The Only Game in the Galaxy (19 page)

M
AXIMUS
suspected manoeuvrings were afoot. He was still reeling. His internal senses jangled like raw nerves scraped with a nail. He’d been unprepared to find Anneke gazing back at him from the Fortress of Kestre, and profoundly disturbed by the implications.

He’d meant what he’d said: they were playthings, their destinies shaped by larger forces, exactly what the Envoy had been preaching these last two years.

His journey through time had changed everything. It had been too purposeful, too – neat.

And now where was the Envoy when Maximus wished to confess his shortsighted sins?

Gone, again. Gone as mysteriously as he’d arrived.

Well, no matter. He’d be back. Meanwhile, the ultimatum was counting down and Anneke was reacting as he’d expected. He knew about the arriving fleet and he knew she had stationed three ships around the solar system, so she had no more idea where it would materialise than he did.

At first, he’d intended to dog her ships with his own, but then he changed his mind. He would trust the Envoy’s Fate and place himself in the hands of
Kadros
…

… he would take up a position blindly within the elliptic, and wait.

If the gods favoured him, they would deliver the prize to his doorstep. If they favoured Anneke, then to hers.

He almost didn’t care.

That was Jeera’s fault. In a few short days she had become an ardent lover, a companion, even – to the limited extent that Maximus was capable – a confidante.

‘Why are you doing this?’ Jeera asked. He was dressing, about to leave the room they shared and head back to the bridge, intending to pick a random spot in the system and move the
Saviour
there.

He stopped.

Jeera pushed on. ‘You have more than most people will ever have in ten lifetimes. You have a third of the old empire fleet, as much wealth as you could want, and you have me. You could give this up, Maxim. You could leave it – peace isn’t a bad thing.’

Maximus stared at her, and swallowed.

Never had he been so tempted. The changes within him, the strange lightening of his mood, the moments of … happiness … swayed him sorely. He searched hard and deep inside himself to find the old hurt, the seeping sore that his childhood had been, the colossal hatred that had infected his whole life.

When he found it and beheld it, it was not as it had been.

‘Come back to bed,’ Jeera said softly, patting the sheets beside her.

He was so tempted … how easy it would be to undress … Let it all go …

With a wrench, he ran from the room. He did not stop running until he had reached the bridge, where he threw himself into the captain’s chair, his shoulders, his whole body, slumping.

‘Order the AI to select a spot randomly and jump there,’ he said harshly. ‘Do it.’

Moments later, the
Saviour
blinked out of existence, reappearing at another point in the system.

Then, like Anneke and her cohorts, Maximus waited.

And as he waited, Jeera’s words chased themselves inside his head, and his resistance weakened.

Two hours later, an hour before Anneke’s time was up, Maximus made a bargain with himself. If the fleet arrived nearest to him, he would continue. If it arrived nearer to one of Anneke’s ships, then he would abandon all his plans and flee with Jeera.

But it seemed the universe was not interested in his happiness.

Maximus navigator reported gravitic distortions.

‘Where?’

‘Section Gamma-6 – ten thousand klicks.’

Maximus groaned. It was on his doorstep.
Kadros
had delivered. He had been so close to leaving.

‘Take us there – but keep your distance! We don’t want to share space/time with another dreadnought.’

There were chuckles around the bridge as the crew moved to comply with his order.

Now the fun began. Whoever secured the arriving fleet would win the war.

The first dreadnought blinked into normal space less than a thousand klicks off their port bow. In rapid succession, several hundred more vessels appeared behind the first. Instantly, an armada of lifeboats, shuttles, scout ships and patrol craft streamed from the
Saviour
’s docking bays, swarming around the new fleet. Meanwhile, ten dreadnoughts detached themselves from their orbit about Se’atma Minor – Maximus did not have enough ‘human’ crew to man more than that. Anneke’s fleet dispatched twenty ships, hurling themselves at that sector of space. Maximus presumed Anneke’s stealth craft were also converging.

