The Rifter's Covenant (10 page)

“Chatzing
generators—why didn’t you—” Hreem began,

Erbee shook his
head violently. “Nobody knew about ’em. We got no skip. They got us. They got
us all.” Erbee’s voice scaled up high and raw.

Norio vibrated
harshly as he breathed in the mountain of terror on the bridge. Hreem shook him
off, a pulse of irritation at Norio’s pleasure. He is what he is. “Carcason!”
Hreem glared at the navigator. “Get us out of here!”

As the
Flower of Lith
accelerated, turning away
from the planet and heading back toward translunar space, Dyasil’s console
bleeped again.

“Message incoming
from Barca.”

Hreem bit down on
an oath. “Put the chatzers on.” When the head and shoulders of a Barcan
troglodyte windowed up, Hreem snarled, “The Lord of Vengeance’ll slag your
chatzing planet down to the core for pulling something like this. We’ll—”

The Barcan had not
waited for the light-speed delay to begin speaking. “Captain, we mean you no
harm, but during our negotiations with the Lord Eusabian, we cannot permit
ships armed with skipmissiles to remain in orbit around Barca. So, since you
cannot leave . . .” Here Hreem’s tirade reached him and he held
up his hands placatingly without pausing “...being under the orders of the
Avatar as we understand, we have disabled your skipmissiles.” He smiled thinly.
“And your fiveskips. Do not, I beg you, attempt to leave the resonance field.
The consequences will not be to your liking.”

The window blanked
and dwindled away, revealing a view of space once more. A faint dot of light
denoted a ship racing for the edge of the resonance field.

“
Scourge of God,
” Erbee said, identifying
it as one of Hreem’s ships, posted to him from the remnants of Charterly’s
fleet.

A thread of light
lanced from the outer moon and transfixed the fleeing ship, which vanished in a
glare of light that overloaded the screen. When it cleared, the view revealed a
misshapen clot of flaring plasma fleeing into translunar space.

“Hell,” Erbee
breathed, his buck teeth prominent as his mouth hung open. “Cap’n, the aperture
on that lazplaz must’ve been at least ten meters.”

Hreem’s shoulders
slumped. Only a battlecruiser could stand up to a weapon that size; a
destroyer’s shields would be precisely as effective as a used ass-wipe.
“Carcason,” he said heavily, “maintain an orbit within the resonance field.
Keep us away from the edge.”

Norio dared not
touch him in this mood; anything could trigger a volcanic rage that even he
himself might suffer from.

Dyasil’s console
signaled another message.

The screen windowed
up Neyvla-khan, his eyes angry, but a hard, tight smile of triumph curling his
thin lips. “My condolences on the loss of your ally, Brother Hreem. I sincerely
hope—”

Another window
popped up. It was the Barcan again. “Captain Hreem, we would not have you think
we play favorites.”

Another slug of near-lightspeed
plasma, its energy focused by a coaxial beam of coherent light, reached out
from the moon, and Neyvla-khan hissed with rage as one of his ships vanished in
a flare of light.

Norio felt Hreem’s
joy at his enemy’s discomfiture suddenly push him back into the familiar anger
he used to energize himself. “Dyasil, get me Barrodagh,” Hreem yelled, as on
the viewscreen, Neyvla-khan turned away from the image and issued a similar
command. Then the com from
Scorpion
cut off.

He drummed on his
pod arm, ignoring Norio’s tentative touch, until the sallow, lined features of
Eusabian’s lieutenant appeared.

Hreem started
shouting. Barrodagh winced. “Shut up,” he said flatly. His cheek twitched,
pulling one corner of his mouth up momentarily.

Startled by Barrodagh’s
strange demeanor and the utter lack of respect, Hreem fell silent.

After a few terse
questions, Barrodagh brought his coded link to Neyvla-khan into another window,
and demanded the Barcan official be linked into the conversation, too. A
strange, lop-sided conversation ensued, the combination of hyperwave instantaneity
between Barrodagh and the two Rifter ships combining with the differing light-speed
lag to Barca via tight-beam from each ship creating a confusing echo effect.

Hreem leaned out to
demand that Dyasil filter the channels to make the four-way, five-link
conversation less confusing, but Norio’s hands dug into his shoulders with surprising
force.

