The Thrones of Kronos

by Sherwood Smith

  So that’s how it’s to be. He’d heard the emphasis on the word “cooperative.” As expected, the Rifter was asserting Rifthaven’s position as ally, not auxiliary, although both terms had been assiduously avoided in the official protocol issued jointly by Ares and Rifthaven. The ambiguity of the document was typical High Douloi—but how did the Rifters take it?

  As Miph continued, Efriq had his answer. “So we are eager to learn the tactical situation here and develop a set of orders that will enable us to make the most difference.”

  As Nukiel invited the Rifters to the tactical briefing, Efriq considered what had just happened, for the first time in Panarchist history. There was no grateful clientage here. The Rifter captain, with almost Douloi subtlety, had affirmed his willingness to follow orders, as long as he understood them and had a part in developing them.

  Well, he’d come to the right ship, then. For all his formality, Nukiel employed a collegial command style and always made sure his officers knew the why as well as the what of their orders. Of course, he also expected, and received, immediate obedience. How will these Rifters adapt to that?

  Nukiel let Efriq and Rogan run the tactical discussion so that he could observe Miph and his execs. Or officers, as he supposed they must be called.

  Miph pursed his lips and leaned inward, focused intently as Lieutenant Rogan laid out Mbwa Kali’s ongoing tactical harassment. Nukiel noticed how, as she answered questions from Miph’s officers, the captain’s mouth tightened into a skeptical slant.

  Finally he spoke. “Your estimates of the thoroughness of the Dol’jharian mapping of the asteroids in the system. How sure are you of these?”

  “Every asteroid big enough and close enough to be dangerous,” Miph’s engineering officer, Ella, amended. Her Serapisti braids jangled mellifluously. “They’ve got to figure the small stuff, or the stuff way out, isn’t worth our time.”

  Our time. Mandros Nukiel considered that ‘our.’ That was the crux, was it not? In spite of the new Panarch’s insistence on integration, how could there be an ‘our’ with such disparate groups? No one could possibly say that Rifters were oath-sworn to service.

  “Even so.” Miph gestured at the holo tank, which glowed brightly in the subdued lighting of the Mbwa Kali’s plot room. “That’s a lot of rocks.”

  How do we define duty? Efriq had said an hour before the Gloire skipped in, as they shared tea. I’ve been learning since our arrival at Ares just how superficially my definition of duty had correlated with that of our late Aerenarch.

  “Indeed.” Nukiel spoke up to gauge the faces. “But remember, Dol’jhar has been in this system nigh on fifteen years now—more than long enough for those VLDAs inside radius to thoroughly pulse-map everything out to several light-hours. And after the war started, they looted a number of naval depots for transponders.”

  “In any case,” Lieutenant Rogan said, “we’ve no way of identifying the ones without transponders.”

  “True.” Miph gave a minute, almost reluctant nod—conceding the point, but not the larger question. What doubts could a Rifter have about us? “And I suppose those VLDAs can see any activity around a rock even if it’s not transpondered?”

  “Given their size, and that they’ve been augmented with Rifter vessels recently, they’ll detect any emergence pulse out to almost three light-days.”

  Nukiel let the talk flow past him as he concentrated on the dynamics. These were no ordinary Rifters. Or maybe the modifier was erroneous. What would an ‘ordinary’ Rifter be?

  He watched Rafe Azura as the tall man laid his hand on Miph’s arm. The gesture was brief, affectionate instead of warning, evoking an equally brief relaxation of those lines of heartache in the captain’s face. It was no surprise that the records indicated that Azura had passed as Douloi in some jurisdictions before the war; all but the most finicky of Tetrad Centrum Douloi would consider him elegant.

  Nukiel had rarely encountered successful members of the Rifter overculture—not in any setting where he knew them to be Rifters. He only scooped up the ones not smart enough either to find accommodation with or to evade the Navy.

  Lieutenant Rogan brought up a sphere of light to enhalo the plot of the Suneater system. “So you can see that although our harassment raids seem focused on nearer asteroids, they’re really intended to deflect the enemy’s attention from where we’re actually working: asteroids where our emergence pulses are beyond VLDA detection distance. Then, when it’s time to bring the asteroids in prior to actually launching the attack, we’ll step up the raids, which is where additional Rifter units will be critical.”