Twenty minutes later, the first shots were fired. And shortly after, a fully-fledged space battle began.

Maximus sat back and watched, annoyed that he did not feel elation as the numbers came in, the board blinking from red to green as more and more ships were ‘taken’.

Of course, the real triumph wasn’t in acquiring ships, but in denying them to Anneke. It should have been a triumph, but he felt nothing. He did not have time to ponder the matter.

An alarm blared. ‘Intruders on board!’ the ship’s AI reported. The
Saviour
went automatically to Defcon one.

Maximus checked his blaster, then shoved it savagely back in his holster, and stalked aft. If he could not take satisfaction from the impersonal battle raging outside, maybe he could get it from something more intimate.

‘Secure all decks!’ he shouted over his shoulder to his crew. Then he was gone.

He went first to check on Jeera. He got no further. Anneke Longshadow sat in a corner of their sleeping quarters, holding a blaster. Jeera was unharmed, nor would Anneke have harmed her – Maximus knew. Anneke knew he knew.

When he arrived, the two women were chatting like old friends (Jeera had never mentioned the ‘kiss’ down in the Fortress) though the casual banter did not stop Anneke’s blaster snapping around swiftly to cover Maximus’ entrance.

‘Glad you could join us, Black,’ said Anneke.

Maximus smiled, taking a seat. As far as he could tell, Anneke was alone.

‘Nice move,’ he said.

‘I thought you’d appreciate the unexpected.’

‘Now what?’

‘How about calling off your attack dogs?’

‘Can’t do it. By the way, I take it this whole thing was a set up?’ Anneke said nothing. ‘You weren’t trying to grab the new fleet, were you? You just wanted me distracted.’

‘Better this way. Less strenuous.’

‘What happened to the master key?’

Anneke flinched slightly. Maximus picked up on it. ‘Ah. Stolen.’

Anneke shrugged.

Maximus said, ‘So you don’t have it, otherwise you would have used it. I don’t have it, otherwise I would thrown every ship in my fleet at your flagship, which means –’

‘There’s a third player.’

‘Curiouser and curiouser.’

Anneke reached down to her belt, unclipped something, and tossed it to him. Maximus caught it, held it up and smiled. Handcuffs.

‘Put them on, please,’ said Anneke. Behind her, Jeera shifted position on the bed. ‘Don’t even think about it,’ Anneke said to her.

Maximus said, ‘Jeera, stay out of this – I don’t want you getting hurt.’ He slipped the cuffs on and clicked them shut.

Anneke stood. ‘Jeera, nothing personal, but you need to go to sleep for awhile.’ She turned her weapon on the girl and fired a short blast. Jeera slumped. Anneke allowed Maximus to check her pulse. Satisfied, he let himself be herded out of the apartment and down the passage outside.

Esprin Harbage watched Anneke and Maximus leave the ship. He could have stopped them easily. He had the element of surprise and knew Anneke would not fire on him or, if she did, it would be to stun only. He had little to lose, and much to gain.

Maximus might be grateful, so grateful that Esprin pictured him handing over the cure to the slave narcotic that coursed in Esprin’s veins, patting him on the back for a job well done, and setting him free.

Obsessed with this notion, Esprin trailed them through the backways of the ship, even anticipating Anneke’s course so that twice he got ahead of her, waited for her, gun out (on stun – Esprin was no killer), his finger nervously on the trigger, sweat making the gunmetal slick in his grasp. He shivered at the thought of what he might do.

But Esprin never made that move.

Deep down, he was a coward and he knew it, a coward born into a long line of heroes he could never live up to. But doing nothing as Anneke marched Maximus from the ship in handcuffs not only felt good, but was his own small act of heroism, for what it was worth. After all, not rescuing Black was a giant risk in itself. He had an uncanny knack of escaping and would surely seek his revenge.

Maximus felt serene, as if all responsibility had been taken from him. He’d never felt such – fatalism – before. Part of him was shocked, wondering if he’d been drugged, a neuronotic perhaps, surreptitiously administered.

