The Thrones of Kronos (70 page)

The three Bori had moved together, Dem held between Lar and
Tat as the two whispered over his drooping head. Lar looked up, his pupils
dilated black, and he said, “I think we should save as many people as we can.
No one else is going to.”

“Dol’jharians?” Montrose growled. “They’d as soon kill us as
follow us.”

“Not them,” Lar said, his chin rising. “Bori. Don’t want to
be here any more than I do. Most, anyway. Maybe even some of the grays and
ordinaries.”

‘They should have a choice,” Sedry whispered. “Lar is right.
The Avatar will not honor them with even that much.”

Jaim nodded slowly. Lokri gave a short sigh. “Until the end
of my life—if it doesn’t end today—I will probably dream of being imprisoned.
I’m for it.”

Ivard looked up from contemplating his hands and said,
“Markham would have done it. And Vi’ya will understand.”

Jaim stepped forward, one hand gesturing preparatory to
making a remark, but Montrose didn’t see. His whole aspect brightened, and he
seemed to expand with sudden energy. “Well, let’s get ourselves organized,
then, and move . . .”

He started handing out commands. Sedry could feel the deep
upwelling of joy in him, fierce and true, now that he could take action at last,
and she understood how terribly the long imprisonment in this room had
diminished him. And she saw recognition of this in Jaim’s eyes as he deferred
command to Montrose.

Tears threatened, but she would not shame either man by
letting them be seen, lest she have to explain.
The glory clings to us all. Montrose, who is alive again now that he
can take right action. Jaim, who follows instead of leading, out of compassion.
Lokri, who now sees freedom as a gift and wishes to give it freely. And Ivard . . .
She looked into the beautiful face, so like the carving of an angel
over the East door at New Glastonbury. But he did not speak.

Montrose said, “We can’t rush out without thinking. The
worst fighting is surely around the landing bay. Perhaps by the time we check
the places Lar and Tat know of, it will diminish some.”

Sedry licked her dry lips and forced her tired body to
speak. “Before we leave, I might have one last strike to make against our
enemy, if you’ll grant me the time.”

Montrose moved behind her. “Take the time, my love.”

She leaned back against Montrose’s comforting bulk for a single
deep breath, then windowed up a workspace, establishing communications with the
worm she had constructed on the
Telvarna
—it
seemed years ago now. Linking it swiftly to the lesser worm she’d crafted here
on the Suneater, she added two tropisms: one for the Mandalic signature of the
Phoenix and one for the Marines. Then she released it, shut down her console,
and slumped, her residual energy spent.

‘That’s it,” she murmured from between the cradle of her
forearms. “The worm will eat up every bit of capacity it can find, starting
with crypto. It may give the Navy the edge it needs, now that the station is
powering up.”

“And us?” asked Jaim quietly.

She shrugged without looking up, distractedly noting the
feel of the cool dyplast screen against her nose. “Don’t know. May mess up
internal communications, and the Phoenix—the thing that calls itself Jaspar—may
be able to help, if it can shake its fixation on Anaris. Worm may help there,
too. It also will try to contact the Marines.”

Montrose looked around at them, then indicated the door.

“Let’s move.”

The bridge was too hot, but Margot Ng did not fault the
tianqi. It was her own keyed-up perceptions that were awry. That, and lack of
sleep, made her mouth cottony and her eyes gritty. She could have gone back to
her quarters after the howl from the Suneater confirmed the impact of the
lances, for nothing could be expected for an unknown time—no one knew how long
it would take the Marines to fight their way to their objectives. But she knew
she wouldn’t sleep. Better to fret on the bridge; half of her primary crew had
volunteered to remain.

Instead she’d made Krajno take a Z-watch. Surprisingly he’d
gone without even a jocular protest.
Is
my stress that obvious?
She glanced over at Commander Gramalcyn,
transferred from the
Prestopans
. Her
reputation as a stellar first officer was probably another reason why Krajno
hadn’t objected.

Courier report incoming,” said Ammant at Communications;
even when tired and stressed nothing diminished his angelic beauty. Ng found
that oddly reassuring. “On-screen.”

The fleshy-tulip visage of a Kelly Intermittor windowed up
as the communications console twittered, announcing the compressed data that
the scout would summarize.

