“We have to make this quick.”
“You’re Tironos,” Krin said, using the code name he had been furnished.
“Things have gotten more complicated with Senator Jocle. He’s slated for execution.”
Pencron frowned. “Execution seems a rather harsh penalty.”
“Are you serious?” Tironos said. “He tried to assassinate the Chief of State of the Terran Alliance. The Justice Court claims it wants to make an example of him.”
“We’re going to break him out,” Pencron said.
“You can arrange that?”
“That’s why we’re here…”
The elevator came to a rest and the door slid open.
“Welcome to the prison facility,” Tironos said, back in character, and shoved them both out into the anteroom beyond. Behind a semicircle of holographic, biological computer consoles stood five Sentinel robots sporting heavy plasma rifles.
“Show our two guests to cell four-eight-one-six,” Tironos told the head guard.
“That cell is already occupied by Senator Jocle,” the Sentinel responded.
“Misery loves company,” Tironos told it.
Executing a crisp about-face, he returned to the elevator. Emerging from the enclosure of holographic display screens, the Sentinel led Krin and Pencron into a narrow corridor lined with hundreds, if not thousands, of prison cells. About a hundred-and-thirty metres along it finally stopped, squawked a garbled machine-language code into a wall-mounted recognition pad, and the door to 4816 slid open automatically. Square and squalid, it contained neither mattresses nor a commode. The smell of waste was almost overpowering.
The Sentinel turned to them, and spoke in an uncharacteristically mocking tone. “A word of warning. The quality of the cuisine here is surpassed only by the cleanliness of the accommodations.”
“Then we’ll hope to be released before lunch,” Krin said calmly.
Senator Timpo Jocle was slumped in a corner, his long-fingered hands cuffed in front of him. Slender and pale-skinned, he was well dressed and seemingly unharmed. He glanced up, but didn’t return Yvanos Krin’s nod of greeting.
The Sentinel guard turned and left the cell, sealing the door shut behind it.
“Senator,” Pencron said loudly when the cell sealed. “We were sent here by Sai’bot. The time has come to get you out.”
Jocle raised his eyebrows. “You’re from the Empyreal Sun? It’s about time. You left it long enough…”
Krin ambled over to where he was huddled. “We don’t have much time, sir,” he said. “The Terran Alliance recently acquired one of the Stones we seek, and brought it here, to Earth. There is another team descending on its location as we speak. We will rendezvous with them at the Silver City, then make our escape with the Stone in our possession.”
Though surprised by all this, Jocle didn’t blink. “And how exactly will we manage that?”
Pencron smiled. “Sai’bot has arranged everything, sir.”
Jocle frowned suspiciously. “I’m with you, I guess. But how do we get out of this cell?”
“Patience,” Krin said quietly.
Backs pressed to the filthy wall, the three of them waited. Less than an hour had passed when they heard muffled voices in the corridor. The door whispered open, revealing Tironos and two Sentinel guards. Without a word, the Sentinels standing to either side of Tironos grabbed him by the arms and hurled him headlong into the cell. Krin caught him before he hit the floor. He was cuffed, and rattled.
“Another unexpected development?” Krin asked.
“My cover’s blown,” Tironos said quietly. “Don’t know how, or by whom.”
Pencron glanced at Krin. “No coincidence. Someone is onto us.”
Krin said nothing, deciding to leave it at that.
“Now what?” Jocle scoffed.
“Were you able to arrange anything?” Krin asked Tironos.
He nodded. “Power failure. Brief, but more than enough time for you to get out of here.”
“Us,” Pencron amended. “You’re coming along.”
“I appreciate that.” He frowned in uncertainty. “Hope I wasn’t wrong in figuring that you two will be able to open the door… manually, I mean.”
“We can open the door,” Krin assured him.
“How long before the power fails?” Pencron asked.
“An hour from now.” Tironos glanced at Jocle. “What about him?”
“I’m ready,” Jocle said.
Tironos’ face was etched with a serious expression. “We’ll take the tunnel to the left of the guard station,” he told Krin. “Then we keep taking lefts until we reach a stairway, then follow that to the docking level. Your bioship will be waiting there.”
