Redemption of Light (The Light Trilogy) (16 page)

Carey closed her eyes.
Please, Epagael, let him die. Be merciful.

She listened to Mundus’ despotic instructions. Feet pounded ominously around the room, instruments clashing with resounding clangs. Each moment passed as though millennia. And finally, she heard Josh gasp. A flurry of relieved cries sprang from the group of doctors. Someone laughed giddily.

And Carey’s soul withered to nothingness. Josh started to cry, a soft suffocating sound.

Carey swiveled her head to stare at the spiderlike revitalization machine that held Samuals in its grasp. It would be there from now on, she realized, until Slothen had the information he sought.

The Magistrates weren’t going to let them die.

CHAPTER 17

Jeremiel sat alone in his cabin, staring at the crystal sheet that lay atop the black table. He lifted his cold cup of taza and drank it absently.

Magisterial flotilla in Moron and Tonopah systems. Am monitoring movements. Will report more when possible.

Captain Simeon Lakish

He prodded the sheet with his finger. A hollow ache pounded in his stomach. Lakish was the commander of a freighter that formed part of the Underground’s clandestine forces branch. His ship, the
Derekh,
performed average trade transactions while keeping an eye on Magisterial movements throughout the Orion arm of the galaxy.

The government’s invasion of both the Moran and Tonopah systems could mean only one thing:

“An officer has broken.”

He massaged his brow, trying to suppress the terror and hope that swelled like storm clouds inside him. Any captive from the Kiskanu attack, regardless of rank, could have revealed the Underground fleet’s former location in the Moran system, but only Samuals or Carey would have known about the secret operations in the Tonopah system where the Underground actively sowed dissent among the Magisterially sanctioned planetary councils.

He sat back in his chair. The lustreglobe above his table threw a flickering light over his black battlesuit and his stern face, accentuating the red in his blond beard. Cole’s bottle of rye whiskey still sat on the table, untouched since their last meeting in this cabin. In the background, Billie Holiday sang “Good Morning, Heartache.” The pain lacing Holliday’s beautiful lilting voice stabbed clear through him.

Carey had given him that disk for their first wedding anniversary. Knowing his passion for Billie’s music, she’d searched every port where they’d docked, until she’d found this rare piece. He remembered the joyous smile on her face when he’d opened the present.

He shoved his taza cup around the table. “Doesn’t mean Carey’s alive,” he softly chided himself. “It was more likely Samuals.”

His looked around the room. Everywhere he saw Carey: her books, her music disks, the ivory gauze sleep shirt that still lay beside their bed. He hadn’t been able to pick it up. He doubted he ever would.

His heart had gone on defensive mode, shutting itself off, aching numbly, as though torn from his body but not completely severed. In his mind, she wasn’t dead. Her presence haunted him every moment, as though she sat next to him always, during strategy sessions, when he had dinner, and especially when he was alone in their cabin.
She was there.
That part of her that he kept safe inside him, still advised, still argued vehemently over elements in his plans that she disagreed with, still gazed at him with all the love and respect they shared. He found himself reaching for her in the night and when he touched only cool sheet, he pretended it was her hand and clutched it tightly. He’d even caught himself talking to her aloud, discussing her objections to his plans, parrying with every other possibility he could conceive of.

In his mind, she wasn’t dead.

Only his heart cried out that she was, and he should get a hold on himself and learn to live with the truth.

But he’d isolated his heart. Just now it couldn’t claw at him the way it would after the Horeb battle … and for the rest of his life.

He rubbed his arms to warm them. He’d been deliberately neglecting the thermostat. The ship automatically shut down the temperatures at night, but he relished the cold. It worked on him like a slap, keeping him alert—sane.

Tipping his chair back on two legs, he braced his head against the white wall and squinted at the dark overhead panels. “How are you doing, Cole?” If Tahn didn’t seize Jossel on her initial visit, he never would. And if he managed that, then the hard part would begin.

The waiting tore at his gut. They’d anxiously been keeping track of the five cruisers circling Horeb. None of them showed the slightest apprehension. They’d adopted no special formations, completed no practice maneuvers, nothing. Why not? Surely, if an officer from the Kiskanu attack had broken under the probes, Palaia would have warned the Horebian cruisers about the impending Underground assault. Wouldn’t they? If not,
why not?
If he knew about the Underground’s plans, Slothen should have already dispatched twenty more battle cruisers to Horeb. Had the aging Magistrate deployed his cruisers so widely that he couldn’t get them to Horeb quickly?

