The Phoenix in Flight (25 page)

Brandon had withdrawn, isolating himself from their
conversation, an acceptance of the Archon’s unspoken rebuke. Sorrow contracted
Omilov’s heart. He had lost Gelasaar, and now, it seemed, events were
conspiring to wrench the closest of the Panarch’s sons away as well.

The Archon did not look at Brandon. He merely waited
politely, his demeanor neutral, and as Brandon did not continue, he said, “
Korion
has nothing to fear from them—three destroyers are the minimum needed to take
on a battlecruiser. They’ve lost one and are pinned against the planet. And a
well-tuned ruptor is a drive-smasher—they’re going nowhere. Dahawi’s probably
dispatching the boarding lances right now—he’s a stickler for Local Justice.”

“What will you do to them—” Osri stopped abruptly. “Pardon,
Your Grace...”

All human sound in the defense room ceased as a chain of
greenish balls of light grew with blinding speed from the long, narrow snout of
the Rifter ship.

In the other windows the cruiser was momentarily sheathed in
a flaring ellipse of violet light, then the far side erupted in a graceful
flower of shattered metal and a fountain of actinic light. The Archon’s breath
rasped in his throat in an inhalation of disbelief. Cracks began to rip outward
through the hull and, with awful slowness, a growing glow from within the
Korion
transformed the battlecruiser into a glaring holocaust that blacked out the
entire viewscreen for seconds. When the screen cleared, it revealed a
sharp-edged sphere of light which filled with a delicate lacework of
fluorescing gas as it dissipated against the stars.

A brief pulse of stunning pain lanced through Omilov’s left
arm, radiating down to the tip of his ring finger; he leaned heavily on the
railing of the dais, turning clumsily to look at the Archon.

The Archon’s face might have been carved of obsidian—the
frozen image of deep grief and disbelief. “One missile... from a destroyer?”
The Archon’s voice was edged with pain, his body tight with shock. “A fluke—a
defect in the teslas...” His voice was that of a man groping in the dark,
fearing what he might lay hands on, but needing something to hold onto.

The activity of the room was slowly recommencing, but now it
seemed more frantic, less purposeful. Sudden bursts of loud speech could be
heard but not distinguished.

“Your Grace.” Bikara’s voice was soft, hesitant. Her severe
features were softened by concern as she looked at the Archon. “There is a
communication from the Rifter captain.”

The Archon stared at her, then straightened up. Decision
sharpened his voice. “Put it on the screen.”

The Rifter’s harsh face was smudged and sweat-streaked. Twin
runnels of crusting blood clung to his neck below his ears, and the collar of his
tunic was blood-blotched. Behind him gray smoke eddied, a pink slime clung to
every surface. On the deck a woman’s body lay in horrible disarray, its limbs
bent sharply in far too many places. The people in the defense room could
clearly hear agonized screams, suddenly stilled by a sharp hiss. Hreem glared
savagely at the Archon.

“Round one for me, you miserable chatzer. Your precious
cruiser is photons now. You want it easy or hard?”

The Archon studied the Rifter’s face for a tense pause, then
raised his voice slightly, though Omilov saw his hands gripped tightly behind
his back. “A planet is considerably larger than a battlecruiser,” replied the
Archon in the patient tones of one explaining the obvious to someone with a
severe head injury.

The insult took a moment to penetrate. The Rifter was
apparently not very sensitive to tonal invective, but it was plain to everyone
on the Charvann end of the beam. “Perhaps you’d like me to draw you a picture?”
the Archon continued after a carefully calculated pause.

Laughter rolled across the defense room. Omilov understood
that the Archon was talking to the Rifter only for the effect he could have on
morale.

Hreem appeared to hear only the surface meaning of the
Archon’s retort, but his face flushed purple and his eyes bulged. His ears
started bleeding again.

“He looks like an Abilard Polliwog that’s swallowed its own
nose-stalk!” a young monitor yelled, to raucous, angry laughter. A corner of
the Archon’s mouth twitched.

“Have it your way, Faseult.”
Hreem snarled.

The crowd of monitors hissed at the gross insult of an
inferior’s use of the Archon’s family name for address—the Rifter captain knew
something of Panarchic courtesy, if only to spit on it.

