Drysine Legacy (The Spiral Wars Book 2)

“
C
opyright
© 2015 by Joel Shepherd

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and is not intended by the author.

Cover Illustration by Stephan Martiniere.
http://www.martiniere.com/

Titles by Kendall Roderick.
http://rmind-design.com

F
our hundred meters
above the valley floor, there was a strange kind of peace to be found, hanging by toes and fingertips in the mid-afternoon sun. Colonel Timothy Khola clipped his harness onto the next stretch of rope up the cliff-face, and took a moment to look around. The valley was beautiful, filled with tall green trees above which the cliff rose vertically, white and yellow stone aglow against the green forest below. What a joy to climb in this place, after the austere and brutal beauty of his native Sugauli.

To his left, a young officer-cadet was struggling, breathing hard with obvious fatigue as she searched for her next set of hand and foot-holds in the rock above. “Cadet Lo!” Khola called across. “How you doing?”

“I’m…” she gasped for more air. “I’m fine sir!

“Slow and easy, Cadet,” he told her. “Slow and easy. Remember, you can’t be fast if you’re rushed. It’s all about rhythm and pacing.”

Cadet Lo nodded intently. Beneath her, other cadets were following the rope up, like so many insects slowly crawling up a wall. From this height, it would take at least ten seconds to hit the trees if you fell.
Such
a view. Of course, with proper use of ropes and harness for beginners, falling was impossible. Not like Kulina trainees learned to do it on Sugauli, free-climbing, for that ultimate rush of focused concentration. Free-climbing one learned to lose oneself entirely within the task at hand, and learned that skill and execution, in the moments that mattered, were all the tools one needed to stave off certain death. Of course, he couldn’t recommend free-climbing to these marine officer-cadets. His job was to train them, not kill them. But for himself, with the ropes and harness in place, it wasn’t quite the same.

To his right, a lean, brown figure flowed smoothly up the rock from one hold to another, as fast as his fellow cadets were slow. Cadet Rohan, Khola saw with little surprise. “Good afternoon Colonel!” Rohan called across to him with a calm smile as he climbed. “You were right, it is a beautiful climb!”

“You just make sure you stop and
help
the next person you rocket past, Cadet Rohan!” Khola replied. “If you reach your target thirty minutes before the rest of your squad, the enemy will thank you, then kill you.”

“Yes Colonel!” Rohan continued to scamper upward, fast but not rushed. Khola shook his head, and followed with fast, easy pulls of his strong bare arms.

Fifty meters from the top, a cruiser howled overhead, black and official-looking, then vanished beyond the lip above. Khola kept his pace steady, giving encouragement to cadets around him. Ahead, Cadet Perris was in difficulty, having been passed by several since the bottom. Khola stayed with him until the top, not telling him where to put his hands and feet, for it was not his job to perform basic skills for these cadets. He simply reminded Perris to breathe and relax, and soon enough, in a better frame of mind, the young man made the top and hauled himself over the lip with obvious relief, and cheers from those already arrived.

No-one gave Khola a hand up, that would have been temerity. Looking around as he unhooked, he found that three-quarters of those who’d started were already here. Now they sat exhausted and took in the view, or took turns helping others up, or put salves on sore and bleeding fingers. Beyond the cadets, the cruiser waited on the rock before the tree line. Nearby stood a man in blue spacer uniform with a rear admiral’s stars, talking with two others as they admired the view and watched the arriving cadets.

Khola walked to them, displeased they’d not waited another thirty minutes until everyone had summited. Turning these kids into officers and warriors had been his life’s work for the past ten years. Even most admirals knew better than to interrupt him on the job.

The officers saw him approach, and Khola pulled a crumpled cap from his pocket, and yanked it on in order to perform the proper salute. The officers returned it. Beside the Rear Admiral was Major Varika from the Academy, whom Khola knew well, and a spacer captain whom he didn’t.

“Colonel,” said the Major. “Rear Admiral Bedi, and Captain Cain.” Bedi offered a handshake, which let Khola know that the formality-level was low. That wasn’t good. When Fleet brass came calling with friendly gestures, usually they meant to ask him something he wouldn’t like.

“How are they coming, Colonel?” asked Rear Admiral Bedi.

“They’re a good bunch,” said Khola. “They’re disappointed they’re not likely to see any action. I tell them to be careful what they wish for, but they don’t listen to me.”

Bedi nodded. He was a smallish man, round-cheeked, a little portly. Amazing how fast some former ship captains put on the kilos, once back on station dock or planet-side assignment, with a table full of nice things every day instead of the usual ship food. “Colonel, I’ve been sent here by the Guidance Council.”

Khola took a deep breath. “Yes Admiral.”
This
was why they’d come to him. He didn’t like it, but he was Kulina, and Kulina made a lifestyle of doing things that most people would rather not. “Why me?”

“It must be someone beyond reproach,” said Bedi with certainty. “The group was in agreement. Your service record is exemplary, even by Kulina standards. You hold the Liberty Star. You have repeatedly refused higher promotion in favour of your Academy role. The wider Fleet hold a low opinion of officers who do their superiors’ dirty work just to win promotion. You are not that sort of officer, and everyone knows it.”

