The duke winced at so daring an attitude towards the Queen’s messenger. Don’t these Reymeyks think too much of themselves, she thought? Perhaps, after her accession to the throne she should pay them a little more friendly, but firm, attention. Karsaven decided to keep this idea to herself until better times.
That evening, in the Hall of the Emirs, the central chamber of the Palace of Thunderstorms was crowded. The heads of the clans had arrived for the council from even the most distant lands. By the time the duke had arrived the last of them had made their way to their seats. Then the general and the duke took their guest seats, because each seat along the benches had been allocated to family long before the birth of any of those currently present, and a herald came to the center of the hall.
She waited until the noise subsided, raised her arms, and under the arches of the hall, intoned readings from the sacred mantras, in a harsh, rasping voice. The emirs maintained a chorus of shouting ‘Uh, bessmille!’ at the end of each mantra. Then followed a ritual of introduction for the speaker and constable, who finally proclaimed, “Emirs of the mountains and the deserts, the valleys and the coasts! Duke Karsaven kneels before you as is the custom for foreigners, and touches her foot against the base of the Throne of Thunderstorms as our rightful overlord, a title that our ancestors voluntarily handed over to her House, and she appeals to you.”
The duke rose from her seat, clenched her eyes tight shut for an instant, then stepped forward. She suddenly realized with great clarity that in these next few moments her fate would be revealed.
***
Duke Karsaven stood on the bridge of her flagship and watched the precise actions of the mooring team. She was shivering a little over what she was planning to do, but it was a shiver of anticipation rather than fear. When the cruiser softly hit the shock absorbers and the ship began vibrating as the engine shifted to idle mode, she turned resolutely, and briskly moved to the boarding gateway. The duke could not stand the ceremonial lounges at the docking stations. These were huge, and they could easily accommodate a whole unit of boarding bots. The lounges had synthetic carpeted floors and heraldic signs on the walls.
Commodore Danner, head of the fleet’s museum, was already waiting for her by the exit corridor of the technical area. She knew her patron’s habits very well.
“Well, how is everything?” the duke inquired impatiently.
“Everything is ready, my lady, or as ready as can be possible for this pile of junk. It only remains to connect up the sections, and it will fly.”
The duke nodded. “I want to see for myself.”
“Please come with me.” The commodore turned and walked on quickly, pointing the way.
They went through several chambers and up two levels, deftly slipping through the hatches—the gravity field generator only extended seven feet above the surface of the deck at each level. They finally halted in front of a set of huge double doors and turned to face the duke. “We have covered the upper arch with a multilayer of nanofilm to keep out prying eyes. So, you don’t need to wear a protective space suit.”
Karsaven nodded and waved her hand impatiently. The doors opened slowly. The duke stepped forward and came to an abrupt halt. While she had been here dozens of times, what now appeared before her was printed on millions of holograms throughout the kingdom, yet whenever she entered this dock, she was always engulfed with excitement.
“That is so handsome!” Captain Agrippa burst out.
***
Commodore Danner turned and gave her a jealous look. She disliked this upstart with the doll’s face, who had so suddenly gained the duke’s favor. It was rumored that even up to three years ago she was a second lieutenant in the wilderness somewhere, in a border garrison that the duke had gone to inspect.
She managed to be the first from all those wanting to jump into bed with the duke, and she satisfied the tastes of the stern warrior so much that she took her along with her. Now three years later, this slut was already the captain of a cruiser. The commodore pursed her lips then sighed.
To be honest, we must pay her tribute; no services in bed would make the duke give her the job if Agrippa did not truly deserve it.
Her own example was a clear confirmation of this fact. When she had screwed up some maneuvers one time, admittedly highly complex maneuvers, which had provided an opportunity for a destroyer of the Royal Fleet to slip away, the duke brought her forward and told her bluntly, "Time for you to take some time off, my dear. I have already arranged for you to be head of the Naval Museum, until I decide otherwise."
The commodore remembered how she had fled from the office fast as a bullet, barely stifling back her tears. But now she was happy with this turn of events, because in this position she had served her Master worthily.
Meanwhile, the duke took a few steps forward then halted, swaying on her heels with excitement. “Good job, Commodore.” She clapped her on the back approvingly and turned to her companions. “So, ladies, now we can present a very strong argument.” Karsaven nodded backwards, where in the middle of the chamber, outside the artificial gravity field, floated the last remaining one from the fleet and an exhibit in the museum.
It was a giant "Planet Destroyer" class battleship.
***
The commandant of the capital, Count Ergenoi, wearily rubbed her hand across her sore eyes. All night she had been stuck in the operations room of the general staff. By three o'clock it was clear that the battle was lost. They would not recapture Outpost. Moreover, the plan of attack had been built on the fact that the invaders had not yet managed to gain access to the codes for the control systems and download them to Outpost, but that had all flown to damn Adam.
The attack wing had reached two-thirds of the way to the target area when the batteries on Outpost launched a murderous onslaught of fire and many were destroyed. Worst of all was that the queen, in person, had led the attack wing. By five o'clock in the morning it was all over. The remnants of the fleet, which amounted to barely a tenth of its former number, fled at full speed down the corridor, from time to time tossing some of the damaged ships to the enemy destroyers snapping at their heels as if throwing bones to the dog, so that they might be left alone.
