A Choice of Treasons (54 page)

Sayalla grinned. “Yes, though right now I’m wondering more about your orders than mine.”

Add’kas’adanna looked at him carefully and took the bait. “For instance?”

“Well now, I wonder why you chose Aagerbanne—we aren’t that significant, at least not militarily. We’re just big, and well equipped. And why send the Fleet Director herself? I’m sure you have better things to do.”

He was baiting her, though there was no reason to conceal her purpose so Add’kas’adanna spoke openly. “I am, of course, here to find the ship
Cinesstar
and destroy her.”

Sayalla nodded calmly, though he should have started, showed some surprise. “Of course,” he said flatly. “Though I wish we could have gotten her first.”

Add’kas’adanna considered his words carefully. He hadn’t said, “. . . gotten
to
her first,” as if he wanted to rescue her. He had said, “. . . gotten her first,” as if he too had orders to destroy her.

“Hmmm!” Sayalla continued. “The Directorate wants
Cinesstar
so bad they’re willing to send their highest military officer with an armada to get her. I don’t suppose you’ll tell me what you and my superiors have got cooked up?”

Did Sayalla believe the Directorate Central Committee and the Imperial Admiralty were conspiring in some way to do away with a single ship? Add’kas’adanna decided not to enlighten him. As long as he thought she knew more than she did, he might tell her something she didn’t know. In answer to his question she shook her head slowly. “That would not be appropriate, though I will confess I’ve not seen the exact wording of your orders.”

Sayalla shrugged. “
Shoot on sight
—simple, straight from Admiralty Intelligence. You all want her bad, don’t you? Has her captain gone renegade?”

Add’kas’adanna ignored his questions. “And you say you have no knowledge of her whereabouts?”

“If I did,” Sayalla said, “I’d be going after her with everything I could muster. There’s probably a healthy promotion in store for the man who gets her, and certainly a nice reward.”

Add’kas’adanna retreated into her thoughts. This was interesting and valuable information. She’d have to think carefully how to use it. Perhaps, with a little luck, and a deft hand, she might be able to learn why everyone wanted
Cinesstar
so badly. If Sayalla was telling the truth, then
Cinesstar
was nowhere near Aagerbanne, and to push further into the empire would only cost her needed ships and crews.

She looked at Sayalla. “I will, of course, have to test you to insure that you’re speaking the truth. Nothing barbaric, mind you. Just some drugs, and a deep neural probe operated by a highly skilled technician. You should feel no pain.”

“Thank you,” Sayalla said. “I appreciate the courtesy.”

Ninda was a hard, unpleasant man, who made no effort to hide his distrust of Add’kas’adanna. Oddly enough, she reflected, when she had first begun working for him he could have trusted her implicitly. In accepting the appointment to his staff,
kith’ain
dictated she support him, even if she did not agree with him, even if she must compromise her honor. She had served him well through the years, and he had carefully advanced her through the ranks until finally—more through covert manipulation than anything else, she had later discovered—he had won for her the appointment to Fleet Director. She had been quite proud the day she became one of the five most powerful people in the Republic of Syndon, a member of the Central Committee of the Federal Directorate. But her pride was badly misplaced.

She quickly learned the role he had chosen for her was that of a lackey, one who must support him in all things, without question, blindly. He used her as a goad to frighten those such as Zort: support me, Ninda implied to all who might oppose him, or I’ll turn the Kinathin loose on you. In that, he had cost her great honor, and by doing so he had broken the implicit pact between them, and she was free to seek her own honor, independent of his. It was ironic that his distrust of her, had forced her to become an untrustworthy associate.

“Yes, yes,” Ninda said impatiently. “Abraxa wants them to succeed no more than we do.”

Ninda should have been surprised at that information, so Add’kas’adanna was in a mood to take a slight risk. “But why does the empire wants them dead?”

Ninda shook his head. “Not the empire. Just those old men and women in the Admiralty.”

“Then why does the Admiralty want them dead?”

“Because they might end this war, and that’s something none of us want, is it, Fleet?”

“Of course not,” she said, but only because that was expected of her. “But how can one, lone ship end the war?”

Ninda tone was insultingly condescending. “Ah, you Kinathins! You can see no solution but the military one, can you?”

Ninda had always believed that about her, and she had never had reason to correct him. In answer she shrugged. “Shall I continue searching for this imperial ship?”

“Yes,” Ninda said, nodding his head thoughtfully. “I doubt they’ve managed to cross into imperial territory yet. So it’s probably best if you keep up the pressure. I’d rather
we
caught them anyway, and we’ll consider the imperials insurance just in case they do slip through.”

“As you wish.” Add’kas’adanna cut the circuit.

She considered the blank screen for a moment. She wanted that ship, but not to destroy it. She wanted to question the ship’s occupants. She wanted to know how one, single ship could stop an interstellar war that had lasted generations.

She looked at her screen, at the map drawn there, at the sequence of pinpoints indicating probable sightings of the imperial ship. Her captain had obviously been trying to break through the lines and get to Aagerbanne. And the timing of the most recent sightings mad it clear he should be only days away from approaching the system.

She had a large number of ships assembled right in the path of that imperial ship. And there were reliable methods for finding a needle in a cosmic haystack.

She came to a decision and keyed her implants. “Commodore Martak.”

The reply came instantly. “Yes, Your Excellency.”

“Tell the Fleet Captains there’ll be a command summit on my flagship in . . .” She glanced at her watch. “. . . one hour.”

“Yes, Your Excellency.”

