The Dark Ascent

by Walter H Hunt

  This is Shr'e'a, and I have its Sword. What was more, since it was Shr'e'a and not Sharia'a, Dri'i wasn't here. Owen—if he was supposed to be Dri'i—wasn't here, either. He was aboard Duc d'Enghien, but wasn't part of this . . . whatever it was.

  She wanted to run forward and close the gates but found herself rooted to the spot. Several warriors came to stand beside her as she waited, chilled despite the hot wind that blew from beyond the gate.

  "I am here," a younger warrior said to her, and she abruptly recognized him: Gyes'ru HeKa'an, the wing-commander from Duc d'Enghien.

  "You know where 'here' is," she answered, not looking away from the gate.

  "Sharia'a," he replied. "But something is terribly wrong. They never opened the gates."

  "Something is wrong with the tale," Jackie said. "This is Shr'e'a, and they are about to make a grave mistake."

  Gyes'ru looked at the gyaryu in her hands. "This is not the World That Is. We are closing with the ships of the esGa'uYal, and already they batter at our gyu'u, seeking to draw us into the Valley."

  "Stand with me," she said, which was neither answer nor confirmation. Gyes'ru formed his wings in a posture of affirmation and turned, chya at the ready, facing the gates.

  They had swung wide open. Eleven People were coming onto the flagstones, flying a meter or so above the ground. One of them bore a bright-green banner inscribed with the glyph of Outer Peace, indicating a parley; this one remained hovering while the others landed, taking up positions around and behind their leader, who held his wings in a stance of respect. It was the scene she'd seen during Owen Garrett's Ordeal, except that it continued.

  No gong would sound to end it—and she had no idea who was controlling the scene.

  "Honored One," the banner-bearer said to her. "I am Hesya HeGa'u, and I have the honor to represent the Army of Sunset."

  Eights of chya'i and bows were at the ready. Hesya did not seem to be fazed a bit by the number of hostile People around him; indeed, his wings betrayed a bit of amusement at the warriors who seemed poised to attack and whose wings displayed their hostility as he spoke the words.

  He looked around the courtyard, his gaze seemingly caught on each helpless zor scattered on the ground. These are the weak ones, she heard in her mind: I am not here for them.

  I am only here for you, he added, as his eyes came to rest on Jackie and the sword she held out before her.

  As in the Dsen'yen'ch'a half a lifetime ago, Jackie felt the same engagement, as if this were a duel between the esGa'uYe and herself. She felt the presence of many others nearby: the ones she knew—Sergei, Admiral Marais, Kale'e—and the sixty-fours of ones she didn't. They were all here—ready for whatever came next.

  "Intruder!"

  Commodore Sheng Di, commander of the Sheng Long, spun the pilot's chair to face away from the board. A zor warrior stood on his bridge, a meter-long gleaming black sword in its hand.

  Directly after his gunnery chief had spoken the word, two Marines had stepped forward, their pistols trained on the new arrival; it did not move a centimeter in response, but gazed directly at Sheng. He didn't recognize the zor—there were few enough under his command that he truthfully couldn't tell them apart other than the obvious things like major wing-markings; but he knew the sword.

  "Wait," he said, one hand raised. "Hold your fire. That's the gyaryu. But if he has it, then . . . what's happened to Admiral Laperriere?"

  His exec, Daniel Hamadjiou, walked slowly around the arc at the back of the bridge toward the zor who stood with its winged back to him. Sheng didn't look at Hamadjiou; zor had lightning-quick reflexes, and he wasn't about to draw attention to the exec.

  Hamadjiou took a step closer, then another, until he was in arm's reach of the zor. Then, very slowly, he reached his hand toward the zor's wings.

  And passed right through.

  "It's a projection," Sheng said, stating the obvious.

  The zor's wings elevated just a bit, the right hand of Sheng Long's exec weirdly among them. The zor inclined his head toward Sheng, his gaze and the position of his sword never wavering.

  The leader of the esGa'uYal handed his banner to another.

  "This conflict is needless," Hesya said. "Shr'e'a is a great and noble city, the home and teacher of mighty warriors. We do not wish to destroy you; we wish to learn from you."

