“Not that you have a choice,” he pointed out.
“It’s your life, James. I wouldn’t try to stop you, even if I could.” Catarina hesitated. “Why are you speaking with him? What do you hope to gain?”
“I’m not entirely sure,” he admitted. “I’m concerned about these new aliens. Not alarmed, concerned. Who are they, and what do they want?”
“It’s nothing to us. Let the Hroom fight them, or Albion, if they’re dumb enough to blunder in.”
“Or maybe I want nothing more than to explain myself to my old friend. To be understood. Someday, maybe, he’ll be the first admiral of the fleet. I might earn a pardon, be allowed to return to Albion and retire in peace.”
Her raised eyebrows made comment unnecessary.
“Or maybe I’m still loyal to the crown. I’ll explain Malthorne’s perfidy and see if Rutherford will help me denounce him.”
“I don’t understand you. After a taste of freedom, you’d go back to all of that? No, never mind. I need to get after that barge.”
“Is our agreement still valid?” he asked. “You’ll be alone with the tyrillium. Will you keep our agreement, or will you abscond with the goods?”
“Assuming you survive? Sure, our deal still stands. Not that I’m as honorable as your friend, Rutherford, mind you. I’d sell the tyrillium, keep the money, and feel good about it.” She said this with a wink and a tone that indicated she was only half serious. “But I have grander plans for our alliance. It’s worth something to me to keep that door open.”
“I see.” In truth, he wasn’t sure that he did. Did Catarina mean as pirates, or personally? “And how will I find you?”
“If I keep our original course, we can rendezvous in the Koris system—it gets dicey after that, and I could use your help getting through. Soon as I get to Koris, I’ll come to a full stop and wait twenty-four hours. If you don’t show up by then, I’ll go on without you.”
“Fair enough. Be safe.”
“You too, James.”
The call ended. A knock sounded on the war room door. It was Tolvern, leading Sal Ypis, the Hroom who’d claimed some knowledge of the unknown alien race. Sal Ypis looked down at him with those giant, liquid eyes.
“Sit down,” he urged her. “Tell me everything you know about Apex.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Armed escorts led Drake and Tolvern down the corridor toward the lift that would take them to Rutherford’s bridge. The two visiting officers wore civilian jumpsuits and had been forced to leave their sidearms in the away pod before they were allowed to enter the ship.
Vigilant was a Punisher-class cruiser, as had been Ajax before her overhaul into the pirate ship Blackbeard, and she had the same layout, the same lighting, the same knobs and buttons. Only the crew was different, young men and women in crisp navy uniforms, with not a pirate or smuggler among them. Hard expressions followed them through the ship, and Drake felt the weight of their anger.
Rutherford sat proudly in the captain’s chair when Drake and Tolvern arrived on the bridge. He didn’t stand, didn’t offer a salute or greeting, but stared through narrowed eyes. He waved a hand to dismiss the armed guards.
“Captain Rutherford,” Drake said, inclining his head.
A grunt. “Drake.”
Tolvern stiffened. “This is the respect we get after saving your life?”
Rutherford didn’t bother to look at her, but continued to stare at Drake. “You have information about Apex?”
“I have lots of information, not only about these aliens, but other items of interest.”
“Tell me.”
“Not here,” Drake said. He looked around, noted the unfamiliar faces on the bridge. “I don’t know any of these people except Pittsfield. Some of them might be working for the lord admiral, and what I have is for your ears only.”
“All of them answer to the lord admiral, including myself. What makes you think I won’t send a subspace the moment we’re finished?”
“We don’t have to listen to this,” Tolvern burst out. “Let him discover Apex for himself.”
“Remember your place, Tolvern,” Rutherford said sharply.
“Remember yours,” she snapped in return. Drake couldn’t help the smile that came to his face at her feisty retort.
Rutherford turned to him. “Do you allow your junior officers to be so insolent?”
“She is reflecting your own direspect,” Drake said. “As soon as you treat me with decorum, I have no doubt that Tolvern’s own comportment will be correct in every way. Isn’t that right, Commander?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now, Captain Rutherford,” Drake continued, “I won’t pretend we’re still friends and allies—”
“No, we are not.”
