Starpilot's Grave: Book Two of Mageworlds (26 page)

Read Starpilot's Grave: Book Two of Mageworlds Online

Authors: Debra Doyle,James D. Macdonald

BOOK: Starpilot's Grave: Book Two of Mageworlds
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“That’s it,” he said. “I believe that’s everyone. All doors secure?”
“Secure, aye,” said another one of the fighter pilots.
“Listening device disabled?”
“Disabled.”
“Great.” He turned to Ari. “Whatever you decide to do, Commander, please don’t do anything foolish. You won’t leave this space without my permission.”
Ari nodded, slowly. “I can see that. Do you mind telling me what this is all about?”
“We’re having a mutiny, and you’re part of it,” the lieutenant commander replied. “You’ll have a chance to join us; but be assured that you won’t be allowed to hinder us.”
Ari forced himself to relax. He was too far away from the lieutenant commander, the JG, and the door to get to any one of them in a single stride; better to wait until he knew who was involved and how they were armed. Judging by the growls and muttered exclamations that arose from the rest of the group, he wasn’t the only one hearing the news for the first time.
The JG who’d slipped him the note spoke next, addressing not just Ari but the room in general. “It is my belief that Admiral Vallant is in open rebellion against the Republic.”
More exclamations and noises of disbelief came from the crowd, but the JG kept on talking.
“At the moment, we are underway for an unknown location—but getting underway at this time is entirely against the mission of this vessel. Further, Admiral Vallant has placed personal friends or those who owe him favors in command of
every
vessel in this sector. In addition, hi-comms are down, and I have reason to believe that Valiant knew in advance that they would be. The bulkheads to senior-officer country are sealed, and no one other than Vallant’s handpicked few are in the engine room, in Combat, or on the bridge.”
The JG paused for a moment. When the general buzz of comment died down, he went on.
“We had been ordered to deliver messages, hardcopy, across the fleet. As it happens, I know what those messages contained: ultimate for every planet in this sector, directing them to swear loyalty to Vallant personally or face destruction by his fleet. The ultimata are being delivered at this time. Also at this time, Lieutenant Commander Rosselin-Metadi was to be arrested and held as hostage against the actions of his father, the Commanding General.”
“And that,” said the commander of the fighter det, turning to address Ari directly, “is why we arrested you. If you’re going to be a bargaining chip, we’d like you to be ours.”
“Believe me, I understand your position,” said Ari. He could tell from the way the JG and the det commander were watching him that they had expected something far more explosive by way of response.
Fine
, he thought.
Let them stay confused until I figure out what’s really up
. “But what happens if I don’t want to be a bargaining chip at all?”
The det commander looked regretful. “I’m afraid you don’t have much choice.”
It’s a good thing Beka didn’t join the service
, Ari
thought. Telling her that she doesn’t have a choice is a quick way to get blood all over the deckplates. Bee never did know how to wait for anything.
But Ari had learned about patience and subtlety a long time ago, when Ferrdacorr gave him hunting lessons in the forests of Maraghai. He was not going to get drawn into a fight now, when he was outnumbered—and when he didn’t know for certain where his true enemies lay.
“I suppose I’ll have to believe you,” he said aloud. “You know more about the situation than I do at the moment. How many people are aligned with you … I mean, with us?”
“Enough, I hope,” said the det commander, looking distinctly relieved that Ari had not chosen to put up a violent resistance. “For the moment, though—I’m sorry, but we’ll have to put you under guard.”
 
