“What’s wrong?” Sinklar repeated as he lifted the stassa and sipped.
Ily’s gaze remained locked with Mhitshul’s. With a
flip of her head, she indicated his presence was no longer wanted. Mhitshul glanced back and forth warily before he stepped out and closed the hatch.
Ily made a face. “Why do I feel like I’m dealing with children?”
“Maybe because Mhitshul is only a year older than I am?” Sinklar replied dryly. His eyes continued to ask the question.
“I sent my aircar back to my quarters. I assume you can fly me back while we talk?”
Sinklar bent to the comm. “Take us to the Ministry of Internal Security, please.”
“Aye, sir,” came the pilot’s reply. The hum of power could be heard before the thrusters started to whine.
Ily settled herself next to him and laced her fingers together. “A ship is making an unauthorized departure from the main orbital terminal tonight at precisely 19:37 hours. We need to produce a reaction from Orbital Defense which will appear to be a genuine response to an unauthorized seizure of a vessel.”
Sinklar’s features puckered as he drank too deeply from the hot stassa and burned his mouth. “You want to tell me why?”
“Before I tell you, could I ask what you’re doing sleeping on this hard bench?”
He lifted thin shoulders. “Where else would I go? Back to the school dormitory? Look it’s not important for the moment. I’ve got mobility and command control here. “
“Command control? I’ve been trying to contact you for the last two hours!” Ily shook her head in disbelief. “I’m ordering quarters for you. I’ll have my people prepare them and-“
“No. I “No? “
Sinklar shook his head. “Not that I don’t trust you, but I’d like to handle my own security.”
“Very well. I know just the place-and you can be sure I haven’t tampered with the security. Now, do you want to tell me where Gyton spaced for?”
A twinkle formed in Sinklar’s eyes, the effect almost hypnotic. “I dispatched Gyton to blow the dripping pus out of that Sassan assault force outfitting around Imperial Sassa. If Mac and Rysta pull it off, His Holiness will never recover his momentum. The initiative will be ours from now until we control Divine Sassa’s empire.
“Now, Ily, your turn.”
She leaned back, lost in thought. What a brilliant idea, but then. . . . “And you think the Sassans are going to let Mac just space in, shoot things up, and space out? Sassa guards his capital as thoroughly as we do ours.”
Sinklar’s twinkle went dead. “There are certain risks-and Mac knew them.”
“Knew? You already use the past tense?”
Sinklar shifted his weight, jaw muscles jumping along his cheek.- “What happens tonight at 19:37? Why not 19:30? Like I said, it’s your turn.”
She leaned closer to him, aware that she’d penetrated his armor, left him confused by anger, mistrust, and guilt. “Very well, tonight is the first step in a process which will plant an agent on the Itreatic Asteroids. Keep in mind that we still have a dangerous wild card out there.”
“Staffa and the Companions.” Sinklar propped his chin on a palm and spun his half-full drinking bulb in a circle. “I’ve been toying with an idea. If Staffa really wants to keep the peace, he’ll react to a military strike close to his base. If I can neutralize the Sassans and draw him out, I might be able to crush him once and for all.” He paused. “So tell me, how does a seized ship get one of your spies into Staffa’s inviolate Itreata? According to what I’ve been told, no one has ever managed to penetrate his security.”
Ily pressed her fingertips together and gave Sinklar a triumphant smile. “But now, for the first time ever, Staffa has a weakness I can exploit. He’s taken the Seddi into his impregnable fortress.”
“That doesn’t mean you can sneak a spy in. The Seddi themselves will know an outsider.”
“Sink, I have no doubt but that they’ll rush to open the gates for my man. You see, I’ve doubled a Seddi, and a high ranking one at that. That’s why tonight at exactly 19:37, he’s going to escape in a most dramatic way. “
Sinklar nodded as he began to see the benefits. “Then perhaps we’d better put our heads together. This will have to be timed perfectly so that he just barely makes it-and with enough damage to make it look good.”
“I thought you’d approve.”
MacRuder thoughtfully watched the image of Rega dwindle in the ship’s monitors. This was the second time he’d shipped from his home world for space and war. This time, however, he knew the odds that he wouldn’t come back-and they didn’t please him.
