By Honor Betray'd: Mageworlds #3 (21 page)

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Authors: Debra Doyle,James D. Macdonald

BOOK: By Honor Betray'd: Mageworlds #3
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“And how would you go about finding a base?”
“Jump to Gyffer,” Tyche said, as promptly as before. “See if they’re still in the fight. Ask them to join us if they are.”
“I see. Assuming that Gyffer doesn’t tell us to pack sand, or tell us to join them rather than the other way around.” Metadi turned back to his aide. “Rosel, what about you?”
“As long as you don’t want to lie low and keep quiet, I’d say go after Vallant.”
“Ah,” said Metadi. “And why is that?”
“Permission to speak frankly, sir?”
“Of course. If I wanted blind agreement, I’d go talk to the shaving mirror.”
“Thank you, sir. The main reason we should fight Vallant is that we’ve got a fair chance of winning. Right now we aren’t capable of defeating the Mageworlders in a stand-up fight.”
“I see,” said Metadi again. “Thank you, Commander—and you, Colonel.” He picked up his cha‘a and took a long swallow, then set the mug down again on the silver coaster. “But what I’m going to do—barring a convincing reason why I shouldn’t—is take our little fleet here and go out hunting.”
Tyche looked interested. “With those picket-scouts we took from Faramon, and the
Veratina
for a mothership, it might work. What are you planning to hunt?”
“Big game,” Metadi said. “The Mageworlds commander. Whoever he is, they probably can’t follow through on their plans once he’s gone—I don’t believe they have another commander to match him for long-range strategy.”
“You think we can win the war with a single bold stroke?”
Metadi chuckled in spite of himself at Tyche’s eagerness. “Well, Colonel, I certainly don’t plan to fritter it away with too much caution.”
Quetaya shook her head in protest. “But how do we find the Mageworlds commander? If he’s all that valuable, he’s certain to be well protected.”
“The protection itself will be the clue to his location,” Metadi told her. “Once we find the enemy fleet, we’ll engage and destroy the best-protected target. Then the next-best. And so on, until we’ve destroyed him.”
“There’s a lot of space out there to look in,” his aide pointed out. “And the Mages will be hunting us as well.”
“That doesn’t concern me too much. I want them to find us.” Metadi smiled as an idea came to him. “In fact, I’m going to send them a message telling them where to come and look for me.”
 