Two hours after
Warhammer
’s initial contact with the Space Force vessel, a ship dropped out of hyperspace near the outer edge of the
’Hammer
’s sensor range. Beka made it to the cockpit in time to see the comm panel start blinking.
She glanced over at her copilot. “Nyls?”
“Transmitting Space Force identifiers,” he said. “Looks like our rescuers are here.”
“I don’t want a rescue,” she said. “I can rescue myself just fine, thank you. I want somebody who can carry the news back to Galcen.”
She put on the earphone link for the comms. A quick check of lightspeed communications and the relay stations showed nothing on the frequencies except noise and, far away, a program of dance music from somewhere in Galcen Prime. Over on hi-comms there was still nothing.
“Direct hyperspace communications are still down,” she said. “Whatever the Mages are doing, they’re doing it here, too. I can’t believe people aren’t running around screaming and panicking.”
“Planetary hi-comms may not have been down this whole time,” Jessan pointed out. “Just the transmissions from the Net. That’s how I’d do it, with an agent in place to pass along fake reports from the Magezone saying that everything is just fine and dandy and how’s the weather back home.”
“Say something to cheer me up, why don’t you?” said Beka. “We already know the Mageworlders have somebody on our side working for them. And if hi-comms just now went out in Galcen space—”
“Then the Magefleet can’t be all that far behind us.” “Oh, wonderful. And here we are, drifting like a rock. Time to start talking, I think.”
Beka slid aside an access plate on the top surface of the comm panel. Using her fingernails, she teased the datachip bearing
Pride of Mandeyn
’s ID data out of its socket and laid it aside. Then she pulled a second, older chip from its hiding place in the panel’s inner recesses and slotted it back in.
“No more disguises,” she said.
She switched over to lightspeed comms, fed as much power to the output as she could without burning out the plate, and began to broadcast. “Space Force vessel, Space Force vessel, this is Reserve Merchant Vessel
Warhammer
, comm check, over.”
She paused for a response, then repeated the call.
“They’re eight light-minutes out,” she said after the second broadcast. “It’ll take a while to hear back from them. But I wouldn’t be surprised by a rather confused welcome.”
“Absolutely nothing surprises me anymore,” said Jessan. “Satisfy my curiosity, though—why are we using the old call sign? With you and the
’Hammer
both officially dead, anyone with that ID is going to get listed as a fake right away.”
“Maybe,” Beka said. “But I’ll bet the report gets sent straight on to Dadda anyhow. He knows I’m still alive, and using his call sign is one way to get his personal attention.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“So do I.” Beka picked up the link again. “Space Force vessel, Space Force vessel, this is RMV
Warhammer.
Comm check, over.”
Again there was no response. Beka checked the navicomps and the chronometer. Then she glanced at the sensor readouts. “Too slow.”
A short while later, the comm link picked up a voice signal. She put it onto the cockpit speakers so that Jessan wouldn’t have to wonder what was going on.
“Unknown vessel, unknown vessel,” the voice was saying. “This is Republic warship one-zero-niner-seven. Request you identify yourself.”
Beka took a deep breath. “Here we go,” she muttered, and keyed on the link.
“This is Space Force Reserve vessel
Warhammer
,” she told the voice. “Request secure link, captain-to-captain.”
The lightspeed comms beeped twice as the crypto synchronized. Beka opened the link again.
“One-zero-niner-seven,” she said, “this is
Warhammer
. Request you pass to commander, Space Defense Command: attack of Galcen by Mageworlds warfleet imminent, over.”
There was a several-second transmission lag as Beka’s lightspeed signal crossed the distance between the two ships and the warship’s reply came back again.
“This is one-zero-niner-seven actual; who am I talking to?”
She straightened her shoulders. “This is Captain Beka Rosselin-Metadi speaking. The Inner Net is down; the status of the Outer Net is unknown. I need you to patch me directly through to the Commanding General.”
Again the transmission lag and then the voice. “Come dead in space,
Warhammer
, and zero your guns. I intend to board you.”
Beka drew in her breath between her teeth. “I do not intend to be boarded. Read my ID signal. This is a Republic warship, and I need to report to the Commanding General.”
Another, briefer pause—the gap between the two vessels was steadily closing—and then the other ship’s captain replied. “Your ID is not listed.
Warhammer
crashed. Rosselin-Metadi is dead. If you attempt to enter Galcen space you will be destroyed. Come dead in space. Do it now.”
“Oh, dear,” said Jessan. “This isn’t working well at all.”
“They’ve got idiots in the Home Fleet,” she said under her breath. “Idiots. What happened with your secret security message? Why doesn’t he believe us?”
“Well … not everybody has your family’s, ah, casual attitude toward the formalities. He could be one of those captains who believes in doing everything strictly by the book. He’s being cautious, is all. For all he knows, the codes were broken and this is a Mage trick to get control of his ship.”
“Going by the book’ll kill you every time,” she said. “You’re Space Force, Nyls—what’s next?”
The Khesatan looked thoughtful. “What’s wrong with allowing them to board?”
“I don’t like—”
“These are the good guys, remember? Talk with them, show them around—let them get a look at your face, for heaven’s sake! Anybody who ever saw a flatpic of your mother is going to think twice about calling you a liar then.”
“We haven’t got the time for all this nonsense … but you’re probably right.”
She put
Warhammer
into a skew-flip and began to decelerate under main power. Then she unstrapped and stood up.
“You’ve got the conn,” she told Jessan. “Bring LeSoit up here to fill the other seat, and tell your pals we’re ready to receive a boarding party.”
“Where will you be?”
“In my cabin getting dressed,” she said. “If I have to talk us in on the strength of a family resemblance, I’m going to have to look better than this.”
 
