“Pilot,” he said. “Enact preprogrammed course. Engines, fire engines. Signals, get me Captain Derinuus.”
Expedition kicked him in the spine as the main engines ignited. His acceleration cage swung on its gimbals. A tiny Derinuus head appeared on his communications display.
“What do you mean by this outrage?” In his passion Derinuus had lost control of his vocal apparatus and his voice sounded like a wheel squeaking. Severin hoped his own voice would show a little more composure, though he wouldn’t have bet on it.
“I can’t allow you to kill citizens of the empire entirely on your own initiative,” Severin said. “There have been no arrests, no trials, no findings. Your action was illegal.”
“You’re siding with the rebels!”
“No,” Severin said. “I suggest instead that we refer the matter to higher authority. If your action is endorsed by the government, I will stand aside.”
“That will take days!”
Severin tried to project serenity and confidence. “We have time,” he said.
The engines shut off and suddenly everyone was weightless again. There was a shimmer in Severin’s inner ear as Pilot First Class Liu began to pitch the ship end over end so that she could fire a brief deceleration burn to place Expedition alongside Derinuus’s cruiser.
“You will suffer retribution for this!” Derinuus had regained control of his voice, and his words created a harsh harmony in the air. “I’ll blast you to atoms!”
“No, you won’t.” Severin thrust out one arm and held out two fingers, as if he were poking Derinuus right between his lidless eyes. Because he’d expected to be engaged in conversation with Derinuus for this period, he’d arranged to give a series of hand signals to the Command crew to tell them what he wanted. Toupal responded sotto voce: “Yes, Lord Captain.”
The point-defense lasers lashed out in a preprogrammed series of bursts, targeting Beacon’s own laser turrets. Expedition’s records contained a complete set of Beacon’s plans, its weapons crew knew exactly where the turrets were placed, and at this range Toupal and her lasers couldn’t possibly miss. Only Beacon’s lasers on the far side of the ship, where Expedition couldn’t reach them, were spared destruction.
Expedition’s engines fired again, a few seconds of very hard gees that caught Severin by surprise and knocked the breath from his lungs. At the end of the burn, Expedition was neatly paired with Beacon, courses and speeds matched, Beacon caught between Expedition and the planet below.
Severin didn’t know where Derinuus stood in the tactical debate that had gone on in the Fleet—whether he was one of Tork’s traditionalists or supported Martinez’s innovations—but he knew that in the present situation none of that mattered. All existing tactics were based on opposing ships, whole squadrons or fleets, approaching from out of range and into the danger zone. No one had ever assumed that an action would begin with the ships nearly within spitting range of each other.
Beacon was pinned. If it fired a missile, at this close range the missile would be tracked and destroyed before it could lock on to Expedition. All lasers that bore on Expedition had been rendered useless. It might be possible to replace or repair them, but that would take time, and Expedition’s sensor crew would see it happening and lasers would blast the turret all over again.
Severin drew in a breath while Derinuus’s voice yowled in his ears. “You have attacked an imperial vessel! You will die for your treasonous action!”
Blah-blah-blah, Severin thought. “That’s up to a court to decide,” he said. “There’s nothing you can do. If you’ll only stop and think—”
The orange end-stamp appeared on Severin’s communication display, and he realized that Derinuus had cut communications. He turned his eyes to the tactical display while another eddy shimmered through his inner ear, as Liu yawed Expedition around so that it was pointed in the same direction as Beacon and could match the other cruiser’s movements.
Liu was in the midst of this maneuver when Beacon responded to Severin’s provocation. Its main engines ignited, it rolled ship to present its undamaged lasers, and it fired a missile . . .
And then it vanished in an eruption of gamma rays, pi-mesons, and neutrons, the by-products of antimatter annihilation. Every sensor on Expedition was burned to a crisp, the point-defense lasers were wiped out, and every exterior antenna was scoured from the ship.