Jeremiel couldn’t depend on that.

Methodically, he ran his thumb around the smooth edge of the black tabletop. He ground his teeth, mind clicking off the questions that had begun to mount. Too damned many things didn’t make sense.

First, for years Jeremiel had wondered why Slothen hadn’t simply authorized a major battle cruiser attack to destroy Mikael and Sybil’s forces from space. Mikael and Sybil had been bold and brilliant in several of their attacks on Ornias’ forces—but to initiate them, they’d had to leave the safety of the polar chambers. And each and every cruiser in orbit would have known precisely when, where, and how many people Gamants were taking to ambush Ornias’ soldiers.

Why had Slothen always refused to allow his cruiser captains to give such data to the military governor of the planet? Ornias was an idiot, true, but not incompetent. Unquestionably, he would have used the information with stunning results, quelling Mikael’s and Sybil’s operations and very likely killing both of them years ago. Did Slothen want the Calas family alive?

Second, why would Slothen send Jossel in the first place? With four cruisers already acting as “peace keepers” around the planet, why didn’t the government simply send a dattran to Abitha Stein in command of the
Hammadi?
She was in charge of military activities around Horeb. Stein may not have had the glory associated with her name that Jossel did, but she had a reputation for cold efficiency that went unmatched.

No matter what Slothen intended, whether to finally authorize more government troops on Horeb or to employ cruiser firepower, Stein or
any
of the captains already on assignment around Horeb could have handled it. Barely a thousand Gamants clung to life on that barren rock—the auxiliary crew of one battle cruiser armed with mobile cannons could have laid waste to every hiding place of every Gamant on Horeb.

“What game are you playing, Slothen?”

Something deep. Ominous. Something with very high stakes.

“It’s as though Slothen has been waiting for a particular event in which Jossel will play a key role—a role no one else can fill.”

And Jossel seemed to have no past. He’d contacted every clandestine source available, requesting information on her early life, but all to no avail. Oh, the general overview was well-known: Born on Rusel 3. Parents killed when she was thirteen. Went to live with grandmother. Grandmother mysteriously disappeared. No traces ever found. No siblings. Father had been a government employee in the Records division. Jossel had entered Academy at the age of sixteen—very young, very brilliant. Slothen had paid personal attention to her. More so, it seemed, than to other young, brilliant cadets; The Magistrate had personally reviewed each of Jossel’s test results for coursework and demanded to be present during her annual pysch evaluations to
“monitor her progress. “
Whatever that meant.

Strange, indeed. Jeremiel knew of no other cadet who’d been singled out at such a young age and treated so specially.

“Has Slothen been currying you for a particular mission, Jossel? Against who? Gamant leaders like Mikael and Sybil? The Underground? Gamants in general?
Who?”

Unfortunately, he had to admit that the special treatment could have simply been because the woman was indeed a magnificent commander and Slothen had apparently recognized her potential very early.

Jeremiel’s room com buzzed. He reached up to the unit over his table and hit the access patch. “Baruch here.”

“Commander?” Shira Gaza, his new second in command, called. “We’ve just received a Clandestine One message from Captain Kopal. Do you want me to send it through on the aura or pipe—”

“Pipe it through, Shira. Baruch out.”

He got up and hurried across the room to his desk com. Clandestine One meant that Rudy had logged and sent the message on a one-burst narrow beam for Jeremiel’s eyes only. Rudy’s taut face formed. Unease pulsed through Jeremiel as he listened:

“Rivka checked in—just before her ship was destroyed by the
Hammadi,”
Rudy informed gravely. “Tahn’s got Jossel. I suggest we initiate Operation Kawwanah. Kopal out.”

The image faded and Jeremiel braced both hands on the table. Grief for the loss of Leso and her crew made his breathing shallow.
But Cole had Jossel!
He hit the visual button on the unit and watched as the bridge formed. Shira swung around in her chair. Her short ebony locks gleamed in the bright glare. A tiny woman, she had a triangular face, a pug nose, and blazing brown eyes.