“Nice of them to pick it up for us,” Pencron said.
“You have me to thank for that.”
Jocle nodded toward the cell block corridor. “We’ll still have the Sentinels to deal with.”
“Don’t worry about them,” Pencron said. Spreading his hands, he snapped the cuffs from his wrists as if they were made out of paper. Krin did the same, then snapped both Tironos’ and Jocle’s open.
Jocle couldn’t believe it. “How did you do that?”
Krin smiled broadly. “Gene therapy. Just think of it as an Empyreal Sun insurance policy.”
“Genome Soldiers,” Tironos said thoughtfully. “I’ve read about you…”
Pencron and Krin were standing by the door when the cell’s grime-encrusted illuminator faltered and died. Wasting no time, Krin shoved his entire body forward and the door burst open under the sheer impact of the blow.
Tironos smiled. “Impressive.”
Pencron swung to Jocle. “Now! Hurry!”
The four of them moved into the unlit hall.
Twenty-two hours after leaving the prison complex at Emnoute, the four Empyreal Sun agents arrived at the rendezvous point - exhausted, but unable to rest. At the very last place Senator Jocle would have wanted to go; the place where his world had been turned upside down less than a week earlier.
The island of Laputa.
As expected, the second infiltration team had joined them on the outskirts of the Silver City, and the Easesash Stone was in their possession, wrapped carefully in an unremarkable fabric so as not to attract unwanted attention. So far, so good.
“We should hurry along,” said Shamara Josto, leader of the second team, who carried the Stone in a bag. They had stolen it from a high-security facility north of Lahmia, amid heavy resistance. “Kaia and I made a number of enemies trying to get ahold of this thing, as you can probably imagine… and I’d rather not stick around for them to find us.”
Kaia Jervada exhaled heavily. “Quite right,” she said. “But how are we going to get off this planet?”
Krin stared rigidly at them, his heart thudding audibly in his chest. “Sai’bot has given us all the codes we need,” he told them. “There is a specific bioship we will need to steal - an old prototype, codenamed the Thunder, located in docking port twelve.”
A squad of Terran Alliance soldiers strode down the crowded street, their grey battle armour reflecting a yellowy-coloured tinge from the lights coming from the buildings around them. Taking a long step out of their way, Yvanos Krin pulled his hood a bit closer around his face. He could sense no particular alertness from the squad, but this deep into enemy territory there was no reason to take chances. Undoubtedly, they would be on high alert, but the soldiers strode past without so much as a glance in their direction, and with a quiet sigh of relief Krin returned his attention to his contemplation of the final stages of the plan. Between the soldiers, the Alliance fleet crewmen on layover between flights, and the smugglers poking around hoping to pick up jobs, the darkly business-like sense of this part of the Silver City was in strange and pointed contrast to its serene and abstract beauty.
“This way,” Krin muttered. A couple of metres to his left was the entrance to the long arched tunnel of a pedestrian bridgeway. Turning
down it, Krin stepped up the pace, trying to remember from his study of the city maps exactly where docking port twelve was located.
“There it is,” Pencron observed a few moments later. Docking port twelve, he noted, was no different in appearance from any of the other spaceports in the Silver City - perhaps among the greatest docks on the planet Earth, with a line of bulky biotransports coming in continually, huge floating cranes ready to meet them and unload the millions of tons of supplies necessary to keep alive the floating island of Laputa, which had become too populous to support itself through its own resources. The efficiency of these docks was nothing short of amazing, and yet the place was still tumultuous, and sometimes gridlocked by the sheer number of docking ships and floating cranes.
This was also a place for passengers, travellers between the Twelve Factions, catching cheap rides on bioships outbound, thousands and thousands of people looking to escape the sheer frenzy that had become the capital city of the world and its interstellar colonies beyond.
Blended into that throng, the six sinister figures walked along, dressed in simple brown tunics and breeches, the garb of everyday travellers. They walked side by side to the walkway that would take them to the Thunder, one of the smallest and most unassuming ships docked here.
