The Thrones of Kronos

by Sherwood Smith

  Rom-Sanchez and his tacticians correlated the new data into the tactical plot. Ng watched as the changes rippled through the tenno. The engines on the cruiser salvaged to accelerate that asteroid were holding up, despite the tactical skips needed to keep it intact against the Dol’jharian attack. But they wouldn’t forever, and already it had heated up enough to eliminate the option of cutting loose and moving it to another asteroid. Soon she would have to launch it or lose it.

  But for now, rouge-nord seven was still a threat, at the cost of two destroyers and a damaged battlecruiser.

  She conferred briefly with Rom-Sanchez, then snapped out her orders, accompanied by a data burst in answer to the scout’s. The Kelly dipped its head-stalk in salute and vanished.

  “We’re holding,” Rom-Sanchez commented. “Just.” The pouches of dark flesh under his eyes made him look like an old hound dog.

  Before she could reply, Wychyrski at Siglnt cut in. “Admiral! We’ve broken one of the codes. Rifter ship Piranha. Wait! Another’s going. Something’s degrading their crypto!”

  Rom-Sanchez sprang into action, snapping out orders to his tactical officers. The tenno began evolving rapidly.

  Commander Gramalcyn leaned over from her pod. “Thetris must have made good use of those arrays on the Telvarna.”

  Ng nodded, relief sweeping away her fatigue.

  “Siglnt, monitor transmissions from the Fist. They’ll figure out what’s happened soon enough. When they do, start jamming. They won’t have enough power left for the discriminators.”

  Ng sat back. The breaking of the enemy codes went a long way toward equalizing an otherwise very unequal contest. She thought about the Panarch among the Marines facing the unknown numbers on the equally mysterious Suneater. Thetris had bought them the most precious of all military commodities: time.

  But the power of the Suneater was still increasing, so the question was, how much time?

  o0o

  The Suneater was even stranger than Brandon had expected: like being in the bowels of some vast beast in the throes of a terrible indigestion. Slow waves of compression, like peristalsis of the red-glowing walls, made the Marines’ progress even slower as the corridors sometimes forced them to their hands and knees. Crumpled bits of metal and dyplast marked where human constructs had yielded to the changes taking place in the awakening station; here and there overstressed cables had parted, plunging the corridors into reddish gloom when the lights failed.

  As the squad he followed pressed deeper into the Suneater toward the array lab, he was glad Meliarch Chaz couldn’t see him, and even gladder that most of the Tarkan resistance seemed concentrated elsewhere. He felt enormously clumsy, and his reactions were always behind the others.

  The inevitable finally happened. Two Ogres dropped through a sudden opening from above while cross fire from a squad of Tarkans cut into the Marines from up ahead. One of the point squad went down, wounded by Dol’jharian wasps. Reflective smoke from foggers filled the corridor.

  The Ogres grappled with Nall and Iresc from Brandon’s own squad. He could hear their armor protesting as the huge machines wrenched at them and their head jacs splashed fire off the Marines’ helmets. Two other Marines sprang forward and discharged wasps directly against the Ogre’s heads. One of them jerked back and fell, convulsing ponderously, its jac spraying plasma in every direction. Iresc leapt free.

  A threesome of triskels scuttled down the corridor and attacked the other Ogre. Flame sprayed from rents in its armor as the little Kelly-made machines cut into it with mono-thread spun from spider-like ventricles in their undersides. The Marine pulled himself away, and staggered back.

  “Squad two!” Rhapulo shouted. “Flank through the walls, two-seventy, wasps and foggers. Squad three, hit them hard when two attacks.” He discharged two more foggers himself as he spoke. “Yehudi, open the wall, ninety. Kellem, pull Nail through. The rest of you, fall back after him.”

  Brandon turned to his right, raising his gauntlets to the wall. Before he could press the quantum interface against the Urian material a flicker on his left warned him of danger. He realized he should have moved as the spasms of the downed Ogre propelled it toward him at inhuman speed. The Ogre retained enough functionality to grab his leg. His armor protested as the Ogre wrenched at him. He fought at it, but the shock had swept away his veneer of training, and his efforts were ineffective.

