chance to sleep, to pine away for - "

  He chattered on, fitting in, "There, three on the left, two on the right," as if it were a part of the chatter. The pattern had coalesced into purpose: They were moving to cut Shadia and himself off from the ship!

  "How bad?" she mumbled, looking brightly at him and matching his rapid walk.

  "I need a liftoff, oh, fifteen seconds after we hit the ladder."

  "We'll kill someone!"

  "Give a five-second warning. If you prefer, I'll lift it!"

  "'S'mine."

  "Right," he said as they touched the edge of the hotpad.

  The sound of rapid steps was heard, too close - breaking into a run as Shadia's hands touched the hatch.

  Chonak caught the belt she flung at him, grabbed the first pistol that came to hand, and fired a flare into the hotpad.

  Alarms screamed; he slammed the seal even as the ship's emergency blast warning gonged across the lift zone. His last sight of the base was of several people standing straight up, frozen, while others more knowledgeable ran and dove for cover.

  "Now!"

  He grabbed the seat as the blast warning ceased and nearly fell across it as lift began.

  "Lose me that way," he muttered under his breath as he groped his way into the copilot's chair.

  "Nine seconds," Shadia snapped.

  "Oh. Good. Let's listen to the comm, eh?"

  The comm was a nearly unintelligible mix of yelling, pleading, and demanding. Emergency channels crackled; within seconds there were reports of five injured, several seriously.

  "Ne'Zame, report in! Do not orbit; repeat, do not orbit. Cut and return to base immediately!"

  The ship was accelerating rapidly. Clonak felt crushed by the weight, but managed to get his hand to his lips in the age-old sign for silence.

  Ground Control demanded action, and suddenly Orbital Control was getting into the act, too.

  "What is it?" Shadia demanded finally, keeping the ship on manual.

  "Department of the Interior. No way to warn you..." His breath came in gasps. It had been years, perhaps decades, since he had flown like this.

  "Should I back off?" she asked, concern evident.

  "Fly it!"

  She flew it well. He watched her hands and eyes: She would do. She had the reactions.

  "Prepare to Jump," he gasped.

  "We're in atmosphere!"

  "Just be ready. Anywhere. As soon as we're free - "

  No wasted motion. Good. No panic. Better.

  "Ne'Zame, orbit and standby for boarding. This is the Department of the Interior. Orbit and standby for boarding!"

  Shadia threw a glance at him. Clonak smiled.

  "Better?" she asked.

  "Rainbow," he said succinctly. "Forgive me, child - there was no way to get to you sooner. It wasn't until I saw those techs - all out of position - that I knew. Department of the Interior - been getting into our records; detaching our people - set up Nev'lorn 'quarters to hold them at bay, and damned if they didn't follow us here! They must think we don't know it - they must think we're fools, Shadia..."

  "Ne'Zame!" the comm snapped. "Orbit and open, or we'll board by force! Who authorized this unfiled flight - "

  Clonak reached out and tapped the button.

  "This is Clonak ter'Meulen," he said calmly. "I have authorized this unfiled flight. Administrative Override is in force."

  "We do not recognize your authority, ter'Meulen. Ne'Zame has been detached to this Department! Orbit and open!"

  Ship screens were full of ordinary traffic and, as the ship rose, they began to track the trajectories of the orbiting ships, the crawl of the suborbital transports, the - There was no sound. The lights were bright yellow.

  Clonak glanced at Shadia, smiling.

  She grimaced. "Intercept alert. My screen three."

  "I had no doubt. Three ships on screen three. One of the warship class. What would have happened if you'd have been asleep?"

  "I know, I know. I'm supposed to have that on audio, too, but it just gets so useless in the meteor..."

  "Not to worry, my lovely. We need a Jump-ready status."

  "Ready as I can be. We've still got too much pressure - "

  "Right. Where's the moon
? Ah. Let me give you the orbit."

  Shadia stared at him. "Without the comp?"

  "Of course without the comp! They're reading every bit they can! They may be able to pick up our control codes."

  Clonak forgot about the residual ache in his chest, forgot about the meaning of the three dots bearing down on their tiny scout craft, forgot about the people - the enemies? - dead or dying at the dock. Reading from the screen, he computed the orbit they were to achieve and began to dictate it, watching the course board with half an eye.

