Exile's Throne

by Rhonda Mason

  Vid jumped in on the theorizing. “Could we apply for asylum with Ardin and Isonde? They’re in Commander Chen’s territory, so it’s at least partially neutral.”

  Malkor shook his head. “I’m not willing to risk anything tainting Isonde and Ardin’s political position right now. When we can finally force the empire to the negotiating table, we need them to be rock solid as negotiators for the empire. We don’t want the treaty and their loyalty questioned.”

  “Not to mention their votes on the Council of Seven,” Rigger added. “They need to be seen as acting in the best interests of the empire at all times.”

  “We do have access to a few aerial vehicles with stealth technology,” Ygreda said. “If we need to expose ourselves and take hostages, someone could pick you up, then fly away stealthed.”

  Malkor considered it. “That’s one option. I’d still rather get Vega out of there with less fuss if possible. What about the roof?” He leaned over the building plans in front of him. “There’s a place large enough to land the shuttle here.” He indicated the position, clearly designed for such a purpose. “Since the army controls the air lanes and a stealth craft won’t be seen flying in, they would not anticipate that we’d run up instead of down. Check out the plans for roof access: let’s see if we can pin down a few possibilities, in case one of these plans is wrong.”

  Aarush excused himself from the room for a moment, making smooth progress on his crutches. They’d located two roof access points Malkor felt reasonably certain of by the time he returned. He looked pleased, in that reserved Wyrd way.

  “What is it?” Malkor asked once Aarush had seated himself again.

  “I know how we can get into the palace and guarantee an audience with Vega. Mishe, one of our contacts inside”—he nodded at the spymaster and she inclined her head in turn— “just reported that Vega has a massive manhunt underway. That’s our ticket in.”

  “Well?” Malkor tried to keep his impatience out of his tone. “Out with it.”

  “All we have to do is bring her who she wants… Vayne Reinumon.”

  * * *

  THE YARI

  “The PD can be using as a ship-to-ship weapon, if we were to narrow the cone of fire,” Ida said, clearly frustrated. “Tanet and Benny have already assured us all, you time and again, Kayla, that it has the makings of safe.”

  She, Natali, and Kayla were on the bridge discussing the plan of attack once the rooks jumped them into Wyrd Space. What happened in those first few minutes after their arrival at Ordoch could decide the fate of their planet.

  “I don’t want to murder every single imperial soldier orbiting Ordoch if it’s not absolutely necessary,” Kayla argued back, but she was losing, and she knew it. Ida and Natali’s plan was sound—if indeed Tanet and Benny had recalibrated everything about the PD. Nearly everything.

  “We won’t open with it,” Natali said. “Of course, we’ll offer them a chance to surrender, first.” A chance the empire would never take, not when it came from a single ship, one that had clearly seen better days.

  “But this has to happen quickly, Kayla, and you know that,” Natali said. “As soon as we arrive we’ll be vulnerable to attack. If we threaten them with the weapon and don’t actually use it, then they’ll know we’re toothless and attack anyway.”

  Damn her for being right.

  “You’re certain Tanet has made this safe?” Kayla asked Ida for the hundredth time. “It’s not going to actually hit the atmosphere, or worse, the planet itself?”

  Ida nodded, looking exasperated.

  “And it’s not going to fail catastrophically again, sending us to the void like it did to you five hundred years ago?”

  Ida seemed to be gritting her teeth. “He has had the years of five hundred to fix it.”

  “You’ve heard his explanation,” Natali said, looking annoyed as well. “We’re dialing it way back, using a fraction of the energy used the first time.” She touched Kayla’s shoulder. “Look. This is war. If we want to free Ordoch, this is how we’re going to have to do it. And once the ships have been destroyed, the rebel forces will move in and retake strategic points throughout the continent.”

  It all seemed so simple, but could it really work?

  “I don’t need your permission,” Natali said. “But… I would prefer it.”

  At last Kayla nodded, touched that Natali would even consult her on this. “You have it.”

  As she was heading for the door, she heard a comm come in from the planet: Malkor asking for Vayne.

  What the— Can it be true, they’re actually on speaking terms now?

  Her heart longed to believe it, but she knew both men too well. It would take at least a decade for their relationship to thaw, if not more.

