He paused, and when Barrodagh did not resume, he added, “They might have been Panarchists. The com system in the kitchen started playing their battle music when the...” The commander appeared to have difficulty with the next word. “The counterattack commenced.”
Eusabian was silent for a time. “This counterattack,” he said, looking around. “It was apparently successful.”
Jesserian replied, “Yes, Lord, they escaped, but according to my men, the prisoner they had taken was no longer with them. No sign has been found of him. All the defense positions have been put on alert for departing craft.”
“There may have been two groups,” said Barrodagh. “Perhaps the looting was a diversion.” Wild ideas careened through his mind. Could Hreem have sent Panarchists as a diversion?
“How many casualties did you take here?” asked Eusabian, as if Barrodagh had not spoken.
“Five conscripts killed, Lord, seventeen wounded. None among the Tarkans,” replied Jesserian.
“I do not understand,” said Eusabian mildly, “why a squad of battle-armored Tarkans was unable to overcome a lightly-armed group of either Rifters or Panarchists.”
Barrodagh could hear death hovering in his words. A glance at Jesserian revealed that he, too, could sense it.
Then they received a reprieve from an unlikely source. With a rattle, one of the little machines came to life behind them. Jesserian threw himself forward with all the speed his servos could lend him just as the device discharged its last pie straight at the Avatar: clang-whizz-splat!
Green glop splattered around the commander’s armor as he intercepted the pie, but he couldn’t stop and ran full tilt into the corridor wall, punching a huge dent in the concrete wall behind the paneling. Dust and bits of ceiling rained down on them. Another guard blasted the offending machine.
Jesserian backed carefully out of the ruins of the wall and tried to turn around, but slipped in the gray slop underfoot and fell with a crash that shook the hallway. Broken slabs of paneling clattered down on top of him.
He finally managed to get to his feet and stood back at attention in front of the Avatar. His visor had been knocked closed by the impact. He levered it open, and a flux of green slime oozed out, dripping down the front of his armor. He didn’t move, blinking painfully.
Eusabian regarded the commander with a meditative gaze, then said, “I assume this is not the terror weapon you referred to.” Barrodagh noted with mixed relief and trepidation the quirk narrowing his lord’s eyes.
“No, Lord,” Jesserian replied, relaxing slightly and wiping green slime off his face.
“Take me to the transfiguration room,” commanded Eusabian.
Barrodagh’s relief vanished, replaced by an echo of gnawing anxiety. The reprieve might still be only temporary.
o0o
“One hundred kilometers out,” Osri said, and surreptitiously wiped his sweating palms down his trousers.
“We’re being pulsed,” reported Lokri. “Short-range stuff.”
The ship shuddered as Vi’ya decelerated it to just below sonic velocity. On the main screen the water swooped closer. They were now only meters above the waves. Ahead, false dawn stained the sky. Against its faint glow, the impossibly slender thread of lights that marked the S’lift stood like a knife blade dividing the horizon.
“Open our eyes, Lokri,” she commanded. “Arkad, you’ll have to keep them off our back for about five minutes.”
The Krysarch frowned at his console, apparently integrating the range-pulse information now flowing from Lokri into the Tenno grid. Tenno! Almost dizzy from the violent swings of emotion, Osri was aware of a sense of gratitude for whoever had installed the Tenno Major—and for the fact that Brandon apparently knew their use.
Osri watched him hungrily as Brandon paused, regarding the pattern critically, then made a slight adjustment. My father? Tortured? Eusabian of Dol’jhar? Osri’s thoughts wheeled uselessly around those three facts, unable to make sense of them, yet unable to get away. He wiped his hands again.
Vi’ya tabbed her intercom. “Jaim, I need you to rig the radiants for thrust. How are we fixed for waste mass?”
“Full up. I ran a hose out to a stream in the forest while we were working.”
Thrust from the radiants? thought Osri. That was an unusual maneuver. The radiants ordinarily used small amounts of waste mass, usually water, to vent excess heat from the engines to space. In an emergency requiring more vectors than the geeplane and positional thrusters could provide, they could be used for thrust. He was beginning to suspect what Vi’ya intended. The next few minutes would almost match Lao Shang’s Wager for excitement. If they survived.
