Read By Honor Betray'd: Mageworlds #3 Online

Authors: Debra Doyle,James D. Macdonald

By Honor Betray'd: Mageworlds #3 (27 page)

BOOK: By Honor Betray'd: Mageworlds #3
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“In the galley,” said Ignac’. “It’s cold, though.”
“I don’t care,” Beka said. “And if somebody were to doctor up the mug with something a bit stronger, I don’t think I’d care about that either.”
Ignac’ went off in what Klea supposed was the direction of the starship’s galley, and Beka sat—collapsed, really; it was plain to Klea that the Domina was close to falling down from exhaustion—in one of the chairs by the common-room table.
“All right,” she said. “We’ll be coming out of hyper at Captain Yevil’s rendezvous point real soon now, and everybody’s going to want to know what we’re doing next. Which is a good question, and I’m open to suggestions myself. Nyls?”
The Khesatan had taken a seat at the table while she was speaking. Now he shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ve been—preoccupied with other things the past few days.”
“You’re forgiven,” said Beka.
Ignac’ came back from the galley with a mug of cha’a-and-something, mixed with a heavy enough hand that Klea could smell the sharp tang of the liquor. Beka took it, drained what looked like half of it in one gulp, and went on talking.
“Thanks … . Galcen’s out, I know that. But I don’t know the situation anywhere else.”
“Bad,” said the woman in the Space Force uniform—from her nametag, the Captain Yevil that Beka had mentioned earlier. “We haven’t heard from any of the sector fleets yet except Infabede, and all the word we’ve gotten on that one says Vallant’s gone rogue and taken the fleet with him.”
“No welcome there, then.” Beka sipped at her remaining cha’a. “I wish we had a few more ships; I’d try for Pleyver. Maybe send them their ex-councillor back home from high orbit without a lifepod while I was at it.”
“Not a good idea,” said Owen. He’d been leaning on his staff without saying anything during the talk so far; from the way the others reacted, it seemed that everyone except his sister had forgotten he was there. “They’ve got a civil war of their own going already. Pleyver’s declared for the Mages, High Station’s loyal.”
“Three cheers for High Station,” Beka said. She turned to Ignac’. “LeSoit—how about you? Ideas?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Ophel, maybe. Or another one of the neutral worlds.”
“Most of those are a long way from here,” Captain Yevil pointed out, “and closer to the Mageworlds than civilization. There’s a reason why they’re neutral, after all. Unless you’re planning to give up the resistance and settle down someplace—”
“Not yet,” said Beka. “What other choices are there?”
LeSoit began counting on his fingers. “Entibor’s dead, Sapne might as well be dead, Khesat and the rest of the Central Worlds are too close to Galcen, Nammerin’s too far away—”
“Nammerin’s got Mages on-planet already,” said Jessan, somewhat to Klea’s surprise. She wondered when the Khesatan had been on Nammerin, and what he’d been doing there.
“Not so many Mages as before,” said Owen. “But you’re right. We can’t trust it.”
“We can’t trust
any
world,” Beka said. Her eyes were brighter now, and she didn’t look as tired as before. “Not without more information. The first step in getting more information is going where we can find it—and in this part of space, if it isn’t Suivi then it’s Innish-Kyl.”
 
Emergencies can take many forms, so Space Force emergency supplies ranged from very high tech to very low. Now, in a small room at Space Force HQ Telabryk, a candle burned. Ari had pilfered the candle from emergency stores—an act of wild abandon for someone usually so matter-of-fact and painfully scrupulous—and had set it up in a saucer from the galley. Now the room was full of yellow-orange light and soft brown shadows.
Llannat was taking the pins out of her hair. When the heavy mass of it was freed, it would hang down below her shoulder blades almost to the small of her back. Keeping it up off her shoulders, as required by Space Force regulations and plain good sense, was a major undertaking.
“I keep thinking I ought to cut it,” she said, breaking without preamble into the candlelit silence. Her voice sounded as if it belonged to a stranger. “But I never do.”
“Don’t ever. Please.” Ari was still standing beside the plast-block windowsill where he had placed the candle. She didn’t think he’d moved since he’d put it there. He was halfway across the room, but she felt as if he were standing close enough to touch her.
“I won’t if I can help it.” She took out the last pin and laid it beside the others on the table, then shook out her hair and ran her fingers through it. “I usually braid it at night, because of the tangles. Shall I—?”
