A Prison Unsought

by Sherwood Smith

  “And, Morrighon,” Anaris continued, as though nothing was happening, “do not fail me again.”

  On the bridge, Larghior Alac-lu-Ombric watched as Emmet Fasthand slumped in defeat and tabbed the hatch open. The Tarkans rushed in, spreading out efficiently, menacing the bridge crew with their jacs.

  No one moved.

  Two of the Tarkans advanced on Moob and yanked her out of her pod, one pinioning her while the other roughly relieved her of her knives. Lar was mildly astonished at the quantity of weapons she managed to conceal despite her skin-tight clothing.

  When their search was finished, the Tarkan slammed her back in her pod and moved away. She snarled at him wordlessly, but her heart obviously wasn’t in it.

  They searched the rest of the crew just as efficiently; then the senior Tarkan returned to the hatch. Anaris achreash’Eusabian strode onto the bridge, followed by Morrighon, whose eyes sought Lar out.

  Lar shrank back. Oh, Tatriman, what have you done?

  Morrighon walked to Creote’s console and pushed him out of his pod.

  Creote scrambled away like a spider and retreated to a far bulkhead. Seating himself in his place, Morrighon tapped at the keys. A squeal of code was followed by the flickering light of a high-speed playback.

  He planted a spy trap, independent of the ship’s computer.

  After a beat, Morrighon looked up. “They launched repeaters, lord, spooled with a message to the cruiser about the shuttle and the Panarch.”

  “Can you cancel them?” Anaris asked.

  Morrighon touched a key. “Self-destruct signal dispatched.” He touched another key; Creote’s recorded voice suddenly filled the bridge. “. . . on the planet’s surface at latitude 33.7, longitude 358.9, according to System FF simulation coordinates. We are leaving the system—”

  The message stopped abruptly.

  “ . . .latitude 33.7, longitude . . .” Another message cut short. Morrighon cut the com; no need to listen to the messages cut off as the destruct signal reached the fleeing repeaters one by one.

  “They will not hear it, lord,” said Morrighon, staring at Fasthand with a gloating smile. “The ion storm will obscure the signals until the destruct message catches up with the last repeater.”

  “Good.” Anaris took a step toward Fasthand. “They would not have let you go in any case. You know the secret of Gehenna.” He smiled coldly. “So you will fight or die.”

  Somehow, to Larghior’s astonishment, Emmet Fasthand found it in himself to reply, “Fight and die, you mean.”

  Anaris merely stared at him, then raised his hand. As one of the Tarkans came forward, Fasthand gobbled quickly, “We’ll fight, we’ll fight.”

  “Then bring this ship about,” Anaris replied. “You will have one slight advantage.”

  Fasthand looked at him blankly.

  “They will try to disable and board you, to find out where the Panarch was landed. You will be under no such restraint.”

  Lar found Morrighon standing next to his pod.

  “Take me to your cousin, Larghior Alac-lu-Ombric.” Anaris’s secretary must have seen the mute refusal in his face, for he added in a low voice, “No harm will come to you and yours; I have already sent for your brother. This ship will shortly be destroyed in battle. Do you not wish to live?”

  Lar nodded, confused and unable to stir. Then, at an impatient gesture from Morrighon, he got up from his console and followed him off the bridge.

  GEHENNA

  Matilde Ho slid tiredly down the wall and squatted on the deck plates. She’d done what she could to undo the damage inflicted on the ship by the Dol’jharian saboteur. Now it was up to the self-repair algorithms to finish and give them enough power to lift off.

  BOOM. Another reverberation shook the ship, echoing up through her aching joints, through her healing arm and into her eyeballs. They’d had to tune the shields down to conserve power. The Gehennans had brought up heavy catapults and were throwing half-ton rocks at them.

  Rocks! It’s like something out of a surreal history chip.

  She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes, as if to push the pain back, and let a bubble of laughter well up inside. It sounded more like a sob when it emerged.

  She was unaware of Gelasaar standing over her, looking down at her worriedly when her wounded arm dropped. He reached down and touched her lightly on the knee; she glanced up at his blue eyes, reading the concern there.

  She forced a smile to cracked lips. The heat from the fires set by the Gehennans around the ship was slowly seeping in.

