Tree of Liberty

by Wayne Basta

  Her frankness surprised him. She had never been especially friendly, and after the display in the negotiations, he thought she would revert back to even more aloofness.

  “Well, that went nowhere,” Valinther complained. “Perhaps Lahkaba and I should return to the ship. We would be just as valuable there, and far more comfortable.”

  “Nonsense,” Zoeko retorted. “I admit I was originally against your presence. But it has actually worked to our advantage. Your inclusion means the Dotran have to treat their Kowwok servants better than usual. That’s putting them off balance, just as the heat has done to us.”

  “This was them treating their servants better?” Lahkaba asked in disbelief.

  Zoeko gave him a pointed look, and Valinther growled, his tone suggesting personal experience. “Yes. You didn’t see any of them get beaten,” he said.

  Disgusted, Lahkaba forced himself to ignore that. They had a mission to accomplish. Freedom had a price. For him, it meant working with the Dotran. Others would be paying with their lives.

  He wasn’t sure they weren’t getting the better deal.

  “Even though we seem far from any agreement, I thought things went reasonably well,” Lionell said, breaking the moment of tension that had filled the car. “They keep coming back to the idea of merger into the Confederacy, but they also appear willing to entertain other options. They even offered us some of their military tech.”

  “Yes, as an attempt to butter us up to accept their plans for a merger,” Valinther pointed out.

  “Sure, but the offer’s been made. We could use some more hardware,” Lionell said.

  Everyone nodded in agreement with Lionell and then slipped into silence. The car drove down the streets of the capital city, the tall buildings looking like the walls of a shiny canyon around them. Fortunately, the windows were tinted against the glare, allowing Lahkaba to get a good look at the city.

  Alongside the streets were busy sidewalks full of people. Awash with color, the crowds stood out even against the bright buildings. Even though he despised them, there was no denying that the Dotran were beautiful creatures, especially mixed together in the bright sunlight.

  Coming to a stop at an intersection, Lahkaba got a closer look at the crowds. Mixed in with the brightly colored Dotran walked a fair number of his own people. He had no idea how many Kowwoks lived on Dotra, but it appeared to be more than he had thought. Almost a quarter of the people on the street were Kowwoks.

  And every single one of them appeared to be filling some form of service role. Many carried packages while walking behind a Dotran. Others worked as waiters in an outside café. One even carried a mirror that he used to reflect the sunlight directly onto a gold scaled Dotran as she walked down the street.

  Turning away from the scene that he had a moment before found beautiful, Lahkaba caught Valinther’s eye. The other Kowwok said nothing but gave a small nod, acknowledging the realization Lahkaba had just had. To his surprise, Lahkaba also caught a glimpse of Rathalos, the servant the Dotran had assigned to them, looking at him in the rear-view mirror through the partition between them and the driver compartment. The dark-brown-furred Kowwok’s expression seemed to be one of appraisal, though it was only an instant before he shifted his gaze.

  The brief moment of companionship with his fellow Kowwok stirred something in Lahkaba. Breaking the silence, he said, “We need to be careful. Instead of focusing on what the Dotran can provide us, we should consider what we’ll have to give up to the Dotran.”

  Valinther and Lionell shared a look between them and then nodded at him. Oblivious to the unspoken meaning of his words, Zoeko said, “Wise words. We have made it clear we’ll not join the Confederacy, but there are many things the Dotran could demand instead that would be equally harmful to our Union in the long run. Restrictive trade agreements, exclusivity contracts, or making us dependent on them militarily. We must be cautious.”

  To himself, Lahkaba tried to figure out how much of his soul he would be willing to trade for the Dotrans’ help in winning the war.

  Chapter Six

  Saracasi had just finished securing the last of the systems in the engine room when the hyperspace timer warning went off. It had been set to alert them at ten minutes before reentry rather than the usual five, since this would be anything other than a usual reentry.

  Her preparation work across the ship had been surprisingly minimal. She was still used to Cutty Sark being in a perpetual state of partial repair. It reminded her how little time she had been aboard the ship that had once been her home in the last few months. Chavatwor had done amazing work on her, and Fracsid had done a remarkable job of keeping everything in pristine condition.

