The Rifter's Covenant (18 page)

Doubt and suspicion
creased Hreem’s face.

(Resonance field declining,)
reported Bayrut via boswell.
(Five seconds to skip. Bringing skipmissile
on-line.)
Lochiel was peripherally aware of Messina tapping at her console,
bringing the
Shiavona
about for an
attack on Avasta.

But she had eyes
only for Hreem’s face, and so saw the tightening of decision in his jaw. Well,
she’d brought them at least thirty seconds further into lazplaz range without
taking fire.

(Resonance down. Skip ready.)

She slapped the
skip pad.

The Kelly ship
clawed for space. Watching on the feed the Kelly captain had thoughtfully
relayed to him and his grievously diminished force, Meliarch ZiTuto saw the
other Kelly ship arrowing up on a similar course from the rocky surface.
Beyond, the slender line of the massdriver drawing his eye to it, he noted the
minute shape of the lazplaz tower Sussonius and his squad had sabotaged,
glowing brightly in the center of a red-hot crater.

He zoomed the view,
and saw the tower begin its loading sequence, the mirror swiveling around. He
couldn’t tell for sure, but he was sure it was aiming at them.

A thread of light
snapped on from the mouth of the massdriver and the screen flared white.

“Zap one lazplaz,”
someone said on the common com channel.

The screen cleared
to reveal a huge, white-hot wound in the moon’s surface, a ring of glowing dust
and gas expanding outward from it at tremendous speed.

“Resonance field is
failing,” said the Kelly captain. “Fifteen seconds to radius.”

The ship bucked as
the wavefront from the explosion swept past them, minute sparks of light
flaring on its shields.

ZiTuto watched the
moon dwindle beneath them as he grimly scanned its bright-lit limb, knowing
they would be exposed to weapons fire from another lazplaz just as they reached
radius. So he jerked convulsively when a dim chain of light-spheres reached out
from the moon, dwindling back into space. He recognized it belatedly as a
skipmissile impacting on the moon, and then stared in awe as an enormous sheet
of flame marched over the limb of Avasta and a network of immense cracks ripped
through the rocky surface, spurting flame and showers of rock thousands of
meters high as the impact propagated through the moon.

Shiavona
, he thought. No wonder they could take out a battlecruiser with one
shot.

The screen blanked
as the Kelly Intership skipped, and ZiTuto relaxed. He was glad that they would
be very far away from the rest of the action. Hand-to-hand was fine, but anyone
who’d serve on a destroyer had to be a little crazy, as far as he was
concerned.

Cameron’s lips
skinned back from his teeth with rage. They’d been holding their own against
Hreem’s fleet, aided by the remains of Neyvla-khan’s forces, most of whom
apparently never discovered that they were Navy. But then the Barcans had
entered the battle with the one lazplaz still functional on Avasta and the full
weight of the weapons on Shimosa.

Shamsin
had taken heavy casualties from a lazplaz bolt that blew open the
stern, and had barely managed to limp out of range. Another bolt blew two
hundred meters off of the skipmissile tube on
Kilij
, but Captain Agenes continued to fight with lazplaz and
missiles until Cameron ordered her withdrawal. And he’d lost track of
Lochiel—the old Alpha didn’t integrate well with the up-to-date communications
gear of the Manta-class squadron.

“Communications,
signal all ships. General withdrawal to rendezvous three. Navigation, take us
to the
Shamsin
.”

Cameron drummed his
fingers on the arm of his command pod as Ensign Rincon squirted out the signal,
for relay by the tacponders the Kelly ships had sown in-system before action
commenced. There was nothing more they could do with the Barcans backing Hreem.
Dol’jhar had won. Cameron winced, wondering what use Eusabian would make of the
Ogres he would doubtless demand as tribute. At least the Marines had brought
one back for study—maybe the techs would figure out the codes for them by
comparison with those for the Panarchic version the Barcans had supplied for
the Shiidra Wars.

“It was still as
close to a kilkenny as any I’ve ever heard of,” Kor-Mellish said. “Wiping out
an entire Rifter fleet with the loss of only three ships.”

Two human and one
Kelly. He wondered if the personnel of the Kelly tripod, or each division of
three ships, were of the same phratry.

The
Shiavona
joined them as they escorted
the crippled
Shamsin
toward the
rendezvous in real time. Fortunately Hreem showed no inclination to follow.

