The Thrones of Kronos (17 page)

The fourth member of his crew was an elderly woman, spare of
form and quick of glance. She wore the dark green of a Serapisti, chimes
tinkling sweetly in her long, braided white hair.

Nukiel stepped forward.

The Marine detachment presented arms, the shouted orders of
Meliarch Rumstig echoing in the vast bay. Nukiel and Efriq saluted; it was
returned with one salute, one ritual gesture, a bow, and a grin—hastily
followed by an awkward attempt at a salute.

Just as the high
admiral noted in her orders,
he thought. There’d been an extensive appendix
on proposed etiquette and potential clashes, no doubt worked out in conjunction
with Archetype and Ritual.

“Welcome aboard His Majesty’s battlecruiser
Mbwa Kali
,” Commodore Nukiel said. “I
will not welcome you to the war against Dol’jhar, for in that you have already
seen action.”

The
Gloire
had
taken heavy damage and many casualties in the defense of Rifthaven against
Aroga Blackheart. Including, Efriq remembered, this Rifter captain’s mate.
That’s the pain.

“Thank you, Commodore,” Lucan Miph replied. His voice was
surprisingly deep and cultured, belying his forgettable face. “We’re looking
forward to this cooperative endeavor, paying the Avatar back in the only coin
he understands.”

So that’s how it’s to
be.
He’d heard the emphasis on the word “cooperative.” As expected, the
Rifter was asserting Rifthaven’s position as ally, not auxiliary, although both
terms had been assiduously avoided in the official protocol issued jointly by
Ares and Rifthaven. The ambiguity of the document was typical High Douloi—but
how did the Rifters take it?

As Miph continued, Efriq had his answer. “So we are eager to
learn the tactical situation here and develop a set of orders that will enable
us to make the most difference.”

As Nukiel invited the Rifters to the tactical briefing,
Efriq considered what had just happened, for the first time in Panarchist
history. There was no grateful clientage here. The Rifter captain, with almost
Douloi subtlety, had affirmed his willingness to follow orders, as long as he
understood them and had a part in developing them.

Well, he’d come to the right ship, then. For all his
formality, Nukiel employed a collegial command style and always made sure his
officers knew the why as well as the what of their orders. Of course, he also
expected, and received, immediate obedience.
How will these Rifters adapt to that?

Nukiel let Efriq and Rogan run the tactical discussion so
that he could observe Miph and his execs.
Or
officers
, as he supposed they must be called.

Miph pursed his lips and leaned inward, focused intently as
Lieutenant Rogan laid out
Mbwa Kali’
s
ongoing tactical harassment. Nukiel noticed how, as she answered questions from
Miph’s officers, the captain’s mouth tightened into a skeptical slant.

Finally he spoke. “Your estimates of the thoroughness of the
Dol’jharian mapping of the asteroids in the system. How sure are you of these?”

“Every asteroid big enough and close enough to be
dangerous,” Miph’s engineering officer, Ella, amended. Her Serapisti braids
jangled mellifluously. “They’ve got to figure the small stuff, or the stuff way
out, isn’t worth our time.”

Our time.
Mandros
Nukiel considered that ‘our.’ That was the crux, was it not? In spite of the
new Panarch’s insistence on integration, how could there be an ‘our’ with such
disparate groups? No one could possibly say that Rifters were oath-sworn to
service.

“Even so.” Miph gestured at the holo tank, which glowed
brightly in the subdued lighting of the
Mbwa
Kali’s
plot room. “That’s a lot of rocks.”

How do we define duty?
Efriq had said an hour before the
Gloire
skipped in, as they shared tea.
I’ve been
learning since our arrival at Ares just how superficially my definition of duty
had correlated with that of our late Aerenarch.

“Indeed.” Nukiel spoke up to gauge the faces. “But remember,
Dol’jhar has been in this system nigh on fifteen years now—more than long
enough for those VLDAs inside radius to thoroughly pulse-map everything out to
several light-hours. And after the war started, they looted a number of naval
depots for transponders.”

“In any case,” Lieutenant Rogan said, “we’ve no way of
identifying the ones without transponders.”

