By Honor Betray'd: Mageworlds #3 (7 page)

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Authors: Debra Doyle,James D. Macdonald

BOOK: By Honor Betray'd: Mageworlds #3
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“Very well,” he said. “Take your position to intercept and inform me of your progress.”
As he spoke, one of the enlisted crew members looked up from a monitor screen. “Uneven trace on active sensors.”
“Very well,” the TAO said. “Continue tracking.”
Faramon took his seat in the command chair and began to scan the clipboard full of printout flimsies already waiting for him. Perhaps he’d become a desperate space mutineer, he mused, but the paperwork never stopped. The details of running a ship remained the same, whether he took his orders from Admiral Vallant in Infabede or from General Metadi on Galcen.
Though perhaps advancement in rank would move a little faster—somebody, after all, would have to take over the Defense Command once Admiral Vallant reentered civilian life as Coordinating Director of the Infabede sector. Vallant had all but promised …
“It won’t be just the overdue promotions, Faramon. Mark my words, any number of things are going to start moving again once the Infabede worlds aren’t being held back by the dead weight of the rest of the Republic.”
The voice of another crew member broke in on the captain’s pleasant speculations. “ID on unknown—RSF
Selsyn-bilai
. Negative on special recognition signal.”
“Understand
Selsyn-bilai
,” the TAO replied. “Reserve retrofit stores ship.” He turned to Faramon. “Damn. Here I was hoping for a warship.”
“Cheer up—maybe you’ll get one next time,” Faramon told him. “And remember, right now supplies are equally important.”
Colonel DeMayt, the commander of the
Veratina’
s Planetary Infantry detachment, left her position near the main battle tank and spoke to the crew member in charge of passing orders to the detachment’s ready room. “Prepare the boarding party. Vessel has not been secured.”
“Lightspeed transmission from
Selsyn-bilai
,” called a crew member from the comms panel. “Reports mechanical breakdown, requests assistance.”
The TAO shook his head. “This isn’t even going to be a challenge,” he said to Faramon. “Request permission to let the junior officer of the watch take this one for training.”
“Permission granted,” Faramon said without looking up from his paperwork.
“Active sensors report target tumbling,” the crew member at the monitor called out.
The junior officer of the watch turned to the lightspeed comms tech. “Transmit to
Selsyn-bilai
, ‘Interrogative: are you able to maneuver?’”
There was the usual delay as the lightspeed message went out and the reply came back. Then the comms tech said, “
Selsyn
reports horizontal stabilization system malfunction. Negative on able to maneuver.”
“Time of closest point of approach five minutes,” said the comptech at the main battle tank. Now that
Veratina
had the unknown on active sensors, the red dot no longer blinked, but glowed steadily, and the small blue dots of the picket craft had been joined by a bright blue triangle representing the ’
Tina
herself.
“
Selsyn
on visual,” called out the sensor tech.
“Put him on screen,” the JOOW said. “Stand by rescue and assistance detail.”
Over on the sensor panel, an external visual screen lit up. The long, cylindrical shape of a deep-space stores ship appeared on the screen in enhanced-lowlight. The ship was revolving around its horizontal axis, nose and tail tumbling end over end.
“That’s one sick bird,” the TAO muttered, and Faramon had to agree. The
Selsyn
must have run into the Mage warfleet on her way to the rendezvous point, to get shot up that badly.
“Transmission from
Selsyn
,” said the comms tech. “Request permission to transfer all personnel except skeleton engineering crew.”
The junior officer of the watch looked over at the TAO, who nodded. “Permission granted,” said the JOOW.
“Boarding party muster in the docking bay,” Faramon said to Colonel DeMayt. “Process them through as they arrive.”
“Closest point of approach in one minute,” reported the comptech at the main tank.
“Two contacts inbound,” called out the sensor tech. “Both squawking lifeboat identifiers.”
“Very well,” said the JOOW.
-“Wait a minute,” the TAO said suddenly. The change in his voice made Faramon look up from his paperwork and lean forward in the command seat. “Those aren’t lifeboats. Those are—”
The low-light screen washed out into a dazzle and went dark.
“—recons.”
 
Jessan lay curled and immobile on the glidewalk margin, watching Beka recede into the distance through a pain-filled haze. She wasn’t resisting—not typical of her, but a good thing under the circumstances. Suivan Contract Security wasn’t being any gentler than it had to.
I don’t know where that guy learned his stuff, but he knows his pressure points like an expert.
The Khesatan groaned, tried to stand up, and failed.
He’s also got a fist like a rock.
A second attempt brought Jessan upright, leaning his back against the wall. Glidewalk traffic began to resume its normal flow. Nobody looked at him, and he wondered how long ago the Suivans had burned out on watching incidents like the last one.
The ConSecs hadn’t taken his comm link; he took it out of his pocket and tried
Warhammer’
s code.
No response.
He transmitted the code again. Still no answer.
Jessan switched to LeSoit’s private code, the one guaranteed to bring the ‘
Hammer’
s number-two gunner out of a dead sleep and straight up to attention in a single move. No response again.
All right.
He drew a long, careful breath.
Looks like Gentlesir LeSoit picked up the signal and lifted. So
Warhammer’
s
probably safe.
That just leaves the captain.
Jessan pushed himself away from the wall. Moving slowly and cautiously, he made his way through the glidewalk system to the storefront headquarters of the Entiboran Resistance. He’d been half-afraid of finding more ConSecs guarding the door when he arrived, but everything looked normal—no uniforms in sight, and the door opened to his ID-scan.
He stepped over the threshold. Inside, the rooms were empty and undisturbed. Even the rumpled bedsheets and the covered warming-trays from the food shop around the corner remained as he and Beka had left them earlier. It looked very much as if whoever was behind the arrest didn’t want to break up the Resistance.
For the moment, it seemed, they didn’t want Nyls Jessan either. He wondered if his diligently cultivated air of ineffectuality had done the trick—so many people in the outplanets thought that all Central Worlders were effete and foolish that it didn’t take much work to convey the impression.
Or maybe we’ve got somebody here who’s focused on Beka and no one else. Which could be very, very bad.
Time to put myself back in order and pay a visit to the local lockup.
Jessan spent the next half-hour in the refresher cubicle, patching up his injuries as best he could. Given an extensive medical kit and his own first-class training, the results were more than adequate. By the time he was done, all the visible marks of ill-use had vanished. The associated aches and pains—which hadn’t—were throbbing discreetly out of public view.
He selected a long-sleeved Khesatan shirt of white spidersilk shot through with fine gold thread, added a loose velvet day coat of subdued russet, and transferred most of the contents of the front-office cashbox into an inside pocket. When a last call to
Warhammer
went without an answer, Jessan was ready to make his way back out into the domes of Suivi Main.
 