The ’
Pavo
’s machine shop had done an excellent job, Gil decided. Given his old Ovredisan court-formal rapier and dagger set to use for a model, they’d produced a matched pair of serious dueling weapons—not much for ornamentation, to be sure, but possessed of genuinely wicked points and edges.
“I doubt that they’d impress a real Golden Age swordsmith,” he admitted to Lieutenant Jhunnei as he fastened on the hastily crafted sword belt and stuck the sheathed dagger in his waistband. He and his aide stood outside the ’
Pavo
’s main docking bay, which even doubled-up with fighter craft still had the largest open area on board ship. “But I think they’ll do.”
Jhunnei looked worried. “I hope so, Commodore. One thing you have to remember, though—”
“Yes, Lieutenant?”
“You’ll have to do your best. If I’m right, she isn’t going to be interested in fairness as we think of it. As long as you aren’t trying your utmost to win, you’re cheating, and any promises she makes to you afterward will be nothing more than empty words.”
Gil weighed the second rapier and dagger set in his hands. “All or nothing, eh? Well, if that’s their way—” He tucked the weapons under his left arm and palmed the lockplate. “Give me a moment alone with her, then signal the others to come in.”
The door slid open. He stepped through, and heard it close again behind him.
The prisoner was already waiting inside the docking bay. She wore a brown tunic and trousers over plain leather boots, and a pair of binders caught her wrists together in front. Gil approached and laid the second rapier and dagger on the deck between them.
“I’m going to assume you understand Galcenian,” he said, speaking slowly and distinctly. “My name is Jervas, Baronet D’Rugier. I have captured you under articles of confederation, letters of marque and reprisal, and a declaration of war.”
He paused to look at her. She said nothing.
“You are my prisoner,” he continued. “But I will give you a chance to win free. If you can defeat me, I have ordered my second-in-command to take you anywhere in the galaxy you wish to go, and to deliver you safe and unharmed.”
Gil pulled out the code key to the binders and laid it on the deck on top of the rapier and dagger. As he did so, the door opened again, and several other people entered the bay: Jhunnei, Merrolakk, the ’
Pavo
’s chief medic, and a pair of ordinary troopers, the last two carrying blasters and blocking the exits.
*Remember,* Merrolakk called out across the echoing bay. *If you damage her, you still have to pay me.*
Gil raised his voice, directing it to the newcomers. “You’ll get paid, Merro—my word on it. Everyone, you are my witnesses: stay out of the fight.”
He turned his back on the prisoner and started walking toward the far bulkhead. Before he had gone ten paces, something—a disturbance in the air, or the sound of a footstep on the deck—made him spin about in time to see the prisoner lunging at him, rapier outstretched.
Gil had bare hands, and no chance to sidestep. Instead, he dropped his right hand to his rapier hilt and pulled out enough of the blade to meet the incoming lunge and knock it aside. He finished drawing his blade as the prisoner recovered.
He came to a guard position, snaking the dagger from his waistband as he did so, and flicked away the sheath.
“Well,” he said, “it seems my terms are agreeable to you.”
He tapped his opponent’s rapier lightly, testing her. She lifted her blade to point at his eyes. He raised his guard, then beat the prisoner’s weapon aside, using his greater strength of wrist to push the blade away. In the same movement he straightened his arm and lunged.
The point of Gil’s rapier took the prisoner high in the left shoulder, drawing blood.
“First blood to me, gentlelady,” he said. “Will you yield?”
She still held the binders in her left hand. By way of answer she whipped her arm forward—though with her wound the sudden movement must have hurt considerably—threw the binders at his head, and lunged again.
*That’s the spirit!* Merrolakk hooted from the sidelines, as Gil flinched away involuntarily from the hurtling binders. *Make him work for it!*
Gil dropped to one knee as the thrust passed over him, and caught the prisoner’s weapon between his crossed and uplifted blades. He rose, still keeping her rapier trapped between his own rapier and his left-hand dagger, and forced their linked blades up above his head. When he could push them up no higher, he snapped his right foot forward into her stomach.
The prisoner bent over, gasping. Gil took a step back.
When she straightened up, her face was paler than before, and Gil could see blood staining the left sleeve of her brown tunic.
All or nothing
, Gil thought, and thrust again, taking her in the meaty part of her thigh. He recovered, but even as he did so, the prisoner threw herself forward in a flying lunge.
Gil parried—but before the motion was complete, he understood the truth. The prisoner had counted on his response. She was deliberately trying to run onto the point of his rapier.
“Like hell you will,” he muttered. He pulled the point aside and turned slightly to let the prisoner’s thrust slide past him. Then he punched her in the jaw with his rapier’s solid metal pommel.
She stumbled and collapsed sprawling on the deck, her rapier flying away from her. Gil stood above her, his blade pointed downward at her throat.
“I believe I’ve won,” he said.
The prisoner said nothing. Before he could speak further she snatched her dagger out of her belt and tried to stab herself in the belly.
Gil knocked the dagger away with a sweep of his blade. He pinked the prisoner in the right shoulder and left thigh with a quick one-two motion, to keep her from moving, and resumed his guard.
“Yield,” he said.
For the first time, the prisoner spoke, in badly accented Galcenian. “Kill me.”
“No.”
The prisoner closed her eyes. “You have won,” she said through clenched teeth. “I yield.”
“Medic!” Gil called to the crew members who stood by the doors.
After the woman had been removed in a stretcher under guard, Lieutenant Jhunnei came forward. “You surprised me,” his aide said. “I was expecting something a bit less one-sided.”
“Several years ago,” Gil said, as he wiped off the blade of his rapier, “I was a wet and green aide to the Commanding General. One day, when we were both off duty, I remarked that it seemed to me that students at the Academy lacked sufficient training in low-tech fighting techniques. ‘I think so too, Commander,’ the General said. ‘As of now, you’re in charge of devising the new curriculum.’ And
that
,” Gil finished, “was what cured me of making casual comments in front of senior officers.”
He bent to pick up the dagger sheath.
“Fortunately, our prisoner had even less skill than I. Now I think we should visit her and see what kind of help she can render, since she’s just become a part of my crew.”
 
