The Radiant Seas

by Catherine Asaro

  The woods sloped down to the palace, with rocky ground in front of them and a drop-off to the river on their right. Soz stepped into a hole, grimacing as her ankle twisted. She extricated herself and kept going, stepping over roots. Vines brushed her face and caught on her rifle. She had no doubt the woods looked charming, but they were a pain to walk through.

  The d-team moved as a unit. This close together, with their Kyle abilities augmented by neural implants, they formed a psiberlink, twenty-one nodes in all.

  Wait, Soz thought.

  The team stopped. A security line cut through the woods ahead, highlighted in red on her map. From orbit it had been hard to determine details, but here they could get more. Caser, I need your help.

  On my way.

  Her mindscape showed a man-shaped icon walking through the woods. As it reached the icon marking her position, the real Caser came up next to her. An expert in both intelligence and security, he was an ace at outfoxing defensive systems.

  The line is about 500 centimeters north, Soz thought.

  I’m getting a fix on it. Caser probed the line with various signals, using routines he had programmed into himself, drawing on years of experience and his natural aptitude. Then he laid a red line over the map’s curve, one closer to their position. It’s a sensor and spike biter. The sensor would be sending data to palace security if the web was up. This type usually monitors a cylindrical area about ten centimeters in diameter around the line and also in a vertical plane that extends out of the ground. He highlighted the geometry on the map.

  What about the spike biters? Soz asked.

  Primitive but lethal. He grimaced. If you cross the line and you aren’t broadcasting the correct IR codes, spikes shoot up. You die by impalement.

  Can you figure out the IR codes?

  This is a well-secured system. It could take an hour.

  Too long. Soz considered the curve. How accurate do you think your fix is? Enough to risk a jump?

  I’d say yes. About 60 to 80 percent accuracy.

  Soz directed her thought to the listening d-team. The spikes have to come through a meter of ground. That gives us time to jump if we use hydraulics. Make your leap long, but don’t give up speed for distance. Have your nodes calculate a trajectory and apply it to your hydraulics. She paused. Ready?

  Yes. The response came from twenty minds.

  All right. Go.

  They started running from several hundred meters back and leapt with hydraulic-enhanced grace when they reached the line. Spikes shot out of the ground, shearing up plumes of soil. One missed a Jagernaut by less than two centimeters.

  Backing up, Soz released control to her hydraulics. She took off and ran forward, then jumped the line, her legs stretching out in an airborne split. A spike ripped through her sweater. Then she was on the other side, landing with bent legs to cushion the impact. Despite Caser’s mental barriers, she “heard” him swear at himself for not making a more accurate estimate of the line’s position.

  She sent him a mental grin. Keeps us alert.

  Caser gave her a dry smile. Aye, that it does.

  Within minutes they came on another line. This one had already been triggered, the soil around it churned and torn, with spikes everywhere. And bodies. Both ESComm and ISC soldiers had been caught in the carnage. Soz swallowed, wishing they had time to bury their dead. Even after so many decades, she had never grown inured to the killing.

  Increase kylatine production, she thought. Level four.

  Done, her node thought. With kylatine damping their psionic reception, Jagernauts had a better chance of surviving combat. Turning empaths and telepaths into weapons had been condemned by many among the Allieds and Imperialate, even by critics within ISC. It was no coincidence Jagernauts had the highest suicide rate among all ISC personnel. But despite the price she paid in combat for her Kyle-enhanced abilities, Soz would never have given them up. They had saved her life too many times, and more than that, they kept her human in the dehumanizing force of war.

  They reached the edge of the forest, which came closer here to the palace than anywhere else. According to the map, 162 meters separated them from the closest section of the palace, visible now, a patio bordered by fluted columns and topped by a dome.

  She sent a thought through the link. Remember: I want Qox alive. Understood?

  Twenty responses came back. Yes.

  All right. Go.

  They ran to the palace and gathered under the dome. Soz was picking up other minds now, flickers all around them. Several resolved into people running in their direction. Her team melted into the shadows just before six ESComm soldiers jogged across the patio and disappeared into the night.