“Marim,” Vi’ya continued, tapping at her console, “here’s what I need from you. Can you do it?”
Marim whistled. “You’re really gonna try it?” She cocked her head and regarded her console critically, then tapped a few keys. “Yeah. Don’t have much choice, right?”
Osri looked back and forth between Marim and Vi’ya. He was intensely curious but unwilling to ask. Brandon raised his brows at Marim, who grinned back at him. Osri could have been invisible for all the notice anyone took of him.
He wished he were invisible. No, he wished he were gone. With my father.
Tortured?...
“We’re gonna head for orbit right along the S’lift cable so they can’t zap us without destroying the S’lift.” Marim said. “We call it the L’Ranja Whoopee—Vi’ya and Markham came up with it in an all-night bilge-banger after our raid on Hippanus IV. Jakarr said it was impossible. I said we’d never have a chance to use it.” She shrugged. “Looks like I was wrong, and I sure hope he was.”
The Krysarch grinned back at Marim, but Osri saw nothing amusing in the situation. The maneuver sounded insanely dangerous. He remembered seeing Markham at a cadet gathering, his homely face animated with excitement, his big hands swooping through the air to describe some impossible flight trick. And Osri remembered some of the stunts ascribed to Markham in the gossip inevitable after his cashiering. Those stunts were hallmarked by a combination of brilliance, insane risk, and tight control... “Which,” one of Osri’s fellow instructors had said, her tone skeptical, “makes you wonder. If Markham vlith-L’Ranja was that brilliant, why would he need to cheat?”
A wave of changes rippled through the glyphs echoed from the Krysarch’s console to the main screen. “Incoming,” Brandon said, triggering a counterstrike. Light flared in the screen; expanding gases buffeted the Telvarna.
In the main screen land leapt at them, a white beach with phosphorescent breakers flashing underneath as they raced toward the center of the island that anchored the S’lift. This was the staging point for most exo-planetary trade. Only tens of meters below the Telvarna a bewildering jumble of tightly packed warehouses, distribution centers, and transport lines flicked by with unsettling speed.
Now Osri could see the massive terminal at the base of the orbital cable. A long sleek shape outlined in colored lights leapt up out of its roof, clinging to the cable as its magnetic drivers accelerated it toward the Node, forty thousand kilometers above. A fast glance up the cable, and here was another carrier descending.
Fingers of light clawed at them from the roof of the terminal, met with equal speed from the Telvarna. The melding of human and machine lent by the Tenno grid was so perfect that Osri couldn’t tell whether Brandon or the ship’s defense system had triggered the response.
A pounding roar resonated through the ship as Vi’ya triggered the radiants into thrust mode. The resulting maneuver was part aerodynamic, part geeplane. As Vi’ya pulled the ship into a tight vertical turn, the ground tilted away in the main screen, giving way to a vertiginous view straight up the thick cable—an endless string of lights outlining the carrier mag-tracks receding to infinity.
The descending carrier flashed by. Osri had a subliminal impression of shocked faces in the observation bubble.
There was no more fire from the ground. The
y were too close to the S’lift. Vi’ya let the ship drift away somewhat from the cable. “We’ll hold at this velocity until flame-out, then accelerate to three klicks and hold there until we’re past the Shield generator.”
“Then we make Whoopee.” Marim clapped her hands together and flung them apart. “I’m ready.”
o0o
Scurrying along between the whine-thump, whine-thump of Jesserian in his armor and the brooding silence of Eusabian, Barrodagh felt like a criminal being led to execution. The eyes of the pictures on the wall didn’t help any, especially the holographic ones, which seemed to turn and watch him pitilessly as he passed. The glop on his clothing was drying and crusting; little pieces kept falling off his collar and down his neck. I am going to kill Hreem myself, he thought, surreptitiously tugging at his collar. But first he’s going to bathe in whatever this stuff is, until he scratches his skin off.
When they entered the room where Evodh and the others had died, Eusabian’s face registered no emotion. The pesz mas’hadni’s head had rolled to one side. The Avatar nudged it face-upward with one foot, then studied its frozen expression of horror and pain. “That is an unusual weapon. Not what one would expect from Panarchists.”