  So why was Malkor comming Vayne?

  * * *

  The question of Malkor’s comm quickly took a backseat to all her more pressing issues. The stepa were her primary concern as she strode down the corridor toward her cabin. She’d meant what she said to Vayne about confronting Ida and freeing the prisoners, but right now couldn’t possibly be a worse time to do it. What if everyone just sat tight for another few days? Whatever was brewing on this damn ship had been simmering for five hundred years; it could simmer a few more days. Just until they made it to Ordoch… Or they didn’t.

  After that, all the void could break loose on the ship and it would be fine with her. She just needed a few more days.

  Speaking of time… Kayla glanced at her wrist chronometer as a different concern pushed its way to the front of her brain. Thankfully she was already close to Hekkar’s room. She felt almost as comfortable working with him as she did with Malkor, and with Malkor on Ordoch, Hekkar was her go-to guy for the octet.

  He opened the door as soon as she rang, so she ducked inside before asking: “How long ago did Toble say he was going to check on Kendrik and the others?”

  Hekkar glanced at the chronometer, but Kayla already knew: too long ago.

  “Maybe an hour,” Hekkar said, realizing exactly what she had. “Toble should have reported back by now.”

  “He didn’t go alone, did he?”

  “I think Tia’tan or Noar accompanied him.” Hekkar paged Toble on their shared IDC comms. No answer.

  “Damnit,” Kayla said. “Something’s wrong.” She wasn’t ready to alert the entire ship yet, though. What she really needed was her frutting psi powers right frutting now. Instead, like an asshole, she had to use the ship-wide comm and ask Vayne to contact her privately.

  ::What’s wrong?:: He swirled inside her head.

  Kayla and Hekkar grabbed their bullpups and headed out the door.

  I can’t reach Toble, and he went down to assess Kendrik and her crew over an hour ago. Did Tia’tan or Noar go with him?

  ::One moment.::

  If something was wrong, she needed to get down there ASAP. But if that were true, then she also needed a psionic with her, and that meant waiting until one of the three could get away. Damnit, damnit, damnit!

  ::Noar’s working with Corinth and some others on the shield generators, but I can’t reach Tia.:: Worry flowed into her. Her need to move now was echoed by Vayne. ::I’m coming to you, where are you?::

  It was agony to walk calmly down the corridor on the command level and carry her bullpup casually, when she wanted to sprint dead out to the nearest lift. Instead, she had to walk, greeting anyone they passed as if she had time for that. Vayne met her and Hekkar at the lift, and the three of them boarded while talking about dinner in the commissary. As soon as the doors closed they were double-checking their weapon charges, the seating of her kris daggers in their sheaths, Hekkar’s spare ion pistol in his ankle holster…

  “We can’t keep this up,” Kayla said. “All these secrets and charades… It’s bullshit. There’s too much going on to continue doing this.”

  “Agreed,” Hekkar said. “We need to confront the captain with what we know.”

  “What we know,” Vayne said,
“is exactly nothing. And all I care about right now is finding Toble and Tia’tan safe.”

  Nothing more was said as they arrived and the lift doors opened.

  No threats awaited them, and no sounds were heard. They cleared the corridor quickly and cautiously, sweeping for any sign of activity, but saw no one. Even so, Kayla’s senses were tingling with the certainty that something had gone wrong. Vayne must have picked that up, because he started running, heedless of any threat, forcing her and Hekkar to do the same.

  Her fears were confirmed moments later when the stench of burnt flesh reached them. They arrived to find the door to the barracks wide open. Her mind couldn’t quite register what she was seeing when she entered, because it was so far from what she expected to find.

  Bunks had been ripped from their moorings and the twisted wrecks thrown about the room as if a tornado had come through. Bedding was torn and flung everywhere. One of the bunks had crashed into the diagnostic imaging equipment Toble had brought in to examine the crew, smashing it to pieces. Based on the tangle of metal and blood and body parts, at least two of the crew had been in their bunks when they’d been crumpled into a ball as if by some giant fist.

  It only took a glance to confirm that Toble was in fact dead. He was propped up against a bunk, his body burned by multiple plasma blasts. His head had been torn from his body and placed in his lap, the face a charred mass of white bone and melted skin. Both of his arms were missing entirely.