  There was some murmuring among the assembled warriors, but Jackie did not take her eyes off of Hesya. "Learn from us?" she asked, knowing what the answer would be.

  "From you, and from the Sword of Shr'e'a." Hesya looked at the gyaryu then, and Jackie felt it snarling in response.

  "We have nothing to teach servants of the Deceiver," Jackie answered. "You will not have the Sword. I have already told you that. Perhaps I did not make myself clear."

  "We wish only to learn from the Sword," Hesya said. "It would only be—"

  "You shall not have it," she interrupted, advancing on Hesya. Two of his companions interposed themselves and then shied away, unable to bear the proximity to the snarling, glowing sword. She felt the hsi of the gyaryu flowing through her, and from the edges of her vision she could see hsi-images of her predecessors forming.

  "Now, now." Hesya's handsome zor-features began to melt and change. Jackie stopped, a meter away, watching as the zor-head changed and became . . .

  "Stone."

  "What?" Dan asked without turning completely around. "Jay, what the hell—"

  The comm line was erupting in a welter of incoming messages. Dan held up one finger to Pyotr Ngo, sitting at the comm station. After a few moments the queuing software filtered out all messages but one. An image of Admiral Hsien appeared above and to the left of the pilot's chair.

  "McReynolds, what the hell is going on there?"

  "I'm not sure, sir. Everyone's calling us at once, wanting to talk to Jay—to Admiral Laperriere. She just said the word 'stone,' but hasn't moved from that spot for five or six minutes." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

  "There's a—an image—on my bridge," Hsien said, his face a mask of barely controlled calm. "A man, with a sword in his hand. Her sword. There's apparently one of these on the bridge of every ship in the fleet.

  "It's Marais, McReynolds. Admiral-by-God-Marais is standing on my deck, holding the gyaryu."

  Sheng Di tried his best to look calm as his squadron closed with the hive-ships. Other than a single nod to him, the projection had ignored everything going on around it. Comm from the other ships in his squadron—and, seemingly, every vessel in Josephson System—confirmed that each ship had a similar guest.

  His Sensitives reported that interference from . . . outside . . . had diminished immediately. Whatever it was, seemed to be working. If it let him fight a battle without worrying about things beyond his control, then Sheng Di was happy to have it—and the projection of a zor warrior—on his bridge. His plane-of-battle was in order. Sheng Long and its sister ships, Sheng Feng, Sheng Biao and Sheng Jian, occupied the center position; they had the greatest ability to concentrate fire on the enemy. On his port wing and slightly ahead of the other vessels, he had deployed the two zor vessels HaDre'e and HaSa'an; in the original battle-plan they had been most likely to resist mental attacks from vuhl Sensitives. The starboard flank consisted of Turenne and the brand-new Brittany, a sixth-generation starship of the Normandy-class commissioned only eight months ago at Mothallah. There were support ships behind, but Sheng didn't want them to be exposed—that would only mean that his first-raters hadn't done well against the enemy. There were also no carriers, which meant no fighters; based on the briefing about the battle at Cicero, there was no way to protect them, at least not against hive-ships.

  The plan was simple. Concentrate as much as possible on the hive-ships, preferably just one or two: If the vuhl objective was to take Josephson System, they would want to get through Sheng's force and deep in the gravity well rather than just destroy ships. It was Sheng's job to make sure they didn't get there—or at least that th
ey would pay a heavy price—and then to fall back while the second squadron advanced. He would be engaged for longer than the reinforcements, since his velocity relative to the incoming ships was low. By comparison, the other squadron would have to boost out of the gravity well to intercept, so they'd have less of a chance to concentrate fire on the enemy.

  "Don't claim to be surprised," Hesya/Stone was saying. "Though I must congratulate you: Your knowledge of the legends has certainly improved since we last met.

  "But you can't change this outcome. You know the true story now: Shr'e'a conveys the Sword to Hesya and is then destroyed by despair when it's taken away in sight of their walls. It has to be given up, or it won't be there for Qu'u to recover."

  "What about Dri'i?" Jackie asked.

