By Honor Betray'd: Mageworlds #3

by Doyle, Debra; Macdonald, James D.

  She did her best to keep her features schooled to an expression of mild interest, as if they were discussing nothing more pressing than the allocation of tax levies for glidewalk repair. “So what do you want from me?”

  The captain paused. This was not, it seemed, a decision she had come to easily. “Domina,” she said, “we—myself and those under me—wish to swear ourselves formally to you … .”

  I don’t believe this, Beka thought. Nobody’s bothered with all that oath-of-fealty nonsense since before I was born.

  She kept her face impassive. The Space Force captain was still talking.

  “ … with the understanding that you not require us to oppose the Republic’s Space Force or to act against the Republic’s interests, and that you will release us from our oath once the present situation normalizes.”

  Beka drew a deep breath. “Is that all?”

  “Yes, Domina,” said the captain. “All I ask is that you put me and my detachment under your protection.”

  “All?” she asked. “Sounds like a great deal for you with not much in it for me.”

  “I’m afraid so, my lady. I can only hope that you’ll be generous.”

  “Generous,” said Beka. “Right. Hang on for a moment while I confer with my advisors.”

  She didn’t wait for the captain’s reply, but nodded to LeSoit and Jessan and swept out of the common room in her most regal manner. The Iron Crown, fortunately, didn’t slip until she was out of sight around the bend in the passageway that led to the engineering spaces.

  “Well,” she said, as soon as they had a solid bulkhead and a closed door between them and the Space Force captain. “What do you think?”

  “It is a chance to increase the size of the fleet,” LeSoit pointed out.

  “To more than one vessel. Yes, that’s a start. Jessan, what’s the Space Force got here?”

  Jessan sighed. “Small stuff … space-only, no ground presence … I don’t know anything more specific than that. I’ve been out of the loop for over a year now, remember?”

  “Then get back into it,” she told him. “I want to know what’s in port, what’s coming in, what’s going out. This is important. Find out. I’ll wait.”

  LeSoit was looking smug. “Captain Yevil’s detachment consists of one destroyer, two fast couriers, a hyperspace-capable transport, and a half-dozen local defense single-seat fighters. Of those six, only three are fully operational.”

  The ’Hammer’s number-two gunner leaned back against the bulkhead and favored Jessan with a bland smile. The Khesatan’s lips tightened, but he didn’t reply.

  Beka took a deep breath and ignored the byplay. “Opinions on the cost to us of taking the captain up on her offer?”

  Jessan shrugged. “We might annoy the local authorities.”

  “I can live with that. How about her conditions?”

  “Not unreasonable, considering the situation.”

  She nodded. “Fine. Jessan, you’re now officially the General of the Armies of Entibor. She’s under your command. Don’t disappoint me.”

  Beka looked at her little group. “Well, let’s go back in there and accept the captain’s oath. This is starting to shape up into an interesting day.”

  II. GALCEN NEARSPACE: SWORD-OF-THE-DAWN

  SUIVI POINT: ENTERTAINMENT DISTRICT;

  WARHAMMER

  GYFFERAN FARSPACE: NIGHT’S-BEAUTIFUL-DAUGHTER

  GRAND ADMIRAL sus-Airaalin was, reluctantly, at work in his office when the messenger arrived. Reluctantly, because he disliked the office’s cramped space—back on Eraasi, he’d worked out-of-doors whenever he could, seeking out the high mountains and the desolate places as a defense against spies and eavesdroppers. Now that he didn’t need such measures, he found the confinement of shipboard life oppressive. His preferred station on the Sword’s observation deck gave him a view of the stars and enough room to pace back and forth, but some of his duties as admiral could only be carried out in the room assigned to their performance.

  Correspondence, for one thing—letter after letter from the leaders of the Resurgency. They hadn’t been able to reach the Grand Admiral for several weeks by Eraasian reckoning, while the Mage-Circles had suppressed all hyperspace communications in order to maintain secrecy for the attack on Galcen. The gradual return of the hi-comms network, however, had put an end to the Resurgency’s silence.