Tension filled Gyton. As Mac looked around the bridge, he could see the officers’ pinched lips and lined brows. These crewmen had been orbiting their own port and hadn’t had a chance to set foot on Regan soil.
I never even called my folks, the realization sank in. Mac shook his head and ran his fingers through his blond hair. A sudden ache clamped at the base of his throat.
“Final perimeter cleared,” the nav-comm informed. “Course set for Terguz, acceleration building to forty gs. 91
“Affirmative,” Rysta called from the command chair, studying a cluster of monitors that had risen from one of the pods in the armrest.
Mac exhaled wearily and went to stand beside Rysta’s chair. “Commander, I think I’m going to go and sack out for a while. I haven’t slept for almost forty hours.”
Rysta gave him her usual flinty look. “Take a healthy shot of whiskey first, boy. Otherwise you’ll just twist and turn while the adrenaline wears down.”
Mac hesitated. “Yes?”
“Why, Commander? I don’t understand why you agreed to go on this fool stunt. You’re no friend of ours, or of what we’re trying to accomplish.”
Rysta’s jaw jutted as she looked past him to the monitor. “I’ve been in the service for over two hundred years. I’ve seen a lot happen. When I first spaced as a gunner, Rega consisted of that planet, fourteen space stations, and a couple of mining colonies on the Gas World. In my life, I’ve seen three different Emperors come and go. I’ve watched the Regan crest cover half of Free Space. My butt was on the line for each of those campaigns, boy.”
She smiled then, lost in the memories. “Can’t hardly keep it all separate now. Things ... memories, they slide together. Lovers dead, ships wounded and dying, masses of bodies broken and rotting beneath the suns of a hundred different worlds. The boredom, the instant electric fear.
Mac waited.
Would I let all that go? Could I step out now? Let that fat Sassan maggot god take it all away? Waste it all? Not by the Rotted Gods’ hairy balls!” She shook her head. “I’m not on your side, boy or your Sinklar Fist’s either. I’m just Regan down to my bones, and after a lifetime of fighting for my Empire, I’ll continue to do so. If I die taking,those Sassan bastards out, so much the better.”
“I understand, Commander. Thank you for your advice. If you need anything, feel free to contact me.” Rysta had turned her attention back to the monitor.
She barely acknowledged it as Mac turned and left the bridge.
The gymnasium on Chrysla stretched for one hundred meters. Here the Companions maintained their daily exercise regimen. Many a raw recruit had walked into that airy white room with a swagger-and left limping humbly.
Skyla bounced into the air and kicked viciously. Staffa ducked the kick, pivoting and striking with his balled fist. Skyla twisted in midair as her momentum carried her beyond reach of Staffa’s riposte.
“Nice,” Staffa admitted, puffing.
The Companions took their hand-to-hand seriously; in the early days, people had been maimed, and sometimes killed in the heat of practice. Staffa had commissioned the design of a light, padded body armor that he and Skyla now wore. A deadly blow would be ameliorated enough to leave a painful bruise, and reinforced elbows and knees kept joints from popping.
“Getting a little slow, old man,” Skyla
teased as Staffa rushed her on powerful legs. She dropped, caught one of his arms, and used her hips as a cantilever to throw him neatly. Staffa smacked the padded mat and gasped.
Skyla approached cautiously, blocking the kick as Staffa rolled back on his shoulders and lashed out. She skipped nimbly aside and hit him as he tried to roll to his feet. In the process, she hammered him playfully on the ribs and escaped his frantic attempts to retaliate.
Skyla raised a pale eyebrow and cocked her head. “Have I made my point?”
He nodded, grinning sheepishly. “You have. I’ve been spending so much time running simulations, I’m out of shape. Good thing I didn’t have to fight Brots now. “
“Brots?” Skyla feinted and lunged.
Staffa blocked her, advancing defensively. “A slave in the Etarian desert. He started abusing Kaylla. He was a giant of a man-and, if the truth be known, he might have killed me in the end. He hurt me, badly enough to have impaired my ability to work. Out there in the deserts you worked ... or you died.”