  She left the engine room and ran into Almes and Lei-mey in the cargo bay. The Ronid delegate seemed to be the only one in the small crew who could tolerate the unending advances from the Terran. She almost seemed to enjoy them. That was probably because he was making them at all. Few Terrans or Braz or Liw’kel found anything physically desirable about Ronids.

  “We secure down here, Specialist?” Saracasi asked.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Almes said, then winked. “Everything’s tied up good and tight, just like you like it.”

  Saracasi ignored the man’s obvious allusion and headed up the stairs to the command deck. The pair followed her up and through the narrow corridor to the flight deck. The ship’s only other occupant, Flight Specialist Sienn’lyn I’fu, waited for them. The young Liw’kel woman sat at the helm controls, her eyes closed and her body relaxed. Saracasi recognized her posture as one of the Ni’jar meditation poses. She had gotten so used to thinking of Sienn’lyn as a pilot, she had forgotten her origins as a Ni’jar acolyte.

  “We’re ready up here, Captain,” Sienn’lyn said, coming instantly out of her trance-like state.

  “Delegate, you need to return to the crew cabin now and strap yourself in,” Saracasi said, turning back to Lei-mey. “This is going to be a bit bumpy.”

  “Very well,” Lei-mey said, her tone suggesting she wasn’t a fan of being ordered around by Saracasi.

  Putting Lei-mey’s annoyance out of her mind, Saracasi moved onto the flight deck and took her position at the operations station. The hard task—keeping the ship from crashing into anything—would fall to Sienn’lyn. But Saracasi would have to keep the ship in one piece during the descent.

  “Would either of you lovely ladies care for a kiss before we face our potential fiery deaths?” Almes asked. He must have believed that his tone was deep and sensual, but Saracasi found it grating. “For luck, of course.”

  She recalled that Fracsid had seemed apologetic about suggesting Almes for the mission. That Almes annoyed Fracsid said something. She had already decided that Almes had better be as good with the guns as he claimed. Otherwise, she would seriously consider leaving him behind on some lifeless moon.

  The annoyed glare Sienn’lyn wore on her face suggested that her pilot felt the same way she did. The Liw’kel was normally reserved with her emotions, much like Gu’od. If she was allowing the frustration to break through her Ni’jar training, it must be severe.

  “Take your station, Specialist. If I ever have to remind you again not to sexually harass someone, you might find yourself in a very uncomfortable position,” Saracasi said, lacing her tone with as much threat as she could manage.

  “Aye, Captain,” Almes said. He looked slightly shaken for a second, but then a grin crossed his face, and he winked.

  Shaking her head at the futility of the situation, Saracasi turned back to the operations controls. She ran another couple of diagnostics, ensuring everything was working at peak efficiency. The descent would rely on the inertial dampeners and maneuvering thrusters more than anything else. Any major failures with those systems and there would be no recovering.

  The timer kept ticking down closer to zero. With only a handful of seconds left, Saracasi looked to Sienn’lyn. “You ready for this, Specialist? If not, we can still hit the over
ride and shoot past Sulas.”

  “This is my Focus,” Sienn’lyn said, as if her mind was elsewhere.

  Accepting that as a “yes,” Saracasi watched the timer hit zero. As soon as it did, she felt the familiar gut-twisting sensation of reversion from hyperspace. This feeling was quickly replaced by a thrust of pressure on her chest and a sharp reverberation through the deck beneath her.

  A cloudy blue sky filled the flight deck windows for an instant. In a blur, it was replaced by a dark brown mountain and then a dark blue sea. The sky returned an instant later.

  The ship must be tumbling wildly as it fell through the Sulas sky, Saracasi realized. The pressure continued to press down on her, which meant the inertial dampeners weren’t fully compensating. She struggled to fight the inertial forces and reach the operation controls.

  “Need inertial systems fixed,” Sienn’lyn grunted from beside her.