  He called up the first message in the morning’s traffic and read it, frowning slightly.

  “With regard to the possibly replicant body of Rosel Quetaya, flag aide to General Jos Metadi, sent to us from the morgue at Prime Base Hospital: extensive testing will be necessary to determine whether the deceased is ours or the original. syn-Tavaite has been summoned. If you could tell us by whose agency the death occurred …”

  sus-Airaalin sighed and switched on the autoscribe pinned to his collar. “Be aware, as I believe I told you when I sent you the body, that the Space Force authorities at Prime Base were exercising their minds over the same question. Since General Metadi himself was not at Prime when the attack occurred, he may well be at large in the galaxy in the company of one of our own. Please do your best to expedite your findings in this matter.”

  He clicked off the autoscribe and brought up the next item in the queue—fulsome congratulations, this time, from sus-Ieleen syn-Arvont, who had fought sus-Airaalin and his plans for the Circles ever since the beginning. Now, predictably, syn-Arvont was trying to curry favor. sus-Airaalin was about to switch on the autoscribe again to dictate a response when the office door beeped at him.

  “Come,” he said, with relief.

  The door opened and a trooper entered. “My lord sus-Airaalin,” he said, and saluted. “We have an intercept, one of high interest.”

  “What is it, Criaal?”

  “This, my lord,” the runner said, handing over a message tablet.

  sus-Airaalin glanced at the display, noting that the style of the intercept was that of the Republic’s Space Force, with an indicator in the header showing a point of origin in the Gyfferan system. The message itself was written in the Standard Galcenian that the Adept-worlders used in their dealings with one another:

  View all traffic from COMREPSPAFOR INFABEDE with suspicion. Ari Rosselin-Metadi, LCDR, SFMS, sends.

  “The sender is on the watch list,” said Criaal.

  “I know,” sus-Airaalin said. “I put him there. Please summon Mid-Commander Taleion.”

  The trooper departed, and sus-Airaalin looked again at the tablet. According to the intercept log, this particular message had been acquired by the force sent to secure Cashel, found there in hardcopy at the General Delivery transshipment point.

  “My lord sus-Airaalin.”

  The Grand Admiral looked up. Mid-Commander Mael Taleion stood in the open doorway. sus-Airaalin’s aide, and the Second of his Circle, was a small, unremarkable man of common Eraasian stock. Like Trooper Criaal, he carried neither the lesser nor the greater honorifics in either mother-line or father-line, and in the old days would have been fortunate to rise any higher in the officer corps than underlieutenant.

  To the shame of our ancestors, sus-Airaalin thought. How much talent did we waste that way, over the years? In one thing, at least, our defeat forced us to change for the better.

  He gestured at the office’s other chair. “Enter and sit, Mael. We have something here which disturbs me greatly.”

  Taleion sat, and regarded the message tablet curiously. “Is that it?”

  “It is.” sus-Airaalin pushed the tablet across the desktop for closer inspection. “What do you make of it?”

  The mid-commander picked up the tablet and studied the message, his lips moving as he worked to translate the Galcenian text. After a minute, he looked up.

  “The obvious conclusion, my lord, is that General Metadi’s eldest son is somewhere on Gyffer.”

  sus-Airaalin nodded. “Exactly. And I distrust obvious conclusions. Consider the date this message was sent—three days
, perhaps four, after the earliest on which a courier ship fleeing the attack on Galcen could have brought word to Gyffer of our success.”

  “I … see.” But Taleion still looked doubtful.

  “Think, Mael,” sus-Airaalin urged. “The Adept-worlders are not fools; they’ll be expecting us to intercept and scan their message traffic. So when a system—a conveniently nearby system—lets slip in plain text that one of the persons we are most likely to be seeking is there … then, Mael, I begin to suspect we’re looking at a trap.”

  “A trap. Maybe you’re right, my lord—but whose?”

  “Metadi,” said sus-Airaalin at once. “It has to be. Who else in the Adept-worlds would dare use their commanding general’s children like counters on a gaming board? And Metadi was not on Galcen when it fell.”