  “I’ll do.” She gestured. “Ironic, isn’t it? Out in space, rocks are the primary hazard to a ship, too.”

  He smiled back, a hint of the old mischief there, recalling his young days when they first met. “Look what I found.” He brandished a small dusty bottle of liquor dark with age. “Some Rifter’s private stash is my guess.”

  Matilde leaned forward, then gasped. “Napoléone!”

  “And it’s a century old, if the label can be believed,” the Panarch said, pointing. “Shall we?”

  Matilde laughed as the shuttle rocked under another concussion. “Why not?”

  With an air of ceremony the Panarch eased the cork out, and then after a toast to their unknown benefactor, took a sip. His eyes closed, and he smiled. “Perfect.”

  So they sat there, side by side, rank forgotten, all forms of ritual abandoned, and passed the bottle back and forth while outside the crash and boom of primitive missiles provided a demented counterpoint.

  Matilde cherished the burn of the alcohol down her throat, the warmth in her chest, the glow in her head. Gelasaar longed for the sensory blanket that liquor might confer, but his thoughts stubbornly arrowed up beyond the atmosphere to that brilliance in the sky.

  At first they conversed little, beyond toasts: Padraic, Teodric, and other fallen comrades; Eusabian’s downfall.

  Then Matilde’s mind ranged outward. “To Brandon,” she said. “Wherever he is.” She drank deeply and passed the bottle.

  Gelasaar lifted the bottle toward the sky. “To Brandon.” And drank.

  A semblance of ritual had returned. It was inevitable—too much a part of their identity, of the meaning of their lives.

  Matilde bit her numbing lips, wondering if now—at last—had come the time to speak. During these hours of relative freedom they had all talked, tongues more unguarded than ever before. Past mistakes reexamined, Semion and his likely future as Panarch considered; Gelasaar seemed to have relinquished the role of Panarch, and in his retrospection regarded his past actions with the dispassionate scrutiny of distance.

  But one subject he had not brought up and the others had stayed clear of: Brandon, the third son and now heir, who was alive only because he had unaccountably left his own Enkainion minutes before it was to have begun.

  How to discuss it? Semion at least had played out his games within the rules, and by some factions he’d been hailed as a fine prospect for a ruler, one who had the Thousand-Year Peace at heart. Brandon’s unexplained action had no precedent, would have been seen as an insult to the highest in the land—one made, moreover, as publicly as was possible.

  Matilde said carefully, “Do you think he’s out there?”

  Gelasaar smiled ruefully. “I have faith he might be.” He passed the bottle back, then went on, his gaze pensive, “I believe this: if he’s alive, he’s out there on that inrushing daystar. In spite of circumstances. Because of circumstances.” He lifted his chin, looking upward at the curve of the bulkhead. “We never had enough time together. But duty, as I perceived it, required me to spend that time with Anaris.”

  “Did Brandon resent you for that?” Matilde began to put together a logic chain of images—jealousy—resentment. But the Panarch shook his head, and they vanished.

  “He knew. What I could not tell him was how impossible it was for me to come between my sons. What I could not show him was how much effort I expended to make certain he had what he
needed. I observed him from afar, and since this attack I believe I have, in some measure, come to know him a little in the last weeks—as our ancestors came to know something of the invisible particles of their physics by observing where they had been, where they ought to be, where they were not, and their effects on what was observable. I have followed my son’s shadow through my conversations with Anaris, and through our own discussions.”

  Matilde sipped, fighting the burn of tears. I’ve drunk too much, she thought. I’m maudlin with memory and regret. And she cursed herself for having brought up a subject that could only cause pain.

  But Gelasaar’s eyes and hands exhibited no trace of regret as he lifted the bottle. “To Brandon,” he said. “And faith.”

  And with a gesture of deliberate benediction he drank off the rest of the bottle, then threw it against the opposite bulkhead to smash into shards.

  ABOARD THE GROZNIY

  The course of the fleeing Rifter ship took it inward, into less trashy space, and so the chase accelerated.

  Gehenna had dwindled and vanished in the glare of the system’s primary, now behind them, when the asteroid sheltering them from the onrushing junk of the Gehenna system suddenly flared so bright that the screens blanked. It came back to reveal a grinding mass of rubble held in the tractors, the pieces oscillating wildly. Ng’s heart hammered, but she kept her eyes steady on the screens, her breathing controlled.