“True.” Miph gave a minute, almost reluctant nod—conceding
the point, but not the larger question.
What
doubts could a Rifter have about us?
“And I suppose those VLDAs can see any
activity around a rock even if it’s not transpondered?”

“Given their size, and that they’ve been augmented with
Rifter vessels recently, they’ll detect any emergence pulse out to almost three
light-days.”

Nukiel let the talk flow past him as he concentrated on the
dynamics. These were no ordinary Rifters. Or maybe the modifier was erroneous.
What would an ‘ordinary’ Rifter be?

He watched Rafe Azura as the tall man laid his hand on
Miph’s arm. The gesture was brief, affectionate instead of warning, evoking an
equally brief relaxation of those lines of heartache in the captain’s face. It
was no surprise that the records indicated that Azura had passed as Douloi in
some jurisdictions before the war; all but the most finicky of Tetrad Centrum
Douloi would consider him elegant.

Nukiel had rarely encountered successful members of the
Rifter overculture—not in any setting where he knew them to be Rifters. He only
scooped up the ones not smart enough either to find accommodation with or to
evade the Navy.

Lieutenant Rogan brought up a sphere of light to enhalo the
plot of the Suneater system. “So you can see that although our harassment raids
seem focused on nearer asteroids, they’re really intended to deflect the
enemy’s attention from where we’re actually working: asteroids where our
emergence pulses are beyond VLDA detection distance. Then, when it’s time to
bring the asteroids in prior to actually launching the attack, we’ll step up
the raids, which is where additional Rifter units will be critical.”

“How so?” asked Miph.

“Distraction. We need to get the rocks in within a light day.
Can’t guarantee that the engines in the battlecruisers we’ve salvaged to
accelerate the asteroids are good for more than that, and if they fail too far
outside radius, the enemy may be able to divert them.”

“High tac-level?” asked Azura.

How do Rifters
promote? By duel?

“Right. We want them coming out of skip as close to
light-speed as we can get them.” Rogan tapped the light pane.

“That’s a clever hack you’ve come up with.” The Rifter
engineer, Ella, addressed Commander Brigast-vi, the
Mbwa Kali
’s engineering officer. “The overload’ll shake the ship
and the asteroid apart at radius, giving you a nice big cloud of trash. Can’t
miss.”

“Wasn’t just me.” Brigast-vi’s expression thawed. He’d been
loud in his skepticism, but he obeyed orders, because that’s what you swore to
do. Could any Rifter say the same? “Got a lot of good people.”

The Serapisti appeared to be a canny judge of human nature;
she did not respond to the scarcely hidden challenge in that statement. “We can
appreciate that,” she said. “Perhaps we can compare approaches to training,
when there is time.”

Nukiel wondered how much there was about Brigast-vi in the RiftNet.
He already knew how much there was on himself. The courier bringing his orders
concerning the
Gloire
had also
brought a wealth of data from Rifthaven, including the most up-to-date records
they had on their onetime naval opponents, ship by ship and officer by officer.
There was more there on him than he had on Miph.

The Rifter captain turned his way. “Commodore, what about
our liaison? I understand he’s still on Ares. Will you place a temporary on
board with us?”

Nukiel had wrestled with that problem since the courier
arrived. Their liaison was to be none other than the taciturn Lieutenant Osri
vlith-Omilov, who was now, according to the High Admiral, a close confidant of
the Panarch, emphasizing the paramount need to establish trust up front in an unprecedented
relationship between former—well, not enemies precisely, but opponents in a
tricky and sometimes deadly game.

“No, Captain Miph. The whole point of the liaisons is
integration and understanding, which is hardly served by changing them about. We’ll
wait until Lieutenant Omilov arrives in-system before swapping personnel.”

Miph’s next words confirmed that the implied message had
gotten through. “Very well, then, what can we do to make a difference?”

“We’re stepping up the harassment, with a new kind of
dragon’s teeth,” Nukiel replied. “Your more up-to-date knowledge of the Rifters
patrolling the Suneater system will help match the effects to their various
psychologies. And, of course, your ship will speed up the task of deploying
them.”

“What kind of effects are we talking about?” Miph asked.

Nukiel told him, laying out the genesis of the new weapons
and the origin of their name. When he had finished, he sat back, wondering if
this would penetrate the grief, even if momentarily.

