A Prospect of War (An Age of Discord Novel Book 1)

by Ian Sales

  The boat’s gas-rockets ceased and an unnatural hush fell across the plain. The scuff of a boot against rock sounded loudly behind Finesz. She resisted the urge to turn to see who had caused it. The bow split, port and starboard halves slowly separating to reveal an entrance to the boat’s interior. Figures marched down a ramp and spread out to either side in a line facing the gig. Finesz recognised their uniforms. Green jackets over dun coveralls: Imperial Marines. She counted four; two were huge brutes. A pair of figures joined the marines: a Navy officer, and another marine, an officer by the white facings on his jacket. The Navy officer removed her kepi. Finesz was shocked to see white hair. Gotovach? The marine officer was certainly Niwashi. She felt pleased to have guessed his military arm correctly. But was that really Gotovach? What had happened to her hair?

  For several minutes, the two groups stared at each other. The marines held their barbed and bladed boarding axes across their chests but made no move. Both Gotovach and Niwashi left their swords sheathed.

  “Cas,” said Plessant urgently, “get up into the gig. It’s you they’re after.”

  “If they wanted to kill us, they could have done so from the air,” Ormuz replied.

  “They could still take us,” Finesz pointed out. “I have one troop-sergeant and two gig crew. And Niwashi is a master swordsman.”

  “No.” Ormuz stepped forward, passing Finesz, and halted two yards in front of her.

  Gotovach took a pace forwards. She held her kepi down at her side. Her other hand was on the hilt of her sword.

  Finesz moved to stand beside Ormuz. She put a hand on the youth’s shoulder. He glanced at her in annoyance but did not shrug off her hand.

  “Leave,” called Gotovach. “Get back in your boat and leave.” The white hair had thrown Finesz but she recognised the voice from the overheard conversation in Amwadina all those weeks ago.

  “All of us?” demanded Finesz.

  Gotovach slapped her kepi against her thigh. “Don’t play games! The Divine Providence crew come with us.”

  “They’re mine,” replied Finesz. “They come with me.”

  “You’re in no position to argue,” Gotovach pointed out. As she spoke, the five marines shifted menacingly. No more need be said.

  Ormuz spoke up: “We’re going with the Oppies.”

  Gotovach’s gaze fastened on the young man. She frowned. “Casimir?” She hit her leg with her kepi once again. “I’m not asking you, I’m telling you.”

  “Or what?” demanded Ormuz. “You’ll kill us? You must have guessed by now that I’m the one they’re taking to Kapuluan. Don’t you want to know why?”

  For a moment, Gotovach stared silently at Ormuz. She glanced back over her shoulder at Niwashi and said something. Finesz could not make out the words: Gotovach spoke too quietly for her voice to carry over the intervening one hundred yards.

  Turning back to Finesz, Gotovach called, “You must come with me. You don’t have a choice!”

  “I do!” shouted Ormuz. He took another step forward, shrugging off Finesz’s hand. “Riz! I have a choice,” he repeated.

  “I don’t,” replied Gotovach. “I have orders.”

  “Tell your… admiral that the answers are on Kapuluan. Tell her to wait until then. Her wait won’t have been in vain. I can promise you that much.”

  Niwashi pulled out his sword in one smooth motion and brandished it angrily. Gotovach held up a restraining hand. “Why can you promise anything, Casimir?” she demanded. “Your captain is behind you. Surely it’s her decision?”

  Plessant spoke up: “Not any more.” Her tone was bitter. “Apparently.”

  Gotovach and Niwashi conferred once again. The Navy officer gestured emphatically with her kepi; Niwashi jabbed his sword in the direction of Finesz and Divine Providence’s crew.

  “You want a choice?” asked Gotovach, turning back to them. “I’ll give you a choice: come with us of your own free will or we’ll take you.”

  “I can’t,” said Ormuz.

  Finesz glanced at him sharply. Can’t? Gotovach had a master swordsman and four marines behind her, and Ormuz thought to argue?

  “Why can’t you?” asked Gotovach.

  “There are people I must meet and only Captain Plessant can take me to them,” Ormuz replied.

  Finesz heard a gasp from someone standing behind her. Plessant?

  Gotovach took a step forward. “Why are they taking you to Kapuluan?”

