The Rise of Earth (31 page)

“Tycho,” DeWise said. “You have to listen to me. The Ice Wolves are hunting you and your siblings. I tried to warn your brother, but he's refusing to answer. He needs to know—”

Tycho shoved the mediapad back into his jacket, DeWise's words of warning still sounding faintly beneath the fur lining. His brother had continued past Bazaar, going deeper into the warren of tunnels snaking across Cybele's surface. He reached for his holster before remembering he didn't have a weapon. Then he turned back toward Bazaar and began to run.

A
crowd had formed at the center of Bazaar. Tycho pushed at the backs of the people standing in the outer ring, yelling for them to let him through and finally shoving past them.

Carlo was lying on his back in the center of the dome. A Cybelean constable with a staff intercepted Tycho as he tried to get to his brother's side.

“Get back, boy!” the constable said, grabbing the
front of Tycho's jacket and pushing him back. “This don't concern you!”

“That's my brother!” Tycho said, and the man let go of him in surprise. Tycho shoved past him and sprawled beside Carlo. He reached for the charred hole in the center of Carlo's jacket, then drew his hand back when he saw the terrible wound underneath.

Tycho buried his head in his hands, struggling to breathe, to think, to do anything. He could hear the constables issuing orders, the muttering and murmuring of the crowd, the rattle of shutters on the reopening shops, and the faint tinkle of the chimes high above.

“All right, you lot, it's done,” a constable barked at the crowd, rapping his staff on the floor. “Get back and let us do our jobs.”

Tycho lifted his head as the crowd began to break up. A constable leaned down to him.

“Sorry for your loss, lad,” he said. “Jovian, are you? We'll have to look at the security feeds since—as usual—there were no witnesses. But we'll find out who did this.”

Tycho looked through the thinning crowd and saw Elfrieda's guards standing impassively in front of the Last Chance. Two clerks were struggling with a jammed shutter, while Elfrieda herself was standing just within the depot, arms folded.

Her eyes met Tycho's and widened in surprise. She took a step forward, then stopped, looking down at Carlo's body. Her hand flew to her mouth.

“I didn't recognize . . . I had no idea that he was . . . I didn't think that . . .”

“You didn't think it was any of your business?” Tycho asked, his hands balling into fists, his voice rising to a scream. “You didn't think you might help someone who needed it?”

All at once he began to sob, an explosion of tears that left his cheeks wet and his chest heaving. He reached out for Carlo and pulled his brother's head and shoulders into his lap. He could feel the stubble on Carlo's jaw and the ridge of the scar on his cheek.

Elfrieda stood frozen. Her mouth moved, but no sound came out. Then she turned, her steps slow and uncertain, and shuffled back into the shadows of the Last Chance.

After the Cybelean authorities took Carlo's body away, a hulking constable accompanied Tycho back to the Southwell, walking in silence a step behind him. Vass was waiting outside the fondaco with a pair of Gibraltar cyborgs. He rushed forward when he saw Tycho.

“My boy,” the minister said, reaching up to put his hands on Tycho's shoulders. “I heard what happened. I can't tell you how much this awful news grieves me and every member of the Jovian delegation.”

“Is my sister safe?” Tycho asked.

“Yes. But I'm afraid your family doesn't know yet. I wanted to make sure you were safe first.”

Tycho nodded numbly. He turned and thanked the
constable, then followed Vass through the fondaco's corridors until they reached the door to their quarters. He could hear the buzz of his family's voices inside.

“Do you want me to tell them?” Vass asked.

“No. It's my duty.”

He opened the door. A trio of Comets had piled duffel bags and stacked boxes in the small living room, next to Huff's empty tank. Mavry was peering into the coffeemaker, while Diocletia and Huff were chatting at the kitchen table.

“Arrr, tole yeh the lad wouldn't be late,” Huff said with a grin as Diocletia looked up.

“Did you get a strange message like the one Yana got?” Diocletia asked, then frowned at the sight of Vass standing behind Tycho.