  “True, my lord. But we’ve also heard from the daughter, the one that was supposed to be dead—this could be her work.”

  “I don’t think so,” sus-Airaalin said. “From what we know of Beka Rosselin-Metadi, she’d never attempt anything this indirect.” He smiled in spite of the gravity of the situation. “From that one, I’d expect nothing short of a frontal assault.”

  “Assuming it’s Metadi we’re dealing with,” said Taleion, “what do we do?”

  The Grand Admiral rose to his feet. The tiny office, with its mountains and snowdrifts of paperwork, felt more confining than ever. In spite of himself, he began to pace.

  “Our orders from the Resurgency are clear,” he said. “We must break the Space Force. We must be sure that Commanding General Jos Metadi is dead. We must be doubly sure that all his children are dead. Now that we have come this far, complete victory is our only safety.”

  “You’ll get no argument from me on that, my lord.”

  “Good. Consider, then. We have here a message all but inviting us to Gyffer—a rich target in its own right, with its shipyards and its weapons merchants and its planetary fleet. I believe, Mael, that if we take the warfleet to Gyffer we’ll find General Metadi already there waiting for us.”

  “Most people,” said Taleion, “would avoid Gyffer like a soul-bane if they thought that was going to happen.”

  “True enough,” the Grand Admiral said. “But there’s a big difference between the man who steps ignorantly into a snare, and the one who walks into it with his eyes wide open. The first man is caught; but the second has baited a trap for the hunter.”

  Nyls Jessan smiled as he matched Captain Rosselin-Metadi’s quick strides along the glidewalk back to their storefront quarters. The morning’s diversions so far had been varied enough to provide amusement: first Tarveet of Pleyver dropping by to issue veiled threats before breakfast, then LeSoit’s call for assistance. Accepting the fealty of the Space Force CO had been … well, interesting. Beka had kept a straight face throughout, and the Iron Crown hadn’t slipped askew until the ceremony was almost over.

  The hastily formalized relationship had something in it for all concerned: the CO kept her warships out of the hands of the Suivans, whose loyalty to the Republic had never impressed anybody; the Resistance got the nucleus of a fighting fleet; and Jessan, somewhat to his own surprise, had a new title.

  General of the Armies of Entibor, he thought, and shook his head. What would they say on Khesat if they knew?

  “Did you mean it?” he asked curiously.

  Beka glanced over at him. The events of the morning so far had left her in a brittle and unchancy mood: her blue eyes were brighter than usual, and her pale skin was flushed along the cheekbones. “Mean what?”

  “The ‘General of the Armies’ bit.” He laughed quietly. “My relatives will have heart palpitations if they ever find out.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Why? Isn’t the Domina of Lost Entibor good enough for them?”

  “I’m afraid they’d say just the opposite,” he told her. “The Iron Crown is too good for my branch of the family. We’re supposed to stay out of galactic politics, marry into the minor aristocracy, and keep on adding to the stable of extra heirs.”

  “Too bad,” she said. “You can apologize later. But right now I need you to run the fleet—I don’t want my ships coopted by the Space Force any more than our friend back there wants her vessels taken over by the committee.”

  “Understandable,” Jessan said. “Not that we’ve currently got any ships for the Space Force to coopt. Except for Warhammer, of course, and I don’t think they’d try that.”

  “Don’t worry; we’ll get ships. As soon as word spreads around. And if that doesn’t work—”

  He frowned. “You can’t take on the entire Mage warfleet with your bare hands.”

  “No.” She halted, facing him, so that they both stood still while the glidewalk carried them past the taverns and amusement centers of the upper Strip. “Look. I thought about this a lot before I made up my mind to do it. We both know that the whole Space Force couldn’t have gone down when the Mages took Galcen. Whoever’s running things on the Mages’ side has to know that, too—and the more time the Magelords take up with worrying about me, the less time they’ve got to spend hunting for the rest of the fleet.”

  Jessan sighed. He hadn’t forgotten his first meeting with Beka Rosselin-Metadi, when he’d seen her step out into the range of a dozen blasters for the sake of a clear line of fire. She’d been in disguise that time, as the one-eyed and slightly homicidal starpilot Tarnekep Portree, but the line between her proper and her alternate personae had never been very thick.