The tempath bent
close to Hreem’s ear, whispering softly. “He’s letting you see all of this to
keep you off-balance.”

Hreem leaned back
stiffly and seethed as Barrodagh questioned the Barcan. He didn’t dare cut off
Neyvla-khan’s channel to kill the echo lest his foe slip something past him to
Barrodagh. That’s just what the ugly little chatzer wanted
.

“But you see,
serach Barrodagh, that we targeted only two ships, and those the smallest, that
we judged least likely to be equipped with your Urian weapons. If we erred in
that, we will pay reparations upon the conclusion of our negotiations.”

Barrodagh dipped
his head. “Hreem, Neyvla-khan, maintain your positions. I will notify you of
our decision.”

His face vanished.
The Barcan smirked before cutting his tight-beam.

Hreem and
Neyvla-khan stared at each other. Hreem wasn’t about to spar with his enemy
over the hyperwave, and he was too tired to re-establish a tight-beam.

It was going to be
a very long orbit.

“Emergence.”

The navigator’s
voice blending with the emergence bells brought Captain Margot Ng out of
memories that she was as glad to abandon.

“Ares primary plus
8 light-minutes, system 80 mark 32. Velocity point-zero-one-five, vectored on
Ares.”

Already sitting
straight-backed with tension in the command pod, Ng forced her shoulders to
relax. “Communications, pulse Ares with our arrival code.”

At the
communications console Sub-Lieutenant Ammant tapped at the send key, his
handsome profile conveying a controlled ferocity that expressed the tension gripping
the bridge.

Despite the almost
continuous whirlwind of danger, tragedy, and triumph that Ng had lived through
in recent months, the next few minutes seemed the longest of her life. In
twelve hours she would be delivering the new Panarch of the Thousand Suns to
his last remaining stronghold, Ares Station. But Ares was no longer the
smoothly functioning pole of power it had been before the Dol’jharian attack
that had overthrown the government and blasted the Thousand Suns into chaos.
Refugees from every octant had flooded in, transforming Ares into a maelstrom
of intrigue and deceit as Douloi and Polloi alike struggled to maintain their
positions, or profit from the downfall of others. It could only have gotten
worse in the weeks they had been away.

“Even fewer degrees
of freedom than Gehenna system, eh?” Startled, Ng turned to her executive
officer, Commander Krajno.

“Am I that obvious,
Perthes?”

The commander’s
craggy face creased in a smile. “Any XO who can’t read his captain’s mind isn’t
worth a pitcher of warm spit.” He gestured at the screen, now showing a view of
the distant war base, a glint of light above the limb of a red giant star.
“You’re going to be in the middle of that, and even more constrained than we
were against the
Samedi
.” He
grimaced. “Precious short on precedent, as well.”

Ng assented with an
open-handed gesture. The history chips had turned up little to help with the
first problem facing them: the return of Brandon hai-Arkad to Ares as ruler of
what remained of the Thousand Suns would have to be observed with the highest
of ceremony; ritual, drawing on tradition and deep time to project a protective
canopy of power and control, was the foundation of Panarchic governance.

Unfortunately
symbolism was also a sword that thrust both ways. Where on the station would
the new Panarch debark? The question went beyond the mere facts of civilian or
military zones; the decision, whether he liked it or not, would establish the
character of the new Panarch’s regime on Ares.

Well, Commander Nyberg
would doubtless have something to say about it. By now he and his staff would
have reviewed the vids Ng had sent ahead by ultrafast courier, relating the
events in the Gehenna system where Anaris, Eusabian’s heir, had killed
Brandon’s father before escaping. She’d soon know Nyberg’s preference.

But the final
decision would be the new Panarch’s.

Finally, the
lightspeed lag passed. “Message incoming, Captain,” Ensign Sub-Lieutenant
Ammant reported. “Eyes-only.”

She stood up,
grateful for the excuse to move without seeming restless, which she was. “I’ll
take it in my cabin.”

The message waited
on her console. Ng keyed it up, then sat back in her chair, shocked at the haggardness
of Admiral Nyberg’s beefy face, his eyes reflecting pinpoints of light that emphasized
the fatigue-darkened flesh surrounding.

“. . . and
the population of Ares just passed 250,000. The ochlologists in Archetype and
Ritual are tearing their hair trying to keep control of the forming crowds and
direct them toward safe emotional discharge. They feel that the new Panarch’s
return, if properly handled, may help greatly.”