He watched Anneke from the corner of his eye, appraising her. She was confident, but tensely aware, reading her environment and him with constant sweeps of internal scans as well as more subtle senses that born agents came with.

He had no doubt she was just as aware of Esprin as he was. Poor Esprin, so bumbling, so tied up in knots, so desperate to do –
something
.

Maximus did not know whether Esprin would act or not. This was a nodal point the Envoy spoke of, a moment that could change history, but which seemed inconsequential at the time.

If Esprin stopped Anneke, Maximus would remain on his ship and take the actions he had planned.

If Esprin did not stop her, Maximus would end up a prisoner inside the Fortress of Kestre and his second-in-command would blow the building into the next dimension, whether Maximus was in it or not. Considering his popularity aboard ship, Maximus thought there was
more
chance the
Saviour
’s captain would order a direct hit if Maximus was in the Fortress.

Doubtless Esprin wasn’t seeing the larger picture, nor appreciating the nodal nature of what he did or did not do. Was Esprin part of Maximus’ fate? Was Maximus about to miss his destiny because of the poor fool?

It was rather amusing.

‘Glad you’re enjoying yourself,’ said Anneke.

Maximus could tell she was spooked by his mirth, unable to read him: was he messing with her head, implanting imaginary fears, or did he really have a plan, a backup to being captured on his own ship in the middle of a space battle? Unlikely, but he’d done such things in the past, out-thinking her and her comrades …

On the other hand, if he could analyse Esprin’s stumbling bewilderment then so could Anneke. She probably found her fellow agent’s dilemma sad. Each to their own.

As Anneke prodded Maximus through the airlock leading to her stealth ship, he realised that Esprin had made his decision. He called back over his shoulder, ‘I’ll deal with you on my return.’

Twenty minutes later Maximus was disembarking on the rooftop of the Fortress of Kestre under heavy guard. By the time he was ushered into the chamber of the war council, the ultimatum timeline had run out.

And with the perfect timing of fateful drama, he was just in time to see the Quesadan fleet heave to above Se’atma Minor.

‘W
HAT
are they doing?’ Anneke asked, puzzled.

The scene, as relayed from orbital scanners, showed the Quesadan fleet dispatching a multitude of shuttles and scout ships to the fleet of dreadnoughts, already swelled in number by the newly arrived dreadnoughts from the third weapons cache, giving Maximus sixty percent of all the Demon class vessels.

Anneke slapped her forehead and turned to Maximus, who was grinning.

‘They were unmanned!’ she exclaimed. ‘They were sitting up there unmanned!’

‘You could have wiped us out any time you wanted,’ said Maximus.

‘I don’t get it,’ Herik said.

‘He never had a full crew,’ Anneke explained. ‘He didn’t have time to man up. All he had were bays full of maniacal Omegans – and they could hardly be conscripted into running a ship.’

Arvakur shook his head in disbelief. ‘It was a bluff?’

‘The Tactics of Mistake,’ said Maximus. ‘You people prefer to talk first and shoot later. I took advantage of that.’

‘Great,’ said Anneke.

A sub-lieutenant raced in to make her report to Anneke. ‘City is evacuated as far as possible, Commander. Military units are in place, but a number of diehards have remained, as well as local militias – hasty set-ups, if you ask me, but what they lack in coordination they make up for in determination.’

The sub-lieutenant piped up: ‘The Fortress of Kestre shall not fall, but for the breaking of faith. And whosoever rules here, rules everywhere …’

‘Quite,’ said Maximus. ‘Even so, if I were you –’

An explosion rocked the room. ‘Report!’ yelled Anneke.

‘They’ve begun bombing the city,’ said a comm officer.

‘They’ll be landing troops soon,’ said Anneke. ‘Until then, the Fortress can stave off any attack. Herik, we’ll need your men in the streets as soon as the bombing stops.’

‘They’re ready,’ he said quietly.

