"But she can't," Tannis said reasonably. "Treadwell's on the Soissons command fortress-she knows that."
"And she doesn't care. My God, it was all I could do to stop her from going after Howell by herself!"
"But it would be suicide. Alley would never do anything like that. I know her."
"You knew her," Ben Belkassem corrected grimly. He folded his hands tightly and stared down at them, choosing his words with care. "She's not crazy the way you thought she was, but-" He paused and inhaled deeply. "Major Cateau, Sir Arthur, there's something else going on inside her now. It wasn't there at Soissons. There's a... fanaticism. I saw it after Wyvern. She was fine before she found out about Alexsov and Brinkman, but then-"
"What are you saying, Ferhat?" Keita asked quietly.
"I'm saying she doesn't care about anything but destroying the 'pirates.' Nothing else is real to her anymore. She'll kill herself to get them... and she'll kill anyone else who stands in her way."
"Not Alley," Tannis whispered, but it wasn't a protest. She was pleading, and Ben Belkassem hated himself as he nodded. Keita stared at the inspector, and his mouth tightened.
"If you're right-I'm not certain you are, but if you're right-there are nine thousand other people on that fortress."
"I know."
"But could she even get through the defenses?" Suares asked.
"She already got through them once," Ben Belkassem said. "She cut right through the middle of Howell's entire squadron. I don't know if she can get through the forts again. I wouldn't bet against it... but I doubt she could get back out alive."
"She wouldn't want to." Tears sounded in Tannis's voice. "Not Alley. Not after killing nine thousand innocent people." A sob caught in her throat. "If she could do that, she's turned into something she wouldn't want to live."
"She'll ram," Keita said softly. "She'll take the fort out with her Fasset drive. It's all she's got that could do the job."
"We have to warn them," Suares said. "If we have Treadwell taken into custody, removed from the fortress, and tell her so-"
"We can't." Ben Belkassem smiled bitterly. "We don't have a starcom, and nothing we've got is as fast as Megaira."
"No," Keita said slowly, "but..." His voice trailed off, then he nodded decisively and stood. "We do have a dispatch boat. That's almost as fast, and she wormholed out of here almost directly away from Franconia. I doubt she had time to pre-plot it, either, so God only knows where she'll come out. I'll have Admiral Leibniz run the figures, but she's got to decelerate and reorient herself before she can even start for Soissons. If we leave immediately, we should beat her there with time to spare."
"And do what, Uncle Arthur?" Tannis asked in a tiny voice.
"I don't know, Tannis." He sighed. "I just don't know."
Chapter Sixty-Six
The shrill bell jarred her sleeping brain. She sat up in bed, rubbing her eyes, then glared at the chronometer and punched the com button.
"Horth. What is it, damn it?!"
"Sorry to disturb you, Admiral," her chief of staff said, "but Perimeter Tracking's just picked up two incoming drive signatures."
"So?" Vice Admiral Horth managed not to snarl. "We've got thirty, forty arrivals a day in this system."
"Yes, Ma'am, but these two both look like Fleet drives. Neither is scheduled, and they're coming in very, very fast on reciprocal bearings. If they're headed for rendezvous here, they must be planning crash turnovers."
"Crash turnovers?" Horth swung her feet out of bed and fumbled for her slippers with them. "What sort of vectors are we talking about?"
"The more distant bogey's turning just over fourteen hundred lights and bears roughly oh-seven-three by three-five-oh, Ma'am; the closer one is making twelve-sixty lights from two-five-five by oh-oh-three. Unless they change heading after they break sublight, they'll meet right at Soissons."
Horth frowned in surprise. Two Fleet units headed for rendezvous here and no one had even mentioned them to Traffic Control? But then the speeds registered. Twelve hundred times light-speed was moving it even for a dispatch boat, but nothing moved at fourteen hundred lights except -
She forgot her slippers and reached for her uniform.
"ETAs?" she snapped.
"If they both go for minimum distance turnover from Franconia's Powell limit, Bogey One-the closer one-will drop sublight at approximately ten-forty-one hours, Ma'am. Bogey Two will do the same at eleven-forty-six."
"Um." Horth slid out of her nightgown and started climbing into clothes. "All right. Alert all fortress commanders. We've got time, but I want all forts on standby by ten hundred hours. Then get hold of Admiral Marat. See if he's completed that estimate of the alpha-synth's capabilities and get it to me ASAP." She zipped her blouse and reached for her tunic. "Is Admiral Gomez back from Ithuriel with the Capital Squadron?"
"No, Ma'am. The maneuvers aren't due to end until late tomorrow."
"Damn. Admiral Brinkman?"
"He's already aboard Orbit One for your morning conference, Ma'am."
"Ask him to join me in PriCon immediately, but I don't see any reason to wake the Governor General so soon."
"Yes, Ma'am."
Horth grunted and cut the circuit, and her face was worried. They hadn't managed to keep that lunatic from stealing the alpha-synth. Somehow, even after all the fire control upgrades since, she didn't think they'd do a lot better keeping her out.