“That was one hell
of a shot you landed on Avasta, cousin,” said Cameron.

Lochiel grimaced.
The two ships were close enough that there was no noticeable lag. “Last one for
Shiavona
. Thanks to your techs, we’re
back on spin-reactor power now.”

“Ship traces,
Captain,” Siglnt sang out. “Sixty-seven mark 32, 14,000 klicks. Signature—”
Lieutenant Chang tapped hesitantly at her console. “—reads Alpha-class, maybe,
emergency power only.”

Cameron looked at
Lochiel. “One of your former allies?”

She shrugged.
“Might be. There are a couple of them worth saving, if it comes to that.”

“AyKay. Navigation,
take us in. Fire Control, target skip-missile and hold.”

The entire stern of
the destroyer was gone, leaving little more than the bridge and the missile
tube intact. But, scorched and pitted, its blazon still showed clear: a
whirlwind of flame extending glittering talons.

“
Scorpion
,” said Lochiel, still linked.

“Siglnt, scan it.”

“Noetic scan
positive,” came the reply. “Some survivors.”

“Communications,”
he said hoarsely, “hail the ship.”

A tense silence
spun through eternity, then, “Channel established.”

The screen revealed
the seared and twisted remains of the
Scorpion’s
bridge. Cameron’s stomach clenched. How had anyone survived that? Oddly the
gravitors were still functioning.

Then he noticed the
man in the command pod, surrounded by the dead. He was sitting bolt upright in
a posture Cameron recognized: the desperate rigidity of the badly burned,
holding his arms away from his body and the arms of the pod, learning forward
so his torso wouldn’t contact the back of the seat. His ears were seared
stumps, his hands mere blackened claws, but his face was only slightly seared,
the once-neat beard singed.

The rush of hatred
beat in Cameron’s skull. “Neyvla-khan,” he said with deep satisfaction. The
butcher of Minerva, murderer of millions, the man whose vengeance on the Navy
had rendered an entire planet lifeless.

The man’s eyes
twitched toward the screen. He emitted a squeaky hiss. Lung damage. Cameron
heard a choked exclamation from someone on the bridge. Lochiel’s motherly face
twisted in an expression of nausea.

The hiss came
again, and abruptly Cameron’s ear resolved it into words. “Help me.”

The bridge was so
silent that Cameron heard tiny sounds: the hiss of the tianqi, a distant groan
of metal. Someone’s foot shifted in their pod, a muffled sound.

No one looked away
from their console. Cameron struggled to breathe, to think, but all he could
remember were the many, the hundreds, he’d known, classmates and instructors
alike, all slagged to ash on Minerva.

He saw the shape of
his career narrowing to this point, this time, delivering into his hands the
catharsis of those memories, shared with everyone in the Navy. The regs were
strict: any ship.
Any
ship that
surrendered, was to be secured and given aid.

He gazed straight
at the burned man who stared back at him, fighting for every breath. “Fire
Control, lazplaz.” He spoke the words softly, but deliberately, tasting each.
“Minimum aperture. Control to me.”

He couldn’t ask
anyone else to throw away their career.

The targeting cross
appeared on the window displaying the exterior of the ruined destroyer. Cameron
moved it carefully to the rear of the bridge.

“Help you? Yes,
Neyvla-khan. I will help you.”

The Rifter
squeak-hissed again. “Panarch’s mercy.”

Rage caused
Cameron’s ears to ring; the man spat upon ancient usage. “Mercy,” he repeated
flatly. “No, that got all used up at Minerva. All I have for you is justice.”

He tabbed the
control. A vivid thread of light lanced down through the bridge of the
Scorpion
behind the dying Rifter,
briefly silhouetting him. The screech of air escaping from the ruined bridge
came clearly over the link. Neyvla-khan’s eyes bulged; he waggled his arms
furiously. One finger broke off as he slapped helplessly at his console.

When the vacuum had
finished its work, transforming the Rifter into a bloated, oozing horror,
Cameron exhaled.

“Fire skipmissile,”
he commanded, and the
Scorpion
vanished in cleansing flame.

Then he turned to
Lochiel, who gazed at him, wincing with pain. She knew what his choice would
cost him.

“Cousin,” he said,
“I’m curious. Where does one buy a surplus destroyer?”

