Redemption of Light (The Light Trilogy) (5 page)

“Our surrender. Among other things. They’ll order us to prepare to be boarded and probably promise us something ridiculous like sanctuary in exchange for our cooperation.”

“You think we ought to talk to them?”

“Not particularly. Do you? I doubt that they’ll …”

A brilliant splash of light washed space. Cole whirled breathlessly in his chair. The Magisterial fighters around Zimmern’s ship exploded in a hurricane spray. The sudden violent impact of a blast sent the
Trisagion
hurtling, the nose of the ship slanting down. The crew tumbled out of their seats, bashing into each other and piling against the back wall.

Cole struggled to get his feet under him, but the massive g force made him dizzy. “What the hell’s—”

Rudy whispered,
“Jeremiel!”

A
flush of adrenaline seared Cole’s veins, sudden hope nearly suffocating him. He shoved off the wall to get a view out the forward portal. Two more Magisterial ships vanished in a blaze of white. And beyond, in the blackness of space, a scatter of over a hundred vessels lit the sky. Three battle cruisers plunged headlong toward them, cannons firing on full, blasting every Magisterial vessel in sight. Around the edges, fighters dove and fought, swerving drunkenly.

Cole spun to look out the left side portal. Two Magisterial fighters had escaped. They plummeted downward, picking up speed to vault.

“Goddamn it, Jeremiel,” he warned harshly, noting three Underground fighters disengage to pursue. “You can’t let them get away. They’ll report the exact location of the fleet and then well—”

A burst of light ignited the heavens. Cole threw up his arm to shield his eyes. The blast rocked the
Trisagion,
tossing it about like a wayward rag doll. When he lowered his arm, the Magisterial vessels had vanished. Only an expanding blaze of shimmering ivory limned the blackness.

The communications panel flared green again. Cole pulled himself up and made his way forward by grabbing onto things to counter the tilted position of the ship. He hit the com patch.

“Trisagion
here.”

“Cole?” Jeremiel’s deep, confident voice penetrated the cabin. “Sorry it took us so long to get here. We were called in to deliver med supplies for that virus that’s ravaging Jotaya. Where’s the rest of your flotilla?”

All the anxious agony about Carey that had vanished in the battle came back, smothering Cole like a black sheet. He dropped into the pilot’s chair and braced his elbows on the console. “We have injuries aboard, Baruch. Please have med techs standing by in the landing bay. Our wounds on the
Trisagion
are minor, though. I think Zimmern’s crew got hit worse than ours.”

“Understood. We’ll have people waiting. Where’s the rest of the—”

“Jeremiel,” Cole said and bowed his head to stare numbly at the dials and patches strewn over the command console. He aimlessly rubbed his fingertips over the cool white petrolon, wishing suddenly that he weren’t one of this man’s best friends—knowing such things were easier to take from coolly impersonal strangers than sympathetic confidants. “We were attacked in the Anai system. Ambushed. They were waiting for us. I don’t know how they knew we’d be there, but …” He forced a deep breath into his constricted lungs. “Carey’s dead.”

A long and terrible silence blanketed space. Cole closed his eyes, the nightmare feeling of terror filling him again. He propped both fists against his forehead and tightened them until his hands ached. “Copy, Baruch?”

“Copy.”

Another pause, then Jeremiel said in a too quiet voice. “I’ll meet you in the bay. Baruch out.”

Cole’s hand shook as he reached down to cut the connection.

“Blessed Epagael,” Rudy muttered under his breath to keep the crew from hearing. “I hope Jeremiel can stand it. When Syene died, he fell apart.”

Cole nodded. Syene Pleroma. He remembered her death with crystal clarity, as though each image had been etched in marble. He’d been fighting for the Magistrates at the time. The government had captured Syene Pleroma and a half-dozen officers had repeatedly raped her when she refused to give them any information about Baruch. Cole had been called in later. He remembered his shock when he’d walked into that blood-spattered apartment. The living room had looked as though a bomb had blasted it. Furniture lay overturned; broken glass shimmered like tears on the green carpet. Syene must have fought like a tiger when she’d realized the trap. They’d set her up to believe she’d be bargaining with Major Johannes Lichtner, buying him off so he’d pull the Magisterial troops out of the Gamant section of town and leave it safe at the critical moment when the Underground cruisers combined fire to blast all the government’s military installations on the planet of Silmar. In reality, she’d been bait to lure Jeremiel’s forces into a huge net where they couldn’t maneuver.

Cole had fought with Lichtner. In the whirl of fists and feet, Pleroma had lunged for the window, trying to escape, and Lichtner had fatally shot her.

