Ruler of Naught (68 page)

Then alarm burned through her: the cathedral was empty, no
sign of the Rifters, or the High Phanist, or—

Roget relaxed as she caught side of the gnostor and his son
in a gallery along the south wall. Then she spotted Vahn in the north transept.

The conversation with the medics and Jaim must have taken
longer than she thought. She checked her boswell; still green, but time had definitely
slipped past. The light was fading from the windows all about, the great rose
window darkening.

She walked toward the Omilovs as Osri touched his father’s
arm, and peered into the gnostor’s haggard face. She triggered her enhancers.

“What have they done to you?” Osri asked.

The gnostor closed his eyes, then raised his hands to shade
them. “It is what I have done,” he murmured, his voice hoarse with barely
controlled emotion. Then he dropped his hand, his face working into a semblance
of a smile. “Or what I did not do.” A tear jumped down the furrows of his face
and splashed onto his tunic.

“I had a kind of dream,” Osri said. “I knew it was a dream,
but I could not break it until it was done with me.”

“Tell me.”

But Osri stopped as Lokri walked past, intent on the distant
door through which they’d entered. Roget followed. The two Omilovs were
harmless; the beautiful parricide was not. She’d make sure he was headed for
the ship.

“I thought the main thing that marked Rifters from our own
culture was their insistence on living outside our laws...” Roget lost the rest
of Osri’s reply as she followed Lokri.

Before he reached the doors, Roget’s boswell burred in her
inner ear.
(Roget! I’ve lost the Aerenarch!)
Roget whirled around and ran
toward the north transept.

o0o

“I thought the main thing that marked Rifters from our own
culture was their insistence on living outside our laws,” said Osri. “Their
insistence, if you will, that virtues of loyalty and service are meaningless.”

Sebastian rubbed his thumbs along his upper eye sockets.
“You ought to know by now,” he said finally, “that speaking for all of them is
a dangerous thing. But one generality I will allow: I think some of them are as
capable of loyalty as anyone else, should they perceive something worthy of
their loyalty.”

Images from the dream whispered in Osri’s mind.
They need
leadership.
Osri fingered the ribbon and coin in his pocket.
They have
resources.

Osri started, his heart hammering, as the female Marine
charged by, her weapon drawn. As she vanished into a kind of gallery on the
other side of the cathedral, Lokri passed by more slowly from the other
direction. The man’s light gray eyes cast restlessly around, taking Osri and
his father in only as details.

Omilov murmured, “Whom do you seek?”

“No one. I’m leaving.”

Osri stared at Lokri. “Are we locked in here?”

Lokri murmured with an air of puzzlement, “Not that I know
of. Vi’ya left.”

A faint echo of vertigo rippled through Osri.

His father pointed past Lokri’s shoulder; when the Rifter
turned to look, he gave a hiss of surprise, then walked away. Omilov gazed
after. He still had not wiped away the tear tracks from his haggard face.

Then he turned to Osri. “Lend me your arm, my boy,” he said
tiredly. “Let us see if we can find our way out. I am afraid I am badly in need
of rest.”

Metellus Hayashi took a deep breath, savoring the air of
excitement and satisfaction that pervaded the bridge of the
Falcomare
.

Only four additional ships had made it to the Arthelion
mustering point, all frigates, while increased surface-to-ship activity suggested
that the
Fist of Dol’jhar
was preparing to leave Arthelion.

On the viewscreen the
Lady of Taligar
hung unmoving,
its angular form barely discernible against the stars—one of which, barely
brighter than the rest, was Arthelion’s primary. The other ships of
Hainu
squadron,
the
Barahyrn
and the three frigates now attached, were not visible.

This was the kind of action every destroyer captain dreamed
of, the violent, high-speed slash-and-parry that only these vessels could
deliver. Not for him the ponderous, near invulnerability of a battlecruiser,
bludgeoning its opponent into scrap with the ripping terror of a ruptor beam, against
which the teslas offered no protection.

The thought sobered him. That was what they would face in
minutes. For the first time in twenty years, the Thousand Suns would see an
engagement pitting destroyers against the kind of ship they’d been designed to
kill.

Only without our best weapon
. They couldn’t use their
skip-missiles on the
Fist of Dol’jhar
, not so long as it hugged the
planet.