WARHAMMER: GALCEN PATROL ZONE RSF NAVERSEY: THE OUTER NET GALCEN: THE RETREAT
 
T
HE COMMANDER of 1097 didn’t seem in a hurry to rendezvous with the
’Hammer
and come aboard. Beka rushed her own shower-and-change as much as she dared—getting her long hair back to its natural pale yellow from Tarnekep Portree’s nondescript brown was a finicky process, but one she couldn’t omit—and then got on the intraship link to the cockpit.
“What’s the status on our visitor?” she asked.
“Still not here, Captain,” Jessan’s voice replied from the bulkhead speaker. “He’s doing everything by the book, just like I said—approaching at moderate speed, then standing off and observing through active scanners.”
“Damn.” She bit her lip. “Patch me through to him, right now.”
“Aye, Captain.”
Beka waited for the double beep and said, “One-zero-niner-seven this is
Warhammer
. There are people
dying
to buy us the time you’re wasting! Rosselin-Metadi, out.”
She slapped the link closed and turned back to the cabin mirror for a final check. Tarnekep Portree hadn’t vanished completely—the Mandeynan starpilot had been her alter ego for too long—but she’d done the best she could, swapping Portree’s lace-trimmed finery for plain free-spacer’s gear and omitting the scarlet eye patch altogether. Her hair hung loose; she scowled at it for a moment, then began separating it into strands for braiding. She still remembered the pattern, or her fingers did, which came to the same thing, and soon she had a coronet of multiple braids arranged in the old Entiboran style.
All I need is the goddamned iron crown … .
She left the captain’s cabin and strode into the ’
Hammer
’s common room. Nyls Jessan was already there, leaning against the bulkhead with folded arms and a fine air of unconcern that she might have believed if she hadn’t looked at his eyes first.
“Where’s Ignac’?” she demanded.
“Waiting at the airlock to receive our visitors when they decide to show up.”
“Good,” she said. She was pacing by now, back and forth from the acceleration couches to the mess table. “So what the hell is keeping the bastards?”
“Patience,” Jessan murmured, “patience. We’re in the Galcen control zone now, and there’s a certain formality here that you don’t find in the frontier worlds—”
Beka snarled. Before she could say anything, the intraship comm link crackled open and LeSoit’s voice came over the bulkhead speaker. “Boarding party inbound, Captain.”
She forced herself to stop pacing and wait. Three minutes later by her chronometer, LeSoit ushered in the boarding party—an officer and two senior enlisted, just like at the Net. The leader of the team, a full lieutenant this time, gave Beka a dazzling parade-ground salute.
“Captain, the commanding officer of my vessel extends an invitation to you and your second-in-command to meet with him aboard our craft.”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Permission to speak freely?” the lieutenant said.
“Granted,” she said tightly.
“Then … I’m afraid you don’t, Captain.”
She drew a long breath, then let it out again. “Very well. LeSoit!”
“Captain.”
“Take care of the ship while I’m gone.”
“Aye, Captain.”
LeSoit left for the cockpit, and Beka turned back to the waiting lieutenant. “Let’s go.”
In the company of the boarding party, Beka and Jessan made their way through the
’Hammer
’s airlock to the shuttle. After a brief crossing to the Republic warship, they soon found themselves being ushered into the captain’s mess. The captain was there before them, sitting at the table with a couple of other officers.
He rose as they came into the mess and gestured them into chairs. “I’m sorry about this,” he said as he took his own seat again, “but a face-to-face conference seemed to be best. The open comm circuits aren’t really suited—”
“Right,” Beka cut in. “Listen to me. The Mageworlders have broken the Inner Net, and they were attacking the Outer Net as we passed through. And that was two weeks ago.”
“You made the transit from the Net in just two weeks?”
