“Affirmative. St. John out.” He killed the channel and connected to Sinner. “You get all that?”
“Already on it, Saint.”
He straightened in his seat and in his pristine accent said, “That’s Captain Saint to you, Gunnery Sergeant Cynthia Murphy, while you’re on board my vessel.”
“Yes, sir, Captain Saint, sir,” she replied. “Allow me to suggest exactly what you should do with your vessel.”
Her suggestion, as usual, was both cheerfully vulgar and anatomically impossible.
Chapter Twenty-One
The conversation paused, and Emperor Kraada Tak took the moment to regard the members of the mob milling about his throne. From his vantage point on the platform at the top of the stairs, they looked small and unimportant, dressed in their ill-fitting finery and dawdling in hope of gaining influence, or status, or simply seeing something important and unexpected.
In the first two, he had no interest. In the latter, he’d soon deliver a spectacle of which their paltry imaginations could not possibly conceive.
He tuned back in to the steady voice of his seneschal. “So, as you can see, all your orders have been properly carried out.”
“Every single traitor on the list?”
“Yes, Emperor. Those on whom we have incontrovertible evidence are no longer among the living. Those we were less positive about have been imprisoned.”
Kraada grunted. The lack of clear proof was a sticking point on which his advisers, excluding Variin, agreed. They argued the rabble wouldn’t take his personal insight into his enemies’ hearts and spirits as proof worthy of execution. He shrugged mentally. In time, they’d come to understand what obedience to the chosen vessel of the gods meant.
“And our investigations into those not on the original list?”
“Have been undertaken with great energy,” replied Chanii. Kraada thought his most trusted attendant looked uncomfortable. Perhaps the collar of his tunic was too tight. For an instant, his vision slipped, and the man resembled nothing more than a giant worm in a uniform. He shook his head slightly, and things returned to normal.
Lack of discipline. None of them saw what he saw. None of them understood the vital importance of the moment about to be born, or they’d welcome the opportunity to separate those who believed from those who pretended with the most aggressive methods of truth-seeking and punishment.
“Time,” Kraada growled.
The seneschal fumbled an ornate watch from his vest and examined it. “Approximately two minutes, Your Grace.”
He grunted again. “Tell me, Chanii, what are the people saying about my reign?” He waved a lazy hand to indicate the miniscule beings below.
This must be what the gods saw when they looked down upon the greatest among us.
“They’re filled with respect, Emperor.”
“And the ones who are not?”
“They’re in the minority, and fear to speak too loudly lest their fellows act against them.”
Kraada leaned forward and spread his wings, flicking them in the fashion of the warriors of old who secreted light blades along their feathers to surprise their enemies. “Very good. Events are moving toward perhaps the most pivotal period in our entire history. Increase the number of informants among them. Any hint of treachery should be met with the blade, not with manacles.”
Chanii looked at his feet and mumbled, “Yes, Your Grace. It will be done.”
“Time.”
“Forty-five seconds, Your Grace.” The man’s voice trembled as he continued speaking. “Perhaps mercy would be the better choice on this occasion, Emperor.”
Kraada laughed and adopted a regal posture atop the throne. “That’s why I keep you around, Chanii. You’re the wounded conscience to Variin’s unceasing aggression.” He felt a tingle of anticipation and said, “Speak of the demon, and she shall appear.”
The doors to the throne room swung wide, and a guard’s voice announced, “The emperor’s protector.”
She walked in, trailed by a circle of guards prodding at something in their center to advance. Her black cowl and robes hid her features from the surrounding rabble. From his inclined angle, he could see the scars on her face, some of them recent reminders of battles won in his service. He nodded to her, a grandiose gesture that would convey his respect for the assassin to all those assembled.
When she reached the foot of the dais, she knelt and intoned, “Traitors, as commanded, Emperor.”
He stood and brushed his hands down the front of his ceremonial robes. His stomach fluttered in anticipation, and the memory of sweetness, of honey, played across his tongue. This moment was far sweeter than any morsel could ever be.
As he descended the first step, his seneschal raced ahead, gesturing at the guards below. The protective detail at the base of the dais spread out and used persuasion and force in equal measures to block the onlookers away from the center aisle. When they’d finished, the emperor had an unobstructed path to the protective circle of his guards.
“You’ve done well, my protector,” he announced as he reached the bottom of the stairs. He laid a hand on her head and murmured a small prayer. When he lifted it, she rose to stand at his side, the seemingly casual placement of her hands putting her centimeters from her weapons. Chanii joined them in the approach.
“Make way for the emperor, fools,” hissed Variin, and the guards recoiled, moving aside. But they still remained close enough to intervene at the slightest threat from the traitors they’d delivered to the emperor.
The woman and her two children huddled in a bunch on their knees. The mother pushed her children behind her as the circle opened and stood to interpose herself between them and the emperor. Kraada stopped his guards’ response with a raised hand and turned to address one side of the throne room.
“Before you, you see the partner and offspring of Injaraa Cria, who was proven to be a traitor and received his just punishment in the cathedral on the last holy day.”