“D’you think we’re up against Juvaszt?” asked Orriega, his
first officer.

“Who knows?” Hayashi shrugged. “With their fondness for
purges we might get lucky. I just hope whoever it is doesn’t figure out what
we’re really up to until it’s too late.”

“Not likely,” Orriega drawled, adding a wiredream version of
a villain’s gloating laugh. “He’ll be too busy tracking down and vaporizing
drones full of vatbeef.”

Hayashi chuckled. It was an old trick, loading drones
masquerading as lances with slabs of vatbeef, to simulate the right mix of
organic and metallic debris when they were blown apart by the defenders. And
the best kind of trick: you always had to assume they were real even if you
figured it out.

“Just an old-fashioned Dol’jharian cookout,” Orriega said,
rubbing her hands.

But they only had enough meat for the first three waves of
drones, one from each destroyer in turn.
Falcomare
and
Lady
would
deliver the first blow against the
Fist
, while on the other side of the
planet, the three frigates would simultaneously take on the Rifter destroyer
Satansclaw
.
Best case, they’d destroy or cripple it, but Hayashi was worried: VSA
observation and close-up stealth surveillance runs had revealed that the Rifter
destroyer was now running a new tactical set. SigInt and Moral Sabotage agreed
it was unlikely Tallis Y’Marmor was still in command. That would have made things
easy.

Well, he’d settle for simply driving
Satansclaw
off
station. Whatever cleared the way for the first wave of drones, launched by
Barahyrn.

Orriega glanced at her console. “Fifteen seconds.”

“Well,” said Hayashi, raising his voice for the benefit of
the entire bridge, “let’s show them what’s wrong with battleblimps. Engines to
tac-level five, arm missiles, lock down for full-ruptor drill.”

The hatches to the bridge engaged their locking bolts,
echoing through the ship in muted clanks as the
Falcomare
segmented
itself into self-sufficient domains in preparation for ruptor attack. Hayashi’s
stomach knotted—if anything qualified as a terror weapon, the ruptor was it—but
let nothing of his disquiet reach his voice as the countdown reached zero.

“Engage.”

The fiveskip burred harshly, making his teeth ache, but
Hayashi was conscious only of the breathless excitement preceding action.

“Emergence minus twelve, eleven, ten... ” He could hear the
same excitement in Orriega’s voice, and sense it in his primary crew at their
consoles. In moments they would emerge over Arthelion at nearly one-quarter
light-speed, hurling shaped-charge missiles at their vast enemy, while in the
middle system, the real battle would be fought...

He recalled Margot’s face, their last night together; a
brief stab of regret, and then the fiveskip disengaged, and there was no time
for anything but the fierce concentration on the here and now that is the
experience of battle.

o0o

The attack took Anderic by surprise, but not the logos. Battle
stations took him out of muzzy semi-sleep into near-panic alertness. Words
burned against the air in his darkened cabin.

MISSILE ATTACK BY TWO FRIGATES. SUSPECT THIRD. TACTICAL SKIP
EXECUTED. STANDING BY.

The panic ebbed, just a bit. The logos had obeyed him.
For
now.
It was the only thing that could save
Satansclaw,
thought
Anderic as he plunged a stim into his arm and stumbled out the hatch.

Although his cabin was only steps away from the bridge, the
stim had boosted him into clarity touched with a euphoria that washed away much
of his concern about the logos by the time he jumped into his pod.

Under its direction, he tried to take the ship back towards
Arthelion. The logos wasn’t worried about the destroyer they detected just as
it skipped out. It had dispatched a swarm of smaller vessels that were executing
a spectacular burn towards the surface. A second frigate attack washed
speculation from his mind.

“Hit him!” shouted Ninn. “Frigate One!” Brightness flickered
on the flank of the Panarchist ship. A skip pulse swelled in its place.

Anderic began to understand Tallis’s exultation during and
after the battle at Charvann. He could see the same respect dawning on their
faces, submerging the resentment.

Except for Kira Lennart.

But he had no time to think about that as the action
continued, especially since Lennart passed Juvaszt’s orders onto him only
moments later. They were terse, but behind them, Anderic sensed the Dol’jharian
captain’s anger. But failing Juvaszt was better than disappointing Barrodagh,
whose last demonstration of the mindripper had effectively silenced rumors that
it had been destroyed in the Arkad’s raid on Arthelion.