Anneke looked at him, sad. ‘It’s just one long battle for you, isn’t it?’

Herik smiled ruefully. ‘A good soldier never expects to outlive the day. Avoids disappointment.’

There were barks of laughter around the room.

Anneke ordered Maximus to be locked up in the most secure, neutronium-plated field-enhanced lockup the Fortress possessed. She also ordered a complete examination of him: x-ray, ultrascan, blood work including DNA, dental matrix, the works. Whatever else happened, Black was going to be one well-documented inmate!

But probably not very happy.

Two hours later, after intensive bombing, Quesadan transports grounded all over the city. Huge metal doors fell outwards with a hollow clang that echoed through empty streets, and out streamed the baying hordes of Omegans.

Watching on a viewscreen from the war room, Anneke reflected that names had a peculiar power, even the power to affect destiny. The Omegans might be the symbol of the end.

The thought made her shiver. If madness and deformity won this day, she wasn’t sure she wanted to live through it.

As she watched the screen, she saw the first engagement between Omegans and Herik’s forces. The Omegans were fearless, and difficult to kill. Each was worth at least three armed fighters. It wasn’t long before the streets ran with blood.

A noise behind Anneke made her turn. She froze.

Standing between two guards, a squad of soldiers at his back, their guns trained on him, was the Envoy.

Alisk loped down the street.

She had joined the first surge of Omegans into the city charging the ranks of defenders, slaying and slashing, filled with hatred and anger, wanting to kill, to obliterate all who stood in her path. Pulsing in her brain, driving her onwards, was the thought that she must get to the Fortress –
take the Fortress of Kestre, take the Fortress of Kestre …

But as her bloodlust was sated, another deeper idea intruded:
yes, the Fortress – go to the Fortress – go to Him
…

It was hard to think clearly. For long periods of time that intrusive voice in her head was drowned out, surfacing only at moments of panting stillness, momentary lulls in the battle.

With a hundred others, Alisk crested a rise and saw before them, towering over the rooftops, the unmistakable skyline of the Fortress. A howl went up, a collective baying from a hundred monstrous throats, a sound heard throughout the city, sending fear shafting into the staunchest heart. Alisk bayed as loudly as the rest, but there was a joy in her the other creatures lacked.

He is there
, came the thought.
Go to Him
.

She burst from the ranks, charging ahead of the others, who followed on her heels as their leader. Along the street she ran, losing sight of the Fortress now and then, but knowing where it was, as a planet knows its suns.

There was more fighting, more death, more blood. Each vanquished foe brought her closer and closer. And as the Fortress loomed nearer, so did that other thought in her mind.

Not far now … He is there …

‘Why I should trust you?’ said Anneke.

‘Because it was me who stole the master key from your ship.’

Anneke stiffened. ‘You stole it? That’s supposed to make me trust you?’

‘I could have given it to Black. I did not.’

‘Well, thanks. Mind telling me why?’

‘The time of
Kadros
is at hand,’ said the Envoy. ‘It is time for the One to step forward and seize the threads of history, wield them as they choose – to bind, or to unravel. My people are the Caretakers. We have watched human progress for millennia.’

‘Why?’

‘Humans are shapers. They shape time through their unique consciousness, which the cosmos has ceded to them. We believe that humans
create
time, perhaps
space
, and that is why the cosmos holds them so dear, for they made the cosmos that makes them!’

‘And
Kadros
?’

‘Is the Shaper of shapers – the one who will preserve or destroy.’

‘Do you know who this is?’

The Envoy duplicated a human shrug. ‘In our first conceit, we believed it was the human known as Maximus Black, and we aided him. But we were blinded. Our species is time-spanning – we exist in all parts of our timeline at the same time, beginning, middle and end. And yet there are blind spots, places we are not permitted to see, in case we interfere poorly.’

‘Black isn’t connected to
Kadros
?’

‘We are not sure. We have reinterpreted a word in our language differently than before. The word is
kedra
– it meant the moment of instilling, when the One steps forward …’

‘And now?’