“Damage Control,
what’s up with the log?” Commander Kor-Mellish exclaimed. “I’m having trouble
with my entries.”

At the
damage-control console, Lieutenant Argule cleared her throat. “Yes, sir. We
apparently took a little more damage than I thought. I’m having problems with
the system links to the log.”

Cameron turned
uncomprehending at Kor-Mellish, catching the tail end of a significant glance
directed at Ensign Rincon.

“Umm . . .
yes.” His fingers walked deliberately across a few keys. “I’ve lost some
weapons data in the middle . . . got it back at the
skipmissile.”

No one looked at
Cameron, but he felt the conspiracy close tightly around him.

“I begin to see
just how complex loyalty really is,” Lochiel murmured, her head tipped. On the
main screen, a misshapen blot of plasma that had been the
Scorpion
and its master dissipated slowly against the stars. “Still
need an answer to your question, cousin?”

“No,” said Cameron,
breathing out. “We have a rendezvous to make. And then to Ares.”

A half hour after
the
Telvarna
emerged from skip an
acknowledgment came from Ares, along with instructions on approach.

During the long
journey in real time from the edge of radius, one of the Marines stood directly
behind Vi’ya’s pod and the other inside the hatchway to the bridge, but she had
grown so accustomed to their presence she no longer felt that urge to alter her
own posture so she could see them at all times.

They had been quiet
and cooperative; the only time they had interfered with the ship’s handling had
been to countermand the order by Omilov to approach the Suneater closer than
their orders specified. Vi’ya knew they had to have been briefed on everything
from Rifter politics to the Eya’a’s lethal psi abilities. They were probably
both walking bombs in case she did try to space them and run. Nyberg was
putting off as long as possible Dol’jhar’s discovery of the coordinates for Ares.

But they had made
an effort to adapt themselves to the customary usage on
Telvarna
. The woman had played with Lucifur in quarter-gee, the way
the big cliff cat loved, and she’d teased Ivard, which he seemed to enjoy; the
man exhibited a taste for ancient music, which Montrose loved. Someone—probably
Captain Ng—had gone to some trouble to select two guards who would not be
averse to
Telvarna’s
strange amalgam
of a crew. Vi’ya had contemplated this, as well as recent events, during the
long wait spent in skip.

But now Ares lay
dead ahead, and she put all other thoughts out of her mind. The com crackled to
life with the offer of a tug. Vi’ya refused—interested to note that she
could—and began to guide her ship in manually. She could feel the Marines’
sharpened attention. Even for an experienced pilot, and at the mandated slow
speeds, Ares had accreted enough hazards in its proximity to require careful
attention.

“Chatz!” Marim
exclaimed from the damage-control pod. “Looks like the station sprouted
Myrkwudi fungus!”

Ivard snickered as
Vi’ya surveyed the revolving cylinder of Ares, with its stationary cap. A halo
of refugee ships surrounded the entire station, an astonishing array that had
come in during the weeks they had been seeking the Suneater. They were all in
the same solar orbit as Ares. Tugs maneuvered among them, nudging when
necessary to compensate for tidal forces. Countless clusters of tiny ships,
like insects gathered at a fruit, nearly obscured the Cap.

Vi’ya steered the
Telvarna
slowly past a big merchant
ship. As they passed its length, her eyes were drawn by the black scarring down
one side and the melted nacelles aft. Someone had modified the ship, adding
weapons capability—and it was evident it had seen some action.

“Mmmm,” Montrose
rumbled from the back. “I wouldn’t mind a look inside the Vakianos Atheniad
there, portside.” He indicated the sleek lines of a fabulously expensive yacht.

Vi’ya glanced at
it, but her interest was drawn to the silvery hulks of three battlecruisers
nestled down in the vast pits on Ares’s Cap. She tapped a different view up
onto a side screen.

“Sgatchi!” Marim
said. “Look at the closest battleblimp. Those logos-lovers took some hits,
huh?” She twisted around in her seat to face the two Marines. “Know who that
one belongs to?”

Vi’ya brought up a
closer view of the hull, on which was painted a highly stylized fierce-looking
raptor, its two crowned heads facing opposite directions. Surmounted over that
was the familiar Sun and Phoenix of the Panarchy. Both were partially obscured
by lazplaz scoring.