  “Because they need me to fight the Serpent.”

  Immediately—

  “Cas!” hissed Plessant.

  Lotsman groaned.

  Tovar let out a quiet gasp.

  Finesz waited with interest for Gotovach’s reaction.

  The lieutenant-commander started forwards and abruptly stopped. “The Serpent?” she said. “Who is the Serpent?”

  “Your enemy,” Ormuz replied.

  Niwashi straightened in shock; the point of his sword described an arc to the ground.

  Gotovach slowly pulled her kepi onto her head. She jerked the kepi’s beak to the angle insisted upon by Imperial Navy dress regulations, and then dropped her hand. She opened her mouth to speak but Ormuz forestalled her:

  “I’m no use to you unless I’m free to act as I see fit,” he insisted. Finesz watched him straighten his back, adopt a patrician stance.

  “Fight? Fight how?” demanded Gotovach.

  “I can’t tell you that. Not now. Wait until Kapuluan. I will have something to tell you then. I promise—” He paused a moment. “You have my word.”

  Finesz expected Gotovach to cavil and was surprised when she did not. Ormuz was a prole—with an unacknowledged noble father, perhaps, but that was not enough to raise his social rank; or there would be far more than five billion peers—and so his word was worth precisely nothing. In spite of his obvious sincerity and… Finesz blinked in surprise. There had been the weight of authority behind those four words. She could feel it lying heavy in the air about them.

  “Tell me what I should take to… my admiral,” asked Gotovach.

  “That I will need her soon—”

  Niwashi barked an incredulous laugh.

  “—But not now. Kapuluan,” said Ormuz. “On the—” He glanced back at his captain. Finesz was almost certain she saw a wicked gleam in his eye. “On the Puwit Kali.”

  Finesz blinked in surprise. She heard Lotsman laugh.

  “On,” repeated Ormuz, “the Puwit Kali.” He glanced back at Lotsman. “Lex, give me the name of somewhere on the Puwit Kali. A rendezvous.”

  “The San Mikel,” said the pilot. “It’s a bar—”

  “Lex,” warned Plessant menacingly.

  The pilot shrugged. “It’s a Puwit Kali bar.”

  Ormuz turned back to Gotovach. “The San Mikel,” he called. “Everything will be explained.”

  “Everything?” demanded Gotovach.

  “Everything,” affirmed Ormuz. He directed a pointed look at Plessant.

  Finesz was intrigued. The captain had told the youth much, but not everything it seemed.

  “Yourself and the marine-lieutenant. The San Mikel. In ten days.”

  Marine-lieutenant? Finesz narrowed her gaze and spotted the crossed swords on the marine officer’s epaulets. No, there was a second pair beside the first, but half the size and easy to miss. “Marine-captain,” she told Ormuz quietly. “It’s a brevet promotion but it’s courteous to use the full rank.”

  Ormuz let out a snort of amusement. Perhaps it was, reflected Finesz, somewhat ridiculous to insist on protocol in their current situation. All the same, he said, “Sorry. Marine-captain.” After a second’s pause, he added, “Congratulations on the recent promotion.”

  Gotovach jerked her head up in shock. She opened her mouth, but closed it immediately without saying anything.

  Niwashi—Marine-Captain Niwashi—returned his sword to his scabbard with a savage thrust. He snapped something inaudibl
e at Gotovach. She lifted a hand, then dropped it wearily. “Kapuluan, then,” she called.

  “We can go now,” Ormuz told Finesz.

  “They’ll let us leave?”

  He nodded. He turned and retraced his steps to the gig’s ladder, pushing through his crew-mates. Finesz turned to go, but a last shout from Gotovach made her turn back.

  “I’m sorry about your ship!” the Navy officer called to Plessant.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  “What in heavens were you playing at out there?” Kordelasz demanded angrily. He threw his helmet onto a seat and dropped to sit beside it. Reaching out, he flicked a finger against the helmet’s armoured crown. It produced a muted ‘ding’. “They were unarmed! We could have taken them easily. You let them go!”

  “I had my reasons,” Rinharte replied stiffly. “I won’t be questioned.”

  “The Admiral will question you.”

  “I stand by my decision.”

  “That boy ran rings around you,” Kordelasz complained.