The wonder of it, Timpo Jocle mused, was that the Thunder had actually been a top secret project only ten years earlier. Damarus and the Holy Parliament had tried to keep a low profile on the Galatea project, perhaps fearing a backlash about all the money they were spending on its development, and for the most part they’d succeeded. Only a handful of people ever really knew about it, and Jocle was one of them. In his various official and unofficial governmental dealings over the past twenty or so years, Jocle had encountered virtually no one else who had even heard of it.
Now, here at the very centre of a very public docking port, it could hardly have been ignored. But to his mild surprise, he hadn’t heard a single word about the ship as they walked through the docking port. True, most interstellar bioships were now capable of hyperspace travel; even the largest capital ships now used Alcubierre-Sel’varis Drives, rendering the Thunder largely redundant in the modern world. But he still would have expected someone to have raised their head long enough to take notice of such an historic vessel. Perhaps in these days of growing political and social turmoil, he mused, even historic things were soon forgotten. In this particular case, it was just as well.
Approaching the ship, Krin keyed open the main hatch using a remote code supplied to him by Sai’bot. The six of them filed in quickly, then Pencron locked it again behind them. Hurriedly, they made their way to the cockpit. Seating himself in the pilot’s seat, Krin punched in another code.
The controller’s voice barked over the communication system, “Acknowledged, Thunder. Your take-off slot is confirmed.”
Shutting off the comm, Krin grinned. Sai’bot’s codes were working a treat. He moved his hands over the main Zara’moth control console, watching the displays closely as the systems began coming online. This was almost too easy.
A deep throbbing started somewhere within the ship as the engines were activated. Josto, Jervada, Tironos and Jocle began strapping themselves into the vacant seats in the main passageway, while Pencron seated himself in the co-pilot’s chair.
Meanwhile, outside the entrance to the docking port, a squad of eight Terran Alliance soldiers activated their weapons and raised them to firing position, then charged en masse down the entryway.
A glint of light on moving metal caught Krin’s eyes as the unwelcome outlines of the first soldiers showed themselves. Krin thought it unlikely they would pause to make demands. His suspicion was confirmed before he could open his mouth to protest their intrusion, as several dropped to their knees and opened fire on the ship with plasma rifles.
The low throbbing noise rose to a whine, then to a deafening howl as Krin activated the Thunder’s engines.
Then, all across the docking port, alarms began to sound.
“So much for sneaking away quietly,” Tironos said.
Several teams of soldiers scouring the city reacted to the alarm at the same time as they saw the small bioship lift gracefully into the clear orange-red sky above Laputa. Moving fast now, it shrank to a pinpoint before any of them thought to bring a weapon to bear.
Pencron gave the ship’s scanners a quick glance as they moved into orbit through a narrow travel band that allowed them to escape the planetary shell of orbiting space mines. “Capital ships,” he said. “Looks like most of the fleet are up here. They definitely don’t want to lose this artefact. Sure picked ourselves a hot one this time.”
“Don’t worry,” Krin said. “The Thunder is already transmitting a code that will allow us to leave. It was designed by Damarus. We have nothing to fear.”
Kaia Jervada bit her lip, bracing herself for fight or flight.
Jocle muttered to himself nervously.
Tironos stared at the huge flagship Ballog II that loomed everywhere in front of them. It fixed his eye with its glittering darkness, filled his vision like a malignant cataract. “You realise if this code doesn’t work, we’re all dead.”
“It worked for Sai’bot and Xam Bahr,” Krin said matter-of-factly. “There’s no reason why it won’t work for us.”
Soon enough, they were clear of the fleet of capital ships, passing the moon and the planets beyond.
Krin breathed a heavy sigh of relief, then gunned the Alcubierre-Sel’varis Drive.
14
“He doesn’t exist!”
With those words, spoken without any conscious thought or effort on his part, Ammold Paramo sat upright in bed and looked around the dimly illuminated chamber. It was much dustier than it should have been: the air-filtration systems were obviously malfunctioning again. The parallel rays of the distant yet still brilliant Sun, streaming through the porthole windows, lit up a myriad of dancing motes in a classic display of Brownian movement.