The admiral paused,
and ran a hand through his hair in a distracted gesture Ng would have thought
alien to the unflappable man. “That’s a vote for bringing him in on the
civilian side. On the other hand, Security is badly overworked. There’ve been a
number of mysterious deaths among the Tetrad Centrum Douloi. There’s evidence
that the cabal has rebounded—with the exception of Harkatsus, who’s still in
seclusion—and Commander Faseult threatened to throw himself off the spin axis
if we make him responsible for the Panarch’s safety out in civ territory.”
Nyberg smiled wanly. “I find suicide an attractive idea, myself, at times.”

Ng tapped the
freeze key. Things must be very bad for the intensely reticent admiral to
reveal as much of himself as he had in the message so far. But perhaps that was
part of the message. She had learned in a very short time never to
underestimate Nyberg.

She tapped the vid
back into motion.

“The final
decision, of course, will be His Majesty’s. Attached you’ll find a compilation
of Ares situation reports from various department heads . . .”
Nyberg paused. His steady gaze was so intense it seemed to be real-time. “After
reviewing the courier data you sent ahead, I’ve decided to leave it in your
hands. I’ll need an answer within an hour; Archetype and Ritual is already birthing
wattles over the uncertainty.”

The image blanked.
Ng stared at the screen, her mind casting formless images against the blankness.
Then she tabbed the com.

Very shortly
thereafter in the Panarch’s cabin, Ng watched Brandon hai-Arkad lean back in
his seat as Nyberg’s image flickered out. Ng had decided to play the admiral’s
communication for him first—Nyberg hadn’t forbidden it, and she felt his
obvious fatigue was an important part of the data.

“‘We few, we happy
few, we band of brothers . . .’” the new Panarch murmured. Then
he smiled, a rare expression that suited his fine-boned face.

Ng didn’t say
anything. She couldn’t. The resemblance to his father was almost frightening,
as though something of the old Panarch’s spirit had passed into Brandon when
Gelasaar’s ship exploded over the prison planet to which Eusabian had condemned
him.

“He’s right.”
Brandon motioned at the blank screen. “They weren’t at Gehenna. That’s the
other half of the equation.”

She inclined her
head in assent. “Shall we review the reports?”

“No need. I haven’t
any choice.” He paused, his blue gaze focused not on the console, but
light-years beyond it. A vivid memory forced itself on her: the cold beauty of
a ship exploding in space—the damaged shuttle that had borne Gelasaar
hai-Arkad, Brandon’s father, only seconds from reach of Ng’s tractor. With a
weird sense of surety she knew he was remembering it also—would probably
remember that sight all the rest of his days.

Then his head lifted
and their eyes met. She had not only intuited correctly, but she comprehended
he made no attempt to mask himself with the formidable shield of politeness
inbred in the Tetrad Centrum Douloi.

The impact of this
unspoken signal of his confidence in her made her bate her breath.

“I’d better use
every weapon at my command to overcome Semion’s legacy,” he said. “We’re at war.
I have to enter Ares as a military leader.” Then, almost as an aside, he added,
“And I am in mourning.”

Ng hesitated,
trying to sort the complexity of her reactions. He will be in mourning white,
as now, and we will be in dress whites, she thought. And: He trusts me enough
to speak plainly about his brother. And: Thank Telos the Rifters are gone off
to the Suneater, and he left behind his Rifter bodyguard. Or had he foreseen
this situation?

Each of these
required careful pondering, but there was no time.

“Thank you, Captain
Ng. For everything,” he answered, which again surprised her.

She bowed in a
profound deference and left his cabin. Once she reached the corridor outside the
meaning of his graceful hand gesture at the end penetrate her mind: discourse
in the aorist mode. As it was, is, and shall be.

That and his
unprecedented openness scared her worse than anything so far. She retreated to
her cabin, gritting her teeth against a wave of anxiety.

When the shaking
stopped, she headed back to the bridge to prepare her crew for arrival at Ares.

After frenzied
hours of preparation, Ng stood behind the console bank at the back of the aft
gamma launch bay, intent on the screens as Commander Krajno brought the
Grozniy
down into one of the immense
refit pits in the Cap, the military section of Ares.