  “Chatz!” Rhapulo sprang to his aid.

  The distraction was enough for the Tarkans. They rallied and the harsh scream of wasps filled the corridor. Brandon felt the Ogre release him, then heard the crack of an explosion and a grunt of pain from Rhapulo. Amplified battle cries echoed as the flanking squad attacked the Tarkans and squad three pounded up the corridor. Seconds later the encounter was over.

  Rhapulo propped himself up against a wall, faceplate open, regarding the splatter-sear across both legs of his armor where the wasp had glanced off him. “Still functional,” he said in response to an inquiry. Then, “Sho-Banu, jack into the comp feeds. See what’s up with the arrays. We may need to crash them from here, if possible. Rather blow them up, but it’s taking too long to get there, and things are rough around the landing bay.”

  No mention of his screw-up. Brandon knew there wouldn’t be, and he couldn’t even apologize. It was working out as he feared.

  “Meliarch,” sho-Banu said, “something odd. Listen!” There was a click, then a tinny burst of music: the Phoenix Fanfare.

  “What the Shiidran Hell?” Rhapulo exclaimed.

  “Sedry Thetris!” Brandon laughed. “She got to the arrays.”

  “Looks like her worm is on its way to gobbling up just about all the capacity,” sho-Banu said. “I’d say they haven’t got much crypto, and probably don’t know it.”

  “Hah!” The meliarch grunted, but Brandon could tell he was pleased. “Better to leave them intact, then. Good. Now, if we gain control of this logos-forsaken station, maybe we can notify the Fleet and keep those rocks off our heads. Anyway, we should be able to tap into their communications.” His comm clicked off; Brandon couldn’t hear his low-voiced conversation. Presently he clicked his comm back to the cohort channel that all five squads were tuned to. “We’re needed at the landing bay. They lost Stiletto—interface destroyed. And Eusabian’s boy is duffing us bad. Look.”

  A vid bloomed in Brandon’s eyes-on: Anaris, seen from a helmet imager. The image blurred with violent motion and they were looking up at the Dol’jharian. He gestured and something ripped the faceplate away. After another violent movement the image went dark.

  “How’d he do that?” someone asked.

  “TK,” Brandon said.

  “What?” The meliarch’s question was a sharp demand.

  “Before we left Ares, the High Phanist revealed that Anaris was the last member of the psychic unity needed to start the Suneater. But there was no hint of what powers he might have.”

  “Now we know,” Rhapulo said, and winced as he heaved himself to his feet. No one else said anything. The other two squads rejoined them; Losricos and Chaer were missing.

  “Meliarch?” Brandon said.

  “Yes, Yehudi?”

  “I’m in the way, and I certainly can’t do anything about Anaris. But Vi’ya’s power was telepathy, and if I can find her, it might help against the Tarkans guarding the landing bay.”

  “How will you find her?”

  “Probably in, or near, what the Arthelion construct called the Throne Room—evidently the Suneater’s power center.”

  “And Omilov said we couldn’t do anything against it. So?”

  “She and I formed a link, back on Ares. If I get close enough, we should be able to communicate. And she has the Eya’a with her. Armor isn’t any good against them.”

  The meliarch hardly paused. “Right. Squad three, you take Yehudi and follow his lead. Yehudi, you tell them where you want to go, but that’s it. Dyarch Gwyn is still in command.”

  “AyKay, sir,” Brandon replied,
relieved to be getting away—an emotion only intensified by the relief he suspected the meliarch was experiencing at getting rid of him.

  Vi’ya. The thought went out from him, charged with memory images as the Marines formed up and dogged their faceplates.

  Before they moved out, Rhapulo swung his head in Brandon’s direction. “The Lightbearer go with you, Your Majesty.” The words were said softly; most of the others did not hear.

  Though Brandon could not apologize, he had been offered forgiveness. Pitching his voice for only the man who had just been wounded in his service, he said, “And with you, Meliarch.”

  Rhapulo said, “Marys, we’ve got Tarkans to burn!”