“Not tonight. No.”
Ari’s reply came quickly enough to embarrass him, it seemed; his usually pale skin had darkened in the golden light.
Llannat didn’t say anything, but went on as though she hadn’t noticed. She unfastened the black broadcloth tunic of her formal Adept’s gear, and hung it carefully on the back of the chair. Shirt and undergarments followed, until she was bare to the waist, with her loose hair brushing against her skin.
She sat down on the edge of the narrow bed and bent over to unfasten the uniform boots. As she worked, she heard sounds of movement from over by the window; Ari had apparently broken free of his immobility enough to begin taking off his dress uniform. She took her time over the boots, carefully rolling up the black socks and placing them inside, then pushing the boots back side by side under the bed.
When she looked up again, Ari had taken off the uniform tunic and the shirt underneath. The candle threw highlights and shadows on the muscles of his torso, and the pale white lines of old scars stood out against his skin: deep punctures from massive teeth in the flesh of his forearm, and long, slashing claw marks along his back and ribs. Those would be the scars of his Long Hunt, back among the Selvaurs on Maraghai—proud marks, not to be erased.
He still held the white shirt in one hand; when she stood and came up next to him, his fingers twitched and loosened, and the shirt fell onto the tile floor. She put out a finger and touched the raised white scar that cut across one of Ari’s ribs.
“Sigrikka?”
she asked, naming the largest and most feared of Maraghai’s great predators, excepting always the Forest Lords themselves. He would have killed it after the Selvauran fashion, without the use of any weapon other than his own body.
“Yes,” he said.
“Sigrikka.”
She let her finger slide up the rib to his breastbone, and down the line of dark hair that ran to his navel. Ari shivered, eyes closed, at her touch.
“What’s it like,” she said, “being strong enough to do something like that?”
“Frightening,” he said. His voice was barely above a whisper. “Everything breaks so very easily … .”
“Ah,” she said. “Ari, put out the candle.”
Obediently, he pinched out the wick. Except for the square of starlight that was the window, the room was dark.
Llannat reached into the currents of power and called up light. She held up the sphere of cool, bright green flame in her cupped hands for an instant, then let it go.
“Don’t be afraid,” she said. “Nothing we do tonight is going to hurt me.
Nothing.”
 
Grand Admiral sus-Airaalin paced the observation deck on board
Sword-of-the-Dawn,
waiting for the reports from the fleet. Coming out of hyper was always dangerous, and doing so this time—with the Gyfferans already patrolling farther out than he’d anticipated—would be even more dangerous than usual. And so much, now, was at stake.
This is the most important battle,
he thought.
Not the taking of Galcen, or the penetration of the Gap Between … those were bold strokes against a blinded enemy. If we can defeat Gyffer—a forewarned and aggressive Gyffer, with its fleet still intact—then we are truly the victors, and the other systems will give in to us one by one.
But this time it will not be quick.
The knowledge came to him bearing the weight of certainty; he could see the weave of the universe too clearly to delude himself any longer.
Gyffer will make us bleed.
Blastproof doors opened and slid shut as Mid-Commander Taleion entered the observation deck. “Messages coming in, my lord. All units secure; the fleet maneuver was successful.”
“Excellent,” sus-Airaalin said. “Any mention of General Metadi’s whereabouts in the planetary message traffic?”
“Not in any of the material we’ve been able to pick up and decode,” said Taleion. “The Gyfferans are keeping fairly tight control of their communications.”
“Keep watching for it, Mael. If Metadi is not dead—and his death seems more and more unlikely as time goes on—then I am convinced he must be here.”
If Taleion had doubts, he was too loyal to show them. “Yes, my lord.”
The deck’s voicelink sounded its alarm. sus-Airaalin went over to the flashing yellow light and activated the pickup.
“Admiral,” he said. “What do you have?”
“A courier, my lord,” replied the voice on the other end of the link. “Incoming to the Sword’s main docking bay.”
“One of ours, I presume?”
“Yes, my lord. From Galcen via the original dropout point.”
sus-Airaalin frowned slightly.
We have hi-comms with Galcen. Why are they sending a courier when even a fast ship is the slow way to pass messages?
“What about the courier’s message?” he asked. “Do we have that yet?”
“No, my lord. The pilot says that his orders were to report to you in person.”
“Send him up here to me as soon as he docks.”
“Yes, my lord.”