Beka followed the ConSec out of the cell into the narrow corridor. She didn’t have a choice—the two other guards, the ones with blasters, were right behind her. The loose folds of her skirt swirled against her legs and ankles as she walked.
The ConSec ahead of her was still talking. “I don’t know who hates you, sweetie, but he’s bought himself a first-class show. This one’s going to be holocast in real time all over Suivi Point—”
“Shut up,” said Beka.
The ConSec snickered. “Temper, temper—and then sent out over all the working hi-comm nodes.”
Beka felt despair settling into her stomach like a lump of dirty grey ice.
So Tarveet gets everything
, she thought.
Suivi, Pleyver … and peace with the Magelords, bought and paid for with blood. My blood.
A doorway slid open as they passed by along the corridor. Four more guards came out and joined the procession, taking station behind and ahead of Beka, after the ConSec who’d been doing all the talking. But the new arrivals weren’t with Contract Security; instead of the familiar brown-and-yellow uniforms, they wore long scarlet robes with deep, face-concealing hoods.
Termination technicians,
Beka thought.
Executioners
.
Mine.
The red-robes didn’t look armed, though. Beka drew back her lips from her teeth in an expression that wasn’t a smile.
All right, my girl. If you’re going to spoil Tarveet’s little holodrama for him, it’s got to be now or never.
She kicked out with the side of her heel toward the red-robe walking ahead on her right.
The blow should have connected—breaking bone, throwing the procession into disarray, maybe even angering the blastermen enough to burn her down cleanly ahead of schedule—but her hands pinioned behind her back threw her off balance, and the long, rustling skirt tangled in her legs and slowed her down. The red-robe turned, quicker than she could finish moving, caught her leg, and lifted it. She hit the floorplates hard, on her back.
The red-robe laughed, a chittering thread of sound. Under his hood, she could see round, staring orange eyes in a flat, feathery face. The creature’s curved beak worked open and shut among the feathers as he spoke again, and an answering chitter came from beneath his partner’s hood.
Rotis
, Beka thought as the ConSecs dragged her back to her feet.
A long way from the home nest for a gang of beaky-boys
.
The Rotis were the main intelligent race on one of the minor neutral worlds; you didn’t see many of them in space, however, since their digestive systems demanded a diet of fresh-killed meat. The few cosmopolitans among them usually carried a private stock of fast-breeding foodmice whenever necessity forced them to travel off-planet.
These guys don’t look like scholars and gentlebeings to me, though
, Beka thought as she limped on down the corridor.
They look like the sort of lowlife that takes a job with an execution company on Suivi Point
.
Her stomach did a slow, queasy roll as she realized just what sort of execution the company probably had in mind.
Oh, wonderful. Tarveet’s hired the specialty act.
 