This was the last moment before everything would change forever, Tycho thought. Before he would leave everything in ruins.

Yana came out of her room, her dark eyes wide.

“We weren't expecting you, Minister,” Diocletia said, puzzled. And then Tycho heard her voice change. “What's happened? Where's your brother?”

“It happened in Bazaar,” Tycho said, having to force each word out of his mouth. “I got there as fast as I could, but . . .”

He shook his head, unable to go on.

His mother stared at him, not blinking. Mavry fumbled for a chair and sank into it, his eyes glassy.

“Carlo?” Huff asked, his living eye wild, his voice
strangled. Yana's head went back and hit the wall with a dull thunk. The Comets looked up in shock and dawning horror.

“You all have my deepest sympathies,” Vass began, but Diocletia waved her hand to silence him.

“Who was it?” she asked in a quiet but firm voice. “You know by now, Minister. Who was it?”

“Captain Hashoone, I know this is a terrible shock. Perhaps—”

Diocletia slapped her hand down on the kitchen table, silencing him. “Tell me who it was.”

“We received the security feed from the Cybelean authorities a few minutes ago. I haven't seen it.”

“But you have it.”

Vass said nothing.

“You're going to show it to me. Right now.”

Diocletia got to her feet and walked into her bedroom. Vass followed reluctantly and shut the door behind him.

“He was jes' a lad,” Huff managed, his forearm cannon still and silent at the end of his arm. The coffee-maker had begun to beep insistently.

Mavry looked up from the table. His face was ashen. His eyes turned to Tycho, barely seeing him, then moved to the shocked Comets.

“Gentlemen, would you please bring our gear to the gig?” he asked quietly.

The Comets hoisted the bags and withdrew with knuckles to foreheads and mumbled expressions of
sorrow. Huff was repeating “jes' a lad,” three words thick with grief and barely intelligible. Tycho shut off the beeping coffeemaker and slumped against the counter.

The bedroom door opened. Diocletia took two steps away from it and then stopped, as if she didn't know where to go. Vass came to a halt behind her.

“It was Mox,” she said, her voice flat. “Mox and his thugs. Nobody helped our son. A dome full of people, and not one of them helped him.”

She regarded Vass. “Please leave us, Minister.”

“Your family's sacrifices will never be forgotten,” Vass said. “Not by our president, or by the Jovian Defense Force. And certainly not by me.”

He bowed to each of them, eyes lingering on Tycho for a moment, and then he was gone.

“Mr. Grigsby will retrieve the body and bring it to the gig,” Diocletia said when the door had shut. “And that's where we need to be too.”

“Mom?” Yana asked tentatively. “Are you okay?”

“No,” Diocletia said, still motionless in the middle of the room. “No, I'm not. But this is a bridge crew. And I just gave that bridge crew an order.”

Mavry got to his feet, moving like he was sleepwalking or couldn't see where he was going. One arm fumbled for Tycho, found him, and pulled him into his chest, clutching him there. Yana came to stand by her mother, her fingers clenching and unclenching.

“He was jes' a lad,” Huff said again, his voice cracking.

Diocletia slowly turned her head to look at her
father where he was sprawled in misery at one end of the kitchen table. She reached up for her hair, her hands trembling slightly, and bound it into a ponytail.

“Not you,” she told Huff. “You're not going.”

“What did yeh say?” Huff asked, the flesh-and-blood side of his face going pale.

When she spoke again, Diocletia's voice was low and deadly.

“You let Mox go. You helped him escape the gibbet. Which led to Comets dying at Saturn, and now to this.”

“Dio, yeh don't understand—”

“Don't you tell me what I don't understand,” Diocletia said. “Because I understand this: your grandson is dead and you're to blame. So ask one of your pirate friends for a hole to hide in. Because you're never seeing the inside of Darklands or my ship again.”

D
iocletia said nothing as the rickshaw took them through the Southwell and then the Well. She seemed to have shut down, her eyes fixed straight ahead, the holographic Jovian flag casting a flickering red and yellow light on her black hair and pale neck. Mavry sat beside her with his head bowed, holding one of her hands in both of his.