  Kayla swallowed hard to keep the nausea at bay. She spotted Toble’s medkit hidden under what used to be a bunk and focused desperately on that one thing. If anyone had miraculously survived this, she was going to need it.

  “Vayne, call for Natali,” she said, even as she spotted Tia’tan on the floor. “And tell Corinth to lock himself in his cabin and not open the door for anyone.” Kayla’s anxiety kicked up another notch. Please let Tia’tan still be alive. Blood formed a halo around the Ilmenan’s head, and she lay unmoving on her back, pinned under another bunk.

  Her chest moved the slightest bit, rising as she struggled to take a breath. “I’ve got Tia’tan!” Kayla shouted.

  “I’ll check the others,” Hekkar answered, already in motion.

  Kayla dove for the medkit, crawling past a severed limb to squeeze under the destroyed bunk. She wedged herself under the twisted metal, fingers outstretched and grasping. “How many are dead? Are all of the others accounted for?”

  She finally got a purchase on the kit and shimmied backward out from under the bunk. Focus on Tia’tan. One task at a time. Luckily, all her field medical training was fresh, thanks to fighting in the Blood Pit and living life in hiding.

  Focus, Kayla. Assess first, then treat. Right.

  Kayla forced herself to take an objective look at Tia’tan. Blood from a wound on her head coated her forehead and her eyes, dripping down by her ears. Her hair was so matted with it that Kayla couldn’t locate the injury at first. Tia’tan’s skin was pale, her breathing shallow, and her heartbeat was racing. Shock, most likely; her body shutting down from the trauma.

  Kayla dropped to the floor beside her, tearing the medkit open and dumping the contents. She registered a sound of pain coming from Vayne and pushed it aside, grabbing a monitor strip from the medkit and wrapping it around Tia’tan’s uninjured left wrist to keep track of her vital signs. Apparently the strip was set to give audible report because it spoke immediately, confirming Kayla’s fears about shock setting in. Kayla stripped off her shirt and pressed it to Tia’tan’s head. Where was the wound?

  “This one’s dead,” Hekkar called. “These two as well.”

  Natali burst into the room. “How could you not tell me any of this?” she demanded.

  “Later,” Kayla snapped. “For now, alert Noar—I’ll need supplies from the ship’s med station. Splints for sure, and we’ll need gurneys to transport Tia’tan and whoever else.” They’d need something to cover the bodies up with, but that could wait.

  Natali joined Hekkar in his gruesome task while Vayne conveyed Kayla’s orders telepathically.

  Tia’tan’s right forearm was bent at an unnatural angle, and one of the arm bones had sliced through the skin. It was hard to gauge much else with the collapsed bed frame on top of her. She was hesitant to move it, as it might make things worse, but things couldn’t really get much worse, at this point. The bunk could have crushed her spine or ruptured her organs. Either way, it had to come off, and who knew where else Tia’tan would start bleeding once circulation was restored. Kayla pulled a stack of dermalplasts from the kit and called to no one in particular. “Get this bunk off of her, now.” She didn’t dare take her eyes off Tia’tan, afraid the woman would slip into death if she so much as blinked.

  The twisted metal wreck flew off of Tia’tan and crashed somewhere farther in the room. Tia’tan moaned and came to, her eyes fluttering, the fingers of her good arm twitching. The monitor strip calmly detailed her wildly erratic and crashing vital signs, causing Vayne to come running.

  “Only one of them is alive,” Natali called. “The rest are gone.”

  With the wreck of the bunk removed, Tia’tan’s mangled and bloody left side came into view. It must have taken the brunt of whatever had happened. Two long lacerations opened up on her thigh, each pumping with fresh blood now that circulation was returning to her lower body.

  Kayla shoved the stack of dermalplasts at Vayne. “Here. Slice open her pant leg and apply these: the adhesion will stem the bleeding. Vayne!” She had to shout a second time to get his attention. “Damnit, Vayne, I need your help to save her, so get it the frutt together!” That snapped him to focus. “Cut the rest of her clothes, too, so I can see the full extent of her injuries.”