  Soz sent a private message to her node. Halt kylatine production.

  Recommend you continue, her node thought.

  I need full probe ability.

  Halted.

  As the kylatine decreased, her awareness spread into the palace, searching. She found other psions, probably providers, but no trace of Jaibriol or Althor.

  Imperator Skolia, I’m picking up a pulse cannon. That came from Jinn Opdaughter, a weapons expert as well as a parachuter with the Blackstars. She highlighted the cannon’s position on the map. If we split up, my people can take it out.

  Go, Soz thought.

  Jinn and her subunit of nine Jagernauts crossed the patio like shadows.

  Still monitoring the area, Soz detected an ESComm unit moving in from the south. Evade, she thought.

  Her ten Jagernauts melted off the patio, headed for a preset destination. They easily found the crystal doors that opened onto a dining hall within the palace. Inside, diamond chandeliers and lacquered vases gleamed in the dark.

  Caser? Soz asked. What’s in there?

  Lasers, he answered. Keyed to brain waves. If ours deviate from the right signature, we’re fried.

  Can we use decoys to map the lasers?

  Won’t work, Caser thought. They track on their target.

  Brain waves vary, Soz thought. The detectors can’t be too specific, or they would kill people they’re meant to protect.

  True, Caser thought. But they’re specific enough to know we don’t belong.

  Imperator Skolia? That came from Cy Merzon, one of the younger Jagernauts. May I make a suggestion?

  Go ahead, Soz thought.

  Have our nanomeds damp our mental processes while our nodes broadcast signals. It might mask our brains, make us look like machines. Cy paused. I volunteer to try it.

  Soz considered the idea. All right. Go. Good luck.

  Cy stood still while the dampers did their work. Her face blanked and she walked into the palace with the hydraulic-driven grace of a machine. As she crossed the dining room, the rest of the d-team waited, tense and silent. When she reached the far side of the room, a silent cheer went through the psiberlink.

  Caser, is she safe over there? Soz asked.

  As far as I can tell, yes, he answered.

  Good. Everyone go. Soz set up the commands for her node to take her across the room after damping her neural processes …

  She came to on the other side of the dining room, right in front of Cy. The Jagernaut grinned and saluted her. Soz smiled, then turned to watch the rest of the team. Most were over now. Caser stepped into the safe area, and then only Secondary Matolinique was crossing the dining room.

  Soz didn’t know if Matolinique’s node miscalculated or if the room’s defense node finally registered what was going on. Whatever the reason, lasers suddenly crisscrossed the room, intersecting at Matolinique’s body.

  The Jagernaut died instantly. Not only was Soz connected to Matolinique through the d-team psiberlink, but she also had her Kyle senses at full expansion. She almost screamed with the backlash. Several of her team stumbled back and another moaned, not an audible sound, but in the psiberlink.

  Soz swallowed, knowing time to mourn would have to come later. She hated that they had to leave the body.

  From t
he dining room they entered a white diamond corridor, with ceiling lamps made from carnelian, ruby, and onyx. They jogged down the sparkling hall, surrounded by its deceptive beauty as they penetrated the palace.

  * * *

  Eight waroids ran with Jaibriol and Viquara through the tunnels below the palace, headed for the underground magrail that would take them to safety. Viquara glanced at her son. No emotion showed on his face and he refused to look at her.

  At least he had stopped fighting his two guards, armored waroids who so far outmassed and outmaneuvered him that his resistance had been absurd. They ran on either side of him now, each gripping one of his upper arms, forcing him to run between them. Neither had hesitated when the dowager empress and Quaelen ordered them to escort Jaibriol to safety. That Jaibriol had resisted with uncharacteristic violence made no difference; he was their emperor and it was their duty to protect him—even if he didn’t want it.

  Viquara wondered if Quaelen had reached a magrail yet. They had split up to decrease the chance that all three of them would be killed or captured. If all went well, they would meet at Safeguard, a buried ESComm base high in the mountains.