He sounded dubious. She pressed her lips together and met his gaze without blinking.
“Yes.”
“You didn’t bother to use hi-comms? And the commander of the Net Patrol Fleet didn’t use them either?”
Jessan answered for her this time. “Hi-comms are down,” he said. “Test them for yourself.”
The captain looked at the lieutenant who had escorted them over from
Warhammer
. The lieutenant nodded and left.
“We will check, of course,” said the captain. He leaned back in his chair and put the tips of his fingers together. “While we’re waiting for confirmation on the hi-comms—what exactly is your request? Your initial message stated mechanical breakdown. Do you require transit to an inhabited world? If so, regulations require that you be charged for the passage, unless you can prove yourself destitute.”
“I don’t need a transit to anywhere, thank you,” Beka said. “I’m in the process of making voyage repairs right now. I do need you to carry word of the Mage breakthrough to Galcen.”
The captain looked at her. “Let me get this straight. You have traveled here from the Net much faster than possible; you have made initial contact under a false ID; and you want me to put the whole Space Force onto high alert on your word alone?”
Beka clenched her fists.
I’ve killed people for less than what this son of a bitch doesn’t even know he’s doing.
“I
am
Beka Rosselin-Metadi,” she said, “and I want you to give me a direct line to my father. Let me talk to the Commanding General, and we’ll see whose word is and isn’t any good around here. And while you’re thinking about it—ask yourself what happens if the rest of my story checks out too.”
The pause that followed seemed to stretch out forever. At last Jessan broke the silence.
“A moment, Captain,” he said. “I am Lieutenant Commander Nyls Jessan, SFMS, lineal number five eight niner niner six three. I am TAD to Intelligence, on detached duty in the Magezone. I have a Link-level clearance. May I have a word alone with you and your security manager?”
A buzzer sounded. The warship’s captain picked up a handset. “Down? Very well. Have Mr. Yeldin report to the captain’s mess, and keep on trying.” He turned to the other two officers in the mess. “Please escort Captain—ah—Captain Rosselin-Metadi to the wardroom.”
Beka and the two officers stood and left. Just outside the door to the captain’s mess she almost ran into a third officer hurrying the other way—probably the “Mr. Yeldin” who’d been summoned earlier. The wardroom wasn’t far from the captain’s mess; Beka had no sooner arrived and been offered a cup of cha’a when the attention signal sounded.
“All officers not actually on watch, muster in the wardroom.”
The captain of one-zero-niner-seven arrived a moment later himself, accompanied by Jessan and the other officer, whom Beka presumed was the security manager. The captain gestured to an ensign with supply corps tabs on her uniform.
“Please escort Captain Rosselin-Metadi and Commander Jessan back to their vessel,” he said. “Let them take the shuttle alone.”
“Thank you, Captain,” Jessan said, and they followed the ensign out.
Beka didn’t say anything until they were back onto the shuttle and headed for
Warhammer
. Then she turned to Jessan.
“All right, Nyls—what did you tell that guy? He looked like he’d seen a ghost.”
“Nothing much,” said Jessan. “I just filled him in on a few truths. At the same time, he discovered for himself that he had no communications. The combination proved irresistible.”
LeSoit was waiting for them in the airlock vestibule. “Did you see what that bugger did?” he demanded. “He was already on a run-to-jump before you got halfway back—left his shuttle with us, too. I hope he doesn’t expect us to pay for it.”
Jessan raised an eyebrow. “Pay for it? Surely not. Neither the captain nor I instructed him to abandon the boarding craft—we merely impressed on him the seriousness of the situation.”
“Now that you two have gotten the pleasantries out of the way,” Beka said, “let’s turn to. We have some hyperspace engines to repair.”
 