  "Pressure's down." Shadia said, all business. "Can they make that reassignment stick? Will you get in trouble?"

  He called out six more numbers before answering. "I'm already in trouble - and so are you. Department of the Interior's been sharking about for information on you ever since you made contact with the ship out on Vandar. Collected the beam report, I suppose. Your bad luck, Shadia."

  "What comes of following the book. Damn!"

  The ship shuddered; Shadia hit buttons and read numbers off to herself. "Laser carrying a charge beam. Close. What do we do?"

  "Start to roll - just like you're going to orbit. When I say now, we Jump. Instantly."

  "Clonak, that could kill us this close in!"

  "They'll kill us, my dear. They will. Jump when I say."

  She cleared a screen and watched the gravity wells of the moon and Nev'lorn and the minor blips of the other ships. "You got it."

  The ship shuddered again; she switched to a backup board without hesitation. "Charged all hell out of my circuits!"

  Alarms, both sound and light, came to life.

  "They've fired. Rockets," she said quietly.

  "Right."

  Her hands went to buttons microseconds after the automatics had done the job: all shields up.

  "What's going to happen to Nev'lorn?" she asked suddenly.

  "It'll be empty within minutes, I suspect. Project Orange will go into effect, and with any luck at all the Department of the Interior will get a nasty - "

  Flash!

  Blinding light exploded inside the ship, sparks bouncing across the walls.

  "Kill my ship, you clanless - " She stopped with her finger on the switch. "Liadens. Clonak, what should I do? They're Liadens! How can I return fire, even with this popgun?"

  "Administrative Override, my dear. I order you - as Chief of Pilot Security - to react as occasion demands. You have one half-minute before we Jump."

  Her hands flew over the board; the ship tumbled with the program, its self-defense rockets spewing suddenly, hopelessly, across space, toward the destroyer bearing rapidly down on it.

  Flaaassshhh!

  Again boards were blown; again she hit the circuit overrides.

  There was another strike, and the ship protested - there was a high-pitched scream of air...

  "Breached!" she cried.

  "Now, Shadia."

  Her hands continued their motion - a last firing in defense, in rebellion; they skipped in a single motion to the bright red button and slapped it, hard.

  The enemy's charge hit as she hit the button - and the ship began to come apart as they jumped.

  LIAD

  Trealla Fantrol

  The Memory was hard upon her, and Nova sought to relax into it as the Healers had taught her, trying to forget how much she hated her talent, how much she had always hated it - how helpless she was against the rising of its tide.

  This Memory had belonged to one called Bindrea yos'Phelium. An ancient Memory - Trealla Fantrol had not yet been built when Bindrea was alive - but for all of that potent and quite impatient. Nova had had a brisk tussle at the outset for control of the landcar, managing to keep it in her hands only by driving much faster than she would have preferred, no matter what the emergency.

  It was madness to go so quickly, no matter how well she knew the road. She shrugged to herself. All that she did was madness just now.

  The children would be off-planet already, as well as Cousin Kareen yos'Phelium and Mr. dea'Gauss' heir. The old gentleman himself had refused evacuation.

  "But the danger, sir!" Nova had protested, squandering moments of her own escape time.

  "I am quite safe, Lady Nova," he had returned calmly. "Word has been left for the Accountant's Guild in my name, should anything untoward befall me."

  "The Accountant's Guild?" she had demanded, while that minute and another slipped away.

  "Exactly. It is to be hoped that the - persons - in question are canny enough to ask themselves what would happen should every accountant in Solcintra step away from their computers at once." He had smiled coolly. "Also, I have set inquiries about in the business of Korval. It is only proper that I be here to receive the answers."

  "As you will, then, sir," she had said and cut the connection with scant courtesy, for the Memory crashed full-blown into consciousness then; time was suddenly far too short and even the use of a secured line was none too wise for so long a time.

  Anthora had also refused to go, and time had fled so quickly that there was nothing left for Nova but to give a fierce hug, laying cheek against cheek, and go, leaving a sister - a member of the Line Direct - alone in the empty vault of their home.

  Quite right, Bindrea's Memory interrupted. Can't leave the Tree unguarded. Can't leave the Clan without representation. Might want to come back. Gods damn you, girl, drive! Is it your life you're saving or a game?