  They were a mere hundred meters from the rail station when the explosion hit. Viquara wasn’t sure if a bomb or beam drilled into the ground, but the result was the same. The blast threw them back and part of the tunnel imploded, showering the area with debris. Had the corridor not been designed to withstand such attacks, all of it would have collapsed and buried them.

  As it was, the debris claimed four waroids, leaving only Jaibriol’s guards and two more. Even as Viquara scrambled to her feet, another explosion vibrated the walls. The mobile waroids tried to contact the buried soldiers, but a fast check by their linked communication systems showed the others hadn’t survived.

  When yet another blast shook the area, they took off, running back the way they had come. Viquara silently cursed the web breakdown that had delayed warning of the ISC approach. But would it have mattered? The advantage of an intact web might well have gone to ISC rather than Glory.

  The waroid on her right grabbed her arm and swung her into a cross tunnel. She recognized it: this way led to another rail station, an alternate escape route. They came around a corner—and skidded to a stop. The tunnel ahead had collapsed, debris still falling from the ceiling.

  They whirled around and retraced their steps. Jaibriol kept the grueling pace, forced to it by the waroids, but Viquara was beginning to lag. The waroid on her left suddenly put his arm around her waist and lifted her against his side, carrying her with her feet half a meter off the ground. Disconcerted, she put her arms around his “neck” and hung on. She saw lights flashing on his face screen and knew he was trying to contact palace operations.

  An explosion came from behind, throwing them forward. As Viquara hit the floor, she felt weight press down on her. But the waroid held himself up enough to keep from crushing her, as debris thundered down all around them.

  The thunder lessened and then stopped. Viquara struggled out from under the metal giant. He had locked his armor to make his arms remain straight, creating a protective shelter that stayed up despite the chunks of debris piled on him. But the explosion had claimed its price. A panel on his wrist gauntlet flashed: Inactive. Dead.

  She set her hand on his armored shoulder. “Thank you.” Had he not sheltered her, she too would be dead.

  Jaibriol was pulling himself out from under an arch formed by his two bodyguards. She didn’t see the fourth guard, but a gauntleted hand extended out from under a mass of rubble. The inactive symbol glowed dully on the armor of all three waroids. Even armored fortresses couldn’t survive tons of casecrete.

  Jaibriol stared at the guards with a stunned mixture of gratitude and hatred. Then he climbed to his feet and limped along the hall. Viquara took a laser carbine from a fallen guard and followed him.

  They stumbled through the clogged tunnel, clambering over mounds of debris. When she caught up with Jaibriol, she said, “We must get you to safety.”

  “Why?” He pushed his hand through his hair, loosing a shower of casecrete dust. “What is it you want from me?”

  “To live, my son.”

  Bitterly he said, “All my life you made me beg for your love with your silences and distance. Now you want me safe and well. Why? Because without me you lose the throne?”

  His undisguised emotion and blunt words unsettled her. No innuendo for Jaibriol; he broke every rule. What did she feel? He was a slave. Yet he was also the emperor. Most and least, Highton and slave, son and not-son.

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “It is wrong for me to treat you like a Highton, as if you were human.”

  He stared at her, disbelief and anger warring with grief on his face. “Do you know how it feels to hear your own mother say that? But I forget. You aren’t my mother, not in the true Highton sense.” Pain edged his voice. “None of that matters, though, does it? You are the only mother I have now.”

  Viquara felt as if she were breaking inside. “You weaken me.”

  “The worst of it is that I do love you.” He spoke as if the words were broken glass, each scarring him as it came out. “Gods know why. Now that I know what a true family is, you would think I would no longer care. But the feelings you have as a child—they never leave.”

  True family. True family. Like a dragon, Viquara’s anger raised its head. “She’s come for you, hasn’t she?”

  “Who?”

  “Imperator Skolia.”

  “She’s come to avenge her brother.”

  “No, she hasn’t.” The anger breathed into her heart, burning with its pain. “She’s come for you. The father of her children.”

  “She’s not my mistress. I told you that under every truth serum you and Quaelen pumped into me.”

