Ruler of Naught, page 21
part #2 of Exordium Series
Lokri tapped at his console. “Hellrose. Harl Lignis is captain.”
Marim snorted. “So I guess old Terelli is breathing Void. Better for us. Lignis’ll want to play before he kills. He’s even more twisty than Hreem.”
“Is he...” Lokri smiled. “A Dol’jharian?”
Marim jumped, nearly strangling on a laugh of surprise, and Osri caught his breath when Vi’ya’s black, unblinking eyes turned Lokri’s way, then back again.
“Fourteen hundred kilometers.” Lokri’s drawl was back.
He think he’s won something. Osri looked away, his guts churning.
Brandon’s hands tapped precisely at his console, which still had Jaim’s knife and hair lying across the top, like a strange kind of offering. The Tenno glyphs echoing across the top of the main screen rippled through a series of configurations as more information built up about their enemy.
“Twelve hundred kilometers.”
The tension on the bridge increased. No one made any unnecessary movements. Their attention was bent on the frigate, willing it into the killing radius of the Sunflame’s trap.
“One thousand kilometers.”
Vi’ya did not move.
“What are you waiting for?” Lokri snapped, his bravado gone. “Blast him before he gets wise.”
“The closer he is, the more damage it will do,” Vi’ya said, her eyes on the screen. “We wait.”
Lokri’s fingers drummed lightly on his console. “Nine hundred kilometers.”
Osri’s mouth felt dry, but his hands were sweaty. Even if the trap worked, the frigate bristled with weaponry far outclassing that of the Telvarna. He slid a glance at the Aerenarch, but he was impossible to read, armored behind the Douloi shield.
Lokri tapped at his console, his breath hissing between his teeth. “Eight hundred kilometers and slowing.” He hesitated. “He’s vectoring off.”
“Then it is time,” Vi’ya said, and tabbed a key on her console.
There was a faint sparkle from the wreckage of the Sunflame and the looped conversations fell silent. The ruined ship crumpled inward, as if in the grip of an invisible fist; a few hull plates spun away into space. Nausea surged through Osri and then was gone, so swiftly he wasn’t sure it was the effect of the gravitational burst from the Sunflame’s engines or the sudden release of tension.
The effect on the Hellrose was more dramatic. The frigate’s radiants flared into painful brightness as the ship abruptly accelerated, heading past the wreck.
“Got him!” Lokri laughed. “Accelerating at fifty gees, course 250 mark 32.”
Vi’ya tabbed her comm. “Jaim, bring the fiveskip back up.”
Moments later Jaim reported, “Fiveskip up.” Osri could almost see the wave of relief sweep the bridge.
“He’s heading for Warlock,” said Brandon. “If he gets deep enough into radius he’ll negate the advantage our fiveskip gives us.”
“We will deal with him before that,” Vi’ya said as her fingers tapped rapidly at her console.
The starfield in the viewscreen slewed, Dis whirling overhead, as the Telvarna spun about and accelerated away in the opposite direction, to avoid exposing the little ship to the more powerful weapons of the Hellrose. A short time later the Telvarna leapt into skip briefly, came about, and skipped again. On the viewscreen a graphic windowed up, showing a god’s-eye view of Warlock and its moons. The course of the Telvarna was taking it straight at the gas giant.
“Arkad, attack one coming up.”
Brandon’s hands barely moved on the keys. “Aft launcher ready, missile barrage, wide dispersion. Aft cannon ready.” It was even more disorienting to hear the naval bridge cadence on this Rifter ship.
The Telvarna shuddered out of skip.
“Hellrose detected: 182 mark 3, plus 12 light-seconds.”
The ship trembled as the Aerenarch loosed the missile barrage and Osri could hear the faint susurration of the cooling pumps as the aft cannon discharged a burst of plasma at maximum power: the Telvarna had skipped ahead of the enemy, emerging between it and Warlock.
The starfield slewed again. This time a flash of orange announced the nearness of the gas giant and its deadly gravitational well. The Telvarna leapt into skip again.