Barrodagh’s stomach lurched at the thought of it in Hreem’s hands.
Jesserian’s com beeped. Barrodagh could hear an excited voice coming from inside the man’s helmet, but could not make out the words. “Inform Kyvernat Juvaszt on the Fist,” Jesserian snapped. More muffled words. The kyltasz turned.
“Lord,” he said. “The units emplaced around the S’lift report that a vessel matching the description of the intruder—a ship called the Maiden’s Dream—has penetrated their defenses and is now accelerating toward the Node parallel to the cable. Juvaszt on the flagship has already been informed and will attempt to intercept, but he is presently on the other side of the planet.” More muffled words drifted from the commander’s helmet comm. The kyltasz’s face became bleak. “The kyvernat reports that because the resonance field is down, the end of the hohmann launcher—the freight-launching cable that reaches from the Node into space—is beyond radius. Since he will have to use long-range weapons, he therefore cannot guarantee capture or destruction of the intruder without severe damage to both the S’lift and the Node.”
There was a long pause. Eusabian’s face was thoughtful.
“No,” he said finally. “Post a suitable reward for the capture—alive—of the Gnostor Omilov.”
When he didn’t continue, Barrodagh realized that Eusabian preferred losing the looted artworks to broadcasting the news of this humiliation to the Thousand Suns at large. Barrodagh gritted his teeth. To protest, to point out the inevitable result of the news of this successful looting propagating through the Rifter world, would be to put his own life at risk.
I shall deal with Hreem before I do anything else, he promised. If we live through this day.
o0o
As the Telvarna passed the Shield generator—a flattened sphere transfixed by the S’lift at one hundred kilometers altitude—Osri glimpsed a gaping, scorched-edge hole in it.
Vi’ya began to pull the Telvarna in toward the cable. “Ready, Marim?”
The little Rifter’s fingers danced over her console. “Detuning the teslas now.” She watched her screen intently, head cocked. On the main screen the cable drifted closer, features on its surface a mere blur. The planet below still filled the rear screen.
“Getting a response from the cable,” she said. Then she slapped a pad on her console. “Got it! Induction successful. You two were right!”
The cable swelled alarmingly on the screen. Osri yelped in surprise. The engines wound up to a scream. They were accelerating at fifteen gees right up the cable, barely far enough away from it to miss any carrier they might encounter. A carrier flashed by so fast it was only a flicker.
Osri’s alarm peaked when Vi’ya pulled her hands away from her console, and turned to Marim. “Good work. We’ve got about seven minutes before the Node.”
What is keeping us off the cable?
Osri opened his mouth, but all that came out was a croak.
Brandon stared at the screen in growing amazement, then laughed aloud.
Marim laughed. “Told ya, Schoolboy!” She stretched with gloating ostentation, then relented. “Nothin’ to worry about, until we reach the Node. I’m usin’ our shields to induce a tesla field in the S’lift. Every time we try’n drift into it, the field in the cable converts the drift to a vector along our flight path. Nothin’ to it!”
Osri shook his head, unwilling to express what he had to admit was intense admiration. Not only did the momentum conversion of the induced tesla field keep them off the cable, it corrected their course as well. It was a brilliant maneuver, worthy of the Academy’s finest. The Academy’s finest, cashiered for insubordination.
He remembered the conversation with Brandon in the booster, and his father’s hints about the L’Ranja affair. His comfortable certainties cracked more deeply as he began to perceive the cost to the Panarchy and the Navy that the destruction of the L’Ranja Family had represented.
Vi’ya said to Brandon, “Keep your eyes open when we slow to maneuver around the Node to the hohmann. They may have had time to post some ships.”
The Krysarch nodded.
With the resonance field down, the hohmann will take us past radius, thought Osri, his respect intensifying almost to admiration. This was one for the textbooks.
“No sign of that cruiser up there,” reported Lokri.
“There’s a destroyer standing off the Node, but it doesn’t seem to be paying any attention.”
“We’ll wave to ’em as we scoot by,” Marim crowed.
