Exile's Throne

by Rhonda Mason

  Which was crucial, as the emperor—and thus the empress— were sure to vote against Isonde and Ardin having any more influence over the outcome of the Wyrd occupation than they already did. If at least two of the three who pledged their support voted their way, they would have their victory.

  She looked into the eyes of all three councilors and knew that it was a done deal. They practically salivated at the thought of having another member of their respective councils on the all-powerful Council of Seven.

  Isonde sat back in her chair as they opened the floor to debate and the emperor began his argument against the motion. It would be a short, one-person debate, and when the others had no objections, they’d vote and she and Ardin could be on their way.

  Good thing they had an ally in Senior IDC Commander Parrel. With almost limitless funds—thanks to the Council of Seven’s recent funding bill for the IDC—and access to cutting-edge technology most of the empire hadn’t even heard of yet, she and Ardin would be on board the fastest ship known to imperial minds as soon as the vote concluded.

  Her smug moment didn’t last long, though, when she remembered that the score was something like Bad Guys 2, Good Guys 1. She was counting the days to Vega’s defeat— even if that wasn’t a certainty yet.

  8

  THE YARI, MINE FIELD, IMPERIAL SPACE

  It was late evening, Yari ship time, when Kayla, Malkor, Tia’tan, Noar, Vayne, and Natali gathered in the commissary. Kayla’s body was completely confused between the ship-to-ship time difference and the length-of-day difference; a standard day on Ordoch lasted longer than a standard imperial day. At some point her body and mind would sync again, but for now she felt out of sorts.

  No one else seemed to be faring any better, though that was more likely due to the day’s revelations. Dinner was eaten in silence. Malkor, Kayla, and Natali sat on one side of the long rectangular table, with Vayne, Tia’tan, and Noar seated on the bench opposite. Despite images of dead Yari crew members floating around in Kayla’s mind, she managed to pack away a few calories out of necessity. Hauling bodies was heavy work, and who knew what might be asked of her next. No good ro’haar would allow herself to get fatigued due to hunger. Malkor and Natali, also fresh from packing corpses into coffin cases, managed the same.

  It wasn’t until the meal was done and they were all sipping the remains of their beverages that anyone decided to speak.

  “I’ll say it—the situation with the stepa is messed up.” Malkor’s deep voice perfectly elucidated her thoughts. “We have no idea of the number of unaccounted-for crew members, and if those remaining are sane or not.”

  She caught a brief look of distaste on Vayne’s face, quickly hidden. He fished something out of the pocket of his trousers and positioned the device in his ear. The translator bot. Finally. Even knowing Malkor would be at dinner, he’d not put it in before? That brought a frown of her own.

  “There’s no indication that any of the missing crew members are hostile,” Natali said.

  “No indication?” Noar challenged. “What do you call blowing up our ship?”

  “None of the sane members of the missing crew, then.”

  Tia’tan set down the coffee she’d been sipping. “Are any of the crew sane? Truly?”

  “The captain, Benny, Ariel, Tanet, and Larsa are fine,” Natali said, as if she could assure it.

  “Gintoc was ‘fine,’ until he killed Luliana and Joffar,” Tia’tan countered.

  “It could be said that it was your people who triggered his break.”

  Tia’tan drew a sharp breath and Kayla felt the explosion coming from a kilometer away. But seated beside Tia’tan, Vayne laid a hand on her arm just as she opened her mouth to blast Natali. Her sister had immediately glanced away from Tia’tan when Vayne moved, and she now spoke to the tabletop. “I apologize.”

  In the resounding silence that followed it was clear Vayne, Tia’tan, and Noar were having a discussion. Neither of the Ilmenans spoke to accept the apology.

  They should, Kayla thought to herself. As heir to Ordoch with her twin brother, Natali had always been tightly focused, goal driven, and a bit unrelenting—none of which left her much time to be concerned with the feelings of others.

  And that was years ago, when they’d all still been happy, healthy adults.