***
The ponderous orbital forts of the Franconia System lumbered to life and began their equipment tests. People were people, and the crazy drop commando had been the butt of tasteless jokes for months; now she was coming back, and Alicia DeVries' madness was no longer an amusing subject.
***
A half-crippled starship sped through wormhole space, vibrating to the harsh music of a damaged Fasset drive far too long on emergency overboost. One sleek flank was battered and broken. Splintered structural members and shattered weapons gaped through rent plating, the slagged remnants of a cargo shuttle were fused to a twisted shuttle rack, and there was silence on its flight deck. Its AI hugged her wordless sorrow, and a bodiless spirit four thousand years out of her own time brooded in mute anguish over the evil she had wrought. Neither of them spoke. There was nothing to say. The arguments had been exhausted long ago, and the woman in the command chair no longer even heard them. Her uniform was stained and sour, her skin oily, her hair unwashed and lank, and her red-rimmed eyes blazed with fixed, emerald fire.
The starship Megaira hurtled onward, and madness sat at her controls.
***
"Hoo, boy! Look at that sucker," Lieutenant Anders muttered at his post in Tracking. Bogey One had timed its turnover perfectly; now it was sublight, ninety-three light-minutes from Orbit One and decelerating at thirteen hundred gravities. Whoever that was, he must have been in one hell of a hurry to get here. He was going to overshoot Soissons by almost a light-hour before he could kill his velocity, even at that deceleration.
***
The dispatch boat was crowded.
Keita hadn't even asked Tannis to stay behind-he recognized the impossible when he saw it-and Inspector Suares had been almost as insistent. Keita didn't really need him, for his own legal authority was more than sufficient for the distasteful task in hand, but having a Criminal Branch chief inspector in the background couldn't hurt. Ben Belkassem hadn't insisted on anything; he'd simply arrived aboard with an expression even Keita wouldn't have cared to cross.
All of which meant they'd been living in one another's pockets for almost a week now, since the eight-man craft had designed accommodations for only two passengers. They'd packed themselves in somehow-and, at the moment, it seemed everyone aboard was crowded onto the flight deck.
"How do I play the com angle, Sir Arthur?" the lieutenant commanding the dispatch boat asked. "They won't expect anything from us for thirty minutes or so, but the way we're coming in has to've made them curious."
"You've got urgent dispatches," Ke
ita rumbled. "Don't say a word about who's on board. If anyone asks, lie. I don't want anyone knowing we're here-or why-until I'm actually aboard that fortress."
"Yes, Sir. I-"
The lieutenant paused and pressed his synth-link headset to his temple, then gestured at a screen. Unarmed dispatch boats had neither the need nor the room for a warship's elaborate displays, but the view screen doubled as a plot when required. Now it flashed to life with a small-scale display of the Franconia System. The blue star of their Fasset drive moved only slowly on the display's scale, but a second star rushed to meet them at an incredible supralight velocity. Numbers scrolled across the bottom of the screen, then stopped and blinked with the computers' best guess.
If that other ship executed a crash turnover of its own, it would drop sublight in sixty-four minutes at a range of two-point-eight light-hours.
***
"Well, Bogey One's a dispatch boat, all right," Lieutenant Anders announced as Perimeter Tracking's light-speed sensors finally confirmed the gravity signature analysis.
The watch officer nodded and turned to pass the information in-system to Orbit One, and Anders swung his attention back to Bogey Two. He had no idea why that dispatch boat had arrived just now, yet he couldn't shake the conviction that it had to have something to do with Bogey Two-and he knew what Bogey Two had to be.
"Jesus!" he muttered to the woman at the next console as Bogey Two streaked towards Franconia's stellar Powell limit. "If she doesn't flip in about fifteen seconds, she's gonna have fried Fasset drive for lunch."
***
"Are we ready, Admiral?"
"As we can be, Governor." Vice Admiral Horth sat in her command chair, already wearing her headset, and studied her plot. "I wish I knew what she's up to this time around."
"It doesn't really matter, does it, Becky?" Sir Amos Brinkman asked, and Horth shook her head with a sigh.
"No, Amos. I don't suppose it does," she said softly.
***
Coming up on turnover, Megaira murmured hopelessly. Please, can't we-?
"No!" Alicia DeVries' contralto was as harsh and gaunt as her face. Cords showed in her throat, and somewhere deep inside she wept for her cruelty to Megaira, but the tears were far away and lost. "Just do it!" she snarled.
***
"It's got to be Alley. But how did she get here so soon?"
"I don't know, Tannis," Keita replied. "Coming in on that vector after the way she wormholed out.... It just doesn't seem possible. She must have had her drive redlined all the way here."
"Should we warn Orbit One?" Ben Belkassem asked quietly.
Keita stood silent for a moment, then shook his head.
"No. They already have her course plotted. Nothing we can tell them could change their defensive responses, and the truth would only disorganize their command structure at the critical moment." He glanced at the lieutenant. "Continue your deceleration, Captain, but have your com section ready. We'll just barely have the range to reach her when she breaks sublight."