“Shira,” he ordered. “Clandestine One back to Kopal and Wells simultaneously. Ready?”

“Aye, Commander. Go.”

He checked the wall chronometer over his bed and gazed confidently into the com. “Good morning, Rudy and Merle. As of 0:500 hours, Operation Kawwannah is in effect. Please line out and await further instructions. Baruch out.”

Jeremiel’s eyes landed on Carey’s gauze sleep shirt. He remembered the morning she’d taken it off and tossed it beside the bed—just like she did every morning.

He reached down to caress the shirt. “Live for me, Carey. Live!”

CHAPTER 18

Cole suppressed the groan that pressed against his teeth. The pain from his wound had grown to staggering proportions. Though a clean flesh wound, the torn muscles burned and throbbed with jackhammer intensity. At least, the bleeding had stopped—unless he moved suddenly, which he valiantly tried not to do.

He slowly made his way around the broad red cavern, opening boxes and pulling out clothing, food, and ammunition. Just as Jeremiel had said, this chamber contained everything he’d need to survive in comfort for the next several days. The faint scent of spices clung to the air, as though centuries of holiday feasting had occurred here. The rounded chamber stretched fifty feet over his head and measured at least seventy in diameter. A long wooden table surrounded by twenty chairs filled the center of the room. Dusty crystal goblets and plates adorned the woven place mats. He’d lit a fire in the hearth on the far wall when they’d first arrived, hours ago. The flames crackled warmly, the light the fire generated flickering across Amirah Jossel’s strained face. She sat on the faded ocher rug before the fire, knees drawn up, arms grasped around them. Anger reflected with startling potency in her gorgeous turquoise eyes.

Cole gingerly knelt and ripped open another box, continuing to watch her surreptitiously. She’d brushed her long blond hair behind her ears, revealing the smooth line of her jaw. His gaze lingered on the fire-dyed curves of her body. A beautiful woman indeed. The holo prints Jeremiel had obtained had been pale in comparison to the real thing.

Cole brushed away the box’s fluffy packing material. A sigh of relief escaped his lips when he saw the contents. A dozen dusty bottles of wine and several containers of food concentrates lined the bottom.
Anesthesia, thank God.
He piled food into the crook of his left arm and grabbed a bottle of wine. As he limped past the table, he grabbed two crystal goblets.

“How about some dinner?” he asked as he knelt on the opposite end of the ocher rug, five feet away from her.

She didn’t move, but the tiny lines around her eyes tightened. EM restraints bound her ankles, but he’d left her hands free.

“I know you’re hungry,” he remarked. “It’s been ten hours since our last meal.”

Silence.

He twisted the cork out of the bottle and tried to blow the dust from the goblets. When that didn’t work, he used the cuff of his sleeve. Filling both glasses, he carefully placed one within her reach, halfway between them. The dancing firelight flickered in the maroon liquid—and in Amirah’s hair. She looked almost frail, like a willowy porcelain doll.

He tugged his gaze away, annoyed by the sensations her beauty stirred in him. Powerful sensations he thought he’d forgotten. He hadn’t been alone with a woman—except Carey—in years. Oh, he’d tried dating some of the women in the Underground, but the cultural and historical differences between them seemed to be as divisive as a brick wall. Maybe that’s why he’d grown to love Carey so much. She was the only woman in the world he could really talk to anymore. His stomach went queasy.
Don’t think about her, you fool. What are you trying to do, kick your own guts out?

Sitting cross-legged, he took a long drink of the rich, earthy claret, letting it caress his tongue. “Not bad. Try it.”

Jossel lifted a brow and glared.

“Feeling pretty bad, huh?” he asked. “Well, starving won’t help. You need to keep your strength up, so you can waylay me when I drop my guard.”

He picked up a food container and tossed it toward her. It landed beside her boots. When she didn’t automatically grab for it, he threw another one. This time, as he intended, it hit her in the thigh.

She gave him a heartlessly unflattering look, picked up the bottle and threw it back—
hard.
It slammed his arm.

He grunted and sat down with an unpleasant jolt. “All right, starve. See if I care.”