But they didn’t leave them alone. Cleverly avoiding the half-dead ships, stubbornly bypassing a dead ship in a large arc and leaving it as a snack for the cruisers in the second wave. When it became clear that the escape was not going to succeed, the royal flagship, together with a dozen destroyers that had received the least damage, slowed, and turned toward the enemy squadron which was following them relentlessly.
A young lieutenant whose shift duty meant he was responsible for remote long-distance communications, quietly gasped and turned to looked at the count with a desperate look. “Your Excellency, has the queen moved to another ship?”
The count slowly shook her head. “I'm afraid not, my girl.”
“But why not?”
Ergenoi smiled bitterly. “Remember, one of the Queen’s titles is ‘Shield of my subjects’, and our Queen has always been scrupulous in such matters.”
The lieutenant shuddered and whispered, “Keep her safe, Eve our Savior.”
Forty minutes later it was all over. An incandescent gas cloud engulfed the Royal Squadron and slowly swelled over the battlefield, but the enemy, as if satisfied with its latest victims, halted the pursuit, and the remaining pitiful scraps of the fleet escaped free into inner space. Count Ergenoi sighed deeply and rose from her chair.
Sorrow, or no sorrow, there was no time to grieve. The death of the queen spawned a host of now pressing problems, and some of them required immediate action. She lumbered towards the sealed door, inserted the ring of power into the slot, and found herself looking straight down the barrel of a plasma rifle. A moment later, Duke Karsaven said, in her nasal voice, “Well, it's all over now, my dear. I regret what I have to do with you, but you’ve been licking the queen’s ass far too much for me to be able to trust you.”
&nbs
p; 3
All was quiet.
A tall figure, laced into a mimicsuit, peeked around the corner, and nodded to someone behind who quickly climbed over the bank. A few more figures followed her smartly, one of whom carried something large in her hands. Everybody lay low between long stacks of neatly piled Cyprus palm trunks. The mentor gently lowered the girl onto a huge trunk and pulled out a flask of juice fortified with vitamins from her field rations.
“Just a little further, Your Majesty, and we will be there.” Captain Amalia took a loud deep breath, then, as if frightened by the sound, held it.
Tera, who was sitting in her mentor’s arms, turned her haggard, pale, little face and tried to smile, but the smile looked miserable. They would have reached the estate of Count Amalia, a loyal vassal and old friend of her family, the day before yesterday in the evening, if she had not managed to sink the waterskimmer two days before. Or they could have been there this morning, if she had not sprained her leg yesterday. Since yesterday evening, she had been carried by hand, along with all the provisions that they had managed to pull out of the water, after half a day of searching.
For the last three days they had travelled on foot along the shoreline.
“Later this evening we will reach the estate. Then we will contact a Jaeger post, and the count will send out a carriage for us.” The captain smiled encouragingly. “I remember well how you love to ride in a carriage.”
They had miraculously managed to escape from the palace before it was captured by the Reymeyks. Duke Karsaven could not find the access code for the palace generators, so she simply threw a power projection dome over it from a police orbital module which was not capable of covering the whole area. There had been very little time, and her mentor did not dare take any of the royal guards with them because a small group was easier to hide. Tera left with only her personal escort, headed by Captain Amalia.
It still worried her that Duke Karsaven could manage to contact her on the communications device on her personal frequency, as well as to block off the palace before a planet-wide alarm signal could be sent. They escaped by the river on the waterskimmer, but they had to leave the large military vehicle behind in a hangar near the southern outskirts of the capital. They continued their escape on water skis, pulled behind the Princess’ smaller waterskimmer. Her little vehicle could easily tow a dozen or skiers behind it. Tera’s heart saddened at the memory of her mother towing her on a mountain lake the same way whenever she had some time off, and the whole family went to the hunting lodge on the southern spurs of the Aldiler Mountain.
“OK, we’ve had a rest.” The mentor again lifted the girl and hugged her seemingly weightless body close.
Before they could take even one step, a flight of discflyers roared loudly over their heads. When the noise in their ears subsided, the marquis leaned her head and listened carefully. “There are another two dozen of them, both to the right and left.”
The mentor shook her head perplexed. “A stormtrooper regiment. I wonder what they are doing in this wilderness.”
Suddenly the little girl, who was sitting in her arms, cried bitterly. They all watched on helplessly as her shoulders heaved convulsively. The mentor was the first to realize what the cause of the tears was. For a hundred miles around, there was only one target that deserved such undivided attention-the estate of Count Amalia, the mother of the commander of her escort.
They reached the estate the following evening. Ten miles before they got there, the air was full of the smell of burning. That was why the captain, darkened by grief, didn’t take them to the estate. Instead they skirted around, as best they could, keeping under cover and away from prying eyes.
At dusk they reached the southern slope of Terry Mountain. The mountain was thickly overgrown with dwarf pines and looked like it was covered in a soft blanket of terry toweling which is how it got its name. Below the very peak, a small one-story house, which had always stood at the entrance to the vast chambers carved into the heart of the mountain, was concealed in the bushes.