He feinted right, left, right, and blocked her retaliatory kick as he penetrated her guard with a hit to the ribs.
“That’s one of the reasons Kaylla tolerates you now?” Skyla asked after she escaped his attack.
“There’s too much blood spilled. Too much pain. Kaylla can remember me pulling her out of the sewer under the Etarian temple, she can remember Brots, and the time in the pipe, and the fight for Makarta; but then she’ll relive that day on Maika and all the things that followed.”
Skyla’s cool gaze probed. “Nothing comes free, Staffa. I understand and accept that further warfare will condemn us all. So do most of the Companions. .We understand the data, and some are even beginning to listen to the Seddi. But the status quo? Two empires? And both full of ambitious men and women? The friction will eventually bring forth fire.”
“Then what’s the solution? Let everyone kill each other off?” Staffa leapt, countering Skyla’s attempt to throw him. They both crashed to the mat, kicking, punching, and twisting.
Skyla broke free, scrambling away and to her feet. Staffa barely had time to recover as she rushed him. He blocked each jab of her attack and she backed away, an excited grin animating her flushed face.
I’ve got to get her into a position where my strength can counter her agility. Rotted Gods, the woman was good!
Staffa circled warily, poised for her attack. In a blur, she charged, bounced, and aimed a deadly kick at his throat. Staffa blocked with an arm, spun and grabbed her, then yanked her up to keep her feet off the floor while she bucked and twisted. He went with her as she flipped her weight to overbalance him, and in the process, wrapped his arms around her in a full nelson.
“Did I ever tell you I love you?” Staffa asked his squirming captive.
“You ... gonna practice ... more9” she panted. “Considering the beating I took today, damn right I will. “
She wormed around to kiss him when he let go, her body undulating sensually against his.
“Not here,” he whispered, and she winked. Together, hand in hand, they walked to the dressing room.
Skyla stripped the padding off, a frown lining her forehead. She stepped into the shower stall and tapped the water, letting it play over her flushed skin. “Like it or not, we’re going to have to unify Free Space. So long as you have two slavering dogs snapping at each other’s throats, nothing will be accomplished on the Forbidden Borders. You’d better be turning your thoughts to muzzling your beasts.”
He stepped in beside her, the water pricking his tanned hide. “I always do. It’s the ghosts that get in the way.” And if Countermeasures works, I can limit the number I have to add to the list. Skyla pushed herself through the force field. Trickles of water rolled off in sheets. Her long hair went through as if in slow motion.
He studied her thoughtfully. “Don’t you ever have regrets? We’ve done some terrible things. Don’t they ever bother you?”
“They?” “The people you’ve killed, tortured, sold into slavery?”
She braided her frost-blonde hair. “Staffa, I made my choice a long time ago. You were a child of privilege. I was born in the Sylenian cribs, the daughter of a whore. I’m not saying you were pampered. The Praetor pushed you to the limit of your endurance, but you never starved. Never worried about who would try and molest you, maybe strangle you while they raped you, because even on Sylene, that’s a killing offense. A dead child can’t bear witness. I lived in perpetual fear. Every night when I went to sleep, I had no guarantee that I’d wake up in the morning. I’m the product of a brutal world, an ugly reality.”
He pushed himself through the spongy force field. “Nevertheless, the pain that we caused has to have made some impression. How did you look into a little girl’s eyes as she huddled over the blasted body of her mother?”
Skyla’s ice-blue eyes hardened. “When I did, Staffa, I saw myself at that age. To pity that little girl would be to pity myself and I don’t have time for such psycho-masturbation. Look, Free Space is a closed system. People have expanded to fill it all. We’re at -he bursting point. Something has to give. We don’t nave room for more people. As it is, the wars have kept us all alive this far. Those billions who’ve died in the imperial expansion bought the rest of us time.” “But Rot it, we made a mistake!”
“Did we?” she fired back. “Tell me, Staffa, could Phillipia have mounted the kind of science it would have taken to break the Forbidden Borders? Pustulous Rot, no! I bought and believed in what we were doing: Unifying Free Space under one government—ours! And I still believe that.” “
“But what about the blood, the suffering....