He paced as he warmed to his speech. He brought up his palms in a wide gesture of inclusion. “Who among you thinks of mercy right now?” He spun to point at the other half of the throne room. “Which of you believes that surely the guilty has been punished already?”
Kraada clasped his arms behind his back. “Of course, you are. You all are. Even, dare I say, one of my most trusted attendants is at this very instant of the opinion that mercy would be the correct route.” He speared Chanii with a glare, silencing any consideration of speaking he might have possessed.
“Even the gods themselves,” he raised his arms, palms flat, toward the heavens, then continued, “even the gods believe in mercy, isn’t that right?” He paused, and paced, to give the mob a moment to employ the limited functionality of its intellect.
“However, the Dhadas is as clear as diamond on this matter. It says a traitor to the gods shall not be permitted to live. And so, Injaraa Cria received the just reward for his choices.”
He schooled his voice to change roles from accuser to teacher. “But are we to believe he acted alone? That he never once spoke of his dissatisfaction, never once spoke of his plans?” He turned to face the pathetic creatures huddled before him. “Are we to imagine his secrecy was so perfect that on not one single occasion did his partner or his children overheard his treason?”
Kraada let the questions hang in the air for a moment before resuming, “‘But you have no proof,’ some of you are thinking, even now. This belief is only possible because you haven’t accepted the truth. The truth of the gods, as delivered through their words, and as spoken to their avatar in the moral realm.”
He walked in silence to stand beside his assassin.
“The gods say these beings are stained with their loved one’s treason. And there’s a singular punishment for such transgressions.”
Kraada raised his arms against the outbreak of murmurs in the room. “In respect for your uncertainty, and for your good and kind hearts, I’ll permit the guilty before you
to speak.” He leveled a sneer at the woman. “What say you, traitor, partner of a traitor, parent of traitors?”
Something in her hardened as he watched. Her spine stiffened, and her chin rose. “It was my intent to ask for clemency for our children, knowing as I do that their innocence, and my own, wouldn’t be adequate to protect us from your misplaced vengeance. But now, I’ll do no such thing. You have made the gods into an excuse for your own unrighteous behavior, Hierarch,” she injected her own sneer into his title, “and the gods will surely bring you down, and all who support you will fall along with you.”
He nodded and hoped the crowd would properly read his expression as confirmation of his worst fears about the woman and her children. Behind his back, he felt the touch of metal as it was pressed against his palm.
She drew in a breath to speak again, and Kraada extended his arm, discharging a single round from the projectile pistol in his hand. The gun was yet another relic of the early, violent days of the church. Each bullet was blessed by a priest, and the gun held only six. It was an instrument of faith, not a weapon of war.
Before the first bullet reached its target, he lowered his aim and fired twice more.
A scream emanated from somewhere among the mob and echoed throughout the chamber, then it stilled as if cut off by a protective hand.
The three traitors dropped without a response, perfect head shots having ended each of their opportunities to betray him, permanently. The smoky scent of the powder wafted to him, and he inhaled in satisfaction.
Kraada handed the pistol back to Variin, then turned in a slow circle to properly address all the rabble in the throne room. “Now you see the treatment the gods demand us to deliver to all traitors. Now you understand what faithfulness and honor to those above means. Carry the word. Let others know the truth of our gods, and the truth of our place in the world as subject to their will. Do this,” he paused, and the silence spoke eloquently, “lest you also find yourself judged.”
He wrapped his robes around him and motioned for his protector to attend. “Chanii, see that this is cleaned up.” His seneschal moved with a jerk, responding to his snapped instructions as if he was awakening from a trance.
“Yes, Emperor,” he whispered, then choked and coughed. “As you command.”
Kraada bestowed a nod of approval upon him and swept from the room with Variin by his side. His mind was already at work on plans to force more traitors to reveal themselves so they, too, could earn their rewards.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Pandora emerged from the gravity wave to discover the Washington hanging at its tunnel point, nearer the edge of the system. Kate hit the buttons to initiate contact. “Any problems in transit?”
Cross laughed. “A few loose bolts, deck plates, and the like. No big deal. All in a day’s work for Jannik and his team.”
“Somehow I don’t think he sees it that way.”
Another laugh in his deep-but-not-too-deep voice. She really enjoyed the sound. It made something grow warm in her soul. “Safe bet. How’s the Pandora?”
Pandora’s avatar shimmered to life beside her. “I’m fine, Captain Cross, and thank you for asking,”
“Have you detected any problems?” Kate asked.
The ship answered, “Affirmative, Commander. The installation is on high alert.”
“That’s the state we found the other base in, interesting,” she said.
“That’s inaccurate, Commander. This station is at a level of alert several steps above the previous one we visited, but not at the maximum.”
“What would the maximum be?” Cross asked.
“War,” Pandora replied in the same calm, matter-of-fact tone.
Kate turned to the screen and imagined him doing the same. When their eyes met, even through the remote connection, she felt them boring into her.
“Okay then, we’re in the lead. Stay on our six, Ace.”
“You got it, Red,” he said with a smile, then disconnected. She checked her display, noting the telltales that signaled unimpeded communication with the Washington’s computer.