“Asteroid rouge-nord seven,” the Kelly said, identifying its
origin. Ng heard a harsh edge to the mellow blat of its voice, and wondered if
that was how fatigue sounded in a Kelly. “
Sprezzatura
lost,
Musashi
damaged and withdrawing.
Pax Romana
damaged but functional.
Asteroid engine still functional.”

Rom-Sanchez and his tacticians correlated the new data into
the tactical plot. Ng watched as the changes rippled through the tenno. The
engines on the cruiser salvaged to accelerate that asteroid were holding up,
despite the tactical skips needed to keep it intact against the Dol’jharian
attack. But they wouldn’t forever, and already it had heated up enough to
eliminate the option of cutting loose and moving it to another asteroid. Soon
she would have to launch it or lose it.

But for now, rouge-nord seven was still a threat, at the
cost of two destroyers and a damaged battlecruiser.

She conferred briefly with Rom-Sanchez, then snapped out her
orders, accompanied by a data burst in answer to the scout’s. The Kelly dipped
its head-stalk in salute and vanished.

“We’re holding,” Rom-Sanchez commented. “Just.” The pouches
of dark flesh under his eyes made him look like an old hound dog.

Before she could reply, Wychyrski at Siglnt cut in.
“Admiral! We’ve broken one of the codes. Rifter ship
Piranha
. Wait! Another’s going. Something’s degrading their
crypto!”

Rom-Sanchez sprang into action, snapping out orders to his
tactical officers. The tenno began evolving rapidly.

Commander Gramalcyn leaned over from her pod. “Thetris must
have made good use of those arrays on the
Telvarna
.”

Ng nodded, relief sweeping away her fatigue.

“Siglnt, monitor transmissions from the
Fist
. They’ll figure out what’s happened soon enough. When they do,
start jamming. They won’t have enough power left for the discriminators.”

Ng sat back. The breaking of the enemy codes went a long way
toward equalizing an otherwise very unequal contest. She thought about the
Panarch among the Marines facing the unknown numbers on the equally mysterious
Suneater. Thetris had bought them the most precious of all military
commodities: time.

But the power of the Suneater was still increasing, so the
question was, how much time?

o0o

The Suneater was even stranger than Brandon had expected:
like being in the bowels of some vast beast in the throes of a terrible
indigestion. Slow waves of compression, like peristalsis of the red-glowing
walls, made the Marines’ progress even slower as the corridors sometimes forced
them to their hands and knees. Crumpled bits of metal and dyplast marked where
human constructs had yielded to the changes taking place in the awakening
station; here and there overstressed cables had parted, plunging the corridors
into reddish gloom when the lights failed.

As the squad he followed pressed deeper into the Suneater
toward the array lab, he was glad Meliarch Chaz couldn’t see him, and even
gladder that most of the Tarkan resistance seemed concentrated elsewhere. He
felt enormously clumsy, and his reactions were always behind the others.

The inevitable finally happened. Two Ogres dropped through a
sudden opening from above while cross fire from a squad of Tarkans cut into the
Marines from up ahead. One of the point squad went down, wounded by Dol’jharian
wasps. Reflective smoke from foggers filled the corridor.

The Ogres grappled with Nall and Iresc from Brandon’s own
squad. He could hear their armor protesting as the huge machines wrenched at
them and their head jacs splashed fire off the Marines’ helmets. Two other
Marines sprang forward and discharged wasps directly against the Ogre’s heads.
One of them jerked back and fell, convulsing ponderously, its jac spraying
plasma in every direction. Iresc leapt free.

A threesome of triskels scuttled down the corridor and
attacked the other Ogre. Flame sprayed from rents in its armor as the little
Kelly-made machines cut into it with mono-thread spun from spider-like
ventricles in their undersides. The Marine pulled himself away, and staggered
back.

“Squad two!” Rhapulo shouted. “Flank through the walls,
two-seventy, wasps and foggers. Squad three, hit them hard when two attacks.”
He discharged two more foggers himself as he spoke. “Yehudi, open the wall,
ninety. Kellem, pull Nail through. The rest of you, fall back after him.”