“I told you earlier, nothing comes free. Pain is everywhere, living is suffering. If you can scramble hard enough and keep the Rotted Gods’ fetid breath at bay for a while, more power to you.”
He twisted his hair angrily over his left ear before pinning it in place. “But it is sin to add to the suffering. I ... we could have done it another way. We didn’t have to murder all those people, destroy all those lives. Think of the waste, Skyla.”
“Think of the future, Staffa. It’s an old argument. What are you going to do? Condemn the species because you can’t stand to inflict misery?”
“We only inflict it on ourselves, on God.” “So the Seddi say.”
“You need more time to study.”
“Perhaps, but I still made my decision. When I was haunting the shadows of Sylene, I wanted out! I wanted to make my life better, and that day I saw Mac Rylee walking down the street, I did just that. I didn’t have time to think about humanity. That came later. “
“But you agree that we have to break the Forbidden Borders.
“Absolutely. And succeed or fail, we’ve got to have humanity under one single government.”
He pulled his gray armor over his head, feeling the silky texture of the synthetic fibers. “I know, I know, but Skyla, I can’t do it the old way. You know that.”
She nodded, giving him an understanding smile. “We’ll figure something out.”
Ily hurried down the hallway, her heels clicking on the tiles as she passed the security monitors. The doors before her slid open to admit her into a plush living room. The place had been decorated with wooden furniture of Targan origin. Gauzy hangings of optic fibers hung from the walls, pulsing in waves of different colors. The carpet, a living moss from Riparious, glowed verdantly and filled the air with a soft cinnamon scent. The holo displays in the walls revealed scenes of the Targan countryside where pines swayed in the wind and sunlight warmed rocky ridges.
Arta Fera entered from one of her apartment’s rear doors. She wore a formfitting suit of golden body armor with a gold field generator ring around her neck for vacuum conditions. The belt that clung to her shapely hips sported a pistol, vibraknife, and various equipment pouches.
“You’re ready?” Ily asked.
“I just shipped my things up. Tyklat’s been moved?”
“He’s already at
the terminal. The ship is fully prepped for everything you might need. The tapes are in the system. All you need to do is call them up. The access code is Hyde ... yes, a fitting memorial for his perfidy. “
Arta’s amber eyes burned. “And one I’ll never forget.” She paused. “And Sinklar Fist?”
Ily made a gesture with her hand. “He thinks we’re planting Tyklat as a double agent. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”
Arta pulled the gleaming wealth of her hair back over one shoulder. “I like you, Ily. You take no chances with anyone. But tell me, why did you plan this the way you did? What do you know about the Lord Commander that makes this feasible?”
“ Tykiat said something under interrogation. Secondhand, he’d heard that Staffa went to Targa because he was searching for someone. It displayed a weakness I never would have suspected in him.”
“ Then, if this mission succeeds, you’ll have a lever to use on the Lord Commander?”
“Indeed, I most definitely will, Arta. Now, you’d better catch the shuttle. After all the trouble I’ve gone to, it wouldn’t do for you to miss your exit. “
Arta walked up to Ily, searching her eyes. I think you know me better than that. I don’t miss anything. If all goes well, I’ll be back within two months. Take care of things for me-and don’t fill your bed with too many lovers while I’m gone.”
Arta laced her arms around Ily’s neck, hugged her close, and kissed her passionately on the lips. Then the assassin whirled away, heading through the doorway which would lead her to the shuttle platform.
Ily took a deep breath and retreated back through the security doors and into the hallway. She’s a dangerous woman, this Arta Fera. Thank the Rotted Gods she’s mine.
Those of you who have been listening to these broadcasts are no doubt wondering where we are going with all this talk of God and science.
“First, let me provide a short introduction to physics. The study of physics includes classical physics: the study of forces and relationships in the physical world we can see and experience with our own senses. For instance, we can compute the amount of energy needed to accelerate a body through space, or study the physical reaction of water at various temperatures. Such phenomena we measure and describe with real numbers.
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