“Emergence minus nine seconds for attack two,” said Vi’ya, echoing the bridge cadence just enough for Osri to wonder if Markham had taught her before he was killed.
The seconds ticked by.
“Three, two, one, emergence.” Lokri’s voice overrode the emergence bells. “Hellrose at 92 mark 7, plus one light-second.”
Brandon stabbed at his console and the aft cannon discharged at the extreme of its sideways travel even as the ship slewed about to bring the aft launcher into play. A frightful glare lit up the viewscreen and the ship bucked, then jarred back into fivespace.
“Chatz! They hit us,” Marim squawked. “Just aft of the starboard freight hatch.” Her fingers blurred on her console. “Teslas kept most of it out, minor damage, no penetration.” She swiped her arm across her forehead. “Too close.”
The Telvarna jarred into skip, then out, and shuddered to another missile discharge. Then back into skip for a moment and out.
“Hellrose at 168 mark 11, plus 9 light-seconds.”
The starfield slewed again, bringing a magnified image of the frigate into view. A gout of light effaced the view.
“Missile impacts,” Lokri said, dead-voiced. “Evidence of cannon hits.” He sent one lethal glance over at Vi’ya, and Osri remembered his words: “No one is worth risking my life for.” If we live through this there’s going to be trouble later.
Osri forced his attention back to the screens. First the plasma beams and then the missile barrages of the Telvarna had hit the Hellrose simultaneously from two directions—an advantage conferred on the smaller ship by its still-functional fiveskip.
“He’s leaking, aft portside,” Marim reported.
The viewscreen flickered to a close-up of the frigate: a bright cloud of ionized gas billowed from one side. Unable to deal with the simultaneous attacks, the frigate had taken at least one hit.
It took many more as the smaller ship pursued it toward Warlock, stinging again and again from two and three directions at once. The Telvarna, too, took hits, and Marim vanished from the bridge. Osri could hear her cursing over the comm as she crawled through the accessways, jury-rigging the circuitry and coolant conduits to keep the ship running.
As the pursuit wore on, Lokri’s console lit from time to time with incoming messages, but Vi’ya directed him to ignore them.
The two ships drew nearer and nearer to the gas giant, cutting down on Vi’ya’s ability to skip ahead of their fleeing prey. Instead, she began to concentrate on the frigate’s radiants, where the venting gases that cooled its laboring engines created an area that the shields couldn’t fully protect. The Hellrose yawed, accelerating crabwise in a vain attempt to protect its weak spot, but the old frigate’s geeplane couldn’t open enough of a vector.
“We’re getting close to radius,” said Lokri. “Too close. We’re in the Bulge now, and the line is fuzzy.”
Osri looked closer at the tactical plot, noticing for the first time that several of the moons of Warlock, including the largest, Pestis, were lined up. Their course would take them into that alignment, where the radius of Warlock would bulge outward in response to the gravitational pull of the moons.
Osri swallowed in a wood-dry throat. It was difficult to predict just how far out radius would extend beyond its normal reach—he hoped their Dol’jharian captain would err on the side of caution.
Vi’ya didn’t reply for a moment. Then: “One more attack. Arkad, I want a maximum effort on his radiants.”
Brandon studied his console. “If we can get within a tenth light-second, I can weaken his shields with the lazplaz and follow up with missiles. It won’t work from further out, his teslas respond too fast.” He paused. “I don’t know if our shields can handle his response at that range.”
“Never mind,” said Lokri, with an unsteady laugh. “He’s skipped.”
Vi’ya’s eyes locked with the dark Rifter’s.
Lokri looked away, then his shoulders tightened. “Emergence?” He tabbed his console. “He fell out of skip, just a light-second further on! Two oh eight mark 28, plus 3 light-seconds.”
The ship slewed around and the viewscreen flickered to maximum magnification.
Osri choked. The frigate now resembled a sort of metallic wattle-in-the-hole: a vast pudding of now-smooth metal surfaces pocked with small holes from which sprouted obscenely bloated objects like pinkish mushrooms which slowly collapsed, emitting puffs of vapor and ice crystals that glittered in the light of the distant sun.