. From this angle, he could make out the faint splotches of freckles that sprinkled her button nose. Her lips pressed tightly together in anger. Defiantly, she edged across the floor and retrieved the bottle of concentrate, commenting, “You’re right. If I’m going to kill you, I have to keep my strength.”

He grinned. “I knew you’d agree. Try the wine. You’ll like it.”

“How do you know what I’ll like?” She reached for the goblet, jerking it back. Wine spilled down the sides of the glass, trickling over her thin white fingers.

He suppressed a smile and opened one of the food containers. Waving it under his nose, he tilted his head uncertainly. “But I suspect you Won’t like this.” He sipped the contents. The sour lemonlike flavor made his mouth pucker, but it tasted refreshing. He took a long drink. “It’s not as bad as I thought. Ever had Sculptorian limes?”

“Once.”

“Did you like them?”

“No.” She pulled off the lid on her container and gingerly sipped. A shudder went through her. “Just as I thought. It’s terrible.”

He shoved to his feet and walked back to the crate, searching through it for other selections. Finding three different types of food concentrates, he carried them back and knelt a short distance in front of her, setting them down. “Maybe one of these will suit you better.”

Backing away, he circled wide and went back to his own dinner. Suspiciously, she reached for the bottles he’d brought and opened one. Sniffing it, she eyed him dubiously, then tasted it.

“How is it?”

“Good.” She glowered. “Thank you.”

Cole grinned. The authoritative hate in that look undoubtedly made most people scream and run. He liked it. “What’s it taste like?”

“Oh, a little like …” Her magnificent turquoise eyes softened with fond memories. “Giclasian apple cider.”

“It’s been a long time since I’ve had Giclasian cider. But I remember how delightful it was.” His heart ached. He and Maggie Zander used to sit beneath the trees outside of Academy and share bottles while they laughed. He missed Maggie. Sometimes, in his dreams, they still loved each other. Thank God for dreams. Scenes of her death battled to rise—
locks of blonde hair twining through the bars of the light cage … her extended hand….
Cole forced the images away by gulping his lemon-lime concentrate.

They finished their dinners in silence, glancing warily at each other. Cole tossed away his fourth bottle of concentrate and refilled his wine goblet. Lifting the bottle, he asked, “Can I refill yours?”

“Do.” Cautiously, she leaned forward, meeting him halfway.

He complied. For the briefest of moments, their eyes met over the bottle—close, intense.

Cole slowly backed up. “You have an impressive record,” he commented, making conversation. “What battle were you involved in to win the Naassene Cross? That’s quite an accomplishment. They don’t give that medal to just anybody. I never won one.”

“Actually,” she said in a strangely resentful voice, “you did—through a lot of other people.”

“How’s that?”

She shrugged. “I used your tactics in the Kirinyi battle. That’s how we won.”

He looked surprised. The fact that someone continued to study those tactics disks he’d so painstakingly put together made him feel odd. “Well, I’m glad to hear they’re still good for something.”

She frowned at her wine, finishing half the glass before she spoke again. “You’re brilliant, Cole Tahn. Didn’t you know they still taught your tactics in Academy?”

“No.”

“Of course, they do. Good God, the Marco and Antares Minor maneuvers are classics. When I was trapped in the Jaron system, outnumbered ten to one, the Marco—”

“Wait a minute,”
he objected. “I
lost
the Antares Minor battle!”

She nodded heartily. “I know. You made a stupid error.”

“What error?” he thundered indignantly. “I didn’t make
any
goddamned errors!”

Jossel looked him over from head to toe and stretched out on her side on the ragged rug. “Well, forgive me, your highness, but I’m compelled to point out that you damned well did!”

He blinked incredulously and poured himself another glass of wine. His pain had lessened slightly. He could actually take deep breaths now without bracing himself in case he fainted. As he started to set the bottle down, she extended her glass. He refilled it.