Brandon turned to his right, raising his gauntlets to the
wall. Before he could press the quantum interface against the Urian material a
flicker on his left warned him of danger. He realized he should have moved as
the spasms of the downed Ogre propelled it toward him at inhuman speed. The
Ogre retained enough functionality to grab his leg. His armor protested as the
Ogre wrenched at him. He fought at it, but the shock had swept away his veneer
of training, and his efforts were ineffective.

“Chatz!” Rhapulo sprang to his aid.

The distraction was enough for the Tarkans. They rallied and
the harsh scream of wasps filled the corridor. Brandon felt the Ogre release
him, then heard the crack of an explosion and a grunt of pain from Rhapulo.
Amplified battle cries echoed as the flanking squad attacked the Tarkans and
squad three pounded up the corridor. Seconds later the encounter was over.

Rhapulo propped himself up against a wall, faceplate open,
regarding the splatter-sear across both legs of his armor where the wasp had
glanced off him. “Still functional,” he said in response to an inquiry. Then,
“Sho-Banu, jack into the comp feeds. See what’s up with the arrays. We may need
to crash them from here, if possible. Rather blow them up, but it’s taking too
long to get there, and things are rough around the landing bay.”

No mention of his screw-up. Brandon knew there wouldn’t be,
and he couldn’t even apologize. It was working out as he feared.

“Meliarch,” sho-Banu said, “something odd. Listen!” There
was a click, then a tinny burst of music: the Phoenix Fanfare.

“What the Shiidran Hell?” Rhapulo exclaimed.

“Sedry Thetris!” Brandon laughed. “She got to the arrays.”

“Looks like her worm is on its way to gobbling up just about
all the capacity,” sho-Banu said. “I’d say they haven’t got much crypto, and
probably don’t know it.”

“Hah!” The meliarch grunted, but Brandon could tell he was
pleased. “Better to leave them intact, then. Good. Now, if we gain control of
this logos-forsaken station, maybe we can notify the Fleet and keep those rocks
off our heads. Anyway, we should be able to tap into their communications.” His
comm clicked off; Brandon couldn’t hear his low-voiced conversation. Presently
he clicked his comm back to the cohort channel that all five squads were tuned
to. “We’re needed at the landing bay. They lost
Stiletto
—interface destroyed. And Eusabian’s boy is duffing us bad.
Look.”

A vid bloomed in Brandon’s eyes-on: Anaris, seen from a
helmet imager. The image blurred with violent motion and they were looking up
at the Dol’jharian. He gestured and something ripped the faceplate away. After
another violent movement the image went dark.

“How’d he do that?” someone asked.

“TK,” Brandon said.

“What?” The meliarch’s question was a sharp demand.

“Before we left Ares, the High Phanist revealed that Anaris
was the last member of the psychic unity needed to start the Suneater. But
there was no hint of what powers he might have.”

“Now we know,” Rhapulo said, and winced as he heaved himself
to his feet. No one else said anything. The other two squads rejoined them;
Losricos and Chaer were missing.

“Meliarch?” Brandon said.

“Yes, Yehudi?”

“I’m in the way, and I certainly can’t do anything about
Anaris. But Vi’ya’s power was telepathy, and if I can find her, it might help against
the Tarkans guarding the landing bay.”

“How will you find her?”

“Probably in, or near, what the Arthelion construct called
the Throne Room—evidently the Suneater’s power center.”

“And Omilov said we couldn’t do anything against it. So?”

“She and I formed a link, back on Ares. If I get close
enough, we should be able to communicate. And she has the Eya’a with her. Armor
isn’t any good against them.”

The meliarch hardly paused. “Right. Squad three, you take
Yehudi and follow his lead. Yehudi, you tell them where you want to go, but
that’s it. Dyarch Gwyn is still in command.”

“AyKay, sir,” Brandon replied, relieved to be getting
away—an emotion only intensified by the relief he suspected the meliarch was
experiencing at getting rid of him.

Vi’ya.
The thought
went out from him, charged with memory images as the Marines formed up and
dogged their faceplates.

Before they moved out, Rhapulo swung his head in Brandon’s
direction. “The Lightbearer go with you, Your Majesty.” The words were said
softly; most of the others did not hear.

Though Brandon could not apologize, he had been offered
forgiveness. Pitching his voice for only the man who had just been wounded in
his service, he said, “And with you, Meliarch.”