SUIVI POINT: LAST EXITS, LTD.
RSF
KARIPAVO
: MAGEWORLDS SPACE
 
T
HE OPALESCENT nothingness outside
Warhammer
’s viewscreens vanished as the freighter dropped out of hyper. The asteroids of the Suivan Belt shone in the darkness of normal space like a diamond necklace against black velvet—a beautiful sight, but one that Captain Yevil didn’t have time, at the moment, to appreciate.
The Space Force CO was back in the copilot’s chair, wearing the headphone link to the comms. She glanced uneasily at the ’
Hammer
’s acting captain.
“Better take us in low and slow,” she said. “Suivi isn’t going to be happy with us—not after the mess we made on our way out. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had us tagged for shoot-on-sight.”
Ignaceu LeSoit kept most of his attention for the ’
Hammer
’s control console. “We don’t have all that much time to waste. You need to link back up with your units, and I need to get in contact with the Domina.”
“No argument from me on that one,” Yevil said. “Just be careful, will you? I’ll try to establish communications with my task force.”
“Good.” LeSoit picked up the auxiliary headphone link. “I’ll hit the commercial nets under the—what do you think? The
Pride of Mandeyn
ID?”
“Sounds reasonable.”
While she was talking, Yevil had already set the main lightspeed frequencies for the Space Force’s ship-to-ship comm system. She keyed the handset and said, “All stations in Suivi Space Force Detachment, this is Suivi SF Det, comm check, over.” Then she sat drumming her fingers on the console and waiting for someone to answer the hail. A few feet away on the other side of the cockpit, LeSoit was punching in yet more codes and leaning back, eyes closed, to listen.
Her own comm set came to life. “Space Force Suivi Detachment, this is
Lekinusa
, over.”
“Roger,
Lekinusa
,” Yevil said, forgetting about LeSoit for the moment. “Interrogative status, over.”
“Maintaining orbit,”
Lekinusa
’s talker responded, “condition II, systems normal, status normal. Three civilian vessels have requested protection. Protection granted.”
Yevil frowned slightly. Condition II—wartime cruising—wasn’t a bad idea given the circumstances, but it did constitute a change since she’d made her abrupt departure with the ’
Hammer
.
“Interrogative condition II?”
“Condition II set per direction of the General of the Armies,”
Lekinusa
’s talker responded.
Good, they got the word that we’re sworn to the Domina,
Yevil thought.
Makes sense, even. But it does look like things have been happening while I was gone
. She went on to the next question.
“Interrogative civilian vessels?”
“Republic Armed Merchant
Noonday Sun
,” said
Lekinusa
’s talker. “Republic Armed Merchant
Claw Hard
. Republic Armed Merchant
Calthrop
. All of them responding to the Domina of Entibor’s request for volunteers.”
Yevil nodded to herself.
Still good … interfacing with civilians isn’t going to be easy, but if this goes on we might collect enough ships to be an effective fleet.
“All units in Suivi Space Force Detachment,” she said over the link, “this is Suivi SF Det. Immediate execute. Form on modified location coordinates zero niner tack three seven tack zero five. I say again, form on modloc coordinates zero niner tack three seven tack zero five, standby, execute, over.”
“
Lekinusa
, roger, out.”
Yevil leaned back in the copilot’s seat. Over the earphone link, voices came and went as the rest of the ships in the command acknowledged the order one by one in order of seniority.
“Okay,” she said to LeSoit. “Looks like everything’s in pretty good shape over on my side. I’m forming them up for fleet maneuvers.”
But LeSoit no longer appeared casual. He was toggling on the comm board’s Capture Transmission mode.
“What is it?” Yevil demanded.
LeSoit waved her to silence.
Yevil watched his face go steadily paler as he listened.
It can’t be anything galactic
, she thought uneasily.
I’d have heard
. She turned back to her own comm link.
“All units in Suivi Space Force Detachment, this is Suivi SF Det. Report local news of interest.”
“Negative news of interest,” came
Lekinusa
’s prompt response. “All transmissions from Suivi remain normal.”
She heard LeSoit curse under his breath—not at
Lekinusa
’s transmission; he couldn’t have heard it—at something else then, part of the commercial stuff. The free-spacer toggled off the capture and unstrapped from his safety webbing.
“Come aft with me,” he said. “There’s a commercial holovid broadcast coming up from Suivi. I’ve heard the sound already. Now I want to see the picture that went with it.”
The two of them headed aft to the ’
Hammer
’s common room, LeSoit running and Yevil hurrying to keep up. LeSoit slapped the On switch for the crew’s entertainment system as he entered. Yevil jacked her headphone link into the system’s comm panel and patched it through to the main board—this was looking like a good time to maintain contact with her units.
The common-room holoset emerged from the bulkhead on its folding arm. The tank lit up, first showing a sunburst display, then dissolving to a blank room filled with technicians setting up lights and holovid cameras. A dot of light in one corner of the tank spun, sparkled, and grew into an inset cube holding a still picture taken—Yevil recognized it at once—from Beka Rosselin-Metadi’s call to arms. The inset held the picture of the Domina while the main scene changed to a close-in view of a set of manacles bolted to metal floorplates.
An announcer’s rich voice spoke over the background images:
“ … a special show you don’t want to miss. You saw the traitor commit her treason—now you can see her pay the price. Live on holovid, an InfoTain Six exclusive! Don’t fail to watch InfoTain Six starting at ten-time today to see the whole show! The execution will be performed by Last Exits, Limited, so you know it’ll be great! Here’s how to join the InfoTain Six Dead Domina betting pool … .”
The main picture dissolved again, this time into instructions on how to place a bet on the exact time of Beka Rosselin-Metadi’s death—“death” being defined, for the occasion, as the endpoint of her heart’s final contraction.
Yevil closed her eyes. “Damnation,” she whispered, then keyed on the headphone link.
“
Lekinusa
,” she said. “Report location and status of Domina of Entibor if known.”
LeSoit still looked pale and grim. He’d already unfolded the comp unit out of its bulkhead niche, and was pulling what looked like Suivan commercial directories out of main ship’s memory. “‘Last Exits,’” he muttered under his breath. “‘Last Exits.’ If we can find out where the execution is going to take place, we can—”
“
Lekinusa
just reported a blank on the Domina’s location,” Yevil said. “And Suivi local ten-time is real soon now. We don’t have time … .”
“I’ve got an address. I’m going to do it anyway.”
“Wrong.
We’re
going to do it.” She keyed on the link again. “Any unit in Space Force Suivi Det, this is SF Suivi Det. Send me engineering plans showing location of Suivi InfoTain Six studios and all spaces owned by Last Exits, Limited.”
 