  “He was right,” Rinharte said wearily. She settled down next to Kordelasz, gazed in puzzlement at the kepi she held in one hand, and then placed it carefully on the empty seat to her right.

  “Right?” parroted Kordelasz in disbelief. “He’s a prole, a dogsbody on a data-freighter!”

  “He’s the reason, Garrin, Divine Providence left its usual route and headed to Kapuluan.”

  “You believed him,” accused Kordelasz, “when he said they needed him to fight the enemy.”

  “I did, yes,” Rinharte replied, surprised at herself. She had stood on that rocky plain in the shadow of the jolly boat and watched the group one hundred yards away. A tall woman with short blonde hair, imposingly clad in the black of the OPI. And the five bedraggled members of Divine Providence’s crew, each glowering stubbornly. But not the boy. Casimir Ormuz. He had been as much a mess as his crew-mates, but something charismatic had shone through the dirt and grime. When he spoke, Rinharte had believed him.

  She had seen the expressions flitting across their faces: the OPI officer puzzled at some of Ormuz’s remarks; Plessant grimacing in disagreement at Ormuz’s promises; and Lotsman—

  Her heart had fluttered when she saw the bruise stretching from jaw to temple on his face. His lop-sided grin signalled that it looked worse than it felt and she was grateful for the thought behind the grin. It had made her feel better.

  “We can afford to wait until Kapuluan. And if, as the boy has promised, he has the answers, then I was right to let them go. If losing a battle wins the war, Garrin, then so we must if that’s where the advantage lies—” She broke off and watched Alus’s squad file into the boat. They removed their weaponry and hung it on the equipment-rack, and buckled themselves into the seats opposite. The boat-sergeant removed his pill-box helmet and set it in his lap. His marines followed suit. All four gazed expressionlessly at the hull somewhere above Finesz and Kordelasz’s heads. It was comment enough on her decision.

  “He knew about the Admiral,” Kordelasz said.

  “He did, yes.”

  “He knew about my promotion!”

  “That too.” Rinharte sighed. Ormuz’s intelligence was impressive. Did his masters have a spy aboard Vengeful? It was not inconceivable: the knight signets had, after all.

  “Who is he?”

  “I don’t know.”

  And she didn’t. Oh, she knew what her files said: son of a farmer on Rasamra, two years of service aboard Divine Providence. General crewmember—a, as Kordelasz so acidly pointed out, “dogsbody”. But the encounter she had just experienced proved the lie of that. Despite the dirt decorating his ship-coveralls, the grey bandage wrapped about an injury on his arm, Ormuz had not presented himself as a prole. Something… noble had shone through. Which was a puzzle. Why the fake background? Why the pretence?

  Kordelasz slouched grumpily and crossed his arms across his chest. “We should have taken them,” he muttered. “The Admiral will be furious.”

  Rinharte sighed. “I know.”

  A barked, “Come!” sounded from within the day cabin, so the footman slid the door aside. The Admiral was seated behind her desk. She gestured brusquely. Rinharte glanced across at Kordelasz and stepped warily inside. She took one of the two seats before the desk, heard Kordelasz settle in the other with a jingle of lockets as he rearranged the sword at his hip.

  “Where is our quarry?” demanded the Admiral. She gazed at Rinharte with narrowed eyes, her mouth set in a thin line. “You were to bring them aboard, I seem to recall.”

  Rinharte clasped her hands in her lap and straightened her posture. As officer commanding in the field, it was her right to make decisions in response to events, even decisions that contradicted orders. And she had done just that. She was about to learn how much the Admiral valued her.

  “I had Mr Voyna track you,” the Admiral continued. Her displeasure was cold and intense, and frightening. “You landed beside a gig from the OPI sloop. Tell me, Rizbeka, why you didn’t take the crew of this data-freighter from the OPI.”

  “We arranged to meet them on Kapuluan, ma’am.”

  “You mean you left them in the hands of the OPI?” The Admiral rose to her feet. “I am disappointed, Rizbeka.” She chopped the air with one hand. “No. I am… displeased. Tell me why I should not be.”