“All right,” he agreed. “I’m game. Let’s discuss the details. I had Baruch surrounded, boxed tight in the asteroid belt around Antares Minor, outnumbered five to one. We took potshots at each other for three days while we negotiated his ‘surrender.’“ He lifted a finger and pointed it sternly. “I had no way of knowing that he was secretly evacuating his crews. He used blasted inertialess pods to get his people out of the four ships he stationed as decoys. Then he—”

“Then,”
she enunciated sharply and pointed a finger back, stabbing it like a dagger at his heart. “He set the matter/antimatter engines of those ships on time delay for merge and ran the rest of his fleet for the light vault like ‘bats out of hell,’ as you put it in your report. You shot three of the bats down before you realized the trap.” Her eyes glittered triumphantly. “The entire asteroid belt, including fifteen Magisterial vessels vanished in the explosions.”

He felt the same sinking feeling of defeat twist in his gut that he had seventeen years ago. “Right. No one sane can predict what Baruch will do.
You
should know that by now. The man’s a lunatic.” He gulped his wine.

Amirah casually watched him over the rim of her glass. He could see the speculative smile that curled her lips. “You were brilliant,” she praised. “Flawless in your calculations and positioning of vessels. Stunning in the way you orchestrated the battle, keeping Baruch boxed and unable to effectively fight back.”

“So?” he growled. “What did I do wrong?”

As she lifted her wine to take another sip, her hand swayed. Tipsy? He grinned at her.

She grinned back, but it was a predatory expression. “Mass readings.”

“What?”

“You didn’t take any. You were always magnificent in your tactics, but you were an idiot when the situation demanded subtle appraisals of your enemy’s strategy.” She flicked a hand nonchalantly. “But that’s your career in a nutshell, isn’t it?”

“‘Wait just a goddamned—”

“If you’d grasped anything about Baruch, you’d have known he’d pull something like that—and you’d have scanned each Underground vessel to begin with, taken periodic readings during the course of the battle, and guessed that he was evacuating the crews from those ships.”

“The hell I would have!” he roared. “Mass varies every time you fire a shot! You can’t assess—”

“I’ve done it,” she said smugly. She leaned forward, getting closer to him. Her blonde waves brushed the rug, glimmering like strands of the purest gold in the wavering firelight.
“It works.
That much mass shows.”

He glared thoughtfully at her, trying not to notice the way her new position accentuated the curves of her body. Silently, he ran a few mathematical calculations through his head, just to see. When the figures started appearing, a twinge of unease rose.

“Uh-huh.” She nodded as though reading his mind. “See?”

“It
might,”
he granted, roughly swirling the wine in his glass.

She laughed softly and when he looked up at her, he saw the glint of warmth in her eyes. “Don’t be so arrogant. I’m right and you know it.”

“Me—arrogant? Don’t
you
be so smug,” he accused, reluctantly laughing with her as he shook his head. “You’ve had years to study that maneuver. I only had days.”

“I know.” Her smile faded into a somber look. Quietly, she said, “I’ve always wondered what you were really like. The great Cole Tahn. A legend. Brilliant. Handsome. And a traitor.”

“Or a patriot. Depends on how you look at it.”

“A patriot?” she scoffed. “Patriots don’t betray the people who depend on them.” Her face went stony—devoid of all emotion. His gut responded by roiling defensively. “Do you know what happened to the crew you abandoned on Tikkun? They trusted you, Tahn.”

His shoulder muscles crawled. “No. What happened to them?”

“The Magistrates probed them until their minds were completely gone, then they administered euthanasia. Mercifully, quickly—but they killed your crew. You condemned those people to death.
You did.”

She uttered the accusation in her professional “captain’s” voice, in control, just reporting—but when she abruptly rolled over onto her stomach and began fiddling with the torn cuff of her purple sleeve, he could see her utter disdain for him. The firelight painted her strained face with a wash like thick amber resin.

“Disappointed in the legend?” he asked.

“Yes. All my life, I’ve believed you were innocent.” She tapped her chest with a stiff finger. “I have defended you repeatedly against people who charged you’d gone over to the other side. Evidence of what a fool I am.”

He finished his wine, but the liquor had little effect on the wrenching ache that throbbed in his chest and completely drowned out the pain of his wound. A dozen faces of officers he’d respected flashed across his mental screen. Rich Macey, Carlene Millhyser. In his memories, he heard their voices, their laughter, could still see the love and trust in their eyes when they’d spoken to him. Good officers. The best soldiers in the fleet. Dead. “Do you know what the Magistrates were doing on Tikkun, Amirah?”