The Bulge had claimed the Hellrose, inverting the frigate and its crew through strange dimensions into a horrible communion of flesh and metal.
Vi’ya said nothing, nor did she move.
Even Marim stared silently at the screen, her expression midway between a gloat and a wince.
Finally Vi’ya tabbed her console and the ship came about.
“Back to Dis,” she said.
o0o
“Is that missile ready, Arkad?”
Osri’s jaw ached from gritting his teeth.
“Ready,” Brandon said and moved aside, leaving his place to Jaim. Above the console the knife still lay, but the braided hair was gone. The main screen showed the Sunflame, little changed from its original ruin by the destruction of its engines in the trap.
The Serapisti’s lips moved silently for a time. Then, with a curiously gentle motion, he depressed the firing key.
Osri felt a mild jar in his viscera, and the screen showed the missile streaking away toward the devastated ship. Moments later a glare of light blacked out the screen for a moment, clearing to reveal a beautiful sharp-edged rosette of light that slowly faded into oblivion.
“The Light-bearer receive them,” murmured Brandon.
Jaim glanced his way, then nodded in acknowledgment and left the bridge, this time taking his knife with him.
“Marim,” commanded Vi’ya after he was gone, “set a course to the fuel cache.”
A short time later Vi’ya engaged the skip for a short hop. When the ship emerged Lokri tapped his console, then looked up. “Cache responds empty.” He grimaced. “I guess Norton didn’t manage that before Hreem caught him.”
“Then listen in on Charvann some more. We need all the information we can get.” Vi’ya tabbed her console. “Marim, take the nav console and plot a minimum fuel course to Rifthaven. Use one of these intermediate destinations, or others if I’ve missed one.”
During the protracted silence that followed, Osri watched Marim’s hands moving aimlessly across the console, apparently rechecking settings and readouts. Her lower lip was red from where she’d been biting it.
After a particularly long pause she looked up. “Sorry, Vi’ya—I can’t find a course with a positive margin, though there are a couple where Finaygel might save us. Maybe if I get Firehead in here—”
“He’s too sick,” Montrose’s voice came over the comm. “Delirious.”
Vi’ya checked her courses, a hint of a line appearing between her eyes. “Lokri, anything more about Hreem or his gang?”
“There’s not much in the transponder dump. Some fragments from various Syncs—scared and angry. Sounds like Hreem’s chatzers are running wild.”
Vi’ya shrugged. “Then we’re committed.”
Lokri hesitated. “There’s one thing more. The discriminators got deeper into that traffic about Hreem. He’s gone to Malachronte to take over the Maccabeus.”
Marim whistled. “That’s all we need, Hreem chasing us in a cruiser.”
“Good,” Lokri drawled, at his most hateful. “We’ll need someone to come find us when we run out of fuel.” His hand indicated the blackness of space beyond the system.
Vi’ya appeared to ignore him, merely checking Marim’s settings through her console. Then she looked up at Osri.
“Take the nav console, Schoolboy. Your Arkad friend here says you are an excellent navigator. I require you to plot a minimum fuel course to Rifthaven via one of the intermediate destinations I’ve entered.”
Resentment washed through Osri. “And if I refuse?”
“There’s an airlock less than thirty meters from here. Your life will last as long as it takes to drag you there.” Vi’ya’s tone was so matter-of-fact that Osri couldn’t believe what she had said.
Marim and Lokri watched him, the woman curious, the man merely waiting. With a mixture of outrage and fear flooding him, he turned to Brandon, who rose and came to face Osri directly. “Their enemies are your enemies, Osri, and mine. For the sake of your oath to my father, if nothing else, do as she asks.”
It was a command from an Aerenarch, as direct as the captain’s, and unlike hers, it could not be ignored unless Osri wished to be forsworn.
Osri moved reluctantly to the nav console. As he began studying the layout already set up, he felt a new thrill of fear. There’s almost no margin of error. Their fuel supply is perilously low.
He began setting up the search paths for the most efficient course, taking into account fivespace attractors and anomalies, radiation densities, and every other conceivable influence on the potential courses presented to him. The familiar work soothed him, and he soon lost himself in the pleasure of a difficult task well fitted to his talents.