  Tia’tan’s clothes fell apart as Vayne sliced through the fabric with his mind.

  “Tachycardia detected,” the monitoring strip reported.

  Fantastic.

  “Someone come put pressure on this!” Kayla released her hold on the makeshift bandage she’d been holding to Tia’tan’s head without waiting to see if anyone heard her. She scrambled for the defib electric pack, sending half the contents of the medkit flying as she pulled it out. She had the electrodes extended and was trying to decide where to affix them on Tia’tan’s chest when the monitor called, “Ventricular fibrillation detected. Heart failure imminent.”

  Kayla jammed the electrodes down. “Vayne, get clear.”

  “Cardiac arrest detected. Recommend biphasic defibrillation.”

  “Whatever you say,” Kayla muttered, and punched the button. Tia’tan arched off the floor as the pulse shot through her body, probably doing even more damage to herself. Kayla held her breath for a result.

  “Cardiac arrest in progress. Attempting defibrillation again,” the monitor reported, having synched with the defib pack.

  Tia’tan arched again in a gruesome contortion. She lay motionless for a second, looking like death, then she dragged in a breath and started gasping and coughing at the same time. The monitor reported a resumed sinus rhythm.

  That’s not going to last long, Kayla thought to herself. Tia’tan’s abdomen was swollen. Trauma to the liver or spleen? Ruptured arteries? She had no way of knowing. Other than the lacerations on one thigh, her legs looked relatively intact, thankfully.

  Natali knelt at Tia’tan’s head, holding Kayla’s shirt to the bloodiest area once again. “The living crew member is Benny, actually, and in surprisingly good shape considering the state of everyone else.”

  Tia’tan struggled to breathe. Kayla grabbed the stethoscope from the floor, set the ear pieces, and listened to Tia’tan’s chest on each side. She wasn’t a pro at diagnosing, but she couldn’t detect any sounds on Tia’tan’s left. A collapsed lung seemed very possible, considering the blunt-force trauma to that side of her body. Not to mention the head wound. How bad was that? Mild concussion, or something more concerning like intracranial bleeding?

  This was way beyond Kayla’s capabilities.

&n
bsp; At least Vayne had the dermalplasts applied to Tia’tan’s thigh, hopefully saving her from bleeding out. Kayla spoke to Natali, even as she sorted through the medkit’s contents for a plasma packet. “She needs a trauma surgeon. Probably more than one. I need you to contact Wetham and have him send medics immediately.”

  This second, or she’s not going to make it.

  Kayla found the blood construction apparatus and the packet of blank plasma. The machine would type Tia’tan’s blood, then recreate it by transforming the blank plasma into a compatible blood synthesis. Judging by the wounds, Tia’tan was going to need more than one transfusion.

  “I don’t care what you have to promise,” Kayla continued, “just get surgeons here. Tell them to bring as much equipment as they can, the Yari’s is beyond out of date.” She hooked the blood construction apparatus to Tia’tan’s left arm and ran the sequence.

  Natali nodded. “I’ll make it happen. Tell me how many guards you want for securing the medical station and I’ll have them waiting by the time you get there.” Then she was gone, calling out orders on the ship’s comm, summoning the captain and crew and getting everyone gathered into the control room for a lockdown—one or more mad men were definitely on the loose. Noar arrived with supplies at that moment, accompanied by two rebels ready to help.

  “Mother of All—” someone swore in Ordochian. Someone else ran back into the hallway and retched.

  Noar, thank the stars, was a professional in the face of a catastrophe, bringing over the supplies and asking immediately, “What do you need?”

  “Can you stop the bleeding on her head wound? If it’s not immediately life-threatening, just wrap a bandage around it and we’ll deal with it later.”

  Assuming there was a later.

  Kayla was flipping through info on the medical datapad, looking for the best place to insert a syringe into Tia’tan’s chest cavity to draw out some air and hopefully reinflate her lung. At this point, it was all Kayla knew how to do for her in terms of life-saving measures.

  Vayne sat almost as pale as Tia’tan, minus the blue tinge to the lips. He wasn’t moving, not even blinking, as he started at the reformatted blood pumping into Tia’tan’s arm. He was stressing Kayla right the frutt out.