“Just sit down there, waiting for help that isn’t coming.
Your Shield’ll be down sooner than you think—and maybe I’ll even stop firing
then.” The Rifter grinned and relaxed back into his command pod. “I look
forward to seeing how many knots I can put in your legs and arms. More I think
than the ruptors put in poor Garesh.” He jerked a thumb at the distorted corpse
and laughed, then winced and rubbed one ear. He leaned forward.

“By the way, Your Fanciness,” he drawled in a wiredream
parody of an aristocratic accent, “I’d recommend you have the Krysarch on hand
when I land. Otherwise I might feel compelled to zap open a Sync or two, or
crater a few cities, bein’ as how I’d be awful disappointed not to meet a Royal
Arkad.” He snickered. “It’s one of my life’s ambitions.”

“You really ought to stop sniffing slag-solvent, Captain,”
replied the Archon. “These delusions certainly won’t do much for your social
life.” The Archon’s smooth voice carried an overtone of insulting helpfulness.
“Let me suggest an ambition more within your grasp. You’ll be up there for a
while...
why don’t you spend the time learning to breathe in a vacuum.
That’s a skill you’ll need, and sooner than you think.” The Archon jerked his
hand and Bikara cut the connection.

The room rang with cheering laughter. The Archon strode up
to the railing of the dais and leaned forward, intent determination in every
line of his body. For the first time Omilov looked down at the monitors not as
an amorphous group, but as individuals. They were a mix of military and
civilian, more of the latter. The few military uniforms were worn by grizzled
or gray heads. Charvann was probably an easy duty station, so far from the
Tetrad Centrum and lacking any conceivable military importance. Many of the
civilians were young, and Omilov grieved for the terror and disbelief in the
wide gazes, the compressed lips as they gazed up at the Archon.

Omilov watched Tanri Faseult meet each pair of those eyes.
If he didn’t know them all personally, at least he knew their names, and as
Omilov stood there gripping the impossible in his hands, he watched his old
friend trying to will courage and faith into his staff.

“By now couriers are on the way for help, bearing news of
what has happened. Even if that missile was not a fluke, no weapon, however
advanced, will be much help to a band of Rifters facing a forewarned
battlefleet. We need only wait and hold out, and I doubt not that we will. It’s
in your hands now, my friends.” He paused. “Especially you men and women
monitoring the Shield controls. Feel the thoughts of your friends, here and all
over Charvann. Feel their strength, their endurance, their hope. These are all
yours, freely and fervently given as you play the greatest game of skill there
is for the greatest stakes that can be wagered. Alpheios held out for three
weeks before help arrived—you’ve all seen chips of the monitors there balancing
the teslas against all that the Shiidra could do. We on Charvann—three
days
from
help—face only Rifters.”

He straightened up as the men and women below cheered again,
a sound that diminished rapidly when the room quivered to an impalpable blow.
It was not a disturbance of the air, but of the very substance of the walls and
floor and of their bodies. The main viewscreen flared as most of its windows
pixilated into meaningless hash or went dark. Red lights sprang up on some of
the consoles below.

Omilov looked down at the Heart of Kronos with a sense of
sick foreboding, then up at the consternation on Bikara’s face, red-lit by the
angry glare of trouble on her console. The Archon strode over to her.

“They’ve fired on the Shield.” Her voice quavered slightly.

“Power reading?”

She was silent almost too long. “It’s... it shouldn’t be
possible, Your Grace.” Her fingers trembled hesitantly on the pads, horror
distorting her expression.

“How so?”

“The readings are several orders of magnitude beyond the
theoretical maximum. At that power level, the computer indicates a probable
Shield life of thirty hours. Severe crustal disturbances within twelve to
sixteen hours.” She hesitated. “That’s assuming we can keep him from detecting
Charvann’s fundamental resonance.”

The Archon asked very quietly, “And if we cannot?”

Bikara’s voice was hoarse and almost too faint to hear.
“Eight hours to Shield failure. Within half that time most major faults will
likely have triggered, and long-term volcanic eruptions will be unavoidable,
Your Grace.”

The Archon was very still. He did not even seem to be
breathing. Then he scanned past Omilov and Osri to Brandon, whose face was
pale, tight around the eyes.

The Archon turned back to Omilov, gesturing to the little
box. “You indicated you thought this might have some connection to the attack.”