“—but we can agree to a truce while we discuss our mutual enemies. Isn’t that what you implied by asking for my help? It may have been cynical self-interest, but you implicitly promised that you wouldn’t fire on me while I was helping you defeat the aliens. One of the alien vessels escaped. We still have a mutual enemy, so I suggest we continue our truce.”
Drake didn’t need to remind Rutherford that the man had already broken that truce once, when he attacked Orient Tiger to keep Catarina from destroying the wounded Apex ship.
“I agreed to your conditions,” Drake continued. “I have the information that you need, yet I came onto your ship at your insistence. The commander and I are out of uniform. We are disarmed at the insistence of your guards. I would like a private audience in your war room. That seems a reasonable request, given the circumstances.”
“Very well,” Rutherford said. “But Pittsfield will join us. I insist. You have your commander, and I will have mine.”
That one condition wasn’t worth fighting over. “Very well. Lead the way.”
Rutherford rose. “Pittsfield, come with us. Lieutenant Caites, you have the helm.” A young woman nodded curtly at this and moved swiftly to take her position in the captain’s chair.
Rutherford led Drake and Tolvern to the war room. As the door opened, Rutherford said in a loud voice, “I will listen, but nothing you say will convince me that you are not a traitor to Albion and the fleet. Nothing, do you understand?”
Drake felt the anger of his old friend like a physical blow and was stunned by its ferocity. This meeting was a mistake. Rutherford’s pride would not allow him to accept that which he did not already believe. He was as loyal as Drake had been, but with none of the imagination.
The doors closed behind Drake, Rutherford, Pittsfield, and Tolvern. Immediately, Rutherford pulled a computer from his hip pocket and punched a few buttons. Pittsfield, a short, wiry man with a bristle mustache, quickly pulled up the main terminal at the desk. His fingers moved over the buttons.
“Looks like we’re clean,” Rutherford said.
Pittsfield nodded. “I’m showing the same thing.”
Rutherford stepped up to face Drake, until the two men were only inches apart. There was such an intense look in his eyes that Drake thought he was about to be physically struck and challenged to a duel. Then Rutherford lifted his right hand and saluted.
“Captain Drake. It is an honor to see you again.”
Drake blinked. “An honor?” he repeated, stupidly.
“I am sorry. I would blame circumstances, but in truth, my poor judgment is to blame.”
Rutherford gestured to Pittsfield, and the two men sat. Tolvern stood at Drake’s side, mouth agape, but then she seemed to understand what had happened, and sat down with a sharp look in her eyes.
“It was theater,” Tolvern said to Rutherford. This wasn’t a question. “What you said on the bridge. You have a new crew, and you don’t trust them. You think they’re spying on you.”
Rutherford nodded grimly. “I trust Caites, the second mate, but the rest are Malthorne loyalists.” His face was almost stricken, as if he’d only now realized that he’d been fighting for the wrong side. “I need to keep an appearance o
f hostility. I can’t have word getting back to the Admiralty that we’ve reconciled—that would never do. But friend, I am truly, deeply sorry. And you too, Commander Tolvern. Please accept my apology for the shabby way in which I addressed you just now.”
“I understand,” she said.
Drake had been taking in this stunning reversal and was the last to sit. He began cautiously. “I’m not asking for your apology. You were only doing your duty. Had our situations been reversed, had I been confused about your guilt, I’d have done the same.”
“No, you wouldn’t have,” Rutherford said. “You’d have fought to clear my name.”
“I’m not so sure,” Drake said, and he meant it. “I might have fought to clear you, yes, but the moment you ran off with Vigilant, I would have obeyed Malthorne’s orders to bring you in or see you destroyed. In any event, circumstances were ambiguous, not as clearly defined as I might have thought had I been in your shoes. Let’s put the fight at Cold Barsa behind us.”
“You mistake me,” Rutherford said. Again, that flash of guilt that Drake didn’t understand. “I regret the battle at Cold Barsa, but that’s not why I am apologizing. You haven’t had news from Albion, you don’t know what happened.”