Cole hadn’t found out until later that Syene had willed herself to live until Jeremiel found her. She’d died in Baruch’s arms.

Yes, Jeremiel had fallen apart. And he’d only known Syene for three years—he’d been married to Carey for twelve.

Cole swiveled around in his chair and met Kopal’s gaze squarely. Rudy looked as though he’d swallowed something sour. “Let’s get prepared to be towed, people. Pick a chair and get braced. We should be under the Zilpah’s power any moment.”

CHAPTER 4

Jeremiel wiped sweaty palms on his black uniform as he strode down the long white halls of the
Zilpah.
His boots thudded dully against the gray carpet. Arranged in herringbone patterns, the corridors intersected each other at about thirty foot intervals. Here and there, holos of planets dotted the walls, providing brief splashes of color. His breathing came fast and shallow. Tall and broad-shouldered, he had deeply set blue eyes and wavy blond hair. His reddish-blond beard and mustache formed a neatly trimmed mantle below his patrician nose.

He rounded the comer and pounded a fist into the transport tube patch. While he waited, he absently returned the salutes of crew members who passed. Though the
Trisagion
and
Hullin
had just been hauled aboard, the troubled looks the crew gave him told him they’d already heard. With a critical battle for Horeb in the offing, they’d be worrying, wondering what he’d do. He couldn’t let himself think about it yet—not until he knew all the details of Carey’s …
Say it. Go on. You’re going to have to discuss it in a few minutes. Dead. She’s dead….

In the silent recesses of his soul, a muted voice screamed,
No, no, she can’t be.

The tube arrived and he stepped inside. “Level nineteen.”

Deck numbers flashed in blue over his head as the tube descended. In this momentary isolation, the tightness in his chest seemed like a block of dry ice—heavy, stinging. He tipped his chin heavenward, staring at the bright lustreglobe panels in the ceiling, telling himself not to feel anything.

The tube stopped and the door snicked back. He strode down the corridor, turning left at the intersection and coming to stop before the landing bay door. “Come on,” he whispered roughly to himself. Cole and Rudy would be tired and anxious to tell him everything so they could hurry to their cabins and get some rest. He fought to quell the panic that fired his veins. Already his mind had begun spinning images of what it must have been like. A lethal shot would have taken her either in the chest or—or the head.
No! Don’t imagine it! For God’s sake, stop! Just stop it.
He struck the entry patch.

Before him was a broad, white-tiled room, measuring two hundred square feet. The seventy-foot ceiling gave the bay an even larger feel. The fighters sat like black-scarred silver daggers on the floor. Med techs raced to and fro, rushing antigrav gurneys from the ships and into the emergency bay tubes to take the injured to the hospital on level six. Rudy and Cole stood outside their fighter, battlesuits grimy and stained, talking to the dozen transportation technicians who questioned them.

When Cole turned and his gaze touched Jeremiel’s, he said something to Rudy and excused himself from the group. He walked forward slowly, his steps sluggish. His brown hair draped around his face in dirty strands. His gaze struck Jeremiel like an iron bar in the stomach. Cole’s normally sharp blue-violet eyes had gone dull and lifeless.

He walked up beside Jeremiel and said, “I told Rudy we’d meet him in conference room 1900.”

“All right.”

Jeremiel turned and led the way out of the bay into the hall. They walked side by side in silence, neither daring to speak yet. Jeremiel could see how tired Cole was—how carefully and wearily he placed his feet. When they got to the room, Jeremiel hit the patch and waited for Cole to enter.

A table and six chairs took up most of the space. Along the walls, holograms of galactic nebulas hung, their white and gold gaseous images unsettlingly hazy. Cole sat on the edge of the table and propped a boot in the seat of a chair. His pale face looked wooden, his new beard dark against the sallow background of skin. He pressed his lips together tightly, as though struggling against a deadly disease which was eating him from the inside out.

Jeremiel pulled out a chair and sat down, leaning his elbows on the table. “Tell me how you are, Cole. After Kiskanu and the battle, if you’re too tired—”

“No, let’s get this over with, Jeremiel. Once it’s done—it’s done. They came out of nowhere. At least a hundred Giclasians. We were loading supplies when they hit us. Carey …” Cole’s voice floundered. He took a deep breath and Jeremiel steeled himself. “Carey took a—a hit … in the chest, I think. Rudy got a better look than I did.”