“So this is about appearances, then.”

“Isn’t everything?” asked Bedi. “Look Colonel, they screwed up. Captain Pantillo was a pain in the ass, but you can’t just kill the guy because he gets in your way. Or if you do, at least have the sense to do it quietly. Not court-martialled on Homeworld for millions of people to see, and billions more when the media grab it. And to try to pin it on
Debogande.
Of all the hare-brained schemes.”

Khola did not agree with that. People were always wise in hindsight. But Rear Admiral Anjo
had
almost pulled it off. Lieutenant Commander Debogande was the son of one of the most powerful industrialists in human space, and such powerful people attracted distrust. Plenty of people would have believed that Alice Debogande would murder to get her way. They’d been prepared to believe it of her son, when Fleet had accused him of murdering his own Captain.

The reason they hadn’t believed it, was Major Trace Thakur,
Phoenix
’s marine commander, and another of the four still-living Kulina officers, along with Khola himself, who wore the Liberty Star. Kulina were known to be incorruptible, and with Thakur on his side, the weight of suspicion had shifted away from LC Debogande, and onto the senior Fleet commanders who’d accused him. And now that Fleet had far larger battles to fight, the whole thing was becoming one enormous distraction they could no longer afford.

“We’ve got the makings of a full scale insurgency going on with the Worlders,” said Bedi, gazing over the exhausted cadets. “Spacers are with us, Spacer Congress is with us… but they have sympathy for Debogande and Pantillo, and the entire
Phoenix
crew. They just don’t believe the story any longer, and the more they hear, the less they believe it. It makes us look nasty, and it makes us look stupid.”

“It makes us look treacherous,” Khola added calmly.

Bedi’s mouth twisted with displeasure. “Yes,” he conceded. “
Phoenix
got screwed. The more we deny it, the worse we look. It’s time to cut our losses on this one. And cutting our losses also means cutting the dead weight that’s associated with it.”

“You want a scapegoat.”

“Three scapegoats,” Bedi corrected. “Two Fleet Admirals, and one Supreme Commander. We’ll deal with Chankow and Ishmael. But we’d like you to handle Anjo.”

“And what happens to
Phoenix
?”

“We’ll make them an offer. With the people who screwed them gone, they’ll have justice for their Captain, and vindication. We’ll ask them to come home, and forgive their crimes.” Khola exhaled a hard breath. Bedi raised an eyebrow. “You disapprove?”

“Major Thakur has committed grave crimes, against Fleet and against Kulina. She violated her oath. Amongst our own kind, the penalty is death.”

Bedi looked surprised. “She is one of your best, Colonel. You’d really kill her?”

“Admiral, if I had done the things she’s done, whatever the cause, the Kulina Council would kill
me
. And I’d deserve it.”

Bedi nodded slowly. “Kulina swore an oath to serve Fleet. We’ll need you to hold to that oath once more, Colonel. If
Phoenix
accepts amnesty, you will let Major Thakur live. Whatever your custom, and whatever Fleet’s standing agreement that we will allow Kulina to practise their custom where ever possible.”

“
Phoenix
will not accept amnesty,” Khola said grimly.

“Well I think they might. And I know Fleet ask a lot of the Kulina, Colonel, but I must insist again that you forgo your custom in this instance. Should you have Major Thakur executed
after Phoenix
’s amnesty, Fleet will not look the other way. The perpetrators shall be punished, whoever they are, am I clear?”

“Very clear, Admiral. But
Phoenix
will not accept amnesty.”

“Very well. We will see.” Among the trainee-officers, Cadet Rohan was helping new arrivals to unclip, and showing them the finer points of ropes and harnesses. “That lad there looks Kulina,” Bedi suggested.

“Cadet Rohan, yes. Since he arrived from Sugauli two years ago, he’s been leading his class on half of the disciplines, and is top fifth in the others.”

Bedi whistled. “Some effort in this field. Was Thakur that good?”

Khola smiled faintly. “Trace wasn’t great at everything. Her classwork and theory were never much better than class average. She coasted. Some assessors thought it could hold her back. I warned her about it, once. She said that obsessive focus on academia interfered with her field performance. She was all about field performance, rarely less than an A-plus on anything field related. I said that some assessors doubted not just her application, but her ability. Her next academic test came in at ninety-five percent, just to prove the point. And then dropped back to her usual eighty-five percent, like clockwork.”

“How many years did you have her for?” Bedi asked curiously.

“Just the one.” Khola’s smile grew broader. “She was more than a good cadet, she was a good kid. Somehow managed to combine real leadership with real empathy for the vast majority that couldn’t match her. Many young hotshots don’t manage it.”

“Yes,” said Bedi. “I remember.”

“And she remains the single most determined and focused individual I’ve ever met. Mental discipline like a steel trap.”

“And yet despite all your admiration, you’d still rather see her dead?”

“In all the seven hundred years of the Kulina, no serving warrior has ever violated the oath as she has, and been allowed to live.” Khola turned to the Admiral, and looked him in the eye. “When the time comes — and believe me Admiral, the time
will
come — I’ll kill her myself.”