An unknown time later he came out of his labors to awareness of his surroundings. That was perhaps the hardest test of his talents as a navigator he had ever faced. He locked in the course and faced the captain.
No one had moved. Vi’ya studied the course for a time. “There is more margin here than I expected.”
Osri felt a surprising flash of pleasure at this comment, which he recognized, from the little he knew of Vi’ya, as the equivalent of fulsome praise.
She tapped her console. The starfield on the screen wheeled about, then blanked as the ship engaged. She looked up at Osri, her face dead calm, but her dark eyes wide and unblinking. “You are free to go now, Omilov.”
Osri walked off the bridge, but the silence behind him made him linger in the accessway. Sensing danger, he looked back just in time to see Vi’ya get up from her console and cross the bridge toward Lokri.
Beyond her, Marim sat, tense and still. Nearby, Brandon watched, as always unreadable.
“My friend,” Vi’ya said softly, but her voice carried.
Lokri had risen, and backed a step or two, his lips parted in a silent laugh. He held up his hands to Vi’ya, palms open, fingers spread.
Was the entire ship taken by some kind of madness? Osri watched as Vi’ya backed Lokri up against a bulkhead.
“Friend,” Vi’ya said. “Let us share the fires together.” One hand gripped Lokri’s shoulder, and he winced.
Her other hand stroked down his face, the nail on her little finger scoring him from temple to jaw. Beads of blood sprang out on Lokri’s skin, but he didn’t move, didn’t even seem to breathe, his light eyes locked with Vi’ya’s dark ones.
She slid her hand down his arm, then gripped. Lokri stumbled toward the hatch where Osri stood.
He did not stay to witness the rest of this interaction. Retreating to the galley, he sat and watched uncomprehendingly as Lucifur prowled, ears flicking, back and forth, back and forth. The two Arkad dogs were nowhere in sight.
You are free to go, Omilov.
It was the first time she had ever used his name.
o0o
The ting of brass finger-cymbals summoned Ivard from the darkness.
Where was he? His body yammered for succor: screaming yellow fire in his back; a hissing violet tide pressing on his eyes; the mutter of a curious green scent filling his nostrils. Panic bubbled in his throat, a nasty green and burning slime until he saw Greywing’s second belt hanging on the hook next to his bunk. He was in his bed in his cabin with Jaim. Only what was that smell, and that sound?
He struggled to rise, but his hands had turned to stone, unfeeling except the blue pulse around one wrist.
He tried once more to open his eyes but the pressure on his lids permitted only the barest slit, awash in fluid, through which he perceived the flicker of candles on either side of a hooded figure.
Arms raised, something golden glinted: clash!
“Hear me, you whom my soul loves,” said a familiar voice.
Jaim.
Identifying the figure steadied Ivard, and he relaxed back in his bunk.
It’s Jaim, and he’s doing something religious.
Jaim did religious things most every day, though seldom with the candles and never before with a hood over his head. Or was something really over his head?
Ivard tried to look more closely, but something was wrong with his eyes. They itched when he tried to open them, so he subsided. He didn’t care anyway.
For the third time the cymbals clashed, a sweet sound that Ivard found comforting. He listened with pleasure until the faint ringing had completely disappeared.
“See me, you whom my soul loves.” And a brightness flickered against Ivard’s eyelids, followed by the sharp tang of incense.
The green scent filled Ivard’s lungs, sending runnels of tiny blue fire inside him.
It was good to be here like this, better than the dispensary. In there he was closed in, and it got boring, but here he felt a kind of current, and he floated somewhere.
“Where do you wander now, you whom my soul loves, in the light of paradise?” Jaim’s voice seemed to come from everywhere.
Paradise... what was that? Lots of places seemed to have that name. Rifthaven, Ivard thought hazily as he drifted upward. We’re rich now. We can buy anything. That’s Paradise.
Then a whisper somewhere just behind his head drew his attention. Was that Jaim?
No, he could hear Jaim: “The cleansing flame did I give you, yet still I hear your voice and feel your gaze... ”