A niggle of doubt worked at Drake. Know what? Had the king been overthrown? Was there a civil war? What disaster had befallen his home planet?
“I had nothing to do with it,” Rutherford said. “You must believe me. No knowledge it would happen. The lord admiral did it without consulting me. I didn’t know before, and he didn’t tell me afterward, either. The news only reached me via a friend in the fleet, who sent it to me because he knew of my personal connection to you.”
“For God’s sake, man. What is it?”
“Malthorne landed on Auckland with two companies of royal marines. His target was the Drake estate.”
Drake could barely find his voice. The look on Rutherford’s face spoke of tragedy. “What do you mean?”
“No,” Tolvern said, in a low voice. “Please, no.”
Her own family lived on the property; her father was still Baron Drake’s steward.
“I am so sorry,” Rutherford said.
“What happened?” Drake said. “Tell me at once.”
“Malthorne sacked and burned the manor. Arrested your parents and imprisoned them in the York Tower. A number of people were killed in the attack.”
The news was a blow, a fist to the gut. Drake could scarcely imagine the estate burning, marines killing people, arresting his parents. For God’s sake, why?
Tolvern’s hand went to her mouth. “Oh, my God. Who did they kill?”
“I don’t know all of it,” Rutherford said. “Some servants died, killed trying to protect the family. Others burned in the fire or died in the bombardment. And James—” He swallowed hard. “I’m afraid they murdered your sister. Helen is dead.”
For a long moment, Drake couldn’t say anything, couldn’t move, could only remember his sister, her bright, inquisitive eyes, the teasing turn at her mouth when she said something clever. Why would they kill her? He couldn’t understand it. Helen wasn’t yet twenty years old, she was a complete innocent.
Tolvern cursed. Her outrage and anguish at the death of Drake’s sister seemed both deep and genuine. “Why? I don’t understand it. Please, someone explain to me.”
“Your family is safe, I believe,” Rutherford told her. “The crown gave Baron Drake’s lands to a marine colonel, and the new owner has compelled your father to stay on as steward. I don’t suppose he would have stayed under any circumstances if anyone in his own family had been killed.”
Tolvern let out a long, relieved sigh, then turned back to Drake. She reached for his hand, then seemed to catch herself, and pulled away. He wouldn’t have minded. He felt so stricken, so hollow inside, that all he wanted was a sympathetic shoulder against which to weep.
“I am sorry, sir,” Pittsfield said. “Please accept my condolences.”
“Thank you, Commander,” Drake managed.
After that, nobody spoke for several long, excruciating seconds. Drake felt like he would drown in the silence, as it grew thick and stagnant.
“I don’t know why Malthorne would do it,” Rutherford said at last. “Your parents are in the Tower as traitors, accused of aiding and abetting your mutiny, but everybody knows the charges are a sham. I would say the admiral arrested them to force your surrender, but after . . . well, after killing your sister, there’s no way you’d be anything but an implacable enemy. The whole matter defies explanation.”
“I understand,” Drake said. His voice sounded hollow in his ears, as if he spoke from the bottom of a deep well. “Malthorne did it for revenge.”
“Revenge?”
“You heard about my assault on Hot Barsa?”
“Not the whole of it,” Rutherford said. “Only that you attacked and did some damage. The lord admiral personally sent a message ordering me to hunt you down. I wasn’t sure how much of what he said was the truth.”
“Enough of it. We attacked Malthorne’s private estate, left his manor house on fire. I suspect his attack on my family’s lands in Auckland, even the murder of my sister—” Drake’s voice caught. Could it really be true that Helen was dead? “—even that, was revenge.”
“Why did you attack?” Rutherford asked in a bewildered tone. “What would possess you to do such a thing?”
“Tell him,” Drake told Tolvern. “I can’t. I need a minute.”
Tolvern filled Rutherford and Pittsfield in on what had happened since the mutiny. The merchant ship Drake had been accused of destroying and then concealing? That had been carrying a secret antidote to the Hroom sugar addiction. It had been taken to Malthorne’s estates on Hot Barsa, seized by Blackbeard’s away team, and was now being synthesized in Blackbeard’s lab while Drake decided what to do with it.