Llannat was moving through the ShadowDance exercises as best she could in the cramped space of RSF
Naversey
’s passenger compartment when the bulkhead speaker crackled to life.
“All hands secure your personal belongings and strap in. Dropping out of hyperspace in about five minutes.”
She was surprised by the announcement; none of the passengers aboard
Naversey
had been expecting dropout for at least another day. Even in a fast courier, one of the speediest ships the Space Force owned, such an early arrival meant that the crew had been pushing things the whole way. And courier schedules were grim enough—the pilot and copilot generally stood watch-and-watch during the entire run as a matter of course—that nobody was going to make one even tighter without a command from above.
Finding that derelict Deathwing must have put everybody into serious panic, Llannat thought. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the top brass moving so fast over something that isn’t a shooting matter.
She made certain that her carrybag was properly stashed in the luggage compartment, went back to her acceleration couch, and strapped herself in. Around her in the passenger cabin, the others were doing the same thing. She knew all her fellow-passengers by surname at least by now, after the enforced intimacy of such a long transit: E’Patu and Rethiel, the two warrants; Lury, the med service captain; Govantic, the data specialist; and the linguist-historian Vinhalyn.
The bulkhead speaker crackled again. “Stand by for hyperspace translation and deceleration.”
The announcement was a formality; Llannat knew that the pilot’s status board would have flashed an alert signal if anything in the passenger compartment was unsecured. Nevertheless, she checked her safety webbing one more time just to make certain.
“Dropout in ten seconds,” said the speaker. “Five seconds. Four. Three. Two. One. Now.”
Llannat felt the faint shock of discontinuity that marked the transition from hyperspace to the normal universe. Once out in realspace again,
Naversey
began decelerating smoothly. From here it shouldn’t take long to rendezvous with RSF
Ebannha
and the Deathwing.
I hope they let us unpack and eat a proper meal before we start investigating, she thought. I’m getting tired of low-mass space rations. And I seriously need a shower. And laundry … .
“Senior line officer present, please come to the bridge.”
Startled out of her reverie, Llannat glanced first at the bulkhead speaker and then at her fellow-passengers, trying to determine who was meant by the summons. She herself was out on two counts—as a member of the medical service, she was support, not line; and as an Adept she was barred from holding formal rank.
Lury’s out, too,
she thought,
and both warrants. That leaves our two reservists. Lieutenants, both of them—this could get sticky.
By now the others had all worked through the same or similar lines of reasoning, and Govantic and Vinhalyn were eyeing each other speculatively. The younger man started to unstrap the safety webbing on his acceleration couch.
“Excuse me,” Vinhalyn said quietly.
Govantic paused. “You heard what the man said. I’m wanted up in the cockpit.”
“Not necessarily,” said Vinhalyn. “Our pilot called for the senior line officer present—and since I served in the late War, I believe my commission predates yours.”
Govantic sank back onto his couch, looking disgruntled. Lieutenant Vinhalyn unstrapped and made his way forward through the vacuum-tight door to the cockpit, leaving an uneasy silence behind him. Several minutes passed, and then the bulkhead speaker came on again.
“Mistress Hyfid, please come to the bridge.”
Llannat wondered nervously what the pilot—
and Vinhalyn
, she reminded herself;
nobody called you until he was up there
—would be wanting an Adept for, out here in the middle of nowhere. Obediently, she got out of her seat and went forward. The vacuum-tight doors opened for her and sighed shut again as she entered the cockpit.
 
Please come up to the Retreat at once. There is something I have to show you. Ransome.

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