If Expedition’s defensive lasers had been set on manual operation, the missile could have been tracked by Toupal or her assistant, then blown up when it was at a safer distance; but the lasers had been set on automatic to follow the preprogrammed attack on Beacon’s turrets, and when the missile fired, it had been tracked and destroyed within a half second of its launch. Beacon had fired an antiship missile with a tungsten jacket, and the cruiser was immediately engulfed in a fireball that destroyed it and set off the rest of the antihydrogen ammunition and fuel.
So massive was the explosion that the weight of neutrons and gamma rays actually slapped Expedition with enough force to give it a shove. Severin felt the lurch as all his exterior displays went blank, and then he heard the cheep of a radiation alarm and his displays beeped an alert that the hull temperature had risen to a dangerous level. Damage lights began to flash.
“Damage control,” he began, lost track, then had to start again. “Damage control, report as soon as you have information.”
I told him to think, he thought. He didn’t.
“Medical, break out antiradiation medication,” he said. He turned to Warrant Officer Falyaz. “Engines,” he said, “if you think it’s safe, fire and get us to a cooler part of this cloud.”
As Falyaz began a cautious acceleration, Severin looked at the stunned faces of his crew, and at the temperature alerts. Expedition was in the middle of a vast radioactive fireball. But that, he thought, was nothing compared to the fireball awaiting him when he returned to base.
I think I may be in trouble, he thought.
Chapter 14
The Matrix Bookstore on Lapis Street in the High City was widely acknowledged as a cultural treasure, three stories tall, with bookshelves that stretched from floor to ceiling and were surrounded by lacy wrought-iron balconies. There was an area for rare books and manuscripts, another area for maps, another area for vintage software. An annex held printers that could assemble an otherwise unavailable work at short notice, though in practice these were used mainly for government documents. The bookstore had been in its current location for twelve hundred years, since it had moved from its earlier location in the Lower Town.
Sula had prowled the bookstore herself, looking for and browsing through old Terran books that dated from before the conquest. She couldn’t read the dead languages, so she chose her purchases largely for aesthetic reasons—if she liked the paper, binding, type, and production, she might consider taking it home. Sometimes the scent of the pages or the leather covers made up her mind, sometimes the illustrations. If she could find a translation to aid her comprehension, so much the better.
But many of her purchases were books of artwork or photographs. Sula enjoyed turning the pages and dreaming her way through the cultures of old Earth, with their ancient buildings, primitive technology, and extraordinary and unwieldy fashions. Farthingales? Stovepipe hats? T-shirts with advertising on them? There was something to be said for modern civilization after all.
But now she wasn’t looking for an old book, but a new one. Today was the debut of Ming Lin’s book, The Cosgrove Legacy, her history of the financial crisis, published by a company owned by Lady Koridun. Because Lin had been fully committed to working for Sula while at the same time finishing her dissertation, her editor had hired a Lai-own journalist, Ko-don, to serve as coauthor. The collaboration had been fraught, as Lin complained that Ko-don insisted on simplifying the story and using unspecialized language that other economists might find unprofessional or uninformed—but fortunately Ming Lin was so preoccupied with her other work that she was unable to turn a pop
ular history into a dry, balanced, scholarly work amply hedged with footnotes and caveats.
In its final form, The Cosgrove Legacy displayed a certain schizophrenia. In addition to the book itself, there was another volume of documentation, for the most part available as an electronic file, though the printers in the annex would create and bind a copy if a purchaser desired. If sufficiently stimulated by Ko-don’s narrative of sharpers, dupes, and cretinous bank officials, the reader could plunge deep into the figures, and if so inclined, they could do their own math and add up the numbers themselves. Not, Sula supposed, that anyone would.
Nervous censors had sliced large sections out of the book, sections mainly having to do with the disgrace of well-connected public figures, or some of the same figures offering quotes that made them seem like idiots. Sula had intervened personally and pointed out that all the quotes were from recordings, public records, and official announcements, and that the time to censor them was long past. The censors bristled and restored the text, then eased their feelings by cutting some minor passages, and Ko-don—who was used to dealing with censors in his capacity as a journalist—had created artful paraphrases that managed to convey the same ideas in more measured language.