  “How so?” asked Miph.

  “Distraction. We need to get the rocks in within a light day. Can’t guarantee that the engines in the battlecruisers we’ve salvaged to accelerate the asteroids are good for more than that, and if they fail too far outside radius, the enemy may be able to divert them.”

  “High tac-level?” asked Azura.

  How do Rifters promote? By duel?

  “Right. We want them coming out of skip as close to light-speed as we can get them.” Rogan tapped the light pane.

  “That’s a clever hack you’ve come up with.” The Rifter engineer, Ella, addressed Commander Brigast-vi, the Mbwa Kali’s engineering officer. “The overload’ll shake the ship and the asteroid apart at radius, giving you a nice big cloud of trash. Can’t miss.”

  “Wasn’t just me.” Brigast-vi’s expression thawed. He’d been loud in his skepticism, but he obeyed orders, because that’s what you swore to do. Could any Rifter say the same? “Got a lot of good people.”

  The Serapisti appeared to be a canny judge of human nature; she did not respond to the scarcely hidden challenge in that statement. “We can appreciate that,” she said. “Perhaps we can compare approaches to training, when there is time.”

  Nukiel wondered how much there was about Brigast-vi in the RiftNet. He already knew how much there was on himself. The courier bringing his orders concerning the Gloire had also brought a wealth of data from Rifthaven, including the most up-to-date records they had on their onetime naval opponents, ship by ship and officer by officer. There was more there on him than he had on Miph.

  The Rifter captain turned his way. “Commodore, what about our liaison? I understand he’s still on Ares. Will you place a temporary on board with us?”

  Nukiel had wrestled with that problem since the courier arrived. Their liaison was to be none other than the taciturn Lieutenant Osri vlith-Omilov, who was now, according to the High Admiral, a close confidant of the Panarch, emphasizing the paramount need to establish trust up front in an unprecedented relationship between former—well, not enemies precisely, but opponents in a tricky and sometimes deadly game.

  “No, Captain Miph. The whole point of the liaisons is integration and understanding, which is hardly served by changing them about. We’ll wait until Lieutenant Omilov arrives in-system before swapping personnel.”

  Miph’s next words confirmed that the implied message had gotten through. “Very well, then, what can we do to make a difference?”

  “We’re stepping up the harassment, with a new kind of dragon’s teeth,” Nukiel replied. “Your more up-to-date knowledge of the Rifters patrolling the Suneater system will help match the effects to their various psychologies. And, of course, your ship will speed up the task of deploying them.”

  “What kind of effects are we talking about?” Miph asked.

  Nukiel told him, laying out the genesis of the new weapons and the origin of their name. When he had finished, he sat back, wondering if this would penetrate the grief, even if momentarily.

  It did. Miph gazed at the plot pane, his face blank. Then he began to laugh; and as Rafe Azura glanced up, his gratitude plain, Nukiel thought, I can’t address the larger questions of duty, oaths, service. Perhaps no one can, or rather, everyone is redefining them. But the small human moments? We are not so very different.

  GLOIRE

  “Suneater primary
plus 148 light-minutes, mark 32 by 75 relative.” Cherlotte’s voice never lost that pretty singsong that Uka Miph liked listening to, even in action.

  “If the war stays like this . . .” Uka leaned over to poke Caleb Azura in the next pod. “It’ll be hoo!” She whipped her gaze back to the nav console and watched the navigator’s hands, as the data echoed on her console.

  Caleb hunched his skinny shoulders and grinned. He, unlike Uka, was new on board the Gloire—and both were new to their positions on the bridge. Until this year they’d been considered too young. He had communications, and she was learning advanced nav; when this war was over (if they lived) she’d have that pod. “Be better if we hike us some take,” Caleb said.

  “Where we gonna get take out here?” Uka waved at the screen, which showed a miniature of the Suneater system, seen from high out. “Even if the nicks let us.”