  "Admiral." Hesya/Stone smirked. "You already know the answer to that question. Dri'i is a fiction; he doesn't even exist." He gestured to the courtyard before the gate, at the eights of warriors perched or lying about, unable to move, already trapped in Ur'ta leHssa. "This is Shr'e'a—these Crawler-servants have no Dri'i to rescue them.

  "This is beyond your control, se Gyaryu'har." He said it with a characteristically human sneer, and crossed his arms in an un-zorlike fashion. "Admit it," he added. "You don't know what you're doing."

  "You're counting on that," Jackie said, moving a few centimeters closer to Hesya/Stone. Her sword didn't falter, but her feet felt like lead. She could hardly see anyone nearby, though she could sense the presence of Gyes'ru a meter or two away.

  Suddenly, two of Hesya/Stone's companions vanished, leaving behind only a faint afterimage. He did not turn to look, but his right eyebrow lifted a few millimeters. His smile never wavered.

  If Brittany hadn't had a veteran commander, all the new hardware in the world wouldn't have saved it. Fortunately, Micaela Clemente had been hunting pirates in lesser ships for most of twenty years; she knew how to fight and knew how to withdraw.

  "I've got about one-tenth manuever capability," Clemente said.

  Sheng was dividing his attention between the pilot's board and the small holo of Mic Clemente's bridge hanging in the air a few meters away. Behind her, he could see her front viewscreen, tinged with bright orange—Brittany's defensive fields were working overtime to disperse the energy that the vuhl hive-ships had poured into it. Half of Sheng's units were already disabled and he'd only managed to destroy a few outriders and one of the hive-ships facing him.

  "Use it," Sheng answered. "I'll send Pappenheim and Tamil Nadu up to provide covering fire."

  "I'm getting under way now. But they'd better stay clear."

  "You worry about Brittany, Mic," Sheng said. "I'll worry about the small fry. Get out of there as ordered."

  "I'm still at thirty-percent weapons—"

  "Belay that. We'll cover your exit." He looked at the board; his namesake ships—the Shengs, built at his uncle's New China shipyard, were holding their own so far, but he'd already lost HaSa'an and been forced to order HaDre'e to withdraw. Turenne's fields were already in the yellow, but she hadn't taken any serious damage yet.

  "Comm to Pappenheim and Tamil Nadu. Cover retreat of Brittany from main battle area. Sheng Long sends."

  A few moments later, Sheng watched as the two fifth-generation ships began to advance into the space being vacated by the heavily damaged Brittany.

  Damn, Sheng thought to himself. We're not going to be able to hold this much longer.

  "Comm, get Admiral Hsien."

  "Aye-aye," the comm officer said.

  Sheng leaned back in his chair after taking a sidelong glance at the zor warrior standing at the back of his bridge. "All right, folks," he said. "Let's see if we can take out one more of them before we back away."

  "It may be beyond my control," Jackie said, after what seemed to be hours, "but I think it's beyond your control as well.

  "You didn't want the zor and humans to become allies: Marais was to succeed or fail, but not reach understanding. You didn't want your—clients?—to be discovered infiltrating Cicero. You didn't want me to figure out how to use this." She turned the gyaryu over in her hands. "Now you're trying to lock me into the legend of Hesya and Sharnu.

  "It's not going to work, Stone. I understand now: You have technology on your side, you can mess with my mind, you can interfere with perception of reality—but we have to make our own decisions, don't we? You can't take the sword from me—I have to give it to you.

  "I'm not going to, damn it. I'm not going to do it."

  Two more of the companions disappeared—one directly behind Hesya/Stone, and one to his left.

  "Two more gone. What does that mean? Are you losing your power?"

  "It doesn't matter in the end," Hesya/Stone replied. "It just doesn't matter in the end. Sooner or later, the Warlord of Shr'e'a gives over the Sword and starts the cycle.

  "History is an unavoidable, unstoppable force."

  He looked around at his companions as if he'd come in the gates with six instead of ten, and as if it didn't matter that four of them had disappeared. Some of the People facing the esGa'uYal had vanished as well—it was as if there was no one here of importance other than Jackie and Stone.

  The ancient enemy, she thought to herself. Or was it?