It did. Miph gazed at the plot pane, his face blank. Then he
began to laugh; and as Rafe Azura glanced up, his gratitude plain, Nukiel
thought,
I can’t address the larger
questions of duty, oaths, service. Perhaps no one can, or rather, everyone is
redefining them. But the small human moments? We are not so very different.

“Suneater primary plus 148 light-minutes, mark 32 by 75
relative.” Cherlotte’s voice never lost that pretty singsong that Uka Miph
liked listening to, even in action.

“If the war stays like this . . .” Uka leaned
over to poke Caleb Azura in the next pod. “It’ll be hoo!” She whipped her gaze
back to the nav console and watched the navigator’s hands, as the data echoed
on her console.

Caleb hunched his skinny shoulders and grinned. He, unlike
Uka, was new on board the
Gloire
—and
both were new to their positions on the bridge. Until this year they’d been
considered too young. He had communications, and she was learning advanced nav;
when this war was over (if they lived) she’d have that pod. “Be better if we
hike us some take,” Caleb said.

“Where we gonna get take out here?” Uka waved at the screen,
which showed a miniature of the Suneater system, seen from high out. “Even if
the nicks let us.”

That was really hoo. Cherlotte was going to join a
Panarchist crew, and in trade, they were getting a Navy navigator. A nick! On
board the
Gloire
! In fact—the thought
jolted her insides like skip transition had when she was little. She did a
quick mental calculation of the time since the rendezvous with the nick battlecruiser
Mbwa Kali
—it might even be soon.

Uka sidled a glance up at the face of the navigator, a tall,
bulky woman who’d been a Rifter longer than Uka’s father had been alive.
Cherlotte’s faint smile showed she was listening.

Then the smile went away as the captain’s calm voice broke
into the conversation. “Navigation, next coordinates are—”

Cherlotte held up her hand as she turned to Uka, and
surprised her by saying, “Console’s yours. I don’t want you disgracing me in
front of the incoming nick. Will be good practice.”

Uka gulped, hoping this sudden test right in front of
everyone wasn’t a kind of revenge. Her dad gave no sign, but she knew he was
paying close attention. As captain of the
Gloire
he couldn’t play favorites. She had to get it right the first time.

Ever since her father and Rafe and Cherlotte and Ella had
returned from the huge Navy cruiser with the astounding news that Cherlotte was
going to be assigned aboard one of those Navy ships, Uka had redoubled her
determination to practice every lesson Cherlotte gave her, both on her console
at her bunk and on the bridge. Uka’s goal was to match her in speed and
accuracy.

She cleared her mind, keyed in the new coordinates, plotted
the course, and then signaled readiness. The captain tabbed the go-pad, and the
viewscreens blanked.

She saw Caleb wince, then he ducked his head forward so his
long hair hid his face. Uka didn’t say anything. No one would like sympathy any
more than scorn about feeling sick at skip transition. She kind of liked it
herself. Meant they were moving. But she’d been living on the ship since her
father adopted her when she was two, and Caleb had been in school on a planet
until the war broke out, then in a refugee camp until word had reached his
father that Caleb’s mother had died fighting some kind of ground war with
Dol’jharian soldiers.

Caleb hadn’t even known that his father was a Rifter, though
it was he who’d paid for that fancy school.
At
least he’s real hot with his console,
Uka thought.

The screen cleared.

“Release batch seven,” the captain said. “Navigation, take
us to eight as soon as they’re clear.”

At Weapons, Caleb’s father, Rafe Azura, sowed another swath
of dragon’s teeth. The dead black pods almost vanished instantly as they spun
out of the port lock: gee-mines, sneak-missiles, and other lethal devices, all
speeding out there to spread death among the Dol’jharians when they were
finally activated.

Uka quickly checked her new coordinates once more before
committing.
Though it won’t be
Dol’jharians, probably,
Uka thought, sobering.
It’s likely to be other Rifters.

She tabbed the engage, encouraged by Cherlotte’s approving
nod. As the fiveskip hummed again, she saw Caleb close his mouth firmly and
blink.

But there were other, non-lethal devices that the
Panarchists had added to the mix of dragon’s teeth. The thought cheered her:
maybe those would convince some of the Sodality to defect.