  They jogged off. Brandon could still hear the whine-thump of their armor when Dyarch Gwyn said, “AyKay, Yehudi. Move it.”

  o0o

  At Chur-Mellikath’s suggestion—offered with every indication of deference underscored by fear—Anaris held back from the front line of fighting, trying to use his perceptions to direct the Tarkans against the in-pressing Marines. That fit in well with his plans, for it enabled him to maneuver the battle to interpose the Marines between the landing bay and the Chamber of Kronos, cutting off the Avatar’s escape.

  Anaris smiled. His father’s adherence to Dol’jharian ritual was making this so much easier: the Avatar could not just order the Tarkans to kill his son. He must be present. And the Ogres were not a problem, for only those within voice range of his father would respond, and sooner or later the little Ogre-killing machines would catch up with the two guarding the Avatar.

  But not yet. That was an interesting trade-off. Without the Ogres, whose weight made them instantly identifiable by his kinesthetic sense of the station, his father would have been invisible. The signature of two Ogres combined with the lesser but similar distortion of two Tarkans, allowed him to identify the Avatar easily.

  But the effort of tracking all the combatants was rapidly draining him. And Brandon’s ghost-worm was following him. Although it made no further hostile move, it blurred his kinesthetic sense of the station, making it harder and harder to follow his father’s progress. As his fatigue grew, the sense of something left undone grew with it, nagging him with the conviction that he had overlooked something important.

  During a lull in the fighting, Anaris leaned against a wall, pressing his fingers into his temples. Was the Unity really broken, or was he unable to hear it past the pain in his head? He tried to listen on that mental plane, but of course there was no trace of Vi’ya, much less any of the others.

  He rubbed his thumbs around the edges of his eye sockets, reliving those last few moments in the Throne Room. He’d given her a fair chance, and he knew she’d make her way to her ship, if she could, despite Tarkans, Ogres, and Marines. Marines. Would the Panarchists shoot her out of hand or take her prisoner?

  He hoped the latter, and indulged a brief, pleasurable vision of using his TK to trash her captors. How much she’d hate being rescued! He grinned, and for the first time in what seemed an eternity, he felt a spurt of his old energy return.

  The comm the Tarkan commander had given him buzzed.

  “Lord,” said Chur-Mellikath’s voice, “the Marine cohort attacking the array lab has broken off the engagement. I believe they intend to reinforce the attack against the landing bay.”

  Anaris stared at the comm. The report made no sense. Destroying the arrays had to be their first objective. The arrays were critical to the cryptography that protected Juvaszt’s communications with the Rifter fleet. Why abandon that attack?

  Then, with a sickening shock of anger, he realized what he’d overlooked: that no one else on the Suneater could have known. The arrays not only controlled crypto, they controlled the stasis clamps. And he already knew those were under the control of an inimical construct. The Panarchists can probably hear every order Juvaszt gives by now. Or if not, they soon would.

  There was no reason to spare the arrays, and destroying them would banish Brandon’s haunt. “Destroy the arrays.”

  There was a strangled sound from the comm.

  “Do it!” he commanded. “They have been compromised by the Panarchists and they are using them against us.”

  “It will be done.”

  Although the Tarkan commander did not say so, Anaris knew he would notify the Avatar, whose fury would kindle even higher at this news—and at the necessity of confirming his son’s order.

  “And notify Juvaszt,” he added.

  The booming of amplified battle cries echoed along the corridor ahead, and a Tarkan squad appeared. Despite their name, they were retreating—but stopped when they saw him. A harsh screaming buzz filled the air and something—a Tarkan gauntlet—knocked him to the ground. Several streaks of light flashed overhead and detonated among the Tarkans. He could feel their trajectories with his mind. They’d been aimed at him!

  The Marines wouldn’t ordinarily waste anti-armor weapons on an unshielded human. His actions against the first squad, while assuring the obedience of the Tarkans, had also made him a target for the enemy.

  Anaris scrambled back on his hands and feet, his communicator forgotten, as the Tarkans tried to shield him. The harsh screaming of the wasps redoubled as another, bigger wave streaked toward them. Desperately Anaris grabbed the space ahead with his mind and wrenched. The wasps veered into the floor only meters away, detonating with a stunning blast of sound and a wash of flame that singed his face. Anaris vomited rackingly, his vision reddening almost to the point of blindness.