Omilov snapped open the box and dropped the Heart of Kronos
into the Archon’s upturned palm. The Archon’s arm twitched convulsively as the
little sphere dropped with blurring speed into his hand, as his mind and
muscles registered the sphere’s strangeness his upper lip lengthened into a
wince of vertigo.

“You said this was stolen from the Shrine Planet?” He jerked
his hand back and forth a few times with an abstracted air, testing the
sphere’s feeling. “It seems to be inertialess. What is it?”

“As I told these two young men, I don’t know what it is or
what its purpose was, but it is an artifact of the Ur—one that, according to
its guardians in the Shrine, holds the potential for incredible destruction.
Their name for it is unpronounceable—but it has become known as the Heart of
Kronos.”

“The Suneater...
ittala Kronos karree ‘halal
teminandan...”
Bikara’s voice was shaky as she explained. “A legend
of my people. Kronos ate his children as they were born, until Dyauspitar
overthrew him and time began. At the end, Kronos will return, devouring suns
and bringing the final darkness.”

Another shudder rumbled through the defense room, but fewer
trouble lights lit. Some of the windows on the main screen were back up. One of
them showed the malevolent form of the Rifter destroyer oriented on the planet
below. As the Archon conferred low-voiced with Bikara over her console, Omilov
turned to Osri. “What are they seeing?” he whispered.

Osri whispered back, “They’re watching the reports from
them.” He dipped his chin toward the techs below. “Shield Control are adjusting
the output of the teslas to disguise the harmonics that would reveal the critical
frequency of the Shield.”

Half-remembered lessons from his university years welled up
but Omilov put them aside, returning to the field of knowledge where he was
least ignorant of all those present, rather than most ignorant. He found both
the Archon and Bikara facing him.

“The name Kronos dates back to before the Exile,” said
Omilov. “This artifact was sent to me by an ex-student of mine who is now in
charge of the Qoholeth Anachronics Hub.”

“The Hub closest to Dol’jhar.” The Archon looked down at the
little sphere. “And you think that Eusabian wants this badly enough to go to
war again?”

Omilov glanced toward the ceiling. “That ship up there
apparently commands more firepower than any ship in the Navy, and I do not
think there is any technological breakthrough that could explain that.
Certainly Dol’jhar has never been noted for its scientific abilities. No, I
fear that Eusabian has found some—device—left behind by Ur, and has armed this
Rifter—and perhaps others—with it. Somehow this thing must be related.”

The Archon was silent for a time, considering. The room
shook again. “It
is
odd that he would choose Charvann as a target—we
have no military significance—unless this Heart of Kronos is very important to
him.”

Decision lifted his face. “Very well, then, we shall deny it
to him, and you with it. Bikara, have the booster field ready a module, maximum
acceleration, and have Shield Control stand by for irising.” Now that he had
found a way to strike back at the overwhelming forces facing him, at least to
the extent of ensuring the failure of their mission, the Archon looked alive
and vital again.

He handed the Heart of Kronos back to Omilov. “You shall
take this to Ares Base. Krysarch Brandon will accompany you. The booster is
very hot, one thousand gees, one percent compensated—it will have you out
beyond radius within thirty seconds. The autopilot will take it from there.”

Omilov shook his head. “Thank you, Your Grace, but my heart
won’t sustain ten gravities. Let my son take it. I really know little more
about it than I’ve told you.”

“Father, no!” Osri came forward and faced the Archon. “Can’t
you give him a slower booster, and use some kind of diversion to draw away the
Rifters?”

“Your concern does you credit, young man, but a slower boost
would leave the Shield irised too long. If a skip-missile hit it during that
time—it will be a touchy operation at that.” He grinned. “There will, however,
be some diversions—some of my ancestors were considerably less trusting than I!
You will go as your father has requested. I will give you a letter of
introduction to Admiral Nyberg—you are credentialed as an navigator, are you
not?” Osri gave a reluctant nod, not taking his gaze from his father. “Good. I
will ask him to give you a position on Ares, if you like.”

Osri stammered his thanks while his father smiled warmly at
him—the offer was virtually the equivalent of a promotion. Ares Base was the
headquarters of the fleet, its location a closely guarded secret. The
competition for postings there was fierce, for service there was widely
regarded as the fast track to higher rank.