  Nova gunned the car, which seemed to pacify the Memory, then turned back again to her tally of madness.

  Word had been sent to Shan and to Pat Rin; and to Shan had also gone a transcript of the Department of the Interior's Objectives. Nova shuddered. That Val Con owed those people duty - Val Con, who had been raised as a brother to his half-Terran cousins, who had called a Terran woman 'Mother,' who was a Scout, and who, by all reports received, had chosen to share his life with a woman who counted herself Terran.

  Madness was everywhere, not the least of it having to do with the First Speaker of Clan Korval haring away from her Line House mere minutes ahead of those who must be deemed assassins - or worse.

  The landcar swerved, took the curve into Jelaza Kazone's drive badly, straightened, then accelerated, seemingly straight for the Tree itself, which was impossibly tall and no comfort to her at all, though before it had always been so.

  She roared into the front court and never slowed as Bindrea's Memory sent her charging toward a serviceway between two garages.

  The serviceway ended before an outbuilding of the old style, built of rough-hewn red stone. Nova killed the car's power, fumbled with the door catch - and Bindrea was with her fully, moving her out of the car and sending her at a dead run across the thin court to the outbuilding's door.

  It was Bindrea who slapped two locks - the first visible at shoulder height; the second invisible by her knee - and Bindrea who was relieved to see that the sleek little two-seater was still where she had left it.

  It was Nova who slammed the hatch, fed power to the coils, cycled the magnetics, and began the test cycle. She called up the course computer and began to plot evasive maneuvers, drawing on what she knew of the planetary defense screen. Fingers moved so rapidly that it hardly mattered who controlled them; she locked the plan in; seeing a flicker of green light at the edge of vision, she frowned at the non-standard readout.

  No worry, Bindrea's Memory assured her. We're just interfacing with the world-net. Jelaza Kazone was the first defense base. We stayed tied in - unofficially - after they set it up permanently. That's the way it was when I was Delm. Any Delm who let that liaison lapse would've been a damn fool or worse. In my day, yos'Phelium didn't grow fools that benighted.

  The little ship reported ready, and Nova slapped the "Go" sequence, webbing in belatedly as her craft accelerated smoothly across the lawn and lifted effortlessly, its nose angled toward the blue-green sky of evening.

  In Liad Defense Station Five, Pequi pel'Manda swore and hit RESET. Her screen wavered and solidified, showing static gra
y, and she punched up the auxilliary boards, swearing some more as the screen kept to gray - and then shimmered into normality. Across the top margin was the legend: POWER OUTAGE, MICROSTATION 392. SELF-CHECK POSITIVE. RESET.

  Sighing, Pequi reset the board again and settled down to scan the small part of the planetary defense screen that was the responsibility of Station Five.

  LIAD

  Trealla Fantrol

  Agent-in-Charge Rel Vad Yoltak laid his hand against the annunciator. The five additional agents making up the mission team scattered as ordered, and Yoltak imagined they might be laughing at him. For which he could not in justice blame them.

  Six - two of them experienced off-planet agents - sent to bring away one man! It was laughable. That the Line House they were sent to for pickup showed none of the bustle and busyness of an inhabited house only lent spice to the joke.

  He paused. The Loop suggested a 22 percent probability that he would meet resistance there: Abnormal conditions noted.

  Yoltak put his hand against the bell again.

  The door opened a crack, then swung abruptly wider, revealing a dark-haired woman with extraordinarily light blue eyes, unattractively full at breast and hip, and perhaps even a shade too tall. She was dressed in house-tunic and soft boots, and just behind her stood a towering monstrosity of a robot.

  "Yes?" the woman said, smiling at him brightly. Her eyes moved after a heartbeat, scanning the guest yard, looking directly at each of the half-dozen of them, even yos'Rida crouching, well out of view, behind the armored car. The Loop could not read the meaning of that: Abnormal condition noted.

  Rel Vad Yoltak bowed slightly. "We are here," he said in the mode of Command, "for Val Con yos'Phelium."

  "Are you?" The light eyes widened innocently. "Then I regret to inform you, sir, that he has not been here for several relumma. Leave your name, do, and I shall deliver it to him when he returns."

  Yoltak frowned; the tactical radio in his ear sounded a minute tone, informing him that all team hand weapons but his own were now armed.