Jeremiel nodded once. Voices called out from his memories. Syene’s little girl laugh blended hauntingly with Carey’s deeper tones. Both tightened around his throat like deadly ropes. His wounded mind played horrifying tricks. Carey’s face appeared and swirled around, superimposing itself over Syene’s on that snowy day long ago on Silmar. Brown hair faded into auburn….

The conference room door snicked back. Rudy walked in and briefly met their gazes before striding over to stand between where Cole sat on the table and Jeremiel’s chair.

“You’re sure she was dead?” Jeremiel asked in a surprisingly steady voice.

Rudy sank back to rest a shoulder against the wall. “Yes. No question about it.”

Jeremiel felt all the blood drain from his face.

Cole lunged off the table and lumbered to the rear of the room, his face turned away, staring at the red and green swirls of the holo of the Loggerhead Nebula.

“How many could have survived and been captured?” Baruch inquired.

Kopal lifted his hands uncertainly. “I don’t know. I guess maybe ten. I think everyone else—”

“Any of those people could reveal the exact location of the fleet if they’re probed. We’re going to have to move fast. How many officers may have survived?”

Cole turned around and pinned Jeremiel with a haunted look. “Every officer is accounted for except one. The last time I saw Josh Samuals, he had a shrapnel wound in his leg. If he managed to take cover—”

“He could be alive.” Jeremiel steepled his fingers over his mouth for a moment. “Samuals knew at least the fundamental details of the Horeb mission. If he was captured, they would have probably taken him to Palaia. He would have been considered too valuable to leave his interrogation up to any regional neuro center.”

Rudy shifted his weight to his left foot. “You think we should try to send somebody in? It would be a suicide mission, but I think we could find a volunteer. Neither Samuals nor the volunteer would make it out, but maybe we could get to Samuals before they put him under the probes.”

“Don’t be a fool, Kopal,” Tahn accused. “Leave aside the fact that Palaia is invulnerable and the suicide mission volunteer would probably be captured and make things worse for us—if we make any moves now, if we
breathe
wrong, the Magistrates will tighten their security net around Horeb and we’ll never get those people off that hellhole! The solution is to step up the Horeb mission. Since we have to get the fleet out of here anyway,
let’s hit Horeb now, before it’s too later!
”

“Are you crazy?” Rudy shouted. “We’re not ready!”

Jeremiel listened to their stormy interchange for several more minutes, but he barely heard the words. In the back of his mind he could hear Carey calling his name, over and over—
as though she were alive.
Simultaneously, the logical part of his brain whispered, “She’s dead. Accept it. She’s not coming home this time.”

He gazed up soberly at Cole, who’d grown red-faced and seemed on the verge of violence. Rudy looked just as bad, fit to burst at the seams. They were tired, both of them.

Jeremiel shoved himself out of his chair. “Go and get some rest. Consider Cole’s suggestion of stepping up the Horeb mission. We might have to. I’ll schedule a strategy meeting for 09:00 tomorrow morning.”

“All right,” Rudy responded tiredly. He started toward the door then stopped beside Jeremiel. Rudy clamped a strong hand on his shoulder. Kopal smelted so pungently of old blood that it made Jeremiel feel hollow. Traces of the stain spilled over the white threads on Rudy’s cuffs. Red blood, not blue. Human.
Which friend? Friends?

“Rudy, if you have time, please put together a list of casualties for me. I’ll need to inform the families.”

“I’ll make time.” He patted Jeremiel’s shoulder and briskly left. The door closed behind him.

Tahn stood at the far end of the room, a fist pressed to his lips as he stared intently at the floor.

“Cole, after you’ve had some dinner and sleep, I’d like to talk to you more … about Carey.”

Tahn sucked in a halting breath and held it. He nodded. “Let me know when you’re available.”

“Tomorrow night. I’ll be—ready—by then.”

“Understood,” Cole responded softly.

Jeremiel put his hand against the exit patch and the door slipped open. Voices echoed down the corridor, discussing the damage sustained by the
Trisagion.
He exited quietly.

Something moved inside her like a tangle of serpents twisting around each other in some perverted mating spectacle.

She choked, fighting to swallow the welling of blood that surged up her throat.
Swallow. Swallow, damn you!
But the tide flooded up too quickly. She felt herself drowning, unable to get any oxygen, as though a wall of warm water had engulfed her and deluged her lungs.
Move! Roll over, you cowardly bitch, or you’re going to die! Move!

But her muscles wouldn’t respond. She couldn’t feel her body from the neck down.
Spinal damage….

Panic seized her mind and poured a hot torrent of adrenaline into her system; it seared her veins like molten metal.

And then she heard voices.

Not Gamant. Enemy.