There wasn’t much else to see. Paramo didn’t accumulate much personal property here on Earth Tower One. Within view were metal chairs situated in front of unlit computer screens; a wall rack holding ceremonial swords and other practice weapons; a table littered with personal effects such as a Vei’nl, notes scrawled on scraps of paper, computer control crystals holding reports from various military figures, a holographic photo display of a young Princess Esme, and a crude and not at all accurate sandglass statuette in his own image sent to him by a child from the Tenth Faction. Inset into the biopolymer walls were drawers holding his limited selection of clothes, and various Rãvier units.
A heavy knock fell on the door. He jumped. Sign of a guilty conscience, he thought, and tried to school his features back into a more presentable expression. Gathering himself, he went to answer the door.
It was Lorelei Chen. In the bright artificial light of the corridor outside, her eyes were an amazing green. “I could hear you halfway down the corridor,” she said, concern etched across her features. “…Who doesn’t exist?”
“I don’t know,” he said, averting her gaze. “An enemy. A foe.”
“You dreamed about this enemy?”
He nodded, appreciating her genuine concern. “I’ve had the dream a couple of times before, actually. It’s so vivid, it feels like… more than a dream, somehow. He’s all wrapped up in shadows - a dark hooded cloak, but more than that, shadows of light and…” Paramo shook his head, struggling for the correct word. “And darkness, I suppose. And he brings great pain to the galaxy… and to me.”
“Well, if he brings pain to the galaxy, you’re obviously going to feel it.”
“No, to me personally, in addition to his other evil.” Paramo sighed and turned back to his room. “It’s too vague. It doesn’t make much sense.”
“Because he doesn’t exist…”
“That’s what the dream tells me.” Paramo said. “But it’s a recurring dream…”
Chen looked at him. “Could it be Damarus?”
>
Paramo considered, then shook his head and pushed the possibility away. “I don’t think so. Initially I thought it might be, but in this dream, I don’t sense Damarus’ alienness, or the majesty one might associate with him. Mentally, emotionally, whoever it is remains human, or near human. I suppose there is the possibility that it’s Cristian Stefánsson, before he turned.” His gaze lost focus as he tried to recapture the dream. “What little of his face I can see reminds me of the features of Cristian when I met him. But his eyes… as I watch, they turn black.”
Chen frowned. “But it’s just a dream, right?”
He took a deep breath and blew it out wearily. “Yes, of course.” He blinked, shaking the unwanted thoughts aside. Another deep breath. “Now, tell me Lorelei, what brings you to my private chamber at this late hour?”
She looked uncomfortable. “I… I’m afraid I have some bad news, Paramo.”
“What is it?” he demanded, instantly suspicious. He took a step toward her. “It’s the Easesash Stone, isn’t it? Something’s happened to it…”
She nodded gravely. “Stolen, by the Empyreal Sun.”
Paramo felt a cold fear grip him. “I knew it,” he hissed, sounding sincerely angry. He turned and paced the dusty room, then came back. “How?”
“Two teams of Genome Soldiers managed to infiltrate Earth’s orbital defences using captured merchant vessels,” Chen explained. “They stole the Easesash Stone and liberated Senator Jocle from his prison at Emnoute. It is believed that Empyreal Sun agents, already here and operating within Emnoute, were able to assist them.”
Paramo gritted his teeth, his mind reeling with outrage. All memory of the dream had quickly faded away. “Xam Bahr’s treachery knows no bounds!” he roared. “How did they manage to escape? We have an entire fleet of capital ships in orbit!”
“They stole the Thunder from right under our noses,” she told him, her voice sweet and brittle, yet strained with emotion. “As it left Earth’s atmosphere, the Ballog II registered some kind of code signal, broadcast on a universal frequency which allowed the ship to escape the orbital blockade. We aren’t sure how, but the code rendered all targeting and weapons systems inoperable. By the time we figured out what was happening, the Thunder had entered hyperspace.”
The Complete New Dominion Trilogy Page 39