  These days Kayla herself could barely stop to consider Malkor’s feelings when in pursuit of an objective. For Natali, who had been tortured for five years and was now responsible for the fate of a world at war, to apologize…

  “It’s been a long day,” Kayla said, a sentiment that excused most sins. She was in sympathy with both women—Tia’tan had only recently lost two friends—and was too wound up to sort through that at present. “I dislike not having a clear idea of numbers, but the captain is in no position to discuss it tonight.”

  “Has she said how many crew members had been revived prior to this?” Malkor asked the room at large. “Once the ship had awoken her?”

  Natali sat forward to answer him, and Kayla breathed a silent sigh of relief. At least one family member didn’t seem determined to ignore Malkor’s existence. “A total of seventy-three people survived the initial revival. Of that number, some had been successfully locked up when it became clear that their minds were deteriorating. Others wandered off, never to be seen again, but Ida was vague on how far gone all of those crew members had been.”

  “Are we talking about sane members of the crew going AWOL?” Malkor asked, raising a brow.

  Natali nodded. “Seems that way.”

  “Tired of the military life, or were there disagreements among the crew about how things should be handled?”

  “I couldn’t pin the captain down on it.”

  “Neither could I,” Vayne offered, though not to Natali directly. “And the rest of the crew just said, ‘Ask the captain,’ whenever I brought up the topic.”

  Tia’tan agreed as well.

  Information that none of them had shared before Kayla arrived. But then again, she hadn’t asked. Who am I kidding? She would have come even if Vayne had told her the ship had been overrun and set on fire. Especially in that case, with her il’haars on board.

  Not that they were all that far from being overrun now…

  Malkor looked at each person gathered at the table, herself included. “And none of you think we should abandon ship?”

  “Hey, I’m with you,” Vayne said, surprising the stars out of everyone. “We should take your ship to Ilmena.”

  “You mean Ordoch. I’d prefer to take the Lorius, as well, but we’d never make it past the barricade. I hate to say this, but the Tear—”

  Vayne cut him off rudely. “How could you think joining a rebellion on an occupied planet any safer than this?”

  ::I thought you said he was intelligent.::

  Kayla glared at her twin, longing for the power to answer such an insulting comment directly.

  “Better open terrain than trapped in a bottle.”

  “No one’s leaving,” Natali said, capturing everyone’s attention. “The crew can’t possibly hope to hold the ship alone if the stepa organize intelligently against them. And Ordoch needs the Yari’s firepower against the empire—ground forces aren’t enough.”

  “Ilmena agrees,” Noar said. “Though not with the use of Yari’s planetary destroyer.”

  The room erupted with opinions on that. Kayla sensed that this was well-trod ground between them all. She held up a hand to cut through the noise. “We can debate the ethics or insanity of using the PD til the stars burn out, but without fuel and a drive, it’s all theoretical. I stand with Natali—we need to further secure the ship.” Natali was right that the Yari would be invaluable in the effort to free Ordoch. Kayla still hoped for a peaceful resolution—a cure for the TNV should be everyone’s focus, not a protracted war—and having the might of the Yari behind them would give Ordoch the best chance at that.

  “We’ve got a much bigger problem with the stepa than Ida led us to be
lieve,” Vayne said. He detailed what had been done so far to secure vital areas of the ship, and what they’d accomplished since Itsy’s spectacularly successful attack.

  Kayla instantly tuned him out when Corinth spoke in her mind.

  ::Kay?:: Uncertainty hit her, all his. ::I need you.::

  She shot to her feet, simultaneously grabbing her mobile comm, which Rigger had tied into the ship’s system. “What’s happened, Corinth? Where are you?” Everyone else froze.

  ::Nothing. It’s just… I just need you.:: Fear, embarrassment.

  A nightmare, then. She breathed a silent prayer of relief that was all it was. “I’ll be right there.” Five years of habit to run when Corinth needed her had her turning for the door instinctively, but her mind righted her, gaze shooting to Vayne.