The voicelink clicked off, and the yellow light over the pickup quit flashing.
sus-Airaalin gave a sigh. “We have trouble on Galcen. The question is, how much trouble, and how serious is it?”
“That’s two questions, my lord,” said Taleion, with a faint smile. “Shall I begin readying pull-back orders?”
“No,” he said. “We stand or fall on Gyffer, and we will not leave here until the issue is settled—one way or the other.”
The blastproof doors to the deck opened again before Taleion could answer. The courier pilot hurried in and went on one knee to the Grand Admiral.
“My lord sus-Airaalin,” he said. “We have word of Metadi’s location.”
sus-Airaalin stiffened. “Where?”
“Galcen, my lord.”
Impossible!
thought the Grand Admiral. But he knew all too well that “impossible” was not a wise thing to say when Jos Metadi was involved.
“In what strength, Underlieutenant?” he asked.
The courier pilot, still kneeling, shook his head. “I don’t know for sure. Dozens of ships, maybe over a hundred by the sound of the comms chatter during the attack.”
“Stop,” said sus-Airaalin. “You’re telling the story backward. Metadi has attacked Galcen?”
“Yes. After the Adept-worlders took out the hi-comms links, I was ordered to leave the fighting and bring you word.”
“I see. And how do you know it was Metadi?”
“The attacking vessels used his name in their transmission.”
sus-Airaalin’s doubt vanished.
“It was a trap,” he said—partly to Taleion and the underlieutenant, but mostly to himself. “An attempt to make us split up our forces. But it isn’t going to work, Mael. I will not return to Galcen for the same reason I did not detach anyone for the relief of the homeworlds, or leave a garrison behind. We cannot dilute our strength even for that.”
He looked out the windows of the observation deck at the stars of Gyfferan space. This far out, Gyffer’s sun was only one bright star among many, and the planets themselves were invisible, swallowed up by the velvet darkness.
“No,” he said again. “We will wait here. The Gyfferans will investigate their initial contact, perhaps in force, and find nothing. As time goes by, after the first excitement, their guard will be lowered. The crews at their stations will grow tired—complacent—and become careless. And then—”
He paused. “
Then
we will press the attack.”
 
“D
ROPPING OUT … now.”
Reality flickered as
Warhammer
experienced the translation from hyperspace. All the shifting, pearly greyness outside the viewscreens went away in an instant, replaced by deep black and a sparkling web of stars.
Innish-Kyl,
thought Beka.
It’s been a long time since the last time.
She glanced over at Nyls Jessan in the copilot’s seat. The run to Innish-Kyl hadn’t been a particularly long one, as such things went, but she’d grown used to having the ship—and Nyls—to herself. Adding first Ignac’ LeSoit and then her brother and his apprentice had made the place seem overcrowded, even after Captain Yevil had gone back aboard RSF
Lekinusa
at the rendezvous. The unseen presence of Tarveet of Pleyver, locked in a cabin and tended by LeSoit, didn’t improve her outlook. Still, it was Klea whom Beka found herself brooding about.
“What do you think?” she asked Jessan. “Is that girl really Owen’s apprentice?”
“Klea Santreny? I don’t see why not. Would your brother lie about it?”
“In a heartbeat,” said Beka, “if he thought he had to.” She frowned at the control panel. “The question is, though—if she’s his apprentice, is she anything else?”
“I don’t think so,” Jessan said. “And let’s face it, she’s not the only member of the
’Hammer’s
crew who’s a bit closemouthed about the past.”
She looked at him again. “You’re talking about Ignac’.”
“Well … yes.” Jessan paused. “That story of Captain Yevil’s, about the repairs—”
Beka sighed. “If you’re trying to tell me that Ignaceu LeSoit didn’t exactly spend the last ten years upholding law and order in the civilized galaxy, I already knew that. I’ve wandered through the edges of that life myself, remember. And I’m not asking Ignac’ for names.”
“You will, however, allow me to worry about it sometimes?”
“Don’t see how I can stop you.” She picked up the external comm and keyed it on. “Waycross Inspace Control. This is Freetrader
Warhammer
. Over.”
A clicking and beeping came over the link. Then the flat metallic-sounding voice of Waycross Inspace Control came on through the cockpit audio: “Roger,
Warhammer
, go.”
Hi-comms,
Beka thought with relief.
At least locally.
Having to wait long minutes for lightspeed communications to travel back and forth would have been a sign of other, worse problems. She keyed on the link again.