  That was really hoo. Cherlotte was going to join a Panarchist crew, and in trade, they were getting a Navy navigator. A nick! On board the Gloire! In fact—the thought jolted her insides like skip transition had when she was little. She did a quick mental calculation of the time since the rendezvous with the nick battlecruiser Mbwa Kali—it might even be soon.

  Uka sidled a glance up at the face of the navigator, a tall, bulky woman who’d been a Rifter longer than Uka’s father had been alive. Cherlotte’s faint smile showed she was listening.

  Then the smile went away as the captain’s calm voice broke into the conversation. “Navigation, next coordinates are—”

  Cherlotte held up her hand as she turned to Uka, and surprised her by saying, “Console’s yours. I don’t want you disgracing me in front of the incoming nick. Will be good practice.”

  Uka gulped, hoping this sudden test right in front of everyone wasn’t a kind of revenge. Her dad gave no sign, but she knew he was paying close attention. As captain of the Gloire he couldn’t play favorites. She had to get it right the first time.

  Ever since her father and Rafe and Cherlotte and Ella had returned from the huge Navy cruiser with the astounding news that Cherlotte was going to be assigned aboard one of those Navy ships, Uka had redoubled her determination to practice every lesson Cherlotte gave her, both on her console at her bunk and on the bridge. Uka’s goal was to match her in speed and accuracy.

  She cleared her mind, keyed in the new coordinates, plotted the course, and then signaled readiness. The captain tabbed the go-pad, and the viewscreens blanked.

  She saw Caleb wince, then he ducked his head forward so his long hair hid his face. Uka didn’t say anything. No one would like sympathy any more than scorn about feeling sick at skip transition. She kind of liked it herself. Meant they were moving. But she’d been living on the ship since her father adopted her when she was two, and Caleb had been in school on a planet until the war broke out, then in a refugee camp until word had reached his father that Caleb’s mother had died fighting some kind of ground war with Dol’jharian soldiers.

  Caleb hadn’t even known that his father was a Rifter, though it was he who’d paid for that fancy school. At least he’s real hot with his console, Uka thought.

  The screen cleared.

  “Release batch seven,” the captain said. “Navigation, take us to eight as soon as they’re clear.”

  At Weapons, Caleb’s father, Rafe Azura, sowed another swath of dragon’s teeth. The dead black pods almost vanished instantly as they spun out of the port lock: gee-mines, sneak-missiles, and other lethal devices, all speeding out there to spread death among the Dol’jharians when they were finally activated.

  Uka quickly checked her new coordinates once more before committing. Though it won’t be Dol’jharians, probably, Uka thought, sobering. It’s likely to be other Rifters.

  She tabbed the engage, encouraged by Cherlotte’s approving nod. As the fiveskip hummed again, she saw Caleb close his mouth firmly and blink.

  But there were other, non-lethal devices that the Panarchists had added to the mix of dragon’s teeth. The thought cheered her: maybe those would convince some of the Sodality to defect.

  She snickered.

  “What?” asked Caleb. She hoped the unknown nick wouldn’t make fun of his skip-sickness.

  “Just thinking of what some of the pie-flingers do. Gonna be brown breeches on some ships, I bet,” she gloated.

  Caleb snickered. “What I’d like to know is why they’re called pie-flingers?”

  “’Cause nobody could pronounce the Kelly name. They made ’em.”

  “The Kelly named them,” Cherlotte said unexpectedly. “But in honor of something the Panarch did to avenge their Archon.”

  “The one Eusabian killed?” Uka’s throat clenched. She liked Kelly, at least the one trinity she’d met. For her, that was the worst part of the vid of what Eusabian had done in the Panarchist Throne Room, on the distant and legendary Arthelion. The rest of that vid was just like a serial chip: it had taken a real effort to comprehend the fact that it was real. “How do you know that?”

  “Jep Houmanopoulis sent us some Ares novosti ULs before we left Ares space. Want to see?”

  “Navigation,” her father’s voice cut in, “take us to. . . .”

  “Captain, skip’s warming up,” Ella at DC said.

  “Three more,” Lucan Miph said, still calmly.

  Uka admired her father all the more since they’d lost half the crew—including his mate—and nearly had the ship blown up, helping to defend Rifthaven from Aroga Blackheart’s attack.