  “Fall back!” he shouted, the words trying to split his skull. “The karra will ward me!” Not looking to see the effect of his command, he willed a hole in the floor and felt it engulf him as the thunderous whine-thump of the Marines’ armor echoed from the corridor ahead.

  The hole sealed. He heard Panarchist voices overhead, blurred by the quantum-plast. Around him the substance of the station stirred: the ghost had found him. He strained, racked by pain, holding the womb of quantum-plast still around him as the stasis clamps fought him under the control of Brandon’s construct, waiting for the Marines to peel back his protection and haul him up to certain death.

  But the voices faded. They hadn’t seen him.

  He felt the ghost move away. Relaxing slowly, he rested, gathering his strength to return to the battle. The Tarkans would have to fight on their own for a while.

  o0o

  The phoenix drifted in a wide circle, wings spread, then spiraled down toward the flames . . .

  Flame flashed through Vi’ya’s head. It was the incessant mental chatter of the Eya’a. She opened her eyes. Memory returned, slow and pain-dragged. The station powering, Eusabian’s order. Anaris’s reaction. The Presence. She reached out involuntarily, drawn by the memory of that transforming encounter, but could sense nothing.

  No, not nothing. She caught a vivid impression of vast powers gathering for some intense effort. It was as though its attention turned elsewhere with a concentration that left no room for anything so small as a single human being.

  A thought brushed the edge of her mind, weighty despite the fleeting contact that delivered its message, not as words, but as a concept. Small was not the same as inconsequential.

  Then she lost even that sense of Its presence, but the Eya’a had caught the image, and their high-speed, vivid mind chatter, never before so intense, nearly overwhelmed her.

  She projected her own emotions at them, felt the impact, and sensed them slowing their thoughts down to the relative crawl-speed of speech. One-who-gives-firestone.

  That was their term for Brandon.

  She sat up and rubbed her blurring eyes. Outside the rounded mouth of her little cave waves of liquescent light churned in patterns that wrenched at her mind. She turned her back on it. Whether handholds existed or not in the wall above her cave, she doubted she’d live to use them. The glaring light revealed the smooth, rounded curve of walls protecting the three of them, like a womb. An opening existed near the floor, but it wa
s so small only the Eya’a could fit through it.

  There was no escape for her this way, but that did not mean there was no escape.

  Brandon had come. Despite the light-years between them, both in distance and in the numbers of people who felt their claims ought to intervene, he had come.

  The Eya’a vanished into the opening on their quest to find Brandon.

  Left alone, she lay back down, and closed her eyes—and there came a flicker of memory: herself, smiling, the touch of lips on flesh. Vi’ya.

  I am here. She sent her own thought, freighted with memory, fueled by joy, along the same mysterious route. Find me!

  o0o

  The sense of helplessness Barrodagh felt after the destruction of his compad was intensified by the difficulty of keeping up with the Avatar and the two armored Tarkans as they made their way toward the landing bay. From time to time he prodded helplessly at the device, which he had plucked reflexively from the floor in the Chamber of Kronos after Eusabian cast it down, but it was dead: vague flickers and tiny electrical squawks were its only response, mocking his hopes.

  The corridors blurred with drifting smoke that caught at his throat. Even worse was the iron tang of blood and the foul stench of voided bowels that attended the horrifying piles of sundered bodies scattered along their path. He had never bothered to imagine what the Ogres were really like. Somehow, since they were a Panarchist invention, he’d assumed they killed cleanly. But these were reprogrammed for Dol’jharians.

  The Avatar paid the corpses no mind. He strode onward as tirelessly as the Ogres, his dirazh’u forgotten in one hand. From time to time the Tarkans would confer with distant comrades via their comms. Often this resulted in a change of direction. Barrodagh could hear distant explosions, and once he felt the deck shudder underfoot.

  Despite his hatred of spaceflight, he longed for the relative security of the Fist of Dol’jhar. He even looked forward to their flight on the corvette he’d ordered to warm up in the landing bay as soon as he received word of the lances. Even more he looked forward to watching as the corvette blasted the Telvarna into smoking scrap, marooning the tempath and her crew of criminals.