“Inspace,
Warhammer
. Request permission to orbit with eight ships.”
Not to land; not until she had some of the information that she’d come here for. Most of Captain Yevil’s Suivan detachment couldn’t go into atmosphere, anyhow; orbit would be as close as they’d get. And the armed merchantmen—
Claw Hard, Calthrop, and Noonday Sun—
wouldn’t be setting down either. Not without some kind of word on just who was running the port of Waycross these days, and in whose interest.
The pause at Inspace’s end was longer this time.
“I wonder what’s keeping them?” Jessan said.
“Eight ships coming in at once,” said Beka promptly. “They’re probably trying to figure out whether it means a Mageworlds invasion or party time on the Strip.”
The external link clicked and beeped again. “
Warhammer
, Inspace. Who vouches for you?”
Beka stared at Jessan. “Vouches?” Her voice rose in outrage—but she was careful not to key on the link. Later, if necessary, there would be plenty of time to put the fear of hell, damnation, and Beka Rosselin-Metadi into Waycross Inspace Control. “
Vouches
? What is this nonsense … . Nyls, are you getting anything on the sensors that might explain what the hell is going on down there?”
“Not yet, Captain.” Jessan was already calling up the sensor readouts and running matches against main ship’s memory. “It looks like our friends in Waycross have their own way of doing things these days. We’ve got IDs coming up now on some of the ships in the area—ah, here we are.”
“What have you got?”
The Khesatan tapped a line of data on the flatscreen with his index fingernail. “Republic cruiser
Karipavo
is in high orbit over Waycross.”
“I remember the ’
Pavo
,” Beka said. “She was patrolling the Net when we went through on that hell-run to Galcen. Commodore Gil had her then.”
“She was the flagship of the whole Net Patrol Fleet,” said Jessan. “If the
’Pavo
survived—”
“—then maybe some other ships in the fleet survived,” Beka finished. “And Dadda’s little girl may have a chance of winning this thing after all.”
She keyed on the link. “Inspace, this is
Warhammer
. Commodore Gil aboard RSF
Karipavo
will vouch for us.”
“
Warhammer
, Inspace. No officer by that name listed.” Beka clamped her lips down hard on a curse—/
ater, later
—and looked over at Jessan. “What now?” she asked, with the link still off. “If the
‘Pavo’
s gone renegade or been captured, we might as well jump out of here and head for the neutral worlds.”
Jessan was looking thoughtful. “Wait one. Let me try something first. You’re not the only person in the galaxy who went to space under something other than your full set of names.”
“Go ahead,” she said, handing over the link. “But I’m figuring a jump route away from here just in case.”
“Good idea. Never hurts to be careful.” Jessan keyed on the link. “Inspace,
Warhammer
. Check Jervas, Baronet D’Rugier. If he’s in your database, tell him
Warhammer
, same CO, is here and requests conference.”
“Roger, wait, out.”
The pause this time was several minutes long, enough for more than one message to shuttle back and forth over the inspace comms. Beka drummed her fingernails on the arm of the pilot’s chair and waited.
Another click-beep from the link. “
Warhammer
, this is Inspace,” came the comm call. “Baronet D’Rugier vouches for you. He requests that you join him on his vessel soonest.”
Beka closed her eyes and drew a long breath.
I hate playing these games. I really, really hate it.
“Negative, Inspace. Inform Baronet D’Rugier that if calls are to be made, he shall call on the Domina of Entibor aboard her vessel. Over.”
“Roger. Permission granted
Warhammer
to orbit with eight ships. Out.”
Beka leaned back in her seat, stretching. “Well, well. Jervas Gil and
Karipavo
. Things are starting to look up.”
 
RSF
Veratina
and other ships formerly of the Infabede sector fleet, now under the command of General Jos Metadi, were lying in wait—spread out in a loose formation orbiting a gas giant in the Gyfferan system. This close in, the planet’s huge presence dominated the
’Tina
’s external viewscreens, filling them with constantly changing swirls and bands of color, visible tracks of the eternal storms below.
The planet’s wild beauty, however, had nothing to do with Metadi’s choice of a hiding place. That decision had been based on the gas giant’s fluctuating electromagnetic discharges, now effectively masking the presence of the General’s fleet. All the “noise” also made it harder to collect information; fortunately, RSF
Selsyn-bilai
had carried among its stores a number of sensor drones, small enough to escape all but the most careful search.