  “Skipmissile impact,” Sub-Lieutenant Wychyrski at SigInt sang out; the bridge cadence was too well-drilled for her to abandon, but she knew she was too loud.

  “Weapons, release the asteroid rubble. Now.” Ng’s voice remained cool and even.

  The ship lurched as the tractors shut down, and the rocks onscreen started to spread and tumble slowly.

  “Navigation, come about twenty degrees mark zero, now!” Ng’s hands tightened on her pod arms. The Rifters had turned to fight sooner than she had expected. “Tactical, probable range of enemy skipmissile.”

  “Skipmissile charged,” said Tulin at the main weapons console while Rom-Sanchez calculated, confirming per SOP that the Grozniy’s main weapon was ready.

  But we can’t use it, thought Ng. We need them alive.

  The port shields flared as the ship’s turn exposed them to the tenth-cee system dust.

  “Twenty degrees mark zero,” Lieutenant Mzinga sang out.

  “Probably max range for enemy, eleven light-seconds; we’re limited to about six.”

  “Skip fifteen light-seconds, now!” Ng commanded. “SigInt, slave a console to monitor the Knot,” she continued as the fiveskip burped. “Put Ensign Grigorian on it.”

  “Port shields at one hundred ten and climbing,” Damage Control reported.

  “Navigation, bring us about to starboard 180 mark zero and take us down to point-oh-one cee at tac-level five.”

  The engines groaned as they came about, the starboard shields glaring even brighter than the other side had as the massive ship presented its side to the rocks and ice hitting it at 31,000 kilometers per second.

  Ng flicked a glance at her right. The Aerenarch stood motionless, hands behind his back, his gaze moving rapidly. He was following the action without difficulty; she risked a glance at Sebastian Omilov. His sweat-lined brow puckered in confusion.

  “Starboard shields at one hundred twenty and rising,” sang Damage Control. “Estimate fifteen seconds life for aft shields over radiants.”

  “Probable ruptor range twenty-five light-seconds, max,” Rom-Sanchez added.

  After a time measured in heartbeats and damp-palmed anticipation the fiveskip engaged again, harsher. When they emerged, the shields were dim, flaring here and there as small rocks hit them.

  “Emergence at point-oh-one cee.”

  “Tactical skip, now, tac-level one.”

  “Captain,” Rom-Sanchez said urgently as the fiveskip burped. “The Knot.”

  “I know, Commander,” she replied, “but we won’t have to worry about that if they hit us square on with one of those hopped-up skipmissiles.” She raised her voice. “SigInt, find that destroyer.”

  “Search initiated, Captain. The Knot’s been excited pretty fiercely—still a lot of ionization. Long EM’s pretty much out. And the system’s dirty as hell. Sir.” Wychyrski reddened.

  A wire-frame model of the Knot popped up on one of the subsidiary screens, simulating the computer’s best guess at the lines of force within the complex fracture in space-time. The hyperbola vibrated subtly, shimmying waves running through the force lines.

  “It’s flattening out, sir,” said Grigorian, his voice thick. He cleared his throat. “We’ve lost about seven percent of our leeway by the last maneuvers—and the skipmissile didn’t help things any.”

  “No help for it,” replied Ng. “SigInt, where is he?”

  Wychyrski stabbed at her console. “Got him. Forty-seven mark zero, plus 15 light-seconds, course 25 mark zero, plus point-oh-two cee relative.” She squinted at the display. “I think he’s coming about to port.”

  “He’s still zeroing on the asteroid,” Krajno muttered.

  “He’ll figure that out soon enough,” said Ng. She glanced at the god’s-eye of the Grozniy. “Weapons, ruptor barrage, half-power, forward beta and gamma, aft beta, medium spread, forty-seven, forty-five, forty-three.” They couldn’t use full power—they had to take the Rifter ship intact to find where they’d landed the Panarch.

  She raised her voice for the entire bridge. “We’re going on System FF protocol. You can all assume mark zero for all courses unless I command otherwise. The Knot will force us to fight this battle in two dimensions.”