The incongruous shrug. ‘An older, more primitive meaning of
kedra
we discarded long ago is similar to your word
three
.’

Anneke stared at the Envoy. ‘Three?
Three?
That’s as clear as mud.’

The Envoy said nothing.

‘What does it mean?’ Anneke asked with a sigh. She felt like one of Socrates’ students, in the dim dawn of time: annoyed
and
frustrated.

‘We don’t know,’ said the Envoy, anti-climactically. ‘Perhaps three must step forward, three who are one. Perhaps there are three, but only one can shape
Kadros
. We don’t know.’

‘And that’s why you’re here? I’m one of the three?’

The Envoy nodded. ‘I am here to bear witness, so that this moment is not lost. I am in other places – and other times. All of us are watching, waiting.’

Creepy
, thought Anneke, but she wished there wasn’t a war, wished she could pursue this, and spend time digging into the meaning and implications of a species who spanned time, existing in all times simultaneously. In a few short minutes of conversation with the alien, she had learned more about the possibilities of time than in all her training at RIM.

Did humans create the cosmos? If so, which was the chicken, which the egg?

But she had no time to think.

She had the Envoy shackled, both mechanically and via field distortion, though she had a prickling notion that if he wished to free himself, he could. He had not been caught by accident. The alien emanated a deadliness she had seldom sensed in another, even Black.

As she returned her attention to the battle raging outside the walls of the Fortress, she could not get the notion of the alien’s
three
out of her mind. If she and Black were two members of the trinity, who was the third, and when would they make
their
move?

For the next three hours, Anneke waged war, conducting the battle as a maestro might conduct an orchestra, bringing forces up to repel a hard charge by the Omegans, blocking streets – even if it meant detonating buildings – laying a minefield of field-manipulating traps, sowing gas-narcotic bombs to knock out anyone they came into contact with (friend or foe, and therefore used sparingly and with care), reinforcing one segment of the front while pulling back from another – often as a feint, or a double-feint.

As she battled and strategised, a strange sensation pervaded her: certainty, as if she knew ahead of time which way the dice would fall, and could act before they hit. All her decisions, even the bold crazy ones, worked. She felt gripped by a foreknowing she had never experienced before. She caught the alien staring at her. He nodded, once, as if he knew what was happening.

With her odd knowingness, she was able to maintain the front line, to slow the attackers, longer than she could have otherwise. Many lives were spared.

But with slow inevitability, the defensive front fell back towards the outer walls of the Fortress.

It was only a matter of time before the Omegans would reach the wall and breach it. Constructed of neutronium lattice, the inner wall (the outermost boundary of the Fortress when she had visited a thousand years ago) would hold longer. Only the pure neutronium metal was stronger. Even blasters could not penetrate neutronium lattice.

It would buy them time, she knew, but not victory.

Late in the afternoon, good news arrived. The RIM forces sent by Jake Ferren decelerated into the system, followed closely by the fleet dispatched by Bodanis and Sasume, who personally led them. Anneke greeted the reinforcements with heartfelt thanks, and deployed them on the three-dimensional chessboard of war.

Since the ground assault, a fierce naval battle had raged in orbit directly over the Fortress. Several dreadnoughts on either side had been destroyed or crippled and six had been shot down in flames, crashing outside the realms of the city, two into the ocean.

Neither side had enough familiarity with the old empire hardware to use the dreadnoughts to their full capacities, but the ships were such formidable monsters that even children at the fire-control stations could have wreaked havoc.

The arrivals sent a shock into the attackers, and heartened the hard-pressed defenders. The front line surged outwards again, returning to where it had been two hours earlier. It also bought relief time. Anneke had been going all day, without a break. Now she handed over her tactical board over to Arvakur, who had shown strategic brilliance, and a local commander who knew the terrain. They had been watching her moves, providing backup, and handling second-level dispositions.

Anneke used her time to see Deema.