Ben Belkassem looked up sharply, then glanced at Tannis. The major hunched forward, staring at the plot, and the inspector moved even closer to Keita, pitching his voice too low for her to overhear.
"Do you really think you can talk her out of this, Sir Arthur?"
"Honestly?" Ben Belkassem nodded, and Keita sighed. "Not really. She's got a damned low opinion of imperial justice-God knows she has a right to it-and from what you've told me about her mental state-"
He exhaled sharply.
"No, I don't think I can talk her out of it, but that doesn't mean I don't have to try."
***
"Here... she... comes," Lieutenant Anders whispered. Then, "Turnover! Christ! Look at that decel!"
***
Megaira whipsawed on the brink of self-destruction as her maltreated Fasset drive took the strain. Her velocity wound down insanely, dropping towards the perimeter of wormhole space, and fittings rattled and banged. Alicia felt the vibration, felt the starship's pain in her own flesh, and her fixed stare never wavered.
***
"Bogey Two dropping sublight... now," Tracking reported to PriCon. "Deceleration holding steady at twenty-three-point-five KPS squared."
Horth nodded and leaned back in her chair, rubbing her chin. Odd. DeVries was piling on an awful lot of negative G for someone in such a big hurry to get here.
***
Megaira bucketed through space, just below drive overload, and her velocity dropped rapidly. A vector projected itself behind Alicia's eyes, one that stretched one and a third billion kilometers to a dot invisible with distance, and she smiled a death's-head smile.
***
Two starships raced toward one another, converging on the distant spark of Franconia, and a message reached out across the gap between them. Even light seemed to crawl at such a range, but Megaira sped to meet it even as she decelerated. The outer ring of orbital forts brought their fire control on line, searching for her, dueling with her ECM, and the AI noted the changes in their sensors. She was well outside range-for now-but she was committed to enter it, and the upgrades of the last few months would reduce her ECM's efficiency by at least forty percent.
She considered reporting to Alicia, but there was no point.
***
"Look! She's still decelerating!" Tannis Cateau exclaimed. "Maybe we were wrong!"
"Maybe we were," Keita agreed, but he met Ben Belkassem's eyes behind her and shook his head minutely.
***
"Admiral Horth, Bogey One is transmitting."
"Well?" The admiral eyed the com rating narrowly, alerted by something in the man's voice. "What does he say?"
"We don't know, Ma'am. It's an awful tight beam and it wasn't addressed to us-we just caught the edge of the carrier as it went past, and it's encrypted."
"Encrypted?" Treadwell's voice was sharp, and the com rating nodded.
"Yes, Sir. We're working on it, but it's going to take time. It's imperial in origin, but we've never seen anything quite like it."
"And it's being sent to the alpha-synth?" Horth pressed.
"Yes, Ma'am."
The admiral nodded, then watched Brinkman and Treadwell exchange glances and wondered just what the hell was going on.
***
Only three of the outer forts could range on Megaira, but SLAMs streaked out from them, and a low, harsh growl quivered in Alicia's throat as she watched their deadly sparkles come. They were beautiful, their threat lost in the elemental splendor of destruction, and part of her wanted to reach out and embrace their glory. But she couldn't. She must dance with them, avoiding them, cutting through them to reach the object of her hate.
She watched Megaira flirt with death, trolling the SLAMs off course with her electronic wiles, flipping aside to evade the ones she could not enmesh, and the AI's pain was a knife in her own heart. Yet she was beyond pain. Pain only fed her hunger, whatever its source.
Tisiphone stood silent and helpless in Alicia's mind. It was all she could do to keep Alicia's blind savagery from dragging Megaira under and clouding the lightning-fast reflexes which kept them both alive.
She'd never guessed what she was creating, never imagined the monster she'd spawned. She'd seen the power of Alicia DeVries's mind without recognizing the controls which kept that power in check, and only now had she begun to understand fully what she had done.
She had shattered those controls. The compassion and mercy she'd feared no longer existed, only the red, ravening hunger. Yet terrible as that might be, there was worse. She'd found the hole Alicia had gnawed through the wall about her inner rage, and she couldn't close it. Somehow, without even realizing it was possible, Alicia had reached beyond herself. She'd followed Tisiphone's connection to the Fury's own rage, her own destruction, and made that incalculable power hers as well.
For the first time in millennia, Tisiphone faced another as powerful as herself, a mortal mind which had stolen the power of the Furies themselves, and
that power had driven it mad.
***
Vice Admiral Rebecca Horth sat silently, lips pressed firmly together, as the renegade alpha-synth evaded her SLAMs. More forts were firing now, and some of them, at least, were coming closer... but not close enough.
She checked the converging vectors again and frowned. The dispatch boat would pass within a few thousand kilometers of Soissons on its course to meet the alpha-synth, but if the alpha-synth maintained its present deceleration, it would pass well behind the planet when it crossed Soissons's orbit. Which made no sense, unless....
David Weber - In Fury Born (ARC) Page 90