“I don’t know what Malthorne is doing,” Rutherford said when she’d finished. “Perhaps nothing more than consolidating his control of the Admiralty by marginalizing or forcing out those who might otherwise oppose him. This business with the sugar antidote may or may not be related—at the very least, it was obvious he wanted a new war with the Hroom.”
Drake forced himself to regain control of his emotions. There would be time later to grieve for his sister and to figure out what to do about his parents imprisoned in York Tower.
“And now we have a new complication,” he said. “Apex.”
Rutherford leaned back. He glanced at Pittsfield, then turned back to Drake. “Yes, that.”
Drake thought about what the Hroom crew member had told him. “You’re the one who used that term, so I have to ask, how sure are you that these ships are Apex and not something else?”
“Not sure at all,” Rutherford said. “The Hroom survivor said the word, that is all. At first, I thought ‘Apex’ might be this new technology that allowed a ship to pierce space and create its own jump point. But as the ships chased us, it was clear they possessed an entire suite of unknown technology. The craft looked different, they had unknown energy weapons that were devastating to our armor. Even the tactics were different. Not Hroom maneuvers at all. Do you know anything more?”
“A little,” Drake said. “But it’s conjecture, told to me by Hroom. The Hroom Empire is at least fifteen hundred years old, and it has explored far deeper into this sector of space than we have. Humans have come across strange craft, ancient derelicts, some drifting for tens of thousands of years, but no other aliens besides the Hroom. The empire has. A few hundred years ago, about the same time as the Settlement, the Hroom had a short, sharp war with a race of beings they called Apex.” Drake stopped. “Again, this is mostly conjecture. It comes from one Hroom crew member, reporting on an incident from the history books.”
“I understand. Go on.”
“The Hroom were strong at the time,” Drake continued. “This other race fought hard, fought savagely, then suddenly retreated with their entire fleet for unknown pa
rts. Physically, they were a strange race of sentient, flightless, bird-like creatures. Culturally, they were predators. Meat eaters, not omnivores like Hroom or humans. They ate both their own dead and the dead of their enemies.”
“Scans showed dead Hroom on the warship,” Rutherford said. “But not as many as we’d expected. I thought the sloop was flying with a short crew, but maybe . . . Why Apex? What does that mean?”
“It’s a Hroom term,” Drake said. “The Apex worldview, their religion, even, seems to be related to their nature as predators. They move through the galaxy hunting and eating other intelligent species. They are apex predators. They literally consume other intelligent races.”
“Why did these aliens disappear?” Rutherford asked.
Tolvern spoke up. “Sal Ypis—she’s the Hroom who seemed to know something of Apex—said they’d withdrawn because the empire was too strong.”
“Think of them like killer whales,” Drake said. “They hunt other predators—dolphins, sea lions, sharks—but they won’t hunt sperm whales. A full-grown bull sperm whale can bite a killer whale in two.”
Apparently, there had been even larger whales on Old Earth, but none of those embryos had survived the colonization of Albion. The powerful, aggressive sperm whales were the only animal that killer whales wouldn’t hunt.
“At the time, the Hroom Empire was like a bull sperm whale,” Drake said. “Apex couldn’t defeat it, so they withdrew to watch and wait. Now they’re back, and they’ve discovered that the empire is dying. After centuries of war with humans, and with a crippling sugar addiction ravaging their population, the Hroom are ripe for the killing.”
“Not that weak,” Rutherford said ruefully. “We lost too many good men, too many ships in the last war.”
“And yet, weren’t there times that you wondered why the Hroom were so slow to respond?” Drake asked. “At Kif Lagoon, we kept expecting enemy reinforcements. They never came. When the time came to end the war, the empire settled quickly, agreed to so many conditions that the lord admiral pleaded with the king to demand more concessions. That makes more sense if you assume that the Hroom were fighting probing attacks on their flanks from Apex.”
Lords of Space (Starship Blackbeard Book 2) Page 18