They disembarked from the rickshaw and walked in silence down the long tunnel to the ship terminal. The
Cybelean customs officials saw them coming, and one of them hurriedly said something to the spacers waiting in the short line at their booth. They stood aside and the Hashoones walked up to the station, where their departure documents were presented.

The lead official was looking down the tunnel past them. Tycho turned and saw a cart piled with gear, trundling toward them. Three Comets sat on its sides, with Grigsby at the controls. The warrant officer's face was gray and drawn, his riotous tattoos extinguished.

The cart drew alongside the Hashoones, and Tycho saw the long form covered with a blanket, the boxes and duffel bags set carefully around it. Diocletia said nothing, while Mavry's head came up briefly, registered the cart and what it carried, then went back down.

Grigsby stepped off the cart and spoke quietly to the customs officials. Documents were stamped and the group walked forward again, the cart trailing them.

The docking terminal was filled with people. At the sight of the Hashoones the buzz of conversation stopped. Hands went to heads, and hats were removed. All of those waiting belonged to the bridge crews of the other Jovian privateers, Tycho realized. The captains stepped forward and stood in front of their crews, Garibalda Marta Andrade next to Dmitra Barnacus, who stood next to the Widderiches, and so on, until the slight figure of Zhi Ning at the end of the line.

The privateers stood at attention as the Hashoones passed. Then Diocletia held up her hand, stopping her
family. She turned, her eyes taking in the line of captains and the crowd of privateers behind them.

“Thank you, captains,” she said quietly, and then her eyes turned left and right. “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.”

The privateers remained still and silent until the cart had passed beyond their sight and vanished into the umbilical leading to the gig.

“Captain?” Grigsby asked over the
Shadow Comet
's comm, his voice quiet and almost apologetic. “Full complement belowdecks.”

“Thank you, Mr. Grigsby,” Diocletia said into her headset from where she sat in the captain's chair. “Vesuvia, status for departure?”

“All systems are operational,” Vesuvia said.

“Vesuvia, verify headings,” Tycho said, finding himself grateful for the years of mind-numbing routine. Departure had long ago become a familiar, near-automatic checklist, one he could follow with minimal intervention by his brain.

“Course verified,” Vesuvia said.

“Cybelean Traffic Control, this is the
Shadow Comet
requesting immediate clearance for departure,” Tycho said.

“Granted,” a voice said instantly. “And Godspeed.”

“We're green for departure,” Tycho said, and then slumped in his harness. With his checklist complete he had no idea what to do. His eyes crept to where Yana sat
numbly beside him. It was strange not to hear the clatter of their grandfather shifting his metal limbs behind him on the quarterdeck, ready to quarrel with Vesuvia or share an old pirate yarn.

“Carlo, take us up—” Diocletia said, her head turning to the left, as it had so many times before. She stared at the empty chair for a moment, then turned her gaze back to the main screen.

“Mavry,” she said. “Take us up to our tanks.”

The
Comet
eased slowly away from her parking orbit, beginning her climb to the long-range tanks clustered above Cybele. Attis hung in space ahead of them. Mavry guided them smoothly beneath it. Diocletia sat silent and motionless in the captain's chair, staring straight ahead.

Mavry turned at his console, looking at his wife. Attis was below and behind them now, casting a shadow over the web of domes and corridors that marked the surface of its asteroid companion. Above them, Tycho could see pinpoints of brilliant light—long-range tanks waiting for their starships.

With a hum, the control yoke rose from beneath Diocletia's console.

“My starship,” she said. “Vesuvia, beat to quarters.”

“Acknowledged.”

Belowdecks, the pipes shrilled and Grigsby began barking orders.

“Dio?” Mavry asked, but she had activated her headset.

“Yana, on sensors,” Diocletia said. “Mr. Grigsby, gunnery crews to their stations.”

“Captain?” Grigsby asked. “What's our target?”

“Bazaar.”