  The Syndics had repaired the Gloire at their own expense, and there had been plenty of volunteers to replace the dead crew members. In the past, Uka knew that her usually easygoing father would probably have taken anyone who seemed to sync in well after some talk in a club, but no longer.

  That was how Uka had gotten promoted, and Caleb was brought from the distant Nairoba Cloud.

  And a couple of crew members had been spaced. What with all the fighting, and longtime alliances and syndicates breaking up, it had been too easy for the Dol’jharians to get a spy on someone’s ship—anyone’s ship—who could sabotage things if they didn’t match Dol’jharian orders. They did it to everyone, whether part of Eusabian’s fleet or not. But her father and Cherlotte and Rafe had taken care of that after the battle. Uka was glad she hadn’t seen it.

  The captain turned to Caleb. “Anything on communications?”

  Despite the fact that he’d been lounging back in his pod, probably to ease his stomach, Caleb was doing his job. “Nothing but the usual noise.”

  “Excellent. Navigation, your coordinates. . . .”

  Uka plotted the next course and laid it in. This time she committed without looking for approval from Cherlotte. She was sure—though he said nothing—that her father was pleased with her speed.

  It’s not just Dol’jhar’s fleet against the nicks, Rafe Azura had said to her half a year ago, when he came aboard and encouraged her to start working the sims. It’s everybody who wants something against those who want to keep what they’ve got.

  Rafe was tall and handsome, his mane of reddish hair like his son’s, only he wore it sleeked back in a complicated braid. It looked like he’d be her father’s new mate, and Uka was glad.

  Caleb seemed to have been thinking along related lines. He leaned toward her. “Sure hope when we get to it, we’ll be rizzing enemies and not friends.”

  Uka got that tingly feeling all over. She liked his personal scent, though she couldn’t name what it was. And she longed to touch his hair and find out if it was as soft as it looked. “Top of the list is Aroga’s blunge-suckers that got away.”

  Ella glanced back, her white hair glistening. She gave them a brief smile, then turned back to her work.

  For the first time, the captain took note of the conversation. “We will hit who we’re told to hit,” he said, still calmly. Uka had never seen him not calm—although the events of the past year had driven out his laughter, and his love of music.

  “They had their chance
.” Caleb’s voice roughened. Uka knew he was thinking of his mother.

  The captain said, “Last one. Navigation, here are your coordinates.”

  SATANSCLAW

  Kira Lennart lay back in the bed, suppressing a sigh.

  “You check out Mavisu on the spin reactors?” Tallis asked.

  That didn’t last long, Kira thought. Sex wasn’t much of an escape for Tallis anymore. Not that it was for her, either.

  As if reading her mind, Luri sat up, her full lips pouting. It certainly hadn’t been enough for her.

  “Yeah,” Kira said. “Done as much as he can without tipping off the chatzing Dol’jharians. Another inspection coming.”

  “I thought you said they’d have to slow down, with the harassment and so many more Sodality ships coming in.” Tallis’s voice was querulous.

  “Maybe they will.” Kira tried not to show her exasperation. “But if you were Juvaszt, would you trust any of us?”

  Tallis was obviously feeling even more insecure than usual. “Two days, then? Once we decide to make a run for it?”

  Blit! It was just like Tallis to deal with a problem by forgetting it. But you couldn’t do that with a logos. She grabbed his balls and squeezed, not gently.

  “Oww! What did you—”

  She rolled over, silenced him with a rough, unaffectionate kiss, and whispered into his ear. “Nacking blit! Damn machine’s listening all the time now.”

  “Well, maybe it wants to get out, too.”

  “We don’t know what it wants, and we can’t ask. Not without tipping it off.”

  Luri’s small hand slid over Y’Marmor’s belly and traced insistently down Kira’s body. Kira released the pent-up sigh and shifted her body so she could caress Luri’s bountiful curves yet still talk to Tallis. She bit his ear, making him yip, them whispered into it, “Only chance is to wake up the eidolon and convince it to take over.”

  Tallis muttered into her shoulder, “What good is that? It’s still a Barcan.”