  She gave a bitter laugh. “I never saw even when it stared me right in the face. We asked the wrong question. You married her. You married that contaminated provider. The Skolian Imperator is also Empress of Eube.”

  In a dull voice Jaibriol said, “Tell me you hate me, Mother. Tell me the truth. Then I can stop caring.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Can’t what? Tell me the truth?”

  She swallowed. “Can’t tell you I hate you. Gods forgive me, but I can’t.” Her universe was disintegrating. Imperator as Empress. The abomination was beyond her capacity to endure.

  They finally found an intact staircase. As they climbed it, Viquara heard sounds of battle and tightened her hand around the laser. But all she could feel was the abiding horror of knowing that her position, her throne, her son, her power—all had been taken by an Imperator Empress.

  The stairs exited at ground level, in the ruins of a garden that looked like a giant animal had torn it to pieces. The lamps were shattered, but fires lit the area, as well as spotlights from aircraft overhead, Jags and Solos trying to engage each other without destroying the palace. An explosion shattered a nearby statue, spraying chunks into the air, and the roar of battle surrounded them.

  Viquara pointed to a nearby wing, the one that housed the emperor’s private suite. She had no doubt it was more than coincidence that it remained in such good condition. They ran to a stairwell in it and climbed until they came out on a balcony. To their right, night-shrouded hills rolled away to the woods; to their left, wings of the palace smoldered or roared in flame, interspersed with blasted gardens. In front of them, a quadrangle separated them from another wing.

  Jaibriol froze, staring across the quad. A bomblet hit a nearby roof and sprayed out shattered tiles, showering them with dust and debris.

  “This is madness.” Viquara drew him back, against the wall, under an overhang. They couldn’t go down the stairs now; she had caught sight of ISC soldiers below. “I hope Kryx made it to Safeguard.”

  “I doubt it.” Jaibriol continued to stare at the wing across from them. “The ISC strikes are too thorough.”

  “Why are you looking at over there?”
>
  “I thought it might be safer.”

  She slapped the wall behind them. “This is the safest. The wing with your suite.” Clenching her fist, she added, “Apparently your wife gave orders to take you alive.”

  He motioned at the other wing. “She’s in there.”

  “The Imperator would never come down on-planet.”

  “She’s here.” Jaibriol increased his Kyle concentration, focusing it outward. Perfect, lush empathic wealth emanated from him, stronger and purer than anything Viquara had ever felt. She reeled from it, too stunned to react as he walked forward.

  Explosions rumbled and a pillar in the quad toppled in a great crash, roiling dust and debris into the air. Jaibriol went to the edge of the balcony and stood there, gripping the rail, his hair flying in the dusty wind, his face caught in the spotlight of a flier, then cast in shadow again.

  Recovering herself, Viquara went over to him. She had to shout to be heard above the explosions and aircraft. “You have to come back! You’re a target out here.”

  He was still staring across the quad. When a dark-haired woman ran out of a doorway there on the ground level, Jaibriol shouted, “Up here!”

  The woman looked up, her face obscured by swirling dust. Then she took off, running in a zigzag course around the perimeter of the quad. Jaibriol climbed up on the rail, preparing to jump to the ground one story below. Viquara had no doubt then as to the identity of the woman coming toward them.

  The roof behind Viquara exploded, spraying her and Jaibriol with debris. In the quad, the running woman shouted. Viquara didn’t need to hear the words to know she had ordered someone to stop shooting. Commandos were crossing the quad, darting for the cover of fallen pillars and piles of debris, Jagernauts invading her palace. Viquara ignored them, her focus narrowing to the thief who had stolen everything that mattered in her universe, including her Highton detachment. She backed away from Jaibriol, out of his reach.

  Then the Empress of Eube raised her laser carbine and sighted on the Imperator of Skolia.

  “Not my son,” she whispered.

  “NO!” Jaibriol jumped back onto the balcony and lunged at her. Viquara danced out of his reach, then turned back to the quad, trying to find Sauscony Valdoria again.