  Rinharte shifted in her chair and grimaced as the cross-guard of her sword poked her in the side. She put down a hand and moved the blade to a more comfortable position. How to explain her actions…

  “There is a… young man in the crew of Divine Providence, ma’am,” Rinharte said. “He’s the key, he’s the reason Divine Providence is heading for Kapuluan. He says he’s needed to fight the—” She paused. “They call him the Serpent.”

  Her back still to Rinharte and Kordelasz, the Admiral said, “I command this fight, Rizbeka. I’ll not abrogate my responsibility. We are fighting to safeguard the Imperial Throne—from all its enemies. Never forget that.” She turned away from the bulkhead to face her two officers. “Serpent?” She gave a tight smile. “It fits, it surely fits.”

  Rinharte knew better than to relax at this lightening of the Admiral’s mood.

  “You have erred, Rizbeka,” the Admiral continued. “I sent you to bring back the crew of this data-freighter. If this young man was the important one, then you should at the very least have taken him. You did neither.”

  “No, ma’am. I made the right decision.”

  The Admiral frowned. “You dare to argue?”

  Rinharte said nothing.

  “Garrin, do you concur?” asked the Admiral.

  Kordelasz shifted uncomfortably. He looked across at Rinharte, then turned back to the Admiral.

  Rinharte held her breath. She knew Kordelasz’s opinion.

  “Lieutenant-Commander Rinharte… knows what’s she doing, ma’am,” the marine-captain said. “I trust her.”

  “She would not be aboard my ship if I could not put my trust in her,” snapped the Admiral. She gestured imperiously. “Now leave.”

  Hastily, Rinharte and Kordelasz rose to their feet. Clutching their swords against their legs, they hurried towards the hatch. As Rinharte reached for the catch, the Admiral spoke:

  “For your sake, Rizbeka, I hope events on Kapuluan prove the rightness of your decision. Or I will have you sharing a cabin with Commander Mubariz.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Lexander Lotsman brooded. It had been many years since he was last a passenger aboard a starship, and this OPI sloop had little in the way of comforts or entertainments. He lay on his bunk in the tiny cabin he had been assigned, hands clasped behind his head, and stared at the ceiling mere inches from his nose. His mind, however, was elsewhere.

  It had been a shock to see Riz standing there on Bato in her Imperial Navy uniform. And an even bigger shock to learn that she was indeed an officer, a lieutenant-commander, a yeoman.

  Lotsman was a ship�
��s pilot, he flew a data-freighter. He cultivated an easy-going ladies’ man demeanour, but it was all a sham, a role he played. He did it because it was expected of someone in his position. He was, like his captain, wedded to his masters. But there had been something about Riz…

  He remembered the tall woman he’d taken to dinner on Ophavon, topping him by inches in her heels. She was fascinating, beguiling. She had captivated him, and he had been hard-pressed not to show it. Perhaps, perversely, it had been her air of self-possession, a sense that she could never be his, which had attracted him. She carried herself with confidence and had not once looked to him for approval. She was so very different from the women he normally found himself attracted to.

  And not so very different from Captain Murily Plessant.

  Lotsman grimaced. It was not a welcome realisation. Plessant was more than just his captain, she was his direct superior. He took his instructions from her and looked to her to give his life meaning. She was a yeoman, although she pretended to be proletarian. Knowing that, it struck Lotsman he was a fool for not realising Riz too was yeoman. He had, after all, spotted immediately that she was more than she claimed to be. That purported meeting on the Puwit Kali… A blatant lie. But he had played along, had done so because at first it had amused him. Later, his curiosity had been aroused. For that reason, he had told himself, he had argued against Plessant’s order not to meet further with Riz.

  What, he wondered, did Riz think of him? Did she believe him to be a simple ship’s pilot? He wasn’t, of course. There was nothing “simple” about the crew of Divine Providence. They were undercover agents. Spies… although they did little actual spying. Their skills reflected their true nature: Lotsman was trained in unarmed combat and in the use of various close combat weapons. He boasted skills which ship’s pilots ordinarily did not possess. In his younger days, before he had been assigned to Divine Providence, he had undertaken numerous dangerous missions for his masters on a variety on Imperial worlds. He had burgled, stolen, even killed, at the their bidding. He had been involved in complicated scams, had spent boring weeks on surveillance. He had done everything his masters wanted and never considered the consequences. They were not for him to know. Now, he wondered precisely what he was doing. And why.