  She paused, allowing them a brief reaction. Amusement flared inside her as one or two glances were sidled the Aerenarch’s way, as if to gauge his reaction. But she knew by now that he would show no reaction.

  “Weapons, fire ruptors,” she said, and her crew returned their focus to their tasks.

  The gentle vibration of the ruptors formed a counterpoint to Ng’s thoughts as she continued issuing orders. With a perverse delight, she recognized that she was fighting a battle with largely the same limitations as had faced Nelson, confined to the two-dimensional surface of Lost Earth’s watery skin.

  But against Eusabian’s skipmissiles, the Grozniy is far more fragile than Britain’s “wooden walls.”

  She dismissed the thought and turned her full attention to the battle. Winning it was only one more step in this endeavor.

  ABOARD THE SAMEDI

  “Skipmissile away,” said Kedr Five at the weapons console. “Skipmissile charging.” Eight seconds later a gout of light erupted, washing out the flaring star that announced the battlecruiser’s headlong flight toward them.

  “Course 20 mark zero,” Fasthand snapped. “Skip five light-seconds on acquisition.”

  “The asteroid is breaking up,” Moob put in. “The next shot’ll probably punch right through.”

  “There won’t be anything behind it by then,” Fasthand snarled as the fiveskip burped. Then he paused. Unless that’s what they want me to think. He cursed silently, feelingly. He hadn’t bargained for this kind of fighting when he joined Eusabian’s forces. Bad enough facing a cruiser alone; to have to do it in two dimensions . . .

  “Ivo! What’s happening with the Knot?”

  A simulation popped up on a secondary screen, vibrating weirdly.

  “Flattening out, Cap’n. We’ve lost about five percent of the margin, what with the skipmissile and all.”

  “Skipmissile charged,” Kedr Five said.

  Fasthand gnawed at his thumb. He couldn’t take the chance. “Bring it about and fire at the asteroid. Might still be there.”

  The stars, those visible through the flaring shields and the flickering lightning-like discharges of the Knot, swung across the screen. A targeting cross sprang up and centered on the spreading asteroid rubble. The red wake-pulse of a skipmissile washed over it; four seconds later the blob of light flared brightly and exploded outwar
d, dissipating into separate points of light like fireworks in atmosphere.

  “No cruiser.”

  “Tactical skip, now.” The fiveskip burred again. “Course 270 mark zero . . .”

  Fasthand looked up, continuing his orders. The two Tarkans Anaris had left behind still stood to either side of the hatch, their jacs ready.

  The Rifter snarled noiselessly. No choice. Never had been, he decided, once he signed on to Dol’jhar’s Rifter fleet.

  The squeal-rumble of a near-miss ruptor bolt snatched his attention back to the battle, and he forgot Anaris, forgot the Dol’jharians, forgot everything except the fact that he was going to die, and soon, if he didn’t kill this cruiser.

  GEHENNA

  Mortan Kree’s gut tightened at the expression on Matilde Ho’s face when she looked up from the engineering console.

  “The core regeneration is slowing down. The shields and refrigeration units are drawing too much power.”

  Nobody spoke, but they all saw a similar comprehension in one another’s faces.

  For years they had argued and negotiated and compromised in turn around the gleaming table at Lao Tse. All those years of working together had knit them together while imprisoned, and that bond continued now. The only noise was the mutter of the distress signal spooling out over the com.

  Then another muffled crash resonated through the ship. On the screen the sun glared through wreaths of oily smoke, which opened up momentarily to reveal burned ground and shattered trees.

  “We can’t cut refrigeration,” Caleb murmured. “It’s already almost forty-five degrees in here.”

  “We certainly can’t cut the shields,” Yosefina put in.

  “That’s exactly what we have to do.” Matilde held up her good hand, forestalling their objections. “Correct me if I’m wrong, Mortan, but the hull metal will stand up to at least a few impacts even from five-hundred-kilo rocks?”

  Mortan considered. He’d been a Centripetal Gnostor, one of only thirteen in the Thousand Suns, for over fifty years now; but nothing had ever stressed the fund of general knowledge that was his calling like their present situation. “I would say so; the center of gravity of this type of shuttle is too low for there to be any risk of tipping over. But that’s not the worst that could happen.”