  How could she leave one il’haar to comfort another? Was her first loyalty to Vayne or to Corinth? The surge of adrenaline Corinth’s voice had caused demanded she do something, but her heart held her still. Vayne was her twin, but he was strong, well trained, and Corinth was still so young, so vulnerable.

  Malkor was on his feet beside her. “I’ll go.” He understood her struggle perfectly, even without words.

  She shook her head. “It’s night terrors. They’re very real to him—he’ll need me.”

  “I promised Corinth, when I rescued him from Janeen all those weeks ago, that I would always be there for him.” Malkor smiled gently. “Let me do this.”

  A wave of gratitude, relief at no longer being alone, left her speechless for a second. Malkor, so in tune with her, correctly inferred her agreement.

  * * *

  As soon as the IDC agent left the commissary, Vayne pulled the imperial translator bot from his ear and returned it to his pocket. Seeing the look of relief on Kayla’s face when Malkor offered to help, the way her posture relaxed as she retook her seat, made Vayne realize just what an asshole he was.

  Il’haars looked out for their ro’haars. They made their ro’haar’s life easier if they could. The partnership worked both ways. Kayla would give her life for him, and he hadn’t the decency to think of the position he put her in by sitting mute while she struggled to decide who needed her more.

  Me, he’d wanted to shout. I need you more. You’re my ro’haar.

  While Corinth needed Kayla the way a child needed his mother for comfort.

  Yup. I’m an asshole.

  He wanted to apologize to Kayla. He should have offered to go with her, not put her in the position of having to choose. Corinth was his brother, too. What kind of monster had he become, to resent his sister for caring for a child?

  Kayla smiled at him the tiniest bit, inclined her head as if she understood and accepted him just as he was. He felt even worse. Who have you made me into, Dolan? his mind cried for the millionth time. Are you pleased with what I’ve become?

  Clear as a bell, as if Dolan stood at his shoulder and whispered in his ear, the words came.

  Simply delighted, my dear Vayne.

  * * *

  Kayla and the others outlined a plan for securing the Yari against hostile takeover from within. It was lengthy, and would of course require the captain’s approval, so they agreed to sleep on it for a few hours. Kayla woke feeling no more optimistic about the Yari’s chance of flying than she had yesterday, but she wouldn’t abandon ship until Natali gave the order.

  That meant giving Larsa time to complete the hyperstream drive, which meant securing the Yari. Wetham, the man apparently in charge of Ordoch’s rebellion to date, reported that recruitment had risen sharply among their people with the news that original members of the Reinumon family were returning to Ordoch. The rebellion needed time to train new forces, to expand their control. Ilmena needed time to finish the rebuild of their ancient battleships, not to mention time to hopefully create a prototype cure for the TNV.

  All of which annoyed the frutt out of Kayla.

  She’d done nothing but wait for the last five years. Now she had a purpose beyond mere survival. She was reunited with her family, soon to be reunited with her people, and every cell in her body screamed that it was time to act.

  Instead, she gritted her teeth and bowed to the wisdom of waiting—for now.

  Noar, Larsa, and Corinth remained working on the drive, and someone was always on guard in the command center— usually either Ariel, Benny, Tanet, or the captain, who knew the most about the ship’s complex systems.

  That left everyone else free to perform the thousands of tasks needed to ensure their control of the ship. They worked in two-person teams, a more vulnerable nonpsionic paired with a Wyrd, not just for extra protection, but for the ability to read the ship’s Ordochian labeling system.

  Kayla’s first instinct—to hunt down the stepa in a deck-by-deck search—just wasn’t feasible. The stepa knew the layout of the ship and its various maintenance tubes and HVAC systems. If Kayla did manage to find a lair on one of the myriad decks, the stepa could just disappear into the very walls of the ship, hiding and relocating, leading them on a never-ending chase.

  Instead, she had to content herself with playing defense— for now. There were a million essential areas of the ship—they couldn’t hope to secure them all.

  Time to get to work.