“Here we go.” Kate’s fingers brushed the designators for thrust and direction and the Pandora heeled over to point at the innocent looking gap in the asteroid field surrounding the base.
“Should we expect the same surprises as last time?” she asked.
“Yes, Commander Flynn, and possibly additional ones.”
“Great,” said Lieutenant Santiago Diaz in the most sarcastic tone she’d ever heard from him.
“You love it Diaz, don’t deny it.”
“You always take me to the nicest places, Commander,” he replied. Then they were in the field, and her tactical officer’s attention was occupied with angling the shields in response to blasts from weapons hidden among the giant rocks.
Kate targeted and fired as fast as she could, sending energy bolts out to intercept incoming torpedoes before they could get close enough to deplete the close defense ammunition. And she sent her own missiles on arcing courses toward laser and plasma emplacements.
Her eyes widened as a brace of torpedoes dodged her beams and separated onto spiraling paths. “Incoming torpedoes,” Kate said, and tapped their icons on her control board to mark them.
“On it,” Diaz said, and the point defense cannons chattered.
Again, the targets evaded.
“Pandora?” Kate asked.
“An advanced version of our torpedoes, used only for installation defense due to the difficulty of manufacture. Each has an artificial intelligence aboard.”
The torpedoes opened up with their own lasers as they neared.
“Those things pack a wallop, Commander,” Diaz said. Kate flicked her eyes up to the shield strength information on the main display and saw that the shields were failing rapidly.
“Rolling,” Kate said, and twisted the ship into a roll to bring undamaged defenses against the incoming barrage. She sketched out vectors on her control board and sent them to the Washington. A light flickered in an affirmative reply and she smiled. “Watch this.”
She fired bolts of energy at the torpedoes again, and they reacted as before, one ascending and the other descending to avoid the blasts. Lasers and plasma from the Washington enveloped them as she covered the area inside the kill box she’d defined with the weapons from a full broadside. The torpedoes detonated far enough away that the shrapnel was rendered harmless by the Pandora’s shields.
“Thanks, Walsh,” she breathed, and jerked the Pandora into a climb to avoid one of the rocks that had gravity-locked onto her ship. The asteroid was dragged upward, the pull dragging down the Pandora’s acceleration. The Washington launched missiles against it, but only succeeded in knocking some of the rock’s mass away.
Kate selected drill torpedoes and fired them from the aft ports. She targeted them on the portions of the rock surrounding the likely location of the gravity generator, and they drilled into the asteroid before exploding. The asteroid shattered, and the projector, now separated from its power unit, fell away inert. “Any sign of enemy ships?”
“No, Commander.”
“Theories as to why this base, operating at a higher defense status, does not have them when the other one did?”
“None, Commander. I don’t have enough data to speculate. Perhaps once we’re inside the facility, we’ll be able to determine the reason.”
They jetted free of the asteroid field, trading shots with and finally eliminating a last set of cannon emplacements. Kate realized she’d been clenching her teeth and gently worked her jaw to loosen it. Ahead, the Domeki space station swam in the starscape. It was striking in its elegance—a shining metallic crescent, long and wide, but probably only a few decks deep. What looked like loading points appeared at irregular intervals. At the far end, not attached, but close enough for easy access, hung a repair scaffold.
Lieutenant Lynda Peterson whistled. “That’s one beautiful station.”
“No question,” K
ate said. “You can see the design similarities in the crescent and in the lines of the Pandora.” She triggered the connection to Cross. “Come through okay?”
He nodded, a look of respect on his face. “I’ll say one thing for the Domeki—they sure do know how to build.”
Cross’s image was replaced with an exterior view which showed cannons mounted along the top portion of the base swiveling to target them. “Shields forward,” Kate snapped, and the ship’s defenses weathered the first volley. After the attempt for a quick kill, the weapons settled into an unpredictable pattern of fire, maintaining a continuous assault on her defenses.
“We’re going to have to make a run along the surface,” she said. She hit the controls to put the ship into a dive and saw the Washington react to echo her movements. A grin tugged at the corner of her mouth as she remembered the fighter trial against the Lubyanka at the Academy. The smile was quickly replaced by a stern line as she focused on the task at hand.
Kate used the Pandora as a blocker, interposing her ship wherever possible between the enemy weapons and the damaged Washington. When she failed to knock out a weapon in passing, she trusted to Walsh and Cross to eliminate it. At the finish of their first run, two-thirds of the turrets were destroyed. A quick half-circle brought them back to do the same to the rest, and both ships coasted to a stop above the base.
“I have control of the airlock through the housekeeping systems, as before, Commander.”
“I guess we should count ourselves lucky they didn’t figure out that trick.”
“Indeed, Commander. I recommend you move quickly.”
Kate slapped the release for her security straps and said, “Yes ma’am, Captain Pandora.” She turned and dashed from the bridge.
Her gauntlets slid into place at the end of her outstretched arms at the same moment her boots finished wrapping her feet. An instant later, the helmet lowered and locked with a comforting click. The display came up instantly, and the suit greeted her.
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