Osri stared at the screen. There was nothing for him to do now, but he knew the captain would not allow him to leave. He gnawed at his knuckle, wondering what the charlatan Montrose was doing to his father... hoping for the first time that the big Rifter wasn’t actually the quack Osri had assumed.
The Node changed from a twinkle of light to a slowly growing disk hovering beyond the vanishing point of the S’lift cable. Minutes beyond that, he knew, lay escape. But to where, and under whose command? Brandon’s profile held no answer for him.
o0o
Barrodagh accompanied Eusabian in silence, followed by two Tarkans in standard uniform. He couldn’t read his lord’s mood with certainty, but knew from experience that it would take very little to provoke a deadly response.
The Bori’s office lay along their path. He began considering how he would detach himself from the Avatar and deal with the aftermath of the raid. The longer he remained in sight of Eusabian, the likelier he was to be a target of his anger.
Rapid footsteps approached.
The two Tarkans spun around, firejacs ready, then relaxed marginally. It was Ferrasin, accompanied by a gray-clad guardsman. He stopped in front of the Avatar, his blubbery face beet-red and sweaty with exertion as he struggled to catch his breath.
“The K-k-k—” His mouth worked, but he couldn’t get the words out. Eusabian was frowning deeply. The Dol’jharian nobility barely tolerated physical defects in the out-worlders in their employ.
With a heroic effort Ferrasin stopped, took a deep breath, and began speaking very slowly, stuttering only minimally. “Your pardon, Lord. The computer. Says that K-krysarch Brandon nyr-Arkad. Entered the Palace. This evening. From an adit in the Rouge quadrant. I think he was on that ship. The alert was posted for.”
It wasn’t Hreem?
With the slowness one experiences in nightmares, Barrodagh saw the beginnings of a vast, unstoppable anger distort Eusabian’s features. Through a singing in his ears he heard the tech continue, “I t-tried. To tell senz-lo Barrodagh’s secretary. But he wouldn’t listen to me.”
Barrodagh knew what must be done: this news had changed everything. He grabbed his compad, but it too was covered with green goo. He scrubbed frantically at it with his sleeve and managed to uncover Danathar’s
tab; he almost sprained his finger stabbing at it. “Get me Juvaszt on the flagship instantly!”
The response came within seconds, but it felt like hours to Barrodagh.
“Kyvernat Juvaszt here.” He added with affront, “Show yourself—”
“Destroy that ship,” Barrodagh screamed.
There was a moment’s silence. “The Avatar ordered—” The uncertainty in Juvaszt’s voice was evident even through the slime-plugged speaker of the compad. “The Node—our forces there—”
Eusabian grasped Barrodagh’s arm with a merciless grip. The Bori gasped with pain as the Avatar pulled the compad up to his face, wrenching Barrodagh’s shoulder cruelly.
“This is the Avatar of Dol,” he said. “Destroy that ship.”
THIRTEEN
“Thirty seconds to radius.” Osri’s throat hurt. His voice came out with a tremor.
Nobody smiled. The maneuver around the Node had been a gut-clenching experience. Even Vi’ya had a thin line of sweat at her hairline after the hull-skimming acrobatics past the edge of the Node and back to the hohmann cable. Now they were on the Whoopee again, accelerating flat out toward escape.
The tenno grid rippled violently on the Krysarch’s console. The hair on Osri’s arms prickled.
“Cruiser signature,” Brandon stated. “Missiles on the way, intersect course at radius.”
“Sgatshi!” Marim snarled. “They’re gonna zap us despite the S’lift!”
“Jaim, give me overload now.” Vi’ya’ s voice was cold, but strain showed in her narrowed eyes.
The engines roared and the ship started quivering.
“No,” Brandon said to Marim. “So far it’s by the book. If they’d decided to sacrifice the Node they’d use ruptors. They’re trying to pick us off neatly. The Telvarna can handle it.” He triggered a counter-barrage, and streaks of light reached out ahead, dwindled, vanished.
“Overload status. You’ve got fifteen seconds. Fiveskip’s up and ready,” came Jaim s voice.
The Phoenix in Flight Page 51