  Everyone carried their RFID badges with them, and new scanners were added to chambers containing the life support systems for the levels in question: a medical station, the nearest shuttle bay, power relay hubs, and so on. In addition, keypads were added and each person was issued an alpha-numeric code that changed every day. These precautions, coupled with the welding of the access grilles, meant that entry by conventional means, at least, should be near impossible for the stepa.

  Kayla wouldn’t feel comfortable unless every vital level of the ship was thus secured, but they didn’t have the manpower or resources for that. At first, she’d found some comfort in the knowledge that a large part of the lower ship wasn’t powered. Without life-support and artificial gravity, it was unlikely the stepa ever went there.

  According to Vayne, the ship’s damage was the result of two things: whatever massive cataclysm had torn them out of time and space, and early battles with the rooks in the Mine Field. Apparently, the creatures—or were they enemy ships? No one seemed to know—had inflicted significant damage to the hull before the Yari had established its current defensive perimeter.

  Kayla’s relief evaporated when the crew discovered that several extravehicular mobility units—spacesuits—had been stolen from one of the depots. It had been the work of a day for one of the teams to gather the remaining EMUs from the unsecured but still powered levels and relocate them to several of the empty crew cabins on their living level.

  A day that was needed for hundreds of other tasks.

  The first challenging job had fallen to Natali: convincing Captain Janus to permanently seal the doors of the cryochambers. The pods themselves would remain powered, but no one would be able to access the rooms again without cutting through the triple-thick walls. They couldn’t afford men to guard each of the chambers, and the risk that whoever had awoken the unauthorized crew members would continue to do so was too great.

  With so many crucial tasks to complete on board the Yari, it was inevitable that there were arguments over which to prioritize, and where best to use manpower. Number one on everyone’s list, however, was collecting every last weapon they could find. Not only to keep the weapons out of the hands of the stepa, but to supply armaments for the rebels on Ordoch. A daunting task on a battleship as well stocked as the Yari, and seemingly impossible when the reality of just how many decks were unpowered hit them.

  And so it was, three days later, that Kayla found herself in a stygian, unpowered corridor on a lower level with only Vayne for company. At least they’d been able to power the freight maglift with a portable generator in order to reach the deck. Encased in somewhat unwieldy EMUs, they’d pushed off from the maglift doors with their feet and sailed through the air of the corridor whe
re the artificial gravity was out.

  Every time she made a course correction using one of the wall struts, the power pack attached to her utility belt via an umbilical bumped into her. Vayne fared better, using his psi powers for adjustment, and he bobbled here and there as his attention was fixed on telekinetically maneuvering two large hovercarts down the corridor ahead of them. The dual beams of light from the lamps attached to their suits bounced erratically around the corridor with each movement they made.

  “I’m starting to get trippy,” Kayla said through her helmet comm.

  Vayne huffed a laugh. “After more than a dozen hours of this and zero food, I’m starting to get nauseated. Benny and Vid can do the dark-walking tomorrow.” The datapad embedded in the arm of his suit lit up as he accessed the schematics again. “The armory should be just ahead.”

  She and Vayne were collecting armaments on the lower levels and moving them up to the powered section of the ship. It had to be done in small batches, and rather than having to remove and replace their suits, they stayed in the unpowered section while Benny and Vid, the other half of their four-person team, took possession of the weapons at the lowest powered level and moved them to various holding rooms on the secured areas. All across the ship, the others did the same thing.

  “We’re lucky the Lorius was well stocked with EMUs,” Kayla said. “No way Vid or Trinan would fit in one of the Yari’s EMUs.” She stopped in front of the door marked Armory 22-5 and yanked the mobile power pack into position in front of its access panel.

  “At least those big shoulders are good for something,” Vayne said.

  She let the remark pass without comment—too exhausted to combat his prejudice at the moment—and engaged her magnetized tether to hold herself in place against the wall. Vayne set about releasing the power pack’s connections from their storage space in the case while she pried the face off the access panel, a routine they’d perfected by now. They had the unit linked to the door’s power mainline in no time. Vayne switched on the pack, she entered the unlock sequence, and the heavy-duty armory doors groaned open.