  “If you’re going to make a target of yourself,” he began, “you could at least—”

  “Excuse me, my lady,” came a voice from off on the stationary border of the glidewalk.

  Beka turned. “Yes?”

  The Domina was on her best behavior—Jessan recognized the cant of her head and the polite-but-distant tone of her voice as a good imitation of the late Perada Rosselin—but she still looked edgy. She took one glance at the speaker, a heavy-set man in the uniform of a Suivan Contract Security operative, and her hand came up to straighten a button of her quilted jacket.

  Jessan felt a stirring of disquiet. That button was one of the Professor’s little toys from their asteroid base; the concealed audio pickup would transmit directly to Warhammer’ s comm console and main ship’s memory.

  Something’s not right, he thought. She wants to save this conversation for the record.

  The ConSec officer faced Beka and Jessan a pace or two ahead. “Are you the woman identified as Beka Rosselin-Metadi, who styles herself Domina of Entibor?”

  Beka’s lips tightened at the “styles herself”; her hand fell away from the jacket buttons as she looked down her nose at the officer. “I am. What is—”

  Two more ConSec officers stepped onto the glidewalk, taking her one by each arm, pulling her from the glidewalk and shoving her face-first into the wall on the right.

  The first man pulled a blaster and took a step back. “You’re under arrest. Submit yourself quietly.”

  Jessan paused. Though it might be acceptable Suivan etiquette to abandon a shipmate under these circumstances, Khesat and the Space Force had higher standards. He thought about going for the needler in his right-hand coat pocket, or the small sharp knife in his boot top—but in close quarters against so many, neither one was good enough for anything besides a last-ditch attempt. Especially not when Beka looked like playing this one as Domina of Lost Entibor all the way to the end.

  Follow her lead, he told himself. Do what you can.

  By now a fourth ConSec had joined the other three, and was busy searching Beka for concealed weapons. The captain’s opinion of Suivi Point being what it was, he was finding them—first tearing the seam of her left sleeve from cuff to elbow as he took away the long double-edged knife, then reaching to scrabble around inside the front of her quilted jacket.

  Jessan heard the sound of ripping cloth, and the ConSec pulled out a small chunk of glittering metal.

  “Needler,” he said. “Oh, naughty, naughty l
ady.”

  Beka stiffened.

  “You’re quite mistaken,” she said. “Everything here is perfectly fine.” Her Galcenian accent was even more marked than usual, and the words were pitched to carry. The comm link in her jacket button should be picking them up with ease. “Everything here is perfectly fine.”

  That’s the signal, thought Jessan, as the two ConSecs pinning Beka against the wall brought her arms up higher between her shoulder blades. Time for a distraction, I think.

  He took a step forward.

  “Excuse me,” he said to the first ConSec, who still had his weapon trained on Beka while the others did the search. “May I ask your authority for this intrusion?”

  The ConSec hit Jessan across the face with the blaster. “There’s my authority.”

  Jessan had expected a reaction of that sort, and rolled his head with the blow. All the same, the impact raised a welt along his jaw. Warm blood started trickling from his cheekbone. He ignored it; there would be enough time for first aid later.

  “Oh, dear,” he said—his High Khesatan accent more pronounced than ever. If the ConSecs thought they were dealing with a Central Worlds prettyboy straight out of the comedy holovids, so much the better. “In that case, I must insist that you take me into custody as well.”

  The ConSec shook his head. “Sorry, buddy, but I don’t have arrest orders for you.”

  Jessan glanced over at Beka. The officer searching her was taking his own good time in checking for weapons around her hips and groin. So far, though, he hadn’t found the comm link hidden in the jacket button, still activated and relaying everything back to the ‘Hammer and Ignac’ LeSoit.

  I don’t like depending on that man, Jessan thought. He thinks too highly of the captain for his own good. But one makes use of the tools to hand.

  He looked back at the ConSec with the blaster. “You might consider taking me in for resisting arrest.”