The little procession continued down the hall—the guard in the lead, followed by the hooded, chittering Rotis, then Beka, and the two ConSecs with blasters at the ready. They turned another corner and the corridor dead-ended in a solid metal door closed with a heavy cipher lock.
The guard tapped out a sequence on the lock’s keypad. The door slid open. The pressure of a blaster muzzle against her back urged Beka forward, into a square, unfurnished room with glassy, mirror-polished walls. The round, outcurving lenses of holovid recorders goggled at her like fish eyes from all eight of the room’s corners.
There was a metal ringbolt in the center of the polished floor, and a set of ankle binders attached to it by a short chain. Beka felt the blaster pressing harder against her back.
“Don’t even think about it,” said the guard. “Or this will get a whole lot worse.”
She felt binders snap around her ankles, so that she was chained to the floor, without enough slack in the binders to kick out, or to go further than one or two mincing, unbalanced steps in either direction.
Don’t ask how it could be worse,
Beka thought.
This is Suivi Point. They can always come up with something.
The metal wall ahead of her wavered and went transparent. Behind it stood a grey-haired, slightly stooping figure. Beka recognized Tarveet of Pleyver.
Of course. No holovid newscast for him. If he paid for it, he gets to watch in person.
 
“Can’t you take us down any faster?”
LeSoit fed a measured increment of power to the ’
Hammer
’s realspace engines. “I don’t like all this crawling either,” he said to Captain Yevil, “but if I try anything suspicious Local Defense is likely to stop me on the way in.”
“Suivan Local Defense is a joke,” Yevil said. “It’s all contracted out, like surface security. Give them a show of force and they’ll back off.”
She keyed on the Space Force ship-to-ship comms. “All units in Space Force Suivi Det, this is SF Suivi Det. Neutralize local defense forces. I say again, neutralize local defense forces. Cover Republic Armed Merchant
Pride of Mandeyn
. Over.”
LeSoit fed in more power as the vessels in Yevil’s force responded to the order. He looked at the cockpit chronometer and the navicomp, and shook his head.
“It’s going to be close.”
Yevil gazed off into the middle distance as she estimated times and distances—the navicomp would have done it for her, but setting up the problem would have taken more time than she currently had.
“Too close,” she said. “Unless there’s a last-minute hitch of some kind, we aren’t going to make it.”
“We’re going to try.”
She pressed her lips together. “Late is worse than never. And I have my oath of fealty to consider.”
“So do I,” he said. “What do you propose to do about it?”
“You’re on your own with that one.” She keyed on her comm link again. “All units in Space Force Suivi Det, this is Space Force Suivi Det. Unless countermanded by me personally, attack Suivi Point commencing at eleven-time local. Maximize damage to commercial and business property; maximize casualties. Out.”
LeSoit glanced over at her. “I thought Suivi was part of what you guys in the Space Force were supposed to protect.”
“Not anymore,” said Yevil. “It was their idea to execute the Domina; they’re the ones that can damned well bleed for it.”
“You won’t get any argument on that from me.”
“Good.” She looked down at the glowing comp screen on her side of the main console. “Ship’s memory is giving us a fix on our position relative to InfoTain Six and the Last Exits facility—they’re all a long way from the spacedocks and too close for comfort to Main Detention.”
“Any surface maintenance locks nearby?”
“I’m looking … yes.”
“Fine. You take the controls and get us as close to one as you can. I’m heading back for the airlock. Soon’s all the motion’s stopped, pop the lock on the outside.”
“Got it.” Yevil began switching over the ’
Hammer
’s main control functions to her side of the board. “What am I supposed to be doing while you’re gone?”
LeSoit checked the charge on his blaster. “Watch InfoTain Six,” he said. “They might have more of a show than they expected.”
 
In
Karipavo
’s sickbay, the prisoner lay under a light blanket on one of the beds. Only the basic monitors were hooked up and running, and she hadn’t required time in a healing pod—two facts that cheered Gil considerably. All his other fights with edged weapons had been sporting encounters, and he hadn’t much cared for the experience of mauling someone about with serious intent.

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