The drones had been turned loose in-system immediately after the fleet emerged from hyper. So far, however, they hadn’t given Metadi anything particularly useful. If the Mage warfleet was attacking Gyffer, it wasn’t doing it anywhere that the drones were looking.
Metadi was getting restless. Even in the old days, he’d preferred taking the offensive, and patience had never been his strongest point. He’d learned a bit of it since then, however—or so he kept reminding himself. The reminders didn’t stop him from pacing about the
’Tina’
s passageways, always returning to the Combat Information Center to frown irritably at the empty battle tank.
He was there again for the third time in an hour when the technician monitoring the sensor readouts sat up as if she’d been stung. “New data coming in from the farspace drones.”
“Evaluation?”
“Working … working … sir, massive energy discharges in patterns associated with ship-to-ship combat in realspace, sir. Insufficient data for positive location.”
“Well, that’s it,” said Metadi, with a certain grim satisfaction. “Here we go. Any activity coming up from Gyffer?”
The sensor tech shook her head. “Nothing, sir. Nearspace drones report no significant deviation from previous activity.”
Commander Quetaya moved up to look at the screen over the technician’s shoulder. “This doesn’t look like the main action, though … we got two really big bursts, and now nothing.”
“Sounds like a skirmish to me,” said Metadi. “The Mages are here, all right; the LDF just hasn’t run into the main force yet. But they know the fleet’s out here, and I’ll bet the Mages’ head man wants it that way.”
The General paused. “You have to admire a man who can think like that, Commander. He almost deserves to pull this one off.”
“Yes, sir,” said Quetaya. “In the meantime, do we offer our services to the Gyfferan LDF, or do we keep on lurking out here in the midsystem?”
“We lurk,” said the General. “And we monitor the drones for signs of major fleet action. Given the small size of our force, we can do more by keeping ourselves in reserve than we can by adding our strength outright.”
“You’re thinking of waiting for the main battle and joining it in progress.” Quetaya looked doubtful. “With respect, sir—again—that’s a dangerous move.”
“Of course it’s dangerous,” Metadi said. “If we wanted to be safe, we’d be sitting on Ophel at a beachfront bar, sucking down large, colorful drinks with fruit garnishes in them and watching the war on the holovid news.”
 
Commodore Jervas Gil—these days, for civilian purposes, the Baronet D’Rugier—had been hard at work in his pocket-sized office aboard RSF
Karipavo
when the messages came in.
Lieutenant Jhunnei brought the first one in person. “The courier you sent to monitor Galcen just showed up. In one piece, no less.”
“Excellent,” Gil said. He didn’t bother to hide his relief. The assignment he’d given the courier ship had been a dangerous one, but with hi-comms down or sketchy all over the civilized galaxy, personal reconnaissance was the only accurate source of information left. “What word has he got for us?”
Jhunnei laid a clipboard full of message flimsies on his desk. “Lots of stuff—he kept his eyes and ears open all the time like a good boy. The big news, though, is that, one, the main Mageworlds warfleet has departed Galcenian space—”
“Did he get a line on them?”
“It looks like they’re heading for Gyffer, sir.”
Gil wasn’t surprised. Gyffer was an industrial powerhouse with its own highly trained defense forces, and the whole sector had been staunchly pro-Republic—and anti-Mage—since the days of the last war. It wasn’t a target that anyone could afford to ignore.
“Do we have any current information on how Gyffer’s been doing?” he asked.
“Current, no,” Jhunnei said. “Admiral Valiant in Infabede is screwing around with the hi-comms nodes. But old stuff, backdoored through Perpayne, yes.”
“Go on, Lieutenant.”
Jhunnei smiled a little. “The Citizen-Assembly told Vallant to go play with himself. Then they seized all the ships that were in port and started fitting them out with shields and guns.”
“Good for them,” said Gil. “But you said something about two pieces of news—”
“Yes.” Jhunnei was smiling broadly now. “It doesn’t look like General Metadi’s dead after all.”
Gil forced himself to stay calm. “Is this just a rumor, or is it a confirmed sighting?”
“Not a sighting, exactly,” Jhunnei said. “But
somebody
showed up over Galcen with a mixed bag of Space Force vessels right after the Mages left, and the courier says they were using Metadi’s name all over the comm frequencies.”
“Mmm,” said Gil. “Did they send anyone dirtside?”
BOOK: By Honor Betray'd: Mageworlds #3
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