  "But you've got to wait, to see how it comes out," Jackie answered. "Just like I do."

  As the second hive-ship shattered and then exploded, the retreating ships of Commodore Sheng's squadron sheared off, trying to avoid debris. Turenne, HaDre'e and Brittany were already well away. Sheng Biao, the aftmost of the four sixth-generation ships left, had sustained the most damage; its fields were already radiating into the white as the three remaining hive-ships hurtled into the gravity well after them.

  But there were other reinforcements. The second squadron had come partway out from its station, led by the carriers Duc d'Enghien and Xian Chuan; the sixth-generation starships Emperor Ian, Mandela and Nasser; Admiral Hsien's flagship Gibraltar; and a number of smaller ships. As the damaged components retreated, the fresh reinforcements advanced directly into the plane-of-battle.

  Given the relative speeds, though, there wouldn't be much time to engage—just some passing shots. Still, those passing shots would have giga-ergs of energy in them, and the carrier fighters were already preparing for pursuit.

  Admiral César Hsien sat in the pilot's seat of Gibraltar, trying not to look over his shoulder at the image of the long-dead Admiral Marais. He could hear the cheering on the systemwide comm as the alien ship broke into four, then eleven, then several dozen pieces, weirdly illuminated by the explosion that followed.

  "We haven't won a damn thing yet," he said to the Gibraltar bridge crew, letting loose the scowl that had traveled with him during his ascent to flag rank. The crew became quiet and focused on its work.

  Admiral Marais, the gyaryu held before him, betrayed a small smile.

  "No, Admiral. She hasn't said anything else. Her eyes are following something—but it isn't anything on my bridge."

  "And when the ships blew up—"

  "She reacted. She stepped forward a few centimeters. But nothing other than that."

  "Have you tried to talk to her?"

  "She's not answering, Admiral. And I wouldn't try to . . . interrupt. She's the reason that you have Admiral Marais standing on your bridge, and for all I know, she's the only thing keeping those aliens from—"

  "You may be right." Hsien's face looked haunted for a few moments, then it slid back under the professional "officer" mask. "Carry on, Captain McReynolds," he said, and disconnected.

  "Actually," Stone said, his smiling face never wavering, "I should compliment you on having accomplished this much. My employers—and my clients—had not anticipated this outcome."

  "So much for infallibility."

  "I never claimed that. Though I can see how you might infer that, from previous statements." He looked away, as if taking note of the absences in his ranks for the first time. "My employers don't know the outcome, as you
say, but they don't view it that way: They perceive this entire little drama as a set of probabilities. What happens depends on purely random factors."

  "Such as Owen Garrett."

  Stone smiled again but did not answer.

  "Are your employers betting on the outcome?"

  "'Betting'?" Stone chuckled a bit. "Nothing so crass. In fact, they don't truly care about one or another outcome. They merely want to watch it play out."

  "Your clients won't want to hear that. What do they think of all of this?"

  "Them?" Stone's zor-claws stretched out in a gesture. "They think they're invincible. After all," he added, the wry smile returning, "we told them that they were."

  On the pilot's board of Canberra, Commodore Sean Van Meter watched the vuhl ships spread across a wide plane. Three capital ships remained from Sheng Di's command—four had been damaged and one destroyed during the fighting so far. As for the squadron traveling with Admiral Hsien's flag, only Nasser had been forced to withdraw from the battle zone.

  "Comm from the flag, Skip," the comm officer said. Van Meter nodded and turned the pilot's chair to the side. Admiral Hsien's image appeared in the air.

  "Reporting, sir."

  "Get under way, Sean." Hsien was sitting in the pilot's seat of Gibraltar. "We're going to be pursuing these bastards soon enough, so I'll want someone in front of them."

  "Aye-aye, Admiral. We estimate intercept at"—Van Meter glanced at his helmsman, a zor warrior, who held up an open hand with four claws extended—"forty minutes."

  "That should be about right. Leave two of the Broadmoors behind, but get the rest of your squadron in the way of the bogeys."

  "I'll be there, sir."

  Barbara MacEwan had six flights of fighters launched and was trying to pay attention to them on Duc d'Enghien's huge pilot's board.