Tycho looked at Yana in shock, but his sister didn't look back. She was activating her sensor boards, extending sensor masts and running hurried diagnostics.

“Dio, what are we doing?” Mavry asked.

“We're going to the place where our son died. Where nobody helped him.”

The
Comet
banked to port and dipped her nose. Cybele grew from a spot of light into a shape once again, a gray lump made bright by the distant sun.

“Mom,” Tycho said. “Elfrieda's there.”

Diocletia said nothing.

“Mom?” Tycho tried again.

“I heard you.”

Tycho looked helplessly at Yana. But it was Mavry who leaned over to Diocletia.

“Dio,” he said quietly. “Don't carry that weight too.”

“
Shadow Comet
, this is not an approved departure vector,” a voice said over the comm. “Acknowledge.”

Diocletia's hand went to her headset. “You have three minutes to evacuate Bazaar.”

Below them, Cybele grew until its surface filled the viewports. Diocletia leveled off and the
Comet
cruised slowly over the barren plains.

“
Shadow Comet
, return to your departure vector immediately,” the traffic-control official said, and Tycho
could hear panic creeping into his voice.

“Three minutes,” Diocletia replied.

“
Comet
, any hostile action against Cybelean citizens or property will be considered an act of war.”

“If you think any of your toy ships can stop me, send them down here.”

Tycho could see scattered domes, pits, and landing fields now—the outskirts of Cybele's settlements, farther from the Westwell than he'd ever dared to go. He wondered which of them had sheltered the Ice Wolves, and where the Securitat had made its headquarters. He could imagine the people below looking up, surprised by the unfamiliar shadow overhead.

And then he saw it—the pressure dome where his brother had died. He hoped Elfrieda had heard the warning and heeded it.

“Gun crews, prepare to fire on my mark,” Diocletia said. “Counterclockwise rotation.”

The
Comet
slowed, Bazaar dead center in her viewports.

“Mark,” she told Grigsby.

The
Comet
shivered and bucked, and the first projectiles streaked toward Cybele's surface, delivered by the bow chasers. Two blossoms of flame sprang up below them, blindingly bright. Then Diocletia spun the
Comet
to bring her starboard cannons to bear, and Bazaar vanished behind a wall of fire and ejected dust and rock. The guns roared out from bow to stern, a continuous rolling thunder of sound, and the frigate rattled and shook. The
Comet
continued to spin, and after a brief pause the port guns were firing, pouring destruction into the surface of the asteroid below.

Tycho's ears were ringing when the
Comet
completed her rotation and the firing stopped. The dust thinned, and Tycho saw there was no pressure dome below them anymore—only a low depression, its churned-up surface bubbling and glowing red.

“Target destroyed,” Vesuvia intoned.

The bells clanged out three times.

“Cease firing,” Diocletia said. She stared at the spot where Bazaar had been, the glow already fading as the rock cooled and began to solidify. Then she stood the
Comet
on her tail and accelerated toward the long-range tanks waiting above.

A crewer belowdecks began to chant Carlo's name. He was joined by another, and then by a third, and then by many more. After a few seconds of dissonance the chant found a common cadence, the syllables booming up the ladderwells accompanied by the stamp of boots.

The
Comet
reached her tanks. The stabilizers engaged and the fuel-line connectors mated, the familiar sounds faint amid the chanting below. The whine of the engines rose to a howl and the frigate shot into deep space, toward distant Jupiter.

Diocletia unbuckled her harness and got to her feet, one hand clutching the back of the captain's chair. Mavry hastily stood as well. He reached for Diocletia and she sagged against him. Then a sound emerged from her
throat, a guttural moan that rose to a ragged scream, one that went on and on even as Mavry buried her in his arms, rocking her back and forth.

The chanting stopped belowdecks, leaving that dreadful keening wail to penetrate every compartment of the ship, from the lowermost hold to the top turret. It trailed away and then began again, inescapable and endless, and none of the Comets aboard that day would ever forget the sound of Diocletia Hashoone crying for her lost child.