As the attacks continued, chivvying
Satansclaw
farther from the planet despite the logos’s best efforts, Anderic wondered if
Juvaszt had really taken the logos into account in his strategic planning. He
was sure that cold mind didn’t take the mindripper into account.

o0o

The shuttle slid through the lock field into the
Fist of
Dol’jhar
, throwing off rainbow rings of light, and settled to the deck,
seemingly cushioned by the spray of static discharges from its hull. Outside,
another shuttle slowly approached, silhouetted against the limb of Arthelion
vast beyond.

Guardsman Tanak grounded his weapon briefly, presented arms,
and snapped to attention with the others of his squad as the shuttle hatch slid
open, revealing the form of Anaris rahal’Jerrodi, the conditional heir. Tanak
shivered and would have straightened up even more, had there been any slack in
his posture. This was the one spoken of in whispers, favored of the
ancestors—Arzoat, second in the squad, had seen that with her own eyes. Even
the shades of the Panarchists, down below in the haunted precincts of the
Mandala, obeyed him, they said.

Anaris stepped to the deck to receive Kyvernat Juvaszt’s
salute. Taller and stronger-seeming even than his Tarkan honor guard, he paused
as his black eyes swept across all in the hangar bay. Those eyes were set in a
strong face whose nose and mouth recalled his father the Avatar. Shadowing him,
a short, astonishingly ugly Bori scuttled out of the shuttle, glancing
nervously around.

Juvaszt took them aside, joining a small group of officers
as a group in plain prison garb began to disembark. Tanak watched with avid
curiosity—these were the enemy, who’d humbled the Children of Dol twenty years
ago. He wondered which one was the Panarch, and then a short, slender man
emerged, and all doubt fled. Not just the way the others deferred to him, not
even the sudden alertness shown in the postures of the conditional heir and
those around him, but the man’s own carriage. Despite the way ship gravity
dragged at him, there was no sign of defeat. He stepped down onto the deck as
though he owned the ship and the loyalty of everyone within.

As their guards led the Panarchists past, impatient with
their slow pace, Anaris raised his hand. The guards halted, and the Panarch
looked up with an air of inquiry into the face of the conditional heir. Tanak
strained to hear, not daring to move or even change the angle of his head.

Only long years of discipline prevented him from jumping
when a whooping siren pulled all heads around.

“Emergence pulses, two, closing at point-two-two cee,
missiles detected!” The voice boomed even louder than the siren.

Juvaszt grabbed his communicator and began shouting orders.
He ran for the inner hatch to the transtube that would take him to the bridge,
followed closely by Anaris and the Bori. The guards from the shuttle began
herding the Panarchists, but the prisoners were slow and clumsy. So the Tarkans
picked them up and ran through another hatch. Despite the indignity, Tanak saw
a smile of pride on the Panarch’s face, reflected in the other prisoners.

The immense doors of the bay slid shut with startling speed.
Outside, the curve of Arthelion blurred as the ship’s defensive fields
energized, seizing the hapless shuttle still outside in a merciless grip and
shredding it into a haze of debris under the lash of the teslas’ momentum
transformation. Beyond, as Druashar, their squad leader, double-timed them to
another hatch, Tanak spotted a spark of light swelling rapidly. Then the
shuttle blew up with a blinding flash just before the bay lock slammed shut.

Tanak was the last Tarkan through the hatch. As Druashar
tabbed the go-key, long habit turned Tanak with the others to face the door.

Afterward, his memory sorted the events into order, but at the
time, it all seemed simultaneous. The doors began to slide shut as a frantic
technician ran toward them, shouting, but his voice was drowned by a shattering
compound roar. The massive lock door bulged, then burst into a flare of white
light. The technician vanished in the burst of ardent heat that struck at them
through the narrow slit as the transtube doors slammed shut. Tanak felt his
skin prickle sharply, like a sunburn, as the concussion hammered them to the
deck plates. After an agonizing delay, the module jerked into motion,
accelerating them away from the wreckage of the hangar bay, now dissolved into
a plasma hotter than the sun.