York floated into the brig and grabbed a handhold. Notay had the brig watch, and when York appeared she somehow stood up, locking her ankles under the console to keep from floating off the deck. She saluted slowly—in zero-G they were all careful to avoid sudden movement. “Good afternoon, sir.”

York threw a salute back at her. “Mec. I’d like to see the
feddie
breed warrior.”

“The weird one, eh?”

“What do you mean by that?”

Notay shrugged. “She’s weirdin’ out, sir. Don’t eat much. Don’t bathe. Gettin’ more fucked up every day. You better stay away from her, sir.”

York nodded toward the cellblock. “I want to see for myself.”

Notay was nervous. They were all nervous. They’d been coasting toward the battle for the last day and a half, watching both sides throw a lot of nasty stuff at each other, and not daring to use any energy to divert their course or slow their advance. York had watched from the captain’s console as the
feddies
took the outer reaches of the system, burning one imperial ship after another and advancing steadily.
Cinesstar
was just touching the edge of Aagerbanne’s
heliopause
when the battle turned to a route. The
feddies
gutted Aagerbanne Station with several large warheads, then systematically took out all military installations on the planet’s surface. After that most of the imperial fleet withdrew, retreating to the subsector headquarters at Sarasan. And
Cinesstar
coasted into the middle of an armada of Directorate warships.

With so much sublight velocity left from their down-transition they should have passed right through the system in a couple of hours. But as luck would have it their vector drew them into the gravity well of a large planet.
Cinesstar’s
velocity prevented the planet from capturing them, but it swung them around into the plane of the ecliptic and killed a lot of their speed. They’d swung in close to the primary, lost more velocity there, and were now headed for the gravity well of another planet out near the edge of the system. According to Gant’s calculations they were going to lose more velocity in their swing around that planet, and get slung right back toward the center of the system. She wasn’t sure if they’d get caught again, or pass on through and out the other side. But at any time a
feddie
warship might detect the hot spark of their power plant, even though they were holding it to a bare minimum. The one thing they had going for them was the mess that remained around them. The battle had scattered hot debris all over the system, and there were hundreds of detectable fragments that would appear little different from
Cinesstar
on a scan report.

Notay wasn’t exaggerating about Sab’ach’ahn. The breed warrior had lost weight, and while she probably outweighed most full-grown men, on such a tall frame the weight loss had taken her from gaunt to emaciated.

She sat in a corner of the cell, her legs crossed haphazardly, her back against a bulkhead, one hand tucked absentmindedly into a handhold to keep her from floating away in zero-G. She’d torn the sleeves off her tunic, and to hold back her matted and unwashed hair she’d tied a strip of cloth around her head like a bandanna. She’d painted the upper and lower eyelids of her left eye with some sort of dark, reddish-brown paint. The air around her held a faintly pungent and oddly foreign smell of stale sweat. Her eyes were distant, unseeing, lost in some other universe of thought, or escape.

York held onto a small girder, floating directly in front of her cell. Still she seemed unaware of him and stared right through him. He spoke softly, “Sublegion.”

The Kinathin didn’t move, and her eyes still remained focused on a spot far past York. York tried a different tack. He kept his voice steady and level, and he spoke as if she were one of his subordinates. “Sublegion Sab’ach’ahn.”

Her shoulders shifted slightly, then her eyes came into focus. She didn’t move other than to blink once, and a small fleck of the dark reddish-brown paint around her left eye broke loose and floated away from her cheek. York realized it was dried blood.

“Captain Ballin,” she said, her voice flat and lifeless. “What may I do for you?”

“Tell me what you’re doing to yourself.”

She lifted one of her own hands, looked at the dark skin of the fingers, considered it for a moment and lowered it again. “I have done nothing.”

York shook his head. “You’re not eating, not bathing, not taking care of yourself.” York had used the ship’s library files to learn what he could about the Kinathins. Most of what the empire knew was speculation and rumor, sometimes legend, but it appeared they had strict rules concerning their own code of conduct and honor. “I am responsible for you. I have asked you a question that does not require you to betray your comrades, so you must answer.”

She looked at him carefully for the first time since Anachron IV. “I am in disgrace,” she said flatly.

“Why are you in disgrace?”

“I broke the contract of truce between us.”

“Andleman was the one who violated the truce.”

“But he was my responsibility.”

“And so you’re going to starve yourself to death?”

She didn’t answer, and while he was trying to think of another approach his implants came to life. “Captain, this is Gant on bridge watch. I think that Syndonese armada is getting ready to leave. They’re lining up for transition out system. This could be it, sir.”

York keyed his implants. “I’ll be right up.”

York growled one last order at the Kinathin. “You’re my prisoner and my responsibility. You will eat, and you will bath, and you will take care of yourself. That is an order.”

He didn’t have time to argue with her, or to wait for her to reply, or to even confirm that she’d heard him and not slipped back into her trance. He turned and started pulling his way from one handhold to the next, heading for the bridge.

It took the Syndonese armada more than two hours to form up into seven wings and begin driving out of the system. By that time
Cinesstar
was deep into her swing around the planet at the edge of the system. When the ships in the armada started up-transiting
Cinesstar
was already coasting back in toward the center of the system. An hour later Gant declared, “There goes the last one, sir.”

York stared at his screens carefully. Maggie said, “I think we’re all alone here. I think those
feddies
pulled out completely, took all the imperials they could find as prisoners.”

“York, old boy,” Jondee said, breathing a sigh of relief for all of them. “I sure wish I had your luck. But I guess I’ll have to be happy hanging around the edges of it, picking up magical emanations from the wondrous glow.”