  Saracasi redoubled her efforts, struggling to reinitialize the field. If this simple task was so hard for her, she couldn’t imagine what Sienn’lyn must be experiencing while trying to right the descent of the ship. With a final grunt of effort, she toggled the settings, and the pressure on her chest released, replaced by a thrust of force on her back and then her side, and finally nothing but the normal pull of the internal artificial gravity field.

  The shifts of gravity, perspective, and pressure left Saracasi feeling a sudden urge to curl up, vomit, and then go to sleep. But outside the window, Sulas was still spinning before them. She forced herself to remain focused on the controls, ready to activate the main engines if Sienn’lyn needed them.

  They wanted to avoid using the engines if at all possible, to help minimize their chances of detection—and because a burst from them would be just as likely to plow them into the surface of the planet or rip the ship apart as it would be to stabilize them. That was one part of what made the maneuver so difficult.

  Several tense seconds went by while Saracasi watched how much closer the surface of the planet looked each time it passed the window. More and more, the view became filled with greens and browns as they got closer and closer to the ground. She felt increasingly sure she could make out details such as individual trees.

  It took her a few passes to realize that while being close enough to the ground to see trees was bad, having enough time to recognize them meant that the spinning was slowing down. By the time she realized that, the sky had become a permanent fixture in the window, a cloud bank floating lazily before them above a low hill—a hill that was no longer getting any bigger.

  Saracasi cautiously leaned back in her seat, her heart still beating at a rapid pace. She never wanted to do that again. Behind her, Almes was uncharacteristically silent, and she glanced back to see the Terran still gripping his restraint harness with his eyes squeezed shut. In contrast, Sienn’lyn looked as calm as she had earlier, with a passive look that reminded her of Gu’od.

  “Nice work, Sienn,” Saracasi said, allowing herself to use Sienn’lyn’s familiar name. Turning in her seat, she said to Almes, “My scopes look clear. Yours?”

  “Nothing, Captain,” Almes replied, his tone professional for a change. “No target locks. No scans. No pursuit.”

  Saracasi allowed herself a quiet sigh of relief, ordering her heart rate to slow down. “All right, go and get Delegate Darshawn and bring her—”

  The door to the flight deck slid open. Lei-mey came through and gave an appreciative nod to Sienn’lyn. “My compliments to the pilot.”

  Sienn’lyn returned the nod without turning around in her seat, still watching the coastline that they were rapidly approaching. They had arrived near the ocean east of the most populated Emerald continent. Compared to the homeworlds, Sulas’s land masses were sparsely populated, but they would be nearing signs of civilization soon.

  “All right,” Saracasi said, facing Lei-mey. “We’re here. Barely, I might add. We’ve completed our part of the bargain. Now it’s your turn. How is this supposed to help me gain authority over the fleet?”

  “Not you,” Lei-mey said crisply. “We find General Dustlighter and bring him back to take charge of the fleet.”

  Saracasi blinked. She had never thought about that possibility. She had ruled Zeric out as an avenue of help once he was cut off. Even after Lei-mey had convinced her to come to Sulas, she had still assumed that Zeric was captured, dead, or in hiding. “And how do you expect to find him? The Alliance has recaptured the planetary defense batteries. They either defeated our forces here or Zeric abandoned them. If the latter, we have no idea where he might be hiding. If the former, then he’s no more reachable than Maarkean,” Saracasi said.

  “Oh, Zeric is a survivor. I have no doubt he’s still alive. And as for finding him, that’s why I had to come. This is my home, after all. I have many contacts here.”

  The plan was weak—and it was annoying to discover that it involved taking Saracasi down a rank—but they had already come this far. She had to trust that Lei-mey knew what she was doing. Otherwise, she had just risked all their lives for nothing. “Where to?” she finally asked.

  “Get us as close to Ba’aar as possible,” Lei-mey replied.

  “Why Ba’aar?” Saracasi asked. “Doesn’t the Union have a stronghold in Chuthor?”

  “Yes,” Lei-mey answered. “But Zeric is a hockey fan.”

  Zeric lay stretched out on the couch in his small quarters. It had once been an office for some arena supplier. The former occupant had left the couch, and Zeric had happily accepted the stroke of luck.