“You’re going to save the universe and I’m going to help you,” said Klea. Behind her words, the room’s climate-control system wheezed and rattled. “I don’t believe it.”
Owen shook his head. “The universe exists whether we help it or not. But the Guild and the Republic need all the help they can get.”
“But why us?”
He looked at her. “Why did you pick me up and drag me home, that time when the local Mage-Circle caught me snooping and left me for dead?”
“I don’t know,” she said. She remembered the back alley where she’d found him lying unconscious. There’d been blood on his face that day, and thick Namport mud in his tawny hair, and she’d been half-drunk from the aqua vitae she’d poured into herself to blot out the sound of other people’s thoughts. “I was there, is all. Somebody had to be.”
“Exactly,” he said. “Somebody has to be.”
Klea grimaced. “And guess who it is this time.” With a sigh, she picked up her day pack and shrugged it onto her shoulders. “How do we start?”
“By walking out of here. After that, it depends.”
“Depends on what?”
“On what happens outside,” he said. “When we see which way the currents of the universe are flowing, then we’ll know.”
“You’ll know, maybe. I’m not that good.”
“All you need is practice.” He smiled briefly. “The way things look right now, you’ll get plenty before we’re done.”
Shifting his staff into his left hand, he moved past her and reached out to open the door. His fingers brushed the panel; he froze for an instant, then drew his hand away.
“The door,” he said. “Did it feel like this when you touched it before?”
“I don’t know.” She took a step forward and laid an experimental hand against the surface. The door looked the same, but the metal seemed to bend and deform itself inward against her palm, as if some cold, viscous liquid had filled the hallway outside to the bulging point. “No. When I was leaning against it, it felt like a door.”
“Then we’d better open it carefully.” He pointed with his staff. “Stand there. And let me go through first.”
Klea took the position he indicated and gripped her staff with both hands. Her mouth was dry, and her pulse thudded underneath the skin of her throat. Owen touched the lockplate and the door slid open.
The lights were all out in the hallway, even the dim blue safety glows along the baseboards. In the darkness a darker figure stood, robed and hooded in black, with a molded black plastic mask over its features and a short ebony staff gripped in one black-gloved hand. Light that was not light hung around the figure in a scarlet nimbus, and the staff it carried burned with a cold crimson fire.
The Mage-Circle … they’ve found us again.
Owen was already moving, gripping his staff near one end with both hands and bringing it around to smash across the Mage’s throat. He leaped over the blackrobe’s body as it crumpled. A second Mage loomed up out of the darkness beyond the open doorway, staff swinging toward Owen in a blaze of gory light.
Klea—shocked at last into action—brought up the
grrch
-wood broomstick that Owen had made into her apprentice’s staff, and thrust forward with the butt end into the Mage’s face. The wood smashed against the mask so hard that her palms stung and the black plastic caved in beneath the impact. The blow that the Mage had aimed at Owen missed by a handsbreadth as the Mage fell backward into the dark.
Then she and Owen were out in the corridor, and the blue safety glows were back on again—the Mages had put them out, she supposed, though she wasn’t sure how. The two blackrobes lay motionless on the hall carpet. Owen picked up the ebony staves and broke them one at a time.
When he had finished he straightened and looked at Klea. “Now we can go.”
“What about … ?” She indicated the Mages.
“They’re dead.”
She’d expected that. “So we just leave them here? Let Freling get rid of them?”
“Why not?” He looked at the bodies for a moment, then glanced back at her with a curious expression. “Of course, you could always burn the whole place down on top of them—it might be tidier, in the long run, and I think you’d enjoy doing it.”
“I could …”
“If you wanted to. It’s easy enough.”
She stared at him, tongue-tied. Part of her remained appalled at the suggestion, but another, deep-buried part of herself stirred to life in response, so that she was filled with a sudden overwhelming awareness of fire. Owen was right, she realized; she
could
do it, letting that part of Klea Santreny rise up and stretch out nonmaterial hands and pull in as much heat as her heart’s anger could hold.
Drag it in
, she thought,
and twist it all together, and then … leave it someplace. With the cleaning rags in the back closet, or the grease in the kitchen, or the loose wires in the climate-control. Leave it, and walk away. And before long, something will start to burn … .

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