In recent times, it had served the old Count Amalia as a hunting lodge, but originally it had been the first residence of the counts. At the edge of the forest the captain made a sign to halt and slid over to the heiress. “You should wait here. I do not believe that there is an ambush waiting for us in the lodge, otherwise they would have been unlikely to have destroyed the estate, but I can’t take the risk.”
The girl nodded. The captain pursed her lips, and turning silently, slipped into the undergrowth. Tera sighed. The strangest thing about this journey was that from the very first moment, she had been recognized as the leader of the group. It was not just a courtesy, paying her nominal respect. No! The adults really accepted this eight-year-old girl as their leader, and now she suddenly realized that for the first time in her life she had sent a person close to her, to a possible death. Tera’s throat tightened, and a teardrop swam before her eyes, but she pulled herself together. She stubbornly stared on, watching as Captain Amalia crawled up to the door, listened for a few moments, then put the ring into the hole in the lock and darted through the open door.
They sat in the thickets of young pine and, wincing at the slightest noise, peered hard at the door. Finally, the door slowly reopened. The captain stood in the doorway and waved to them. The mentor began to rise, but the girl suddenly grabbed her. “No, wait.”
Everyone froze, staring at the captain's face—it was lifeless. Her hand movements were mechanical.
“She’s been drugged,” gasped the mentor. She turned to Tera and whispered, “Come on. We need to leave.”
The girl shook her head. “No, I will not abandon her.”
The mentor stared at the girl in surprise, as Tera gazed tensely into the doorway behind the captain. After a while, a figure dressed in the uniform of a space marine slid from behind the door, carefully looked around, grabbed the young woman by the collar, and pulled her back inside. The fugitives carefully crawled back into the undergrowth, and rising, quickly moved back down the slope.
The mentor leaned towards Tera, ready to pick her up, but the girl jerked her head away angrily and limped along beside her. When they reached a small ravine, three hundred yards away from the house, Tera stopped abruptly and crashing to the ground, began crying bitterly. The guards stood around her, looking at each other helplessly. During the journey they had somehow forgotten that their leader was only an eight-year-old girl. Then the mentor waved the guards away, and obeying the gesture, they stepped aside. She leaned over the sad girl’s shoulders.
“My little girl,” she whispered softly. Tera’s shoulders stopped shaking from her sobs. The mentor stroked her head. “My little one.” Kneeling beside her, she gently held the girl by her shoulders and turned her around. The girl clung to her, and buried her face in her chest. “Don’t cry my little one. Life is full of losses. It is a pity that you had to learn it so early, but you're strong, you will—”
“NO!” The girl drew back and looked at her mentor with a face reddened by tears, but with fierce, burning eyes. “No, I will not abandon her!”
“But my little girl …”
“I'm not a little girl!” Tera jumped to her feet. “Where are the guards?”
Hearing her angry voice, they jumped out of the bushes. Tera looked at them with eyes full of fire. “Sergeant!”
“Yes, ma'am.”
“How do you intend to free your commander?”
The sergeant threw a confused glance at the mentor, but she just glanced back at the girl and looked away sullenly. She knew her pupil better than anybody else. The sergeant turned purple. Like all soldiers in the escort, she mainly performed ceremonial functions, but also any soldiers of the escort were recruited from the guard units, so that most had been in battle and knew the smell of gunpowder. Today she saw not just a space marine in the doorway. She saw her past. An ordinary guard would not even consider trying to plan an attack, but she…
“What is your name?”
“Sergeant Umarka, ma'am.”
“Where did you serve?”
“Fifth United Division. Second Legion, sixth squadron. Assigned to the cruiser Star Storm, ma'am.”
The girl gave her a stern look. Then sneered. “Do you want to tell me that these fat, overfed moles that shame the space marine uniform present a serious problem for you?”
“No, ma'am, but your safety …”
“I will take care of that myself. I expect a plan from you within an hour. Now go.”
The sergeant hesitated, then disappeared into the undergrowth leading to the former hunting lodge. Tera was silent for a while, then suddenly turned timidly to her mentor. “Are you angry with me, Galiyat?”
She smiled wryly. “Who am I to be angry in the presence of Your Highness?”
“Just stop it!” The girl looked down guiltily, then said, “Look, try to understand, this is not a fad. Not a whim. I just can’t, should not, hide any longer. If I continue to just run away, Karsaven will eventually capture me. With each passing day she is becoming stronger, but I … I still will not survive, even if I renounce the throne.”
“OK, why not?”
“Firstly, because I will never allow myself to do such a thing,” Tera replied sharply. “Secondly, look over there.” She nodded toward the black, burnt spots of what was left of Count Amalia’s majestic estate, now clearly visible from their height. “Do you really think there is any chance she would leave me alive?”
The girl paused. Her mentor stared silently at the ashes, thinking about something. Then, shivering in the cold, she shrugged her shoulders. “Yet again, you're right, my girl. You have bid us say farewell to all our illusions.”
Swords Above the Stars Page 4