  A video monitor on one wall showed the hockey game that was going on upstairs. The Ba’aar Razors were behind by two against the Ciread Diamonds. On a few occasions, he’d tried to slip upstairs to watch the games in person, but each time either Ymp or common sense had turned him back.

  Reaching out to the small table in the center of the room, Zeric poured himself another glass of whiskey. For a hockey game, he generally preferred beer but had started to really like this whiskey. It took the edge off of sitting around worrying about people much quicker than beer.

  As Zeric sipped the whiskey, a rapid banging sounded on his door. Annoyed at the interruption, though also glad to have an excuse to look away from the massacre that was happening to his team, he got up. Staggering a little—he must have been laying there too long—he opened the door to reveal Kumus.

  “What is it, Kumus?” Zeric asked, not bothering to hide his annoyance.

  Kumus, his face flushed from apparently running here, said, “Sir, we have company.”

  Immediately, Zeric dropped his glass and grabbed the rifle that leaned against the wall. He checked the power level as a surge of excitement started to pump through him. It would be terrible if the Alliance found their hiding spot, but it would be a good fight.

  “No, sir—I’m sorry, sir,” Kumus stammered, looking wildly at Zeric’s rifle. “Not that kind of company. Delegate Darshawn is here! She got through the blockade to see you!”

  Zeric’s shoulders slouched. Looking at the rifle for a long moment, he contemplated taking it with him. With a resigned sigh, he set the gun down and picked his glass up off the floor. Lamenting the spilled whiskey now soaked into the carpet, he refilled the glass and then gestured for Kumus to lead him to Lei-mey.

  Kumus led them through the maze of maintenance tunnels, finally arriving at a small storage room that still held goods belonging to the arena. In the small room, leaning against the boxes of unused souvenir cups, was Lei-mey Darshawn. Her multifaceted eyes stared at him as he entered, giving Zeric a slight chill. Ronids had that effect on him.

  There were several other people in the room he didn’t recognize, but when he caught sight of the red-haired ponytail dangling from the back of one Braz woman’s head, he felt a giant smile spread across his face. Ignoring Lei-mey, he went straight over to her. “Casi!” Zeric said, genuine affection in his tone.

  He embraced her, which she was clearly not ready for. Sensing the eyes of everyone else in t
he room on him, he let go after a second. It generally wasn’t appropriate for a general to hug a subordinate, but he didn’t exactly care. “Casi,” Zeric said again, his tone quieter, “I wish I had good news about Maark. We’ve tried to find some information about him but haven’t found anything. If he made it off Defiant Glory, he’s likely a prisoner.”

  Saracasi gave him a weak smile in return. “Thank you, but I already know he’s a prisoner. The DeeGee managed to escape after she was captured. Based on your warning to Fracsid, we assume that was orchestrated by Commander Brieni. But Maarkean and Lohcja were removed and taken prisoner before the ship escaped.”

  “Damn. He’s not going to be easy to get to,” Zeric said, his mind now racing. Confirmation that Maarkean was alive reignited his interest in staging a rescue operation. He would have to get Ymp on that. Now that they knew where he was, maybe they could slip aboard like they did with Gallant or find someone sympathetic to the rebels.

  Turning his attention back to Saracasi, he said, “So Brieni did turn out to be the traitor?”

  Saracasi gave him a dark frown. “We arrested him based on your warning and the suspicious way Defiant Glory escaped. I assumed you had some clear evidence.”

  Sheepishly, Zeric shook his head. “No, just a suspicion. Ice Company turned on us during the battle. Apparently, they were hired by the Alliance. I had seen Firek and Davidus talking shortly before the attack.”

  “That’s your evidence?” Saracasi exclaimed.

  Zeric shrugged apologetically. “It was the middle of a battle. Thought it would be best to warn someone at the time.”

  As he and Saracasi talked, an odd noise came from behind them. It sounded like a cross between a cough and whistle. Turning, Zeric saw Lei-mey standing there, looking agitated.

  “Ah, Lei-mey, how good to see you again,” Zeric said with fake sincerity.

  “Thank you, General. I’m pleased to find you alive and well,” Lei-mey said, her fake sincerity much better than his.