Ming Lin had to be talked out of wearing her scholar’s robe for her authorial debut, and Sula had bullied her into purchasing a silk crepe dress by Chesko, a designer she used herself when obliged to wear something other than a uniform. Lin complained about the expense, but Sula reminded her that she was no longer on a student’s budget, but that of a renowned author.
For such she had become. Reviews had been laudatory. The advance orders for The Cosgrove Legacy were enormous, and copies were being printed or readied for download throughout the empire. In part this was because the book was the first work to examine the financial crisis in any kind of detail, let alone with the kind of insider knowledge to which Lin had access; and in part because of a massive publicity campaign by the publisher executives, who knew perfectly well what kind of blockbuster was on their hands.
The publisher, Brio, had been encouraged in its campaign by its owner, Lady Koridun, who had begun to benefit from Ming Lin’s financial advice. Certain politicians might also have been instrumental in making sure the book received a degree of support, along with positive reviews. The Cosgrove Legacy was the only counternarrative available against Lady Tu-hon’s claim that the financial collapse was the result of a band of Terran criminal conspirators in league with a corrupt administration, and people like the Lord Senior, Lord Chen, and the Martinez family recognized that the book could be a weapon to deploy against their enemies.
And so a line formed outside the Matrix Bookstore that stretched far down Lapis Street, drinks and cakes were circulated by waitrons in the store and on the sidewalk, and a Cree band played popular tunes from a little stage more accustomed to hosting the ramblings of drunken poets. Ming Lin, flushed and dazzled by her own success, sat behind a vast desk of arculé wood that was piled high with her books. Her coauthor sat next to her and seemed slightly distracted, as if he were of two minds about becoming so public a figure. Journalists who grew too popular could become a threat to powerful people and might have to tread carefully.
Sula, wearing a nondescript gray civilian suit to avoid attracting attention—though still with a pistol tucked into the small of her back under her jacket—stood on one of the wrought-iron balconies with Lady Koridun and watched the proceedings with pleasure. Her servants Shawna Spence and Gavin Macnamara, also discreetly armed, wandered the floor of the bookstore. The siege of the Corona Club had been followed by a series of apparently random attacks on Terrans, and even though none of these attacks had taken place in the High City, Sula wanted to make sure Ming Lin would be safe from any fanatics bent on punishing her species. The Cosgrove Legacy was both readable and sensational, and it not only refuted but demolished all the claims made by the Steadfast League. Therefore it might make Lin and Ko-don targets.
Not that the Terrans had been exclusively victims. All League members caught in the Corona Club riot and not already shot down by the police had been executed. After the random attacks began, Julien Bakshi and Naveen Patel had organized retaliatory strikes outside of Terran neighborhoods, all aimed at League members who had gone on record as being opposed to the Terran criminals. Some had acquired guards for themselves, but that just increased the number of targets. The Bogo Boys were very good at what they did.
The Bogos handed out nothing worse than beatings and threats, and no one had actually been killed since the Corona Club siege, but probably it was only a matter of time.
Sula’s chief frustration was that none of the League’s leaders had been implicated in any of the violence. Either the rioters were all very good at holding out under interrogation or torture, or the riot had truly been spontaneous.
Or, Sula thought, the leaders were very careful about how orders reached their subordinates.
“I think it’s charming,” Sula said. She looked down at the long line waiting for Ming Lin’s signature, and the waitrons circulating with snacks and drinks. “You’ve done a lovely job with the reception.”
“I didn’t make the arrangements myself,” said Lady Koridun. “The publicity staff at Brio did the work, and they have experience.”
“I detect your hand in the choice of music,” Sula said. “I saw that band at your garden party last summer.” Her hand comm offered a discreet chime. She ignored it.
Lady Koridun’s blue eyes glowed. “I made a suggestion, that’s all.”
A suggestion that her subordinates would disregard at their peril, Sula knew, especially in light of the Koriduns’ reputation for violence and insanity.
“The band makes it more an event,” Sula said. Her hand comm chimed again. She took it from her pocket, saw that the call was from Lamey, and dropped the comm back in her pocket.
“Is it important?” Lady Koridun asked.
“The call? I don’t think so.” And then there was a slightly different chime, this one signaling the arrival of a message, and Sula surrendered, took out her comm, and told it to play.
Lamey’s face appeared distorted in the display, and there was a sheen on his skin that made it seem as if he were sweating. His voice was harsh, parts of the words clipped.
“Earthgirl, you need to look at the feed from the Convocation. Right now! I’m not joking, this is important!”
Sula looked at Koridun. “Sorry, I suppose I’d better look at the feed.”
“What’s happening?”
“No idea.” But she hadn’t seen Lamey so agitated, certainly not since he’d appeared, with his braided trousers, in her apartment in the Petty Mount.
So she wouldn’t disturb Ming Lin’s event, Sula walked down the catwalk toward the back of the store as she called up the Convocation feed. It wasn’t available on any of the public channels, which meant a closed session. Sula gave her password and Lady Gruum appeared on the screen, immaculate in a black gown with white tokens of mourning pinned to her sloping shoulders. Her sonorous Daimong voice bore the sobbing overtones of high tragedy.
“The Terran criminals have prevented Rol-mar’s return to order!” she cried. “As a result of this treachery, over two hundred Daimong were killed by a crew of Terran butchers!” Her voice rose to a dramatic quaver. “I demand justice! Justice for the martyred Captain Derinuus and his heroic crew!”
“What the hell?” Sula muttered. She knew no Captain Derinuus, let alone his heroic crew.
She looked at the news feeds and found nothing. She returned to the Convocation feed and, over the next fifteen minutes or so, managed to piece the story together. Derinuus and his Beacon had been sent to Rol-mar to suppress a mutiny among its inhabitants, and then got blown up by Shushanik Severin and his Exploration Service cruiser.
Sula barely knew Severin, who was a Martinez protégé; but she knew he had a good reputation and had a few years ago saved Chee from annihilation. She hardly thought that Severin was a pi
ratical rebel who went around obliterating Fleet cruisers for his own amusement.
As the Lord Senior pointed out in the discussion that followed Gruum’s speech, Severin had volunteered to take his cruiser to Harzapid, where the Fourth Fleet was based, and where he and his crew would submit to whatever investigation was demanded by the authorities. He and Expedition were not in a state of mutiny. When Severin arrived at a base, there would be a thorough inquiry, and if there had been a crime, the criminals would be punished. Until then, any claims of conspiracy, murder, or demands for vengeance would be premature. Justice would be done.
“When has this administration ever done justice?” Lady Gruum wailed, her vibrato throbbing through the video screen. “Criminals walk free in the streets of the High City! Mutineers have seized an entire planet and are defended by warships!”
Sula looked at Lady Koridun, who was watching the video over Sula’s shoulder. “Captain Severin’s actions saved the settlers that Lady Gruum herself sent to Rol-mar,” Sula said. “Many are her clients. Even if her company’s bankrupt, I’m sure she still owns property on the planet, and Severin’s saved that, too. Lady Gruum seems to have forgotten all that.”
Koridun’s blue eyes glowed with concern. “What does that mean?”
“It means she’s not the least bit interested in justice,” Sula said. “She only wants to punish the people she views as her enemies.”
The blue eyes widened. “Are you among them?”
Sula laughed. “I’d be proud if I were,” she said. And then she felt the laughter die, and she felt the pistol in the small of her back and was acutely aware of its weight. Suddenly the day seemed old and gray and full of shadows.
“Lady Gruum is delusional,” she said. “I’ve seen it on the Committee of Honor, in Peers who have lost their money and who think it’s going to come flooding back if only . . .” She searched for words. “If only enough people die,” she said.
The Accidental War Page 27